SAUDI SQUEEZE PLAY

Yesterday’s meeting at the Western White House between President Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah was unprecedented in American history because of the backdoor ‘sandwich play’ involving former President Bush.

The Saudis came over here two days ago with a plan: to threaten the US into forcing Israel to accept a Saudi Peace Plan that would create a Palestinian State based on the pre-1967 borders. The threats – carefully laid out in a monumental NEW YORK TIMES front page story(http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/25/international/middleeast/25SAUD.html) yesterday set Washington afire.

Specifically, the threats were: 1) A potential Saudi cut-off of oil to the US; 2) throwing the US out of military bases in the Saudi kingdom; 3) embracing Saddam Hussein in a show of Arab unity; 4) embracing and adopting the philosophy of Osama bin Laden; 5) convening a Islamic leaders to decide future Muslim policy toward the USA.

And to complicate matters even further, Egypt now says they’d be willing to go to war with Israel (what ever happened to the Camp David Accords?) if the rich Arabs would pony up $100 billion to pay for the war effort (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/24/1019441265555.html). And this from a so-called “moderate Arab state” to which we pay over $4 billion a year.

Now, since yesterday’s 5-hour meeting, Saudi spokesmen have denied these threats. But that is a typical Arab ploy: float a threat and then deny making it. In reality, the threats indeed were made – and were heard loud and clear in the Bush White House. No wonder the President had a shell-shocked “deer in the headlight” look on his face when he met the press after the meeting. And no wonder the WASHINGTON POST today reports that the upper levels of the Bush Administration are hopelessly deadlocked over Mid East policy (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51099-2002Apr25.html).

The most devious – and telling – part of the Saudi Plan was to have two meetings – before and after the meeting with the President – with the former President Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush. Wednesday Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Bandar flew to Texas specifically to lunch with the Bushes. And today the Crown Prince is taking a private train trip to the Bush Presidential Library in College Station to again meet with Bush I.

What is going on?

The Saudis have figured out what few in our nation want to admit: Bush the Father is secretly running his son’s foreign policy.

By cleverly surrounding Bush II with aides and veterans – Cheney, Powell, Card, Rice and many more – Bush I can run his son’s administration from behind the scenes. Those “in the know” know that it’s their political death if they ever mention this. The Bushes “have a long memory”, Dick Cheney likes to remind people in private.

Israel has much to worry about because Bush I and his Secretary of State, James Baker, were long-time anti-Israelites. In fact, Bush I’s administration was probably the most hostile to Israel of any since Israel was created 54 years ago.

No wonder the Saudis are “sandwiching” Bush II with a before-and-after meeting with Bush I. They are playing to their long-time oil relationship with Bush I and with Dick Cheney.

Someone in the American media needs to expose the inordinate influence Bush I plays in his novice-in-foreign policy son’s administration. And politically, many should worry that with Bush I running things, Bush II may face a similar fate: squandering astronomical poll ratings garnered because of a Mid-East Crisis and ending up a failed one term president with deep divisions within his own party.

The Saudis have exposed this Bush’s weakness: foreign policy.

And it may destroy his presidency.

DON'T BELIEVE A WORD

Perhaps I am way off base, but I don't believe one word of the "story" behind White House Advisor Karen Hughes' departure. Her claim that it is "because of family concerns...wanting our 15-year old son to have roots in Texas" is a nice smokescreen, but it is not the real reason she is leaving.

Something must have happened behind the scenes - something which has so far been kept quiet - to force an ambitious, hard-driving woman to resign a post she coveted for eight years. Perhaps it was the constant staff fighting with her arch rival, Karl Rove. Or perhaps she ticked off former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara - the two most important and influential people in this government. But there is something that caused her departure - and it isn't the reasons spoon-fed to the media.

This week the media fawned over Hughes as she explained her decision. This politically correct institution chose to play the story as "woman knows she can't have it all so she opts for family over job."

How nice that sounds!

Only one problem: Karen Hughes had it all - and wanted it all, too. During the campaign - a much tougher and more strenuous time than the day-to-day working in the White House - she blew off her "family and Texas roots" and took her then 14-year old son on the campaign plane for over a year! She allegedly home-schooled him while helping to run a presidential campaign! What a way to raise a teenager!

Now we are to believe that she is chucking it all to go home to Austin, Texas?

No way.

No, there is something more behind this story. In the big scheme of things, who really cares? But it's good to keep in mind that Karen Hughes is Bush's top 'spinmeister' and, as such, she is 'spinning' her own departure to make herself and the Bushes look good.

Behind it all is the real story of why she is leaving with her tail between her legs. Either she got canned or lost out in a vicious power play.

TIME TO TALK TOUGH TO THE SAUDIS

There is new evidence that we are not even fighting the right enemy in the so-called War on Terror. The real enemy - in a sea of poisonous Muslim governments - is Saudi Arabia.

The latest evidence of this was heard in a Mecca mosque last week in a "sermon" given by a top Saudi Arabian religious leader. Here is some of what Sheik Abdul-Rahman al-Sudais said as he called on Muslims to "say farewell to peace initiatives with these people [Jews]." He prayed to the Muslim God to "terminate" the Jews, whom he called "the scum of humanity, the rats of the world, prophet killers, pigs and monkeys." Sudais also said Israel was carrying out "an ugly annihilation" against the Palestinians.

The Saudi Government (ha ha) does not "endorse" what Sudais said, but the sermon was carried live by TV and radio stations. Previously it has been revealed that the Saudi Government - specifically Crown Prince Abdullah, who is running the country in place of his stroke-incapacitated brother, the King - was 1) secretly "playing both sides" by funneling money to terrorist organizations. 2) The Saudi Government dispatched a plane within days of the 9-11 attacks to the US to pick up all bin Laden family members before the FBI could even interview them. 3) Saudi Arabia puts out different stories about the status of Osama bin Laden's citizenship and when or if they even froze his bank accounts. 4) The now-infamous telethon for Palestinian "martyrs" - aka suicide bombers - in Saudi Arabia included multi-million dollar donations from the King and the Crown Prince.

In the face of such evidence why in the world do we still regard Saudi Arabia as a friend? Is it because of their oil? And their money? If that is the case, then our War on Terror is a sham. If oil and money determine friend or foe then we do not have a leg to stand on.

This Thursday Crown Prince Abdullah journeys to the Crawford 'Western White House' for a weekend visit with G.W. Bush. In the wake of Colin Powell's failed Mid-East mission last week there has been speculation that the Crown Prince would cancel his trip, but apparently he is still coming. What should the President say in private to the Saudi leader? In no uncertain terms he should make it clear that we cannot tolerate their two-faced approach to killing Americans and Israelis. They may have the oil, but we have the B-52's. If we choose, we could take their oil today - and if they were behind the 9-11 attacks, we would be as justified in doing so as we are in removing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Bushes love to talk tough. But they only talk that way to weaklings. With the Big Boys they grovel and back down (see China and Russia). It is time to step up to the plate and let the Headquarters of the Muslim World know we aren't going to be pushed around any more.

STEP ON THE GAS


As revealed by Israeli intelligence to Jerusalem Post and New York Post writer Uri Dan yesterday, Yasir Arafat's phone calls have been bugged by the Israeli intelligence forces for years. In one recent phone call, Arafat's total duplicity is revealed. In a call to his long-time aide, Marwan Darbouti, who has been running the suicide bombing campaign, Arafat said, "When I call for a cease-fire, step on the gas."

In other words, an Arafat call for a cease-fire - long desired by Team Bush - means EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE!

It means: KILL MORE JEWS - FAST - BEFORE A CEASE-FIRE COULD BE IMPLEMENTED.

No wonder Prime Minister Sharon has had it with Arafat. And the Bush Administration should now see that it is a hopeless dream to negotiate with a killer who has pledged to "kill every Jew."

The Sharon Government should make these phone taps public. The world should know what a liar Arafat is - and what the Israelis are up against.

It is always baffling to know of these intelligence gems and never to have them properly released and made part of the public record. Perhaps the best example of how effective this can be is the 1983 shoot down by the Soviets of Korean Air Lines jet flying over Sakhalin Island carrying Congressman Larry MacDonald (Dem. Ga.).

In that case, the Soviets denied shooting the jet down. And the US smartly sent the radio intercepts of Soviet military communications up to the United Nations where they were played to the world. The Soviets were proven to be total and complete liars.

Israel should do the same thing with Arafat. Yes, they have already made public two captured documents: one a 'bill' for suicide bombs (600 sheckles per bomb) sent to Arafat's financial man; the other was a document signed by Arafat himself ordering more bombings.

Of course the reaction from the PLO - and its sympathizers - is to claim that Israel 'forged' these documents.

They will also claim that any intercepted phone calls have been 'doctored.' And the compliant Arab press will be shameless in their lies and misrepresentations. How else to explain the fact that most Saudis do not believe that 15 of the 19 9-11 hijackers were Saudis? The media over there is aimed not at the truth but at serving the Muslim cause of destroying Israel - and damaging the USA, too.

Still, the world needs to hear the truth about the PLO. These guerilla murderers have one mission: to destroy Israel. Period.

"Stepping on the gas" - along with Suha Arafat's praise for suicide bombing 'martyrs' - is proof that Israel faces a Palestinian leadership that cannot be trusted. How can you deal with someone like that?

No wonder Sharon won't even mention Arafat any longer. He must seethe when a Colin Powell tries to squeeze him into working again with a tried and true liar.

Team Bush clearly has lost its way on their so-called War on Terror. As long as the enemy was Osama bin Laden, they could keep it simple. But they allowed themselves to get caught up in the Middle Eastern Morass that has enveloped every president since Nixon's surprising stare-down of Leonid Brezhnev during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. President Nixon was the last president to make it clear: we side in a crunch 100% with Israel - even if it may cause World War III.

Then Prime Minister Golda Meir said of Nixon, "He was the greatest friend Israel ever had."

Since then the Chablis and Brie set of Georgetown has tried to be 'evenhanded' - code words for equating Arafat's murder with Israel's self-defense.

Sadly, G. W. Bush has proven himself to be lost at sea in this battle.

Israel needs to open their 'Arafat File" - and teach the world the truth about this murderer.

They do not need to exile him - or kill him. Just expose him for what he is: a life-long revolutionary who hopes to "drive every Jew into the sea."

Please, Mr. Sharon, release all the taps, tapes and files. "Step on the gas" - and quickly!

POWELL LEGITIMIZES TERROR


By meeting with Yassir Arafat yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell
conferred the 'Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval' on a terrorist thug who
tacitly admits he is orchestrating the use of murder to obtain his goals.

In fact, when Arafat told Powell that he would not agree to a 'cease-fire'
until Israel withdraws from the West Bank, he was equating murder with
self-defense.

The two are not equal.

When the United State retaliated for 9-11 by attacking Afghanistan, that was not the equivalent of the 9-11 suicide attacks on New York and
Washington. One was a provocative Act of War – while the other was
self-defense in the purest sense.

Likewise, Israel was the victim of a series of bombings – all of which
constitute a PLO Act of War against Israel. Thus, Israel's justified
self-defense move of going into Palestinian territory to prune the
'infrastructure of terror' is entirely within its rights.

The pathetic requirement by the Bush administration that Arafat denounce
terror in Arabic is a total joke. Why do we – or anyone – believe a
word he says? He has previously denounced terror in the Oslo Accords and has
clearly reversed himself since then. By the way, he earned a Nobel Peace
Prize for the Oslo agreement. He should be stripped of that award.

Now we hear that his wife, Suha Arafat, who is living in Paris, has said she condones
the suicide bombings and would hope that her son – if she had one, which she
does not – would become a martyr through a suicide attack.

This is 'renouncing terror'?

Arafat and the PLO have long called for the death of all Jews and have talked
of "driving the Jews into the sea." They also did not even want to recognize
Israel's right to exist.

So can we blame Israel for wanting to go after the militant extremists who
are actively killing Jews?

Hell, no!

The shame of it all is that G.W. Bush has weakened himself and his presidency
by engaging Arafat as a worthy interlocutor. Why not have talks with Osama
bin Laden, too? What's the difference?

What a mess it all is.

HAVE THE NAZIS RETURNED?

What the American press is not reporting is the shocking
> behavior of Arabs toward Jews – and the filthy propaganda being fed to Arab
> youth in their schools and mosques.
>
> Finally today the New York Daily News
> (http://www.nydailynews.com/today/News_and_Views/Beyond_the_City/a-147384.asp)
> in a front page story has detailed yesterday's shocking Saudi
> state-sponsored telethon whereby they raised over $56 million – some of it
> earmarked for the families of suicide bombers who killed innocents in Israel.
>
> Several million of this haul was personally donated by King Fahd
> and Crown Prince Abdullah – who will soon be visiting George W. Bush at his
> Crawford, Texas, ranch. In other words, the president of the United States
> will have as his houseguest someone who personally paid money to the families
> of suicide bombers.
>
> And we single out Iraq as our next target by citing its payments to
> the suicide-bomber families?
>
> The Saudis are big backers of Yassir Arafat's PLO. Under the
> Oslo Peace Agreement, both Israel and the PLO agreed to stop teaching hate.
> The agreement said, "Israel and the Palestinians will ensure that their
> respective educational systems contribute to the peace ... and will refrain
> from the introduction of any motifs that could adversely affect the process
> of reconciliation."
>
> The Israelis have honored that agreement; the PLO has not.
>
> For example, ninth-grade Palestinians students are taught from a
> textbook that reads, "Treachery and disloyalty are character traits of the
> Jews, and therefore one should be aware of them."
>
> Another example: An eighth-grade textbook reads, "Mankind has
> suffered from the yoke of racism at all times, because Satan has made their
> evil deeds seem beautiful. ... Such people are the Jews."
>
> Or this one: "Perhaps Allah brought the Jews to our land, so
> their death would take place here, as it did in their wars with the Romans."
>
> And we can also see from these textbooks why young Palestinians
> so happily blow themselves up: Fifth-graders are made to memorize lines such
> as "I shall take my soul in my hand and hurl it into the abyss of death." And
> they read of a boy who experiences his greatest "joy when he sees the enemy
> lying dead" or "fleeing for their lives."
>
> These students are also taught that the Palestinian "problem"
> is not Israel's control over the West Bank and Gaza, but Israel's very
> existence. As John Perazzo has written, "From the earliest age, children
> learn of their religious obligation to help drive out the infidels and
> reclaim 'every centimeter of Palestine', the 'stolen' land."
>
> This type of filth is exactly what the Nazi taught their
> children in the 1930s, which led to a German population – including
> mothers and children – that often, for weekend pleasure, drove into Poland
> to picnic while their husbands machine-gunned Jews into ditches. Then they'd
> all finish their lunches, drink their warm beer and head back home. They were
> tailgating – not at Sunday football games, but at mass murders.
>
> The lesson? People can be 'brainwashed' into a deep-seated hate
> and fury that overrides good sense and morality.
>
> Such 'brainwashing' is happening right now in Muslim schools – and
> in the Arab press.
>
> We Americans need to support Israel because without us it cannot
> survive – and also realize that the Middle East is a backward mess
> with fraudulent governments awash in oil cash and using a religion to
> subjugate the people.
>
> And we must realize a sad truth: This is a problem without an
> imminent or obvious solution.
>

A LITANY OF DISGRACES

As the Mideast turmoil continues with yet another suicide
> bombing, new evidence emerges of Saudi complicity in the Intifada – and
> American incompetence in our handling of an uncontrollable situation.
>
> Let us examine the latest:
>
> 1) "American foreign policy is being driven by Saddam Hussein."
> That was former Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu yesterday speaking in
> New York. He is right: The Bush administration is so consumed with removing
> Saddam's regime from power that it is willing to bulldoze over Ariel
> Sharon and meet with the murderer Yassir Arafat in order to 'quiet things
> down.' The Bush administration's goal? Garner enough so-called moderate Arab
> support for the coming war against Iraq.
>
> But things are not going well. The entire Arab world is in a
> tizzy over Israel's defense of itself. The more Israel tries to clean out the
> poisonous nests of terrorists – the exact same thing we are still doing in
> Afghanistan – the more the Arab world talks of war.
>
> 2) While Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, during his daily briefings,
> continually decries Iraq's payments to suicide bombers and their families, he
> professes ignorance of the EXACT SAME POLICY FROM THE SAUDIS. And these are
> our allies! (http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=09042002-050314-4015r) It
> turns out that the Saudi Arabian government has set aside a whopping $50
> million for payments to suicide bombers and their families – calling them
> "victims" of this war. It is a war, by the way, that the Arafat-led radicals
> started in September 2000 in order to goose even more concessions out of the
> Barak government in Israel and the desperate-for-a-legacy lame-duck Clinton
> administration in Washington.
>
> Hamas has followed suit – also financed by so-called moderates
> – and helped to train and dispatch more suicide bombers into Israel.
>
> American tolerance of Saudi hypocrisy is breathtaking!
>
> While we prepare to remove Saddam, the Saudi representative to
> the Arab League summit in Beirut two weeks ago publicly kisses the Iraqi
> representative in a show of solidarity. This was a huge slap in the faces of
> G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
>
> 3) As Secretary of State Colin Powell toured the Sunday morning
> TV talking head shows, he made the most amazing comment: "Innocent Palestinian
> suicide bombers are dying" because no reconciliation can be reached.
>
> If Trent Lott or Tom Delay had made that statement, the
> national news media would eviscerate him. But Colin Powell is the darling of
> the Politically Correct crowd and his mistakes are glossed over with total
> impunity.
>
> "Innocent" suicide bombers? How can that be?
>
> Well, what he is saying is that the conflict is taking
> "innocent" Palestinians and turning them into suicide bombers.
>
> But the truth is that it is Arafat, Hamas, al-Qaeda and other
> radical groups that prey upon the young and malleable children and literally
> brainwash them from infancy to make them lethal human bombs – all under the
> umbrella of a 'fundamentalist interpretation' of the Koran.
>
> Please note that there are no 75-year-old "suicide bombers." Why
> not?
> Perhaps because they can't be as easily manipulated, terrorized and
> browbeaten. And yet, when you think of it, an old man has lived his life. Why
> wouldn't he prefer to go out a martyr and thus save a young life from such a
> fate?
>
> The answer is simple: These people live under as repressive a
> system as did the citizens of the Soviet Union. In such a dictatorship, you
> can't "decide" to become a "suicide bomber." That decision is made for you –
> and neither you nor your family even has the right to object. That is life
> in such an awful system.
>
> As we learn more about the treachery of the Saudis, we can see
> that the so-called widespread anti-Americanism of the Muslim world is a
> redirected resentment by most Muslims for the poverty, inequality and
> squalor they live under.
>
> But the United States has nothing to do with that deplorable
> situation; their own governments are guilty of betraying their people – or
> 'subjects.' And these quasi-dictatorships – no friends of free press, free
> speech or democracy – control the media and use it to channel the popular
> anger away from themselves onto the USA.
>
> What a mess!
>
> And it is a mess we need to avoid. Yes, 'regime change' is a
> wonderful goal. But in which Muslim nation? Why Iraq and not Saudia Arabia?
>
> Let's face it: Most of those people – with the exception of the
> only democracy in the region, Israel – are not civilized. They are living in
> the Stone Age. And until they take the situation into their own hands – as
> we did in 1776 – and demand individual human rights, they are hopeless.
>
> We need to defend democracy and Israel. Other than that, we need
> to side with those who want what God has already blessed us with: freedom,
> liberty, free speech, democracy and the Power of the People over the
> government.
>
> Only when those values are accepted in the Middle East can any
> real peace ever ensue.