The Big Lie About 'Islamic Fascism'

by Eric Margolis

The latest big lie unveiled by Washington’s neoconservatives are the poisonous terms, "Islamo-Fascists" and "Islamic Fascists." They are the new, hot buzzwords among America’s far right and Christian fundamentalists.

President George W. Bush made a point last week of using "Islamofacists" when recently speaking of Hezbullah and Hamas – both, by the way, democratically elected parties. A Canadian government minister from the Conservative Party compared Lebanon’s Hezbullah to Nazi Germany.

The term "Islamofascist" is utterly without meaning, but packed with emotional explosives. It is a propaganda creation worthy Dr. Goebbles, and the latest expression of the big lie technique being used by neocons in Washington’s propaganda war against its enemies in the Muslim World.

This ugly term was probably first coined in Israel – as was the other hugely successful propaganda term, "terrorism" – to dehumanize and demonize opponents and deny them any rational political motivation, hence removing any need to deal with their grievances and demands.

As the brilliant humanist Sir Peter Ustinov so succinctly put it, "Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich."

Both the terms "terrorism" and "fascist" have been so abused and overused that they have lost any original meaning. The best modern definition I’ve read of fascism comes in former Colombia University Professor Robert Paxton’s superb 2004 book, The Anatomy of Fascism.

Paxton defines fascism’s essence, which he aptly terms its "emotional lava" as: 1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign "contamination."

Fascism demands a succession of wars, foreign conquests, and national threats to keep the nation in a state of fear, anxiety and patriotic hypertension. Those who disagree are branded ideological traitors. All successful fascists regimes, Paxton points out, allied themselves to traditional conservative parties, and to the military-industrial complex.

Highly conservative and militaristic regimes are not necessarily fascist, says Paxton. True fascism requires relentless aggression abroad and a semi-religious adoration of the regime at home.

None of the many Muslim groups opposing US-British control of the Mideast fit Paxton’s definitive analysis. The only truly fascist group ever to emerge in the Mideast was Lebanon’s Maronite Christian Phalange Party in the 1930’s which, ironically, became an ally of Israel’s rightwing in the 1980’s.

It is grotesque watching the Bush Administration and Tony Blair maintain the ludicrous pretense they are re-fighting World War II. The only similarity between that era and today is the cultivation of fear, war fever and racist-religious hate by US neoconservatives and America’s religious far right, which is now boiling with hatred for anything Muslim.

Under the guise of fighting a "third world war" against "Islamic fascism," America’s far right is infecting its own nation with the harbingers of WWII totalitarianism.

In the western world, hatred of Muslims has become a key ideological hallmark of rightwing parties. We see this overtly in the United States, France, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Poland, and, most lately, Canada, and more subtly expressed in Britain and Belgium. The huge uproar over blatantly anti-Muslim cartoons published in Denmark laid bare the seething Islamophobia spreading through western society.

There is nothing in any part of the Muslim World that resembles the corporate fascist states of western history. In fact, clan and tribal-based traditional Islamic society, with its fragmented power structures, local loyalties, and consensus decision-making, is about as far as possible from western industrial state fascism.

The Muslim World is replete with brutal dictatorships, feudal monarchies, and corrupt military-run states, but none of these regimes, however deplorable, fits the standard definition of fascism. Most, in fact, are America’s allies.

Nor do underground Islamic militant groups ("terrorists" in western terminology). They are either focused on liberating land from foreign occupation, overthrowing "un-Islamic" regimes, driving western influence from their region, or imposing theocracy based on early Islamic democracy.

Claims by fevered neoconservatives that Muslim radicals plan to somehow impose a worldwide Islamic caliphate are lurid fantasies worthy of Dr. Fu Manchu and yet another example of the big lie technique that worked so well over Iraq.

As Prof. Andrew Bosworth notes in an incisive essay on so-called Islamic fascism, "Islamic fundamentalism is a transnational movement inherently opposed to the pseudo-nationalism necessary for fascism."

However, there are plenty of modern fascists. But to find them, you have to go to North America and Europe. These neo-fascists advocate "preemptive attacks against all potential enemies," grabbing other nation’s resources, overthrowing uncooperative governments, military dominance of the world, hatred of Semites (Muslims in this case), adherence to biblical prophecies, hatred of all who fail to agree, intensified police controls, and curtailment of "liberal" political rights.

They revel in flag-waving, patriotic melodrama, demonstrations of military power, and use the mantle of patriotism to feather the nests of the military-industrial complex, colluding legislators and lobbyists. They urge war to the death, fought, of course, by other people’s children. They have turned important sectors of the media into propaganda organs and brought the Pentagon largely under their control.

Now, the neoconservatives are busy whipping up war against Syria and Iran to keep themselves in power and maintain the political dynamics of this 21st century revival of fascism.

The real modern fascists are not in the Muslim World, but Washington. The neocons screaming fascist the loudest, are the true fascists themselves. It’s a pity that communist and leftist propaganda so debased the term "neo-fascist" that it has become almost meaningless. Because that is what we should be calling the so-called neocons, for that is what they really are.

August 29, 2006

Eric Margolis contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada, is the author of War at the Top of the World. See his website.

www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis46.html

it is amazing how, if we let them, that the right wing neocon fascists, pro-israel filth would shape the debate. Thank G-d for alternative media.

Hey there. What about the other collaborators?

Like the Rat lines that the vatican and red cross set up to allow Nazi war criminals to escape?

All structures can be compromised.

Find the control personnel or center and apply pressure.

[Like the Rat lines that the vatican...]

I have a button somewhere in one of my "Miscellanious" drawers, that says

"My rat is the Pope".

Next question?

try looking up

rat line + vatican.

:>)

Just because the Pope, I mean Pot, is black, does not negate the fact that the Kettle is also black.

Moslems were utilized by, and were members of, the Croatian SS. It is a historical fact.

Sorry Dan.

CAIRO, Egypt - An American thought to be an al-Qaida activist appeared in a videotape with the terror group's deputy leader Saturday and called on his countrymen to convert to Islam and for U.S. soldiers to switch sides in the Iraq and Afghan wars.

The 48-minute video, posted on an Islamic militant Web site, had footage of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, and of Adam Yehiye Gadahn, a 28-year-old American who the FBI believes attended al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan and served as an al-Qaida translator.

It was the second time Gadahn appeared in the same video with al-Zawahri. In a July 7 video marking the one-year anniversary of the terror attack on London commuters, Gadahn appeared briefly, saying no Muslim should "shed tears" for Westerners killed by al-Qaida attacks.

But Saturday's video — and the length of Gadahn's speech — suggested al-Qaida has found in him someone who can communicate effectively with Americans.

Appearing days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the U.S., Gadahn spoke for nearly the entire video, wearing a white robe and a white turban, sitting in front of a desk with a computer and Islamic religious books in a room with a white wall.

The video included no direct threats of terror attacks.

Gadahn delivered a lecture on Islam and the "errors" in Christianity and Judaism. He also said the United States is losing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and told U.S. soldiers they are fighting President Bush's "crusades."

"Instead of killing yourself for Bush ... why not surrender to the truth (of Islam), escape from the unbelieving army and join the winning side. Time is running out so make the right choice before it's too late," he said.

Al-Zawahri gave only a brief introduction to the video, calling on Americans to convert to Islam.

"To the American people and the people of the West in general ... God sent his Prophet Muhammad with guidance and the religion of truth ... and sent him as a herald," he said.

The CIA said it had conducted a technical review on the videotape and concluded the voice is al-Zawahri's. A CIA spokeswoman said the agency is not authorized to conduct such analysis on U.S. citizens such as Gadahn.

White House spokeswoman Christie Parell said the message reflects al-Qaida's "continued attempts to subjugate the world under its twisted view of Islam, which labels as enemies and infidels those who do not have the same beliefs."

Little is known about Gadahn's role in al-Qaida. A Californian who converted to Islam, he disappeared soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. In 2004, the FBI announced it was seeking Gadahn in connection with possible terrorist threats against the U.S., but adding it did not have information linking him to any specific terror activities.

"You know that if you die as an unbeliever in battle against the Muslims you're going straight to Hell without passing 'Go,'" Gadahn said on the video, addressing American soldiers. "You know you're considered by Bush and his bunch of warmongers as nothing more than expendable cannon fodder ... You know they couldn't care less about your safety and well-being."

"We send a special invitation (to convert to Islam) to all of you fighting Bush's crusader pipe dream in Afghanistan, Iraq and wherever else 'W' has sent you to die. You know the war can't be won," he said, using Bush's nickname.

Gadahn also urged other Americans to convert to Islam.

"It is time for the unbelievers to discard these incoherent and illogical beliefs," he said. "Isn't it the time for the Christians, Jews, Buddhists and atheists to cast off the cloak of the spiritual darkness which enshrouds them and emerge into the light of Islam?"

Blanket Immunity from War Crimes

When Criticism of Cluster Bombs is "Anti-Semitic"

By STANLEY HELLER

The Israeli paper Ha'aretz reports that the head of Germany's Jewish community accused a minister in Angela Merkel's German government of "anti-Semitism" because of the minister's statement on Israel's use of cluster bombs. Development Aid Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul had asked for a United Nations probe into Israel's use of cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon.

Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of German Jews, complained about what she terms a growing "anti-mood [sic] against Israel and the Jews" in Germany. [Ha,aretz August 30] Merkel, who made absolutely no criticism of Israel during the fighting, immediately met with Knobloch to "soothe Jewish ire" according to Deutche Welle [August 31]

The U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland revealed this week that of the estimated 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs lying in Lebanon almost all of them were fired in the last few days of the fighting when the terms of the ceasefire had already been set. The Guardian (UK) reports Egleand said, "What's shocking--and I would say to me completely immoral is that ninety per cent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," he said.

It was known that in the last days of the war the Israeli army was engaged in a desperate attempt to have some "victory" and rushed troops here and there in an attempt to have a photo shoot near the Litani River. What was not known until now was the blind spite that sowed the ground of South Lebanon with a massive number of bomblets.

Cluster bombs are delivered by a large canister and disperse over a wide area, a sort of lethal piñata. The bomblets come in many sizes. Some are tiny, even smaller than 2 inches in diameter. Kids are constantly trying to kick them or pick them up with the result in the loss an arm or leg or even death. "Every day people are maimed, wounded and are killed by these ordnance," said Egeland. The UN official based his estimate on the reports of the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre which has traveled through 85% of Lebanon. The casualty figures as of 29 August from unexploded ordnance rose to 59 people, including 13 killed and 46 injured.

Responding to U.N. reports of cluster bombs being found in Lebanese civilian areas the U.S. government has begun an investigation to determine if cluster bombs have been responsible for civilian casualties. It seems far fetched that the Bush Administration would do anything other than shower Israel with more money, but the Reagan administration did ban export of cluster bombs to Israel for six years for its misuse during its 1982 Lebanese invasion.

The Zionist Ultras have been circling the wagons on this issue, not giving an inch. They hysterical statement by the German Jewish leader was typical of many.

Responding to a report by Human Rights Watch charging Israel with war crimes in its conduct of the war in Lebanon that was written by its director Kenneth Roth, Rabbi Avi Shafran of Agudath Israel has called Roth "loathsome." An editorial in the New York Sun accused Roth of "de-legitimization of Judaism" because his group condemned Israel's strategy as "an eye for an eye." Rabbi Aryeh Spero in Human Events Online referred to Roth as a "human rights impostor," and likened him to "Nazis and Communists." On Sunday, the Jerusalem Post published an op-ed by NGO Monitor's Gerald Steinberg titled "Ken Roth's Blood Libel." [quotes from Kathleen Peratis, Washington Post August 30] The fact that Kenneth Roth is Jewish and his father fled Nazi Germany makes no difference to the Ultras. If you are do not support Israel 110% you are a Jew-hater, a renegade, a self-hater, and a holocaust denier. Get it?

In a very competitive field Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League took the prize for the comment showing the most utter stupidly. In attacking Human Rights Watch he said if Hezbollah was not made to pay an "overwhelming price" for rocket attacks "the Holocaust would be in the works". [Peratis, Washington Post]

Jewish Disgust with Israel

In a very encouraging development hundreds of U.S. Jews are calling for strong measures to be taken against the Israeli government including a cut off of U.S. aid and U.N. sanctions. Over 800 have signed the statement calling for "U.S. Jewish Solidarity with Muslim and Arab Peoples of the Middle East". It states "we are outraged by the violence being perpetrated in our name both as Jews and as U.S. citizens. We, the undersigned, represent Jews across the United States who are choosing to stand in solidarity with the peoples of Gaza and Lebanon". It includes the statement, "There is no Jewish safety in a country that rehearses the violence and persecution which Ashkenazi Jews experienced for centuries through the annihilation of the Palestinian people and their homeland." The signers are collecting money for a full page in the New York Times and are just $800 away from their goal. The petition can be found at http://www.jewishsolidarity.info/petition.php

It was after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon that U.S. Jews in significant numbers began open and trenchant criticisms of Israel. Chomsky's watershed "The Fateful Triangle" was published that year. Hopefully there will be even bigger shows of outrage this time around.

Stanley Heller is chairperson of the Middle East Crisis Committee in Connecticut. It's website is www.TheStruggle.org and he can be reached at mail@TheStruggle.org

A genocide is taking place in Gaza. This morning, 2 September, another three citizens of Gaza were killed and a whole family wounded in Beit Hanoun. This is the morning reap, before the end of day many more will be massacred. An average of eight Palestinian die daily in the Israeli attacks on the Strip. Most of them are children. Hundreds are maimed, wounded and paralyzed.

The Israeli leadership is at lost of what to do with the Gaza Strip. It has vague ideas about the West Bank. The current government assumes that the West Bank, unlike the Strip, in an open space, at least on its eastern side. Hence if Israel, under the ingathering program of the government, annexes the parts it covets – half of the West Bank – and cleanse it from its native population, the other half would naturally lean towards Jordan, at least for a while and would not concern Israel. This is a fallacy, but nonetheless it won the enthusiastic vote of most of the Jews in the country. Such an arrangement can not work in the Gaza enclave – Egypt unlike Jordan has succeeded in persuading the Israelis, already in 1948, that the Gaza Strip for them is a liability and will never form part of Egypt. So a million and half Palestinians are stuck inside Israel – although geographically the Strip is located on the margins of the state, psychologically it lies in its midst.

The inhuman living conditions in the most dense area in the world, and one of the poorest human spaces in the northern hemisphere, disables the people who live it to reconcile with the imprisonment Israel had imposed on them ever since 1967. They were relative better period where movement to the West Bank and into Israel for work was allowed, but these better times are gone. Harsher realities are in place ever since 1987. Some access to the outside world was allowed as long as there were Jewish settlers in the Strip, but once they were removed the Strip was hermetically closed. Ironically, most Israelis, according to recent polls, look at Gaza as an independent Palestinian state that Israel has graciously allowed to emerge. The leadership, and particularly the army, see it as a prison with the most dangerous community of inmates, which has to be eliminated one way or another.

The conventional Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing employed successfully in 1948 against half of Palestine’s population, and against hundred of thousand of Palestinians in the West Bank are not useful here. You can slowly transfer Palestinians out of the West Bank, and particular out of the Greater Jerusalem area, but you can not do it in the Gaza Strip - once you sealed it as a maximum-security prison camp.

As with the ethnic cleansing operations, the genocidal policy is not formulated in a vacuum. Ever since 1948, the Israeli army and government needed a pretext to commence such policies. The takeover of Palestine in 1948 produced the inevitable local resistance that in turn allowed the implementation of an ethnic cleansing policy, preplanned already in the 1930. Twenty years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank produced eventually some sort of Palestinian resistance. This belated anti-occupation struggle unleashed a new cleansing policy that still is implemented today in the West Bank. The Gaza imprisonment in the summer of 2005, which was paraded as an Israeli generous withdrawal, produced the Hamas and Islamic Jiahd missile attack and one abduction case. Even before the abduction of Giald Shalit, the Israeli army bombarded indiscriminately the Strip. Ever since the abduction, the massive killing increased and became systematic. A daily business of slaying Palestinians, mainly children is now reported in the internal pages of the local press, quite often in microscopic fonts.

The chief culprits are the Israeli pilots who have a field day now that one of them is the General Chief of Staff. In the 1982 Lebanon war, the Israeli airforce issued orders to its pilots to abort mission if within 500 square meters of their target they spotted innocent civilians. Not that these orders were kept, but the pretense for internal moral consumption was there. It is called in the Israeli airforce, the ‘Lebanon Procedure’ [Nohal Levanon]. When the pilots asked a year ago if the ‘Lebanon procedure’ is in tact for Gaza, the answer was no. The same answer was given to the pilots in the second Lebanon war.

The Lebanon war provided the fog for a while, covering the war crimes in the Gaza Strip. But the policies rage on even after the conclusion of the cease-fire up in the north. It seems that the frustrated and defeated Israeli army is even more determined to enlarge the killing fields in the Gaza Strip. There are no politicians who are able or willing to stop the generals. A daily killing of up to 10 civilians is going to leave few thousands dead each year. This is of course different from genociding a million people in one campaign – the only inhibition Israel is willing to undertake in the name of the Holocaust memory. But if you double the killing you raise the number to horrific proportions and more importantly you may force a mass eviction in the end of the day outside the Strip – either in the name of human aid, international intervention or the people’s own desire to escape the inferno. But if the Palestinian steadfastness is going to be the response, and there no reason to doubt that this will the Gazan reaction then the massive killing would continue and increase.

Much depends on the international reaction. When Israel was absolved from any responsibility or accountably for the ethnic cleansing in 1948, it turned this policy into a legitimate tool for its national security agenda. If the present escalation and adaptation of genocidal policies would be tolerated by the world, it would expand and used even more drastically.

Nothing apart from pressure in the from of sanctions, boycott and divestment will stop the murdering of innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip. There is nothing we here in Israel can do against it. Brave pilots refused to partake in the operations, two journalists – out of 150 – do not cease to write about it, but this is it. In the name of the holocaust memory let us hope the world would not allow the genocide of Gaza to continue.



Ilan Pappe is senior lecturer in the University of Haifa Department of political Science and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies in Haifa. His books include among others The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (London and New York 1992), The Israel/Palestine Question (London and New York 1999), A History of Modern Palestine (Cambridge 2003), The Modern Middle East (London and New York 2005) and forthcoming, Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006)

Now that a ceasefire in Lebanon has been agreed there will, no doubt, be numerous inquests and questions asked about the month-long Lebanon war. So here's some we would like to ask.

Which country invaded its neighbour in mid-2006 in order to, as they put it, “crush” Islamists threatening regional stability?

Which country killed an estimated 500 people in a week when its artillery began bombarding its long-time guerrilla enemy in late July 2006, causing mass displacement and suffering?

If you think the answer is Israel, you guessed wrong.

On 19th July Ethiopia sent 5,000 troops into Somalia to suppress Islamists who had not even fired one rocket at it, or kidnapped or killed any of its soldiers.



The artillery barrage came from the Sri Lankan army, which continues to pound civilian areas held by the Tamil Tigers. Just a couple of weeks ago, an estimated 50 children were killed when their orphanage was bombed by Sri Lankan warplanes.



So how come our politicians completely ignore these crises and instead choose to focus solely on Israel's campaign in Lebanon?

Why have the same politicians hardly let out a whisper of criticism of those responsible for other such tragedies in Darfur, with its estimated 300,000 dead and at least 2.5 million refugees; or Chechnya, where an estimated 150,000-160,000 have died, where a third of the population has been displaced and the country has been left in rubble by the Russian army; or the war in the Congo, with over four million dead or driven from their homes?

Why has the Lord Mayor of Dublin, for example, described the Israeli action as “probably one of the greatest scandals of the new millennium” but not seen it necessary to comment on any of these other conflicts?

Why have supposedly apolitical cultural bodies - such as the Irish Film Institute and the Festival of World Cultures in Dún Laoghaire - decided to cancel sponsorship from the Israeli embassy because of Israel's actions in Lebanon, but never seen the need to act similarly regarding countries involved in other conflicts around the world?

The truth is that Israel's use of military force, combined over the 60 years since its birth, has caused far fewer casualties and damage than war, conflict and oppression in Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Chechnya, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Eritrea and Ethiopia (and that's only the beginning of the alphabet; if we go to countries beginning with "I", there's India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq).

So why is it that people have taken to the streets of Dublin, Cork, Galway and Dundalk to protest at the Israeli campaign in Lebanon but have never felt the need to do the same to express anger over any of these more bloody conflicts?

Why is it that, over the last few decades, successive governments have made numerous statements condemning Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, while TDs (members of parliament) and Senators have called for the economic boycott of Israel, but have felt no need to do the same in response to the mistreatment of Palestinians across the Arab world from Saudi Arabia to Lebanon, a country which was condemned in a June 2006 Amnesty International report for its “long-standing discrimination and abuses of fundamental economic and social rights of Palestinian refugees”?

Or, for that matter, why has there never been any Irish outcry when Arab countries have killed Palestinians on a grand scale?

In 1970, King Hussein of Jordan ordered the indiscriminate bombing of Palestinian refugee camps in the course of putting down the Palestinian uprising during “Black September”. This left between 3,000 and 5,000 Palestinian refugees dead. Why was the fact that King Hussein killed more Palestinians in the course of a single month than Israel managed to do in decades never held against him, or even raised, on his visits to this country?

Again, more than two decades ago, Abu Iyad, the number two man in the PLO, publicly stated that the crimes of the Syrian government against the Palestinian people “surpassed those of the Israeli enemy”. Much of this took place in Lebanon, where Syria was responsible for approximately 100,000 deaths and for the flight of up to half a million civilians from their homes, as well as for mass executions, as occurred, according to one 1986 Amnesty International report, when Syrian troops entered the town of Tripoli and executed hundreds of civilians, including numerous women and children.

How come in the 25 years that this was going on there was not one Dáil (parliamentary) debate or public statement by a politician on these Syrian atrocities in Lebanon?

Where were the calls for boycotts, or the condemnations of Kuwait, when in the wake of its liberation in 1991, it embarked on the widespread slaughter of Palestinians living in the kingdom?

This revenge against innocent Palestinian workers was so severe that Yasser Arafat himself acknowledged: “What Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories”.

Lastly, why, 60 years after its establishment, is Israel the only state in the world whose politicians are presented in Oireachtas (parliamentary) debates as war criminals, whose economy faces relentless calls for sanctions and boycotts, and whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged in the letters pages of our newspapers?

Maybe one of those who has felt the need to write such letters, or to call for a boycott, or to take to the streets against Israel, or to speak out in the Seanad (Senate), but has not seen the need to do the same in regard to any other country or conflict, could let us know why - because we just can't figure it out.

How Israel failed its Arab citizens before, during and after the Lebanon war

Report, I'lam, 7 September 2006

I'lam, the only media centre for the Arab minority in Israel, issues a monthly "Alternative News Briefing" to journalists and others interested in the region as a corrective to the distorted coverage of events affecting Israel's Arab citizens by the Israeli media.

Also in this Briefing

# Court overturns Haifa University's discriminatory policy on student dorms



During the five weeks of fighting between Israel and Hizbullah this summer, the north of Israel took a battering from some 4,000 rockets. According to the Foreign Ministry, the civilian fatalities from the rockets numbered 43, including 18 Arab citizens.

Of course, rockets don't discriminate between Jew and Arab, as public officials were quick to point out. But unfortunately, the Israeli government does.

There were many reasons why a high number of Arabs died in the war, a fact that has surprised many observers, including apparently the Israeli government, as it was widely assumed that Hizbullah would not endanger the lives of fellow Arabs.

Before the war:

One of the most important is that, unlike their Jewish neighbours, Arab communities had not been helped by the government to prepare for the war with Hizbullah, a war that according to reports in the American media had been planned by Israel for more than a year.

The most notable failure was to provide Arab communities with any protection from the rockets. Almost all Arab towns and villages lack public bomb shelters, even though they have been constructed in most Jewish communities in the north.

A few shelters have been built in border Druze villages like Hurfeish (the Druze serve in the army), and there are shelters in some mainly Arab neighbourhoods in Haifa, although according to a BBC report they remained locked during the war. The other 120 or so Arab communities in Israel, the majority of them in the north, had no public shelters in which residents could seek safety.

Similarly, the civil defence authorities failed to ensure that Arab communities had air raid sirens to warn inhabitants of incoming fire. Rabia and Mahmoud Taluzi, two children killed by a rocket in Nazareth on July 19, were out playing when the rocket struck because there were no sirens to warn them to take cover. Only after their deaths did Nazareth, the largest Arab town in Israel, receive a siren. But most other Arab towns and villages went through the whole war without any warnings.

Israeli officials claimed that they had not installed sirens in Arab communities because most Arab citizens do not wish not to mark the Holocaust and Memorial Days, the latter commemorating Israel's fallen Jewish soldiers, including those who died expelling the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people from their homeland in 1948.

However, this excuse hardly stands up to scrutiny. The primary point of air raid sirens is not to force Israeli citizens to stand to attention when the state so desires but to protect them in times of war. The failure to put in place warning systems before or after the outbreak of war is a disgrace.

Similarly, civil defence officials also issued emergency instructions to families about how to protect themselves -- on the radio and television, and in brochures -- only in Hebrew. Many Arab citizens speak Hebrew, their second language, poorly and a few, particularly older women who do not work, know very little Hebrew. Arabic is one of the state's official languages and all material from the civil defence authorities should have been translated as a matter of routine.

During the war:

A separate reason why the number of Arab casualties was high was that Israel has positioned many of its military installations inside or next to Arab communities, compounding the problem of not offering these same communities protection, such as bomb shelters. In fact, few northern Arab towns and villages do not have a Rafael weapons factory, army camp or munitions store close by.

As well as these permanent military bases, several Arab towns and villages in the north also found that the army chose to locate artillery batteries next to them that fired on Lebanon during the fighting.

According to reports in Haaretz, for example, the Arab village of Fassouta had such a battery stationed next to it throughout much of the war. Similarly, according to the Nazareth welfare organisation the Laborer's Voice, Majd al-Krum also had an artillery battery firing from the outskirts of the town. Both Fassouta and Majd al-Krum were hit on several occasions by Hizbullah rocket fire.

In other Arab communities, including Jish, Shaghour, Kfar Manda and Lid, the army requisitioned areas for training soldiers for the ground invasion of south Lebanon. According to the Human Rights Association in Nazareth, army officials justified their decision on the grounds that "The landscape of Arab towns [in Israel] is similar to Arab towns in Lebanon."

This led one Arab Knesset member, Abbas Zakour, to accuse the Israeli government of turning Arab communities into "human shields". He added: "During a short visit to offer condolences to the families of victims killed in Hizbullah's rocket attacks, I saw Israeli tanks shelling Lebanon from the two towns of Arab Al-Aramshe and Tarshiha, which are predominantly populated [by] Arabs." Three residents of Tarshiha were killed in a rocket strike, and two died in Arab al-Aramshe.

However, the voices of Arab citizens were silenced during the war. In Haifa, for example, Arab and Jewish demonstrators were attacked by right-wing groups as police looked on. When the police did intervene, it was to arrest the anti-war demonstrators.

Arab citizens were rarely given the chance to appear on Israeli television or radio, or their journalists to write for the Hebrew-language newspapers, and their protests were barely covered by the Israeli media.

Their elected representatives were also silenced, with Knesset members regularly being ejected from the chamber during debates on the war. A complaint by MK Ahmed Tibi about incitement from cabinet minister Rafi Eitan, who compared him to Hitler, were ignored. In another disturbing incident, the Interior Minister Roni Bar-On asked the Attorney-General to investigate the possibility of stripping an Arab MK, Wasel Taha, of his citizenship over his comments about the war. Several Jewish MKs also demanded that their Arab colleagues have their citizenship revoked.

Walid Hamis, the Arab deputy mayor of Haifa, a city often praised for being a rare model of coexistence inside Israel, was forced to resign on 4 September, saying the Jewish majority on the municipality were plotting to dismiss him over his comments against the war. He had been subjected to a campaign of intimidation and incitement, as well as being physically attacked. He observed: "This will be the first political dismissal in the city of Haifa as a result of expressing an opinion."

After the war:

Following the war, at a cabinet meeting on 20 August, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised to make reconstruction in the north of Israel his top priority.

Throughout the fighting, however, the Israeli government refused to declare a state of war -- apparently for cynical technical reasons. If it had done so, businesses in the north of Israel that were forced to close, and their workers, would have been entitled to automatic compensation. Instead officials have implemented an ad hoc system of compensation which is being used to deprive Arab communities and residents of the levels of compensation being paid to Israeli Jews.

Entitled to full compensation for lost income are businesses and residents who belong to what have been called "confrontation line" communities. The Finance Ministry, which has been put in charge of drawing up the list of such communities, has not included a single Arab town or village. The communities included on this list are located up to 10km from the border with Lebanon, an area full of Arab villages that nonetheless have been excluded.

Lesser compensation is available for residents and businesses of other northern communities in a new category called the "area of limitation", according to criteria agreed by the Finance Ministry, the Histadrut labour federation and employers. Because Arab businesses and workers are included in this category, they will not be entitled to full compensation.

In addition, according to a Nazareth-based welfare organisation the Laborer's Voice, which is running a mobile advice centre in Arab communities, most Arab workers and business owners, as well as victims of the rocket attacks, have not been approached by government officials or given information about their entitlements.

When officials have been contacted, they have either denied that compensation is available or misinformed applicants about what they are entitled to. One homeowner in Majd al-Krum, for example, was encouraged by the National Insurance Institute to sign up for compensation for his damaged home that was a fraction of what he should have received.

In a similar vein, Arab businesses are also being discriminated against by the MATI business development centre, which is offering loans to businesses in the north under the auspices of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Interest-free loans of up to $10,000 are available, but only to Jewish businessmen or those who have served in the Israeli army, which excludes almost the entire Arab population.

This week Israeli schoolchildren went back to school, as the Israeli government promised to invest money to rehabilitate the education system in the north as part of its reconstruction programme. Education has suffered from years of budget cuts, but the separate Arab system has been particularly underfunded, with a large shortage of classrooms, crumbling buildings, and a lack of books and equipment.

During a cabinet meeting to discuss the new education programme for the north, the Environment Minister Gideon Ezra observed that Arab communities should not be included. "A distinction must be drawn, and it must be seen to that Arab communities do not receive the money for the education program." What were his grounds for justifying such discrimination? Because during the Lebanon war, Arab "residents there behaved as per usual, as if nothing had happened" -- a presumed reference to the fact that they did not flee their homes like many Jewish residents. This seemed a perverse claim as most Israeli leaders justify the continuing dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of their homes and property because they fled, or were expelled by, the Israeli army during the 1948 war.

One of the most pressing problems faced by Arab schools is a shortage of counsellors and psychologists to deal with the trauma suffered by children from the rocket attacks. Three-quarters of Arab schools have no access to counselling for their pupils.

After the war, the Education Ministry hired extra psychologists to work with Jewish children and issued counsellors with special kits on how to identify and deal with post-traumatic disorders. The same services were not offered in Arab communities. The Ministry said it could not hire Arab psychologists because there were not enough qualified candidates among the Arab population.

Dr Bilha Noy, head of the Ministry's counselling service, however, observed in the Haaretz newspaper that the shortage reflected discrimination by the universities in refusing to accept Arab applicants for courses.



I'lam Media Center for Arab Palestinians in Israel is a non-profit organization based in Nazareth. It was founded in 2000, by a group of Arab journalists and academics. As the only Arab Palestinian media organization in Israel, I'lam is deeply committed to the democratization of media policies, media practices, and the media landscape in Israel.

I was unfortunately within earshot of a television when this steamy pile slid out of Bush's flytrap. I think this was his most Hitlerean speech to date and did not succeed in containing my disgust. I asked the shop owner to let me turn off the set. She was closing up and I was the only one even noticing that Satan's head was yapping away on the idiot box. She got indignant so I just walked out. Complacent trash don't get my money.

Fascists of the Nazi stripe that Bush wants to associate with Islamism are virulent imperialists, and the virulent imperialists in this conflict are without a doubt the US Empire and its satellites. It's been clear that the people of the Middle East, including radical Islamists, mostly just want to be left the fuck alone to do with their own wealth and their own societies as they see fit. This is an attitude US and European imperialists (including Hitler) have always despised.

For those outside the psychotic US media-political echo chamber, I think it's pretty obvious who the REAL fascists are.

The speech was also an incredibly blatant display of Bush slapping his tongue up and down the ass-crack of his zionist billionaire masters. I'm tellin ya...

"=the turban you are forced to wear-"

Wow do we get to wear turbans? Ultra cool.

Who writes this stuff? You do, all by yourself?

One of the weakest arguments used to "justify" the extermination of Arabs for Israel is,
"I hate their clothing!"

Yet this clothing-justifies-extermination "argument" is repeated like a mantra, ad nauseum, with no apparent shame by its bloodthirsty proponents.

Who is the tarbouche wearing terrorist in the photo?

A majority of American 'men' need to wear burkas as they waddle in and out of McDonnalds and Baskin & Robbins

FROM THE LEAD ARTICLE: "In the western world, hatred of Muslims has become a key ideological hallmark of rightwing parties. We see this overtly in the United States, France, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Poland, and, most lately, Canada, and more subtly expressed in Britain and Belgium. The huge uproar over blatantly anti-Muslim cartoons published in Denmark laid bare the seething Islamophobia spreading through western society."

BECKY: I don't see this "hatred" of Muslims where I live. We don't have a large Muslim population here, but they seem to be respected and tolerated. Hate crimes against Muslims have increased since Sept. 11th, but they are no where near the incidence of anti-Jewish hate crimes in the United States before and after 9-11.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyear reported recently that anti-Jewish hate crimes account for 69% of all religiously-motivated hate crimes in California. So unless the author is claiming that anti-Muslim hatred in the United States is minor compared to anti-Jewish hatred, they are concealing facts from their readers.

As for the "blatantly anti-Muslim" cartoons. Most were mere depictions which did NOT villify Muslims. Only one showed Mohammed with a bomb in his turban.

Considering the number of bombings conducted by "Martyrs for Islam" I don't think this particular cartoon was out of line. Critical--yes. Beyond the pale--NO!!

Only one was actually funny---showing the Martyrs lining up in heaven and Muhammed running down and announcing "We've run out of virgins!"

The resulting riots killed people, burned over 3,000 cars in France, attacked synagogues, and damaged infrastructure.

So the author thinks the CARTOONISTS or the Danish paper was at fault??????

Is the author---who denies any fascism in Muslim countries/militias---against freedom of the press to criticize government grievances? Sounds like creeping fascism to me!!

you can't even see your own feet.

Cut from the Same Old Pattern

Tailoring the Case Against Iran

By DAVID MODEL

The American people’s short memory virtually constitutes complicity in the loss of millions of lives and billions of dollars worth of property. In the past 15 years alone, over a million Iraqis have died and thousands of Serbians and Afghanis have perished in aggressive wars perpetrated on countries to serve America’s geopolitical interests at the expense of innocent civilians who were not collateral damage but who were deliberately bombed as part of heinous war strategy to provoke the people in these countries into overthrowing their own governments.

To build a case to persuade the American people and Congress to approve these illegal wars, administrations implemented a multi-faceted propaganda campaigns consisting of demonizing the leader of the targeted country, evoking fear of a threat to American national security or interests, concocting a spurious authorization to legitimize the war and contriving a set of lofty and noble objectives. Notwithstanding the fact that this pattern has been repeated numerous times since World War II, the American people and Congress acquiesce in supporting wars as was the case in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Panama, Afghanistan, Serbia and Iraq. Currently, the same pattern is evolving in the campaign to attack Iran and the same, reflexive mindless support of the American people is growing.

American presence in Vietnam began before the French were defeated at Diem Bien Phu but the real escalation of American involvement began under Kennedy and reached its apogee under Johnston. The enemy was Communism embodied in this case by Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong who, according to American policy-makers, were bent on uniting both South and North Vietnam, with force if necessary, which would establish a Communist prototype for Indochina. Contrary to this propaganda, the 1954 Geneva Accords called for a vote in both the South and North over uniting the two and Americans knew that Ho Chi Minh would win and feared his victory would trigger the so-called domino effect.

As a result, the US inaugurated a propaganda campaign which characterized Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong as evil communists, to frighten the American people into supporting a massive US intervention in Vietnam.

Underlying the threat of Indochina, was the already deep-seated misplaced fear of the International Communist Movement with its unrelenting drive to infiltrate Western countries to convert their governments to Communism.

Needing a strong justification to establish legitimacy for intervention in Viet Nam, President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara used a spurious incident in which a North Vietnamese ship attacked the American destroyer Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, to claim that the North Vietnamese had launched an unprovoked attack on an American ship in international waters. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which granted the President the authority to wage war as he saw fit.

All elements of the pattern are evident in the propaganda campaign. Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong were evil Communists who were part of a worldwide conspiracy to subvert governments and take over the world; the threat of all of Indochina falling to Communism represented a major threat to national security; the approval of Congress granted the authority for the war and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was the authorizing underpinning which infused the war with legitimacy. The noble cause was to save South Vietnam and the world from communism.

The same pattern repeats itself in Nicaragua. According to official sources, Nicaragua became such a threat to the security of the US that President Reagan warned Americans that Nicaragua was only two days march from Brownsville Texas.

From 1933 to 1979, Nicaragua was ruled by the Somoza family whose brutal and corrupt reign of terror endured until a popular revolutionary group, the Sandinistas, overthrew Somoza and replaced his government with the nationalist, populist Daniel Ortega and members of the Sandinistas. In 1984 internationally supervised elections were held and the wildly popular Sandinistas won a majority of the seats. The agenda of their government was to improve conditions for the people through higher quality healthcare, schools and redistribution of land once owned by the Somoza family.

Fearing a successful economic archetype and the domino effect in Latin America, Reagan organized a surrogate force, called the Contras, based in Honduras and Costa Rica, whose purpose was to avoid the Sandinista army and to strike during the night at schools, hospital and buses in a war of attrition against the people of Nicaragua to persuade them to overthrow the Sandinistas or vote them out of office.

The Reagan administration employed the usual tactics. In order to legitimize support for the Contras, Reagan created the Kissinger Commission to “lay the foundations for a long-termed unified national approach to the freedom and independence of the countries of Central America.” Its lofty-sounding purpose masked its real intent which was to justify support for an illegal intervention in violation of international law.

One of the conclusions of the Commission demonized the Sandinistas by claiming that Nicaragua was worse off under them than under Somoza. Henry Kissinger also concluded that Nicaragua was worse than Nazi Germany and Reagan, focusing on the other end of the political spectrum, referred to Nicaragua as a Communist dictatorship.

Apparently, International Communism, with its grand design to take over the world, posed a threat to U.S. national security. Reagan’s comment about Brownsville Texas was obviously nothing more than a scare tactic in the same vein as buying duct tape to protect American homes from biological or chemical warfare.

To lend legitimacy to supporting the Contras, the Reagan administration invoked the War Powers Act up to 1982 at which time Congress passed the Boland Amendment, warned about the sale of arms to the rebels in El Salvador which was never proven and created the supposed bipartisan commission headed by Kissinger.

The pattern was an integral part of the war on the Nicaraguan government. Reagan claimed that the contras were engaged in a humanitarian mission to free the people of Nicaragua from the yoke of communism and to support them in meeting their social and economic needs. Reagan demonized Ortega and the Sandinistas, warned the American people of the threat they posed to national security, created the Kissinger Commission to lend legitimacy to supporting the Contras and enveloped the campaign in the mantle of humanitarianism and freedom.

Panama offers another example of how the U.S. wins support for interventions that violate international law.

Between the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9/11 there was a gap during which there was no arch enemy threatening the interests of the United States that could serve as a justification for enormous defense spending and for maintaining such overwhelming military superiority. The Reagan and Bush administrations conjured up the “War on Narcoterrorism” as the new superenemy to be overcome with American military might.

President Manuel Noriega was on the CIA parole for many years as an important asset for gathering intelligence in Latin America and for flying weapons to the Contras on the same planes that carried drugs on their return flights.

When Noriega began asserting his nationalistic proclivities and refused to obey all the orders issued by North, Poindexter or Casey, it was becoming increasingly necessary to replace him with a more American-friendly leader. The strategy was to warn Americans about the dangers posed by this so-called narcoterrorist, indict him in a Florida court, and then invade Panama for the purpose of capturing him for trial in the U.S. The U.S. invasion was swift and merciless.

Reagan and Bush Sr. repeatedly demonized Noriega by referring to him as a narcoterrorist dictator despite the fact that they both knew that he was on the CIA parole at the same time as he was heavily involved the Latin American drug trade.

President Bush Sr. considered him a threat to U.S. interests on two counts. He proclaimed that a critical strategy in the War on Drugs in the United States was to eliminate Noriega. As well, Noriega posed a problem because he refused to renegotiate a treaty signed by President Carter and the former President of Panama, Omar Torrijos, which transferred control of the Canal Zone where the Southern Command was located from the United States to Panama.

American forces invaded Panama under the pretext of capturing the narcoterrorist Noriega and freeing the Panamanian people from a brutal dictator. The justification for the invasion was based on the Florida indictment and the protection of American lives. The U.S. military in Panama repeatedly provoked the Panamanian Defense Forces until an incident occurred in which one marine was shot and another held captive. These incidents provided the necessary justification for invading Panama to save American lives.

The lofty purpose for this murderous invasion was the protection of American lives, freeing the people from an evil dictator and disrupting an important cog in Latin American drug trafficking.

There was the predictable demonization of Noriega, instilling fear of a dangerous narcoterrorist, legitimizing the invasion with claims that American lives were at risk and ennobling the cause by imbuing it with a humanitarian façade.

The 1991 war on Iraq was anomalous given that it was clearly an aggressive war against Iraq but was sanctioned by the Security Council. One of the two criteria for assessing the legality of a war is that it wins the approval of the Security Council but in this case, the approval violated the UN Charter. The US achieved this feat of legerdemain by threatening or bribing the members of the Security Council. The U.S.-dominated World Bank offered China $114 million in aid and the U.S. offered normalization of diplomatic relations. They convinced some of its Gulf allies such as Saudi Arabia to loan $4 billion to the Soviet Union. Egypt, whose support was critical, was desperate for economic assistance which arrived in the form of debt forgiveness from the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Through bribes and threats, the American government secured the ultimate authority for using force against another nation and in the process seriously damaged the credibility of the Security Council.

To demonize Saddam Hussein, the Bush Sr. administration lured Iraq into invading Kuwait and then condemned Saddam Hussein for such a brutal act of aggression. Then to cement his case against Hussein, Bush hired Hill & Knowlton to invent a story about Iraqi soldiers snatching babies from incubators and throwing them on concrete floors. Despite the offers from Iraq to negotiate, Bush claimed that Iraq was intractable. Of course, there were the usual comparisons to Hitler.

On January 8, 1991 President Bush sent a letter to Congressional leaders warning that “The current situation in the Persian Gulf, brought about by Iraq’s unprovoked invasion and subsequent brutal occupation of Kuwait, threatens U.S. vital interests. The situation also threatens the peace.”

All the signposts of the American war propaganda strategy are evident and include referring to Saddam Hussein as a brutal dictator with grand designs on the region and as a threat to American interests. In addition, Bush won Security Council approval and created a coalition of partners to legitimize his cause which was wrapped in a humanitarian cloak.

President Clinton managed to convince the American people and Congress that the war on Serbia was a singular example of nations cooperating in a great humanitarian cause. In order to break up the former Yugoslavia, Clinton exploited the civil war that had already been waged in Bosnia and the ongoing civil war between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Serbia as a pretext for bombing Serbia. After presenting a peace agreement to both parties in Rambouillet, France, that no sovereign state could possibly accept, he warned Milosevic, the President of Serbia, that NATO would use force if necessary if he did not sign the agreement. After committing many atrocities during the bombing campaign against Serbia after Milosevic predictably refused to sign the agreement, NATO forced Milosevic to surrender.

Milosevic was portrayed as a monstrous war criminal who had been guilty of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and was now perpetrating the same crime in Kosovo. Rather than claiming that American interests were specifically threatened, President Clinton grandstanded about how the United States and its NATO allies were committed to humanitarian interventions to prevent the kind of ethnic cleansing which was inflicted on Kosovo and Bosnia.

Unable to convince the Security Council to pass a resolution authorizing the use of force in Serbia, Clinton used NATO as the authorizing agent not only to lend credibility to this particular war but also to an expanded role for NATO. The grand cause was the new concept of legitimate humanitarian intervention even though the war against Serbia violated both the UN and NATO Charters. This concept has led to the principle that a war can be illegal but still legitimate; a principle which conveniently allows nations to ignore international law when it suits their purpose but which would not be acceptable to any international tribunal or to the overwhelming majority of states that have ratified the vast system of international conventions, treaties and laws.

The war on Serbia possesses all the elements of the pattern including demonizing the leader Milosevic, defining American interest in terms of humanitarian interventions, establishing NATO as the authority approving the war and creating the concept of illegal but legitimate wars.

In 2003, Bush Jr. set out to finish the task of removing Saddam Hussein from office but for different reasons. Bush Sr. was unable to convince Saddam to be a client state and failing assassination attempts by the CIA, was forced to resort to war. Bush Jr., or more accurately his advisors, had grand plans for gaining control of the Middle East by ensuring a friendly regime in Iraq and by weakening the remnants of the once relatively strong Iraqi armed forces.

Saddam was condemned repeatedly by everyone in the administration and eventually but belatedly his removal became the “real” purpose of the invasion. Lacking United Nations approval and the support of the major states which had participated in the first war on Iraq, Bush managed to cobble together a rather ragtag group of nations (except for Britain and Australia) called the “Coalition of the Willing” which consisted of Albania, Azerbaijan, Dominican Republic El Salvador, Eritrea and Nicaragua to name but a few. His grand and noble cause changed many times from elimination of Saddam’s WMD to building democracy in Iraq.

To complete the task of gaining control of the Middle East and ensuring that all its nations were American-friendly, war against Iran became the next target in the campaign to secure approval from the American people and Congress. To persuade the American people and Congress to support a possible attack on Iran, Bush Jr. is cultivating the specter that Iran is a nuclear threat to the region and the US and as well, the Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a madman and anti-Semite capable of pulling the nuclear trigger.

According to the Bush administration, Ahmadinejad is another Hitler who is a menace to the Middle East and in particular, to Israel, whom he allegedly threatened to “wipe of the map” and who was also allegedly involved in terrorist activities in the eighties.

Alleged anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments were a result of deliberate misinterpretations based on a number of his speeches. For example, according to Virginia Tilley in CounterPunch (August 28/06), “In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word ‘map’ or ‘wiped off’. According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he actually said was ‘this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time’.” “Regime” does not refer to Israel but to the government which is currently oppressing the Palestinians.

As for the accusation that Iran is a nuclear threat, although American intelligence agencies differ in their progress estimates of Iran’s nuclear capability, they all agree that it is premature to conclude that Iran has weapons-grade material. International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors did not find any evidence of a program to produce fissile material.

A nuclear attack on either Israel or the United States is the threat posed by a nuclear capability in Iran and a madman as leader. According to the New York Times “Iran’s fundamentalist regime and its nuclear ambitions pose a strategic threat to the United States…It’s obvious that Iran wants nuclear weapons, has lied about its program and views America as an enemy.” Saving the world from a dangerous nuclear power is the lofty cause pursued by the United States.

As in the previous examples, the imperialistic government in Washington is manipulating and deceiving the American public and Congress into supporting a possible illegal intervention for the purpose of advancing American interests. At the same time that support for the occupation of Iraq has dropped below 50%, Bush and his cronies are using the same tactics to win approval for a war of aggression against Iran. The overlap is ironically paradoxical given that the American people are questioning the honesty of the president at the same time that they seem willing to believe the case he is making against Iran. Every time the American people and Congress support these imperial interventions their hands are covered with blood.

David Model is Professor of Political Science and Economics at Seneca College in Toronto. In August 2005, Common Courage Press released his latest book titled "Lying for Empire: How to Commit War Crimes with a Straight Face". He can be reached at: David.Model@senecac.on.ca