Jefferson Corner

While this US Administration continue to provide legal, political, financial and even criminal coverage of Israel’s crime within the Palestinian Occupied Territories, the US recently announce a $42 million fund to support Fatah re-organization plans making sure Fatah continue with its “agreed to” role as subcontractor for the Israeli Occupation.
It is so ironic that at a time when the US government and especially the White House and the State Department are silent on the humiliating treatment of its citizens within the Israeli Occupied Territories, as we have seen most recently with the denial of entry to Palestine of US citizens of Palestinian origins. Israel went even further by demanding that those US citizens of Arabic origin must leave the Occupied Territories. Sam Bahour is one case in point (visit the different website that covered his case in the US and international media) and the case of my sister Laila and her husband who planned to retire in El-Bireh but where denied residency. Of course if this treatment happened to any Jew, and especial to a US Jew by any country in the world all hell will break lose and congressmen and senators will be tripping over each other demanding freedom of residency and movement to members of the Jewish faith. Of course Arabs and Muslims are not entitled to this kind of coverage by US lawmakers and this administration.
While this administration is silent about all the crimes committed by Israel it is doing all it can to undermine the very democratic practices it advocate.
Every one, except the majority of the Palestinians do recognize that the Oslo Accord signed by the late Yasser Arafat and Ishak Rabin was nothing but a contractual agreement by an occupying power and representative of the occupied, where Israel as the occupying power cedes its role of managing the day to day affairs of the people under occupation to an organization such as the PLO and Fatah, with the US providing the political coverage to both Fatah and Arafat and the European Union providing the funding that keeps Fatah, the racketeering machine, well funded and in business. That is why we never hear any thing about ending the occupation, not from George Bush, not from Secretary Rice, not from Olmert, certainly not from any the Palestinian leaderships that is identified with Fatah. It seems that Fatah leadership have added the US State Department as client in addition to the European Union and Israel.
$42 million dollars will go a long way to fund and buy many of Fatah leadership who also made a financial killing since Oslo and who make sure that the Israeli Occupation continue as a steady source of income for Fatah and its leadership.
Since Oslo many of the Fatah leadership hardly ever talk about ending the Israeli Occupation and for the most part talk only of managing the occupation and talk about salaries for their army of thugs. These Palestinian officials talk nothing of the Israeli criminal occupation but talk of making life a “little easier” for those who have suffered some 39 years under the worst military occupation since Nazi Germany occupied most of Europe. No Fatah officials talk of the more than 750,000 Palestinians who were guest of Israeli jails, and no one talk of the hundreds of thousands who lost their properties. I am sure the US State Department in the next few months will go on a shopping spree buying the “conscious” and “themam” of many Palestinians in the US and around the world, making sure they complete the transaction begun with buying Fatah. I continue to say and repeat that Arafat and the PLO after the Palestinian exiles of 48 and the second exile of 67 and the military occupation are the worst thing that could ever happen to the Palestinian people. Oslo was nothing but a crime. Arafat, Fatah and the PLO should take the blame for failing to end the longest military occupation in modern history

Share This

Republicans and so called intellectual advocates for the Reagan Doctrine such as columnist Charles Krauthhammer and ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick should always remember that they and the late president Ronald Reagan are the ones who re-invented, supported and financed modern “jihad” after it has been dead and forgotten by Muslims for over 700 years.
When Ronald Reagan declared in his 1985 State of the Union Message his support for the “Mujahideen” as Freedom Fighter, he set the stage for a monster in the making. Little did the conservative Republicans knew that these Mujahideen would one day haunt and attack the very hand that created and supported them.
In his determination to appose the Soviet Union and its expanding military and political influence around the world, the Reagan White House with input and management from the CIA sought to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and else where. Someone must have been very clever within the Reagan Administration to even suggest the name “Mujahideen” as the name of Muslim fighters in Afghanistan. Billions of US dollars were spent on recruiting potential fighters from around the Arab and Muslim World to come to Afghanistan and join the Jihad. Like ideological armies before the Mujahideen, such as the Nazi Arm, Soviet Army and the Israeli Army, the CIA recruited political and ideological offices such as Sheik Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman (convicted of organizing the first attack on the World Trade Center) as the political officers of these Mujahideen.
Osama bin Laden was one of those recruited by the CIA to head to Pakistan and help organize the recruitment of Muslim Jihadists from around the world. Tens of millions of dollars of CIA money funded the office of “ Maktab Alkhadamat” Office of Services to facilitate Muslim Jihadists joining the American fight against the Soviet Union. It is these Muslim Jihadists that are now menacing their former sponsors. Many of the Arab governments that allowed the CIA to recruit its citizens for the fight in Afghanistan later became the victims of these very American Jihadists.
The late Robin Cook, the former British foreign secretary gave a very logical explanation of the meaning of Al-Qaida, which he defined as database, computer files of the tens of thousands of former veterans of the CIA Mujahideen War in Afghanistan.
One should not forget the great support and of course the greatest of benefits the Pakistani’s Inter-Service Intelligence Agency which was the commercial manager of the Mujahideen war against the Soviet, with officers and agents making millions of dollars. Please let us not forget and never let these Republican conservatives leading the war on terror that they are the one who in the first place are responsible for the resurrection and rise of modern day Islamic Jihad. It was they who redefined Jihad to fit their Reagan Doctrine and it was they who organized and managed the Holy War in Afghanistan. I think they owe the American people and all victims of terror an apology.

Share This

No one can tell me and convince me that Senator George Allen use of the word “Maccaca” was a slip of the tongue and is not a racially motivated feeling when he used this word to describe”native” citizens who happened to be of an Indian origin. The fact that George Allen used this word, which is often used, by French and North African Jews to describe dark skinned person should give us an idea as to his background and thinking. Being of Jewish origin, should be an honor not something to hid and be ashamed of. History is full of great Jews who made even greater contribution to humanity and to civilization, George Allen does not fit in this category, and this is perhaps why he was hiding his “Jewish origin” and try to sell himself as a great Republican conservative, even evangelical. How did George Allen came about to know and use this word if it was not part of the daily conversation at home and when describing people of color. Perhaps George Allen forgot that he too is a person of color given the fact that Sephardim Jews are not blue eyed and blond, but people of color. Senator Allen if you are ashamed of your religion, you should not be ashamed that you are a person of color like all of the Maccacas you see all over the State of Virginia.
Racism is alive and well and is part of George Allen Republican Values.

Share This

Republicans have been winning votes and elections since Reagan days using the so called “America’s value” as slogan while hiding their real agenda of turning the great democracy that is the US into a “one party state” similar to the old Soviet empire. The Republicans together with their conservative evangelical Christians and Zionist allies have been working this game of hijacking America’s democracy for the last 50 years, and sad to say they are succeeding. Whenever I hear a Republican talks of “values” I wonder what the in the hell are they talking about, when every thing they believe in and do has nothing to do with America’s values. Perhaps one need to remind these Republicans that America’s valued are those ensuring in our constitution and not in the selective Bible quotes from the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Faldwell, and the like of Dick Cheney and George Bush. Freedom of expression, associations, the rule of law, equal rights and equal protections under the law and freedom of privacy against intrusions of governments are the real American values. Not the lies we see that is endemic among Republicans and not the cover-up and denial for a war that was wrong to begin with and certainly not coverup for sexual perverts the like of former congressman Foley. America’s value are not opening the US treasury to crooks to rob and steal and cheat the tax payers in the name of war on terror and in the name of security. America’s value are those when the president of the US speaks frankly and openly about making mistakes that cost so far over several thousand US deaths and tens of thousand of injuries and over 600,000 dead Iraqis. America’s values is for the US president not lie about weapons of mass destructions and ask his cabinet and key officers to lie to the international community. If going to war against Saddam is to make up for his father”s mistakes of leaving Saddam in power after the first gulf war, I think Americans can be very understanding, but to lie and continue to lie, that is not an American value Mr. President. Bush war on terror is going no where and the war in Iraq is a total failure. Bush should admit the truth and then can tell us about his American values. Speaking of values there are a lot to say on this subject which will be the next topic. It seems that Democrats have abandoned the US two party system and allowed Republicans to dominate the debate over the issue of “values” when America faces a whole lots of issues that could be solved and taken care without the use and input of the Republican’s value system.

Share This

” Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new and then you find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by sword the faith he promote” quoting the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus in 1391, as a scholar and a leader of the faith the Pope could not make such a simple case of “misunderstanding”. No one quote an emperor who was deadlock at war with the Ottoman Muslim and make it his theme of calling for dialogue without bad intentions. I am sure the Pope is well aware of the atrocities and mass killing of Muslims, Jews and Christians by the hundreds of thousands committed by armies of his church during the Crusade. I do not feel offended by such statement, since it expected in this day and age. I suggest to Muslims to stand in line and wait their turn for an apology from the head of the Catholic Church after the Pope make public apologies to the tens of thousands of innocent young Catholics who were raped and sexually violated by the church army of thousands of clergymen. The church and the Pope were all silent about these rapes that costed the church tens of billions of dollars in settlements without ever repairing the physiological damage done to these young men.

Share This

24 Jan 2006

The case of Jack Abramoff not only raises many questions, it demands more and creative measures to address the corruptions that have become the norm in a Republican led Congress.
It should not come as a surprise for us citizens to know that our Congress is up for sale. It has been the case for many years under both parties. However Republicans took corruption on the Hill to its highest levels ever. Democrats should not act as holier than though when they themselves benefited for a culture of corruption. All are guilty as charged.
I could never understand and I don’t want to understand the need for a member of Congress to engage on a daily basis to raise money for elections. It seems that members of Congress spend more time on raising money than on the people’s business and it shows in the quality of legislations coming out of our Congress.
I also could never understand and I don’t want to understand why it takes senators tens of millions of dollars to run for election. If they need to raise that kind of money, it goes without saying that they have to pay it back.
In our electoral system as it evolved over time, we have entrenched members of congress who with time become more and more powerful, with power comes more money and poor those who dare to challenge a sitting member of Congress. They hardly have any chance of winning let alone raising money. We are sitting a prime example of corruption to the world and since the world copy the US, I will not be surprised if the electoral system in France, Germany, England will evolves around the US system.
How could any one imagine that it costs more than $24 million for someone like Jesse Helms to run for Senate from North Carolina or for someone like Oliver North to raise more than $ 22 million to run for the Senate seat from Virginia.
I do have a suggestion and it may be far fetched but it does address the issue of both money and corruption. My idea is for us to divide the US House into two chambers, one chambers with 2/3 majority is for representatives to be elected by the people and for a limited tenure of some 6 years and the other 1/3 is for representatives to be appointed by US corporations and lobbyist. It is a fair and equitable distribution of powers. Those elected by the people will not need to raise lots of money to win and the maximum that any one single candidate can raise is $one dollar (yes one single dollar) for every registered voter in the congressional district. This way the field will be even for both present members of Congress and potential candidates. The same will be true for members of the US Senate.
However when it comes to taxes and our rights to be protected from big time corporations, it is the people representatives that has to make the decisions and if there is a conflict the issue goes to a conference committee for resolutions. Representative of corporation can vote on issues of war provided that such wars are entirely funded by corporations and entirely manpowered by corporate executives and lobbyist. Leaving us people to take care of our business, such as education, healthcare, housing, transportations, crimes, social justice among other issues of concerns to all of us. We leave those appointed by corporations and lobbyist to fight it out among themselves, and of course fighting wars they want and fund. It is only fair.
I also suggest that we establish a Congressional Bourse where members of Congress are traded publicly and openly on the market. This way we all can buy into the action.

Share This