The Fllashlight, August 18-24, 2007
THE FLASHLIGHT, August 18-24, 2007
Iraq: US Policy
8-22 CNN. Senator John Warner calls for the beginning of US withdrawal from Iraq next month.
NYTimes 8-24. The new US National Intelligence Estimate, drawn up by all sixteen US intelligence agencies, said that despite security gains, the Iraqi government is paralyzed. It has little hope of healing the sectarian rift by next spring.
Last month Admiral Michael G. Mullen, incoming chair of the US Chiefs of Staff, told congress that without political progress in Iraq, “No amount of troops in no amount of time will make a difference.”
Lebanon
Guardian 8-19. With political negotiations stalemated, Lebanon expects a war. The fight of the Lebanese Army with Muslim extremists in the Nahr al-Barid refugee camp has lasted three months and cost 200 lives, and still goes on. There is widespread fear that the Israelis and Hezbollah will go to war again in the near future, with possible involvement by Syria and Iran.
[Review of CNN series, “God’s Warriors,” with Christine Amanpour, Aug. 21, 22, 23. Rebroadcasts are likely. This review includes some expressions of editorial opinion, marked with brackets. ]
1. Jewish Warriors. [This was a ground-breaking effort, asserting facts presented in the mass media rarely, if ever, before.]
a. Jewish settlements on the West Bank violate international law and have been condemned (in toothless statements) by every sitting US President. Yet nothing has been done to prevent US Zionists from sending over $63 million dollars to Israeli to support such settlements, and taking these contribution as charitable deductions from their US income taxes.
b. Israeli receives three billion dollars a year in military and other aid from the US, and the Israel Lobby is so effective that no Congressman dares to vote against it. Senator Charles Percy, who once refused to cooperate, was defeated in a re-election bid by an opponent heavily financed by the Israel Lobby.
c. 59% of US evangelicals think Israel is a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and support it with money and lobbying.
d. Israel shelters its own terrorists who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin after he signed a peace agreement with the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Other Israelis planned a revenge attack against Palestinians by plotting to destroy a Palestinian girls school in East Jerusalem with a truck bomb. The Israeli police got suspicious and foiled the attack. In both cases the Israeli terrorists are in prison now. But many others are not: Christine Amanpour interviewed them.
e. Ariel Sharon, the “godfather” of illegal Israeli settlements, provoked the second Palestinian intifada (rebellion) by entering the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, contrary to custom.
f. There is a group in Israel called Peace Now which is trying to dismantle the illegal settlements on the West Bank.
Christine Amanpour said that God’s Warriors refuse to compromise because they see compromise as the equivalent to capitulation.
This television program starts in the year 1967, when the victorious Israeli Army occupied Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. [By omitting any account of events in 1948, which the Palestinians call The Catastrophe, CNN leaves it unclear why Palestinians are resisting so fiercely. ]
According to recent work with by Israeli historians using Hebrew official documents, Israeli armed men, the Stern Gang and the Irgun Zvi Leumi, forcibly expelled c. 725,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands during Mar-Sep. 1948. Then they bulldozed the abandoned villages and planted parks over them. No compensation has been paid. Today the descendents of these refugees amount to four million people. The story can be found in Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), and Cypel, Walled: Israel Society at an Impasse (2007).
2. Muslim Warriors
This program contains mostly familiar material to those who habitually watch CNN and PBS.
The most famous Muslim extremists, an Egyptian, Sayed Qutb and Osama bin Laden, visited the US, and were appalled by excesses of sexuality, materialism, and alcoholism.
In Iran, militant Muslim revolutionaries were appalled by the corruption in the government of the secular Shah, who profited hugely from Iran’s oil . He was put into power by the CIA, who also trained SAVAK, his secret police. The US generously funded the Iraqi attack, led by Saddam Hussein on Iran. This war last eight years and cost over a million Iraqi lives. The pious Muslims of Iran expect a savior Imam to return and solve all problems.
In Egypt the US generously funds the de facto dictatorship of Husni Mubarak. His only strong political opposition is the Muslim Brotherhood, with a history of terrorism which it not renounces.
On the West Bank, Christine Amanpour shows a Palestinian family from which a son has died as a suicide bomber. They refuse to condemn him. His behavior is explained only as the result of horror at the death of a Palestinian girl during a violent incident involving the Israeli authorities.
[The CNN program spends considerable time on head scarves and “modest” dress for Muslim women, but this has little to do with extremism and violence. ] Devout Muslims are not supposed to date, drink alcohol, or have premarital sex. [Such were American Christian middle class mores before the 1920’s. ]
3. Christian Warriors
In this program we see a large audience of evangelical Christians chanting very fast “Christ is King” clap-clap-CLAP! Their leader says they are trying to hold back “barbarous secularists” who hold to “illegal alien” values. Christian fundamentalists showed their power first in 1994, when Ralph Reid and his Christian Coalition elected a Republic Congress and helped to kept it in power until 2006.
The viewer also sees Rev. Greg Boyd of Minnesota, who opposes the glorification of war and wants to keep religion and politics separate. Also shown is the Rev. Richard Sizak, who became alarmed about global warming in 2002 and says that saving the Earth is God’s agenda.
But other Christian fundamentalists fight the teaching of evolution in the public schools, abortion, and gay marriage. They want the Ten Commandents displayed in public places and the requirement of prayer in the schools. [Their opposition to stem cell research and the morning after pill is not discussed.]
Also shown is the rally of 22,000 teenagers organized by Ron Luce in his Battle Cry movement against premarital sex, drugs and the corruptions available on the Internet and TV. His rules are similar to those of the Taliban except that his dress code falls short of the burqa for women. This movement is based in Texas.
[CNN shows Christian “warriors” as generally non-violent, since the US laws allows them to operate freely in politics and conduct their war against sex and drugs.]
Christine Amanpour concludes with an appeal for the understanding of God’s Warriors. She said she had worked for eight months preparing the program.
Iraq: US Policy
8-22 CNN. Senator John Warner calls for the beginning of US withdrawal from Iraq next month.
NYTimes 8-24. The new US National Intelligence Estimate, drawn up by all sixteen US intelligence agencies, said that despite security gains, the Iraqi government is paralyzed. It has little hope of healing the sectarian rift by next spring.
Last month Admiral Michael G. Mullen, incoming chair of the US Chiefs of Staff, told congress that without political progress in Iraq, “No amount of troops in no amount of time will make a difference.”
Lebanon
Guardian 8-19. With political negotiations stalemated, Lebanon expects a war. The fight of the Lebanese Army with Muslim extremists in the Nahr al-Barid refugee camp has lasted three months and cost 200 lives, and still goes on. There is widespread fear that the Israelis and Hezbollah will go to war again in the near future, with possible involvement by Syria and Iran.
[Review of CNN series, “God’s Warriors,” with Christine Amanpour, Aug. 21, 22, 23. Rebroadcasts are likely. This review includes some expressions of editorial opinion, marked with brackets. ]
1. Jewish Warriors. [This was a ground-breaking effort, asserting facts presented in the mass media rarely, if ever, before.]
a. Jewish settlements on the West Bank violate international law and have been condemned (in toothless statements) by every sitting US President. Yet nothing has been done to prevent US Zionists from sending over $63 million dollars to Israeli to support such settlements, and taking these contribution as charitable deductions from their US income taxes.
b. Israeli receives three billion dollars a year in military and other aid from the US, and the Israel Lobby is so effective that no Congressman dares to vote against it. Senator Charles Percy, who once refused to cooperate, was defeated in a re-election bid by an opponent heavily financed by the Israel Lobby.
c. 59% of US evangelicals think Israel is a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and support it with money and lobbying.
d. Israel shelters its own terrorists who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin after he signed a peace agreement with the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Other Israelis planned a revenge attack against Palestinians by plotting to destroy a Palestinian girls school in East Jerusalem with a truck bomb. The Israeli police got suspicious and foiled the attack. In both cases the Israeli terrorists are in prison now. But many others are not: Christine Amanpour interviewed them.
e. Ariel Sharon, the “godfather” of illegal Israeli settlements, provoked the second Palestinian intifada (rebellion) by entering the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, contrary to custom.
f. There is a group in Israel called Peace Now which is trying to dismantle the illegal settlements on the West Bank.
Christine Amanpour said that God’s Warriors refuse to compromise because they see compromise as the equivalent to capitulation.
This television program starts in the year 1967, when the victorious Israeli Army occupied Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. [By omitting any account of events in 1948, which the Palestinians call The Catastrophe, CNN leaves it unclear why Palestinians are resisting so fiercely. ]
According to recent work with by Israeli historians using Hebrew official documents, Israeli armed men, the Stern Gang and the Irgun Zvi Leumi, forcibly expelled c. 725,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands during Mar-Sep. 1948. Then they bulldozed the abandoned villages and planted parks over them. No compensation has been paid. Today the descendents of these refugees amount to four million people. The story can be found in Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), and Cypel, Walled: Israel Society at an Impasse (2007).
2. Muslim Warriors
This program contains mostly familiar material to those who habitually watch CNN and PBS.
The most famous Muslim extremists, an Egyptian, Sayed Qutb and Osama bin Laden, visited the US, and were appalled by excesses of sexuality, materialism, and alcoholism.
In Iran, militant Muslim revolutionaries were appalled by the corruption in the government of the secular Shah, who profited hugely from Iran’s oil . He was put into power by the CIA, who also trained SAVAK, his secret police. The US generously funded the Iraqi attack, led by Saddam Hussein on Iran. This war last eight years and cost over a million Iraqi lives. The pious Muslims of Iran expect a savior Imam to return and solve all problems.
In Egypt the US generously funds the de facto dictatorship of Husni Mubarak. His only strong political opposition is the Muslim Brotherhood, with a history of terrorism which it not renounces.
On the West Bank, Christine Amanpour shows a Palestinian family from which a son has died as a suicide bomber. They refuse to condemn him. His behavior is explained only as the result of horror at the death of a Palestinian girl during a violent incident involving the Israeli authorities.
[The CNN program spends considerable time on head scarves and “modest” dress for Muslim women, but this has little to do with extremism and violence. ] Devout Muslims are not supposed to date, drink alcohol, or have premarital sex. [Such were American Christian middle class mores before the 1920’s. ]
3. Christian Warriors
In this program we see a large audience of evangelical Christians chanting very fast “Christ is King” clap-clap-CLAP! Their leader says they are trying to hold back “barbarous secularists” who hold to “illegal alien” values. Christian fundamentalists showed their power first in 1994, when Ralph Reid and his Christian Coalition elected a Republic Congress and helped to kept it in power until 2006.
The viewer also sees Rev. Greg Boyd of Minnesota, who opposes the glorification of war and wants to keep religion and politics separate. Also shown is the Rev. Richard Sizak, who became alarmed about global warming in 2002 and says that saving the Earth is God’s agenda.
But other Christian fundamentalists fight the teaching of evolution in the public schools, abortion, and gay marriage. They want the Ten Commandents displayed in public places and the requirement of prayer in the schools. [Their opposition to stem cell research and the morning after pill is not discussed.]
Also shown is the rally of 22,000 teenagers organized by Ron Luce in his Battle Cry movement against premarital sex, drugs and the corruptions available on the Internet and TV. His rules are similar to those of the Taliban except that his dress code falls short of the burqa for women. This movement is based in Texas.
[CNN shows Christian “warriors” as generally non-violent, since the US laws allows them to operate freely in politics and conduct their war against sex and drugs.]
Christine Amanpour concludes with an appeal for the understanding of God’s Warriors. She said she had worked for eight months preparing the program.
posted by THE FLASHLIGHT at 6:32 AM
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