Monday, April 30, 2007

Archbishop Tells Christians To Partake In Suicide Attacks Against Israel

Palestinian Archbishop Tells Christians To Take Part In Suicide Attacks Against Israel

By Johnathan R Galt
Posted on 01/12/2003
12:43:54 PM PST
Hamas website (translated by IDF) ^
Jan 12, 2003 Allah Hana

On Jan 10, 2003 the ex spokesman of the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Atta Allah Hana, praised the suicide bombings of organized Palestinian terror against Israeli citizens.

He also called for the establishment of an Islamic-Christian union that will work together to foil the "American offensive" against Iraq and "to release Palestine from the river to the sea".

The following is a translation of the article as published on the official Hamas website on Jan. 11, 2003:

"He [Attah Allah Hana] indicated [at a convention in Haifa] that when his passport would be returned to him, he would stand at the head of a Christian delegation that will depart for Iraq to act as a human shield facing the American oppression of Iraq.

The spokesman of the Orthodox Church praised suicide activities carried out by Palestinians deep inside the Hebrew State [Israel] in the name of religion (Ist'sh'had).

He emphasized that 'the suicide bombers who carry out their activities in the name of religion are national [Islamic] heroes and we're proud of them. We totally reject the dubious attempts of those who protest these actions.

The attackers do not commit in suicide as several claim, nor do they carry out acts of terrorism as others claim, for they are fighters against occupation.

Furthermore, we support suicide activities without reservation and without regard to the claims of those who doubt and to those opposed to these heroic activities in the framework of the struggle'.

Archbishop Atta Allah Hana called on Arab and Palestinian Christians to join the struggle against the occupation by employing any means at their disposal, as they too are a part of the Palestinian population".

Note: Israeli police questioned Atta Allah Hana several months ago about his unconcealed backing of the armed Palestinian struggle against Israel. His declarations echo the wide support for suicide bombings on the Palestinian Street. Human rights organizations such as "Amnesty International" and "Human Rights Watch" defined suicide attacks as "crimes against humanity".

The following is the original copy of the article as it appears on the Hamas website:

Pope John Paul: Bush Regime Complicit In 9/11

By WAYNE MADSEN
April 22, 2003
CounterPunch

"According to journalists close to the Vatican, the Pope and his closest advisers are also concerned that the ultimate acts of evil - the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon - were known in advance by senior Bush administration officials.

By permitting the attacks to take their course, there is a perception within the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy that a coup d'etat was implemented, one that gave Bush and his leadership near-dictatorial powers to carry out their agenda."

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, and columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth.

Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com

Secret Air Base For Iraq War Started Prior 9/11

IRAQFACT
by
Duke1676, Tue Jun 21, 2005 at 01:10:28 PM EST
mydd

Note: This is a republication of an article we ran on June 23, 2005. We republish it here because of it's importance to the current admission by George Tenet, then CIA Director of U.S. plans to invade Iraq prior to 9/11/01.

This is great investigative work, and further evidence that Bush and the neocons were planning pre-emptive military action long before September 11th, and no matter what WMD intelligence revealed. - Chris

Jun 23, 2005, 02:38 - With a small ceremony on April 26, 2003, control of Prince Sultan Air Base was handed back to the government of Saudi Arabia. Since the mid-nineties it had been the premier US air base in the region and the nerve center for all air force operations in the Gulf. As the home of the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC), the base was the primary command and control facility responsible for orchestrating the air campaigns for both Operation Southern Watch in Iraq and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

The timing of the closing of PSAB seemed odd, coming just weeks after the official start of military actions in Iraq. It should have, at the very least, caused unwanted logistical problems for the Pentagon and regional commanders, but it didn't. A contingency plan had long been in the works, not only for Prince Sultan Air Base, but also for the entire map of the Middle East, including Iraq.

Long before the US pullout, a new home for the operations had secretly been built in the deserts of Qatar. What had been in October 2001 "nothing more than a runway and a field of sand covered by two-dozen tents and a few warehouses", the
Al Udeid Air Base was transformed in a few short months into one of the largest air bases in the world.

Published reports and official DOD statements claimed that the amazing transformation was the result of the heroic response of US servicemen to the tragedy of 9-11. A determined military had beaten indeterminate odds to transform a barren wasteland into a state of the art military base in order to "take the war to the terrorists".

The true story of the building of Al-Udeid is actually quite different. The planning for the mammoth base had in fact taken place long before Sept. 11, and actual work on the base began as early as the spring of 2001. The building of Al Udeid turns out not to be a "miracle in the desert" in response to a heinous attack, as touted by the military, but rather a required step on the path to regime change in Iraq.

It has long been accepted knowledge that the Bush Administration was working feverishly towards regime change in Iraq during the 18-month period between 9-11 and the official start of the war in March of 2003. The Downing St Minutes confirmed that the Administration was set on a path to war at least as early as mid-summer of 2002. The accounts of Paul O'Neil and Richard Clarke verified that Iraq was a front burner issue for the Administration from the very first day, and only intensified after the attacks. Yet finding hard evidence to prove that planning for the war in Iraq was taking place prior to 9-11 has been hard to find. A look at the building of Al Udied can provide that evidence.

THE BUILDING OF AL-UDEID (THE OFFICIAL STORY)

According to published reports, the groundwork for what would become Al-Udeid Air Base was first laid at a cost of over one billion dollars in 1996 in an attempt by the Qatari government to lure the American military to set up shop in the small Gulf nation. At the time it was built, Qatar had not yet acquired as much as a single airplane to call the base home. Although they would later purchase an air force comprised of 12 French Mirage fighter jets, they would never actually station them at Al-Udeid. They were simply playing a waiting game, hoping that eventually the volatile nature of the region would bring the Americans knocking at their door. The Qatari's gamble paid off with the events of Sept. 11. In response to the attacks, the US presence in the region needed to increase exponentially. By Sept. 29, 2001, according to the official records, the first military teams arrived to begin looking the base over in preparation for Operation Enduring Freedom.

On October 2, 2001 a rapid-response team of civil engineers, the 823rd RED HORSE Squadron whose specialty is to repair and build structures such as runways and roads in remote areas, arrived. According to the accounts of the 823rd, the Qatar base "was nothing more than a runway and a field of sand covered by two-dozen tents and a few warehouses". Since there was no room in the warehouses for the RED HORSE airmen to sleep, they moved into an expandable shelter on the flightline and lived and worked out of there

They had come to begin the largest construction project ever undertaken by a RED HORSE team; a $9.1 million military construction project that consisted of building a 1,240- foot by 630-foot concrete ramp with taxiways, shoulders and lighting. While waiting for funding and approval for the ramp project, the RED HORSE troops spent two months doing other base projects, like building the operations center and helping set up the tent city. Finally in January 2002 ramp construction began. The completed ramp, as big as 8 football fields, was finished in late March.

As March 2002 began, the airfield was still classified as "Secret"

Only a handwritten "Army Camp" sign marked its entrance. By the middle of the month, several thousand new American troops were now stationed at the base. Many of these troops were supporting the large complement of US aircraft, which included F-16 fighters, JSTARS reconnaissance aircraft, and KC-10, KC-130 and KC-135 aerial tankers. The rapid growth of the base made Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani decide he had to let his people know about extent of the American presence in their country. It was agreed that the best way to announce the presence of the base was to have Vice President Cheney visit on March 17, 2002.

Within ten days of Cheney's visit, reports were coming out of Saudi Arabia that the US was moving communications and computer equipment from Prince Sultan Air Base to Al-Udeid in anticipation of a base closing. US military trucks had been seen leaving the base 50 miles south of Riyadh, and arriving at the border with Qatar in the second week of March. It was speculated that a move was being made in response to the Saudi government's refusal to allow air raids on Afghanistan to be launched from its soil. Additionally, in the event of a Saudi refusal to collaborate in a second phase of the US "war on terror" against Iraq, the move would be needed to allow the US to effectively conduct an air campaign.

At the time US central command spokesman, Major Ralph Mills confirmed the equipment movements but insisted they represented business as usual. Mills told reporters, "This is not uncommon. This is status quo. We are moving stuff from point A to point B, this is an ongoing process." Dick Cheney also denied there were any plans to close Prince Sultan AB, claiming no decision had made to change military positions with respect to Saudi Arabia.

By June of 2002 the work on the first phase Al Udeid was nearing completion

The US military had quietly moved munitions, equipment and communications gear to the base from Saudi Arabia. The base was now home to 3,000 troops. A huge tent city had been erected with warehouses and miles of security barriers. Miles of freshly paved runways and acres of new aircraft parking ramps showed up on satellite imagery from the period. Newly built hangers, munitions supply areas and control facilities had been hardened with concrete to withstand aerial attack, and the base now boasted the longest runway in the region at over 15,000 feet. It had become as one military analyst said; "The most capable base in the Gulf region."

On August 7, 2002

The Saudis announced that the US would no longer be allowed to fly combat missions in Iraq out of Prince Sultan Air Base in support of Operation Southern Watch. The Saudi decision had no effect on US war plans by that time, as Al Udeid was more than prepared to pick up where the Saudis had left off. A year later, Prince Sultan was closed after all Command and Control was moved to Al Udeid.

A HIDDEN HISTORY OF AL-UDEID (PAVING THE ROAD TO WAR IN IRAQ)

As the Bush Administration came to power in January 2001, the sound of war drums began beating along the Potomac. Numerous accounts from the period tell of an increased emphasis on the need for regime change in Iraq. As the political wing of the administration worked on setting the stage for policy change, the military began to deal with the practicalities of waging war. With the deteriorating situation in Saudi Arabia in general, and the possible need replace Prince Sultan AB in particular; the DOD began to make moves to find a replacement.

Since the first Gulf War, the US had had limited military agreements with Qatar. In 1992, a Defense Cooperation Agreement was signed that permitted "access and prepositioning" of US assets in the country. In November, 1995 another agreement to host "several Air Expeditionary Force deployments" was reached. Yet as of 2000, Al Udeid had been mostly ignored, but that was about to change.

In 2000 the US planned to to use Al-Udeid as a munitions storage facility

According to The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) 2000 report released in the fall of that year.
ICBL Report 2000: Qatar

Additionally, based on U.S. Air Force plans for its war reserve ammunition stockpiles in the Persian Gulf region, U.S. Gator antipersonnel mines, as well as Claymore mines, may be introduced and stockpiled at the Al Udeid area in Qatar in the near future. U.S. Air Force documents indicate that the Al Udeid storage facility will eventually contain 142 CBU-89 Gator mine systems, each with twenty-two antipersonnel mines, and 141 M18/M18A1 Claymore mines

The ICBL 2001 report, which was completed just prior to 9-11 confirmed that the munitions storage plan had in fact gone into effect. Located in the remote desert region of Qatar, Al-Udeid was a perfect candidate for this kind of usage. But munitions storage facility would not last long. As the Bush administration came to power they had new plans for the air base, plans that would clear the path to war with Iraq.

By March 2001 the Air Force began investigating moving operations to the Al-Udeid

According to a Congressional report given by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the airfield was now being looked at as potential US base. In his annual Allied Contributions to the Common Defense Report , Rumsfeld stated:
"Since November 1995, Bahrain and Qatar have both hosted several Air Expeditionary Force deployments in support of Operation SOUTHERN WATCH, and the United States Air Force recently established a limited prepositioning facility at Qatar's Al-Udeid Airbase and is investigating moving to the airfield. Qatar also hosts prepositioned U.S. Army assets at As-Saliyah."
This was the first time the use of Al-Udied as a potential base for US air operations was officially acknowledged. Back in April 2000, then Defense Secretary William Cohen had been asked about the use of Al-Udeid at a press conference in Kuwait. He acknowledge that he had "discussed ways in which Al-Udeid may be used in the future, in a crisis situation" with the Qataris, but no agreement could be reached. Obviously the new administration had more luck with the Qatari negotiations then its predecessors.

In June 2001 communications capabilities were completed at Al Udeid

According to his online biography archived at a website for those who had served at Prum Air Station in Germany, Bill Goodman (USAF Ret) states that communications work began at Al Udeid sometime before June 2001. Towards the end of his long and distinguished military career, Goodman says that while working for Air Force Central Command, he oversaw the installation of "communications capability" at Al Udeid in the spring.
"In June of 1996 ...I accepted a position on the United States Central Command Air Forces Staff. I was a Project Manager and Communications Systems Manager for Southwest Asia. I got to spend much time traveling throughout the Middle East. Most significant, and my last official duty in the Air Force was that I was project manager for an initial communications capability at Al Udeid Air Base in QATAR. I completed everything in June of 2001 and am pretty proud of what I helped accomplish there and feel like I made a difference."

Around the same period, Alaswar Technology Group Co (aka.Al-Aswar Electronic) of Hawally Kuwait supplied and installed two "60 foot guy masts, microwave dishes and allied works" in Qatar; one at the Saliyah Army Base, the other at Al-Udeid. Whether these communication dishes were part of the work Bill Goodman was doing cannot be known. What is known is that the US military had personnel working at Al-Udied long before the Sept 29, 2001 date always claimed to be the first time US servicemen set foot at the base.

In the Summer of 2001 construction contracts for the airbase began to go out for bids

By the summer of 2001 plans to expand Al Udeid into a large-scale installation were well under way. The bidding process for contracts to do the work had all ready begun.

On August 9, 2001 bids went out for a "contractor owned-contractor operated" fueling station for both fighter and cargo planes as well as a diesel and automotive gasoline facility for ground vehicles. Also in the bid was a fueling station for mobile aircraft refueling vehicles and a commercial tank truck receiving facility.

COMMERCE BUSINESS DAILY ISSUE OF AUGUST 13, 2001 PSA #2913SOLICITATIONS

X -- COCO SITE AT AL UDEID

Notice Date: August 9, 2001

Contracting Office Defense Logistics Agency,Logistics Operations, Defense Energy Support Center, 8725 John J. Kingman Road, Fort Belvoir, VA, 22060-6222

Solicitation Number: SP0600-01-R-0117

Response Due: October 5, 2001

Description COCO Site at AL Udeid, Qatar

1. An aircraft hydrant fuel system capable of servicing both fighter and cargo aircrafts.
2. Approximately 72,000 barrels of JP8 storage capacity.
3. A ground products dispensing facility for Diesel Fuel and Automotive Gasoline.
4. A truck fill stand capable for mobile aircraft refueling vehicles.
5. A commercial tank truck receiving facility (i.e. tank truck off loading heads).

Record: Loren Data Corp. 0010813/XSOL001.HTM (D-221 SN50U5O6)

(Contact info edited)

On Sept 7, 2001, according to company news releases, a contract was awarded GSCSGulf to build "administration facilities, a worker break room, ablution facilities, an outside storage area, a loading dock, FMSE facility, and a generator run up." Later in the month GSCSGulf was awarded two contracts farmed out from DynCorp. One was for a Fuel Receiving Point, the other for a Bulk Fuel Storage facility. "The projects (were) to be built under expedited construction schedules in order to ensure fuel systems (were) in-place for incoming USAF tanker squadrons deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom."

Although the press release from the 30th of September mentions "Operation Enduring Freedom", bidding on the contract had to have been completed long before that date. As the release states GSCSGulf had won the contracts from DynCorp, one must assume they competed for them.
GSCS Chosen to Build WRM Support Facilities

(7 September 2001) GSCS has won a contract to simultaneously construct 10 minor construction projects in support of the US Air Force War Reserve Material (WRM) program at Al-Udeid Air Base, Qatar. Individual projects include: administration facilities, worker break room, ablution facilities, outside storage area, loading dock, FMSE facility, generator run up

DynCorp Selects GSCS to Construct USAF Fuel Systems

(30 September 2001) GSCS has won two contracts with DynCorp International for the construction of a Fuel Receiving Point and a Bulk Fuel Storage Point, both at Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The projects are to be built under expedited construction schedules in order to ensure fuel systems are in-place for incoming USAF tanker squadrons deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
GSCSGulf was awarded two more contracts during this period. Both had been won competitively, hence bids had been taken. Although it is impossible to know how the events of 9-11 affected the bid review and acceptance process, even under expedited conditions it seems highly unlikely that any but the last contract would have been initiated after 9-11 given the DOD's usual 60 to 120 day turn around time .
GSCS Wins Tent-City Site Preparation Contract

(3 October 2001) GSCS has been competitively awarded a contract for the emergency preparation of 61 acres of outside open area in support of a US Air Force tent city to be erected at Al-Udeid Air Base, Qatar. Work includes: excavation, backfilling, soil compaction, trenching for electrical cables, application of rock aggregate, construction of drainage ditches, access roads with culverts, parking areas, interior access corridors and perimeter earth berms.

GSCS Wins RMS Contract for USAF Aircraft Parking Apron Materials

(28 December 2001) Readiness Management Support L.C. has competitively awarded GSCS a contract for the rapid supply of base course aggregate (42,184 metric tons) and sub-base aggregate (73,482 metric tons) in support of construction of a new US Air Force concrete aircraft-parking apron at Al-Udeid Air Base, Qatar.
October 2001 satellite images showed extensive work had already been completed at Al-Udeid

The Oct 2001 images of runways, structures and roads show an air base far more advanced than the official story would have us believe, revealing that the base was certainly more than one month old. If this construction was part of the original Qatari project, or new US additions cannot be known. What is known is that the base was not "a simple runway and a field of sand covered by two-dozen tents and a few warehouses". Satellite images from Jan 2002, and the following June, show the rapidity with which base was completed. The clock on war with Iraq was running, and the military was in a race to beat that clock.

THE ROAD TO WAR WAS PAVED WITH PROPAGANDA

As any chess player can attest, the game is most often won or lost in the first few moves. The Bush Administrations plan for regime change in Iraq was much like a chess game, each piece needed to be in place before the gambit. Although the grand schemes were hatched in the plush offices of right wing think tanks and corporate boardrooms, the heavy lifting was done by simple pawns in the hot deserts of the Southwest Asia, long before the first rumbles of shock and awe were ever heard.

Able to use the smoldering embers of the World Trade Center as a canard to sell a "global" war on terror to not only the American people, but to those who would fight it, the Administration was able to cover their tracks with a web of misinformation. Al-Udeid was never intended as a frontline in a war against the terrorists of 9-11. It was planned as the frontline for something far different; the "War on Terror", which was nothing more then a clever repackaging of the plans for Iraqi regime change that began with the first Gulf War.


The level of misinformation can be illustrated with a simple story coming from the building of Al Udeid:

According to the official DOD history of Al Udeid, the first fatality of Operation Enduring Freedom was a civil engineer, Master Sgt. Evander Earl "Andy" Andrews who died on Oct. 10, 2001 in a construction accident. To honor Andrews, the sprawling tent city at Al-Udeid was christened "Camp Andy". The story of "Camp Andy" is oft told in press accounts about the base and is a cornerstone in the façade of the official account.

Left out of the official story is the fact that since the existence of the base was classified at the time, the military initially announced only that the fatality occurred somewhere in "Southwest Asia", and his parents waited months to find out what had really happened to their son.

Just as Master Sgt. Andrews parents were not told the truth about their sons' death in Qatar, the American people were never told about the planning and execution of the war in Iraq. The history of the building of AL Udeid demonstrates that the Military planners were on a path to war long before the events of that fateful September morning "changed everything".

This is the first in a three part series by the IRAQFACT working group on military activities prior to Congrssional approval for war.

"Such A War Is Simply Mass Murder"

Afghanistan and Iraq: It's The Same War

By David Orchard and Michael Mandel
Apr 29, 2007, 01:33
GlobalResearch

Four years ago the U.S. and Britain unleashed war on Iraq, a nearly defenseless Third World country barely half the size of Saskatchewan.

For twelve years prior to the invasion and occupation Iraq had endured almost weekly U.S. and British bombing raids and the toughest sanctions in history, the “primary victims” of which, according to the UN Secretary General, were “women and children, the poor and the infirm.”

According to UNICEF, half a million children died from sanctions related starvation and disease.

Then, in March 2003, the U.S. and Britain — possessors of more weapons of mass destruction than the rest of the world combined — attacked Iraq on a host of fraudulent pretexts, with cruise missiles, napalm, white phosphorous, cluster and bunker buster bombs and depleted uranium (DU) munitions.

The British Medical Journal The Lancet published a study last year estimating Iraqi war deaths since 2003 at 655,000, a mind-boggling figure dismissed all-too readily by the British and American governments despite widespread scientific approval for its methodology (including the British government’s own chief scientific adviser).

On April 11, 2007, the Red Cross issued a report entitled “Civilians without Protection: the ever-worsening humanitarian crisis in Iraq.” Citing “immense suffering,” it calls “urgently” for “ respect for international humanitarian law.”

Andrew White, Anglican Vicar of Baghdad added, “What we see on our television screens does not demonstrate even one per cent of the reality of the atrocity of Iraq…”

The UN estimates two million Iraqis have been “internally displaced,” while another two million have fled — largely to neighbouring Syria and Jordan, overwhelming local infrastructure.

An attack such as that on Iraq, neither in self-defence nor authorized by the United Nations Security Council is, in the words of the Nuremberg Tribunal that condemned the Nazis, “the supreme international crime.”

According to the Tribunal’s chief prosecutor, US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, such a war is simply mass murder.

Most Canadians are proud that Canada refused to invade Iraq. But when it comes to Afghanistan, we hear the same jingoistic bluster we heard about Iraq four years ago. As if Iraq and Afghanistan were two separate wars, and Afghanistan is the good war, the legal and just war.

In reality, Iraq and Afghanistan are the same war.

That’s how the Bush administration has seen Afghanistan from the start; not as a defensive response to 9/11, but the opening for regime change in Iraq (as documented in Richard A. Clarke’s Against all Enemies).

That’s why the Security Council resolutions of September 2001 never mention Afghanistan, much less authorize an attack on it.

That’s why the attack on Afghanistan was also a supreme international crime, which killed at least 20,000 innocent civilians in its first six months.

The Bush administration used 9/11 as a pretext to launch an open-ended so-called “War on Terror” — in reality a war of terror because it kills hundreds of times more civilians than the other terrorists do.

That the Karzai regime was subsequently set up under UN auspices doesn’t absolve the participants in America’s war, and that includes Canada.

Nor should the fact that Canada now operates under the UN authorized International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mislead anyone.

From the start, ISAF put itself at the service of the American operation, declaring “the United States Central Command will have authority over the International Security Assistance Force” (UNSC Document S/2001/1217).

When NATO took charge of ISAF that didn’t change anything. NATO forces are always ultimately under US command. The “Supreme Commander” is always an American general, who answers to the American president, not the Afghan one.

Canadian troops in Afghanistan not only take orders from the Americans, they help free up more American forces to continue their bloody occupation of Iraq.

When the U.S. devastated Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (1961-1975), leaving behind six million dead or maimed, Canada refused to participate.

But today Canada has become part of a U.S. war being waged not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in a network of disclosed and undisclosed centres of physical and mental torture, like Guantanamo Bay in — let’s not forget — illegally occupied Cuban territory.

And what we know about what the U.S. government calls terrorism is that it is largely a response to foreign occupation, and what we know about American occupation is that it is a way the rich world forces the rest to surrender their resources.

General Rick Hillier bragged that Canada was going to root out the “scumbags” in Afghanistan.

He didn’t mention that the Soviets, using over 600,000 troops and billions in aid over ten years, were unable to control Afghanistan. Britain, at the height of its imperial power, tried twice and failed.

Now, Canada is helping another fading empire attempt to impose its will on Afghanistan.

Canadians have traditionally been able to hold their heads high when they travel the world. We did not achieve that reputation by waging war against the world’s poor; in large part we achieved it by refusing to do so.

Canada must — immediately, and at the minimum — open its doors to Iraqis and Afghanis attempting to flee the horror being inflicted on their homelands.

We must stop pretending that we’re not implicated in their suffering under the bombs, death squads and torture.

This means refusing to lend our name, our strength and the blood of our youth in this war without end against the Third World.

Michael Mandel is an author and Professor of International Law at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.

He can be reached at tel 416-736-5039, MMandel@osgoode.yorku.ca .

David Orchard is an author and Borden, SK farmer who ran twice for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party.

He can be reached at tel 306-652-7095, davidorchard@sasktel.net .

Bush Has Gone AWOL

By General William Odom
04/28/07
InformationClearingHouse

The following is a transcript of the Democratic Radio Address delivered by Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.) on Saturday April 28, 2007:

“Good morning, this is Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army, retired.

“I am not now nor have I ever been a Democrat or a Republican. Thus, I do not speak for the Democratic Party. I speak for myself, as a non-partisan retired military officer who is a former Director of the National Security Agency. I do so because Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, asked me.

“In principle, I do not favor Congressional involvement in the execution of U.S. foreign and military policy. I have seen its perverse effects in many cases. The conflict in Iraq is different. Over the past couple of years, the President has let it proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued.

“Thus, he lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money, and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies. The Congress is the only mechanism we have to fill this vacuum in command judgment.

“To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is ‘absent without leave.’ He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge. Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games.

“Some in Congress on both sides of the aisle have responded with their own tits-for-tats. These kinds of games, however, are no longer helpful, much less amusing. They merely reflect the absence of effective leadership in a crisis. And we are in a crisis.

“Most Americans suspect that something is fundamentally wrong with the President’s management of the conflict in Iraq. And they are right.

“The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place. The war could never have served American interests.

“But it has served Iran’s interest by revenging Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in the 1980s and enhancing Iran’s influence within Iraq. It has also served al Qaeda’s interests, providing a much better training ground than did Afghanistan, allowing it to build its ranks far above the levels and competence that otherwise would have been possible.

“We cannot ‘win’ a war that serves our enemies interests and not our own. Thus continuing to pursue the illusion of victory in Iraq makes no sense. We can now see that it never did.

“A wise commander in this situation normally revises his objectives and changes his strategy, not just marginally, but radically. Nothing less today will limit the death and destruction that the invasion of Iraq has unleashed.

“No effective new strategy can be devised for the United States until it begins withdrawing its forces from Iraq. Only that step will break the paralysis that now confronts us. Withdrawal is the pre-condition for winning support from countries in Europe that have stood aside and other major powers including India, China, Japan, Russia.

“It will also shock and change attitudes in Iran, Syria, and other countries on Iraq’s borders, making them far more likely to take seriously new U.S. approaches, not just to Iraq, but to restoring regional stability and heading off the spreading chaos that our war has caused.

“The bill that Congress approved this week, with bipartisan support, setting schedules for withdrawal, provides the President an opportunity to begin this kind of strategic shift, one that defines regional stability as the measure of victory, not some impossible outcome.

“I hope the President seizes this moment for a basic change in course and signs the bill the Congress has sent him. I will respect him greatly for such a rare act of courage, and so too, I suspect, will most Americans.

“This is retired General Odom. Thank you for listening.”

General Odom has served as Director of the National Security Agency and Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army’s senior intelligence officer. In his address, General Odom will discuss why he believes President Bush should sign the conference report on the Iraq Accountability Act.

You can download the radio address by clicking here

Eyewitness Inside WTC 7 Reported Explosions Before Collapse

Monday, April 30, 2007
PrisonPlanet

An eyewitness who evacuated WTC 7 before its collapse reported an explosion inside the building, before exiting via the lobby which had been almost completely destroyed - before either of the twin towers had collapsed nearly 400 yards away in the WTC complex.

This testimony severely undermines the flawed explanation that Building 7 collapsed as a result of the damage it sustained following the collapse of the towers, since the structure was seemingly being gutted by explosives prior to 9:59AM.

WTC 7 was not hit by a plane but collapsed in a perect implosion in its own footprint at 5:20PM.

From a September 11, 2001 Associated Press report :

After the initial blast, Housing Authority worker Barry Jennings, 46, reported to a command center on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center. He was with Michael Hess, the city's corporation counsel, when they felt and heard another explosion. First calling for help, they scrambled downstairs to the lobby, or what was left of it. "I looked around, the lobby was gone. It looked like hell," Jennings said.
Yesterday, we featured newly uncovered close-up footage that shows limited fires burning in WTC 7 immediately before its collapse.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Engineers Say WTC Collapse Was Planned

Engineers Say World Trade Center Collapse Was Planned

By JESSIE SALISBURY,
Telegraph Correspondent
Published: Saturday, Apr. 28, 2007

NashuaTelegraph

WILTON – The premise presented by several civil engineers in the documentary “Improbable Collapse: The Demolition of Our Republic” is that the World Trade Center towers and Building 7 could not have collapsed as they did simply from the impact of the airplanes or the heat of the fires.

They had been constructed to withstand such events. The collapse only could have been caused by a controlled, planned implosion, they said, such as those frequently used to take down buildings.

The discussion, led by filmmaker Michael Berger, centered on who could have planned such a thing, how and why.

The film was shown as part of the “Confronting the Issues” series sponsored by Women Making a Difference.

The last film in the series, “Out of Balance: Exxon Mobile’s Impact on Climate Change,” a documentary made by New Hampshire filmmaker Tom Jackson, will be shown at 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

Berger said he researched the question for about four years, full time for about three years.

The picture Berger painted was one of a cover-up on the part of the government, control of the media and the government by huge corporations, and the need for corporations to have the United States involved in a war because they can make huge profits during wartime.

He spoke of apparent advance knowledge on the part of Wall Street traders, the volume of trading of stocks of the airlines involved, American and United, and some of the Trade Center’s larger tenants.

He looked at rec­ords of trading, he said:

“All of this is public record,” he said, but most of it has been ignored by the media after an initial report."

“Why has no one challenged the 9/11 Commission report?

Why has no one challenged the destruction of our republic?”

For details on the film series, visit www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com .

Jessie Salisbury can be reached at 654-9704 or jessies@tellink.net .

The Inhuman Stain: The War On Justice

In Its Conduct Towards The Detainees Of Guantánamo, The Bush Administration Is Fighting Not So Much A War On Terror, As a War On Justice.

By Brent Mickum
April 26, 2007 5:30 PM
CommentIsFree.Guardian

In the latest round of never-ending court filings, the Bush administration's scorched earth litigation tactics involving the prisoners at Guantánamo continue apace.

Advancing legal arguments which the civilised word reviles as morally repugnant, the government renews its claims that:

1) prisoners have no right to counsel;

2) the military is free to disregard the attorney-client privilege that, among other things, may be outlining legal strategy; and

3) prisoners' attorneys who have security clearance are forbidden access to classified
information.
Representing the prisoners at Guantánamo is, perhaps, the most difficult legal task I have undertaken in a career in which I have tried murder cases, represented Fortune 500 companies in massive, multi-district class actions, and prosecuted cases as a Special Assistant United States Attorney. But it is impossible to represent a client in a meaningful way if you are denied reasonable access to your client.

Consider the case of a prisoner who has been in isolation for more than a year and does not possess all his faculties. What is the likelihood that he will agree to have you represent him based on a single meeting? And what is the likelihood that such a client would be able to assist in his own defence even if he did? It is also impossible to represent a client if you are forced to share your litigation strategy with the military. Does any legal system in the world require one side to expose its strategy to the other?

Finally, it is impossible to represent a client when you are unable to review the evidence against him. We know the result; it has happened innumerable times in the tribunal processes at Guantánamo.

The following is an actual colloquy that took place between a prisoner and the tribunal after he was read the charge against him:

Prosecutor: While living in Bosnia, the detainee associated with a known al-Qaida operative.

Detainee: Give me his name.

President of the tribunal: I do not know.

Detainee: How can I respond to this?

President: Did you know of anybody who was a member of al-Qaida?

Detainee: No, no.

President: I'm sorry, what was your response?

Detainee: No. If you tell me the name, I can respond and defend myself against this accusation.

President: We are asking you the questions and we need you to respond to what is on the classified summary.


Although this could have come from The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, it is the Bush administration's version of justice at Guantánamo.

Sadly, the world knows why the Bush administration wants to close the window on Guantánamo. Through the work of attorneys and NGOs, the horrors of Guantánamo and the CIA black sites are being exposed. The Bush administration frequently asserts that the prisoners at Guantánamo are among the most highly-trained, vicious killers in the world, calling them the worst of the worst. But the staggering number of innocent men at Guantánamo belies this hollow pronouncement.

Leaving aside the high-risk prisoners who were recently transferred to Guantánamo, what do we know about the men who have been held without charge for more than five years? If the administration had its way, the public would know nothing. Guantánamo would have remained the torture and interrogation centre beyond the rule of law that the administration intended it to be. But following the supreme court's decision in Rasul v Bush, which allowed attorneys access to the prisons, we now know the faces of the men who inhabit the isolation cells at Guantánamo.

Take David Hicks, the original poster boy for the Bush administration, a terrorist seemingly on the fast track to a death sentence, but for the intervention of a military JAG [Judge Advocate General's Corps] officer who refused orders to plead his client guilty. In a trial that was more circus than serious, the military offered no evidence that Hicks ever took up arms against the United States or committed any violent acts. If the United States had not attacked Afghanistan, David Hick's actions would not even be criminal. Eventually, Hicks pleaded guilty to a single charge of training with the Taliban and was sentenced to nine months. After being tortured and held for more than five years, most of it spent in solitary confinement, David Hicks will soon be free.

But what about the prisoners at Guantánamo who will never be charged? Declassified portions of the Combat Status Review Tribunals, which were released by the military in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal that the majority of the prisoners are not terrorists. Of all the prisoners at Guantánamo, only 8% were found by the military to be al-Qaida fighters.

The military concluded that 55% committed no hostile act against the United States. Only 5% of the prisoners at Guantánamo were captured by the United States. A vast number of the prisoners at Guantánamo - 86% - were turned over by warlords in Pakistan and Afghanistan in return for huge bounties offered by the United States.

Given the foregoing, how does the military justify classifying the prisoners as enemy combatants? Setting aside the absolute inability of the prisoners even to see the evidence against them, much less meaningfully defend themselves, perhaps the following explanation sheds some light on the subject. In many cases, military tribunals found prisoners to be enemy combatants on the basis of their affiliation with 72 different terrorist organisations. The only problem with such a finding is that 52 of the organisations, 72% of the total, do not even appear on the Patriot Act terrorist exclusion list or State Department exclusion lists. Members of 64 of the 72 groups identified by the military as terrorists, 89% of the total, would be permitted entry into the United States.

In the final analysis, however, it is the government's breathtaking ability to classify almost anyone an enemy combatant that accounts for the continued detention of most of the prisoners at Guantánamo. At a hearing before Judge Green in December 2004, the government revealed the extent of its authority to detain the innocent indefinitely.

Answering a series of hypothetical question posed by Judge Green, the following, clearly innocent individuals all fall within the purview of the government's definition of an enemy combatant:

1) a little old lady in Switzerland who writes checks to what she thinks is a charity that helps orphans in Afghanistan, but really is a front to finance al-Qaida activities;

2) a resident of London who collects money from worshippers at mosques to support a hospital in Syria, but unknowingly entrusts the money for that purpose to someone in al-Qaida;

3) a resident of Dublin who unknowingly teaches English to the son of a person the CIA knows to be a member of al-Qaida;

4) a Wall Street Journal reporter who knows the location of Osama bin Laden, but does not reveal it to protect her source.
Begrudgingly, the administration has released more than 400 prisoners. Of the 245 released prisoners we have been able to follow, we know that 205 were either freed without charge or cleared of charges relating to their detention at Guantánamo. The head of Afghanistan's Reconciliation Commission is on record saying that all 83 Afghans who were repatriated were innocent and ended up at Guantánamo because of tribal or personal rivalries.

A senior official in the Pakistani Interior Ministry has said investigators determined that 67 of 70 prisoners repatriated to Pakistan were sold for bounties by Afghan warlords who invented the links to al-Qaida. He is quoted as saying, "We consider them innocent."

Thirty detainees repatriated to Britain, Spain, Germany, Russia, Australia, Turkey, Denmark, Bahrain and Maldives were freed, some within hours after being sent home for "continued detention". All of the Saudis who have been repatriated, with the exception of the most recently released group, have been freed.

Although the Bush administration continues to assert that the men who populate the prisons at Guantánamo pose a threat, the facts and statistics belie that contention. My experience, and that of most of my colleagues, is that, like the little old lady from Switzerland, most of the prisoners are innocent.

The Bush administration would do well to reflect on Gandhi's and Martin Luther King's admonishment that it is not possible to have peace without justice. Amen.

Ethiopia Finds Itself Trapped In Somalia

Analysts Comparing Problem To The U.S.'s Situation In Iraq

By STEPHANIE MCCRUMMEN,
Washington Post
April 29, 2007
KnoxNews

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Four months after Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared his own "war on terror" against an Islamic movement in Somalia, Ethiopia remains entangled in a situation that analysts and critics are comparing to the U.S. experience in Iraq.

Though Meles proclaimed his military mission accomplished in January, thousands of Ethiopian troops remain in the Somali capital, where they have used attack helicopters, tanks and other heavy weapons in a bloody campaign against insurgents that in recent weeks has killed more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, and forced half of the city's population to flee.

...Meanwhile, a political crisis seems to be worsening, as the Somali transitional government, steadfastly supported by the United States, faces a swell of criticism for ignoring concerns of the city's dominant Hawiye clan, whose militias form the core of the insurgency and who are motivated not by the ideology of jihad, but power.

"It's just exactly like the Americans in Iraq," said Beyene Petros, a member of the Ethiopian Parliament and an early critic of the invasion. "I don't see how this was a victory. It really was a futile exercise."

Ethiopian officials declined to be interviewed on the subject of Somalia, and a general blackout of information about the war prevails in the capital.

Opposition members of Parliament complain that they have not been informed how many Ethiopian soldiers have been killed, how much the war is costing per day, or how the government is paying for it.

There is also a sense here that while the invasion served Meles' own domestic interests, Ethiopia was also doing a job on behalf of the United States and is being left with a financial and military mess.

Supporters of Meles are mostly playing down the trouble, even as they are scrambling behind the scenes to find a solution.

Knife Abraham, a close adviser to the prime minister, described the situation in Mogadishu - where the bodies of Ethiopian soldiers have been dragged through the streets - as "a hiccup."

"The victory was swift and decisive," Abraham said. "Now Ethiopia wants to stabilize the situation and get out."

But it remains unclear how Ethiopia will manage to do that while preserving Somalia's fragile transitional government and preventing more violence.

"The military victory was not complemented by a political victory," said Medhane Tadesse, an occasional adviser to the Ethiopian government who initially supported the invasion.

"Long-term stability in Somalia requires a long-term social strategy, but Ethiopia and the U.S. only had a military strategy."

Privately, diplomats in the region say the main problem for Meles comes down to one man: the president of the Somali transitional government, Abdullahi Yusuf, who has always had close ties to Ethiopia.

Although Yusuf promised an inclusive government, he has failed to satisfy key leaders of the Hawiye clan, the historic rivals of Yusuf's Darod clan and the main base of support for the ousted Islamic Courts movement.

One diplomat closely involved in the reconciliation process said Yusuf has refused to meet with Hawiye elders.

In an attempt to breach that gap, Ethiopia has lately been negotiating directly with Hawiye leaders, while the Hawiye seem to be trying to untangle themselves from certain Islamic Courts figures in an attempt to polish their image. This month, the clan asked two of the more extreme Islamic leaders to leave Mogadishu, saying they were a liability.

In an allusion to sectarian violence engulfing Baghdad, residents now call the north part of the city Shiite and the south Sunni.

Gedi said that most of the fighting had ended and that Ethiopian and Somali government troops were merely clearing out the remaining "pockets" of resistance.

But Mohamud Uluso, a prominent leader of a Hawiye sub-clan called the Ayr, said that despite Gedi's declaration, fighting will most likely continue.

"What is worrying for Somalis and the international community now is the possibility of what happened in Iraq," he said.

"The fighting was under the control of the Hawiye leadership committee, but once that control disintegrates, then there will be underground leadership. You don't know who or where they are."

Revisiting U.S. Involvement In WWII

REVISITING US INVOLVEMENTIN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

By: David T. Pyne
Saturday, April 28, 2007
EtherZone

Today, liberal Democrat Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman are toasted by neocons like President George W. Bush and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich as iconic figures, role models and visionary leaders to be emulated.

Yet a study of the history of the Second World War reveals that they made many of the same mistakes in the aftermath of that devastating war that Bush has made in Iraq in destroying the balance of power and leaving a vacuum in power which was filled by our long-term enemy.

Their foreign policy mistakes abroad cost the lives of tens of millions of innocents, perpetuated avoidable conflicts and left a legacy of Communist subjugation and slavery for hundreds of millions of people across the world while their domestic policies brought welfare-statism and quasi-socialism at home.

Truman’s dismal record of losing China to the Communists and being the first American President to lose a war in Korea resulted in his leaving office in disgrace with the lowest approval rating of any American President—a mere 22%.

Is this really the legacy that the neocons hope to lay claim to? If so, it is no wonder that the American people chose to reject their America-Last ideology during the November 2006 elections as entirely alien to America’s tradition of standing tall for peace and freedom and opposing mass-murdering dictators while fighting only just wars in our national interest and insisting upon victory with an eye to establishing a more just and lasting peace.

In recent years, we have all witnessed the disastrous consequences of what happens when the neoconservatives attempt to warp and twist the facts of history and use this distorted version of history to justify our involvement in a war in Iraq in which our continued participation only serves to benefit our enemies.

Perhaps the foremost example of this is the incessant neoconservative attempt to equate principled opponents of Bush’s present no-win war in Iraq with supporters of the policy of appeasement of Adolf Hitler during the 1930’s.

This despite the fact that the historical analogies of the period if anything caution us against pursuing a policy of unprovoked aggression in the Middle East and suggest we limit ourselves to fighting and winning but one war at a time, rather than pursuing a policy which has the effect of multiplying our enemies and overextending our military so that it is unable to meet more pressing threats.

If the actual truths of this period of history were widely-known to the American people, neoconservative propaganda used to retain public support for this no-win war, would be treated as the complete and total nonsense that it is, and the President would be compelled to immediately begin to correct his mistakes and either allow us to win this war quickly or begin an immediate withdrawal.

Furthermore, a knowledge of actual twentieth century and specifically World War II history would have allowed our leaders to predict failure in Iraq and perhaps caused them to avoid repeating the mistakes of history in Iraq altogether.

Liberal historians condemn the efforts of those to uncover the truths of history as “revisionist.” If by revisionists, they mean we are trying to revise history to fit the facts of what actually happened obscured by their whitewashed history of the victors and pretty myths, they would be correct.

As a lifelong student of US military history, former US Army officer and patriotic American, I believe it is important to expose the truth about what really happened in World War II and how America may well have been better off to have limited its involvement in both world wars to avoid the catastrophic consequences to the world that followed.

It is well known for example that World War I and the ensuing Treaty of Versailles led to the rise of Hitler, the Nazi takeover of Germany and the Communist takeover of Russia leading to the genocide of tens of millions.

It also led directly to the outbreak of World War II, which cost the lives of many more lives than its predecessor and served to make the world safe not for democracy, but for Communism with Stalin as the war’s only real victor.

I believe that the America First Committee and the leaders and authors who have come to be known as the “Old Right” were right in embracing a foreign policy of non-interventionism of our Founding Fathers which put America's interests first and kept us out of all but a few foreign wars.

It is my contention that many of the assumptions we have been taught by Liberal Establishment historians about US involvement in the Second World War are incorrect. Specifically fourteen points present themselves:

1. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) lied us into World War II by deliberately inciting Japan to attack us at Pearl Harbor for the purpose of getting the US into war with Germany "through the backdoor" and "maneuvering Japan so that she would fire the first shot." Japan under pressure from FDR's oil embargo during the latter part of 1941 was willing to withdraw from all of mainland China, but Inner Manchuria (Manchukuo) and Jehol province and was willing to pull its troops out of French Indochina to avoid war, but FDR rebuffed its offers.

US codebreakers having broken the top-secret Japanese code months before, FDR had foreknowledge of the timing and location of the attack, but deliberately withheld warning from US military commanders in Hawaii in the hopes that the Japanese would inflict maximum damage and thus goad the American people who previously opposed US involvement in WW2 by 80% into supporting a US declaration of war.

This is as if George W. Bush had incited Bin Laden to attack us and conspired to withhold warning of the Al Queda attack from the WTC and Pentagon officials on 9-11 in order to goad the Americans into a wide-reaching war on terror to support a US war against Islamic states in the Middle East (which of course was not the case).

2. Western involvement in the Second World War itself may have been unnecessary as a close examination of his statements and writings reveals that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler did not want war with the West. His planned crusade against Bolshevikism and invasion of the USSR could not have resulted in a German victory so long as he remained in power (due to his military incompetence) and thus would have resulted in defeat for Nazi Germany even if the Western Allies had not aided the Soviets.

It was the Treaty of Versailles provision that the so-called Polish Corridor be given to Poland thus dividing Germany in two that resulted in the outbreak of war between Germany and Britain and France. Had the Polish corridor not been handed over to Poland by the Allies in 1919 in violation of President Woodrow Wilson’s stated principle of national self-determination, Hitler would have had no territorial claims against Poland thus likely averting his perceived need for a German invasion of Poland entirely.

3. The Soviet Union, not Nazi Germany, represented the greater threat to Western civilization and to US/UK national security. Due to the fact that the Soviet Union was a co-aggressor with Nazi Germany that invaded Poland and started the war, the Allies should have considered declaring war on the USSR as well or at the very least not allying with the Evil Soviet Empire and providing it with massive military aid enabling it to conquer the eastern half of Europe and most of Asia as they ended up doing.

During the period from 1939-1940, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin invaded and/or annexed parts or the whole of six countries to the USSR the same number as was invaded by Hitler during the same period.

Furthermore, at the time of the formation of the Grand Alliance between the US & UK on the one hand and the USSR on the other, Stalin had killed up to one-hundred times as many innocents as had Hitler. Thus, contrary to popular perception, Stalin, not Hitler was the greater evil at the time.

Hitler having declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, instead of allying with the Soviets the Allies should have signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin and raced the Soviets to overrun as much of Europe as possible in order to liberate the captive nations from totalitarian control, not merely hand them over from one murderous totalitarian occupying power to another.

4. Stalin planned to involve his main enemies the US and UK in a two-front war which he termed “the Second Imperialist War” against Germany and Japan in which the Soviet Union would end up being the main beneficiary as it occupied the territories previously controlled by the Axis powers. Stalin planned to invade Germany and eastern Europe between July 1941 and early 1942 regardless of what Hitler did.

Thus, the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941 may well have unwittingly pre-empted the planned Soviet offensive. This fact was revealed based upon a study of documents released from Soviet archives during the early to mid-1990’s.

5. The war could have been ended far sooner had the Allies not insisted on unconditional surrender, the prolongation of the war that benefited no one but Stalin and had they not refused to support the anti-Hitler resistance which included a great many of the top Field Marshals and senior generals of the German Army.

6. FDR’s and Truman’s insistence in prolonging the Pacific War long enough to allow the Soviets to intervene armed with US tanks, planes and artillery provided to them for the purpose and occupy Japanese-controlled territories in northern Japan, northern Korea and northern China was one of the main reasons that the Communists were able to seize control of mainland China.

This disastrous policy led to the loss of 450 million (now 1.3 billion) Chinese to Communist control and to the Korean and Vietnamese wars which cost the lives of nearly 100,000 Americans.

7. The Yalta agreement at which Churchill and FDR agreed to surrender 140 million eastern Europeans in nearly a dozen countries to Soviet control represented the greatest appeasement of evil mass murdering dictators and the greatest betrayal of freedom in world history, dwarfing the transfer of 3.5 million Sudeten Germans to Germany under the terms of the Munich Pact.

8. Operation Keelhaul--the forcible transfer of 2-6 million anti-Communist freedom fighters and their families to be killed at the hands of Stalin and his henchmen--was another great betrayal of freedom and war crime committed by Allied leaders including Churchill, Truman and Eisenhower.

9. The Jewish Holocaust could have been prevented had Allied leaders behaved differently in either signing a temporary armistice with Hitler after the fall of Poland or France or allowing Germany to relocate the Jews to a homeland state of their own such as Palestine or Madagascar as Hitler preferred.

Though FDR and Churchill learned of Hitler's planned Final Solution in late 1942, they did little or nothing to prevent it.

10. The Western Allies committed war crimes against Germany and Japan by using conventional and atomic bombing raids to incinerate entire cities thus killing two million innocent Axis civilians in the process.

The use of the atomic bombs against Japanese cities was entirely unnecessary because Japan was already thoroughly defeated and had been seeking a conditional surrender since at least January 1945 when it sent a surrender overture (with terms nearly identical to those accepted after the atomic bombings in August) to General MacArthur which FDR subsequently rejected.

11. The partial implementation of the Morgenthau Plan in terms of the official Allied policy of deindustrializing Germany and withholding sufficient food rations to German civilians and POW’s following the war resulted in the deaths of over 1.2 million innocent German non-combatants at US hands with hundreds of thousands more killed by British and to a lesser extent French implementation of this immoral policy.

12. The destruction and dismemberment of Germany and the killing of ten million innocent Germans by the Allies (mostly by the Soviets) in the closing months of WW2 and the years that followed represented a Carthaginian peace that made the Versailles Treaty look gracious in comparison and created a power vacuum in Europe which was filled by the Soviets.

This immoral Allied policy enabled the Soviet enslavement of the eastern half of Europe and the genocide of several millions with the tacit approval of Churchill, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower and other Allied leaders.

13. General George S. Patton was right to champion a more just peace for Germany in order to enable them to assist in the defense of Europe against the threat of Soviet attack just as General MacArthur was right to insist on winning the war against Communist China in Korea several years later.

Patton had made many enemies with his calls to get tough with the Soviets and rebuild Germany and the German Army to fight the Soviets. Patton was likely assassinated by Stalin’s agents in and out of the OSS, which was heavily penetrated by Communists.

At the time of his death, he was a mere two weeks away from resigning his commission over some very- heated differences with Truman and Ike’s pro-Soviet policies particularly their policy of implementing parts of the Morgenthau Plan designed to crush Germany and starve hundreds of thousands of innocent people and surrendered soldiers.

14. Joseph Stalin, the greatest mass murderer in human history at the time and his Evil Soviet Empire were the only true victors of the Second World War. The Western Allies won the war militarily but lost the peace by surrendering most of the fruits of victory to the Soviets at the end of the conflict.

Had World War 2 been waged with an eye to securing the future peace and freedom of the world’s nations rather than merely military victory at all cost and at any price, many of the problems we are experiencing today with regards to Communist China and North Korea for example might have been entirely averted, 1.5 billion people who now live under Communist enslavement would today be free, and the lives of tens of millions of innocents who lost their lives to totalitarian genocide might have been spared.

Though US involvement in the Iraq war has been thus far much less extensive than our involvement in the Second World War, given the unprecedented cost to freedom, liberty and humanity of our involvement in what has been mistakenly termed “the good war”, one wonders what the ultimate cost will be to this country of our involvement in this latest no-win war in Asia.

Already the war in Iraq has lasted longer than US involvement in World War II, but the fact that we are losing and the deception and denial at the White House is causing the war in Iraq to increasingly resemble US involvement in Vietnam.

"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."

David T. Pyne, Esq. serves as the President of the New Mexico Republican Assembly and as a Vice President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies. Mr. Pyne is a licensed attorney and former United States Army Officer. He holds an MA in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.

We invite you to visit his website: Center for the National Security Interest

David T. Pyne can be reached at: pyne@national-security.org

Published in the April 6, 2007 issue of Ether Zone.

Copyright © 1997 - 2007 Ether Zone

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Christian Fascism

A Review Of Chris Hedges' 'Christian Fascism'

By Stephen Lendman
Apr 25, 2007, 21:14
AxisOfLogic

Chris Hedges is a journalist who for two decades was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times spending much of his time reporting from conflict zones in El Salvador, the Middle East and from Serbia covering the Balkan wars of the 1990s that divided and destroyed a country under the guise of humanitarian intervention providing cover for naked imperialism. There it allowed NATO (meaning the US) to expand into Central and Eastern Europe to keep predatory capitalism on the march for markets, resources and cheap labor everywhere using wars to get them and eliminate "uncooperative" heads of state...

The wars...had nothing to do with myths about it fed us by Western media. Those wanting the truth can find it in excellent books like Diana Johnstone's Fools' Crusade; the extensive research and writings of Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, law professor Michael Mandel...

The Christian Right supports these type crimes and motives for them readers will understand from Hedges' new book. He's also written many articles and is the author of four books including his bestselling War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning drawing on his experiences in the conflicts he covered describing how people and nations behave in wartime. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. His newest book is American Fascists - The Christian Right and the War on America published in 2007 and subject of this review. It's an incisive examination of the huge threat extremist Christian fascists pose to a shaky free society most people in the US take for granted but no longer will after reading this important book.

This review will cover the essence and flavor of American Fascists beginning with some background on the Christian right, its influence, and danger it poses that Hedges covers in detail. He said he wrote the book out of anger and fear of the fundamentalist Christian Right seeking to establish theocratic dominion over society in America in the name of God and is using the Republican party as their vehicle to do it. He compares the movement's messianic mission to Italian and German fascism of the last century cloaking itself in Christianity and patriotism as their way to gain political power under theocracy's literal meaning from the Greek words "theos" meaning "God" and "cratein/crasy" meaning to rule.

They're not kidding and neither is the risk they'll gain control of government with some observers in Washington believing they already have it including journalist/commentator Bill Moyers saying "for the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington." Some call them "The Christian Mafia" noting they're well-funded by and allied with wealthy, powerful hard right businessmen like beer magnate Joseph Coors and Amway founder Richard DeVos, Sr. Hedges calls them American Fascists, and his powerful book leaves no doubt how great a threat they are to our cherished liberties in a free society now in great jeopardy. Below is an explanation of the Christian Right and fundamentalist movement overall before getting into the book.

The Christian Right and Its Fundamentalist Movement:

The Christian or Religious Right is broadly defined to include adherents of the radical or hard right embracing their kind of extremist political, economic, social and religious ideology falsely called conservative which is a relative term referring philosophically to favoring traditional values including libertarian ones centered on the right of everyone to be master of his or her own fate.

Earlier, sociologist scholar Sara Diamond wrote extensively on the rise of right wing groups in the country providing readers with a wealth of information based on her firsthand research. In her seminal 1995 book, Roads to Dominion, she traced the various movements over the past 50 years identifying four types she discovered:

1. The anti-communist conservative movement that in the 1970s included moral traditionalism of the emerging Christian Right.

2. The racist Right including the KKK and other segregationist groups and later the paramilitary white supremacist movement.

3. The Christian Right with its evangelical roots, and

4. Neoconservatives with roots in the Cold War and Democrat party later finding a new home in the Republican party under Ronald Reagan.

Diamond explained these movements involved scores of organizations, not monolithic in beliefs, who nonetheless share a common set of policy preferences that unite them listing three core areas - the economy, the "nation-state in global context (military and diplomatic)," and moral norms relating to race and gender. The movements are also unified in their advocacy of free-market capitalism, anticommunism (now anything left of center), US worldwide military hegemony, traditional morality, superiority of native-born white male Christian Americans, and the traditional nuclear family. In addition, Diamond lists what she calls the "three pillars of the US Right" calling them "tendencies, not absolutes" - libertarianism, anticommunist militarism (now all liberal/progressive/leftist non-extremist Christian ideology), and traditionalism.

In her book, Diamond included a detailed history of the Christian Right explaining how it came to be the largest, most influential movement on the far right dominating policy-making in Republican-led governments and especially the one not yet in power under George W. Bush. She explained it all in over 300 fact-crammed pages and another 100 pages of notes and references. It's important background information summarized here briefly to set the stage for Hedges important account of what the Christian Right is up to today, why it matters, and why this dominant movement threatens freedom and democracy in America and the values most here hold dear, including most of the 70 million evangelicals, a minority of whom are radical ideologues selling their dogma of hate and domination to convert the others and destroy non-believers.

Our Secular State Founding Principles:

Christians founded America believing church and state should be separated, and Jefferson called for "a wall of separation" between them in 1802 after freedom of religion became part of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Today that bedrock founding principle is jeopardized by the extremist Christian Right. If they get their way, they'll tear down that wall with considerable public support from the 40% in the country polls say take the Bible literally, and nearly one-third believe in the "rapture" as Hedges explains in his book. The notion comes from conservative Protestant eschatology denoting the final happening when "good Christians" on earth are saved and "raptured" to heaven to be with Jesus in eternal immortality while non-believers are doomed to a more hellish, less "rapturous" fate Hedges characterizes as suffering "unspeakable torments below."

These believers and all others are entitled to their views, but the Constitution forbids them forcing them on others. Earlier Supreme Courts agreed in decisions requiring a "wall of separation" between church and state prohibiting the adoption of any state religion and requiring government to avoid undue involvement in religion, its trappings or expressions.

That status was put in jeopardy following the introduction in Congress of the "Constitution Restoration Act of 2004." It was then reintroduced in near-identical form in 2005, never passed, and now awaits its fate in the Democrat-led 110th Congress or a future one that may or may not let it die. If it's ever adopted in its present form, it will turn the country into a de facto theocracy despite its supporters' denial. Don't believe them as getting this passed is key to the Christian Right's mission to turn America into a fascist theocracy where constitutional law is abolished in favor of extremist Christian dogma Dominionists like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and others in the movement want to be the supreme law of the land.

In their world, under their law, practitioners of other faiths will be lawbreakers including about 75 million non-Christians and many others of the faith not willing to go along with their interpretation of it. The "Constitution Restoration Act of 2005" will also deny the Supreme Court's right to challenge anyone in or affiliated with federal, state or local government acknowledging the Christian "God (in their canon) as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government." Henceforth, any judge at any level interpreting the new law differently would be subject to impeachment and prosecution in the United (extremist Christian) States of (fascist) America ruled by people like Pat Robertson and others like him.

American Fascists Masquerading as True Christians - Defiling the Teachings of Christ, His Twelve Apostles and Others of the Faith

Hedges begins his book with a powerful quote from Blaise Pascal that "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." Until the modern era, the best examples in Christendom were the first Crusades when Popes like Urban II sanctioned holy wars between 1095 - 1291 to wrest Jerusalem and the "Holy Land" from "heretic" Muslims and later ones in the 16th century against infidels - in the name of God.

Today in America, Dominionists are the new "crusaders" Hedges equates with 20th century fascists because of their fanaticism. They cloak their ideology in Christianity and patriotism as their way to gain political power they claim is sanctioned by the Almighty to give the movement moral legitimacy. But beneath the surface, their doctrine is dark and foreboding posing real dangers to a free society not to be taken lightly. It comes from their view of Genesis 1:26-31 they interpret to mean God gave man "dominion....over all the Earth," and that Jesus commanded his followers to impose godly rule over everyone denouncing people of other faiths and non-believers. The modern blueprint for this ideology comes from the writings of RJ Rushdoony's 1973 book, The Institutes of Biblical Law, calling for a Christian government. It advocates torture and death for gays, non-Christians resisting conversion, anyone committing blasphemy, and women guilty of "unchastity before marriage."

Ideology Of Radical Christian Right Fascists:

Christian Right extremists advocate a frightening ideology detailed below. It includes:

-- Racial hatred. -- White Christian supremacy.

-- Blind adoration and obedience of the movement's leadership while discouraging free and independent thought.

-- Male gender dominance portraying Jesus as a real man dominating through force like a powerful warrior ignoring fundamental Christian "thou shall not kill" doctrine. It's an ideology of hypermasculinity centered in a male-dominated authoritarian church and in the home where men are encouraged to dominate their wives, and women and children are taught to submit.

Well-known Christian Right leader James Dobson built his career on these ideas and now has a huge media empire dispensing advice as a Christian therapist over his Focus on the Family program. He's heard on more than 3000 radio stations and 80 TV stations reaching 200 million people in 116 countries from his 81 acre campus in Colorado Springs, Colorado employing 1300 people. He's fiercely anti-choice and anti-gay and has backed political candidates advocating abortionists be executed. He also calls stem cell research "state-funded cannibalism" and urges Christian parents take their children out of public schools and put them in Christian ones teaching his ideology.

Dobson preaches male dominance calling non-submission a violation of God's law. He also thinks murder is wrong but not when committed against infidel Iraqis or Islamic terrorists saying all non-believers, heretics and sinners will be consumed in an End Times Tribulation of terrible calamities and torment lasting seven years with non-redeemers condemned to eternal punishment. True believers adhering to holy scriptures, however, will be saved and "raptured" to eternal life and bliss in heaven. But getting there means going along with what he, End Times guru Timothy LaHaye, and other dominant Christian Right figures like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell preach including that they have a divine right to rule and must be obeyed.

Hedges notes that televangelists like Robertson, Benny Hill, Paul and Jan Crouch and others "rule their fiefdoms as despotic potentates" some adherents might think isn't God's way of doing things. They travel with burly bodyguards in kingly luxury on private jets; have amassed huge personal fortunes, much of it gotten from listener subjects; and show up everywhere in limousines with all the pomposity of heads of state and billionaire CEOs but in their case playing God as false prophets "clutching the cross and the Bible (offering seductively), like Mephistopheles, to lead us to a mythical paradise and impossible, unachievable happiness and security" provided we surrender our will to theirs and our money too, which is one way they get rich.

They preach a false gospel of prosperity and well-being preying on the gullible to believe faith alone cures illness, overcomes emotional distress, and assures financial and physical security so there's no need for traditional secular institutions, social service organizations and government regulatory agencies to exist. The movement preaches those not trusting them lack faith, that God alone is enough, and that fate is determined by a personal relationship with Jesus Christ in a world in which individuals surrender their will to a higher authority dictated by the leadership. Hedges sums it up saying tyranny follows when "fealty to an ideology becomes a litmus test for individual worth" and a world of "miracles and magic" is the only "place to turn for help" ruled by Christian Right extremists "grow(ing) rich off (the vulnerable) who suffer" becoming passive in the process.

-- Hatred of gays, the "gay agenda," and everyone in the LBGT movement with Christian Right adherents believing "same-sex attraction" can be cured like a virus their ideological medicine can fix. They define the problem as "male gender deficit" for which "reparative therapy" is the antidote gotten from a close connection with a strong heterosexual man "comfortable in his male role." With nonsensical ideological fervor, they believe bonding with a straight man makes homosexuality disappear while at the same time denouncing gays as depraved perverts and criminals threatening all Christians.

-- Disdain for non-believers and rational intellectual inquiry.

-- Condemnation of self-criticism and debate as apostasy.

-- Frequent use of the death penalty including for abortionists, gays, Muslim "terrorists" and other "heretics."

-- Adoration of militarism, war and apocalyptic violence. Adherence to these notions is so extreme that in the run-up to the Iraq conflict, many Christian Right leaders and End Times believers preached opposing war was anti-American and contrary to God's plan and what's written in the Bible as they interpret it. Their many supporters in Congress include Minority Leader John Boehner, who supports endless wars. He recently said "The spread of radical Islamic terrorism is a threat to our nation (and) the free world....They are (everywhere and) growing right here in America....dedicated to killing Americans (and) our allies, and ending freedom and wanting to impose some radical Islamic law on the entire world." With leaders like Boehner in Congress and the administration, it's easy to see the influence of radical Christian fundamentalist poison infecting the body politic and threatening everyone with it.

-- Illegalization of abortion even in the case of rape and incest.

-- Ending public education with Bush administration help budgeting billions of dollars for extremist Christian faith-based organizations. They renounce proved science like evolution allowing only creationism repackaged as "intelligent design" to be taught as well as other extremist Christian values sold through the "big lie" to trick those in the movement to believe mysticism and magic are facts. Hedges calls the process a "war on truth" where the culture war front lines are in classrooms, and the battle is one traditional educators are losing. Core values of a free and open society are being destroyed and replaced through a process of thought control based on pseudoscience assaulting the real thing on everything challenging extremist Christian ideology from creation to HIV/AIDS to pregnancy prevention to global warming to war and peace.

It's also happening inside government alarming the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) advocacy organization to write in its March, 2004 Scientific Integrity in Policymaking report: "There is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the (scientifically unethical) manipulation, suppression, misrepresentation of science by the (Christian Right dominated) Bush administration are unprecedented."

-- A primary Christian mission to proselytize non-believers to the faith by recruiting "soldiers in the army of Jesus Christ" quoting Dr. D. James Kennedy of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Coral Ridge, Florida near Fort Lauderdale, just north of Miami. His voice is dominant in the Christian Right and carried over the huge multimedia empire he built with his weekly broadcasts heard and seen on more than 600 TV stations, four cable networks and the Armed Forces Network reaching millions of people.

He also has a six day a week radio show on 744 stations reaching millions more preaching his radical ideology that "the Christian view of morality (according to the Christian Right) is the (only) one that should prevail in America" while denouncing liberal churches and other religions as godless. He holds workshops teaching how to sell his brand of religiosity using the same kinds of brainwashing/marketing techniques political and other extremist movements know work. They promise believers eternal life while those not saved are damned to eternal punishment.

-- Rejection of secular humanist notions of reason, ethics, social equity and justice believing a better world is possible through good will in a free and open society. Also claims secular humanist organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood and others want to destroy a Christian America. They further include the major TV networks (for airing sex and violence); major newspapers and magazines; US State Department; foundations like Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie; the UN; the Democrat party left/liberals; Harvard, Yale and 2000 other universities; and all others not buying their gospel of extremist white Christian dominionism and hate.

-- Seizing on the common denominator of pain, disillusion, dislocation, suffering and despair felt by millions caused by a culture of "soulless landscapes filled with strip malls and highways" to build a mass movement of servile, unthinking followers. They've replaced the real world of science, law and rationality with unquestioning belief in the word of the leadership and a glorious other utopian unreal world of prophets, mystical signs and magical mumbo jumbo that's real to them and in which they're "protected, loved, guided and blessed." It promises what followers don't have - a stable home and family, loving community, fixed moral standards, financial and personal success, and abolition of doubt and uncertainty based on religious vision and moral clarity. It also frighteningly promises a final apocalyptic battle of their "good" against all else they call "evil" exterminating the forces believers blame on their despair after which they will emerge victorious and saved.

-- A Christian totalitarian ethic based on a gospel of "free -market" capitalism, militarism and intolerance of democratic freedom of thought and action.

-- A fanatical devotion to and support for the state of Israel as Jerusalem, and specifically the Temple Mount Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary, is where Fundamentalist Evangelical Christians believe the second coming of the Messiah will be and thus is the holiest site in the world for Christians and Jews as well who want it for a third and final Temple. Enter Rev. John Hagee of the 18,000-strong Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, global TV ministry, and his Christians United for Israel (CUFI) radical organization founded in early 2006. He's perhaps the most extremist, bellicose and influential Christian Zionist in America today preaching Muslims are Islamic fascists waging war against Western civilization. His antidote is a gospel of preemptive war against Islam in self-defense including one against Iran now if he had his way. The danger is warmongering hate-preachers like Hagee and others reach large audiences convincing millions of adherents they're right.

The Dark Side Of Radical Christian Morality:

Hedges notes the movement's appeal is from the leadership's promise of a moral Christian nation promising renewal. But the message hides a darker side with Dominionists awaiting a fiscal, social and/or political crisis great enough to end democratic constitutional government replacing it with their vision of a Christian fascist theocratic America. In the meantime, they spent a generation working for this and now have great influence at state, local and federal levels of government.

Hedges notes the movement already controls the Republican party. In addition, Christian fundamentalists hold a majority of seats in 18 of 50 states plus large minorities in the others. Also, (as of the book's publication) 45 senators and 186 House members got 80 - 100% approval ratings from the three most influential Christian Right advocacy groups: The Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum and Family Resource Council. This represents a dominant mass movement succeeding because mainstream Christians and the major media aren't confronting it, and their passivity threatens the constitutional rights of a democratic state on life support sinking fast with help from the Christian Right on the ascendancy.

They're influence is spread by Christian broadcasters commanding large audiences estimated to be 141 million in the US through radio and TV. They preach the Christian Right gospel flaunting their wealth, power and celebrity status to show it works for believers of the faith. They believe in unrestrained free-market capitalism, divinely sanctioned to freely create a global marketplace of (non-Christian, non-believing) serfs, denied all rights, forbidden to organize, and left to the mercy of a repressive state and corporate predators out for profit and to be allowed to dictate wages and control the right to work.

Compassion for the less fortunate is left to individual acts of charity and the churches with government out of it entirely and only dedicated to social control and aggressive militarism dictated by a warrior God (meaning Jesus) giving Christian America the right to rule the world and assure corporate giants can suck all the profit and life out of it. Hedges explains the Christian Right sells an ideology believing it's a "Christian duty to embrace the exploitation of others, to build a Christian America where freedom means the freedom of the powerful to dominate the weak....to bring about (their notion of) a Christian utopia (that when no legal or social protections remain) it will be too late to resist (and the movement's leadership will be in control of everything)." Their plan is to "convince the masses to agitate for their own incarceration" shocking as that notion sounds, but it's working.

The movement is on a "crusade" against constitutional government working for now within the political system it wants to destroy and remake in its own image. Awaiting the time they'll take over, they're creating a parallel system within the existing one in which only "Bible-believing" judges, Christian teachers, and pseudo-reporters on Christian broadcasts are tolerated. And only white Christian men championing their extremist doctrine will be allowed to rule. Students are taught this ideology in Christian schools Hedges says are the fastest growing segment of the private school system. Textbooks used call Islam, Buddhism and African religions "false," Hinduism "pagan," and even Catholicism "distorted."

It's also heard on the campaign trail from candidates like "stalwart on the Christian Right" 2006 Ohio gubernatorial losing candidate Kenneth Blackwell who as secretary of state and co-chair of Ohio's Committee to Reelect George Bush in 2004 "arranged" for enough votes in the state to go to the sitting president to swing Ohio and the election for him. In his own losing effort in 2006, he appeared at Christian Right rallies laying out a blueprint for an authoritarian state where all dissent is heresy yet campaigned carefully not to offend those outside the movement by avoiding religious terminology.

Christian Right Fascism In Real Time In "Bush's Shadow Army" - Blackwater USA:

Journalist and author Jeremy Scahill characterizes Blackwater USA as "the world's most powerful mercenary army" in his new book about them. Like Hedges' book, it's frightening reading needing exposure. It describes a "shadowy mercenary company....largely off the congressional radar....having remarkable power and protection within the US war apparatus" with no accountability or oversight on the ground in Iraq, (working for the State Department, not the Pentagon, with a $300 million no-bid contract), Afghanistan, on US streets and in neighborhoods like New Orleans, and coming soon to a city and neighborhood near you courtesy of the Gestapo-like Department of Homeland Security. With backing from the Bush administration, it operates outside the law and Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and is immune from civil lawsuits like the military. Scahill calls Blackwater the "Bush Administration's Praetorian Guard (along with the CIA long-serving in that capacity and that uses Blackwater in its illegal covert operations abroad and at home)."

Blackwater was founded in 1996 by former Navy SEAL and now super-rich Erik Prince who's closely tied to the Christian Right he funds and supports. It came into its own post 9/11 becoming a dominant player in the Bush administration's "Global War on Terror" (GLOB) now rebranded "The Long War." Today, Blackwater employs 2300 personnel in nine countries with 20,000 or more private mercenary contractors ready to go wherever needed and are part of the 100,000 contractors in Iraq, 48,000 of whom are paramilitary mercenaries. It also has a fleet of 20 aircraft (believed to have been used covertly as part of the Bush administration's "extraordinary renditions" of targeted individuals), including helicopter gun ships, a private intelligence division, and operates at home on its 7000 acre Moyock headquarters Scahill calls "the world's largest private military base."

It's not enough for Blackwater in the burgeoning world of privatized secret mercenary paramilitary armies coming soon to a neighborhood near you, so the company is preparing by seeking an environmentally sensitive protected agricultural preserve southeast of San Diego, CA for it current expansion plans. It's an 824 acre site in Potrero, CA surrounded by the Cleveland Forest Blackwater wants for a military training base with 15 firing ranges for automatic and non-automatic weapons and various types of commando-type training facilities residents don't want near their community for obvious reasons concerning safety. People everywhere should object, for what may endanger one isolated community now or a larger one in New Orleans already may threaten us all in a paramilitarized America we're heading for locked down by Blackwater-type storm troops enforcing Christian Right fascist dogma.

In the meantime, Blackwater is cashing in big as a war profiteer getting huge no-bid Bush administration contracts Congress belatedly is showing interest in wanting to oversee to eliminate abuses. Whether it will happen, however, is problematical as current laws on the books aren't enforced making it likely new ones won't be either on all matters relating to foreign wars, so-called "terrorism," or anything claimed for national security. As long as the nation is in wars both parties support and the Christian Right is dominant, companies like Blackwater will thrive. With them, wars are easier to get into and harder to end meaning the culture of militarism will grow abroad and at home that's part of the Christian Right's agenda to impose its extremist theocratic rule on the country where, if it happens, democratic freedom, as we know it, is incompatible. Under it, Blackwater's private army will be on our city streets as thuggish paramilitary enforcers licensed to terrorize and kill with impunity bringing to America what they're well paid to do abroad.

"Eternal" Fascist Chickens Coming Home To Roost:

A generation ago, the notion of a "global Christian empire" was barely credible, but Hedges' ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, 80-year old Dr. James Luther Adams, warned back then we'd all one day be fighting "Christian fascists." It was when Pat Robertson and other radical televangelists began preaching a new political religion aimed at creating a dominant Christian world according to their extremist views. Adams was in Germany in 1935 and 1936 and saw with horror what happened there firsthand. Hedges says he "was not a man to use the word 'fascist' lightly." He understood before most others the similarities of that time in Germany to what was developing here around 1980. He saw "how the mask of religion hides irreligion (and) our world is full to bursting with (various) faiths, each contending for allegiance." It was a virtual "battle of faiths, a battle of the gods who claim human allegiance."

Adams knew deep-seated resentments and bigotry exist in all democratic societies like Weimar Germany and saw it emerging in 1980s America promoting the destruction of democracy. He feared late in his life a movement here was on the march, more cleverly packaged and sophisticated than in the past and this time with no serious opposition. He saw hatreds being stoked, progressive forces weakening, and the despair of tens of millions of Americans losing good manufacturing and other well-paying jobs being easy prey for smooth-talking fanatics like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell promising miracles and visions of apocalyptic glory.

Adams said then to watch the Christian Right's treatment of gays knowing the Nazis used their "values" to repress opponents and just days after coming to power in 1933 Hitler banned all gay and lesbian organizations as his first target with many others to follow. Pastor Martin Niemoller warned us in different versions of his famous quotation listing Jews, communists and trade unionists targeted but omitting the one Hitler chose first. He didn't speak out because he wasn't one of them, and when they came for him there was no one left. It was too late.

Adams explained gays in a Christian Right dominated American would be the first "social deviants" singled out for condemnation, disempowerment and elimination as in Nazi Germany. Other targeted groups would follow, and we would be next. He then warned as does Hedges that forces against American democracy are "waiting for a moment to strike, a national crisis that will allow them to shred the Constitution in the name of national security." The Christian Right awaits that time "with gleeful anticipation" wanting adherents to be ready.

Hedges warns we also must be ready quoting Alvin Toffler saying "if you don't have a strategy you end up being part of someone else's strategy." It means challenging the Christian Right's gospel of hate, "exclusion, cruelty and intolerance in the name of God" with a doctrine of life, hope and respect for the worth and dignity of everyone, and their right to practice their beliefs openly in a free society. That's the American dream shared by free people everywhere. At the book's end, Hedges says preserving it means giving up "passivity, challeng(ing) aggressively this movement's deluded appropriation of Christianity (and fighting back) to defend tolerance." Wishing won't make it so. Defending democracy means working at it every day. Today we face an imminent threat to our freedom against which "tolerance coupled with passivity is a (deadly) vice" that will destroy us unless we're on guard to be sure it doesn't.

© Copyright 2007 by AxisofLogic.com

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

Also visit his blog site at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen each Saturday to the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on The Micro Effect.com noon US central time.