Wednesday, June 14, 2006
The Blog | Dr. Peter Rost: Now I'm REALLY freaking out! | The Huffington Post
The Blog | Dr. Peter Rost: Now I'm REALLY freaking out! | The Huffington Post
Tuesday I gave an in-depth account of everything I had learned about THE RENDOND GROUP in a blog called How a Public Relations Firm Helped Start the War.
Tuesday I gave an in-depth account of everything I had learned about THE RENDOND GROUP in a blog called How a Public Relations Firm Helped Start the War.
The Weekly Spin, June 14, 2006
THE WEEKLY SPIN, June 14, 2006
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THIS WEEK'S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. Confronted with Disclosure Demands, Fake News Moguls Cry "Censorship!"
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. Big Dose Of PR For Pfizer
2. America's Slip is Showing
3. Big Tobacco's Covert Witness Program
4. How Big Tobacco 'Protects' Non-Smokers
5. Spinning to their Graves
6. Ann Coulter's PR Formula: Hate Speech + Media Coverage = Best-Seller
7. Antibiotic Trial Continues Despite Reported Threat to Children
8. Burson-Marsteller Lands Tuna Account
9. Red-Faced Broadcast Execs Resist Reform
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. CONFRONTED WITH DISCLOSURE DEMANDS, FAKE NEWS MOGULS CRY "CENSORSHIP!"
by Diane Farsetta
Be afraid, be very afraid! If television stations are required to
abide by existing regulations and label the corporate and government
propaganda they routinely pass off as "news," the First Amendment
will be shredded, the freedom of the press repealed, and TV stations
will collapse overnight!
At least, that's what the public relations firms that produce
and distribute video news releases (VNRs) and other forms of fake
news would have you believe. PR firms are banding together and
launching lobbying and PR campaigns to counter the growing call for
full disclosure of VNRs, the sponsored video segments frequently
aired by TV newsrooms as though they were independently-produced
reports.
For the rest of this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4867
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. BIG DOSE OF PR FOR PFIZER
http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0613pfizer.htm
Pfizer has hired Clark & Weinstock, a New York and Washington D.C.
based "management consulting firm" that "specializes in reputation
and crisis management" and "the development of business ethics and
corporate responsibility programs." O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports that
the company has been hired as a lobbyist "for general representation
and issues concerning Medicare/Medicaid and pharmaceutical research
& development." The 11-person team assigned to the account includes
former Minnesota Republican Congressman, Vin Weber. Weber is also
Chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy and a board member
of both the Aspen Institute and Citizens Against Government Waste.
He was also involved with the neo-conservative network, the Project
for a New American Century. In mid-June two men announced they were
suing Pfizer, alleging serious side effects from the
anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor.
SOURCE: O'Dwyers PR Daily, June 13, 2006. (Sub req'd.)
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4882
2. AMERICA'S SLIP IS SHOWING
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/world/14pew.html
"As the war in Iraq continues for a fourth year, the global image of
America has slipped further, even among people in some countries
closely allied with the United States," reports Brian Knowlton,
citing a new opinion poll by the Pew Research Center. The poll found
significant declines in esteem for the United States in countries
including Spain, India, Russia, Indonesia and Turkey, and smaller
declines in France, Germany and Jordan. "Obviously, when you get
many more people saying that the U.S. presence in Iraq is a threat
to world peace as say that about Iran, it's a measure of how much
Iraq is sapping good will to the United States," said Pew president
Andrew Kohut.
SOURCE: New York Times, June 14, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4881
3. BIG TOBACCO'S COVERT WITNESS PROGRAM
http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/TI11871006-1025.html
In a February 1989 speech to the Executive Committee of the
now-defunct Tobacco Institute, the group's Senior Vice President,
Charles Powers, sought to save the industry's covert "Scientific
Witness" program from impending budget cuts. The program, he said,
featured experts "who are our front line of defense in tax, public
smoking and advertising hearings every day." Powers complained that
"scientists will not buck for love" the scientific consensus on the
link between environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and health impacts.
"It takes money," he said. "The Institute can't do it and be taken
seriously. We need people who have earned reputations as serious
researchers...who can review and critique articles, publish and act
as peer reviewers," he said. Powers estimated that it cost an
average of $40,000 and took six weeks to identify and train a single
expert.
SOURCE: Anne Landman's Collection, June 11, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4879
4. HOW BIG TOBACCO 'PROTECTS' NON-SMOKERS
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/14799268.htm
The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company has contributed $10,000 to an
Arizona group, the Non-Smoker Protection Committee. The group is
proposing a ballot initiative in favour of The Arizona Non-Smoker
Protection Act which it claims would create "a balanced, reasonable,
consistent, statewide non-smoking law, protecting minors and
preserving private property rights." In fact, the initiative would
overturn existing smoking bans in cities such as Tempe and would
prevent other cities from instituting them. Dr. Leland Fairbanks, a
retired doctor, told Associated Press that the name of the
tobacco-friendly proposal has fooled some people into signing the
petition supporting the initiative being placed on the
ballot."There's a lot of deception going on," Fairbanks said. "Many
people think they're signing the health one, but they're signing the
R.J. Reynolds one. They're mad, and they should be." Tobacco control
groups are proposing an alternative initiative, the Smoke-Free
Arizona Act.
SOURCE: Charlotte Observer, June 12, 2006.
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4877
5. SPINNING TO THEIR GRAVES
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/washington-shrugs-off-guantanamo-suicides-as-merely-good-pr/2006/06/12/1149964470426.html
The three recent suicides by detainees at the Guantanamo Bay
detention camp, referred to as “the gulag of our times” by
Amnesty International, are apparently not what they would seem.
Administration officials rejected suggestions the three had killed
themselves out of despair at their indefinite confinement. “It
does sound like this is part of a strategy in that they don’t
value their own lives … they certainly don't value ours and they
use suicide bombings as a tactic,” Colleen Graffy, the deputy
assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told the BBC on
Sunday. “Taking their own lives was not necessary, but it
certainly is a good PR move to draw attention.” The camp's
commander, Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr., said the suicides were
an al-Qaeda tactic. “They have no regard for life, neither ours
nor their own,” he said. “I believe this was not an act of
desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”
SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, June 13, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4876
6. ANN COULTER'S PR FORMULA: HATE SPEECH + MEDIA COVERAGE = BEST-SELLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/business/media/12carr.html
David Carr examines Ann Coulter's simple PR formula for marketing
her best-selling books: vile hate speech echoed in the mainstream
media. In her five books Ann Coulter has "suggested wistfully that
Timothy McVeigh should have parked his truck in front of the New
York Times, joked that a Supreme Court justice should be poisoned,
and said that America should invade Muslim countries and kill their
leaders." Bob Wietrak of Barnes & Noble observes Ann Coulter's "fan
base is phenomenal and she is in the media constantly. When she is
in the media, it creates more media coverage. And every single day,
the book sells more." TV loves Ann Coulter Carr concludes because
"seeing hate-speech pop out of a blonde who knows her way around a
black cocktail dress makes for compelling viewing. ... You can
accuse her of cynicism all you want, but the fact that she is one of
the leading political writers of our age says something about the
rest of us."
SOURCE: New York Times, June 12, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4874
7. ANTIBIOTIC TRIAL CONTINUES DESPITE REPORTED THREAT TO CHILDREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/science/08drug.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
A new antibiotic that has been found to cause four times the average
rate of acute liver failure in adults continues in a trial for more
than 900 children worldwide, despite criticism from a U.S. Food and
Drug Administration official and a study consultant. The drug, Ketek
(internationally known as Telithromycin) is manufactured by
Sanofi-Aventis, a French pharmaceutical firm with U.S. headquarters
in New Jersey. The company has defended the antibiotic as safe when
used as directed. "How does one justify balancing the risk of fatal
liver failure against one day less of ear pain?" asks Dr. Rosemary
Johann-Liang, of the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, in a memo
uncovered by the Times. Duke University infectious disease
specialist Dr. Danny Benjamin echoes the concern, calling the
pediatric trial "hard to support." Benjamin is especially critical
of testing the antibiotic for routine ear infections at a time when
antibiotics are less frequently recommended for pediatric treatment.
Yet, the FDA's own website continues to promote the pediatric trial.
SOURCE: The New York Times, June 8, 2006 (reg req'd)
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4873
8. BURSON-MARSTELLER LANDS TUNA ACCOUNT
http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0608tuna.htm
The PR firm Ruder Finn has lost the account working for the U.S.
Tuna Foundation to defend human consumption of canned tuna
containing high levels of mercury. Burson-Marsteller has landed the
account. "Amid the transition, Burson is working to challenge a
widely cited Consumer Reports study published this month which found
canned light tuna can contain higher levels of mercury than other
tuna and could pose serious problems to an unborn child," O'Dwyer's
reports. The foundation has also appointed Anne Forristall Luke, a
former "principal at Washington, D.C. firm MGN and former public
affairs practice head for Ketchum," to head the organization.
SOURCE: O'Dwyers PR Daily (sub req'd), June 8, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4872
9. RED-FACED BROADCAST EXECS RESIST REFORM
http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/index_media_notes.htm
The President of the Radio-Television News Directors Association
(RTNDA), Barbara Cochran, has conceded the accuracy of the recent
Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) report, Fake TV News:
Widespread and Undisclosed. "We had good reason to think that many
of the video examples posted on the CMD website were simple errors,
not deliberate attempts to fool the public, but the similarities
between newscast stories and video news releases (VNRs) were
embarrassing," Cochran said in a statement. While RTNDA may be
red-faced, they are still resisting reforms that would mandate
disclosure of VNRs to viewers. Meanwhile, the owner of KEF Media
Associates, Kevin E. Foley, has abandoned even referring to VNRs,
preferring to call them "TV press releases" instead. The Federal
Communications Commission investigation into undisclosed use of
VNRs, he complains, represents a threat to "the free speech rights
of my corporate clients."
SOURCE: O'Dwyers PR Daily (sub req'd), June 8, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4871
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[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 13 Jun 2006]
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Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe
Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe
"Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
Blogger Thoughts: I don't know what I think of this or who Tom Harris is.
"Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
Blogger Thoughts: I don't know what I think of this or who Tom Harris is.
[political-research] 9/11 Cough - More Than Just "Asthma" Indeed
http://tinyurl.com/kxwa3
http://www.mytown.ca/ev.php?URL_ID=113327&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201&reload=1150258595&PHPSESSID=65d67440a
By Cathy Garger
9/11 Cough - More Than Just "Asthma" Indeed
What in the world could Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration possibly be thinking in appealing a deputy mayor's workman's compensation case to cover his doctors' costs in order to care for his 9/11-related illness? Wouldn't ya think that, knowing what they know, (wink wink) at the very, very least Bloomberg's office would pay his doctors handsomely to treat his "asthma" and provide top-knotch, skilled 24/7 nursing care to keep Mr. Washington comfortable - not to mention, uh, very calm, sedate, and, primarily... quiet?
Penny-wise and pound foolish, oh Mr. Mayor. When deathly sick Deputy Mayors talk, Mr. Bloomberg, no doubt the press will be listening to his words - between the coughs, that is.
With highly radioactive levels found at the Pentagon on 9/11 (www.rense.com/general67?) what would make anyone think any differently about the air surrounding Ground Zero?
Ten bucks it's not asbestos, computer part fragments, and concrete powder dust alone that's making this NYC Deputy Mayor sicker than sick by this, uh NYC "mystery" disease. What do you want to make a bet that no physician has ever been encouraged to order (or, rather been allowed to order) a special test using a mass spectrometer to test for the presence of Airborne Uranium Particulates on the Deputy Mayor (or on any of the thousands of other New York residents and workers who are succumbing to this "mysterious" disease, for that matter)?
To read more about mass spectrometry testing for the presence of Uranium, go to the Uranium Medical Research Center site at: http://www.umrc.net/.
Call it just a hunch, but my guess is that testing of this Deputy Mayor and other New Yorkers for the presence of Uranium radiation poisoning for that nasty hacking cough might be more than worth every GZ resident and worker's last dime.
The test is reportedly costly and not easy to obtain, but if I were a GZ resident or emergency worker like Mr. Washington? I'd indeed be high-tailing it in less than a New York Minute from Manhattan to a clinic 6 1/2 hours in a northwest direction away to Waterport, NY (http://www.umrc.net/clinical_services.aspx) at the first sign of any nasty "asthmatic" post-9/11 Ground Zero cough.
New Yorkers with the mysterious Ground Zero illness, in all likelihood, never received this test in a regular Manhattan hospital. And I would doubt very much that the NYC Health Department is ever going to recommend it, either.
If high radioactive levels were found near the Pentagon (and they were) it certainly would not hurt to similarly test for the presence of radiation sickness in those who spent time around Ground Zero, as well.
Cathy Garger
http://www.mytown.ca/garger
NYC deputy mayor claims 9/11 illness
NEW YORK, May 17 (UPI) -- A New York deputy mayor who was caught in the plume of debris in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks claims he contracted a lingering respiratory illness.
Rudy Washington, 52, filed a state worker's compensation claim late last year to cover his doctors' costs, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration is appealing it, the New York Post reported.
Washington, who became a consultant after the end of the Rudy Giuliani's administration, arrived on the scene at Ground Zero soon after the attack and was caught in the plume after the first tower fell.
Sources said Washington became sick almost immediately after the attack and was hospitalized with a mysterious illness. He was later diagnosed with asthma, which he never suffered prior to the attack, and is now on several medications.
Worker's compensation claims are not publicly available and officials are barred by law from talking about them, the newspaper said.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/
Cathy's Picks of Useful Resources and Websites (always under construction)
Cathy Garger is a freelance writer, anti-war activist, and a certified personal coach. An Associate Member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Cathy has a B.S. in Psychology, enjoys writing about behavioral activism, and can most often be found educating people about the synthetic "War On Terror" and the real reasons her government engages in wars. Living in the shadow of the national District of Crime with her middle school daughter and husband, Cathy fights these wars at home so that America's young adults will one day stop both getting killed and killing innocent people overseas.
[political-research] Global Guerrillas: Requiem for Preventative War
<http://globalguerri
Excerpt:
As we have seen in the Middle East, the attempt to remake Middle East politics by toppling regional dictatorships to ensure low-cost oil exports from terrorism free nations has backfired. The collapse of these states hasn't resulted in a flowering of democracy but rather the rise of revisionist opposition. This has taken the form of political Islam (Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, and to an extent Afghanistan) and fragmentation of nominally cohesive populations into primary loyalties (that drive the creation of open source warriors). In effect, big bangs do destabilize things as expected, but the result is the exact opposite of what was intended -- ie. the map melts even faster. As a result, the catalyst of big bangs particularly through the acceleration of open source warfare's ability to disrupt systems (which is growing more sophisticated through experience in Iraq's proving ground), threatens the very oil supply that we intended to save.
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[political-research] Leo Strauss and the American Right (Shadia B. Drury)
<http://www.amazon.
On the destruction of the Republican Party and the conservative movement by the virulently anti-American Straussians and neoconservatives.
A spot on review:
The chief insight offered by Shadia Drury in LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT is that Leo Strauss's political philosophy is a radical variant of conservatism whose assumptions and strategies are at odds with traditional conservatism. While both Straussian and Burkean philosophy appear similar in that they both make the assumption that the only choice is between a beneficent plutocracy and anarchy, the Straussians are unsentimental about the past, rejecting the older conservative view that naturalizes pre-modern hierarchy and the inequalities preserved therein as intrinsic to and representative of mankind. Straussians are instead post-modern activists, who use the past as repository from which to cull whatever elements are necessary to build whatever institutional machine is necessary to regulate lesser mortals. They imagine themselves as an intellectual pastorate who must defend society against the depredations of liberalism -- that socially disruptive idea which insists on equality of opportunity and justice.
According to Drury, Strauss's philosophy accepts the death of God, (unlike traditional conservatism) and then moves positivistically (unlike traditional conservatism) to fill the vacuum with elite group of self-elected philosopher kings. This elite, alive to the nihilism of the liberal ethos and its potentially anarchic consequences, believes it must act forcefully to paper over the hole left by His demise. Their esoteric/exoteric readings of philosophy tell them they must forge from the ashes a seamless, monocultural machine to encourage obedience and staunch chaos. This nationalistic machine must be equipped with a religion (any religion) and a mythic culture based on flag-reverence and knee-jerk patriotism. This is necessary because pluralistic, liberal societies cannot meet the challenge posed by well-organized, culturally cohesive states. Because the mass of men are primitive, credulous, prone to error and evil, the state with the best machine necessarily will win. Straussians, unlike traditional conservatives who see the state as malevolent, justify their activism by insisting that as philosophers they are immune to temptations of power.
According to Drury, a particularly striking strategy of Straussian conservatives is their struggle to identify and mythologize American traditions. She points out that while Burke had the last remnants of feudalism to extol as a naturally just system, American conservatives have been forced to create a ?traditional? America out of whole cloth. To do so, according the Drury, Strauss's followers have invaded history departments across the US where they have been working hard to uncover "tradition" in the beginnings of America ? a difficult task given that America was the first truly modernist state. Nevertheless, these historians, depending upon which ax they are grinding, rewrite American history either to prove that colonial America was feudal, or to prove the Founding Fathers were not Deists and creatures of the (Liberal) Enlightenment, but rather Platonists. Drury notes that like postmodernists on the left, Straussians believe there is no ultimate truth, but that instead there are only discourses of power and that whoever controls the discourse wins. She notes that this is what makes American politics so narrow and so tedious -- the right and the left both operate from the same morally bankrupt premise.
This goes a long way toward explaining the bizarre combination of libertarianism and fundamentalism in neo-conservative thought. Like other dogmas which have been used to support those in power -- Social Darwinism and eugenics come to mind -- neoconservatism is just the latest apologia for the up-to-date reactionary. Notably, its adherents are generally unaware of the contradiction. This does not deter them from defending this instrumental hodgepodge of Ayn Rand "objectivism" and millenarian "revivalism" however. Such a philosophy is, of course, its own best self-satirization.
Well-written, its conclusions careful and amply defended, LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT, is not the ravings of conspiracy theorist. It does not imagine that Straussians have come to run the United States, nor that they form a secret cult which pulls the strings behind the scene. It exposes rather the infiltration of post-modern intellectual cynicism into the once decent, and even honorable, Republican Party.
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[political-research] The Israel Lobby Goes After Bush and Olmert
[Inside the mind of the Israel lobby and the mainstream media. The insulting and abusive tone is the norm for the lobby, even when addressing the government which has just spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to help Israel by invading Iraq.]
Two words aptly describe the Bush administration and the Olmert government's responses to the escalating war. They are respectively: appeasement and capitulation.
Jewish World Review June 13, 2006 / 17 Sivan, 5766
Facing down our defeatist leaders
By Caroline B. Glick
As the leadership of Israel and the US lose their collective will to reconcile themselves to the reality of war, it falls on the shoulders of private citizens to tell them that they are wrong
Ahmadinejad reportedly devoted the meeting to reminding Zahar that jihad is the only path for the Palestinians, and demanding that Hamas redouble its attacks against Israel. This report tells us little we don't already know about Hamas and Iran. Since last year, Hamas leaders Zahar and Khaled Mashaal have been traveling to Iran to meet with Ahmadinejad and commanders of Iranian intelligence and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards units on a monthly, twice-monthly and even weekly basis. This meeting merely served to remind us what has been clear for months, namely, that Iran today is the leader of the global jihadist axis. More interesting than the meeting is how Iran and Hamas's chief enemies — the United States and Israel — have responded to the war the Iranian-led jihadist axis is waging against them. Two words aptly describe the Bush administration and the Olmert government's responses to the escalating war. They are respectively: appeasement and capitulation. The Bush administration's decision to negotiate directly with Iran over the genocidal mullocracy's race to achieve nuclear capabilities represents the White House's clearest renunciation of everything that President George W. Bush claims to have been fighting against since the September 11 attacks. The Iranian regime, with its openly stated intention to annihilate Israel; its active participation in the war against US-led forces in Iraq; its support and sponsorship of other terror forces fighting US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; its active subversion of pro-Western regimes throughout the Middle East; its support for anti-US regimes and political forces throughout the world; and its race to acquire intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of attacking the continental US, represents everything that Bush pledged to bring down in the aftermath of the attacks on the US five years ago. THERE HAVE been many attempts to rationalize, justify and excuse the move. Some say it is a result of political distress. It is hard to see why Bush would think that attempting to appease America's worst enemy will placate his political support base. But more important than the reasons for his policy reversal are the content and consequences of his new position. In providing an opening to Teheran, the Bush administration has adopted the policy that former president Jimmy Carter forced down the throat of the Clinton administration in its dealings with the North Korean Stalinists in 1994. Twelve years ago, Carter invited himself to North Korea to "defuse" the crisis the North Koreans had fomented by openly developing nuclear weapons. Since then-president Bill Clinton had no policy for dealing with North Korea, he allowed Carter to negotiate the deal that Bush is now offering Teheran. As then, today in exchange for a "pledge" to stop enriching uranium, the US is willing to give Teheran nuclear fuel, airplanes, spare parts, light water reactors, World Trade Organization membership and US acceptance of the mullocracy as a legitimate regime. There can be no doubt that Carter's deal effectively caused the US to facilitate North Korea's development of nuclear weapons. And now, after refusing for five years to adopt an Iran policy, Bush has been convinced by the likes of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to follow the Europeans' lead in appeasing the mullahs. For all that the nuclearized Pyongyang threatens its neighbors, North Korea is still less dangerous than Iran. Unlike Pyongyang, Teheran sees itself as a contender for global supremacy. It has terror cells all over the globe capable of striking Western targets at a moment's notice. Aside from that, Iran has already committed itself to using the nuclear bombs it is now building to destroy Israel and bring America and Europe to their knees. After Rice announced Washington's adoption of the EU's appeasement policy, Iran wasted no time repeatedly humiliating America. Last Thursday Ahmadinejad bragged that the US offer showed America had been defeated. The IAEA revealed that since the US made the offer, Iran intensified its uranium enrichment operation. The Sunday Telegraph reported that Iran has yet another secret nuclear site which is dedicated to military grade uranium enrichment. To all this President Bush has responded with more appeasement. He says that Iran has weeks to decide whether to accept the US offer. The administration is backing Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar's refusal to bring an Iran sanctions bill - already passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives and sponsored by 61 senators - to a vote. So rather than fighting Iran, the administration is fighting its most loyal supporters while advancing the policy of its most ardent detractors. THE OLMERT government in Jerusalem similarly refuses to recognize that a war is being actively waged against Israel. Olmert's refusal to accept the reality of war is even more unjustifiable than the Bush administration's because while Americans haven't been attacked where they live since September 11, every day Israelis are attacked in their homes. Against the backdrop of the intensification of the Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel, Sderot's Mayor Eli Moyal showed the absurdity of the government's willful blindness when Sunday he presented Olmert with the only choice he has. As Moyal put it, Olmert can continue to ignore the war and so turn the bombarded town of Sderot into a ghost town, or he can fight the war and turn Beit Hanoun in Gaza — from which the rockets raining down on Sderot and surrounding communities are being launched — into a ghost town. That is, it is us or them, as simple as that. To this the government responded with denial and surrender declarations. Olmert and his equally inexperienced, weak-kneed, ideologically blinded Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni claim that they are sending Hamas a clear signal by doing nothing. And what are they signaling? That if Hamas doesn't shape up, Israel will give it Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem. AS TO Iran, according to a report over the weekend in The Forward, in his recent meetings with the American Jewish leadership, Olmert urged them to lower their profile on Iran because his government doesn't want the issue to be perceived as an Israeli issue. And so, most Jewish groups, including AIPAC, have not publicly criticized the administration's adoption of Europe's appeasement policy. As Jess Hordes, the Anti-Defamation Leagues Washington affairs director, told the Forward, "Looking down the abyss at the choices, which, in their starkest terms, are either accepting Iran as a nuclear power or attacking militarily, I think people are looking to see whether or not a third way can be found to achieve the same purpose." By the same token, Israeli diplomats in New York and Washington have admitted that their activities today are largely dedicated to convincing American Jewish leaders to support the Olmert plan to surrender Judea and Samaria to Hamas. In 1943 when the evidence of the destruction of European Jewry became incontrovertible, some strident Zionists in the US — most notably Peter Bergson and Ben Hecht — launched a massive campaign to try to force the Roosevelt administration to do something to save the Jews of Europe. The organized Jewish leadership, led by Steven Wise, did everything it could to delegitimize their efforts. According to the copiously documented account of these events in Rafael Medoff's history, Militant Zionism in America, Wise, like the leaders of the Labor Zionist movement, didn't want the war to be seen as a Jewish issue and didn't want to alienate the White House by crying out too loudly for European Jews. Today, as Iran moves closer to committing a second Holocaust, how are American Jewish organizations spending their time? Aside from supporting the administration and the Olmert government, leading American Jewish organizations including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation of New York and the Joint Distribution Committee have joined forces with the far-left New Israel Fund and announced their intention to fund Israeli Arab organizations. There is no doubt that as the leadership of Israel and the US lose their collective will to reconcile themselves to the reality of war, it falls on the shoulders of private citizens to tell them that they are wrong. Iran has been at war with the US and Israel since 1979 and today it has a leadership committed to advancing this war by destroying Israel and bringing America to its knees. In light of this danger, and in view of the clear lessons of the Holocaust, it is an act of cowardice and immorality for those who recognize the dangers to take a back seat to leaders who refuse to stand up for their countries. As Moyal said, it is time to face the facts. There is no middle way. You cannot nuance genocidal foes bent on your destruction and defeat.
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Sunday Palestinian Hamas Authority Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar was in Teheran meeting with his boss, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
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