Global Unease: Anti-Americanism on the Rise

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Global Unease: Anti-Americanism on the Rise

Possibly the largest public opinion poll ever undertaken, with interviews conducted in 47 countries.

By Gary Feuerberg

Epoch Times Washington, D.C. Staff

Jul 02, 2007

“NO NATION COMES OUT GOOD” says former U.S. Senator John Danforth (R-MO), June 27, 2007, at the National Press Club, regarding the 47-nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey. “The international system is in disarray,” agreed former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. (Gary Feuerberg / The Epoch Times)

Washington, D.C.­A worldwide survey finds global public opinion expressing increasing negative views of the United States and a lack of confidence in President Bush. Global support for the “war on terror” is lower than ever.

But the other dominant nations of the world, Russia, China and the European countries fared no better, and no nation or the United Nations has filled the void in world leadership. In China’s case, its rising economic and military power is viewed with deepening suspicion by some nations.

This 2007 survey is the sixth world public opinion survey of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which has been conducted since 2002. This most recent survey is by far the largest global survey Pew has conducted, consisting of 45,239 interviews, over a 2-month period in 46 countries and the Palestinian territories. It is likely the largest public opinion poll ever undertaken, according to Donald Kimelman, a managing director at the Pew Charitable Trusts. Without modern technology, it would have been impossible before to simultaneously conduct so many interviews across the globe.

The report for this survey, Global Unease with Major World Powers ( Global Unease, for short), was released June 27 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former Senator John C. Danforth made comments. Albright and Danforth are co-chairs of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which is sponsoring this series of worldwide public opinion surveys.

U.S. Image Abroad

“Over the last five years, America’s image has plummeted throughout much of the world, including sharp drops in favorability among traditional allies in Western Europe, as well as substantial declines in America, the Middle East, and elsewhere,” says Global Unease.

An extreme case is Argentina. In 2000, half the population viewed the U.S. favorably. In 2007, the percent favorable declined to only 16%. In 2000, the U.S. had an 89% favorable rate in Venezuela; in 2007, it is 56%. Mexico has the same percentage favorable in the 2007 survey as Venezuela.

Another extreme case is Turkey, a NATO ally. The lowest country rating in the survey was Turkey’s 9% U.S. favorability rating. Other Middle East nations aren’t a whole lot better: “More than three-in-four Palestinians, Turks, Egyptians, and Jordanians express unfavorable opinions of the U.S.,” says Global Unease.

In some Middle East countries, the nation’s overall score is not very meaningful. For example, in Lebanon 47% are favorable towards the U.S., but among the Christian minority it is 82%, and with the Shia majority, it is 7% favorable. 92% of the Lebanon’s Shia population has an unfavorable view of the U.S.

Israel, the U.S.’ closest ally in the region, is holding at a 78% favorable view of the U.S.

In Europe, the percentage favorable towards the U.S. has dropped precipitously since 1999/2000. During this period Great Britain went from 83 to 51% favorable view of the U.S. Today, France (39%), Germany (30%), Spain (34%) and Sweden (46%) have less than a majority with a favorable view of the U.S. Only Italy in the sample had a majority (53%).

However, attitudes of European nations towards Americans tend to be much higher than for America. For example, Germans and Swedes give 63% and 73%, respectively, favorable ratings of the American people.

In Asia, the U.S. image depends mostly on whether the country is largely Muslim or not Muslim. The U.S. is widely unpopular in Pakistan (15%), Malaysia (27%), and Indonesia (29%)­all three are predominately Muslim. Global Unease attributes the recent decline in U.S. favorability to the Iraq war and the war on terror, which Muslims tend to strongly oppose.

One Asian country that is an exception to the rule is China. China is not a Muslim country but exhibits favorability ratings towards the U.S. almost as low (34%) as the Muslim countries. Both Pakistan and China shifted a lot towards an unfavorable view of the U.S. this last year.

The United States remains popular in India (59%), Japan (61%), South Korea (58%), and Bangladesh (53%).

U.S. Foreign Policy Unpopular in Most Nations

The belief that the U.S. gives little or no consideration to countries like theirs when making foreign policy decisions is especially prevalent in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Israel in the Middle East and India in Asia were both exceptions to the rule with only 24% saying that the U.S. does not take into account the interests of other countries. Strong majorities in 30 of the 46 countries criticized U.S. unilateralism. The most extreme cases were France and Sweden where about nine out of ten express this view (France: 89%, Sweden: 90%).

Even Kuwait, which was liberated by American forces in 1991, has shifted in this direction. In 2003, 35% said that the U.S. pays little or no attention to the interests of countries like theirs, but now 64% say this.

International support for America’s war terror has fallen considerably since the 9/11 attacks. “The fallout has been especially steep in Europe, with decreases of at least 25 percentage points in Ukraine, France, Great Britain, Poland, Germany, Italy, and the Czech Republic.” In the Western Hemisphere, sharp drops were recorded in Venezuela (45%) and Canada (37%).

Majorities in 43 of the 47 countries say the U.S. should remove its troops as soon as possible from Iraq. Even majorities in Turkey (86%), Jordan (83%) and 56%)­countries that border on Iraq and who might be concerned that a U.S. departure would hurt regional stability­favor a quick U.S. withdrawal.

While it is not surprising to see opposition to the Iraq war, the survey also found a large amount of skepticism about military operations in Afghanistan, where “we have a good reason to be there,” said Secretary Albright. The majority of 32 of 47 countries want the U.S. and NATO forces out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Even in the U.S. and Britain, 42% thinks we should disengage. In America, half (50%) believe they should stay.

The report mentions “a global backlash against the spread of American ideas and customs.” In most countries surveyed, the most popular view is one of dislike for American ideas about democracy with Turkey (81%), France (76%) and Pakistan (72) leading the pack. This sentiment has increased in most regions since 2002. However, majorities in most African nations, Israel, South Korea and Japan still retain positive views of the U.S. approach to democracy.

More than any other country, the U.S. is named as the country that is “hurting the world’s environment the most.” China is mentioned next most often as a contributor to global environmental problems.

Secretary Albright spoke of how difficult it is to be the U.S. representative at the UN when the U.S. image is so low.

Concern Over China’s Expanding Power

The survey found that China’s growing power, both economic and military, are fueling anxiety.

Unfavorable views of China dominate in Western Europe, particularly in Spain (43%), Germany (54%), France (51), Italy (61%). China’s growing economic power is perceived as an economic threat in Western Europe, where close to two-thirds of Italians and the French believe this expansion is bad for the country. Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, said the developed countries especially fear competition from China.

Opinion of China is much more negative in Japan (Unfavorable: 67%, Favorable: 29%). This represents quite a turn-around; the 2002 Global Attitudes survey found 42% unfavorable and 55% favorable. India too has become somewhat more negative on China, where the favorable percentage dropped from 56% in 2005 to 46% in 2007. In general, however, China’s image is positive in Asia, particularly in Malaysia (83%), Pakistan (79%), Bangladesh (74%) and Indonesia (65%).

China’s economic power appears to foment much anxiety in Mexico, Czech Republic, South Korea, and India. These countries say by large majorities that China’s growing economy is a bad thing: Mexico (55%), Czech Republic (56%), South Korea (60%) and India (48%). At the other extreme, the African nations surveyed are much more welcoming to China’s economic power, e.g., 80% in Nigeria say China’s growing economy is a good thing.

While most of the world, with strong reservations, views China’s economic growth positively, its military expansion has been a greater cause for concern. Approximately, two out of three interviewed in the United States (68%) and Canada (66%) say China’s growing military power is a bad thing for their countries. Other countries are even more negative: South Korea (89%), France (84%), Japan (80%), Germany (77%) and Russia (70%). A majority in India (59%) express the same concern.

Concern by China’s neighbors, India, Japan, and South Korea for China’s military expansion is natural, given the bitter history of these nations with Communist China. Other neighboring nations of China are not alarmed. Majorities in Pakistan (57%), Malaysia (57%) and Bangladesh (51%) regard China’s stronger military as good for their country.

source:
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-7-2/57148.html

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-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Independence Day Hypocrisy

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Independence Day Hypocrisy

Stephen Lendman

Along with Christmas, no federal holiday is more celebrated than the day a new nation declared its independence from the British Crown on July 4, 1776. Coming in the summer with good weather across the country, it’s a day or long weekend of parades, outings, various other celebratory events, and baseball at all levels that many years ago often meant major league “double-headers” that was a big occasion for young boys, like this writer, growing up in “big league” cities whose dads took them out for an endless day at the ballpark. It’s also a day commemorating the nation’s history, liberation and traditions most people don’t know or forgot. That’s just as well because they were never taught the truths about them, just the acceptable illusions learned in school to the highest levels. They’re extolled by the dominant media, most in academia, and by the clergy and others in high places as well who are willing to spread acceptable myths for the status and benefits doing it affords them.

Young people are never taught our real history, only what’s falsely portrayed about it with all ugly parts suppressed. It’s to program their minds and train a new generation of “good citizens” to believe what serves the privileged best benefits everyone and assure they won’t resist to keep it that way. So we’re taught to accept the myth of America’s exceptionalism, our special nature, goodness, and democratic way of life, in the best of all possible countries with the best of all possible leaders running a government of, for and by the people serving everyone. If only it were true.

We’re also taught to commemorate our Founders’ glorious achievements and their liberating Revolution from the repressive British Crown and aristocracy. They replaced it with an experimental system of government never tried before in the West outside its imperfect earlier form in ancient Athens for a few decades only. After the war of independence, the Founders met in 1787, in the same Philadelphia State House where the Declaration of Independence was signed 11 years earlier. They came to frame a Constitution they hoped would last into “remote futurity” – for their interests alone.

Yet, they managed to include unimaginable freedoms in it as well, including real democratic ones in the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791. It gave people the rights of free expression, religion, peaceable assembly, protection from illegal searches and seizures, due process and more. We still have them, but, in the age of George Bush, they hang by a thread and can be revoked by a “unitary” executive authority in the name of national security if he says so.

Noted political scientist and social critic Michael Parenti wrote of our Founder’s achievement in the 8th and earlier editions of his important book, “Democracy for the Few.” In it, he states “the Constitution was consciously designed as a conservative document” with provisions in it, or omitted by intent, to “resist the pressure of popular tides” and protect “a rising bourgeoisie(‘s)” freedom to “invest, speculate, trade, and accumulate wealth” the way things work for capital interests today. It was to codify in law what politician, founding father, jurist and nation’s first Chief Supreme Court justice, John Jay, said the way things should be – that “The people who own the country ought to run it (for their benefit alone).”

Benjamin Franklin was reportedly asked at the end of the Constitutional Convention whether the 55 attending delegates created a monarchy or republic. He responded “A republic, if you can keep it” without acknowledging notions of an egalitarian nation were stillborn at its birth. It was true then and now in spite of all the pretense contrived to portray an idealized society, in fact, always out of reach for most in it. Republican America was created as a nominal democracy Adam Smith said should be “instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor.”

The nation’s founders achieved mightily handing down their legacy to succeeding generations of leaders always mindful of who gave them power and who they were there to serve. At the nation’s birth, only adult white male property owners could vote; blacks were commodities, not people; and women were childbearing and homemaking appendages of their husbands.

Religious prerequisites existed until 1810, and all adult white males couldn’t vote until property and tax requirements were dropped in 1850. States elected senators until the 17th amendment in 1913 gave citizen voters that right, and Native Americans had no franchise in their own land until the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act gave them back what no one had the right to take away in the first place. Women’s suffrage wasn’t achieved until the 19th Amendment passed in 1920 after nearly 100 years of struggling for it.

The 1865 13th Amendment freed black slaves, the 1870 15th Amendment gave them the right to vote, but it wasn’t until passage of the landmark Civil and Voting Rights Acts in the mid-1960s, abolishing Southern Jim Crow laws, that blacks could vote, in fact, like the Constitution said they could decades earlier. Today those rights are gravely weakened for all through unfair laws still in force and a nation growing more repressive and less responsive to the needs of ordinary working people and the nation’s least advantaged. The limited high-water mark of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society has steadily eroded since in loss of civil liberties and essential social benefits. It’s hardly a reason for those harmed and people of conscience to celebrate July 4 or any other day commemorating a nation unresponsive to them and most others.

The nation’s Native Indians have the least to celebrate. Few once remained of the 100 million or so throughout the Americas and around 18 million in our America. Long before the nation was liberated from the British Crown, white settlers began slaughtering them mercilessly. Our Native peoples lived peacefully on these lands for thousands of years. They developed proud cultures “Western civilization” began eroding when it arrived.

When the first European settlers came in the late 15th century, Native peoples helped them adjust to a hostile unfamiliar new land. They weren’t repaid kindly in our great push West and South that exterminated millions of them given no rights or quarter in our grand “democratic” experiment excluding them. Survivors today enjoy few freedoms only gotten grudgingly, and most suffer severe repression and deprivation in a land they once thrived on.

Today, our original inhabitants live in more desperate poverty and despair than any others in the nation. Their needs are shamelessly unaddressed and virtually ignored. No day honors them for what they sacrificed for the privileged few to enjoy alone. For them, justice long delayed is justice never gotten.

They have no reason to commemorate the nation’s founding that cost them their rights and destroyed their proud heritage, culture and lives. Today, their traditions aren’t taught in schools and are unknown by the public. They’re ignored by the dominant media that mocks and demonizes them in films and society as drunks, beasts, primitives and savages, noble or otherwise. Their legacy is one of made and broken treaties, stolen lands, rights denied, welfare ignored and lives taken for 500 years. They’re still repressed and denied in a shameful attempt to “Americanize” them against their will and destroy their proud cultures doing it.

Many others in the nation have no reason to celebrate either on this or any other day. It’s truer than ever in an age of extreme greed, unprecedented wealth disparity, loss of civil liberties and essential social services, a state of permanent imperial wars of aggression, galling corruption, and virtual abandonment of the rule of law by a government complicit in all its branches serving the privileged alone. Through lies, deceit and imperial arrogance, they created conditions hostile to the rights of ordinary people everywhere.

They ignore the needs of millions in the country enjoying few of the fruits available to a shrinking number of people in the “land of opportunity” offering less of it to growing numbers in it. Today tens of millions of poor and deprived, especially those of color, are practically condemned as criminals for their disadvantaged state. Through no fault of their own, they’re ignored by a heartless state worshiping wealth and privilege at the expense of those having little or none.

Newly arrived immigrants have little to celebrate either, especially the undocumented and exploited forced here by repressive trade agreements like NAFTA and DR-CAFTA. They destroyed their livelihoods at home enriching corporate giants at the expense of working people where they’re in force. Their choice was stay at home and perish or risk coming north to survive in a hostile unwelcoming climate uncaring of their plight and exploiting and persecuting the ones getting here and able to stay.

Muslims as well have little to celebrate, including citizens whose rights are nominally protected by the laws of the land. Instead, their government defiles Islam in the age of George Bush calling its believers “militants,” “terrorists” and “Islamofascists” threatening the nation’s security because the president says so. Thousands have been illegally hounded in witch-hunt roundups since 9/11, held in secret detention, unjustly deported, and given no rights including due process to clear their names. Their “crime” is their faith and color in a nation nominally guaranteeing all its people can worship freely. That right’s now voided for those of the wrong faith. They’re demonized, unwanted, condemned and persecuted in “the land of the free” but not for them. Shame on the nation that strayed from its founding principles, never granted to all, still only afforded a chosen few, and now denied anyone designated an enemy of the state even if they aren’t one.

Finally, African Americans have little to celebrate this independence day that gave them none at all at first, precious little thereafter, and still treats them as second class citizens at best. They were first commodified and sold into bondage as human property. Their worth and status were then degraded in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution. That was the infamous “three-fifths clause” euphemistically referring to slaves as less than people (and Indians as non-people) that remained the law of the land until voided by the 13th Amendment in 1865.

Black Americans are now nominally free, but along with Native Americans suffer the highest rates of poverty, deprivation, and incarceration and get the least amount of government aid for essential social services. That includes decent affordable health care, education and housing and enough food to eat for the poorest and most deprived with single mothers with children most harmed.

This July 4, at holiday outings, picnics, barbecues, ballgames, outdoor concerts, parades, fireworks displays, visits to the shore on vacation, and other celebratory events, remember the growing millions of victimized and deprived Americans in need. The state ignores them, denies them, even condemns them for their plight. Those most desperate are helped the least so the most privileged and well-off can be advantaged the most. As we give thanks and count our blessings this and every day, think of the poor and desperate who have few or none of what we take for granted. Remember, but for the grace of the Almighty, their plight could be ours.

Finally, remember as well on our “day of independence” the many tens of millions worldwide we deprived of theirs. Included are the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and every nation living under US-imposed neoliberal unfair free-market rules exploiting the many for the interests of a privileged few. Those harmed range from the southern tip of Chile to the vastness of Africa to the Asian continent and throughout Europe, most notably in the East once under Soviet control. People everywhere pay for our nation putting wealth and power interests above basic humanity.

On this “independence day” and all others, think of them and our own deprived millions at home. Then imagine a future time free of that condition because enough people mobilized to change things bettering everyone. That would be something worth giving thanks for and celebrating.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

source:
http://www.albasrah.net/pages/mod.php?mod=art&lapage=../en_articles_2007/0707/lendman_020707.htm

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-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY;YOU HAVE NO GOVERNMENT

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY;YOU HAVE NO GOVERNMENT

By Carolyn Baker

July 02, 2007

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere;

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely, some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight; somewhere in the sands of the desert

As shape with a lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

-William Butler Yeats-

As this article is being written the world is entranced with terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom, and U.S. residents are stocking up on beer and barbecue for the most sacrosanct of all American holidays. Barefoot children are running through sprinklers and reveling in backyard swimming pools. Fireflies flicker through muggy Midwest nights, and urban jungles swelter in a sultry aura of crime and poverty. But whether in the McMansions of Florida bedroom communities or locked in the suffocating despair of Chicago’s Cabrini Green, everyone knows­everyone feels it, but no one is talking about “it.” That “it”, that “something” is why depression is rampant, and why Americans are so sleep-deprived. That “something” can’t be fixed with a new mattress or more Tylenol PM, and when long nights of fitful or no sleep turn into another workday, the American way is to rise and shine into frenetic workaholism and ten thousand other distractions so that no one has to think or talk about “it”.

“It” is the sickening, gut-wrenching, capillary-constricting, heart-palpitating, suffocating, terrifying, paralyzing awareness in the deepest recesses of the body and soul that the entire house of cards for which Americans have worked, saved, sacrificed­for which they have sent their children off to war and off to college, which they have been willing to defend to their death and which has given them meaning when nothing else would­all of that, yes ALL of that is collapsing, dissolving, disintegrating, disappearing, slipping away. Perhaps only subconsciously weary of war and tormented by finances as they are, some part of them knows that their children aren’t going to college, that they won’t be able to stop foreclosure on their home, that their increasing reliance on credit cards postpones bankruptcy a little longer but makes its consequences ever-more brutal, and that when it’s all said and done, the retirement package and the 401K they were counting on for the worst-case scenario, like the rollicking good times of the pre-dot-com nineties, has simply evaporated into history.

All of this is horrifying enough by itself, but add to this the reality that these same Americans no longer live in a democratic republic and that they have lost all perspective of what that actually means. In 2004 I wrote an article entitled “Hello, You Are Now Living In A Fascist Empire” which at the time drew many emails telling me how paranoid and hopelessly locked into “conspiracy theory” I was. Now, three years later, Rodrigue Tremblay in his article “Imperialism And Fascism Are On The Rise In The USA” has updated the history of America’s descent into fascism, listing the tyrannical steps taken within the past six years to shred the Constitution and eviscerate the republic.

Sadly, I notice that some of the same progressives who labeled me paranoid in 2004, while now appalled at the litany of civil liberties destroyed by the current regime, still do not comprehend the reality of collapse. As a result, I keep hearing their illusions in the emails I receive and in the articles they write on websites and blogs. Not unlike the middle-class, sleep-deprived, thoroughly distracted and denial-crazed workaholics mentioned above, they believe that somehow the show can be kept on the road if only progressives do the right things.

William Butler Yeats, a highly intuitive poet, wrote “The Second Coming” in 1921 as Hitler was getting warmed up and learning to speak in front of large crowds. Yeats knew that somehow things were falling apart and that the center could not hold. His poem now reverberates down through the decades to our time and our “second coming.” This will not be the second coming of the LaHaye-Jenkins crowd. No Rapture nor extraterrestrial throngs will sweep away the “faithful”, followed by the destruction of the earth by Jesus and his followers. No, Jesus’ so-called followers are doing that here and now­and have been doing so in his name for the past two thousand years, calling it “having dominion over the earth.” And in my opinion, those progressives who pride themselves in their optimism, who refuse to face the collapse of civilization, blinded by their illusions, are no more enlightened than the fundamentalist Christians or New Age devotees who are waiting for the second coming of Jesus or the arrival of rescuing aliens from other worlds.

Many individuals love to debate whether collapse will be “fast or slow”. According to the “slow burners”, those who say it will be sudden are delusional, whereas those who insist on its suddenness reject the collapse as a gradual process. Even the issue of collapse is replete with the distractions of a conflict over “slow” or “sudden.” Western Civilization and Christianity in particular have left their mark on us in the polarization that we can’t seem to extricate ourselves from, even over the issue of collapse. It is, in some respects, that very duality that has created the end of civilization as we have known it, yet we cling to the polarization as if our lives depended on it.

Collapse, on a more metaphorical level, is a form of apocalypse, and apocalypse is simply a Greek word meaning, “the lifting of the veil.” When veils are lifted, reality is seen for what it is, and given that definition, apocalypse has been going on for a long time. Think of the veils that have been lifted just in the past seven years: The 2000 election, the crimes of 9/11 perpetrated by the U.S. government, Enron, Peak Oil, climate change, the incomprehensible levels of corruption in the U.S. government, the trillions of dollars of missing money, the deceptions of the Iraq War, the coverup of Pat Tillman’s death­the list could go on and on. The biggest veil to be lifted is that humans are the superior life form on planet earth and that they have a right to conquer, rape, pillage, and own its resources. Collapse, which in my opinion has been going on for at least thirty years, is lifting the veil of that illusion and will reveal incontrovertibly the lie that it is, but for some, the lie cannot be allowed in their consciousness until there is nothing­and I mean nothing, left to lie about.

Here are some other illusions:

·Somehow the system works. Although there are abuses and many of our civil liberties have been irreparably eroded, things will get “fixed” in 2008 with the election of a new president.(This assumes that the current regime will allow an election in 2008 and that electronic voting can somehow produce viable elections. This also assumes that Presidents or Vice-Presidents actually rule the nation when in fact the nation and the world are ruled by centralized financial systems, the Federal Reserve and other banking interests.)

·There will BE an election in 2008, and it will be legitimate. The neocons can’t last forever, and the pendulum will swing back to the left. (This assumes that that since the end of the Civil War, there has been a pendulum­a choice between the ruling elite and something else. It also flies in the face of massive evidence that clean federal elections do not exist in the U.S. Moreover, Congress is about to pass a computerized voting bill that will seal election corruption permanently.)

·The Iraq War is not being won nor are U.S. troops being withdrawn because of the incompetence of the Bush Administration. (This assumes that it was the intention of the regime to win the war in Iraq. It denies the reality that things are proceeding in Iraq exactly as they have been planned.)

·Peak Oil is not real. Skyrocketing oil prices are due to the domination of the Executive Branch of government by oily politicians, and once a Democrat takes up residence in the White House, prices will level off. Alternative energy and innovative technology will create solutions to the energy dilemma that the Bush administration is suppressing but which will not be suppressed by a Democratic administration. (This explanation defies the massive evidence confirming the reality and consequences of Peak Oil and the reality that the Democrats have done virtually nothing to address oil depletion.)

Fact vs. reality: If as a politician you know that Peak Oil is real, you and your family have been planning for it for years, you have years of food and water stored in bunkers heated and cooled with solar energy, and if you know that telling the nation about it is bad for business and for your political future­if the Pentagon is already simulating how the public will react to food and fuel shortages, and if the economy and your personal financial well being depend on the weapons industry, then you cannot and will not disclose the reality of Peak Oil to the nation. You cannot and will not implement rationing, a massive scaling back of consumption of fossil fuels and other goods and services, and a radical transformation of the American lifestyle. You can only do one thing: You can only lie about energy depletion and expand empire to acquire the last remaining drops of oil on earth and profit not only from that oil but from the wars “required” to obtain it.

·Global warming is real, and Al Gore has the first and last word on it. That’s why he must be elected president. (Al Gore did not invent global warming any more than he invented the internet. This illusion discounts other notable research on climate change by a host of other researchers. It also discounts “inconvenient truths” about Al Gore.)

·The economic challenges facing the U.S. and its middle class will be resolved by a Democratic administration. A Democratic president will enact new priorities and bring the troops home from Iraq, will massively scale back the Pentagon’s budget, and allocate money that would have been used for war to solve domestic problems such as poverty, a crumbling infrastructure, inflation, the mortgage meltdown, and healthcare. Another New Deal type of economic effort is needed to restore America’s prosperity. (The first flaw in this argument is the illusion that the Democrats have done anything to end the war in Iraq. The 2006 mid-term election confirmed that politicians care little what mandates the American people may give them. The second flaw is the failure to grasp the extent to which the government of the United States is captive to the interests of corporations and financial systems, particularly the Federal Reserve, and the reality that there is transparency neither in how financial resources are acquired and spent, nor in the government’s economic statistics.)

• The recent release of de-classified CIA documents revealing the agency’s sinister actions in past decades is something to be celebrated. (It may be tempting to be impressed by the so-called “family jewels”, but only if one does not understand a very old CIA strategy called the limited hangout in which certain pieces of incriminating information are thrown like crumbs to agency critics, obfuscating more damaging information which is not being disclosed. When the agency supplies every piece of information it has about the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy and when it discloses the creation and maintenance over decades of a black budget to finance secret operations and military adventures unknown to Congress and the America people, there might be something to celebrate. Perhaps the most important message implicit in the release of the documents is the illusion that the CIA no longer behaves as badly as it did in earlier times. The “new” CIA of the twenty-first century is ostensibly more enlightened, more professional, and operates with higher standards than in previous decades. And of course, Americans who have little knowledge of the agency’s history and dirty tricks–and the philosophy of “by whatever means necessary” which lies at its core, are easily duped into believing the agency has fundamentally changed its modus operandi. In fact, CIA watcher, Wayne Madsen, documents that the agency is still committing the same abuses as it did in the seventies.

·The 9/11 Truth Movement is the key to our liberation. If we can just get enough people to understand that the crime was perpetrated by the U.S. government, the empire’s unclothed status will be revealed, and it will fall. (What these well-meaning individuals cannot comprehend is that in order for 9/11 truth to accomplish anything, a viable government must be in place. When the so-called government is in fact comprised of corporations, financial systems, and individuals who have profited and will continue to profit from 9/11–when there is no presidency, Congress, or Supreme Court, 9/11 truth is yet another tragic joke.)

The real truth is that over 70 million Americans question the official story of 9/11, and can we really believe that those other sleepless Americans tossing in their beds at night and frantically working during the day do not know in their guts and in the marrow of their bones that the U.S. government murdered over 3000 of their fellow citizens on 9/11?. An abusive system is an abusive system whether it’s the nuclear family or a fascist empire. Everyone in the family knows that daddy is molesting the kids, but no one wants to talk about it. If we don’t, maybe it will go away. If we really do go shopping as the president asked us to do right after 9/11 and wave flags on the Fourth of July and yammer a little more about supporting the troops, maybe we can sleep better and forget what we know really happened on that day.

And what are the 9/11 truthers doing to prepare for a world with no oil, no food, and no water? Have they not noticed that fascism is galvanizing more firmly in the United States with every passing moment? Are they really so ignorant of history that they believe the Reichstag fire scam could have been exposed in a fascist empire?)

Every day I receive emails which in some way echo these illusions­messages informing me about what Congress is doing, how electing Ron Paul will save the world, how yet another barrage of physicists and architects have proven that the World Trade towers were blown up, or celebrating the fact that the Democrats have subpoenaed members of the Executive branch. All of the messages report events which are too little, too late­you see, as Yeats says, the falcon can no longer hear the falconer. We’ve passed the point of no return­in climate change (so say the experts), in politics, in economics, in energy depletion. In this moment, the old paradigm is triumphant, and all our illusions and antiquated methods of addressing it are absurdly ineffectual.

“The Second Coming” is a poem about death and birth­in that order. Out of collapse, something is trying to be born, and will be whether we recognize it or not, whether we personally survive or not, whether the entire planet is incinerated or not. I know not what form the birth will take, nor do I know if I will live to see it. I do know that births are usually fraught with pain, and according to some mothers, it is the most excruciating pain one can experience. They also tell me that the pain and the unimaginable work giving birth takes, made them appreciate their child even more than if it had simply dropped down out of the sky into their lap.

Believing that we have a government and that somehow it can be resurrected and made to work for us is not only delusional, but makes the believer of the illusion part of the very problem she/he purports to solve. As Derrick Jensen notes, millions of people can be led to gas chambers if they can be made to believe that they are only going somewhere to take a shower. Of course, the illusion is much more pleasant, and as we know, Americans love pleasantries. God knows, we are sleepless enough already.

Collapse, sudden or gradual, is upon us. It’s Independence Day, and we have no government. The blood-dimmed tide is loose. Time to let the flow of that blood take us out of the old paradigm as it took Cindy Sheehan just a few weeks ago and into preparation on all of the levels on which we must prepare. Something slouching toward Bethlehem is trying to be born.

source:
http://carolynbaker.org/archives/happy-independence-dayyou-have-no-government-by-carolyn-baker

===

-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

NIST exploring 9/11 conspiracy theory for WTC-7: New witness confirms Scholars previous findings

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

NIST exploring 9/11 conspiracy theory for WTC-7: New witness confirms Scholars previous findings

by James Fetzer

http://www.opednews.com

July 2, 2007 at 09:50:17

NIST exploring 9/11 conspiracy theory for WTC-7: New witness confirms Scholars previous findings

Jim Fetzer

Madison, WI (OpEdNews) 1 July 2007 – The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) appears to be moving in the direction of a “conspiracy theory” about the destruction of WTC-7 on 9/11 just as a new witness has emerged reporting extensive destruction inside the building many hours before it would be demolished. According to James Fetzer, the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, these turns of events provide further confirmation for the conclusion that WTC-7 was brought down by a controlled demolition at 5:20 PM/ET. “Anyone who googles WTC-7 will see an event that looks exactly like a controlled demolition, just as Peter Jennings and Dan Rather reported at the time. That is why this event makes NIST so uncomfortable.”

WTC-7, a 47-story building also known as the Soloman Brothers Building, collapsed about 7 hours after the Twin Towers were demolished. It was hit by no jet aircraft and had no jet-fuel based fires. “It did have a few modest fires, which could have been easily controlled but were allowed to burn,” Fetzer said. “Remarkably, the fire alarm system in WTC-7 was turned off at 6:47 AM/ET and placed on ‘TEST’ status for a period of eight hours.” In its latest press release (29 June 2007), NIST acknowledges that NIST is “considering whether hypothetical blast events could have played a role in initiating the collapse . . . (and) led to (WTC-7′s) structural failure.”

A new eyewitness inside WTC-7 on the morning of 9/11, heard explosions before either of the Twin Towers collapsed. He was summoned to the Office of Emergency Management Operating Center (OEMOC), also known as “Rudy’s Bunker,” on the 23rd floor of the building. The center had been especially prepared for the Mayor and other officials to gather in case of a terrorist attack or other emergency. Some have wondered why Giuliani did not go to the OEMOC but instead remained some distance from the World Trade Center. This witness, who testified at official hearings and whose identity will be revealed in the general-theater-release version of “Loose Change,” has information that sheds light on this and other questions about WTC-7.

Rolf Lindgren, former Vice-Chair of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin and independent scholar of the events of 9/11, transcribed the testimony and edited it for clarity of English. The complete transcript is below. The witness went to WTC-7 after the first plane struck the North Tower and before the second hit the South Tower. When he arrived at the 23rd floor, he found half-eaten sandwiches and still-steaming coffee. He made some phone calls and was told to leave “right away.” Someone ran into the Center and led him to a stairwell. “When we reached the 6th floor, the landing that we were standing on gave way; there was an explosion and the landing gave way.” He had to climb back up to the 8th floor to find a way out. When he got to the lobby, “the lobby was totally destroyed. It looked like King Kong had come through and stepped on it.. And it was so destroyed I didn’t know where I was . . . (and) they had to take me out through a hole in the wall, . . . a hole that I believe the fire department made to get me out.”

WTC-7 has been widely regarded within the 9/11 research community as the most blatant of all “smoking guns” that disprove the official account. According to David Ray Griffin, a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and the movement’s leading representative, the building showed all the characteristics of a controlled demolition: an abrupt, complete, and total collapse at freefall speed, which was perfectly symmetrical and into its own foundation, as he has explained in his latest book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking (2007). “The ‘blast events’ this witness is describing are not ‘hypothetical,” Fetzer observed, “but actual. Only actual events can bring about effects. So it’s a bit labored for NIST to say it’s considering whether ‘hypothetical’ blast events could have played a role in initiating the collapse. They could not. That requires real blast events.”

The witness, who was interviewed by Dylan Avery (with audio clips played on Alex Jones’ and on Dylan’s shows), has expressed his puzzlement over the destruction of the building. “Well, I’m just confused about one thing and one thing only,” he said, “why World Trade Center 7 went down in the first place? I’m very confused about that. I know what I heard; I heard explosions. The explanation I got was it was the fuel oil tank. I’m an old boiler guy. If it was the fuel oil tank, it would have been one side of the building.” But the collapse was symmetrical. “There was a large tank of diesel in the building,” Fetzer said, “but diesel burns at a low temperature and diesel is not explosive. It cannot have brought about this collapse.”

Anyone who has watched the building come down appreciates that it has all of the characteristics of a controlled demolition. Even James Glanz, a reporter for The New York Times, admitted in an early story (29 November 2001) that the collapse of WTC-7 is even more perplexing than is the destruction of the Twin Towers, because no reinforced, steel structure high-rise building had ever collapsed due to fire in the history of structural engineering. “Indeed, no steel structure high-rise collapsed due to fire before 9/11 nor after 9/11 – nor, if our research is correct, on 9/11,” Fetzer said. “None of these fires burned long enough or hot enough to cause steel to weaken, much less melt. It must be embarrassing for the scientists at the NIST to defend these ridiculous theories.”

Lindgren, who has extensive experience with press releases, added, “Friday afternoon is the best time of the week for the government to bury unpleasant news. Since NIST insists it has found ‘no evidence’ of a controlled demolition, it must not consider the videos of WCT-7′s collapse as ‘evidence,’ because they leave no room for doubt. The fires in Building 7 provide a good cover story to hide the fact that powerful explosives brought it down.” He is also not impressed with Giuliani’s excuse for not going to his command center, which is that another plane could have been headed for it. “But if another plane was headed toward the World Trade Center, then he should have directed that the firemen be removed from all the buildings, which he did not do.” (See http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=rudolf_(_rudy_)_giuliani ).

There were other oddities related to WTC-7, including Larry Silverstein reporting (during a PBS interview) that he had suggested to the fire commander that the best thing to do might be to “pull it” (where, he said, “They made the decision to pull, and we watched the building come down”) and the BBC broadcast of a report of the collapse of “the Solomon Brothers Building” at least 23 minutes before the event would actually occur. “This was stunning,” Fetzer said, “because you could see WTC-7 in the background over her left shoulder as she reported its collapse. It is hard to imagine a more revealing demonstration of the entanglement of the intelligence agencies, the administration, and the mass media. And a ‘terrorism drill’ was scheduled for the next day.” The PBS interview and the BBC report are archived on the Scholars site at 911scholars.org.

“If Rosie O’Donnell had talked about ‘blast events initiating the collapse of WTC-7″, Fetzer said, “she would have been labeled a ‘conspiracy theorist.’ But then the official government account of 19 Islamic fundamentalists hijacking four commercial airlines, outfoxing the most sophisticated air defense system in the world to perpetrate these atrocities under the control of a guy in a cave in Afghanistan is only the most ‘outrageous’ conspiracy theory of them all. I guess we should be grateful that NIST is moving inch by inch toward a more adequate explanation of what actually happened on 9/11, which bears no relationship at all to what we have been told. Given the cumulative evidence, we are not ‘conspiracy theorists’ but ‘conspiracy realists.’”

WTC 7 Eyewitness Testimony Transcribed by Rolf Lindgren (edited for clarity with notes): Go to http://911scholars.org and click on “Press Releases” at the top.

911scholars.org

Founder, Scholars for 9/11 Truth

source:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_james_fe_070701_nist_exploring_9_2f11_.htm

===

-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

It is Proved that Dahlan Killed Arafat

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

It is Proved that Dahlan Killed Arafat

Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)

Tuesday, 03 July 2007

Hamas broadcasted another secret document that was handed in the former Minister of Domestic Affairs of Palestine, Muhammed Dahlan’s headquarters.

The new document shows that the former Minister of defense Muhammed Dahlan wrote a letter to the Minister of Defense of Israel, Shaul Mofaz in order to decide to kill Arafat.

Dahlan in his letter after determining the general instability in Palestine says to raze the ones who object to live with Israel.

Dahlan who in the letter writes that the death of the Palestinian leader Yaser Arafat is getting close, offer Mofaz this: “Make sure that Dear Arafat is counting his final days. But let us finish this job not with your methods, but with ours.”

In Dahlan’s letter it is seen that in the Palestinian Parliament a lot of ministers were persuaded or blackmailed in order to be taken to Dahlan’s own side and he also says he is ready to give his live to to keep his promises in front of President Bush.

The letter Dahlan wrote to Mofaz continues: “We managed to take the support of the members of the parliament to us not to Arafat by persuation or blackmail. But we are scared of surprises. As we come to the other associations connected to the Palestine Liberation Organization, we need to finish or empty them completely. Whatever it costs we must stop them come together in West Bank or Gaza. This is more important for your benefits than ours.”

Dahlan finished his letter written on 13.07.2003 with gratitude to Mofaz and Sharon.

AMSI Net- World Bulletin

source:
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m34197&hd=&size=1&l=e

===

-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

A Declaration of Independence From Israel

By Chris Hedges

07/03/07 “Truthdig” — –Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid.

The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state.

Israel was born at midnight May 14, 1948. The U.S. recognized the new state 11 minutes later. The two countries have been locked in a deadly embrace ever since.

Washington, at the beginning of the relationship, was able to be a moderating influence. An incensed President Eisenhower demanded and got Israel’s withdrawal after the Israelis occupied Gaza in 1956. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes bombed the USS Liberty. The ship, flying the U.S. flag and stationed 15 miles off the Israeli coast, was intercepting tactical and strategic communications from both sides. The Israeli strikes killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. The deliberate attack froze, for a while, Washington’s enthusiasm for Israel. But ruptures like this one proved to be only bumps, soon smoothed out by an increasingly sophisticated and well-financed Israel lobby that set out to merge Israeli and American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Israel has reaped tremendous rewards from this alliance. It has been given more than $140 billion in U.S. direct economic and military assistance. It receives about $3 billion in direct assistance annually, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. foreign aid budget. Although most American foreign aid packages stipulate that related military purchases have to be made in the United States, Israel is allowed to use about 25 percent of the money to subsidize its own growing and profitable defense industry. It is exempt, unlike other nations, from accounting for how it spends the aid money. And funds are routinely siphoned off to build new Jewish settlements, bolster the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and construct the security barrier, which costs an estimated $1 million a mile.

The barrier weaves its way through the West Bank, creating isolated pockets of impoverished Palestinians in ringed ghettos. By the time the barrier is finished it will probably in effect seize up to 40 percent of Palestinian land. This is the largest land grab by Israel since the 1967 war. And although the United States officially opposes settlement expansion and the barrier, it also funds them.

The U.S. has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems and given Israel access to some of the most sophisticated items in its own military arsenal, including Blackhawk attack helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. The United States also gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its NATO allies. And when Israel refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the United States stood by without a word of protest as the Israelis built the region’s first nuclear weapons program.

U.S. foreign policy, especially under the current Bush administration, has become little more than an extension of Israeli foreign policy. The United States since 1982 has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It refuses to enforce the Security Council resolutions it claims to support. These resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.

There is now volcanic anger and revulsion by Arabs at this blatant favoritism. Few in the Middle East see any distinction between Israeli and American policies, nor should they. And when the Islamic radicals speak of U.S. support of Israel as a prime reason for their hatred of the United States, we should listen. The consequences of this one-sided relationship are being played out in the disastrous war in Iraq, growing tension with Iran, and the humanitarian and political crisis in Gaza. It is being played out in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is gearing up for another war with Israel, one most Middle East analysts say is inevitable. The U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is unraveling. And it is doing so because of this special relationship. The eruption of a regional conflict would usher in a nightmare of catastrophic proportions.

There were many in the American foreign policy establishment and State Department who saw this situation coming. The decision to throw our lot in with Israel in the Middle East was not initially a popular one with an array of foreign policy experts, including President Harry Truman’s secretary of state, Gen. George Marshall. They warned there would be a backlash. They knew the cost the United States would pay in the oil-rich region for this decision, which they feared would be one of the greatest strategic blunders of the postwar era. And they were right. The decision has jeopardized American and Israeli security and created the kindling for a regional conflagration.

The alliance, which makes no sense in geopolitical terms, does makes sense when seen through the lens of domestic politics. The Israel lobby has become a potent force in the American political system. No major candidate, Democrat or Republican, dares to challenge it. The lobby successfully purged the State Department of Arab experts who challenged the notion that Israeli and American interests were identical. Backers of Israel have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to support U.S. political candidates deemed favorable to Israel. They have brutally punished those who strayed, including the first President Bush, who they said was not vigorous enough in his defense of Israeli interests. This was a lesson the next Bush White House did not forget. George W. Bush did not want to be a one-term president like his father.

Israel advocated removing Saddam Hussein from power and currently advocates striking Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Direct Israeli involvement in American military operations in the Middle East is impossible. It would reignite a war between Arab states and Israel. The United States, which during the Cold War avoided direct military involvement in the region, now does the direct bidding of Israel while Israel watches from the sidelines. During the 1991 Gulf War, Israel was a spectator, just as it is in the war with Iraq.

President Bush, facing dwindling support for the war in Iraq, publicly holds Israel up as a model for what he would like Iraq to become. Imagine how this idea plays out on the Arab street, which views Israel as the Algerians viewed the French colonizers during the war of liberation.

“In Israel,” Bush said recently, “terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it’s not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that’s a good indicator of success that we’re looking for in Iraq.”

Americans are increasingly isolated and reviled in the world. They remain blissfully ignorant of their own culpability for this isolation. U.S. “spin” paints the rest of the world as unreasonable, but Israel, Americans are assured, will always be on our side.

Israel is reaping economic as well as political rewards from its lock-down apartheid state. In the “gated community” market it has begun to sell systems and techniques that allow the nation to cope with terrorism. Israel, in 2006, exported $3.4 billion in defense products­well over a billion dollars more than it received in American military aid. Israel has grown into the fourth largest arms dealer in the world. Most of this growth has come in the so-called homeland security sector

“The key products and services,” as Naomi Klein wrote in The Nation, “are hi-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems­precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. And that is why the chaos in Gaza and the rest of the region doesn’t threaten the bottom line in Tel Aviv, and may actually boost it. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the ‘global war on terror.’ ”

The United States, at least officially, does not support the occupation and calls for a viable Palestinian state. It is a global player, with interests that stretch well beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, and the equation that Israel’s enemies are our enemies is not that simple.

“Terrorism is not a single adversary,” John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote in The London Review of Books, “but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups. The terrorist organizations that threaten Israel do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or ‘the West’; it is largely a response to Israel’s prolonged campaign to colonize the West Bank and Gaza Strip. More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around.”

Middle Eastern policy is shaped in the United States by those with very close ties to the Israel lobby. Those who attempt to counter the virulent Israeli position, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, are ruthlessly slapped down. This alliance was true also during the Clinton administration, with its array of Israel-first Middle East experts, including special Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, the former deputy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, one of the most powerful Israel lobbying groups in Washington. But at least people like Indyk and Ross are sane, willing to consider a Palestinian state, however unviable, as long as it is palatable to Israel. The Bush administration turned to the far-right wing of the Israel lobby, those who have not a shred of compassion for the Palestinians or a word of criticism for Israel. These new Middle East experts include Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, the disgraced I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and David Wurmser.

Washington was once willing to stay Israel’s hand. It intervened to thwart some of its most extreme violations of human rights. This administration, however, has signed on for every disastrous Israeli blunder, from building the security barrier in the West Bank, to sealing off Gaza and triggering a humanitarian crisis, to the ruinous invasion and saturation bombing of Lebanon.

The few tepid attempts by the Bush White House to criticize Israeli actions have all ended in hasty and humiliating retreats in the face of Israeli pressure. When the Israel Defense Forces in April 2002 reoccupied the West Bank, President Bush called on then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to “halt the incursions and begin withdrawal.” It never happened. After a week of heavy pressure from the Israel lobby and Israel’s allies in Congress, meaning just about everyone in Congress, the president gave up, calling Sharon “a man of peace.” It was a humiliating moment for the United States, a clear sign of who pulled the strings.

There were several reasons for the war in Iraq. The desire for American control of oil, the belief that Washington could build puppet states in the region, and a real, if misplaced, fear of Saddam Hussein played a part in the current disaster. But it was also strongly shaped by the notion that what is good for Israel is good for the United States. Israel wanted Iraq neutralized. Israeli intelligence, in the lead-up to the war, gave faulty information to the U.S. about Iraq’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And when Baghdad was taken in April 2003, the Israeli government immediately began to push for an attack on Syria. The lust for this attack has waned, in no small part because the Americans don’t have enough troops to hang on in Iraq, much less launch a new occupation.

Israel is currently lobbying the United States to launch aerial strikes on Iran, despite the debacle in Lebanon. Israel’s iron determination to forcibly prevent a nuclear Iran makes it probable that before the end of the Bush administration an attack on Iran will take place. The efforts to halt nuclear development through diplomatic means have failed. It does not matter that Iran poses no threat to the United States. It does not matter that it does not even pose a threat to Israel, which has several hundred nuclear weapons in its arsenal. It matters only that Israel demands total military domination of the Middle East.

The alliance between Israel and the United States has culminated after 50 years in direct U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. This involvement, which is not furthering American interests, is unleashing a geopolitical nightmare. American soldiers and Marines are dying in droves in a useless war. The impotence of the United States in the face of Israeli pressure is complete. The White House and the Congress have become, for perhaps the first time, a direct extension of Israeli interests. There is no longer any debate within the United States. This is evidenced by the obsequious nods to Israel by all the current presidential candidates with the exception of Dennis Kucinich. The political cost for those who challenge Israel is too high.

This means there will be no peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It means the incidents of Islamic terrorism against the U.S. and Israel will grow. It means that American power and prestige are on a steep, irreversible decline. And I fear it also means the ultimate end of the Jewish experiment in the Middle East.

The weakening of the United States, economically and militarily, is giving rise to new centers of power. The U.S. economy, mismanaged and drained by the Iraq war, is increasingly dependent on Chinese trade imports and on Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. China holds dollar reserves worth $825 billion. If Beijing decides to abandon the U.S. bond market, even in part, it would cause a free fall by the dollar. It would lead to the collapse of the $7-trillion U.S. real estate market. There would be a wave of U.S. bank failures and huge unemployment. The growing dependence on China has been accompanied by aggressive work by the Chinese to build alliances with many of the world’s major exporters of oil, such as Iran, Nigeria, Sudan and Venezuela. The Chinese are preparing for the looming worldwide clash over dwindling resources.

The future is ominous. Not only do Israel’s foreign policy objectives not coincide with American interests, they actively hurt them. The growing belligerence in the Middle East, the calls for an attack against Iran, the collapse of the imperial project in Iraq have all given an opening, where there was none before, to America’s rivals. It is not in Israel’s interests to ignite a regional conflict. It is not in ours. But those who have their hands on the wheel seem determined, in the name of freedom and democracy, to keep the American ship of state headed at breakneck speed into the cliffs before us.

source:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070702_a_declaration_of_independence_from_israel/

===

-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Afghan elders say 45 civilians killed in air strikes

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Afghan elders say 45 civilians killed in air strikes

Sun Jul 1, 1:31 PM ET

GIRISHK, Afghanistan (AFP) – Village elders said Sunday they had recovered the bodies of 45 civilians, mostly women and children, killed in foreign air strikes as Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered an investigation.

NATO’s force, under fire over the number of civilian casualties, said however it believed fewer than a dozen villagers and a “significant number” of Taliban were killed in Friday’s bombardment in southern Helmand province.

With tensions high, Taliban fighters attacked troops from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the same area, Girishk district, killing a British soldier and wounding four others, the defence ministry in London said.

Sunday’s attack was followed by a suspected suicide bomb, ISAF said. Witnesses said a military vehicle was set ablaze. Three Afghan passers-by were also hurt, the government said.

Helmand province is among the most volatile areas of Afghanistan, with extremist Taliban militants said to be teamed up with foreign “jihadists” and illegal opium traders.

Friday’s air strikes by ISAF and the separate US-led coalition were called in after troops trying to clear the Helmand River of Taliban fighters came under heavy attack, military forces have said.

The strikes had targeted positions from which the troops were being fired on, ISAF spokesman Major John Thomas said.

“The civilians who may have died were in the same firing positions with the Taliban extremists who were firing on us,” he said.

They included women and children who were found among the bodies of killed Taliban in trenches.

“At this time we believe after our survey of the situation yesterday (Saturday) when the fighting ceased that there may be less than a dozen civilians dead,” he said.

But village elders said they had recovered 45 bodies, mostly women and children, Girishk district chief Dur Alisha told AFP.

Such a toll of civilian dead would be the highest since 2002, the year after the Taliban were ousted from power in an invasion led by the United States.

The elders said 23 more civilians were wounded and 62 Taliban fighters were killed, according to Alisha.

“People are digging under the rubble for more bodies. There’s a possibility that more people might be under debris,” Alisha said.

Karzai dispatched a team of government officials and parliamentarians to the remote area to investigate, his office said.

Just over a week ago the president accused international forces of killing civilians through an “extreme use of force” and lack of coordination with the Afghan government.

Some 380 civilians have been killed in insurgency-linked violence this year, about half in Taliban attacks and half in foreign military action, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission told AFP Sunday.

“In the recent few attacks there are more from the international forces but in general one could say they are balanced in killing,” said commissioner Nader Nadery, whose group registered about 700 civilian deaths last year.

The casualties have left Afghans increasingly frustrated and have undermined the international effort to defeat the Taliban, Nadery said.

“Unless there is more coordination, unless there is immediate compensation to families affected, and proper investigations, we would not be able to win this war against the Taliban,” he said.

Some have called for the foreign forces to reduce their use of air power to minimise civilian casualties.

But ISAF says it does not have enough troops to put on the ground, where they would also be at a disadvantage because they do not know the terrain.

“This is what the Taliban want to do, to stop us from using air strikes and to force us onto the ground,” an official said on condition of anonymity.

“If we are not able to use air, they will have won a big battle.”

source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070701/ts_afp/afghanistanunrest

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Recycling Iraq Lies: The Washington Post and the Mysterious Miss Shelton

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Recycling Iraq Lies: The Washington Post and the Mysterious Miss Shelton

A. Alexander, Progressive Daily Beacon

July 2, 2007

Out of the blue, so it seemed, the Washington Post recently published an op-ed piece titled, “Iraq, al-Qaeda and Tenet’s Equivocation.” It was written by someone named Christina Shelton. As the author appeared to go out of her way to, in the most amateurish and laborious manner imaginable, rehash tired and thoroughly disproved tales of ties between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda; knowing who this Christina Shelton was, seemed central to understanding the true motivation behind the publication.

It should be noted that the contemporary recycling of the Iraq-al Qaeda yarn, is not happening by accident. A recent poll found that 41 percent of the American people continue to believe that, falsely of course, Saddam was somehow tied to the attacks on September 11, 2001. They didn’t sanction the poll obviously, but the Bush administration does read and watch the news. They know there remains a healthy portion of the population that the government had intentionally misled and misinformed, who still believes the pre-war lies. That is why this past week, shortly after the poll was released, Mister Bush scurried off to a friendly public gathering among members of the Navy. He wanted to further the administration’s latest narrative, a fictionalized theme asserting that al Qaeda is currently overrunning Iraq. It is a claim that not even Mister Bush’s own senior intelligence analysts support.

But, as all things with this administration and America’s corporate-owned media, what is factual is not vital. The only thing that matters is what can be exploited for political gain. And, if telling blatant lies is the only way to achieve support for Mister Bush’s agenda, then telling lies it must be.

Shelton’s piece seemed out of place because the title, “Iraq, al-Qaeda and Tenet’s Equivocation,” hinted at an attempt to discredit the former CIA commander and certain allegations, perhaps, found in his book. That was odd because Tenet’s book has been out for months and nobody has claimed it to have been of any great consequence to the administration’s political fortunes. What was even more out of sorts, was the person doing the vilification – an assumed low-level lackey for whom Google held no particular favor.

However, it wasn’t long into the article before Christina Shelton’s hidden agenda came roaring through loud and clear. Her intent had nothing to do with Tenet’s book or any assertions he had made in it. Tenet’s book was just the excuse used by Shelton and the Washington Post’s Opinion Page Editor, to assist the administration’s latest effort at rekindling the Saddam-Iraq-al Qaeda passions still nurtured by that vitally important 41 percent of the American public.

Highlighting hollow examples extracted from Tenet’s book, Shelton didn’t miss an opportunity to transparently reprocess nearly every discredited pre-war Iraq-al Qaeda falsehood.

“… I summarized a body of mostly CIA reporting (dating from 1990 to 2002), from a variety of sources,” Shelton writes, “that reflected a pattern of Iraqi support for al-Qaeda, including high-level contacts between Iraqi senior officials and al-Qaeda, training in bomb making, Iraqi offers of safe haven, and a nonaggression agreement to cooperate on unspecified areas.”

In reality, however, in February 2002, Shelton had been combing through old Iraq-related intelligence when, “she stumbled upon a small paragraph in a CIA report from the mid-1990s that stopped her.” That small paragraph, the source having been discredited and/or the allegation never corroborated through independent sources, was never intended to be considered as evidence of anything. That original discovery of disgraced intelligence, however, led Shelton to dig even deeper into the CIA’s tombs of discarded reporting.

Eventually Shelton was able to piecemeal together still more skeletal scraps of unconfirmed and unsubstantiated reports. Shelton had used selective snippets to prove a theory that she and the administration had conjured out of thin air. Shelton and her boss, to be revealed shortly, knew full well that the small fragments of intelligence that they had taped, glued, and stapled together had previously been vetted and discounted by the regional intelligence analysts. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that someone, somewhere and at sometime had made just enough wild accusations that, put into the right pair of unscrupulous hands and twisted just so in the shadowy light, could be used to justify the administration’s pre-war narrative.

Uncovering the identity of Christina Shelton, wasn’t easy. The Post’s recent piece said only that she was an “intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency from 1984 to 2006.” Which, perhaps, may be the understatement of the century.

In 2004 this is how the Post’s own reporter, Dana Priest, in a story that investigated the administration’s possible nefarious use of “intelligence,” explained Christina Shelton’s discovery of the debunked intelligence and, too, revealed her identity:

“Her boss, Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy and the point man on Iraq, was so impressed that he set up a briefing for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was so impressed he asked her to brief CIA Director George J. Tenet in August 2002. By summer’s end, Shelton had also briefed deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby.”

It seems rather odd that the Washington Post omitted the fact that this Christina Shelton was not only a member of the infamous Bush administration’s pre-war Office of Special Plans (a small cadre of Bush-Cheney loyalists whose work has been entirely discredited as false, if not criminal), but, too, the paper failed to identify her as having played a key role in building the false case for going to war with Iraq.

Shelton’s piece attributes a letter as having been sent by Tenet, to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Shelton claims Tenet wrote, “We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa’ida going back a decade.” Of the letter’s content, she was correct. But, Tenet never sent it. CIA Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin sent the letter. Why? Obviously, as we’ve seen time and again in this administration (when the principals don’t want to be associated with the administration’s lies) Tenet didn’t believe there was a link between Iraq and al Qaeda as Shelton’s discarded intelligence asserted, and he refused to write the letter. Instead, a lackey with ambitions within the administration, in this case McLaughlin, gleefully misled the Senate Select Committee.

Few news agencies outside of FOX News played a larger role in misleading the American public into the war on Iraq, than had the Washington Post. Time and again, the paper played the administration’s willing Pravda-like war-supporting megaphone. It appears now, with the administration seizing upon the knowledge that 41 percent of the American people remain ignorant to basic Iraq-al Qaeda facts, Mister Bush and his people are deeply involved in trying to exploit that ignorance to their political advantage. What’s more, the Washington Post, beginning with Shelton’s out-of-place piece, is once again leading the misinformation charge for the White House.

For more on Dana Priest’s 2004 report regarding Christina Shelton, click THIS LINK

To read Shelton’s latest Iraq-al Qaeda bunk click THIS LINK

source:
http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/more.php?page=opinion&id=1592

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The real problem with ‘everybody’s al-Qaeda’

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

The real problem with ‘everybody’s al-Qaeda’

Marc Lynch, Abu Aardvark

July 2, 2007

A lot of bloggers have been complaining about the recent American tendency to describe every insurgent attack in Iraq as “al-Qaeda”. They are right to complain, simply on the facts. Al-Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq coalition continues to represent only a minority of attacks against American forces or Iraqi government targets. Consider this chart from the fascinating recent RFE/RL report on Sunni insurgency media, tracking claims of insurgency operations in March 2007:

The authors of the report tracked claims of responsibility for various operations on the insurgency internet sites during March 2007. The Islamic State of Iraq (al-Qaeda) claimed 13 attacks on US forces and 40 on Iraqi government targets. The Islamic Army of Iraq – the ISI’s chief Sunni adversary – claimed 80 operations against US forces and 103 against Iraqi government targets. And the Mujahidin Army, another faction outside the ISI coalition, claimed 132 operations against US government forces (and another 4 against Iraqi government). Even Ansar al-Sunnah, whose position has been unclear with regard to the ISI, claimed 44 against US forces and 90 against the Iraqi government. (The 1920 Revolution Brigade is the one major faction which rarely posts claims on the internet.) This is only one of various ways that such operations could be tracked, but all of them produce similar results: the Islamic State of Iraq (al-Qaeda) does indeed carry out horrific, often spectacular, violent operations against the Iraqi government and US forces, but its number of operations are dwarfed by those claimed by the other, more nationalist, factions.

The architects of American counter-insurgency strategy know this: this team isn’t stupid, and is doing its best to deal with the impossible situation bequeathed it by years of failure. So why the exaggeration of al-Qaeda’s role? Most commentators have focused on its role in bamboozling American public opinion; I’ll leave it to other to hash that out. There’s another side to it, which fits the Petraeus method rather well: the ‘al-Qaeda gambit’ is part of an information operations strategy aimed at turning Iraqi opinion against the insurgency. By playing up the atrocities committed by the Islamist State of Iraq coalition and attempting to equate anti-US and anti-government violence with the unpopular al-Qaeda, the US (I’d wager) hopes do delegitimize violence which currently enjoys considerable support as “resistance”.

This also gives cover to more nationalist insurgency factions to join the political process (by defining themselves as ‘not al-Qaeda’). Hence a media blitz – in both English and Arabic – pushing the alleged Sunni turn against this redefined al-Qaeda, and the sudden deluge of stories about various insurgency factions cooperating with American forces in operations against al-Qaeda, or the US arming these groups. Those splits are real, as I wrote about at length a few months ago before all this got started, but this latest media blitz is as exaggerated as is the ‘al-Qaeda gambit’. As I warned, it tends to downplay the extent to which these anti-AQ insurgents remain intensely dedicated to driving the Americans out, even if they are temporarily happy to use the US against its current rivals. At any rate, this media blitz seems more an attempt to confuse and divide the insurgency factions, and to offer a legitimate path into the political system for members of those groups. The media campaign has been successful enough that the 1920 Revolution Brigades, mentioned in dozens of news stories as taking part in US-led operations, recently released one of its very infrequent internet commiques forcefully denying the reports. Let’s hope that the strategists don’t believe their own propaganda – I don’t think that they do, even if American media eats it up, but these things do have a way of taking on their own life.

Even granted the logic outlined above, the ‘everybody’s al-Qaeda’ gambit is remarkably short-sighted and self-defeating. Within Iraq, people are less likely to be fooled. Most significantly, the labeling of all violence as al-Qaeda has the effect of shutting down discussion of the political goals of the insurgency factions – at precisely the time when comprehensive political dialogue in Iraq is most urgently needed. At a time when everyone claims to recognize that the military efforts will only matter to the extent that they produce political reconciliation, this would seem to matter. Shrinking the field of Sunni positions to ‘cooperating with the US’ and ‘al-Qaeda’ simply defines away the overwhelmingly dominant political stance within the Sunni community – the nationalist, anti-US and anti-Maliki line represented by the major insurgency factions, the AMS, and so forth. This risks someday becoming a textbook example of tactics defeating strategy.

But the real harm comes in the wider Arab and Muslim world, where the exaggeration of al-Qaeda’s role works directly and devastatingly against American goals. It magnifies al-Qaeda’s perceived power, strengthening its own media campaign and feeding its most powerful propaganda instrument. Attributing all these attacks to al-Qaeda certainly doesn’t hurt al-Qaeda’s image: Iraq is the one place where al-Qaeda’s violence is actually widely supported in the Muslim world (a recent PIPA survey found that over 90% of Egyptians thought that attacks on American civilians were against Islam and illegitimate, but over 90% of Egyptians thought that attacks on American troops in Iraq were legitimate). The administration in effect claims more power and military success for al-Qaeda in Iraq than al-Qaeda claims for itself – for which the al-Qaeda leadership can only be bemusedly grateful. Forget al-Hurra – if you’re looking for a real public diplomacy fiasco, you’ll be hard pressed to do worse than the US acting as al-Qaeda’s agent in promoting its Iraqi success.

source:
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2007/07/the-everybodys-.html

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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 2 July 2007

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 2 July 2007

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice.

Monday, 2 July 2007.

• Splits in ranks of American puppet forces threaten tribal conflict among American collaborators that could unravel US strategy in al-Anbar Province.
• US admits five troops killed in Resistance attacks in Iraq on Sunday.

Al-Anbar Province.
Ar-Ramadi.

Splits in ranks of American puppet forces threaten tribal conflict among American collaborators that could unravel US strategy in al-Anbar Province.

In a dispatch posted at 5:12pm Baghdad time Monday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that informed sources have reported that the puppet “al-Anbar Salvation Council” set up by the US in al-Anbar Province has split apart, as a result of differences among members of the collaborationist “Council.”

The AMSI reported that political differences had arisen between the chairman of the “al-Anbar Salvation Council,” Sattar Abu Rishah, on the one hand and, on the other, the puppet “governor” of the province and the Shaykh ‘Ali Hatim as-Sulayman, one of the organizers of the so-called “Congress of al-Anbar Awakening” – from which the “Salvation Council” originally sprang.

The pro-American “Congress of al-Anbar Awakening” knocked together the puppet police or militia known as the “al-Anbar Salvation Council” with American assistance in August 2006 with the aim of fighting al-Qa‘idah and other Iraqi Resistance movements in al-Anbar Province on behalf of the US occupation.

The source told AMSI that the activities by the tribal force led by Sattar Abu Rishah had been rejected and repudiated by the US-installed puppet “governor” of al-Anbar Province, Ma’mun Rashid al-‘Alwani and ‘Ali al-Hatim as-Sulayman. The tension between the two factions of US collaborators was now threatening to break out in an open tribal war if the two sides cannot resolve their differences.

Shaykh ‘Ali al-Hatim as-Sulayman accuses Abu Rishah of exploiting the authority granted him by the puppet regime and says that the puppet “al-Anbar Revolutionary Police” set up by Abu Rishah in service to the US occupation had grown out of control by the regional puppet authorities. Their original mandate was to kill and drive out members of the al-Qa‘idah and other Iraqi Resistance organizations in the province but they had begun to terrorize civilian residents of al-Anbar, as-Sulayman complains.

The Saudi-backed London daily al-Hayat quoted as-Sulayman as saying “Abu Rishah is fighting al-Qa‘idah by day but then when night falls his gangs rob the population.”

But a member of the puppet “al-Anbar Salvation Council,” Mu’ayyid al-Khashin denied as-Sulayman’s claims, saying “the security forces and the tribes are carrying out their natural tasks as they battle al-Qa‘idah,” adding that the “arrests and operations that they carry out are only aimed at individuals who have joined al-Qa‘idah.”

Behind the differences of the collaborationist leaders over what tactics are the best for serving the American occupation in al-Anbar lie tribal rivalries that are now threatening to break out into open warfare. Accordingly representatives of the American-installed puppet regime and tribal leaders following that collaborationist course have been trying to intervene to prevent an escalation of the differences in what would undermine US efforts to use local collaborators to battle the Iraqi Resistance in the province.

Baghdad.

Mysterious car bomb explodes in eastern Baghdad Monday afternoon.

In a dispatch posted at 10:36pm Baghdad time Monday night, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that a car bomb exploded in the al-Bunuk neighborhood of eastern Baghdad on Monday afternoon.

In a dispatch posted at 9:51pm Makkah time Monday night, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the puppet police had announced that nine people were killed and another 33 wounded in the car bombing.

AMSI reported a source in the puppet regime as saying that the reason for the blast was unclear, as it was not apparently targeted on a puppet police or army patrol. The car bomb blew up after an unknown person had parked it near a market area that neighbors the Madinat ath-Thawrah section of Baghdad – the stronghold of Shi‘i sectarian cleric Muqtada as-Sadr that was nicknamed “Madinat as-Sadr” after the US occupation of Iraq in 2003.

US admits five more troops killed in Resistance attacks in Iraq on Sunday.

In a dispatch posted at 3:04pm Makkah time Monday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that four more of its soldiers and one US Marine had been killed in attacks in various parts of Iraq on Sunday.

Mafkarat al-Islam reported an American announcement as saying that two soldiers and one Marine were killed in al-Anbar Province on Sunday. In keeping with the American practice of concealing the facts regarding its losses in Iraq, the US statement failed to say where in the 138,501 square kilometers of al-Anbar the Americans were killed or in what they were engaged at the time.

Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the Americans had earlier announced that one soldier had died of wounds inflicted by small-arms fire in southern Baghdad on Sunday. Few details of that incident were released, in keeping with the US practice of secrecy.

In addition, the Americans declared, an Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a US patrol in western Baghdad and then Resistance fighters pounced on the Americans, killing one of them, in what was the second US death that the Pentagon admitted on Sunday.

Diyala Province.
Khanaqin.

Bomb kills commander of border guards near Iranian Frontier Monday morning.

In a dispatch posted at 9:32pm Baghdad time Monday evening, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that a bomb exploded on the road between Khanaqin, near the Iranian border, and Naft Khanah, about 40km south of it, both in Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad on Monday morning.

The AMSI reported propaganda officials of the puppet regime as saying that the blast killed two officers – one of them Lieutenant Colonel Jasim Sharif Muhammad, the commander of the puppet guards in Naft Khanah – and wounded three others.

The source said that the Naft Khanah Guards are a detachment of the puppet Iraqi border guard forces. He added that the bodies of the dead and the wounded men were taken to the Khanaqin District Hospital for treatment.

Al-Miqdadiyah.

Village near al-Miqdadiyah comes under mysterious bombardment.

In a dispatch posted at 2:04pm Baghdad time Monday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that a source in the puppet security forces in al-Miqdadiyah, 85km northeast of Baghdad, had announced that the village of Dubabiyah, which is 5km west of al-Miqdadiyah, came under a mortar barrage during Sunday-Monday night. The identity of the attackers was unknown.

The AMSI reported that the source disclosed that four mortar shells of unknown origin blasted into the village, damaging some residential houses but claiming no lives.

At-Ta’mim Province.
Al-Huwayjah.

Resistance fighters ambush puppet police patrol in al-Huwayjah Monday morning.

In a dispatch posted at 2:04pm Baghdad time Monday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that Iraqi Resistance fighters ambushed a puppet police patrol in the city of al-Huwayjah, 200km north of Baghdad on Monday morning.

The AMSI reported a source in the puppet police as saying that the patrol was attacked in the middle of the al-Huwayjah Market. Two puppet policemen were wounded.

Al-Basrah Province.
Al-Basrah.

British camps come under indirect fire.

In a dispatch posted at 3:30pm Baghdad time Monday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that British camps in the al-Basrah area in southern Iraq had come under attack with Katyusha rockets and mortar shells in the preceding 24 hours.

The AMSI reported a British communiqué as saying that the main headquarters of the British occupation troops located in the Presidential Palaces and at al-Basrah International Airport, as well as other British camps came under indirect attack. The British statement said that no casualties or material damage had been inflicted by the shooting.

http://www.albasrah.net/pages/mod.php?mod=art&lapage=../en_articles_2007/0707/iraqiresistancereport_020707.htm

Sources:
http://www.qudspress.com/look/article.tpl?IdLanguage=17&IdPublication=1&NrArticle=20252&NrIssue=1&NrSection=3

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=18007&ff4d9dab3e68048043c595f99618315d

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=18003&f410f2a79495bbcbeb7d536c366227e0

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=18002&6021a3c53470d1fe95d2ba9ebd733d39

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=18000&4b298b4da0a286f0b4f6a9018c1c8829

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=17999&2ee9a9d5c08da8d5039d0ee760678064

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=17995&df2dddb09d84e72bbfbacdf83c520b81

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=17993&54fe650446060eef9fac14016f577f88

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=17992&78439ed9677ba5555fecd72848949bfb

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=17991&e2801e216dd152343ffeb6e4bf3a545a

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=17988&c76a721b9ba8c1c7322cc1aa4ed2dfd3

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=17978&a56550a22003c01835508e68b26cbd7d

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=17976&18dba4353bea1fba3f977fe2fa9373f0

http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=17974&53fee16e41d6f1b62e2da8bc8ba987ff

http://www.islammemo.cc/article1.aspx?id=46728

http://www.islammemo.cc/article1.aspx?id=46723

http://www.islammemo.cc/article1.aspx?id=46707

http://www.islammemo.cc/article1.aspx?id=46698

http://www.islammemo.cc/article1.aspx?id=46686

http://www.islammemo.cc/article1.aspx?id=46681

http://www.islammemo.cc/article1.aspx?id=46674

http://www.freearabvoice.org
http://www.albasrah.net/pages/mod.php?header=res1&mod=gis&rep=rep

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