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MER FLASHBACK to 25 June 2001: Months before what is now
known as "9/11" MER published these articles indicating that a major
strike by Osama Bin-Laden against the U.S. was imminent and that the
Israelis were more determined than ever to subjugate the Palestinians.
We wrote at the time: "In these conditions any spark can ignite the
blaze; and sometimes such giant fires consume more than was originally
anticipated, sometimes even those who start them."
_______ ____ ______
/ |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S
/ /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East
/_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\© http://www.MiddleEast.Org
News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups,
and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know!
TARGET U.S. AND ISRAEL
MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington -
6/25/2001: Whether those associated with Osama
Bin-Laden are capable or not, they've already accomplished a
significant part of their goal by forcing their own issues to the top
of the international agenda and by sending the Americans out to sea to
protect themselves. Creating apprehension and fear is precisely
what "terrorism" is all about. Forcing Americans to change their
plans and expend great effort, including the mighty American military,
is precisely what those who oppose "the great Satan" are trying to
accomplish. Closing off Pennsylvania Avenue, barricading the
State Department, and turning the city of Washington into more of an
armed fortress than ever in its history is indeed a partial and
significant victory, whatever the future now holds.
While these Muslim-connected groups are warning
worldwide, the heart of their grievance the camaflouged occupation of
Arabia by the U.S.; the Israelis appear to be succeeding to further
provoke the associated Palestinian groups, including Hamas, in order to
provide the excuse they clearly desire to even more brutally force the
occupied Palestinian population back into more total submission.
In these conditions any spark can ignite the
blaze; and sometimes such giant fires consume more than was originally
anticipated, sometimes even those who start them.
HAMAS VOWS REVENGE ATTACKS AGAINST ISRAEL
By SAUD ABU RAMADAN
GAZA, June 24 (UPI) -- Hundreds of Islamic resistance movement Hamas
supporters and mourners Sunday urged their movement's militants to carry out
more revenge attacks against Israel.
They chanted "revenge ... revenge" while they carried the remains of
Ismail Ma'sawabi, the suicide bomber who blew himself up on Friday, killing
himself and two Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza Strip.
Masked young men wearing white shrouds wearing symbolic explosive belts
led the mourners and carried the bomber's coffin wrapped with a Palestinian
flag.
One of the masked men, a member of a Hamas armed wing, said Hamas would
never stop its attacks against Israel, adding that dozens of suicide bombers
are ready to carry out attacks.
He said that Hamas rejects the US-brokered truce that was reached on June
13, adding that Hamas also rejects the security meetings between Israeli and
Palestinian security officials to implement the cease-fire.
A high-ranking Palestinian security official who asked not to be
identified said the Palestinian authority security forces have arrested
several armed members of different military groups including Hamas and
Islamic Jihad -- a key condition for peace set by Israel.
The official said that the Palestinian security forces also confiscated
weapons including mortars and shells, and carried out measures on the ground
to prevent attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian authority accused Israel for violating CIA
director George Tenet's cease-fire deal after a Fatah militant was killed in
an explosion into a public telephone box in the West Bank town of Nablus.
"Returning to the policy of assassinations shows that Israel insists to
continue its escalation and military plan to destroy the Palestinian
authority," said Ahmed Abdel Rahman, chief of PA cabinet.
BIN LADEN "PLANS NEW ATTACKS IN TWO WEEKS"
By Michael Theodoulou in Nicosia and Michael Evans
[The Times of London, 25 June}: OSAMA BIN LADEN, the world’s
most-wanted terrorist, is planning a big attack on American and Israeli
targets within the next two weeks, a London-based Arab satellite
television station has claimed.
American armed forces have been on full alert for three days after
receiving intelligence reports about potential terrorist action linked
to the exiled Saudi dissident, who has lived in Afghanistan since 1996.
Warships in Bahrain, headquarters of the US 5th Fleet, were ordered to
sea on Friday and three American amphibious vessels left the Red Sea
port of Aqaba on Saturday, cutting short a military exercise in Jordan.
The evidence of a terrorist campaign came from an Islamabad-based
correspondent for the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC). Bakri
Attrani, the MBC correspondent, said that he had been taken by car
across the Pakistan border into Afghanistan, where he met bin Laden.
The terrorist leader, whom the Americans suspect of masterminding the
bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed
224 people, did not make any direct statement to Mr Attrani, but the
correspondent reported that bin Laden’s supporters had said that in the
next two weeks “a severe blow is expected against USA and Israeli
interests worldwide”.
A spokesman for MBC in London said the correspondent had reported that
bin Laden seemed pleased when his supporters gave the warning.
MBC, which is owned by Waleed al-Ibrahim, whose sister is married to
King Fahd of Saudia Arabia, said that bin Laden did not speak himself
because of the restrictions imposed on him by Afghanistan’s Taleban
rulers.
Mr Attrani said: “There is a major state of mobilisation among the
Osama bin Laden forces. It seems that there is a race for who will
strike first. Will it be the United States or Osama bin Laden?”
However, the Taleban authorities rejected the reports of a terrorist
attack. They said that bin Laden’s activities were under control. A
Foreign Ministry spokesman said that it was not possible for him to
organise action against another country.
Mr Attrani met bin Laden in the desert. He travelled for three hours in
a car with blackened windows so that he could not see where he was
going.
Among bin Laden’s supporters present were Abu Hatas al-Masri and Ayman
al-Zawahiri, leaders of Egypt’s outlawed Jihad group, who have joined
forces with the Saudi dissident.
Mr Attrani said that he and his crew were searched before being allowed
to see bin Laden. During the meeting, bin Laden’s supporters did not
give any details about the planned attacks. The reports received by
American Intelligence also referred to a “non-specific but credible
threat”.
Last month an American jury convicted four followers of bin Laden of
plotting to bomb the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Twelve Americans
were among those who were killed in the attacks.
Last week another US court indicted 14 suspects — 13 Saudis and a
Lebanese — for the terrorist bombing in 1996 of a US barracks in Saudi
Arabia, which killed 19 US servicemen.
A videotape emerged last week, which showed bin Laden telling his
supporters: “It’s time to penetrate America and Israel and hit them
where it hurts most.”
The Taleban authorities claimed that it was a fake. END
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/ |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S
/ /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East
/_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\© http://www.MiddleEast.Org
News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups,
and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know!
Washington Scene:
THE HISTORICAL MOMENT
Fear, Desperation, Preparations..But No Longer Much Hope
MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington -
6/27/2001: The Middle East region totters now between
further repression and oppression, terrorism and war. The outcome
in the short term is indeterminate of course. But the winds and
directions are clear; however much camaflouged by the politicians and
the usually gullible mass media.
The Israelis are more determined than ever to either subjugate or
co-opt the Palestinians. They pursue these means of course
through brutal repression and military occupation; means that
co-optation could further mask and disguise (the real goal) but not
really change. They desperately tried the later after
the Gulf War and in order to end the first Intifada; but couldn't bring
about the result they wanted at Camp David last year; just as many
experts had predicted. No matter how much they twisted and bribed
the Arafat Regime, it simply lacked the credibility and strength to do
what it was ordered to do no matter how internally co-opted and corrupt
it has always been.
The Arab regimes, especially the Hashemites and the al-Sauds, more
desperately than ever are battling to survive. The Americans --
and to a much lesser extent the Europeans -- are their patrons and
protectors; and of course they must pay a considerable price for
such. So too the Egyptians; but Egypt is not a royal family
it is a clique of personalities centered around a strong Army now
coupled with a small business elite that personally benefits from the
American connection.
As for the Palestinians, their predicament is grave. While the
people more desperately than ever want an end to their bondage, some
semblance of justice, and of course real independence; they know that
their situation is not one in which they can expect any of these
results any time soon. The regime that oppresses them has in fact
sold and squandered away many of their rights as well as much of their
territory, actually helping create today's apartheid-like
predicament. The Palestinian people are today essentially doubly
occupied -- their "autonomous population centers" and Gaza practically
prisons with the Palestinian "Authority" the first layer of control;
the Israeli Army the outer surrounding layer (with the Shinbet and CIA
connecting the two)..
As for the Arafat Authority, like the other "clients regimes" of the
region it too is primarily interested in its own survival and huge
payments. It too is a small, corrupt, self-centered clique whose
key members have personally benefited greatly with the money suitcases
of PLO days and the V.I.P. rewards that flowed from signing Oslo.
The Israelis, as well as the Americans, as well as the above mentioned
Arab regimes, have all conspired since the Gulf War and Intifada I to
create some kind of self-perpetuating "Palestinian regime" to
mirror how the rest of the surrounding Arab populations are held in
check.
Secretary of State, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Colin
Powell leaves today for the the region, well-briefed yesterday by Prime
Minister, former head of the Army, General Ariel
Sharon. The region is arming at an escalating pace -- good
of course for the American war industries who are by far the largest
suppliers of arms to the area -- and preparations for conflict
are escalating; even as the politicians play the hypnotizing "peace
process" and "even-handedness" tunes that amazingly are still listened
to by many.
Powell is not really going to see the Palestinians -- that's just the
public facade. His real business is in Cairo, Amman, and
Riyadh.
There he will instruct the client regimes how the game is going to be
played, what the Israelis are likely to do to the Palestinians as soon
as Sharon gets the excuse he so desperately is maneuvering for.
Powell will "explain" how the regimes are going to have to play ball by
the American rules behind-the-scenes, no matter what might be said in
public or what gestures might be made to assuage public opinion.
And Powell will "explain" that this is really their only sound choice
in the future now ahead as otherwise they too may become victims of the
fire that is yet to come.
Oh yes, by way of ps, a few hundred Muslims and a scattered few
followers were outside the White House yesterday afternoon holding a
noisy and energetic demonstration judged by the past. Their
leaders, the "client organizations" sponsored by these very same
"client regimes", even managed this time to get themselves very
peacefully arrested in a way that appeared all too pre-arranged with
the police, or so it seemed. Quite possibly the
embarrassments of repeatedly saying they would do so, and then never
actually doing so, coupled with growing pressures from the grassroots,
caused them this time to actually do it this time; albeit in the most
peaceful and compliant of ways.
But the real tests are now to come. Why did only a couple of
leaders sit down and then walk calmly to the paddy wagon? Why did
they not call on their followers to do the same -- many seemed
ready? Why did they not have any allies with them -- there are so
many others including Jews and Israelis who would have responded to
such a call and that really would have been far more significant?
And most of all, are they in fact going to follow up this largely photo
opportunity yesterday -- something they are so well-known for -- by
repeating the scene with greater numbers every week as today's
historical situation cries out for; are they going to call for Muslims
and people of conscience to rise up in peaceful civil disobedience
protest around the country as is urgently needed; are they going to
call out to those in the Arab world to insist that their own
governments break relations with Israel, suspend Israel from the U.N.
General Assembly, and defensively arms themselves so that the Israelis
will be deterred from doing more of what they have done in the past and
are threatening to further escalate?
This is no time to be lulled into believing the even thedeceptive and
dishonest "peace process" is back. Indeed it was always a
"domination process"; and it was always a desperate gamble by the
Israelis and the Americans that they could still contain the forces in
the region who are themselves increasingly desperate to throw off the
shackles that so terribly repress and imprison them. And not only
in the once historic Holy Land of Palestine. END
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June 2004
About the new MiddleEast.Org
(June 30, 2004)
U.S. Ordered Brits to Attack Iran - Brits Balked
(June 30, 2004)
The order was given in secret by the U.S. commander in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, who was already scheduled to be replaced, quite likely because of his involvement in the horrendous Iraqi torture scandal. But anyone who thinks General Sanchez gave the order without checking first with his neocon bosses back at the Pentagon -- Wolfowitz and Feith, who then of course check with Rumsfeld who then tells the President, Condi, and Colin -- just doesn't understand even at this late date how the invasion/occupation of Iraq came about nor how the Pentagon planning has been progressing for Iran, Syria, North Korea, just as soon as the excuses can be managed.
Bush and U.S. Exposed - book by book by book
(June 30, 2004)
This list of books exposing the Bush presidency for what it really is all about is an essential corrective to all the propaganda and TV clips constantly bombarding the American people... In many ways though some of these books are more significant, however in a TV/Movie age even collectively they will not have the same impact though they do help set a climate for skepticism and anxiety. This particular list was compiled a few months ago by USA Today so it's hardly complete at this point. But it is a good starting place for those wanting to choose a little holiday reading, however depressive, sometimes shocking, surely politically and historically depressing.
America's Baghdad - Corruption, Barricades, Boozing, Fear and Incompetence
(June 29, 2004)
Baghdad is awash with stories of the corruption, cronyism and incompetence of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which was dissolved this week.
Brits Departed Palestine Leaving Civil War - MER FlashBack
(June 29, 2004)
"Contrary to contemporary assertions, the British and the Americans have done far more to prevent democracy in the Middle East, and to inhibit independent economic development as well, then they will ever admit."
Bremer Slinks Away; CIA Slinks Forward
(June 28, 2004)
Thus now Bremer hastily and rather shamefully
slinks away without much fanfare, a few days
early so they say, even as Iraq continues to
seeth in hatred and a slow-simmer civil war.
Baghdad Shuffle
(June 28, 2004)
It's historic alright. A huge historic bungle that is quite literally exploding in their faces as they try to appear to go but actually stay with their carefully chosen Iraqi faces now out front. Over the weekend on ABC News one of the neocon political commentators made a little mistake and clearly called the American-appointed 'interim Iraqi Prime Minister' a "CIA agent" -- it was a rare moment of candor in public in today's confused, uptight, and secretive Washington.
Kurds on 'the return' - Palestinians into ghettos
(June 27, 2004)
Substitute "Palestinians" for Kurds, and "Israelis" for Arabs, and there is a whole different twist to 'the return' of the Kurds featured in this front-page New York Times article last Sunday. Another great irony of our times is that even as the Americans and the Israelis help facilitate what the Kurds are doing in Iraq they demand the Palestinians give up their 'right of return' even though it is enshrined in many U.N. Security Council resolutions going back to 1947...
Worst Crisis Since WWII?
(June 26, 2004)
"the most foolhardy civilian leadership in the
modern history of the United States." (Newsweek) "A vacuum has opened up at the heart of world politics where US leadership ought to be found." (Financial Times) "The unpalatable truth is that the Bush administration has failed in almost everything it has touched."
The Historical Moment - MER Flashback Four Years
(June 25, 2004)
MER FLASHBACK to 25 June 2001: Months before what is now known as "9/11" MER published these articles indicating that a major strike by Osama
Bin-Laden against the U.S. was imminent and that the Israelis were more determined than ever to subjugate the Palestinians. We wrote at the time: "In these conditions any spark can ignite the blaze; and sometimes such giant fires consume more than was originally anticipated, sometimes even those who start them."
BBC Hired by British Government to Broadcast TV to Middle East
(June 24, 2004)
More Readers' Comments from Around the World
(June 24, 2004)
Just some of the many Readers's Comments continually pouring in to MER from around the world.
Thank you for previewing the new MiddleEast.Org
(June 23, 2004)
Cheney and Rumseld "linked to murder" of CIA scientist in cold war years
(June 23, 2004)
Secret documents have revealed US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld are "linked to the murder" of a senior CIA scientist.
It's Now the Second Half of 1948
(June 23, 2004)
As always Professor Tanya Reinhart from Tel Aviv University writes with extraordinary insight.
"...the Israeli military and political leadership are aiming, eventually, at a total destruction of the Palestinian authority, and, with it, the process of Oslo, which is now dominantly considered by them a 'historical mistake'."
Information Warfare - Israel Wins Big
(June 22, 2004)
For 10 years Tim Llewellyn was the BBC's Middle East correspondent. In this passionately argued polemic he accuses British broadcasters, including his former employer, of systematic bias in covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, giving undue prominence to the views of the Israelis while all but disregarding the roots of the crisis and what is being done to the Palestinians.
Gearing Up for IRAN and North Korea
(June 21, 2004)
"...waiting to confront Iraq would have allowed the
United States to confront more immediate dangers....
Because our military is stretched so thin in Iraq, we cannot threaten military action in Iran or North Korea." Martin Peretz and The New Republic
REVOLT in WASHINGTON
(June 20, 2004)
Nader Speaks to Buchanon
(June 15, 2004)
He's going after the real conservative vote, so he says.
Crusade II - Reagan first brought the neocons to power
(June 09, 2004)
Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Bush...and the list goes on. Those who have recently led the crusade to invade Iraq, subjugate the Palestinians, and fight Islam, were brought to power in Washington for the first time some 23 years ago when Ronald Reagan of the once far-right was victorious over Jimmy Carter of the once mid-left in American politics. And some now forget that the man who greatly helped bring Ronald Reagan to power was none other than George Herbert Walker Bush, former head of the CIA, who now became Vice-President for the next eight years and then himself succeeded Reagan as President in 1989.
Realities of the "Reagan Plan" for the Middle East
(June 06, 2004)
The seeds for the Intifada and for Israel's increasingly aggressive escalating occupation of and dispossession of the Palestinian people were sown in the years of the Reagan Presidency. Indeed it was Ronald Reagan who first brought what we today call the "neocons" to power in Washington, and the right-wing Republicans who forged such a close alliance with the Israeli Likud of Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and Ariel Sharon which had come to power in Israel in 1977 for the first time.
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