Jefferson Corner

Last week we had the pleasure of traveling to Cleveland to attend the engagement of one of my wife cousins, actually Iyad is the son of my mother in laws uncle, Marwan Mazhar. While Cleveland will remain Cleveland like so may ill planned and ill designed American cities, the engagement was just terrific. It was held in the main hall of the old court house, a very majestic place and of course the beautiful setting was made more beautiful by the mother of Iyad fiancé’ who added her touch to every thing in the place, turning the place to a very beautiful court of justice.
Well, Marwan who attend and graduated from LSU back in 1953 and perhaps was the first Arab and Muslim to hit the shores of Louisiana was there and as we sat in the hotel he was as his usual self, full of life and full of stories about his wonderful experience with the people in Louisiana and how he kept in touch with so many of them all these years. I even suggested he should publish a letter in one of the major Louisiana journal. I was in Louisiana in the army, basic training and the only thing I remember is Fort Polk and its swampy environed. But Marwan had great stories to tell including his stories as a deck hand on the Great Mississippi.
I loved one of his stories of a Lebanese woman, living in London who placed an order for some household item from that great store in London, Harrods. The woman fed up with the delay and went to the manager and said “after” meaning “Ba’edin” in Arabic.
Well, one has to appreciate the real meaning of “Ba’edin” which means so many things, and it’s mentioned most often when people are fed up or “lose it” with something. It is almost similar in meaning with TOZ, that Arabic word which is full of so many meaning. I thought it was so beautiful and so original from this woman to walk in to Harrods and say “ After” “ Ba’edin” enough is enough. I guess the same goes to the Palestinian Authority and one has to say to both Fatah and Hamas, “Ba’edin” every one is fed up with the situation in the Occupied Territories, fed up with a useless government and fed up with useless and “rudless” leadership who are more interested in their own self interests than taking care of the people. Perhaps it time to let go of the greed and incompetence that kept the Palestinian Authority alive for so many years without ever having any positive impact on the Palestinians. We all should know by now that Oslo was nothing but a private deal between Rabin and Arafat, where Arafat became a subcontractor to Rabin to quash the First Intifada with financing for Arafat and his 4,000 thieves coming from Europe and the US.
Yes, Marwan, we very much enjoyed your visit to our home in Virginia and we hope you enjoyed our company, and as promised I am publishing this note on “After- Ba’edin” for your laugh. Keep in mind that the most telling expression I ever heard any one use the word “TOZ” was Shafiq Alhout, who was the PLO representative in Lebanon, when asked about the Israeli plans to bring more Russian Jews to Palestine, he said “ TOZ”. The Palestinians will always catch up with the Israelis even if Israel brings Jews from Indian and Japan.
Marwan, you have to keep your promise and write all your friends in Louisiana a ‘thank you note” I am sure they will all appreciate hearing from you. Yes, American is not what it used to be, but there are whole lots of so many great, honest, loving and caring people that will compensate for what George Bush and his gangs are doing to America.

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Saddam Hussein the darling of Washington, Paris, Bonn and London few years ago was found guilty of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi court couple of days ago. The verdict was not so surprising given the fact that he ran a killing and murder machine through his Baathist Party and was and is responsible for the murder of millions of people within Iraq and also in Iran.
The surprising thing is that Saddam did not call for his defense the former heads of stated of the United States, both the late President Reagan and George Bush Sr., and did not call to his defense, Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister and did not call the former Chancellor of Germany, Mr. Kohl and not to mention Mr. France. All of these people made it all possible for a know criminal like Saddam Hussein to commit and continue to commit his crimes against his own people and against the Iranians. These people are as guilty as Saddam. They may not have pulled the trigger or order the killings, but they all made it possible for him to commit his crimes against his people and against his neighbor Iran. By the way, I was never a fan of the late Khomeini; I thought he was an evil man with nothing but vengeance and anger in his heart.
Of course we should not forget the honorable Donald Rumsfeld the present Secretary of Defense who was the Reagan connections to Saddam and who met with Saddam few days after the chemical attacks against the Kurds in Halabja and of course while there Mr. Donald made sure that Saddam knew how much he is appreciated by the United States and its allies in the Middle East, who also supported Saddam will tens of billions of dollars.
Saddam, like the late Shah was the darling of Washington, with his ambassador having an open check book to buy and trade congressmen and senators and buy any thing that darling Saddam wants from the US including giving him billions in line of credits, so that he can save his cash to buy weapons to kill his people and kill others.
Saddam got what he deserves. His own people should have hanged him long time ago, without the help from George Bush and his Tel-Aviv mafia. It is too bad that the Iraqi people did not stand up to Saddam and allowed him to get away with murder. Shame on all of the Sunni Muslims, who were part of Saddam killing machine and who stood in silent while Saddam waged his war and terror against their fellow countrymen, the Shiite and the Kurds.
Personally, I would be more happier if some of the western leaders who supported Saddam will also stand trial for their support of killer Saddam. May he hang for a long time and left to rot on his hanging robe. And may leading politicians and heads of states and military leaders everywhere in the world remember that NO one ever gets away with murder. It is never too late to bring to trial all of the men of the Reagan and Bush administrations and also bring to trial Thatcher and her boys and of course the Chancellor and his men and so many others. Perhaps we also need to dig up the grave of the late Khomieni and bring him to trial for his crimes against his own people. I wonder why these little dictators never learn lessons from the likes of the late Shah and Norriega.

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These days and ever since the criminal attacks by modern day Islamic terrorist on the World Trade Center resulting in the cold murder of over 3,000 innocent lives, many in the US and Israel especially the alliance of Conservative Evangelicals and Zionist Neocons, have been trying their best to define Muslim and Islamic values as promoters of mass murder and killing and Islam as nothing but a religion of terrorism. Even the Pope has joined this alliance. And sad to say they have succeeded in creating nations of fear here in the US and around the world.
No one can deny, that Islam in its early days was spread by swords and by “holly worriers” but then all great empires of that time and prior, have engaged in wars for one reason or another using armies of tens of thousands of soldiers. Many of the great empires such as the Persian, Byzantine, and Roman Empires not to mentions Athens, Sparta and Carthage all engaged in wars and occupations. Why Islam is the only one that is targeted these days accused of violating human values. At least Muslim worriers NEVER committed the kind of war crimes committed by soldier of the Holy Roman Empire and the Great Crusade committed in the name of God and Jesus Christ and committed to save the Holy Land from the Muslim Infidels.
It seems that many of modern day Christian Evangelicals and Zionist Neocons forgot all about the hundreds of millions of people killed and murdered by armies of colonizers and occupiers armed with modern Judea-Christian values.
One only need to remember the Spanish Inquisitions against Muslim and Jews, the conquest of Latin America by the Conquistadors who killed tens of millions of native Latin Americans. They refuse to remember let alone admit the killings and murder of tens of millions of Africans by colonizing powers of Christian Europe and the killings of tens of millions of American Natives and forget about the killings and murder of tens of millions of African slaves killed by the longest running crimes of its kind in the world. These criminals where not Muslim Jihadists, but where committed by nations with Christian values. Of course since we always hear of Judea-Christian values, we also need to remember the Israeli Occupation and exiles of millions of Palestinian Arabs in the name of Judeo- Zionist values. The list of crimes continue with the murder of millions of Jews in Europe in the Second World War, the killing and murder of millions during the same war and the previous war, the killing of hundreds of thousands by allied planes in Germany and in Japan and the killing of millions in Central and Latin America. Of course no one talks of these crimes as crimes with its source in Judea-Christian values. Yes there are many Muslim criminals who committed terrorist crimes around the world, but then there are millions of Judea-Christian soldiers who committed murder in the hundred of millions. Those with glass houses should not throw stones. It is time for Muslims, Jews and Christians must admit they all committed crimes at one time or another.

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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

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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.

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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.

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