Hypocrisy Big

RE: #41 by mohar11

``Now - that`s how democracy was supposed to function - isn`t it ? If you don`t believe that the gov`t of the day is doing the right thing - you raise a stink and seek to trigger the in-built ``checks and balance`` system and hope to find out what exactly happened.``

Two people are murdered by the police and a hoopla is made about Pakistani terrorists and you say that this is how democracy is supposed to function? I would commend the vigilance of Badwai not the workings
of Indian democracy here!

You continue:

``Now - what is your point? You seem to just hate India and its democracy. If you really want to rubbish Indian democracy then there are no lack of material for you to choose from. But this is not one of them. This actually indicates that democracy is alive and kicking in India.``

If the sight of two people termed ``Pakistanis`` being murdered in plain
sight of winesses is a reflection of an ``alive and kicking democracy``
then the USA must have some other system of government.

And as far as hatred of India is concerned I believe that there are
already enough ``Indians`` doing that. Pakistanis have enough problems of their own.

Ras

temporal 51:

You brought up an important issue to the fore. z-tv for eaxmple shows bodies of dead ``criminals`` killed in alleged police encounters on daily basis, and 99.99% of the time the ``criminal`` is a Muslim. These ``criminals`` are not Kashmiri insurgents, they are usually killed elswhere in India in a police encounter where police ``bravely`` saved the society from their menace. The shameless and criminal silence of Hindus at this forum on the cold blooded murder of two drugged unarmed prisnors in a shopping mall in delhi in broad day lights on diwali is disgusting. I am totally convinced but disappointed that Hindus are the most indecent and dishonorable people on this planet. If it weren`t a couple of people like nayyar, praful, or the Dr. who witnessed the cold blooded murder of two innocent human being in delhi and now hiding from police for his life, I would have some serious doubts about them being humans.

In addition to the serious queries raised by praful badwai (in this column) and kuldip nayyar (in his column) in their complaint reference to the NHRC…one must examine another underlying observation that is occurring all too frequently in India…

…is there a judicial or internal/external/civilian mechanism to examine the validity of the claims of those killed in police encounters…

..otherwise this encounters merely suggests state terrorism as implied by praful…and not ``defending`` the right of ``Pakistanis by many accounts`` as suggested by many...

****

…on a related note…i wonder often why in well publicized cases these perpetrators are invariably killed …very rarely are they taken prisoner…if they were then the investigations can pin point more accurately to the perpetrator’s identity, handlers, movement and the collusion or carelessness of various local, state and federal agencies/authorities whose manifest job it is to monitor and keep abreast of such developments…

…to give an example to illustrate above…the recent shooting of the three terrorists in the temple at ahmedabad…they were heavily outnumbered and surrounded on all sides…they had no hostages…the commandos knew their number…yet …from the evidence that surfaced afterward…no attempt was made to take them alive...

..t

re: faisaluno


...hahah...was that an attempt at a comeback?...try again, sucka...

war on terror. the domestic front. (apologies for posting the complete article. WSJ is a paid subscription service)

Post-Sept. 11 Watch List
Acquires Life of Its Own

FBI Listed People Wanted for Questioning,
But Out-of-Date Versions Dog the Innocent
By ANN DAVIS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


LAS VEGAS -- When a patron at the New York-New York casino plugged his frequent-player card into a slot machine one day this summer, something strange happened: An alert warned the casino`s surveillance officials that an associate of a suspected terrorist might be on the grounds.

How did a casino`s computer make such a connection? Shortly after Sept. 11, the FBI had entrusted a quickly developed watch list to scores of corporations around the country.

Departing from its usual practice of closely guarding such lists, the FBI circulated the names of hundreds of people it wanted to question. Counterterrorism officials gave the list to car-rental companies. Then FBI field agents and other officials circulated it to big banks, travel-reservations systems, firms that collect consumer data, as well as casino operators such as MGM Mirage, the owner of New York-New York. Additional recipients included businesses thought vulnerable to terrorist intrusion, including truckers, chemical companies and power-plant operators. It was the largest intelligence-sharing experiment the bureau has ever undertaken with the private sector.

A year later, the list has taken on a life of its own, with multiplying -- and error-filled -- versions being passed around like bootleg music. Some companies fed a version of the list into their own databases and now use it to screen job applicants and customers. A water-utilities trade association used the list ``in lieu of`` standard background checks, says the New Jersey group`s executive director.

The list included many people the FBI didn`t suspect but just wanted to talk to. Yet a version on SeguRed.com (www.segured.com), a South American security-oriented Web site that got a copy from a Venezuelan bank`s security officer, is headed: ``list of suspected terrorists sent by the FBI to financial institutions.`` (The site`s editor says he may change the heading.) Meanwhile, a supermarket trade group used a version of the list to try to check whether terrorists were raising funds through known shoplifting rings. The trade group won`t disclose results.

The FBI credits the effort, dubbed Project Lookout, with helping it rapidly find some people with relevant information in the crisis atmosphere right after the terror attacks. MGM Mirage says it has tipped off the FBI at least six times since beginning to track hotel and casino guests against the list.

The FBI and other investigative agencies -- which were criticized after Sept. 11 for not sharing their information enough -- are exploring new ways to do so, including mining corporate data to find suspects or spot suspicious activity. The Pentagon is developing technology it can use to sweep up personal data from commercial transactions around the world. ``Information sharing`` has become a buzzword. But one significant step in this direction, Project Lookout, is in many ways a study in how not to share intelligence.

The watch list shared with companies -- one part of the FBI`s massive counterterrorism database -- quickly became obsolete as the bureau worked its way through the names. The FBI`s counterterrorism division quietly stopped updating the list more than a year ago. But it never informed most of the companies that had received a copy. FBI headquarters doesn`t know who is still using the list because officials never kept track of who got it.

``We have now lost control of that list,`` says Art Cummings, head of the strategic analysis and warning section of the FBI`s counterterrorism division. ``We shouldn`t have had those problems.``

The bureau tried to cut off distribution after less than six weeks, partly from worry that suspects could too easily find out they had been tagged. Another concern has been misidentification, especially as multipart Middle Eastern names are degraded by typos when faxed and are fed into new databases.

Then there`s the problem of getting off the list. At first the FBI frequently removed names of people it had cleared. But issuing updated lists, which the FBI once did as often as four times a day, didn`t fix the older ones already in circulation. Three brothers in Texas named Atta -- long since exonerated, and no relation to the alleged lead hijacker -- are still trying to chase their names off copies of the list posted on Internet sites in at least five countries.

People who`ve asked the FBI for help getting off the bootleg lists say they`ve been told the bureau can`t do anything to correct outdated lists still floating around. The FBI`s Mr. Cummings says that ``the most we can control is our official dissemination of that list.`` Once it left the law-enforcement community, ``we have no jurisdiction to say, `If you disseminate this further, we will prosecute you.` ``

Despite the problems, Mr. Cummings and other proponents of information-sharing say the process should be improved, not abandoned. Software companies are rushing to help, trying to make information-sharing easier and more effective.

Systems Research & Development in Las Vegas is among those working on ways to make exchanging law-enforcement and corporate information a two-way street without compromising privacy. ``I believe there`s probably 10 to 50 companies in America that across them touch 80% to 90% of the entire country,`` says SRD founder Jeff Jonas, citing credit-card companies, banks, airlines, hotel chains and rental-car companies. ``There should be a protocol in place that corporate America could be plugged into that allows them to say, `We`d like to help,` `` he says.

But some officials at the U.S. Customs Service, the Office of Homeland Security and the FBI`s own Criminal Justice Information Services Division doubt the wisdom of circulating watch lists widely, and some say they didn`t even know about Project Lookout. Civil libertarians worry about enlisting companies to track innocent people for the government. Many companies say they need to be insulated from liability if they`re expected to share data on people with the government.

``It`s a tough, tough box to get into. You end up with legitimate concerns about moving into Orwell`s `1984,` `` says Henry Nocella, an official of Professional Security Bureau Ltd. in Nutley, N.J., and a former security director at Bestfoods. ``Yet you know there`s a need to collect and analyze information.``

Before Sept. 11, the government rarely revealed the names of terrorism suspects to companies. The exception was when it had a subpoena for specific information the government believed a company had about a person under investigation. But after the attacks, counterterrorism officials were concerned that members of terrorist cells could have slipped undetected into companies or communities. They feared that by the time they figured out where to direct subpoenas, the suspects could get away or even stage another attack.

Holed up in a ``strategic information and operations center`` in Washington, a small circle of FBI officials decided on Sept. 15, 2001, to put out a broad heads-up to state and local police and to trusted companies. ``We`re not playing games here. This was real life. We wanted as many people as possible to know this is who we wanted to talk to,`` says Steven Berry, an FBI spokesman.

Agents cast a wide net that, by its nature, included scores of innocent people. They started by using record searches and interviews to identify ``anybody who had contact`` with the 19 hijackers, Mr. Cummings recalls. Kevin Giblin, chief of the terrorist warning unit, decided that car-rental companies and local police should be the first outside of the airlines to get the list. One firm that received it, Ford Motor Co.`s Hertz unit, says it checked the list against its records and told the FBI of any matches, but then basically let the list lie dormant.

Calling All Truckers

Trade groups proved a quick way to spread the word. The FBI gave the list to the Transportation Department. It shared the names with the American Trucking Associations, which promptly e-mailed the list to nearly 3,000 trucking companies. The International Security Management Association, an elite group of executives at 350 companies, put the list on a password-protected part of its Web site, allowing members to scan it in private, members say.

On their own, FBI field agents shared the list with some chemical, drug, security-guard, gambling and power-plant companies, according to interviews with companies. The FBI`s Mr. Giblin says he hadn`t realized how extensively field agents distributed the list. But he says agents have considerable autonomy and are expected to keep close ties to companies in their area.

One field agent, Daron Borst of the FBI`s Las Vegas office, says, ``I do remember very distinctly the attitude of the country was, `Do something.` This was one way to get out there and develop an intelligence base. The other option was to sit in our offices and wait for the phones to ring.``

Mr. Giblin says that by Oct. 23 of 2001, he had notified police agencies that the bureau was no longer looking for the people on the watch list. But he made no arrangements to tell businesses. Indeed, Southern Co. didn`t receive its list until November 2001, when FBI field agents in Alabama asked the power company to ``see if any folks on the list ... had [customer] accounts,`` says a company spokeswoman, Laura Varn. The FBI declines to comment on the timing.

Mr. Giblin says the bureau stressed to recipients that the people named weren`t all suspects. ``This wasn`t a blacklist,`` he says.

Mark Deuitch landed on the list. A financier from Boone, N.C., he works on deals for Middle Eastern investors. On Sept. 11, he was scheduled to begin a flight that would take him to Washington -- using a ticket purchased by a Saudi business partner. After interviewing Mr. Deuitch, the FBI removed his name.

But even now, Mr. Deuitch says, nearly every time he does a Google search of the Internet, he finds another version of the list that still has his name on it. He says he is searched so often at airports that he has curtailed his flying. He says it once took him nearly two hours to get a rental car from Budget in Florida. Budget Group Inc. had no comment about Mr. Deuitch`s experience except to say it gave the FBI historical reservations data right after Sept. 11 and ``we have not been asked in recent months to assist the FBI in this manner.`` Mr. Deuitch says his worst fear is ``an unstable person getting hold of the name and wanting to take some sort of revenge.``

The Atta Brothers

The initial list also named Asem Atta. Mr. Atta, a Pakistani programmer who once worked for Enron Corp., wasn`t hiding. He has his own Web site, which proclaims his affection for the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, his dislike for the color purple and his love of a special hummus recipe.

The FBI later removed Mr. Atta and two brothers from updated versions of the watch list. The brothers declined to comment, but Rhonda Atta, the U.S.-born wife of one of them, recently called the FBI to complain about several lists that still include the brothers. She cited an Italian Web site and one in Mexico. Ms. Atta says an FBI agent in Texas told her it didn`t have control over those sites and she needed to write the sites a letter.

At DuPont Co., global security manager William Reiter says he ran the FBI watch list against all 97,000 DuPont employees. He also sent a printout to managers at hazardous-chemical plants and asked them to check the names of vendors` employees, warning: ``If you find anybody, do not confront them. Go to your local terrorism task force.`` DuPont saw a few names it had questions about, but none turned out to be the people the FBI was interested in.

The absence of addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers for many names made some companies fret that the lists were an invitation to misidentify people. At Securitas Holdings Inc., a unit of Securitas AB that runs the Pinkerton and Burns security-guard businesses, Chairman Don Walker says he compared a watch list of about 150 to 175 names against his payrolls once, then told the FBI to take it back.

The few hits he got turned out to be the wrong person. Mr. Walker says he was uncomfortable participating in ``a snitch system`` based on possibly faulty data. ``We didn`t feel like it was information that was something you could make a decision about. You get a name and what are you going to do with it? Are you not going to hire anybody with that name?``

Airline Automation Inc., a Tucson, Ariz., company that helps airlines process reservations, says that early on, it was receiving four or five versions of the list a day from an airline client. Using a ``fax of a fax,`` staffers furiously pecked names into a database. ``Some of the names were so smudged it was difficult to see ... The `o`s blurred into `e`s,`` says Frank Arciuolo, an executive vice president. The FBI later sent some companies electronic versions.

Few companies had the skills to detect whether Middle Eastern names had errors or to check for common alternative spellings. Airline Automation called in Language Analysis Systems Inc., a name-recognition-software firm in Herndon, Va. A list reviewed by the language firm`s chief executive, Jack Hermansen, for The Wall Street Journal contained a number of first names of Abdul, which Mr. Hermansen says is almost never a complete first name on its own. ``The risk is that you`ll match many, many Abduls. It`s like looking for `Mac` in the Scottish phone book,`` he says. Other entries looked as if they`d been transcribed by an optical scanning machine with some mistaken letters.

Non-Obvious Relationships

By the time the FBI tried to close out its list, at least 50 versions were floating around, say people who saw numbered ones. Some companies were asking software firms such as Systems Research & Development how to make better use of the lists. SRD, which is financed in part by a venture-capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, has a program called NORA, for Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness. It mines data to detect hard-to-see links between people, such as use of the same residence or phone number.

MGM Mirage -- which was already using NORA to check hotel and casino guests` names against a lot of lists, such as those of people whose assets have been frozen -- began using the software with the FBI watch list. This is how Patricia Fischer, an MGM surveillance executive, got a computer alert this summer about the gambler at the New York-New York casino. She decided the gambler`s link to the watch list was too tenuous to pass on to the FBI: The man merely lived in an apartment building across the street from someone whose name had once had been on the list but had been removed. NORA software had made the link.

Though MGM`s list is out of date, Alan Feldman, an MGM senior vice president, figures that ``it`s better to have the information than not, on the off chance that something might develop from one of the names even though it had been removed ... We don`t see the harm in it.`` Mr. Feldman says ``the beauty of the system is that we`re getting advance information`` such as a hotel reservation and ``watch for you to come in.``

The FBI`s Mr. Giblin says when he fields tips nowadays from companies that have the watch list, he tells them it`s obsolete. But not all field offices turn down such tips.

There are conflicting views in the government about how far to go in recruiting companies as law enforcement`s eyes and ears. The Office of Homeland Security says it has no plan to share with companies a master list it`s compiling that consolidates watch lists from various agencies. SRD, meanwhile, is trying to interest companies and the FBI in software that would allow them to query one another about possible matches without letting them see each other`s data.

If the government does decide to disseminate watch lists in the future, it won`t face high legal hurdles, says Daniel Ortiz, a law professor at the University of Virginia. He says someone who appears wrongly on a watch list could ask for a correction but couldn`t prevent the list`s circulation or sue the government for damages under current privacy laws. The government just has to be careful not to single people out solely on race or ethnicity.

Businesses face more jeopardy, however. Many industries, such as cable companies and banks, operate under special privacy laws preventing them from giving customer information to the government without a subpoena.

Galileo International, which processes millions of air, hotel and car-rental reservations, has discussed ways the government might link up to Galileo`s system. The firm, a unit of Cendant Corp., hasn`t gone forward in part because of both privacy and liability concerns, says Paul Quade, a vice president.

``If the government comes out with an indemnification or firewall or total privacy system, we`d be happy to participate in anything that serves homeland security,`` Mr. Quade says. ``I don`t think anybody`s come up with a solution yet that we can use to identify dangerous people and at the same time protect real people.``

Romair,
#23

You really know how to kick a beehive; dont you?:)

The problem with you is that you stand on a pseudo-sanctimonious pedestal & then kick the beehive. Its very easy to kick this pedestal you stand upon & make you fall on your face...& show how much you, personally, have been a hypocrite..

One caveat, though, if I`ve misunderstood what you are trying to say, please forgive me.

Well, ex-soldier-boy, the message I`m getting from your post is that when it suits YOU, foreign policy should be idealistic & when it suits YOU, foreign policy should be pragmatic.

{{Pakistanis should oppose inhumane policies of any country, including their own and the USA. But I don`t think Pakistan should put its future on the line for any country (read Arabs), if they are unwilling to put their future on the line, for us. }}

1) What China has done to Tibetans is much more inhuman than what ``hindus`` have done to Kashmiris.

2)Youre a card carrying member of AI, arent you?...go read what AI says about China..Pretend, for once, you are Tibetan( & not Kashmiri) & see how you feel about the Chinese nation---that has raped the Tibetan religion, their unique culture & tried to assimilate them like Borgs on Star Trek.

3)Beyond a card carrying AI member means you have to treat ALL countries by the same standard.

In all the years we havbe known you, Field Marshall, have we heard one PEEP about what China is doing?...Thats not your concern?!

Whether it is YOU...or your Goddamned beloved Pakistan...has considered China your ``all-weather friend`` & not ONCE have you condemned what the Chinese are doing!...Oh well...when it comes to China, the great Field Marshall advocates pragmatism (seriously), but when it comes to Israel & India & the US..you can become very sarcastic about their hypocrisy!

Whether its YOU or the dominant discourse of the Muslim world...go look at yourselves in the mirror, before you stand in judgement of others. Who died and made muslims feel so self righteous??

Hypocritical pragmatism is the ONLY policy for EVERY country. Mr Moghul `s whining about American hypocrisy is not going to make Americans (or non-muslims) sympathise with Islam. The DIN created by Islamic fundamentalists (by their behavior) has all but drowned your moderate liberal muslim voices.

Open your eyes & reflect what mandate the American people have given GWB, this November. Its about oil & about protecting & preserving the American way of live. You muslims dont like it? TOUGH...Until & unless the moderates start PUBLICLY defying the fundos, the power of the Islamic civilisation is going to wane ....not matter how much your numbers increase, its immaterial.

Remember...a few 100,000 British ruled MILLIONS in the Subcontinent because they have TECHNOLOGY. Technology is power. A few terrorist pinpricks is not going top collapse the American way of life.

To borrow Yamamato`s phrase after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor...``Al-Qeeda has awoken a sleeping giant & filled him with a terrible resolve``. You want a jihad? They`ll give you a CRusade you wont believe!!..... 9/11 has angered America a LOT more than Pearl Harbor.

Wake up from your slumber, Islamic civilisation...before you go the same way as the Romans, Egyptians, Greek, Mayans..etc. The ONLY pagans that have learnt to survive are hindus...like insects after a nuclear war.... We hindus will survive this too....

re: mohar11

...good job schooling ras...

re: soysauce

{The empire is white man`s burden gone berserk. }

...and yet here you are sitting in the ``white man`s`` land licking his behind and enjoying the fruits of his ``imperialism``...

Faisaluno:

``the usual gang of idiots i was referring is not the author. instead i was referring to people like you, who if this was 1857 would be writing nonsensical pieces on chowk criticizing indians for rising up against the redcoats``

...as opposed to people like you who would be putting up a half dead blind king as Nizam e Mustapha... You did peg me right though. I do believe that India was not ready for nationhood in 1857, and had that war of independence succeeded, we would have gone backwards instead of forward.

It took time for the concept of an Indian nation state to be built up in the minds of the people. Looking back I am glad we got parliamentary democracy with all its faults in 1947 as opposed to rule by native ``maharajas`` in 1857.

You on the other hand are so blinded by parochialism that you would rather bend over for some desi usurper than learn something positive from the goras. Fine, that is your choice...go forth into ignorance and misery following some devious Pied Piper mullah/dictator who plays the strings of religion and ethnicity and leads you like mice into oblivion.

Faisaluno:

``guess what, it is 2002 and you guys atill drink cowpiss. ``

Yeah!!! so does half the world. It`s marketed under the name Budweiser!!

mohar11, sadna:

The case will be pending forever and nothing will come of it. We have such democracy without having democracy in Pakistan too ;)

The doctor who was witness to the `encounter` is fearing for his life and has been declared a quack by the authorities. He seems a very brave man. Some may even call him stupid and a trouble-maker.

The police `encounter` was stage managed for a purpose. The purpose being Pakistan is still sending terrorists. How can India talk to Pakistan when it is still sending terrorists ?

I never knew anyone or any country that is so afraid to talk that it would kill drugged up people in cold blood not to talk. Kuch to sharam karo.

mohar11 #41
I am puzzled by Ras`s selection too.

And remember those killed in the encounter were Pakistanis by many accounts, so NHRC of India is defending the right of Pakistanis not to be killed in police encounters in India.

Something like the right of Pakistanis to receive humane treatment from their opponents while waging jihad in Afghanistan.

Its an upside-down world.

#37 by Ras
//..And from the pearls of Indian Democracy this is a must read
today for CHOWK readers on Rediff -
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/nov/18praful.htm ..//

Praful Bidwai and Kuldip Nayar ( a Member of Parliament, I think ) have questioned the cops` version of the events ( two terrorists were killed in a posh New Delhi plaza on Diwali ). They believe that the cops stage-managed the incident and hence they have taken the case to the independent NHRC for a separate review. The case is still pending with the both the authorities.

Now - that`s how democracy was supposed to function - isn`t it ? If you don`t believe that the gov`t of the day is doing the right thing - you raise a stink and seek to trigger the in-built ``checks and balance`` system and hope to find out what exactly happened.

Now - what is your point? You seem to just hate India and its democracy. If you really want to rubbish Indian democracy then there are no lack of material for you to choose from. But this is not one of them. This actually indicates that democracy is alive and kicking in India.

Reality Check,

Many believe that one religion is the root cause of terrorism. The media is full of it, war on iraq is part of the global concensus to contain this.

One of the ways muslims across the world are trying to fight this swell of opinion is by articles like this, trying to portray that US and other countries are equally bad. It is very unlikely that this approach is going to change the emerging world view. The reason is simple, contained in romairs post 23.

`` If a Muslim kills an innocent Hindu, oppose the Muslim.``, romair has so succinctly put the very foundation of the growing terrorism. The idea is that a muslim can kill a non-innocent hindu, the cardinal priciple that it is up to individuals to decide who is and who is not innocemnt and kill. It is this delegation right to kill to individual discretions that forms the core of terrorism.

romair an educated man cannot accept the premise that killing task has to be delegated to the society at large, to some due processes to identify who is and who is not innocent.

Here is the undeniable proof that what one learns early in the womb cannot be altered by education and exposures to other values. The notion individual performing the task of the jury and the executioner is the core of present day terrorism.

May be it is time that the muslims look at this core value which even years of education have faile to alter. That would be far more effective and useful than articles like this

dear saxena:

guess what, it is 2002 and you guys atill drink cowpiss.

Following are must reads in my opinion:

1) US attorney general Ramsey Clark`s report on what the US has done to Iraq (http://www.iacenter.org/rc12600.htm)

Some excerpts:

``A delegation of U.S. citizens from twenty states has just returned from Iraq. On January 17, we observed in Baghdad the 9th Anniversary of the beginning of the January 17 - February 28, 1991. U. aircraft flew 110,000 aerial sorties against Iraq, averaging one every 30 seconds, dropping 88,500 tons of explosives, the equivalent of 7 l/2 Hiroshima bombs.

This was by far the most intensive bombardment in history. It killed tens of thousands of people, injuring many more. Medicines and medical supplies were exhausted. It devastated water systems from reservoir, pumping station, pipeline, filtration plant to kitchen faucet as well as urban sewage and sanitation systems nationwide. Food production, processing, storage, distribution, and marketing facilities were widely destroyed. Poultry was nearly wiped out by loss of electricity and lack of grain. Animal herds were decimated......

I have traveled to and within Iraq ten times since sanctions were imposed, once during the bombing in 1991. Each year, the death rate has risen radically. The numbers of deaths have been reported internationally regularly and updated each month since 1991. In Iraq, they are palpable.....

The annual number of deaths of children under age five grew more than tenfold from 1989 to 1999. Total deaths of children under age five from these selected causes alone during 1990 to November 1999 is 502,492.``
(Clark, Ramsey)

2. Following are some excerpts on the US attack on Sudan pharmeceutical plant (of Monica missiles fame), from Noam Chomsky`s work titled, ``9/11``: (http://www.infinitejustus.com/chomsky_on_sudan_bombing.html)

``A year after the attack ``without the lifesaving medicine [the destroyed facilities] produced, Sudan`s death toll from the bombing has continued, quietly, to rise... Thus, tens of thousands of people -- many of them children -- have suffered and died from malaria, tuberculosis, and other treatable diseases... [The factory] provided affordable medicine for humans and all the locally available veterinary medicine in Sudan. It produced 90 percent of Sudan`s major pharmaceutical products... Sanctions against Sudan make it impossible to import adequate amounts of medicines required to cover the serious gap left by the plant`s destruction....`` (Chomsky, Noam)

There is an interesting pyschological quality I have seen in people who are brainwashed into supporting there own govts.` under all costs - they completely close their eyes to facts and logic and become cheerleaders for the deaths of innocents. Soon this feeling turns into a habit and then turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. They want their govt. to kill and their govt. wants them to support their killings, and the snowball gets bigger and bigger. I have spent a lot of time studying this in regard to Kashmir and the attitude of otherwise decent Indians to the killings of innocents there (not to bring Kashmir into this article, but that is one phenomenon I am very familiar with). Since then I have tried to study other similar areas, and am now seeing the identical attitude amongst otherwise decent Americans. They are in a state of denial over how many innocent people their govt. (through their support) kills.

Is it a coincidence that people who point out and highlight such atrocities rarely, if ever, get any facetime on the TV channels of the countries that are committing the crimes? Is it also a coincidence that the US is one of the few countries that opposes the International Criminal Court?