The Lawyer
Freedom Lawyers of America
A site that will chronical the dark side of the news to show what happens when freedom is dying and to sell his books SHELLY WAXMAN'S BOOKS. We also foster and certify the proper use of independent contractors. http:independentcontractor.info CHECK OUR WEBSITE http://thelawyer.info WHERE YOU CAN ALSO ACCESS OUR FREEDOM LAWYERS YAHOO GROUPThursday, February 27, 2003
HERE ARE THE ARGUMENTS ON WAR OR NO WAR
"Peace is not an absence of war,
it is a virtue, a state of mind, a
disposition for benevolence,
confidence, justice."
�Benedict [Baruch] Spinoza
Although it�s been 58 years since the end of WW II, 50 years since the Korean War, 30 years since the Vietnam War, and 14 years since the end of the Cold War, these horrendous historical events left indelible imprints on the living memory of millions. Those wars, along with many lesser conflicts, invariably involved brutal tyrants and oppressive governments. These painful memories cause many in today�s world to instinctively reject any nation that smacks of militaristic imperialism, whether large or small, right or wrong. That imbedded psychology, aggravated by intense European political agendas, lies at the crux of the global controversy swirling around the impending US-led invasion of Iraq.
It is extremely difficult to separate emotion from objective analysis on the issue of Iraq, but we�ll try to frame the issues�pro and con�as clearly as we can. There is a broad spectrum of reasons why many reject US plans for a regime change in Iraq�some valid and well meaning, some perverse, some political, and some arising out of sheer ignorance. Like some lazy investors who refuse to do vital research before trading, many pro- and anti-war advocates adopt inflexible positions based on equal measures of ignorance. Many (stubbornly) don�t want to be bothered with real reasons or the facts. The net result is that the Iraq War issue, for many fatally flawed reasons, has inflamed global sensitivities to a level not seen in decades. Of course, our media-overloaded world frequently adds to the confusion.
"I never met anybody who wasn�t against war. Even Hitler and Mussolini were, according to themselves." (David Low, New York Times, February 10, 1946)
ANTI-WAR VIEW: Saddam has emphatically declared he does not want war, has outlawed weapons of mass destruction by presidential decree, and has mended his ways. The small country of Iraq can�t possibly be a threat to the superpower USA. Even if he hasn�t reformed, he can be effectively contained a la the Cold War USSR.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Saddam has repeatedly violated conditions of the 1991 Gulf War settlement to which he agreed. Coalition forces have spent $billions patrolling no-fly zones as Saddam has fired rockets at them repeatedly for 12 years. He brutally repressed and killed both Kurds and the Moslem Shiite population of southern Iraq after he signed the 1991 Gulf War agreement.
"Any excuse will serve a tyrant." �Aesop�s Fables, circa 550 B.C.
Iraq has a firm economy, society, and freely elected government
ANTI-WAR VIEW: The people of Iraq are among the most educated and free in the Mideast. The educational level is very high and most Iraqi people like their government and Saddam as evidenced by elections. Iraq�s people are innovative, industrious and enterprising. If not for UN sanctions and continued US pressure, hardship would not exist.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Saddam maintains control of Iraq by virtue of a brutal Stalinesque secret police. Civil rights and liberty are non-existent. No one dares speak out against the regime lest they be tortured or executed. In the words of Joachim von Ribbentrop: "The F�hrer is always right." Iraq�s economy is in shambles and its people destitute and reduced to refugee status. Unemployment is greater than 50% and the majority of those who are employed make between $4-$8 a month (the latter figure the salary of a physician that works in a primary health center). Most families are without economic resources as they have sold off their possessions over the last decade to survive. Saddam has grabbed proceeds of the UN�s oil-for-food program and funneled them into secret bank accounts abroad to fund terrorism and to continue his weapons of mass destruction programs instead of helping his people. A war against Iraq would be a war of liberation, not a war of conquest.
It�s all about oil
ANTI-WAR VIEW: President Bush, whose political base rests with multinational oil corporations, is hell-bent on grabbing Iraq�s huge oilfields for US interests. France and Russia, who have signed oil contracts with Saddam, are justified in their rejection of Bush�s oil grab.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Oil is indeed a factor. In 1990-91, Saddam grabbed Kuwait�s oilfields and was intent on capturing Saudi Arabia�s giant oilfields, which would have given him absolute control of the world�s largest oil reserves and a chokehold on the global economy. Indeed, the oil factor is strategically important; but for the entire world; but it�s far from the only factor.
Public Health in Iraq
ANTI-WAR VIEW: UN sanctions are responsible for the deplorable status of public health, and a war on Iraq will make it worse. A US medical doctor who recently returned from Iraq reported the following (which I�ve corroborated from independent sources as being largely correct):
-- 60% of Iraqis (almost 14 million people) depend entirely on a government provided food ration that by international standards is the minimum for human sustenance.
-- Hospital wards are filled with severely malnourished children and much of the population has a marginal nutritional status.
-- The food distribution program funded by the UN-supervised oil-for-food sales is the world's largest and is heavily dependent upon transportation that will be one of the first targets of the war. The US will sever transport routes to prevent Iraqi armed forces from movement or re-supply. The feeding program will be its first victim.
-- Even before the transportation system is hit, US aircraft will spread millions of graphite filaments in wind dispersed munitions that will cause a complete paralysis of the nation's electrical grids. Already literally held together with bailing wire, because they have been unable to obtain spare parts due to sanctions, the poorly functioning electrical system is essential to the public health infrastructure.
-- The water treatment system, too, has been a victim of sanctions. Unable to import chlorine and aluminum sulfate (alum) to purify water, there are already 1000% increases in the incidence of some waterborne diseases (typhoid cases have increased from 2200 in 1990 to more than 27,000 in 1999). People will not have potable water in their homes and they will not have water to flush their toilets.
-- The sanitation system, which frequently backs-up sewage ankle deep in Baghdad neighborhoods when the ailing pumps fail, will now have no pumps at all. There will be epidemics as water treatment and water pumping will come to a halt. Pregnant women, malnourished children, and the elderly will be the first to succumb. UNICEF estimates the
excess child mortality in the last ten years has been more than 500,000 and that figure will climb steeply in the aftermath of another war. They are part of the "collateral damage" from the last war.
-- The health care system of Iraq cannot handle an emergency of this nature even if there were not thousands of victims of "collateral damage" as we have promised a cruise missile every five minutes for the first 48 hours seeking out military, intelligence, and security forces around Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul, Iraq's largest cities.
The potential devastation can be summed up by the words of an American soldier in the ruins of a French village in 1944: "We sure liberated the hell out of this place."
PRO-WAR VIEW: Saddam is responsible for this humanitarian tragedy, as he has refused to cooperate with weapons inspectors and disarm, which would result in the dropping of UN sanctions and return to normal life. Saddam has confiscated UN oil-for-food funds and failed to help his own people. The tragedy is that the people in one of the potentially richest countries of the world are destitute because they have a psychopathic, power-hungry leader in the style of Hitler and Stalin, his self-professed idols. Remove Saddam�s regime and install a responsible government and you will solve medical and financial problems, not to mention reducing military threats within the Mideast and weapons of mass destruction and terrorist threats beyond. The US plans to begin dropping massive amounts of food and medical supplies immediately after the war begins, so hopefully this will fill the needs of Iraq�s people as war disrupts transportation, health and infrastructure systems.
Iraq has a right to defend its status as a sovereign nation
ANTI-WAR VIEW: The US-led coalition has no right to infringe on the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Saddam abrogated that right when he invaded Iran and Kuwait, and with his intention to topple the Saudi Arabian monarchy and control its oilfields and destabilize the world economy. Respect for sovereignty cannot be extended to a nation that does not reciprocate with respect for the sovereignty of other nations.
The War on Terrorism and the impending Iraq War are simply excuses by the US to create massive new Big Brother intelligence agencies that will usurp the civil liberties of people
ANTI-WAR VIEW: The Iraq War is simply a global extension of intrusive US Orwellian policies inaugurated post 9/11. "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." (William Pitt, House of Commons speech, Nov 18, 1783)
PRO-WAR VIEW: Al Qaeda terrorism, claimed by Secretary of State Colin Powell to be linked to Saddam Hussein, is a global threat that needs to be eradicated to avoid even greater acts of terrorism. Saddam�s aggressive tendencies to dominate Mideast oilfields have not changed. "We make war that we may live in peace." �Aristotle
A US-led coalition attack on Iraq will increase anti-US and anti-West sentiment in the Moslem world
ANTI-WAR VIEW: Many Moslems are tolerant of the US and West in general. But virtually all Moslem nations are opposed to a US-led war on Iraq. Saudi Arabia�s top religious scholar, Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, contended in a worldwide speech to Moslems during the annual haj in Mecca last week (The Economist, Feb 15): "� that the Muslim Ummah or nation being attacked, �economically and religiously�, reflects the common Muslim belief that America wants Iraq for its oil, and assaults Islamic morals in the guise of its war on terror." And, "Yousef Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born cleric based in Qatar, with a wide television following and a reputation for moderation, has denounced terrorism in the name of Islam. Yet, in a recent interview, Mr. Qaradawi declared that anyone killed while fighting to expel American forces from the Gulf would die a martyr. While praising the American people, he claimed that the [US] government was waging war against Islam."
In short, there is immense hostility in the Muslim world towards US policy. A US attack on Iraq will create widespread opposition and hatred in the Muslim world toward the US and the West for years to come. It will increase terrorism, not dampen it. While most Muslims disapprove of Osama bin Laden�s methods, they agree with his basic message: "Yankee go home." US plans to set up a post-Saddam occupation force headed by General Franks will not set well with Iraqis or other Mideast nations.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Many Saudis and Kuwaitis conveniently ignore the fact their nations would no longer exist if the US had not intervened in their defense in the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam has not changed and has failed abysmally to abide by terms of the 1991 Gulf War agreement by flagrantly violating 17 UN resolutions including the Security Council�s "last chance" Resolution 1441. Liberating Iraq will open the door for long overdue democratic and human rights reforms (especially with respect to women), not only in Iraq, but also across the Mideast. A US-led Iraq occupation force headed by General Franks will establish a sound basis for future political and economic policies just as US occupation forces successfully did in Japan and Germany after WW II, and as are now occurring in the Balkans and Afghanistan.
Physical risk to US troops and Iraqi Shiites
ANTI-WAR VIEW: The pro-war warriors are silent on the biggest risk. A military analyst said on NBC: Saddam apparently has anthrax weaponry in southern Iraq where US troops are scheduled to invade. If the anthrax is released, the risk is that 1-3 million Shiites in that region will die, along with an unknown number of US troops. The spores lie on the ground for weeks, fully effective. If the cost in lives of invading Iraq moves into the millions, the war�s plus factors won�t outweigh that.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Saddam has already proven by past actions he will not hesitate to use biological and chemical warfare against his own citizens, in time of war or not. Even without war this threat against the Shiites and Kurds remains. US troops are well aware of the dangers and are prepared to deal with the hazard.
Outside the Mideast, there is overwhelming opposition to the US-led coalition to attack Iraq
ANTI-WAR VIEW: 9/11 destroyed the judgment of the US on terrorism, and it�s now out-of-control. The US is running roughshod over world opinion and its allies, especially its vital allies France and Germany. The US is following a pattern begun by Nazi Germany.
PRO-WAR VIEW: French President Chirac�s contention that "more inspectors" is the way to disarm Iraq is ludicrous. Saddam has repeatedly violated UN resolutions for 12 years and continually led weapons inspectors on a merry chase. It was never the job of inspectors to disarm Iraq, but only for them to verify that Iraq was disarming itself. France agreed to UN Resolution 1441, which was a "last chance" for Saddam, and now it doesn�t want to live up to the very resolution it helped draft and signed. The EU will soon consist of 25 members and 18 of those governments have already expressed solidarity with the US position on Iraq. Recent polls indicate a majority of Europeans don�t favor a US-led war against Iraq without UN approval. But with UN approval, a majority of Europeans is in favor. It appears France and Germany, not the US, are the ones running roughshod over European opinion. The Economist (Feb 15) says: "Europeans are more divided among themselves than Europeans and Americans are."
NATO�s integrity was severely tested recently by France and Germany�s reluctance to join in the defense of fellow member Turkey. The UN Security Council is on the verge of becoming a feckless organization as France, Russia and China are threatening to veto the Iraq war after voting for prior resolutions that Saddam has repeatedly violated and which they no longer wish to enforce. Chancellor Schr�der revealed all recently when he said the spat between the US and the EU (mainly just France, Germany and Belgium) over the Iraq war is really an issue of "European sovereignty." An emergency EU meeting was held on February 17th to try to repair the damage France and Germany have caused in Europe with their go-it-alone, anti-US foreign policy. Regarding NATO and the EU, The Economist (Feb 25) says: "Germany, France and Belgium have undermined that confidence, perhaps fatally."
In Conclusion
ANTI-WAR VIEW: An Iraq invasion will inflame extremists in every Arab nation, which may lead to assassinations & takeovers of now friendly Arab nations by the radicals, which will turn most of the Middle East into a solid anti-US bastion, & cut off most Middle East oil from the US & the West (and/or double the oil price). The risk here is in excess of the lofty theories that some Arab governments will be democratized after seeing Iraq "liberated." US leadership has not evaluated the risks of this invasion properly. The plus factors are largely theoretical and/or are based on everything going perfectly. They never do, especially in a war. In sum: the risks far outweigh the potential gains. The risks may not eventuate, but if they do, the US will inherit evil winds of mammoth size that will change the world, for the worst, for decades to come. Even if the US attack succeeds 100%, it will not have been worth the risks that are involved. It is the equivalent of betting your home on a roll of the dice. A gamble too far.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Many see the US as an imperialistic nation, but others prefer to believe the words of Thomas Jefferson regarding US intentions: "Whensoever hostile aggressions � require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies." Or Albert Einstein: "Our defense is not in armaments, nor in science, nor in going underground. Our defense is in law and order." There is indeed great risk in an Iraq war; but history has painfully shown there is an equally great risk in failing to stand up to tyrants, and allowing them to increase their power and spread their terror unchecked.
That�s just a sampling of Anti-War and Pro-War Views. Most will find themselves agreeing with some Anti-War Views on some issues and Pro-War Views on others. The position of those with Anti-War Views is clear, but what they often fail to realize is that those with Pro-War Views are for the most part extremely reluctant warriors, who simply see the war option as the unavoidable choice in a bad situation. Either side could be wrong or right; or both sides partly wrong and partly right. Inshallah!
"With reasonable men, I will reason;
with humane men I will plead;
but to tyrants I will give no quarter,
nor waste arguments where
they will certainly be lost."
�William Lloyd Garrison
it is a virtue, a state of mind, a
disposition for benevolence,
confidence, justice."
�Benedict [Baruch] Spinoza
Although it�s been 58 years since the end of WW II, 50 years since the Korean War, 30 years since the Vietnam War, and 14 years since the end of the Cold War, these horrendous historical events left indelible imprints on the living memory of millions. Those wars, along with many lesser conflicts, invariably involved brutal tyrants and oppressive governments. These painful memories cause many in today�s world to instinctively reject any nation that smacks of militaristic imperialism, whether large or small, right or wrong. That imbedded psychology, aggravated by intense European political agendas, lies at the crux of the global controversy swirling around the impending US-led invasion of Iraq.
It is extremely difficult to separate emotion from objective analysis on the issue of Iraq, but we�ll try to frame the issues�pro and con�as clearly as we can. There is a broad spectrum of reasons why many reject US plans for a regime change in Iraq�some valid and well meaning, some perverse, some political, and some arising out of sheer ignorance. Like some lazy investors who refuse to do vital research before trading, many pro- and anti-war advocates adopt inflexible positions based on equal measures of ignorance. Many (stubbornly) don�t want to be bothered with real reasons or the facts. The net result is that the Iraq War issue, for many fatally flawed reasons, has inflamed global sensitivities to a level not seen in decades. Of course, our media-overloaded world frequently adds to the confusion.
"I never met anybody who wasn�t against war. Even Hitler and Mussolini were, according to themselves." (David Low, New York Times, February 10, 1946)
ANTI-WAR VIEW: Saddam has emphatically declared he does not want war, has outlawed weapons of mass destruction by presidential decree, and has mended his ways. The small country of Iraq can�t possibly be a threat to the superpower USA. Even if he hasn�t reformed, he can be effectively contained a la the Cold War USSR.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Saddam has repeatedly violated conditions of the 1991 Gulf War settlement to which he agreed. Coalition forces have spent $billions patrolling no-fly zones as Saddam has fired rockets at them repeatedly for 12 years. He brutally repressed and killed both Kurds and the Moslem Shiite population of southern Iraq after he signed the 1991 Gulf War agreement.
"Any excuse will serve a tyrant." �Aesop�s Fables, circa 550 B.C.
Iraq has a firm economy, society, and freely elected government
ANTI-WAR VIEW: The people of Iraq are among the most educated and free in the Mideast. The educational level is very high and most Iraqi people like their government and Saddam as evidenced by elections. Iraq�s people are innovative, industrious and enterprising. If not for UN sanctions and continued US pressure, hardship would not exist.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Saddam maintains control of Iraq by virtue of a brutal Stalinesque secret police. Civil rights and liberty are non-existent. No one dares speak out against the regime lest they be tortured or executed. In the words of Joachim von Ribbentrop: "The F�hrer is always right." Iraq�s economy is in shambles and its people destitute and reduced to refugee status. Unemployment is greater than 50% and the majority of those who are employed make between $4-$8 a month (the latter figure the salary of a physician that works in a primary health center). Most families are without economic resources as they have sold off their possessions over the last decade to survive. Saddam has grabbed proceeds of the UN�s oil-for-food program and funneled them into secret bank accounts abroad to fund terrorism and to continue his weapons of mass destruction programs instead of helping his people. A war against Iraq would be a war of liberation, not a war of conquest.
It�s all about oil
ANTI-WAR VIEW: President Bush, whose political base rests with multinational oil corporations, is hell-bent on grabbing Iraq�s huge oilfields for US interests. France and Russia, who have signed oil contracts with Saddam, are justified in their rejection of Bush�s oil grab.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Oil is indeed a factor. In 1990-91, Saddam grabbed Kuwait�s oilfields and was intent on capturing Saudi Arabia�s giant oilfields, which would have given him absolute control of the world�s largest oil reserves and a chokehold on the global economy. Indeed, the oil factor is strategically important; but for the entire world; but it�s far from the only factor.
Public Health in Iraq
ANTI-WAR VIEW: UN sanctions are responsible for the deplorable status of public health, and a war on Iraq will make it worse. A US medical doctor who recently returned from Iraq reported the following (which I�ve corroborated from independent sources as being largely correct):
-- 60% of Iraqis (almost 14 million people) depend entirely on a government provided food ration that by international standards is the minimum for human sustenance.
-- Hospital wards are filled with severely malnourished children and much of the population has a marginal nutritional status.
-- The food distribution program funded by the UN-supervised oil-for-food sales is the world's largest and is heavily dependent upon transportation that will be one of the first targets of the war. The US will sever transport routes to prevent Iraqi armed forces from movement or re-supply. The feeding program will be its first victim.
-- Even before the transportation system is hit, US aircraft will spread millions of graphite filaments in wind dispersed munitions that will cause a complete paralysis of the nation's electrical grids. Already literally held together with bailing wire, because they have been unable to obtain spare parts due to sanctions, the poorly functioning electrical system is essential to the public health infrastructure.
-- The water treatment system, too, has been a victim of sanctions. Unable to import chlorine and aluminum sulfate (alum) to purify water, there are already 1000% increases in the incidence of some waterborne diseases (typhoid cases have increased from 2200 in 1990 to more than 27,000 in 1999). People will not have potable water in their homes and they will not have water to flush their toilets.
-- The sanitation system, which frequently backs-up sewage ankle deep in Baghdad neighborhoods when the ailing pumps fail, will now have no pumps at all. There will be epidemics as water treatment and water pumping will come to a halt. Pregnant women, malnourished children, and the elderly will be the first to succumb. UNICEF estimates the
excess child mortality in the last ten years has been more than 500,000 and that figure will climb steeply in the aftermath of another war. They are part of the "collateral damage" from the last war.
-- The health care system of Iraq cannot handle an emergency of this nature even if there were not thousands of victims of "collateral damage" as we have promised a cruise missile every five minutes for the first 48 hours seeking out military, intelligence, and security forces around Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul, Iraq's largest cities.
The potential devastation can be summed up by the words of an American soldier in the ruins of a French village in 1944: "We sure liberated the hell out of this place."
PRO-WAR VIEW: Saddam is responsible for this humanitarian tragedy, as he has refused to cooperate with weapons inspectors and disarm, which would result in the dropping of UN sanctions and return to normal life. Saddam has confiscated UN oil-for-food funds and failed to help his own people. The tragedy is that the people in one of the potentially richest countries of the world are destitute because they have a psychopathic, power-hungry leader in the style of Hitler and Stalin, his self-professed idols. Remove Saddam�s regime and install a responsible government and you will solve medical and financial problems, not to mention reducing military threats within the Mideast and weapons of mass destruction and terrorist threats beyond. The US plans to begin dropping massive amounts of food and medical supplies immediately after the war begins, so hopefully this will fill the needs of Iraq�s people as war disrupts transportation, health and infrastructure systems.
Iraq has a right to defend its status as a sovereign nation
ANTI-WAR VIEW: The US-led coalition has no right to infringe on the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Saddam abrogated that right when he invaded Iran and Kuwait, and with his intention to topple the Saudi Arabian monarchy and control its oilfields and destabilize the world economy. Respect for sovereignty cannot be extended to a nation that does not reciprocate with respect for the sovereignty of other nations.
The War on Terrorism and the impending Iraq War are simply excuses by the US to create massive new Big Brother intelligence agencies that will usurp the civil liberties of people
ANTI-WAR VIEW: The Iraq War is simply a global extension of intrusive US Orwellian policies inaugurated post 9/11. "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." (William Pitt, House of Commons speech, Nov 18, 1783)
PRO-WAR VIEW: Al Qaeda terrorism, claimed by Secretary of State Colin Powell to be linked to Saddam Hussein, is a global threat that needs to be eradicated to avoid even greater acts of terrorism. Saddam�s aggressive tendencies to dominate Mideast oilfields have not changed. "We make war that we may live in peace." �Aristotle
A US-led coalition attack on Iraq will increase anti-US and anti-West sentiment in the Moslem world
ANTI-WAR VIEW: Many Moslems are tolerant of the US and West in general. But virtually all Moslem nations are opposed to a US-led war on Iraq. Saudi Arabia�s top religious scholar, Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, contended in a worldwide speech to Moslems during the annual haj in Mecca last week (The Economist, Feb 15): "� that the Muslim Ummah or nation being attacked, �economically and religiously�, reflects the common Muslim belief that America wants Iraq for its oil, and assaults Islamic morals in the guise of its war on terror." And, "Yousef Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born cleric based in Qatar, with a wide television following and a reputation for moderation, has denounced terrorism in the name of Islam. Yet, in a recent interview, Mr. Qaradawi declared that anyone killed while fighting to expel American forces from the Gulf would die a martyr. While praising the American people, he claimed that the [US] government was waging war against Islam."
In short, there is immense hostility in the Muslim world towards US policy. A US attack on Iraq will create widespread opposition and hatred in the Muslim world toward the US and the West for years to come. It will increase terrorism, not dampen it. While most Muslims disapprove of Osama bin Laden�s methods, they agree with his basic message: "Yankee go home." US plans to set up a post-Saddam occupation force headed by General Franks will not set well with Iraqis or other Mideast nations.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Many Saudis and Kuwaitis conveniently ignore the fact their nations would no longer exist if the US had not intervened in their defense in the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam has not changed and has failed abysmally to abide by terms of the 1991 Gulf War agreement by flagrantly violating 17 UN resolutions including the Security Council�s "last chance" Resolution 1441. Liberating Iraq will open the door for long overdue democratic and human rights reforms (especially with respect to women), not only in Iraq, but also across the Mideast. A US-led Iraq occupation force headed by General Franks will establish a sound basis for future political and economic policies just as US occupation forces successfully did in Japan and Germany after WW II, and as are now occurring in the Balkans and Afghanistan.
Physical risk to US troops and Iraqi Shiites
ANTI-WAR VIEW: The pro-war warriors are silent on the biggest risk. A military analyst said on NBC: Saddam apparently has anthrax weaponry in southern Iraq where US troops are scheduled to invade. If the anthrax is released, the risk is that 1-3 million Shiites in that region will die, along with an unknown number of US troops. The spores lie on the ground for weeks, fully effective. If the cost in lives of invading Iraq moves into the millions, the war�s plus factors won�t outweigh that.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Saddam has already proven by past actions he will not hesitate to use biological and chemical warfare against his own citizens, in time of war or not. Even without war this threat against the Shiites and Kurds remains. US troops are well aware of the dangers and are prepared to deal with the hazard.
Outside the Mideast, there is overwhelming opposition to the US-led coalition to attack Iraq
ANTI-WAR VIEW: 9/11 destroyed the judgment of the US on terrorism, and it�s now out-of-control. The US is running roughshod over world opinion and its allies, especially its vital allies France and Germany. The US is following a pattern begun by Nazi Germany.
PRO-WAR VIEW: French President Chirac�s contention that "more inspectors" is the way to disarm Iraq is ludicrous. Saddam has repeatedly violated UN resolutions for 12 years and continually led weapons inspectors on a merry chase. It was never the job of inspectors to disarm Iraq, but only for them to verify that Iraq was disarming itself. France agreed to UN Resolution 1441, which was a "last chance" for Saddam, and now it doesn�t want to live up to the very resolution it helped draft and signed. The EU will soon consist of 25 members and 18 of those governments have already expressed solidarity with the US position on Iraq. Recent polls indicate a majority of Europeans don�t favor a US-led war against Iraq without UN approval. But with UN approval, a majority of Europeans is in favor. It appears France and Germany, not the US, are the ones running roughshod over European opinion. The Economist (Feb 15) says: "Europeans are more divided among themselves than Europeans and Americans are."
NATO�s integrity was severely tested recently by France and Germany�s reluctance to join in the defense of fellow member Turkey. The UN Security Council is on the verge of becoming a feckless organization as France, Russia and China are threatening to veto the Iraq war after voting for prior resolutions that Saddam has repeatedly violated and which they no longer wish to enforce. Chancellor Schr�der revealed all recently when he said the spat between the US and the EU (mainly just France, Germany and Belgium) over the Iraq war is really an issue of "European sovereignty." An emergency EU meeting was held on February 17th to try to repair the damage France and Germany have caused in Europe with their go-it-alone, anti-US foreign policy. Regarding NATO and the EU, The Economist (Feb 25) says: "Germany, France and Belgium have undermined that confidence, perhaps fatally."
In Conclusion
ANTI-WAR VIEW: An Iraq invasion will inflame extremists in every Arab nation, which may lead to assassinations & takeovers of now friendly Arab nations by the radicals, which will turn most of the Middle East into a solid anti-US bastion, & cut off most Middle East oil from the US & the West (and/or double the oil price). The risk here is in excess of the lofty theories that some Arab governments will be democratized after seeing Iraq "liberated." US leadership has not evaluated the risks of this invasion properly. The plus factors are largely theoretical and/or are based on everything going perfectly. They never do, especially in a war. In sum: the risks far outweigh the potential gains. The risks may not eventuate, but if they do, the US will inherit evil winds of mammoth size that will change the world, for the worst, for decades to come. Even if the US attack succeeds 100%, it will not have been worth the risks that are involved. It is the equivalent of betting your home on a roll of the dice. A gamble too far.
PRO-WAR VIEW: Many see the US as an imperialistic nation, but others prefer to believe the words of Thomas Jefferson regarding US intentions: "Whensoever hostile aggressions � require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies." Or Albert Einstein: "Our defense is not in armaments, nor in science, nor in going underground. Our defense is in law and order." There is indeed great risk in an Iraq war; but history has painfully shown there is an equally great risk in failing to stand up to tyrants, and allowing them to increase their power and spread their terror unchecked.
That�s just a sampling of Anti-War and Pro-War Views. Most will find themselves agreeing with some Anti-War Views on some issues and Pro-War Views on others. The position of those with Anti-War Views is clear, but what they often fail to realize is that those with Pro-War Views are for the most part extremely reluctant warriors, who simply see the war option as the unavoidable choice in a bad situation. Either side could be wrong or right; or both sides partly wrong and partly right. Inshallah!
"With reasonable men, I will reason;
with humane men I will plead;
but to tyrants I will give no quarter,
nor waste arguments where
they will certainly be lost."
�William Lloyd Garrison
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
WAR THIS WEEKEND, OIL AND THE STOCKMARKET
War is a market plus, peace is not
Friedman: Bush's future rides on imminent invasion
By Thom Calandra, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 10:41 AM ET Feb 26, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - A veteran intelligence analyst says Washington almost surely will choose a full-out war against Iraq, as soon as this weekend over the moonless Arab desert.
With that first strike, says Strategic Forecasting founder George Friedman, President Bush will have lodged the centerpiece of his administration's foreign policy: a global effort to oust Saddam Hussein and root out international terrorists. The president also will have sparked greater technology spending, a significant stock-market rally and a collapse in energy prices.
"He really has no choice," says Friedman, who explains how the president has a bleak political future if America capitulates to Iraq, or the United Nations. "His biggest problem is that right after Sept. 11 (2001) he was decisive, and now he has dragged this out so long."
Friedman, as chairman of 7-year-old Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor.com, is something of a pioneer in the field of private intelligence. The former director of the center for geopolitical studies at Louisiana State University publishes regularly on national security, warfare and computer security. His books include "The Future of War" (Crown, 1997), "The Intelligence Edge" (Crown, 1997) and "The Coming War with Japan" (St. Martin's Press, 1991).
In Friedman's view, Bush has hemmed himself in politically and strategically. On the political front, "no attack on Iraq" leaves America, and the world, with a lame-duck president, abandoned by his right-wing allies and scorned by those to his left.
"Imagine, Bush throws up his hands and says, 'No international coalition, so I am not going to invade.' The left wingers say they stopped the lunatic. The right wing bolts. We have now a two-year lame duck. Can you say President McCain? Bush will be crippled," Friedman tells me from his office in Austin, Texas.
Many investors fail to interpret correctly the fast-moving events leading up to war, he says. The financial media seems to be under the impression that peace will bring with it lower oil prices and a relief rally in the stock market. Not so, says this analyst.
"If the scenario the market regards as bullish comes to pass, which is the U.S. makes the decision not to attack, the consequences will be intense. Saddam Hussein becomes a hero of the Arab world. The United States appear weak, and the foundations underneath Bush will crumble," Friedman tells me. "The financial markets, as they always do, will react badly when the Republican leadership dissolves."
In the Middle East, a stalemate "leaves Kuwait hung out to dry. Israel will become much more aggressive in its own defense. And strategically, the United States does not have the Iraq base of operations to pursue its war against terrorism," he says.
Friedman, in a long career of mixing geo-political and economic forecasts, says he is always amazed at how markets - energy, currency, stocks and bonds -- react irrationally at the perceived threat of war.
"The short-term market has an IQ of 60. The long-term market is a genius," says Friedman, who offers his opinion on where the smart money is headed later in this article. "Yet we all talk about the market as if it is one entity."
Of note is the fact that speculators in the past three months have bid up prices of crude oil, natural gas and other energy products. At one point in frenzied trading this week, natural gas futures contracts were trading at double their price of mid-November, and at least one energy executive was proclaiming a "new era" of higher prices for natural gas, a crude-oil alternative. See: Energy market set to tumble.
"Iraq exports 1.7 million barrels of oil a day," Friedman explains. "In the event of a total catastrophic war, the world markets will lose just 1.7 million barrels at a time when Venezuela oil is coming back online and many producers, like Saudi Arabia, want to fill that capacity. The rising oil market is acting how it always does in the short term, irrationally."
Friedman says Saudi Arabia and other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are eager to boost production in a bid to replenish their dwindling financial coffers. "Every major producer has some surplus capacity and is eager to fill it because they have cash-flow problems," Friedman says. "In the '73 oil crisis, the debt structure of these countries was absolutely different. In '73, the Saudis could sit on their oil. Now they can't."
Friedman fully expects that if, or indeed, when, America goes to war, and the war is rapidly successful, "the war premium gets squeezed out of energy markets. The prospect of cheaper oil now and in a year or two is very bullish for most financial markets."
On timing, Friedman says an attack is probably imminent. This weekend offers a moonless night over Iraq's desert sands. U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, who will have responsibility for an invasion of Iraq, arrived at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar earlier in the week.
"This is the best weekend militarily to do it," Friedman says. "There is no moon, and if you ever have been on the desert in special operations, you know you don't want a moon when you need to take bridges and other strategic posts."
The war in Iraq, Friedman is telling his clients, is simply a campaign in a "much longer and much more complex war, and the forces that invade Iraq will remain there, for future potential operations (against terrorists)."
Friedman dismisses talk that the court of public opinion will lead to a peaceful solution in Iraq. Opinion polls still show a majority of Americans who support an invasion of Iraq. "Public opinion around the world does not matter that much," says Friedman, who says "elitist" European opinions about America's motives actually benefit the Bush administration's domestic approval ratings. "The U.S. is never going to be loved."
What's more, France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder are in their own political deep water. "Schroeder is sitting there with a 25 percent popularity rating. Chirac and Schroeder are committed to the European Union but the EU is badly split on several issues, not just the war. The French want the EU to be a vehicle for French foreign policy, but the Spanish and the Italians don't," he says.
Friedman says an invasion, whether it is immediately successful or a one-year affair, will boost technology spending. "Historically, wars have been stimulative," says the analyst and author, who scoffs at the notion the war will rack up costs of $1.3 trillion, as some have forecast. "Deficit spending is stimulative. The antidote of a deflation scenario is a deficit. Wars also drive technology. Oracle (ORCL) was created to give the Navy a database."
I asked Stratfor.com's Friedman where he thought the long-term money, the smart money, was headed. "In general, I don't believe in smart money," he says. "Everyone I knew who was smart bought dot.coms. The definition of smart is to be unstable. The official smart money that I talk to is incredibly confused. Some believe in deflation, others are buying commodities--some believe in deflation and are buying commodities."
He sees profits in stocks, especially those tied to security issues.
"We believe that with the yield curve positive and net free reserves positive - in other words, a healthy, liquid financial market -- equity markets are the place to be over the long run," Friedman says. "We are particularly interested in technologies that will become important in homeland defense and the extended war-fighting we will be seeing in the eastern hemisphere. The smartest people I know are positioning themselves to take advantage of technologies that feed into federal purchasing for the war."
Friedman: Bush's future rides on imminent invasion
By Thom Calandra, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 10:41 AM ET Feb 26, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - A veteran intelligence analyst says Washington almost surely will choose a full-out war against Iraq, as soon as this weekend over the moonless Arab desert.
With that first strike, says Strategic Forecasting founder George Friedman, President Bush will have lodged the centerpiece of his administration's foreign policy: a global effort to oust Saddam Hussein and root out international terrorists. The president also will have sparked greater technology spending, a significant stock-market rally and a collapse in energy prices.
"He really has no choice," says Friedman, who explains how the president has a bleak political future if America capitulates to Iraq, or the United Nations. "His biggest problem is that right after Sept. 11 (2001) he was decisive, and now he has dragged this out so long."
Friedman, as chairman of 7-year-old Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor.com, is something of a pioneer in the field of private intelligence. The former director of the center for geopolitical studies at Louisiana State University publishes regularly on national security, warfare and computer security. His books include "The Future of War" (Crown, 1997), "The Intelligence Edge" (Crown, 1997) and "The Coming War with Japan" (St. Martin's Press, 1991).
In Friedman's view, Bush has hemmed himself in politically and strategically. On the political front, "no attack on Iraq" leaves America, and the world, with a lame-duck president, abandoned by his right-wing allies and scorned by those to his left.
"Imagine, Bush throws up his hands and says, 'No international coalition, so I am not going to invade.' The left wingers say they stopped the lunatic. The right wing bolts. We have now a two-year lame duck. Can you say President McCain? Bush will be crippled," Friedman tells me from his office in Austin, Texas.
Many investors fail to interpret correctly the fast-moving events leading up to war, he says. The financial media seems to be under the impression that peace will bring with it lower oil prices and a relief rally in the stock market. Not so, says this analyst.
"If the scenario the market regards as bullish comes to pass, which is the U.S. makes the decision not to attack, the consequences will be intense. Saddam Hussein becomes a hero of the Arab world. The United States appear weak, and the foundations underneath Bush will crumble," Friedman tells me. "The financial markets, as they always do, will react badly when the Republican leadership dissolves."
In the Middle East, a stalemate "leaves Kuwait hung out to dry. Israel will become much more aggressive in its own defense. And strategically, the United States does not have the Iraq base of operations to pursue its war against terrorism," he says.
Friedman, in a long career of mixing geo-political and economic forecasts, says he is always amazed at how markets - energy, currency, stocks and bonds -- react irrationally at the perceived threat of war.
"The short-term market has an IQ of 60. The long-term market is a genius," says Friedman, who offers his opinion on where the smart money is headed later in this article. "Yet we all talk about the market as if it is one entity."
Of note is the fact that speculators in the past three months have bid up prices of crude oil, natural gas and other energy products. At one point in frenzied trading this week, natural gas futures contracts were trading at double their price of mid-November, and at least one energy executive was proclaiming a "new era" of higher prices for natural gas, a crude-oil alternative. See: Energy market set to tumble.
"Iraq exports 1.7 million barrels of oil a day," Friedman explains. "In the event of a total catastrophic war, the world markets will lose just 1.7 million barrels at a time when Venezuela oil is coming back online and many producers, like Saudi Arabia, want to fill that capacity. The rising oil market is acting how it always does in the short term, irrationally."
Friedman says Saudi Arabia and other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are eager to boost production in a bid to replenish their dwindling financial coffers. "Every major producer has some surplus capacity and is eager to fill it because they have cash-flow problems," Friedman says. "In the '73 oil crisis, the debt structure of these countries was absolutely different. In '73, the Saudis could sit on their oil. Now they can't."
Friedman fully expects that if, or indeed, when, America goes to war, and the war is rapidly successful, "the war premium gets squeezed out of energy markets. The prospect of cheaper oil now and in a year or two is very bullish for most financial markets."
On timing, Friedman says an attack is probably imminent. This weekend offers a moonless night over Iraq's desert sands. U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, who will have responsibility for an invasion of Iraq, arrived at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar earlier in the week.
"This is the best weekend militarily to do it," Friedman says. "There is no moon, and if you ever have been on the desert in special operations, you know you don't want a moon when you need to take bridges and other strategic posts."
The war in Iraq, Friedman is telling his clients, is simply a campaign in a "much longer and much more complex war, and the forces that invade Iraq will remain there, for future potential operations (against terrorists)."
Friedman dismisses talk that the court of public opinion will lead to a peaceful solution in Iraq. Opinion polls still show a majority of Americans who support an invasion of Iraq. "Public opinion around the world does not matter that much," says Friedman, who says "elitist" European opinions about America's motives actually benefit the Bush administration's domestic approval ratings. "The U.S. is never going to be loved."
What's more, France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder are in their own political deep water. "Schroeder is sitting there with a 25 percent popularity rating. Chirac and Schroeder are committed to the European Union but the EU is badly split on several issues, not just the war. The French want the EU to be a vehicle for French foreign policy, but the Spanish and the Italians don't," he says.
Friedman says an invasion, whether it is immediately successful or a one-year affair, will boost technology spending. "Historically, wars have been stimulative," says the analyst and author, who scoffs at the notion the war will rack up costs of $1.3 trillion, as some have forecast. "Deficit spending is stimulative. The antidote of a deflation scenario is a deficit. Wars also drive technology. Oracle (ORCL) was created to give the Navy a database."
I asked Stratfor.com's Friedman where he thought the long-term money, the smart money, was headed. "In general, I don't believe in smart money," he says. "Everyone I knew who was smart bought dot.coms. The definition of smart is to be unstable. The official smart money that I talk to is incredibly confused. Some believe in deflation, others are buying commodities--some believe in deflation and are buying commodities."
He sees profits in stocks, especially those tied to security issues.
"We believe that with the yield curve positive and net free reserves positive - in other words, a healthy, liquid financial market -- equity markets are the place to be over the long run," Friedman says. "We are particularly interested in technologies that will become important in homeland defense and the extended war-fighting we will be seeing in the eastern hemisphere. The smartest people I know are positioning themselves to take advantage of technologies that feed into federal purchasing for the war."
THIS IS LONG BUT IT IS THE TRUTH--IF THAT IS IMPORTANT THESE DAYS
Editor's note: The following column is adapted from remarks made by Joseph Farah at a Christian Coalition symposium on Islam Feb. 15 in Washington, D.C., and subsequently broadcast twice on C-SPAN. Hundreds of C-SPAN viewers have written requesting transcripts of the speech. This is an abbreviated version of the talk.
Posted: February 24, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern � 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31194
I've been really bugged, especially since Sept. 11, 2001, by all the self-proclaimed Arab-American and Muslim-American spokesmen I see on the talking-head shows.
What bugs me is the way they show no appreciation for just how tolerant and open-minded and non-judgmental the American people really are toward them and the Arab and Muslim world. Americans are so good, so fair and so understanding. They are anything but quick to generalize and stereotype � even when doing so would clearly be in their best interest.
Over a two-day period this week, I had to take nine different airline flights and go through nine different airport security checkpoints.
Not once during that two-day period did I ever get a second glance from any security person. Not once was I subject to any extra checks.
Now, I am an Arab-American. I have an Arab face and an Arab name. But I didn't get a second look. Meanwhile, I saw young mothers with little babies struggling to make it through extra security. I saw little old grandmothers facing the indignities of extra checks.
And all the while, the Muslim-American lobbies and the Arab-American anti-discrimination groups are denouncing this country for being racist and for profiling.
It's just not true.
Worse yet, there is every common-sense reason for it to be so.
The threat of terrorism in the United States does come largely, if not exclusively, from Arabs and from Muslims. We ignore that fact at our own peril.
When I fly to the Middle East, I often fly El Al. In fact, it is my preferred carrier. Why? Because it has great security. I know, because of my name and my Arabic ancestry, I'm going to have my bags searched more scrupulously than the average American.
Do I mind?
Absolutely not. In fact, I am grateful. Because I know these security people are not only protecting the other passengers, they are protecting me.
It only makes sense to do this kind of profiling � especially when we are in a war where our very way of life is at stake.
For those of you who have not read my writings on the Middle East and the Islamic-West conflicts, I don't think these battles are over misunderstandings.
I don't believe they are the result of a failure to communicate.
I don't believe they are caused by an inability to compromise.
I believe they are caused by evil people doing evil things, pure and simple.
I come at this issue of the Middle East a little bit differently than just about anyone else. I'm an Arab-American Christian journalist. I've arrived at my conclusions largely through first-hand experience covering the Mideast on the ground.
Throughout my 25-year career as a daily newspaperman, I've had two principal beats � Hollywood and the Middle East. You might wonder what these two beats have in common.
The common denominator is that they both deal in the realm of unreality. They both rely on myths. In fact, the imagination of the Arabs in crafting fables, reinventing history and fictionalizing facts would make Oliver Stone blush. And it is those myths of the Middle East that I want to address today in the short time we have.
What is this debate all about? What are the real roots of this conflict?
If you believe what you read in most news sources, Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy. Simple, right?
Wrong. In fact, these two demands are nothing more than strategic deceptions � propaganda ploys. They are nothing more than phony excuses and rationalizations for the terrorism and the murdering of Jews. The real goal of those making these demands is the destruction of the state of Israel.
The proof of the pudding is that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland. Why?
In 1967, during the Six-Day War, the Israelis captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat. They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. Why did the so-called Palestinians suddenly discover their national identity after Israel won the war. Why wasn't there a demand for a Palestinian homeland before?
The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine. The name was derived, we think, from the Philistines, a people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier.
Contrary to what Yasser Arafat will tell you, the Philistines were extinct by that time. Arafat likes to pretend his people are the descendants of the Philistines. Actually, the name was simply a way for the Romans to add insult to injury to the Jews � not only were they annihilated, but their land was renamed after people they had conquered.
Palestine has never existed � before or since � as a nation state. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland. Who rejected that idea? The Arabs. The Jews could have no place in the Mideast. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.
Now, at least to Western audiences, Arafat and some other so-called "moderate" Arab leaders will tell you that it's OK for the Jews to have their homeland, too � side-by-side with the Arabs. Why wasn't it OK in 1948?
There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass.
But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.
Arafat himself explained the ploy of negotiations with Israel in a 1994 speech in South Africa � in English. He's explained it in Arabic dozens of times.
First we create our own state, then we use that state to liberate all of Palestine. That's the goal. It's always been the goal.
Arafat and his supporters will tell you the reason a Palestinian Arab state is needed is because Arabs were forcibly removed from their property in the 1948 war. But listen to what the Arabs were saying about the refugee issue after that war.
� "The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agree upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem."
� Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph Sept. 6, 1948.
� "The Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees."
� The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949.
� "Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it."
� The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.
� "The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead."
� The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, Oct. 12, 1963.
� "For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy."
� The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953.
I could go on and on with this forgotten � or deliberately obscured � history. But you get the point. There was no Jewish conspiracy to chase Arabs out of their homes in 1948. It never happened. There are, instead, plenty of historical records showing the Jews pleading with their Arab neighbors to stay and live in peace and harmony. Yet, despite the clear, unambiguous words of the Arab observers at the time, history has been successfully rewritten to turn the Jews into the bad guys.
The Arab states that initiated the hostilities have never accepted responsibility � despite their enormous wealth and their ability to assimilate tens of millions of refugees in their largely under-populated nations. And other states have failed to hold them accountable.
Today, of course, this cruel charade continues. The suffering of millions of Arabs is perpetuated only for political purposes by the Arab states. They are merely pawns in the war to destroy Israel.
There were some 100 million refugees around the world following World War II. The Palestinian Arab group is the only one in the world not absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Since then, millions of Jewish refugees from around the world have been absorbed in the tiny nation of Israel.
It makes no sense to expect that same tiny Jewish state to solve a refugee crisis it did not create.
Do you think the Arabs really care about the plight of their refugees? I would submit to you that Israel, of all the Middle East states, has treated the Arab refugees with more fairness and more compassion.
Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about:
The Jordan Times reports that "Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, who have long been denied many civil rights including the right to work, now face a new obstacle in their precarious lives."
Under a bill introduced by parliament last year, Palestinian Arabs will be deprived of their right to own property. Those who already own property will not be able to pass it on to their children.
Now just imagine if Israel passed such a law? Can you imagine the international outcry? What would the United Nations have to say about this? How would the media establishment in the West view such a draconian ploy?
Yet, this is happening in an Arab country virtually without comment � except here.
And take a look at the transparent rationale for this action in Lebanon, as described in the Jordan Times: "The Lebanese parliament passed the law on the grounds that it wants to protect the right of the Palestinian refugees to return eventually to their homes which they fled after the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian lands in 1948."
Don't you love that? "We are protecting your rights by denying your rights."
While Israel has bent over backwards to accommodate the Palestinian Arabs � especially those victimized by the 1948 war � the Arab nations have only sought to exploit their misery. That exploitation continues today. It is overt. It is a matter of law. Yet the world sees it not.
Ever since I wrote a column in October 2000 called "Myths of the Middle East http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=15066 ," readers from around the world have asked me what is meant by the term "Palestinian."
The simple answer is that it means whatever Yasser Arafat wants it to mean.
Arafat himself was born in Egypt. He later moved to Jerusalem. Indeed, most of the Arabs living within the borders of Israel today have come from some other Arab country at some time in their life.
Arabs continue to flock into Israel today. They continue to move into the Palestinian Authority. They immigrated there even before it left Israeli control.
The Arabs have built 261 settlements in the West Bank since 1967. We don't hear much about those settlements. We hear instead about the number of Jewish settlements that have been created. We hear how destabilizing they are � how provocative they are. Yet, by comparison, only 144 Jewish settlements have been built since 1967 � including those surrounding Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in Gaza.
Is this a new phenomenon? Absolutely not. This has always been the case. Arabs have been flocking to Israel and its environs ever since it was created and even before, coinciding with the wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine prior to 1948.
Winston Churchill said in 1939: "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population."
And that raises a question I never hear anyone ask: If Israel's policies make life so intolerable for Arabs, why do they continue to flock to the Jewish state?
This is an important question as we see the Palestinian debate now shift to the issue of "the right of return."
According to the most liberal claims by Arab sources, some 600,000 to 700,000 Arabs left Israel in and around 1948 when the Jewish state was created. Most were not forced out by Jews, but rather left at the urging of Arab leaders who had declared war on Israel.
Yet, there are far more Arabs living in these territories now than ever before. And many of those who left in 1948 and thereafter actually had roots in other Arab nations.
This is why it is so difficult to define the term "Palestinian." It always has been. What does it mean? Who is a "Palestinian"? Is it someone who came to work in Palestine because of a bustling economy and job opportunities? Is it someone who lived in the region for two years? Five years? Ten years? Is it someone who once visited the area? Is it any Arab who wants to live in the area?
Though Arabs outnumber Jews in the Middle East by a factor of about 100 to one, the Arab population of Palestine was historically extremely low � prior to the Jews' renewed interest in the area beginning in the early 1900s.
For instance, a travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker, illustrates the fact that, even when the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled the region, the Muslim population in Jerusalem was minimal.
The book estimates the total population of the city at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews.
"The number of Jews has greatly risen in the last few decades, in spite of the fact that they are forbidden to immigrate or to possess landed property," the book states.
Even though the Jews were persecuted, still they came to Jerusalem and represented the overwhelming majority of the population as early as 1906.
Why was the Muslim population so low? After all, we're told that Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam. Surely, if this were a widely held belief in 1906, more of the devout would have settled there.
The truth is that the Jewish presence in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land persisted throughout its bloody history, as is documented in Joan Peters' milestone history on the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the region, "From Time Immemorial."
It is also true that the Arab population increased following Jewish immigration into the region. The Arabs came because of economic activity. And, believe it or not, they came because there was more freedom and more opportunity in Israel than in their own homelands.
It's time to inject the component of freedom into the discussion. In recent years Freedom House, the human-rights organization that monitors the way the nations of the world treat their own citizens, has found a there's a big trend worldwide away from totalitarianism and authoritarianism and toward freedom � except in the Arab world.
There are 22 Arab states � all varying degrees of police states. If the U.S. continues pushing for a Palestinian state under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, there will be 23.
Let's hope and pray that this administration is beginning to get it. There are some strong indications that is the case. The impending Iraq campaign could represent a watershed event in the history of the Middle East.
Imagine a free Iraq.
Imagine a free Afghanistan.
Imagine a free Iran.
Imagine a free Lebanon.
It could happen. If we set out goals high and we act responsibly and we are courageous and steadfast in waging this war on terrorism � this war we did not start � it could happen.
Posted: February 24, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern � 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31194
I've been really bugged, especially since Sept. 11, 2001, by all the self-proclaimed Arab-American and Muslim-American spokesmen I see on the talking-head shows.
What bugs me is the way they show no appreciation for just how tolerant and open-minded and non-judgmental the American people really are toward them and the Arab and Muslim world. Americans are so good, so fair and so understanding. They are anything but quick to generalize and stereotype � even when doing so would clearly be in their best interest.
Over a two-day period this week, I had to take nine different airline flights and go through nine different airport security checkpoints.
Not once during that two-day period did I ever get a second glance from any security person. Not once was I subject to any extra checks.
Now, I am an Arab-American. I have an Arab face and an Arab name. But I didn't get a second look. Meanwhile, I saw young mothers with little babies struggling to make it through extra security. I saw little old grandmothers facing the indignities of extra checks.
And all the while, the Muslim-American lobbies and the Arab-American anti-discrimination groups are denouncing this country for being racist and for profiling.
It's just not true.
Worse yet, there is every common-sense reason for it to be so.
The threat of terrorism in the United States does come largely, if not exclusively, from Arabs and from Muslims. We ignore that fact at our own peril.
When I fly to the Middle East, I often fly El Al. In fact, it is my preferred carrier. Why? Because it has great security. I know, because of my name and my Arabic ancestry, I'm going to have my bags searched more scrupulously than the average American.
Do I mind?
Absolutely not. In fact, I am grateful. Because I know these security people are not only protecting the other passengers, they are protecting me.
It only makes sense to do this kind of profiling � especially when we are in a war where our very way of life is at stake.
For those of you who have not read my writings on the Middle East and the Islamic-West conflicts, I don't think these battles are over misunderstandings.
I don't believe they are the result of a failure to communicate.
I don't believe they are caused by an inability to compromise.
I believe they are caused by evil people doing evil things, pure and simple.
I come at this issue of the Middle East a little bit differently than just about anyone else. I'm an Arab-American Christian journalist. I've arrived at my conclusions largely through first-hand experience covering the Mideast on the ground.
Throughout my 25-year career as a daily newspaperman, I've had two principal beats � Hollywood and the Middle East. You might wonder what these two beats have in common.
The common denominator is that they both deal in the realm of unreality. They both rely on myths. In fact, the imagination of the Arabs in crafting fables, reinventing history and fictionalizing facts would make Oliver Stone blush. And it is those myths of the Middle East that I want to address today in the short time we have.
What is this debate all about? What are the real roots of this conflict?
If you believe what you read in most news sources, Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy. Simple, right?
Wrong. In fact, these two demands are nothing more than strategic deceptions � propaganda ploys. They are nothing more than phony excuses and rationalizations for the terrorism and the murdering of Jews. The real goal of those making these demands is the destruction of the state of Israel.
The proof of the pudding is that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland. Why?
In 1967, during the Six-Day War, the Israelis captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat. They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. Why did the so-called Palestinians suddenly discover their national identity after Israel won the war. Why wasn't there a demand for a Palestinian homeland before?
The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine. The name was derived, we think, from the Philistines, a people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier.
Contrary to what Yasser Arafat will tell you, the Philistines were extinct by that time. Arafat likes to pretend his people are the descendants of the Philistines. Actually, the name was simply a way for the Romans to add insult to injury to the Jews � not only were they annihilated, but their land was renamed after people they had conquered.
Palestine has never existed � before or since � as a nation state. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland. Who rejected that idea? The Arabs. The Jews could have no place in the Mideast. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.
Now, at least to Western audiences, Arafat and some other so-called "moderate" Arab leaders will tell you that it's OK for the Jews to have their homeland, too � side-by-side with the Arabs. Why wasn't it OK in 1948?
There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass.
But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.
Arafat himself explained the ploy of negotiations with Israel in a 1994 speech in South Africa � in English. He's explained it in Arabic dozens of times.
First we create our own state, then we use that state to liberate all of Palestine. That's the goal. It's always been the goal.
Arafat and his supporters will tell you the reason a Palestinian Arab state is needed is because Arabs were forcibly removed from their property in the 1948 war. But listen to what the Arabs were saying about the refugee issue after that war.
� "The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agree upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem."
� Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph Sept. 6, 1948.
� "The Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees."
� The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949.
� "Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it."
� The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.
� "The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead."
� The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, Oct. 12, 1963.
� "For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy."
� The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953.
I could go on and on with this forgotten � or deliberately obscured � history. But you get the point. There was no Jewish conspiracy to chase Arabs out of their homes in 1948. It never happened. There are, instead, plenty of historical records showing the Jews pleading with their Arab neighbors to stay and live in peace and harmony. Yet, despite the clear, unambiguous words of the Arab observers at the time, history has been successfully rewritten to turn the Jews into the bad guys.
The Arab states that initiated the hostilities have never accepted responsibility � despite their enormous wealth and their ability to assimilate tens of millions of refugees in their largely under-populated nations. And other states have failed to hold them accountable.
Today, of course, this cruel charade continues. The suffering of millions of Arabs is perpetuated only for political purposes by the Arab states. They are merely pawns in the war to destroy Israel.
There were some 100 million refugees around the world following World War II. The Palestinian Arab group is the only one in the world not absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Since then, millions of Jewish refugees from around the world have been absorbed in the tiny nation of Israel.
It makes no sense to expect that same tiny Jewish state to solve a refugee crisis it did not create.
Do you think the Arabs really care about the plight of their refugees? I would submit to you that Israel, of all the Middle East states, has treated the Arab refugees with more fairness and more compassion.
Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about:
The Jordan Times reports that "Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, who have long been denied many civil rights including the right to work, now face a new obstacle in their precarious lives."
Under a bill introduced by parliament last year, Palestinian Arabs will be deprived of their right to own property. Those who already own property will not be able to pass it on to their children.
Now just imagine if Israel passed such a law? Can you imagine the international outcry? What would the United Nations have to say about this? How would the media establishment in the West view such a draconian ploy?
Yet, this is happening in an Arab country virtually without comment � except here.
And take a look at the transparent rationale for this action in Lebanon, as described in the Jordan Times: "The Lebanese parliament passed the law on the grounds that it wants to protect the right of the Palestinian refugees to return eventually to their homes which they fled after the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian lands in 1948."
Don't you love that? "We are protecting your rights by denying your rights."
While Israel has bent over backwards to accommodate the Palestinian Arabs � especially those victimized by the 1948 war � the Arab nations have only sought to exploit their misery. That exploitation continues today. It is overt. It is a matter of law. Yet the world sees it not.
Ever since I wrote a column in October 2000 called "Myths of the Middle East http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=15066 ," readers from around the world have asked me what is meant by the term "Palestinian."
The simple answer is that it means whatever Yasser Arafat wants it to mean.
Arafat himself was born in Egypt. He later moved to Jerusalem. Indeed, most of the Arabs living within the borders of Israel today have come from some other Arab country at some time in their life.
Arabs continue to flock into Israel today. They continue to move into the Palestinian Authority. They immigrated there even before it left Israeli control.
The Arabs have built 261 settlements in the West Bank since 1967. We don't hear much about those settlements. We hear instead about the number of Jewish settlements that have been created. We hear how destabilizing they are � how provocative they are. Yet, by comparison, only 144 Jewish settlements have been built since 1967 � including those surrounding Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in Gaza.
Is this a new phenomenon? Absolutely not. This has always been the case. Arabs have been flocking to Israel and its environs ever since it was created and even before, coinciding with the wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine prior to 1948.
Winston Churchill said in 1939: "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population."
And that raises a question I never hear anyone ask: If Israel's policies make life so intolerable for Arabs, why do they continue to flock to the Jewish state?
This is an important question as we see the Palestinian debate now shift to the issue of "the right of return."
According to the most liberal claims by Arab sources, some 600,000 to 700,000 Arabs left Israel in and around 1948 when the Jewish state was created. Most were not forced out by Jews, but rather left at the urging of Arab leaders who had declared war on Israel.
Yet, there are far more Arabs living in these territories now than ever before. And many of those who left in 1948 and thereafter actually had roots in other Arab nations.
This is why it is so difficult to define the term "Palestinian." It always has been. What does it mean? Who is a "Palestinian"? Is it someone who came to work in Palestine because of a bustling economy and job opportunities? Is it someone who lived in the region for two years? Five years? Ten years? Is it someone who once visited the area? Is it any Arab who wants to live in the area?
Though Arabs outnumber Jews in the Middle East by a factor of about 100 to one, the Arab population of Palestine was historically extremely low � prior to the Jews' renewed interest in the area beginning in the early 1900s.
For instance, a travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker, illustrates the fact that, even when the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled the region, the Muslim population in Jerusalem was minimal.
The book estimates the total population of the city at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews.
"The number of Jews has greatly risen in the last few decades, in spite of the fact that they are forbidden to immigrate or to possess landed property," the book states.
Even though the Jews were persecuted, still they came to Jerusalem and represented the overwhelming majority of the population as early as 1906.
Why was the Muslim population so low? After all, we're told that Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam. Surely, if this were a widely held belief in 1906, more of the devout would have settled there.
The truth is that the Jewish presence in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land persisted throughout its bloody history, as is documented in Joan Peters' milestone history on the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the region, "From Time Immemorial."
It is also true that the Arab population increased following Jewish immigration into the region. The Arabs came because of economic activity. And, believe it or not, they came because there was more freedom and more opportunity in Israel than in their own homelands.
It's time to inject the component of freedom into the discussion. In recent years Freedom House, the human-rights organization that monitors the way the nations of the world treat their own citizens, has found a there's a big trend worldwide away from totalitarianism and authoritarianism and toward freedom � except in the Arab world.
There are 22 Arab states � all varying degrees of police states. If the U.S. continues pushing for a Palestinian state under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, there will be 23.
Let's hope and pray that this administration is beginning to get it. There are some strong indications that is the case. The impending Iraq campaign could represent a watershed event in the history of the Middle East.
Imagine a free Iraq.
Imagine a free Afghanistan.
Imagine a free Iran.
Imagine a free Lebanon.
It could happen. If we set out goals high and we act responsibly and we are courageous and steadfast in waging this war on terrorism � this war we did not start � it could happen.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
FROM MY TRIPS TO EUROPE I NEVER LIKED THEM--TOO SNOBBY--THEY THINK THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WITH A CIVILIZATION
The jokes have taken on a life of their own.
Americans love them. For instance, Jay Leno
says it's no surprise the French won't help us
get Saddam Hussein out of Iraq. They didn't
help us get Germany out of France, either.
Still, it's essential for them to join us in the war
against Iraq. They can teach the Iraqis how to
surrender.
And why are French streets tree-lined?
So the Germans can march in the shade.
How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?
No one knows. It's never been tried.
What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up?
The army.
How many gears does a French tank have?
Five, four in reverse and one forward (in case of
attack from behind).
FOR SALE: French rifles . . . never fired,
only dropped once.
Dennis Miller specializes in anti-French humor.
"The only way the French are going in is if we tell
them we found truffles in Iraq," Miller says.
"The French are always reticent to surrender to
the wishes of their friends and always more than
willing to surrender to the wishes of their enemies."
That last one is more than a joke. It's shrewd commentary.
It captures why the French make such poor allies.
When they pulled out of NATO 40 years ago and
declared Americans must close down their bases
in France, Secretary of State Dean Rusk had a bitterly
caustic response. Should we dig up the graves of
American soldiers in Normandy, too, and take them
home? No French answer was recorded.
Thanks Emanuel@vanguard.edu !!!
Americans love them. For instance, Jay Leno
says it's no surprise the French won't help us
get Saddam Hussein out of Iraq. They didn't
help us get Germany out of France, either.
Still, it's essential for them to join us in the war
against Iraq. They can teach the Iraqis how to
surrender.
And why are French streets tree-lined?
So the Germans can march in the shade.
How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?
No one knows. It's never been tried.
What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up?
The army.
How many gears does a French tank have?
Five, four in reverse and one forward (in case of
attack from behind).
FOR SALE: French rifles . . . never fired,
only dropped once.
Dennis Miller specializes in anti-French humor.
"The only way the French are going in is if we tell
them we found truffles in Iraq," Miller says.
"The French are always reticent to surrender to
the wishes of their friends and always more than
willing to surrender to the wishes of their enemies."
That last one is more than a joke. It's shrewd commentary.
It captures why the French make such poor allies.
When they pulled out of NATO 40 years ago and
declared Americans must close down their bases
in France, Secretary of State Dean Rusk had a bitterly
caustic response. Should we dig up the graves of
American soldiers in Normandy, too, and take them
home? No French answer was recorded.
Thanks Emanuel@vanguard.edu !!!
Thursday, February 20, 2003
SOME VERY INTERESTING FACTS
*Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The
spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
*Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet
away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
*The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood
plasma
*No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
*Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
* You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
*Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or
older.
*The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
*The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
*A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first
flight.
*American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from
each salad served in first-class.
*Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
*Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the
morning.
*The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
*Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
*The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
*Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the
Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
*Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
*All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen
wearing them in public.
*Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
*Pearls melt in vinegar.
*Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are
already married.
*The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and
Budweiser, in that order.
*It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
*A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
*The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when
the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground
floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
*Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains
all the letters from the word "criminal."
The second was William Jefferson Clinton.
*Turtles can breathe through their butts.
*Butterflies taste with their feet.
*In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the
world's nuclear weapons combined.
*On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
*On average people fear spiders more than death.
*Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived
immigrants.
*Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
*Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
*Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
*It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
* The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year
because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the
weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
*A snail can sleep for three years.
*No word in the English language rhymes with "MONTH."
*Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
*Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears
never stop growing. SCARY!!!
*The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
*All polar bears are left handed.
*In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies,
including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
*An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
*TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only
on one row of the keyboard.
*"Go," is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
*If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be
39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. Barbie's full
name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
*A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
*The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
*Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
*Almost everyone who reads this email will try to lick their elbow.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.
3. The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer
fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
4. The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine
and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British
or Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of
sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than
the British or Americans.
Conclusion: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking
English is apparently what kills you.
spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
*Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet
away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
*The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood
plasma
*No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
*Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
* You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
*Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or
older.
*The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
*The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
*A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first
flight.
*American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from
each salad served in first-class.
*Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
*Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the
morning.
*The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
*Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
*The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
*Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the
Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
*Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
*All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen
wearing them in public.
*Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
*Pearls melt in vinegar.
*Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are
already married.
*The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and
Budweiser, in that order.
*It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
*A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
*The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when
the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground
floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
*Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains
all the letters from the word "criminal."
The second was William Jefferson Clinton.
*Turtles can breathe through their butts.
*Butterflies taste with their feet.
*In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the
world's nuclear weapons combined.
*On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
*On average people fear spiders more than death.
*Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived
immigrants.
*Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
*Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
*Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
*It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
* The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year
because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the
weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
*A snail can sleep for three years.
*No word in the English language rhymes with "MONTH."
*Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
*Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears
never stop growing. SCARY!!!
*The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
*All polar bears are left handed.
*In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies,
including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
*An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
*TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only
on one row of the keyboard.
*"Go," is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
*If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be
39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. Barbie's full
name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
*A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
*The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
*Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
*Almost everyone who reads this email will try to lick their elbow.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.
3. The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer
fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
4. The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine
and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British
or Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of
sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than
the British or Americans.
Conclusion: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking
English is apparently what kills you.
Friday, February 07, 2003
UPDATE ON GOLD AND THE ECONOMY BY MY FAVORITE NEWS GUY
By Thom Calandra, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 11:01 AM ET Feb 7, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Middle East war talk is distracting many investors from accepting the reality of an overpriced American stock market and flagging U.S. dollar.
"For weeks, we had been hearing that the dollar's bleak performance is because of fear of war in Iraq," notes Donald G. Coxe, a U.S. portfolio strategist with Nesbitt Burns in Chicago. "For weeks, we had been hearing that the run-up in gold prices is because of fear of war in Iraq."
So what happens? The dollar surges and gold loses $18 an ounce after Colin Powell makes a strong case for almost immediate action against Iraq, with backing from allies that include the British.
"War is nearer than ever," writes the strategist, one of several who see Iraq as just a smokescreen for a deflating American economy and depressed interest rates. "Iraq may well be the distraction that is keeping the dollar from breaking down decisively, and thereby sending gold through $400."
War and its influence on financial markets, of course, are subject to interpretations that often are tainted by emotions and history. Few of us can forecast correctly what will happen when the world's strongest military and economic power engages its enemy in a physical assault.
Coxe points out the dollar's rebound, and gold's decline, occurred this week even as the threat of war intensified. That was probably the "superpower effect," the rush to the dollar as a shelter from the storm. U.S. Treasury bond prices also benefited.
Not so for most of the past year, though. Foreign investors have been fleeing the dollar, and American assets. With the dollar having lost about 18 percent of its value against the euro since early 2002, and about 10 percent against the yen, nations with healthy balance sheets are looking attractive.
The American balance sheet, as measured by the current account, is in red ink to the tune of almost 5 percent of gross domestic product. It is said the United States needs about $1.4 billion of overseas capital each day to service the current account red ink, which stands at about $130 billion. Japan and most of Europe have a surplus in their current accounts, which include balance of trade with the rest of the world.
Some economists, led by Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach, contend the $31 trillion or so of U.S. paper debt swishing around the globe, along with low interest rates that give eurodollar holders and others with American "cash" a mere 1 percent return, will continue to sink the dollar, regardless of war.
In the best analysis, war is a trick mirror, a blinding flash in the face of a circus economy. Fix the economy, and you fix the dollar.
"Businesses are already ratcheting down Wall Street's optimistic growth forecasts for 2003," says Frank Giustra, chairman of Endeavour Financial, a Canadian merchant bank. "And we're only in February. Erroneously, most economists -- and as of last week, Alan Greenspan -- seem to be citing concerns about a pending war with Iraq for everything from the lack of improved retail sales to the dearth of capital spending by corporations."
James Turk, the newsletter writer and gold researcher whose dollar and bullion forecasts have been on the mark for more than a year, says war, to have a lasting influence on the value of a financial market, must have a monetary consequence. Turk sees the dollar continuing its swoon, and gold's price rising to $430 or so an ounce by month's end from its current $370.
What is war good for? In the case of Iraq, financial consequences can follow from a shortage or excess of oil. Or a loss of air traffic across parts of the world. Most of the "war effect" likely will come months later, when the world's investors register the cost to the U.S. government, which is already seen pumping its spending deficit by $1 trillion in the next five years.
For people like Turk, who edits Freemarket Gold and Money Report, "War affects gold only if the war affects the money of the warring nation."
Turk sees the price of gold (38099902) benefiting from the collapse of a dollar that had, until early last year, been boosting the worth of American assets for almost 20 years.
"When gold jumped on Tuesday (to just short of $390), the market started to get a little frothy," Turk tells me. "So there's nothing like a little correction to shake out some weak-hands." See: Gold analyst forecasts $434 gold price.
Coxe, the Nesbitt Burns strategist, put it this way in his report: "Iraq may well be the distraction that is keeping the dollar from breaking down decisively, and thereby sending gold through $400."
The expensive stock market is also at great risk. I think we can count on a higher gold price in coming days and weeks as investors keep pulling the plug on their U.S. holdings.
Last Update: 11:01 AM ET Feb 7, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Middle East war talk is distracting many investors from accepting the reality of an overpriced American stock market and flagging U.S. dollar.
"For weeks, we had been hearing that the dollar's bleak performance is because of fear of war in Iraq," notes Donald G. Coxe, a U.S. portfolio strategist with Nesbitt Burns in Chicago. "For weeks, we had been hearing that the run-up in gold prices is because of fear of war in Iraq."
So what happens? The dollar surges and gold loses $18 an ounce after Colin Powell makes a strong case for almost immediate action against Iraq, with backing from allies that include the British.
"War is nearer than ever," writes the strategist, one of several who see Iraq as just a smokescreen for a deflating American economy and depressed interest rates. "Iraq may well be the distraction that is keeping the dollar from breaking down decisively, and thereby sending gold through $400."
War and its influence on financial markets, of course, are subject to interpretations that often are tainted by emotions and history. Few of us can forecast correctly what will happen when the world's strongest military and economic power engages its enemy in a physical assault.
Coxe points out the dollar's rebound, and gold's decline, occurred this week even as the threat of war intensified. That was probably the "superpower effect," the rush to the dollar as a shelter from the storm. U.S. Treasury bond prices also benefited.
Not so for most of the past year, though. Foreign investors have been fleeing the dollar, and American assets. With the dollar having lost about 18 percent of its value against the euro since early 2002, and about 10 percent against the yen, nations with healthy balance sheets are looking attractive.
The American balance sheet, as measured by the current account, is in red ink to the tune of almost 5 percent of gross domestic product. It is said the United States needs about $1.4 billion of overseas capital each day to service the current account red ink, which stands at about $130 billion. Japan and most of Europe have a surplus in their current accounts, which include balance of trade with the rest of the world.
Some economists, led by Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach, contend the $31 trillion or so of U.S. paper debt swishing around the globe, along with low interest rates that give eurodollar holders and others with American "cash" a mere 1 percent return, will continue to sink the dollar, regardless of war.
In the best analysis, war is a trick mirror, a blinding flash in the face of a circus economy. Fix the economy, and you fix the dollar.
"Businesses are already ratcheting down Wall Street's optimistic growth forecasts for 2003," says Frank Giustra, chairman of Endeavour Financial, a Canadian merchant bank. "And we're only in February. Erroneously, most economists -- and as of last week, Alan Greenspan -- seem to be citing concerns about a pending war with Iraq for everything from the lack of improved retail sales to the dearth of capital spending by corporations."
James Turk, the newsletter writer and gold researcher whose dollar and bullion forecasts have been on the mark for more than a year, says war, to have a lasting influence on the value of a financial market, must have a monetary consequence. Turk sees the dollar continuing its swoon, and gold's price rising to $430 or so an ounce by month's end from its current $370.
What is war good for? In the case of Iraq, financial consequences can follow from a shortage or excess of oil. Or a loss of air traffic across parts of the world. Most of the "war effect" likely will come months later, when the world's investors register the cost to the U.S. government, which is already seen pumping its spending deficit by $1 trillion in the next five years.
For people like Turk, who edits Freemarket Gold and Money Report, "War affects gold only if the war affects the money of the warring nation."
Turk sees the price of gold (38099902) benefiting from the collapse of a dollar that had, until early last year, been boosting the worth of American assets for almost 20 years.
"When gold jumped on Tuesday (to just short of $390), the market started to get a little frothy," Turk tells me. "So there's nothing like a little correction to shake out some weak-hands." See: Gold analyst forecasts $434 gold price.
Coxe, the Nesbitt Burns strategist, put it this way in his report: "Iraq may well be the distraction that is keeping the dollar from breaking down decisively, and thereby sending gold through $400."
The expensive stock market is also at great risk. I think we can count on a higher gold price in coming days and weeks as investors keep pulling the plug on their U.S. holdings.
POWER IS FRACTURED
A GIANT FALLS
Brobeck, Mighty During the Internet Boom, Crashes Like a Dot-Com
BY MARTHA NEIL
Too much debt. Too little practice diversification. And a lack of effective leadership. Sound like another failed Internet startup? Actually, it�s what observers say caused the planned dissolution of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison.
Renowned as a legal adviser to the technology world, the almost 80-year-old San Francisco firm announced Jan. 30 that it would be closing its 11 U.S. offices, due to ongoing partner defections and a difficult economy. At the end of 2002, Brobeck had fewer than 500 attorneys, half the number it reached at its zenith in 2001.
Brobeck�s sudden demise evoked exclamations of surprise from coast to coast, not least among those closest to the firm. But Brobeck isn�t the only one suffering from the recession. More law-firm dissolutions are on the horizon.
On Tuesday, partners at Peterson Ross voted to dissolve. A Chicago firm known for its insurance work, its attorney roster has shrunk from a high of 300 or so to some 60 names. And, on Monday, Skjerven Morrill, a 70-lawyer intellectual property firm in San Jose, Calif., announced it would wind down, too.
"I think we are seeing more and more dissolutions and breakups, and will see more and more, particularly as this recession goes on, because it�s the rare firm where there�s a strong sense of mutual loyalty," says David H. Maister, a legal consultant based in Boston. He declined to comment on specific firms.
Without a loyal cadre of attorneys following a trusted leader, law firms are vulnerable to market downturns�particularly if they have borrowed extensively, Maister says. At that point, "If too many people jump ship, the underlying financial structure is horribly exposed."
Brobeck�s fall is just such a cautionary tale, especially given the heights to which the firm soared only a few years ago.
"If you want to lay blame, you have to lay blame with the people who ran up the debt," says Steven M. Zager, the head of litigation at Brobeck until just before the vote to dissolve.
During the past 12 years, the firm opened offices in six cities throughout the country, in addition to the five in California. Published reports talked of competition between litigators and transactional lawyers, as well as friction over decisions made by former managing partner Tower Snow. He was deposed in 2001, after the Internet crash, and defected in 2002 to establish a San Francisco office for London-based law behemoth Clifford Chance.
Zager says his former firm is folding for a number of reasons, but "I wouldn�t say it was a lack of leadership." Zager is now a partner in the Austin, Texas, office of Dallas-based Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
"I think the existing leadership was left with a real pickle. The economy turned. Tower had been a proponent of growth, and he�d used debt to make that growth possible. So the debt and space issues were large issues. Had the economy rebounded more quickly, as most people expected it to, I don�t think they would be the large problems they eventually became."
Brobeck failed to make first-quarter 2003 income payments to partners in order to fund a $26 million loan repayment to Citibank, says communications director John M. Pachtner. The bank and Brobeck are still in negotiations over outstanding debt.
Meanwhile, profits per partner plunged from more than $1million in 2001 to just over $500,000 last year. The end came when merger talks with Philadelphia-based Morgan, Lewis & Bockius halted Jan. 29, Pachtner says.
It remains to be seen whether Brobeck can pay its bills, or�in what would be an unusual development for a dissolving law firm�be forced into bankruptcy.
David M. Neff, a partner at Piper Rudnick in Chicago who represents Peterson Ross, says any Brobeck bankruptcy could be legally significant. It would likely help define the extent to which partners in a limited liability partnership are protected from personal liability for firm debts. (See "Partners at Risk," August 2002 ABA Journal.)
"What I can tell you is that in any bankruptcy case, they will face challenges," Neff says of Brobeck lawyers. "It will test the LLP structure. We expected Arthur Andersen to be the big test case. It looks like it will be Brobeck instead."
�2003 ABA Journal
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
THERE IS STILL HOPE, JAMES
THC
The Hawai'i Cannabis Ministry
"We use cannabis religiously and you can, too."
www.thc-ministry.org
(808) 961-0488
Medical Marijuana Jurors Offer Apology to Rosenthal and Family
Jurors and City Officials Express Outrage, Demand a Retrial
Outraged jurors in the Ed Rosenthal medical marijuana trial will make a
statement at a news conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, February 4 at
the Federal Courthouse. Jury Foreman Charles Sackett will be joined by
fellow jurors in apologizing to Rosenthal for a verdict they say was not
just. They will also present a letter asking for a retrial.
After Friday�s verdict, many jurors expressed shock and outrage after
learning that prosecutors blocked Rosenthal�s side of the story. Jurors
said they felt �used� and �railroaded�, and that the trial had been a
�kangaroo court.� Many said that Rosenthal would have been acquitted but
for the Judge forbidding Rosenthal and his attorneys to discuss his defense.
Rosenthal was officially deputized by the City of Oakland under California�s
medical marijuana law. Prior to the trial, Judge Breyer ruled in favor of
the prosecution�s demand to ban the discussion of why Rosenthal was growing
marijuana.
San Francisco City officials will join in the call for a retrial. They will
also call for the Federal Government to back off of its aggressive and
deceptive campaign to block California�s medical marijuana law.
WHAT: Medical marijuana trial jurors demand retrial; City officials
demand harmonization between state and federal law.
WHEN: 12:00 noon, Tuesday, February 4
WHERE: U.S. District Court, building entrance, 450 Golden Gate, San
Francisco, California
WHO:
Charles Sackett, Jury Foreman
Marney Craig, Juror
Pam Klarkowski, Juror
Hon. Terence Hallinan, San Francisco District Attorney
Hon. Matt Gonzales, President, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Hilary McQuie
Campaign Coordinator
Americans for Safe Access
1678 Shattuck Ave. #317
Berkeley, CA 94709
Phone: 510-486-8083
Fax: 510-486-8090
www.safeaccessnow.org
The Hawai'i Cannabis Ministry
"We use cannabis religiously and you can, too."
www.thc-ministry.org
(808) 961-0488
Medical Marijuana Jurors Offer Apology to Rosenthal and Family
Jurors and City Officials Express Outrage, Demand a Retrial
Outraged jurors in the Ed Rosenthal medical marijuana trial will make a
statement at a news conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, February 4 at
the Federal Courthouse. Jury Foreman Charles Sackett will be joined by
fellow jurors in apologizing to Rosenthal for a verdict they say was not
just. They will also present a letter asking for a retrial.
After Friday�s verdict, many jurors expressed shock and outrage after
learning that prosecutors blocked Rosenthal�s side of the story. Jurors
said they felt �used� and �railroaded�, and that the trial had been a
�kangaroo court.� Many said that Rosenthal would have been acquitted but
for the Judge forbidding Rosenthal and his attorneys to discuss his defense.
Rosenthal was officially deputized by the City of Oakland under California�s
medical marijuana law. Prior to the trial, Judge Breyer ruled in favor of
the prosecution�s demand to ban the discussion of why Rosenthal was growing
marijuana.
San Francisco City officials will join in the call for a retrial. They will
also call for the Federal Government to back off of its aggressive and
deceptive campaign to block California�s medical marijuana law.
WHAT: Medical marijuana trial jurors demand retrial; City officials
demand harmonization between state and federal law.
WHEN: 12:00 noon, Tuesday, February 4
WHERE: U.S. District Court, building entrance, 450 Golden Gate, San
Francisco, California
WHO:
Charles Sackett, Jury Foreman
Marney Craig, Juror
Pam Klarkowski, Juror
Hon. Terence Hallinan, San Francisco District Attorney
Hon. Matt Gonzales, President, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Hilary McQuie
Campaign Coordinator
Americans for Safe Access
1678 Shattuck Ave. #317
Berkeley, CA 94709
Phone: 510-486-8083
Fax: 510-486-8090
www.safeaccessnow.org
SPOT GOLD IS NOW AT $382--THE EURO AT 1.0875--AMAZING
Researcher nails gold-price forecast
James Turk uses monetary metric to forecast $434 gold
By Thom Calandra, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 10:57 AM ET Feb 4, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - A funny thing happened on the way to the gold rally: one analyst issued specific, month-by-month forecasts that thus far are hitting the mark.
The spot gold price Tuesday morning rose $5.20 to $376 an ounce, its best since November 1996. The gain earned the precious metal a 9 percent return since Jan. 2, when gold stood at $345 an ounce.
Nearly all bullion analysts, on Wall Street and Main Street, link gold's continuing rally to tensions in the Middle East and in North Korea. For his part, James Turk is convinced the talk of war in Iraq, or a nuclear showdown in Asia, have little to do with gold's 25 percent gain in 2002 and the metal's current gains.
The longtime editor of New Hampshire-based Freemarket Gold & Money Report instead points to monetary metrics that compare the ascent of gold, or its decline in the 1990s, to government budget spending trends and the supply of paper money flooding the globe.
On Tuesday, for instance, Russia, joining China and several other countries in a shift toward bullion-linked reserves, said its central bank will boost gold and foreign-currency holdings to $55 billion by year's end, a rise of 17 percent.
Following up his early January forecast that the gold price would surpass $370 an ounce in the coming weeks, Turk on Tuesday told me he expects the metal's price to reach $434 an ounce by the end of February, less than four weeks' time. Such a gain, 15 percent at current levels, would hearken back to the middle of February 1996, when the metal peaked at $415 an ounce before beginning a 5 1/2-year slide into the dungeon.
The researcher's predictions, bold in their specific timing and price level, depart from those found at investment banks in London and on Wall Street, where analysts are reluctant to forecast an average gold price higher than $360 an ounce or so for all of 2003. Turk is confident gold, logging inevitable gains as international investors flee the "dollar bubble," will reach $600 this summer and surpass $900 an ounce by February 2004.
Another longtime gold researcher, John C. Doody of Gold Stock Analyst, notes, "Jim has been very aggressive on his timing." Doody adds, "(A gold price of) $450 by year-end is the best I can do."
Turk's favored metric these days - a link between U.S. gold assets and the country's M3 money supply - could take the financial world by storm. A former international banker and manager of the commodity department for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Turk calculates a "fear index" by multiplying U.S. gold reserves by the gold price, then dividing it by M3 money supply, which is growing at 7.5 percent a year. See: Researcher predicts imminent gold gain.
At its most basic interpretation, the index represents the lack of faith most investors have in gold and the surplus of faith they have in Federal Reserve paper assets. Turk's index just five weeks ago stood at 1.06 percent, a historic low since 1971, when Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard.
For Turk, the fear index quantifies the lack of faith that central banks, led by the Federal Reserve, have had in gold as a reserve currency since the early 1970s. With just 1.06 percent of the American dollar backed by gold and 98.94 percent backed by debt owed to the Federal Reserve and the banks, it is easy to see why Turk sees the U.S. currency as the next "peso."
In 2002, the M3 money supply, effectively America's money in circulation, averaged 7.5 percent growth to $8.5 trillion by the close of the year. Turk pegs the U.S. gold reserve at 261 million ounces.
Turk has more than his monthly newsletter riding on the gold price. After spending the gold-bust years of the mid and late 1990s advising fund managers, Turk started GoldMoney.com, a transaction system for consumers and businesses. GoldMoney.com uses gold grams as its unit of value.
Turk, I discovered after dining with him and longtime mining analyst Robert Bishop in Vancouver, is also playing a part in the development of an exchange-traded fund that would allow investors to buy and sell gold as a security on a major stock exchange. No exchange-traded funds -- the equivalent of a Nasdaq 100 QQQ -- exist for pure commodities.
An ETF for gold, the surging precious metal, is said to be working its way through the regulatory process and would be the first for a commodity. Both Turk and his backers and the World Gold Council, a London-based trade group, are working separately on a so-called QQQ for gold.
The fund would be backed by real bullion and trade every second of the market day. The largest index asset managers of ETFs include Barclays Global Investor and State Street Global Advisors.
As it stands today, individuals have few easy ways to buy physical gold. A closed-end fund, Central Fund of Canada (CEF), trades on the American Stock Exchange and owns 261,000 ounces of gold and 13.06 million ounces of silver. The company's shares sell at a roughly 20 percent premium to the spot price of gold. See: Investors choose mineral over paper.
On Tuesday, as gold rose in the face of a sinking dollar and a melting stock market, I asked Turk what it will take before Americans, who on average have less than 1 percent of their holdings in gold, gold mining stocks or bullion funds such as The Tocqueville Gold Fund (TGLDX), consider buying the metal.
Thom Calandra: "Gold won't be on the front of the New York Times until it crosses $400, and maybe not until $500. Why is that?"
James Turk: "I agree. When it does, we will probably have reached some short-term overbought level. My guess is that we won't get overbought until the $430 level, which remains my month-end price projection for February."
Thom Calandra: "James, a large part of your forecast comes from the notion that history tends to repeat itself, as it did from 1971 to 1980, when the gold price reached $840 or so an ounce against a horrible world landscape of accelerating inflation, oil-price shocks and political upheaval."
James Turk: "Yes, the factors driving gold higher are still very much in place. I've seen nothing yet that would cause me to change my projection of $434 for the end of February. So I am expecting gold to post a double-digit gain in February, the first monthly double-digit gain since September 1999. Gold will then I expect take a breather by cooling off in March and April."
Thom Calandra: "And then, a high of $934 an ounce one year from now. Your admirers, and your critics, can agree on one thing: you have conviction."
James Turk: "One is never sure of anything when it comes to markets. The only thing we need to do is stay with the trend. The trend for the gold price is up. Therefore, we should be focusing on one and only one thing. Staying with the trend. Let gold tell its own story, and let's see what unfolds."
In my own professional view, Turk is on the money. His current advice is to own bullion and assets in foreign currencies. His favorite right now is the Swiss franc. Step in step with gold's rise will come a continued decline in the dollar, which fell about 16 percent against the euro in 2002 while gold was gaining 25 percent for the year.
"The gold price is rising in every currency in the world," Turk tells me. "Euro buyers of gold will have far more purchasing power when
they translate their gold back into euros. That's the way gold as a reserve currency, gold as money, should work."
Turk also sees large gains for gold mining shares as represented by the Philadelphia Gold & Silver Index (XAU), the Amex Gold Bugs Index (HUI), the Toronto Gold Index and the FTSE Gold Mines Index (1808281). In the past year, all have put between 25 percentage points and 75 percentage points of price performance between themelves and the ailing U.S. stock market, as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. (See chart above.)
Thom Calandra's view
In my own view, gold's next test will come when - God willing - a military solution to the Iraq conflict is avoided. The metal will keep posting daily and weekly gains. That's because the prospect of war, U.N. Security Council deadlines and other geopolitical events are only coincidentally related to the metal, which is outpacing gains in the world's stock and bond markets by increasing percentages as each day passes.
Gold's gains in coming months and years will center on the metal's role as an alternative to bloated dollar-linked assets and other eroding paper values, including stocks, bonds and even money-market securities. In my view, 76 percent is the magic number.
I think what we are seeing right now is a repeat of the February 1985 to December 1987 period. Back then, the U.S. had a strong dollar and a vast current account deficit, the measure of our fiscal relationship with the rest of the world. These days, we need just $1.5 billion of overseas assets each and every day to support the red ink in our trade and current account shortfalls.
By the end of 1987, gold had run from $284 an ounce to $500, a 76 percent gain. The dollar had fallen 40 percent against the mark and the yen. A 76 percent gain from gold's $254 or so low in February 2001 will put it at $450. That's just the beginning. As most of the Thom Calandra's StockWatch audience knows, my take on gold is: Pick a number, a big number.
At 10:30 a.m. New York time Tuesday, spot gold's price was up $5/50 to $376.30. In the past 12 months, the metal has outpaced the S&P 500 Index of America's largest companies by 50 percentage points.
Read my clips: Gold's gains spread down the chain.
Just published: Why a Dow crash is just ahead.
James Turk uses monetary metric to forecast $434 gold
By Thom Calandra, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 10:57 AM ET Feb 4, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - A funny thing happened on the way to the gold rally: one analyst issued specific, month-by-month forecasts that thus far are hitting the mark.
The spot gold price Tuesday morning rose $5.20 to $376 an ounce, its best since November 1996. The gain earned the precious metal a 9 percent return since Jan. 2, when gold stood at $345 an ounce.
Nearly all bullion analysts, on Wall Street and Main Street, link gold's continuing rally to tensions in the Middle East and in North Korea. For his part, James Turk is convinced the talk of war in Iraq, or a nuclear showdown in Asia, have little to do with gold's 25 percent gain in 2002 and the metal's current gains.
The longtime editor of New Hampshire-based Freemarket Gold & Money Report instead points to monetary metrics that compare the ascent of gold, or its decline in the 1990s, to government budget spending trends and the supply of paper money flooding the globe.
On Tuesday, for instance, Russia, joining China and several other countries in a shift toward bullion-linked reserves, said its central bank will boost gold and foreign-currency holdings to $55 billion by year's end, a rise of 17 percent.
Following up his early January forecast that the gold price would surpass $370 an ounce in the coming weeks, Turk on Tuesday told me he expects the metal's price to reach $434 an ounce by the end of February, less than four weeks' time. Such a gain, 15 percent at current levels, would hearken back to the middle of February 1996, when the metal peaked at $415 an ounce before beginning a 5 1/2-year slide into the dungeon.
The researcher's predictions, bold in their specific timing and price level, depart from those found at investment banks in London and on Wall Street, where analysts are reluctant to forecast an average gold price higher than $360 an ounce or so for all of 2003. Turk is confident gold, logging inevitable gains as international investors flee the "dollar bubble," will reach $600 this summer and surpass $900 an ounce by February 2004.
Another longtime gold researcher, John C. Doody of Gold Stock Analyst, notes, "Jim has been very aggressive on his timing." Doody adds, "(A gold price of) $450 by year-end is the best I can do."
Turk's favored metric these days - a link between U.S. gold assets and the country's M3 money supply - could take the financial world by storm. A former international banker and manager of the commodity department for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Turk calculates a "fear index" by multiplying U.S. gold reserves by the gold price, then dividing it by M3 money supply, which is growing at 7.5 percent a year. See: Researcher predicts imminent gold gain.
At its most basic interpretation, the index represents the lack of faith most investors have in gold and the surplus of faith they have in Federal Reserve paper assets. Turk's index just five weeks ago stood at 1.06 percent, a historic low since 1971, when Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard.
For Turk, the fear index quantifies the lack of faith that central banks, led by the Federal Reserve, have had in gold as a reserve currency since the early 1970s. With just 1.06 percent of the American dollar backed by gold and 98.94 percent backed by debt owed to the Federal Reserve and the banks, it is easy to see why Turk sees the U.S. currency as the next "peso."
In 2002, the M3 money supply, effectively America's money in circulation, averaged 7.5 percent growth to $8.5 trillion by the close of the year. Turk pegs the U.S. gold reserve at 261 million ounces.
Turk has more than his monthly newsletter riding on the gold price. After spending the gold-bust years of the mid and late 1990s advising fund managers, Turk started GoldMoney.com, a transaction system for consumers and businesses. GoldMoney.com uses gold grams as its unit of value.
Turk, I discovered after dining with him and longtime mining analyst Robert Bishop in Vancouver, is also playing a part in the development of an exchange-traded fund that would allow investors to buy and sell gold as a security on a major stock exchange. No exchange-traded funds -- the equivalent of a Nasdaq 100 QQQ -- exist for pure commodities.
An ETF for gold, the surging precious metal, is said to be working its way through the regulatory process and would be the first for a commodity. Both Turk and his backers and the World Gold Council, a London-based trade group, are working separately on a so-called QQQ for gold.
The fund would be backed by real bullion and trade every second of the market day. The largest index asset managers of ETFs include Barclays Global Investor and State Street Global Advisors.
As it stands today, individuals have few easy ways to buy physical gold. A closed-end fund, Central Fund of Canada (CEF), trades on the American Stock Exchange and owns 261,000 ounces of gold and 13.06 million ounces of silver. The company's shares sell at a roughly 20 percent premium to the spot price of gold. See: Investors choose mineral over paper.
On Tuesday, as gold rose in the face of a sinking dollar and a melting stock market, I asked Turk what it will take before Americans, who on average have less than 1 percent of their holdings in gold, gold mining stocks or bullion funds such as The Tocqueville Gold Fund (TGLDX), consider buying the metal.
Thom Calandra: "Gold won't be on the front of the New York Times until it crosses $400, and maybe not until $500. Why is that?"
James Turk: "I agree. When it does, we will probably have reached some short-term overbought level. My guess is that we won't get overbought until the $430 level, which remains my month-end price projection for February."
Thom Calandra: "James, a large part of your forecast comes from the notion that history tends to repeat itself, as it did from 1971 to 1980, when the gold price reached $840 or so an ounce against a horrible world landscape of accelerating inflation, oil-price shocks and political upheaval."
James Turk: "Yes, the factors driving gold higher are still very much in place. I've seen nothing yet that would cause me to change my projection of $434 for the end of February. So I am expecting gold to post a double-digit gain in February, the first monthly double-digit gain since September 1999. Gold will then I expect take a breather by cooling off in March and April."
Thom Calandra: "And then, a high of $934 an ounce one year from now. Your admirers, and your critics, can agree on one thing: you have conviction."
James Turk: "One is never sure of anything when it comes to markets. The only thing we need to do is stay with the trend. The trend for the gold price is up. Therefore, we should be focusing on one and only one thing. Staying with the trend. Let gold tell its own story, and let's see what unfolds."
In my own professional view, Turk is on the money. His current advice is to own bullion and assets in foreign currencies. His favorite right now is the Swiss franc. Step in step with gold's rise will come a continued decline in the dollar, which fell about 16 percent against the euro in 2002 while gold was gaining 25 percent for the year.
"The gold price is rising in every currency in the world," Turk tells me. "Euro buyers of gold will have far more purchasing power when
they translate their gold back into euros. That's the way gold as a reserve currency, gold as money, should work."
Turk also sees large gains for gold mining shares as represented by the Philadelphia Gold & Silver Index (XAU), the Amex Gold Bugs Index (HUI), the Toronto Gold Index and the FTSE Gold Mines Index (1808281). In the past year, all have put between 25 percentage points and 75 percentage points of price performance between themelves and the ailing U.S. stock market, as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. (See chart above.)
Thom Calandra's view
In my own view, gold's next test will come when - God willing - a military solution to the Iraq conflict is avoided. The metal will keep posting daily and weekly gains. That's because the prospect of war, U.N. Security Council deadlines and other geopolitical events are only coincidentally related to the metal, which is outpacing gains in the world's stock and bond markets by increasing percentages as each day passes.
Gold's gains in coming months and years will center on the metal's role as an alternative to bloated dollar-linked assets and other eroding paper values, including stocks, bonds and even money-market securities. In my view, 76 percent is the magic number.
I think what we are seeing right now is a repeat of the February 1985 to December 1987 period. Back then, the U.S. had a strong dollar and a vast current account deficit, the measure of our fiscal relationship with the rest of the world. These days, we need just $1.5 billion of overseas assets each and every day to support the red ink in our trade and current account shortfalls.
By the end of 1987, gold had run from $284 an ounce to $500, a 76 percent gain. The dollar had fallen 40 percent against the mark and the yen. A 76 percent gain from gold's $254 or so low in February 2001 will put it at $450. That's just the beginning. As most of the Thom Calandra's StockWatch audience knows, my take on gold is: Pick a number, a big number.
At 10:30 a.m. New York time Tuesday, spot gold's price was up $5/50 to $376.30. In the past 12 months, the metal has outpaced the S&P 500 Index of America's largest companies by 50 percentage points.
Read my clips: Gold's gains spread down the chain.
Just published: Why a Dow crash is just ahead.
Sunday, February 02, 2003
THIS PLAYBOY INTERVIEW OF JIM GARRISON IS WORTH READING--I KNEW THERE WAS A REASON I ALWAYS LIKED HIM
PLAYBOY: Many of the professional critics of the Warren Commission
appear to be prompted by political motives: Those on the left are
anxious to prove Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy within the
establishment; and those on the right are eager to prove the
assassination was an act of "the international Communist
conspiracy." Where would you place yourself on the political spectrum--right, left
or center?
JIM GARRISON: That's a question I've asked myself frequently,
especially since this investigation started and I found myself in an
incongruous and disillusioning battle with agencies of my own
Government. I can't just sit down and add up my political beliefs
like a mathematical sum, but I think, in balance, I'd turn up
somewhere around the middle. Over the years, I guess I've developed a
somewhat conservative attitude--in the traditional libertarian sense
of conservatism, as opposed to the thumbscrew-and-rack conservatism
of the paramilitary right--particularly in regard to the importance
of the individual as opposed to the State and the individual's own
responsibilities to humanity . . .
I was with the artillery supporting the division that took Dachau; I
arrived there the day after it was taken, when bulldozers were making
pyramids of human bodies outside the camp. What I saw there has
haunted me ever since. Because the law is my profession, I've always
wondered about the judges throughout Germany who sentenced men to
jail for picking pockets at a time when their own government was
jerking gold from the teeth of men murdered in gas chambers. I'm
concerned about all of this because it isn't a German phenomenon;
it's a human phenomenon. It can happen here, because there has been
no change, there has been no progress and there has been no increase
of understanding on the part of men for their fellow men.
What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case,
is that we in America are in great danger of slowly eroding into a
proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state
from the one the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and
promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough, seems to be
emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it's based on
power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience
above the dictates of the State. Its origins can be traced in the
tremendous war machine we've built since 1945, the "military-
industrial complex" that Eisenhower vainly warned us about,
which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and the
Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department,
because of war conditions; and we've seen the creation of an
arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the
checks and balances of the Constitution.
In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and
the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course,
you can't spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You
can't look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they
won't be there. We won't build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever
manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of
the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the
populace in line. We're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly
find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work. But this
isn't the test. The test is: What happens to the individual who
dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here the
process is more subtle, but the end results are the same. I've
learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to
know that this is no longer the dreamworld America I once believed
in. The imperatives of the population explosion, which almost
inevitably will lessen our belief in the sanctity of the individual
human life, combined with the awesome power of the CIA and the
defense establishment, seem destined to seal the fate of the America
I knew as a child and bring us into a new Orwellian world where the
citizen exists for the State and where raw power justifies any and
every immoral act. I've always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my
Government's basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may
make. But I've come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and
manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural
prerogatives of office. Huey Long once said, "Fascism will come
to America in the name of anti-fascism." I'm afraid, based on my
own long experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of
national security.
Archives
05/01/2002 - 05/31/2002 06/01/2002 - 06/30/2002 07/01/2002 - 07/31/2002 08/01/2002 - 08/31/2002 09/01/2002 - 09/30/2002 10/01/2002 - 10/31/2002 11/01/2002 - 11/30/2002 12/01/2002 - 12/31/2002 01/01/2003 - 01/31/2003 02/01/2003 - 02/28/2003 03/01/2003 - 03/31/2003 04/01/2003 - 04/30/2003 05/01/2003 - 05/31/2003 06/01/2003 - 06/30/2003 07/01/2003 - 07/31/2003 08/01/2003 - 08/31/2003 09/01/2003 - 09/30/2003 10/01/2003 - 10/31/2003 11/01/2003 - 11/30/2003 12/01/2003 - 12/31/2003 01/01/2004 - 01/31/2004 02/01/2004 - 02/29/2004 03/01/2004 - 03/31/2004 04/01/2004 - 04/30/2004 05/01/2004 - 05/31/2004 06/01/2004 - 06/30/2004 07/01/2004 - 07/31/2004 08/01/2004 - 08/31/2004 09/01/2004 - 09/30/2004 10/01/2004 - 10/31/2004 11/01/2004 - 11/30/2004 12/01/2004 - 12/31/2004 02/01/2005 - 02/28/2005 03/01/2005 - 03/31/2005 04/01/2005 - 04/30/2005 05/01/2005 - 05/31/2005 06/01/2005 - 06/30/2005 07/01/2005 - 07/31/2005 08/01/2005 - 08/31/2005 09/01/2005 - 09/30/2005 10/01/2005 - 10/31/2005 11/01/2005 - 11/30/2005 12/01/2005 - 12/31/2005 01/01/2006 - 01/31/2006 02/01/2006 - 02/28/2006 03/01/2006 - 03/31/2006 04/01/2006 - 04/30/2006 05/01/2006 - 05/31/2006 06/01/2006 - 06/30/2006 07/01/2006 - 07/31/2006 08/01/2006 - 08/31/2006 09/01/2006 - 09/30/2006 10/01/2006 - 10/31/2006 11/01/2006 - 11/30/2006
Buy the newest books!
Contest! Prizes! Help promote my books...
&
Help sell my screenplay!
&
Screenplay #2!
Shelly's Picks
New Pulp Literary Productions
freedom network
est. 1975
