Monday-Sunday, January 31-February 6, 2011

NOTHING BUT SHIT STREWN EVERYWHERE

Twenty years ago, one of the most diabolical slaughters in war history occurred in Iraq. Despite the assurances of the Bush I regime that retreating Iraqi soldiers would not be attacked, just the opposite happened. Iraqi soldiers and civilians were massacred after Saddam Hussein called for their exit of Kuwait.

More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed in five weeks, the majority during the 100-hour ground war. You may say, "This is war and people get killed." That’s true, but tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers were killed by illegal weapons in a most brutal manner that contradicted international laws that apply to war.

When then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, was asked about the number of deaths the Iraqi military suffered, he said, "I don’t have a clue and I don’t plan to undertake any real effort to find out." This is the same man who stated several months after Desert Storm that his goal was to "make the world scared to death of the United States."

We all know how Powell as Secretary of State lied to the world about Iraq in 2002 and 2003, yet few remember his affinity for killing during the Gulf War. He was just as vicious and untruthful in 1991 as he was in the early part of the 21^st century.

Prior to the start of the ground phase, many countries were trying to dissuade the U.S. from attacking. Moscow came up with a peace plan that Bush called "a cruel hoax." Bush kept saying that the only objective was for Iraqi troops to leave Kuwait. When one reporter asked him how the Iraqis could retreat while they were still being heavily bombed, Bush answered, "That’s for them to find out."

On February 22, 1991, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater played his own "cruel hoax." He stated, "The United States and its coalition partners reiterate that their forces will not attack retreating Iraqi forces."

Despite all the efforts to bring a peaceful conclusion, none was accepted by the U.S. Saddam Hussein ordered a retreat of Iraqi troops from Kuwait on February 25, 1991. This order, with Fitzwater’s earlier statement, appeared to be the beginning of the end of violence in Kuwait and Iraq.

Bush looked at it another way. He now had his chance to slaughter tens of thousands of defenseless soldiers and one of the most barbaric massacres in history began.

On February 25, 1991, at a junction of roads leading from Kuwait City, U.S. Marine aircraft, flying close support for ground troops, arrived and saw a five-vehicle-wide stream moving on the highway out of Kuwait City. The vehicles were occupied by Iraqi military personnel (mostly unarmed) and civilians of many nationalities.

The Marines allowed the vehicles to get out of the city and then laid down an aerial barrage of anti-armor mines across the road, making it impossible for the vehicles to move ahead. There were miles of vehicles and thousands of passengers who were not able to move. Kill zones were assigned to groups of eight aircraft sent into the target area every 15 minutes. According to Major General Royal N. Moore, commander of the Marine Air Wing 3, "It was like a turkey shoot until the weather turned sour."

By the morning of February 26, the 2^nd Marine Division and its augmenting armored brigade (the Tiger brigade) of the Army’s 2^nd Armored Division arrived on the scene. Other ground division followed. Now, the slaughter on what has become to be known as "The Highway of Death" began in earnest.

U.S. troops observed thousands of Iraqis trying to escape up the highway. They attacked the defenseless soldiers from the high ground, cutting to shreds vehicles and people trapped in a miles-long traffic jam. Allied jets repeatedly pounded the blocked vehicles. Schwarzkopf’s orders were "not to let anybody or anything out of Kuwait City."

On February 27, the first words hit the outside world about this carnage, however, it still would be a few more weeks until photographs of the destruction made their way to the public, and then only a few were seen. A pool reporter with the 2^nd Armored Division wrote:

As we drove slowly through the wreckage, our armored personnel carrier’s tracks splashed through great pools of bloody water. We passed dead soldiers lying, as if resting, without a mark on them. We found others cut up so badly; a pair of legs in its trousers would be 50 yards from the top half of the body. Four soldiers had died under a truck where they sought protection.

The Iraqi retreat extended north of Jahra, where the two main roads going into Iraq split at al-Mutlaa. Because the main road was so jammed, Iraqi troops were being diverted along a coastal route. These soldiers suffered the same fate as those on the Highway of Death. According to a U.S. Army officer on the scene (the coastal road):

There was nothing but shit strewn everywhere, five to seven miles of just solid bombed-out vehicles. The Air Force had been given the word to work over the entire area, to find anything that moved and take it out.

Surrendering Iraqi troops were also slaughtered. A media pool report of February 27 stated:

One Navy pilot, who asked not to be identified, said Iraqis have affixed white flags to their tanks and are riding with turrets open, scanning the skies with their binoculars. The flier said that under allied rules of engagement, pilots were still bombing tanks unless soldiers abandoned the vehicles and left them behind.

The first British pilots to arrive at the scenes of slaughter returned to their base. They protested taking part in attacking defenseless soldiers, but, under threat of court martial, they eventually took part in the massacre.

A report by Greenpeace called On Impact proclaimed:

Aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ranger, air strikes against Iraqi troops were being launched so feverishly … that pilots said they took whatever bombs happened to be closest to the flight deck. S-3 Viking anti-submarine patrol aircraft were brought into the bombing campaign, carrying cluster bombs. The number of attacking aircraft was so dense that air traffic control had to divert planes to avoid collisions.

On March 10, the scenes at the coastal road were still horrendous. Reporter Michael Kelly described them:

For a 50 or 60-mile stretch from just north of Jahra to the Iraqi border, the road was littered with exploded and roasted vehicles, charred and blown-up bodies … I saw no bodies that had not belonged to men in uniform. It was not always easy to ascertain this because the force of the explosions and the heat of the fires had blown most of the clothing off the soldiers, and often too had cooked their remains into wizened, mummified, charcoal-men.

General McPeak took great pride in the slaughter. He said, "When enemy armies are defeated, they retreat. It’s during this phase that the true fruits of victory are achieved from combat, when the enemy’s disorganized." Less than a week after the White House spokesman assured the world that U.S. forces would not attack a retreating Iraqi army, most of the army was destroyed while it was retreating.

When the operation was completed, Iraq was stuck with the bill. One of the conditions of the cease-fire was that Iraq had to pay Kuwait $50 billion in reparations for damage caused by the U.S. When the oil-for-food program began, the first 15% of all revenues taken in by Iraq went to Kuwait.

The most appalling aspect of this end to Desert Storm was the bravado of the U.S. government and the top military officers. They ordered this unnecessary slaughter and took glee every time they publicly spoke of it. Powell and McPeak gained the military accolades that had diverted them a couple of decades earlier in Vietnam.

In addition to the Highway of Death carnage, an incident occurred that has since been forgotten by most of the world. On the first two days of the ground war (February 24 and 25, 1991), U.S. troops, using tanks and earthmovers that had been specially-fitted with plows, buried thousands of Iraqi soldiers alive.

Three brigades of the 1^st Mechanized Infantry Division (the Big Red One) used the tactic to destroy trenches and bunkers that were defended by about 10,000 Iraqi soldiers. These combatants were draftees, not seasoned troops such as the Republican Guard.

The assault was carefully planned and rehearsed. According to U.S. participants, about 2,000 Iraqis surrendered and were not buried. Most of the rest, about 8,000, were buried beneath tons of sand — many trying to surrender. Captain Bernie Williams was rewarded for his part in the burying with a Silver Star. He said, "Once we went through there, other than the ones who surrendered, there wasn’t anybody left."

According to a senior Army official who, under anonymity, was questioned by The Spotlight about the tactics, the use of earthmovers is standard procedure in breaching obstacles and minefields. The heavy equipment precedes armored and infantry units to level barriers, then the vehicles can move quickly through enemy defenses. The official stated that any Iraqi troops who remained in their bunkers would have been buried and killed. He added, "This is war. This isn’t a pickup basketball game."

Colonel Anthony Moreno, commander of the 2^nd Brigade, said, "For all I know, we could’ve killed thousands." A thinner line of trenches on Moreno’s left flank was attacked by the 1^st Brigade, commanded by Colonel Lon Maggart. He estimated that his troops alone buried about 650 Iraqis alive.

After the cease-fire, in an interview with New York Newsday, Maggart and Moreno came forward with some of the first public testimony about the burying alive of Iraqi soldiers. Prior to their interview, then Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, never mentioned the atrocities, even when he submitted a report to Congress just prior to the interviews.

The technique used in burying the soldiers involved a pair of M1-A1 tanks with plows shaped like giant teeth along each section of the trench line. The tanks took up positions on either side of the trenches. Bradley fighting vehicles and Vulcan armored personnel carriers straddled the trench line and fired into the Iraqi soldiers as the tanks covered them with piles of sand.

Moreno recalled, "I came through right after the lead company. What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with peoples’ arms and things sticking out of them." Maggart added, "I know burying people alive sounds pretty nasty, but it would be even nastier if we had to put our troops in the trenches and clean them out."

The attack contradicted U.S. Army doctrine, which calls for troops to leave their armored vehicle to clean out trenches or to bypass and isolate fortified positions. Moreno admitted that the assault was not according to policy:

This was not doctrine. My concept is to defeat the enemy with your power and equipment. We’re going to have to bludgeon them with every piece of equipment we’ve got. I’m not going to sacrifice the lives of my soldiers — it’s not cost-effective.

The most disturbing aspect of the incident was the secrecy involved. When Newsday broke the story, many were taken by surprise. According to members of the U.S. House and Senate Armed Forces Committees, the Pentagon had withheld details of the assault from the committees. Senate Chairman, Sam Nunn, was unaware of the assault and after he was notified, he stated, "It sounds like another example of the horrors of war." Quickly, the incident was forgotten.

The killing of defenseless soldiers and civilians did not end with the cease-fire. On the morning of March 2 (two days after the cease-fire was announced), a convoy of Iraqi vehicles was reported moving through the demarcation point of allied operations on Highway 8 about 50 kilometers west of Basra.

According to a pool reporter from the UPI, a platoon of the 24^th Infantry Division reported that the "massive Iraqi convoy … had just shot a couple of rockets at it." The Washington Post added that the convoy of 700 wheeled vehicles and 300 armored vehicles "opened fire in an effort to clear a path toward a causeway across the Euphrates." Lt. Chuck Ware, the battalion commander, received permission to return fire and the battalion received backup from Army artillery and 20 U.S. Cobra and Apache helicopters.

The ensuing fighting was one-sided and several thousand Iraqis (civilian and military) were killed in two hours. There were few Iraqi survivors.

A Washington Post report on March 18, 1991 said:

U.S. tanks were shooting Iraqi tanks off heavy equipment trailers trying to haul them to safety. Bradley fighting vehicles shattered truck after truck with 25mm cannon fire as Iraqi civilians and soldiers alike ran into the surrounding marshes.

Lt. Col. Ware said, "They shot first, we won big." Another U.S. officer stated, "We really waxed them."

This massacre took place after the cease-fire had been announced. At the time, it was thought that the convoy was not aware of its position; therefore it ran into the U.S. Army personnel. All the equipment was being transported on trucks — it was not in position to use in battle — so the U.S. forces had nothing to fear in terms of casualties. Some Iraqi soldiers were lying down on the vehicles and sleeping or obtaining a suntan.

When the post-cease-fire massacre occurred, the U.S. news agencies mentioned a "skirmish" between Iraqi and U.S. troops and said there were no U.S. casualties. They did not mention the slaughter.

The information made it appear that the unlucky Iraqis had taken a wrong turn somewhere and happened to run into a trigger-happy group of soldiers. The truth, however, is much more diabolical.

In May 2000, The New Yorker published an article by Seymour Hersh called "Overwhelming Force." Hersh spent years tracking down some of the participants in the slaughter, which was given the moniker the "Battle of Rumaila."

Instead of a wayward convoy of Iraqis who had the bad luck to shoot at U.S. forces, Hersh paints a picture of U.S. General Barry McCaffrey intentionally giving wrong location information to his superiors so he could concoct a battle with the hapless Iraqis who, in reality, were exactly where they were supposed to be according to the "safe" routes of return designated by the U.S.

Hersh explained:

McCaffrey’s insistence that the Iraqis attacked first was disputed in interviews for this article by some of his subordinates in the wartime headquarters of the 24^th Division, and also by soldiers and officers who were at the scene on March 2^nd. The accounts of these men, taken together, suggest that McCaffrey’s offensive, two days into a cease-fire, was not so much a counterattack provoked by enemy fire as a systematic destruction of Iraqis who were generally fulfilling the requirements of retreat; most of the Iraqi tanks traveled from the battlefield with their cannons reversed and secured, in a position known as travel-lock. According to these witnesses, the 24^th faced little determined Iraqi resistance at any point during the war or its aftermath; they also said that other senior officers exaggerated the extent of Iraqi resistance throughout the war.

The slaughter may have been forgotten and never discussed if not for an anonymous letter sent to the Pentagon that accused McCaffrey of a series of war crimes. The letter stated that McCaffrey’s division began the March 2^nd assault without Iraqi provocation and it included information only an insider would know. An investigation ensued, but, eventually, McCaffrey was exonerated.

Despite the prospect of an inquiry, McCaffrey openly bragged about his unit’s performance in the massacre. He told another general’s battalion that the 24^th Division had carried out:

"absolutely one of the most astounding goddamned operations ever seen in the history of military science … We were not fighting the Danish Armed Forces up here. There were a half million of those assholes that were extremely well-armed and equipped."

Some participants of the battle say that Iraq did not fire the first shot. Others maintain the Iraqis shot first, but only once. Authorities differed on the time between the supposed Iraqi shot and the beginning of the U.S. actions. Some say it was about 40 minutes, while others say the time lapse was close to two hours. Either way, it was evident that if Iraq did fire a shot, there was no follow-up or change of formation for the convoy. It still went forward with its equipment not in place for battle.

Soon, a call came asking for every available unit to come to rescue the U.S. troops. Sergeant Stuart Hirstein and his team rushed to the site. When Hirstein arrived, he said there was no attack and no imminent threat from retreating Iraqi tanks. He stated:

Some of the tanks were in travel formation, and their guns were not in any engaged position. The Iraqi crew members were sitting on the outside of their vehicles, catching rays. Nobody was on the machine guns.

Despite the intelligence that stated the Iraqis were no threat, and the doubts of other officers about an Iraqi attack, McCaffrey still wanted to go to battle. There were more discussions and Captain Bell, who had been involved with the talks before the U.S. "counterattack," believed that McCaffrey moved his brigades to the east of the original cease-fire line to provoke the Iraqis. He added that there is a huge difference between a round or two fired in panic and McCaffrey’s determination that the Iraqis were "attacking us." He added, that "is pure fabrication."

Hersh described the beginning of the hostilities that wiped out thousands:

The division log placed the time of McCaffrey’s first known battle order at five minutes after nine o’clock. According to Log Item 74. McCaffrey directed that the causeway "be targeted," thus blocking the basic escape route for the retreating forces. The division’s Apache helicopters were to "engage from south with intent of terminating engagement." Within moments, the assault was all-out. One company reported that it had engaged a force of between a hundred and two hundred Iraqi "dismounts." By ten o’clock, division headquarters had begun receiving reports of extensive damage to the Iraqi forces. One group of Apache helicopters reported in mid-morning, "Enemy not firing back, they are jumping in ditches to hide." Forty minutes later, according to another log item, McCaffrey ordered artillery to be "used in conjunction with personnel sweep to 'pound these guys’ and end the engagement."

The 24^th Division continued pounding the Iraqi column throughout the morning, until every vehicle moving toward the causeway — tank, truck, or automobile — was destroyed

McCaffrey was triumphant at battle’s end. "He was smiling like a proud father," John Brasfield told me …

… A couple of evenings later, Pierson was driving toward the causeway. "It must have been a nightmare along this road as the Apaches dispensed death from five kilometers away, one vehicle at a time. I stopped as a familiar smell wafted through the air … It was the smell of a cookout on a warm summer day, the smell of seared steak."

After the battle, a captured Iraqi tank commander asked again and again, "Why are you killing us? All we were doing was going home. Why are you killing us?"

Shortly before his troops flew back to Fort Stewart in the U.S., McCaffrey told them he had never been:

"more proud of American soldiers in my entire life as watching your attack on 2 March … It’s fascinating to watch what’s happening in our country. God, it’s the damnedest thing I ever saw in my life. It’s probably the single most unifying event that has happened in America since World War II … The upshot will be that, just like Vietnam had the tragic effect on our country for years, this one has brought back a new way of looking at ourselves."

McCaffrey weathered the storm and received his fourth star in 1994. In 1996, he retired from the Army and was appointed by the Clinton administration as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, more commonly known as the U.S. Drug Czar.

Hersh’s article received much pre-publicity in 2000 and many people were anticipating the piece. Then, a couple of days before The New Yorker was to appear on the stands with the article, a press conference was called to address the issue. A Clinton spokesman took to the podium and criticized the article. He called it "old wine in a new bottle." In the space of about five minutes, an article that should have been read by the American public was dismissed as rubbish by the Clinton administration. The curious aspect of this denigration is that the article had not yet appeared. Normally, an administration tears apart something in the press after it is published. This fact alone should have piqued the interest of the public. However, the opposite occurred. Within a couple of days of its publishing, few spoke of the article again. It became a non-issue.

The entire article is a must-read for anyone who wants to know the truth about how the U.S. military conducted itself in Desert Storm. Not all the personnel were as bloodthirsty as McCaffrey, and Hersh interviewed participants who opposed the decision to slaughter thousands of Iraqis who could not fight back. It is available online at many websites. Punch in the name of the article on a search engine and you will be able to find the entire piece.

Marlin Fitzwater’s statement that retreating Iraqi troops would not be attacked was an outright lie, yet neither he nor the administration paid a price for the deceit. Up to 100,000 retreating Iraqis were slaughtered after he made the statement to the world. Among the retreating Iraqi soldiers were civilian men, women and children of various nationalities. Their deaths were, according to various U.S. military officers, the "spoils of war."

Those soldiers who did make it out of Kuwait were still not out of the woods. As soon as they approached Basra, they came under attack from Iranians who crossed the Iran-Iraq border during the U.S. bombing and their Iranian-backed Iraqi stooges. Much bloodshed on both sides occurred, creating more deaths for Iraqi troops. When the hostilities ended, the Iraqi army, by putting up a fierce resistance to the attempted coup, came out on top.

Marlin Fitzwater lied about not attacking retreating Iraqi troops and despite the horrendous circumstances they endured to get back to Iraq, their war was not over. Iran, with the blessing of the U.S., tried to finish off the Iraqi army. But, in the end, the heroic army kept Iraq intact by its brave fighting. Even this part of history has been re-written by the U.S. Instead of stating that Iraqi soldiers faced yet another ambush, the West put its propaganda machine in full gear and the perception of this incident has been attributed to Iraqi soldiers attacking and massacring Iraqi Shi’ite Muslims.

Thursday-Wednesday, January 20-26, 2011

A State of Permanent Human Bondage

The goal of Desert Storm was to destroy the country of Iraq under the guise of liberating Kuwait. In February 1991, during the height of U.S. bombing, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark visited Iraq and reported his findings. At that time, few photos had come from Iraq showing the devastation. Most reporters left Iraq on the eve of the bombing campaign and spent their time in Saudi Arabia listening to the daily propaganda given by the U.S. military. They became so bored that they began to interview each other.

What Clark saw was not pretty. He stated:

The effect of the bombing, if continued, will be the destruction of much of the physical and economic base for life in Iraq. The purpose of the bombing can only be explained rationally as the destruction of Iraq as a viable state for a generation or more.

Clark’s message was not widely reported. After all, the U.S. version of events stated that the only reason for the aggression was to remove Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait. The lack of coverage of what was occurring in Iraq was convenient for the U.S. because it allowed the destruction of Iraq to continue with no world outcry.

After the bombing ceased, pictures began making their way to the outside world. When this information reached the U.S., the administration called it lies and propaganda. At other times, it accused Iraq of destroying its own institutions and blaming it on U.S. bombs. Once people from outside Iraq began to visit the country, the blatant U.S. lies were exposed. The following is a list of the numbers of facilities destroyed during the 42-day bombing campaign. It was compiled and published by the Iraqi Reconstruction Bureau:

·         Schools and scholastic facilities — 3960

·         Universities, labs, dormitories — 40

·         Health facilities (including hospitals, clinics, medical warehouses) — 421

·         Telephone operations, communication towers, etc. — 475

·         Bridges, buildings, housing complexes — 260

·         Warehouses, shopping centers, grain silos — 251

·         Churches and mosques — 159

·         Dams, pumping stations, agricultural facilities — 200

·         Petroleum facilities (including refineries) — 145

·         General services (shelters, sewage treatment plants, municipalities) — 830

·         Houses — 10,000 to 20,000

In April 1991, a fact-finding team from Greenpeace visited Iraq and nobody was prepared for the display of massive devastation. When Greenpeace issued its report, it said Iraq had been bombed back to a pre-industrial era. The report added, “New technology did not make the U.S. military better at preventing destruction, it just made it more efficient at destruction itself.”

The U.S. press ignored most of the reports by various groups that visited Iraq after Desert Storm. The few words reported, along with the absence of photos, assured a lack of public outcry condemning the slaughter.

The massacre should not have surprised those who followed incidents leading to Desert Storm. As early as September 1990, a high-up military person mapped the plans for the invasion. On September 16, 1990, General Dugan stated that the proposed plans for combat included the destruction of the Iraqi civilian economy and infrastructure. At that time, no one could envisage the U.S. attacking Iraq because the Iraqi soldiers were in Kuwait and the U.S. demanded their exit. Most people thought, if there was to be a war, it would be conducted in Kuwait, not Baghdad. General Dugan was immediately removed from office. The Bush administration negated Dugan’s claims and discredited him. In hindsight, we see that Dugan’s testimony was about the only truth we heard from the U.S. government or military at that time. He let the cat out of the bag, but government damage control quickly led the people to believe he made up the scenarios he predicted.

For the first week of Desert Storm, everyone seemed to be mesmerized by the “smart bombs” that were going down chimneys and smashing through the windows of weapons warehouses. When the odd person asked about civilians being hit, the standard response was, “We’re not targeting civilians.” What we were not told was that 93% of the bombs dropped were “dumb bombs” and the civilian infrastructure of Iraq was being destroyed. Only about 30 to 40% of the dumb bombs hit their targets. The others randomly created havoc by killing civilians and destroying Iraq’s cities and towns.

After Desert Storm, some military people admitted the real nature of the attacks. Air Force General Tony McPeak stated on March 20, 1991, “I’ve got photographic evidence of several where the pilot just acquired the wrong target.” When asked why that information had not come forth earlier, he added, “It ain’t my call. I made some recommendations about this; it got turned around, quite frankly.”

Those who questioned the U.S. government’s reports of only hitting military targets had their fears verified on January 22, 1991. Pictures of a destroyed baby milk factory in the region of Abu Ghraib were broadcast worldwide. Many people were aghast at the bombing of a civilian industry crucial for the existence of youngsters.

The Pentagon immediately went into high gear to try to dispel the protests of those who questioned such barbaric actions. The administration stated that it was a biological weapons plant. Colin Powell said”

It is not an infant formula factory, no more than the Rabta chemical plant in Libya made aspirin. It was a biological weapons facility, of that we are sure — and we have taken it out.

The administration came up with the excuse that “Baby Milk Factory” signs around the plant were written in English and Arabic and they had just been mounted after the bombing to try to make people think it was a baby formula factory. The American public bought the excuse.

The public never researched to discover that many signs in Iraq included both English and Arabic versions because of the substantial English-speaking population who worked in Iraq prior to Desert Storm. The sign at the baby milk factory had been in place for several years prior to its bombing. Peter Arnett of CNN stated after Desert Storm that the same factory and sign were evident in a documentary that CNN produced in the late 1980s.

Nestlé of Switzerland is a leading producer of infant foods. A spokesman for the company said, “We know this was a state-built infant formula plant.” Company officials said they had regularly observed its construction in the past, “because we like to be aware of the competition.”

U.S. audiences rarely heard or saw what other countries reported concerning Desert Storm. A British TV show, “Panorama,” was broadcast on March 25, 1991 which included an interview with General Leonard Perroots, a consultant to U.S. intelligence in Desert Storm. He addressed the bombing of the baby milk factory and he quickly put the matter to rest as he said, “We made a mistake.”

The bombing of the baby milk factory put the world on alert that the information broadcast at the daily military briefings was untruthful. At that time, those who opposed Desert Storm were shocked at the widespread destruction in Iraq. They wondered how the U.S. public, which usually would have treated such barbaric designs with disdain, had acquiesced to cheering such actions. The answer lies in the demonizing of Iraq and its president, Saddam Hussein.

In George Bush’s Thanksgiving speech to U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia in 1990, he stated:

Every day that passes brings Saddam one step closer to realizing his goal of a nuclear weapons arsenal, and that’s why more and more your mission is marked by a real sense of urgency. You know, no one knows exactly who they may be aimed at down the road, but we know this for sure, he’s never possessed a weapon he didn’t use.

At the time of his speech, Bush knew that Iraq was at least five years away from developing its first crude atomic weapon, yet he made it sound as though Iraq was on the verge of obtaining a comprehensive nuclear arsenal. In further speeches, he suggested that in six months, Iraq would be a nuclear threat to the world. The myth of an Iraqi nuclear warehouse was a prime excuse for Bush II invading Iraq in 2003. And, to this day, many U.S. citizens believe Iraq possessed nuclear weapons.

Even after the bombing of the baby milk factory, the U.S. denied bombing civilians or buildings used in civilian industries. When the Iraqi government stated that a village or suburb was hit, the U.S. government would say the Iraqis weren’t telling the truth. Because of the demonizing of Iraq, most Americans thought all Iraqi information consisted of lies.

On January 31, an independent source announced that the U.S. was bombing civilians. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry stated that coalition planes had bombed oil trucks and civilians moving along the highway from Iraq to Jordan. Again, the U.S. denied the allegations, but some eyes were being opened.

In Iran, reports were made stating that the bombing was so intense that the ground in Iran was shaking. On February 5, 1991, an official in Basra described “a hellish nightmare” of fires and smoke so dense that eyewitnesses say the sun had not been clearly visible for days at a time; that the bombing was leveling entire city blocks; and that there were bomb craters the size of football fields and an untold number of casualties.

On February 7, the military still denied that civilians were being targeted. When asked about the allegations, General Richard Neal told the press, “It’s a target-rich environment and there’s plenty of other targets we can attack.”

While Neal was making his statement, Ramsey Clark was traveling throughout Iraq but his assessment differed greatly from that of the general. In describing the reality in Iraq, Clark stated:

Over the 2,000 miles of highway, roads and streets we traveled, we saw scores, probably several hundred, destroyed vehicles. There were oil tank trucks, tractor trailers, lorries, pickup trucks, a public bus, a mini bus, a taxi cab and many private cars destroyed by aerial bombardments and strafing. We found no evidence of military equipment or supplies in the vehicles.

Along the roads, we saw several oil refinery fires and numerous gasoline stations destroyed. One road-repair camp had been bombed on the road to Amman (Jordan). As with the city streets in residential and commercial areas where we witnessed damage, we did not see a single damaged or destroyed military vehicle, tank, armored car, personnel carrier or other military equipment, or evidence of any having been removed.

Basra was probably the hardest-hit city during Desert Storm. There was evidence of weapons that are normally used against military personnel having been deployed in civilian areas of Basra: cluster bombs. Clark saw this evidence and reported:

Small, anti-personnel bombs were alleged to have fallen here (Basra) and we saw what appeared to be one that did not explode imbedded in the rubble. We were shown the shell of a “mother” bomb which carries the small fragmentation bombs.

When he left Iraq in February 1991, Clark gave an overview of the situation:

United States annual military expenditures alone are four times the gross national product of Iraq. The use of highly-sophisticated military technology with mass destructive power against an essentially defenseless civilian population of a poor nation is one of the greatest tragedies of our times.

A few days after Clark left Iraq, an incident occurred that astonished the world. On February 13, a pair of Stealth F-117 bombers dropped two 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs on a concrete building in the Amiryah section of suburban Baghdad. The case-hardened bombs were directed to penetrate the steel reinforced roof and detonate inside. It was a civilian bomb shelter.

The reports of the number of civilians killed in the building — more than half were children — ranged from 400 to more than 1,000. Because the bodies were so badly burned and melted, no one will ever know the exact total.

The U.S. administration first proclaimed that the target was an Iraqi command-and-control post and the dead were Iraqi military personnel. The cameras eventually showed charred bodies of women and children, so the U.S. story had to be revised. The administration then said that the building was a military target in which Saddam Hussein placed civilians to protect the military personnel. Dick Cheney, then the U.S. Secretary of Defense, stated, “Saddam might be resorting to a practice of deliberately placing civilians in harm’s way.”

The U.S. government scrambled to try to explain the massacre of so many people inside a civilian bomb shelter. General Neal stated the government’s case as he said, “From a personal point of view, I’m outraged that civilians might have been placed in harm’s way, and I blame the Iraqi leadership for that.” Unfortunately, many Americans believed Neal’s twisted excuse of blaming the Iraqi leadership for the incineration of hundreds of people by deadly superbombs.

Within a few hours, the truth emerged. The Amiryah bomb shelter was built for civilian defense during the Iran-Iraq War. The engineer who designed it appeared on television and told the world there was no way it could be a military asset.

After the lies were put to rest, it became evident that the U.S. had either mistaken the target as a military venue, or it had deliberately destroyed it knowing it was a bomb shelter. Since February 14, 1991, the subject of the bombing of the Amiryah bomb shelter has been left unspoken in the U.S.

Those inside the bomb shelter died horrific deaths. First, a 2,000-pound bomb crashed through the shelter, creating a massive tunnel in which the second 2,000-pound projectile entered. Then, both exploded, leaving a huge hole. Those who died saw the first bomb and had a few seconds of life left before the second burrowed its way into the shelter and discharged.

Despite the ensuing international outcry about the destruction of the Amiryah shelter, the U.S. did not cut back on the bombing. Actually, the bombing of the Iraqi infrastructure increased. According to Greenpeace in a report called On Impact::

Despite numerous statements of U.S. military leaders that the Iraqi army had been defeated, as well as some confidence that contact between Baghdad and the front in the south had been severed, communications targets, mostly serving civilian functions, continued to be struck and re-struck to the end. If fact, according to Air Force Times, during the final ground phase, “Baghdad was targeted for some of the heaviest bombardments since January 17.”

The cease-fire did not solve all the problems for the civilians of Iraq. Shortly after, George Bush called for the Iraqi people to “take matters into their own hands” in ridding Iraq of its government. For the next few weeks, some Shi’ites in the south, heavily aided and infiltrated by Iranians, wreaked havoc, while certain Kurdish factions started an insurrection in the north of Iraq. There was bloody fighting and at one time, the Shi’ite and Kurdish elements controlled 16 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. Both movements eventually were brought under control by the Iraqi government. Not content with destroying Iraq by bombing it back to a “pre-industrial era,” Bush prompted even more destruction by urging factions within Iraq to overthrow the government. He promised both groups military assistance from the U.S., but none came.

In April 1991, the outside world saw Iraq for the first time since it had been destroyed by U.S. bombs and missiles. The nightmarish pictures started to appear. They showed a country that was bombed so heavily that the most common sites were craters and twisted, melted and devastated structures.

Ramsey Clark made another trip to Iraq to document the devastation. Once there, he noticed an ongoing operation that was meant to terrorize the population:

On our second night there, and several other times, at about 2:30 a.m., U.S. jets flew over the city (Baghdad), deliberately creating an enormous sonic boom that sounded as if the bombing had started again. The next morning, people would describe how their children had awakened in terror.

Clark chronicled the civilian industries that were demolished during the bombing of Iraq:

Twenty minutes outside the city (Baghdad), in Al Taji, we saw the country’s largest frozen meat storage and distribution center; one of two main centers for the entire country, which also included a laboratory for testing meat quality. It had been completely obliterated by the bombing. The center held 14,000 tons of frozen meat. The plant had been bombed three times, at 8:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m., and 8:00 p.m., and workers inside the plant had been killed.

All over Iraq, Clark saw the same mindless destruction. In Babylon, he visited a textile weaving plant that was totally destroyed. The plant was bombed at 3:00 in the afternoon and two women were killed working at their stations. According to the plant manager, Mr. Hassan, the factory was built by an Italian company and the new structure next door, containing no equipment, was untouched.

Dr. Al Qaysi, an Iraqi medical official, put everything in perspective when he stated:

No home remained untouched, no family unharmed, if not through death in the war, through malnutrition, disease, or new-found poverty. This is a return to colonialism. The U.S. is asking for terms like another Treaty of Versailles. Iraq is dependent on the outside world to repair its infrastructure and I fear Iraq will be in a state of permanent human bondage.

The Iraqi Minister of Trade, Mohammed Mahdi Saleh, realized the enormity of the task of trying to rebuild Iraq, particularly with the encompassing trade embargo in place. Despite the U.S. administration maintaining that Iraq was able to import humanitarian goods, there was virtually no way to obtain food, medicine, and parts to repair destroyed machinery. Saleh stated, “If it was possible, the Bush administration would have prevented the air from coming in.”

Tuesday-Sunday, November 23-28, 2010

ONCE UPON A TIME … 

Once upon a time, Iraq had the finest education system in the Arab world. 

Once upon a time, Iraq exported its expertise in education to many countries. 

Once upon a time, Iraq was considered by the UN “illiteracy free.”

Once upon a time, Iraq led the Arab world in scientific development. 

Once upon a time, Iraq had the most modern and efficient highway system and public transport facilities in the Middle East. 

Once upon a time, Iraqi women could dress however they desired: in sweat shirts and jeans, in mini-skirts, with stylish fashion, or, if they preferred, with a veil. 

Once upon a time, the Iraqi public listened to rock and heavy metal music. Once upon a time, professional and amateur sports flourished in Iraq. 

Once upon a time, the arts (of all kinds) were visible all over Iraq. Once upon a time, Iraqi homosexuals were not condemned to death because of their sexual preferences. 

Once upon a time, it was a criminal offense to kill Christians or Palestinians. The term used for any crime of this nature was “murder.” 

Once upon a time, world experts on archaeology and antiquities were welcome to Iraq in an effort to discover the history of the country and then preserve it. Once upon a time, veterans of the Iran-Iraq War were highly revered by the Iraqi government and public. 

Once upon a time, 55% of the Iraqi work force consisted of females. Once upon a time, females held important positions in the government, business and the fields of engineering and science. 

Once upon a time, foreign workers were welcome in Iraq. They provided many services in the areas of agriculture and the construction of the Iraqi infrastructure. 

Once upon a time, any scholar of Arab history was welcome in Iraq as a guest of the government. They were allowed unlimited access to historical documents so they could enhance the writing of Arab culture and share books and articles with the world. 

Once upon a time, Baghdad was called “The Paris of the Middle East.” Once upon a time, Baghdad had many parks and recreational areas that families safely used. 

Once upon a time, the citizens of Iraq were called Iraqis, not Shia or Sunni or Turkomen or Kurds or Chaldeans or any other designation. 

Once upon a time, Iraq had no depleted uranium that was responsible for the deaths and birth defects of thousands of children. 

Once upon a time, Iraq’s drinking water was safe. 

Once upon a time, diseases such as hoof-and-mouth disease and malnutrition had been eradicated from Iraq. 

Once upon a time, Iraqis did not lock the doors to their houses and left them wide open. 

Once upon a time, Baghdad nightlife was vibrant with street performers and the smell of mouth-watering food, not the odor of blood and death. 
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Once upon a time, Iraqi citizens could safely walk the streets with no thoughts of harm occurring. 

Once upon a time, Iraqi children were not obliged to turn to prostitution to earn enough money for their families to buy food. 

Once upon a time, a gallon of gasoline cost less than one cent in Iraq and there were no long lines at petrol stations. 

Once upon a time, electricity was available 24 hours a day in Iraq. Once upon a time, Iraqis were not worried about poisoning themselves when they drank water from their taps. 

Once upon a time, Iraq led the Arab world in technology. 

Once upon a time, Baghdad’s streets were clean, not strewn with garbage and human bodies. 

Once upon a time, Iraq had a functioning government that addressed the needs of the citizenry of Iraq. 

Once upon a time, Iraq was great. 

Once upon a time is the opening phrase of many fairy tales. In the case of Iraq, once upon a time was once true. For today’s young Iraqis, the facts are hidden from them and they may consider them to be fairy tales because their Iraq differs greatly from the one depicted here.

In our first year in London, we learned much. We saw scenes of happiness among the people. It was so different for us to see the morning crowd of kids walking to their schools. Many had school uniforms and they all looked quite happy, despite their having to spend the next few hours in a classroom. Scenes like this are rare in the U.S. Most kids go to school by bus or are driven by relatives or friends. We never saw the swarms of kids walking to school that London produced.

The great public transportation system was another highlight. There was no place in London where one was not within walking distance of a bus stop, train station, or underground station. All the various methods of transportation were linked so that one could go to any area of London and not be far from his/her destination.

After a year, the culture shock had worn off and my wife and I had new British friends. I became involved in baseball and basketball promotion, so I visited many areas of Greater London. During these travels, I noticed the uniqueness of areas that was lacking in the U.S. Sure, many U.S. cities have a Chinatown or another area that is inhabited by people who originated from countries outside the U.S. But, they were not as deeply rooted as the various parts of London. Plus, I once read that there are 50 distinct accents of the English language in London alone. After a while, one can almost tell where a person lives and his/her place in the class structure of Britain just by the accent used.

One thing that was very interesting is the affinity that Londoners had for their city, regardless of their politics, religion or lack of, class, and style of dress. If the English national football team was playing at Wembley Stadium, you could always count on a sellout crowd of close to 100,000 people. Working class mingled with the upper class. They looked different from each other and surely cast their ballots for different candidates in elections, but they cheered for the same team.

In 1947, Hubert Gregg, from the Islington area of London composed the song, "Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner." It quickly became an anthem. During my stay in London, I must have heard the song hundreds of times. You hear it in pubs, schools, clubs, anywhere one can break out in song. And, whether working class, middle class, or upper class, Brits always took advantage of making an excuse to sing the song. The lyrics are short and poignant. Only the people singing it can choose how many times they want to repeat the verses:

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
That I love London so
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
That I think of her wherever I go

I get a funny feeling inside of me
When walking up and down
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
That I love London Town

I moved from London to The Netherlands in September 1980 to pursue a baseball coaching career in the Dutch major league. I spent two years in The Netherlands and became burned out on baseball. Since the age of eight, I was addicted. Finally, after 26 years, I kicked the habit.

My next move was to San Diego in the U.S. Because of changing countries three times in a few years, it took a little while for me to re-gain my adoration for London. But, today I consider the six years I lived there to be the finest of my life in many ways. I learned much and began to look at the world through different eyes. When I returned to the U.S., I realized that my new view of the world did not necessarily fit in with the citizenry. Most U.S. citizens have never traveled outside their own country and they would tell me that they were proud of that fact. To them, living in another country was tantamount to being a traitor.

So, where is all this talk of London taking me? I do have a point to make.

A few days ago, the website www.uruknet.info ran a piece that showed dozens of pictures of Baghdad prior to the March 2003 invasion. I saw all the kids going to school with smiles on their faces. I saw street vendors. I saw buildings that were hundreds of years old and I saw modern buildings. I saw parks. And, I saw a great diversity of clothing worn by the Baghdad residents. I saw London all over again. The signs were in a different language and the clothing styles varied from those of Londoners. But, I saw Baghdad as a special city: one that the people adored, regardless of background.

Today’s Baghdad is far different. A couple of days ago, a major study called Baghdad the most violent city in the world. That is no designation to be proud of. Just a couple of decades ago, Western press called Baghdad the "Paris of the Middle East." Now, it’s nothing more than a sewage-ridden city with people begging for water and food. They are imprisoned behind concrete walls that separate neighborhoods. If they wear the wrong clothes, they may be shot. In 2006, the entire Iraqi national tennis team was shot to death on a street in Baghdad for wearing shorts. The once Paris of the Middle East is now the shithole of the world. Despite all this, the quisling government in the Green Zone and the U.S. administration are speaking of the great success of the new "democratic Iraq." Unfortunately, the brain-dead public of the U.S. has been manipulated enough to believe it. If you take a look at some obese person, swilling his beer while watching his favorite football team on TV, all the time farting and bragging about how loud he can perform the feat, he will tell you about the great successes in Iraq.

Let’s turn the situation around and compare the fate of Baghdad and if a similar destruction of London occurred. The new London would have many warning signs erected in a language they did not understand. Each unique section would be walled off from the rest of London. If a person in Chelsea wanted to visit a relative in nearby Richmond, it would take all day just to make the trip, all the time having the traveler’s eyes scanned to see if his/her irises matched those on record of the authorities. This few-mile journey would include several checkpoints.

Wembley Stadium would be in ruins. The national English football team would be massacred because they wore shorts. Southall, an area populated by many Indians and Pakistanis would be shut completely off from the rest of London. No longer would the vendors be able to show their goods on the street and no longer would a visitor be able to smell the fragrance of the smells coming from the fruit or spice stands erected on the street. Plus, all Hindus, or Muslims would be terrified to leave their houses because the new rulers would have designated England to be an official country of one religion only.

Earl’s Court, an area in which many gays live and socialize would be leveled and the population would be hunted down and killed for its sexual orientation.

The River Thames would be so polluted that health of people living nearby would be threatened. Big Ben would be a pile of rubble. Pubs would be shut down and anyone seen drinking alcohol would be subject to torture or death.

In 1978, Jeff Wayne released an album called "War of the Worlds." It was based on the same story broadcast in the U.S. in 1938 in which Martians invade Earth and destroy everything in their way. Jeff Wayne’s version is about London, however, not New Jersey, the location mentioned in the first War of the Worlds broadcast. The album is a mixture of narration, music, and illustrations. The destruction of the Houses of Parliament is depicted, as well as the blowing up of all the bridges that cross the River Thames. People have no food and they panic. Much of Jeff Wayne’s rendition is eerily similar to the March 2003 invasion and ensuing destruction of Baghdad by Western forces. There sre fire and explosions. The public panics and has no where to escape. I would recommend anyone who has not heard Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds to obtain at least some of the portions of the production and listen to how London was ravaged and burnt just the way Baghdad was. However, Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds is fiction. Baghdad’s destruction is not.

London is still London. Baghdad is no longer Baghdad. I only wish British people, or anyone who has visited London, put themselves in the shoes of the people of Baghdad today. They would not be able to envision such a destroyed and walled London. The sad part of all this is that it was a Brit, living in London at the time, Tony Blair, who so readily offered military activity to destroy Baghdad. And, he was proud of his actions, according to recent statements by him.

The people like Blair, Bush and all those politicians who supported the invasion of Iraq are nothing better than filth. Yet they were the ones who called for Baghdad’s demise. While Iraqis are scrambling for a liter of non-toxic drinking water, the architects of the March 2003 invasion are bragging about their accomplishments over cocktails and some phony party held in honor of the great strength of the U.S.

It is amazing how blind most of the human race is.

First, we had the current faux president of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki. I don’t have to write much about him because most people are aware of his ludicrous and deadly actions as "Butcher-in-Charge" who is stationed in the Green Zone of Baghdad. If he were to greet the people, in the same manner of his predecessor, President Saddam Hussein, his body parts would be strewn all over Iraq. It would be no stretch of the imagination to assume he is a major stockholder in the U.S. firm Black and Decker, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of drills. However, the U.S. company markets their drills to do-it-yourself handymen to make improvements on their houses. Al-Maliki used the drills to test how long a human being could live while having his head drilled.

His main opponent was Ayad Allawi, a has-been former "prime minister" of Iraq. His tenure was short-lived. The Iraqi people did not take him seriously. In an act meant to outdo al-Maliki and his ilk, Allawi once lined six young men, who were arrested and not charged with any crime, against a wall and shot them in the head with his revolver.

The Iraqi people had no real choice in the elections. It was Murderer #1 versus Murderer #2. Despite their so-called differences, both shared a similar past: neither had lived in Iraq for decades prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Both praised the U.S. invasion and, recently, Allawi went out of his way to profusely thank the U.S. for the losses it suffered while "freeing" Iraq.

Many people are well aware of al-Maliki’s past few years of murderous activities. Few, however, realize that in the 1990s, Allawi was the force behind the killing of more than 100 innocent Iraqi civilians at various venues, such as bus stops and cinemas. The word "terrorist" is used in broad terms by various groups and causes. Allawi’s actions qualify him to be a terrorist no matter what definition is used.

At a press conference in November 2001, George Bush stated:

A coalition partner must do more than just express sympathy. A coalition partner must perform. All nations must do something. It’s important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity. You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.

Let’s take a look at a terrorist who eventually became Iraq’s prime minister. On May 28, 2004, when the U.S. government announced that Ayad Allawi would become Iraq’s interim prime minister, most people asked, "Who?" Before this time, he was unknown to the U.S. public

Ayad Allawi was an Iraqi exile living in London. When he first moved to London, he was a member of Iraq’s Ba’ath Party. Shortly after, he changed sides and sold his services to the British spy agency MI6. Later on, he collaborated with the CIA as well.

In the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration had placed the assassination of Saddam Hussein at the top of its agenda, albeit in a covert manner. The plan was for Iraqi dissidents to meet in the north of Iraq (at the time under the protection of U.S. forces) and march to Baghdad. The U.S. was to supply air power and weapons.

Allawi was the man for the job. He was in charge of a U.S.-sponsored Iraqi expatriate group called the Iraqi National Accord (INA). The first part of the operation was to create havoc in Baghdad. For months in 1995, INA agents blew up bus stops, cinemas and stores in Baghdad. At least 150 civilians were killed and many more injured.

Syndicated columnist Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun was one of the few journalists who wrote about the plan. In his column, "The Bay of Camels," of August 25, 1997, he stated, "Terrorism is bad, it seems, when used against Americans or Israelis, but fine when used against Iraqis."

The title of Margolis’ column was a mockery of the "Bay of Pigs" invasion by Cuban dissidents backed by the U.S. that turned into an embarrassing defeat. The Iraqi debacle in 1996 had similar implications, yet gained little publicity.

The Iraqis discovered who was behind the terrorist attacks and arrested INA agents in Baghdad. In addition, Iraqi special agents had already infiltrated the would-be insurgents. The scheduled invasion was doomed before it began. Infiltration by Iraqi government assets, along with a decision by the U.S. not to supply air cover, made it a non-starter.

At the time, a civil war was raging in the north of Iraq between the two largest Kurdish factions. One of their leaders, Massoud Barzani, asked Saddam Hussein for help in putting down his rivals. The payoff for Iraq was that Barzani alerted the Iraqis to the huge CIA operation in Irbil, in the north of Iraq. Iraqi troops destroyed the CIA program and helped Barzani take over Irbil, then they returned to Baghdad.

After the failed coup, Allawi was protected by the U.S. and he fled to England, although he still was a major behind-the-scenes player involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many know of the escapades of Ahmed Chalabi and his group, the INC, but Allawi was just as important to the U.S. and he continued his work for the CIA after the failed strategy to get rid of Saddam.

On November 13, 2004, The Spectator, a British publication, ran a feature by Andrew Gilligan called "The Strongman of Baghdad." According to the article:

Unlike his main rival in Iraqi exile politics, the banker Ahmed Chalabi, he (Allawi) was low-key and persuasive, hinting at highly placed contacts inside the regime who were ready to turn the West’s way. Not for the last time, Ayad Allawi was telling the British, and later the U.S. government exactly what they wanted to hear, and the CIA millions started to pour in.

The INA’s most controversial operation during this period was a campaign of what can only be termed terrorism against civilians. In 1994 and 1995, a series of bombings at cinemas, mosques and other places in Baghdad claimed up to 100 civilian lives …

In 1996, with massive CIA backing, Mr. Allawi finally got to mount his coup. It was a complete fiasco, not entirely helped by his decision to announce the supposedly top-secret operation to the Washington Post. Even before this, Saddam’s secret police had secretly seized the sophisticated encrypted satphone sent into Iraq to communicate with the coup plotters and were using it to feed disinformation to the CIA. Once the coup had been crushed and all the plotters arrested, the special line came to life one last time. It was the Iraqis, kindly ringing up the CIA to let them know it was all over.

The "ringing up the CIA" to which Gilligan refers consisted of an Iraqi officer calling a CIA agent in Amman, Jordan, who was anxiously awaiting word of how the operation was progressing. When the CIA operative answered, the Iraqi officer said, "Gotcha!"

Allawi continued to rake in the revenues from the British and American intelligence agencies. He, like Chalabi, continued to turn out the most outrageous allegations about Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The more preposterous, the better. Gilligan added:

Undaunted, Mr. Allawi kept up his contacts (and income) with the spooks and an even thirstier less discriminating audience, the British press. At top-secret meetings in London hotels, murmured conversations with selected extra-gullible hacks would produce exciting headlines in top right-wing newspapers. It was the INA, in July 2000, which fed the Sunday Telegraph the sensational scoop that Saddam had deployed crack "Mata Hari" teams of killer belly-dancers to Britain to assassinate his political opponents, a story which continues to be remembered with tears of real joy whenever Iraq-watching journalists gather to reminisce.

Allawi’s acts of terrorism, lying, and bilking the U.S. and Britain of millions of dollars were well-rewarded: he was appointed Iraq’s prime minister. As the leader of a quisling government, Allawi had virtually no support and the people of Iraq did not respect him. Even Saddam Hussein’s opponents who lived in Iraq their whole lives despised Allawi.

The U.S. spent millions of dollars listening to advice on Iraq, but those they asked for information always gave them the wrong information. Not one penny was spent on listening to the opinion of Iraqis in Iraq, not exiles living in luxury who had no idea of Iraqi attitudes. Gilligan summed it up:

The trouble, you see, with wafting in a British passport-holder from Wimbledon as your chosen leader is that he has no genuine political capital in Iraq to spend, no popular support to withstand the inevitable crises.

Let’s go back to the 1996 "Bay of Camels" debacle and look at how then President Bill Clinton handled the affair. He had to take some military action against Iraq, yet he could not admit that the U.S. ran the world’s largest CIA operation in Irbil and that it had been completely knocked out.

On September 3, 1996, Clinton told the press:

Three days ago, despite clear warnings from the United States and the international community, Iraqi forces attacked and seized the Kurdish-controlled city of Irbil in northern Iraq. The limited withdrawals announced by Iraq do not change the reality. Saddam Hussein’s army today controls Irbil and Iraqi units remain deployed for further attacks.

These acts demand a strong response and they have received one. Earlier today, I ordered American forces to strike Iraq. Our missiles sent the following message to Saddam Hussein: when you abuse your own people or threaten your neighbors you must pay a price.

There was not one word about the CIA operation or that the Iraqi army defended against an assassination attempt. The most curious aspect of Clinton’s explanation was the area in which the missiles were sent. If Iraqi troops were "abusing" the Iraqi people in Irbil in the north of Iraq, logic would say that a military response would have been conducted in the north. But, Clinton added:

First, we are expanding the no-fly zone in southern Iraq. This will deny Saddam control of Iraqi airspace from the Kuwaiti border to the southern suburbs of Baghdad and significantly restrict Iraq's ability to conduct offensive operations in the region. Second, to protect the safety of our aircraft enforcing this no-fly zone, our cruise missiles struck Saddam’s air defense capabilities in southern Iraq.

Iraq did not conduct "offensive operations" in the south. It was in the north. Even a few reporters asked why the south of Iraq was whacked when the Iraqi troops were in the north. Clinton gave a feeble excuse and the press bought it.

The reason Clinton sent any cruise missiles was because of the outcry from Congress to retaliate, but, he could not tell the truth. At the time, the press had no information about the huge CIA operation that had been destroyed.

The operation was not un-noticed by Congress. Most members knew of the CIA operation, but were tight-lipped. After the fiasco, the Democrats tried to downplay the event, while the Republicans went for the jugular.

A document from the House Republican Policy Committee, called "U.S. Intelligence Debacle Worst Since the Bay of Pigs," was released on October 8, 1996. The report was primarily an attack on Bill Clinton’s "weakness" on Iraq, but, much information was included of which the U.S. public was unaware. According to the report:

In early 1996, President Clinton signed a secret directive authorizing a covert CIA operation to unseat Saddam Hussein. He and his CIA director, John M. Deutch, pinned their hopes on a cadre of Kurdish and Iraqi agents operating inside Iraq with undercover U.S. support. In America’s largest covert operation since the successful CIA campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Deutch personally promised the effort would succeed "within a year."

But the Clinton-Deutch scheme in Iraq began to come apart in June 1996.

First, the CIA attempt to infiltrate the Republican Guard was uncovered. Reminiscent of the "exploding cigar" fiascoes targeting Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, one of the missions that Clinton approved was to plant a small bomb in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. It went off, but not while Saddam Hussein was there. The fact that the bomb at least detonated was the only success of the infiltration. Through late June and early July 1996, Iraqi security forces systematically exposed every one of the U.S.-backed officers and agents in the ranks of the Republican Guard …

… With hundreds of American-supported Kurds and Iraqis dead or imprisoned, Bill Clinton dishonestly declared victory before a credulous American public who did not know (and could not have known) what actually happened in Iraq.

Though it was the Republicans who brought out the real facts about the debacle in Irbil, they did not do so for altruistic reasons or to enlighten the U.S. public about situations in Iraq. The report was a partisan swipe at a Democrat president. In fact, before the situation turned sour, most Republicans supported the idea of trying to have Saddam Hussein overthrown from within.

The main U.S. asset, Allawi, was quickly transported out of Iraq with most of the U.S. agents. The Iraqi stooges, who thought they were being well-protected, were left defenseless against the Iraqi troops and they paid a hefty price.

Allawi is in the major leagues of terrorists. But, the U.S. has protected him and Allawi now splits his time between an expensive, well-guarded house in Jordan, and another residence in London. Some working class Moslem may get arrested in his house in the U.S. and accused of being a terrorist because of his reading material, but one of the world’s most notorious terrorists is protected by the same government that said there will be no safe haven for any terrorist in the world

THE INTEGRITY OF SADDAM HUSSEIN

It seems like an eternity since Iraq was invaded and destroyed in 2003. It’s hard to believe that less than seven years ago, Iraq was a functioning country, even though it was under an encompassing embargo. Nine months after the invasion, Saddam Hussein was kidnapped by U.S. forces and three years later, he was hanged by a bunch of masked cowards. This three-year period gave a chance for the world to see the real Saddam Hussein: a man of integrity who would not abandon his cause of Iraqi independence.

In November 2006, everyone heard the verdict that Saddam Hussein will be hanged. And, many people read the obligatory remarks from the stooge Iraqi government and the U.S. and U.K. governments. I will not get involved with these idiotic statements. All those who praised the decision did not take into consideration that the verdict would make Iraq a much more deadly place that it already was.

I will talk about Saddam Hussein, the man. This is not a history of his regime, but a view of him and his steadfastness after April 9, 2003.

To me, it is hard to conceive how a man of his age endured more than a lifetime of hardship, torture and personal bereavement in less than four years without losing his mental faculties or selling out to his opponents.

In July 2003, Saddam Hussein saw photos of his two dead sons on television. Their bodies were ridden with bullet holes. His 14-year-old grandson was killed along with his sons in the hours-long attack on a house by hundreds of U.S. military personnel. The U.S. government probably considered it to be in bad taste to exhibit the grandson’s body on television.

In December 2003, Saddam was kidnapped by U.S. forces. However, he was not found in a "spider hole" as the commonly-accepted myth states. He was surrounded in a friend’s house by U.S. Marines. For a while, he fought it out with the Marines, but finally surrendered because he and his friend were well-outnumbered.

For the next two days, Saddam was drugged and tortured. Then, the U.S. administration showed a disheveled Saddam to the world in an attempt to denigrate him. Although he had been captured two days earlier in a house, the administration made it appear that the pictures they showed of Saddam were taken on the spot of his apprehending. The attempt at degradation backfired. Within minutes of the pictures being shown in Iraq, thousands took to the streets in pro-Saddam demonstrations.

For the next few months, he was not allowed to see a lawyer. In that time, he was tortured and questioned. Also, he was offered deals by the U.S. that would get him an "out of jail free" pass if he cooperated. He never capitulated to their whims.

Saddam Hussein was not allowed to see his family. Most of his correspondence to them was either not delivered, or highly censored. By now, most humans would be willing to say anything their captors desired.

One day, I was talking to my friend Frank Morrow who produced the finest political show ever on U.S. television: Alternative Views. We discussed how Manuel Noriega collapsed in a few days in U.S. incarceration and spilled his guts. Frank said to me, "Saddam is made of sterner stuff." He could not have been more accurate.

On his first day in court, Saddam was a few minutes late. The judge asked him why he was not on time and Saddam told him that the elevators of the building were not working. The judge then said he would ask the Americans to try to fix the faulty lifts. Saddam looked the judge in the eye and said, "Don’t ask them. You tell them. You are an Iraqi." The judge was silent. The accused prisoner had to give him a lesson in citizenship.

We have read page-after-page of the illegality of Saddam’s trials. The anomalies are far too many to address in this column. However, with each preposterous turn, Saddam kept his ground and never capitulated to the court.

For months, every conceivable scenario emerged: Saddam was dragged out of court; his lawyers were kicked out of court; defense witnesses were tortured by the court; the judge destroyed a videotape that clearly showed the head prosecutor was lying; and Saddam and a few of his comrades went on hunger strikes.

Still, he showed up in court with the wit and physical appearance of a man decades younger. All the atrocities committed against him never made him appear to be desperate and he never showed signs of caving in.

Headlines of the day portrayed outrage from various groups, individuals and governments over the verdict. Many tried to get the U.N. to intervene in the fiasco, but the chances of justice were slim to none.

I read many quotes from Saddam’s foes and friends after the verdict. Two stick out. The most preposterous comes from the traitor Nouri al-Maliki, the so-called Iraqi prime minister:

This ruler has committed the most horrible crimes. He executed the best scientists, academics and thinkers.

The statement is so incredible that most people who read it will believe it. Since Maliki’s appointment, we read about hundreds of professors, scientists and doctors being killed in Iraq by agents of the Malaki government. During Saddam’s time, these professionals flourished and were the pride of Iraq. Malaki has now added them to the long list of fictitious victims of Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Here’s a very courageous quote from Haitham, a 42-year-old resident of Mosul:

I feel sad for Saddam, we have wronged him. We did not support him but now, after what we have seen, what has happened since he was toppled, it has become clear to us that he was the best man in the world.

Shortly after the verdict, I received a message from someone who is knowledgeable about occurrences on the ground in Iraq. It stated:

We learned that demonstrations are all over Iraq in protest of the sentence.

In Baghdad, American soldiers are busy painting over the slogans that people wrote on the walls and in intersections.

I am sending you some pictures. These are only a sample of what is going on.

Of course, the U.S. press did show any of these photos.

In the U.S., we have the term "family values" shoved down our throats. But, it does not apply to those who are not U.S. citizens. We have already seen how the U.S. treated Saddam’s sons and grandson. One company, called "Herbuilders" quickly produced a doll for kids to play with called "Uday, Dead on Arrival," that showed bullet holes and blood. I can only imagine how quickly this company would be put out of business and charged with a criminal offense if it offered the same doll depicting a U.S. soldier.

The U.S. government (Republican and Democrat alike) are the monsters, not Saddam Hussein. They are perverted and have an affinity for violence and delight in showing the bodies of dead enemies like they are trophies. But, the same people are aghast if someone utters an obscenity or make a joke about the president of the U.S. They are the misfits in the world who should be subjected to a show trial and then unceremoniously dropped into a hole in the ground. This is their version of "family values."

THEY GOT THE WRONG GUYS

On Monday, January 25, 2010, Ali Hassain al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali" was hanged by Iranian-backed Iraqi stooges. Slightly more than thee years ago, Iraq’s President, Saddam Hussein, was executed as well be the same Iran-lovers. Both shared the dubious title of having gassed Iraq’s Kurdish population at Halabjah in 1988. However, few people in the West checked out any facts to verify the guilt or innocence of the two Iraqi leaders.

THe most damaging and damning incident for the Iraqi leadership was the gassing of Halabjah, a Kurdish town, in 1988. Halabjah came under attack with chemicals and the world saw the tragedy as people were strewn on the streets. However, the media did not pay a great amount of attention to the incident and it quickly was replaced in the international press.

In the buildup to Desert Storm, Bush I took the Halabjah gassing out of the closet and he made great strides in gaining support for a military conclusion to the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq. All of a sudden we heard him tell the world, "He gasses his own people."

That statement was made so many times by administration officials that it became a household cliché. The problem is that no one ever checked out its authenticity. A few months after Desert Storm, Greenpeace published an in-depth study called On Impact about the reasons for the Gulf War massacre and how, in the future, war should be a last option instead of a first choice. A portion of the report covered the demonizing of the Iraqi leadership. It brought out many lies Bush used to persuade the world to support military intervention. Then, it addressed the Halabjah incident and threw doubt on whose military forces attacked the town with chemical weapons. On Impact quoted two writers from the U.S. Army War College who wrote a book called Iraqi Power and Security in the Middle East. They concluded:

The first attack occurred at Halabjah in north-central Iraq. All accounts of this incident agree that the victims’ mouths and extremities were blue. This is consonant with the use of a blood agent. Iraq never used blood agents throughout the war (Iran-Iraq War). Iran did … hence, we concluded it was the Iranian’s gas that killed the Kurds.

This short statement is devastating in many aspects. If doubt is cast on who gassed the Kurds, many people in American politics will not come out smelling squeaky clean on the issue of integrity. A considerable number of persons stated: "I would not support a war except that Saddam gassed his own people." .

A document from the U.S. Marine Corps contradicted the popular belief of Saddam Hussein being the perpetrator of the gassing incident at Halabjah. On December 10, 1990, a little over a month before Desert Storm began, a document titled "Marine Corps Historical Publication FMFRP 3-203" was released. The main topic was "Lessons Learned: Iran-Iraq War." Appendix B referred to "Chemical Weapons." The report went into the Iraqi use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War and concluded that Iraq used mustard gas, a non-lethal agent, to disperse human waves of Iranian soldiers. Then, it approached the gassing of the Kurds at Halbjah:

Similarly, we find no evidence whatsoever that the Iraqis have ever employed blood gasses such as cyanogen chloride or hydrogen cyanide.

Blood agents were allegedly responsible for the most infamous use of chemicals in the war — the killing of Kurds at Halabjah. Since the Iraqis have no history of using these two agents — and the Iranians do — we conclude that the Iranians perpetrated this attack. It is also worth noting that lethal concentrations of cyanogen are difficult to obtain over an area target, thus the reports of 5,000 Kurds dead in Halabjah are suspect.

It is unlikely that the U.S. Marine Corps would tell its troops, who were about to face combat, a lie perpetrated by propaganda. It was okay for Bush to con the world, but the Marines attempted to research the incident and get its people ready for battle.

The fact that the U.S. Marines "concluded" that Iran gassed the Kurds of Halbjah was not the only striking portion of this document. It questioned the number of deaths. Researchers have come forward who state that several hundred bodies were found, not 5,000.

By 2002, various individuals had time to dissect the reality of Halabjah and in the buildup to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, many came forward to challenge the "he gasses his own people" statement. Included in the naysayers were retired CIA analysts, retired military personnel, journalists and others. They uncovered much proof to show that Iran may have gassed the Halabjah Kurds.

Stephen Pelletiere was the CIA senior analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. From the gassing incident at Halabjah until today, he maintains that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds. On January 31, 2003, the New York Times published a commentary by Pelletiere called "A War Crime or an Act of War?" The article dispelled many myths about the "he gasses his own people" statement:

The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its citizens is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people," specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.

But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story.

I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.

Pelletiere mentioned many other aspects of the battle in which Halabjah was positioned between the Iraqi and Iranian forces. He also delved into the importance of Halabjah’s location because of water systems and the nearby Darbandikhan Dam. Pelletiere added:

And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent — that is, a cyanide-based gas — which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.

These facts have long been in the public domain but, extraordinarily, as often as the Halabja affair is cited, they are rarely mentioned.

Pelletiere’s piece raised only a few eyebrows, yet it was comprehensive and accurate. The administration had already put forth so much propaganda that the truth was not going to be approached by the mainstream media. Pelletiere’s account should have been the pivotal subject on all the talk shows and in the print media, but it was largely ignored. He concluded:

Before we go to war over Halabja, the administration owes the American people the full facts. And if it has other examples of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds, it must show that they were not pro-Iranian Kurdish guerrillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities, why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?

The basic facts of what happened in Halabjah have been corroborated by the CIA, the U.S. Army War College, and the United States Intelligence Agency. Mohammed al-Obaidi, a university professor in the United Kingdom, who was born and educated in Baghdad, brings up these facts as well as the more recent assessment of the U.S. government that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds in his article of December 20, 2004, titled "What Happened in Kurdish Halabjah?" that was published by various Internet media:

Iran overran the village and its small Iraqi garrison on 15 March 1988. The gassing took place on 16 March and onwards; who is then responsible for the deaths — Iran or Iraq — and how large was the death toll knowing the Iranian army was in Halabja but never reported any deaths by chemicals?

Having control of the village and its grisly dead, Iran blamed the gas deaths on the Iraqis, and the allegations of Iraqi genocide took root via a credulous international press and, a little later, cynical promotion of the allegations for political purposes by the US State Department and Senate.

After 15 years of support to the allegations of HRW, the CIA finally admitted in its report published in October 2003 that only mustard gas and a nerve agent was used by Iraq.

The CIA now seems to be fully supporting the US Army War College report of April 1990, as a cyanide-based blood agent that Iraq never had, and not mustard gas or a nerve agent, killed the Kurds who died at Halabja and which concludes that the Iranians perpetrated that attack as a media war tactic.

The late Jude Wanniski was relentless in his pursuit of the truth about Iraq. He was an unlikely ally because he was a conservative author and journalist and at one time the associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. However, he possessed unbreakable integrity and truth meant more to him than a political stance.

Wanniski wrote hundreds of thousands of words about Iraq and challenged any journalist who relayed the falsehoods of Iraq to clarify his/her research. None responded. In addition, he issued the same invitation to every U.S. politician who had denigrated Iraq using false information. The result was the same as with the journalists.

On February 18, 2004, Wanniski wrote a column called "Defending Saddam, not President Bush." He stated:

One of the things history shows us over and over again is that men and women who were thought to be EVIL incarnate in their own day — and had to be exterminated — are not so bad in hindsight. I’ve told my family and friends these last several years that I really wish information would be unearthed to show that Saddam Hussein did all the evil things he has been accused of doing, so I could shed my defense of him. Until that happens, I am stuck with him.

Jude Wanniski was on top of the Iraq issue like no one else. I have written about the date of July 18, 2004 being one of extreme importance because Tony Blair announced to the world that 5,000 bodies had been found in mass graves in Iraq, not the 400,000 he had told the world in November 2004. Before this statement had time to be uploaded to the Internet, Wanniski sent me this message: "I suppose you saw that Downing Street now says "5000" bodies have been unearthed, not 400,000. JW."

The relentless search for truth was paramount with Wanniski. He died at his computer while writing an article about Iraq on August 29, 2005. The world lost an incredible human being who defied his own acquaintances with his principled stand.

There are a couple of issues that should make anyone with an inquisitive mind question the story-line of various U.S. administrations about Halabjah. First, many pictures and videos have been shown of Iraqi planes and helicopters in the air that supposedly unleashed the gas on the Kurds. The problem with this scenario is that the gas was dispersed by artillery, not from the air. Artillery rounds were found to be the culprit, not bombs.

Secondly, not one person from the Iraqi military has come forth to say he was involved with the operation: not one pilot, nor a supply person, nor a truck driver, nor a clerk. There was, and probably still is, a huge amount of cash awaiting an Iraqi military participant in the gassing of the Kurds who will come forward. The oft-said statement that "Saddam would kill him or his family" is no longer relevant. This lack of someone claiming the bounty is probably the best evidence to refute the general impression that "he gasses his own people."

Ali Majid got caught up in the propaganda and was dubbed "Chemical Ali" by the Western press. However, no one in Iraq ever called him that. Most Iraqis, whether pro or anti-Saddam did not believe the gassing of the Kurds was committed by Iraqi troops. They were befuddled by such stories put forth by Western news sources.

Those who put the hangman’s noose on both Saddam Hussein and Ali Majid are far more responsible for the gassing of the Kurds than Saddam or Ali ever were.

THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER

As we approach the third anniversary of the murder of President Saddam Hussein by U.S. and Iranian-backed cowards, the current stooge prime minister of Iraq, Maliki, is sparing no effort in attempting to erase the memory of Saddam and the Ba’ath Party from Iraq’s collective remembrance. Most leaders who are killed in a coup or an invasion of a foreign country usually have their corpses paraded around for the people to throw things at, or they are buried in some junk heap in a landfill and forgotten. Not so with Saddam. His memory and his accomplishments are alive and well in the psyche of millions of Iraqis.

On December 5, 2009. Al-Jazeera News ran an article called "Longing for Saddam in Kikrit." It began:

For a few months, Maliki has blamed every act of violence in Iraq on Saddam Hussein supporters, despite most being conducted by his own government. A day does not go by without Maliki denigrating Saddam Hussein. He is obsessed. The main reason for this preoccupation is that Maliki realizes the Iraqi people are much more proud of Saddam than himself. Jealously prevails.

The following is a recent article I wrote that goes into detail about how Maliki is trying to make Saddam’s memory disappear. His methods are not working.

First, they took his name out of Iraqi history books. Then, they made a criminal charge that constitutes a two-year prison sentence for displaying a picture of him in public. Now, the Iraqi government has banned people from visiting Saddam Hussein’s grave.

According to an article in Al-Jazeera News of July 6, 2009, titled "Iraq Bans Visits to Saddam’s Grave:"

First, for years we heard Saddam and his sons called "butchers" by the West. But, the remains of him and his sons indicate the most brutal form of butchery. His sons were chopped to pieces by hundreds of bullets and artillery shells, while Saddam’s body was defiled by rabid Iran supporters after he was hanged. The imagery of butchery lives in the graves of the Hussein family, but it was butchery imposed by outsiders, not by Saddam and his sons.

Last week, I gave a speech at San Diego State University to a class of Professor Khaleel Mohammed, a well-known expert on Islam. The kids were mostly aged from 18-21 and most did not even remember the March 2003 invasion of Iraq because of their young age at the time.

I spoke about the re-writing of Iraq’s history in Washington, D.C. by U.S. personnel and how the history books were blank from the years 1968 to 2005. Most of the students seemed skeptical of my assessment. They could not believe the U.S. would pull such dirty tricks.

The professor injected a statement. He told of his being a professor in Toronto at the time of the invasion and that he was contacted by the U.S. government to discuss the subject of Iraq’s education. They flew him to Washington, D.C. and offered him a top post in the program of re-writing Iraqi history. He said the salary they offered was astronomical. But, once the discussions began, he knew this was not a job he could perform. He was told that Iraqi history was to be re-written in Washington and it must reflect U.S. propaganda and turn the Iraqi education system into a carbon copy of the U.S. system. The professor said he refused because he would not be able to live with himself if he participated in such a venture.

Then, he pointed to a middle-aged woman in the class and said, "We have an Iraqi in class who went through the times of Saddam. What is your opinion?" She said that she learned more in the seventh grade in Iraq than she has at a top U.S. university. I asked her when she graduated from Baghdad University and she replied, "1985." She then said she taught high school for a few years. But, her next statement kind of shocked the students, most of whom only knew what U.S. propaganda had thrust on the public. She said, "In those days, we had freedom. Under Saddam, we had total freedom. Not so today. My niece, a Christian, has to be fully-veiled when she leaves the house, despite it being against her beliefs. Plus, what there is of an education system today in Iraq is pathetic."

Today, I sent Professor Mohammed the Al-Jazeera article about banning visitors from Saddam’s graveside. Here is his response:

This is not the first time people were stopped from visiting Saddam’s grave. On the first anniversary of his death, thousands were not allowed to pay tribute. According to an article in The Times of London, called , "Thousands Prevented from Visiting Saddam Tomb on Anniversary of Execution," and published on December 30, 2007:

In December 2003, after the announcement of Saddam’s capture by U.S. troops, the streets of Baghdad were filled with pro-Saddam supporters. The following day, U.S. military personnel surrounded a Baghdad school, Adnan Kheiralla Boy’s School, and dragged about 40 students by their hair and held them for a couple of days in cages. Their crime? They had a picture of Saddam Hussein in their class.

Such actions are not indicative of a "democratic" society, one that was forced on Iraq by the U.S. The other day, I saw an automobile bumper sticker with the words "Free Iraq" on it, commemorating the new democratic Iraq. Another sticker, on the other side of the bumper, heralded the praising of Jesus for freeing the Iraqis.

If Saddam is such a spent force, why are the stooges in Baghdad so bent on denying his existence or stopping people from visiting his grave, or even mentioning his name? Logic tells us that if the denigration was true, the Iraqi quislings would promote Saddam’s "brutal legacy." Plus, Maliki is very jealous. Saddam’s presence could command hundreds of thousands of people to show up to listen to his greetings to the Iraqi people. If Maliki gave a public speech, he couldn’t get a swarm of flies to attend even if he had barrels of honey surrounding him.

Today, the "Arab street’ considers Saddam Hussein as one of the greatest leaders in Arab history, arguably the greatest in modern times. Even some of his critics from before the March 2003 invasion are now speaking of his foresight. In my book, The Mother of All Battles: The Endless U.S.-Iraq War, I include a speech given by Saddam Hussein at the Amman Summit in Amman, Jordan on February 24, 1990. Point-by-point, he laid out the future of the Arab world if it did not recognize and resist U.S. plans for domination of the Arab entity. The leaders did not listen, but the Arab people did. Today, they see that speech as the blueprint for U.S. hegemony in the Arab world. It’s too bad the leaders did not take the message to heart.

News analyst and Middle Eastern expert, Husayn al-Kurdi passed on his comment today about the ridiculous decree that makes it illegal to visit Saddam’s grave:

One thing is a fact that upsets the pretenders in Baghdad: no matter how many laws are enacted or how many arrests are made, the Iraqi people will not forget Saddam Hussein and the accomplishments of his leadership and those of the Ba’ath Party. The more they try to eliminate Saddam’s memory, the more they fail. Saddam made Iraq worth fighting for.

A BLACK CAT IN A DARK ROOM

In Britain, hearings are being held about the lies leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. At first, the commission members attempted to whitewash all the incidents. But, parents of those killed in Iraq have put enough pressure on the commission to get at least some truth out. In the past week or so, they have changed their tune and have admitted to much of what we already knew, but it’s the first time public figures of the government of Britain are telling a portion of the truth. There is so much pressure being put on them, that they have opened up subjects, albeit mostly to save their own careers. The publicity being given these hearings is loud enough that if the commission members kept on lying, their falsities would be published in every newspaper in the country.

However, there is still one issue they evade: the fact that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) since 1992. Their statements say that they ignored information that Iraqi WMD may be degraded by 2002 and they would be of no use. Another swerve is that they say that Iraq lacked the delivery systems for WMD and could not use them. They still will not admit there were no WMD in Iraq and it was irrelevant whether the Iraqis had proper delivery systems. If there is nothing to deliver, the question of delivery is null and void.

The front page of the Baghdad Observer of June 11, 1995 is just one of the items that proves Iraq had no WMD. It shows a picture of Saddam Hussein in the middle, flanked by two articles ("Iraq’s Cooperation with UN Must Be Rewarded" and "Iraq Pins Hope on Next SC Report to UN Council") in which it is clearly stated the Iraq said all its WMD were destroyed. However, even this message has been tweaked by current journalists, historians, and politicians. After the embarrassment of not finding even one gram of WMD, the new story line was that Saddam hoodwinked the world by keeping them thinking Iraq had WMD when it didn’t. If this was the case, I doubt the two articles of the front page of the Baghdad Observer would display Saddam with two articles discussing the destruction of the country’s WMD in 1991 and 1992.

When one looks back at statements and articles by Iraqis during the period of 1991 to 2003, it is uncanny how accurate they were. On the other hand, much of what the U.S. put forward has been shown to be outright lies.

For instance, in October 2002, the U.S. issued a document called "Key Judgements: National Intelligence Estimate." It concluded that Iraq was constantly developing its stockpile of WMD and, at times, maintained that the 2002 inventory of Iraqi WMD may be larger than that of the country prior to 1991. The report included many doomsday scenarios.

This document was publicised world-wide. Virtually every daily newspaper in the U.S. carried it, or excerpts from it. Many foreign countries saw it as well and it helped convince some leaders who were on the fence about whether to support a war or not to come aboard the U.S. ship. In looking at the document today, one would have a hard time finding even one bit of truth. Even U.S. administration officials admitted it was way off; after the illegal invasion, of course.

On the other hand, in November 2002, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, sent a letter to the Unite Nations refuting the report. Then, he gave in detail the standing of Iraq in regards to its WMD. He mentioned when they were destroyed and how programs were never re-started. The U.S. called the letter a big lie and condemned the Iraqis for again trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the world. In looking at the letter today, it is extremely accurate in every detail.

Sabri's letter received little attention, other than the obligatory denouncement by the U.S. Few people read it.

When Iraq and the U.S. shared diplomatic ties in the 1980s, Nizar Hamdoon was the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S. In Washington, he was well-regarded and built many friendships. In the 1990s, with no diplomatic ties between the two countries, Hamdoon was called back to action and served as the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.N. In 2000, he was replaced and called back to Baghdad to serve in the Foreign Service.

Hamdoon was very visible in the U.S. and many people remember him from television appearances, although he was usually lambasted by interviewers. His was a lonely job. On July 4, 2003, a few months after the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq, Hamdoon died of cancer.

Let's to back to the latter part of 1998. The U.S. was accusing Iraq of concealing the most deadly chemicals on Earth and in December, Clinton ordered the bombing of Iraq and called the procedure Operation Desert Fox. Most people remember this as the "Iraq/U.N. standoff." Even the method of removing the inspectors from Iraq was a lie. The U.N. ordered the inspectors from Iraq a few days before the bombing, yet the U.S. always stated that Saddam Hussein kicked them out.

During this time, Nizar Hamdoon wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times called "A Black Cat in a Dark Room." The paper carried it, yet few people took it seriously. Go back to the time and refresh your memory and you will see how exact and precise Hamdoon was in his assessment. He did not lie, yet few listened. He clearly stated that Iraq was free of WMD.

"A BLACK CAT IN A DARK ROOM"

by Nizar Hamdoon

Much has been said and published about recent standoffs between Iraq and the United Nations arms inspectors. But those criticizing Iraq for suspending its cooperation with the United Nations special commission on arms inspection, better known as Unscom, give no recognition whatsoever to the underlying reason that led Iraq to adopt this position. It is time to set the record straight.

First, the whole world knows by now that Iraq has lost well over a million of its people as a direct result of the sanctions that have been in place for eight years. A former president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, was chillingly correct when he called sanctions a "peaceful, silent and deadly remedy." U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright herself characterized them as "the toughest multilateral sanctions in history." Many critics seem to think the government of Iraq is supposed to stand idle while watching a whole generation of its people melt away like snowflakes.

Second, Iraq has complied with all the fundamental requirements of disarmament in Security Council Resolution 687. Unscom itself admitted this reality in its April 11, 1997 report to the Security Council when it said, "The accumulated effect of the work that has been accomplished over six years since the cease fire went into effect between Iraq and the coalition is such that not much is unknown about Iraq's proscribed weapons capabilities." But the United States and Britain refuse to recognize this fact. Their role in preventing the Security Council from closing the clearly done nuclear file a few months ago is a case in point.

The disagreement between Iraq and the inspectors is not on existing weapons. No weapons or sites have been discovered by the Unscom inspectors on their own since 1991. Those that have been found have been produced by the Iraqi government itself. Rather, the recent disputes involve paper documentation that precedes the gulf war. Those issues can be pursued in the context of the already established ongoing monitoring regime.

There are two main questions that need to be asked when assessing Iraq's compliance with disarmament requirements: does Iraq still possess proscribed weapons or the means to produce them, and is the monitoring process working? The answer is no to the first, yes to the second. Unscom's allegations about documentation are nothing but excuses to manufacture a crisis whenever one is needed to prolong the sanctions.

Iraq has said all along that there must be a creative way to reconcile the two goals: the need for more documentation and the easing of the suffering of the Iraqi people. Unscom, unfortunately, is insisting on everything or nothing.

Iraq will never be able to satisfy Unscom because it is being asked to prove the negative: that it does not have any more weapons. There is, of course, no way Iraq can prove that it has nothing if it has nothing. How many more Iraqis will have to die because Richard Butler's team has not yet found another document, which cannot be located because there is no such document in the first place? The inspectors are searching for a black cat in a dark room where the cat does not exist.

Third, many American officials have stated that even if Iraq complies with the Security Council's resolutions, the United States will not approve the lifting of sanctions. The declared goal of Washington is to remove the current government of Iraq. We wonder of this goal is in line with the letter and spirit of international law and the United Nations resolutions. Iraq continues to believe that the resolutions are used by the United States as a cover for an illegal political agenda. The allocation of money to the Central Intelligence Agency for subversion in Iraq is just a unit in this series. One might wonder why Iraq should continue being part of this futile and endless game.

Fourth, Ms. Albright claims that every Iraqi receives a daily ration basket equivalent to the recommended caloric intake of the average American. Perhaps she needs to review the latest reports by the United Nations and other organizations which state that millions of Iraqi children and women are still suffering and that the oil-for-food program is not adequate. For instance, the 1998 World Disaster Report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies described Iraq as a country under siege and said 16 to 27 percent of the population is malnourished.

Finally, many high-ranking American officials keep speaking about Iraq as being a threat to American interests and the region. We would like to assure these officials, and through them the American people, that Iraqi is eager to live in peace with its neighbors and the world. But Iraq will not submit to intimidation, bullying and coercion. Peace will come only through dialogue based on mutual respect for the principles of independence, sovereignty and the observance of international law.

COLUMBUS AND APPLES

"In fourteen ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," began the annual ditty in U.S. elementary schools in the 1950s and 1960s. Reciting this poem was an obligatory performance that was followed by the kids taking out their Crayola crayons and illustrating Columbus and his three ships; the Nina, the Pinta and he Santa Maria.

All the depictions of Columbus showed an honorable and brave man: one worthy of the accolades given him. For years, the common question in kids’ schools was, "Who discovered America?" Naturally, the answer was "Columbus."

We just had a federal holiday in the U.S. in honor of the great navigator. However, for the past few years, the size and number of celebrations of Columbus have diminished considerably.

After some years, it became evident that Columbus did not discover anything. People with villages, governments, trading operations and transportation were already there. Then, we learn that Columbus was in the wrong place. He thought he had reached India, hence the misnomer of Indians being thrust on the native population.

What Columbus did was open up a route for European nations to follow in his footsteps and travel to North and South America. Instead of Columbus being the discoverer of America, he, in fact, was the first soldier in the battle for stealing North and South America from its inhabitants. When the smoke cleared, about 30 million Native Americans had died because of the European explorers and their following generations. Some Native Americans were outright killed by weapons and others died from diseases they had never encountered. Columbus was the initiator of one of the most deadly holocausts in world history, only being outdone by the deaths of African-Americans in the slave trade over the centuries.

Once the initial discovery of Native Americans was heralded, the Catholic Church became involved. Instead of just plundering the Western Hemisphere of its riches, the native savages had to be converted to Christianity. If they refused, they were killed. If they accepted, they were allowed to live in slavery.

In my area of southern California, there was a large number of Native Americans who belonged to the Kumeyaay tribe. They were devastated. Their villages were burned and many were killed. The survivors who chose the path of Christianity were enslaved in the Catholic missions and on ranches.

Instead of being ashamed of such a past, there are many missions throughout California that are kept up as tourist attractions. San Diego has several missions from the 18^th century that welcome tourists from all over the world. Even the city’s major league baseball team denotes this past: the San Diego Padres. The team logo shows a priest (padre) wearing the typical clothing of the heyday of the missions.

For years, Columbus Day has been a holiday in the United States. Almost every community holds a parade. The Italian-American clubs, the Knights of Columbus, and the Sons of Italy all come out in commemoration of their most notorious national hero.

In the 1990s, however, things began to change. In 1991 in San Diego, a counter Columbus Day parade occurred on the border with Mexico. Thousands attended, especially those San Diegans of Hispanic heritage. Since then, the annual parade and demonstration has outdrawn the official Columbus Day parade held in downtown San Diego.

Three years ago, Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, had heard enough about the merits of Christopher Columbus. That year, October 12, in Venezuela, was officially called "Indian Liberation Day." This has been a very popular change in Venezuela. Bolivia is also attempting to set the record straight. On October 12 of 2006 year, Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, held a conference with Native American delegates from all over North and South America.

Let’s get back to San Diego. The once strong Kumeyaay tribe has been splintered into smaller segments; each with a name and the Kumeyaay designation. For instance, those Native Americans living in the Lakeside area of the county are the Barona Band of the Kumeyaay Nation. Other local tribes are the Campo tribe, the Sycuan tribe, the Jamul tribe and the La Posta tribe. They are all Kumeyaay, but have been split by the white man.

In the early 1990s, all the San Diego tribes were dirt poor. Then, they became involved with casinos. Today, most are very rich and have powerful political clout. After all, they donate much money to local economies and offer thousands of jobs.

With this quick turnaround, one would think it would have helped the Native Americans restore some of the pride they lost centuries ago. This has not been the case.

The Barona tribe now has a huge casino; a multilevel luxury hotel; a championship 18-hole golf course; and several gourmet restaurants. They are rolling in money. After the expansion, the Barona tribe officially called its business ventures "Barona Ranch and Casino." To a Native American, the term "ranch" is identical to that of "plantation" for an African-American. It should be the last thing they would want to call themselves. Imagine an African-American restaurant calling itself "The Plantation." The logic of the Barona tribe eludes me.

Let’s go to the Campo tribe. In 1991, one of their committee members told me that Native Americans have two days a year that are devastating to their pride: Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. He was very upset how mainstream America celebrates these holidays with no thought to the feelings of Native Americans.

In September 1992, the Campo tribe purchased the weekly newspaper of which I was the editor. This was the first adjudicated newspaper in the U.S. owned by a Native American tribe.

I thought this was a wonderful mix. The tribe kept me on as editor and I assumed I would be able to write about Native American history and other sociological issues concerning natives. Each day, I would hear tribal committee members denigrate white people. Most of the time, they were right and I agreed with them. "The lying white man," "The white man’s justice," etc. were terms that I heard frequently.

I wrote a feature article concerning the prior year’s anti-Columbus Day parade and thought the committee would like it. They were now the publishers, so I showed them my articles before they went into the design stage of the newspaper. When they read my article, which actually was quite mild, they went through the roof. "We can’t print this," said the chairman. I asked, "Why?" He bellowed, "It will upset the white man." The prior publishers (two middle-aged apolitical white women) would have had no problem with the article.

I had two emotions after this experience. The first was the hypocrisy of denigrating the white man and then not wanting to publish an article that may "upset the white man." The second was a sadness of the total lack of pride these Native Americans had.

Before the Campo tribe bought the paper, I learned of a term for Indians who suck up to the white man: apple. An apple is red on the outside and white on the inside. A similar analogy would be the term "Oreo" that was affixed to African-Americans who cowered to the white man decades ago: an Oreo (an American snack item) is black on the outside and white on the inside.

My days at the newspaper were numbered. It folded a few weeks later because of a total lack of competence on the part of the publishers. But, I saw first-hand what an "apple" was and it was disgusting.

Since then, the Campo tribe has gained money from its own casino. Many once-poor Native Americans are now experiencing a fruitful life in southern California. However, the spokespeople for the tribes now sound like Rush Limbaugh. They support and sponsor many pro-war demonstrations and parades and tell how proud they are to be Americans. I have spoken to a few tribal members who are not on committees and they have told me of their disgust of the hypocrisy of their leaders solely to gain financial benefits.

And, here’s the biggest irony: the first building one sees when he/she enters most of the San Diego County tribal lands is a huge Catholic Church.

THE DAY THE COLD WAR CAME TO LA MESA

In 1983, I moved back to my home country, the United States, after having spent the prior eight years living in England and The Netherlands. What I thought would be a seamless transition of culture has turned into a 26-year odyssey. The country had changed immensely from 1975, the year I left for Europe. I am still trying to find out what went wrong.

In addition, I moved to one of the most conservative areas of the nation: San Diego County.

By 1984, I saved enough money to open my own business. In the U.S. I had worked in the sporting goods trade for years, so I thought this would be a natural business for me to start. Because the weather is almost tropical in the area, golf and tennis are played year-round, so I highlighted those two sports.

I found an area of La Mesa, a small city bordering San Diego, that had a quaint look to it and was not as commercial-looking as the numerous strip malls. Little did I know that this portion of La Mesa was distrustful of outsiders and was laden with racists.

I went to the city hall and gathered the paperwork necessary for the knowledge of building codes. My building fit all the necessary rules. Most of the businesses were painted in a dull beige or rust color, so I decided to turn mine into a tri-shade of blue, both inside and outside.

About a week after I opened the business, I received a call from a city official. She was terse and asked, "When are you going to paint your building?" I explained that I had just finished the painting. Then, she said it was the wrong color. We went back-and-forth over this and she admitted that there was no stipulation about the color, but the area tried to keep its "traditional" look intact. Fifty years prior, there was only a dirt road in the area, so I told her, "The only traditional look of La Mesa would be tepees and covered wagons." She was irate.

I could see now that some of the local businesses were trying to undermine me. When I went to get my business license, the city planning board denied it. When I asked why, they said, "Your sign is on a building wall and our rules stipulate that a sign must not be a part of a building wall."

I went back to my store and checked out their allegations. My sign consisted of several sheets of plywood erected above the building wall and held up by wooden planks inserted at an angle into the roof. Then, I checked out other businesses in the area and discovered that about 90% of them were out of code. My store was one of the few that adhered strictly to the code. I went to the library and found a document from an international meeting in 1913 that set the standards of a building wall for international interpretation.

I again visited the planning commission and told them that my sign was not part of the building wall. One member said, "We say it is." I then opened up the document explaining the definition of a building wall and they all turned their heads away and one said, "We don’t want to see it." When I mentioned that 90% of the businesses in the area were out-of-code, they told me, "We don’t care. We’re talking about you business, not anybody else’s.

I knew a lawyer in San Diego from the law firm for which my wife worked as a paralegal. I told her my story. She said, "Let me make a call." A few minutes later, she called me and told me to pick up my business license. In her discussion with the planning group, she brought up the point of "prejudicial application of the law" and inferred a lawsuit was imminent. The planning group quickly changed its assessment of my business.

I had a nice business going; nothing to make me rich, but I met a lot of people and thew work was interesting. Soon after I opened, an incident occurred that did not sit well with the other business owners. A black customer bought a set of golf clubs from me and soon after, many black customers came into my store with business card in hand. The first black customer spread the word that there was a golf shop that wouldn’t screw black customers.

The section of La Mesa in which I was located saw very few black people. If one happened to be walking down the street, every business owner would stand in front of his/her store and give a dirty look, letting the black person know he/she was not welcome in this area of town. When blacks began to become regular customers, I would wait until they got in my store and then take a walk out front. Sure enough, there were store owners staring at my store. I used to holler, "Anything wrong? Is my store on fire or something?" Quickly, the cowards disappeared into their own businesses.

By 1988, I had variuos interesting regular customers who stopped my almost daily just to talk. They were not the standard conservative element that inhabited the area. Some were black; some had long hair and beards; some males had pony tails; and some of the females did not dress in the subdued manner that was expected in La Mesa. But, the owners begrudgingly accepted me and I did not confront them unless confronted first.

A rumor was spreading that a major movie was in progress and the street on which my store was located would be the scene of a glorious parade in which the hero rode at the head of the parade with the city mayor. I called the La Mesa Chamber of Commerce and was told this was true. Then, I asked if the movie company would be compensating the business owners for the wear and tear that their buildings would suffer. The Chamber said that the production company would not compensate any business.

I then called the movie company. An official stated that about $10,000 was allocated to the La Mesa Chamber of Commerce for the use of the portion of La Mesa Boulevard where my store was located. I smelled a rat. It was evident that the La Mesa Chamber president, Gordon Austin, who was slicker than 10 eels, would pocket the money along with one or two accomplices.

I asked about the storyline of the movie and the company told me that Sidney Poitier and River Phoenix were the stars and that Richard Benjamin was to be the director and the title was "Little Nikita." This was no amateur production. They added that River Phoenix was to play a U.S. teenager about to embark on a college career and he discovered his parents were Soviet spies. Poitier was the FBI person who would unveil the plot and Phoenix would turn his parents in. And, Gordon Austin, the CEO of the La Mesa Chamber of Commerce, was slated to play the part of the mayor of La Mesa, although the town was called Fountain Grove in the movie. In other words, this was another standard fare commie-bashing movie.

The day before the filming, a huge crew showed up with trucks laden with U.S. flags and red-white-and-blue banners. I watched as store-after-store was adorned with these patriotic symbols. They went up the opposite side of the street and began to come down my side of the thoroughfare. The store next door, called "Pretty and Plump," had just undergone its makeover. The employees stood out front and were mesmerized by the transformation.

Then, I heard a voice say, "Great, this store already has a place for a flagpole." He was speaking of my store. When his crew began to insert the flagpole in the bracket, I stopped them. I told the head of the crew, "There will be no U.S. flag on my store." He ignored me and I repeated myself loudly. He asked, "Who are you?" I said, "I own the fucking place." He then sarcastically asked, "What to you want, a Russian flag?" I responded, "No flags. Isn’t that quite easy to understand." "How about an Italian flag?" he queried.

My employee was a young woman who had at one time been though rehabilitation for methamphetamine addiction. She was now clean. She asked the guy, "Why don’t you take another snort, asshole?" Then, she explained to me that he was all juiced up. "Look at your nose," she told him. At that time, I knew little about the indications of whether someone was on speed or not. I have seen so many people who used the stuff since then that I can spot someone who is, or was, heavily into methamphetamine with ease.

Finally, the production guy said, "You just wait. I’ll take care of you." He then went to find a Chamber of Commerce official. By now, a crowd was building, including many of the local business owners.

Moments later, a crass-looking woman asked the production person, "Where’s he at? I’ll fix him." She didn’t know that I was standing right next to her. I asked, "Who the fuck are you going to fix?" She snapped, "You watch your language." I then said, "My language is correct. I used a verb, noun, and object. But, you exhibited the epitome of stupidity in asking a question with a ludicrous redundancy: ‘Where’s he at?" Her face was beet red and she was irate, yet she had little to say because she would have looked even a bigger fool than she was.

Then, I gave my assessment of the situation. I loudly stated, "I don’t want any fucking flag on my building and neither do I want any of the red-white-and-blue ribbons. I don’t care if every building on the block is adorned in such a manner, but don’t touch my store."

Some of those assembled were put out by my lack of "patriotism," but I quickly changed the subject and told them they were being cheated. I stated, "The La Mesa Chamber of Commerce is getting paid $10,000 by the movie company for using La Mesa Boulevard as the parade scene. Yet, the Chamber told me they were receiving nothing. The production company told me about the remuneration. In other words, none of you will get shit out of this, but this woman and Gordon Austin will be lining their pockets with cash. Think about that."

Within seconds, the woman left my store in a huff. Following her were several local business owners asking questions about the financing they heard was non-existent. The woman waved her hands back and forth and told them she had no comment.

The day of the filming was hectic. La Mesa Boulevard was lined with thousands of people. The casting department put out a message calling for people to participate. They did not get paid, but some were content to be able to say they were in a movie. Throughout the scene, I stood in my doorway with my employee next to me. We both had our arms crossed and looked at the event for what it was: a staged movie that portrayed xenophobia and resulted in a few local officials getting their palms greased.

I never saw the movie because I would not waste my money on such trash. But, I knew someone who had a videotape of it and asked if I could watch a portion. I fast-forwarded the tape to the parade scene. There was La Mesa Boulevard laden with people standing and sitting in front of stores adorned with red-white-and-blue cloth, paper, cardboard, and flags. Right in the middle of the businesses, La Mesa Golf, Tennis, Etc. was plainly seen only with its tri-color blue paint. It stood out like a sore thumb, but it looked far better than any of the contrived stores that surrounded it. If you ever see the videotape of this movie, or know someone who has one, check out the parade scene. I had a major role in its depiction, yet you will never see my name on the list of credits.

By far the worst offender of words using apostrophes consists of the words "its or it’s." This is something that does not fit into set rules. "It’s" is a contraction for "it is," not a word to denote possession. "Its" is the word that depicts possession. In the past 10 years, of the hundreds, or thousands, of times that I’ve seen these words used, the majority are wrong. By far, the biggest culprit is using "it’s" to describe the possessive. So what, you may ask? Anyone with more than a sixth grade knowledge of the English language would look at the incorrect word "it’s" and ask "it is what?" But, the misuse has taken hold in such a way that few people know the difference or care to.

Then came the use of apostrophes to denote the plural of words, instead of possession or a contraction. "Dogs became "dog’s." "Cars became "car’s." The list is long and tedious. One does not have to speak faultless Shakespearean English to be confused about these quandaries. Year-after-year, the number of words that are inserted with apostrophes to denote the plural are increasing. Unfortunately, the number of people who say ‘So what?" are increasing at the same rate.

On September 4, 2009, the renowned British author Keith Waterhouse died. He was a prolific author and journalist. I did not read many of his works, but his most famous was Billy Liar, a book that was made into a movie and a television series. He also wrote the TV series "That Was the Week that Was," a groundbreaking satirical look at British politics.

When I read his obituary, I discovered that Waterhouse was outspoken about the misuse of apostrophes. In fact, he began and organization called the Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Apostrophe (AAAA). Members included other journalists who decried the downfall of the use of the apostrophe.

At first, I thought the increasing misuse of the apostrophe was unique to this side of the Atlantic. Most U.S. citizens have a hard time composing a three-sentence paragraph. With the advent of Internet communication, with all its illogical abbreviations and smile logos, I began to assess these aberrations as the beginning of the downfall of the English language. If enough mis-uses and stupid abbreviations came into play, it would be impossible for someone from Des Moines, Iowa to communicate with someone from Dultuh, Minnesota. I am by no means a strict purist on the use of the English language, but once each person begins to take shortcuts, soon the language will be incomprehensible, when the whole idea behind the use of language is to make a common method of communication.

I was wrong on that one. A few years ago, as I began to receive more and more e-mail messages from old acquaintances from Britain whom I knew decades ago, I saw the same aberrations. Evidently, today in Britain, greengrocers (fruit and vegetable market owners) are the worst offenders of this new lack of accuracy in the use of apostrophes (not apostrophe’s). Included below is an article that appeared in the British newspaper the Daily Mail last year. It is quite long but is well worth the time to read.

I am not usually a person who belongs to groups, but, if Waterhouse’s AAAA is still up and running, there is a chance I may put in my application.

Apostrophe Catastrophe! The Rogue Apostrophe Is Spreading Like Measles. It's Time to Fight Back...

This all started with a drink. But it very nearly didn't because when I looked at the cocktail list in the otherwise swanky Charlotte Street Hotel in London and discovered that martini's (sic) were £10.50 and classic's (sic) £10.50 I momentarily lost my thirst.

The price was bad enough. But did you have to pay extra if you wanted to have your drink correctly punctuated? And would a martini - mine's made with Plymouth gin, please, very dry, shaken with a twist - taste as good if it also contained a stray apostrophe?

Caught up in a spasm of punctuation-rage I, perhaps slightly aggressively, asked the poor waitress what those two utterly extraneous apostrophes were doing there. She backed away hurriedly and sent over the assistant bar manager.

Mariusz Szymecki may have been Polish but his English was fluent. Or almost fluent.

'Both spellings - martini's and martinis - are correct,' he said firmly. 'I know this is right because, when I heard what you wanted to know, I checked it on Google.'

On Google? Who in the name of a thousand question marks would rely on Google to be an authority on anything, least of all a grammatical matter?

The internet is awash with misspellings and punctuation solecisms. Nor is it much better out there in the real world. And the poor apostrophe is the subject of more abuse than any other dot, dash or squiggle.

For decades the nation's pedants have sighed and tutted over the so-called greengrocer's apostrophe - the one you find on piles of fruit and vegetables advertising the fact that apple's and banana's are for sale by the pound or kilo when no apostrophe is required to complete the plural.

If only apostrophe errors were confined to market stalls! Instead they have spread like a contagion, infecting public signs and notices, literature from reputable institutions, menus and shop signs - not to mention press releases, letters and emails.

According to a new study, the apostrophe causes more problems than any other punctuation mark. Almost half of 2,000 adults who sat a simple test were unable to use it properly.

But is anyone really bothered? On Newsnight last week even the great interrogator Jeremy Paxman seemed prepared to shrug off the apostrophe problem, saying: 'Maybe it's redundant now.' Or if Paxo had his way, 'maybe its redundant now'.

Nonsense! It may be under threat, but we should stand up for the simple apostrophe.

We should defend its honour - as the Daily Mail's own Keith Waterhouse has done for some time, with his organisation the AAAA ( Association for the Annihilation of the Aberrant Apostrophe).

I decided to spend a day policing apostrophes. Surely if people realised the error of their ways they would be moved to do something about it, wouldn't they?

I am barely awake when I stumble on my first howler, on the sandwich board outside the Shiraz Cafe, a greasy spoon on Hammersmith Road, West London, between my flat and the office, advertising 'pasta's, jacket potato's and panini's'.

Inside, Roshi, the Iranian proprietor, smiles beatifically when I inform her of the problem.

'I don't care,' she says mildly. But I do, I say. I don't add that the sight of an airborne curl of black where there should only be the white of the page stirs in me feelings of biliousness. I had worried that this might be a bit of an overreaction, until I read popular grammarian Lynne Truss on the subject.

Strict: If you still persist in writing: 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning according to author Lynne Truss

'No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice,' writes Truss in her bestselling Eats, Shoots And Leaves. 'If you still persist in writing: 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.'

Goodness. Fortunately, wandering around Hammersmith, Kensington and Notting Hill I don't find a single aberrant it's. I do, however, find wheelbarrows full of greengrocer's apostrophes. There is one at an odds-and-ends shop advertising 'Pashmina scarf's' for £3 each.

'Yeah,' says a shop assistant when I take him to task on it. 'I know it's wrong. But someone else did that sign. He left about a month ago. We might get round to changing it.'

There are several more offenders on the menus of nearby cafes and bars. There is even one, threatening to 'copy plan's', plastered on the window of Copywell, a printing and copying centre.

Surely it should be incumbent on a printer to put his apostrophes in the right place. I drag a charming young graphic designer called Anam Islam out on to the pavement to show him the problem.

'Yeah, that is wrong,' he admits. 'And I did that one. It's funny because I was watching a documentary on apostrophes the other week and thought that I always got them right.'

Perhaps one of the reasons we remain so confused about the apostrophe is that it is relatively new to our language. The last punctuation mark to be standardised, it has been around in its present form for about 150 years.

The Oxford English Dictionary says the first record of the actual word 'apostrophe' in English is in Shakespeare's late 16th century play Love's Labour's Lost and that it is rooted in the Greek for ' turning away, or elision'.

This makes perfect sense: originally an apostrophe's job was merely to indicate the omission of letters, and this remains one of its most basic - and easily understood - tasks.

You need only think of contractions such as can't and daren't, dates such as the '80s or poems such as A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns - 'Till a' the seas gang dry my dear/ And the rocks melt wi' the sun' - to see how it works.

And yet for some reason many people seem to find it tempting beyond belief to apply apostrophes to a word as if they were visual garnish.

It's not just fruitsellers who do this: a barrister friend shows me a letter to a judge positively strewn with extra apostrophes.

Plurals of abbreviations or acronyms are particularly prone to this treatment. How many times have you seen a sign offering CD's? And another friend, a policeman, tells me he often comes across ASBO's.

Serial offender: Greengrocers are regular offenders when it comes to putting apostrophes in the wrong place.

But worse than that, after popping into Nationwide Building Society to pick up a leaflet on savings, I find it blithely expounding on the subject of ISAs (fine) but also ISA's (not fine).

I phone the press office to remonstrate. 'The apostrophe shouldn't be there, no,' admits a jolly man on the end of the line.

'It would appear to be human error, though rogue apostrophes do seem to be increasingly prevalent. We'll try to remember to take it out on the next print run.'

By now I have been staring so hard all day at apostrophes that I am beginning to lose it. I can see them when I close my eyes, crawling like dark, specky insects across my retina.

And I haven't even tackled their possessive use yet.

According to the latest study, this is where people really struggle. Most of us are fine with the fact that, as well as missing letters, apostrophes are used to indicate possession.

So, the bike belonging to the boy could be written as 'the boy's bike'.

But what if the boy's name is James? Do we refer to James' bike? Or to James's bike?

It started with a drink: Victoria Moore's rage about misplaced apostrophes began when she saw martini's (sic) were £10.50 on a hotel menu

And what if there are several boys, all with bikes? When brain is engaged, most people are happy that the correct answer is 'the boys' bikes'.

But for some reason we are not entirely comfortable with this end-of-word apostrophe, particularly when it falls at the end of a sentence.

It's an aesthetic objection and we deal with it by. . . just missing off the apostrophe. Because we feel like it. Here are two examples: Visitors Toilet (seen in a hospital); Parents Association (countless schools).

As I am musing on this, an email arrives from a PR contact inviting me to a Ladies Social Evening.

Just as I finish emailing prissily back, 'Dear Ellie, Shouldn't it be Ladies' Social Evening?' my friend Tanya phones. 'Oh God, who cares about apostrophes?' she says, 'I think people who are uptight about them probably make terrible lovers.' Is there a chance I am taking this too far?

John Richards does not think so. Based near Boston in Lincolnshire, he is a retired journalist with bushy eyebrows and an absolute intolerance of misplaced apostrophes.

'It makes me feel despair more than rage,' he confides. 'I set up the Apostrophe Protection Society four years ago. I have tackled people in person. Usually offenders just get letters. I've sent out thousands. You can only plug away.'

Mr. Richards blames ignorance and laziness for our troubles. He is engaged in a minor squabble with the proprietor of a local teashop who insists on offering customers tea's.

'When I asked him about it he said he wouldn't change it because he thought it looked better with one in. What can you do? Needless to say, I haven't been in there for a tea or coffee.'

But what's this? Mr. Richards has also written a letter of complaint to the sainted Lynne Truss. He claims she has got something wrong. Before I tell you what it is, perhaps you could try to answer the following question. Which is correct?

(a) Dos and don'ts (b) Do's and don'ts (c) Do's and don't's The answer, according to Ms Truss, is (c). She says that for plurals of letters and certain words then an apostrophe is required.

For example, if you were asking how many s's there are in Mississippi or talking about the noise a crowd made on bonfire night - 'There were lots of oooh's and ahhh's.'

The answer according to Mr Richards is (a). He says: 'Lynne Truss can write what she likes but she's got to justify why you might use one when there are no missing letters and no possessive sense.

'There is no role for the apostrophe in plurals at all.'

Who will arbitrate? Well, David Crystal, professor of linguistics at Bangor University, isn't one for taking sides but he does believe that apostrophes in plurals are sometimes necessary.

'What if I ask you to dot your i's and cross your t's? How will you spell that? If you didn't use an apostrophe you'd have the word 'is' instead of i's.'

As he puts it in his book The Fight For English: 'Inserting an apostrophe is as good a way as any of showing there is an unusual plural.'

But Crystal goes further, and makes a good case for there to be a little more leniency in tricky circumstances.

'Punctuation has always been a matter of trends,' he says. 'Commas, hyphens, semicolons, apostrophes - all have been subject to changes in fashion.

Thinking about these issues as a two-part solution (correct vs incorrect) doesn't help.

'As with many linguistic issues, there are three solutions - correct, incorrect and optional (i.e. can't decide!). Pedants forget about context, which is what removes ambiguity in most cases.

For example, in the case of the Parents' Association, there could be no such thing as an association for one parent, so the apostrophe is simply unnecessary, which is why most people leave it out.

'The other thing people forget is that when the rules were drawn up 150 years ago, it was by printers who forgot about exceptions - such as some plurals - that had been in the language a long time.'

This is the point at which I decide I have had enough of apostrophes. Yes, it will still distress me to be offered a list of martini's or cocktail's. But I think in future I may require a more niche challenge. It's time to protest against the split infinitive.

UNREPORTED REPORTS

In the past few months, we have seen numerous reports about Iraqi homosexuals being tortured and killed, many times by agents of the stooge Iraqi government. All the mainstream multi-million-dollar organizations, such as Newsweek and CNN are cashing in on their supposed "scoops." However, they are three or four years out of time. In 2005, I, and a few others, notably Pat Sherman and Doug Ireland, wrote extensively about the issue. It took the mainstream media four years to come out with "revealing information."

Before I go into detail about the reporting, both from 2006 and the current surge in articles being thrust on the public, I would like to address an issue that may throw off some of the importance of writing about the slaughter of homosexuals. I have read commentaries by people of various nationalities who oppose the Iraqi invasion by the U.S. and have loudly stated their disgust with the ethnic cleansing of Iraqi Sunnis, Chaldeans and other minorities, state that they don’t care about homosexuals being targeted in Iraq. They may be opposed to homosexuality for religious or cultural reasons. But, that is not the issue here. No one has to accept the culture of another to defend that person’s right to be able to live if he/she is a contributing member of society. I am not homosexual, but I will fight with all my power to stop a program that allows for the torturing and killing of homosexuals. We shouldn’t be arguing about the merits or demerits of homosexuality, but about the civil rights of human beings on the Earth.

Scientific facts show that about 10% of all humans are born homosexual. About 10% of all humans are born left-handed. For centuries, any minority has been the target of society’s mainstream. Until the 1950s, in the U.S., if a kid wrote left-handed in school, the teacher would hit him/her with a stick on the left hand that created great pain. This was to stop the deviants from pursuing their natural left-handedness.

Today, homosexuals are targeted in many countries, but there are signs of a letting up of violence against them. If you remember, the nitwit president of Iran told the United Nations that there were no homosexuals in Iran. The audience laughed hysterically at his statement. Homosexuality is not contagious. No heterosexual person can catch homosexuality. It is a generic trait.

I’ll give you a story about my earlier years in which someone educated me about the point of bigotry and how it backfired on him. When I was 18, I worked in a large company with four buildings. On occasion, I would be walking to another building and run into the timekeeper, who was openly homosexual. We would talk about sports and music and then go our separate ways when we reached our destination. He was merely a casual acquaintance.

One day, a fellow in his 40s approached me and said that I should watch out for the timekeeper. I was curious why he was so worried about my welfare. He told me, "He might take you around the side of the building and try to suck your cock." The thought never occurred to me that he would try to do that.

A few days later, another individual whom I casually knew approached me and said, "I heard what that guy told you the other day about the timekeeper. Let me tell you a story of what I used to do when I was your age."
He then told of how he and two of his friends, each Friday night, would go to an area in Newport, Rhode Island which gay men frequented. He said they would then pick one out walking on the street and beat him up and take his money. In the U.S., this was commonly called "Rolling a fag." (In Britain, the same term indicates someone rolling a cigarette with tobacco and paper.) During the days of open violence against black Americans, whites would gang up on a black and beat him up. This was called "Nigger Knocking." We Americans are great at creating slogans for violence.

Getting back to the fellow who used to "roll fags," he continued, "One Friday night, my friends and I saw a homosexual of average build and about 5’ 8" tall. We thought he would be an easy target. Well, he beat the shit out of the three of us at the same time. We were laying on the ground, and he stood above us and said, ‘Don’t you ever try to do that to anyone again.’ The lecture hurt more than the beating. Let me tell you now, homosexuals are human beings just like everyone else. Don’t listen to those guys who tell you to be afraid of them."

Growing up, I had been misled many times by advice from "adults." Once you become an adult yourself, you discover how many jerks are out there who mislead younger people. The advice I was given by the person who retired from "rolling fags" after his thrashing was one of the few good pieces of advice I had ever received from adults during my teenage years.

Now, let’s get to the meat of reporting on the Iraqi pogrom against homosexuals.

In 2005, I reported about Ayatollah Sistani’s fatwah calling for the killing of homosexuals in the most severe manner. Two weeks later, George Bush called Sistani a man of great courage and integrity.

Reports about the slaughter began to emerge from gays who fled Iraq. Pat Sherman, a California journalist, contacted me and asked me what information I had. Then, he began to call people and get their statements about the violence against gays and lesbians. First, Nancy Pelosi dodged the issue and admitted she had not heard of this. Her official statement was, "I oppose bigotry in all forms." She had power to do something, but evaded the issue. Barney Frank, a homosexual congressman who is an advocate of gay rights told Sherman he had never heard of what was happening in Iraq and he would return Sherman’s call within 24 hours. He never called back. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also pled ignorance of any knowledge of homosexuals being killed in Iraq.

Today, all the human rights groups, as well as Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank are outspoken opponents of the violence against Iraqi homosexuals. Once it became in vogue to oppose the actions, everyone wanted a piece of the action. When they could have acted four years ago, they were mute.

Here’s the big story that is now forgotten. In the articles that appeared in 2006, Iraqi gays told of the days prior to the March 2003 invasion when they were treated like human beings under the Ba’ath government. Ali Hili, an Iraqi gay activist who fled to London was a guest on the WBAI-FM radio show, Democracy Now in April 2006. He told the host, Amy Goodman:

Each gay Iraqi in the earlier days of reporting on the violence against them in Iraq told of how they led normal lives under Saddam. One said, "Those were the most glorious days of our lives." But, as we know, stories like this don’t make good news. The Western press relished anecdotes of Saddam being a butcher.

Then, the reporting stopped. About eight months ago, the "Johnny Come Latelies" began to give the situation much ink. For about a month, one of the standard questions asked was, "What was it like for gays under Saddam?" They received only responses of praise of the Ba’ath regime. Most reporters wanted the homosexuals to say that Saddam burned their balls in hot coals, or sliced off their penises. No such stories emerged.

In the past three months, I have read myriad reports about the current effort to erase homosexuals from Iraqi society. However, not one asked the question of the plight of gays under Saddam. The reporters learned their lessons and never ask the question any more. They probably were told by higher-ups to eliminate the question from their queries. I have yet to see any reporter mention this aspect of the subtle change of leaving out the question of the lives of gay Iraqis under the Ba’ath regime. All the human rights groups are now pushing the subject and the leftist press is inundated with appeals to help Iraqi gays. But, not one word is asked any more about the lives of Iraqi homosexuals prior to March 2003. The answers would embarrass the faux human rights groups and the milquetoast liberals who pick and choose their enemies in the same manner that the U.S. and its stooges call the shots of who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. They are as hypocritical, sometimes more so, than the conservative element they are always denigrating.

MISSIONARY IN REVERSE

A few years ago, I was speaking with a local author who told me that her book, North American Martyrs, was about to go through its third printing. She explained that the book was about six Roman Catholic missionaries who were killed by Native Americans in what is today Michigan in the 18^th century.

I told her that the title confused me and that a more appropriate moniker would be North American Terrorists. She was not happy with my remark. As she was explaining the plight of the missionaries, the words of Chief Pontiac of that area came to mind: "They come with bible in one hand and sword in the other."

Mark Twain once made a world speaking tour and chronicled it in his book Following the Equator. He spoke in many areas that were occupied by Western powers who stole the land from the indigenous people, all in the guise of saving them through Jesus. Twain was very emotional as he described the sadness and despair he saw in the native populations. He said that the Western world brought practices and items to these areas that thoroughly made the locals disheartened and almost in a state of submission. Items such as religion, clothing, a work schedule and a monetary system based on concepts the locals did not understand.

We have recently seen how the U.S. military has combined its deadly weapons with bibles in making Iraqis and Afghanis submit to foreign ideals. The missionary work goes on unabated.

However, there is a case that shows a reversal of the normal Christian missionary attempting to change the ways of the native populations. Recently, the book Don’t Sleep: There Are Snakes, by Daniel Everett was published.

Everett was a Christian missionary with an aptitude for language skills. A tribe in Brazil, the Piraha, had never had their language translated into any other. Everett was called on to chronicle the language and bring the word of Jesus to the savages.

In 1980, he made his first trip to a Piraha village and spent almost a year there. He became very friendly with the people and observed that they were great survivalists.

When he began to talk about faith with the locals, Everett seemed to come up against a brick wall. He explained:

At first, Everett was confused about the questions he was asked, but he thought he could eventually convince the natives for their need for Jesus. But, the Piraha became more pointed in their questioning. One day, a native asked, "What does Jesus look like? Is he dark like us or light like you?" Everett responded, "I’ve never seen him. He lived a long time ago, but I do have his words." The questions became more difficult to answer. They said it was impossible to have his words if he hadn’t seen or heard him. Everett added, "They made it clear that if I had never seen this guy, they weren’t interested in any stories about him." He continued:

Everett returned to the U.S. to gather his thoughts. He said:

Instead of trying harder to convince the Pirahas that they needed help, Everett looked at himself to see if he was in the wrong, not the natives. He explained:

It took Everett almost two decades to remove himself from the closet. When he did, he experienced exactly what he thought would occur: many of his friends left him and his wife of 35 years divorced him. Two of his three children disowned him. But, he did what he thought was right and did not feel comfortable living a lie.

Today, Daniel Everett is a leading linguist. His disagreement with some of Noam Chomsky’s ideas of linguistics have become controversial reading in the field.

A few months ago, his two distant children made peace with Everett and his new life is very full and interesting. He gives credit to the Piraha for his changes in his views and his current fulfillment of his desires in life.

Recently, the BBC4 radio network reviewed his book on its book-review program. It is about 10 minutes long and can be seen and heard at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr3q6Cid1po

WHAT ABOUT REAL HEALTH INSURANCE?

People are hitting the streets in the U.S. in masses. Every day, we see violent demonstrations. We have seen fights and even guns brandished by some of the protestors. Speakers at "town hall" meetings have been shouted down to the point that the meeting must cease. The subject of these raucous events is the proposed overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system by Barack Obama.

Let’s be clear about one thing. Obama’s plan is merely window-dressing for business as usual. The supporters of this scheme maintain the U.S. will finally have a national health service. This is only lip-service to the administration.

On the other hand, the opponents are using outright lies to denigrate the planned changes. They accuse the Obama administration of bringing socialism to the U.S. Also, they maintain that the new legislation would require the killing of older people so the government would not have to pay for their health services.

Both sides have outright lied about most of the proposed legislation. There are various articles that have been written that expose the dishonesty of both camps, so I’ll not elaborate on the falsehoods. Plus, both sides have been generously financed by special interest groups.

The figures of the new plan that are being bandied about are astronomical, up to almost $2 trillion. But, there is little talk of something that could drastically reduce healthcare prices: health.

Various estimates put the number of U.S. citizens who are obese at 50-65%. Until a few years ago, tobacco was considered the number one killer of U.S. citizens. That has changed. For the past few years, problems caused by obesity have created more deaths in the U.S. and a drastic increase in healthcare costs. Are we seeing and hearing about a national program of health awareness? Of course not. A healthier U.S. would mean decreased profits for some billionaires.

There are myriad websites with very astute information on how to live a healthy lifestyle. But, they receive little attention compared to the number of overweight Americans. Worse, however, is the fact that there is absolutely no national program of health awareness coming from the U.S. government (Democrats and Republicans alike). Nothing.

In the U.S., people only pay attention to things they see on TV or hear on radio that are repeatedly broadcast. Most Americans will tell you (falsely, of course) that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and also was the force behind 9-11. This subject was run into the ground by the U.S. media. For a national awareness of one’s health, we need the same kind of relentless publicity, coming from the government itself. Fat chance.

Ask any number of U.S. citizens what’s America’s most popular beer, or who Oprah’s next guest will be, and about 90% will give an accurate answer. But, ask the same people how many Americans suffer from diabetes and you’ll get either a blank stare or a guess. Maybe one in a hundred will come close.

Current numbers vary from 23.6 million to 24 million U.S. citizens with diabetes, depending on which study you read. From 2007 to 2009, the number has increased by 15%. Most studies predict that in 10 years, about 50 million Americans will have diabetes. If this is not an epidemic, I don’t know what is.

Just 90 miles south of the U.S., there is a country that is combating diabetes: Cuba. About 10 years ago, the government began an education program. From the first grade up, Cuban kids learn of diabetes in school and how to prevent the disease.

The Cubans went even further than education: the government began an organic farming program. Farmers were paid to raise and sell crops to the government, which, in turn, sold them cheaply to the public. If a farmer had a surplus after selling his goods to the government, he was allowed to sell those privately.

Today, there are more than 7,000 plots occupying more than 81,000 acres on which organic food is farmed in Cuba. Many of these are located in urban areas as well as rural venues. In Havana, there are more than 200 gardens, some in small spaces between tower block estates, that supply the city’s population with more than 90% of their fruit and vegetables. The farmers are obligated to farm a certain amount of products for the Cuban government. The surplus then belongs to the farmers who sell it for profit, which is divided among them.

After the Soviet Union dropped Cuba like a hot potato, the island country found itself without finances. At that time, Cuba imported much of its food, so it had to change its methods to feed its citizens. The Independent daily newspaper of Great Britain ran a story on August 8, 2006, titled, "The Good Life in Havana: Cuba’s Green Revolution." According to the article:

Currently, the population of Cuba suffers diabetes at about 10% the rate of U.S. citizens who have the disease. Maybe the malady will be eradicated in Cuba someday.

In addition to diabetes, obesity creates deadly problems with one’s heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. But, there is no national program to dissuade people from over-eating or eating processed foods that create fatal diseases.

For instance, a recent report stated that someone at age 30 who eats one hot dog a day, or the equivalent in a processed meat, will be 21% more apt to have contracted colon cancer within five years than those who do not adhere to such dietary habits. Another report said that if someone eats two hot dogs a day for 10 years, that person will have a 90% chance of attaining colon cancer.

Now, let’s look at some of the crowds who recently have sprung up to either support or oppose the sleight-of-hand Obama healthcare plan. Most of the people carrying signs and who loudly state their opinions are obese (see photo at the beginning of this article). Not one is carrying a sign to oppose the eating habits of U.S. citizens.

Recently, a Florida doctor tried to gain the public’s awareness for a healthy eating regimen. What is his reward? He was fired and is facing lawsuits. According to an article posted on MSNBC on August 13, 2009, called "Florida Doctor Ousted After Denouncing Donuts:"

He then added signs stating: "Hamburger Spare Tire," "French Fires Thunder Thighs." He also mentioned Kentucky Fried Chicken by name as he tried to educate the public about the perils of fried chicken. But, his criticism of donuts did him in. The article continued:

(For non-U.S. readers, Dunkin’ Donuts is a nationwide donut shop that sells dozens of styles of donuts. Currently, there are more than 5,000 Dunkin Donut outlets in the U.S.)

A small portion of the U.S. public is aware of the hazards of processed food and attempt to eat organic items. Unfortunately, they are not widely available. Many towns may offer a "Farmer’s Market" for a few hours on one day a week in which farmers can sell their goods. Unlike Cuba, however, the prices of organic food in the U.S. are much higher than those of processed items. In other words, it is a luxury to try to eat healthy food.

The cost of healthcare in the U.S. far exceeds the cost of a preventive educational program about health for the U.S. public. Imagine if the U.S. called off the war in Iraq for one week. The savings in money would allow the government to produce and supply the public with healthy organic food. But, there are two problems with such a plan: 1. Nobody would make a profit, therefore making the plan un-American. 2. Instead of killing people, the money could be spent on helping people live, again another un-American concept.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, both major parties referred to the mainstream American as "Joe Six-Pack." What a degrading term, yet it was embraced by the public. Despite its abhorance, the term is quite accurate. Millions of U.S. males sit in front of a TV, swilling beer, and cheer for their favorite football team, or holler obscenities at the TV when the opponents score. About the only cardiovascular exercise they practice consists of their lung power and their vocal chords. Just think if these same millions of football fans decided not to watch the Sunday NFL game and took a walk or a swim and quenched their thirst with fresh fruit juice or water. But, again, that is un-American. It would be considered a part of a communist plot.

I have always maintained that those nations who oppose U.S. hegemony are wrong in their approach to bring justice to the world. Instead of speaking up against the imperialist actions of the U.S., they should keep quiet and out of the radar. Within a few decades, the U.S. public just might eat itself to death.

INGRATES

I have lived in three countries and have spoken to people from many nationalities. All consider human life to be valuable and all are protective of their own countrypeople. However, I have yet to meet someone of non-U.S. origin who holds the opinion that one life is more important that those of millions of people who do not share his/her nationality. Welcome to the U.S., a country that not only considers the life of one U.S. citizen to be superior to multitudes of lives of foreign nationals, but threatens nations who assist the U.S. in returning U.S. nationals to their homes, even though they have been held under criminal charges.

A couple of days ago, former President Bill Clinton became a national hero once again (he had previously achieved this status with talk show comedians during the Monica Lewinsky affair). He went to North Korea and gained the release of two U.S. journalists who had been tried and convicted for crimes against the nation of North Korea. There are those who maintain the two women were innocent, while others point to activities that show their guilt. One thing is sure: North Korea acted in a benevolent manner in releasing the two reporters.

For a few days prior to Clinton’s arriving back in the U.S. with the former prisoners, we did not hear too much about U.S. gripes against the Koreans. But, it did not take long for the administration to once again denigrate the same country that released the U.S. citizens.

Less than 24 hours after all the news networks reported on the return of the women, headlines of the day read, "U.S. Warns ‘Provocative’ North Korea." Remember Obama the anti-war person of a couple of years ago? He’s now the one publicly denigrating North Korea. He could have had the decency to wait a few days before he began his anti-North Korea tirades, but that would have been un-American.

Recently, another event occurred that showed once again that the U.S. will go to any means to denigrate innocent governments. On August 2, 2009, the U.S. Navy announced that the body of Michael Speicher had been found in the desert in Iraq.

If you remember, Speicher was officially the first member of the U.S. military to be killed in action in the Gulf War of 1991. It seemed the case was closed. However, over the years, the truth was turned around and shortly before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. government had rewritten history to say that Speicher was alive in an Iraqi prison. Administration officials brought up instances of Iraqis seeing him, limping and in terrible health. In a speech to the U.N. on September 12, 2002, George Bush used the rumors of Speicher’s being held prisoner as one of the reasons for invading Iraq. Again, the life of one U.S. citizen was worth more than the 26 million lives of Iraqis.

Over the years, many groups were founded for the purpose of gaining Speicher’s release from an Iraqi prison. Millions of Americans took up the cause. Then, in August 2009, a Bedouin stumbled across his body in the desert. Speicher was never captured. He was never a prisoner and the Iraqis never tortured him. His plane was shot down over the western part of Iraq and an unknown local person buried it out of respect.

Even after the March 2003 invasion when the U.S. had access to all of Iraq, harsh words about Speicher’s supposed capture and imprisonment permeated the subject. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida was at the forefront of denigrating the Ba’ath regime. According to an April 24, 2003 CNN article, "Initials May Offer Clue to Missing Gulf War Pilot:"

For years, we heard, "Saddam did it." But, the reality of Speicher’s death and the discovery of his body were much more mundane than all the conspiracy theories thrust against the Iraqi government.

From January 18, 1991 until April 9, 2003, the Iraqi government always maintained it did not recover Speicher’s body and that he was never captured. With all the years of speculation and the obligatory blaming of Saddam Hussein, now that the truth is out, I have yet to hear one person in the U.S. government apologize to the former Iraqi government for the fiasco that was created by the U.S. government and a portion of its population. Not one.

In 1995, there was a case of Iraqi benevolence that gained much publicity, yet still highlighted the ungrateful attitude of the U.S.

On March 13, 1995, two U.S. citizens (William Barloon and David Daliberti) were captured inside Iraq. Both worked for U.S. civilian contractors and maintained they lost their way trying to visit a friend in Kuwait.

At that time, the Iraq/Kuwait border was heavily reinforced by a deep ditch with towering fences on each side. The pair was well inside Iraq and it would have been almost impossible for them to have accidentally wandered into Iraqi territory.

They were taken to Baghdad and tried on charges of espionage. The couple received a sentence of eight years in prison. The Clinton administration then began its cover-up efforts. Spokespeople said the Americans were not spies because they did not have road maps with them at the time of their arrest. Most of the U.S. public believed the administration’s assessment. There is one aspect that few people took into consideration: spies do not go on a mission with roadmaps. They have memorized exact locations. If a spy used a roadmap, he/she would be put in the same category as Inspector Clouseau of Pink Panther notoriety.

With two of its citizens, accused spies, in Iraqi hands, one would think the U.S. would have been a little humble in its attempts to get them released. No such luck.

According to Douglas Jehl, author of "Americans in Iraq Given 8-Year Term," in the March 26, 1995 edition of the New York Times:

On March 27, 1995, the ante was raised. Steven Greenhouse wrote an article for the New York Times, "U.S. Vows to Press Hard on Iraq to Free Americans," in which he said:

For the entire time this story gained headlines, the U.S. press called Barloon and Daliberti "hostages." There is a substantial difference in meaning between the words "hostages" and "prisoners," but the subliminal message created by calling them hostages raised the ire of the U.S. citizens.

On March 30, 1995, the Iraqi government allowed a Polish diplomat and a reporter for CNN to visit the pair in prison. They stated that the prisoners were in good health.

On July 17, 1995, Bill Richardson, at the time a U.S. congressman, visited Baghdad to try to obtain the release of the pair. Saddam Hussein granted a pardon and allowed them to leave Iraq.

Despite the act of goodwill on behalf of the Iraqi government, the U.S. continued a barrage of insults toward the country. Warren Christopher, the U.S. Secretary of State at the time, assured the public that the U.S. promised nothing in return for the pair’s release.

Bill Richardson returned to the U.S. as a hero and was in the media spotlight, but, his statements about Saddam Hussein changed immensely and he made many jokes about the Iraqi president.

During the negotiations, Richardson crossed his legs and had the bottom of one shoe pointing right at Saddam, who left the room and returned to see Richardson with both feet on the floor. Saddam’s aides explained to Richardson that the bottom of a shoe was one of the gravest insults in the Arab world. A similar effect would occur if someone negotiating with the U.S. president held his middle finger aloft during the conversation. When Saddam returned, the negotiations continued. He was gracious enough to leave the room and allow his assistants to quickly explain this aspect of Arab culture to the congressman.

When interviewed by PBS, Richardson mentioned the incident. Then he made fun of the affair and said he thought his life may have been in danger and that his Iraqi hosts may have imprisoned and tortured him for the gaffe. Richardson and the program host laughed and made fun of the Iraqis.

Over the next few years, Richardson made many disparaging remarks about Saddam Hussein:

• "This allowed Iraq to starve its own people and blame the sanctions for their suffering. Under the oil-for-food program, we have taken this excuse away from Saddam." (March 1999)
• " … and multilateral sanctions are central to our efforts to contain Saddam." (March 1999)
• "But I also believe it is important that Saddam’s oil revenues be used to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people rather than by Saddam Hussein for his own criminal purposes." (December 2002)
• "Well, Saddam Hussein, you can never predict what he is going to do, but it is obvious that he is going to put his foot forward; he is going to say, ‘We have no illegal weapons.’" (December 2002)

Very few national leaders would have released two convicted spies with nothing to show in return. There were no "thanks, Saddam" messages coming from the U.S. Instead, Iraq received more threats and many denigrating remarks from the person who visited the country to secure the release of the two prisoners. Until the obvious became clear, Richardson maintained that Iraq had stockpiles of doomsday military equipment.

One aspect of this scenario was not put in place until long after Richardon’s visit to Iraq. While he was negotiating with Saddam Hussein, cinemas, bus stops, schools and other venues were being blown up in Baghdad by terrorists. The perpetrators were eventually caught. They were members of the CIA-backed Iraqi National Accord (INA), a group of Iraqi exiles who attempted to create chaos in Baghdad in an effort to ripen discord and sow the seeds for a coup against Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath government.

The leader of the exile group was Ayad Allawi, who later became a U.S.-appointed prime minister of Iraq. By the time the terrorist attacks in Baghdad were thwarted, about 150 Iraqi civilians were killed. This reign of terrorism was financed and supported by the U.S. administration.

While Iraqi civilians were being killed by a U.S.-sponsored program, Richardson gained the release of two U.S. prisoners held in Iraq. The current version of Western history of this time makes Saddam Hussein look like the bad guy and Richardson the good guy. The facts contradict the history.

There was one moment in which Saddam Hussein claimed verbal victory over Richardson. Laura Blumenfeld wrote an article, "A Little Diplomacy Goes a Long Way," for the Washington Post of December 13, 1996. She stated:

WHAT DID APRIL SAY?

We are approaching the 19^th anniversary of the infamous meeting between April Glaspie, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, and Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990. Sadly, this incident has been virtually eliminated from the history of Iraq-U.S. relations. After the cease-fire agreement between the U.S. and Iraq in February 1991, some media attention was given, but that quickly disappeared.

April Glaspie met with Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990 to discuss the future of Kuwait and Iraq.

Before we discuss her meeting, let’s look at background information that led to the point where Iraq was on the verge of invading its Arab neighbor to the south. For many years, the country known as Kuwait was culturally, geographically, racially and economically a part of the area known as Iraq today. Iraq has been identified by different names over the centuries and has been a part of various empires, but present-day Kuwait was always a province of Basra, the southernmost component of Iraq.

In the early part of the 20^th century, the British laid the boundaries that led to the current Middle East. Many of those overran traditional cultures and identities, making the area a hotbed of violence from then until the beginning of the 21^st century. Today, it looks like the conflicts created by these borders may yet spill over into the next century. The Kuwaiti-Iraqi border created hostility and mistrust. Despite the British placing of stooges in power in Iraq during their 20^th century occupation of the country, two of the quisling governments protested the status of Kuwait as an independent country.

Until 1990, the Ba’ath government of Iraq and the emirate of Kuwait held an uneasy truce. At times, both countries experienced amiable relations, but at others, there was an aloofness. The common denominator was that both were populated by Arabs and both used this brotherhood to keep peace.

In 1980, Iran and Iraq went to war. The two countries fought a bloody eight-year conflict that ended in a stalemate. Iran wanted to spread its own Islamic revolution throughout the Middle East and Iraq was the only country in the area that could stop the territorial designs of Iran. Iraq was the buffer that stopped the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, including Kuwait, from falling into Iranian hands. Unlike the hostile attitude of neighboring countries brought on by U.S. intervention in the area, during the 1980s, Iraq’s Arab neighbors stood solidly behind the country that was sacrificing its soldiers to keep the independence of Gulf Arabian countries. In the 1990s, with forceful persuasion by the U.S., countries like Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Qatar, and others turned against their former ally. Kuwait, with much U.S. assistance, was the first to betray Iraq and others followed. Some, however, such as Yemen and Jordan, kept cordial relations with Iraq because the people of these countries forced their leaders not to ostracize the Iraqis.

By the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq’s economy had been greatly weakened. The incidents leading to Desert Storm began to emerge.

Kuwait lent money to Iraq during the war. The money was allocated for the defense of Kuwait, as well as that of Iraq, and the Iraqi government did not expect to be hard-pressed to repay the loans after the hostilities ended, especially because much of the money was used in thwarting Iran from invading Kuwait.

Soon after the cease-fire, Kuwait demanded repayment. Saddam Hussein was shocked that Kuwait would apply so much pressure after his country had spent eight bloody years defending Kuwait from Iranian aggression. When Iraq attempted to discuss the matter of repayment with Kuwait, the Kuwaitis became ever more insistent about immediate remission. The Iraqis knew at that time that the CIA and Kuwait had already instituted measures to further undermine the Iraqi economy, yet they did not realize the severity and progress of those plans.

After Iraq crossed the Kuwaiti border on August 2, 1990, many aspects of this anti-Iraq scheme came out in the open. The Iraqis found a copy of a letter dated November 22, 1989 and marked "Top Secret and Private" that was sent by Brigadier Ahmed Al Fahd (Director General of the State Security Department of Kuwait) to Sheikh Salem Al Sabah Al Sabah (Minister of the Interior of Kuwait). The letter mentions the coalition of the CIA and the Kuwaiti government and their plans to undermine the Iraqi economy. Here are a few highlights:

This letter proved the Iraqi allegations of a definite U.S. plan to keep Iraq’s economy weak so Kuwait could benefit. The release of this letter put a different look on the events of August 2, 1990 and the following few months. Iraq did not enter Kuwait simply to stake claim to Kuwait’s oil. It did so to stop Kuwait and the U.S. from permanently damaging its economy.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz quickly spread the word about the U.S.-Kuwait collusion, but the agenda was written by Bush I and barely a peep was heard about the damning evidence. The world was hearing about "naked aggression" and "another Hitler." In an October 24, 1990 letter to the United Nations, Aziz highlighted the actions of the U.S. and Kuwait that led to the eventual occupation of Kuwait by Iraq. Many crucial points are brought up, so it is important to publish the entire letter:

Months before the beginning of Desert Storm, Tariq Aziz had exposed Kuwait’s duplicity. Instead of looking at the facts, however, much of the world allowed George Bush I to revamp them and portray a different scenario — one in which the Iraqis invaded Kuwait for no reason other than greed and the acquisition of Kuwaiti oil. Logic would tear holes in this assessment. Iraq already had the world’s second-largest oil reserves, so it did not need to grab those of Kuwait. Iraq’s economic existence had been threatened by the U.S. and Kuwait, but it seemed no one was listening.

In 1989, another strange scenario emerged. Iraq began to lose oil from its wells in the Rumailah oil fields, located in the Iraq/Kuwait border area. Iraq discovered that the Kuwaitis had installed a slant drilling operation on the border, enabling them to drill under the boundary and steal Iraqi oil. At the time, the Iraqi government assessed the oil losses at $2.7 billion, but after discovering the enormity of the operation, losses were re-assessed to about $14 billion. The stealing of Iraqi oil was well-documented by Iraq. On July 15, 1990, Tariq Aziz, in a letter to the Secretary of the Arab League, described the theft in detail.

Because of the cooperative relationship between Kuwait and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein was aghast at the Kuwaiti’s change of heart once the hostilities ceased. Iraq began to find pieces of the puzzle and put them together. The findings were corroborated after August 2, 1990 when the Iraqis found evidence in Kuwait, such as the top secret letter previously mentioned.

Prior to August 2, 1990, the Iraqis had enough facts to present to the Arab world showing Kuwaiti involvement in undermining their economy. To Iraq, this was the beginning of a U.S. intrusion into the area that would not be reversed once put into action. In a speech in Amman, Jordan on February 24, 1990, Saddam Hussein told those assembled of the imminent danger of allowing the U.S. to become involved in regional affairs. (See Appendix XII of the book The Mother of All Battles: The Endless U.S.-Iraq War for the entire speech.) Remember, at the time, the Soviet Union was in existence and was considered a world superpower. The Iraqi president stated:

Despite this ominous prediction, the Arab world did not take much notice. Most of the countries in the region could not envisage a permanent U.S. presence that would dictate U.S. policy to them. Events since 1990, much to the chagrin of regional Arab countries, proved Saddam Hussein’s statement accurate. Today, countries such as Qatar and Kuwait are virtual U.S. possessions.

Kuwait, despite the wishes of its oil-producing partners in OPEC, began to pump much more oil than its agreed quota, bringing the price of oil down on world markets. Every time Kuwait’s actions forced a decrease in the price of oil, Iraq lost millions, if not billions, of dollars, further eroding its economy.

The situation became more tense and Saddam Hussein called for a meeting with April Glaspie, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. On July 25, 1990, they met and Saddam explained his country’s plight to her. He discussed Kuwait’s breaking of OPEC agreements and that his country was in desperate need of money to help rebuild its infrastructure that was damaged in the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. (See Appendix I of The Mother of All Battles for the full transcript.)

After listening, Glaspie then assured Saddam that the U.S. was on Iraq’s side and that the U.S. was in sync with the desires of Iraq to rebuild. She explained:

Saddam Hussein then complained that the U.S. was blocking most orders his government had placed with the U.S. He said:

Those words were quite prophetic. After Desert Storm, with a full embargo in place, Iraq could not import food, so it had to create more agriculturally-based business. In June 1992, U.S. military jets, with their afterburners, destroyed 23 Iraqi wheat fields.

Getting back to the Saddam Hussein-April Glaspie meeting, she responded to Saddam’s complaints about lack of access to American markets with, "I have a direct instruction from the president to seek better relations with Iraq."

The U.S. administration maintained that it was Iraq’s business and not that of the U.S. in the matter of Iraq’s dispute with Kuwait. On July 26, 1990, the day after the Saddam-Glaspie meeting, Margaret Tutweiler, U.S. Department of State spokesperson was asked by the press, "Has the United States sent any type of diplomatic message to the Iraqis about putting 30,000 troops on the border of Kuwait? Has there been any type of protest communicated from the United States government?" She replied, "I’m entirely unaware of any such protest."

On July 31, 1990, John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, testified to Congress that the "United States has no commitment to defend Kuwait and the U.S. has no intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq."

These messages are not ambiguous, but they were false. Bush had plans ready to destroy Iraq and the crossing of the Iraq-Kuwait border was an appropriate excuse to implement Bush’s designs.

During the war propaganda buildup of the next few months, the subject of the Saddam-Glaspie meeting was kept under wraps. Few Americans knew of the incident. Adding to the intrigue, Glaspie seemingly disappeared. From August 4, 1990 until May 1991, no government official mentioned her or could account for her whereabouts. A few reporters worked up the nerve to ask, but they were ignored.

In May 1991, April Glaspie appeared before the U.S. Senate. Questions were not asked about where she had been for the prior nine months, and the public will probably never know. During her report to the Senate, she told of warning Saddam Hussein not to take action against Kuwait. Most of the senators believed her because she alleged that the transcripts of her meeting with Saddam were altered by the Iraqi government. (The CIA admitted that the transcripts were accurate and that Glaspie had not issued such a statement to Saddam Hussein.) After her testimony, the Senate virtually granted Glaspie hero status.

In July 1991, Senators Clayborne Pell of Rhode Island and Alan Cranston of California came up with a totally different scenario from the one Glaspie presented. They read the contents of secret messages from Glaspie to the U.S. government and assessed that Glaspie blatantly lied to the U.S. Senate.

Pell and Cranston appeared on national television and called Glaspie’s testimony deceitful and shameful. They vowed to get to the bottom of the incident, all the time lambasting Glaspie and her testimony before the Senate. Pell and Cranston announced that they were putting the machinery in motion for a full investigation to begin in September 1991. By mid-October, there was no word of an investigation.

On October 11, 1991, I called Senator Cranston’s office in Washington D.C. When I asked about the impending investigation, there was silence. After a brief pause, I was hesitatingly told that they knew nothing about it and I was advised to call the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I took the recommendation of Cranston’s office and called the committee. After I gave a brief description of the incident, I asked, "Is there any information available?" The woman, who would not identify herself, snapped "Nope!" After a moment’s pause, she tersely added, "There was a meeting scheduled and then postponed indefinitely." Then, she abruptly hung up.

Somehow, the administration squashed the only chance we had of learning the truth behind the Glaspie affair. The question that will never be publicly addressed and answered is: "Did April Glaspie give Saddam Hussein a green light for invading Kuwait out of incompetence (i.e. was the Arab-Arab statement her own?) or was she instructed to say that by the U.S. administration?"

April Glaspie is a shady character at best. According to the U.S. administration, in 1992, she accepted a position at the University of San Diego. Her phone number was listed, yet there never was an answer when it was called, and, there was no answering machine.

In June 1993, the U.S. involvement in Somalia turned from a "humanitarian" mission to one that attempted to capture the newly-demonized Mohammed Aidid. There was much bloodshed. Shortly before the public denigration of Aidid, Glaspie was re-assigned to Somalia. She wrote the new script.

Soon after the Somalia debacle, Glaspie again disappeared, only to turn up in the Rwanda area, where the slaughtering of more than a million people was just getting underway. Prior to her stint in Iraq, Glaspie was stationed in Lebanon during that country’s bitter and bloody civil war. Is the fact that Glaspie happens to appear in areas in which there is violence shortly after her debut a matter of chance, or, possibly the prelude to destruction?

ASTRONOMY ANSWERS MANY QUESTIONS

Throughout humankind’s existence, the sky has always played an important role. Until about 10,000 years ago, humans were baffled by the sky. They understood little about the stars and planets and were mostly scared by items that depicted quick change, such as eclipses, meteors, or comets.

When humans began to form civilizations and to record their existence, the sky took on new dimensions. The peoples of the Middle East watched the stars and, although still superstitious, began to notice that certain positions of stars and planets would indicate certain times of the year with regularity. They realized that the annual re-emergence of some constellations indicated it was time to plant crops. Other constellations heralded he beginning of a rainy season or a dry season. In other words, the beginning of astronomy had occurred.

Centuries after the beginning of astronomy, another of humankind’s inventions occurred that became a major opponent of astronomy — monotheistic religion. The story of the sky began to change. Comets were bad omens. So were solar or lunar eclipses. Meteor showers were heralded as ominous threats to humankind. Today, we understand that a comet is nothing more than a bunch of ice and rock that orbits the Sun. Meteorites are pieces of iron, rock or silicon that occasionally fall to Earth. And, the dastardly eclipses are caused either by the Earth’s shadow blocking the moon’s image, or the moon blocking the Sun’s image.

We must remember that the almost two-millennia practice of ignorance of the sky was not always so. Prior to the advent of monotheism, much progress had been made in the field of astronomy by ancient cultures. For instance, archaeologists have found depictions from ancient Babylon that show Jupiter and four of its moons. No person has eyesight so keen that he/she could see even one of Jupiter’s moons without a telescope. The telescope’s invention was not credited, however, until almost 5,000 years after the drawings were made in Babylon. Many scientists today believe that the ancient Babylonians had invented a basic telescope.

In the year 1581 BCE, a lunar eclipse traveled though the Middle East. There is a clay tablet that commemorated this eclipse (see picture at beginning of article). The message on the tablet was scientific, not mythical. In addition to reporting a lunar eclipse, the ancient Babylonians could predict these events with accuracy.

Let’s talk about electricity. Archaeologists have found that electricity was used to plate coins over 5,000 years ago in Baghdad, Iraq. In China, at about the same time, the same electricity had been discovered and put into making crude batteries.

Once Christianity gained a foothold in society, the Church tried alter science to fit its theology. True science was declared the enemy. Judeo-Christian pseudo-science became standard fare for more than a millennium.

In 394 A.D., Christian activists burned the libraries and museums in Alexandria, Egypt. In these institutions was most of the world’s knowledge, including scientific, that had been gathered over the centuries from many countries and cultures. It has been estimated that about 90% of the world’s knowledge, including astronomy, went up in smoke. It took almost 1,500 years for the world to regain knowledge that already existed at one time — knowledge in the fields of astronomy, science, anatomy, architecture, plumbing, public works, etc.

According to the fifth book of Historia Ecclesiastica:

In ridding the world of "pagan" ideas, the Church eliminated thousands of years of knowledge. Christianity now had an open hand at keeping the western world ignorant of science for the next millennium.

Astronomy turned into astrology. Any legitimate research was a thing of the past. Comets, eclipses and meteors reverted to a "bad omen" status.

In the 16^th and 17^th centuries, real research again came forward. However, those who crossed the line of Church doctrine were put out of business. Galileo had to renounce his findings to save his life.

Prior to the re-invention of the telescope in the early 17^th century, a flurry of astronomers began to see the overall picture. They used mathematics an what they could see with the naked eye to enhance knowledge. At the time, they were not interested in challenging the Church, but only to further astronomical knowledge. It was proven and finally accepted that the Earth was not the center of the universe, but, it was still blasphemy to state that the Earth was not at the center of our solar system. That information would take longer to emerge, although some astronomers were quietly hinting this as a fact.

Many of us today are under the assumption that the great scientists of these times were atheistic, but that’s not true. Most were attempting to combine their religious faith with science. For instance, Sir Isaac Newton is credited with discovering the laws of gravity. He had a few predecessors who came close, but it was Newton whose theory of gravity became known as the most accurate.

Contrary to what one may think, Newton was a very religious man. He wrote millions of words on biblical subjects and was intrigued by Hebrew scripture.

Recently, some of Newton’s lesser-known works have come forward that show he predicted the end of the Earth in the year 2060. He made his calculations based on the Bible. Researchers admit that there are still thousands of volumes of Newton’s works that have yet to be scrutinized. Despite his prolific scientific work, Newton still embraced religion in his research and findings.

The re-discovery of the telescope changed astronomy forever. Astronomers were able to see the physical characteristics of planets as well as their moons. The could now see nebulae and multiple stars. They also saw things they could not explain, but the telescope was the one instrument that heralded the beginning of making sense of the universe.

By the beginning of the 20^th century, the knowledge of astronomy was astute, although still not as comprehensive as today’s standards. The Church had been inundated with too much information to keep saying that the Earth was flat, or that the Earth was at the center of the solar system. Despite new evidence, however, the Church still denied many reasons for what astronomy observed.

In 1923, a discovery was made that irreversibly changed the way we look at the universe. Prior to this new discovery, astronomers had figured out much about the solar system and its movements. They knew that our solar system was but a small portion of the universe. They even knew that our solar system lies near an edge of the Milky Way galaxy, not at its center. But, they thought the Milky Way was the entire universe.

Larger telescopes were being introduced. Some showed unidentified dots of light just beyond the edge of the Milky Way. At first, astronomers considered these specks to be wayward stars or nebulae that were on the outskirts of our galaxy, making them appear to be on the edge of the universe as well.

That vision was shattered in 1923. Astronomers came to the conclusion that these items were other galaxies. Since then, with the advent of even newer and more powerful equipment, billions more galaxies have been discovered. Almost overnight, the size of the known universe increased a trillion-fold.

Today, we know that the Milky Way is an average-sized galaxy in a universe with billions of similar galaxies. Our galaxy, like billions of others, consists of billions of stars. It is about 100 million light years wide, making it an average galaxy consisting mostly of average stars.

Despite all the advances, it was not until the 1990s that a real opening came for seeing the entire universe and its history. The Hubble telescope has been in the forefront of these findings. In addition, recent technology has made it possible for land-based telescopes and others in space to equal the Hubble instrument in their observations.

We have seen the science fiction movies about life in other parts of the universe — the green men with long tentacles, or robot-like beings, etc. However, many people, including astronomers, had concluded that the Earth, with its life-sustaining environment, is a one-time fluke in the universe. Plus, many religions have always stated that life in unique to Earth.

This conclusion is now quickly changing. Since the 1980s, various astronomers have predicted that some stars may have planetary systems. But, this was still only speculation.

Then, in the late 1990s, the first planet orbiting a star outside our solar system was discovered. Then another. And another. Currently, hundreds of stars outside our solar system have been identified and named. New ones pop up almost daily.

It is now known that the vast majority of stars, including our own Sun, are formed in the same manner. After their formation, they spew gases and chemicals into space and his debris collides and forms planets. It is speculated that most stars have planetary systems. Many top astronomers and scientists now conclude that with trillions and trillions of stars experiencing a similar beginning and end, and most with a planetary accompaniment, that life is common in the universe. One British astronomer stated, "Life is probably as common as muck."

Because of the vast differences involved in the universe, we may never encounter intelligent life. Theoretically, the speed of light is the fastest speed possible, making it virtually impossible for other intelligent life to communicate with Earth. If a star is a million light years away from Earth, it is considered close to our planet. And, if a civilization had figured out the technology to travel at the speed of light, it would take a million years just to reach Earth. Life probably is common, yet our species may never find out what other creatures in the universe look like.

Life, however, is not restricted to what we know as intelligent life. Basic forms of life appeared on Earth over two billion years ago in the guise of bacteria. These bacteria, after millions and millions of years, became the building blocks of other life forms. So, there may be life in the form of bacteria in non-Earthly settings that we do have a chance of discovering.

The subject of life on the planet Mars has always held humankind’s curiosity. After we first saw close-up detailed pictures of the planet, it was assumed that it was a huge dead rock.

Recently, the subject of life on Mars has taken on a new life. NASA’s Mars Odyssey space probe showed gullies on that planet that could have been etched by melting snow. Astronomers are now of the opinion that much snow may have existed on Mars at one time and, when it melted, it left these huge gullies.

"Snow acts as a miniature greenhouse and provides a wonderful abode for life," said Philip Christensen of Arizona State University. He added, "Imagine an environment where there is sunlight. There are temperatures above those of freezing liquid water. All of those make a potential for life."

Let’s go to current findings about our universe. The conclusion of a NASA probe five years ago that looked back to almost the beginning of the universe showed that the universe is 13.7 billion years old. Before this conclusion, the age of the universe was measured at between 12 and 15 billion years. However, the NASA probe is precise in its assessment. Every time a space project takes on the task of determining the age of the universe, the results become more specific.

Astronomers call these findings a passage from speculation to precision. The data strongly confirm the "big bang" theory. They also show that the first stars were formed only 200 years after the big bang, not from 500 million to two billion years, as was previously thought. In addition, the movement of the early universe has solved another problem; that of the end of the universe. The scientific community was split into two camps; those who said the universe would expand indefinitely leading to a cold, lifeless universe, and those who maintained that the universe would implode in a chaotic and fiery ending. The former theory was proven correct in the recent study. The universe will expand indefinitely until it becomes so cold that everything will end up as chunks of ice or rock.

There have been distinct findings in astronomy that changed the way we looked at the universe. They include the invention of the telescope and the discovery that the Milky Way is not the entire universe, among others. Almost daily, we are being told of new discoveries, some mundane and minor, and others virtually Earth-shattering.

Not only can we discover knowledge about our cosmic neighbors with astronomy, but we know much more about the Earth. Satellite photography has made it possible to predict weather much more precisely. It also has given us knowledge of plate tectonics that we can use to predict future changes in the Earth.

What does the Church think of such information? I have not heard Pope Benedict speak much of the subject. However, a few years ago, he said that human beings did not evolve from apes. He added that anyone who thinks so is part of a vast "atheistic conspiracy." A little more than 16 centuries ago, it was the pagans whom the Church blamed for putting bad ideas into humans’ heads. Today, atheists hold the same place as pagans did in 394. At least the Church is consistent in its illogic.

Science is the best tool for making sense of life. It is not perfect, but it is the best we have.

ANOTHER GRAND ILLUSION

The United States hates Iran and is trying every way possible to unseat its government and possibly attack and invade the country. The recent emergence of street demonstrations shows the Iranian people are fed up and want a revolution and create a government that allows its people freedom.

If you believe the preceding sentences, it is sad to see how easily you are duped and how little you know about history.

I think a statement that I have made many times is much closer to reality:

Without delving too far into history, I’ll give a short background to Iran and Iraq relations since the Iran Revolution of 1979.

The revolution was not conducted by Islamists alone. It included millions of people taking to the street whose goal was to rid Iran of the Shah and a kingdom. The participants included socialists, communists, freedom-loving Iranians, workers, peasants, and others, as well as Islamists. All worked toward the same goal.

When Khomeini returned to Iran, the revolution took on a different look. Once the Shah left, Khomeini consolidated his supporters and became the leader of the revolution. Shortly after, there was a purge of socialists, communists and secularists, the same people who began the chain of events that led to Khomeini’s rise.

Iraq tried on many occasions to sit down with the new Iranian government, that by now had turned into a theocracy. They wanted to draw guidelines for a new mutual beneficial relationship between the two nations in which each country would not interfere in the affairs of the other, but would cooperate in the fields of business and diplomacy. Iran rejected these overtures.

According to a report issued by the Iraqi Embassy in Washington D.C. in 1985:

Despite all the bravado of the U.S. and Israel about being Iran’s enemies, the trio soon began to work behind closed doors. The ultimate goal for the U.S. was to acquire the return of its hostages held in Iran and Israel had a chance to help further advance tensions between Iran and Iraq in the hope of weakening Iraq, an Arab nation that was challenging Israel’s hegemony in the Middle East.

Plans evolved to sell U.S.-made weapons to Iran, with Israel being the broker and earning its 10% agent fee.

Various proposals were put forth, but Khomeini made the final decision. A group of Iranian officials would make the necessary arrangements for U.S. spare parts and eventually missiles and helicopters. And, the person who became the main player for Iran was none other than the current hero of the world’s misled public that thinks he is trying to change Iran’s political makeup: Mir-Hossein Mosavi. According to an article, "Iran Divided and the ‘October Surprise,’" by Robert Parry that was published on June 24, 2009:

The U.S. continued to supply Iran with weapons that killed Iraqis throughout the entire Iran-Iraq War. Some people point to the now-famous picture of Saddam shaking hands with assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense, Don Rumseld, in December 1983 and say this is proof that the U.S. supported Iraq during the war. Rumsfeld’s trip to Baghdad was not to enhance Iraq’s military machine. It was to discuss the diplomatic relationship between Iraq and the U.S. While Saddam and Rumsfeld were posing for the photo, U.S.-made missiles were killing Iraqis, civilian and military alike.

In fact, the history revisionists, mostly from the left, state that the U.S. supplied Iraq with much weaponry during the war. This is another bit of propaganda fed to them so they can distribute it to their "liberal" followers. The truth differs. During the Iran-Iraq War, the U.S. supplied Iraq with about $200 million worth of military equipment, mostly helicopters. China and France each supplied more than $5 billion worth of military equipment, closely followed by the Soviet Union who made sales of about $4.8 billion. Iraqi spent billions of dollars with the U.S. during this time, but most was for civilian goods.

Many reasons have been given for the Iran-Iraq War. Pundits have written many pages of theories. However, most did not hit the mark, especially those since 1990 that have accused Iraq of being the aggressor. The 1985 report from the Iraqi Embassy in Washington D.C. explains the basis for the war quite precisely:

After the cease-fire between the U.S. and Iraq was signed in 1991, supposedly ending hostilities, an uprising occurred in the south of Iraq. From that time until today, we hear that this was a spontaneous insurgency powered by Iraqis who wanted freedom from the Ba’ath government. This is another swerve. The violence began when Iranian agents crossed the border of Iraq and organized the violence. We hear of the brutal putting down of the insurgents by the Iraqi government, yet he never hear of the Iranian-backed Shia butchers who slaughtered many Iraqis. In Basra, multitudes of Iraqi civilians were beheaded by masked henchmen. At the time, photos emerged of them with their scythe-like instruments decapitating people tied to tables. Eventually, the Iraqi government had the situation under control.

A close Iraqi-American friend of mine at the time asked, "What was Saddam supposed to do? Kiss them on the cheek?"

While the fighting was at its heaviest, we saw videos on TV in the U.S. of large protests in Baghdad. Pete Williams, the White House spokesman at the time said, "Demonstrations in Iraq are rare. It looks like the people are upset with the government." The protestors held signs in Arabic, therefore, most Americans had no clue of what they said. My aforementioned friend told me, "The signs were asking the government to put down the Shia uprising." Again, we saw a major twisting of the facts.

In 1991, every Iraqi knew that Iran was behind the hostilities in the south. The "person on the street" was well aware of this fact. Even the Iraqi-Americans living in San Diego, California, were knowledgeable of this.

In 2003, many Iranians flocked to Iraq, following the footsteps of the U.S. They took no time in implementing training for death squads in Iraq to attack whom they considered "undesirables." Along with the Iranians, came Iraqis who had lived in exile in Iran for years. Many became part of the new "government."

Almost immediately, Iranian agents or Iranian sympathizers in Iraq began tracking down former pilots who fought with the Iraqi Air Force during the Iran-Iraq War. A lot of information on the whereabouts of these veterans was supplied by the U.S. It has been estimated that between 800 and 2,000 retired pilots were executed. I personally know three Iraqi-Americans whose uncles were assassinated.

All the bluster we have heard from Iran about the "little Satan (Israel)" and the "great Satan (the U.S.)," is as phony as any Hollywood fiction presentation. The same is true for the other side: both the U.S. and Israel have collaborated with Iran in the killing of thousands of Iraqis.

Let’s get current. Anti-war groups are holding candlelight vigils in the U.S. in support of the Iranian protestors. In the misled minds of the leftists, Iran is undergoing a revolution that has challenged the system in Iran.

Nothing is further from the truth. The protestors are complaining about election fraud, not the system. In 2000, in the U.S., we had thousands protest the rigged election of George Bush. Why did not international journalists call this a revolution against the system? It wasn’t, just as the protests in Iran are not the beginning of a revolution. The only Iranians who oppose the theocracy and want a secular government do not reside in Iran. They are scattered in various countries, with many residing in Paris. Inside Iran, they have no support.

The New York Times ran an article on July 5, 2009, called "Leading Activists Defy Ayatollah on Iran Elections." It describes a maverick group inside the government called the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum. According to the article:

The most militant opposition group in Iran mentions nothing about changing the system. It only puts forth gripes against election fraud. And, it glorifies Iranians who killed Iraqis.

Even today, Iranian sympathizers in Iraq are targeting segments of the Iraqi population. Iran’s pogrom against Iraqi Arabs continues, as does the support of the U.S. and Israel.

After the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein offered an amnesty to Iraqis (mainly a portion of the Kurdish population and the radical Shia element in the south) who fought on the side of Iran. Unfortunately, the Iranians did not reciprocate. Not only did they go after Iranians who fought for Iraq, they have massacred Iraqis who fought for Iraq.

I realize that it is a suspension of disbelief on my part, but it would be great for the anti-war people and those of the left in the U.S. who are calling the events in Iran a great revolution to research history and see what is really happening. Iraqi lives were worth nothing to the U.S. citizenry from 1990 on, and the attitude still prevails. I will use a U.S. colloquialism for those "human rights" advocates who pretend to want to help the plight of the oppressed, but when it comes to Iraq are silent. They are people with paper assholes.

SORRY, IT’S THE WRONG PAUL

The pope is now claiming another milestone in the history of the Roman Catholic Church: the remains of St. Paul have been discovered. According to an article in The Guardian, "Pope Claims Human Remains Belong to St. Paul, published on June 29, 2009:

The use of the words "unanimous" and "uncontested" seem quite curious. I am no expert on biblical history, but I am sure that many people have questioned the validity of the statement made by the pope (who is named after a method of cooking eggs). Plus, I find it quite odd that he gave legitimacy to the carbon-14 dating method, one which in the past, has been refuted by many Catholic officials. Normally, a carbon-14 dating shows the errors in the Vatican’s version of history. But, this time, because it may show a similar time-line, the scientific method is used as proof. Also, I wonder how these could be attributed to one man who created a legend, when in Rome between the first and second centuries, millions of people died and their remains, in many cases, are still visible.

My questioning of the statement by the CEO of the Catholic Church led me to conduct more research into the matter. I called in some markers of people whom I have helped in the past.

With all the information I have received, I must conclude that Benedict has mis-identified the remains. The name Paul is the same, but the individuals are different.

According to my sources, the location of the bones indicate that they came from a famous area of Rome in which street vendors sold their goods. Most sold the normal tourist stuff: statues of Roman gods and goddesses as well as replicas of the Coliseum. But, one Jewish vendor changed the trade and expanded its depth: Paul Goldberg.

He began to sell replica Christian crosses and Jewish Stars of David. His business went through the roof. Eventually, he traveled to Iberia, where the minimum wage was considerably lower than that of Rome and farmed the work out to the Iberians.

But, Goldberg was not totally satisfied with his new venture. He began the first off-Coliseum betting business in the world. When the gladiators were scheduled for fights-to-death, he listed odds outside the Coliseum and many people wagered with or against the posted odds.

When the makeup of the fights changed to the Christians vs. the lions, Goldberg changed his methods and posted the odds of how long the Christians would last before they were eaten. Unlike the previous combat at the Coliseum in which there was a question about who would win, the lions always won, so he devised the new system of time endured. Goldberg was a benevolent person and he donated 20% of the takings to the families of the Christians for burial.

Finally, Goldberg found a business venture that gave him a much larger clientele than those who visited the Coliseum. He carved statements in rocks that became very popular with Romans, who bought them and had their slaves carry them to put in front of their houses. Once a neighbor saw one of these, he had to have one himself. Popular statements were: "Rome, Love it or Leave it," and "We Support the Legions."

Goldberg died a rich man whom the Romans adored. The recent discovery of his bones has created a resurrection of Goldbergism in Rome.

Goldberg was an innovator who passed his genes along to successive generations. In fact, the 20^th century’s greatest engineer and inventor, Rube Goldberg, is a descendant of the 78^th generation of Paul Goldberg.

I implore the pope to allow Goldberg’s bones to rest in pieces.

Many countries have one or two days a year that indicate a national tragedy. In the U.S., December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, is labeled a "day of infamy." Almost 60 years later, September 11, 2001 surpassed December 7 as a rallying cry for U.S. solidarity.

Iraq, a country much smaller than the U.S., and never as large a player on the international scene, can claim several days of infamy: January 17, 1991 (the beginning of Desert Storm); February 14, 1991 (the destruction of the Amiryah Bomb Shelter); March 20, 2003 (the start of the U.S. illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq); and April 9, 2003, (U.S. forces enter Baghdad) among others. But, one date that gains little international attention is imbedded in the hearts and minds of most Iraqis: June 26, 1993.

On that date, the U.S. military, under the command of Bill Clinton, ordered 23 Tomahawk guided missiles to demolish the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence services, in central Baghdad. Twenty of the missiles hit the agency complex, while "only" three missed their targets.

A jubilant Clinton took to the airwaves and proclaimed victory. He was happy that only three missed their mark. One could think he was addressing the public about the score of a sporting event.

Of the three that missed, one destroyed the home of Layla al-Attar, killing her and her husband, and blinding her daughter.

Layla al-Attar was the director of the Iraqi National Art Museum and a leading Arab artist who was revered in Iraq much the same as Norman Rockwell was in the U.S. In addition, she was a spokesperson for international peace, for the inner peace of women, and for resistance against U.S. hegemony. Layla al-Attar symbolized Iraq.

When news of al-Attar’s death broke, Iraq mourned. A special person who transcended political ideology and represented all of humankind had been assassinated.

During the Gulf War, her home was almost totally destroyed by U.S. missiles. Two years later, shortly after the completion of the house’s reconstruction, an "errant" missile finished the job that its cousin had only partially performed in earlier years.

Although never proven, it is quite easy to give credence to the theory that Layla al-Attar was the target of a missile, not merely a casualty of "collateral damage" from a misguided projectile. Every Iraqi believes she was marked, but shortly after her execution, the rest of the world forgot.

Outside the Arab world, Layla al-Attar was on the verge of becoming a top international artist. European art galleries were beginning to highlight her work. In the U.S., however, she was little known. Little international outrage was heard when she was killed.

The reason behind the attack was as bogus as any given during the Bush I years. Clinton stated that information was in-hand that showed Iraqi operatives were behind an aborted assassination attempt on former President George Bush in April 1993 at a ceremony praising him in Kuwait. Clinton added that Saddam Hussein ordered the attempt on Bush’s life. At the last minute, those who were to carry out the attack were apprehended and Clinton had to teach the Iraqis a lesson.

The big lie still persisted. Those arrested were merely drug and alcohol smugglers. In the aftermath of the June 26 missile attack, one-by-one the mythical would-be assassins were released from Kuwaiti jails, but, the U.S. media did not consider this information newsworthy. It was not as exciting as assassination plots and missile attacks.

On November 1, 1993, the New Yorker published an article by Seymour Hersh titled "A Case Not Closed." In it, Hersh went into detail about the entire event and basically showed there was no validity to Clinton’s claim.

Why did Clinton order this attack? At the time, Republicans and pro-war Democrats criticized him for being "weak" on Iraq and other invisible threats against the U.S. Clinton had to earn respect. What better target than Iraq, a defenseless country that was isolated because of U.S. propaganda?

According to Hersh:

Over the years, many people have uttered, "Saddam tried to kill Bush’s father," in defense of Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. In March 2008, the story took another turn as an unlikely organization admitted the plot was a hoax: the Pentagon.

The March 23, 2008 issue of Newsweek ran an article called "Saddam’s Files," written by Michael Isikoff. It stated:

Despite the Pentagon coming clean after 15 years of the public believing a myth about the nonexistent assassination attempt, not too much has changed in the perception and reporting of those times. In April 2008, weeks after the Pentagon announced the Kuwaiti hoax, the National Defense University, a quasi-government organization, published a report called Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath," written by Colonel Joseph J. Collins, a retired U.S. Army officer.

Collins seemed to be writing about a fantasy scenario of Iraq. His assessments were not accurate and at times, differed greatly from the facts. One of them stated: "Since the Republicans had last been in power, Saddam had tried to assassinate the elder Bush." No one challenged Collins’ statement, despite the Pentagon’s earlier declaration. It appears that no matter how many people debunk this lie, it has a life of its own and will go down in history as fact.

Hersh was quite right in his assessment of picking on the weak. U.S. citizens take pride in the fact that their society scorns bullies who pick on defenseless adversaries. However, they contradict their own philosophy by cheering on the murdering of foreign civilians who are the weakest prey of all.

These cowardly actions transcend political allegiances in the U.S. Obama (remember, the anti-war candidate), condemned Iran’s actions in putting down demonstrations. On June 23, 2009, he told the press, "And we deplore violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place.'' On the same day, neews headlines read, "Deadly ‘Drone Attack’ Hits Pakistan." It appears that at least 40 Pakistani civilians were killed while at a funeral. Obama ordered the strike. It seems that Pakistanis, Iraqis and Afghanis don’t count. The lies and hypocrisy of the blood thirst of U.S. politicians, and many civilians, remain unabated.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH

With all the occurrences in Iran taking the world headlines, two cover-ups have taken a back seat to Iranian affairs. Once the situation in Iran becomes more complacent (most probabily because of punitive actions that will be taken by the clerics in charge of the country), the subject of the two masquerades will still be with us, only at a lower level of publicity.

The current administrations of the U.S. and Great Britain are stonewalling the issue of lying to the public of both nations about the reasons for going to war against Iraq in 2003. On both sides of the Atlantic, despite previous statements of an open discussion, Obama and Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, are holding under wraps information that could implicate many people in blatant war crimes activities.

Obama’s excuse is a great sham. He has stopped the publication of pictures of U.S. military personnel torturing Iraqis. In addition, he has blocked the issuing of memos that would implicate many in the bogus buildup to the March 2003 invasion. In Obama’s case, he is sheltering those who have been the most outspoken critics of his administration: neocon Republicans. All the time he has been keeping Dick Cheney from public scrutiny, Cheney has made public statements condemning Obama’s security measures. If Obama ever possessed a backbone, it has surely been a victim of atrophy since he took the oath of office in January 2009.

Gordon Brown is also keeping locked a public and open inquiry into British lies that led to the U.S.-Britain alliance in destroying Iraq. The British public, press, and politicians of all parties are asking for an in-depth report on the shenanigans the British government pulled in 2002 and 2003 to con the public into mildly accepting an invasion of Iraq.

It’s great that the public of the two nations want to know the truth. But, the reason for asking for an open look at these documents seems to be off-base. Most people say that an honest look at the period will help insure that something like this does not happen again.

Jonathan Steele wrote a brilliant article on the British cover-up on June 15, 2009 called "Skewed and in Secret, this Iraqi Inquiry Is a Scandal." He gives many details of Brown’s deceit. However, he concluded:

Despite Steele’s astute reporting on the subject, I find his statement, "The wider issue is to insure that Britain enters no such ‘war of choice’ again," to be flawed. It’s time to stop using the excuse that the truth will stop future illegal and despicable ventures. The reason for such inquiries should be to prove the guilt of those who created the situation and bring them to justice. Once this occurs, future leaders will have second thoughts about illegally attacking developing nations if they think they may swing from the end of a noose.

Take the cases of Bush and Blair and their cronies who took glee in killing more than a million Iraqis and destroying the nation’s history and culture in the 2003 invasion and occupation. Many have written their memoirs and are bragging of their activities. Something seems wrong here. The killers become heroes and the victims are buried in graves.

In most Western societies, if a person persuades someone to murder a family and the truth emerges, the one who prompted the person who pulled the trigger is just as responsible as the killer. In such instances, I have yet to read where a judge tells the killer and accomplice, "Well, we all learned from this lesson. Don’t do it again." Why can the law of the land of Britain and the U.S. be different for the elected leaders?

The excuse that we may learn from the experience and think twice before doing it again is bogus. Take Grenada, then Panama, then Iraq, then Somalia, then Serbia, then Iraqi again. People of the left, after the truth emerged from each military incursion, took pride in getting the word out and then became complacent thinking it would never happen again. The difference in each instance is that not only did it happen again, but it happened on a grander scale.

The press was irate when it was kept away from Grenada for days. "Never again," said media personnel. "Never again" occurred in Panama in 1989 and then in Iraq in 1991. The press kept complaining, yet did nothing about it.

Then, in 2003, the U.S. administration said that the press would be allowed to follow the action. What occurred was worse than having no press coverage. The "imbedded" reporters had to have their stories authorized by the U.S. military before they could post them. What we read about was the heroic U.S. military taking on the Iraqi savages and teaching them a lesson. Fortunately, a few independent journalists defied the U.S. ban on un-imbedded reporters and did give us some idea of the truth. But, most of their stories were rejected by the mainstream press because the U.S. administration warned them about printing "anti-American" stories. Plus, the U.S. bombed the offices of Al-Jazeera News in Afghanistan and Iraq. This was to make an example of media outlets the U.S. did not admire.

There is no excuse for saying that the main reason for the truth to emerge is to make sure the same does not happen again. It always does.

Currently, there are a few war crimes tribunals in operation, most concerning little-known individuals from tiny African republics. They do not have the same propaganda machine as the leaders of the Western nations.

When the world has in place an organization with teeth that would indict and insure the attendance in a court room of George Bush I and II, Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, Madeleine Albright, Barack Obama, Don Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and many others who are accomplices to murder, we would see a complete turnaround in military actions. Maybe war would become obsolete. But, it is more likely to continue with the status quo. The last lines of the great movie, "The Grand Illusion," by Jean Renoir say it all. Two French POWs escaped a German World War I prison camp. With Germans chasing them, they made it to the Swiss border, a neutral country. They were safe, temporarily. One asked the other what would happen and was told that they would make their way back to France and be assigned to another unit and then go back into battle. The other asked, "Wouldn’t it be nice if there was no war?" to which his comrade replied, "What are you, an illusionist?"

We are living the Grand Illusion in a much more severe way than Jean Renoir could have imagined.

Many people speak of the lies that led to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. However, a great number of people forget, or are not aware, that the same propaganda campaign preceded the 1991 destruction of Iraq by the U.S. Same lies, same story line, same results.

Former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark came about as close as anyone to bringing justice to the perpetrators of the 1991 massacre. He formed an International War Crimes Tribunal that received much publicity in the world, except in the U.S. media. Although he had a representative group of judges and witnesses, and went to great lengths to convene this Tribunal, those found guilty had to pay no price. The following is from my book, The Mother of All Battles: The Endless U.S.-Iraq War. Clark did not hold the trial to insure that the same mistakes would not occur in the future. He organized the event to call out publicly the names and crimes of those involved.

The most powerful forces in Desert Storm were not the bombs or missiles dropped on Iraq. Without firing a shot, the U.S. media ensured the country’s destruction. Their acquiescence to U.S. government demands stopped all discussion of a negotiated settlement of the crisis. Schwarzkopf said it all on the day after the cease-fire. At a press conference, he laughed as he told the journalists, "You printed everything just the way we said it."

If the media tried to find the truth, or gave both sides a chance to be heard, there is a possibility that there would not have been a Desert Storm. The U.S. public had no idea why Iraq went into Kuwait or the history of the area. To this day, because of biased media coverage, the American public, for the most part, thinks Saddam Hussein was attempting to take over the world.

During Desert Shield, the buildup to the massacre, there was much talk about impending military action. For months, we heard many voices, however, those who supported military action dominated the debate. Occasionally, an opponent of a military solution was given a chance to speak, but the message was usually negated by the moderators of radio and TV shows.

Politicians told the U.S. public outrageous lies about the situation. The press was remiss in challenging these untruths, so more and bigger lies followed. The media, the military, politicians and administration officials were exempt from having to tell the truth.

It would take thousands of pages to chronicle the deficiencies of the media in their lapdog role during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, but one portion of history was ignored by the U.S. press — former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark’s formation of a war crimes tribunal and the following trial and judgement against the U.S. government.

In February 1991, Ramsey Clark visited Iraq during the height of allied bombing. He did not see a pretty sight. Clark returned with much videotape and tales of horror of Iraq’s civilian population being bombed, despite the U.S. government’s denial. U.S. television stations did not show any videotape and Clark’s message went unheard and unseen.

Shortly after the cease-fire, Clark formed a Commission of Inquiry to travel to Iraq to see if there was enough evidence to put the U.S. government on trial for war crimes and crimes against peace. The Commission found a wealth of evidence and returned to the U.S.

For the next nine months, Clark and various members of the Commission traveled worldwide to gather further evidence of war crimes. The results were overwhelming. People came forward to give evidence of atrocities perpetrated against Iraq’s population, its military, the environment, and citizens of other countries. Whenever the Commission took evidence, whether in Europe, Asia, Africa or the Middle East, the media of many countries were in attendance. Despite the large attendance at meetings, the U.S. media were absent.

On February 29, 1992, in New York City, the International War Crimes Tribunal convened to try George Bush, Dan Qualye, James Baker, Dick Cheney, William Webster, Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf and others on 19 charges of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and other criminal acts and high crimes. The Martin Luther King High School auditorium was filled to capacity (more than 1,500) and many others lined up outside to hear the proceedings over loudspeakers. The broadcast media of various countries carried the trial live, but, despite the attendance and international coverage, U.S. press disregarded the event.

The panel consisted of 21 people from assorted countries and it ruled on the following 19 counts:

• The U.S. engaged in a pattern of conduct beginning in or before 1989 intended to lead Iraq into provocations justifying U.S. military action against Iraq and permanent U.S. military domination of the Gulf.
• President Bush from August 2, 1990, intended to prevent any interference to his plan to destroy Iraq militarily and economically.
• President Bush ordered the destruction of facilities essential to civilian life and economic productivity in Iraq.
• The U.S. intentionally bombed and destroyed civilian life, commercial and business districts, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, historical sites, private vehicles and civilian government offices.
• The U.S. intentionally bombed indiscriminately throughout Iraq.
• The U.S. intentionally bombed and destroyed Iraqi personnel, used excessive force, killed soldiers seeking to surrender and in disorganized flight, often unarmed and far from any combat zones and randomly and wantonly killed Iraqi soldiers and destroyed materiel after the cease-fire.
• The U.S. used prohibited weapons capable of mass destruction and inflicting indiscriminate death and unnecessary suffering against both military and civilian targets.
• The U.S. intentionally attacked installations in Iraq containing dangerous substances and forces.
• President Bush ordered U.S. forces to invade Panama resulting in the deaths of 1,000 to 4,000 Panamanians and the destruction of thousands of private dwellings, public buildings and commercial structures.
• President Bush obstructed justice and corrupted United Nations functions as a means of power to commit crimes against peace and war crimes.
• President Bush usurped the Constitutional power of Congress as a means of securing power to commit crimes against peace, war crimes and other high crimes.
• The U.S. waged war on the environment.
• President Bush encouraged and aided Shi’ite Muslims and Kurds to rebel against the government of Iraq causing fratricidal violence, emigration, exposure, hunger and sickness, and thousands of deaths. After the rebellion failed, the U.S. invaded and occupied parts of Iraq without authority in order to increase division and hostility within Iraq.
• President Bush intentionally deprived the Iraqi people of essential medicine, potable water, food and other necessities.
• The U.S. continued its assault on Iraq after the cease-fire, invading and occupying at will.
• The U.S. has violated and condoned violations of human rights, civil liberties and the U.S. Bill of Rights in the U.S., in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to achieve its purpose of military domination.
• The U.S., having destroyed Iraq’s economic base, demands reparations which will permanently impoverish Iraq and threaten its people with famine and epidemic.
• President Bush systematically manipulated, controlled, directed, misinformed and restricted press and media coverage to obtain constant support in the media for his military and political goals.
• The U.S. has by force secured a permanent military presence in the Gulf, the control of its oil resources and geopolitical domination of the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf region.

When the trial concluded, there was a verdict. According to the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal:

How could a trial held in the U.S. against the U.S. government be ignored by the press? The subject alone should have piqued the media’s curiosity. The blackout was not due to lack of notice from the International War Crimes Tribunal — many press releases were sent and many phone calls were made in an attempt to gain publicity.

I tried to discover why there was a lack of coverage. First, I talked to Irv Cass, news director of Channel 39, and NBC affiliate in San Diego, California. He explained, "There could be a variety of reasons why we didn’t cover it. We get news from a variety of sources, such as AP, NBC Network and CNN."

Could AP (Associated Press), the agency from which thousands of television stations, radio stations, and newspapers gain their information be the culprit? According to Adrianne Weil Parks of the AP office in New York, the AP has a clean record on this issue. She said, "Sure. I put all their (Tribunal) stuff on the wire. Believe me, I’ve put them out."

Three major wire services (AP, UPI and Reuters) were given much information from the Tribunal. UPI admitted to receiving the information, but could not verify if it was sent over the wires. Reuters did send the story. According to Art Spiegleman of Reuters, "We sent out the story a couple of days before it (the trial) took place."

At least two of the three major wire services announced the War Crimes Tribunal, leaving the media one less excuse for not running the story. Paul Ahuja was the press director for the Tribunal. He mentioned some publications that did not cover the story because of its controversial nature. Ahuja recalled a conversation with Sidney Schanberg of Newsday in which Schanberg told him, "I can’t cover this story. I’d get fired."

The New York Times was just as squeamish. Staff at the publication told Ahuja, "This story is editorial suicide."

Ramsey Clark was critical of the press coverage of Desert Storm and the lack of coverage of the Tribunal. He said, "The press has totally defaulted. It began with Grenada." His reference of Grenada alluded to the U.S. government’s blackout of press coverage of the invasion of the island by U.S. forces in 1983. Clark added, "They (the press) complained for a while, but they soon forgot."

During Desert Storm, Clark was vocal about his opposition; however, he and many other opponents were totally shut out by the media. Clark said, "The press led the American people to celebrate a slaughter."

Clark called the media remiss in attempting to get the facts. He stated:

According to Clark, the journalists used the excuse of imminent danger for their exit. He said, "It’s like a fireman saying, ‘Hell, that’s a big fire. I’m not going in there.’"

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

The Iranian election results are in. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won. Those two sentences are about all the publicity that the election warranted.

Until about a month ago, his re-election seemed assured. Then, outside forces intervened and used creative fantasies to portray this as a great historical event. The Western press began to push his closest rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, as a reformist capable of changing Iran into a fair and just nation that would make friends with the world. Mousavi, a distant second in the polls at the time, was himself surprised at his designation as Iran’s possible savior. His views were similar to those of Ahmadinejad, and, with the subject of Iran’s nuclear program, were identical. The only difference appeared to be Mousavi’s declaration of toning down rhetoric and attempting to gain better relations with the West.

Then, the propaganda machines went into full gear. According to many media pundits, Mousavi’s victory would reverse all the negative aspects of Iran. They began affixing names and colors to the revolution. These were identical to the Western depictions of elections in Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics that the U.S. was courting. Even the bogus Iraqi "elections" of 2005 were designated the "purple" revolution.

With Iran, the same script writers emerged. They tried to affix a name to the occurrences in Iraq, such as the "velvet" revolution. But, I think that name had already been used.

A few days before the election, young Iranians took to the street to show their support of a new Iran. Few, however, realized that Mousavi did not include a revolution in his agenda.

In 1978 and 1979, millions of people took over the streets of Iran in an attempt to force the Shah from the country and change the government. It worked. There was jubilance, but it soon ceased for many Iranians who thought they were getting a new country based on democracy and justice. The movement included people of all political persuasions, especially those of the Iranian left. But, when the smoke cleared, Ataytollah Khomeini sat in the driver’s seat as the head of an Islamic republic. Many political activists who created the revolution were now left out in the cold. A program was quickly instituted in which thousands of pro-revolution activists, who were against the formation of a sectarian state, disappeared. Those who participated in recent street demonstrations seemed to forget the events of 30 years ago.

Now, there are theories about who would have been the better leader in terms of relations with the U.S. and Israel. This speculation is quite absurd. Ahmadinejad is the best choice for furthering the current agendas of both nations.

If Mousavi won and he toned down the language of the regime, Israel would have lost a major target to demonize. Because of this, Israel may have been forced to approach the Palestinian issue in a less harsh manner. But, with a dim-witted president who makes the occasional ridiculous public statement, Israel still has an excuse for its belligerence. "See, he’s threatening to blow up Israel" will still be used by Israelis to continue the nation’s despicable treatment of Palestinians. Plus, no one will question Israel’s nuclear arsenal because the West will infer that Iran is so erratic that it is a threat to Israel’s existence. I would assume that Netanyahu breathed a sigh of relief when the news of Ahmadinejad’s victory reached the media headlines.

Despite all the bluster from the U.S. administration about human rights in Iran, there is no doubt that they are comfortable with Ahmadinejad. Iran has assisted the U.S. many times over the years, all the time being cast as a rogue state by the U.S. Iran gladly accepts this designation in return for all the assistance the U.S. has given the nation.

In 1991, Iranian fighters crossed the border of Iraq and helped begin the Shi’ite insurrection in the south of the country. The U.S. knew this and kept silent. The Iraqi military finally quelled the Iranian-backed coup attempt; an operation that the U.S. thought would work and get rid of Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party.

Iran’s presence in Iraq in 2003, after the U.S. invasion, was much more successful and deadly. Iranian-backed militias murdered thousands of people: scholars, doctors, professors, etc. in an attempt to get rid of the intelligentia in Iraq and make it easier for sectarian Shi’ites to come to the forefront. Hundreds of Iraqi pilots who flew for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War were hunted down and assassinated by Iranian agents and Iranian-backed militias. The U.S. had a convenient ally in taking care of dirty business without having to do the work themselves.

Iran has gained a foothold in Iraq that will be hard to reverse. Economically, Iran has benefited greatly from the venture. In the south of Iraq, many signs are in the Farsi language, not Arabic.

The U.S.-Iran tag-team is a balanced alliance, although publicly not admitted. Iran has a strong hold on Iraq and the U.S. has gained much information from Iran about Afghanistan and Iraq. Since Bush’s announcement of the "war on terror," Iran has been a willing partner.

The talk of the U.S. going to war with Iran is absurd. Both have, and continue to, help each other immensely. We can see from Obama’s actions that the public denigration, yet private collaboration with Iran has not changed since the Bush administration and shows no sign of being altered in the near future.

The people who recently took to the streets in Iran were pawns. Their making a hero out of Mousavi did nothing to help their cause. In the long run, Iranian officials may take punitive measures against the duped citizens.

The actions of the young people in Iran and those of the anti-war, progressive left in the U.S. are identical. The U.S. left took a mediocre mainstream U.S. senator and created a mystique about him. Obama became the greatest thing since Jesus roamed the Earth (if he ever existed). After his inauguration, Obama has proven millions of his supporters to be wrong. Some have openly criticized his right-of-center actions, while others, even though they know they were wrong in building up Obama, fail to admit their errors. In both cases, press hoopla began an illogical program of creating images that did not exist for Obama and Mousavi.

What if Mousavi had won? Most thinking journalists have stated that there would be little or no difference. Their reasoning is that no matter who is the president of Iran, the final say in matters comes from the nation’s clerics.

On June 13, 2009, the Associated Press ran an article that delved into the various options that would occur with a victory of either of the candidates. According to the article, "With Nuclear Dispute at Stake, World Reacts Cautiously to Iranian Hard-liner’s Re-election:

The reality of Iran’s nuclear program is that if it did have a few nuclear weapons, they would be useless. A pre-emptive nuclear strike against Israel with one nuke would invite a response in minutes of dozens of nukes against Iran. As feeble-minded as Ahmadinejad is, he realizes this fact. Plus, the real powers in Iran would not be stupid enough to unleash an out-dated nuclear weapon against Israel, who possesses limitless stocks of modern devastating weapons in addition to its several hundred nukes.

Many people spoke gleefully of a change of administration in Iran. But, as we see, the administration can only go so far and the clerics would cease any proposed actions that they did not agree with. In all the media frenzy, a report from Al-Jazeera News last week seems to have gone un-noticed. It spoke of the reality of a "revolution" in Iran and who really holds the power in Iran. The piece was called "Iran Guard Warns Reformist Groups:"

MAYBE NORTH KOREA WILL NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE

North Korea is again on the hot seat. Because of its practice of independence and it claims the rights granted to sovereign nations, North Korea is about to face deadly economic sanctions.

For the past couple of weeks, we have heard U.S. spokesperson-after-spokesperson take glee in telling the world of the various sanctions they want imposed against the small nation. In addition, talk of military actions against North Korea have also been bandied about.

According to AL-Jazeera News of June 10, 2009, in an article titled, "UN to Expand N Korea Sanctions:"

Now, a monkey wrench has been thrown into the issue. Two U.S. journalists were apprehended inside North Korea and charged with illegally entering the country as well as committing acts that harmed the nation. They were tried and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

The same people who are threatening North Korea are asking for the release of the two women who were convicted. They maintain that their case should not be mixed in with the political situation. Calls for their immediate release are coming from many sectors, especially the "progressive" element of the U.S.: the same people who once stated they were against the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the U.S., but who have said they oppose the Iraqi resistance. Not one word about the actions the women committed. Just release them.

A few days ago, a U.S. couple was arrested and charged with spying for Cuba. They were set up by an undercover FBI agent. So far, scant proof of espionage has come forth, yet the couple is being held without bail. I hear no outcry from the U.S. left to release them.

Now comes a bizarre story of similarities. I have yet to read about the parallel of an almost identical occurrence from 14 years ago in Iraq, a nation under a strict economic embargo who tried two U.S. citizens as spies and convicted them. Bill Richardson was the person who arranged for the Iraqi government to release the spies. A benevolent Saddam Hussein let them return to the U.S. Saddam received nothing in return for the release of the spies except for a stronger anti-Iraq stance from the U.S. government once they were on U.S. soil.