Why Israel Has No “Right to Exist” as a Jewish State

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

=== News Update ===

By OREN BEN-DOR

Yet again, the Annapolis meeting between Olmert and Abbas is preconditioned upon the recognition by the Palestinian side of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. Indeed the “road map” should lead to, and legitimate, once and for all, the right of such a Jewish state to exist in definitive borders and in peace with its neighbours. The vision of justice, both past and future, simply has to be that of two states, one Palestinian, one Jewish, which would coexist side by side in peace and stability. Finding a formula for a reasonably just partition and separation is still the essence of what is considered to be moderate, pragmatic and fair ethos.

Thus, the really deep issues–the “core”–are conceived as the status of Jerusalem, the fate and future of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and the viability of the future Palestinian state beside the Jewish one. The fate of the descendants of those 750000 Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in 1948 from what is now, and would continue to be under a two-state solutions, the State of Israel, constitutes a “problem” but never an “issue” because, God forbid, to make it an issue on the table would be to threaten the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. The existence of Israel as a Jewish state must never become a core issue. That premise unites political opinion in the Jewish state, left and right and also persists as a pragmatic view of many Palestinians who would prefer some improvement to no improvement at all.Only “extremists” such as Hamas, anti-Semites, and Self-Hating Jews–terribly disturbed, misguided and detached lot–can make Israel’s existence into a core problem and in turn into a necessary issue to be debated and addressed.

The Jewish state, a supposedly potential haven for all the Jews in the world in the case a second Holocaust comes about, should be recognised as a fact on the ground blackmailed into the “never again” rhetoric. All considerations of pragmatism and reasonableness in envisioning a “peace process” to settle the ‘Israeli/Palestinian’ conflict must never destabilise the sacred status of that premise that a Jewish state has a right to exist.

Notice, however, that Palestinian are not asked merely to recognise the perfectly true fact and with it, the absolutely feasible moral claim, that millions of Jewish people are now living in the State of Israel and that their physical existence, liberty and equality should be protected in any future settlement. They are not asked merely to recognise the assurance that any future arrangement would recognise historic Palestine as a home for the Jewish People.What Palestinians are asked to subscribe to recognition the right of an ideology that informs the make-up of a state to exist as Jewish one. They are asked to recognise that ethno-nationalistic premise of statehood.

The fallacy is clear: the recognition of the right of Jews who are there–however unjustly many of their Parents or Grandparents came to acquire what they own–to remain there under liberty and equality in a post-colonial political settlement, is perfectly compatible with the non-recognition of the state whose constitution gives those Jews a preferential stake in the polity.

It is an abuse of the notion of pragmatism to conceive its effort as putting the very notion of Jewish state beyond the possible and desirable implementation of egalitarian moral scrutiny. To so abuse pragmatism would be to put it at the service of the continuation of colonialism. A pragmatic and reasonable solution ought to centre on the problem of how to address past, present, and future injustices to non-Jew-Arabs without thereby cause other injustices to Jews. This would be a very complex pragmatic issue which would call for much imagination and generosity. But reasonableness and pragmatism should not determine whether the cause for such injustices be included or excluded from debates or negotiations. To pragmatically exclude moral claims and to pragmatically protect immoral assertions by fiat must in fact hide some form of extremism. The causes of colonial injustice and the causes that constitutionally prevent their full articulation and address should not be excluded from the debate. Pragmatism can not become the very tool that legitimate constitutional structures that hinder de-colonisation and the establishment of egalitarian constitution.

So let us boldly ask: What exactly is entailed by the requirement to recognise Israel as a Jewish state? What do we recognise and support when we purchase a delightful avocado or a date from Israel or when we invite Israel to take part in an international football event? What does it mean to be a friend of Israel? What precisely is that Jewish state whose status as such would be once and for all legitimised by such a two-state solution?

A Jewish state is a state which exists more for the sake of whoever is considered Jewish according to various ethnic, tribal, religious, criteria, than for the sake of those who do not pass this test. What precisely are the criteria of the test for Jewishness is not important and at any rate the feeble consensus around them is constantly reinvented in Israel. Instigating violence provides them with the impetus for doing that. What is significant, thought, is that a test of Jewishness is being used in order to constitutionally protect differential stakes in, that is the differential ownership of, a polity. A recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is a recognition of the Jews special entitlement, as eternal victims, to have a Jewish state. Such a test of supreme stake for Jews is the supreme criterion not only for racist policy making by the legislature but also for a racist constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court.The idea of a state that is first and foremost for the sake of Jews trumps even that basic law of Human Freedom and Dignity to which the Israeli Supreme Court pays so much lip service. Such constitutional interpretation would have to make the egalitarian principle equality of citizenship compatible with, and thus subservient to, the need to maintain the Jewish majority and character of the state. This of course constitutes a serious compromise of equality, translated into many individual manifestations of oppression and domination of those victims of such compromise–non-Jews-Arabs citizens of Israel.

In our world, a world that resisted Apartheid South Africa so impressively, recognition of the right of the Jewish state to exist is a litmus test for moderation and pragmatism. The demand is that Palestinians recognise Israel’s entitlement to constitutionally entrench a system of racist basic laws and policies, differential immigration criteria for Jews and non-Jews, differential ownership and settlements rights, differential capital investments, differential investment in education, formal rules and informal conventions that differentiate the potential stakes of political participation, lame-duck academic freedom and debate.

In the Jewish state of Israel non-Jews-Arabs citizens are just “bad luck” and are considered an ticking demographic bomb of “enemy within”. They can be given the right to vote–indeed one member one vote–but the potential of their political power, even their birth rate, should be kept at bay by visible and invisible, instrumental and symbolic, discrimination. But now they are asked to put up with their inferior stake and recognise the right of Israel to continue to legitimate the non-egalitarian premise of its statehood.

We must not forget that the two state “solution” would open a further possibility to non-Jew-Arabs citizens of Israel: “put up and shut up or go to a viable neighbouring Palestinian state where you can have your full equality of stake”.Such an option, we must never forget, is just a part of a pragmatic and reasonable package.

The Jewish state could only come into being in May 1948 by ethnically cleansing most of the indigenous population–750000 of them. The judaisation of the state could only be effectively implemented by constantly internally displacing the population of many villages within the Israel state.

It would be unbearable and unreasonable to demand Jews to allow for the Right of Return of those descendants of the expelled. Presumably, those descendants too could go to a viable Palestinian state rather than, for example, rebuild their ruined village in the Galilee. On the other hand, a Jewish young couple from Toronto who never set their foot in Palestine has a right to settle in the Galilee. Jews and their descendants hold this right in perpetuity. You see, that right “liberates” them as people. Jews must never be put under the pressure to live as a substantial minority in the Holy Land under egalitarian arrangement. Their past justifies their preferential stake and the preservation of their numerical majority in Palestine.

So the non-egalitarian hits us again. It is clear that part of the realisation of that right of return would not only be a just the actual return, but also the assurance of equal stake and citizenship of all, Jews and non-Jews-Arabs after the return. A return would make the egalitarian claim by those who return even more difficult to conceal than currently with regard to Israel Arab second class citizens. What unites Israelis and many world Jews behind the call for the recognition of the right of a Jewish state to exist is their aversion for the possibility of living, as a minority, under conditions of equality of stake to all. But if Jews enjoys this equality in Canada why can not they support such equality in Palestine through giving full effect to the right of Return of Palestinians?

Let us look precisely at what the pragmatic challenge consists of: not pragmatism that entrenches inequality but pragmatism that responds to the challenge of equality.

The Right of Return of Palestinians means that Israel acknowledges and apologises for what it did in 1948. It does mean that Palestinian memory of the 1948 catastrophe, the Nakbah, is publicly revived in the Geography and collective memory of the polity. It does mean that Palestinians descendants would be allowed to come back to their villages. If this is not possible because there is a Jewish settlement there, they should be given the choice to found an alternative settlement nearby. This may mean some painful compulsory state purchase of agricultural lands that should be handed back to those who return. In cases when this is impossible they ought to be allowed the choice to settle in another place in the larger area or if not possible in another area in Palestine. Compensation would be the last resort and would always be offered as a choice. This kind of moral claim of return would encompass all Palestine including Tel Aviv.

At no time, however, it would be on the cards to throw Israeli Jews from their land.An egalitarian and pragmatic realisation of the Right of Return constitutes an egalitarian legal revolution. As such it would be paramount to address Jews’ worries about security and equality in any future arrangement in which they, or any other group, may become a minority. Jews national symbols and importance would be preserved. Equality of stake involves equality of symbolic ownership.

But it is important to emphasis that the Palestinian Right of Return would mean that what would cease to exist is the premise of a Jewish as well as indeed a Muslim state. A return without the removal of the constitutionally enshrined preferential stake is return to serfdom.

The upshot is that only by individuating cases of injustice, by extending claims for injustice to all historic Palestine, by fair address of them without creating another injustice for Jews and finally by ensuring the elimination of all racist laws that stems from the Jewish nature of the state including that nature itself, would justice be, and with it peace, possible. What we need is a spirit of generosity that is pragmatic but also morally uncompromising in terms of geographic ambit of the moral claims for repatriation and equality. This vision would propel the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But for all this to happen we must start by ceasing to recognize the right Israel to exist as a Jewish state. No spirit of generosity would be established without an egalitarian call for jettisoning the ethno-nationalistic notion upon which the Jewish state is based.

The path of two states is the path of separation.Its realisation would mean the entrenchment of exclusionary nationalism for many years. It would mean that the return of the dispossessed and the equality of those who return and those non-Jew-Arabs who are now there would have to be deferred indefinitely consigned to the dusty shelved of historical injustices.Such a scenario is sure to provoke more violence as it would establish the realisation and legitimisation of Zionist racism and imperialism.

Also, any bi-national arrangement ought to be subjected to a principle of equality of citizenship and not vice versa. The notion of separation and partition that can infect bi-nationalism, should be done away with and should not be tinkered with or rationalised in any way. Both spiritually and materially Jews and non-Jews can find national expression in a single egalitarian and non-sectarian state.

The non-recognition of the Jewish state is an egalitarian imperative that looks both at the past and to the future. It is the uncritical recognition of the right of Israel to exist at a Jewish state which is the core hindrance for this egalitarian premise to shape the ethical challenge that Palestine poses. A recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state means the silencing that would breed more and more violence and bloodshed.

The same moral intuition that brought so many people to condemn and sanction Apartheid South Africa ought also to prompt them to stop seeing a threat to existence of the Jewish state as the effect caused by the refugee ‘problem” or by the “demographic threat” from the non-Jew-Arabs within it. It is rather the other way round. It is the non-egalitarian premise of a Jewish state and the lack of empathy and corruption of all those who make us uncritically accept the right of such a state to exist that is both the cause of the refugee problem and cause for the inability to implement their return and treating them as equals thereafter.

We must see that the uncritically accepted recognition of Israel right to exist is, as Joseph Massad so well puts it in Al-Ahram, to accept Israel claim to have the right to be racist or, to develop Massad’s brilliant formulation, Israel’s claim to have the right to occupy to dispossess and to discriminate. What is it, I wonder, that prevent Israelis and so many of world Jews to respond to the egalitarian challenge? What is it, I wonder, that oppresses the whole world to sing the song of a “peace process” that is destined to legitimise racism in Palestine?

To claim such a right to be racist must come from a being whose victim’s face must hide very dark primordial aggression and hatred of all others.How can we find a connective tissue to that mentality that claims the legitimate right to harm other human beings? How can this aggression that is embedded in victim mentality be perturbed?

The Annapolis meeting is a con. As an egalitarian argument we should say loud and clear that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state.

Oren Ben-Dor grew up in Israel. He teaches Legal and Political Philosophy at the School of Law, University of Southampton, UK. He can be reached at: okbendor@yahoo.com

The full story in
http://www.counterpunch.org/bendor11202007.html

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-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

9/11 : The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th

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

=== News Update ===

9/11 : The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th

Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon speaks out

on 9/11, NORAD and what should have happened on 9/11.

By Jeremy Baker

 

Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon

Within three hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Robin Hordon knew it was an inside job. He had been an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) for eleven years before Reagan fired him and hundreds of his colleagues after they went on strike in the eighties. Having handled in-flight emergencies and two actual hijackings in his career, he is well qualified to comment on what NORAD should have been able to achieve in its response to the near simultaneous hijacking of four domestic passenger carriers on the morning of September 11th, 2001.

“There had to be something huge to explain why those aircraft weren’t shot down out of the sky. We have fighters on the ready to handle these situations twenty-four-seven. We have NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) monitors monitoring our skies twenty-four-seven. We have a lot of human beings, civilian and military, who care about doing their jobs.”

I spoke to Mr. Hordon one afternoon at a coffee shop in Bremerton, Washington.

“You have to understand the emotions, the duty, the job of an ATC. We are paid to watch aircraft go across the country.”

It’s clear that Hordon is passionate about the subject. A lot of people are. The dark questions that the attacks have left lingering in the national psyche have been recorded. 49% of New Yorkers believe that the government had something to do with 9/11. Following an interview with Charlie Sheen, a CNN poll revealed that 82% of respondents believed that there was “a government cover-up of 9/11.” Jay Leno asked Bill Maher on The Tonight Show about the fact that 37% of Americans (according to Scribbs-Howard) believe that the government was involved in some way with the attacks (Maher was definitely not one of them).

As far as the “emotions, the duty, the job” of an ATC is concerned, Hordon puts it this way:

“Imagine yourself at a circus, a fair, a crowded sports event. You have in your hand your little child of five or six, you’re amongst hundreds of people and you turn around and see that your child is gone. How do you feel at that moment? You feel panicked. You feel that this is the worst thing possible, so what you do is you engage. When ATCs lose an aircraft, all hell breaks loose. They flip right into motion. We take action and do not wait for other things to happen.”

As a former member of the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization), Hordon’s years as an ATC are particularly relevent to 9/11 researchers.

“I was a certified ATC in Boston west-bound departures, the routing that AA11 and UA175 followed on 9/11. I know it like the back of my hand.”

He even received a letter of commendation for his role in dealing with an actual hijacking. When it became clear that there hadn’t been a systems failure of any kind on the morning of September 11th, Hordon was certain that something had gone terribly wrong within the upper echelons of authority. A pilot (third level air carrier) as well as an ATC, he is well versed on in-flight emergency protocol. He is also adamant that if these procedures had been followed on 9/11 not one of the hijacked planes would have reached their targets.

“I’m sorry but American 11 should have been intercepted over southwest Connecticut­bang, done deal.”

According to Hordon, air emergencies requiring scrambles, or “flushes,” from fighter jets occur 50 to 150 times a year.

“It’s routine. At Otis AFB we would have practice exercises two or three times a year. We’d flush aircraft, get the B-52’s up, get the tankers up, get the fighters up. Just out of Otis there’d be twenty, thirty fighter jets. And on 9/11 there were plenty of fighters as well. They were just diverted over the ocean, tied up in drills, etc.”

The vast majority of air incidents are simple communications or routing failures, common mishaps that are easily remedied. Nonetheless, when a problem does arise, it is treated as an emergency and interceptors are scrambled.

“This is exactly what’s written in our manuals. We alert our immediate supervisors, we get another set of eyes on the scope. We have, two feet away from us, a little button that says ADC, Air Defense Command [nowadays NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector)]. Bing, hit the button. ‘Hey, this is me at the Boston Center air space. I just lost a target or I have an erratic target. He is twenty-five miles west of Keene, last reported at such-and-such location.’”

Pilots use similar checklists when responding to problems with their airplanes:

“If I lose an engine in a multi-engine aircraft I know exactly what to do. I start to control the aircraft to fly with one engine, I’ll shut the ailing engine down, I’ll get the aircraft trimmed up. It’s check, check, check.”

Hordon is not persuaded by those who make excuses for the lack of military response on 9/11. U.S. air defenses have been on hair-trigger alert to defend the nation from attack since the early sixties. The idea that, on the morning of 9/11, there was an inexplicable wave of incompetence on the part of his former FAA “brothers in arms” offends him deeply.

“The pilots are in their ready rooms, the planes are in open-ended hangars. You have frontline players, pilots and controllers. I’m there, I’m watching. The pilot is there, he’s flying. We have direct air defense command communications. That’s the way it’s been for fifty years.”

The unfathomable delays seen in military action on 9/11 are inconceivable to those who have painstakingly investigated the matter­and for a man who worked for years keeping air travel over the U.S. safe.

“Military pilots would have their asses off the ground faster than you could imagine. I know how quickly our systems can respond. Why would you design a system that responds slowly to an emergency?”

Claims by authorities that, once a hijacked aircraft’s transponders have been turned off, the plane becomes virtually invisible to radar, is another sore point for Hordon.

“Bottom line, these aircraft were always radar monitored, we were always in communication with them, even if they were hijacked. The only way you can lose an aircraft these days is for the plane to flat out blow up.”

Since any genuine air attack would not likely announce itself as such, NORAD radar has to be able to detect anything. But there’s nothing stealthy about an enormous Boeing passenger liner, whether its transponder is operating properly or not.

“That aircraft is represented on their radar scope from the time it takes off to the time it lands. Even little puddle-jumpers out of our local airports. NORAD tracks all these aircraft. They have the world’s most sophisticated radar.”

After eleven eventful years as an ATC, Hordon naturally reacted with shock when he first heard that fifty years of tried and true in-flight emergency protocol was abruptly altered in June of 2001, just two months before the attacks.

“Rumsfeld put a third party in between the ATC and the Air Defense Controller responsible for scrambling interceptors ­the Pentagon.”

He speculates that

“the phone calls went from the FAA to the Pentagon and were not answered. Therefore the Pentagon never reached down to the ADC base to release the aircraft. The Boston Center’s ATCs got so frustrated with the non-answer from the military that they finally said, ‘get these guys going anyways.’ That’s the way it’s been for fifty years. We scramble aircraft. We don’t wait for OK’s from third or fourth parties.”

The no-show status of the U.S. military on the morning of September 11th, 2001, has understandably become the single most compelling point that 9/11 researchers, writers and activists use to support their claims of complicity on the part of the U.S government (and its military and intelligence apparatus) in the attacks. When even those who condemn

“conspiracy theory” in regard to 9/11 have questioned the military’s conduct that morning, it’s clear that this anomaly is worthy of intense concern and diligent investigation. Whatever the case may be, there are no doubts that history’s largest and most technologically advanced military was apparently caught completely off guard by four huge hijacked passenger jets that were in the air for almost two hours on the crystal clear morning of 9/11.

9/11 researchers have spent years speculating about what exactly did happen in the cockpits of the hijacked jets on 9/11. Theories run the gamut, from duplicate aircraft taking over the flight plans of the hijacked planes to passenger jets being remotely commandeered in mid-air. Naturally, the technical complexities involved in operating a huge commercial passenger jet can only be fully conveyed by someone with extensive aviation training and experience.

“For years, they have been improving what the common person will call an autopilot. The modern term is a flight director. You can program a flight director basically for your entire flight, before and after you take off.”

Flight directors­high-tech navigational computers­are used in commercial aircraft because they are always sensing every factor that affects an aircraft’s flight (wind speed and direction, fuel weight, atmospheric conditions, etc.) and instantly make the adjustments necessary to sustain the most efficient and economic operation of the plane.

“The Boeing 707 Series, I believe, were the last series of aircraft built where you actually controlled the plane using wires or cables. There are no cables anymore. What we have now are electronic or hydraulic sensors that transmit information to servos and other control devices that apply pressure to the control surfaces.”

The fact that the operation of modern aircraft is primarily computerized essentially makes the controls hackable, either from onboard or, if the proper receivers are installed in the plane, from a remote location.

“Internally the aircraft had to have a separate receiver unit built into it; separate windows of access into the flight director and an ability to disengage the manual controls in the aircraft and take it over with all of the pre-determined information.”

Hordon adds an important caveat:

if a flight director was redirected during a flight, the new flight-plan would not necessarily be communicated to those on the ground.

Obviously, the training required to alter a flight director’s routing is substantial. But, as a student pilot learns to operate increasingly sophisticated aircraft, this knowledge becomes available as needed. Hordon believes that if the hijackers really did take control of the cockpits this may well have been what they were studying in the flight schools they attended.

Much has been made by 9/11 researchers about the seemingly limitless incompetence of the 9/11 hijackers as pilots­amateur aviators who could barely operate light aircraft. This odd fact has led many conspiracy advocates to speculate that the nineteen alleged hijackers may have been merely a gang of patsies or “Oswalds,” groomed by their handlers to take the fall for the attacks without their knowledge or involvement. Some researchers even speculate that these “terrorists” never actually boarded the planes at all. Although this theory may sound outlandish to many, it is however supported by the astonishing fact that none of the hijackers’ names appear on any of the published passenger manifests. But Hordon believes that, if the hijackers really were on the planes and did indeed take over the cockpits as reported, their ability to actually fly the aircraft to their targets is a distinct possibility.

“If anybody thinks that these flight directors weren’t sophisticated enough to be programmed to go to these exact, specific coordinates­WTC One and Two­they’re wrong. It has nothing to do with pilot competence.”

Hordon believes that it would be relatively easy for the hijackers to reroute a commercial jet’s flight director to hit any location with great accuracy, as long as they had acquired the proper training. This is apparently one of the few accurate scenarios portrayed in the Hollywood movie Flight 93, a film Hordon otherwise dismisses as elaborate propaganda designed to deceive the public and sell the official story. This point is intriguing when you consider the fact that a book recently published by the editors of Popular Mechanics magazine­Debunking 9/11 Myths­specifically claims that the hijackers of UA Flight 93 stormed the cockpit, took over the controls and drove the plane by sight, a method that PM and its army of expert technicians and specialists have nicknamed “point and go.” Besides representing a bizarre departure from Hordon’s expert analysis, PM’s “point and go” theory also contradicts the scenario dramatized in Flight 93. Although it’s difficult for many people to believe that such a lack of consensus exists among the “experts” who support the official story, this is really just one of many examples where this kind of unfathomable contradiction has occurred.

Some theorists have speculated that homing beacons may have been transmitting signals to Flights 11 and 175 from within the Twin Towers­all the hijacked planes had to do was follow these signals to their destinations. Although he doesn’t necessarily subscribe to this theory, Hordon elaborates on it as a possibility:

“When a commercial jet approaches its destination, the flight director interfaces with transmitters located at the end of a runway and makes the adjustments. All the pilots have to do is sit back, monitor the controls and watch the airplane land itself, even in “zero-zero” conditions [no ceiling height or visibility].”

This combination of computerized onboard controls and what is essentially a homing signal from the flight’s destination is called “coupling,” a technological dance performed by aircraft thousands of times a day at airports all around the world.

Often criticized by detractors for speculating about the use of “Buck Rogers”-style aviation technology in the attacks, 9/11 researchers are nonetheless vindicated by Hordon who believes that such speculation may not be so outlandish after all.

Referring to elaborate experiments done by the military decades ago that involved the remote control commandeering of aircraft, Hordon responds:

“In the seventies, they were extremely sophisticated with aircraft. Could they commandeer an aircraft in mid-flight right now? Absolutely, in a heartbeat. Clearly the technology is there. It’s been there for a long time.”

It only seems reasonable that if this technology were the most efficient, reliable and discrete means to guarantee the success of such an elaborate operation, the conspirators wouldn’t hesitate to make full use of it.

The question of whether or not the hijackers piloted the planes themselves or if control of the aircraft was taken completely out of their hands by operatives from a remote location has always been central to 9/11 researchers. But, to Robin Hordon, it’s, at best, a moot point:

“My answer to you is it’s irrelevant. It’s irrelevant whether the hijackers were real and were actually in the aircraft or whether the aircraft was commandeered by external forces. It could have been either one. One way or another, somebody other than U.S. certified airline pilots took over that aircraft, whether it be a terrorist sitting in the cockpit or someone outside the cockpit.”

Whatever scenarios Hordon may consider in regard to Flights 11, 175 and 93, he is adamant that 9/11 researchers shouldn’t rest until they’ve gotten to the bottom of the alleged crash of Flight 77 into the Pentagon. To many, the idea that a military jet or missile­not Flight 77­actually struck the Pentagon is a bizarre and almost inconceivable assertion. But for many 9/11 researchers, it is a central and compelling focus.

“The particular maneuver that was called upon for this huge Boeing aircraft, OK, it’s highly suspicious that a flight director could pull that one off. We also know that it’s highly suspicious that if it were the pilot that people say was operating the aircraft, we know that that guy couldn’t pull that off. That was completely impossible.”

A common notion to which many defenders of the official account cling (including such notables as Noam Chomsky) is the idea that any conspiracy as vast as 9/11 would have had to involve hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, all in-the-know and willing to go to the grave with their secrets. But well researched claims­that many sizable covert operations have indeed been kept from the public in the past; that state of the art technology can drastically reduce the number of people required for any given “op,” and that systemic “compartmentalization” of duties can effectively exploit many people’s involvement without their knowledge­have convincingly refuted this assertion. In addition, the ability of higher-ups to intimidate and silence potential whistleblowers after the fact is formidable. Naturally, Mr. Hordon has a thing or two to say on the subject.

“I think we all have to agree that, one way or another, the U.S. military was involved in the attacks. The advantage that Rumsfeld had is that he can classify, reshape, make available, make unavailable any information that he wants, at any time and deny that information to the public for any reason, especially national security.”

Hordon believes that one facet of the plan that the conspirators could not control was the individual integrity of the civilians in the FAA­dedicated professionals who would not likely remain silent if they had witnessed something unusual during the attacks. Number one on Hordon’s list are the air traffic controllers: “What part of this whole thing is missing? Is it not the voice tapes from the civilian ATC’s? They had to devise a way to take the loose lips group, the civilian guys, and disengage them. If they are allowed to testify exactly as to their normal protocol behavior, they’re going to prove that the military were the culpable ones.” When he was in the FAA, Hordon was certified as the operator in his facility tasked to secure relevant data after an air emergency; if not entirely because of public safety concerns, certainly for liability reasons.

“Whenever we had an incident, an emergency, on-air trouble, some type of a near ‘mid-air’ or a breakdown in aviation rules, we would immediately take the voice tapes and secure them. We would immediately take the radar data on that controller’s scope that day and secure them. Whenever there was an incident, all of the information, all of it was secured. Period.”

Despite this rigid protocol, there have been shocking accounts of ATC records being seized shortly after the attacks and kept far from public scrutiny. Hordon believes that these ATC recordings have either been destroyed or mutilated.

“The reason that they’re not giving us this early-on information is because they want to paint a picture of confusion, and they had to somehow get the civilian eye-witnesses out of it.”

Although the 9/11 Commission, desperate to deflect the public’s attention away from official quarters, scapegoated the FAA for incompetence in regard to the attacks, Hordon believes that the real confusion originated in the Pentagon, a theory that jibes well with the timely and suspicious change in air defense protocol mentioned above.

“The FAA has given us the computerized information about the aircraft being tracked. What the FAA has not given us is the internal tapes from the sectors in the Boston Center who were controlling this aircraft.”

If there were one point Robin Hordon would like to impress most upon 9/11 Truth researchers and activists it would be that the truth about the non-performance of U.S. air defenses on 9/11 lies in a careful examination of the first few minutes after the planes were known to have been hijacked.

“The first fifteen minutes are the key. I have done the math. If we had scrambled some aircraft five or six minutes after we saw this huge deviation, the fighters from Otis would have intercepted American 11 over southwestern Connecticut or just south of Albany, NY. The federal government and the military, for extremely serious reasons, are keeping the public focused on after American 11 hits the tower. But the real focus for 9/11 researchers should be what NORAD was doing five minutes after American 11 lost its transponder and went off course.”

Whatever criticism Hordon may have for NORAD and the Pentagon, it certainly doesn’t extend to the individuals on the frontlines of our nation’s civil defense:

“These are military fighter pilots. These are good guys. They figure stuff out. What do you think the pilots are doing? Ordering coffee and donuts? No. They are up there, their blood is pumping, they are thinking one thing: ‘My country is being invaded. This is why I stand on the ready in the waiting room down at Otis AFB; so that I can get up and defend my country.’ Do you think they’re going to get on the tail of American 11 when it was heading straight for the WTC and let it hit? No. What they’re going to do is say ‘OK, there’s going to be some bodies and shrapnel…boom.’ They’re going to take that risk.”

One of Hordon’s more ambitious proposals for the 9/11 Truth movement is that a support network be developed for the aid and protection of its single most important resource, whistleblowers.

“What the 9/11 movement should do is band together and develop safe lives for whistleblowers.” Legal counsel, moral support, even physical protection could do much to inspire those who are considering stepping forward with potentially explosive insider testimony about the attacks.

Hordon would also like to see young people being told the truth about politics, history and the world in their schools. “The people who are our greatest assets are the kids in high school. If the military is taking advantage of the susceptibility of high school kids to seduce them to kill people, the peace movement needs to offer alternatives. We need to make available, at the end of the high school years, alternatives of thought in regard to the world’s economy and control apparatus.”

Hordon’s plan, though idealistic, is not without a certain opportunism:

“I want to go to high school kids because it’s a two for one proposition. First, their ears are wide open. They’re skeptical about this government right now and they’re plugged into the internet. Second, if we give them material to bring home, it winds up on the kitchen table. And what happens when parents find contraband that’s come into the house? They read it. It’s two for one.”

Many 9/11 activists believe that their work on issues related to the attacks has greater potential for true social transformation than any other single issue, and Hordon emphatically agrees.

“I think that this 9/11 thing is the quintessential opportunity to expose all of the infecting poisons; more than Iran Contra weapons for hostages, more than rampant militarism, more than Watergate, more than Enron, more than the dark side of the world’s financial institutions, more than any other similar kind of thing. I think that this is pretty much their last gasp, and the reason is very simple; the internet. We’re going to catch’em.”

Activists with a sense of humor are always a breath of fresh air. After his stint as an ATC, Hordon worked for years at the comedy club Catch a Rising Star in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Something must have rubbed off:

“We have two parties in this country; we have republicans and we have republicans dressed up in blue drag. And when we get the blue outer clothing off of the fake democrats, they stand there in their red Armani underwear.”

Hordon respects humor as a formidable weapon for activists. As an artistic coordinator for up and coming comedians, he once worked with some of the most talented and successful comics of our time including Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. Some of the political comics he once coached are regulars on Air America Radio. Of the reigning powers-that-be, he has this to say:

“They know they’re done with 9/11. They know they’re cooked. They’re just throwing boxes of nails in the road behind their car as it speeds away and they’re hoping that all our tires get flattened. But it’s not happening. They know they’re pretty much done.”

Grounded and well informed, Robin Hordon is not a typical pie-in-the-sky progressive, and he likes what he sees happening around him.

“There’s so much good work being done. There’s such a cool pattern now and there’s so many kids coming up who know not to believe the stories they’re being told.”

His greatest hope is that these young movers and shakers shun the roads previously taken by their less politically savvy forebears.

“Sixty percent of our elected officials are millionaires. Until we change that, we are going to struggle to make our democracy better. And I think that, you now, democracies are OK. I think it’s a pretty good plan. I think we should try to get one.”

Copyright 2007 Darkprints

Comments? web_wender@hotmail.com

The full story in
http://www.communitycurrency.org/robin.html

===

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Massive chemical weapons stockpiles still kept in US – presumably for use in war

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

=== News Update ===

Massive chemical weapons stockpiles still kept in US – presumably for use in war

US Chemical Munitions

• M60 105mm: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m60_105.htm

• M360 105mm: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m360.htm

• M104 155mm: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m104.htm

• M110A1/A2 155mm: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m110.htm

• M121/A1 155mm: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m121_155.htm

• M122 155mm: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m122.htm

• M687 155mm: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m687.htm

• M426 8-inch: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m426_8.htm

• M23 landmine: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m23.htm

• M55 rocket: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m55.htm

[ Ref. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/cbw/cw.htm ]

US Hypocrisy and statement of the opposite of truth – a commentary

Utah Daily Herald article “Keep mustard gas out of Utah” complains at movement of chemical weapons shipments in Utah state, mentioning its possible use in Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war, but fails to mention its use in the last 12 months against the people of Fallujah who were already under occupation. This beggars belief: not only has the mainstream media failed to question the very unusual collective punishment by aerial bombardment of Iraq, it continually attempts to reinforce notions that the vicious and brutal war on Iraq has ended, using language such as “during the Iraq war” in an attempt to make its readership reference the war in the past tense – even as air strikes continue to this day [ March 2005 ]

[ Ref http://www.newutah.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file
=article&sid=47582&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 ... ]

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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

US used banned weapons in Fallujah

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

=== News Update ===

US used banned weapons in Fallujah

[03.03.05]

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_fu
ll_story.asp?service_id=7216

“Meanwhile, a reconstruction conference in the devastated city of Falluja has called for an international committee to investigate the use of illegal weapons by US forces in their offensive against the town last November. Falluja residents have alleged that US forces used chemical weapons during the offensive – a charge the Americans deny. Delegates to the conference also called for the freeing of detainees and an end to the hunting of individuals and families. They added that the US should fully compensate Falluja residents who suffered material loss during the attack and increase previous estimates of their losses.”

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BE2BF74E-B57C-4025-86
B3-BCA5A8E68CE1.htm

Iraqi “Ministry of Health” Accuses America of Banned Weapons Use in Fallujah

Mar 02, 2005 By Muhammad Abu Nasr, Free Arab Voice. Edited For Publication By JUS

Dr Khalid ash-Shaykhli, a representative of the so-called “Iraqi ministry of health” who was authorized to assess the health conditions in Fallujah after the end of the major battles there, announced that the surveys and studies that a medical team did in Fallujah and then reported to the “ministry” confirm that US forces used substances that are internationally prohibited, including mustard gas, nerve gas, and other burning chemicals in the course of its attacks on the city. Ash-Shaykhli held a press conference in the health ministry building in Baghdad’s Bab al-Mu’azzam section on Tuesday. He began by reporting on the final results of the fact-finding mission’s survey of the situation in which the people of Fallujah now find themselves. He said that the city is still experiencing the effects of chemical and other types of weapons used by the Americans, which will be causing serious diseases over the long term.

The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam asked ash-Shaykhli what the facts were regarding the use of limited nuclear weapons by the occupation forces. Dr. ash-Shaykhli said, “what I saw during our research in Fallujah leads me to me believe everything that has been said about that battle. I absolutely do not exclude their use of nuclear and chemical substances, since all forms of nature were wiped out in that city. I can even say the we found dozens, if not hundreds, of stray dogs, cats, and birds that had perished as a result of those gasses.”

During the press conference, which was attended by more than 20 Iraqi and Arab journalists, Ash-Shaykhli promised that he would be sending the study and the results that the committee produced to responsible bodies, both Iraqi and international.

The press conference was attended by correspondents of the Iraqi ash-Sharqiyah television network, the Iraqi “government”-run al-’Iraqiyah satellite TV network, and the as-Sumariyah network, in addition to foreign media, such as the American Washington Post and the Knight-Ridder service and the Iraqi as-Sabah newspaper, in addition to the correspondent of Mafkarat al-Islam.

The findings disclosed at Tuesday’s press conference must be seen as the most serious statements to be made since the end of nearly four months of military operations in Fallujah, Mafkarat al-Islam noted. Mafkarat al-Islam was the first to report on the American occupation forces’ use of gasses and burning and chemical substances during the first days after the outbreak of fighting in the city, as JUS reported at the time.

http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=10
1819&list=/home.php

Also see:
Iraqi Health Ministry confirms use by American occupation forces of internationally prohibited weapons in its attacks on al-Fallujah
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m10078&l=i&size=1&hd=0

===

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

US War Crime : Falluja Atrocities – White Phosphorus Bombs

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

=== News Update ===

US War Crime : Falluja Atrocities – White Phosphorus Bombs

White Phosphorus (WP)

White phosphorus results in painful chemical burn injuries. The resultant burn typically appears as a necrotic area with a yellowish color and characteristic garliclike odor. White phosphorus is highly lipid soluble and as such, is believed to have rapid dermal penetration once particles are embedded under the skin. Because of its enhanced lipid solubility, many have believed that these injuries result in delayed wound healing. This has not been well studied; therefore, all that can be stated is that white phosphorus burns represent a small subsegment of chemical burns, all of which typically result in delayed wound healing. [The chemical is absorbed quickly through the skin, particles containing phosphorus become stuck under the skin - presumably helped along by the blast]

Few studies have investigated the degree of tissue destruction associated with white phosphorus injuries. In the experimental animal model, most tissue destruction appears to be secondary to the heat generated by oxidation. [Most damage to tissue is not due to the heat generated by the burning of the phosphorus, presumably most damaged is caused by other chemical reactions and biological toxicity]

Systemic toxicity has been described extensively in the animal model. Pathologic changes have been documented in the liver and kidney. These changes result in the development of progressive anuria, decreased creatinine clearance, and increased blood phosphorus levels. Depression of serum calcium with an elevation in the serum phosphorus level (reversed calcium-phosphorus ratio) with electrocardiographic changes including prolongation of the QT segment, ST segment depression, T wave changes, and bradycardia also have been observed. Oral ingestion of white phosphorus in humans has been demonstrated to result in pathologic changes to the liver and kidneys. The accepted lethal dose is 1 mg/kg, although the ingestion of as little as 15 mg has resulted in death. Individuals with a history of oral ingestion have been noted to pass phosphorus-laden stool (“smoking stool syndrome”). [Simplified: exposure results in disease of the kidney, liver and heart] Mortality/Morbidity: Morbidity and mortality are related directly to trauma and burns sustained from exposure.

Burns usually are limited to areas of exposed skin (upper extremities, face). Burns frequently are second and third degree because of the rapid ignition and highly lipophilic properties of white phosphorus. [lipophilic - literally "fat loving", which means it will be absorbed through the skin] [This tallies with the pictures published of the victims of the US bombing of Falluja on the web site of the reporter Dahr Jamal, note face and upper body burns]

Trauma usually is a combination of blunt and penetrating. Blunt trauma results from the percussion and force of the blast, and penetrating trauma results from projectiles produced from the explosion. [Physical wounds to the body {ie. holes, lost limb, pieces of flesh missing} result from the blast and shrapnel]

[ Ref. http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic918.htm ]

More on the US Weapon: White Phosphorus

A side benefit of white phosphorus is that white phosphorus smoke is toxic and readily penetrates protective mask filters. Phosphorus smokes are generated by a variety of munitions. Some of these munitions such as the MA25 (155-mm round) may, on explosion, distribute particles of incompletely oxidized white phosphorus.

These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears. If service members are hit by pieces of white phosphorus, it could burn right down to the bone. Remove quickly all clothing affected by phosphorus to prevent phosphorus burning through to skin. If this is impossible, plunge skin or clothing affected by phosphorus in cold water or moisten strongly to extinguish or prevent fire. Then immediately remove affected clothing and rinse affected skin areas with cold sodium bicarbonate solution or with cold water. Moisten skin and remove visible phosphorus (preferably under water) with squared object (knife-back etc.) or tweezers. Do not touch phosphorus with fingers! Throw removed phosphorus or clothing affected by phosphorus into water or allow to bum in suitable location.

Cover phosphorus burns with moist dressing and keep moist to prevent renewed inflammation. It is neccessary to dress white phosphorus-injured patients with saline-soaked dressings to prevent reignition of the phosphorus by contact with the air. Systemic toxicity may occur if therapy is not administered. Therapy consists of topical use of a bicarbonate solution to neutralize phosphoric acids and mechanical removal and debridement of particles.

A Wood’s lamp in a darkened room may help to identify remaining luminescent particles. The early signs of systemic intoxication by phosphorus are abdominal pain, jaundice, and a garlic odor of the breath; prolonged intake may cause anemia, as well as cachexia and necrosis of bone, involving typically the maxilla and mandible (phossy jaw).

The presenting complaints of overexposed workers may be toothache and excessive salivation. There may be a dull red appearance of the oral mucosa. One or more teeth may loosen, with subsequent pain and swelling of the jaw; healing may be delayed following dental procedures such as extractions; with necrosis of bone, a sequestrum may develop with sinus tract formation. In a series of 10 cases, the shortest period of exposure to phosphorus fume (concentrations not measured) that led to bone necrosis was 10 months (two cases), and the longest period of exposure was 18 years.

White phosphorus fume causes severe eye irritation with blepharospasm, photophobia, and lacrimation; the solid in the eye produces severe injury. Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful; a firm eschar is produced and is surrounded by vesiculation. Signs and symptoms include irritation of the eyes and the respiratory tract; abdominal pain, nausea, and jaundice; anemia, cachexia, pain, and loosening of teeth, excessive salivation, and pain and swelling of the jaw; skin and eye burns. Phossy jaw must be differentiated from other forms of osteomyelitis. With phossy jaw, a sequestrum forms in the bone and is released from weeks to months later; the sequestra are light in weight, yellow to brown, osteoporotic, and decalcified, whereas sequestra from acute staphylococcal osteomyelitis are sharp, white spicules of bone, dense and well calcified. In acute staphylococcal osteomyelitis, the radiographic picture changes rapidly and closely follows the clinical course, but with phossy jaw the diagnosis sometimes is clinically obvious before radiological changes are discernible. It is good dental practice to take routine X-ray films of jaws, but experience indicates that necrosis can occur in the absence of any pathology that is visible on the roentgenogram.

[ Ref. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wp.
htm ]

Abstract atrocity or reality of suffering?

But such melting of human flesh is an abstraction in U.S. media, as it is apt to be for holy warriors. On NBC’s “Today” show Nov. 9, a network correspondent in Baghdad mentioned phosphorous shells just long enough to say that they are “meant to burn through metal bunkers.” Presumably a description of effects on human beings would not have gone well with viewers breakfasts.

A live report from a CNN correspondent in Fallujah, on Nov. 8, was similarly circumspect: “Tanks have been blasting away inside the city, and shells filled with phosphorous — shells to hide the movement of the Marines inside the city — have been exploding overhead.”

[Ref. http://www.apostropher.com/blog/archives/002061.html ]

Comment

If you are unsure about the pain experienced by those who died by the WP chemical attacks in Falluja try scraping the head of a (phosphorus-containing) match under your fingernail and crush it. Try using water to sooth the pain. Now imagine that covering 100,000 fold more surface area of your skin.

The full story in
http://uruknet.info/?p=m38395&hd=&size=1&l=e

===

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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 19 November 2007

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

=== News Update ===

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 19 November 2007

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org

• Defying US blockade, Iraqi Resistance fighters deploy in al-Hadithah Monday evening, setting up checkpoints and promising harsh punishment for collaborators.
• Resistance car bomb explodes by tribal collaborationist police in al-Hadithah.
• Resistance ambushes tribal collaborationist police near Lake ath-Tharthar, killing seven.
• Resistance batters joint US-puppet army base in ath-Tharthar with heavy rockets at dawn Monday.
• Resistance ambushes puppet army troops south of al-Fallujah sparking 20-minute battle Monday morning.
• Puppet regime police torture prisoner to death in ‘Anah.
• Two US troops killed in Resistance bombing in Samarra’ Monday morning.
• British aircraft rockets house in al-Basrah, killing woman, five children at noon Monday.

http://uruknet.info/?p=m38404&hd=&size=1&l=e

===

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______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Sex scandal hits Atlanta-area megachurch

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

=== News Update ===

By DORIE TURNER, Associated Press Writer

Mon Nov 19, 6:24 PM ET

DECATUR, Ga. – The 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch is at the center of a sex scandal of biblical dimensions: He slept with his brother’s wife and fathered a child by her.

Members of Archbishop Earl Paulk’s family stood at the pulpit of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church a few Sundays ago and revealed the secret exposed by a recent court-ordered paternity test.

In truth, this is not the first ­ or even the second ­ sex scandal to engulf Paulk and the independent, charismatic church. But this time, he could be in trouble with the law for lying under oath about the affair.

The living proof of that lie is 34-year-old D.E. Paulk, who for years was known publicly as Earl Paulk’s nephew.

Earl Paulk, his brother, Don, and his sister-in-law, Clariece, did not return calls for comment.

A judge ordered the test at the request of the Cobb County district attorney’s office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which are investigating Earl Paulk for possible perjury and false-swearing charges stemming from a lawsuit.

The archbishop, his brother and the church are being sued by former church employee Mona Brewer, who says Earl Paulk manipulated her into an affair from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation. Earl Paulk admitted to the affair in front of the church last January.

In a 2006 deposition stemming from the lawsuit, the archbishop said under oath that the only woman he had ever had sex with outside of his marriage was Brewer. But the paternity test said otherwise.

So far no charges have been filed against Earl Paulk. District Attorney Pat Head and GBI spokesman John Bankhead would not comment.

The shocking results of the paternity test are speeding up a transformation already under way in the church after more than a decade of sex scandals and lawsuits involving the Paulks, D.E. Paulk said.

For years the church was at the forefront of many social movements ­ admitting black members in the 1960s, ordaining women and opening its doors to gays.

At its peak in the early 1990s, it claimed about 10,000 members and 24 pastors and was a media powerhouse. By soliciting tithes of 10 percent from each member’s income, the church was able to build a Bible college, two schools, a worldwide TV ministry and a $12 million sanctuary the size of a fortress.

Today, though, membership is down to about 1,500, the church has 18 pastors, most of them volunteers, and the Bible college and TV ministry have shuttered ­ a downturn blamed largely on complaints about the alleged sexual transgressions of the elder Paulks.

In 1992, a church member claimed she was pressured into a sexual relationship with Don Paulk. Other women also claimed they had been coerced into sex with Earl Paulk and other members of the church’s administration.

The church countered with a $24 million libel suit against seven former church members. The lawsuit was later dropped.

The full story in
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_on_re_us/preacher_paternity

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