Sunday, August 27, 2006

"3 US SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ" ON SUNDAY. GOD BLESS THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES.


3 US soldiers killed in Iraq, US military says

Published:
08.28.06, 01:08

Two US soldiers were killed in Iraq Sunday, a day after another American soldier died in a roadside bomb explosion, the US military command said.

One soldier died in western Baghdad on Sunday afternoon after a roadside bomb explosion hit the vehicle he was traveling in, while another was killed by gunfire in the eastern part of the capital, the military said in
statements. (AP)

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

THE ZIONIST STATE OF ISRAEL EQUALS "JEWISH SUPREMACISM" AND DR. DAVID DUKE HAS PROOF FROM THE JEWS THAT HE QUOTES!



David Duke is a man that is not afraid to be a patriot of the United States, and he follows in the footsteps of our forefathers that wrote a Constitution and a Declaration of Independence that gives all the freedom of speech! David Duke is one of the most vilified men in the Country because he dares to speak the truth. We were never a country founded on Judeo-Christianity, and that is pure bunk that is created by the Zionists. I am a born again Christian, and David is a Christian. I am suggesting that readers of this blog purchase this book. You will have to order it directly from Davidduke.com because you will not be able to receive it from Amazon.com. I tried to purchase the book for four months and kept getting messages that it was not in stock, so I ordered it directly from Dr. David Duke and he autographed it for me. David Duke is a fellow Christian, but most Christians follow the lead from the Jewish controlled media and spit on his name and character. As you see, the book cover has he star of David over our United States Flag. Shocking, maybe to some, but sadly this is the state of our Country today. I am not asleep and lulled into a false theology that is dictated by the Jews that have used scare tactics on Christian churches to abandon the teaching of the New Testament. Read the King James Version of the Holy Bible, and a good place to start is in Matthew. Open your eyes to the truth.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

"WAS WORLD WAR II WORTH IT" BY PATRICK J. BUCHANAN: 50 MILLION DEAD


Was World War II Worth It?
Opinion; Posted on: 2006-08-17 23:23:57
For Stalin, yes
by Patrick J. Buchanan In the Bush vs. Putin debate on World War II, Putin had far the more difficult assignment. Defending Russia’s record in the “Great Patriotic War,” the Russian president declared, “Our people not only defended their homeland, they liberated 11 European countries.” Those countries are, presumably: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Finland. To ascertain whether Moscow truly liberated those lands, we might survey the sons and daughters of the generation that survived liberation by a Red Army that pillaged, raped, and murdered its way westward across Europe. As at Katyn Forest, that army eradicated the real heroes who fought to retain the national and Christian character of their countries.To Bush, these nations were not liberated. “As we mark a victory of six decades ago, we are mindful of a paradox,” he said: “For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V-E day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end the oppression. The agreement in Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. … The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs in history.” Bush told the awful truth about what really triumphed in World War II east of the Elbe. And it was not freedom. It was Stalin, the most odious tyrant of the century. Where Hitler killed his millions, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, and Castro murdered their tens of millions. Leninism was the Black Death of the 20th century. The truths bravely declared by Bush at Riga, Latvia, raise questions that too long remained hidden, buried, or ignored. If Yalta was a betrayal of small nations as immoral as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, why do we venerate Churchill and FDR? At Yalta, this pair secretly ceded those small nations to Stalin, co-signing a cynical “Declaration on Liberated Europe” that was a monstrous lie. As FDR and Churchill consigned these peoples to a Stalinist hell run by a monster they alternately and affectionately called “Uncle Joe” and “Old Bear,” why are they not in the history books alongside Neville Chamberlain, who sold out the Czechs at Munich by handing the Sudetenland over to Germany? At least the Sudeten Germans wanted to be with Germany. No Christian peoples of Europe ever embraced their Soviet captors or Stalinist quislings. Other questions arise. If Britain endured six years of war and hundreds of thousands of dead in a war she declared to defend Polish freedom, and Polish freedom was lost to communism, how can we say Britain won the war? If the West went to war to stop Hitler from dominating Eastern and Central Europe, and Eastern and Central Europe ended up under a tyranny even more odious, as Bush implies, did Western civilization win the war? In 1938, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain refused. In 1939, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Poland. Chamberlain agreed. At the end of the war Churchill wanted and got, Czechoslovakia and Poland were in Stalin’s empire. How, then, can men proclaim Churchill “Man of the Century”? True, U.S. and British troops liberated France, Holland, and Belgium from Nazi occupation. But before Britain declared war on Germany, France, Holland, and Belgium did not need to be liberated. They were free. They were only invaded and occupied after Britain and France declared war on Germany – on behalf of Poland. When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France – hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires – was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway? If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a “smashing” success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in. If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe. Was that worth fighting a world war – with 50 million dead?
Source: Author • Printed from National Vanguard( http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=9868 )

Thursday, August 17, 2006

'THE US AND ISRAEL STAND ALONE" INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT CARTER


SPIEGEL ONLINE - August 15, 2006, 12:51 PMURL: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,431793,00.html
SPIEGEL Interview with Jimmy Carter "The US and Israel Stand Alone"Former US president Jimmy Carter speaks with DER SPIEGEL about the danger posed to American values by George W. Bush, the difficult situation in the Middle East and Cuba's ailing Fidel Castro.
AP
Former US president Jimmy Carter: "I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon."SPIEGEL: Mr. Carter, in your new book you write that only the American people can ensure that the US government returns to the country's old moral principles. Are you suggesting that the current US administration of George W. Bush of acting immorally?
Carter: There's no doubt that this administration has made a radical and unpressured departure from the basic policies of all previous administrations including those of both Republican and Democratic presidents.
SPIEGEL: For example?
Carter: Under all of its predecessors there was a commitment to peace instead of preemptive war. Our country always had a policy of not going to war unless our own security was directly threatened and now we have a new policy of going to war on a preemptive basis. Another very serious departure from past policies is the separation of church and state, which I describe in the book. This has been a policy since the time of Thomas Jefferson and my own religious beliefs are compatible with this. The other principle that I described in the book is basic justice. We've never had an administration before that so overtly and clearly and consistently passed tax reform bills that were uniquely targeted to benefit the richest people in our country at the expense or the detriment of the working families of America.
SPIEGEL: You also mentioned the hatred for the United States throughout the Arab world which has ensued as a result of the invasion of Iraq. Given this circumstance, does it come as any surprise that Washington's call for democracy in the Middle East has been discredited?
Carter: No, as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon.
SPIEGEL: But wasn't Israel the first to get attacked?
Carter: I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon. What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that's justified, no.
SPIEGEL: Do you think the United States is still an important factor in securing a peaceful solution to the Middle East crisis?
Carter: Yes, as a matter of fact as you know ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton. This administration has not attempted at all in the last six years to negotiate or attempt to negotiate a settlement between Israel and any of its neighbors or the Palestinians.
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SPIEGEL: What makes you personally so optimistic about the effectiveness of diplomacy? You are, so to speak, the father of Camp David negotiations.
Carter: When I became president we had had four terrible wars between the Arabs and Israelis (behind us). And I under great difficulty, particularly because Menachim Begin was elected, decided to try negotiation and it worked and we have a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt for 27 years that has never been violated. You never can be certain in advance that negotiations on difficult circumstances will be successful, but you can be certain in advance if you don't negotiate that your problem is going to continue and maybe even get worse.
SPIEGEL: But negotiations failed to prevent the burning of Beirut and bombardment of Haifa.
Carter: I'm distressed. But I think that the proposals that have been made in the last few days by the (Lebanese) Prime Minister (Fuoad) Siniora are quite reasonable. And I think they should declare an immediate cease-fire on both sides, Hezbollah said they would comply, I hope Israel will comply, and then do the long, slow, tedious negotiation that is necessary to stabilize the northern border of Israel completely. There has to be some exchange of prisoners. There have been successful exchanges of prisoners between Israel and the Palestinians in the past and that's something that can be done right now.
SPIEGEL: Should there be an international peacekeeping force along the Lebanese-Israeli border?
Carter: Yes.
SPIEGEL: And can you imagine Germans soldiers taking part?
Carter: Yes, I can imagine Germans taking part.
SPIEGEL: ... even with their history?
Carter: Yes. That would be certainly satisfactory to me personally, and I think most people believe that enough time has passed so that historical facts can be ignored.
SPIEGEL: One main points of your book is the rather strange coalition between Christian fundamentalists and the Republican Party. How can such a coalition of the pious lead to moral catastrophes like the Iraqi prison scandal in Abu Ghraib and torture in Guantanamo?
Carter: The fundamentalists believe they have a unique relationship with God, and that they and their ideas are God's ideas and God's premises on the particular issue. Therefore, by definition since they are speaking for God anyone who disagrees with them is inherently wrong. And the next step is: Those who disagree with them are inherently inferior, and in extreme cases -- as is the case with some fundamentalists around the world -- it makes your opponents sub-humans, so that their lives are not significant. Another thing is that a fundamentalist can't bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality. And so this administration, for instance, has a policy of just refusing to talk to someone who is in strong disagreement with them -- which is also a radical departure from past history. So these are the kinds of things that cause me concern. And, of course, fundamentalists don't believe they can make mistakes, so when we permit the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, it's just impossible for a fundamentalist to admit that a mistake was made.
SPIEGEL: So how does this proximity to Christian fundamentalism manifest itself politically?
AP
US President George Bush pauses during remarks about the Middle East while joined by Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.Carter: Unfortunately, after Sept., there was an outburst in America of intense suffering and patriotism, and the Bush administration was very shrewd and effective in painting anyone who disagreed with the policies as unpatriotic or even traitorous. For three years, I'd say, the major news media in our country were complicit in this subservience to the Bush administration out of fear that they would be accused of being disloyal. I think in the last six months or so some of the media have now begun to be critical. But it's a long time coming.
SPIEGEL: Take your fellow Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton. These days she is demanding the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But she, like many others, allowed President Bush to invade Iraq under a false pretext.
Carter: That's correct.
SPIEGEL: Was the whole country in danger of losing its core values?
Carter: For a while, yes. As you possibly know, historically, our country has had the capability of self-correcting our own mistakes. This applied to slavery in 1865, it applied to legal racial segregation a hundred years later or so. It applied to the Joe McCarthy era when anti-communism was in a fearsome phase in the country like terrorism now. So we have an ability to correct ourselves and I believe that nowadays there is a self-correction taking place. In my opinion the election results in Connecticut (Eds: The primary loss of war supporter Senator Joseph Lieberman) were an indication that Americans realized very clearly that we made a mistake in going into Iraq and staying there too long.
SPIEGEL: Now even President Bush appears to have learned something from the catastrophe in Iraq. During his second term he has taken a more multilateral approach and has seemed to return to international cooperation.
Carter: I think the administration learned a lesson, but I don't see any indication that the administration would ever admit that it did make a mistake and needed to learn a lesson. I haven't seen much indication, by the way, of your premise that this administration is now reconciling itself to other countries. I think that at this moment the United States and Israel probably stand more alone than our country has in generations.
SPIEGEL: You've written about your meeting with Fidel Castro. He appears seriously ill now and Cuban exiles are partying already in the streets of Miami. You are probably not in the mood to join them.
Carter: No, that's true. Just because someone is ill I don't think there should be a celebration of potential death. And my own belief is that Fidel Castro will recover. He is two years younger than I am, so he's not beyond hope.
DPA
Cuban President Fidel Castro and former US president Jimmy Carter at a baseball game in 2002 in Havana.SPIEGEL: You sought to normalize relations with Castro, but that never happened. Has anything been achieved through Cuba's isolation?
Carter: In my opinion, the embargo strengthens Castro and perpetuates communism in Cuba. A maximum degree of trade, tourism, commerce, visitation between our country and Cuba would bring an earlier end to Castro's regime.
SPIEGEL: You've been called the moral conscience of your country. How do you look at it yourself? Are you an outsider in American politics these days or do you represent a political demographic that could maybe elect the next US president?
Carter: I think I represent the vast majority of Democrats in this country. I think there is a substantial portion of American people that completely agree with me. I can't say a majority because we have fragmented portions in our country and divisions concerning gun control and the death penalty and abortion and gay marriage.
SPIEGEL: As president, your performance was often criticized. But the work you did after leaving office to promote human rights has been widely praised. Has life been unfair to you?
Carter: I've been lucky in my life. Everything that I've done has brought great pleasure and gratification to me and my wife. I had four years in the White House -- it was not a failure. For someone to serve as president of the United States you can't say it is a political failure. And we have had the best years of our lives since we left the White House. We've had a very full life.
SPIEGEL: Do you feel you achieved even more out of office than you did as president?
Carter: Well, I've used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I've still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.
SPIEGEL: Does America need a regime change?
Carter: As I've said before, there is a self-corrective aspect to our country. And I think that the first step is going to be in the November election this year. This year, the Democrats have good chance of capturing one of the houses of Congress. I think the Senate is going to be a very close decision. My oldest son is running for the US Senate in the state of Nevada. And if just he and a few others can be successful then you have the US Senate in Democratic hands and that will make a profound and immediate difference.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Carter, thank you for the interview.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

REUVEN SCHOSSEN HAS CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY: DESCRIBES WHAT ISRAEL MEANS IN THE SCRIPTURES AND HAS BEEN IN EXILE SINCE 2002


Zionist Christians - A Mossad OperationDo Zionist Christians Know That The Name Of Jesus Was Changed In Israel?
By Reuven SchossenAugust 15th, 2006
I was born to Jewish parents. Some of my more distant family died in the European Wars of the 20th century. Yet, I am a Christian. My conversion was a long process and began when I was a student at an Israeli high-school on a kibbutz in the Jordan Valley. There, I learned that Jesus’ name in Hebrew had been changed so that it is now an acronym meaning “Be His Name and Memories Forgotten.” Hitler’s name had not been touched, hence - I thought - Jesus must have committed a very serious crime. Indeed he had. By putting the emphasis on faith and love he seriously threatened the Pharisees - later to be called Rabbis - and their monopoly on the interpretation of the Old Testament.
The Pharisees used their interpretation, called the Talmud, to create a convenient life for their group. For this, Jesus called them hypocrites. It took me a long time to walk the rest of the way to the Christian Church. One of the roadblocks was the Pharisaic propaganda that teaches that Judaism is both a religion and an ethnic group, implying thus that a Jew cannot convert. A more serious problem was the Christian teaching that we are all sinners. Jews believe they are born perfect; from childhood they are told they are the Chosen People.
For a long time, I accepted all of the Christian Doctrine, except for that one point. “I didn’t kill,” I kept telling myself. One day, I tried a semantic exchange and told myself “I am not perfect.” The next step was immediate and I understood that I am a sinner because I am imperfect and thus unable to keep any set of religious laws. Expanding on the subject is beyond the scope of this article, but afterwards I completely embraced the Christian World: it is within my mind and, mainly, within my heart.
I am not a Charismatic, not a Pentecostal, not even a Catholic; I am an active member of the original Evangelical denomination, the Lutheran Church and even hold a formal position as the adult school teacher in the congregation of which I am a member in La Paz, Bolivia. I teach the Bible in Hebrew at the Biblical Evangelical Seminary there - the biggest in the country - and am regularly invited to speak at many churches. I have given sermons, devotionals, appeared on radio programs, led professional groups and study groups in Lutheran, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Neo-Pentecostal and Brethren Churches. I am mainstream Christian, well-known and widely accepted by the Bolivian Evangelical communities. Bolivia is the country that provided me with political asylum once the State of Israel began persecuting me due to my writings.
It was hard for me to ignore the Zionist influence in Bolivia. Many members of the Pentecostal Churches wear Stars of David - a Hindu symbol for spiritual strength - which was stolen by the Pharisees in a moment of spiritual weakness. Until they heard me speak, many of them confused the State of Israel with the Kingdom of Israel. Classical Christian Theology teaches that the Kingdom of Israel is a spiritual one and that we, people of good faith and loving temperament, are it. The State of Israel is just one more of the tribulations described in the New Testament.
I began explaining, carefully and with love, this poisonous error which Zionism purposely introduces into Christianity. We can all make mistakes or be manipulated into mistakes. On two different occasions, I spotted listeners ripping off their Stars of David. Once, I was told, in tears: “Until I heard you, I didn’t feel worthy of God for not having been born Jewish.”
This diabolical interpretation - that the State of Israel is the Kingdom - is aggressively pushed by the Zionists internationally. They use it as a subversive tool with which to secure the active support of some poorly educated Evangelical Churches, mainly in the USA. Soon I found that Bolivia is important to the Zionists. The poorest country in South America, it has a huge Evangelical community.
Since Americans are not good missionaries, because of their negative image worldwide, Zionist Missionaries prefer to train Bolivians for the job. “They are of the right size and color for that work,” a missionary husband once told me in a racist tone. A few weeks later, his wife stood up and left one of my classes in which I was teaching the Sermon on the Mount - specifically the part about the persecution of those who seek justice - and she never returned. When it became obvious that I was straightening the tangled vines, I began receiving direct threats from the State of Israel and suffered a warning attack in February, 2006.
A month later, an article about me was published in the American media and I was contacted regarding its contents by someone who claimed to be a Jewish convert to Christianity. I gave a courteous answer but not any special treatment for “there is neither Jew nor Greek,” the Scriptures teach. Shortly thereafter, he began sending me emails by the dozen. It was a tactic I had already seen and I like to call it “carpeting.”
Whenever security services want to learn something about your connections, affiliations or preferences, they like to bait you with many different options and then they look carefully at which ones you pick up. Automatically, this self-defined Christian convert fell onto my list of suspected Mossad agents. After I did a radio interview setting forth the same ideas as those in this article, he did one himself and therein claimed that Christians and Rabbis are the same, excepting the belief in Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth and nearer to the Mossad’s long term strategy for deceptively undermining Christianity.
Later, in the United States, I was traveling between Santa Fe and San Francisco due to the idiosyncrasies of my complicated political asylum process. In a daring move, I invited myself to visit this agent in Colorado. The carpeting went wild there and I have no room for a detailed account, but I was positively convinced that he is no Christian. He knew the Israeli Evangelical Churches, but in the way a policeman does, and he named all of them in Jerusalem, seeking my reactions. Proselytizing in Israel is a crime and all these churches are under heavy restrictions and surveillance. Years before, I belonged to a Christian group in Tel Aviv which is unknown to the Israeli police. Much of my discussion with Mossad agents involves their attempts to get names and addresses. Needless to say, they have always failed miserably.
Part of the carpeting this time was weird. The agent offered me political asylum in Iran, a fake American passport with which to visit Israel (and thus potentially to disclose an underground church), and even a phone number in Fort Collins from which I could make international long distance calls for free (and probably be closely monitored). After I politely rejected these proposals, he added - and not in a particularly Christian way - that Israeli thugs will beat me with sticks until nothing is left on my shoulders, and that sometimes he “feels like killing someone.” I was unimpressed by that; I’m too experienced to be excited by a bubbling provocateur. The thrilling part, entirely new to me, was that he lives within a Zionist Christian community. Apparently he supervises or monitors their indoctrination for the Mossad.
Only by understanding these techniques and goals of the Pharisaic and Zionist movements - only by understanding that their long term hatred of the Christian World demonstrates that it is the ultimate answer to the Pharisaic-Zionist outrages - will it be possible to block these well-designed long-term strategies. Today, we are still in a position to make a change; tomorrow it may be too late. Even Hitler’s name wasn’t changed.
Rueven’s home page:http://www.schossen.com
Source: Rense.com
(Rueven reports an incredible story that may be hard to believe for some, yet it is known that in 1981 the state of Israel under the terrorist and war criminal Menahem Begin, gave Christian Zionist Jerry Falwell a private jet, and who knows what other perks the other Christian Zionist organizations have received over the years for helping to bail out that bandit state. Picking up where Rueven leaves off would make for an interesting topic for an investigative reporter to cover, anyways if you are interested in more on Reuven Schossen’s story you can hear him interviewed at the link below — Staff)

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

JACOB KOBI ALEXANDER BACKDATING OPTIONS AND RIPPING OFF INVESTORS: EX-CEO OF CONVERSE TECHNOLOGY

Financial ServicesOptions ChargesLiz Moyer, 08.09.06, 1:40 PM ET (from Forbes.com)
The ex-CEO of Comverse Technology arranged a secret slush fund of stock options by directing grants to "phantom" employees in a special account set up for the purpose, according to federal prosecutors.
The U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday that the slush fund was part of an elaborate fraud carried out by three former senior executives of Comverse , including former CEO and founder Jacob "Kobi" Alexander.
Options amassed in the secret account were doled out to real employees without the approval of the board's compensation committee, the government contends. In addition, Alexander and his finance chief allegedly tried to conceal the slush fund from the board and from the company's outside auditors.
The Justice Department says Alexander wired $60 million from his own brokerage account to Israel "in an attempt to conceal the proceeds from the U.S. authorities."
An attorney for Alexander couldn't immediately be reached.
The government has charged Alexander, along with Comverse's former finance chief David Kreinberg and former general counsel William Sorin, with various counts of fraud, including mail and wire fraud, in connection with its ongoing investigation into the backdating of options grants.
The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York says the three conspired to manipulate and deceive Comverse investors. Among the allegations: Options grants to new employees were routinely backdated, and underwater options to existing employees were repriced to put them in the money.
Kreinberg and Sorin surrendered to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Wednesday. Alexander is believed to be out of the country, a person familiar with the matter said.
This is the government's second series of charges filed against former executives in connection with options backdating. Last month, the Justice Department brought charges against former executives of Brocade Communications Systems, including its ex-CEO Gregory Reyes.
The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a complaint against the three Comverse executives on Wednesday. In the Brocade case, the SEC also announced charges on the same day as the Justice Department.
Comverse, a New York-based voicemail and voice messaging systems firm, was founded by Alexander in the 1980s. The U.S. Attorney charges that the men devised a scheme to backdate millions of stock options granted to themselves and their employees to days when Comverse stock was trading at periodic lows.
"[The] defendants backdated every companywide grant from 1998 to 2001, and they backdated grants of options to new employees," according to an affidavit submitted to the federal District Court in Brooklyn.
Alexander's profits from exercising options and selling stock from 1991 to 2005 were $138 million. The Justice Department says $6.4 million of that profit was due to backdated options. In 2000, Alexander made profits of $86 million, of which $1.3 million was from backdating, the government charges. Last year and early this year, Alexander exercised $11 million worth of backdated options that were previously underwater until they were repriced. The charges contend that about $5.3 million of that amount was profit.
The government is looking into options grants at more than 80 companies, and several large firms have said in recent months that they were conducting their own internal investigations.
Last week, Apple Computer said it would have to restate earnings after finding irregularities in its options accounting. Pixar, now owned by The Walt Disney Co., unveiled issues with its options accounting this week, though Disney said Wednesday that it didn't expect the problems to have any material impact on the company, and that the practices took place before it took control of the company.
With additional reporting by Hannah Clark.

"NORMAN PODHORETZ'S LOVE AFFAIR WITH AMERICA..."

June 23, 2004, 10:43 a.m.The Patriot
Norman Podhoretz’s Love Affair.
By Seth Lipsky
EDITOR'S NOTE: This review of Norman Podhoretz's
My Love Affair with America: The Cautionary Tale of a Cheerful Conservative appeared in the July 31, 2000, issue of National Review.
When Norman Podhoretz stepped down as editor of Commentary, the Forward, which I was then editing, published a Podhoretz Sampler. To compile it we read all of the pieces he had written for the magazine he edited for 35 years. It would have been possible to garner a memorable paragraph from nearly every one of them, though limitations on space permitted us to quote only two dozen. We wrote a brief italic introduction that described the sampler as a "salute to a giant of Jewish journalism." This point stopped a few of the editors momentarily, and we worked the phrasing around a bit. Maybe, we thought, we should call him a giant of American journalism. Out of deference to the Forward's beat, we stuck with Jewish, though Podhoretz is, of course, a giant of both.
This fact is underscored by his slim memoir, My Love Affair with America: The Cautionary Tale of a Cheerful Conservative. He opens with a little disquisition on patriotism, quoting Bertrand Russell as saying, "Love of Eng land is very nearly the strongest emotion I possess," and explaining that he, Podhoretz, feels much the same way about America. He says he only plumbed the depths of that feeling in the course of being driven, almost against his will, to defend the country against its ideological enemies on the Left. He then sketches the arc of his ardor, starting in elementary school in Brooklyn, on through his years at Cambridge and his service in the army, and then the editorship of Commentary. This encompassed ten years during which he fell in with the very left-wing critics against whom he would appear in intellectual arms during the climactic years of the struggle against Soviet Communism.
Many have followed the trajectory Podhoretz took from Left to Right. Millions of Jews, immigrants themselves or, like Podhoretz, the children of immigrants, have found that America-its freedom and opportunities and decency-awakened in them an affection that is almost religious in its fervor. I have been struck by the number of Jewish intellectuals who are infatuated, even obsessed, with the American Founders and their written campaign on behalf of American constitutionalism: Podhoretz, one can see here, is among them. What is different about him is the fidelity with which he has maintained a focus of Jewish particularity throughout his career, a record that has inspired a lot of us who have followed, to one degree or another, in his wake: this, and the shrewdness with which he has been able to discern the Jewish interest through the fog of the wars of ideas.
Podhoretz obviously came from great stock. Among the many diverting asides here is one about his mother's reaction to the discovery that the other winner of Columbia's Kellett scholarship the year Podhoretz gained it was a lad named Emmanuel Chill. Mrs. Pod horetz correctly deduced that it must be the son of Ida Chiel, who came to America with Mrs. Podhoretz and, during the crossing, taught her how to greet in English her father whom she would meet when they landed. The women had drifted apart and lived as members of the working class. "Yet," Podhoretz marvels, "America had found two of their sons there, plucked them up, and deposited them into a great university in which Jews were still only grudgingly welcomed."
Podhoretz's early travels abroad quickened his feelings for America. A visit to Israel sealed the deal. "Six weeks there finished what a year in England had inaugurated," Podhoretz writes. "No doubt the Jewish people had been in exile, but not this Jew, not me. My true homeland was America, and the Jewish homeland was, so far as I was concerned, a foreign country." While he was happy that Israel had been established as a sovereign state to which persecuted Jews could flee, he could not imagine such a thing happening to him or the Jews of America. But "if, God forbid, it ever did and I was forced to settle in Israel, I would almost certainly feel that I was now in exile." These sentiments shocked and offended his Israeli friends, none of whom, he observes, could have imagined "in their worst nightmares" that their "post-Zionist" children and grandchildren would one day question "the very legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state."
The issue of carrying criticism of one's country too far is where Podhoretz parted company with the Left in what, for me, has always been the most mystifying chapter of his life: Vietnam. Podhoretz was one of the earliest opponents of American intervention, on the ground that it was, in Gen. Maxwell Taylor's phrase, "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." This view was sharply different from that of more radical opponents of the war. "In that alternative view," Podhoretz writes, "the American intervention in Vietnam was not a mistaken extension to Asia of the strategy of containment that had worked so well in holding the Soviet Union back in Europe; it was a criminal act of imperialism aimed at suppressing the legitimate national aspirations of a downtrodden dark-skinned people."
I have come to view America's expedition in Vietnam as having been directed precisely to the right place (where the Communists attacked) and at the right time (when they were attacking). Nonetheless, I found Pod horetz's reprise of this passage in his career not only illuminating but satisfying. His patriotism was sorely tested. But his love of America remained "strong enough to withstand more than a dozen years of deep disapproval over its ever-escalating involvement in a war that I thought it should never have entered." It also survived a close association with people who did not hesitate to compare America to Nazi Germany. The first time Podhoretz heard such a comparison, over dinner with a good friend, he stormed out of the restaurant, shouting that if he himself felt that way, he'd consider emigration the only honorable course. His friend "responded with a smirk and cut himself another slice of steak."
The tendency to liken America to the Nazis has shown itself not only on the Left, but occasionally also on the Right, and Podhoretz is vigilant there as well. Hence the "cautionary" aspect of his title. He recounts one notorious such incident, when pro-life advocates, furious over judicial imperialism, asked in the conservative magazine First Things whether revolution was "morally justified" by these abuses. Podhoretz responded by lighting out after a number of his friends on the Right-demonstrating why so many of us have come to rely on his judgment, his shrewdly drawn distinctions, and his patriotism. He gives voice to this sentiment in a moving closing he calls an "American-style dayyenu" — inspired by the Hebrew hymn, recited at Passover, of thanks for God's blessings. Here Podhoretz lists the many blessings America gave him, any one of which would have been enough.

BEEBEE'S COMMENT: I am posting this because this is again a author that is featured on Redstate.com. You see, I am glad that Podheretz is proud of his many blessing from America. But again, it is a Jewish writer that is complaining per the article on Redstate that Islam is not described in this particular writing defining Jihad, etc. See Redstate.com for followup. I do not know how to set up trackbacks, and do not care to take the time to learn. You see, the gentiles have been erased from history in the United States. Our opinions do not matter, as the far right wing party of the Republican Party is now defined by clear Jewish thought and writing. Oh most see that the neocons are the ones leading us to war, but most just say what in the heck is a neocon and then go on about their daily lives. I have been trying to point out to Erick, et al that our Middle East Wars are related to oil and Jewish interests. But that is taboo to the majority that walk around with invisible masking tape on their mouths. I will write and think what I wish, and will live out the freedom that patriots gave to me! That will soon be dead in the United States, when the First Amendment is eliminated. Think it can't happen?

Monday, August 14, 2006

"OLMERT'S WAR, AND THE NEXT ONE" BY PATRICK BUCHANAN

Olmert's War,
and the Next One
by Patrick J. BuchananAugust 15, 2006

When Israel answered the Hezbollah raid that captured two soldiers with air strikes on Lebanon's airport, runways, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, buses, apartment houses, and power plants, we who questioned the wisdom and morality of what Israel was doing were denounced as anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.
Turns out we were right. In private, even Israeli army generals were raging that Israel was fighting a stupid, losing war.
Ehud Olmert, who gave Chief of Staff Dan Halutz the green light to launch the shock-and-awe air campaign, cannot survive the moral, political, and strategic disaster his country has suffered.
While the Israeli air force was hammering Lebanon, Hezbollah rained down 3,000 rockets on Israel and fought off pinprick raids. When the Israeli army, after a month, moved in force against the real enemy, Hezbollah, Israel had already suffered irreparable damage to its reputation as a fighting nation and a moral country.
As the war began, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Bahrain all condemned Hezbollah, as did the Beirut government, for inciting the war. But with Hezbollah's defiant resistance, as Israel smashed up Lebanon, the Arab street rallied to Nasrallah. Arab regimes followed.
The losers?
Lebanon, which suffered 800 dead, thousands injured, and 1 million made refugees, saw its infrastructure destroyed and nation set back 20 years. If the government falls or Lebanon becomes a failed state, it will be an even greater calamity for the Lebanese, and for Israel and the Middle East. For the mightiest political and military force in Lebanon, and likely heir apparent to power slipping away from Prime Minister Siniora, is now Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah.
Says Walid Jumblatt, savage critic of Hezbollah and its Syrian alliance, "Hassan Nasrallah has won militarily and politically, and has become a new leader like Nasser."
Another loser is Israel, and Olmert, who seized on the border skirmish to launch his Lebanon war. Writes Ari Shavit of Ha'aretz:
"Chutzpah has its limits. You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeats, and remain in power. You cannot bury 120 Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month, wear down deterrent power, bring the next war very close, and then say, oops, I made a mistake."
Olmert and Halutz are history. The Kadima Party regime will fall. Left and Right are already tearing at its flanks.
What does this mean? The Sharon-Olmert policy of unilateral withdrawal from the territories is dead. The Hamas-led Palestinian authority, the creation of the freest and fairest elections ever held in Palestine, is on a death watch, after Israel's starvation blockade and ravaging of the Gaza Strip, which has left 150 Palestinians dead.
A new Israeli regime will not withdraw from any more land, nor shut down any more settlements, nor vacate any part of Jerusalem, nor negotiate with a Palestinian Authority led by Hamas, or by a PLO that is unable to disarm Hamas. We are at a dead end, as George W. Bush will not push the Israelis to do anything, nor will Congress.
America is another loser.
The United States knew in advance Israel planned to attack and, if possible, destroy Hezbollah. And America approved.
But when Olmert launched an air war on Lebanon, instead, Bush cheered him on, refused to rein in attacks on civilian targets, sent smart bombs and used U.S. influence at the United Nations to block an early cease-fire. Bush-Cheney are thus morally and politically culpable for what was done to Lebanon and the democratic government there that was born of a "Cedar Revolution" George Bush himself had championed.
Congress poodled along with Bush, so Bush will not be called to account, as he would be were any other nation but Israel involved. From Morocco to the Gulf, there is probably not a country today that would welcome Bush, or where he would be safe on a state visit.
Where does this leave us? With Israel's failure to achieve its strategic objectives in Lebanon and America having failed to attain its strategic objectives in Iraq, Nasrallah emerges triumphant, and Syria and Iran emerge unscathed and gloating.
What comes next? That is obvious.
With our War Party discredited by the failed policies it cheered on in Lebanon and Iraq, there will come a clamor that Bush must "go to the source" of all our difficulty – Iran. Only thus can the War Party redeem itself for having pushed us and Israel into two unnecessary and ruinous wars. And the drumbeat for war on Iran has already begun.
"[T]he dangers continue to mount abroad," wails The Weekly Standard in its lead editorial. "How Bush deals with Ahmadinejad's terror-supporting and nuclear-weapons pursuing Iran will be the test" of his administration. Yes, the supreme test.
Bush is on notice from the neocons and War Party that have all but destroyed his presidency: Either you take down Iran, Mr. Bush, or you are a failed president.
If the president is still listening to these people, Lord help the Republic.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.



Find this article at: http://www.antiwar.com/pat

ERICK OVER AT REDSTATE.COM HAS A REASON WE SHOULD CONTINUE THE FIGHT AND REFERS TO GERSON; WELL DUH IT IS CLEARLY IN ISRAEL'S INTEREST ONCE AGAIN!

What Jewish Identity Means to College Graduates in the 21st Century
Michael Gerson
Presentation for College Homecoming Sabbath, January 3, 2003
Just four years ago, almost to the day, I sat in our Temple as my sister, Jennifer, spoke to this congregation. In front of many of these same faces, Jennifer presented her views on being a Jewish student at the University of Texas. With tears in her eyes, my sister remarked that the next time she would be on the bema was under the Chupa—in her wedding to Mark Eichelbaum that May.
Indeed, May 1999 was a busy month for the Gerson family. During the last week in May, Jennifer graduated from UT, I graduated from Clark High School, and Jennifer Gerson became Jennifer Gerson Eichelbaum. Despite an incredibly busy week, it was filled with joy. I was happy to be gaining Mark as my brother-in-law. As I said then, Mark was the brother I never had, and Jennifer was the sister I never wanted.
As I sat at Shabbat service listening to my sister's account of Jewish life at UT, I remember wondering how my UT experiences would be. Four years later, here I am—a second-semester senior graduating this May, now standing before this congregation, composed of my family and friends, recalling my life as a Jewish college student.
Upon reflection of my life at UT, there are two occasions that stand out as defining what it means to be a Jewish college student—one a social experience, the other academic.
Upon my acceptance to the University of Texas, I had many things to consider about this new phase in my life. In high school, I was fortunate to have a close group of Jewish friends, whom I made from active involvement in the B'nai Brith Youth Organization, and a close group of non-Jewish friends from high school. However, by my senior year in high school, my Jewish identity became a big part of my thinking when I considered freshman housing and social organizations.
As I contemplated where to live and which fraternities I was interested in, the opportunity to meet Jewish students in college became a very important factor in my deliberations. I realized that, at a University as large at UT, it would be to my advantage to live in a dorm that traditionally housed Jewish students and to join a predominantly Jewish fraternity. Consequently, I choose to live in University Towers—an off-campus dorm known for having a large Jewish population. In addition, I joined Pi Lambda Phi, a predominantly Jewish fraternity. These two early decisions would become some of the most important choices I would make. Within the first two weeks of school, I had met many Jewish friends, many of whom became my pledge brothers in the fraternity and sisters in the Jewish sororities.
My first truly moving experience as a Jewish student at UT came at the first night of Hanukkah my freshman year. That semester, Hanukkah began before our Winter Break, so we were still in Austin, preparing for finals, on the first night of Hanukkah. That night, about twenty girls and guys gathered in a friend's dorm room at Towers to light the menorah. I distinctly remember looking around the room and thinking, “look at this—an entire room full of Jewish kids my age celebrating Hanukkah!” I remember feeling a sense of belonging….of community….of comfort, a feeling that, as I think every Jew knows, only comes when around other Jews.
It was at that moment that I realized how important Judaism is in my life. That Hanukkah was the first time in 18 years that I had celebrated the first night away from my family. Yet, I did not feel alone. I was surrounded by a group of Jewish friends who, like me, were celebrating the holiday away from their families. That night, I understood that Judaism was not just about the practice of our sacred religion, but also about community and family. I believe there is a common bond that links all Jews together—that night was a perfect example.
This was not the only Jewish familial experience my freshman year. In fact, there were many others. Many of us went to dinner at Old San Francisco Steakhouse on Yom Kippur Eve and then to services that night and the following morning at Hillel, and during Passover the fraternity house served traditional Passover meals. Throughout the four years I have spent as a student at UT, my close group of Jewish friends celebrated holidays together when we could not be with our families.
As I reflect on my academic experiences at UT, I consider my sophomore year, especially the Spring semester, as most influential in cultivating my academic interests, career aspirations, and my understanding of Jewish life. In Spring 2001, I was one of twenty students admitted to the Normandy Scholars Program, an intense, semester-long study of the Second World War concluding with an excursion to Normandy, France with our professors that May.
As a history major, I had always had an interest in World War II. I had realized, however, that my understanding of the Second World War was inextricably linked to my grandparent's tribulations as prisoners in the Nazi concentrations camps. Although I believe that my emotional ties to the war are necessary as a young Jew with grandparents who are Holocaust survivors, I hoped to gain an academic understanding of the war as a student in the Normandy Scholars Program. Surprisingly, I was only one of two Jewish students in the program. On the other hand, 2 of the 5 professors were Jewish.
In the program, we took a class called, “Hitler, Nazism, and WWII.” As the title suggests, this class centered on the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, the direction of the German war effort, and, of course, the concentration camps.
I quickly realized it was very difficult, if not impossible, to study Nazism without an emotional bias. Throughout the class, we read first-hand accounts from German citizens, SS and Gestapo soldiers, and Jews imprisoned in the camps about their experiences in the war. These detailed, and often graphic stories affected everyone in the class—yet I noticed that Brooke, the other Jewish student in the class, and I, were especially moved. I remember thinking that the stories we read and the movies we watched that contained rare footage of the camps were about my people…my family. When we traveled to Normandy, we spent several hours on the landing beaches where, on June 6, 1944, Allied soldiers stormed the coast of France on D-Day. On the hills overlooking the beaches, many of the concrete bunkers the Nazis built to thwart an Allied invasion remained intact—some still had the guns used to fire on the landing crafts in them. What an eerie feeling to walk inside the bunkers once occupied by Nazi soldiers.
In addition to visiting the landing beaches, we traveled to many other WWII museums, Allied cemeteries, and several Holocaust memorials. At several of the cemeteries we visited, I noticed that among the thousands of crosses that marked the graves of fallen soldiers, there were Stars of David interspersed within the sea of crosses. As I stood before the graves of many American Jews who fought to free their European families, I covered my head and recited the Shema and Mourner's Kaddish.
I had a similar response when we encountered Holocaust memorials. When I saw the horrific pictures of men and women imprisoned in the camps, I thought of my grandparents, Abe and Miriam Gerson. As a symbol of my pride in Judaism, I recited the Shema and Mourner's Kaddish.
My participation in the Normandy Scholars Program transformed my understanding of what it means to be Jewish. I now understand, in greater detail, how our ancestors struggled to maintain their Jewish identities. Since then, it has become even more important for me to remain active in our Temple, cultivate Jewish friendships, and raise a Jewish family.
Although these two experiences stand out as defining what it means for me to be a Jewish college student, they are certainly not my only memories. My degree plan in the Liberal Arts Honors Program required that I take foreign language training. Many of you might be surprised to learn the Yiddish is formally offered at UT.
Instead of Spanish, French, Italian, or any other modern language often studied by undergraduates, I took Yiddish. I decided to learn Yiddish because I believe it is a dying language since it is only used today by the older generation. In fact, my grandparents speak Yiddish in the home everyday. I felt it was important to keep the language alive. Despite the fact that fluency in Yiddish will most likely not benefit my career aspirations, unless, of course, I take a job in a deli in New York City, I will be able to teach my children a language that was fundamental to communication for our European ancestors.
As I stand before this congregation today, I am inclined to wonder where I will be in the next four years. At present, I am applying to both law schools and graduate schools with a hope of pursuing a law degree and a PhD in History for a career in academia.
Wherever my career aspirations take me, the Jewish identity I nurtured at UT and here at Temple Beth-El will continue to guide me life.

FOLLOWUP BY BEEBEE: You will not see one thing in this self-centered writing that talks about Gerson being a patriot that would give his life for the United States like my son was willing to do. But, once again, Christians should send their children to die for the Israel that Gerson loves and cherishes. What is with people like Erick that cannot see through this? Oh I understand because lawyers only take two history classes in college as a rule, and they do not take the time to see where the Republican talking points are coming from. Come on Erick, I thought you were smart!

Saturday, August 12, 2006

THIS IS DEDICATED TO ALL OF THE NEOCON JERKS!


WHO ARE THE NEOCON JERKS YOU MAY WONDER IF YOU ARE ONE. IF YOU HAVE TO ASK THEN....YOU MAY BE ONE! IF YOU ARE A CHICKEN HAWK THAT PROMOTES WAR! WAR! AND MORE WAR! THAT WORSHIPS THE NUCLEAR BOMB AND PRAYS THAT WE DROP A BIG OLE BOMB SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE OF IRAN AND KILL AS MANY ARABS AS POSSIBLE THEN THIS DESCRIPTION FITS YOU. BY THE WAY A CHICKEN HAWK IS A WAR HAWKISH MAN THAT DID EVERYTHING HE COULD DO TO KEEP FROM SERVING OUR COUNTRY! YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO LICK MY MARINE SON'S BOOTS!

"SUDDENLY, I'M AN ISLAMIC FASCIST" BY JONATHAN COOK

August 12, 2006
Suddenly, I'm an 'Islamic Fascist'
by Jonathan Cook
It occurred to me as I watched the story unfolding on my TV of a suspected plot by a group of at least 20 British Muslims to blow up planes between the UK and America that the course of my life and that of the alleged "terrorists" may have run in parallel in more ways than one.
Like a number of them, I am originally from High Wycombe, one of the nondescript commuter towns that ring London. As aerial shots wheeled above the tiled roof of a semi-detached house there, I briefly thought I was looking at my mother's home.
But doubtless my and their lives have diverged in numerous ways. According to news reports, the suspects are probably Pakistani, a large "immigrant" community that has settled in many corners of Britain, including High Wycombe and Birmingham, a gray metropolis in the country's center where at least some of the arrested men are believed to have been born.
Britain's complacent satisfaction with its multiculturalism and tolerance ignores the facts that Pakistanis and other ethnic minorities mostly live in their own segregated spaces on the margins of British life. "Native" Britons like me – the white ones – generally assume that is out of choice: "They stick to their own kind." Many of us rarely come into contact with a Pakistani unless he is serving us what we call "Indian food" or selling us a packet of cigarettes in a corner shop.
So, even though we may have been neighbors of a sort in High Wycombe, my life and theirs probably had few points of contact.
But paradoxically, that changed, I think, five years ago when I left Britain. I moved to Nazareth in Israel, an Arab – Muslim and Christian – community on the very margins of the self-declared Jewish state. In the ghetto of Nazareth, I rarely meet Israeli Jews unless I venture out for work or I find myself sitting next to them in a local restaurant as they order hummus from an Arab waiter, just as I once asked for a madras curry in High Wycombe. When Israeli Jews briefly visit the ghetto, I suddenly realize how much, by living here, I have become an Arab by default.
Living on the margins of any society is an alienating experience that few who are rooted in the heartland of the consensus can ever hope to understand. Such alienation can easily deepen into something less passive, far more destructive, when you find yourself not only marginalized but your loyalty, rationality, even your sanity, called into question.
As we approach the fifth official anniversary of the "war on terror," the foiled UK "terror plot" has neatly provided George W. Bush, the "leader of the free world," with a chance to remind us of our fight against the "Islamic fascists." But what if the war on terror is not really about separating the good guys from the bad guys, but about deciding what a good guy can be allowed to say and think?
What if the "Islamic fascism" President Bush warns us of is not just the terrorism associated with Osama bin Laden and his elusive al-Qaeda network but a set of views that many Arabs, Muslims, and Pakistanis – even the odd humanist – consider normal, even enlightened? What if the war on "Islamic fascism" is less about fighting terrorism and more about silencing those who dissent from the West's endless wars against the Middle East?
At some point, I suspect, I joined the Islamic fascists without my even noticing. Were my name different, my skin color different, my religion different, I might feel a lot more threatened by that realization.
How would Homeland Security judge me if I stepped off a plane in the U.S. tomorrow and told officials not only that I am appalled by the humanitarian crises in Lebanon and Gaza but also that I do not believe the war on terror should be directed against either the Lebanese or the Palestinians? How would they respond if, further, I described as nonsense the idea that Hezbollah or the political leaders of Hamas are "terrorists"?
I have my reasons, good ones I think, but would anyone take them seriously? What would the officials make of my argument that, before Israel's war on Lebanon, no one could point to a single terrorist incident Hezbollah had been responsible for in at least a decade? Would the authorities appreciate my comment that a terrorist organization that doesn't do terrorism is a chimera, a figment of the president's imagination?
Equally, what would they make of my belief that Hezbollah does not want to wipe Israel off the map? Would they find me convincing if I told them that Israel, not Hezbollah, is the aggressor in the conflict: that following Israel's supposed withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, Lebanon experienced barely a day of peace from the terrifying sonic booms of Israeli war planes violating the country's airspace?
Would they understand as I explained that Hezbollah had acted with restraint for those six years, stockpiling its weapons for the day it knew was coming when Israel would no longer be satisfied with overflights and its appetite for conquest and subjugation would return? Would the officials doubt their own assumptions as I told them that during this war Hezbollah's rockets have been a response to Israeli provocations, that they are fired in return for Israel's devastating and indiscriminate bombardment of Lebanon?
And what would they say if I claimed that this war is not really about Lebanon, or even Hezbollah, but part of a wider U.S. and Israeli campaign to isolate and preemptively attack Iran?
Thank God, my skin is fair, my name is unmistakenly English, and I know how to spell the word "atheist." Chances are when Homeland Security comes looking for suspects, no one will search for me or be interested – not yet, at least – in my views on Hassan Nasrallah or the democratic election of a Hamas government for the Palestinians.
My friends in Nazareth, and those Pakistani neighbors I never knew in High Wycombe, are less fortunate. They must keep their views hidden and swallow their anger as they see (because their media, unlike ours, show the reality) what U.S.-made weapons fired by American and Israeli soldiers can do to the fragile human body, how quickly skin burns in an explosion, how easily a child's skull is crushed under rubble, how fast the body drains of blood from a severed limb.
Sitting in London or New York, the news that Gaza lost 151 souls, most of them civilians, last month to Israeli bombs and bullets passes us by. It is after all just a number, even if a high one. At best, a number like that from a place we don't know, suffered by a people whose names we can't pronounce, makes us pause, even sigh with regret. But it cannot move us to anger.
And anyway, our news bulletins are too busy to concentrate on more than one atrocity at a time. This month it is Lebanon. Next month it will probably be Iran. Then maybe it will be back to Baghdad or the Palestinians. The horror stories sound so much less significant, the need for action so less pressing, when each is unrelated to the next. Were we to watch the Arab channels, where all the blood and suffering blends into a single terrible Middle Eastern epic, we might start to make connections, and maybe suspect that none of this happens by accident.
But my Arab friends and High Wycombe's Pakistanis have longer memories. Their attention span lasts longer than a single atrocity. They understand that those numbers – 151 killed in Gaza, and in a single incident 33 blown up in a market in Najaf, Iraq, and at least 28 crushed by rubble from an Israeli attack on Qana in Lebanon – are people, flesh and blood just like them. They can make out, in all the pain and death currently being inflicted on Arabs and Muslims, the echoes of events stretching back years and decades. They see patterns, they make connections, and maybe discern a plan. Unlike us, they do not sigh, they burn with fury.
This is something President Bush and his obedient serf in Britain, Tony Blair, need to learn. But of course, they do not want to understand because they, and their predecessors, are responsible for creating those patterns and for writing that epic tale in blood. Bush and Blair and their advisers know that the plan is far more important than the rage, the "red" alert levels at airports, or even planes crashing into buildings and plunging out of the sky.
And to protect that plan – to preserve the Middle East as a giant oil pump, cheaply feeding our industries and our privileged lifestyles – those who care about the suffering, the deaths, and the wars must be silenced. Their voices must not be heard, their loyalty must be questioned, their reason must be put in doubt. They must be dismissed as "Islamic fascists."
One does not need to be a psychologist to understand that those with no legitimate way to vent their rage, even to have it recognized as valid, become consumed by it instead. They seek explanations and purifying ideologies. They need heroes and strategies. And in the end they crave revenge. If their voice is not heard, they will speak without words.
So I find myself standing with Bush's "Islamic fascists" in the hope that – just possibly – my solidarity and that of others may dissipate the rage, may give it meaning and offer it another, better route to victory.



Find this article at: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=9524

SGT. KELLEY L. COURTNEY WOULD HAVE BEEN 30 THE 13TH OF AUGUST. WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU KELLEY!


Sgt. Kelley L. Courtney
Hometown: Macon, Georgia, U.S.
Age: 28 years old
Died: October 30, 2004
in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Unit: Marines, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Base Hawaii
Incident: Killed when a car bomb detonated next to a truck in Anbar province.

WHO YOU SHALL HATE IN THIS WORLD




I have been giving serious thought to the way people will be conditioned to hate someone or some entire group of people based upon what someone else dictates. For instance, I just looked at the headlines on Worldnetdaily.com, and I saw where yet another expert has written a book about the ten things that led us to Islamic fascism or whatever the new code word is now. President Bush started using Islamic fascism earlier this week, so now that is the new talking point for Republican strategists. The author of this particular book is no less than a Phd, of course, and he is trying to convince readers that all 1 1/2 billion people that practice Islam are bad because they desire for all to submit to Allah.

Well, since I am not into allowing other people to tell me how to think about people, I decided to learn a little bit about Islam and what exactly Allah is. Well you see, Allah is the same God that Christians worship and those that practice Islam attest to that. As I wrote in an earlier post, those that follow the Quaran (book that those of the Islam follow) accept that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and that he was crucified and did ascend into heaven. The Islamic religion follows that when Christ returns the cross will be taken down because that will no more be needed for Chirst. The cross will be replaced by Allah or God and all people will submit to the will of God. This group that would be in God's kingdom would be all that believed in God. Now our New Testament also tells us as Christians that we are to submit to the divinity of God, and Jesus tells us to pick up our cross and follow him. Jesus tells us that the kingdom will be for the poor in spirit, and the idea of a rich man getting to heaven is like a camel going through the eye of a needle. We are told not to put treasure for ourselves, as we should put all of our faith in the Lord.

So here we have those that say those that say that we should submit to Allah are somehow bad and that we should actually hate them. That is exactly the same as saying, well if Christians spread the good news telling friends, relatives and strangers to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and they will be saved and rewarded in heaven, then all Christians that spread the gospel are bad people and should be hated. Well actually, it is nearly like that today in the United States. Christianity is the most abused religion, in my opinion, and it gets worse each year. The point here is there is no way that over a billion people of another culture that believe in Jesus, that believe in Allah and that pray five times or more per day are people that are threatening our lives. There are bad people in every group of people, and it is wrong for the media and politicians to instigate hatred toward those that practice Islam. I truly think that our political leaders have created the terrorist by meddling in Middle Eastern affairs, and now it has been totally blown out of proportion. I think it is so sad that hatred breeds in our population toward Muslims, as peace should be the primary focus. to be continued

BIG DOLLARS FOR SURE!

From 1949 to 1997, the total aid to Israel born by United States Citizens is $135 billion dollars! Can you imagine what that kind of money could have meant or our own economy? This type of transfer of our private weatlh buys corruptive influence of legislatures that we think represent us! How can congress have our best interest at heart with this type of money flowing to Israel, and then it gets filtered back to our country through the PAC http://www.washington-report.org/us_aid_to_israel/index.htm
called AIPAC discussed in next couple of posts. I say that we push for a constitutional amendment to ban NGOs from wielding control in our legislature. Oh you think that is crazy, well the Ukraine and Russia are pushing for that very thing, so why shouldn't we. A NGO is a non-governmental organization. Israel is a foreign state, so why should PACs from foreign enitities be allowed. Do you think that Ben Franklin would go along with this or perhaps Thomas Jefferson or our first President, George Washington? Of course not! The above link will take the curious reader to these statistics and other interesting facts. We can take America back, but not like Sean Hannity the puppet of the neocons talks about. It takes education, and getting other people to pay attention. Unfortunately most work so hard just to earn a living that time is too limited. That is by design, the way our leaders have got us all working in two income households and most are so turned off by politicians because they see no difference between the two parties. There is hyped media differences, but in reality the big picture is that many politicians are actually cordial friends even if on opposing sides and they all cherish their seats as if they were the inheritors of a throne in the kingdom. The land of milk 'n honey off the sweat of taxpayers is the gift that keeps on giving. And if the politicians get elected long enough, then retirement benefits keep them and their spouses going for years. Health care is provided, too! And about 47 million of our citizens have no health care, and retirement plans are only for the select few as corporations have phased out such benefits. Can you imagine how far this money filtered out to Israel would have gone providing benefits to American Citizens? This money could help pay our bankrupt social security fund or our trillion dollars of national debt. And then the media says that Israel is a democracy! What a farce!

The above is posted by Linda

AIPAC-FOLKS THESE CONTRIBUTIONS ARE NOT CHUNK CHANGE!

2004 Top Ten Career Recipients of Pro-Israel PAC Funds
Compiled by Hugh Galford

House: Current CycleHoyer, Steny (D-MD) $37,500
Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL) 36,000
Berkley, Shelley (D-NV) 35,100
Lantos, Tom (D-CA) 31,600
Frost, Martin (D-TX) 31,300
Cantor, Eric (R-VA) 23,750
Crowley, Joseph (D-NY) 23,000
DeLay, Tom (R-TX) 23,000
Lowey, Nita (D-NY) 20,650
Pelosi, Nancy (D-CA) 20,650

House: CareerBerkley, Shelley (D-NV) $201,455
Frost, Martin (D-TX) 165,414
Engel, Eliot (D-NY) 137,918
Levin, Sander (D-MI) 113,727
Lowey, Nita (D-NY) 109,738
Lantos, Tom (D-CA) 107,250
Hoyer, Steny (D-MD) 92,275
Evans, Lane (D-IL) 87,379
Harman, Jane (D-CA) 86,271
DeLay, Tom (R-TX) 81,050


Senate: Current Cycle
Specter, Arlen (R-PA) $80,350
Boxer, Barbara (D-CA) 73,000
Murray, Patty (D-WA) 72,495
Daschle, Tom (D-SD) 70,500
Reid, Harry (D-NV) 64,999
Bayh, Evan (D-IN) 56,500
Bennett, Robert (R-UT) 55,750
Wyden, Ronald (D-OR) 55,000
Brownback, Samuel (R-KS) 50,850
Shelby, Richard (R-AL) 38,500

Senate: CareerDaschle, Tom (D-SD) $533,635
Specter, Arlen (R-PA) 461,973
Lautenberg, Frank (D-NJ) 433,806
Durbin, Richard (D-IL) 326,671
Reid, Harry (D-NV) 318,801
Wyden, Ronald (D-OR) 255,562
Lieberman, Joseph (D-CT) 227,758
Boxer, Barbara (D-CA) 223,794
Dodd, Christopher (D-CT) 221,178
Conrad, Kent (D-ND) 201,939

Friday, August 11, 2006

AIPAC-YOU MAY BE SURPRISED TO KNOW HOW MANY OF OUR CONGRESSMAN RECEIVE CONTIBUTIONS FROM THS NGO (NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION) WE NEED TO WAKE UP!



August 11, 2006
AIPAC Espionage Case Dismissal Gambit Fails
by Grant F. Smith
An Aug. 9, 2006,
opinion by presiding Judge T.S. Ellis III [.pdf] has dealt a decisive blow to forces supporting full dismissal of the AIPAC espionage case. Defendants Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, formerly employed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, D.C., are charged with "cultivating relationships" with government officials cleared to access sensitive U.S. national security information, obtaining classified information from these officials, and transmitting the information to persons not otherwise entitled to receive it. Recipients of purloined U.S. national security information allegedly trafficked by AIPAC included members of the media, foreign policy analysts, and Israeli government officials.
The government's case against Rosen and Weissman hinges on applying the
Espionage Act, which states,
"[W]hoever, lawfully or unlawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blue print, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, willfully communicates or transmits or attempts to communicate or transmit the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it … shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000, or by imprisonment for not more than two years, or both."
Rosen and Weissman's requests for dismissal were based on complex challenges to the application of the Espionage Act. The defendants stated that oral transmissions of national security information cannot be prosecuted, since they are intangible, while also arguing that national security information is improperly defined by U.S. legal statute. Judge Ellis swatted down esoteric hairsplitting through a combination of dictionary definitions and citations of legal precedents that clearly reveal national defense information is not only extremely well defined, but can also be transmitted orally in his opinion:
"Indeed, this conclusion is buttressed by a statement of the district court in Morison, in which it stated that the statute – defines all types of tangibles: 'any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense,' and also describes intangibles: 'information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.'"
The defendants also mounted a constitutional challenge to the Espionage Act based on the principle that the "due process" clause of the Fifth Amendment prevents punishment pursuant to a statute so vague that "men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application."
Judge Ellis' opinion on Rosen and Weissman's request for dismissal left no doubt about who is, and who is not, entitled to receive classified national defense information. Citing precedent and the government's classification protocols, which Rosen was aware of after receiving a security clearance for his work at RAND, the Ellis opinion clarifies that Rosen and Weissman were located far outside the circle of those entitled to receive national defense information.
The Ellis opinion also reiterated that trafficking only orally transmitted classified information, which is "intangible" and cannot bear written "secret" stamps, does not absolve Weissman and Rosen. The opinion holds that if the government can prove the two knew they retransmitted closely held information with "a bad purpose either to disobey or to disregard the law" to both AIPAC and Israeli government officials, they will be found guilty.
FBI transcript snippets from the original indictment reveal that this may be a difficult obstacle for the defendants to overcome in trial. On June 11, 1999, Weissman allegedly told an Israeli government official that he had obtained a "secret FBI, classified FBI report."Rosen and Weissman's defensive dodge that the indictment violated their First Amendment free speech rights was similarly knocked out in the opinion. Judge Ellis was lenient in granting that a First Amendment review would be warranted even for operatives trafficking classified data as a specific function of their lobbying efforts:
"[E]ven under a more precise description of the conduct – the passing of government secrets relating to the national defense to those not entitled to receive them in an attempt to influence United States foreign policy."
However, precedent intervened again. Ellis found numerous cases of First Amendment rights being superseded by the specific details of the activity in question, obligations to protect national security, and the conduct of communication: "with respect to the First Amendment, 'the character of every act depends on the circumstances in which it was done.'"
On a more superficial level, the judge's willingness to toss out the defendant's challenge is tied to the opinion's detailed description of the circumstances of one meeting with a Pentagon official, Lawrence Franklin, who was convicted of passing information to the lobbyists.
"In August 2002, Rosen was introduced to Franklin through a contact at the DoD. The two agreed to meet on August 21, 2002, but the meeting was postponed. Rosen, Weissman, Franklin and another DoD employee finally met nearly six months later, on February 12, 2003. At this meeting, Franklin disclosed to Rosen and Weissman information relating to a classified draft internal United States government policy document concerning a certain Middle Eastern country. He told Rosen and Weissman that he had prepared a separate document based on the draft policy document. The three alleged co-conspirators met again on March 10, 2003 at Union Station in Washington, D.C. The three men conducted the meeting in successive restaurants and ended the meeting in an empty restaurant."
Rosen and Weissman hagiographers such as Walter Pincus of the Washington Post have continually spun stories based on defense team First Amendment scares now debunked by Ellis and inaccurate, to the point of sloppy, references to the breadth of applicable criminal statutes. A broader review of recent mainstream press accounts reveals that dutiful "issue framing" of the case as a threat to the U.S. foreign policy "establishment' and disclosure of government corruption by the news media continues. However, Ellis has not only dispersed this widely diffused PR cloud with clear definitions and references to precedent, he has also opened the door for more future AIPAC prosecutions.
Ellis quashed the defense team's motion to dismiss based on the "rarity" of Espionage Act prosecutions. In their filing, the defendants claimed that there was no warning that Rosen and Weissman's or AIPAC's activities might be prosecuted since "past applications of the statute fail to provide fair warning that the statute could be applied to the facts alleged in the superseding indictment." In other words, court dockets didn't signal to AIPAC that violating U.S. criminal statutes in pursuit of their policy objectives would ever be punished.
Ellis made it clear that lack of prosecutions under any criminal statute is not a safe harbor or license for would-be criminals, including AIPAC officials.
"[T]hat the rarity of prosecution under the statutes does not indicate that the statutes were not to be enforced as written. We think in any event, the rarity of use of the statute as a basis for prosecution is at best a questionable basis for nullifying the clear language of the statute, and we think the revision of 1950 and its reenactment of section 793(d) demonstrate that Congress did not consider such statute meaningless or intend that the statute and its prohibitions were to be abandoned."
Judge Ellis may be signaling to the DoJ and grand juries across America a new willingness to prosecute criminal statutes AIPAC would rather see lying dormant. The two most relevant are the Logan Act and Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). No person or organization has ever been successfully prosecuted under the 1798 Logan Act. Logan Act clauses clearly seek to prevent core AIPAC lobbying activities achieved by coordinated communications and links to a foreign government:
"Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."
DoJ investigations of AIPAC over the past decade may already have gathered enough wiretap, public domain, and other documentary evidence to indict the lobby for numerous "end runs" of U.S. policy in cahoots with the Israeli government. More troubling for AIPAC, the historical drought of Foreign Agent Registration Act indictments should no longer provide comfort. FARA is an obscure and oft-abused law that requires foreign agents to register with the Justice Department and disclose their financing and activities. FARA defines foreign agents as:
"(1) any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or any person who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal, and who directly or through any other person –
"(i) engages within the United States in political activities for or in the interests of such foreign principal;
"(ii) acts within the United States as a public relations counsel, publicity agent, information-service employee or political consultant for or in the interests of such foreign principal;
"(iii) within the United States solicits, collects, disburses, or dispenses contributions, loans, money, or other things of value for or in the interest of such foreign principal; or
"(iv) within the United States represents the interests of such foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States; and
"(2) any person who agrees, consents, assumes or purports to act as, or who is or holds himself out to be, whether or not pursuant to contractual relationship, an agent of a foreign principal as defined in clause (1) of his subsection."
In 20 years through 1992, only two FARA indictments were lodged by the Department of Justice. DoJ filed a third in 1992 against former Colorado legislator Sam Zakhem for promoting a "Stop Saddam" campaign with unreported Kuwaiti funds after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
The public record documents numerous instances in which members of the Israel lobby received explicit instructions or acted as unregistered agents for various Israeli governments. The 1996 neoconservative "Clean Break" document outlines one group of Israel lobby operatives' coordinated plan with Benjamin Netanyahu to trade missile-defense contract pork for U.S. congressional support for moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Ehud Barak's hurried calls to Israel lobby leaders in the U.S. to intervene whenever he felt pressured to make concessions during U.S. peace plan initiatives at Camp David are but another star within a constellation of Israel lobby FARA violations.
Americans are increasingly coming to understand how the illegal machinations of the Israel lobby have led to many harebrained, bloody, and costly policies, from the U.S. invasion of Iraq to unrestricted cash "Israel foreign aid packages" that destabilize the Middle East and undermine America's reputation. The judicial branch's prosecution of the crimes that lie at the very core of AIPAC's activities may succeed in placing U.S. policy under the guidance of broad American interests. Judges like Ellis may succeed where both the executive and legislative branches have succumbed to the power and corruption of AIPAC.
Reprinted courtesy of Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy.



Find this article at: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/gsmith.php?articleid=9517

WATCH 60 MINUTES THIS SUNDAY NIGHT TO HEAR MIKE WALLACE'S INTERVIEW OF IRAN'S PRESIDENT



MEDIA MATTERS'Annihilate' just means to move 'Zionist entity' Mike Wallace says Iranian president thinks Israel should be in Germany
Posted: August 11, 20062:23 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
, who has told his people to prepare to rule the world and has warned of a light that will be in the sky on the Islamic holy night of Aug. 22, just means that Israel should be moved when he calls for wiping it from the face of the Earth, according to longtime CBS News personality Mike Wallace.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (courtesy Radio Netherlands)
Wallace recently interviewed Ahmadinejad, who has been raising concern among leaders in the free world because of his nation nuclear program and his dedication to eliminating Irael. He described Ahmadinejad as a savvy, self-assured civil engineer who was elected by the Iranian people.
The 88-year-old Wallace, who is semi-retired, traveled to interview the Iranian president, whom he described as "impressive," "interesting" and "obviously smart as hell."
In an interview with talk-radio host Sean Hannity, Wallace defended Ahmadinejad's actions and statements. In the transcript posted on Radio Blogger, Wallace said the Iranian leader's comments about wiping Israel off the map aren't horrific.
"His statements are annihilate, wipe off the Earth," said Hannity.
"No, no, no," said Wallace.
"The world," said Hannity.
"Hold it, hold it," said Wallace.
"Wipe off the map," said Hannity.
"Yes, he says wipe off the map, and of course I asked him over and over about that," said Wallace. "He says in effect, hey, it's perfectly sensible to do … pardon me. It's perfectly sensible for them … it's perfectly sensible, if there is a Holocaust, and let's buy the fact that there was a Holocaust. Where did the Holocaust take place? Did it take place in an Arab neighborhood? Did it take place in Jerusalem? No. It took place in Germany. Then it seems to me, under those circumstances, take Israel, the Zionist entity, he called it, move it to Germany. Move it to Europe. That's where it happened."
Radio Blogger described the comments as lightning striking, quoting Wallace saying, "He says, let the people who were responsible for the Holocaust, let the Zionists go there and establish their state."
Wallace said Ahmadinejad doesn't like the United States because it is supporting Israel, however, he is not anti-Semitic.
"So you don't think he's an anti-Semite?" said Hannity.
"He himself, an anti-Semite, an anti-Jew ... anti-Jew?" said Wallace.
"Yes," said Hannity.
"No, I don't," said Wallace.
Wallace told Hannity that Ahmadinejad made his case "fairly rationally" and didn't "propagandize and so forth."
"He … when I began to talk to him about America, about the United States, and oppression, he had his facts down solid about why he feels sorry, he says, for President Bush. Why? And then he starts in about the polls of President Bush, and how they're going down, and how he's going to leave office, and it's sad that he's going to leave office and leave behind a people who don't really approve of him.
"And he was infinitely more rational than I had expected him to be," Wallace said.
Wallace laughed when Hannity noted that perhaps Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin may have appeared rational, even though a Holocaust was within their policy.
"What ... running a Holocaust, which the Iranians have not done, as you know, running a Holocaust, doing that sort of thing, slaughtering 6 million Jews, that's not what this man is talking about doing," Wallace said.
Wallace's response to the idea that the "Zionist entity" should be moved?
"Move it to the United States," he said.
"Do you think that's a legitimate argument?" asked Hannity.
"It's an argument. I'm not a commentator. You are," said Wallace.
When Hannity raised concerns about "free" elections in Iran, Wallace also challenged him.
"What does that mean, free? he asked. "Are you suggesting that he wasn't elected by his people?

BY PAT BUCHANAN FROM WORLD NET DAILY "THE MEANING OF CONNECTICUT"

The meaning of Connecticut
Posted: August 10, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006
"Joe, why are you doing this?"
That is a question Joe Lieberman will hear again and again from old friends, as he mounts his "independent" campaign for the Senate seat his own party voted on Tuesday to take away from him.
And there is no compelling answer Joe can give.
Joe insists he's a progressive Democrat in the mainstream of the party and has a voting record to prove it. But Ned Lamont is a progressive (i.e., liberal) Democrat, and the Connecticut party chose him as its Senate nominee, not Joe.
Joe could say Iraq is the dividing line and the critical issue facing America. But Tuesday's primary was a referendum on Iraq, and the Connecticut Democratic Party voted to declare itself anti-war. And Joe does not even intend to run as a war Democrat in November, for he knows it would drive away an even larger share of the Democratic and independent vote than he lost on Tuesday.
But if he will not run as a principled pro-war senator, what, then, is the argument for re-electing Joe? For the transparent conclusion is that his independent campaign is simply about Joe's unwillingness to accept the verdict of his party and give up his cherished Senate seat.
Thus we find Joe declaring, in his concession speech where he announced his independent candidacy, that the true great divide between him and Ned Lamont is on the burning issue of – civility in politics.
"I am, of course, disappointed by the results," said Joe. "I'm disappointed not just because I lost, but because the old politics of partisan polarization won today. For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand."
Joe is running to save Connecticut and America from the savage politics of Ned Lamont?
Joe is a nice and decent man, with many friends across this town, but this is just not sustainable.
First, it is a slur on the Democratic Party of Joe's home state, which bought into Lamont's supposedly low-road tactics. Second, to strip votes from Lamont on the issue of his "politics of partisan polarization," Joe will have to rip into the Democratic nominee for running a dirty and divisive campaign, which is certain to enrage all the Democrats working to elect Lamont.
Third, Lamont is a "Pepperidge Farm" candidate, in the witty phrase of columnist Mike Barnacle. He did not call Joe a warmonger or a fascist, or run Willie Horton ads against him.
Fourth, if Lamont won only by McCarthyite tactics, how does Joe explain why every national and state Democrat – including Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore – is hastening to endorse Lamont?
What are the real reasons behind Joe's defeat? Like J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, dumped in a 1974 primary, a senator must beware of becoming so taken with his stature as a statesmen that he loses touch with the home folks. Second, pro-war and pro-Bush Democrats are an endangered species in deep blue states.
This is good news for Gore, an authentic anti-war Democrat and Mr. Global Warming, who will open with a pair of aces, if he enters the primaries. John Kerry and John Edwards have already defected to the anti-war camp. And Hillary's scourging of Don Rumsfeld and call for his resignation suggest the Clintons are not missing any signals.
But this week has also provided a glimpse into the character and convictions of our neo-conservatives, who claim direct descent from Ronald Reagan. In a lead editorial, the Weekly Standard called on Bush to fire Rumsfeld and make Joe Lieberman secretary of defense. And the Pentagon is only to be a steppingstone.
Rhapsodizes editor William Kristol, "Is it too fanciful to speculate about a 2008 ticket of McCain-Lieberman, or Giuliani-Lieberman ... ?"
In short, The Weekly Standard wishes to see, on a Republican ticket and a heartbeat away from the presidency, a proud liberal Democrat who supports partial-birth abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, gay rights, affirmative action, reparations for slavery, gun control, higher taxes on the top 2 percent, distribution of condoms in public schools and driver's licenses for illegal aliens.
What does Joe oppose? School prayer, the American Legion's flag amendment, Sam Alito, drilling in the ANWAR and any phase-out of death taxes.
Last year, Joe's rating by Americans for Democratic Action was 80. The ACLU gave him an 83, the NAACP an 85, the AFL-CIO a 92, LULAC a perfect 100. In 2004, Joe got a 100 rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League and a zero from National Right to Life. His American Conservative Union rating was zero. His Christian Coalition rating was zero. The National Rifle Association, which grades by letters, gave Joe a big, fat "F."
But as long as you support war in Lebanon, war in Iraq and a "war-fighting Republican Party," in the Weekly Standard's phrase, you get a pass on everything else. Beat the drum for permanent war for global democracy and against Islamo-fascism, and all other sins are forgiven you.
Such is the state of conservatism, 2006.