I would like Chris Hedges to consider the kind of supporters he has gathered here. Most of them are irrational, and hate- filled. They do not have the kind of love of humanity and respect for the rights of others so important to him. They are not upset as he is by the pain and suffering of people all over the world.  They are out to hate and out to blame.
PS. One more point. Mr. Hedges there is a historical evil known as the ‘blood libel’ in which Jews were falsely accused of killing Christian children to use their blood in religious ceremonies. When you perhaps relying on the ‘ staged Mohammed Dura incident ‘ accuse Israelis of deliberately killing Palestinian children you make yourself a libelist. Israeli soldiers fire at terrorists, and are under strict control and limitation in doing so. The fact is terrorists mix themselves up with civiilians. And then too unfortunately the Palestinians incite and use minors in terrorist missions. This does not make the death of any young person less painful. But a great part of the moral difference between the Israelis and Arabs in their one - hundred year war, is that Israelis have committed intentional crimes rarely, and then most oftenwith the censure of their own people- while murdering civilians is a major goal of the Palestinian ‘liberation’ movements.

Reading the comments on this site after reading Mr. Hedges’ analysis I am struck by how well he is playing on the ‘hate Israel card’.
But the simple truth is that Israel is a democracy even for its Arab citizens, who enjoy certain privileges ( Not going to the Army, Paying much lower municipal taxes if they pay at all) far better social benefits than citizens do in all Arabs states except a few rich Gulf ones.
His total escape from the vicious- hate propaganda of the Arab and Islamic world is one thing. His siding with totalitarian terrorists like Hizbollah and Hamas, like the militias in Iraq opposing the U.S. marks him as someone who has his moral cap on upside down.

I think you’re correct, Mr. Day.  Although I’ve heard responses to Likkudist policies that ARE anti-Semitic from people on the left who should know better and have been disappointed to hear about persistent anti-Semitism in Europe that extends to the left from some of my lefty Italian friends, Mr. Marks’ blatant racism is unusual enough to seem implausible.

If the person posting under the sobriquet Georgann Marks is not an agent provocateur seeking to discredit this thread, I very much miss my guess....

Henri

PS : Perhaps it would not be out of place to inquire in whose interest it would be to discredit the thread (and the site)....

Israel is on death watch. A demographic meltdown within a decade is never mentioned in the American press - a wholly owned subsidiary of Israel.

Israel needs to murder its neighbors before they outnumber the Jews. That’s the long and short of it.

Palestinians need to wipe the Jews from Palestine. The only down side to this is that they will probably all come here.... and we all know what a corrosive influence they have on politics NOW… can you imagine the whole lot of them drumming for wars and privileges here?

Jews are a menace. And Americans might be better off if they all migrate to Israel.

I love the propaganda about how Israel “gave” the Palestinians who they didn’t cleanse of their homeland “rights” via citizenship.  The Palestinian citizens of Israel are fifth class citizens.  Until 1966, they were under military law within the state.  Since then, they have been kept in bantustans within the state.  They are frequently denied permits to build on their own land, they are denied the same educational budget as Israeli Jewish citizens.  During the beginning of this current Palestinian uprising, 13 of them were shot and killed for demonstrating in support of their brethren in the West Bank and Gaza.

The idea of an exclusively Jewish state that denies citizenship to all under its rule will not last forever.  It didn’t last in South Africa, and it won’t last in Israel.

The Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza is now in its 40th year.  Since Israel has no intention of leaving and will not withdraw all its settlers, it is only a matter of time before Palestinians start asking for equality instead of freedom--i.e. one person, one vote. 

Israeli policies will be Israel’s own undoing.  They could have withdrawn from the Palestinian Territories, let the Palestinians have their state, and brought their settlers home a long time ago.  They didn’t make that choice, because of how powerful they permitted the settlers to become.

There’s only two solutions--two states or one.  Since Israel isn’t going to let the Palestinians have a state on 22% of their historical homeland, Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews will end up in one state. 

And it isn’t rocket science to figure this out.

A question to my fellow Leftists:

Is it not possible to criticize Israel for their monstrous behaviour (as I have done), and call-out all three Abrahamic religions for their role in creating violence and terror (as I have done), without slipping into anti-semitism, Arab-bashing, and other vicious nonsense?

I hope so, for the Left’s sake…

I have heard the word terrorists be mentioned often. Maybe it is importent to consider who the real terrorists is? Is it Nasrallah? Or is it those militant jews who just killed 18 palastinians in their sleep? Or is it those so called american soldiers murdering, raping and torturing muslims in Iraq? Is Nasrallah aso really terrorists? or are they just trying to protect themselves from terror in their own countries? We are not even allowed to protect ourselves - not that we have any weapons to fight with - as soon as we try to protect ourselves, we are being called terrorists. according to us, we are fighting terrorism. so who are the real terrorists?

It’s a proven fact that you can’t fight an unconventional war using conventional tactics.  You will get your ass kicked repeatedly.  Unfortunately, due to the Geneva conventions and all the other tree hugging cry baby liberal “rules” that the American and Isaeli forces have to play by lest we are called “war criminals,” we are stuck using conventional tactics.  To me, the very idea of forcing me to play by those “rules” while terrorists don’t is tantamount to stacking the deck.  As a matter of fact, I am starting to believe that the Leftist Liberal side of the country wants the terrorists to win.  No matter how much pandering the Left does to attempt to appear tough on national security and terrorism, their record speaks for itself.  Harsh interrogation is a war crime, killing armed insurgents on CNN during a battle guarantees an investigation, Senators Kerry, Murtha, and Kennedy making statements during congressional hearings and campaigns to the effect of all U. S. military are uneducated lambs to be thrown to the wolves at the first signs of using tactics that work.  All I have heard about is how the Left has a plan.  A better plan.  A plan that will work.  A plan for everything.  OK geniuses, what’s the plan?  How about letting the guys on the ground in on your grand scheme?  Since you won’t let us do what we know will work, what makes you think that the same rhetoric you have been spouting off with for the past 6 years is going to make a difference now?  Here’s a plan that will work.  Publicly broadcast it that all U. S. ammunition is blended with pig blood at the factory.  Burn their bodies before burying them with the remains of said pigs, or just let the pigs eat the corpses.  Guarantee the insurgents that we are not only going to kill them, we are going to send them straight to hell.  To fight an ideology, you have to find the weaknesses within that ideology and use those weaknesses to take away the will to fight.  As long as those bastards think they are going to heaven, they will fight forever.  Yes, I know my comments are “divisive,” a word that the Left just loves to throw around.  Anyone ever look up the definition?  Divisive, which is bad, and diversity, which is good, mean the same thing according to Webster’s dictionary.  Also, I know I am to be labeled “intolerant.” Fine.  To be labeled “intolerant” by the most intolerant religion in the world is to me the pot calling the kettle black.  ‘nuff said.

>>> History has been rewritten to absolve Jews of responsibility for their fate in the 1930’s.

Americans were ignorant of this enemy within. We are hostages to Zionism now, just like the Germans.

Question? will this opinion even see the light of day in this enviromment?—not likely <<

And just what was the responsiblity of the Jews in the 1930s for which they have been absolved?
Most Jews in Germany thought they were good Germans.
The fault like in every other conflict are the religions of the world.
If the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church hadn’t spewed forth their anti Semitism, Hitler couldn’t have gotten away with what he did.
Were the Jews responsible for the Progroms in Poland and Russia or was that the fault of the Catholic Church in Poland and the Eastern Orthodox Church in Russia.
Just how in the Hell was Germany held hostage by Zionism. Blame the Nazi on the good Christians that allowed the bs. Zionism in the 30’s was a no event by a s,all group and had nothing to do with Germans, although I image the douche bag, LaRouche and his ilk would tell you otherwise

http://www.religionquestioned.com

Looking over the many rabid responses in approval of Hedge’s simplistic “midwife” diagnosis that this is all the fault of the Jews, I sense an outrage propelled by a Tsunami of fear and alarm which has much more to do with the Fascist/Repub- lican + Blue Dog Democrat looting our country with the fake “Terrorist” scares to reward the rich and our Korporate Kapitalist Krooks - our very own home-brew “Axis of Evil”.

Some of our crazies blame Israel and the Jews for corrupting our nation which has an ample sordid history of murdering and bullying others for over 200 years. We also have the highest % of mentally ill + crazed Christian loonies in the world which
probably manifests itself in blog responses too.

For rational beings the idea of 5 million Jews in Israel causing such woes to 750 million impotent Arabs and 300 million Americans is truly stupid nonsense. Only the indecent alarmist fears bred of our own greed and degeneracy could stir up this kind of obsessive frenzy.

The need for immediate gratification of our own formless fears is as American as “cherry pie” and some voices here even hope for Israel to vanish from the face of the earth - another holocaust perhaps? the fondest dream of Moslem hearts.
How interesting to note this also seems to be the
cutting edge of so much “progressive” thinking these days. Helped on by the lying, devious U.N.
FILN squads supposedly “monitoring” the south end of Gaza and the northern border with Lebanon.

To run with these murderous liars to the backbone is to show utter contempt for the important values of Western civilization and an easy will- ingness to trade them away for the Moslem world’s barbarian values. If they finally slaughter those of us who choose to stand at this latter-day “Marathon” do you not know they will come for you bottom feeders of our culture next?

Ion C. Laskaris, Burlington,Vt.+ iclrevusa.com

Labeling all Israelites as Zionists is as bad as labeling all Americans as war-mongers.  If we are rational about it, we know this is patently untrue.

If peace were to break out between Israel and Palestine, the entire mystique of Zionism would collapse and the century-old myth of a group of heroic, beleaguered refugees of high intelligence surrounded by hostile “natives” could no longer be used as a prop to support the sale to Israel of U.S. cluster bombs, nuclear facilities et al, and the vast profits gained therefrom would disappear.  As it is, Israel is impervious to criticism because the notion that such criticism is “anti-Semitic” has been so succesfully propagated.

There is NO such thing as “rasical islam” or “moderat islam” or “euroislam” or “democratic islam” there is only ONE islam. one version of islam, and everything else is NOT islam.

What you might call “radical muslims” are those people who truly knows or discovers what islam really is.

islam is not about democracy or freedom or equality. islam is not like any other human-made ideologies. And both muslims and non-muslims today needs to realize that what america or the vest believes in has nothing to do with islam. and your values has nothing to do with our values.

You keep argumenting against the etablishment of an islamic state and the sharia law by saying that we live in year 2006 now and sharia and islam could only work and be used back then. and not now.

1000 years ago, the pope Urban traveled round in france and lied to the people. he told them many ugly lies about muslims and of course they believed every single word. because the pope needed the christian people to unite, he needed the catholic and the ortodocs world to unite. and the best way to do that is to create an enemy. in this case - muslims. after creating the enemy and reuniting the christians in one big army, they went to palastine to fight muslims and conquer palastine. on the way to palastine they killed EVERY muslim. and they conquoered palastine, and they killed all the muslim surrenders, and destroyed the mosques aso.

Today the media and the leaders tell nothing but lies about muslims. even muslims believe them. in year 2006 nothing has changed but tecnology. nothing. We all know why bush went to iraq. And we all know that Osama didnt do it. WHY is it that the americans hate muslims so much that they rape them, murder and toture them in iraq and afghanistan? Dont believe everything you see in tv. its manipulating and look now what damage has happened.

What is happening to muslims now is that we wake up. we see how much you hate us and we see that we have to reunite. it is obious how you try to destroy islam, by propaganda and by making islam to something it is not. we have to stand together and thats the only way we can fight back. we are not getting more “radical”. we are waking up. It is logical, that when america and its allies kills, rape and torture muslims, and steal our oil, we will stand together as never before. this is normal for nations and if the americans were in our place, they would react the same way.

There is not different kinds of islam. that is just another lie about islam. there is only islam and thats the truth. and muslims are finding the truth. not the truth the media and the west is telling us. but the truth our raped and tortured and killed sisters and brothers are telling the world.

we dont think it is ok

By the way, after the christians crusade in falastine (jerusalem) Salahuddeen united muslim people from different nations and re-conquored palastine. and when the christians surrendered, we let them all go. took no slaves and killed none either.
Inshallah history repeats itself.

And of course iran can be the leader of the islamic world, even though they are not arabs. Turks are not arabs. Turks lead the entire islamic world for many years until 1920. There is nothing called racism or nationaism in islam. and the prophet muhammad saw has said: hoewer calls for nationalism/racism is not one of us. for muslims race and nationality doesnt matter.

Mr Hedges is exactly correct. Democracy is gaining ground in the middle east. Iraq is throwing out the US invader/occupiers. The facist/US puppet governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are vulnerable to overthrow. Israelis who cannot stoop to living AMONG Palestinians instead of occupying them will in short time be facing a nuclear armed arab enemy which was weened on uncensored images of Israeli racism and brutality toward Palestinians. The hand is writing on the wall.

Mr. Hedges made an interesting point regarding how the destructive policies of the US and Israel are making “radical” Muslims more popular. And just to confirm that very point, I will relate to you the following story:

Sa’di Din Ibrahim, a well known Egyptian Scholar, who heads Ibn Khaldun Centre in Cairo, Egypt, recently published the results of a poll he commissioned about the Muslim leader the Egyptians admire the most.

And the # 1 choice for the Egyptians was reported to be Sheikh Hassan Nasralah, the leader of Hizbollah.

And guess who came second?  Mohamud Ahmedinajad, the president of Iran!

Like the rest of the Arab and Muslim peoples, Egyptians have no time for the corrupt, good-for nothing puppets of the Middle East that America have relied so heavily for so long!

Koshin

Reply to Jafar Sadiq:
‘Alas, Misfortune - when you come i lament destiny. But i sowed your seed many years before...’

...many years before when peaceful functioning MATRIARCHIES were raped, beaten and enslaved into PATRIARCHIES. Woman is the original slave, the blueprint for all the other Imperialisms that have descended from the invasion and colonisation of women, of ‘others’. WE raise our daughters to be pretty, meek, subservient, dependent and afraid. Which basically means we raise our daughters to be mentally unhealthy, to be mentally ill. But in a woman, it’s not considered mental illness unless she fights back. In converse, an aggressive man is often lauded and respected. Aggressive men destroy. Aggressive men create war. Aggressive men consider women less worthy of wielding authority, and try very hard to be nothing like a woman. Nothing like God, the Nurturer and Mother of all things. Perhaps the Lord High God (blessed be SHE) from Her lofty lookout, peers down not in amusement but chagrin: was it an error, after all, to create such a creature who shall spread corruption and shed blood on the face of earth?

The Y (male) chromosome appears to be dying out in our species.

Cannot forget the mother of all midvives of Islamic radicalism:Ariel Sharon.
Hizbollah did not exist before Israel’s 1982 attack on Lebanon,
The road to 9/11 began with that Israeli invasion.Mideast suicide bombing as we know it originated there in response to Israeli attacks on the civilian population.
20,000 mostly noncombattant Palestinian and Lebanese perished at the hands of the much vaunted IDF.Many orphans created to fill the radicalranks.
Israel would use US supplied cluster bombs against civillians en masse,with mild rebuke amd temporary US embargo of those munitions.
A war crime if any and a definite viiolation of US Arms Export Act.
Not enforced when Israel is concerned,and a price to pay.

There is a way to bring justice and peace to the Middle East and that’s for representatives of the Jewish settler-state Israel to sit down with Palestinian leaders for the purpose of working things out, based this time on terms and specifications that are set by the Palestinians, not the settlers.  This plus a pull-out of all US troops and naval vessels from the region so as to leave the Middle East for Middle Easteners. and we’ll be well on our way not only to justice and peace in the Middle East but to peace on earth and goodwill to all living beings and hallelujah, amen.

During the Lebanon - Israel war we heard how Israel was slaughtering the Lebonese and distroying the country.  Then Israel stops under US pressure and we hear this was a great victory for Lebanon.

I don’t get it!

I think this war was Syria (using Hezbola) paying back Lebanon for expelling Syria.

Indeed Israel was defeated in thier intentions. This shows God was on the side of the good guys (We Evangelicals talk this way).
Israel intention to invade was to punish Lebanon into doing to the Hezbollahs what they did to the Syrians a while back. Rise up clearly against them. Plus Israel was trying to provoke war with Stria, iran against your country.
When the Hezbollah started showing the death toll it would take then Israel pulled out. All other justifications for the invasion shown to be null and void.
Israel in taking innocent life did what terrorism is. So in this action israel was the terrorist state. It was a sham in motives.
These third world nations can all be brought to heal by withholding thier allowance.
pres Bush said Israel won. Well I guess he’ll be saying the republicans won later today in same manner.
Robert Byers
Toronto, Ontario
bbyyeerrss2yahoo.ca

For the sake of humanity and the sake of this world let us not to talk about relegions or Arabs and Jews or Hindue ,Islam .We all can worship in silence to whom ever we want, rather lets talk about the rule of law, we have to go by that we can not pick and choose what law, we all must obey the rule of law or face desaster
for ourselves and our fellow men, winning losing heros are all invented by BANKERS and WORLD MILITARY AND INDUSTERIAL COMPLEXES WAKE up and don’t feed the MONSTER.

PS:  Someone needs to give Micheal Goldsmith a wake-up call.  He can not condemn Jews re his religion bashing without condemning Christains as well whom have been the worst violators of human rights for the last 2000 years!  The Jews in Israel and the current Muslim “terrorists” rank far behind Christiandom in mass murder and war. I just hope they both are not trying to “catch up.”

Remember: Any one who believes “God” is on their side, is as dangerous as Hell!  And anyone who is not relgious who still claims “God” is on his side (the American Neo-Cons), are even more dangerious!

This new era in the Middle East is bad for the U.S and Israel. But good for the Middle East which is the thing that matters.

Mr. Hedges has nailed it - OUTSTANDING piece!

And as long as the US continues to give Israel a blank check to recklessly do whatever they want and blindly support the Bush administration’s naive and dangerous policies in the Middle East, America will continue to be in greater danger and will continue to detiorate towards a 3rd world military power.

Hedges fails to mention the coup on the American government by treasonous American Jews. Dual loyalty American Jews are positioned in power slots throughout our government.

But nobody is ‘allowed’ to mention their intrinsic bias in favor of Israeli genocide against Palis.

The presidency and the congress are so thoroughly corrupted by Jewish money that there is no check on this corrosive influence on our foreign policy.

Anyone brave enough to question our unholy alliance with Israel finds themselves unemployed, or worse. American Jews are completely and totally in control of the government, the media and policy.

All Americans need to study the events that led the German people to revolt against their Jewish minority early in the last century. Jews took over that country exactly the way they have taken our country. And people reacted with radical relocationi programs to rid themselves of this internal menace.

History has been rewritten to absolve Jews of responsibility for their fate in the 1930’s.

Americans were ignorant of this enemy within. We are hostages to Zionism now, just like the Germans.

Question? will this opinion even see the light of day in this enviromment?—not likely

Hedges fails to mention the coup on the American government by treasonous American Jews. Dual loyalty American Jews are positioned in power slots throughout our government.

But nobody is ‘allowed’ to mention their intrinsic bias in favor of Israeli genocide against Palis.

The presidency and the congress are so thoroughly corrupted by Jewish money that there is no check on this corrosive influence on our foreign policy.

Anyone brave enough to question our unholy alliance with Israel finds themselves unemployed, or worse. American Jews are completely and totally in control of the government, the media and policy.

All Americans need to study the events that led the German people to revolt against their Jewish minority early in the last century. Jews took over that country exactly the way they have taken our country. And people reacted with radical relocationi programs to rid themselves of this internal menace.

History has been rewritten to absolve Jews of responsibility for their fate in the 1930’s.

Americans were ignorant of this enemy within. We are hostages to Zionism now, just like the Germans.

Speak now of hatred of a single people who have brought nothing but the word of G-d to the world. - Ken Schreier

Ken makes my point for me.  He clearly is a zeolot (can not even spell out the “name” of his invisible friend, a friend I am sure “tells” him that the Jews are the “chosen people"), and has as much understanding of the recent political history of the Middle East as G.W. Bush does!

I do not know if Ken is Jewish or not (as I said already, I am of Jewish background), but perhaps he needs to check out these websites:

http://www.jfjfp.org

http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org

http://members.tripod.com/~mneumann/mnisrael.htm

http://www.counterpunch.org/honderich10252003.html

If you believe jew myth as in the Torah and its spin offs Christianity and Islam, then accordingly the peasant Messiah named Jesus who was supposedly a jew with the Creator as his father in some miraculous conception process 2000 yrs ago, clearly labeled the jews as children of satan liars murderers etc and cursed since they had this young man of 32 yrs put to death by crucifixion.
Could it be true? If it is true then America is in a heap of trouble since we know jews pretty much have been behind everything end Christianity and promote atheism or paganism and other nasty vices such as homosexuality lesbianism and porn etc. Jews are also in charge of Wall St and the legal judicial profession along with the universities and public schools etc.

If jews are children of satan then they will constantly be making trouble mixing lies with truth in order to decieve since their father in hell is called the master of confusion and deception. Therefore if you believe all this then you better get rid of the jews since afterall this whole thing goes back to the Palestine and its theft by the jews in 1948.

Dont forget that Islam is a spinoff too of Judiasm and uses all the same characters except for mohammed who makes himself the final messenger prophet or messiah.

Thanks to Moses who supposedly started all this crap in the desert 3500 yrs ago after they escaped 400 yrs of arab slavery who was their blood brothers too.

In my opinion, I do not believe the situation in Iraq is viewed in Tel Aviv as a disaster. The plan to invade and neutralize Iraq was made in Israel and detailed to Israel’s agents in the US, the Neocons. Bush is simply a puppet whose ignorance, and general befuddlement have been used by the Zionist Neocons to advance Israel’s strategic objectives using US gold and blood. Iraq is destroyed and not a drop of Israeli blood was shed, nor a penny spent.

The invasion of Lebanon is another issue and yes, I agree, the effective resistence of the Hezbullah fighters was a nasty shock. However, Israel has not marked this down as a strategic defeat, but merely a temporary setback. They will now draft a new plan and try again. Once more the US will blindly support whatever new outrage they propose.  This time they will use more force.

Muslims are being demonized as the perpetrators of 9/11 when in fact, 9/11 was an inside job!

Watch “Loose Change” free on Google video for overwhelming proof the 9/11 was committed by elements in the U.S. Government!

An interesting article, but it ignores the most important faultline in West Asia: the Shia-Sunni divide.  Once the Americans leave Iraq, and Israel retreats behind its walls, the two antagonistic sects of Islam will tear each other apart.

They’re already doing so in Iraq, and similar violence can be seen in Pakistan as well.  Sectarian tensions also exist in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain - and of course, Lebanon.

It should be noted that the Sunnis, (esp. the fundamentalist Wahhabis and radicals of the Al-Qaida type) consider the Shias heretics, (they even have a derogatory term for them - Rafidah) - and worthy of extermination.  The Shias for their part can fight back - just as Israel.

Add nuclear weapons to the mix and....

Hizbullah is a radical Islamic group? The same group that has an over 90% approval rating among Christians in lebanon and Muslims the world over? Have some literary integrity!

In today’s S.F. Chronicle article “After Nov. 7, U.S. Still Faces the Rude Shock of Defeat the brilliant futurist Immanuel Wallerstein posits one domestic political future for America, “there is a possibility: that the nation is overcome with deep anger about the “loss” of its primacy, will seek scapegoats (and find them) and eventually move in the direction of gutting the U.S. Constitution and the liberties it presumes to defend. Something like that happened in Weimar Germany.”

This is most certainly what will happen within the next 10 years when it is apparent to all but Zionists and Christian religious fanatics that the time of U.S. Hegemony over the Middle East has ended, and the U.S. no longer can afford the negative moral, economic, military and political costs of attempting to uphold a pariah state such as Israel. U.S. client states will quickly dispose of the Moslem puppet traitors within their midst’s.

As frequently suggested a bale out Israel plan would enable another 7 to 8 million Jews to flood into the U.S. when Israel totally collapses.  But if Wallerstein’s predictions hold true these last Jews to force their way into the U.S. may end up in U.S. gulags instead as welcomed with open arms.  Already the U.S. Military and Paramilitary Justice System have an excellent detainment camp which fully exceeds NAZI capabilities.  Just as the Army Corps of Engineers built and used thousands of concentration camps in WW II for Germans, Italians, Japanese and that Americans FDR considered seditious, the Corps successor FEMA has finished constructing five thousand new detainee camps within CONUS and another 800 outside CONUA.

While war profiteers and politicians found guilty under the Civil War’s Que Tam Act would be the first to be inducted as detainees, right thinking Americans in a new age might just make the proper accommodations for Cheney, Rice and all the Neo Con Jews who committed acts of treason against the U.S.

It totally stands to reason that all Jews, Moslems, just as know be immediately sent to these FEMA concentration camps for “screening” (think Muriel Boat Lift, Abu grab and GITMO) before they be allowed to apply for U. S. citizenship. With all the economic woes the loss of Middle Eastern Oil, the dollar no longer being used to trade oil, very big changes are coming in America.  And by that time with no habeas corpus, even more repressive laws on the books, and no I.G. Farben swimming pools, brothels social clubs and release passes, America’s new monstrous Gulag (initially designed by American Jews for Muslims) might make the Auschwitz Complex of detainee camps look like home.

‘’Akh, Misfortune - when you come I lament Destiny! but I sowed your seed many years before.’’

Yes, Mr. Hedges has captured something of the reality of the present moment in Southwest Asia: an Order-of-magnitude transformation marking the overreach and hubris of Imperial arrogance and racist selfishness.  It is neither an abortion, nor a still birth, but a slouching towards, a wombing forth, a Return.  Perhaps the Lord High God (blessed be HE) from His lofty lookout, peers down not in amusement but chagrin: was it an error, after all, to create such a creature who shall spread corruption and shed blood on the face of earth?

Since 1979, the Iranian government had planned to become the leader of the Islamic world.  Since Iranians are not Arabs, this has been an impossible dream.

However, the regim in Iran has been getting a great deal of support & assistance from USA & Israel policies of force first, ignorance later.  The Ayatollah’s dreams are becoming a reality.

This article is one of the best I have read in analyzing the root causes of radical Islam, namely the inept policies of USA & Israel.

the day is fast approaching when the zionists will be rightly accused of having created the climate for a new and microsecond-long-brilliant-white-light-holocaust on israeli soil!
the old saying “you reap what you sow” will never be more apt!..I think the proverb even comes from your precious old testament!
The TrojanHorse will be abandoned by the US and it will be torn to pieces by the muslims...! then and only then will peace in the region ensue...make friends now while you can you arrogant zionists...they MIGHT come to your aid!

Israel needs to comply with UN resolutions before any true healing of East-West relations can occur. This will clear away the fog and obfuscation about exactly how much terrorism and fundamentalism is the West’s responsibility, and how much of it is a kind of self-generating imperialism within Islam itself. When Israel and the West is conspicuously doing the right thing by all concerned, then the terrorists and fundamentalists will stand naked on the public stage with the innocent blood on their hands calling for some justice of it’s own.

I cannot believe the ignorant people who are responding in favor of Hedges article !
Hedges knows nothing about history and forgets to learn from the past !
The survival of the Jewish people through thousands of years of oppression & genocide by the nations of the world is a miracle !
Even until this day is a nation of 6 million Jews still demonized by the world !
Is it normal that such a small amount of people attracts such large negative views from the world around them ? Of course not, only irrational hate would explain such an attitude !
It is a joke to listen to the great minds on this site compare Israel to other murderous regimes in history ? How so often is the victim shown no compassion and the oppressor given every benefit to show why he/she should be excused for their actions ! 
Only Israel is held accountable for its actions, never do the arab nations have to explain their murderous actions against INNOCENT Jewish women & children ! The world of nations is a big joke and things are coming to a head !
Soon the day of judgement will come and all you lost souls will see the truth !
Speak now of hatred of a single people who have brought nothing but the word of G-d to the world.
Your own words will haunt you on the day when only truth will be heard !
Laugh now cry later ! G-d forgive your arrogant hearts !

Good.
The sooner we get rid of Israel the better.
To win the war on terror.
Stop pouring my tax dollars down the rat hole of Israel, the most destabilizing entity in the world since its fraudulent inception.

September 13-15, 2006

Stuck in the status quo

RAGE, RAGE, RAGE!
I can not pull myself out of this rage.
I can not stop the stupidity.
Stuck in the status quo.
RAGE, RAGE, RAGE!

My tax dollars support Israel
My gas dollars support Muslims
My tax dollars kill Muslims (genocide by proxy)
My gas dollars kill Americans.

Stuck in the status quo, (stuck in the middle with you)
While shrub and his friends get richer (industrial military complex)
And poor Americans paint the sands red!  (with their blood)

Fantasy rules the world and blood flows. (religion)
Peace (in the Middle East) will never succeed as long as,
Fantasy rules and humanity suffers.
People die while fantasy prospers.

Stuck in the status quo, (stuck in the middle with you)
While shrub and his friends get richer (industrial military complex)
And poor Americans paint the sands red!  (with their blood)

We are killing each other because we live in different fantasies. (religious stupidity)
Radicals created Israel.  (radical jews)
Radicals created radicals (radical Islamists).
U.S. tax payers (pay to) create radical Islamists (that attack us.)

Stuck in the status quo, (stuck in the middle with you)
While shrub and his friends get richer (industrial military complex)
And poor Americans paint the sands red!  (with their blood)

When will humanity rid itself of this fantasy world of stupidity?  ( religion)
Weakminded Religious idiots killing weakminded religious idiots.

RAGE, RAGE, RAGE!
I can not pull myself out of this rage.
I can not stop the stupidity.
Stuck in the status quo.
RAGE, RAGE, RAGE!

L. Dave Frasier
Helena Mt
dafrasier at hotmail dot com
Support ChildAbuse, Wear green on st patricks day!
Copyright 2005/2006

nyaa nyaa nyaa nyaa nyaa
and furthermore
lsten to kpfk and mel gibson and mel gibsons father all of whom agree that zionists flew wire guided planes into the twin towers and that explosive charges were waiting to be detonated in the tower cores after the planes hit actually mel gibson number one jew hater should be on amy goodmans show as she is also a leading jew hater gore vidal is also a leading jew hater and kpfk and kpfa love gore and haved him on all the time.

What is wrong with the Left in America? 

We clearly see how aweful the Neo-Cons are for having brought facsism to Washington, and thus to both our foreign and domestic policy.  We can clearly see the “devil” as it were, in the US. 

But we can not see the “devil” in Israel?!?  The way Israel has treated the Palestinians over the decades is not any better than the way the US (and the West in general) have treated the so-called Arab world in propping up and supporting dictators like Saddam or Political Islam like in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The US also destroyed the Native American population and way of life, and enslaved West Africans in our history.... Israel is acting the same way toward the Palestinians and anyone else in the Middle East who dare oppose their aparteid behaviour.

I am of Jewish background, and yet it is clear to me that Israel is riding the atrocity of the Nazi’s “Final Solution” to become just like the Nazi’s themselves.  The Jewish people’s sense morality ought to be better than this.

Chris Hedges like Robert Fisk is one of the world’s most knowledgable of current writers on the Middle East.  The US and Israel have a HUGE
bully problem there and both are working rapidly toward self-destruction in those parts. It won’t
be too long now.

Hedge’s claims of Israeli+U.S."blunders" ignores 1300 years of murderous Arab history. There is no doubt this Fascist/Republican scum dominating our own country with the help of reddog Democrats and assorted reactionaries has lied to our people, looted the U.S.Treasury, and favored the rich and major corporations, all under the pretense of a war on “Terrorism”, has not blundered, but pursued a murderous set of policies.

Israel, on the other hand, may have been surprised by the extent of the Hezbollah build-up with Iran’s covert help, but it knows the need to
exterminate these Shi’ite degenerates as soon as it can. None of these Arab nations,whether pre- tended allies or enemies like the Assad clique in
Syria are capable of governance to benefit their own people. All of them are doomed to collapse no matter what the fate of Israel will be.

For this reason I oppose Hedge’s conclusions and
implied course of action. We must first destroy our own domestic “Axis of Evil”, then help Israel exterminate its own enemies. Sooner or later, Europe will tire of placating the Muslim world’s rage and begin deporting its own parasitic trash,
if Western civilization, which, for all its short-comings, is far more preferable than Muslim bar-barian culture.

It is doubtful the usual Arab boasts can match Western determination to crush their evil conduct. It goes without saying that withdrawal from, and isolation of the Moslem world, with complete barriers to immigration by its poisonous broods must be our Western policies to succeed.

This will be the business of the rest of this century...ugly,viscious, no quarter given, no quarter asked. If our civilization loses, it will be a failure all the way down the line, and Gotterdammerung for keeps.

Ion C. Laskaris, Burlington,Vt.+iclrevusa.com

According to the Guardian’s special report the doctor at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza city said :"Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured”, while the Israeli military declined to detail the weapons in its arsenal, but denied reports that the injuries came from a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME), an experimental weapon.

Isaac Ben-Israel, a professor at Tel Aviv university and a retired Israeli air force general, who was involved in weapons development, said the wounds came from ordinary explosives and emphasized that no one in Isreal ever developed such a DIME weapon. It doesn’t exsist al all.

A robber will never confess that he is a burglar and that’s lifetime reason of the cheated gambler who is much more sordid than hooker !

What does King George think about this dirties play by his “superior boss” from Jerusalem ? He should know that “to secure our homeland, to protect our interest” are not meant to invade other countries in the name of “democracy benefactors” or to side with sub-humans who used American bombs, weapons, and mostly our technologies to develop new weapons to slaughter children and pregnant women in cold blood. Those sub-humans then clear their bloody hands and mouths and turned their back to all the victims. The civilized world will never forgive those so-called half-animals and half-humans. Mel Gibson was absolutely right !

Does anyone think that Israeli troops withdrawn from S. Lebanon was a defeat ? It’s a big mistake. The Jerusalem only retreated its troops after its “mission accomplished”, that was over 1 million unexploded cluster bombs left in this area of 250,000 people in August invasion. But Olmert’s government still denied his forces never used this kind of bomb without consent and approval from Washington. It was so intelligent, tricky and a big farce !

Another thought-provoking article by Mr. Hedges. I don’t know if it is American and Israeli blunders or a directive policy (per Mr. Day’s comments) that have created the current situation, but regardless it is the current situation. We have joined at the hips with Israel and lost any credibility that we have had in the Islamic world.

And no, I don’t see it as a positive that we have friends such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We seem not to have yet learned that supporting oppressive leaders will win us no friends when those leaders are finally overthrown. I would have hoped we learned that lesson after Iran.

Our foreign policy seems to always be about what is in the U.S.’s interests for the moment, without regard for long-term impications, for a changing environment, or for the impact of our policy on the people of a nation. Had we bothered to collaborate with other nations, but now we could have strong partnerships with Lebanon and Syria, and created an environment that discouraged the longevity of terrorist groups. Instead, the Bush administration has been more focused on labeling people as “evil” and then trying to “spread democracy” at the end of a gun.

It’s no wonder so much of the world hates us, or describes us as the nation that they “used to” look up to. Very sad.

As I understand the neocon persuasion, destabilization of an area is a condition precedent to its’ American-style colonization, permanent military bases to enforce American-style diplomacy - do as I say or else....  Are the neocons winning or is Islamic radicalism stabilizing the area?
If it takes radical Islamic tactics, much like those used by our colonist when attacked by the first King George, to prevent the United States from forever being engaged in wars of attrition, so be it.

Its true there’s a lot of muddiness in this op-ed piece.

But his basic premise is correct.

The governments of both the US and Israel (whose policies, it should be added, represent a minority view in their home countries - another front on which both of those governments are fighting for legitimacy) seem to want to believe their own propaganda.

The US talks ideologically, but it’s just a cover: what the Busheviks actually want is to make money off wars in the Middle East and to get the oil.

I am not an Israel expert, but the way they dropped millions of cluster bombs on civilians AFTER they knew a ceasefire was agreed to really stands out for me as the latest evidence that Israel’s intentions are not to simply live peacefully within their borders.

There seem to be no good guys anymore. All sides seem to be intent on gaining power by murdering civilians from the other sides.

Calls for moderation go unheeded. Journalists and human rights groups are simply locked out of the process, and become themselves fired upon if they try to help.

The Governments are all scared to death of the reality and only want their people to hear propaganda.

Weapons and infrastructure companies, not to mention mercenary outfits, vie for lucrative contracts where the normal rules of accounting do not apply.

Big Oil waits in the wings; their greedy eyes fixed on promises of total control of the world’s biggest and easiest to develop oil reserves, which all are sitting under the Middle East. The US Government has literally staked its existence on being able to fulfill those promises to Big Oil.

The citizens of all the countries, with their needs simply to live a normal life with a few guaranteed basic freedoms, have become locked out of the process.

The right to vote, for centuries the symbol of a functioning democracy, has become completely subverted in the United States, with 90% of the vote to be counted on machines created deliberately with huge security flaws, by companies who are either owned by politicians, or who have sworn to doctor the vote so that a specific party wins. And you bloody well know the truth of that sentence, so don’t start whining about that.

In the 20th century, it took 50 years of world wars to establish even a brief period of functional normalcy (which happened to be the time that spawned the post- boomer WWII generation).

It looks like we’re in for a repeat in the first half of the 21st century.

It has been said that there really has never been such a thing as peace; countries just fight until they are completely exhausted, and then as soon as they have regained a little strength, they start fighting again. What we have been calling peace is simply the timeout between rounds while everyone nurses their wounds and reloads their weapons.

And we call ourselves an intelligent, civilized species.

I’m yet to see much real evidence of either quality, to be truthful. We look pretty much like animals completely dominated by our survival instincts to me.

For years after Israel pulled out of Lebanon,
Hezbollah accumulated Katusha rockets. Weapons that have no value other than to be fired indiscriminately at civilian targets. Then Hezbollah launches an umprovoked attack.
Israel was right in attack Hezbollah. It was wrong
in its tactics. The next time Israel should
give the Shi’ite civilian population the same
consideration Hezbolah gives to Israeli
civilians. (half the Israeli civilian casualities
were Arabs.) By the way, the Israeli arabs were given citizenship rights. They weren’t confined to refugee camps as was done to arab refugees
in Arab countires.

Maybe the “bigger country” should try the only thing which ever worked-its called “DIPLOMACY”

But with redneck rulers, that is a concept not yet understood-mainly because they aren’t doing the fighting.

“The Israeli debacle in Lebanon, along with the failed occupation in Iraq, has given many Arabs, after decades of humiliation, hope that armed guerrilla resistance by Islamic radicals will topple U.S.-backed regimes in the Middle East and cripple the Jewish state.”

So you say.

Well, OK; fine. What’s so great about those crummy regimes, anyway? And doesn’t the belligerent state of Israel need a good crippling?

Although I agree with the writer’s concluding thought ‘that the days of Israel and Washington’s hegemony in the region are doomed’ I believe he has missed an equally significant point which merits notice. Although it may be true that radical elements have been emboldened by recent events, moderate elements have also been emboldened, or perhaps frightened, into a realization that the best defense against radicalism is urgently addressing the Palestinian - Israeli conflict. Note a few examples: Jordan’s King Abdullah’s op-ed piece in Int Herald Tribune of June 21, “… It is time for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to recognize the enormity of the responsibility that they bear, not only for the future security, stability and prosperity of their people, but for the well-being of our entire region...” or his interview on Dutch TV from 2 weeks ago where he again states that the fate of the region is more then ever inextricably tied to peace between Israel and Palestine and that time is of the essence. http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/artikelen/2006/10/27/271 006_abdullah.html
And as last, Israel’s defence minister’s recent openings to reconsider the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061031/wl_mideast_afp/m ideastisraelpeace_061031192958) These are all signs that recent events have also heightened the sense of urgency among moderates to the ticking clock.

Alas, presumably in order to retain his credibility in polite circles, Chris Hedges here contorts both the Israeli war on Lebanon and the US war on Iraq so as to make them unrecognisable. While many may nod with recognition at such statements as «And Israel ... was left to lash out blindly at an elusive enemy, as its American counterpart does daily in the streets of Baghdad», this recognition, gleaned from articles in the US (and European) mainstream media, this recognition does not make the analysis true. The Israeli military did not «lash out blindly» ; on the contrary, it pursued a deliberate policy of firing upon civilians and destroying infrastructure in order to promote «cleansing» of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River to prepare the way for Israeli colonisation. Similarly, in Iraq, it is true that the US has not succeeded in importing anything that could remotely be described as «democracy», but only the most naive can believe that this was the objective that Messers Bush, Cheney, et al had in mind when they launched their war of aggression on that country. What they have succeeded in doing, aside from raising oil prices and ensuring their own personal wealth, is to destroy the country as a power in Southwest Asia ; they seem also well on the way to dividing it, like antique Gaul, in partes tres. Are we to believe that all this is the result, not of deliberate policy, but of failures in the execution of fundamentally benevolent policies by a bumbling giant (and its regional satrap) ? It has not been their blunders, but their policies which «have empowered the radical Islamic groups allied with Iran and have indeed ushered in the birth of a new Middle East, one that understands that the days of Israel and Washington’s hegemony in the region are doomed». For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap....

http://www.contrapublishing.com/Afterdoomsday.pdf

Steen Hjortsoe