US President George W. Bush (i) is shown with Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during their joint press meeting on Bush's Prairie Chapel ranch, April 11, in Crawford, Texas. (AFP File Photo)

It’s really sad when you have to read newspapers and web sites in the Middle East to find out what is happening in the United States. For instance, al-Jazeera was about the only site outside of Israel to report that General Yoav Gallan, war criminal Ariel Sharon’s “military advisor“ (that is, he tells Arik the Butcher the best way to kill Palestinians and other Arabs), “has reportedly handed Bush documents and aerial photos of Iranian nuclear installations during the Israeli prime minister’s Monday meeting with the U.S. President George W. Bush, Israeli public radio reported on Tuesday.“
In short, the Israelis have devised a few fake photos to lay on Bush since Iran does not actually have “nuclear installations,“ as the International Atomic Energy Agency reported late last year. Israel wants the United States to bomb the daylights out of Iran, a possibility that will grow more and more remote as time passes, a fact that really freaks out Sharon and his Jabotinskyite partners in international crime who want every Arab or Muslim nation in the Middle East bombed or at least cowed by the same sort of shock and awe Bush used against Iraq.
Gallan, who accompanied Sharon in his summit with Bush at his Texas ranch, presented the photos together with information the Israeli intelligence services gathered on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme, the Israeli radio added, without mentioning how the photos were taken. It just said that the images showed that the Iranian nuclear programme was at a “very advanced“ stage.
It is amazing what you can do with computers these days--entire alternate universes can be ray traced into existence. No doubt Iranian nuclear programs can be likewise devised with a relatively inexpensive computer and a little bit of software. Scott McClellan, who usually does Bush’s talking for him, more or less admitted the above, although he did not give any details and the slavish corporate media did not ask for any.
Israeli defense officials asked Sharon to raise the option of military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities during talks with President Bush. On the other hand, U.S. defense officials had so far refused Israeli entreaties to discuss the military option against Iran as a last resort if diplomatic pressures fail.
Here’s a novel idea...if the flipping Israelis are so hot to invade (or at minimum bomb) Iran, let them do it themselves. Of course they will not do this since there are around 66 million Iranians and about 6 million Israelis, including a couple hundred thousand rabid settlers in the West Bank, Gaza, and the land Israel filched from Syria.
Better to get the stupid Americans to do it, although it appears the Pentagon is not exactly chomping at the bit to invade Iran considering the mess in Iraq. So here we have Sharon and his mass murder advisor presenting Bush the Dumber with photos, obviously contrived since nobody can find nukes in Iran except the Israelis and their Neocon buddies, who are, just like the Likudites, demonstrated and practiced liars and deceivers, well tutored in making up fake “intelligence,“ as the Neocon lie factory, the Office of Special Plans, did in the lead up to mass murdering around 100,000 innocent Iraqis.
Israel has previously made clear it considers all options legitimate for preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear bomb. Analysts say that the Jewish state wouldn’t resort to force unless being supported by its chief ally the United States. Of course not--the Iranians would wipe them off the map. “We are not managing to get the Americans to talk about what will happen if the diplomatic efforts fail and Iran resumes enriching uranium, putting it on track to an atomic bomb.“
Seriously, this is a no-brainer--stop messing around with folks and maybe they will live and let live. Of course, Israel and the United States are unable to stop messing around with people, and such behavior is apparently pathologically ingrained--Iran remembers well the CIA overthrowing its democratically elected government and installing a brutal shah and his personal Gestapo, Savak--and this sort of nasty behavior is more than often not the reason small countries in the third world have a hankering to go nuclear, to ward off the neocon and neolib wolves, as the example of North Korea illustrates (notice how Bush and the Neocons are not saber-rattling much in North Korea’s general direction as of late).
Naturally, according to the Likudites and their Neocon buddies, Muslims and Arabs have a genetic predisposition to kill Jews and if they are allowed to have even one measly Hiroshima-grade atom bomb they will immediately nuke Tel Aviv. It is a bullshit story, entirely racist and irrational, the sort of nonsense the Zionists have pedaled for decades in an effort to get their way, that is to say de-Palestinianize Palestine and demonstrate their mercilessness to the Arabs and Iranians. Moreover, when history is examined, the indisputable fact emerges that it is Israel, under the leadership of a number of rabid Zionist serial offenders such as Sharon and Begin, that is responsible for much of the trouble in the region, from starting a couple major wars to killing scads of otherwise peace-loving people and blaming it on the Arabs (viz., the Lavon affair and Mossad’s planting of a radio device in Libya, resulting in the U.S. bombing Libya, to name but two of a number of murderously deceptive events engineered by rabid and remarkably sociopathic Zionists). Hell, if I was Iranian with a neighbor like Israel I’d want a couple nukes of my own too, especially considering the Israelis have about 200 of them.
Although Israel has never publicly acknowledged that it maintains a nuclear arsenal, foreign experts assert it has between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads.
Big time double standards--but then most Israelis are white people and white people wouldn’t think about nuking other people...that is unless they are non-white, for instance, Japanese civilians. Obviously, Sharon visited Bush at his fake cowboy ranch in Texas for one reason and one reason only--to convince him to bomb the heck out of Iran, something Bush now seems reluctant to do considering the intractable situation in Iraq. Sharon is likely to have a tizzy and no doubt his options are slim to none in regard to Iran.
Of course, the average Iranian distrusts Israel and the United States even more and will support the mullahs if push comes to shove and the United States invades or does a number on their country with cruise missiles and other mass murder hardware, about the only industrial product America still manufactures. Is it possible somebody, somewhere, possibly a bit saner and not connected at the hip to the Neocons and their Israeli taskmasters, is whispering in Bush’s ear?
If sanity--or a modicum of sanity--is to rule, we will find out by June, supposedly when the Iranian window closes, according to the Israelis. If Bush does not attack Iran by June, the odds the U.S. will attack at all will probably end up about as promising as a Saturday night spent at a blackjack table in Las Vegas.
Kurt Nimmo, a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New Mexico
KURTNIMMO.COM

Before Egyptian President Anwar Sadat set off for his journey to Jerusalem in 1977, he announced to the world that he did not intend to live “among the pygmies“. This was tough on pygmies but there was no doubt what it revealed about Sadat. He thought he was a great man. History suggests he was wrong. His 1978 Camp David agreement with Menachem Begin of Israel brought the Sinai back under Egyptian control, but it locked Sadat’s country into a cold peace and near-bankrupt isolation.
The Middle East, of course, is awash with kings and dictators who are called--or like to imagine themselves--great men. Saddam Hussein thought he was Stalin--evil, unfortunately, is also for some a quality of greatness--while George Bush Sr. thought Saddam was Hitler. Eden claimed that Nasser, when he nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, was the Mussolini of the Nile (though Mussolini was not Great, he thought he was). Yasser Arafat claimed that Hashemite King Hussein of Jordan, when he died, was Saladin, the warrior who drove the Crusaders out of Palestine. The truth was that the Israelis had driven the Hashemites from Palestine. But Hussein was on “our“ side and the king, when he died of cancer in 1999, was immortalized by President Clinton who said he was “already in heaven“, a feat that went unequalled until Pope John Paul II made it to the same location before his funeral this month.
I listened to much of the tosh uttered about this hopelessly right-wing pontiff when he was dying, and read a good deal of the vitriol that was splashed on him a few days later. I agree with much of the latter. But he was the one prominent world figure who stood up against President Bush’s insane invasion of Iraq. With absolute resolution, he condemned and recondemned the illegality of the assault on Iraq in a way that no other prominent churchman did.

Mohammad Khatami

But a great man? In truth, our world seems full of little men. Not just Sadat’s “pygmies“. Qaddafi may be a “statesman“ in the eyes of our Trot of a foreign secretary--this was just before the Libyan dictator was found to be plotting the assassination of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia--but anyone who can seriously suggest that a joint Israeli-Palestinian state might be called “Israeltine“ is clearly a candidate for the men in white coats.
Indeed, it raises the question: Are there any great men in the Middle East? And, are there any great men in the world today? Where--this is a question I’ve been asked by several readers recently--are the Churchills, the Roosevelts, the Trumans, the Eisenhowers, the Titos, the Lloyd Georges, the Woodrow Wilsons, the de Gaulles and Clemenceaus? Our present band of poseur presidents and prime ministers cannot come close. Bush may think he is Churchill--remember all that condemnation of Chamberlain’s 1938 appeasement we had to suffer before we invaded Iraq?--but he cannot really compare himself to his dad, let alone our Winston. Bush Jr. looks like a nerd while his friends--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest--actually look disreputable. Chirac would like to be a great man but his problem is that he can be mocked--see France’s equivalent of Spitting Image. Blair has a worse impediment. He has become a mockery of himself, slowly assuming the role of his clergyman namesake in Private Eye--to the point where the latter simply became no longer funny.

Nelson Mandela

Sacrifice obviously has something to do with it. To get bumped off for your good deeds--preferably “making peace“, although many of those at work on the “peace“ project seem to have spent a lot of time making war--is clearly a possible path to greatness. Thus Sadat does have a chance. So does Yitzhak Rabin of Israel. And so, through sickness, King Hussein and--in more theatrical form--the last pope. Those who successfully fight their countries’ occupiers get a look in; de Gaulle again, Tito again, maybe Ho Chi Minh but not, apparently, the leaders of the Algerian FLN and most definitely not the lads from the Lebanese Hezbollah. And we all know how Arafat went from being superterrorist to superstatesman and back to superterrorist again.
In the Middle East, I do have a soft spot for President Khatami of Iran. A truly decent, philosophical, morally good man, he was crushed by the political power of his clerical enemies set up by Ayatollah Khomeini. Khatami’s “civil society“ never materialized; had it blossomed, he might have been a great man. Instead, his life seems to be a tragedy of withered hope. I mention Khomeini and I fear we have to put him in the list. He lived the poverty of Gandhi, overthrew a vicious dictatorship and changed the history of the Middle East. That his country is now a necrocracy--government ruled by and for the dead--does not, sadly, change this.
Yet this raises another dark question? Why do we stop only a generation or two ago? Why stop at World War I? Where now, we might ask, are the Duke of Wellingtons and the Napoleons, the Queen Elizabeths, the Richard the Lionhearts, and yes, the Saladins and the Caesars and the Genghis Khans? Oddly, the list of great men doesn’t usually include Gandhi, whom I would think an obvious candidate for all the right reasons. He was palpably a good man, a peaceful man, and freed his country from imperial rule and was assassinated.
Nelson Mandela would be among my candidates for all the obvious reasons (his objections to Bush not being the least of them). Nurse Edith Cavell--“patriotism is not enough“--who was shot by the Germans in World War I, and Margaret Hassan, the supremely brave and selfless charity worker butchered in Iraq, must be in my list--proving, of course, that we should also ask: Where are the Great Women of our age? Rachel Corrie, I’d say, the American girl who was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer as she stood in its path to protect Palestinian homes in Gaza. And how about Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear whistleblower? And yes, all the humble folk--little people, if you like--who did what they did, whatever the cost, not because they sought greatness, but because they believed it was the right thing to do.
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK

It’s inspiring to watch someone beat the odds.Ê If you see the deck is stacked, their triumph is especially sweet.Ê Day after day, in our made-for-TV society, that’s what we’re shown:Êinspiring exceptions--women and men who, by some miracle, overcome insurmountable barriers.Ê They often weep as we do when we hear their tales of woe.Ê Indeed, whether it’s addiction or affliction, layoffs or payoffs, their stories are meant to convince us “Hey, they made it, why can’t we?“
From yesterday’s daytime gabfests to today’s reality shows, somehow in America, the insurmountable became the inevitable. We went from counting on a family-sustaining job to expecting a pink slip. We’ve seen whole towns rust and millions lose decent jobs. We’ve seenÊstill others trapped in jobs that fail to provide the basics of a decent life.Ê Meanwhile, there aren’t enough reality show makeovers to transform whole blocks--let alone entire towns--or get us all college diplomas or decent jobs.Ê
So a few are chosen, and the rest of us are made to feel like we failed. If only we had tried harder, worked smarter, learned more, invested better, we’d be on TV for all to envy. It’s one thing to admire those who beat the odds, quite another to create a society which makes the odds nearly impossible to overcome.
Whatever happened to the Land of Opportunity? To the melting pot that pulled millions from every corner of the world? Drawn by the American Dream, we were told that if you just worked hard, you could support yourself and raise a family, send your children to college, take family vacations, build a nest egg and retire?Ê
Today, one in four workers--30 million Americans--hold jobs that pay below $9.00 an hour, putting them and their families below the federal poverty line.ÊThe work is often grueling, dangerous or humiliating. Most low-wage jobs lack health care, vacation pay, sick leave or pension plans. They provide little flexibility or training.Ê These jobs sentence child caregivers, janitors and pharmacy techs to a lifetime of poverty, and mock those who work in nursing homes, clean our hotel rooms and offices and process our food.Ê Most of these workers are adults with at least a high school education who have families to take care of just like the rest of us.
More and more middle-class jobs are taking on the characteristics of low-wage jobs, with little job security, stagnant wages and decreasing health and retirement benefits. In 1987, employers provided health coverage to 70 percentÊof workers, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, yet today that number has declined by 10 percent. At the same time, employees are picking up more and more of their health premium costs. Fewer than one-fifth of large and medium-sized companies now pay the full cost of employees’ health premiums. A similar shift has occurred with pensions. Nearly half of full-time workers were covered by traditional pensionsÊ30 years ago.Ê Today, that number has plummeted to below 20 percent. Then there’s job security: the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that today a middle-aged man is likely to be in his job for 71/2 years, down from 11 years just 25 years ago.
These conditions are not an act of nature.Ê We can make different choices.ÊÊWe could offer quality child care to give all our kids a fair start.Ê We could insist our jobs provide at least a week of paid sick leave.Ê We could raise the federal minimum wage--as a start to $7.25 an hour, an option our Congress just turned down last month.Ê We could insist every American have affordable health care.Ê We could ensure that every qualified young man and woman can afford to attend college and graduate without mortgaging their future. And at the end of one’s work life, we could make sure that all Americans have enough to support themselves.
So what will it be? Will we remain content with a society that rewards the few and continues to erect roadblocks for most Americans, or are we going to live up to the ideals of the American Dream--that if you work hard, you will be able to take care of yourself and your family? The choice is ours.
Beth Shulman
ALTERNET.ORG