Letters to the Editor, November 24, 2003

The Al-Jazeerah news web site is the very best I have ever encountered. You not only do a service for those in the Middle East, but the entire world is most apprecitive of your excellent coverage. Thank you for your courage, intelligence and focus.

Further to your news item of Nov 22 mentioning the publication of the 2nd annual rankings of press freedom by "Reporters Without Borders", Al-Jazeerah readers may be interested to learn some background facts about this organisation. It has become so embarrassingly well-established that RWB is an espionage front of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency [and possibly other espionage outfits] that this NGO lost its UN funding for 2003-2004 after it was found to be engaging in activities incompatible with its proper status.

Attached is a collection of articles earlier this year in the Cuban press exposing the particularly filthy role of RWB's chief exec, Robert Ménard, an enthusiastic stooge of the anti-Castro in Miami.

Are there any studies on the loss of life in the occupation of Germany or Japan?

Oddly enough my Dad, an American citizen, was in Europe at the start of WWII. I have pictures of him in British and other uniforms of that period. In answer to your question, yes -- the number I seem to remember from the Office of Strategic Services "OSS" study was a total of 43 (forty three) in Europe during the occupartion of Germany. The OSS study may be available at the National Archives in the United States whereas there are some very interesting documents regarding WWII. I will also ask the current OSS members to reference the exact study if possible. Hope this is helpful.

Did you know, approx 45 000 children in Iraq had been wounded and are still injured and need help ? They don't even have enough money to pay for heat - or socks or anything to ease their pains. They need new legs or arms - burn treatments and later an education. 1 billion dollars have been spent on the war - where is money now at least for the injured children ??? We all know, the US government wont do anything - so please:

Start a program: Sponsor or adopt an injured child in Iraq - that's the least we can do to make up for the horrible war. This would be an important step toward the future for each child - and it would help prevent those children from becoming suicide bombers some day. What do you have to lose - except a few dollars each month ? And it would be so worthwhile ! Would YOU be willing to start a "sponsor an injured child in Iraq" ? We need someone trustworthy and strong to get it started !! We all will benefit from it - all mankind ! These children have not future without help. And terrorism concerns us all !!!

Every day Howard, Blair or Bush feed us the rubbish about "terrorists" and the need to defend the "Good" against the "Bad", and each day their propaganda is seen by the majority of the Australian people as the noises consequent of a short sighted foreign policy in pursuit of a hidden agenda.

Every person in our street, all the students in my classes CANNOT understand why they are allowing the huge injustice to continue against the Palestinians .. and supply the Israelis with Nuclear Submarines. Our communities DO NOT feel this way.

NEVER have I seen a group of politicians veer so far away from the foreign policy sensibilities of their people. Its as if some form of administrative insanity has taken hold of our leaders.

It is an extremely interesting time in the history of the western democracies - we are paying the price that has to be paid when we allow idiots to win the vote because of a lack of suitable candidates for the roles of politicians. Every University and tall building in this country has a better human to be prime minister or President. Similarly for the US and Britain.

I hope this letter is a small consolation to the people of Palestine in their cruel struggle. The communities of the west are far more sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians than our leaders would have the Arab world believe. We MUST vote them out next election.

Our (Belgian) government and parliament did a pretty good job with the universal justice law. It proved to be a very effective one, as some culprits of the 1996 Rwanda genocide were brought to justice and imprisoned in Belgium under this law. Unfortunately, Belgium had to bow under US pressure, as Donald Rumsfeld threatened to remove the NATO headquarters from Brussels if it didn't stop the lawsuits against Sharon and several US officials. It's odd that our right to have a universal justice law was disputed by exactly the US and Israel. It was Israel who invented universal jurisdiction when they put German Nazis on trial in Israel for crimes committed outside of Israel. And it is the US that gives itself the right to attack whoever they think is against them, even outside the US borders.

Anyway, I'm happy that our government opposed the war in Iraq, but I'm not particularly proud to be a Belgian. It was Europe (and therefore, Belgium too) that created the artificial Arab countries with their artificial borders, dictators and kings. If the Arabs, with their one language and one religion, were united in one country, it wouldn't be as easy for Israel and the US to divide and conquer them.

"Bush's war on Iraq was waged under false pretences without any grounding in international law, and Canadian involvement in its aftermath is simply unacceptable," Layton said in a statement.

Well, that is an obvious, simple and extremely important FACT. So what's going on? Are the Americans setting up huge Swiss bank accounts for everybody in the Liberal Party? This is very discouraging and depressing (Read below).

I've been hoping against hope that Martin would keep us out of Iraq and other similar Master Race style crimes in the future by the hideous U.S. If he is even half the Canadian Chretien proved to be, we still have a chance, but.....

The Martin Liberals are looking like they are shaping up to be lunatics and moral sell- outs doesn't it ? We might have to vote NDP whether we like it or not.

McCallum supports Cdn. general's role in Iraq
Last Updated Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:07:16

OTTAWA - Canada's defence minister, John McCallum, says there's nothing wrong with a Canadian general playing a leading role in the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Canadian Brig.-Gen. Walt Natynczyk, deputy commander of the U.S. Army's Three Corps, will be serving with U.S. forces in Iraq as part of an officer exchange program.

The unit will deploy to Iraq early next year and take command of all ground forces. Natynczyk will be one of the top officers, even though Canada technically isn't involved in Iraq.

"We have a small number of exchange soldiers in Iraq," McCallum said. "And this brigadier-general is one of those. And this is normal."

But federal NDP Leader Jack Layton says Ottawa should bring the general home.

"Bush's war on Iraq was waged under false pretences without any grounding in international law, and Canadian involvement in its aftermath is simply unacceptable," Layton said in a statement.

"This seems to be directly at odds with what the prime minister announced in the House of Commons to, I think, huge support from Canadians, including his own MPs – that we would not be participating in the invasion of Iraq, the occupation of Iraq," Layton said later.

I have for many years now reached a very serious and disturbing conclusion about journalists both here in the UK and the United States.

Apart from one or two admirable exceptions such as John Pilger and Robert Fisk, Mike Rivero, Charley Reese, to name just a few, the rest of the Journalistic Fraternity have all but lost their integrity and their sense for truth and justice. Your article "walls of death" is a classic example of your total ignorance and blindness to the suffering and oppression of the Palestinian people and your human failings to recognise the tyranny under which these poor people are living under the State Terrorism of Israel and its murdering Government led at present by a blood thirsty, racist and corrupt tyrant, Sharon and his Mafia gang. This is acknowledged by a large majority of Europeans who in fact judge Israel to be the greatest threat to world peace, alongside it's benefactor, the USA.

Perhaps as an investigative journalist, your time would have been better spent talking to the survivors of Jenin where Israel committed a massacre, mass murder of its indigenous people. Or paid a visit to Gaza, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem. Or even spoke to Tom Hurndall's family and friends and friends of Rachel Corrie and other Peace Activists/International Solidairty Movement who have LIVED and experienced the oppression and indignity of the Palestinians and sampled first hand, Israel's "democracy" and Sharon's "man of peace" values!!! . But instead, as is so typical of mouthpieces for Zionists, you chose to demean these people and attack them with your verbal diarrhoea which judging from the many reports that have been surfacing, you should have directed, not against Palestinians, but Israel's Government, Settlers and hired assassins, The Israeli Defence Forces, where some of their soldiers have now refused to fight because of the atrocities they have confessed to carrying out under orders of their vile Government.

Even under International Law, and the Geneva Convention, Mr Toolis, every Nation and people HAS A RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF, ESPECIALLY UNDER FOREIGN OCCUPATION, just as Europe had done during WW2 when faced with Nazi occupation of their respective countries. Even here in the UK, Britain fought long and hard to protect its country and people from German domination and invasion and worked alongside the European "RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS" which did use Force and violence, in order to destroy Nazi Germany. These Europeans DID NOT just SIT BACK and ALLOW GERMANY to tread all over them and deprive them of their Human Rights and freedoms.

Every Nation, under the Principles of the Geneva Convention, every nation and its people that are under Foreign Occupation, are entitled to their basic Human Rights and Dignity and respect for their cultural integrity, which Mr Toolis, the Occupier, Israel has denied to the INDIGENOUS people of Palestine for the last 56 years.

Indeed Mr Toolis, you are not a true Journalist, not an honest reporter and you fall short of being an acceptable member of the God's Human Race/family. You are a shame to your profession.