May 2004 Archives

The Emir of the Gulf state had opened the seminar by telling senior Muslim and Christian religious leaders that Jews should also take part. "Perhaps it would be worthwhile widening next year's seminar to an Islamic-Christian-Jewish dialogue," Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani said in a speech delivered on his behalf on Thursday.

"That is the way to build a decent human life where love, tolerance and equality prevail for the good of mankind." But Arab clerics told a public forum late on Saturday, that Israel must end its occupation of Palestinian land first.

"Can there be a dialogue with Jews while they still occupy Palestinian land? Would that not consecrate the occupation?" asked Sheikh Abdel-Karim al-Kahlout, the Mufti of Gaza. A Syrian representative of the Greek Orthodox Church agreed.

"We at the Patriarchy of Antioch reject the principle of dialogue with Jews before all the inhabitants of Palestine regain their rights," Bishop Basilious Nassour said. The head of Vatican's Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, organizing the meeting which is held in Qatar every year, said the decision would be in Qatar's hands.

"It is better to try to talk together than not to talk at all, but I would agree that there are certain conditions for a dialogue to take place," Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald said, adding that the Vatican sponsors a separate dialogue with Jews.

Though Qatar has no diplomatic relations with Israel, it has angered Arab countries by maintaining contacts with the Jewish state throughout the Palestinian uprising against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The interfaith meeting in Qatar - mostly held behind closed doors and which did not issue a public statement - focused on the rights of religious minorities in predominantly Muslim and Christian countries, Fitzgerald said.

A third, unidentified, Palestinian bystander was also killed and seven people were reportedly slightly injured in the strike, which took place Saturday night just after midnight.
The two men on the motorcycle were Wael Nasser, 31, a top Hamas commander and one of the founders of Izzadin Kassam, and Muhammad Zarzur, 30.

Witnesses said they saw a flash in the sky and then the motorcycle exploded. They told local reporters they did not see any helicopters in the sky, but did hear an unmanned aerial vehicle. The IDF would only confirm that the strike was carried out by "the air force." In any case, it portrayed an impressive capability to strike from afar a small, speeding target inside an urban center...

The ColonoSight, however, uses air pressure assisted pull technology to pull the scope into the colon. The forward force of the device is generated by a pneumatic mechanism just below the tip of the scope. This force draws the scope in, and the operator then navigates with the handles, drastically reducing the need to push from the back. Aside from making the procedure safer, it also reduces the amount of local anesthetic required.

Another benefit of the ColonoSight is that it uses disposable sheaths, eliminating the need for disinfection between procedures. This is a significant improvement for both doctors and patients since it cuts instrument downtime, and reduces the risk of infection.

The ColonoSight also uses an integrated LED (Light emitting diode) light source in the tip, eliminating the need for the traditional fiber-optics now being used in colonoscopy. Fiber-optics are costly to repair.

"The reduction in instrument downtime and in maintenance costs increases physician revenues," explains Avi Levy, the 43-year-old CEO of Sightline.

Aside from its role as an exploratory instrument, Levy, explains that ColonoSight can also be used for therapeutic treatment. More than 90 percent of colon cancer is caused by small polyps that grow inside the colon. Once the ColonoSight has identified the location of the polyp, it can remove it from the colon, thereby removing the source of the cancer...

...Sightline has two other products, ProctoSight and RectoSight, which have both received FDA and CE approval. The products are for used in rectal procedures. Sightline saw sales of a few hundred thousand dollars for these items in 2003, but decided it should focus firstly upon the ColonoSight, which Levy believes is a much larger potential market...

...Aside from the ColonoSight, Sightline believes its core technology has other wide-ranging applications in the huge, and lucrative gastro-intestinal market. Already the company has developed ThimbleCam, a patented finger camera for surgical and laparoscopic procedures. The camera, which already has CE certification, allows a doctor to see any place that can be reached with a finger. Small scale sales of this product have already begun...

I still think Wheeler is an excellent journalist and a clever man. But what I - and presumably millions of others - were hearing from him and the BBC was a particular narrative about America. This was that there were good, liberal people who believed in civil rights. If they were white, the good ones came from the northern states and never spoke about religion.

If they were black, the good ones came from the southern states and spoke about religion a lot. These good people were fighting oppression, whether of black people or of the people of Vietnam. The hero was Senator Eugene McCarthy, who failed to get the Democratic nomination in 1968.

The oppressors, the bad people, wanted war and racial segregation. They were fat and ugly and always white and liked having guns. The villain was Governor George Wallace of Alabama, who stood as an independent in the same election, and believed in segregation. The pictures of him that appeared always showed his face darkened with what we were supposed to think of as racial hatred...

"There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever," declared Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism official under George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, in an interview on March 21, 2004.

The editor of the Los Angeles Times labeled as "myth" the claim that links between Iraq and al Qaeda had been proved. A recent dispatch from Reuters simply asserted, "There is no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda." 60 Minutes anchor Lesley Stahl was equally certain: "There was no connection."

And on it goes. This conventional wisdom--that our two most determined enemies were not in league, now or ever--is comforting. It is also wrong.

In late February 2004, Christopher Carney made an astonishing discovery. Carney, a political science professor from Pennsylvania on leave to work at the Pentagon, was poring over a list of officers in Saddam Hussein's much-feared security force, the Fedayeen Saddam. One name stood out: Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. The name was not spelled exactly as Carney had seen it before, but such discrepancies are common. Having studied the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda for 18 months, he immediately recognized the potential significance of his find. According to a report
last week in the Wall Street Journal, Shakir appears on three different lists of Fedayeen officers.

An Iraqi of that name, Carney knew, had been present at an al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on January 5-8, 2000. U.S. intelligence officials believe this was a chief planning meeting for the September 11 attacks. Shakir had been nominally employed as a "greeter" by Malaysian Airlines, a job he told associates he had gotten through a contact at the Iraqi embassy. More curious, Shakir's Iraqi embassy contact controlled his schedule, telling him when to show up for work and when to take a day off...

JS: "No. If you think that's true, then why are 70 or 80 percent of the people are thrilled to have us there. Have you not seen that? And it's not a regime, by the way. You keep up that kind of language I'm going to end the interview right now."

BW&BK: "Ok. I understand."

JS: "I'm serious."

BW&BK: "I'm sorry. It's just my Canadian bias I guess."

JS: "Yeah, it is your Canadian bias. I'm sure it is."

BW&BK: "Do you think Americans are as free as they think they are?"

JS: "Um... yeah, I do. In most ways. If you're saying you should be able to drink when you're 16 years old like you can in Germany, is that the kind of freedoms you're talking about?"

BW&BK: "Well, sometimes Americans believe they're very free, when they're sometimes not. There are a lot of authors, especially a guy like Noam Chomsky, who believes a lot of consent in the US is manufactured by politicians and corporations --"

JS: "Talk about one of the fuckin' ultra leftist spin doctors of the world, Noam Chomsky. You buy into that crap?"...

We believe that there were no WMDs.
We believe that finding sarin gas is 14th page news;
We believe that if the sarin gas is old, then it really isn’t a WMD we were looking for;
We believe that it wasn’t really sarin gas;
We believe that sarin gas isn’t necessarily a WMD...

Hansen said a letter requesting proof from the Israeli government had so far met with no reply.

Accordingly, Mofaz has no reason to believe there is any truth at all to the extremely unfortunate accusation being made against UNRWA, said Hansen.

Photographs taken at the Gaza Zeintun neighborhood about two weeks ago, on the same night the first APC was exploded, clearly show armed Palestinians boarding a UN-marked ambulance with a UN flag, and flee the scene.

The reporter stressed that this was not a Palestinian Red Cross ambulance, known to have transported armored Palestinians since the outbreak of events, but rather a supposedly neutral ambulance of the UN.

This matters because if Shakir was an officer in the Fedayeen, it would establish a direct link between Iraq and the al Qaeda operatives who planned 9/11. Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned. The U.S. has never been sure whether he was there on behalf of the Iraqi regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamicist who hooked up with al Qaeda on his own.

It is possible that the Ahmed Hikmat Shakir listed on the Fedayeen rosters is a different man from the Iraqi of the same name with the proven al Qaeda connections. His identity awaits confirmation by al Qaeda operatives in U.S. custody or perhaps by other captured documents. But our sources tell us there is no questioning the authenticity of the three Fedayeen rosters. The chain of control is impeccable. The documents were captured by the U.S. military and have been in U.S. hands ever since.

As others have reported, at the time of the summit Shakir was working at the Kuala Lumpur airport, having obtained the job through an Iraqi intelligence agent at the Iraqi embassy. The four-day al Qaeda meeting was attended by Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi, who were at the controls of American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. Also on hand were Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9/11 attacks, and Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. Shakir left Malaysia on January 13, four days after the summit concluded.

That's not the only connection between Shakir and al Qaeda. The Iraqi next turned up in Qatar, where he was arrested on September 17, 2001, four days after the attacks in the U.S. A search of his pockets and apartment uncovered such information as the phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers' safe houses and contacts. Also found was information pertaining to a 1995 al Qaeda plot to blow up a dozen commercial airliners over the Pacific.

After a brief detention, our friends the Qataris inexplicably released Shakir, and on October 21 he flew to Amman, Jordan. The Jordanians promptly arrested him, but under pressure from the Iraqis (and Amnesty International, which questioned his detention) and with the acquiescence of the CIA, they let him go after three months. He was last seen heading home to Baghdad...

Police said it is possible the ring has also smuggled terrorists into Israel using the same method.

One individual has thus far been arrested in connection to the case and police said additional arrests are expected.

Ma'aleh Adumim police recently arrested a resident of Azzariyeh, who holds a blue Israeli identity card, suspected of posing as an ambulance driver and infiltrating into Israel dozens of Palestinians disguised as sick patients.

The "patients" were hooked up to medical devices inside the ambulances and presented soldiers or police officers with forged documents at Israeli checkpoints.

Police believe that in one case, the Force 17 commander was smuggled from Azzariyeh into Israeli territory for a work meeting in East Jerusalem.

The arrested man was employed by an ambulance company controlled by Force 17 that operates three ambulances.

A police probe revealed the detainee does not hold an ambulance driver's license and that the license plates of his vehicle were forged. The vehicle itself was likely stolen.

Police recently raided an Azzariyeh warehouse in which commercial vehicles were transformed into ambulances.

"The United States is the most powerful state in the world, and it is not good to remain in tension with the most powerful state," Mandela said after receiving a visit Monday from American boxing promoter Don King.

"I, therefore, took the initiative and spoke to George Bush after I criticized him, because the United States can play a very important role in promoting peace in the world, and this is the role which we would like the United States to play."

In his swan song before Parliament two weeks ago, the aging icon of South African democracy lashed out at the United States for launching the war in Iraq without the approval of the United Nations...

"Do not be sad," Joudi wrote to Um Fuqaan that night. "Hopefully Allah will replace my hand with an even better one. . . . God will reward you for standing next to your husband and being my right hand."

Thanks to a Fairfax-based film producer, a half-dozen health care providers and businesses in Houston, and a legendary "white knight in blue spectacles," Joudi's promise to his wife came true last Monday.

Doctors and prosthetists moved by the plight of Joudi and six other Iraqi merchants whose right hands were amputated at Abu Ghraib finished fitting each of the men with $50,000 "bionic" hands. Black tattoos of crosses that had been carved into the men's foreheads to label them criminals were removed by a Houston plastic surgeon a few weeks earlier. All the services and products were donated.

As resentment of Americans in Iraq seems to swell each day, these seven Iraqis are unabashed in their gratitude, not just for their new hands, but for the U.S. role in ending what they call the "reign of horror" that claimed the lives of as many as 2.5 million of their countrymen.

"Tell the American people what all Iraqis want to tell to them," Salah Zinad said. "Tell them: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

The other six Iraqis were equally effusive, their appreciation undimmed by the current prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, outside Baghdad, and other occupation worries back home.

"We have freedom in Iraq. Now we say anything we want," Zinad said. "Under Saddam we whispered."

In recent interviews, the seven Iraqis were unflagging in their confidence about Iraq's future and the U.S. role in it.

Zinad on the prisoner abuse: "Some American soldiers are a problem. Not all Americans. These Americans who did this will be punished. Under Saddam, such abuses were rewarded and praised. Iraqis understand the difference."

Qasim Kadhim on Americans who think the invasion of Iraq was a mistake: "I think those people have made a mistake, because under Allah, all people are brothers. We must help each other if we have a problem. . . . How do we do it if nobody helps us?"[...]

Their odyssey began almost exactly a year ago, with an overheard conversation in a Baghdad cafe.

Don North, a former correspondent for both ABC and NBC who is currently a freelance producer, was in Baghdad last June helping set up the U.S.-sponsored Iraq Media Network when he received a videotape from one of the Iraqi journalists working for him. It showed doctors amputating the hands of nine Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib in 1995.

"I'd seen a lot of videotape, but this was truly gruesome and shocking," North said. In Baghdad, the owner of a small video production shop had been asked to make 10 copies of the tape by secret police in 1995. He clandestinely made an extra to keep as evidence of the atrocities. That was the copy that found its way to North.

Al Fadhly said that, after a year in hellish prisons and five months in Abu Ghraib, he was almost relieved when he heard he and the eight other merchants were going to be freed after having their hands amputated.

"We were the lucky ones," Al Fadhly said. "Others stayed in prison much longer. Thirty thousand in Abu Ghraib went to the hangman's noose."...

An official IDF source confirmed Amir Orens' 21 May story this afternoon to IMRA that two Palestinian children who died in the Rafah procession incident were murdered by Palestinian gunmen and that the IDF photographed the shooting.

The official IDF source explained that the pictures have not been released to the media because information derived from the photographs would compromise security in the field at this time.

The following is a repeat of the excerpts from Oren's original article:

Inside Track / Rafah is a nightmare

By Amir Oren Haaretz 21 May 2004
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/430200.html

... When the procession with armed men in its midst set out in the direction of the forces, (the commander of the Gaza Division, Brigadier General Shmuel) Zakaii tried to speak with the community leaders in Rafah. The head of the Liaison and Coordination Administration, Colonel Poli Mordecai, phoned Nasser Saraj, the head of the Civil Committee in the city. Had the Liaison and Coordination Administration sufficed, they would not have needed the tank commander. Saraj, a respected individual, formerly the director-general of the Ministry of Trade and Industry in the Palestinian Authority, listened to Colonel Mordecai's pleas, but took no steps to prevent the disaster.

When men obeyed the calls over the loudspeakers to turn themselves in to the IDF authorities (and to the intelligence people who wanted to question them), they were confronted by members of the terror organizations, who opened fire on them and killed two children. A senior officer in Gaza reported yesterday that the IDF have in their possession pictures of this incident, of Palestinians killing their children. He expressed amazement as to why the army has refrained from publishing them.

But the underlying premise is demonstrably false: There is no such link as a matter of fact or history. Suicide bombing is a tactic that is selected by privileged, educated, and wealthy elitists because it has proven successful.

Moreover, even some of the suicide bombers themselves defy the stereotype of the impoverished victims of occupation driven to desperate measures by American or Israeli oppression. Remember the 9/11 bombers, several of whom were university students and none of whom were oppressed by the US. They were dispatched by a Saudi millionaire named Osama bin Laden...

“I do not expect understanding from them. Let’s put things on the table. I have no expectations from the Palestinians. Their scale of values and mine are different.

Did a Palestinian ever approach you and show you where there were remains of a soldier?

“No, definitely not. It was a combat situation, under fire. Soldiers were injured but in the end, we brought our soldiers home. I haven’t told this to anyone but in the midst of this operation, we assisted a baby being born and evacuated an elderly woman who was injured and summoned a local ambulance for her. Terrorists ran and fired from behind the ambulance. Therefore, I do not want to make any comparison between our scale of values and theirs.

“If my soldiers can assist a Palestinian woman giving birth when six of their comrades have been blown to bits in the street but, at the same time, they fire at us from behind an ambulance, you must understand that we are at opposite ends of the scales of values. They are at the very bottom”. [...]

A Gaza leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - an armed faction of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement - said the group would make abducting soldiers its "top priority."

Hadash MK Mohammed Barakeh said after leaving the Tel Aviv courthouse that the trial was political and called Barghouti the Palestinian leader.

"Barghouti will be released, and those who imprisoned him will eventually have to hold negotiations with him, because he is the leader of the Palestinian people," said Barakeh...

Gee, I wonder why? I didn’t notice it at the time, but it stuck out this time:

Tonight (only caught end of it) seemed to intimate State has fingerprints on Chalabi's arrest. They don't like Chalabi and never wanted him there. They have 'clientidis' - he calls it and states they are basically the Arab Department.. Says State thinks there is no way Democracy has a shot there etc..

Claudia Rosett is on now talking about it and UNSCAM now 11:00-11:15...
She just spoke to Chalabi tonight!!! (Is this the greatest radio show on or what!!)

She's backing Chalabi and said he told her that if their motivation was to squash or take the key documents away.... that it will come back to bite them because they are all backed up and copied (digitally?) I think.

Now she's talking about Benon Savan, how he 'supposedly' wasn't involved and didn't 'know anything, etc..'
She says that the Iraqi regime kept diligent - (Nazi SS esque diligency) detailed records/documents of the UNSCAM dealings. The WMD notes were supposedly destroyed but Chalabi and his men happened to take residence in the Sport Building(?)where all the compuer records were kept on the UN Oil for Food - names/dates/sums, etc...
The 200 names were from the Oil Ministry not the real big 'stuff' from the Sports Building.

She said Chalabi told her that -
"The graft is on every level quite a number of serious people not just minor people are involved!"
He wanted to do a full audit on it and get a full trail of strong evidence etc... before releasing anything.... that's why Chalabi and the Governing Council wanted KPMG to come in... and bizarrely Bremer wanted Ernst & Young.

Rosett says its a form of delay... everything is being delayed hoping it will go away or UN will be able to take it over or something....

Batchelor says since the CPA has now turned against Chalabi - he's now a hero there?
(Pentagon double setup? hope so)

She says at the time Chalabi and the Governing Council took the initiative and lined up the KPMG audit nobody was doing anything and taking no initiative to really investigate it - not the UN, Bremer noone...

The biased agenda of AP Germany is in full bearing in this headline, referring to a speech by Yassir Arafat broadcast live on Palestinian television:

Arafat Confirms Willingness to Peace (Arafat bekräftigt Friedensbereitschaft)

Compare this to the headline of AP's English version, referring to the same speech:

Arafat Makes Call to 'Terrorize' Enemy

Mr. Moore has yet to express his support, though, for another strike here, that of the staff at some of Cannes's finest luxury hotels. Apparently Mr. Moore's solidarity with labor ends when it affects his ability to get first-rate room service.

His latest "docu-fiction," "Fahrenheit 9/11," instantly became a hot candidate for the Palme d'Or, even before anybody had seen it. Until a day before the official screening on Monday, Mr. Moore was very secretive about the film, simply claiming it was so explosive, it will cost George W. Bush the elections.

But all Mr. Moore's "undercover" crew could produce was footage of some soldiers putting hoods on Iraqi detainees, mocking a drunk Iraqi's erection and saying they like to listen to some stupid rock song to fire themselves up before battle. The rest of the movie is equally anticlimactic, mostly a rehash of the conspiracy theories in his book "Dude, Where's My Country," which have been exposed as inaccurate, contradictory and confused.

One of these reports has now leaked. It concerns the U.N. Secretariat's mishandling of the hiring of inspectors to authenticate the contents of relief shipments into sanctions-bound Iraq. (Obtained by a journalist specializing in the mining industry, Timothy Wood, a copy of this report can be found at www.mineweb.com.)

Reflecting the findings of a U.N. internal audit conducted during the sixth year of the seven-year Oil-for-Food program, the report focuses on one contractor hired directly by the U.N. Secretariat: Swiss-based Cotecna Inspection SA. This is the same company that, while bidding against several rivals for its initial Oil-for-Food contract in 1998, had Mr. Annan's son, Kojo, on its payroll as a consultant. Both Mr. Annan and Cotecna's CEO, Robert Massey, have insisted that the contract was strictly in accordance with U.N. rules.

Although this report doesn't mention Kojo, it does go on for 20 pages about inadequacies and violations in the U.N.'s handling of the Cotecna contract. The report explains that "the Contract had been amended prior to its commencement, which was inappropriate" and recounts that within four days of Cotecna signing its initial lowball contract for $4.87 million, both Oil-for-Food and the U.N. Procurement Division had authorized "additional costs" totaling $356,000 worth of equipment.

The U.N. auditors say this "contravened the provisions of the Contract," and that Cotecna (not the U.N., which was using the Iraqi people's money) should have paid the extra costs. Within a year of the start of Cotecna's services, its contract was further amended to add charges above those initially agreed to, including a hike in the "per man day fee" to $600 from an initial $499. This higher fee "was exactly equal to the offer of the second lowest bidder," say the auditors, adding that the Procurement Division and Oil-for-Food "should have gone for a fresh bid."...

Leaders of this type focus the energy of an impoverished people into fighting a sworn enemy. They realize that the free circulation of liberal ideas would threaten their hold on power. With modern methods of communication it is impossible to build a new Iron Curtain, so they convince their people that they are engaged in a war against the very source of these democratic ideals. Arafat has done this successfully for decades.

On the other side of this dual model we have dictators who present themselves as the last bastion against religious extremists. Gen. Musharraf in Pakistan and the Saudi royal family are supported by the U.S. and given free reign to limit human rights because they are considered the lesser evil. Yet the more favor they have with the U.S., the more they are hated at home, empowering the extremist opposition. Everyone gets what they want in the short run but it is a recipe for inevitable meltdown.

U.S. success in Iraq is essential in order to provide an alternative model. Unlike Vietnam, there will be repercussions for global security if America does not finish the job. This is the big picture that must stay in focus. We are dealing with an enemy who considers the concessions and privileges of democracy to be weaknesses. To prove them wrong we must follow through...

The lizard-tongued rock god who is touring Australia with the world's most enduring glam rock band launched an attack on Muslim extremists during an interview on Melbourne's 3AW radio.

"Extremism believes that it's okay to strap bombs on to your children and send them to paradise and whatever else and to behead people," he said yesterday.

The Israeli-born US musician went on to say Islam was a "vile culture" that treated women worse than dogs.

Muslim women had to walk behind their men and were not allowed to be educated or own houses, he said.

"Your dog, however, can walk side by side, your dog is allowed to have its own dog house... you can send your dog to school to learn tricks, sit, beg, do all that stuff – none of the women have that advantage."

He went on to say the west was under threat.

"This is a vile culture and if you think for a second that it's going to just live in the sands of God's armpit you've got another thing coming," he said.

"They want to come and live right where you live and they think that you're evil."

Simmons said the United Nations approach did not work and the west had to "speak softly and carry a big stick"...

Williams: If the Patriot Act actually did something to "minimize the possibility of another 9/11 tragedy within our borders", then perhaps this would be a different discussion. But over 260 towns, cities, counties and states have passed resolutions opposing the Patriot Act. Arcata, California, even passed an ordinance that fines city workers $57 for cooperating with federal investigations under the aegis of the act. This strongly suggests that regular Americans do not agree that the Act will do what it supporters purportedly claim. It was passed in the heat of the moment without adequate congressional review and debate, and without regard to the harm it does to the constitutional liberties that define us as a nation. As currently constituted, it lets the government find out what a person has been reading in a public library, what they keep on their home computer or in their office financial records. The targeted person does not have to be informed of the searches before or, in some cases, afterward. Nor does the targeted person have to be a terrorism suspect.

The Patriot Act should be viewed as a metaphor for all the civil liberties violations that are currently occurring, and it is a mischaracterization to suggest that those opposing it come exclusively from the ranks of the left. David Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, the nation's oldest conservative lobbying organization, opposes it. And Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly and Free Congress Foundation President Paul M. Weyrich are both vocal critics.

MacDonald: Mr. Williams has given peerless examples of Patriot Act demagoguery, whose two most essential strategies are “Hide the Judge” and “Ignore Legal Precedent.” Critics denounce the provision governing the FBI’s access to business records during a terror investigation (section 215). What they don’t tell you is that the FBI can only obtain business and other records upon permission of a federal court. In fact, section 215 arguably protects rights more than the legal powers which preceded it. Had Mr. Williams been under investigation for a federal crime, his fellow citizens, sitting as a grand jury, could subpoena his credit card or library records on their own—without having to persuade a judge that those records are relevant...

The point behind all these pictures and stories I mentioned is that the people started to speak out and express their feelings and here we’re in great need for support from the free world to back the progress. Moving back is absolutely unacceptable; we’ve put our feet on the right way and we need help from the others. Never let the bad pictures lay their heavy shadow on the good, bright ones. The negative media want our eyes to pause on the bad events to win time in this worldwide battle and to make us forget the good pictures that encourage us to keep the momentum. This includes most of the major western media.

They are ‘unconsciously’ supporting the terrorists and the totalitarian regimes in the region to stop this great progress. The media have managed to create some distrust and hate between some Iraqis and some of the coalition and the west in general. Well, not in my city, it seems to be immune to their poison.

The road is long and hard but together, we can do it.

In a speech broadcast live on Palestinian television, Arafat repeatedly called on his people to be steadfast in their struggle against Israeli occupation.

He ended the speech with a quote from the Koran.
"Find what strength you have to terrorize your enemy and the enemy of God," he said. "And if they want peace, then let's have peace."

Arafat, whom Israel accuses of supporting militant groups, did not appear to be calling for new attacks on Israel. The passage in the Koran refers to the early Muslims' wars against pagans and is frequently invoked by Islamic leaders today to encourage strength in times of conflict...

He said in his speech that the Israeli government could not exonerate itself from its moral, political and international responsibility for the tragedy that befell the Palestinian refugees.

"The right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes is a sacred and inalienable right that is internationally protected and endorsed," he said. "This right is heroically defended by the Palestinian people in the face of the Israeli occupation, colonization and against the Apartheid Wall of annexation and expansion and in defense of our Christian and Islamic sanctuaries."

Arafat concluded that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land is doomed to failure and accused Israel of waging a war of genocide against the Palestinians. He said the Palestinian struggle would continue until the liberation of Jerusalem...

I am talking about authentic moderates: millions of Muslims who want an enlightened, tolerant, and engaged Islam for today's world. Those people need our help in the worst way. They are losing the battles for their communities. The militants may not be a majority, but they are a vocal, aggressive minority — and they are not nearly as much of a small fringe as we'd like to believe.

As an assistant U.S. attorney, time and time again I heard it over the last decade, from ordinary Muslims we reached out to for help — people we wanted to hire as Arabic translators, or who were potential witnesses, or who were simply in a position to provide helpful information. People who were as far from being terrorists as you could possibly be. "I'd like to help the government," they would say, "but I can't." And it was not so much about their safety — although there was, no doubt, some of that going on. It was about ostracism.

Repeatedly they'd tell us that the militant factions dominated their communities. These elements were usually not the most numerous, but they were the most vocal, the best networked, the best funded, and the most intimidating. Consequently, people whose patriotic instinct was to be helpful could not overcome the fear that they and their families could be blackballed if it became known that they had helped the United States prosecute Muslim terrorists. The militants had the kind of suasion that could turn whole communities into captive audiences...

The plaque's erection was clearly in retaliation for the unveiling of a plaque in Berlin last month that marked the assassination of four Iranian Kurdish dissidents in 1992. The Berlin plaque, erected by the local authority at the site of the former Mykonos restaurant, blamed the then Iranian government for the killings.

One of the two veterans who unveiled the plaque, Ahmad Paryab, who spoke with plastic pipes running into his nose to assist breathing, called for the prosecution of Germany's top officials during the Iran-Iraq war.

"We demand that the then leaders of Germany be tried in an international court for war crimes and that the German government pay compensation to us," Paryab told about 100 people who attended the ceremony. Paryab was wounded by chemical weapons in the war, as were other members of the crowd.

The metal plaque stands on a four-meter(yard)-high plinth, clad in gray marble, in the sidewalk opposite the embassy's consular entrance on Ferdowsi Street in central Tehran.

It bears texts in Farsi and English, but the English is a poor translation of the original. It reads: "Name of the German government for the Iranian nation is the reminder of the great catastrophe of chemical massacre during the Iraqi Baathist regime's imposed war against Iran."[...]

The Tehran local authorities erected the plaque and a tent next to it, which houses a temporary exhibition of photographs of victims of chemical attacks during the war. The pictures show wounded Iranian children as well as soldiers.

The head of the Tehran City Council, Mahdi Chamran, said the plaque was put up to "defend the rights of chemical victims."

"The world has not forgotten the crimes committed by Hitler during World War II. And it should not forget this crime as well," he told reporters...

Not that you could find any depictions of the horrific murder in the traditional media. Their airwaves were absent of Berg's haunting screams. Unless you went digging online, you wouldn't see the ghastly image of Berg's severed head being held up like a trophy. The media that had--rightfully, in my opinion--showed us the ugly reality of Abu Ghraib prison refused to do the same with Berg's murder...

She had been disturbed by my argument that Iraqis were better off than they had been under Saddam and I was now — there was no choice about this — going to have to justify my bizarre and dangerous views. I’ll spare you most of the details because you know the script — no WMD, no ‘imminent threat’ (though the point was to deal with Saddam before such a threat could emerge), a diversion from the hunt for bin Laden, enraging the Arab world. Etcetera.

But then she came to the point. Not only had she ‘known’ the Iraq war would fail but she considered it essential that it did so because this would ensure that the ‘evil’ George W. Bush would no longer be running her country. Her editors back on the East Coast were giggling, she said, over what a disaster Iraq had turned out to be. ‘Lots of us talk about how awful it would be if this worked out.’ Startled by her candour, I asked whether thousands more dead Iraqis would be a good thing.

She nodded and mumbled something about Bush needing to go. By this logic, I ventured, another September 11 on, say, September 11 would be perfect for pushing up John Kerry’s poll numbers. ‘Well, that’s different — that would be Americans,’ she said, haltingly. ‘I guess I’m a bit of an isolationist.’ That’s one way of putting it.

The moral degeneracy of these sentiments didn’t really hit me until later when I dined at the home of Abu Salah, a father of six who took over as the Daily Telegraph’s chief driver in Baghdad when his predecessor was killed a year ago. It was a — sadly — rare opportunity to speak to ordinary Iraqis in a social setting.

As the lights went out for the third time that evening, we discussed what life after Saddam was like. It was possible to talk freely now, said his sister Jenan, but the Americans had not yet brought either peace or democracy...

Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that Pentagon lawyers had approved methods such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well as rules permitting prisoners to be made to assume stress positions.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also noted that the rules require prisoners to be treated humanely at all times...

Problem is the photos are fake. They were taken from pornographic websites and disseminated by anti-American propagandists, as first reported by WND a week ago.

WND contacted the Globe to question staff about the photos.

Asked whether the photos were the same as the porn photos WND already investigated, reporter Donovan Slack said, "I have no idea. I'm surprised the editor even decided we should write about it."

She added: "Oh my God, I'm scared to answer the phone today."

"It's insane," said Slack. "Can you imagine getting this with your cup of coffee in the morning? Somehow it got through all our checks. Our publisher's not having a very good day today."

Slack sent the photos to WND, which immediately confirmed they were the same porn photos reported on last week.

Responding to an e-mail request from the Globe, WND furnished the true source of the photos, and walked Slack through the "Sex In War" site over the phone, so she could see the photos matched.

I'll take the 'Five days for $15' deal," Slack quipped, adding, "This is ridiculous. I'll be working at Penthouse soon."

The photos accompanied an article about Boston city councilor Chuck Turner, who distributed the graphic photographs yesterday at a press conference with activist Sadiki Kambon. Turner told reporters the photos showed U.S. soldiers raping Iraqi women...

Now we today are in a climactic battle against him and his militia. When the remnants of Saddam's regime were in full uprising in Fallujah, Sadr thought his time had come to make his bid for total power and to oust the US from Baghdad. He was very wrong.

It has been subtle and very well done by our leaders. You should be proud. It would have seemed impossible to have achieved our four main goals against Sadr even just a few months ago. Now today, despite the message of the pessimists who are misleading you into despair, we are have scored all the victories needed to bring this battle to a close. First goal was to isolate Sadr. Second was to exile him from his power-base in Baghdad. Third was to contain his uprising from spreading beyond his militias. And the last goal was to get both his hard-line supporters to abandon him, and to do encourage moderates to break from him. This has been done brilliantly, and now we are on the march in a way that just months ago seemed impossible to do. Sadr is losing everything...

In the last few years, many of us have been generous of our time and energy with the the College Republicans student organization. My staff and I have been panelists for CR events, we've lent a hand with Conservative Awareness Week and we have provided support for them in other ways. In my experience, the identity/affinity organizations that OMA is closely affiliated with have also been generous with their support, attendence and co-sponsored of CR programs like Pizza & Politics.

I'm not feeling particularly generous at this moment.

In many of the conversations that I personally have had with some of the CR membership, they have talked about how they want to work more collaboratively with other student groups, especially members of historically under-represented groups, and how CR is actively trying to change the stereotype that conservatives are racist, classist, homophobic and just plain dumb.

I'm not feeling particularly convinced of CR's sincerity at this moment, either.

At this particular moment, I'm feeling anger and frustration that CR has chosen to end their programming year by writing a check to David Horowitz. Please notice that I'm frustrated with the leadership of CR.

It's a waste of my precious time and energy to feel anything but irritation for hate-mongers like Horowitz. Stupidity bores me. I will not attend his talk; I will not be another warm body that CR can add to their count to convince themselves that this event was "successful." What I will do is remember this moment, especially the next time CR expects me to be generous and accomodating.

I'd encourage all of you to work hard on your final papers and prepare for your exams. Eat right, get as much rest as you can and make good choices with your very valuable time.

Good luck on finals, Jeannette (Director, Office of Multicultural Affairs)

Important new information has come from Edward Jay Epstein about Mohammed Atta’s contacts with Iraqi intelligence. The Czechs have long maintained that Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers in the United States, met with Ahmed al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence official, posted to the Iraqi embassy in Prague. As Epstein now reports, Czech authorities have discovered that al-Ani’s appointment calendar shows a scheduled meeting on April 8, 2001 with a "Hamburg student."

That is exactly what the Czechs had been saying since shortly after 9/11: Atta, a long-time student at Germany’s Hamburg-Harburg Technical University, met with al-Ani on April 8, 2001. Indeed, when Atta earlier applied for a visa to visit the Czech Republic, he identified himself as a “Hamburg student.” The discovery of the notation in al-Ani’s appointment calendar about a meeting with a “Hamburg student” provides critical corroboration of the Czech claim.

Epstein also explains how Atta could have traveled to Prague at that time without the Czechs having a record of such a trip. Spanish intelligence has found evidence that two Algerians provided Atta a false passport...

The video showed five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks, standing over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit who identified himself as an American from Philadelphia.

After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and cutting off his head with a large knife. They then held the head out before the camera.

The letter informs the consultant of a contract clause stating: "contractors may not communicate at any time to any other person, Government or authority external to the United Nations any information known to them by reason of their association with the United Nations which has not been made public, except in the course of their duties or by authorization of the Secretary-General or his designate."

The purpose of the first of these letters to surface, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard argued last week, was to facilitate evidence gathering by the U.N.-backed inquiry headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. This excuse didn't make a whole lot of sense. It's not as if the Oil for Food-related documents in question could be shared with either Congress or Mr. Volcker but not both. But this latest hush letter adds a new wrinkle, stating twice that the U.N. demands control of "documentation or information" (emphasis added). Translation: Shut up or we'll sue.

We have every confidence Mr. Volcker will lead a thorough investigation, but the public should not be asked to take it on faith that he will be given access to all information and rely on his interpretation alone. As the above-quoted contract makes clear, the Secretary-General has the authority to waive all these confidentiality agreements. The fact that Kofi Annan has chosen instead to pursue a campaign of legal intimidation is a pretty good indication that he intends as much of a whitewash as he can get away with...

If abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers demands an accounting, so too does the world-wide conspiracy of bribery that helped prop up Saddam Hussein's torture-based regime. Now's hardly the time for the White House to be seen demanding anything less than full openness and accountability in any area of its Iraq policy.

Therefore, if Hitler had only postponed his attack on Poland, and if the Japanese had only postponed theirs on Pearl Harbor, for a decade or so, the Allies would have been able to field armies incomparably more worthy to take up a fight against racist tyranny.

Of course, by then they would have been facing nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles.

In the event, the enemy was not so prudent, and in 1941, Americans did not have the option to wait until they themselves were without sin before going to war. Though there were appeasers and pacifists and outright enemies among them who urged further phoney peace initiatives and concessions, the Second World War was not an elective war any more than the present war is. The West had already waited far too long. Fifty million lives too long, as it turned out. A blighted generation too long. A Holocaust too long...

We build and rebuild roads, bridges, utility plants, schools, and various other things to improve their way of life and to insure equality and freedom for all in the pursuit of an education, occupations, and overall happiness.

We make every effort to treat all with respect and kindness, quick to forgive and quick to trust. For this we are blown up by suicide bombers and road side explosions.

We came to their aid with a gun for protection in one hand and the hammer of reconstruction in the other, with the dove of peace flying over head. Our intentions were good, as we gave hope to the Iraqi people for a brighter future and the happiness of freedom to their children. We are perhaps one of the few nations that cares enough to spill our own blood on their soil in order to cut the chains of tyranny and repression, to give the people hope in the future.

If not us who? Who is going to step forward to be the bastion for peace, the supporter of the weak, and keeper of the flame of equality? Who will give hope for a different life to the enslaved millions of the world?

Few days ago I was visiting his family to pay our respect in the 1st annual anniversary of his father’s death.

When I saw my relative, and despite the nature of the occasion, I felt happy. Here’s a free man. I smiled as I said, “you must be very happy to be free again, and not fear the MP”. He said, "you can’t imagine! It’s like being born again. I’ve never felt so free before”. “But what are you doing for a living now? I hope you’ve found a job”. I asked. He smiled as he said, "I volunteered in the new army". “Really! I thought you’d never wear a uniform after that terrible experience” he replied "Oh no, this is entirely different". I said, “ I'm sure it is, but who convinced you to do so!? And when did that happen?” "A friend of mine who volunteered before I did told me some nice stuff that encouraged me to do the same, so I volunteered about a couple of months ago". He replied. “So tell me about it, are you happy with this job?” I asked. "You can’t imagine! It’s nothing that we’ve learned or knew about the military life". He answered. “I expected it to be so, but can you tell me about it” I asked and I didn’t have to ask anymore, as my relative started talking excitedly without a stop. He said:[...]

Here's some encouraging news from the Middle East: Agence France-Presse reports that there hasn't been a single suicide bombing within Israel (as distinct from the disputed territories) in more than seven months--to be exact, since Oct. 4, when a Palestinian Arab woman massacred 21 Jews and Arabs at a restaurant in Haifa. AFP attributes the lull to the completion of the northern section of Israel's security barrier, which in particular has blocked access from Qalqilya, "which used to be adjacent to Israeli towns and was often used as a launchpad for West Bank militants."

So will Israel get credit for taking steps to end the cycle of violence? Don't hold your breath. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, though, the United Nations has just endorsed Israel's actions. A U.N. press release last Thursday announces that "the United Nations is set to begin a slate of projects--including the construction [of] a new perimeter fence--to bolster safety and security measures at its New York Headquarters."

Why did I have to write it? Because the case against Israel is so filled with pernicious lies and it is so prevalent today on university campuses that a defence is needed.

In 2002, there was a debate going on at Harvard about divestment. People were trying to pressure Harvard to divest from companies that do business in Israel regardless of the nature of the business - even if it was providing healthcare or medical technology. One of the Harvard housemasters signed that immoral petition and I challenged him to a debate in front of his students. He refused. He was a professor of Old Testament Christian studies and he said to me, through a student, "I can't debate you, my knowledge of the Middle East ended with the death of Moses."

But he felt comfortable enough to sign the petition, so I decided that I was going to debate him whether he wanted to or not. He refused, but a lot of the students participated. At the end, after I made the case for Israel, many students came over to me and they had the same three words: "We didn't know."

"We didn't know that the Palestinians were offered a large contiguous state in 1937 by the Peel Commission and turned it down. We didn't know that the Palestinians could have had a large contiguous state in 1947 and turned it down. We didn't know that in 1967 the Palestinians said no to UN resolution 242. We didn't know that in 2000-01 Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and US president Bill Clinton offered the Palestinians a state and they turned it down and resorted to violence. We just didn't know."

Nor did they know that the states offered the Jews in 1937 and 1947 were non-contiguous and tiny. Yet the Jews agreed to compromise in the interests of a two-state solution...

In recent days several articles have surfaced regarding the possibility of Israeli missile strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. We know that many of you who receive these news updates are pro-Iranian freedom however we have noticed that many conservative leaning Americans who support Iranian freedom have unfortunately also voiced approval and support of Israeli military assaults on the clerical regime's facilities. We must tell you that this is a very dangerous point of view and if you truly want to stand up for the United States and defend freedom both in the Middle East and here at home, you must be against any and all strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities!!

We will not bore you with the plethora of reasons why military strikes on nuclear facilities are counterproductive, but we must say that if there is one thing the Mullahs in Iran want more than anything else, it is a military strike on these facilities. The United States already has the support of the Iranian people - a military attack on nuclear facilities could have the devastating consequences of turning many Iranians against the United States and stir up Iranian Nationalism (In support of a regime they currently despise) - Nationalism which is now very anti-Mullah and pro-US. In almost every possible scenario that can be thought through - any event that begins with military assaults on nuclear facilities is likely to lead to a situation in which the Mullahs are strengthened, increased regional war breaks out, thousands upon thousands of Iranians if not millions will be killed, and the prospects for peace and freedom will undoubtedly fall to the deepest depths and will be unattainable for many decades to come.

Please, if you support freedom in the Middle East and the continued leadership and strength of the United States you must adamantly oppose Israeli Military strikes on nuclear facilities - because the simple fact remains that no matter how some pundits criticize and characterize the United States/freedom's current predicament, America and all people in the world who demand freedom are in fact in a good position and have the cards stacked in our favor - we mustn't waste this opportunity. Remember: Regime change is the objective - but there are countless ways to go about this other than through the most devastating and counterproductive method of nuclear assaults, which would result neither in regime-change nor anything the United States would be the least bit favorable of.

No one was wounded in the attack, but several people were treated for shock.

IDF soldiers fired a shell toward two suspected terrorists and soldiers shot a third suspect. Soldiers searching the area discovered the body of a Palestinian man dressed in women's clothing but found no weapon near his body. Officials said the search would resume at daybreak...

Hackworth pledges to discuss his role in the international controversy in his next column, scheduled for publication Tuesday.

"The Pentagon hoped it would go away or at least that the responsible high brass would escape untarnished," Hackworth told WND this weekend.

The story began to unravel earlier this year with the actions of Ivan Frederick, father of an Army reservist turned prison guard in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, who became the target of an investigation for mistreating prisoners. Photographs of the abuse were beginning to circulate among soldiers and military investigators.

Frederick turned to his brother-in-law, William Lawson, for help. Both feared the younger Frederick would end up taking the fall for what they considered command lapses. So, Lawson sent an e-mail message in March to Hackworth, who is known for challenging the military establishment...

You’ll see that the Marines say, “None of them wanted frisbees at first” but that it turns out to work. When the Marines asked us for Frisbees in January it was specifically because they would foster interaction between the Marines and the local children. The Marines knew there was not much they could teach Iraqi children about soccer but Frisbees offered a teaching and laughing opportunity. The real point is the interaction – that’s where relationships are built and true perceptions formed. The gift itself in these circumstances is more of a side note. That said, soccer balls are very popular and we’re providing them, too...

Officials say that the attempt to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons has been discussed at various levels, as well as the effects such an attack would have on US military and political efforts in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf.

The UPI news service says President George Bush and Prime Minster Ariel Sharon recently discussed the subject at their most recent meeting. Following the meeting, Bush said it was inconceivable for the Middle East for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Hermesh and his assistant were detained and searched by airport officials for 3 hours after their arrival in Auckland in spite of the fact that Hermesh presented a diplomatic passport.

The immigration officer at the airport explained his actions saying the two raised suspicion due to their arrival from a terror-inflicted country and last month's arrest of two Israelis suspected of being Mossad operatives.

Ever since Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's statement that Yasser Arafat as a terrorist leader is not immune from Israeli retribution, Palestinian Authority TV has repeatedly stated that Arafat actually wants to be killed by Israel, which would grant him the status of Shahid (Holy Martyr). In last week's sermon, the Imam restated the Palestinian Islamic belief that death as a Shahid is preferable to life, going so far as to pray for Arafat's death as a Shahid.

To view the sermon, please click here ADSL 56K

The following is text of the sermon:
“Regarding the threats of this Nazi mass murderer [Ariel Sharon] against President Arafat, we hereby tell him: We are not like you, because we do not desire life. If you threaten to kill President Arafat, we will pray to Allah: “Grant the President Shahada (Martyrdom) for you." Yes, we do not pray - like other preachers pray - for longevity for the rulers; here in Palestine we pray: “Lord, grant the President Shahada for you”.” [PA TV Sermon by Ibrahim Madiras, April 30, 2004]

To add insult to injury, the couple probably will have to shell out extra money to replace some of the homemaker services the wife had been providing. According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, when all costs are netted out, the wife will be lucky if she gets to keep 35 cents out of every dollar she earns.

There are a number of ways to solve this problem, including allowing couples to file separate returns. It's vital that any assistance for the working wife in no way harms women who are able to stay at home. Owing to the possibility of death or other tragedy, every stay-at-home wife is a potential job seeker. Fairness to women who work for wages is in the interest of all women.

Our Social Security system also works reasonably well for the couple with a stay-at-home wife. When both spouses reach retirement age, the wife is entitled to a benefit equal to one-half her husband's, and she gets 100 percent of his benefit after he dies. All this is hers even though she never paid a dime in payroll taxes.

But for the wife who goes back and forth between home and work, or who works full time, the system is surprisingly harsh...

Since the end of January, when an Iraqi newspaper alleged that a senior U.N. official had taken bribes from Saddam Hussein, the United Nations has been the target of unsubstantiated allegations involving potential mismanagement, unethical behavior and collusion with Hussein's despicable regime. The notion that a high-level U.N. official could have been on Baghdad's payroll is sickening, if true, and it must be investigated.

That being said, it has been just as sickening to see that longtime haters of the United Nations are using the bribery charge and other unproven allegations to discredit the world body when the case against it is far from clear. This campaign of slander threatens great harm to U.S. interests because it is aimed at undermining the United Nations' ability to help us in Iraq.

Based on my preliminary review of the oil-for-food program, it appears that the United Nations took action to prevent some of the abuses of which it is being accused, and that much responsibility for the problems that beset the program lies with the members of the Security Council, including our own government...

Would you:

a) Go to the military/DoD or some other authority with the photos, an explanation and an admonition that they better friggin' do something about it. Tell them they need to show you they're doing something and pronto.

or do you

b) Do a story on a major network news program during sweeps in which the photos will be broadcast to the entire planet.

In a moment largely unnoticed by the throngs of people in Lebanon waiting for autographs from the president of the United States, George W. Bush stopped to hold a teenager's head close to his heart.

Lynn Faulkner, his daughter, Ashley, and their neighbor, Linda Prince, eagerly waited to shake the president's hand Tuesday at the Golden Lamb Inn. He worked the line at a steady campaign pace, smiling, nodding and signing autographs until Prince spoke:

"This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11."

Bush stopped and turned back.

"He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and a man," Faulkner said. "He looked right at her and said, 'How are you doing?' He reached out with his hand and pulled her into his chest."...

The savagery of the attack was similarly downplayed by National Public Radio in its broadcast the next morning. Actually, reporter Julie McCarthy did more than minimize the horror of the massacre. She blamed the victims for "provoking" their own murder — not by anything they did, but by their mere "presence" in the disputed territory.

"The settlers rallied support [against the referendum], saying Israel was withdrawing under fire," McCarthy reported, "but there was ample evidence yesterday to show that their continued presence in Gaza is provoking bloodshed. Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen after the men ambushed a mother and her four small daughters outside the Gaza settlement of Gush Katif. The family was shot and killed on their way to the Israeli city of Ashkelon."

In NPR's warped moral calculus, Tali Hatuel and her children are in early graves not because Palestinian culture celebrates the mass-murder of Jews, but because Jews have no business living among Arabs. If McCarthy had been reporting from Birmingham in September 1963, would she have blamed the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on the provocative "presence" of the four black girls who died in the explosion?...

The report said a United Nations team found "appalling" and "outrageous" conditions when it visited the town of Kailek less than two weeks ago.

Pro-government Arab militias had been preventing food deliveries and stopped anyone leaving the town, it added.

One aid worker described what happened there as the "politics of starvation".

Inhumane conditions

Eight or nine children were reported to have been dying from malnutrition every day.

The report said women and girls were raped and described inhumane sanitary conditions and a lack of medical treatment.

Members of the UN team were said to be "visibly shaken" by circumstances in the town.

Refugees first sought shelter in Kailek, the biggest settlement in the area, after Arab militias started attacking nearby villages.

The Janjaweed militia is accused of holding the town hostage

The horseback militia known as the Janjaweed surrounded the village, effectively holding 1,700 people hostage.

The UN report says that as food began to run out, residents were forced to start paying the militia to leave the village to look for supplies.

The refugees were later moved to a nearby town, Kass, in advance of a visit by another UN team.

The survivors in Kass have been camping in a disused secondary school.

They appeared dazed and traumatised, says the BBC's Ishbel Matheson.

One three-year-old girl lying on open ground was little more than a skeleton. There was no medicine to treat her and very little food, our correspondent adds.

The local authorities in Kass deny that they colluded in the siege, but survivors tell a different story.

They are adamant that they saw government forces working alongside the militia.

The UN report said it believed there were other villages like Kailek in western Sudan, where civilians were living in similar conditions.

The admission, during an interview with CNN, undermined Moore's claim that Disney was trying to sabotage the US release of Fahrenheit 911 just days before its world premiere at the Cannes film festival.

Instead, it lent credence to a growing suspicion that Moore was manufacturing a controversy to help publicise the film, a full-bore attack on the Bush administration and its handling of national security since the attacks of 11 September 2001.

In an indignant letter to his supporters, Moore said he had learnt only on Monday that Disney had put the kibosh on distributing the film, which has been financed by the semi-independent Disney subsidiary Miramax.

But in the CNN interview he said: "Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."

Nobody in Hollywood doubts Fahrenheit 911 will find a US distributor. His last documentary, Bowling for Columbine , made for $3m (£1.7m), pulled in $22m at the US box office.

But Moore's publicity stunt, if that is what is, appears to be working. A front-page news piece in The New York Times was followed yesterday by an editorial denouncing Disney for censorship and denial of Moore's right to free expression.

Moore told CNN that Disney had "signed a contract to distribute this [film]" but got cold feet. But Disney executives insists there was never any contract. And a source close to Miramax said that the only deal there was for financing, not for distribution.

But George Eliot’s Zionist views are notorious; she is partial to Jewish national liberation. A moment, then, for the inventor of the pound of flesh. Here is Cinna, the poet, on his way to Caesar’s funeral:

Citizen: As a friend or an enemy?

Cinna: As a friend.

Citizen: Your name, sir, truly.

Cinna: Truly, my name is Cinna.

Citizen: Tear him to pieces; he’s a conspirator.

Cinna: I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet! I am not Cinna the conspirator!

Citizen: It is no matter, his name’s Cinna …. Tear him, tear him! Come, brands, ho! firebrands! Burn all!

And here is Butler, the theorist, on her way to widen the rift between the state of Israel and the Jewish people:

—As a friend, or as a Zionist?

Butler: As an anti-Zionist Jew.

—Tear her to pieces, she’s a Jew.

Butler: I am Butler the anti-Zionist, I am Butler the anti-Zionist! I am not Butler the Zionist!

What’s in a name? Ah, the curse of mistaken identity. How many politically conforming Jews will suffer from it, even as they toil to distance themselves from the others, those benighted Jews who admit to being "in favor of Israel"? As for that nobly desired rift, one can rely on Hep! to close it. To comprehend this is to comprehend anti-Semitism at its root. And to assert, as Butler does, that in the heart of this understanding lurks "the very tactic favored by anti-Semites" is not merely sophistry; not merely illusion; but simple stupidity, of a kind only the most subtle intellectuals are capable of.

Finally, I've found a pro-American country.

Everywhere I've gone in Iran, with one exception, people have been exceptionally friendly and fulsome in their praise for the United States, and often for President Bush as well. Even when I was detained a couple of days ago in the city of Isfahan for asking a group of young people whether they thought the Islamic revolution had been a mistake (they did), the police were courteous and let me go after an apology.

They apologized; I didn't.

On my first day in Tehran, I dropped by the "Den of Spies," as the old U.S. Embassy is now called. It's covered with ferocious murals denouncing America as the "Great Satan" and the "archvillain of nations" and showing the Statue of Liberty as a skull (tour the "Den of Spies" here).

Then I stopped to chat with one of the Revolutionary Guards now based in the complex. He was a young man who quickly confessed that his favorite movie is "Titanic." "If I could manage it, I'd go to America tomorrow," he said wistfully.

He paused and added, "To hell with the mullahs."

In the 1960's and 1970's, the U.S. spent millions backing a pro-Western modernizing shah — and the result was an outpouring of venom that led to our diplomats' being held hostage. Since then, Iran has been ruled by mullahs who despise everything we stand for — and now people stop me in the bazaar to offer paeans to America as well as George Bush...

It is useful to remember this incident and compare the dead silence it has elicited from those same human-rights organizations, media outlets and America-bashers involved in the feeding frenzy accompanying the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The disparity of outrage is quite revealing.

The feeding frenzy demonstrates that even those who hate America - and never miss a chance to express that hatred - expect us to adhere to a certain standard of decency. The dead silence demonstrates that no similar expectations apply to societies that produce baby killers and homicide bombers, or use women and children as "human shields" in combat.

Why? Because behind the "high-mindedness" of "universal" human rights is a hypocritical prejudice which allows certain cultures more "leeway" when it come to murder and mayhem.

The United States has expressed regret over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal - even as several Palestinian militant groups wanted credit for murdering a pregnant women and her four young daughters.

Working at night with windows open to dissipate fumes from the process, he blended ingredients in a coffee decanter and spooned the doughy mixture onto newspapers to dry. The final product was a white power that Benchellali stored in small glass flasks and old jars of Nivea skin cream -- to be used, as he later told police, "in the event I became involved in the jihad."

Today, exactly how many jars of ricin the 29-year-old Benchellali may have produced -- and their whereabouts -- is an urgent question for European governments facing a wave of terrorist attacks and threats. Last year, investigators say, similar containers turned up in Britain, in the possession of North Africans who were allegedly planning an attack. At least one other jar is known to be missing, and French investigators suspect that still others exist.

The story of Benchellali's laboratory offers a glimpse into a secret world of suspected terrorists and their quest for biological and chemical weapons. According to European investigators, a string of incidents in recent months points to a particular interest in ricin, the highly lethal toxin that comes from castor beans. Other powerful poisons that also are relatively easy to obtain and use -- botulinum toxin and industrial chemicals such as potassium cyanide and osmium tetroxide -- have also been sought by suspected terrorists. In April, police in Jordan foiled what government officials said was a plot to use chemical bombs and poison gas in a series of attacks on embassies and government buildings in Amman, the capital.

So far, no poison attacks by al Qaeda-related groups have been carried out, and many experts say they believe that terrorist groups still haven't mastered the skills needed to make an effective weapon. But they clearly are trying. Lacking facilities for making advanced chemical or biological arms, investigators say these groups are seeking toxins that can be easily bought, stolen or manufactured in an ordinary kitchen using common ingredients...

CAIR, which calls itself "America's largest Islamic civil liberties group," has lately focused its wrath on conservative radio talk show hosts. A new report by the group released this week attempts to tie talk radio to a dubious "sharp jump" in (self-reported) "Islamophobic hate crimes" in the U.S. CAIR fights dirty — fabricating quotes, taking comments out of context, indulging in the cult of victimology, and exploiting a gullibly sympathetic press. By manufacturing an anti-Muslim hate epidemic that doesn't exist, CAIR obfuscates its own suspicious role in fomenting anti-American extremism.

The most recent target of CAIR's campaign to stifle critics of radical Islam is Boston-based radio talk show veteran Jay Severin. On April 23, CAIR issued a press release headlined: "Boston Radio Host Says Kill All Muslims; Islamic Civil Rights Group Calls for Host's Termination." On April 25, the Boston Globe parroted the charges in a story that quoted CAIR spokeswoman Rabiah Ahmed accusing Severin of saying on his show, "I've got an idea, let's kill all Muslims."

Just one teensy problem with the story. It wasn't true. On April 27, the Globe was forced to publish a correction admitting that Severin never said "kill all Muslims." CAIR, however, has refused to admit the fabrication and continues to call for Severin's termination...

Killgore may or may not be an anti-Semite, but he certainly could be mistaken for one. That is a strong statement, to be sure, but it seems a fair assessment after spending some time at the Web site for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (www.wrmea.com), of which he is the co-founder and publisher.

The site's front page keeps a counter only of foreign aid money given to Israel. It calls for ending all military aid to Israel, though there is no similar call for ending the exact same level of aid given each year to Egypt for the same purpose, an arrangement that has existed since the Camp David Accords in 1978.

Killgore's Web site also has a "Neocon Corner," where he and others castigate one Jew or another for their sinister loyalties to Israel. (One exception was a hit piece on Dick Cheney.) Typical is a recent column on Richard Perle, former head of the Defense Policy Board. In the course of 800 words, Killgore refers to Perle as: a "fervent Zionist," a "dyed-in-the-wool Israel-Firster," part of the "Zionist lobby," "always active in Zionist organizations," the "Prince of Darkness" and a "Zionist ideologue."

On its Web page listing 27 "charitable organizations" are several with which no reasonable group would affiliate. Many are well-known for their radical Islamist agendas, and two in particular should have raised red flags: the United Palestinian Appeal and the Kinder USA, both "charitable" organizations that share leadership with the Holy Land Foundation, which was closed in December 2001, allegedly for funneling money to Hamas...

At one point I referred to this side as "Arab Traditionalism", but that was never a very satisfactory label. Some have called it "Islamofascism", but these days the term I'm most comfortable with (which is to say, not very) is "Islamism". One of the reasons I'm uncomfortable even with that label is that Islamism is not congruent to Islam. There are millions of Muslims who are not part of it. There are many Muslims who are strong supporters of one of the other sides, and some of those who do support it are not devout Muslims. Even so, of the three sides this one is easiest to perceive and characterize; they're all cloudy and indistinct, but this is the least indistinct.

Of the three sides, Islamism as a political force appeared the most recently, within the last 150 years.

The other two sides are derived from Western philosophical roots. For them I've had to invent my own names: "p-idealism" and "empiricism"...

For those who can't quite picture the situation from the terse mil-speak:

Picture a convoy, lightly armed, carrying tanks on huge flatbed trucks. Huge chains holding the tanks on the trucks. Skeleton crew inside tanks. Convoy commanded by a transportation Captain; 1st Lt. tanker in charge of the tanks / skeleton crews. (Transportation is a support branch; the tanker is in a combat arms branch.)

They hit a big ambush and a transport truck is disabled. This young 1Lt, probably 24 yrs old or so, sizes up the situation, has his NCOs start firing back from the tanks that are still on the trucks. And WHILE they are firing, he has them break out of the chains by using the shear strength of the tanks, backing off the transports (nobody back there making sure they weren't going off the edge, either), organizes the defense and gets them all out of there, including the lightly armed transportation people, alive.

And saves all the equipment except for the one disabled HET.

Just an incredible display of leadership, quick thinking and courage. No wonder the 2 star met him in the field and wrote to the 4 star about him.

I'm incredibly proud of our young men and women out there.

The move is the first collective effort by Sadr's political rivals to try to avoid further violence in Najaf and Kerbala, and regain political ground lost to the firebrand cleric, whose nationalist brand of Islam has gained him support.

"It is a shame to ask the occupation forces to solve this problem," Shi'ite leader Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum told a meeting of Shi'ite parties, including those on the Governing Council.

"We are taking a clear stand: Najaf and Kerbala must be disarmed. These are holy cities that must have a Vatican (news - web sites)-like status," he added...

I mean about a month ago, we had considerable reactions and somewhat large demonstrations in response to the killing of Hamas leader, and in the mid of maniac reactions from Arab media and people, the absence of large demonstrations and outrage on the streets of Iraq becomes really strange and give rise to questions. Why the Iraqi people are not really upset with this issue?

Is it because of the firm and rapid response from the American officials to these terrible actions?

Or is it because the Iraqi people lack compassion with the majority of these prisoners?

Could it be that the Iraqi people and as a result of decades of torture, humiliation and executions, took these crimes less seriously than the rest of the world?

Or have the majority of Iraqis finally developed some trust in the coalition authorities and in the American army, to sense that these actions must be isolated and will be punished?

I can’t say I have the full answer but I guess it’s a combination of a little bit of all the above...

...Then came the big question “who do you think is going to lead Iraq in the transitional phase? And will that leader be one of the current members of the GC”? This question was directed to me. I said that I don’t think that the future president will be chosen from inside the GC and I asked my friends back "if you were to choose your president from the GC, whom would you elect”? They all agreed that Adnan Pachachi would be the best available choice in such circumstances. As a matter of fact, I share the same opinion because this man is acceptable to many Iraqis due to his moderate attitudes and clean background and he has no militia or the kind of followers that can abuse their man's power to harm others, break the law or have illegal advantages.

When I said goodbye to my friends I sensed some optimism inside me when I realized they are paying more attention to the future and were not fooled by the Arab media to act only in response to emotions.

The letter is similar to one written by 52 two former British diplomats to the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair last week.

The former US diplomats complained that President Bush's policy is losing the US credibility, prestige and friends.

They criticised what they say is Washington's unabashed support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

They cite Mr Sharon's policy of extra-judicial assassinations and what the diplomats describe as Israel's Berlin Wall-like barrier.

The American diplomats say they were deeply concerned by Mr Bush's endorsement last month of Mr Sharon's plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza.

One former diplomat, who is still considering whether or not to sign the letter, said that as a result of the policy, "We're not the good guys any more."

Those in the Bush administration who do support Mr Sharon might well point out that the state department has always been a more sceptical supporter of Israel.

Mr Sharon himself has always made a point of dealing directly with the White House.

The diplomats, some of whom belong to the American Educational Trust (AET), plan to release the text at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.

The inspiration was a letter signed by 52 retired British diplomats, who urged British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) to reconsider Britain's approach to the Middle East.

The letter was circulated here after Bush's April 14 endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s plan for an Israeli withdrawal from all of the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), but only six of 10 West Bank settlements.

Bush, for his part, had said Palestinian refugees could not expect to return to territory their families had occupied before 1948.

"Your unqualified support of Sharon's extra-judicial assassinations, Israel's Berlin Wall-like barrier, its harsh military measures in occupied territories and now your endorsement of Sharon's unilateral plan are costing our country its credibility, prestige and friends," the Financial Times quoted the letter as saying...

(CNSNews.com) - Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.

"What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com . The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said...

The Voice of Palestine called the men who carried out the earlier attack today that left a pregnant mother and her four children dead "an act of heroic martyrdom". The radio station repeatedly used the term "is tish-had" (heroic martyrdom) and "mustash-hidin" (heroic martyrs) to describe the act committed by "two youths". After reporting the attackers names the radio repeated that they were heroic martyrs.

The Voice of Palestine referred to the victims of the shooting attack as "five settlers" without mentioning that the attack involved a pregnant women and four children who were first shot at a distance of several yards and then finished off from point blank range.

"We want to put an end to the German army's protection of American installations by the end of the year," said Struck in an interview with Welt am Sonntag. "We're now negotiating an end to the guarding process."

A Defense Ministry spokesman said discussions about ending the German army's policing of U.S. bases had been going on since the start of the year.

"The United States is gearing itself up for this accordingly," the spokesman said.

Some 2,500 German soldiers have protected U.S. barracks and other installations from attack since the start of 2003 because many U.S. troops stationed in Germany -- who would normally have performed the task themselves -- are now in Iraq.

Struck also said Germany would not take part in any prospective NATO security force in Iraq once the U.S.-led coalition transfers sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government at the end of June.

"It seems highly uncertain if and when NATO will be asked for support," said Struck. "Whatever the case, Germany will not take part in it. The army will only provide special aircraft to transport wounded if this proves necessary."

Zionism had misled "some of our sons," he said without elaborating.

Abdullah was speaking a day after four gunmen opened fire at an oil contractor's office in the industrial city of Yanbu, killing at least seven people - two Americans, two Britons, two Australians and a Saudi - and wounding 25 before leading police on a bloody chase, dragging the body of one victim behind their car.

Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah said "Zionists' hands" were behind Saturday's attacks.

"Saudi Arabia is being targeted by Zionists...we are 95 percent sure that Zionists' hands were behind what happened," he said.

Saudi ambassador to Britain Prince Turki al-Faisal said that he thought al-Qaida was behind the attack, which killed two Americans, two Britons and an Australian.

"They are Saudis and they've joined a cult, al Qaeda, and are doing the bidding of the leader of that cult, Osama bin Laden," he told Sky News.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that top Saudi al-Qaida leader Abdulaziz al-Muqrin has called for the bodies of Americans to be dragged through Saudi streets, urged fighters to expel "infidel" Americans from the birthplace of Islam and target security forces who stand in their way...

The evidence, from northern Israel, suggests species such as Homo erectus may have been surprisingly sophisticated in their behaviour.

The find links earlier evidence of controlled fire from Africa with later discoveries in Eurasia, scientists say.

Scientifically Accurate Re-enactment

The researchers say that a wildfire is unlikely to be the cause.

Researchers from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan excavated a waterlogged site at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov.

In 34m-thick ground deposits, they found numerous flint implements belonging to the so-called Acheulean tradition of tool manufacture. Some of these were burnt, while other were not.

The team mapped the distribution of the burnt and unburned artefacts and compared them. Although there was some overlap with the unburned artefacts, the burnt ones clustered together at specific spots at the site.

The researchers think the clusters of burnt artefacts, which date to between 790,000 and 690,000 years ago, indicate the sites of ancient camp fires, or hearths, made by either Homo erectus or Homo ergaster.

It could have been a primitive form of Homo sapiens, they say, but other researchers consider this improbable.

"I believe fire was a very advantageous technology which empowered these humans," co-author Nira Alperson, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, told BBC News Online.

Some researchers believe the control of fire enabled dramatic changes in human diet, the ability to defend social groups against wild animals and aided social interaction...

The double spacecraft is now just two months away from arriving at the ringed planet to begin a four-year expedition of the gas giant and its many moons.

The latest image, taken from 48 million km away, fills the entire field of view of Cassini's narrow angle camera.

Cassini is the mission's primary probe; the piggybacked Huygens is a lander which will attempt to land on the oily seas of Saturn's major moon, Titan.

The latest picture, acquired on 27 March, is actually a composite of three exposures, in red, green and blue. Each pixel represents 286km (178 miles).

It is the last image in which the narrow angle camera will be able to see the whole of Saturn.

It shows distinct colour variations between bands in Saturn's atmosphere; the individual rings are becoming clearer, too.

Two faint dark spots are visible in the southern hemisphere. These spots are close to the latitude where Cassini saw two storms merging in mid-March.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a joint project between the US and European space agencies (Nasa and Esa) and the Italian Space Agency.

But his Criminal Justice (Justifiable Conduct) Bill failed to make further progress in the House of Commons.

Home Office Minister, Fiona Mactaggart, said that it would have created a "spiral of violence and retaliation".[...]