Jefferson Corner

On page 11 of Friday’s (December 22, 2006) Washington Post, Secretary Rice is quoted as saying the Iraq War “ Worth the Investment” and this is the entire quote from the Washington Post “ Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said yesterday that Iraq is “worth the investment “ in American lives and dollars” and I continue to quote the Washington Post “When asked whether throwing $100 billion the Pentagon wants for the Iraq and Afghanistan might amount to throwing good money after bad in Iraq, she replied ‘ I don’t think it’s a matter of money. Along the way, there have been plenty of markers that show that this is a country that is worth the investment”.
Now who could ever accept such an absurd statement to come of the Secretary of State, when she and her Boss and all their friends are not the one that has to pay for the this war, not in their lives and certainly not by their money.
One has to wonder what criteria does Secretary Rice used when she describe wasting the lives of more than 3,000 of our men and women, wasting the lives of some 700,000 Iraqi, and of course not counting the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted down the drain on this war. Of course, if Secretary Rice thinks that giving the opportunity to many contractors to steal, rob and waste taxpayers money is worth it, then she is right. I am not so sure this can be the case of the lives of those lost. I am sure their families may think other wise.
The late president Johnson got us in the Vietnam War on false pretenses and lies and now president Bush is doing the same thing, and the those in the military have to pay with their lives for such lies and false pretenses. Yes, those of us who served in the military do expect to fight for and defend the USA. No one can disagree on that, but no one should go to war and fight personal wars and fight and die for wars that are totally based on false pretenses and lies.
Perhaps Secretary Rice needs to travel around this country, to states in the South like Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and travel to states in the North West and Mountain States like Idaho and Wyoming to check and see what are the “markers” and indicators she sees that these states and their citizens are worth the investment. I am sure few hundred billion dollars invested in housing, education, medical care, environmental protection and preservation, child care, job training and job creations will also be worth while in these states and in the rest of the country. One has to wonder how many hospitals and clinics and how many elementary, grade and high schools can be build with these wasted billions. One has to wonder how many universities and job training program that can give the people the opportunity for a decent living and decent lives can these wasted billions for our citizens and taxpayers. The only beneficiaries out of this war are the many contractors and subcontractors who are robbing the Pentagon and the taxpayer’s blind. Of course giving the money to the military industrial alliance may be worth the investment, but I think that our people and our tax payers are more worthy than corporations with big fat checks to their managers and shareholders. Perhaps we the citizens should incorporate and seek contracts from the federal government to send our kids to decent schools and give them the kind of education that at least give them the chance to have a decent job in a changing work environment. No, Dr. Rice, the decision to go to war is not worth the investment. Perhaps you can come back again in few days and says that the US and Israel decision to drop more than 5 million cluster bombs on Lebanon was also worth the investment.

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I always said, in Israel there are more freedom of the press than here in the good old USA, more freedom to talk about Israel and the Occupation, and certainly a whole lot of courage, guts, and moral standing than one can find here in our so called “main stream” media. When it comes to Israel no editor dares to publish what is published in the Israeli press. Such an article will never be printed in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times or the Chicago Tribune. Sami Jadallah

By Dror Etkes (Peace Now) HaaretzDec. 22, 2006http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/804275.html
The curtain has dropped on the Theater of the Absurd directed by the Iranian regime last week - an event that convened figures from the margins of the Holocaust-denial scene and its `alternative` researchers. In Israel the conference was covered with an emphasis on the statements by the participants and the reactions of Israeli politicians. True, this was an international conference behind which was a country that declares its desire to bring about the fall of the `Zionist regime` - but beyond that hides a deeper factor, which is indicative of the connection between contemporary Israeli identity and the Holocaust. `If the occurrence of the event (the Holocaust) is cast into doubt, the identity of the Zionist regime will also be cast into doubt.` From these words, spoken at the opening session by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, it emerges that the Iranian regime has correctly identified the connections that exist in Israel between the Holocaust and local politics. One of the formative historical events of the West today, whose significance is relevant to all of humanity, the Holocaust is continuing more than 60 years later to provide Israel with an alibi for the deviancy of its political choices. Israel, with no real distinction between the establishment political left and the right with all its offshoots, continues to make use of the Holocaust in a way that combines cynicism and boorishness. Even though there is indeed a considerable and complex connection between the Holocaust and Israeli political culture, there isn`t - nor has there ever been - any justification for harnessing its memory for the sake of preserving the continuing occupation project that Israel has been conducting for 40 years now in the territories. Israel`s attitude toward the Holocaust is not really derived from the way in which the leadership is responding to the incendiary declarations of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his propagandists, which above all testify to the speakers themselves. It is possible to learn about this attitude from, among other things, the way in which it relates to the tens of thousands of survivors in whose flesh and minds the Nazis` crimes are etched, who live here in disgraceful conditions and below the poverty line. However, the real treatment of the survivors is apparently a lot less glamorous than the cult of the worship surrounding those who were murdered, which provides a stage for every politician who is seeking his way to the center of the consensus. Thus, as was recently published again in Haaretz, the state is continuing to nationalize the reparations monies that are transferred to it for the benefit of those hundreds of thousands of survivors - while criminally neglecting many of them. The primitive instrumentalist use that Iranian politics is making of the Holocaust is nothing but a mirror image of the way the memory of the Holocaust is exploited in political life in Israel. One of the aims of the Iranian campaign to `research the historical truth` surrounding the Holocaust is to unravel the system of justifications that Israeli politics has been accustomed to using in its all-too-frequent definition of the criticism of those politics, expressed both domestically and abroad as being tainted with anti-Semitism. Thus the role of the Holocaust as the sole justification for the existence of Israel has been sharpened, instead of focusing on the fact that today more than 7 million people of varied origins and nationalities are living in this country - a place which in most cases is their only possible home. If indeed the Iranian foreign minister is correct and this is the sole source of legitimacy from which the Zionist project derives today, then apparently the time has indeed come for a radical revision of the concept of Zionism. And it would be a good thing if this is done before Ahmadinejad and his ultra-Orthodox partners from Brooklyn launch a new production. The author coordinates the settlement follow-up in the Peace Now movement.

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Unable to search the linage of Congressman Virgil Goode (R-7VA), to learn of when his ancestors arrived in this country, but from what I read he is popular in his district not because of the outstanding job he’s done for this constituents but because he is the son of Virgil Goode, Sr. a very popular politician. However I assume he is not of an American Indian origin and his ancestors did not arrive before Columbus and certainly not before the Muslims who arrived here from Spain and West African centuries before Columbus. As such it is safe to assume that Congressman Goode comes from an immigrant family, as such he and Congressman Keith Ellison have something in common, both are sons of immigrants to the US.
It seems that Congressman Goode is living to the good old tradition of the South and is living up to the good old traditional Christian values that allowed the lynching of Leon Frank, an innocent Jew, who was kidnapped from prison and was lynched in 1915 by a group of prominent White and no doubt devote Christian in Marietta, Georgia.
Those same good old American values that he and the like of Prager and Beck speak of that was responsible for the hanging and lynching of thousands of Blacks and it was the same values that also discriminated against the Irish, the Italian, the Jews and of course now the Muslim. I salute the Anti-Defamation League for taking on the bigots of this country and for taking on the a long tradition of anti-Semite, way before White, Christian Hitler came to power and introduced the massive killing and murder of Jews and million others. Yes, the old traditional American values of the time past there is nothing to be proud of, as it was full of hate, full of bigotry, full of anti-Christian values that we those who immigrated from the Middle East. Certainly these values that Congressman Goode, Prager and Beck talks about are not the one taught by Jesus Christ and are not the values that are inscribed in the Bible and in the Old Testament. These are no relations and no connections between the Christian values of the Bible and those taunted by the likes of Congressman Goode, CNN and the Prager Report.
It is an insult to both Christian and Jewish values when someone like Prager claims that Congressman Keith Ellison decision to swear the oath of office on the Quran “undermines American civilization”. Now I do understand Western Civilization, but American civilization this is the first time. I am sure the American civilization that Prager talks about is not the one that lynched Leon Frank and hundreds of Blacks and certainly is the not the one that discriminated against the newly arriving immigrants from Ireland, and Italy. Prager continues to say “ But, Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what boos its public servant take their oath” My question is who appointed and anointed Prager as the cardinal of American values and patriotism. I have read the US Constitution many times and have read many history books by the founding fathers, and have done some research, but I did not see where Prager, Beck and Congressman Goode have been appointed the guardians of America’s value and tradition, let alone America’s civilization and certainly not the guardians of the America’s Christianity. These days, every Tom, Dick and Harry claim to be the guardian of America’s value and civilizations. Somehow all of these “guardians” fail to read the US Constitution and failed to read the many letters exchanged between the Founding Fathers, were such values and traditions were discussed at length and where the true value of freedoms and democracy are clearly pronounced. I am sure if the Prager, Goode and Beck were the Founding Fathers, this country will not even exist. This country is a great country, because it has giants, not midgets, as the founding fathers, and is has great believers in the human worth and respect for the rights of people, and not bigots who falsely claim they are the guardian of our freedom and civilizations. Yes, some of America’s history of slavery, bigotry and anti-Semitism is best to be forgotten, nothing to be proud of.
The Muslims of this country should learn well from the Anti-Defamation League that made the costs of any anti-Semitic or bigoted statement very costly for any one, and made sure that those who defame the Jews pay well for their behavior. Again, I do salute and tip my hat” turban” to the Anti-Defamation League. It shut up the bigots and racists and rendered them irrelevant to America’s values and “civilization”.

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