From irimland@zundelsite.org Sat Jun 1 04:43:28 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 21:43:28 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 3/31/2002 - "Apologize!" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny May 31, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: It seems that the mentally captives are finally rattling the cage! One of Germany's most controversial politicians, affectionally nicknamed "M=F6llem=E4nnchen", refuses to apologize - gasp! Horror of all horrors! - for a remark deemed "anti-semitic" - and his party, adding insult to injury, seems to even back him up! Is there hope yet left for the Vaterland? [START] =46DP Refuses to Demand Apology From M=F6llemann =46.A.Z. BERLIN. The Free Democratic Party's executive committee on =46riday disassociated itself for the first time from allegedly anti-Semitic remarks made by the party's deputy chairman, but stopped short of demanding that he apologize. An apology by J=FCrgen M=F6llemann had been set out by the Central Council of Jews in Germany as a precondition for resuming regular contacts with the pro-market FDP. The council's president, Paul Spiegel, said he was "disappointed and horrified" about the executive committee's decision, adding that it would now be impossible to hold conciliatory talks with the party. Mr. M=F6llemann, who also heads the FDP branch in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, attended the closed-door emergency meeting of the committee. He assented in the unanimous adoption of the "Berlin Declaration," in which he was chastised for "a poor choice of words" in comments seen by Jewish leaders in Germany as anti-Semitic. The comments were made last week as Mr. M=F6llemann angrily responded to allegations of anti-Semitism levied by the Central Council of Jews in Germany's vice president, Michel Friedman, over his decision to welcome the Syrian-born Jamal Karsli into the North Rhine-Westphalia =46DP. Mr. Karsli, a member of the state parliament who formerly was a member of Alliance 90/The Greens, had accused the Israeli Army of "Nazi methods" and complained of a "Zionist lobby" in the news media. Reacting to the remarks by Mr. Friedman, an outspoken political talk-show host, Mr. M=F6llemann said, "Hardly anyone makes the anti-Semites, who unfortunately do exist in Germany, more popular than Mr. (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon and, in Germany, =46riedman." The council said the remarks suggested that it was acceptable to hold anti-Semitic beliefs out of dislike for an individual Jew, and on Wednesday Mr. M=F6llemann said in an open letter to Mr. Spiegel that he had misspoken out of anger. But while admitting that he "shouldn't have put things that way," Mr. M=F6llemann refused to apologize. In its declaration, the FDP executive committee cited the party's traditional values of open-mindedness, tolerance and freedom, adding that "respect and tact in dealing with others" are FDP principles. The declaration also insists that the FDP does "not conduct election campaigns at minorities' expense," a response to allegations that Mr. M=F6llemann, the president of the German-Arab Society, has been prepared to flirt with anti-Semitism in an attempt to attract Muslim and right-wing voters before the Sept. 22 national election. =46DP Chairman Guido Westerwelle, who has also been criticized for statements that his party would like to win over supporters from the extremist parties, noted that the party declaration described as "defamatory and unjustified" accusations that any FDP leaders are guilty of anti-Semitism. Those attempting to discredit Mr. M=F6llemann by defaming him with charges of anti-Semitism are "playing a shabby and transparent game," Mr. Westerwelle said. May 31, 2002 =46rankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [END] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." (Albert Camus) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sun Jun 2 02:43:32 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 19:43:32 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/1/2002 - "...the truth is marching on!" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2002 - Ingrid A. Rimland Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny June 1, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Of course I always like to show off, to the annoyance of our enemies, when I receive letters and articles such as the one below. Since the article is now posted on the internet on the http://www.ukar.org/ website, I can tell you that it came from a long-time Zundel admirer, Orest Slepokura, who once told me that it only took some 30 minutes of one-to-one talk with Ernst Z=FCndel to have a lifetime of bias, brainwashing and misunderstanding of history be done with. Here Orest writes first to me and then to Dr. Prytulak of UKAR: Dearest Ingrid, As Ernst knows very well. individual ethnic groups have been persecuted by the Holocaust lobby. It was as a Ukrainian I first encountered EZ's Holocaus= t revisionism. On that front, the UKAR website is on the cutting edge, with th= e webmaster Lubomyr Prytulak a scholar in a Faurissonian take-no-prisoners mol= d. It occurred to me that my letter to LP might be useful to you as a Z-gram mailing, since it sums up a critical juncture of the 1985 trial -- but in a context that is outside the trial -- two Ukrainian-Canadians discussing the fallout 15 years later! This shows how the story of that trial continues to move along on stove-pipe legs. If you read my letter through to the end, you will see two of the biggest players on the Holocaust industry scene in Canada reduced to the stature of hypocritical midgets. It is important at this juncture that you red-flag the fact that literature pertaining to the Holocaust is being scrutinzed closely and critically by a a far-flung army of critics cast in the Faurissonian mold -- ironically, an army that's made up of a global multicutural patchwork of scholars & critics= =2E We're all in this together! -OS P.S. Not a day goes by when I do not marvel at the extraordinary outreach o= f EZ's work. He is a man at the very heart of our cosmic, planetary struggle t= o survive the coming Dark Age that is envisaged for us by our traditional enem= y. 0=3D0=3D0=3D0=3D0 Dear Dr. Prytulak: I would like to make some comments regarding the April 26, 2000, letter addressed to Professor Irving Abella I founded posted on the UKAR Web site this morning (April 27). See: http://www.ukar.org/abella01.shtml "People capable of lying about the Holocaust, are capable of anything." So says, or said, Irving Abella, [1] the clear implication being our professor values truth in the matter of Holocaust reporting. The statement appears in an introduction to a study on public opinion evaluating the fallout from the 1985 "false news" trial of Toronto publisher Ernst Z=FCndel; one which concluded that, on balance, the very extensive media coverage the story got made ordinary Canadians somewhat more sympathetic towards their Jewish neighbours. [2] Abella, chairman of the Holocaust Documentation Project and a teacher with York University's history department, who would later serve as President of the Canadian Jewish Congress, was reacting to the debate dividing Canada's Jewish community over whether a better way to lance the boil of Ernst Z=FCndel's Holocaust revisionism might have been to simply pretend to ignore it. Recalling the ordeal Holocaust survivors endured under cross-examination from Z=FCndel's attorney, Abella observed: "They [i.e., Holocaust survivors] had to prove to the world that what happened to them really happened, that events too horrible to be believed were not too horrible to have taken place." [3] Inclusion of the verb "believed" punctuating the phrase "events too horrible to be believed" suggests to some degree a reliance on faith; the sentence, when read as a whole, invites readers to accept that the Holocaust survivors who testified against Zundel were all, of course, unimpeachably honest. It was, perhaps, to banish any such incipient doubt that Alan Bestic, assistant to Rudolf Vrba in the authorship of his Auschwitz memoir I Cannot =46orgive, prefaced Vrba's autobiography with these laudatory comments: "[T]he immense trouble he took over every detail...the meticulous, almost fanatical respect he revealed for accuracy." [4] Rudolf Vrba (n=E9 Walter Rosenberg) is among the more famous of the Holocaus= t survivors. He is said to have escaped Auschwitz in April 1944, together with Fred Wetzler, and returned to his native Slovakia, where he made a report of his experiences; a seminal report that would serve as the basis for the U.S. Government's November 1944 "War Refugee Board Report." Readers were assured that Vrba was delivering the straight goods, a clean, unvarnished, camera's-eye depiction of his Auschwitz experience. But, in fact, as a prosecution witness at the Z=FCndel trial, Vrba owed to having relied on his imagination and on hearsay, to having stretched the truth. [5] On the witness stand, with circumspect admissions to now and then having included fiction in his Auschwitz memoir, Vrba at times resembled the Artful Dodger. He was tenative, conceding he had employed the "licence of a poet" in his "attempt for an artistic depiction" of his wartime experience. [6] I Cannot Forgive should be understood as "an artistic picture" and "not a document for a court," he explained. At one point, Vrba even invoked the Latin expression licentia poetarum to characterize several scenes. "BOOK 'AN ARTISTIC PICTURE'" and "Survivor never saw actual gassing deaths," bannered the Toronto Sun. The article below the headlines reported that Vrba "told the Ernst Z=FCndel trial that his written and pictorial descriptions of the Auschwitz crematoria and gas chambers are based on 'what I heard it might look like.'" [7] In other words, Alan Bestic lied about Rudolf Vrba having displayed "fanatical respect... for accuracy," and Vrba himself had, in turn, fibbed and fudged and basically lied to his readers. As for Irving Abella and "People capable of lying about the Holocaust, are capable of anything," I think our professor was just blowing smoke. Only yesterday, Professor Ian Hunter in an op-ed in National Post [8] recalled how Abella's spouse, Judge Rosalie Abella, had invoked American playwright Lillian Hellman as a moral authority. Leave aside the fact Hellman was a flaming Stalinist groupie, she was also a shameless Holocaust fabulist and, hence according to Abella's own definition, virtually "capable of anything." Lillian Hellmann, as you probably know, has long been exposed for having lied outrageously in her memoir Pentimento, when she alleged a Holocaust-era heroine named "Julia" had been a genuine anti-Nazi resistance leader, Jewish moreover, who had sacrificed all in an effort to rescue fellow Jews from the Nazis, as well as being a close and dear friend of hers. How severely, I wonder, should we judge those, like Rosalie Abella, who smugly invoke a Lillian Hellman as their moral authority? If you believe Irving Abella, very severely indeed. Sincerely yours, Orest Slepokura C. Professor Irving Abella Notes: 1. Gabriel Weimann and Conrad Winn, Hate On Trial, Oakville: Mosaic Press, 1986, p. 14. 2. "Our single national survey yielded evidence that Canadians became more sympathetic to Jews." p. 80. 3. p. 14. 4. Rudolf Vrba and Alan Bestic, I Cannot Forgive, Toronto: Bantam Books, 1964, p. 2. 5. Dick Chapman, "Book 'An Artistic Picture' / Survivor never saw actual gassing deaths," Toronto Sun, January 24, 1985. 6. 1985 Z=FCndel trial transcript: pp. 1390-1392, 1446-1448. 7. Toronto Sun, January 24, 1986. 8. Ian Hunter, "How refreshing, if justice were served," National Post, April 26, 2000. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: Here's a short anecdote that illustrates the Jewish attitude toward Holocaus= t scholarship that debunks Holocaust lies: A man bring his secretary home in mid-afternoon while his wife is away at he= r mother's in another city. But she returns home unexpectedly early and catche= s the couple upstairs in the master-bedroom. The husband turns to his wife jus= t as she stands in the doorway, deeply shocked and at a loss for words. That i= s the moment the errant husband seizes to proffer an explanation. "There's no- thing happening here. Believe me! Who are we going to believe: me -- or your lying eyes?" (Letter to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sun Jun 2 23:20:26 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 16:20:26 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/2/2002 - "...and the Auschwitz cudgel be damned!" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 2, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Vote yes or no - two juxtaposed voices of Germans: 1.) An op ed piece of May 31st in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about an "antisemitic" comment a German politician, M=F6llemann, is supposed to have made - about which all the mainstream media minions are scratching and cackling: [START] By Berthold Kohler A few weeks ago, Salomon Korn wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that public debate in Germany about Israeli policy does not occasion new anti-Semitism, but just exposes sentiment that is already here. That must be viewed as the worse of the two diagnoses, even before the discourse became as heated as any major debate always inevitably does in Germany. If it was true, then the anti-Semitism that is lamented everywhere would not only be widespread in Germany, but also still deep-rooted. Is it possible it has been circulating in the dark without interference from Germany's gentiles? Have we dismissed all the many warnings from credible figures? And did it really take no more than a member of parliament switching from one small party to another plus an attention-seeking party vice-chairman to make anti-Semitism "socially acceptable" again -- to facilitate its reentry into our midst? Some of what has been said is certainly true. There is hidden and open, simple-minded and intellectual anti-Semitism in Germany. Like other forms of racism, is it found primarily in the same places where it lurks in the rest of Europe -- at the extremist margins. And even there, it does not go unopposed. Still, methods of repression such as attempted bans could, until now, remain the exception because right-wing extremism has failed to gain much ground in Germany in the last few decades, never attaining anywhere near the political significance it has in France. By contrast, as if to prove their capacity to learn from mistakes, the Germans are less susceptible to racist and anti-Semitic theory. Germany's political middle, which encompasses the lion's share of the population, remains stubbornly resistant to it. The reason J=FCrgen M=F6llemann of the Free Democratic Party was attacked so vehemently for his recent remarks is because they opened the door to an assertion that he was bestowing democratic legitimacy on those who stand outside the national consensus against racism and anti-Semitism. There has been endless speculation about why Mr. M=F6llemann opened himself up to those suspicions and virtually picked a fight with Germany's Central Council of Jews. Did he break the taboo intentionally; was it a calculated sideways move to attract attention by a political strategist who has always felt he does not get his due? Mr. M=F6llemann must have known that the raggedy people would laud him. Still, it would be wrong to dismiss the support he got as general anti-Semitism, or take it as a sign of the country's political and moral depravity. Not every sentence that begins with the helpless plea, "even a (non-Jewish) German should be able to criticize Israel (and representatives of the German Jews)," is an attempt to make a clean break, to flee history. That "we should be able to" also springs from the belief that in six decades, German society has come of age so as to enable it, in full cognizance of German responsibility for Israel's right to exist, to form opinions about Israeli politics. Behind the right to criticize we can discern a conviction that German democracy has proven itself the antithesis of Hitlerian Germany, a country that confidently acknowledges heartfelt solidarity and friendship with Israel. It is precisely because the monstrosity of our crime has not been forgotten that we have faith in our own reformation. Basically, the current conflict is also about that most German of all questions: Is it possible for there ever to exist again in Germany after Auschwitz a national political and communal "normalcy," that is not freighted with the guilt of the Holocaust? And if so, how close -- or far -- are we from it now, in the sixth decade after the end of World War II? The postwar West German vow never to forget the genocide of Europe's Jews and never to ignore the responsibilities it imposed has not lost its power. But the increased responsibility entrusted by the free world to a unified Germany was accompanied by a change in Germany's concept of itself and its imperatives for action. The process of establishing the parameters of the new Germany resulted in increased self-confidence, as evidenced by the ease with which Chancellor Gerhard Schr=F6der publicly presented German soldiers as part of a troop keeping peace between Israelis and Palestinians. But even the chancellor disregarded the fact that the German-Jewish relationship is marked by memories and emotions that will (and must) lead, for decades to come, to differing perceptions and interpretations of words and deeds. The murder of the Jewish people left behind a pain that cannot be ignored, either in personal relationships or in political conflict. As long as that is so, the debate in Germany about what does or does not constitute anti-Semitism will be fiercer than anywhere else; it will remain a distinctive part of German "normalcy." That path brings with it the dangers not only of repression, forgetting, and rendering harmless. Even trivializing an accusation of anti-Semitism holds the danger of making all things seem benignly relative. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D 2.) A Zundelsite Reply Nothing makes genuine Germans' blood boil more than such guilt-ridden drivel pouring out of one poisoned-by-Allied-reeducation brain! What you have just witnessed is a mental captive dancing on a chain with a nosering in his nose! Let's get a little clarity into this convoluted matter: 1. Germans, like decent people everywhere with a sense of fairness and empathy, have criticized war-criminal-led Israel for its brutal repression, tortures, deliberate assassinations of political leaders and the bulldozing, terror-shelling and bombing of largely unarmed civilians in Israeli-occupied Palestine. The same outraged reaction against war criminal Sharon's policies was manifested in many countries around the world. This criticism does not have its roots in an "under-the-surface German antisemitism." It is a sane mind's reaction to brutality. 2. The only reason why there is more open and more outspoken criticism in France of killer Sharon's policies is that France does not have the same draconian, repressive, anti-free-speech laws as the Allied vassals adopted in their West German occupation state. France is not chafing under systematically induced guilt about Auschwitz - as do Germans. 3. Get this, and get it straight: Since there was NO Third Reich policy of genocide in World War II against the Jews or anybody else in Germany - a topic now sufficiently researched and historically documented - the Germans of yesterday, today and tomorrow have nothing to be guilt-ridden about! All the rest of this writer's driveling and sniveling is just that - the prattling of an inferior mind mouting inculcated propaganda slogans. This has been the norm in defeated Germany for the last 57 years. All that malarkey about German democracy "coming of age", "proving itself as the antithesis of Hitlerian Germany" is standard rhetoric. Ever heard of Pavlov's dogs salivating on cue - not to food but to a bell announcing food? The German occupation statelets Austria, DDR and now DDR/BRD have served their Allied creators well - so far! A new generation of Germans is growing into maturity. This generation has chafed long enough under Allied and Israeli tutelage ("Bevormundung") and is letting the Israelis and the rest of the world know that they have had enough! They will not be quiet when a people like the Palestinians are bombed, terrorized and tortured into submission, for the German nation has suffered that same fate and knows how it feels - by experience! The Germans have experienced repression, judicial and extrajudicial murder of their leaders, the devastation of their cities, the utter destruction of their homes, their factories, their cities - their entire country! The Germans lived and suffered the Palestinian experience, only on a more brutal and massive scale - and not only during those terrible war years but for the past 60-plus years. THAT is the reason why people like M=F6llemann, a former German paratrooper, speak out against Israel's war crimes! Let others, who have absorbed their "history" and political information and education, if you can call it that, from Israeli-filtered, Jewish-Lobby-besotten news sources, blabber on about "cycles of violence" and "axis of evil" spin-doctoring. Moralizing is a very poor substitute for morality. The German nation knows the Palestinian pain from bitter, personal experience inflicted on untold millions of its citizens - and to their credit, ever more Germans are now speaking out and call murderers murderers - and the ever-handy Auschwitz cudgel be damned! =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "It makes me laugh when they yap about anti-semitism. Arabs are more semitic than those Khazars." (Letter to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Tue Jun 4 01:32:31 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 18:32:31 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/3/2002 - "... their service to the Faceless Destroyer." Message-ID: ZGram - 6/3/2002 June 4, 2002 My then-young mother, who had no reason to be fond of Jews since she held them responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution that tore Czarist Russia apart and slaughtered many of her kin, would tell me now and then as I grew up: "So-and-so is a Jew, but he is a GOOD Jew..." as if she needed to stress a necessary qualifier. I always think of her when I think of Israel Shamir who, in my book, is also a good Jew. I knew few Jews I would describe as "good", but Shamir qualifies. Whenever I see one of his articles, my linguistically sensitive heart skips a beat. I wish I could write as he does and think as he does - and more than once I wished I had his courage. Here he is, yet one more time, for everyone's elucidation: [START] St Barbara of Aboud By Israel Shamir "Aboud is one of the prettiest Palestinian villages, strongly reminiscent of Tuscany. Its time-mellowed stone houses grow on the gentle hills. Vine climbs up their balconies, leafy fig trees provide shadow to its streets. The prosperity of this well-established village is seen in the spaciousness of the mansions, in the meticulously clean roads. The old men sit in a small and shady, walled enclosure, on the stone benches, like the aldermen of Ithaca gathered by young Telemachus. That is the biblical 'gate of the city', or a diwan. Kids bring them coffee and fresh fruits. Local people are not the refugees of Gaza and Deheishe; here, as in a time warp, one can see the Holy Land as it should and could be. Three millennia old Aboud received the faith of Christ from Christ himself, says the local tradition, and there is the church ready to prove it, one of the oldest on earth, built in the days of Constantine in the 4th century, or maybe even older, as some archaeologists claim. The church is a dainty thing, carefully restored and well taken care of. The Byzantine capitals of its columns bear the image of cross and palm branches. They recently discovered a plaque in old Aramaic script immured in the southern wall of the church. Aboud has more than one church: there is a Catholic, a Greek Orthodox and an American-built Church of God. There is also a new mosque, as Christians and Muslims of the Holy Land live together in great harmony. On December 17th all of them, the Muslims and the Christians, go to venerate the village patron saint, St Barbara. She was a local girl who fell in love with a young Christian and was baptized. It happened in the rough days of Roman emperor Diocletian, and she was martyred in the persecutions. The ruins of the oldest Byzantine church of St Barbara are still seen on a hill a mile away from the village. At the foothill, there is her burial cave, and there the peasants lit their candles and ask their wishes to be fulfilled". I wrote these lines above almost a year ago, when the Israeli army began its campaign of devastation in the hills of Western Samaria. Now, on 31 of May, they dynamited St Barbara, a rare relic of Christian past of the Holy Land. It was one of these bittersweet ruins of churches that still attract worshippers, together with St Anne of Safurie and Emmaus of Latrun. I do not know whether the sappers were the same soldiers who for proverbial forty days and forty nights, from Catholic to Orthodox Easter besieged the Nativity and whether they said the prescribed by Shulkhan Aruch blessing, Blessed you are, God of Israel, the Prince of the World, Who destroys the temples of Goyyim. I have no doubt this destruction is connected with Bethlehem siege: it passed so quietly, with so little attention, that it would be strange not to continue. Illumination of St Barbara from Breviary of Martin of Aragon My friend Miriam from New York, a wonderful person and a friend of Palestine, wrote to me, "I intuit that you are writing a piece about this example of replacing the Judaic paradigm of revenge for the Christian one of sacrifice and redemption=8A but don't. That's not what it's about - it's about destroying everything meaningful". =46or a change, I am going to agree with Miriam. It is true, the Jews can't stop trying to undo Christianity. Our worst enemy is the Church, wrote Freud, and Gretz the historian seconded, Christianity must be destroyed. It is better to serve Hitler than Christ, concluded the most prominent modern Jewish Israeli theologian. One can quote hundreds of such one-liners, but Miriam is still right: they indeed destroy everything meaningful. Not only churches. In nearby Nablus, they destroyed the Green Mosque, the oldest extant building, build above the cave where Jacob lamented his lost son Joseph. One of the great shrines of Palestine, contemporary with St Barbara, it was a Byzantine church, and later served as a Samaritan synagogue, the centre of worship for local Israelites-not-Jews. Samaritan priests pointed it out to me. A holy place is always attended in the Holy Land, and it again was converted to a church and beautified by Queen Melisende, the pious flirt and the builder of the Holy Sepulchre. It reverted to a mosque eight hundred years ago, when the cathedrals of Chartres and K=F6ln were erected. The mosque celebrated its fifteen hundred years anniversary, when an Israeli tank ravaged it. Just to show their impartiality, they also bombed St Philip Episcopal church in Nablus and put under curfew St Luke Hospital. Some traditional old-fashioned anti-Semite would see it as a sign of hatred to Gentiles in toto. But Miriam is right. They destroy everything. In Jerusalem there was a great spring, the biggest spring of Highlands. It gave birth to Jerusalem, and it is the reason for the city's existence. It has a plethora of names: Gihon (in the Bible), Ein Sittna Miriam, after the Virgin, Ein Silwan, as the nearby village. Many events are connected with this living spring. King David's soldiers climbed up its pier, Jesus healed blind men at its pool, King Hezekiah bored a half-kilometre long tunnel to keep its waters within the walls, away from the reach of Assyrian army. It is forever venerated, and an old mosque stands at its lower exit. Many times in the hot days of July I waded breast-deep the tunnel's cool length, drinking its sweet water and biding time to emerge at the fig tree above broken Roman columns of the pool. Then, over a year ago, Ehud Olmert, self-styled 'Mayor' of Jerusalem, the great destroyer of Palestinian homes, seized the spring. He locked the entrance, put a Russian guard, a few soldiers, and transferred it lock, stock and barrel to settlers. The Palestinians were not allowed to approach it anymore. Nowadays, the Gihon spring is dead. Instead of pure water, sewage of the city flows by its tall tunnel. It joined many other springs of Palestine. Some were fenced, others covered with concrete, some eliminated by pumping stations, and others poisoned by sewage, all killed by the Jews. I hear voice, Oh no, say: Zionists! I would, but it seems unfair to the Jewish people abroad. They work so hard, they demonstrate in support of Israel everywhere from Brussels to San Francisco, they collect funds for Israeli soldiers, they sue everybody who supports Palestine, they keep news about blown up Byzantine churches out of your newspapers - don't you think they deserve to be considered as full-blown partners in the Zionist enterprise? - "They make life so miserable that the Palestinians will leave", wrote ever-so rational Miriam. Here I tend to disagree. A year ago, I saw just outside the village of Aboud two giant American-built Caterpillar bulldozers slowly devouring the olive trees. "They were huge, covered from every side by armour plates. They appeared impregnable, like moving fortresses. They towered above the landscape as the mechanical monsters of Evil Empire attacking Ewocks". That is their purpose: to destroy. Not just churches, not only mosques, but everything alive, from olive to spring, as their service to the =46aceless Destroyer. A few days ago, the lady wife and guiding light of Conrad Black, Barbara Amiel, whined, "People present the Jews and Israel as Evil Empire". Well, dear Ms Amiel, Israel and the Jews are not the Evil Empire, but they will do, until real Evil Empire will show up. =3D P.S. As an anticlimax, I propose to my readers to calculate the ratio of Jewish influence in their newspaper, as follows: divide the coverage of a synagogue wall being dirtied with graffiti (in square inches) by the coverage of the venerable Byzantine church of St Barbara destruction (in square inches). Just to remind you: a ratio with denominator zero equals infinity. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Israel Shamir is an Israeli journalist based in Jaffa. His articles can be found on the site www.israelshamir.net In order to subscribe to this list or to be removed from it, please write to info@israelshamir.net No copyright for electronic transmission, but please ask for permission in order to publish as hard copy. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D From irimland@zundelsite.org Thu Jun 6 00:49:31 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 17:49:31 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/5/2002 - "Brutality in Nablus defies reason" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 5, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Someone named Ayman sent me this article titled "My article in Seattle Times" Today, the Seattle Times published the article below by me. It is highly expected that they will be getting many negative feedback. Positive feedback will help greatly. Please take few minutes and send them a thank you note at opinion@seattletimes.com And please forward to others. ===== Friday, May 31, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific Guest columnist Brutality in Nablus defies reason By Ayman Aldahleh Special to The Times Earlier this month, two essays on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Christians can't remain on Middle East sidelines" by the Rev. Donald M. Mackenzie Jr., University Congregational United Church of Christ minister, and "The Jenin offensive: beyond the TV images" by Ruth Etzioni, a Seattle resident who is a longtime friend of a major in the Israeli Defense Force, appeared on these pages. Today, two different perspectives are aired. I have followed the news about the destruction of Palestinian cities and villages during Israel's invasion of the West Bank that began on March 29. Jenin and Ramallah have become household names, and images of streets lined with the rotting corpses of Palestinians and now-homeless children wandering the mounds of ruin that once were their homes are known to us all. For me, the experience of this invasion has been especially heart-wrenching because in addition to watching the tragedy unfold on television, I got to hear about it live, day by day. My sister, Azizeh, lives with her husband and three children in the Palestinian city of Nablus. Every day, for weeks, I would call Azizeh to make sure she and her family were alive and unharmed, and when Israeli tanks tore down telephone poles in Nablus, I would call her cellular phone, and we would talk until the battery died, with the sound of bombing in the background. My friends have urged me to share Azizeh's experience because it completes the story that we struggle to understand, a story that is fraught with falsehoods and polemics. In the U.S., we repeatedly hear Israeli spokespersons claim a purity of arms and that great efforts were made to avoid harming civilians. What Azizeh witnessed and experienced as the invasion unfolded showed me that contrary to that claim, Israeli Occupation Forces made every effort to break down the Palestinians of Nablus and the West Bank in every way possible. Azizeh explained that the first action taken by Israeli soldiers upon entering Nablus was to impose a strict curfew on all residents. That means that more than 150,000 civilians who live and work there could not leave their homes for weeks. It became difficult if not impossible to meet basic daily needs, and many families struggled to feed their children or care for the sick and the elderly. Israeli tanks smashed privately owned cars, tore down electricity poles and crushed everything in their path. My sister and her family live in an apartment on the third floor of a six-story residential building. Israeli soldiers forced them and their neighbors out of their apartments at gunpoint, and the soldiers converted her apartment into a command post. The soldiers made themselves comfortable in her home, helped themselves to her food, and - upon their departure - totally destroyed everything there. Furniture, artwork, personal belongings, food stored for emergencies such as this one, everything was decimated. Sounding humiliated and enraged, my sister catalogued the destruction surrounding her, but I found myself thankful that she and her family had escaped the fate that befell many of Nablus' residents. One of my sister's closest friends, Fatima Alshoabi, lived in a nearby apartment building with her brother Sameer and his family. Sameer and his wife Nabila had three children - ages 3, 6 and 9 - and were expecting their fourth child this summer. Israeli bulldozers demolished the residential building where the Alshoabi family lived. The soldiers gave absolutely no warning to the residents inside, and everyone in the building died except Fatima's elderly parents, who were among the few Palestinians rescued from beneath the rubble. The grandfather told Azizeh: "I will never forget hearing my youngest grandchild's voice screaming, 'Dad! They're going to tear it down!' " Nabila's pregnant body was found clutching her three children tightly, trapped in the doorway as they tried to escape. To this day, the Israeli army has offered no explanation for this act. Neighbors observed that it was to clear the path for Israeli tanks to enter the heart of Nablus' city with its narrow, centuries-old alleys. The list of horrors visited on Nablus is endless. Olive trees that are the livelihood of Palestinian farmers, with root systems dating back 2,000 years to Roman times, have been uprooted by the hundreds to clear roads for Israeli soldiers. The ancient city, with its 600-year-old mosque and Arab baths, has sustained severe damage. And like Azizeh, Palestinian parents have had to hold their children through night after night of attacks and airstrikes, and pray desperately that theirs will not be the next building to collapse. Witnessing these horrors through my sister's experience has left me with a very strong conviction. I can't imagine that peace will ever be possible or sustainable if Israelis continue to dehumanize and subjugate Palestinians through acts of brutality and collective punishment. The single most brutal act and the one that must come to an immediate end is the military occupation. Ayman Aldahleh, a Palestinian American born in Tulkarem, West Bank, is an engineer who lives and works in Redmond. ===== I repeat Ayman's plea: Please take few minutes and send them a thank you note at opinion@seattletimes.com And please forward to others. ===== From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Jun 7 02:22:35 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 19:22:35 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/6/2002 - "Rau Declines to Mediate in Anti-Semitism Dispute" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 6, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: You might want to know that Johannes Rau, the German President and largely a ceremonious figurehead, is known in Europe as "der fromme Johannes" - the pious John. He plays the fiddle that is handed to him - no ifs and no buts. Remember also that it was his seventeen-year-old daughter who rebelled against the sickening Holocaust indoctrination that is forced down every German youngster's throat - and she plain had it up to here. It was quit an hilarious interview she gave - I believe to Der Spiegel. Papa Rau was hugely mortified and "explained" all over the place that Youth will be Youth, and what could he say, he he he? Well, maybe a bit rubbed off from Daughter to Dad? You be the judge. [START] Rau Declines to Mediate in Anti-Semitism Dispute =46.A.Z. FRANKFURT. German President Johannes Rau declined on Monday to mediate in the dispute over whether a prominent Free Democratic Party representative is guilty of anti-Semitic remarks. Some Germans -- including Foreign Minister Joseph (Joschka) Fischer -- have warned that the row is being watched closely abroad and could seriously damage the country's image. But a spokesman for Mr. Rau said that while he has been following the affair closely, the German president is by law above politics and had concluded he could not become involved in a row with partisan political implications. The statement came in response to a request for Mr. Rau's involvement from Michel Friedman, deputy president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. Mr. Friedman said over the weekend that he hoped the president, who met with the council's presidium last month and declared afterward that Germans had a "special responsibility" to oppose anti-Semitism, would play a mediating role. Mr. Friedman has been feuding with the FDP deputy chairman, J=FCrgen M=F6llemann, for the past two weeks over Mr. M=F6llemann's plan to welcome into the FDP group in the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament a parliamentarian, Jamal Karsli, who has accused the Israeli army of "Nazi methods" and complained of a pro-Israeli bias in the news media. At one point Mr. M=F6llemann responded that strident individuals like Mr. Friedman cause anti-Semitism, a remark described by another prominent Jewish leader, Central Council of Jews in Germany President Paul Spiegel, as anti-Semitic. Mr. M=F6llemann, while saying he regretted his choice of words, has refused to apologize despite Mr. Spiegel's insistence that an apology is the price of a resumption of normal relations between his group and the FDP. On Monday night, the North Rhine-Westphalia FDP executive committee, joined by the national party chairman, Guido Westerwelle, and party grandees including former Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, was meeting to decide whether to expel Mr. Karsli from the party's parliamentary group. No decision was immediately announced, but Mr. Westerwelle said ahead of the closed-door session that there was no room for the Syrian-born Mr. Karsli in the FDP or one of its parliamentary groups. He also said that he still hoped to meet with the Central Council of Jews in Germany to stress his party's friendship and support. Chancellor Gerhard Schr=F6der, of the Social Democrats, urged Mr. M=F6llemann to apologize for "overshooting the mark so terribly" in his comments to Mr. Friedman, but said it appeared that the Free Democrat was not "big enough as a person" to do so. June 3, 2002 =46rankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [END] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D "Go, M=F6llem=E4nnchen, go!" (Letter to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sat Jun 8 04:59:54 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 21:59:54 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/7/2002 - "Double Standard? Naw!" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 7, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Here is an item from The Independent, London, Wednesday, June 5, 2002, followed by a Zundelsite comment: [START] Nazi's heirs lose legal battle over Hitler watercolours By Rupert Cornwell THE fate of four watercolour paintings by Adolf Hitler has been decided by the United States Supreme Court 57 years after the founder of the Third Reich met his death. The court decided the American army should be allowed to keep them. The paintings were brought to America as war booty and have mouldered almost ever since in a storage unit in Alexandria, Virginia. For the past two decades they have been the object of a legal battle, pitting the heirs of the family of Heinrich Hoffmann -- a leading Nazi court photographer who was given the paintings as a present by Hitler in 1936 -- against the Washington government. Hitler and Hoffmann were good friends -- indeed the F=FChrer is said to have met his mistress, Eva Braun, at Hoffmann's Berlin studio. During the war, Hoffmann stored the pictures with his collection of 2.5 million photographs in a German castle, where they were discovered by victorious US troops in 1945. The photographs went as evidence to the Nuremberg trials, where Hoffmann was convicted of wartime profiteering. The paintings were then quietly dispatched to the Pentagon vaults near Washington. Artistically they are of scant merit, said by those who have seen them to depict street scenes and war landscapes. But as the hilarious 1983 saga of the fake Hitler diaries shows, any artefact carrying the signature "A. Hitler" has a curiosity value beyond price. Hoffmann died in 1957, and his son sought the return of both the paintings and the photographs. He was told to do so through "diplomatic channels", but failed to make much progress. In the meantime, a Texas collector called Billy F Price had bought part of the rights to the paintings, and in 1983 filed the first of several claims on behalf of himself and Hoffmann's heirs. As the case worked its way through the courts, a federal judge in Texas in 1993 ordered the government to pay $10m in damages for refusing to give the objects back. That verdict was overturned by a federal appeals court, which ruled that the paintings belonged to the US army under a post-war treaty. Robert White, Hoffmann's attorney, told the Supreme Court this week: "The unique aspect of this theft is that the culprit is the US government." But Theodore Olson, the solicitor general, insisted that the seizure of the art work was "a quintessential public policy decision", and part of the de-Nazification of Germany. The nine high court justices agreed with Mr Olson -- and in doing so enriched America's public collections with four watercolours by the 20th century's most infamous artist. [END] Zundelsite comment: What is a decent, law-abiding, moral person to think about such a case? =46rom the lofty Presidents on down the line to the poison pen columnist and even further down to the gutter press, America never tired for the last 57 years screeching about "Nazi art thefts", demanding the return of the allegedly stolen pieces, huge compensation and abject apologies from the defeated Germans. When the shoe is on the other foot, however, the double standard kicks in - and the highest court unanymously agrees with the government of today that America's stealing of Nazi art - in other words, art theft - was a "quintessential public policy." No wonder many Americans distrust the government and have little respect for, or faith in, the courts. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D From irimland@zundelsite.org Sun Jun 9 05:07:32 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2002 22:07:32 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/8/2002 - "Globe and Mail: Canada's big unions dump on Israel" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 8, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Amazing, the developments we see! Take note: [ START ] www.globeandmail.com, Saturday, June 8, 2002 Toronto Globe and Mail | Canada's big unions dump on Israel MARGARET WENTE This week, 3,000 dedicated unionists are gathering at a Canadian Labour Congress convention in Vancouver. So what's labour's hottest issue these days? Is it how to organize the kids at Starbucks? How to breathe new life into the NDP? Wrong. It's Israel. Major unions across Canada have recently passed emergency resolutions condemning Israel, and they want the CLC to do the same. "I think it is appropriate if you are a union that believes in social justice for all," says Deborah Bourque, who's president of the 40,000-strong Canadian Union of Postal Workers. The CUPW resolution is typical. When I asked to see it, the union referred me to a militantly pro-Palestinian Web site where it's posted. Ms. Bourque believes it's fair and balanced. But it casts Israel as the bad guy. It says suicide bombings have to stop, but doesn't mention who directs them. And it includes the usual demand for Israel to immediately withdraw from the territories that it "invaded" in 1967. "I'm not an expert on the historical nuances," says Ms. Bourque. To be fair, few of us are. But saying that Israel invaded the territories is like saying the U.S. invaded Japan, without mentioning Pearl Harbor. The Six-Day War (fought 35 years ago this week) began when Egypt, Syria and Jordan massed an army of 500,000 soldiers and a gigantic arsenal of weapons on Israel's borders. Arab sentiment was summarized by the then-head of the PLO, who said, "We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants, and as for survivors -- if there are any -- the boats are ready to deport them." Israel won the war and occupied the territories of Gaza and the West Bank. It promised to relinquish them in exchange for a guarantee of peace that never came. That's what Oslo and Camp David were about. "I don't expect the world to become pro-Israel, but at least it could be represented in a fair manner," says Lil Nobel, who is president of CUPE Ontario Local 2063. Her union also passed a resolution on Israel. It, too, was an "emergency" -- which meant that none of the members, including Ms. Nobel, had a chance to see it before it hit the floor. Local 2063 is a Jewish social services agency in Toronto. CUPE's Jewish agencies, which employ around 400 people, are trying to get the resolution redrafted. When the Canadian Jewish Congress complained to the union, CUPE president Sid Ryan accused it of "trying to foment antiunion sentiment." The CJC, he said, was "splitting hairs and trying to silence debate" -- a curious accusation, since there was no chance for a debate. It's hard to see how the Mideast conflict is relevant to the labour issues of flight attendants, garbage collectors and daycare workers. But Canada's biggest unions spend lots of time on world peace and justice. To them, the Palestinians have replaced the black South Africans under apartheid as the world's leading victims of First World oppression. To them, the fight against globalization, racism and oppression is all the same fight. It is a fight, above all, against America. And Israel has become a proxy for America. It's no accident that checkered scarves are an important fashion statement at antiglobalization protests. Those events are increasingly being hijacked by radical protesters against Israel. There you can find many people who explicitly equate Israelis with Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan. Naomi Klein may disagree, but many of these protests feature a wide streak of outright anti-Semitism. There is a straight line between the unions' anti-Israel resolutions and Durban, the notorious UN conference last September that turned into an anti-Jewish hatefest. The CLC had a delegation there. But it detected only good things. According to its report, the negative media coverage was wildly biased. And in a post-Sept. 11 note, it blamed the Americans for cruelly bombing Afghanistan and triggering a wave of terror against its own Muslim minorities. Not surprisingly, the big American unions have taken a sharply different course. The AFL-CIO and others are strong and vocal supporters of Israel. They boycotted the last antiglobalization rally in Washington. They, too, want peace. But they have a completely different view of who the terrorists are. No wonder countless Canadian Jews have given up in disgust on the Canadian left. I suppose the left doesn't care. After all, the CLC has 2.5 million members. Most of them are hard-working men and women who aren't particularly political and don't have a clue what their leadership is up to. (Speaking of world peace, where's the resolution on Kashmir?) Maybe one day those leaders will ask themselves why so many people who were raised to revere the union movement now find it morally revolting. "I'm furious," says Ms. Nobel about the Israel-bashing. They should all be furious. The rank and file should rise up against their leaders, and raise hell. [ END ] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Oy Vey Thought for the Day: =97 U.S. Jewish leaders are fuming after the French ambassador to the United States canceled a meeting with them to discuss anti-Semitism. " (Headline of an article in the strictly copyright-enforcing JTA. Take thee to http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=3D11405&intcategoryid=3D= 3>http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=3D11405&intcategoryid= =3D3 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D From irimland@zundelsite.org Mon Jun 10 04:22:03 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 21:22:03 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/9/2002 - "C-Span under the Gun!" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 9, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Ernst and I had actually made tentative plans to drive down to Washington, D.C. and attend an interesting press conference tomorrow. However, even though I had mentioned in my inquiry to the parties that were planning it that we possessed up-to-date press credentials, it turned out that we weren't exactly high on the list. Rather than taking the risk to drive the long distance, only to be excluded at the last minute - because, we thought, no doubt the place was going to be packed - we decided to kick back and watch what would surely happen - revisionists being the rookies in this game. This evening I checked if the event was still going to be on - or if the participants had been sufficiently intimidated. Both items below are posted on www.whatreallyhappened.com. My only comment is that now the families and friends of the victims of 9/11 are finding out what Holocaust Revisionists have known for 20 years - that certain news is simply sabotaged by those who are protecting their illegal turf. First item: SUNDAY, JUNE 9. Tomorrow, an independent group of investigators, lawyers, and private citizens will hold a press conference in Washington at the National Press Club. The subject? Unanswered questions about 9/11. Catherine Austin Fitts, the former assistant secretary of housing, will host. Mike Ruppert will present his findings via teleconference-video from Canada. Tom Flocco will discuss insider trading just prior to 9/11. In other words, DYNAMITE. C-Span showed much interest in carrying the event--right up to the last minute, when they said "no" and opted for extended snooze coverage of the administration's plans to make Homeland Security a cabinet post. If it wasn't that, C-Span would have found another excuse. Ant races on tablecloths from Georgia. A previously unaired interview with the ghost of Ulysses S Grant from a popular watering hole on NYC's upper east side. Email is: viewer@c-span.org ===== Second item: CITIZEN ALERT: C-SPAN denies public TV access to 9-11 victims' families and 9-11 panel seeking answers and accountability. **A public plea to citizens interested in fair and balanced media coverage -- please forward as appropriate** Since mid-May, organizers of the 9-11 and the Public Safety press event, June 10th, at the National Press Club (NPC) in Washington, D.C, have been campaigning for media coverage. This past week, co-chair, Tom Flocco has solicited C-SPAN for coverage hoping for a live TV broadcast, or at minimum a taped and delayed broadcast. C-SPANs web site says: "Certain events, like speeches at the NPC and news conferences by Congressional leaders, automatically receive coverage." The site also details pre-conditions that an event must meet to be selected for coverage: 1) The event should be of a public affairs nature. 2) The subject should be an issue of national importance. 3) Event should be selected to show balance between different sides of a particular issue. 4) Speakers participating should be closely related to the topic under discussion. Initial reaction was positive; "this is very interesting, something we want to consider" said Rob Harleston, Assignment Editor, a sentiment echoed by Karen Gaither, another assignment editor. They requested that we keep them updated on any new developments and confirmations. Friday was D-Day. The editorial/camera shoot committee met Friday afternoon after a few last minute calls to Tom requesting updates as to panelists and other media coverage, still expressing enthusiasm. Tom and co-chair Kyle F. Hence expeditiously dispatched confirmation updates and a detailed minute by minute agenda and timeline of presentation -- clearly indicating that positive momentum and significant interest was building for the event. We were particularly pleased that representatives from the group organizing the June 11th Rally on Capital Hill (Families of September 11th) were planning on attending our conference and offering their own questions to our 9/11 investigative panel. We now felt the people and the press were eager to hear the unaddressed issues and unanswered questions to be raised at our Monday event. And we felt somewhat confident based on their expressed interest that they would at the very least tape the show for a later broadcast given our focus on key issues with regard to the pubic safety. But we were wrong! Tom called C-SPAN at 5:30 pm to inquire about their TV coverage decision. He learned they had decided NOT to cover Monday's Unanswered Questions press event. They have instead scheduled detailed coverage of Bush Administration officials (VP Cheney, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge) and others promoting President Bush's new plan to centralize major national and domestic security and border agencies under the auspices of one government official -- administration events all afternoon. Tom offered this response to his contact Ms. Gaither. He said, "C-SPAN has fallen for the Administration's 'damage control' and their effort to keep the FBI whistleblowers and the real, unanswered questions totally off the radar screen." "We are standing by our decision to cover Bush Administration events," Ms. Gaithor said, adding "I could not persuade the other editors to cover your program." C-SPAN's bias toward airing the Homeland Defense restructuring issue is part of an ongoing diversion and reticence to address gross government failures and negligence surrounding 9-11, without responding to the general public call for full accountability. WHAT YOU CAN DO: If you feel that the American people, and especially the family members who lost loved ones, deserve real answers, open investigations, and access to secret government documents; we are urging you to do the following: 1) Between 8AM and 2PM on Monday take a half hour to an hour to phone (most important), fax and email C-SPAN asking them why they are refusing any coverage or taping of such critically important subject matter. (If the phone is continually busy, that means others share your outrage and concern.) 2) Send an email and a fax if you have access to a fax machine. Please be courteous and concise in expressing your views. KEY POINTS TO CONSIDER IN EXPRESSING YOUR VIEWS: C-SPAN's website says that their editorial staff strives for balance. Why are they ignoring a press event at the easily accessible and prestigious National Press Club -- one that will cover key questions and critical information thus far not addressed by our national leaders? These issues include air defense and airport security failures, profits from pre-attack insider trading, anthrax attacks, encroachment on guaranteed constitutional rights, and the withholding of secret document, etc. C-SPAN is refusing any coverage or taping of the press event on these 9-11 issues even though two of the three C-SPAN channels became open with no required congressional programming since the House of Representatives is not even in session on Monday afternoon. Please urge C-SPAN to reconsider their decision and send a team to videotape the conference to be sure that substantive 9/11 issues, new information important questions are fully addressed that help build a case for a full and independent investigation. KEY CONTACTS AND EDITORIAL STAFF MEMBERS: Main number: 202-737-3220 Assignment editor: 202-626-7965 (Rob Harleston) Assignment editor: 202-626-7965 (Ellen Schweiger) Fax number: 202-737-6226 Viewer services: 765-464-3080 dceditor@c-span.org (Rob Harleston, Assignment Editor) congress@c-span.org (Karen Gaither, Assignment Editor) journal@c-span.org (producers of Washington Journal, shown daily) viewer@c-span.org events@c-span.org (C-SPAN established venue to suggest a public event - polling email address) radio@c-span.org (C-SPAN radio) We are disappointed that C-SPAN has chosen not to cover unanswered questions, un-addressed issues, and hidden information pertinent to public safety and national security. However, we are hoping that the response of many Americans willing to phone, fax and email C-SPAN will convince them to reconsider their position and cover our event so many others will have the benefit of evaluating previously un-addressed issues. The goal of our event is to raise glaringly obvious and disturbing questions that remain unanswered in the wake of 9/11. In its prejudiced decision not to cover this important event, C-SPAN is in effect taking our money (taxpayer cable-funded fees) and using it against us to deny public access to legitimate and credible inquiry regarding issues of paramount importance to the public safety and national security. If we should fail in our attempt to have C -SPAN reconsider, we will call on concerned citizens and victim families to take the initiative to research civil procedure regarding C-SPAN's actions..." [ 06-09-2002: Message edited by: peacey_nyc ] ===== From irimland@zundelsite.org Tue Jun 11 03:26:16 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 20:26:16 -0700 Subject: ZGrams - 6/10/2002 - "Kerry's war crimes, for a change..." Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 10, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: I have been dying to know how the announced 9/11 press conference in Washington went; however, someone or something is yet one more time clogging my server, and I cannot access any websites. Therefore, I am pulling a somewhat dated item to be a stand-in for today, Let me make a prediction: that the case below is going to go exactly nowhere! "War Crimes", real and imagined, are always reserved for the German Army that fought the Red Monster in the East. [START] Associated Press | Saturday, June 1, 2002 Vietnam: Kerrey Committed War Crime HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Vietnam accused former Sen. Bob Kerrey of crimes during the Vietnam War, saying Friday that families of villagers killed by his Navy team experienced ``incomparable suffering and losses.'' It was the first time Vietnam has publicly accused Kerrey of criminal activity. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh made the accusation in reaction to a revised account of the raid in Kerrey's new memoir. Thanh did not specify what crimes Vietnam believed Kerrey had committed. ``Whatever Mr. Kerrey says cannot change the truth. Mr. Kerrey himself has admitted that he was ashamed of the crimes he committed,'' she said. On Friday, Kerrey said he was disappointed by the government's comments, saying officials there have long blamed Americans for war-time atrocities. ``I pointed out then, and I'm pointing out now, both sides did a lot of damage in the Vietnam war,'' he said, adding the North Vietnamese used terror as one of their tools. ``You gotta get beyond it,'' he said at a Washington bookstore where he was doing a reading. ``I'm quite certain the majority of people in Vietnam want to go on with their lives.'' Kerrey currently serves as president at New York's New School University. The incident, which Kerrey first acknowledged last year, put the former senator at the center of a national discussion about U.S. conduct during the war. Kerrey said then that about 13 civilians were killed ``by mistake'' after his SEAL team was fired on and returned fire during the raid on Thanh Phong village on Feb. 25, 1969. He said he did not know of the civilian casualties until the shooting stopped. But in his new memoir, ``When I Was a Young Man,'' Kerrey writes that he was aware that women and children had begun to gather as his squad searched the village for enemy Viet Cong. Shortly thereafter, Kerrey says his men were fired upon from the direction of the women and children. The Americans fired back, and the villagers were hopelessly caught in the cross fire, he says. Kerrey acknowledged the difference in his recollection of events in an author's note, saying it changed after he met with members of his squad following news reports. After Kerrey acknowledged the incident last year, a member of his Navy SEAL unit and two Vietnamese women who said they witnessed the raid alleged the soldiers herded the women and children together and massacred them - a charge that Kerrey and five other members of the Navy SEAL team deny. One of the women, Pham Thi Lanh, said 20 unarmed villagers, mostly women and children, were killed. On Friday, Thanh, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, said, ``Our countrymen in Thanh Phong, Ben Tre province, clearly told the truth about the massacre.'' She said families in the village had experienced ``incomparable suffering and losses'' because of the ``crimes committed by Kerrey's unit.'' She said Kerrey and other Americans who fought in Vietnam now ``should take specific and practical actions that contribute to the healing of the wounds of the war they caused in Vietnam.'' Thanh did not specify what crimes Kerrey had committed in the raid or what actions should be taken. Kerrey, who later served as Nebraska governor and senator, and ran for president in 1992, received a Bronze Star medal for heroism in the Thanh Phong raid. More than 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese perished in the Vietnam War, which ended in a communist victory in 1975. ===== (Source: http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape.com/aolns_display.adp?key=2002053114340 00122113_aolns.src ) From irimland@zundelsite.org Wed Jun 12 03:07:00 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 20:07:00 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/11/2002 - "Bible of the Muslim haters" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 11, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: It seems like at least two decades ago that I read a biography titled "A Man" by Oriana Fallaci - in the article below this book is described as "a novel" - and while I was impressed by the stylistic finesse, I thought the book was somehow disturbingly "off". At the time I was not interested in politics and did not understand what struck me as so blatantly "off key". I believe now that it was simply that I detected a chameleon-like persona in the author that caused a discord in my psyche. This feeling slid into focus as I was reading the article below, for the politically correct line these days seems to be that, at all costs, we must now "hate" the Muslims. The only other thing I want to mention is that Euroepans might take issue with the skewed statement about supposed lack of criminality by Muslim youth -but then, that is no different from Jews seeing "anti-semites" under every rug. England's press - this time the Guardian - has far more balance in the current hysteria, it seems, than Germany, France, Canada or America, as the article below once again shows. [START] Bible of the Muslim haters The popularity of a virulent new book shows how deeply Islamophobia has taken root in western Europe Rana Kabbani Tuesday June 11, 2002 The Guardian A controversy has convulsed Italy and France with the publication of a rabidly Islamophobic book, La rabbia e l'orgoglio, by leading Italian publisher Rizzoli and the mainstream French publisher Plon, which has just brought out a translation. Its author, Oriana Fallaci, made a name for herself in the 70s with her vicious interviews with heads of state. Veering violently from left to right, as many Europeans have in recent years, she now pens this diatribe against Muslims, perhaps to cash in on Europe's newest xenophobia: "They breed like rats, and they piss in baptismal fonts." On first reading this, I thought it some choice medieval fulmination about "evil-doers" - Jews, Muslims, heretics, women and other vermin that Christendom wanted annihilated. But it was written in the 21st century by a secular European woman, selling a million copies in her and Berlusconi's ("We are more civilised than they are") Italy. It has found a respectable publisher in France, and the leading daily Le Figaro did not think twice about allowing its hate-exciting author to grace its front page last week. Had this book's victims been anyone other than Muslims, it would not have been published, and certainly not by any self-respecting house. But Muslims are fair game now and to defame them en masse has become not only respectable, but highly profitable. The defamer has nothing to fear, as there are no laws to check such vitriolic prejudice, nor do Muslims have the organised self-defence groups that Jews have formed so successfully to silence would be anti-semites. One can dismiss Fallaci's rantings as those of an enraged has-been who, even in her heyday, communicated her ego in her writing. Like that other ageing beauty, Brigitte Bardot, now the sun-wizened pin-up of the south of France's National Front, Fallaci's hatred and fear of Muslims is both visceral and hysterical - no doubt exacerbated by the fact that she lives in New York and seems to have swallowed wholesale the US government's denomination of Arabs and Muslims as synonymous with "terrorists". In contrast to her anti-Muslim hysteria is her equally hysterical fervour for Jews, as though to damn the former were somehow to help the latter. It is interesting that in France, high-profile Jews like Bernard-Henri Levy have been among the few to send her packing. If I were Jewish, I would run screaming from such an exploitative and ultimately demeaning espousal of my people's suffering. Fallaci's accolade of Ariel Sharon as a "Shakespearean figure" would have left the bard himself cursing in quatrains. Our great modern-day dramatists - Harold Pinter most notably, or Ronald Harwood, both Jewish - would cringe at such a comparison and at the sinister political sentiments lurking behind it. They would instantly see a betrayal of humanity in taking sides so cheaply. One cannot help but suspect that, having veered so violently from left to right, Fallaci must hate having once been in love with Alexander Panagoulis, the Greek "terrorist" who, in 1967, tried to blow up his country's dictator and was captured, imprisoned, tortured and finally freed in a general amnesty in 1973, only to be murdered by the colonels' henchmen. His life story (as recounted in Fallaci's novel, A Man, in which she glamorised herself as Bonnie to his revolutionary Clyde) is identical to that of thousands of Palestinians, whose attempts to liberate their country have now met with an outpouring of Fallaci's most virulent, pro-military bile. My intention, however, is not to attempt a deep psychoanalysis of Ms Fallaci, nor to give extra oxygen to a rant that would have embarrassed Benito Mussolini. It is to expose this drivel as an example of the now fashionable polemic - another weapon in the western arsenal, along with cluster bombs and missiles, with which to do battle against Muslims of every nationality and political belief. White western Europe sees itself - wrongly, as research illustrates - as besieged by "hooded hordes" in the guise of thieving immigrants or asylum seekers. The recent, well-orchestrated campaign alerting opinion to the rise of anti-semitism in Europe camouflages the fact that Jews are not the foremost victims in the carnival of hatred. That dubious honour goes to Muslims, Europe's largest religious minority, numbering over 20 million. They are the continent's poorest and most badly housed citizens. Their unemployment rate - double, often treble, the average - is the direct result of the increasing prejudice of employers, unchecked by any legal constraints. It is also the result of neglect, over a long period, by governments that did nothing to redress the festering sense of injustice among the young in Muslim ghettos. Though it is hardly ever reported in a media that has few Muslim writers, the vast majority of racially motivated maimings and killings across Europe over the past decade have been directed at Muslims - not at the asylum-seeking "aliens" shoved into insalubrious camps, but against second and third-generation Europeans such as my own children, whose continent this is, at least as surely as it is Oriana Fallaci's. Rana Kabbani is a writer who lives in Paris. [END] From irimland@zundelsite.org Thu Jun 13 00:53:33 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 17:53:33 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/12/2002 - "Anti-Semitism on the Rise in America" Message-ID: ZGRAM - WHERE TRUTH IS DESTINY JUNE 12, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Some thought-provoking statistics, courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League: [START] ADL: Anti-Semitism on the Rise in America Anti-Semitism on the Rise in America http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASUS_12/4109_12.asp Press Release Anti-Semitism-USA RULE Anti-Semitism on the Rise in America -- ADL Survey on Anti-Semitic Attitudes Reveals 17 Percent of Americans Hold "Hardcore" Beliefs New York, NY, June 11, 2002 A nationwide survey released today by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) shows an increase in the number of Americans with anti-Semitic attitudes, reversing a ten-year decline and raising concerns that "an undercurrent of Jewish hatred persists in America." The national poll of 1,000 American adults conducted April 26 through May 6, 2002 found that 17% of Americans - or about 35 million adults - hold views about Jews that are "unquestionably anti-Semitic." Previous surveys commissioned by ADL over the last decade had indicated that anti-Semitism was in decline. A survey of attitudes four years ago found that the number of Americans with hardcore anti-Semitic beliefs had dropped from 20% in 1992, to 12% in 1998. The findings in brief Strongly anti-Semitic: * 17% of Americans * 35% of Hispanics * 44% of foreign-born Hispanics * 20% of Hispanic Americans born in U.S. 35% of African-Americans 3% of U.S. college and university students "We are greatly concerned that many of the gains we had seen in building a more tolerant and accepting America have not taken hold as firmly as we had hoped, and have to some degree been reversed," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "While there are many factors at play, all of the evidence suggests that a strong undercurrent of Jewish hatred persists in America." One of the most important findings of [37]ADL's 2002 Survey of Anti-Semitism in America concerns Hispanic Americans, one of the most significant and fastest growing segments of the American population, in which the poll found an extraordinary gap between those born in the United States and those born abroad. The survey revealed that while 44% of foreign-born Hispanics hold hardcore anti-Semitic beliefs, 20% of Hispanic Americans born in the U.S. fall into the same category. The anti-Semitic propensities of foreign-born Hispanics were significantly above the national average. Meanwhile, the number of African-Americans with strong anti-Semitic beliefs continued to hold steady at 35%. "Religious background has always played a role in determining one's beliefs about Jews. So it is not surprising yet very distressing that one of the fastest growing segments in America holds strongly anti-Semitic views," said Mr. Foxman. "There is no doubt that this is a reflection of what is being learned about Jews in the schools, churches and communities of Hispanic nations, which is anti-Semitism at its most basic. We need to re-focus our efforts on reaching out to these groups in addition to the larger American public." The survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, was conducted by the Marttila Communications Group, a Boston-based public opinion research firm, with the polling firm SWR Worldwide. Marttila has conducted ADL's previous surveys on anti-Semitism, using similar questions and criteria to measure and monitor levels of anti-Semitism in the U.S. The survey findings come at a time of increased anti-Semitic activity in America. A five-month ADL Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, released today, shows that [38]attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions were up 11% in the first five months of 2002, compared with the same period in 2001 Major Findings * Anti-Semitic attitudes are up; the most widely held stereotype is that "Jews have too much power in the U.S." The poll found 17% of Americans were "most anti-Semitic" in their views, while another 35% were in the "middle" category, holding neither prejudiced nor unprejudiced views, but not completely prejudice-free in their attitudes toward Jews. The survey based its findings on an "index of anti-Semitic beliefs" used by researchers in previous surveys in 1964, 1981, 1992 and 1998. The survey found that 48% of the American public is prejudice-free in their feelings toward Jews, down from 53% in 1998. Less educated Americans continue to be more likely to hold anti-Semitic views. Race and age also continued to play roles in determining anti-Semitism. However, new stereotypes about "Jewish power" in the U.S. have replaced many of the classical ethical stereotypes previously attributed to Jewish Americans. In the 2002 survey, 20 % of Americans agreed with the statement "Jews have too much power in the U.S. today." Nearly three-quarters (72%) of those in the most anti-Semitic category believe that Jews have too much power. * Anti-Israel feelings are triggering anti-Semitism. For the first time, negative attitudes toward Israel and concern that American Jews have too much influence over U.S. Middle East policy are helping to foster anti-Semitic beliefs. Slightly more than half of Americans (51%) said the U.S. has been tilting too much toward Israel, while three-quarters of the most anti-Semitic Americans (73%) said they felt this way. While 41% of Americans say their sympathies are more with Israel than with Arab countries, sympathies are more closely divided among the most anti-Semitic Americans (29% sympathetic to Israel versus 23% sympathetic to Arab countries.) The most anti-Semitic Americans were four times as likely (42%) to believe that American Jewish leaders have too much influence over U.S. foreign policy than Americans holding non anti-Semitic beliefs (11%). "We have said that anti-Israel feelings are linked to anti-Semitism, and the responses from Americans in this poll make this connection clear," said Mr. Foxman. "Anti-Israel sentiments are used in this country to fuel, legitimize and rationalize anti-Semitism." Those Americans who believe that Jews have too much influence over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East; that U.S. policy tilts too much toward Israel; that the U.S. is more likely to be targeted for a terrorist attack because of American support; and who see increased anti-Jewish activity around the country and world, have a significantly greater likelihood to fall into the most anti-Semitic category. Previous polls conducted during two contentious moments in the U.S. - Israel relationship found that the upper-educated Americans were highly critical of the Israeli governments at that time. However, these upper-educated Americans were also the least anti-Semitic of all Americans. The 2002 survey tells a different story. The analysis reveals that attitudes toward Israel are actually fostering anti-Semitic beliefs among some Americans. * Anti-Semitism among foreign-born Hispanics is extremely high. The survey uncovered, for the first time, that Hispanic Americans who were born outside of the U.S. are much more likely to hold anti-Semitic views than Hispanics born in the U.S. In both this survey, which included an oversample of 300 Hispanics, and a previous 2001 survey of 1,000 Hispanic Americans also conducted by ADL, a portrait of two very different Hispanic communities emerges, each holding very different views of Jews and tolerance in general. Forty-four percent (44%) of foreign-born Hispanics fall into the most anti-Semitic category, while only 20% of Hispanics born in the U.S. fall into this category. As a result, it is only foreign-born Hispanics whose anti-Semitic propensities are significantly above the national average. Perceptions of "Jewish control," influence and power as well as more traditional canards about Jews, religion and ethical practices appear to be driving anti-Semitism among foreign-born Hispanics. For example, more than half of foreign-born Hispanics (55%) agree with the assertion that "Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind." Forty-four percent (44%) of Hispanics born outside the U.S. agree with the assertion that "Jews were responsible for the death of Christ," compared with 26% of those born in the U.S. * Campus faculty and students are the least anti-Semitic among Americans. Anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses is virtually non-existent. Only 3% of undergraduates, and 5% of faculty fall into the most anti-Semitic category. Fully 74% of undergraduates, and 79% of faculty, are prejudice free. "The campus findings are paradoxical, coming at a time when anti-Israel rallies, divestment drives and other pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses stemming from the Mideast conflict have been at an all-time high. Many of the anti-Israel rallies led to expressions of anti-Semitism, which is why we selected this particular group for polling," said Mr. Foxman. "The good news is that the overwhelming majority of students and faculty have by and large rejected the hate being promulgated by a select few. Too often, anti-Israel activism crosses the line into anti-Semitism in an environment where there is none. The bad news is that there is a silent majority on campus that is not speaking out against anti-Semitism." ADL Reports Rise in Anti-Semitic Incidents Coinciding with the rise in anti-Semitic attitudes, ADL released the [39]most recent statistics on anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. ADL's Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents reported an 11 % increase in the number of anti-Jewish incidents during the first five months of 2002, compared with the same period in 2001. ADL collects and compiles information on anti-Semitic incidents across the country through its 30 Regional Offices in conjunction with law enforcement and periodically issues reports on its findings. "It is especially disturbing that while anti-Semitic attitudes are rising, so too are the number of violent anti-Semitic attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions," said Mr. Foxman. "We believe that September 11 and the Mideast conflict have clearly had an impact. As these life-altering events have transformed us as a nation, they have also triggered the anti-Semitism that was already there, but buried beneath the surface." Glen A. Tobias, ADL National Chairman, added, "We are gravely concerned about what has been happening in Europe, where anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments have led to violent attacks against the Jewish communities in France and in other countries. As the 2002 survey shows, America is not immune to anti-Semitism. We are concerned that what is happening in Europe could lead to a similar reaction here." In January - May 2002, 626 anti-Semitic incidents were reported to ADL, compared with 564 incidents reported during the same period in 2001. The activity was comprised of 435 acts of harassment or intimidation and 191 acts of vandalism. The audit found that the number of incidents increased steadily during the first four months in 2002, with 81 incidents in January, 98 in February, 124 in March and 222 in April (101 in May). Campus incidents were up dramatically. ADL tracked at least 63 incidents nationwide on campus, while only 15 incidents were reported during the same period in 2001. EDITORS NOTE: To speak with an expert on anti-Semitism, contact the ADL Media Relations Department by [40]e-mail or by phone at (212) 885-7749. References 37. http://www.adl.org/anti_semitism/2002/as_survey.pdf 38. http://www.adl.org/anti_semitism/audit_JanMay_2002.asp 39. http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/audit_JanMay_2002.asp 40. mailto:adlmedia@adl.org [END] From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Jun 14 02:25:04 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 19:25:04 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/13/2002 - "Documentary Of US 'War Crimes'?" Message-ID: --============_-1188100990==_ma============ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 13, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: [START] Documentary Of US 'War Crimes' In Afghanistan Stuns Europe By Clive Freeman 6-13-2 BERLIN - American soldiers have been involved in the torture and murder of captured Taliban prisoners, and may have aided in the "disappearance" of up to 3,000 men in the region of Mazar-i-Sharif, according to Jamie Doran, an Irish documentary film-maker. Doran's latest film, Massacre At Mazar, was shown on Wednesday in in the Reichstag, the German parliament building in Berlin, and there were immediate calls for an international commission to be set up to investigate charges made in the documentary. Andrew McEntee, a leading international human rights lawyer, who has viewed the film footage and read full transcripts, believes there is prima facie evidence of serious war crimes having been committed by American soldiers in Afghanistan. 'The Americans did whatever they wanted'McEntee, who was in Berlin for Wednesday's special screening, said war crimes had been committed not just under international law but, also, "under the laws of the United States itself". Much of the footage shown in Doran's 20-minute documentary was taken secretly, and although witnesses were said to be living in fear of reprisal from within Afghanistan itself they had all agreed to appear at any future international war crimes tribunal to give evidence, it was claimed. One witness in the film claimed he had seen an American soldier break an Afghan prisoner's neck and pour acid on others. "The Americans did whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them," he alleged. Sometimes prisoners who were beaten up and taken outside had "disappeared", he said. In other sequences witnesses, among them two men, claimed they had been forced to drive into the desert with hundreds of Taliban prisoners. The living were then summarily shot while 30 to 40 American soldiers purportedly stood by, it was alleged. The prisoners had been taken there on the orders of the local American commander, according to the documentary. In the film, an Afghan witness admitted to killing prisoners himself, and another officer, allegedly a senior officer in the army of deputy defence minister Dostum's forces, was said to have gone into hiding following threats to his life. The far-left Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) arranged for the special showing of Massacre At Mazar in the Reichstag. Party chairman Roland Claus was cautious regarding its content but did spoke of its attempt at "authenticity." Andre Brie, a PDS member of the European Parliament, concerned by reports of ill treatment of Taliban prisoners, said he would be in favour of an international commission looking into "disturbing" questions raised by the film. At a press conference Brie said he had known of Doran's dangerous film activity in Afghanistan, and had helped to support him financially. The PDS party faction had wanted to obtain authentic footage of the war in Afghanistan, he said. The film was due to be screened at the European Parliament in Strasbourg later on Wednesday evening. - Sapa-DPA http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw1023894901416B265&set_id=1 ===== (Source: http://www.rense.com/general26/warcrimes.htm ) --============_-1188100990==_ma============ Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" ZGram - 6/13/2002 - "Documentary Of US 'War Crimes'?"
ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

June 13, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

[START]
Documentary Of US 'War Crimes' In Afghanistan Stuns Europe
By Clive Freeman
6-13-2


BERLIN - American soldiers have been involved in the torture and murder of captured Taliban prisoners, and may have aided in the "disappearance" of up to 3,000 men in the region of Mazar-i-Sharif, according to Jamie Doran, an Irish documentary film-maker.
 
Doran's latest film, Massacre At Mazar, was shown on Wednesday in in the Reichstag, the German parliament building in Berlin, and there were immediate calls for an international commission to be set up to investigate charges made in the documentary.
 
Andrew McEntee, a leading international human rights lawyer, who has viewed the film footage and read full transcripts, believes there is prima facie evidence of serious war crimes having been committed by American soldiers in Afghanistan.
 
'The Americans did whatever they wanted'McEntee, who was in Berlin for Wednesday's special screening, said war crimes had been committed not just under international law but, also, "under the laws of the United States itself".
 
Much of the footage shown in Doran's 20-minute documentary was taken secretly, and although witnesses were said to be living in fear of reprisal from within Afghanistan itself they had all agreed to appear at any future international war crimes tribunal to give evidence, it was claimed.
 
One witness in the film claimed he had seen an American soldier break an Afghan prisoner's neck and pour acid on others. "The Americans did whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them," he alleged.
 
Sometimes prisoners who were beaten up and taken outside had "disappeared", he said.
 
In other sequences witnesses, among them two men, claimed they had been forced to drive into the desert with hundreds of Taliban prisoners.
 
The living were then summarily shot while 30 to 40 American soldiers purportedly stood by, it was alleged. The prisoners had been taken there on the orders of the local American commander, according to the documentary.
 
In the film, an Afghan witness admitted to killing prisoners himself, and another officer, allegedly a senior officer in the army of deputy defence minister Dostum's forces, was said to have gone into hiding following threats to his life.
 
The far-left Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) arranged for the special showing of Massacre At Mazar in the Reichstag. Party chairman Roland Claus was cautious regarding its content but did spoke of its attempt at "authenticity."
 
Andre Brie, a PDS member of the European Parliament, concerned by reports of ill treatment of Taliban prisoners, said he would be in favour of an international commission looking into "disturbing" questions raised by the film.
 
At a press conference Brie said he had known of Doran's dangerous film activity in Afghanistan, and had helped to support him financially.
 
The PDS party faction had wanted to obtain authentic footage of the war in Afghanistan, he said.
 
The film was due to be screened at the European Parliament in Strasbourg later on Wednesday evening. -

Sapa-DPA
 
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw1023894901416B265&set_id=1

=====

(Source:  http://www.rense.com/general26/warcrimes.htm )
--============_-1188100990==_ma============-- From irimland@zundelsite.org Sat Jun 15 02:34:44 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 19:34:44 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/14/2002 - Swedish political youth group files complaint against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 14, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Mind you, this comes from Sweden where the Holocaust propaganda is as fierce as anywhere in Europe and where H-Education is at its most abominable. Therefore, one should never give up putting one's faith in one's youth! [START] Swedish political youth group files complaint against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Thu Jun 13,12:30 PM ET STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The youth faction of Sweden's ruling party on Thursday filed a police complaint against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ( news - web sites) accusing him of war crimes. A rarely applied law allows Swedish courts to try alleged war crimes committed in other countries, but it would require government approval and Foreign Minister Anna Lindh showed no support for the initiative, saying it could disrupt the Mideast peace process even further. The Social Democratic Youth of Sweden accused Sharon and his military commanders of violating rules of war by using excessive violence against Palestinians and attacking civilian targets during Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories. "With this complaint, we want to show that Ariel Sharon, his commanders and the individual soldiers who violate the laws of war, risk being put on trial and sentenced," group chairman Mikael Damberg said. Prosecutors in Stockholm will review the complaint and decide whether to launch an investigation. They could then press charges and request extradition, which would have to be approved by the government. "There would be very little interest from the Swedish government in launching a judicial process that risks derailing a political process," said Lindh, who has condemned violence by both Israel and the Palestinians. Israel's ambassador to Sweden, Eliyahu Avidan, said the complaint was "regrettable" and unfairly targeted Israel as the aggressor in more than 20 months of fighting. Lawyers for 23 Palestinians launched a similar case against Sharon in Belgium earlier this year. An appeals court will decide June 26 if a Belgian judge should hear the case. (tg-kr-krg) [END] ===== (SOURCE: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020613/ap_wo_en_po/sweden_israel_1 ) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sat Jun 15 15:47:59 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 08:47:59 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/15/2002 - "Two revisionist conferences this month" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is History June 15, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: I want to announce two revisionist conferences. The first one, the Barnes Review Conference, is already in full swing and is being broadcast over the Internet. It has some very interesting and timely speakers, and I am glad to see some application of Revisionism findings to our troubled times. Be sure to tune in! The second one will take place next weekend and is the traditional one the Institute for Historical Review is putting on. There will be no broadcast from that one, to my knowledge. You are invited to go to their website to check out the details. [START] ------------------------------------------- THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AUTHENTIC HISTORY AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT ------------------------------------------- June 14 - 16, 2002 LIVE Internet Broadcasts start on June 14, 2pm EST http://www.barnesreview.org/Conference/ Tune and and be part of this world class event ---------------- The Most Fascinating and Important Topics Will Be Discussed at The Barnes Review's Third International Conference on Authentic History and the First Amendment . . . and You'll Have a Chance to Listen in on the Internet!= Some of our speakers will include: -Nina Renfrew on the continuing genocide of the people of Iraq. -Scott Walter & Richard Nielsen on the amazing Kensington Rune Stone. -Rabbi Yisroel Weiss and others describe the bloody Zionist movement. -A panel of experts ask the tough questions and give you answers about 9-11. -Dale Crowley will discuss the Christian origins of the First Amendment. -Michael McLaughlin uncovers suppressed post- WWII Allied atrocities. -Hans Schmidt, a German veteran of WWII, sets the historical record straight. -Populist favorite Eustace Mullins among the 9-11 panel. -Jurgen Graf, Fredrick Toben and Russ Granata reveal their latest findings about the Holocaust. Take a look at this fascinating list of topics and historians we've lined up . . . BAFFLING QUESTIONS ABOUT 9-11. Much of what we are being told about the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is not true. Many important facts about the tragedy have been swept into the federal dustbin. Why has no believable evidence ever been presented to implicate Osama bin Laden? Why has there been no investigation? Why the secrecy? Who profited from the attack? Ted Gunderson, Eustace Mullins, AFP's Christopher Bollyn and Chris Petherick, Col. Donn de Grand Pr=E9 and other investigators will lay out the facts. These and many other questions will be addressed. For the sake of America and your family, help expose the truth about 9-11 now - not 50 years from now. GENOCIDE IN THE MIDEAST. The murderous policies of Israel in Palestine continue and have intensified since last year's TBR conference. What are the real goals of the Israeli government? What will be the outcome? How many has America helped kill with advanced technology and monetary aid? How many are we planning to kill? Hear from author Nina Renfrew, anti- Zionist Rabbi Yisroel D. Weiss and a surprise Arab guest of world renown.=20 HIDDEN HISTORY OF WWII AND THE HOLOCAUST. The findings of independent researchers continue to contradict the official propaganda in regard to this vitally important subject which plays a dominant role in the thinking and policies of world governments, even serving as a motive or excuse for the Israeli barbarism against innocent Christian and Muslim Palestinians. Today, Revisionist historians are not only confronting the facts about German wartime treatment of the Jews, but also the Jewish and Allied treatment of Germans after they surrendered. Millions of innocent civilians were tortured and killed after hostilities ceased with the permission - if not goading - of the Allied leaders. Besides three of the world's top Holocaust scientists, Prof. Martin Brech, a guard at one of Dwight D. Eisenhower's death camps for German POWs, will relate his eyewitness experiences to an audience for the first time ever! PROOF VIKINGS WERE IN AMERICA BY 1362 A.D. In 1898 Minnesota, farmer Olaf Ohman was clearing a field for planting and uncovered a large stone inscribed with strange markings which he as a Scandinavian recognized as ancient runes. For over 100 years, he and his offspring were called liars and frauds by academics. One of his sons even committed suicide because of the constant ridicule. But now, Scott Wolter and Richard Nielsen show, beyond shadow of doubt, that the Kensington Rune Stone is real and was carved and left by a band of Norse explorers 130 years before Columbus made his epic voyage. Scholars from the Smithsonian are expected to attend the conference and witness this history-altering presentation.=20 THE MENACE OF CULTURAL COMMUNISM. Two of America's foremost modern-day scholars, who have tirelessly followed the spoor of the degenerate Frankfurt School (a Marxist den of radical subversives) and its ongoing quest to erect communism in America and Europe by denigrating and attacking Western culture, will lecture=97one on the Frankfurt School itself and the other on the manipulation of the masses through the rise of the "sexual revolution" and the constant bombardment of citizens with the twisted message of the cultural communists.=20 CAN FREEDOM OF SPEECH SURVIVE? America's unique First Amendment - what are its origins? Dale Crowley, a deep student of the First Amendment, will present a Christian perspective on the history of the First Amendment and the state of Free Speech in other countries including Britain, Canada, Australia and Germany. Can freedom of speech survive in this worldwide war climate? Will open conferences like this one be banned in the near future? MUCH MORE HISTORY; MANY MORE SPEAKERS This is just a partial list. Space limitations prevent us from revealing more. Attend and listen to over a dozen more speakers from around the globe. ------------------------------------------- THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AUTHENTIC HISTORY AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT ------------------------------------------- June 14 - 16, 2002 LIVE Internet Broadcasts start on June 14, 2pm EST http://www.barnesreview.org/Conference/ Tune and and be part of this world class event [END] ===== Details about the IHR Conference, as per their e-mail of July 14, 2002: [START] The schedule of speakers and topics has now been set for the 14th IHR Conference. Full details can be found at: http://www.ihr.org/conference/conferencetoc.html The menus for the Continental breakfasts and the Saturday banquet have been posted, as well, at: http://www.ihr.org/conference/14thconf/menus.html If you have registered but not yet been contacted by phone to confirm your Conference attendance, and you have not yet received directions to the Conference, please call Greg immediately at 949-631-1490. -- Greg Raven (ihr@ihr.org) Institute for Historical Review (http://www.ihr.org/) PO Box 2739 Newport Beach, CA 92659 fax (949) 631-0981 [END] From irimland@zundelsite.org Mon Jun 17 03:40:27 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 20:40:27 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/16/2002 - "When will the Palestinians hire Ed Fagan?" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 16, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Let me make a prediction: This one isn't going to run as smoothly as the Holocaust extortion scheme inflicted on the Swiss and on the Germans! [START] Apartheid victims sue Western banks and firms for billions Lawyer who championed those who suffered in the Holocaust fights for South Africa's oppressed Terry Bell in Johannesburg Sunday June 16, 2002 The Observer The American lawyer who won compensation for Holocaust victims is about to launch legal claims for billions of pounds against companies, many of them British, that benefited from apartheid. The first action will be announced at a press conference tomorrow by Dorothy Molefi, mother of the most famous casualty of the 1976 Soweto student uprising, Hector Petersen, who at the age of 13 was the first student shot dead by police in 1976. The photograph of his bloodstained body cradled in the arms of a friend, with his tearful sister running alongside, came to be the symbol of student resistance. Molefi arrived in Switzerland yesterday - the anniversary of the uprising - accompanied by her South African lawyer, John Ngcebetsha. She and other claimants will be represented by Ed Fagan, who won class-action victories on behalf of Holocaust victims. First claims are against Swiss and German banks that continued to lend money to the apartheid regime after 1985 when other international lending institutions had decided to pull back. Also in the firing line are British and American companies that invested in, and continued to profit from, the apartheid system. Some of the biggest names in international business have been targeted. Computer giants IBM and ICL, oil companies Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Mobil, armaments manufacturer Vickers and Rolls-Royce were all involved in supplying equipment, investment and technology to a regime pursuing a policy deemed to be a crime against humanity. Because of the international nature of business, Fagan's actions in the New York courts could have implications even for British companies such as BTR, which has the dubious distinction of having been the focus of South Africa's longest strike. The essence of Fagan's cases is that the apartheid system was akin to that in Nazi Germany. He points out that the first Prime Minister under apartheid, Daniel Malan, supported the Axis powers in the Second World War. One of his successors, Hendrik Verwoerd, Prime Minister from 1958 to 1966, described as 'the architect of apartheid', had been found by the Johannesburg supreme court to be a Nazi sympathiser. In 1943, Mr Justice Millin found that Verwoerd, an academic turned editor of Die Transvaler newspaper, 'did support Nazi propaganda, he did make his paper a tool of the Nazis in South Africa, and he knew it'. According to Fagan, the regime that came into being on Africa's southern tip in 1948 was, therefore, linked ideologically with that of the then only recently defeated Nazi regime in Germany. Like that regime, it relied on money to lubricate the wheels and machinery of repression. Quoting from the report of South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Fagan said: 'Business was central to the economy that sustained the South African state during the apartheid years.' Business, he argued, was therefore liable to pay reparations to the victims for propping up the system. As a result of the Nuremberg trials after Second World War, 'companies were put on notice', he said. They were told that they could be held accountable 'just as were the financial institutions and corporations that fuelled the Nazi regime' for acts that supported crimes against humanity. 'Incredible as it may seem, financial institutions and corporations or their agents - including many that had conspired with and made possible the Nazi regime's reign of terror - were willing, even anxious, to engage in the same type of business with apartheid South Africa,' he said. South Africa may not have had extermination camps, but the regime terrorised for decades a majority of the population through mass forced removals, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and officially sanctioned murder. It also deliberately set out to cripple, intellectually and academically, the majority of the population in a grotesque experiment in social engineering. Business often enjoyed an almost symbiotic relationship with the military that sat astride this system of terror and subjugation. Leading business figures even attended meetings with senior military officers to exchange information and plan the most efficient means of maintaining the apartheid system. As a consequence the majority of South Africans suffered incalculable harm that would not have been possible, and certainly not to the extent that it occurred, without the finance, the expertise, the trade and the commerce of international banks and corporations and their agents. No figures have yet been put on the final amounts that may be claimed, but the claims will be based on the profits that accrued to the various companies over the time they benefited from the apartheid system. In more than 40 years when that system was in place, the revenues generated amounted to billions of pounds. The court actions could also have some profound political implications. One of the initial class action claimants, along with Molefi is, for example, Sigqibo Mpendulo. A one-time anti-apartheid activist, Mpendulo was the father of twin 12-year-old boys, Samora and Sadat. They were gunned down by a death squad in their sleep in October 1993, together with three of their friends. The boys died in a hail of automatic gunfire as they slept in front of the television set in the living room of the family home in the then nominally independent 'homeland' of Transkei. The man who authorised the death squad raid was President F.W. de Klerk who was, at the time, waiting to travel to Oslo to accept, jointly with Nelson Mandela, the 1993 Nobel peace prize. Tomorrow, at the Hector Petersen memorial in Soweto, local lawyers and claimants will announce details of the local aspects of the cases. A national telephone call centre has been established through which more evidence will be gathered and more claimants added to a list which already includes some of the best-known names of anti-apartheid struggle. (Source: http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,738404,00.html [END] From irimland@zundelsite.org Tue Jun 18 02:27:34 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 19:27:34 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/17/2002 - "Chemtrails" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 17, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: More to be concerned about - and I urge all of my readers to take this seriously. I have, for quite some time! This may well be part of the plan for the New World Order we have all heard so much about! I believe that this is very serious! [START] Chemtrails Over Happy Valley by Lisa Guliani and Scott Makufka NOTE: This op-ed piece was rejected by the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa. No explanation was ever given. On the morning of April 8th, 2002 from 6:20 a.m. to 7:30 a.m, we counted 11 different chemtrails being sprayed above the skies of State College, Pa. The culprits of these thick white plumes were military jets flying at approximately 40,000 feet. This is a regular, alarming occurrence that we've witnessed nearly every single blue-sky day in State College for the past few months. What are chemtrails, you ask? In order to understand this phenomenon, one must first be familiar with contrails, or condensation trails, which are the pencil-thin white lines we have all seen following in the wake of airplanes. These consist of water vapor, and are harmless. Chemtrails, on the other hand, are much thicker, and expand across the sky to form X's, O's, and grid patterns. While normal contrails last for less than a minute, chemtrails linger for several hours. As chemtrails puff and spread out, they form a thick white haze that blankets and obscures the sky. This is not simple skywriting above our heads. Instead, it is a deliberate contamination of our atmosphere by the government for reasons that have not been forthcoming to us. Have any of you noticed that whenever we have a blue-sky day in State College, there are soon military jets flying overhead spreading these white trails? Then the sky becomes whitish and a thick haze forms - and voila! - no more blue sky. The chemtrail issue has not been reported by the mainstream media. However, it has been addressed by Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who is in charge of the Armed Services Oversight Committee. He has confirmed the existence of chemtrails and sought to ban them in Section 6 of his House Resolution Bill 2977. Also, the U.S. Air Force states that chemtrails are being used as part of a program involved with "aerial obscuration". The reason Kucinich wants to ban chemtrails is because they are composed of biological and chemical ingredients that have detrimental physical effects on people, animals, and the environment. Many concerned citizens nationwide have become ill following chemtrail spraying in their areas. We, too, are concerned because chemtrails may be aggravating or instigating drought conditions here and nationwide due to their stearate component (see www.carnicom.com and www.rense.com for more information) which soaks up much of the available moisture in areas that are sprayed. Yet, our attempts to address this issue with Accu-Weather's Expert Senior Meteorologist, Ken Reeves, both Pa. State senators, and the EPA, have been futile. There is cause for concern with respect to this aerial spraying of the population, as those responsible for it have not stepped forward and informed the public as to what is actually going on. Despite repeated requests from concerned citizens nationwide, including independent researchers, journalists and scientists, no answers are being given. Please note; spraying of uninformed and unconsenting populations is illegal and in violation of the Nuremburg Code and the Environment Modification Treaty, which the United States signed in 1977. According to William Thomas, one of the first published reporters to break the chemtrail story, "There is zero - repeat zero doubt - that chemtrails are an ongoing military operation." Renowned author Jim Marrs spoke of chemtrails in the April 7 issue of Babel magazine. "There is absolutely no question that someone is spraying chemicals into the air that we all breathe. There is even legislation in Congress attempting to outlaw chemtrails even while government spokesmen deny it is happening." Therese Aigner, CES consultant and accredited environmental expert/engineer, has analyzed rainwater samples and confirmed that the unusual test results are directly connected with chemtrail aerial spraying. In her results, she determines that the "contaminants would have had to be delivered in large amounts and in concentrated form." Ms. Aigner also states, "If you look at each one of the parameters, there is consistency here. This would indicate a very controlled delivery (dispersion) of chemtrails by aircraft in your area." Test results show the presence of elements that would not normally be present in rainwater, including barium and aluminum. The official findings can be found at http://www.Carnicom.com/contrails.htm. This is not merely a matter of concern to us in the Centre Region. This spraying activity is occurring all over the United States, as evidenced by the national database known as ChemtrailtrackingUSA, which monitors and documents all reported chemtrail spraying. The public does not need to be coddled and protected from the truth, whatever the truth may be. The citizenry has a RIGHT to be made fully aware of what is being sprayed into the air they breathe. Individual citizen testimonials to ChemtrailtrackingUSA and also to Chemtrail Central (both sites are accessible via the Internet) cite scores of people reporting ill physical effects following chemtrail activity. Symptoms include, but are not limited to: persistent hacking coughs, upper respiratory and intestinal distress, lethargy, extreme fatigue, pneumonia, dizziness, disorientation, severe headaches, aching joints, nosebleeds, diarrhea, bloody stools, depression, anxiety, nervous tics, loss of bladder control, and dry or burning areas of exposed skin. (Information from "Chemtrails - Frequently Asked Questions" by Toni Thayer, Executive Director of Blue Skies International, http://www.rense.com). Those with compromised immune systems, the elderly, the young, and those in poor physical condition are the first to feel the chemtrail effects. We respectfully and urgently ask the Centre Daily Times and all State College citizens to research the chemtrail issue as we've presented it here and become informed regarding the ongoing aerial spraying being conducted above our heads. We deeply believe this is a matter of grave importance that needs to be confronted, and should not be ignored by either the media or the residents of State College. Our air is the most important resource to sustaining life. We must DEMAND accountability, and we must do it now. If you are interested in this subject, please take a look at Babel Magazine (www.babelmagazine.com) where we have an array of articles on this phenomenon. Of course there are many other questions to be answered, such as who is manufacturing these chemicals and where the military jets are originating from, and we will continue to examine and report upon them. So please look up the next time there is a blue-sky day and notice what is happening, then take photographs and ask questions. Meanwhile, as we continue with our lives, we are all engaging in one similar activity. We are all breathing, breathing, breathing ... For more information on chemtrails, please visit the following websites: http://www.carnicom.com http://www.lifeboatnews.com http://www.rense.com http://www.babelmagazine.com Lisa Guliani and Scott Makufka babelmagazine.com State College, Pa. [END] From irimland@zundelsite.org Wed Jun 19 04:13:07 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 21:13:07 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/18/2002 - "Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Story Behind the News" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 18, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Sometimes my readers get upset with me because they don't agree with one part or another - but please remember that the function of my ZGrams from the beginning, almost seven years, ago has been to show up our enemies' true nature and evil agenda - and to REFLECT, as accurately as I can, the voices that speak up in this struggle for the hearts, minds and souls of our times. The last sentence in this essay says it best: "Silence kills." [START] Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Story Behind the News by Linda Belanger For the last month, since the Israeli attacks on Palestine my feelings have shifted several times daily from swallowing back tears to anger and despair. I have attempted to assuage these feelings by an obsessive and masochistic search for information, information beyond the images on television, information that could explain these images. This has only led to more tears and anger. I am embarrassed to admit my ignorance of this situation that has been going on for 35 years. I did not know that even since the early days of the occupation, the Israeli government expropriated Palestinians from their land and homes without compensation. I did not know that the homes of people resisting the occupation, even by peaceful means, were demolished. I did not know that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) imposed curfews and shot people who were caught outside after hours on sight . I did not know that the Israeli government has diverted water away from Palestinian farmland to serve the Jewish settlements that they have established within Palestine. This has all been done in self-defense we are told.. But an occupation with the purpose of self-defense does not last 35 years and, involve the establishment of settlements in contravention of international rules of occupation. How could I have missed this. Me, the politics junky, the follower of world events; I have slept through this issue for 35 years. I who so pride myself in being a human being above all else. I am guilty of just glancing through the headlines and perhaps the first few paragraphs of a news article. Why pay attention, the middle east is so far away. Beside Israel must defend itself we are told so often. Some of them sound a bit fanatical but everything would be fine because Jews would never do unto others what had been done onto them. As for the Arabs, well I know there are good and bad in all races and religions but that area of the world is underdeveloped and uneducated. The people shout and shake their fists in the streets and the terrorists who hijacked the planes in the 1970s came from there and now they are responsible for suicide bombings and their leader wears an army uniform and is an ex-terrorist fighter. They must be largely to blame for all of this. How I cringe now when I read those words now. I was tempted to delete them but decided not to. They are true. I am a proud Canadian. A Canadian who buys into the dream of a nation that takes pride in its different races and religions and sees itself as a microcosm of the world, a haven for the oppressed and an example of how people of all races and religions can live together. I could not be a bigot. But there has also been a problem in the language used by the media and politicians. Perhaps this has been done in the interest of promoting moderation or in attempting to remain objective by reporting the facts or because of the outcry of anti-semitism by certain Jewish groups every time a crumb is tossed to the Palestinians. There is a point where moderation and objectivity in reporting the news can create a lie. People fighting for basic human rights may be driven to terrorism by desperation but they are resistance fighters. After 35 years of Israeli settlement in Palestine it is time to call the "occupation" by its proper name - invasion. Although it is true that Israelis have not built extermination camps one has to wonder what they expect to achieve by destroying a people's livelihood, culture and dignity. If these things had been done in a period of a few years most people would not object to the use of the word genocide. Is it different because it has taken place over a period of 35 years? There is also a problem created by the language used by a different culture. We are horrified when we hear the Arab world praise suicide bombers as martyrs to the cause. How can they sacrifice their children that way people say? Why then, are we not horrified when Israel sends its children to control the Palestinians, who have been denied control over the water in their territory, to defend settlers sitting by their swimming pools. Yes the killing of innocent Israelis is wrong but destroying the homes of thousands of refugees to capture 50 or so alleged terrorists is collective punishment not heroic self- defense. Aside from the obvious moral distinction in the above examples, the only difference is that, for us in the western world, the words, sacrifice and martyrdom are not 'cool'. We are so superior and advanced: we use words like heroic and self-defense. I've also frequently heard condemnation of Yassir Arafat for walking away from the Camp David peace proposal without making a counter offer. I was incensed when I found the terms of that proposal. Arafat rejected it because it was an insult. The Palestinians have been open to compromise to some extent in regard to the borders of the new state but have understandably demanded territorial continuity. According to the Camp David proposal, Palestinians were expected to relinguish nearly half their territory creating a convoluted state where one might have to drive 50 miles to get to a town which was only actually 10 miles away in order to avoid entering Israel's territory. The remaining areas although appearing to be territorially continuous would be broken up by Israeli bypass roads, check points and roadblock. The Palestinians were also expected to accept Israeli supervision of borders crossings and to relinquish their rights over water and airspace among other things. () The Palestians have a right to a state, just as the Isrealis have the right to the state of Isreal as it was given to them by the British in 1948 and not one inch more. Israel occupied Palestine in 1967 on the pretext of self defense and has remained there for 35 years. Now, the Isreali govenment would have us believe that because they established settlements there (against the international laws) the Palestinians should concede territory to accomodate them. But amidst the suicide bombings and the Israelis who justify the crimes of the occupation as self defence there are those on both sides who feel for the pain of the other side, who are putting themselves in their shoes. In a recent inteview with Larry King on CNN, Queen Rania of Jordan said: "... I saw a few days ago on one of the channels, a mother of a suicide bomber who was saying that had she known what her son was going to do, she would have prevented him from doing it. And she said that she felt with every Israeli mother who has lost a child. I also heard on the Israeli side, a bystander after one of the attacks on one of the buses, who was saying that if he was a Palestinian he'd understand how they could become suicide bombers living under such terrible conditions. " But how and when will this all end? How much longer can the Palestinians endure the punishment inflicted on their entire society . Ariel Sharon does not want peace. Of that I am absolutely convinced. The Israeli government is sacrificing its own people to the suicide bombers to justify continued military oppression in the hopes of eventually gaining total control of Palestine. The Palestinians have no army, no tanks, not helicopter gunships. They cannot expel the IDF, yet to stop fighting would be to deny their basic humanity. The suicide bombings are only an indication of their desperation. Nonetheless, there is some light in this dark scenario. The Israeli peace camp is vocal and well organized. Israeli soldiers are refusing to do military service in the Palestinian territory. Israelis civilians are placing themselves in Palestinians homes to act as human shields against the IDF. I am convinced that when the Palestinians have their state and Israel is liberated from the rules of Ariel Sharon and his kind, that the people of Israel will be there using the bulldozers that were used to demolish Palestinian homes to dismantle the roadblocks that have destroyed their economy. In the end it is the voice of the international community putting pressure on the United States to stop funding the Israeli government and to demand that the Israeli government abide by United Nations resolution 242 passed in 1967 and reaffirmed many times since. This resolution calls for: (i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; (ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force. Public opinion turned the tide against apartheid . We can all play a part whether it is by writing to our elected representatives to urge them to support the UN resolutions, or to a newspaper or simply by talking to friends. The Palestinians must not be subjected to the humiliation of being asked to come to the negotiation table to discuss which parts of their territory they will be allowed to keep but rather a suitable manner and schedule by which the above resolutions are to be applied. Yes I know, writing letters takes time; your kids have soccer practice tonight, you haven't done your workout in a week, you are getting together with a friend, you are tired after a long days work. I understand. But silence kills. [END] ===== From irimland@zundelsite.org Thu Jun 20 02:48:23 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 19:48:23 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/19/2002 - "How many rights? How much liberty?" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 19, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Nice thinking out there in the desert! Enjoy! [START] Arizona Republic | Letters June 19, 2002 How many rights? How much liberty? With whom are we at war? Most of the Sept. 11 terrorists were Saudis, but we're not at war with Saudi Arabia. The Sept. 11 terrorists weren't from Iran, Iraq or North Korea, but we've identified those countries as sponsors of terrorism. We even have Americans accused of being terrorists. There seem to be terrorists everywhere. Are we at war with . . . whomever the administration says is an enemy? What rights, if any, do our enemies have? One citizen accused of being a Taliban (John Walker Lindh) is getting a jury trial, while another accused of al-Qaida links (Jose Padilla) is in military prison. One foreigner (Zacarias Moussaoui) will be tried in a federal court, while hundreds of other foreigners are isolated in Cuba. If we must sacrifice some of our civil liberties because we're at war, who decides which liberties we will lose and who will lose them? Are our civil liberties - and the rights of our visitors and enemies - whatever the administration says they are? We've been told that this "state of war" could go on for years, even indefinitely. In wartime we all willingly sacrifice some liberties to the legitimate need for security. Since Sept. 11, the government has been saying that we've escaped further harm because of all our new security activities. If another attack occurs, does it mean that further curtailment of our civil liberties will be required? What happens if this war, which never officially began, only ends when the administration says it has ended? What if it never officially ends? How many civil liberties are we willing to sacrifice, and for how long? What limitations will we accept indefinitely? What level of security is enough? Ultimately, to what extent are we willing to sacrifice our liberty for our security? Dan Gruber Paradise Valley [END] From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Jun 21 04:00:23 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 21:00:23 -0700 Subject: ZGram - June 20, 2002 - "Was September 11, 2001 another Pearl Harbor?" - Part I Message-ID: ZGRAM - WHERE TRUTH IS DESTINY JUNE 20, 2002 GOOD MORNGING FROM THE ZUNDELSITE: I found an interesting summary on a new website, the URL of which I am going to give to you tomorrow. It was written by The Questioning Patriot, dated May 31, 2002 - and if I knew who he was, I would ask him if it was okay to run his treatise by you. Since no clue is given, I hope he will forgive me. I am breaking his essay up into two parts, since it is rather long. Its title is: "Was September 11, 2001 another Pearl Harbor? In what sense?" Just asking! [START] We all know the first "official" story about the events of September 11, 2001. We were told that it was a sneak attack almost exactly like the one on Pearl Harbor more than sixty years ago. We were also told that despite the fact that U. S. intelligence had collected thousands, perhaps millions, of different bits and pieces of pertinent information, they had simply failed to put it all together in one coherent package. All of the terrible scenes of the destruction of the World Trade Center and people fleeing across Manhattan's bridges were brought to us in an unparalleled mainstream media event of round-the-clock reporting. I know that I personally will never forget that morning, nor the many weeks and months that followed. Even before the first tower of the World Trade Center had fallen, the mainstream media began to openly speculate on who or what had done this to America. The names immediately pushed to the top of the list were Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, names with which most Americans had already become very familiar. We knew from what we had been told that they had the means, the motive, and the willingness to do this terrible act, and had actually planned and executed other terrorist attacks against Americans and American assets. All across the U. S., grief and shock turned to anger ... and a very strong national desire to strike back at those that had done this awful thing. Flash forward to the first couple of weeks of May 2002, and we're starting to see a very different picture. We now know that Bush and his supporters knew that the terrorist attack was coming, and we're learning more every day about just how much they really knew. Bush's people are now spending quite a bit of time trying to blame the FBI, CIA, and others for either massive intelligence failures, or a failure to more fully inform Bush, or both. Additionally, Cheney is not only advising Bush not to hand over any of the intelligence briefings prior to September 11, 2001, he is also refusing to cooperate with the idea of convening an independent commission to investigate those terrible events. Why? What are they hiding? What is it they don't want us, the American people, to know? Now, having said all of the above, consider for a moment the idea that the events of September 11, 2001, were ALLOWED to happen. Think about that concept for a moment. * * * One of the easiest ways to accomplish an objective is to allow some other event to happen that will set certain events into motion, or to have key security/military units stand down at a critical point in time, or both. Sometimes an objective can be accomplished by leaving a known spy in place and feeding that individual real data to find out where it goes, or false data to see if the opponent changes an operation that will allow you better access to data that you want. The variations are endless. Think about the billions upon billions of dollars spent every year by U. S. civilian and military intelligence agencies gathering data in this country and overseas. Is it really believable that no one at the top of U. S. intelligence understood the true implications of the data that was being collected in advance of September 11, 2001? If your answer is "No," then is it really believable that those same intelligence organizations would have failed to brief those in political control? Once we are willing to at least consider the concept that September 11, 2001 was allowed to happen, then we have to ask why would it be allowed to happen? I think we know that the motive involved the further enrichment of the oil, energy, and defense industries. Major corporations like Enron, Unocal, and the Carlyle Group stood to gain enormous profits over the next fifty years if they could devise the means to gain control of the vast oil reserves of the Caspian Sea area. But how would such a plan be enacted? Here is a possible seven-step process: FIRST: Remove really smart and aggressive senior people from positions that may allow them to discover the plan, or failing that, bring them into the plan if no other option exists. EXAMPLE: The foremost FBI authority on terrorism, John P. O'Neill, was forced out of the FBI. Ironically, he died on his second day on his new job as the Director of Security of the World Trade Center. SECOND: Create bureaucratic roadblocks in the path of others that pass important information up the chain. EXAMPLE: Information from the Phoenix and Minnesota FBI offices was blocked and/or altered by an higher-level FBI office located in Washington, D. C. THIRD: Create cover stories gaining plausible deniability for key figures in the plan. EXAMPLE: Everyone knew that Bush was on vacation in August 2001, and that Cheney was still recuperating from the recent implant of a pacemaker. FOURTH: As the events unfold, orders customarily given under certain circumstances are not issued. Still other orders are given that send units in directions that are planned to be unfruitful. EXAMPLE: In the Payne Stewart case in October 1999, jet interceptors met Stewart's plane sixteen minutes after notification by the Air Traffic Controller. Note that permission to contact the military was not required, nor has it ever been required. On September 11, 2001, jet interceptors failed to leave the ground for at least 26 minutes ... long enough for at least two of the first three airliners to have hit their intended targets. FIFTH: Have plans in place to create heroes of the victims, and to build public opinion in support of the goals of the plan. EXAMPLE: The passengers and crew of Flight 93 have been cited time and again for their heroism in attempting to regain control of that doomed airliner from the terrorists. The revolt failed, but with the nearly vertical impact of the airliner into rural Pennsylvania farmland, any potential target of Flight 93 had been saved. But, Flight 93 also left a debris field at least six miles away from the primary impact site. Is it possible that the plane was actually shot down and then the occupants turned into heroes to cover-up the shoot-down? This was the plane to which Cheney was referring when he ordered the plane to be shot down. SIXTH: Quickly push legislation through Congress that will protect the gains of the plan, and further the interests of the planners. EXAMPLE: The Patriot Act is the most glaring example of all the so-called "anti-terror" legislation that has gotten through Congress since September 11, 2001. SEVENTH: Create an atmosphere of fear among the general populace and offer solutions to protect them at the same time. EXAMPLE: The anthrax attacks that we now know to have come from a domestic source, the formation of the Homeland Security Department, the so-called Terror Alert System that has the mainstream media doing its best imitation of Chicken Little on a daily basis, and the mainstream media itself that allows Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Powell to appear on the television almost on a daily basis. * * * Having read the seven points noted above, is the concept of allowing such a terrible event to take place really that far-fetched? {END] ==== TOMORROW: CONCLUSION From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Jun 21 04:02:06 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 21:02:06 -0700 Subject: ZGram - June 21, 2002 - "Was 9/11 another Pearl Harbor?" - Part II Message-ID: ZGRAM - WHERE TRUTH IS DESTINY JUNE 21, 2002 GOOD MORNGING FROM THE ZUNDELSITE: PART II OF "WAS 9/11 ANOTHER PEARL HARBOR?" by The Questioning Patriot [START] Consider the following historical items of interest about which the history books don't bother to tell you very much: 1. The Mexican War (1846-1848) was, in my opinion, the culmination of the unofficial policy of "Manifest Destiny," and the official 1822 Monroe Doctrine that loudly proclaimed that European interference in the Western Hemisphere would not be tolerated. Major business interests in the U. S. wanted control of all of the land from "sea to shining sea" to include all of the natural resources, and were willing to do whatever was necessary to get it. The Texas War for Independence from Mexico (1835-1836) along with the annexation of Texas in March of 1845, was one of the two major provocations leading to the Mexican War because we knew that Mexico would never recognize the independence of Texas nor its annexation. The second major provocation took place in January of 1846 when Polk sent Gen. Zachary Taylor's newly raised military force at Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande. In April of 1846, Mexican cavalry crossed the Rio Grande and killed some members of an American scouting expedition, and the U. S. had the major event necessary to create the rationale for going to war with Mexico. With the signing of the July 1848 peace treaty with Mexico, the U. S. had acquired huge tracts of land north of the current border with Mexico. In 1853, the Gadsden Purchase acquired some additional territory that is now in Arizona. 2. The Spanish-American War of 1898 took place as a direct result of the sinking of the USS Maine in Cuba's Havana Harbor, and the efforts by the so-called "yellow press" of William Randolph Hearst ( and Joseph Pulitzer to whip up anti-Spanish sentiment. As originally written by the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers, a mine attached to the hull by Spanish and/or Cuban saboteurs had sunk the USS Maine. Again, U. S. business interests achieved their desired results with the elimination of all Spanish military interests in the Western Hemisphere to include the Philippines. It was only much later that it became known that the hull-plates of the Maine had been blown outward, not inward as would have been expected from the explosive blast of an externally-placed mine. What caused the explosion on the Maine? Or rather, what caused the TWO explosions that were described in detail by the ship's captain in his log? We are now expected to believe the last "official" theory that coal dust in one of the ship's coal bins exploded, causing the Maine to sink. 3. U. S. military involvement in World War I lasted from 1916 to 1918, and was a direct result of the anti-German feeling that grew out of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915 off the southern coast of Ireland with the loss of 124 American lives. The fact that the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat is incontestable ... however, there has been considerable controversy surrounding whether or not the Germans were tipped-off to the route of the Lusitania, and why the captain chose to sail in waters that he supposedly had been warned to avoid. Was it a British conspiracy to get the Americans into the war, or was it a joint U. S.-British conspiracy that got the U. S. into the war to achieve certain U. S. business objectives? 4. Much has been written about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the event that galvanized the previously isolationist American public to enter World War II. WWII Pacific Theater veteran Robert B. Stinnett has recently written Day of Deceit, published by Touchstone Books, 2000, in which he details from previously unreleased military and government documents that we had broken the Japanese codes in early 1940. FDR had tried desperately to get the U. S. into the war in Europe without success ... the American people were once again taking an isolationist view, and nothing short of a major event would cause them to consider fighting in another World War. FDR used an eight-point plan developed by Lt. Cdr. Arthur McCollum to provoke the Japanese into attacking our assets in the Pacific, assets that were moved into place from 1940 to just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Using the information supplied from the broken codes, FDR was able to anticipate the Japanese moves in the Pacific, and was fully aware of the plans to attack the U. S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. This fleet had originally been based on the U. S. West Coast and was moved to Pearl Harbor over the objections of Admiral Richardson, the commander of that fleet. Because Japan was allied with Germany and Italy, any attack by Japan on U. S. assets in the Pacific would warrant a declaration of war against Japan, one that would also involve us in the war in Europe, which had been FDR's primary objective all along. It was also well-known among the leaders of major U. S. business interests that getting into another war would be good for those U. S. business interests, during and after the completion of the war ... FDR knew that he could count on their support. The Bush, Walker, and Harriman families were among those that profited, along with Ford, General Motors, and IBM to name but a very few major U. S. corporations that did quite well financially. 5. The Korean War (1950-1953) () was fought primarily to stem the flow of Communism in the Far East, at least that's what we've been told. It was really all about protecting U. S. business interests in the Far East, and creating a permanent base in South Korea that would require constant funding. 6. The events surrounding the creation of what we know to be modern-day Cuba are still shrouded in partial secrecy. From Fidel Castro's seizure of power in 1959, with CIA assistance, until 1963, we have seen the Bay of Pigs fiasco (April 1961), the attempt to activate Operation Northwoods (March 1962), the Cuban Missile Crises (October 1962), and the JFK Assassination (November 1963). What, besides Cuba itself, was the common thread in all of these events? The common thread was the attempt by U. S. business, intelligence, military and criminal interests to regain what they had lost when Castro's men took control of the government of Cuba. 6.A. The Bay of Pigs was meant to be the spark that would cause the anti-Castro Cubans to revolt. Like L. Fletcher Prouty, I find it very interesting that two of the transport ships associated with this operation were named the "Barbara J." and the "Houston" after they were acquired by L. Fletcher Prouty (then military liaison in the Pentagon to the CIA) from the Navy and repainted - Barbara is George H. W. Bush's wife, and Houston is where they lived in 1963. Another interesting fact about the Bay of Pigs is that it was code-named "Operation Zapata," which just happens to be the name of the elder Bush's first business, the Zapata Offshore Oil Drilling Company. Is it possible that that George H. W. Bush played some part in the Bay of Pigs operation, or could all of this be chalked up to a mere coincidence? 6.B. I also find it interesting that among the contemporaries of George H. W. Bush during the boom of the Cuban Task Force based in Miami, Florida, were Vice President Richard Nixon, CIA agents E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis (Fiorini), and Bernard Barker, and CIA contract agent George DeMohrenschildt. Richard Nixon was intimately involved in the planning of the covert and overt operations against Cuba, as he was with all active and planned intelligence operations at that time. Hunt was known in Miami as "The Bagman" because he controlled large sums of money used to pay for some of the Miami-based anti-Castro Cuban operations, Sturgis is believed to have assisted Castro's forces during Castro's rise to power, and Barker was involved in the Bay of Pigs Operation. Hunt, Sturgis and Barker became famous, or infamous, for their work as White House Plumbers during the Watergate Scandal. DeMohrenschildt is an interesting historical figure that I will discuss a greater length below. 6.C. Operation Northwoods was a plan drafted by the JCS and forwarded for approval to McNamara ... a plan that called for the U. S. military to carry out domestic acts of terrorism against U. S. cities to build public opinion for an invasion of Cuba. Does this plan sound similar to anything that has happened recently? 6.D. The Cuban Missile Crisis during the month of October 1962 was an attempt by U. S. hardliners to up the ante, so to speak ... to enable the U. S. military to have the excuse necessary to attack the old Soviet Union and to re-take Cuba. 6.E. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was the last attempt to create the "war fever" necessary to support a war against the Soviet Union. As soon as the last gunshot echo died in Dealey Plaza, the media was inundated with information about Lee Harvey Oswald. What better person to blame for the killing of JFK than a "deserter" who had lived in the Soviet Union and had been documented handing out leaflets in New Orleans supportive of Fidel Castro? But how does that square with the fact that while in the Marines he was a radar operator involved with tracking U-2 flights in and out of the Atsugi Air Force Base in Japan? And how exactly did Oswald end up with a 201 personnel file in CIA records? It's interesting to me that the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) documented the fact that George DeMohrenschildt, a Russian who, oil geologist, and the man who had befriended Oswald and Marina in Fort Worth, Texas, had the name of George H. W. Bush listed in his address book. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was a contract agent for the CIA. It's also interesting that the HSCA makes note of the fact that "George Bush of the CIA" was briefed by an FBI man in Houston following the JFK assassination. And finally, why did Nixon say to the CIA that they didn't want the subject of the "Bay of Pigs" brought up? Why did he say, in recently revealed audiotapes, that the Warren Commission was the "biggest hoax"? Why was he in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and only fly out of Dallas 30 minutes before the assassination took place ... and why did he later deny three different times that he had even been there? 7. The Tonkin Gulf Incident in August 1964 off the coast of Vietnam was used as an excuse by LBJ to escalate the war in Vietnam, a war that was to drag on for ten long years from 1963 to 1973. JFK had signed NSAM (National Security Action Memorandum) 263 on October 11, 1963 that called for the beginning of the removal of U. S. troops from Vietnam. Less than a month and a half later, JFK was lying dead in a Dallas hospital. On November 26, 1963, four days after the death of JFK, President Johnson signed NSAM 273 calling for the renewed support of South Vietnam and doing whatever it took to help the South Vietnamese. But, the American public had to be convinced that fighting in Vietnam was "justified," and the Tonkin Gulf Incident supplied that motive. What exactly was the Tonkin Gulf Incident? The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an "unprovoked attack" against a U.S. destroyer on "routine patrol" in the Tonkin Gulf on August 2, 1964 - and that North Vietnamese PT boats followed up with a "deliberate attack" on a pair of U.S. ships two days later. Rather than being on a routine patrol August 2, the U.S. destroyer USS Maddox was actually engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers - in sync with coordinated attacks on North Vietnam by the South Vietnamese navy and the Laotian air force. On the night of August 4, 1964, the Pentagon proclaimed that a second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats had taken place earlier that day in the Tonkin Gulf - a report cited by LBJ as he went on national TV that evening to announce a momentous escalation in the war: air strikes against North Vietnam. Prior to the U.S. air strikes, top officials in Washington had reason to doubt that any August 4 attack by North Vietnam had occurred. Cables from the U.S. task force commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, referred to "freak weather effects," "almost total darkness," and an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing ship's own propeller beat." One of the Navy pilots flying overhead that night was squadron commander James Stockdale, who gained fame later as a POW and then Ross Perot's vice presidential candidate. "I had the best seat in the house to watch that event," recalled Stockdale a few years ago, "and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets - there were no PT boats there ... . There was nothing there but black water and American fire power." In 1965, Lyndon Johnson commented: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." But Johnson's deceitful speech of August 4, 1964, won accolades from editorial writers. The president, proclaimed the New York Times, "went to the American people last night with the somber facts." The Los Angeles Times urged Americans to "face the fact that the Communists, by their attack on American vessels in international waters, have themselves escalated the hostilities." 8. The 1991 Desert Storm Campaign raises a number of issues, primarily what were the events leading up to the War with Iraq, and what role did the U. S. play in creating the conditions that allowed the war to take place? Did a U. S. Ambassador tell an Iraqi senior functionary that the U. S. would do nothing if Iraq invaded Kuwait? Was the young woman who tearfully testified to a Congressional Committee that Iraqi soldiers had taken Kuwaiti babies off respirators in a Kuwaiti hospital really the daughter of a senior Kuwaiti ambassador and not a nurse as she had claimed, and that she had lied about those events to Congress? The answer to both of those questions is "Yes," and they were used to bolster the case for war against Iraq following their invasion of Kuwait. Iraq was the only country at that time militarily capable of hindering the continued acquisition of Middle Eastern oil, and our country's business interests required that Iraq be dealt with in a way that would convince other countries around the world via the American mainstream media that the U. S. was the only Superpower in the world. Since history has this rather annoying habit of repeating itself, take a guess as to which country is now perceived to be a current hindrance to our acquisition of the vast oil reserves of the Caspian Sea area. * * * It is all too clear that the U. S. has used fabricated means in the past to achieve political, economic and military objectives. It is also becoming very clear that Bush and his supporters launched the "war against terror" by seizing on the overwhelming national sense of fear and hate toward an enemy the average American knew very little about. It is also clear that this is a war that has met none of the original objectives and continues to produce American casualties. Where is Osama Bin Laden? Unknown. Where is Mullah Omar? Unknown. Has the Al Qaeda terrorist organization been truly crippled as we have been told repeatedly for the last several months, or have they just vanished to regroup and strike again? Unknown. Is the list of hijackers accurate? Not according to the latest testimony by FBI Director Mueller. In how many countries do we now have American combat troops? Unknown. Has the new Afghani government agreed to allow the construction of an oil pipeline across Afghanistan? Yes. Does Halliburton (Cheney's former company) have a long-term contract with the U. S. to build advance military bases wherever directed by the "war on terror"? Yes. Was September 11, 2001, another Pearl Harbor in the way that we have always been taught in school? Yes. Was September 11, 2001, another Pearl Harbor that was allowed to happen? You be the judge. ===== ( Source: http://www.unknownnews.net/tqp053102.html ) From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Jun 21 04:05:15 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 21:05:15 -0700 Subject: ZGram - June 22, 2002 - "Segregation by default?" Message-ID: ZGRAM - WHERE TRUTH IS DESTINY JUNE 22, 2002 GOOD MORNING FROM THE ZUNDELSITE; Yep! The're fencing themselves in - just like in the olden days! Did anyone say "Ghetto"? [START] Stop suicide bombers - by Adam Tanner In politics, walls don't work. Veterans from both sides of the Berlin Wall say Israel's $220 million (about R2 200 million) plan to erect 110km of fence along the West Bank will fail ultimately, much as the Cold-War divide through Berlin eventually crumbled. Rudi Thurow helped build the Berlin Wall in 1961 as a border guard. A year later, he circumvented the wall he was supposed to be guarding and crawled through a tunnel to the West. "One cannot solve problems through a wall, only through negotiations," he said. "If Israel has a wall, then some will build tunnels and go through them." "The wall didn't keep us out at all. The attackers against Israel will do exactly the same. They can stem some of the terror, but some terrorists will still break through and commit attacks." After Tuesday's suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 19 Israelis, Israel said it would accelerate the construction of a protective fence aimed at keep out attackers. A symbol of oppression Some are already calling it Israel's Berlin Wall, although there are clear differences in the two situations. "The concern of the Israelis is understandable, but I think it is unsuitable," said Wolfgang Seiffert, who as a young East German Communist knew Erich Honecker, the man who supervised the Wall's construction and later became the country's hardline dictator. "In the end, it never helps, as we saw with East Germany," said Seiffert. "It could bring stability in the beginning as in East Germany, but it will achieve nothing in the end." Soviet-backed East Germany erected the 155km Berlin Wall in 1961 to stem a growing flow of refugees from East to West Germany. The concrete structure - reinforced by guards, automatic weapons and other defences - came to symbolise the oppression of the East bloc. The new Israeli fence has unified Palestinians and some Israeli rightwingers in their opposition. Many Palestinians - like East Germans who worked in West Berlin and lost their jobs more than 40 years ago - fear their lives could worsen by cutting off job opportunities on the other side of the barrier. Some Israeli rightwingers say the fence could set a de facto border for a Palestinian state, weaken their claim to land captured in the 1967 Middle East war and cut Jewish settlements off from Israel. Verner Pike experienced the original Berlin Wall as a United States soldier at the famous Checkpoint Charlie in August 1961 and during the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation of US and Soviet tanks there several months later. "Walls don't work," he said. "We learned that in Berlin, a long time ago." "The people in the east looked and said this would secure us and make us feel better. It didn't work for them. It's not going to work for the Israelis. It's sad that they are even discussing something like that." ===== (source: http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Middle_East/0,1113,2-10-35_1201671,00.html ) From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Jun 21 04:05:15 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 21:05:15 -0700 Subject: ZGram - June 22, 2002 - "Segregation by default?" Message-ID: ZGRAM - WHERE TRUTH IS DESTINY JUNE 22, 2002 GOOD MORNING FROM THE ZUNDELSITE; Yep! The're fencing themselves in - just like in the olden days! Did anyone say "Ghetto"? [START] Stop suicide bombers - by Adam Tanner In politics, walls don't work. Veterans from both sides of the Berlin Wall say Israel's $220 million (about R2 200 million) plan to erect 110km of fence along the West Bank will fail ultimately, much as the Cold-War divide through Berlin eventually crumbled. Rudi Thurow helped build the Berlin Wall in 1961 as a border guard. A year later, he circumvented the wall he was supposed to be guarding and crawled through a tunnel to the West. "One cannot solve problems through a wall, only through negotiations," he said. "If Israel has a wall, then some will build tunnels and go through them." "The wall didn't keep us out at all. The attackers against Israel will do exactly the same. They can stem some of the terror, but some terrorists will still break through and commit attacks." After Tuesday's suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 19 Israelis, Israel said it would accelerate the construction of a protective fence aimed at keep out attackers. A symbol of oppression Some are already calling it Israel's Berlin Wall, although there are clear differences in the two situations. "The concern of the Israelis is understandable, but I think it is unsuitable," said Wolfgang Seiffert, who as a young East German Communist knew Erich Honecker, the man who supervised the Wall's construction and later became the country's hardline dictator. "In the end, it never helps, as we saw with East Germany," said Seiffert. "It could bring stability in the beginning as in East Germany, but it will achieve nothing in the end." Soviet-backed East Germany erected the 155km Berlin Wall in 1961 to stem a growing flow of refugees from East to West Germany. The concrete structure - reinforced by guards, automatic weapons and other defences - came to symbolise the oppression of the East bloc. The new Israeli fence has unified Palestinians and some Israeli rightwingers in their opposition. Many Palestinians - like East Germans who worked in West Berlin and lost their jobs more than 40 years ago - fear their lives could worsen by cutting off job opportunities on the other side of the barrier. Some Israeli rightwingers say the fence could set a de facto border for a Palestinian state, weaken their claim to land captured in the 1967 Middle East war and cut Jewish settlements off from Israel. Verner Pike experienced the original Berlin Wall as a United States soldier at the famous Checkpoint Charlie in August 1961 and during the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation of US and Soviet tanks there several months later. "Walls don't work," he said. "We learned that in Berlin, a long time ago." "The people in the east looked and said this would secure us and make us feel better. It didn't work for them. It's not going to work for the Israelis. It's sad that they are even discussing something like that." ===== (source: http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Middle_East/0,1113,2-10-35_1201671,00.html ) From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Jun 21 04:09:07 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 21:09:07 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/23/2202 - "Making lemonade from lemons" Message-ID: ZGRAM - WHERE TRUTH IS DESTINY JUNE 23, 2002 GOOD MORNING FROM THE ZUNDELSITE: Yesterday, I told you about the building of the Israeli Wall. You won't believe what follows: [START] Israel touts West Bank border fence in military trade show Wed Jun 19, 9:39 PM ET By JIM KRANE, AP Technology Writer NEW YORK - Even as opponents decry the security fence Israel is building along 215 miles (345 kilometers) of the West Bank, Israeli firms are marketing the high-tech barrier as a potential solution for other countries' border problems. The fence, which Israeli officials say is intended to block suicide bombers, is actually a sophisticated system of sensors, balloons, thermal imaging cameras and unmanned spy planes that keep watch for surreptitious incursions. The same system is already in use on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, said Kuti Mor, deputy director general of Israel's Ministry of Defense. For the first time, Israel's military is offering the security technology suite for sale at this week's Eurosatory military trade show in Paris, Mor said. On a Ministry of Defense Web site, Israel credits the system as halting "over 80 percent of all planned attacks" emanating from Lebanon. The border security system integrates an electronic fence and ground sensors for intrusion detection along with radar-equipped observation towers and aerial surveillance from balloons and unmanned spy planes. Radar and cameras peer into Lebanon and are able to pick out people approaching the border - even at night, said Yossi Draznin, a Washington-based representative of Israel's Defense Ministry. The Web site says all the elements are integrated in a command and control center with real-time data displays. The fence itself is sensitive to the touch, and sends an electronic warning to a command center even when approached, Draznin said. "The intention is to know even if someone is approaching the fence, not waiting for him to cut the fence," he said. On Sunday, Israel began building a fence that roughly follows the so-called Green Line, Israel's frontier before it seized the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. Draznin said the cost of the fence approaches dlrs 2 million per mile. The system's individual elements aren't new, but the combined network and control room had never previously been marketed as a single border security solution, Mor said. More than a dozen Israeli defense companies are exhibiting wares at the Paris show, the world's largest land-based defense exhibition. ___ ( Source: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020620/ap_wo_en_po/israel_border_tech_2&printer=1 ) From irimland@zundelsite.org Tue Jun 25 04:16:56 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 21:16:56 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/24/2002 - "Behold, the Dogma grows!" Message-ID: June 24, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Now that the Holocaust Lobby has officially abandoned the Holocaust and jumped on the "anti-terror war" wagon in one mighty leap, I had promised myself that I would stay away from that overworked topic as well - but this yarn is just too good to resist! I have shortened it a bit so as not to offend my Christian readers, for the person who sent it to me discovered yet another Holocaust survivor in the Bible, but the rest of the story does not suffer from the cut. [START] =46riedman's sad Holocaust fate: Deported to Auschwitz before his birth Michel Friedman now ranks amongst the great Holocaust narrators: Already 14 years before his birth Michel Friedman was taken by Hitler's police for deportation. A dreadful fate! Popular German television entertainer and talk master, Reinhold Beckmann, invited Germany's new bogeyman, the "anti-Semite" J=FCrgen W. M=F6llemann, to his Monday night Talk show "with Beckmann" (ARD-TV, May 27, 2002). M=F6llemann is the deputy leader of the FDP (Liberal Democratic Party) and leader of the largest FDP-section of Northrhein-Westfalia. The FDP was the party of the late leader of the Jews in Germany, Ignatz Bubis. Reinhold Beckmann attacked Mr. M=F6llemann very harshly. He appeared outraged about M=F6llemann's conclusion, Mr. Michel Friedman, the second in command of "The Council of Jews in Germany", was fanning anti-Semitism with his "spitefulness" and his "intolerance". Mr. Beckmann was unable to tolerate and forgive Mr. M=F6llemann's comments, for Michel Friedman was the son of holocaust victims who perished in Auschwitz. Even M=F6llemann demonstrated a great understanding towards Mr. Friedman's tragic fate despite the fact that Mr. Friedman was born on the 25th of February 1956 in Paris. He obviously didn't consider the complicated technicality about Mr. =46riedman's creation in the camp, where his begetters died, but his birth took place many years later in Paris. Such difficulties do not matter anyway. According to official holocaust understanding every Jew is a holocaust victim, no matter when he was born. Following the great holocaust success at Beckann's talk show, Mr. Friedman felt compelled to increase the holocaust wonders. On 31st of May 2002 he was the main speaker before 148 graduates of the Police Academy. In his speech he compared the German police of today with the police of the Hitler era. Startling facts came to light. Mr. Friedman said: "60 years ago [1942] I was taken by the police for deportation. Today I am protected by the police." (Die Welt, June 1, 2002, page 2) Thanks to this wonderful survivor story Mr. Friedman now ranks amongst the greatest holocaust narrators like Elie Wiesel, Moshe Peer and Binjamin Wilkomirski, alias Bruno Grosjean. Wiesel wrote in his famous holocaust book "Legends Of Our Times": "Some events do take place but are not true; others are - although they never occurred." (Schocken Books, New York 1982, S. VIII, Introduction) Moshe Peer wrote in his book "Unforgettable Belsen" that he had been gassed six times until he survived, for Belsen had no gas chambers. The star on the holocaust narrators sky is Binjamin Wilkomirsky, whose memory "Fragments" are published in 12 languages by the million, survived the horrors of Nazi concentration camps like Maidanek, Treblinka and Auschwitz undisturbed without any great discomfort and agitation in the peaceful Swiss mountains. [END] From irimland@zundelsite.org Wed Jun 26 03:55:09 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 20:55:09 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/25/2002 - "And why not?" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 25, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Somebody sent me a couple of articles on a very controversial subject but dear to many Germans: the reclamation of the territories lost after World War II. These articles shall be my ZGram for today and tomorrow. Unfortunately, I do not have the source for this one, but tomorrow's ZGram ran in the Chicago Tribune, so I assume the topic is legit. [START] Poland rejects return of Germans Leszek Miller: The case is closed Poland has rejected a call from the conservative challenger in Germany's forthcoming election for Germans expelled from the country after World War II to be allowed back. "I believe these questions are permanently closed," said Prime Minister Leszek Miller. Stoiber: Wounds remain open "The Polish Government does not intend to return to them." Poland expelled millions of Germans from the swathes of German territory it received after the Potsdam conference of the Allied Powers in 1945. Their property was taken over by the Polish state. On Sunday, Bavarian leader Edmund Stoiber, who is challenging Gerhard Schroeder for the chancellorship in September's election, called on Poland to annul the decrees that led to the expulsion. Noble gesture "So long as [the decrees] remain valid, wounds remain open," he told an 8,000-strong gathering in Leipzig. We do not accept equating the so-called Benes decrees and the situation in Poland Leszek Miller "It is in Poland's own interests to part in a binding and conciliatory way with this part of the past." The Bavarian leader added that it would be a "noble gesture" to allow the Germans to return. Mr Stoiber has already won support among Sudeten Germans, many of whom settled in Bavaria after being expelled from what was then Czechoslovakia when the war ended. He is now widely seen to be moving towards picking up support from the descendents of those Germans ejected from Poland. Mr Stoiber has made clear that he would like the issue of expulsions linked to entry into the European Union for those east European countries which carried them out. Compensation fears He has in particular championed the cause of the Sudeten Germans, who were kicked out on the order of the then Czechoslovak president, Edvard Benes. Some 2.5 million Germans were expropriated and expelled under the act, accused of collaborating with the Nazi regime. The Czech Government has refused outright to repeal the decrees, insisting they are not only part of the country's history but also constitute an important part of its current legal foundation. It is feared that the annulment of the decrees could also lead to a flood of court cases by people trying to get their property back or wanting compensation. Warsaw has watched the row closely, fearing it too could face restitution claims. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has also criticised the Czech Republic over the Benes decrees, although he has appeared reluctant to link it to gaining membership of the EU or to transform it into an election issue. Mr Schroeder's ruling Social Democrat Party have been trailing behind the conservatives, an alliance of the Christian Democratic Union and Mr Stoiber's own Christian Social Union, in the opinion polls for months. ===== From irimland@zundelsite.org Wed Jun 26 15:40:18 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 08:40:18 -0700 Subject: ZGram - June 26, 2002 - "More on the German expellees of half a century ago" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 26, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Of course the article below was written by a journalist steeped in Political Correctness. Nonetheless, there is an undertow that tells the reader that the Germans are ever so slowly clawing their way back to where they were and where they should have been - much to the discomfort of those who would rather see the Germans to continue grovelling forever before the Powers we all know. When I asked Ernst Z=FCndel to comment on this article, he said: "The time is long overdue on this debate. The Poles and Czechs will have to come to terms with these issues and better settle them fairly. If they do not, they could unhinge 50+ years of compromise in a matter of months. Judge this article's flavor by its title - and you will know where it came from: [START] Some Germans clamor for recognition as victims: Stories of postwar expulsions getting more attention By Tom Hundley Tribune foreign correspondent June 25, 2002 BERLIN -- From the unsettled memories of Adolf Hitler's defeat in World War II, Germans are resurrecting a controversial group of war victims: themselves. In the chaos following the Third Reich's collapse in 1945, more than 13 million Germans were expelled from lands where they had lived for centuries. About 7 million lost their homes when Poland's borders shifted west. An additional 3 million Sudeten Germans were evicted from what was then Czechoslovakia. Others were pushed out of traditional German settlements along the Danube River in Yugoslavia and Hungary. Tens of thousands of people died in the process, but little was said of them. Germany, after all, was the aggressor in the war and the perpetrator of the Holocaust. The mantle of its own guilt lay heavily on its postwar consciousness. Outside Germany, there was a sense that whatever Germans may have suffered, they were the architects of their own misery. In Germany, however, the stories of these Germans are now being looked at in a different light. In his latest novel, Gunter Grass, the Nobel laureate and conscience of postwar Germany, re-creates the deaths of 8,000 German civilians on a ship torpedoed by a Russian submarine as it attempted to flee the port of Danzig, Grass' birthplace, which is now the Polish city of Gdansk. "Crab Walk," published earlier this year to critical acclaim, has opened a door that many others not of Grass' stature appear eager to shoulder through. Among them is Joerg Haider of Austria's far-right Freedom Party, who has lately championed the cause of the Sudeten Germans. So is Klaus Rainer Roehl, a former far-left intellectual gone over to the far right, who recently published a polemic, "Forbidden Grief: The End of the German Taboo," telling his compatriots that they, too, were victims. Newspapers and magazines in Germany and Austria are beginning to explore the theme of German victimhood, and a recent German television series that documented the misery of the expellees, as they are known in Germany and Austria, drew a wide and appreciative audience. Some feel debt is paid Emboldened by a growing sense among younger Germans that their country has paid its debt to history, politicians are beginning to suggest that the time has come for others to apologize to Germany, and perhaps to offer some token restitution for property that was seized. The issue flared into the open earlier this year when nationalist politicians in Germany and Austria called for the Czech Republic to repeal the so-called Benes decrees that stripped Germans of their property in Czechoslovakia at the end of the war. Most of those who lost land had roots there dating back centuries, long before Nazi forces took over Czechoslovakia. Milos Zeman, the Czech prime minister, bluntly rejected the idea, telling the Germans they got what they deserved. "Many Sudeten Germans committed treason, a crime which was punishable by death according to the laws of the time," Zeman told an Austrian magazine. "If they were expelled or transferred, it was more moderate than the death penalty." That did little to soothe German sensibilities. Last week the parliament of the German state of Saxony passed a resolution that would require the Czech, Slovak, Polish and Slovenian governments to renounce all wartime decrees against the Germans before they could join the European Union. The resolution carries no legal weight, but it sends a sharp message. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his predecessor, Helmut Kohl, tried to keep a lid on this emotional issue, but Schroeder now is in a tough election campaign against Edmund Stoiber, whose wife is an expellee. Expellee groups were elated this week when Stoiber embraced their cause, saying if he were elected, he would insist on talks with the Czech and Polish governments about renouncing the postwar decrees. Limited role In the years after World War II, the activities of expellee groups were legally restricted to helping with the resettlement of expellees. Politically, they had little to say. Dieter Hempel is the head of the Berlin branch of the expellees' national organization. Hempel's family was from Breslau--present-day Wroclaw in western Poland. "My father was a soldier, and at the end of World War II he was captured by British troops somewhere in Europe, and he never again saw Breslau until 1991," said Hempel, 60. "He lost everything in Breslau, but for him there was never any discussion of this," he said. The collapse of communism and German reunification made the 1991 visit possible. "We stood in front of the house. It was still there, but there were strangers living in it," the son recalled. "On the drive back to Berlin, my father didn't say anything. He wasn't upset. There weren't any regrets." But the experience left Hempel unsettled. "For some people there is an expectation that they should get some financial compensation from the Polish government or the Czech government, but that's not the position of our organization. For me, personally, the answer is more abstract. There should be some sort of recognition that what happened to us wasn't right, it wasn't legal," he said. Museum/memorial proposed Erika Steinbach, a member of the German parliament from the Christian Democrats and head of the expellees' national organization, is pushing for the creation in Berlin of a National Center Against Expulsion. As she envisions it, the center would be a kind of museum, study center and memorial for all groups that suffered expulsions in the 20th Century--among them Jews, Armenians, Ukrainians, Chechens, Ingush, Serbs, Kazakhs, Croats, Albanians and, of course, Germans. "The expulsions that happened in the Balkans during the 1990s helped open the door. A new sensitivity emerged," she said. "All of these 20th Century expulsions have to be dealt with in an open manner." She compared the expulsion of Germans from their ancestral lands in Poland and the Sudetenland to "what it would have been like if the Americans had expelled all the Japanese-Americans after World War II." Her own family, she said, came from prewar Danzig and was treated "like cockroaches" when forced to resettle in Germany. Steinbach's intentions may be sincere, but it is doubtful that many Jews would be interested in equating the Holocaust with the plight of German expellees. It also is unlikely that recent Serb expellees from Croatia would want to share their pain with Germany, a main backer of Croatia's independence drive. "I don't like this project at all," said Wolfgang Benz, director of the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism at Berlin's Technical University. "I don't see the point in having a big documentation center, giving the message that this suffering on the part of the Germans has been forgotten and needs to be brought back to active memory." The expulsion center project also has raised hackles in Poland and the Czech Republic, where many fear that demands for restitution or compensation will be next. The German government has paid reparations to Israel, and some companies that profited through their cooperation with the Nazi regime have paid individual reparations. Adam Michnik, the former Polish dissident and current editor of his country's most influential newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, tried to defuse the crisis by suggesting that a Center Against Expulsion would be more meaningful as a European initiative instead of a German one, and that it should be in Wroclaw rather than Berlin. "The German expellees are planning a project that is supposedly going to serve reconciliation, but they are falling into the trap that Thomas Mann called the `German lack of talent for politics,'" he wrote this week. Noting that Wroclaw had its distinct Polish, German, Jewish, Czech, Russian and Ukrainian histories, he said the city would be a better symbolic choice because it "means reconciliation on a daily basis." =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Source: The Chicago Tribune, June 25, 2002 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Jun 28 03:55:47 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 20:55:47 -0700 Subject: ZGram - June 27, 2002 - "D.C. Press Conference Punches Big Holes in 9-11 Official Line" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 27, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: =46inally we get a bit of an update on what looked to be an aborted press conference on 9/11 scheduled for June 10 in Washington, DC. As it turned out, it did take place, but it was not widely reported in the mainstream media. Is anyone surprised? [START] As [From the Wilderness] has documented in previous stories, major deployments of U.S. and British forces had taken place before the attacks. And the U.S. Army and the CIA had been active in Uzbekistan for several years. There is now evidence that what the world is witnessing is a cold and calculated war plan - at least four years in the making - and that, from reading Brzezinski's own words about Pearl Harbor, the World Trade Center attacks were just the trigger needed to set the final conquest in motion. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D D.C. Press Conference Punches Big Holes in 9-11 Official Line by Michael Davidson and Joe Taglieri, =46TW Staff Writers [=A9 COPYRIGHT 2002, All Rights Reserved, Michael C. Ruppert and From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com. May be copied and distributed for non-profit purposes only.] June 20, 2002, 15:00 PDT (FTW) -- A new coalition of 9-11 researchers, journalists, victims' families, and other truth seekers held an inaugural press conference June 10 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The goal of UnansweredQuestions.org's press event and public inquiry was "to pose pointed, as yet unanswered, questions regarding the failure of our national security infrastructure, and the response that has sacrificed civil liberties and rewarded failure as opposed to ensuring performance and guaranteeing freedoms, now and in the future," according to a press release put out by the group. "UnansweredQuestions.org is being launched by an independent, non-partisan network of citizens concerned about the growing number of issues surrounding Sept. 11 that have yet to be addressed or resolved; and their related public safety and constitutional implications." The event was moderated by Kyle Hence and former Assistant Secretary of Housing Catherine Austin Fitts, who have been at the helm of launching UnansweredQuestions.org. The day's two panels featured Mike Ruppert, FTW publisher/editor, as well as a host of researchers and activists focused on bringing out the truth regarding the U.S. government's actions, or lack thereof, relating to the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Mary Schiavo is the lawyer for 32 victims' families. The former inspector general of the Department of Transportation and aviation expert was also a featured speaker at the press conference. Schiavo joined several of her colleagues who addressed the more than 300 in attendance in calling for an independent commission to investigate the events of Sept. 11. "In every single aviation disaster, whether there was criminal activity or not, in every single one in the course of aviation history it has been followed -- not only where necessary a national criminal investigation -- but also a National Transportation Safety [Board] investigation into what went wrong in the aviation system so that it never happens again," said Schiavo. "This is the first time that families have been attempted to be silenced through a special fund, which I believe is about silence more than it is about money." Another speaker, Lorna Brett of the Nolan Law Group, made a similar point, stating, "I live in the Midwest, and I feel like I'm doing focus groups when I'm out in my neighborhood and I ask people, 'What do you think about what happened on 9-11?' And it's amazing how many people say we couldn't have stopped it, it couldn't have happened, nobody could have known. And the truth is that a lot of people should have known." Brett and Schiavo pointed out the cozy relationship that exists between the airline industry and the federal agencies designated to regulate it, particularly when it comes to security. Four federal investigations into airline security took place before Sept. 11, Schiavo said, "I know, I led up two of them. My successor has carried out more, including one investigation done after 9-11 that found security could be breached at will. Why?" Schiavo continued. "Is it business as usual? Is it cheaper to have lax security? One would think that when they heard the statements of the administration when they said, 'Well yes, we knew there might be hijackings. We knew that something was afoot, but we thought they'd be traditional hijackings.' Does that truly mean that they were willing to risk passengers and planes, and even compromise the aviation system, because it was cheaper to allow it to happen than to take the necessary steps to prevent it?" Schiavo concluded her point saying, "That is what we will prove in court. But that isn't enough, because there are many more questions than the court can answer, and that can only be done with a government investigation." Another speaker on the panel echoed the call for a non-partisan, full and open government investigation. Julie Sweeney lost her husband, Brian, on United Flight 175 and is one of the victims' family members pursuing litigation against the government. On why she declined "$2 million" from the federal fund for 9-11 victims, Sweeney said, "I want the answers, and I want the answers to lead to accountability. And I want this accountability to be the catalyst for change in the airline industry and everything that goes along with that." Sweeney expressed her dissatisfaction with the government's relationship with the airlines. "I will not sit back and be bought out in order to protect an industry that will never be destroyed because the American people depend on it too much," said Sweeney. "It's not going to go anywhere, planes will always be flying in the skies=8AHiding behind the truth is an embarrassment to this country, leading to mistakes and lax attitudes. First and foremost, we need to begin to heal, and we need to make sure that this cannot be repeated." Derrill Bodley, the father of a 9-11 victim, was in attendance as well. He had this to add in response to a statement made May 16 by Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security advisor. "My biggest unanswered question today is this: Did my daughter, my 20-year-old daughter, my only child, have to die on Sept. 11 for the sake of the well-being of the civil aviation system? I have a big question in my mind whenever government officials denigrate the value of human life and well-being by comparing it to the value of a system." Responding to questions from the press about Bush Administration foreknowledge of 9-11, Rice said the government did nothing because "we would have risked shutting down the American civil aviation system with such generalized information." Bodley also questioned Rice's statement from the same press conference that no one could have foreseen commercial jets being crashed into buildings, despite revelations in recent months from several whistleblowers that many in the U.S. intelligence community were warning of the likelihood of just such kinds of attacks from Islamic militants. "If the terrorists had envisioned it, if the U.S. government knew they had envisioned it, why didn't our intelligence community, including the NSA, envision it and compel=8Athe airlines and the airports to protect us, to keep my daughter from dying on Sept. 11," said Bodley. According to Brett, her law firm's suit on behalf of 9-11 victims has been prevented from really getting off the ground. The case's first status meeting, before the discovery phase starts, has not yet been scheduled. This, despite the fact the suit was filed in December. "It's stunning to me that some of the people questioning some of our agencies are accused of being unpatriotic," Brett told the conference. "The world is watching us right now. If we can't examine our=8Afederal agencies, our government, the influence of lobbyists on politics,=8Aif we can't self-examine and cleanse that wound, reset that broken bone, what kind of example are we setting? Are we a super power, or are we super cowards?" Steve Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, spoke on how the U.S. immigration system is unable to keep terrorists out of the country. His group recently issued a report that found 48 terrorists have entered the U.S. "by every conceivable means" since 1993, the year the World Trade Center was bombed. Camarota said virtually all of these 48 terrorists have since been linked to Osama bin Laden. He also stated the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department are overwhelmed by the number of visa and citizenship requests. "Congress just doesn't give them enough resources," he said, which is largely due to pressure from interest groups in favor of lax enforcement of immigration laws. Researcher and freelance writer Richard Ochs posed the notion that there was a specific political agenda in the timing of the anthrax attacks on government officials last year. He said the anthrax letters sent to Democrats on Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court, and members of the media coincided with efforts to ram the USA Patriot Act through Congress. The Patriot Act has been criticized by many, including another panelist [see below], as unconstitutional. After all the questions (and some heart-wrenching statements) following the first panel, a much needed break was taken. When the press conference reconvened, the second panel was on the dais with some new faces and some carryovers from panel one. Catherine Austin Fitts opened the proceedings by introducing FTW's Mike Ruppert, who was on a telephone hook-up from Vancouver, British Columbia where he was giving a 9-11 lecture during a 12-day speaking tour. Ruppert began with a heartfelt and passionate declaration of condolences for, and solidarity with, the families of the 9-11 victims. He said they were "foremost in his heart." He then read a statement, published elsewhere in this issue, outlining the work FTW has been doing for the past nine months. After Ruppert, Fitts introduced independent investigator and researcher John Judge. Judge is one of the co-founders of the National Coalition on Political Assassinations, which is responsible for getting the "JFK Records Act" passed. Judge's work has resulted in the release of over six million documents, the largest in U.S. history. Judge began very simply, stating there most certainly was a point at which it was clear the United States, and particularly Washington, D.C., were under attack. That point was 9:05 a.m. on Sept. 11. That was the point at which a shoot-down order for Flight 77 was issued. Oddly, the plane continued unmolested towards the most restricted airspace in the world for 40 minutes before hitting the Pentagon. During this time Washington, D.C.'s Channel 8 broadcast that the plane was heading there and many government buildings were evacuated. Judge quotes a Pentagon spokesman as saying that there was no mechanism to respond to this type of event. Yet Judge, a lifelong Washington, D.C. resident, says he is personally aware that fighters routinely intercept commercial planes that are only slightly off-course to escort them out of the area. No thinking person can believe that the largest, most powerful, and most sophisticated military in history has no way to protect its own headquarters. Judge went further down this path in describing a march he organized in the late-1990s. The march, "A Day Without The Pentagon," was to end at the Pentagon, and Judge had to negotiate the physical movements of the marchers with, among others, Pentagon security. Judge was shown the absolute limit the marchers would be allowed to go to, explaining that the building was on "Delta Alert," the highest state of alert due to the constant threat of attack, especially by airplanes being flown into the building. Security explained that the threat was so serious the marchers' own safety required they be kept at a specific point on the grounds. Judge observed radar installed on the Pentagon roof, as well as anti-aircraft batteries on the grounds. One of the questions Mike Ruppert posed in his opening was, "Why was the Andrews Air Force Base website changed after 9-11 to erase information about their combat readiness?" Judge went on to list the active military bases that had the ability to respond to Flight 77's approach to Washington, D.C. He listed the 121st Fighter Squadron of the 113th Fighter Wing, 321st Marine Fighter Squadron and the 49th Marine Air Guard. These three groups are based at Andrews, only 10 miles from the Pentagon. Yet the fighters that were launched against =46light 77 were scrambled from Langley Air Force Base, 140 miles away. Doing the math, Judge said, shows the fighters flying at sub-sonic speeds. He also reminded the audience that Anacostia Naval Air Station, the home of the District of Columbia National Guard, is right near the Pentagon as well. Another source of protection for Washington, D.C. could have been provided by the 177th Air National Guard stationed at Pomona, N.J. This base could have provided coverage for both Washington, D.C. and New York yet was instructed to cease routine sorties two weeks prior to 9-11. Judge also quoted a Pentagon official who referred him to a New York Times article stating that on Sept. 8 half of U.S. fighters were taken out of service. A personal friend, whose son is stationed at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod, Mass., told Judge that fighter pilots who specifically requested permission to attempt the interception of Flight 77 were called back. John Judge has the firm belief that a lot of the public's questions about the events of 9-11 will be answered when we find out what took place during the 40-minute period between the 9:05 shoot-down order and the impact at the Pentagon at 9:45. The third speaker on the second panel was Tom Flocco, Philadelphia teacher and investigative journalist. Flocco is a good friend of FTW, and has done a great deal of work regarding the suspicious put option trading that took place prior to 9-11. At the UnansweredQuestions.org press conference, however, Flocco said he would go beyond that issue, lay out a series of new dots, and connect them. One of his key points was that the investigation of financial activities surrounding 9-11 has produced a "control" list of 38 stocks to be scrutinized. This list has never been made public, and much of the investigation has been conducted in a manner that seems designed more to protect the possibly guilty than to provide Americans with information. One of his most damning dots was the fact that on Oct. 19 investigators asked member firms of the National Association of Securities Dealers, which is every broker you can name, to "privately" share information with those "directly effected" by the inquiry. The government further requested that those handling the issue be "senior personnel who appreciate the sensitive nature of the case." =46locco quoted a Boston Globe article reporting the National Security Agency (NSA) has been continuously destroying data since 9-11. The Globe reporter who wrote the article is unaware of any other information that's been published on this issue. NSA officials say the data is being destroyed because it involves Americans or American businesses, and they are not allowed to conduct such spying. Why they collected the information and saved it if it is illegal was not revealed. But Flocco quotes the former head of FBI counter-terrorism as saying that the NSA's collection of data on Americans is perfectly legitimate if it involves either foreign espionage or terrorist activities. Whoever is correct on this issue is moot; the data is gone. While not mentioning the put options directly, Flocco did discuss other anomalies that suggest foreknowledge. One of these is a surge in Treasury bill purchases. Treasury bills are the safest investment known, being backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. Just prior to 9-11 there was a single Treasury bill transaction of $5 billion. Another reason to suspect foreknowledge is the recent indictments of two FBI agents who were apparently playing the stock market based on information derived from investigations. They were also passing this information on to others, and in one case an individual connected to the agents cashed out a $300,000 portfolio, telling the broker he expected the Dow Jones index to soon drop by about two-thirds. Other issues covered by Flocco included the employment by Enron of former CIA agents, the employment by Enron of current CIA agents who were given leaves of absence from the agency to work for Enron, and the truly Byzantine entanglements of Deutschebank, the CIA's no. 3 man A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, Bayer, United Air Lines, and former Bush I counselor John Schmitz. =46locco ended his presentation with a stinging attack on C-SPAN. Despite repeated pleading and begging using C-SPAN's own policy of covering events at the National Press Club, C-SPAN chose to ignore the UnansweredQuestions.org press conference, instead airing reruns of Capitol Journal. Next up was Michael Springmann, an attorney with 20 years of government service, who had been head of the visa section at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Springmann reported that at least 100 visas he had denied were eventually issued by consular officials that were known CIA agents, or persons Springmann suspected were CIA agents. He denied visas to two Pakistanis who wanted to go to a trade show, but didn't know what trade show they were going to, or even what city it was in. He denied visa approval for a Sudanese individual he felt had no legitimate reason for entering the U.S. but was overruled by a consular official, who said "we need him" for national security reasons. While this was going on in the late-'80s Springmann thought he was witnessing "visa fraud," believing that people were paying bribes to officials to get visas they would otherwise be denied. He later found he was wrong. What Springmann actually saw was the CIA bringing terrorists into the United States for training against the Soviet Union's troops in Afghanistan. He believes this is still going on and points out that 15 of the 19 named 9-11 hijackers got their visas in Jeddah at, in one of the more amazing Freudian slips in history, what Springmann calls the "CIA consulate." He points out that all of these visas were issued under the "visa express" program, a system under which questionable visa paperwork is mingled with large amounts of ordinary paperwork in the hope it will sail through unnoticed. Celerino Castillo, former Drug Enforcement Agency officer says the "visa express" program was commonly used for CIA assets in Central America. Springmann rattled off a long list of major mainstream media outlets he has approached with his story. Not one has expressed any interest. While the events of 9-11 have sparked widespread skepticism of the official government story and an almost equally widespread belief that our government is a criminal enterprise, the reaction to that September day is having tremendous ramifications for every American. Speaking to that point was Jennifer Van Bergen. Van Bergen is an attorney, a faculty member at the New School for Social Research in New York, and a contributing editor to truthout.org. Van Bergen published a six-part series on the Patriot Act on truthout.org and spoke about it at the press conference. She pointed out that the act, which at about 400 pages is not known to have been read in its entirety by a single legislator voting on it, nullifies several portions of the U.S. Constitution. It also significantly increases the burden on law enforcement, and shifts a huge amount of power to the president. She also pointed out that no one has said 9-11 would have been prevented had the new law been in effect. Specifically, Van Bergen pointed out that Section 216 of the Patriot Act allows law enforcement agents to tap an individual's phone and computer without probable cause. All that's required for the rubber stamp warrant is an officer's statement that the tap will be "relevant" to an investigation. Section 218 allows secret searches of private homes and businesses if the search has a "significant foreign intelligence purpose." Section 802 creates a new crime, "domestic terrorism," defined as "any act designed to intimidate or coerce change in government policy." Van Bergen said that under the act, all civil disobedience is now "domestic terrorism," and a crime. Section 411 states any organization endorsing the type of behavior criminalized in Section 802 will be classified as a "terrorist organization." So conceivably under the Patriot Act, parents blocking an intersection to demand a traffic light be installed to protect their children going to and from school are criminals. Despite being shutout by C-SPAN, the UnansweredQuestions.org press conference was well attended, with a great deal of domestic, as well as foreign, media present. It's obvious the mainstream media has a vested interest in following the Bush Administration's story blindly, and so the world will have to rely on the "alternative" press to get the information it needs. The press conference was the first event to bring people from different disciplines together to search for the truth. It signaled the beginning of a time in which, according to Tom =46locco, "People can no longer follow First Lady Laura Bush's advice when she says, 'Don't worry. Tell your children not to be afraid.'" =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D (Source: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/062102_pressconf.html ) From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Jun 28 22:36:09 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 15:36:09 -0700 Subject: ZGram - June 28, 2002 - "Nuclear plot suspects freed after mix-up" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 28, 2002 Good Mornig from the Zundelsite: When I read the article below, I thought at first it was a re-run from a previous, eerily similar article about some "Israelis" traveling in the Midwest with maps of nuclear plants, Alaska pipeline etc. and even "box cutter" items. As you will remember, they were stopped on the highway by US Highway Patrol but let go - and guess what? Right! Another "security mixup"! Will this story likewise drop into the Memory Hole? [START] Nuclear plot suspects freed after mix-up Julian Borger in Washington Thursday November 1, 2001 The Guardian Six "Middle Eastern" men were stopped in the American Midwest while carrying pictures and plans of a Florida nuclear plant and the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, only to be released after a security mix-up, it was revealed yesterday. The incident, which took place in an unnamed state last weekend, is one of the factors that triggered a string of heightened security measures at US nuclear power stations, including a ban on flights below 18,000ft and within 10 miles of a reactor. The mix-up that led to their release has also opened up rifts between America's security services. Another of the factors behind the FBI's general alert was revealed yesterday as the interception of communications between known members of al-Qaida. One of them was sent from Canada to Afghanistan, and passed to the US by Canadian intelligence. According to one report, the message referred to a big event which was supposed to happen "down south" this week. A source close to the investigation into the September 11 attacks said the men stopped in the Midwest - travelling in two groups of three in light-coloured cars - were of Middle Eastern appearance and were carrying Israeli passports. As well as the pictures and descriptions of the nuclear plant and the pipeline, retractable knives similar to the so-called box cutters used by the September 11 hijackers were found in the cars. "The police did check the passport numbers with the INS (Immigration and Naturalisation Service), but got an OK on them, so they let them go," the source said. It was unclear last night whether the men had Hebrew or Arab names, and a spokesman for the Israeli embassy said he was unaware of the incident. The INS also denied any knowledge of the incident. The attorney general, John Ashcroft, and the FBI director, Robert Mueller, were said to be "furious" that the INS allowed the men to go free before the FBI could question them. Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of CIA counter-terrorist operations said the incident exposed the deficiencies of the US security organisations. "There's a lot of bickering, a lot of turf battles. You've got a culture which doesn't share information. I don't see how you go about breaking that," Mr Cannistraro said. Tom Ridge, the newly created director of homeland security, has the task of forcing the competing agencies to cooperate, but so far he has had difficulties coordinating the administration's message. ===== Source: ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,584658,00.html ) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sun Jun 30 02:02:20 2002 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 19:02:20 -0700 Subject: ZGram - 6/29/2002 - "Telling stats!" Message-ID: ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny June 29, 2002 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Both friend and foe should ponder this one! Short but meaningful! [START] One in three Europeans 'is anti Semitic' By Robert Mendick 30 June 2002 A new form of anti-Semitism has taken hold in Europe, fuelled by anti-Israeli sentiment, according to a survey which shows almost one in three Europeans now harbours some anti-Jewish feelings. Attitudes towards Jews vary across the five countries surveyed with Belgians, Germans and the French "most likely to hold a prejudiced view of Jews". Denmark and the UK are said to be the least prejudiced. But attitudes in the UK show a worryingly high level of anti-Semitic sentiment. The findings of 2,500 people polled - 500 in each country - show 30 per cent harboured traditional anti-Jewish views. The survey was commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League, a US-based organisation set up just before the First World War to combat anti-Semitism in the US. Those polled were each read out four statements containing stereotypical anti-Semitic sentiments. The numbers who thought the statements "probably true" varied from country to country but were still very high. One in five Britons believes Jews have too much power in the business world. More than 10 per cent of those surveyed in the UK believed Jews are "more willing to use shady practices to get what they want". One in 10 believes "Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind" while one in three considers "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country". Fiona Macaulay of the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: "These findings are shocking. If one was to substitute the word Jew for black there would be outrage." [END] ===== ( Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=310541 )