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Revolutionary Idea... on bridge too far?
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January-February 2005
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the good and the bad...
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Some of the Good
Rev. Michael Jenkins
Building Trust With Religious Leaders
in The Holy Land
January 2005 . . . We need each other. The people of God must come together as one to truly bring love and unity to families, communities, and societies. As we unite, the condition is set to cause the forces of evil to lose their power.
Later, when we went back to Jerusalem, Imam Bundakji contacted the sheikhs at Al Aqsa Mosque. They, too, opened their doors and hearts to us, sharing with us very personally how much encouragement they felt from all the world�s religious leaders and members of Parliament who came to the holy site during the World Pilgrimages. They honestly expressed that they were almost hopeless, in terms of the world�s seemingly deaf ear to their plight. Suddenly, however, the IIFWP showed up, led by Father Moon, and brought ten thousand visitors -- hundreds and hundreds coming every month. Month after month, month after month. This is the fulfillment of the will of God. Truly God�s people can bind together and help one another.
They extended their warmth and opened their hearts. They also recommitted that all Ambassadors for Peace have a home at Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Allah welcomes all believers in His people there; the followers of this movement have exhibited true belief and practice in their eyes.
The Age, Australia
Britain Urges U.S. to Set Exit Timetable
Phyllis Bennis and Erik Leaver
Ending the U.S. War in Iraq:
How to Bring the Troops Home and
Internationalize the Peace
... To the extent that the resistance is unified at all among its disparate ethnic, religious, and political sectors, the unity appears limited to a shared opposition to the U.S. occupation. Without the occupation as an outside enemy, those much smaller sectors of the resistance that are motivated largely by religious extremism and who are responsible for some of the worst violence against civilians, will likely become isolated from the broader sectors of the resistance. One probable result will be a significant reduction--though not an immediate end--of violence, with the departure of the key targets of the violence, the U.S. occupation and its Iraqi supporters.
It is likely that the withdrawal of U.S. troops would lead to the collapse of at least some parts of the current U.S.-imposed "government" of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, but some of its institutions, including the police, the military, and other security agencies, could well survive with different people, untainted by association with the U.S. occupation, emerging from within them to assert new leadership. And without an outside enemy occupying the country, it is also more likely that the kind of secular nationalism long dominant in Iraq would again prevail as the most influential (though certainly not sole) political force in the emerging Iraqi polity, as opposed to the virulent Islamist tendencies currently on the rise among Iraqis facing the desperation of occupation, repression, and growing impoverishment.
Sun-Myung Moon
God's Providence to Establish
the World Transcending Religions and Nations,
Based Upon the Absolute Values of True Love
Four City American Speaking Tour -- October 2004
... Mistakenly, we have been taught that the strong always
devour and exploit the weak. The theory of the survival of the
fittest--the so-called "law of the jungle"--is rooted in the
Hellenistic worldview. It is fundamentally wrong! Its proponents
overlook the absolute values of living for the greater good that aim
for the perfection of every creature, allowing all to be owners of love.
The owner of love lives for the sake of his or her counterpart,
investing true love and forgetting ever having invested. The
counterpart responds to that investment of love with complete
submission. If true love were excluded from this equation, only the
concept of struggle would remain. But God's principle of creating does
not base existence and development upon exploitation. Rather, He
creates through a mutual process of giving and receiving, as the
partners unite within a greater harmony rooted in love's absolute
values. . .
Vikram Dodd
Freed Guant�namo Britons may run for election to Parliament
For most of the last three years, four Britons have been trying to get out of the Guant�namo Bay prison where they were held by the United States as suspected terrorists. After their return to Britain, expected to be next Tuesday, two of the men will decide whether they will try to get into parliament. . .
Yo-Han Lee
Who Washed Your Fallen Nature?
The life of faith exists in order to remove your fallen nature. It is not God or Jesus but the person of more sinfulness than you who removed your fallen nature. Existing churches believe that Jesus saves them. That is not true. The person who has more fallen nature than you only can wash your fallen nature. Then in this life the person whom you hate most and dislike most takes care of your fallen nature. The way to remove it is to connect yourself with God's position on one hand and be persecuted yourself by those people on the other. Unless you have God on one hand, you cannot bear it. . . .
Some of the Mid-lands
Arnaud de Borchgrave
Revolutionary idea . . . on bridge too far?
For three years, we have been reminded we are a country at war � first
against al Qaeda and its global affiliates, then against Iraq's bloody
tyranny that was an integral part of transnational terrorism. Almost
1,400 American servicemen and women have given their lives in a war
President Bush deliberately avoided mentioning in his Inaugural
address. It was a classic case of censorship by omission. But why?
One former ranking national security specialist, a Republican,
[Praise God!] confided at one of the Inaugural bashes, albeit off the
record, "I am beginning to smell disaster in Iraq." Another Vietnam?
we asked. "Worse than the Vietnam debacle," he replied, "because the
stakes are so much greater." Six in 10 Americans told a Harris poll
they did not expect the Iraq situation to improve.
This could also explain why Mr. Bush is trying to shift the blame
to national leaders who deny their people freedom. The "fire of
freedom" is the second Bush administration's new global crusade that
will dwarf Iraq as Iraq dwarfed Afghanistan...
Some of the Bad
Reuters
Polls fail to enthuse expat Iraqis
By Friday, the fifth day of registration, 131,635 of an estimated one million eligible voters in 14 countries had registered, the Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration's Iraq's Out of Country Programme said.
"There are few people who are coming and many are suspicious of the whole process while others are afraid their registered names could be used by the (Iraqi) authorities against them at some point," an Iraqi electoral worker who identified himself as Ali Salem told Reuters.
Scott Ritter
The Salvador Option
... According to press accounts, the Pentagon is considering the organisation, training and equipping of so-called death squads, teams of Iraqi assassins who would be used to infiltrate and eliminate the leadership of the Iraqi resistance.
Called the Salvador Option, in reference to similar US-backed death squads that terrorised the population of El Salvador during the 1980s, the proposed plan actually has as its roots the Phoenix assassination programme undertaken during the Vietnam war, where American-led assassins killed thousands of known or suspected Vietcong collaborators.
The Salvador Option would not be the first embrace of assassination as a tool of occupation undertaken by the United States in Iraq.
In the months following Paul Bremer's taking over of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in June 2003, the streets of Baghdad crawled with scores of assassination squads.
Among the more effective and brutal of these units were those drawn from the Badr Brigade, the armed militia of the Shia political party known as the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI.
Sam Hamod
Senator Boxer and Conde Rice
Jan. 18, 2005 -- This morning, at 9.40 a.m., Senator Barbara Boxer listed fact after fact, in statements by Conde Rice, that showed she contradicted herself time and again about Al Qaeda, about Saddam and his alleged WMD�s, and his intentions--all of which led us to war against Iraq. Boxer went on to show that Conde Rice, even more recently, was caught lying the more by contradicting statements by the CIA�s intelligence reports and contradicting statements by President Bush. In all instances, Boxer showed quotes from Rice to make her points.
In her response to Boxer, Rice sputtered and lied even more. She refused to respond to the facts that Boxer pointed out, instead she kept saying that her integrity and credibility were under question and that she resented this; this was clearly folly and a liar's farce. Clearly, Ms. Rice was shown to be a liar and an immoral person�not caring about those who have been killed in this Iraq war, this war that was clearly built on lies. The more she talked about her reputation for honesty in the face of her lies, the stranger she sounded--as if she, like Bush, was out of touch with reality.
Among the contradictions that Senator Boxer pointed out were:
1. Rice said that Al Qaeda areas had shrunk; Boxer pointed out that Al Qaeda now had more lands in which it was operating than before the war on Iraq;
2. Rice said that the war was not about WMD�s or atomic weapons; Boxer pointed out that the congress supported the war on Iraq based on fear of WMD�s and atomic weapons that the administration claimed existed;
3. Rice said that Saddam had worked with Al Qaeda; Boxer pointed out that Saddam and Bin Laden were enemies and did not cooperate;
4. Rice said we�d made progress in the Arab and Muslims worlds; Boxer pointed out that there was more anger against America in Muslim and Arab lands since the invasion of Iraq, not less�this according to the CIA�s own intelligence bureau and the president�s own committee on combating terrorism;
5. Rice said that Al Qaeda was now more under control; Boxer pointed out that every governmental agency that has looked at the situation has made clear that Al Qaeda has appealed to more jihadist Muslims than anyone had ever imagined. Thus, Bin Laden�s hope had come true, America's attack on Iraq proved to most Arabs and Muslimst that America was attacking and desiring to take-over Arab and Muslim lands.
Boxer made other points, but these are among the most important that showed Rice to either be a liar or an incompetent...
Sam Hamod is a former advisor to the State Department, former founder and editor of 3rd World News. His book of essays on war will be published in 2005 by Ishmael Reed Publishing Co; he may be reached at [email protected]
Representative John Conyers
Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio
Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff
Wednesday 05 January 2005 -- Executive Summary
Representative John Conyers, Jr., the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked the Democratic staff to conduct an investigation into irregularities reported in the Ohio presidential election and to prepare a Status Report concerning the same prior to the Joint Meeting of Congress scheduled for January 6, 2005, to receive and consider the votes of the electoral college for president. The following Report includes a brief chronology of the events; summarizes the relevant background law; provides detailed findings (including factual findings and legal analysis); and describes various recommendations for acting on this Report going forward.
Fitrakis, Rosenfeld, and Wasserman
Why Congress Must Investigate
Election Day Problems
Harry Browne
Could Hussein Have Been Right & Bush Wrong?
You may remember that in 2002, the year before the Iraq War began, the United Nations Security Council ordered Iraq to produce a report detailing all of its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons � past and present. Iraqi officials complied and produced an 11,800-page report on Iraq's weapons programs. The report described all the chemical and biological weapons the country once had � where they came from and what was done with them � as well as what had happened to Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
Although the report was prepared for the United Nations, U.S. officials intercepted the report, edited out 8,000 pages (over two thirds) of it, and delivered its Reader's Digest version of the report to the UN.
A German reporter managed to obtain a copy of the original report from Iraq, and then compared it with the truncated copy the U.S. gave to the UN. He found that the missing parts covered the Iraqis' acquisition of chemical and biological weapons from the U.S., the delivery of non-fissionable materials for a nuclear bomb by the U.S. to the Iraqis, and the training of Iraqi nuclear scientists at U.S. nuclear facilities in Los Alamos, Sandia, and Berkeley.
The basic points made in the report were...
BlackCommentator.Com
The Vote:
Different Moral Universe
Harvard Professors Michael C. Dawson and Lawrence Bobo report that 63%
of whites believe that efforts to disenfranchise Blacks in Florida in
2000 were either "not a big problem" (20%), "no problem at all"
(18.5%), or a "complete fabrication" of the Democrats (24.5%). This,
in answer to questions posed in 2004, as evidence mounted that the
election nightmare was about to revisit the state.
Speaking from the real world, 76% of African Americans described the
events of 2000 as a "big problem," 15% as "not a big problem," and 5%
as "no problem at all." Just 3.7% believe the Democrats made the whole
thing up. . .
Just over a third of whites (37%) recognized that something very
serious � "a big problem" � happened in November, 2000. "There's
clearly a divide in the white community," said Dr. Dawson, a noted
social demographer, adding that his conclusions are preliminary and
general. "No substantial divide exists in the Black community" over
the significance of efforts to disenfranchise African American voters
in Florida, he said. What is most troubling is that "there is a
significant segment of whites who say, even if you can do something
about the disenfranchisement problem, legally, nothing should be done
about it."
Edward Said
A Monument to hypocrisy
"We cannot in any way lend our silence to a policy of war that the
White House has openly announced will include three to five hundred
cruise missiles a day (800 of them during the first 48 hours of the
war) raining down on the civilian population of Baghdad in order to
produce "Shock and Awe", or even a human cataclysm that will produce,
as its boastful planner a certain Mr (or is it Dr?) Harlan Ullman has
said, a Hiroshima-style effect on the Iraqi people. Note that during
the 1991 Gulf War after 41 days of bombing Iraq this scale of human
devastation was not even approached. And the US has 6000 "smart"
missiles ready to do the job. What sort of God would want this to be a
formulated and announced policy for His people? And what sort of God
would claim that this was going to bring democracy and freedom to the
people not only of Iraq but to the rest of the Middle East?"
Bo-Hi Pak
Watergate: Tragic Failures
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / Sept-Oct 2004
War(s) On Terror
...
JAMES CARROLL
Afraid to look in the moral abyss
WHY DON'T we Americans look directly at the war? We avert our gaze, knowing that the situation in Iraq grows more desperate by the day. Vaunted "coalition" efforts to "break the back" of the "insurgency" have only strengthened it. The violence among Iraqis would surely qualify as civil war -- except that only one side is fighting. The structures of relief and repair are gone. Whole cities are destroyed, populations displaced. The hope of Iraqi elections is mortally compromised. "Coalition" members are dropping out. The mission of American force is to secure the country, but it can't secure itself. The performance of US intelligence has been consistent: Its strategic failures caused the war, and its tactical ignorance of the enemy is losing the war.
Meanwhile, in America, this, the gravest foreign policy crisis in a generation, source of a crisis of conscience for tens of millions of citizens, is not a subject of political debate. For many months, overt opposition to the war was sublimated in the effort to defeat George W. Bush in the November election. John Kerry's fatal ambivalence about Iraq sealed the war off from the great quadrennial decision, with the result that the voices of those who hated the war were muted, and the uneasiness of those who were troubled by it was never addressed...
Senator Russ Feingold
"America Is So Much Better than This"
Tuesday 07 December 2004 -- Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) has the unique distinction of being the lone dissenter in the Senate on the vote approving the Patriot Act. He also was among a handful of Senators opposing the resolution to authorize the Iraq war. And last month, he won re-election, beating his well-financed Republican opponent 55-44 percent. On Nov. 18, when President Bush's nomination of Condoleeza Rice to replace Secretary of State Colin Powell came before the U.S. Senate, Sen. Feingold stood on the Senate floor and, in his characteristically forthright manner, spoke the following words.
Mr. Feingold: On Tuesday, the President announced the nomination of National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice to be the next U.S. Secretary of State.
I admire Dr. Rice's obvious intellectual gifts and her communication skills, and I congratulate her. I also believe that the president has the right to appoint cabinet officers who reflect his ideology and his perspective. Barring serious concerns about a nominee's qualifications or ethical record, and in keeping with Senate practices and precedents, my inclination is to give the president substantial deference in his cabinet choices, so I do expect, barring something unforeseen, that I will be supporting Dr. Rice.
But I am deeply troubled by the signal that this nomination appears to send - a signal suggesting that the modest moderating influence of the State Department over the last four years will disappear, and that the next four years will be guided even more closely by the voices that shouted loudest in the first term, and that led our country into seriously flawed foreign policies. Our country cannot afford to continue down the foreign policy path that was forged during the first term of the Bush administration.
The administration's Iraq policies in the first term painted a picture of an American government that isn't so sure it rejects torture; that isn't competent and careful enough to properly vet intelligence presented in major speeches and briefings; that willfully rejects the lessons of history and the advice of its own experts; that is surprised when disorder results in massive looting; that misleads taxpayers regarding the costs and commitments entailed in its policies; that spends billions upon billions without any effort to even budget for these extremely predictable costs; and that is willing to politicize issues fundamental to our national security in the ugliest possible way.
We deserve better. Certainly the brave men and women of the U.S. military who are fighting every day to make this effort in Iraq work deserve better. We do not honor them by accepting lousy, irresponsible policy in the halls and hearing rooms of the Capital and then leaving our soldiers holding the bag on the ground, when policy collides with the hard truth. . . .
BlackCommentator.Com
The War:
Different Moral Universe
"Zogby pollsters asked: Would you support or oppose a war against Iraq
if it meant thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties? A solid majority
of white men answered in the affirmative, as did more than a third of
white women. Only seven percent of African Americans favored a war
that would kill thousands."
Black people watch even more television than whites, but feel no great
compulsion to kill thousands of civilians.
We asked Harvard's Michael Dawson to explain the gross differences in
Black-white responses to the 2002 question. He replied:
"The Zogby question posits high civilian casualties as a fact and
asks, What are you going to do about it? If you don't see it as a
moral question, then we're living in a different moral universe. How
we decide what's moral and what's not moral is done by a different
calculus."
The Iraq War will decide next week's election. If whites are "uneasy"
enough with the war, Kerry will win.
John Kaminski
American Sunset
. . . The lies used to justify the continuing slaughter of innocent people in Iraq fester like an infected scab on the psyche of the American people, who have become so twisted in their pursuit of narcotized tranquility that they are now even cheering the deaths of their own children who come home in boxes we are not allowed to see. How much more insane can it get before blissful blackness will alleviate our misery?
If souls were faces, Americans would gaze into their bathroom mirrors each morning and see their rotting skin covered with oozing sores, putrescent pustules of their suicidal disease caused by their intransigent focus on tormenting trivialities, caused by their willing ignorance of their soldiers - their own children - raping Iraqi children, blowing Iraqi families to bits, then, as their deeds set into their curdled spirits, coming home and hanging themselves in the shattering silence of realizing their own horrified depravity.
Do you have a child in the military?
Chances are fairly good - if he is still alive - he has become a murderer, or a rapist, or that he has become sickened to the point that his life is ruined, which means that your life is ruined, if you have any feelings at all.
This is America 2004. A willing blindness drapes the land like a shroud, where old men beat their war drums and young men say, "hey, this is really cool!" in the millisecond before they lose a limb to a land mine, or frag an unknown family into bleeding bits of twitching protoplasm. . . .
SUSAN ELAN
Draft coming, students told
While working for The New York Times, war correspondent and author Christopher Hedges covered fighting in Central America, the Balkans and the Middle East, including Iraq during the first Gulf War
. . . The reservists and National Guard members who make up half of the U.S. forces are stretched to the breaking point and need relief, he said, and the draft is the only way to assemble the numbers needed. Reintroduction of the draft will be made in the name of the war on terrorism soon after an attack in the United States or abroad, he predicted.
"The war in Iraq will no longer be an abstraction," he said. "It will become deeply personal. In the next few weeks look for shifts in administration policy leading in the direction of an escalation of the war". . .
Those who confuse his anti-war stance with an anti-soldier position are mistaken, Hedges said. "War in the end is always about betrayal. Betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians and idealists by cynics."
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / Sept-Oct 2004
War(s) of Terror -- Africa Again?
JAMES RON
U.S. doing the right thing in Sudan
The U.S. war on terror has largely been a disaster, exacerbating existing conflicts, provoking new ones, and running up huge financial debts. The occupation of Iraq is chaotic, opium-exporting warlords run Afghanistan, and the "counterterrorist" tactics of President George Bush's close ally, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, are crudely destructive.
Yet, in the Horn of Africa, the Bush administration is doing some real good. U.S. officials are condemning a brutal policy of ethnic cleansing by government-allied militias in Darfur, a vast region in western Sudan, and have used their influence to successfully promote a truce that may save thousands of lives.
Riek Machar
COLONIAL BRITIAN HANDS OVER
SOUTH SUDAN TO THE NORTH
Instead of establishing an advisory council for South Sudan similar to that of North Sudan, the resolutions of the Administrative Conference held in Khartoum in 1946 surprisingly advocated the colonisation of South by North Sudan. It must, however, be pointed out that the conference took the decision at the back of the people of South Sudan as they were not represented and because the conference was meant for administrators in North Sudan only, the British administrators in South Sudan did not attend. Consequently, this unexpected outcome revealed the conspiracy between the British and the North Sudanese supported by Egypt to hand over South Sudan to North Sudan as a colonial territory. Certainly, this plan provoked bitter reaction from the South Sudanese and their sympathisers.
Olivier Barlet
The modernity of genocide
A burning question remains : why the horror ?
. . . What is behind the genocides of the twentieth century if it is not the egocentrism and insecurity accompanying the affirmation of the individual's autonomy which characterizes modernity ? The temptation to project onto the other what is ours is strong. And a Rwandan proverb tells us : "Nta wiyanga nk'uwanga undi (Nobody hates himself more than he who hates others)".
In their quest to surpass, artists open themselves up to all influences and facilitate the removal of projections. They thus explore a fraternity in which the identities of each and everyone are no longer the centre of human identities : not a fraternity of blood, but a fraternity of sharing.
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / Sept-Oct 2004
What is Institutionalised Terror
?
William H. Tucker
The Funding of Scientific Racism
Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund
Aljazeera
No end to destruction in Falluja
Historical precedent?
... The destruction of Falluja and the treatment of its residents comes as little surprise to Professor Rashid Khalidi at Columbia University in the US.
He points out that the British also chose to "make an example" out of Falluja when, in 1920, they launched a massive air campaign and flattened the city.
The British army lost more than 1000 soldiers in Iraq at the time and resorted to indiscriminate killing to regain a semblance of control - a history, he says, that is surprisingly familiar.
"The Bush administration is not creating the world anew in the Middle East. It is waging a war in a place where history really matters," he said.
Imperial behaviour
He points out that US troops, deployed in the Middle East for more than 62 years, have to recognise that their nation - that was once celebrated as a non-colonial power - has joined the imperial club, as Iraq's invasion and Falluja's destruction demonstrates.
"Things have changed fundamentally for the worse with the invasion and occupation of Iraq, particularly with the revelation that the core pretexts offered by the administration for the invasion were false.
Seymour Hersh
What the Pentagon can now do in secret
George W. Bush's reelection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities' strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control - against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism - during his second term. The CIA will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as "facilitators" of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way.
http://www.rcfp.org/behindthehomefront writes:
Hersh wrote that the President has signed a series of findings and orders calling for covert operations against terrorist targets by secret commando units and others in as many as 10 Middle Eastern and Asian nations, enabling Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to run the operations "off the books," free from legal restrictions imposed on the CIA which require that its covert overseas operations must be authorized by Presidential finding that is reported to Senate and House intelligence committees.
Aljazeera
Inmates 'fried' at Guantanamo
Reuters
Swede Tells of Torture
United Press International
Senate wants Gitmo 'torture' videos, too
Bill Van Auken
White House blocked Senate ban on torture
Neil A. Lewis
Details emerge of Guantanamo torture
United Press International
Some detainees were degraded by forcible enemas
Yorum Gat
The Year in Torture
The following are forms of maltreatment visited upon prisoners by U.S. personnel during 2004. The list was compiled from articles detailing information in official U.S. documents. Allegations by prisoners that were not supported by official documents were not included...
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Rumsfeld Cancels Trip After Accusation
Rumsfeld has informed the German government via the US embassy that he will not take part in the Munich Security Conference in February, conference head Horst Teltschik told dpa on Thursday.
The New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights filed a
complaint in December with the Federal German Prosecutor's Office against Rumsfeld accusing him of war crimes and torture in connection with detainee abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Rumsfeld made it known immediately after the complaint was filed that he would not attend the Munich conference unless Germany quashed the legal action.
Tariq Ramadan
Open letter to President George W. Bush
From an "expelled" Muslim to an elected American
Wikipedia
Private Military Corporations
Andrew Buncombe and Kim Sengupta
Secret U.S. Jails Hold 10,000
Agence France Presse -- Jan 2003
Canadian Sues US for Deporting Him to Syria for Torture
Patrick Radden Keefe
Iraq: America's Private Armies
More shocking than the revelation, in the Taguba Report on abuses at Abu Ghraib, that contractors in civilian clothes roamed freely in the prison, answering to no one and effectively outside the chain of command, is the fact that neither of the two contractors declared in the report to be "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses" has been indicted for any crimes. It has recently emerged that in an astonishing lapse on the part of American legislators, the actions of the tens of thousands of contractors in Iraq are not governed by any comprehensive body of criminal law...
Professor Manning Marable
9/11: Racism in a Time of Terror
I think that as Americans, we must also make a clear distinction between "guilt" and "responsibility." The Al Qaeda group is indeed guilty of committing mass murder. But the United States government is largely responsible for creating the conditions for reactionary Islamic fundamentalism to flourish. During Reagan's administration, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) provided over three billion dollars to finance the mujahadeen's guerilla war against the Soviet Union's military presence in Afghanistan. The CIA used Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, or secret police, to equip and train tens of thousands of Islamic fundamentalists in the tactics of guerilla warfare. . . .
There is a clear link between 9/11 and the shameful political maneuvering committed by the U.S. at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, only days before the terrorist attacks. There the U.S. government opposed the definition of slavery as "a crime against humanity." It refused to acknowledge the historic and contemporary effects of colonialism and racial segregation on the underdevelopment and oppression of the non-European world. The majority of dark humanity is saying to the United States that racism and militarism are not the solutions to the world's major problems. Transnational capitalism and the repressive neoliberal policies of structural adjustment represent a dead end for the developing world. We can only end the threat of terrorism by addressing constructively the routine violence of poverty, hunger, and exploitation that characterize the daily existence of several billion people on this planet. Racism is, in the final analysis, only another form of violence. . . .
Thom Hartmann
The Genetically Modified Bomb
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / Sept-Oct 2004
Historisists... Ain't that odd
?
Warren Hedges
New Historicism Explained
William H. Tucker
The Funding of Scientific Racism
Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund
Mark Steyn
Renaissance Platonism
The reality is a bit different: the philosophical instinct in the Italian Renaissance was to synthesize thought systems, to find a common, universal philosophy that encompasses a broad range of human thought. The greatest of these synthesizers was the Neoplatonic philosopher, Pico della Mirandola, who attempted to synthesize Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Hebrew thought, Jewish mysticism, Arabic philosophy, and a whole host of others into a single philosophical system.
Asghar Ali Engineer
ISLAM AND SECULARISM
... Now the question is whether Islam as a religion is compatible with
secularism? Does it aim at setting up an Islamic state and nothing
less? Can there be a Muslim country with a secular state? These are
some of the crucial questions one has to answer in order to deal with
the subject of Islam and secularism. Of course, we should remember
that there cannot be uncontested answers. Every answer that we attempt
would be, and could be, contested by those with differing viewpoint.
Ours is a liberal and inclusive approach and we will, of course,
attempt answer from this viewpoint...
Anthony Judge
Patterns of the Past
Christian Complicity in Global Disorder
... It is a curious irony that a principal Western criticism of the
governance of fundamentalist Islamic states, and of their inhibited
development, has been the restrictive and distorting influences of the
sharia as a legal interpretation of the prescriptions of the Koran.
The question is what legal prescriptions would follow from a literal
interpretation of the Bible in the light of the development of
faith-based governance inspired by Christian fundamentalism? Was this
not the experiment conducted by the early Pilgrim fathers in the USA?
Has this evoked widespread calls for its emulation today? ...
Complicity of Christian faiths
The multitude of Christian faiths and sects has resulted in a complex
psycho-social system in which none need take responsibility for the
action of "Christians". In fact each Christian faith is distinct from
others precisely because it does not wish to be held responsible for
their actions or require specific allegiance to their prescriptions.
Each derives its strength from the convictions through which it
relates uniquely to God -- recognizing in most cases the
inappropriateness, or regrettable error, with which other such sects
relate to God.
The complaint is often made regarding Islam, that there is no central
authority that could be challenged or held responsible for the actions
or views of Muslims in the world as a whole. The same is however true
regarding Christians. Each Christian faith -- however many its
adherents -- can readily deny responsibility for (or complicity in)
acts perceived to be problematic by others. "Christianity" is not a
well-managed brand ! As with Islam, this might be understood as
creatively maintaining a condition of plausible deniability.
And yet it is a fact that the current disorder in the world has
resulted directly from the action of Christian-inspired leadership
that has consciously endeavoured to act in the name of Christianity in
seeking to extend its strategic defences to encompass the whole world
-- the quest for a form of spiritual Lebensraum. Protest by other
Christians, as Christians, has been insignificant -- even though these
actions are carried out in the name of Christian values. Those of
other Christian faiths are happy to be tacitly associated with any
successes of the Christian project, just as when Christian values are
advanced or exemplified by the actions of a person of one Christian
faith (whether Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King) -- denying their
complicity in the harm they may cause under other circumstances.
Christianity should know better -- if it would claim to be the basis
of faith-based governance of the world...
... In Bush at War Bob Woodward writes, "Most presidents have high
hopes. Some have grandiose visions of what they will achieve, and he
was firmly in that camp." "To answer these attacks and rid the world
of evil," says Bush. And again, "We will export death and violence to
the four corners of the earth in defense of this great nation."
Exposition of the Principle
The Foundation for the Messiah
... In conclusion, Jacob was victorious in taking responsibility for
the indemnity course to pay for Abraham's mistake. By using his wisdom
for the sake of God's Will, Jacob triumphed as an individual in his
struggle with Esau to win the birthright. He entered Haran and, as a
family, triumphed in a twenty-one-year struggle with his uncle Laban
to win the birthright. On his way back from Haran to Canaan, Jacob was
victorious in the fight with the angel. He was the first fallen man to
fulfill the indemnity condition to restore dominion over the angel.
Thereupon, he received the name "Israel,"75(Gen. 32:28)RS|KJ|NI
signifying that he set the pattern and laid the groundwork upon which
the chosen people would be established. After returning to Canaan with
these victories, Jacob won Esau's heart, and together they fulfilled
the indemnity condition to remove the fallen nature.
Jacob thus victoriously completed the model course to bring Satan to
submission. Moses, Jesus, and even the people of Israel would walk
this course after the pattern set by Jacob. The history of Israel can
serve as a good historical source for understanding the course to
bring Satan to submission on the national level. For this reason, it
is central to the study of the providence of restoration.
Shamsul A. B.
Malaysia's International Role Post-September 11
Shamsul A. B. is Professor of Social Anthropology and currently
Director, Institute of the Malay World and Civilization (ATMA),
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia
Rudolph Steiner
Ahriman
Robert S. Mason
Baconian and Goethean Science
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Previous Reports in this Category / Sept-Oct 2004
Israeli-Palestinian Re-unification
...
STEVEN ERLANGER
Twin Bus Bombings in Israel Kill at Least 15 and Wound Dozens
BEERSHEBA, Israel, Aug. 31 — Six months of relative quiet in Israel were exploded in dramatic fashion today, as two suicide bombers blew up two buses 100 yards apart in this southern town, killing at least 16 people, including a 4-year-old, and wounding more than 100 others.
Arjan El Fassed
Israel killed 436 Palestinians in past 'quiet' six months
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Previous Reports in this Category / Sept-Oct 2004
North and South Korean Re-unification
...
Na Jeong-ju
Outcry Growing Over Hostage Handling
Yoo Dong-ho
US Criticized for Withholding News of Kim Abduction
The crux of the allegations of a U.S. cover-up is that the Seoul government confirmed its plan to dispatch an additional 3,000 troops to Iraq, on July 18, the day after Kim was [announced] kidnapped. By the accounts of the Seoul government, it wasn�t aware of the incident. This has touched off speculation that the U.S. didn�t inform Seoul of the kidnapping in order to enable the South Korean government to press ahead with its confirmation of the dispatch plan. Experts say that if the kidnapping had been known to the public, the government would have had a very hard time in pushing ahead with the unpopular dispatch plan.
The Chosun Ilbo
Kerry on
Korean Re-Unification
Moon Sun-Myung
North and South, East and West; Proclaiming "God's Fatherland and the Era of the Peace Kingdom" in 2004
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Previous Reports in this Category / Sept-Oct 2004
African Re-unification
...
Ellen Knickmeyer
Ivory Coast:
Why the One-Time "Paris of Africa"
Is Sliding Into War, and Why It Matters
An AP News Analysis
Sundiata Acoli
Prison Struggle
The Talking Drum
ASSATA SHAKUR
Salih Booker & Ann-Louise Colgan
Africa Policy Outlook 2004
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Previous Reports in this Category / Sept-Oct 2004
Completed Testament
...
Good News / bad news
Frontlines / Spiritual-Physical Resurrection
...
Rev. Michael Jenkins
Building Trust With Religious Leaders in The Holy Land
Reverend Sun-Myung Moon
The 38th True God's Day January 1, 2005
Cheong Pyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center
Midnight Prayer ~ excerpts, Notes of Reverend Jenkins
True Father's Prayer: ( The exact contents will be translated)
Father's prayer was filled with tears. The following is a synopsis.
Father prayed that as we close this fourth year of Cheon Il Guk we
feel immense gratitude to Heavenly Father for guiding us through the
victorious course of 2004.
This Son that is standing here before you knows the immense suffering
you went throughout history. How much God searched desperately
throughout history to find one True Adam and one True Eve. How much
your heart was broken at the fall and at the time of Jesus. How you
suffered to find and establish True Parents. (Father cried throughout
the prayer profusely - causing True Mother, Rev. Kwak and all in the
congregation to weep. It was overwhelming.)
Father prayed with a heart of comforting God. He prayed to comfort God that it became necessary for True Parent's children to be sent to the spirit world ahead of them. He also prayed saying how sorry he was and asking forgiveness that as God's Son he was not able to even further hasten the coming of the Kingdom of True Love. (This caused enormous cries and weeping in the congregation - all of us feel repentful that we didn't do enough to end the suffering of humanity and bring the kingdom.) Father also prayed for True Mother thanking God for guiding her in her victorious course...
American Clergy Leadership Conference
Exchanging the Cross for the Crown
CHRISTIAN LEADERS TO CARRY CROSS, THEN TAKE IT DOWN IN EFFORT FOR PEACE AND RECONCILIATION
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Previous Reports in this Category / Sept-Oct 2004
Frontlines / Sexual Identity
...
Dennis Prager
Judaism�s Sexual Revolution:
Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected Homosexuality
When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity.
This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women.
It is probably impossible for us, who live thousands of years after Judaism began this process, to perceive the extent to which undisciplined sex can dominate man's life and the life of society. Throughout the ancient world, and up to the recent past in many parts of the world, sexuality infused virtually all of society.
Henry Makow, PhD
Let's Reserve Sex for Marriage
... Gay or straight, we are all becoming homosexual because we cannot achieve the spiritual union or permanent intimacy that we really crave.
Sex is mistaken for love and replaces it, thereby assuming a deceptive importance. We are obsessed with it. Because it cannot satisfy our real need, we continue to up the ante and become kinkier.
We judge people strictly by their sex appeal and are cruelly indifferent to those who are not physically attractive. Women develop eating disorders. The aged naturally are treated with contempt.
We compensate for failure to find permanent love by making a public display of our promiscuity. This is supposed to affirm our freedom and identity. TV and movies testify to this perverse trend. In many cases homosexuals now are defining heterosexual norms. ("Sex and the City"; "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"; "Kinsey: Let's Talk About Sex")
We are in constant denial about our malaise and the forces that enslave us. . (See my "Is this Gay Behavior Sick? http://www.savethemales.ca/201101.html )
In contrast, heterosexuality is monogamous, exclusive and private. It is concerned with procreation, nurturing and personal development.
Russell D. Moore
Homosexuality, Racism, and
the Eclipse of the Gospel
Carlton Johnson
Cultural diversity and Moral diversity are
two different constructs...
Steve Chin
Marriage is multicultural
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / July-August 2004
Frontlines / Species-Race Identity
...
William H. Tucker
The Funding of Scientific Racism
Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund
Rick Weiss
Of Mice, Men and In-Between
Scientists Debate Blending Of Human, Animal Forms
The Leaping Hope
Brave New World: Future and Now
A bibliography
Advocate Freedom dot.com
Mycoplasmas
Minjok Han
Mounting Evidence
Becky McCall
Brain fingerprints under scrutiny
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / July-August 2004
Words of Wisdom -- Let it be
...
Peace in Corporate Life
Yusuf al-Khabbaz
Developing alternatives to
the Western pattern of "modern" education
NON-WESTERN EDUCATIONAL TRADITIONS: ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT AND PRACTICE, by Timothy Reagan. New Jersey and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000. 2nd ed.: pp. 263; pbk. $23.
Peace in Family Life
Steve Chin
Marriage is multicultural
As an evangelical Christian, I believe and affirm the biblical model of the family. But as an Asian-American, it is clear to me that the traditional family is not just a Western construct. The traditional family is an Asian construct as well-because it's universal.
"It is by the great rite of marriage that mankind subsists the myriad generations," the philosopher Confucius said, around the year 500 B.C.
Buddhist Perspectives
Filial Piety
Carlton Johnson
Emptiness (Mu)
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Previous Reports in this Category / Sept-Oct 2004
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