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It was the second Wednesday of September 2001. Terrorist attacks had grounded all commercial and private aviation throughout the entire United States for the first time in history. Former vice-president Al Gore was stranded in Austria because his flight to the United States was cancelled. Former president Bill Clinton was stuck in Australia. Major League Baseball games were postponed. American skies were nearly as empty as they had been when the Wright brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk. America was paralysed by terror, and for 48 hours, virtually no one could fly ...… No one, that is, except for the Saudis.
Guest Editorial by Media Lens
As anyone who has worked in a modern corporation will know, the people working in those corporations are good, caring people. It?s just that, in their work, they are required to obey a system of economic logic that subordinates human and animal suffering to short-term profit. They are decent, civilized people -? their actions result in mass suffering and death. It is wrong to think that evil comes with a black hat, horns, scarred face, handle-bar moustache, or even mad, staring eyes. Endless testimony has documented the banal nature of evil. Men, women and children are generally burned alive, not by grinning monsters, but by fresh-faced kids pushing throttles, raising flaps and pressing bomb releases.
Jane Lampman
For Ray Sanders and his wife, Sharon, reading Hal Lindsey’s apocalyptic bestseller, “The Late Great Planet Earth,” was a life changing experience. “That awakened our understanding to Israel and its prophetic role in the Last Days,” Mr. Sanders explains. The Sanders’ now live and work from Jerusalem, marshalling support from evangelical Christians around the world, to fulfill what they see as their role in an unfolding final drama. They and other Christian Zionists, whose ranks are estimated at 20 million in the USA alone, have in the past two decades poured millions of dollars of donations into Israel, formed a tight alliance with the Likud and other Israeli politicians seeking an expanded “Greater Israel,” and mobilized grass-roots efforts to get the USA to adopt a similar policy.
Ewen MacAskill
The United Nations spying row widened on Friday when its former weapons inspector, Hans Blix, told reporters that he suspected both his UN office and his home in New York were bugged in the run-up to the Iraq war. Blix said he expected to be bugged by the Iraqis, but to be spied upon by the USA was a different matter. He described such behaviour as “disgusting”, adding: “It feels like an intrusion into your integrity in a situation when you are actually on the same side.” Blix’s darkest fears were reinforced when he was shown a set of photographs by a senior member of the Bush administration which he insists could only have been obtained through underhand means.
Linda S. Heard
Britain?s David Blunkett ? arguably the most authoritarian Home Secretary that the country Americans call “quaint” has ever had ? is arming Britain to fight the menace of that fairly new-fangled concept “terrorism”. While M15 is scouring the land searching for up to 1,000 Arabic speakers to spy on their compatriots in mosques ? or rather “infiltrate overseas-sponsored terror networks” ? Blunkett does his bit by drafting new government powers between fending off criticisms of Belmarsh, his very own version of Guantanamo. There are now 14 foreign “disappeared” being held indefinitely at Belmarsh without charge and without even knowing why they?re there. If Blunkett has his way, there will be many more, including suspect British nationals.
Dr. Mohamed Khodr
It is no coincidence that “Arabs” and “Islam” became enemies of the “American” state only after the founding of Israel. Prior to that the USA enjoyed great relations with the Arab and Muslim world, especially in their mutual antipathy to Communism. All that changed when Israel’s founders understood that in order to secure America’s support, they must drive a wedge, a fence, a wall, in essence a beltway around the corridors of Washington D.C. that only allows Zionist garbage in and American garbage out. Enter the “Judeo-Christian” world; enter the “shared values”; enter the “only democratic ally” in the Middle East; enter the “strategic special relationship”; enter “what’s good for Israel is good for America”.
John V Whitbeck
It is no accident that there is no agreed definition of “terrorism”, since the word is so subjective as to be devoid of any inherent meaning. In his recent “Meet the Press” interview, USA President Bush was never asked a question about “terrorism”. Yet, in his answers, he used the word (or a variant) 22 times. This word explained, and justified, everything - past, present and future. Few American politicians or commentators dare to question the conventional wisdom that “terrorism” is the greatest threat facing America and the world. This being so, the real threat lies not in the behaviour to which this word is applied but, rather, in the word itself.
Jawad Ali
Hitler? is a registered trademark and valuable commercial property. It is owned by a small and predictably murky group of powerful individuals and institutions. There are strict rules about the right and wrong ways of using the Brand Name. It is immoral to use the Brand Name in ways that do not enrich its Guardians. Certain predictable things happen each time the Sacred Brand is correctly invoked. Cruise missiles and cluster bombs land on peasant villages and densely populated urban areas. Checkposts and settlements are set up. Land mines and depleted uranium cause slow motion holocausts. The Guardians of the Sacred Brand rake in billions.
Daniel P. Welch for the World Crisis Web
The king is dead--long live the king! Okay, so the old lefty saw about it-doesn’t-matter-who-gets-elected-they’re-all-the-same-anyway might have less punch this time around. The Bush-led extremist puppet show that has hacked and brutalized its way into power is so evil, so corrupt, so completely dangerous down to the cellular and atomic level that it would be unthinkable not to wish them gone whatever the cost. Still, preventing evil is not the same as promoting good. A grim duty, perhaps. But hardly one that stirs the soul. Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way.
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