I think the only solution to peace in the Holy Land is to peacefully dismantle the Zionist State of Israel (which is probably wishful thinking). I do not think that it was right that people from Poland, Hungary etc etc came to Palestine and forced the Palestinians to leave their homes because Zionists told the people from Europe that because they were Jews they were entitled to a nation there. The only people who think Jews are a race are Nazis and Zionists who collaborated with the Nazis in the Holocaust. Everyone else knows a person is Jewish by religion only, e.g. Jesus was born in Palestine which makes him an Arab and his religion was Judaism which makes him a Jew. I don't know why either Palestinians are called anti-Semitic when they are Semites while many Jewish people who may have one (if that) ancestor who left Palestine in 70 AD and the rest of their ancestors were non Semitic people are not Semites.

Janice Keenan

 

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VOTER FRAUD IN FLORIDA

The one great thing about our system of government is that in November, ALL Americans who want to can vote to elect the American president for the next four years, their Congressmen for the next two years and their senators for the next six years.

THE ABOVE STATEMENT BY ONE OF YOUR WRITERS DOES NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE FRAUD THAT TOOK PLACE IN FLORIDA. NEARLY 90,000 + VOTERS WERE "SCRUBBED" FROM THE VOTING ROLES ILLEGALLY. AT LEAST ONE-HALF WERE BLACK.

BBF Maryland

 

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Neither the Democratic nor Republican parties support a fair and just peace in the Middle East

The Bush  administration has destroyed decades of American foreign policy by declaring that Israel could keep chunks of stolen land in the illegally occupied West Bank and by dismissing the Palestinian right of return. The US government has cited various UN resolutions as a pretext for going to war against Iraq, yet the Bush administration has just affirmed once again that Israel need not abide by international law or UN resolutions.

I question the rationale in supporting the Israeli 1950 "Law of Return" which allows any person with a Jewish mother or any person that has converted to Judaism to seek residence in Israel, when Palestinians who were displaced only 2 years prior to that and whose descendants are still living in refugee camps cannot return to their homes simply because they are not Jewish.

I am extremely disappointed that instead of opposing this extremist shift in U.S. policy, the Democratic party, unified under John Kerry did not condemn the President’s racist policy shift but rather they have endorsed it.

Because neither the Democratic nor Republican parties support a fair and just peace in the Middle East I cannot and will not support either candidate in the November elections. The Palestinian people are not an expendable commodity whose fate can be violated as long as it means more votes to come at election time. It is inexcusable for any candidate to back away from supporting basic human dignity and rights for an entire nation merely because it will mean more votes for them at election time.

Sincerely,

Selma Hermez

 

 

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The Bush-Sharon Relationship

Dear Editor,

As an American citizen, I do not have words to describe my horror and disgust with my government and its pitiful genuflection toward Ariel Sharon, a relationship that consumes my tax dollars to spread death, destruction and ethnic cleansing and offers me, or any other American, the slightest payback other than justified hatred, fear and loathing.

The timing of the three most recent events -- the murder of Yassin, Bush's gutless capitulation in tearing up the roadmap that he himself created, along with the total repudiation of international law, human rights, morality and reason itself, and the murder of Rantissi -- confirms two things:

First, that we lack even a pretense toward the rule of law; those with the bigger guns will rule and rule ruthlessly; and

Second, that it's an open season on Muslims for no other reason than that they lack the guns.

All of this at a time when our President pretends to be "fighting terrorism," when all but the most mindless can clearly see that "fighting" rather than ending "terrorism" is the real agenda. Hence, we must have "terrorism" in order to fight it, and we must fight it because it's politically beneficial, whatever the cost in human life and suffering.

Bush seems determined to turn my country into some version of a small racist failing state known as "Israel," in tactics and in ideology, and any reasonable American must wonder, "why?" Why would we want to emulate that?

The answer is that roughly 33% of the voting public consists of Christian fundamentalists who choose to live in a fantasy world of "end times" and "Rapture," which presuppose Osama bin Laden's idea of a final war of "good and evil," which is about as complete an abandonment of reason, intelligence, vision and civilization as I can think of.

I am embarrassed and ashamed for my country in the 21st century that we have such ignorant primitavists for "leaders."

Now is the time for all civilized people to fight back against the forces of regression and devolution, and thereby, to preserve hope.

Carl Wombat

 

 

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European Prosperity and the Desirability of US Failure in Iraq

 

The Bush administration has yet to face reality, there is not going to be a handover and honourable departure. A quisling government won’t last five minutes in an environment saturated with guerrillas and suicide commandos. Collaborators are murdered every day. Strip away the modern veneer and Iraq emerges as a tribal society (albeit educated and capable) that lives by the feud. Count the several hundred thousand dead from UN sanctions, add in the war dead (civilian and military) since 1990, multiply by the number of kith and kin, and underline a product of ominous proportions.

The policy makers in the Bush administration are a ship o’ fools. What on earth possessed them of the idea that they would be welcome in Iraq? Of the three countries least welcome, two are the US and UK. Eighty years of meddling in Arab affairs aside, the Iraqis need only look two borders to the West to know that the US and UK have been aiding and abetting major crimes against the Palestinians – crimes that should be the subject of international criminal proceedings – to know that promises of freedom and democracy are an obvious lie.

The strategic goal for the Anglo-American axis is to secure the petroleum deposit for their own enjoyment, and, to this end, human rights and international law will be no obstacle. Bush and Blair will wade through blood to gain what they want; mass murder by war is their policy instrument of choice. On a scale of mass murder, serial killers like Fred and Rosemary West, and Dr. Harold Shipman, are rank amateurs in comparison. As chief peddlers of human rights and democratic fictions, worldwide, and with the international institutions in their pockets, who can challenge them? One of their more useful pawns is Kofi Annan, an internationally recognized lickspittle, toady, political catamite, and disgrace to the office of UN Secretary General.

The whole Iraqi adventure has turned sour and is likely to get much worse; now the Bush syndicate is looking to spread the pain by miring others in the farrago, through UN involvement. For Europe, this is an invitation to servitude. The crux of the matter is US dollar hegemony. Anglo-American success in Iraq means dollar denomination of what is probably the largest petroleum deposit in the world. Currently, we toil in our factories and fields to earn US dollars, to buy strategic materials, especially fossil fuels. At each transaction the US levies tribute on our production, by the simple mechanism of Europe having to work to earn dollars, while they issue them at almost no cost. It’s a simple mechanism, really.

Thanks to an unexpected hijacking of the US Government by the Bush administration, Europe has an unprecedented opportunity to break the US dollar hegemony by doing precisely nothing to help the US out of a mess of its own making. Let them stew in their own juice. If the Iraqis chuck them out, they will be in a position to denominate and settle petroleum sales in alternative currencies, and the Euro must be at the top of the list. It will set the ball rolling worldwide.

Worldwide acceptance of the Euro, at face value, for international strategic materials purchases, is worth between 8 and 13 percent increase in general prosperity for Europe, for no extra effort. We can either have a shorter working week, or, alternatively, get used to more purchasing power. It would go a long way to solving the looming pensions problem. Those European politicians: Aznar (thankfully gone), Berlusconi, Blair, political clowns in the ten accession states, and others supporting US efforts in Iraq, are first class traitors to the E.U. in general, and the single currency project in particular.

Victoria Sheridan, England