3 Sufis 3

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Peter Kovacs, the Managing News Editor of the New Orleans Times- Picayune
Censors DU Testing Legislation Story
By Dennis Kyne
May 13, 2005, 07:43



Peter Kovacs, the Managing News Editor of the New Orleans Times- Picayune,
the region’s major daily newspaper, in a telephone conversation with
veterans advocate Bob Smith, and a Times-Picayune political analyst stated
that a story concerning a bill giving the right for service women and men
from Louisiana to a best practices health-screening test for exposure to
depleted uranium would not be published.

The reason Kovacs gave was because the bill was not costing the state any
money. Kovacs went on to say that the Times Picayune criteria for
newsworthiness was how much it would cost.

The fact that the bill supports the troops’ health concerns is not the
criteria. Four other media outlets in the region have already covered the
story expressing concerns for the troops.

On Tuesday, May 3rd, The Louisiana State House of Representatives passed a
bill to give the right to all Louisiana Servicemen and women returning from
Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom for testing for depleted
uranium contamination.

Louisiana is the first state in the nation to have their House pass this
type of bill. The vote was 101 to 0 in favor.

The Louisiana Brigade, with approximately 4,500 National Guardsmen, is
expected to return home from Iraq between October and December 2005.

DU is radioactive and can cause leukemia, DNA breakdown, various other
cancers, and birth defects in offspring of soldiers who have come into
contact with it.

The VA and the DOD have been conducting testing that is not sensitive enough
to detect whether a soldier has been contaminated.

This bill would have helped alleviate that by pressuring the State’s
Adjutant General to insure that the test mandated by DOD orders and Army
regulations would be executed.

The “money” criteria used by the New Orleans Times-Picayune is shocking in
light of the fact that the country is at war and legislation supporting the
troops health concerns is of utmost importance.

www.denniskyne.com 
Former Sgt. Dennis Kyne
If you are wondering what it is like to be on the ground in Iraq during a
real live Nuclear Radiation War, Dennis Kyne is your man. Dennis is a former
Drill Sergeant who knows what it is like and describes the hazards of a
battle using Uranium based bullets, shells, land mines and bombs and the
present-time dangers of radioactive uranium gas. - Bob Nichols


Related link: http://www.denniskyne.com 

1) This is a nice editorial on WWWII:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1481793,00.html
Forward to VE Day
Our memory wars will never end, but a common future is
possible
Timothy Garton Ash in Warsaw
Thursday May 12, 2005
The Guardian
After a continent-wide round of commemorations to mark
the 60th anniversary of the end of the second world
war in Europe, it's clear that the peoples of Europe
have a shared past, but not a common one.
Sixty years on, the memory of war here in Warsaw is
still irreconcilable with that in Moscow. But it's
also utterly different from London's low-key festival
of "We'll meet again" nostalgia. Only in the
recollections of former inmates of the Japanese
prisoner-of-war camps does British memory approach the
horrors of daily degradation that are the stuff of
everyday Polish or Russian memory...
2)  This is a nice bio of Nasrallah, translated into
English by one of the readers of this list:
Le Monde | May 2nd 2005
Portrait
Hassan Nasrallah: man of the Party of God
By Patrice Claude
Bad omens in Lebanon. From $200 a piece on the black
market at the beginning of January, the price of a
Kalashnikov has recently risen to “close to 700”,
according to a newspaper in Beirut. In the void and
confusion that rule over Lebanon since the Syrian
withdrawal, the man who receives us is, in the phrase
of Samir Qassir, a Beiruti academic, “the one who
holds in his hands the keys of peace or war in
Lebanon”. One word from this small, stocky, bearded
man and this country of 4 million inhabitants could
plunge into another bloody civil war, like the one
that took place between 1975 and 1990 (146,000
victims).
The power of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is not illusory.
He is the uncontested chief of what the Americans, the
Israelis and many others consider a “terrorist
organisation”. The man who “guides” Hezbollah is by
contrast celebrated in Lebanon as a genuine resistance
fighter. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites vow him
admiration and obedience. The whole political class,
divided and quarrelsome as it may be, from Christians
to Sunnis by way of the Druze, regularly laud his
“charisma, his political intelligence, his genius for
organisation, and his statesman-like temperament”.
This does not mean that the man of the black turban,
whose portrait decorates thousands of houses, shops,
streets, schools and clinics in Lebanon’s Shiite
regions—they make up 40% of the population—has no
enemies.
Inside the country, those who do not like him denounce
the “diabolical ability” of a politician who arranges
things so that he can weigh in the conduct of affairs
without ever taking direct responsibility for them.
Other critics, secular and numerous in Lebanon, reject
above all what he represents: a shadowy and powerful
religious nationalism, complete with regiments of
disciplined devotees. On the outside, his principal
enemy is called Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime
minister, who regularly warns anyone “who might want
to give this terrorist life insurance”.
Hassan Nasrallah—whose surname means “Victory of God”
in Arabic—is a targeted man. And he knows it. “I am
not losing sleep over it”, he affirms. But those who
want to approach him might find it a difficult task.
Surrounded 24 hours a day by a Praetorian guard of
young, suspicious men uniformly dressed in grey or
black, he never forgot how his “brother, friend and
mentor” Abbas al-Moussaoui was killed, along with his
wife and three-year-old daughter, on February 16th
1992 by an American Hellfire missile fired from an
Israeli helicopter which was lurking for him at a bend
on a mountain road.
“It was perhaps the only time we saw the sheikh weep”,
an old friend remembers. A few weeks later, Hassan
Nasrallah, at 32, replaced the deceased leader in one
of the most dangerous political functions in the
Middle East: secretary general of Hezbollah, the Party
of God.
Having been elected by his peers to a consecutive
fifth term in office in August 2004, Nasrallah lives
in semi-reclusion, appearing only occasionally and
never announced. His address in Beirut, assuming he
has only one, is one of the best-kept secrets in a
country that talks too much. Apart from a few
relatives, no one knows what his wife looks like, or,
for that matter, his three children, aged 25, 20 and
15. Also unknown are the likenesses of his eight
brothers and sisters, and those of his mother and
father, we do not even know if they are dead or alive.
This personality, which Farid Khazen, professor of
political sciences at the American University of
Beirut, considers as “the best known and most popular
Shiite figure of the Arab World”, remains an enigma
for the majority of his compatriots. Did he keep only
friends from the years 1976-78 when he was studying at
the seminary in Najaf, the holy city of world Shiism?
One encounter at least has changed him for ever, that
with the “spiritual master” who at the time was a
refugee in Najaf: Ayatollah Khomeini. “His presence
radiated,” remembers Nasrallah, “in his company, time
and space became immaterial.”
For the young student of theology, 18 years old at the
time, it was a revelation. Even today, in Lebanon, the
teachings and portraits of the Iranian Guide of world
Islamic revolution dominate the intellectual and urban
landscapes of Hezbollah. Without Khomeini, his advice,
his weapons, the millions of dollars and the hundreds
of revolutionary guards he dispatched to Lebanon after
the Israeli invasion of 1982, the Party of God would
have never seen the light of day. From that troubled
period Nasrallah has kept “an old dream”: to become
one day an ayatollah, a mujtahid, that is a recognised
interpreter of the divine word, and even—why not?—a
marji, a supreme religious guide and “source of
imitation” for millions of practicing Shiites.
After the death of Khomeini in 1989, Hezbollah
endorsed his successor on the spiritual throne of the
Iranian theocracy, Ayatollah Khamenei. Yet, even
though the creation in Lebanon of an Islamic
government à l’iranienne is still a declared aim of
the party in its official manifesto of 1985, Secretary
General Nasrallah is no less keen to repeat that,
because of the “religious diversity particular to
Lebanon”, an Islamic state, “which in any case cannot
be imposed by force, is not on the agenda”.
In Najaf, another marji, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, who belongs to the quietist school of
Shiism, which refuses to “squander” religion in the
exercise of temporal power, is on the same line. On
many occasions since the American intervention in Iraq
in 2003, Nasrallah, full of his aura in the region,
called for “the defence” of the old ayatollah and for
“respecting his word”. The two men, however, are
neither exactly on the same wavelength—the Lebanese
hardly appreciate the cooperation of Iraqi Shiites
with America and would have certainly preferred that
Ali Sistani call for Jihad against the invaders—nor
are they from the same world.
As much as his men like systematically to give him his
title as a presumed descendant of the prophet, “His
Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah
							

http://www.juancole.com/

Secret British Memo Shows Bush Tampered with Iraq
Intelligence

A top secret British memorandum dated 23 July 2002 was
leaked in the run-up to yesterday's parliamentary
elections in the UK (which Blair won, though his
Labour Party was much weakened by public disgust with
such shenanigans as the below). I mirror the memo
below, from the Times Online site. It summarizes a
report to Blair and others in the British government
by Sir Brian Dearlove (This is the press release when
he was appointed in 1999). The head of MI6, or the
foreign intelligence service of the UK, is known as
"C."

Here is the smoking gun:

"C [Dearlove] reported on his recent talks in
Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude.
Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush
wanted to remove Saddam, through military action,
justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But
the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the
policy.


It is not surprising on the face of it that Bush had
decided on the Iraq war by summer of 2002. It it is
notable that Dearlove noticed a change in views on the
subject from earlier visits. By summer of 2002, the
Afghanistan war had wound down and al-Qaeda was on the
run, so Bush no longer felt vulnerable and was ready
to go forward with his long-cherished project of an
Iraq War. What is notable is that all this was not
what Bush was telling us.

Bush was lying to the American people at the time and
saying that no final decision had been made on the
war.

Godfrey Sperling of the Christian Science Monitor
could write on August 27, 2002, "Indeed, Bush has said
he welcomes a 'debate' on Iraq from those in Congress
and from the public. But he has made it clear that he
will make his decision based on what his intelligence
people are telling him."

But Dearlove's report makes it clear that Bush had
already decided absolutely on a war already the
previous month, and that he had managed to give
British intelligence the firm impression that he
intended to shape the intelligence to support such a
war. So poor Sperling was lied to twice. Any "debate"
was meaningless if the president had already decided.
And he wasn't waiting to make his decision in the
light of the intelligence. He was going to tell the
intelligence professionals to what conclusion they had
to come. "But the intelligence and facts were being
fixed around the policy."

Why would it even be necessary to turn the
intelligence analysts into "weasels" who would have to
tell Bush what he wanted to hear?

It was necessary because the "justification" of the
"conjunction" of Weapons of Mass Destruction and
terrorism was virtually non-existent.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw admitted it at
the meeting: "It seemed clear that Bush had made up
his mind to take military action, even if the timing
was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was
not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability
was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

So the "justification" would have to be provided by
"fixing" the intelligence around the policy. Bush was
just going to make things up, since the realities did
not actually justify his planned war! The British
cabinet sat around and admitted to themselves that a)
there was no justification for the war into which they
were allowing themselves to be dragged and b) that the
war would be gotten up through Goebbels-like
techniques!

It is even worse. British Attorney-General Lord
Goldsmith was at the meeting. He had to think up a
justification for the war in international law.
Britain is in Europe, and Europe takes international
law seriously. You could have war crimes trials.
(Remember that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
almost got tried in Spain for killing 5000 people in
the 1970s).

Goldsmith was as nervous as a cat in a roomful of
rocking chairs: "The Attorney-General said that the
desire for regime change was not a legal base for
military action. There were three possible legal
bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or
UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be
the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three
years ago would be difficult. The situation might of
course change."

The driness of the wit is unbearable. "The desire for
regime change was not a legal base for military
action"! Naked aggression is illegal, he could have
said. Then he reviews the three possible grounds for a
war. You could have a war if Iraq attacked you. Iraq
had not attacked the US. Or you could have a war if it
was a humanitarian intervention (e.g. under the
genocide convention). But Saddam's major campaigns of
death had been a decade before. Or you could get a
United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing
the war, in accordance with the UN charter. But
Goldsmith makes it clear he thought you would need a
new resolution, that the old ones wouldn't work for
this purpose.

The Attorney General of the United Kingdom thought the
reports Dearlove and Straw were bringing back from
Washington reeked of an illegal war. People who plan
out illegal wars are war criminals. He knew this. He
was stuck, however. They were all stuck.

The man from Connecticut with the Crawford ranch had
decided to cut down some trees. And they were all
hostages in his guest house and he was going to put
chain saws in their hands and make them help, whether
they liked it or not. Goldsmith's hands trembled as he
reached out for the chainsaw rig. He saw himself and
the others sitting in the Hague, one day, facing the
same judges that Milosevic harangued. Charged.

But it is a long way from Crawford to the Hague. The
man from Connecticut with the cowboy boots and the
fake twang would get away with it. They would all get
away with it.

But people would know they had lied.



Other commentary:

Ray McGovern.
http://antiwar.com/mcgovern/

Proof the Fix Was In

by Ray McGovern
"Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the
policy."

Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would see
those words in black and white – and beneath a SECRET
stamp, no less. For three years now, we in Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been
saying that the CIA and its British counterpart, MI-6,
were ordered by their countries' leaders to "fix
facts" to "justify" an unprovoked war on Iraq. More
often than not, we have been greeted with stares of
incredulity.


Warren Strobel and John Walcott.


The Memo:



SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02

cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary,
Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett,
Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally
Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23
July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies
should be made. It should be shown only to those with
a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the in
telligence and latest
JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on
extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely
to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried
and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but
he was not convinced that it would be immediate or
overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to
line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army
morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the
public was probably narrowly based.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There
was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action
was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove
Saddam, through military action, justified by the
conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence
and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC
had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm
for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record.
There was little discussion in Washington of the
aftermath after military action.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on
1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US
troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up
to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30
days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x
6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi
casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air
campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.

The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with
basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either
option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also
important, but less vital. The three main options for
UK involvement were:

(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF
squadrons.

(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in
addition.

(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to
40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq
entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already
begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the
regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought
the most likely timing in US minds for military action
to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30
days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with
Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had
made up his mind to take military action, even if the
timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin.
Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD
capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or
Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to
Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors.
This would also help with the legal justification for
the use of force.

The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime
change was not a legal base for military action. There
were three possible legal bases: self-defence,
humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The
first and second could not be the base in this case.
Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be
difficult. The situation might of course change.

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big
difference politically and legally if Saddam refused
to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD
were linked in the sense that it was the regime that
was producing the WMD. There were different strategies
for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political
context were right, people would support regime
change. The two key issues were whether the military
plan worked and whether we had the political strategy
to give the military plan the space to work.

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the
US battleplan was workable. The military were
continuing to ask lots of questions.

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam
used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse
and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam
could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added
the Defence Secretary.

The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go
ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it
was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests
converged. But on the political strategy, there could
be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should
explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would
continue to play hard-ball with the UN.

John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the
inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of
military action was real.

The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister
wanted UK military involvement, he would need to
decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US
did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route.
It would be important for the Prime Minister to set
out the political context to Bush.

Conclusions:

(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would
take part in any military action. But we needed a
fuller picture of US planning before we could take any
firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that
we were considering a range of options.

(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of
whether funds could be spent in preparation for this
operation.

(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of
the proposed military campaign and possible UK
contributions by the end of the week.

(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime
Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and
discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.

He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the
positions of countries in the region especially
Turkey, and of the key EU member states.

(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full
intelligence update.

(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the
Attorney-General would consider legal advice with
FCO/MOD legal advisers.

(I have written separately to commission this
follow-up work.)

MATTHEW RYCROFT

(Rycroft was a Downing Street foreign policy aide)

1) A well-connected American lobbyist named Jack
Abramoff, very close to Tom DeLay, starts a foundation
to assist US inner-city youth sports programs.  This
foundation, the "Capital Athletic Foundation," raises
several million dollars with gala events, especially
from Native American gambling interests.  Unknown to
the donors, however, the foundation managers sent a
substantial portion of the funds not to inner city
youth sports programs, but to Israeli settlers in the
West Bank.  Some of these allocated funds were used to
purchase "security equipment," including "camouflage
suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a
thermal imager," and other materials.  The FBI is
currently conducting a "fraud investigation" into this
foundation.  What's wrong with this picture? 

How is this scenario different than several recent
cases where American groups (example: Holy Land
Foundation) were accused of raising money in the US to
support various groups listed as "terrorist groups" in
Israel/Palestine (example: Hamas)? 

Considering the number of Palestinians killed by
settlers in the past four years, it would appear that
the moniker "terrorist" applies to such settler groups
-- indeed the US government has designated at least
two such groups as terrorist groups (Kahane Chai,
Jewish Defense League).  So, if the group that
received this funding might at all be connected to
Kahane Chai or the JDL, doesn't it seem more logical
for the FBI to open up a "terrorism" investigation
rather than a "fraud" investigation?  In the interest
of impartiality, either the aforementioned supporters
of Palestinian liberation groups should be tried for
"fraud," or Abramoff should be tried for "supporting
terrorism."

FUNDRAISING: TAKE IT TO THE (WEST) BANK
By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
May 2, 2005 Issue
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7615249/site/newsweek/


Newsweek
May 2 issue - The pitch from superlobbyist Jack
Abramoff was hard to resist: a good way to get access
on Capitol Hill, he told his clients a few years ago,
was to contribute to a worthy charity he and his wife
had just started up. The charity, called the Capital
Athletic Foundation, was supposed to provide sports
programs and teach "leadership skills" to city youth.
Donating to it also had a side benefit, Abramoff told
his clients: it was a favored cause of Rep. Tom DeLay.

The pitch worked especially well among a group of
Indian tribes who, having opened up lucrative gaming
casinos, had hired Abramoff to protect their interests
in Washington. In 2002 alone, records show, three
Indian tribes donated nearly $1.1 million to the
Capital Athletic Foundation. But now, NEWSWEEK has
learned, investigators probing Abramoff's finances
have found some of the money meant for inner-city kids
went instead to fight the Palestinian intifada. More
than $140,000 of foundation funds were actually sent
to the Israeli [Me: Israeli?] West Bank where they
were used by a Jewish settler to mobilize against the
Palestinian uprising. Among the expenditures:
purchases of camouflage suits, sniper scopes,
night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager and other
material described in foundation records as "security"
equipment. The FBI, sources tell NEWSWEEK, is now
examining these payments as part of a larger
investigation to determine if Abramoff defrauded his
Indian tribe clients. The tribal donors are outraged.
"This is almost like outer-limits bizarre," says Henry
Buffalo, a lawyer for the Saginaw Chippewa Indians who
contributed $25,000 to the Capital Athletic Foundation
at Abramoff's urging. "The tribe would never have
given money for this."

Abramoff, a legendary lobbyist particularly close to
DeLay, is also a fierce supporter of Israel—"a
super-Zionist," one associate says. That may explain
why Abramoff's paramilitary gear ended up in the town
of Beitar Illit, a sprawling ultra-Orthodox outpost
whose residents have occasionally tangled with their
Palestinian neighbors [Me: How many Palestinians died
in these "tangles"?]. Yitzhak Pindrus, the
settlement's mayor, says that several years ago the
town was confronting mounting security problems. "They
[the Palestinians] were throwing stones, they were
throwing Molotov cocktails," Pindrus says. Abramoff's
connection to the town was Schmuel Ben-Zvi, an
American emigre who, the lobbyist told associates, was
an old friend he knew from Los Angeles. Capital
Athletic Foundation public tax records make no mention
of Ben-Zvi. But they do show payments to "Kollel Ohel
Tiferet" in Israel, a group for which there is no
public listing and which the town's mayor said he
never heard of.

Pindrus says Ben-Zvi was an outspoken proponent of
beefing up security and even began organizing his own
freelance patrols. "He used to bring in this
equipment—night-vision goggles, telescopes," says
Pindrus. At least some of the equipment appears to
have come from Abramoff's law firm. An August 2002
invoice obtained by NEWSWEEK shows that $773 worth of
paramilitary gear—including sniper shooting mats and
"hydration tactical tubes"—was shipped to one of
Abramoff's aides at the law firm where the lobbyist
then worked. Reached last week, Ben-Zvi angrily denied
any knowledge of Abramoff or being involved in any
efforts to obtain security gear.

The West Bank security payments are not the only
foundation expenditure being eyed by investigators.
The bulk of the foundation's money, about $4 million,
was used for a now-defunct Orthodox Jewish school in
suburban Maryland that two of Abramoff's sons
attended. Buffalo says his tribe had no idea its
donations were being used for this purpose, either. A
spokesman for Abramoff vigorously defended all of the
expenditures. Abramoff, says spokesman Andrew Blum,
"is an especially strong supporter of Israel and has
tried to find ways to help Israelis and others to be
less susceptible to terrorist attacks." Still, the
increasing attention from the news media and
investigators is causing even old friends like DeLay
to back away. A spokesman last week vigorously
disputed that DeLay had anything to do with Abramoff's
charity. Although he had been scheduled to attend a
planned gala fund-raiser for the foundation two years
ago, DeLay never went. As for the security shipments
to the West Bank, DeLay knew nothing about it, the
spokesman said.

With Dan Ephron in Jerusalem

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

My apologies for disappearing the past 2 weeks or so
-- there has been a wedding, an immigration interview,
paper grading, and now final exam grading.

For those of you who are UK voters, I urge you to vote
Lib Dem.  Although foreign interference with elections
was not welcome here in the US last year, I personally
believe that foreign interference then was every bit
as defensible as it is now.  Everyone says they must
vote for Labour because "there is no alternative" or
that "the Tories will win."  While this argument
somewhat parallels voting for limp noodle Kerry
instead of the Greens last year in the US, there is a
difference or two.  First of all, Blair is the
individual who led the UK into Iraq -- and is also the
individual who provided international cover for the US
to enter Iraq.  This makes him your Bush.  If you vote
for him, you're voting for the invasion and continued
occupation of Iraq.  Secondly, there is a healthy
third party in the UK, unlike the US.  If enough
people vote Lib Dem, then maybe the Labour Party will
finally unceremoniously dump Blair and be obliged to
enter into a coalition with Lib Dem.  If the Tories
win a majority, then fine, Labour can go into
opposition and rejuvenate itself -- like it appears
the Democrats are (in spite of themselves) doing here
in the US.  In any case, that's my argument.  VOTE LIB
DEM!

I have a huge amount of material to send out, and will
do so bit by bit in the coming days.  Here's tonight's
contributions:


1) Here's what happens when a precision-guided bomb
hits a house, and the reaction of those spotting the
bomb:

http://www.ogrish.com/archives/500lb_bomb_hits_iraqi_building_Apr_25_2005.html


2) Ever notice those cameras they've put up at the
entrance of every major US city?  How about the
fingerprinting whenever you cross borders being phased
in nowadays?  Finally, what about the new passports
scheduled to come online next year -- with a chip that
instantly recognizes biometric info?  Basically, the
next time they want to round up various portions of
society for a "final solution," they'll be able to
find us inside of 15 minutes per victim...:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1464666,00.html

Warning on spread of state surveillance

Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday April 21, 2005
The Guardian

Governments are building a "global registration and
surveillance infrastructure" in the US-led "war on
terror", civil liberty groups warned yesterday.
The aim is to monitor the movements and activities of
entire populations in what campaigners call "an
unprecedented project of social control".

The warning came from the International Civil
Liberties Monitoring Group, including the American
Civil Liberties Union, and Statewatch, a UK-based
bulletin which tracks developments in the EU...


3) More on Columbia:

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/20/4265c90e7e420

Let a Thousand Grievances Bloom
by Chris Anderson

April 20, 2005

Early last week, Columbia University President Lee
Bollinger announced the formation of a permanent
five-member committee within the College of Arts and
Sciences to hear student grievances, although there
still seems to be some confusion about whether the
faculty committee will be empowered to hear charges of
political bias in the classroom. Bollinger and Provost
Alan Brinkley say it will, while College of Arts and
Sciences Dean Nicholas Dirks says he’s not sure. Some
observers might be afraid that the committee will
simply become a new pressure point for pro-Israeli
political forces to continue their attacks on the
University’s Middle East scholarship...



4) A little humor:

Report: U.S. Foreign Policy Hurting American Students'
Chances Of Getting Laid Abroad

http://www.onion.com/news/index.php?issue=4117&n;=1

AMSTERDAM—American students traveling abroad confirm
the findings of a study indicating that Washington's
unilateral approach to foreign policy has seriously
undermined Americans' chances of getting laid.


5) On the (il)legality of the invasion of Iraq (or why
one must not vote Labour):

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1474190,00.html

Iraq, the secret US visit, and an angry military chief

Antony Barnett, Gaby Hinsliff and Martin Bright
Sunday May 1, 2005
The Observer

The legality of the Iraq war exploded on to the agenda
last week, causing chaos to Labour strategy. Here we
reveal the key US officials who persuaded Britain that
invasion was legal - and the astonishing reaction from
our military chiefs..


6) USIP Report on Iraq "Lessons Learned" in Iraq:

The United States Institute of Peace has just
published Special Report 137

The Coalition Provisional Authority's Experience with
Public Security in Iraq: Lessons Identified , by
Robert M. Perito
http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr137.html

Yesterday, I wrote all of you to ask you to suppoprt our effort to protect the vote here in Tennessee. I am writing to update you on yesterday’s meetings with our legislators and to ask you to please write (and re-write) our Tennessee legislature to support steps to protect our vote.

Yesterday’s meetings with legislators went even better than we anticipated. Representative Susan Lynn agreed to amend her bill to require all new voting systems purchased in Tennessee after July, 2005 have a voter-verified paper ballot, that all voting systems have a VVPB by July, 2008 AND that after 2008, all non-manual vote counting systems used in Tennessee would be verified by a mandatory random manual recount of between 5-10% of the votes cast. At the end of the day, Rep. Mike Kernell, a Memphis Democrat, offered to co-sponsor Rep. Lynn’s bill. That bipartisan support may be just what is needed to move this bill this session.

That, plus your letters and phone calls. Please take the time to contact all state legislators listed below. You can “cut and paste” the entire email list for each committee and send all committee members one email. (I would recommend that you “bcc” the addresses so the legislators don’t know you’re sending your email to multiple legislators at the same time.)

In order to expand the value of this email campaign, please write House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh to ask that he allow Rep. Lynn’s bill to be heard this session. Speaker Naifeh must approve allowing Rep. Lynn’s bill to move forward at this late date. His email address is rep.jimmy.naifeh@legislature.state.tn.us . Also, I have added two more “cut and paste” email lists below, and that is for all other House and Senate members who are not on any of the committees already listed. With that list, you can communicate with the entire legislature in only a few minutes.

Please help us build on our momentum from yesterday. Take a few minutes to write the legislature and then forward this request to as many election reform-minded Tennesseans as you know. We just may be able to protect our vote here in Tennessee, if we all work together for free, fair and verifiable elections NOW. Thanks for your help. Bernie
————————
To everyone concerned with the integrity of our elections in Tennessee:

On Tuesday afternoon, May 3, a group of concerned citizens will visit all Tennessee state legislators at Legislative Plaza to ask them to do several things NOW to protect our vote here in Tennessee. The cover letter that we will be handing them, along with other materials, is at the bottom of this email.

In a nutshell, we are asking our state legislators (and our county election commissions at the same time) to spend no more money (regardless of whether it is local, state or federal money) on non-verifiable voting systems in Tennessee. At the same time, we are asking the legislature to support current efforts to guarantee voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random manual recounts be part of the voting process statewide in our state before 2006. (Please read the cover letter below now to familiarize yourself with these steps to protect our vote in Tennessee.)

By copy of this email, we are asking every individual and organization who is concerned with maintaining the integrity of our election process to take time NOW to let our state legislature and your county election commission know how you feel. Please take the time to write key legislators and tell them that you want no more money spent on “vapor ballot” voting systems in Tennessee AND that you want voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random manual recounts to be part of every county’s election process no later than 2006. We are asking you to do three things to show the legislature how many of us there are who are concerned about the integrity of our elections here in Tennessee:

1) Send emails and/or call key legislators NOW to let them know you support the few steps that we believe are necessary to protect the vote here in Tennessee. (Again, review our cover letter below before writing.)

To make this task easier, we have listed the key legislative committees below, in the order of their importance. You can get the phone numbers and other information on committee members by clicking on their names. In addition, we have also created a “cut and paste” list of email addresses for each committee, so you can “cut and paste” this email list to quickly address your own message to that committee about protecting the vote in Tennessee. This will make it possible for you to write the entire committee (or multiple committees) at the same time. (You could also “cut and paste” the cover letter below, or tell them your concerns in your own words.) Here are the key committees, in their order of importance:

House Elections sub-committee of the House State and Local Government committee:

Cut-and-paste Email list: rep.eddie.yokley@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.john.litz@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.lois.deberry@legislature.house.state.tn.us, rep.tom.dubois@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.joey.hensley@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.ulysses.jones@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.edith.langster@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.jodd.matheny@legislature.state.tn.us
————————–
House State and Local Government Committee

• Ulysses Jones, Jr., Chair
• Edith Taylor Langster, Vice-Chair
• Eddie Yokley, Secretary
• Members:

Harry Brooks, Dewayne Bunch, Lois DeBerry, Tom DuBois, Joey Hensley, Curtis Johnson, John Litz, Judd Matheny, Larry Miller, Gary Moore, Jason Mumpower, Mary Pruitt, Randy Rinks, Park Strader, Harry Tindell, Curry Todd, Ben West, Jr.

Cut-and-paste email list: rep.eddie.yokley@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.john.litz@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.lois.deberry@legislature.house.state.tn.us, rep.tom.dubois@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.joey.hensley@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.ulysses.jones@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.edith.langster@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.jodd.matheny@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.harry.brooks@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.dewayne.bunch@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.curtis.johnson@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.larry.miller@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.gary.moore@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.jason.mumpower@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.mary.pruitt@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.randy.rinks@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.park.strader@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.harry.tindell@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.curry.todd@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.ben.west@legislature.state.tn.us

————————–
Senate State and Local Government Committee:

• Stephen I. Cohen, Chair
• Doug Jackson, Vice-Chair
• Bill Ketron, Secretary

Members: Tim Burchett, David Fowler, Thelma Harper, Joe Haynes, Jeff Miller, Ron Ramsey

Cut-and-Paste Email List:sen.stephen.cohen@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.doug.jackson@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.bill.ketron@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.tim.burchett@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.david.fowler@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.thelma.harper@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.joe.haynes@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.jeff.miller@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.ron.ramsey@legislature.state.tn.us
—————

House Finance Committee
Craig Fitzhugh, Chair
Harry Tindell, Vice-Chair

Members:
Joe Armstrong, Stratton Bone, Rob Briley, Tommie Brown, Kent Coleman, Charles Curtiss, Eugene E. Davidson, Tre Hargett, Jere L. Hargrove, Michael Harrison, Beth Harwell, John Hood, Mark Maddox, Steve McDaniel, Mike McDonald, Bob McKee, Kim McMillan, Larry Miller, Chris Newton, Doug Overbey, Phillip Pinion, Randy Rinks, Dennis Roach, Charles Sargent, Janis Sontany, Nathan Vaughn

Cut-and-Paste Email list: rep.craig.fitzhugh@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.harry.tindell@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.johnny.shaw@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.joe.armstrong@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.stratton.bone@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.rob.briley@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.tommie.brown@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.kent.coleman@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.charles.curtiss@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.eugene.davidson@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.tre.hargett@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.jere.hargrove@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.michael.harrison@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.beth.harwell@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.john.hood@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.mark.maddox@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.steve.mcdaniel@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.mike.mcdonald@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.bob.mckee@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.kim.mcmillan@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.larry.miller@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.chris.newton@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.doug.overbey@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.phillip.pinion@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.randy.rinks@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.dennis.roach@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.charles.sargent@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.janis.sontany@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.nathan.vaughn@legislature.state.tn.us
———————–
Senate Finance Committee
Douglas Henry, Chair
Randy McNally, Vice-Chair
Ward Crutchfield, Secretary

Members: Tim Burchett, John Ford, Joe Haynes, Roy Herron, Jim Kyle, Jeff Miller, Ron Ramsey, Mike Williams

Cut-and-Paste Email List: sen.douglas.henry@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.randy.mcnally@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.ward.crutchfield@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.tim.burchett@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.john.ford@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.joe.haynes@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.roy.herron@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.jim.kyle@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.jeff.miller@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.ron.ramsey@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.mike.williams@legislature.state.tn.us
Cut-and-paste list for the rest of the House: rep.william.baird@legislat
ure.state.tn.us, rep.willie.borchert@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.kathryn.bowers@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.henri.brooks@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.frank.buck@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.stacey.campfield@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.glen.casada@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.chris.clem@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.curt.cobb@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.jerome.cochran@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.barbara.cooper@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.chris.crider@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.david.davis@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.bill.dunn@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.joanne.favors@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.dennis.ferguson@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.joe.fowlkes@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.george.fraley@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.steve.godsey@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.dolores.gresham@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.jim.hackworth@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.bill.harmon@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.david.hawk@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.matthew.hill@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.phillip.johnson@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.russell.johnson@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.sherry.jones@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.brian.kelsey@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.mike.kernell@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.debra.maggart@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.beverly.marrero@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.joe.mccord@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.gerald.mccormick@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.richard.montgomery@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.jimmy.naifeh@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.frank.niceley@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.gary.odom@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.wc.pleasant@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.donna.rowland@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.jack.sharp@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.david.shepard@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.paul.stanley@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.eric.swafford@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.john.tidwell@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.joe.towns@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.larry.turner@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.mike.turner@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.bo.watson@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.john.windle@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.les.winningham@legislature.state.tn.us

Cut-and-paste list for the rest of the Senate: sen.mae.beavers@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.diane.black@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.jim.bryson@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.charlotte.burks@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.sidney.chism@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.jerry.cooper@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.rusty.crowe@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.raymond.finney@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.jamie.hagood@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.tommy.kilby@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.rosalind.kurita@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.don.mcleary@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.mark.norris@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.curtis.person@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.steve.southerland@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.jim.tracy@legislature.state.tn.us, sen.john.wilder@legislature.state.tn.us

————–

2) Send emails and/or call your own state House and Senate representatives and help reinforce our message about the few steps that we believe are necessary to protect the vote here in Tennessee that are covered in the cover letter below. You can use this link to locate the email and phone numbers for your legislators, if you do not already know them. http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/

3) Call and/or visit your county election commission offices in the next week and tell them that you don’t want any more money spent on non-verifiable voting systems here in Tennessee. Find out when your county’s next election commission meeting is to be held, and plan to attend and voice your concerns.

We would be happy to provide anyone who needs and wants them with copies of several background papers on the perils of non-verifiable voting systems (several of them only one page long) that may help you as you speak with your legislators, your county election commission members and others. To obtain copies of these (MS Word and Acrobat) documents that support our two-step plan to protect our vote in Tennessee, please contact Bernie Ellis, Organizer, Gatehring To Save Our Democracy, at tracevu@bellsouth.net. We will email them to you immediately.

In closing, we would like every individual and organization here in Tennessee who is concerned about the integrity of our voting systems, and the trust that we must place in our elections, to speak up now. If we work together on this issue, we will not be defeated. In order to rightfully and accurately confer the “consent of the governed” to our elected leaders, we must take time NOW to speak up for these needed changes in our election system. There are so many concerns that all of us have about the present course of our governments (local, state and national) on a host of issues. But regardless of our partisan positions on these issues, unless we can restore faith and trust in our election process by returning to verifiable and auditable voting systems in this country, no other issue has a chance of being addressed successfully through governmental means.

Please help us demonstrate the strong support for free, fair and verifiable elections as the foundation of our government that we have here in Tennessee and throughout the U.S. Please contact key legislators (including your own) and your county election commissions NOW. If we work together and speak in unison for these few steps to protect our vote, we will succeed. Thanks for your help. (Now read the cover letter below.)

Bernie Ellis, Organizer, Gathering To Save Our Democracy (tracevu@bellsouth.net)
—————-

In the next month, members of the Tennessee legislature and our 95 county election commissions will be making important decisions about the future of our election process and voting systems that we will soon use in our state. These decisions need to insure the future integrity of our election process, and the continued value of our individual votes. We are asking you to insure that two necessary changes take place that will protect our vote in Tennessee.

Background

In recent years, Tennessee, like many other states, has taken steps to improve and modernize the voting process. Unfortunately, this upgrading of the Tennessee voting systems has led, in some instances, to adoption of electronic “touch screen” voting machines and other methods that record votes electronically. However, these machines produce no paper ballots or other visible records of the voter’s choices that the voter can review and verify to know their votes were counted properly. In addition, without paper ballots, nothing is available to be recounted in the event of an election problem or challenge. In 2004, more than half of all votes cast in Tennessee were recorded on these non-verifiable “paperless” machines. These same machines also have produced many headaches for election officials around the country. They have malfunctioned, miscounted votes and otherwise have failed to record votes accurately. (See the attached materials: “Election 2004: A Partial List of Incidents Reported in the News”, “No Review for Key Component of Voting System” and “Facts About Electronic Voting” for a short review of voting machine-related problems. If you want to receive a more comprehensive document which covers the issues we are concerned about in more detail, we would be happy to provide you a copy of “Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections.”)

Here in Tennessee, we wouldn’t deposit our money in a bank that does not keep good records of our transactions and that could not be audited. Why then have we entrusted our election process and our votes to such a non-verifiable and unaccountable system of paperless voting machines? Today, too many Tennesseans cast their votes on “vapor ballots”, not on paper ballots. For the sake of our democracy and to regain the trust of the voters, this has to change. That’s why we are proposing two steps that need to be taken immediately to protect our votes in Tennessee. We’re asking you to act now to support these two improvements in our election process. They must be in place before the 2006 election.

Two Steps We Need To Take NOW To Protect Our Vote

1) Voter-Verified Paper Ballots: By 2006, every voter in Tennessee should be able to use or review a paper ballot that shows their choices. Those voter-verified paper ballots should be the “ballots of record” and should be stored for recounts or other election audit purposes. Using voter-verified paper ballots, and maintaining them as the “ballots of record”, we will increase the confidence of Tennesseans that their votes were cast as they were intended. All voting systems judged acceptable for use in the 2006 election must use or produce these voter-verified paper ballots.

2) Mandatory Random Manual Recounts: This step means hand-counting a portion of the paper ballots in counties that use electronic voting or vote counting systems to insure that our votes are counted correctly by these systems. This step will involve introducing a “quality control” check of the accuracy of the reported vote counts whenever and wherever electronic methods are used to cast or count the votes. These small-scale manual recounts (involving 5-10% of the votes cast in a county) will help safeguard the election process from electronic machines which could incorrectly count the votes, either through
innocent computer problems, mistakes in the software or intentional fraud.

In the legislature, decisions are now being made about how counties may use federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds to upgrade Tennessee voting systems. The legislature must decide not to spend any more federal HAVA funds on non-verifiable voting systems. In addition, Representative Susan Lynn has introduced HB 0312 (with its companion bill SB0491), a bill that may provide a framework for accomplishing the two steps we support. We urge you to review these bills, to consider amending them as needed and to support their passage. Taking just these two steps will go a long way to protect and expand voting here in Tennessee. Regardless of your political affiliation, let’s work together for these necessary reforms to our Tennessee voting process. Thank you for your consideration and for your support for these two steps to protect the integrity of our election process, and our democratic foundations, here in Tennessee.
———-

O.K., folks. Thanks in advance for taking the time to contact our legislature. Let’s be the small group of determined people who make all the difference. It’s our turn — we are the ones we have been waiting for. Bernie

TruthTalkz: STOP NAFTA in Indianapolis this SUMMER

1) Reconstruction Article:

http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/235817-4276-010.html
2) US appears to have fought war for oil and lost it:
By Ian Rutledge
Published: April 11 2005 03:00
>From Dr Ian Rutledge.
Sir, Your recent report that oil prices have reached
an all-time nominal high and that Goldman Sachs has
suggested the possibility of a "super spike" in prices
to as high as $105 per barrel ("Crude at all-time high
despite Opec's efforts", April 5) should be of no
surprise to anyone who has studied the informed
opinions of US energy experts in the period leading up
to the invasion of Iraq. Nor, for that matter, to
anyone who has seen my own observations on future
world oil prices in my recent book Addicted to Oil.
In a crucial report to President George W. Bush by the
US Council on Foreign Relations in April 2001, the
president was warned that: "As the 21st century opens,
the energy sector is in a critical condition. A crisis
could erupt at any time . . . Theworld is currently
close to utilising all of its available global oil
production capacity, raising the chances of an oil
supply crisis with more substantial consequences than
seen in three decades."
With US oil consumption in 2001 at an all-time high
(19.7m b/d), import penetration at 53 per cent, and
dependence on Arabian Gulf oil also at an all-time
record (14.1 per cent of total US domestic and foreign
supplies), the council stated that it was absolutely
imperative that "political factors do not block the
development of new oil fields in the Gulf" and that
"the Department of State, together with the National
Security Council" should "develop a strategic plan to
encourage reopening to foreign investment in the
important states of the Middle East".
But while the council argued that "there is no
question that this investment is vitally important to
US interests" it also acknowledged that "there is
strong opposition to any such opening among key
segments of the Saudi and Kuwaiti populations".
However, there was an alternative. In the words of ESA
Inc (Boston), the US's leading energy security
analysts: "One of the best things for our supply
security would be liberate Iraq"; words echoed by
William Kristol, the Republican party ideologist, in
testimony to the House Subcommittee on the Middle East
on May 22 2002 that as far as oil was concerned, "Iraq
is more important than Saudi Arabia".
So when, according to the former head of ExxonMobil's
Gulf operations, "Iraqi exiles approached us saying,
you can have our oil if we can get back in there", the
Bush administration decided to use its overwhelming
military might to create a pliant - and dependable -
oil protectorate in the Middle East and achieve that
essential "opening" of the Gulf oilfields.
But in the words of another US oil company executive,
"it all turned out a lot more complicated than anyone
had expected". Instead of the anticipated
post-invasion rapid expansion of Iraqi production (an
expectation of an additional 2m b/d entering the world
market by now), the continuing violence of the
insurgency has prevented Iraqi exports from even
recovering to pre-invasion levels.
In short, the US appears to have fought a war for oil
in the Middle East, and lost it. The consequences of
that defeat are now plain for all to see.
Ian Rutledge, Chesterfield S40 4TR
3) Bnei Menashe:
Amar: 
Bnei Menashe are Descendants of Ancient Israelites
By Yair Sheleg
Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar decided on Wednesday to
recognize the members of India's Bnei Menashe
community as descendants of the ancient Israelites.
Amar also decided to dispatch a team of rabbinical
judges to India to convert the community members to
Orthodox Jews.  Such a conversion will enable their
immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, without
requiring the Interior Ministry's authorization.
The International Fellowship of Christians & Jews
(IFCJ), a group that raises money among evangelical
Christians for Jewish causes, has undertaken
to finance the process of converting the Bnei Menashe
community and bringing them to Israel.
The Bnei Menashe community consists of close to 7,000
members of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo tribe, which lives in
northeast India near the border of Myanmar (formally
Burma).  For generations they kept Jewish traditions,
claiming to be descended from the tribe of Menashe,
one of the ten lost Israeli tribes that were exiled by
the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C.E. and have
since disappeared.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the tribe's
members converted to Christianity, but about 30 years
ago, some of the community began moving back to
Judaism and set themselves apart from the rest of the
tribe.
A number of researchers who visited the group over the
years got the impression that their traditions are
authentically Israelite in origin. Two genetic studies
carried out over the past year have attempted to
examine the issue.  The studies compared DNA samples
taken from several hundred members of the Kuki tribe
to a DNA Jewish profile and to a general
Middle Eastern profile.
A study performed by scientists in Kolkata concludes
that while the masculine side of the genetic profile
has no affiliation to the nation of Israel, the
feminine side has a certain family relationship to the
genetic profile of Middle Eastern people.  The
difference between the masculine and feminine sides
may be explained by the marriage of one of the mothers
of the tribe, who came from the Middle East, to a
local native.
A second genetic study is still being conducted by the
Technion in Haifa.
About 12 years ago, the Interior Ministry allocated an
annual quota of 100 immigrants from the Bnei Menashe
tribe.  So far some 800 of them have immigrated and
undergone conversion in Israel.  The majority of them
live in settlements in the territories, including 250
people in Gaza's Gush Katif.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/559669.html
4) NYT Columbia Letters to the Editor:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/11/opinion/l11columbia.html?
The Clash of Ideas at Columbia (7 Letters)
Published: April 11, 2005
To the Editor:
Re "Intimidation at Columbia" (editorial, April 7):
The essence of a university lies in not sanctioning
professors or students for the content of their ideas
- even when some find them offensive. Universities
permit radical ideas because they demand rigorous
proof before accepting ideas as facts.
Columbia does not operate in the way you describe.
Individual departments do not have the "power to
appoint and promote faculty," and therefore cannot
have that power "wrested away" from them. The tenure
review process is carefully designed to exclude a
candidate's department from wielding any power over
the final tenure decisions.
A close reading of the faculty committee's report
would suggest that assertions against Joseph Massad, a
professor in the Middle Eastern studies department,
have not been proved and t

hat sharp disagreement
exists among students about whether the incidents in
question even took place.
Akeel Bilgrami
Jonathan R. Cole
Jon Elster
New York, April 7, 2005
The writers are, respectively, a professor of
philosophy; a professor of the university and a former
provost; and a professor of social sciences at
Columbia University.
•
To the Editor:
"Intimidation at Columbia" conflates two different
issues under the rubric of intimidation: charges that
certain faculty members have behaved in an
unprofessional manner toward students, and the ideas
of those teaching Middle Eastern studies at Columbia.
Professors who do not treat students properly should
be reprimanded. But for a student to encounter
unfamiliar or even unpleasant ideas does not
constitute intimidation.
Exposure to new ideas is the essence of education.
Your call for the university to investigate "the
quality and fairness of teaching" and "complaints
about politicized courses" because students do not
like the professors' ideas opens a Pandora's box that
can never be closed.
Would you favor an investigation of every class on
campus that deals with a controversial issue - for
instance, whether I give enough class time to the
pro-slavery argument, or whether economists present
globalization in too flattering a light?
The autonomy of professors in designing and teaching
their classes is the foundation of academic freedom.
Eric Foner
New York, April 7, 2005
The writer is a professor of history at Columbia
University.
•
To the Editor:
Your April 7 editorial about Columbia University
doesn't address the real issue of the controversy: the
threat to the integrity of the university by the
intervention of organized outside agitators who are
disrupting classes and programs for ideological
purposes. These agitators pose a threat far more
serious than anything Prof. Joseph Massad may or may
not have done.
If university administrators and concerned citizens
allow this behavior to continue, then the qualities
that make American universities great - free inquiry
and academic freedom - will be sacrificed to achieve
an illusory calm.
Joan W. Scott
Princeton, N.J., April 7, 2005
The writer is chairwoman of the committee on academic
freedom and tenure, American Association of University
Professors.
•
To the Editor:
While many of us at Columbia feel that the
unsophisticated polemic scholarship and classroom
behavior of several pro-Palestinian professors are
deeply troubling, I question your assertion that "most
student complaints were not really about
intimidation."
As students, we cannot rightly expect that we will
agree with every argument made by each professor we
take classes from, but we should feel safe enough to
critically evaluate our professors' arguments without
fear of retribution (psychological or otherwise).
Indeed, the shame of the committee's report lies not
in what the report didn't find, but in what it did:
somewhere along the way, Columbia started looking out
for itself and stopped looking out for its students.
Alexander Rolfe
New York, April 7, 2005
The writer is managing editor of Columbia Political
Review.
•
To the Editor:
Yes, the Columbia committee investigating charges of
professorial intimidation decided that there was no
evidence of anti-Semitism in any of the incidents it
investigated.
But this committee, many of whose members have
expressed anti-Israel views, has a different notion of
anti-Semitism than many Jews do, on campus or off.
The Israel bashing surrounding the alleged incidents
of intimidation is not the benign exercise of academic
freedom whereby Israeli policies are criticized as
part of instructive discussions about different
political or social systems. Rather, Israel's very
legitimacy to exist is denied. Its leadership and its
army are reviled.
Should not these strident attacks make Jews
uncomfortable? Railing against the very concept of
Jewish statehood and Jewish self-defense is correctly
seen as anti-Semitism.
Leonard M. Druyan
New York, April 7, 2005
The writer is a senior research scientist, Center for
Climate Systems Research, Columbia University.
•
To the Editor:
All people are biased. There is nothing wrong with
faculty members at Columbia University having a
pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli policy bias, so long as
they don't intimidate or punish students with opposing
views.
The reality is that many professionals in this
country, from corporate executives to politicians,
bear an anti-Palestinian, pro-Israeli bias. We should
welcome those with pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli
policy bias as a counterbalance adding to the
marketplace of free ideas.
Andrew M. Alul
Chicago, April 7, 2005
•
To the Editor:
As you observe, the ad hoc faculty committee
investigating alleged intimidation of students had a
limited charge. Its charge was investigative, to
assess the credibility of certain claims. Its charge
was not judicial.
No one was "judged clearly guilty" of anything.
Moreover, the report also concluded that at least one
faculty member was unceasingly harassed and
threatened, mostly by people not enrolled in his
classes, many of whom were not members of the
university.
As an American, a Jew, a scholar and a teacher, I find
graver danger in such activities than in anything that
has been documented concerning any Columbia faculty
member.
Jonathan Arac
Pittsburgh, April 7, 2005
The writer is a professor of English and comparative
literature at Columbia University.
5) Two Neo-Cons:
www.abutamam.blogspot.com
"[Zalmay] Khalilzad’s story – from aid to Paul
Wolfowitz in the 1980s, to neocon theorist in the
1990s, to top official under George W. Bush – is the
story of the rise of a group of imperialist
strategists, with a sordid history drenched in blood,
determined to solidify, deepen and extend U.S. global
dominance by any means necessary.
Khalilzad’s nomination (he must now be confirmed by
the Senate) highlights both the centrality of Iraq to
that agenda, and the U.S. imperialists determination
to press forward with their global plans, despite
enormous difficulties in Iraq and the potential for
even greater upheaval in the future. For them, their
system’s place in the world and its long-term survival
are at stake.
Khalilzad is considered a protégée of Wolfowitz and
Vice President Dick Cheney. He was born in
Afghanistan, emigrated to the U.S., educated at the
University of Chicago (a hotbed of Straussian theory).
In 1984 he began working in the State Department
during the Reagan administration under now Deputy
Defense Secretary and notorious war hawk Wolfowitz.
During this period, he helped organize the arming of
Afghan fighters – including Osama bin Laden – who were
waging war against the Soviet Union, then the U.S.’s
main imperialist rival, which had invaded Afghanistan
in 1979.
In 1995, Khalilzad spelled all this out in his brief
for U.S. global hegemony – From Containment to Global
Leadership. His book stressed that the U.S. faced both
opportunities