America's favorite conspiracy theory: the moral argument
By Matthew Riemer

YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) -- Putting aside the usual lengthy and semi-philosophical discussions that attempt to accurately explain the term "conspiracy theory," let's turn to a brief summation much more useful for the purposes of this essay: A "conspiracy theory" is simply any explanation, reason, or cause that strongly offends or contradicts others' ideologies or historically sensitive political systems and models. And, more generally, it is an explanation for events that seems wildly improbable and elaborate.

So to some, the idea that the United States fought a war in Iraq over issues other than weapons of mass destruction -- even though the expert global consensus was that Iraq had either none or very small quantities of WMD and Colin Powell presented forged documents to the United Nations when making his case -- is a "conspiracy theory" because of how they view U.S. foreign policy (this is the first definition). These individuals see the U.S. as a benign, almost naively bumbling, superpower guided only by altruism. Ulterior motives are spirited away by associating them with some kind of exaggerated and paranoid realpolitik. And it is this historical theory, filled with a kind of de facto racism and condescension, which is quickly becoming America's favorite conspiracy theory: the moral argument (this is the second definition) ...

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Iraq's free fall
By Imad Khadduri

Former Iraqi nuclear scientist
YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (Canada)
(YellowTimes.org) -- There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This apparently became the case a few months after the end of the 1991 war when Hussain Kamel, the man in charge of the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, ordered the destruction of the chemical and biological materials and their warheads. The nuclear weapons program had already come to a halt on the first night of bombing in January 1991. The weapons were destroyed secretly, in order to hide their existence from inspectors, in the hopes of someday resuming production after inspections had finished. Hussain Kamel even disclosed the location of the hidden documents relating to the remnants of the chemical and biological programs during his futile escape to Jordan in 1995.
Yet Bush, Blair and their senior cohorts kept brandishing their "intelligence sources" in order to whip up a fervor over the danger of Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction up until the last day before the invasion of Iraq. Once they were in Iraq, with their hundreds of "specialists," they promised to uncover the hidden weapons of mass destruction.

One such idiotic attempt was the intrusion of American soldiers in the often-bombed Nuclear Research Center. The soldiers broke the protective seals originally placed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and opened Tuwaitha's radioactive burial mound ...

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YellowTimes.org - "Settlements: a user guide"
By Gabriel Ash
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)

(YellowTimes.org) – Colin Powell's list of humiliations in Israel included a lecture by Prime Minister Sharon explaining to him why Israel cannot stop expanding settlements. Sharon asked Powell, "What do you want, for a pregnant woman to have an abortion just because she is a settler?"

The imagery of settlers as benign civilians, just wanting to live their lives as they choose, serves Sharon's intentions of burying the "roadmap" and saving Israel once more from the looming threat of peace. Indeed, the continuing expansion of settlements during the Oslo process already "saved" Israel from peace once. From 1993 to 2001, settler population in the West Bank increased 91 percent, convincing Palestinians that Israel had no intentions to leave the Occupied Territories.

But that imagery is false. West Bank settlements are nothing like suburbs in New Jersey. They are a fundamental aspect of what is unique about Israel. It is therefore necessary to understand settlements for what they really are -- weapons ....

Fruitcakes
Printed on Sunday, May 04, 2003 @ 00:00:22 CST

By John Brand, D.Min., J.D.
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) -- How does one explain a government claiming to bring democracy to Iraq while imposing the Patriot Act on its own people? How does the Chief Executive justify repetition of a failed program, the tax cut, to stimulate the economy? How does Kenneth Lay rationalize sale of his own stock while prohibiting his employees from selling theirs? How can a Pat Robertson claim to preach the message of the Prince of Peace while spouting hatred and venom? In other words, what causes seemingly normal people to act like a bunch of fruitcakes?

I provided the answer in eight articles I wrote for YellowTimes.org in the past under the general title "The human theater of the absurd." However, I have been asked to write an abbreviated version expressing the explanation.

Summarily, the reason for human nutty behavior is found in the fact that, as Arthur Koestler stated so correctly in "Janus," evolution has left a few screws lose between the hypothalamus and the neocortex. The research of Paul MacLean, M.D., retired Chief, Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior, NIMH states the human dilemma in two terse comments.

In "Brain Roots to the Will-to-Power," (p.361) MacLean writes, "…our psychological and behavioral functions are under the joint control of three quite different mentalities. For us human beings there is the added complication that the two older formations do not have the power of speech." In other words, all humans have three, quite distinct brains seeking control of our behavior.

The second conclusion is found in "Evolution of the Three Mentalities." (p.313) "It deserves reemphasis that the three formations are markedly different in chemistry and structure and in an evolutionary sense eons apart," MacLean writes. "Moreover, it should be emphasized that despite their interconnection, there is evidence that each brain type is capable of acting somewhat independently … with the evolution of the forebrain, the neural chassis acquired three drivers, all of different minds and vying for control."

Not only do we have three brain formations in our skulls but also they reflect an evolutionary history covering millions and millions of years. While these three parts are interconnected, they also act individually.

So there you have it. You and I have three brains that developed individually over millions of years. Each brain also seeks to exert control over our behavior. On page 9, "The Triune Brain in Evolution," MacLean says, "…the forebrain could be compared to the driver of a vehicle … A fundamental difference is that in the course of evolution the brain has acquired three drivers, all seated up front and all of a different mind."

The oldest driver of our brains, the basal ganglia or reptilian brain, dates back to dinosaurian brains, c. 240,000,000 years ago. Staining human cells found in the basal ganglia and comparing them to similarly stained cells from present-day reptiles, no essential differences are found! In fact, there is a dinosaur in our brain that is alive and well.

I have read somewhere that our President does not believe in evolution. The result of such denial results in leaving the reptilian brain unmanaged and free to dominate his thinking and actions. The most significant behavioral imprint in the basal ganglia is the establishment and the defense of one's territory. Let me briefly comment on the other two brains and then I will explain how the unmanaged reptilian brain controls most of human behavior.

About 180,000,000 years ago, totally different creatures appeared on the landscape, the first mammals. The neural connections known as the limbic system reside in the brains of mammals. The behavioral traits imprinted there include offspring nurture, play, and most significantly for the purpose of this column, moods and emotion. Reptiles cannot nurture, play, or display emotions because they lack the brain cells stimulating those behaviors.

Only about five or so million years ago, the neocortex appeared. These new brain functions allowed our species to think abstractly (right hemisphere) and logically (left hemisphere). Of particular interest is the fact that only about 50,000 or so years ago, the capability for altruism, empathy, and long range planning appeared on the landscape of our brains.

Failure to recognize this rather awkward organization of our brains results in the dominance of the granddaddy of all brains, the reptilian brain, over most human behavior. Wars fought are to extend territory. Aggression is the tool to obtain natural resources. It is immaterial whether it was past acquisition of land for farming or is the present grab for oil and gas.

MacLean suggests that our territory is not limited to actual physical space but extends to our ideas, beliefs, philosophies, and political convictions. The real sleeper comes when we realize that the old dinosaurian brain makes the neocortex subservient to its own aggression. That simply means that the old granddaddy says, "Now son, I am going to whack the bejabbers out of old Saddam. Give me some plausible explanation why I am going to beat the hell out of him! Move it, boy, ye hear?"

So, very obediently, the neocortex comes up with "weapons of mass destructions" even though such things do not seem to exist in Iraq. The newer brain, totally dominated by the old dinosaur, spouts a phrase like "liberation for the sake of democracy." All the time it only demands a puppet government making all that good, old sweet crude accessible to America so we can fuel our SUVs.

The reptilian brain also calls into service the limbic system and its powerful emotionality. Flags are waved, much show is made over soldiers killed in order to extend the territorial aggressiveness of the dinosaurs who pose as the leaders of a free people. The proof of the presence of the reptilian brain is obvious that while proclaiming freedom, Ari Fleischer tells us that he who is not with the President is against him.

The reason the majority of Americans go along with the self-contradictory nature of our behavior is that their own reptilian brains are excellent receptors for the aggressiveness demonstrated by the ruling alphas.

Rejecting the fact that our brains are triune entities, most of us accept our aggressive, territorial behavior as being normal and natural. We don't even see the contradiction between proclaiming that "no child will be left behind" and then cutting programs benefiting the children. We justify our antisocial behavior with such slogans as "individual responsibility" not willing to accept the fact that greed for profits removes the possibility to attain an education so that responsibility can be assumed.

A Kenneth Lay is so dominated by his territorial imperative that he can easily justify his reptilian behavior to actually steal from his employees and the people of the State of California. The reptiles in charge of things are quite in accord with such raptorial behavior and fail to prefer charges against him!

A Pat Robertson can rationalize his divisive preachments under the guise of "individual salvation" and thereby eliminate the biblical call to justice and righteousness for all.

History is naught but spilled blood. The few experiments when some men and women sought to liberate us from being chained to reptilian behavior have all met with failure. The dinosaurs have the last words. The religion of Jesus was destroyed with the Christ of the Church. The noble experiment of the Founding Fathers is being destroyed by the Patriot Act. People are kept in fear of terrorism when the real terrorism comes from our own government. Remember that the Great Wall of China was only breached as a Chinese himself opened a gate to let in the marauders.

We don't have to go and see the movie "Jurassic Park." It plays constantly inside of our skulls. Oh, please don't misunderstand me. There are a goodly number of people doing nice and good things. But the control of our society is found in the circuits of our reptilian brains.

Well, this is a thumbnail sketch of what I consider the most significant discovery of the 20th Century. Unless we are willing to face who and what we are, the bloodletting, the injustice, the reptilian behavior will dominate our species. If we don't come to grips with the reality of our nutty behavior, some fruitcake will launch an atomic bomb bringing on a nuclear winter. Extinction of the dinosaurs may herald a possible scenario for our species. No one will escape a nuclear winter. Maybe not even fruitcakes deserve such an end.

[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations."]

John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org

The fig leaf of moral impotence

Weapons inspectors say US intelligence providing "garbage after garbage after garbage"


Printed on Monday, March 10, 2003 @ 02:22:41 EST

By Imad Khadduri
Former Iraqi nuclear scientist
YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (Canada)

(YellowTimes.org) – On March 7, 2003, Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), submitted, in accordance with U.N. Resolution 1441, his third report to the Security Council on Iraq's nuclear non-capability.

ElBaradei's report unequivocally disproved most of Colin Powell's alleged "evidence" of Iraq's continued nuclear weapons program after the end of the 1991 war that Powell so brazenly offered in a theatrical presentation to the same Security Council just a month earlier on February 5, 2003. Powell's pathetic response to ElBaradei's report would be laughable were it not for the moral crime the Bush administration is about to commit in Iraq.

ElBaradei's report confirmed the following:

The alleged Iraqi attempt of procuring Niger's uranium in the late nineties was based on unauthentic documents supplied by American and British intelligence. This brings to mind the "scientific report" hurriedly brought by UNSCOM inspectors to Baghdad in 1994 demanding an explanation of the report's claims of a continued effort by Iraq to develop its nuclear bomb design in the years following the 1991 war. As part of my responsibility in the issuance and archiving of all scientific reports emanating from the nuclear weapons development program before the 1991 war (except for the centrifugal enrichment process), it was not difficult to discern the intimate knowledge and accuracy of the authors' competence in preparing that fake report with regards to the intricacies of our own documentation procedures. However, the tell-tale use of Iranian synonyms for key words employed in that fake report, such as the reference to the two part core of the atomic bomb as a "dome" in Iranian parlance instead of the "hemisphere" as used by Iraqi scientists, quickly laid to rest the authenticity of that fake report. With the aid of an Iranian-Arabic dictionary that we provided to the UNSCOM inspectors, they left without further ado.

The aluminum tube fiasco, so widely publicized on America's CNN and FOX networks, has been proven to be a reverse-engineering attempt by Iraqi military engineers to manufacture locally the combustion chamber for a solid propellant rocket. That attempt extends back to the mid-eighties. The extra tolerances, to which Powell so despairingly clung in his unabashed retort, were no more than extra precautionary steps on the part of the engineers to ensure the success of their attempts. One may assume that these engineers would have indeed been surprised to learn from the American "experts" that such tolerances, if further pursued, would be suited for equipment in a uranium centrifuge process.

Having forbidden, under the economic sanctions, the import of pencils to Iraq for fear that the graphite inserts might be used for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons, the attempt to produce locally small magnets for all sorts of civilian use was interpreted in the fertile imagination of the American "experts" as proof of a possible rejuvenation of a uranium centrifugal enrichment process. ElBaradei's team of scientific experts in the field of uranium centrifugal enrichment, which probably has cost millions of dollars paid by Iraqi funds from the Oil for Food program, confirmed the simple and evident truth: the unfettered civilian use of such magnets.

Only the fourth and final fictitious piece of "evidence" presented by Powell in his February 5, 2003 report to the Security Council was unfortunately missing from ElBaradei's exposition. Powell deliberately lied, either knowingly or deceived by Iraqi defectors' lies, when he claimed that the declarations we, as Iraqi scientists, had signed several times upon the penalty of death prevented the Iraqi scientists from exposing sensitive information to the inspectors. The truth of the matter is that these declarations ordered us not to hide any sensitive reports and documents in our homes. The Iraqi government did not want to be held responsible for hidden documents when the U.N. began to inspect Iraq. We signed four or five such declarations starting in 1992. The last such pledge was conducted in the middle of 1997. The head of the Military Industrialization Corporation, the agency in charge of all chemical, biological and nuclear weapons development, assembled and chaired a meeting of about six hundred senior Iraqi scientists and engineers from all walks of activities in the above fields. He pointed to the fact that we had already signed a few of these declarations. He was willing to forgo all of the previous declarations if we would sign one final such declaration. In order to save us any further embarrassment or unintended folly, he urged us to go back to our homes, farmhouses and family lodgings and do one final thorough search for these documents. In the event that we did find some documents that we had inadvertently missed during our initial searches, we were to put them in a nameless envelope, and deposit them on a table in an empty assigned room, without any questions asked, with full reprieve from the previously signed declarations. He gave us three days to carry out that final search. We signed the final declaration as we left that meeting in 1997. Is the information provided by American intelligence services that systematically distorted?

During my recent FOX TV Heartland show interview with John Kasich about a week ago, I was one dimensionally bombarded with flimsy arguments by the anchor on the abundance of "Iraqi defectors have told of nuclear weapon sites" and who am I to refute Khidhir Hamza, the infamous "bombmaker" who has been claiming the existence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program for a year now on CNN, along with speaking to American congressional committees and right wing "think tanks." What is stopping these defectors from informing ElBaradei and the UNMOVIC inspectors on the ground in Iraq of the locations of these phantom establishments for the production of these weapons or their components?

Two weeks ago, CBS declined to interview me for the "60 Minutes" show after they were "counseled" by a well paid consultant from Washington D.C., who claimed to be a former UNSCOM inspector. The consultant warned CBS that the CIA had a wealth of information, unknown to me, on the existence of a continuing nuclear weapons development program in Iraq throughout the nineties. If this were true, why wouldn't the CIA save Colin Powell's face and provide this information to the IAEA and UNMOVIC? The American and British intelligence services did in fact provide, upon Blix's challenge to them in mid-December of 2002, a list of about 25 suspected sites, one of them marked red for extra "hush hush" care in case the Iraqis got wind of the information and would try to hide the evidence. The inspectors duly visited and inspected each one of these sites and they found nothing incriminating. In fact, they even stated that U.S. intelligence was providing them with nothing but "garbage after garbage after garbage." Is the American media that systematically manipulating the American people?

Unabashedly, Bush gave a speech on March 07, 2003, portraying the gathering dark clouds of a criminal war against Iraq, in the terms of a poker game. He challenged other countries opposed to the criminal war to "show their cards" while the U.S. and the U.K. would conveniently keep their cards hidden.

Lest he misses the point, he is playing a game of Russian roulette, and his fig leaf has fallen.

[Imad Khadduri has a MSc in Physics from the University of Michigan (United States) and a PhD in Nuclear Reactor Technology from the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom). Khadduri worked with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission from 1968 until 1998. He was able to leave Iraq in late 1998 with his family. He now teaches and works as a network administrator in Toronto, Canada. He has been interviewed by the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, FOX, the Toronto Star, Reuters, and various other news agencies in regards to his knowledge of the Iraqi nuclear program. This article was originally printed in YellowTimes.org.]

Imad Khadduri encourages your comments: imad.khadduri@rogers.com

YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication. YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org. Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.

What Colin Powell did not tell the world

bin Laden speech labels Saddam Hussein "infidel"


Misleading the Public
By Firas Al-Atraqchi
Feb. 12, 2003
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell dropped a bombshell at a Congressional hearing on Iraq and revealed that he had a transcript of an "upcoming" audio message from Osama bin Laden that betrays the links between bin Laden and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

However, the White House may have put its foot in its mouth this time around.

Upon careful scrutiny of the audio message from bin Laden (and broadcast at 3pm EST on the Arabic News Network Al-Jazeerah), it appears the Bush administration may have been so desperate to pin anything on Saddam and bin Laden that they did not wait to actually hear the contents of the message, nor provide adequate and reliable translation.

The bin Laden message expresses solidarity with the Iraqi people, advises them to remain steadfast in the coming invasion of their country and declares that Saddam and his aides are not important. "It is not important if Saddam and his government disappear," the man thought to be bin Laden says. "This is a war against you, the Muslims, and you must take arms to defend yourselves."

U.S. officials were quick to point out that the bin Laden message directly incriminates Iraq and proves the existence of ties between bin Laden's al-Qaeda and Saddam. U.S. media touted the official line before even hearing the tape, or awaiting a reliable translation. "Undeniably links Iraq with al-Qaeda," says one CNN anchor.

And then something happened that neither the U.S. administration nor the media anticipated: bin Laden called Saddam an apostate.

The audio message goes on to reveal that bin Laden believes Saddam to be a socialist and declares that "socialists and communists are unbelievers," thereby labeling Saddam an apostate of Islam, an infidel. It is worth mentioning that the government of Iraq is quasi-socialist and secular, and not Islamic.

Walid Phares, an Arabic-speaking MSNBC analyst finds that the audio message undermines Saddam's regime: "Osama bin Laden does not care about Saddam, in fact he can't wait till the demise of Saddam; he is trying to position himself to offer Iraqis an alternative ideology -- he calls socialism abhorrent to Islam."

The voice alleged to be bin Laden's in the audio message also called on the spilling of Saddam's blood: "His blood is halal." This wording is used to indicate what is permissive or legally allowed for the killing of a usurper or criminal.

The audio message also called forth the overthrow of governments supporting the U.S. -- Nigeria, Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

If bin Laden is effectively calling on Muslim Iraqis to overthrow Saddam and that Saddam is irrelevant in the coming war and Iraqis should not fight for him, how then can the U.S. administration use this message to prove Saddam and al-Qaeda are linked?

That question left some analysts baffled.

Kenneth Pollack, CNN analyst and anti-terrorism specialist, says that this is not the first time that bin Laden has used the plight of Iraq under sanctions and under Saddam to rally Muslims to his cause. In fact, bin Laden has spoken of the Iraqi issue since 1996, and has not hidden the fact that he is growing distaste for Saddam's socialist, Baathist regime.

"The October audio message this year was a four minute tape and bin Laden expressed sympathy for the Iraqi people," says Peter Bergen, CNN consultant on terrorism. "I don't see today's audio message as endorsing Saddam," he concludes.

If anything, bin Laden's message directed to the people, not leadership of Iraq, (any Arab speaker with two ears can testify that the opening lines of the audio message distinctly declare that this is a message to the Iraqi people) is ambiguous as pertains to alleged links with Saddam.

Nevertheless, U.S. officials maintain that this is all the proof they need. However, the U.S. viewing public must be aware that the they were only allowed to view excerpts of the 16-minute audio message, and contrary to what CNN has been proclaiming, it is not all about Iraq. The audio message also includes advice on refraining from alcohol and illicit sex, and respecting one's parents, in addition to other spiritual advice.

The audio message will not go down so easily in Europe and the Middle East and will be seen as a desperate attempt by a U.S. administration that has taken a bashing in NATO and at the U.N. to turn the tables around.

According to the BBC, "BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner, said the figure on the tape voiced support for Iraq, but that in no way did it prove a link between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi leadership."

Arabic speakers are sure to pour scorn on the official U.S. line. U.S. Congressional leaders, who have appeared on talk shows immediately following the excerpted broadcast of the audio tape have alluded to incorrect translations of the original Arabic content.

By default, the U.S. public is offered a half-censored, half-baked version of the audio tape.

While U.S. officials have conceded that the voice on the tape is indeed that of bin Laden, no one has bothered to focus on why the man U.S. President Bush vowed to get "dead or alive" is very much alive and a clear and present danger.

[Firas Al-Atraqchi, B.Sc (Physics), M.A. (Journalism and
Communications), is a Canadian journalist with eleven years of
experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the
telecom industry. He is a columnist for www.YellowTimes.org. He can be contacted at firas6544@rogers.com .]

Pip Wilson adds:
See also 
"But the statement did not express support for Saddam. It said Muslims should support the Iraqi people rather than the country's government."
Source 
Bin Laden Tape: The Real Story According To Antiwar
Feb 12, 2003
This article, which is very detailed and describes MSNBC's apparent duplicity (MSNBC being co-owned by Microsoft and General Electric, the huge arms manufacturer).

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