ABSOLUT NOT MUHAMMED

REPEATING ABSOLUT NOT

PABLO NERUDA

POETRY FOREVER

BAN ON TORTURE

TORTURE IS FORBIDDEN FROM THIS DAY - JUST OBEY - OR FEEL THE WRATH AND ANGER OF CANUTE

In a recent speech to the Harvard community, Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, discussed both the ethical and practical implications of torture. His point was simple: not only is torture inherently wrong, but it also has the opposite effect than is intended.

Functional arguments regarding torture have typically taken a back seat to moral and ethical discussions. And when the practicality of torture is discussed it is often with regard to torture in general rather than specific situations. Torture doesn’t work, its critics say, because the information acquired through torture is often times false. Victims will simply admit to whatever their torturers want in order to stop the pain, and thus the information culled from such practices is never truly verifiable.

However, there has been little analysis of how torture affects dynamics between Arabs and Americans in the Middle East and what its larger implications are for the War on Terror. Some of the strongest proponents of the practice defend it on the grounds of the “ticking time bomb” scenario. Torture, they say, should not be a widespread practice but should be used in situations when it can save a large of number of lives that are immediately at risk (a ticking bomb, for example). This argument is particularly applicable to the case of terrorism, since stopping an imminent terrorist attack is a perfect example of a situation dire enough to warrant the use of torture. Torture, then, by this argument will serve to curb terrorism and will thwart future terrorist attacks.

The flaws with this line of reasoning are numerous. Without going into too much depth, these arguments fail to clearly specify what exactly constitutes a “ticking time bomb” situation. What if the attack is likely to occur tomorrow? What about next year? What if the prisoner doesn’t know anything directly about the imminent threat but knows the whereabouts of someone who does? What if he simply knows the cousin of the friend of the neighbor who might have some information about an upcoming attack? Clearly the dilemma of the slippery slope is a primary one in this model.

Yet the more profound flaw with this justification is that it fails to account for the effects of torture on the opinions and mindsets of Arab citizens. The discovery of the United States’ use of torture in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib provoked something of a public outcry among many Arab citizens. The perceived hypocrisy and racism of such practices increased the already existing hostility between American forces and Arab locals. Such hostility is much more likely to foster further terrorism than torturing is likely to thwart future attacks. Intelligence regarding terrorist plans is rarely acquired from forced confession but more often from anonymous tips or willing admissions given in a spirit of good faith. But the use of torture completely undermines the development of any sort of positive relationship between Americans and Arabs and in this way decreases the likelihood that such willing admission will occur. In addition, heightened hostility and increased tensions will induce more Arabs to resort to terrorism or guerilla warfare as an outlet for their anger and frustration. Such a response is quite contrary to what we ought to be working toward in the region and, as such, we ought to completely relinquish the use of torture against Arabs, whether they be terrorists or not.

http://hir.harvard.edu/blog/?p=33

CANUTE SPEAKING

DO NOT FEAR RUSSIA
CANUTE WILL NOT INVADE YOU
SO STOP CRYING YOUR HEART OUT

NEWSFLASH

Orthodox Jews Demand End to Zionist Atrocities in the Middle East

July 18 – New York

The brutal and indiscriminate attack upon the people and infrastructure of Lebanon by the Zionist State "Israel" is a crime against all basic standards of decency and humanity.

The excuse given for this murderous invasion was the attack by Hezbollah on the IDF. What this might have to do with the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese innocent men, women and children, who are subjected to an ongoing living hell, is beyond comprehension.

Indeed, this current aggression is only the second chapter of the recent viciousness; the first being the furious reinvasion of Gaza and the onslaught on its civilians and the ruination of its basic human services.

Of course, voices may be heard that the IDF are simply responding. This, of course, ignores the question of the evil, implicit in punishing blameless people for the deeds of others. And it totally ignores the root of the problem, the dispossession and subjugation of the Palestinian people which began in 1948, was expanded in 1967 and continues unabated to this day. The crux of the matter is that beyond the immorality of the Zionist treatment of the Palestinians is the ultimate fact -- the ideology of Zionism and ensuing establishment of the Zionist state conflicts with the basic teachings of Judaism.

Zionism is the transformation from Judaism, a G-dliness and spirituality, into a G-dlessness, materialism with nationalistic aspirations. Theodor Herzl and his cohorts, the fathers of this relatively new ideology of Zionism (approximately 100 years), have taken the Almighty out of the equation.

The ultimate establishment of the Zionist State, the fulfilment of the Zionist ideology, takes this blasphemy a step further. The Jewish people were sent into exile by Divine decree. They where then expressly commanded by the Almighty, not to attempt to leave their exilic existence through any human intervention. They were expressly forbidden to create their own state, such as the Zionist state of "Israel". (Talmud, Tractate Kesuboth, p.111).

The Jewish people are forbidden to oppress another people. The creation of the State of "Israel" came about through, the theft from, subjugation and oppression of, the Palestinian people.

Torah Jewry, therefore, condemns the horrifying suffering inflicted upon both the Palestinian and Lebanese people. Because of all of the above, all attempts to achieve peace and stability for "Israel" are destined to fail. The Creator cannot be defied with impunity.

The Rabbis stated, that the State of "Israel" will result in unending pain, suffering and bloodshed. May the Almighty protect His creations.

The State of "Israel" does not speak in the name of Jews, they have stolen the name "Israel" from the Jewish people. Jews are commanded to be loyal citizens in every country in which they reside.

Zionism and the State of "Israel", is the main cause of the exacerbation of anti Semitism universally.

The government of the illegitimate State of "Israel", continually attempts to uproot the Torah and its statutes. They persistently oppress the Torah true Jews who reside in its borders.

We pray that all misery in the Holy Land and Lebanon, shall come to an end and that Zionism, the root of the suffering, continue to fade from Jewish consciousness, to be replaced by the faith of Torah. We shall all witness soon the peaceful dismantlement of the Zionist State "Israel". May we merit seeing the day when all humanity will serve the Almighty in harmony and peace. Amen

(http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Statements/2006July18.cfm)

WANTED

WANTED ANTISEMITE AND MURDERER
USE EXTREME CAUTION
POSSIBLE RADIATION

From israelinsider:

Ringworm and Radiation
By Barry Chamish August 19, 2004


On August 14, at 9 PM, Israel's Channel Ten television screened a documentary film which exposes the ugliest secret of Israel's Labor party founders: the deliberate mass radiation poisoning of nearly all Sephardi youths of a generation.

"The Ringworm Children" (translated in Hebrew as "100,000 Rays"), directed by David Belhassen and Asher Hemias, recently won the prize for "best documentary" at the Haifa International film festival, and in the past year has made the rounds of Jewish and Israeli film festivals around the world. But it had yet to come to Israeli television screens. The subject is the mass irradiation of hundreds of thousands of young Israeli immigrants from Middle Eastern countries -- Sephardim, as they are called today. The story goes like this:

In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba, flew to America and returned with seven x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.

They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300 million Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60 million liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today.

To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on "school trips" and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, while many of the rest developed cancers that killed thousands over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.

That is the subject of the documentary in cold terms. It is another matter to see the victims on the screen.

To watch the Moroccan lady describe what getting 35,000 times the dose of allowable x-rays in her head feels like. "I screamed make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. But it never went away."

To watch the bearded man walk hunched down the street. "I'm in my fifties and everyone thinks I'm in my seventies. I have to stoop when I walk so I won't fall over. They took my youth away with those x-rays."

To watch the old lady who administered the doses to thousands of children: "They brought them in lines. First their heads were shaved and smeared in burning gel. Then a ball was put between their legs and the children were ordered not to drop it, so they wouldn't move. The children weren't protected over the rest of their bodies. There were no lead vests for them. I was told I was doing good by helping to remove ringworm. If I knew what dangers the children were facing, I would never have cooperated. Never!"

Because the whole body was exposed to the rays, the genetic makeup of the children was often altered, affecting the next generation. We watch the woman with the distorted face explain, "All three of my children have the same cancers my family suffered. Are you going to tell me that's a coincidence?"

The majority of the victims were Moroccan because they were the most numerous of the Sephardi immigrants. The generation that was poisoned became the country's perpetual poor and criminal class. It didn't make sense. The Moroccans who fled to France became prosperous and highly educated. The common explanation was that France got the rich, thus smart ones. The real explanation is that every French Moroccan child didn't have his brain cells fried with gamma rays.

The film made it perfectly plain that this operation was no accident. The dangers of x-rays had been known for over forty years. We read the official guidelines for x-ray treatment in 1952. The maximum dose to be given a child in Israel was .5 rad. There was no mistake made. The children were deliberately poisoned.

David Deri makes the point that only Sephardi children received the x-rays: "I was in class and the men came to take us on a tour. They asked our names. The Ashkenazi children were told to return to their seats. The dark children were put on the bus."

The film presents a historian who first gives a potted history of the eugenics movement. In a later sound bite, he declares that the ringworm operation was a eugenics program aimed at weeding out the perceived weak strains of society. The Moroccan lady is back on the screen. "It was a Holocaust, a Sephardi Holocaust. And what I want to know is why no one stood up to stop it."

David Deri, on film and then as a panel member, relates the frustration he encountered when trying to find his childhood medical records. "All I wanted to know was what they did to me. I wanted to know who authorized it. I wanted to trace the chain of command. But the Health Ministry told me my records were missing." Boaz Lev, the Health Ministry's spokesman chimes in: "Almost all the records were burned in a fire."

We are told that a US law in the late '40s put a stop to the human radiation experiments conducted on prisoners, the mentally feeble and the like. The American atomic program needed a new source of human lab rats and the Israeli government supplied it. Here was the government cabinet at the time of the ringworm atrocities:

Prime Minister - David Ben Gurion; Finance Minister - Eliezer Kaplan; Settlement Minister - Levi Eshkol; Foreign Minister - Moshe Sharrett; Health Minister - Yosef Burg;
Labor Minister - Golda Meir; Police Minister - Amos Ben Gurion.

The highest ranking non-cabinet post belonged to the Director General of the Defence Ministry, Shimon Peres.

That a program involving the equivalent of billions of dollars of American government funds should be unknown to the Prime Minister of cash-strapped Israel is ridiculous. Ben Gurion had to have been in on the horrors and undoubtedly chose his son to be Police Minister in case anyone interfered with them.

Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan was rewarded for eternity with a hospital named after him near Rehovot. But he's not alone in this honor. Chaim Sheba, who ran Ringworm Incorporated, had a whole medical complex named after him. Needless to say, if there is an ounce of decency in the local medical profession, those hospital names will have to change.

After the film ended, there was a panel discussion which included a Moroccan singer, David Edri, head of the Compensation Committee for Ringworm X-Ray Victims, and Boaz Lev, a spokesman for the Ministry Of Health.

TV host Dan Margalit tried to put a better face on what he'd witnessed. He explained meekly that "the state was poor. It was a matter of day to day survival." Then he stopped. He knew there was no excusing the atrocities which the Sephardi children endured.

But it was the Moroccan singer who summed up the experience best. "It's going to hurt, but the truth has to be told. If not, the wounds will never heal."

There is one person alive who knows the truth: Shimon Peres. The only way to get to the truth and start the healing is to investigate him for his role in the mass poisoning of over 100,000 Sephardi children and youth.

But here is why that won't happen. The film was aired at the same time as the highest-rated TV show of the year, the finale of Israel's talent-hunt show: "A Star Is Born." The next day, the newly-born star's photo took up half the front pages. There was not a word about "The Ringworm Children" in any paper, nor on the Internet. Until now.

Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.