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                  MER FLASHBACK - 13 March 2004
Long Before Amnesty International's Recent Charge of 'American Gulags'...
Long Before the Abu Ghraib and then the Koran Scandals...
Long Before Tom Friedman's Call to Close Guantanamo, endorsed by a senior Senator just yesterday...
MER Published the following article titled 'Camp Hell - America's Little Gulag'
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13 March 2004
WEEKEND
READING

News, Views, & Analysis Governments, Lobbies, & the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know
"The most honest, the most comprehensive and most mobilizing
news and analysis on the Middle East always comes  from MER. 
It is indispensable!" - Robert Silverman - Salamanca, Spain
         If you don't get MER, you just don't get it!


CAMP HELL
America's Little Gulag

"His story should make the international community insist that the
Americans stop their shameful behaviour....   Just as the free world
must unite against terrorism, so it must stand together to uphold
civilisation and the rule of law.  We will not beat the terrorists by
the scandalous and debasing treatment of the Guantanamo prisoners."
                                         Mirror Editorial - 12 March

Mid-East Realities - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 13 March 2004:
First the editorial in The Mirror that preceeds the exclusive stories of what we can call the Guantanamo Gulag.  Then one of the stories as published yesterday in the U.K. exposing that hellish place on the island of Cuba where even the Americans are beginning to admit that they have very little actual evidence against very many of those who have been 'detained' there.   Nearly all were captured without specific charge, wisked by the American military from their countries to this extra-legal setting, held without any semblence of due process, denied the most basic of legal rights that Americans insist upon for themselves.    This makes nightmarish though absolutely necessary 'Weekend Reading' this week.  More tomorrow...


             A TALE TO SHAME THE FREE WORLD

YESTERDAY saw another appalling reminder of the curse of terrorism.

The terrible toll in human life and suffering in Madrid unites people around the world.

No wonder there is hatred for the fanatics who inflict such pain and misery.

Which is why some people are critical of the men who have just returned to this country from the camp at Guantanamo Bay.

They assumed the five were linked to terrorists in Afghanistan because we knew nothing about them or what happened to them. Until now.

Today the Mirror tells the story of Jamal al-Harith who has spent the past two years incarcerated in the hell of Camp Delta.

He had gone on a visit to Pakistan - as he says, like thousands of other Britons - but a truck he hired to get him out drove into Afghanistan.

That led to his capture by the brutal Taliban. He was lucky to survive.

When he was freed, it was only to be seized by the Americans and sent to Cuba. Which is when a greater torment began.

What Jamal reveals about the treatment of prisoners at Camp Delta will shock everyone who believes in the rule of law.

They were abused, beaten, threatened, tortured and humiliated.

Naked prostitutes were paraded in front of the most religious men. They were mockingly told they had no rights.

Jamal suffered as much as anyone even though, as he says, he had never received as much as a parking ticket before his incarceration.

Both President Bush and his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, contemptuously dismissed everyone at Guantanamo as a dangerous terrorist.

That was a blatant lie and shames the United States - the leader of the free world and supposed upholder of justice and decency.

Jamal al-Harith has exposed the disgrace of what has gone on at Camp Delta - and is still going on to hundreds who remain there.

His story should make the international community insist that the Americans stop their shameful behaviour.

And not just for the sake of justice. For there is a connection between the prisoners there and the broken and bleeding bodies in Madrid.

Just as the free world must unite against terrorism, so it must stand together to uphold civilisation and the rule of law.

We will not beat the terrorists by the scandalous and debasing treatment of the Guantanamo prisoners.

All that does is convince the perverted minds of the fanatics that they are right.


By Rosa Prince and Gary Jones


Mirror - UK - WORLD EXCLUSIVE- 12 March 2004:

A BRITISH captive freed from Guantanamo Bay today tells the world of its full horror - and reveals how prostitutes were taken into the camp to degrade Muslim inmates.

Jamal al-Harith, 37, who arrived home three days ago after two years of confinement, is the first detainee to lift the lid on the US regime in Cuba's Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta.

The father-of-three, from Manchester, told how he was assaulted with fists, feet and batons after refusing a mystery injection.

FREEDOM: Jamal yesterday... but he will never forget camp horror

He said detainees were shackled for up to 15 hours at a time in hand and leg cuffs with metal links which cut into the skin.

Their "cells" were wire cages with concrete floors and open to the elements - giving no privacy or protection from the rats, snakes and scorpions loose around the American base.

He claims punishment beatings were handed out by guards known as the Extreme Reaction Force. They waded into inmates in full riot-gear, raining blows on them.

Prisoners faced psychological torture and mind-games in attempts to make them confess to acts they had never committed. Even petty breaches of rules brought severe punishment.

Medical treatment was sparse and brutal and amputations of limbs were more drastic than required, claimed Jamal.

A diet of foul water and food up to 10 years out-of-date left inmates malnourished.

But Jamal's most shocking disclosure centred on the use of vice girls to torment the most religiously devout detainees.

Prisoners who had never seen an "unveiled" woman before would be forced to watch as the hookers touched their own naked bodies.

The men would return distraught. One said an American girl had smeared menstrual blood across his face in an act of humiliation.

Jamal said: "I knew of this happening about 10 times. It always seemed to be those who were very young or known to be particularly religious who would be taken away.

"I would joke with the other British lads, 'Bring them to us - we'll have them'. It made us laugh. But the Americans obviously knew we wouldn't be shocked by seeing Western women, so they didn't bother.

"It was a profoundly disturbing experience for these men. They would refuse to speak about what had happened. It would take perhaps four weeks for them to tell a friend - and we would shout it out around the whole block."

Jamal added: "The whole point of Guantanamo was to get to you psychologically. The beatings were not as nearly as bad as the psychological torture - bruises heal after a week - but the other stuff stays with you."

HE was talking from a secret location after being reunited with his family. The website designer, a convert to Islam, had gone to Pakistan in October 2001, a few weeks after September 11, to study Muslim culture.

He accidentally strayed into Afghanistan - believing he was being driven to Turkey - and was arrested as a spy, perhaps because of his British passport. He was held in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and fell into US hands.

Now Jamal bears the scars of Guantanamo. He stoops into a hunch as he walks because the shackles that bound him were too short.

As a punishment, inmates would be confined so tightly they would be forced to lie in a ball for hours. During lengthy interrogation, they would be tethered to a metal ring on the floor.

Jamal said: "Sometimes you would be chained up on the floor with your hands and feet actually bound together. One of my friends told me he was kept like that for 15 hours once.

"Recreation meant your legs were untied and you walked up and down a strip of gravel. In Camp X-Ray you only got five minutes but in Delta you walked for around 15 minutes."

Jamal said victims of the Extreme Reaction Force were paraded in front of cells. "It was a horrible sight and it was a frequent sight."

He said one unit used force-feeding to end a hunger strike by 70 per cent of the 600 inmates. The strike started after a guard deliberately kicked a copy of the Koran.

Rice and beans was the usual diet and the water was "filthy". Jamal added: "In Camp X-Ray it was yellow and in Delta it was black - the colour of Coca-Cola.

"We had it piped through with a tap in each 'cage' but they would often turn the water off as punishment.

"They would shut off the water before prayers so we couldn't wash ourselves according to our religion.

"The food was terrible as well, up to 10 years out-of-date. They would open a hatch and shove it through a section at a time.

"We had porridge and something they called 'like-milk', which was disgusting and 'like-tea' and a piece of fruit. The fruit had been frozen and pounded with chemicals. An apple might look red but there was waxy white stuff all over it and inside it would be black and brown.

"They would play tricks on people by denying them things - you might be the only person on your block who didn't get any bread. I prided myself on never asking them for anything. I would not beg." Jamal said they were told they had no rights. "They actually said that - 'You have no rights here'. After a while, we stopped asking for human rights - we wanted animal rights. In Camp X-Ray my cage was right next to a kennel housing an Alsatian dog.

"He had a wooden house with air conditioning and green grass to exercise on. I said to the guards, 'I want his rights' and they replied, 'That dog is member of the US army'.

"You would be punished for anything - for having six packets of salt in your cell rather than five, for hanging your towel through the cage if it wasn't wet, even for having your spoon and things lined up in the wrong order."

Being forced to use a bucket as a toilet in view of other inmates and guards was particularly embarrassing. Jamal said: "I never got used to it - we would all put our towels and clothes around us.

"But the Military Police up in the tower would see us and would shout to each other.

"We were only allowed a shower once a week at the beginning and none at all in solitary confinement.

"This was very tough because you are supposed to be clean when you pray.

"Gradually the number of showers rose to three a week. They were always cold.

"You would be chained by two MPs while you were still in the cage before being taken off for what they called 'rec and shower'.

"You could sometimes see the guards tampering with the shower heads to make water squirt all over the inmate's clothes if he had put them up to protect his privacy."

Inmates were issued with "comfort items" - known as CIs - like shampoo, towels, a washcloth and boxer shorts. CIs would be removed as a punishment.

Jamal defiantly refused "treats", such as watching a James Bond film in a room dubbed The Love Shack by inmates.

He added: "Some people were given pizzas, ice-cream and McDonald's, but they didn't offer them to me. I guess they knew bribery would work with some and not with others."

To pass the time, inmates would chat to each other, pray, read the Koran and sing Islamic songs. In Camp X-Ray, they were given Mills and Boon-style romance novels in Arabic, which they refused to read.

Describing medical treatment, Jamal said he knew of 11 men who had legs amputated and two who lost toes and fingers. He was told that the Americans had removed far more tissue than was necessary.

HE added: "The man in the cell next to me had frostbite in two fingers and two toes. He also had it in his big toe, but they didn't treat that for a year by which time they had to cut off much more than was needed.

"All the men who had lost limbs complained they would chop them off high up and not bother to try to save as much as possible."

Jamal added that he didn't have close friends in Guantanamo, saying: "When I did meet the other Brits, we would reminisce about home - particularly the food.

"We were all obsessed with Scottish Highland Shortbread - we wanted some so much.

"One of the Brits told me he was asked why he was a Muslim, because he ought to be praying to the Queen."

Jamal, who is divorced with daughters aged three and eight and a son of five, is convinced his refusal to succumb to mind-games gave him the will to come through.

He said: "It was very, very hard at times, but I tried to think about nothing but survival.

"I kept my thoughts from home as much as possible because it would drive me crazy.

"About a year into my time, I had a dream. A voice said, 'You will here for two years'.

"In my dream I said, 'Two years! You're joking'. But when I woke up, I was calmer because at least that meant I would be getting out one day.

"I was sent to Guantanamo on February 11, 2002 and left on March 9, 2004, so I was there for just over two years, just like the voice in the dream said."

CLICK BELOW FOR MORE

TERROR OF TORTURE IN CUBA CAMP

I WAS IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME

VOICE OF THE MIRROR: A TALE TO SHAME THE FREE WORLD


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March 2004



9/11 Cover-Up!
(March 27, 2004)
A former FBI translator told the 9/11 commission that the bureau had detailed information well before Sept. 11, 2001, that terrorists were likely to attack the U.S. with airplanes. "They're pushing everything under the blanket of secrecy." Especially after reading National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice where she said, we had no specific information whatsoever of domestic threat or that they might use airplanes. That's an outrageous lie. And documents can prove it's a lie."

Arab Summit ABORTED!
(March 28, 2004)
But it appears the 'Arab leaders' are not only despostic, inept, corrupt and impotent as we have been saying. It appears they are now so pathetic, so hopeless, so bamboozled about what is really going on in the world that making fools of themselves no longer even seems to phase them. In short, what a bunch of bumblers they have collectively become.

Sharon to Fall? Bibi to Rise?
(March 28, 2004)
Whether Sharon is forced out, resigns, is indicted, or dies at this point in history may not be all that important any more. He's already done much of what he came to the pinnacle of power to do. The role of Israeli Prime Minister of late is one in which different personalities are used to accomplish different missions at crucial historical times -- as Sharon's friends Generals Rabin and Barak as well as his former Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, have in recent years found out before him..

Sharon to Fall? Bibi to Rise?
(March 28, 2004)
Whether Sharon is forced out, resigns, is indicted, or dies at this point in history may not be all that important any more. He's already done much of what he came to the pinnacle of power to do. The role of Israeli Prime Minister of late is one in which different personalities are used to accomplish different missions at crucial historical times -- as Sharon's friends Generals Rabin and Barak as well as his former Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, have in recent years found out before him..

Libya Scam?
(March 26, 2004)
With all the other lies and deceptions we already know about coming from those who hold power in official Washington and London, with all the covert CIA and Mossad disinformation campaigns and plots, can it possibly be that the Libya situation today is but one more U.S./U.K./Israeli political scam? Could it possibly be that the powers that be decided to perpetrate on the whole world this further hoax hoping it will help them weather all the credibility storms surrounding the Iraq debacle by pretending they at least got Gaddafi to give up the 'weapons of mass destruction' they say he almost had?

The Archbishop of Canterbury Should Stay Home
(March 26, 2004)
Let's start at the end here. Rather than be associated with 'despicable collaborators', rather than make another pretend visit to the Palestinians as did the Pope a few years ago, the sometimes outspoken and courageous Archbishop of Canterbury should wise up, realize how he is being used and abused by weak-minded Christian Palestinians associated with the despised PA, and stay home rather than attend the Sabeel conference as keynote speaker in Jerusalem next month.

U.S. Further Risks Destabilizing Pakistan plus Musharraf's Demise
(March 25, 2004)
Not only are they now putting the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan at risk, on top of many of the key Arab client states. The U.S., U.K., and Israel are now risking history itself spinning out of control and a multi-decade crusade-like confrontation with no end in sight or known outcome.

History will damn them (the US and UK that is)
(March 25, 2004)
History will damn the US and the UK writes Professor Richard Overy from Kings College in London. Others, like John Pilger in the British media, but not the United States, are adding Israel to the list of the damned, first for having pushed the US and the UK into the occupation/invasion of Iraq (not to mention the still evolving 'clash of civilizations') and then of course for the brutal military occupation of the Palestinians where so much of the hatreds and bitterness originate. Meanwhile, in the U.S. itself in fact, the corporate media as well as the politicians are all cowered, the people are bewildered as well as more polarized and frightened than ever, and the underpinnings of American power and greatness are fast eroding even as the 'leaders' proclaim victory and rally around their lapel flag-pins.

The CIA and Mossad are coming to a city near you!
(March 24, 2004)
Now the Hudson Institute, long connected with both the CIA and Mossad, is bringing a new 'Briefing Series' to New York and the in-crowd is dutifully lining up like lemmings, or is the more fitting metaphor like lambs going to slaughter. Here's the propaganda release about the new propaganda series now getting underway in New York City. And get this: "The Hudson Briefing Series is considering expanding to other major US cities."

HAMAS FOUNDER ASSASSINATED - Suitcase Nukes Threatened
(March 21, 2004)
They held him in their prisons not that long ago. Then they let him go after a botched Mossad attempt to assassinate other Hamas leaders in Amman. It was a deal orchestrated with King Hussein of Jordan and the CIA. Indeed King Hussein and Yasser Arafat were the first to rush to Yassin's hospital bedside paying him personal homage. Now he goes into history as one of the most significant Palestinian martyrs just as the recent secret meeting between the CIA-installed son of King Hussein, Abdullah II, with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has leaked out. And just as the top al-Qaeda leaders are being hunted down by the CIA and the Pakistanis and what may be a threat to use briefcase nukes is being published in Australia.

'Peace Movement' Realities Disastrous for Palestinians
(March 21, 2004)
Worst of all, for the Palestinians today's 'peace movement' borders on being totally disastrous. The national Arab American and Muslim organizations have either been destroyed, committed suicide, or essentially politically castrated -- it's become disreputable in fact just to be said to be affiliated with any of them. Jewish 'peace organizations' are little better, but for different reasons. All together they are unable to even hold small demonstrations on their own. And thus they all rush to put the names of all their fractured and in many cases nearly fictitious groups on the list of 'sponsors' of demonstrations like those that took place yesterday. And they do so even though Israel's 'liberal' supporters have managed to push the Palestinian situation so far under that it is hardly even mentioned these days in the newspaper and TV reports of what is being protested; not to mention the ongoing failure to continually highlight the alliance between the U.S. and Israel that is behind it all.

Journalists En Masse Walk Out on Powell
(March 20, 2004)
This is not the first time U.S. or Israeli troops have shot at, and in a few cases killed, journalists. And it should come as no surprise that it always seems to be journalists with 'unfriendly' news organizations that are 'mistakenly' targeted. It is the first time in memory however that journalists en masse have simply picked up and walked out on an American Secretary of State.

The PA - Incompetent and Inept
(March 19, 2004)
We make a point with MER of calling it like it really is on all accounts. That includes the sad and tragic realities of the 'Palestinian Authority' still headed by Yasser Arafat, more of which are exposed in this insightful article 'Hitting the Wall'. And that also includes the sad and tragic situation in Washington where a terribly misleading little group called the Council for the National Interest (CNI) keeps spinning ever-more-deceptive tall tales to continue collecting still more money and rewards from the misguided and inept Arab elite who know not what they do. More on this miserable laughable 'Washington Scene' situation among 'the Arabists' coming soon.

Iraq Occupation - Year 1
(March 16, 2004)
We say 'Year 1' because anyone who thinks the Americans are really 'turning sovereignty back to Iraq' on 30 June and ending their occupation just doesn't get what's really going on and how the American Empire really operates these days. Just as with the almost ludicrous statements from the British Foreign Minister about the Madrid bombings (second article below), believing anything the Americans or Brits say these days continues to become still more and more difficult. We refer again to former Chief Weapons Inspector David Kay, one of their own in fact, who publicly now admits "the U.S. has suffered a generational lose in credibility"; a credibility which by the way wasn't all that considerable to start with. But there still are vestiges of an independent media and intelligentsia left - more in the UK than in the US unfortunately - and this 'birthday' article by Robert Fisk makes that quite evident. Add this one to the 'must reading' list.

Iraqi 'Disaster' and 'GET Bin Laden Now!'
(March 15, 2004)
But just as was the case with Saddam in Iraq, more telling than the upcoming death/capture of Bin-Laden is the extreme expense and time and credibility-loss the American Empire has had to expend on attempting to accomplish it's imperial goals. The Spanish Prime Minster-elect's remarks today are but the tip of the possible political slippery slope ahead. Though they finally got Saddam hiding in a hole the overall Iraqi situation still continues to worsen, the U.S. is now desperately trying to get the U.N. to do what it has failed to do, and proconsul Bremer is busy preparing his own departure. More amazing than finally getting Bin Laden at this point is how long and difficult and costly the hunt has been. And though Bin Laden's end may be approaching, the clash primarily ignited by decades of misguided and treacherous U.S. and Israeli policies now has no end in sight.

Camp HELL - America's Little Gulag
(March 12, 2004)
"His story should make the international community insist that the Americans stop their shameful behaviour.... Just as the free world must unite against terrorism, so it must stand together to uphold civilisation and the rule of law. We will not beat the terrorists by the scandalous and debasing treatment of the Guantanamo prisoners." - Daily Mirror Editorial - 12 March

Replacing Saddam with Chalabi
(March 11, 2004)
Ahmad Chalabi is an amazingly resilient fellow and he wants to be the new political ruler of Iraq, one way or another. Chalabi is an Iraqi Shiite pretender who has been the darling, at various times, of the, the CIA, the Pentagon, the Arab elite, and most especially the Israeli Jewish neocons who have Washington by the neck these days. It was Chalabi who orchestrated most of the false and misleading stories that the Bush Administration used to justify the war against Iraq. And it was Chalabi who fed Judith Miller et. al. at the New York Times all the lies and distortions that the Times then fed the world.

Arafat Disaster, Then and Now
(March 10, 2004)
Four years ago this month MER published this article titled "The Arafat Disaster". So many others were so wrongly hopeful and mistakenly optimistic. Yasser Arafat was still the most frequent foreign visitor to the White House. Ehud Barak was the subject of such positive and uplifting reports coming from the corporate and the 'liberal' media. Bill Clinton and his Israeli-oriented-approved staff were pushing hard. A Palestinian State, peace, and prosperity were being continually proclaimed as preparations were underfoot for that summer's marathon Camp David negotiations, the culmination of what began on the White House lawn in 1993. But the independent experts knew better then even if they were rarely given a chance to speak up. And MER had been begun some years earlier precisely to give expression to "Mid-East Realities". Today, as the 'roadmap' unravels in deceptive, as the 'peace process' itself is exposed as a cruel hoax, and as the Israelis talk about 'dismantling' Gaza settlements even as they further expand others faster than ever, this reminder of the recent past now it seems so long ago:

IRAQ - Confrontation Only Delayed
(March 9, 2004)
What symbolism of history. The Americans and their Iraqi Council managed to find the old desk that King Feisal used to sign the British agreement that enthroned him in Baghdad after World War I, after all the broken promises for 'Arab nationhood' of that era, after the Paris 'Peace Conference' now known as 'the peace to end all peace'. Few seem to recall however the fate of that British-created Hashemite throne -- quite literally dismembered and dragged through the dusty streets in the violent revolution decades later. And then came the long era of Baath Party rule and Saddam Hussein -- himself originally supported and promoted by the Americans until, with Israel's pushing, they turned on him.

Israelis Massacre Palestinians
(March 8, 2004)
Adjusted for population size compared to the United States, more Palestinians were killed this weekend than Americans died on 11 September 2001 at the World Trade Towers. And that was just Palestinians in the Gaza Strip -- a sealed ghetto which more and more is like a concentration camp. In the past week alone more than twice as many Palestinians in Gaza Ghetto have been killed per capita as Americans who died on 9/11...and at least four times that number seriously injured.

Arab League to Nowhere
(March 7, 2004)
Arab Foreign Ministers Fail Completely and Forward U.S. Neocon "Greater Middle East Initiative" to Summit -------------- "The (American) project aims at ignoring the Arabs’ culture, historical heritage, civilization and aspirations."

KILL Bin Laden SOON!
(March 6, 2004)
"I would be flabbergasted if he is not caught by the end of the year." Pentagon spokesman

Palestine Civil War Looms - From Gaza in Great Pain
(March 4, 2004)
And now...just a few years later....look at the world that has erupted from the Holy Land of the bible and from the policies pursued by the world's only superpower in combination with the little "Jewish State" of Israel. Indeed: "May They Rest in Peace":




© 2004 Mid-East Realities, All rights reserved

June 2005


Magazine






Bush Speak - Deceitful, Dishonest, Distasteful
(June 30, 2005)
Following are two very interesting articles about the latest Bush Speech and what it's really all about - both published yesterday, the day after the speech. The first comes from Australia where the World Socialist organization has a very active and outspoken organization; the second from Professor Juan Cole who has his own blog/commentary that is often of considerable interest.

the Mideast's political vista is bleak and depressing - MER FlashBack 5 Years
(June 29, 2005)
"There is not a single Arab regime that has authentic political legitimacy. All are kept in power by soldiers and secret police... From Morocco to Iraq, the Mideast's political vista is bleak and depressing."

Bush, Condi, Rummie, and the Generals all Speaketh Safely and Carefully
(June 29, 2005)
"...the applause appeared to have een 'triggered by members of the president's advance team' and once they began clapping, the soldiers joined in."

TOTAL WAR Preached by Washington Extremists
(June 28, 2005)
"On no issue is the JINSA/CSP hard line more evident than in its relentless campaign for war--not just with Iraq, but "total war".... For this crew, "regime change" by any means necessary in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority is an urgent imperative. Anyone who dissents...is committing heresy against articles of faith that effectively hold there is no difference between US and Israeli national security interests, and that the only way to assure continued safety and prosperity for both countries is through hegemony in the Middle East.

WAR For ISRAEL
(June 27, 2005)
"The lack of public discussion about the role of Israel in the thinking of 'President Bush' is easier to understand, but weird nevertheless. It is the proverbial elephant in the room: Everybody sees it, no one mentions it." - Michael Kinsley - 24 Oct 2002(Today Editorial Page Editor, LATimes)

Hitler and Nazi Germany compared to Bush and Evangelical/Neocon America? By whom did you say?
(June 25, 2005)
"They (neo cons) are making such fatalistic mistakes and are about as insane as Hitler and the Nazi Party when they invaded Russia in the dead of the winter... It’s like the Nazis removing dissent without using the Gestapo." - former Senior Reagan Admin official with impressive credentials

THE MOTHER OF ALL HOAXES?
(June 15, 2005)
MER has never before published this story, this 'conspiracy theory' if you will. Though under much pressure over the years to do so we always held back and never published anything about this 'possibility'...until today that is. But now the fact that a ranking former Bush Administration official, in fact the man who was the top government economist in the Labor Department on 11 September 2001, has now gone public saying 9/11 may have been a historic hoax and the World Trade Towers were 'most likely' destroyed by a 'controlled demolition', causes us to reconsider.

Avi Shlaim and 'Liberal' Jewish Israeli Apologetica
(June 24, 2005)
"For when it comes to pointing fingers in their own direction for so many awful mistakes for so long, for such Israeli apologetica that at the very least played into the crafty and bloody designs of those they claim to so oppose, there is such a deafening silence from the likes of Avi Shlaim, Henry Siegman, Joel Beinin, Aaron Miller and the chicanerous Peace Now-B'rit Tzedek 'peace' propagandists."

Letter to MER from Israel...and Reply
(June 23, 2005)
"Truly informing people of the often tragic and enraging realities in which we are all now interwoven in today's 'modern' world is indeed what MER is all about. It is a daunting difficult sometimes distasteful task. But it is oh-so-important whether we be discussing the realities in the U.S., the Arab countries, today's United Nations, the Palestinian Authority, or Israel. Indeed, we badly and urgently need a new kind of worldwide alliance among dedicated and knowledgeable and independent people of conscience and conviction, whether they be Israelis or Arabs or Americans, Jews or Muslims or Christians."

Fingers Pointing At Israeli Complicity
(June 22, 2005)
As for the crucial charge that Israel was at least partly behind it all coming from such a ranking former CIA official who use to brief non other than George Bush the Senior at the White House -- well...that is buried in the story and not presented in a very serious way as it surely deserves to be.

IRAN War Already Underway
(June 21, 2005)
The Secretary of State's crafty remarks in Cairo yesterday actually denouncing U.S. policies since World War II in the region were in reality part of the carefully conceived rhetorical facade, a thinly disguised veneer of 'freedom' and 'democracy' sound-bites, all actually designed to obfuscate and smoke-screen these larger realities.

Controlling the Middle East in the 21st Century
(June 20, 2005)
"...the Secretary of State attempted to articulate a simplistic sound-bite veneer to the crusading neocon/Evangelical/Zionist vision of the new Middle East the U.S... is using the Pentagon and the CIA to force into being against considerable resistance and at tremendous cost."

'Death Camp' and 'Gulag' Charges Finally Ring Out in Washington
(June 17, 2005)
The Senate's No. 2 Democrat has compared the U.S. military's treatment of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, three of history's most heinous dictators, whose regimes killed millions.

KILLING IRAQ - MER FlashBack 5 Long Years Ago
(June 8, 2005)


America's Little Gulag - MER FlashBack
(June 6, 2005)


MER Has Been Suspended
(June 2, 2005)





© 2004 Mid-East Realities, All rights reserved