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The
Slaughterhouse Informer
A
Compendiium of Various Official Lies, Business Scandals, Small
Murders, Frauds, and Other Gross Defects of Our Current Political,
Business and Religious Moral Lepers.
Presenting a new magazine that contains material that is not found
elsewhere and is very difficult to post on the Internet. The
‘Voice of the White House’ will appear in each issue containing
material not found on TBR News for very obvious reasons.This
publication will appear once a week, on Wednesday, every week, will
be ten pages in length and is available by subscription only. The
price is $5.00 a month and can be paid via PayPal or by check. If you don’t like it, and Bush supporters can read
the Drudge Report for free, you can cancel at any time.
TBR Ebooks
Civil
insurrection in America and government countermeasures: The official
papers
By
Bradley Moscrip
An
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counterinsurgency plans. Here is a sampling of the ebook contents:
Gun
Control by Confiscation
As the American general population is known to be
the most heavily armed in the world, immediately upon the
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will begin the process of rounding up all rifles, pistols and
so-called assault weaponry from the civil population. Lists of gun
collectors obtained from firearms dealers, gun magazine subscription
lists and other sources will be the basis for these mass
confiscations. Gun owners will be supplied documentation by the BATF
showing which pieces have been confiscated so that in the future,
they will be told, they can recover their weapons when the state of
emergency has passed. In actuality, weapons that do not have a high
value or are not suitable for arming loyalist police forces, will be
destroyed by order
This
study is available from tbrnews at
$5.00
by PayPal
The
Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C., March 18, 2010. “We keep harping on the
mERS/Mortgage problem because it is going to become very important,
very soon. The basis problem is that most recent (the past ten years
or so) American mortgages have been taken by various crooked banks,
mostly the big ones in New York, and turned into investment
“sausage.” This means that into ‘Investment Packages” go
thousands (a total of over 20 million at this time frame!) of
domestic and commercial mortgages which the banks sell
to mostly overseas (China, the Gulf and India) investors. What
happens, and what the public is prervented from learniing, is that
no one can find who own which deed of trust. The result of this
sausage grinding is that the 20 million mortgages are so diced,
sliced and sold that it is impossible to get a clear title to your
home or business.
A mortgage holder needs to go to their county
registry office and ask to see who holds the title to their home or
business. If it says MERS, be sure to visit Mr. Trotter because if
the holder does nothing, they have no clear title to their property.
As I said, this is going to take off and the public should know that
if MERS is challenged, in 98% of the cases, the courts give a title
to the complainant and they now own their house or business without
further payments!! Worth investigating, children.
China
in Midst of ‘Greatest Bubble in History,’ Rickards Says
March
17, 2010
by
Bei Hu
Bloomberg
March
17 (Bloomberg) -- China is in the midst of “the greatest bubble in
history,” said James
Rickards, former general counsel of hedge fund Long-Term
Capital Management LP.
The
Chinese central bank’s balance sheet resembles that of a hedge
fund buying dollars and short-selling the yuan, said Rickards, now
the senior managing director for market intelligence at McLean,
Virginia-based consulting firm Omnis Inc.
“As
I see it, it is the greatest bubble in history with the most massive
misallocation of wealth,” Rickards said at the Asset Allocation
Summit Asia 2010 organized by Terrapinn Pte in Hong Kong yesterday.
China “is a bubble waiting to burst.”
Rickards
joins hedge fund manager Jim
Chanos, Gloom, Boom & Doom publisher Marc
Faber and Harvard University professor Kenneth
Rogoff in warning of a potential crash in China’s
economy. The government has raised banks’ reserve requirements
twice this year after economic growth accelerated and property
prices rallied.
China
has pegged the yuan to the dollar since July 2008 to help exporters
weather the global recession. The central bank buys dollars and
sells its own currency to prevent the yuan strengthening, driving
foreign-exchange reserves to a world- record $2.4 trillion as of
December.
The
Shanghai Composite Index
of stocks jumped 80 percent last year and property prices rose at
the fastest pace in almost two years in February, helped by a record
9.59 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) of new loans in 2009.
‘Massive
Stimulus’
The
World Bank indicated today that China should raise interest rates to
help contain the risk of a property bubble and allow a stronger yuan
to help damp inflation expectations. The nation’s “massive
monetary stimulus” risks triggering large asset-price increases, a
housing bubble, and bad debts from the financing of local-government
projects, Washington-based World Bank said in a quarterly report on
China released in Beijing.
“People
making comments about bubbles possibly don’t have all the
facts,” HSBC Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Michael
Geoghegan said in Shanghai today. Regulators are in
control of the banking industry, and have the ability to curb
lending as needed, he said.
Rickards
said leveraged speculation in the stock
market, wasteful allocation of resources by state-owned
enterprises, off-balance-sheet debt through regional governments and
the country’s human rights record are concerns.
“Take
Russia and China together, neither of them is really deserving any
investment” except for short-term speculation, Rickards said.
India and Brazil are two of the “real economies” among the
developing countries, he said.
Hard
Landing
China
is poised to overtake Japan as the world’s second- largest economy
this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, and Nomura
Holdings Inc. forecasts it will contribute more than a third of
global growth. The nation has surpassed the U.S. as the world’s
largest auto market and Germany as the No. 1 exporter.
Harvard’s
Rogoff said Feb. 23 that a debt-fueled bubble in China may trigger a
regional recession within a decade, while Chanos, founder of New
York-based Kynikos Associates Ltd., predicted a slump after
excessive property investments.
Investors
Bob
Doll and Antoine
van Agtmael say China’s stock market isn’t a bubble.
Equities
will gain by the end of the year as the government takes measures to
prevent the economy from overheating, Doll, BlackRock Inc.’s chief
investment officer for global equities, said on March 5. China is
unlikely to face “chaos” or experience a hard landing, Van
Agtmael, who helps manage $13 billion as chairman and
chief investment officer of Emerging Markets Management LLC, said in
a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday.
Lending
Slowdown
The
Shanghai
Composite Index is valued at 32 times reported earnings,
compared with 52 times at its peak in October 2007. The U.S.
benchmark Standard
& Poor’s 500 Index trades at 19 times earnings.
China’s
economic growth quickened to 10.7 percent last quarter, helped by a
4 trillion yuan, two-year stimulus plan for railways, airports and
homes. Property prices in 70 cities rose 10.7 percent from a year
earlier in February.
Bank
loans slowed to 700 billion yuan last month after surging more in
January than the previous three months combined, central bank data
showed. Growth of the broadest measure of money supply, or M2,
slowed for a third month to 25.5 percent.
‘Very
Sound’
The
banking industry has “very low impairment charges compared to what
you’d expect this time in the cycle,” HSBC’s Geoghegan said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a gradual increase in
impairments, but long term I’m confident that the structure of the
banking industry is very, very sound.”
Rickards
disputed an argument that China could hold U.S. policies hostage
through its Treasuries holdings. The nation remained the largest
overseas owner of U.S. debt after trimming its holdings by $5.8
billion in January to $889 billion.
China
would suffer massive losses if the
debt was dumped, reducing the funds available in the U.S.
securities market and forcing the prices lower, he said. The U.S.
president also has the authority, rarely used, to freeze such
positions, he said.
Rickards
worked for LTCM between 1994 and 1999 and helped to negotiate its
rescue by 14 Wall Street firms after the fund lost $4 billion in a
few weeks in 1998. The Federal Reserve brokered the bailout on
concern that LTCM’s collapse would cause a meltdown in financial
markets.
To
contact the reporter on this story: Bei
Hu in Hong Kong at bhu5@bloomberg.net.
China-US
Money Tension Increasing Rapidly
March
15, 2010
by
Henry Blodget
Most experts agree that China is keeping the value of its
currency, the renminbi, artificially low to give its manufacturing
industry a competitive advantage.
A cheap currency helps exports because it reduces the cost of
China's goods in other currencies. China wants to keep its huge
economic engine humming, and one way it is doing this is by keeping
the renminbi cheap. Thus, China has maintained an unofficial
"dollar-peg" to keep the value of the renminbi low since
allowing it to appreciate modestly through the summer of 2008.
Of course, there's no action without a reaction, and China's
cheap renminbi hurts the exports of other countries, namely the
United States. So pressure has been growing in the U.S. for the U.S.
government to take a harder line.
Princeton professor Paul Krugman thinks that China's currency
manipulation is hurting the US economy. He thinks the U.S. Treasury
should explicitly call China to the carpet by describing the
manipulation as what it is, instead of sugar-coating the behavior,
the way it has for years. If this doesn't lead to change, Prof.
Krugman thinks the US should then retaliate by enacting a 10% tariff
on Chinese imports.
The fear of such actions is that China will then retaliate by
dumping its huge hoard of Treasury Bills, which will drive U.S.
borrowing costs higher and reduce the value of the dollar. Such fear
is misplaced, Prof. Krugman says, because if China destroys the
value of the dollar, this will hammer the value of its dollar
holdings and help U.S. exports.
In an annual press conference yesterday, China's premier Wen
Jiabao denied that the renminbi is artificially low and blasted the
US for meeting with the Dalai Lama and selling arms to Taiwan.
So, if nothing else, it seems the war of words seems to be
coming to a head.
..
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/china-us-money-tension-increasing-rapidly-yftt_442086.html
China drought leaves millions
short of water
March
17, 2010
AFP
BEIJING
(AFP) – Millions of people face drinking water shortages in
southwestern China because of a once-a-century drought that has
dried up rivers and threatens vast farmlands, state media reported
Wednesday.
The
drought has gripped huge areas of Guizhou, Yunnan, and Sichuan
provinces, the Guangxi region, and the mega-city of Chongqing for
months, with rainfall 60 percent below normal since September, the
Global Times said.
Guizhou
province has been particularly hard-hit, with 86 out of its 88
cities within the drought zone and more than 17 million people short
of drinking water, the report said.
Millions
of people also were said to be short of water in other provinces,
according to various reports.
The
Global Times said some rivers had dried up in parts of Guizhou and
that local villagers in some areas were lining up to obtain
emergency water supplies distributed by the government.
China
is prone to extreme weather, and severe droughts are a regular
occurrence throughout the country. However, the current water
shortages reported in the southwest have been particularly acute.
Meteorological
officials in Yunnan have said the drought was the worst in 100 years
in some areas, the Global Times said.
The
government announced last week that it had initiated hundreds of
cloud-seeding operations in the region in recent months, using
rockets fired into the sky or chemicals dropped from aircraft in a
bid to induce rainfall.
However,
Xinhua news agency last week quoted officials saying the efforts had
so far been largely unsuccessful due to a lack of moisture in the
skies.
Media
reports also have said millions of livestock and huge farming areas
were short of water.
Meteorologists
have predicted the situation could worsen in coming months as hot
and dry weather was expected to continue and water demand rises as
farmers turn soon to their spring planting.
March
18, 2010
by CommonDreams.org
Returning the Senate to Majority Rule
by
Steven Hill
Standing
at the edge of the health care precipice, President Barack Obama has
reached a defining point in his presidency. The recent news that
Anthem Blue Cross is planning to jack up individual premiums as much
as 40 percent is just the latest example of our flailing health care
system.
But
beyond the immediate health care crisis a more fundamental national
principle is at stake in the health care vote. And it affects not
only health care but also pending legislation on global climate
change, re-regulation of the financial industry, and more. That is
the notion that the majority should rule. If Senate Republicans
insist on abusing the quirky rules of the Senate, such as the
filibuster which requires 60 out of 100 votes to end debate and vote
on legislation, President Obama should push his health care package
through the Senate via the "reconciliation process."
Reconciliation,
which would allow 51 out of 100 Senators to pass health care
legislation, would restore the constitutional principle of
"majority rule" that has been hijacked in the
filibuster-gone-wild Senate. Nowhere is it written in the
Constitution that a supermajority is required to pass legislation in
the Senate. Indeed, the Constitution requires the use of
supermajority rules by one or both houses of Congress in only seven
specific situations (including overriding a presidential veto,
confirming treaties, removing a president or other leaders who have
been impeached by the House). But the filibuster rule is not among
them.
The
Constitution's drafters clearly knew how to impose a supermajority
rule when they wanted to, yet they didn't impose one for ending
debate in the Senate. Various constitutional scholars have concluded
that ordinary majority rule is the Constitution's default baseline,
except in those seven explicit instances.
The
filibuster rule is merely a peculiarity of antiquated Senate
tradition, part of an anti-majoritarian streak that once protected a
minority of slaveholding states. Such anti-majoritarianism was
opposed by leading constitutional figures. James Madison and
Alexander Hamilton warned about the creation of any legislative body
which "contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican
government, which requires that the sense of the majority should
prevail" (Hamilton, Federalist Paper number 22).
The
problem with supermajority thresholds, as Hamilton and Madison
pointed out, is that they allow a rump minority to exercise a veto
over what the vast majority wants. Currently the 41 Republican
senators represent barely a third of the nation's populace. Yet
through the filibuster they can strangle any legislation favored by
senators representing the other two-thirds. The resulting paralysis
and gridlock undermines the Senate's credibility.
Very
few national legislatures require a supermajority to pass
legislation, though one comparable situation we can point to is in
California. There, a two-thirds legislative supermajority is
required to pass a budget or alter revenues, and also has resulted
in paralysis.
Not
only should Obama and congressional Democrats invoke reconciliation,
they should retire the anti-majoritarian filibuster to the dustbin
of history. Some political leaders believe that doing so would
require 67 votes, and if you can't get 60 votes to end a filibuster
how could you possibly get 67 votes to change the Senate rule that
established the filibuster?
But
law professor Vikram Amar and other legal experts have concluded
that only a Senate majority is necessary to abolish the filibuster.
The Constitution allows the Senate or the House to "determine
the rules of its proceedings" by a simple majority vote. The
rule establishing the filibuster itself was passed by only a
majority, and a bare majority of an earlier Senate cannot legally
bind future Senates to a two-thirds vote. To try and do so, writes
Prof. Amar, "would be in violation of deep constitutional and
American values."
Another
possibility would be to reform the filibuster, as proposed by
Democratic Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa. Senator Harkin would allow
the debate-ending requirement to be lowered gradually the longer a
measure is debated. Initially ending debate might require 60 votes,
but after a few days of debate it would be re-set at 57 votes. Days
later, the requirement would be lowered to 54, and so forth.
"In that way, a bare majority could not circumvent discussion
and deliberation at the outset, but neither could a recalcitrant
minority hold up majoritarian action indefinitely," writes
Professor Amar.
So
by either using reconciliation, modifying the filibuster, or getting
rid of it entirely, President Obama would return the Senate to the
original "majority rule" vision of Madison and Hamilton.
And he would pass health care legislation that will allow millions
of fellow Americans to benefit from a level of health care security
already enjoyed by the president and the senators.
Steven
Hill is the director of the Political Reform Program at the New
America Foundation,
March
17, 2010 by Huffington
Post
The Break on Palestine
by
David Bromwich
"To
wipe the spit off his face, Biden had to say it was only rain."
The Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar was tapping a vein of bitter
Jewish wit when he wrote
those words about the humiliation of the vice president
on his recent state-visit to Israel. Trust a weakling, the saying
goes: if you spit in his face he'll just pretend it was rain. Last
week, an American leader finally chose not to pretend.
Before
Biden issued his rebuke to a prime minister who forgot the second
rule of diplomacy -- when you undermine a friend, have the decency
to wait till he waves goodbye -- he had offered the traditional
performance of an American dignitary in Israel. Thus in response to
the unctuous platitudes of Shimon Peres, Biden had actually said:
"It's good to be home." A crazy thing for an American to
say outside America. But in the context of our relations to Israel
over the past thirty years, such a remark is almost par-for-the
course. It shows how reckless American mainstream opinion had grown
in its indulgence of all things relating to Israel. It had reached
the point where a reflex avowal of false nostalgia was taken as the
simplicity of good manners. An American politician in Israel is
routinely expected to show more piety for Tel Aviv than for Plymouth
Rock.
The
sentiment of "home" dished up by the vice president and
the graceless insult with which it was met by the Israeli prime
minister also reflect a political background. The United States had
recently assisted Israel in its attempt to suppress the facts and
discredit the findings of the Goldstone Report. The effort had
several steps, all of them brutal. First there was the character
assassination of Judge Goldstone. A South African Jew, a renowned
authority on international law, who had presided over the trial of
Slobodan Milosevic and whose probity had never been called into
question in Israel, Goldstone was reviled in terms of abuse that
would normally be leveled against a gutter anti-Semite. A hater of
Israel, they called him; though his daughter is an Israeli and he
has enjoyed good relations with Israel in the past. All of this was
disturbing enough in itself. It is more disturbing in the light of
that Jewish ethical tradition in which no station of life is higher
and no character more venerable than that of the honest judge. Not
one major finding, not one witness, not one report of an incident in
the Goldstone
Report, has yet been successfully challenged to vindicate
the crash of ad lib slanders.
A
second strategy adopted by the Netanyahu government and by the Obama
administration was to claim that Goldstone's partiality was proved
by his failure to condemn Hamas. This charge is all over the
anti-Goldstone literature. Yet the report in fact condemns Hamas as
well as Israel. What next? The Israeli government and army said that
all those acts of wanton destruction enumerated in the report were
not actually done on purpose. The bombing or shelling of the chicken
farms, the flour mill, the hospitals, the mosques, the UN compound,
the water treatment plants--how could they know what they were
doing? Or else, they had good intelligence there were terrorists
hiding there, but sometimes even good intelligence is faulty. And
the use of white phosphorus? Israel is still investigating. A last
resort of evasion was to give up defending the actions of the
onslaught, and, instead, change the terminology. Claim, now, that
the horror of Gaza was one of the ironies of "asymmetrical
warfare."
Asymmetrical
it
certainly was. 1385 Palestinians dead, 762 of them
civilians. 13 Israelis, ten of them soldiers, four by "friendly
fire." The Israeli authorities would like America and the world
to think these numbers a natural by-product of asymmetrical warfare.
In Boston, on March 5, 1770, a crowd of Americans threw rocks at
British soldiers and were answered by disorderly gunfire. Five
Americans were killed, and we call it the Boston Massacre. What was
Gaza? Look again at the numbers.
Barack
Obama abetted the Israeli drive to bury the Goldstone report by
allowing his government to say
it was "one-sided and deeply flawed" and also the subject
of "grave concerns." Obama had already shown his loyalty
by his silence regarding the actions of Israel in Gaza in January
2009. It all stopped, by apparent arrangement, just before
inauguration day. Given that history, what reason had Netanyahu to
suppose that Obama would discover the end of his patience last week?
There seemed no jerk of the leash to which this American president,
like so many others, would not respond obediently. Besides, as Obama
knows and as Netanyahu knows he knows, American Jewish liberals who
are loyal to Israel are the stamina of the Democratic Party.
After
an initial perfunctory apology and an incredible profession of
innocence, Benjamin Netanyahu has reverted to the customary usage of
Israeli-American public relations. He has deplored the unhappy
timing of the announcement of the 1,600 new Israeli settlement units
but meanwhile has affirmed the substance of the order. And he has
indicated his intention to resist any further American
attempt to restrain Israel. Netanyahu has two considerations in
play. One is to insert himself into American politics (not for
the first time) to weaken a president he never liked who
shows serious signs of waning popularity. Another is to buy time for
the resumption of his policies by protracting a mimic war of
"wounded feelings" between the U.S. and Israel. This can
serve to draw attention away from the Israeli subjugation of the
Palestinians. There has been a danger, after all, over several
months, that Palestinian protesters, aided by Israelis who
sympathize with their cause, would crystallize into a movement
essentially non-violent in orientation and catch the conscience of
America and the world. The fear of Netanyahu and the Israeli right
is that the Palestinian cause will indeed become a non-violent mass
movement.
Israel
has taken strong measures against that possibility, especially in
the last few months, by rounding up and imprisoning non-violent
protesters. Most recently, according to a report
by Amira Hass on March 15 in Haaretz, Iyad Burnat was
arrested for sending an e-mail that said "the third intifada is
knocking at the door." The consequence? The towns of Bil'in and
Na'alin, centers for non-violent protest, are closed until August
17.
In
general the Netanyahu government regards the prospect of a third
intifada with fatalistic acceptance. "Arabs are like
that." However, concerning the form the intifada will take
Netanyahu is not indifferent. The next uprising will be easier to
manage in public and easier to crush if it is violent. At the annual
AIPAC convention next week--a rite of passage for American statesmen
at which the burden of both flattery and mendacity is understood to
rest on American shoulders--Netanyahu will serve the usual fare and
trust nobody in the crowd of domestic speakers to show King Olaf's powers
of resistance.
But
at this juncture all Americans, even the domestic performers at
AIPAC, have an advantage if they dare to take it. It lies in the
power of truths long-unspoken that, because of Israel's recent
actions, are starting to be spoken. Racism as much as fear drives
the Israeli policy toward Palestinians. This has always been known.
But who now will deny that there is also, in the Israeli distrust
and visceral ridicule of Barack Obama, an undercurrent of racism?
This has only lately been uttered in the American mass media.
On
Hardball on March 9, Chris Matthews in Jerusalem interviewed
Ethan Bronner, the New York Times bureau chief. They began by
talking about Israeli hostility toward the content of Obama's Cairo
speech, and eased into a polite exchange about the prejudice against
Obama's middle name, when all at once a
veil dropped away:
BRONNER:
I think there's also some sense here that--some degree of racism, to
be perfectly honest.
MATTHEWS:
Yes. They--because they see it as a black man.
The
operation of Israeli racism against a black American president is
powerfully enforced by the settler movement and by its American
allies, the Christian Zionists. Indeed, just before the Biden visit,
the Israeli primer minister was host (and a far more caring host) to
the apocalyptic Judeo-Christian supremacist John Hagee.
Settler
racism and Christian Zionist racism (associated with the "birther
movement" in the U.S.) converge in a belief in the political
and the social superiority of Israeli Jews over Palestinians -- a
superiority that for the Christian Zionists corresponds (in ways
that need no comment) to the natural superiority of American whites
to blacks. It was salutary to see Matthews and Bronner calling
racism by its name. The effects of cracks in the official silence
have still to be tallied, but truth may catch as well as falsehood.
Will
Americans now stop calling the annexation wall -- which cuts off
West-Bank Israeli colonists from their Palestinian inferiors --
"the security fence"? It is a wall. Its function is only
partly to secure. It is there also to separate, to mark off, and to
overawe. It registers a difference of kind and a difference of
caste. But there is no familiar name for the separation of Israelis
from Palestinians. The separation produces, and it aims to support,
a condition of constant inequality. It seems too weak to call the
result "segregation." Ehud Barak, a solid authority one
would have thought, has recently called
it apartheid, and language that is accurate in the eyes
of the defense minister of Israel should be good enough for
Americans. Many witnesses who know both countries will
tell you conditions are worse today in the West Bank and
Gaza than apartheid was in South Africa. But that analogy surely
will not be discussed, not even to be violently rebutted, at the
AIPAC convention next week.
A
distraction besides the pouring of unguents on a "family
feud" will preempt much talk about Palestine. Instead, a great
deal will be said about Iran. The Holocaust will be evoked in this
context. But here again an answer is timely for Americans who dare
to inform themselves. Ehud Barak on March 8 told the Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee of the Knesset that Iran poses
no existential threat to Israel. The truth is that
whatever the wild men say, no country of that region threatens any
other with extinction; but one country is widely believed to be well
equipped for nuclear war, and that country is Israel.
The
existential threat in the vicinity of Israel is not extermination
but expulsion. And Israel is the agent rather than victim of that
threat. The project is being carried forward by legalized acts of
dispossession, by harassment, by deprivation of useful work, and by
the deliberate infliction of misery. The most notable Israeli
spokesman for Palestinian expulsion happens not to be a security
billionaire or a radio demagogue but the foreign minister of Israel,
Avigdor Lieberman. When Avigdor Lieberman was
welcomed last February to the world of nations by Senator
Joe Lieberman, the world took note.
There
have been some voices in the past decade to remind us that the
United States is endangered by the aggressive expansionist policies
of Israel. Amy Goodman, Philip Weiss, M.J. Rosenberg, Glenn
Greenwald, Tony Karon, Daniel Luban --- but it is an ungrateful
subject and not many have had the nerve or the pockets to look at it
steadily. And yet, if one takes stock of more recent stories and
columns, one has to add to the list Bill Moyers, Joe Klein, Chris
Matthews. It seems possible that a nationwide self-censorship which
has lasted more than forty years, on a subject of enormous
importance -- a "friendly silence" that is contrary to the
spirit of democracy itself -- is at last beginning to lift.
And
those, from the vice president down, who have now begun to speak
frankly, have a new ally in General David Petraeus. For what Biden
said behind closed doors to Netanyahu---that your actions are
"dangerous for us"--did not come from Biden alone or from
himself and the president but also from General Petraeus. A recent
story in Stars and Stripes reported
that Petraeus has been impressed by clear evidence that American
troops are at risk from America's supply of weapons and approval to
a policy that grinds down the Palestinians. Israel's continuous
fertilizing of the soil in which anti-American terror is grown had
driven Petraeus to ask at a January meeting of the joint chiefs of
staff that Palestine be placed under the regional control of CENTCOM.
The request was turned down, but the analysis that supports the
request is in the public domain. It has been an open secret for a
long time, and what Petraeus said to the service heads a few weeks
ago, he has repeated
in Congressional testimony today.
So
the door to an honest discussion of Israel and Palestine has been
opened wide. Too wide for AIPAC, and all its journalistic outlets,
to close with their usual dispatch. We are in possession now of the
realistic knowledge that Israel's policies endanger American troops
and American interests; that by creating new terrorists, those
policies also threaten the security of the United States. These
truths are not less evident today than they were in 2001. But a
disturbing fact, no matter how unsettling, does not make a decisive
argument in itself. All one can hope is that, in thoughtful people,
it will create a pause for thought. It is one thing to sacrifice
yourself for a friend in the cause of justice; another to sacrifice
yourself for a friend in the cause of injustice. With "the
third intifada knocking at the door," the old American pattern
-- an ever-renewable forgetfulness about the conduct of Israel and
de facto postponement of the question of Palestine -- is less
tenable than ever. At the same time the overcoming of segregation in
the United States bears close comparison with the hardening of
segregation in Israel. The oppressions of Hebron in 2010 exceed
those of Montgomery in 1965. And the settlers of Hebron, unlike the
white citizens' councils of Montgomery, know they have a national
government they can rely on to support the next assertion of their
supremacy.
Seven
years ago yesterday, an American civil rights worker, Rachel Corrie,
was killed in Gaza, run over by a Caterpillar tractor driven by a
soldier of the Israel Defense Forces. A civil suit against the
Israeli defense ministry, by the parents of Rachel Corrie, was
starting in a courtroom in Haifa during the recent visit of Vice
President Biden. The event was barely noticed in the American press
-- it got more attention in Israel -- but an AP
video caught the statements made by Craig and Cindy
Corrie on entering the court, statements remarkable for their
dignity and candor.
Rachel
Corrie wrote in an early
letter from Gaza, addressed to "friends and family,
and others" on February 7, 2003:
I
have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still
have very few words to describe what I see. . . . I don't know if
many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes
in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them
constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not
entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand
that life is not like this everywhere.
She
wrote in her last letter, to her father, on March 12:
I
really don't want to move back to Olympia, but do need to go back
there to clean my stuff out of the garage and talk about my
experiences here. On the other hand, now that I've crossed the ocean
I'm feeling a strong desire to try to stay across the ocean for some
time. . . .I would like to leave Rafah with a viable plan to return,
too. One of the core members of our group has to leave tomorrow--and
watching her say goodbye to people is making me realize how
difficult it will be. People here can't leave, so that complicates
things. They also are pretty matter-of-fact about the fact that they
don't know if they will be alive when we come back here.
She
would have returned if she could. And the cause that prompted her
courage is a matter that the rest of us have barely begun to arrive
at.
David
Bromwich teaches literature at Yale. He has written on politics and
culture for The New Republic, The Nation, The New York Review of
Books, and other magazines. He is editor of Edmund Burke's selected
writings On Empire, Liberty, and Reform and co-editor of the Yale
University Press edition of On Liberty.
The
Hidden History of Zionism ~ The Four Myths
by
Ralph Schoenman
It is not accidental that when anyone attempts to examine the
nature of Zionism – its origins, history and dynamics – they
meet with people who terrorize or threaten them. Quite recently,
after mentioning a meeting on the plight of the Palestinian people
during an interview on KPFK, a Los Angeles radio station, the
organizers of the public meeting were deluged with bomb threats from
anonymous callers.
Nor is it easy in the United States or Western Europe to
disseminate information about the nature of Zionism or to analyze
the specific events which denote Zionism as a political movement.
Even the announcement on university campuses of authorized forums or
meetings on the subject invariably engenders a campaign designed to
close off discussion. Posters are torn down as fast as they are put
up. Meetings are packed by flying squads of Zionist youth who seek
to break them up. Literature tables are vandalized and leaflets and
articles appear accusing the speaker of anti-Semitism or, in the
case of those of Jewish origin, of self-hatred.
Vindictiveness and slander are so universally meted out to
anti-Zionists because the disparity between the official fiction
about Zionism and the Israeli state, on the one hand, and the
barbarous practice of this colonial ideology and coercive apparatus,
on the other, is so vast. People are in shock when they have an
opportunity to hear or read about the century of persecution
suffered by the Palestinians, and, thus, the apologists for Zionism
are relentless in seeking to prevent coherent, dispassionate
examination of the virulent and chauvinist record of the Zionist
movement and of the state which embodies its values.
The irony of this is that when we study what the Zionists
have written and said – particularly when addressing themselves
– no doubt remains about what they have done or of their place in
the political spectrum, dating from the last quarter of the 19th
century to the present day.
Four overriding myths have shaped the consciousness of most
people in our society about Zionism.
The first is that of “A land without a people for a people
without a land.” This myth was sedulously cultivated by early
Zionists to promote the fiction that Palestine was a remote,
desolate place ready for the taking. This claim was quickly followed
by denial of Palestinian identity, nationhood or legitimate
entitlement to the land in which the Palestinian people have lived
throughout their recorded history.
The second is the myth of Israeli democracy. Innumerable
newspaper stories or television references to the Israeli state are
followed by the assertion that it is the only “real” democracy
in the Middle East. In fact, Israel is as democratic as the
apartheid state of South Africa. Civil liberty, due process and the
most basic human rights are by law denied those who do not meet
racial, religious criteria.
The third myth is that of “security” as the motor force
of Israeli foreign policy. Zionists maintain that their state must
be the fourth largest military power in the world because Israel has
been forced to defend itself against imminent menace from primitive,
hate-consumed Arab masses only recently dropped from the trees.
The fourth myth is that of Zionism as the moral legatee of
the victims of the Holocaust. This is at once the most pervasive and
insidious of the myths about Zionism. Ideologues for the Zionist
movement have wrapped themselves in the collective shroud of the six
million Jews who fell victim to Nazi mass murder. The bitter and
cruel irony of this false claim is that the Zionist movement itself
actively colluded with Nazism from its inception.
To most people it appears anomalous that the Zionist
movement, which forever invokes the horror of the Holocaust, should
have collaborated actively with the most vicious enemy ever faced by
the Jews. The record, however, reveals not merely common interests
but a deep ideological affinity rooted in the extreme chauvinism
which they share.
Translation
of Mossad Report on the World Trade Center
“AN
ANALYSIS OF THE TERRORIST ATTACKS ON AMERICAN TARGETS ON SEPTEMBER
11, 2001 WITH APPROPRIATE BACKGROUND INFORMATION
- The
Initial attack on the World Trade Center
On
Friday, February 26, 1993, at approximately 12:18 PM, a huge car
bomb exploded in
the Secret Service section of the underground garage of the World
Trade Center in New York. The blast killed five people and injured
many more The concrete
ceiling over the Path subway station collapsed and the casualties
were killed by the debris. The blast destroyed three floors of
reinforced concrete and set off fires that sent dense clouds of
smoke up into one of the two towers. Power was interdicted and the
lighting and elevator systems were not functioning.
Many
thousands of office workers had to be evacuated . There was great
chaos in the building with occupants breaking windows to get air and
filling the stairwells with a panic stricken mass of fleeing people.
This attack was the work of a handful of amateur Muslims who were
soon apprehended and tried. Four of them, Nidal Ayvad, Mohammed
Salameh, Amad Ajaj and Mahmud Aboulhalma were tried and convicted of
this act and in May of 1994 were sent to prison for life. Their
putative leader, one Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a New York area
religious leader, was also sentenced to life for his controlling
role in the attack.
The
issues of this bomb attack were quite simple. Muslim fundamentalists
had tried to destroy a major American financial institution. That
they were amateurs and very inept was beside the point. Other,
better organized and funded groups would note the disruption and
panic and use it for future such attempts.
The
Americans are not anywhere as competent in dealing with terrorists
as we are. We have been
intimately involved with them since before 1948. As usual, the
American media made a large production of it for about a week and
then it simply vanished.
The
attitude of the Clinton administration was that they did not want to
disturb the American Muslim population and in the end, viewed the
attack as an aberration that
was unlikely to be repeated. The terrorists were viewed as a group
of rank amateurs and the matter was not pursued. We have good
rapport with the Central Intelligence Agency and have many of our
people employed there but this is a domestic matter and these
internal matters are addressed by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation which is not as friendly with us as other agencies.
They have been instructed to cooperate with our people on such
things but are very sparing in this cooperation.
In summation, the Americans did not learn from this attack
and this will be dealt with later in this report.
Because of very lax, almost incompetent, enforcement of
American immigration laws, many Muslim terrorists go to America to
conduct their plotting, secure in the knowledge that unless they
commit a crime, no one in authority will bother with them. They are
free to enter, overstay their short-term visas and go to ground
without fear of detection. Because many of these individuals and
groups are a distinct threat to us, we have sought and obtained
permission from the American authorities to send our counter
intelligence people into their country and keep these potential
terrorists under close surveillance.
Part
of the agreement permitting this is that we were to keep the FBI
fully appraised of anything we might find. They also agreed to
supply us with information. This was rarely fully forthcoming so we
set up our own surveillance, using telephonic systems we controlled.
Also, we have been able to track bank records without any difficulty
and can immediately locate funds coming into the United States from
suspect foreign banks, known to act as conduits for terrorist
funding. Because the FBI is often not particularly responsive or
cooperative, we, in turn, only inform them of matters of common
interest when absolutely necessary.
Due
to our investigations, we early on learned that known Muslim
terrorists and suspected terror cells were primarily located in
Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in both the Miami and Hollywood,
Florida areas and once
this had been ascertained, these groups were kept under close local
surveillance from December 2000 to April 2001. The terrorists were
watched daily and all telephone usage was closely observed. They
often used codes when talking both inside the United States and
overseas but these were fairly easily broken.
- Specific
Activities of Mossad in US against terrorists
We were aware that several terrorist cells were operating in
Germany, thanks to cooperation with the German BND and another
agency. In 1996 and
1997, we were watching a number of suspected terrorists,
specifically one Mohammed Atta and his lieutenant, Marwan al=Shehi
were located at 54 Maarienstrasse in Hamburg
We learned from telephone intercepts and one of our
undercover people, a Yemeni , that the Muslims were planning to
attack American naval units ported in Yemen. This was the attack on
the USS Cole on October 12, 2000.
Our informant
said that the Hamburg people were talking about the idea of
launching a “massive and impressive” attack on American
territory that would be planned to achieve the maximum public
relations effect. In 2000, we learned that Atta and others had left
Germany for the United States and that they were specifically
preparing to launch a spectacular terrorist attack somewhere inside
the United States. We had notified the FBI headquarters about this
and then learned from them that Atta and others were now resident in
Hollywood, Florida.
We sent a team of Arab-speakers led by Hanan
Serfati, into the area and they were able to lease apartments had
rented several dwellings near the corner of 701st St. and 21st St.
in Hollywood, in direct
proximity to the terrorist cell. Initially, we kept them under
constant surveillance and when they had left their residence,
conducted a break-in and planted listening devices.
Also, one of our people, speaking perfect Arabic, made
personal contact with the Atta people. The team leader himself kept
a residence in proximity to the American Postal Service office where
it had been determined that they had a drop box. At this point, we
had kept both the FBI and the CIA fully informed of our actions and
they, in turn, were able to help us with mail covers and other
information. .
We observed that several of the terrorists began to take
flight training. Mohammed
Atta and Marwan Alshehhi took jet flying lessons at
Huffman Aviation, a flight school in nearby Venice. Again, we
notified the FBI and CIA of this training because it indicated a
probable aerial assault but neither agency expressed any genuine
interest in the information.
The Arab extremist plot that led to the attacks of September
11 was hatched in Hamburg, Germany.
The main movers in this plot, Mohammed Atta, Ramzi bin al
Shibh and Said Bahaji, moved into an apartment at 54 Marienstrasse
in the German port city. In 1999 these men, and others, went to an
al Quaeda camp in Afghanistan for training purposes. In 2000, they
were back in Hamburg, boasting about planned attacks against
American targets. In the same year, a number of the Hamburg Arab
plotters went to the United States to attend flight training
schools.
From this time onwards, until the date of the actual attacks,
the Hamburg terrorist cell was in constant telephonic and fax
communication with their members in America.
Shortly before the attacks, most of the Hamburg terrorists
left Germany for Afghanistan and Pakistan. [Source: New York Times,
August 30, 2002]
·
The
Actual Terrorist Plan revealed
Our undercover agent with the Atta group had proven to be of
great value to them by giving them information we supplied him. As
they grew more confident of him, they confided to him, and we had
made tapes of these conversations, that they planned to launch a
massive aerial attack against targets inside the United States. The
USS Cole incident, they felt, had had very little impact on the
American public. It was then that an enlargement of the 1993 car
bomb attack on the World Trade Center in New York was put forward
They developed the idea that if they crashed their planes into both
buildings, the results would be far more dramatic than the initial
attack. Later, our man also suggested a possible attack on other
targets in Washington. They discussed attacks on the White House,
the Capitol building and the Pentagon.
The
number of terrorists to fly commercial planes into targets was
limited by the number of men who were available and could be
trained. It was then decided to rule out the White House because it
was such a small target and concentrate on the Pentagon and the
Capitol building. Once that had been settled, the actual planning
began in earnest. Our man kept us advised at all times of the
progress and we, in turn, immediately notified the (Israeli) Embassy
in Washington and our own agency, both in Tel Aviv and the United
States.
·
Reports
to Department of Justice (FBI)
and CIA to White House in re coming attacks: The President
notified.
As it appeared that there would be such attacks for a
certainty., our Embassy first of all contacted both the American
Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency and appraised
them of the seriousness of the situation. Eventually, the office of
the Ambassador made contact with top aides of the Vice President
Cheney.
It
was felt at the time that Mr. Cheney would understand this matter
and be able to make a presentation to the President. In a number of
substantive talks with Mr. Cheney, it was mutually decided that the
attacks should proceed. The reasons agreed upon were that it would
at once give the President the opportunity of securing great
domestic power with the legislature and the public. It would also
permit, and most important, that the
U.S. could attack Saddam Hussein. He was then one of our top
enemies and had, in fact, bombarded us with missiles during the Gulf
War.
It
was felt strongly that if Hussein were removed, the country invaded
by American troops and occupied, not only would the United States
have secure rights to the huge Iraqi oil reserves but could set up a
large, permanent military base in Iraq. This would act as a buffer
for Israel and a
constant threat to other Arab states plus set up a vital block
between Iran, who has threatened Israel many times, and our state.
Mr. Cheney, who has excellent connections with the American oil
business, was entirely in favor of this on both counts.
He
then made a presentation, with our people present, to the President
who at once accepted all the aspects of it. The decision was made
not to interdict the attack in any way and allow it to happen as it
would and to await the outcome. Both the CIA and FBI were to be
listened to but forbidden to act “until informed to do so.”
Mr. Cheney remarked that he did not want an attack on the
Pentagon to emasculate its military leadership so he suggested that
since a part of the building was empty due to interior renovations,
that our man with the Atta group
inform them that this empty side was where the important
people worked.
When the subject came up of the air attack on the Capitol
building, an enormous and easily hit target, the President remarked
that if the Congress was sitting at the time of the attack, the
death or injury of many of its members would not only add to
national outrage but also strengthen his powers as a President
during a wartime. There was at this point in time, no doubt that a
subsequent American military attack on Iraq with ground troops would
be made as discussed above.
·
Influx
of Foreign Intelligence Warnings
Since
well before the target date, a number of high-level warnings were
received by American governmental agencies concerning news of a
pending terrorist attack. Because, at the highest level, it was
wished not to interfere with the probability of such an attack, all
such information was sent to either the Vice President or the
President himself. Of course, nothing was done in fact but there
were many worried conversations back and forth. The most persistent
were the Germans who had developed inside information and on a
number of occasions sent their finding on to the Americans. All were
ignored.
In mid-August, 2001, President
Vladimir Putin of Russia made a report about possible Arab attacks
against domestic American targets..
On August 20, 2001, the French government made a similar
report.
On August 24, 2001, the head of the Israeli Mossad reported
the imminence of an Arab attack against American targets and a
similar report was made by the same agency on September 7, 2001.
Domestically, the picture is not as clear but it is known
that:
On June 26, 2001, the CIA informed the White House that they
had intercepted foreign intelligence traffic concerning possible al-Qaeda
strikes in America on July 4.
On July 1, 2001, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) a
member of the Senate Intelligence Committee stated that her staff
had advised her that there was a “major probability of a terrorist
incident within the next three months.” (emphasis added)
On July 2, 2001, the FBI reported to the White House that al-Qaeda
terrorist attacks outside the United States were very possible and
that domestic attacks could not be discounted.
On July 5, 2001, the CIA informed the President that al-Qaeda
attacks against American targets were entirely possible during the
summer of that year.
On July 28, 2001, authorities in Dubai arrested one Djamel
Beghal who revealed information about a planned al-Qaeda explosive
attack on the U.S. Embassy in Paris
On August
6, 2001, the CIA also presented a warning to the President,
explicitly concerned with terrorism inside the United States. The
actual content of this message has been the subject of considerable
debate, with White House officials understandably downplaying its
significance.[Sources: Time May 27, 2002]
·
Mossad
agrees to provide special services to US in addition to updates on
Atta people
After
many discussions, it was determined that the American authorities
could not be seen to have had real knowledge and specific
information on this attack. It was also reasoned that for the attack
to achieve its geo-political goals, the targets would have to be
destroyed. Of course they could not destroy the Pentagon nor would
this be wished. As stated above, the damage was to be in a so-called
“safe” area. Our man in Florida did give to the Atta people his
‘inside” information as to which part of the building to attack
and thereby save the lives of top military officials. Because the
main public relations targets were the two tall buildings, it was
imperative that they be either badly damaged or destroyed in full
view of the cameras and the American public. Heavy loss of life was
expected but mention was made of an air accident previously in which
an American bomber got lost in the clouds and rammed into the Empire
State building. Damage to the building was not great. It was finally
agreed that we would supply certain technical assistance to
absolutely insure the very visual and dramatic damage.
The
Americans would have no provable connection with this. To achieve
this, first a study of both buildings was made that showed they were
very cheaply erected and that it would be very possible to
“assist” the terrorists in their work. To do this, three teams
of our people were selected with the idea that they would leave the
country right away and that no one would attempt to interdict or
block their exit.
The
actual plan was to enter the big buildings at night as maintenance
people, to proceed to the part of the buildings most likely to be
struck. We knew approximately where this would happen but not
certainly. Then, entering the office spaces, quick access through
the false ceilings allowed the team to use locally-made thermite
bombs with magnetic attachments which
would easily and
quickly be placed against a strategic number of the horizontal steel
beams that held up each floor.
They
were to be triggered by a specific rise in heat and were placed
against each beam at an angle so as to insure burring the beam
through sufficiently to materially weaken it. Our engineers
calculated that first the plane would strike the building and start
big fires. The fires would weaken the beams and when the heat had
reached a certain point, the thermite hidden up above the false
ceilings would ignite and burn through the beam. The weight of the
building above would press down below and it was then hoped that
everything would crash down.
As
we did not know just on what floor the plane would strike, these
heat bombs were placed, five to a floor, for five floors, up and
down. These bombs were small enough, and safe enough, to conceal in
maintenance equipment. And, in the event that the attacks were
aborted for any reason, our people could easily return to the
buildings afterwards and retrieve the bombs without leaving a trace.
The thermite would certainly eat into the steel but would not
explode and reveal its presence.
·
The
attack
About
three weeks prior to the actual attack, the special code words were
developed by Atta. In that case, the Pentagon was called
‘The Faculty of Fine Arts”, the Capitol was termed “The Faculity of
Law;” and the Trade Building tower was termed, as "The
Faculty of Town Planning."
This, of course was part of the cover story that Atta and his
people were students, following an educational career in America and
used these for international telephone calls to their superiors in
Saudi Arabia.
As
soon as the date was fixed for the attack, the White House warned
very senior American officials like the Attorney General and the
Secretary of Defense and his staff, not to fly on commercial
aircraft because of “rumors of possible hijackings” . No one
outside of a very small circle was told the truth. And because of
the possibility that the White House might still be a target of
opportunity, the President went in early October, well before the
projected attack date, to Texas and then later went to Florida where
he and his staff remained in safety until after the attack was over.
July 26,
2001: Attorney General Ashcroft stops flying commercial
airlines due to a threat assessment
but “neither the FBI nor the Justice Department … would identify
[to CBS] what the threat was, when it was detected or who made
it.”. [Source: CBS, 7/26/01]
He later walks out of his office rather than answer questions
about this. [Source: Associated Press, 5/16/02]
August 4-30, 2001: President Bush spends most of
August 2001 at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, nearly setting a record
for the longest presidential vacation. While it is billed a
“working vacation,” ABC reports Bush is doing “nothing much”
aside from his regular daily intelligence briefings. [ABC 8/3/01;
Washington Post 8/7/01; Salon 8/29/01] One such unusually long
briefing at the start of his trip is a warning that bin Laden is
planning to attack in the US, but Bush spends the rest of that day
fishing (see August 6, 2001). By the end of his trip, Bush has spent
42 percent of his presidency at vacation spots or en route.
[Washington Post 8/7/01] At the time, a poll shows that 55 percent
of Americans say Bush is taking too much time off. [USA Today,
8/7/01] Vice President Cheney also spends the entire month in a
remote location in Wyoming. [Jackson Hole News and Guide 8/15/01]
September
6-7, 2001: 4,744 put options (a speculation that the stock will go
down) are purchased on United Air Lines stock as opposed to only 396
call options (speculation that the stock will go up). This is a
dramatic and abnormal increase in sales of put options. Many of the
UAL puts are purchased through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm managed
until 1998 by the current Executive Director of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy"
Krongard. [New York Times; Wall Street Journal]
September
10, 2001: 4,516 put options are purchased on American Airlines as
compared to 748 call options. [New York Times; Wall Street Journal.]
September
6-11, 2001: No other airlines show any similar trading patterns to
those experienced by UAL and American. The put option purchases on
both airlines were 600% above normal. This at a time when Reuters
(September 10) issues a business report stating "airline stocks
may be poised to take off."
September
6-10, 2001: Highly abnormal levels of put options are purchased in
Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, AXA Re (insurance) which owns 25% of
American Airlines, and Munich Re. All of these companies are
directly impacted by the September 11 attacks.
On
September 10, 2001, the NSA intercepted two messages in Arabic. One
message read:
“Tomorrow is zero hour” and the second “The match begins
tomorrow.” [Source: New York Times, August 10, 2002] On June 19,
2002, CNN reported the contents of these two National Security
Agency intercepts. Other news outlets, including The Washington
Post, also reported on the intercepts.
[Source: New York Times, August 10, 2002]
September
10, 2001: Bush
flew to Florida from Texas to visit with his brother Governor Jeb
Bush. Attorney
General Ashcroft rejects a proposed $58 million increase in
financing for the bureau's counter-terrorism programs. On the same
day, he sends a request for budget increases to the White House. It
covers 68 programs, but none of them relate to counter-terrorism. He
also sends a memorandum to his heads of departments, stating his
seven priorities—none of them relating to counter-terrorism. This
is more than a little strange, since Ashcroft stopped flying public
airplanes in July due to terrorist threats (see July 26, 2001) and
he told a Senate committee in May that counter-terrorism was his
“highest priority.” [New York Times, 6/1/02, Guardian, 5/21/02]
·
Final
Observations
The
final attack varied very little from the last planning stage. One of
the hijacked planes, the one intended to hit the Capitol building,
was crashed by action of its passengers but the other three struck
their targets as anticipated. The flames, smoke and general
confusion were indeed a public spectacle, seen by all of America and
the buildings, beams severed when the heat reached a certain point,
did collapse in great clouds. A third building was tended to from
the inside, not struck by an aircraft, and because great tanks of
fuel were ignited, burned until it collapsed some time later.
The
carnage was not to believe and everyone involved in this felt is was
a most profitable operation. As we know, the President was acclaimed
as a great leader and he was then able to marshal national support
into his attack on Iraq. The military campaign, as foreseen, has
proven to be quick and decisive, Hussein and his henchmen were swept
away and now the American military and civilian forces are in
complete control of Iraq. Iran has been put on notice and we expect
a large, permanent American military base in the area to act as a
deterrent to any future manifestation of Arab nationalism. All of
our technicians, as opposed to our intelligence people, were
immediately evacuated and aside from several who were temporarily
detained by American authorities, eventually all were released and
returned safe home.
Now, we have moved from a defensive to an offensive posture
and, with American support and a large military presence, the
ever-present fears of attacks have been neutralized, hopefully for a
very long time.”
A
BOY'S CONFESSION
'Bless
me Father, for I have sinned.
I have
been with a loose girl'.
The priest asks, 'Is that you, little Joey Pagano ?'
'Yes, Father, it is.'
'And who was the girl you were with?'
'I can't tell you, Father. I don't want to ruin her reputation'.
"Well, Joey, I'm sure to find out her name sooner or later
so you
may as well
tell me now. Was it Tina Minetti?'
'I cannot say.'
'Was it Teresa Mazzarelli?'
'I'll never tell.'
'Was it Nina Capelli?'
'I'm sorry, but I cannot name her.'
'Was it Cathy Piriano?'
'My lips are sealed.'
'Was it Rosa DiAngelo, then?'
'Please, Father, I cannot tell you.'
The priest sighs in frustration.
'You're
very tight lipped, and I admire that.
But
you've sinned and have to atone.
You
cannot be an altar boy now for 4 months.
Now
you go and behave yourself.'
Joey walks back to his pew,
and
his friend Franco slides over and whispers,
'What'd
you get?'
'Four months vacation and five good leads’.
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