Joe Hack

In a move that reeks of hypocrisy and double-standards, the Bush administration has signed a deal that will provide Israel with $30bn (£14.8bn) of military aid over the next 10 years. Lest we forget, it is the Bush administration which has so vehemently condemned what it alleges are Irans atempts to provide small-scale military asistance to insurgents in Iraq and those opposing Israels occupation of Palestinian land. You would have wonder, as an objective observer, what the Bush administration would say if any other country tried to supply $30billion dollars of killing machines to any opponents of Israel in the middle east.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has said the aid will preserve his country’s military advantage over other countries in the Middle East. The new military aid package represents a massive 25% increase from present levels. The Bush administration also announced multi-billion-dollar arms deals with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Gulf states last month. Washington says it wants to help its allies in the Middle East meet their security needs and counter the growing power of Iran in the region. Opponents say that the USA is engaging in a dangerous escalation of arms supply which will undoubtedly inflame an already desperate situation.Mr Burns, with sinister echoes of George Orwells 1984, called the $30 billion package of killing machines an “investment in peace”. The money must be used to purchase military equipment from the US defence industry, although Israel will also be permitted to use 26.3% to buy equipment from local companies. So coincidentally an indirect boost to Bushs friends in the weapons industry at the expense of the American taxpayer ? The arrangement requires Congressional approval, but Mr Burns said he thought there would be little opposition. Sadly, he is probably right.

Now I do not for one moment dispute the right of Israel to exist, although I firmly believe that its illegal occupation of Palestinian land remains a festering sore in the middle east that will fan the flames of conflict for as long as it goes on. It is quite likely, although not proven, that other countries like Iran and Syria are supplying various resistance groups .. insurgents .. call them what you will .. with very low-level assistance in terms of hardware, A few rifles, bits of explosive, certainly nothing large-scale like warplanes or tanks or cluster bombs or other sophisticated weaponry. It is an indisputable fact, however, that the Bush administration is pouring huge and unprecedented levels of weaponry into Israel which will do nothing but perpetuate the present desperate conflict. In terms of meddling where it has no business, America stands head and shoulders over any other power in the middle-east. But the truth is that for as long as Israel has the overwhelming military and nuclear superiority that it enjoys over its neighbors there is very little incentive for a moderate compromise to be reached. I am painting no-one exclusively as the bad guys because in the first place I do not go in for such simplistic bullshit and secondly because there is genuinely fault on all sides, but one-sided massive injections of killing machines is NOT the solution.

The only power on earth that might bring peace to the middle east right now is America and since he was elected president Bush has stubbornly and steadfastly refused to do a damn thing to help . All he seems to be capable of doing is to pour even more weapons into one of the longest-running and most bloody conflicts in modern times. It is exactly like throwing gasoline onto a fire. Whatever your feelings about Israel, and I know some Americans have a strange loyalty that defies logic or morality, what Bush is doing is really NOT the answer. In fact, it is the problem.Tags:al quaeda atrocity Bush civilian killing Israel Political News republican terrorism war on terroral quaeda, atrocity, Bush, civilian killing, Israel, Political News, republican, terrorism, war on terror

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No Joe Hack rants today folks. Just for a change I’m reproducing here, without comment, extracts from an article written by a guy called David Zephyr on the democraticunderground.com newsboard. You can check it out, and the follow-ups,  there if you want. I think it  makes quite interesting reading. It goes like this :-

” The fact that Osama bin Laden, who planned and executed the attacks of September 11th, 2001, murdering three thousand people, is still not even a target of the President of the United States some six long years later should tell everyone in this country one thing: George W. Bush has no intention of ever capturing or bringing him to justice. And why is that? Because the Bin Ladens and the Bush Families have been business partners for over 50 years now. In fact, we might as well call it the B&B Company, because that’s what it truly is!

Like father, like son, like grandson.

In the middle of the last century, a young George Herbert Walker Bush, the son of Prescott Bush, found early on that pimping cheap Arabian oil against his fellow Texan oilmen had both its political and financial rewards. Indeed, it was Bush’s relationship with his new found Arabian oil buddies that eventually cost him his bid to for the U.S. Senate from Texas after Senator Lloyd Bentsen exposed Bush’s undercutting Texas oil men with cheap Arabian crude. Sure, Bush may have lost his shot at the Senate, but what did that really matter? The grease of money from his new Arabian friends, dictators and business tycoons, more than compensated for his loss to Bentsen.Bush soon carved himself out a very special niche in international business: he became the premier American contact and agent for the Saudi family, the Bin Ladens. In fact, this relationship was so tight that whenever GHW Bush traveled all those many years to the Middle East, he passed over the many fine hotels in Saudi Arabia…always preferring to stay in the bin Laden family palace. Indeed, the Bin Laden and Bush coziness became downright family-like. When GHW Bush’s daughter, Dorothy, divorced her husband and was “depressed”, it was the Bin Ladens who took her in, giving her a place to regain herself.

Tags:al quaeda Bush corruption Dick Cheney Ground Zero Guantanamo Bay insurgency oil Political Rants politics president saudi arabia terrorism terrorist war on terror Weird and Bizarreal quaeda, Bush, corruption, Dick Cheney, Ground Zero, Guantanamo Bay, insurgency, oil, Political Rants, politics, president, saudi arabia, terrorism, terrorist, war on terror, Weird and Bizarre

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Americas growing and enthusiastic use of torture has backfired on them and risked the lives of American citizens. In the UK Government Ministers insisted that British secret agents would only be allowed to pass intelligence to the CIA to help it capture Osama bin Laden if the agency promised he would not be tortured, it has emerged.

MI6 believed it was close to finding the al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan in 1998, and again the next year. The plan was for MI6 to hand the CIA vital information about Bin Laden. Ministers including Robin Cook, the then foreign secretary, gave their approval on condition that the CIA gave assurances he would be treated humanely. The plot is revealed in a 75-page report by parliament’s intelligence and security committee on rendition, the practice of flying detainees to places where they may be tortured.

The report criticises the US administration’s approval of practices which would be illegal if carried out by British agents. It shows that in 1998, the year Bin Laden was indicted in the US, Britain insisted that the policy of treating prisoners humanely should include him. But the CIA never gave the assurances.

“In 1998, SIS [MI6] believed that it might be able to obtain actionable intelligence that might enable the CIA to capture Osama bin Laden,” the committee says in its report. It adds: “Given that this might have resulted in him being rendered from Afghanistan to the US, SIS sought ministerial approval. This was given provided that the CIA gave assurances regarding humane treatment.” British intelligence made a similar request in 1999, and obtained the same response from Whitehall, but in the event MI6 did not provide the information.

But 1998 and 1999 were not the only times Britain had Bin Laden in its sights. In January 1996 the Home Office wrote to him when he was in Sudan. The letter, seen by the Guardian, advised him that Michael Howard, then home secretary, had “given his personal direction that you be excluded from the United Kingdom on the grounds that your presence…would not be conducive to the public good.”

What it comes down to is this. Torture is wrong. Period. No excuses. No ifs, ands, buts or maybes. Anyone who practices it or condones it is utter scum and deserves to be shunned by decent people everywhere. Any politician who allows it must be hounded out of office and, ideally, locked up as a criminal. Bush, Cheney and Gonzalez may see no problem with torturing prisoners but the rest of the civilized world damn sure does, thank God, and ultimately that is bound to work to the disadvantage of America. Until some semblance decency is restored to the Whitehouse and to American foreign policy we can expect more of this kind of thing to happen.

You get what you deserve. Who says so ? Joe Hack does.

-Tags:Afghanistan al quaeda Bush Iraq osama bin laden Political Rants scandal terrorism terrorist war on terrorAfghanistan, al quaeda, Bush, Iraq, osama bin laden, Political Rants, scandal, terrorism, terrorist, war on terror

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