US Funds Israel’s Apartheid Roads Plan Settlers benefit from Israeli-only routes By Jonathan Cook May 16, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- Jerusalem -- The construction of sections of a controversial segregated road network in the West Bank planned by Israel for Palestinians -- leaving the main roads for exclusive use by settlers -- is being financed by a US government aid agency, a map prepared by Palestinian researchers has revealed. USAid, which funds development projects in Palestinian areas, is reported to have helped to build 114km of Israeli-proposed roads, despite a pledge from Washington six years ago that it would not assist in implementing what has been widely described as Israel’s “apartheid road” plan. To date the agency has paid for the construction of nearly a quarter of the segregated road network put forward by Israel in 2004, said the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ). The roads are designed to provide alternative routes to connect Palestinian communities, often by upgrading circuitious dirt tracks or by building tunnels under existing routes. Meanwhile, according to human rights groups, Israel has reserved an increasing number of main roads in the West Bank for Israelis so that Jewish settlers can drive more easily and quickly into Israel, making their illegal communities more attractive places to live. The US agency’s involvement in building a segregated West Bank road infrastructure would run counter to Washington’s oft-stated goal, including as it launched “proximity talks” last week, to establish a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity. “The displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank’s main roads improves the appeal of the settlements by better integrating them into Israel,” said Suheil Khalilieh, the head of settlement monitoring at ARIJ. “Conversely, creating an inferior, alternative network of local roads makes travel between the main regions of the West Bank difficult and time-consuming for Palestinians.” Israel proposed the creation of two separate road systems in 2004, after many of the West Bank’s main roads had been sealed off to Palestinians following the outbreak of the second intifada. Ariel Sharon, the then-prime minister, argued that segregated infrastructure would create “contiguity of transportation” for Palestinians and help to alleviate economic hardship resulting from hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints that restrict Palestinian movement. The international community was asked to finance 500km of roads for the Palestinians, later termed “fabric of life” roads, including upgrading agricultural tracks and constructing many underpasses and bridges, at a cost of $200 million. The Palestinian Authority, however, objected, saying the plan would further entrench the illegal settlements in the West Bank and justify confiscating yet more Palestinian land for the new roads. That position was backed by international donors, including the US, which declared it would not finance any road projects against the PA’s will. Despite the US promise, however, a map of the West Bank recently published by ARIJ shows that 23 per cent of the “alternative” road network Israel proposed has been built with USAid money. Many of these roads are located in so-called Areas B and C, more than 80 per cent of the West Bank that was assigned to Israeli security control by the Oslo accords. Israel oversees all road projects in these areas. Mr Khalilieh said the PA was being effectively bullied into conceding the road infrastructure wanted by Israel. “What happens is that USAid presents a package deal of donations for infrastructure projects in the West Bank and the Palestinians are faced with a choice of take it or leave it. That way the PA is cornered into accepting roads it does not want.” He said some roads were also being approved because of a lack of oversight by the PA. An inter-ministerial committee to vet proposed roads to ensure they did not contribute to the Israeli plan had been inactive since 2006, he said, following the split between Fatah and Hamas in the Palestinian elections. After PA officials were presented with ARIJ’s map, Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, issued a statement last weekend denying that the PA had contributed to the Israeli-proposed road network. However, in a sign that such reassurances were unlikely to dampen concerns, he reconvened the inter-ministerial committee to conduct field vists to check on road projects that had been carried out or were in progress. Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian government spokesman and a former planning minister, said the PA was taking the issue “very seriously” and was doing everything possible to resist the emergence of an “apartheid system” in the West Bank. He added that, if roads were being built that served the settlers’ interests, “that is not supposed to happen”. According to USAid’s figures, it has financed 235km of roads in the West Bank in the past decade, and is preparing to add another 120km by the end of this year. Critics add that in some cases the upgrading by USAid of minor roads, even those not included in the Israeli plan, has worked to the same end of keeping Palestinians off the West Bank’s main highways. USAid officials were unavailable for comment. Among roads for Palestinians funded by USAid are several projects south of Bethlehem that appear to be providing an “alternative” to Road 60, a busy highway that has traditionally linked Jerusalem with the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Hebron in the southern West Bank. Israel has increasingly restricted Palestinian access to Road 60 because it also serves as a fast direct route for Jewish settlers in the Gush Etzion bloc driving to and from Jerusalem. As a result, residents of several nearby Palestinian villages, including Batir, Wadi Fukin, al Walaja and Husan, have been forced off Road 60 and on to USAid-funded side roads and underpasses to connect them to Bethlehem and other neighbouring communities. Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said 170km of roads in the West Bank were either off-limits to Palestinians or highly restricted, creating what the organisation has called “forbidden roads”. B’Tselem noted that, after the 2004 scheme for complete separation was rejected by donors, Israel adapted the plan, using bridges, tunnels and interchanges to create partial separation, with Israelis “traveling on the fast upper levels, and Palestinians on the lower levels”. It concluded: “The plan allows Palestinian vehicles to travel on only 20 per cent of the [West Bank] roads on which Israeli vehicles travel.” Ms Michaeli added that the growing dependence of Palestinian traffic on underpasses meant that Israel was in a position to control or even sever connections between Palestinian areas with only one military jeep. Ingrid Jaradat Gassner, the director of Badil, a Bethlehem-based organisation that has lobbied against road segregation in the southern West Bank, said there was considerable domestic and international pressure on the PA to agree to roads dictated by Israel, if only because they often eased the existing restrictions on Palestinian movement. “Sadly, the PA is helping to build its own Bantustans,” she said. “Palestinian towns and villages connected by back roads and tunnels while the settlers control the main highways is what the US appears to mean when it talks about a viable Palestinian state.” Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

Lazie G. You write: "Are you an impartial observer when it comes to the afghan invasion." Impartiality of judgement implies availability of mainstream neutral news sources about the subject matter, which you know for sure that it does not exist. More and more people are turning to the internet to get unfiltered information like eNuri News, the platform of those who have no other platform. If you are against ALL conspiracy theories, you should not believe the governments account that some 19 Saudi terrorists who were being directed by a sick man in a cave in Afghanistan, took some hasty flying classes for couple of months in Florida ( Studied in English Language, but would later refer to their Arabic manuals to fly the planes according to official news), who were armed with box cutters, flawlessly flew at very low altitude and sharply maneuvered three wide body commercial planes perfectly to their targets, and as evidence leaving behind ARABIC LANGUAGE flying manual in their rented car at the airport. Unfortunately after the crash, the Black boxes could not be found because they all melted in the jet fuel fire heat that melted the entire steel structure of the building in the same time it takes a professional demolition company to bring a building down, but conveniently a clean Saudi Passport of one of the terrorists was found lying clean in the ruble, being the only passport on site as the evidence that warranted the invasion of Afghanistan, because the other passport they found was contested by a guy in Jeddah, Mr. Al Ghamdi, the mysterious twentieth terrorist? which embarrassed your reliable authorities and forced them to retract their story. Which makes you wonder, why can't they manufacture the airplane black boxes with the same ultra heat resistant material like the Saudi Passports? Conspiracy Theory is said to be true ONLY when ALL people refuse to believe in it. That is when it has done a great job in fooling ALL the people, but Like Kennedy said, its not possible to fool all of the people all of the time. But don't get me wrong sis. you have a fundamental right to believe the government version of 911, of the Weapons of Mass destruction found in Iraq which justified its invasion and the killing of 1.5 Million Iraqis, Niger Uranium Transfer to Iraq, and many stories in the news that are all TRUE because the government can not lie to its own people, and would not hurt its own people, because that is absurd. This platform, balances the official story that you believe in, with another version that is gaining more and more believers as events unfold before us, and its normal that you see it absurd, just like many people thought the Watergate cover up was absurd. If your objection is to the age of this thread ( 2001- 2010), the reason I am posting on the same thread is for archiving purposes, it helps a lot of new readers follow the story as it developed from 2001, that is the beauty of the internet age, every thing is captured and kept forever, not only by the servers and hosts of SOL, but also by readers who can get a copy of entire thread with a single keystroke. If on the other hand your objection is due to the occupation of Afghanistan, it shouldn't bother you at all, unless you are a party to the injustice the befell that innocent nation, which continues to this day, as long as the occupation continues, writers will be writing about it, and eNuri will be selecting best ones for this OLD page. I am sure you agree that truth and justice have no expiration date, those with short span of attention, or memory, are doomed to repeat it. Nur

Let’s Rejoice in Terror’s Benefits! By John Kirby May 14, 2010 "Providence Journal" -- On May 6, The New York Post ran the following story on its front page: “THANKS, FAISAL! Inept terror thug saves 900 cop jobs” “That’s how many cops were going to be cut before Faisal’s botched bid at Times Square terror. His effort prompted the city to restore $55 million to the NYPD, saving those jobs and making New York a safer place.” Though The Post didn’t mention it, Faisal wasn’t able to save 6,700 teaching jobs, 75 senior centers, 20 fire companies, nurses in elementary schools, and an unknown number of day-care centers and other programs for children, due to be cut by Mayor Bloomberg this year. But this still seems like a good time to pause and reflect on all the blessings we have received from Terror and the war thereon. Here is the short list of “thank you’s” I’d like to see from other terror beneficiaries who have plenty of reason to be grateful: • A much-belated "God Bless You!" from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who on Sept. 10, 2001, announced that the Pentagon had “misplaced” $2.3 trillion. “Thanks, Osama! Your timing couldn’t have been better if I had planned it myself! In the chaos that followed, no one ever asked about all that money — and they still haven’t!” • A big high-five from Larry Silverstein, who took possession of the twin towers just two months before the attacks and who collected $4.55 billion in insurance money for World Trade Center’s One and Two and $861 million for the third building to collapse that day, World Trade Center Seven. (For those who may have forgotten or never known, WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, had only minor damage and had just a few small fires burning inside it when it mysteriously collapsed into its own footprint around 5:20 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001.) “Thank you so much! I know I’m only a small investor in this Terror thing, but I’m truly grateful for whatever crumbs that fall from the Big Terror table!” • Here’s a heartfelt salute from the senior officers of our Armed Forces, who had run clean out of enemies by the turn of the millennium: “Thank you, Terror! When Soviet Communism collapsed, our whole reason for being collapsed with it. This wonderful, permanent war against ‘fear itself’ has a lot more juice than the War on Pinkos ever had! We have the largest military empire the world has ever seen, and we owe at least half of it to you!" • A hearty handshake from the shareholders and chief executive officers of Raytheon, McDonnell-Douglas, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing and the countless junior members in good standing of the Military-Industrial Complex: “To al-Qaida, Pakistani intelligence, and the CIA: Many thanks! Your inflated threats and geopolitical tinkering have meant inflated profits for us! And thanks, of course, to the taxpayers of America. The buck starts with you!" • And here’s a special thank you from the National Security State as a whole to the American people: “Thanks for swallowing what is so clearly a fairy tale (spiced up with real death!). It’s been so great for us, and incidentally has kept the public very safe (give or take a few teachers, children’s programs and innocent bystanders). Thanks, Terror! If you didn’t exist, we’d have to invent you! © 2010 The Providence Journal

Raamsade You write: "You must always support a Muslim against an Unbeliever regardless of who is right or wrong on any particular issue" My starting point is that I have a God ( Allah) to whom I owe my life and who will eventually take it back, and then who will raise me alive and audit my contributions on earth and for humanity. Your starting point is that you are GOD, that you have created yourself through shear probabilities evolving from non-intelligent matter to your current state of very complex well organized intelligent matter called Raamsade. I find perfection in my Maker, and imperfection in people, including myself. I always point out these imperfections mostly found in non-believers ( be they those who claim to be Muslims but their actions speaks volumes of Kufr, or honest Kuffar like yourself) Thus, Islam, which I champion on these pages, and those truly dedicated for Islam and wise Kuffar, always agree by obedience or by common sense with Allah, while I find everyone else, kuffar and their "Muslim Moderate allies" to be in manifest errors for all the issues they disagree with the revelations. As for you, I have yet to see, a single instance in which you have defended Muslims or Islam, to show the impartiality that you claim. Nur

El Punto You write: "Somalis are some of the biggest hypocrites." Though I agree with this statement in general, can you spare few Somalis from this rule, because we have very few who are no hypocrites? Nur

Baarkallau feek akhi Nuunne, laakin usoo ducee, waa nin daciifa ahee, tabar uu naarta Allah uga baxsado ma hayee. Nur

The Downward Slope of Empire Talking With Chalmers Johnson By HARRY KREISLER May 07, 2010 "Counterpunch" -- Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, is the author of the bestselling Blowback and The Sorrows of Empire. He appeared in the 2005 prizewinning documentary film Why We Fight. He lives near San Diego. Kreisler: Once upon a time you called yourself a “spear-carrier for the empire.” Johnson: “—for the empire,” yes, yes. That’s the prologue to Blowback; I was a consultant to the Office of National Estimates of the CIA during the time of the Vietnam War. But what caused me to change my mind and to rethink these issues? Two things: one analytical, one concrete. The first was the demise of the Soviet Union. I expected much more from the United States in the way of a peace dividend. I believe that Russia today is not the former Soviet Union by any means. It’s a much smaller place. I would have expected that as a tradition in the United States, we would have demobilized much more radically. We would have rethought more seriously our role in the world, brought home troops in places like Okinawa. Instead, we did every thing in our power to shore up the Cold War structures in East Asia, in Latin America. The search for new enemies began. That’s the neoconservatives. I was shocked, actually, by this. Did this mean that the Cold War was a cover for something deeper, for an American imperial project that had been in the works since World War II? I began to believe that this is the case. The second thing that led me to write Blowback in the late 1990s was something concrete. Okinawa prefecture, which is Japan’s southernmost prefecture, is the poorest place in Japan, the equivalent of Puerto Rico; it’s always been discriminated against by the Japanese since they seized it at the end of the nineteenth century. The governor at that time, Masahide Ota, is a former professor. He invited me to Okinawa in February of 1996 to give a speech to his associates in light of what had happened on September 4, 1995, when two marines and a sailor from Camp Hansen in cen-tral Okinawa abducted, beat, and raped a twelve-year-old girl. It led to the biggest single demonstration against the United States since the Security Treaty was signed. I had not been in Okinawa before. Back during the Korean War, when I was in the navy, I took the ship in to what was then called Buckner Bay, now Nakagusuku Bay, and dropped anchor. Other officers on board went ashore. I took a look at the place through the glasses, and I thought, “This is not for me.” But we were anchored in the most beautiful lagoon, so I went swimming around the ship. So I had been in Okinawan waters, but I’d never touched ground before. I have to say I was shocked to see the impact of thirty-eight American bases located on an island smaller than Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands, with 1.3 million people living cheek-by-jowl with warplanes . . . the Third Marine Division is based there; the only marine division we have outside the country. And I began to investigate the issues. The reaction to the rape of 1995 from, for example, General Richard Meyers, who became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—he was then head of U.S. forces in Japan—and all he said was that these were just three bad apples, a tragic incident, unbelievably exceptional. After research, you discover that the rate of sexually violent crimes committed by our troops in Okinawa leading to court-martial is two per month! This was not an exceptional incident, expect for the fact that the child was so young and, differing from many Okinawan women who would not come forward after being raped, she was not fully socialized and she wanted to get even. This led to the creation of a quite powerful organization that I greatly admire called Okinawan Women Act Against Military Violence. I began to research Okinawa, and my first impulse—again, as a defensive American imperialist—was that Okinawa was exceptional: it’s off the beaten track, the press never goes there, the military is comfortable. I discovered over time, looking at these kinds of bases and other places around the world, that there’s nothing exceptional about it. It’s typical. Maybe the concentration is a little greater than it is elsewhere, but the record of environmental damage, sexual crimes, bar brawls, drunken driving, one thing after another, these all occur in the 725 bases (the Department of Defense–acknowledged number; the real number is actually considerably larger than that) that we have in other people’s countries. That led me to write Blowback, first as a warning. But it also led you to publish this book Okinawa: Cold War Island, edited by you, which looks at the various aspects of this. And what you’re saying is, it’s not only the social cost; it has impinged on the people of Okinawa’s right to have some kind of democratic existence. Essentially, Okinawa is used as a dumping ground by the Japanese. They want the security treaty, but they don’t want American troops anywhere near mainland Japanese. So they put them down, as I say, in the equivalent of Puerto Rico, and the conditions fester. The governor of Okinawa today, a very considerably con servative man, Mr. Inamine, is still, nonetheless, always saying, “We’re living on the side of a volcano. You can hear the magma down there. It may blow. And when it does, it’ll have the same effect on your empire that the breaching of the Berlin Wall had on the Soviet empire.” In one of your books you say that as a consultant or an adviser to the CIA, you were not impressed with the reports and analysis that you were viewing. So we were not in a position to understand what was going on, just as a matter of the information we were getting. This is what blowback means. “Blowback” is a CIA term that means retaliation, or payback. It was first used in the after-action report on our first clandestine overthrow of a foreign government, the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, when, for the sake of the British Petroleum Company, we claimed he was a Communist when he just didn’t want the British to keep stealing Iranian resources. In the report, which was finally declassifi ed in 2000, the CIA says, “We should expect some blowback from what we have done here.” This was the first model clandestine operation. By blowback we do not mean just the unintended conse-quences of events. We mean unintended consequences of events that were kept secret from the American public, so that when the retaliation comes, the public has no way to put it into context. Just as after 9/11, you have the president saying, “Why do they hate us?” The people on the receiving end know full well that they hate us because of what was done to them. It’s the American public that is in the dark on that subject. I conceived of Blowback—written in 1999, published in 2000—as a warning to the American public. It was: you should expect retaliation from the people on the receiving end of now innumerable clandestine activities, including the biggest one of all, the recruiting, arming, and putting into combat of mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan in the 1980s who are the main recruiting group for Al Qaeda today. The warning was not heeded. The book, when it was first published, was more or less ignored in this country. It was very nicely received in Germany, and in Japan, and in Italy, in places like that. But then after 9/11, when all of a sudden, inattentive Americans were mobilized to seek, at least on an emergency basis, some understanding of what they were into, it became a best-seller. You’re raising a very important point, which is that our policies often lack an understanding of our own actions. But also— Not just lack of understanding. They’ve been kept secret. That’s why the subtitle of The Sorrows of Empire is “Militarism, Secrecy”—I want to stress secrecy and say a word or two about that in a moment—“and the End of the Republic.” Two days after 9/11, when the president addressed Congress and asked rhetorically, “Why do they hate us?” my response was: “The people immediately around you are the ones who could tell you with precision why. That is, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Colin Powell, Richard Armitage”—these are the people who ran the largest clandestine operation we ever carried out, in Afghanistan in the 1980s. “They could explain to you, in detail, why.” Once the Soviet Union had been expelled in 1989 from Afghanistan and we simply walked away from it, the people we had recruited, trained, and equipped with things like Stinger missiles—the first time the Stinger was ever used against a Soviet gunship was in Afghanistan. Once we had achieved our purposes, we just walked away, and these highly armed young men felt, “We’ve been used. We were cannon fodder in a little exercise in the Cold War, in a bipolar competition between the Soviet Union and the United States.” Then we compounded that with further mistakes like placing infidel troops (our troops) in Saudi Arabia after 1991, which was insulting to any number of Saudi Arabians, who believe that they are responsible for the most sacred sites in Islam: Mecca and Medina. Osama bin Laden is so typical of the kinds of figures in our history, like Manuel Noriega or Saddam Hussein, who were close allies of ours at one time. We know Saddam at one time had weapons of mass destruction because we have the receipts! Osama bin Laden comes from a wealthy family of a construction empire in Saudi Arabia. He’s the sort of person that you would more likely expect to see on the ski slopes of Gstaad with a Swiss girl on his arm, or as a houseguest in Kennebunkport with the first President Bush and the notorious “petroleum complex” of America. But he was insulted. He had been in Afghanistan. The base where he trained mujahideen, at Khost, the CIA built for him. It was one of the few times we knew where to hit. Because we built it, we did know where they were. He then was disgusted with us and certainly gave us fair warning in the attack in 1993 on the World Trade Center. Talk a little about what militarism is, and what imperialism is. What I want to introduce here is what I call the “base world.” According to the “Base Structure Report”, an annual report of the Department of Defense, in the year 2002 we had 725 bases in other people’s countries. Actually, that number understates in that it does not include any of the espionage bases of the National Security Agency, such as RAF Menwith Hill in Yorkshire. So these are bases where we have listening devices? These are huge bases. Menwith Hill downloads every single e-mail, telephone call, and fax between Europe and the United States every day and puts them into massive computers where dictionaries then read them out. There are hundreds of these. The official Base Structure Report also doesn’t include any of the main bases in England disguised as Royal Air Force bases even though there are no Britons on them. It doesn’t include any of the bases in Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan, any of the bases in Afghanistan, the four bases that are, as we talk, being built in Iraq. They put down one major marine base for Okinawa—there are ten—and things like that. So there is a lot of misleading information in it, but it’s enough to say 700 looks like a pretty good number, whereas it’s probably around 1,000. The base world is secret. Americans don’t know anything about it. The Congress doesn’t do oversight on it. You must remember, 40 percent of the defense budget is black. No congressman can see it. All of the intelligence budgets are black. No public discussion. In violation of the first article of the Constitution that says, “The American public shall be given, annually, a report on how their tax money was spent.” That has not been true in the United States since the Manhattan Project of World War II, even though it is the clause that gives Congress the power of the purse, the power to supervise. The base world is complex. It has its own airline. It has 234 golf courses around the world. It has something like seventy Lear Jet luxury airplanes to fly generals and admirals to the golf courses, to the armed forces ski resort at Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps. Inside the bases, the military does every thing in its power to make them look like Little America. There are large numbers of women in the armed forces to-day, [yet] you can’t get an abortion at a military hospital abroad. Sexual assaults are not at all uncommon in the armed forces. If you were a young woman in the armed forces today and you were based in Iraq, and you woke up one morning and found yourself pregnant, you have no choice but to go on the open market in Baghdad looking for an abortion, which is not a very happy thought. Militarism is not defense of the country. By milita rism, I mean corporate interest in a military way of life. It derives above all from the fact that service in the armed forces is, today, not an obligation of citizenship. It is a career choice. It has been since 1973. I thought it was wonderful when PFC Jessica Lynch, who was wounded at Nasiriyah, was asked by the press, “Why did you join the Army?” She said, “I come from Palestine, West Virginia; I couldn’t get a job at Wal-Mart.” She said, “I joined the Army to get out of Palestine, West Virginia”—a perfectly logical answer on her part. And it’s true of a great many people in the ranks to-day. They do not expect to be shot at. That’s one of the points you should understand; it’s a career choice, like a kid deciding to work his way up to Berkeley by going through a community col-lege, and a state college, and then transferring in at the last minute or something like that. Standing behind it is the military-industrial complex. We must, once again, bear in mind the powerful warnings of probably the two most prominent generals in our history. George Washington, in his farewell address, warns about the threat of standing armies to liberty, and particularly republican liberty. He was not an isolationist; he was talking about what moves power toward the imperial presidency, toward the state. It requires more taxes. Everything else which he said has come true. The other, perhaps more famous one was Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell address, where he invented the phrase “military-industrial complex.” We now know that he intended to say “military-industrial-congressional complex,” but he was advised not to go that far. What interests me here is that we’re talking about something that looks very much like the end of the Roman Republic—which was, in many ways, a model for our own republic—and its conversion into a military dictatorship called the Roman Empire as the troops began to take over. The kind of figure that the Roman Republic began to look for was a military populist; of course, the most obvious example was Julius Caesar. But after Caesar’s assassination in 44B.C., the young Octavian becomes the “god” Augustus Caesar. I’m not trying to be a sensationalist, but I actually do worry about the future of the United States; whether, in fact, we are tending in the same path as the former Soviet Union, with domestic, ideological rigidity in our economic institutions, im perial overstretch—that’s what we’re talking about here—the belief that we have to be every where at all times. We have always been a richer place than Russia was, so it will take longer. But we’re overextended. We can’t afford it. One of my four “sorrows of empire” at the end of the book is bankruptcy. The military is not productive. They do provide certain kinds of jobs, as you discover in the United States whenever you try and close a military base—no matter how con servative or liberal your congressional representatives are, they will go mad to try and keep it open, keep it functioning. And the military-industrial complex is very clever in making sure that the building of a B-2 bomber is spread around the country; it is not all located at Northrop in El Segundo, California. I have grave difficulty believing that that any president can bring under control the Pentagon, the secret intelligence agencies, the military-industrial complex. The Department of Defense is not, today, a department of defense. It’s an alternative seat of government on the south bank of the Potomac River. And, typical of militarism, it’s expanding into many, many other areas in our life that we have, in our traditional political philosophy, reserved for civilians. [For example,] domestic policing: they’re slowly expanding into that. Probably the most severe competition in our government today is between the Special Forces in the DOD and the CIA over who runs clandestine operations. What you’re really saying is that, lo and behold, we’ve created an empire of bases, a different kind of empire, and that it’s basically changing who we are and the way our government operates. The right phrase is exactly what you said: “lo and behold.” It reminds you of the Roman Republic, which existed in its final form with very considerable rights for Roman citizens, much like ours, for about two centuries. James Madison and others, in writing the defense of the Constitution in the Federalist Papers, signed their name “Publius.” Well, who is Publius? He was the first Roman consul. That is where the whole world of term limits, of separation of powers, things like that, [began]. Yet by the end of the first century B.C., Rome had seemingly “inadvertently” acquired an empire that surrounded the entire Mediterranean Sea. They then discovered that the inescapable accompaniment, the Siamese twin of imperialism, is militarism. You start needing standing armies. You start having men who are demobilized after having spent their entire lives in the military. It’s expensive to pay them. You have to provide them, in the Roman Empire, with farms or things of this sort. They become irritated with the state. And then along comes a military populist, a figure who says, “I understand your problems. I will represent your interests against the Roman Senate. The only requirement is that I become dictator for life.” Certainly, Julius Caesar is the model for this . . . Napoleon Bonaparte, Juan Perón, this is the type of figure. Indeed, one wonders whether we have already crossed our Rubicon, whether we can go back. I don’t know. In your indictment of what we are becoming, or maybe have become, you go through a list. We can’t do all of it; we don’t have enough time. But, essentially, civilians who think in military ways now making decisions, the Pentagon expropriating the functions of the State Department, a policy being perceived as military policy as opposed to all of the dimensions of— People around the world who meet Americans meet soldiers. That’s how we represent ourselves abroad, just as the Roman Empire represented itself abroad as the Legionaires. People have to conclude, even if they don’t come into military or armed conflict with us, that this is the way the Americans think. This is the way they represent themselves today. It’s not foreign aid any longer. It’s not our diplomats. It’s not the Fulbright program. It’s the military. It’s uniformed eighteen- to twenty-four-year-old young men and some young women. As a student of Asian political economy, you wrote the classic on MITI. In the final analysis, your judgment is that we will not only suffer political but also economic bankruptcy. [/b]So, what do I suggest probably will happen? [/b] I think we will stagger along under a façade of constitutional government, as we are now, until we’re overcome by bankruptcy. We are not paying our way. We’re financing it off of huge loans coming daily from our two leading creditors, Japan and China. It’s a rigged system that reminds you of Herb Stein, [who], when he was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in a Republican administration, rather famously said, “Things that can’t go on forever don’t.” That’s what we’re talking about today. We’re massively indebted, we’re not manufacturing as much as we used to, we maintain our lifestyle off huge capital imports from countries that don’t mind taking a short, small beating on the exchange rates so long as they can continue to develop their own economies and supply Americans: above all, China within twenty to twenty-five years will be both the world’s largest social system and the world’s most productive social system, barring truly unforeseen developments. Bankruptcy would not mean the literal end of the United States, any more than it did for Germany in 1923, or China in 1948, or Argentina just a few years ago, in 2001 and 2002. But it would certainly mean a catastrophic recession, the collapse of our stock exchange, the end of our level of living, and a vast series of new attitudes that would now be appropriate to a much poorer country. Marshall Auerbach is a financial analyst whom I admire who refers to the United States as a “Blanche Dubois economy.” Blanche Dubois, of course, was the leading character in Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire, and she said, “I’ve always depended upon the kindness of strangers.” We’re also increasingly dependent on the kindness of strangers, and there are not many of them left who care, any more than there were for Blanche. I suspect if the United States did start to go down, it would not elicit any more tears than the collapse of the Soviet Union did. Do you see a configuration of external power, Japan, China, the EU, that will be a balancer that might not just confront us but might help guide us to changes that would be good for us and them? Once you go down the path of empire, you inevitably start a process of overstretch, of tendencies toward bankruptcy, and, in the rest of the world, a tendency toward the uniting of people who are opposed to your im perialism simply on grounds that it’s yours, but maybe also on the grounds that you’re incompetent at it. There was a time when the rest of the world did trust the United States a good deal as a result of the Marshall Plan, foreign aid, things of this sort. They probably trusted it more than they should have. Today that is almost entirely dissipated At some point, we must either reduce our empire of bases from 737 to maybe 37—although I’d just as soon get rid of all of them. If we don’t start doing that, then we will go the way of the former Soviet Union. Harry Kreisler’s interview with Chalmers Johnson is taken from his new book Political Awakenings, just published by the New Press, printed here by permission of the publisher. Copyright 2010 Harry Kreisler.

Of course Raamsade, your beliefs do really complement each other: 1. There is NO GOD 2. IF THERE IS A GOD, ITS PROBABLY AMERICA, VERY POWERFUL, THUS NEVER WRONG BECAUSE IT HAS NO ONE TO ANSWER TO! Nur

Maxaa Tiri bro. The story is based on a concept that the prophet SAWS taught the Muslims that as a Prophet he is not allowed to take SADAQAH, because the SADAQAH ( ALMS) is destined to the poor and needy ONLY, as for prophets, they can only accept gifts but not Sadaqah. Abu Hureirah reported that when food was brought to the Prophet SAWS, he used to ask whether it is SADAQHAH ( ALMS) or GIFGT ( HADIYYAH)?. If he was told that it is SADAQAH he wouldn't eat, and if he was told that it is a Gift, he would eat it" Reported by Muslim . The reason is that as a Messenger of Allah, the Prophet SAWS was acting as Allah's Ambassador to mankind, we all know that Allah is rich and that people are poor according to Quraan, so the Prophet is expected to live up to a dignitary's status, not a beggar. Prophets in history used to earn their living, no Prophet has lived as a beggar even when they had hard times making ends meet. Nur

Truth is slowly but surely closing on the Mother-Of-All-Lies Nur

Naxar bro. Here is a summary of what I understood from your post: 1. CONTEXT thing is baloney, the word NO compulsion in religion ( NIXLAH/ DEEN) is ABSOLUTE, we don't need even to differentiate whether the word Religion is properly translated from NIXLAH, or DEEN. The statement holds true everywhere anytime. The portion of the verse NO COMPULSION IN RELIGION.... is not connected to other verses in Quraan whatsoever nor hadeeths, or particular historical events that it addresses. it is a STAND ALONE STATEMENT! NOT EVEN CONNECTED TO THE REST OF THE VERSE! 2. Islam is SIMPLE. 3. France is justifies in banning the Muslim Hijab, they are protecting their way of freedom, and the Hijaab is symbol of women's oppression, and France wants all women to be free to wear as less as possible because their bodies is their business, but covering up with the Burqaa is a threat to the French lifestyle ( DEEN) and Paris Fashion Designers, and the French are further justified because its their country and Muslims are guests even if they are french by origin, BUT the Shabaab in Somalia can not Enforce Islam in their Country to the French, Americans or Somalis, because there is NO COMPULSION IN RELIGION . Confirm the above rational or correct me, if I misunderstood you brother, so I can respond in kind to your statements one by one inshAllah. Nur

Haatu Akhi, ma aan ku fahmin, maxaad ula jeeddaa "Direct Action" Nur

Good read, MaashAllah, Sister Safia kept me engaged in her long article, it was worth every second, may Allah bless the sister Amin. If Seattle has Starbuck Dads, in Toronto there is Daddy's Day Care!. So Many wise women, so few sane men! Nur

Naxar Akhi al kareem The verse in Al Baqara that you have quoted is in a context, let us have a look at that context: 256 There is no compulsion in religion. Verily, the Right Path has become distinct from the wrong path. Whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah, then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that will never break. And Allah is All-Hearer, All-Knower. 257 Allah is the Wali (Protector or Guardian) of those who believe. He brings them out from darkness into light. But as for those who disbelieve, their Awliya (supporters and helpers) are Taghut (false deities and false leaders, etc.), they bring them out from light into darkness. Those are the dwellers of the Fire, and they will abide therein forever. The verse was revealed in Madina, when the Prophet SAWS was in full control of the Islamic State in Madina. The verses stressed the right of belief for those who were originally Polytheists and people of the Book, BUT DID NOT IMPLY RIGHT TO ESTABLISH TEMPLES OF WORSHIP OF THEIR IDOLS NOR RIGHT TO UNDERMINE ISLAM. You have to remember ISLAM is the STATE as well as the RELIGION, by openly worshiping graves, the violator is violating both the state law, the Sharia and religion in one go. For an eye opener, ask Sarkozy why he bans the Muslim women's veil in France? because, its the state that is threatened by ISLAM, thus any open display of Islam is banned. Nur

Awakener bro. writes: "As long as the intention of a visit to a grave is confined to du'aa ( asking Allah forgiveness for the deceased and others) one is legally on safe ground otherwise any other reason which brings the person to the grave including worship or digging out the remains of the deceased without the proper Islamic procedure are wrong" I fully concur with this statement too. WOL sis Four questions: 1. How much of the information on what is going on in Somalia ( Baraawe included) do you get from, the Shabaab, Their opponents or neutral parties? 2. When you say Abraham's people were Kuffar, don't you know that they were worshiping Allah by remnants of Noah's faith? and that step by step, they introduced innovations in faith that culminated in idol worship? likewise, Jews, and Qureish used to worship Allah based on Abraham's faith and again they have diverged from the Siratul Mustaqeem? 3. Is in it then illogical that followers of Prophet Muhammad, 9who claim that they are "Muslims" which means "surrender to Allah SWT" are in practice surrendering to other than Allah in deed and taking other than Allah as protectors and Waliyy from which they seek in their grave visitation, to aid them, give them children if they are barren, make Nadr for their needs, take holy sand to put on their forehead like the Hindu, and to believe that the dead saint has powers even when dead to come to their aid? Do you consider this a form of Islam that is acceptable by Allah SWT? 4. If for the last 30 years, Somali scholars have educated the public on the Shirk nature of these graves that are raised like Hindu Temples, and to this day, its still in practice and political groups are reviving the dormant grave worship as a tool of disruption of the peace the Shabab has established in the territories they control, how long more would you suggest the Shabab educate the grave worshipers and when can they act to demolish these graves? Sis, Islam does not need popular support, people need Islam, Islam does not need people, Allah SWT says in Quraan : "They regard as favour upon you (O Muhammad ) that they have embraced Islam. Say: "Count not your Islam as a favour upon me. Nay, but Allah has conferred a favour upon you, that He has guided you to the Faith, if you indeed are true." Surah Xujuraat, verse 17 Nur

Ukhti Al Faadhilah, WOL The removal of graves from the reach of the ignorant worshiping public is a measure of PEACE and SECURITY * for the nation. Allah told the Muslims in Surah Nur that if they stop all forms of Shirk, that He will protect them from all evil and fear. "Allah has promised those among you who believe, and do righteous good deeds, that He will certainly grant them succession to (the present rulers) in the earth, as He granted it to those before them, and that He will grant them the authority to practice their way of Life aka DEEN, that which He has chosen for them (i.e. Islam). And He will surely give them in exchange a safe security after their fear (of the whole world posing as a threat against them, provided) they (believers) worship Me and do not associate anything (in worship) with Me. But whoever disbelieved after this, they are the Fasiqun (rebellious, disobedient to Allah)". Surah Nur, Verse 55. The word Desecrating Which even I have used before justifies the actions of the Shabaab, the graves after all are NOT SACRED and if found them being taken as SACRED, its firmly Allah's order to remove them from being an object of worship. Before the Shabab there was another youth who destroyed objects of worship, his name was " Fatan yuqaalu lahu Ibraahim", Young Abraham, and his people were as angry for his action as the whole world is today with the Shabaabs action, that young man has made his legacy, that whenever mankind got lost from the path of Allah's worship, that they go back to the drawing board and begin with TAWHEED again. Allah has promised the believers that 1. He will give them the Khilaafah on earth 2. He will establish a firm rule of law that can not be toppled by outsiders like the last short lived ICU rule. 3. He will secure them from fear of enemies. If They perform two Commandments; 1. Worship Allah 2. DO NOT PRACTICE SHIRK ( ALLOW SHIRK PRACTICES) *True Peace and security is issued ONLY by Allah, read the Hadeeth, that if the entire world attempts to harm you, that they can't without Allah's permission. Also Allah SWT says that those who believe and do not cover their iman with a cloak of ZULM aka SHIRK, those alone indeed deserve SECURITY and those are truly the guided ones Nur

Oil spills are threatening the whole gulf of Mexico's beaches and all of its diverse natural life, seafood business and tourist attractions, just when the region recovered from her sister Katrina's devastating attack. Add this to active earthquake tremors that are threatening southern California and the Tornadoes that threaten the whole south-mid eastern states, the financial crises caused by greedy blood suckers causing bankruptcies, while hypocritical politicians continue expanding foreign wars and the ailing infrastructure ( Roads, railways bridges etc) is falling apart to result a net loss of industrial production capacity to compete with the Asian economic tigers. Here is what the news said today: "The oil slick could become the nation's worst environmental disaster in decades, threatening to eclipse even the Exxon Valdez in scope. It imperils hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world's richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life. "It is of grave concern," David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press about the spill. "I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling."[ Nur

Baarkallahu Feeki ukhti Um Zamzam Waxaa noogu filan waano, inaan xusno Rasuulkeenna, inuu Allah asaga iska bilaabay, ku xijiyaya Malaa'ikta, dabadeedna annaga na faray inaan ku sallinno Nabigeenna Muxammad Salla Allahu Caleyhi Wa Sallim. Allahumma Salli Calaa Sayyidinaa Muxammad Wa Calaa Aali Sayyidinaa Muxammad, Kamaa Sallayta Calaa Ibraahima wa calaa Aali Ibraahim. Nur

Nomads My apologies for delay of posting the finished article on Perception Engineering. The art of professional Liars known as politicians. I am moving it to the front burner to make sure that I complete it in the coming weeks inshaaAllah. Nur

Baarkallahu feeki, yaa ukhtii Blessed for sharing this good article. The most important issue sweeping the Muslim intellectual world today is the conflict between conservation and liberalism. The Judeo-Christian religions have all underwent major changes and rewriting, by priests and kings alike to fit their expedient needs. In contrast, Islam's message which was meant to strengthen the Divine signaling and guidance aka Revelations, that was previously corrupted by Christian Priests, Roman and Anglo Kings, has remained unchanged and unadulterated for the past 14 centuries and counting. The reason being that Islam had its own civilization, culture, kingdoms and territory namely the Islamic Caliphate, still, and despite the corruption of its leaders, no one has ever dared to advocate the change of the faith to resemble the Judeo-Christendom faiths. Unfortunately, Many so called "Muslims" who were bottle fed from the same Judeo-Christian sources, and their liberal proponents who are pressuring the Pope these days to officially open an abortion clinic and to bless gay marriages, are quick to suggest the liberalization of Islam to be inline with the established Judeo-Christian religions. If they have their way, these so called "Muslims" will have an Islamic analogue of Christianity. In light of these developments in the west and the increasing Muslim migration to the west and their adoption of western norms and lifestyles, we will have many attempts to align Islam with western values according to the Hadeeth of the Messenger of Allah SWT in which he predicted that Muslims will follow the footsteps of the people of the Book, to the extent that if the people of the book enter an alligator's hole, ( as impossible as it seems) "Muslims" will follow them. As these new un-Islamic lifestyles become a common sight, do we have the divine blessing to re-interpret Islam to fit new lifestyles like a Nokia hand phone? Should our lifestyle adjust to Islam, or should Islam adjust to our new found lifestyles? Nur

Originally posted by NGONGE: I wonder who Nur thinks Universal TV is owned by! I know the owner personally, but I am not fond of his polarized media programming due in part to his strategic "business-cum political correctness" required for business continuity purposes in Ngongeland. Nur

O Allah, I seek refuge with You from every action that angers the Merciful, and from every trait that makes us resemble Satan or compromise on our religion with the people of doubts, hypocrisy, and kufr. Aamin, Yaa Rabbanaa Karl bro. When (Qowmu Muusaa) Moses's people, committed Shirk (worshiping the calf), Allah SWT instructed Moses to select specific number of men from the nobility of his people to offer collective apology to Allah to redeem their open challenge to Allah, manifested in the Polytheist KUFR and SHIRK action that they have ALL collectively committed of 1. Worshiping the calf, while others, 2. Did not Protest against the Blasphemy. Moses summoned his men and made an appointment for them to meet in a special place and time to offer their collective apology to Allah SWT. The 70 men of the children of Israel, made a condition for offering their apology to Allah: THEY ASKED: "WE WANT TO SEE ALLAH JAHARAH ( FACE TO FACE)". At that point Allah SWT destroyed these men with a sound blast (SAACIQAH), Moses, upon regaining his consciousness and collecting himself, asked Allah SWT: O Allah, you could have destroyed them and I before ( when the Shirk action took place) are you then destroying us all now (That we came to offer apology) for the stoopidity the evil ones among us have committed? Its only the result of your Fitnah (Test of people's faith through practical situations that verify either their claim of belief in Allah or the opposite) after which some ( fail the test) to deserve punishment, while some ( pass the test) to deserve further guidance, so (O Allah) forgive us, and have mercy upon us, truly, you are the best of those who forgive. EBETS- eNuri Best-Effort Trans-Semantics Nur

Alas, the U.S. keeps making the same mistake of seeking obedient clients rather than democratic allies who are genuinely popular and legitimate. Eric Margolis, The Toronto Sun

US Puppet Cuts His Strings Thwarted by the American government on compromise with Taliban, Karzai has begun openly defying his patrons By Eric Margolis April 11, 2010 "Toronto Sun" -- Henry Kissinger once observed that it was more dangerous being America's ally than its enemy. The latest example: the U.S.-installed Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who is in serious hot water with his really angry patrons in Washington. The Obama administration is blaming the largely powerless Karzai, a former CIA "asset," for America's failure to defeat the Taliban. Washington accused Karzai of rigging last year's elections. True enough, but the U.S. pre-rigged the Afghan elections by excluding all parties opposed to western occupation. Washington, which supports dictators and phoney elections across the Muslim world, had the chutzpah to blast Karzai for corruption and rigging votes. This while the Pentagon was engineering a full military takeover of Pakistan. The Obama administration made no secret it wanted to replace Karzai. You could almost hear Washington crying, "Bad puppet! Bad puppet!" Karzai fired back, accusing the U.S. of vote-rigging. He has repeatedly demanded the U.S. military stop killing so many Afghan civilians. Next, Karzai dropped a bombshell, asserting the U.S. was occupying Afghanistan to dominate the energy-rich Caspian Basin region, not because of the non-existent al-Qaida or Taliban. Karzai said Taliban was "resisting western occupation." The U.S. will soon have 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, plus 40,000 dragooned NATO troops. Karzai even half-jested he might join Taliban. Washington had apoplexy. A vicious propaganda campaign was unleashed against Karzai. The New York Times, a mouthpiece for the Obama administration and ardent backer of the Afghan war, all but called for the overthrow of Karzai and his replacement by a compliant general. An American self-promoter, Peter Galbraith, who had been fired from his job with the UN in Kabul, was trotted out to tell media that Karzai might be both a drug addict and crazy. Behind this ugly, if also comical, spat lay a growing divergence between Afghans and Washington. After 31 years of conflict, nearly three million dead, millions more refugees and frightful poverty, Afghans yearn for peace. For the past two years, Karzai and his warlord allies have been holding peace talks with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia. Karzai knows the only way to end the Afghan conflict is to enfranchise the nation's Pashtun majority and its fighting arm, the Taliban. Political compromise with the Taliban is the only - and inevitable - solution. But the Obama administration, misadvised by Washington neocons and other hardliners, is determined to "win" a military victory in Afghanistan (whatever that means) to save face as a great power and impose a settlement that leaves it in control of strategic Afghanistan. Accordingly, the U.S. thwarted Karzai's peace talks by getting Pakistan, currently the recipient of $7 billion in U.S. cash, to arrest senior Taliban leaders sheltering there who had been part of the ongoing peace negotiations with Kabul. It was Karzai's turn to be enraged. So he began openly defying his American patrons and adopting an independent position. The puppet was cutting his strings. Karzai's newfound boldness was due to the fact that both India and China are eager to replace U.S./British/NATO domination of Afghanistan. India is pouring money, arms and agents into Afghanistan and training government forces. China, more discreetly, is moving in to exploit Afghanistan's recently discovered mineral wealth that, says Karzai, is worth $1 trillion, according to a U.S. government geological survey. Russia, still smarting from its 1980s defeat in Afghanistan, is watching America's travails there with rich enjoyment and not a little yearning for revenge. Moscow has its own ambitions in Afghanistan. This column has long suggested Karzai's best option is to distance himself from American tutelage and demand the withdrawal of all foreign occupation forces. Risky business, of course. Remember Kissinger's warning. Karzai could end up dead. But he could also become a national hero and best candidate to lead an independent Afghanistan that all ethnic groups could accept. Alas, the U.S. keeps making the same mistake of seeking obedient clients rather than democratic allies who are genuinely popular and legitimate. © 2010 The Toronto Sun

" This looming war will be different; it will no longer be a civil war. It will be a necessary and Jihaadi war! TFG in Baydhabo, like Qanyare before them, has committed a fundamental error in aligning them selves with the defeated warlords. Their time is up!" By Xiinfaniin