Officials warned that unless Syria changes its policy within the next few weeks, the administration would consider economic and military measures against Damascus that would intensify in 2005. They said the Defense Department has drafted a range of military options meant to put Damascus on the defensive and encourage insurrection within Syria.

We Americans live in our own off-planet bubble, we have at best only a partial sense of exactly how much dismay, puzzlement, and anger has built up globally around Bush administration policies and George's own person – and how much this has affected views of the United States.

Many can't fathom how a majority of American voters could even consider re-electing him, a feeling that is creating a curious state of suspension in Europe.

A team of experts from 15 countries has descended on the United States to observe the upcoming presidential election. These 20 experts, from five continents, did not come to learn how elections ought to be managed. They came to monitor, to audit, to comment on irregularities.

On the floor of the House, Rep. Stephen Buyer stated: “For over 200 years, this nation has conducted elections fairly and impartially, ensuring that each person’s vote will count. Imagine going to your polling place on the morning of November 2 and seeing blue-helmeted foreigners inside your local library, school or fire station.” More irony.

Much of the US public is deluded about the invasion and occupation of Iraq and its consequences and about the state of the US economy.

Just as Americans are deceived into believing that Iraq was involved in the September 11 terrorist attack on the US and threatened America with weapons of mass destruction, Americans are deceived into believing that they benefit economically from outsourcing, offshore production, and an unprecedented trade deficit.

Is John Kerry throwing the election to his fellow Bonesman George Bush, who is also member of a secret society called the Order of Skull and Bones?

Simply put, if Kerry is elected, and if he makes good on his promise, which he would have to do in order to combat the fiscal mess he is inheriting (i.e., Bushonian budget and trade deficits) he would have to raise capital gains taxes and unearned income taxes.

Of course, he would be acting against his own best interest. This gets back to what George Wallace said There ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between a Democrat and Republican -- when both of them have a net worth of more than $10 million. And George Wallace knew he was right. That is one of the great truisms of American politics.

Now, the Republicans are moving ruthlessly to play the ace of trumps in American politics, the patriot card, against Kerry.

The New York Times may wail about "an un-American way to campaign," but Bush and Cheney are fighting for their political lives and places in history. Do not expect this pair to go gentle into that good night.

Given the deteriorating relations between the United States and the Arab world, quite a few Middle Eastern oil-exporting countries have begun to increase the proportion of the euro used in international settlement. Reportedly Russia is also going to follow suit.

To ward off foreign exchange risks, China needs to readjust the current structure, increasing the proportion of the euro in its foreign exchange reserves.

White voters make up 86 percent of all voters in the most competitive states, and "This election is going to be won in the Midwest, largely white, battleground states."

The boondoggle that the current President Bush created with his foolish amnesty plan for illegals ought to tell him all he needs to know about the politics of immigration.

And if he wants to win and keep the white vote, he needs to forget about amnesty and the idiocies the Open Borders lobby tells him and start doing something to control mass immigration.

“For the last 16 years, the general election presidential debates have been controlled by a private, tax-exempt corporation—the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD)—that has deceptively served the interests of the Republican and Democratic parties at the expense of the American people,” their report said.

The report was a project of 11 voter advocacy groups, including the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, Judicial Watch and the Center for Voting and Democracy.

And he can say that again, can't he? For it is difficult to think of anything more profoundly dangerous for us, for the West, for the Middle East, for Christians and Muslims since the Second World War - the real second war, that is - than Blair's war in Iraq. And Iraq, remember, was going to be the model for the whole Middle East. Every Arab state would want to be like Iraq. Iraq would be the catalyst - perhaps even the "crucible" - of the new Middle East. Spare me the hollow laughter.

Electronic voting machines promise to make elections more accurate than ever before, but only if certain problems - with the machines and the wider electoral process - are rectified . . .

The Bush policy in regard to Iraq has been a fraud from the beginning, and it remains a fraud with the appointment of an old CIA leech as prime minister to oversee the rape of Iraq by the favored corporate pirates. The Iraqi people know the score. The question is, Do the American people?

There can be no moral or legal justification for the type of patriotism that seeks only to inspire the members of one group to commit unspeakable acts against other groups for religious or political gain. Small groups should protect their genetic line from extinction from other groups by returning patriotism to its natural inclination. It is long overdue for mankind to end the faith of Blind Patriotism!

In all the commentariat, which will be endlessly parsing and measuring the candidates' words after Thursday's debate, where are the antiwar voices? Oh, there's a few: Pat Buchanan and Bob Novak will voice the same skepticism toward America's imperial designs as they have been doing since Gulf War I, and Seymour Hersh may find his way onto a few television programs here and there. All in all, however, the "conventional wisdom" that we're "stuck" in Iraq, and are, in some sense, forced to "stay the course" is entrenched – even as the largely unspoken prospect of permanent stalemate looms, for the first time, as a distinct possibility.

By now you must know that the Republican Party has been taken over by the neo-crazies, hell-bent on establishing American Hegemony in the Middle East on behalf of our "allies." But maybe you didn't realize that the Democratic Party was taken over by the neo-crazies long ago.

So how can a solid "conservative Christian" stray so far from the principles of the Founding Fathers, of conservatism, and of Christianity itself? Here, in brief, are a few elements of such a collapse.

Various American Jewish publications are currently attacking the senior FBI counterintelligence official heading the AIPAC probe, David Szady, as — you guessed it — anti-Semitic. Szady led an investigation a few years ago regarding a CIA attorney who happened to be Jewish and this appears to be the basis of the pro-Israeli press attack on Szady.

Here are ripe opportunities for candidate Nader to remind people that on the number one issue on the election agenda--the war in Iraq-- between Bush and Kerr the electorate is offered no choice.

A new SSS plan, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer last May, proposes raising the age of draft registration to 34 years old, up from 25, and possibly including women as well.

Saddam's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano told Denmark's B.T. newspaper that Saddam decided during one of their discussions that he would declare his candidacy for the elections.

Stefano said that there was no law that prevented Saddam from appearing on the ballot. He added that Saddam hopes to regain his presidency and palaces via the democratic process.

Contrary to the statements of Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, Stefano claims, "Saddam has no chance to be tried before the elections. Moreover, no international law prevents him from coming forward."

The book's subtitle: "How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency" summarizes his main charge that the neocons represent "a cabal that betrayed the good cause of conservatism, because, from the very beginning they never believed in it."

Buchanan finally makes his case against what he calls "economic treason." This has two causes, a free trade that opens American borders to low-priced goods and cheap labor from abroad that takes U.S. jobs, and a discounted monetary policy that increases the trade deficit. America has betrayed its historic alternative policy of protectionism that he claims created its prosperity.

Today we hear all the same catch phrases from the Vietnam War days being repeated by Bush & Company: "better to fight them there than here;" "we must stay the course;" "our safety depends on it;" "promote freedom and democracy;" "if we cut and run our credibility will be at stake;" "winning the hearts and minds;" and the list is seemingly endless.

An influential Anglican group is to ask church leaders to impose a boycott of Israel and firms that do business there in protest at the occupation.

In July, the Presbyterian church in the US became the first major denomination to agree a formal boycott of Israel.

Dozens of professors at prestigious American universities, including Princeton and Harvard, have signed a petition calling for an end to US military aid to Israel and for their universities to divest from firms doing business there.

Mousavian said that besides inviting the West's main exporters of nuclear plants to take a "substantial part" in Iran's nuclear projects, Tehran is also ready to offer them a "golden package" that would include full cooperation in fighting international terrorism and restoring peace and security in the region, as well as in trade and investment.

After all, their actual agenda for governance is no different from what it always has been: robbing people and expanding the state in the name of helping supposed victims of society. What's different now is that they have a target, an enemy, the very embodiment of evil who is behaving like a storybook villain from Marxian pulp fiction. In the name of freedom and prosperity and spreading Americanism, we get war, uncontrolled expansion of the military-industrial complex, unceasing, unmodulated propaganda, and violations of civil liberties. Is it any wonder that leftism is suddenly in vogue?

And in politics, the argument continues, you usually have to settle for the lesser evil.

That’s what conservatives do: They not only settle for him, they greet their anointed lesser evil with cheers, and balloons, and confetti, and high hopes, and all manner of excuses for the awful things he does when in power. All this enthusiasm springs from their conviction that the other guy would be even worse.

And that’s the real issue in every campaign: Which guy would be even worse? Given that question, you’d think the undecided vote this year would be 100 percent.

Many researchers claim the name al-Qaeda was made up in middle ‘90s by a variety of American functionaries (one of them being none other than Richard Clarke) as an all-purpose villain the U.S. could blame as a convenient reason for its military adventurism.

TIME MAGAZINE, September 12, 2004, “WHO LEFT THE DOOR OPEN?” exposed America’s nation-destroying crisis for the first time by a major news source.

If 4,000 illegals coming across nightly aren’t a call to action, I don’t know what is. The question is what action will you take for your children’s future and the future of America? Silence is not an option!

You were snookered by the Perle Cabal at the time and came to believe that the war was justified, and now must admit you were wrong. Don't make the same mistake a second time. Before you proceed, please ask a lot more questions than you have so far. In fact, give Dr. Prather a call if you are really serious about getting to the bottom of things.

Even more disturbing than the draft is the fact that some in Congress would like to expand the draft beyond military service to also include "national service." You see, for many of our leaders, bringing back the draft has less to do with providing needed soldiers for combat – America has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in peaceful nations from Japan to Germany – than it does expanding the size and power of government.

After the review, the CIA hired the ADL to conduct “sensitivity training” within the ranks of Szady’s CEG.

Foxman said, “The sensitivity training in the CIA was not directed at one individual. It was directed at a situation. There was a concern in the agency at that time, that the world was changing and the agency itself needed its staff to be sensitive to diversity.”

The Trilateral blueprint for shaping a community of the developed nations of North America, Western Europe and Japan has been extended to other parts of the globe.

When the TC began in 1973, 60 percent of its 58 U.S. members held membership also in the Council on Foreign Relations, one of David Rockefeller’s other projects. As of 2004, 70 percent of the 82 U.S. members are CFR members. If the subversive agenda advanced by these individuals and their organizations is not more widely exposed and opposed — their long-sought-after goal of world government may indeed become a reality.

The majority of our elected Congressional leaders in this nation care not about us average citizens, but, as we know so well, only about reelection. A principal part of their pandering has been directed at pleasing business corporations which provide most of their campaign money. These businesses want cheap labor and do not want to stop the massive immigration invasion, even if it would assist in the so-called War on Terrorism. Meanwhile, 80% of voters want less immigration and real reform. Two recent disgusting examples of leaders ignoring chances to make meaningful immigration reform are very illustrative.

Although I certainly hope Novak is correct in his assessment, being a pessimist by temperament, I tend to doubt it. But I don't doubt that it's possible he and Buchanan are right about the administration desperately wanting to pull itself up out of the Iraqi quagmire. The question is, though: can they do it? Or are we so mired down at this point that there's no escape from being sucked into the Mideast maelstrom?

The neocons have already hedged their bets with the creation of the Committee on the Present Danger, a bipartisan group of war-hawks co-chaired by Senators John Kyl and Joe Lieberman and headed up by R. James "World War IV" Woolsey.

Meantime among those who still deny Zionist power in US foreign policy, one only has to read the accounts of the AIPAC conference in Washington in May 2004. At a time when Israel was killing children in the streets of Rafah and destroying hundreds of homes under the horrified eyes of the entire civilized world, when an indignant UN Security Council finally rose to its feet and unanimously condemned Israel, US Congressional leaders and the two major Presidential candidates pledged unconditional support to Israel, evoking the bloodthirsty cheers of investment brokers, dentists, doctors, lawyers the cream of the cream of American Jewish society. The cause of Israel is the cause of America rings out from the mouth of every candidate as the Israelis bulldoze homes and snipers shoot small girls on their way to buy candy.

The Novak column says "the Kerry campaign is not equipped to make sober evaluations of Iraq. When I asked a Kerry political aide what his candidate would do in Iraq, he could do no better than repeat the old saw that help is on the way from European troops. Kerry's foreign policy advisers know there will be no release from that quarter." My guess is now that Novak has broken the ice, there will be further recognition in the political class that the neoconservative dream of an imperial outpost in Baghdad has gone up in smoke.

The real reason they hate us is because of their mindless, reckless hatred of everything that's good in the world (that's us), because we are free, democratic and virtuous.

Which well explains the logic of the current war. For as we let our rights erode with Guantanomization of dissent, as we engage in atrocities like the sadism of Abu Ghraib, as we chain ourselves to interminable terror alerts and color-code warnings of imminent mass death, we will soon lose every last vestige of freedom, democracy, and virtue we currently possess - thus forcing Arab insurgents and terrorists everywhere to fall in love with America, drop their weapons, and sue for peace.

The war policy of George W. Bush -- "preventive war," unilateralism, contempt for Geneva -- breaks with tradition, but there is nothing new about the American population's refusal to face what is being done in our name. This is a sad, old story. It leaves us ill-equipped to deal with a pointless, illegal war.

The American decision to initiate the use of DU weaponry, and then to continue its use even when evidence mounted to thwart any lingering doubts about the hazards, is a despicable act. This was a cold, calculated decision to inflict long-lasting harm on enemies with no regard for the innocent in those lands and no regard even for American and allied troops.

Why would our spooks kill 3000+ Americans in the 9-11 faux-terror event, you ask?

It really comes down to this: without an "enemy," our parasitical "national security" establishment has no reason to exist in its present form, much less continue to grow.

The healthy leadership of a nation puts the interests of the nation it leads ahead of the interests and preferences of the illegal aliens who have invaded it. Mr. Hutchinson, bubbling about "compassion," is more worried about "uprooting" the invaders and hurting their feelings.

The rather bloodthirsty demand launched by Arizona Senator John McCain that the US military conquer Fallujah and other Sunni Arab cities of al-Anbar Province will not in fact enhance the possibility of free elections in January.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom as good as admitted his Government's transgression on New Zealand's sovereignty when he told the Knesset that "we" received a message regarding the men's arrest from the New Zealand Government - but that "out of respect to the New Zealand judicial system that had already started legal proceedings where the two Israelis were accused of criminal offences, and out of concern for their safety, it was decided to postpone our response until the end of legal proceedings".

The answer is not complicated, but it is diabolical. The “haves” invented a religious warmaking philosophy to control the have-nots. Ariel Sharon calls this philosophy “Christian Zionism.” Pharisee Watch calls it “Judaized Christianity,” a term found in the English translations of the Scriptures.

If Judaized Christianity can recover from its heresy it will regain its patriotic, pro-American, moral voting patterns that it was known for before Israel became a state in 1948. We have no reason to believe that evangelicals would not vote and act at least as intelligently and patriotically as the population as a whole. They, like secular Americans, would then put America’s interest first, were they would demand our politicians stop supporting Israel’s war agenda.

"I gave them a sword, and they ran it right through me," said Richard Nixon. Thirty years later, Nixon nemesis Dan Rather might say the same of the blunders that are about to bring an inglorious end to his long career . . . In a way, this is a tragedy. A flaw in a man's character, magnified by his position of preeminence, brings about his downfall and ruin. In Rather's case, it was pride and a blind hatred of the right that led him to commit a journalistic atrocity that will end up killing not the president's re-election, but his own reputation and career.

With Jiang out of the way, Hu also is no longer able to pass the buck - and the blame. He must face the choice: either establish his authority the hard and usual way, or risk bringing the sky crashing down on him if the center can no longer hold. Perversely, rule is most stable when the ruler is the most savage.

The current dual-center of politics in China, with Hu as the party/state leader and Jiang as the PLA boss may not be desirable for timely and efficient decision making. The unfinished leadership transition from Jiang to Hu, however, is perhaps the most uneventful compared to that of any of Jiang's predecessors.

As in “A Holiday For Fools,” it is easy to see that a fool really can be defined as a person who keeps responding to the same situation in the same way, expecting a different result. The next “feast for fools” is creeping its way upon us, and the sheep are anxiously awaiting the call to stumble into the voting booths. Like rats that are being summoned by the Pied Piper, the sheep will soon emerge from their dark caves and scurry to the polls.

Turkey's population within a couple of decades will be larger than Germany, currently the largest EU state. Turkish Muslims would be the single largest voting bloc within the EU. And it would be difficult to deny Turks for long the right possessed by other EU members to migrate anywhere within the EU.

"The Zionists were very successful in using religion for political purposes. This is prohibited by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which states the Government should recognize no 'religous establishment.' In the case of Zionism and Israel, the U.S. has recognized and supported a religious establishment--viz: the State of Israel which in turn discriminates against all non-Jewish religions."

He was a man of prominence, wealth, and determination who intended to buy a newspaper and to write a book that threatened to expose a number of Roosevelt-Truman administration secrets, especially related to the machinations that brought the United States into World War II and the wartime policies that advanced the interests of the Soviet Union. His voluminous diary was confiscated by the Truman White House and its full contents have never been revealed.

Most importantly, though, it was feared that he would continue to work against the interests of Israel. The animus toward Forrestal continues to the present day in Zionist circles, who continue to characterize this most able and dedicated of public servants as an anti-Semite and a nut.

Unlikely that Israel will make the concessions necessary to create a viable Palestinian State, the population trend is the only hope left for Palestinians in a land consumed by violence by both sides. Instead of two states, there will be one multi-national state, forcing Israel to become truly Democratic by default.

"Any effort to remove him ... would by indefensible in international law, would serve a nonconstructive purpose, would negate all efforts toward reconciliation and would have a negative impact on the peace process," said E. Ahamed.

A basic reason for the US-UK surrogate warfare against Russia is the great Anglo-Saxon fear of a continental bloc of the type which emerged during the run – up to Bush’s Iraq aggression. The centerpiece of the continental bloc is the German-Russian relationship. Washington and London fear that Russia will soon agree to accept euros in payment for its oil deliveries. This would not just prevent the Anglo-Americans from further skimming off oil transactions between Russia and Europe. It would represent the beginning of the end of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world, a role which the battered greenback, weakened by Bush’s $500 billion yearly trade deficit and Bush’s $750 billion budget deficit, can no longer fulfill.

Meanwhile, both independent and U.S. military analysts believe that the insurgency, which the administration still insists is made up only of Ba'athist "dead-enders," foreign "jihadis," and criminals, has grown from an estimated 5,000 people one year ago to at least 20,000 and possibly significantly more.

"The bottom line is, at this moment we are losing the war," Col. Andrew Bacevich (ret.) of Boston University told USA Today Thursday.

Yet the sheer weight of pro-Israel lobbyists and media pundits makes it highly unlikely that such a prudent course of action will be on the horizon any time in the near future. And this is, without doubt, tantamount to an unfolding tragedy, not only for the suffering people of Iraq and the region, but also for the spirit of the American republic increasingly infected by the virus of neo-colonialist expansionism exuded by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud branch of ideology. The de-Likudization of US politics today is a sine qua non of retrieving the great republic from the brink of self-metamorphosis into a world-despised empire.

Only by recognising the terrorism of states is it possible to understand, and deal with, acts of terrorism by groups and individuals which, however horrific, are tiny by comparison. Moreover, their source is inevitably the official terrorism for which there is no media language. Thus, the State of Israel has been able to convince many outsiders that it is merely a victim of terrorism when, in fact, its own unrelenting, planned terrorism is the cause of the infamous retaliation by Palestinian suicide bombers.

It’s for the children; It takes a village; There ought to be a law; I know what’s best for you; People are entitled to basic needs. Of course my first thought being, how is this my problem? They are quick to enlighten me that it is everyone’s problem. Their pathetic dribble is only matched by their shameless welfare state of mind.

With every election cycle, I know that the sheep will be too stupid to realize that if voting worked, it would be illegal, and they always manage to live up to my expectations of them as they stumble into the voting booths for another round.

Soviet Union’s last president Mikhail Gorbachev and Russia’s first president Boris Yeltsin expressed criticism regarding Vladimir Putin’s proposed reforms in Russian electoral system.

Boris Yeltsin’s statement is viewed as a surprise move by many observers in Moscow. Unlike Mikhail Gorbachev, who is still active on Russian political scene, Yeltsin chose to refrain from public comments about Vladimir Putin’s politics ever since his retirement.

Unless Israeli policy changes with a new self image and political destiny, its continued existence as a hostile nation among Arabs is not sustainable any more than neo-imperialism is sustainable in the Third World.

On the state level, one glaring lesson from the second Iraq War is that non-possession of nuclear weapons has become an open invitation to enemy invasion . . . Nuclear proliferation will continue until all nuclear powers pledge themselves to the doctrine of no-first-use and the doctrine of no military force against non-nuclear nations.

Unprogressive conservatives believe government has no business altering culture at all. The culture—the way of life of a people—is what creates and disciplines government, not the other way around.

Brooks, like Buchanan, is probably right that the old conservatism is defunct, and maybe he's right it can't be brought back to life. But there's another term for the sort of "progressive conservatism" he's proposing, and that is just plain old vanilla liberalism. In more recent years, it's been called "neo-conservatism," which is where we came in. If anyone still in the Republican Party wants something different, I couldn't tell you who it is.

Henry Sokolski, head of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, says the US and its allies are in a state of denial, that it is too late to stop Iran from getting the bomb. Mr Sokolski describes as "highly irresponsible" the idea that the US can let Israel do the job. The short-term benefits of air strikes would have to be weighed against the costs of a blow to US efforts to foster more moderate Islamic rule in Iran and the Middle East.

The military option is laid out in detail by Globalsecurity.org, a defence think-tank.

In "The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney," (read the original articleIn "The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney," (to read the original article click here: http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=229&row=1 ) I thought I'd perform a minor but laudatory public service: correcting a cruelly false statement by the New York Times, a fib repeating or repeated by other sources from National Petroleum Radio to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. ) I thought I'd perform a minor but laudatory public service: correcting a cruelly false statement by the New York Times, a fib repeating or repeated by other sources from National Petroleum Radio to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

This is at its heart the story about the marginalization and monsterizing of dissenters. This is exactly the lynching that Dan Rather has warned would come to those in politics or news who asked difficult questions.

A new Council for the National Interest/Zogby poll commissioned after the publication of reports that AIPAC was being investigated for espionage shows that Americans of all backgrounds and ages strongly believe it acts as a foreign agent for the Israeli government and should be registered as a foreign agent and lose its tax exempt status.

I have long since given up the hope that Americans would wake up and resent the manipulation of their government by a foreign country. The Israeli lobby has been so successful in labeling any criticism of Israel, no matter how justified, as anti-Semitic that most Americans prefer to stick their heads in the sand. For sure, American politicians and much of the media seem to be terrified by the Israeli lobby, which says more about their cowardice than it does about the power of the lobby itself.

This whole mess, including the war in Iraq and the terrorist attacks, is a result of the American government's involvement with Israel. It's a dangerous and unhealthy state of affairs that will not be cured until Americans find the courage to have an open and honest debate about our foreign policy in the Middle East.

The US and Israel has also ratcheted up the pressure in recent months. Visiting Jerusalem before the Vienna meeting to "compare notes" - in the reported words of one senior US official - with Israel on the Iranian nuclear issue, US Undersecretary of State John Bolton was asked if the US would consider military action if talks fail.

"We are determined that they are not going to achieve nuclear weapons capability," Mr. Bolton said.

Three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, America's politicians and media continue to gravely deceive the public about the so-called war on terrorism.

Now the definitive book on terrorism has appeared that should be mandatory reading for every thinking person. It's called Imperial Hubris: Why The West is Losing the War on Terror.

The cover simply identifies the author as "Anonymous," but he's already been widely identified in the American media as Michael Scheuer, a senior terrorism analyst for the CIA.

The thinking of the neo-conservatives is written of in scripture. In the Book of Revelations 2 and 9, it reads: “I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.”

So, I am hoping that the neo-conservatives will not contrive some terrorist activity in America—which the government continues to warn us will happen—that will kill many more Americans in order to facilitate a political and economic agenda.

Indeed, if these memos turn out to be fakes, CBS and Rather will be guilty of, at least, having been played for fools. At worst, they could be convicted in the court of public opinion of collusion in a plot to bring down a president – a plot into which they were lured by a blinding bias against George W. Bush.

The Luntz study was based on face-to-face interviews with students under age 30 who are attending America’s top graduate schools, majoring in journalism, government, business and law. The students are described as opinion leaders by the year 2020. “They will see Israel as a burden,” the study warned, “and one that is not worth carrying.”

The only way national coalitions can be woven from Iraq's religious and ethnic patchwork is by including the opposition to the occupation. That means negotiating with the insurgents, probably through religious leaders of the stature of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. It also means an amnesty, which should help Iraqi authorities acquire the legitimacy to crush jihadist and other hold-outs.

Ideally, the US would accompany withdrawal by stating it has no intention of establishing bases in Iraq, and instead wishes to facilitate regional security agreements. That would be more stabilising than the current policy of bullying neighbours such as Iran and Syria, whose borders with Iraq the US in any case cannot control.

The second manifesto declares that the Halakha (Jewish religious law) commands the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians if this helps to save Jews. It is signed by the heads of the "Arrangement Yeshivot," the West Bank settlement rabbis and other religious leaders.

The only religious voice raised against this appalling document was that of a small and courageous group called Rabbis for Human Rights, which opposes the dirty messianic current that has submerged almost the whole religious camp in Israel. Their statement discloses that the Yeshiva heads have intentionally falsified the Talmud passages "quoted" by them.

In ambiguous comments to Israeli newspapers to mark the Jewish new year, the prime minister said he intends to force the Palestinian leader into exile. But he also hinted that Mr Arafat might be killed.

Rather reclined upon this rotting monolith for decades. But it can't contain the decay much longer, just as Bernard Goldberg tried to tell Rather. Populist cable will outstrip corrupt elitist network news, Goldberg predicted to his scornful CBS colleagues. It didn't take long for his prediction to come true with CBS now trailing cable in convention coverage. Goldberg, it is worth recalling, was expected to be a correspondent on 60 Minutes II, but Rather boxed him out of the job after Goldberg wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed noting habitual liberal bias at the networks. Had Goldberg been heeded instead of exiled, CBS could have avoided its credibility-destroying 60 Minutes II infomercial for the Democrats. Rather has concluded his career with the same bias that launched it. What's different is that he can't get away with it anymore. Goldberg was telling him that the world had changed. But he wouldn't listen.

Haggai Matar, Adam Maor, Shimri Tsameret, Matan Kaminer and Noam Bahat - the five conscientious objectors to military service - are getting out of prison tomorrow, after serving a year's sentence, and another year in repeated remands. It is not clear what the army is planning for the day after their release. Will they be required to enlist again? Will they be sent to prison again? Are five youngsters capable of carrying on their shoulders the entire objection struggle opposite a strong military establishment that enjoys the support of the consensus? Is it fair to expect it of them?

Old media should have seen this coming. Many of them are now far too partisan and worse they are intellectually lazy. They are losing news consumers to a group of people who are very creative, seem to never sleep and run on a 5-minute news cycle.

Bloggers are a unique breed, some use humor, some simple facts, and some a combination to cite opinion and report on stories. Most use the type of critical thinking that has long been lost in the old media.

The ADL has always insisted on rigid "separation of church and state," vehemently opposing Christian symbols in public places or any government encouragement of Christianity. Yet, for the past fifteen years, the U S government has given "carte blanche" to a religiously affiliated organization, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith," not only to speak for the American government but to teach the justice department, the FBI, and all police departments nationwide concerning what is "hate" and who is "hateful."

The 1,000 Americans who have lost their lives so far in Iraq are unnecessary deaths in an unnecessary war. But it is not too late to remember their sacrifice with the respect and dignity they deserve. To do so requires the wisdom to end the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and bring home the 140,000 American troops now stationed there. With more than 70 percent of Iraqis viewing U.S. forces as occupiers, not liberators, we have clearly overstayed our welcome.

Better than anyone to date, the Media Education Foundation has quietly and accurately documented the most important history of 21st century thus far in their recent video and DVD release, Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear, and the Selling of American Empire.

An array of government and private analysts put the actual U.S. "fiscal gap," which means all future receipts minus all future obligations, at $40 trillion (Government Accountability Office) to $72 trillion (Social Security Board of Trustees).

In this clash of fundamentals there are a whole slew of players; some of them are well known, while others are not. The level of transnational violence is on the rise, while the level of tolerance for different beliefs, different perspectives and different outlooks is going down. As a seemingly interminable outcome of this clash, the international community is living out that well-known Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."

The question that needs to be asked by the American public is what occurred after 1945 to cause the US to become a target of enmity and how is all this linked to the Arab oil embargo, the Pentagon's policy of "full spectrum dominance" of Middle East oil and the US led invasion of Iraq? If one goes back to the root-cause that links these seemingly isolated events, it began with the dynamics set in motion after the expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinian people by European Zionist colonizers, the theft of the land of Palestine, thwarted Arab political and military attempts at mitigation and decades of unqualified US support for Zionist policies of the State of Israel.

According to Ben Elyaho, a co-founder of the new party, the expulsion of non-Jews from Israel would "resolve all of Israel's political, economic and social problems".

"Our party calls for cleansing the region extending from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean from the Goyem [derogatory for non-Jews] and thus guaranteeing a Jewish majority of no less than 90% throughout the Land of Israel," he said.

"It seems that Storer [Broadcasting] sold an AM radio station in Los Angeles to a company owned by a family named Liberman. After the sale, Storer and the Libermans asked the FCC to grant the certificate that makes the tax advantage possible. Their contention was that the Libermans were a minority family. In acceding to this argument the other day, the FCC noted that they ‘are regarded by both themselves and their community as being Hispanic,’ to which the commission added: 'The Liberman family is descended from Spanish Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492. Although Adolfo Liberman was born in Poland, the language spoken in his home during childhood was Castilian Spanish…'"

Bin Laden's dream of a united Muslim state under a revived caliphate may well be impossible to accomplish. But with the secular Ba'ath gone, it could be one step closer to reality. If you add to the equation the generalized hatred for U.S. policies (both against the Palestinians and in Iraq) among Muslims, that is a major step forward for al-Qaeda. In Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda has emerged as a dissident political party. Before it had just been a small group of Bin Laden's personal acolytes in Afghanistan and a handful of other countries.

What is the minimum America can settle for, given all the blood and treasure already expended, if the utopian vision of the neoconservatives is not attainable? And if we do not wish to pay the price of victory, what would be the consequences of failure?

We need to ask now the questions our leaders did not ask before they stampeded us into war, while the Congress and the Big Media discarded their duties to become the cheerleaders of democratic imperialism.

The clearest indication that the country is coming out from under the massive psychological concussion of September 11 is the fact that we are all enduring the stupidest Presidential election season in recent memory. If we were all still walking around in the cat-like state of readiness we operated under for at least a year after the attacks, we wouldn't put up with this garbage.

Once again a spy for Israel stands exposed inside the US Government. Once again Israel denies any wrongdoing. And once again, we stand to learn much about loyalty in our own government and media by watching how they treat the story.

Let's get something straight. One cannot be loyal to two nations at the same time. The mere fact that Israel feels the need to spy on the US, to use fraud to manipulate the US, and bribe the Congress with huge campaign donations proves that Israel's interests are often in conflict with those of the people of the US.

Sure, you can sit back and pontificate that those Islamic "savages" would have killed each other anyway, but you can't prove that, and you can prove that it has been American manipulation, first and foremost, that has allowed that vicious bunch of Israelis to go into that region and become a raging terminal cancer. I supposed it's only poetic justice that now Israel, with its pervasive political control of the U.S. political system, can manipulate events to the point where it can get America to come into the same region and do its dirty work, as is happening now in Iraq.

Some might say, however, that Israel will more easily succumb to confrontation if it involves something less than the end of Zionism. I used to believe this. I no longer do. It is precisely the privileging of Jews to which Zionism is committed that fosters the idea that Israelis are justified in their horrific treatment of Palestinians. That is the tenet that needs to be attacked. We should not seek to welcome Israel into the community of nations, but rather seek to welcome Jews into the community of people.

What Mr. Frum and the "friends and associates" of the usual suspects in the Pentagon are saying seems to be virtually identical -- as Mr. Frum put it, it's all those anti-Semites and "figures inside the US government who want to see Israel treated, not as the ally it is by law and treaty …but as the source of all the trouble in the Middle East and the world."

If YOU don't like Bush or Kerry, why vote for them? You're not forced to at gun-point, are you? Of course not. Then why do it? Is the conditioning that has been laid on us since childhood so deeply ingrained that we can't help ourselves? You know the line: if you vote for someone outside of the two-party system, you're throwing your vote away. But what if EVERYBODY --- every single person in the country --- to show their distaste with the Republocrats and the Demopublicans --- didn't vote for them? Think how great that would be.

AIPAC could sustain heavy damage. The strength of any lobby lies in the way it is perceived in Washington. Until now, AIPAC was seen as a strong, influential organization with access to the corridors of power, and the perception increased it strength, influence and access. Now, there are concerns that administration and congressional officials will seek to take a step back from the organization and exercise caution with those involved in the incident. In the U.S., this is called the "chill factor." AIPAC has been making a huge effort to prove that no such effect exists.

On Sept. 11, George W. Bush went looking for a political philosophy to guide him in his new role as "war president." He found that philosophy in the Likud doctrine, conveniently handed to him ready-made by the ardent Likudniks already ensconced in the White House.

The missing link in the debates about terrorism, about the shift from the more politically-oriented violence of the past to the blindly ruthless attacks of today, is the West's foreign interventions of the 1990s. It is by examining these that we can start to make sense of today's seemingly senseless terror. Such interventions, particularly in the Balkans, did much to create the conditions for the rise of the new stateless groups that are so different from old-style nationalist movements.

For two years, the FBI has suspected AIPAC of spying for a foreign country, and for those two years (and for decades before) that group suspected of spying for Israel has been reshaping the US Congress for the benefit of a foreign government.

In my new book, Where the Right Went Wrong, there is a line that now appears prophetic: "America needs a Middle East policy made in the USA, not in Tel Aviv, or at AIPAC or AEI."

More is at stake than a turf war between the ‘Israel First’ Pentagon crowd and their opponents in the US military, diplomatic corp and intelligence agencies. The fundamental issue is the freedom of the US people to decide or at least influence their political leaders and their appointees without being subject to the manipulation and control by a foreign government (Israel) and their highly placed agents in positions of power.

The question of espionage prosecution depends on political power - a struggle between the Israeli State backed by the major Presidential candidates and parties, the Zionist-American political machines and their mass media acolytes on the one hand and, on the other hand the FBI, professional intelligence apparatus (CIA, DIA), state prosecutor and his investigatory staff and few stray political voices.

Soon after media outlets reported on the scandal late last month, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbyists and their political liaisons across the country asked Democratic and Republican lawmakers to issue public statements in support of America’s premier pro-Israel group.

At some point, you simply run out of words. 1,000 dead soldiers in Iraq, no weapons of mass destruction, no connection to September 11, torture and rape of men, women and children at Abu Ghraib prison, the outing of a deep-cover CIA officer for political revenge, Rumsfeld ally Ahmad Chalabi spying for Iran, the Israeli spy in the Pentagon, all the dead civilians everywhere, the substantial failures of Bush et al. on September 11, the crater in the economy, a gutted health care system, the abandonment of the elderly, the evisceration of the environment, and a federal budget deficit that guarantees a bleak future for anyone planning to be alive sometime in the next ten years...

Secure our borders:
More federalism, less federalization:
More legislative oversight, not less:
Restore genuine intelligence collection:
Focus on Islamic immigrants:
An end to empire:

The two main US parties are following the basically identical agenda these days,and that agenda is the agenda of those with the money who want those without to lose even that little which they still have . . .

Earlier this year, Lior enthusiastically supported the killing of Palestinian civilians in Rafah in southern Gaza, saying that "it is very clear in light of the Torah that Jewish lives are more important than non-Jewish lives".

In formulating their theological positions, Lior and other like-minded rabbis rely on an old Talmudic maxim which states that it is a mitzvah (imperative religious duty) to kill enemy civilians in war time.

The rabbis' statement posed the question, "Should the IDF fight the enemy, if civilians [on the other side] will be killed, or should the IDF refrain from fighting, and thus endanger our civilians?" The rabbis quote the sage Rabbi Akiva in responding that "Our lives come first."

Bush's "guest worker" initiative, like the USA Patriot Act, has already cost the President over a million votes as disaffected Republicans look to third party candidates like Michael A. Peroutka of the Constitution Party or Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party as a throwaway protest vote to let the president know they disapprove of his agenda.

Illegal alien criminals fill a whopping 29 percent of America’s state and federal prisons. Still, many more are violent criminals running around in the general population. However, in dozens of cities where aliens commit violent crimes, police cannot use the most obvious method for apprehending them—their illegal immigration status.

So, what does al-Qaida and international Islamic terrorism have to do with any of this? Probably very little. Chechens have plenty of reason to do what they do without outside inspiration. In addition, their tactics are very different from al-Qaida's. Osama Bin Laden's group generally aims for maximum casualties; the Chechens, at least when they have staged hostage-takings, have not seemed to have that goal. Al-Qaida explicitly targets Westerners; the Chechens, on the other hand, explicitly exclude Westerners from their list of targets; they target Russians and Russia-sympathizers.

To the extent that terrorism has a logic it is this: taunt an occupying force into overreacting -- into rounding up some locals, killing others, and generally disrupting their lives, so that the locals will join your struggle and help wear the stronger force down.

In the '90s, the province's aspirations to self-government drew genuine world concern. Popular General Alexander Lebed was hailed by many for his velvet gloves approach to the region. Pretty soon, it's brass knuckles time, and the beating is likely to go on indefinitely.

By explicitly endorsing reparations and refusing even to offer a position, both Mr. Keyes and President Bush have given their answers, and what they have said and refused to say have helped make it more difficult for real conservatives to give different ones.

If theirs is the kind of "leadership" that today defines "conservatism," then most Americans who regard themselves as conservatives need to find another name—and other leaders.

Political Zionism has betrayed Judaism as much as Christian fundamentalism has perverted Christianity. That is why, I am not surprised to find that the union of these two megalomaniacal movements have created this bizarre phenomenon called ‘Christian Zionism’ whose adherents consider it an article of faith to prefer the blessing of the Zionist state of Israel above all things, no matter what gruesome crimes its leaders may have been committing.

America is slowly realizing that it is the American Zionists – Christians and Jewish – that actually prefer Israel to America.

Barring a solid and lasting peace settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the countries of the Middle East are far from nuclear disarmament. If anything, nuclear proliferation is only likely to increase as states like Saudi Arabia find that they, too, need to defend themselves against a nuclear-armed Iran. Recent reports have indicated that Saudi Arabia is looking to lease Pakistan’s nukes. The arms race of the Cold War may be dead, but the race for hot weapons has never been so alive.

Soaring oil prices have raised the stakes in China's game of brinkmanship over the hotly disputed Spratly Islands, with the Philippines this week becoming the first rival claimant to break ranks.

Looking at America’s vital interests—defense of the homeland, freedom of navigation to Europe and Asia, keeping the Gulf open, being able to retaliate by air or sea to attacks upon us—what is the need for all these bases on foreign soil that serve as magnets to terrorists and incitements to anti-Americans?

Six factors explain the failure of the Bush administration's approach:

A. Overemphasis on military responses
B. Failure in intelligence sharing
C. Undermining democracy and civil liberties
D. Undermining homeland security
E. Weakening international institutions
F. Failure to attack root causes

The group of today's Rosenbergs that inflict the most irreversible damage to America may be found among those who are supposed to defend this nation and its possessions: our elected officials. Not that each elected official is trading America for his advantage, but many of them certainly do. They give away what's not theirs to millions of Mexican "migrants" for personal and political profit, the so-called "cheap labor" and "Hispanic votes" . . .

"The investigation sort of evaporated when the leaks started," said one source familiar with the inquiry. "Investigators were watching the activities of a few people and now they know they're being watched. It has become a nightmare."

"There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States," a former intelligence official who was familiar with the latest FBI probe and who recently left government told the LA Times. "Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States."

Warnings about an Israeli spy in the Pentagon are not new. They were voiced in 1998 by then CIA Director George Tenet, but quickly ignored.

Tenet at the time was concerned that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, had a mole deep in the Pentagon and a concerted effort was needed to root out the traitor.

The CIA chief’s recommendation fell on deaf ears despite the fact there was information showing that Israel had stolen America’s nuclear secrets and in the mid 1980s had acquired U.S. naval nuclear codes.

The "Pollard Affair"-like issue of Paul Wolfowitz's asset Larry Franklin, and others, is the subject of a non-partisan response of relevant institutions of the U.S. Presidency to the active threat posed by the role of certain frankly lunatic, contaminated, and obviously expendable elements inside Israel, whose actions threaten to set off a nuclear version of "A New Middle East War."

In the USA, Dick Cheney and the Joint Chiefs are behind U.S. defiance of the Rothschild agenda. This explains the investigation of Ahmed Chalabi and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin for passing secrets to Iran and Israel respectively. Both men are part of the Neo-Con Rothschild Zionist apparatus in Washington and their treatment sends a message to their superiors, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Eliot Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz.

The rank-and-file conservatives have been trained in much the same way as the Russian psychologist Pavlov trained his dogs—to salivate on cue.

Yet sooner or later it may occur to that base that this is a game the party establishment has been playing for decades and that the longer they play it, the less reason the conservative ba