But that being the case all these years, why haven't U.S. and allied war criminals been tried and prosecuted for their crimes?

Firstly, like the Allied powers in both world wars, they're still "winning"; therefore secondly, the central and international bankers and fellow corporatists are going along; and therefore thirdly and most importantly, mutually-interested corporate news media are keen to assist them by stove-piping their propaganda and concealing the illegal and immoral nature of their acts, and thereby "covering" themselves.

It's only natural if political and corporate agents of empire stop at nothing to achieve that. By their corporatist nature, the equation is simple: the bottom line (profits, revenues) must be maximized, and therefore, the status quo (empire expansion, "democracy-spreading") must be maintained. Lest candid and contextual analyses beget self-incrimination, they are avoided at all costs. To that end, editors, producers, program hosts, politicians, and so-called experts lie, omit, distract, and repeat.

Myopic inquisition averts the exposure of huge conflicts of interest and violations of the public trust which could otherwise taint the feigned credibility of the medium and its corporate sponsors and producers, resulting in lost advertising revenues. Mutually-beneficial government policies and corporate ventures are treated with kid gloves, if touched at all, while certain groups and political actions are superficially and fraudulently marginalized along partisan or ethnic divides.

This keeps the dumbed-down left vs. right or good vs. evil discourse in the fore, thereby easily omitting from discussion the more root-level, people vs. state implications based on what is legal and moral. A series of slips in this area could ultimately lead to unemployment and possibly incrimination for an untold number of imperial cogs in corporate media and government.

That's where the think tanks come in. Their ability to bridge the propaganda gap between news media and government policy assures that outlets like Fox, NBC, CNN, AP, the New York Times, et al., are able to effectively "cover" the incestuous media-state malfeasance and make it look like news reporting.

Tributaries of Ideology

Some think tanks practically write the scripts that allow politicians and corporate media to stay on point: shallow, stove-piped, ideological point; which is easy when they are comprised of the same agents of deception that comprise corporate media, political lobbies, U.S. government departments, and defense and energy industry boards.

Membership overlaps as political and financial interests align; so naturally, the think tanks given the most air time and editorial inches are those challenging the mutual corporate-state ventures the least. Over time, through the unchallenged repetition of talking points, the most illicit (but corporately advantageous) government policies become accepted as plausible — their ideological underpinnings, conventional wisdom.

Far be it from an MSNBC personality to allow the mention of GE/NBC's dubious role in the U.S.-Israeli empire's wars of aggression. Don't hold your breath waiting for Fox News or the Wall Street Journal to concede the criminal undertakings of their columnists, editors, and talking heads (more on this below).

Some imperial think tanks act as talent agencies, while others are disguised as human rights groups. Almost all of them are veiled in patriotism, though many are vocally loyal to foreign states. And though social views and specific strategies may differ from one individual member to the next, neocon think tank members have certain politically- and financially-inspired m.o. in common, across the board:

Minimal, if any, regard for the U.S. Constitution, international treaties, international and humanitarian laws, or public opinion.

This is most often manifested in their support for:

— excessive federal intervention, e.g., the "energetic" Executive, a.k.a., unitary Executive, i.e., dictatorship;
— corporatism, e.g., no-bid contracts, corporate R&D subsidies, private corporate armies paid for by taxpayers, i.e., corporate welfare, militant fascism;
— the economic and political shakedown of U.S. citizens and citizens of third-world nations, a.k.a., the war on terror, i.e., militant fascism, global gangsterism;
— the racist colonial policies of the Likud Party and other rogue leadership in Israel; a.k.a., Apartheid, i.e., slow-burn Holocaust; and
— a currency-debasement- and debt-based process of financing it all, a.k.a., the Federal Reserve, i.e., central banking cartel.

Think tanks are PR firms for the empire, insofar as "PR" stands for Propaganda and Reconnaissance. Formerly- and currently-serving government employees and military officers serve on think-tank advisory boards, acting as insiders and liaisons among news media, D.C., and various political-action groups.

With favorable media-state accessibility thus established, think-tank intellectuals (empire-apologists, liars) are then quoted as "experts" by the same news agencies and outlets that are members of the corporate conglomerate filling the coffers and policy boards of the think tanks from which the seemingly-credible sources hail.

The Pentagon acts much like a talent-agency think tank in that way. Pre-invasion reporting on Saddam Hussein's Iraq was filled with such "expert" accounts from ex-military brass and ex-intelligence officials. Their lies and deception permeate the current media campaign to frame Iran as Nazi Germany, and the Iraqi Resistance as "al-Qaeda," "Iranian militants," or simply non-existent.

Thanks to influence and pressure from neocon-Likudnik think tanks, all 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza are portrayed as unfortunate by-products of Israel's "strategic predicament" who are worthy of collective punishment; their being illegally occupied, imprisoned without charges, tortured, turkey-shot, and force-starved by the U.S.-subsidized Israeli regime matters not.

Major neocon think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, Project for a New American Century, Center for Security Policy, CAMERA, and MEMRI have been the prime assailants in these areas, and have been exposed well for their fraudulent, dehumanizing, and treasonous state-worshiping propaganda over the years.

But there are lesser-known think tanks out there whose dubious distinctions scream as loudly for an exposé. They are just as dangerous because, like their more-prominent co-deceivers, they are contracted by news agencies, corporate media, and the U.S. and Israeli governments for their services, despite shameful conflicts of interest, self-contradictions, illicit proposals, and a track record of being wrong all along.

Each of them play a substantial role in the current shakedown of the American people and the people of resource-rich third-world nations. Some examples:

— Atlantic-Pacific Alliance

The owners of the APA website say that APA's mission is to "study and defend the US Constitution"; "explain the American way of life"; and "help the understanding between the US and its Atlantic and Pacific allies." [1] In its "SERVICES FOR THE MEDIA" section appears a breakdown of this huge philosophical contradiction:

Our Press Office ...
— Provides your staff with background on US policies . . .
— Supports journalists to prepare for events like press conferences, providing them with materials and commentary.
— Gives off-the-record interviews and takes part in editorial boards to enhance your staff background on policy issues.

APA wrongly equates U.S. policy and the status quo with what is lawful and right. Are APA defenders of a constitutional republic, or merely apologists for an empire state?

The Constitution does not promote Executive power, mercantilism, nation-building, or any other tyrannical federal policy; Atlantic-Pacific Alliance apparently does. Under "The US Government" links, APA labels the three branches thus: Congress/Executive Power/Judiciary. But the Constitution puts the "Power" in the people and explicitly weakens the Executive. Furthermore, the Constitution does not call for making strategic alliances or exporting any "American way of life": it strictly limits the federal government's power to do such things.

A cursory scan of their sidebar links will instruct the reader on the group's actual political sensibilities. How can you be defending the U.S. Constitution while your top featured Web links are to the Constitution-burning White House and the State Department — with the New York Times, Washington Times, Washington Post, NewsMax, Weekly Standard, FrontPage Magazine, National Review online, and American Thinker anchoring the list? All of them exhibit sharp disdain for the U.S. Constitution, and an Israel-first slant, in their editorial positions.

For further proof of APA's dubious existence, just scan their "Daily Press Briefing" for any day: nothing but fellow neocon think-tankers and the Wall Street Journal editorial and op-ed pages. APA provides translation services for such corporate and political organs of the state.

Atlantic-Pacific Alliance is another statist arm of corporate and foreign influence. Its purpose is to proselytize populations (primarily, Spanish-speaking ones) by stove-piping ("translating") neocon propaganda to them, while training journalists and public speakers on how to be good empire-apologists. The phony image of innocuity of U.S. intervention is packaged as study and defense of the U.S. Constitution. Total philosophical contradiction. Total fraud.
 
— Institute for the Analysis of Global Security

This particular neocon cell specializes in "energy independence equals national security" agitprop, in the effort to convince readers that the U.S. government should follow certain foreign policy prescriptions, irrespective of the legal status of those policies and the effects they would have on host populations and economies.

IAGS has a dubious way of packaging its isolationist mercantilism. On the "About IAGS" page, under the subtitle "What makes IAGS unique?" the following euphemisms appear (real-speak in parentheses):

— Instead of focusing on pie-in-the-sky technologies, IAGS focuses on technologies that can be commercialized rapidly. (We forgo those quaint ideas borne of moral and legal norms and the free-entry market, preferring instead to ignore and exploit them for a quick buck.)

— Rather than promoting stopgap solutions, IAGS focuses on ways to harness domestic resources and next generation technologies to completely displace imported oil. (Why stop bombing people? It's not our fault that our oil is under their sand.)

— IAGS is not beholden to any industry or political group. (We promote all the enterprises we are party to.) [2]

IAGS fails to explain how "completely displacing imported oil" makes IAGS "not beholden to any industry or political group." Sounds more like IAGS wants to deny Americans their right to prosper by taking away their ability to enter into a contract on the market in a certain industry — like, say, "imported oil" or "pie-in-the-sky technologies"?

As with all other neocon think tanks, IAGS's cover is ultimately blown by its obvious political and corporate influence. For an entity "not beholden to any industry or political group," IAGS certainly employees a lot of Zionists, Straussians, energy-industries traders, and other Noble Liars. Scanning their directors, senior fellows, and advisors, some names stand out: Eliot Cohen, James Woolsey, and Kenneth M. Pollack. Their common idea of how to "displace imported oil" is by bombing resource-rich chosen enemies of the Israeli and U.S. governments.

IAGS might as well stand for Israeli-American Goon Squad. They will sell the people of the United States down the river for empire in a heartbeat. As with all other neocon think tanks, their policy prescriptions have brought pain and insecurity upon the people and "interests" they feign concern for. Many members, as among the aforementioned, could be convicted of treason, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Many if not most are dual-citizen Israeli-Americans who are concerned with "global security" in the same sense that any band of marauders is concerned with trotting the globe and securing other peoples' lands and resources.

— Strategic Policy Consulting, Inc. [3]

This is Alireza Jafarzadeh's agitprop-operations center for his efforts to achieve regime-change in Iran.

The former [sic] spokesperson for the aforementioned U.S.-funded MeK (a.k.a., NCRI, MKO, PMOI) is supported and vetted by war-mongering U.S. intellectuals and politicians in mutually-beneficial foreign-policy efforts. His contrived war-incitement is reported uncritically by news agencies, and he enjoys his own Fox News column and regular TV spots as a "terror expert" and "Iran expert" on all the major cable news outlets (more on this later). [4] Thanks to this unqualified media-state accommodation, the Mek's Israeli- and U.S.-supplemented agitprop has been uncritically taken as probable cause for Israeli and U.S. aggression against the Iranian people.

But the group he and his U.S. and Israeli collaborators are cheer-leading for has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since 1997. So Alireza and his neocon-Likudnik keepers are pushing to have the MeK removed from the list; this, they insist, will free up the "Iranian opposition" to do what needs to be done (paramilitary insurrection). According to Jafarzadeh, the Mek boasts popular support in Iran; extensive contacts within the Iranian government and nuclear program; and thousands of Iranian dissidents in place, waiting for the right time to act.

But if the MeK had all that wherewithal to overthrow the Iranian regime, wouldn't they have done so by now? Would a truly popular and able people's resistance movement be beholden to an imperial power for the go-ahead throughout all these years of huffing and puffing in empire-shielded exile? Does a truly grass-roots movement fret an affixed label if their cause is righteous and popular?

No. The removal of the MeK from the foreign terrorist list will simply be a "legal" green light for the neocon-Likudniks in the U.S. government to officially support the group in a regime-change operation (which is what they are reportedly training for in Iraq and Nevada). These folks are fully expecting U.S. military assistance, continued U.S.-taxpayer funding, and ultimately, a U.S.-puppet government they approve of (themselves). Their scheme is so obviously contrived and wrong-headed that even some neocons thoroughly oppose it. [5]

Another insurrectionist think tank — Iran Policy Committee (IPC) — is the most influential supporter of the MeK in D.C..  Curiously enough, IAGS member and former CIA director James Woolsey is also a member of IPC. Yet another is the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD). Senators Jon Kyl and Joseph Lieberman serve as co-chairs of CPD.

These insurrectionist propaganda mills share membership and are greatly responsible for procuring the illegal funding for the MeK and getting unconstitutional anti-Iranian legislation passed. And while it may not be their intention across the board, they are in essence pushing for a third world war — or in Mr. Woolsey's case, a fourth.

— The Israel Project, Luntz-Malansky, et al [6]

The Israel Project (TIP) does much of what CAMERA does, only in a greater PR capacity. It's a more well-funded and Israeli version of U.S. think tanks like APA, who piss out absolutist government agitprop to any journalist, college student, or politician willing to parrot it. Pollsters like Frank Luntz come along and package elaborate ways of selling it to the target audience, using poll data geared to arrive at the desired point: Israeli infallibility, for instance.

Government talking points are polished, published, and made readily available to politicians and anyone of considerable stature on K Street, Pennsylvania Avenue, or in the Pentagon. Luntz-Malansky and TIP co-produce documents like this one, meant to help disinfo agents in corporate media and government sell a positive image of Israel. (Frank, btw, is the same fellow Fox News called on during the GOP debates to rig his polling apparatus to arrive at a marginalized Ron Paul. Paul typically won the actual, non-rigged, post-debate text-in votes handily — painfully blunt humiliations for one of the Ministry's greatest mills.)

TIP, CAMERA, et al., like to brag about their success — specifically, how their efforts greatly affect the news coverage of Isreali and Palestinian events — which then affects the way the American people react to their government's otherwise illicit support of Israeli apartheid and war on Iran.

The TIP website, from top to bottom, declares — no, protests! — that they are "not related to any government or government agency." Yet TIP's board of advisors reads like a U.S. Congressional who's-who in AIPAC's Rolodex. Their press releases are nothing more than well-edited regurgitations of Israeli government and military press releases, and editorials from extremist Israeli news media like Yediot Ahronot (Ynet) and The Jerusalem Post.

Is it any wonder then, why so many condemnations of Palestinian and Iranian actions are passed in Congress, and that none are even proposed against Israel? Even though Israel is targeted by dozens of U.N. Security Council Resolutions, and the Palestinians, none? And even though neither Iran nor the Palestinians have committed an act of aggression against the United States, while Israel has a history of not only aggression against the USA, but also espionage?

The influence and power wielded by these Israel-advocacy [sic] groups can not be overestimated. If the AP bureau in Jerusalem began reporting comprehensively and honestly on the daily events in the IOPTs, 1,000 pro-Likud Israelis and militant Israeli settlers would be cordoning the building within an hour of a CAMERA bulletin, protesting the journalistic crimes upon their Almighty State.

Fortunately for them, however, AP's staffers don't have to fret those terroristic threats — at least not physical ones. TIP, CAMERA, and their comrades in the Israeli settler movement are actually inside the bureau, hurling their pro-Israel protests with red ink.

As an independent Palestinian journalist who has reported from the IOPTs for nearly a quarter-century, Khalid Amayreh has seen and felt the damaging effect of corporate media on Israel-Palestine coverage, first-hand. He was systematically pushed out of his position at Al-Jazeera because of it. (See: "Pro-Israeli editors seek to influence Al-Jazeera International English Satellite TV"; electronicintifada.net)

Calling upon his invaluable pertinent experience, I asked him what he may have learned about AP's practices from the ground to the bureau. In addition to his own empirical testimony, he was obliged to share a small bit of what was related to him by acquaintances in the field — among them, a former AP reporter. What he revealed only reaffirms what this writer has suspected all along.

"The AP main office in West Jerusalem is run by extremist American Jewish immigrants," he began, adding that "some of them live as settlers in the West Bank." Palestinian reporters whose names often appear in AP bylines out of Jerusalem and Gaza City "have no authority whatsoever," he said, offering one example in reference to the former AP reporter:

One day he was asked to write a story about Palestinian perceptions of the 'right of return' and 28 people out of 30 he met said they supported the refugees' right to return home. However, AP ignored the views of the 28 and only accentuated the views of two or three people who said they would be willing to compromise on this.

(This subtle, conniving way of degrading Palestinians, downplaying their plight, and delegitimizing their just cause is quite common, and there are numerous other, more-egregious, more-meticulously documented examples of AP misreporting and lying-by-omission.)

"What do you expect from an international news agency that calls a gigantic eight-meter high wall a 'fence,'" he asked, before recalling one example of horrendous double standards:

This is the same agency that reminds us almost in every report from the occupied territories that Hamas killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bomb attack, but utterly ignores the thousands of Palestinian victims who were murdered knowingly and deliberately by the Israeli occupation army and fanatical Jewish settlers.

"It is very much a Jewish settler news agency."

Considering the editorial make-up of the bureau, this writer's analyses of their reportage, and what experts have detailed over the years, it is not far-fetched at all to surmise that the Jerusalem bureau of The Associated Press is in fact run by neocon-Likudniks.

Is it such a mystery, why Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer was not only assaulted, battered, and psychologically raped by Israeli state militants, but that the terror attack against him was also not reported by AP until two weeks later, and that the report read like one of those TIP press releases?

And how else to explain the extraneous use of one definite article, one adverb, and three adjectives to describe the political party that was democratically elected by a landslide, while using only one positive adjective for the party that attempted to illegally uproot them — and zero modifiers for the state that commits daily war crimes against the supporters of both:

In his brief visit to the West Bank city of Ramallah, Obama expressed strong support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, backed negotiations between Israel and moderate Palestinians and rejected talks with the violently anti-Israel Islamic Hamas group that overran Gaza last year. (Mark Lavie: "Israelis, Palestinians: Mixed feelings about Obama"; July 24)

Of course. The same Fatah that collaborated with Israeli and U.S. war criminals in further destroying Palestinian society is referred to as "moderate Palestinians." And the party that snuffed out the attempted coup, well, they "overran Gaza."

Without a doubt, AP's coverage is zeroed out at hard-line Israeli policy, and their journalistic quackery would not be possible over a duration without Israeli agents of disinformation operating from within.

But the propaganda shakedown is not exclusive to those with ink on their hands.

Mohammed Omer, Khalid Amayreh, and other Palestinian journalists tell of their experiences with militant Israeli agents agents who try to blackmail them into collaborating with Israel. [7] Of course AP never reports their ordeals because AP, like all other news media that are not openly working for the state of Israel, are operating as collaborators themselves.

No-one enters or leaves the IOPTs without the consent of the Israel military — especially Palestinians, cameramen, and reporters.

If your news or opinion reflects reality, then you're a militant security threat, or an anti-Semite, deserving of character assassination at the very least. That especially goes for Jewish intellectuals like Norman Finkelstein, who have humiliated the Zionist regime and its many agents of deception with sharp, scholarly criticism of its policies.

It's really quite simple. The rule is Israeli exceptionalism, and the exception is reality, which is too embarrassing for the Israeli regime and its foot soldiers. Therefore, barring collaboration with the state, no exceptions are made to the rule.

And naturally, that rule applies to the anti-Zionist president of Iran (whom this writer has no particular affection for but can appreciate his sense of justice in this area).

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits New York City for the annual U.N. General Assembly, pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian groups stage "anti-Mullah" rallies there and in other major cities to make it appear as if they enjoy U.S. and international grass-roots support for their illicit goals, when in fact they are the fringe collaborators against whom real grass-roots sentiment runs. [8]

These groups should be treated by serious media as what they are: opportunists, pirates, foreign agents, and generally incredible. Instead, they are legitimated as opposition groups, PR consultants, think tanks, and human rights groups, and their disinformation is reported as scholarly research and common knowledge.

But who is doing this? Who is most responsible for helping these agents of disinfo loot American taxpayers to the tune of billions every year for their illicit ends, and what motivates them to do it?

◄ Part Three: Rivers of Deceit ►

◄ Part One: Bite the Lamb, Cry Wolf ►

Notes:

[1] http://www.atlanticpacificalliance.com/
[2] http://www.iags.org/index.html
[3] http://spcwashington.com/mos/Frontpage/ (2004–present); http://www.spconsulting.us/ (2003–4)
[4] http://spcwashington.com/content/section/5/26/
More on this in part three.
[5] http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/Read.aspx?GUID=467985D8-FCCD-478F-A3BF-1B8AEE35BFDD
[6] http://www.theisraelproject.org & http://www.luntz.com
[7] Mr. Amayreh is quoted at length on this subject in an August 10, 2002, report in The Guardian, titled "He pointed the finger and pulled the strings, but the protection ran out."
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/aug/10/israel)
[8] Again, even neocons are quick to demolish the MeK's house of cards. See:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=A8B58BE4-A3A3-4076-BF3F-47CA97DD736B &
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=471BA6D9-F833-4668-BAC8-81B95AC1119C

Bite the Lamb; Cry Wolf

On September 6, 2007, Israeli Air Forces (IAF) jets violated Syrian airspace and destroyed a construction site which was alleged, by the Israelis, to have been a nuclear facility intended for weaponization. The evidence accompanying the Israeli allegations, which were not officially put forward until half a year later, showed no wrongdoing on Syria's part. That any mainstream news outlet would report the Israeli accusations without a healthy dose of skepticism would be a travesty.

But that's exactly what happened: corporate news media parroted the U.S.-corroborated Israeli claims and omitted the exclusive criminality on the part of the accusers. The IAF raid was an act of aggressive war in gross violation of international law, and U.S. officials colluded with the Israelis; but you could go blind trying to find one mainstream news report wherein Syria's defensive disposition or even its presumed innocence is implied, much less stated as fact.

Damascus is in good standing with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and has not violated the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) — an agreement the nuclear-armed state of Israel has refused to enter, and the most indomitably-nuclear USA has serially violated. Still, the plot has been spun around the Israeli-contrived and U.S.-corroborated threat of a nuclear-armed Syria.

How is that possible?

Nazi-German war criminal and propaganda guru, Joseph Goebbels, is often quoted on how leaders convince their subjects to believe the biggest lies in favor of the state. His instructions on the use of entertainment via theater and wireless media, to distract the captive audience from the dark cynicism of the regime's desired ends — and techniques like repetition and omission for brainwashing purposes — have not been lost on the propagandists of the neocon-Likudnik empire.

Nine months before the Israeli-U.S. war crime against Syria, a rare news report surfaced about a campaign aimed at demonizing and overthrowing the Syrian and Iranian regimes (boldness mine):

"For nearly a year, a select group of US officials has been quietly coordinating actions to counter the looming threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, including increasing the military capabilities of Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

"The group, known as the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group, or ISOG, is also coordinating a host of other actions, which include covert assistance to Iranian dissidents and building international outrage toward Iran by publicizing its alleged role in a 1994 terrorist attack in Argentina, according to interviews with half a dozen White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials who are involved in the group's work." [1]

Government officials do not reveal illicit government plans to reporters without a hitch; hence the editor's apple-polishing sterilization of the language. Notice that the so-called threat of a nuclear Iran and Iranian culpability in the Argentina attack are stated as facts, while the dubious legal status of the operation is omitted.

Those U.S. officials would have insisted on a "deep background" interview, or no story at all, if not for the editor's assurance that the final draft would reflect the U.S. venture as a benign and necessary response to rogue actions of the Iranian and Syria governments. This is one way in which news media lie for the government with subtlety and plausible deniability while appearing to challenge power.

Fraudulent chicken-hawking for violent regime-change in Tehran and Damascus is nothing new for Michael Ledeen and his neocon contemporaries. One week after the above report, the treasonous co-architect of pre-invasion lies about Iraq WMDs could be found trumpeting the ISOG battle call:

[T]he only way to demonstrate a will to win is to go after the Iranians and the Syrians ... God knows the evidence of Syrian involvement is overwhelming, and the latest information reportedly shows they are on both sides of the Sunni/Shiite divide. ...

If we do not tackle Syria, we will simply provide the terrorists with more targets. If we do go after them, we may yet win this thing. As luck would have it, this is the ideal moment to go after the Iranians, since their supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is either dead or dying, and a vicious internal power struggle is under way in Tehran.

We should propose a better solution to the Iranian people: revolution, leading to their freedom. That would require the president and the secretary of State to call for regime change in Iran and Syria, something from which they have always retreated in the past. But if we want to win, that’s the first step. Anybody ready? [2]

One columnist, constantly spewing false and criminally-subversive filth, isn't enough to affect mass sentiment. But, if enough Michael Ledeen's spew their lies and conjecture via a substantial array of media — regularly, consistently, and over a duration — a sufficient portion of the audience will eventually, if unwittingly, accept the insanity as normalcy.

Thus, a dumbed-down (mainstream) mindset is incubated and the illegal wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran are easily sold.

The efforts of ISOG, Ledeen, et al., have successfully passed through Congress numerous times over the past few years. The latest such effort is — surprise! — House Resolution 385: "Condemning the Attack on the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentine, in July 1994 and for other purposes, before the US House of Representatives, July 15, 2008."

Luckily, some U.S. officials actually know what's up, or at least care to speak out. Congressman Ron Paul warns that the neocon regime-change fanatics are "using a crime to justify a war," and as usual, he is right.

Indeed, the natural complement to the repetition of big lies is the omission of even bigger truths.

Around the same time that ISOG was reported to have intensified its campaign against Syria and Iran (early-2006), ISOG member and Iran-Contra pal of Ledeen's — Elliot Abrams — was planning his own shakedown operation in the Israeli-Occupied Territories of Palestine: uncivil war.

The plan, which employed a mercenary militia loosely connected to Palestinian minority party, Fatah, was to overtake Gaza and overthrow the newly-elected Parliamentary majority party, Hamas. (Neocon-Likudniks won't put up with the self-determination of those who resist their ethnic cleansing of them.)

Curiously enough, funding, training, and safe haven toward what Abrams termed a "hard coup" were provided by the U.S. and Israeli governments and some of the same "Arab allies" mentioned in the above report on the ISOG's campaign against Iran and Syria.

By the time the Boston Globe "covered" ISOG's treachery, Abrams' conspiracy had already been leaked to European and Middle Eastern news media and governments. By Winter 2006–7, the leaked story made its way to independent media outlets on the Internet. By June '07, Hamas had put down the Abrams coup in street battles against the Fatah-linked mercenaries (mostly because they caught word about the plot before anyone else).

Very few non-Ministry experts, like Nir Rosen, were able to relate this truthful version of the events in the mainstream, but as marginalized voices. Rosen's interview with CNN's John Roberts only appears on the Internet in transcript form. As is typically the case, the story that did make the mainstream was a total inversion of reality in favor of the state criminals. [3]

Reuters' and AP's reports on this subject read like U.S. and Israeli government press releases. As with the Israeli aggression against Syria, the victims are blamed. Instead of U.S. and Israeli entities committing war crimes, Hamas — and by extension, all Palestinians who resist the Israeli occupation of their land by supporting Hamas and electing them to power — are deemed militant insurrectionists and conspirators.

The illicit state acts were omitted altogether, while a contrived story and time-line is created. A complete fantasy has been reported over and over in thousands of newspapers and other news media since. It goes roughly thus: "The violent, Islamist [sic] Hamas plotted and carried out a coup against the pro-U.S. moderate [sic] Fatah; therefore, Israel responded by blockading Gaza in an effort to make the Palestinian people rise up and bring down Hamas, which is dedicated to the violent destruction of the Jewish state."

What is most heinously omitted is the Israeli and U.S. destruction of the state-less Palestinian people they are occupying. Absent are the Israeli kidnappings and assassinations of Hamas legislators and supporters since the party was elected to power.

Omitted also are the crippling sanctions that have been in place since then, and the supreme Israeli war crimes, like the destruction of Gaza's power plant and vital infrastructure the previous Summer. News media would have us believe that the illegal blockade began after Hamas "staged a bloody, violent, brown-skinned, Islamist coup."

As a result of the repetitions of lies and omissions of truths, all Palestinians who work for Hamas, support Hamas, or refuse to collaborate with the Fatah junta or the Israeli occupiers in the West Bank, are seen as being worthy of the collective punishment they receive at the hands of the U.S., Israeli, and E.U. governments.

These conspiracies against Syria, Iran, Iraq, and the Palestinians take root in neocon-Likudnik policy papers penned for U.S. and Israeli leaders like Benyamin Netanyahu, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush; conceived by neocons like Richard Perle, Meyrav and David Wurmser, Paul Wolfowitz, and Lewis Libby; peddled by neocons like Ledeen, Charles Krauthammer, and Bill Kristol on Fox News and in The Associated Press; and implemented as U.S. policy and legislation by neocons like Abrams, Gary Ackerman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Joe Lieberman.

A Precedent

During the Nüremberg Trials after WWII, Nazi German politicians, media moguls, bankers, arms makers, ideologues, and other high-ranking arms of the state were charged and sentenced for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes against peace for inciting, committing, and conspiring to commit those acts of aggression.

Among the exhibits entered as evidence against the defendants were public statements similar to the type made by Ledeen: the kind that discount potential genocides and economic disasters, while encouraging insurrection and perpetual war — all semantically smoke-screened as noble acts of liberation.

Other statements were more explicit and nakedly asserted, along the lines of what U.S. mainstream news media are inciting today: state-sponsored criminal acts of terror, aggressive war, and insurrection in Iran, for instance.

Ideologues of the neocon-Likudnik empire follow the repetition-omission principle religiously. One prime example is their favorite fear-mongering fallacy that says Iran is Nazi Germany and President Ahmadinejad is Hitler.

Of course, Iran is neither a regional military-superpower nor an occupier of foreign lands, while the neocon-Likudnik empire is even more aggressive and more militarily dominant than the Third Reich ever was. But that aside, there are in fact striking parallels between Nazi treatment of their chosen enemies and the U.S. and allied approaches to theirs.

Nazi ideologues and news publishers alike portrayed certain ethnic, religious, and political groups in ways similar to the way Arabs, Muslims, and Persians are portrayed today by the neocon Ministry. And like the neocon-Likudnik empire, the Reich's blamed such groups for all "attacks on the homeland."

Almost immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, Arab- and Muslim-demonizing propaganda permeated the airwaves. One particularly conniving and hideous concoction involved footage of Palestinians dancing joyously in the streets. But it was a fraud: the celebration shown was taken from footage of something from several years earlier. The real dancing celebration involved Israeli covert agents who were also filming the event as it unfolded.

This false and demonizing propaganda is the kind Nazi propagandists were punished for.

Why is the story of Israel spying on the United States NOT on the evening news? Well, it actually was, but was quickly pulled by the news outlet that ran the story (Fox!) as a result of pressure from the attack dogs of the Israel Lobby.

Neocon ideologists like Daniel Pipes, Brigitte Gabriel, Steve Emerson, Andrew Bostom, et al., make comfortable livings as marginalizers and dehumanizers for that Lobby. Their job is to make people believe that Israel is not the most prolific terrorist state, and that the U.S. government is not the biggest sponsor of Israeli and other international terror entities.

Their craft boils down to dissent-crushing guilt projection.

A favorite pastime for these racist pseudo-scholars is blackmailing so-called moderate Muslims using vitriol against so-called extremist, Islamist [sic], or terrorist Muslims — holding all Muslims (and the non-Muslims who defend them) accountable for the despicable actions of a few.

"If you're not speaking out, you're aiding the Islamofascists," to paraphrase the erstwhile-Lebanese Gabriel, who has had no trouble with Israel's carpet-bombings and occupation of her native country all her life.

"Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene. All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most." — Daniel Pipes, quoted in Le Monde Diplomatique, July 2003.

These Arabists [sic], orientalists [sic], Middle East [sic] experts, and terrorism [sic] experts claim, either baselessly or according to rigged polls, that a certain percentage of Muslims in the world are extremists, and that thus, tens of millions of Islamofascists [sic] are out there somewhere — ESPECIALLY IN THE UNITED STATES! — therefore, we better heed their counsel. Which requires their captive audience to put pressure on local governments to prevent new mosque construction in their towns and to shut down existing ones. College professors must be reported to law enforcement and the dean if they disagree with the government's so-called war on terror. And if they don't comply, the educators must be forced to resign or be fired.

Dark Age justice from those claiming to be on the "civilized" side of their fantastic Clash.

These xenophobic charlatans baselessly claim that there are Hamas, Hezbullah, and Al-Qaida "sleeper cells" in the United States. But to this day, the only cells shown to exist in this regard are the ones which mostly Arabs and Muslims are stuffed into without formal charges or due process. Many violent and inhuman activities transpire in and around those cells, but precious little of it involves sleep.

Most of these agents of inhumanity have been exposed and discredited more than once. Still, corporate media and news agencies rely heavily on them for TV ratings and newspaper and periodical readership. Again: If enough of them are given air time to spew their lies and conjecture via a substantial array of media — regularly, consistently, and over a duration — a sufficient portion of the audience will eventually accept the inhumanity as necessary or even noble.

Thanks mostly to the dehumanizers and their partners in news media, the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have gotten away with this and this, for example.

Like that of today's ideologists, Nazis Alfred Rosenberg's and Julius Streicher's demonizing and dehumanizing propaganda helped to convince the audience that anyone or any group deemed as a threat to the Third Reich deserved tyranny and death.

For their false condemnation and collective punishment of their chosen enemies, Nazi Ministry figures were convicted of crimes against humanity. For similar offenses, neocon-Likudnik ministers have received a pass (so far).

Goddamn Pieces of Paper 

Also entered as evidence at Nüremberg were violations of the post-WWI Versailles Treaty: a one-sided affair conceived by the "victors" and meant to humiliate the nation of Germany, blame it for the war, and keep its foreign-occupied population from self-determination or a healthy, competing economy. Any proud and self-respecting people would have defied such a tyrannical mandate.

Unfortunately for the German people, from their radicalized masses arose the most undesirable leadership, whose belligerent nature only lent credence to the ideological demons hyperbolized by FDR & Co. But if the Germans violated Versailles out of self-preservation, the Allied powers did much worse out of sadistic self-enrichment and the necessity of projecting their own guilt.

Which brings up another good comparison between USA versus Germany and USA versus Iran: the illegitimacy of the international mandates cited as justifications for preemption, the rank hypocrisy of prosecuting them unilaterally, and the disastrous effects those aggressive measures have on civilians.

Sanctions against Iran are legally baseless but for conjured neocon fear-mongering in the media and strong-arming in the U.N. The United States is perhaps the worst violator of the NPT, yet the neocon-Likudnik empire has convinced the world, through false propaganda, that Iran is.

Iran has been accused by some U.S. leaders of providing aid to those who have killed "hundreds of our brave men and women." Yet in Iraq, the U.S. and allies have shown to have killed more than a million non-combatants and caused millions more to be refugees, and U.S.-backed mercenary armies operate inside Iran, along its Iraqi and Pakistani borders, committing acts of terror and war.

You may have noticed that mainstream news reports never mention the U.S.-Iranian Algiers Accords, or even the U.S. Constitution, in the context of current U.S. build-up of aggressive war on Iran.

Signed in January 1981 by the United States and Iran, the Accords prohibit political and military intervention in Iranian affairs by the United States. The U.S. Constitution states that such binding agreements not violating the spirit of the Constitution itself are to be treated as a constitutional mandate. Every U.S.-involved sanction, asset-freeze, and embargo against Iran, and every U.S. dollar and man-hour spent in support of Iranian opposition groups, should be prosecuted as a violation thereof.

The Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MeK) is listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Its headquarters are Paris and London, but its members also live in, and operate out of, Camp Ashraf, Iraq, under U.S. and "Coalition" military protection. This much has been revealed in some mainstream news media.

But the so-called Iranian dissident group has also received hundreds of millions of U.S.-taxpayer dollars for its operations inside Iraq and Iran and in exile over the past few years, as well as secure training grounds in the United States. Illicit only begins to describe the nature of these acts; yet barely a handful of conscientious investigative journalists and credible military- and foreign-affairs experts have reported on them.

Painful Parallels

The Allied powers mindfully committed far more atrocities, against non-combatants, than any other party of either world war. They violated not only Versailles, but many other binding international agreements including Wilson's 14 Points, the Hague Regulations of 1907, and the post-war precedents set at Nüremberg for which the Nazis were condemned and executed.

Allied malfeasance was rampant. Up to a point during WWII, U.S. and international bankers, politicians, and enterprising corporatists, including President Bush's grandfather, were financing and profiteering off both sides, and generally rigging the apparatus quite handily.

How did those agents of empire get away with it? Well, for obvious starters, the three main so-called victors of WWII — the USA, Great Britain, and Russia — comprised the panel of judges, thanks to their self-granted infallibility (UN veto power, ultimately) by way of being "the winners." We all know that saying about victors and spoils. And besides, who's going to challenge the bullies when they have all the wherewithal and they're all on the same side?

But how was this U.S. and allied exceptionalism and legal immunity justified with the real world? The same way the initiation of those wars were made possible: Absolutist Propaganda.

During the build up to war in Europe, U.S. and Allied news media hyped Adolf Hitler's extreme rhetoric and Germany's violations of treaties and such, while omitting the violations of the same international laws by the FDR (and Truman) Administration. Allied savagery in the form of sanctions, embargoes, blockades, and boycotts were easily packaged as a credible and lawful means of enforcing ill-conceived, pro-allied mandates like Versailles, and "reining in the Third Reich." (Sound familiar?)

The tens of millions of non-combatants massacred and starved to death by the Allied powers were not newsworthy during the war; nor were their murders prosecutable afterward. The U.S. and its allies were defending themselves, fighting evil, and spreading democracy; or at least that was the predominant message over the airwaves and front pages of most of the world's media.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq and the ongoing shakedown of Iran have been sold in the same manner, only more prolifically. The U.S. government, during George W. Bush's second term alone, has spent hundreds of millions in U.S.-taxpayer dollars on virtually-unchallenged insurrection and propaganda operations overseas. The Third Reich's propaganda operations were nasty, for sure; but they were only effective within a regional radius, at best.

The neocon-Likudnik empire's apologists would rather you not know that the Angelic FDR or the Noble Wilson or the Merciful Lincoln shut down newspapers and incarcerated journalists, intellectual dissidents and in the rarest cases, politicians, that even-handed coverage of "the noble effort" were deemed unpatriotic and treasonable, and that Japanese-Americans were kidnapped and forced into "internment camps" by the FDR regime. (And if these things are discussed as facts, they are used as proof that "even our most lionized leaders did it, so what's the big fuss? It's a necessary evil for our own good!")

And never mind the ridiculously contradictory bedfellowhood among the Allied leaders. The only genocidal tyrants were Hitler and Mussolini. Oh yeah, and Stalin. But he was our tyrant. He was always reacting to the aggression of others — to the tune of tens of millions murdered. Just like Israel is "our best ally in the war on terror" and is always reacting to the aggression from that army-less existential threat called the Palestinians — to the tune of a 60-year, genocidal ethnic cleansing. Just like the Jewish [sic] state and the House of Saud are our greatest partners in "free trade" and "national defense" in the Middle East — to the tune of at least $5 billion per year and the looming vengeance of millions of the region's oppressed.

Nor will corporate media even hint at the parallels between: 1) the Russian and German military occupations in Europe and 2) the U.S. and Israeli regimes operating within the Israeli-Occupied Territories of Palestine (IOPTs) and Iraq.

But are prison camps not being operated, wherein detainees are held without charges or due process, tortured, and murdered? Are journalists and cameramen not being unlawfully detained, beaten, and killed by occupation forces? Are major news centers like Al-Jazeera, as well as local press offices, not being raided and shut down? Are U.S. occupation forces not writing self-lauding pieces and paying Iraqi newspapers to publish them as news reports? Are hotels where dozens of journalists stay not being shelled?

Are occupied people not collectively punished for lawfully resisting the occupation and ethnic cleansing, or for simply being? Are the houses of the occupied people not being demolished to pay the penance for their relatives' alleged crimes, or to make way for racial colonies?

Are U.S. attorneys general and other government officials not perverting the rule of law to justify these acts and immunize themselves and their cronies from future prosecution (thus admitting guilt)?

Do these and all other such acts on the part of the indomitable occupiers not constitute war crimes?

Of course not. The global policemen are always right, and their inconceivable policies are always justified, because they were fighting the evil terrorists and their evil ideologies. At least, that's what they would have mainstream society believe.

But who are "they" and how do they do it?

◄ Part Two: Tributaries of Ideology ►

[1] http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/02/us_unit_works_quietly_to_counter_irans_sway/

[2] http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTYxZDcxMzkzNzhiMzFkNTAwMzkxNjE0Y2FkNmM0MTE=

[3] The conspiracy was actually laid out in unprecedented detail by the respectable Vanity Fair, but was released a year late and under the byline of a reporter whose otherwise high career marks were lowered by his being duped by the Ahmed Chalabi scam a few years earlier. In this case, the Ministry tweaked both the flow of information and the perception of verity.
See: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/09/mi6-mi5-intelligence-briefings.

So, here are the things I witnessed going on before I knew what was REALLY going on during the course of our marriage: His double life was hidden so well, that the following red flags were just oversights by him and him getting careless. The summer before I got pregnant, not long after I moved up North to live with him, he had just started a fantastic job that allowed him a lot of freedom. He had his own large office with his own computer. He had lots of vacation and sick time, and had the flexibility to come and go to the office as he pleased. Apparently, he had a lot of free time, as well. And he surfed the web a lot when he was bored. Didnt take long, but I guess he discovered that porn was abundant, and he had plenty of time to view it without anyone coming in and disrupting him. I would come and visit him often...and I was proud of the great job he had and all the things he had accomplished. I didnt realize he had been sucked into the arms of the devil at that point. There was nothing to indicate anything was wrong. There were a few things, however, that started to pop up. I would visit him there and we'd go to lunch. He would leave the room for a moment and I would get on his computer. I saw that he had bookmarked a Victoria's Secret model's site on there and that he was checking out personal sites. Those were the only two things I ever saw on that computer, because I was not a snooper (then). I had no reason to go looking into his cookies or history or anything. I just happened to, those two times, see that stuff on there. I was a little irked about the Victoria's Secret model site, but didnt really care too much. The personals stuff though pissed me off. When I asked him why he was checking that stuff out, he said he and his co-worker were just looking at the local women on there and laughing at them. This co-worker of his also was in a long-term relationship and had a kid, so I really found it suspicious, but I let it go. I had no reason to doubt him at that point, I guess. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Over the next couple months or so, we got married, I was pregnant. But, I found that he was renting porn when I wasn't around. I once found one in the dvd player and another time, I called the video store and asked what had been rented recently. That was probably the first time I started to get paranoid my husband was lying to me, when I found myself asking a poor video clerk what my husband was renting. He would rent them from Direct TV sometimes when I was sleeping or out of town and I would see it on the bill. This bothered me, a lot. I used to suggest we rent porn together sometimes, just for fun. I was pretty open-minded about it, but only if we watched it together. I wasn't into my husband ******* *** to other woman, ever. He, however, never felt too comfortable with that idea. I also caught him viewing porn on our home computer, too, but just a couple times.

After my first son was born, I felt like my husband was more angry and than happy. He was so damned moody!! He had two weeks off to help me and the baby (I had had a c-section), and he did everything possible to isolate. He was obsessed with gardening and mowing the lawn. He would run errands. He would get angry at the baby, angry at me. Hell, even while I was in labor we got in a fight and I flipped him off because I thought my body was going to explode I was in so much pain. He couldn't brush it off as I was in the worst pain in my life. So, I even felt alone in labor. This all just shows how consumed he was with his addiction and how his moods were affected my it. But I had no idea. 

When my son was six months old, I saw something on the computer that almost killed me. My husband was at work. I saw that on the home computer he had been looking at escort sites advertising girls in our location and in NYC where he was about to go on a business trip. I just about died. I called my husband and told him to come home ASAP. He got home and I exploded in tears. I ran out the door and down the block. My husband put the baby in the car and followed me, begging me to get in and come home. I resisted and then went home myself, jumped into bed and cried and cried. I thought my life was over. He cried with me but denied and swore on his mother's grave that he was just looking at the pictures. I didn't believe him especially considering that he was about to go to NYC and he was looking for girls there, as well. He said he looks at sites from all over the country and that NYC was just in his head at that moment, but it didnt mean he would ever do anything. He swore so many times that he would never cheat and that he loved me and our son. I ended up believing him because my husband would neeeever do anything like that. This was a scenario that happened a few other times in our marriage. 

When I got pregnant with our second, the week I got pregnant, I got herpes. I was i so much pain, since the first outbreak is dreadful. I became very suspicious of my husband and thought that maybe he was cheating. He gave me that incredulous look, like "are you kidding me"? He even asked me if I was cheating. Yeah, right. This STD fucked me up emotionally in a major way. I didnt want to believe that it was him. I had been in monogamous relationships my whole life, with the exception of a few times in college and study abroad. SO, I made him take an STD test himself. He said it was negative. I cant remember whether I saw the results or not.

I don't have proof to this day that he actually gave it to me, but something inside me changed from that day forward. I lost a lot of desire to have *** **** him. It was a combo of being so upset about getting the STD, worrying whether he cheated or not, being pregnant, and his foul moods. I just wanted to retreat sexually. As a result of my retreating, he went through a phase of making endless advances and getting rejected and then him getting angry about it. I would have sex here and there, but when I rejected him, he would get very, very angry.

Right before I had the baby, I again saw that he had been looking at escort sites and craigslist "erotic" ads, but this time right in our neighborhood! I melted down, yet again. We had a major emotional evening, and he promised then he was going to get help. Of course, he still claimed to only be looking at the pictures. And I BELIEVED HIM!!! He checked out a therapist but then a week later said it cost too much money. He never went any further with it. I figured he had a porn problem, but still did not realize to what extent. I saw that he was consumed by it, but I thought it was just when I left the house and that he would use that opportunity to "look at the pictures". Damn, I wanted to believe him so badly, so I did.

I think I caught him a few more times looking at porn and the credit card charges for it, etc., but nothing really happened until we moved here. I had the third baby. When he was two months old is when I found out that my brother was posting pics of himself online to seek out anonymous sex. This was wildly triggering for me. Not only did my brother sexually abuse me as a child, but it also reminded me of what my husband had been up to over the years.

I started to get all crazy in my head. I started to look at my husband's email accounts. I had never done that before. I looked at one and all I saw was hundreds of porn spam. I then looked at his address book on that email account and saw that he had one girl's email stored. I then googled the email and saw that it was an escort, aka HOOKER! I fa-reaked the fuck out. I asked him about it, and he said that it must have been automatically stored there when he was looking at her site. I was like, yeah right. This time I did not believe him. I looked more deeply into her ad. I saw she had a phone number. Hmmm...So then, I wondered if he had ever called her. I looked at our cell phone records, another first. The records went back a year. I searched for her number and saw that it came up HUNDREDS of times!!!!! I was like, WHAT!!!!!!?????????? He was calling her over and over, minute by minute on some days...all during his workweek. I thought, this must be a typo or something. This is crazy. I started googling all the other numbers and then saw that he indeed had been calling countless prostitutes going as far back as the cell phone records would allow. I could not believe it. I then started to look at dates of remembrance....birthdays, births, etc. He even made calls while I was in the hospital with my second daughter. This was too much to bear.

Once again, I called my husband and said we needed to talk when he got home from work. I was so panicked I couldnt even see straight. I showed the computer to him and he was quiet. He said he made the calls because it gave him a rush, but he never did anything at all, nothing!!!! He swore up and down that he just liked to hear the girls' voices but that he never followed through.

For the next three days, I was a wreck. I was freaked out completely by the fact that this was escalating so fast, and I knew something else was just around the corner. Also, my brother was on some sort of rampage himself and I was disgusted by his nude photographs online and his potential dangerous sexual behavior. This was all crashing down on me. I didnt let up. I scrutinized over this new information and went over and over the phone records and his email. I then saw some porn email that asked him to come back and join again. When I clicked it, it asked for a password. I wondered to myself what usernames and passwords he was using to join these sites. I then thought of the "escort" sites he had looked at. I wondered what his login was. This was all at about 3am. I was up in my room panicking as all hell because I knew there was more. So I went to the escort sites and tried to login using his email address, the secret porn one I had fished into. But I had no password. So, then I requested that they send me the password to his email address. This was the big moment. Was it true all along? Is this possible? My heart was pounding so hard in my chest, I felt like I was on some sort of insane drug. Sure enough, the password was sent, so that must have meant he had an account.

I logged in. There it was. 12 reviews of prostitutes on that site alone (I later found out that there had been a couple dozen). I think my soul split in half at that moment. I could NOT believe it!!! Thats when I ran downstairs to the couch, yelled at my husband to wake up, and then shoved that computer in his face. See first post for what happens next. 

I guess my next post will explain a bit of what I know about his story, what actually happened.

Dear Quilting Bee Members:

I'm barely able to type this email to you because my broken fingers have not yet fully healed.  When Sen. McCain was visiting our fair city a month ago, he came by my house for a photo opportunity.  As you all know, my husband was a highly decorated battle captain in Korea who died fighting off a complete regimen of North Koreans while attempting to save a downed American Air Force pilot who looked a lot like William Holden.  In fact, my husband was the inspiration for the movie The Bridges at Toko-Ri, so everything I say must be doubly true and repeated early and often.  Also, please put it on the Internet because those people will believe anything.

Sen. McCain came into my living room with an entourage of photographers and was very kind.  Then the photographers left and he said to me, "Well, now that I've used you for my campaign, I'll see you later c**t."  I couldn't believe my ears. I asked him to repeat what he said and he yelled back, "Shut up, you old hag.  Where's your crapper?  I'm going to drop a couple of bombs myself and then get out of this hellhole."

I was shocked that this man who had been so kind while the photographers were around was now being so rude, so I asked him politely to leave.  That's when he just went ballistic.  He knocked over three of my lamps, broke a couple of my best china pieces, and then took my dead husband's Medal of Honor and said he was going to have it melted down and made into something called a "cock ring."  I don't know what that is, but I didn't like the sound of it.

As if all that weren't enough, he then said not only was he going to have his SUV do doughnuts in my front yard killing all of my petunias, he was also going to run over my kittens one by one.  When I raised my hands to stop him, he broke all my fingers while laughing at me as I screamed in pain.  As he was leaving, he said, "You know granny, the funny thing is I hate America.  I hate the flag. I hate the troops. I hate guns and I love abortion.  Also, when I become president, we're going to make Spanish the official language of the U.S. and I'm going to trade arms to Hezbollah so they can destroy Israel.  Finally, I don't believe in God.  See ya, you old battle ax."  He then defecated on our family Bible, and wiped himself with the Book of Deuteronomy.

So, fellow quilting bee members, please pass this along to as many people as you can.  Every word is true. This man must be stopped.

Sincerely,

Eugenia Hogwollop, Sioux City, IA

Please take time to read the following notes....

Thoughts on what Hell means
(http://tothebarley. com/ThoughtsonwhatHellmeans. html)

"Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh Grave (hades) where is thy victory?"
1 Corinthians 15:55

Many believe that there is no eternal Hell as is taught by the whole of Christianity. These are some of the thoughts and reasons why serious students of the Word, have come to believe just that.
If Hell is real, and God is going to burn people there eternally, then why didn't Paul ever mention it to us? Surely he would have tried to warn us don't you think? But, shockingly, Paul never mentioned hell!

The Apostle Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles by his own admission (Acts 13:46). He wrote us 13-14 books depending on whether we believe that he wrote the book of Hebrews. In all of his books he never once mentions the word hell.

The only Greek words that are translated into the word hell are hades, geenna, and tartaroo. Paul mentions the Greek word hades once, but never uses the words geenna or tartaroo.

In 1 Corinthians 15:55 where Paul wrote, "Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh Grave (hades) where is thy victory?" The Greek word hades is translated into the English word grave, where every other time in the New Testament the Greek word hades is translated into the English word hell.

Why didn't the Translators use the word "hell" in this verse? Why should there have been an exception?

In 1 Cor. 15:20 Paul is telling the people that Jesus was risen from the dead and was to become the first fruits that promised the rest of the Harvest. He says that the last enemy to be destroyed will be death. (1Cor. 15:26) Then he asks the people the rhetorical questions, "Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh Grave (hades) where is thy victory?" He is saying that death won't have a sting because it will be destroyed or done away with. ("Oh death, where is thy sting?") Then he is saying, "Oh Grave where is thy victory?" Oh grave, oh hades, oh hell where is thy victory??? None will have a victory because they will be destroyed or done away with also.

The translators could not have put the word hell into that verse because hell would have had no victory. This would have destroyed their Eternal Punishment doctrine. Hell would be destroyed, and if hell would be destroyed then how could it be an eternal kingdom where people will be tortured and burned forever and ever without end? Paul never taught Eternal Punishment. In fact he taught us that (hades) would not have a victory but that God would be completely victorious. Eph.
1:10

Why does our Apostle never mention the word hell in all of his 13-14 books? If hell were true as is being taught by the whole of Christianity shouldn't our Apostle have taught it to us? Wouldn't he have warned us about this place so that we would not be sent there? Paul instead prophesied that there would be a "falling away first.
" There is something strange here isn't there? Could it be that the whole of Christianity has "fallen away" into believing untrue things about Our Father?
Old Testament

The word translated "hell," in the Old Testament, is from the Hebrew word sheol. It is translated "Grave" 31 times, "Hell" 31 times, and "Pit" 3 times. Why should there be an exception? If a person reads these verses he will begin to see that there is nothing associated with endless punishment.

Examples where the Translators used the word Grave instead of the word Hell

By putting the word Hell in place of Grave you will begin to see that Sheol cannot mean Eternal Punishment.

Job 14:13, " O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave (sheol), that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!"

If the Translators would have put the English word Hell here it would have created a hugh problem. Would Job want to be hid in hell until God's wrath was past? He is speaking of the grave. Sheol cannot mean a place of endless punishment in this verse.

Job 17:13, "If I wait, the grave (sheol) is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.

"

What would happen here if they Translated (sheol) with the English word hell?
Job did not wait in hell for God to resurrect him! He waited in the grave.

Sheol cannot mean a place of endless punishment here.

Psalm 30:3, "O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave (sheol): thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.
"

If Sheol were translated "Hell" here then David would be saying that The Lord brought his soul up from Hell! Are we to believe that David's soul was brought up from hell? It will be brought up from the grave at the resurrection. Sheol cannot mean a place of endless punishment here.

Psalm 49:14-15, "Like sheep they are laid in the grave (sheol); death shall feed on them; and the upright morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave (sheol) from their dwelling. 15: But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave (sheol): for he shall receive me. Se'lah.
"

Install the word "Hell" for the word Sheol and you will see that sheol cannot mean Eternal Punishment. Sheep do not go to hell for eternal punishment! And most do not believe that God will redeem our souls from the power of hell. Sheol cannot mean a place of endless punishment here.

Why would the Hebrew word sheol be translated 31 times with the word grave?
Because the translators saw this problem and thought to translate the word Grave instead of Hell.

Examples where the Translators used the word Hell for Sheol instead of the word Grave

Psalm 16:10, "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell (sheol); neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
"
Acts 2:25-27, shows that this is a prophetic utterance that David spoke about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. "For thou wilt not leave my (Jesus') soul in hell.
"

Assuming hell were a place of eternal torment, Jesus' soul would not have been able to get out of hell because Luke 16 states that there is a great gulf. This word should have been translated grave because it shows that Jesus was brought out of the grave or Sepulcher and His body did not suffer the corruption of the flesh.

Jonah 2:1-3, "Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, (2) And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell (sheol) cried I, and thou heardest my voice. (3) For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
"

The translators used the word hell here when they should have used the word grave (unseen) because Jonah was not praying from hell. He was in the unseen place or the belly of the fish. He was in his "grave.
" He was not in an Eternal Hell!

Psalm 86:13, "For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell (sheol).

"

David wasn't in hell, as it is being taught, but will be delivered from the grave. Again if this word Sheol were translated grave it would have made complete sense.

Ezekiel 31:15-17, "Thus sayeth the Lord God; In the day when he went down to the grave (sheol) I caused a morning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.

16 I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell (sheol) with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of eden…"
17 They also went down into hell (sheol) with him unto them that be slain with the sword…"

This is talking about Pharaoh going into the grave (sheol) along with all his hordes. Yet the translators used the word hell twice when grave would have been clearer. Sheol is what they called the grave or the unseen place. Nothing in this can mean endless torment as is being taught by the Churches in this day.

Let us look at some New Testament Verses that have the word Hell

There are Three Greek words translated into "hell" in the New Testament.

Hades which means "unseen," Geenna which means "Valley of Hinnom, Gehinna," and Tartaroo or Tartarus.

The Greek word hades is translated by the English word "hell" 10 times and by the English word "grave" once.

In 1 Corinthians 15:55 the word hades is translated "Grave." Yet every other New Testament verse where hades is used it is translated "hell." If the translators had used the word Hell here in this verse, then Hell would not have had a victory.
This would have blown the false doctrine of eternal burning out the door!

In Acts 2:27-31 the word hades is used twice. These verses are spoke by Peter to the crowd at the day of Pentecost. They come from Psalms 16:10.

The New International Version (NIV) has translated these verses using the word "grave" instead of the word "hell." We all know that Jesus' body was in the Grave or Sepulcher for three days before it was resurrected on Sunday morning. These verses come from the Old Testament where the word sheol is used. In the KJV it is translated "hell", but in the NIV they have used the word "grave.

"

Even though the KJV used the word "hell" there in Psalms 16:10, we know that it should have been translated "grave.
" No one would think that Jesus was in an eternal-burning kingdom called hell for Three Days!

Revelation 1:18 has Jesus saying that he has the keys of death and of hell (hades). Here again this would have been better to translate the word "grave" instead of "hell." Jesus is telling us that we are Jointheirs with him and that he has conquered death and the grave. Just as the Translators used "grave" in 1 Cor. 15:55 for Hades, they could have used "grave" here also.

In Rev. 20:13-14 the word hades is translated by the English word "hell.
" In verse 13 it says,

"And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell (hades) delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
"

Notice that this says that those in hell (hades) were dead. Hades could not be a place of eternal torment because those people were DEAD not alive! The word hades would have made better sense to have been translated "grave" like in 1 Cor. 15:55.

In Rev. 20:14 it says, "And death and hell (hades) were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
"

Notice that Hell (hades) is cast into the lake of fire. Obviously hell is not a place of "eternal torment" because it is cast into a thing called the lake of fire, which is referred to as the second death. In 1 Cor. 15:55 Paul says that death won't have a victory and hell (hades) won't have a victory either. Then in verse 15:26 Paul says that the last enemy that will be destroyed is death. There will be no death. No first death or second death. Jesus will draw all unto him. He will have defeated death and the Grave.

In 1 Cor. 15:26 Paul says, "the last enemy to be destroyed is death." The word destroyed is katargeo in Greek. It means "to make of none effect." This is exactly what Jesus will do to death when he has the victory over it, he will make it of none effect upon the World.
There will be no more death!

Remember Jesus will destroy, "Him who had the Power of Death", that is the Devil Heb. 2:14. The word "destroy" here is the same Greek word, katargeo," which means, "To make of none effect." So Jesus will "make of none effect" death and the Devil.

My prayer is that you will be brought to a decision point on this subject. There is much more that can be said on this subject. I have just put a few things down that should make any person think, and hopefully study about the word Hell.

God Bless you as you study the truth about Hell.

I am really having an issue with everyones beliefs here. Forget the fact that the flood of Noah’s day DESTROYED all evil, there is no scriptural foundation to what is being discussed in this topic and just like the secret rapture it is false, a lie and misleading at the least. My heart is heavy and I am in torment because I delight in truth and finding answers to questions, not making more questions because the answers are false.

The Kenites of the bible are not from Cain, they are a tribe of Caanan during Abraham’s time. Also Moses’s father-in-law was Kenite therefore Moses’ wife as well.

Jdg 1:16 And the children of [Jethro] the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people.

YHWH blessed the wife of a Kenite

Jdg 5:24 Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
Jdg 5:25 He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish.

The Kenites are not descendants of Cain. Cain was the son of Adam that was exiled for sin. YHWH was prepared to accept him had he did the correct sacrifice. So are you all saying YHWH was prepared to embrace the hybrid son of satan?

Adam ate of the same fruit as Eve and if that was sex with satan then Adam is a queer. Not to mention that by Adam staying with Eve after she bedded another is against the law which is the knowledge they gained from the tree. Whoever this enchanter was he was from the others created before Adam. That is why the children of Adam have enmity with those not of Adam’s bloodline.

YHWH never said Adam’s would war between Cain. It was Esau and Jacob who would always be at one another. Esau (who isn’t the seedline of satan either) is the twin of Jacob and they come from the same bloodline but because of the sin of Esau in taking Caananite women(not Kenites) He disobeyed YHWH.

The reason Esau cannot be of a serpent is because the Messiah confirmed to the Pharisees that they were in fact from Abraham. However they were not from Jacob but from Esau. (John 8:29-37)

The knowledge of good and evil in the garden (tree) was not having sex.....Eve was seduced to in some way by someone that was cunning and slick, an enchanter, to disobey Yahweh and by thinking she would not die by this because he was so convincing. By doing so, thinking we won’t die, are we not saying we are gods in a way? That we have power? I believe so and I think Eve did too. If any sex was happening it biblically had to be with Adam because that is what it says and because any other would break YHWH’s laws and make Adam and Eve adulterers. Not to mention Adam a queer, an abomination before YHWH.

Who provides us with the knowledge of good and evil?...THE OMNISCIENT YHWH not some demon god satan! That is plain blasphemy.

How does He transfer knowledge of good and evil to man? Man’s cognizance of good and evil comes from YHWH’s law. The second time Moses delivered YHWH’s law to the children of Israel he described the law like this.....

Deu 30:15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
Deu 30:16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

The words "good" and "evil" ascribed to the law of YHWH here are translated from the same two Hebrew words "towb" and "ra" used in Genesis 2 and 3 regarding the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So since the tree is about the knowledge of YHWH’s law, by calling it what you have, would not that be evil in the eyes of Yahweh? I would think so.

I beg that those believing in this theory please look into it further. Although I agree with Murray on alot, this subject and his belief is wrong and not harmonizing with the word. With this belief it misleads and when certain truths come your way you will not understand because they will not make sense.

Note I do not direct my comments personally. I exhort you to understand the truth and my rebuke is in brotherly love.

Williams who has been an ordained Baptist minister for 28 years, went to Alaska in 1971 as a missionary. The Transalaska oil pipeline began its construction phase in 1974, and because of Mr. Williams' love for his country and concern for the spiritual welfare of the "pipeliners," he volunteered to serve as Chaplain on the pipeline, with the subsequent full support of the Alyeska Pipeline Company. Because of the executive status accorded to him as Chaplain, he was given access to information documented in his eye opening book, The Energy Non-Crisis.

After numerous public speaking engagements in the western states, certain government officials and concerned individuals urged Mr. Williams to put into print what he saw and heard, stating that they felt this information was vital to national security. Mr. Williams firmly believes that whoever controls energy controls the economy. Thus, The Energy Non-Crisis.

On Project Camelot site (http://www.projectcamelot.net/), a summary of his announcement is listed below.

The price of a barrel of oil will rise a little more [Note: $150, according to Williams' May 29 interview on Out There TV]. Then an announcement will be made of the discovery of huge oil reserves "North of Russia" and in Indonesia. These will flood the market with oil and the price will drop to $50 a barrel.

• • That will bankrupt the Arab nations - who will be forced to dump their dollar reserves.
• • That will in turn effectively bankrupt the US, and "America will see a financial collapse from which it will take years to recover".
• • Following that will come the North American Union and the Amero.
• • Additionally, Williams was told that "something will happen shortly before the election" which will ensure that McCain becomes President.

]]> http://faisalk.wordpress.com/?p=528 Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:15:56 +0000 batster http://faisalk.wordpress.com/?p=528

Max Power / Corbis

In her 30 years of counseling couples, Mira Kirshenbaum has discerned 17 reasons that people have extramarital affairs. In a near majority of couples, one partner will cheat on the other at some point. In her new book, When Good People Have Affairs: Inside the Hearts & Minds of People in Two Relationships (St. Martin's), Kirshenbaum explains the reasons and offers some helpful — and sometimes surprising — advice on how to manage the consequences. TIME senior reporter Andrea Sachs reached Kirshenbaum at her office in Boston:

TIME: Is there a pattern in the way that affairs begin?

Mira Kirshenbaum: People say, "I never meant for this to happen." They're being honest when they say that. Typically, they're in a committed relationship, but they aren't perfectly happy. No one who was perfectly happy in their primary relationship gets into a second one. They're a lot unhappy, or maybe just a little. Maybe they have no plans to cheat. And then the other person somehow floats onto their radar screen. The image that I have is like someone who has been wandering around with a couple of empty wine glasses who suddenly meets someone with a bottle of wine. And so they want a little taste. It starts very innocently. Very slowly they get to know each other. It's often an emotional affair to begin with. Maybe they have long conversations, whatever. However it happens, eventually they realize that they've crossed some sort of line. But they realize it after they've crossed it. And it feels wonderful because it was a line they were hungry to cross. But it also feels terrible because they know it's cheating, and they know they never wanted to be a cheater. But it keeps going. Think about it. If you don't want to divorce, and there are many reasons people don't — for the children, for financial reasons, they don't want the stigma of a divorce — this is a way people cope. They have the illusion that no one will know. If I get a divorce, it's a public act and everyone will know that my marriage failed, that I'm a failure. But if I have an affair, I'm able to pretend that everything's O.K. and no one will get hurt. So they find themselves involved in the two relationships and it looks as though it could work. And the guilt seems manageable. And they're not really thinking about the future. They feel like they've got this wonderful, wonderful present, and it seems to solve all their problems.

TIME: Can that last?

It never lasts. It can't. Being in two relationships is inherently unsustainable. It's like a house of cards. And the longer it keeps going, the more likely it is to come crashing down. And then the pressure mounts and the central structure is that three-way tug of war. The person who is cheating is just trying to keep everything stable, the same, not changing anything. The two other people, the lover and the spouse, are putting pressure on, if the spouse knows about it. If the spouse doesn't, she still is wanting more time, more fun. She puts pressure on anyway.

TIME: Do most people get caught?

Yes. Inevitably there are slip-ups. In the stories I hear, they find a gift in a pocket of a coat and they think it's for them and they're so excited, and then they never get the gift. I mean, it's just heartbreaking. So it all blows up eventually.

TIME: Should you confess if you feel guilty about it?

No. I've got to tell you that this is very, very important. I'm a person who is just an advocate of truth. I really will do anything to tell the truth, so it took me a long time to get to the point where I say, just don't tell. Because how does it make a person less guilty to inflict terrible pain on someone? Which is exactly what the confession does. It puts the other person in a permanent state of hurt and grief and loss of trust and an inability to feel safe, and it doesn't alleviate your guilt. Your relationship is dealt a potentially devastating blow. Honesty is great, but it's an abstract moral principle.... The higher moral principle, I believe, is not hurting people. And when you confess to having an affair, you are hurting someone more than you can ever imagine. So I tell people, if you care that much about honesty, figure out who you want to be with, commit to that relationship and devote the rest of your life to making it the most honest relationship you can. But confessing your affair is the kind of honesty that is unnecessarily destructive. There are two huge exceptions to not telling: if you're having an affair and you haven't practiced safe sex, even if it's only one time, you have to tell. Again, the moral principle is minimizing the hurt. But this time, the greatest risk of hurt comes from inflicting a sexually transmitted disease, and I've never seen a relationship recover from that. You also have to tell if discovery is imminent or likely. If you're going to be found out, then it's better for you to be the one to make the confession first.

Before I did this research, I really thought that affairs were fatal for relationships, but they're not. It all depends on how you deal with it, and that's why I have two sections in the book on how to repair and rebuild and heal the hurts. You need all of that. But if the person who has been cheated on has a talent for forgiveness and the cheater is truly sorry — this is one of the surprising findings — many, many people are able to use the affair as a wake-up call and end up so much happier with a relationship that gives them what they need, instead of just being on automatic and pretending that everything's O.K.

TIME: Do people who decide, during an affair, to leave their marriage often end up staying with the person they cheated with, or is that just a way of getting out of the relationship?

There are 17 reasons people have affairs, and you've just talked about one of them. I call it the Ejector Seat affair. People use the relationship as a way to get out of the marriage. That is a real reason. They're afraid to leave the marriage, and they're hoping that an affair will end things. Either the spouse will kick them out or the lover will give them the courage to quit.

TIME: Let's talk about some of the others. What is the See-If affair?

If your motive is to see if what you've been missing in your marriage can be gotten with someone else, and if so does it make as much of a difference as you thought, then you're in a See-If affair.

TIME: What about the Heating Up Your Marriage affair?

This is subconscious for people. They don't actively say, "I'm going to go and heat up my marriage." But unconsciously they're hoping that either the affair itself or their spouse finding out about it will make things more passionate in the relationship.

TIME: Is that a good strategy?

Well, none of these are great strategies, but you have to assume that there's a hidden wisdom. People are coping. People are doing the best they can. There's something they're hungry for and they're not getting it in life. And an affair is a way for people to try to get what they're needing.

TIME: What about the I Just Needed to Indulge Myself affair?

Look, it may not be noble, but the fact is that some people work so hard and they really don't know how to take care of themselves and give to themselves. And an affair occurs to them as the best way they know how to give themselves some pleasure. You don't really think very highly of someone like that, but there are people like that.

TIME: I'm intrigued by the Let's Kill this Relationship and See if It Comes Back to Life affair. What is that?

This happens unconsciously also. The idea is that once an affair is discovered, it will deliver a blow that will either kill your relationship or make it stronger. And it often does. The sex becomes much more passionate for some people.

TIME: The Having Experiences I Missed Out On affair?

This is true for a lot of women who weren't in many relationships before they got married — men as well — [who] feel there are experiences that are important that they missed out on. And an affair is the best way they can think of to get those experiences.

TIME: Let's take the last one. How about a mid-marriage crisis affair?

Without time and attention, marriages get stale or feel full of problems. They're tired and frustrated with their marriages and not knowing what else to do. You have an affair. It's about the stage the marriage is in. And the way we live today. Everyday life is terrible for love. Love needs time, and time is the air love breathes, and people have no time. On the weekends, they're running around schlepping, doing all kinds of things. And where do you have the time you had when you were falling in love? It just doesn't exist for people anymore.

TIME: What do you say to someone who comes to you and says, "I can't choose; I don't know who to stay with"?

If you want to work with me, O.K., first accept the fact that your view of your lover and your spouse are both skewed. Things always seem great with the lover, it's always so romantic and sexy, special, sporadic and, most of all, new and exciting. But guess what? New gets old. I wish I had a nickel for everyone who married their lover and found they replicated what they had with their spouse, with the added poverty of a post-divorce lifestyle. And in the same way, spouses are usually not as bad as they seem. After all, the person who is cheating is withdrawing energy from their marriage and has alleviated their guilt by bad-mouthing or bad-thinking their spouse. But when people work on their marriage and put the lover by the wayside, they're often very surprised at how much things can improve. Another piece of advice I'd say is, lovers are often little more than the crowbar you needed to get out of your marriage, but you don't need to marry the crowbar. That's a mistake a lot of people make. They feel so guilty, they then marry the person they had the affair with.

TIME: Are you still optimistic about marriage after hearing so many bad stories?

Oh, sure. Just because people have problems doesn't mean they can't solve their problems. It's a terrible way to have to wake up, but I work with so many couples who've gone through all of the stages and come out the other end in a much better place than they ever were, especially if they don't tell. And the problem with telling is that you're then taking all of the time in therapy and in your life where you should be focusing on making the relationship the best it can be. You spend it just talking about the past. [But] no one can change the past.

But it is summertime, and some people have a lot of time on their hands, and if you want to contact my friend Adamu Attah, here is his address:

adamu_attah1@sify.com

Please. Please. Do not send him any money, not for fees, not for deposits, not for anything. This is another of those hoax spams that some people actually respond to. Please, please, don't be one of them.

FROM THE DESK OF ADAMU ATTAH

THE HEAD OF FILE DEPARTMENT,
AFRICAN

DEVELOPMENT BANK (ADB)

OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA-FASO WEST
AFRICA.

TREAT AS URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL.

PLANE CRASH WEB
SITE...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

("remittance of $15.5million u.s.a dollars

confidential is the case")

compliments of the season
2008,

i am (adamu attah),head of file department & debt recovering in
african development bank ouagadougou burkina-faso in west
africa.

first, i must solicit your confidence in this transaction.this
is by

virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and top
secret.

however after series of petition was recieved by this present
regime from foreign contractors and inability of the african
development bank (adb)to fulfill their obligation for the payment to
its foreign creditors, in conjunction with the council of ministers,
they mandated us to carry out a careful and comprehensive review of all
overdue payments to foreign contractors and to effect payments
immediately.

during the above mentioned process, we discovered an
abandoned sum of us$15.5 m (fifteen million five hundred thousand us
dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who
died along with his entire family in a plane crash that happened in
(monday 31st july 2000).since we got information about his death, we
have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money
because we cannot release it unless some body applies for it as next of
kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines
and laws but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin
or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody
behind for the claim.

it is therefore upon this discovery that i and
other officials in my

department now decided to make this business
proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or
relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since
nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go into the bank
treasury as unclaimed bill.

i agree that 40% of this money will be for
you as a foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign
account,and 50% would be for me, while 10% will be for expenses incure
during the transaction. there after i will visit your country for
disbursement according to the percentage indicated.therefore, to enable
the immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply
first to the bank as relation or next of kin of the deceased indicating
your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax
number for easy and effective communication and location wherein the
money will be remitted.

upon the receipt of your reply, i will send to
you by email the text of the application to fill and send to the bank. i
will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is
hitch-free risk and this transaction will only take us 14 banking days
because as a banker, i know what to do and move the fund into your
account without any delay and thatyou should not entertain any atom of
fear as all required arrangement have been made for the transfer.

you
should contact me as soon as you receive this letter so that i will
send you the text of the application to apply to the bank and the data
information of the deceased .

your's faithfully,

adamu attah

from (adb) ouagadougou burkina-faso.

He used to try to describe it. Now I know.  Every time I want to call or email or IM or check my inbox, I know.  When you are ruled by an addiction to drugs, the compulsion is to use. And when you are addicted to a person, the compulsion is to contact them. 

I'm a junky in my own right now. Miserable. Distracted. Needing a fix. Thinking about & wanting nothing but just a phone call or email to tell me how to feel. I have it as bad as he did, only in a different way. Will giving up my former boyfriend be as hard as it was for him to kick cocaine? I have no idea. That took a long time.

I act like an addict now. I pace. I check the phone, the email, etc. I think of little else. I don't eat well, or sleep well. I am skinny for a skinny girl. I look terrible, with no motivation to try and look better. My willpower and motivation have all but abandoned me. I need to go to bed and eat. I need to detox, withdraw, rehab. I need to forget. Like letting the toxins out of the body, I need to somehow extract him from my heart.

A while back, I got an email that really upset me.  It was one of these emails designed to create hate and fear amongst the American population.  To top it off, it was even untrue.

The email stated that the British government had passed a law into effect that the Holocaust will no longer be taught in British schools due to Muslims not believing it ever happened and to appease their sensibilities.

I'm so tired of the hate, the lies, the propaganda.  How many people send out these emails to God knows who with these sick and twisted messages on them?  How many people believe this stuff because it must be true... its on the internet!  The internet with all of its goodness also has its evils and I'm afraid this is one of the worst. 

I have corrected many stories like this to those who have sent them to me.  I often wonder what the motivation in sending them could be.  To anyone who is educated, you look foolish.  To those who are ignorant, you simply spread fear and hate.  Is this what you really want to do? 

So please, think before you forward or write email.  You never ever know who will end up reading what you write.

January 2007—“And until we acknowledge that reality, uh, we can send 15,000 more troops; 20,000 more troops; 30,000 more troops. Uh, I don’t know any, uh, expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to, uh, privately that believes that that is gonna make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.”

July 2007—“Here’s what we know. The surge has not worked. And they said today, ‘Well, even in September, we’re going to need more time.’ So we’re going to kick this can all the way down to the next president,