By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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What happens these days in today’s world demonstrates very well that Muslims and Christians have been caught victims of an unnecessary and malicious plan.

At the other end, Christians in Europe and America have been misled — through an incessant brainwash orchestrated by their mass media, politicians and intellectuals — and believe that the average Muslim has been radicalized, and is now ready for a Jihad against Christianity and the West.

This is all wrong. In fact, it is a false debate where both clashing parts have a distorted perception of the “other”, and of themselves. What is at stake involves both religions, all the religions of the world, and the world peace.

What Muslims failed to understand: the West is not Christian.

Muslims seem to forget that the Western countries are not Christian countries; they are merely countries with Christian populations, but the principles and the ideas of Christianity have been systematically disrespected and marginalized there. These countries were Christian indeed in the past, but confusing 15th century Europe with today’s Anti-Christian Europe is sheer proof of ignorance.

The Muslims confuse Medieval, Christian Europe’s Anti-Islamic stance with today’s Europe’s Anti-Islamic delirium. Terrible mistake with calamitous consequences!

Never ever has a Modern Muslim undertaken a critical examination of Europe’ identity; even worse, not a single Muslim today imagines as possible for him to undertake a research based let’s say on Ibn Khaldoun’s systematic investigative approach. Muslim historians have been accustomed with Western analytical methods in their explorations and investigations, thus enslaving themselves to a system that is not theirs, and to conclusions that are genuinely wrong for a Muslim to draw.

Simple observation and criticism would however be enough for a Muslim to understand that all the Christian values, principles and concepts on which the Christian Western societies were based have totally disappeared. These values, principles and concepts may perhaps be shared by many average people in the West, but they ceased to be the axis around which evolve the Western societies, their administrations and policy-making.

In fact, the values, principles and concepts that form the essence of today’s Western ruling class mindset, policy making and Weltanschauung are at the very antipodes of Christianity. Materialism, consumerism, immoral behaviour, corruption, relativism, nihilism, conformism, conventionalism, formalism, evolutionism and individualism prevail along with a foolish inclination for technological innovation, luxurious leisure, debauchery, incommensurable selfishness and overwhelming hypocrisy.

The driving force that eliminated Christianity brought forth the aforementioned, purely Anti-Christian situation. All this is due to the subversive tactics of Free Masonry, an ages-old society that in the process of its opposition to Vatican and to the official Christianity was transformed from inside and turned to an apostate guild. The subversive tactics undertaken by the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge in its search for prevalence condemned it to apostasy. Without deeply understanding these developments, no one can understand the evolution of the Western societies, and the phenomena of colonization (as practiced mainly by France and England) and globalization (as practiced mainly by America).

This subversion makes it possible that even in an institution that has been traditionally opposed to Freemasonry, like Vatican, one can possibly find members of the organization — and at times its head — who are Freemasons and act subversively in order to control and guide at will the organization in question.

This is precisely what happens with Vatican today; the present pope has been repeatedly accused by important Christian organizations as being a Freemason, which is absolutely incompatible with the quality of a Christian, and of a Muslim as well (http://www.virgo-maria.org/#). This imposes differentiation policies, and if they are not introduced, Muslims will simply fail in their approach to Europe, America and the Western world.

What Christians failed to understand: the East is not Islamic.

Similarly, Christians seem to forget that the Eastern countries are not Islamic / Muslim countries; they are countries with Muslim populations but the principles and the ideas of Islam have been systematically disrespected and marginalized at the level of the ruling elites, their mindset, lifestyle, behavioural system, administrative choices and policies, and more particularly their foreign policy making. These countries were Muslim indeed, but confusing 16th century Ottoman Empire with today’s pseudo-Muslim states is sheer proof of ignorance.

The Christians confuse Islamic Ages’ Islamic expansion at the detriment of Christianity with today’s Islamic World’s Anti-Western rhetoric. Terrible mistake with calamitous consequences!

Even worse, few Christians realize in the West that the same forces that demolished systematically the Christian values for the past three centuries, principles and concepts are those who shaped and imposed an interpretative method of the Oriental civilizations (Islamic included), which was adjusted to their sociopolitical, economic and global interests, and therefore is absolutely untrue.

Christians in the West failed to understand that one of the nefarious counterparts of Darwinism and evolutionism was the Orientalist doctrine of Islamology, which was geared to both, prevent Westerners from knowing the true Islam and let Muslim scholars persist on their obsolete analyses and approaches that further drag them to irrevocable ignorance and permanent impotence.

Christians in the West failed to understand that the inventors of the fallacious term “Arab — Muslim civilization” (civilisation arabo-musulmane) are identical with the promoters of the gay marriages in the West; even worse, real Catholic and Orthodox Christians failed to overtly accuse of apostasy the pseudo-Christian Evangelical puppets of the Freemasons who are those who promote both, the Zionisation of Christianity and the Anti-Islamic hysteria that deepens the unnecessary chasm between Christians and Muslims.

Even worse, never ever has a Modern Christian undertaken a critical examination of the Islamic World’s identity, other than the Islamological Orientalist fallacy of the Freemasons; even worse, not a single Christian today imagines as possible for him to undertake a research based on let’s say Theophanes’, George Syncellus’, Michel Psellos’ or John Damascenus’ theoretical approaches. Christian Western historians have been accustomed to use Freemasonic Orientalist analytical methods in their explorations and investigations, thus enslaving themselves to a system that is not theirs, and to conclusions that are genuinely wrong for a Christian to draw.

Simple observation and criticism would however be enough for a Christian to understand that all the Islamic values, principles and concepts on which the Islamic societies were traditionally based have by now disappeared. These values, principles and concepts may perhaps be shared by average people in many Muslim countries, but they ceased to be the axis around which the Muslim societies, their administrations and policy-making evolve.

In fact, the values, principles and concepts that form the essence of the Modern Muslim ruling classes mindset, policy making and Weltanschauung are at the very antipodes of genuine, traditional Islam. Filthy liars and bogus sheikhs ready to justify anything are therefore hired in the Islamic World’s leading mosques and universities in order to serve their criminal and pseudo-Islamic presidents, tyrants, emirs and bogus-kings, and they lecture the besotted masses that one Muslim can play football, spend his holidays in 5 stars hotels, organize Marketing campaigns for Coca Cola and Mc Donald’s, and go shopping in the malls.

Islam is thus reduced to a meaningless pseudo-prayer and the besotted pseudo-Muslim masses are told that this is enough to ensure good judgment in the Hereafter. At the same time, due to the advanced Westernization of the pseudo-Muslim societies, materialism, consumerism, immoral behaviour, corruption, relativism, nihilism, conformism, conventionalism, formalism, evolutionism and individualism prevail among pseudo-Muslims along with a foolish inclination for technological innovation, luxurious leisure, debauchery, incommensurable selfishness and overwhelming hypocrisy.

In fact, Islam had fallen into desuetude and coma before Napoleon arrived in Egypt, and even before the English set foot in India. The decadence was due to the rise in force of several negative and nefarious elements and doctrines that at first had been rejected and castigated; however, quite unfortunately, these doctrines managed to survive, expand and even give birth to lower and more degraded doctrinal systems. From Ahmed Ibn Hanbal to Ibn Taimiya and thence to Abdel Wahhab, a grave deterioration of thought, intellect, mental and intellectual processes, and a dramatic degradation and elimination of wisdom, knowledge, art, research and behaviour turned the Islamic civilization into a filthy realm of fanaticism, ignorance, hatred, negativism, and barbarism. This became the realm where tolerance is customarily shown for every attempt of lowering, vulgarizing and bestializing the human being. When Napoleon arrived in Egypt, the Islamic civilization — as assimilated, assessed, expanded and elevated by Masters of the World Thought like Tabari, Khwarismi, Ferdowsi, Ibn Sina, Qurtubi, Mohyieldin Ibn Arabi, Ibn Hazm, Ibn Rushd and many others — simply did not exist anymore.

The early Orientalists, who were all European Freemasons and, under the pretext of search and exploration, did their best to offer false interpretations of the historical phenomena (not only those pertaining to the Islamic Ages), noticed the aforementioned disastrous fall of the Islamic world, and to capitalize on their early colonial success, they triggered among the Muslim societies a series of socioeconomic, political and intellectual, pre-calculated reactions that pushed the colonized Muslim societies further deeper in the bottom. Through this, the Freemasonic Orientalist academia of England and France managed to control and exploit the Muslim societies in a way that made them stronger back home.

Robbing Muslims’ Wealth to Destroy Christianity: Typically Freemasonic

This is the truth that obliges today Christians and Muslims to merge against their common enemy: the wealth extracted from occupied Muslim lands was indeed used by the Freemasonic socioeconomic and political establishment of the West in order to finance the destruction of Christianity in the West.

The driving force that perpetuated Islam’s putrefaction is identical with those who destroyed the Christian identity of the West, and plunged the Western societies into endless crimes, such as abortion, homosexual marriages, and generalized corruption. The same subversive tactics applied by the criminal Freemasonic establishment in the Islamic World damaged the Christians in the West, although the colonial powers’ victories in Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and South Asia were effectively depicted as a success for the entire Christianity.

But what sort of Pyrrhic victory is it for the true Christians of the West the fact of an African becoming Christian, if this person’s children, living in America, carry out a totally Anti-Christian life full of materialism, sexualism, amoral behaviour, consumerism, and oblivion of all faiths?

As a matter of fact, the Ottoman Oil stolen by France, England and the US through the illegal occupation of the Ottoman territories (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Emirates and Oman) was not “good” for the Christians in the West. It merely helped elect Freemasonic popes in the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, and the 2000s.

That is why Christian organizations should form a great platform with Muslims who are able to carry out self-criticism and understand that today’s Muslim fanatics trying to radicalize the Muslim societies and escalate the Christian — Muslim clash are merely playing into the Freemasonic game of Islam’s ultimate disaster and annihilation.

Note — Picture: “Cardinal” O’Connor (an intimate friend of anti-pope John Paul 2) Pictured Smiling with Two Full Aproned Freemasons. From: http://www.todayscatholicworld.com/nov05tcw.htm

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America did an excellent job in Afghanistan; however, after seven (7) years of battles, diplomacy and investment, Afghanistan is about to be lost, having gradually been taken back and controlled by the opponents of the US-led alliance.

America did also an excellent job in Iraq, but after five and half (51 1/2) years of battles, diplomacy and investment, Iraq is in total chaos, at the epicenter of a maelstrom that risks absorbing the entire Middle East.

Speaking twice on Somalia a week ago, notably in the UN Security Council meeting and afterwards, Secretary Rice revealed that the US and several other countries have developed a common understanding with respect to piracy off the Somali coast, and that with the coverage of the recent UN Security Council Resolution 1851, they will undertake a great effort to eradicate piracy from the Somali coastland.

With references to AMNISOM, preventive policies, and international efforts, Condoleezza Rice demonstrated that the US plans of combating piracy are merely superficial. The perplexity of the Somali society and politics seem not to have been taken into consideration by the useless administrators of the collapsing superpower.

In fact, combating piracy in Somalia signifies either a mere theatrical act if operations are limited offshore or ? in case if ashore operations ? a damage against mainly the Puntland warlords and their financers, which would be a severe hit against the TFG president Abdillahi Yusuf and his local puppets at Garowe.

If a strong hit is delivered against the Somali piracy, the anti-ARS ? Shebab part of the Somali politics will be weakened; this would end up with an increased role for those whom the US establishment considers as unacceptable as ‘terrorists’.

This alone makes clear the US targets during the impending attack; as a matter of fact, the piracy phenomenon will not be uprooted; the reason is simple. Piracy is not a local phenomenon in Somalia, and it has never grown there. All the events we have been attesting over the past years clearly demonstrate that through bribery, deception and corruption, piracy has been implanted by evil, colonial England in Somalia ? certainly not directly but through several levels of proxies.

The pseudo-phenomenon was badly needed by the evil groups of power that machinate Somalia’s destruction; it has been geared to serve as mere pretext for the US attack against the liberation forces of Somalia, namely ARS and the Shabab. Through this anti-Somali conspiracy the colonial powers intend to impose on Somalia a neo-colonial regime with continuous US presence ? as it currently happens in Afghanistan.

I republish herewith Condoleezza Rice’s speech at the UN Security Council, and her remarks following the UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Somalia. Both speeches bear witness to the superficial approach and inadequate understanding of all things African that characterize the State Department. Usually, when the distance from the down-to-earth reality becomes astronomical, the final failure is guaranteed.

But does it truly matter for a mourning Somali mother at Hobyo, bereft of children, husband, parents, food and property, whether America will finally fail after a paranoid attack against Somalia undertaken under the pretext of the theatrical Somali piracy?

Combating the Scourge of Piracy

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
New York, New York
December 16, 2008

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Secretary General. And thank you very much to all my colleagues for participating in this very important Security Council session on piracy.

Obviously, we are here because the outbreak of piracy and the increasing threat to commerce, to security, and perhaps most importantly, to the principle of freedom of navigation of the seas is one that should concern every nation-state. And I do believe that the resolution that we have passed today will help us go a long way toward a coordinated response to the scourge of piracy.

We have noted that several factors have been limiting the effectiveness of our response, although a number of countries have been responding. The United States has been a part of that response, as has the EU, NATO, and a number of other countries in this chamber. But because there has been no existing mechanism for states to coordinate their actions effectively, I believe that our response has been less than the sum of its parts.

I would like to announce that the United States intends to work with partners to create a Contact Group on Somali piracy. We envision the Contact Group serving as a mechanism to share intelligence, coordinate activities, and reach out to other partners, including those in shipping and insurance industries. And we look forward to working quickly on this initiative.

A second factor limiting our response is in the impunity that the pirates enjoy. Piracy currently pays. But worse, pirates pay few costs for their criminality. Their dens in Somalia provide refuge from the naval ships in the Gulf of Aden, and as we saw with the hijacking of the Sirius Star 500 nautical miles from Mombassa, and with the recent unsuccessful attacks even further south off the Tanzanian coast, pirates are adapting to the naval presence in the Gulf of Aden by traveling farther to attack unsuspecting ships.

To make piracy costlier and more difficult to undertake, the United States, with the agreement of the Somali Transitional Federal Government, believes that the Security Council’s authorization today that states may pursue pirates into their places of operation on land will have a significant impact. History has demonstrated again and again that maritime operations alone are insufficient to combating piracy.

Mr. President, we also have a problem concerning the steps that must be taken to facilitate the delivery, detention, and prosecution of captured pirates. Through international law reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Security Council Resolutions 1846 and 1816, and the 1988 Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, SUA, the international community already has sufficient legal authority and available mechanisms to apprehend and prosecute pirates, but sometimes the political will and the coordination has not been there to do so. This problem of capacity is especially pronounced in the regional states. Their proximity to piracy makes them an obvious choice to cite prosecutions, but many lack the necessary judicial and law enforcement capacities to do so.

So we call on all states, particularly those victimized by Somali piracy, to contribute generously to building the legal capacity of regional SUA states. In the resolution, we also ask the United Nations to explore what can be done to build legal capacity in those states.

At the same time as we expect regional states to play a critical role, victim states also need to bear equal responsibility for prosecuting pirates. States who flagged hijacked vessels, whose nationals own hijacked vessels, or who have crew members on hijacked vessels, must honor their SUA obligations in relation to receiving and prosecuting suspected pirates.

Fourth, we must ask the maritime industry to promote capabilities to enhance ship self-defense. Once a hostage situation develops, the stakes in military operations increase. Consequently, an important part of counter-piracy efforts must be measured in enhancing self-defense capabilities of commercial vessels, increasing the odds of success against pirates until warships arrive.

Finally ? and a number of colleagues have spoken to this ? we must address the root of the piracy problem. Piracy is a symptom. It’s a symptom of the instability, the poverty, the lawlessness that have plagued Somalia for the past two decades. The Djibouti peace process has achieved some political headway in the last few months. And I thank you, Secretary General, for your excellent special representative, Ambassador Ould-Abdallah. But the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation on the ground is threatening that progress and threatening it every day.

The international community must make it a priority to work with the TFG, both to stabilize its internal situation and to work with the alliance for the rehabilitation ? re-liberation of Somalia, and the African Union mission in Somalia to help stabilize the country’s security situation. In this regard, let me note that the United States does believe that the time has come for the United Nations to consider and authorize a peacekeeping operation. This has been requested by the AU. It has been requested by countries that are taking the brunt of the difficulty on the ground. And while the conditions may not be auspicious for peacekeeping, they will be less auspicious if chaos reigns in Somalia and we have to turn at some point to peacemaking. Prevention is the issue here.

And while the United States will do everything that it can to continue the support of AMISOM ? indeed, the United States provided $67 million for training and equipping and deploying AMISOM last year ? we will continue to do that, and we will buttress our support to AMISOM. But I am afraid that the history of support for forces of this kind is not a very good one. What happens is that we are not able to sustain the voluntary contributions, we’re not able to sustain the voluntary training, we’re not able to sustain the mechanisms to make certain that the work is flowing smoothly. That is why we have a peacekeeping operation in the UN, because it draws on the full resources of the member-states in a way that is not voluntary, but that is compulsory, to do the work of this Council.

And so, Mr. Secretary General, the United States will be, with other states, continuing to raise in consultations ? not yet for consideration by the Council ? but in consultations, the need for a peacekeeping force in accordance with the request of the African Union that we do so.

Let me just say finally that once peace and normalcy have returned to Somalia, we believe that Somalis can start down a path to real economic development. Offering the Somali people an alternative to piracy and criminality is, in the long run, the best sustainable strategy for combating piracy. As a part of this strategy, the United States believes in working with the international community to help Somali fishermen prosper by preventing illegal fishing and dumping in Somalia ? Somali territorial waters.

With our meeting today and the resolution, we have sent a strong signal of commitment to combat the scourge of piracy. This current response is a good start, but we must do much more to defend freedom of navigation and trade. The shipping industry will be an important partner in those efforts. But let us make no mistake: It is governments that must lead, and we need to coordinate our efforts through a common point of contact. We need to end the impunity of Somali pirates. We need to support regional states in building capacity to prosecute pirates effectively. And we need to work to build security and stability in Somalia so that the Somali people can finally enjoy the blessings of peace and the rule of law and development.

Thank you very much.

2008/1062
Released on December 16, 2008

Situation in Somalia

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Remarks Following the UN Security Council Meeting on the Situation in Somalia
New York City, New York
December 16, 2008

SECRETARY RICE: I’ve just attended a very successful Security Council session on piracy. The Security Council adopted Resolution 1851, which is a very strong resolution that deals with issues of detention of pirates, with the prosecution of pirates, with the ability to use all necessary means on land as well as at sea, because we know from history that it isn’t really possible to contain this problem just as a maritime issue.

We talked a good deal about the need for coordination on intelligence, on information sharing. The United States is going to lead a Contact Group on Piracy on the Somali Coast. We also talked about the need for commercial shipping to take means that are defensive means, some of which are readily available, so that the pirates cannot turn a situation into a hostage situation, because once a hostage situation comes into being, obviously the stakes go up.

So it was a very fulsome discussion. But ultimately, all members spoke to the need to deal with the root cause of the problem, which is the instability in Somalia. There is great support, as the United States supports the Djibouti process and the hopes for peace as Somali factions begin to try and chart a course ahead.

I also want to note that we are calling on the members of the Transitional Government to deal with their own internal matters. There needs to be a stable government there, and they need to deal with their own differences, because the Somali people deserve that.

Finally, we talked about the security situation. We very much respect and support AMISOM, the AU force, for what they are doing. And the United States has been a big supporter. We’ve trained ? helped with training and logistics and financial support. But we believe that a proper UN peacekeeping force, as is called for by the African Union, is a necessity here. While AMISOM is doing very good work and we will continue to support it, we have a history with voluntary contributions and voluntary training that, with a situation as urgent as the one in Somalia, we actually have an apparatus within the United Nations that can deal with that kind of situation.

And so the United States believes strongly that we ought to have a Security Council resolution as soon as possible. In fact, we believe that by the end of the year we should try and have such a Security Council resolution. And so we’ll take that matter up separately. It was not something that we took up today. We are still in consultations.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

QUESTION: Over the last 24 hours, there’s been another two hijackings off the coast of Somalia. I’d like to get your reaction to that. And also, do you see the eventuality of U.S. troops going ashore in Somalia to catch the pirates?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I don’t want to take a kind of speculative look at this. I think it’s better not to comment in theory. We ? the United States is a part of an international effort. We do have naval forces that have been involved in this effort. What this does, though, is to authorize that the sea ? the boundary of the maritime cannot become a safe haven boundary for pirates. And so what we do or do not do in issues like hot pursuit or so forth, I think we’ll have to see and you’ll have to take it case by case. So I don’t want to commit in a speculative way or in a hypothetical way to anything for the United States. But again, the authorization was a very important authorization.

As to the two incidents that have taken place, I think it just shows the increasing problem that this is. The pirates are a threat to commerce. They are a threat to security. And perhaps most importantly, they are a threat to the principle of freedom of navigation on the seas.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

QUESTION: On the Six-Party Talks, the last round of meetings last week ended with no new declaration from North Korea. How do you leave this to your successors, and how do you respond to those who say that this has been a failure?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, we leave in place ? first of all, we are going to continue to work on it until the very last day. But we leave in place a Six-Party framework in which at least five parties are completely agreed as to what the verification mechanism has to look like. I might just note that we have an agreement with the North Koreans about a verification protocol, but there were a number of issues that had to be clarified in order to make sure that that verification protocol was going to be workable. And those assurances were given to us by the North Koreans. We, in fact, reported those assurances to the Chinese chair before this Six-Party round took place. And what happened in Beijing was that the North Koreans at the ? at this last session wouldn’t write them down. And at some point, those assurances are going to have to be written down. But there is, in fact, a verification protocol and a set of assurances that the five are agreed to and that the North Koreans, at least privately, before we lifted the terrorist designation, had also agreed to. And so we’ll just have to work through this.

I might note, too, that the disabling ? first, the shutdown of the reactor and then the disabling of the reactor has been an important step forward in dealing with the plutonium program. But we have a lot of questions about the highly enriched uranium route for North Korea. We have a lot of questions about proliferation. And we believe that the mechanism of the Six Parties and an associated verification protocol will be the best way to resolve those questions and to get to the bottom of the entire nature of the North Korean program.

And I just might note, too, that the September 19th agreement of a couple of years ago lays out a path for the completely denuclearization of North Korea and of the Korean Peninsula, and that agreement is an agreement among the Six Parties. So I think we leave a pretty good framework, but we’ll continue to see if we can get the North Koreans to write down the assurances that they gave us.

QUESTION: Secretary Rice?

SECRETARY RICE: Let me take this gentleman right here.

QUESTION: Two things, Madame Secretary. First of all, military ? a U.S. military commander in the area has expressed reservations about going ashore, so I’m wondering if that means that the resolution lacks teeth and if there is a disagreement between the State Department and the Pentagon on the use of force.

SECRETARY RICE: I wouldn’t be ? I would not be here seeking authorization to go ashore if the United States Government, perhaps most importantly the President of the United States, were not behind this resolution. And therefore, any voices about this are voices that need to be understood in the context that I was sent here to get authorization to go ashore so that we did not create a dividing line that was a maritime-to-land sanctuary for the pirates. And that is a position that is supported by the United States Government as a whole.

This gentleman has ?

QUESTION: The Secretary General said that he approached 50 countries, through organizations, I believe, asking for troops and he couldn’t get them. So I know that you were a little bit critical in saying that there should be some mechanism put in place to sort of force that issue. But if you can’t get the countries to contribute troops, how do you ?

SECRETARY RICE: The issue here is that, first of all, there is a force on the ground, the AMISOM force; and one of the possibilities is to blue-hat the ? to rehab the AMISOM force and to add forces to it, and there are a number of countries that have expressed their willingness to consider being a part of such a force. I don’t think that one is going to raise a large multinational force of countries from all over the world for Somalia, but the African countries have expressed a lot of interest in doing what they can in Somalia and they’ve also expressed their ? through the AU the need for a UN peacekeeping force. And the Africans ? the African representatives here, including South Africa, spoke in favor of a peacekeeping force.

QUESTION: Secretary Rice, would the U.S. commit troops to a UN peacekeeping force, and do you know if Barack Obama supports your push for a UN peacekeeping force?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the President of the United States is the President of the United States, and we are seeking this and we believe that this is the best answer. I do know that no American administration is going to want to see chaos in Somalia. We’ve been there, we’ve done that; it didn’t look very good.

And finally, the Somalis actually have a legitimate process underway that needs to be supported. Now, I want to emphasize again, we did not seek a peacekeeping force today. The purpose of today was to deal with the piracy issue, and we’re going to continue consultations. But we cannot get into a situation in which a security vacuum is left in Somalia and all of the good work of Djibouti is undone and we go back to two years ago, prior to the Ethiopian offensive. That would not be a good circumstance to find ourselves in.

And I really don’t imagine American forces being a part of a peacekeeping operation. American forces are pretty busy these days.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I wonder if we could get you to look more philosophically at diplomacy at the end of 2008 going into 2009 after your eight years in the government, and to see in a new world that is not unipolar, not multipolar, what we can ? what lessons we can draw out of especially today’s discussion about Somalia and a piracy issue, kind of in the spirit of your friend Alexander Downer, who liked to say that the Owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk. At the dusk, what do you reflect on?

SECRETARY RICE: (Laughter.) Well, let’s see. Is it dusk yet? Midnight. In any case, I think that the United States, under President Bush, has actually used the mechanisms and the councils of the United Nations more than they’ve been used maybe ever, whether it is insisting that Security Council resolutions that have been passed be respected, whether it is seeking to deal with human rights and tyranny cases like Zimbabwe or Burma, whether it is the kind of really remarkable day that we’ve had today where we’ve had one resolution that was sponsored by the United States and Russia on the Middle East, something that I think might not have been foreseeable just a very short period of time. And I think, by the way, that is a product of the last several years of diplomacy on the Middle East that really have brought the international community to a joint understanding and strategy of what needs to be done to achieve the two-state solution that Bush outlined. That’s why Russia and the United States were able to sponsor this.

And then finally, this piracy case, it’s a kind of interesting story because we were down at the APEC, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Council, and the President and I talked to half a dozen leaders down there, including President Hu Jintao, President Medvedev, and others, and we got such strong and resounding agreement that somehow, even though the international community had already gotten very strong authorities on piracy, we didn’t seem to be coordinated; people didn’t seem to know, we weren’t sending a deterrent message to the pirates through our unity. And this has been a remarkable process of getting a very strong, unanimous resolution on a common threat. And so I’m very proud of the multilateral diplomacy that we’ve been able to do and that the President has been able to support. It’s been a good couple days at the UN.

Yes.

QUESTION: Following up on your answer, you said the U.S. has been sure that UN sanctions, et cetera, are followed. Is Pakistan following the UN Security Council’s ban on the Jamaat? The Foreign Minister just said this weekend that charitable organizations of the Jamaat-ul-Dawa will not be closed down. Is this a violation of international cooperation?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the ? Pakistan is going to have to untangle a difficult circumstance with the Jamaat-ul-Dawa ? they are ? because I understand that there are so-called charitable activities. But we learned ? the United States learned the hard way that sometimes these are too intertwined with organizations that have terrorist ties and that have just been designated here. And so we will be pressing all member-states to adhere completely and to the letter of the designations that the United Nations has taken. And because I know the Pakistani Government to be a government that wants to deal in good faith with the world ? it’s a new civilian government that is a legitimate government that wants very much to be respected in international politics and, by the way, wants to deal with the terrorism problem that is itself having dire consequences in Pakistan ? I expect that there will be great ? will be cooperation.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

SECRETARY RICE: We’re continuing to pursue it ? the 123 agreement. We’re continuing to pursue it.

Yes.

QUESTION: On Somalia ?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

QUESTION: Does the U.S. favor imposing sanctions on Eritrea for its role in the internal conflict? And with the president now firing the prime minister, who is actually authorized in Somalia to authorize this?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, look, first of all, we believe that the prime minister of Somalia can only be relieved by the parliament, and therefore we recognize him. And we’ve made that clear to the president of Somalia.

Secondly, they need to work together. They have too many problems to be involved in these kinds of spats. I mean, the people of Somalia deserve better than this. And I just sat in a session in which the international community pledged all kinds of support to Somalia, all kinds of help to Somalia. Whether we agree or disagree among ourselves about exactly what kind of force can bring security, everybody in there wants to see security for Somalia, wants to see the Djibouti process work. The least that the leaders of Somalia can do is be equally committed to that cause, and we’re sending that message very strongly.

As to Eritrea, we will examine it. We do believe that there are difficulties being caused by the policies of Eritrea, and we’ll look at what actions we should take.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) does this resolution mean that ?

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.

QUESTION: — you can intervene militarily in Somalia?

SECRETARY RICE: We ? there is a very ? there is a very clear, longstanding understanding in international politics about the role of UN Security Council resolutions in this regard, and the fact that it is the Transitional Federal Government that is desirous of not having their territory used for safe haven for pirates. And so that is what has just taken place here in the Council.

Thank you very much.

2008/1063

Released on December 16, 2008
Video is available here: http://www.state.gov/video/?videoid=5071960001

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Editorial Reviews

“A no-holds-barred exegesis on the naked cynicism of conservatism in America.” –Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Written with barbed wit and finely controlled anger, he skewers such juicy targets as libertarian strategist Grover Norquist and Michelle Malkin.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Glorious… Often brilliant… Frank’s gloom is leavened by an eye for the unexpected and the absurd.” –Los Angeles Times

“Well-researched and witty… Provides a powerful liberal antidote to the high-volume rantings of Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter and Fox News.” –Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Frank’s gifts as a social observer are on display… His analysis of why there are so many libertarian think tanks in a country with so few libertarians is dead on. In Thomas Frank, the American left has found its own Juvenal.” –The New York Times Book Review

“Frank offers one damning anecdote after another. The Wrecking Crew explains how cynical conservatives have wrested control of the government by railing against its very existence, all while using federal perches to funnel billions into the pockets of lobbyists and the corporations they represent.” –Time

“Thomas Frank is back with another hunk of dynamite. The Wrecking Crew should monopolize political conversation this year. It’s the first book to effectively tie the ruin and corruption of conservative governance to the conservative “movement building” of the 1970s, and, before that, the business crusade against good government going back at least to the 1890s.” –Salon.com

“Tom Frank has hold of something real. The Wrecking Crew can be good, spirited fun. Frank captures a quality of exuberant bullying in those of his conservative subjects he knows well enough to identify individually, rather than categorically.”–The New Yorker

“Frank’s sentences inhale and unfurl with a wit and verve…” –The New York Observer

“Conservatives in office have made their share of blunders and mistakes, and Frank is at his finest in depicting some of the stunning instances of hypocrisy and idiocy in the period of Republican rule.” –The New York Post

“Smart, thoroughly researched, and written with wit and panache.” –The Wichita Eagle

“A welcome read. There is no doubt that Frank is helping to restore the journalistic and literary standards to political books. Elegant… The Wrecking Crew has the rhetorical power to illustrate the dire consequences of a government sold off piece by piece to the highest bidder. One finishes the book feeling as if one’s political vision has been brought into focus.” –The Courier-Journal

“A superb follow-up to What’s The Matter with Kansas?… Thorough reporting and incisive historical analysis. With genuine outrange and blasts of polemic, but Frank never allows The Wrecking Crew to become just another seething right- or left-wing political tract preaching to the choir.” –The Oregonian

“Frank brings invaluable insider perceptions, ardor, and precision to his lancing inquiry into the erosion of democracy and the enshrinement of the mighty dollar… An electrifying, well-researched analysis of ‘conservatism-as-profiteering.’ This staggering history of systematic greed with inject new energy into public discourse as a historical election looms.” –Booklist (starred review)

Product Description:

From the author of the landmark bestseller What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a jaw-dropping investigation of the decades of deliberate–and lucrative–conservative misrule

In his previous book, Thomas Frank explained why working America votes for politicians who reserve their favors for the rich. Now, in The Wrecking Crew, Frank examines the blundering and corrupt Washington those politicians have given us.

Casting back to the early days of the conservative revolution, Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government. But rather than cutting down the big government they claim to hate, conservatives have simply sold it off, deregulating some industries, defunding others, but always turning public policy into a private-sector bidding war. Washington itself has been remade into a golden landscape of super-wealthy suburbs and gleaming lobbyist headquarters–the wages of government-by-entrepreneurship practiced so outrageously by figures such as Jack Abramoff.

It is no coincidence, Frank argues, that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule. Nor will the country easily shake off the consequences of deliberate misgovernment through the usual election remedies. Obsessed with achieving a lasting victory, conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state.

Stamped with Thomas Frank’s audacity, analytic brilliance, and wit, The Wrecking Crew is his most revelatory work yet–and his most important.

See all Editorial Reviews

G8 leaders enjoy 18-course meal as they discuss “how to solve the global food crisis.”

The leaders of the richest nations of the world sat down to an 18-course gastronomic extravaganza at the G8 summit in Japan to discuss world hunger.

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The dinner and lunch included:

1. Caviar,
2. Milkfed lamb,
3. Sea urchin and tuna,
4. Champagne and wines flown in from Europe and the U.S.
5…..and a lot more

The extravagance of the menus drew disapproval from critics who thought it hypocritical to produce such a lavish meal when world food supplies are under threat, and some parts of Africa are so war ravaged that famine is killing thousands of Human Beings daily:

Bush and company would rather lie themselves into fighting the “Oil Wars,” to promote “Peace” and “Democracy,” while conveniently forgetting that the real “humanitarian” war should be fought in places like Darfur, in the Sudan — where Arab tribes have been slaughtering black Africans mercilessly, with the help of the Arab dominated Sudanese government.

The G8 summit is a colossal waste of time.

It is nothing but an expensive “Country-Club” meeting place of “Golfing-Buddies,” where they discuss who to fleece next or who to “bomb” next or who to “sanction” next.

The “aid” that the G8 group provides Africa, for instance, is largely wasted by the numerous NGO’s “accompanying” the aid — the NGO officials live “rich” in Africa, waste resources and in many cases have been known to share the “loot” with corrupt African leaders.

Don’t get me wrong — there a many credible charities doing great work in Africa.

If it’s not these NGO’s, then it’s the World Bank or the IMF — imperialist tools which have been used for many years to “control” corrupt African governments. Add these two organizations to badly managed African governments and you have the potent-mix that has crippled many economies in Africa.

Helen Caldicott states in her book titled — “If You Love This Planet:”

Africa needs to wake up and “feed itself” — these frequent G8 “photo-ops” and grand “gastronomic extravaganzas” have never been in Africa’s best interests!.

 Columnist – John Sammon
You know what bothers me, apart from the ethics, who’s right and who’s wrong? (America is always right, right or wrong).

America only attacks small, poor countries. Look at the list of our opponents over the past thirty years or so, Vietnam, Granada, Iraq, Afghanistan, The Balkans, Lebanon, and Cuba (oops, we didn’t attack Cuba, we almost did).

Always in the name of freedom.

It makes me yearn for World War Two, the good war, where we fought competent powerful enemies worthy of the name. Now, I know because we’re America we’re always right no matter what. I know we have right on our side in every case. That we’re infallible, incapable of error.

But do we always have to fight countries much smaller than ourselves?

This will get me labeled as unpatriotic, and not one of the my-country-right-or-wrong-God-likes-me-and-not-you crowd. But it makes me uncomfortable that we’re always beating up (in the name of right) on poor small countries, countries whose gross national product is a fraction of our own.

These are people who don’t have refrigerators like we do.

To be invaded by the United States, you have to be small, poor, and have no navy and no air force like we do.

We never take on big countries like China.

Here’s a partial list of countries that because of their size and poverty can consider themselves under risk of attack from Bombs Away John McCain if they don’t conform to the American lifestyle, and fail to provide us with raw materials, or do what we want when we want, or pattern themselves after us, or seek nuclear power (that right is reserved for America and its friends like India).

And most of all, not attack their neighbors. The right to attack is reserved for America. Here’s the list:

Chad — This tiny Central African country, named for a voting stub (chad), would be easy for the United States to defeat. Hell, they don’t have anything except sand and flies. In fact, their chief commodity export are gnats.

Switzerland — If we run out of milk, we know where we can get it (lots of cows). The only problem here are the mountains (we have specialized troops that can climb those), and the sexy blondes in the villages who might prove a distraction. It can be overcome by our modern technology.

Yemen — This is a plumb ready for the taking. Think of it. Oil rich. On the ocean where the Red Sea meets the Arabian Sea. Beautiful waterfront condos overlooking the sea. Prime real estate. No air force to speak of. Navy? Can Arabs sail? Hell no. The only problem is, it’s a republic. That’s okay, we can blame 9-11 on ‘em. Yemen has another advantage. Many different tribes. We can get them to warring with each other.

Djibouti — Another Arab country in the Horn of Africa. Once again, potential oil and ocean views. We could overrun them in three days. It’s a Moslem country so this would figure in with our remaking the Middle East. But the main reason is it would give our hip soldiers (who love slang) the chance to wear tee shirts that say, “you bet Djibouti (your booty).”

Netherlands Antilles — This tiny island off the coast of Venezuela, I can’t think of one good reason to invade. Except maybe, it’s close to South America and would give us more of a presence there. We’ve always tried to boss South America.

This is only a partial list.

There are many more such countries that can be taught freedom.

© Copyright 2008 by SammonSays.com