Flyby News
"News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era"
Scott Ritter * Iraq/North Korea * Armageddon * Malik
23 October 2002
1) Scott Ritter -- "NO TO WAR"
2) Kucinich Asks White House To Explain Contradictions
3) Bush - Iraq War - and Armageddon
4) Letter from Malik (10/17/02)
Tremble, brutal war, Olympus, first conceived without objection in mind,
the tower of Babel crushes down.
Ruined pages of history tell a tale of what once was, repeated over and over
until a shaken humanity listens to what makes one free.
Editor's Notes:
This issue begins with an article on an inspiring talk of Scott Ritter. Check the link at the end to find the transcript, audio, and video. If humankind survives, this presentation will be known as a classic anti-war declaration. Scott Ritter, who voted for George W. Bush in 2000, is doing everything he can to make sure President Bush is not elected in 2004. Responding to my question, following the presentation, Scott Ritter said that he would support Dennis Kucinich, and respected his stance in Congress on the Iraq issue. Item 2 features a statement by Dennis Kucinich asking the White House for an explanation on the contradictions on Iraq, and North Korea policies. Kucinich and many others want to know why Congress was left in the dark on the North Korea nuclear development issue during the debates on a Resolution that authorized President Bush to be able to attack Iraq. Item 3 is on Presidents Bush's relationship with the Christian right, thoughts on Armageddon. Following the article by Morgan Strong, check related article links for articles on the "Bush Family and Nazi Blood Money" by Victor Thorn, and "Addiction, Brain Damage and the President," by Katherine van Wormer. Item 4 is a recent letter from Malik Abdullah Akili, sharing thoughts on being denied parole, seeking help, ideas; me, too.
Reminder: There's less than 2 weeks before the mid-term Elections. This election is a critical test on President Bush's power over the American people, and the interest for peace and prosperity. Please help in the campaign to elect all Democrats, who opposed the Resolution giving George W. Bush authorization to attack Iraq!
A full roll call list for the Senate is available at:
http://www.moveon.org/senatevote.html
A full roll call for the House is available at:
http://www.moveon.org/housevote.html
Also visit http://www.moveon.org for other ideas, including sample letters to editors, etc.
1) Scott Ritter -- "NO TO WAR" Deerfield Academy 10/15/02
STRONG WORDS AGAINST WAR
Published in the Greenfield Recorder
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
http://www.recorder.com/Former weapons inspector implores students to act
DEERFIELD - A former weapons inspector in Iraq told students and community members that they needed to be involved citizens to prevent war.
"Participate, participate, participate," said Scott Ritter, a Marine for 12 years and a United Nations weapons inspector for seven. "Voting is the great equalizer. We all get to go back there and pull the lever."
He spoke at Deerfield Academy Tuesday evening to a crowd that packed the 700 capacity auditorium and poured out into the lobbies surrounding the auditorium.
It's too late to avoid a war in Iraq, but Ritter urged people to hold their representatives and senators in Congress accountable and vote out of office those who gave President Bush power to use force against Iraq.
A war with Iraq will kill 20,000 to 30,000 Americans, Ritter said. "It's a war that could be every bit as bad as Vietnam," he said.
"War is forever. You don't come back. Sometimes you do come back, missing an arm, a leg or both legs."
The way to capture Saddam is to indict him in the International Court and set up economic sanctions contingent upon turning him over, he said.
Although Ritter detests Saddam, he said President Bush has not made the case to go to war. Instead, Bush relied on the fear many Americans have after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and on the ignorance many have about the situation in Iraq, said Ritter. "The president of the United States is telling you Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but he's not telling you how
he knows."
A 1998 U.S. bombing campaign of 91 Iraqi targets destroyed weapon inspectors' credibility because it showed the U.S. was more concerned with routing out Saddam rather than eliminating Iraq's ability to produce and store weapons of mass destruction, Ritter said.
According to Ritter, of those targets, only 11 were involved in producing weapons; the rest were targets like Saddam's bedroom, his bodyguard's facilities or his office, all sites designed to kill Saddam. It's a move that violated international law, he said, one of unilateral imperialism.
Before then, weapons inspectors had eliminated 90 to 95 percent of weapons of mass destruction as well as Iraq's ability to make those weapons, Ritter said.
Ritter has written a book, many articles and made a movie about the inspections. A recent Newsweek article criticized Ritter for taking $400,000 from an Iraqi-American to make the film. That money was a loan from the man's personal assets, said Ritter, adding that he took pains to make sure the money was not coming from the Iraqi government, letting the FBI investigate the transaction.
Lindsey Wei, a senior from Pennsylvania, was among a group of students trying to organize a school sponsored trip to a war protest in Washington D.C. on Oct. 26. She said she hopes students will stay inspired from the speech and be driven to try to make a difference. "He's definitely one of our great Americans,:" said Vinny Natale of Montague, adding he was especially impressed by the description he gave of the realities of war.
You can reach the reporter, Arn Albertini at aalberti@recorder.com
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
For more information on Scott Ritter, from an interview by Jake Asbin at the Deerfield Academy event, visit the Flyby News Archive Issue:November 17, 2002 - Item 2
Scott Ritter: "The Case Against The U.S. War on Iraq"Please Note:
An edited version of Scott Ritter's Speech at Deerfield Academy is Now Available by Video Cassette by Turning Tide ProductionsSCOTT RITTER: "The Case Against The U.S. War on Iraq"
Turning Tide Productions • PO Box 864 · Wendell, MA 01379 · USA
Tel: 800-557-6414 · 978-544-8313 · Fax: 978-544-7989 Email: info@turningtide.com
Talk by former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq and former U.S. Marine given at Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, MA on October 15. Broadcast nationally on Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now" and on Free Speech TV. (55 minutes, VHS Video) Special Price (all categories): $29.95, plus $6 shipping & handling. To place your order now, call 1-800-557-6414. More details about this video is posted soon at Turning Tide Production's Web Site:
www.turningtide.comFlyby News highly recommends getting and showing SCOTT RITTER: "The Case Against The U.S. War on Iraq" - which was featured at our video/discussion event on the topic of "U.S. Democracy and Safeguarding Our Planet" -- at the Jones Library in Amherst, MA -- Tuesday 14 January 2003 (6:45 to 9:00 pm).
You can also visit Flyby News updated page on
Mid East Peace - initiatives and informationAlso, we suggest visiting Traprock Peace Center's web site:
traprockpeace.orgThis organization arranged for many public speaking engagements with Scott Ritter.
2) Kucinich Asks White House To Explain ContradictionsKucinich Asks White House To Explain Contradictions On Iraq, North Korea Nukes
From a Press Release (10-18-02) from the offices of Dennis J. Kucinich
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/pr-021018-contradictions.htmCongressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), who led the efforts in the US House of Representatives to defeat the Iraq war resolution, today publicly demanded that the White House explain why it did not inform the Congress of developments concerning North Korea's nuclear capability prior to the October 12th vote which authorized the President to take pre-emptive action.
Kucinich issued the following statement:
"The Administration had an obligation to inform Congress of North Korea's admission of nuclear capability. The nature of the debate in Congress would have been changed.
"Failure to disclose the facts about North Korea prior to the vote masks a significant contradiction in foreign policy. On October 4, the Administration learned that North Korea has an active nuclear weapons program, notwithstanding an agreement with the United States to give up such weapons and to commit to inspections. The Administration did not communicate these facts to the Congress or the American people. A week later the Administration, which has said Iraq may have nuclear weapons by 2010, convinced Congress to authorize military action.
"If the information concerning North Korea had been known before Congress voted on the Iraq resolution, it is reasonable to predict that many more members of Congress would have asked if a diplomatic route taken with North Korea would have been preferable with Iraq, too, especially since endorsement of preemption licenses North Korea to strike the South, and sets off the possibility of a string of other undesirable exchanges between rival countries.
"By withholding the information from Congress, members were denied the opportunity to consider the Iraq question in the broader context.
"The Administration is right to pursue diplomacy in resolving the crisis with North Korea's nuclear arms capability. But beating the drums for war against Iraq, which does not have similar weapons capability raises questions about the policy and intentions of the Administration."
For more information, link to Kucinich's press release:
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/pr-021018-contradictions.htmFor Flyby News' "Dennis Kucinich for President in 2004"
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1021307488,43210,m
3) Bush - Iraq War - and ArmageddonArmageddon
by Morgan Strong
October 19, 2002
When we go to war in Iraq we will do so to summon the Messiah. That is what the Christian right believes. The final battle to rid the world of all non believers, non-Christians, more exactly non-Evangelical Christians, is going to take place very soon at Armageddon in Israel. The Bible tells us so.
Rev. Jerry Falwell believes fully, and un-equivocally that we must go to war with Iraq to set in motion the cataclysmic events that will ensure the second coming of Jesus Christ. War with Iraq will lead to the end of the World, as we know it. God will reign and Jerry Falwell will sit at the right hand of God.
Israel will be no more. Israel will be destroyed during the apocalypse. Any Jews that survive anywhere will be converted to Christianity. Or more precisely, Evangelical Christianity.
The Moslems, the Jews, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Shintos, the Animists, the Voodooists, the Catholics, et al, will be converted to the Evangelical Christian legions of the Lord commanded by Jerry Falwell.
If you believe otherwise, if you believe that Biblical prophesies as interpreted by the Christian right are so much lunacy, you are in the helpless majority. Because the Christian right has extraordinary influence in the administration of President George Bush.
George Bush is one of their number. He does not attempt to hide this; he is quite deliberate in his public discussions of his re-birth, and his salvation. He was saved from a life of excess when he embraced the rigorous teachings of the Christian Evangelicals.
The Christian right managed, through the rebirth of George Bush, to gain a good measure of influence over the most powerful nation on this earth. The Christian right believes that only the apocalypse will purify the souls of the heretics, and the United States will be the instrument to bring forth God's wrath. The great resources, the military might, of the United States is part of the divine plan to bring the Apocalypse upon us.
Jerry Falwell has made the truth about the administration's desperate attempts to go to war with Iraq frighteningly clear. Falwell has said publicly he believes Mohammad the Prophet was evil. Falwell said that Mohammad was a terrorist. That is why he and the Christian fundamentalists support Israel in their battle against the Palestinians. Because the battle Israel is fighting against the Moslem Palestinians is to reclaim the lands of biblical Israel. Evangelicals believe the lands of ancient Israel must be reunited in order to fulfill the biblical prophesy of Christ's return to earth.
That is why George Bush makes no effort to stop Ariel Sharon's furious attempt to drive the Palestinians from the occupied territories. Sharon will restore the ancient Hebrew Kingdom, including Judea and Samaria, provinces which make up the modern-day West Bank. George Bush makes no effort to protect the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat because the Evangelicals tell him not to.
When President Bush told the Israelis to withdraw their tanks and troops from the occupied territories last April, Falwell sent him a letter of protest. Falwell had his followers send one hundred thousand emails to President Bush to support his demand. Israel did not withdraw its tanks and troops and George Bush stopped calling. George Bush has given Ariel Sharon a free hand since.
The Evangelicals are Bush's core support. They are the people who helped him defeat John McCain, who once called Jerry Falwell "evil". in the crucial South Carolina primary. Falwell's Evangelicals called thousandsof South Carolina voters to inform them that McCain has a black child. (McCain and his wife Cindy adopted a little girl from Bangladesh.) These righteous people do not believe in the mixing of the races. The Bible tells them the mixing of race is an abomination.
These same pious people, who await the coming of Christ, find nothing wrong with murdering doctors who perform abortions. These virtuous people and their leader are the same people who have condemned
homosexuals, and will never give women the right to an abortion. These devout people regard other religious beliefs as heresy. They want to go to war with Iraq so that millions will die in the apocalyptic horror that will follow for their own salvation.
What is frightening is the language President Bush uses when he describes Saddam and others as the "Evil Ones", the "Evil Doers," to incite the American people to war. They are the same descriptions;
carrying the same religious connotations, that Jerry Falwell and his flock employ to describe non-believers. George Bush is a child of their beliefs. George Bush seems to believe he and Ariel Sharon are locked in a struggle together against the "Evil Ones" for the world's salvation.
Sharon represents the key to the coming salvation. The Evangelicals adore him. Sharon has said often he wants to reclaim the land of ancient Israel. He believes the Palestinians have a homeland – called Jordan. He does not want peace with the Palestinians, and he does not want Iraq to remain a threat to Israel.
Sharon and Falwell have formed a partnership based on the lunacy of biblical prophecies, and the insanity of Sharon's vision of the resurrection of the ancient Hebrew Kingdom.
We, the majority of Americans, are only observers, and have no real influence to stop what will surely occur. There may be a reason for the war. Saddam is truly a very bad person. He should be removed. But he is not the only bad person who runs a country. Where do we stop? Or do we stop at the second coming?
What worries me is that we may be going to war to fulfill what a few deluded people believe to be biblical prophecy. And what really worries me is that we have a President who might believe this nonsense, too.
# # # #
Morgan Strong a former professor of Middle Eastern History at S.U.N.Y. Poughkeepsie, is a consultant to 60Minutes on the Middle East. He has written for Playboy, USA Today, Vanity Fair, and many other publications.
This article is posted at
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/strong1.html= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
For a somewhat related article:
The Bush Family and Nazi Blood Money by Victor Thorn, see:
"..What I'm trying to say is this: a good portion of the Bush Family's financial foundation was established through their assistance to Adolf Hitler. Can you feel the ramifications of this statement? The current President of the United States, plus his father (an ex-President, V.P., and CIA Director) rose to the top of the American political ladder because their grandfather and in-laws aided and abetted the Nazis. The questions I want to ask right now are:
1) Why won't President Bush admit to these family crimes?
2) Why won't the media directly question him about these abhorrent crimes?
Naturally, some may not believe that the Bush Family directly assisted the Germans, in essence committing treason against their own country. But sadly, it's true. To prove it, let's start at the beginning.."
For the complete article, see:
http://www.victorthorn.com/babel/issue79/bushnazi.html= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
And another one:
Addiction, Brain Damage and the President "Dry Drunk" Syndrome and George W. Bush
by KATHERINE van WORMER
"...Bush drank heavily for over 20 years until he made the decision to abstain at age 40. About this time he became a "born again Christian," going as usual from one extreme to the other. During an Oprah interview, Bush acknowledged that his wife had told him he needed to think about what he was doing. When asked in another interview about his reported drug use, he answered honestly, "I'm not going to talk about what I did 20 to 30 years ago."
...To summarize, George W. Bush manifests all the classic patterns of what alcoholics in recovery call "the dry drunk." His behavior is consistent with barely noticeable but meaningful brain damage brought on by years of heavy drinking and possible cocaine use. All the classic patterns of addictive thinking that are spelled out in my book are here:
..the tendency to go to extremes (leading America into a massive 100 billion dollar strike-first war); a "kill or be killed mentality;" the tunnel vision; "I" as opposed to "we" thinking; the black and white polarized thought processes (good versus evil, all or nothing thinking). His drive to finish his father's battles "
For the complete article, see:
http://www.counterpunch.org/wormer1011.html
4) Letter from Malik (10/17/02)The following is a letter from Malik with his response on being denied parole. If you have any ideas, or interest, please write, in revolutionary love..
Jonathan
"..I am sorry that I did not answer your letters sooner. I realize the exchanges between us are important to the spirit of our friendship, but the two year hit of the parole board set me back. I did think that because of my ailments they might have released me. I felt they just may have had a heart. I truly have tried to understand their decision with my limited capacity, but I can't make sense of it at all.
They went back in my history. Spoke of my political background with the Black Panther Party. They felt I would be a threat to the community. And since I didn't have a real force of show of support from the community, I could not prove them to be wrong. I have always had a good relationship with the community. Nobody from the community has ever felt threatened by me.
When I viewed the situation between the parole board and me, I felt like this . . . There is a story of a master locksmith who could open any lock in the world. He also had the imagination to create locks that nobody in the world could open. Once he was imprisoned for a crime he didn't do. As soon as he was alone he proceeded to pry the locked cell open. However, as soon as he saw the lock, he started to cry. He had discovered to his dismay that the lock, which held him prisoner, was his own creation, and therefore, impossible even for him to open. The moral of the tale is that the wounds we inflict on ourselves are the most egregious and the most painful. No one can hurt us as much as we can hurt ourselves. In fact, much of the harm that others cause us is partly the result of our behavior or lack of..
Psychologists have long noticed that people who are masochists, provoke others into hurting themselves. Even people in normal circumstances will, for one reason or another, draw the type of reaction from others that they themselves want. In relationships, we sometimes mold others into treating us in a certain way, even if that behavior is hurtful. Self-inflicted wounds are the most tragic and most difficult to treat... I say all of that to say, when the reality of the two-year finally hit me, I was deeply touched and moved closer to the edge of desperation. I turned into myself. I didn't want to be bothered. I have not written to anyone, nor have I spoken of the phone with anyone. I think the cruelest of this whole thing has been the pain, suffering of what my wife and daughter has been through emotionally, already, and now this all over again, and there is no telling that when I go back in two years that they won't hit me again. I have been and am prepared for anything.. In that sense, I have always looked for the worst, and hoped for the best. There can be no in between with me. We understand the law of opposites and once we have come to understand that, then we must move to neutralize that force which oppose us.
How can we do this? There were some mistakes made in the campaign to free me. I understand that I am not a celebrity case, and there is no money in the campaign.. but still, we can learn from mistakes, so that we can have some real chance of neutralizing the parole board. . . Do we want to do this? What steps should we begin in order to start this process? And.. we must take into account whether or not we want to take on this task of regrouping again?
I really don't know what further to say, because I have fallen out of words and the spirit just isn't in me to go on.
Much revolutionary love,
Malik Abdullah Akili
Prisoner # 94-A-5238
Collins Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 340
Collins, NY 14034-0340
For more on Malik and other prison/human rights issues, see:
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid999200948,87474,
A "Fair Use Policy" that describes Flyby News' use of copyrighted material is posted at flybynews.com.
Your feedback, networking Flyby News, and forwarding us articles of interest, are welcomed and appreciated. You can write to the publisher/editor Jonathan Mark
info@flybynews.com
FLYBY NEWS=====Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era====> = = = = = = www.flybynews.com = = = = =