Moral Volcano is the (now abandoned) web log of V. Subhash. It was started when the HUMOUR section of Virtual V. Subhash (www.vsubhash.com) started overflowing. The name Moral Volcano is from the short story Journalism in Tennessee written by the American writer Mark Twain.
Moral Volcano is not a real volcano; just the name for this website. This site has absolutely no information on morals or volcanoes. You need to improve your search skills. Select this link to find information about real volcanoes. If you were looking for ideas for a class project, then try How To Build a Volcano at About.com. For stories with a moral, visit the site maintained by Srinivas Padmanabhuni. Bye-bye.
MORAL VOLCANO IS UNSAFE FOR CHILDREN AND PREGNANT WOMEN. ADULTS MAY EXPERIENCE DISCOMFORT WHEN READING MORAL VOLCANO. SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT IS RECOMMENDED.
Any good search engine will bring you here if you type in "moral volcano".
Think George W. is bad? Wait till you read about his father!
Inheritance of Nazi fortunes, financial scandals, coups, assassinations, links to drug trade, and coverups; - all make the former CIA Director and later U.S. Vice President and President George Bush Sr. an unmatchable piece of work.
Buy this book from Amazon.com .
Or, read the free online version at www.tarpley.net
In Jerzy Kosinski's novel Being There, a middle-aged man called Chance Gardener, who has the mental age and development of a six-year-old, goes on to become the President of United States with the help of a few powerful friends while he himself is blissfully unaware of the situation. Peter Sellers chose this novel to make his final film (his masterpiece). Both the novel and the movie were released years before George W. came to the White House. Read my review here.
Gobbledegook! All the time he talked gobbledegook! An' it's for sure a White man's world in America. Hell, I raised that boy since he was the size of a pissant an' I'll say right now he never learned to read an' write - no sir! Had no brains at all, was stuffed with rice puddin' between the ears! Short-changed by the Lord and dumb as a jackass an' look at him now! Yes, sir - all you gotta be is white in America an' you get whatever you want! Just listen to that boy - gobbledegook!
Guess Who Came
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Head For The Exit!A Nut Has Brought
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In 1983, Donald Rumsfeld went to Baghdad as Ronald Reagan's special envoy and met Saddam Hussein, despite evidence that Iraq possessed chemical weapons and had used it on civilians in Iraq and on soldiers in Iran. After his return, Rumsfeld successfully lobbied for financial and military aid for Iraq's war with Iran. Chemical and biological intermediaries and labs were provided by the US to Iraq. Other western countries followed suit. Predictably, Saddam used the weapons in the Kurdish north. In one instance, a set of Hughes helicopters provided by Ronald Reagan was used in a chemical attack that left 5000 dead in a Kurdish village called Halabja. Following this, the US Senate passed a Prevention of Genocide Act, which would have imposed sanctions on the Hussein regime but the Reagan White House blocked it.
Between 1983 and 1988, Saddam used chemical weapons 195 times against Iran killing about 50,000 of their soldiers. In 1987, an Iraqi Exocet missile hit an American destroyer, the USS Stark, in the Persian Gulf killing 37 crewmen. Incredibly, the United States excused Iraq for making an unintentional mistake and instead used the incident to accuse Iran of escalating the war in the gulf. The American tilt to Iraq then became more pronounced. U.S. commandos began blowing up Iranian oil platforms and attacking Iranian patrol boats. In 1988, an American warship in the gulf shot down an Iranian Airbus killing 290 civilians. Within a few weeks, Iran, fearing American intervention, gave up its war with Iraq.
George Bush Sr., as Vice President and later as President, used a number of covert and overt schemes to help with Baghdad's WMD programme. Strangely enough, Israel was one of the countries that helped in the transshipment of banned weapons. Saddam was so encouraged by this level of support that he thought he could get away with an invasion Kuwait. Sam Gejdenson, chairperson of a subcommittee in the US Congress investigating US exports to Iraq, disclosed that between 1985 and 1990 the US government approved 771 licenses for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment used for military applications.
To build the case for the war against Iraq, the Bush administration used the anthrax scare to frighten lawmakers into submission. The US Secretary of State Colin Powell, accompanied by CIA Directory George Tenet, even gave an anthrax demo in the UN Security Council. Interestingly, the anthrax found in Capitol Hill was found to be the same grade as those in the stocks of the US military.
US envoy Bill Richardson with Taliban leaders (circa 1998). See the BBC report for that day.Taliban played host to top US officials including former US assistant secretary of state for South Asia Robin Raphel, her successor Karl Inderfurth, deputy secretary for political affairs Thomas Pickering, and the then-US ambassador to the UN, Bill Richardson. Within hours of Taliban's capture of Kabul, Washington moved quickly to announce that it would establish diplomatic relations with the Taliban government. However, the rash statement was quickly retracted. Afghanistan continued to be officially represented at the UN by the defunct government headed by Banruddin Rabbani and the Taliban greatly resented this. Robin Raphael went to the UN to lobby the international community to ignore the extremist threat posed by the Taliban and recognise the government headed by the group. Contrary to popular belief, Afghanistan has significant oil and gas deposits. During the Soviets' decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, Moscow estimated Afghanistan's proven and probable natural gas reserves at around five trillion cubic feet and production reached 275 million cubic feet per day in the mid-1970s. Nonstop war since has prevent further exploitation, but that soon changes. According to the Houston Chronicle, the country may also have as much copper as Chile, the world's largest producer, and significant deposits of coal, emeralds, tungsten, lead, zinc, uranium ore and more. |
In 1989, the former Soviet Union was forced to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan after fighting a prolonged guerilla war with the Mujahideen. The Mujahideen grew opium, which was then marketed in Europe and North America. Law enforcement agencies in these countries also turned a blind eye to the trafficking business. Proceeds from the trade were then used to buy weapons for the Mujahideen. The Russians left behind a government headed by the former intelligence chief Najibullah. The breakup of the Soviet Union made Najibullah's position weaker and he offered to step down in March 1992. This news triggered a wave of defections by Uzbek and Tajik militias, which were allied to his government. In April 1992, a prominent Mujahideen commander Ahmed Shah Masood (Lion of Panjshir valley) moved into Kabul. Najibullah then took refuge in the UN compound in Kabul. Between 1992 and 1996, Afghanistan was in semi-anarchy, as the country was carved into individual fiefdoms by the warlords.
In 1996, Unocal of the U.S. and Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia became interested in mineral wealth of Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. The ideal route to bring oil from the Caspian sea and gas from the Daulatabad gas field (in Turkmenistan) would have been via Iran. Because of US policy of isolating Iran, Unocal and Delta oil thought of building a pipeline via Afghanistan.
Unfortunately for them, Afghanistan did not have a strong regime in place, which could guarantee security for the pipeline. For this purpose, Pakistan created the Taliban with funds from Saudi Arabia and UAE. They took into their rolls thousands of Pasthuns who had enrolled in madrasas adjoining Afghanistan. Because these men had never taken part in war, they were secretly trained and led by officers from the Pakistani army. Arms and ammunition including tanks, howitzers, and other military vehicles were provided Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. In 1996, The Taliban crossed the border into Afghanistan. Initially, they were dismissed as a joke but in September 1996, they had captured Kabul. (Also, see Amnesty International reports on Taleban atrocities.)
However, the Taliban could not occupy all of Afghanistan. (They did occupy 90% of it at one time.) At one point when the Taliban was overstretched and the Northern Alliance was poised to attack, the Clinton administration despatched UN envoy Bill Richardson and Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth to Afghanistan to broker a ceasefire and an arms embargo. While the Northern Alliance was being bamboozled, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sent several planeloads of arms and ammunition to Kabul and managed to fully rearm the Taliban. Soon after, the ceasefire failed. This was six months before the US embassies in Africa were attacked and two months after al-Qaeda issued a declaration of jihad to "kill the Americans and their allies - civilian and military."
In 1998, the Al-Qaeda attacked U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Despite this, money continued to flow. Both the Clinton and the Bush administrations gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban under the guise of aid. As late as July 2001, Christina Rocca, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, met Taliban officials in Islamabad and announced $43 million in food and shelter aid, bringing to $124 million the U.S. contribution for that year alone. The U.S. government did not insist on knowing how the money was spent and the flow of dollars did not stop until the attacks on the World Trade Center occurred. It is quite possible that that American taxpayers' money was used to finance the attacks.
To save serious embarassment to the Bush administration, the U.S. media, led by the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and others, has created a notion that the Taliban fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan by tracing its origins to the Mujahideen. The truth however is that the Taliban was not in existence at that time. Taliban was created to fight the Mujahideen, not the Soviets. For more, read CIA and a Blowback World by Tom Engelhardt and Chalmers Johnson.
Interviewer: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Interviewer: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Interviewer: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentlaism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
After Libya revealed that it had sourced components and technology for its clandestine nuclear weapons program from a worldwide network of nuclear arms dealers, Dr. A. Q. Khan, the father of the Islamic nuclear bomb, was named as one of the prime movers in this network. On February 4, 2004, Khan confessed on Pakistan's national television that he had hawked Pakistan's nuclear weapons secrets to other countries and begged forgiveness. With American blessings, Gen. Musharraf wasted no time in granting a pardon for Khan. Gen. Mush also claimed that Mr. Khan acted alone and that no one else was involved in the transfer of the technology, which went to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
No action will be taken on Libya because the Bush administration has shown interest in oil wealth of the country. With the exception of Iraq, Libya is the only OPEC country with spare oil capacity. The two Libyan intelligence officials who were suspects in the Lockerbie bombing are under house arrest and not in prison.
Curiosly, a BBC Scotland news report says that a former Scottish police chief had come forward with the information that the key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated and planted by the CIA. In another bizzare happening, the Amsterdam court that had tried Khan in absentia has claimed that it has "lost" the Khan case files. Before coming back to Pakistan, Khan worked as an engineer in the Netherlands at Urenco, an uranium enrichment plant in the 1970s from where he is suspected of stealing nuclear secrets.
As revealed by former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawas Sharif, the Pakistani military establishment including President Musharraf are part of the nuclear trade. North Korea made shipments of missile components to Pakistan in exchange for shipments of wheat from Pakistan. Similarly, China had made shipments of ring magnets and other nuclear eqiupment to Pakistan. But illegal trade in nuclear and missile technology and components is not limited to the Third world. During the Clinton years, US aerospace companies (Loral/Hughes) provided China with technologies that were originally banned for export. The clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons programme was aided by voluntary/involuntary transfer of men, material, and technology from the U.S., Britain, and several other European countries.
The prediction that when Nazism goes to America it will be wrapped in an American flag has become a reality. Nazis believed that if you kept on repeating the same lies again and again, the masses would eventually accept them as truth. Yet again, the Nazis have been proved right. The American people have accepted blatant falsehoods as the truth not because they have been presented with some really great evidence but because they have been repeatedly lied to. And the campaign by faux journalism and the resultant faux news is not limited to the U.S. It is being applied all over the world where phoney revolutions have been staged to put phoney democrats in power. From Lebanon to Ukraine to East Timor, falsehoods have won. The strategy may seem to have failed in Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia but the setbacks are only temporary. In important countries like Mexico, elections are conducted by private American companies and the electoral rolls are also maintained by them. As there is no paper trail, it is easy to fix the elections.
American diplomats decide who should win elections in Eastern Europe and Third World countries. Western consultants manage everything on the ground - from running opinion/exit polls (so they can claim election fraud) to training volunteers, journalists, and more importantly "pro-democracy protestors" (vital for any regime change that does not involve the U.S. military). Billions of dollars of U.S. government funds are pouring into the coffers of opposition parties and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Their mandate is simple - bring down the current dispensation and put pro-Western stooges in power.
Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) such as Freedom House (run by billionaire George Soros) play an important role in all this. If U.S. media claims are to be believed, Soros is a philanthropist who "promotes democracy movements" in Eastern Europe. However, funds for these activities come from the American government - mainly from USAID (United States Aid for International Development). Perusing the USAID Yellowbook for 2001, one will be surprised to note that one of the many Ukraine contracts received by Freedom House is worth almost $2 billion. This is interesting because, among other things, USAID even refuses funds for AIDS treatment in Africa. Reason for this anomaly becomes clear if one reads USAID's mandate - to promote U.S. "stategic interests" worldwide.
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Apart from USAID, a wide range of semi-government and non-governmental institutions are involved to promote U.S. strategic interests - National Democratic Institute (NDI) of the Democratic Party, International Republican Institute (IRI) of the Republican Party, U.S. billionaire George Soros' outfits Open Society and Freedom House. The role of intelligence agencies and diplomatic corps requires no mention. The role of the media is curiousy naieve.
Politicians who have take money are identified as "liberals," while those who have not done so are simply called "hardliners." The result is that artificially created protests are considered by the outside world as spontaneous and indigenous. History then gets replaced by the faux news.
American officials openly ask the U.S. Congress for money to "promote democracy" in other countries. (This happens in between demands for huge budget cuts in social spending for American citizens.) No one in America seems to find it odd that democracy could be promoted with money from a foreign country. What is all the more ironical because it was an American who said democracy is by the people, for the people, and of the people.
During the Cold War, intelligence agencies were entrusted with the task of distributing money. Mark Almond, who describes himself as an old cold war swagman who carried tens of thousands of dollars to Soviet-bloc dissidents alongside much better respected academics, is nostalgic about how things have changed. In an article in Guardian he says:
Back in the 1980s, our media portrayed Prague dissidents as selfless academics who were reduced to poverty for their principles, when they were in fact receiving $600-monthly stipends. Now they sit in the front row of the new Euro-Atlantic ruling class. The dowdy do-gooder who seemed so devoted to making sure that every penny of her "charity" money got to a needy recipient is now a facilitator for investors in our old stamping grounds. The end of history was the birth of consultancy.
In many countries, it is not just the manipulation of elections; civil war is encouraged by exacerbating ethnic or religious divisions. One side is provided with with arms and ammunition and the other side is provoked into causing enormous casualities on civilians. Western government, NGOs and media then allege genocide. UN "peacekeepers" arrive, a referendum on secession is held, and a nation is born. What is not mentioned is that the new country is so weak financially that they can't even afford to open embassies in other countries. West-backed politicians who run the country prefer to listen to foreign investors than to their own people. In the end, "poor people" become more poor and less free. The application of "genocide revolutions" found great success in East Timor and is now being actively pursued in Darfur (Sudan) and several other places.
East Timorese people languish in extreme poverty because their government gets very little in revenue. The government has just one purpose - provide security to Western diplomatic corps and foreign investors (made up of solely oil companies). It has no money either for development or for providing essential services. East Timor, it must be noted, has huge reseverves of gas and oil. It could have easily become a rich country but foriegn oil companies have other plans. Australia has claimed that its maritime border extends for 85% of the 600-mile sea separating the two countries. Under international laws, the border should have been drawn halfway between the two countries, which would have given East Timor 100% of its petroleum resources including the oil-rich Greater Sunrise field. In March 2003, tiny East Timor was forced to cede 79.9 percent of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field to big nieghbour Australia. The entire worth of the field was an estimated $50 billion.
Also, read
Back when I was in school, there was this program on TV called Race To Save The Planet. Every Sunday, it had this wonderful chick, clad in T-shirt and jeans, sitting on a tree stump with her arms around her knees, talking seriously about future climate change. Climate change? Well, it was supposed to take longer than a lifetime to notice any changes. Only future generations were going to be seriously affected. Unfortunately, climate change seems to have arrived earlier than expected. We have seen some very unprecedented floods induced by torrential floods in various parts of the country and even around the world. (circa 2005) The floods were also preceded by periods of unusually hot weather. My guess is that extreme weather conditions are going to be the norm in future but with increasing severity.
The rise in greenhouses gases in the atmosphere and the consequent rise in global temperatures was expected to cause a slow melting of the ice caps. But, scientists have noted that the area under permafrost around the Arctic circle is fast receding. When peat bogs under the permafrost gets exposed, they start releasing new amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As this picks up momentum, global temperatures will not just rise but will attempt a high jump.
And, the transition from ice to water occurs over a few degrees. So, the ice cap will not just melt, it will break apart! Large sheets of ice will suddenly break off the North pole and swamp countries in its wake downstream. This ice will break off in such huge proportions that countries near the poles will experience doomsday-size floods that will last for several months. Worse, there will be several floods like that; some of them going on simultaneously. And, that means goodbye to countries like Canada and most of Europe. Large parts of the U.S. and Russia will also dissappear. Antartica will only melt because it is on land and does not float on water like the Arctic. Still, large portions of low-lying land in the southern hemisphere will be eaten away by the sea, leaving hundreds of millions without land under their feet.
Possible Solution: Jaime Pressly |
The treatment that our society gives to rape requires drastic change. Instead of considering rape as a form of physical assault, unnecessary emotional baggage is added to it. In our stupid feature films, if a woman is raped, she has to commit suicide. Or, worse, marry the rapist (if it is the hero guy). But real rape victims cannot commit suicide or marry the rapist! Sadly, our society places a high high value on a woman's character. Feminist propaganda does not help either. The lesbians want death sentence for rapists, making it incumbent on rapists to also kill their victims!
Women's activists portray rape as some kind of unbelievably horrible crime that is simply beyond human nature. Flawless as they are made up to be, women DO commit serious crimes! It has been reported that it is usually a woman who harrases her daughter-in-law for more dowry. Many a woman has handed over the matchbox when her son douses his wife with kerosene. And who do you think snuffs the life out newborn girl children? WOMEN!!!
And, they keep on asking when all women will be safe. It is an incredibly stupid question! Will households ever be safe from burglars? Burglaries will occur just as some marriages will end in divorces. Rapes will occur just as some murders are going to be committed. Deviancy is part of any society. It is an inescapable fact of life, unless of course your marooned on uninhabited island.
What can be done is placing necessary measures to ensure speedy justice; not just for rape but for all crimes. Instead, a fuss is created. Names are published. Photos are printed. In the end, the victim wishes she did not have to survive the trauma. Should not rape victims be able to recover from the incident like from a minor road accident? More than the actual crime itself, it is the way society receives the victim that seems to have a lasting effect.
| Trauma | Victim | Victim's Family |
| Road Accident | gets sympathy | finds social support |
| Sexual Assault | gets a stigma | loses social standing |
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Why is the U.S. very much against labelling GM food? In the U.S., we have a policy. If you have a final product that is a substantial equivalent to a conventional product, you need not have to label that it contains GMOs [genetically modified organisms] just because it is a product of GMO; it is a process involved. At the end of the day, it is considered equivalent to the conventional product and so we don't believe in labelling. On the other hand, if you have nutrient enhanced product or a product that contains allergens or toxin, then labelling is required. So we don't believe in process labelling and that is the difference between the U.S. and other countries.Same day as this interview was published in The Hindu, the newspaper's supplement Metro Plus carried the following information in Health Capsules (a syndicated American newspaper cartoon feature):
How do I know if my fish or shellfish is wild, not farm-raised? Beginning in April 2005, all retail fish and shellfish [in the U.S.] were required to be labelled farm-raised or wild-caught and with their country of origin.
A kid who hates freedom. |
"I am not even interested," said Charlie Chaplin when asked whether he was going to have his latest film shown in the U.S. Why, what was wrong? "There is nothing wrong with the American people. It is the top who decay and putrify!," Chaplin explained. Harsh words, no doubt but why? The movie A King In New York was set in New York and yet here was Chaplin (in London, circa 1956) refusing to release the movie in the United States. What made him feel so disgusted and angry? Welcome to the the land of the free.
What many people see of America is not really America; it is Hollywood. Not just foreigners, even Americans see America through the eyes of Hollywood. Take World War II. Many Americans think that it was they who saved the world! (It was actually Russia, led by like-it-or-not Stalin, which was the first to inflict a defeat on the Nazis, free a host of countries from occupation, enter Berlin and take charge of Hitler's bunker.)
Not many know that not until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, America had never entered the War on the side of Britain and France. Or, more correctly, they have absolutely no idea of the significance of this decision. Like the grandfather of George Bush, America was busy trading with Nazi Germany. Many, like Bush family patron William Farris (of Standard Oil, now Exxon), were making their fortunes off Nazi slave labour. The U.S. had also closed its gates to European Jews wanting to flee persecution; (forcing them to go to Palestine where they established Israel and have since remained in conflict with the original owners of the land and with their Arab neighbours.) Franklin Roosevelt spent much of his time assuring his nation that he would NEVER send "their children in harm's way" - certainly a poor foil alongside real heroes like Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle or even Josef Stalin. It was precisely this geographic and political isolation from the conflict, which drew people in the war zone like a magnet to the American continent.
"DO YOU WANT TO DENY YOURSELF THE RIGHT TO BE A MAN?" reads this psy-ops leaflet, dropped by Americans in Vietnam. You don't see RAMBO dropping leaflets like these! He he he! |
So, after sheep-faced Americans joined the war, films like Casablanca were released, which had Americans showing hitherto unseen courage and sparing no effort to save hapless Europeans from evil Nazis. Sure, these films helped sell a lot of "war bonds" to aid the war effort but "war films" continued to be made even after the real war was over - all of them showing Americans as the selfless saviours of the world; all of them conveniently ignoring the enormous sacrifices made by the Russians and the heavy losses made to bear on civilians in the Axis nations. During the War, American soldiers like good soldiers everywhere went about raping and pillaging when they were not busy fighting. In almost all of the war films, Americans GIs were models of good behaviour. It is this image that generations of Americans have believed in, rather than in what history books would have had to offer.
In his book Know Thine Enemy, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA man who worked in the US consulate in Istanbul during the 1980s, provides an insight into how Freedom™ typically operates. Gerecht's job was to debrief would-be Iranian defectors:
"I'd let hundreds of desperate Iranians languish in Turkey. People who'd given me insights never found in books. I'd watched mothers with children drop to their knees and beg for my help... They didn't want money, just a little kindness, a visa out of their personal hell ... [they met] a sympathetic man waiting in a warm room full of food, coffee, tea, alcohol and cigarettes. A US official who'd politely strip them of all their memories and every corpuscle of information and then reopen the street-side door."
Rambo II, starring Sylvester Stallone, has Islamic fighters in Afghanistan portrayed as brave freedom fighters, quite in line with government policy at that time. By the time True Lies starring Arnold Schwarznegger was made, the "freedom fighters" had become "terrorists" both on screen and in the real world! Movies that romanticises military life (aiding recruitment, usually from poorer sections of the American society) such as Top Gun or Black Hawk Down get active cooperation (and under-publicised editorial input) from the U.S. military while others that question military postures have to rope in a foreign government for using their military hardware.
AVERAGE VOTER IN A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY IS A MORON! |
In May 2003, an Iraqi boy who suffered burns all over his body, had his arms amputed above the elbow, and lost 20 members of his family after an American missile hit his home became subject of a media frenzy. Although the boy refused American offers of free medical treatment, Hollywoood went ahead and made a movie starring George Clooney with an expectedly different story ending. In the Balkans, American soldiers have been indicted of raping women and forcing them into prostitution but that did not stop Hollywood from making a movie, which showed the opposite - an American soldier killing another soldier to prevent a rape from happening! George Bush and 9/11 was also subject of a movie. However, it featured no pet goat. In sharp contrast, Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which attempted to come to terms with truth, was received with unrepressed hostility.
With every war, the deception continues to grow. Even though the fall of the Saddam statue in the middle of Baghdad or the rapturous welcome given to Ahmed Chalabi on his return to Iraq or the daring rescue of Private Jessica Lynch are considered as classics among military psy-ops films, Hollywood remains unbeaten in their effort at perpetuating myths for the U.S. government.
FAKE NEWS = FREEDOM NEWS? |
Sure, Hollywood has no designs on the world and they are in it with the American war machine only because it is a mutually rewarding relationship. However, truth becomes a casualty - not just in war but also in peace. This blackout is made complete by sanitised coverage of world events by the American media.
In Iraq, for example, news reports are solely based on the version provided by the U.S. military spokesman. American journalists rarely leave the safe confines of the fortified "Green Zone" in Central Baghdad. However, to fool the American public, videos shot by Iraqi journalists are placed in the background. The American journalist wears a bullet-proof vest, stands in front of the camera and then files his "report." A white screen (not seen by viewers) placed behind this brave journalist allows video technicians in a New York or Washington D.C. studio to be able to seamlessly mix the two videos, creating the illusion of the journalist having actually visited the scene. With this kind of deception, the American military remains free to drop bombs on houses of innocent people.
Several decades ago, Jawaharlal Nehru remarked,
"They shoot and kill and destroy only for the good of the people shot down. The novel feature of the modern type of imperialism is its attempt to hide its terrorism and exploitation behind pious phrases."
His words remain true to this very day. And, "they" continue to do it with the approval of the American people. Yet, when a 911 happens, you will hear Americans asking, "Why do they hate us so much?"
THIS IS NOT A JOKE. There were actually two pages on the CIA website under the title Iraqi Rewards Program offering rewards for information regarding Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). One web page was in English (at http://www.cia.gov/cia/english_rewards.htm) and the other was in Arabic (at http://www.cia.gov/cia/arabic_rewards.htm, still present.) The CIA removed the English version after a short time. I had saved a copy of the English version, I put it up here and later moved it to www.vsubhash.com. I also added a timeline of the Iraqi Rewards Program.
In case you are wondering, rest assured that the cia.gov domain is used only to host their website. The domain ucia.gov (unclassified CIA) is used for other unclassified purposes. You can see their updates page for references to ucia.gov.
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Today, I connected to the Net without first starting the firewall. When I did so a few minutes later, the firewall reported that a program called msnote33.exe* was trying to access the Internet connection. I checked the Task Manager (taskmgr.exe) and the msnote33.exe application was running in the memory. The application could not be closed from the Task Manager. AVG Anti-Virus with the latest updates did not find anything fishy about the file. When I checked Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel, I found that the program had made an entry titled WSAConfiguration in the in the HKLM/Run† section of the registry so that it will be automatically loaded at every logon. When the registry entry was removed via the Startup Control Panel, the program re-created the entry back again. A Google search for the program did not yield much information. So, I decided to get rid of it.
I started the machine in Safe Mode, changed the program's extension, and archived it in a zip file‡. I restarted the machine in normal mode and removed the registry entry the program had created.
The incident reinforces a few truths about the Internet. One must not connect to the Internet without a firewall. Even when the anti-virus software fails to identify a program as a malicious file, one should not ignore sinister files that land in your system via the Internet. Having the Task Manager and the Startup Control Panel in the Start menu can be a great timesaver.
UPDATE: The msnote33.exe is actually a sign of an infection by the Agobot virus. The virus also modifies the Windows HOSTS file. This prevents you from visiting anti-virus sites. The Hosts file is found in the %System%\drivers\etc folder in Win NT/2000/XP systems. In Win 9x/Me, it is found in the Windows folder. This file does not have a three-letter extension. Its contents should be as follows:
127.0.0.1 localhostYou need to remove entries created by the virus. For this, open this file in Notepad and delete any lines other than the one quoted above. (Lines starting with # symbol are comments. You can ignore them.) When you save the file put the name HOSTS within quotation marks - "HOSTS". Otherwise, you will be creating a file with .txt extension. Now, you will be able to visit anti-virus sites. The ZoneAlarm firewall has an option to lock the HOSTS file so that viruses do not modify it. As this option is not enabled by default, you will have to do it manually.
* - It uses several other names such as msnote30.exe, wmon32.exe, syxtem32.exe, svchostt.exe, dsrss.exe, csrsvcs.exe, pb.exe, wserv32.exe, dllsrv32.exe, etc. Most of these are misspelled names of original system files.
† - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
‡ - Should the file be a system file rather than a virus, it helps if you have a copy of the original.
Link to Moral Volcano's Spotting And Isolating Viruses
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The independence of the state of Israel was proclaimed by its first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, on 14th May 1948. Palestinians observe the day as Al Nagba or The Catastrophe. They had been living in Palestine for centuries but hordes of foreigners who had initially come as refugees had successfully evicted them. Now, Palestinians have to live in squalid refugee camps.
After the World War -II, Britain freed all foreign territories under the Ottoman empire except Palestine. Britain did this to let Jews come to Palestine as immigrants and then colonize it. Had Palestine become an independent state immediately after the war, the state of Israel would never have happened.
The only viable solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict is the dissolution of the state of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state in its place under Arabs. If Jews want to live in Palestine, then they should do so at the pleasure of the Arab government. They can be allowed to buy land from the Arabs at prices set by Arabs.
In the 90s, the ageing chief of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Yasser Arafat agreed to let the Jewish state stay in exchange for recognition for his group and the establishment of a piecemeal Palestine state. This agreement was made under the Oslo Accord, which is better known as the Land-For-Peace deal. After spending years in hiding, Arafat had grown tired. When the opportunity came for what he thought was a comfortable retirement, he took it and in effect betrayed his people. And the Israelis, true to their nature, have made sure that this Palestine state remains on paper. Having conned the PLO, they have claimed that the establishment of a Palestine time will take 40 or 50 years. Recently, the current Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon had publicly toyed with an idea of assassinating Arafat. In my opinion, Arafat totally deserves it.
Meanwhile, as every day passes, Israel expands Jewish settlements in occupied areas. To prevent criticism, Israel makes sure that everyone is told that new settlements have the approval of the United States. The truth however is that no US president or politician will risk his career by criticizing Israel. Whenever, international criticism gets too hot, Israel gets United States involved.
Despite being an avowed ally of Israel, United States is also involved in the Palestinian conflict as a peacemaker. The only reason for this is to prevent the United States or an impartial nation from making adverse decisions with regard to the conflict. The U.S. covers all the flanks of Israel and actively prevents any other country from muzzling the Israeli position.
There are many reasons why United States goes out of its way to protect Israel. One is that Israel has a lot of influence in American media and politics*. Another reason is that United States itself is a nation of squatters. When Europeans came to America, they found the land overrun by Indians. Large numbers of Indians were then killed, cheated, converted to Christianity or sent to live in reservations. Just as Jews stole Arabs lands in Palestine, Europeans stole lands that belonged to Indians (native Americans). When United States gained Independence from Britain, it had only 13 states. Washington took advantage the anarchy that was prevailing in its southern neighbour Mexico and annexed the Mexican states of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, and Utah. Mexicans living in these areas were driven out and Caucasians were settled in their place. Thus, it is unlikely that the U.S. will challenge Jews who have colonized Palestine.
UPDATE (6/10/04): Also read Israel Says Freezing Talks, No Palestinian State
"The significance of our disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process... with a presidential blessing. It supplies the formaldehyde necessary so there is no political process with the Palestinians," said Dov Weisglass, key adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
* - Jews have a myriad of Jewish alphabet soup organizations to fight for their interests - ADL (Anti-Defamation League), AJC (American Jewish Committee), AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), UJA (United Jewish Appeal), etc. Officials of these pro-Israeli lobbies have penetrated almost every level of America's leading political, economic and social institutions. Almost 50% of the Democratic party's money comes from Jewish contributers. With Republicans, it is 20%. (Explains why the current U.S President stretches himself so much to accommodate Israel's Ariel Sharon.) One-fourth of editors in major American news magazines are Jewish. The New York Times does not hide the fact that it is pro-Jewish and pro-Israel. U.S. intelligence agencies obtains the help of Israel to execute several of their clandestine/illegal activities. The following story is one of the many disarming ways that Jews you to deflect such allegations.
A Jewish man who was riding on the subway reading an Arab newspaper. A friend of his, who happened to be riding in the same subway car, noticed this strange phenomenon. Very upset, he approached the newspaper reader, Moshe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading an Arab newspaper?
Moshe replied, I used to read the Jewish newspaper, but what did I find? Jews being persecuted; Israel being attacked; Jews disappearing through assimilation and intermarriage; Jews living in poverty. So I switched to the Arab newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own all the banks; Jews control the media; Jews are all rich and powerful; Jews rule the world. The news is so much better!
Sometimes, Jewish organizations do reveal their teeth. For example, the career of U.S. Senator William Fulbright, once the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was cut short after he repeated alleged in 1973 that Israel controls the (US) Senate. Any criticism of Israel or its influence is treated as anti-semitism. Critics are immediately branded as Nazis. When Ralph Nader, the third presidential candidate in the U.S. election, criticised the influence of pro-Israeli groups in Washington and the restricted freedom in America for discussing the Middle-East conflict, the The Washington Post bellowed in an editorial:
This is poisonous stuff. And if Mr. Nader doesn't understand what such words actually mean, the less savory elements of American society certainly know how to read such code. But Mr. Nader, as always, is not backing down.
Link to Moral Volcano's The Final Solution
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According to Israeli law, every Jew enjoys the right of return or the right of abode in Israel. The citizens of Israel are Jews who had migrated mainly from Europe, Africa, and the United States. Even India has sent Jews to Israel. There is a small Jewish enclave in Cochin (Kerala). Most of the Jews have emigrated to Israel. There are some groups in Manipur and Mizoram who claim to be one of the lost tribes of Israel and are keen on emigrating to Israel.
According to the Jewish Bible, Moses led Jews from Egypt to a promised land called Israel. Jews believe that ever since Israel has been their homeland. But Jews left Israel for good to live in Europe, Africa, and other parts of Asia. And Arabs have been living in their promised land for over 2000 years.
Wherever Jews went, they went on to became an affluent minority. They tended to exploit the rest. As Mark Twain† remarked
[A Jewish beggar was an impossibility]... whenever a Jew has real need to beg, his people save him from the necessity of doing it... [The Jew had] a reputation for various small forms of cheating, and for practising oppressive usury, and for burning himself out to get the insurance, and for arranging cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock the other man in, and for smart evasions which find him safe and comfortable just within the strict letter of the law, when court and jury know very well that he has violated the spirit of it... [In Russia] the Christian peasant and villager stood no chance against his commercial abilities. He was always ready to lend money on a crop, and sell vodka and other necessaries of life on credit while the crop was growing. When settlement day came he owned the crop; and next year or year after he owned the farm, like Joseph.
It became natural that others resented this and religious prejudices came in handy. Pogroms in Europe decimated large populations of jews and many others lived precariously.
But, why did they choose to return to Palestine? Wouldn't that be like jumping from the frying pan into fire. Did they expect Arabs to be more friendly or tolerant than Christians? No, they had planned to colonize Palestine for Jews. Herein lies the reason why they were hounded out of other countries. Their heartlessness was only matched by their greed. The audacity with which they thought they could evict citizens of a foreign country and supplant themselves there is truly unbelievable.
The only claim that Israelis have on Palestine is that they are Jews. Going by that logic, even Christians can claim Palestine because Jesus Christ styled himself as the King of Jews. And is Palestine big enough to accomodate all the Jews in the world? What about future when there will be more Jews? Are they all going to be crammed up in that small piece of land? Of course, not. Over the years, Israel has expanded its boundaries and had built Jewish settlements in occupied lands. To pave for this, the Israeli military has bulldozed or demolished thousands Palestinian houses. Others have been terrorised and forced to flee their lands.
Thus Israel has denied the rights of a nation whose citizens had lived there for centuries. Yet, Jews living in far away places had been given a right to stay. Worse, immigration of Jews from other countries continues to this day while Palestinians live in refugee camps. It was no wonder that in 1975 the United Nations General Assembly* adopted a resolution which equated Zionism with racism and racial discrimination. The Non-Aligned Movement has declared Zionism as a threat to world peace and security and called upon all countries to oppose this racist and imperalist ideology.
One of the biggest sponsors of Israel's xenophobic policy is the United States. According to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:
Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world's population and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes. Indeed, Israel's GNP is higher than the combined GNP of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. With a per capita income of about $14,000, Israel ranks as the sixteenth wealthiest country in the world; Israelis enjoy a higher per capita income than oil-rich Saudi Arabia and are only slightly less well-off than most Western European countries.Israel and its supporters has built a powerful lobby in the United States to make all this aid happen and to ban any public discussion‡ of it. American taxpayers' money is also used to lobby American politicians and officials. Millions of dollars are spent on members of the U.S. Congress. Even loans given to Israel are usually converted into a grant so that Israel doesn't have to pay anything back. Budget cuts that usually plague spending on American citizens don't seem to affect aid to Israel. It has been calculated that between 1949 and 1998, that every Israeli had cost the American taxpayer approximately $23,240.
* - In 1991, the UN General Assembly revoked Resolution 3379, as Israel agreed to negotiate with the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization).
† - I had quoted from Mark Twain's Concerning The Jews selectively to make my point. Mark Twain was not anti-semitic. Please read the entire essay.
‡ - The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal are owned by Jews. The main American television networks ABC, CBS and NBC are run by Jews (see Jews In The Media).
Link to Moral Volcano's Why Israel Is A Nation Of Squatters - III
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Despite an economic recession, rising crime rates and 15 percent unemployment, Chavez won widespread support among Venezuela's poor majority by spending millions of dollars to teach adults to read, sending Cuban doctors to slums and offering loans to farmers and small businesses.
Critics say the programs, many inspired by Cuban models, are a way of spreading communist propaganda to the poor.
Even though it was a financial scandal, the prosecutor went so far as to investigate Clinton's personal life. You definitely have to wonder why Republicans in the U.S. did not show this kind of thoroughness with Iraq.Ms. Lewinsky testified that her physical relationship with the President included oral sex but not sexual intercourse. According to Ms. Lewinsky, she performed oral sex on the President; he never performed oral sex on her.(39) Initially, according to Ms. Lewinsky, the President would not let her perform oral sex to completion. In Ms. Lewinsky's understanding, his refusal was related to "trust and not knowing me well enough." During their last two sexual encounters, both in 1997, he did ejaculate.
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she performed oral sex on the President on nine occasions. On all nine of those occasions, the President fondled and kissed her bare breasts. He touched her genitals, both through her underwear and directly, bringing her to orgasm on two occasions. On one occasion, the President inserted a cigar into her vagina. On another occasion, she and the President had brief genital-to-genital contact.
In 1998, Israel tried to sell nearly 1000 Merkava-3 tanks to Turkey. But, Iran publicised a photo of a damaged Merkava tank that had been blown up in Lebanon by Hezbollah fighters using a shoulder-fired missile. This made Turkey to drop the idea of buying the Israeli tanks. Now, Iraqi resistance fighters are busting American tanks in Iraq. Countries like Iran, Syria and Russia might be busy assessing the effectiveness of anti-tank weapons on American tanks, particularly the Abrams M1. The Abrams main battle tank (MBT) is the pride of the US armor and has been developed after spending billions of dollars.
UPDATE (1/10/04): Also read Darfur: Is it genocide? from FinalCall.com.
I believe the best kept secret has been the hidden hand of the United States government, financing, funding and arming third party countries to facilitate and perpetuate the war hitting Sudan. There needs to be an independent investigation of our intelligence coordination, against insurgent groups in the country.
It is hypocritical for the United States government to speak of genocide and human rights abuses by the Sudanese government when, at the same time, they are covertly funding the insurgence and rebel groups in the country opposed to the government, which only serves to perpetuate the murder, the mayhem and the destruction of the human rights of the Sudanese people.
UPDATE (13/11/04): Today, there was a search for gynecomastia admirer in my referrer logs. So, I did some Googling and found the researcher at Unassisted Childbirth.com. The Animal Planet program is called The Most Extreme Dads.
* - Read US Revealed to be Secretly Funding Opponents of Chavez
† - East Timor is a former Portugese colony in South-East Asia. In 1965, the CIA staged a coup in neigbbouring Indonesia by Gen. Suharto against Sukarno, a freedom fighter and the country's first President. In 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor. East Timor's population was overwhelmingly Christian while the rest of Indonesia was essentially Muslim. When Suharto was deposed and democracy was established in Indonesia, American and British governments started making noise about the persecution of Christians in East Timor. Western correspondents such as those working for the CNN and BBC would go undercover and document atrocities inside East Timor. The Indonesian military was very much in control of the country and they made sure that the Western media got the stories they wanted. The international community was then convinced and East Timor became an independent nation in 2002. East Timor, it must be noted, has huge reseverves of gas and oil. It could have easily become a rich country but foriegn oil companies have other plans. Australia has claimed that its maritime border extends for 85% of the 600-mile sea separating the two countries. Under international laws, the border should have drawn halfway between the two countries, which would have given East Timor 100% of its petroleum resources including the oil-rich Greater Sunrise field. In March 2003, East Timor was forced to cede 79.9 percent of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field to Australia. The entire worth of the field was an estimated $50 billion.
Link to Moral Volcano's Points To Ponder - III
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There are thousands of Afghans fighters lodged in Indian prisons in the state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). When journalists interview them, they claim that they came to J&K because they were told that Islam was in danger there. It is a standard reply that they were taught during training. Foreign terrorists who fight in J&K are under contract like mercenaries. Their families get paid huge sums of money. They get big bonuses when they score huge hits. Jehadi organizations in Pakistan and Pak-Occupied Kashmir (POK) solicit donations from sympathetic Muslims in Pakistan and abroad. It is a general misapprehension that the money goes to buy arms. Making an AK-47 is like making a folding chair. It doesn't cost much. Because these men were captured during anti-terrorist operations by security forces, they have no case against them. They will be held indefinitely in Indian prisons at taxpayers' expense. They will be fed, clothed, warmed, and housed using our money. None of them will ever be hanged.
Compare this with the case of Dhananjoy Chatterjee. When the condemned man sent a mercy petition to the President, several people were worried that he might be given a pardon. Women's organisations were the most vocal in their protests. They don't realise that women also commit murders and that such women might be hanged. (Though, almost always, death sentences for women get commuted to life sentences.) Most dowry deaths are caused by women. Women sometimes kill their husbands and sometimes even their children.
With most crimes, the punishment is meant to deter the culprit from committing it again. With capital punishment, however, the deterence is meant solely for others. In a society, murders will happen no matter what punishment it entails. In any group of 1000 people, there will be x number of murders, y number of divorces, and z number of robberies. It is simply a function of statistics. Besides that, letting the state murder someone is against the concept of right to life, which our constitution guarantees for every citizen.
Yet, see how foreign terrorists are faring in India. These mass murders may still go back to their countries under some goodwill arrangement. In the Purulia arms drop case, the Latvian crew was initially charged with waging war against India, which is punishable by death. The charge was then watered down to violation of air space. When the Russian President Putin was pressured by the Church, he made the Indian government release the culprits. Following this, British government asked for the release of the arms dealer Peter Bleach, who was then released.
Interestingly, Peter Bleach had informed British intelligence about the clandestine arms airdrop. The British passed on the information to RAW. RAW sent the message to the Eastern military HQ by post, which got delayed, and no action was taken. When our military and spy agencies work with such precision and alacrity, how can one expect the police in our towns and cities to do better. Most of the time, they are busy providing bandobust to our netas and taking bribes. It is unlikely that these guys will be able to crack every murder case and hang the real culprits. Even though all death sentences have to be compulsarily reviewed by the Supreme Court (SC), it is not difficult to manufacture evidence. Only people who can't afford could defence attorneys get sentenced to death.
UPDATE (19/11/04): I do however feel that an excemption should be made on certain offences so that capital punishment can be applied on
Link to Moral Volcano's Hang Foreign Terrorists, Not Indians
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bush shows kamasutra demonstration pictures: So, that's what they call Abu Ghraib! Anyway, if you are a fan of VP Dick Cheney, get these fridge magnets from BettyBowers.com.
I picture Oprah Winfrey as the type of self-hating black woman, like Condi Rice, who wakes up every morning wishing she were white, blond, thin and rich. Being unable to attain the first three, Oprah has settled for rich, and being guru to the white, blond and thin.When you become rich, you tend to forget less fortunate members in your community. This trait exists in everyone, irrespective of race, religion, or nationality. Rich black people have as much right to burn in hell as rich white ones.
Girls at IHateMen.com ought to know they also leave bruised hearts in their wake. Here is a sample.
my girlfriend story begins just today as i post this. she starts yelling at me and saying stuff like how im good for nothing and how showers need to be taken more than once a week so i decided while she was here to go to this webstie and type this story right before her eyes. well let me just say she went CRAZY! yelling and screaming like a crazy person. hitting me upside the head, tackling me and she went for the goods(not in the good fun way in the bad ouch way). well let me just say if thats not rude i dont know what is(the mans goods are sacred).
Link to Moral Volcano's Strange Search Requests - VII
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For the sake of an argument, let us suppose Americans, who number around 300 million, decide to go back to their mother country Britain, whose population is 60 million, and decide to form their own country there. Preposterous? Not quite. This is what the Jews of Israel has done in Palestine.
Successive emigration of Jews out of the Middle East wiped out the entire population of Jews inside Palestine. After almost 2000 years, Jews decided to claim their ancient homeland and they managed to do this successfully. Like most people, I was under the impression that Jews have been living in Israel for centuries and that they were being threatened by their Muslim neighbours. Now, I realize that my sympathies were entirely misplaced.
Between 1870 and 1890, the Russian Zionist group Hovevei Zion and Bilu set up a series of Jewish settlements inside Palestine. The Zionist movement recruited Jews to emigrate to Palestine as they were facing religious persecution else where. The movement was financially aided by the French Baron Edmond James de Rothschild. At that time, the world Jewish population stood at nearly 8 million. Uganda, Argentina, Cyprus and the Congo were suggested by Zionist leaders as possible sites for a Jewish state but they were rejected. It is really surprising that Jews who were escaping "persecution" could emigrate to a foreign country with a stated objective of colonizing it!
At the start of the 20th century, 25,000 Jews had already immigrated to Palestine. The Jewish National Fund was founded to buy land in Palestine for Zionists. Jews escaping persecution in Europe started pouring into Palestine. The progressive wing in the Zionist movement favored a Palestinian state for Jews and Arabs. The right-wing favored a homeland for Jews only. Terrorism marginalized the progressives.
At that time, Palestine was under the Ottoman Turk empire. The Turks got defeated in the First World War. The Arabs had helped the Allies to defeat the Ottomans because they had been promised that Palestine and other Arab territories under Ottoman occupation would be freed immediately upon the end of the War. But the British refused to let go off Palestine after the War. One reason for this was to help Jewish migration into Palestine. In 1917, the British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour sent a letter to Baron Rothschild which later became known as The Balfour declaration. He stated that Britain would use its best endeavors to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. The then population of Palestine was 700,000 of which 574,000 were Muslims, 74,000 were Christian, and 56,000 were Jews.
In 1920, the San Remo Conference granted Britain a mandate over Palestine and two years later Palestine was effectively under British administration,and Sir Herbert Samuel, a declared Zionist, was sent as Britain's first High Commissioner to Palestine. Britain then submitted the Palestinian problem to the League of Nations*. In 1922, the League of Nations allowed the establishment for the Jewish people a homeland in Palestine.
With the outbreak of the second World War, British government published a white paper restricting Jewish immigration and offering independence for Palestine within ten years. This was rejected by the Zionists, who then organized terrorist groups and launched a bloody campaign against the British and the Palestinians. The aim was to drive them both out of Palestine and to pave the way for the establishment of the Zionist state.
The UN made the recommendation for a three-way partition of Palestine into a Jewish State, an Arab State and a small internationally administered zone including the religiously significant towns Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The Arab leadership opposed the plan, arguing that it violated the rights of the majority of the people in Palestine, which at the time was 67% non-Jewish (1,237,000) and 33% Jewish (608,000). The Jews had been offered 55% percent of the land when they only owned 7%.
In April 1948, Zionist terrorists attacked the Jerusalem suburb of Deir Yassin and systematically murdered 254 Palestinian men, women and children. A mass exodus begins, with more than 750,000 Palestinians fleeing to neighboring countries. On Friday 14th May 1948, British mandate on Palestine ended and Zionist leaders declared the establishment of the State of Israel. It was immediately recognized by the US and Russia. Five Arab armies from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq then attacked Israel. With the weapons donated by Britain and foreign Jews, the Israeli forces quickly routed the Arab armies and occupied almost 80 percent of the country. A ceasefire was agreed but Israel forced 1 million Palestinians were forced to leave their country. The West Bank was put under Jordanian control and the Gaza Strip under Egyptian control.
In 1967, the Six-Day War broke out. It ended with Israel occupying the Golan Heights; the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Old City; the Gaza Strip; and the Sinai. Israel also pushed Jordanian forces out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The conflict displaced another 500,000 Palestinians who flee to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
In 1973, Egypt and Syria launched an offensive against Israel on Yom Kippur, the Jewish holy day of atonement, in hopes of regaining territory lost in 1967. The Yom Kippur War lasted 18 days. Soon after the war, Saudi Arabia led a petroleum embargo against states that supported Israel. The embargo causes a steep rise in petrol prices and fuel shortages across the world and lasts until March 1974.
In 1950, Israel granted citizenship to any Jew requesting it. Millions of Jews have emigrated to Israel from far away places including India. Today, the population of Israel is over 6 million. Israel completely occupies about half of the territory originally allocated to the Arab Palestinian state and exercises considerable control over the remainder. According to the CIA World Factbook, there are 187,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, about 20,000 in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, more than 5,000 in the Gaza Strip, and fewer than 177,000 in East Jerusalem.
* - The League of Nations was a Britain-France setup. Its main purpose was to legitimize the imperial ambitions of these countries. The League however did not include the United States. It did not really matter because in those days the US was happy playing the stooge for Britain. Today, the situation is somewhat. The main purpose of the UN is to bring legitimacy to American efforts to increase its hegemony over the world. Britain and the other permanent members of the Security Council are happy playing the stooge for the US.
Link to Moral Volcano's Why Israel Is A Nation Of Squatters - II
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Based on the Old Testament, the Israelite kingdom is supposed to have reached its greatest extent under David and Solomon, who are dated at 1004-928 B.C.E. After the death of Solomon, the kingdom was divided into two - Israel in the North and Judah in the south. The two regions were then occupied by several people including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Medes. At one time, it was occupied by the Greeks under Alexander the Great. Romans occupied Judea in 63 B.C.E.
Jewish homelessness started with the Jewish revolt against the Roman empire in the first century. In the year 39 C.E., the Roman emperor Caligula ordered that his statue be set up inside Solomon's Temple (Beit ha-Midkash) in Jerusalem. While Caligula may have made this order to establish his authority in Jewish lands or perhaps even to humiliate the Jews, Jewish and Christian historians, biased as they were, have alleged dementia as the cause. Treating monarchs on par with gods was a common feature in Roman times. Anyway, this fuelled the rise of Zealots, a virulent group of anti-Roman rebels. Before he could do any serious damage to the Jews, he became a victim of an assasination, which again was a common feature in Roman times. Romans procurators collected heavy taxes in Jewish areas.
In the year 66, the Roman procurator Florus looted the Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. Enraged Jews wrecked revenge on a small Roman garrison that was then stationed in Jerusalem. Cestius Gallus, the Roman ruler in neighboring Syria, sent in a larger force of soldiers. Even they were routed by the Jewish insurgents. After these victories, the ranks of Zealots began to grow and the idea of defeating the Romans grew stronger. This was a mistake because the Romans returned with a force of 60,000 and overran the Jewish stronghold of Galilee. Over one lakh Jews were killed or sold into slavery.
In other Jewish stronghold of Jerusalem, the leadership was aware of the futility of the revolt and did not bother to join Zealots in Galilee. Embittered refugees from Galilee escaped to Jerusalem and were locked in a suicidal civil war. By 68 CE, most moderate Jewish leaders were dead. Meanwhile, Romans had laid seige to the city. In the summer of 70, the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem, and initiated an orgy of violence and destruction. It is estimated that one million Jews died in the revolt. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, who opposed the revolt, arranged arranged for his disciples to carry him outside the city disguised as a corpse. He then surrendered to the Roman general Titus Flavius Vespasianus, who granted him concessions that allowed Jewish communal life to continue. The only other Christian sect to survive the Jewish revolt were Christians.
There would be one more major revolt against the Romans - the The Bar-Kokhba Revolt (132-135 C.E.) In the words of Roman historian Dio Cassius:
In the beginning, the Romans were not worried about the insurgents. But little by little, the disturbances spread to all of Judea. The Jews rose in rebellion throughout the country, inflicting increasingly heavy losses on the Romans, sometimes resorting to ruse, sometimes to all out war. People from other nations, attracted by the pillage, threatened to join them. The entire world was seething. Finally, Hadrian dispatched his greatest generals to fight them. The most famous was Julius Severus, the governor of Brittany. Initially, the latter did not risk openly attacking the insurgents because of their great numbers and the intensity of their desperation. Instead, he preferred to undertake isolating them, forcing them to withdraw to their strongholds and cutting off their provisions. Thus, he succeeded, slowly but surely, to weaken and destroy them. Few Jews survived. Julius Severus seized about fifty of their best fortresses; 985 of their most important villages were reduced to ruins; 580,000 men died in ambushes and in battles. The numbers of those that died of starvation, that were victims of epidemics or that were burned to death cannot be determined. Almost all of Judea was devastated.After the revolt, Jews were sold into slavery and many were transported to Egypt. Judean settlements were not rebuilt. Jerusalem was turned into a Roman city called Aelia Capitolina and the Jews were forbidden to live there. Jews then went under the Byzantine empire and Christianity spread. Over time, Jews migrated out of Palestine and Arabs settled in large numbers. They ended up in large numbers all across Europe including Russia.
In 638, Muslim Khalifa Omar ibn al-Khattaab brought an end to Byzantine occupation and occupied Jerusalem. Prior to this, Prophet Muhammad conducted his spiritual journey to al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Since Muslims believe Prophet Mohammed had his great vision of ascension to heaven from the third shrine in Islam (al-Aqsa), all Arab and Muslim rulers gave the city a prominence. From 638 onwards, Palestine was ruled by Muslims. Between 1099 and 1187 C.E., the Crusaders occupied Jerusalem and had established the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusaders were attacked and defeated by Saladin in 1187 and the city retained its Muslim facade. In December 12, 1516, the Ottomans entered Jerusalem. Palestine remained under the Muslim Ottoman rule up to the end of WW-I. Many Arab kingdoms had flourished in the region before Christ. Palestine practically had no Jews until 1878. That year, a Zionist (Jewish) settlement was established inside Palestine under the guise of an agricultural community.
Link to Moral Volcano's Why Israel Is A Nation Of Squatters - I
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Q. Mr. President, some will see the presence of Iraqi exiles -- some of whom have received money from the United States government in the past -- as proof, in their minds, that this is a puppet government of the United States. Could you answer that criticism? And explain what role, if any, you had in the names, as they --
THE PRESIDENT: I had no role. I mean, occasionally, somebody said, this person may be interested, or that -- but I had no role in picking, zero. Secondly, in terms of whether or not our government helped, we did help some of the figures now in the interim government. We helped them because they were fierce (sic) anti-Saddam people. We helped their organizations, which were -- which believed that the tyranny of Saddam was bad for the Iraqi people.
Asked how big a role the American administration had in forming the government and selecting the prime minister and president, the UN envoy Lakdhar Brahimi reminded reporters that American Ambassador L. Paul Bremer runs things in Iraq. Bremer is the dictator of Iraq, he said. He has the money. He has the signature. He also added, I will not say who was my first choice, and who was not my first choice ... I will remind you that the Americans are governing this country.
The Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies (ICRSS) conducted a poll in May 2004 asking Iraqis to rank 17 prominent religious and political leaders. Iyad Allawi, Prime Minister of the interim government finished in sixteenth place. Behind him, dead last, was Ghazi al-Yawer, the President of the interim government.
Do you know who sealed the fate of Saddam Hussein? Was it the Neocons? Or the US Congress? Maybe George W. Bush? All wrong. It was Oprah Winfrey. Oprah is the most powerful woman in the United States. For millions of housewives across the US, her word is the gospel. She can make obscure ideas into a national obsession. Books that she reviews invariably end up in the New York Times Bestsellers list. She is so powerful that when she declared that she wasn't going to eat any more beef from nonvegetarian cows, meat futures fell and several American states enacted laws to prevent people from talking about unsafe food. Realising her immense potential and since women form half the population, Bush & Co. decided to tap her show for promoting the war in Iraq.
Normally, her show features issues such as embracing your womanhood, weight reduction, or debt relief. Sometimes, she does interview people like Jennifer Lopez or Jim Carrey. Because Star Worl