Ex-Premie Forum 7 Archive
From: Sep 26, 2001 To: Oct 01, 2001 Page: 1 of: 5


Pat:C) -:- America, curl up and die -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:58:11 (EDT)
__ Pat:C) -:- PS Bye, guys, I'm out of here -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:32:29 (EDT)
__ __ JHB -:- Tantrum number 39? -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:35:18 (EDT)

salsa -:- I told you so... -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 14:25:11 (EDT)

Salam -:- Melborne - read this -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:29:19 (EDT)
__ CW -:- Re: Melborne - read this -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 11:25:09 (EDT)
__ __ Sir Dave -:- There is a difference -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 13:06:34 (EDT)
__ Mel Bourne -:- Thanks Salam, interesting.....rne - read this -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:47:41 (EDT)
__ __ Francesca -:- I don't have the articles ... -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 13:30:24 (EDT)

Nigel -:- Rebuttal to Appleyard (ot) -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 19:42:27 (EDT)
__ Pat:C) -:- What a marmite of shite -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:34:11 (EDT)
__ __ JHB -:- Who said this??????? -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:44:57 (EDT)
__ __ Moley -:- No, no, no Pat -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:11:45 (EDT)
__ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Post-modernism, Moley -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:20:07 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Francesca :C) -:- With 'ya there, Pat -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:09:54 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Moley -:- Re: Post-modernism, Moley -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:43:44 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: No, no, no Pat -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:19:20 (EDT)
__ Jim -:- What a crock, Nige -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 11:37:06 (EDT)
__ __ Moley -:- Jim - address the problem rationally -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 14:49:43 (EDT)
__ __ __ Jerry -:- Kyoto -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:52:27 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Moley's rational approach -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:36:53 (EDT)
__ __ __ Pat:C) -:- How nice to see you, Moley -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:42:39 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Rick -:- outrageous -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:55:17 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Francesca :C) -:- Pat, that was GENOCIDE -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:39:05 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Moley -:- Re: How nice to see you, Moley -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:31:19 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Mo;ey and Fran we'll have to agree to disagree -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:37:54 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Moley -:- Re: Mo;ey and Fran we'll have to agree to disagree -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:56:40 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca :C) -:- Still too black and white Pat -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:39:26 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Rick -:- Yeah, Moley and Francesca -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:01:18 (EDT)
__ __ Dermot -:- Ha THE BBC Audience -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:13:10 (EDT)
__ __ __ Dermot -:- And PS.... -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:24:01 (EDT)
__ __ __ the other bobo -:- What are you saying JIm? -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:56:46 (EDT)
__ Dermot -:- Jeeze Nige....BRAVO -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:02:07 (EDT)
__ Scott T. -:- On a lighter note... -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 23:06:50 (EDT)
__ __ Mickey the Pharisee -:- Re: On a lighter note... -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:02:00 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: On a lighter note... -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:37:14 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- You had bad Vietnamese food, Scott -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:10:29 (EDT)
__ Scott T. -:- Thou doest protest a smidge too much. -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:52:05 (EDT)
__ PatD -:- Appleyard disease -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:50:24 (EDT)
__ __ Nigel -:- Pat D - and EVERYONE -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:55:04 (EDT)
__ __ Nigel -:- Re: Appleyard disease -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:25:13 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Not quaranteened to Appleyard, unfortunately. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 11:28:30 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ cq -:- Hey, Scott, am I being anti-British? -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 14:37:05 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: Hey, Scott, am I being anti-British? -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:41:47 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Moley -:- Exactly cq. [nt] -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:31:28 (EDT)
__ __ __ JHB -:- Pat D(orrity) was Bin Liner -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:02:34 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Yes, I remember now. Ta, John. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:36:24 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ PatD -:- Re: Yes, I remember now. Ta, John. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:49:05 (EDT)
__ __ __ Peg -:- Youj are clever aren't you??? -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:17:58 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ peg -:- Oh dear that came out bitchy! -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:48:24 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- hey - no sweat.. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:25:47 (EDT)
__ Rick -:- Re: Rebuttal to Appleyard (ot) -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:33:49 (EDT)
__ __ berni -:- Re: Rebuttal to Appleyard (ot) -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:19:18 (EDT)

Pat:C) -:- New from Visions International -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 18:49:12 (EDT)
__ Francesca :C) -:- Dear Premies: Hay--loooooo! [nt] -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 01:15:23 (EDT)
__ Timmi -:- Re: New from Visions International -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 00:21:36 (EDT)
__ suchabanana -:- m:'When we are happy, the issues don't matter.' -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 21:56:50 (EDT)
__ __ janet -:- Re: m:'When we are happy -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:17:29 (EDT)
__ Brian S -:- Fill in the blanks yourself -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 21:37:43 (EDT)
__ __ gerry -:- Sheesh, Brian... -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:21:58 (EDT)
__ Nigel -:- Go on, premies - tell us you're not embarrassed... [nt] -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:31:02 (EDT)

Pat:C) -:- Taliban Terrorists and Jim Jones -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:40:19 (EDT)
__ Cynthia -:- Re: Taliban Terrorists and Jim Jones -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 10:32:49 (EDT)
__ __ Pat:C) -:- Hi, Cynthia -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 14:09:59 (EDT)
__ JohnT -:- Performance of death -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 16:41:48 (EDT)
__ __ Sir Dave }( -:- I disagree -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:14:48 (EDT)

Rick -:- Differences of Political Opinion OT -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 12:19:01 (EDT)
__ Nigel -:- Re: Differences of Political Opinion OT -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 09:21:01 (EDT)
__ __ Rick -:- Aunt Dottie Stinks -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:10:15 (EDT)
__ __ __ Nige -:- Re: Aunt Dottie Stinks -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:41:08 (EDT)
__ PatD -:- Basic Political beliefs -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 19:50:26 (EDT)
__ __ Rick -:- Re: Basic Political beliefs -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:07:31 (EDT)
__ Dermot -:- To EVERYONE -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 17:51:49 (EDT)
__ JHB -:- I disagree with one thing. -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:47:15 (EDT)
__ __ salsa -:- Re: I disagree with one thing. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 01:08:43 (EDT)
__ __ __ JHB -:- I'll look at it.? -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:34:36 (EDT)
__ __ Dermot -:- That's it John [nt] -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 16:35:12 (EDT)
__ __ Rick -:- Re: I disagree with one thing. -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:57:24 (EDT)
__ Scott T. -:- Meaningful debate about meaning. -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:57:45 (EDT)
__ Dermot -:- 'as fortunate or liberal'?? :) -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:47:01 (EDT)
__ Vera -:- possible reason for the polarity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:30:04 (EDT)
__ __ Sir Dave -:- Mass slaughter yes but not of civilians -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 16:10:38 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: Mass slaughter yes but not of civilians -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:54:45 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Vera -:- Evidence for my claims re Gulf War slaughter -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 10:19:29 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Sir Dave }( -:- Re: Evidence for my claims re Gulf War slaughter -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:43:53 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Vietnamese Eats -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 13:09:15 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- You asked for it. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:36:46 (EDT)
__ __ __ JohnT -:- kill ratio -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 17:06:07 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: kill ratio -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 21:00:18 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Sir Dave -:- Overkill perhaps -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:05:04 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: Overkill perhaps -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:14:55 (EDT)
__ __ __ Dermot -:- 1/6th of all forces were Brits Dave [nt] -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 16:38:03 (EDT)
__ __ Scott T. -:- Re: possible reason for the polarity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:04:04 (EDT)
__ the other bob -:- Re: possible reason for the polarity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:04:00 (EDT)
__ __ Dermot -:- Good post, Vera [nt] -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:52:19 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- It's completely inaccurate, Dermot. -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:10:03 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- not 'nt' -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:16:24 (EDT)
__ __ Vera -:- Possible reason for the polarity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:39:28 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Why are you posting this drivel twice? -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:21:34 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Scott, untie you shoelaces -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 16:31:37 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- You've discredited yourself. -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:51:01 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- When you think I'm fully rational -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:53:26 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Thanks. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 09:58:17 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Mel Bourne -:- UNICEF Iraqi child mortality 500,000 -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 00:39:13 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Mel Bourne -:- Cambridge University .. Iraqi children -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 02:40:18 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Sir Dave }( -:- You didn't read me right -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:27:19 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Mel Bourne -:- Your right Dave.... -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 08:53:11 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Mel Bourne the meek. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 02:19:28 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Mel Bourne -:- Re: Mel Bourne the meek. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:36:33 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Wonder of wonders -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 09:55:05 (EDT)
__ Scott T. -:- Re: Differences of Political Opinion OT -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 12:34:05 (EDT)
__ bobo - the other bob -:- Why I do not support U.S. govmt. -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:27:28 (EDT)
__ __ Scott T. -:- What does this have to do with the thread topic? [nt] -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:37:27 (EDT)
__ __ __ Vera -:- My reply to Scott & Sir Dave -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:15:04 (EDT)
__ __ other bobo -:- not running with the crowd -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:32:56 (EDT)

Salam -:- Maryan Investment -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 11:26:38 (EDT)
__ G -:- Maryan or Myrine? or maybe Marine? -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:12:47 (EDT)
__ __ Salam -:- Re: Maryan or Myrine? or maybe Marine? -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:05:53 (EDT)

Sir Dave -:- This myth, this lie -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 10:25:56 (EDT)
__ Chuck S. -:- The source was an article... -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:20:56 (EDT)
__ salam -:- No money -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 11:30:49 (EDT)
__ __ Mel Bourne -:- Bullshit...Read UNICEF report in above post -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 00:47:07 (EDT)
__ __ __ })Salam}) -:- Bullshit?})}) -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:14:41 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Mel Bourne -:- Re: Bullshit?})}) -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:39:41 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Bullshit...read it yourself. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:20:53 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Mel Bourne -:- Buffoon yourself, Scott -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:32:09 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Slow dancing with Saddam Hussein -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 09:44:14 (EDT)
__ __ Mel Bourne -:- Bullshit...Read UNICEF report in above post -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 00:47:04 (EDT)
__ __ __ Mel Bourne -:- Excerpt from UNICEF press release... -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 00:57:00 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Mel Bourne -:- The UNICEF report makes no mention.... -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 01:04:07 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- What a buffoon. -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:25:05 (EDT)
__ __ Sir Dave -:- Thanks, that explains it well [nt] -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 21:06:47 (EDT)

Scott T. -:- World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 10:20:13 (EDT)
__ Sir Dave -:- Re: World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 10:38:52 (EDT)
__ __ Scott T. -:- Re: World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 11:03:26 (EDT)
__ Katie -:- Re: World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 10:35:05 (EDT)
__ __ Scott T. -:- Re: World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 11:09:21 (EDT)
__ __ __ Rick -:- Re: World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:22:00 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:54:08 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Rick -:- Re: World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:16:18 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 21:04:39 (EDT)
__ __ __ Katie -:- Re: World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 11:26:18 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ sal -:- Re: World Trade Center structural integrity -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 17:30:05 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Katie -:- Salsa - e-mail JHB (John Brauns) -:- Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:45:03 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ salsa -:- Re: Salsa - e-mail JHB (John Brauns) -:- Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 01:06:23 (EDT)


Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:58:11 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: All
Subject: America, curl up and die
Message:
Blame America First . . .
. . . or Israel-whichever.

By Ramesh Ponnuru

America is guilty. America is always guilty. Even when it's attacked. So it appears, at least, to a certain type of commentator. When the Towers fell, when the Pentagon was pierced, when thousands of our countrymen were slaughtered — the America Last pundits were there to explain how we had brought these calamities on ourselves. We were attacked, they explained, because we had angered the world. Had we not walked out of the Durban conference? Had we not spurned the Kyoto Protocol? Osama bin Laden, environmentalist in a hurry.
What has drawn the most fire, of course, is America's alliance with Israel. Critics of that alliance, on both the left and the right, have argued that but for it we would never have been attacked. The bluntest statements have appeared in the British press. In an article for the Observer called 'Who Will Dare Damn Israel?' Richard Ingrams wrote that 'the undeniable and central fact behind the disaster [is] that Israel is now and has been for some time an American colony.' Also in the Observer, Edward Said blamed America's 'support for the 34-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.' Similar views, more obliquely expressed, have appeared in the American media.

It follows from this position that America cannot defend itself from terrorism without disassociating itself from Israel. The thesis was expounded at length in Salon, a liberal online magazine, by its executive editor, Gary Kamiya. 'We must pressure Israel to take the concrete steps necessary to provide justice for the Palestinian people,' he wrote; we must demonstrate to Islamic states 'that it is a new day, that Israel is not the tail that wags the American dog.' Otherwise, we will never enjoy peace.

A more modest version of this view has found a home in the Bush administration, especially in its State Department: We must push Israel toward peace with Arab countries in order to get those countries to join our war on terrorism.

All of these supposed connections between the September 11 attacks and American policy toward Israel are extremely dubious. It is almost certainly not the case that we could have subdued our attackers' wrath by forsaking Israel; we will probably not win friends by doing so now; and it is very unlikely the case that we must make 'progress' on the Arab-Israeli conflict to fight terrorism.

Let's start with bin Laden's motives, about which we need not speculate. He had his declaration of jihad against America published in February 1998. (This is the document in which he declared, 'To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able.') His bill of particulars against America mentions, first, the U.S. 'occupation' of Saudi Arabia. On his deathbed, the Prophet Mohammed is said to have demanded that only Muslims dwell in the holy land of Arabia; the American presence — a presence that we do not maintain, please note, for the purpose of protecting Israel — is therefore a desecration. (The idea of killing random people to protect the holy land is, however, a modern innovation rather than orthodox Islamic doctrine.) Bin Laden's second complaint concerns our policies against Iraq. Only then does the declaration turn to 'the petty state of the Jews' and 'their occupation of Jerusalem and their killing of Muslims in it.'

The radical Islamists' broader quarrel is with American power: not with the uses of that power, but with the fact of it. We are infidels. And we are liberal, capitalist, modern, powerful, and rich; therefore hated. Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the point well when he wrote in the aftermath of the September massacres that the Islamists do not hate the West because of Israel; they hate Israel because of the West. They call us, not Israel, 'the Great Satan.'

Obviously, our friendship with Israel increases the hostility of Arabs and Muslims toward us. But short of abandoning Israel altogether, what are we to do about that? It is not as though American policy has been simply and unequivocally pro-Israel. Soviet arms protected the infant state in 1948, while America imposed an embargo. America stopped Israel (along with Britain and France) from toppling the Egyptian regime in 1956, and stopped Israel from pushing for further military victories at the end of the 1973 war. Camp David was, in part, an American bribe to get Israel to return the Sinai to Egypt; and a deal between Egypt and Israel would probably have been easier to conclude had Jimmy Carter not insisted on addressing Palestinian grievances too. The Reagan administration joined the rest of the world in condemning Israel for bombing Iraq's Osiraq nuclear plant in 1981; a year later, it helped rescue Yasser Arafat from the Israelis in Lebanon.

During the Gulf War, Washington vetoed Israel's plans to protect itself from Iraqi missiles. In the early 1990s, the first Bush administration worked to bring down Yitzhak Shamir's government because it was deemed too intransigent toward the Palestinians; in the late 1990s, the Clinton administration worked against Netanyahu's government for the same reason. There is good reason to think that it was American pressure that brought Israel in 1993 to Oslo and thereafter kept it participating in the 'peace process' inaugurated there.

The point is not that America has been anti-Israel, which would be an absurd contention. It is that Kamiya's counsel that it is 'time for America to start throwing its weight around . . . with Israel' comes much too late. Israel does not wag the American dog. A policy of pressure on Israel would not be a bold departure from past policy. It would be more of the same. And it is worth noting that none of these calibrations of American policy have bought us any credit among those who hate us (nor, for that matter, have our military interventions to save Muslims' lives in Bosnia and Kosovo).

For decades, many of us have preferred to pretend that Arabs' demands of Israel were moderate and reasonable, and that we could appease them with moderate and reasonable policies of our own. But it should now be clear for all with eyes to see that their hostility to Israel is not primarily about settlements on the West Bank or even the occupation (what's left of it). They oppose the Jewish state's existence. Their solution to the 'Arab-Israeli problem' is the final solution: Israel's destruction. As long as Americans are an obstacle to that dream, it will be held against us.

Yet the fundamental problem in the Mideast is not the existence of the Israeli state. It is the despotism of the Arab states. There is not a market democracy in the bunch. These states are corrupt and brutal. They are theocracies, or precarious autocracies, or secular totalitarian states: tyrannies all, deniers of freedom, republics of fear, enemies of civility and human flourishing. (The outlines of another such state can be seen in the Palestinian Authority.) They are governments that make constant war on their own peoples. They cannot make peace because they are not at peace themselves.

There may be occasions when America can ally with some of those states, as we did during the Gulf War. On these occasions, there is no need to mollify public opinion in the Arab world — whatever 'public opinion' would mean in this unfree context — by pressuring Israel. A decade ago, a lot of people suggested that there had to be 'linkage' between the Israeli-Palestinian and American-Iraqi conflicts: We would have to address the former to win the latter. The U.S. largely resisted the demand for linkage, with the significant exception of barring Israel from participating in the coalition against Iraq. As it turned out, the linkage worked the other way: Having won the war, America was in a better position to force the PLO to the table. (That we made a mess of things once this occurred does not invalidate the point.)

The Arab states responded to power used with resolve. Later, they responded to American weakness. America's position in the Mideast slipped as it became clear that we were not serious about ending the Iraqi threat — and that Israel was tiring of its permanent war footing. To turn away from our ally now would be regarded, too, as weakness.

And rightly so. It is one thing to make a case on the merits that our foreign policies should be changed. Perhaps we should end our alliance with Israel. Perhaps we should remove our troops from Saudi Arabia, or lift the sanctions on Iraq. But not under duress. A policy designed to keep from offending people who might be inclined to attack us is a policy of preemptive capitulation to terrorists. In his address to Congress, President Bush explained why the terrorists kill: 'With every atrocity they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends.' The terrorists' hope is the frank advice of those who would have us back away from Israel because of the September 11 attacks.

Dishonorable in principle, such a policy would also fail in practice. There would be no obvious stopping-point to it. Having seen terrorism accomplish its objectives in the Mideast, why should North Korea not use it to make us withdraw our protection from South Korea? Beijing could sponsor terrorism until we let it swallow Taiwan. In the past, Puerto Rican independistas have resorted to terror. Etc. Shall we capitulate to them all?

Here, then, is the true strategy being recommended to America: Curl up and die.

From the October 15, 2001, issue of National Review

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:32:29 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: PS Bye, guys, I'm out of here
Message:
It seems that accepting reality (part of which is that the USA is the current imperialist and colonialist power) is not on the agenda here. I certainly don't rubber stamp everything that is done by the empire but I guess I'm just not pessimistic enough to think that everything that it does is evil.

And now I see that Rick, whoever he is, is equating my view of history as cultural evolution as white supremacism. Yep, I know when I'm outnumbered. I think I'll get out before I am painted into the racist, jingoist, conservative corner by people who have obviously not studied history.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:35:18 (EDT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Tantrum number 39?
Message:
See you soon, Pat:)
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 14:25:11 (EDT)
From: salsa
Email: None
To: All
Subject: I told you so...
Message:
Not to be one which gloats on the aspects of the old line said with a grin ( I told you so!)

But,I told you so!

Here inside these bills lay the planned over throw and which most likely will be passed with a ( hip, hip Hooray! ) If this and other bills forth coming are not passed, hang onto your hat, mighty nuclear winds sure to blow your hair back for that complete attitude adjustment for peace and security bought to you by your secret state police.

The present flag wavering public,with blood lust in their eyes for this weeks monster man under the bed,filled with a nightly dose of propaganda,will shake to their overpriced sneakers for safety, peace, and security,with the bigger acts of TERROR that are brought home to you by a cold and sinus relief advertiser on the 21 inch peephole to paradise.

The modern Rome,has no need for you to travel to the colliseum citizen, the killing of Christians comes full color/ Cable / Satellite/ Surround Sound Stereo.Relax 24 hr coverage that you can video tape for the parts that are missed by falling asleep, after all the Beer, Bread and Circus, dont worry you wont miss a thing.

Please protect me, please, follow me , phone tap me, email watch me, make all my papers open to you ,( my protector ).Big fat cow pie stories that if you give up your freedom, we the protectors will keep you safe and snug like a bug in a rug. Some truth there, a bug in a rug only ready to be stomped with the boot of a fascist, most of these laws were written years ago and could not pass the house, but now its on a fast tract to tyranny.

Signs, Signs, tell the times but words can never hurt me..............wrong
I TOLD YOU SO!

The honey comb reporter Jeffrey William;Hills Emerson Review Newspaper.

You can find the proposed legislation by entering S.1438 into the Thomas
search engine

Thomas
http://thomas.loc.gov/

S.1438
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 (Placed on the
Calendar in the Senate)

SEC. 1062. AUTHORITY TO ENSURE DEMILITARIZATION OF SIGNIFICANT MILITARY
EQUIPMENT FORMERLY OWNED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

(a) PROHIBITION- It is unlawful for any person to possess significant
military equipment formerly owned by the Department of Defense unless-- (1)
the military equipment has been demilitarized in accordance with standards
prescribed by the Secretary of Defense; (2) the person is in possession of
the military equipment for the purpose of demilitarizing the equipment
pursuant to a Federal Government contract; or (3) the person is
specifically authorized by law or regulation to possess the military equipment.

(b) REFERRAL TO ATTORNEY GENERAL- The Secretary of Defense shall notify the
Attorney General of any potential violation of subsection (a) of which the
Secretary becomes aware.

(c) AUTHORITY TO REQUIRE DEMILITARIZATION- (1) The Attorney General may
require any person who, in violation of subsection (a), is in possession of
significant military equipment formerly owned by the Department of
Defense-- (A) to demilitarize the equipment; (B) to have the equipment
demilitarized by a third party; or (C) to return the equipment to the
Federal Government for demilitarization.

(2) When the demilitarization of significant military equipment is carried
out pursuant to subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1), an officer or
employee of the United States designated by the Attorney General shall have
the right to confirm, by inspection or other means authorized by the
Attorney General, that the equipment has been demilitarized.

(3) If significant military equipment is not demilitarized or returned to
the Federal Government for demilitarization as required under paragraph (1)
within a reasonable period after the Attorney General notifies the person
in possession of the equipment of the requirement to do so, the Attorney
General may request that a court of the United States issue a warrant
authorizing the seizure of the military equipment in the same manner as is
provided for a search warrant. If the court determines that there is
probable cause to believe that the person is in possession of significant
military equipment in violation of subsection (a), the court shall issue a
warrant authorizing the seizure of such equipment.

(d) DEMILITARIZATION OF EQUIPMENT- (1) The Attorney General shall transfer
any military equipment returned to the Federal Government or seized
pursuant to subsection (c) to the Department of Defense for demilitarization.

(2) If the person in possession of significant military equipment obtained
the equipment in accordance with any other provision of law, the Secretary
of Defense shall bear all costs of transportation and demilitarization of
the equipment and shall either-- (A) return the equipment to the person
upon completion of the demilitarization; or (B) reimburse the person for
the cost incurred by that person to acquire the equipment if the Secretary
determines that the cost to demilitarize and return the property to the
person would be prohibitive.

(e) ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMILITARIZATION STANDARDS- (1) The Secretary of
Defense shall prescribe regulations regarding the demilitarization of
military equipment.

(2) The regulations shall be designed to ensure that-- (A) the equipment,
after demilitarization, does not constitute a significant risk to public
safety and does not have-- (i) a significant capability for use as a
weapon; or (ii) a uniquely military capability; and (B) any person from
whom private property is taken for public use under this section receives
just compensation for the taking of the property.

(3) The regulations shall, at a minimum, define-- (A) the classes of
significant military equipment requiring demilitarization before disposal;
and (B) what constitutes demilitarization for each class of significant
military equipment.

(f) DEFINITION OF SIGNIFICANT MILITARY EQUIPMENT- In this section, the term
`significant military equipment' means equipment that has a capability
described in clause (i) or (ii) of subsection (e)(2) and-- (1) is a defense
article listed on the United States Munitions List maintained under section
38 of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2778) that is designated on
that list as significant military equipment; or (2) is designated by the
Secretary of Defense under the regulations prescribed under subsection (e)
as being equipment that it is necessary in the interest of public safety to
demilitarize before disposal by the United States.

SEC. 1063. CONVEYANCES OF EQUIPMENT AND RELATED MATERIALS LOANED TO STATE
AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AS ASSISTANCE FOR EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO A USE OR
THREATENED USE OF A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

Section 1412(e) of the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of
1996 (title XIV of Public Law 104-201;
110 Stat. 2718; 50 U.S.C. 2312(e)) is amended by adding at the end the
following new paragraph:

`(5) A conveyance of ownership of United States property to a State or
local government, without cost and without regard to subsection (f) and
title II of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949
(or any other provision of law relating to the disposal of property of the
United States), if the property is equipment, or equipment and related
materials, that is in the possession of the State or local government on
the date of the enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2002 pursuant to a loan of the property as assistance under
this section.'.

Call the offices of your two Senators at the following numbers for the US
Capitol switchboard and politely tell them that you will 'Remember in
November' if they vote for S.1438 without SEC. 1062 being removed.

888-449-3511
800-972-3524
877-722-7494
800-456-1414

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/20010919_ata_bill_draft.html

2nd Draft of DoJ Surveillance & Antiterrorism Bill
The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 (ATA) (Sep. 19, 2001)
[Originally called the Mobilization Against Terrorism Act (MATA).]

107TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION
H.R. ______

To combat terrorism and defend the Nation against terrorist acts, and for other purposes.

_______________

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September ___, 2001

_______________

A BILL
To combat terrorism and defend the Nation against terrorist acts, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SEC. 1. SHORT TITLE.

This act may be cited as the 'Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001.'

SEC. 2. TABLE OF CONTENTS.

The following is the table of contents for this Act:

Sec. 1. Short title.

Sec. 2. Table of contents.

Sec. 3. Construction; severability.

Title I--INTELLIGENCE GATHERING

Subtitle A--Electronic Surveillance

Sec. 101. Modification of authorities relating to use of pen registers and trap and trace devices.

Sec. 102. Seizure of voice-mail messages pursuant to warrants.

Sec. 103. Authorized disclosure.

Sec. 104. Savings provision.

Sec. 105. Use of wiretap information from foreign governments.

Sec. 106. Interception of computer trespasser communications.

Sec. 107. Scope of subpoenas for records of electronic communications.

Sec. 108. Nationwide service of search warrants for electronic evidence.

Sec. 109. Clarification of scope.

Sec. 110. Emergency disclosure of electronic communications to protect life and limb.

Subtitle B--Foreign Intelligence Surveillance and Other Information

Sec. 151. Period of orders of electronic surveillance of non-United States persons under foreign intelligence surveillance.

Sec. 152. Multi-point authority.

Sec. 153. Foreign intelligence information.

Sec. 154. Foreign intelligence information sharing.

Sec. 155. Pen register and trap and trace authority.

Sec. 156. Business records.

Sec. 157. Miscellaneous national-security authorities.

Sec. 158. Disclosure of educational records.

Sec. 159. Presidential authority.

Title II--IMMIGRATION

Sec. 201. Definitions relating to terrorism.

Sec. 202. Mandatory detention of suspected terrorists.

Sec. 203. Habeas corpus and judicial review.

Sec. 204. Applicability.

Sec. 205. Multilateral co-operation against terrorists.

Sec. 206. Inter-agency data sharing.

Title III--CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Subtitle A-Substantive Criminal Law

Sec. 301. No statute of limitation for prosecuting terrorism offenses.

Sec. 302. Alternative maximum penalties for terrorism crimes.

Sec. 303. Penalties for terrorist conspiracies.

Sec. 304. Terrorism crimes as RICO predicates.

Sec. 305. Biological weapons.

Sec. 306. Support of terrorism through expert advice or assistance.

Sec. 307. Prohibition against harboring terrorists.

Sec. 308. Post-release supervision of terrorists.

Sec. 309. Definition.

Subtitle B-Criminal Procedure

Sec. 351. Single-jurisdiction search warrants for terrorism.

Sec. 352. Notice.

Sec. 353. DNA identification of terrorists.

Sec. 354. Grand jury matters.

Sec. 355. Extraterritoriality.

Sec. 356. Definition.

Title IV--FINANCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Sec. 401. Laundering the proceeds of terrorism.

Sec. 402. Material support for terrorism.

Sec. 403. Assets of terrorist organizations.

Sec. 404. Technical clarification relating to provision of material support to terrorism.

Sec. 405. Disclosure of tax information in terrorism and national-security investigations.

Sec. 406. Restraint of property subject to criminal forfeiture.

Sec. 407. Trade sanctions.

Sec. 408. Extraterritorial jurisdiction.

TITLE V--EMERGENCY AUTHORIZATIONS

Sec. 501. Office of Justice Programs.

Sec. 502. Attorney General's authority to pay rewards.

Sec. 503. Limited authority to pay overtime.

Sec. 504. Secretary of State's authority to pay rewards.

Sec. 505. Assistance to countries co-operating against international terrorism.

SEC. 3. CONSTRUCTION; SEVERABILITY.

Any provision of this Act held to be invalid or unenforceable by its terms, or as applied to any person or circumstance, shall be construed so as to give it the maximum effect permitted by law, unless such holding shall be one of utter invalidity or unenforceability, in which event such provision shall be deemed severable from this Act and shall not affect the remainder thereof or the application of such provision to other persons not similarly situated or to other, dissimilar circumstances.

TITLE I--INTELLIGENCE GATHERING
Subtitle A--Electronic Surveillance

SEC. 101. MODIFICATION OF AUTHORITIES RELATING TO USE OF PEN REGISTERS AND TRAP AND TRACE DEVICES.

(a) GENERAL LIMITATION ON USE BY GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES- Section 3121(c) of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) by inserting 'or trap and trace device' after 'pen register';

(2) by inserting ', routing, addressing,' after 'dialing'; and

(3) by striking 'call processing' and inserting 'the processing and transmitting of wire and electronic communications'.

(b) ISSUANCE OF ORDERS-

(1) IN GENERAL- Subsection (a) of section 3123 of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

'(a) IN GENERAL- (1) Upon an application made under section 3122(a)(1), the court shall enter an ex-parte order authorizing the installation and use of a pen register or trap and trace device anywhere within the United States, if the court finds that the attorney for the Government has certified to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. The order shall, upon service thereof, apply to any person or entity providing wire or electronic communication service in the United States whose assistance may facilitate the execution of the order.

'(2) Upon an application made under section 3122(a)(2), the court shall enter an ex-parte order authorizing the installation and use of a pen register or trap and trace device within the jurisdiction of the court, if the court finds that the State law-enforcement or investigative officer has certified to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.'.

(2) CONTENTS OF ORDER- Subsection (b)(1) of section 3123 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(A) in subparagraph (A)--

(i) by inserting 'or other facility' after 'telephone line'; and

(ii) by inserting before the semicolon at the end 'or applied'; and

(B) by striking subparagraph (C) and inserting the following new subparagraph (C):

'(C) the attributes of the communications to which the order applies, including the number or other identifier and, if known, the location of the telephone line or other facility to which the pen register or trap and trace device is to be attached or applied, and, in the case of an order authorizing installation and use of a trap and trace device under subsection (a)(2), the geographic limits of the order; and'.

(3) NON-DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS- Subsection (d)(2) of section 3123 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(A) by inserting 'or other facility' after 'the line'; and

(B) by striking ', or who has been ordered by the court' and inserting 'or applied, or who is obligated by the order'.

(c) DEFINITIONS-

(1) COURT OF COMPETENT JURISDICTION- Paragraph (2) of section 3127 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking subparagraph (A) and inserting the following new subparagraph (A):

'(A) any district court of the United States (including a magistrate judge of such a court) or any United States Court of Appeals having jurisdiction over the offense being investigated; or'.

(2) PEN REGISTER - Paragraph (3) of section 3127 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(A) by striking 'electronic or other impulses' and all that follows through 'is attached' and inserting 'dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted'; and

(B) by inserting 'or process' after 'device' each place it appears.

(3) TRAP AND TRACE DEVICE- Paragraph (4) of section 3127 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(A) by inserting 'or process' after 'a device'; and

(B) by striking 'of an instrument' and all that follows through the end and inserting 'or other dialing, routing, addressing, and signaling information reasonably likely to identify the source of a wire or electronic communication;'.

SEC. 102. SEIZURE OF VOICE-MAIL MESSAGES PURSUANT TO WARRANTS.

Title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) in section 2510 -

(A) in subsection (1), by striking all the words after 'commerce'; and

(B) in subsection (14), by inserting 'wire or' after 'transmission of'; and

(2) in section 2703(a) and (b)--

(A) by replacing 'Contents of electronic' with 'Contents of wire or electronic' every place it occurs;

(B) by replacing 'contents of an electronic' with 'contents of a wire or electronic' every place it occurs; and

(C) by replacing 'any electronic' with 'any wire or electronic' every place it occurs; and

(D) by replacing 'communication,' with 'communication (including any electronic storage of such wire communication),'.

SEC. 103. AUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE.

Section 2510(7) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding ', and (for purposes only of section 2517) any officer or employee of the executive branch of the federal government' after 'such offenses'.

SEC. 104. SAVINGS PROVISION.

Section 2511(2)(f) of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) by replacing 'or chapter 121' with ', chapter 121, or chapter 206'; and

(2) by replacing 'wire and oral' with 'wire, oral, and electronic'.

SEC. 105. USE OF WIRETAP INFORMATION FROM FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS.

Chapter 119 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) by adding a new section 2514, as follows:

'2514. Use of extraterritorial interceptions by foreign governments.

'(1) Information lawfully received under United States law from the interception of wire, oral or electronic communications outside the United States by a foreign government or a person acting at the direction thereof-

'(a) without the knowing participation of any officer or employee of the United States or person acting at the direction thereof; or

'(b) with such participation, but under circumstances in which such interception would have been lawful if executed within the United States by such officer, employee, or person,

shall be admissible, and the United States may disclose the information (or derivative information therefrom) in any proceeding held under the authority of the United States or any state or political subdivision thereof.

'(2) Information described in subsection (1) the government alleges could affect the national security shall have no less protection than that afforded by law to confidential informants.'; and

(2) in the chapter analysis, by inserting before the item relating to section 2515 the following:

'2514. Use of extraterritorial interceptions by foreign governments.'.

SEC. 106. INTERCEPTION OF COMPUTER TRESPASSER COMMUNICATIONS.

Chapter 119 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) in section 2510-

(A) in subsection (17), by striking 'and' at the end;

(B) in subsection (18), by replacing the period with a semi-colon; and

(C) by adding after subsection (18), two new subsections as follows:

'(19) `protected computer' has the meaning set forth in section 1030; and

'(20) `computer trespasser' means a person who accesses a protected computer without authorization and thus has no reasonable expectation of privacy in any communication transmitted to, through, or from the protected computer.'; and

(2) in section 2511(2), by adding after paragraph (h) a new paragraph as follows:

'(i) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person acting under color of law to intercept the wire or electronic communications of a computer trespasser, if-

'(A) the owner or operator of the protected computer authorizes the interception of the computer trespasser's communications on the protected computer;

'(B) the person acting under color of law is lawfully engaged in an investigation;

'(C) the person acting under color of law has reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of the computer trespasser's communications will be relevant to the investigation; and

'(D) such interception does not acquire communications other than those transmitted to or from the computer trespasser.'.

SEC. 107. SCOPE OF SUBPOENAS FOR RECORDS OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS.

Section 2703(c)(1)(C) of title 18, United States Code, is amended--

(1) by replacing 'name, address, local and long distance telephone toll billing records, telephone number or other subscriber number or identity, and length of service' with the following:

'(i) name;

'(ii) address;

'(iii) local and long distance telephone connection records, or records of session times and durations;

'(iv) length of service (including start date) and types of service utilized;

'(v) telephone or instrument number or other subscriber number or identity, including any temporarily assigned network address; and

'(vi) means and source of payment (including any credit card or bank account number)'; and

(2) by striking 'and the types of services the subscriber or customer utilized,' after 'of a subscriber to or customer of such service,'.

SEC. 108. NATIONWIDE SERVICE OF SEARCH WARRANTS FOR ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE.

Chapter 121 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) in section 2703, by striking 'under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure' every place it appears and inserting 'using the procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by a court with jurisdiction over the offense under investigation'; and

(2) in section 2711--

(A) in paragraph (1), by striking 'and';

(B) in paragraph (2), by replacing the period with '; and'; and

(C) by adding the following new paragraph at the end:

'(3) the term `court of competent jurisdiction' has the meaning assigned by section 3127, and includes any federal court within that definition, without geographic limitation.'.

SEC. 109. CLARIFICATION OF SCOPE.

Section 2511(2) of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 106(2) of this Act, is further amended by adding at the end a new paragraph as follows:

'(j) Nothing contained in section 631 of the Act of June 19, 1934 (47 U.S.C. 551) shall be deemed to restrict voluntary or obligatory disclosures of information pursuant to the provisions of this chapter, chapter 121, or chapter 206, except that such disclosures shall not include records revealing customer cable television viewing activity.'.

SEC. 110. EMERGENCY DISCLOSURE OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND LIMB.

(a) Section 2702 of Title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) by amending the heading to read, 'Voluntary disclosure of customer communications or records';

(2) in subsection (a)(2)(B) by replacing the period with '; and';

(3) by adding after paragraph (a)(2) a new paragraph as follows:

'(3) a provider of remote computing service or electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service (not including the contents of communications covered by subsection (a)(1) or (a)(2)) to any governmental entity.';

(4) in subsection (b) by striking 'Exceptions.-A person or entity' and inserting 'Exceptions for disclosure of communications.-A provider described in subsection (a)';

(5) in paragraph (b)(6)--

(A) in clause (A)(ii), by striking 'or';

(B) in subparagraph (B), by replacing the period with '; or';

(C) by inserting after subparagraph (B) a new subparagraph as follows:

'(C) if the provider reasonably believes that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure of the information without delay.'; and

(6) by adding after subsection (b) a new subsection as follows:

'(c) Exceptions for disclosure of customer records.-A provider described in subsection (a) may divulge a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service (not including the contents of communications covered by subsection (a)(1) or (a)(2))--

(1) as otherwise authorized in section 2703;

(2) with the lawful consent of the customer or subscriber;

(3) as may be necessarily incident to the rendition of the service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service;

(4) to a governmental entity, if the provider reasonably believes that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person justifies disclosure of the information; or

(5) to any person other than a governmental entity.'.

(b) Section 2703 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--

(1) by amending the section heading to read, 'Required disclosure of customer communications or records'.

(2) by redesignating subsection (c)(2) as (c)(3);

(3) in subsection (c)(1)--

(A) by striking '(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B) a provider of electronic communication service may' and inserting 'A governmental entity may require a provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service to';

(B) by striking 'covered by subsection (a) or (b) of this section) to any person other than a governmental entity.' and inserting a close parenthesis;

(C) by striking '(B) A provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service shall disclose a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service (not including the contents of communications covered by subsection (a) or (b) of this section) to a governmental entity';

(D) by redesignating subsection (C) as subsection (c)(2);

(E) by redesignating subsection (B)(i) as (A), (B)(ii) as (B), (B)(iii) as (C), (B)(iv) as (D), and (B)(v) as (E);

(F) in subsection (D) (formerly (B)(iv)) by striking the final period and inserting '; or';

(G) by inserting after subsection (D) (formerly (B)(iv)) the following subsection:

'(F) seeks information pursuant to subparagraph (2).'.

Subtitle B--Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
and Other Information

SEC. 151. PERIOD OF ORDERS OF ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE OF NON-UNITED STATES PERSONS UNDER FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE.

(a) The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 is amended by adding 'or an agent of a foreign power, as defined in section 101(b)(1)(A),'-

(1) in section 105(e)(1) (50 U.S.C. 1805(e)(1)), after 'or (3),'; and

(2) in section 304(d)(1) (50 U.S.C. 1824(d)(1)), after '101(a),'.

(b) Section 304(d)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1824(d)(1)) is amended by replacing 'forty-five' with 'ninety.'

SEC. 152. MULTI-POINT AUTHORITY.

Section 105(c)(2)(B) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1805(c)(2)(B)) is amended by inserting ', or, in circumstances where the Court finds that the actions of the target of the application may have the effect of thwarting the identification of a specified person, such other persons,' after 'specified person'.

SEC. 153. FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 is amended by replacing 'that the' with 'that a'--

(1) in section 104(a)(7)(B) (50 U.S.C. 1804(a)(7)(B)); and

(2) in section 303(a)(7)(B) (50 U.S.C. 1823(a)(7)(B)).

SEC. 154. FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION SHARING.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, it shall be lawful for foreign intelligence information obtained as part of a criminal investigation (including, without limitation, information subject to Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and information obtained pursuant to chapter 119 of title 18, United States Code) to be provided to any federal law-enforcement-, intelligence-, protective-, or national-defense personnel, or to any federal personnel responsible for administering the immigration laws of the United States.

SEC. 155. PEN REGISTER AND TRAP AND TRACE AUTHORITY.

Section 402(c) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1842(c)) is amended-

(1) at the end of paragraph (1), by adding 'and';

(2) in paragraph (2)--

(A) by inserting 'from the telephone line to which the pen register or trap and trace device is to be attached, or the communication instrument or device to be covered by the pen register or trap and trace device' after 'obtained'; and

(B) by replacing all the matter after 'General' with a period; and

(3) by striking paragraph (3).

SEC. 156. BUSINESS RECORDS.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 is amended-

(1) in section 501 (50 U.S.C. 1861), by amending the same to read as follows:

'SS 501. Administrative subpoenas.

'(a) In any investigation to gather foreign intelligence information or an investigation concerning international terrorism, which investigation is being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under such guidelines as the Attorney General may approve pursuant to Executive Order 12333 (or a successor order), the Attorney General may, by administrative subpoena, require the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) that are relevant to the investigation.

'(b) A person who, in good faith, produces tangible things under a subpoena issued pursuant to this section shall not be liable to any other person for such production. Such production shall not be deemed to constitute a waiver of any privilege in any other proceeding or context.'; and

(2) by striking section 502 (50 U.S.C. 1862).

SEC. 157. MISCELLANEOUS NATIONAL-SECURITY AUTHORITIES.

(a) Section 2709(b) of title 18, United States Code, is amended--

(1) by inserting 'at Bureau headquarters or Special Agent in Charge in Bureau field offices' before ', may' the first place it occurs;

(2) in paragraph (1)--

(A) by replacing 'the Director' and all that follows through 'Director)' with 'he';

(B) by inserting ', or electronic communication transactional records' after 'toll billing records'; and

(C) by replacing 'made that' and all that follows through the end with 'made that the name, address, length of service, and toll billing records sought are relevant to an authorized foreign counterintelligence investigation; and'; and

(3) in paragraph (2)--

(A) by replacing 'the Director' and all that follows through 'Director)' with 'he'; and

(B) by replacing 'made that' and all that follows through the end with 'made that the information sought is relevant to an authorized foreign counterintelligence investigation.'.

(b) Section 1114(a)(5)(A) of Public Law 95-630 (12 U.S.C. 3414(a)(5)(A)) is amended--

(1) by inserting 'in a position not lower than Deputy Assistant Director at Bureau headquarters or Special Agent in Charge in Bureau field offices' after 'designee'; and

(2) by striking all the matter following 'purposes' up to the period; and

(c) Section 624 of Public Law 90-321 (15 U.S.C. 1681u) is amended--

(1) in subsection (a)--

(A) by inserting 'in a position not lower than Deputy Assistant Director at Bureau headquarters or Special Agent in Charge in Bureau field offices' after 'designee' the first place it appears; and

(B) by replacing 'writing that' and all that follows through the end with 'writing that such information is necessary for the conduct of an authorized foreign counterintelligence investigation.';

(2) in subsection (b)--

(A) by inserting '(in a position not lower than Deputy Assistant Director at Bureau headquarters or Special Agent in Charge in Bureau field offices)' after 'designee' the first place it appears; and

(B) by replacing 'writing that' and all that follows through the end with 'writing that such information is necessary for the conduct of an authorized foreign counterintelligence investigation.'; and

(3) in subsection (c)--

(A) by inserting '(in a position not lower than Deputy Assistant Director at Bureau headquarters or Special Agent in Charge in Bureau field offices)' after 'designee'; and

(B) by replacing 'camera that' and all that follows through 'States.' with 'camera that the consumer report is necessary for the conduct of an authorized foreign counterintelligence investigation.'.

SEC. 158. DISCLOSURE OF EDUCATIONAL RECORDS.

(a) Section 408 of the National Education Statistics Act of 1994 (20 U.S.C. 9007) is amended by adding after subsection (b) a new subsection as follows:

'(c) Without regard to subsections (a) and (b), the Attorney General or the Secretary of Education (or any Federal officer or employee designated by either of them) may, upon determining that so doing can reasonably be expected to assist in investigating or preventing a Federal terrorism offense as defined in section 25 of title 18, United States Code, or domestic terrorism or international terrorism as defined in section 2331 of that title-

'(1) collect, through legal process or as otherwise authorized by law, reports, records, and information (including individually-identifiable information), in the Center's possession; and

(2) for official purposes, retain, disseminate, and use (including as evidence at trial or in other administrative or judicial proceedings) such reports, records, or information as otherwise authorized by law, consistent with such guidelines as the Attorney General may issue to protect confidentiality.

No person furnishing reports, records, or information pursuant to this subsection shall be liable to any other person for furnishing such information.'.

(b) Section 444 of the General Education Provisions Act (20 U.S.C. 1232g), is amended by adding after subsection (i) a new subsection as follows:

'(j) Without regard to subsections (a) through (i) or any provision of State law, the Attorney General (or any Federal officer or employee designated by him) may, upon determining that so doing can reasonably be expected to assist in investigating or preventing a Federal terrorism offense as defined in section 25 of title 18, United States Code, or domestic terrorism or international terrorism as defined in section 2331 of that title-

'(1) collect education records and other information in the possession of an educational agency or institution; and

(2) for official purposes, retain, disseminate, and use (including as evidence at trial or in other administrative or judicial proceedings) such records or other information as otherwise authorized by law, consistent with such guidelines as the Attorney General may issue to protect confidentiality.

No person furnishing records or information pursuant to this subsection shall be liable to any other person for furnishing such information.'.

SEC. 159. PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITY.

Section 203 of Public Law 95-223 (50 U.S.C. 1702) is amended-

(1) at the end of subparagraph (a)(1)(A), by replacing '; and' with a comma and adding thereafter the following (flush to that subparagraph):

'by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States;'

(2) in subparagraph (a)(1)(B)--

(A) by striking 'by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.';

(B) by replacing 'interest;' with 'interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; and'; and

(C) by inserting ', block during the pendency of an investigation' after 'investigate';

(3) at the end of paragraph (a)(1), by adding a new subparagraph as follows:

'(C) when the United States is engaged in armed hostilities or has been attacked by a foreign country or foreign nationals, confiscate any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, of any foreign person, foreign organization, or foreign country that he determines has planned, authorized, aided, or engaged in such hostilities or attacks against the United States; and all right, title, and interest in any property so confiscated shall vest, when, as, and upon the terms directed by the President, in such agency or person as the President may designate from time, and upon such terms and conditions as the President may prescribe, such interest or property shall be held, used, administered, liquidated, sold, or otherwise dealt with in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States, and such designated agency or person may perform any and all acts incident to the accomplishment or furtherance of these purposes.'; and

(4) by adding at the end a new subsection (c) as follows:

'(c) Classified information.--In any judicial review of a determination made under this section, if the determination was based on classified information (as defined in section 1(a) of the Classified Information Procedures Act, such information may be submitted to the reviewing court ex parte and in camera.'

Title II--IMMIGRATION
SEC. 201. DEFINITIONS RELATING TO TERRORISM.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 is amended-

(a) in Section 212(a)(3) (8 U.S.C. 1182)--

(1) in paragraph (B) -

(A) in clause (i) -

(i) by amending paragraph (IV) to read as follows:

'(IV) is a representative (as defined in clause (iv)) of : (a) a foreign terrorist organization, as designated by the Secretary under section 219, or (b) a political, social or other similar group whose public endorsement of acts of terrorist activity the Secretary has determined undermines U.S. efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activities, or';

(ii) in paragraph (V) by inserting 'or' after the comma following '...should have known is a terrorist organization'; and

(iii) by adding new paragraphs (VI) and (VII) to read as follows:

'(VI) has used his or her position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity, or persuade others to support terrorist activity or a foreign terrorist organization, in a way that the Secretary of State has determined undermines U.S. efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activities; or

(VII) is the spouse or child of an alien who is inadmissible under this section, if the activity causing the alien to be found inadmissible occurred within the last 5 years,';

(B) in clause (ii)--

(i) by inserting 'it had been' before 'committed in the United States'; and

(ii) by replacing 'or firearm' with ', firearm, or other weapon or dangerous device';

(C) by amending clause (iii) to read as follows:

'(iii) Engage in terrorist activity defined

'As used in this chapter, the term 'engage in terrorist activity' means, in an individual capacity or as a member of an organization--

'(I) to commit or to incite to commit, under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily injury, an act of terrorist activity;

'(II) to prepare or plan a terrorist activity;

'(III) to gather information on potential targets for terrorist activity;

'(III) to solicit funds or other things of value for terrorist activity or for any terrorist organization;

'(IV) to solicit any individual for membership in a terrorist organization, a government that supports terrorism, or to engage in a terrorist activity; or

'(V) otherwise to commit an act that the actor knows, or reasonably should know, affords material support (including, without limitation, a safe house, transportation, communications, funds, transfer of funds or other material financial benefit, false documentation or identification, weapons (including, without limitation, chemical, biological, and radiological weapons), explosives, or training), to any organization that the actor knows, or reasonably should know, is a terrorist organization, or to any individual whom the actor knows, or reasonably should know, has committed or plans to commit any terrorist activity.

'This clause shall not be construed to encompass any material support the alien affords to an individual who had previously committed terrorist activity if the alien establishes by clear and convincing evidence that such support was afforded only after that individual had permanently and publicly renounced and rejected the use of, and had ceased to commit or support, any terrorist activity.'; and

(D) by adding a new clause after clause (iv) to read as follows:

'(v) Terrorist organization defined

'As used in clause (iii), the term 'terrorist organization' means any organization-

'(I) designated or redesignated under section 219;

'(II) that commits or materially supports, or that has a significant subgroup that commits or materially supports, terrorist activity, regardless of any other activities conducted by the organization or its subgroups;

'(III) that intends to commit or materially support, or that has a significant subgroup that intends to commit or materially support, terrorist activity, regardless of any other activities conducted by the organization or its subgroups; or

'(IV) that has committed or materially supported, or that has a significant subgroup that has committed or materially supported, terrorist activity, regardless of any other activities conducted by the organization or its subgroups, unless the Secretary of State has determined in his sole discretion, after consultation with the Attorney General, that as of a date specified by the Secretary the organization shall not be considered a terrorist organization.'; and

(2) by adding a new subparagraph (F) as follows:

'Any alien who the Secretary of State, after consultation with the Attorney General, or the Attorney General, after consultation with the Secretary of State, determines has been associated with a terrorist organization and intends while in the United States to engage solely, principally, or incidentally in activities that could endanger the welfare, safety, or security of the United States is inadmissible.';

(b) in Section 219(a) (8 U.S.C. 1189(a))--

(A) in subparagraph (1)(B), by inserting 'or terrorism (as defined in section 140(d)(2) of the State Department Authorization Act, Public Law 100-204 (22 U.S.C. 2656f(d)(2)) or retains the capability and intent to engage in terrist activity or terrorism)' after '212(a)(3)(B))';

(B) in subparagraph (1)(C), by inserting 'or terrorism' after 'terrorist activity';

(C) by amending subparagraph (2)(A) to read as follows:

'(A) NOTICE.--

'(i) Seven days before making a designation under this subsection, the Secretary shall, by classified communication, notify the Speaker and Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, the President pro tempore, Majority Leader, and Minority Leader of the Senate, and the members of the relevant committees, in writing, of the intent to designate an organization under this subsection, together with the findings made under paragraph (1) with respect to that organization, and the factual basis therefor.

'(ii) The Secretary shall publish the designation in the Federal Register seven days after providing the notification under clause (i).';

(D) in clause (2)(B)(i), by replacing 'subparagraph (A)' with 'subparagraph (A)(ii)';

(E) in subparagraph (2)(C), by replacing 'paragraph (2)' with 'paragraph (2)(A)(i)';

(F) in subparagraph (3)(B), by replacing 'subsection (c)' with 'subsection (b)';

(G) in subparagraph (4)(B), by inserting after the first sentence the following:

'The Secretary also may redesignate such organization at the end of any 2-year redesignation period (but not sooner than 60 days prior to the termination of such period) for an additional 2-year period upon a finding that the relevant circumstances described in paragraph (1) still exist. Any redesignation shall be effective immediately following the end of the prior 2-year designation or redesignation period unless a different effective date is provided in such redesignation.';

(H) in subparagraph (6)(A),

(i) by inserting 'or a redesignation made under paragraph (4)(B)' after 'paragraph (1)';

(ii) in clause (i), by

(I) inserting 'or redesignation' after 'designation' the first time it appears; and

(II) striking 'of the designation'; and

(iii) in clause (ii), by striking 'of the designation';

(I) in subparagraph (6)(B), by

(i) replacing 'through (4)' with 'and (3)'; and

(ii) inserting the following new sentence at the end:

'Any revocation shall take effect on the date specified in the revocation or upon publication in the Federal Register if no effective date is specified.';

(J) in paragraph (7), by inserting ', or the revocation of a redesignation under paragraph (6),' after 'paragraph (5) or (6)'; and

(K) in paragraph (8), by

(i) replacing 'paragraph (1)(B)' with 'paragraph (2)(B), or if a redesignation under this subsection has become effective under paragraph (4)(B)';

(ii) inserting 'or an alien in a removal proceeding' after 'criminal action'; and

(iii) inserting 'or redesignation' before 'as a defense'.

SEC. 202. MANDATORY DETENTION OF SUSPECTED TERRORISTS.

Section 236 of the Immigration and Nationality Act is amended-

(1) by redesignating subsection (e) as (f) and by inserting before the same the following new subsection:

'(e) Detention of Terrorist Aliens.--

'(1) Custody.--The Attorney General shall take into custody any alien who is certified under paragraph (3).

'(2) Release.--The Attorney General shall maintain custody of any such alien until such alien is removed from the United States. Such custody shall be maintained irrespective of any relief from removal the alien may be eligible for or granted until the Attorney General deems such alien is no longer an alien who may be certified pursuant to paragraph (3).

'(3) Certification.--The Attorney General may certify an alien to be an alien he has reason to believe may commit, further, or facilitate acts described in section 237(a)(4)(A)(i), (A)(iii), or (B), or engage in any other activity that endangers the national security of the United States.'

SEC. 203. HABEAS CORPUS AND JUDICIAL REVIEW.

Except as provided herein and notwithstanding any other provision of law, including section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, no court shall have jurisdiction to review, by habeas corpus petition or otherwise, any action taken, administrative proceeding brought, or determination made to detain an alien under section 202 of this Act; without regard to the place of detention, judicial review of the detention of such an alien is available only by habeas-corpus petition filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

SEC. 204. APPLICABILITY.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the amendments made by this title (other than the amendments made by sections 205 and 207, which shall apply to offenses committed on or after the date of enactment) shall apply to all aliens, regardless of whether any such aliens entered the United States before or after the date of the enactment of this Act, or whether any relevant activity by any such aliens occurred before or after such date, and shall apply to all past, pending, or future deportation, exclusion, removal, or other immigration proceedings.

SEC. 205. MULTILATERAL CO-OPERATION AGAINST TERRORISTS.

Section 222(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 is amended-

(A) by inserting ': (1)' after 'except that'; and

(B) by inserting the following before the period at the end:

'and (2) the Secretary of State in his discretion and on the basis of reciprocity may provide to a foreign government information in the Department of State's computerized visa lookout database and, when necessary and appropriate, other records covered by this section related to information in the database:

(A) with regard to individual aliens, at any time on a case by case basis for the purpose of preventing, investigating or punishing, acts that would constitute a crime in the United States, including, but not limited to, terrorism or trafficking in controlled substances, persons or illicit weapons; or

(B) with regard to any or all aliens in the database, pursuant to such conditions as he shall establish in an agreement with another government in which that government agrees to use such information and records for the purposes described in paragraph (A) or otherwise to deny visas to persons who would be inadmissible to the United States.'

SEC. 206. INTER-AGENCY DATA SHARING.

(a) Section 105 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1105), is amended-

(1) in the caption by adding 'and Data Exchange' after 'Officers';

(2) by designating all of section 105 as subsection (a);

(3) in subsection (a) as so designated, by inserting the words 'and border' after the word 'internal' in the second place that it appears; and

(4) by adding new subsections (b), (c), and (d) as follows:

'(b) The Attorney General and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation may provide the Department of State and the Service with access to the criminal history record information contained in the National Crime Information Center's (NCIC) Interstate Identification Index (NCIC-III), Wanted Persons File, and to any other files maintained by the National Crime Information Center that may be mutually agreed upon by the Attorney General and the agency to be provided access for the purpose of determining whether a visa applicant or applicant for admission has a criminal history record indexed in any such file.

(c) For purposes of administering this Section, the Department of State shall, prior to receiving access to National Crime Information Center data, promulgate final regulations to establish the conditions for the use of the information received from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in order-

(1) to limit the redissemination of such information;

(2) to ensure that such information is used solely to determine whether to issue a visa to an individual;

(3) to ensure the security, confidentiality and destruction of such information; and

(4) to protect any privacy rights of individuals who are subjects of such information.'

(b) Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit such authority as the Attorney General or the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation may have pursuant to other law (and procedures thereunder) to provide access to the criminal history record information contained in the National Crime Information Center's (NCIC) Interstate Identification Index (NCIC-III), or to any other information maintained by the NCIC, to any Federal agency or officer authorized to enforce or administer the immigration laws of the United States for the purpose of such enforcement or administration, upon terms that are consistent with such other law.

Title III--CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Subtitle A-Substantive Criminal Law

SEC. 301. NO STATUTE OF LIMITATION FOR PROSECUTING TERRORISM OFFENSES.

(a) IN GENERAL.- Section 3286 of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

'SS 3286. Terrorism offenses

'Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an indictment may be found or an information instituted for any Federal terrorism offense at any time without limitation.'.

(b) CONFORMING AMENDMENT.-The analysis for chapter 213 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by amending the item relating to section 3286 to read as follows:

'3286. Terrorism offenses.'.

(c) APPLICATION.--The amendments made by this section shall apply to the prosecution of any offense committed before, on, or after the date of enactment of this section.

SEC. 302. ALTERNATIVE MAXIMUM PENALTIES FOR TERRORISM CRIMES.

Section 3559 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding after subsection (d) the following new subsection:

'(e) Authorized terms of imprisonment for terrorism crimes. - A person convicted of any Federal terrorism offense may be sentenced to imprisonment for any term of years or for life, notwithstanding any maximum term of imprisonment specified in the law describing the offense. The authorization of imprisonment under this subsection is supplementary to, and does not limit, the availability of any other penalty authorized by the law describing the offense, including the death penalty, and does not limit the applicability of any mandatory minimum term of imprisonment, including any mandatory life term, provided by the law describing the offense.'.

SEC. 303. PENALTIES FOR TERRORIST CONSPIRACIES.

Chapter 113B of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) by inserting after section 2332b the following:

'SS 2332c. Attempts and conspiracies

'Any person who attempts or conspires to commit any Federal terrorism offense shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the attempt or conspiracy.'; and

(2) in the analysis for the chapter, by inserting after the item relating to section 2332b the following:

'2332c. Attempts and conspiracies.'.

SEC. 304. TERRORISM CRIMES AS RICO PREDICATES.

Section 1961(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) by striking 'or (F)' and inserting '(F)'; and

(2) by replacing 'financial gain;' with 'financial gain, or (G) any act that is indictable as a Federal terrorism offense;'.

SEC. 305. BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS.

(a) Chapter 10 of title 18, United States Code is amended-

(1) in section 175-

(A) in subsection (b)-

(i) by striking, 'section, the'and inserting 'section - (1) the';

(ii) by striking 'does not include' and inserting 'includes';

(iii) by inserting 'other than' after 'system for'; and

(iv) by striking 'purposes.' and inserting the following: 'purposes, and (2) the terms `biological agent' and `toxin' do not encompass any biological agent or toxin that is in its naturally-occurring environment, if the biological agent or toxin has not been cultivated, collected, or otherwise extracted from its natural source.';

(B) by redesignating subsection (b) as (c); and

(C) after subsection (a), by adding a new subsection as follows:

'(b) Additional offense.-Whoever knowingly possesses any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system of a type or in a quantity that, under the circumstances, is not reasonably justified by a prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purpose, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both. Knowledge of whether the type or quantity of any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system is reasonably justified by a peaceful purpose is not an element of the offense.';

(2) after section 175a, by adding a new section as follows:

'SS 175b. Possession by restricted persons

'(a) No person described in section 922(g) shall ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any biological agent or toxin, or receive any biological agent or toxin that has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, if the biological agent or toxin is listed as a `select agent' in subsection (j) of section 72.6 of title 42, Code of Federal Regulations, pursuant to section 511(d)(1) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-132), and is not exempted under subsection (h) of such section 72.6, or appendix A of part 72 of such title; except that the term 'select agent' does not include any such biological agent or toxin that is in its naturally-occurring environment, if the biological agent or toxin has not been cultivated, collected, or otherwise extracted from its natural source. The prohibition of this section shall also apply to an alien (other than an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence) who is a national of a country as to which the Secretary of State, pursuant to section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act (50 U.S.C. App. 2405(j)), section 620A of chapter 1 of part M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2371), or section 40(d) of chapter 3 of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2780(d)), has made a determination (that remains in effect) that such country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.

'(b) Whoever knowingly violates this section shall be fined as provided in this title, imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, but the prohibition contained in this section shall not apply with respect to any duly authorized governmental activity under title V of the National Security Act of 1947.'; and

(3) in the chapter analysis, by inserting after the item relating to section 175a the following:

'175b. Possession by restricted persons.'.

(b) The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is amended by adding a new subsection after subsection 511 (42 U.S.C. 262 note) as follows:

'SS 511A. Regulation of biological agents posing national-security threat

'(a) IN GENERAL.--

'(1) LIST OF AGENTS POSING SECURITY THREAT.--The Secretary shall, through regulations promulgated under subsection (d), establish and maintain a list of those biological agents listed pursuant to section 511(d)(1) that he determines to be a national-security threat.

'(2.) CRITERIA.--In determining whether to include an agent on the list under paragraph (1), the Secretary shall-

'(A) consider the criteria specified in section 511(d)(1)(B)(i), and any other criteria that he determines to be appropriate; and

'(B) consult with scientific, intelligence, and military experts representing appropriate professional groups.

'(b) REGULATION OF BIOLOGICAL AGENTS POSING SECURITY THREAT.--The Secretary shall, through regulations promulgated under subsection (d), provide for the establishment and enforcement of standards and procedures governing the possession, use, and transfer of agents listed under subsection (a)(1) designed to protect public safety and national security, including safeguards to prevent access to such agents for use in domestic terrorism or international terrorism or for any other criminal purpose.

'(c) CIVIL MONEY PENALTIES.--A violation of a requirement imposed by regulation promulgated under this section shall be subject to a civil money penalty of up to $250,000.

'(d) REGULATIONS.--The Secretary shall promulgate regulations to carry out this section. The initial regulations implementing this section shall be issued as interim final regulations.

'(e) INAPPLICABILITY OF PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT.--The provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. ch. 35) shall not apply to this section.

SEC. 306. SUPPORT OF TERRORISM THROUGH EXPERT ADVICE OR ASSISTANCE.

Section 2339A of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) in subsection (a)--

(A) by striking 'a violaton' and all that follows through '49' and inserting 'any Federal terrorism offense'; and

(B) by replacing 'violation,' with 'offense,'; and

(2) in subsection (b), by inserting 'expert advice or assistance,' after 'training,'.

SEC. 307. PROHIBITION AGAINST HARBORING TERRORISTS.

Section 792 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) by inserting 'or a Federal terrorism offense,' before 'shall be fined'; and

(2) by inserting at the end: 'There is extraterritorial Federal jurisdiction over any violation (including, without limitation, conspiracy or attempt) of this section. A violation of this section may be prosecuted in any Federal judicial district in which the underlying offense was committed, or in any other Federal judicial district as provided by law.'.

SEC. 308. POST-RELEASE SUPERVISION OF TERRORISTS.

Section 3583 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

'(j) Supervised release terms for terrorism offenses. - Notwithstanding subsection (b), the authorized terms of supervised release for any Federal terrorism offense are any term of years or life.'.

SEC. 309. DEFINITION.

(a) Chapter 1 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) by adding after section 24 a new section as follows:

'SS 25. Federal terrorism offense defined

'As used in this title, the term `Federal terrorism offense' means a violation of, or an attempt or conspiracy to violate-

'(a) section 32 (relating to destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities), 37 (relating to violence at international airports), 81 (relating to arson within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction), 175, 175b (relating to biological weapons), 229 (relating to chemical weapons), 351 (relating to congressional, cabinet, and Supreme Court assassination, kidnapping, and assault), 792 (relating to harboring terrorists), 831 (relating to nuclear materials), 842(m) or (n) (relating to plastic explosives), 844(e) (relating to certain bombings), 844(f) or (i) (relating to arson and bombing of certain property), 930(c), 956 (relating to conspiracy to injure property of a foreign government), 1030(a)(1), (a)(4), (a)(5)(A), or (a)(7) (relating to protection of computers), 1114 (relating to protection of officers and employees of the United States), 1116 (relating to murder or manslaughter of foreign officials, official guests, or internationally protected persons), 1203 (relating to hostage taking), 1361 (relating to injury of Government property or contracts), 1362 (relating to destruction of communication lines, stations, or systems), 1363 (relating to injury to buildings or property within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States), 1366 (relating to destruction of an energy facility), 1751 (relating to Presidential and Presidential staff assassination, kidnapping, and assault), 1992, 2152 (relating to injury of fortifications, harbor defenses, or defensive sea areas), 2155 (relating to destruction of national defense materials, premises, or utilities), 2156 (relating to production of defective national defense materials, premises, or utilities), 2280 (relating to violence against maritime navigation), 2281 (relating to violence against maritime fixed platforms), 2332 (relating to certain homicides and other violence against United States nationals occurring outside of the United States), 2332a (relating to use of weapons of mass destruction), 2332b (relating to acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries), 2332c, 2339A (relating to providing material support to terrorists), 2339B (relating to providing material support to terrorist organizations), or 2340A (relating to torture);

'(b) section 236 (relating to sabotage of nuclear facilities or fuel) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2284);

'(c) section 601 (relating to disclosure of identities of covert agents) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 421); or

'(d) section 46502 (relating to aircraft piracy), section 46504 (relating to interference with a flight crew), section 46505 (relating to carrying a weapon or explosive on aircraft), section 46506 (relating to application of certain criminal laws to acts on aircraft), or section 60123(b) (relating to destruction of interstate gas or hazardous liquid pipeline facility) of title 49.'; and

(2) in the chapter analysis, by inserting after the item relating to section 24 the following:

'25. Federal terrorism offense defined.'.

(b) Section 2332b(g)(5)(B) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking 'is a violation' and all that follows through 'title 49' and inserting 'is a Federal terrorism offense'.

Subtitle B-Criminal Procedure
SEC. 351. SINGLE-JURISDICTION SEARCH WARRANTS FOR TERRORISM.

Rule 41(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is amended by inserting after 'executed' the following: 'and (3) in an investigation of domestic terrorism or international terrorism (as defined in section 2331 of title 18, United States Code), by a federal magistrate judge in any district in which activities related to the terrorism may have occurred, for a search of property or for a person within or outside the district'.

SEC. 352. NOTICE.

Section 3103a of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: 'With respect to any issuance of a warrant or court order under this section, or any other law or rule, to search for and seize any property or material that constitutes evidence of a criminal offense in violation of the laws of the United States, any notice required, or that may be required, to be given may be delayed pursuant to the standards, terms, and conditions set forth in section 2705, unless otherwise expressly provided by statute.'.

SEC. 353. DNA IDENTIFICATION OF TERRORISTS.

Section 3(d)(1) of the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 (42 U.S.C. 14135a(d)(1)) is amended-

(1) by redesignating subparagraph (G) as subparagraph (H); and

(2) by inserting after subparagraph (F) the a new subparagraph as follows:

'(G) Any Federalism terrorism offense (as defined in section 25 of title 18, United States Code).'.

SEC. 354. GRAND JURY MATTERS.

Rule 6(e)(3)(A) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is amended-

(1) by striking 'and' at the end of subdivision (i);

(2) by replacing the period at the end of subdivision (ii) with '; and'; and

(3) by inserting after subdivision (ii) the following:

'(iii) federal law-enforcement-, intelligence-, protective-, or national-defense personnel, or any federal personnel responsible for administering the immigration laws of the United States, where the matters pertain to international terrorism or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331 of title 18, United States Code), or a matter of national security.'.

SEC. 355. EXTRATERRITORIALITY.

Chapter 113B of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) in the heading, by striking 'Exclusive';

(2) by inserting 'There is extraterritorial Federal jurisdiction over any Federal terrorism offense and any offense under this chapter.' at the beginning; and

(3) in the chapter analysis, by striking 'Exclusive' in the item relating to section 2338.

SEC. 356. DEFINITION.

Section 7 of Title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding the following at the end thereof:

'(9) With respect to offenses committed by or against a United States national, as defined in Section 1203(c) of this title, (a) the premises of United States diplomatic and consular missions in foreign states including the buildings or parts of buildings and the land ancillary thereto, irrespective of ownership, used for purposes of the missions, and (b) the private residences and the land ancillary thereto, irrespective of ownership, used for purposes of the missions, and (c) the private residences and the land ancillary thereto in foreign states, irrespective of ownership, of the head of diplomatic and consular mission and other United States nationals assigned to diplomatic missions and consular missions.'

Title IV--FINANCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE
SEC. 401. LAUNDERING THE PROCEEDS OF TERRORISM.

Section 1956(c)(7)(D) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting 'or 2339B' after '2339A'.

SEC. 402. MATERIAL SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM.

Section 2339A of title 18, United States Code, is amended-

(1) in subsection (a), by inserting 'A violation of this section may be prosecuted in any Federal judicial district in which the underlying offense was committed, or in any other Federal judicial district as provided by law.' at the end; and

(2) in subsection (b), by replacing 'or other financial securities' with 'or monetary instruments or financial securities'.

SEC. 403. ASSETS OF TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS.

Section 981(a)(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended after paragraph (F) by adding the following new paragraph:

'(G) All assets, foreign or domestic--

'(i) of any person, entity or organization engaged in planning or perpetrating any act of domestic terrorism or international terrorism (as defined in section 2331) against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States, or their property, and all assets, foreign or domestic, affording any person a source of influence over any such entity or organization;

'(ii) acquired or maintained by any person for the purpose of supporting, planning, conducting, or concealing an act of domestic terrorism or international terrorism (as defined in section 2331) against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States, or their property; or

'(iii) derived from, involved in, or used or intended to be used to commit any act of domestic terrorism or international terrorism (as defined in section 2331) against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States, or their property.'.

SEC. 404. TECHNICAL CLARIFICATION RELATING TO PROVISION OF MATERIAL SUPPORT TO TERRORISM.

No provision of title IX of Public Law 106-387 shall be understood to limit or otherwise affect section 2339A or 2339B of title 18, United States Code.

SEC. 405. DISCLOSURE OF TAX INFORMATION IN TERRORISM AND NATIONAL-SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS.

Section 6103 of title 26, United States Code, is amended -

(1) in paragraph (i)(3), by adding a new subparagraph after subparagraph (B) as follows:

'(C) Response to Terrorist Incidents and Threats.- The Secretary may disclose returns or return information to the extent necessary to assist officers or employees of any Federal agency involved in the response to or the investigation of terrorist incidents, threats, or activities; the Federal agency may redisclose information received pursuant to this paragraph to State or local law-enforcement officials who are part of a joint investigative team with the Federal agency.';

(2) in subsection (i), by adding a new paragraph after paragraph (6), as follows:

'(7) Information Concerning Terrorist Activities.--The Secretary may disclose returns and return information, upon a particularized request signed personally by an individual in the Department of Justice or the Department of the Treasury appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, or a member of the Senior Executive Service who is responsible for the collection of analysis of intelligence and counter-intelligence information concerning terrorist organizations and activities. Information disclosed under this paragraph may be disclosed to employees of the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury personally and directly engaged in (and solely for their use in) the collection or analysis of intelligence and counterintelligence information concerning terrorist organizations or activities. Information disclosed under this paragraph may be disclosed to other United States inteligence agencies when relevant to their analysis of intelligence and counter-intelligence information concerning terrorist organizations and activities, and thereafter the information so disclosed may be used by such agencies only in accordance with Executive Order 12333 (or successor order).'; and

(3) by adding a new paragraph (a)(11) as follows:

'The term `terrorism' means international terrorism or domestic terrorism as those terms are defined in section 2331 of Title 18, United States Code.'

SECTION 406. RESTRAINT OF PROPERTY SUBJECT TO CRIMINAL FORFEITURE.

Section 413(e)(1) of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. SS 853(e)(1)) is amended by inserting 'or (p)' after '(a)'.

SECTION 407. TRADE SANCTIONS.

The Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (title IX of H.R. 5426, as enacted by section 1(a) of Public Law 106-387) is amended-

(1) in section 902(6)--

(A) by striking 'or' at the end of subparagraph (A);

(B) by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (B) and inserting '; or'; and

(C) by adding at the end thereof the following new subparagraph:

'(C) a statute, executive order, or regulation imposing such a prohibition, restriction, or condition with respect to a foreign entity designated by the United States in connection with terrorism, narcotics trafficking, or the proliferation of missiles or weapons of mass destruction.';

(2) in section 902(7)--

(A) by striking 'or' at the end of subparagraph (A);

(B) by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (B) and inserting '; or'; and

(C) by adding at the end thereof the following new subparagraph:

'(C) a statute, executive order, or regulation imposing such a prohibition, restriction, or condition with respect to a foreign entity designated by the United States in connection with terrorism, narcotics trafficking, or the proliferation of missiles or weapons of mass destruction.';

(3) by amending section 904(2)(C) to read as follows:

'(C) used to facilitate the design, development, or production of missiles or weapons of mass destruction.';

(4) in section 906(a)(1)--

(A) by inserting ', the Taliban or the territory of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban,' after 'Cuba'; and

(B) by inserting ', or in the territory of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban,' after 'within such country'; and

(5) in section 906(a)(2), by inserting ', or to any other entity in Syria or North Korea' after 'Korea'.

SECTION 408. EXTRATERRITORIAL JURISDICTION.

Section 1029 of Title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end a new paragraph (g) as follows:

'(g) Any person who, outside the jurisdiction of the United States, engages in any act that, if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States, would constitute an offense under subsections (a) or (b) of this section, shall be subject to the fines, penalties, imprisonment and forfeiture enumerated in this title if-

(1) the offense involves an access device issued, owned, managed, or controlled by a financial institution, account issuer, credit card system member, or other entity within the jurisdiction of the United States; and

(2) the person transports, delivers, conveys, transfers to or through, or otherwise stores, secretes, or holds within the jurisdiction of the United States, any article used to assist in the commission o the offense or the proceeds of such offense or property derived therefrom.'.

Title V--EMERGENCY AUTHORIZATIONS
SEC. 501. OFFICE OF JUSTICE PROGRAMS.

(a) In connection with the airplane hijackings and terrorist acts (including, without limitation, any related search, rescue, relief, assistance, or other similar activities) that occurred on September 11, 2001, in the United States, amounts transferred to the Crime Victims Fund from the Executive Office of the President or funds appropriated to the President shall not be subject to any limitation on obligations from amounts deposited or available in the Fund.

(b) Section 112 of title I of section 101(b) of division A of Public Law 105-277 and section 108(a) of appendix A of Public Law 106-113 (113 Stat. 1501A-20) are amended- (1) after 'that Office', each place it occurs, by inserting '(including, notwithstanding any contrary provision of law (unless the same should expressly refer to this section), any organization that administers any program established in title 1 of Public Law 90-351)'; and (2) by inserting 'functions, including any' after 'all'.

(c) Section 1404B(b) of the Victim Compensation and Assistance Act is amended after 'programs' by inserting ', to victim service organizations, to public agencies (including Federal, State, or local governments), and to non-governmental organizations that provide assistance to victims of crime,'.

(d) Section 1 of H.R. 2882 of the 107th Congress as enacted is amended in section 1(a) by striking ', (d),', by inserting '(containing sufficient information to permit a proper distribution pursuant to such section 1201(a), where relevant)' before 'by a', and by replacing all the matter after 'certification,' with 'benefits under such section 1201(a) and the first year's benefits under such section 1201(b).'.

SEC. 502. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S AUTHORITY TO PAY REWARDS.

No reward offered by the Attorney General in connection with hijackings or terrorist acts shall be subject to any per- or aggregate reward spending limitation established by law, unless the same should expressly refer to this section, and no reward paid pursuant to any such offer shall count toward any such aggregate reward spending limitation.

SEC. 503. LIMITED AUTHORITY TO PAY OVERTIME.

The matter under the headings 'Immigration And Naturalization Service: Salaries and Expenses, Enforcement And Border Affairs' and 'Immigration And Naturalization Service: Salaries and Expenses, Citizenship And Benefits, Immigration And Program Direction' in the Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2001 (as enacted into law by Appendix B (H.R. 5548) of Public Law 106-553 (114 Stat. 2762A-58 to 2762A-59)) is amended by striking the following each place it occurs: 'Provided, That none of the funds available to the Immigration and Naturalization Service shall be available to pay any employee overtime pay in an amount in excess of $30,000 during the calendar year beginning January 1, 2001:'.

SEC. 504. SECRETARY OF STATE'S AUTHORITY TO PAY REWARDS.

Section 36 of the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956 (P.L. 885, August 1, 1956; 22 USC 2708) is amended -

(1) in section (b) -

(a) by deleting 'or' at the end of paragraph (4);

(b) by adding the following at the end of subsection (5) 'including by dismantling an organization in whole or significant part; or'; and

(c) by adding a new paragraph (6) as follows:

'the identification or location of an individual who holds a key leadership position in a terrorist organization.'

(2) in section (d), by striking paragraphs (2) and (3) and renumbering paragraph (4) accordingly;

(3) in section (e)(1), by striking '$5,000,000' and inserting in lieu thereof '$10,000,000, except as personally authorized by the Secretary of State if he determines that offer or payment of an award of a larger amount is important to the national interests of the United States.'

SEC. 505. ASSISTANCE TO COUNTRIES CO-OPERATING AGAINST INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM.

(a) The President may provide assistance or take any other action, sell or authorize the export of defense articles or defense services, or issue credit, credit guarantees or extend other financial assistance, under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the Arms Export Control Act, the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945, or other provisions of law, notwithstanding any other provision of law, if to do so is important to United States efforts to respond to, deter or prevent acts of international terrorism or other actions threatening international peace and security. The authority of this paragraph may be used in Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007.

(b) Section 571 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 is amended as follows:

(1) After 'law,' strike 'that restricts assistance to foreign countries, other than sections 502B and 620A of this Act,'; and

(2) After 'assistance', strike 'to foreign countries'.

(c) Section 582 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 is amended as follows: after 'law', delete 'other than section 502B or 620A of this Act,'.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:29:19 (EDT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Melborne - read this
Message:
Saddam's Cruel
Drug Scam

And don't say bullshit u dork.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 11:25:09 (EDT)
From: CW
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: Re: Melborne - read this
Message:
Do you think if it was your Four year old Son or Daughter that was dying in some shitty hell-hole in downtown Baghdad, that THIS would make you feel any better? Of course Saddam is a murdering freak. But does that justify the West committing Genocide against a whole generation of Iraqi's?. The problem is closing down your senses to the truth. In the long run the Warlords dont really matter. It is the precious human existence that is continually thrown out on the garbage dump of life. We have a red neck rascist Dickhead for a PM for at least another month.Fuck em all I say. There is no difference between acts of terrorism and santioned murder of innocents. Murder is murder. Life -that is the gift. Who are all these fucks who take the liberty of playing God? Come on ;now tell me who is RIGHT?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 13:06:34 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: CW
Subject: There is a difference
Message:
If a British national declaring hatred for Muslims, hijacked a plane and crashed it into the main market in Bagdad, killing 6,000 civilians, you'd expect them to get pretty angry and declare holy war against Britain. Any British nationals in Iraq would almost certainly be imprisoned or made to leave the country.

When Muslim terrorists crash planes into American buildings what is the result? Americans and Brits go round saying that it's wrong to react violently to such an act. Americans and Brits say that Muslims are not the problem and they should be respected and we shouldn't wage war against innocent civilians. We even send aid to Afghanistan who we suspect harbours a terrorist leader.

Would Saddam Hussain send food aid to Britain if we killed 6,000 Muslims in Bagdad. Would he act carefully and try to avert a nasty war such as President Bush has done? Would he carefully try to avoid civilian casualties with any military response?

So there is a difference and the Muslim terrorists are taking advantage of the West's high value it puts on human life. These are the terrorists who stabbed and cut the throats of female airline stewardesses. How does America react? I'd say America's reaction is virtually saintlike.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:47:41 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: Thanks Salam, interesting.....rne - read this
Message:
Thanks, Salam

Again, I have not denied that black marketeering goes on, merely that it has not been mentioned in the UN reports, and so may not be as extensive or widespread as you imply. Also, see my apology below in response to your 'bullshit' post!

Mel

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 13:30:24 (EDT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: I don't have the articles ...
Message:
... in front of me but it was reported in the mainstream press in the past week that humanitarian aid (i.e. food, medical supplies, etc.) was not getting to the Afghanis because the Taliban government was confiscating it. It was also reported that the relief organizations were going to send more food and supplies anyway.

The same thing has happened in Somalia, and every other ding dang place run by dictators, terrorists and warlords for many, many years.

People are starving because of politics, not merely for lack of food, and not merely for lack of wealthy nations' caring. And these cuthroat leaders have allowed citizens of their own countries, people of their own ancestry and blood, to die or live life on the brink of starvation in order to feed their troops, and to keep their own people weak enough that they will be subject to their will.

I am not making excuses for all of the horrible bombings and other things that the US, the Brits, NATO and whomever has done. But the fact remains that, in general, people under cruel totalitarian governments run by dictators, military rule, warlords and terrorists have way more to fear from people of their own blood and nationality.

Bests,

Francesca

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 19:42:27 (EDT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: All
Subject: Rebuttal to Appleyard (ot)
Message:
Rarely have I read so many ill-formed and ill-informed sentiments masquerading as political analysis, and subsequently being praised by folk who should know better, as appeared in the Sunday Times article by Brian Appleyard. Even if there were (and I stress if there were) out there somewhere a movement of lefty intellectuals ever-ready to knife Uncle Sam at the drop of a baseball cap, surely the most patriotic US citizen would not want Brian Appleyard on their side in an argument…

His essay, frequently bordering on the hysterical, is desperate, poorly-argued and vacuous polemic; his apparent aim to smear his usual targets (liberal/left commentators who have ever criticised aspects of American policy) with the charge of knee-jerk Yankophobia, and who are thus irrational and easily dismissible. Saves having to deal with real criticisms or quality analysis from the left. To this end, Appleyard applies the classic techniques of straw-man argument and circular logic. Mix in a pinch of confused, self-contradiction and you have the recipe for a long career in the Murdoch fold.

…where even the byline-writers are not immune to Appleyard’s broad-brush muddle-brained thinking, headlining his piece thus:

The USA saved Europe from the Nazis, defeated communism and keeps the West rich. Bryan Appleyard analyses why it has become the land of the loathed Why do they hate America?

Actually, combined allied forces saved Europe from the Nazis (with America only joining the game late in the second half. The Soviet campaign on the eastern front was at least as vital to Hitler’s downfall); Soviet communism collapsed through its own failures, and America may keep itself rich (or some of itself), but certainly not the West – where poverty is doing just fine in too many European countries to mention. Why do they hate America? – well, actually, it is only Brian Appleyard assuming but not showing that ‘they’ do. Whoever they are. Aah -such sweet circularity…

But to the piece itself:

From the outset, Appleyard fails to define what he means by ‘Anti-American’. Is it hostility to her foreign policy, to the behaviour of certain multinationals, to her gun laws, Disney, McDonald’s, chewing-gum or just a general dislike of American culture? This oversight allows him to make all manner of absurd logical connections, culminating in the ridiculous comparison between Islington (home of his mythical ‘chattering classes’) and the Taliban. It further allows him to tar his own bete noir (ie. all left-wing, and even moderately liberal journalists) with the same brush as a couple of hot-head non-entities somebody spoke to on a street somewhere.

Let’s take a look at his villains, and the evidence he presents to support his argument.

The nastiest sentiments quoted are these: an unnamed Lebanese businessman Appleyard read in a piece by an Italian journalist reckons 90% of all-known Arabs think ‘America’ got what it deserved’. This same journo reckons 90% is ‘an understatement’. That some guy in the Lebanon dislike the States is hardly shock-horror-headline stuff, given Beirut’s recent history. That a well-educated visiting Italian will cheerfully characterise an even greater percentage of Arabs as sharing his opinion suggests she too much be suffering advanced symptoms of Appleyard Disease.

Then there is the New Statesman editorial which allegedly ‘[suggested] that bond dealers in the World Trade Center had it coming’. Funny, if the New Statesman really did say that, Appleyard doesn’t avail himself of the opportunity to quote the offending passage. Surely a more powerful quote for his purposes than the Lebanese guy. Or perhaps the piece was, in reality, innocuous?

We don’t have much, so far, do we? Shame then, that the best of Appleyard’s evidence for irrational hatred hinges on a couple of quotes off the street in the wake of the outrage. (Notice he cites the liberal/left Guardian as the source, not clarifying that they were merely reporting rather than endorsing these minority views amongst a pile of others..)

Or here are two more venomous voices, both quoted in The Guardian. Patricia Tricker from Bedale: 'Now they know how the Iraqis feel.' And Andrew Pritchard from Amsterdam: 'If the US's great peacetime defeat results in defeating America's overweening ego as the world's sole remaining superpower, it will be a highly productive achievement.' Would that achievement be the dead children, Andrew, or the crushed firemen?

The latter of these quotes is admittedly vile. But one sick swallow does not a Summer of Hatred make.

The rest of Appleyard’s evidence is worse than flimsy:

He cites the typical ‘hand-picked moron’ in the audience of BBC’s Question Time. The only audience filtering for that programme is simply to ensure a representative cross-section of political views. Appleyard is the only person, from right or left, I have ever known to question QT’s integrity in two decades on the air. Which perhaps says something about the depth of his prejudices. Anyway:

The Yankophobes were too villanously stupid to get the message. Barely 48 hours after thousands of Americans are murdered, we see the BBC's Question Time with its hand-picked morons in the audience telling Philip Lader, the former US ambassador, that 'the world despises America'. The studio seethes with ignorance and loathing. Lader looks broken.

Er, excuse me, Brian, but isn’t the whole point of your article to make the very same point that the world (or much of it) hates America? Perhaps the guy was a moron. So what does that make you?

From thereonin the analysis gets really desperate. Even the moderate, far-from-radical journalist Rosie Boycott, and the widely respected environmentalist George Monbiot have to face Appleyard’s deranged prosecution.

Or we have the metropolitan elite on Newsnight Review sneering at Dubya Bush. 'So out of touch,' Rosie Boycott, the journalist, hisses, 'there was no sense of his feeling for people.'

Ms Boycott is no more or less metropolitan or elite than is Appleyard himself - and doesn’t that ‘hisses’ give the game away somewhat? Whatever. A negative comment about Dubya is no more anti-American than a negative comment about Clinton (which BA is himself happy to provide later)

Or here's George Monbiot in The Guardian: 'When billions of pounds f military spending are at stake, rogue states and terrorist warlords become assets precisely because they are liabilities.' I see; so the United States, the victim of this attack, is to be condemned for somehow deviously making money out of it. I'll run it up the flagpole, George, but I suspect only the Question Time audience will salute.

Out of context, the Monbiot quote lacks clarity (but I discern no Anti-American sentiment there). Appleyard seeks to provide it – with near-comical results. If Monbiot meant what Appleyard presumes he means, I believe he would have said it himself.

And so on…

Till we get to the lefties he really hates (all of them writers – wonder why?) but for whom he cannot find the evidence to condemn. First: Gore Vidal. Whether because he envies Vidal’s vastly superior political nous, his superior writing ability, or publishing record, Appleyard, truly, madly deeply hates Gore Vidal. Strangely, then, he restricts his accusation to the limp epithet ‘Europhile posing’. I am sure Mr Vidal is quaking in his fur-lined Russian boots.

Rushdie and Amis’s offence is – strangely – that of voicing pro-American sentiments, but doing it when Clinton was in office. Which, obviously, doesn’t count, so damn them too…
Perhaps to disguise his anti-left agenda, Appleyard also throws a token punch at an American right-wing anti-American.

The Rev Jerry Falwell has already made common cause with the terrorists by blaming the attack on 'the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians'. To Falwell modern America really is the Great Satan.

Yes, Falwell is probably as stupid and misanthropic as the terrorists, but his agenda is not really Anti-American, so much as anti secular/liberal. The preacher would hate those trends in society wherever they were found to occur – even a reformed Afganistan. Waste of words.

In the time-honoured tradition of poor thinkers, and perhaps sensing his own failure to make a valid point in two thousand words, Appleyard then enlists the help of some brains smarter than his own

As Jon Ronson recently demonstrated in his book, Them: Adventures with Extremists, almost every crazed cult in the world believes there is a global Jewish conspiracy run from Hollywood and Wall Street. Those bien-pensant chatterers are, I'm sure, anti-racists all, but they are swimming in deeper, darker, crazier waters than they imagine.

Ronson’s book is great (what I have read of it). Appleyard’s citation here is wholly irrelevant, and – I am sure – not an endorsement that author will cherish.

George Orwell noted in 1941: 'In so far as it hampers the British war effort, British pacifism is on the side of the Nazis and German pacifism, if it exists, is on the side of Britain and the USSR. Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi.' Elsewhere he wrote of the 'unadmitted motive' of pacifism as being 'hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism'.

Orwell was spot-on fifty-years ago, and anyway that was fifty years ago. Opposing one war is NOT the same thing as pacifism. Pacificism is about opposing all war on principle. Are any of his despised Anti-Americans doing that? If they are, we don’t get to hear from them. If they are not, the Orwell passage is just filler.

Most laughably, Appleyard quotes Churchill: As Winston Churchill said, the Americans usually do the right thing once they have tried all the alternatives.

Was Sir Winston damning with faint praise or ‘praising with faint damnation’. Hard to tell, but his words are a hardly a tribute likely to instil much confidence world-wide given the current crisis. What might those ‘alternatives’ be?

Perhaps the depths of Mr Appleyard’s political confusion are best illustrated by one paragraph:

How strange, I thought, even then. They wore Levi jeans, drank Coke, watched American television and listened to American music. Something inside them loved America, even as something outside them hated her. They were like fish that hated the very sea in which they swam - the whisky, in Samuel Beckett's words, that bore a grudge against the decanter. Like the Beirut elite, they wanted to have their hamburgers and eat them, to bite the Yankee hand that fed them.

No, Brian, the point is this: if these anti-Vietnam protesters were to express a dislike of all things American, you could justifiably accuse them of Yankophobia. The irony is all in your head. That a person can read Updike, watch the Simpsons and listen to Dylan whilst making negative observations about the policies of a particular administration, probably suggests that they – unlike you – are dealing in issues rather than clichéd right-wing stereotypes.

Nige the not-remotely anti-American leftie.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:34:11 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: What a marmite of shite
Message:
Okay so marmite is a more polite word than crock. It's the fancy French word for a crock or clay Dutch oven just like the picture on the Marmite label. A marmite is used to make rendered stock mostly. You put all sorts of delicious things into it and cook it until it is concentrated. Or it can be used as a melting pot. Too funny that most Americans I know hate Marmite.

Anyway, yes, Nigel, Appleyard can be criticised from the academic ivory towers. He is probably all that you say he is. I am not familiar with him. Possibly he is the Brit equivalent of our knee-jerk reactionary dinosaurs over here like some of the the writers for William Buckley's ''National Review.'' I won't argue with you on that.

What I will argue with you about is this. I enjoyed his ''emotional'' article because it was a refreshing change from some of the silly new-agey feel-good self-righteous holier-than-thou totally irrelevant and impertinent stuff posted here lately. What the ivory tower academicians here seem to forget is that the WTC attack roused emotions to such a point that many of us thought first of plain old revenge and only later of practicalities and politics.

I forgive the Brits because they can't help feeling superior to us wogs and were not personally touched but find it very hard to swallow the Americans who blame America. Sure the US has made some ugly mistakes in foreign policy. They did not support the ANC until 20 years after the UK did. But did Mandela send planes crashing into the WTC? And the ANC was and is very anti-American but what they did was rouse the people against their oppressive government just as Al-Qaed should be doing with theirs.

No matter what the US did, the Islamic cultists would have hated us. Bin Laden has repeatedly said that capitalism is anathema to Islam. His philosophy is a toxic mix of fundamentalist religion and envious Marxism. To him the US is THE very symbol of capitalism and the global economy.

And all I read here is ''Yes, the Al-Qaed does have a point.'' Maybe in a few weeks time I'll go back to wanting to appease them and be diplomatic but right now I would be emotionally dishonest if I said anything other than that they must be exterminated.

It is against the backdrop of ''blame America'' that Appleyard's essay was a refreshing change. At any other time I may well have agreed with you - that he is jingoistic reactionary. But right now I cannot hear a single argument that convinces me that we drew this attack up ourselves and that has been the gist of 90% of the posts here recently. So, yes, I'm feeling touchy and needed to read some nice rah-rah pro-American stuff.

But I won't be doing much more politcal debating here as I am convinced that my words are falling on deaf ears. And I do not fool myself into thinking that I have much influence on the power-structure of the world. Not all of it pleases me but neither am I so pessimistic and paranoid as to see conspiracy theories, plots, schemes, cover-ups and general American venality. No, I'm an optimist and see that even the fat cats at the very top are not innately evil or stupid but are not too dissimilar from myself.

As I said to Scott in a post below regarding all the doom and gloom expressed here: ''I don't sweat the details. I don't have the time which is why this discussion has become too academic for my tastes. Mistakes will be made as they always are. It's called learning. I just hope that the Shrub is still capable of learning from his mistakes and his father's. I'm an optimist. I trust evolution. It got us this far and can take us much further.''

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:44:57 (EDT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Who said this???????
Message:
Pat,

You said 'all I ever hear here is 'Yes, the Al-Qaed does have a point.'' I haven't read everyting here, but tell me who in hell said this on this forum? I haven't read a single word of support for the terrorists here.

John.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:11:45 (EDT)
From: Moley
Email: moldy_warp@hotmail.com
To: Pat:C)
Subject: No, no, no Pat
Message:
Please read my reply to Jim...

Look - everyone feels absolute horror at what appalling thing happened to our fellow human beings on Sept. 11th...

There were as many Brits killed per head of of population as Americans - but who f***ing cares about what nationality these human beings were! I don't.

PLEASE don't go down the nationalistic route - it is a recipe for more pain (again see my post to Jim)

'Academics in Ivory towers'??? Come on - these are people who think and try to work out SOLUTIONS to world problems (albeit sometimes they think crap). But don't do that thinking v. feeling stuff on me.... you can think and feel at the same time - thinking IS a feeling.

Don't endorse that woman Appleyard quotes favourably as stating over 90% of the Arab world beleive America got what it deserved. Where does she get such a statistic from???

People are hurting - that's people, not particular nations.

I think (and FEEL) that it is OK to try to figure out what a bloody awful mess the world is in that things have come to this...

And By the Way.. I stand completely by what I said (or implied) in my post to Jim...

Today on the BBC news there was a brief mention (way down the list) of 15 people being killed by a suicide bomber in the Middle East ...

That is colonialism for what it's worth... who gives a f**k about the 'wogs' and 'slanty-eyed - lot' BUT if some of us White Westerners get killed the WHOLE WORLD is supposed to FREAK!!!!
Sorry - but I just don't buy that...

It is sentimental crap

One life lost is as awful as 5000

Moley who likes people and refuses to belong to any f***ing nation!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:20:07 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Moley
Subject: Post-modernism, Moley
Message:
Nationalism is still a fact of life. It is not going to disappear anytime soon. Al-Qaed IS all about nationalism (and religion) but really is very unenlightened nationalism.

I am not a rah-rah nationalist but neither am I a post-modern relativist who thinks that all cultures are equal. Sorry, but I do believe that western civilization must prevail at least over something as atavistic as Islamic fundamentalism.

I guess I am just an old fogy and probably need to back out of this debate before I am painted into the conservative corner. I'm a liberal and a firm believer in Adam Smith.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:09:54 (EDT)
From: Francesca :C)
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: With 'ya there, Pat
Message:
Especially this:

'I am not a rah-rah nationalist but neither am I a post-modern relativist who thinks that all cultures are equal. Sorry, but I do believe that western civilization must prevail at least over something as atavistic as Islamic fundamentalism.'

I don't like wearing long blue veils. :o

Bests, F

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:43:44 (EDT)
From: Moley
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Re: Post-modernism, Moley
Message:
Pat, you said:
Sorry, but I do believe that western civilization must prevail at least over something as atavistic as Islamic fundamentalism.

Yep - maybe ... but not over Islam per se.

Big difference.

I find myself in an odd position, cos, on the one hand, I feel that Western civilisation is pretty amazing, whilst at the same time, I am very aware that we have colonised the globe and virtually wiped out whole cultures in the process!!!

Penicillin maybe - but removing Mative American Indian kids to boarding schools to enculture them in 'White ways'??? Give me a break.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:19:20 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Moley
Subject: Re: No, no, no Pat
Message:
One life lost is as awful as 5000

I can't think of anything more eloquent about your littany of silliness than is illustrated by the observation that you've missed the mark a little in the above statement. Why don't you just go 'meditate' somewhere, for awhile. Sheesh.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 11:37:06 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: What a crock, Nige
Message:
No, Brian, the point is this: if these anti-Vietnam protesters were to express a dislike of all things American, you could justifiably accuse them of Yankophobia. The irony is all in your head. That a person can read Updike, watch the Simpsons and listen to Dylan whilst making negative observations about the policies of a particular administration, probably suggests that they – unlike you – are dealing in issues rather than clichéd right-wing stereotypes.

I've only got a moment now but will tell you later why I think Appleyard's essay stands unfazed once the smoke of your broadside clears. For now, let me just respond to you summary point, the anti-U.S. hatred and disdain the B.B.C. audience exhibited were hardly just 'making negative observations about the policies of a particular administration' from what I understand. The sentiment expressed, there was a much more damning, general indictment of America itself, its politics, its culture, ultimately its citizenry. In that light, America deserves the kind of defense Appleyard offers. If anything, your reaction strikes me a near-hysterical as if you're trying to bay Appleyard away with a stick or something. No, Nige, you're not anti-American. Frankly, no one here is.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 14:49:43 (EDT)
From: Moley
Email: moldy_warp@hotmail.com
To: Jim
Subject: Jim - address the problem rationally
Message:
For sure anti-Americanism exists in varying degrees, from the anti-US-foreign-policy brigade right down to those who dislike what they perceive to be American culture, and even American identity. It cannot be argued away with emotive, imprecise, or darn right specious argument, as the Appleyards of this world would try to do.

Better to address the problem rationally.

Why does it exist?

Partly what you seem to imply is correct – namely that anti-American feeling stems from a form of cultural stereotyping, the latter being endemic to human thinking for so long it appears rational. Of course it isn’t.
The problem is that such stereotyping is fed by the human propensity for alteritous thinking – Us v. Them (‘Us’ being bigger, better, truer, more beautiful, more civilised, than ‘Them’).

Yet it is precisely this ‘Us’ mentality that gets Americans (and, for that matter, all of us white Westerners) into trouble.

When we are in the ‘Us’ camp, it is comparatively easy to rail against cultural stereotyping. Moral ‘right’ seems to be on our side. However when we are in the ‘Them’ camp, the situation is more ambiguous…

If you were a dispossessed Native American how would you feel about your colonisers?

How do you think the rest of us feel about the debacle of the Kyoto agreement… why should America insist on her right to carry on polluting the planet at the expense of the rest of us?

How should the East Timorese feel about American (and UK) arms sales to Indonesia?

White Westerners have had an insidious propensity to perceive themselves as supreme, with right, and Gawd, on their sides, for so long… America is often still perceived to think that way…

This is what you need to address (without praising patriotism for gawd’s sake…. I can’t see how your average patriot can avoid thinking in the very ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ mentality that has caused an incalculable amount of human suffering for millennia)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:52:27 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Moley
Subject: Kyoto
Message:
How do you think the rest of us feel about the debacle of the Kyoto agreement… why should America insist on her right to carry on polluting the planet at the expense of the rest of us?

I heard that the US doesn't want to ratify the Kyoto protocol because it doesn't apply to developing nations. Rumor has it the G7 doesn't want to back up the US on this because doing business with those developing nations is good and they don't want to do anything to spoil that. So, maybe everybody's a little greedy here, eh? But let's just blame the US. Like you say, it's us and them. Blame them. It's easier.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:36:53 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Moley
Subject: Moley's rational approach
Message:
Do you not comprehend that sans patriotism and interpersonal love all you'd have are bald contractual agreements with little or any motivation to accept any sacrifice not specifically outlined in the specified document or it's appendages? Is there no such thing as an appropriate allegiance, for heaven sake? I believe the essence of what Mr. Apple-whatshisname is saying is simply that, especially at a time like this, it is appropriate to have an allegiance to the United States and to the founding values it represents (however imperfectly it may have fulfilled them in the past). I don't see one single thing wrong with that, and neither do most people.

I imagine you intend to present this 'Ich und Dir' argument to el Quaeda, as your 'rational way' to address the problem? Something like that? Yeah, that'll go over big.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:42:39 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Moley
Subject: How nice to see you, Moley
Message:
...sticking up for your Nige.

I enjoyed your post. It was moderate and circumspect but you lost me with this: ''If you were a dispossessed Native American how would you feel about your colonisers?''

I guess if I were a sane Native American I would say, ''Thanks for the penicillin and air-conditioning.''

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:55:17 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: outrageous
Message:
I guess if I were a sane Native American I would say, ''Thanks for the penicillin and
air-conditioning.''

Them damn Indians can't get anythin' right. Damn savages thought livin' in a tee-pee was decent. All fornicatin' and runnin' 'roun' barefoot. And then thinkin' we white folks done robbed sometin' frum 'em. Grateful, dats what dey should be. Damn grateful.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:39:05 (EDT)
From: Francesca :C)
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Pat, that was GENOCIDE
Message:
The Native Americans were screwed. I agree that they have to live in the present moment, and be thankful for what they have now. But they are still continuing to be screwed by the US Government, and are still fighting for their rights under broken treaties and agreements.

It cannot be black and white. It's not 'bad awful US had it coming' and it's not 'we didn't do anything to bring this upon ourselves.' It's not as black-and-white as either stance. Generally, no one is 100 percent innocent. Usually if someone is mad at me, I did something, even if what they did back was grossly out of proportion to what I ever did to them. And even if I feel like I AM 100 percent innocent, it behooves me to acknowledge their perception of the events, no matter how grossly distorted I think it is, and to figure out what got me in their crosshairs.

I find it odd, really, that people that I consider good friends, that I agree with on so many issues, cannot stand to hear ANY criticism of the US due to their emotions over the bombing. The fact that that awful event of terrorism occured and that bin Laden and co are a bunch of dangerous raving loonies does not make every single one of this nation's actions for the past 80 years or so 'white as the driven snow.' It's good to acknowledge emotions but they don't change facts -- although I will agree heartily that all the pundits are using selected facts to bolster up whatever kind theory they happen to be espousing. Can you imagine how much money is being made writing all these articles??

Love,
Francesca

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:31:19 (EDT)
From: Moley
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Re: How nice to see you, Moley
Message:
Oh come on ...I love you but ....
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:37:54 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Moley
Subject: Mo;ey and Fran we'll have to agree to disagree
Message:
It seems as if the two of you (and nearly everyone else in our generation or at least those who post here) have bought the anti-establishment argument hook, line and sinker. I guess we all ended up in a cult because we were counter-culture but I have rethunk my position considerably in the past 30 years.

Whereas you see history as a series of genocidal atrocities visited upon noble savages (which continues to this day due to our oil interests in the mid-east) I see history as cultural evolution, filled with horrible mistakes but nevertheless progressing and making the world better for most if not all.

Colonialism and imperialism are facts of life in a world where a mighty technological west has to dwell alongside less-developed cultures, some barely beyond paleolithic. So the noble Native American savage is still fighting for it's rights (as we all are) all the while enjoying western healthcare and freedom from the fear of being butchered and eaten by neighboring enemy tribes.

The way you see history is that the human race (especially the white devil) is evil. The way I see it is that human beings are basically good but make terrible mistakes and that the world is a far better place now for ordinary working people like me than it ever was at any time in history and that this has been because of western technology and culture which I still believe is a blessing to the non-westerners whom we colonise not a curse.

Without western history you would still be in purdah and constantly pregnant.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:56:40 (EDT)
From: Moley
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Re: Mo;ey and Fran we'll have to agree to disagree
Message:
Pat, you said:
The way you see history is that the human race (especially the white devil) is evil.
and
Without western history you would still be in purdah and constantly pregnant.

No no no I do NOT see Western civilisation as evil...

The WHOLE point is that there is no simple amswer, no simplistic solution....

Western civilisation has brought many gifts and many evils...

And yeh, maybe I wouldn't want to be constantly pregnant, but I have been pregnant 5 times... and each one beautiful...even though one baby didn't make it...

And do I want the imposition of white Western (usually Male - it was Louis 14th who made women lie down in childbirth - so he could get a good view)childbirth practices... no!

And (in comparison to Rawatland) - it is REAL

So...the American 'savage' (your quote) is fighting for his/her rights... the whole RIGHTS issue itself is an invention of Western civilisation... did the Native American NEED rights before we attempted to obliterate them wholesale?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:39:26 (EDT)
From: Francesca :C)
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Still too black and white Pat
Message:
The way you see history is that the human race (especially the white devil) is evil. The way I see it is that human beings are basically good but make terrible mistakes and that the world is a far better place now for ordinary working people like me than it ever was at any time in history and that this has been because of western technology and culture which I still believe is a blessing to the non-westerners whom we colonise not a curse.

Without western history you would still be in purdah and constantly pregnant.

It ain't me babe. You can't pin this tail, 'cause I ain't no donkey.

F

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:01:18 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Yeah, Moley and Francesca
Message:
Be grateful to powerful white men, all through history, that now you have women's rights. Absolutely fucking hysterical.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:13:10 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Ha THE BBC Audience
Message:
No Jim

A SECTION of the BBC audience. I saw it , you didn't. I've never commented on this particular issue before for the sake of peoples sensitivities at the time.

It was a , I REPEAT, a section of the audience that didn't go along with the general consensus.
One of the panellists, a Yasmin alibi(?) Brown (a Ugandan Asian, kicked out by Idi Amin...and now a prominent journalist/writer) was one of those who didn't go along with the mainstream. As a UK muslim she gave her perspective but (she was sitting right next to the ambassador) she never ONCE defended the terrorists or their actions.
And she was as sympathetic and understanding as can be (apart from having a different overall persepctive)to the ambassador in particular and Americans/Americas plight.

Another (young )UK muslim lady made a point about muslim and other victims of terror worldwide being pretty much IGNORED and it upset her (again though whilst not insulting or downgrading the US tragedy)that the expression of sympathy was always biased.

There were many pro-Americans in the audience (as Nige pointed out, it was a CROSS-SECTION)too. It's a reflection of DEMOCRACY. Remeber that concept? Or would you like a Western version of Stalinist thinking? No dissent? Just because you don't agree with dissenters or find them dis-tasteful doesn't mean a thing.

I watched it and agreed with points from all sections of the audience (and dis-agreed) whether they were Right, centre or left.At times ,the ambassadors forlorn face and obvious sensitivity did draw sympathy from me but you still have to be honest in your views.

I don't agree with the Ambassadors politics but I fairly like the guy. I read his book he wrote soon after finishing his ambassadorial post over here. As a basic human being and a loving family man he is a likeable fella. There were lots in his book that I disagreed with. He also liked Britain and was pretty much an anglophile but I don't think he'd come in contact with (UK) CROSS SECTIONS that much in his UK carrer. That in essence is what a QT audience comprises of.The panel ALWAYS has representatives of right and left leaners and sometimes even has more extreme proponents from either side.Its panel AND audience is always balanced.

As I say ....thank God we live in a relatively FREE and DEMOCRATIC country huh? Or would you prefer a right wing / stalinist type thinking model?

Cheers

Dermot

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:24:01 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: And PS....
Message:
The BBC later apologised for the programme (which I thought was UTTERLY ridiculous)and Yasmin Alibi Brown later wrote an article in the 'INDEPENDENT' newspaper why the BBC should have been PROUD of the programme instead of kowtowing to political pressure.

I agreed with her 100% and still do.

Dermot

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:56:46 (EDT)
From: the other bobo
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: What are you saying JIm?
Message:
I think there is little hope of any agreement on these issues as everyone sees things in such a biased way - but here goes...
I too saw the QT programme and, although it was insensitive to broadcast something that criticized the American Government's foreign policy after such a terrible event as the WTC terrorist attack, it was not such a one-sided debate as people make out.
From some reports it sounds like it was put on solely to denounce the U.S. All I can say is that I must have been watching a different programme and I can't agree with you Jim when you say 'The sentiment expressed, there was a much more damning, general indictment of America itself, its politics, its culture, ultimately its citizenry'

Although I did see people angry at the way the American government and large corporations behaved in the past, as I say maybe not the best time to have done it, I must have somehow missed the attack on it's culture and citizenry. I suppose we could define culture in different ways ( art, philosophy, education, religion, business etc.)but there is no ambiguity about the common people(citizens)and I did not hear anyone attack the (wo)man-on-the-street.
Also, from the short time I have been around this forum and from reading back into the archives, I have never before seen anyone accuse Nigel of writing something that was 'near hysterical'. This particular piece seemed to me to be well prepared and carefully considered.
There seem to be such extreme difference in views of the same thing.
bobo

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:02:07 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Jeeze Nige....BRAVO
Message:
It's great to have a REAL intellectual to back up my primitive intelligence and to point out how stupid I was to even try to go halfway with the Appleyard bullshit:)

Cheers

Dermot

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 23:06:50 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: On a lighter note...
Message:
Tonight I found a cuisine worse than English cooking: Vietnamese. Gelatinous stinky food, anyone? Yuk.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:02:00 (EDT)
From: Mickey the Pharisee
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: On a lighter note...
Message:
Gee Scott, was that your first experience with Vietnamese food? Perhaps you were at a bad restaurant. I have eaten at many Vietnamese restaurants in San Jose, Oakland, and Berkeley, and the food was delicious. I've also had lots of great Thai and Cambodian food in those places. Of course, you don't exactly live in an area known for its fine gourmet restaurants, do you?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:37:14 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Mickey the Pharisee
Subject: Re: On a lighter note...
Message:
Mickey:

Yeah, that was my first taste of vietnamese cooking but we checked out a number of restaurants and groceries in this 'Little Saigon' area in 7-Corners. It's mostly the textures that I can't stand. Looked to me as though nearly everything was gelatinous, pastey or mushy. They ought to just put that stuff in a toothpaste tube and have done with it. Spring rolls were decent though. Had it not been for those the evening would have been a total waste.

We certainly don't have the restaurants of SF, but there's lots of ethnic food in Adams Morgan and Georgetown. Ethiopian is my favorite. Similar to Indian in texture and basic ingredients, but the taste is much different. Savory but not hot.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:10:29 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: You had bad Vietnamese food, Scott
Message:
It is not the greatest cuisine in the world but it's usually edible and tasty. Thai food uses too much sugar unnecessarily. Cambodian cuisine makes the same mistake. But for the best far east food you can't beat Szechuan. I still prefer Indian food to all of those though.

Now next time you're in SF let me show you what all those cuisines taste like when they have been absorbed into S African cooking especially the delicious Cape Malay and Natal Tamil food. Ethiopian can't hold a candle to it.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:52:05 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Thou doest protest a smidge too much.
Message:
Nigel:

My understanding was that the Appleyard article was a response to a shameful 'gang bashing' of an American diplomat shortly after the WTC attack by a leftward listing crowd. (As though *that* never happens.) In that context the inaccuracies and overstatements of Appleyard make a good deal more sense than the far-too-carefully-drawn critique you've submitted. I mean, do you think Americans can't appreciate the context or something? But thanks for clueing us in that someone else made significant contributions to civilazation. That was news.

if these anti-Vietnam protesters were to express a dislike of all things American, you could justifiably accuse them of Yankophobia. The irony is all in your head. That a person can read Updike, watch the Simpsons and listen to Dylan whilst making negative observations about the policies of a particular administration, probably suggests that they – unlike you – are dealing in issues rather than clichéd right-wing stereotypes.

But the fact is they were not, and you know it. I mean, I was in the thick of it so I ought to know about those social prejudices and no one was in a mood to acknowledge that George Schultz was a 'gentleman' let alone a 'gentle man' when he treated protesters with respect. Give me a break, will yah? Objective assessment of issues my ass.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:50:24 (EDT)
From: PatD
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Appleyard disease
Message:
The fact that you call views you disagree with 'disease ' is revealing .

You don't agree with the guy , that's quite clear , I do on an emotional level & that's the level it was addressed to I'm sure.

How come on the same day that millions around the world were standing in silence these people that are mentioned in the article were guffing off about how the victims had brought it all on themselves ?

You mention the integrity of the BBC's question time . That was in appalling bad taste & TOTALLY unrepresentative of feeling in the country.

I don't get it with this left/right shit, is that something you buy in a packet off a supermarket shelf?

ps Gore Vidal is a pompous boring fuck , one of the best writers in 20th century America was Barbara Tuchman.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:55:04 (EDT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: PatD
Subject: Pat D - and EVERYONE
Message:
Pat D - see my post to JHB below.

I apologised there for not recognising you. Sorry, Bin, but - you know how it is - when I have spent an hour or three trying to spell out my objections to the Appleyard post objectively, it irks me rotten when people (not just you) respond as if they hadn't even read the fucking thing - apart from seizing on certain trigger paragraphs - in your case the Question Time programme. Appleyard's piece would have been crap without that section. Read his article again and then my reply and tell me where I am right or wrong and why. I never whispered a word about Babs Tuchman. Why should I know about her? Your call..

Your emotions are your business, and not what I was talking about.

Listen, I don't mind being corrected on any point of fact. I don't mind being shown how or where my arguments are flawed. I have no interest in engaging with replies that do neither - be it yours, Pat C's or even Jim's. Jim's calling the Appleyard piece 'excellent' has - probably for the first time - led me to question his rational judgement (or at least since his anti-Chomsky bile a couple of years back - Hi Jim ;)

Emotional responses I cannot deal with rationally. (Yes I have shed tears over the WTC atrocity - but that's not what I mean. There are important issues to discuss. My ranting on a backwater cult-forum has little impact on the wider world. Unfortunately, knee-jerk slimeballs like Appleyard have a worldwide platform, thanks to the Murdoch empire).

Actually, one more point here - not to you, Pat, but to everyone:

The most offensive, inflammatory, ill-informed comment in Appleyard's piece was the bogus statistic (which he appeared happy to endorse) that over 90% of the Arab world thinks the Americans 'got what they deserved'.

Utter unsubstantiated bollocks. So who polled them? Certainly not those dictators who generally deny them a vote (including the freedom-loving Saudis, once again friends to the West whilst it suits America's needs..)

For one thing, not even 90% of the Arab world are even Muslim (if you count North Africa and the Lebanon). Of those who are Muslim, only a section are practising Muslims. Of the practising Muslims a small minority are fundamentalists. Of these, only a miniscule proportion would advocate indiscriminate violence against those they disagree with. That is at a guess.

How of many of the world's millions of Catholics support the IRA?

Yes, I mean that kind of stupid..

BTW: cq, if you are reading - I thought your post lower down was excellent and well worth a read for anybody who hasn't, or a re-read for those who have. And Dermot - I don't know whether to take 'intellectual' as a compliment or insult - but, ta, anyway, but probably the best post-WTC post was the one you did last week about the middle-east that has now gone inactive. You are as thoughtful, empathetic and articulate as the best of anyone - which beats mere intellectual any day.

Personally, I am tired of noisy heartfelt words which lack substance. Seeing even Pat C allowing his judgement to be clouded by Brian Appleyard's empty rhetoric and the heat of the moment has left me feeling tired. Reckon I might find a more amenable place to discuss world matters where you don't get slammed for things you never even said..

Best to all..

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:25:13 (EDT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: PatD
Subject: Re: Appleyard disease
Message:
Hi Pat D. Who are you? (I wish you'd choose another alias - the similarily with 'Pat C' is irritating and confusing. Or is this deliberate?)

The fact that you call views you disagree with 'disease ' is revealing .

No, I simply mean the 'disease' of journalistic hyperbole. Appleyard appears to endorse this Italian woman's belief that OVER 90% of the Arab world share the views of that Lebanese businessman. As if she knew. As if he knew. Do you think they're right?

You don't agree with the guy , that's quite clear , I do on an emotional level & that's the level it was addressed to I'm sure.

You're sounding like a premie now. Reason does tend to fly out of the window in emotive times. That's only reason I can imagine anyone would react positively to this poorly-argued piece - irrespective of their politics. Like I said, I wouldn't want him on my side in an argument.

How come on the same day that millions around the world were standing in silence these people that are mentioned in the article were guffing off about how the victims had brought it all on themselves ?

You'll always find a few insensitive nutters if you are looking for them. The trouble is, Appleyard's offenders are few and insignificant - certainly not the (always liberal/left) writers who are the main targets of his bile. Can't you see that? I wish you would discuss what I actually wrote and not what you imagine I meant.

You mention the integrity of the BBC's question time . That was in appalling bad taste & TOTALLY unrepresentative of feeling in the country.

Yes, of course the heckler's beliefs about how the world sees America were unrepresentative of the wider population. So are Appleyard's. That's not the BBC's fault for not screening the audience for extreme views or whatever. You always get a few. Perhaps Dimbleby should have controlled proceedings better. Perhaps they should have postponed the programme for that week. But given they had chosen to have the debate, are you suggesting offensive views be censored? Did you get my point about similarity between the heckler in question and Appleyard? You can't have it both ways.

I don't get it with this left/right shit, is that something you buy in a packet off a supermarket shelf?

Ask Appleyard. The 'left/right shit', as you put it, is precisely Appleyard's agenda, not mine. That was my whole point, if you were following. First idenify an imaginary groundswell of irrational anti-Americanism from one or two non-representative examples, then use it to smear all commentators who have ever voiced a negative opinion on American policy. Crap writing, pure and simple.

ps Gore Vidal is a pompous boring fuck , one of the best writers in 20th century America was Barbara Tuchman.

I don't know Tuckman, and your comment on Vidal is less than persuasive. Care to give examples of either? Or do you prefer to keep the discussion at Appleyard's emotional level?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 11:28:30 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Not quaranteened to Appleyard, unfortunately.
Message:
Nigel:

First idenify an imaginary groundswell of irrational anti-Americanism

Well, I can correct that methodological error. The anti-Americanism amounts to about 10% of the American population, concentrated disproportionately in the Universities, and within those in the Humanities. One would presume (though I can't empirically defend it without charging up my statistical engine and the Inglehart surveys) that the proportion is higher in the UK and again concentrated in the Humanities departments of the Universities. Media folks also tend to be left leaning, though I don't really mind that because they also have a guiding ethic (not shared by humanities professors). I think the thing that worries people like Appleyard is that if the 'nutters' are this vocal, and this readily received, so early after the attack then any 'moral clarity' do deal with terrorism effectively may well fade before it can do it's work. I think he's wrong, but that sort of thinking also afflicts the left.

'...participants to these debates often march under rhetorical banners, sloganeering to the tune of 'either-A-or-B' melodies. And given that they do so, the character of American [or any Liberal society's?] conflict becomes marked by arguments that lack compositional integrity and by engagements that are excessively agonistic.' --Adam Maze

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 14:37:05 (EDT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Hey, Scott, am I being anti-British?
Message:
Hey, Scott, am I being anti-British when I find fault with my own government's policies?

Whether the policy was Thatcher's, Major's, Haig's or Blair's makes no difference - if I disagree with it, am I therefore anti-British?

And what of the protesters against the war in Vietnam - were they 'anti-American' for wanting to call a halt to that particular war? They might have been in a minority, but they gave the lie to the old chestnut of 'might is right'.

Here in the UK, we've lived (and many have died) with terrorist attacks for over 30 years. I myself missed an IRA bomb at London's King's Cross station by just 3 minutes (back in the early 70's). The bomb that the so-called 'Real IRA' detonated only a few months ago in Ealing Broadway, London, (fortunately without fatalities) exploded about 300 yards away from the house I was born in and lived in until my 18th year.

Terrorism has unfortunately been part of the reality of life in the UK for quite a while now. Our politicians, however, (and Sinn Fein's) have realised that the negotiating table is a better route to resolving differences between the two parties, no matter how apparently insurmountable their differences might be.

Bin Laden is unlikely ever to sit at a negotiating table, IMO. But who's to say whether in ten, twenty - thirty? year's time the two opposing powers might find it in their own interests to do just that? What's the alternative? Is the coalition going to eradicate every supporter of Islamic fundamentalist extremism worldwide? Very unlikely. And what of the remaining supporters? Just go on simultaneously throwing stones (or cruise missiles) at them (like the US and UK have done for the past decade) then ignoring them in the hope that they're too far away to do any real damage. Then what? September the Eleventh part 2?

I understand that America may want revenge for September 11th's attacks. But until she puts some of that nationalistic pride in her collective back pocket and realises that revenge is what she was on the receiving end of three weeks ago tomorrow, she'll be no nearer to understanding what motivated her enemy.

Calling your enemy a 'lunatic' is one thing. But no matter how crazy they are, if we refuse to even attempt to assess their motivation - and the USA's and UK's role in a foreign policy that has fueled the Islamic world's desire for revenge for so long - then we put ourselves not only at a disadvantage, but in peril.

You can't keep throwing stones at an injured animal without anticipating consequences of some kind.

'Know your enemy' is always good advice. And America's enemy is NOT her anti-war faction.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:41:47 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Re: Hey, Scott, am I being anti-British?
Message:
Well, I'm not going to address every comment because, to be honest, it's not worth it. To just grab something that's representative:

'Know your enemy' is always good advice. And America's enemy is NOT her anti-war faction.

No! Really?

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:31:28 (EDT)
From: Moley
Email: moldy_warp@hotmail.com
To: cq
Subject: Exactly cq. [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:02:34 (EDT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Pat D(orrity) was Bin Liner
Message:
He felt that his old alias was no longer appropriate.

John.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:36:24 (EDT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: JHB
Subject: Yes, I remember now. Ta, John.
Message:
And my apologies to Pat for the tone of the first sentence. Having met the guy, like the guy and usually like his forum posts, I still have to say I think his remarks here are ill-considered and don't address the points I was making..

I suspect this thread is going to expand somewhat, but I won't be adding anything else to it. I have said all intend to re. the Appleyard piece and am far too busy. Such bad writing is not really worth the effort, IMO. Thanks to all those who have agreed with me, here, and to those who don't, sorry, but I am shipping out at this point. Have fun..;)

Nige the wishes he'd sent it to the Sunday Times instead.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:49:05 (EDT)
From: PatD
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Re: Yes, I remember now. Ta, John.
Message:
Hi Nigel , no offence taken & non intended on my part either.

I do find it strange that I seem to be one of the few non American pro American posters on here . Maybe it's because I lived outside the UK for 10yrs & found that the people I got on with best weren't my whining co nationals but Irish , Americans , & Australians.

I soon discovered that they had all sorts of inherited prejudices against the English(most of which were based on distorted history)& became an unwilling defender of the period when Brittania ruled the waves , to the point where I now believe that by & large the British Empire was 'a good thing'.

The USA has inherited the power of those times & many of the assumptions that went with it , although not the Empire itself(getting rid of it was part of the deal for fighting the 2nd ww)

Indeed I've come to the conclusion that we abrogated our responsibility by getting rid of it all so quickly in the 50's&60's. Look at Africa , what a shithole .
But then all the money was spent fighting Continental tyrannies.

If only we could turn the clock back to 1914 .

America is now numero uno & thank god ; imagine a world dominated by nazi Germany or the USSR .

I know that isn't a sophisticated analysis but what the hell , it's what I believe . If the people who destroyed NY & the Pentagon were representatives of the disposessed then maybe all this talk of America's failings might have a point . Fact is as far as we know they are intent on imposing Islam on the world at gunpoint.

Well fuck them , I'll stick with America .I was in a pub in Dartmouth recently (Royal Navy town)& the latest grass roots opinion I heard of an anti American nature was a guy who said 'those fucking yanks better leave us a bit of that fuckers arse .'

If you're interested in history & good writing you really should try Barbara Tuchman , she is the best historian writing in English in the 20th C. I know she was an American , but all the same .

All the best : Pat Dorrity

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:17:58 (EDT)
From: Peg
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Youj are clever aren't you???
Message:
Were you really a premie??????!!!!!!

Peg

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:48:24 (EDT)
From: peg
Email: None
To: Peg
Subject: Oh dear that came out bitchy!
Message:
I honestly was very impressed with your brain power in that rebuttal but perhaps I am also envious as my brain is soggy with disuse.

sorry...Peg

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 16:25:47 (EDT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: peg
Subject: hey - no sweat..
Message:
I didn't get the wrong impression. Just too busy to attend to all replies. Yes, I really was a premie, and yes, your brain is as good as mine or anyone else's. Honest injun. Half the problem is regaining the confidence to use it and express yourself. Reading a lot helps in my experience, and not being intimidated by persons who are loud-spoken or forthright... Cheers, Nige
(and usually are men!... says Moley xxx)
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:33:49 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Re: Rebuttal to Appleyard (ot)
Message:
Thanks for doing that, Nigel. Alot of Appleyard's article went over my head; references to people and things I'm unfamiliar with. But I reckoned he was a Pisces with Sag rising, and they never have anything good to say.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:19:18 (EDT)
From: berni
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Re: Rebuttal to Appleyard (ot)
Message:
Hello Nigel,

I only recently rejoined the forum and am still trying to catch up on the posts that I missed on the week-end. I don't know if I'm going to keep up with it all as it moves so fast.
So much pro/anti political discussion - most of it very reminiscent of the irrational emotive mood that premies get into when asked perfectly genuine questions about the previous claims of M, or asked to clarify some of the his 'teachings'. I guess old habits die hard, and if I had more time to contribute, I would probably be as guilty of emotional outburst.
I was so surprised to see such an article posted here in the first place, but am glad that you have taken the time to provide a reasonable analysis of what was ( or was not ) being said, rather than 'it was a truly wonderful article' or 'the guy is a right wing looney' or other such empty statements either against or in support.
I have read quite a few of your posts in the past and do not always agree with your opinion on things - but you always present a good case, are willing to defend criticism with reasonable argument and are not afraid to change your view if proven wrong.
I wish that was more the normal attitude here and in the world at large.
There's nothing I could add to your detailed piece - but I particularly like the point about being able to enjoy various aspects of a culture yet still be able to criticise other aspects.
I think that applies to a society, a political group, a philosophy etc. - and most definitely a government.
Thanks for your sane contribution to the debate,
berni

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 18:49:12 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: All
Subject: New from Visions International
Message:
Greetings cards, bookmarks and mugs with ''EiYd'' followed by an hourglass graphic and a capital I with a halo above it followed by ''wNaY.''

This stands for ''Even in Your darkest hour I (with a halo) will Not abandon You.''

The piece of card called a ''bookmark'' sells for $3.50.

The Greetings cards are 20 for a box of 12.

The mugs cost $14 each.

One of the quotes is: ''Do you know how to gather the beauty of this breath? Do you know how to have that recognition? That is Knowledge. That is the world of the Master. Those of you who want that in your life, then come. Then come to the Master. With a heart that is real. The heart that is real. A heart that's pure.''

I guess the people who have just received those artificial hearts cannot get Knowledge. What a pity.

Oh, yes, 5X7 inch photos of Rev Moonbeam Rawat cost $6 each.

And there is a schpiel about Michelle Mitchell being the artist of the portrait of His Holeyness entitled ''Captivated.''

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 01:15:23 (EDT)
From: Francesca :C)
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Dear Premies: Hay--loooooo! [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 00:21:36 (EDT)
From: Timmi
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Re: New from Visions International
Message:
I think I am going to be sick.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 21:56:50 (EDT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: m:'When we are happy, the issues don't matter.'
Message:
What about the suffering/happiness of others? What about lil' issues like WTC, terrorism, security/civil liberties, genocide, refugees, oppression, and da survival and pursuit of happiness of billions of people?

The health and well-being and freedom of us all -- as a connected subjectively aware species among the myriad life forms existing within the environment of an orbiting planet in a connected cosmos of relational materialized energy -- does matter.

'In the eternal goodness of the divine nature (as in a miraculous mirror) the essence of all creatures is seen as one.'
-- Meister Eckhart

If my brothers and sisters in this world are suffering or being persecuted, then how can I wallow selfishly in my own bliss? If the rainforests which replenish the oxygen for all of earth's breathing life are decimated, how can I sit in satisfied silence? If the flowing waters which provide earthly life's sustenance are poisoned, how then can I remain oblivious or passively unconcerned?

Nay. Let us be not wasteful, ostentatious, or consumed with the material pleasures and accumulations of the gluttonous lower self. For, regardless of any spirituality, in active cooperative kindness and compassion for others resides a nobility of the human spirit not attained by wistful meditative self-absorption.

To be happy within oneself is good. To remember and respect the plight of others, too, is better. We are all equal in the sight of the universal energy. We are also interconnected. What oppresses or harms another who is less fortunate may one day harm us, too. In point of fact, some issues Do matter.

Peace and lentils,

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:17:29 (EDT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: Re: m:'When we are happy
Message:
yeah. I'd like to see a plane full of premies just keep on blissing out as their plane to amaroo gets hijacked, and the stewardesses get their throats cut with box knives and the plane gets plowed into the tallest tower in, oh, say, hongkong?

happyhappyhappyjoyjoy

or better yet--MJ gets his G5 hijacked by a surprise stowaway. lets see him be mr happy in that hour.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 21:37:43 (EDT)
From: Brian S
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Fill in the blanks yourself
Message:
I am not God, but somehow I will always be omipresent for you through thick and thin. Read between the lines, and hint, wink, think about the meaning of this halo.

Set the hook, reel in the fish, keep those prices high, the cost of maintaining heaven on earth ain't what is used to be back when my daddy had the job.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:21:58 (EDT)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: Brian S
Subject: Sheesh, Brian...
Message:
I am not God, but somehow I will always be omipresent for you through thick and thin. Read between the lines, and hint, wink, think about the meaning of this halo.

Set the hook, reel in the fish, keep those prices high, the cost of maintaining heaven on earth ain't what is used to be back when my daddy had the job.


---

You sound a little 'cynical.' (snicker)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:31:02 (EDT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Go on, premies - tell us you're not embarrassed... [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:40:19 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Taliban Terrorists and Jim Jones
Message:
This link is to an article in the San Francisco Sunday Chronicle.
[ Chilling Parallels ]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 10:32:49 (EDT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Re: Taliban Terrorists and Jim Jones
Message:
Hi Pat,

It is chilling. I've been reading Raven which was recommended by Marianne. It's a tough read, that story about Jim Jones--especially with the current events in our country. It's become almost like a textbook study; I can't get through a page without making notes in the margins.

What it parallels most is the Maharajism cult, IMO. I haven't gotten too far because there is so much about Jones's personality which is similar to Maharaji's. The most striking facts so far are the followers who know (X-Rated?) so much about Jones's failings, cons, and other character flaws, but are willing to look the other way, for the ''better good.''

What ''better good'' means depends on the particular cult's mission. In Jones's case, he integrated his congregation, and worked for ''social causes.'' He also became politically powerful.

That part is chilling for me.

At least the urug doesn't give a shit about people, so he at least stays out of the mainstream world, which, btw, is also a distinction in Jones's cult.

Bin Laden, Talaban? It's a cult in all manner of cults, but it's far more dangerous in it's mission.

Sir Dave asked why people don't just worship the sun? Well, I still say, read When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone. It's not a fanatical feminist book, rather a great history of those religions that worshipped the sun, the sky, the earth, goddesses. Most interesting is how they were destroyed. This is ancient history.

I learned so much from When God Was... as well as Raven. I'm too scared to read about Bin Laden. I've already read many books over the past few years about germ and chemical warfare; BSE, ebola, and all those germs that our government also has, deep in the ground, and wear level four suits (the most protective against viral agents) in order to work with them.

I'm not scared, (too much) anymore. And I don't feel any hate, either. I was sent an online game from a friend. It's Bin Laden behind a liquor store counter with a hostage (pretty sick) and the player has a gun and no matter how many times you shoot Bin Laden, he comes back to life and pops up somewhere else behind the counter. I laughed when I played it because he was saying stuff like ''I piss in your face,'' ''Get out of my store'' and other stuff. I guess I am a sicko at heart, but it did relieve my anger at Bin Laden and the whole awful situation.

I won't post the url here--too sensitive.

Cynthia

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 14:09:59 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Cynthia
Subject: Hi, Cynthia
Message:
I hope you are well and happy. And I also hope that you balance your reading with some lighter stuff like the Mapp and Lucia series by E F Benson. If you haven't read his books I think you would love them since you're such a country, small village person.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 16:41:48 (EDT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Performance of death
Message:
It's a terrifying story about a man of power, privilege and paranoia. Chased from his homeland, he declared himself a prophet of God and political revolutionary. Condemning capitalism, he and his fanatical army of devotees fled to an isolated, impoverished country. Once there, they plotted an unimaginable act of mass murder and suicide -- all in the name of God.

They're all reading much the same bunch of wacky bronze age religious tracts, or something. You do you get to change the script?

JohnT
- never a premie

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:14:48 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave }(
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: I disagree
Message:
Bronze Age wars were over territory and had at least some economic sense to them. These religious nuts are completely mad and make no rational sense whatsoever.

Why can't people just go back to worshipping the Sun? There'd be no argument then - everybody would see it.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 12:19:01 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Differences of Political Opinion OT
Message:
It's fascinating to see the difference of opinion towards the United States on this forum. I've seen discussions here before on issues like gun control, the media and the elections, in the U.S., but never just the U.S. in general.

It's particularly interesting because of the ex-cult factor... we all used to believe in an outlandish claim that a little guy from India was God. And we all 'know' each other to varying extents, if only from reading some posts of each other.

It's also interesting because the conclusions being drawn here about the United States in general are so glaringly different despite the fact we're mostly drawing on the same body of information to form our conclusions. The intelligence factor is pretty equal between the two camps; those who think the positives of the U.S. far outweigh the negatives, and those who think the negatives are substantial enough to be suspicious, at the least. Our economic and cultural backgrounds, it seems, are relatively similar (mostly Western, caucasian, and middle-class), although I could be wrong about that. And our education level seems consistent (some college to graduate degrees, but relatively well-read and informed at the least).

There's disparity among the participants in terms of the ability to argue politically; I don't feel very astute myself. Some of it comes from a poor memory and inability to give examples, which is crucial to back up your beliefs. It's one thing to be convinced of something, and another to prove it.

But if you look at the top scrappers on both sides in this heap, they're both very intelligent, very informed, able to quote examples fluidly, and both honorable and good people. They just disagree on the honorability and goodness of the subject: The United States.

Part of the disparity may be that the data is so vast on the subject, and with so many holes left to one's imagination, that drawing such polarized conclusions is possible. Key parts of the data differ widely (i.e., whether the U.S. had an alternative to supporting Saudi Arabia, or using it to fight Iraq in the Gulf War), and that may play into it.

Another important factor in how conclusions are drawn on this subject have to do with detailed personal experience. Someone like myself, who grew up in the U.S. and tends to be rebellious to authority, and generally dislikes any institution, seems to see things differently than someone who lived in a country that wasn't as fortunate or liberal as the U.S.

It's also notable that despite both sides making their best cases, no one ever budges from their basic stance. By our age (I assume everyone's over 30), basic political beliefs have been formed and cast, and there's no 'changing sides'.

I'm intersted to hear how other people here see this polarity, and what their ideas are on this.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 09:21:01 (EDT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Rick
Subject: Re: Differences of Political Opinion OT
Message:
Interesting observations, Rick. I think one reason people seem reluctant to rethink their political views comes from the kind of filtering that goes on when we are presented with news which either confirms or challenges our existing beliefs. There's that thing they call 'selective outrage' where we can be more forgiving of a country or government's actions if we see their intentions as being honourable. Perhaps we all do that to some extent..?

But I am not sure that's the whole story. Mightn't it be the case that people's views do change, but change very slowly? - too slowly to observe over a couple of years-worth of forum posting. Certainly nobody is going to switch allegiances in the heat of the moment, but if a person addresses whatever issue honestly, their attitudes might evolve over time, almost imperceptibly. I think I am probably far more left-wing than ever used to be - or ever expected to be. At the same time, I feel more au fait and understanding of the attractions of conservative ideologies to those who adhere to them, than I once was. (I have yet to see anybody post here against the general principle of democracy, which is healthy, IMO - even if we sometimes differ in our opinions on how democratic the US or UK are in reality.)
I enjoy reading most political threads here - especially where somebody I disagree with presents a strong argument that requires a bit of thought to challenge. Back in the homogenised group-think days of the cult, I didn't even see politics as being relevant to anything. 'Crazy politicians' - all as bad as each other, etc.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 17:10:15 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Aunt Dottie Stinks
Message:
Thanks, Nigel. You gave me some food for thought.

When I was a kid, my Aunt Dottie used to come over on the holidays. She wore this awful dimestore perfume that totally stunk out the whole place. She was ditzy and nervous, and when she was through with her dinner, she'd scrape the leftovers on her plate right onto someone else's plate, before they could answer whether they wanted it or not.

All the kids at the dinner table couldn't stand Aunt Dottie, and the adults did whatever they could to keep these opinions silent. But you couldn't fool the kids. They knew Aunt Dottie stunk and they didn't like her behavior.

The adults, on the other hand, had greater considerations. Aunt Dottie was family. And she didn't always used to stink. And they could remember playing hopscotch with Aunt Dottie in New York, as children.

And Aunt Sue wasn't that much different than Aunt Dottie. So if you ditched Aunt Dottie, maybe that meant you needed to get rid of Aunt Sue as well. And then there was only Aunt Rose and Aunt Anne left.

The adults had different levels of awareness of Aunt Dottie's stench. Some knew very well she stunk but realized there wasn't much to do about it. Others felt guilty and tried not to think about it. And still others, just couldn't deal with all the confusion, and totally blocked out the fact Aunt Dottie stunk... they'd outright deny it if asked.

Now that I'm a big guy, I know that you can't just get rid of Aunt Dottie; for all the reasons I mentioned, and more I can't think of, right now. But I don't ever want to forget that Aunt Dottie stunk, or sweep it so far under the rug, it's invisible, for whatever reason.

Am I being too New Age?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 18:41:08 (EDT)
From: Nige
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Re: Aunt Dottie Stinks
Message:
Am I being too New Age?

No, you are being metaphorically inspired - funny too. Thanks Rick.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 19:50:26 (EDT)
From: PatD
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Basic Political beliefs
Message:
My political belief was formed before I became a premie & has never changed. That belief is that it doesn't matter whether the jackboot that kicks you in the balls is worn on the left foot or the right foot, the only thing you can do when kicked is to kick back harder.

My own reaction to the attack on America was entirely emotional (how could it be anything else ) & still is , nothing to do with politics . Like most people I suspect ,not being a card carrying member of a political party , I agree with bits of what they all say.

This is different because it's to do with the basic trip not the details. I support America 100 % in this & still would even in the (very unlikely) event that they nuke Baghdad.

I know US foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired for a lot of people & I am not in agreement with parts of it in in the particulars .BUT ..at least you TRY to get it right by & large , just as the previous numero uno power GB tried in the past , made mistakes & now is never allowed to forget them by people who think they know how to construct a perfect world with the benefit of hindsight.

As far as the Saudis are concerned those guys get $25 a barrel for shit that used to poison their grandfathers' camels so what's their fucking problem ?

OK so lots of people don't care too much for Disney world & big macs , I don't myself but I wouldn't commit mass murder to make my point .

I've never been to America although one of the greatest friends I've ever had is an American USMC.retd who left his own country because he couldn't handle being looked down on for having fought(as a volunteer) in Vietnam.

I admire the America of John Adams & Lincoln , & I'm eternally grateful to providence that JFK was reading Barbara Tuchman's 'The Guns of August' when the Cuban missile crisis happened.

Where does that put me on the political spectrum ?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:07:31 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: PatD
Subject: Re: Basic Political beliefs
Message:
Best I can tell, you'll give the U.S. the benefit of the doubt whenever possible. You don't see it as criminal in any way, and forgive its trespasses in history. Er, I think.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 17:51:49 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: To EVERYONE
Message:
I've got so many posts scattered all over the place ...sorry in advance if I don't reply to any future responses....probably got to have a break for a little while. Time commitments.

Catch Y'all as soon as I can....in the meantime
GOD BLESS AMERICA (so long as he also blesses the 199 other countries) ;)

...wait a minute...is there a GOD? ....oh, that's a whole other discussion.

Best Wishes

Dermot

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:47:15 (EDT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: I disagree with one thing.
Message:
Rick,

I disagree with your characterisation of the groups debating here. You say:-

The intelligence factor is pretty equal between the two camps; those who think the positives of the U.S. far outweigh the negatives, and those who think the negatives are substantial enough to be suspicious.

I haven't read the debate this way. I think almost everyone (if not everyone) believes the positives of the USA outweigh the negatives. I certainly do. No, the debate seems to be between those who believe that debate about the issues is worthwhile, including being critical of USA (and any other country's) foreign policy, media, and education system; and those who believe that any criticism of the USA at this time is anti-American and is playing into the hands of the terrorists.

I'm with free speech and thought.

John.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 01:08:43 (EDT)
From: salsa
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Re: I disagree with one thing.
Message:
I need to post in the foro and I can't. Visitors have posted and I'm all excited: The place is often sleepy.

Did you close it?

Post a e-mail address please.

thanks

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:34:36 (EDT)
From: JHB
Email: jhb@ex-premie.org
To: salsa
Subject: I'll look at it.?
Message:
Sorry, I now understand. I'll have a look at it.

John the new Spanish language forum hoster.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 16:35:12 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: That's it John [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:57:24 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Re: I disagree with one thing.
Message:
Rick,

I disagree with your characterisation of the groups debating here. You say:-

The intelligence factor is pretty equal between the two camps; those who think the positives of the U.S. far outweigh the negatives, and those who think the negatives are substantial enough to be suspicious.

I haven't read the debate this way. I think almost everyone (if not everyone) believes the positives of the USA outweigh the negatives. I certainly do. No, the debate seems to be between those who believe that debate about the issues is worthwhile, including being critical of USA (and any other country's) foreign policy, media, and education system; and those who believe that any criticism of the USA at this time is anti-American and is playing into the hands of the terrorists.

I'm with free speech and thought.

John.


---

I agree my characterization was deficient, and I think yours is an improvement but still off the mark. I would rephrase my characterization as those who think the negatives are substantial enough to warrant overall suspicion of motive and those who do not.

I see the argument of those who think the negatives aren't that substantial as saying that criticism of the U.S. in the specific case of the Sept. 11 incidents is irrelevant and unwarranted. They're willing to criticize generally but not to the point of saying the U.S. has failed to live up to it's ideals (the Constitution, Bill of Rights, etc.)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:57:45 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Meaningful debate about meaning.
Message:
I've posted this link elsewhere, but it's just as relevant here. Don't be put off by the density of the language. What he's saying is really pretty simple.
[ The Liberal Persuasion ]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:47:01 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: 'as fortunate or liberal'?? :)
Message:
A very good and interesting post Rick .....I'll let others weigh in as I'm about to log off but may return later.

Sadly I've lived life in an unfortunate European police state environment :) Now if I'd have been born in the mecca of the west .....boy!!!!!

Cheers

Dermot

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:30:04 (EDT)
From: Vera
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: possible reason for the polarity
Message:
I agree that participants on both sides are well-informed and write in good faith.

My own theory is that Americans do not have a clear view of the damage their nation's government has done around the world because their nation's media is so tightly controlled. They have been inured to a comfortable myth. An illustration:

How many civilians - women, children, old people - did US warplanes slaughter during the Gulf War? Can any American poster recall reading in the US press that the figure was a quarter of a million?

These are civilians only - the military casualties are extra: people with whom (to quote George I) 'the US has no quarrel'.

That's the population of a small city. It's also ~50 times the number killed in the horrific WTC/Pentagon attacks.

Just because Americans never get to read such stories, or learn of such staggering casualty lists, does not mean these horrors did not occur. And it does not mean that no-one else gets to hear about it: much of the rest of the world's media is not so tightly self-censored.

Do you seriously imagine that the world's Muslims did not get to learn about the mass slaughter of their brothers & sisters in the Gulf War? Or that they have forgotten it in the 10 years since?

These things are censored in the West: they're not censored among the survivors and those who sympathise with them.

And that's only one example. The US secret agencies and military have propped up a hundred murderous regimes since WW2, many of them in Islamic countries. The death toll is in the millions. Within those millions are several democratically elected presidents and prime ministers whom the US has caused to be assassinated.

One day, somewhere, someone was going to devise the resources to hit back. It was as inevitable as night following day. It will continue.

I abhor it, and have had nightmares nearly every night since Sept 11 - but it will continue.

My guess is that even if bin Laden is extirpated, another five will rise to take his place. Sept 11 was a massively successful feat of arms which showed for the first time that, and how, the US is vulnerable. Radical Muslims will be rushing to join the cause from Morocco to Afghanistan. If UBL is removed, their number wll probably double. If we in the West guard against planes attacks, they'll use chemical weapons. If we guard against that, they'll drop biological weapons in a dozen city reservoirs. if we somehow guard against that, they'l smuggle a dozen suitcase nukes into cities and explode them. (And do so.)

Thus I'm not suggesting that US foreign policvy should be changed for ethical reasons - tho it should. I'm suggesting it should be changed so the West, and we, can survive.

Vera

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 16:10:38 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Vera
Subject: Mass slaughter yes but not of civilians
Message:
Well, to tell the truth, I'm not sure if it was 250,000 killed. I think it was far, far less and perhaps someone will enlighten me but yes, US forces did kill thousands during the Gulf war, it was slaughter on a large scale but it was slaughter of the retreating Iraqi troops, many of whom had been press-ganged into the army (forced conscription).

At the time, I was appalled at the slaughter of the retreating troops by American helecopter gunships and bombers but to put the record straight, it was slaughter of Iraqi troops and not mass slaughter of civilians.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:54:45 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Re: Mass slaughter yes but not of civilians
Message:
Dave:

Exactly. Something like 100,000 was what I heard, but could have been more. I have no idea what Vera is talking about. She sounds like an arm of the Saddam Hussein disinformation agency, to be honest. Talk about banal anti-Americanism...

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 10:19:29 (EDT)
From: Vera
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Evidence for my claims re Gulf War slaughter
Message:
Dave:

Exactly. Something like 100,000 was what I heard, but could have been more. I have no idea what Vera is talking about. She sounds like an arm of the Saddam Hussein disinformation agency, to be honest. Talk about banal anti-Americanism...

---

I would be grateful if you gentlemen cited sources when disputing my statements.

The reason my claims sound bizarre to many of you is that you have been inculcated into a myth by your media, for decades. Thus contradicting this myth is as shocking and offensive as (say) telling a 25-year premie that Maharaji is a fraud.

However if you would care to examine the behaviour of the US objectively, you will find there is truth in what I write.

I visited the US last month, and made my first pilgrimmage to the Lincoln Memorial, which was an immensely emotional event for me - as was my tour of the Capitol and the Vietnam Memorial. I feel that characterising me as 'arm of the Saddam Hussein disinformation agency' does you little credit.

Again, please do not respond from the foggy depths of your national myths, or from emotion and fear - but from facts.

Former US Attorney-General Ramsay Clark, initiator of the Clark commission of inquiry and war crimes tribunal, estimates that between 150,000 and 300,000 Iraqis were killed in the Gulf War, most of them civilians.

Congressman Henry Gonzalez, chairman of the House Banking Committee, talked of 'the deaths of...over 200,000 Muslims, Iraqis and others.' (The Guardian, May 3, 1992.)

'The Medical Education Trust in London (1991) published a report claiming that up to a quarter of a million people were killed or died during and after the attack. Child mortality in Iraq has doubled: 170,000 under-fives are expected to die in the region.' (Distant Voices, John Pilger, 1992). [And of course that figure has since been far exceeded.]

The military casualties were nothing like this high: therefore most of these people were civilians.

Would you also like to talk about Chile, Guatemala, Vietnam - or perhaps Indonesia, where a US-assisted coup led to the installation of President Suharto, who immediately liquidated 500,000 to one million 'communists' - i.e. democrats, members of community groups, intellectuals, etc?

Criticising US foreign policy does not make one a hater of Americans, a sympathiser with Saddam Hussein or a supporter of terrorism.

Learn your own history and I'll be happy to continue this discussion. But gratuitious insults and the recitation of myths do not get us very far.

Vera

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:43:53 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave }(
Email: None
To: Vera
Subject: Re: Evidence for my claims re Gulf War slaughter
Message:
Vera wrote:

''The military casualties were nothing like this high''

On the contrary, the military casualties in the Gulf war were enormous and could even be higher than the official figures since Iraq doesn't like to admit to military casualties. I still think you're mixing up the military and civilian casualties.

Talk about Vietnam if you want since I know a lot about it, despite not having been there. I know Vietnamese people in Britain.

And Scott T: Yes, Vietnamese food is awful to me, too. I have to leave the house when it's cooked, well, I feel like it. And British food isn't all fish & chips, you know. You can get curried chips too.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 13:09:15 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Sir Dave }(
Subject: Vietnamese Eats
Message:
Dave:

I agree that India has done a great deal to improve British cooking.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 12:36:46 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Vera
Subject: You asked for it.
Message:
Vera:

Ramsey Clark is a guilt-ridden old warrior, willing to say damn near anything to balance the scales of his life. I don't know where he and the others you cite got their numbers, but they are clearly inflated by about three to four orders of magnitude, according to Greenpeace:

Questionable actions

The available evidence indicates that minimal numbers of civilians were
killed either intentionally or by bombs that missed military targets. A
report prepared for Greenpeace in May on the environmental impact of the war
also investigated civilian casualties, based on extensive interviewing and
research of government and news sources. The authors note 13 cases of
collateral damage of varying severity. They treat the most significant
cases of civilian death-the Amiriya shelter bombing and the bombing of the
'baby milk' factory in Abu Gharaib January 22--separately, because they were
apparently the result of faulty intelligence.
-- Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

According to Frontline the estimate of civilian casualties inflicted during the air campaign by the Iraqi government itself was a mere 2300, a factor of 100 less than yours. So the estimates of even those directly critical of the US, or the enemy nation itself, range from a few tens to a few thousand.

Note that the *Bulletin of Atomic Scientists* article is *critical* of the US. Perhaps Clark's and Gonzalez' numbers rest partly on observations like the following from the same article:

The
United States did not resort to terror-bombing in the Gulf, as it did in
World War II or even in the Christmas 1972 bombings of North Vietnam. Yet
the allies managed to inflict what a U.N. observer team would later call
'near apocalyptic' damage to Iraq's infrastructure, leaving, by June 1,
70,000 homeless and as many as 20,000 others sick and dying in a state that
had been bombed back to the 'preindustrial age.'

So, even by the estimates of it's severest critics most of the damage inflicted on civilian populations was a result of infrastructure destruction. And even those estimates are far below those you cite.

The preposterous numbers you cite could also be predicated covertly on the claim that the use of depleted uranium has created widespread cancer, a view proposed by the World Socialist Organization and refuted strenuously by RAND.

But any way you shake it, the numbers you cited were inflammatory and grossly misleading. Note also in the Frontline report that even the estimates of military casualties, originally tagged at 100,000 to 300,000, have been downsized.

I should also add that these distortions do more than mislead. They destroy. Any sign of weakness in the allied resolve to deal harshly with mass terrorism is almost certainly to result in an increased incentive to follow up with even more deadly attacks, since it encourages them to believe that they're making their case without much penalty. These people aren't worried about 'collateral damage' either on their side or ours. Indeed, the more Middle Easterners killed and the more disruption created (as opposed to simply surgically removing the terrorists) advances their cause. So by playing the patsy to disinformation, you're actually raising the odds of death tolls in the US and the Middle East to an order of magnitude equivalent to whole cities, or worse. Grow up, Vera.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 17:06:07 (EDT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: kill ratio
Message:
kill ratio was 100,000 to one american, or thereabouts
best ever, apparently
bunch of brits infamously killed by friendly fire tho
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 21:00:18 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Re: kill ratio
Message:
More than one American dead, but probably not more than 30. It's an unseemly kill ratio to be sure... but better them than us. And we also accepted *a lot* of surrendering Iraqi soldiers. After hearing what the Iraqi army had been doing during it's occupation of Kuwait I imagine the pilots were in no mood to just let them walk away from the equipment across the desert.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:05:04 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Overkill perhaps
Message:
''After hearing what the Iraqi army had been doing during it's occupation of Kuwait''

Just how much of that was true? I heard that the throwing babies out of incubators was pure fabrication put there to rouse hatred for the Iraqi army.

I must admit, I wasn't proud to be associated by nationality with the slaughter of 100,000 retreating, beaten troops. There was much outrage here about it at the time. Yeah, the top brass talked about destroying Saddam Hussain's ''equipment'' or war machine but I thought, as did many others that the destruction of a retreating army, comprising (in the main) of conscripts with inferior, primative weapons and with their morale destroyed; well I considered it overkill and uneccesary. It was mass slaughter of the cruelest kind of which the West shouldn't be proud.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 22:14:55 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Re: Overkill perhaps
Message:
Dave:

I don't know if it was overkill or not. Had we been after the Hussein government itself then prisoners would have made a lot more sense, but this dilemma more or less falls out of the fact that we merely wanted to cripple Hussein and not get rid of him. I'm more concerned about the fact that we didn't see fit to grieve over the enemy, which is a very old and honorable military tradition. Such an unseemly kill ratio demands some acknowledgment in the form of grief, and the fact that we couldn't bring ourselves to that signifies a sort of adolescent attitude toward conflict. Not healthy, and worth worrying about.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 16:38:03 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: 1/6th of all forces were Brits Dave [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:04:04 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Vera
Subject: Re: possible reason for the polarity
Message:
Vera:

How many civilians - women, children, old people - did US warplanes slaughter during the Gulf War? Can any American poster recall reading in the US press that the figure was a quarter of a million?

This is complete nonsense. Probably Hussein's disinformation (like the craziness about having killed 500,000 children). There were barely 100,000 *combatant* deaths, for heaven sake. A quarter of a million civilian deaths is just preposterous, as are the rest of your 'supressed facts.'

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:04:00 (EDT)
From: the other bob
Email: None
To: Vera
Subject: Re: possible reason for the polarity
Message:
All very true, Vera
And I share your concerns about what is going to happen next.
'If UBL is removed, their number will probably double' - make that tenfold.
If we think that premies are, and we were brainwashed into unreasonable actions in support of a relious cult, it was kindergarden stuff compared to these muslim fundamentalists - and they are everywhere. Bombing the life out of Afghanistan or Killing a few leaders/mahatmas or whatever they are called will only add fuel to the fundamentalis fervour.
Does anyone remember that video when the bodyguard talking to a reporter said he would slit the throat of anyone if they tried to throw a custard pie at Maharji? When the reporter responded with disbelief the premie came back with something like 'I'd do it in an instant'.
The freaky thing is I remember feeling those feelings ( although maybe not quite so strong ) A particular satsang I remember - some mahatma was talking about the opposition to DLM in Greece, where they didn't like having cults setting up ashrams, and that some premies and Mahatmas had been threatened with having their legs chopped of if they continued their propogation.
The mahatma giving satsang said that when M heard about this he said that nothing was going to stop him bringing his message of love and peace to every corner of the world and if those Greeks meant what they said then there would be a few Mahatmas without legs.
Everyone laughed and most people felt, as I think I did, that if Maharji sent me to Greece, then, despite the fear of losing my legs, I would go.
Now any feelings I or anyone else had in service/devotion to Maharaji pales into insignificance compared to what these fundamentalists feel.
Have you read the notes found in one of the highjackers suitcase?
They did what they did in the name of Allah and believed they were doing a great service?
How you gonna fight them?
How you gonna make sure that you've found them all?
As we've just seen it only takes a few of them to cause massive destruction and loss of life.

I'm saying this because America needs stop being so cocky and paranoid about people being anti-american. All everyone wants is a peaceful solution to this terror.

I also agree that we don't hear half of what goes on in our name around the world.
I know that the American Government trained ( as well as Bin Laden ) Nicaraguan terrorists and supported their killing of over 30,000 civilians. Who knows what the CIA etc. are up to half the time?
No way could I pledge allegiance to such a bunch of over confident suits lead by someone who is proud of the fact that he has never finished reading a book ( I heard that somewhere - I know it must be an exagerration but I think there is some truth in the fact that he does not hold intellectual pursuits in very high regard )
But I'm not Anti American. I love the place and the people.
It's the government I don't like.
bobo the other bob.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:52:19 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Vera
Subject: Good post, Vera [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:10:03 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: It's completely inaccurate, Dermot.
Message:
How do you construe that as "good???" Worse, it's conceptual nonsense. It basically says that the polarization exists because we haven't all come down on one side. Completely silly, on its face.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:16:24 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: not 'nt'
Message:
Couldn't seem to edit out the 'nt' designation, after I accidentally set it.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:39:28 (EDT)
From: Vera
Email: None
To: Vera
Subject: Possible reason for the polarity
Message:
I agree that participants on both sides are well-informed and write in good faith.

My own theory is that Americans do not have a clear view of the damage their nation's government has done around
the world because their nation's media is so tightly controlled. They have been inured to a comfortable myth. An
illustration:

How many civilians - women, children, old people - did US warplanes slaughter during the Gulf War? Can any
American poster recall reading in the US press that the figure was a quarter of a million?

These are civilians only - the military casualties are extra: people with whom (to quote George I) 'the US has no
quarrel'.

That's the population of a small city. It's also ~50 times the number killed in the horrific WTC/Pentagon attacks.

Just because Americans never get to read such stories, or learn of such staggering casualty lists, does not mean
these horrors did not occur. And it does not mean that no-one else gets to hear about it: much of the rest of the
world's media is not so tightly self-censored.

Do you seriously imagine that the world's Muslims did not get to learn about the mass slaughter of their brothers &
sisters in the Gulf War? Or that they have forgotten it in the 10 years since?

These things are censored in the West: they're not censored among the survivors and those who sympathise with
them.

And that's only one example. The US secret agencies and military have propped up a hundred murderous regimes
since WW2, many of them in Islamic countries. The death toll is in the millions. Within those millions are several
democratically elected presidents and prime ministers whom the US has caused to be assassinated.

One day, somewhere, someone was going to devise the resources to hit back. It was as inevitable as night following
day. It will continue.

I abhor it, and have had nightmares nearly every night since Sept 11 - but it will continue.

My guess is that even if bin Laden is extirpated, another five will rise to take his place. Sept 11 was a massively
successful feat of arms which showed for the first time that, and how, the US is vulnerable. Radical Muslims will be
rushing to join the cause from Morocco to Afghanistan. If UBL is removed, their number wll probably double. If we in
the West guard against planes attacks, they'll use chemical weapons. If we guard against that, they'll drop biological
weapons in a dozen city reservoirs. if we somehow guard against that, they'l smuggle a dozen suitcase nukes into
cities and explode them. (And so on.)

Thus I'm not suggesting that US foreign policvy should be changed for ethical reasons - tho it should. I'm suggesting
it should be changed so the West, and we, can survive.

Vera

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:21:34 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Vera
Subject: Why are you posting this drivel twice?
Message:
Just because Americans never get to read such stories, or learn of such staggering casualty lists, does not mean
these horrors did not occur.

It doesn't mean they did occur either.

One day, somewhere, someone was going to devise the resources to hit back. It was as inevitable as night following
day. It will continue.

I can't believe anyone with two brain cells to rub together would say such a thing. Dermot, do you really think this isn't crap in the doorway? Tell me why not?

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 16:31:37 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Scott, untie you shoelaces
Message:
and step out of your shoes. That's yhe only way you'll be able to read a post like that. Try to step into someone elses shoes.

I think it was a general western media consensus (I know for a fact that it was in the UK) for the real horrors of the Gulf war to be censored, in order to shield viewers from seeing burnt and mutilated bodies. The view was if they had been honest in showing the real horror then the public would be outraged. That's just one small example.

I'm certain the powers that be (government/media) would rather downplay or where possible conceal real war facts and figures.Again, for the same reasons.

I don't know the actual casualty figures of the Gulf war.But whatever they are they are more than statistics. For those on the receiving end and their countrymen they'll never be forgotten. This applies to all on the receiving end of the 'wests' might.

It is totally, 100%irrelevant whether the 'wests' might was used justifiablly or not when considering the feelings of those who are or have been the 'wests' enemies.They will not see it on our terms ...they'll see it in apolyptic terms.

All Vera is saying (if you extract whether or not the west is right or wrong from the equation)is that those of us in the west are not always made aware of the true horrific facts of a conflict(you can't deny 'spin' and 'gloss' is a political art) and civilian victims of a conflict will be filled with a deep seated, perhaps uneradicable hatred and resntment.She also concludes (again whether it's justified or not) SOME of these people will turn their resentment into violent retaliation.

HOWEVER .....all of the above I've written is applicable if the civilian casualities were 10 or 100 00. I must concede I don't know if the 250 000 figure is accurate, I suspect not. Same again about the number of governments backed by the west. I don't know the numbers. I agree, you could dispute that.

If you forget the statistics and read my post ....can you argue with it?

I'm waiting to be scoffed at. Maybe in this instant I deserve to be. If you read carefully, I don't think so.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:51:01 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: You've discredited yourself.
Message:
Dermot:

And I was beginning to think you were halfway rational. I don't know what you're saying. You seem to be suggesting that as long as someone's point of view is *on the right side* the fact that they are presenting a lie as the truth should be overlooked? I'm sorry, but how can you evolve a rational policy based on wild inaccuracies and vague accusations of conspiracy? What 'consensus' in the western media that the real horrors of the Gulf war were censored in order to preserve public spirit? Since when? The details of the operation were censored for security reasons, and coverage was 'pooled' for the same reason. I've never heard anyone in mainstream media suggest otherwise. Show me. And as for carnage there was plenty of footage of that after the events in Kuwait, where the US slaughtered the retreating army. This was war, and these were combatants who had kept Kuwait under a sadistic reign of terror since the invasion. Just how worked up am I supposed to get over it? We also accepted a lot of prisoners.

Sorry, but there's a big difference between a few hundred civilian casualties and a QUARTER OF A MILLION! Hello! Zhbignev Brezhinski suggested early on that to completely defeat Iraq the US population would have to be able to 'stomach' 100,000 civilian casualties, which is a standard figure used since Clauswitz for what it takes to 'bring the conflict home' to a population to a sufficient degree to cause capitulation. He quite rightly suggested that the US public would not tolerate such a figure, so he doubted that we'd really attempt to defeat Iraq itself. We got nowhere near that figure, let alone 250,000. Not within a factor of 1000, because we never even *began* the campaign to subdue Iraq. It was aborted. Whatever Vera is talking about it has absolutely nothing to do with truth or veracity. In fact, it's nothing but a common ordinary lie presented with a little embellishment. She suggests she 'knows about it' because she's sympathetic. I suggest she swallowed a lie, because she's sympathetic... and stupid. How in the world do you expect me to take her, or you, seriously?

One day, somewhere, someone was going to devise the resources to hit back. It was as inevitable as night following day. It will continue.

Geez, I can't even dignify that with a rebuttal, because I still can't believe someone would be enough of a horse's ass to even say it. Some things really *are* beneath contempt. 'Hit back?' Gosh, that sounds pretty much like 'retaliation' to me, unless I don't understand plain English. How carefully am I supposed to sift this crap?

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:53:26 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: When you think I'm fully rational
Message:
that's when I'll worry :)

You,ve got me here though .....it's a pity one can't fully delete certain posts isn't it?!

No, I stand by my post in principle (and Veras) but Veras was sloppy with facts and fgures ....what can I say? Skimmed it, thought ok, and posted.Terrible gaffe on my part but there you go.

'right side' ? Yes basic principles.Was it right to accept falsefigures? No. I apologise for that.

Now, I must cool it on the forum for a few days.

Cioa

Dermot

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 09:58:17 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Thanks.
Message:
Thanks for the apology, Dermot. Not like you have a monopoly on mistakes. What did you think of the Maze thesis? Workable?

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 00:39:13 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: UNICEF Iraqi child mortality 500,000
Message:
Hi Scott

What about the ongoing casualties for kids alone....

UNICEF child mortality press release....

or even the UNICEF sanctions report itself. These figure are more than double Vera's estimates.

Time to retire to your 'think tank' to do some reading and research, I think, before you really blow your great Yankee credibility even further.

Jesus, what arrogance, and you expect us to accept your other pronouncements of the current world situation?.

Mel
[ BBC report Aug 1999 ]

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 02:40:18 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Cambridge University .. Iraqi children
Message:
You'll like this, Scott, from a Cambridge University 'Think Tank'..

Unicef's April 1998 'Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Iraq - 1997' is more informative. In section 2.5.1.1 they report that figures for 'mortality reported in public hospitals for children under five years of age' has increased by 'some 40,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989'; for those over five years the same method suggests that there is an excess of 50,000 deaths annually. Further, with 'the substantial increase in mortality, under-registration of deaths is a growing problem.

WHY? For infants, reporting a death would entail cancellation of the due ration for that child'.

Now, let's see..

40,000 yearly under 5s (since 1989 - 12 years).. = 480,000
50,000 yearly over 5s........................... = 600,000

Running total = 1,008,000 (not counting the 'under registration of deaths) ......How many died in NY?

...figures based on deaths registered with the Iraqi Ministry of Health, such as Unicef's, may be distorted for political gain. We have yet to see concerns expressed about Iraqi mortality data by the UN agencies working with them.

So much for Chucks' assertion (in a previous post) that this just 'Saddam' propaganda (unless UNICEF now works for him), but Dave's claim about 500,000 child deaths being a 'myth and a lie' is probably true... it looks as though it's double that!

Mel

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 05:27:19 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave }(
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: You didn't read me right
Message:
Melbourne wrote:

"but Dave's claim about 500,000 child deaths being a 'myth and a lie'..."

I didn't say it was a myth and I said the figures could be true. I said the quoted cause of the lack of medical supplies was a myth.

OK so you reckon the figures are double. It's the cause I was interested in.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 08:53:11 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Sir Dave }(
Subject: Your right Dave....
Message:
....I didn't read you right, my apologies. but there is more to these deaths than just 'medicine', try 'starvation'....

'Whilst famine is not yet a problem in Iraq, children in their early infancy are the first victims of starvation, due to the malnourishment of their mothers - whose bodies just cannot produce milk.', comments from a member of the Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), formerly known as the Harvard Study Team, which visited Iraq in April 1966. (link above)
[ Iraq visit - Harvard Study Team ]

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 02:19:28 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Mel Bourne the meek.
Message:
First of all, Vera didn't pose an 'estimate' but claimed half a million civilian casualties caused by US military action during Desert Storm. Indeed, not just military action but 'warplanes.' I don't suppose it matters that you're talking about something completely different? Apart from that I assume you're balanced enough to know the difference between deaths attributable to Saddam's appropriation or diversion of resources intended for others, versus deaths attributable to a conscious effort of the US to demean the lives of Iraqis, but if not SEEK THERAPY!

(You'll note that the report you cite makes a number of recommendations to the Iraqi government, but none to the Security Council or the US. Hmmm... I wonder if they know something you don't?)

You're pitiful Mel. Really. Next you'll be saying that the US caused the deaths of millions of Russians by resisting Stalinism, and thus failing to free that great humanitarian to use resources he had to divert to maintaining his gulags to feed his population. What an unmitigated dope. If it weren't so tragic I'd be amused. But it *is* tragic, in the largest sense.

And since you're wont to use that 'what if' calculus, how about the infant deaths that would *not* have ocurred had Iraq not been governed by a homicidal maniac, but instead by a leader with an interest in economic devolopment rather than making himself a 'scourge' of mankind? Can you add that high?

Finally, how do you weigh the millions, even hundreds of millions, that would probably be lost if Saddam completes his objective of weaponizing Anthrax or Smallpox (as though there's any uncertainty), against the thousands that might be lost when we decide to stop him once and for all? Wouldn't failure to act be a sin of far greater magnitude? Is there a rule against good judgment where you come from, or something?

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:36:33 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: Mel Bourne the meek.
Message:
Scott

True, Vera was remarking on the casualties of 'Desert Storm', I've merely expanded the casualty tally to cover the 'sanctions issue' which is no less valid a 'casualty' record of the conflict which is still ongoing.

You're pitiful Mel. Really. Next you'll be saying that the US caused the deaths of millions of Russians by resisting Stalinism, and thus failing to free that great humanitarian to use resources he had to divert to maintaining his gulags to feed his population. What an unmitigated dope.

Scott, I think you're the 'unmitigated dope' First you put words into my mouth and surmise that I'm going to say something that had never even entered my mind, and next you call me an 'unmitigated dope' for saying it! You're ridiculous!

And since you're wont to use that 'what if' calculus, how about the infant deaths that would *not* have ocurred had Iraq not been governed by a homicidal maniac, but instead by a leader with an interest in economic devolopment rather than making himself a 'scourge' of mankind? Can you add that high?

True, but the child casualties do exist and are a result of the 'sanctions'. So stop evading the issue by resorting to vague 'what if' calculus. Next you'll be saying they're 'collateral damage'!

Finally, how do you weigh the millions, even hundreds of millions, that would probably be lost if Saddam completes his objective of weaponizing Anthrax or Smallpox (as though there's any uncertainty), against the thousands that might be lost when we decide to stop him once and for all? Wouldn't failure to act be a sin of far greater magnitude? Is there a rule against good judgment where you come from, or something?

Well, it seems this was yet another error of US foreign policy, doesn't it? Maybe your country should have used the 'what if' calculus you suggest and finished Saddam off when they had the chance in 1991. At least, maybe, the Iraqi kids could have survived and we all might have been spared the possibility of the kind of death you suggest. It seems that there has been a lesser display of 'good judgement' by people in your neck of the woods than in mine, eh Scott?

Mel

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 09:55:05 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Wonder of wonders
Message:
Well, it seems this was yet another error of US foreign policy, doesn't it? Maybe your country should have used the 'what if' calculus you suggest and finished Saddam off when they had the chance in 1991. At least, maybe, the Iraqi kids could have survived and we all might have been spared the possibility of the kind of death you suggest. It seems that there has been a lesser display of 'good judgement' by people in your neck of the woods than in mine, eh Scott?

It appears we actually agree on something. You realize that many of their parents would have been killed, of course. In a battle to subdue a homeland huge numbers of civilian casualties are unavoidable. Well, I hope that's incorrect but if we've managed to change that equation somehow then it's for the first time in history. Still, one can only hope since the action may have to be taken anyway.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 12:34:05 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Re: Differences of Political Opinion OT
Message:
The intelligence factor is pretty equal between the two camps; those who think the positives of the U.S. far outweigh the negatives, and those who think the negatives are substantial enough to be suspicious, at the least.

I submit that the ability to leap from credible suspicion to outright conspiracy is typically, quintessentialy American.

But if you look at the top scrappers on both sides in this heap, they're both very intelligent, very informed, able to quote examples fluidly, and both honorable and good people. They just disagree on the honorability and goodness of the subject: The United States.

And this was also true of that other great debate of the 20th Century over Marxism. Do you know anything about the birth of the neo-conservative movement in the A and B Alcoves at the City University of New York, in the late 40s and early 50s? Alcove A: Stalinists. Alcove B: Anti-soviet socialists and Trotskyites. Truly fascinating story. Jean Kirkpatrick is a socialist, BTW. That's why she was never given a domestic policy postion in the Reagan administration.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:27:28 (EDT)
From: bobo - the other bob
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Why I do not support U.S. govmt.
Message:
FROM THE OVAL OFFICE.

' According to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), the congressional move enables the president to declare war, 'to the extent that war can realistically be declared on, like, maybe three or four Egyptian guys, an Algerian, and this other guy who kind of looks Lebanese but could be Syrian. Or whoever else it might have been. Because it might not have been them.'
In addition to those responsible for the Sept. 11 attack, the U.S. is determined to exact revenge upon any nation found to have harbored the perpetrators.
'Should we determine that a nation has been giving refuge to this fiend—or fiends, as the case may be—we will effectively be at war with that nation,' Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) said. 'Then again, what if we declared war on Afghanistan and they didn't send anyone to fight us? It's plausible that we could declare war on them, but they wouldn't go to war with us, since they weren't the ones who actually attacked us. Who would our soldiers even shoot?'
U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), one of Congress' decorated war veterans, tried to steel the nation for the possibility of a long and confusing conflict.
'America faces a long road ahead,' McCain said. 'We do not yet know the nature of 21st-century warfare. We do not yet know how to fight this sort of fight. And I'll be damned if one of us has an inkling who we will be fighting against. With any luck, they've got uniforms of some sort.'
'Christ,' McCain continued, 'what if the terrorists' base of operation turns out to be Detroit? Would we declare war on the state of Michigan? I suppose we'd have to.'

ALSO...

'We must launch every available missile at any nation in which the terrorists are rumored to be hiding. We must bomb every square inch of any country that may be harboring them. Then, when the thick, black smoke has finally cleared, we must bomb them all over again, reducing the rubble to its component atoms. If, in the midst of carpet-bombing a country, we find that it had no involvement in the Sept. 11 attack, so be it. Apologies can come later, but vengeance must be immediate.
After pummeling the holy living hell out of those fuckers with bombs, we should send in ground troops, armed to the teeth, to sweep through and exterminate anyone still alive who might have been involved. America's soldiers must be under orders to pump round after round into their bodies, pausing only to replace their clips. Only then will closure to this horrible event be possible. If we do not strike back fast and with as much military might as humanly possible, America will never be able to heal.
Some people argue that if we capture Osama bin Laden and his co-conspirators, we should bring them to justice before a U.N. tribunal. I say that to bring them before a civilized court is to raise them up to the level of humans. Terrible acts must be punished with terrible retribution. Are we going to humanely execute by lethal injection men who wantonly killed thousands of innocents? Instead, all of those who are guilty must be dipped in boiling fat and fed to dogs.'

Both from (you guessed it) The Onion, and they say sooo much...
BTW do these and other satirical articles parodying the gung-ho patriot spirit, mean that this Magazine is Anti-American?

http://www.theonion.com/onion3734/index.html

bobo - the other bob

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:37:27 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: bobo - the other bob
Subject: What does this have to do with the thread topic? [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 15:15:04 (EDT)
From: Vera
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: My reply to Scott & Sir Dave
Message:
Once again, Scott, I think you’d do your case some good if you refrained from ad hominem attacks. Describing Ramsey Clark as “a guilt-ridden old warrior, willing to say damn near anything to balance the scales of his life” - and telling me to “grow up” - are unlikely to convince our readers of anything much. What people look for in these debates is evidence, and clarity of exposition. Even good manners are generally appreciated, I think.

I’m not interested in schoolyard squabbles, so if you can’t refrain from personal attacks, I’m out of here - one more chance.

I’ll begin with some specifics, and proceed to our main topic of US foreign policy.

Firstly, I now find myself fighting a war on two fronts. Sir Dave tells me:

“...the military casualties in the Gulf war were enormous and could even be higher than the official figures since Iraq doesn't like to admit to military casualties.”

and Scott tells me:

“...even the estimates of military casualties, originally tagged at 100,000 to 300,000, have been downsized.”

I’ll let you sort it out among yourselves as to whether the Iraqi military casualties were exaggerated or understated.

As for the civilian casualties, Sir Dave says:

“I still think you're mixing up the military and civilian casualties.”

but once again cites no sources at all - which I think puts him out of the ring.

Scott cites two sources:

1. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists - which speaks of 13 cases of collateral damage, but does not specify numbers of dead.

2. Frontline (you didn’t state what this is) - which speaks of 2300 casualties from the air campaign, and “20,000 others sick and dying” due to infrastructure collapse.

I find your sources less credible and less authoritative than the ones I cited, which are an official commission, a congressional committee (both American, BTW) and a British medical trust. Your sources also provide less detail.

Sorry Scott, but I’m sticking with my facts until you can do better than this.

BTW, you cite the Rand Corporation as “strenuously disputing” the use of depleted uranium (DU) as being a cause of widespread illness is Iraq.

As you will have seen (it seems we saw the same article), the role of the 944,000 rounds of depleted uranium fired in the Gulf War by the US in causing widespread illness in Iraq is supported by statistics from the Basra Hospital; and by figures suggesting cancer rates in the southern region (where the DU was concentrated) are 4.6 times the national average.

When the chief of the Nuclear Medicine Clinic at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware, got funding to study the effects of DU on American Gulf War veterans, he was fired and his clinic closed down. This seems an increasingly typical US response to uncomfortable facts.

He later told a conference that 'tens of thousands' of British and American soldiers are dying from radiation from Gulf War DU shells.

Once again, Scott you are citing a single poor source, and carefully neglecting many more credible ones, in order to make a case.

This is the same self-censorship which I addressed in my original post. It is endemic to the US media, and it appears to have spread to the consumers of that media.

I have also seen debate on this forum recently about the effect of US sanctions on Iraq. The International Red Cross, says:

'After nine years of trade sanctions...the situation of the civilian population is increasingly desperate.”

As for Iraq’s misery deriving from Saddam putting foreign aid “in his back pocket” - as I saw suggested here - the US National Gulf War Center states:

“Baghdad has repeatedly complained that most of its purchases have not reached the country, blaming U.S. and British representatives at the U.N. sanctions committee for delaying them.” The Executive Director of UNICEF (of all people) has given support to this view, and has urged the UN to lift its game.

UNICEF blames the UN embargo for the deaths of half a million children to date.

The US House Democratic Whip described the economic blockade as 'infanticide masquerading as policy'.

The continuing air war against Iraq kills civilians as well as military - examples provided on request - and costs you, the US taxpayer, $1,000,000,000 per year.

Sir Dave added:

“Talk about Vietnam if you want since I know a lot about it, despite not having been there. I know Vietnamese people in Britain.”

Okay Dave - would it be best to start with the millions slaughtered by the US war machine in general, or to look at a specific program - such as the tens of thousands of village elders, members of women’s groups and community activists tortured to death during Operation Phoenix?

Finally, you guys, please don’t tell me that what I’m saying means I think my country (Australia) has never done anything wrong (it has, plenty), that the North Vietnamese, or Saddam Hussein, never did anything wrong (they did, big time), or that I hate Americans - when in fact my favorite artist (Dylan), thinker (Chomsky) and statesman (Jefferson) are all Americans - as are several of my friends and work colleagues. I’ve worked in government circles in and with Washington for most of the last year, and much enjoyed it despite the myopia.

Scott concluded on a philosophical note:

“I should also add that these distortions do more than mislead. They destroy. Any sign of weakness in the allied resolve to deal harshly with mass terrorism is almost certainly to result in an increased incentive to follow up with even more deadly attacks... So by playing the patsy to disinformation, you're actually raising the odds of death tolls in the US and the Middle East to an order of magnitude equivalent to whole cities, or worse. Grow up, Vera.”

In what seems to have become a familiar pattern, this argument entirely excludes America’s role in provoking attacks such as those of September 11.

Analysing what the US has done to provoke such attacks will hopefully lead to a less predatory and murderous foreign policy, which will in turn lead to less attacks - not more. If serious questioning of the US role in the world had been permitted by the US media through the 1980s and 1990s, UBL may never have attracted his legions of jihadists, or tens of millions of dollars in donations from Arabian Peninsula billionaires, and the WTC attacks may never have happened.

Now, unless official America looks at its own behaviour honestly, the nation will never be spared the enmity of the developing and Islamic worlds. As we’ve seen, that enmity is no longer confined to words and isolated scuffles.

I most certainly hope that bin Laden, and his accomplices, are hunted down and extirpated from the face of the Earth. But that will not quell radical Islam, or third world discontent in general. Only America becoming a decent global citizen will do that.

Presently you have a President who is withdrawing the US from the Kyoto Protocol, who is resurrecting Star Wars, and who states that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty - which he intends to tear up - “stops freedom-loving people...from exploring he future”. You have a foreign policy which props up rotten dictators from Saudi to Latin America, a military which trains their secret police, and a post-War record of mouthing the word “democracy” approximately as often as you have worked to destroy it in practice.

You also have an intelligence network so flabby that, despite its $23 billion per year in funding, apparently has not a single source inside al Queda or its affiliated networks.

Am I getting through yet?

Vera

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:32:56 (EDT)
From: other bobo
Email: None
To: bobo - the other bob
Subject: not running with the crowd
Message:
I've just been reading about Barbara Lee, a congresswoman from California.
She sounds to me like a friend of mine who refused to ask for knowledge, despite everyone within our cirlce of friends having recieved it and giving her heavy satsang to go and get it. ( she never did get it - wise woman that she is )
Ms Lee, it seems was the only one out of over 500 members, who voted against giving Bush carte blanche power to go to war with whoever he liked whenever he liked - regardless of evidence.
I don't know anything about her except that it must have taken some courage to go against the grain like that.
I expect she is one of those Anti-Americans we keep hearing about.
bobo
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 11:26:38 (EDT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Maryan Investment
Message:
this is from AG2. Has anyone heared about this company. Based in the channel Island and looks like an investment fund for rawat and company. Has something like $50Million dollars US. Handles all fatty's assests.

Maryan Investment

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 13:12:47 (EDT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: Maryan or Myrine? or maybe Marine?
Message:
It was spelled 'myrine' in the AG2 post. Maryan is a last name.
It seems the post is referring to the British Channel Islands.
There is a Marine Investments Ltd on Gibraltar, but it is an insurance company. See http://www.aboard.co.uk/nautilinks/l2-INL-list.html
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:05:53 (EDT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Re: Maryan or Myrine? or maybe Marine?
Message:
Well u know me.

I guess the correct name as it was spellled on ag2.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 10:25:56 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: All
Subject: This myth, this lie
Message:
It has been written and quoted somewhere on these forums:

''America has killed over 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 years old with our anti-Saddam sanctions''

Some people read this and believe it. It just isn't true. Iraqi children have died, probably in that number because of the severe lack of medical supplies in Iraq. However, no Western country has imposed sanctions and prevented the flow of money for medical supplies for hospitals.

So where does the money go that the West gives to Iraq for medical supplies? It goes into Saddam Hussain's back pocket.

Perhaps someone else has more details about this lie which is constantly perpetrated.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:20:56 (EDT)
From: Chuck S.
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: The source was an article...
Message:
... called 'Judgement Day in Mystery Babylon', by Fundamentalist Christian Anthony C. LoBaido. The link was on the Anything Goes Forum.

The author claims to have discovered this 'fact' while spending most of last year travelling through the muslim world. He makes many assertions, but does not offer any information on his souces. He quotes a book that someone named 'Stephanopolous' supposedly wrote about Clinton, but doesn't tell you the title, much less chapters or page numbers where the quote could be found in context. It's a good example of why we all need to remember, that on the internet, anyone can say anything. It doesn't make it true. When an author won't reveal his sources, you have to wonder what he's NOT telling you, and why.

How many Iraqi children under the age of 5 have died, and of what causes, is a good question. I don't know where one can find accurate information about that. The 500,000 figure could be nothing more than Saddam's propaganda. But real or not, I'm sure many of the arabs believe it's true, so it is real for them.
[ Judgement Day in Myster Babylon? ]

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 11:30:49 (EDT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: No money
Message:
they don't give him money. They give him medical supplies. He then smuggle the supplies across Syria, Jordan or ship in the gulf and sell them on the black market. That is why the children are dying.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 00:47:07 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: Bullshit...Read UNICEF report in above post
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:14:41 (EDT)
From: })Salam})
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Bullshit?})})
Message:
Am not arguing how many are dead. In ten years it's about 1.5 million. Read the post agin. Saddam is selling what he get for medication in the black market and don't bloody bullshit me mate. Get your facts straight.

@#w1$5 c#@t

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:39:41 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: })Salam})
Subject: Re: Bullshit?})})
Message:
Salam

The 'bullshit' was intended at the 'myths & lies' post of Dave's at the top asserting that the 500,000 are false and chucks's prouncements that the figure may have been Saddam's propaganda, not to your particular comment re black marketeering (although, I think you may be overstating your point!). My apologies for the response appearing under your post!

Mel

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:20:53 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Bullshit...read it yourself.
Message:
The report makes no refutation of Salam's claim that Sadam is, himself, diverting funds and resources meant for humanitarian aid. The report indicates: 'Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors [read, at least some of it is not, and the only internal factor of note must be the homicidal maniac himself], especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war.'

You apparently don't know how to read a report. It says simply that, holding everything else equal, child mortality would be less in the absence of the sanctions or the effects of war. In other words it's seeking to monitor the effects of the sanctions not to eliminate them, but to minimize their undesirable effects. It does not say that everything would be better in the absence of those sanctions. Indeed, it makes no recommendation to lift the sanctions, which would seem to indicate that in the long run it believes the Iraqi people and the world in general might be better off with the sanctions than without them. Even if they *don't* believe that, it's simply a matter of common sense. (And one pretty obvious way to get rid of the sanctions is to get rid of Saddam.)

Indeed, they go so far as to say: 'Sanctions is a sensitive topic. It is important that UNICEF remains squarely in the humanitarian realm of sanctions and not cross into the larger political arena. In this sense, UNICEF advocates for protection of the vulnerable child. Articulation of this aim in a set of Sanctions Principles would further serve to clarify and limit UNICEF's interest to that of humanitarian actor. '

As anyone might, they seek to limit the impact of sanctions on those it is not intended to harm. How does this support the contention that the US is 'responsible for the murder of 500,000 innocent children' when in fact it is the US that foots the bill for minimizing the negative impacts of sanctions? What sort of warped view of history informs that twisted mind of yours?

And Saddam almost certainly *is* diverting resources meant for aid (often supplied by the US), for the perfectly obvious reason that you're willing to attribute any lack suffered by Iraq's population not to him, but to the US, the UN or the Security Council. Anyone, but him. You sir, are a dope. A dangerous dope, to boot. Your inability to see the truth actually encourages and empowers a murderous dictator to inflict greater misery on his people.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:32:09 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Buffoon yourself, Scott
Message:
Scott
I have never contended that '..the US is 'responsible for the murder of 500,000 innocent children'' or denied (even commented) that '...the US that foots the bill for minimizing the negative impacts of sanctions'. So you are grossly off the mark when you ask '..What sort of warped view of history informs that twisted mind of yours?... you're over reacting!

Indeed, it makes no recommendation to lift the sanctions, which would seem to indicate that in the long run it believes the Iraqi people and the world in general might be better off with the sanctions than without them.

Your opinion, Scott, the fact is that numerous humanitarian agencies have seen the UNICEF report in a different light to you, especially when '...UNICEF advocates for protection of the vulnerable child.' How can you possibly assert that a press release by UNICEF reporting a possible 500,000 deaths as a result of the sanctions could be possible interpreted in any other way?

You say...and Saddam almost certainly *is* diverting resources meant for aid....

I have not denied this, I merely stated that I thought that this would have been certainly mentioned in the UNICEF report if it had been widespread. Are you suggesting that that UNICEF wouldn't include such an abuse in their report given it's clear mandate and responsiblity as 'advocate' for 'protector' of the vulnerable child? Don't you think they would see it as a moral obligation to report it if it was widespread?

'Your inability to see the truth actually encourages and empowers a murderous dictator to inflict greater misery on his people'

Emotional rubbish, Scott, seems that when you are confronted with an independant report on the issues like this UNICEF onet, you grossly overreact and verge on personal abuse. I'm certainly not pro American as my posts clearly demonstrate, but I'm certainly not the 'with terrorism' (or Saddam) either. Maybe your President's simplistic utterances of late have swayed your better judgement, Scott, but at least try to be less paranoid about alternative perspectives.

Mel

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 09:44:14 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Slow dancing with Saddam Hussein
Message:
Your opinion, Scott, the fact is that numerous humanitarian agencies have seen the UNICEF report in a different light to you, especially when '...UNICEF advocates for protection of the vulnerable child.' How can you possibly assert that a press release by UNICEF reporting a possible 500,000 deaths as a result of the sanctions could be possible interpreted in any other way?

Because UNICEF says so, you twit. OK, millions of people interpreted the report as being opposed to sanctions, but the fact is that the UN (the Security Council is part of the UN, right?) established the mandate for UNICEF in order to monitor the effects of it's *own* sanctions... with the *expressed* intent of minimizing the impact on children. If that's what they say, then what difference does it make what light humanitarian agencies have seen the report in? Are you saying UNICEF has an implied subtext? If so, then what's the point of asking people to read the report, if it's *real* meaning is not spelled out?

You say...and Saddam almost certainly *is* diverting resources meant for aid....
I have not denied this, I merely stated that I thought that this would have been certainly mentioned in the UNICEF report if it had been widespread.

Well, that's a creative backpedal if I ever saw one. What is the word 'bullshit' supposed to convey Mel, mild reservation? You're so full of it it's spouting out your ears.

'Your inability to see the truth actually encourages and empowers a murderous dictator to inflict greater misery on his people'

Emotional rubbish, Scott, seems that when you are confronted with an independant report on the issues like this UNICEF onet, you grossly overreact and verge on personal abuse.

I didn't think this would be so hard to grasp, so let me put it plainly. Saddam can count on you to blame most (if not all) of the impact of deficiencies on the US, so any further reductions he can artificially create in resources through black market activity will automatically redound to his benefit in two ways: 1. put more pressure on the US to lift the sanctions, and 2. put a little extra pocket change in his grubby khakis. Hence, you are indirectly but substantially adding to the suffering of the people you intend to help, by your stubborn inability to give credence to the obvious, and to use good judgment. Now, just how is that an emotional over-reaction? It's a simple, plain vanilla deduction, that's all.

You're either an incorrigible liar or an irredeemable fool Mel, and in either case dangerous and destructive.

The only real way out of this for you is to acknowledge that you've made a huge error in judgment, that was motivated by good intentions. Then we can judge for ourselves, by your subsequent actions, what your intentions were and are. It's not like you have a monopoly on mistakes, but sometimes it seems like it.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 00:47:04 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: Bullshit...Read UNICEF report in above post
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 00:57:00 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Excerpt from UNICEF press release...
Message:
Dave et al

From UNICEF press release dated Aug 1999..

Ms. Bellamy noted that if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998. As a partial explanation, she pointed to a March statement of the Security Council Panel on Humanitarian Issues which states: 'Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war.'

Mel

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 01:04:07 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: The UNICEF report makes no mention....
Message:
of the black marketeering you've suggested, Salam, and I'm sure they would have if it was as substantial as you suggest.

Mel

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 03:25:05 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: What a buffoon.
Message:
of the black marketeering you've suggested, Salam, and I'm sure they would have if it was as substantial as you suggest.

No they wouldn't since it's not part of their mandate. They are empowered and mandated to document and monitor the effects of the sanctions, not to research black marketeering by Saddam. If you actually read the document you're recommending others read you'd know that.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 21:06:47 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: Thanks, that explains it well [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 10:20:13 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: All
Subject: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
One of the cyclists in my club is a structural engineer who had some interesting things to say about the WTC that I thought I'd share. According to Larry the WTC was constructed to withstand an impact from a 707, the largest jet at the time of its construction. What was not considered was the consequence of tons of burning jet fuel. He said the towers performed as they were designed to, maintaining structural integrity at the time of impact. Had there been less fuel the fires might have even been doused, but with the amount that went up there wasn't any real chance to stop it. He also said that there were huge water tanks on top of the buildings to maintain high pressure to fight fires, but again the conflagration was just too large for those to have an effect.

All of this suggests to me the possibility that New York *could* design a skyscraper that *would* withstand such an attack, using special fire retardant chemicals that become foam when exposed to air, instead of water for instance. That could mean the towers will be rebuilt to their former height, but it would be expensive. Perhaps worth the cost as an act of defiance though.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 10:38:52 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
I also think that such high buildings should be supplied with a parachute system to enable fast evacuation of the building, should a fire start.

The people who jumped from the buiding were alive and well when they jumped. Had they been able to don a self opening parachute, they could have survived the descent. I don't know how much parachutes cost but they wouldn't cost much more than life jackets do in planes and they would undoubtedly save lives.

Some people will think my idea a little crazy but if you're in a buiding that's on fire and the heat is unbearable enough to force you to jump out of the window; if you have a chance of surviving, isn't that better?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 11:03:26 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Re: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
Dave:

That's thinking out of the box. A really good airfoil parachute with backup costs in the neighborhood of $2,000 to $4,000, but if you didn't care about a few broken limbs you could get some round chutes for a few hundred apiece. Might be problematic to use those in NYC environment though, since they aren't very maneuverable. An airfoil chute would be more desirable. Perhaps in bulk they might be had for $1000 apiece. Maintenance would be important too, and packing. Pack the damn things wrong and you're in a world of hurt.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 10:35:05 (EDT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
Hi Scott -
There was a good article in last weeks Newsweek about the structure of the twin towers. I am sure you are aware that far more people would have been killed if the towers had not imploded, which was part of their design. Also, as you said, the structural integrity of the design kept the towers standing for a while, enabling a lot of people to escape.

Re buildings as tall as the WTC - they are not energy efficient, for one thing, and some people have trouble working in them. I think the plan for rebuilding involves more but shorter towers.

Take care - hope you are OK.
Love,
Katie

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 11:09:21 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Katie
Subject: Re: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
But Katie, they'd have to be *really* inefficient to make up for the cost of Manhattan real estate.

Went cycling yesterday. Had to get out even though the car was problematic. It died on the way home... so I'm now seriously car shopping, and for the moment carless.

I wonder how many DC residents are having dreams about being pursued? I'm having them, and so are many others I've talked to. There is a pervasive sense that we are ground zero for the next attack, and a kind of resignation about it. Wonder what New Yorkers are dreaming about?

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:22:00 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
Here's my prediction: The next target(s) is bridges, multiple on one day. Not sure how they disable them but they'll be disguised as Mexican-American rap fans (baggy clothes, bandannas, cocky prison-gait, the whole works). The key here is the economy; get that weak enough and the rest will be a cinch. What we need here more than anything is the sympathy and support of the Muslim world; it's the best weapon, the best protection and possibly our only hope. I don't think the terrorists will hit where everyone's looking, like D.C. or New York.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 14:54:08 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Re: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
Rick:

I hope you're right about not targetting DC or NY, and about targetting bridges. Don't want to contribute to a ghoulish topic but the Mujahadeen did enormous damage to the Russians by targetting tunnels, creating the largest tunnel disaster in history (deaths in the thousands, I think). They also blocked both ends to prevent escape.

--Scott

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 15:16:18 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
Talk about having a bad day. I never heard that one. I thought the Mujahadeen were the one's with tunnels. And ironically, in yesterday's London Telegraph, it described a battle plan similar to the disaster you just mentioned.. with the exception of bombing the al Qaida out of the tunnels and then fighting them in hand-to-hand combat. Too bad they can't televise this.
[ tunnels... yikes ]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 21:04:39 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Re: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
This was a mountain tunnel that was being used by the Russians for troop and supply convoys. I recall reading about it in major media at the time. It was either Time, Newsweek or the CS Monitor. Probably the latter.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 11:26:18 (EDT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
Hi Scott -
I know it is tough to live in DC right now - I remember the 'ground zero' feeling from the Cuban Missile Crisis. And, yes, you either accept the fact that you are going to feel like that, or you move away.

There was a front page article in the Washington Post today about the hijackers, which was quite disturbing. Apparently, they really were just a small group, with only four real pilots among them (and even that is questionable). They screwed up in many ways and left trails all over the US, but were still able to get away with the attack. (This actually made me very angry because they USED the fact that the US isn't a police state to hurt Americans.) It is frightening that a small group of people could take so many lives, and cause such devastation.

Re your car - all I can say is that that car probably doesn't owe you anything :).

Love,
Katie

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 17:30:05 (EDT)
From: sal
Email: None
To: Katie
Subject: Re: World Trade Center structural integrity
Message:
Katie,

I cannot post at the foro. Can you please tell brian? I tried e-mailing him and it bounced.

I would like to know what happened so I don't keep going there for no reason.

Thanks

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 20:45:03 (EDT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: sal
Subject: Salsa - e-mail JHB (John Brauns)
Message:
He is taking care of el foro now, along with everything else on ex-premie.org.

Take care,
Katie

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 01:06:23 (EDT)
From: salsa
Email: None
To: Katie
Subject: Re: Salsa - e-mail JHB (John Brauns)
Message:
thanks katie :)
Return to Index -:- Top of Index