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September 28, 2001
The War Dividend
By William D. Hartung
Congress is poised to write a blank check for the Pentagon's favorite programs -- whether or not they have anything to do with fighting terrorism.
Within days of the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Congress passed a $40 billion emergency spending package -- half for reconstruction, half for combating terrorism. But the biggest beneficiaries of this generosity will not be the families of the victims or the communities that bore the brunt of the attacks: they will be giant weapons contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
Congress is also about to sign off on an $18.4 billion budget increase the Pentagon requested earlier this year, and to approve an additional appropriation of up to $25 billion. Christopher Hellman of the Center for Defense Information has suggested that military spending for fiscal 2002 could hit $375 billion, a $66-billion increase over 2001. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has stated that this year's appropriations will be "just a down payment" toward the major, long-term increases the Pentagon will seek to fight its new kind of war. Full Article
WOMEN: Behind the burka
( ABSTRACT: Guardian Unlimited ) Something horrible flits across the background in scenes from Afghanistan, scuttling out of sight. There it is, a brief blue or black flash, a grotesque Scream 1, 2 and 3 personified - a woman. The top-to-toe burka, with its sinister, airless little grille, is more than an instrument of persecution, it is a public tarring and feathering of female sexuality. It transforms any woman into an object of defilement too untouchably disgusting to be seen. It is a garment of lurid sexual suggestiveness: what rampant desire and desirability lurks and leers beneath its dark mysteries? In its objectifying of women, it turns them into cowering creatures demanding and expecting violence and victimisation. Forget cultural sensibilities. Full Article
What is Prophecy?
( Empress FiYah ) In light of the passing events, we have been uncovering so many prophecies that were fulfilled by the latest dealings. Not to mention:
Isaiah 21:9 & 13 And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men (plane full of men), [with] a couple of horsemen (two pilots). And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen(Tower one), is fallen(Tower two); and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground........The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come. The burden upon Arabia. In the forest in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye travelling companies of Dedanim. Full Article
Towards Global Cooperation to uproot Terrorism
( Kasem Yaghi ) Deep sorrow surrounded the whole world for the produced disasters so the condemnations flew from all groups denouncing the persons committing these criminal deeds with their supporters whoever they were. This condemnation came in an unprecedented serious consensus to face the terrorism persisting to uproot it.
The same as their habit to change every event to serve their aggressive policy, Zionists go on investing the American wounds in mobilizing the media to influence the American and global general opinion to be against Arabs. Zionists launched a suspicion campaign against Arabs in an unveiled try to accuse Arabs and Moslems of the terrorism Washington and New York subjected to. They ignore that the resulted disasters were hard to be accepted even by mortal enemies of America. Full Article
Operation Enduring Freedom: America's Globalized Order
( Teresa Williams ) As Operation Enduring Freedom sets out to protect the world against global terrorism, American civil liberties and civil rights are in question here at home. As Congress debates the issues of wire-tapping, email surveillance, sweeping arrests and questioning of suspected terrorists, random entry and seizure of property.
Numerous people of Arab descent and/or of Islamic persuasion are being arrested and detained with no access to a lawyer or legal counsel and in many cases being detained with no contact with their family or friends. People who appear 'suspect' or who resemble Arabs are being attacked, killed and persecuted by American citizens in a nationwide rampage of racial profiling against anyone who might resemble a 'terrorist'. The national media has fomented this fear and prejudice and has fanned the emotional flames of racism and retaliation around the world. Full Article
The Kingdom of Corruption The Saudi Connection
( Tariq Ali ) The hijackers responsible for the September 11 outrage were not illiterate, bearded fanatics from the mountain-villages of Afghanistan. They were all educated, highly-skilled, middle-class professionals. Thirteen of the nineteen men involved were citizens of Saudi Arabia. Their names are recognisable. The three Alghamdis are clearly from the Hijaz province of the Kingdom, the site of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Mohamed Atta, born in Egypt, travelled on a Saudi passport. Regardless of whether he gave the order or not, what is indisputable is that the bulk of Osama Bin Laden's real cadres (as opposed to footsoldiers) are located in Egypt or Saudi Arabia, the two principal allies of the United States in the region barring Israel. Support for Bin Laden is strong in Saudi Arabia. He was a close friend of the Saudi boss of Intelligence, Prince Turki bin Faisal al Saud, who was dismissed last month after his failure to curb attacks on US personnel in Riyadh. The real reason is probably his refusal to take sides in the fierce faction fight to determine the succession after the death of the paralysed King Fahd. Both sides are aware that too close an alignment with the United States could be explosive. That is why till now the Saudi regime despite its support for the US is not 'allowing its bases to be used'. Full Article
Of Sin, the Left & Islamic Fascism
ABSTRACT: The Nation
( Christopher Hitchens ) The fascists like bin Laden could not get volunteers to stuff envelopes if Israel had withdrawn from Jerusalem like it was supposed to--and the US stopped the sanctions and the bombing on Iraq.
You've heard this "thought" expressed in one way or another, dear reader, have you not? I don't think I took enough time in my last column to point out just what is so utterly rotten at the very core of it. So, just to clean up a corner or two: Full Article
Venezuela's Chavez defends ties with Iraq, Libya
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday defended his friendly ties with nations shunned by the United States and said he saw no proof that countries such as Iraq and Libya were "terrorist" states.
In an emotional speech to parliament, the Venezuelan leader angrily rejected criticism of his oil-rich country's foreign policy in the tense aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States.
Following these attacks, foreign and domestic opponents of the outspoken president have stepped up calls for him to reduce Venezuela's ties with states blacklisted by Washington as "sponsors of terrorism."
But Chavez unreservedly defended these ties on Friday, hailing countries such as Iraq, Libya, Iran and others as "brothers and partners" of Venezuela in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
