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To: long-gone who wrote (94419)	4/7/2003 4:42:05 AM
From: Richnorth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116764

FWIW, here is an interesting opinion, from rense.com. Why We Should Give Israel More By gogovialink@yahoo.com 4-4-3 Why shouldn't we give Israel more money, They are our best friend in the Middle East right? Here is a list of some of the things that they have done for us to earn this money. Let's start in 1967 when they attacked the USS Liberty. The US ship was monitoring a UN backed ceasefire when Israel "preemptively" attacked its neighbors. It was during a ceasefire and they didn't want the world to know what they were doing so they attacked the US hoping to sink the ship and kill everyone on it. The whole thing was kept hush hush, but just search the web and you'll find many references to it including a website maintained by the crew of the USS Liberty. Here is a quick synopsis home.cfl.rr.com or go directly to the USS Liberty Crew's site ussliberty.org They have repeatedly violated UN resolutions, Geneva conventions rules and only avoided sanctions because the US has repeatedly vetoed resolutions against Israel...showing the world just who runs the US. Here is a quick list of some of them: us-israel.org or try this one which is a list of resolutions ignored by Israel before 1993 (66 at that time more since then) washington-report.org And why shouldn't we help them build up their military.especially under Ariel Sharon who has ordered mass murder on a scale to rival Saddam Hussein. He was directly responsible for the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla and even the Israeli courts said he was indirectly responsible and forced him to step down from his position of head of the military. Here is a very sanitized version of this event. globalpolicy.org You can get more detailed versions by searching the web, especially UN reports (to remove bias). Dutch film crews even filmed Israel Defense personnel forcing people back into the camps to be massacred and put the death toll at approximately 3,000. The ways we can assist Israel in building their military would be to continue what we have been doing in the past. For instance: USA gave Israel the F-16 designs so that Israel could build the LAVI...result was fewer jobs for Amercians and Isreal then sold the designs to China. mideastfacts.com This cost the US taxpayers billions as well as jeopardizes our current and future security. USA gave AWACS technology to Israel and Israel wanted to sell it to China (created major rift between Washington and Israel that was only settled after Israel stopped planned sale) Lots of links to this on the web...just search USA gave Patriot missile technology to Israel for the joint USA/Israel Arrow missile. Israel sold patriot missile technology to others. The ARROW uses the same tracking technology as the patriot but kills in a different method (hit to kill vs explode in vicinity) There are several more of these that I can't remember right now. OH yeah and how did I forget Pollard. The Amercan selling defense secrets to Israel. Israel has repeatedly asked the US to release him and has even put additional money in a bank account for him when he gets out (giving us technology...more like stealing it) In return for all this help Israel has really helped us out, such as: Israel has given us the second biggest lobbying organization in Washington. We give them a few billion every year and then they funnel a few million back to US election campaigns...what a deal. Take all the payments to Israel in the last 35 years, correct for interest payments that US government is paying on deficit and then adjust to current dollars and it is somewhere between $300 and $400 billion US. Then divide that by the 5 million Israeli citizens and it is $60,000 to $80,000 per citizens that we have given them. Or look at it this way...it is about equal to this years budget deficit. Or, to put it in more perspective, divide it by the population of the USA and it is about $1,200 given for each US Citizen. Or, more importantly about $6,000 for each current US taxpayer. Oh, yeah and just in case I don't feel that I've contributed enough with my $12,000 (wife and I combined) there is a special law allowing me to make tax free contributions to Israel. Last year over $1billion given by private citizens. That is fine if private citizens want to give their money .except that by making it tax free they cost US over $300 million in taxes that could have been collected. Note this money is tax exempt no matter how Israel decides to use it. Including buying bulldozers that run over American Peace activists. And now because of our extremely biased foreign policies (why does the rest of the world condemn Israel for its policies.yes, including our number one ally Great Britain but the US never says a thing) we have a terrorist problem that is costing us much more than the $75 billion bill just passed (with $8 billion more going to Israel because their economy is bad.what about our economy?) Am I a peace activistnope. I believe if somebody attacks us we should make them pay dearly. Am I anti Jewish or Anti Arab. Nope I am anti-anybody who attacks me either directly or indirectly. Am I pro Arab or Pro Jewish. Definitely not, I am Pro American (absolutely against duel citizenship as I don't know how you can pledge allegiance to more than one country) Our unbiased backing of Israel is not Pro American and not one good thing has come of it. news.messages.yahoo.com &tid=apwarbudget&sid=37138469&mid=675

To: long-gone who wrote (94419)	4/7/2003 4:59:32 AM
From: Richnorth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116764

You said the US's presence in Iraq will not be permanent. But Azmi Bishara, a leading Palestinian political activist and member of the Knesset, seems to think otherwise. Not just for oil - US wants to dominate By AZMI BISHARA PERHAPS the masters of aggression, the pirates of this age, were taken aback by the extent of Iraqi resistance, having been blinded by racist assumptions and wishful thinking. Competition pervades decision-making processes in the US, as it does everything else. Such an orientation, though, can make people selective in their memory when they are trying to make a point. But such blinkers do not fully explain the debacle in which US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and their coterie of advisers find themselves today. Their major error was to underestimate the role of the state in Iraq - a country rich not just in oil, but also in culture and history. Since independence, the army has played a central role in Iraq's history - a role supported by the country's oil wealth which enabled it to maintain a large military that has gained extensive experience over the past three decades. But Iraq has more than just a strong army. Its state institutions provide extensive services to large sectors of the population. Since the fall of the monarchy, these institutions helped foster a national identity transcending ethnic and tribal boundaries. The state has, on occasion, exacerbated ethnic tension through certain actions and also through the composition of its army. Such friction is what the Americans and the British have decided to focus upon. They wagered on the divisions within Iraqi society and, when the time comes to address the question of Iraq's future, are likely to keep doing so. Iraq is fighting a war of self-defence under unfavourable circumstances. The state is used to regular, not guerilla, warfare. The future of the Iraqi resistance, and whether it would survive the possible demise of the state, are open questions. The Iraqi army not only lacks air support, but also sophisticated hardware and communications. Regular battles are likely to erupt around cities - near civilians, that is. This would complicate invaders' mission and lead to catastrophic results. Had Iraq been in possession of weapons of mass destruction, the right time for the regime to use them would be when it thought it was about to fall. So, where are these weapons? There are two possibilities. Either they don't exist, or the mere attempt to disarm Iraq would, ironically, lead to their use. This illustrates the futility of Mr Bush's declared mission to disarm the Gulf country. With each passing day, the campaign becomes bloodier and the post-war tasks costlier for the Americans. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that there are deranged people in the US administration who want this war to be costly in the hopes that it would effect a radical shift in US foreign policy. Extensive losses for Iraq, followed by similar ones on the US side, followed by victory. Such a scenario could wipe out the memory of Vietnam for good. Grenada and Panama were too easy to leave much of a mark. What America's extremist elite craves is a victory fraught with suffering - one that would change foreign policy as well as the public perception of war. Such a victory could make the US public more accepting of the idea of costly but successful military adventures. The course of battle in Iraq has contradicted the expectations of the Pentagon. The reaction of public opinion, inside and outside the US, to the ongoing war is likely to disappoint Washington's deranged hardliners who believe that the United Nations (UN) is an anachronism and that the US should take its military prowess more seriously. The primary goal of US hardline strategists is to achieve a decisive military and political victory in Iraq, and to impose US hegemony on the region by force. This goal is more important than oil because oil could be obtained through applying commercial and economic pressure. Many Israeli officials see Pentagon hardliners as their long-awaited saviours. 'The Americans have at last come to see our point of view,' the officials must now be rejoicing. The sad truth is that neither American nor Israeli hardliners are listening. Neither is aware of the disasters their actions would unleash. They think they will laugh last and longest, but their actions will bring forth only tears. =========================== The writer is a leading Palestinian political activist and member of the Knesset. This comment appeared in the Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo.