What I didn't know was that, as I was watching this documentary, my 85 year old mother, in the U.S., was having a massive stroke - what is called a CVA. I learned about it after I had gone up to get ready for bed. It was late, and the phone rang... the call you always know will come when you have an aged parent, but you never believe that today will be the day.
The funny thing is, the day before we watched P, P &PL, I had the urge to watch Steel Magnolias again. This is one of my favorite movies because it reminds me so much of my home, my family, what the world was like when I was growing up. And when the wedding reception dance scene comes, I always tell anyone who is watching it with me that "My mother put Ginger Rogers in the shade..." and my fondest memories are of watching the floor clear at any gathering when she was dancing.
Mother won't be dancing anymore. For the past week, as I have had to deal with the many details that come with such a situation (made worse by having to do it long distance), I have had difficulty stopping the flow of tears. Every day I wake up and everything is fine... until I remember.
Did you know that deaths from cardiovascular diseases and stroke are the leading cause of death in 31 of the 35 Western Hemisphere countries that report disease related mortality statistics? Did you know that the highest of these mortality rates are found in the English-speaking Caribbean, USA, Canada, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay? Did you know that mortality rates from these causes are increasing in the Central American and Latin Caribbean regions as they come more and more under the sway of Western capitalism?
It seems that "Death by Democracy" isn't the only thing that the U.S. is exporting.
Getting back to Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, it was strange to watch this powerful piece of reporting that demonstrates unequivocally what a strangle-hold Israel has on the minds of the average American, and then, within the next few days, to witness the very process of "distract and confuse" activated in real time with the so-called London Terror Scare. What a piece of propaganda that is! And are they ever using it to the hilt! Today I read: "Among would-be bombers arrested - mothers who were to use their babies as cover... tootled from the Zionist Right-Wing propaganda site: Drudge Report. Shades of the Iraqi Incubator Scandal.
On October 10, 1990, as the Bush administration stepped up war preparations against Iraq, [public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, on behalf of the Kuwaiti government, presented 15-year-old "Nayirah" before the House Human Rights Caucus. Passed off as an ordinary Kuwaiti with firsthand knowledge of atrocities committed by the Iraqi army, she testified tearfully before Congress:
"I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital...[where] I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where 15 babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."
Supposedly fearing reprisals against her family, Nayirah did not reveal her last name to the press or Congress. Nor did this apparently disinterested witness mention that she was the daughter of Sheikh Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S. As Americans were being prepared for war, her story - which turned out to be impossible to corroborate - became the centerpiece of a finely tuned public relations campaign orchestrated by H&K and coordinated with the White House on behalf of the government of Kuwait and its front group, Citizens for a Free Kuwait. (CFK)
In May 1991, CFK was folded into the Washington-based Kuwait-America Foundation. CFK had sprung into action on August 2, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait. By August 10, it had hired H&K, the preeminent U.S. public relations firm. CFK reported to the Justice Department receipts of $17,861 from 78 individual U.S. and Canadian contributors and $11.8 million from the Kuwaiti government. Of those "donations," H&K got nearly $10.8 million to wage one of the largest, most effective public relations campaigns in history.
From the streets to the newsrooms, according to author John MacArthur, that money created a benign facade for Kuwait's image:
"The H&K team, headed by former U.S. Information Agency officer Lauri J. Fitz-Pegado, organized a Kuwait Information Day on 20 college campuses on September 12. On Sunday, September 23, churches nationwide observed a national day of prayer for Kuwait. The next day, 13 state governors declared a national Free Kuwait Day. H&K distributed tens of thousands of Free Kuwait bumper stickers and T-shirts, as well as thousands of media kits extolling the alleged virtues of Kuwaiti society and history. Fitz-Pegado's crack press agents put together media events featuring Kuwaiti "resistance fighters" and businessmen and arranged meetings with newspaper editorial boards. H&K's Lew Allison, a former CBS and NBC News producer, created 24 video news releases from the Middle East, some of which purported to depict life in Kuwait under the Iraqi boot. The Wirthlin Group was engaged by H&K to study TV audience reaction to statements on the Gulf crisis by President Bush and Kuwaiti officials. "
All this PR activity helped "educate" Americans about Kuwait - a totalitarian country with a terrible human rights record and no rights for women. Meanwhile, the incubator babies atrocity story inflamed public opinion against Iraq and swung the U.S. Congress in favor of war in the Gulf.
This free market approach to manufacturing public perception raises the issue of:
...whether there is something fundamentally wrong when a foreign government can pay a powerful, well-connected lobbying and public relations firm millions of dollars to convince the American people and the American government to support a war halfway around the world. In another age this activity would have caused an explosion of outrage. But something has changed in Washington. Boundaries no longer exist.
One boundary which has been blurred beyond recognition is that between "propaganda"-which conjures up unpleasant images of Goebbels-like fascists-and "public relations," a respectable white collar profession. Taking full advantage of the revolving door, these lobbyists and spinmeisters glide through Congress, the White House, and the major media editorial offices. Their routine manipulations-- like those of their brown shirted predecessors -- corrode democracy and government policy. H&K's highly paid agents of influence, such as [former] Vice President Bush's chief of staff Craig Fuller, and Democratic power broker Frank Mankiewicz, have run campaigns against abortion for the Catholic Church, represented the Church of Scientology, and the Moonies. They have made sure that gasoline taxes have been kept low for the American Petroleum Institute; handled flack for Three Mile Island's near-catastrophe; and mishandled the apple growers' assertion that Alar was safe. They meddle in our political life at every turn and apparently are never held accountable. Not only do these PR firms act as foreign propaganda agents, but they work closely with U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies, making covert operations even harder to control.
It certainly makes one suspect that the whole "UK Terror Scare" of the past week is nothing more than a public relations campaign. Just to drive home that point, have a look at the third video on this site: US citizens who say "NO!" There you will hear Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law recount:
I spoke with the head of the IDF, and I said, "you know, it's clear that your people are inflicting Nuremberg Crimes on the Palestinians, exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews. What's your explanation?" He said, "Military necessity." Notice, he didn't disagree with me. I said, "That argument was rejected at Nuremberg when the lawyers for the Nazis made it." He said, "Well, we have Public Relations people in the United States and they handle these matters for us."
It seems that, in the broader scheme of things, Arabs and Muslims have to be made to look bad to Americans and Americans have to be made to look bad to the Muslims - and the broker of this "diplomacy" is Israel. To what end?
It is a fact that governments have - during all of recorded history - invented threats in order to pursue aggression and make their people sacrifice their lives, wealth and freedom.
One of the oldest written stories about this sort of thing is found in II Chronicles, Chapter 18, that I recounted in my Blog Post: V is for Vendetta.The fact is, if you believe that the U.S., UK, and even Israel were under threat by Islamic extremists and that this is what caused 911, you have been deceived. That's not to say that the actions of the U.S. and Israel since 911 (and, in Israel's case, even before 911), will not have created a whole generation of Islamic extremists that are NOW wishing to see every Jew and American dead and rotting.
But the fact remains: there is overwhelming evidence that Israel was deeply involved in the 9-11 attack and their "Public Relations" firms are putting in some late hours plotting new and scarier "Terror Scenarios" to remind everyone that there is an Islamic Extremist under every bed in America, the UK and Israel. More than that, that they are there for no good reason! Well, actually, the reason given is because they just mindlessly "hate us for our freedoms!" Never mind that we don't have any now because we had to give them all up to fight people that hate us for what we no longer have... Figure that one out.
Now, what is the basis for suspecting the involvement of Israel in the 911 attacks in the U.S.? There is actually a great deal of evidence, and it is not all just circumstantial evidence surrounding the various reports of Israeli Spy Rings, Israelis doing the Happy Dance, or MOSSAD Moving Companies. In fact, in June of 2002, a purported top-secret report from the German external intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) prepared with assistance from an internal German intelligence agency, the BfV, was published. Among the startling claims this report makes is that German intelligence agents "disclosed in late May of 2001 that an attack was to be made against certain specified targets in the American cities of Washington and New York. But it was apparent that the Mossad was not only fully aware of these attacks well in advance but actually, though their own agents inside these Arab groups, assisted in the planning and the eventual execution of the attacks.
"That the Israeli government was fully aware of these attack is absolutely certain and proven. Diplomatic traffic between the Israeli Embassy in the Federal Republic and the Israeli Foreign Office made it very clear that Minister President Sharon was fully aware of this pending attack and urgently wished that no attempt was made to prevent the attacks."
"On August 6,2001, the German ambassador Ischinger informed George W. Bush of the exact time and place of the attack. He thanked the ambassador and said that he already knew. Subsequently, his administration urgently requested the suppression of information on this warning."
It seems that, despite angry denunciations of the authenticity of the report from various other quarters, the German government itself has not issued a denial of the authenticity of this report.
LEBANON
According to a recent editorial in "The Jerusalem Post," Israel "is fighting the terrorist arm of the megalomaniacal regime in Iran, which has openly proclaimed its ambition to commit genocide against the Jewish nation. If this were not enough, the same regime wants to dominate the Muslim world, and from that base, subdue the entire West."
Terrorists? Self-defense???
Let me give you a little history lesson here.
During WW I , most of the area of Palestine was still under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and the borders of what would become Palestine had been outlined as part of the May 16, 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France. This was a secret understanding between the governments of Britain and France defining their respective spheres of post-World War I influence and control in the Middle East. The boundaries of this agreement still remain in much of the common border between Syria and Iraq. The agreement was negotiated in November 1915 by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and British Mark Sykes. Britain was allocated control of areas roughly comprising Jordan, Iraq and a small area around Haifa. France was allocated control of South-eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The controlling powers were left free to decide on state boundaries within these areas. The area which subsequently came to be called Palestine was for international administration pending consultations with Russia and other powers.
This agreement is viewed by many as conflicting with the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence of 1915–1916. The conflicting agreements are the result of changing progress during the war, switching in the earlier correspondence from needing Arab help to subsequently trying to enlist the help of Jews in the United States in getting the US to join the First World War, in conjunction with the Balfour Declaration, 1917. The agreement had been made in secret.
The agreement was later expanded to include Italy and Russia. Russia was to receive Armenia and parts of Kurdistan while the Italians would get certain Aegean islands and a sphere of influence around Izmir in southwest Anatolia. The Italian presence in Anatolia as well as the division of the Arab lands was later formalized in the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920.
How do we know about the Sykes-Picot agreement?
The Russian Revolution of 1917 led to Russia being denied its claims in the Ottoman Empire. At the same time Lenin released a copy of the confidential Sykes-Picot Agreement as well as other treaties causing great embarrassment among the allies and growing distrust among the Arabs.
The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western/Arab relations, as it negated the promises made to Arabs through T.E. Lawrence for a national homeland in the Syrian territory in exchange for their siding with British forces against the Ottoman Empire and gave the national homeland of the Arabs, the land where they had been living under the control of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, to European and American and Russian Jews in exchange for dragging the United States into the war.
Now, let me give you some perspective here: The number of World War I casualties (military and civilian) was over 37 million - over 15 million deaths and 22 million wounded. This includes almost 9 million military deaths and about 6.6 million civilian deaths. The United States lost 126,000 military personnel and brought home over 234,000 wounded - many disabled for life. That was the consequence of the Balfour Agreement, the double-crossing deal the Brits made with the Jews.
In his November, 2002 interview with the New Statesman magazine, the UK Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has blamed Britain's imperial past for many of the modern political problems, including the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"The Balfour declaration and the contradictory assurances which were being given to Palestinians in private at the same time as they were being given to the Israelis—again, an interesting history for us, but not an honourable one," he said.
British imperial designs were undoubtedly the primary political motivation in drawing influential British politicians to support the Zionist project. However, it is clear that the latter were predisposed to Zionism and to enthusiastically supporting the proposals of Herzl and leading Zionist officials such as Chaim Weizmann due to their Christian Zionist backgrounds. Balfour’s famous speech of 1919 makes the point:
“For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country…The four great powers are committed to Zionism, and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”
The phrases “rooted in age-long traditions” and “future hopes” were perhaps grounded in Balfour’s British imperial vision, but they were also buttressed by his understanding of Bible prophecy, which undergirded his bias toward the Zionist project as well as his grand designs for Britain’s colonialist policy.
Journalist Christopher Sykes (son of Mark Sykes, co-author of the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916), noted in his volume Two Studies in Virtue that Lloyd-George’s political advisers were unable to train his mind on the map of Palestine during negotiations prior to the Treaty of Versailles, due to his training by fundamentalist Christian parents and churches on the geography of ancient Israel. Lloyd-George admitted that he was far more familiar with the cities and regions of Biblical Israel than with the geography of his native Wales – or of England itself.
So, let's get it straight: Even Balfour admitted that there were over 700,000 occupants of Palestine when the land was given to the European, American and other Jews who then moved in, and occupied the land belonging to people who had been living there for over a thousand years.
So what right does Israel have to claim that their self-defense takes precedence over the self-defense of the original population of Palestine?
The fact is, the Zionist controlled American media - the "Public Relations Firm" mentioned by the head of the IDF quoted above - is deliberately creating the conditions for a bogus "Clash of Civilizations".
Why?
Going in another direction, it seems that COINTELPRO Pied Piper Alex Jones is now predicting a 90% chance of a nuclear terror attack in the U.S. and the beginning of World War III within the next couple of months.
As it happens, there is an Alex Jones Video from Wednesday July 25 2001, warning about september 11th and Osama Bin Laden, months before it happened! As anybody with two firing neurons can figure out, the only way Jones could have known about 911 in advance was if he had inside knowledge and that suggests "insider connections" which suggest Israel. In short, it looks like Jones was being prepared even before 911 for the "alternative news" role he has played all along... mostly truth, but with a particular spin.
And what is that spin?
Well, go and listen to the alleged broadcast from July 25th and notice that Jones is following the line of blaming everything on the U.S. administration.
Well, of course we know that the U.S. Administration is a REAL terrorist organization. But what Jones, Tarpley, and others in the 911 Truth Movement fail to mention is WHY the U.S. Administration is a terrorist organization: because it is infiltrated and controlled by Israel.
Jones and Tarpley spend a lot of time pointing the finger at the U.S. ALONE, and assiduously avoid the hand pulling the strings: Israel. Tarpley pretty much blames everything on the "Bush Crime Family" and its cronies and the CIA and so on. But I have discovered that Tarpley doesn't really do his homework (I'll write more about that later). He takes everything to a certain "layer" of conspiracy, makes a big splash claiming he's got the goods, and goes no further.
Who does this benefit?
Why, Israel, of course. Israel will soon own all of the oil assets of the Middle East (if its plans go as intended) and the U.S. will be reduced to an impoverished client state of Israel and in such a position, Israel will be the undisputed master of the world. This is Israel's goal. And, from Israel's point of view, a Revolution in the U.S. would be a good thing.
If you look at this page on the SOTT forum: where I have posted the Vanity Fair article about the alternative media video hit Loose Change, you will see in the last few paragraphs of this article that Revolution is what Dylan Avery is proposing as the solution to the 911 issues and we can pretty well bet that if Vanity Fair published it, that is what Israel wants in the U.S. That is what is behind the so-called 911 Truth Movement that does not acknowledge Israel as the Mastermind of Global Terrorism.
A Revolution in the U.S. will be a bloody and horrible event; millions will die and the U.S. infrastructure will be destroyed. Americans will be reduced to a savage existence, while all the major assets of the U.S., including its vast stockpile of armaments, will be transferred to Israel.
Think about it.
The Master Race of Ashkenazi Jews (read this thread on the SOTT forum for the evidence) was created during WW II by culling the herd of Jews - eliminating the real Jews and preserving the Ashkenazi who have a particular genetic history - and this race of psychopaths seeks to take over the world. And Alex Jones and most of the 911 Truth Movement are Israel's minions whether they realize it or not, whether it is conscious or not, and Jones and Tarpley are leading the pack while Rense and Micheal Rivero are fanning the flames of Revolution.
Or so it seems to me.
The fact is, young Americans and Israelis are little more than cannon fodder for the Israeli globalist's plans to build a "new Middle East," and perhaps even a New World Order with Israel at its head.
Why?
From Norman Finkelstein's book "Beyond Chutzpah":
"In the course of preparing the chapters of this book devoted to Israel's human rights record in the Occupied Territories, I went through literally thousands of pages of human rights reports, published by multiple, fiercely independent, and highly professional organizations - Amnesty International, Human Rights Watchs, B'Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights - Israel - each fielding its own autonomous staff of monitors and investigators.
Except on one minor matter, I didn't come across a single point of law or fact on which these human rights organizations differed.
In the case of Israel's human rights record, one can speak today not just of a broad consensus - as on historical questions - but of an UNQUALIFIED consensus.
All these organizations agreed, for example, that Palestinian detainees have been sytematically ill treated and tortured, the total number now probably reaching the tens of thousands.
Yet if, as I've suggested, broad agreement has been reached on the FACTUAL record, an obvious anomaly arises: what accounts for the impassioned controversy that still swirls around the Israel-Palestine conflict?
To my mind, explaining this apparent paradox requires, first of all, that a fundamental distinction be made between those controversies that are real and those that are contrived.
To illustrate real differences of opinion, let us consider again the Palestinian refugee question.
It is possible for interested parties to agree on the facts yet come to diametrically opposed moral, legal, and political conclusions.
Thus, as already mentioned, the scholarly consensus is that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948.
Israel's leading historian on the topic, Benny Morris, although having done more than anyone else to clarify exactly what happened, nonetheless concludes that, morally, it was a good thing - just as, in his view, the "annihilation" of Native Americans was a good thing - that, legally, Palesitnians have no right to return to their homes, and that, politically, Israel's big error in 1948 was that it hadn't "carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole country - the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan" of Palestinians.
However repellant morally, these clearly can't be called FALSE conclusions.
Returning to the universe inhabited by normal human beings, it's possible for people to concur on the facts as well as on their moral and legal implications, yet still reach divergent POLITICAL conclusions.
Noam Chomsky agrees that, factually, Palestinians were expelled; that, morally, this was a major crime; and that, legally, Palestinians have a right of return. Yet, politically, he concludes that implementation of this right is infeasible and pressing it inexpedient, indeed, that dangling this (in his view) illusory hope before Palestianian refugees is deeply immoral.
There are those, contrariwise, who maintain that a moral and legal right is meaningless unless it can be exercised and that implementing the right of return is a practical possibility.
For our purposes, the point is not who's right and who's wrong but that, even among honest and decent people, there can be a real and legitimate differences of political judgment.
This having been said, however, it bears emphasis that - at any rate, among those sharing ordinary moral values - the range of political disagreement is quite narrow, while the range of agreement quite broad."
It is quite clear that those individuals running Israel - not to mention the Neocon Administration - are psychological deviants without consciences.
Relating this to Ponerology, we note that psychologist Andzrej Lobaczewski writes:
Psychopaths are conscious of being different from normal people. That is why the "political system" inspired by their nature is able to conceal this awareness of being different. They wear a personal mask of sanity and know how to create a macrosocial mask of the same dissimulating nature. When we observe the role of ideology in this macrosocial phenomenon, quite conscious of the existence of this specific awareness of the psychopath, we can then understand why ideology is relegated to a tool-like role: something useful in dealing with those other naive people and nations. [...]
Pathocrats know that their real ideology is derived from their deviant natures, and treat the "other" - the masking ideology - with barely concealed contempt." [...]
"This privileged class of deviants feels permanently threatened by the "others", i.e. by the majority of normal people. Neither do the pathocrats entertain any illusions about their personal fate should there be a return to the system of normal man.
If the laws of normal man were to be reinstated, they and theirs could be subjected to judgment, including a moralizing interpretation of their psychological deviations; they would be threatened by a loss of freedom and life, not merely a loss of position and privilege. Since they are incapable of this kind of sacrifice, the survival of a system which is the best for them becomes a moral imperative. Such a threat must be battled by means of any and all psychological and political cunning implemented with a lack of scruples with regard to those other "inferior-quality" people that can be shocking in its depravity. ...
Thus, the biological, psychological, moral, and economic destruction of the majority of normal people becomes, for the pathocrats, a "biological" necessity. Many means serve this end, starting with concentration camps and including warfare with an obstinate, well-armed foe who will devastate and debilitate the human power thrown at him, namely the very power jeopardizing pathocrats rule: the sons of normal man sent out to fight for an illusionary "noble cause." Once safely dead, the soldiers will then be decreed heroes to be revered in paeans, useful for raising a new generation faithful to the pathocracy and ever willing to go to their deaths to protect it. ...
...the masses must be educated and channeled in the direction of imperialist strivings. Such goals must be pursued doggedly so that everyone knows what is being fought for and in whose name a harsh discipline and poverty must be endured. This latter factor effectively limits the possibility of 'subversive' activities on the part of the society of normal people. ...
A normal person's actions and reactions, his ideas and moral criteria, all too often strike abnormal individuals as abnormal. For if a person with some psychological deviations considers himself normal, which is of course significantly easier if he possesses authority, then he would consider a normal person different and therefore abnormal, whether in reality or as a result of conversive thinking. That explains why such people's government shall always have the tendency to treat any dissidents as "mentally abnormal".
Operations such as driving a normal person into psychological illness and the use of psychiatric institutions for this purpose take place in many countries in which such institutions exist. Contemporary legislation binding upon normal man's countries is not based upon an adequate understanding of the psychology of such behavior, and thus does not constitute a sufficient preventive measure against it.
Within the categories of a normal psychological world view, the motivations for such behavior were variously understood and described: personal and family accounts, property matters, intent to discredit a witness' testimony, and even political motivations. Such defamatory suggestions are used particularly often by individuals who are themselves not entirely normal, whose behavior has driven someone to a nervous breakdown or to violent protest. Among hysterics, such behavior tends to be a projection onto other people of one's own self-critical associations. A normal person strikes a psychopath as a naive, smart-alecky believer in barely comprehensible theories; calling him "crazy" is not all that far away. [...]
The abuse of psychiatry for purposes we already know thus derives from the very nature of pathocracy as a macrosocial psychopathological phenomenon. After all, that very area of knowledge and treatment must first be degraded to prevent it from jeopardizing the system itself by pronouncing a dramatic diagnosis (Ed: i.e. exposing the pathocrats), and must then be used as an expedient tool in the hands of the authorities. In every country, however, one meets with people who notice this and act astutely against it. [...]
The pathocracy feels increasingly threatened by this area whenever the medical and psychological sciences make progress. After all, not only can these sciences knock the weapon of psychological conquest right out of its hands; they can even strike at its very nature, and from inside the empire, at that. Political Ponerology
The pathocracy ensures its continued hold on power by periodically engaging
in reduction of the population of normal people - culling the herd - chiefly
by means of manufactured war. As Lobaczewski says, "an obstinate and
well-armed foe" is used to throw legions of normal people (in the form
of the military) at this foe and thereby debilitate and subdue the normal
peoples of the world - the only threat to the ruling pathocracy.
Notice also the devilish manipulation whereby these soldiers, deliberately
and needlessly sacrificed by the pathocrats, are then lauded as heroes to
ensure future generations of cannon fodder. Notice the real life evidence
of this where millions of American citizens cry "support our troops".
What are they supporting but the futile sacrifice of their own sons and daughters,
brothers and sisters, and all to serve the agenda of the psychopaths in power?
A clearer description of what is happening right now in modern day America is
unlikely to be found. Expansionism has been made a virtue by the American pathocracy.
Bush claims that the U.S. military is spreading "freedom and democracy" when
in fact he is pursuing an imperialist agenda. Lobaczewski says:
"This goal must be pursued doggedly so that everyone knows what is being fought for and in whose name harsh discipline and poverty must be endured."
Reference the fact that Americans are being told that they must sacrifice
their liberties in order for the government to better wage the "war
on terror" and the clampdown on anti-Bush demonstrations because they "harm
the war on terror". As regards "creating conditions of poverty" in
order to limit the possibility of "subversive" activities on the
part of the society of normal people: there is much evidence that the American
economy is set for a major nose-dive. When it does, the effect on a large
percentage of ordinary Americans (all those not part of the 'monied classes')
will be a dramatic re-prioritization, leaving them concerned chiefly with
their ability to feed themselves and their families.
But this is only the background of the "psychic driving" that is being
done to the American people AND peoples all over the world; pathocracy is not
restricted to the U.S. The psychic driving is done via mass media productions
including the 911 attack and how it was spun and utilized as described above.
More than that, our entire social system is a form of "psychic driving."
The fact is that the present fake war on Terror is just a ruse to send millions of normal human beings to their deaths in a war against an "obstinate, well-armed foe who will devastate and debilitate the human power thrown at him, namely the very power jeopardizing pathocrats rule: the sons of normal man sent out to fight for an illusionary "noble cause."
A June 6, 2002 report informs us that Iran already has nuclear weapons. Up to this point, including the insulting interview conducted by Mike Wallace over the weekend, Iran has behaved with great circumspection. However, that may definitely change if there is a fake terror attack in the U.S., UK or elsehwere, and Iran and Syria are attacked which seems very likely to be the plan.
China and Russia are - at the present moment - behind Hezbollah and Iran. One even suspects that there is some superior intell and strategists behind the Lebanese, otherwish how could Israel end up with so much damage, including its reputation? One suspects that they are not going to take this lying down and the recent UK Terror Scare was cooked up rather quickly to distract attention away from Israel with the black eye and re-focus it on those "eeeevil Islamic terr'rists."
Getting back to Israel's delusional "self defense", Henry Makow mentions the monograph "Israel's Sacred Terrorism" (1980) by Livia Rokach, which suggests that Israel's defensive posture is a ruse. Rokach quotes from the personal diary of Moshe Sharett, who was Israeli's first Foreign Minister from 1948-1956, and Prime Minister from 1954-1956 in which he wrote that the "Jewish state" always planned to become the dominant power in the region, and "invented dangers" in order to dupe its citizens and provoke war. Sharett writes:
"The state.... must see the sword as the main if not the only instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may -- no it MUST -- invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation and revenge.... And above all, let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space."
The fact is, Israel was not created for the Jews to have a "national homeland," it was created to control the oil in the region. However, once having created the Frankenstein, the UK lost control of its monster and we all must deal with the consequences.
The main problem facing all of us is the "Public Relations" firms mentioned by the head of the IDF quoted above, i.e. the entire mainstream media in the U.S. and MOST of the Alternative Media as well. You don't think they are going to put billions of dollars into such "Public Relations" and NOT also have a hand on the pulse of the internet, do you? With that kind of money, they own most of it, of that you can be sure.
That is the lynchpin, in my opinion. The media presents a sort of "Peer Pressure," and pretends to be the voice of the people - and manufactures "social proof". It is "canned consent" and induces silence the same way "canned laughter" on televison induces people to think they are watching something funny.
To discover why canned laughter is so effective, we first need to understand the nature of yet another potent weapon of influence: the principle of social proof. This principle states that we determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct.
The principle applies especially to the way we decide what constitutes correct behavior. We view a behavior as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.
Whether the question is what to do with an empty popcorn box in a movie theater, how fast to drive on a certain stretch of highway, or how to eat the chicken at a dinner party, the actions of those around us will be important guides in defining the answer.
The tendency to see an action as appropriate when others are doing it works quite well normally. As a rule, we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than by acting contrary to it. Usually, when a lot of people are doing something, it is the right thing to do.
This feature of the principle of social proof is simultaneously its major strength and its major weakness. Like the other weapons of influence, it provides a convenient shortcut for determining the way to behave but, at the same time, makes one who uses the shortcut vulnerable to the attacks of profiteers who lie in wait along its path.
In the case of canned laughter, the problem comes when we begin responding to social proof in such a mindless and reflexive fashion that we can be fooled by partial or fake evidence. Our folly is not that we use others' laughter to help decide what is humorous; that is in keeping with the well-founded principle of social proof. The folly is that we do so in response to patently fraudulent laughter. Somehow, one disembodied feature of humor - a sound -works like the essence of humor. ...
In the process of examining the reactions of other people to resolve our uncertainty, however, we are likely to overlook a subtle, but important fact: Those people are probably examining the social evidence, too.
Especially in an ambiguous situation, the tendency for everyone to be looking to see what everyone else is doing can lead to a fascinating phenomenon called pluralistic ignorance. A thorough understanding of the pluralistic ignorance phenomenon helps explain a regular occurrence in our country that has been termed both a riddle and a national disgrace: the failure of entire groups of bystanders to aid victims in agonizing need of help.
Katherine Genovese, was killed in a late-night attack on her street as she returned from work. Murder is never an act to be passed off lightly, but in a city the size and tenor of New York, the Genovese incident warranted no more space than a fraction of a column in the New York Times. Catherine Genovese's story would have died with her on that day in March 1964 if it hadn't been for a mistake.
The metropolitan editor of the Times, A. M. Rosenthal, happened to be having lunch with the city police commissioner a week later. Rosenthal asked the commissioner about a different Queens-based homicide, and the commissioner, thinking he was being questioned about the Genovese case, revealed something staggering that had been uncovered by the police investigation. It was something that left everyone who heard it, the commissioner included, aghast and grasping for explanations.
Catherine Genovese had not experienced a quick, muffled death. It had been a long, loud, tortured, public event. Her assailant had chased and attacked her in the street three times over a period of 35 minutes before his knife finally silenced her cries for help.
Incredibly, 38 of her neighbors watched from the safety of their apartment windows without so much as lifting a finger to call the police.
Rosenthal, a former Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, knew a story when he heard one. On the day of his lunch with the commissioner, he assigned a reporter to investigate the "bystander angle" of the Genovese incident. Within a week, the Times published a long, front-page article that was to create a swirl of controversy and speculation. The initial paragraph of that report provided the tone and focus of the story:"For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens." ...
The psychologists speculated that, for at least two reasons, a bystander to an emergency will be unlikely to help when there are a number of other bystanders present. The first reason is fairly straightforward.
With several potential helpers around, the personal responsibility of each individual is reduced: "Perhaps someone else will give or call for aid, perhaps someone else already has." So with everyone thinking that someone else will help or has helped, no one does.
The second reason is the more psychologically intriguing one; it is founded on the principle of social proof and involves the pluralistic ignorance effect Very often an emergency is not obviously an emergency. Is the man lying in the alley a heart-attack victim or a drunk sleeping one off? Is the commotion next door an assault requiring the police or an especially loud marital spat where intervention would be inappropriate and unwelcome? What is going on?
In times of such uncertainty, the natural tendency is to look around at the actions of others for clues. We can learn from the way the other witnesses are reacting whether the event is or is not an emergency. [Robert Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice]
It is "social proof" via the media that is being used as a control weapon against the masses of humanity.
What is even worse is that "social proof" is also being produced by the Zionist Media and Pathocrats as a means of not only inducing silence, but active complicity on the part of human beings who would otherwise not participate in the madness that has overtaken our world.
In a pathocracy, all leadership positions, (down to village headman and community cooperative managers, not to mention the directors of police units, and special services police personnel, and activists in the pathocratic party) must be filled by individuals with corresponding psychological deviations, which are inherited as a rule. However, such people constitute a very small percentage of the population and this makes them more valuable to the pathocrats. Their intellectual level or professional skills cannot be taken into account, since people representing superior abilities are even harder to find.
After such a system has lasted several years, one hundred percent of all the cases of essential psychopathy are involved in pathocratic activity; they are considered the most loyal, even though some of them were formerly involved on the other side in some way. [...]
[T]o mitigate the threat to their power, the pathocrats must employ any and all methods of terror and exterminatory policies against individuals known for their patriotic feelings and military training; other, specific "indoctrination" activities such as those we have presented are also utilized. Individuals lacking the natural feeling of being linked to normal society become irreplaceable in either of these activities. Again, the foreground of this type of activity is occupied by cases of essential psychopathy, followed by those with similar anomalies, and finally by people alienated from the society in question as a result of racial or national differences.
The phenomenon of pathocracy matures during this period: an extensive and active indoctrination system is built, with a suitably refurbished ideology constituting the vehicle or Trojan horse for the purpose of pathologizing the thought processes of individuals and society.
The goal- forcing human minds to incorporate pathological experiential methods and thought-patterns, and consequently accepting such rule - is never openly admitted. This goal is conditioned by pathological egotism, and the possibility of accomplishing it strikes the pathocrats as not only indispensable, but feasible. Thousands of activists must therefore participate in this work.
We see this in the mainstream media, on the internet, in the 911 Truth Movement, everywhere. It is a concerted effort to produce "social proof" and thereby to pathologize the minds of normal human beings. And we can easily see that literally thousands upon thousands of deviant persons are employed in this activity.
We view a behavior as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.
It is THIS that we must overcome FIRST, before anything else can be done. That means that we need thousands of activists to counteract the activists of the Pathocrats and the Zionist controlled media.
But, in order to get the needed numbers of people on the job, doing what needs to be done, there has to be agreement as to where and how to apply the pressure. This is constantly being foiled by the COINTELPRO of the 911 Truth movement and the alternative media.
And so, yes, it is possible that World War III will erupt in the coming months... But it is not for the reasons posited by the Mainstream Media and even by most of the Alternative Media. It is all about a war between genetically different human beings, psychologically different by virtue of their genetics: deviants, psychopaths, and the masses of normal humans who - unless they wake up in a hurry - will pay the price once again. In short, the objective fact is: "the biological, psychological, moral, and economic destruction of the majority of normal people becomes, for the pathocrats, a "biological" necessity."
That IS their goal.
Once you truly understand the nature of the psychopath, what to do about it? Once you know that they are truly mad-dog, consciencless killers under a mask of sanity, in a three piece suit, or in a General's uniform, what do you do about it? And most particularly, what do you do about it when they are in positions of almost absolute power?
When you see the scenario as set up in the movie, V for Vendetta, you can see that it is almost exactly the problem we face. How do you get such creatures as that OUT of power?
On August 7th, 2006, the phone rang... the call you always know will come when you have an aged parent, but you never believe that today will be the day.
My mother will never dance again; question is: will my children, or my children's children?
How do we return to that world of my childhood - the world of Steel Magnolias - where my mother could put Ginger Rogers in the shade?
What about YOUR children? Did you teach them to dance?
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But first, you'll need a little background in the form of three recent stories:
Blair's Approval Rating Hits Record Low
Olmert's Approval Over Lebanon Invasion Plunges
Bush's rating drops on nearly every issue
Furnished with those details, you are now ready to read and fully understand exactly why the gutter-press UK tabloid 'The Sun' is today reporting:
Hunt on for baby bombers
HATE-filled mums willing to sacrifice themselves and their BABIES are being hunted in the war on terror.
Security sources confirmed last night that alleged "baby bombers" were among those arrested over the plot to massacre thousands by downing transatlantic flights.
Those being quizzed included a husband and wife with a six-month-old infant.
The discovery prompted fears that there were fanatical mothers in secret al-Qaeda cells in Britain ready to become suicide bombers - and to die with their tots in their arms.
And it emerged as the reason why women at airports were ordered to drink from their babies' bottles before being allowed to board flights during last week's massive alert.
One senior Government security adviser warned of a race against time to identify individuals who might pose a threat.
The adviser said: "It may be beyond belief, but we are convinced that there are now women in Britain who are prepared to die with their babies for their twisted cause. They are ruthless, single-minded and totally committed."
The nightmare is that mums carrying tiny tots would provide "very good cover" and not raise suspicions among even the most alert security guards.
The threat was identified along with an additional warning that as many as two dozen terror cells may still be active in Britain.
The source added: "We believe all the known players involved in last week's plot have been detained. Our biggest concern now is all the unknown players who may be out there.
"And that includes mothers who are ready and willing to see their little ones die. It is a race against time." Women around the world have carried out suicide attacks in the past.
Two female Chechen terrorists blew themselves up on separate flights in Russia two years ago.
An intelligence source said: "Al-Qaeda specialises in attempting the unexpected. What could be more unexpected in Western eyes than women willing to die with their babies?"
Revelations concerning the origins and connections of the alleged liquid bomb terror plot to Pakistan and the 7/7 bombings in London provide a strong indication that the operation, known for months yet deliberately timed for public release, was a synthetic ruse concocted by the Bush/Blair cabal to re-package the flagging war on terror.
Media reports in the days following the alert cite Pakistan's ISI as having identified Rashid Rauf as, "the link between the plot's planners and British-based Muslims who were allegedly preparing to carry out attacks on transatlantic flights."
According to former NSA official Wayne Madsen, the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group, to which Rashid Rauf is affiliated, is wholly operated and funded by the Pakistani ISI.
The Pakistani ISI is a CIA front and controls terror cells at the discretion of the highest levels of the US military-industrial complex. This means that the potential mastermind of the liquid bomb plot, Rashid Rauf (pictured), was operating under the oversight and direction of Pakistani and by proxy American intelligence agencies.
To understand why the Pakistan link strongly indicates that Thursday morning's terror alert was a manufactured ruse, it is necessary to understand the the nexus that connects Pakistani intelligence, the CIA and terrorist organizations.
In October 2001, under the headline 'Pakistani Intelligence Had Links to Al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say,' the New York Times reported, "The intelligence service of Pakistan, a crucial American ally in the war on terrorism, has had an indirect but longstanding relationship with Al Qaeda, turning a blind eye for years to the growing ties between Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, according to American officials."
The ISI has received CIA funds to create and control militant organizations, including the Taliban and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Funds transferred from Pakistan bankrolled the alleged 9/11 hijackers before the attack. Ahmad Umar Sheikh wired $100,000 from Karachi to alleged lead hijacker Mohammed Atta at the behest of ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad. If this isn't a direct link from the ISI to Al-Qaeda then nothing is.
Porter Goss, later appointed as director of the CIA, was having breakfast with the money man behind the terrorists as the planes crashed on the morning of 9/11. Ahmad had also met with top defense and intelligence officials in Washington in the days before the attack, including then CIA director George Tenet, Pentagon officials, and White House personnel.
The fact that the Pakistani financier of the alleged hijackers was meeting with the top brass of the US government in the week before the attack was never investigated by the 9/11 Commission.
In addition, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was repeatedly protected by the ISI, according to Josef Bodansky, the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare.
Defense Intelligence Agency documents dated from 2001 clearly indicate that the CIA is aware that Pakistan's ISI supports and bankrolls Al-Qaeda groups but they have deliberately chosen to ignore the connection.
This rich history of ISI creation and protection of terrorist cells, allied with the fact that the ISI is a known CIA front, and added to the revelation that the mastermind of the liquid bomb plot Rashid Rauf is under ISI control, it is therefore obvious to conclude that the entire charade was cooked and orchestrated by elements of the Bush/Blair cabal and sold as promotional propaganda for the increased surveillance and behavioral control of UK and US citizens.
At the very least, the terror cell had been fully infiltrated for months - this has already been admitted - and the snap "foiling" of the attack was coordinated and stage-managed for purposes of political grandstanding on the part of Bush, Blair and the Neo-Fascist apparatus that seeks to use the ailing justification of the war on terror for a future military incursion into Iran.
Another dimension to the indication that we are being fed another hoax, are reports detailing the alleged plot's links to the 7/7 London bombings.
As this website has exhaustively documented for over a year, the 7/7 bombings and the patsies that were used to take the fall for them, were controlled and engineered by the British intelligence apparatus.
The alleged ringleader of the attack which targeted three tube trains and one bus, Mohammed Siddique Khan, was an MI5 informant, according to former London Metropolitan Police detective and terror expert Charles Shoebridge. Therefore, in the case of the liquid bomb plot suspects, any link to the London bombers is a link to MI5.
It is clear that the scope of the attack has been greatly exaggerated by the British government to maximize fear and subservience engendered by images of alarmed and frightened airliner passengers.
Doomsday proclamations of ten planes exploding into balls of flames in mid-air do not correlate with the capacity of the liquid explosives the alleged terrorists were to use.
The only other example where terrorists used liquid explosives was the December 1994 Philippines Airline Boeing 747 incident, a dry run for a bigger plot conducted by Ramzi Youssef.
In this case, Youssef planted the explosives explosives under one of the seats in the airliner and timed them to detonate after he disembarked for a connecting flight. The subsequent explosion killed only the Japanese businessman who was sitting directly above the bomb. Besides five people with minor injuries, the other 200-plus passengers were unharmed and the plane landed safely.
Only liquid explosives in large and noticeable amounts can have any literal chance of "blowing up" a plane in mid-air. Confiscating pregnant white women's lip gloss is completely insane and proves in itself that the new airport measures are purely designed to act as a PR coup for the police state.
In addition, photographs of passengers being ordered to pour liquids into one single container completely belies the claim that the alleged terrorists planned to mix the liquids to create the deadly explosives. If mixing liquids was a key component of the bomb making process then why are airport security ordering people to mix liquids?
World Affairs Brief editor Joel Skousen highlights prescient questions about the inconsistencies of the properties of the alleged liquid explosives in relation to the much vaunted scale of the foiled attack.
"The supposed explosive device this
time was a Peroxide-based explosive, which is mildly explosive and can be
prepared from acetone, hydrogen Peroxide, and an acid catalyst. This type
is claimed by governments to be "widely in use by terrorist groups,"
though we have no known terrorist events where it has been used, except
by one Palestinian terrorist, and then as a detonator only-not as the main
charge. This explosive material is usually known by its abbreviation TATP
(Tri Acetone Tri Peroxide)," writes
Skousen.
"Both Peroxide and Acetone are clear liquids, but acetone (laquer thinner)
is easily identifiable by smell and its high rate of evaporation. Experts
indicate it is very unstable and highly unlikely to be a stand-alone explosive
to take down an airliner. The quantities would have to be large enough to
be easily noticed. Thus, even though this is a theoretical threat, banning
all cosmetics and lotions is stupid and banning all liquids is unnecessary.
Only clear liquids need checking. There is cheap test equipment for TATP,
and simple ways for TSA employees to quickly check for acetone and peroxide."
Returning to how the latest plot is a mirror image of Operation Bojinka - the Ramzi Youssef link is also telling because Youssef has been protected and coddled by the US government at every juncture.
In September of 1992 Youssef entered the US with Ahmad Ajaj. Ajaj's luggage contained documents on how to make bombs and was stuffed with fake passports and ID's. Ajaj was arrested - amazingly Youssef was released.
Youssef later masterminded the WTC '93 bombing with the gracious help of FBI agents. Having penetrated the group before the bombing, the FBI's mole, Emad Salem, was told to arm the terror cell with dummy explosives so a sting operation could ensnare the perpetrators. Salem was mystified when the orders changed, the sting was called off and the FBI allowed the bombing to go forward. This was all admitted in an October 1993 New York Times front page story.
Again, any Operation Bojinka or Ramzi Youssef link in the case of the liquid bomb plot is a link back to western intelligence agencies.
Within three days of its exposure, Tony Blair and MI5 are already milking the alleged plot for political purposes in re-introducing the argument for 90-day detention without charge legislation. Blair suffered his only defeat to date in the Commons last November when the bill was shot down by Labour rebels - a humiliating rejection of the so-called 'liberal' government's feverish bloodlust for authoritarian control.
Reports of criminal insider trading on airline stocks before the announcement of the alleged foiled plot, specifically British Airways stocks, have also started to filter in and will be the subject of a follow-up investigation.
Lebanese Abbas Wehbeh shouts while holding his 10 day-old niece Waad, 08 August, 2006
The above picture says it all.
Can you feel his choking rage and grief, the sting of the tears streaming down? The dislocation of one reality into another?
Perhaps we remember a time when our grief consumed us to the point we were barely able to function; our arms were trembling, we could not see for the tears that obscured our vision, we could not think because all we wanted was our loved one back in our arms or to release the fire of revenge; when all we wanted was to vent our rage on the evil who took away our reason for living. Or perhaps we are those who would feel a dull numbness from the shock-wave that takes away all semblance of meaning, all the joy of what makes u human.
There is the kind loss that empties you of your sensibilities and rational thoughts, just tosses your identity away so that you are a husk of what you once were. Maybe you have experienced this acidic pain that flays your heart and hangs it from a sharp hook, raw and bloody. If so, then your reality is changed, your reality can also be shared in silent communion whatever the ideology and the nation. Pain is understood by some and the gnawing loss is known across the ridiculous need of boarder mentalities and cultural divides.
The Israeli government, its military and other pathocratic governments linked by the same will to deceive and destroy are scraping out the insides of those who can empathise with their fellow man. They are dehumanizing all those who can remember what it is to feel for another across the illusion of distance. They are destroying piecemeal all those who have the seeds of that humanity within them. Here now, in the hi-tec false sophistication of the 21st century, there are people -'leaders' - murdering fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, children and their grandparents, in this case, all for the Greater Israel; all for a violent, false ideology that is predicated on a monumental lie.
Just as those in China who shot dead the young student activist who had the temerity to act on her humanity; just as those in the U.S. justify democracy by genocide in Iraq; and just as Tony Blair has the astonishing audacity to talk of peace while being instrumental in the modern day success of U.K. and U.S. colonialism - these are all spawned from the same pathology that has oh, so cleverly insinuated itself into the heart of nations, that has distorted the very structures of our societies, until we have taken on their "normality."
For those of us who cannot ignore conscience, who are jarred into reality when we see that the world being inexorably shaped into the pathocrat's image, the time is coming to make a choice as to how best we can transmute that shared inner suffering that demands to be released.
Propaganda from the mind dross of Fox News; the terminal lies of the U.S. Government; the habitually lackluster performance of UN resolutions; to the results of formerly and officially sanctioned historical genocide for economic and corporate gain - it is as terminal as it is ubiquitous. The allure of apathy pretends that we have no part in such crimes. This serves to confirm the arrogance and audacity of those in power who use innocent human lives as literal fodder for their war games and deluded visions of totalitarian rule.
Little Waad a 10 day-old baby was a legitimate target for those "machines" that sit in smug certainty that their psychotic morality will shape the actions of every one o us. Behind mahogany desks, the shuffling of official documents and easy, comfortable chairs they direct their brain-dead troops to do their bidding. This psychopathology is what has led us to our current low point in what is euphemistically called 'human evolution'. The physical distance that exists between us and the abject suffering of our fellow human beings applies a temporary cerebral band-aid to the shock of seeing the truth of our reality and prevents us from entering fully into our own humanity. What is happening now in Lebanon and Palestine is not just a repeating pattern of the same old Middle Eastern turmoil, it is a prelude to a game-plan that will involve every single person on this planet, and that includes you.
Every single one of us. Wherever we are and whoever we maybe. How we react to the horror we see before us will determine all of our futures.
There is a vacuum being carefully created and we can get sucked into the propaganda of those who are whipping up the frenzy of conflict for a variety of deluded ideologies or self-aggrandising missions and visions, or we can simply say enough is enough and stake our own claim for truth. We stand up and when confronted with the umpteenth civilian death, innocent people who were living their lives with the same hopes and dreams as you and I, we use the fire of indignation and we mold it into our own personal outpost; our strategic enclosure which houses all the rage and grief, all the empathy that can so often turn back into itself and do us harm, so that we may then build such energy into a creative force.
This outpost resists the fear and the apathy that so often results daily atrocities in the guise of noble ideals and grounds us in our own humanity. From there we can re-affirm that we do in fact have a conscience, and that it is based on a firm foundation of our own making. We are able to express it through our actions however limited in their scope and perceived effects. We no longer yield to programs of required conformity that are both subtle and crude, we do not slip into complacency and compliance that will ultimately transform us into the living dead searching for their elusive essence that has long since been buried, extinguished by our own hand.
Once those who truly fear the networked ignition of conscience begin to sense its rise, perhaps hope can be justified. Until then, we can add our own voice to the chorus of outrage and build our outpost brick by brick, again and again to keep that faith alive and to emblazen on that wall the image of Waad and millions of others like her. Perhaps then, we can allow our conscience to at last taste the true freedom it has been seeking.
Sunday, 6 August
In the early hours, motor-cycle riders have been racing down the Corniche outside my home. Petrol is cheap for motor-cycles, and at first I curse the roar of their machines. Then I realise that their insouciance is a form of resistance. In their special way, they are denying the war, refusing to be cowed.
A friend calls from Tyre where Palestinians are welcoming Shia refugees from the hill villages of southern Lebanon into their homes. One old Palestinian lady turned on her guest with memories of her own endless exile since 1948. "Better to die in your home than run away," she shouts. Too many journos are wearing flak jackets and helmets, little spacemen who want to show they are "in combat" on television. I notice how their drivers and interpreters are usually not given flak jackets. These are reserved for us, the Westerners, the Protected Ones, Those Who Must Live.
I used to wear a flak jacket in Bosnia, but no more. Ever since a bullet penetrated the neck of a colleague and was kept within his body by the iron jacket - going round and round until it had destroyed his kidneys, liver and heart - I have refused to touch these things. Better to die in shirtsleeves.
Monday, 7 August
A pilotless drone buzzes over my home at 4am. To Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp to talk to Suheil Natour, the human rights man for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A book-crammed room that smells of paper and cups of tea - always a good sign - and he goes through the options of the Israelis and Hizbollah.
Do the Israelis want to draw the Palestinians into their battle, to help destroy Hamas? "Do you realise that the largest community in Lebanon - the Shias - are now spread as refugees in every other area of Lebanon for the first time ever?" he asks.
As I leave his office, I hear the drone again, surveying the camp. I do an interview with New Zealand television on the Beirut seafront and a group of young Shia men and women - the latter all in brown scarves - stand behind the camera to listen.
I talk about Lebanese history, the Ottoman empire, the disasters of the Shias, the Israeli invasions/bombardments of 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and now. Even the threats of the PLO, Hizbollah and the Israelis are the same.
When I've finished, one of the young men translates for his extended family. He is from Qana, he says. They fled after last week's massacre of 28 civilians who were hiding from Israel's bombing in a basement. The Israelis dropped a bomb that exploded in the basement.
Tuesday, 8 August Ed Cody and I pick up Hassan and the "Death Car" to race to the southern suburb of Shiyah, where the Israelis have fired two missiles into an apartment block. Rubble, muck, body parts, shrieking men and women - the death toll of 20 soon to rise to 63, all civilians.
Some idiot had heard a drone over the street and opened fire on it. and within minutes an Israeli plane - or maybe the drone itself, so wonderful is American technology - had demolished the nearest building.
We drive across to the Mount Lebanon Hospital to talk to the wounded. How different it all is from Europe or America, where a journalist visiting a hospital is regarded as a vulture feasting on human misery. In Lebanon, we are always greeted by the head doctor, taken immediately to the wards, encouraged to talk to any of the patients.
And the patients brighten up when the foreigners arrive and talk happily. They want to shake hands and try to discuss their torment and pain and misery. It is always the same, at every hospital in the Middle East. We are welcome. Dr Nazih Gharios orders tea and asks his secretary to find out the name of the little boy in the mortuary who was brought dead to the hospital after the bombing.
The morning papers carry an odious speech by an American diplomat visiting Beirut. He is David Welch and he manages to express his love for a country his nation is helping Israel to destroy while avoiding any journalists' questions.
"I am late for another meeting," he pants. But get this for a quote: "Much has happened [sic] in the past three weeks, but the commitment of the United States to Lebanon remains firm; it remains enduring and it is not negotiable. The relationship of the United States with Lebanon is based on mutual respect..."
At no point does he mention the word "Israel". Of course not. The US embassy in Ulan Bator would beckon if he did.
Wednesday, 9 August
Oil from the burning fuel storage depot at Jiyeh is washing up on the shore opposite my home, dead birds, black fish and the smell of a refinery. It's broken up into thick black balls that lie on the rocks and sand when the tide goes out.
In the Chouf, the Druze are now caring for 100,000 Shia refugees. "There is not a single man between 25 and 40 among them," the wife of a Druze official remarks. I have a shrewd idea where all those men have gone.
To a hubble-bubble café in the evening where the oil-sogged waves slosh around the feet of a Lebanese fisherman perched on an old concrete pillar in the water. He wears a straw hat and I think at first he's a statue for tourists until he turns to put an oily fish into the basket on his back. "We have no food and we have stopped selling alcohol," the waiter proudly tells me. Well, I say, that's really going to bring in the customers!
The BBC is back to its old craven self, referring in a report from Israel to the tiny sliver of Lebanese territory taken at great cost by Israeli troops as Israel's "security zone" - Israel's own preposterous title for what must be the most insecure piece of land on earth.
It is, of course, an "occupation zone" but not, it seems, if it's occupied by the Israelis. Had Hizbollah seized Israeli territory - they did after all provoke this savage conflict with their own reckless crossing of the border - would the BBC be calling it Hizbollah's "security zone" in northern Israel? Would they hell.
Thursday, 10 August
To the City Café to meet Leena Saidi, Lebanese journalist and formerly one of the national television station's top newsreaders. City Café is definitely upmarket, opposite a traffic circle but filled with boring old men smoking cigars and discussing the future of Lebanon and elegant ladies in silk skirts, and one or two women whom my Mum used to describe as "mutton dressed as lamb".
We order green tea and then there's the roar of an explosion in the sky. An Israeli missile screeches right past us and crashes into the old French Mandate lighthouse, a brown-stone tower built in 1938 from which the Vichy French once sent out their propaganda.
Never have I seen the great and the good of Beirut society hurl themselves from their seats at such speed, overturning tables amid splintered glass, racing from the café for their chauffeur-driven cars, crashing into each other's vehicles - and failing to pay their bills. I see a panic-stricken motor-cyclist thrown on to the road. He rolls down the side of the traffic island, then runs for his life.
A second missile streaks past us into the tower. Do the Israelis think that Hizbollah's television station is broadcasting from here?
"Fisk!" Leena roars, almost as loudly as the rocket. "Why do you always bring trouble with you?" We finish a second cup of green tea and The Independent pays the bill. I am left wondering: what has Israel got against the French Mandate?
Friday, 11 August
I visit the barber. "Thanks to the God!" cries George when he sees me. It is lunchtime, and I am his first customer. Every Lebanese believes that we journos know the future, and we have to pretend that we do so that they will tell us what they know.
Ceasefire? Will Hizbollah fire more rockets into Israel? Photographs on the Lebanese front pages show burning Israeli tanks near Khiam. Shortage of newsprint. One of my morning papers is now only four pages - it was blown off my balcony by the wind this morning and I had to run down the street to retrieve it. But a bad thought. I like small newspapers. Less to read. More time to report.
Saturday, 12 August
A long radio interview with an Israeli professor who says "the number of people killed [in this war] doesn't reflect morality". Well, at more than a thousand Lebanese civilians dead against a few dozen Israelis, it can't reflect morality because, if it did, that would suggest Israel was committing war crimes.
But Hizbollah will also have their day of reckoning. Who gave them the right to bring this cruelty down upon the head of every Lebanese? Who gave the Shias permission to go to war for Lebanon? There will be questions in Israel too. How come the Israel Defence Forces, famous in legend and song, could not defend the people of Israel, despite slaughtering so many Lebanese civilians?
Cody has invented a great new word: to "flamboozle". It's what politicians do to their people when they go to war. Ehud Olmert has been flamboozling the Israelis and Sayed Hassan Nasrallah has been flamboozling Lebanon's Shias. We may have a ceasfire at the weekend. So the end of the flamboozling may be nigh.
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' Rumsfeld is very uneasy with the unquestioning support for the Israeli offensive because of the impact it will have on American troops in Iraq. His point to Bush and Rice is that Iraq's Shias will not stand by while their Lebanese Shia brothers are destroyed. He has pointed out to them -- to Rice and Bush -- that there are close family and political ties between the Moqtada al-Sadr family and the Musa al-Sadr and the close friendship between Maliki and Nawaf Moussawi, the foreign minister of Hezbollah. That Hezbollah worked to free the Dawa 17 at one point in its history was a surprise to Rice, as well as to Bush. With American casualties mounting in Iraq Rumsfeld does not believe we need to make enemies of the Shia. The demonstration of last week shook him -- and American commanders. '
' A U.N.-brokered ceasefire to end the month-old conflict in Lebanon came into force on Monday but intense fighting continued right up to the deadline for the guns to fall silent. In the first reaction to the truce, Israel Army Radio said the Jewish state's naval and air blockade will remain in effect for the present, Haaretz reported.
Israel launched an 11th-hour wave of air strikes on Lebanon and Hizbullah fighters unleashed a barrage of rockets just hours before the agreed "cessation of hostilities" took effect at 8 a.m. Beirut time (0500 GMT).
Israeli forces shelled areas around Tyre and Khiam in the war-battered south of the country, while combat jets flew over Beirut, dropping warning leaflets, and bombarded the ancient eastern city of Baalbek.
At least 38 Lebanese civilians and four soldiers were killed by Israeli fire Sunday as fighter jets kept up their deadly bombing in Beirut and across the country. Five Israeli soldiers were also killed in action. '
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In one of the deadliest raids Sunday, at least 15 people were killed, including three children, by Israeli air strikes that hit eight buildings and a mosque in Beirut's southern suburbs, emergency services said . . .
At least eight people were also killed near Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, security officials said. '
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