'Fight Smart' - 31 December 2007

Don't Take the Bait - Fight Smart
ANIMATED 911 SUMMARY - CLICK HERE
Who is the enemy?

A Special Kind Of Madness
Blair, Bush, Huckabee, And The Religious Right
'Thou Shalt Not Be Deluded'
www.nlpwessex.org/docs/watmadness.htm
Deadly Cocktail Of Oil And 'Christian' Faith
Threatens Security Of Israel And Her Neighbours

Religious Right Lifts Huckabee 'Left Behind' Mike Huckabee, on the front cover of Newsweek 17 December

Evangelist And Republican Presidential Hopeful Mike Huckabee Has Been Riding High In The Polls For The 2008 US Primaries
But What Do People Know About Him?

"Democrat Hillary Clinton holds a narrow lead in Iowa four days before the state opens the presidential nominating race, while Republicans Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are virtually tied, according to a Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll released on Sunday.... Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, held a statistically insignificant one-point edge over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 29 percent to 28 percent. Arizona Sen. John McCain was a distant third with 11 percent."
Clinton leads in Iowa; Huckabee, Romney even: Poll
Reuters, 30 December 2007

"Fifty percent of all voters and 40 percent of Republicans say they don't know enough about Huckabee to say if they like him or not."
Poll: Huckabee Largely Unfamiliar
Associated Press, 27 December 2007

Just Exactly Why Does Huckabee Want To Increase The US Defense Budget By More Than 50%?
Why Is He Trying To Recruit Washington Ultra Hawk John Bolton As A Foreign Policy Adviser?
And Why Does He Want To Relocate The Palestinians To Egypt Or Saudi Arabia?

"Our current active armed forces simply are not large enough..... Right now, we spend about 3.9 percent of our GDP on defense, compared with about six percent in 1986, under President Ronald Reagan. We need to return to that six percent level.... If I ever have to undertake a large invasion, I will follow the Powell Doctrine and use overwhelming force...."
Mike Huckabee
America's Priorities In The War On Terror
Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008

"On Friday morning, Huckabee listed former U.N. ambassador John Bolton as someone with whom he either has 'spoken or will continue to speak.' At a Thursday evening news conference, Huckabee said, 'I've corresponded with John Bolton, who's agreed to work with us on developing foreign policy.'....'I'd be happy to speak with Huckabee, but I haven't spoken with him yet,' said Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington."
Huckabee stumbles on foreign affairs
USA Today, 29 December 2007

"Huckabee is pro-Israel: He has visited the Jewish state nine times, and told the crowd at the Bedrick house party that he favored the establishment of a Palestinian state - in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Bedrick may see Huckabee as the perfect fit for the White House, but for many American Jews the thought of a staunchly pro-life, ordained Baptist minister as president is a major cause for alarm....Chafets, the American-born Israeli government spokesman turned journalist, told JTA that 'there's no doubt that Huckabee is a Christian conservative in the mold of Falwell or Pat Robertson, speaking politically.' 'He believes in the inerrancy of the Bible,' Chafetz said. 'In other words, he's a fundamentalist. He believes that the Bible could not be mistaken. He's a pre-millennialist Christian. He believes in Armageddon.'... During the summer, after Huckabee began to show signs of progress, the executive director of the National Jewish Democrat Council, Ira Forman, said voters 'should be concerned whenever an extreme candidate gets a whiff of the presidency.' "
Can Huckabee ever win over Jewish voters?
Jerusalem Post, 24 December 2007

Overview
Huckabee As 'Bush On Steroids'

Riding High With The Religious Right

"A few months ago, the evangelical preacher turned politician Mike Huckabee – from Hope, Arkansas – was a long-shot candidate for the Republican leadership....Backed by an unpaid army of evangelical Christians and America's gun-lovers, he is best described as the Barack Obama of the right. Initially dismissed as an oddball candidate who could not even count on the support of the religious right, Huckabee is now a contender for the Presidency.... a seasoned politician who was also one of the first successful televangelists....Huckabee has fundamentalist views on terrorism even if his grip on foreign policy issues is weak: 'Islamofascism is rooted in a theocratic Islamic jihadism that seeks to destroy and annihilate every last one of us,' he says. 'It wants to establish a complete Islamic theocracy across the world and for that to happen it means our culture has to be completely snuffed out.'..... Along with Christian fundamentalists, he can count on the unflinching support of the millions of members of the National Rifle Association.... The first big test is the Iowa caucus on 3 January which is followed almost immediately by the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries.... If Huckabee ends up at the front of the field when 20 states vote on 5 February – so-called Tsunami Tuesday – all bets will be off."
The Big Question: How extreme is Mike Huckabee – and could he reach the White House?
Independent, 11 December 2007

"The former Baptist preacher and governor of Arkansas, who has taken a lead in four out of the five important early nominating states, has hired the man who guided Mr Reagan to the greatest landslide in American political history as his campaign chairman. Ed Rollins, who was national campaign manager in 1984 when President Reagan won his second term with 49 of the 50 states, hailed Mr Huckabee as the candidate he has been waiting for since 'the Great Communicator' left the political stage two decades ago....The endorsement as the heir to Reagan - a mantle sought by all the Republican candidates - caps a remarkable month for Mr Huckabee. He has leapt from fifth in the polls to first place in Iowa and South Carolina, two of the first three states to select their presidential candidates next month. A new poll on Friday also put Mr Huckabee ahead in Florida, previously the cornerstone of Rudy Giuliani's White House ambitions, and in Michigan, the birthplace of Mitt Romney, his other main rival. He is in a statistical tie with Mr Giuliani in national polls..... But his support is rooted in the Christian conservative movement. He has endorsements from 60 pastors, the head of a Christian home schooling movement in Iowa and the author Tim LaHaye, whose apocalyptic Left Behind novels have sold 65 million copies among evangelicals.... Mr Huckabee's strength in Florida, where independent voters can hold the key to victory, suggests that his appeal goes wider."
Mike Huckabee dubbed Ronald Reagan's heir
Sunday Telegraph, 16 December 2007

"The final instalment of an evangelical Christian publishing phenomenon which has spawned 16 novels and sold 64 million copies arrived in shops across the United States yesterday..... The Left Behind series appeared to chime with the sense of the impending Apocalypse among many Americans, reinforced by the election of President Bush on a faith-based platform and global events which — in some eyes — confirm biblical prophecy. ....   The Left Behind series begins with all born-again Christians being summoned to heaven in the Rapture, as predicted by the Book of Revelation...... Jesus then returns for the Second Coming and slaughters nonbelievers including Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, as well as many Catholics and mainstream Protestants."
Revelations of the last battle as US Bible thriller series comes to end
London Times, 4 April 2007

"On the Republican side, Mr. Huckabee appears to have surged to the lead, supplanting former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. In an appearance in West Des Moines Thursday, he drew a crowd estimated at 1,000, far more than the audience at a typical Romney event.... Mr. Huckabee has particular appeal to the state's significant population of Christian conservatives. The Atlantic magazine reported on its Web site, for example, that on Friday a group of national figures in the Christian right, including Dr. Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the hugely successful 'Left Behind' series, were hosting a conference call for Iowa ministers. Mr. Huckabee has been vastly outspent by Mr. Romney, but such contacts, in the description of one Romney aide, are part of a politically unconventional 'viral network.'"
With just days left, Iowans are still undecided
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 30 December 2007

"If social conservatives were to coalesce around Mr Huckabee, that would throw the Republican primaries into utter confusion. The candidate they back tends to win the Republican nomination. Their record turnout in 2004 helped George Bush beat John Kerry. Yet social conservatives are only a small minority of the national electorate, so they have to pick a candidate who also appeals to others. Some think that Mr Huckabee might be that candidate. Largely, this is because of his personality. On the campaign trail, he is approachable, chummy and eloquent....Plenty applaud a candidate who seems so straightforward, too. In a poll by YouGov/Polimetrix for The Economist (full results here), Republicans rated him the most honest candidate and Americans rated him the most moral of either party ."
Faith, Hope and populism
Economist, 22 November 2007

Embracing Evangelism At The White House "I find it disturbing that an American politician [George W. Bush] who is supposed to be the head of a secular nation where religion is protected but there is no state religion.... embraces a kind of evangelicalism that gives legitimacy to the notion of the rapture, Armageddon, the apocalypse as a good thing. Here's a man who speaks of World War III and the apocalypse and he has his hand on the button and he talks to God. I don't know; if it's a show, it's a dangerous show; if it's real, we should all be scared to death...." Scott Ritter - Chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 - 1998 Detroit Metro Times, 28 November 2007 'Holy Huckabee - Clash Of Civilisations Man' "I have said, and I believe with all my heart, we are not on the brink of, we're in the midst of, a World War III. And the Islamic fascists who have declared enmity against us are not interested in settling the types of lines of demarcation that normally settle wars, because ... [they do so] from a theological perspective... when that is the basis, there can be no negotiation because while one may be able to negotiate with diplomats one does not negotiate with God. When they declare that their sole purpose is the destruction of Israel, the United States, and anything that resembles us, let us be clear, they are not interested in detente.... They are solely determined for one, and only one thing - and that is not our decline, it is our ultimate and absolute annihilation and destruction. This is a war we cannot and must not lose, because it doesn't mean that we have a shrink border. It means that we have a non-existence... at stake is... existence itself, as a people and as a civilisation. We must win this war." Mike Huckabee, American Conservative Union Political Action Conference C-Span, Posted to YouTube 4 March 2007 "Islamic terrorists.... really do want to kill every last one of us and destroy civilization as we know it.... The 'peace dividend' from the fall of the Soviet Union has become a war deficit with the rise of Islamic terrorism..... Our current active armed forces simply are not large enough.....The Bush administration plans to increase the size of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps by about 92,000 troops over the next five years. We can and must do this in two to three years.... Right now, we spend about 3.9 percent of our GDP on defense, compared with about six percent in 1986, under President Ronald Reagan. We need to return to that six percent level.... If I ever have to undertake a large invasion, I will follow the Powell Doctrine and use overwhelming force.... In order to contain Iran, it is essential to win in Iraq..... We cannot allow Iran to push its theocracy into Iraq and then expand it further west....We must be as aggressive diplomatically as we have been militarily since 9/11. We must intensify our diplomatic efforts with China, India, Russia, South Korea, and European states [concerning Iran] ...... They must realize that if the United States does end up taking military action, they will bear some responsibility for having failed to maximize peaceful options." Mike Huckabee America's Priorities In The War On Terror Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008 " ....  whatever it takes to make sure they [Iran] can't do it [make a nuclear bomb], that's what we have to be willing to do.... I think the President is right to start by trying to bankrupt them before we bomb them. That's a good way to start. But we have to be prepared to take - again - 'whatever action'. And I don't want to go through every possible scenario, other than to say that that would mean just what it says. 'Whatever it takes'. ... [Interviewer, then asks, if that would include the use of a tactical nuclear device if required?] ... let's not try to, you know, tip the hand of what might have to be done." CNN Interview With Republican Presidential Nomination Candidate, Mike Huckabee CNN Clip,  Posted To YouTube 29 October 2007 "And sometimes when people don't even realize I'm praying. I'm standing at a podium, somebody's asking a question. I'm praying real hard: 'Dear God, give me an answer real quick.'.... I don't think we've ever faced a threat like we are facing now....... We're facing, I believe, our possible annihilation as a country..." Honest Questions with Mike Huckabee CNN, 19 October 2007 "We need to understand that this is, in fact, World War III. Unlike any other world war we've ever fought, this one is one we cannot afford to lose. Because losing it does not mean we lose some land or some geopolitical influence. It means we give up our own lives, because no less than that is the goal of the jihadists." Huckabee: War is about 'perversion' of Islam Associated Press, 10 February 2007

"Huckabee says proudly that his faith defines him. At a campaign stop in a Native American-run gambling town, a virtual temple to mammon, I asked him what he thought of Tony Blair’s observation that if politicians go on about religion, 'frankly they [voters] think you’re a nutter'. He was mystified. 'Is that a British phrase?' he laughed. 'It would be utterly absurd not to talk about our faith. It’s one of the more refreshing things we get to talk about.'”
Shucks, I’m the hick who can beat Hillary Clinton
Sunday Times, 16 December 2007

"Speaking at the convocation ceremony last week at the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, Huckabee attributed his rise in the polls to divine intervention. 'There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a human one,' Huckabee said. 'It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people.'"
Huckabee Courts Evangelical Vote in Iowa
ABC News, 5 December 2007

So Just What Exactly Are Huckabee's Non-Human Plans For The Middle East?

“... there are a lot of options [for the Palestinians] that involve other territory that doesn’t have to include the West Bank or the Golan Heights. There is an enormous amount of land in Arab control over all of the Middle East."
Mike Huckabee
Sunday Times, 16 December 2007

"Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican presidential contender, gave a stump speech and answered questions today at the home of New Hampshire State Representative Jason Bedrick, the first Orthodox Jew elected to the NH House of Representatives. In response to a question about the Middle East from Rabbi Moshe Bleich of the Wellesley-Weston Chabad Center, Gov. Huckabee expressed frustration with Israeli politicians who wanted to give away the Golan Heights and firmly opposed dividing Jerusalem. When asked about a Palestinian state, Gov. Huckabee stated that he supports creating a Palestinian state, but believes that it should be formed outside of Israel. He named Egypt and Saudi Arabia as possible alternatives, noting that the Arabs have far more land than the Israelis and that it would only be fair for other Arab nations to give the Palestinians land for a state, rather than carving it out of the tiny Israeli state."
Orthodox Jew Hosts Presidential Candidate
Jewish Russian Telegraph/Yeshiva World News, 15 October 2007

"Huckabee is pro-Israel: He has visited the Jewish state nine times, and told the crowd at the Bedrick house party that he favored the establishment of a Palestinian state - in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Bedrick may see Huckabee as the perfect fit for the White House, but for many American Jews the thought of a staunchly pro-life, ordained Baptist minister as president is a major cause for alarm....Chafets, the American-born Israeli government spokesman turned journalist, told JTA that 'there's no doubt that Huckabee is a Christian conservative in the mold of Falwell or Pat Robertson, speaking politically.' 'He believes in the inerrancy of the Bible,' Chafetz said. 'In other words, he's a fundamentalist. He believes that the Bible could not be mistaken. He's a pre-millennialist Christian. He believes in Armageddon.'... During the summer, after Huckabee began to show signs of progress, the executive director of the National Jewish Democrat Council, Ira Forman, said voters 'should be concerned whenever an extreme candidate gets a whiff of the presidency.' "
Can Huckabee ever win over Jewish voters?
Jerusalem Post, 24 December 2007

'Thou Shalt Not Be Deluded'

"In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to Earth when certain preconditions have been met. The first of these was the establishment of a state of Israel. The next involves Israel's occupation of the rest of its 'biblical lands' (most of the Middle East), and the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques. The legions of the antichrist will then be deployed against Israel, and their war will lead to a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will either burn or convert to Christianity, and the Messiah will return to Earth..... American pollsters believe that 15-18% of US voters belong to churches or movements which subscribe to these teachings. A survey in 1999 suggested that this figure included 33% of Republicans......  So here we have a major political constituency - representing much of the current president's core vote - in the most powerful nation on Earth, which is actively seeking to provoke a new world war. Its members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act, as Revelation (9:14-15) maintains that four angels 'which are bound in the great river Euphrates' will be released 'to slay the third part of men'. They batter down the doors of the White House as soon as its support for Israel wavers: when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry emails from Christian fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again..... For 15% of the electorate, the Middle East is not just a domestic matter, it's a personal one: if the president fails to start a conflagration there, his core voters don't get to sit at the right hand of God."
Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power
Guardian, 20 April 2007

"Romney's Mormon faith is raising questions with some. But what is Huckabee's relationship with 'Left Behind' author Timothy LaHaye? Let's imagine that Mitt Romney released a television advertisement in Iowa describing himself as 'a Mormon leader.' Reporters would descend like vultures upon Romney, the front-running Republican in the Iowa presidential caucuses, asking if he embraced Mormon doctrine on marriage, alcohol and everything else. So why isn't anyone questioning Mike Huckabee about Timothy LaHaye? Huckabee, whose advertisements proclaim that he is a 'Christian leader,' trails Romney by a mere 4 percentage points in the latest Iowa poll. His campaign received a boost from LaHaye, coauthor of best-selling novels, who sent a letter inviting selected pastors to all-expenses-paid conferences in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The only presidential candidate speaking at each event will be Huckabee. So it's perfectly fair to ask whether Huckabee sees eye to eye with LaHaye. If he does, Huckabee - an affable, guitar-playing ex-minister - is a whole lot scarier than many of us have suspected. LaHaye believes that Christians will rise into heaven in The Rapture. The rest of us will be Left Behind - get it? - to face nasty tribulations: plagues, earthquakes, hailstorms and more. During this time of torment, the Book of Revelations predicts, the Antichrist will reign. But in LaHaye's 16 novels, which have sold more than 65 million copies, the Anti-christ is . . . the secretary-general of the United Nations! That's right: The U.N. is itself a kind of deviltry, because it prefigures the rule of Satan....Therefore, the first question for Huckabee should be: What do you think of the United Nations? And if you're elected president, will you reduce or change America's commitment to the U.N. and to other international organizations? The next set of questions should surround Israel. According to LaHaye, the final return of Christ - and the defeat of Satan - will be preceded by the establishment of 'Greater Israel.' That's one big reason why many evangelical Christians are Israel hawks, rejecting a two-state solution and supporting the expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. Again, somebody should ask Huckabee: Do you favor two states, for the Israelis and Palestinians, or just one? And why? Then there's the war in Iraq. LaHaye has suggested that Saddam Hussein was a 'forerunner of the Antichrist' - and that the Iraq war might itself represent the final, epic battle between Satan and Jesus. Does Huckabee, too, think that the conflict is prefigured in Scripture? And if so, how might this attitude influence his policy toward Iraq? Finally, and most generally, we should also ask Huckabee how he might bring forth a more peaceful world. In LaHaye's novels, true peace is impossible until the return of Christ. Villains offer secular solutions, like the United Nations. But until Jesus comes back, all is war. So does Huckabee buy it? A campaign spokesman recently confirmed that Huckabee had read some of LaHaye's Left Behind novels, and that the candidate enjoyed them.... LaHaye isn't neutral; he's working for Huckabee.  So if Huckabee is elected, will he follow LaHaye's lead? We deserve some answers, before it's too late. Nobody knows when the Earth will end, of course, but Iowa will hold its caucuses on Jan. 3."
Scrutinize candidates evenly
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 December 2007

"Republican Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist preacher, is depending on more than a leap of faith to win the Iowa caucuses. Leading in polls, Huckabee is determined to make up for his skimpy organization in the state by enlisting national evangelical Christian supporters to rev up Iowa pastors and coax voters to the Jan. 3 caucuses.... Huckabee..... roused pastors at a closed-door meeting earlier this month in Des Moines with several high-profile supporters, including California pastor Tim LaHaye, author of the apocalyptic 'Left Behind' book series, LaHaye's wife Beverly, founder of the conservative Christian group Concerned Women of America. Later at his Iowa headquarters, Huckabee held a news conference to announce the endorsements by the LaHayes and dozens of members of his new pastors coalition."
Huckabee Counts on Pastors for Iowa Help
Associated Press, 19 December 2007

"I urge all Christians...to go to your caucuses on Jan. 3 and vote for Mike Huckabee.... the most electable who shares our values."
'Left Behind' series co-author, Tim Lahaye
Washington Post Campaign Diary, 4 December 2007

'Our Values'
An Unpleasant End For Jews, Muslims, Catholics, And Other Non-Believers Alike

"The final instalment of an evangelical Christian publishing phenomenon which has spawned 16 novels and sold 64 million copies arrived in shops across the United States yesterday..... The Left Behind series appeared to chime with the sense of the impending Apocalypse among many Americans, reinforced by the election of President Bush on a faith-based platform and global events which — in some eyes — confirm biblical prophecy. ....   The Left Behind series begins with all born-again Christians being summoned to heaven in the Rapture, as predicted by the Book of Revelation...... Jesus then returns for the Second Coming and slaughters nonbelievers including Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, as well as many Catholics and mainstream Protestants."
Revelations of the last battle as US Bible thriller series comes to end
London Times, 4 April 2007

Enter Stage Right John Hagee
'One Of The Great Christian Leaders Of Our Nation'

"Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Hagee entered the stage Sunday to the 'Hallelujah Chorus' sung by the church's 100-member choir..... In a closed-door meeting this month in Des Moines, Mr. Huckabee showcased several high-profile supporters, including California pastor Tim LeHaye, author of the apocalyptic 'Left Behind'...."
Invisible force helping Mike Huckabee
Dallas Morning News, 23 December 2007

"Rising Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee risked his standing with Catholic voters on Sunday by courting his evangelical base at the church of a controversial preacher accused of disparaging Catholics. There are a few remnants of anti-Catholicism among evangelical Christians in the South but the two sides have found much common political ground over the past three decades in their strident opposition to abortion and gay marriage. But the visit to Cornerstone, pastor John Hagee's imposing 'mega-church' in the Texas city of San Antonio, was fraught with political perils for Huckabee given his efforts to woo conservative Catholics.....Taking a break from the Iowa campaign trail, Huckabee delivered a Christmas season sermon at Cornerstone about Christ's birth and embraced Hagee, calling him 'one of the great Christian leaders of our nation.' Hagee is a fiery preacher best known for his writings on the Middle East, where he reads contemporary events as unfolding Biblical prophecy. He is staunchly pro-Israel, saying that God had made his love for the land and its people clear. The Catholic League says Hagee is virulently anti-Catholic -- a charge he denies -- and it is getting the word out that Huckabee is rubbing shoulders with an anti-Vatican figure."
Huckabee angers some Catholics
Reuters, 23 December 2007

"Hagee is even opposed to the Road Map for Peace and a two-state concept, favors the continued colonization of the West Bank, and is against any concessions being given to the Palestinians."
Praying for Armageddon
Moscow News, 6 December 2007

"The Rev. John Hagee, who founded Christians United for Israel....[said].... 'Christians United for Israel is opposed to America pressuring Israel to give up more land to anyone for any reason..... And to say that Palestinians have a right to that land historically is an historical fraud.' Christians United for Israel held a conference with 4,500 attendees in Washington this month......Hagee and others are dispensationalists, Weber said, who interpret the Bible as predicting that in order for Christ to return, the Jews must gather in Israel, the third temple must be built in Jerusalem and the Battle of Armageddon must be fought.Weber said, 'The dispensationalists have parlayed what is a distinctly minority position theologically within evangelicalism into a major political voice.'"
Coalition of American evangelicals issues a letter in support of a Palestinian state
International Herald Tribune, 28 July 2007

"....Christians United for Israel [is] a year-old organization based in San Antonio, Texas started by Evangelical Pastor John Hagee to rally Christians around support for Israel.... Over the last few years, Hagee, author of several books about biblical prophecy and an opponent of territorial concessions to the Palestinians on biblical grounds, has become the face of the Christian Zionist movement.....Judging by March's AIPAC conference in Washington, where Hagee was met with enthusiastic applause, many Jews are supportive of a growing alliance with Christian Zionists. Hagee drew standing ovations as he told the 6,000 delegates, 'It is 1938, Iran is Germany and Ahmadiejad is the new Hitler.' But at the same time, a growing number of critical voices are coming to the forefront. An article in New York's The Jewish Week prior to the AIPAC conference included several Jewish voices skeptical of growing ties between pro-Israel forces and the Christian Zionist movement."
Christians to train in Israel advocacy
Jerusalem Post, 14 May 2007

"Pastor Hagee espouses an end of days theology in which our Jewish people don't fare well at the end of the story unless we convert to Christianity."
Rabbi Barry Block, head of the liberal Reform Jewish community in San Antonio
Pro-Israel Christians Lobby in Washington
National Public Radio (USA), 17 July 2006

Praying For War With Iran

"...John Hagee, [is] an Armageddon prophesier who insists that military confrontation with Iran is foretold in the Bible as a necessary precondition for the Second Coming. Using his best-selling book, 'Jerusalem Countdown,' his internationally broadcast television program, and the viral marketing offered by a network of mega-churches whose pastors have signed on to his new lobbying effort, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), Hagee has spent the past six months mobilizing popular support for a war with Iran. Based on his end-times prophecy, a supposed love of the Jewish people and the state of Israel and false claims that Iran is just months away from a viable nuclear weapon, Hagee maintains that confrontation with Iran is necessary to fulfill God’s plan for the future of the world.....Preachers like Hagee seem easy to ignore because we think their audiences, while vast, consists of rank-and-file religious extremists who have no real sway over American policy-makers. But Benny Elon's statement shows that Hagee does have such influence. Gingrich and McCain may or may not believe the Second Coming is imminent, but they do know that a GOP primary presidential campaign is coming soon enough — and they know where the votes are."
Holy War, Unholy Alliance
CBS News, 20 July 2006

"For John Hagee, what happens in Iran is not just a matter of politics — it's also a matter of theology. His study of biblical prophecy has led him to believe that Iran will figure prominently in the end times - the apocalypse and the return of Jesus.... In his book JERUSALEM COUNTDOWN, he writes, 'Iran with nuclear weapons will transform the Bush administration's roadmap for peace program into a racetrack to Armageddon.' From his reading of the Bible he lays out a scenario predicting that if Israel and America attack Iran, Russia and its allies — including Iran — will attack Israel, triggering Ezekiel's War. God will crush the invading forces as - quote - 'he crushed Pharaoh, Haman, and Hitler so that Israel and the world 'shall know that I am the Lord.' ' says John Hagee, the battle of Armageddon will follow. For true believers like Hagee and his followers, it will be a day of deliverance. They will have been raptured — literally lifted into the air — to join the Lord in the heavens. End Times theology has blossomed from a cottage industry into a dynamic market for books, video games and movies. THE LEFT BEHIND movie series is so popular it shows up in sermons around the country John Hagee even had a cameo appearance in it. But because End Times theology strikes a lot of people as threatening — especially as it relates to the fate of Jews — Hagee plays it down at political gatherings of CUFI. "
Bill Moyers Journal
PBS, 30 November 2007

".... numerous ministers have endorsed Huckabee. The ultra right Falwell/Liberty 'endorsement' comes after Pastor John Hagee, head of the 18,000 member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, TX, has been one of Huckabee 's strongest supporters. Hagee and Huckabee agree that 'Islamic fascism' represents the beginnings of World War III. Hagee has written Jerusalem Countdown, which made the U.S.A. Today top 50 best seller list in 2006. The minister founded Christian United for Israel (CUFI), a lobbying organization that puts the conservative evangelical movement behind his grand plan for a Biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation and Second Coming of Christ, Sarah Posner wrote in the May 21, 2006 edition of The American Prospect.... But does Huckabee agree with Hagee?..... Responding to the End Times scenario, Huckabee told reporters that 'every generation' prepares for the End Times which 'could be' occurring right now.' ”
Group Challenges Liberty University's Support of Mike Huckabee
Huntingdon News, 5 December 2007

'Clash Of Civilisations'

"The failure of Messrs Bush and Blair and the neo-cons to understand Arab grievances has been translated into a 'clash of civilisations' and a threat to Western values 'by people determined to destroy our way of life', as the Prime Minister put it. But there is no clash of civilisations unless we are determined to create one. We are not going to live under a universal caliphate. Osama bin Laden and his gangsters have not the faintest chance of destroying our way of life, unless we do so ourselves..... The misconceived 'war on terror' has made the world a much more dangerous place.... America and Britain should leave Iraq as soon as possible. There are no other options. .... it is the American occupation of Iraq, like the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, that has become the magnet for the international jihadis....."
Lord Norman Lamont, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1990-93
America and Britain should quit Iraq as soon as possible
Daily Telegraph, 10 November 2006

"This distinction between 'religion as law, power and conquest' and 'religion as vision of God' can be a help to anyone who is grappling with the phenomenon which Victoria Clark presents so vividly and thoughtfully in her account of Christian Zionism, or the movement (strongest in America but also present in many other places) that wants Israel to triumph over all its earthly rivals, in the hope that this will bring closer the end of the world. With the eye of an experienced journalist and a gift for getting along with people with whom she disagrees, Ms Clark presents some powerful vignettes of a movement which in some ways mirrors the more strident forms of Islamism: it uses quasi-spiritual language but is in fact incorrigibly political and indeed geopolitical in its preoccupations. In certain lights, the movement's ordinary members, as presented by Ms Clark, sound almost endearing in the naive enthusiasm they show as visitors to the Holy Land. But later in her narrative, as she attends a lavish fund-raising dinner in Washington, she feels that something darker is at work: a mixture of 'fear, injured pride, ignorance and perceived victimhood' whose brooding extremism could have dire consequences. Many liberal Israelis, as well as many Christians, would agree. If there is a single word that describes the mentality of the power-brokers of the Christian-Zionist movement, as portrayed by Ms Clark, it might be Deuteronomic: theirs is a brand of religion which is fascinated by military power and the subjugation of enemies, which adamantly externalises evil and finds no place for humility, self-doubt, compassion or universal humanism. Its adherents talk a lot about the Jewish Temple but they seem to have missed what some see as the temple's ultimate message: the possibility of experiencing the presence of God."
Stories and storytellers
Economist, 13 December 2007

"Huckabee's presidential primary endorsement by such evangelical leaders as Tim LaHaye (Left Behind series) and John Hagee (Christians United for Israel) are clear indications that a President Huckabee would advance the agenda of Christian Zionism..... Huckabee's answer to the 'two state solution' is the ethnic cleansing of Palestine: When asked (in New Hampshire) about a Palestinian state, Gov. Huckabee stated that he supports creating a Palestinian state, but believes that it should be formed outside of Israel. He named Egypt and Saudi Arabia as possible alternatives, noting that the Arabs have far more land than the Israelis and that it would only be fair for other Arab nations to give the Palestinians land for a state, rather than carving it out of the tiny Israeli state. By re-defining the boundaries of Israel to be vastly beyond those officially recognized by international law and by opposing a land-for-peace exchange, Huckabee unmasks himself to be a Christian Zionist."
Pastor Stan Moody, founder of the Christian Policy Institute
President Huckabee: 'No Room In The Inn'
Countercurrents, 20 December 2007

Access To The Top Already

"Let's take a look at different perceptions of The Middle East peace talks in Annapolis this week..... once again it is the extremists who insist on the last word in The Middle East, invoking god as they do. Israel has its religious die-hards, the Palestinians have theirs, and here in the United States, we have them, too.... On Monday, as Bush met with Abbas and Olmert at the White House, his National Security Advisor was meeting down the hall with religious groups who believe Israel belongs to the jews. Among them was the organization Christians United for Israel - also known as CUFI. One of its directors called Annapolis a 'diplomatic lynching' of Israel. Just who is CUFI? Some of you will remember our report earlier this fall. Let's take another look at it, and then we'll be back to discuss what we see. [Click here for video]"
Bill Moyers Journal
PBS, 30 November 2007

"Representatives from Orthodox Jewish organizations and Christian organizations met with President Bush's National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley along with other senior White House officials Monday, and raised concerns regarding the diplomatic meetings in Annapolis....[including] Christians United for Israel represented by David Brog...."
Jewish, Christian leaders to U.S.: No compromise on Jerusalem
Haaretz, 27 November 2007

"Over the past months, the White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with leaders of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel's expansionist policies is 'a biblical imperative.' CUFI's Washington lobbyist, David Brog, told me that during the meetings, CUFI representatives pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah. The White House instructed Brog not to reveal the names of officials he met with, Brog said. CUFI's advice to the Bush Administration reflects the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of its founder, John Hagee....  A speech in November 2005 by Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman blasting the Christian right as the 'key domestic challenge to the American Jewish community' was the moment for Brog's emergence.... Hagee faces few repercussions as he prays for Armageddon. With local CUFI chapters growing across the country, a 'rapid response network' of thousands of pastors developing, and an open door to the White House, Brog and Hagee are planning for the long term.... the renewal of the peace process and rolling back the West Bank settlements would be an unjust cause. For Hagee and for CUFI, all roads lead to a 'nuclear showdown' with Iran. Diplomacy would only make God angry. As Hagee warns in Jerusalem Countdown, 'Those who follow a policy of opposition to God's purposes will receive the swift and severe judgment of God without limitation.'"
Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism
The Nation, 8 August 2006

"Thousands of Christians met here last week to declare their unwavering support for Israel and to warn of the threat posed by Iran. Five months after its founding, Christians United for Israel brought 3,500 Christians to Washington July 18-20 to lobby Congress on behalf of Israel.... One speaker after another kept the focus on Islamo-fascism and Iran in particular. Republican Party chairman Ken Mehlman noted that no country is more feared by its Arab neighbors than Iran and called Iran the center of global jihadism. Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said, 'It is time for the United States to stand with Israel and to go to the heart of the problem, which is Iran.' Multiple speakers compared Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler. Texas pastor and televangelist John Hagee, who founded Christians United for Israel, said, 'The ghost of Hitler is walking across Europe and the Middle East.' Hagee called the president of Iran 'a new Hitler,' who 'intends to develop nuclear weapons to attack Israel and the United States.'....After receiving their talking points on Iran the night before, delegates fanned out across Capitol Hill July 19 to lobby their congressional representatives in support of Israel. Meeting outside the office of California Sen. Barbara Boxer because the approximately 30 California delegates were too numerous to be accommodated inside the office, Randy Neal, a regional director, said, 'The Hill has never taken this community seriously before. We’ve come across the whole country with one single issue. We take it seriously and we expect to be taken seriously.' In a brief interview with NCR, national director David Brog said the organization’s decision to focus attention on Iran was made even before the recent outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. Brog, who is Jewish and the former chief of staff for Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he had joined the organization because he was impressed with the sincerity of Christian support for Israel. Christian evangelical support for Israel has sometimes been criticized as springing from an end times theology that sees the state of Israel as a precondition for the onset of Armageddon. While acknowledging that their support for Israel is biblically based, leaders shrugged off questions about that."
Evangelicals rally for Israel, warn of Iran threat
National Catholic Reporter, 28 July 2006

"A week into one of the most severe crises the Middle East has seen in years, Israel is getting an influx of support from an unusual source. More than 3,400 evangelical Christians have arrived in Washington to lobby lawmakers as part of the first annual summit of Christians United for Israel. Delegates have come from all 50 states and have 280 meetings on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Pastor John Hagee said. Pastor Hagee, the main organiser, said the event was the first of its kind.  'For the first time in the history of Christianity in America, Christians will go to the Hill to support Israel as Christians,' he said..... John Hagee is the pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, and a long-time fervent supporter of Israel. In common with many American evangelicals, he believes that God gave the land to the Jewish people and that Christians have a Biblical duty to support it and the Jews. His latest book, Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World, interprets the Bible to predict that Russian and Arab armies will invade Israel and be destroyed by God. This will set up a confrontation over Israel between China and the West, led by the anti-Christ, who will be the head of the European Union, Pastor Hagee writes. That final battle between East and West - at Armageddon, as the actual Israeli location of Meggido is known in English - will precipitate the second coming of Christ, he concludes.... Michelle Goldberg is deeply concerned about that influence. She is the author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, which argues that a significant strain of conservative Christianity is working to undermine fundamental American rights and freedoms. She said the movement was just as dangerous in foreign policy. 'Christian Zionism is responsible for American support for some of the most irredentist Israeli positions,' she said, such as support for settlement-building. She said evangelical Christians had substantial influence on US Middle East policy - more so than some better-known names such as Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Pastor Hagee himself said his group potentially had more clout than Jewish pro-Israel groups. 'When a congressman sees someone from Aipac coming through the door, he knows he represents six million people. We represent 40 million people.'"
Evangelical Christians plead for Israel
BBC Online, 19 July 2006

Still All To Play For?

"The biggest news story among Baptists in 2007 was about an event that has not even happened yet—the announcement of an unprecedented meeting of Baptists from across North America—according to an informal survey of journalists in the Baptist media world. The Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, announced in January by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton—and the ensuing controversy stirred by its critics—was the top vote-getter in 2007’s Associated Baptist Press survey. The historic pan-Baptist meeting will be held in Atlanta Jan. 30-Feb. 1....Coming in a distant second was Mike Huckabee's long-shot-turned-front-runner campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. The former Arkansas governor served as a pastor and president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention before entering secular politics.... Two Baptist ex-presidents hope the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant draws as many as 20,000 Baptists from a broad array of racial, theological and political backgrounds to the gathering to hear from high-profile Baptist ministers and laypeople. They will discuss ways to cooperate in areas on which they all agree, such as promoting social justice and evangelism.... [Organisers] also noted prominent Baptist Republicans had been invited to speak, including Huckabee—who later dropped out in protest over remarks that Carter made about President Bush's policy toward Israel.... Huckabee was considered by most pundits to be at best a second-tier candidate until support from disgruntled rank-and-file GOP evangelicals fueled a surge in the critical early voting state of Iowa late in the year."
New Baptist Covenant, Huckabee rank as top stories in ‘07, journalists say
Associated Baptist Press, 28 December 2007

"Four in 10 Republican voters have switched candidates in the past month, and nearly two-thirds say they may change their minds again, a new Associated Press-Yahoo News poll said. And Mike Huckabee, who has roared to a tie with longtime front-runner Rudy Giuliani, has little reason to feel safe, the survey said. Half of all voters -- including four in 10 Republicans -- know too little about Huckabee to even say whether they have a favorable impression of him, let alone whether he is conservative, liberal or moderate.... Roughly four in 10 white evangelical Christians have made a change since November, similar to other Republicans who shifted candidates. But 56 percent of evangelicals who found another candidate flocked to Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, giving him 36 percent of the support of one of the GOP's heavyweight voting blocs, well ahead of his rivals. The intensely religious were even more restless - and more smitten with Huckabee. Among evangelicals who are conservative and attend church weekly, 54 percent switched candidates last month - and 61 percent of the switchers moved to Huckabee. Yet even Huckabee is not immune to voters' evolving tastes - 83 percent who moved to him said they were open to changing again."
Poll Finds Voters Keep Changing Minds
Associated Press, 27 December 2007

Is It Really In Israel's Security Interest
To Have 'Friends' Like This?

"A Christian group led by a minister who teaches that ten million Jews are destined to be killed plans to visit an IDF base next week. A Jerusalem City Council member is trying to stop the visit. The group leader is Richard Booker, a Christian minister and the Founder/Director of the Institute for Hebraic-Christian Studies who will be participating in the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) Feast of Tabernacles extravaganza this coming Sukkot holiday.   First, however, he will lead a tour of devoted followers on a tour of northern Israel - including a visit to an Israeli army base. The tour's promotional literature states that during the visit, 'we will have the opportunity to get acquainted with IDF soldiers and give gifts of encouragement.' The visitors also plan to have lunch with the soldiers, and will proceed from there to 'our adopted Children’s Center for the underprivileged. We will distribute warm winter outfits to the kids and help them build their sukkah.' Teachings by their leader, however, show a distinct dissonance between the love he shows the Jews and the fate he foresees for them.  Booker has written about what he calls 'The Jews' Final Holocaust,' predicting what has been known as a 'convert-or-die' scenario.  At the end of days, he writes, 'hundreds of thousands of Jews will have come to accept Jesus as their Messiah. This will come about through the preaching ministry of 144,000 Jewish evangelists whom God will call especially for the purpose of preaching the gospel during the tribulation period... The Antichrist will march his troops into Israel and for a short period of time will occupy Jerusalem. Every nation will support his retaliation against Israel for their disturbing world peace. The Antichrist will kill two-thirds of all the Jews. This could mean that up to ten million Jews will be killed....' (quoted from his book, Blow the Trumpet in Zion.) Jerusalem City Council member Mina Fenton has written a letter of protest to IDF Chief Rabbi Brig.-Gen. Avi Ronsky about the planned visit. Anti-missionary activist Pastor Kenneth Rawson of New Jersey has written that the above teachings of Richard Booker and others are 'Horrific! ... It is inconceivable that Evangelical Christians can look the Jewish people in the eye and tell them they are their friends, yet have such a deceptive diabolical agenda for them. This agenda is both unthinkable and unscriptural... How can these Evangelical Christians claim such friendship for Israel when their theology is so hateful to the Jews?"
'Convert-or-Die' Minister to Lead Visit to IDF Army Base
Arutz Sheva (Israel National News), 20 September 2007

Pastor John Hagee, Christian Zionist and key Bush and Huckabee ally, sees himself as master lobbyist for the Apocalpse in which a confrontation with Iran plays a central role in bringing in the second coming of Christ followed by the slaughter of the Jews and other non-believers.

"For John Hagee, what happens in Iran is not just a matter of politics — it's also a matter of theology. His study of biblical prophecy has led him to believe that Iran will figure prominently in the end times - the apocalypse and the return of Jesus.... In his book JERUSALEM COUNTDOWN, he writes, 'Iran with nuclear weapons will transform the Bush administration's roadmap for peace program into a racetrack to Armageddon.' From his reading of the Bible he lays out a scenario predicting that if Israel and America attack Iran, Russia and its allies — including Iran — will attack Israel, triggering Ezekiel's War. God will crush the invading forces as - quote - 'he crushed Pharaoh, Haman, and Hitler so that Israel and the world 'shall know that I am the Lord.' ' says John Hagee, the battle of Armageddon will follow. For true believers like Hagee and his followers, it will be a day of deliverance. They will have been raptured — literally lifted into the air — to join the Lord in the heavens. End Times theology has blossomed from a cottage industry into a dynamic market for books, video games and movies. THE LEFT BEHIND movie series is so popular it shows up in sermons around the country John Hagee even had a cameo appearance in it. But because End Times theology strikes a lot of people as threatening — especially as it relates to the fate of Jews — Hagee plays it down at political gatherings of CUFI. "
Bill Moyers Journal
PBS, 30 November 2007

"'In one cataclysmic moment, millions around the world disappear.' Not a bad intro for a dramatic video game. It turns out those millions have been 'raptured' into heaven by Jesus. The player's job is to battle to save the ones left behind on earth from the global forces of evil, which are controlled by the Antichrist. The hitch, though, in this new game aimed at teens, is who constitutes those 'forces of evil': activists, secularists, non-Christian rock musicians, and others who resist 'recruitment' into the 'forces of good' - the believers in a particular kind of Christianity. Based on the popular Left Behind series of apocalyptic novels, 'Left Behind: Eternal Forces' is being marketed for Christmas giving through churches and big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart. But it has created a stir among Christian, Jewish, and activist groups who disagree with the fundamentalist theology the game presents. They say it will teach children religious intolerance and an 'us vs. them' view of the world that is both dangerous for the country and contrary to basic Christian teachings....The controversy arises largely because the game follows the Left Behind novels, Mr. Frichner says. The 14-book series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins has sold more than 63 million copies, including 13 million of The Kids series, a spinoff for children 10 and older. 'So we felt we had a bulls-eye market there for the game,' he adds. Dr. LaHaye, one of the most influential leaders in fundamentalist Christianity, conceived the novels as a way to spread a theology called premillennial dispensationalism. First promoted by 19th-century Englishman John Nelson Darby, the theology interprets portions of the Bible as predicting a two-stage return of Jesus. First, Jesus comes to transport 'true Christians' to heaven in what's called 'the rapture'; 'the tribulation' follows on earth, involving seven years of catastrophe and plagues (as drawn from Revelation). 'It is going to be an unprecedented time of horror of God's judgment on earth,' says Terry James, of raptureready.com, the most popular prophecy website. The period will end with Armageddon and the Second Coming. Those who preach the theology say Jesus' return is imminent. And according to Mr. James, the creation of Israel in 1948 is the most important signal that the End Times have begun. The job of Christians is to convert and save as many people as possible..... Battles occur around the earth between good and evil forces, leading up to Armageddon in Israel. There, some Jews convert to Christianity and the rest are destroyed along with others who have not accepted Jesus as their savior. Jesus' rule then begins on earth....The game is the latest facet of a struggle within Christianity over growing promotion of the theology in books, on websites and TV, and in Christian Zionist organizations backing a strong alliance with Israel. Premillennialism is not consistent with Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or mainline Protestant teachings.... Some Jews are also troubled by the game. 'Jews are often instrumental in rapture theology - war in Israel, Jews converting to Christianity, all other Jews disappearing in the third act of a four-act play,' says Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, of Jews On First, a First Amendment watchdog group. 'What happens if no rapture or Second Coming occurs? The classical response in history has been to blame the Jews for somehow foiling everybody's hopes and plans.' Jews On First has created a petition opposing the game on its website for people of all faiths to sign; some 500 have done so in the first few days, the rabbi says."
Christian video game creates a stir
Christian Science Monitor, 21 December 2006

'Caution Is Justified'

"'The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awakened. There are 50 million Christians standing up and applauding the State of Israel.' So began a speech by Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United For Israel, before an AIPAC Policy Conference plenary earlier this week. ..... The AIPAC audience granted Hagee multiple standing ovations. The Jewish people, some surely thought, has been waiting two millennia to hear such unalloyed words of contrition and support, and they could not have come at a more propitious time. Understandably, offers of Christian assistance will continue to be met with a considerable degree of wariness. History aside, Jews and evangelical Christians are perhaps the ultimate 'Odd Couple' -- culturally, religiously, politically and even geographically. If all these obstacles are not enough, there is also Jewish concern regarding Christian motives.....there is the suspicion that evangelicals, as their name implies, are out to convert Jews. Second, that their support is colored by doctrines of 'rapture' and the apocalypse, in which a catastrophic global war plays an important part. ' What is going to happen when Jesus comes back?' Hagee said, touching on the second sensitive point. 'I say to my rabbi friends: 'You don't believe it; I do believe it. When we're standing in Jerusalem, and the Messiah is coming down the street, one of us is going to have a major theological adjustment to make. But until that time, let's walk together in support of Israel and in defense of the Jewish people.' .... It is natural, given history, that Jews are wary even of a hand outstretched in friendship, and caution is justified."
Christians For Israel
Jerusalem Post, 14 March 2007

" 'The more liberal Jews find out about his core values of Christianity, the less they'll like him,' journalist Zev Chafets told JTA, shortly after writing a cover story on Huckabee for The New York Times Magazine....Chafets, the American-born Israeli government spokesman turned journalist, told JTA that 'there's no doubt that Huckabee is a Christian conservative in the mold of Falwell or Pat Robertson, speaking politically.' 'He believes in the inerrancy of the Bible,' Chafetz said. 'In other words, he's a fundamentalist. He believes that the Bible could not be mistaken. He's a pre-millennialist Christian. He believes in Armageddon.'... During the summer, after Huckabee began to show signs of progress, the executive director of the National Jewish Democrat Council, Ira Forman, said voters 'should be concerned whenever an extreme candidate gets a whiff of the presidency.' "
Can Huckabee ever win over Jewish voters?
Jerusalem Post, 24 December 2007

The Middle East, World War, And The 'Christian' Religious Right

"To understand what is happening in the Middle East, you must first understand what is happening in Texas. To understand what is happening there, you should read the resolutions passed at the state's Republican party conventions last month.... I don't know what the original motion said, but apparently it was 'watered down significantly' as a result of the shouting match. The motion they adopted stated that Israel has an undivided claim to Jerusalem and the West Bank, that Arab states should be 'pressured' to absorb refugees from Palestine, and that Israel should do whatever it wishes in seeking to eliminate terrorism. Good to see that the extremists didn't prevail then. But why should all this be of such pressing interest to the people of a state which is seldom celebrated for its fascination with foreign affairs? The explanation is slowly becoming familiar to us, but we still have some difficulty in taking it seriously. In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion."
Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power
Guardian, 20 April 2007

"[There are] a range of factors that keep politicians on the straight and narrow with regard to the Middle East. Some of these reasons are to do with internal political developments long in the making. The rise of evangelical Christianity as a political force, especially within the Republican Party, has something to do with it. The belief that the Jews must be returned to the Biblical lands of Judaea and Samaria before the world can end has driven up support for an aggressive Israeli approach to its neighbours in the Holy Land. Those of us who are not evangelical Zionists will feel a little queasy about that idea."
‘Israel right or wrong’ is not a grown-up debate
London Times, 30 March 2007

"Looking to their American counterparts on Monday, Knesset members were surprised at the solidarity and support being shown among key US politicians. Several top US political figures, including Sen. John McCain (R) Arizona, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Rep.) called the current Middle East crisis the beginning of 'World War III' and said they were 'gravely concerned' in an interview on CNN's Larry King Live.... 'They said this because they think it will lead to Iran getting involved, which they believe will set off World War III,' said MK Benny Elon (National Union-National Religious Party)......    Elon said that the comments originated with American evangelist John Hagee, who published a book in 2006 called Jerusalem Countdown, which predicted that World War III would begin in Jerusalem and spread to Western states."
Is this the start of World War III?
Jerusalem Post, 17 July 2006

Can Jewish, Christian, And Muslim Moderates Win The Day Against Bush, Huckabee, And The Religious Right
And Prevent War With Iran?

"The Left Behind series begins with all born-again Christians being summoned to heaven in the Rapture, as predicted by the Book of Revelation. ....  Those left behind, struggling to make sense of what has happened, are then ruled by a Romanian politician named Nicolae Carpathia who becomes United Nations Secretary-General. He turns out to be the Anti-Christ who sets up a world government, as well as establishing his capital in the biblical Babylon, Baghdad. Jesus then returns for the Second Coming and slaughters nonbelievers including Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, as well as many Catholics and mainstream Protestants. The books have attracted a fair share of controversy, not least from mainstream Christian theologians and other religions. American Muslims, for instance, have asked Wal-Mart to stop stocking the Left Behind video game which encourages children to zap the AntiChrist’s team which includes a lot of Arab and Islamic-sounding names."
Revelations of the last battle as US Bible thriller series comes to end
London Times, 4 April 2007

"The Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, has been garnering attention in the media with his surge in political polls. However, a campaign stop this Sunday by Huckabee at a mega-church whose pastor sees Hitler as linked to the Catholic Church, could soon steal the spotlight. According to Mike Huckabee’s campaign website, the controversial stop at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas will take place this Sunday, December 23. He will speak at the church's two Sunday services at 8:30 and 11:00 a.m. The Catholic League’s president, Bill Donahue, told CNA that the pastor of the church, Rev. John Hagee, is militantly anti-Catholic. As the senior pastor of Cornerstone, Rev. Hagee is best known for his 'End-Time' writing but also focuses on bringing evangelical Protestants and Jews together. The Catholic League asserts that John Hagee has another goal as well, 'slandering the Catholic Church.'....It’s not hard to find evidence that Rev. Hagee does not think highly of Catholics or the Catholic Church. In a video discussing the biblical book of Revelation, John Hagee suggests the Pope is the anti-Christ, and that the Catholic Church is 'The Beast' (17:30 and following) mentioned in the book."
Mike Huckabee to speak at strongly anti-Catholic preacher's church
Catholic News Agency, 20 December 2007

"In recent years, conservative evangelicals who claim a Biblical mandate to protect Israel have built a bulwark of support for the Jewish nation — sending donations, denouncing its critics and urging it not to evacuate settlements or forfeit territory. Now more than 30 evangelical leaders are stepping forward to say these efforts have given the wrong impression about the stance of many, if not most, American evangelicals. On Friday, these leaders sent a letter to President George W. Bush saying that both Israelis and Palestinians have 'legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine,' and that they support the creation of a Palestinian state 'that includes the vast majority of the West Bank.'.... ....The Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, Florida, said, 'There is a part of the evangelical family which is what I call Christian Zionists, who are just so staunchly pro-Israel that Israel and their side can do no wrong, and it's almost anti-Biblical to criticize Israel for anything. But there are many more evangelicals who are really open and seek justice for both parties.' The loudest and best-organized voices in the evangelical movement have been sending a very different message: that the Palestinians have no legitimate claim to the land. The Rev. John Hagee, who founded Christians United for Israel, was informed of the letter and read most of it. He responded: 'Bible-believing evangelicals will scoff at that message. 'Christians United for Israel is opposed to America pressuring Israel to give up more land to anyone for any reason. What has the policy of appeasement ever produced for Israel that was beneficial?' Hagee said. 'God gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob a covenant in the Book of Genesis for the land of Israel that is eternal and unbreakable, and that covenant is still intact,' he said. 'The Palestinian people have never owned the land of Israel, never existed as an autonomous society. There is no Palestinian language. There is no Palestinian currency. And to say that Palestinians have a right to that land historically is an historical fraud.' Christians United for Israel held a conference with 4,500 attendees in Washington this month, and Hagee sends e-mail action alerts on Israel every Monday to 55,000 pastors and leaders.... Hagee and others are dispensationalists, Weber said, who interpret the Bible as predicting that in order for Christ to return, the Jews must gather in Israel, the third temple must be built in Jerusalem and the Battle of Armageddon must be fought.Weber said, 'The dispensationalists have parlayed what is a distinctly minority position theologically within evangelicalism into a major political voice.'"
Coalition of American evangelicals issues a letter in support of a Palestinian state
International Herald Tribune, 28 July 2007

"The Pope has invited senior Muslim figures for ground-breaking talks at the Vatican in a potential breakthrough at a time of tensions between Islam and the West. Pope Benedict XVI, in a response to a letter from 138 Muslim scholars and leaders from around the world, emphasised the common belief of Christians and Muslims in one God. He also praised the 'positive spirit' behind the initial approach from the Muslim leaders, who wrote to him last month. Although the Pope has received leaders from the Muslim world individually, a Muslim-Christian gathering at the Vatican would be unprecedented.....Anglican leaders have been pressing the Pope not to miss an historic opportunity, and Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, discussed the issue with the pontiff at an inter-faith gathering in Naples in October. Muslim signatories of the letter said they had no doubt that the papal invitation would be accepted. The Italian Jesuit magazine Civiltà Cattolica, whose contents are vetted by the Vatican, said that it saw a 'fundamental convergence between Christians and Muslims'."
Vatican extends hand of friendship to Muslims
London Times, 1 December 2007

"Regarding Iran's nuclear program, 92 percent of American Jews are concerned about the prospect of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. Still, a majority - 57 percent - oppose US military action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons."
American Jews oppose attack on Iran
Jerusalem Post, 12 December 2007

"A new survey of American Jewish opinion, released by the American Jewish Committee, demonstrates several important propositions: (1) right-wing neocons (the Bill Kristol/Commentary/ AIPAC/Marty Peretz faction) who relentlessly claim to speak for Israel and for Jews generally hold views that are shared only by a small minority of American Jews; (2) viewpoints that are routinely demonized as reflective of animus towards Israel or even anti-Semitism are ones that are held by large majorities of American Jews; and (3) most American Jews oppose U.S. military action in the Middle East -- including both in Iraq and against Iran. It is beyond dispute that American Jews overwhelmingly oppose core neoconservative foreign policy principles.... When asked whether they would support or oppose the United States taking military action against Iran, a large majority -- 57-35% -- say they would oppose such action, even if it were being undertaken 'to prevent [Iran] from developing nuclear weapons.'... In the realm of U.S. domestic politics, it is even clearer that right-wing neoconservatives are a fringe segment of American Jewish public opinion. By a large margin, American Jews identify as some shade of liberal rather than conservative (43-25), and overwhelmingly identify themselves as Democrats rather than Republicans (58-15)."
New poll reveals how unrepresentative neocon Jewish groups are
Salon.com, 12 December 2007

"Mike Huckabee attributes his surge toward the top of the polls to Divine intervention, and Mitt Romney wants everyone to know that he is just as Christian as all of his competitors for the GOP presidential nomination. The faith race is on in the Republican primaries.... The pitiful pandering of the Huckabees, Romneys, McCains, and their fellow wannabes to the evangelicals helps explain why only 15% of American Jews identified themselves as Republicans in the latest American Jewish Committee survey and why more than 85% of Jews voted Democrat in last year’s congressional elections. No amount of hardline pro-Israel, Arab-bashing rhetoric is likely to change that..... Politicians like Huckabee and Romney - they’re the most egregious but not the only ones - sound like they’re running for pastor-in-chief instead of commander-in-chief and trying to turn the GOP into God’s Own Party. That should scare everyone, believers and non-believers alike."
God as my running mate, a scary proposition
Cleveland Jewish News, 15 December 2007

"The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday. Rowan Williams claimed that America’s attempt to intervene overseas by 'clearing the decks' with a 'quick burst of violent action' had led to 'the worst of all worlds'. In a wide-ranging interview with a British Muslim magazine, the Anglican leader linked criticism of the United States to one of his most pessimistic declarations about the state of western civilisation. He said the crisis was caused not just by America’s actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn on the 'chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity'. Williams went beyond his previous critique of the conduct of the war on terror, saying the United States had lost the moral high ground since September 11. He urged it to launch a 'generous and intelligent programme of aid directed to the societies that have been ravaged; a check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories; a demilitarisation of their presence'.  He went on to suggest that the West was fundamentally adrift: 'Our modern western definition of humanity is clearly not working very well. There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul.'"
US is‘worst’ imperialist: archbishop
Sunday Times, 25 November 2007

"The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has been supported by MPs for his sharp criticism of American foreign policy....Sir Gerald Kaufman, who was Shadow Foreign Secretary from 1987 to 1992, said: 'Basically I agree with the Archbishop . . . In my view, the present Administration of the US is a total disaster.'....Vincent Cable, acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, defended Dr Williams for drawing attention to 'the way in which the Bush Administration was responsible for the disastrous war in Iraq, is now threatening Iran with military action in a counter-productive manner and is pressing ahead with the arms race. 'I am not sympathetic to generalised attacks on America, but Dr Williams and other critics are talking about the Bush Administration and not about America as a country.'”
Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, gets political blessing for his attack on America’s foreign policy
London Times, 26 November 2007

Despite Perceptions To The Contrary The Iranian State Does Not Deny The Holcaust
And Despite Its Loose Cannon President
Who Is Likely To Be Removed At The Next Election Provided The US Doesn't Interfere Again
After White House Actions During The Last Elections Brought Him To Power In The First Place

How US Covert And Overt Operations Precipitated Electoral Victory For Ahmadinejad In Iran In 2005 - Click Here

"The scene is wartime Paris. Swastikas adorn the Champs Elysees. Jackbooted Nazis are rounding up Jews for the concentration camps, while terrified Parisians look on. It is a familiar plot for a television blockbuster. And this time the formula has been as popular as ever, drawing in massive audiences week after week. The only difference is that this is a series made for Iranian state TV, and it has been piling up the ratings in the country whose president once questioned the very existence of the Holocaust. The fact that Zero Degree Turn has been allowed on TV, shows the official sensitivity over the accusations of anti-Semitism that have followed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's various comments about Israel and the Holocaust....The series has gone a step beyond simply acknowledging the Holocaust. The central character is an Iranian diplomat, who provides false Iranian passports to enable Jews to flee the Nazi-occupied France, a sort of the Iranian Schindler. He even has a love affair with a Jewish woman. The writer and director of the series, Hassan Fathi, says he used a true story from World War II to show the outside world they have the wrong impression of Iran. 'In those terrible years there were many people who could help the Jews, but they didn't because they were afraid they would be arrested,' Mr Fathi explains. 'But some Iranians, when they saw they could save some Jews, they left their fear behind and did so - because of their character and their culture, their beliefs and their traditions,' he adds.... Most Iranians, even those taking part in the most ardent anti-Zionist demonstrations, would be quite shocked at any accusation that they are anti-Semitic. The new TV series also happens to be extremely well produced, with music and cinematography up to the highest Hollywood standard. Week after week, Iranian audiences have been pulling out their handkerchiefs as the tragically doomed romance unfolds between an Iranian diplomat and a French Jewish woman."
Iran Holocaust drama is a big hit
BBC Online, 30 November 2007

"There are other political reasons to talk to Iran. The Islamic Republic will hold parliamentary elections in 2008 and presidential elections in 2009, and bellicose rhetoric by the United States merely strengthens Ahmadinejad and Iran's hard-liners. Iranian reformers and more pragmatic conservative opponents of Ahmadinejad have called on America to replace its saber-rattling with an offer of unconditional engagement. The most compelling of all reasons for changing the approach to Iran is that the current strategy simply does not work. While isolation has not advanced US or Israeli interests, engagement could yield the desired security guarantees for Israel and the United States."
Change Iran's behavior, not its regime
Jerusalem Post, 26 December 2007

"We should be seeking stability in the region. This concept that the United States gets to dictate to sovereign people the makeup of their government is absurd. First of all, the theocracy in Iran, while not a model, for instance ... it's an Iranian problem, not an American problem. The day of the exportation of the Islamic revolution is long gone. The Iranians are not seeking to convert by the sword anybody. It's a nation that has serious internal problems. Economic. Huge unemployment. It's a nation that recognizes these problems. And they are in desperate need of not only political stability but also the economic benefits that come with this stability. The Iranians want a normalization of relations with the United States that would be inclusive of peaceful coexistence with Israel. They've said this over and over and over again. So what the United States should be doing is exploiting the olive branch that is being held out by the Iranians....We keep putting our hopes on allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Saudi Arabia, which produced 14 of the hijackers who slaughtered Americans on 9/11. Pakistan, which was the political sponsor of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and continues to have ties to radical Islamic terror organizations. These are our allies? And we call Iran the enemy? We've got it backward. The Iranians are actually the ones we should be working with to oppose dictatorships like Pakistan and irresponsible governments like Saudi Arabia's. .... [Ahmadinejad's] a guy whose words mean nothing, have no power, have no relevance. It's the supreme leader that matters. And, yes, today the supreme leader continues to want to seek to normalize relations with the United States.... And having been to Iran, I can tell you that it is the last nation in the world we should be saying these are people we have to fight. When you visit Iran and you see the Iranian people and you get the chance to talk to them, you realize that these are peaceful people. These are highly educated people. They are more like us than we can possibly imagine..... They are a very modern people. I always say the best way to stop a war with Iran would be to issue every American a passport and roundtrip ticket and money for a two-week stay and let them go there and when they came back they'd say there's no way we should bomb this place.... Once you've been to Iran you realize just how utterly useless the concept of militaristic confrontation is. "
Interview with Scott Ritter - Chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 - 1998
Detroit Metro Times, 28 November 2007

Deadly Alliance
Unscrupulous Neocons Piggy Back On The Reglious Right

"Karl Rove, the mastermind behind President Bush’s two White House victories and the most influential political strategist of modern times...... spotted, and nurtured, the growing power of the Religious Right, the cornerstone of Mr Bush’s political success. He masterminded the strategy of connecting in the public mind the September 11 terror attacks and the invasion of Iraq."
End of ‘Bush’s brain’ will bring down the curtain on lame-duck President
London Times, 14 August 2007

"As Tony Blair was bidding farewell to President George W Bush in the Rose Garden on Thursday, the World Bank was preparing to kick out Paul Wolfowitz as president. Allies to the left and right in the Iraq war were falling by the wayside that day.... If Bush and Dick Cheney, his vice-president, are the last men standing with responsibility for the Iraq war it is only because they are protected by their four-year terms of office. One former Bush stalwart told me: 'If we had a parliamentary system, Bush would have lost a vote of confidence and have resigned by now.'.... Away from the Rose Garden the funeral cortege for the fundamentalist Rev Jerry Falwell was being assembled in the heart of Bush country in Lynchburg, Virginia. The portly 73-year-old televangelist had done his utmost to assemble the coalition of conservative Christians that went on to provide Bush with two presidential victories. Now he is dead and the government sustained by his followers is looking more and more like a corpse. The writer Christopher Hitchens, a friend of Wolfowitz and foe of Falwell, says: 'The main noise in Washington right now is that of collapsing scenery. The Republican party is in total disarray. They’ve been dropping their most intelligent people over the side while the presidential candidates are all outbidding each other to be nice about the revolting carcass of Falwell.'... Wolfowitz, the cerebral neocon, and Falwell, the braying theocon, had nothing in common personally. Indeed, Falwell blamed 'the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians' for provoking the 9/11 attacks, an explanation uncomfortably close to the views of the Taliban. But the unlikely alliance between their two movements provided the brains and the brawn behind Bush. Now the neocons have been ousted, one by one, from their positions of influence and trust while the Republican party base is desperately thrashing around for a successor to Bush that it can back in 2008. The cleavage between the two marks the end of an era in which Bible Belt conservatives became the surprise champions of radical nation-building in the Middle East ...."
Decline and fall of the neocons
Sunday Times, 20 May 2007

"Over the past months, the White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with leaders of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel's expansionist policies is 'a biblical imperative.' CUFI's Washington lobbyist, David Brog, told me that during the meetings, CUFI representatives pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah. The White House instructed Brog not to reveal the names of officials he met with, Brog said. CUFI's advice to the Bush Administration reflects the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of its founder, John Hagee....  A speech in November 2005 by Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman blasting the Christian right as the 'key domestic challenge to the American Jewish community' was the moment for Brog's emergence.... Hagee faces few repercussions as he prays for Armageddon. With local CUFI chapters growing across the country, a 'rapid response network' of thousands of pastors developing, and an open door to the White House, Brog and Hagee are planning for the long term.... the renewal of the peace process and rolling back the West Bank settlements would be an unjust cause. For Hagee and for CUFI, all roads lead to a 'nuclear showdown' with Iran. Diplomacy would only make God angry. As Hagee warns in Jerusalem Countdown, 'Those who follow a policy of opposition to God's purposes will receive the swift and severe judgment of God without limitation.'"
Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism
The Nation, 8 August 2006

"In the wake of the summer war in southern Lebanon, reports that Hezbollah’s sponsor, Iran, may be pushing for nuclear weapons have galvanized conservative Christian support for Israel into a political force that will be hard to ignore. For one thing, white evangelicals make up about a quarter of the electorate. Whatever strains may be creeping into the Israeli-American alliance over Iraq, the Palestinians and Iran, a large part of the Republican Party’s base remains committed to a fiercely pro-Israel agenda that seems likely to have an effect on policy choices.... Mr. Hagee is an author of several books about the interpretation of biblical prophecies. He says he believes the Bible assigns Israel a pivotal role as a harbinger of the second coming. Citing passages from Revelation and Ezekiel, he argues that conflict between Israel and Iran may be a sign that that time is approaching."
For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy’
New York Times, 14 November 2006

The Religious Right May Want Apocalypse In The Middle East But Cheney Wants The Oil

"It's not just supporting Israel. It's not just taking down Saddam. It's about geopolitics. It's about looking down the road toward China and India, the world's two largest developing economies, especially the Chinese, and the absolute fear that this resurgent Chinese economy brings in the hearts of American industrialists and the need to dictate the pace of Chinese economic development by controlling their access to energy. And controlling central Asian and Middle East energy areas is key in the strategic thinking of the Bush administration. So, there's a lot of complexity at play here. But you say why do they want to do this? It's about as Condoleezza Rice continuously says before the U.S. Congress: It's about regional transformation, inclusive of regime change. It turns the Middle East into a sphere of interest that we have tremendous control over. That's what's behind all this....."
Interview with Scott Ritter - Chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 - 1998
Detroit Metro Times, 28 November 2007

"We're there because the fact of the matter is that part of the world controls the world supply of oil, and whoever controls the supply of oil, especially if it were a man like Saddam Hussein, with a large army and sophisticated weapons, would have a stranglehold on the American economy and on — indeed on the world economy."
Dick Cheney, US Secretary of Defense 1990
New York Times, 24 February 2006

"Yoest's hiring came within days of public endorsements from the Georgia Right to Life Political Action Committee, a coalition of Iowa pastors and Christian fundamentalist author Tim LaHaye, who is credited with helping found the Institute for Creation Research, described as 'the nation's foremost exponent of creationist materials.' 'During the twenty-five years I have known Mike Huckabee, he has proven himself to be a Christian conservative who stands without apology for the pro-life, pro-marriage platform that is so important in this time of moral collapse,' said LaHaye, whose dispensationalist theology holds that a final battle between the forces of good and evil is imminent. A co-author of the popular 'Left Behind' book series, LaHaye described the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel as a 'super sign' of the second coming of Christ in a 2002 interview with National Public Radio broadcaster Terry Gross. Jews, like everyone else, must convert to Christianity or suffer the consequences of eternal damnation, he said. 'The Bible makes it clear that Israel and Jerusalem and the Middle East will be the focal point of the world's interest factor, and in my lifetime, at least my professional lifetime, that's been the main focus,' LaHaye told Gross. 'Because the Bible predicted that the end-times would focus on the Middle East. And the thing that's drawing them, of course, is oil. What we're seeing here is a not-so-subtle attempt to control the world's oil because who controls the oil controls the world.'"
Mike Huckabee steps into the limelight
YesWeekly, 11 December 2007

Who Could Live With The Consequences Of A War With Iran?

"Aside from the international outcry an attack [on Iran] would bring, the huge potential downside of an attack on Iran - further destabilization of the entire region, a ratcheting up of antiUS hostility, increased violence in Iraq and possibly on Israel's doorstep - remains unchanged. This, to say nothing of the fact that there are serious questions about the efficacy of a military strike in destroying Iran's nuclear program. Notably, American Jews oppose military action against Iran, by a margin of 57 percent to 35 percent, according to the recently released annual American Jewish Committee survey of Jewish attitudes.... The international debate now is where it always should have been: how to change Iran's behavior, not how to change its regime."
Change Iran's behavior, not its regime
Jerusalem Post, 26 December 2007

Given America's Failure To Do So In Iraq
Who Could Control The Outcome Of A Conflict With Iran?

"Yuval Diskin, the head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, said recently his country might come to regret its decision to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq. 'I'm not sure we won`t come to miss Saddam,' he told a group of students broadcast on Israeli TV."
Iraq, Iran unintended results
United Press International, 17 February 2006

"[If America attacks Iran] There's no doubt in my mind the Iranians will launch missiles against Israeli targets, either directly or through proxies, and that Israel will suffer. This is something I try to warn all my Israeli friends about."
Scott Ritter - Chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 - 1998
Detroit Metro Times, 28 November 2007

"Iran, the biggest player not to be invited to the summit [in Annapolis], chose yesterday to claim that it had developed a missile capable of reaching Israel. The Ashura had a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles), according to the Iranian Defence Minister, and was now the largest in Tehran’s arsenal."
A handshake at the summit – but hate and fear rule on the ground
London Times, 28 November 2007

"Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear 'bunker-busters', according to several Israeli military sources. The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.... Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.....Israeli pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. Three possible routes have been mapped out, including one over Turkey. Air force squadrons based at Hatzerim in the Negev desert and Tel Nof, south of Tel Aviv, have trained to use Israel’s tactical nuclear weapons on the mission. The preparations have been overseen by Major General Eliezer Shkedi, commander of the Israeli air force.  Sources close to the Pentagon said the United States was highly unlikely to give approval for tactical nuclear weapons to be used. One source said Israel would have to seek approval 'after the event', as it did when it crippled Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak with airstrikes in 1981. Scientists have calculated that although contamination from the bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be released. The Israelis believe that Iran’s retaliation would be constrained by fear of a second strike if it were to launch its Shehab-3 ballistic missiles at Israel. However, American experts warned of repercussions, including widespread protests that could destabilise parts of the Islamic world friendly to the West. Colonel Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world’s oil.  Some sources in Washington said they doubted if Israel would have the nerve to attack Iran. However, Dr Ephraim Sneh, the deputy Israeli defence minister, said last month: 'The time is approaching when Israel and the international community will have to decide whether to take military action against Iran.'”
Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran
Sunday Times, 7 January 2007

"Reports that the Bush Administration will put Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list can be read in one of two ways: it's either more bluster or, ominously, a wind-up for a strike on Iran. Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC, maybe within the next six months. And they think that as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran's nuclear facilities. An awe and shock campaign, lite, if you will. But frankly they're guessing; after Iraq the White House trusts no one, especially the bureaucracy. As with Saddam and his imagined WMD, the Administration's case against the IRGC is circumstantial. The U.S. military suspects but cannot prove that the IRGC is the main supplier of sophisticated improvised explosive devices to insurgents killing our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.... And what do we do if just the opposite happens — a strike on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official told me it's not even a consideration. 'IRGC IED's are a casus belli for this Administration. There will be an attack on Iran.'"
Robert Baer - Former CIA Agent
Prelude to an Attack on Iran
TIME, 18 August 2007

The Race To Do The Lord's Work
Both Backed By The Religious Right, Who Will Try And Bomb Iran First?
Bush Or Huckabee?

"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan....He said it with reproach--with disbelief, almost--at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either. ...I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned."
'Winning Modern' Wars (page 130), General Wesley Clark

"Last month the Reverend John Hagee, a Pentecostal television evangelist from Texas, convened a meeting in Washington of 3,500 members of Christians Unified for Israel. The organisation is dedicated to building support for Israel, even in states where there are few Jewish voters. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican presidential hopeful, attended the rally, as did Senator Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, and Daniel Ayalon, the Israeli Ambassador. Mr Hagee called the Israeli attacks on Lebanon a 'miracle of God' and suggested that a ceasefire would violate 'God’s foreign policy statement' towards Jews. The evangelist is a leading figure in the so-called Christian-Zionist movement, rooted in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations, which predicts a final battle between good and evil in Israel, where two billion people will die before Christ’s return ushers in a 1,000-year period of grace. 'The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching . . . Rejoice and be exceeding glad — the best is yet to be,' Mr Hagee has written in a book that has sold 700,000 copies.  President Bush sent a message to the gathering praising Mr Hagee and his supporters for 'spreading the hope of God’s love and the universal gift of freedom'. He is said to have added: 'God bless and stand by the people of Israel and God bless the United States.' The support for Israel of 50 million American evangelicals chimes with the reality of the Administration’s foreign policy, which refuses to tolerate terrorist organisations — or the Middle Eastern regimes linked to them. Dennis Ross, a Middle East envoy in the administrations of the first President Bush and Bill Clinton, said recently that evangelical supporters of Israel were now an 'important part of the landscape'."
Bombing is backed by most American voters
London Times, 4 August 2006

"Looking to their American counterparts on Monday, Knesset members were surprised at the solidarity and support being shown among key US politicians. Several top US political figures, including Sen. John McCain (R) Arizona, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Rep.) called the current Middle East crisis the beginning of 'World War III' and said they were 'gravely concerned' in an interview on CNN's Larry King Live.... 'They said this because they think it will lead to Iran getting involved, which they believe will set off World War III,' said MK Benny Elon (National Union-National Religious Party)......    Elon said that the comments originated with American evangelist John Hagee, who published a book in 2006 called Jerusalem Countdown, which predicted that World War III would begin in Jerusalem and spread to Western states."
Is this the start of World War III?
Jerusalem Post, 17 July 2006

"John Hagee, an Armageddon prophesier who insists that military confrontation with Iran is foretold in the Bible as a necessary precondition for the Second Coming. Using his best-selling book, 'Jerusalem Countdown,' his internationally broadcast television program, and the viral marketing offered by a network of mega-churches whose pastors have signed on to his new lobbying effort, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), Hagee has spent the past six months mobilizing popular support for a war with Iran. Based on his end-times prophecy, a supposed love of the Jewish people and the state of Israel and false claims that Iran is just months away from a viable nuclear weapon, Hagee maintains that confrontation with Iran is necessary to fulfill God’s plan for the future of the world.....Preachers like Hagee seem easy to ignore because we think their audiences, while vast, consists of rank-and-file religious extremists who have no real sway over American policy-makers. But Benny Elon's statement shows that Hagee does have such influence. Gingrich and McCain may or may not believe the Second Coming is imminent, but they do know that a GOP primary presidential campaign is coming soon enough — and they know where the votes are."
Holy War, Unholy Alliance
CBS News, 20 July 2006

"Over the past months, the White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with leaders of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel's expansionist policies is 'a biblical imperative.' CUFI's Washington lobbyist, David Brog, told me that during the meetings, CUFI representatives pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah. The White House instructed Brog not to reveal the names of officials he met with, Brog said. CUFI's advice to the Bush Administration reflects the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of its founder, John Hagee....  A speech in November 2005 by Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman blasting the Christian right as the 'key domestic challenge to the American Jewish community' was the moment for Brog's emergence.... Hagee faces few repercussions as he prays for Armageddon. With local CUFI chapters growing across the country, a 'rapid response network' of thousands of pastors developing, and an open door to the White House, Brog and Hagee are planning for the long term.... the renewal of the peace process and rolling back the West Bank settlements would be an unjust cause. For Hagee and for CUFI, all roads lead to a 'nuclear showdown' with Iran. Diplomacy would only make God angry. As Hagee warns in Jerusalem Countdown, 'Those who follow a policy of opposition to God's purposes will receive the swift and severe judgment of God without limitation.'"
Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism
The Nation, 8 August 2006

"'We want you to recognize that Iran is a clear and present danger to the United States of America and Israel. And... that it's time for our country to consider a military pre-emptive strike against Iran if they will not yield to diplomacy,' says Pastor John Hagee, a popular television preacher and head of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), an organization that he founded in February 2006. That was said, of all places, on the steps of the Capitol during a Christian Zionist summit in July 2007. Among some 4,500 listeners, there were prominent representatives of the U.S. ruling elite: on the Republican side, presidential candidate John McCain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and former Republican House majority leader Tom DeLay; among the Democrats, Senator Joseph Lieberman was in attendance. Israel was represented at the rally by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.   'When 50 million American evangelicals unite with 5 million American Jews, you know it is a match made in heaven,' the preacher said. In response, Sen. Lieberman said of the preacher: 'I would describe Pastor Hagee with the words the Torah uses to describe Moses: he is an ‘Eesh Elo Kim,' a man of God because those words fit him; and, like Moses he has become the leader of a mighty multitude in pursuit of and defense of Israel.' Who are the 'Christian Zionists'? They are a variety of Protestant 'fundamentalists' who interpret current events literally as prophesies fulfilled, in accordance with Biblical prophecy, and interpret the prophetic texts as describing inevitable future events. They prefer the most literal interpretation, as proposed back in the 19th century by Briton John Darby, who said there would be no Second Coming of Christ until the Jews returned to the Holy Land.... They - i.e.: Christians waiting for the Second Coming of Christ in accordance with the Apocalypse prophesies - need a great and indivisible Israel. Jesus returns at the end of the seven years (Tribulation) to destroy The Antichrist (The Beast) and his armies at the Battle of Armageddon, outside of Jerusalem. It is for this battle that the pastor - dubbed 'Texas Taliban' by some commentators - is urging the U.S. to prepare..... According to the pastor, the principal force of Evil will be Russia, a sponsor of Muslim terrorists and supplier of nuclear weapons to Iran. It makes no difference to the preacher that the Soviet Union was Hitler's main opponent and was also the first state to recognize Israel, or that many Israelis come from Russia or that modern Russia itself is fighting against Muslim extremists ('Russia is all over the Middle East in an antagonistic position against the United States... Iran's nuclear weapons have been produced with Russian scientists. The Islamic Arabs are using the Roadmap to Peace to accumulate as much of Israel's territory they can get.').... Hagee is even opposed to the Road Map for Peace and a two-state concept, favors the continued colonization of the West Bank, and is against any concessions being given to the Palestinians."
Praying for Armageddon
Moscow News, 6 December 2007

".... numerous ministers have endorsed Huckabee. The ultra right Falwell/Liberty 'endorsement' comes after Pastor John Hagee, head of the 18,000 member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, TX, has been one of Huckabee 's strongest supporters. Hagee and Huckabee agree that 'Islamic fascism' represents the beginnings of World War III. Hagee has written Jerusalem Countdown, which made the U.S.A. Today top 50 best seller list in 2006. The minister founded Christian United for Israel (CUFI), a lobbying organization that puts the conservative evangelical movement behind his grand plan for a Biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation and Second Coming of Christ, Sarah Posner wrote in the May 21, 2006 edition of The American Prospect.... But does Huckabee agree with Hagee?... Responding to the End Times scenario, Huckabee told reporters that 'every generation' prepares for the End Times which 'could be' occurring right now.' ”
Group Challenges Liberty University's Support of Mike Huckabee
Huntingdon News, 5 December 2007

"Washington was inundated with thousands of Christians last week, but unlike their usual marches to protest abortion rights and other social issues, these Christians had something else in mind: U.S. Middle East policy. In fact, many seemed not to notice the hot, humid, cloudy weather — a typical July day in Washington — as they prepared to lobby Congress. They had just been energized by the preaching of Pastor John Hagee, who delivered an impassioned speech the night before in support of Israel.... 'It is clear that Israel is in the greatest danger she has faced since six Arab armies tried to strangle the Jewish state in the birth canal in 1948,' Hagee told the crowd at the conference's Night to Honor Israel gala. The event also featured former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among others. 'The head of the beast of radical Islam in the Middle East is Iran and its fanatical president, Ahmadinejad,' he continued. 'Ahmadinejad believes if he starts a world war, the Islamic messiah will mysteriously appear and produce a global Islamic theocratic dictatorship. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we are reliving history. It's 1938 all over again,' he said. 'Iran is Germany. Ahmadinejad is Hitler and Ahmadinejad, just like Hitler, is talking about killing the Jews.'"
Christian Group Warns: Iran Wants to Hit Israel First, U.S. Next
Fox News, 29 July 2007

Who Is Benjamin Netanyahu And For What Purpose Is Dick Cheney Using Israel As A Geostratic Pawn? Click Here

Close Shave 2007

"Nestled deep in George Bush’s latest $190 billion request to Congress for emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a tantalising little item that has received scant attention. The US Department of Defence has asked for an additional $88 million to modify B2 stealth bombers so that they can carry a 30,000lb bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator (or MOP, in the disarming acronymic vernacular of the military). The MOP is an advanced form of a 'bunker buster', an air-delivered weapon with an explosive capacity to destroy targets deep underground. Explaining the request, the Administration says it is in response to an 'urgent operational need from theatre commanders'. What kind of emergency could that be? It’s possible that the US Air Force wants more firepower in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda as they skulk in their caves in Afghanistan. But that wouldn’t require stealth bombers – the sleek, black-skinned, radar-dodging darts of the US military. The Americans own the skies over Afghanistan and Iraq and could, if they wished, blanket the two countries with all manner of bombardment from a few thousand feet in broad daylight. So what lies somewhere between Iraq and Afghanistan that might demand the urgent deployment of a stealth aircraft that can quietly drop a 30,000lb bomb and destroy something several storeys below ground? The secret wine cellars in Tehran that house the illicit stash of vintage clarets belonging to the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The vast collection of grey polyester suits and Iranian goody bags that lie in wait for the next batch of luckless British sailors?"
Now what would a huge US bomb be aimed at?
London Times, 26 October 2007

".... over the last few months the Americans have been busy upgrading some of the aircraft hangars at the Diego Garcia base in order to accommodate the B-2 stealth bombers -- equipped with new 30,000 lbs bunker-busting bombs -- that will relocate to the island from the Barksdale base in Missouri if President Bush decides to authorise military strikes against suspected illegal Iranian nuclear facilities."
Don't mention the Chagossians
New Statesman, 20 November 2007

"This past month may be remembered as the one when World War III broke out. Not the thing itself, obviously, but the concept, the memory, the nightmare, which had been buried in the basement of our cultural consciousness since the end of the Cold War. The beast suddenly broke out of the basement and it's in our face again. The return of the repressed. There was George Bush's Oct. 17 warning that 'if you're interested in avoiding World War III,' you ought to worry about the prospect of Iranian nukes. Many found the phrase jolting, coming out of the blue. First, because it had not been in widespread use, certainly not from a White House podium, and second because 'World War III' generally connotes a global nuclear war, while Bush was speaking about regional scenarios involving Iran and Israel. Why the sudden rhetorical escalation?....And then there was the 'mistake' that came to light about the same time as the Israeli raid [on Syria], the mistake in nuclear weapons handling, which allowed—for the first time in 40 years—six nuclear warheads to be flown over U.S. airspace, suspended from the wing of a long-range B-52 bomber en route from Minot, N.D., to Barksdale, La., a staging point for Mideast missions. And though the incident appears to have been an accident, it set off seething blogospheric speculation about its connection to ... a prospective U.S. raid on Iran."
Talkin' World War III
Slate, 29 November 2007

"The unauthorized Aug. 29 cross-country flight of a B-52H Stratofortress armed with six nuclear-tipped AGM-29 Advanced Cruise missiles, which saw these 150-kiloton warheads go missing for 36 hours, has all the elements of two Hollywood movies.... So far, the Pentagon, which has launched two separate investigations into the incident, seems to be assuming that it is dealing with the comedy version, saying that some incredible 'mistake' led to nuclear weapons being taken inadvertently from a weapons-storage bunker, loaded into launch position on a bomber, and flown from North Dakota to Louisiana. The American Conservative has discovered that to date, more than a month after the incident, Pentagon investigators have completely ignored a peculiar cluster of six deaths, during the weeks immediately preceding and following the flight, of personnel at the two Air Force bases involved in the incident and Air Force Commando Operations headquarters.... Apparently the nukes (which can be set to explode at between 5 kilotons and 150 kilotons) were easily spotted by a Barksdale AFB ground crew when they went out to the plane on the tarmac hours after it landed.... Philip Coyle, a senior advisor at the Center for Defense Information who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, calls the iincident 'astonishing' and 'unbelievable.' He says, 'This wasn’t just a mistake. I’ve counted, and at least 20 things had to have gone wrong for this to have occurred.'”
The Mystery of Minot: Loose nukes and a cluster of dead airmen raise troubling questions
Baltimore Chronicle, 21 November 2007

"British special forces have crossed into Iran several times in recent months as part of a secret border war against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Al-Quds special forces, defence sources have disclosed.... There have been persistent reports of American special-operations missions inside Iran preparing for a possible attack. But the sources said British troops were solely stopping arms smuggling."
SAS raiders enter Iran to kill gunrunners
Sunday Times, 21 October 2007

"President George W Bush, who warned recently that a nuclear-armed Iran could provoke a third world war, was left with a dollop of egg on his face. When Dick Cheney, the vice-president and leading Iran hawk, was briefed on the about-turn a couple of weeks ago, there was a 'pretty vivid exchange' with intelligence officials in the White House, one participant told The New York Times. According to an intelligence source, Cheney sought to block the NIE’s release, but was overruled. Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA’s former counterterrorism chief, believes the view expressed by Robert Gates, the defence secretary, and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, was: 'Whatever the intelligence shows, it shows – we won’t influence it, but it should be released.' In an interview last week, Cheney conceded that 'there was a general belief that we all shared that it was important to put it out – that it was not likely to stay classified for long, anyway.' He added, 'Everything leaks', a wry admission of the in-fighting that has divided the Bush administration."
Iran ‘nuclear bombshell’ splits US
Sunday Times, 7 December 2007

"The official reason for making the new NIE's conclusions public is that they represent a change in previous U.S. intelligence assessments of Iran's nuclear ambitions..... Other officials said that in deciding to release key portions of the new NIE, the administration also was mindful that if it had tried to keep the new NIE's conclusions secret, they almost certainly would be leaked to the media anyway. Given their political significance, the administration then could have been accused of trying to cover up important intelligence that appeared to sharply contradict its policy statements about Iran.... Some conservative critics of U.S. intelligence have criticized the new NIE's conclusions, suggesting that U.S. agencies may have fallen victim to an elaborate deception mounted by Iranian intelligence."
Anatomy of a Turnabout
Newsweek, 5 December 2007

With The Help Of Oily 'World War IV' Man James Woolsey
CNN Were On The Edge Of Whipping This Up Right On Schedule

"The latest National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran discontinued its nuclear weapons program four years ago has claimed one casualty: CNN has postponed speculative documentary 'We Were Warned -- Iran Goes Nuclear.' The two-hour spec, which was slated for Dec. 12 under the 'CNN Presents' banner, was 'set partially in the future,' featuring a what-if scenario as former government officials -- playing fictional cabinet members -- debate how to deal with the Iranian threat....Among those participating in the war-game panel featured as part of Iran Goes Nuclear' were former CIA director Jim Woolsey, former EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman and former presidential adviser David Gergen."
Intel report sinks CNN Iran special
Variety, 5 December 2007

"Iraq can be seen as the first battle of the fourth world war. After two hot world wars and one cold one that all began and were centered in Europe, the fourth world war is going to be for the Middle East."
Former Director of the CIA, James Woolsey
NATO conference, Prague, November 2002

"I fear we're going to be at war for decades, not years ..... one major component of that war is oil."
James Woolsey, former Director of The CIA
Report On The Annual Policy Forum Of The American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE)
Washington, 6-7 December 2004
RenewableEnergyAccess.com, 14 December 2004

Deeply Concerned About The Onset Of Global 'Peak Oil' Woolsey Was Also One Of The Key Players In The Campaign To Manufacture The Case Againt Iraq

Brainwashing A Nation - Cheney Still Has Much He Can Work With

"Just 18% of American voters believe that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons program. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 66% disagree and say Iran has not stopped its nuclear weapons program. The survey was conducted following release of a government report saying that Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003. The Rasmussen Reports survey also found that 67% of American voters believe that Iran remains a threat to the national security of the United States."
Just 18% Believe Iran has Stopped Nuclear Weapons Development Program
Rasmussen Reports, 7 December 2007

Opening A New Flank Against Iran
Coming Soon At A Book Store And Cinema Near You

"He is already responsible for one Hollywood blockbuster. Now a former Israeli secret agent is planning to turn the Lockerbie disaster into a big screen hit, blaming Iran, not Libya, for the atrocity. Juval Aviv was behind the book that inspired the acclaimed Steven Spielberg blockbuster Munich. His latest project is a fictional account of the Lockerbie disaster – in which 270 people were killed – and he hopes that the Jaws and ET filmmaker can make it into a major movie. Flight 103 – which alleges that the Iranians and the American secret services were complicit in the atrocity – will be published early in the new year. The book is expected to become an international bestseller, and the former Mossad agent has revealed he is in talks with a number of high-profile Hollywood directors over the film rights. Among those considering adapting the script is Spielberg – the author's friend and former collaborator. The legendary director hired Aviv as a consultant for his award-winning 2005 film Munich, which depicted a campaign by Israel, in the wake of the 1972 Olympic massacre, to hunt down and kill alleged Palestinian terrorists....Aviv, who acted as lead investigator for Pan Am during the Lockerbie inquiry, admits that his book is a thinly veiled account of what he is convinced really happened in December 1988. In the novel, retired Israeli agent Sam Woolfman discovers that Tehran ordered the destruction of an American plane in retaliation for the US downing an Iranian airbus, carrying 133 civilian partners, earlier in 1988. The Iranians then enlist an experienced Palestinian terrorist; Ahmed 'The Falcon' Shabaan, to carry out the bloody reprisal. In the book, the American secret services turn a blind eye to the plot and ensure that three CIA agents, who are due to blow this whistle on a internal heroin dealing racket, are aboard the doomed eponymous flight. Woolfman, accompanied by his glamorous young Irish sidekick Orla Sheehy, discover that American Embassy staff around the world were warned not to board the Pan Am airliner. The suggestion that Libya was not responsible for the atrocity was made forcibly by Aviv, who writes under the nom de plume of Sam Green, during the inquiry, but his evidence was rejected. With a second appeal under way by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted for the Lockerbie bombing, the president of investigations firm Interfor is convinced that his version of events will finally be vindicated. He said: 'Flight 103 is written as fiction, but it is based solidly on real-life facts. The US Government urged me to change my report (to the inquiry], but I wouldn't and I fully stand by my version of events. 'I think 2008 will be the year when the truth finally emerges. There is still an innocent person in jail, but hopefully not for much longer.'... Flight 103 by Sam Green is published by Century on January 24."
Lockerbie story heads to Hollywood
Scotland on Sunday, 23 December 2007

What A Minute, Whatever Happened To Libya? - Click Here

"Hollywood and Israel join hands to blame Iran for masterminding the Lockerbie disaster in a new cinematic adaptation of the event. The film will be based on a book by Juval Aviv, the former Israeli secret agent and a top investigator for Pan American during the Lockerbie inquiry. According to the Scotland on Sunday website, Flight 103 which will hit the market on Jan. 24th, 2008, accuses the Iranian and American secret services of involvement in the incident. The former Mossad agent has negotiated the film rights with a number of high-profile Hollywood directors including the acclaimed Steven Spielberg, who had hired him as a consultant in 2005 for his award-winning film Munich."
Hollywood to frame Iran for Lockerbie
Press TV (Iran), 23 December 2007

The News Is How They Choose

"From late 1989 to 1992 I was the Head of the Maritime Section of the FCO and No 2 in the Aviation and Maritime Department (for those into FCO arcana, the Maritime Section was headed by a Grade 5 First Secretary and the Aviation Section by a Grade 6 First Secretary). This was the period of the invasion of Kuwait and first Gulf War, in which the Maritime Section, including me, mostly got picked up and deposited in an underground bunker as the FCO part of the Embargo Surveillance Centre. We did intelligence analysis on Iraqi attempts at weapons procurement and organised interdiction worldwide. In this period I mostly lived in my underground bunker, quite literally, and didn't get back to the FCO much to keep an eye on the rest of my section. On one occasion when I did, I was told something remarkable by a colleague in Aviation section. At this time we suddenly switched from blaming Iran and Syria for the Lockerbie bombing to blaming Libya. This was part of a diplomatic drive to isolate Iraq from its neighbours in the run-up to the invasion. Aviation section were seeing all the intelligence on Lockerbie, for obvious reasons. A colleague there told me, in a deeply worried way, that he/she had the most extraordinary intelligence report which showed conclusively that it was really Syria, not Libya, that bombed the Pan Am jet, and that the switch was pure expediency. I asked if I could see the report, and my colleague declined, saying this was too sensitive and dangerous; the report was marked for named eyes only. That in itself was extremely unusual - normally we would pass intelligence reports freely to each other, signing the register for them. That is all I know. I never saw the report myself, and I do not know what it said, or why it was so conclusive. I am sorry to say it was such an incredibly busy time, we never discussed it again. I do not know, for instance, whether the intelligence contained an actual admission the charge aganst Libya was fake, or merely evidence that proved Syria did it (a communications intercept, for example). I suspect it will never be made public. But the knowledge has remained with me ever since, and I was extremely sorry at the conviction of al-Magrahi. I do hope his appeal is successful. I am particularly impressed at the upright stand of Dr Swire and other victims' representatives on this issue."
Craig Murray, Former British Ambassador To Uzbekistan
Craig Murray Blog, 29 June 2007

How MI6 And CIA Set About Framing Libya For Lockerbie And Why They Eventually Did A Deal With Gaddafi - Click Here

Countdown 2008?

"A couple of months ago, few people had heard of him outside his native Arkansas, where he was governor..... Twice as many evangelical Protestants in Iowa backed Mr Huckabee as backed Mr Romney, with the rest of the field nowhere. Pundits now have to take Mr Huckabee seriously. His core appeal is to 'values voters', as they sometimes call themselves. Pro-lifers and evangelical Protestants immediately sense that he is one of them. He is a Baptist minister. He can cram eight Bible stories into a single paragraph. He can say things like 'it's important that the language of Zion is a mother tongue and not a recently acquired second language' without it sounding contrived.... If social conservatives were to coalesce around Mr Huckabee, that would throw the Republican primaries into utter confusion. The candidate they back tends to win the Republican nomination. Their record turnout in 2004 helped George Bush beat John Kerry. Yet social conservatives are only a small minority of the national electorate, so they have to pick a candidate who also appeals to others. Some think that Mr Huckabee might be that candidate. Largely, this is because of his personality. On the campaign trail, he is approachable, chummy and eloquent....Plenty applaud a candidate who seems so straightforward, too. In a poll by YouGov/Polimetrix for The Economist (full results here), Republicans rated him the most honest candidate and Americans rated him the most moral of either party ."
Faith, Hope and populism
Economist, 22 November 2007

"Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Tuesday he was unfamiliar with the National Intelligence Estimate that reported that Iran had not had a program to develop nuclear weapons since 2003, and he questioned the intelligence work behind it. Asked by reporters if he had been briefed on the summary of the report, which was declassified and released Monday, Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said 'No.' Informed of its content by reporters, he said he agreed with President Bush, who said that Iran remains a threat. Huckabee's unfamiliarity with the NIE summary and his questioning of the conclusions reached by the 16 government agencies that prepared it could add to questions about whether the new GOP frontrunner in Iowa has the foreign affairs experience needed to serve as president—particular during a time of heightened Middle East tensions."
Huckabee says he's unfamiliar with intel report
Chicargo Tribune, 4 December 2007

"President Bush yesterday insisted that Iran remained a genuine threat to world peace, despite a new US intelligence report concluding that the Tehran regime had halted its nuclear weapons programme four years ago. In a White House press conference, where he was bombarded with questions about the implications for his own credibility, Mr Bush declared he had seen nothing to change either his own mind or Washington's policy on Iran's nuclear ambitions. 'Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,' he said. At his last press conference on October 17 Mr Bush said that anyone 'interested in avoiding World War III' should back his efforts to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapon. Yesterday, he struck a defiant note, claiming that this week's National Intelligence Estimate should be regarded as a vindication of - and a reason to continue taking - a tough stance towards Tehran. 'I view this report as a warning signal that they had the programme, they halted the programme,' said the President. 'The reason why it's a warning signal is they could restart it.'....”
The report changes nothing: Iran is still a threat, says defiant George W. Bush
London Times, 5 December 2007

"Iran remains a threat to the world despite new intelligence saying the country may not be building nuclear weapons, the US president says. Mr Bush said the report released on Monday was a 'warning signal' and his view that a nuclear Iran would be a danger 'hasn't changed'. The president stressed that Iran was still trying to enrich uranium and could restart its weapons programme."
Bush says Iran remains a threat
BBC Online, 4 December 2004

"Cheney, though his position is weakened by the NIE report, is due tomorrow to give a TV interview in which he will insist that the danger posed by Iran has not diminished. He told Politico the cause for concern was Iran's civilian development of highly enriched uranium, which would be relatively easy at a later date to switch to making a nuclear weapon."
 Intelligence Expert Who Rewrote Book on Iran
Guardian, 8 December 2007

"A U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 has had no effect on Pentagon planning, a senior U.S. military officer said on Friday....Sattler told reporters at the Pentagon he would not talk publicly about any U.S. military contingency plans but he said: 'There has been no course correction, slowdown, speedup given to us inside the Joint Staff based on the NIE.'.... In Kansas City on Friday, Vice President Dick Cheney restated the administration's stance on Iran. 'We're dealing with a country that is still enriching uranium and remains a leading state sponsor of terrorism. That is a cause of great concern to the United States,' he said. 'Not everyone understands the threat of nuclear proliferation in Iran or elsewhere but we and our allies do understand the threat and we have a duty to prevent it,' Cheney said in remarks delivered at the National World War I Museum."
Pentagon plans unchanged by Iran report: general
Reuters, 7 December 2007

'Everything Points To April 2008'

"Now a former Israeli secret agent is planning to turn the Lockerbie disaster into a big screen hit, blaming Iran, not Libya, for the atrocity. Juval Aviv was behind the book that inspired the acclaimed Steven Spielberg blockbuster Munich. His latest project is a fictional account of the Lockerbie disaster – in which 270 people were killed – and he hopes that the Jaws and ET filmmaker can make it into a major movie. Flight 103 – which alleges that the Iranians and the American secret services were complicit in the atrocity – will be published early in the new year. ..... 'I think 2008 will be the year when the truth finally emerges. There is still an innocent person in jail, but hopefully not for much longer.'... Flight 103 by Sam Green is published by Century on January 24."
Lockerbie story heads to Hollywood
Scotland on Sunday, 23 December 2007

"[There has been] the need to redefine the Iranian threat away from exclusively being focused on nuclear activity, because now you have the difficulty of both the IAEA saying there is no nuclear weapons program and the CIA saying pretty much the same thing. So the Bush administration needs to redefine the Iranian threat, which they have been doing successfully, casting Iran as the largest state sponsor of terror, getting the Senate resolution calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command a terrorist organization, and creating a perception amongst the American people, courtesy of a compliant media, that talks about the reason why things are going bad in Iraq is primarily because of Iranian intervention. They have been working very hard to get back on track. I still believe that we are seeing convergence here. The Bush administration is moving very aggressively toward military action with Iran....."
Scott Ritter - Chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 - 1998
Detroit Metro Times, 28 November 2007

"When President Bush's 2008 budget was coming together, with the goal of balancing the budget in five years, Cheney nevertheless insisted on a $947 million line item: a speedup of the flow of crude into the Texas and Louisiana salt caverns housing the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The budget guys pushed back: Can't we wait until crude prices level off? No, the word came back from Cheney, this was urgent. That was all it took."
Cheney: No bailouts, no tax hikes...more oil
Fortune, 26 November 2007

"A Senate panel grilled a key government energy expert Tuesday over why the Bush administration plans to continue adding to the nation's oil reserve as the price of crude spikes near $100 a barrel.....The Department of Energy is planning to spend nearly $1 billion in 2008 to boost the amount of oil the nation holds in its 750 million barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve....the government may cause a significant increase in the price of crude over the next six months by filling the reserve with the easily refined and most valuable light, sweet crude. The lawmakers blasted the Bush administration for undertaking such action in light of the high price and with seemly little analysis on what effect this could have on prices. They asked Guy Caruso, the head of the Energy Information Agency, the statistical arm of the Department of Energy, if top DOE officials had consulted him on the impact of filling the strategic reserve. Caruso, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, said he had not been contacted.... 'The law says filling [the reserve] must not result in excessive costs,' said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. 'It seems evident to me the department is not complying with the law.'"
Senate drills Bush official over oil prices
CNN, 11 December 2007

"Former Central Intelligence Agency analyst Ray McGovern said Monday night that he fears the United States will go to war with Iran before the next American presidential election. McGovern alleged that a joint U.S. and Israeli war on the Arab nation would likely come despite a recent National Intelligence Estimate suggesting that Iran has not had a functioning nuclear weapons program since 2003. He cited the close American relationship with Israel, which he said considers Iran a threat, as a driving force behind a potential strike."
Ex-CIA man predicts U.S. war with Iran
Seacoast, 19 December 2007

How Will Cheney Get His Next Oil War?
Post NIE Will Cheney Now Revert To His 2005 Position And Encourage Tel Aviv Go First
And Then Step In If Iran Responds With Missile Strikes On Israel?

"Although Downing Street publicly insists that Bush and Blair remain 'closely in touch' on the Iranian threat, some British officials are privately concerned that Dick Cheney, the hardline American vice-president, is driving the administration’s policy on Iran.... One well known US weapons specialist last week described the Iranian nuclear issue as 'the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion'.... [there are] reports in Israel that Washington is secretly encouraging Tel Aviv to strike.... "
Blair’s loyalty tested as Bush menaces Iran
Sunday Times, 23 January 2005

"US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington. The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office. Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed... Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst, shared the sources' assessment that Pentagon planning was well under way. 'Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place.' He added: 'We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous.'... Mr Cannistraro, who worked for the CIA and the National Security Council, stressed that no decision had been made. Last month Mr Bush ordered a second battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis to the Gulf in support of the USS Eisenhower. The USS Stennis is due to arrive within the next 10 days. Extra US Patriot missiles have been sent to the region, as well as more minesweepers, in anticipation of Iranian retaliatory action. In another sign that preparations are under way, Mr Bush has ordered oil reserves to be stockpiled.... Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former air force officer who has carried out war games with Iran as the target, supported the view that planning for an air strike was under way: 'Gates said there is no planning for war. We know this is not true. He possibly meant there is no plan for an immediate strike. It was sloppy wording. 'All the moves being made over the last few weeks are consistent with what you would do if you were going to do an air strike. We have to throw away the notion the US could not do it because it is too tied up in Iraq. It is an air operation.'... Other neo-cons elsewhere in Washington are opposed to an air strike but advocate a different form of military action, supporting Iranian armed groups, in particular the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), even though the state department has branded it a terrorist organisation."
Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring
Guardian, 10 February 2007

"Senior Israeli officials warned yesterday that they were still considering a military strike against Iran, despite a fresh US intelligence report that concluded Tehran was no longer developing nuclear weapons...However, it is widely assumed that Israel would need US approval, if not cooperation, for a bombing mission. In particular, its air force would need the US flight codes that would allow its planes to cross into Iran. When Israel requested those codes in 1991 to attack Iraq during the first Gulf war, the United States refused and there was no Israeli strike."
Unilateral military strike still an option, senior ministers insist
Guardian, 8 December 2007

"Disappointed after failing to make their case on Iran and influence the outcome of the United States's National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released this week, Military Intelligence will present its hard core evidence on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program on Sunday to the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff during a rare visit he will be making to Israel. According to a Time magazine article published Wednesday, Mullen is a member of the Pentagon's 'anti-war [with Iran] group' that includes Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral William Fallon, current commander of the US Central Command. In a recent press briefing in Washington, however, Mullen took a hard-line approach, refusing to rule out the possibility that military force will be used to stop Iran's race towards nuclear power.... Mullen's visit to Israel will be exactly a week after the publication of the NIE report that claimed Iran had frozen its nuclear military program in 2003 and has yet to restart it. During his visit, Military Intelligence plans to present him with Israel's evidence that Iran is in fact developing nuclear weapons....Mullen's visit will be the first time a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has visited Israel in the past decade."
IDF to show US nuclear data on Iran
Jerusalem Post, 7 December 2007

"Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen wrapped up his lightning trip to Israel on Monday, leaving the IDF with a feeling that Israel does not stand alone in the face of the Iranian nuclear threat, despite a recent American intelligence report....Despite the recent National Intelligence Estimate that claimed Iran had frozen its nuclear military program, the US still perceived Iran as a major threat to the region, Mullen's spokesman said. He said Mullen was aware that the NIE report claimed Iran had tried to develop nuclear weapons in the past, was enriching uranium and was a key supporter of terrorist groups in the region....During their meetings, Mullen and Ashkenazi discussed the Iranian threat. Israel believes Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon and will be ready to manufacture such a device as early as the end of 2009."
Mullen: Israel not alone against Iran
Jerusalem Post, 10 December 2007

"The Iranian opposition group that first exposed Iran's nuclear-fuel program said a U.S. intelligence analysis is correct that Tehran shut down its weaponization program in 2003, but claims that the program was relocated and restarted in 2004. The claim, to be made public today by the National Council for Resistance in Iran, joins a broad pushback by conservative hawks who say the U.S. analysis has wrongly given the impression that Iran's nuclear-fuel program doesn't present an urgent threat. In recent days, Republican lawmakers have called for a review of the process that created the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate..."
Group Says Iran Resumed Weapon Program
Wall St Journal, 11 December 2007

"Some prominent American experts think that the NIE all but assures Israeli military action at some point. 'I came back from a trip to Israel in November convinced that Israel would attack Iran,' Bruce Riedel, a former career CIA official and senior adviser to three U.S. presidents--including Bush--on Middle East and South Asian issues, told me Thursday, citing conversations he had with Mossad and defense officials. 'And that was before the NIE. This makes it even more likely. Israel is not going to allow its nuclear monopoly to be threatened.'"
What Will Israel Do?
Newsweek, 20 December 2007

What Hope For The Middle East In 2008?

"Let's take a look at different perceptions of The Middle East peace talks in Annapolis this week..... As usual in the Middle East, what you see depends on who you are. .... On Monday, as Bush met with Abbas and Olmert at the White House, his National Security Advisor was meeting down the hall with religious groups who believe Israel belongs to the jews. Among them was the organization Christians United for Israel - also known as CUFI. .... CUFI, as it's known, is not even two years old, and it's already a force to be reckoned with. The man behind it is Pastor John Hagee... Pastor Hagee is one of the Christian right's most powerful preachers. Israel is his passion. .... From the 18,000 people who belong to his church in San Antonio, Texas to the 99 million homes he says tune into his weekly radio and television broadcasts John Hagee has built an empire sharing the gospel of Israel with evangelicals around the world. And as the leader of CUFI his power extends from the pulpit to politics..... Christians United for Israel opposes the Bush administration's roadmap for peace and urges American leaders to abandon it. The plan calls for a two-state solution in the region — if Palestinians lay down their arms and recognize Israel's right to exist, Israel will withdraw from certain disputed territories and move to help create an independent Palestine. For these believers the roadmap is inherently flawed because it is not biblically sound as Hagee often preaches to his congregation.... According to John Hagee, devastating consequences await those who violate God's word God, he says, may already have sent Hurricane Katrina to punish the U.S. for its role in helping Israel remove Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip..... "
Bill Moyers Journal
PBS, 30 November 2007

"The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has talked down any expectations of a peace agreement with the Palestinians by the end of 2008 that might have been generated by last week's meetings in Annapolis. Reporting to his cabinet, Mr Olmert insisted that there was 'no commitment to a specific timetable'.....The joint declaration, announced in Annapolis, reaffirmed the key role of the roadmap, but called for both sides to confront terrorism, 'whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis'. The roadmap also requires Israel to dismantle illegal West Bank outposts and freeze all settlement activity. With two right-wing ethnic parties in his coalition, Mr Olmert has resisted constant international pressure to remove the dozens of outposts or prevent the settlers adding new houses to meet the 'natural growth' of their population. Although they are in no hurry to leave the government, the Russian immigrant Yisrael Beiteinu party and the Sephardi Shas, which between them have 23 parliamentary seats out of 120, are threatening to resign if the Annapolis rhetoric is translated into deeds. Mr Olmert's statement yesterday, which a spokesman said did not differ from his position at Annapolis, was meant to keep them on board for as long as possible. In a post-summit tour of Arab capitals, Mr Abbas took an equally tough stance, rejecting Israeli demands to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. 'The Palestinians do not accept the formula that the state of Israel is a Jewish state,' he said after talks with President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. 'We say that Israel exists, and in Israel there are Jews and there are those who are not Jews.' Mr Olmert wants the Jewish definition in order to strengthen Israel's case against re-admitting Palestinian refugees to homes they fled in 1948. Israel wants them absorbed in a Palestinian state. Mr Abbas is not prepared to concede the 'right of return' before negotiations even begin.... Israel yesterday tightened the screws on Hamas in Gaza by reducing supplies of fuel to a new low in retaliation for Qassam rockets fired daily into southern Israel. Palestinian officials said Israel delivered only a quarter of the amount imported before Hamas seized the Gaza strip in June."
Olmert holds little hope for peace deal
Independent, 4 December 2007

"The talks spawned by Annapolis will be flawed and difficult. But no-one has a plan B, except for more of the same misery they been inflicting on each other for more than 60 years."
Analysis: After Annapolis
BBC Online, 4 December 2007

The 'Plan C' Alternative Peace Process Proposal
For Those Interested In Abandoning The Failed Methods Of The Past 60 Years

'Clash Of Civilisations Man'
Huckabee's 'Christian' Foreign Policy Platform

The Big Question: How Extreme Is Mike Huckabee – And Could He Reach The White House?

"Backed by an unpaid army of evangelical Christians and America's gun-lovers, he is best described as the Barack Obama of the right. Initially dismissed as an oddball candidate who could not even count on the support of the religious right, Huckabee is now a contender for the Presidency....a seasoned politician who was also one of the first successful televangelists....Huckabee has fundamentalist views on terrorism even if his grip on foreign policy issues is weak: 'Islamofascism is rooted in a theocratic Islamic jihadism that seeks to destroy and annihilate every last one of us,' he says."
The Big Question: How extreme is Mike Huckabee – and could he reach the White House?
Independent, 11 December 2007

"The failure of Messrs Bush and Blair and the neo-cons to understand Arab grievances has been translated into a 'clash of civilisations' and a threat to Western values 'by people determined to destroy our way of life', as the Prime Minister put it. But there is no clash of civilisations unless we are determined to create one. We are not going to live under a universal caliphate. Osama bin Laden and his gangsters have not the faintest chance of destroying our way of life, unless we do so ourselves..... The misconceived 'war on terror' has made the world a much more dangerous place.... America and Britain should leave Iraq as soon as possible. There are no other options. .... it is the American occupation of Iraq, like the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, that has become the magnet for the international jihadis....."
Lord Norman Lamont, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1990-93
America and Britain should quit Iraq as soon as possible
Daily Telegraph, 10 November 2006

"The popular view outside America, occasionally expressed inside the US, is that the limits to debate about the Middle East are set by some powerful group called the Israel Lobby. This shadowy bunch, depending on your favoured conspiracy theory, either bankrolls all American politicians or plants its own members in critical positions inside the US Government. No politician dare step out of line from what is decreed acceptable by the Lobby. Last year two academics gave public voice to this view in a paper that quickly earned notoriety. But fixation on the Israel lobby is not only misplaced and, with its evocation of wealthy bankers and unscrupulous political consultants, just a tiny bit antiSemitic. It also misses the real reasons that the US can’t seem to have a sensible discussion now about the Middle East.  That there is an Israel lobby in American politics is not really in dispute. In a political system as vast and complex as America’s, all kinds of groups seek to influence the outcome of the policy debate. There is also an Ireland lobby, a Taiwan lobby, and for all I know a Liechtenstein lobby. The Israel lobby is certainly among the more influential, but its influence is still much less than its critics think, and much, much less important than a range of factors that keep politicians on the straight and narrow with regard to the Middle East. Some of these reasons are to do with internal political developments long in the making. The rise of evangelical Christianity as a political force, especially within the Republican Party, has something to do with it. The belief that the Jews must be returned to the Biblical lands of Judaea and Samaria before the world can end has driven up support for an aggressive Israeli approach to its neighbours in the Holy Land. Those of us who are not evangelical Zionists will feel a little queasy about that idea."
‘Israel right or wrong’ is not a grown-up debate
London Times, 30 March 2007

Huckabee 'An Easy Kill'?
Democrats Want Huckabee To Win The Republican Nomination
But Is Huckabee Too Dangerous To Leave Until Later?
What If There Is A Major National Security Scare After Huckabee Wins The Nomination And America Moves Further To The Right?

"Democrat party officials are avoiding any and all criticism of Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, insiders reveal. The Democratic National Committee has told staffers to hold all fire, until he secures the party's nomination. The directive has come down from the highest levels within the party, according to a top source. Within the DNC, Huckabee is known as the 'glass jaw -- and they're just waiting to break it.' In the last three weeks since Huckabee's surge kicked in, the DNC hasn't released a single press release criticizing his rising candidacy.... as the story broke over the weekend that Huckabee said he wanted to isolate AIDS patients back in 1992, the DNC ignored the opportunity to slam the candidate from the left.   'He'll easily be their McGovern, an easy kill,' mocked one senior Democrat operative Tuesday morning from Washington. 'His letting out murderers because they shout 'Jesus', his wanting to put 300,000 AIDS patients and Magic Johnson into isolation, ain't even scratching the surface of what we've got on him.' ......A close friend to Huckabee explains: 'Look, Mike is Hillary Clinton's worst nightmare. They should be squirming.'"
DEMS HOLD FIRE ON HUCKABEE; SEE 'EASY KILL' IN GENERAL ELECTION
Drudge Report, 11 December 2007

Broad Appeal?
Didn't Governor George Bush Have That?

"If social conservatives were to coalesce around Mr Huckabee, that would throw the Republican primaries into utter confusion. The candidate they back tends to win the Republican nomination. Their record turnout in 2004 helped George Bush beat John Kerry. Yet social conservatives are only a small minority of the national electorate, so they have to pick a candidate who also appeals to others. Some think that Mr Huckabee might be that candidate. Largely, this is because of his personality. On the campaign trail, he is approachable, chummy and eloquent....Plenty applaud a candidate who seems so straightforward, too. In a poll by YouGov/Polimetrix for The Economist (full results here), Republicans rated him the most honest candidate and Americans rated him the most moral of either party ."
Faith, Hope and populism
Economist, 22 November 2007

"Bush called for a humble foreign policy as a candidate. But he and his advisers -- especially Vice President Dick Cheney -- believed from the start that America was so much stronger than all possible competitors that it need not be constrained from acting unilaterally whenever it saw the need."
The world after George W. Bush
Boston Globe, 22 July 2007

"A year ago, Paul O'Neill was fired from his job as George Bush's Treasury Secretary for disagreeing too many times with the president's policy on tax cuts. Now, O'Neill - who is known for speaking his mind - talks for the first time about his two years inside the Bush administration. His story is the centerpiece of a new book being published this week about the way the Bush White House is run. Entitled 'The Price of Loyalty,' the book by a former Wall Street Journal reporter draws on interviews with high-level officials who gave the author their personal accounts of meetings with the president, their notes and documents. But the main source of the book was Paul O'Neill.... he is going public because he thinks the Bush Administration has been too secretive about how decisions have been made.... Not only did O'Neill give Suskind his time, he gave him 19,000 internal documents.... And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations. 'From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,' says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic 'A' 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.....'It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’' says O’Neill."
Bush Sought ‘Way’ To Invade Iraq?
CBS News, 11 January 2003

If Huckabee Follows Bush You Ain't See Nothing Yet

Speaking The Language Of  Zion - To What Ultimate Purpose?

"A couple of months ago, few people had heard of him outside his native Arkansas, where he was governor..... Twice as many evangelical Protestants in Iowa backed Mr Huckabee as backed Mr Romney, with the rest of the field nowhere. Pundits now have to take Mr Huckabee seriously. His core appeal is to 'values voters', as they sometimes call themselves. Pro-lifers and evangelical Protestants immediately sense that he is one of them. He is a Baptist minister. He can cram eight Bible stories into a single paragraph. He can say things like 'it's important that the language of Zion is a mother tongue and not a recently acquired second language' without it sounding contrived.... If social conservatives were to coalesce around Mr Huckabee, that would throw the Republican primaries into utter confusion. The candidate they back tends to win the Republican nomination. Their record turnout in 2004 helped George Bush beat John Kerry. Yet social conservatives are only a small minority of the national electorate, so they have to pick a candidate who also appeals to others. Some think that Mr Huckabee might be that candidate. Largely, this is because of his personality. On the campaign trail, he is approachable, chummy and eloquent....Plenty applaud a candidate who seems so straightforward, too. In a poll by YouGov/Polimetrix for The Economist (full results here), Republicans rated him the most honest candidate and Americans rated him the most moral of either party ."
Faith, Hope and populism
Economist, 22 November 2007

"Romney's Mormon faith is raising questions with some. But what is Huckabee's relationship with 'Left Behind' author Timothy LaHaye? Let's imagine that Mitt Romney released a television advertisement in Iowa describing himself as 'a Mormon leader.' Reporters would descend like vultures upon Romney, the front-running Republican in the Iowa presidential caucuses, asking if he embraced Mormon doctrine on marriage, alcohol and everything else. So why isn't anyone questioning Mike Huckabee about Timothy LaHaye? Huckabee, whose advertisements proclaim that he is a 'Christian leader,' trails Romney by a mere 4 percentage points in the latest Iowa poll. His campaign received a boost from LaHaye, coauthor of best-selling novels, who sent a letter inviting selected pastors to all-expenses-paid conferences in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The only presidential candidate speaking at each event will be Huckabee. So it's perfectly fair to ask whether Huckabee sees eye to eye with LaHaye. If he does, Huckabee - an affable, guitar-playing ex-minister - is a whole lot scarier than many of us have suspected. LaHaye believes that Christians will rise into heaven in The Rapture. The rest of us will be Left Behind - get it? - to face nasty tribulations: plagues, earthquakes, hailstorms and more. During this time of torment, the Book of Revelations predicts, the Antichrist will reign. But in LaHaye's 16 novels, which have sold more than 65 million copies, the Anti-christ is . . . the secretary-general of the United Nations! That's right: The U.N. is itself a kind of deviltry, because it prefigures the rule of Satan....Therefore, the first question for Huckabee should be: What do you think of the United Nations? And if you're elected president, will you reduce or change America's commitment to the U.N. and to other international organizations? The next set of questions should surround Israel. According to LaHaye, the final return of Christ - and the defeat of Satan - will be preceded by the establishment of 'Greater Israel.' That's one big reason why many evangelical Christians are Israel hawks, rejecting a two-state solution and supporting the expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. Again, somebody should ask Huckabee: Do you favor two states, for the Israelis and Palestinians, or just one? And why? Then there's the war in Iraq. LaHaye has suggested that Saddam Hussein was a 'forerunner of the Antichrist' - and that the Iraq war might itself represent the final, epic battle between Satan and Jesus. Does Huckabee, too, think that the conflict is prefigured in Scripture? And if so, how might this attitude influence his policy toward Iraq? Finally, and most generally, we should also ask Huckabee how he might bring forth a more peaceful world. In LaHaye's novels, true peace is impossible until the return of Christ. Villains offer secular solutions, like the United Nations. But until Jesus comes back, all is war. So does Huckabee buy it? A campaign spokesman recently confirmed that Huckabee had read some of LaHaye's Left Behind novels, and that the candidate enjoyed them.... LaHaye isn't neutral; he's working for Huckabee.  So if Huckabee is elected, will he follow LaHaye's lead? We deserve some answers, before it's too late. Nobody knows when the Earth will end, of course, but Iowa will hold its caucuses on Jan. 3."
Scrutinize candidates evenly
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 December 2007

"Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican presidential contender, gave a stump speech and answered questions today at the home of New Hampshire State Representative Jason Bedrick, the first Orthodox Jew elected to the NH House of Representatives.In response to a question about the Middle East from Rabbi Moshe Bleich of the Wellesley-Weston Chabad Center, Gov. Huckabee expressed frustration with Israeli politicians who wanted to give away the Golan Heights and firmly opposed dividing Jerusalem. When asked about a Palestinian state, Gov. Huckabee stated that he supports creating a Palestinian state, but believes that it should be formed outside of Israel. He named Egypt and Saudi Arabia as possible alternatives, noting that the Arabs have far more land than the Israelis and that it would only be fair for other Arab nations to give the Palestinians land for a state, rather than carving it out of the tiny Israeli state."
Orthodox Jew Hosts Presidential Candidate
Jewish Russian Telegraph/Yeshiva World News, 15 October 2007

"Huckabee is pro-Israel: He has visited the Jewish state nine times, and told the crowd at the Bedrick house party that he favored the establishment of a Palestinian state - in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Bedrick may see Huckabee as the perfect fit for the White House, but for many American Jews the thought of a staunchly pro-life, ordained Baptist minister as president is a major cause for alarm....Chafets, the American-born Israeli government spokesman turned journalist, told JTA that 'there's no doubt that Huckabee is a Christian conservative in the mold of Falwell or Pat Robertson, speaking politically.' 'He believes in the inerrancy of the Bible,' Chafetz said. 'In other words, he's a fundamentalist. He believes that the Bible could not be mistaken. He's a pre-millennialist Christian. He believes in Armageddon.'... During the summer, after Huckabee began to show signs of progress, the executive director of the National Jewish Democrat Council, Ira Forman, said voters 'should be concerned whenever an extreme candidate gets a whiff of the presidency.' "
Can Huckabee ever win over Jewish voters?
Jerusalem Post, 24 December 2007

'Our Values'

"I urge all Christians...to go to your caucuses on Jan. 3 and vote for Mike Huckabee.... the most electable who shares our values."
'Left Behind' series co-author, Tim Lahaye
Washington Post Campaign Diary, 4 December 2007

"[Huckabee] considers the 'Left Behind’ books, in which the world comes to a violent end as Jesus triumphs over Satan, a 'compelling story written for nontheologians.'.... Huckabee’s affability and populist economic and social views have sometimes been misinterpreted as a moderate brand of evangelical Christianity. In fact, as he wrote in his book 'Character Makes a Difference,' he considers liberalism to be a cancer on Christianity."
The Huckabee Factor
New York Times, 12 December 2007

"Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister, announced the names Tuesday in Iowa of more than 60 pastors endorsing his presidential bid, including Tim LaHaye, best-selling author of the Christian apocalyptic 'Left Behind' series.... Huckabee addressed a group of 300 pastors in Iowa Monday attending a religious conference and received more than three standing ovations."
Huckabee Courts Evangelical Vote in Iowa
ABC News, 5 December 2007

"Huckabee has consolidated the support of influential religious conservatives, primarily by reaching out to a network of pastors across the state. He spoke privately Monday night to several hundred gathered in Des Moines for a conference, the only presidential candidate to do so. He appeared with more than 60 Iowa pastors endorsing him at a news conference Tuesday, including best-selling author Tim LaHaye of 'Left Behind' fame and his wife, Beverly. Also endorsing him was Chuck Hurley, an influential Iowa conservative who had backed Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, a conservative who quit the race in October. LaHaye called Huckabee 'the most electable candidate who shares our commitment.'"
Huckabee Bristles at Creationism Query
Associated Press, 4 December 2007

"Yoest's hiring came within days of public endorsements from the Georgia Right to Life Political Action Committee, a coalition of Iowa pastors and Christian fundamentalist author Tim LaHaye, who is credited with helping found the Institute for Creation Research, described as 'the nation's foremost exponent of creationist materials.' 'During the twenty-five years I have known Mike Huckabee, he has proven himself to be a Christian conservative who stands without apology for the pro-life, pro-marriage platform that is so important in this time of moral collapse,' said LaHaye, whose dispensationalist theology holds that a final battle between the forces of good and evil is imminent. A co-author of the popular 'Left Behind' book series, LaHaye described the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel as a 'super sign' of the second coming of Christ in a 2002 interview with National Public Radio broadcaster Terry Gross. Jews, like everyone else, must convert to Christianity or suffer the consequences of eternal damnation, he said. 'The Bible makes it clear that Israel and Jerusalem and the Middle East will be the focal point of the world's interest factor, and in my lifetime, at least my professional lifetime, that's been the main focus,' LaHaye told Gross. 'Because the Bible predicted that the end-times would focus on the Middle East. And the thing that's drawing them, of course, is oil. What we're seeing here is a not-so-subtle attempt to control the world's oil because who controls the oil controls the world.'"
Mike Huckabee steps into the limelight
YesWeekly, 11 December 2007

'Our Values'
An Unpleasant End For Jews, Muslims, Catholics, And Other Non-Believers Alike

"The final instalment of an evangelical Christian publishing phenomenon which has spawned 16 novels and sold 64 million copies arrived in shops across the United States yesterday..... The Left Behind series appeared to chime with the sense of the impending Apocalypse among many Americans, reinforced by the election of President Bush on a faith-based platform and global events which — in some eyes — confirm biblical prophecy. ....   The Left Behind series begins with all born-again Christians being summoned to heaven in the Rapture, as predicted by the Book of Revelation...... Jesus then returns for the Second Coming and slaughters nonbelievers including Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, as well as many Catholics and mainstream Protestants."
Revelations of the last battle as US Bible thriller series comes to end
London Times, 4 April 2007

Apocalypse Next? - Huckabee Rising Across The US

"Republican Mike Huckabee is increasingly playing up his faith, and it appears to be helping him surge in Iowa. Today, as the Republican field prepares to debate tonight in Florida, the ordained Baptist minister picked up the endorsement of Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the late televangelist who founded Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., where the son is now president. On Tuesday, Huckabee announced that James Draper, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and syndicated radio host Janet Folger will lead his Faith and Values Coalition. Huckabee's support has grown by 12 percentage points in the last month, and he has support from 48 percent of evangelical Christians, according to the poll. According to the Associated Press, Huckabee told 8,000 Liberty University students at a convocation that while pundits are at a loss to explain his rise in the polls in Iowa, the reason is support from evangelical Christians."
Huckabee stresses faith, rises in polls
Boston Globe, 28 November 2007

"If ... the current opinion polls are to be believed, the Huckabee Era is a possibility that the world ought to be starting to contemplate seriously..... in the space of a month he has jumped from fifth in the national opinion polls to a tie for first place with Rudolph Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York. Much more importantly, he seems to have established a large lead in Iowa, the state that votes first on January 3..... The current surge — the Huckaboom as it has inevitably been dubbed — is due to a number of factors. Perhaps the most obvious is religion. Mr Huckabee is a Baptist preacher and comes closer than any of the Republicans to meeting the confessional requirements of Christian evangelical orthodoxy."
Huckaboom to Huckabust?
London Times, 14 December 2007

"For the Rev. Mike Huckabee, the podium is never far from the pulpit. Last month, just as the former Republican governor of Arkansas was unexpectedly rising in the Iowa polls, he was invited to deliver a Sunday-morning sermon at the DFW New Beginnings Church. An evangelical Christian congregation in the suburbs of Dallas (a three-hour drive from the Texarkana, Ark., church Huckabee led in the 1980s), New Beginnings is different from other megachurches in the South. It calls itself a 'multicultural'  ministry that upholds the Judeo-Christian tradition. The pulpit is adorned with a crucifix inside a star of David. A scattering of 'messianic Jews' in the congregation wear yarmulkes.... An ordained Baptist minister, Huckabee immediately won over the crowd with a typically self-deprecating joke. 'Are you one of those Baptists who think only Baptists go to heaven?' he said a woman once asked him. 'No, ma'am,' Huckabee said. 'I don't think all the Baptists are going to make it myself.'.... for Huckabee, Christian faith is not merely a talking point—it is the talking point, the basis for his claim to lead. 'Faith doesn't just influence me; it really defines me,' Huckabee says in a TV ad now running in Iowa. 'I don't have to wake up every day wondering, 'What do I need to believe?' ' Just in case his meaning is not clear enough, the words CHRISTIAN LEADER flash on the screen in capital letters.  On the campaign trail, Huckabee quotes Scripture so often that his stump speeches themselves could be mistaken for sermons. He has spent less than $400,000 in Iowa, compared with Romney's estimated $7 million. In a recent speech at Liberty University, the Baptist school founded by Jerry Falwell, Huckabee said his surprise surge in the polls was the result of divine intervention."
A Pastor’s True Calling
Newsweek, 17 December 2007

"Huckabee the front runner is only now beginning to face new scrutiny. A speech he gave in 1998 is likely to come up again. Addressing Southern Baptist pastors gathered at the Salt Palace Convention Center, Huckabee, then governor of Arkansas, said that he 'got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives … I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ....'Take this nation back for Christ: the phrase echoes the language of Jerry Falwell, who was against ministers' mixing in politics when the subject was civil rights but changed his mind after the Roe decision in 1973. In a Moral Majority report, Falwell's organization urged 'an old-fashioned, God-honoring, Christ-exalting revival to turn America back to God.' Such talk was precisely what the Founders had hoped to avoid.'"
A New American Holy War
Newsweek, 17 December 2007

"Speaking at the convocation ceremony last week at the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, Huckabee attributed his rise in the polls to divine intervention. 'There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a human one,' Huckabee said. 'It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people.'"
Huckabee Courts Evangelical Vote in Iowa
ABC News, 5 December 2007

Soon To Be Huckabee's Christian Soldiers?

"A New Mexico man sued the Air Force on Thursday, claiming Air Force Academy senior officers and cadets illegally imposed Christianity on others at the school. The suit was filed in federal court by Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate and outspoken critic of the school's handling of religion. Over the past decade or more, the suit claims, academy leaders have fostered an environment of religious intolerance at the Colorado school, in violation of the First Amendment. Weinstein claims that evangelical Christians at the school have coerced attendance at religious services and prayers at official events, among other things.... Cadets, watchdog groups and a former chaplain at the academy have alleged that religious intolerance is widespread at the school. On Aug. 29, the Air Force issued guidelines discouraging public prayer at official functions and urging commanders to be sensitive about personal expressions of religious faith. There have been complaints at the academy that a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and that another Jew was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet. A banner in the football team's locker room read: 'I am a Christian first and last ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ.'... Weinstein, who is Jewish and lives in Albuquerque, said the Air Force has violated cadets' right to worship as they choose."
Air Force Sued Over Religion
Associated Press, 6 October 2005

"The Christian right has been successful in spreading its fundamentalist agenda at US military installations around the world for decades. But the movement's meteoric rise in the US military came in large part after 9/11 and immediately after the US invaded Iraq in March of 2003. At a time when the United States is encouraging greater religious freedom in Muslim nations, soldiers on the battlefield have told disturbing stories of being force-fed fundamentalist Christianity by highly controversial, apocalyptic 'End Times' evangelists, who have infiltrated US military installations throughout the world with the blessing of high-level officials at the Pentagon. Proselytizing among military personnel has been conducted openly, in violation of the basic tenets of the United States Constitution.... Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of the government watchdog organization the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, whose group has been closely tracking Military Ministry's activities at Fort Jackson and other military bases around the country, said in an interview that using 'the machinery of the state' to promote any form of religion is 'not only unconstitutional and un-American but it also creates a national security threat of the first order.' A six-month investigation by MRFF has found Military Ministry's staff has successfully targeted US soldiers entering basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston, with the approval of the Army base's top commanders. 'I've said it before and I will say it again,' Weinstein said. 'We are in the process of creating a fundamentalist Christian Taliban and somebody has to do something to stop it now.'.... Weinstein, a former White House counsel during the Reagan administration, former general counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and a former Air Force Judge Advocate General, said he had an 'unexpected' telephone conversation with several senior Bush administration intelligence officials this week who encouraged him 'to continue to fight for the separation of church and state in the US military' because, these senior administration intelligence officials told Weinstein, US troops are being put in harms way.Weinstein said the senior administration intelligence officials told him they too have been tracking Islamic web sites where people have been discussing on message boards the fundamental Christianity issues Weinstein has raised within the US military. The intelligence officials told Weinstein they are concerned the fundamentalist Christian agenda surfacing in the military could lead to attacks against US soldiers. Weinstein said he could not identify the senior Bush intelligence administration officials he spoke with because they contacted him with the understanding they would not be named. "
Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought
TruthOut, 21 December 2007

'A Special Kind Of Madness'
BAE Arms Scandal Resurfaces As 'Bomber Blair' Converts To Catholicism
How Would 'President Huckabee' Work With Middle East Envoy Blair?

'Thou Shalt Not Be Deluded' Tony Blair (Left) With Pope John Paul II At The Vatican In 2003, And George Bush (Right) With Israeli And Palestinian Leaders At Annapolis November 2007 A highly experienced initiator of wars, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been charged with a key role in bringing 'peace' to the Middle East as an international envoy. Now anti 'Islamofascist' Mike Huckabee, in his pursuit of the Republican Presidential nomination, is making a bid to be added to the explosive mixture of people attempting to 'resolve' matters between the three competing Abrahamic religions who all worship the same God. At a campaign meeting in New Hampshire on 15 October Huckabee said he believes a Palestinian state should be formed in another Arab country, possibly in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. What Kind Of Combination Would 'President Huckabee' And 'Envoy Blair' Make? "Tony Blair has admitted that his Christianity played a 'hugely important' role during his premiership but he was forced to play down his religious conviction for fear of being seen by the public as 'a nutter'. In his most frank television interview about his religious beliefs, Blair confesses he would have found it difficult to do the job of prime minister had he not been able to draw on his faith." Bible Blair feared being called ‘nutter’ Sunday Times, 25 November 2007 "Just as we are escaping the last and bloodiest of Tony Blair's wars [Iraq], so the consequences of the first of his wars may be coming back to haunt us. I mean Kosovo..... Nearly nine years later, Mr Blair's victory is looking distinctly tarnished. In fact, things began to go wrong in Kosovo immediately after the end of the war.... There was the same messianic conviction, and the same slipperiness with facts, so that the Serbs were portrayed as being more heinous then they were, and the Kosovar Albanians as being more virtuous. .... The apparent success of the war against Serbia redoubled his absurdly inflated belief that he was a visionary leader of world stature who could, and should, intervene with America at his side, to right every wrong, regardless of the niceties of international law. .. Kosovo is a mess, Iraq is a bigger mess....." Just as we try to escape from Blair's last and bloodiest war, so his first one is coming back to haunt us Daily Mail, 11 December 2007 "Just occasionally terrestrial television comes up with a documentary that provides real and (to my way of thinking) terrifying insight into the mindset of leaders. One such documentary, actually a series of three, The Blair Years, has just ended on BBC Television.... Charles Clarke..... described his former leader as 'almost a messianic politician in the way he saw himself.' Eventually Blair did talk about his religious faith, but he was most uncomfortable doing so... our Tony is now the Quartet's Middle East envoy." A Manifestation of Evil or Just Plain Madness? Alan Hart - Ex-Middle East War Correspondent for ITV News At Ten and BBC Panorama Personal Blog, 3 December 2007

Whatever Happened To 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'?

"Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has left the Anglican Church to become a Roman Catholic. His wife and children are already Catholic and there had been speculation he would convert after leaving office. Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, who led the service to welcome Mr Blair, said he was 'very glad' to do so.  But ex-Tory minister Ann Widdecombe - herself a Catholic convert - said Mr Blair's voting record as an MP had often 'gone against church teaching'.  Last year, Mr Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, said he had prayed to God when deciding whether or not to send UK troops into Iraq. And one of Mr Blair's final official trips while prime minister was a visit to the Vatican in June where he met Pope Benedict XVI. Mr Blair was received into full communion with the Catholic Church during Mass at Archbishop's House, Westminster, on Friday. But Mr Blair's biographer, Anthony Seldon, said the former prime minister's faith had always been a major influence on his politics. Mr Seldon said: 'He's a profoundly religious figure. Religion brought him into politics in the first place, not reading Labour Party history. 'Catholicism has been the religion of his wife - Cherie Blair has been incredibly important to him throughout his political life, encouraging him to go into politics and adopting many of his positions, so I think it was the obvious part of the Christian faith for him to come into.' Mr Blair last year told ITV1 chat show host Michael Parkinson he had prayed while deciding whether to send troops into Iraq. 'In the end, there is a judgement that, I think if you have faith about these things, you realise that judgement is made by other people... and if you believe in God, it's made by God as well,' he said. And earlier this year, he told the BBC that he had avoided talking about his religious views while in office for fear of being labelled 'a nutter'. The news of his conversion comes as a document showed Mr Blair had raised 'concern' over ongoing business negotiations in a letter about an investigation into a Saudi arms deal. Days later the probe was dropped, and Mr Blair said the decision to stop it was taken because of national security, and was not linked to commercial interests."
Tony Blair joins Catholic Church
BBC Online, 22 December 2007

Or 'Thou Shalt Not Covet'?

"Fuel is our economic lifeblood. The price of oil can be the difference between recession and recovery. The western world is import dependent. ....So: who develops oil and gas, what the new potential sources of supply are, is a vital strategic question...The Middle East, we focus on naturally."
Prime Minister's speech at the George Bush Senior Presidential Library, Texas
10 Downing St, Press Release, 7 April 2002

'Twas Ever Thus'

"In light of the subsequent history of Iraq, it seems almost unthinkable that 30 years ago Britain sold millions of pounds of military equipment to the country's Baathist government. Foreign Office papers, just released by the National Archives in London, show that defence sales to Iraq in 1976 amounted to an estimated £70m. At this time, Saddam Hussein was the de facto leader of Iraq - taking on a more prominent role than the ageing president, Gen Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr - before formally taking power in 1979. ....in April 1976 - a month after the Memorandum of Understanding was signed - a note from the British foreign and defence secretaries seems to contradict the idea of restricting the supply of defence equipment to Iraq. Their memo to other ministers reads: 'The confidence engendered by a more comprehensive supply of defence equipment is likely to have a favourable effect upon general commercial relations between the two countries.' Their note continues with a statement sure to interest critics of the current conflict who suggest that the UK and US intervention was motivated by oil in Iraq. 'We could lose the goodwill we have been slowly and painfully trying to build up since the resumption of diplomatic relations aimed at gaining access to large projects and the Iraqis' huge oil wealth.' It adds: 'In light of the above considerations, it is recommended that we should tell the Iraqis that we would be prepared to supply the optical version of Rapier [surface-to-air missile], the Scorpion family of armoured vehicles and the 105mm Light Gun.'"
UK arms sales to 'respectable' Iraq
BBC Online, 28 December 2007

Oil, Blair, God, War, And The Middle East

"Fuel is our economic lifeblood. The price of oil can be the difference between recession and recovery. The western world is import dependent. ....So: who develops oil and gas, what the new potential sources of supply are, is a vital strategic question...The Middle East, we focus on naturally."
Prime Minister's speech at the George Bush Senior Presidential Library, Texas
10 Downing St, Press Release, 7 April 2002

"Tony Blair has admitted that his Christianity played a 'hugely important' role during his premiership but he was forced to play down his religious conviction for fear of being seen by the public as 'a nutter'. In his most frank television interview about his religious beliefs, Blair confesses he would have found it difficult to do the job of prime minister had he not been able to draw on his faith."
Bible Blair feared being called ‘nutter’
Sunday Times, 25 November 2007

"Tony Blair avoided talking about his religious views while in office for fear of being labelled 'a nutter', the former prime minister has revealed. In an interview for BBC One's The Blair Years, he said that his faith had been 'hugely important' to his premiership....His ex-spokesman Alastair Campbell once told reporters: 'We don't do God.' Mr Campbell has now acknowledged to the programme that his former boss 'does do God in quite a big way', but that both men feared the public would be wary....During the interview, Mr Blair said having faith was a crucial component for him in having the character to take on the prime minister's job. 'For me having faith was an important part of being able to do that,' he said....'I think his close circle always understood that there was a part of him that was really, really important. On that kind of spiritual level it did inform a lot of what he talked about, what he read... what he felt was important.' [said Campbell].... Peter Mandelson, a close confidant of Mr Blair, said: 'He's not an exhibitionist when it comes to religion but deep inside him it is very, very important. 'This is a man who takes a Bible with him wherever he goes and last thing at night he will read from the Bible.' "
Blair feared faith 'nutter' label
BBC Online, 25 November 2007

"When Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to Washington, published his memoirs DC Confidential 18 months ago, Tony Blair reportedly called him 'a complete pr**k'. .... So Downing Street residents are unlikely to be tossing ticker tape over an interview that Sir Christopher's wife, Lady Catherine Meyer has granted Whitehall and Westminster World magazine, in which she mentions the famously testy subject of Blair and George Bush's shared Christianity. 'They are both very religious and I believe that they both feel that what they are doing - especially Blair - is what God wants them to do and that God has chosen their way,' says Lady Meyer, a Conservative who (regardless of the Meyers' pillow talk) had opportunity to observe both leaders closely. 'This is why they bonded immediately.' She adds: 'Blair started talking about getting rid of Saddam Hussein way before September 11 ... in 1998. So I think that on Iraq he was more ready than Bush, who only really came into this conversation after 9/11.' Lady Meyer goes on to accuse Blair's government of 'astounding hypocrisy'."
Blair is on a mission from God, says diplomat's wife
Independent, 20 March 2007

"Tony Blair is expected to inspect a prospective new home - known locally as a palace - when he travels to Jerusalem tomorrow on his first trip to the Middle East as a peace envoy. He is said to be keen to take over the one-time residence of the British High Commissioner for Palestine, with its ballroom and spectacular view of the golden dome of Al-Aqsa mosque. The house, built of Jerusalem stone in 1931, was once the pride of British diplomacy and occupies a commanding position in West Jerusalem on the inauspiciously named Hill of Evil Counsel, where Judas is said to have negotiated his betrayal of Jesus. It has acres of lush gardens filled with delphiniums, roses and trees. After the British mandate ended in 1948, it was taken over by the United Nations."
Blair to inspect Jerusalem palace as home for his peace envoy role
Sunday Times, 22 July 2007

"On abortion, stem-cell research and civil partnerships for homosexuals, Blair’s record in office was well outside the Catholic pale. Yet barely six months after leaving No 10, he has undergone a solemn rite that involves swearing the acceptance of Catholic doctrine in its entirety. 'My question would be, has he changed his mind?' Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP and fellow convert, asked yesterday.... Peter Kilfoyle, the Catholic Labour MP, said that he had other doubts, however. 'I’m trying to think of a parable about this, but I don’t think there is one to match it,' Kilfoyle said. 'Put it this way: if he showed just one ounce of contrition over Iraq, then he would be closer to the body of morality that is the Catholic church.' It is perhaps one of the most high-profile conversions since St Paul on the road to Damascus.... One other question that has to be asked is how Blair fitted the formal preparation for conversion into his busy life as peace envoy to the Middle East and as a highly paid star on the international lecture circuit. As The Sunday Times reported last week, he is making between £500,000 and £1m a month from public speaking engagements, matching the earning power of Bill Clinton, the former US president. Blair’s schedule of up to five speeches a month has been dovetailed into his work shuttling around the Middle East. One day earlier this month he had meetings with four Israeli ministers, then dinner with Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state. On another day he breakfasted in Saudi Arabia, lunched in Kuwait, went to Qatar for a 30-minute television interview and flew on next morning to Israel. How has he managed to fit in the soul-searching required for his conversion?"
Here comes trouble, Father
Sunday Times, 23 December 2007

'Higher Considerations'
It's The Arms And Money Stupid

"Tony Blair's personal role as prime minister in halting the Saudi arms sale bribery investigation is revealed in court documents which the Guardian is publishing in full on its website. Government memos stamped 'Secret' reveal that the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, twice tried in vain to stop Blair interfering in the criminal investigation. His chief of staff told the cabinet secretary, Gus O'Donnell, on October 3 2006: 'The attorney general is of the firm view that, if the case is in fact soundly based, it would not be right to discontinue it.' This followed Saudi threats of 'repercussions' if the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving the Saudi royals and the arms group BAE was allowed to proceed. But Blair wrote a 'Secret and Personal' letter to Goldsmith on December 8 2006, demanding he stop the investigation. He said he was concerned about the 'critical difficulty' in negotiations over a new Typhoon fighter sales contract, as well as a 'real and immediate risk of a collapse in UK/Saudi security, intelligence and diplomatic cooperation'. Blair said these were 'extremely difficult and delicate issues' but he knew that constitutionally 'any intervention you make ... must be your decision alone'. Politicians normally have no right to interfere in a criminal case. Goldsmith again attempted to resist. He saw Blair three days later and said, according to the official minute, that 'while he could see the force of [Blair's] points ... he was concerned that halting the investigation would send a bad message about the credibility of the law in this area, and look like giving in to threats.' Blair told him 'higher considerations were at stake'. He also personally vetoed a proposal that BAE could plead guilty to lesser corruption charges, saying this would 'be unlikely to reduce the offence caused to the Saudi royal family'. The partly sanitised documents emerged yesterday during preliminary hearings of a judicial review brought against the government by anti-corruption campaigner The Cornerhouse."
Blair called for BAE inquiry to be halted
Guardian, 22 December 2007

Click Here For Documents Revealed In Corner House Court Case

'St Tony'

"The Roman Catholic priest who was instrumental in guiding Tony Blair on his path to Rome compared the former Prime Minister last night to St Paul. Canon Timothy Russ, parish priest at Great Missenden, the nearest Catholic church to the prime ministerial country residence at Chequers, called on Catholics who resented Mr Blair because of his voting record on abortion and stem cell research to remember the example of the Christian Church’s greatest Apostle, St Paul, a key figure in spreading the message of Christianity. St Paul was ruthless in his persecution of early Christians before his dramatic conversion on the Road to Damascus.... On Iraq, Canon Russ – who was in discussion with Mr Blair for several years about his becoming a Catholic and is still in touch with the Blair family – said that there was no case for him to answer in terms of Catholic doctrine, because the former Prime Minister had done what he believed to be his duty."
‘Judge not Tony Blair, for he is like St Paul’
Sunday Times, 24 December 2007

'Bomber Command'
War And Religion Inseparable In The Mind of Blair - Blair Mentored By Catholic Chaplain To RAF

"Tony Blair was on the brink of announcing his conversion to Catholicism on a visit to the Pope until a last-ditch intervention by Britain's Roman Catholic leader....Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, advised Mr Blair that it would be unwise and inappropriate to use such a high-profile occasion for such an important private event, particularly coming just days before he was due to leave Downing Street.... It is understood that he has received instruction from Fr John Walsh, a chaplain at RAF Cranwell...The Sunday Telegraph has also learnt that he has since put his plans on hold, despite leaving office, because of fears that it could jeopardise his work as an envoy in the Middle East."
Cardinal urged Blair not to reveal conversion
Sunday Telegraph, 25 November 2007

"For 20 years Tony Blair has attended Catholic Mass. He regularly took communion until Cardinal Basil Hume, the former Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, put a stop to it. After 9/11, security made it more difficult for him to attend Mass regularly with his family, so it was arranged for a Catholic RAF chaplain to visit Chequers virtually every weekend to say Mass for the family. Hume's successor, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, took a more sympathetic view to Blair's innate Catholicism."
Blair's faith fuelled his drive to join in the invasion of Iraq
Observer, 23 December 2007

"In Third Way Magazine in 1993, Blair described the genesis of his faith in a frank interview given while he was still shadow Home Secretary, and in which he emphasised the importance of personal prayer. It would be the last time that he would speak so openly about his faith for fear, as he admitted earlier this year, he would be regarded as a 'nutter' - although Blair admitted on Parkinson last year that he had prayed for guidance before sending troops into Iraq. 'I was brought up as a Christian, but I was not in any real sense a practising Christian until I went to Oxford,' he recalled then. 'There was an Australian priest at the same college as me who got me interested again. In a sense, it was a rediscovery of religion as something living, that was about the world around me rather than a special one-to-one relationship with a remote being on high. Suddenly I began to see its social relevance. I began to make sense of the world....'...Other figures were encouraging Blair: Father Timothy Radcliffe, former head of the worldwide Dominican order, now at Oxford, and Father Michael Seed, who has shepherded a number of high-profile figures, including Ann Widdecombe, towards conversion. But in the end it was two other priests who discreetly prepared Blair for his acceptance into the Church. They were Father John Walsh, an RAF chaplain, and Father Mark O'Toole, the Cardinal's private secretary. It was they who led Blair through the conversion process."
'With religion I began to make sense of the world'
Observer, 23 December 2007

"Former British prime minister Tony Blair began preparations to convert to Roman Catholicism four months before leaving office, a media report has said. A source close to the Vatican said that Blair had actually begun the course of informal instruction with RAF chaplain Father John Walsh, in February, while still at 10 Downing Street."
'Blair's plan to convert began at 10 Downing Street'
Press Trust Of India, 24 December 2007

'I Believe' - Blair Committed To Solving Violence Through Violence

"When war came it was the 'coalition of the willing'. Bush had phoned Blair two days earlier to tell him that Britain could stand aside if it meant saving Blair’s premiership. 'I said rather than lose your Government,' Bush told me, 'be passive, you know we’ll go without you if need be.' Blair refused. I asked him why. His answer was impassioned. 'Because I think this is the most fundamental struggle of our time and there is only one place to be which is in the thick of it and trying to sort it out.' Some, including Colin Powell, have subsequently criticised Blair for never really facing Bush down. I put Powell’s words to Blair. 'It wasn’t a bargaining chip for me,' he replied. 'I wasn’t in a position where I was negotiating with him (Bush) in order to get him to do something different. In my view if it wasn’t clear that the whole nature of the way Saddam was dealing with this issue had changed I was in favour of military action. And, I am afraid, in one sense it is worse than people think in so far as my position is concerned. I believed in it. I believed in it then, I believe in it now.'”
Tony Blair: The war? I believed in it, I believed in it then, I believe in it now
London Times, 17 November 2007

"Cherie was instrumental in Blair's initial introduction to Catholicism - he always wanted to take communion and worship with his wife and children. The certainties of Catholicism also chime deeply with him. One cannot understand Blair without recognising the deep significance of religion in his life. His still-immature mind was opened to politics while an undergraduate at Oxford by an Australian priest, Peter Thomson, who enthused him with the ideals of the Christian gospel and doing good. As Prime Minister, he saw the world in terms of good and evil. Kosovo, Sierra Leone, support for African development and a two-state solution in the Middle East and, above all, war in Iraq were informed by his belief. His rawest expression of motive for taking Britain into Iraq was spoken in Glasgow on the same day as the mass protest across Britain on 15 February 2003. His voice heavy with emotion, he declared: 'If there are 500,000 on that march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for. If there are one million, that is still less than the number who died in the wars he started... ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity. It is leaving him there that is in truth inhumane.' Blair's religion gave him a deep inner conviction and sense of calm through troubles greater than has been endured by any other postwar Prime Minister. One of his staff told me: 'This is a man, who, in terms of judgment of right and wrong, would think that his own judgment was at least as good as that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Cardinal of Westminster and the Pope combined.' The remark was not made lightly. He believes all true religion can lead to God. His Interfaith Foundation, to be launched next year, will aim to bring together like-minded believers of all faiths. We have not heard the last of religion and Blair."
Tony Blair: The war? I believed in it, I believed in it then, I believe in it now
London Times, 17 November 2007

"Just occasionally terrestrial television comes up with a documentary that provides real and (to my way of thinking) terrifying insight into the mindset of leaders. One such documentary, actually a series of three, The Blair Years, has just ended on BBC Television.... Charles Clarke, a minister in one of the cabinets Blair treated with almost the same contempt he subsequently developed for public opinion, described his former leader as 'almost a messianic politician in the way he saw himself.'   Eventually Blair did talk about his religious faith, but he was most uncomfortable doing so... The end of the last programme provided a moment, actually moments, of television magic. [Interviewer David] Aaronovitch's last words were, 'Tony Blair, thank you.' This was followed, before the end titles rolled, with ten seconds of silence, a hell of a long time in television when the camera is still running. During this silence Blair looked confused, bewildered, deeply troubled and frightened, rather like a rabbit caught in the car headlghts. I think it is not unreasonable to speculate that he was thinking to himself something very like the following: 'Sh**! I should never have agreed to do this f***kng interview!' On the eleventh second he managed a forced, nervous smile and muttered, 'Is that that, then?' It's not quite that (the end) because our Tony is now the Quartet's Middle East envoy. When I was discussing the programme with the former senior BBC producer quoted above, he said to me: 'Alan, don't be surprised if somebody responds to your article by saying, 'Perhaps Blair is the right man to try to bring peace to the Middle East because they're all mad, too!'...."
A Manifestation of Evil or Just Plain Madness?
Alan Hart - Former Middle East War Correspondent for ITV News At Ten and BBC Panorama, Blog 3 December 2007

Deluded Blair Is Not Alone

"In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right - the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the 'Left Behind' series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans. Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its 'biblical lands,' legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow. I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels 'which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man.' A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 - just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer - 'The Road to Environmental Apocalypse.' Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse. As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election - 231 legislators in total and more since the election - are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: 'The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land.' He seemed to be relishing the thought. And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, 'to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?' Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, 'America's Providential History.' You'll find there these words: 'The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece.' However, '[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people.' No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, 'Onward Christian Soldiers.' He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics."
Bill Moyers former host of the weekly public affairs series 'NOW with Bill Moyers' on PBS
Are We Doomed? Insanity Now Mainstream. There Is No Tomorrow
The Star Tribune, 1 February 2005

Before Iraq
Kosovo - Another Of 'Christian' Blair's 'Successful' Missions

"Just as we are escaping the last and bloodiest of Tony Blair's wars [Iraq], so the consequences of the first of his wars may be coming back to haunt us. I mean Kosovo..... Nearly nine years later, Mr Blair's victory is looking distinctly tarnished. In fact, things began to go wrong in Kosovo immediately after the end of the war.... There was the same messianic conviction, and the same slipperiness with facts, so that the Serbs were portrayed as being more heinous then they were, and the Kosovar Albanians as being more virtuous. .... The apparent success of the war against Serbia redoubled his absurdly inflated belief that he was a visionary leader of world stature who could, and should, intervene with America at his side, to right every wrong, regardless of the niceties of international law. .. Kosovo is a mess, Iraq is a bigger mess....."
Just as we try to escape from Blair's last and bloodiest war, so his first one is coming back to haunt us
Daily Mail, 11 December 2007

"Britain yesterday offered to be the first Nato country to send extra troops to Kosovo within weeks, as the Conservatives and Balkan experts warned of a potentially violent crisis brewing. While David Cameron accused the Kremlin of stirring up trouble in the Balkans and warned of a new crisis by Christmas, Gordon Brown's government also risked Russian wrath by issuing a robust statement of support for quick Kosovan independence. Lord Ashdown, the former international governor of Bosnia, accused the Russians and the Serbian government of fomenting trouble in Bosnia and Kosovo, and demanded troops reinforcements to try to keep the peace. 'Unless we get a grip on this situation very fast, the issue of the Balkans will be back on our agenda with a vengeance,' Ashdown told the BBC.... Amid a growing sense of foreboding after the collapse of two years of negotiations between the Serb and Kosovo Albanian leaderships over the future of the contested Balkan province, the Foreign Office signalled strong support for a breakaway Kosovo."
UK troops ready for Kosovo crisis
BBC Online, 30 November 2007

"Russia delivered a nuclear snub to the West yesterday by revealing that it had begun to send enriched uranium to Iran. Fuel for Iran’s first atomic power station at Bushehr began to arrive on Sunday, the state-run Russian nuclear corporation, Atomstroiexport, said. More deliveries would take place over the next two months. The surprise announcement flew in the face of repeated appeals by the US and the European Union for Moscow to withhold supplies of uranium because of claims that Tehran is secretly building a nuclear bomb. There are suspicions that the Kremlin was using the delivery as a warning to the West over Kosovan independence. Russia, which backs Serbia’s desire to hold on to the province, wants to send an unmistakable signal that it can create real foreign policy difficulties unless its concerns are heard. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow gave warning of  'an uncontrollable crisis' if Kosovo broke away. It urged the US and the EU to 'weigh all the consequences of the unilateral granting of sovereign status to Kosovo . . . and to abstain from hasty decisions that could set a destructive precedent for the whole system of international relations'.... Moscow said that it had also urged Iran to abandon its enrichment programme, arguing that it was redundant now that Tehran had proof of a secure supply of fuel. US President George Bush agreed, saying that the deliveries meant 'the Iranians do not need to learn how to enrich' uranium. He added: 'Iran was a threat to peace, Iran is a threat to peace, and Iran will be a threat to peace if we don’t stop their enrichment facilities.'”
Russia sends nuclear shipment to Iran
London Times, 18 December 2007

"Just as we are escaping the last and bloodiest of Tony Blair's wars, so the consequences of the first of his wars may be coming back to haunt us. I mean Kosovo. On March 24, 1999, Nato started dropping bombs on Serbia, which it blamed for a series of atrocities in Kosovo in which thousands of Albanians had supposedly died.... After 11 weeks and 23,614 bombs and the deaths of about 500 of its civilians, Serbia withdrew. Tony Blair was triumphant. Much more than Iraq three years later, this had been his war, not the Americans'. He had made the running, and now he received the plaudits....For nine years Nato forces in Kosovo have managed to keep the lid on the ethnic cleansing of Serbs by Kosovar Albanians, though there have been nasty periodic outbreaks. Much worse is likely to follow as a result of the emergence in last month's elections of Hashim Thaci as the leader of Kosovo's largest political party. Thaci, a former Kosovar Albanian guerrilla leader who is lucky not to be on trial for war crimes, has declared that Kosovo will unilaterally declare independence from Serbia. America backs him; the EU and Britain are in a flap; Russia and, of course, Serbia, are adamantly opposed. Diplomatic efforts to persuade him to stay his hand failed last week. We are on the verge of an independent Kosovo. Nearly nine years later, Mr Blair's victory is looking distinctly tarnished. In fact, things began to go wrong in Kosovo immediately after the end of the war....This was a war that could have probably been avoided. In February 1999, western diplomats nearly agreed a settlement with Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia at Rambouillet near Paris that would have led to a semi-autonomous Kosovo. Only an unreasonable insistence by the West that Nato troops should be allowed to roam about Serbia at will, and that there should be a referendum on independence for Kosovo within three years, scuppered a deal. It was almost as though Nato, and Britain and America in particular, were spoiling for a fight. Tony Blair was building up a head of righteous anger. In an article written for an American magazine shortly after the beginning of the bombing, he called for a 'new internationalism' which would not tolerate dictators who 'visit horrific punishments on their own people to stay in power'. He was thinking of Slobodan Milosevic, whom he implicitly - and ridiculously - compared to Hitler. Three years later it would be Saddam Hussein's turn. Milosevic was undoubtedly a nasty dictator but largely of the tinpot variety and far less lethal than Saddam. Nor did he present any conceivable threat to the West. Mr Blair claimed Milosevic was guilty of killing at least 10,000 Kosovar Albanians before the war, but human rights groups have never been able to justify a number anywhere close to this.... If Mr Blair's division of Kosovar Albanians and Serbs into goodies and baddies was simplistic before the war, it has turned out to be wildly wrong since hostilities ended, with the Serb minority often being the victims of ethnic cleansing by the Kosovar Albanians..... the outcome of the war seems certain to lead to the Greater Albania which western policy makers always said they did not want. Even now they insist that an independent Kosovo must not join forces with their ethnic brothers in Albania to create one large state that might destabilise the Balkans. How on earth can it be stopped? It does not seem very intelligent statecraft to end up with the very thing - a Greater Albania - which the West has opposed. For Tony Blair Kosovo was a dry run for Iraq. There was the same messianic conviction, and the same slipperiness with facts, so that the Serbs were portrayed as being more heinous then they were, and the Kosovar Albanians as being more virtuous. There was also the same disregard for practicalities. As Mr Blair gave very little thought to the consequences of invading Iraq in terms of social disorder, so he evidently did not foresee that the Serbs would become victims of ethnic cleansing, nor that western victory in the war would inevitably lead to an independent Kosovo that would in turn probably form a Muslim Greater Albania at odds with Christian Serbia. The apparent success of the war against Serbia redoubled his absurdly inflated belief that he was a visionary leader of world stature who could, and should, intervene with America at his side, to right every wrong, regardless of the niceties of international law. And yet whereas he was opposed at every stage over Iraq and was ultimately driven out of office because of it, the outcry over Kosovo was always much less. Mr Blair was still in his halcyon days when he bombed Serbia, and many on the Left and Right were inclined to trust him.....Kosovo is a mess, Iraq is a bigger mess, and, I fear, Afghanistan will become a mess. Surely Gordon Brown and the Government have learned the lesson that it is a dangerous business going around invading other people's countries."
Just as we try to escape from Blair's last and bloodiest war, so his first one is coming back to haunt us
Daily Mail, 11 December 2007

"A United Nations court has ruled that Serbian troops did not carry out genocide against ethnic Albanians during Slobodan Milosevic's campaign of aggression in Kosovo from 1998 to 1999... The court, which is comprised of two international judges and one Albanian, was ruling on the case of a Serb, Miroslav Vuckovic, convicted of genocide by a district court in Mitrovica".
Kosovo assault 'was not genocide'
BBC Online, 7 September 2001

Press Reports On False Claims Of Genocide By Serbs In Kosovo - Click Here

"For amid the present furore over the no-show of Iraqi WMDs, let us remember that in Kosovo our humanitarian Prime Minister dragged this country into an illegal, US-sponsored war on grounds which later proved to be fraudulent. In 2003 Tony's Big Whopper was that Saddam's WMDs 'could be activated within 45 minutes'. In 1999 it was that Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia was 'set on a Hitler-style genocide equivalent to the extermination of the Jews during World War Two'..... In fact, the Yugoslavs had by February 1999 already agreed to most of the autonomy proposals and had assented to a UN (but not Nato) peacekeeping team entering Kosovo..... It was the unwelcome prospect of Milosevic signing up to a peace deal and thereby depriving the US of its casus belli that caused Secretary of State Albright, with the connivance of Cook, to insert new terms into the Rambouillet accord purposely designed to be rejected by Belgrade. Appendix B to chapter seven of the document provided not only for the Nato occupation of Kosovo, but also for 'unrestricted access' for Nato aircraft, tanks and troops throughout Yugoslavia. The full text of the Rambouillet document was kept secret from the public and came to light only when published in Le Monde Diplomatique on 17 April. By this time, the war was almost a month old...The Kosovan war was, we were repeatedly told, fought 'to stop a humanitarian catastrophe'. 'It is no exaggeration to say that what is happening is racial genocide' - claimed the British Prime Minister - 'something we had hoped we would never again experience in Europe. Thousands have been murdered, 100,000 men are missing and hundreds forced to flee their homes and the country.' The Serbs were, according to the US State Department, 'conducting a campaign of forced population movement not seen in Europe since WW2'....With public support for war faltering, and a Downing Street spokesman talking of a 'public-relations meltdown', it was time for the Lie Machine to go into overdrive.... To date, the total body count of civilians killed in Kosovo in the period 1997-99 is still fewer than 3,000, a figure that includes not only those killed in open fighting and during Nato air strikes, but also an unidentified number of Serbs. Clearly it was an exaggeration - of Munchausenian proportions - for the Prime Minister to describe what happened in Kosovo as 'racial genocide'. In both Kosovo and Iraq, the government's war strategy seems to have been threefold:
1. In order to whip up public support for war, tell lies so outrageous that most people will believe that no one would have dared to make them up.
2. When the conflict is over, dismiss questions about the continued lack of evidence as 'irrelevant' and stress alternative 'benefits' from the military action, e.g., 'liberation' of the people.
3. Much later on, when the truth is finally revealed, rely on the fact that most people have lost interest and are now concentrating on the threat posed by the next new Hitler.
An admission of the government's culpability for the Kosovan war only slipped out in July 2000, when Lord Gilbert, the ex-defence minister, told the House of Commons that the Rambouillet terms offered to the Yugoslav delegation had been 'absolutely intolerable' and expressly designed to provoke war. Gilbert's bombshell warranted scarcely a line in the mainstream British media, which had been so keen to label the Yugoslavs the guilty party a year before."
How the battle lies were drawn
Spectator, 14 June 2003

"I mean Kosovo is just one of the points of destabilization of Yugoslavia... I want people to know the truth about what happened here.... The United States, for its own geopolitical reasons, deliberately encouraged the secessionist tendency among Albanians, used them against the Yugoslav government in order to destabilize the Balkans.... One book has a great hold over Kosovo Albanians. It's called the 'Canon of Leke Dukagjiniis'. It's a 15th century text that spells out codes of behavior. It goes into great detail on how to carry out blood feuds, when and whom it is proper to kill. It lays out the proper methods to use when killing, rules and regulations and so on. And this Canon is alive among Albanians today, especially since the fall of communism. This is an intensely tradition-oriented culture. Blood feud is a constant threat for Albanians.... By methodically killing those who refused to support them, the KLA was striking a deep fear among Albanians: the refusal of one Clan member to obey could lead to revenge against his entire clan. And now the KLA had NATO bombers to enforce blood feud. ... [the KLA] knew their own people, their fears, their traditions. They knew that if they could prove they were deadly, the clan leaders would fall in line. Now they live in a society dominated by gangsters. None of this would have happened were it not for years of effort by the United States."
Cedomir Prlincevic, President of the Jewish Community in Pristina, and Chief Archivist of Kosovo
Interview with 'Emperors Clothes', 3 December 2000

"....former Ottawa policeman Derek Chappell and his partner, Barry Fletcher, an ex-New Orleans cop, told me about their frustration [in 2003] in trying to control the ongoing inter-ethnic violence in this war-ravaged Balkan province [Kosovo].... Since NATO forces first entered Kosovo and Serbian security forces withdrew in June 1999, the majority of the terror attacks have been committed by Albanian extremists against Serbs and other ethnic minorities. The result has been the expulsion of nearly 240,000 non-Albanians from Kosovo.... In accordance with the 1999 peace agreement, the KLA was to be demilitarized and converted into a humanitarian assistance organization known as the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). The wartime leader of the KLA, General Agim Ceku, remains employed under UN direction as the head of the 'new' KPC. Of course, the KLA never did turn in its arsenal of heavy weapons and, under the guidance of Ceku, has remained a military formation numbering 2,000 regular forces and 3,000 reservists.... Despite public denials, the UN police are also aware of the fact that Ceku's KPC are directly involved with the acts of terrorism being conducted throughout the region.... When asked why the UN, to date, has not removed Ceku from his post and sent him to The Hague for his previous war crimes, the American police officer just shrugs and says 'politics.' This double standard no doubt will not sit well with Canadian soldiers who witnessed the atrocities committed by Ceku."
Extremist on UN's payroll
Halifax Herald (Canada), 2 June 2003

"As President Clinton prepares to visit to Kosovo, it is common to see and hear things here that don't fit with the tidy fictions proffered by NATO and White House officials....'The whole thing is a very bad joke,' explains a candid intelligence officer with the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). ..Although NATO and UNMIK have been careful to avoid any public insinuation that the KLA may be prevaricating and holding back a significant stockpile of weapons, a spokesman for NATO estimates that peacekeepers confiscate about 100 illegal weapons, explosives and magazines of ammunition each day...Yet 'anyone who thinks that the violence will end once the last Serb has been driven out of Kosovo is living an illusion,' recently warned Veton Surroi, publisher of the main Albanian-language newspaper in Kosovo, Koha Ditore. 'The violence will simply be redirected against other Albanians.' Already, the senior officials of the KLA, who signed the disarmament agreement with NATO, have carried out assassinations, arrests and purges within their own ranks and of potential rivals. One campaign, in which as many as six KLA commanders were murdered, was reportedly directed by the KLA's top man, Hashim Thaci, and two of his lieutenants, Azem Syla and Xhavit Haliti....It still lurks everywhere in Kosovo. Ethnic Albanians complain that KLA henchmen regularly demand that shopkeepers pay 'liberation taxes' to finance the KLA's continued, and often illicit, activities. Even more worrisome, according to a soon-to-be-released report by the International Crisis Group, there are as many killings right now in Kosovo as there were before NATO intervened, when Yugoslav authorities were trying to smash the KLA....[the] goal of creating a multi-ethnic society in Kosovo is being undermined by the KLA in a multitude of ways, especially with the ethnic cleansing of not only Serbs but Gorans, Romas, Jews, Croats and even Albanians who are not strenuous enough in their intolerance of non-Albanians..."
The Real Kosovo
The Washington Times, November 23, 1999

"Jiri Dienstbier, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for former Yugoslavia, has officially accused the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army of ethnically cleansing Kosovo and working for the creation of Greater Albania, reported Zëri on page six. 'What the KLA is doing in Kosovo has nothing to do with retaliation for what Serb authorities did. It is about the realization of a plan of ethnic cleansing, for destabilization of the entire region and creation of a Great Albania,' said Dienstbier in a press briefing in Geneva.... In the report that he delivered to the UN Commission for Human Rights Wednesday, Dienstbier said that KFOR and UNMIK had reached none of their objectives in Kosovo. 'The only existing administration is the KLA which leads in different ways. One of those is the transfer of KLA fighters to the Kosovo Protection Corps under the auspices of UNMIK, and the other is to turn Kosovo into a European base for heroin,' said Dienstbier, adding that five tons of heroin per month go through Kosovo heading for Western Europe. He also said that there were no functioning courts and an insufficient number of international police officers, but that all KLA members who applied for the KPC were given uniforms automatically. According to Dienstbier, NATO SACEUR General Wesley Clark blames the UN for the situation in Kosovo, while the UN is saying that there would be a completely different situation in Kosovo if NATO hadn't officially recognized the KLA. The UN Special Rapporteur also said that it would be a big mistake if Kosovo would become independent, adding that already it is ethnically cleansed. Dienstbier warned the West not to support Hashim Thaçi and his associates, saying that in Kosovo there were enough normal and clever people who are against extremist solutions. According to Dienstbier, the only way to solve the Kosovo problem is to respect the UN Security Council resolution 1244. He also accused NATO of bombing innocent people and destroying industry, which was not producing weapons."
United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo
Division of Public Information, Local Media Monitoring, 31 March 2000

"Each day brings new reports of atrocities against Serbs... The rebels are governing the way Al Capone ran Chicago. Not just Serbs, but Albanian shopkeepers are looted.... Baton Haxhui, the editor of an Albanian newspaper, charges, 'Each day it is becoming more dangerous to think and speak independently'.... Terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden running around with AK-47s and anti-tank weapons is bad enough. Worse, Thaci's boys aren't just killers and kleptos, but mafioso who are neck-deep in the drug trade.... More than 40 percent of the heroin reaching Western Europe moves through the province, which sits astride the major distribution route from Turkey to the West.... Belgrade had contained the problem. But under KLA management, Kosovo has become a drug lord's paradise.... Is it for this that we rained death and devastation on Yugoslavia for 11 weeks -- not for democracy or human rights or to end ethnic cleansing, but so Kosovo could be cleansed of non-Albanians and turned into a narcotics superstore under the benevolent direction of Hashim (aka, 'Snake') Thaci?"
Serbs suffer under western eyes
Jewish World Review Aug. 2, 1999 /20 Av 5759

".... the political war for Kosovo's future has only just started. And in the meantime, absolutely nobody here is getting any happier. The worst of it is, we don't know who to blame any more."
Kosovan Albanian student
Guardian, 29 May 2003

"Western pro-intervention forces are growing increasingly frustrated with The Hague, which they consider to be a weak tribunal. Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte's failure to win a total victory over Slobodan Milosevic -- the inquisition's big prize -- remains a sore spot.... UNMIK and Western governments are trying to avoid a perceived failure in Kosovo. The widely criticized mission has overlooked the elimination of non-Albanian minorities by vengeful militias, the destruction of priceless cultural relics (for example, over 110 Serbian Orthodox churches), and the explosive increase in the drug, weapon and cigarette business, as well as in human trafficking and prostitution.... Macedonia's civil war of 2001 was sustained and led by Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) veterans in Kosovo. Kosovo-based extremists from the Albanian National Army (ANA) have committed several deadly attacks this year, and have explicitly announced their desire to cleanse northern and western Macedonia of its 'Slav colonizers,' as they call Macedonians. In the end, while granting Kosovo independence might cause future regional upheaval and mafia rule in an economically unviable territory, the West views this as the least dangerous outcome. This is not the result of some grand and sagacious strategy. Rather, UNMIK is primarily looking out for its own safety. While Serbian and Macedonian concerns can be and have been ignored safely, the Albanians are different. Only the unexpected can be expected from them. Their long memories and long history of militancy are clearly intimidating the Western interim government. Appeasing them is thus essential for the safety of the current local administration -- but also for those Western leaders who believed that the NATO bombing campaign was a wise enterprise."
The Return of The Hague Tribunal and the West's Dilemma in Kosovo
The Power and Interest News Report, 1 November 2003

"Four years after it was 'liberated' by a NATO bombing campaign, Kosovo has deteriorated into a hotbed of organized crime, anti-Serb violence and al-Qaeda sympathizers, say security officials and Balkan experts. Though nominally still under UN control, the southern province of Serbia is today dominated by a triumvirate of Albanian paramilitaries, mafiosi and terrorists. They control a host of smuggling operations and are implementing what many observers call their own brutal ethnic cleansing of minority groups, such as Serbs, Roma and Jews. In recent weeks, UN officials ordered the construction of a fortified concrete barrier around the UN compound on the outskirts of the provincial capital Pristina. This is to protect against terrorist strikes by Muslim extremists who have set up bases of operation in what has become a largely outlaw province. Minority Serbs, who were supposed to have been guaranteed protection by the international community after the 78-day NATO bombing campaign ended in the spring of 1999, have abandoned the province en masse. The last straw for many was the recent round of attacks by ethnic Albanian paramilitaries bent on gaining independence through violence. Attacks on Serbs in Kosovo, a province of two million people, have risen sharply. According to statistics collected by the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, 1,192 Serbs have been killed, 1,303 kidnapped and 1,305 wounded in Kosovo this year. In June, 1999, just after the NATO bombing, 547 Serbs were killed and 932 were kidnapped.... Serbs, who now make up 5% of the population of Kosovo, down from 10% before the NATO campaign, are the main targets of the paramilitary groups. Last week, Harri Holkeri, the province's UN leader, suspended two generals and 10 other officers, all members of an ethnic Albanian offshoot of the Kosovo Liberation Army, an insurgent group that emerged in the late 1980s to fight Serb security forces. Mr. Holkeri made his decision -- the strongest UN response to violence in the province so far -- after a UN inquiry into the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). Although the civilian defence organization is supposed to help local residents, over the past four years, its mostly ethnic Albanian military officials have been involved in violent confrontations with Serbs.The inquiry found last April's bomb attack on a Kosovo railway was the work of the KPC... Moreover, Kosovo has turned into one of Europe's biggest hubs for drug trafficking and terrorism. Al-Qaeda has set up bases in the province, which has become an important centre for heroin, cigarette, gasoline and people smuggling. The Albanian mafia and paramilitary groups, which security officials say are closely tied to al-Qaeda militants in the region, also oversee smuggling. More than 80% of Western Europe's heroin comes through Kosovo, where several drug laboratories have been set up, Interpol officials say."
Crime, terror flourish in 'liberated' Kosovo
National Post (Canada), 10 December 2003

"Though Gen. Clark is right to say the Albanians of Kosovo were liberated from Serb oppression, he says nothing about the Kosovo Serbs, 180,000 of whom had to run for their lives as the Albanians took their revenge. Far from ending ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, Gen. Clark's war only set off another round. The result has been to establish a new, ethnically cleansed, fiercely nationalistic mini-state in the Balkans -- and a pretty unpleasant one at that. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, and a NATO garrison of more than 12,000 troops, Kosovo today is still a poor, dangerous, unstable place. The remaining Serbs live in fear. Last summer, in a sign of the times, someone opened up with a machine gun on a group of Serb boys swimming in a stream, killing two and wounding four."
General Clark's Kosovo is a mess
Globe and Mail, 2 January 2004

"A UN court in Kosovo has sentenced twelve ethnic Albanians to up to 30 years imprisonment for a revenge murder of five-member family in 2001 in one of the biggest trials in the province since the end of 1998-99 war. After 115 sessions and interrogation of some 50 witnesses during a 17-month long trial, a three-member UN panel in the district court in the eastern town Gnjilane sentenced the group to a total of 185 years imprisonment for the murder of ethnic Albanian Hamez Hajra, his wife and their three children.... The murder, believed to be a revenge against the victim -- allegedly considered as a collaborator with the Serb regime of former strongman Slobodan Milosevic -- shocked the province in 2001. The non-governmental group, the Humanitarian Law Center -- which monitors the trials in Kosovo -- has said it had evidence that Hajra had been supposed to testify in an unidentified war crimes case a day after he and his family were murdered brutally. However, this was not officially confirmed."
Kosovo court sentences 12 ethnic Albanians to 30-year imprisonment for revenge murder
AFP, 7 April 2005

"Sources within the NATO force command in the Serbian province of Kosovo have indicated that there is concern with the organization that the murder of four Serbs in Kosovo at the beginning of September 2005 was part of a greater plan by KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) Albanians to begin to exacerbate disorder as part of the agitation for the interdependence of the area from Serbia. The riots in March and June 2004 resulted in 19 Serbian deaths, 900 injured and more than 4,000 people displaced from their homes. Many Serbian villages were destroyed. NATO fears have been strengthened by intelligence derived by Western countries on the existence of a strong Islamist network in Kosovo and Bosnia. Specifically, the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) confirmed that the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London were organized by Islamic cells in Bosnia and Kosovo. The German press agency DDP (Das Deutschland-Portal) reported that the BND forewarned about the new terrorist attacks in London, which were carefully organized in Kosovo. The secret service of a Balkan country, which works actively in the area, reported to GIS that one of the most dangerous Islamist terrorists in the world, who was involved in the bombing attack against US and German soldiers in the beginning of 1990 in Germany, has returned to the area from Pakistan in early September 2005."
Jihadist Terrorist Leader Returns to the Balkans as Actions Intensify to Promote Kosovo Independence
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, 25 Ocotober 2005

"The War on Terror suffered a major blow three years before it was ever announced. It happened when the people of this democracy were misled into attacking the sovereign, emerging post-Communist democracy of Yugoslavia - over rumors of genocide and ethnic cleansing that proved false.  In so doing, we put the final touch on delivering the Balkans to al Qaeda. Today we are being asked to seal that historical blunder, whose repercussions seven years later are only escalating as those we 'rescued' turn their weapons against UN and NATO forces. While NATO spends most of its time rooting out terror cells in Kosovo and Bosnia—which served as the logistics bases for the London and Madrid bombings--the 2006 deadline to complete our eagerly forgotten debacle and determine the province’s final status is fast approaching.  To persuade the international community that only one final status will be acceptable, our Albanian 'rescuees' have been stepping up the violence, a message to the West that it has only one possible exit strategy: grant unconditional independence--without border compromises with Serbia and without protection guarantees for what’s left of the non-Albanian minorities. If we allow this to happen, the peacekeepers will have to leave, and with them our eyes and ears in this terror haven and thruway. Still, congressional, State Department and UN sentiment seems to be tilting toward self-determination and the logic that if you’ve dug yourself into a hole, keep digging. Here is the size of that hole so far:  In November, 2001, what should have been an explosive article appeared in the European edition of the Wall St. Journal. Headlined 'Al Qaeda’s Balkan Links,' it read: 'For the past 10 years…Ayman al-Zawahiri [bin Laden’s second in command] has operated terrorist training camps [and] weapons of mass destruction factories throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia…Though the Clinton administration had been briefed extensively by the State Department in 1993 on the growing Islamist threat in former Yugoslavia, little was done to follow through….'. Nor did a December 2003 article in Britain’s Sunday Mirror register a blip: 'Posing as members of the Real IRA, we…made our deal in Kosovo, a breeding ground for fanatics with al-Qaeda links. Our contact was the deputy commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army Niam Behljulji, known as Hulji…Hulji is said to supply terrorists across Europe and has been accused of massacring Serbian women and children during the war. He even posed grinning for a photograph, holding the severed head of one of his victims…Hulji said: ‘The plastics (Semtex) is the old type. No metal strips inside. It cannot be detected at airports.’ Hulji, according to the December issue of the Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy journal, is the man who supplied the Semtex-like explosives used in the London and Madrid attacks.  But to perpetuate the version of events we were sold from the beginning, all these connections have gone purposefully unmade by our nation’s 'journalists,' who were gung-ho supporters of our 1999 offensive against a historical ally and the culmination of our pro-terror policies in 1990s Yugoslavia. How many Americans know that the terrorists who carried out a spate of suicide attacks in Iraq in August 2004 were trained in Bosnia, or that al Qaeda’s top Balkans operative, al-Zawahiri’s brother Mohammed, had a high position with our terrorist KLA 'allies'? And who wants to bring up what former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia James Bissett has - that in Bosnia we'd fought alongside at least two of the 9/11 hijackers. The American public certainly won't hear that Bosnian charities have been raided for funding terrorism or that in 1992 Bosnia issued passports to Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. We’ll never know that Bosnia today is the European 'one-stop shop' for all the terrorism needs - weapons, money, shelter, documents - of Chechen and Afghani fighters passing through Europe before heading to Iraq. Only Britain's Sky News has caught on, in December airing a segment entitled 'The Hidden Army of Radical Islam,' about Bosnia, where there is 'growing radicalization' and a base for Al Qaeda:  'In the heart of Europe, thousands of Arab fighters. Zenica [Bosnia], 1995. They come to wage holy war in support of the Bosnian Army. [Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic shown welcoming the mujahadeen.] ...They committed many atrocities; the tapes Sky News has obtained include beheadings and signs of torture. …This isn’t just about history; it's about now. Western intelligence agencies are now pressing the Bosnians to look into exactly where these people are and what they are doing, and asking have any of these men been in contact with the three young Bosnian Muslims arrested last month on terrorism charges. ...In Sarajevo now the influence of Saudi ideas can be found all over the city. ...Radical Islam is attempting to plant deep roots in the community. …The seeds for change were planted back in 1995.'... The narration continues: 'There were some serious players sent to Bosnia, among them the man who planned 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed... The mujahadeen video shows their flag planted in Bosnia and speaks of spreading their jihad. ...Bosnia is a useful place to hide, plan and move. It's why some stay on.' The segment opens with the sentence, 'Hundreds of radical Islamic holy warriors [are] hiding in Bosnia, a decade after the end of the war. That statement underscores the West's big miscalculaton in the Balkans--that Bosnia was a self-contained war that had an end, rather than an early front in a war that was just unfolding. A similar picture began to emerge in Kosovo, where the late Wall St. Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was uncovering that 'Ethnic-Albanian militants, humanitarian organizations, NATO and the news media fed off each other to give genocide rumors credibility.' The anti-Serb propaganda which misled Americans throughout  the 90s and which Daniel Pearl was debunking continues to guide our perceptions and foreign policy in the Balkans today. But despite the media’s blackout on the subject of Balkans terror--including by Pearl's own Wall St. Journal--more and more Americans have been scratching their heads, wondering why we forcibly precluded the Serbs from doing in their own backyard what we’ve gone halfway around the globe to do.... For the past four years, the Hague's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has been finding what multiple international forensic teams have found--that claims of Serb 'atrocities' were exaggerated and often invented. It turns out we confused an attempt to create an Islamic 'Greater Albania' with one to create a 'Greater Serbia.' Surely if the latter were Slobodan Milosevic’s goal, he would have started by ethnically cleansing the nearly 300,000 Muslims of Serbia. Though he built his career in whatever dirty ways Tito's Yugoslavia allowed, he was the least of the Balkans' villains. For most Serbs, he was not a hero until he was called upon to defend an entire nation at the Hague. Now that Milosevic is dead, we are spared the worldwide riots that would have ensued had the tribunal mustered the courage to issue a verdict based on the evidence. And we can all sleep comfortably as the disproved charges are accepted as history.... In early 2001, German TV broadcast a report titled 'It Began with a Lie,' which publicized the findings of the observer force Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)  that no genocide had taken place in Kosovo. The revelations set off a huge public debate in Germany, a member of the NATO coalition, after the public realized their country had been party to a hoax, and they held the responsible politicians’ feet to the fire.It’s long past time that we also set the record straight on what we 'achieved' in the Balkans -- and change course. As the world closes in on the Serbs again this year, we must stop bin Laden from establishing a terror state in Europe. We know from Madrid and London that we’ll pay for it with our own blood. In fact, we already have."
A Balkan Base For Al Qaeda?
FrontPageMagazine, 20 March 2006

"While the U.S. fights Muslim terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. and the United Nations are helping allies of Muslim terrorists come to power in Kosovo, a province of Serbia. This is a foreign policy disaster in the making that you should hope and pray gets some immediate attention from the media. To illustrate the dimensions of the problem, Father Keith Roderick of Christian Solidarity International has testified that Albanian Muslims in Kosovo have been systematically destroying Christian churches and other sites in Kosovo and the Serbian Christian population in the province is being 'squeezed down to oblivion.' The evidence is on display in a new DVD, 'Days Made Of Fear,' directed, produced and distributed by Ninoslav Randjelovic. At the same time, Father Roderick also says that hundreds of new Mosques have been built in Kosovo over the last several years, financed mostly by Gulf Arab money. The excellent DVD consists of 8 different films, but the most explosive is 'Notes About the Rock,' on the destroyed and vandalized churches and monasteries in Kosovo. Many of the scenes captured on film are considered the only video documentation on this subject available. There is no question about the reason for the destruction. The churches were targeted by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), also known by the acronym UCK. These initials are visible on the ruins, like a calling card. They openly advertise their anti-Christian Jihad, but our media pay no attention. Writing for the Byzantine Cultural Project and reviewing the DVD, Theodoros Georgiou Karakostas comments, 'The footage of ravaged and destroyed Serbian Churches and Monasteries is appalling. The DVD is a shocking affirmation that the American television Networks such as CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, and the others are all lined up with the foreign policy establishment and are active practitioners of official censorship. I cannot recall seeing any of the horrifying footage on this DVD on American television.' He adds, 'The same U.S. media which continues to attack the Bush administration for lying about the Iraq war, continues to give Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Wesley Clark, and Samuel Berger a pass for their destructive war on Yugoslavia. We should remember also that at the last Democratic National Convention in Boston two years ago, one of the top KLA men was an honored guest of John Kerry. 'The same U.S. media which was appalled by the Taliban's destruction of the 2,000-year-old Buddhist statues has nothing to say about the remarkable Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries which have stood since the period preceding the Ottoman conquests, and which are being systematically destroyed.' Why are the media ignoring what is happening in Kosovo? One reason, as explained in the book, Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting, is that the media reported the war wrong and now refuse to report who has really been victimized by it. Another factor is that the much-vilified neoconservatives got Kosovo wrong, too. As I noted in a Media Monitor, 'In 1999 the neocons supported the NATO war on Yugoslavia launched by President Clinton. That benefited a Muslim terrorist group, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), with links to Osama bin Laden.' The neocons thought they were supporting a tougher and a new NATO. To compound this tragedy, the Bush Administration has continued the misguided Clinton policy on Kosovo. Let's remember that Clinton ordered U.S. military intervention in the Balkans against the Christian Serbs on the grounds that 'ethnic cleansing' and even 'genocide' were being waged against Serbia's neighbors. Most of that was hokum. Serbia, a U.S. ally in World War II, was being ruled by the communist Slobodan Milosevic, who was desperate to hold on to power in the former Yugoslavia, which included Serbia. While Milosevic was a problem, the Clinton 'solution' made the problem worse. Clinton gave the green light to military aggression against the Serbs and even ordered the CIA to provide support to the Kosovo Liberation Army, which was allied with Osama bin Laden and radical Islamists. The U.S. bombed Serbia and forced Milosevic, who was later turned over to a U.N. court, to capitulate. Milosevic recently died in a U.N. prison."
Christians Under Siege in Kosovo
Media Monitor, 1 June 2006

"Former Kosovo guerrilla leader Hashim Thaci, whose party favours speedy independence, claimed victory Sunday after crucial parliamentary elections in the disputed Serbian province. 'I thank all of those who helped our victory and the victory of Kosovo,' Thaci told a celebration of his Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), which an unofficial tally showed had won 35 percent of Saturday's vote.... Hailing from Drenica, a central hotbed of separatism, Thaci became a student activist during the years of passive resistance to Belgrade's rule in the 1990s. Thaci walked away from the pacifist approach of late president Ibrahim Rugova and joined the KLA. At the end of the war, he helped to establish the PDK and has since sought to reshape his image as a more moderate leader. He would replace Agim Ceku, a former KLA commander who did not stand in the elections. The elections were massively boycotted by Serbs fiercely opposed to independence. Braving icy weather and fears of renewed violence, Albanians turned out with optimism for independence following years in limbo under the management of the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Legally still a Serbian province, Kosovo has been run by the UN since NATO's 1999 air war ended a months-long conflict that killed an estimated 10,000 Albanians and displaced hundreds of thousands. Fearing reprisal attacks, around two-thirds of its pre-war Serb population has since fled into Serbia proper. Most of the 100,000 Serbs who have remained in Kosovo heeded Belgrade's call for them to boycott the polls. Belgrade and Serb nationalists fiercely oppose independence for Kosovo, which they consider the cradle of their nation's history, culture and religion. 'Serbs are not voting in order to avoid giving legitimacy to elections organised by the provisional institutions in Kosovo,' the party of Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told Beta news agency in reference to Kosovo's parliament. NATO's 16,000 peacekeepers were bolstered by hundreds of reinforcements before the polls involving 1.5 million voters."
Ex-guerrilla claims Kosovo vote victory as independence looms
Agence France Presse, 16 November 2007

"As in Afghanistan and Iraq, Britain is, like the US, inclined to shoot first and plan afterwards. In Kosovo the outcome was to reward 'terrorist' separatists with a country of their own, albeit smaller than Wales. Men who, were they Serbs, would be hauled before a war crimes tribunal are now hailed in the west as heroes. For eight years Kosovo has enjoyed de facto autonomy under the protection of 17,000 Nato troops. These have allowed the regime to 'reverse-cleanse' the province of half its Serbs, including virtually all the 40,000 who once lived in the capital, Pristina. There are barely 200,000 left, just 10% of the population. Although the new prime minister, the former guerrilla Hashim Thaci, declares that 'Kosovo is ready for independence', he cannot mean it. Kosovo is a Nato protectorate under UN administration, with more aid per head than any state in Asia or Africa. What Thaci wants is not independence but the luxuriant post-intervention dependency enjoyed by Bosnia, Sierra Leone and the embattled regimes in Baghdad and Kabul....Already guerrillas of the shadowy Albanian National Army are reportedly roaming the Serbia/Kosovo border, partly financed by a massive heroin trade. Already Serbian militias are arming against them, preparing to defend their compatriots under siege inside Kosovo. At best, resumed hostilities would mean further savage ethnic cleansing and a repartition of Kosovo. At worst, it would mean a long-running border war, with western troops sucked into defending Kosovan irregulars and Russia into defending Serbia's sovereignty. It is hard to imagine a worse outcome to Britain's glorious 'mission accomplished'."
It's hard to imagine a worse outcome for the Balkans
Guardian, 21 November 2007

"Money laundering, drug trafficking, and illegal weapons purchases are closely aligned and form an international trinity. In the Balkans this started with the criminalization of the Albanian Republic (Republika e Shqipërisë) and later Kosovo (Kosovo i Metohija in Serbo-Croatian /Kosovë in Albanian). Kosovo and Albania play an important role in the Eurasian Drug Corridor. The virtually independent Serbian province of Kosovo, primarily inhabited by ethnic Albanians, has a strong link with NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan. Kosovo is where part of the opium and heroin is forwarded from Afghanistan for entry into European markets and North America. Both Afghanistan and Kosovo are under Anglo-American domination, 'democratization,' undergoing 'the process of nation-building,'  with US military bases on their respective territories and in the orbit of NATO. The Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia and Albania which are saturated with illicit drugs and weapons are also part of the Eurasian Drug Corridor. The Eurasian Drug Corridor is where the flow of drugs and arms are facilitated. The drug and weapons streams also run in opposite directions. Weapons flow inwards into the Eurasian Drug Corridor, while illicit drugs or narcotics flow outwards. The Kosovo-centred illicit narcotics industry is worth billions of dollars a year in transport and exchange fees. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and its affiliates or extensions in Macedonia and Albania, and to some extent in Italy, Greece, and Turkey, play an important role in drug trafficking and smuggling. The KLA are middlemen in the narcotics industry. They in turn use part of the proceeds of the illegal narco-economy to arm themselves and to cement their control over numerous aspects of commerce and life in Kosovo, the Albanian-inhabited areas of western Macedonia, and Albania."
The legacy of the Opium Wars on Afghanistan
Daily Star (Bangladesh), 24 November 2007

"The threat of a new war in the Balkans loomed yesterday after the collapse of talks between Serbs and Albanians over the future of Kosovo. Three days of negotiations overseen by international mediators broke down, with both sides refusing to budge over their claims to the breakaway province. The Albanian majority of Kosovo has threatened to declare independence unilaterally. Serbia, which regards Kosovo as the cradle of its civilisation, said that this could cause unrest across the fragile Balkans, which still bear the scars of the conflict of the Nineties. 'The peace of the Balkans is very much at stake,' Frank Wisner, the United States envoy to the talks, said. 'It is a volatile region.' The breakdown of the talks leaves Kosovo in the same limbo that it has inhabited since the United Nations took over its administration in 1998 after Nato drove out Serbian troops.Tensions have already spilled over into violence several times this year. The United States, the European Union and Russia, who make up the 'troika' of international mediators, now have until December 10 to give their recommendations for a settlement to the United Nations Security Council..... Fatmir Sejdiu, the President of Kosovo, promised that an independence declaration would come 'very quickly.' Boris Tadic, the Serbian President, vowed to 'annul' any such announcement. 'Serbia will not accept the independence of Kosovo,' he said. Serbia has cautioned that international recognition of the independence of Kosovo could cause the Serb enclave of northern Kosovo to secede and spark a secession movement among the Serbs of Bosnia. It has also threatened to mount an economic blockade. Both sides said that they were committed to a non-violent outcome, but Albanian militia are said to be patrolling the boundary between Kosovo and Serbia, while Serbian militia are said to be arming themselves to defend their Kosovan compatriots. Mr Wisner warned that a settlement would have to come soon. 'The status quo over Kosovo is not sustainable,' he said. With independence all but inevitable, diplomatic efforts are now likely to focus on Hashim Thaci, the Prime Minister in waiting for Kosovo, who will decide when such a declaration is made....Any declaration of independence will force other states to decide whether to recognise Kosovo’s independence. That dilemma raises the old Balkan ghosts surrounding the break-up of Yugoslavia, in which domino-like independence declarations by Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia set the stage for the Bosnian War."
Kosovo deadlock puts Balkans on the brink
London Times, 29 November 2007

'As You Sow So Shall You Reap'
What Really Happened In Yugoslavia?
US (and UK) Backed Islamic Terrorism In The Balkans
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George Bush's Vision For The Middle East

'The Report Changes Nothing'

US President George W. Bush (above)  listens to reporters at a White House press conference following the December publication of the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran

"President Bush yesterday insisted that Iran remained a genuine threat to world peace, despite a new US intelligence report concluding that the Tehran regime had halted its nuclear weapons programme four years ago. In a White House press conference, where he was bombarded with questions about the implications for his own credibility, Mr Bush declared he had seen nothing to change either his own mind or Washington's policy on Iran's nuclear ambitions. 'Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,' he said. At his last press conference on October 17 Mr Bush said that anyone 'interested in avoiding World War III' should back his efforts to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapon. Yesterday, he struck a defiant note, claiming that this week's National Intelligence Estimate should be regarded as a vindication of - and a reason to continue taking - a tough stance towards Tehran. 'I view this report as a warning signal that they had the programme, they halted the programme,' said the President. 'The reason why it's a warning signal is they could restart it.'.... Senior military sources believe that with the recent departure of many US Administration hawks, Israel - facing threats to its very existence from Tehran - is more likely than the US to order an airstrike against Iran. Officials in Tel Aviv yesterday reiterated their own intelligence assessment that Tehran could possess a nuclear weapon by 2009, saying they remained focused on the 'worst case scenario'. Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, said yesterday: 'Iran is probably continuing its programme of fabricating a nuclear bomb.' He added: 'We cannot allow ourselves to rest just because of an intelligence report from the other side of the earth, even if it is from our greatest friend.'”
The report changes nothing: Iran is still a threat, says defiant George W. Bush
London Times, 5 December 2007

"The new report, called a National Intelligence Estimate and released Monday, concluded that Iran had a covert nuclear weapons program, but halted it in 2003. [White House press secretary Dana] Perino said it will not prompt a change in Bush's beliefs, statements or policy on Iran, since Tehran continues to enrich uranium and develop ballistic missiles and since there is now evidence it had a covert nuclear arms program, even if suspended. All this means Iran is developing both the know-how and delivery systems necessary for a nuclear bomb, she said, adding that they could restart a weapons program and may still have one that is not known to the outside world."
White House Seeks to Clarify Iran Stance
Associated Press, 6 December 2007

"The US intelligence report showing Iran froze weapons development in 2003 does not show the full picture, a top US intelligence official told Congress on Thursday. The deputy director of National Intelligence, Donald Kerr, told a House of Representatives Intelligence subcommittee that Iran retains key nuclear capabilities despite having frozen its weapons development.... Kerr said there was reason to believe Iran still wanted an ability to make nuclear weapons."
'Iran retains key nuclear capabilities'
Jerusalem Post, 6 December 2007

"Virtually unreferenced in all of the media buzz following the release of the NIE on Iran is the response of America’s No. 1 ally in the Middle East: Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has dismissed the American NIE as irrelevant. The Israeli position has always been to oppose the development of any technology by Iran which provides material support to a nuclear weapons program, whether one formally exists or is currently dormant.  The demonstrated capability of Iran to enrich uranium has crossed a red line previously declared by Israel to mark what is acceptable and unacceptable to its national security interests. The recent Israeli airstrike against Syria only further clouds the issue.  While it is increasingly clear that the target struck was neither a nuclear reactor under construction (despite the alarmist conclusions arrived at by David Albright and others) nor a plutonium extraction plant (an absurdity postulated without any factual basis by some Israeli nuclear 'experts'), perception has a way of becoming its own reality.  The ongoing Israeli paranoia about a nexus of nuclear proliferation among North Korea, Iran and Syria, void of any hard intelligence to back it up and yet hyped to the point that an abandoned military warehouse in the middle of the Syrian desert could be pre-emptively bombed, serves as a warning to any who believe that the newly published NIE will, by itself, inject a measure of sanity and objective thinking into a process that has created an ideologically driven self-fulfilling prophesy that no amount of fact and reasoning can make go away.... The fact is, on its own the new NIE cannot stop the Bush administration’s desire to bring the Iran issue to a head by spring 2008.  The framing of the 'crisis,' which began with fears over the Iranian nuclear program, shifted months ago.  The focus of attention is now on Iran’s status as a 'state sponsor of terror,' a charge the administration has made over and over again, whether in the form of the president’s 2007 State of the Union speech or in the March 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States.  Recent legislation passed by the Senate has only added fuel to the fire by naming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard command as a terrorist organization.  There is a school of thought that holds to the notion that because a military strike against Iran makes no sense, it will not happen.  This, of course, is not only wishful thinking, it is also irresponsible.  By continuing to focus on the Iran issue in terms of so-called threat models and ignoring the underlying reality of an ideologically driven policy objective of regime change in Tehran, those who could prevent a war between the United States and Iran are simply facilitating its inevitability.  I’ve seen this pattern of behavior before, in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq.  While the world debated the issue of weapons of mass destruction, left unmentioned was the decades-long policy of regime change in Baghdad, instituted during the administration of Bill Clinton and inherited by George W. Bush.  The events of Sept. 11, 2001, put regime change on the fast track, and the end result is our current occupation.  The WMD issue was simply a facilitator for conflict; war with Iraq for the purpose of removing Saddam Hussein was unavoidable so long as the ideological foundation of American policy remained unchanged.  The same can be said of the situation facing the United States and Iran today.  The nuclear and terror issues are simply vehicles for implementing a policy of regime change.  Take away the nuclear issue and the policy remains.  A new facilitator, such as terrorism, is then employed.  In short, the only way to prevent the full implementation of the Bush administration policy of regime change in Tehran is for Congress to directly challenge this policy.... Congress, by continuing to support existing war powers resolutions passed in 2001 and 2002, and through its ongoing support of the basic premise underwriting the administration’s policy toward Iran (i.e., the Senate resolution labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard command as a terror organization), has tied its hands in terms of constitutionally challenging the president’s contention that he has all the authority required to initiate an attack against Iran."
Scott Ritter, chief inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq from 1991 to 1998
Calling on Congress to Stop a War
Truthdig, 7 December 2007

The Religious Right Have Been Critical To Bush's Hold On The White House
They Are The Ultimate Threat To The Security Of Israel And Her Neighbours

Bush's Core Vote - Cheerleaders For War

"It was only 25 years ago when there began to be a melding of the Republican Party with fundamentalist Christianity, particularly with the Southern Baptist Convention. This is a fairly new development, and I think it was brought about by the abandonment of some of the basic principles of Christianity. First of all, we worship the prince of peace, not war. And those of us who have advocated for the resolution of international conflict in a peaceful fashion are looked upon as being unpatriotic, branded that way by right-wing religious groups, the Bush administration, and other Republicans.... what do Christians stand for, based exclusively on the words and actions of Jesus Christ? We worship him as a prince of peace. And I think almost all Christians would conclude that whenever there is an inevitable altercation -- say, between a husband and a wife, or a father and a child, or within a given community, or between two nations (including our own) -- we should make every effort to resolve those differences which arise in life through peaceful means. Therein, we should not resort to war as a way to exalt the president as the commander in chief. A commitment to peace is certainly a Christian principle that even ultraconservatives would endorse, at least by worshipping the prince of peace... The alleviation of suffering was a philosophy that was enhanced and emphasized by the life of Christ. Today the ultra-right wing, in both religion and politics, has abandoned that principle of Jesus Christ’s ministry. Those are the two principal things in the practical sense that starkly separate the ultra-right Christian community from the rest of the Christian world: Do we endorse and support peace and support the alleviation of suffering among the poor and the outcast?"
Jimmy Carter [America's first evangelical Christian president and a southern Baptist]
explains how the Christian right isn't Christian at all
The American Prospect, 5 April 2004

"Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony, he said, 'after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.' Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true - one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right - the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the 'Left Behind' series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its 'biblical lands,' legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow. I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels 'which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man.' A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 - just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer - 'The Road to Environmental Apocalypse.' Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse. As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election - 231 legislators in total and more since the election - are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: 'The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land.' He seemed to be relishing the thought. And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, 'to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?' Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, 'America's Providential History.' You'll find there these words: 'The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece.' However, '[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people.' No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, 'Onward Christian Soldiers.' He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics."
Bill Moyers former host of the weekly public affairs series 'NOW with Bill Moyers' on PBS
Are We Doomed? Insanity Now Mainstream. There Is No Tomorrow
The Star Tribune, 1 February 2005

"To understand what is happening in the Middle East, you must first understand what is happening in Texas. To understand what is happening there, you should read the resolutions passed at the state's Republican party conventions last month.... I don't know what the original motion said, but apparently it was 'watered down significantly' as a result of the shouting match. The motion they adopted stated that Israel has an undivided claim to Jerusalem and the West Bank, that Arab states should be 'pressured' to absorb refugees from Palestine, and that Israel should do whatever it wishes in seeking to eliminate terrorism. Good to see that the extremists didn't prevail then. But why should all this be of such pressing interest to the people of a state which is seldom celebrated for its fascination with foreign affairs? The explanation is slowly becoming familiar to us, but we still have some difficulty in taking it seriously. In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to Earth when certain preconditions have been met. The first of these was the establishment of a state of Israel. The next involves Israel's occupation of the rest of its 'biblical lands' (most of the Middle East), and the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques. The legions of the antichrist will then be deployed against Israel, and their war will lead to a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will either burn or convert to Christianity, and the Messiah will return to Earth. What makes the story so appealing to Christian fundamentalists is that before the big battle begins, all "true believers" (ie those who believe what they believe) will be lifted out of their clothes and wafted up to heaven during an event called the Rapture. Not only do the worthy get to sit at the right hand of God, but they will be able to watch, from the best seats, their political and religious opponents being devoured by boils, sores, locusts and frogs, during the seven years of Tribulation which follow. The true believers are now seeking to bring all this about. This means staging confrontations at the old temple site (in 2000, three US Christians were deported for trying to blow up the mosques there), sponsoring Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, demanding ever more US support for Israel, and seeking to provoke a final battle with the Muslim world/Axis of Evil/United Nations/ European Union/France or whoever the legions of the antichrist turn out to be. The believers are convinced that they will soon be rewarded for their efforts. The antichrist is apparently walking among us, in the guise of Kofi Annan, Javier Solana, Yasser Arafat or, more plausibly, Silvio Berlusconi. The Wal-Mart corporation is also a candidate (in my view a very good one), because it wants to radio-tag its stock, thereby exposing humankind to the Mark of the Beast. By clicking on www.raptureready.com, you can discover how close you might be to flying out of your pyjamas. The infidels among us should take note that the Rapture Index currently stands at 144, just one point below the critical threshold....We can laugh at these people, but we should not dismiss them. That their beliefs are bonkers does not mean they are marginal. American pollsters believe that 15-18% of US voters belong to churches or movements which subscribe to these teachings. A survey in 1999 suggested that this figure included 33% of Republicans. The best-selling contemporary books in the US are the 12 volumes of the Left Behind series, which provide what is usually described as a 'fictionalised' account of the Rapture (this, apparently, distinguishes it from the other one), with plenty of dripping details about what will happen to the rest of us. The people who believe all this don't believe it just a little; for them it is a matter of life eternal and death. And among them are some of the most powerful men in America. John Ashcroft, the attorney general, is a true believer, so are several prominent senators and the House majority leader, Tom DeLay. Mr DeLay (who is also the co-author of the marvellously named DeLay-Doolittle Amendment, postponing campaign finance reforms) travelled to Israel last year to tell the Knesset that 'there is no middle ground, no moderate position worth taking'. So here we have a major political constituency - representing much of the current president's core vote - in the most powerful nation on Earth, which is actively seeking to provoke a new world war. Its members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act, as Revelation (9:14-15) maintains that four angels 'which are bound in the great river Euphrates' will be released 'to slay the third part of men'. They batter down the doors of the White House as soon as its support for Israel wavers: when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry emails from Christian fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again. The electoral calculation, crazy as it appears, works like this. Governments stand or fall on domestic issues. For 85% of the US electorate, the Middle East is a foreign issue, and therefore of secondary interest when they enter the polling booth. For 15% of the electorate, the Middle East is not just a domestic matter, it's a personal one: if the president fails to start a conflagration there, his core voters don't get to sit at the right hand of God. Bush, in other words, stands to lose fewer votes by encouraging Israeli aggression than he stands to lose by restraining it. He would be mad to listen to these people. He would also be mad not to."
Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power
Guardian, 20 April 2007

"Over the past months, the White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with leaders of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel's expansionist policies is 'a biblical imperative.' CUFI's Washington lobbyist, David Brog, told me that during the meetings, CUFI representatives pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah. The White House instructed Brog not to reveal the names of officials he met with, Brog said. CUFI's advice to the Bush Administration reflects the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of its founder, John Hagee.... Despite his penchant for extreme rhetoric, or perhaps because of it, Hagee endeared himself to key members of the Israeli right. With the help of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who once spoke at a massive pro-Israel fundraiser at Cornerstone Church, Hagee has raised at least $8.5 million for Israeli social work projects.... Hagee recently united America's largest Christian Zionist congregations and some of the movement's most prominent figures — including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer and Rod Parsley, an Ohio preacher instrumental in launching Republican Ken Blackwell's gubernatorial campaign — under the banner of CUFI, creating the first and only nationwide evangelical political organization dedicated to supporting Israel. Hagee says he would like to see CUFI become 'the Christian version of AIPAC,' referring to the vaunted pro-Israel group rated second only to the National Rifle Association as the most effective lobby in Washington.... To advance his agenda on the Hill, Hagee has tapped David Brog, a seasoned and articulate lawyer who has been Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter's chief of staff, and who boasts myriad connections in Republican Washington.....When Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman lambasted the Christian right as a dire threat to America's Jewish community, Brog scolded Foxman in a lengthy Wall Street Journal op-ed....A speech in November 2005 by Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman blasting the Christian right as the 'key domestic challenge to the American Jewish community' was the moment for Brog's emergence..... Since the controversy stirred up by his comments, Foxman has muted his criticism of the Christian right. Even more, he has offered his qualified acceptance of CUFI. 'On the one hand, we need to welcome him. On the other, we need to be cautious about embracing it,' Foxman said last month to the Jerusalem Post about Hagee and his organization.... More recently, some of Hagee's allies, such as nationally syndicated evangelical radio host Janet Parshall, became ecstatic when Israel and Hezbollah commenced hostilities last month. 'These are the times we've been waiting for,' Parshall told her listeners in a voice brimming with joy on July 21. 'This is straight out of a Sunday school lesson.'... Thanks to Brog's parrying of Jewish criticism and securing the cooperation of major Jewish organizations, his 'brother' Hagee faces few repercussions as he prays for Armageddon. With local CUFI chapters growing across the country, a 'rapid response network' of thousands of pastors developing, and an open door to the White House, Brog and Hagee are planning for the long term.... the renewal of the peace process and rolling back the West Bank settlements would be an unjust cause. For Hagee and for CUFI, all roads lead to a 'nuclear showdown' with Iran. Diplomacy would only make God angry. As Hagee warns in Jerusalem Countdown, 'Those who follow a policy of opposition to God's purposes will receive the swift and severe judgment of God without limitation.'"
Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism
The Nation, 8 August 2006

"As Tony Blair was bidding farewell to President George W Bush in the Rose Garden on Thursday, the World Bank was preparing to kick out Paul Wolfowitz as president. Allies to the left and right in the Iraq war were falling by the wayside that day.... If Bush and Dick Cheney, his vice-president, are the last men standing with responsibility for the Iraq war it is only because they are protected by their four-year terms of office. One former Bush stalwart told me: 'If we had a parliamentary system, Bush would have lost a vote of confidence and have resigned by now.'.... Away from the Rose Garden the funeral cortege for the fundamentalist Rev Jerry Falwell was being assembled in the heart of Bush country in Lynchburg, Virginia. The portly 73-year-old televangelist had done his utmost to assemble the coalition of conservative Christians that went on to provide Bush with two presidential victories. Now he is dead and the government sustained by his followers is looking more and more like a corpse. The writer Christopher Hitchens, a friend of Wolfowitz and foe of Falwell, says: 'The main noise in Washington right now is that of collapsing scenery. The Republican party is in total disarray. They’ve been dropping their most intelligent people over the side while the presidential candidates are all outbidding each other to be nice about the revolting carcass of Falwell.'... Wolfowitz, the cerebral neocon, and Falwell, the braying theocon, had nothing in common personally. Indeed, Falwell blamed 'the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians' for provoking the 9/11 attacks, an explanation uncomfortably close to the views of the Taliban. But the unlikely alliance between their two movements provided the brains and the brawn behind Bush. Now the neocons have been ousted, one by one, from their positions of influence and trust while the Republican party base is desperately thrashing around for a successor to Bush that it can back in 2008. The cleavage between the two marks the end of an era in which Bible Belt conservatives became the surprise champions of radical nation-building in the Middle East ...."
Decline and fall of the neocons
Sunday Times, 20 May 2007

"Israel's military campaign in southern Lebanon is still being backed by most American voters, according to a survey published yesterday that shows public opinion in the US once again sharply at odds with views in Europe.... Last month the Reverend John Hagee, a Pentecostal television evangelist from Texas, convened a meeting in Washington of 3,500 members of Christians Unified for Israel. The organisation is dedicated to building support for Israel, even in states where there are few Jewish voters. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican presidential hopeful, attended the rally, as did Senator Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, and Daniel Ayalon, the Israeli Ambassador. Mr Hagee called the Israeli attacks on Lebanon a 'miracle of God' and suggested that a ceasefire would violate 'God’s foreign policy statement' towards Jews. The evangelist is a leading figure in the so-called Christian-Zionist movement, rooted in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations, which predicts a final battle between good and evil in Israel, where two billion people will die before Christ’s return ushers in a 1,000-year period of grace. 'The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching . . . Rejoice and be exceeding glad — the best is yet to be,' Mr Hagee has written in a book that has sold 700,000 copies.  President Bush sent a message to the gathering praising Mr Hagee and his supporters for 'spreading the hope of God’s love and the universal gift of freedom'. He is said to have added: 'God bless and stand by the people of Israel and God bless the United States.' The support for Israel of 50 million American evangelicals chimes with the reality of the Administration’s foreign policy, which refuses to tolerate terrorist organisations — or the Middle Eastern regimes linked to them. Dennis Ross, a Middle East envoy in the administrations of the first President Bush and Bill Clinton, said recently that evangelical supporters of Israel were now an 'important part of the landscape'."
Bombing is backed by most American voters
London Times, 4 August 2006

"The final instalment of an evangelical Christian publishing phenomenon which has spawned 16 novels and sold 64 million copies arrived in shops across the United States yesterday. Kingdom Come, the last of the 'Left Behind' series of Bible-inspired thrillers written by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, tells the story of the final postmillennial battle between Jesus and Satan.... The Left Behind series appeared to chime with the sense of the impending Apocalypse among many Americans, reinforced by the election of President Bush on a faith-based platform and global events which — in some eyes — confirm biblical prophecy. Sales elsewhere in the world have been meagre.... A 2006 survey for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 79 per cent of American Christians believe in the Second Coming, with 20 per cent believing it will happen in their lifetime. The Left Behind series begins with all born-again Christians being summoned to heaven in the Rapture, as predicted by the Book of Revelation. Those left behind, struggling to make sense of what has happened, are then ruled by a Romanian politician named Nicolae Carpathia who becomes United Nations Secretary-General. He turns out to be the Anti-Christ who sets up a world government, as well as establishing his capital in the biblical Babylon, Baghdad. Jesus then returns for the Second Coming and slaughters nonbelievers including Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, as well as many Catholics and mainstream Protestants. The books have attracted a fair share of controversy, not least from mainstream Christian theologians and other religions. American Muslims, for instance, have asked Wal-Mart to stop stocking the Left Behind video game which encourages children to zap the AntiChrist’s team which includes a lot of Arab and Islamic-sounding names."
Revelations of the last battle as US Bible thriller series comes to end
London Times, 4 April 2007

"Any discussion of President Bush’s presumed evangelicalism is complicated. Evangelicalism is a style of worship, not a set of beliefs, and to a large extent evangelical Protestants are defined by their personal stories of faith and by whom they choose as their pastor. But core to many evangelicals’ identity is the 'born-again' experience described in John 3:3, when a sinner undergoes an intense conversion during a personal interaction with the Holy Spirit, often Jesus Himself. George Bush has not said directly that he was ever born again. He has often said he was pointed on the path to God after a discussion with evangelist Billy Graham in 1985. 'Over the course of that weekend, Reverend Graham planted a mustard seed in my soul, a seed that grew over the next year,' Bush wrote in his 1999 campaign autobiography, 'A Charge to Keep.'... There is a second story about how Bush started on the road to salvation, one that is more in line with the common narrative. While Bush has never confirmed it, he has also never contradicted it, nor has he apparently sought to reconcile the two accounts. Evangelist Arthur Blessitt, best known for carrying a 12-foot cross around the world, writes that in 1984, Bush asked to see him and told him: 'Arthur, I did not feel comfortable attending the meeting, but I want talk to you about how to know Jesus Christ and how to follow Him.' The two men and an aide prayed together and discussed salvation, Blessitt says in a long article on his Web site, which comes complete with photographs of Bush and Blessitt together and of personal, handwritten notes Bush wrote to him as late as 1998."
Bush — born again, or not?
MSNBC, 28 September 2004

Dick Cheney's Vision For The Middle East

"For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, 'the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and lowest cost is still where the prize ultimately lies', even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."
Dick Cheney, Chief Executive of Halliburton, now Vice President of the United States
Speech at London Institute of Petroleum, Autumn Lunch 1999

"Optimists about world oil reserves, such as the Department of Energy, are getting increasingly lonely. The International Energy Agency now says that world production outside the Middle Eastern Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (opec) will peak in 1999 and world production overall will peak between 2010 and 2020. This projection is supported by influential recent articles in Science and Scientific American. Some knowledgeable academic and industry voices put the date that world production will peak even sooner—within the next five or six years. The optimists who project large reserve quantities of over one trillion barrels tend to base their numbers on one of three things: inclusion of heavy oil and tar sands, the exploitation of which will entail huge economic and environmental costs; puffery by opec nations lobbying for higher production quotas within the cartel; or assumptions about new drilling technologies that may accelerate production but are unlikely to expand reserves. Once production peaks, even though exhaustion of world reserves will still be many years away, prices will begin to rise sharply. This trend will be exacerbated by increased demand in the developing world..... The recent report by the President's Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology... concluded  'A plausible argument can be made that the security of the United States is at least as likely to be imperiled in the first half of the next century by the consequences of inadequacies in the energy options available to the world as by inadequacies in the capabilities of U.S. weapons systems.   It is striking that the Federal government spends about 20 times more R&D money on the latter problem than on the former.'... The nearly $70 billion spent annually for imported oil represents about 40 percent of the current U.S. trade deficit.... Research is essential to produce the innovations and technical improvements that will lower the production costs of ethanol and other renewable fuels and let them compete directly with gasoline. At present, the United States is not funding a vigorous program in renewable technologies.... The United States cannot afford to wait for the next energy crisis to marshal its intellectual and industrial resources....Our growing dependence on increasingly scarce Middle Eastern oil is a fool's game—there is no way for the rest of the world to win. Our losses may come suddenly through war, steadily through price increases, agonizingly through developing-nation poverty, relentlessly through climate change—or through all of the above."
Richard G. Lugar and R. James Woolsey (Former Director of the CIA)
The New Petroleum - Foreign Affairs January/February 1999

"In a world of looming shortage, Iraq represented a unique opportunity. With 115bn barrels, it had the world's third biggest reserves, and after years of war and sanctions they were the most underexploited. In the late 1990s, production averaged about 2m barrels, but with the necessary investment its reserves could support three times that. .... Cheney knew, fretting about global oil depletion in a speech in London the following year, where he noted that 'the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and lowest cost is still where the prize ultimately lies'. Blair too had reason to be anxious: British North Sea output had peaked in 1999, while the petrol protests of 2000 had made the importance of maintaining the fuel supply excruciatingly obvious. Britain's and the US's fears were secretly formalised during the planning for Iraq. It is widely accepted that Blair's commitment to support the attack dates back to his summit with Bush in Texas in April 2002. What is less well known is that at the same summit, Blair proposed and Bush agreed to set up the US-UK Energy Dialogue, a permanent liaison dedicated to 'energy security and diversity'.  Its existence was only later exposed through a freedom of information inquiry. Both governments refuse to release minutes of Dialogue meetings, but one paper dated February 2003 notes that to meet projected demand, oil production in the Middle East would have to double by 2030 to more than 50m barrels a day. So on the eve of the invasion, UK and US officials were discussing how to raise production from the region - and we are invited to believe this is coincidence."
The real casus belli: peak oil
Guardian, 26 June 2007

"International oil markets have become so tight that even small acts of sabotage could result in further large price rises, Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, said yesterday. 'The balance of world oil supply and demand has become so precarious that even small acts of sabotage or local insurrection have a significant impact on oil prices,' he said. Mr Greenspan painted a bleak picture of the world's rising vulnerability to high crude oil prices, saying he was sceptical that oil producers could pump enough crude to meet future demand.... Mr Greenspan, who now runs a private consultancy, said there were few good short-term policy options for bringing down energy prices, saying it was 'not a choice between good and bad' but 'between not so good and worse'".
Former Fed chief warns on oil supply
Financial Times, 8 June 2006

"Years before George W. Bush entered the White House, and years before the Sept. 11 attacks set the direction of his presidency, a group of influential neo-conservatives hatched a plan to get Saddam Hussein out of power... The group was never secret about its aims. In its 1998 open letter to Clinton, the group openly advocated unilateral U.S. action against Iraq.... Of the 18 people who signed the letter, 10 are now in the Bush administration. As well as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, they include Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage    ... "
Were Neo-Conservatives’ 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War?
ABC News, 10 March 2003

"We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding..... It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard."
Open Letter To President Bill Clinton, 26 January 1998
Signed by: Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber., Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, Robert B. Zoellick

"The key holdout is Saudi Arabia -- and it is indeed aggravating that even though we went to war in 1991 principally to protect its oil, they are unwilling to let us launch air strikes [on Iraq] from their country."
James Woolsey - The Former CIA Director Speaks on Iraq
TIME, 18 February 1998

"Energy is vital to a country's security and material well-being. A state unable to provide its people with adequate energy supplies or desiring added leverage over other people often resorts to force. Consider Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, driven by his desire to control more of the world's oil reserves, and the international response to this threat. The underlying goal of the U.N. force, which included 500,000 American troops, was to ensure continued and unfettered access to petroleum...."
Richard G. Lugar and R. James Woolsey (Former Director of the CIA)
The New Petroleum - Foreign Affairs January/February 1999

"If OPEC's members are not able to boost production in coming years, though, it will be impossible to keep blaming the traders as prices rise. What happens then? 'If we had better data, we could hold a global summit and say, 'Gentlemen, it's nobody's fault, but we've peaked,' says Simmons. 'We've got to embrace some conservation practices that are draconian, or we will be at war with each other.'"
Peak Possibilities
TIME, 21 November 2007

Oil Apocalypse Now

"As tensions between Iran and the US continue to escalate, experts are predicting that an American attack on the Islamic republic could be imminent. Speaking on RTE Radio One’s Tubridy Show last week, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter suggested that the Bush administration was planning an attack as soon as June or July  ‘if the [UN] Security Council baulks' at imposing further sanctions. ‘I think Iran is very much on the target list . . . and it is one that will be acted on sooner, rather than later,' Ritter said. The US has already tried to make June a decisive month for Iran’s nuclear programme. Earlier this month, under-secretary of state Nicholas Burns suggested that a third United Nations resolution seeking expanded sanctions would be tabled in mid-June if Iran had not suspended its uranium enrichment work by then. Despite dire predictions abroad, however, politicians and civilians in Iran seem sceptical that a US military offensive will be launched soon - even though they are suspicious of the US.... However, the Bush administration seems intent on showing its muscle. Two weeks ago, vice president Dick Cheney, speaking from an American battleship 150 miles off the Iranian coast, said that, ‘with two carrier groups in the Gulf, we’re sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike’. Aside from the nuclear issue, the US has also claimed that Iran is aiding Shia militias in Iraq. Early last week, US sources briefed the media that Iran was committing acts of war against US and British forces in Iraq and, in addition to backing Shia groups, was reaching out to Sunni forces, including those linked to al-Qaeda. In Tehran, however, even harsh critics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saw a political agenda behind such claims. Political analyst Davoud Hermidas, who is aligned with the secular Iranian National Front, said he believed the US would ‘seek an escalation of the situation to change the atmosphere in the Middle East and also in [the US] Congress. They will create a kind of scenario where Iran is a threat.”
US turns up heat on Iran as invasion fears grow
Sunday Business Post (Ireland), 27 May 2007

Israel As Cheney Pawn In The Real Struggle For The Middle East And Central Asia America's Battle Against China For Control Of Persian Gulf And Caspian Energy Resources www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATUSvChina.htm

Israel As Vehicle For US Oil Supplies

"The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister's Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a 'bonus' the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram.    The new pipeline would take oil from the Kirkuk area, where some 40 percent of Iraqi oil is produced, and transport it via Mosul, and then across Jordan to Israel. The U.S. telegram included a request for a cost estimate for repairing the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was in use prior to 1948. During the War of Independence, the Iraqis stopped the flow of oil to Haifa and the pipeline fell into disrepair over the years....Sources in Jerusalem confirmed yesterday that the Americans are looking into the possibility of laying a new pipeline via Jordan and Israel. (There is also a pipeline running via Syria that has not been used in some three decades.)"
U.S. checking possibility of pumping oil from northern Iraq to Haifa, via Jordan
Haaretz, 1 August 2007

"Israel stands to benefit greatly from the US led war on Iraq, primarily by getting rid of an implacable foe in President Saddam Hussein and the threat from the weapons of mass destruction he was alleged to possess. But it seems the Israelis have other things in mind. An intriguing pointer to one potentially significant benefit was a report by Haaretz on 31 March that minister for national infrastructures Joseph Paritzky was considering the possibility of reopening the long-defunct oil pipeline from Mosul to the Mediterranean port of Haifa. With Israel lacking energy resources of its own and depending on highly expensive oil from Russia, reopening the pipeline would transform its economy.... All of this lends weight to the theory that Bush's war is part of a masterplan to reshape the Middle East to serve Israel's interests. Haaretz quoted Paritzky as saying that the pipeline project is economically justifiable because it would dramatically reduce Israel's energy bill. US efforts to get Iraqi oil to Israel are not surprising. Under a 1975 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the US guaranteed all Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis. The MoU, which has been quietly renewed every five years, also committed the USA to construct and stock a supplementary strategic reserve for Israel, equivalent to some US$3bn in 2002. Special legislation was enacted to exempt Israel from restrictions on oil exports from the USA. Moreover, the USA agreed to divert oil from its home market, even if that entailed domestic shortages, and guaranteed delivery of the promised oil in its own tankers if commercial shippers were unwilling or not available to carry the crude to Israel. All of this adds up to a potentially massive financial commitment. The USA has another reason for supporting Paritzky's project: a land route for Iraqi oil direct to the Mediterranean would lessen US dependence on Gulf oil supplies. Direct access to the world's second-largest oil reserves (with the possibility of expansion through so-far untapped deposits) is an important strategic objective."
Oil from Iraq : An Israeli pipedream?
Jane's Foreign Report, 16 April 2003

"Israel's finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, predicted yesterday that the British-era oil pipeline from Iraq's northern oilfields through Jordan to the Israeli port city of Haifa would be reopened. 'It won't be long when you will see Iraqi oil flowing to Haifa,' Mr Netanyahu told a group of British investors in London. 'It is just a matter of time until the pipeline is reconstituted and Iraqi oil will flow to the Mediterranean.'"
Iraq-Israel oil pipeline 'to reopen'
Daily Telegraph, 21 June 2003

And So Are Other Countries

"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan....He said it with reproach--with disbelief, almost--at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either. ...I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned."
'Winning Modern' Wars (page 130), General Wesley Clark

All The Above Countries Are Important Oil Producers Or Border Key Middle Eastern Oil Shipping Routes

<<<---- To USA and Europe

Blue = Pre-War Iraqi Oil Transit Route To Meditteranian Via Arabian Peninsula And Suez Canal (Suez Cannot Take Largest Tankers) Red = Post-War Potential Alternative Route Via Syria/Lebanon/Israel

"Rice will not leave Washington until later today, and it was clear from her pronounced lack of urgency that President George W Bush had torn up previous manuals for Middle East crisis intervention. The White House played down the seriousness of the Lebanon crisis, characterising the death and destruction as the 'birth pangs of a new Middle East'. Officials argued that it was pointless to negotiate with Hezbollah and that only its eradication could create the necessary conditions for a durable political settlement. The crisis was 'an opportunity, not a setback', insisted one senior US official."
Hell in the Holy Lands
Sunday Times, 23 July 2006

"We're there because the fact of the matter is that part of the world controls the world supply of oil, and whoever controls the supply of oil, especially if it were a man like Saddam Hussein, with a large army and sophisticated weapons, would have a stranglehold on the American economy and on — indeed on the world economy."
Dick Cheney, US Secretary of Defense 1990
New York Times, 24 February 2006

"Robert Baer, a former CIA spy who presents a television documentary on the history of suicide bombing, says he knew the practice would come to the UK. And it’s not the West’s values, but its foreign policies, that are to blame.... There is, however, a three-letter reason why the US will not impose a peace plan on Israel and leave the region.  Baer, the author of Sleeping With The Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, well knows what it is. 'I don’t think any American politician, however at fault we are in Iraq or anywhere else, can say, ‘All right, let the crazies have the oil fields’, because oil at $200 a barrel would put us into a depression.' So because the American economy is at stake, we can’t get out even to save our skins? 'That, I believe, is your classic paradox.' "
Suicide bombing is a virus that’s here to stay
London Times, 2 August 2005

Final Desperate Move? - Target Iran

"Israeli military and intelligence operatives are active in Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq, providing training for commando units and running covert operations that could further destabilise the entire region, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine.... 'Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way - a balance against Saddam,' one former Israeli intelligence officer told the New Yorker. 'It's Realpolitik. By aligning with the Kurds Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and Syria. The critical question is 'What will the behaviour of Iran be if there is an independent Kurdistan with close ties to Israel? Iran does not want an Israeli land-based aircraft carrier on its border.'.... In the autumn the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak told the US vice president, Dick Cheney, that America had lost in Iraq. Israel 'had learned that there's no way to win an occupation,' he told Mr Cheney, and the only issue was 'choosing the size of your humiliation'."
Israelis 'using Kurds to build power base'
Guardian, 21 June 2004

"US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington. The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office. Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed... Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst, shared the sources' assessment that Pentagon planning was well under way. 'Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place.' He added: 'We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous.'... Mr Cannistraro, who worked for the CIA and the National Security Council, stressed that no decision had been made. Last month Mr Bush ordered a second battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis to the Gulf in support of the USS Eisenhower. The USS Stennis is due to arrive within the next 10 days. Extra US Patriot missiles have been sent to the region, as well as more minesweepers, in anticipation of Iranian retaliatory action. In another sign that preparations are under way, Mr Bush has ordered oil reserves to be stockpiled.... Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former air force officer who has carried out war games with Iran as the target, supported the view that planning for an air strike was under way: 'Gates said there is no planning for war. We know this is not true. He possibly meant there is no plan for an immediate strike. It was sloppy wording. 'All the moves being made over the last few weeks are consistent with what you would do if you were going to do an air strike. We have to throw away the notion the US could not do it because it is too tied up in Iraq. It is an air operation.'... Other neo-cons elsewhere in Washington are opposed to an air strike but advocate a different form of military action, supporting Iranian armed groups, in particular the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), even though the state department has branded it a terrorist organisation."
Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring
Guardian, 10 February 2007

"The US is to continue holding five Iranians captured in Iraq despite protests from Tehran, US media said. The fate of the five sparked disagreement, with the White House overruling the State Department on the issue, the Washington Post reported. Administration officials have not commented on the report. The US says the men seized in a January raid on Iran's consulate in Irbil are linked to the Revolutionary Guard. Iran says they are diplomats. The US accuses the Revolutionary Guard of providing support to insurgents. The issue has further raised tension between the US and Iran, which has demanded that the men be released. The decision was made at a high-level meeting on Tuesday, the Washington Post said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly argued that the five Iranians be released because they were 'no longer useful'. But Vice President Dick Cheney's office said their capture signalled that Iranian activities were monitored and their operatives at risk of detention, the daily said."
US 'will keep Iranian detainees'
BBC Online, 14 April 2007

"Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday. In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: 'What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.' Mr Wilkerson said such secret decision-making was responsible for mistakes such as the long refusal to engage with North Korea or to back European efforts on Iran."
‘Cheney cabal hijacked US foreign policy’
Financial Times, 20 October 2005

"A month before the November elections, Vice-President Dick Cheney was sitting in on a national-security discussion at the Executive Office Building. The talk took a political turn: what if the Democrats won both the Senate and the House? How would that affect policy toward Iran, which is believed to be on the verge of becoming a nuclear power? .... If the Democrats won on November 7th, the Vice-President said, that victory would not stop the Administration from pursuing a military option with Iran. The White House would put 'shorteners' on any legislative restrictions, Cheney said, and thus stop Congress from getting in its way. The White House’s concern was not that the Democrats would cut off funds for the war in Iraq but that future legislation would prohibit it from financing operations targeted at overthrowing or destabilizing the Iranian government, to keep it from getting the bomb..... In late 1982, Edward P. Boland, a Democratic representative, introduced the first in a series of     'Boland amendments,' which limited the Reagan Administration’s ability to support the Contras, who were working to overthrow Nicaragua’s left-wing Sandinista government. The Boland restrictions led White House officials to orchestrate illegal fund-raising activities for the Contras, including the sale of American weapons, via Israel, to Iran. The result was the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-eighties. Cheney’s story, according to the source, was his way of saying that, whatever a Democratic Congress might do next year to limit the President’s authority, the Administration would find a way to work around it."
The Next Act
The New Yorker, 27 November 2006

Cheney's Big Agenda

"For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."
Dick Cheney, Chief Executive of Halliburton, now Vice President of the United States
Speech at London Institute of Petroleum, Autumn Lunch 1999

"Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.' The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: www.JudicialWatch.org. ......Judicial Watch has been seeking these documents under FOIA since April 19, 2001. Judicial Watch was forced to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) when the government failed to comply with the provisions of the FOIA law. U.S. District Court Judge Paul J. Friedman ordered the government to produce the documents on March 5, 2002."
CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS
Judicial Watch, 17 July 2003

"Iraq's oil reserves are significantly untapped and daily production could be doubled within five years, a report has concluded.... If these reserves were exploited, it said, Iraq could overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer. But a major improvement in security and investment was needed, it added.... The IHS survey, which examined Iraq's oil reserves both before and after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, is the most comprehensive conducted since the 2003 invasion. It found that Iraq had known reserves of 116 billion barrels and could be sitting on a further 100 billion barrels.... Current output of two million barrels a day is lower than in early 2003, when three million barrels were being pumped, and almost half that being produced in 1979. However, it said Iraq had the capacity to increase production to four million barrels by 2012 and to further increase that to six million within time. 'Iraq's reserves are clearly phenomenal,' said Ron Mobed, president and chief operating officer of IHS, adding that they represented a 'gold star opportunity'."
Iraqi oil wealth 'going untapped'
BBC Online, 19 April 2007

Cheney's Ultimate Target - China

"Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has said that oil was one of the reasons for the US-led invasion of Iraq, a Swedish news agency reports. 'I did not think so at first. But the US is incredibly dependent on oil,' news agency TT quoted Blix as saying at a security seminar in Stockholm. 'They wanted to secure oil in case competition on the world market becomes too hard.' Blix, who helped oversee the dismantling of Iraq's weapons programs before the war, said another reason for the invasion was a need to move US troops from Saudi Arabia, TT reported. Competition over oil is creating tension between the United States and China, Blix said........."
Blix says war motivated by oil
Australian Associated Press, 7 April 2005

"China has asked for a 30 percent increase in crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia for 2008 and also aims to raise imports from Iran, partly to feed two new refineries amid steady demand growth, trading sources said on Friday. Sinopec Corp, Asia's top refiner, wants to increase Saudi crude imports to 600,000 barrels per day for next year, up from this year's 460,000 bpd, a trading source close to the supply talks told Reuters. The supply pact, pending Saudi confirmation, would foster closer energy ties between Beijing and Riyadh, while maintaining the kingdom as China's top oil supplier."
China seeks 30 pct increase in Saudi oil imports
Reuters, 9 November 2007

"A major new alliance is emerging between Iran and China that threatens to undermine U.S. ability to pressure Tehran on its nuclear program, support for extremist groups and refusal to back Arab-Israeli peace efforts. The relationship has grown out of China's soaring energy needs -- crude oil imports surged nearly 40 percent in the first eight months of this year, according to state media -- and Iran's growing appetite for consumer goods for a population that has doubled since the 1979 revolution, Iranian officials and analysts say... Beijing has also provided Iran with advanced military technology, including missile technology, U.S. officials say."
Iran's New Alliance With China Could Cost U.S. Leverage
Washington Post, 17 November 2005

"Move over, Big Oil. There's a new oilman on the world stage - China. China's takeover bid for Unocal Corp. makes clear to sticker-shocked Americans that the 1.3 billion Chinese people are demanding an ever-larger supply of the world's energy to fuel their booming economy and are willing to get it wherever necessary. From Central Asia to Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and even Canada, Chinese firms are pumping oil and natural gas in many areas that the United States was counting on to meet its own record-high demand.... While the Bush administration tries to build international pressure against Iran over its nuclear aspirations, China has signed a $70 billion long- term oil and gas supply deal with the Tehran... Chinese firms signed numerous contracts to co-produce oil and natural gas. Iran is China's largest single source of foreign oil, providing 13 percent of China's total annual imports..."
China on global hunt to quench its thirst for oil
San Francisco Chronicle, 26 June 2005

"A day after chastising Moscow for its use of oil and natural gas as 'tools for intimidation or blackmail,' Vice President Dick Cheney visited Kazakhstan on Friday to promote export routes that bypass Russia and directly supply the West. With his comments, Mr. Cheney waded into a messy geopolitical struggle for energy and influence in the countries of the former Soviet Union, rapidly becoming one of the world's largest-producing regions. The United States backs efforts to weaken Russia's grip by building new export routes for the enormous energy reserves of Central Asia, much of which now must cross Russian territory to reach ports in the Black Sea or pipelines to Europe....Mr. Cheney's visit to Kazakhstan, on Russia's southern rim, highlighted the balancing of United States interests, trying to counter Russian dominance in energy matters by cozying up to states like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan that have spotty human rights records and limited democracy — and plenty of oil..... In an echo of the 19th-century Great Game scramble for colonial possessions in Central Asia, the United States is seeking to weaken Russia's control over oil and natural gas while also keeping China from stepping in to the breach. It is also encouraging export options that avoid Iran, another longstanding rival for regional influence....On Thursday, Kazakhstan's energy minister cheered the United States and Europe by saying he was interested in building a gas pipeline westward to Azerbaijan and then to Turkey, bypassing Russia and loosening Gazprom's lock on this trade. But that same day, Kazakhstan's national pipeline operator issued a guarantee to Russia to ship Russian oil to China through its new Atasu-Alashankou oil pipeline.... The United States is also concerned about maintaining its military presence in Central Asia. The need became acute after Uzbekistan reacted to American criticism of its violent suppression of a demonstration last summer by expelling the Americans from an air base supporting operations in Afghanistan. The United States' other Central Asian base, in Kyrgyzstan, also seems to be on wobbly foundations, with the government there demanding higher rent payments and discussing whether to expel the Americans — cheered on by Russia and the Chinese, analysts say."
Cheney, Visiting Kazakhstan, Wades Into Energy Battle
New York Times, 6 May 2006

"China's fast-paced economic growth—averaging 9.1% per year in the last decade—can only be sustained by high energy consumption, an increasing amount of which will need to be imported. Given global competition for energy resources, China's energy policy is now focused on securing a steady supply in the medium to long term..... China has been a net oil importer since 1993, and energy demand is expected to continue increasing at a greater proportional rate than production. In 2005 China produced 3.6m barrels/day, only slightly up from 2.8m b/d in 1990. China consumed 6.9m b/d in 2005, representing a 100% increase in consumption in the last decade. This made China the world's second-largest consumer of petroleum products in 2005, just behind the US. The US Energy Information Administration estimates that China's consumption will increase to 15m b/d by 2030, whereas its output will lag behind at 4.2m b/d. The country's energy demand dictates that it will need to increase both its imports and its suppliers in the next ten years if it is to avoid shortages. At present, the bulk of China's oil imports come from the Middle East (40% in 2005 according to a UK energy company, BP), closely followed by Africa (23%) and Asia (21%). However, there are strategic risks associated with China's long-term reliance on these established trading partners. A key risk is international competition, particularly with regard to the Middle East. With fellow high-level oil importers such as the US already well established in the region, aggressive competition will mean that China cannot rely on the Middle East alone to make up its projected supply shortfall. In any case, China will be wary about becoming over-reliant on a single supplier, whether a specific country or a region. This is closely linked to the risk of reliance on politically unstable suppliers and routes of supply. Of China's top five oil suppliers in 2005, Saudi Arabia, Angola and Iran remain at risk either of internal political upheaval or terrorist attack. As a result, China is increasingly looking beyond its immediate sphere of influence...."
Growing energy nexus
Economist, 10 April 2007

".... the implications of China's exploding thirst for crude oil are epic in scope...  There is not just one new economic behmoth emerging in the China Rim region, there are two... The simultaneous economic rise of China and India will have a huge impact on worldwide crude oil markets.... The rapid and simultaneous rise of at least two behmoth economies, China and India, comes at time when the world's oil production appears poised to peak. A sustained upward move in crude oil prices is likely to create drilling economics that will favor the exploitation of reserves that were previously uneconomical to tap. However, the marginal increase in reserves that might result is unlikely, in our view, to substantially offset the crude oil impact of an eventual worldwide 'peak' in crude oil production...While China's economic rise is fostering a worldwide grab for crude oil reserves, it is also creating a 'war chest' with which China is financing the rapid modernization of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA, in turn, is the ultimate guarantor of China's energy security. One of the key purposes of this analysis is to provide our research users with a 'context' or 'unified theory' for interrelating economic, crude oil, and military developments on the China rim.... The Laguna Research Partners Energy Security Index measures total military expenditures per barrel of crude oil consumed. We calculate ESI for nations and regions.... These figures lend credence to our view that the US is currently critical to the energy security of both India and Russia - in defence of sea lanes and oil fields, respectively - vis-a-vis China... Our ...   calculations show that China and the United States make estimated non-core military expenditures of US $47.01 AND US $42.38 per barrel of crude oil imported, respectively...[Japan, South Korea, India and Taiwan] have been beneficiaries of the US energy security umbrella. China's economic, crude oil, and military emergence, though, is prompting all of these leading China Rim crude oil importers to implement increasingly aggressive defence postures... From a short-term standpoint, worldwide crude oil demand is continuing to expand, but the world's crude oil production infrastructure is running at 'near full' capacity. From a long-term perspective, major new China Rim region buyers of crude oil - China and India - are emerging during a period when worldwide crude oil is approaching a peak. Meaningful new crude oil demand from Brazil will likely add to demand-side pressures during this critical 'peak oil' transition..."
Crisis on the China Rim: An Economic, Crude Oil, and Military Analysis
Laguna Research Partners, 14 April 2005
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"In the struggle for global dominance, oil is the central currency. Its indispensability for industry, agriculture, transport and military capability, along with the near-certainty that oil production will peak around 2010-2015, is refashioning conventional power rivalries. A new regional and superpower coalition of China, Russia, India and Brazil is emerging, and attracting the close interest of major oil producers, such as Iran and Venezuela, as a counterweight to American power. The coalition already covers 75 per cent of the world's population and 80 per cent of its natural resources. Iran also looks poised to join, after its recent $200bn (£106bn) energy deal with China, while Venezuela under Hugo Chavez may turn out, even more than Iran, to be the next centre of confrontation for oil supremacy. Venezuela, the biggest Opec producer outside the Gulf, and a major supplier to the US in the past, is offering to help China build a strategic oil reserve. China, like the US, tends to equate energy security with physical possession or control of energy supplies. Chinese oil and natural-gas companies have already set up deals with African regimes such as Sudan's. They are increasingly active in the Gulf states, and may perhaps replace the US as Saudi Arabia's patron and protector.  Some suspect that the US lifted sanctions on Libya a year ago at least partly because it wanted to check China's growing influence in Africa. Even more significant is the realignment between Russia and China, wrought by fear of more assertive US power. Proposed joint military exercises, to be held in China, signify a rapprochement that is one of the most fundamental changes on the geopolitical scene for decades.... It is oil, not ideas of freedom or democracy, that will increasingly determine the direction of events. One wonders why, if human rights and freedom from oppression were really the lodestone of US foreign policy, Condoleezza Rice branded only Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Zimbabwe as 'outposts of tyranny'. Why not also Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan? The regimes in charge of all these countries could be called 'oppressors', with systemic use of torture and sup-pression of basic rights. But the US depends on these countries economically, logistically and politically for its pursuit of the war on terror, as well as for its critical oil-supply routes. The rhetoric about democracy may suit Bush's domestic audience. But the British government will make serious errors over the next four years if it takes what he and other members of his administration say at face value."
Michael Meacher - Now for an even newer world order
New Statesman, 9 May 2005

Israel As Cheney Pawn In The Real Struggle For The Middle East And Central Asia America's Battle Against China For Control Of Persian Gulf And Caspian Energy Resources www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATUSvChina.htm Iran And Syria Next In Firing Line In Global Energy War Click Here "The U.S. and China, the world's top two oil consuming nations, must work together to avoid a competition for foreign supplies that might lead to military conflict, U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman said.... China's demand for oil is forecast to grow 2.9 percent a year between now and 2025, and U.S. demand will grow 1.5 percent a year. Efforts by each nation to use imports to meet growing demand may escalate competition for oil to something 'as hot and dangerous' as the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union, Lieberman, 63, said in a speech today in Washington.... 'There is a problem because China, like the United States, is tying its energy deals to military assistance,' said Michael Klare, author of  'Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum.' 'In the short term, it's more a case of stirring up local conflicts, where the U.S. and China are competing for the loyalty of oil producing countries, but that does have a tendency over time to escalate into something bigger,' said Klare, a professor at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts." U.S., China Must Cooperate or Risk Oil Conflict, Lieberman Says Bloomberg, 30 November 2005

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'Christians' For Nuclear War

Looking Forward To Armageddon Rapture Ready: The Christians United for Israel Tour 9 Minute Video Max Blumenthal takes us on a shocking and at times bizarre tour of right-wing Pastor John Hagee's annual Washington-Israel Summit, blowing the cover off the Christian Zionist movement in the process. Starring Joe Lieberman, Tom DeLay, Pastor John Hagee, Ambassador Dore Gold and a host of rapture-ready evangelicals praying for Armageddon Click Here

"On the seventh day, the Lord said, 'Nuke 'em!' In the Republican debate last night, Duncan Hunter, Rudy Giuliani, Jim Gilmore, and Mitt Romney all said that a nuclear strike against Iran is on the table.....There you have it from the Christian soldiers of the Republican Party, most of whom professed their faith, with McCain underscoring the piety by saying the United States is in a transcendent struggle of good and evil, with the evil of course being 'radical Islam.'.... These candidates still think they are the ones to move Islam toward modernity. No wonder some Muslims think we're on a crusade."
A debate goes nuclear
Boston Globe, 6 June 2007

"Republican candidates for U.S. president agreed on Tuesday that Iran must not develop atomic weapons even if a tactical nuclear strike is needed to stop it .... In a debate in New Hampshire where the country's first primary will be held next year, they were largely in agreement on an issue that President George W. Bush considers vital -- preventing Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is for civilian use only, but the West is deeply skeptical and is trying to resolve the problem through diplomacy. 'You shouldn't take any options off the table,' said the leader in the Republican pack, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, when asked whether a tactical nuclear strike might be necessary.... A second-tier candidate, California Rep. Duncan Hunter, was more direct, saying the United States reserved the right to dissuade Iran militarily. 'I would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons if there was no other way to preempt those particular centrifuges,' he said, while noting it could probably be done with conventional weapons. But Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a candidate drawing about 2 percent in opinion polls, opposed a nuclear strike on moral grounds and because he believed Iran was no threat to U.S. national security. 'We, in the past, have always declared war in defense of our liberties or go to aid somebody,' Paul said. 'But now we have accepted the principle of preemptive war. We have rejected the just war theory of Christianity.'"
Republicans: Iran must not have nuclear arms
Reuters, 5 June 2007

"Looking to their American counterparts on Monday, Knesset members were surprised at the solidarity and support being shown among key US politicians. Several top US political figures, including Sen. John McCain (R) Arizona, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Rep.) called the current Middle East crisis the beginning of 'World War III' and said they were 'gravely concerned' in an interview on CNN's Larry King Live.... 'They said this because they think it will lead to Iran getting involved, which they believe will set off World War III,' said MK Benny Elon (National Union-National Religious Party)......    Elon said that the comments originated with American evangelist John Hagee, who published a book in 2006 called Jerusalem Countdown, which predicted that World War III would begin in Jerusalem and spread to Western states."
Is this the start of World War III?
Jerusalem Post, 17 July 2006

'Whatever It Takes' CNN Asks Huckabee How Far He Would Be Willing To Go In Stopping Iran From Building A Nuclear Bomb And Whether That Would Include The US Using A 'Tactical Nuclear Device' Against It "Whatever it takes .... once they get started in aiming it at Israel, or taking action into Iraq, the destabilisation of the oil market that that would cause, the collapse of the economy, and the instability to world peace is simply a price too high to pay.  So whatever it takes to make sure they can't do it, that's what we have to be willing to do....I think the President is right to start by trying to bankrupt them before we bomb them. That's a good way to start. But we have to be prepared to take - again - 'whatever action'. And I don't want to go through every possible scenario, other than to say that that would mean just what it says. 'Whatever it takes'. ... [Interviewer, then asks, if that would include the use of a tactical nuclear device if required?] ... let's not try to, you know, tip the hand of what might have to be done. But let's also not be coy, and not be the least bit reticent to say that it would be unacceptable, totally unacceptable, to ever allow Iran to have nuclear weaponry given the language, the tone, and the direction of this regime." Republican Presidential Primary Candidate, Mike Huckabee CNN Clip,  Posted To YouTube 29 October 2007

"Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear 'bunker-busters', according to several Israeli military sources. The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb....  However, American experts warned of repercussions, including widespread protests that could destabilise parts of the Islamic world friendly to the West. Colonel Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world’s oil.”
Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran
Sunday Times, 7 January 2007

".... over the last few months the Americans have been busy upgrading some of the aircraft hangars at the Diego Garcia base in order to accommodate the B-2 stealth bombers -- equipped with new 30,000 lbs bunker-busting bombs -- that will relocate to the island from the Barksdale base in Missouri if President Bush decides to authorise military strikes against suspected illegal Iranian nuclear facilities."
Don't mention the Chagossians
New Statesman, 20 November 2007

"This past month may be remembered as the one when World War III broke out. Not the thing itself, obviously, but the concept, the memory, the nightmare, which had been buried in the basement of our cultural consciousness since the end of the Cold War. The beast suddenly broke out of the basement and it's in our face again. The return of the repressed. There was George Bush's Oct. 17 warning that 'if you're interested in avoiding World War III,' you ought to worry about the prospect of Iranian nukes. Many found the phrase jolting, coming out of the blue. First, because it had not been in widespread use, certainly not from a White House podium, and second because 'World War III' generally connotes a global nuclear war, while Bush was speaking about regional scenarios involving Iran and Israel. Why the sudden rhetorical escalation?....And then there was the 'mistake' that came to light about the same time as the Israeli raid [on Syria], the mistake in nuclear weapons handling, which allowed—for the first time in 40 years—six nuclear warheads to be flown over U.S. airspace, suspended from the wing of a long-range B-52 bomber en route from Minot, N.D., to Barksdale, La., a staging point for Mideast missions. And though the incident appears to have been an accident, it set off seething blogospheric speculation about its connection to ... a prospective U.S. raid on Iran."
Talkin' World War III
Slate, 29 November 2007

"The unauthorized Aug. 29 cross-country flight of a B-52H Stratofortress armed with six nuclear-tipped AGM-29 Advanced Cruise missiles, which saw these 150-kiloton warheads go missing for 36 hours, has all the elements of two Hollywood movies.... So far, the Pentagon, which has launched two separate investigations into the incident, seems to be assuming that it is dealing with the comedy version, saying that some incredible 'mistake' led to nuclear weapons being taken inadvertently from a weapons-storage bunker, loaded into launch position on a bomber, and flown from North Dakota to Louisiana. The American Conservative has discovered that to date, more than a month after the incident, Pentagon investigators have completely ignored a peculiar cluster of six deaths, during the weeks immediately preceding and following the flight, of personnel at the two Air Force bases involved in the incident and Air Force Commando Operations headquarters.... Apparently the nukes (which can be set to explode at between 5 kilotons and 150 kilotons) were easily spotted by a Barksdale AFB ground crew when they went out to the plane on the tarmac hours after it landed.... Philip Coyle, a senior advisor at the Center for Defense Information who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, calls the iincident 'astonishing' and 'unbelievable.' He says, 'This wasn’t just a mistake. I’ve counted, and at least 20 things had to have gone wrong for this to have occurred.'”
The Mystery of Minot: Loose nukes and a cluster of dead airmen raise troubling questions
Baltimore Chronicle, 21 November 2007

"Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources. The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.... Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.....Israeli pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. Three possible routes have been mapped out, including one over Turkey. Air force squadrons based at Hatzerim in the Negev desert and Tel Nof, south of Tel Aviv, have trained to use Israel’s tactical nuclear weapons on the mission. The preparations have been overseen by Major General Eliezer Shkedi, commander of the Israeli air force.  Sources close to the Pentagon said the United States was highly unlikely to give approval for tactical nuclear weapons to be used. One source said Israel would have to seek approval 'after the event', as it did when it crippled Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak with airstrikes in 1981. Scientists have calculated that although contamination from the bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be released. The Israelis believe that Iran’s retaliation would be constrained by fear of a second strike if it were to launch its Shehab-3 ballistic missiles at Israel. However, American experts warned of repercussions, including widespread protests that could destabilise parts of the Islamic world friendly to the West. Colonel Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world’s oil.  Some sources in Washington said they doubted if Israel would have the nerve to attack Iran. However, Dr Ephraim Sneh, the deputy Israeli defence minister, said last month: 'The time is approaching when Israel and the international community will have to decide whether to take military action against Iran.'”
Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran
Sunday Times, 7 January 2007

"The former technician jailed for 18 years for leaking Israel's nuclear secrets has said he was trying to prevent a nuclear holocaust. In his first interview since his release, Mordechai Vanunu said he did not feel he was a traitor. 'I felt it was not about betraying; it was about reporting. It was about saving Israel from a new holocaust.' In the interview for the BBC's This World programme, Mr Vanunu said he had no regrets over his actions. 'I have no regrets despite the fact I have paid a heavy punishment, a large price,' he said. Mr Vanunu, 50, who is widely regarded as a traitor in Israel, spent nearly 18 years in prison for revealing details of Israel's clandestine nuclear arms programme. Supporters welcomed his release in April, calling him a 'hero of peace'.... Mr Vanunu was kidnapped in Italy by Israeli agents in 1986 following a Sunday Times article, based on an interview with him, which exposed Israel's atomic secrets. He described how a female secret agent lured him from London to Rome and distracted him in the car.... In Rome, Mr Vanunu was overpowered and drugged, then shipped back to Israel to be tried in secret. Now living in Jerusalem's St George's Anglican cathedral, Mr Vanunu is banned from using the internet or mobile phones, and may not approach embassies or borders."
Vanunu 'wanted to avert holocaust'
BBC Online, 29 May 2004

"All I can say is this: the Israeli government is preparing to use nuclear weapons in its next war with the Islamic world. Here where I live, people often talk of the Holocaust. But each and every nuclear bomb is a Holocaust in itself. It can kill, devastate cities, destroy entire peoples. The Israeli Defense Ministry has long had a nuclear arsenal. Israeli intelligence tried to keep the existence of this arsenal secret from the outside world, but fortunately did not succeed. Nevertheless, they are still trying to silence me - even now, after seventeen-and-a-half years in prison."
Interview with Mordechai Vanunu: Israel preparing to use nuclear weapons against Iran
Voyenny Parad, No. 4, 2005 (original Russian) - Globalresearch.ca

'Gwine Up To Hebbin!'

"Dumb All Over" [Lyric Extracts, From Frank Zappa's  'You Are What You Is' Album, 1981]
Nurds on the left Nurds on the right Religous fanatics On the air every night Sayin' the Bible Tells the story Makes the details Sound real gory 'Bout what to do If the geeks over there Don't believe in the book We got over here You cant run a race Without no feet n pretty soon There wont be no street For dummies to jog on Or doggies to dog on Religous fanatics Can make it be all gone (I mean it wont blow up n disappear It'll just look ugly For a thousand years...)...	It says in the book: "Burn 'n destroy... 'N repent, 'n redeem 'N revenge, 'n deploy 'N rumble thee forth To the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side 'Cause they don't go for what's in the book 'N that makes 'em BAD So verily we must choppeth them up And stompeth them down Or rent a nice French bomb To poof them out of existance While leaving their real estate just where we need it To use again For temples in which to praise OUR GOD ('Cause he can really take care of business!')	...[If we're told] God says It's okay to do this stuff Then we gotta do it, 'Cause if we don't do it, We ain't gwine up to hebbin! (Depending on which book you're using at the time...Can't use theirs... it don't work ...it's all lies...Gotta use mine...)..... Hey, we can't really be dumb If we're just following God's Orders Hey, let's get serious... God knows what he's doin' He wrote this book here An' the book says: 'He made us all to be just like Him,' so... If we're dumb... Then God is dumb... (An' maybe even a little ugly on the side)

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9/11 Did Not Change Our Attitude Towards Iraq - Only Our Ability To Act On It
Both Blair And Bush Were Plotting Against Iraq From Their Early Pre-9/11 Days In Office

'Christian' Blair Was Plotting Against Iraq Long Before 9/11

"When Tony Blair became Leader of the Opposition in 1994, he — like Margaret Thatcher — knew little about foreign policy. What he did have was a series of instincts about how the Major Government and the international community had handled affairs in Bosnia, and he wasn’t impressed. Ever the anti-fatalist, once in office he was inclined to see such problems as requiring a solution. And passing across his desk in autumn 1997 were a series of intelligence reports concerning the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and his weapons of mass destruction. 'We cannot let him get away with it,' he told Paddy Ashdown that November..... As the Kosovo crisis developed, Blair had delivered a major foreign policy speech in Chicago that spring. This address outlined a doctrine of liberal interventionism, arguing that there were circumstances when, though its interests were not directly threatened, the international community might intervene in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. The speech singled out two major villains: Milosevic and Saddam..... By Christmas 2001 the Taleban were defeated and Bin Laden was on the run. Now, the question was, what came next? The American answer, by early 2002, was Saddam. Our man at the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, was, he told me, very surprised because he couldn’t see the relevance of Iraq to 9/11. What had changed, Greenstock thought, was the calculus of opportunity — Bush could now get support for action against Iraq that would previously have been opposed by the American people. In London, Tony Blair was thinking about Iraq in a slightly different way. To him, according to Sir David Manning, his foreign policy adviser, it was the calculus of risk that had altered with the attack on America. The nightmare was the confluence of WMD with terrorism; nuclear programmes were believed to be up and running in Libya, Iran and North Korea, and Saddam’s continued defiance of UN resolutions seemed to confirm intelligence reports of continuing WMD capacity. Worse, the existing sanctions regime against Iraq was crumbling. 'What you could get away with before 9/11,' explained David Manning, 'was no longer acceptable.'.... When war came it was the 'coalition of the willing'. Bush had phoned Blair two days earlier to tell him that Britain could stand aside if it meant saving Blair’s premiership. 'I said rather than lose your Government,' Bush told me, 'be passive, you know we’ll go without you if need be.' Blair refused. I asked him why. His answer was impassioned. 'Because I think this is the most fundamental struggle of our time and there is only one place to be which is in the thick of it and trying to sort it out.' Some, including Colin Powell, have subsequently criticised Blair for never really facing Bush down. I put Powell’s words to Blair. 'It wasn’t a bargaining chip for me,' he replied. 'I wasn’t in a position where I was negotiating with him (Bush) in order to get him to do something different. In my view if it wasn’t clear that the whole nature of the way Saddam was dealing with this issue had changed I was in favour of military action. And, I am afraid, in one sense it is worse than people think in so far as my position is concerned. I believed in it. I believed in it then, I believe in it now.'”
Tony Blair: The war? I believed in it, I believed in it then, I believe in it now
London Times, 17 November 2007

"When Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to Washington, published his memoirs DC Confidential 18 months ago, Tony Blair reportedly called him 'a complete pr**k'. .... So Downing Street residents are unlikely to be tossing ticker tape over an interview that Sir Christopher's wife, Lady Catherine Meyer has granted Whitehall and Westminster World magazine, in which she mentions the famously testy subject of Blair and George Bush's shared Christianity. 'They are both very religious and I believe that they both feel that what they are doing - especially Blair - is what God wants them to do and that God has chosen their way,' says Lady Meyer, a Conservative who (regardless of the Meyers' pillow talk) had opportunity to observe both leaders closely. 'This is why they bonded immediately.' She adds: 'Blair started talking about getting rid of Saddam Hussein way before September 11 ... in 1998. So I think that on Iraq he was more ready than Bush, who only really came into this conversation after 9/11.' Lady Meyer goes on to accuse Blair's government of 'astounding hypocrisy'."
Blair is on a mission from God, says diplomat's wife
Independent, 20 March 2007

"Tony Blair has admitted for the first time that he ignored the pleas of his aides and ministers to deter President Bush from waging war on Iraq because he believed that America was doing the right thing. And he has acknowledged that he turned down a last-ditch offer from Mr Bush to pull Britain out of the conflict. He has also revealed that he wishes he had published the full reports from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) instead of the infamous September dossier about Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction that so damaged him, and was almost certainly one of the factors that contributed to him leaving office sooner than he wanted. In frank remarks in a BBC documentary, Mr Blair confirmed openly the belief of many of his closest supporters that he never used his position as America’s strongest ally to try to force Mr Bush down the diplomatic rather than the military route....In return for promising Mr Blair that he would try to help get a second resolution at the UN, he also won Mr Blair’s pledge that if he got 'stuck' in the UN, war would be the only way out. Mr Blair later suggested that Mr Bush tried for a second resolution as a 'favour' to him."
Tony Blair: ‘I wanted war – it was the right thing to do’
London Times, 17 November 2007

"Last September 24th, as Congress prepared to vote on the resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to wage war in Iraq, a group of senior intelligence officials, including George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq’s weapons capability.....According to two of those present at the briefing.... this time the argument that Iraq had a nuclear program under way was buttressed by a new and striking fact: the C.I.A. had recently received intelligence showing that, between 1999 and 2001, .....On the same day, in London, Tony Blair’s government made public a dossier containing much of the information that the Senate committee was being given in secret—that Iraq had sought to buy 'significant quantities of uranium' from an unnamed African country... President Bush cited the uranium deal, along with the aluminum tubes, in his State of the Union Message, on January 28th, while crediting Britain as the source of the information: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought 'significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'....Then the story fell apart. On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes.... Some I.A.E.A. investigators.... speculated that MI6—the branch of British intelligence responsible for foreign operations—had become involved, perhaps through contacts in Italy.... Forged documents and false accusations have been an element in U.S. and British policy toward Iraq at least since the fall of 1997, after an impasse over U.N. inspections....A former Clinton Administration official told me that London had resorted to, among other things, spreading false information about Iraq. The British propaganda program—part of its Information Operations, or I/Ops—was known to a few senior officials in Washington.... dozens of unverified and unverifiable intelligence reports and tips—data known as inactionable intelligence—[were] to be funnelled to MI6 operatives and quietly passed along to newspapers in London and elsewhere. 'It was intelligence that was crap, and that we couldn’t move on, but the Brits wanted to plant stories in England and around the world,' the former officer said. There was a series of clandestine meetings with MI6, at which documents were provided, as well as quiet meetings, usually at safe houses in the Washington area..... None of the past and present officials I spoke with were able to categorically state that the fake Niger documents were created or instigated by the same propaganda office in MI6 that had been part of the anti-Iraq propaganda wars in the late nineteen-nineties (An MI6 intelligence source declined to comment.)....[However] What is generally agreed upon, a congressional intelligence-committee staff member told me, is that the Niger documents were initially circulated by the British—President Bush said as much in his State of the Union speech—and that 'the Brits placed more stock in them than we did.' It is also clear, as the former high-level intelligence official told me, that 'something as bizarre as Niger raises suspicions everywhere.'... "
WHO LIED TO WHOM?
New Yorker, 24 March 2003

"Britain ran a covert 'dirty tricks' operation designed specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war on Iraq. Operation Rockingham, established by the Defence Intelligence Staff within the Ministry of Defence in 1991, was set up to 'cherry-pick' intelligence proving an active Iraqi WMD programme and to ignore and quash intelligence which indicated that Saddam's stockpiles had been destroyed or wound down. The existence of Operation Rockingham has been confirmed by Scott Ritter, the former UN chief weapons inspector, and a US military intelligence officer. He knew members of the Operation Rockingham team and described the unit as 'dangerous', but insisted they were not 'rogue agents' acting without government backing. 'This policy was coming from the very highest levels,' he added....Ritter and other intelligence sources say Operation Rockingham and MI6 were supplying skewed information to the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) which, Tony Blair has told the Commons, was behind the intelligence dossiers that the government published to convince the parliament and the people of the necessity of war against Iraq. Sources in both the British and US intelligence community are now equating the JIC with the Office of Special Plans (OSP) in the US Pentagon. The OSP was set up by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to gather intelligence which would prove the case for war....Many in British intelligence believe the planned parliamentary inquiry by MPs on the Intelligence and Security Committee will pass the blame for the use of selective intelligence to the JIC, which includes senior intelligence figures. Intelligence sources say this would be unfair as they claim the JIC was following political instructions."
Revealed: the secret cabal which spun for Blair
Sunday Herald, 8 June 2003

British Crimes What Were Operations 'Rockingham' And 'Mass Appeal'? And What Did They Have To Do With The Allegedly Murdered Government Scientist Dr David Kelly? Click Here "Norman Baker, a Lib Dem MP who has already proved his sleuthing abilities. His probing led to Peter Mandelson’s resignation over the Hinduja affair. He brought to light MPs’ profligate expenses. Campaigning on everything from animal vivisection to persecution in Tibet, he has probably done more than any other MP in recent years to expose abuses of power. Along the way he has made enemies who would like to see him dismissed as a madman or a fantasist. He is neither. In The Strange Death of David Kelly, Baker is a latterday Sherlock Holmes, examining all the evidence and uncovering omissions and inconsistencies that cast doubt on the conclusions of the £1.7m Hutton inquiry. Nearly a quarter of 1,000 British adults questioned for a recent BBC poll said they thought Kelly had not killed himself. More were unsure. So Baker has hit on a case ripe for investigation. Frustratingly, though, he has not solved it..... [He suggests] that Kelly died at the hands of a shadowy Iraqi group whose crime was 'subsequently covered up by the government', or that 'a tiny cabal within the British Establishment commissioned assassins to undertake [Kelly’s murder]'.” The Strange Death of David Kelly by Norman Baker Sunday Times, 11 November 2007 "No fingerprints were found on the gardening knife allegedly used by the scientist to cut one of his wrists." Iraq whistleblower Dr Kelly WAS murdered to silence him, says MP Daily Mail, 20 October 2007

And So Were The Necons

"Years before George W. Bush entered the White House, and years before the Sept. 11 attacks set the direction of his presidency, a group of influential neo-conservatives hatched a plan to get Saddam Hussein out of power... The group was never secret about its aims. In its 1998 open letter to Clinton, the group openly advocated unilateral U.S. action against Iraq.... Of the 18 people who signed the letter, 10 are now in the Bush administration. As well as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, they include Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage  ... "
Were Neo-Conservatives’ 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War?
ABC News, 10 March 2003

"We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding..... It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard."
Open Letter To President Bill Clinton, 26 January 1998
Signed by: Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber., Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, Robert B. Zoellick

"For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."
Dick Cheney, Chief Executive of Halliburton, now Vice President of the United States
Speech at London Institute of Petroleum, Autumn Lunch 1999

Bush Himself Had Become Involved In The Plotting Against Iraq Since At Least January 2001

Britain's Top Diplomat Takes Parting Shot At Bush Administration 'Fight Smart', 23 October 2007 [Extracts] In his preface to 'Against All Enemies' Clarke unambiguously states that "President Bush did little or nothing about terrorism before 9/11" and that "the Bush administration began plotting to invade Iraq early in their term, well before 9/11".  The latter claim is well supported by others involved, most notably Paul O'Neill who, as Bush's original Treasury Secretary, attended meetings of the National Security Council. O'Neill confirms that regime change in Iraq was right at the top of the agenda of the very first meeting of NSC at the end of January 2001. Iraq also took up the whole of the second meeting in early February. After resigning in December 2002 O'Neill eventually let the press know that the goal of removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq was already self-evident in those early stages of the Bush administration. CBS quoted O'Neill in 2004 as saying, "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this." Additional reporting by the BBC TV's flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, has also revealed that the Bush administration had been planning regime change right from the outset (the BBC broadcast the account of a witness who had been tasked to interview potential successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration. Secret meetings took place in California, Washington and the Middle East). Yet the 9/11 Commission report states that "Every official we questioned about the possibility of an invasion of Afghanistan said that it was almost unthinkable, absent a provocation such as 9/11 .... because they believed the public would not support it." If that was true of a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan with strong ties to Bin Laden and al Qaeda, how much more true was it in respect of an invasion of Iraq, a country which had no such connections? Although we know now that military planning against Iraq had been going on since that first NSC meeting in January described by Paul O'Neill (of which a bit more later), there would be no opportunity to market such a 'high octane' venture to the American public until after the national trauma of 9/11............... Domestic politics in America were transformed on 9/11 like they have never been transformed before. The fundamental driver behind the neoconservative's interest in the Persian Gulf is not a mystery as can be seen from the 1998 Clinton letter. But Ron's Suskin's book 'The Price Of Loyalty' puts a little more flesh on the bones. The book is based mostly on interviews with Bush's former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and on thousands of White House internal documents provided by O'Neill after his resignation from that post. Suskin, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, describes one particular experience which O'Neill encountered after returning to his office shortly after the first meeting of Bush's National Security Council on 30 January 2001: ".... O'Neill opened a memo from Donald Rumsfeld.... In describing why the military budget was due for a dramatic increase, Rumsfeld articulated, with a five-point illustration of a dire global landscape, the underlying ideas that were now guiding foreign policy...[including] 'The civil sector, not the defense sector, now creates the enabling technologies for advanced military capabilities. These universally available technologies can be used to create 'asymmetric' responses by small or medium sized states to our conventional military power that cannot defeat our forces, but can deny access to critical areas of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.'....." Those "critical areas of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia", including the Persian Gulf, Russia, and the Caspian Sea region, are where most of the world's conventional oil and gas resources reside. Also located within them are the equally crucial pipeline corridors required to transport those resources to international shipping ports. Further on in the book O'Neill is more specific about the Bush's administration's particular interest in Iraqi oil right from the start: "Beneath the surface was a battle O'Neill had seen brewing since the NSC meeting on January 30. It was Powell and his moderates at the State Department versus hard-liners like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz, who were already planning the next war in Iraq and the shape of a post-Saddam country. Documents were being prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, Rumsfeld's intelligence arm, mapping Iraq's oil fields and exploration areas and listing companies that might be interested in leveraging the precious asset. One document, headed 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts,' lists companies from thirty countries - including France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom - their specialities, bidding histories, and in some cases their particular areas of interest. An attached document maps Iraq with markings for 'supergiant oilfield,' 'other oil-field,' and 'earmarked for production sharing,' while demarking the largely undeveloped southwest of the country into nine 'blocks' to designate areas for future exploration. The desire to 'dissuade' countries from engaging in 'asymmetrical challenges' to the United States - as Rumsfeld said in his January articulation of the demonstrative value of a preemptive attack - matched with plans for how the world's second largest oil reserve might be divided among the world's contractors made for an irresistible combination, O'Neill later said. Already by February, the talk was mostly about logistics. Not the why, but the how and how quickly. Rumsfeld, O'Neill recalled, was focused on how an incident might cause escalated tensions - like the shooting down of an American plane in the regular engagements between U.S. fighters and Iraqi antiaircraft batteries - and what U.S. responses to such an occurrence might be....." Eventually it would not be agent provocateur US fighters over Iraq, but rather US commercial aircraft over America, which would provide the necessary 'incident' to begin the war. The ultimate backdrop to this emerging situation was, however, the onset of an anticipated American energy crisis identified by Dick Cheney's secretive energy task force, established at the beginning of the Presidency. This scenario is described in another chapter of 'The Price of Loyalty', which reads as follows: "[On], March 19 [2001], O'Neill and members of the Vice President's National Energy Policy Development Group filed into the cabinet room to present their findings to the President about the state of energy production and consumption in the United States. This presentation marked the completion of the first two phases (the second would be creating policy recommendations) that had been decided on in late January, when the President officially empowered Dick Cheney to handle energy.... This task force, Cheney's, would operate in utmost privacy.... So, on March 19, at an hour-long meeting in the cabinet room, the President was hearing dark predictions about the economic effects of a looming energy crisis... " Some of the task force papers regarding Iraq eventually came into the public domain as a result of litigation, here described by the Daily Telegraph in the summer of 2003: “Documents released under America's Freedom of Information Act reveal that an energy task force led by vice-president Dick Cheney was examining Iraq's oil assets two years before the latest war began. The papers were obtained after a long battle with the White House by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal charity that opposes government secrecy and which is suing for the dealings of the task force to be made public. The emergence of the documents could fuel claims that America's war in Iraq had as much to do with oil as national security. It also indicates that the Bush administration is beginning to lose the battle to keep its internal workings secret. The 16 pages, dated March 2001, show maps of Iraq oil fields, pipelines, refineries and terminals. A document titled Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts is also included, listing which countries were keen to do business with Saddam's regime. Judicial Watch requested the papers two years ago as part of its investigation into links between the Bush administration and senior energy executives including Enron's former chairman Ken Lay. Mr Cheney has fought the release of the documents at every stage."

A year ago, Paul O'Neill was fired from his job as George Bush's Treasury Secretary for disagreeing too many times with the president's policy on tax cuts. Now, O'Neill - who is known for speaking his mind - talks for the first time about his two years inside the Bush administration. His story is the centerpiece of a new book being published this week about the way the Bush White House is run. Entitled 'The Price of Loyalty,' the book by a former Wall Street Journal reporter draws on interviews with high-level officials who gave the author their personal accounts of meetings with the president, their notes and documents. But the main source of the book was Paul O'Neill.... he is going public because he thinks the Bush Administration has been too secretive about how decisions have been made....  Suskind says he interviewed hundreds of people for the book – including several cabinet members. O'Neill is the only one who spoke on the record, but Suskind says that someone high up in the administration – Donald Rumsfeld - warned O’Neill not to do this book.... Not only did O'Neill give Suskind his time, he gave him 19,000 internal documents.... And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations. 'From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,' says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic 'A' 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.....'It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’' says O’Neill."
Bush Sought ‘Way’ To Invade Iraq?
CBS News, 11 January 2003

What Was Bothering Cheney And Rumsfeld?
The Majority Of The World's Oil And Gas Is In Russia, The Middle East, And Central Asia

"On the afternoon of January 30, ten days after his inauguration as the forty-third president, George W.Bush met with the principals of his National Security Council for the first time.... The designated topic was 'Middle East Policy,' but the agendas that had been sent round over the preceding days had offered only thin details.... He turned to Rice. 'So Condi, what are we going to talk about today? What's on the agenda?' 'How Iraq is destabilising the region, Mr. President,' Rice, said in what several observers understood was a scripted exchange. She noted that Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region. Rice said that CIA director Tenet would offer a briefing on the latest intelligence on Iraq. Tenet pulled out a long scroll, the size of an architectural blueprint, and flattened it on the table. It was a grainy photograph of a factory. Tenet said that surveillance planes had taken this photo. The CIA believed the building might be 'a plant that produces either chemical or biological materials for weapons manufacture.'... Cheney motioned to the deputies, the backbenchers, lining the wall. 'Come on up,' he said with uncharacteristic excitement, waving his arm. 'You have to take a look at this.'... After a moment, [Treasury Secretary Paul] O'Neill interjected, 'I've seen a lot of factories around the world that look a lot like this one. What makes us suspect that this one is producing chemical or biological weapons?' Tenet mentioned a few items of circumstantial evidence - such as the round-the-clock rhythm of shipments in and out of the plant - but said there was 'no confirming intelligence' as to the materials being produced... The hour almost up, Bush had assignments for everyone.... Rumsfeld and Shelton [Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff], he said, 'should examine military options.' That included rebuilding the military coalition from the 1991 Gulf War, examining 'how it might look' to use U.S. ground forces in the north and the south of Iraq and how the armed forces could support groups inside the country who could help challenge Saddam Hussein.... Meeting adjourned. Ten days in, and it was about Iraq. O'Neill walked back to Treasury, running scenes from the situation room through his head. 'Getting Hussein was now the administration's focus, that much was already clear,' he recalled... The meeting had seemed scripted. Rumsfeld had said little, Cheney nothing at all, though both men had long entertained the idea of overthrowing Saddam. Rice orchestrated, and Tenet had a presentation ready. Powell seemed surprised that we were abandoning the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and making Iraq the focal point. General Shelton appeared concerned. Was there already an 'in group' and an 'out' group.?... Shortly after he returned to his office, O'Neill opened a memo from Donald Rumsfeld. It was titled 'Talking Points, FY01 and FY02-07 Budget Issues.' For the most part, however, it was not a traditional budget document. In describing why the military budget was due for a dramatic increase, Rumsfeld articulated, with a five-point illustration of a dire global landscape, the underlying ideas that were now guiding foreign policy...'The civil sector, not the defense sector, now creates the enabling technologies for advanced military capabilities. These universally available technologies can be used to create 'asymmetric' responses by small or medium sized states to our conventional military power that cannot defeat our forces, but can deny access to critical areas of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.'.....The next meeting of the NSC principals was called for 3 p.m. on Thursday, February 1, in the White House Situation Room. O'Neill arrived a few minutes early and read the cover sheet of his briefing materials [which indicated that the whole meeting was concerned with Iraq including 'Political-Military Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq Crisis (interagency working paper) - SECRET'.].... Powell began by discussing the new strategy for 'targeted sanctions.' But, after a moment, Rumsfeld interrupted. 'Sanctions are fine,' he said. 'But what we really want to think about is going after Saddam.' He then launched into an assessment of the broader U.S. goal of getting rid of Saddam and replacing the current regime with one more inclined towards cooperative relations with the United States and its Western allies.... Rumsfeld began to talk in general terms about post-Saddam Iraq, dealing with the Kurds in the north, the oil fields, the reconstruction of the country's economy, and the 'freeing of the Iraqi people'. The hanging question was how to arrive at this desired goal.... O'Neill thought about Rumsfeld's memo.... A weak but increasingly obstreperous Saddam might be useful as a demonstration model of America's new, unilateral resolve.... 'There was never any rigorous talk about this sweeping idea that seemed to be driving all the specific actions,' O'Neill said, echoing the comments of several other participants in NSC discussions. 'From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country. And, if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying, 'Fine. Go find me a way to do this.'"
Chapter 2 - A Way To Do It
The Price Of Loyalty - Free Press 2004
(Ron Suskin's book about Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill based on interviews with O'Neill and copies of over 19,000 Bush Administration documents provided by O'Neill - the book was vetted for accuracy by O'Neill prior to publication and serves as his own insider account of the workings of the Bush administration)

"Beneath the surface was a battle O'Neill had seen brewing since the NSC meeting on 30 January. It was Powell and his moderates at the State Department versus hard-liners like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz, who were already planning the next war in Iraq and the shape of a post-Saddam country. Documents were being prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, Rumsfeld's intelligence arm, mapping Iraq's oil fields and exploration areas and listing companies that might be interested in leveraging the precious asset. One document, headed 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts,' lists companies from thirty countries - including France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom - their specialities, bidding histories, and in some cases their particular areas of interest. An attached document maps Iraq with markings for 'supergiant oilfield,' 'other oil-field,' and 'earmarked for production sharing,' while demarking the largely undeveloped southwest of the country into nine 'blocks' to designate areas for future exploration. The desire to 'dissuade' countries from engaging in 'asymmetrical challenges' to the United States - as Rumsfeld said in his January articulation of the demonstrative value of a preemptive attack - matched with plans for how the world's second largest oil reserve might be divided among the world's contractors made for an irresistible combination, O'Neill later said. Already by February, the talk was mostly about logistics. Not the why, but the how and how quickly. Rumsfeld, O'Neill recalled, was focused on how an incident might cause escalated tensions - like the shooting down of an American plane in the regular engagements between U.S. fighters and Iraqi antiaircraft batteries - and what U.S. responses to such an occurrence might be. Wolfowitz was pushing for the arming of Iraqi opposition groups and sending in U.S. troops to support and defend their insurgency. He had written in Foreign Affairs magazine in 1999 that 'the United States should be prepared to commit ground forces to protect a sanctuary in southern Iraq where the opposition could safely mobilise."
Chapter 3 - No Fingerprints
The Price Of Loyalty - Free Press 2004
(Ron Suskin's book about Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill based on interviews with O'Neill and copies of over 19,000 Bush Administration documents provided by O'Neill - the book was vetted for accuracy by O'Neill prior to publication and serves as his own insider account of the workings of the Bush administration)

"Any student of the presidency knows it is extremely rare for a campaign pledge to be broken in the first one hundred days, the time when a newly elected leader carries, most forcefully, the banner of vox populi, ready to do 'what I was elected to do.'... Yet Bush's campaign positions, that the United States would be noninterventionist ... were the very opposite of the policy that O'Neill, Powell, and the other NSC principals now saw unfolding. Actual plans, to O'Neill's astonishment, were already being discussed to take over Iraq and occupy it - complete with disposition of the oil fields, peacekeeping forces, and war crimes tribunals..."
Chapter 4 - Base Elements
The Price Of Loyalty - Free Press 2004
(Ron Suskin's book about Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill based on interviews with O'Neill and copies of over 19,000 Bush Administration documents provided by O'Neill - the book was vetted for accuracy by O'Neill prior to publication and serves as his own insider account of the workings of the Bush administration)

"Later that afternoon, March 19, O'Neill and members of the Vice President's National Energy Policy Development Group filed into the cabinet room to present their findings to the President about the state of energy production and consumption in the United States. This presentation marked the completion of the first two phases (the second would be creating policy recommendations) that had been decided on in late January, when the President officially empowered Dick Cheney to handle energy. The Vice President, upon receiving his charge, had vowed it wouldn't be the way it was before. In this case, before meant the energy task force that the first President Bush called into action in 1989 to assess what powered America and how to wean the country from dependence on oil. Back then, Energy Secretary James D. Watkins was in charge. There were eighteen public hearings. Four hundred and ninety-nine individuals from forty-three states participated in the forums..... In this Bush administration, Dick Cheney looked to keep it simple. Also quiet and efficient. He had been in both the Nixon and Ford administrations in periods of energy crises. He had witnessed sound and fury on energy policy during Bush I that in the end amounted to nothing. He'd run an energy company, Halliburton, for five years in the 1990s, and - all things considered - viewed himself an expert. That meant no public hearings or debate from opposing factions were required. Cheney was sure he knew all he needed to know..... O'Neill thought Cheney's task force was oddly constructed: made up solely of government officials. Most task forces go in the other direction: their strength is in creating a structure for government officials to mix with leading experts, former top public officials, or respected businessmen. Such entities are covered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, or FCA, which mandates that the activities of groups that combine governmental and nongovernmental officials be fully disclosed to the public; lists of members, advisers, agendas, and minutes of meetings must be made available. Because this was a task force with only government employees, there were no reporting requirements. O'Neill knew Cheney liked it that way... This task force, Cheney's, would operate in utmost privacy. Not that other voices didn't join in the conversation. Industry representatives - in bureaucratic language, the 'nonfederal stakeholders' - were just outside the door.... According to documents in O'Neill's files, along with those obtained in various disclosure actions filed against the Cheney task force, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham met with Corporations and trade groups, including Chevron, the National Mining Association, and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, each of which delivered policy recommendations in detailed reports... If process drives outcomes - an axiom O'Neill and his fellow pragmatists live by - this combination of confidentiality and influence by powerful interested parties would define the task force's analysis of energy issues... So, on March 19, at an hour-long meeting in the cabinet room, the President was hearing dark predictions about the economic effects of a looming energy crisis... For today's meeting, the stage direction had come from the Vice President's office and, as expected, Dick went first, sitting in the chair directly across from the President. He talked about the task force's structure, its methodology, and the sources it had relied upon. He said that the goal of phase one had been to 'assess more clearly what the energy needs are of a growing country and how to meet them.' O'Neill then talked, as scripted, about the way rising energy costs would cripple the economy and how the California crisis could spread to other regions, driving up energy costs for the coming summer. Spencer Abraham addressed the beleaguered coal industry, which still produces half the nation's energy, and how rising gas prices could be caused by 'unfolding supply constraints' in the United States. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman offered a short rendition of how rising fuel prices would affect agriculture. Larry Lindsey described how energy costs washed through many parts of the U.S. economy and hit certain areas of manufacturing particularly hard. And around the table they went."
Chapter 4 - Base Elements
The Price Of Loyalty - Free Press 2004
(Ron Suskin's book about Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill based on interviews with O'Neill and copies of over 19,000 Bush Administration documents provided by O'Neill - the book was vetted for accuracy by O'Neill prior to publication and serves as his own insider account of the workings of the Bush administration)

"The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, one of the world's great hotels, offered an oasis of luxury and comfort for the U.S. delegation after an exhausting week of meetings in Beijing with Chinese leaders in early September.... [O'Neill] flipped on the television to CNN. And sat on the edge of the bed. He stared at the flaming building, and his mind reeled backward to 1945, when he was a kid in Missouri and saw a newsreel at the movie theatre of a plane hitting the Empire State Building. The plane looked so small, like a penknife stuck in a sequoia. Good God, O'Neill thought, this must be the worst FAA mistake in history - some air traffic controller guided a plane into the Twin Towers...Then, as he watched smoke billow into the Manhattan sky, the second plane hit...There were no commercial flights available back to the States, many airports were closed. 'How do we get our hands on a military plane?' O'Neill asked.... Military cars arrived at midmorning the next day to pick up the O'Neill delegation..... The next morning, September 13, at 9:45 a.m., the NSC met with Bush in the situation room..... At an NSC meeting the day before, just as O'Neill's C-17 was landing at Andrew's Air Force Base, Rumsfeld, had raised the question of Iraq. The Pentagon had been working for months on a military plan for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein."
Chapter 5 - The Scale Of Tragedy
The Price Of Loyalty - Free Press 2004
(Ron Suskin's book about Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill based on interviews with O'Neill and copies of over 19,000 Bush Administration documents provided by O'Neill - the book was vetted for accuracy by O'Neill prior to publication and serves as his own insider account of the workings of the Bush administration)

"The war in Iraq is as immoral a conflict as the United States has ever been involved in. Past wars were fought in a day and age where information was not readily available on the totality of issues surrounding a given conflict. One could excuse citizens if they were not equipped with the knowledge and information necessary to empower them to speak out against bad policy. Not so today. For someone today to proclaim ignorance as an excuse for inactivity is as morally and intellectually weak an argument as can be imagined. The truth about those who claim they simply 'didn’t know' lies in their own lack of commitment to a strong America, one founded on principles and values worth fighting for, and one where every American is committed to the defense of the same. Ignorance is bad citizenship. In this day and age, bad citizenship carries ramifications beyond the environs of our local communities. Given America’s dominant role in the world, bad American citizenship has a way of manifesting itself globally..... [Professor] Alan Dershowitz can only wish that there had been more 'good Germans' speaking out about the policies of Adolf Hitler before the Holocaust became reality. I yearn for a time when 'good Americans' will be able to stop and reverse equally evil policies of global hegemony achieved through pre-emptive war of aggression. I know all too well that in this case the 'enemy' will only be emboldened by our silence, since at the end of the day the 'enemy' is ourselves. I can see the Harvard professor shaking an accusatory finger at me for the above statement, chiding me for creating any moral equivalency between the war in Iraq and the Holocaust. You’re right, Mr. Dershowitz. There is no moral equivalency. In America today, we should have known better, since we ostensibly stand for so much more. That we have collectively failed to halt and repudiate the war in Iraq makes us even worse than the Germans."
The Good American By Scott Ritter
Truthdig.com, 11 May 2007
Scott Ritter, was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991
and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998
Author of 'Iraq Confidential' (Nation Books, 2005) and 'Target Iran' (Nation Books, 2006)

The Following Is An Extract From A Post-9/11  Advertisement Published 23 September 2001 In The Washington Post And New York Times, And 25 September 2001 In The International Herald Tribune "When negotiations and the use of arms have failed to maintain peace in the family of nations, it is not wise to continue to pursue the path of failure. It is completely possible for the USA to take revenge against terrorists and continue to crush terrorism, month after month, and year after year, but the net result will be a chain of destruction from both sides. Remember, the US government rose against Hitler in order to stop destruction. Is it wise now for the USA to play the role of Hitler and initiate a world-wide destructive program? We would never like to compare President Bush with Hitler, but if the World War starts from this, what else could be the interpretation? Every military chief who waged a war at any time put forward very valid reasons to wage war. But it is the act of war that is devastating to the world. It doesn’t matter who plays the role of so-called bravery. In the beginning, when Hitler started his war, all of Germany was with him. Only the outside forces were there to counterbalance his wild fury. With the US government and the allies of NATO on one side, and the terrorists on the other side, life on earth — whether it is American life, Chinese life, Afghani life, or any life — will be burned in flames. Can brave Americans think how much of America and the allied countries will also be burned in this fierce competition of destruction from both sides? In this case, destruction will be the fate of both sides — terrorists and those who call themselves peacekeepers. Can the prevailing national defense system of any country save that country today from space-based warfare, chemical warfare, biological warfare, information warfare, guided missile warfare, suicidal attacks, and any other destructive system of warfare where the enemy is seen or unseen? If the government and people of the USA think they can destroy terrorism by starting to destroy terrorists, they should understand that any step in the direction of destruction will have destructive repercussions and will only help to create waves of destruction in time. This is a universal Law of Nature — action and reaction —  'As you sow, so shall you reap.'  It is a matter of truthfully facing the facts. The President of the US and the people of all the NATO alliance countries should understand that any war, anywhere, by anyone, will make the reality of war perpetual, as it has been throughout the ages. Wisdom in this scientific age demands eliminating the cause of all wars. We are making these logical inferences because we have a solution." A PDF File Of The Advertisement Can Be Downloaded Here (Source www.invincibledefence.org)

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