The 400,000 “chemically killed” is a lie. For an attorney to defend our abrogation of rules of the Geneva Convention is very troubling. The most grievous error is the statement that we were attacked without provocation. We have provoked the Muslim world for over 35 years by our unwavering support for their mortal enemy, Israel. There has never been a UN vote when we didn’t back Israel. When a UN proclamation ordered Israel to move back to their ‘67 borders, Israel ignored the UN and we backed them. For 35 years over 3 million Palestinians have lived in refugee camps. Israel settlements have been continually expanded so that now 400,000 Israelis live now on what was Arab land. They have run completely run roughshod over them. Palestinians living in contested territories can’t drive on the same roads, must have different license plates, must undergo daily humiliations as they try to live their lives. One of the basic blocks of the UN charter states that land gained through armed conflict must be returned. Israel has always defied it.

The US each year gives 3 billion dollars in aid to Israel, the most of any country. Do you think Israel is poverty stricken? Not by a long shot. When they attack a refugee camp with helicopters and missiles, who do you think supplies the military hardware? The current leader, Sharon, is a butcher, infamous for massacres of Palestinians in Lebanon in 1975. In addition to the outright grant of $3 billion, we regularly guarantee loans which every member of Congress know will never be repaid.

How does Israel get so much of our tax dollars without even a congressional debate about it? Through their lobbying of congressmen. They intensely lobby the House Appropriations Committee and support through contributions the 12 members so that annually they just rubber-stamp approving the money for Israel. I find it galling that agents of a foreign government can influence how we spend our money.

Congressmen who don’t go along with the Israel lobby encounter fierce opposition when they come up for re-election. Paul Findlay was a representative for Illinois for 22 years. After he dared to speak out in opposition against our unfair, unbalanced, one-sided support of Israel, he faced an opponent in the next election who had enormous financial backing by Israeli lobbying groups and was ousted from Congress. Similar assaults have occurred against Senator Pete McCloskey (California) and at least 4 others. The current situation is that our Congressman are afraid to take the Palestinian side in Congress.

Some are not afraid. Senators Byrd (W.Va) and Hollings (SC) are two such. In May, Hollings made a speech in Congress in which his words were “Every Senator and Representative knows why we went to war in Iraq; it was to secure Israel.”

Foreign affairs in this administration have been taken over by neo-conservatives whose leaders in 1996 put together their “Plan for a New American Century.” The linch-pin of the plan was to establish a big US presence in the Middle East, and specifically, Iraq.
The neo-conservative architects? Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, both of whom have had and in Wolfowitz’s case still have, high positions in our government. But guess what? These 2 guys were also, in the 90’s, paid consultants to the Israel Likud party.
The 9/11 attack gave them the perfect opportunity to fulfill the plan they had developed. Blame it on Iraq and shove it down gullible American throats; cloak it in patriotism. So we’ve been fed a pack of lies and dumb, ambitious Georgie W. has been chosen to run with it. While we and the world are so taken up with Iraq, Sharon is acting more vicious than ever because we’re all to busy.

Nobody in government will make the case I just laid out. The first thing would be charges of anti-Semitism.

Joe MacDougall

The CIA says at
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/fr.html

Roman Catholic 83%-88%, Protestant 2%, Jewish 1%, Muslim 5%-10%, unaffiliated 4%

So I suspect they are full of it throughout. Amazing how facts don’t get in the way of opinions.

Dear Tom, Kevin, Kirby and Ted,

As your father, I believe I owe it to you to share some thoughts.

I never believed anything like this could happen to me. When new neighbors moved in across the street, I noticed the wife checking me out. And I couldn’t help noticing her too, with her long tanned legs peeking out of her flirty sundress…

I do remember one occasion though when I overheard a phone conversation he had with a former student (my father taught at a community college). This man called to ask my father for a letter of recommendation, as he had just been released from 2 years in prison and was looking for work. My father agreed, got his address and promised to send him the letter.

I asked my Dad what he knew about this former student and he said he only vaguely recalled having him in class many years earlier. I was shocked that he would do this for, well, a criminal (I was 16 at the time). He said that it must have taken a great deal of courage for this man to call someone he barely knew and admit his past mistakes and that was all my father needed to know about his character to decide that he could write a recommendation for him.

The conversation occurred almost 30 years ago and I relate the incident only because sometimes when people mention what their fathers told them I think about the things my father said to me.

I don’t recall him ever offering an opinion about Muslim “types”.

Nope, the socialists were ahead by three or four points before the Madrid bombings. Nothing Aznar couldn’t conceivably turn around, which was part of why they were so desperate to try to pin it on the Basques.

BUT NOT BECAUSE IT WAS A TERRORIST BOMBING!

Spain voted out Aznar because of how he tried to cover up that it was Muslim terrorists and tried to blame it on the Basques. They kicked him out because he covered it up for a self-serving reason.

‘Dad, I’m sorry, but this always happens when you get off your meds. It’s just me, and I’m your daughter, Anne.’

This time, the Bad Guys Who Want To Take Over The World really are dumber’n stumps. (How many time a day, do you think, does Overlord-in-waiting Cheney shout “I’m surrounded by fucking idiots! Do I have to do everything MYSELF?!”)

As far as “bringing the country to a virtual political standstill” over the prisoner issue: I don’t understand how we’re supposed to be teaching people about the rule of law while behaving EXACTLY like the people we’re supposed to be fighting. Whether it’s a few bad apples, or systemic abuse, it makes us look like psychopaths to the rest of the world. It’s being done in my name, and I won’t have it! And if it’s systemically tolerated, the administration is either clueless or evil. (IMHO, both.)

I simply can’t follow the logic of this kind of argument. One of us is a cultural moron. I hope it’s not me.