TERRORISM - Zapatero wants to alter war on terror.  Spain's newly elected Socialist leader seeks not only to bring Spanish troops home from Iraq but to transform the war on terrorism from a battle fought with soldiers to one fought with spies. Accused by the Bush administration of caving in to terrorists, Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero told Spain's leading daily newspaper that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a "great error" that has aggravated the terrorist threat. Good intelligence, not military action, is the key to success, Zapatero told El Pais. "War is the last recourse, and in all cases, it is only an instrument of containment between countries, but never can it be an effective method for eliminating or fighting fanatic, radical or criminal groups," he said. "I trust that the U.S. administration will listen and understand that what has happened in Iraq is proof that this is not the way, that this path is mistaken." Spanish voters ousted the ruling conservative.

ISRAEL - POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS - Leaders condemn Yassin killing.  World reaction to Israel's killing of Hamas movement leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin has been swift and blunt, with many condemning the action as illegal and a blow to efforts to fight terrorism.  British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, arriving in Brussels for a European Union meeting on terrorism, said Israel had a right to defend itself against terrorism but had to act within international law.  "It is not entitled to go for this kind of unlawful killing, and we therefore condemn it," he told reporters.  "It's unacceptable, it's unjustified, and it's very unlikely to achieve its objective."  Reaction came as thousands of Palestinians jammed the streets of Gaza City for the funeral procession for Yassin, the Hamas founder and spiritual leader.  Yassin was killed early Monday in an Israeli missile strike. Seven other people were killed in the attack.  Palestinian officials condemned the killing, calling it an assassination. Israeli officials said Yassin was a "terrorist" who deserved death.  Meanwhile, other EU officials joined Straw in condemning the killing Monday.  "I really fear that we will see new violence," Luxembourg's Lydie Polfer told reporters in Brussels.  Walter Lindner, German foreign minister's spokesman, said in Berlin: "What is important is that everything is done to avoid further escalations, all sides are called upon to be sensible and to be most restrained.  "The priority is the end of terror and violence, what is not acceptable is a further spiral of violence."  Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said the killing "may have very, very negative consequences not only in terms of Israeli-Palestinian conflict but I'm afraid that the threat of terrorist attacks also on other countries, including European (ones), is growing," Reuters reported.  "I understand that Israel defends its own country. However the picture of a wheelchair-bound person who was killed with a rocket is probably not the best way of promoting Israeli security," Cimoszewicz said.  Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller was quoted by Reuters as saying: "Of course we are against assassinations like this. This is not the way ahead. There's only one way ahead, and that is political."  Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief, said the group's position "has been consistently a condemnation of ... killings."  "In this particular case, I think a condemnation ought to be stronger. These types of actions do not contribute at all to create the conditions of peace, the conditions of dialogue, which are necessary at this moment," Solana told reporters.  

ISRAEL - UNREPENTANT ASSASSINS - SHARON IS UNDOUBTEDLY HITLER'S PROGENY - Israel: Yassin deserved to die.  The Israeli government says it acted to serve peace and security Israel appears to be shedding few tears over the killing of Hamas' spiritual leader, but is braced for reprisals.  Israeli political sources say the killing was directed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.  Israeli minister Yossi Paritzky said: "Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was a leader of one of the worst terrorist organisations that ever existed...  "We had to assassinate him - we had to kill him - because we simply cannot put up with more terrorist activities."  "I think we have to fight against the terrorists but especially against the suicide bombers not religious leaders"  Ran Cohen  Meretz Party  The statement from official Israeli Government spokesman Ari Pazner was unrepentant.  "We have today eliminated the worst threat to peace and security in the Middle East," he said.  "Israel knows that in the short run there may be some tension, but in the long run we have served the cause of peace and security in our region."  'Revenge'  There were some dissenting voices, arguing not that killing the Sheikh was wrong, but that it was likely to cause more problems than it solved. Yassin had been returning from morning prayers at the mosque.  Opposition politician Yossi Beilin warned the government that it was just a matter of time before more Jews died in retaliatory attacks.  Interior Minister Avraham Poraz, of the Shinui party, said: "It was a bad idea because I am afraid of a revenge coming from the Palestinian side, from the Hamas side. "And I am not so optimistic in thinking by this act we'll be able to eliminate the Hamas, or to diminish the dangers of Hamas."  Ran Cohen, of the Meretz Party, said he did not think it was "reasonable" for Israel to have killed Sheikh Yassin.  "I think we have to fight against the terrorists but especially against the suicide bombers not religious leaders," he said.  Bracing for revenge attacks, the Israeli Government sealed off the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and closed all crossings in and out of the occupied territories. * The Zionists have to be reigned in.  Ariel Sharon is nothing but a war criminal.  Because of Bush's support of Sharon, the threat of terrorism in the world just increased.  Have no doubt that the consequences of killing a religious leader, no matter how radical, is going to be great.  The Zionists are in control of Washington because there is no way Sharon would have executed Sheik Yassin without approval from Washington.  And six hours after the murder, Bush has remained silent.

ONE NATION UNDER GOD - It has taken 50 years since Congress added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance for the validity of that cold war amendment to reach the Supreme Court, with arguments scheduled for Wednesday. But before the justices can decide whether those two words render the pledge unconstitutional, they have to answer a factual question that is inextricably entwined with the legal one: what exactly does it mean to pledge allegiance to "one nation under God"?  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040322b.htm * This issue is really very simple.  A religion is a bureaucratic organization.  Religions define God in their own particular way and then establish an organization to promote their view of God.  The U S Constitution says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment".  A belief in God unattached to any particular religious bureaucracy is not a unconstitutional.  An acknowledgement of God without anything more does not establish a religion.  Most human beings believe in God.  Many people who believe in God are not religionist.  To say that all people who believe in God are automatically religionist is confusing.  There is no religion of the United States.  No religion is established by espousing a belief in God.  All religions in the United States are licensed by the states in which they operate.  This is a violation of the U S Constitution.  This is the establishment of religion.  The problem is that if you stop the use of "one nation under God" in the pledge of allegiance, then you have to take "In God we trust" off our money.

ZIONIST TERRORIST- ARMAGEDDON - Hamas spiritual leader leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin was killed in an Israeli air strike early Monday, Fox News has confirmed.  Witnesses said Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at Yassin and two bodyguards as they left a mosque at daybreak, killing them instantly. Mosque loudspeakers announced his death, and Palestinians quickly gathered at the scene. One man cried in anguish as he held up what looked to be a shredded, bloody robe.  The strike was personally authorized by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (search), Fox News has learned.  In announcing Yassin's death, Hamas said, "(Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon has opened the gates of hell and nothing will stop us from cutting off his head." The militant groups vowed to "kill every Israeli in their homes."  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040322a.htm * There can be no question but that Israel will see a significant increase in suicide bombings and the indiscriminate killing of Jews. Ariel Sharon has signed the death warrant of hundreds if not thousands of innocent Jews and he has guaranteed that peace in the Middle East will be almost unobtainable.  There is no question but that George Bush could have stopped this with a stern warning to Sharon.  Sharon has just signed his own death warrant and probably that of his family.  The future of Israel is now questionable.  Only the most ignorant person would believe that by killing Sheik Yassin the suicide bombings would stop.  By invading Iraq, George Bush has given the green light to every leader of every nation that assasinating heads of state is endorsed.  The Muslim hatred for the United States cannot help but increase.  I look for another 911 incident in the very near future.  But I would expect American Jews to be a target.  The freedom in America makes the bombing of Jewish Synagogs very easy and America is a very big place. Not only that, escape is easy because of the east and west shores of America.  The Europeans are right, Israel is the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East and WorldPeace in general.  The Muslims cannot help but believe that every Muslim cleric is now a target.  They have no choice but to retaliate.  Armageddon approaches.  I am now convinced that Ariel Sharon is every bit as demented as Adolph Hitler and his time on this earth is cut short.  I would expect the death of him family within the month.

March 21, 2004

TERRORISM - Former cabinet minister and veteran peace campaigner Tony Benn, who quit as a Labour MP in 2001, was speaking to PA News before addressing an anti-war rally in New York, to mark the first anniversary of the attack on Iraq.  Some 250 protests were being held across the United States, mirroring those in Britain.  He said: ?The Iraq war was an example of armed globalisation. You go into a country...take their oil and send somebody in who allows all the Iraqi assets to be privatised.  ?I think that the credibility of those who argued for the war has been destroyed by what we actually now know.  ?And when people lose confidence in what they are told, that is a greater threat to democracy than the occasional terrorist attack.?  He said people throughout the world were rejecting the idea of an apparently never-ending war on terrorism.  ?The people who are presenting the harsh line ignore history and ignore the problems and speak as if the future was one long, unending war between guys with star wars and guys with bombs on their belts,? he added.  ?If that?s the future we haven?t got a lot to look forward to.  ?Fear is the weapon they are using all the time to get control and take away civil liberties. I think fear is being deliberately played up.?  Mr Benn said human rights laws introduced at the end of the Second World War were an ?aspiration for a world without violence.?  ?Now that?s all being torn up and we?re going back to the jungle,? he said.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040321j.htm  *  The world is starting to come alive.  Those who were against the war, can now say with authority that the war in Iraq was based on lies by George Bush: There are no weapons of mass destruction and there was no Saddam Osama link.  George Bush and his DICK are a threat to WorldPeace and freedom.

TERRORISM - As European leaders move to step up their fight against terror, some of them sought over the weekend to clearly separate those efforts from support for the Iraq war, and frictions with the United States remained in full view.  Spurred by the March 11 attacks in Madrid, intelligence chiefs from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are to meet Monday in Madrid to seek ways to accelerate the sharing of crucial information that might help prevent future attacks on European soil.  In Brussels, European Union foreign ministers placed terrorism atop their agenda for a meeting Monday, aiming to sidestep differences on Iraq and to overcome legal and even constitutional hurdles to closer coordination. European Union leaders will consider the ministers' recommendations in a meeting on Thursday.  But even as Europeans moved in closer step to confront the terror threat, they faced criticism in Washington that they were excluding Americans from their deliberations.   "Europeans have to be willing to ask us to come to some of the meetings, too," Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on the CBS News program "Face the Nation." "We should have been together talking about how all of us deal with the Al Qaeda."  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040321i.htm *  This is really sadly funny.  Bush told the whole world to go to hell, told the U N to go to hell that he was going to invade Iraq even if the U S had to go it alone.  Now the U S is pouting that Europe is holding its own terrorism meetings without Washington.  This is just one example of how Bush has isolated America from her long term allies.  George Bush is bad for terrorism and bad for the world.  The reality is that Bad Boy Bush has increased the threat of terrorism with his cowboy imperialism.

ISRAEL - PALESTINIAN REFUGEES - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says he wants the United States to announce that it rejects claims by Palestinian refugees that they be allowed to return to areas that are now part of Israel. Mr. Sharon told a meeting of his ruling Likud Party on Sunday that he will ask for this guarantee in exchange for agreeing to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.  Mr. Sharon addressed members of his Likud faction amid growing opposition to his plan to unilaterally withdraw troops and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.  He says this will become the only option for Israel if peace talks with the Palestinians remain stalled.  Mr. Sharon told Likud members on Sunday that he supports the establishment of a Palestinian state following an Israeli withdrawal.  However, he stressed that a future Palestinian state would be the only place for millions of Palestinian refugees to make their home and that they would be barred from entering Israel.  Mr. Sharon said he also wants the U.S. administration to publicly support this stand before implementing his disengagement plan.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040321h.htm * Now here is the whole Zionist problem in a nutshell.  They were given a homeland in Palestine in 1948 by the U N as a result of Zionist terrorism.  The refugees did not integrate into the neighboring countries.  Now the Zionists want America to legitimize the theft of the Palestinians land.  What is interesting is that they are only talking to the U S.  It means that the U S, in the Zionist mindset, have the power to grant their demand.  It says that the Zionist believe they have enough influence in Washington to get America to put the final nail in the refugee problem.  The real problem is that Israel cannot afford to to integrate three million Palestinians into Israel because it would go a long way to making Jews a minority in their own land.  The world would be better off with the Palestinians returning home to Israel.  The world will be a safer place when Israel is not dominated by the Zionists.

IRAQ - ALLIES IN RETREAT - It is late at night and there is gunfire out in the city, but Baghdad is eerily quiet for the first anniversary of the start of the war.  The loudest noise came from Washington: George Bush's troubled plea for unity in the face of world terrorism. Disagreements "among old and valued friends", he said disingenuously, "belong to the past".  Bush is working to corral his postwar coalition in Iraq. But, as it frays at the edges, British diplomats are working up a new attempt to legitimise the Iraq campaign with a proper United Nations mandate. Consider:  The Spanish are pulling out unless the UN takes over, and President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland says he was "taken for a ride" by the US on Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction.  The Koreans have baulked at moving 3000 troops to Kirkuk in the north of Iraq, because they fear for their security; and when the Japanese arrived in the south - to protect the Iraqi people - they promptly wrote a cheque for $US95 million ($126 million) for the local tribes to protect them from the Iraqi people.  Honduras is sticking with its plan to withdraw 300 soldiers in July, and when Bush recently met the Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende pointedly refused to say how long he would leave his 1300 troops in Iraq.  Small beer, perhaps. But it is all symptomatic of rising anger and tension among the old and valued friends at the insistence of Bush - who may well be judged by history to have been the ventriloquist's doll for the ideologues around him - that his very necessary war on terrorism did not need to be swamped by war and its uncertain aftermath in Iraq.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040321a.htm * It seems to be that there is more fire than smoke in the world community regarding Cowboy Bush.  It is very difficult for world leaders to accept the fact that another world leader undeniably lied to them.  When you are the President of the United States and you treat other world leaders like stupid morons, then your credibility erodes rather quickly.  And when you add to this the problem that many world leaders had supporting Bush when their citizens were against the war, then you have world leaders who have lost credibility with their own people.  Bush is so stupid that he cannot even comprehend the problem.  Bush has surrounded himself with three groups of arrogant exclusionists, Zionists and Fundamental Christians as well as ruthless corporate executives.  These three ultra conservative fascists groups are a danger to every citizen in the global community.

IRAQ - Anti-U.S. guerrillas fired rockets into the middle of Baghdad in a rare daylight salvo Sunday, killing two civilians and wounding six people, including an American soldier, a U.S. military spokesman said.  The latest violence followed worldwide anniversary protests against the war the United States launched to topple Saddam Hussein and disarm Iraq of unconventional weapons, which have yet to be found despite Washington's best efforts.  "Three rockets impacted in central Baghdad on Sunday morning," a U.S. army spokesman said.  He said one rocket landed in the Green Zone, one of Saddam's former palace complexes west of the Tigris river, where the U.S.-led administration is based, and two outside.  "We have reports of two Iraqi civilians killed and five injured. One U.S. soldier was slightly injured," the spokesman said. The rocket that hit the Green Zone landed in "Freedom Rest," a 1st Armored Division rest and recreation area. The missiles used were probably 127-mm rockets, he said.  A rocket attack on Saturday night killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded seven near the flashpoint town of Falluja.  Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of U.S. army operations in Iraq, said three rockets hit a base near the town west of Baghdad and two landed outside. The wounded comprised six from the army and one from the navy.  The deaths brought to 395 the number of U.S. troops killed in action since the Iraq conflict began a year ago. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040321c.htm  * Americans keep on dying with no end in site.  Kosovo is about to ignite again and gives a good preview of what there is to be expected in Iraq.  The U S cannot hand over Iraq to the U N or NATO.  Either will look like a defeat for the U S.  And not only that, the U S will not have control over all the contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq.  The bottom line is that the U S is caught in a classic tar baby thanks to the mindless imperialistic cowboy George Dubya Bush.

SPACE - ASTROIDS - NASA scientists appeared nonchalant about the tiny asteroid that passed within a mere 26,500 miles of the Earth on Thursday, the closest approach on record. No big deal, they said. Such things probably happen once every two years or so, only they haven't been observed before.  But the near miss no doubt triggered chills in more than a few Earthlings. They recall that another asteroid collided with our planet 65 million years ago and, many scientists believe, caused the sudden extinction of dinosaurs and every other living thing larger than today's Labrador retriever.  Thursday's visitor, named 2004 FH, was roughly 100 feet in diameter and most likely would have disintegrated in the atmosphere. A larger asteroid? Well, who knows?  NASA is conducting a survey of the heavens in search of objects with diameters of 0.62 miles or more that come close to Earth, objects large enough to do some serious damage. The search is also capable of detecting smaller objects such as 2004 FH.  Keeping an eye out for potentially catastrophic asteroids is money well-spent. The question that must be answered is: "What happens if they detect a really big asteroid coming straight at Earth?" So far there is no answer.

TERRORISM - That image of trans-Atlantic solidarity from the Azores meeting was mounted on a protest poster and placed among a sea of red votive candles in the makeshift shrine at the Madrid train station for victims of the bombing there 10 days ago.   A question was scrawled on the poster: ``Could this picture have cost 200 deaths? No more lies. No more war. No more dead.''  The day after the Spanish election, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany met and reiterated the continental European point of view that the war on terrorism had to be fought not with just brute military strength but with more attention to the roots of the violence. Both leaders referred to the poverty, oppression, and despair brought on by Western-backed Middle East regimes.  Hans Blix, the former UN chief weapons inspector, who was in Madrid the morning of the bombings, said in a telephone interview last week, ``If we ask ourselves, `Is the world safer against terrorism?' [after the war in Iraq], I think the answer is `no.'''  The war in Iraq, he said, ``has not abated terrorism, but in some ways exacerbated the problem.''  Robin Cook, the British foreign secretary who resigned from Blair's government to protest his support for the war, told BBC's Radio 4 on Monday that the Iraq war had been a ``spectacular mistake'' in the struggle against terror.  ``What we did in invading Iraq was to help polarize opinion between the Islamic world and the West in a way that was unhelpful,'' he said.  Commentators in France, Germany, and Britain insisted that detaining people in a sort of ``legal limbo'' such as what the United States has done at Guantanamo Bay was not on the agenda.  Moritz Schuller wrote in the centrist German newspaper Tagesspiegel, ``A camp like Guantanamo ends the risk that the people being held there will carry out any attacks, but this also means the end of the rule of law.'' PoliticalCommentary2004/e040321b.htm * The war in Iraq had nothing to do with 911.  Saddam did not support bin Laden.  Bush deliberately muddied the water and lumped Iraq and Al Qaeda into the same sociopathic reasoning.  Mr. Bushit's WMD lie and the Saddam Osama lie were all about oil, oil, oil, oil. 

TERRORISM - Clarke, who is expected to testify tomorrow before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, writes in "Against All Enemies" that Bush and his Cabinet were preoccupied during the early months of his presidency with some of the same Cold War issues that had faced his father's administration.  "It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier," Clarke told CBS for an interview last night on its "60 Minutes" program.   "I'm sure I'll be criticized for lots of things, and I'm sure they'll launch their dogs on me," Clarke said in the interview. "But frankly I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something."  Almost immediately after the 9-11 attacks, Clarke said the president asked him directly to determine whether Iraq was involved in the suicide hijackings.  "Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said, 'Iraq did this,' " said Clarke, who said he told the president that U.S. intelligence agencies had never found a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040321g.htm  *  More and more people who were in the know say that Bush was determined to link AlQaeda with Iraq.  The whole lying scenario was the work of George Bush.  The worrisome thing is that one man could be the source of so much chaos in the world.  The reality is that if Bush had been working for peace, there would be peace.  All he has to do is throttle back the Israelis and the Middle East becomes a lot less violent.  Solving the Palestinian problem will go a long way to solving the terrorist problem.  But it is going to be hard to ever justify the theft of the Palestinians land for the benefit of the Zionists.  In fact, it cannot be justified.

DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST - The United States assured Arab states yesterday that any democratic reform would not be imposed from outside.  ?This is not something for the United States to impose on anyone,? Secretary of State Colin Powell said of Washington?s ?Greater Middle East Initiative? for reform. ?It is something for the United States to help others achieve.  ?It must come from within the region. It must come from each country examining its own history, its own culture, its own state of social and political development and making a judgement,? on moving forward, he said at a Press conference here when asked about the initiative.  ?Syria has been in Lebanon for a number of years. We have always made it clear that we would like to see Syria withdraw from Lebanon, for Lebanon to enjoy full sovereignty over its land and over its people,? Powell said.  ?This is our policy and will continue to be so,? Powell said when asked about a call by a US State Department spokesman on Friday for Syria to pull out.  Lebanese President Emile Lahoud on Friday dismissed the US calls for Syria to withdraw its troops, insisting they helped provide stability for his country and the Middle East.  ?The Syrian presence in Lebanon is an internal and regional stabilising factor,? Lahoud told a German parliamentary delegation in Beirut, according to a statement issued by the presidential palace.  ?Syria helped Lebanon safeguard its unity, rebuild its national army and facilitated the liberation of most of the south of the country occupied by Israel,? Lahoud said.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040321f.htm  * Well guess who is next up on Bush's invasion list: Yes, Syria.  One thing for sure, the more trouble there is in the Middle East the more press attention is devoted to it and over time, and not a long time, a pattern and practice begins to emerge:  the pattern and practice of the U S supporting corrupt, non democratic regimes in the Middle East.  And what is the driving force?  Oil, Oil, Oil. It's the oil stupid.  If it were not for the oil, there would be no Israel; established so there could be a permanent western presence in the Middle East.  But now that we have Iraq, who cares about Israel?  150,000 American soldiers in Iraq is better than all the soldiers in Israel.  The Americans are at least trying to bring peace to Iraq whereas the Zionist never quit stirring up trouble with the Palestinians.

KOSOVO - IRAQ FIVE YEARS FROM NOW - German Defense Minister Peter Struck has said peacekeeper will have to remain in Kosovo much longer than previously expected after recent clashes between Serbs and Albanians in the region.  Commenting on the situation in Kosovo on German public radio Deutschlandfunk, The former head of KFOR said he believed increasing the military presence in Kosovo would not solve the problem. , The former head of KFOR said he believed increasing the military presence in Kosovo would not solve the problem. "You can't solve social conflict with the military, you have to do away with the causes," Klaus Reinhardt said.  "Something happens and what do they do? They send in more soldiers."  Reinhardt added that little had been done to improve the situation in Kosovo since the war in 1999. Without a political solution to the problem, the province's economy could not be privatized, keeping away outside investors that could create jobs. This lack of a political solution would lead to frustration, which would turn into violence, Reinhardt said.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040321e.htm * I have said it over and over and over again.  "You can't solve social conflict with the military.  You have to do away with the causes." Mr. Bushit wants oil out of the Middle East and so his one trick pony "the military" keeps killings terrorist while he refuses to look at root causes.  Why?  Because the U S in its supporting of corrupt regimes in the Middle East is the cause of the problem.

PEACE MOVEMENT - Hundreds of thousands of people rallied yesterday against the US presence in Iraq on the first anniversary of the war, in protests that retained the anger, if not the size, of demonstrations held before the invasion began. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040321d.htm  * There is never going to be peace in the world until all the peace organizations realize that to compete with the lies that are spewed by the world's most powerful politicians there must be one individual with one voice confronting the lies and deception; advocating peace and justice and human rights globally.  As long as the peace groups act independently, or in a loose coalition, they will remain impotent: banging the drum of peace within a global community of the hearing impaired.  The voice must be an independent voice for peace.  Kofi Annan is just global bureaucrat speaking softly and moving slowly in a world where pain and suffering from conflict, hunger and sickness is killing thousands every single minute world wide.  We need a Gandhi, King, Sadat or Rabin with a global agenda.  Someone who can and will shout instead of whisper.  Someone to stand up and speak up.  The global peace movement needs a global leader.  

March 20, 2004

TERRORISM -  A bulletproof LandCruiser at high speed bursting out of a tribal compound in Pakistan's South Waziristan region was just the latest infuriating setback in the US's quest to bring down the top of the al-Qa'ida tree.  The car, followed by two armoured vehicles and a phalanx of heavily armed militants able to wipe out dozens of crack troops sent to blast the terrorists from their nest, is believed to have contained Ayman al-Zawahiri, right-hand man to Osama bin Laden.  After mounting speculation that US and Pakistani forces ranged on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border were about to pounce on al-Qa'ida's key planner, a senior Taliban spokesman yesterday made the claim Washington least wanted to hear - that both Zawahiri and bin Laden were safe in Afghanistan.  "He may have slipped the net," the official said.  Al-Zawahiri, a 52-year-old Egyptian doctor, is one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists and has a $US25million ($33.4million) price on his head. So desperate is Washington to nail the pair, the House of Representatives yesterday doubled the reward for bin Laden's capture to $US50million.  Stiff resistance from about 200 well-armed fighters holed up in fortified mud huts early in the week -- in the onslaught of Operation Mountain Storm, designed to rid the lawless border area of foreign fighters -- had led Pakistani officials to conclude they were close to a "high-value" target.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040320a.htm * I find it interesting that after all these months since 911, Osama is still a free man.  All the U S technology and military might has not led to his capture.  Even a gigantic bounty on his head has not worked.  It probably does not matter if they catch him or not.  Terrorism around the world has mutated into local organizations that just rally under the AlQueda banner without ever becoming card carrying AlQueda members.  Capturing Saddam did nothing to stop or slow down the violence in Iraq.  Osama amounts to is a constant reminder that George Bush can be beaten at his own game.  Daddy George left office with a free Saddam and it looks like little George will leave office with Osama a free man.  Thank God there are no more Bushes that have a shot at the Presidency.

KOSOVO - THE HATRED GOES ON - Kadic is one of more than 1,000 Kosovo Serbs driven from their homes during three days of assaults by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. Her flight illustrates the threat created by this week's violence to the future of a multi-ethnic Kosovo, to reconciliation between Serbs and Albanians and to the chances for regional peace.  U.N. officials say that unless the ethnic strife stops and Serbs such as Kadic stay, this week will have marked the beginning of the end of the Serbian presence in Kosovo, technically a province of the Serb republic. "Tremendous damage has been done by this," said Isabella Karlowicz, the chief U.N. spokeswoman.  On Friday, calm prevailed in most of Kosovo where, in the days and nights before, armed Albanian gangs had torched 110 Serbian houses and 16 Serbian Orthodox churches.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040320b.htm *  Isn't it amazing how a military presence as opposed to a mediated final settlement between peoples who have hated each other for centuries is worthless.  Nothing has changed in Kosovo. Nothing. And nothing will change until the world puts a focus on mediating the problem once and for all.  It seems that what is coming is a carving up of various countries into smaller countries so that all these significant groups of people can live with their own kind.  This is something which seems foreign in the U S were everyone tolerates everyone else.  The question is always who will stop killing first.  When people do not have a common objective or feel a common bond, nothing can make them tolerate each other.  The kind of leaders that are needed to solve these problems just do not exist because all leaders come up with a racial, national or religious bias.  What is needed is someone who does not distinguish people by race, religion, nationality or sex.  And that someone must not be a notorious liar like George Bush.

IRAQ - TERRORISM - BUSH - A former White House anti-terrorism advisor says the Bush administration considered bombing Iraq in retaliation after Sept 11 even though it was clear al Qaeda had carried out the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.  Richard Clarke, who headed a cybersecurity board that gleaned intelligence from the internet, told CBS "60 Minutes" in an interview to be aired on Sunday he was surprised administration officials turned immediately toward Iraq instead of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.  "They were talking about Iraq on 9/11. They were talking about it on 9/12," Clarke says.  Clarke said he was briefing President Bush and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld among other top officials in the aftermath of the devastating attacks.  "Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq. ... We all said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan," recounts Clarke, "and Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq."'  Clarke, an advisor to four presidents, left his position in February 2003 after the White House transferred functions of the cybersecurity board to Homeland Security.  Clarke's comments are the latest to raise the question of the Bush administration's focus on overthrowing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040320c.htm * The evidence is coming in from source after source that Bush was determined to invade Iraq.  He made up the weapons of mass destruction lie and create the imaginary Saddam Osama link.  Now he is trying to say the end justifies the means and that Iraq is a better place without Saddam.  Well that remains to be seen. Terrorism is worse since Bush invaded Iraq.  And there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites are on the verge of civil war.  Without 150,000 American troops, Iraq will degenerate into another Bosnia.  And as if that is not enough, it seems that if reelected Syria and Iran are on the American hit list.

AMERICAN DEGENERATION - A task force of 26 prominent Americans and Europeans has concluded that trans-Atlantic relations are at a dangerous low ebb and is faulting the Bush administration as well as the allies.  The war in Iraq brought the strains to a crisis point, with France and Germany organizing resistance to US war policy and the Bush administration trying to split the alliance, the task force said in a report released yesterday by the Council on Foreign Relations.  "They see us as bullies," Lawrence H. Summers, president of Harvard University and cochairman of the project, said at a news conference.  But, Summers said, "no matter how strong you are, you don't get very far without friends."   But Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin of France told the newspaper Le Monde that the US-led war has made the world a more dangerous place. "We have to look reality in the face," he said.  Many Europeans assumed malign intent on the part of the administration, and "the conviction that the United States is a hyperpower to be contained has become fashionable in Europe," while pacifism took hold in some parts of the continent, the report said.  The Bush administration, trying to avoid limitations on its actions, spurned offers of help in retaliating against Al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, the report said. Many NATO allies, meanwhile, protested about US unilateralism and questioned the Bush administration's insistence that the security of all nations was at risk.  These divisions carried over to the war in Iraq, worsening trans-Atlantic relations to the crisis point, the report said.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040320d.htm  * George Bush and his White House gang seem to be totally out of touch with the reality that the whole world is lining up one by one against the U S.

IRAQ ANNIVERSARY - PEACE DEMOSTRATIONS - Anger over the war in Iraq remained sharp on the first anniversary of the U.S.-led conflict Saturday as protesters took to the streets in Europe and Asia, urging an end to the coalition occupation, which they linked to international terrorism. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040320e.htm * Peace demonstrations took place all over the world but not to the extent and with the enthusiasm they did before the invasion of Iraq.  Without a leader who can transcend all these demigods who run the various peace organizations, peace demonstrations will just be background static and noise to world leaders who simply smile and move on with their socio pathic agendas.

ENVIRONMENT - American environmental groups have formally urged the US government to investigate Malaysia over the alleged illegal export of Indonesian timber and consider imposing trade sanctions.  The independent Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and four other activist groups delivered a petition on the issue to the US Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, the EIA said in a statement received here yesterday.  The activists also wrote to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who last year launched President George W Bush's Initiative Against Illegal Logging, aimed at helping developing countries fight the smuggling of illegally cut timber and corruption in the forestry sector.  "The investigation could result in US trade sanctions against Malaysia's timber imports to the US, which is one of the largest consumers of Malaysian timber," said the EIA, a Washington-based non-profit group which monitors trade in illegal timber.  The EIA said timber illegally cut in Indonesian national parks was then exported under false documentation by Malaysia. The trade was devastating the habitat of orangutans, the region's endangered red-haired apes, the agency said.  "Malaysian companies are duping American consumers into buying illegal wood products that are driving orangutans to extinction," said EIA president Allan Thornton.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040320f.htm * This is sadly funny. The Bush administration would turn the National Forests into deserts if could.  The only relation between environmental issues and the Bush administration policy is the fact that U S money is green.  Bush would turn every green tree into green money.

ENVIRONMENT - Two new studies published this week in that show steep declines in bird, butterfly and plant populations across Great Britain provide the strongest proof yet that we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction of life.  The British analyzed six surveys covering virtually all of their native species populations over the last 40 years. They discovered birds and native plants had declined 54 percent and 28 percent respectively while butterflies experienced a shocking 71 percent decrease.  According to scientists, there have been five prior  in the past 450 million years. The last was 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs and tens of thousands of species disappeared, likely as a result of a comet or large asteroid hitting the Earth.  There's no great mystery about the cause of the sixth extinction. Humans have dramatically altered the ecosystems of the Earth, says, a leading conservation biologist at Duke University.  The Florida Everglades are in trouble because we prop up the sugar industry, which spews huge amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and other chemicals into it. We pay higher sugar prices, we pay to clean their mess and we lose the natural amenities of the Everglades. That's a stupid thing and we should change it.  Tax subsidies are also responsible for much of the clear-cutting that goes on in the Amazon rainforest. And we have to stop selling off natural resources like the Tongass National Forest for 5 cents on the dollar.  We have to be smart, be informed and understand where the connections are.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040320g.htm * A man was once asked what he thought about apathy.  His answer: "Who cares?"

March 19, 2004

IRAQ - THE DEATH AND DISABLED COUNT - Since the Bush White House has ordered the military to ban reporters from filming honor guard ceremonies showing flag-draped coffins departing from military transport planes (and referring to body bags as "transfer tubes"), this site is a public service to graphically show what the Bush White House will not -- we'll alternate between empty pairs of combat boots and flag-draped coffins.  As of 12 February 2004, 538 US military troops have been killed (399 of those since Bush told us "Mission Accomplished" on 1 May 03, 332 since Bush encouraged more attacks by saying "Bring Them On" on 2 July 03, 184 since Bush said US progress in Iraq was "making insurgents desperate" on 27 Oct 03), 80 since Saddam Hussein, "leader" of the insurgents, was captured by Kurdish troops on 13 Dec, and 29 since the US' chief arms hunter David Kay said, on 23 Jan 04, that Iraq had no WMD stockpiles after 1991.  3031 US military forces have been reported injured since 20 March 03 (official start of war). More than 11000 have been medically evacuated.  These numbers are only for US military, and exclude civilian/CIA contract workers and foreign and Iraqi troops killed, and do not include military and non-military (CIA/contractor) deaths in Afghanistan. For comparison sake, 53 British soldiers, 19 Italian soldiers, 2 Polish soldiers, 1 Danish soldier, 9 Spanish soldiers, 4 Bulgarian soldiers, 2 Thai soldiers, and 2 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed.  For point of reference, in Afghanistan, the US military has lost 100 soldiers. This number, as in Iraq, excludes non-military (ie, CIA and mercenary) casualties -- the US govt does not maintain records for those individuals. Source (http://www.wageslave.org/deathcount/)

TAIWAN - POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS - The Taiwanese president, Chen Shui-bian, and the vice-president, Annette Lu, were today shot while campaigning the day before the country's presidential elections.  Mr Chen was shot in the stomach and Ms Annette was hit in the right knee as their motorcade drove through streets in the southern city of Tainan. Both are now in a stable condition in Chi Mei hospital.  "They are both conscious and their lives are not in danger," Mr Chen's chief of staff, Chiou I-jen, told a news conference. He also urged the public to "cool down" following the shootings. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040319j.htm  * The core question in the Taiwan election is the future of Taiwan's relationship with China.  Mr. Chen is for continued independence.  The stakes are deathly high.  In the end, the Taiwan will merge into China because of its growing economic dependence on China and the common heritage of all the people.  All the Chinese have to do is to be patient.

ISRAEL - THE WALL - Israel's Supreme Court has imposed an open-ended freeze on construction of a 15-mile section of the country's contentious West Bank separation barrier, a lawyer in the case said today.  The court issued its order Wednesday in response to a complaint by Palestinian and Israeli opponents of the barrier, said their lawyer, Mohammed Dahla.  The opponents say the planned route of the barrier, which Israel says is needed to block suicide bombers, will severely disrupt the lives of 30,000 Palestinians living in the area.  Dahla said he had submitted a report by an outside group of former Israeli military officials questioning the planned route. The report claims the current route goes far beyond security considerations, and that a less-intrusive path would be equally effective at protecting Israelis, he said.  The court ordered the Israeli military to respond to the report, and extended a freeze first imposed on Feb. 29 until it hears back from the army, Dahla said. The court did not schedule another hearing on the matter, he added.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040319i.htm  * There seems to be a ray of justice shining from the Israeli Supreme Court.  However, I question how the Israeli Supreme Court has jurisdiction in an area which is not a legitimate part of Israel.  The wall is in an area which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 war.   So it is interesting that the court would even hear the dispute.  What this seems to mean is that Israel is reconsidering its hard line approach to the Palestinians.  Sharon and his Zionist fascist co-conspirators are not totally in control of Israel.

IRAQ - BOMB ATTACKS - Some of the deadly bombing attacks in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in a U.S.-led invasion last year. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040319h.htm

IRAQ - PRIVITIZING THE WAR - The US-led authority in Iraq plans to spend up to $US100 million ($135 million) over 14 months to hire private security to protect the green zone, the 10 square kilometre area in Baghdad that houses most US Government employees and some of the private contractors working there.  The US military guards the green zone now. But the Coalition Provisional Authority wants to give much of the work to contractors to free US forces to confront a violent insurgency.  The companies would employ former military personnel and guard the area for a year after political authority is transferred to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.  The green zone, surrounded by five-metre walls and barbed wire, is on the west bank of the Tigris River. It is a relatively secure home, office and relaxation area for more than 3000 people in what is an increasingly dangerous city.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040319g.htm * This seems to me to be ridiculous.  If the U S military cannot protect this area, then no private security firm is going to be able to do it.  The question is where will the money come from and which U S Company is going to get the contract.  This is just more profiteering brought to you by the friends of Mr. Bushit.

TERRORISM - WHO IS WINNING - If we are in a war on terrorism, who is winning? The terrorists can claim some serious successes since September 11, 2001. Spain was the 10th country struck since the attack on the US, demonstrating the potency and reach of their hatred.  But the terrorists have been damaged, too. The authorities killed al-Qaeda's top man in Saudi Arabia this week, for instance. Measuring overall progress in the worldwide twilight struggle is difficult.  Three new, authoritative and important assessments of the state of the global counter-terrorism campaign have emerged from the US in the past few days.  First, an authority on the subject, Tony Cordesman, of the non-partisan Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, made the case that "from al-Qaeda's perspective, they can make a claim that they are in fact winning, not losing the war on terrorism". How so?  Second is the testimony to Congress nine days ago by the CIA chief, George Tenet. His main finding was that the al-Qaeda leadership structure had been "seriously damaged" but that the group had adjusted and was operating through loosely affiliated cells which remained committed and capable: "Even catastrophic attacks on the scale of 11 September remain within al-Qaeda's reach.  Third, the most credible and consistent measure of global public opinion is the work of the Washington-based Pew Research Centre. It co-ordinated a 44-nation survey last May that found that the invasion of Iraq had "widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for the war on terrorism, and significantly weakened global public support for the pillars of the post-World War II era - the UN and the North Atlantic alliance."  This week Pew produced an update, albeit surveying only nine countries: four Muslim-majority states, three Western European powers, Russia and the US. Its summary: "A year after the war in Iraq, discontent with America and its policies has intensified rather than diminished." In every country but the US, most people had less confidence in the trustworthiness of the US. And in every country but the US most said the Iraq invasion had set the war on terrorism back.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040319f.htm * The reality is that AlQuada is an organization with a lot of autonomy for those who pledge allegiance to terrorism.  The reality is that AlQuada is a virus that is mutating locally all over the world to the detriment of the whole world.  But the most important thing to understand is that terrorism feeds upon the injustice of the imperialistic attitude of those governments allied with the United States.  Has anyone noticed that China is not on the list of targets for terrorism.

IRAQ - NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION - The Iraq war has thrown up many surprises since its launch a year ago this Friday. But none is as shocking as the fact that after committing more than $100 billion and 100,000 troops and sacrificing more than 560 military lives, the U.S. has found no biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.  That reality stands at odds with the eve-of-Armageddon picture painted by U.S. and other intelligence agencies last year. They portrayed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as a menace holding weapons of mass destruction that posed what White House officials called an "imminent" and "urgent" threat to the U.S. and civilized world.  Compelling images supported the mirage. They included Saddam's continuing bluster and his documented record of hiding weapons banned after the 1991 Gulf War. The most persuasive evidence, though, was based on intelligence that since has proved faulty.  That leaves an empty-handed Bush administration scrambling for new justifications for the war - from ridding the world of a brutal tyrant to nurturing democracy in the region.  But cooking up a credible rationale after the fact is an exercise in futility as long as the Iraq mission is still a work in progress.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040319e.htm  * Bush intended to invade Iraq long before 911.  It was his hidden agenda in the 2000 Presidential campaign.  To make the invasion happen he cooked up the weapons of mass destruction lie.  The important thing to remember is that he lied, he lied, he lied and over 550 Americans have died, not to mention those who have been maimed.  The dictionary may begin to list Bush as another word for lie.  So we would say that someone is telling a bush.  Or that is Bushit.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION - FUNDING - Democratic Presidential candidate-in-waiting John F. Kerry likes to style himself as a foe of "powerful special interests in Washington." But with his campaign fighting off an intense media barrage from President Bush's megabuck reelection effort, Kerry has apparently decided that populism stops at the river's edge -- in this case, the Potomac.  On Mar. 16, some 300 Kerry fans from Washington's legal and lobbying powerhouses sipped coffee and nibbled Danish pastries at the tony St. Regis Hotel, on K Street -- Washington's Lobbyist Central. Guests, most of whom represent corporate interests in Washington, were treated to an impassioned pitch from New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to enlist in countering a "nasty and mean" GOP assault on Kerry's character. The price of admission: $1,000 a head -- which also will admit them to an April fund-raiser as part of a D.C. doubleheader -- to hear the New Yorker's tales of prosecuting Wall Street greed, mutual-fund corruption, and utility-company pollution.  It's going to take a lot of $1,000-a-plate meals to catch up with the President, however. The Bush campaign is determined to spend a record $200 million to portray Kerry as a vacillator between liberalism and extreme liberalism.  On Mar. 20, a campaign source says, Kerry is expected to reveal that he raised more than $40 million by the end of February. Not bad -- except that Bush is expected to report that his reelection haul totaled $160 million as of Feb. 29.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040319d.htm * It should seem obvious that to raise $200 million you have to go to America's corporations who are in business to make money.  Bush is good for business.  War is good for many businesses.  But corporations even though they are run by people are not people.  They are not citizens.  The true reality is that corporations give the individuals that run those corporations more political power by way of their corporations.  These individuals have access to monies that can be used to impose their views on others by way of advertising.  Only a very small percentage of Americans have this power.  So a very small number of Americans are determining who is going to be President.  The unfortunate reality is that like everything else in America, political office has a price.  Sell out the public interest to the corporations.  And let no one deny that CEO's of corporations make a lot of money from bonuses based on profitability.  So the CEO's can spend corporate funds to finance political campaigns which will return big money through favorable legislation and the awarding of contracts.  And the CEO gets his or her big bonus at the expense of every American.  There are two interesting corollaries.  One this would not be possible if the voters actually educated themselves about the issues.  And it would not be possible if so many Americans did not derive their incomes from these corporations.

IRAQ - THE WMD LIE - President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland said Thursday that he had been "deceived" by information on weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq war and that Poland might pull some troops out of Iraq earlier than planned.  The comments were the first signs of criticism of the war by the staunch U.S. ally. Poland has 2,460 troops in Iraq, the fourth-largest foreign contingent after the United States, Britain and Italy.   "Naturally, one may protest the reasons for the war action in Iraq," Kwasniewski said. "I personally think that Iraq today without Saddam Hussein is a truly better Iraq than with Saddam Hussein. "But of course I am uncomfortable with the fact that we were deceived by the information on weapons of mass destruction."  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040319c.htm * Spain has spoken up against the Bush WMD lie and now Poland has also voiced the same concerns and indicated a removal of Polish troops from Iraq.  Let us hope that more countries will call Mr. Bushit's hand on his lies.

TERRORISM - BUSH AND KERRY - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign is rushing to produce television advertisements to counter Republican criticism of Kerry's qualification to be commander in chief of the U.S. military.  The new ads were ordered after President George W. Bush's re- election campaign began increasing attacks on Kerry's military record, said Kerry spokesman David Wade. Vice President Dick Cheney, 63, yesterday said Kerry has ``given us ample doubts about his judgment'' such as voting against additional funds for Iraq approved by the Senate last year.  ``John Kerry has served his country,'' Wade said in an interview in Sun Valley, Idaho, where Kerry is vacationing after securing the Democratic Party's presidential nomination by winning the Illinois primary on Tuesday. ``Everyday he talks about national security. If George Bush wants to talk about national security we are ready.''  Kerry, 60, who received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts in Vietnam, criticized Bush yesterday for spreading the U.S. military too thin by failing to build enough international support for the war in Iraq. Bush, wearing a flight jacket with the commander in chief insignia at a visit to the Fort Campbell, Kentucky today, said the invasion demonstrated resolve to quash terrorism and make the U.S. safer.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040319b.htm  *  Yes, but the world is not safer.  Terrorism has increased and become more widespread and more efficient.  Bush was a Vietnam era "in the rear" kind of guy.  Kerry was in the thick of battle.  Kerry knows about combat.  Mr. Bushit knows about making money off a war.

ASTEROIDS - THE REAL WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION - A 100-foot-diameter asteroid passed close but harmlessly by Earth on Thursday, astronomers said.  The hurtling rock passed about 26,500 miles above the southern Atlantic Ocean at 2:08 p.m. PST.  It was the closest recorded encounter between Earth and an asteroid, said Steven Chesley, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who works on a program looking for such objects.  Such encounters, however, are actually believed to occur at the rate of one every two years and have simply not been detected, he said.  Astronomers had to scramble to observe 2004 FH because it was only discovered late Monday during a survey by two telescopes in New Mexico that are part of the NASA-funded Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research project. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040319a.htm  * It seems to me that we need to spend more money on telescopes and other instruments to detect these objects.  The odds may be great that a large asteroid or comet would hit the earth but if it did, the result would be devastating to civilization. We need the Hubble Telescope and more like it.  We need to watch the skies.  

March 18, 2004 

TERRORISM - SPAIN - 'Terrorism is Overcome With the Law not With the Fist'   Future Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose party won against the pro-American Spanish government in last week's elections, has started to directly target the policies of Iraq and the Bush administration's fight against terrorism.  Despite objections by U.S. President George W. Bush, Zapatero confirmed that Spaniards would withdraw their troops if the command in Iraq is not handed over to the United Nations (UN).  Zapatero also requested an international debate on the fiasco of the U.S. invasion of Iraq as well as the fight against terrorism. He said that success against terrorism cannot be achieved through Tomahawk missiles and bombs. "The legal system and international laws, secret services and the dialogues among the government of the world, should lead the fight against terrorism" emphasized the Prime Minister Elect. He also encouraged support for Democratic Party candidate John F. Kerry, who will face Bush in the U.S. Presidential elections.  * Well I guess we found one of those foreign leaders who endorses Kerry.

SPACE - SEDNA - Icy 'planetoid' found in solar system.  A frozen world found more than 8 billion miles from Earth is believed to be the farthest known object in our solar system, scientists say. The discovery of Sedna, a "planetoid" of rock and ice between 800 miles and 1,100 miles in diameter - three-quarters the size of Pluto - was announced by Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology who led the NASA-funded team that discovered it. Sedna is the largest object found orbiting the sun since the discovery of Pluto in 1930 and lies more than three times as far from the sun as Pluto.  Scientists estimate the temperature on the planetoid never rises above 400 degrees below zero F., making it the coldest known body in the solar system. Sedna follows an elliptical path around the sun, which takes 10,500 years to complete. Brown believes Sedna is the first known member of the long- hypothesized Oort Cloud, a repository of comets that swoop past Earth.  * It seems to me that since comets are made of water and the Oort Cloud is made up of comets that the whole solar system is surrounded by water.  It would also seem that maybe there was an exploding water planet that created the Oort Cloud the same way that part of the original earth created the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter after colliding with another planet.  

VENEZUELA - BUSH UNDEMOCRATIC MANIPULATION - Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said Wednesday the government would not abide by what it considered an invalid ruling.  The Supreme Court of Justice had ruled on Monday to count 876,000 disputed signatures seeking a recall of president Chavez. The Electoral Council accepted the decision, but the government opened an investigation Wednesday that could lead to the removal of the judges.  Venezuela"' government opened an investigation that could lead to the removal of three Supreme Court of Justice's ministers who validated 876,000 signatures seeking to recall president Hugo Chavez. The ruling had paved the way for a vote to shorten the mandate of the head of State, expected to expire in 2006.  Another key issue is the oil. The South American country, which sits on the largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, is one of the main suppliers of the United States and the fifth world"s exporter. Chavez have repeatedly threatened Washington to cut out oil supplies if it keeps on supporting the opposition.  This week, another diplomatic conflict broke out between both nations when Chavez offered political asylum to Haiti's ousted president Jean Bertrand Aristide. Aristide said US marines in Haiti forced him to resign and took him against his will to the Central African Republic.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040318i.htm  *  There can be no doubt that DICK and Bush are trying to remove Mr. Chavez as President of Venezuela.  And it is all about oil.  Chavez is a man of the people, not perfect, but not orientated to the rich that are trying to run the country and keep the poor in poverty.  And it is just a matter of time before the truth comes out about Mr. Aristide leaving Haiti.  The question is why is Bush concerned about Haiti since it has no oil.  Well the answer is drugs.  Haiti has no oil but it is part of the drug highway from South America to North America.  Bush's actions in Haiti and Venezuela are undemocratic.  And like generally everything in the world and specifically in the Bush's presidency, all one has to do is to follow the money to understand U S foreign policy.

RELIGION - FUNDAMENTALISM - Religious fundamentalism is on the rise, Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu warned the United Nations on Wednesday, and he pointed to Iraq as a place where religious divisions threaten to disrupt the rebuilding of a shattered nation.  But the retired archbishop, who addressed a standing room-only crowd as part of a lecture series at the United Nations, also urged diplomats to embrace moderate religious values - charity and understanding - as a basis for their work.  In some countries, religious extremism has stepped into the power vacuums left by fall of dictatorships and the end of the Cold War, Tutu said.  "That is when fundamentalisms arise, because people then are deeply distressed by complexity," he said. "They look for simplistic answers."  Tutu said he believes all faiths seek the same God - "Christians don't have a corner on the God market," he joked - and he urged UN workers to see their work as a spiritual calling.  He also urged world leaders to work on eliminating poverty and injustice in developing countries, saying they - not holy texts - are the real cause of hatred.  "We will not win the war on terrorism unless we eliminate those root causes," Tutu said. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040318h.htm * There is no force more detrimental to peace and WorldPeace than religious bureaucrats who promote religious intolerance and exclusivity.  And among these religionists, there are no people more vicious than the fundamentalist.  The key to peace is education.  The key is justice in the world society.  It is the illiterate who follow the radical teachings of religious fundamentalist of every stripe.  As Mr. Tutu says, we will not win the war on terrorism until we quit focusing on killing terrorist and start focusing on the root causes of terrorism.  And sadly to say the most internally democratic nation on the earth, the United States, is the most vicious imperialist in the world.  If the United States were to enforce its true constitution on the world and treat the rest of the world under the precepts of the U S Constitution that apply inside the U S borders, the cause of peace and WorldPeace would advance geometrically across the planet.

TERRORISM - SPAIN - Yesterday, hours before the bombing that destroyed a Baghdad hotel, Spain's prime minister-elect, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, reaffirmed his vow to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq by June 30, no matter what President Bush has to say about the need for countries to band together in the war against terror.  But most people here - Zapatero among them - have long rejected Bush's connection between fighting terrorism and going to war to remove Saddam Hussein. For them, last week's train blasts, which killed 201 people and injured 1,500, were confirmation that the world has become more dangerous, not less, just as they predicted. The new government merely reflects the view widely held here since long before the trains were bombed.  Whether the bombings influenced the election by persuading Spaniards that support for the war had made their country a target for terrorists will never be truly known, but to many, Aznar's party lost the election by insisting that the Basque separatist group ETA was behind the bombings rather than Islamic militants, which increasingly appears to be the case.  For Spaniards like Ismael Capel, a 21-year-old mathematics student at Madrid's Complutense University, the words of Aznar's interior minister - "There is no doubt ETA is responsible" - were too much to take, too much like Vice President Dick Cheney's remarks in 2002: "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040318g.htm  * It would seem that time is flushing out the real liars in the world politic.  The fact that Mr. Aznar's attempt to blame the bombings on the ETA are just proof that he is like George and DICK.  You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all the people all the time.  What is interesting to me is that Dubya's parrot Mr. Aznar has been replaced by someone who is not afraid to speak his mind.  It is interesting that the country that Bush used to promote his invasion of Iraq may well be the same country that becomes the catalyst for Mr. Bush's demise.   

PRESIDENTIAL CORRUPTION - THE DICK HALLIBURTON SCAM - The Pentagon is withholding about $300 million in payments to Halliburton Co. because of possible overcharging for meals served to troops in Iraq and Kuwait.  Defense officials said Wednesday that starting next month, the government will begin withholding 15 percent of the money being paid to Halliburton under a multibillion-dollar contract to provide services such as food, housing, laundry and mail to American forces in Iraq.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040318f.htm  *  Well as time goes by it seems more and more obvious that DICK Cheney used his influence to help his old company Halliburton profiteer off the Iraqi invasion that he promoted.  Months ago we found that Halliburton was overcharging the Pentagon for gas in Iraq.  Now they are found to have been overcharging for meals as well.  Anyone who still believes that there is any integrity in the Bush administration is just stupid.  Sorry.  Stupid is as stupid votes.  And what is more, it may well be that ole Saddam will have the last laugh as the Bush administration  brings down the image and credibility of America to the same point that ole Jimmy Carter did.  I did not like Reagan but at least he restored America's honor after the Carter Iran fiasco.  The difference between Carter and Bush is that I think Jimmy was well intentioned whereas Bush is the straw man for world money.

THE PASSION OF CHRIST - MO MONEY MO MONEY MO MONEY - Gibson Could Earn $500 Million From His Leap of Faith.  You can argue all you want about "The Passion of the Christ," but one thing is not debatable: Mel Gibson has gone from People magazine's one-time "Sexiest Man Alive" to "Richest Star Alive." Asked whether Gibson will donate some of the money from the film to charity, his spokesman Alan Nierob said: "It would be out of character for Mel to publicize his private donations."  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040318e.htm *  Well the question is what is Mel going to do with that money.  Will he start his own billion dollar Jesus show or will he give it to charity or will he just put it in the bank?.  If you are a true believer, then you believe that Jesus gave Mel that money.  Now the question comes as to what Mel will do with the mandate that Jesus gave him?  Maybe Mel should realize that he should publicize what he does with the money.  If he sets a charitable example, no doubt others of wealth may follow his example.  Anyone remember Ted Turner's donation to the U N?

KOSOVO - NATO announced this morning that it is sending reinforcements to Kosovo, following intensified ethnic fighting there that has killed at least 22 people over the past two days.  It was the worst violence in Kosovo since NATO and the United Nations took control over the mainly ethnic-Albanian Serbian province in 1999.  Troops of the alliance have been struggling for days to prevent further conflicts between the province's Albanian majority and Serbs, who depend on protection from NATO.  The Reuters news agency reported this morning that a Serbian Orthodox church and several Serb houses were seen in flames in the ethnically mixed town of Olibic.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040318d.htm * It seems obvious that Kosovo is about to reignite because people have no forgiveness in their hearts and the past continues to reassert itself and the religious bureaucrats continue to preach intolerance and hatred as opposed to peace and harmony.  Certainly the whole world seems to be igniting and reigniting since Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.  The whole world knows that the U S is preoccupied and now is a good time to push their old agendas.  There is no question but that terrorism has increased and the world is in more chaos since the socio path Bush took office and began to apply his cowboy imperialism to the rest of the world. 

TERRORISM - WORLD OPINION - A year after the US-led invasion of Iraq, resentment and opposition toward the United States have intensified in Europe and the Muslim world, a survey taken in nine countries showed.  There is a sharp and growing disconnect between the views of Americans and people who live in other countries, according to the poll, which was published on Wednesday.  The poll, sponsored by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which studies public opinion worldwide, showed the United States was increasingly isolated in its battle against terrorism.  The poll also found the effectiveness of the Iraq war in combating terrorism is disputed, and only in the United States do most people think it has helped the war on terrorism. Solid majorities in every country but the United States hold an unfavorable opinion of President George W. Bush.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040318c.htm  *  The world is more and more concerned about the chaos that Bush has brought to the world.  It is sad that he has abused America's influence in his imperialistic ambitions.  It is also interesting that the American public are so out of sync with the rest of the world.  It seems that time has stood still in America.  Yet, I have to place much of the blame for this on the controlled media.  Americans do not hear the truth unless they use the internet to read the world press.  Most of the big cities in the U S are down to one newspaper and my experience when I ran for governor of Texas in 2002 was that all the major newspapers in all the major cities put the same slant on events.  That is what happens when a few large media corporations own all the newspapers.  Those who control those corporations control the news.  Pretty simple really but for the average American and his or her eighth grade mentality all this is meaningless.  And it is to George's advantage to talk about No Child Left Behind and refuse to fund education because he knows that smart voters are not going to believe his lying lips.

CHINA - TAIWAN - The two main contenders in the tight race to become Taiwan's next president have few differences over how to run one of Asia's most vibrant economies, except one. And it's a big one: China.  
President Chen Shui-bian espouses a policy that sees Taiwan as independent while his Nationalist rival, Lien Chan, favours a conciliatory approach to Taiwan's huge trading partner.  Both advocate direct transport links with arch-foe China as a priority for an economy that dipped into its worst recession in 2001 and now shows signs of a strong recovery. But each has a very different timetable.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040318b.htm  * It is just a matter of time before Taiwan rejoins China.  Economics are the foundation of WorldPeace.   The Chinese and the Taiwanese have millennias of history together plus all other commonalities that come with racial homogeneity.  The faster that China embraces capitalism, the sooner the two countries will reconcile.  And it is going to be interesting to watch things develop as Taiwan begins to integrate more with China than the United States.

MEDICARE - MORE BUSHIT - Much as an army travels on its stomach, lawmakers operate on facts to get their work done. When the oratory is done, the facts provide the substance of sound public policy. That's why it is dismaying to learn that Richard S. Foster, a veteran actuary trusted by both parties for his independence, may have been muzzled when he sought to provide information that the Bush administration was underestimating the cost of the massive prescription drug benefit added to Medicare. He says he was prevented from telling Congress what the Bush team already knew privately -- they were underestimating the cost of the new benefit by some $150 billion.  Actuaries calculate the costs of insurance and the reserves needed to meet insurance requirements, and Foster was the chief actuary for Medicare. Well before the new prescription drug benefit passed last fall, Foster had submitted reports to the Bush administration that showed the costs of the new program would be between $500 billion and $600 billion through 2013. This was contrary to the $400 billion trumpeted by the administration, evidently just to line up with the target set by Congress.  According to Foster, Medicare administrator Thomas Scully, who rode herd over the legislation for the White House, ordered Foster not to talk to members of Congress without his authorization. If he revealed the high figures, he risked losing his job, according to reports. Foster was barred from giving the real numbers not only to Democrats but also to Republicans such as Rep. Bill Thomas, a Californian who chairs the powerful tax writing Ways and Means Committee.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040318a.htm  * Everyday we hear more and more about the lies that the Bush Administration has foisted on the public.  The lies about weapons of mass destruction, about a Saddam Osama link, about DICK's company Halliburton overcharging the government for gas and meals for the troops, about the coming cuts to social security.  Now we find that the Medicare program was another lie.  The whole Bush administration is corrupt.  It may be that there will be more corruption in the Bush Administration than in the Administration of U S Grant.  And then there are Bush's friends like Ken Lay.  Hello.  Is anyone listening?

 March 17, 2004

PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS - "Nothing is more important than telling the American people the truth about the economy, health care, and the issues of war and peace," Kerry said after ticking off a list of what he considers contradictions in major Bush administration policies. They included a Congressional Budget Office report released Monday saying that only 6 percent of the country's current budget deficit could be attributed to economic weakness, a much smaller share of the blame than the administration has placed on the economy. The CBO study cited the negative effects of ballooning government spending and progressively deeper tax cuts.  "Now the president is busy trying to blame everybody, except his own administration," Kerry told the crowd. "Ninety-four percent of the problem is George Bush and his administration."  As for the new ad, Kerry said the president -- not he -- was to blame for any lack of preparedness or protection for US soldiers.  "The president made the decision as to when to send our troops to war, no one else. He decided the date. He decided that diplomacy was over. He decided to go forward. And on the date that they went into Iraq, they didn't have the armament on the Humvees, the armored doors, they didn't have the equipment they needed in some regards, and they didn't have the state-of-the-art body armor," the senator said.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040317h.htm  * The reality is that for the first time we are hearing from a man who is committed to confront the lies of the Bushit administration.  I only hope that Kerry can keep up the attack for another eight months.  And I hope than nothing happens in world events to bolster Bush.  If another attack was carried out like 911, would it support or undermine Bush?  Would people perceive there is an ongoing terroristic threat or will they believe that terrorism has been increased by the imperialistic objectives of Mr. Bushit.

KOSOVO - MITROVICA, Serbia and Montenegro, March 17 -- At least five people were reported killed and up to 200 injured on Wednesday in the worst street clashes between Kosovo Serbs and Albanians in four years under United Nations protection.  Violence erupted in mid-morning in the ethnically divided flashpoint city of Mitrovica and shots were still being fired four hours later as hundreds of Polish riot police, French gendarmes and NATO troops struggled to disperse protesters.  Two red-and-white U.N. police jeeps burned fiercely and wreaths of tear gas drifted over the area as troops moving block to block tried to clear a central security zone and ambulances wailed into the drab downtown area.  "It is a mad situation," a spokeswoman for U.N. police told Reuters by telephone. "It is going to be very bad."  Hundreds of Albanians had gathered in their southern half of the city to vent their rage at the drowning deaths on Tuesday of two children said by Albanian media to have been hounded into a river by Serbs.  U.N. officials said newspapers had rushed to judgment, despite knowing the risk of igniting an Albanian riot. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040317g.htm  * The reality is that the amount of hatred that exists in this region is going to have to be addressed by the U N.  Until there is a focus and a just resolution to the issues of these various factions, there will never be peace.  It is stupid that people have to be policed to keep them from killing each other out of generic hatred.  Someone has to quit fighting first.

TERRORISM WORKS - Last May, 61 percent of British adults said they agreed with Blair's decision to join the U.S.-led invasion. In this year's poll, conducted in late February, only 43 percent endorsed the use of force against Iraq.  Opposition to the war in France and Germany, where leaders refused to back Bush, also increased with time. About 88 percent of the French and 86 percent of the Germans said they agreed with the decision to stay out of the war.  The poll also found signs of eroding support for the larger war on terrorism. Nearly half of the Germans and 57 percent of the French said the United States is ''overreacting'' to terrorism, up dramatically from last year. A third of the British agreed with the ''overreacting'' judgment, up from about 20 percent a year ago.  ''The credibility of the United States is sinking,'' said Madeleine Albright, who was secretary of state under President Bill Clinton. ``Osama bin Laden has been able to do something that 40 years of communism was unable to do, which is to divide Europe from the United States.''  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040317f.htm  * I am saddened that I must hope that respect for America continues to decline so that Americans will purge the White House of the socio pathic Bushit.

DEMOCRACY - IRAN STYLE - President Mohammad Khatami conceded defeat Wednesday on two bills meant to check the power of Iran's hard-liners, essentially acknowledging the failure of key pillars of his reformist presidential agenda.  One of the bills aimed to increase presidential powers in order to stop constitutional violations. The other sought to bar the Guardian Council - a powerful conservative oversight body - from disqualifying parliamentary and presidential candidates.  The bills were passed by the then-reformist dominated parliament in early 2003. But the Guardian Council rejected the bills several months ago, saying they were unconstitutional and against Islam.  Khatami acknowledged Wednesday that there would be no breakthrough in working out a deal on acceptable legislation.  "I withdraw the bills and declare that I have met with defeat," Khatami told reporters. "I am withdrawing (the presidential powers bill) so that the few powers that the president has now are not  eliminated." PoliticalCommentary2004/e040317e.htm * Well it seems that the Muslim God has told the Guardian Council not to allow democracy in Iran.  A theocracy (dictatorship in God's name) is about inequality and injustice.  Democracy without God's interference is about equality and justice.  Consequently, there is more peace and harmony in a secular democracy (actually there is no such thing as a sectarian democracy).  The truth is often paradoxical.

NEW WORLD ORDER - Ann Clwyd and Clive Soley say the prime minister should have made more of what they see as the case for regime change.  Mr Soley called for a change in international law to permit ousting "psychopathic killers" who rule failed states.  The world was not a safe place if "people like that" were left in power.  Mr Soley told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Mr Blair's case for war early on was wider than WMD - an issue that became increasingly central to his argument as time went on.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040317d.htm  * Well this makes lot of sense.  The U N takes a vote to decide which countries need to be invaded to protect its citizens from its leaders.  I am wondering who is going to pay for this.  Or is it necessary to make sure the country has natural resources that can be use to pay for these humanitarian wars before the country can qualify for intervention.  I really wonder where the man power is going to come from to occupy all of Africa?  And there is the question of whether Muslim countries will automatically be declared abusive to their people for supporting Islam?  I did not realize that the world was safe from one country invading another and we did not need to allocate troops for that task.  What is scary is that people in power are actually advocating these positions in the public media.

NAZI WAR CRIMINAL - An 86-year-old Nazi war crimes suspect has been charged with 164 counts of murder for his alleged role in killings of Slovak civilians in three villages in early 1945, prosecutors said Wednesday.  Ladislav Niznansky is accused of having headed the Slovak section of a Nazi unit code-named Edelweiss, which hunted resistance fighters and Jews after the Germans crushed an uprising against Slovakia's Nazi puppet government in 1944.  Niznansky, now a German citizen, was arrested at his Munich home in January and taken into custody at a prison hospital, paving the way for what could be one of Germany's last Nazi war crimes trials.  He is suspected of issuing orders and participating in the shootings of 146 people in the villages of Ostry Grun and Klak in central Slovakia in January 1945, Munich prosecutors said in a statement. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040317c.htm * The Zionists are still chasing these alleged Nazi war criminals.  What about Ariel Sharon?  He has been the cause of death for over 1,000 Palestinians since September 2000; and he is still openly assassinating their leaders.  Sounds like genocide to me.  Sounds like murder to me.  Since there is no official war between the Palestinians and the Jews, Sharon cannot be found guilty of war crimes.

TERRORISM - THE CHANGING FACE - Switch in tactics -  The Madrid attacks - if indeed the work of an Islamic group - illustrate some worrying new developments.  For one thing they appear not to have been suicide bombings - until now the preferred al-Qaeda method.  Explosives were simply left in bags on the trains.  The perpetrators are thus alive to carry out future attacks.  But of even greater concern is that the US intelligence agencies say they picked up none of the communications "chatter" prior to the bombings that would have given warning that a major attack was imminent.  This suggests a more locally-planned attack - one that was not guided or instigated from afar.  The timing, too, shows a new sophistication - not just an attempt to cause mass casualties, but an attempt to cause them at a moment of maximum political sensitivity, almost on the eve of the Spanish general election.  Of course, it may well have been the Spanish government's handling of the aftermath of the explosions that was as much responsible for its defeat as the bombings themselves.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040317b.htm * Well as with any successful organization, adapting to a changing environment and refining old techniques is critical.  The more you try to suppress the terrorist the more of a challenge they accept to circumvent the new situations.  What concerns me is that all these loosely associated groups, whose idol is Osama bin Laden, may begin to compete with each other for the most body counts.  The problem with splintering the terrorist is that you will never be able to get rid of them because they will mutate and change.  In the end, everyone who has a cause of any kind may become a terrorist.  Remember Timothy McVeigh, America's home grown terrorist?

HAITI - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez offered refuge to Haiti's former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, saying his government won't recognize the new, U.S.-backed regime in Haiti.  ``The legitimate president of Haiti was kidnapped by U.S. troops,'' Chavez said in a televised speech. ``The doors of Venezuela are always open to President Aristide.''  * I thought George said in the campaign that he would not interfere with Haiti.

March 16, 2004

HAITI - ARISTIDE RETURNS - Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, defying the United States and Haiti's new leaders, returned to the Caribbean yesterday, arriving in Jamaica where he had been given temporary asylum.  Aristide's return to the Western Hemisphere, two weeks after he was exiled to the Central African Republic to end a rebel uprising, prompted Haiti's interim prime minister to recall his ambassador to Jamaica and suspend relations.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040316j.htm * It looks like Aristide has learned from Mr. Chavez in Venezuela, that you can defy the United States.  Mr. Aristide was the duly elected president of Haiti and was removed by little George from power.  I am sure Mr.Aristide is aware of the coming November elections and that he could return to Haiti and force the U S to keep the peace anyway.  Between Afghanistan and Iraq the U S is spread very thin.  The U S cannot put another large force in Haiti.  The question is what is so valuable about Haiti.  The answer is simple: It is on the Southern to Northern drug highway.  It is the drug money stupid.  That is what is driving all the concern in Haiti.

ISRAEL - GAZA - As the Bush administration warms to the idea of an Israeli pullback from Gaza, U.S. and Israeli officials are trying to persuade Egypt to take on a new and major role: keeping a lid on the volatile Palestinian area.  But Egypt is setting tough terms for taking on the assignment, limiting what it is willing to do, and insisting that the transition from Israeli to Palestinian rule lead to a broader Middle East peacemaking effort.  "They could be the fall guy if it is all laid on their hands," Edward Walker, a former U.S. ambassador to Cairo who now heads the private Middle East Institute, said Monday in a telephone interview from Luxor, Egypt.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040316i.htm * Israel has found that after 37 years of occupying Gaza that it has become a tar baby from which withdrawal is going to be very hard.  The heavy handed methods of the Zionist in Gaza have poisoned the minds of two new generations of Palestinians refugees who live there.  Now after creating all that hatred, they want to leave and they want the Palestinians to play nice.  Those who know, realize that Israel is caught in a trap where it cannot afford to stay and it cannot afford to leave.  But again, there has to be a solution to the Palestinian refugees.  They have to be allowed to return to their homes in Israel.  Until this problem is solved, there is never going to be peace in the Middle East.  The United Nations established Israel at the expense of the Palestinians and the displaced Palestinians have not been integrated in the neighboring countries and never will.  After 56 years it is time for the United Nations to revisit the problem and allow the Palestinians to go home.  Of course increasing the population of Israel with over three million Palestinians is going to dilute the Zionist population and consequently their power within their own country.

TERRORISM - SPAIN - An international probe into the Madrid bombings sharpened its focus on al-Qaida terrorist cells Tuesday amid reports that police have identified five new Moroccan suspects and that two Indians detained in the attack were released.  A possible link between the Madrid and Casablanca attacks gained credibility Tuesday after French investigator Jean-Charles Brisard said he has found a direct link between Zougam and Mohamed Fizazi, a spiritual leader of Salafia Jihadia, which allegedly was behind the Casablanca attack and which has been linked to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaida terror network.  Moroccan officials also believe al-Zarqawi ordered the attacks in Casablanca, and U.S. officials blamed al-Zarqawi for March 2 bombings in Iraq that killed at least 181 Shiite Muslim pilgrims. The Jordanian militant also is believed to have been behind the 2002 killing of Laurence Foley, a U.S. aid worker in Jordan.  Authorities have been tracking Islamic extremist activity in Spain since the mid-1990s and say it was an important staging ground, along with Germany, for the Sept. 11 attacks.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040316h.htm  * It appears that good old fashioned police work is a better solution than invading a country because of the acts of a few socio pathic terrorists.  Of course if there was more interaction between the world's police forces, these terrorists could be more easily found and their heinous acts of terrorism thwarted.  Invading every country from which terrorists spring is not a solution.  Way too many innocent civilians die.  There is probably a ten to one death rate of Iraqis and Afghanistan civilians to each American killed on 911.  All military action does is create more hate in the world.  That being said, terrorism will not end until the causes of terrorism are defined and solved as opposed to simply focusing on killing terrorists.

IRAQ - SLAIN MISSIONARIES - Hours after four U.S. missionaries were slain in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Mosul, the top U.S. military commander said Tuesday that such attacks were meant to divide the 36-member coalition occupying Iraq.  U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez also cast doubt on whether Spain would withdraw its 1,300 troops from Iraq, but added that if they do, the loss would not be "a significant military problem" for the U.S.-led coalition.  "I think that it is still evolving," Sanchez said. "We will have to wait a few days."  The death toll in the attack on five Baptist missionaries rose to four on Tuesday after one of the injured died while being flown to a military hospital in Baghdad, the U.S. military said.  A fifth American was being treated at a U.S. military hospital in Mosul.  "Clearly there has been a shift in the insurgency and the way the extremists are conducting operations," Sanchez said during a military ceremony in the northern city of Tikrit. "It is very clear they are going after these targets that might create some splits within the coalition."  The five Baptist missionaries were on a humanitarian mission when two or three men attacked them from a neighboring car, witnesses said.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040316g.htm  * The Muslim terrorist have crossed the line and killed Christians.  The Muslim world has long stated that the invasion of Iraq is a new Crusade against the Muslims.  Now the violence has bled over to direct attacks on Christians.  I said George was going to start a holy war.  I thought for a while it was just going to be Sunnis verses Shiites but a new front has been opened against Christians.  And in America it will be said that the Muslims are evil and certainly are not as good as Christians.  Of course the Christian murder of innocent Muslim civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq is done under the facade of the military which just happens to be mostly Christian.

PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS - As John Kerry moves forward as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the broad outline of his general election strategy against President Bush is becoming apparent, and it is the most aggressive campaign a Democrat has run in decades.  The Kerry tactics surpass even the legendary "war room" approach of the Clinton campaign in 1992, serving up "pre-sponses" to Bush campaign events instead of responses to the president and his Republican allies.  And they seem to have caused a sputter in the much-vaunted Bush political machine at an important point in the campaign -- when the president is anxious to define the Massachusetts senator before the senator can define himself, much as the president's father defined his opponent, then Gov.-Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, in the 1988 campaign.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040316f.htm *  It seems like we have an evenly matched set of opponents in Kerry and Bush.  It seems that the anger of the Democrats has finally been ignited behind someone who can actually beat Bush.  Mr. Nice, Al Gore, just was not a warrior like Kerry.  Gore never had the drive that Kerry has.  It is going to take a street fighter to take on the lying socio path George Bush and it looks like Kerry can handle that role.  Kerry also has the credentials to challenge little George because of all his years in the U S Senate.  Unless Kerry does something stupid, I think there is a chance he will overcome all of Bush's money.  But even if Kerry does make a mistake or two, we can count on little George to do the same.  But what is more, the economy is unlikely to pick up in the coming months and the body bags are going to keep on coming in from Iraq all to Bush's detriment.

CHINA - The administration of US President George W Bush has just ratcheted up the pressure on what it calls discriminatory Chinese trade practices that favor China's burgeoning high-tech industry. Secretary of State Colin L Powell, Commerce Secretary Don Evans and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick spelled out their concerns in a letter addressed to Chinese Vice Premiers Wu Yi and Zeng Peiyan, urging Beijing to repeal a proposed encryption standard for wireless-fidelity (wi-fi) communications products set to take effect on June 1.  The Bush administration, never slow to pick up on the concerns of corporate America, has also pressured Beijing to reconsider a law giving Chinese chip makers unfair tax advantages. China currently levies a 17 percent value-added tax on imported semiconductors, while domestic producers qualify for tax rebates of as much as 14 percent off of the value-added tax.  China's determination to establish its own standards for high-tech products is reminiscent of campaigns launched in ancient China by Qin Shihuang - the country's first emperor - to standardize systems of measurement. Beijing has been pouring massive amounts of capital and resources into developing new technology standards in recent years, and has even created a government organ to promote Chinese standards. The goal is to free the country from being beholden to foreign products and their accompanying royalty payments.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040316e.htm * The new kid on the block is over a billion human beings strong.  That is a heck of market for products.  China is almost five times bigger that the U S in population and it is virgin territory for capitalism.  China is a long run threat to the U S economy and it is going to take a lot of work to keep China from directly challenging the U S in the world economy.  Little George does not understand that it is important to create justice in the world and to work diligently to integrate the U S into the world economy.  The new world is going to be based on dollars and not body counts.  In fact, as the U S well knows, economic sanctions can be real debilitating.  Look at what sanctions did to Iraq.  The U S being cut off from China economically is going to hurt a lot.  Especially if China and Japan join forces based on their natural racial heritage.  And if imperialistic wars create economic boycotts, the imperialistic wars are going to be a thing of the past.

SPAIN - ANTI BUSH - Spain's prime minister-elect has hit out at United States President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on their decision to launch a war against Iraq.  "Mr Bush and Mr Blair need to engage in some self-criticism," Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.  "You can't just go ahead and do things. You can't bombard a people just in case [they pose a perceived threat].  "You can't organise a war on the basis of lies."  Mr Zapatero earlier called the US-led war in Iraq "a disaster" and confirmed a pre-election pledge to withdraw the 1,300 Spanish troops serving there by the end of June unless a UN-led multinational force takes command.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040316d.htm * It appears that the new prime minister of Spain is going to be a campaign liability to Mr. Bush.  The Spaniards were 90% against the Iraqi war and now they have a voice that is going to lash out at Bush instead of selling out to an unjust and unprovoked war.  Funny, I do not hear much about what Bush has done in the aftermath of the bombings.  He is not going to waste time mending fences because Spain was always expendable.  Spain's Judas already received his thirty pieces of silver.

IRAQ - INTELLIGENCE - THE CIA IS BUSH'S SCAPE GOAT - Shaky intelligence about the threat posed by Iraq was exaggerated by the CIA in the run up to war, according to a classified report published today.  Vague details about Iraq?s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were turned into firm warnings, while unreliable sources were taken at their word, according to a US Senate report.  The report criticises CIA director George Tenet and other top intelligence officials over their pre-war estimate of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.  The intelligence estimate said Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons.  
But nearly a year after the war began there is still no evidence that Iraq had stockpiled such weapons in recent years. The damning report by the Senate Intelligence Committee comes amid bickering between politicians and spy chiefs about who was to blame for the apparently wrong intelligence about Iraq?s weapons of mass destruction. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040316c.htm * Well little George is obviously going to try to blame the CIA for his imperialistic unprovoked invasion of Iraq.  He is going to admit that he is so clueless about things that he believes everything that is told to him.  I wonder why he did not listen to Hans Blix who said:  "I can't find any weapons of mass destruction."  George wanted to take over Iraq's oil and that he did.

IRAQ - THE SPANIARDS ARE PULLING OUT - Spain's conservative party has been swept from power after eight years, on a wave of anger and resentment against its handling of Madrid's al-Qaeda linked train bombings and support for the US war in Iraq.  The country's 34.5 million voters turned against the conservatives in the aftermath of Thursday's terrorist assault, which authorities believe was carried out by an al-Qaeda cell, known as Abu Dahdah, which has links to the September 11 attacks in New York.  The incoming socialist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, was narrowly trailing in opinion polls until the bombings, which left 200 commuters dead and more than 1400 injured.  But the conservatives' handling of the crisis and claims they were covering up al-Qaeda's involvement brought millions of young Spaniards out to vote, many for the first time. The turnout was put at 77.4 per cent, the highest in more than 20 years.  Mr Zapatero, whose party won almost 43 per cent of vote, has promised to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq in June, in effect ending the country's close collaboration with the US and Britain in the war and occupation.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040316b.htm *  Little George does not have friend in Spain anymore.  The 90% of the population that was opposed to the Iraq invasion finally made their demands known.  That just leaves little George and his lap dog Tony Blair to clean up the mess in Iraq.  It looks like we may have to pull out and leave the same kind of chaos we left in Vietnam: another civil war.  Does anyone think that George cares?

ISRAEL - ASSINATION IS ON THE AGENDA - Israel plans to strike Palestinian leaders in response to a double bombing that killed 10 people at one of the country's most strategic installations, a security source has said.  "There will be targeted killings and other measures. The timing depends on intelligence," the source said, a day after the bombers from the resistance movements Hamas and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades struck at Ashdod port. "The targets will be from the top down."   
The source told Reuters he could not rule out an attack on Hamas's spiritual leader Shaikh Ahmad Yasin. The  wheelchair-bound cleric was slightly wounded in an Israeli air strike in Gaza in September as he met other senior Hamas figures.  Israel also tried to assassinate Mahmud al-Zahar, another Hamas leader, in September. His son and a bodyguard were killed in an air attack on his home.  An Israeli air attack killed Ismail Abu Shanab, a Hamas leader, in Gaza in August.  Last June Israel went after top Hamas official, Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi in a helicopter attack on his car in Gaza. Al-Rantisi was wounded in the strike.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040316a.htm  * Does anyone think that more assassinations by Israel is going to do anything more than bring on more suicide bombers?  What a sick joke.  America is allowing the Zionist to openly  assassinate those who are pro-Palestinian.  All the U S would have to do is tell Israel that if they  assassinate one single person, then all the loans to Israel will become due and there will be no more subsistence.  If George wants peace in the Middle East he would do well to consider giving Israel back to the Palestinians.  What do we need Israel for, we have Iraq now.

March 15, 2004

March 14, 2004

MASONIC LODGE - UNDER ATTACK - They still greet each other with secret handshakes and use rituals that date from the Middle Ages. But members of the Free and Accepted Masons insist that none of their sanctioned rites has any connection to the death of a man who was shot during an initiation.  ''It was an accident that happened,'' he said. ``You can't blame an entire fraternity that had nothing to do with it. If this were part of some common everyday occurrence that would be one thing. It isn't.''  The man accused of shooting James is Albert Eid, a 76-year-old retiree who police say mistakenly pulled a loaded .32-caliber handgun from his left pants pocket instead of a .22-caliber pistol with blanks that was in his right pocket.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040314g.htm * Three days ago a masonic building was bombed in Istanbul.  Now the Masons have a death during initiation just like some college fraternities.  This is not good for an organization that tries to stay under the radar.  An organization that does a lot of good through its Shriner Hospitals but is considered a negative manipulator in Western political events by many.

During the First World War, British policy became gradually committed to the idea of establishing a Jewish home in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael). After discussions in the British Cabinet, and consultation with Zionist leaders, the decision was made known in the form of a letter by Arthur James Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild. The letter represents the first political recognition of Zionist aims by a Great Power.

Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour

IRAQ - CONSTITUTION PROTESTS - Thousands of Iraqis protested in the centre of Baghdad against a new interim constitution on Friday, while their religious leaders refrained from calling for a mass rebellion.  "No, no to the basic law," the crowd chanted, waving banners that read: "We do not want an American constitution".  "Yes for the unity of Iraq," they shouted at the peaceful rally in Ferus Square.  Shiite clerics at weekly prayers also denounced the constitution, which Iraq's US-picked Governing Council signed at the start of the week.  Young firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr lived up to his reputation for being blunt when he likened the text to a British declaration inviting Jews to settle in Palestine in 1917.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040314d.htm * It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that a U S Constitution, which was founded by men who agreed to reject their homeland, cannot immediately work in a land where religion is deeply embedded in politics and two very different nations exists within the same border.  The Kurds would have to forego their dream of their own homeland and the Shiites would have to tolerate the minority Kurds in government.  All one has to do is consider the gerrymandering that takes places every ten years in America to understand that even the American constitution requires an equal distribution of Democrats and Republicans.

March 13, 2004

March 12, 2004

TERRORISM - SPAIN - Spain said Friday the death toll rose to 198 from a series of bombings on packed commuter trains Thursday, And that 1,430 people were wounded.  The previous death toll was given as 192 people with 1,421 hurt in the country's worst such attack.  The Spanish government said it believed armed Basque separatist group ETA was most likely to blame for the simultaneous bombings of four trains at Madrid stations.  However officials are also looking into possible Muslim militant involvement, after a claim purporting to come from a group aligned with al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks. * The attack came on 311 just thirty months after 911.  There is no doubt that Spain's backing the Bush invasion of Iraq caused this.  But what is more, it would seem that there is a warning that something like this is coming to the United States.  The problem is that a 911 attack on America before the November presidential elections are going to boost Warmonger Bush's votes.  The worst case for the world would be an attack on America before the elections that allowed Dubya to be president for four more years.

HEALTH - WAR ON FAT - FOR THE PHOTO-OP on Tuesday, the United States became a fat farm. "We're just too darned fat, ladies and gentlemen, and we're going to do something about it," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said.  As we know, photo-ops are shows laden with the political equivalent of hydrogenated fats, meant to disguise the fact that there is no meat on the bones. Even as Thompson spoke, the pharaohs were on Capitol Hill, sitting in glee as the House voted, 276-139, to ban lawsuits against trash-food companies. The bill's sponsor, Republican Ric Keller of Florida, said, "The food industry is under attack and in the cross hairs of the same trial lawyers who went after big tobacco."   Unsaid was that Keller and his fellow Republicans were in the cross hairs of the food industry. Among Keller's current top five political contributors are the corporation that runs the Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains, Outback Steakhouse , and Disney (and we all know how healthy the food is at Disney World).  From 1995 to 2002, according to Common Cause, food and grocery companies and restaurants gave more than $19.3 million in soft money to Republican causes compared with $5.5 million for Democrats.  Thompson is right. The nation is too darned fat. Thompson's political allies are also too fat in the wallet from the companies making us fat. Until that changes, his decrees is just a hydrogenated photo op. All fat. No meat. And definitely no fruit or vegetables.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040312a.htm * Americans are getting fatter and fatter and fatter.  The health problems associated with obesity are increasing even as 40 million Americans have no health insurance, thank you George Bush.  And just like tobacco, fast foods are killing us in the name of corporate profits for the fast food industry.  As they say, follow the money.

ECONOMICS - WORLD - U S TRADE DEFICIT - PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS - The U.S. trade deficit widened to a record $43.1 billion in January, indicating that the trade gap will remain high during the presidential campaign.  The report provided political fodder for Democrats looking for opportunities to criticize the administration's trade policies and job record. Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), noting that the trade gap in 2003 was a record $489.4 billion, said in a written statement: "We're starting this year right where we ended last year, with a growing trade deficit that adds to American workers' anxiety."  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040311d.htm * The economic policies of George Bush are the politics of incredible stupidity: cut taxes, spend money on war, reduce social security, increase the foreign exchange deficit.  Like Daddy, like sonny.  It is going to take a decade to pull out of the financial bind that little George has created.

March 9, 2004

WOMEN - Muslim countries are beginning to awaken the creative force of their woman power, said Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan.  Benazir said this at a ceremony yesterday at Dubai Women's College (DWC) in conjunction with the United Nations International Women's Day. She said: "This is becoming possible with the emphasis on education, health facilities for women and work opportunities."  
She stressed the important role education plays in a woman's life. "Education is the first step to success, independence and to a satisfying life where the full creative and intellectual powers of a person are used."  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040309c.htm *  Until the world acknowledges that women are equally valuable to a world society as men, there will never be WorldPeace.  Women are second class citizens all over the world.  Hopefully through the exchange of ideas that the Internet provides, the movement of the world society to first class citizenship for women will accelerate.

IRAQ - WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION - If there was one man who could have stopped the war in Iraq last year, it probably was not Hans Blix.  He faced a mission almost impossible. He was looking for something which did not exist.  When he duly found nothing, the Americans and British would not accept that absence of evidence meant evidence of absence.  And he was dealing with an Iraqi leader who did not understand that the only thing which could save him was total co-operation.  He says of Mr Bush and Blair that it was "probable that the governments were conscious that they were exaggerating the risks they saw in order to get the political support they would not otherwise have had."  And he reckons that among the costs were "the damaged credibility of the governments pursuing it and... the diminished authority of the United Nations".  A meeting he and Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN's nuclear agency the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had with US Vice President Dick Cheney in October 2002 is particularly illuminating.  "He stated the position that inspections - if they do not give results - cannot go on forever and said that the US was 'ready to discredit inspections in favour of disarmament'".   PoliticalCommentary2004/e040309b.htm  *  There is no question but that Bush and Blair were determined to go to war and I will always believe it was for the oil.  But what is more interesting is how Saddam could fool the whole world into thinking he had all these weapons of mass destruction.  With all the technology for spying from space, how is it really possible that anyone had any real proof that Saddam had anything resembling weapons of mass destruction.  Hopefully, some good will come of Bush's insanity.  Maybe the drive to invade another sovereign nation without provocation will be significantly slowed in the future. 

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS - John Kerry dropped an early bombshell into the US election campaign yesterday by claiming some foreign leaders have already told him they want him to beat President George Bush in November.  True, a much-noted global survey by the Pew Research Center last summer found countries in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Islamic world dislike Mr Bush - and it was their main reason for unfavourable views of the US.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040309a.htm * George Bush, because he is the most powerful head of state in the world and because he has Tony Blair in his pocket, is the greatest threat not only to WorldPeace but also to the world economic security.  Another four years of Bush will see Israel continuing to carve away at the West Bank, destroy the Dome of the Rock to make room for Solomon's Temple, debt that the U S will not be able to pay off for two generations, depression, a weakened United Nations and further hatred toward America from the rest of the world not to mention a continuing degradation of the environment and deforestation of all the national forests.

March 8, 2004

March 6, 2004

SPACE - MARS ROVERS - RELIGION - While the RAT has proven invaluable to scientists, it may be part of a baffling turn of events on Mars.  Smack dab in one Microscopic Imager picture relayed from the now known to be water-soaked Opportunity site is an odd, Rotini pasta-shaped object. When first seen by rover scientists, it caused a bit of a stir given its mini-fossil-like looks.  It still remains unidentified. But there may be a non-extraterrestrial explanation as to the nature of this eye-catching feature.  "Our first assessment was that we did not recall any previous RAT test that revealed a similar structure," said Gorevan. "But we are far from concluding that the RAT could not have been responsible for this feature. As it is impossible to prove a negative we will always come up short on certainty."  In this case, further analysis of the RAT telemetry and the Microscopic Imager revealed that the RAT had indeed produced the horizontal structure in that spherule, Gorevan concluded.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040306c.htm *  Well I think that we can all take it for certain that if there was a fossil found, it would be discounted.  To find fossils on Mars would be to rewrite religious myths and the whole of society would shift toward a new religious paradigm of the universe and God.  You mean we are not the only planet in the universe where God seeded life?

PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS 2004 - 911 ABUSE - President Bush, facing criticism for using stark footage from the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in his campaign commercials, will visit a memorial to the victims next week, the White House announced Friday.  Bush plans to travel Thursday to East Meadow, N.Y., for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Nassau County 9/11 Memorial. Afterward he is to speak at a campaign fundraiser in the same town.  Firefighters unions and some relatives of the attacks' victims have complained at news conferences and in television interviews that they felt it was exploitative for the Bush-Cheney campaign to air commercials that show fleeting shots of a destroyed World Trade Center tower and firefighters carrying a flag-draped coffin through the rubble.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040306d.htm  * Hey folks the Bushman has no shame.  We lost over three thousand Americans on 911 but the reality is that we have killed about 100,000 in revenge and the body count keeps on going up.  The real joke is that Bush has increased the incidents of terrorism.  Especially will all the new money that is going to the terrorist from the poppy crops in Afghanistan.  Thanks George.

IRAQ - LEGALITY OF THE INVASION - At first, we were told by ministers that US and British troops would soon find evidence of "weapons of mass destruction", a smoking gun. When the soldiers didn't, we were told to wait for David Kay's Iraq Survey Group of CIA-approved inspectors. We are still waiting. Meanwhile, a new smoking gun has come to haunt Tony Blair. It is the advice secretly offered to ministers by Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, in the weeks leading up to war.  Goldsmith, it appears, sent at least three separate pieces of advice to Blair between January and March last year and is believed to have had serious doubts about the legality of war without a second UN resolution. Indeed, his advice was sufficiently ambiguous in the run-up to the war for Lord Boyce, the then chief of defense staff, to demand "unequivocal" legal support for an invasion of Iraq. Or is the prospect of questioning the legality of the invasion, and continuing occupation, of Iraq by British troops, too awful to contemplate? It could, after all, make British troops liable in both British law and before the international criminal court not only for the deaths of Iraqis in their occupying zone but for injuries and the destruction of property. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040305d.htm  *  The reality is that the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law.  There can never be WorldPeace without world law.  The question is whether or not there are some astute agresssive Iraqi attorneys who are willing to take on an international case against the United States and Britain.  I think someone will rise to the occasion.  

SPACE/RELIGION - WATER ON MARS - Now that NASA's Opportunity rover has established a locale on Mars where rocks were once drenched in water, it is in a race against time and battery life to learn how widespread and deep the water was.  Was there a giant sea, or did less conspicuous groundwater percolate locally through the subsurface of Meridiani Planum?  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040305c.htm * Science has a habit of coming to conclusions very slowly.  But it does not take a rocket scientist to understand that where there is water there is life.  What is going to be real interesting is finding out how far life evolved on Mars before the planet turned cold.  There is no doubt a fossil record.  The global question for me is how is this going to effect religion.  The idea that we are the only intelligent life form in the universe is not really discussed anymore.  But the time is soon coming when we will rewrite our concept of God and spirituality and when we do the new version is going to be a lot more expansive than the finite earth that organized religion continues to use to murder the human race in the name of God.

TERRORISM - Relatives of victims killed in the 11 September 2001 attacks have criticised George W Bush for using images from the tragedy in his campaign advertisements.  Some of the families have complained that the images exploit those killed in the attacks and are in poor taste.  "It's totally disgusting," said Dawn Peterson, whose brother died in the attack on the World Trade Center.  A White House spokesman defended the election ads, saying they emphasized Mr. Bush's leadership at a time of terror.  "September 11th was a defining moment for our nation," spokesman Scott McClellan said.  "It was an experience that all Americans shared. It is the reason we are still at war on terrorism."  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040305b.htm * The truth is that Bush will do anything to remain president.  The reality is that the world is a more unstable place since George took office and the reality is that the incidents of terrorism have increased since George invaded Iraq.

TERRORISM - A majority of people living in the two countries bordering the United States and in five major European countries say they think the war in Iraq increased the threat of terrorism in the world, Associated Press polls found.  In the United States, people were evenly divided on whether the war has increased or decreased the terror threat. The polls found that people living in all the countries except the United States have an unfavorable view of the role that President Bush plays in world affairs. Only in the United States did a majority, 57 percent, have a positive view of the role played by the U.S. president.  Just over half in Mexico and Italy had a negative view of Bush's role. In Britain, the closest U.S. ally in the war in Iraq, and in Canada, two-thirds have a negative view.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040305a.htm * When the world generally thinks that the war in Iraq has increased the incidents of terrorism and that the majority of the world thinks Bush is a negative influence on the world, then Americans have a problem.  For Americans to support an imperialist like Bush in spite of world opinion indicates that America is going to have some trouble increasing the peace in the world.  It is amazing to me that anyone could support a war monger like Bush whose only other claim to fame is that he has increased the budget deficit to a level greater than Herbert Hoover.  Bush is undermining the economy and creating negative feelings about America world wide.  It is time for a change.

HUMAN EVOLUTION - The discovery in Ethiopia's Middle Awash region of a handful of nearly six-million-year-old teeth is adding fuel to a longstanding debate among scholars of human evolution. At issue is whether the base of our family tree is as streamlined as a saguaro, or as shaggy as a shrub.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040305e.htm  *  With time we will find out the true lineage of human beings.  There seems to be little doubt that there were different species of human beings on the planet.  The Neanderthals only died out 40,000 years ago.  The reality of their extinction has not been openly stated; "they were wiped out by the current race of human beings."  Americans just over a hundred years ago quit trying to exterminate the native Americans.  Why would things have been any different when the world was a much more primal place?  That being said, the truth about human evolution is not going to come from paleoanthropologists but from genetics.   The genetic record comparing apes and humans as well as other species is going to tell the tale and the paleoanthropologists will bring in the tangible support.  All in all it is just another inroad to the murderous grip that religion has on human evolution and the truth about God and humanity.

March 4, 2004

THE PASSION OF CHRIST - Mel Gibson stands to personally make more than $300 million for pursuing his Passion. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040305a.htm  * The question is what is he going to do with the money.

STEM CELL RESEARCH/RELIGION - The White House's policy on research with human embryonic stem cells has been put under new pressure by the dismissal of a leading biologist from the President's Council on Bioethics last week and by the development, announced today, of new stem cell lines by a Harvard researcher.  At present, researchers who receive government financing can only work with human embryonic stem lines that were derived from embryos before 9 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2001. This was a political compromise that allowed stem cell research to begin but that also assured opponents of abortion that no more very early embryos would be destroyed.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040305b.htm *  The truth is that we are still in the Dark Ages due to religious bureaucrats who still pound the drum of  God's will.  God's will is in reality the will of entrenched religious bureaucrats whose contribution to society has been to create wars and promote ignorance in society.  We need stem cell research to improve the health of suffering human beings in specific and to increase the quality of life in general.  Bush has no religion other than power.  Bush could care less about God.  If the religious right offers up enough votes, George will walk around Washington with a cross strapped to his back.  The sooner we subordinate religious bureaucracies and move toward a more democratic secular society the sooner we will all gain the peace that comes from putting aside religion in favor of individual spirituality and one on one communication with God.

March 3, 2004

March 2, 2004

RELIGION - INTOLERANCE - PAKISTAN - Pakistan - Attackers sprayed gunfire and lobbed grenades into a solemn religious procession of Shiite Muslims on Tuesday, then blew themselves up as survivors scattered. Authorities said at least 42 people died, and more than 160 were wounded.  Outraged Shiite Muslims rioted after the massacre, prompting authorities to call out troops and paramilitary police to quell gun battles and arson in this southwestern city of 1.2 million. Shiite mobs set fire to a Sunni Muslim mosque, shops and a TV station.  The attack in Quetta came hours after coordinated blasts at Shiite shrines killed over 140 people in Iraq.  Tuesday's attack was one of the deadliest in years of repeated acts of sectarian violence in Quetta. Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, holds a substantial Shiite minority that is often at odds with radical Sunni groups.  As worshippers marched through a congested neighborhood, three gunmen opened fire and hurled grenades at the crowd, said Mayor Abdul Rahim Kakar, who was nearby at the time.  Walking among the survivors with more explosives lashed to their bodies, the men blew themselves up as police moved in, Kakar said. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040302i.htm * It is interesting that there seems to be a global uprising between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.  The Sunnis are not only killing Shiites in Iraq but also in Pakistan.  The question is whether this is just a phase or if it is the precursor of something bigger to come.  The common denominator is the U S involvement in Iraq and its support for Pakistan.

RELIGION - INTOLERANCE - IRAQ - A series of bombs and explosions ripped through Shiite Muslim religious ceremonies in Baghdad and the city of Karbala today, killing at least 100 people who were among hundreds of thousands on pilgrimages to ancient shrines.  In Khadamiya, among the body parts taken to the morgue were two severed heads, which in the past have been the emblem of a suicide bomber. After the attack at the Khadamiya shrine, an angry crowd estimated in the thousands marched to a nearby American base where they started pelting soldiers and tanks with stones. A witness, Ali Heider, said the soldiers opened fire and he saw at least two Iraqis in the crowd shot. PoliticalCommentary2004/e040302h.htm * It is probable that the Sunni Muslims did this.  It is just another example of how intolerant religious bureaucracies are of each other.  In the name of God, more blood has been spilled than for any other cause.  We have to admit that religion is not the vehicle that will bring peace to the earth.

ISRAEL - SHARON'S WALL - Israeli citizens have for the first time joined Palestinians in a court appeal against the route of the controversial security barrier Israel is building on the West Bank.  About 30 residents of the Israeli suburb of Mevasseret Zion outside Jerusalem added their names to a Palestinian petition to the High Court of Justice against the fence section being built between their community and neighbouring Arab villages. The Jewish residents maintained that fencing in the Palestinian villagers would lead to terror, not prevent it.  Lawyers for the Palestinian petitioners told the court that the fence would cut off eight villages in the Jerusalem area from 2000 acres of agricultural land.  "Our goal is to prevent the Palestinians from being swallowed up inside the fence," said lawyer Mohammed Dahla.  "You can't strangle 30,000 residents and turn their villages into a prison."  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040302c.htm * It is good to see that some of the Israelis do not support the wall which arbitrarily encloses even more of the Palestinians land than was stolen by the U N and given to Israel in 1948.  Hopefully the Zionist will suffer the same fate as the Nazis and any other nations that invades its neighbors and tries to annex the occupied land.

AFGHANISTAN - Opium poppy cultivation levels in Afghanistan approached the highest levels ever recorded last year despite the counterdrug efforts of the U.S.-backed government, the State Department said Monday.  The department's annual report on illicit drug activities worldwide said criminal financiers and narcotics traffickers in and out of Afghanistan have taken advantage of ongoing conflict and the fragile security situation.  They have "exploited poor farmers in a rural economy decimated by war and drought," the report said. It said drug-related corruption at the provincial and district levels is believed to be pervasive. It added that at the national level, corruption of officials is believed to be much less of a problem.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040302b.htm  * The result of the invasion of Afghanistan by the U S has increased the drug trade and increased the funding to terrorist.  The truth is often paradoxical.  Bush can't afford to vigorously attack the farmers because Bush does not want to ask Congress for money to support the Afghanis when they have no drug money.  Estimates are that 50% of the income of Afghanistan is now from the drug trade.  Stupid is as stupid does.

AIDS - Managing Director of Abuja-based Medicrest Specialist hospital Dr. Jeremiah Abalaka, has said that the world has not been able to discover a cure for the HIV/AIDS scourge because all HIV preventive vaccines so far developed are designed to elicit anti-HIV antibody production.  Speaking to newsmen in Abuja at the weekend, Abalaka said the only way to outsmart the virus is to design and apply a vaccine that would not be anchored on stimulating anti-HIV antibody production.  "In my study into the research efforts of others, I observed by and large the one track-minded approach adopted by past and present research efforts. In other words, researches into HIV vaccine development have all been consistently anchored on a vaccine that will trigger the production of anti-HIV antibodies.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040302a.htm * It is typical of researchers to cling to the official mindset. To do otherwise means the lack of funding.  This is interesting because the solution to the vast majority of problems is found by encouraging creativity.  Yet when it comes to acquiring funding, researchers have to swear allegiance to the politically correct approach of the herd.  In the meantime AIDS continues to run rampant in Africa.

March 1, 2004

CIVIL UNIONS - Remember when conservatives used to be against tampering with the Constitution?  Remember when they used to go on and on about how we shouldn't resolve political battles by amending the Constitution, and how the Founding Fathers made it difficult to do on purpose.  That was when the issue was the Equal Rights Amendment. They defeated that.  Remember when conservatives used to be in favor of federalism?  Remember when they used to argue that states should be allowed to serve as the "laboratories" of experimentation and change that Justice Brandeis described?  Remember when they were so certain that insisting on a single federal standard was wrong, a violation of states rights?  Remember Ronald Reagan's "new federalism"? It was the theme of his first term.  That was then. This is now. Bush held out as long as he could, but ultimately, he caved, embracing an amendment he had tried to steer clear of, giving the conservatives what they wanted, and showing his stripes to everyone else in the process.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040301d.htm * Bush will do anything to stay in office.  Start a war based on lies, chop down all the national forests, bow to any corporation with enough money to contribute to his campaign, even amend the Constitution of the United States to prevent equality and justice for all.

THE BLOOD ON SHARON'S HANDS - Palestinians have carried out thousands of attacks against Israelis during 41 months of violence, killing 930 people, while 2,688 have been killed on the Palestinian side, almost all in Israeli military strikes.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040301c.htm  *  This all began when Sharon made his inciting visit to the wailing wall on September 28, 2000 for the specific purpose of ending the tense peace that his predecessor Mr. Barak had achieved.  All the deaths can be tracked back to Sharon malicious visit.

HAITI - The sudden departure of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country's first freely elected president in its 200 years of independence, was almost predictable in a nation that has seen more than 30 coups.  Life for Haiti's very poor never got better under Aristide despite perhaps unreasonably high expectations. Instead, Aristide empowered lawless elements who owed their dubious status to his indulgences. Many defended him, insisting to the last, as did Aristide, that the diminutive leader would hang on for two more years and finish his five-year term.  PoliticalCommentary2004/e040301b.htm * So here we go again.  Bush is sending in the Marines.  All because we supported another corrupt little dictator who was an enemy of justice and democracy.  It would seem that while Bush is in the nation building mood, that he should go on down to Haiti and make things better for them.  Sort of like the way he has made Afghanistan's economy tied to poppies and opium.  A bigger drug problem which funds more terrorism.  And he did not even get bin Laden.  Stupid is as stupid does and Dubya is a dangerous man.

How can we manifest peace on earth if we do not include everyone (all races, all nations, all religions, both sexes) in our vision of Peace?

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