Iraq Point - The Secret History Of The American Empire Knowledge Base

The Secret History Of The American Empire Knowledge Base

Are the Americans the only ones in history to have an Empire they can't admit to? Empires have come and gone The last of note was the British Empire which turned into the British commonwealth An Empire that ruled 2/3 of the globe at the height of its power Everyone knew about it -- talked about it - bragged about it The Americans have an Empire as well -- vassal states occupied states and simply purchases states -- but they for some reason can not admit to it - Are the Americans the only ones in history to have a secret Empire that they can not admit to ? Sky The British Empire was at it's height during the industrial revolution The first war was the beginning of the end

What do you think about John Perkins? and his book title "the secret history of the American Empire: EHM, jackals and the truth about global corruption. or Confessions of an economic hit man.

Has anyone heard of the author...? John Perkins and/or read any of his books (Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, The Secret History of the American Empire)? Did anyone listen to his interview recently? (This question deals with big business, thus why it is in this catagory).

Just bought a ton of books. What do you think? Jan R. Van Meter--Tippecanoe and Tyler Too: Famous Slogans and Catchphrases in American History Chaucer--Canterbury Tales, a new translation by Burton Raffel Anthony Sattin--The Gates of Africa: Death, Discovery, and the Search for Timbuktu Anthony Read--The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle John Guy--Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart Tim Pat Coogan--Ireland in the 20th Century Carlo d'Este--Patton: A Genius for War Jan Huizinga--The Waning of the Middle Ages Alan T. Nolan--The Iron Brigade Robert V. Remini--The House: The History of the House of Representatives John Toland--The Last 100 Days Philip Freeman--Julius Caesar Albert Speer--Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs Sterling and Peggy Seagrave--The Yamato Dynasty: The Secret History of Japan's Imperial Family Cyril Mango--Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome Ronald Hutton--Charles II Page Smith--America Enters the World: A People's History of the Progressive Era and World War I Nancy Isenberg--Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr Catherine Drinker Bowen--Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention Samuel Eliot Morison--The European Discovery of America, 2 vols. Robin Lane Fox--The Search for Alexander This should get me through some of the winter months ahead

homework History questions plz help!? 1.The term superman or supermen was developed by who? 2. The novel Les Miserables was written by who? 3. The man known as the foremost empire builder in Africa was? 4. The African Nation founded by former American slaves is? 5. The Mau Mau, a secret African society, fought to free the country of? 6. The founder of modern Zionism is? 7. The Leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization is? 8. The "Long March" of China was led by? 9.The overwhelming religious majority in India is? 10 The French lost control of Indo-China when they where defeated in the battle of? I rly need help this isnt just to get anwsers....TY! fufu16

WW1 History Questions! Answer any please!? 1.) Which of the following does not apply to women in the workforce during WW1? a. there were more than a million women in the workforce b. women held positions in munitions factories c. women were paid the same wage as men. d. women's presence in the workforce helped the cause of suffrage for women 2.) Which of the following was not the cause of the Great Migration? a. racial discrimination b. cotton fields ruined by natural disasters c.job openings in the north d. all the above were causes 3.) Which of the following is not the way German immigrants were treated in the US during the was? a. they lost their jobs b. they were often physically attacked. c. schools stopped teaching the German language d. all of the above 4.) Which of the following WW1 facts is not true? a. it lasted nearly 4 years b. six countries were involved c.it was the bloodiest was in history up to that time d. approx. 325,000 US soldiers died 5.) Which of the following countries was not created as a result of the Treaty of Versailles? a. Czecholsovakia b. Poland c. USSR d. Yugoslavia 6.) Which of the following was not true of the conditions of the African-Americans faced in the Norht? a. they lived in crowded and segregated housing b. they were hired as replacements workers during the white strikers c.they were threatened and killed in riots d. all of the above are true 7.) The Fourtenn Point speech did not try to ban_________. a. the secret treaaties between nations b. freedom of seas c.tariffs d. stock piling of weapons 8.) The treaty of Versaillies was not able to achieve_________. a. germany taking responsibility of the war. b.the creation of nine new nations. c. france and Great Britain briefly ruling sections of the ottoman empire. d. germany returning to land to france 9.) Which of he following ammendments was not passed during President Wilsons term? a. suffrage for women b. collecting income tax c. direct election of senators d. outlawing alcohol 10.) Which is true regarding the Treaty of Versailles? a. it was developed by President Wilson b. it was not signed by the senate c. it tried to create a global community d. none of the above is true PLEASSEEE HELP!

For the REALLY REALLY REALLY BORED! (time consuming)? bands: 1. Flogging Molly 2. The Beatles 3. Tool 4. A Perfect Circle 5. Disturbed 6. Oasis 7. Stone Roses 8. Second Person 9. Spineshank 10. Wolfe Tones films: 1. Boondock Saints 2. The Departed 3. Green Street 4. The Wind That Shakes The Barley 5. The Actors 6. American History X 7. BraveHeart 8. The Patriot 9. Queen of the Damned 10. 28 Days Later books: 1. White Wolf 2. The Lion of Macedon 3. Shantaram 4. 1984 5. The Little Prince 6. Farewell Companion 7. The Farseer books by robin hobb 8. Daughter of the Empire tv shows: 1. Any Stand up comedy 2. Cartoons 3. Scrubs 4. The Panel INTO: Gravy, Martial arts, Dogs, Books, People who leave obsqure notes or scribbles, The stuff you put away in a drawer or an attic and forget about and then rediscover, Post apocalyptic preperations, Plans for zombie outbreaks, Weapons, Brussel Sprouts, Secrets, Thought out Tattoos, Whisky, insanity, Cajuns and they're chicken, Forests, Thing that come in pairs or opposites, NOT INTO: Politicians, Cats, Movies of books, Superhero movies should be left as cartoons (Except Batman), Ego, People who think planning for a zombie outbreak is silly, The beach, Sand, Abstract Art, Metrosexuals, Unionists, Gemini's, Sales People, The Taxman, Doctors, Getting up early, Nightclubs, Giant Nipples MAKES ME HAPPY: Chopping wood for an open fire, Comedians, The Feeling after a brawl, Something new, Shindigs with good friends, Having Money, a Quest, My orange bobblehead man Sharp Kitchen Knives, Cooking, Movie nights, Poker nights, Cursing, Letters or written notes from friends, when people give me books and right a message in it. MAKES ME SAD: Having to be nice to people I dont like, Trechery, shit jobs, Not having Money, Any kind of beaurocracy, Getting caught, Lying, Women, Rules, People who dont drink , That feeling after a nights drinking that you've done something horrible, HOBBIES: Martial arts, Unusual Statements, Drinking, Sleeping 5 THINGS I CANT LIVE WITHOUT: Toothbrush, Music, Whisky, Friends, Family VICES: Self-doubt, Over analysis, Absorbing peoples emotions, Procrastination, Lazyness oh and I crack my neck I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Eating, sleeping, Thinking, being. (Witty response being do you use your right hand or your left hand for that) OCCUPATION: Procrastinator, Labourer, Dont know what i wanna be when i grow up CURRENT CRUSH: Beautiful Strangers GETS ME HOT: Eyes, Legs, hips, relaxed, hides, empathy, Grace, Intelligence fAVOURITE POSITION: The backward inside out peacock style. I LOST MY VIRGINITY: Its ok its always in the last place ye look! Did ye check behind the couch! CIGARETTES: Nope ALCOHOL: Often MY KINK FACTOR: I will piss on your dog while wrapped in clingfilm. POT: Rarely MY STATUS: single I WANT: An Orangutan to call george, A dog either and irish wolfhound or shikoku, A new job I like, A Chinese Takeaway, An X-box 360, A Giant House with a Secret underground complex, lots of guns, A Bottle of jameson and a really good excuse to drink it with some friends. MY PIGEONHOLES: Im the fella ye wouldnt notice until im swinging off the windowledge on the second floor cus I didnt feel like using the stairs Fill out your own haha yeah i didnt think anyone would do it i had it done on my bebo so through the magic of copy and paste here it is And in all fairness I gave fair warning :D well done andie but ye stole alot of my answers :P farwa ye should have added procrastination to your vices

Can you number this for me? -A Knight's Tale -The Adventures of Milo and Otis -Agent Cody Banks -Alexander: Director's Cut -Along Came a Spider -American History X -American Wedding -The Amittyville Horror -Amittyville Horror 2 The Posessession -Analyze This -The Animal -Assault on Precienct 13 -Atlantis: The Lost Empire -Austin Powers in Goldmember -Bad News Bears -Behind Enemy Lines -Big Daddy -Blade -Blood Diamond -The Bourne Identity -Boogeyman -Borat -Bug -Bulletproof Monk -The Butterfly Effect 2 -The Cable Guy -Cast Away -Catch Me if You Can -Catch That Kid -Cheaper by the Dozen -Child's Play -Christmas with the Kranks -Chucky: The Killer DVD Collection --Child's Play 2 --Child's Play 3 --Bride of Chucky --Seed of Chucky -Cold Creek Manor -Constatine -The Core -Crank -Darkness Falls -Dawn of the Dead -Daredevil -Daredevil: Director's Cut -The Day After Tomorrow -The Day the Earth Stood Still -The Dead Zone -Descent -Desperate Souls -Die Another Day -Die Hard 2: Die Harder -Disturbia (2) -Dodgeball -Domino -Doom -Dreamcatcher -Elektra -The Exorcism of Emily Rose -The Fog -50 First Dates -The Forgotten -Forrest Gump -The Haunting of Molly Hartle -Freddy vs. Jason -Friday the 13th -Friday the 13th Part 2 -Friday the 13th Part 3 -Friday the 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter -Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning -Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives -Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood -Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhatten -Fun with Dick & Jane -Ghost Rider -Gladiator -Gold Diggers -The Green Mile -Gridiron Gang -The Grudge -Hellraiser: Bloodline -The Hitcher -House of Wax -I Know What You Did Last Summer -The Island -The Italian Job -Jason Goes to Hell -Joe Dirt -Jurassic Park III -Kangaroo Jack -King Kong -Land of the Dead -The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers -Lucky#Slevin -The Marine: Unrated -The Matrix Reloaded -The Matrix Revolutions -Me, Myself, and Irene -The Medallion -Meet the Parents -Missions: Impossible -M:I:III -Minority Report -The Mist -Mr. & Mrs. Smith -The Nightmare on Elm Street Collection --A Nightmare on Elm Street --A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge --A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors --A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master --A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Cild --Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare --Wes Craven's: New Nightmare -The Nightmare Series Encyclopedia -The Nightmare is Alive -Panic Room -Passenger 57 -Paycheck -Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl -Pulse -Radio -Red Eye -Resident Evil --Resident Evil: Apocolypse -Resident Evil: Extinction -The Chronicles of Riddick -The Ring -The Ring Two -Road Trip -Rush Hour 2 -Saw -Saw II -Scary Movie 4 -Secret Window -The Sentinel -Shanghai Knights -Sleepy Hollow -Signs -Silent Force -The Sixth Sense -Sleepwalkers -Smokin' Aces -Solaris -Soul Survivors -Spider-Man -Spider-Man 2 -Starsky & Hutch -Stealth -Storm of the Century -Stay Alive -Stuck on You -Sweeney Todd -Tears of the Sun -The Terminator -Terminator 2: Judgement Day -Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines -Thirteen Ghosts -Transformers --Transformers Animated -The Trasporter --Transporter 2 -Twister -Undercover Brother -Underworld Evolution -Vacancy -Van Helsing -The Village -Walking Tall -War of the Worlds -What a Girl Wants -When a Stranger Calls -Wicked Little Things -The Wicker Man -Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory -Windtalkers -Without a Paddle -xXx -xXx: State of the Union -Yu-Gi-Oh -Zathura

WORLD HISTORY HELP :D? Question 1 When Columbus arrived in 1492, the population of Mesoamerica exceeded 25 million. Within a century after his arrival the Native population declined A)until it was less than half what it had been before the arrival of Europeans. B)by 90 percent. C)until the influx of African slaves and Europeans replaced the native population by 1650. D)before it began to grow again after Europeans introduced improved medical practices. _______________________________________________________________________ Question 2 This change was due to A)warfare and European diseases. B)the large migrations of Native peoples to Europe. C)the improved diet after Europeans introduced new food products. D)None of the above. _______________________________________________________________________ Question 3 Which Mesoamerican group was the first to develop calendars? A)Zapotec B)Hopi C)Aztec D)Maya _______________________________________________________________________ Question 4 Six centuries ago Mayans were writing books. What was the attitude of the Spanish toward Mayan writing? A)They burned most of the books because they believed them to be dangerous and subversive documents. B)They insisted that the Maya write only in Spanish. C)They translated the writing into Spanish to unlock the secrets of the Mayan civilization. D)Spanish monks used them to study the Mayan language so they could translate the Bible into Mayan. _______________________________________________________________________ Question 5 What was the principal crop in Mesoamerica? A)Squash B)Potatoes C)Maize D)Cotton _______________________________________________________________________ Question 6 The earliest urban center of the ancient Maya and model for Mesoamerican city-states was A)Teotihuaca B)Aztecia C)Atahualpa D)Yucatan _______________________________________________________________________ Question 7 What did Mayans sometimes use as a form of money? A)Seashells B)feathers C)Silver beads D)Cacao beans _______________________________________________________________________ Question 8 What legendary Aztec symbol is commemorated on the Mexican flag today? A)An Eagle with a snake in its beak B)The outline of Tenochtitlan C)A Macaw in flight dropping a feather D)An Aztec Pyramid _______________________________________________________________________ Question 9 Which of the following choices has the correct chronology (oldest to youngest) of dominant Mesoamerican empires? A)Aztec, Toltec, Maya B)Maya, Toltec, Aztec C)Toltec, Maya, Aztec D)None of the above _______________________________________________________________________ Question 10 Where was the center of Aztec culture? A)Ecuador B)South American Andes mountains C)Yucatan Peninsula D)Mexico _______________________________________________________________________

My reading list. Comments? Andro Linklater--An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson Robert Ferguson--The Vikings: A History Anthony Everitt--Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome Peter H. Wilson--The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy David A. Clary--Eagles and Empire: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle for a Continent David O. Stewart--Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy James J. O'Donnell--The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History Paul Strathern--The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The Intersecting Lives of da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped Toby Lester--The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map that Gave America Its Name Lesley Hazleton--After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam Hannah Pakula--The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek Robin D.G. Kelley--Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original Alison Weir--The Lady in the Tower (Anne Boleyn) Don Lattin--The Harvard Psychedelic Club Mark Lamster--Master of Shadows: The Secret Diplomatic Career of the Painter Peter Paul Rubens. Already on my 5th history book this year. ;)

Is it possible that my friend who served in the Quartermasters corp really captured Osama and let him go My f? Is it possible that my friend who served in the Quartermasters corp really captured Osama and let him go My friend was recently discharged in the army. He claims while in the QM corp, he was able to capture Osama Bin Laden. However he had been reading a lot of Roman history. And as he talked with Osama, he wondered how the scales of history would judge. As an American the decision was simple, Osama killed innocent people in cold blood. But as a world historical citizen, he wasn't sure. Perhaps History would be more understanding than we could understand. Perhaps to history he would be a romantic rebel against an empire. MY friend says he took a God's eye view instead of a worm's eye view and let him go. How likely do you think this story is? My friend has no proof since he had to keep this secret from the army, and the whole mission is classified. I don't know much about the topic. So for those who know the military situation is this possible?

Is it possible that my friend who served in the Quartermasters corp really captured Osama and let him go? Is it possible that my friend who served in the Quartermasters corp really captured Osama and let him go My friend was recently discharged in the army. He claims while in the QM corp, he was able to capture Osama Bin Laden. However he had been reading a lot of Roman history. And as he talked with Osama, he wondered how the scales of history would judge. As an American the decision was simple, Osama killed innocent people in cold blood. But as a world historical citizen, he wasn't sure. Perhaps History would be more understanding than we could understand. Perhaps to history he would be a romantic rebel against an empire. MY friend says he took a God's eye view instead of a worm's eye view and let him go. How likely do you think this story is? My friend has no proof since he had to keep this secret from the army, and the whole mission is classified. I don't know much about the topic. So for those who know the military situation is this possible?

Hugely invisible role of India in WW2? many ppl in the West forget the hugely important, but hushed up role that India played in WW2. this is by design, bc no one in the US or UK would want to understate their role, and give credit to their former colonies for turning the war - and the world- around! pls see the the following excerpt abt a book that all Indians, and americans and british, should read: 'Book: Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire And The Ravaging Of India During World War II Author: Madhusree Mukerjee In 1943 Winston Churchill and the British Empire needed millions of Indian troops, all of India's industrial output, and tons of Indian grain to support the Allied war effort. Such massive contributions were certain to trigger famine in India. Because Churchill believed that the fate of the British Empire hung in the balance, he proceeded, sacrificing millions of Indian lives in order to preserve what he held most dear. The result: the Bengal Famine of 1943-44 in which millions of villagers starved to death. Relying on extensive archival research and first-hand interviews, Mukerjee weaves a riveting narrative of Churchill's decisions to ratchet up the demands on India as the war unfolded and to ignore the corpses piling up in the Bengali countryside. The hypocrisy, racism, and extreme economic conditions of two centuries of British colonial policy finally built to a head, leading Indians to fight for their independence in 1947. Few Americans know that World War II was won on the backs of these starving peasants; Mukerjee shows us a side of World War II that we have been blind to. We know what Hitler did to the Jews, what the Japanese did to the Chinese, what Stalin did to his own people. This story has largely been neglected, until now.' pls go read this book and inform urself properly abt history, otherwise the world will continue to give too much credit where it's not due! and everyone hates to be ignored and uncredited...

women take over the world story? i posted a version a while ago of this and took your criticism so heres an in depth synopsis of my story. in the beginning its the year 1880 and the era of women's suffrage is almost near. in human history females were always seen as the 2nd type. in those times you either had to be a successful white man. than 2nd would be a women under her husband and then we had lower class citizens who the last. in this time frame we have an alternate history plot. its the time of womens rights. many women begin movements and protest to have the right to vote and demand equality from the united states government(later in the 1910s) how ever early before that, we have a women named Cindy Shander. Cindy never had a good childhood. she was beaten by her father as a younger girl and lost her mother in a violent murder caused by her father who came home drunk and irritated because he expected his wife to do as he said. she refused and stated she was tired of taking orders from him and not receiving love from the relationship. so Cindy bottles hatred inside her. she views men as dreadful and cold hearted creatures who want to keep women down. Cindy begins an early womens movement, unlike the women who would establish movements in the near future. she had radical views. she killed 3 men within 5 months and was sentenced to jail for life. its not over, meanwhile a successful women(Alyson Barker) who is married to a owner of Americas most successful oil company. she breaks the law in secrecy and frees Cindy from jail, shes admires Cindy's hatred for men just like hers, she only married that man for his corporate legacy. the two become partners and decided to formulate a plot to make a world for women to rule and for men to bow and cower. eventually Cindy and Alyson murder Mr Barker and Alyson takes his fortune and runs the oil empire. its 1900 and America has entered a new era. the women are in their 40s now and are officially the richest women in the world. the two women gather followers and infiltrate the government with secret influences. importantly more women are still irritated a movement hasn't started yet. Cindy suggest that alyson fabricates a movement. the next day congress passed an amendment for female slavery in the year 1910, this outrages the women and since cindy and alyson are in power they were prepared, alyson manipulated the bill without congress knowing, nor the president and the women train a private military. you know where this is going. the common women go on a riot and burn down cities and reject the fake bill. congress is in panic and the all female army that was trained for 10 years succeeds with a coup't and tell the president to give the women full power or he will die. he cowers and gives them the power. in the summer of 1910 America has fallen to women. the angry women celebrate and cindy wishes to setup a dictatorship for women and men, but men get the worst treatment. so now America has a all female chancellery, military and new ideology. in time the world is influenced by female dominance, the Americans help set up fabricated revolutions in Europe and Asia. women have officially conquered the whole world in the year 1935. the world is different now. its all female ruled, men are only used for hard labor and their genes are taken from them to create more humans until women can find another way of reproducing, the new generation of males are brainwashed to become good slaves and the women who changed history are now dead. so we accelerate to 2010 where the world is the same, the technology is amazing and women keep up what they started. a slave male begins to wonder why he was made and why he serves women. this man is not yet thought of yet. the thinking ends her gotta tweak it a but. but what do you think of the back story and if not tell me WHAT YOU THINK women could have done to rule the earth in real history

my story called " Female Conquest " women take over world? i posted a version a while ago of this and took your criticism so heres an in depth synopsis of my story. in the beginning its the year 1880 and the era of women's suffrage is almost near. in human history females were always seen as the 2nd type. in those times you either had to be a successful white man. than 2nd would be a women under her husband and then we had lower class citizens who the last. in this time frame we have an alternate history plot. its the time of womens rights. many women begin movements and protest to have the right to vote and demand equality from the united states government(later in the 1910s) how ever early before that, we have a women named Cindy Shander. Cindy never had a good childhood. she was beaten by her father as a younger girl and lost her mother in a violent murder caused by her father who came home drunk and irritated because he expected his wife to do as he said. she refused and stated she was tired of taking orders from him and not receiving love from the relationship. so Cindy bottles hatred inside her. she views men as dreadful and cold hearted creatures who want to keep women down. Cindy begins an early womens movement, unlike the women who would establish movements in the near future. she had radical views. she killed 3 men within 5 months and was sentenced to jail for life. its not over, meanwhile a successful women(Alyson Barker) who is married to a owner of Americas most successful oil company. she breaks the law in secrecy and frees Cindy from jail, shes admires Cindy's hatred for men just like hers, she only married that man for his corporate legacy. the two become partners and decided to formulate a plot to make a world for women to rule and for men to bow and cower. eventually Cindy and Alyson murder Mr Barker and Alyson takes his fortune and runs the oil empire. its 1900 and America has entered a new era. the women are in their 40s now and are officially the richest women in the world. the two women gather followers and infiltrate the government with secret influences. importantly more women are still irritated a movement hasn't started yet. Cindy suggest that alyson fabricates a movement. the next day congress passed an amendment for female slavery in the year 1910, this outrages the women and since cindy and alyson are in power they were prepared, alyson manipulated the bill without congress knowing, nor the president and the women train a private military. you know where this is going. the common women go on a riot and burn down cities and reject the fake bill. congress is in panic and the all female army that was trained for 10 years succeeds with a coup't and tell the president to give the women full power or he will die. he cowers and gives them the power. in the summer of 1910 America has fallen to women. the angry women celebrate and cindy wishes to setup a dictatorship for women and men, but men get the worst treatment. so now America has a all female chancellery, military and new ideology. in time the world is influenced by female dominance, the Americans help set up fabricated revolutions in Europe and Asia. women have officially conquered the whole world in the year 1935. the world is different now. its all female ruled, men are only used for hard labor and their genes are taken from them to create more humans until women can find another way of reproducing, the new generation of males are brainwashed to become good slaves and the women who changed history are now dead. so we accelerate to 2010 where the world is the same, the technology is amazing and women keep up what they started. a slave male begins to wonder why he was made and why he serves women. this man is not yet thought of yet. the thinking ends her gotta tweak it a but. but what do you think of the back story and if not tell me WHAT YOU THINK women could have done to rule the earth in real history

What is the real history of Palestine? Brief timetable of the Palestinian history. 3'rd millennium BC : The Canaanites were the earliest known inhabitants of Palestine. They became urbanized and lived in city-states, one of which was Jericho . They developed an alphabet. Palestine's location at the center of routes linking three continents made it the meeting place for religious and cultural influences from Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. It was also the natural battleground for the great powers of the region and subject to domination by adjacent empires, beginning with Egypt in the 3d millennium BC. 2'rd millennium BC : Egyptian hegemony and Canaanite autonomy were constantly challenged by such ethnically diverse invaders as the Amorites, Hittites, and Hurrians. These invaders, however, were defeated by the Egyptians and absorbed by the Canaanites, who at that time may have numbered about 200000. 14th century BC : Egyptian power began to weaken, new invaders appeared: the Hebrews, a group of Semitic tribes from Mesopotamia, and the Philistines (after whom the country was later named), an Aegean people of Indo-European stock. 1230 BC : Joshua conquered parts of Palestine. The conquerors settled in the hill country, but they were unable to conquer all of Palestine. 1125 BC : The Israelites, a confederation of Hebrew tribes, finally defeated the Canaanites but found the struggle with the Philistines more difficult . Philistines had established an independent state on the southern coast of Palestine and controlled the Canaanite town of Jerusalem. 1050 BC : Philistines with there superior in military organization and using iron weapons, they severely defeated the Israelites about 1050 BC . 1000 BC : David, Israel's great king, finally defeated the Philistines, and they eventually assimilated with the Canaanites . The unity of Israel and the feebleness of adjacent empires enabled David to establish a large independent state, with its capital at Jerusalem. 922 BC : Under David's son and successor, Solomon, Israel enjoyed peace and prosperity , but at his death in 922 BC the kingdom was divided into Israel in the north and Judah in the south . 722-721 BC : When nearby empires resumed their expansion, the divided Israelites could no longer maintain their independence . Israel fell to Assyria. 586 BC : Judah was conquered by Babylonia, which destroyed Jerusalem and exiled most of the Jews living there. Nebuchadnezzar entered Jerusalem. The Temple was sacked and set fire to, and razed to the ground. The Royal Palace and all the great houses were destroyed, the population carried off in chains to Babylon. And they lamented on their long march into exile. 539 BC : Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylonia and he permitted the Jews to return to Judea, a district of Palestine. Under Persian rule the Jews were allowed considerable autonomy. They rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and codified the Mosaic law, the Torah, which became the code of social life and religious observance. The Jews were bound to a universal God. 333 BC : Persian domination of Palestine was replaced by Greek rule when Alexander the Great of Macedonia took the region. Alexander's successors, the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria , continued to rule the country . The Seleucids tried to impose Hellenistic (Greek) culture and religion on the population. 141-63 BC : Jews revolted under the Maccabees and set up an independent state. 132-35 BC : Jews revolts erupted, numerous Jews were killed, many were sold into slavery, and the rest were not allowed to visit Jerusalem. Judea was renamed Syria Palaistina. 63 BC : Jerusalem was overrun by Rome. Herod was appointed King of Judea. He slaughtered the last of the Hasmoneans and ordered a lavish restoration and extension of the Second Temple. A period of great civil disorder followed with strife between pacifists and Zealots, and riots against the Roman authorities. 37-4 BC : During the rule of King Herod the Great Jesus of Nazareth, peace be upon him was born. And years after, he began his teaching mission. His attempts to call people back to the pure teachings of Abraham and Moses were judged subversive by the authorities. He was tried and sentenced to death; "yet they did not slay him but only a likeness that was shown to them." 70 AD : Titus of Rome laid siege to Jerusalem. The fiercely defended Temple eventually fell, and with it the whole city. Seeking a complete and enduring victory, Titus ordered the total destruction of the Herodian Temple. A new city named Aelia was built by the Romans on the ruins of Jerusalem, and a temple dedicated to Jupitor raised up. 313 AD : Palestine received special attention when the Roman emperor Constantine I legalized Christianity. His mother, Helena, visited Jerusalem, and Palestine, as the Holy Land, became a focus of Christian pilgrimage. A golden age of prosperity, security, and culture followed. Most of the population became Hellenized and Christianized . 324 AD : Constantine of Byzantium marched on Aelia. He rebuilt the city walls and commissioned the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and opened the city for Christian pilgrimage. 29-614 AD : Byzantine (Roman) rule was interrupted , however , by a brief Persian occupation and ended altogether when Muslim Arab armies invaded Palestine and captured Jerusalem in AD 638 . 638 AD : The Arab conquest began 1300 years of Muslim presence in what then became known as Filastin. Eager to be rid of their Byzantine overlords and aware of their shared heritage with the Arabs, the descendants of Ishmael, as well as the Muslims reputation for mercy and compassion in victory, the people of Jerusalem handed over the city after a brief siege. They made only one condition, That the terms of their surrender be negotiated directly with the Khalif 'Umar in person. 'Umar entered Jerusalem on foot. There was no bloodshed. There were no massacres. Those who wanted to leave were allowed to, with all their goods. Those who wanted to stay were guarantee protection for their lives, their property and places of worship. Palestine was holy to Muslims because the Prophet Muhammad had designated Jerusalem as the first qibla (the direction Muslims face when praying) and because he was believed to have ascended on a night journey to heaven from the the old city of Jerusalem (al-Aqsa Mosque today) , where the Dome of the Rock was later built. Jerusalem became the third holiest city of Islam. The Muslim rulers did not force their religion on the Palestinians, and more than a century passed before the majority converted to Islam. The remaining Christians and Jews were considered People of the Book. They were allowed autonomous control in their communities and guaranteed security and freedom of worship. Such tolerance was rare in the history of religion . Most Palestinians also adopted Arabic and Islamic culture. Palestine benefited from the empires trade and from its religious significance during the first Muslim dynasty, the Umayyads of Damascus. 750 AD : The power shifted to Baghdad with the Abbasids, Palestine became neglected. It suffered unrest and successive domination by Seljuks, Fatimids, and European Crusaders. It shared, however, in the glory of Muslim civilization, when the Muslim world enjoyed a golden age of science, art, philosophy, and literature. Muslims preserved Greek learning and broke new ground in several fields, all of which later contributed to the Renaissance in Europe. Like the rest of the empire, however, Palestine under the Mamelukes gradually stagnated and declined. 1517 AD : The Ottoman Turks of Asia Minor defeated the Mamelukes, with few interruptions, ruled Palestine until the winter of 1917-18. The country was divided into several districts (sanjaks), such as that of Jerusalem. The administration of the districts was placed largely in the hands of Arab Palestinians, who were descendants of the Canaanites. The Christian and Jewish communities, however, were allowed a large measure of autonomy. Palestine shared in the glory of the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century, but declined again when the empire began to decline in the 17th century. 1831-1840 AD : Muhammad Ali, the modernizing viceroy of Egypt, expanded his rule to Palestine . His policies modified the feudal order, increased agriculture, and improved education. 1840: The Ottoman Empire reasserted its authority, instituting its own reforms . 1845: Jewish in Palestine were 12,000 increased to 85,000 by 1914. All people in Palestine were Arabic Muslims and Christians. 1897: Tthe first Zionist Congress held Basle, Switzerland, issued the Basle programme on the colonization of Palestine. 1904: The Fourth Zionist Congress decided to establish a national home for Jews in Argentina. 1906: The Zionist congress decided the Jewish homeland should be Palestine. 1914: With the outbreak of World War I, Britain promised the independence of Arab lands under Ottoman rule, including Palestine, in return for Arab support against Turkey which had entered the war on the side of Germany. 1916: Britain and France signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Arab region into zones of influence. Lebanon and Syria were assigned to France, Jordan and Iraq to Britain and Palestine was to be internationalized. 1917: The British government issued the Balfour Declaration on November 2, in the form of a letter to a British Zionist leader from the foreign secretary Arthur J. Balfour prmissing him the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. 1917-1918: Aided by the Arabs, the British captured Palestine from the Ottoman Turks. The Arabs revolted against the Turks because the British had promised them, in correspondence with Shareef Husein ibn Ali of Mecca, the independence of their countries after the war. Britain, however, also made other, conflicting commitments in the secret Sykes-Picot agreement with France and Russia (1916), it promised to divide and rule the region with its allies. In a third agreement, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Britain promised the Jews a Jewish "national home" in Palestine . 1918: After WW I ended, Jews began to migrate to Palestine, which was set a side as a British mandate with the approval of the League of Nations in 1922. Large-scale Jewish settlement and extensive Zionist agricultural and industrial enterprises in Palestine began during the British mandatory period, which lasted until 1948. 1919: The Palestinians convened their first National Conference and expressed their opposition to the Balfour Declaration. 1920: The San Remo Conference granted Britain a mandate over Palestine. and two years later Palestine was effectively under British administration. Sir Herbert Samuel, a declared Zionist, was sent as Britain's first High Commissioner to Palestine. 1922: The Council of the League of Nations issued a Mandate for Palestine. 1929: Large-scale attacks on Jews by Arabs rocked Jerusalem. Palestinians killed 133 Jews and suffered 116 deaths. Sparked by a dispute over use of the Western Wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque ( this site is sacred to Muslims, but Jews claimed it is the remaining of jews temple all studies shows clearly that the wall is from the Islamic ages and it is part of al-Aqsa Mosque). But the roots of the conflict lay deeper in Arab fears of the Zionist movement which aimed to make at least part of British-administered Palestine a Jewish state. 1936: The Palestinians held a six-month General Strike to protest against the confiscation of land and Jewish immigration. 1937: Peel Commission, headed by Lord Robert Peel, issued a report. Basically, the commission concluded, the mandate in Palestine was unworkable There was no hope of any cooperative national entity there that included both Arabs and Jews. The commission went on to recommend the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a neutral sacred-site state to be administered by Britain. 1939: The British government published a White Paper restricting Jewish immigration and offering independence for Palestine within ten years. This was rejected by the Zionists, who then organized terrorist groups and launched a bloody campaign against the British and the Palestinians. 1947: Great Britain decided to leave Palestine and called on the United Nations (UN) to make recommendations. In response, the UN convened its first special session and on November 29, 1947, it adopted a plan calling for partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem as an international zone under UN jurisdiction. 1947: Arab protests against partition erupted in violence, with attacks on Jewish settlements in retalation to the attacks of Jews terrorist groups to Arab Towns and villages and massacres in hundred against unarmed Palestinian in there homes. 15 May 1948: British decided to leave on this day, leaders of the Yishuv decided (as they claim) to implement that part of the partition plan calling for establishment of a Jewish state. The same day, the armies of Egypt, Transjordan (now Jordan), Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq joined Palestinian and other Arab guerrillas in a full-scale war (first Arab-Israeli War). The Arabs failed to prevent establishment of a Jewish state, and the war ended with four UN-arranged armistice agreements between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. The small Gaza Strip was left under Egyptian control, and the West Bank was controled by Jordan. Of the more than 800,000 Arabs who lived in Israeli-held territory before 1948, only about 170,000 remained. The rest became refugees in the surrounding Arab countries, ending the Arab majority in the Jewish state. 1956: Attckes incursions by refugee guerrilla bands and attacks by Arab military units were made, Egypt refused to permit Israeli ships to use the Suez Canal and blockaded the Straits of Tiran erupted in the second Arab-Israeli War. Great Britain and France joined the attack because of their dispute with Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had nationalized the Suez Canal. Seizing the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula within few days. The fighting was halted by the UN after a few days, and a UN Emergency Force (UNEF) was sent to supervise the cease-fire in the Canal zone. By the end of the year their forces withdrew from Egypt, but Israel refused to leave Gaza until early 1957. 1965: The Palestine Liberation Organization was established. 1967: Nasser's insistence in 1967 that the UNEF leave Egypt, led Israel to attack Egypt, Jordan, and Syria simultaneously on 5th of June. The war ended six days later with an Israeli victory. Israel occuiped Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, Arab East Jerusalem, West Bank, Golan Heights. After 1967 war, several guerrilla organizations within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) carried out guerrillas attacks on Israeli miletary targets, with the stated objective of "redeeming Palestine." 1973: Egypt joined Syria in a war on Israel to regain the territories lost in 1967. The two Arab states struck unexpectedly on October 6. After crossing the suez channel the Arab forces gain a lot of advanced positions in Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights and manage to defeat the Israeli forces for more then three weeks. Israeli forces with a massive U.S. economic and military assistance managed to stop the arab forces after a three-week struggle. The Arab oil-producing states cut off petroleum exports to the United States and other Western nations in retaliation for their aid to Israel. In an effort to encourage a peace settlement, U.S. secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, managed to work out military disengagements between Israel and Egypt in the Sinai and between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights during 1974. 1974: The Arab Summit in Rabat recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. 1982: Israel launched an invasion of Lebanon aimed at wiping out the PLO presence there. By mid-August, after intensive fighting in and around Bayrut, the PLO agreed to withdraw its guerrillas from the city. Israeli troops remained in southern Lebanon. 1987: Relations between Israel and the Palestinians entered a new phase with the intifada, a series of uprisings in the occupied territories that included demonstrations, strikes, and rock-throwing attacks on Israeli soldiers. 1988: The PNC meeting in Algiers declared the State of Palestine as outlined in the UN Partition Plan 181. 1990: Yasser Arafat addressed the UN Security Council In Geneva demanding UN emergency force to provide international protection for the Palestinian people to safeguard their lives, properties and holy places. 1991: The first comprehensive peace talks between Israel and delegations representing the Palestinians and neighboring Arab states 1993: Israel deported 415 Palestinian men to a buffer zone in southern Lebanon. The deported Palestinians were said by Israeli authorities to be active members of the militant Islamic resistance movement Hamas. Aftersecret negotiations, PM Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed an historic peace agreement. Israel agreed to allow for Palestinian self-rule, first in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho, and later in other areas of the West Bank. Feb 1994: An American-born Jewish settler in Hebron, Baruch Goldstein, opened fire in al-Haran al-ebrahime crowded mosque, killing 29 Muslims and wounding 150 more. May 1994: In Cairo - Egypt, Yasser Arafat, and Yitzhak Rabin, signed the final version of the Declaration of Principles. Within 24 hours of the signing, Israeli military forces were scheduled to leave the Gaza Strip and Jericho. July 1994: Yasser Arafat returned to Palestine.

Why did Bush eliminate the Posse Comitatus Act? Why is he paving the road for a dictatorship in the USA?..... "Paradoxically, preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader--a dictator--willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures,' which few know how, or are willing, to employ." -- Michael Ledeen, White House advisor and fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, "Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today As Five Centuries Ago" "Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government." -- NewsMax, November 21, 2003 In October 2006, Bush signed into law the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Quietly slipped into the law at the last minute, at the request of the Bush administration, were sections changing important legal principles, dating back 200 years, which limit the U.S. government's ability to use the military to intervene in domestic affairs. These changes would allow Bush, whenever he thinks it necessary, to institute martial law--under which the military takes direct control over civilian administration. Sec. 1042 of the Act, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," effectively overturns what is known as posse comitatus. The Posse Comitatus Act is a law, passed in 1878, that prohibits the use of the regular military within the U.S. borders. The original passage of the Posse Comitatus Act was a very reactionary move that sealed the betrayal of Black people after the Civil War and brought the period of Reconstruction to an end. It decreed that federal troops could no longer be used inside the former Confederate states to enforce the new legal rights of Black people. Black people were turned over to the armed police and Klansmen serving the southern plantation owners, and the long period of Jim Crow began. During the 20th century, posse comitatus objectively started to play a new role within the bourgeois democratic framework: as a legal barrier to the direct influence of the powerful military establishment and the armed forces over domestic U.S. society. It served to some degree as an obstacle against military coups and presidents seizing military control over the country. (However, National Guard troops have been legally available to the ruling class for use inside the U.S., and there have been other loopholes to the prohibition of the use of armed forces domestically, as in the mobilization of Marine troops during the 1992 L.A. Rebellion.) So the changes to posse comitatus signed into law by Bush are extremely significant and ominous. Bush has modified the main exemptions to posse comitatus that up to now have been primarily defined by the Insurrection Act of 1807. Previously the president could call out the army in the United States only in cases of insurrection or conditions where "rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State or Territory by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." Under the new law the president can use the military in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or "other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order." The new law requires the President to notify Congress "as soon as practicable after the determination and every 14 days thereafter during the duration of the exercise of the authority." However Bush, as he has often done during his presidency, modified this requirement in his signing statement, which declared, "The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive." In other words, Bush claims that he does not even need to inform Congress that martial law has been declared! Changing Role of Military Within the U.S. This major change in the criteria under which martial law can be declared is a continuation of a process, begun after 9/11, to dismantle legal barriers to unrestrained executive, presidential powers. In 2002, the government created the new Northern Command. This is the first time since the Civil War that the U.S. military has been given an operational command inside the continental United States. In 2005, the Washington Post reported that Northcom had developed battle plans for martial law in the U.S. One secret document, CONPLAN 2005, envisions 15 different scenarios where these plans could go into effect. The U.S. has also used natural disasters like Katrina to push for an increased role for the military. According to the Washington Post, Bush advisor Karl Rove told the governor of Louisiana that she should explore legal options to impose martial law "or as close as we can get." Spying by the military against U.S. persons, also supposedly prohibited, has greatly expanded in recent years. Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) was created in 2002 supposedly to evaluate threats against Department of Defense installations. However, a secret 400-page document obtained by MSNBC revealed that CIFA had spied on more than 1500 "suspicious incidents" during a ten-month period, including a meeting of Quakers to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools and an anti-war protest in Los Angeles. James Risen has exposed in the New York Times and in his book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration that the National Security Agency, which is under the Department of Defense, has been used in a massive campaign of illegal spying of U.S. citizens, including tapping phone calls and monitoring bank and financial records and the internet. (See Revolution #35, "Spies, Lies, Thugs and Torture.") In 2006, the Military Commissions Act was passed which, in addition to legalizing torture, allows the president and military courts to declare anyone an enemy combatant without basic civil rights like habeas corpus. Plans for massive detention centers are already being prepared. Pacific News Service reported that in early 2006, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) received a $385 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security to build detention and processing facilities to be used "in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S. or to support the rapid development of new programs." Would They Really Go That Far? The Bush Regime's preparations for martial law are part of an extreme agenda. This is a regime that is setting out to create a world empire that is unchallenged and unchallengeable and has embarked on an endless war to bring this about. Along with this, they aim to restructure social relations in the U.S., doing away with many of the social and economic institutions that have characterized U.S. society since World War 2. Because of this extreme agenda, the Bush regime takes very seriously the possibility of jolts and ruptures and resistance and are preparing very extreme measures to deal with this. On February 27, 1933, a fire broke out in the Reichstag (government) building in Germany. The next day Hitler and his Minister of the Interior Hermann Goering drafted the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended civil liberties and gave the central government total power. The decree was signed into law within days. After that point, opposition to Hitler became MUCH more difficult. In the U.S. today, extreme measures much like the Reichstag Fire Decree are already being put into place--making it even more urgent that a determined struggle be waged to drive out the Bush regime and reverse this dangerous trajectory. http://www.inteldaily.com/?c=117&a=1431 http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/911/ http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Posse_Comitatus_Act http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57219 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060424&articleId=2323 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46909 http://www.sandersresearch.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1009 http://www.newsfrombabylon.com/topics/posse_comitatus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbvg_B2KCf8&feature=RecentlyWatched&page=1&t=t&f=b http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INdcaeeb3ws&feature=RecentlyWatched&page=1&t=t&f=b http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Jux68F_AQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CyxOlL9zKg&feature=RecentlyWatched&page=1&t=t&f=b if you don't want to read all of this, just watch the youtibe videos. The videos are of tv news reports, not made up conspiracy theories. I know what the posse comitatus act is, that was just a part of the question. Martial law would make the president a dictator, because of the executive orders that Bush has created. He gave himself dictatorial powers, in the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or anything that the president decides merits martial law - he has complete discretion over does or doesn't merit martial law.

History Helpp!? 10 minutes! please help! (10 points)? 13. Why does most of eastern Russia have a low population density? (Points: 3) There are few rivers and other sources of fresh water in this region. Most of this region has a desert and semidesert biome. Most of the region is located within tundra and subarctic climate zones. Too many mountain ranges make it impossible for human settlement. 14. What did Russia do in the eighteenth century because it lacked year-round ports? (Points: 3) built alliances with Germany and Poland to transport goods over land tried to develop ships that were capable of breaking the ice as they sailed went to war against the Ottoman Empire and Sweden established trade relations with other countries experiencing similar problems 15. What was one result of Russian leaders’ resistance to change during the nineteenth century? (Points: 3) Russia maintained successful relations with long-time allies. Russia struggled to modernize. The tsar developed a different support system. Russian serfs began overthrowing the rulers of their fiefdoms. 16. Who revolted in November 1917 in Petrograd and took power from the Provisional Government? (Points: 3) the Whites, led by former generals loyal to the tsar Bolsheviks, led by Lenin and Trotsky Mensheviks, led by Stalin and Petrosky the Moscow soviet, led by Rasputin 17. What happened once the Communists assumed power in Russia in 1917? (Points: 3) The Russian Revolution ended and there was a relatively peaceful transition. The Whites and Reds, or Bolsheviks, continued to fight a bloody civil war. The Whites and Reds temporarily joined forces to overcome the Mensheviks. The Communists began planning other revolutions throughout Europe. 18. Who followed the teachings of Karl Marx, led the Bolsheviks, and became the first leader of the USSR? (Points: 3) Joseph Stalin Leon Trotsky Vladimir Lenin Nicholas Romanov 19. What important principles did Woodrow Wilson stress with his Fourteen Points? (Points: 3) belief in creating processes for colonial claims and the administration of them belief in the power of democracy and the role of the United States in spreading it belief in the underdog and the right of all nations to self-determination belief in rewarding the victors and punishing the aggressors 20. Woodrow Wilson’s desire for lasting peace in the world led him to include his fourteenth point, the establishment of (Points: 3) large armies and navies that would ensure peace. economic alliances between industrialized nations. democracies in every nation of the world. an international association of nations. 21. They began to thrive now that the pressure of paying for the war had passed. (Points: 3) Many companies closed, resulting in high unemployment among former soldiers. Governments established sound tax collection processes because of the war and were able to use these funds to operate effectively after it. European nations could trade freely with Latin America and Asia since they had not been at war with them. American products were in demand, and European nations were able to establish credit to obtain them. 22. Why did France want the Versailles peace treaty negotiations to make Germany as weak as possible? (Points: 3) to assure that Germany would be incapable of threatening France in the future to punish Germany for its aggressions during World War I to lay the groundwork for building a strong alliance with Great Britain to keep the Russians from turning to Germany for support of the USSR 23. Which group of treaty provisions did Woodrow Wilson believe would lead to another war? Group A agreeing that nationalism had played a part in causing the war creating an organization to discuss and resolve problems agreeing not to form secret alliances eliminating colonization Group B establishing that Germany was responsible for the war requiring reparations from Germany for the cost of the war eliminating the German military returning Alsace and Lorraine to France (Points: 3) Group A Group B 24. Wilson hoped that self-determination would end the old imperialist system of colonial empires. Was his hope fully realized in the Treaty of Versailles? (Points: 3) Yes—the Ottoman Empire was dissolved and its subjects granted complete independence. Yes—Austria-Hungary was divided into new, independent nations based on the wishes of the ethnic groups in the region. No—Germany’s old colonies in Afric

How should true patriots reclaim the media from Republican/Fascist interests? http://www.nowfoundation.org/issues/communications/tv/mediacontrol.html http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=fascism+in+america&btnG=Search ) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays. September 11 Freedom Walk New Majority Leader: Iraq War “May Be The Greatest Gift That We Give” Our Grandchildren Headstones of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with the Pentagons war-marketing slogans White House and the RNC are going to make a habit of using uniformed military personnel as props at Republican political rallies, despite the fact that it is a plain violation of military regulations banning politicization of the armed forces. "You must glorify war in order to get the public to accept the fact that your going to send their sons and daughters to die." The inside story of the cozy relationship between big box office American war movies and the Pentagon More... 2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights: Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc. Bush threatens to veto $442b defense bill if Congress investigates detainee abuses. Guantanamo Judge: “I don’t care about international law. I don’t want to hear the words ‘international law’ again. We are not concerned with international law.” Rumsfeld to approve new guidelines that will formalize the administration's policy of imprisoning without the protections of the Geneva Conventions and enable the Pentagon to legally hold "ghost detainees," US 'preparing to detain terror suspects for life without trial' U.S. oks evidence gained through torture July 1, 2003: U.S. Suspends Military Aid to Nearly 50 Countries: because they have supported the International Criminal Court and failed to exempt Americans from possible prosecution. US has at least 9000 prisoners in secret detention More... 3.) Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc. Congressman: Muslims 'enemy amongst us' SB 24, Ohio law to muzzle "liberals" World history textbook used by seventh-graders at Scottsdale’s Mohave Middle School was pulled from classrooms mid-semester amid growing right criticism of the book’s unbiased portrayal of Islam Rallies planned against 'Islamofacism': Event to 'unify all Americans behind common goal' More... 4.) Supremacy of the Military: Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized. If you haven't seen the Oreo flash animation yet, see it here Bush’s Domestic Program Hit List Bush slashes domestic programs, boosts defense. Arlen Spector calls it "scandalous" Funding for job training, rural health care, low-income schools and help for people lacking health insurance would face big cuts under a bill passed Friday by the House Pentagon to spend 75 billion for three new brigades Three cable channels now feed news, information and entertainment about the armed services into millions of living rooms 24 hours a day, seven days a week: The Military Channel, the Military History Channel and the Pentagon Channel. More... 5.) Rampant Sexism: The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy. It's legal again, to fire gov't workers for being gay Bush calls for Constitutional ban on same-sex marriages Bush refuses to sign U.N proposal on women's "sexual" rights W. David Hager chairman of the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee does not prescribe contraceptives for single women, does not do abortions, will not prescribe RU-486 and will not insert IUDs. The State Department has awarded an explicitly anti-feminist U.S. group part of a US$10 million grant to train Iraqi women in political participation and democracy. More... 6.) Controlled Mass Media: Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common. FBI Acknowledges: Journalists Phone Records are Fair Game Report shows U.S. government has been engaged in illegal propaganda aimed at its own citizens and the story gets only 41 mentions in the media Free Press details recent governmental propaganda efforts, from faux-correspondent Jeff Gannon to paid-off pundit Armstrong Williams, and from the demise of FOIA to video news releases passed off as news. also... See a Whitehouse fake news release here (opens realplayer) US seizes webservers from independent media sites Bush's war on information: US editors forbidden to publish certain foreign writers More... 7.) Obsession with National Security: Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses Bush Aides ADMIT 'stoking fear' for political gain: Bush adviser said the president hopes to change the dynamics of the race. The strategy is aimed at stoking public fears about terrorism, raising new concerns about Kerry's ability to protect Americans and reinforcing Bush's image as the steady anti-terrorism candidate, aides said. The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level. Keith Olbermann: "The Nexus of Politics and Terror." Cheney warns that if Kerry is elected, the USA will suffer a "devastating attack" GOP convention in a nutshell (quicktime) Rove: GOP to Use Terror As Campaign Issue in 2006 More... 8.) Religion and Government are Intertwined: Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions. Jerry Falwell cleared of charges that he broke federal election law by urging followers to vote for Bush NC congressman proposes law making it ok to preach politics from the pulpit Texas Governor Mobilizes Evangelicals Family research council: Justice Sunday Thou shalt be like Bush: What makes this recently established, right-wing Christian college unique are the increasingly close - critics say alarmingly close - links it has with the Bush administration and the Republican establishment. Park Service Continues to Push Creationist Theory at Grand Canyon and other nat'l parks More... 9.) Corporate Power is Protected: The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite. The K Street Project is a project by the Republican party to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire Republicans in top positions, and to reward loyal GOP lobbyists with access to influential officials. It was launched in 1995, by Republican strategist Grover Norquist and House majority leader Tom DeLay. American Conservative Magazine: One U.S. contractor received $2 million in a duffel bag... and a U.S. official was given $7 million in cash in the waning days of the CPA and told to spend it “before the Iraqis take over.” There are 6 Congressional Committees investigating the Oil-for-Food (UN) scandal, yet not a single Republican Committee Chairman will call a hearing to investigate the whereabouts of 9 billion dollars missing in Iraq Bush money network rooted in Florida, Texas: Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, the federal government has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts to the President's elite 2004 Texas fund-raisers, their businesses, and lobbying clients More... 10.) Labor Power is Suppressed: Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed. Labor Department warns unions against using their money politically President Bush Attacks Organized Labor: Bush attacked organized labor Saturday, issuing orders effectively reducing how much money unions can spend for political activities and opening up government contracts to non-union bidding. March 2001: President Bush signed his name to four executive orders on organized labor last month, including one that cuts the money unions will have for political campaign spending. Congress and the Department of Labor are trying to change the rules on overtime pay, eliminating the 40 hour work week, taking eligibility for overtime pay away from millions of workers, and replacing time and a half pay with comp days. More... 11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts. Bush's new economic plan cuts funding for arts, education Artists from all over the world are being refused entry to the US on security grounds. A group of more than 60 top U.S. scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and several science advisers to past Republican presidents, on Wednesday accused the Bush administration of manipulating and censoring science for political purposes Freedom of Repression: New ruling will allow censorship of campus publications More... 12.) Obsession with Crime and Punishment: Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations American Gestapo is here: "There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.'" America: secret jails, secret courts, secret arrests, and now secret laws Snitch-or-Go-to-Jail bill will make pretty much anything short of reporting on everyone you see for doing just about anything a jailable offense. With minimum sentences, up to and including life without parole. The problem with Gonzales is that he has been deeply involved in developing some of the most sweeping claims of near-dictatorial presidential power in our nation's history, allowing him to imprison and even (at least in theory) torture anyone in the world, at any time Police officers don't have to give a reason at the time they arrest someone, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a ruling that shields officers from false-arrest lawsuits. More... 13.) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption: Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders. Bush Cronyism: Foxes Guarding the henhouse Making Sense of the Abramoff Scandal If Bush's pick is confirmed, that will mean the five top appointees at Justice have zero prosecutorial experience among them. Iran-Contra Felons Get Good Jobs from Bush Big Iraq Reconstruction Contracts Went To Big Donors Bush Wars -- Crooks Get Contracts : The main companies that were awarded billions of dollars worth of contracts in Iraq have paid more than $300 million in fines since 2000, to resolve allegations of fraud, bid rigging, delivery of faulty military equipment, and environmental damage. US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) lost track of $9 billion "Contracting in the aftermath of the hurricanes has been marked by waste, corruption and cronyism" More... 14. Fraudulent Elections: Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections. Rolling Stone does some investigative and rather exhaustive digging into public documents and says we’re almost guaranteed the 2004 election results were massively rigged Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings Conyers hearing in which Clinton Curtis testifies that he was hired to create hackable voting machines (.wmv) The Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire. The Conyers Report (.pdf) No explanation for the machines in Mahoning County that recorded Kerry votes for Bush, the improper purging in Cuyahoga County, the lock down in Warren County, the 99% voter turnout in Miami County, the machine tampering in Hocking County Less access than Kazakhstan. Fewer fail-safes than Venezuela. Not as simple Republic of Georgia. The 2004 Elections according to international observers. This picture is what stopped the ballot recounts in Florida shortly after it seemed that legitimate President Gore had a lead. The "citizens" started what was later called "the preppy riot". Screaming, yelling, pounding on the walls, these "outraged citizens" intimidated the polling officials to halt the court mandated recount. A closer look reveals who they really were. They were bussed and flown in at Republican lawmakers expense. Some even flew in on Tom Delay's private plane. More... If Mussolini defines fascism as "the merger of corporate and government power" what does that make the K Street project? Related Articles: "Now and Then"- Part 1 A 3 part series by W David Jenkins III on the similarities between America now and Germany post Reichstag fire Click here to purchase this image on POAC merchandise "Now and Then"- Part II: The Propaganda Machine Now and Then- Part III Hitler's Playbook: Bush and the Abuse of Power It may sound crazy to some, but the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism. Is America Becoming Fascist? Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt The Danger of American Fascism: With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. Sheila Samples: Freedom To Fascism -- A Bumpy Ride: Republicans don't seem to realize that they are no longer individual members of a coherent "party," but are merely part of a mean-spirited and dangerous movement that is threatening to sweep away democracy as we know it. Germany In 1933: The Easy Slide Into Fascism The Brownshirting of America: Bush’s supporters demand lock-step consensus that Bush is right. They regard truthful reports that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the September 11 attack on the US – truths now firmly established by the Bush administration’s own reports – as treasonous America-bashing. Fascism then. Fascism now? When people think of fascism, they imagine Rows of goose-stepping storm troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the economic and political process that leads to the nightmare. What is Fascism? Some General Ideological Features Hello. You are now living in a fascist empire Neo-fascism in America : Too many people believe fascism is only about goose-stepping, jack-booted Nazis. Too many people believe that American democracy is so strong that fascists could never take control of America. If you are sympathetic to those views, I invite you to consider the possibility that you are mistaken. It is in times of fascism rising that armies of ignorance are once more resuscitated from the bowels of a society bordering on the edge of mass psychosis. The America at the dawn of the twenty-first century is no exception... Republican Party Brown Shirts: "The Wide-Awakes": The organization was known for virulent anti-Catholicism, secretive rituals, and a military-style organization complete with "officers" and units. Harper's Magazine: We Now Live in a Fascist State They Saw It Coming: The 19th-Century Libertarian Critique of Fascism Victims of Creeping Fascism: We are witnessing nothing less astonishing than the demise of the American experiment. 12-20 The ten phases of a Bush scandal. 12-22

If the World was so Safe before Bush took Office,How do you Explain this List??????? American Victims of Mideast Terrorist Attacks -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is a listing of incidents in which Americans are known to have been killed by Middle East-based terrorists. The list will be updated as more information becomes available. The exact number of American casualties is difficult to calculate because of incomplete news reports regarding numbers and nationalities of those injured. The toll from the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center is also uncertain, but current figures place the number of dead above 3,000. The number of dead at the Pentagon and on the hijacked airliners numbered approximately 385. Since Yasser Arafat "renounced" violence in the Oslo Peace Accords on September 13, 1993, at least 53 Americans have been murdered and at least another 83 Americans have been injured by Palestinian terrorism. Excluding the September 11 attacks, approximately 700 Americans have been killed and 1,600 wounded in terrorist attacks since 1970. This list also includes injured Americans since Oslo 1993. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- February 23, 1970, Halhoul, West Bank. Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorists open fire on a busload of pilgrims killing Barbara Ertle of Michigan and wounding two other Americans. March 28-29, 1970, Beirut, Lebanon. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) fired seven rockets at the U.S. Embassy, the American Insurance Company, Bank of America and the John F. Kennedy library. September 14, 1970, En route to Amman, Jordan. The PFLP hijacked a TWA flight from Zurich, Switzerland and forced it to land in Amman. Four American citizens were injured. May 30, 1972, Ben Gurion Airport, Israel. Three members of the Japanese Red Army, acting on the PFLP's bbehalf, carried out a machine-gun and grenade attack at Israel's main airport, killing 26 and wounding 78 people. Many of the casualties were American citizens, mostly from Puerto Rico. September 5, 1972, Munich, Germany. During the Olympic Games in Munich, Black September, a front for Fatah, took hostage 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. Nine athletes were killed including weightlifter David Berger, an American-Israeli from Cleveland, Ohio. March 2, 1973, Khartoum, Sudan. Cleo A. Noel, Jr., U.S. ambassador to Sudan, and George C. Moore, also a U.S. diplomat, were held hostage and then killed by terrorists at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum. It seems likely that Fatah was responsible for the attack. September 8, 1974, Athens, Greece. TWA Flight 841, flying from Tel Aviv to New York, made a scheduled stop in Athens. Shortly after takeoff, it crashed into the Ionian Sea and all 88 passengers were killed, including 32-year-old Steven R. Lowe, husband Jeremiah Michel and wife, Kathrine Hadley Michel of Poughkeepsie, NY, Frederick and Margaret Hare of Bernardsville, NJ, Ralph H. Bosh of Madison, CT, Seldon and Etan Bard of Tuckahoe, NY, Dr. and Mrs. Frederick Stohlman of Newton, MA, Don H. Holiday of Mahwah, NJ, and Jon L. Chesire of Old Lyme, Ct; all of which were Almerican citizens. An investigation of the crash conclusively established that it was caused by explosives set in the rear cargo department of the plane. June 29, 1975, Beirut, Lebanon. The PFLP kidnapped the U.S. military attaché to Lebanon, Ernest Morgan, and demanded food, clothing and building materials for indigent residents living near Beirut harbor. The American diplomat was released after an anonymous benefactor provided food to the neighborhood. November 14, 1975, Jerusalem, Israel. Lola Nunberg, 53, of New York, was injured during a bombing attack in downtown Jerusalem. Fatah claimed responsibility for the bombing, which killed six people and wounded 38. November 21, 1975, Ramat Hamagshimim, Israel. Michael Nadler, an American-Israeli from Miami Beach, Florida, was killed when axe-wielding terrorists from the Democrat Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a PLO faction, attacked students in the Golan Heights. August 11, 1976, Istanbul, Turkey. The PFLP launched an attack on the terminal of Israel's major airline, El Al, at the Istanbul airport. Four civilians, including Harold Rosenthal of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were killed and 20 injured. January 1, 1977, Beirut, Lebanon. Frances E. Meloy, U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, and Robert O.Waring, the U.S. economic counselor, were kidnapped by PFLP members as they crossed a militia checkpoint separating the Christian from the Muslim parts of Beirut. They were later shot to death. March 11, 1978, Tel Aviv, Israel. Gail Rubin, niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff, was among 38 people shot to death by PLO terrorists on an Israeli beach. June 2, 1978, Jerusalem, Israel. Richard Fishman, a medical student from Maryland, was among six killed in a PLO bus bombing in Jerusalem. Chava Sprecher, another American citizen from Seattle, Washington, was injured. May 4, 1979, Tiberias, Israel. Haim Mark and his wife, Haya, of New Haven, Connecticut were injured in a PLO bombing attack in northern Israel. November 4, 1979, Teheran, Iran. After President Carter agreed to admit the Shah of Iran into the U.S., Iranian radicals seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 66 American diplomats hostage. Thirteen hostages were soon freed, but the remaining 53 were held until their release on January 20, 1981. May 2, 1980, Hebron, West Bank. Eli Haze'ev, an American-Israeli from Alexandria, Virginia, was killed in a PLO attack on Jewish worshippers walking home from a synagogue in Hebron. July 19, 1982, Beirut, Lebanon. Hizballah members kidnapped David Dodge, acting president of the American University in Beirut. After a year in captivity, Dodge was released. Rifat Assad, head of Syrian Intelligence, helped in the negotiation with the terrorists. August 19, 1982, Paris, France. Two American citizens, Anne Van Zanten and Grace Cutler, were killed when the PLO bombed a Jewish restaurant in Paris. March 16, 1983, Beirut, Lebanon. Five American Marines were wounded in a hand grenade attack while on patrol north of Beirut International Airport. The Islamic Jihad and Al-Amal, a Shi'ite militia, claimed responsibility for the attack. April 18, 1983, Beirut, Lebanon. A truck-bomb detonated by a remote control exploded in front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 employees, including the CIA's Middle East director, and wounding 120. Hizballah, with financial backing from Iran, was responsible for the attack. July 1, 1983, Hebron, Israel. Aharon Gross, 19, an American-Israeli from New York, was stabbed to death by PLO terrorists in the Hebron marketplace. September 29, 1983, Beirut, Lebanon. Two American marines were kidnapped by Amal members. They were released after intervention by a Lebanese army officer. October 23, 1983, Beirut, Lebanon. A truck loaded with a bomb crashed into the lobby of the U.S. Marines headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 soldiers and wounding 81. The attack was carried out by Hizballah with the help of Syrian intelligence and financed by Iran. December 19, 1983, Jerusalem, Israel. Serena Sussman, a 60-year-old tourist from Anderson, South Carolina, died from injuries from the PLO bombing of a bus in Jerusalem 13 days earlier. January 18, 1984, Beirut, Lebanon. Malcolm Kerr, a Lebanese born American who was president of the American University of Beirut, was killed by two gunmen outside his office. Hizballah said the assassination was part of the organization's plan to "drive all Americans out from Lebanon." March 7, 1984, Beirut, Lebanon. Hizballah members kidnapped Jeremy Levin, Beirut bureau chief of Cable News Network (CNN). Levin managed to escape and reach Syrian army barracks. He was later transferred to American hands. March 8, 1984, Beirut, Lebanon. Three Hizballah members kidnapped Reverend Benjamin T. Weir, while he was walking with his wife in Beirut's Manara neighborhood. Weir was released after 16 months of captivity with Syrian and Iranian assistance. March 16, 1984, Beirut, Lebanon. Hizballah kidnapped William Buckley, a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Buckley was supposed to be exchanged for prisoners. However when the transaction failed to take place, he was reportedly transported to Iran. Although his body was never found, the U.S. administration declared the American diplomat dead. April 12, 1984, Torrejon, Spain. Hizballah bombed a restaurant near an U.S. Air Force base in Torrejon, Spain, wounding 83 people. September 20, 1984, Beirut, Lebanon. A suicide bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in East Beirut killed 23 people and injured 21. The American and British ambassadors were slightly injured in the attack, attributed to the Iranian backed Hizballah group. September 20, 1984, Aukar, Lebanon. Islamic Jihad detonate a van full of explosives 30 feet in front of the U.S. Embassy annex severely damaging the building, killing two U.S. servicemen and seven Lebanese employees, as well as 5 to 15 non-employees. Twenty Americans were injured, including U.S. Ambassador Reginald Bartholomew and visiting British Ambassador David Miers. An estimated 40 to 50 Lebanese were hurt. The attack came in response to the U.S. veto September 6 of a U.N. Security Council resolution. December 4, 1984, Tehran, Iran. Hizballah terrorists hijacked a Kuwait Airlines plane en route from Dubai, United Emirates, to Karachi, Pakistan. They demanded the release from Kuwaiti jails of members of Da'Wa, a group of Shiite extremists serving sentences for attacks on French and American targets on Kuwaiti territory. The terrorists forced the pilot to fly to Tehran where the terrorists murdered two passengers--American Agency for International Development employees, Charles Hegna and William Stanford. Although an Iranian special unit ended the incident by storming the plane and arresting the terrorists, the Iranian government might also have been involved in the hijacking. June 14, 1985, Between Athens and Rome. Two Hizballah members hijacked a TWA flight en route to Rome from Athens and forced the pilot to fly to Beirut. The terrorists, believed to belong to Hizballah, asked for the release of members of the group Kuwait 17 and 700 Shi'ite prisoners held in Israeli and South Lebanese prisons. The eight crewmembers and 145 passengers were held for 17 days during which one of the hostages, Robert Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was murdered. After being flown twice to Algiers, the aircraft returned to Beirut and the hostages were released. Later on, four Hizballah members were secretly indicted. One of them, the Hizballah senior officer Imad Mughniyah, was indicted in absentia. October 7, 1985, Between Alexandria, Egypt and Haifa, Israel. A four-member PFLP squad took over the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, as it was sailing from Alexandria, Egypt, to Israel. The squad murdered a disabled U.S. citizen, Leon Klinghoffer, by throwing him in the ocean. The rest of the passengers were held hostage for two days and later released after the terrorists turned themselves in to Egyptian authorities in return for safe passage. But U.S. Navy fighters intercepted the Egyptian aircraft flying the terrorists to Tunis and forced it to land at the NATO airbase in Italy, where the terrorists were arrested. Two of the terrorists were tried in Italy and sentenced to prison. The Italian authorities however let the two others escape on diplomatic passports. Abu Abbas, who masterminded the hijacking, was later convicted to life imprisonment in absentia. December 27, 1985, Rome, Italy. Four terrorists from Abu Nidal's organization attacked El Al offices at the Leonardo di Vinci Airport in Rome. Thirteen people, including five Americans, were killed and 74 wounded, among them two Americans. The terrorists had come from Damascus and were supported by the Syrian regime. March 30, 1986, Athens, Greece. A bomb exploded on a TWA flight from Rome as it approached Athens airport. The attack killed four U.S. citizens who were sucked through a hole made by the blast, although the plane safely landed. The bombing was attributed to the Fatah Special Operations Group's intelligence and security apparatus, headed by Abdullah Abd al-Hamid Labib, alias Colonel Hawari. April 5, 1986, West Berlin, Germany. An explosion at the "La Belle" nightclub in Berlin, frequented by American soldiers, killed three--2 U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman-and wounded 191 including 41 U.S. soldiers. Given evidence of Libyan involvement, the U.S. Air Force made a retaliatory attack against Libyan targets on April 17. Libya refused to hand over to Germany five suspects believed to be there. Others, however, were tried including Yassir Shraidi and Musbah Eter, arrested in Rome in August 1997 and extradited; and also Ali Chanaa, his wife, Verena Chanaa, and her sister, Andrea Haeusler. Shraidi, accused of masterminding the attack, was sentenced to 14 years in jail. The Libyan diplomat Musbah Eter and Ali Chanaa were both sentenced to 12 years in jail. Verena Chanaa was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Andrea Haeusler was acquitted. September 5, 1986, Karachi, Pakistan. Abu Nidal members hijacked a Pan Am flight leaving Karachi, Pakistan bound for Frankfurt, Germany and New York with 379 passengers, including 89 Americans. The terrorists forced the plane to land in Larnaca, Cyprus, where they demanded the release of two Palestinians and a Briton jailed for the murder of three Israelis there in 1985. The terrorists killed 22 of the passengers, including two American citizens and wounded many others. They were caught and indicted by a Washington grand jury in 1991. September 9, 1986, Beirut, Lebanon. Continuing its anti-American attacks, Hizballah kidnapped Frank Reed, director of the American University in Beirut, whom they accused of being "a CIA agent." He was released 44 months later. September 12, 1986, Beirut, Lebanon. Hizballah kidnapped Joseph Cicippio, the acting comptroller at the American University in Beirut. Cicippio was released five years later on December 1991. October 15, 1986, Jerusalem, Israel. Gali Klein, an American citizen, was killed in a grenade attack by Fatah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. October 21, 1986, Beirut, Lebanon. Hizballah kidnapped Edward A. Tracy, an American citizen in Beirut. He was released five years later, on August 1991. February 17, 1988, Ras-Al-Ein Tyre, Lebanon. Col. William Higgins, the American chief of the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization, was abducted by Hizballah while driving from Tyre to Nakura. The hostages demanded the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon and the release of all Palestinian and Lebanese held prisoners in Israel. The U.S. government refused to answer the request. Hizballah later claimed they killed Higgins. December 21, 1988, Lockerbie, Scotland. Pan Am Flight 103 departing from Frankfurt to New York was blown up in midair, killing all 259 passengers and another 11 people on the ground in Scotland. Two Libyan agents were found responsible for planting a sophisticated suitcase bomb onboard the plane. On 14 November 1991, arrest warrants were issued for Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima and Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi. After Libya refused to extradite the suspects to stand trial, the United Nations leveled sanctions against the country in April 1992, including the freezing of Libyan assets abroad. In 1999, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi agreed to hand over the two suspects, but only if their trial was held in a neutral country and presided over by a Scottish judge. With the help of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah, Al-Megrahi and Fahima were finally extradited and tried in Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. Megrahi was found guilty and jailed for life, while Fahima was acquitted due to a "lack of evidence" of his involvement. After the extradition, UN sanctions against Libya were automatically lifted. January 27, 1989, Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. Three simultaneous bombings were carried out against U.S. business targets--the Turkish American Businessmen Association and the Economic Development Foundation in Istanbul, and the Metal Employees Union in Ankara. The Dev Sol (Revolutionary Left) was held responsible for the attacks. March 6, 1989, Cairo, Egypt. Two explosive devices were safely removed from the grounds of the American and British Cultural centers in Cairo. Three organizations were believed to be responsible for the attack: The January 15 organization, which had sent a letter bomb to the Israeli ambassador to London in January; the Egyptian Revolutionary Organization that from out 1984-1986 carried out attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets; and the Nasserite Organization, which had attacked British and American targets in 1988. June 12, 1989, Bosphorus Straits, Turkey. A bomb exploded aboard an unoccupied boat used by U.S. consular staff. The explosion caused extensive damage but no casualties. An organization previously unknown, the Warriors of the June 16th Movement, claimed responsibility for the attack. October 11, 1989, Izmir, Turkey. An explosive charge went off outside a U.S. military PX. Dev Sol was held responsible for the attack. February 7, 1991, Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. Dev Sol members shot and killed a U.S. civilian contractor as he was getting into his car at the Incirlik Air Base in Adana, Turkey. February 28, 1991, Izmir, Turkey. Two Dev Sol gunmen shot and wounded a U.S. Air Force officer as he entered his residence in Izmir. March 28, 1991, Jubial, Saudi Arabia. Three U.S. marines were shot at and injured by an unknown terrorist while driving near Camp Three, Jubial. No organization claimed responsibility for the attack. October 28, 1991, Ankara, Turkey. Victor Marwick, an American soldier serving at the Turkish-American base, Tuslog, was killed and his wife wounded in a car bomb attack. The Turkish Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. October 28, 1991, Istanbul, Turkey. Two car bombings killed a U.S. Air Force sergeant and severely wounded an Egyptian diplomat in Istanbul. Turkish Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. November 8, 1991, Beirut, Lebanon. A 100-kg car bomb destroyed the administration building of the American University in Beirut, killing one person and wounding at least a dozen. October 12, 1992, Umm Qasr, Iraq. A U.S. soldier serving with the United Nations was stabbed and wounded near the port of Umm Qasr. No organization claimed responsibility for the attack. January 25, 1993, Virginia, United States. A Pakistani gunman opened fire on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employees standing outside of the building. Two agents, Frank Darling and Bennett Lansing, were killed and three others wounded. The assailant was never caught and reportedly fled to Pakistan. February 26, 1993, Cairo, Egypt. A bomb exploded inside a café in downtown Cairo killing three. Among the 18 wounded were two U.S. citizens. No one claimed responsibility for the attack. February 26, 1993, New York, United States. A massive van bomb exploded in an underground parking garage below the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six and wounding 1,042. Four Islamist activists were responsible for the attack. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the operation's alleged mastermind, escaped but was later arrested in Pakistan and extradited to the United States. Abd al-Hakim Murad, another suspected conspirator, was arrested by local authorities in the Philippines and handed over to the United States. The two, along with two other terrorists, were tried in the U.S. and sentenced to 240 years. April 14, 1993, Kuwait. The Iraqi intelligence service attempted to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait. In retaliation, the U.S. launched a cruise missile attack two months later on the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. July 5, 1993, Southeast Turkey. In eight separate incidents, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) kidnapped a total of 19 Western tourists traveling in southeastern Turkey. The hostages, including U.S. citizen Colin Patrick Starger, were released unharmed after spending several weeks in captivity. December 1, 1993, north of Jerusalem, West Bank. Yitzhak Weinstock, 19, whose family came from Los Angeles, CA, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Hamas took responsibility for the attack Sometime in 1994: near Atzmona, Gaza. U.S. citizen Mrs. Sheila Deutsch of Brooklyn, NY injured in a shooting attack. October 9, 1994. Nachshon Wachsman, 19, whose family came from New York, was kidnapped and then murdered by Hamas. October 9, 1994: Jerusalem, Israel. Shooting attack on cafe-goers in Jerusalem. U.S. citizens Scot Doberstein and Eric Goldberg were injured. March 8, 1995, Karachi, Pakistan. Two unidentified gunmen armed with AK-47 assault rifles opened fire on a U.S. Consulate van in Karachi, killing two U.S. diplomats, Jacqueline Keys Van Landingham and Gary C. Durell, and wounding a third, Mark McCloy. April 9, 1995, Kfar Darom and Netzarim, Gaza Strip. Two suicide attacks were carried out within a few hours of each other in Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. In the first attack a suicide bomber crashed an explosive-rigged van into an Israeli bus in Netzarim, killing eight including U.S. citizen Alisa Flatow, 20, of West Orange, NJ. More than 30 others were injured. In the second attack, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb in the midst of a convoy of cars in Kfar Darom, injuring 12. The Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Shaqaqi Faction claimed responsibility for the attacks. U.S. citizens Chava Levine and Seth Klein were injured. June 15, 1995: Jerusalem, Israel. U.S. citizen Howard Tavens of Cleveland, OH was injured in a stabbing attack. July 4, 1995, Kashmir, India. In Kashmir, a previously unknown militant group, Al-Faran, with suspected links to a Kashmiri separatist group in Pakistan, took hostage six tourists, including two U.S. citizens. They demanded the release of Muslim militants held in Indian prisons. One of the U.S. citizens escaped on July 8, while on August 13 the decapitated body of the Norwegian hostage was found along with a note stating that the other hostages also would be killed if the group's demands were not met. The Indian Government refused. Both Indian and American authorities believe the rest of the hostages were most likely killed in 1996 by their jailers. August 1995, Istanbul, Turkey. A bombing of Istanbul's popular Taksim Square injured two U.S. citizens. This attack was part of a three-year-old attempt by the PKK to drive foreign tourists away from Turkey by striking at tourist sites. August 21, 1995, Jerusalem, Israel. A bus bombing in Jerusalem by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) killed four, including American Joan Davenny of New Haven, CT, and wounded more than 100. U.S. citizens injured: Chanoch Bleier, Judith Shulewitz, Bernard Batta. September 9, 1995. Ma'ale Michmash. American killed: Unborn child of Mrs. Mara Frey of Chicago. Mara Frey was injured. November 9, 1995, Algiers, Algeria. Islamic extremists set fire to a warehouse belonging to the U.S. Embassy, threatened the Algerian security guard because he was working for the United States, and demanded to know whether any U.S. citizens were present. The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) probably carried out the attacks. The group had threatened to strike other foreign targets and especially U.S. objectives in Algeria, and the attack's style was similar to past GIA operations against foreign facilities. November 13, 1995, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A car bomb exploded in the parking lot outside of the Riyadh headquarters of the Office of the Program Manager/Saudi Arabian National Guard, killing seven persons, five of them U.S. citizens, and wounding 42. The blast severely damaged the three-story building, which houses a U.S. military advisory group, and several neighboring office buildings. Three groups -- the Islamic Movement for Change, the Tigers of the Gulf, and the Combatant Partisans of God -- claimed responsibility for the attack. February 25, 1996, Jerusalem, Israel. A suicide bomber blew up a commuter bus in Jerusalem, killing 26, including three U.S. citizens, and injuring 80 others, among them three other U.S. citizens. Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing. U. S. citizens killed: Sara Duker, of Teaneck, NJ, Matthew Eisenfeld of West Hartford, CT, Ira Weinstein of Bronx, NY. U.S. citizens injured: Beatrice Kramer, Steven Lapides, and Leah Stein Mousa. March 4, 1996, Tel Aviv, Israel. A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device outside the Dizengoff Center, Tel Aviv's largest shopping mall, killing 20 persons and injuring 75 others, including two U.S. citizens. Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing. U.S. citizens injured included Julie K. Negrin of Seattle, WA. May 13, 1996, Beit-El, West Bank. Arab gunmen opened fire on a hitchhiking stand near Beit El, wounding three Israelis and killing David Boim, 17, an American-Israeli from New York. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, although either the Islamic Jihad or Hamas are suspected. U.S. citizens injured: Moshe Greenbaum, 17. June 9, 1996, outside Zekharya. Yaron Ungar, an American-Israeli, and his Israeli wife were killed in a drive-by shooting near their West Bank home. The PFLP is suspected. June 25, 1996, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. A fuel truck carrying a bomb exploded outside the U.S. military's Khobar Towers housing facility in Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. military personnel and wounding 515 persons, including 240 U.S. personnel. Several groups claimed responsibility for the attack. In June 2001, a U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, identified Saudi Hizballah as the party responsible for the attack. The court indicated that the members of the organization, banned from Saudi Arabia, "frequently met and were trained in Lebanon, Syria, or Iran" with Libyan help. August 17, 1996, Mapourdit, Sudan. Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) rebels kidnapped six missionaries in Mapourdit, including a U.S citizen. The SPLA released the hostages on August 28. November 1, 1996, Sudan. A breakaway group of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) kidnapped three workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), including one U.S citizen. The rebels released the hostages on December 9 in exchange for ICRC supplies and a health survey of their camp. December 3, 1996, Paris, France. A bomb exploded aboard a Paris subway train, killing four and injuring 86 persons, including a U.S. citizen. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Algerian extremists are suspected. January 2, 1997, Major cities worldwide, United States. A series of letter bombs with Alexandria, Egypt postmarks were discovered at Al-Hayat newspaper bureaus in Washington, DC, New York, London, and Riyadh. Three similar devices, also postmarked in Egypt, were found at a prison facility in Leavenworth, Kansas. Bomb disposal experts defused all the devices, but one detonated at the Al-Hayat newspaper office in London, injuring two security guards and causing minor damage. February 23, 1997, New York, United States. A Palestinian gunman opened fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State building in New York, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from the United States, Argentina, Switzerland and France before turning the gun on himself. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claimed this was a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine." July 30, 1997, Jerusalem, Israel. Two bombs detonated in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market, killing 15 persons, including a U.S. citizen and wounding 168 others, among them two U.S. citizens. The Izz-el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, claimed responsibility for the attack. U.S. citizens killed: Mrs. Leah Stern of Passaic, NJ. U.S. citizens injured: Dov Dalin. September 4, 1997: Jerusalem, Israel. Bombing on Ben-Yehuda Street, Jerusalem. U.S. citizens killed: Yael Botwin, 14, of Los Angeles and Jerusalem. U.S. citizens injured: Diana Campuzano of New York, Abraham Mendelson of Los Angeles, CA, Greg Salzman of New Jersey, Stuart E. Hersh of Kiryat Arba, Israel, Michael Alzer, Abraham Elias, David Keinan, Daniel Miller of Boca Raton, FL, Noam Rozenman of Jerusalem, Jenny (Yocheved) Rubin of Los Angeles, CA. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. October 30, 1997, Sanaa, Yemen. Al-Sha'if tribesmen kidnapped a U.S. businessman near Sanaa. The tribesmen sought the release of two fellow tribesmen who were arrested on smuggling charges and several public works projects they claim the government promised them. The hostage was released on November 27. November 12, 1997, Karachi, Pakistan. Two unidentified gunmen shot to death four U.S. auditors from Union Texas Petroleum and their Pakistani driver as they drove away from the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi. Two groups claimed responsibility -- the Islamic Inqilabi Council, or Islamic Revolutionary Council and the Aimal Secret Committee, also known as the Aimal Khufia Action Committee. November 25, 1997, Aden, Yemen. Yemenite tribesmen kidnapped a U.S citizen, two Italians, and two unspecified Westerners near Aden to protest the eviction of a tribe member from his home. The kidnappers released the five hostages on November 27. February 6, 1998, Jerusalem, Israel. Stabbing in Jerusalem. U.S. Citizen Yosef Lepon, 17 injured. April 19, 1998, Maon, Israel. Dov Driben, a 28-year-old American-Israeli farmer was killed by terrorists near the West Bank town of Maon. One of his assailants, Issa Debavseh, a member of Fatah Tanzim, was killed on November 7, 2001, by the IDF after being on their wanted list for the murder. June 21, 1998, Beirut, Lebanon. Two hand-grenades were thrown at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. No casualties were reported. June 21, 1998, Beirut, Lebanon. Three rocket-propelled grenades attached to a crude detonator exploded near the U.S. Embassy compound in Beirut, causing no casualties and little damage. August 7, 1998, Nairobi, Kenya. A car bomb exploded at the rear entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. The attack killed a total of 292, including 12 U.S. citizens, and injured over 5,000, among them six Americans. The perpetrators belonged to al-Qaida, Usama bin Ladin's network. August 7, 1998, Dar es Sala'am, Tanzania. A car bomb exploded outside the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Sala'am, killing 11 and injuring 86. Osama bin Laden's organization al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack. Two suspects were arrested. November 21, 1998, Teheran, Iran. Members of Fedayeen Islam, shouting anti-American slogans and wielding stones and iron rods, attacked a group of American tourists in Tehran. Some of the tourists suffered minor injuries from flying glass. December 28, 1998, Mawdiyah, Yemen. Sixteen tourists--12 Britons, two Americans and two Australians--were taken hostage in the largest kidnapping in Yemen's recent history. The tourists were seized in the Abyan province (some 175 miles south of Sanaa the capital). One Briton and a Yemeni guide escaped, while the rest were taken to city of Mawdiyah. Four hostages were killed when troops closed in and two were wounded, including an American woman. The kidnappers, members of the Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan, an offshoot of Al-Jihad, had demanded the release from jail of their leader, Saleh Haidara al-Atwi. October 31, 1999, Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States. EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed off the U.S. coast killing all 217 people on board, including 100 Americans. Although it is not precisely clear what happened, evidence indicated that an Egyptian pilot crashed the plane for personal or political reasons. November 4, 1999, Athens, Greece. A group protesting President Clinton's visit to Greece hid a gas bomb at an American car dealership in Athens. Two cars were destroyed and several others damaged. Anti-State Action claimed responsibility for the attack, but the November 17 group was also suspected. November 12, 1999, Islamabad, Pakistan. Six rockets were fired at the U.S. Information Services cultural center and United Nations offices in Islamabad, injuring a Pakistani guard. September 29, 2000. near Jerusalem Israel. Attack on motorists. U.S. citizens injured: Avi Herman of Teaneck, NJ, Naomi Herman of Teaneck, NJ. September 29, 2000, Jerusalem, Israel. Attack on taxi passengers. U.S. citizens injured: Tuvia Grossman of Chicago, Todd Pollack of Norfolk, VA, Andrew Feibusch of New York. October 4, 2000, near Bethlehem, West Bank. U.S. citizens injured: An unidentified American tourist. October 5, 2000: near Jerusalem, Israel. Attack on a motorist. U.S. citizens injured: Rabbi Chaim Brovender of Brooklyn. October 8, 2000, Nablus, West Bank. The bullet-ridden body of Rabbi Hillel Lieberman, a U.S. citizen from Brooklyn living in the Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh, was found at the entrance to the West Bank town of Nablus. Lieberman had headed there after hearing that Palestinians had desecrated the religious site, Joseph's Tomb. No organization claimed responsibility for the murder. October 12, 2000, Aden Harbor, Yemen. A suicide squad rammed the warship the U.S.S. Cole with an explosives-laden boat killing 13 American sailors and injuring 33. The attack was likely by Osama bin Ladin's al-Qaida organization. October 30, 2000, Jerusalem, Israel. Gunmen killed Eish Kodesh Gilmor, a 25-year-old American-Israeli on duty as a security guard at the National Insurance Institute in Jerusalem. The "Martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Intifada," a group linked to Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack. Gilmor's family filed a suit in the U.S. District Court in Washington against the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Chairman Yasser Arafat and members of Force 17, as being responsible for the attack. December 31, 2000, Ofra, Israel. Rabbi Binyamin Kahane, 34, and his wife, Talia Hertzlich Kahane, both formerly of Brooklyn, NY were killed in a drive-by shooting. Their children, Yehudit Leah Kahane, Bitya Kahane, Tzivya Kahane, Rivka Kahane, and Shlomtsion Kahane, were injured in the attack. March 28, 2001, Neve Yamin. Bombing at bus stop. U.S. citizens injured: Netanel Herskovitz, 15, formerly of Hempstead, NY. May 9, 2001, Tekoa, West Bank. Kobi Mandell, 13, of Silver Spring, MD, an American-Israeli, was found stoned to death along with a friend in a cave near the Jewish settlement of Tekoa. Two organizations, the Islamic Jihad and Hizballah-Palestine, claimed responsibility for the attack. May 29, 2001, Gush Etzion, West Bank. The Fatah Tanzim claimed responsibility for a drive-by shooting of six in the West Bank that killed two American-Israeli citizens, Samuel Berg, and his mother, Sarah Blaustein. U.S. citizens injured: Norman Blaustein of Lawrence, NY. July 19, 2001, Hebron, West Bank. Shooting attack. U.S. citizens injured: An unidentified woman from Brooklyn, NY. August 9, 2001, Jerusalem, Israel. A suicide bombing at Sbarro's, a pizzeria situated in one of the busiest areas of downtown Jerusalem, killed 15 people and wounded more than 90. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. U.S. citizens killed: Judith L. Greenbaum, 31, of New Jersey and California, Malka Roth, 15, whose family was from New York. U.S. citizens injured: David Danzig, 21, of Wynnewood, PA, Matthew P. Gordon, 25, of New York, Joanne (Chana) Nachenberg, 31, Sara Shifra Nachenberg, 2. August 18, 2001, Jerusalem, Israel. Shooting at a bus. U.S. citizen injured: Andrew Feibusch of New York. August 27, 2001, near Roglit, Israel. Shooting attack. U.S. citizen injured: Ben Dansker. September 11, 2001, New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania, United States. During a carefully coordinated attack, 19 Islamist extremists hijacked four U.S. jetliners and forced them to crash into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In all, 266 people perished in the four planes, and more than 3,000 people were killed on the ground. U.S. investigators determined on the basis of extensive evidence that Usama bin Ladin's al-Qaida group was responsible for the attack. The first plane, American Airlines Flight 11 en route from Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower at 8:48 a.m. Eighteen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175, also headed from Boston to Los Angeles, smashed into the World Trade Center's south tower. At 9:40 a.m. a third airplane, an American Airlines Boeing 757 that left Washington's Dulles International Airport for Los Angeles, crashed into the western part of the Pentagon where 24,000 people worked. The fourth plane, a United Airlines Flight 93 flying from Newark to San Francisco, crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, most likely before it could hit its target. Hundreds of firefighters, police officers and other rescue workers who arrived in the site after the first plane crash were killed or injured. November 4, 2001, Jerusalem, Israel. Shoshana Ben-Yishai, 16, of Queens, NY was killed in a shooting at a bus station. U.S. citizen injured: Shlomo Kaye. December 2, 2001, Jerusalem, Israel. Bombing on Ben-Yehuda Street, Jerusalem. U.S. citizens injured: Ziv Brill, 17, of West Hempstead, Long Island, NY, Temima Spetner, 19, of St. Louis, MI, Jason Kirshenbaum of New Rochelle, NY, Israel Hirschfield, 18, Joseph Leifer, 29, of Borough Park (Brooklyn), NY. December 18, 2001, shooting on the Jerusalem-Shilo road. U.S. citizens injured: David Rubin, 44, of Brooklyn, NY, Asher "Ruby" Rubin, 3. January 15, 2002, Bethlehem, West Bank. Avraham Boaz, 71, of New York, a dual Israeli-American citizen, was kidnapped at a PA security checkpoint in Beit Jala and murdered. January 18, 2002: Shooting in Hadera. U.S. citizen killed: Aaron Elis, 32, son of Chicago family. January 22, 2002: Shooting in Jerusalem, Israel. U.S. citizen injured: Shayna Gould, 19, of Chicago, IL January 27, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. A Palestinian woman triggered a massive explosion in downtown Jerusalem killing one elderly Israeli and injuring more than 150, including American Mark Sokolow, his wife, and 16 and 12-year-old daughters. Sokolow had earlier survived the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, escaping from his law office on the 38th floor of the South Tower before it collapsed. February 8, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. Stabbing in Abu Tor Peace Forest Jerusalem. U.S. citizen killed: Moranne Amit, 25 February 15, 2002, near Ramallah, West Bank. Lee Akunis was shot to death. February 16, 2002: Bombing in Karnei Shomron. U.S. citizens killed: Keren Shatsky, 14, of Brooklyn, NY and Maine, Rachel Thaler, 16, of Baltimore, MD. U.S. citizens injured: Lior Thaler, 14, of Baltimore, MD, Hillel Trattner of Chicago, IL, Ronit Yucht Trattner of Chicago, IL, Chani Friedman of New York. February 19, 2002: Shooting near Neve Dekalim. U.S. citizens injured: Moshe Saperstein of New York. February 25, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. Moran Amit, 25, was stabbed to death in Abu Tor Peace Forest in Jerusalem. March 7, 2002, Eshel Hashomron Hotel, Ariel, Israel. A Christian tourist from Arkansas lost her right eye in an attack by a suicide bomber. March 21, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. Bombing on a Jerusalem street. U.S. citizens injured: Alan Joseph Bauer, 37, of Chicago, Yonathon Bauer, 7 (dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship). March 24, 2002, Ofra, Israel. Shooting near Ofra. U.S. citizens killed: Esther Kleinman, 23, formerly of Chicago, IL. March 27, 2002, Netanya, Israel. U.S. citizen Hannah Rogen, 90, was killed in a suicide attack at a Passover Seder. March 31, 2002, Efrat, Israel. Bombing in Efrat. U.S. citizens injured: An unidentified American citizen. June 18, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. Moshe Gottlieb, 70, of Los Angeles, CA was killed in a bus bombing in Jerusalem. June 19, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. Gila Sara Kessler, 19, whose family came from New York, was killed in a bombing at a bus stop. July 31, 2002, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Nine people were killed when a bomb exploded in the main cafeteria at the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus in Jerusalem. Five were U.S. citizens: Janis Ruth Coulter, 36, of MA; Marla Bennet, 24, of San Diego, CA; David Gritz (also a French citizen), 24, of Peru, MA; Benjamin Blutstein, 25, of Susquehanna Township, PA; and Dina Carter, 37, of NC. Israelis David Ladovsky, 29, and Levina Shapira, 53 also died in the bombing. U.S. citizens injured: Spencer Dew, 26, of Owensboro, Kentucky; Zeev Spencer; Harris Gershon; Jamie Harris. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. March 5, 2003: Bus bombing in Haifa. U.S. citizens killed: Abigail Leitel, 14, who was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire. March 7, 2003: Shooting in the victims’ home. U.S. citizens killed: Rabbi Eli Horowitz, 52, who grew up in Chicago; Dina Horowitz, 50, who grew up in Florida April 30, 2003: Bombing at a Tel Aviv pub. U.S. citizens injured: Jack Baxter, 50, of New York City. June 11, 2003: Bus bombing in Jerusalem. U.S. citizens killed: Alan Beer, 47, who grew up in Cleveland. U.S. citizens injured: Sarri Singer, 27, daughter of New Jersey State Senator Robert Singer. June 20, 2003: Shooting attack on a car driving through the West Bank. U.S. citizens killed: Tzvi Goldstein, 47, who grew up in New York; U.S. citizens injured: Eugene Goldstein, Tzvi’s father, of Long Island, New York; Lorraine Goldstein, Tzvi’s mother, of Long Island, New York; Michal Goldstein, Tzvi’s wife, who grew up in New York. August 19, 2003: Homicide bombing on a bus in Jerusalem. U.S. citizens killed: Goldie Taubenfeld, 43, of New Square, New York; Shmuel Taubenfeld, 3 months, of New Square, New York; Mordechai Reinitz, 49; Yitzhak Reinitz, 9. Tehilla Nathanson, 3, of Monsey, New York; U.S. citizens injured: Mendel Reinitz, 11. September 9, 2003: Homicide bombing at a cafe in Jerusalem. David Applebaum, 51, and his daughter Nava, 20, originally of Cleveland were killed. October 15, 2003: Bombing of American convoy in the Gaza Strip: John Branchizio, 37, Mark Parson, 31, and John Martin Linde, 30, were on contract to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv through the defense contracting company Dyncorp.U.S. citizens injured: One as-yet-unnamed U.S. citizen (reportedly a diplomat). September 24, 2004: Mortar strike on a housing community: Tiferet Tratner, 24, (dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship). April 17, 2006: Homicide bombing at the Rosh Ha'ir restaurant in Tel Aviv: Daniel Wultz, 16, of Weston, Florida, died one month after receiving his wounds in this bombing. Compiled by Caroline Taillandier, a research assistant at the GLORIA center and student at Tel Aviv University, Dr. Mitchell Bard, and Alden Oreck, Avi Hein, and Elihai Braun, research assistants at the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, and Paul Teller, Deputy Director, House Republican Study Committee. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sources: Chronology on Terrorist Incidents 1961-2001, State Department; "Patterns of Terrorism" reports 1995-2000; State Department Institute for Counter-Terrorism Database; Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya; Peacewatch, The Washington Institute for New East Policy; AIPAC; Ha'aretz, Republican Study Committee

The real truth about Iran? Many people believe no country is able to destroy Iran. That is wrong. They are maybe not able to destroy the country physically because of the very strong moral of the iranian people, but easily destroy the countries economy and system. Iran is a very very weak country right now, especially because of the stupid mullahs in power. The people of iran has become stupid in believing that politics and religion should be mixed. as u all know muslims are against Lying ( even though they lie just as much as anyone else) and in politics lying is sometimes necessary. It is also so that the mullahs in power are idiots, and instead of trying to stabilize the countries economy they go sending 18 BILLIon dollar to terrorist groups in lebanon and afghanistan. It happened so that when 18 billion dollars was going to lebanon it had to pass Turkey and on the way it was stopped by the border security. Because the regime couldn't say that it was their money ( because then the Persian people of iran would ask " what the hell is our money doing in Turkey?") the government said that it wasn't their and by doing so the turkish government just won 18 BILLION DOLLARS. that is 2000 $ PER PERSON IN IRAN. THAT IS A LOT of money. it was oil and gold money. The leaders of out country are stupid, they dint want to have contact with western countries and by doing so they are getting more isolated. By making Nuclear plants which they do need for regeneration of electricity they are making everything worse, NOW all its arch foes have a good reason to attack Iran. I can also confess that Iran is also making Nuclear weapons, but that is for them to be able to stand up for themselves. BUT ALL OF THIS IS GOING ON IN THE WRONG TIME. It shouldn't be goijng on when we have a stupid regime, with BAD economy, WIth bad decision ( like giving the russians permission to use Irans part of the Caspian sea), Having Millions of people protesting AND WHEN THEY HAVE NO FRIENDS. YEAH , thats right. Iran has NO countries willing to help them. ecery single country is its enemy. Iran is almost having a hobby for making enemies. WE EVEN HAVE PAID RUSSIA to accept iran, and even now they are the worst, THEY swindle iran For SO much. THEY are having their golden age right now. Then there is CHINA. Iran is buying worthless Chinese products for Lots of money which they arent even worth. U WANT THE TRUTH? the iranian regime are all arabs Irans supreme leader... HE IS A Seyyed which means he is arab OUR SECOND LEADER= HASHEMI HE IS TURKISH-IRANIAN Money is going out of the country ALL THE TIME... Iran is training afghans and giving them weapons s that they will go to war. that costs MILLIONS AND MILLIONS. U wanna know something funny? as u know... the leaders of iran are muslims. Muslims believe that there will come a last prophet when the world is horrible.... when there is HORRIble stuff going on everywhere, when not even family can trust each other and so on.... Well these leaders BELIEVE that have a special role in this world. They think that they should try to bring this prophet forward even faster by doing as much horrible things as they can. I believe that the Stupid leaders of Iran is trying to have a war with other countrie, If not this, it is that the arabian leaders of iran want iran to have war with other countries so they will get destroyed. They are like always in the history JEALOUSE of Iran. It is maybe because iran has every single natural resource you can ever have, or maybe because it is such a BEAUTIFUL country, or that it has people which love their country more than their countries people do. Iran had once wonderful people. They were all good and innocent, i am sad to say that it is now horrible in i´ran. People trick and lie to others, people are dirty and dusgusting. people are hateful for no good reason. Iran was in truth very fond of americans once, and americans were once very fond of iranians to. Iran was once full of american tourists and iranians went to america a lot too. BUT the irans government has brainwashed the young minds of iran the last 30 years so much that they hate israel and america. THERE IS SO MUCH MORE THAT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT,,,, so many details that i want to explaina and so much history about the persian empire to the arabians killing persian men and changing irans religion into islam. I want to talk about wars which will happen and important people which are hidden trying to change the country. About the CIA ( which has a big role in the revolutuon 30 years ago, I ESPECIALLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT the secret of the arabian countries unity, ( to make a VERY long story short the arabian countries have always planned to have one leader for the entire middle east, I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE TRUE LEADERS OF IRAN and the people in other countries trying to make things worst. i want to talk about the freemasons big secret role in

plz. help me to write the main idea of this article in the NY Times. in two pages.? November 5, 2006 Where Plan A Left Ahmad Chalabi By DEXTER FILKINS 1. London, August 2006 Many miles away in a more dangerous place the dream is ending badly. The bodies pile up. Good people stream to the borders. Leaders pile money onto planes. The center is giving way. The apartment on South Street in London is an antidote to Baghdad in nearly every respect. Where the Iraqi capital rings with chaos and violence, the sidewalks of Mayfair are quiet enough to hear your own voice above the cars. Baghdad is treeless and tan; the South Street apartment opens onto a private park filled with the lushness of an English garden. Just across the way is the Anglican church where General Eisenhower, stationed here as the commander of Allied forces during the war, came to pray. A maid greets you at the door, an elderly Lebanese woman who doubles as an Arabic teacher for the children. The parlor is neatly appointed and filled with art, most of it European, different from the Baghdad house, where most of it is Iraqi. There is “Sketch of a Woman,” by Lucien Pissarro, the French painter who propagated Impressionism in London; it catches the light nicely. The furniture is expensive, the kind that makes you hesitate to sit down. But the place has a lived-in quality too; family members come and go, clutching bags and calling to one another down the hallways. No one seems the least bit awed by the man of the house, who is dressed in a bespoke suit and carries himself like a monarch, and who, until now, hasn’t spent more than a day at a time here since before the Iraq war began. For Ahmad Chalabi, Iraq is an abstraction again. Once again, his native country is a faraway land ruled by somebody else, a place where other people die. It’s a place to be discussed, rued, plotted over, from a parlor on an expensive Western street. Iraq’s new leaders, the men who excluded Chalabi from the government they formed this spring, still call for advice — several times a day, Chalabi says. He is here in London, his longtime home in exile, temporarily, he says, taking his first vacation in five years. At lunch at a nearby restaurant an hour before, he ordered the sea bass wrapped in a banana leaf. He walks the streets unattended by armed guards. But the interlude, Chalabi says, is just that, a passing thing. His doubters will come back to him; they always have. As ever, he wears a jester’s smile, wide and blank, a mask that has carried him through crises of the first world and the third. Still, a touch of bitterness can creep into Chalabi’s voice, a hint that he has concluded that his time has come and gone. Indeed, even for a man as vain and resilient as Chalabi, his present predicament stands too large to go unacknowledged. Once Iraq’s anointed leader — anointed by the Americans — Chalabi, at age 62, is without a job, spurned by the very colleagues whose ascension he engineered. His benefactors in the White House and in the Pentagon, who once gobbled up whatever half-baked intelligence Chalabi offered, now regard him as undependable and — worse — safely ignored. Chalabi’s life work, an Iraq liberated from Saddam Hussein, a modern and democratic Iraq, is spiraling toward disintegration. Indeed, for many in the West, Chalabi has become the personification of all that has gone wrong in Iraq: the lies, the arrogance, the occupation as disaster. “The real culprit in all this is Wolfowitz,” Chalabi says, referring to his erstwhile backer, the former deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz. “They chickened out. The Pentagon guys chickened out.” Chalabi still considers Wolfowitz a friend, so he proceeds carefully. America’s big mistake, Chalabi maintains, was in failing to step out of the way after Hussein’s downfall and let the Iraqis take charge. The Iraqis, not the Americans, should have been allowed to take over immediately — the people who knew the country, who spoke the language and, most important, who could take responsibility for the chaos that was unfolding in the streets. An Iraqi government could have acted harshly, even brutally, to regain control of the place, and the Iraqis would have been without a foreigner to blame. They would have appreciated the firm hand. There would have been no guerrilla insurgency or, if there was, a small one that the new Iraqi government could have ferreted out and crushed on its own. An Iraqi leadership would have brought Moktada al-Sadr, the populist cleric, into the government and house-trained him. The Americans, in all likelihood, could have gone home. They certainly would have been home by now. “We would have taken hold of the country,” Chalabi says. “We would have revitalized the civil service immediately. We would have been able to put together a military force and an intelligence service. There would have been no insurgency. We would have had electricity. The Americans screwed it up.” Chalabi’s notion — that an Iraqi government, as opposed to an American one, could have saved the great experiment — has become one of the arguments put forth by the war’s proponents in the just-beginning debate over who lost Iraq. At best, it’s improbable: Chalabi is essentially arguing that a handful of Iraqi exiles, some of whom had not lived in the country in decades, could have put together a government and quelled the chaos that quickly engulfed the country after Hussein’s regime collapsed. They could have done this, presumably, without an army (which most wanted to dissolve) and without a police force (which was riddled with Baathists). In fact, the Americans considered the idea and dismissed it. (But not, Wolfowitz insists, because of him. His longtime aide, Kevin Kellems, said that Wolfowitz favored turning over power “as rapidly as possible to duly elected Iraqi authorities.”) The Bush administration decided to go to the United Nations and have the American role in Iraq formally described as that of an “occupying power,” a step that no Iraqi, not even the lowliest tea seller, failed to notice. They appointed L. Paul Bremer III as viceroy. Instead of empowering Iraqis, Bremer set up an advisory panel of Iraqis — one that included Chalabi — that had no power at all. The warmth that many ordinary Iraqis felt for the Americans quickly ebbed away. It’s not clear that the Americans had any other choice. But here in his London parlor, Chalabi is now contending that excluding Iraqis was the Americans’ fatal mistake. “It was a puppet show!” Chalabi exclaims again, shifting on the couch. “The worst of all worlds. We were in charge, and we had no power. We were blamed for everything the Americans did, but we couldn’t change any of it.” It’s three and a half years later now. More than 2,800 Americans are dead; more than 3,000 Iraqis die each month. The anarchy seems limitless. In May 2004, American and Iraqi agents even raided Chalabi’s home in Baghdad. He has been denounced by Bremer and by Bush and accused of passing secrets to America’s enemy, Iran. At the heart of the American decision to take over and run Iraq, Chalabi now concludes, lay a basic contempt for Iraqis, himself included. “In Wolfowitz’s mind, you couldn’t trust the Iraqis to run a democracy,” Chalabi says. “ ‘We have to teach them, give them lessons,’ in Wolfowitz’s mind. ‘We have to leave Iraq under our tutelage. The Iraqis are useless. The Iraqis are incompetent.’ “What I didn’t realize,” Chalabi says, “was that the Americans sold us out.” Turkish coffee is served, then tea. I consider Chalabi’s predicament: the Iraqi patrician, confidant of prime ministers and presidents, the M.I.T.- and University of Chicago-trained mathematics professor, owner of a Mayfair flat, complaining of being regarded, by the masters he once manipulated, as a scruffy, shiftless native. “I’ve been a friend of America, and I’ve been its enemy,” he says. “America betrays its friends. It sets them up and betrays them. I’d rather be America’s enemy.” And so he is. Sort of. With Chalabi, it’s hard to be certain, and not just because his motives are so opaque, but because he is never still. He is enigmatic, brilliant, nimble, unreliable, charming, narcissistic, finally elusive. The journey to Mayfair is a long one. What happened to Chalabi? Well, you might ask: What happened to Iraq? 2. Mushkhab, January 2005 The election is coming, and we are heading south. Twenty cars, mostly carrying men with guns. They hang out the windows, pointing their Kalashnikovs at the terrified drivers. Get out of the way or we shoot, and maybe we shoot anyway — that’s the message. But that’s Iraq. We move quickly, weaving, south in the southbound, south in the northbound. Very fast. Unbelievably fast. Drivers veer and career. We go where we want. We’re low on fuel, and a gas station beckons. It is one of the strange and singular facts of Iraqi life that despite sitting atop an ocean of oil, Iraqis must wait hours — often days — for gasoline at the pumps. Lack of refining capacity, smuggling, stealing, insurgent attacks, Soviet subsidies: it’s complicated. On the road outside Salman Pak, the line is perhaps 300 cars long. The Chalabi convoy cuts straight to the front of the line. No one protests. It’s the guns. The Iraqis wait for days, and our effrontery brings no protest. Not a peep. We get our gas and we speed away, guns out the windows. Very fast. An hour later, we arrive at our destination, Mushkhab. It’s a mostly Shiite town about 100 miles south of Baghdad. It is friendly country — to Chalabi, and still, then, to Americans. The whole town — the males, anyway — gathers round. Chalabi stands in the center, dressed in a dark gray Western suit. The Iraqis clap and read poetry; some of it they sing. It’s a tradition, a kind of serenade to the honored guest. “Hey, listen, Bush, we are Iraqis,” the poet says, and everyone is clapping. “We never bow our heads to anyone, and we won’t do it for you. We have tough guys like Chalabi on our side — be careful.” Everyone laughs. We move inside the mudhif, a tall, long, fantastic structure woven of dried river reeds, a kind of pavilion of rattan. The room is laid with hand-woven carpets, and on the walls hang framed yellowed photographs of the leaders of the tribe, Al Fatla, meeting with their British overlords many years ago. A pair of loudspeakers are set up in the front. Chalabi takes a microphone. “My Iraqi brothers, the Americans pushed out Saddam, but they did not liberate our country,” Chalabi tells the group. “We are asking you to participate in this election so that we can have an independent country. This is not just words. The Iraqi people will liberate the country.” He goes on a little more, warming to the Iraqis assembled about him. “On my way here, I saw a huge line of people waiting for gasoline,” Chalabi tells the group. “Some of them were there for two nights, carrying blankets with them. It makes me very sad to see my brothers wait for days to get gas at the station.” Shameless, huh? I thought so, too. Almost a thing of beauty. It was so outrageous I almost wanted to forgive him, as a teacher might her sassy but cleverest boy. And that’s the thing about Chalabi: he’s very difficult to dislike. It may be his secret. It was Chalabi, after all — a foreigner, an Arab — who persuaded the most powerful men and women in the United States to make the liberation of Iraq not merely a priority but an obsession. First in 1998, when Chalabi persuaded Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act (in turn leading to payments to his group, the Iraqi National Congress, exceeding $27 million over the next six years) and then, later, in persuading the Bush administration of the necessity of using force to destroy Saddam Hussein. And when it all went bad, when those nuclear weapons never turned up, the clever child shrugged and smiled. “We are heroes in error,” Chalabi told Britain’s Daily Telegraph. Almost with a wink. Lunch is served: a long table heaped with rice and roasted lamb. No seats. Everyone stands, dozens of us, and we dig in with our fingers. After a time, we prepare to leave. The table and the ground around it are littered with rice and lamb bones. We re-form into a convoy and speed toward the holy city of Najaf. By the time we arrive in Najaf, it’s dark. The fighting between American soldiers and the Mahdi Army irregulars laid waste to the city only a few months before, but on this night, Najaf seems remarkably calm. The pilgrim hotels lie in ruins, but the golden dome of the shrine of Imam Ali shimmers under a January moon. Chalabi exits his S.U.V. and strides inside through the 20-foot-high wooden doors. A clutch of Sunni leaders, whom Chalabi has agreed to show around, trail in step. The curiosities intersect: the Sunnis are not Shiites, and this is the holiest of Shiite places, the tomb of the son-in-law of the Holy Prophet and the very heart of the Shiite faith. But they are still Muslims, and they are allowed to pass. As a non-Muslim, I wait outside in the street. More unlikely than the presence of the Sunnis is their tour guide, Chalabi. Or it was unlikely. Not anymore. Chalabi, the Westernized, Western-educated mathematician, has entered his Islamist phase. It’s not terribly convincing. He does not don a turban. He has no beard. He does not pray. He does not, really, even pretend. But as a practical politician — as an exile come home to a strange land getting stranger by the day — Chalabi had to do something. Relations between Chalabi and the Bush administration began to sour almost immediately after the fall of Hussein, when the Americans decided against putting Iraqis — presumably Chalabi — in charge. Bremer considered him an egomaniac. When no W.M.D. turned up, more and more Americans came to blame Chalabi for the war. Chalabi’s association with the Americans grew more disadvantageous by the day. The break came on May 20, 2004, when the Americans, accusing Chalabi of telling the Iranian government that the Americans were eavesdropping on their secret communications, swooped in on his Baghdad compound. American troops sealed off Mansour, the neighborhood where Chalabi lived, while scores of Iraqi and American agents kicked in the compound doors. One of the Iraqis, Chalabi said, put a gun to his head. “Look, I think they tried to kill him,” Richard Perle, the former Pentagon adviser and longtime Chalabi friend, said of the American and Iraqi agents. “I think the raid on his house was intended to result in violence. They had sent 20 or 40 Humvees over there. Chalabi was being protected by a force of about 100 guys with machine guns. It is a miracle that it didn’t result in a massive shootout.” No shots were fired, but the break seemed final. Isolated, Chalabi turned to Islam — and, in particular, to Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric and leader of two armed uprisings against the Americans and the Iraqi government. Sadr is an erratic and unpredictable young man who sometimes ends his sermons with apocalyptic visions of the “hidden” 12th imam revealing himself. He is also the most popular man in Iraq. In the anarchy that ensued following the fall of Hussein, Iraqis, once known for their largely secular outlook, ran headlong toward Islam. Religion and anarchy moved together: the worse conditions got in the streets, the more Islamic Iraqis became. In the three and a half years that I have known Chalabi, I never once saw him pray. Or give any indication that he harbored religious beliefs at all. Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser and a devout Shiite, told me once that when he and a group of five senior Iraqi politicians visited the Imam Ali shrine in 2004, all of them prayed but Chalabi. While the others knelt, Rubaie said, Chalabi stood quietly with his hands folded in front of him. On this return visit to the Imam Ali shrine, Chalabi and his Sunni colleagues spent 10 minutes inside and exited without saying a thing. But word travels quickly down Najaf’s narrow streets, and by the time our convoy sped back to Baghdad, there were very few people in Najaf who did not know that Chalabi had come. Once, when I asked Chalabi about his flirtation with the Islamists, he answered not in terms of religion but of politics. Moktada, he explained, was not essentially dangerous but merely misunderstood, an outsider who could be coaxed into Iraq’s new democratic order. Chalabi was happy to act as the bridge, and if he benefited politically from his efforts, he was not complaining. “The Americans made a mistake when they excluded Moktada in the beginning,” Chalabi told me. “Our real business is to persuade everybody that Sadr is better inside than outside, and to provide some measure of comfort to the middle class that he is not going to eat them up.” Indeed, Chalabi and Sadr are not as unlikely a pair as they may seem. Musa al-Sadr, the late Iranian-born ayatollah and Moktada’s cousin, presided over Chalabi’s wedding in Beirut in 1971. Chalabi’s wife, Leila, is the daughter of Adel Osseiran, a leader of the Lebanese independence movement. Musa al-Sadr was the founder of Amal, which became the prototypical Shiite party in the Middle East. It seemed like a game, and not one that Chalabi liked to give away. Whenever I asked him about his coziness with Moktada, and how it squared with his own religious beliefs, I usually received a curt retort. For a time, Chalabi — and the Americans — got the better of the deal. Moktada fielded candidates in the January 2005 election, and his militia, though still untamed, fell into line behind its leader. He endorsed something less than an absolute role for Islam in the Iraqi Constitution. By early 2006, parties loyal to Sadr held the largest bloc in the Iraqi Parliament. As for Chalabi, Moktada kept him afloat a little longer. But in siding with the Islamists, Chalabi helped make them stronger than they were, and he threw his weight behind a number of trends that were only then becoming dominant: the Islamization of Iraqi society, the division of Iraq into sectarian cantons. Those trends later spiraled out of control, into the de facto civil war that is unfolding now. Some Iraqis who watched Chalabi then still don’t forgive him — and they think that ultimately, the Islamists got the better of him. “Ahmad’s problem is that Ahmad is usually the smartest man in the room, and he thinks he can control what happens,” I was told by an Iraqi official who worked with Chalabi at the time and who would speak only anonymously. “But these guys don’t care if you have a Ph.D. in math; they’ll kill you. In the end, things went way past the point where Ahmad thought they would ever go. I can’t imagine he wanted that. But he helped start it.” 3. Baghdad, October 2005 Chalabi is standing on the rooftop of his ancestral home in Khadimiya, a heavily Shiite neighborhood known for its shrine. Mansour, the area where he has lived since Hussein’s fall, has slipped into anarchy. The final round of nationwide elections is a couple of months away. For the moment, Chalabi is the deputy prime minister, behind the affable but ineffectual Ibrahim Jaafari. Across the street stand a pair of grain silos built by his father, Abdul Hadi Chalabi. Downstairs, on a wall in the sitting room, there is an old British map dating to the 1920’s, showing Baghdad, which was much smaller than it is now. North of Baghdad, in what was then farmland and what is now Khadimiya, a dot indicates a town. The dot says, “Chalabi.” At the time, Chalabi’s family owned nearly two and a half million acres throughout Iraq. Those vast holdings are reduced to the compound where Chalabi now stands. It’s about 10 acres, including the main house, which a team of workers is renovating, a large swimming pool, a grove of date palms and, in the back, a mudhif. There is a row of garages, decrepit now, where workers once serviced the machinery and trucks that brought the wheat and dates to market. “Imagine,” Chalabi says, turning to me. “And C.I.A. says I have no roots here.” Chalabi spent 45 years in exile. Under the Hashemite monarchy installed by the British after World War I, the ruling class of the new Iraq was largely made up of Sunni Muslims, as it had been under the Ottoman Turks. The Chalabis were part of the small Shiite elite; most of the rest of the Shiite majority formed a vast underclass. The remnants of that Shiite elite now form a sizable slice of the political establishment of post-Saddam Iraq. In addition to Chalabi, there is Adil Abdul Mahdi, the vice president, a Chalabi friend since boyhood; Ayad Allawi, the former president, who is a Chalabi relative by marriage; and Feisal al-Istrabadi, the deputy ambassador to the United Nations in New York. In the 1950’s, Chalabi, Mahdi and Allawi were schoolmates at Baghdad College, an elite Jesuit high school. Even in their class photos, nearly a half-century old, all three men are instantly recognizable: Mahdi, the soft-spoken intellectual; Allawi, the charming bully; and Chalabi, the boy genius in a bow tie. On July 14, 1958, King Faisal II, the British-backed monarch, was deposed and killed; a day later, the prime minister, Nuri al-Said, fled to the home of Chalabi’s sister, Thamina. She dressed Said in an abaya, the head-to-toe gown worn by women. With the army closing in, Thamina Chalabi took Said to the home of Feisal al-Istrabadi’s grandparents. Ahmad Chalabi, then 14, watched his mother and Bibiya al-Istrabadi weep as they pondered the prime minister’s fate. “Three or four hours later, Said was dead,” Chalabi told me. “He shot himself.” Chalabi fled Iraq a few months later, first for Lebanon, then England and then America, where he received a degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate from the University of Chicago. (Dissertation title: “Jacobson Radical of Group Algebras Over Fields Characteristic p.”) He did not return to Baghdad until April 11, 2003. Chalabi’s homecoming, after the U.S. invasion, was not the triumphant return he hoped it would be. What should have been his principal claim to legitimacy — his central role in toppling Saddam — never carried him very far; it became a liability as Iraq descended into chaos. In the new Iraq, Westernized elites carried less and less authority. Power belonged to the clerics and to the populists. And then there was the scandal at Petra Bank in Jordan, the outlines of which every Iraqi, no matter how dimly educated, seemed already to know: that Chalabi had been convicted in absentia for fraud and sentenced to 22 years in prison for embezzling almost $300 million. (Chalabi, who fled Jordan before he could be arrested, has long denied the charges, maintaining that they were cooked up by the Jordanian government under pressure from Saddam Hussein. Last year, the Jordanians signaled that they were willing to pardon Chalabi. But Chalabi insisted on a public apology, which the Jordanians refused to give.) Even the small army of Iraqi exiles that Chalabi had raised before the war never grew to be much more than a personal militia. One poll, conducted in early 2004, showed him to be the least trusted public figure in Iraq — even less trusted than Saddam Hussein. Dexter Filkins The suspicions that ordinary Iraqis harbored about Chalabi were never relieved by his industriousness. As oil minister and deputy prime minister, Chalabi worked night and day, often on the minutiae of Iraq’s oil pipelines and electricity lines or the precise wording, in Arabic and English, of the Iraqi Constitution. I typically went to see Chalabi at night, sometimes at 9 or 10, and usually had to wait an hour or so while he finished with his other visitors. If it was true that Chalabi had returned to Iraq with the expectation of acquiring power, it was not true that he was unwilling to work for it. Chalabi, like all Iraqi political leaders, functioned in conditions of mortal danger at nearly all times. Even when he wanted to walk into his backyard, he had to be followed by armed guards. It’s an exhausting and debilitating way to live. But while many Iraqi exiles either gave up and returned to the West, or now spend as much time outside the country as in, Chalabi stayed in Iraq almost continuously following Hussein’s fall. For all the hard work, his zigging and zagging across the political spectrum frustrated many of the Iraqi elites — his only natural constituency — especially after his flirtation with the Islamists. “I don’t think Chalabi has any credibility left,” Adnan Pachachi, the 83-year-old former foreign minister, told me before the 2005 elections. “He is not acceptable to Iraqis. People don’t like him shifting all the time. This thing with Moktada — it’s ridiculous.” One who remained true was his friend Mahdi, who seemed, perhaps from his boyhood days swimming in the Tigris with Chalabi, to carry a deeper understanding of his old friend. “This is the style of Ahmad,” Mahdi told me just before the elections. “He was a banker. He works a dossier. Each time it’s different — he invests here, he invests there, he invests elsewhere. He has had successes, he has had maybe his failures. I can work with him.” Chalabi never grasped his essential unpopularity. In the first round of elections, in January 2005, Chalabi rode into office as a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite coalition pulled together by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the powerful Shiite religious leader. Nearly every Shiite in Iraq voted for the U.I.A., and a name on its slate all but guaranteed a seat in the Parliament. The leadership of the U.I.A. was sharply Islamist. Nearly a year later, as the December 2005 elections approached, Chalabi veered again, away from the Islamists, away from Moktada. Chalabi publicly chided the Shiite coalition as being too Islamic-minded, declaring he didn’t want to be a member of a government that was planning to transform Iraq into an Islamist state. By that time, of course, Iraq was already quite Islamist anyway. “They’re Islamist, and I don’t want to be part of the sectarian project,” Chalabi told me just before the elections that December. I actually believed him, but given his association with Moktada, it didn’t seem that many other Iraqis would. The reality, anyway, was more complicated. In the weeks before the election, the Shiite alliance offered Chalabi and his supporters 5 seats on its 275-seat slate; Chalabi demanded 10. Some Shiite leaders told me that they had deliberately offered Chalabi a low figure in the hope that he would leave their alliance for good. Mahdi, the vice president, denied that this was true. “For four days I tried to convince him; I even threatened him,” Mahdi told me. “I said, ‘Ahmad, if you leave this room, we will be no more friends.’ I was not serious. I was only threatening.” So Chalabi went his own way. If he had wanted only a seat for himself, he could have taken his place in the Shiite alliance; plenty of other Iraqis did. In going alone, he must have known that he was risking disaster. He went ahead anyway. A few days before the election, I drove up to Chalabi’s compound in Khadimiya for a lunch he was holding for tribal leaders. In much the same fashion as in Mushkhab 11 months before, about 100 sheiks from Sadr City listened to a Chalabi speech before descending on heaps of lamb and rice. One of the sheiks, a man named Sahaeh Masif al-Kindh, approached me as he walked out. “Chalabi didn’t forget us when we were living under Saddam,” al-Kindh told me. “He was Saddam’s biggest enemy. We don’t forget that.” 4. Washington, November 2005 The second round of Iraqi elections is only a few weeks away, and the wheel is turning again. Chalabi, once in favor, then out, is back in. Ostensibly, he has been invited to Washington by Treasury Secretary John Snow to talk about the Iraqi economy. But it’s more than that. He’s going to see Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The allegations that prompted the raid on Chalabi’s compound 18 months before, that he tipped the Iranians to American eavesdropping, are mysteriously forgotten. Indeed, everything seems to have been forgotten. Chalabi is rising on the catastrophe that Iraq has become. The Bush administration is grasping for anyone who might help them. On paper at least, Chalabi has a shot at becoming prime minister. Most of the meetings are private. There is a dinner at the home of Richard Perle for some of Chalabi’s old Washington friends. One of the events, a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, is public. The room is filled. At the end of a speech, Chalabi is asked by someone in the crowd if he would like to apologize for misleading the Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Chalabi nods as if he knew the question was coming. “This is an urban myth,” he says. The audience gasps. Chalabi told me later that his role as an intelligence conduit on weapons of mass destruction began shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, when he was contacted by the Department of Defense. Not vice versa. “They came to us and asked, ‘Can you help us find something on Saddam?’ ” he said. “We put out feelers.” By that time, the autumn of 2001, Chalabi had a long record of working with the American government in its shadow war against Hussein. Throughout the 1990’s, however, Chalabi demonstrated time and again that he would pursue his own interests, even if they clashed with those of the United States. There was the time in 1995, for instance, when Chalabi, under the employ of the C.I.A. in the Kurdish-controlled city of Erbil, launched an unauthorized attack on Hussein’s army. The attack failed to spark an uprising against Hussein; the Turks sent troops into northern Iraq; the C.I.A. was furious. It was a fiasco. “Very quickly he got out of control,” one retired C.I.A. officer who worked with Chalabi told me. “We didn’t know what he was doing over there. He was trying to provoke a war with Saddam.” Then there was the time, in 1996, when Chalabi interfered with a C.I.A. plot to topple Saddam. I heard the story not from Chalabi but from Perle, the Bush defense adviser and Chalabi friend. As Perle tells it, Chalabi called him in a panic from London, telling him that a C.I.A.-backed plot against Hussein was fatally compromised. The fact that the C.I.A.’s Iraqi front-man for the plot, Ayad Allawi, was a rival of Chalabi’s (as well as his relative) had nothing to do with his concerns, Perle said. As Perle tells it, he quickly telephoned the C.I.A. director at the time, John Deutch, who agreed to meet in downtown Washington. Perle said he spent an hour laying out Chalabi’s worries. “He was obviously concerned,” Perle said of Deutch. The plot went ahead anyway. It was a catastrophe. Hussein arrested as many as 800 people and reportedly executed dozens of high-ranking officers. As a final indignity, Hussein’s men dialed up Allawi’s headquarters in Amman, Jordan, on a C.I.A.-provided communications device they captured from the plotters and left a message: “You might as well pack up and go home.” Some people in the C.I.A. held Chalabi responsible, believing that he had spread word of the plot in order to deny Ayad Allawi the upper hand in the exile movement. “There was abiding suspicion in the agency that Chalabi blew it,” the former C.I.A. agent said. The fallout over the failed coup precipitated the C.I.A.’s decision to break ties with Chalabi. Chalabi dismisses those claims, and some in the C.I.A. from the period back him up. “Chalabi was as true to me as the day was long,” says Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. field agent in northern Iraq. “If Chalabi was going to blow the operation, why would he tell the C.I.A.?” There was the money issue, too. Throughout the 1990’s, as the C.I.A. and Congress funneled millions of dollars to Chalabi’s organization, the Iraqi National Congress, rumors swirled about corruption. One of the skeptics was W. Patrick Lang, a senior official at the Defense Intelligence Agency. In 1995, Lang told me, he was sitting in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, when he overheard a group of Iraqis talking about the money they had received from the American government. “I knew who these guys were, and I heard them speaking Arabic, and it was obviously Iraqi Arabic,” Lang said. “So I went over and sat next to them and listened. So what they were talking about was how to spend the Americans’ money, going on shopping trips, stuff like that. Oh, they were talking about going shopping for jewelry for women, toys for kids. Consumer goods. They were also talking about Las Vegas. ‘We will sneak out of here and go to Las Vegas. We have a lot of money now.’ ” A couple of years later, Lang said, he visited the office of Senator Trent Lott, then the Senate majority leader. After introducing an Arab businessman to Lott, Lang sat in Lott’s anteroom with a number of Capitol Hill staff members who helped draft the Iraq Liberation Act, which provided millions of dollars to Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress. They were praising Chalabi: “They were talking about him, that Chalabi fits into this plan as a very worthwhile, virtuous exemplar of modernization, somebody who could help reform first Iraq and then the Middle East. They were very pleased with themselves.” Lang, an old Middle East hand who had worked in Iraq in the 1980’s, said he was stunned. “You guys need to get out more,” Lang recalls saying at the time. “It’s a fantasy.” Years later, Lang said, many of the same men who were sitting in Lott’s office that day became key players in the Pentagon’s plans for an invasion of Iraq. Which brings us back to Chalabi’s “urban myth”: the notion that he provided bogus intelligence to the Bush administration and helped persuade them — or provide the pretext — to invade Iraq. In his speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Chalabi exhorted the audience to turn to Page 108 of the Robb-Silverman report, a recently completed blue-ribbon investigation, which, he said, exonerates him. It does, in a way. The report does not say that Chalabi & Company played an important role in the events leading to the war. It says only that the Bush administration did not rely much on intelligence Chalabi handed over in making the decision to invade. “In fact, overall, C.I.A.’s postwar investigations revealed that I.N.C.-related sources had a minimal impact on prewar assessments,” the report says. This is also Chalabi’s version. In the run-up to war, he says, he provided only three defectors to the American intelligence community. “We did not vouch for any of their information,” Chalabi told me. One of the people whom the I.N.C. made available to American intelligence was Adnan Ihsan al-Haideri, who claimed that he had worked on buildings that were used to store biological, nuclear and chemical weapons equipment. Chalabi told me that he made Haideri available to American intelligence at a safe house in Bangkok. He didn’t think much of Haideri or his information, he says, and was astonished to learn later that the information he provided became a pillar of the Americans’ charges against Hussein. “We told them, ‘We don’t know who this guy is,’ ” Chalabi said. “Then the Americans spoke to him and said, ‘This guy is the mother lode.’ Can you believe that on such a basis the United States would go to war? The intelligence community regarded the I.N.C. as useless. Why would the government believe us?” Perle, from his perch on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Advisory Committee Board, backs Chalabi’s version. He was privy to much of the intelligence the administration was collecting on Hussein in the days before the war. He says that American intelligence officials began from the premise that Hussein had never destroyed his stocks of banned weapons and that he had kept his programs alive. American spies were only looking to confirm what they thought they already knew. In any event, Perle said, very little of their information came from Chalabi. “I had all the security clearances,” Perle said. “I was pretty much aware of the people that the I.N.C. was bringing to the table to talk about what they knew. Everything they did came with a disclaimer. To the best of my knowledge, there was no single important fact that was uniquely conveyed to U.S. intelligence by anyone who had been assisted by the I.N.C.” Indeed, Chalabi says, much of the most important evidence that led America to war did not come from the I.N.C.: not the report on the uranium from Niger, and not Curveball, the Iraqi defector who made bogus claims about mobile biological weapons labs. “It’s not our fault,” Chalabi says. But the story doesn’t end there. A second report, released by the Senate Intelligence Committee in September 2006, reached far more damning conclusions. The report states flatly that Chalabi’s group introduced defectors to American intelligence who directly influenced two key judgments in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, which preceded the Senate vote on the Iraq war: that Hussein possessed mobile biological-weapons laboratories and that he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program. The report said that the I.N.C. provided a large volume of flawed intelligence to the United States about Iraq, saying the group “attempted to influence United States policy on Iraq by providing false information through defectors directed at convincing the United States that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to terrorists.” (Five Republican senators disagreed with the report’s conclusions about the I.N.C.) Chalabi’s denials are unconvincing for another reason. His role in the preparations for war was not just as a source for American intelligence agencies. He was America’s chief public advocate for war, spreading information gathered by his own intelligence network to newspapers, magazines, television programs and Congress. (A New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, was one of Chalabi’s primary conduits; in an e-mail message sent in 2003 that has been widely quoted since, she wrote that Chalabi “has provided most of the front-page exclusives on W.M.D. to our paper” and that the Army unit she was then traveling with was “using Chalabi’s intell and document network for its own W.M.D. work.”) Indeed, the press proved even more gullible than the intelligence experts in the American government. In a June 2002 letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the I.N.C. listed 108 news articles based on information provided by the group. The list included articles concerning some of the wildest claims about Hussein, including that he had collaborated in the Sept. 11 attacks. David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, offers one of the most compelling explanations for how pivotal Chalabi’s role was in taking America to war. Kay said that while the C.I.A. had long regarded Chalabi with suspicion, disregarding much of what he gave them, Chalabi had succeeded in persuading his more powerful friends in other parts of the government — Vice President Dick Cheney, for instance, and Wolfowitz. The pressure brought by those men, Kay told me, ultimately persuaded George Tenet, director of the C.I.A., that the White House was committed to war and that there was no point in resisting it. “In my judgment, the reason George Tenet and the top of the agency came over to the argument that Iraq had W.M.D. was that they really knew that the vice president and Wolfowitz had come to that conclusion anyway,” Kay said. “They had been getting information from Chalabi for years.” Of Wolfowitz, whom he has known for years, Kay said: “He was a true believer. He thought he had the evidence. That came from the defectors. They came from Chalabi.” Kay said he continued to feel Chalabi’s influence with Wolfowitz even after the invasion, when Kay was leading the team searching for W.M.D. from mid- to late 2003. “Paul, when faced with evidence that we had developed on the ground, would say, Well, Chalabi says this, the I.N.C. says this, why are you not seeing it?” Kellems, the Wolfowitz assistant, disputed Kay’s story, saying that Tenet’s views were shared by officials across the government. “The position taken on weapons was the consensus view of the United States, including of the Clinton administration and other Western intelligence agencies — as well as that of Mr. Kay himself prior to visiting Iraq,” Kellems said. Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell in Bush’s first term, adds a final turn to the labyrinth. In the frantic days leading up to Powell’s speech at the United Nations in February 2003, when he laid out the case for war, Wilkerson said he spent many nights sleeping on a couch in George Tenet’s office. During those preparations, Wilkerson told me, Powell insisted that every point he would make at the U.N. had to be supported by at least three independent sources. “We had three or four sources for every item that was substantive in his presentation,” Wilkerson told me in an interview in Washington. “Powell insisted on that. But what I am hearing now, though, is that a lot of these sources sort of tinged and merged back into a single source, and that inevitably that single source seems to be either recommended by, set up by, orchestrated by, introduced by, or whatever, by somebody in the I.N.C.” Wilkerson said that the revelations, some of which he says he has heard from his own friends inside American and European intelligence agencies, have forced him to rethink how America went to war. “I have maintained pretty much the same thing that the president said, ‘Well, we all got fooled, it was lousy intelligence, and no one in the national leadership spun the intelligence,’ ” Wilkerson said. “I am having to revisit that. And that is disturbing to me.” Wilkerson raises a crucial point. Assuming that Chalabi was a source for at least some of the bogus intelligence, we might ask ourselves: so what? Was the American national security apparatus so incompetent that it could be hoodwinked by a handful of shopworn engineers and an Iraqi mathematician to take the country into war? Or is the lesson more disturbing — that Chalabi simply gave the Bush administration what it wanted to hear? “I think Chalabi and the I.N.C. were very shrewd,” Wilkerson said. “I think Chalabi understood what people wanted, and he fed it to them. From everything I’ve heard, no one says he is dumb.” 5. Tehran, November 2005 Amid the debate about Chalabi’s role in taking America to war, one little-noticed phrase in a Senate Intelligence Committee report on W.M.D. offered an important insight into Chalabi’s identity. One of the principal errors made by the Bush administration in relying on Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, the report said, was to disregard conclusions by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency that “the I.N.C. was penetrated by hostile intelligence services,” notably those of Iran. The Iran connection has long been among the most beguiling aspects of Chalabi’s career. Baer, the former C.I.A. operative, recalled sitting in a hotel lobby in Salah al-Din, in Kurdish-controlled Iraq, in 1995 while Chalabi met with the turbaned representatives of Iranian intelligence on the other side of the room. (Baer, as an American, was barred from meeting the Iranians.) Baer says he came to regard Chalabi as an Iranian asset, and still does. “He is basically beholden to the Iranians to stay viable,” Baer told me. “All his C.I.A. connections — he wouldn’t get away with that sort of thing with the Iranians unless he had proved his worth to them.” Pat Lang, the D.I.A. agent, holds a similar view: that in Chalabi, the Iranians probably saw someone who could help them achieve their long-sought goal of removing Saddam Hussein. After a time, in Lang’s view, the Iranians may have figured the Americans would leave and that Chalabi would most likely be in charge. Lang insists he is only speculating, but he says it has been clear to the American intelligence community for years that Chalabi has maintained “deep contacts” with Iranian officials. “Here is what I think happened,” Lang said. “Chalabi went and told the guys at the Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Tehran: ‘The Americans are giving me money. I’m their guy. I’m their candidate.’ And I’m sure their eyes lit up. The Iranians would reason that they could use this guy to manipulate the United States to get what they wanted. They would figure that the U.S. would invade. They would figure that we would come and we would go, and if we left Chalabi in charge, who was a good friend of theirs, they would be in good shape.” Lang’s thesis is impossible to prove, and Chalabi denies it. And even if it were true, Chalabi’s role would be difficult to discern: so many different Iranian agencies are thought to be pursuing so many different agendas in Iraq that a single Iranian national interest is difficult to identify. Still, if Lang’s and Baer’s argument is true, it would be the stuff of spy novels: Chalabi, the American-adopted champion of Iraqi democracy, a kind of double agent for one of America’s principal adversaries. In late 2005, I accompanied Chalabi on a trip to Iran, in part to solve the riddle. We drove eastward out of Baghdad, in a convoy as menacing as the one we had ridden in south to Mushkhab earlier in the year. After three hours of weaving and careering, the plains of eastern Iraq halted, and the terrain turned sharply upward into a thick ridge of arid mountains. We had come to Mehran, on one of history’s great fault lines, the historic border between the Ottoman and Persian Empires. As we crossed into Iran, the wreckage and ruin of modern Iraq gave way to swept streets and a tidy border post with shiny bathrooms. Another world. An Iranian cleric approached and shook Chalabi’s hand. Then he said something curious: “We are disappointed to hear that you won’t be staying in the Shiite alliance,” he said. “We were really hoping you’d stay.” The border between Iraq and Iran had, for the moment, disappeared. More curious, though, was the authority that Chalabi seemed to carry in Iran, which, after all, has been accused of assisting Iraqi insurgents and otherwise stirring up chaos there. For starters, Chalabi asked me if I wanted to come along on his Iranian trip only the night before he left — and then procured a visa for me in a single day: a Friday, during the Eid holiday, when the Iranian Embassy was closed. Under ordinary circumstances, an American reporter might wait weeks. Then there was the executive jet. When we arrived at the border, Chalabi ducked into a bathroom and changed out of his camouflage T-shirt and slacks and into a well-tailored blue suit. Then we drove to Ilam, where an 11-seat Fokker jet was idling on the runway of the local airport. We jumped in and took off for Tehran, flying over a dramatic landscape of canyons and ravines. We landed in Iran’s smoggy capital, and within a couple of hours, Chalabi was meeting with the highest officials of the Iranian government. One of them was Ali Larijani, the national security adviser. I interviewed Larijani the next morning. “Our relationship with Mr. Chalabi does not have anything to do with his relationship with the neocons,” he said. His red-rimmed eyes, when I met him at 7 a.m., betrayed a sleepless night. “He is a very constructive and influential figure. He is a very wise man and a very useful person for the future of Iraq.” Then came the meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president. I was with a handful of Iranian reporters who were led into a finely appointed room just outside the president’s office. First came Chalabi, dressed in a tailored suit, beaming. Then Ahmadinejad, wearing a face of childlike bewilderment. He was dressed in imitation leather shoes and bulky white athletic socks, and a suit that looked as if it had come from a Soviet department store. Only a few days before, Ahmadinejad publicly called for the destruction of Israel. He and Chalabi, who is several inches taller, stood together for photos, then retired to a private room. At the time of Chalabi’s visit, Iran and the United States were engaged in a complicated diplomatic dance; the American ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, had been authorized to open negotiations with the Iranians over their involvement in Iraq. Still, Chalabi insists he carried no note from the Iranians when he flew to Washington the next week. Officially, at least, Iran and the United States never got together. As ever, Chalabi had multiple agendas. One was to learn whether the Iranians would support his candidacy for the prime ministership (the same reason he traveled to the United States). It makes you wonder, in light of the Baer and Lang thesis: was Chalabi telling the Iranians, or asking them for permission? Or making a deal, based on his presumed leverage in the United States? The possibilities seemed endless. Chalabi played it cool. “The fact that Iraq’s neighbor is also a country that is majority Shia is no reason for us to accept any interference in our affairs or to compromise the integrity of Iraq,” he said after his meeting with Ahmadinejad. Richard Perle, Chalabi’s friend, discounted the idea that Chalabi might be a double agent. “Of course Chalabi has a relationship with the Iranians — you have to have a relationship with the Iranians in order to operate there,” Perle said. “The question is what kind of relationship. Is he fooling the Iranians or are the Iranians using him? I think Chalabi has been very shrewd in getting the things he has needed over the years out of the Iranians without giving anything in return.” For all of the skullduggery surrounding the trip to Iran, though, the greatest revelation came later in the day. When the meeting with Ahmadinejad ended, he asked Chalabi if there was anything he could to do to make his stay more comfortable. Chalabi said yes, in fact, there was: would he mind if he, Chalabi, took a tour of the Museum of Contemporary Art? So there we were, in the middle of the Axis of Evil, strolling past one of the finest collections of Western Modern art outside Europe and the United States: Matisse, Kandinsky, Rothko, Gauguin, Pollock, Klee, Van Gogh, five Warhols, seven Picassos and a sprawling garden of sculpture outside. The collection was assembled by Queen Farah, the shah’s wife, with the monarchy’s vast oil wealth. And now, with the mullahs in charge, the museum is largely forgotten. The day we were there, the gallery was all but empty. We had the museum’s enthusiastic English-speaking tour guide all to ourselves. “Thank you, thank you, for coming!” Noreen Motamed exclaimed, clapping her hands. We walked the empty halls. Chalabi moved through the place deliberately, nodding his head, pausing at the Degas and the Pissarro. “Wow,” Chalabi said before Jesus Rafael Soto’s painting “Canada.” “Look at that.” A retinue of Iranian officials walked with us, unmoved by the splendor. Ahmadinejad had stayed behind. For all of the furies that emanate from the halls of the Iranian government, it has taken fine care of Queen Farah’s collection. Indeed, about the only way you would know you were not in a museum in New York or London was the absence of the middle panel from Francis Bacon’s triptych “Two Figures Lying on a Bed With Attendant,” which depicts two naked men. “It is in the basement, covered,” Motamed said with disappointed eyes. Finally, we came across a pair of paintings by Marc Chagall, the 20th-century Modernist and painter of Jewish life. The display contained no mention of this fact. Chalabi gazed at the Chagalls for a time. Then, with a rueful smile, turned, to no one in particular, and said loudly: “Imagine that. They have two paintings by Marc Chagall in the middle of a museum in Tehran.” The Iranian officials seemed not to hear. 6. Baghdad, December 2005 A winter rain is falling. Chalabi is standing inside a tent in Sadr City, the vast Shiite slum of eastern Baghdad. He’s talking about his plans for restoring electricity, boosting oil production and beating the insurgency. People seem to be listening, but without enthusiasm. The violence here, worsening by the day, is washing away the hopes of ordinary Iraqis. Less and less seems possible anymore. People are retreating inward, you can see it in the glaze in their eyes. As Chalabi speaks, I pull aside one of the Iraqis who had been listening. What do you think of him? I ask. “Chalabi good good,” the Iraqi man says in halting English. Whom are you going to vote for? “The Shiite alliance, of course,” the Iraqi answers. “It is the duty of all Shiite people.” When the election came, Chalabi was wiped out. His Iraqi National Congress received slightly more than 30,000 votes, only one-quarter of 1 percent of the 12 million votes cast — not enough to put even one of them, not even Chalabi, in the new Iraqi Parliament. There was grumbling in the Chalabi camp. One of his associates said of the Shiite alliance: “We know they cheated. You know how we know? Because in one area we had 5,000 forged ballots, and when they were counted, we didn’t even get that many.” He shrugged. But the truth seemed clear enough: Chalabi was finished. Chalabi, who could plausibly claim that he, more than any other Iraqi, had made the election possible, had been shunned by the very people he had worked so hard to set free. No amount of deal making or of public relations foot-work, or of endorsements from friends, was able to save him. Chalabi may have helped bring democracy to Iraq, but it was democracy that finished him. He was, in the end, a parlor politician, someone from the world of his father or grandfather, or maybe of Victorian England: a brilliant negotiator and schemer who might settle a country’s problems over a cup of tea. But in Iraq, by late 2005, real power was no longer held by the parlor men, or by politicians at all. It was held by people like Moktada al-Sadr, populist leaders with a militia and a mass following in the street. The election results were a harbinger of the civil war. Iraqis voted almost entirely along sectarian and ethnic lines: Kurds for the big Kurdish parties, Sunnis for the Sunni parties and Shiites for the big Islamist Shiite alliance. Iraqis who tried to run on a secular platform — Chalabi, for instance, and his relative, Allawi, in another party — found themselves abandoned. Just two months later, in February of this year, following the destruction of the Askariya shrine, a holy Shiite temple in Samarra, the civil war began in earnest: Shiite gunmen, who had for years been restrained by the Shiite leadership in the face of the Sunni onslaught, were finally free to retaliate. Chalabi, shut out of the government, claimed that his sin was one of miscalculation. There was some truth to this: in all likelihood, Chalabi did not lose because he had been convicted of stealing millions of dollars from a Jordanian bank. Or because of the rumors swirling around Baghdad that he had looted the treasury. Or even because he was an exile close to the Americans. No: plenty of Westernized Iraqi exiles were elected to Parliament — among them Mowaffak al-Rubaie and Adil Abdul Mahdi — who, like Chalabi, didn’t have local followings and were trailed by similar questions. Practically speaking, Chalabi lost because he had broken from the big cleric-backed Shiite alliance that swept the election. “I had not realized how polarized Iraq had become,” Chalabi told me after the election. He might have gotten a seat in the cabinet, but that didn’t work out, either. That stung: the new Iraqi government is staffed with Chalabi’s old colleagues, many of them members of the exile alliance he once led. Jalal Talabani is president. Adil Abdul Mahdi, his boyhood friend, is vice president. Barham Salih, comrade of many years, is deputy prime minister. His old confidant Zalmay Khalilzad, who played a central role in forming the new government, is the American ambassador. In the end, they couldn’t — or wouldn’t — bring him aboard. “Chalabi really made a mess of things,” said one Iraqi political leader who now occupies a key post in the government. He declined to elaborate. As anticlimactic as was Chalabi’s fall, its real meaning lay in a paradox: democratic politics no longer mattered. For three years, the American-backed enterprise in Iraq rested on the assumption that the exercise of democratic politics would drain away the anger that was driving the violence. Instead of bullets, there would be ballots. But at the culmination of that long process — two constitutions, two elections and a referendum — the violence was worse than ever. It turns out that democratic politics does not stop violence; indeed, the elections, by polarizing Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic communities, may have helped push the country into civil war. Effectively, by the fall of 2006, the overwhelming majority of Iraq had no government at all. It was a failed state. Yes, there were Iraqis — Chalabi’s friends — who went to their jobs every day, toiling dutifully and not so dutifully inside the Green Zone, which every day seemed more and more divorced from the reality outside. In the Red Zone, as the real Iraq is called, Iraq was a nightmarish, apocalyptic place, where gunmen kidnapped children and sometimes killed them, where bodies turned up at the morgue peppered by holes from electric drills and corpses lay uncollected in the streets, along with the trash, for days on end. Ahmad Chalabi devoted his whole adult life to toppling a dictator and achieving power in the place of his birth. He felled the dictator, helping along a reckless gamble that wagered the future of a nation. The gamble failed, a nation imploded and Chalabi never ascended to the throne he so coveted. But in an odd turn of fortune, the throne no longer had anything to offer. 7. London, August 2006 The conversation is wrapping up. The talk turns to the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the machinations of those around him, what the future might hold. Chalabi, in an expansive mood, gets up, goes into a closet and brings out a note that Bob Baer, the C.I.A. agent, scribbled to him in that hotel lobby when the two men plotted a coup many years before. The talk, improbably, turns to memoirs; at the moment, Baer’s, “See No Evil,” was a best seller. I ask Chalabi, who is back on the couch, if it isn’t time that he write his own. He doesn’t hesitate to answer. “Too early!” Chalabi says. “Too early!”

Jews of Iraq? What about them? Of course I thought I knew it all back then. I was young, idealistic, and more than willing to put my life at risk for my convictions. It was 1947 and I wasn't quite 18 when the Iraqi authorities caught me for smuggling young Iraqi Jews like myself out of Iraq, into Iran, and then on to the Promised Land of the soon-to-be established Israel. I was an Iraqi Jew in the Zionist underground. My Iraqi jailers did everything they could to extract the names of my co-conspirators. Fifty years later, pain still throbs in my right toe-a reminder of the day my captors used pliers to remove my toenails. On another occasion, they hauled me to the flat roof of the prison, stripped me bare on a frigid January day, then threw a bucket of cold water over me. I was left there, chained to the railing, for hours. But I never once considered giving them the information they wanted. I was a true believer. My preoccupation during what I refer to as my "two years in hell" was with survival and escape. I had no interest then in the broad sweep of Jewish history in Iraq even though my family had been part of it right from the beginning. We were originally Haroons, a large and important family of the "Babylonian Diaspora." My ancestors had settled in Iraq more than 2,600 years ago-600 years before Christianity, and 1,200 years before Islam. I am descended from Jews who built the tomb of Yehezkel, a Jewish prophet of pre-biblical times. My town, where I was born in 1929, is Hillah, not far from the ancient site of Babylon. The original Jews found Babylon, with its nourishing Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to be truly a land of milk, honey, abundance-and opportunity. Although Jews, like other minorities in what became Iraq, experienced periods of oppression and discrimination depending on the rulers of the period, their general trajectory over two and one-half millennia was upward. Under the late Ottoman rule, for example, Jewish social and religious institutions, schools, and medical facilities flourished without outside interference, and Jews were prominent in government and business. As I sat there in my cell, unaware that a death sentence soon would be handed down against me, I could not have recounted any personal grievances that my family members would have lodged against the government or the Muslim majority. Our family had been treated well and had prospered, first as farmers with some 50,000 acres devoted to rice, dates and Arab horses. Then, with the Ottomans, we bought and purified gold that was shipped to Istanbul and turned into coinage. The Turks were responsible in fact for changing our name to reflect our occupation-we became Khalaschi, meaning "Makers of Pure." I did not volunteer the information to my father that I had joined the Zionist underground. He found out several months before I was arrested when he saw me writing Hebrew and using words and expressions unfamiliar to him. He was even more surprised to learn that, yes, I had decided I would soon move to Israel myself. He was scornful. "You'll come back with your tail between your legs," he predicted. About 125,000 Jews left Iraq for Israel in the late 1940s and into 1952, most because they had been lied to and put into a panic by what I came to learn were Zionist bombs. But my mother and father were among the 6,000 who did not go to Israel. Although physically I never did return to Iraq-that bridge had been burned in any event-my heart has made the journey there many, many times. My father had it right. I was imprisoned at the military camp of Abu-Greib, about 7 miles from Baghdad. When the military court handed down my sentence of death by hanging, I had nothing to lose by attempting the escape I had been planning for many months. It was a strange recipe for an escape: a dab of butter, an orange peel, and some army clothing that I had asked a friend to buy for me at a flea market. I deliberately ate as much bread as I could to put on fat in anticipation of the day I became 18, when they could formally charge me with a crime and attach the 50-pound ball and chain that was standard prisoner issue. Later, after my leg had been shackled, I went on a starvation diet that often left me weak-kneed. The pat of butter was to lubricate my leg in preparation for extricating it from the metal band. The orange peel I surreptitiously stuck into the lock on the night of my planned escape, having studied how it could be placed in such a way as to keep the lock from closing. As the jailers turned to go after locking up, I put on the old army issue that was indistinguishable from what they were wearing-a long, green coat and a stocking cap that I pulled down over much of my face (it was winter). Then I just quietly opened the door and joined the departing group of soldiers as they strode down the hall and outside, and I offered a "good night" to the shift guard as I left. A friend with a car was waiting to speed me away. Later I made my way to the new state of Israel, arriving in May, 1950. My passport had my name in Arabic and English, but the English couldn't capture the "kh" sound, so it was rendered simply as Klaski. At the border, the immigration people applied the English version, which had an Eastern European, Ashkenazi ring to it. In one way, this "mistake" was my key to discovering very soon just how the Israeli caste system worked. They asked me where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I was the son of a farmer; I knew all the problems of the farm, so I volunteered to go to Dafnah, a farming kibbutz in the high Galilee. I only lasted a few weeks. The new immigrants were given the worst of everything. The food was the same, but that was the only thing that everyone had in common. For the immigrants, bad cigarettes, even bad toothpaste. Everything. I left. Then, through the Jewish Agency, I was advised to go to al-Majdal (later renamed Ashkelon), an Arab town about 9 miles from Gaza, very close to the Mediterranean. The Israeli government planned to turn it into a farmers' city, so my farm background would be an asset there. When I reported to the Labor Office in al-Majdal, they saw that I could read and write Arabic and Hebrew and they said that I could find a good-paying job with the Military Governor's office. The Arabs were under the authority of these Israeli Military Governors. A clerk handed me a bunch of forms in Arabic and Hebrew. Now it dawned on me. Before Israel could establish its farmers' city, it had to rid al-Majdal of its indigenous Palestinians. The forms were petitions to the United Nations Inspectors asking for transfer out of Israel to Gaza, which was under Egyptian control. I read over the petition. In signing, the Palestinian would be saying that he was of sound mind and body and was making the request for transfer free of pressure or duress. Of course, there was no way that they would leave without being pressured to do so. These families had been there hundreds of years, as farmers, primitive artisans, weavers. The Military Governor prohibited them from pursuing their livelihoods, just penned them up until they lost hope of resuming their normal lives. That's when they signed to leave. I was there and heard their grief. "Our hearts are in pain when we look at the orange trees that we planted with our own hands. Please let us go, let us give water to those trees. God will not be pleased with us if we leave His trees untended." I asked the Military Governor to give them relief, but he said, "No, we want them to leave." I could no longer be part of this oppression and I left. Those Palestinians who didn't sign up for transfers were taken by force-just put in trucks and dumped in Gaza. About four thousand people were driven from al-Majdal in one way or another. The few who remained were collaborators with the Israeli authorities. Subsequently, I wrote letters trying to get a government job elsewhere and I got many immediate responses asking me to come for an interview. Then they would discover that my face didn't match my Polish/Ashkenazi name. They would ask if I spoke Yiddish or Polish, and when I said I didn't, they would ask where I came by a Polish name. Desperate for a good job, I would usually say that I thought my great-grandfather was from Poland. I was advised time and again that "we'll give you a call." Eventually, three to four years after coming to Israel, I changed my name to Giladi, which is close to the code name, Gilad, that I had in the Zionist underground. Klaski wasn't doing me any good anyway, and my Eastern friends were always chiding me about the name they knew didn't go with my origins as an Iraqi Jew. I was disillusioned at what I found in the Promised Land, disillusioned personally, disillusioned at the institutionalized racism, disillusioned at what I was beginning to learn about Zionism's cruelties. The principal interest Israel had in Jews from Islamic countries was as a supply of cheap labor, especially for the farm work that was beneath the urbanized Eastern European Jews. Ben Gurion needed the "Oriental" Jews to farm the thousands of acres of land left by Palestinians who were driven out by Israeli forces in 1948. And I began to find out about the barbaric methods used to rid the fledgling state of as many Palestinians as possible. The world recoils today at the thought of bacteriological warfare, but Israel was probably the first to actually use it in the Middle East. In the 1948 war, Jewish forces would empty Arab villages of their populations, often by threats, sometimes by just gunning down a half-dozen unarmed Arabs as examples to the rest. To make sure the Arabs couldn't return to make a fresh life for themselves in these villages, the Israelis put typhus and dysentery bacteria into the water wells. Uri Mileshtin, an official historian for the Israeli Defense Force, has written and spoken about the use of bacteriological agents. According to Mileshtin, Moshe Dayan, a division commander at the time, gave orders in 1948 to remove Arabs from their villages, bulldoze their homes, and render water wells unusable with typhus and dysentery bacteria. Acre was so situated that it could practically defend itself with one big gun, so the Haganah put bacteria into the spring that fed the town. The spring was called Capri and it ran from the north near a kibbutz. The Haganah put typhus bacteria into the water going to Acre, the people got sick, and the Jewish forces occupied Acre. This worked so well that they sent a Haganah division dressed as Arabs into Gaza, where there were Egyptian forces, and the Egyptians caught them putting two cans of bacteria, typhus and dysentery, into the water supply in wanton disregard of the civilian population. "In war, there is no sentiment," one of the captured Haganah men was quoted as saying. My activism in Israel began shortly after I received a letter from the Socialist/Zionist Party asking me to help with their Arabic newspaper. When I showed up at their offices at Central House in Tel Aviv, I asked around to see just where I should report. I showed the letter to a couple of people there and, without even looking at it, they would motion me away with the words, "Room No. 8." When I saw that they weren't even reading the letter, I inquired of several others. But the response was the same, "Room No. 8," with not a glance at the paper I put in front of them. So I went to Room 8 and saw that it was the Department of Jews from Islamic Countries. I was disgusted and angry. Either I am a member of the party or I'm not. Do I have a different ideology or different politics because I am an Arab Jew? It's segregation, I thought, just like a Negroes' Department. I turned around and walked out. That was the start of my open protests. That same year I organized a demonstration in Ashkelon against Ben Gurion's racist policies and 10,000 people turned out. There wasn't much opportunity for those of us who were second class citizens to do much about it when Israel was on a war footing with outside enemies. After the 1967 war, I was in the Army myself and served in the Sinai when there was continued fighting along the Suez Canal. But the cease-fire with Egypt in 1970 gave us our opening. We took to the streets and organized politically to demand equal rights. If it's our country, if we were expected to risk our lives in a border war, then we expected equal treatment. We mounted the struggle so tenaciously and received so much publicity that the Israeli government tried to discredit our movement by calling us "Israel's Black Panthers." They were thinking in racist terms, really, in assuming the Israeli public would reject an organization whose ideology was being compared to that of radical blacks in the United States. But we saw that what we were doing was no different than what blacks in the United States were fighting against-segregation, discrimination, unequal treatment. Rather than reject the label, we adopted it proudly. I had posters of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and other civil rights activists plastered all over my office. With the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Israeli-condoned Sabra and Shatilla massacres, I had had enough of Israel. I became a United States citizen and made certain to revoke my Israeli citizenship. I could never have written and published my book in Israel, not with the censorship they would impose. Even in America, I had great difficulty finding a publisher because many are subject to pressures of one kind or another from Israel and its friends. I ended up paying $60,000 from my own pocket to publish Ben Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews, virtually the entire proceeds from having sold my house in Israel. I still was afraid that the printer would back out or that legal proceedings would be initiated to stop its publication, like the Israeli government did in an attempt to prevent former Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky from publishing his first book. Ben Gurion's Scandals had to be translated into English from two languages. I wrote in Hebrew when I was in Israel and hoped to publish the book there, and I wrote in Arabic when I was completing the book after coming to the U.S. But I was so worried that something would stop publication that I told the printer not to wait for the translations to be thoroughly checked and proofread. Now I realize that the publicity of a lawsuit would just have created a controversial interest in the book. I am using bank vault storage for the valuable documents that back up what I have written. These documents, including some that I illegally copied from the archives at Yad Vashem, confirm what I saw myself, what I was told by other witnesses, and what reputable historians and others have written concerning the Zionist bombings in Iraq, Arab peace overtures that were rebuffed, and incidents of violence and death inflicted by Jews on Jews in the cause of creating Israel. The Riots of 1941 If, as I have said, my family in Iraq was not persecuted personally and I knew no deprivation as a member of the Jewish minority, what led me to the steps of the gallows as a member of the Zionist underground? To answer that question, it is necessary to establish the context of the massacre that occurred in Baghdad on June 1, 1941, when several hundred Iraqi Jews were killed in riots involving junior officers of the Iraqi army. I was 12 years of age and many of those killed were my friends. I was angry, and very confused. What I didn't know at the time was that the riots most likely were stirred up by the British, in collusion with a pro-British Iraqi leadership. With the breakup of the Ottoman Empire following WW I, Iraq came under British "tutelage." Amir Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein who had led the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman sultan, was brought in from Mecca by the British to become King of Iraq in 1921. Many Jews were appointed to key administrative posts, including that of economics minister. Britain retained final authority over domestic and external affairs. Britain's pro-Zionist attitude in Palestine, however, triggered a growing anti-Zionist backlash in Iraq, as it did in all Arab countries. Writing at the end of 1934, Sir Francis Humphreys, Britain's Ambassador in Baghdad, noted that, while before WW I Iraqi Jews had enjoyed a more favorable position than any other minority in the country, since then "Zionism has sown dissension between Jews and Arabs, and a bitterness has grown up between the two peoples which did not previously exist." King Faisal died in 1933. He was succeeded by his son Ghazi, who died in a motor car accident in 1939. The crown then passed to Ghazi's 4-year-old son, Faisal II, whose uncle, Abd al-Ilah, was named regent. Abd al-Ilah selected Nouri el-Said as prime minister. El-Said supported the British and, as hatred of the British grew, he was forced from office in March 1940 by four senior army officers who advocated Iraq's independence from Britain. Calling themselves the Golden Square, the officers compelled the regent to name as prime minister Rashid Ali al-Kilani, leader of the National Brotherhood party. The time was 1940 and Britain was reeling from a strong German offensive. Al-Kilani and the Golden Square saw this as their opportunity to rid themselves of the British once and for all. Cautiously they began to negotiate for German support, which led the pro-British regent Abd al-Ilah to dismiss al-Kilani in January 1941. By April, however, the Golden Square officers had reinstated the prime minister. This provoked the British to send a military force into Basra on April 12, 1941. Basra, Iraq's second largest city, had a Jewish population of 30,000. Most of these Jews made their livings from import/export, money changing, retailing, as workers in the airports, railways, and ports, or as senior government employees. On the same day, April 12, supporters of the pro-British regent notified the Jewish leaders that the regent wanted to meet with them. As was their custom, the leaders brought flowers for the regent. Contrary to custom, however, the cars that drove them to the meeting place dropped them off at the site where the British soldiers were concentrated. Photographs of the Jews appeared in the following day's newspapers with the banner "Basra Jews Receive British Troops with Flowers." That same day, April 13, groups of angry Arab youths set about to take revenge against the Jews. Several Muslim notables in Basra heard of the plan and calmed things down. Later, it was learned that the regent was not in Basra at all and that the matter was a provocation by his pro-British supporters to bring about an ethnic war in order to give the British army a pretext to intervene. The British continued to land more forces in and around Basra. On May 7, 1941, their Gurkha unit, composed of Indian soldiers from that ethnic group, occupied Basra's el-Oshar quarter, a neighborhood with a large Jewish population. The soldiers, led by British officers, began looting. Many shops in the commercial district were plundered. Private homes were broken into. Cases of attempted rape were reported. Local residents, Jews and Muslims, responded with pistols and old rifles, but their bullets were no match for the soldiers' Tommy Guns. Afterwards, it was learned that the soldiers acted with the acquiescence, if not the blessing, of their British commanders. (It should be remembered that the Indian soldiers, especially those of the Gurkha unit, were known for their discipline, and it is highly unlikely they would have acted so riotously without orders.) The British goal clearly was to create chaos and to blacken the image of the pro-nationalist regime in Baghdad, thereby giving the British forces reason to proceed to the capital and to overthrow the al-Kilani government. Baghdad fell on May 30. Al-Kilani fled to Iran, along with the Golden Square officers. Radio stations run by the British reported that Regent Abd al-Ilah would be returning to the city and that thousands of Jews and others were planning to welcome him. What inflamed young Iraqis against the Jews most, however, was the radio announcer Yunas Bahri on the German station "Berlin," who reported in Arabic that Jews from Palestine were fighting alongside the British against Iraqi soldiers near the city of Faluja. The report was false. On Sunday, June 1, unarmed fighting broke out in Baghdad between Jews who were still celebrating their Shabuoth holiday and young Iraqis who thought the Jews were celebrating the return of the pro-British regent. That evening, a group of Iraqis stopped a bus, removed the Jewish passengers, murdered one and fatally wounded a second. About 8:30 the following morning, some 30 individuals in military and police uniforms opened fire along el-Amin street, a small downtown street whose jewelry, tailor and grocery shops were Jewish-owned. By 11 a.m., mobs of Iraqis with knives, switchblades and clubs were attacking Jewish homes in the area. The riots continued throughout Monday, June 2. During this time, many Muslims rose to defend their Jewish neighbors, while some Jews successfully defended themselves. There were 124 killed and 400 injured, according to a report written by a Jewish Agency messenger who was in Iraq at the time. Other estimates, possibly less reliable, put the death toll higher, as many as 500, with from 650 to 2,000 injured. From 500 to 1,300 stores and more than 1,000 homes and apartments were looted. Who was behind the rioting in the Jewish quarter? Yosef Meir, one of the most prominent activists in the Zionist underground movement in Iraq, known then as Yehoshafat, claims it was the British. Meir, who now works for the Israeli Defense Ministry, argues that, in order to make it appear that the regent was returning as the savior who would reestablish law and order, the British stirred up the riots against the most vulnerable and visible segment in the city, the Jews. And, not surprisingly, the riots ended as soon as the regent's loyal soldiers entered the capital. My own investigations as a journalist lead me to believe Meir is correct. Furthermore, I think his claims should be seen as based on documents in the archives of the Israeli Defense Ministry, the agency that published his book. Yet, even before his book came out, I had independent confirmation from a man I met in Iran in the late Forties. His name was Michael Timosian, an Iraqi Armenian. When I met him he was working as a male nurse at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Abadan in the south of Iran. On June 2, 1941, however, he was working at the Baghdad hospital where many of the riot victims were brought. Most of these victims were Jews. Timosian said he was particularly interested in two patients whose conduct did not follow local custom. One had been hit by a bullet in his shoulder, the other by a bullet in his right knee. After the doctor removed the bullets, the staff tried to change their blood-soaked cloths. But the two men fought off their efforts, pretending to be speechless, although tests showed they could hear. To pacify them, the doctor injected them with anesthetics and, as they were sleeping, Timosian changed their cloths. He discovered that one of them had around his neck an identification tag of the type used by British troops, while the other had tattoos with Indian script on his right arm along with the familiar sword of the Gurkha. The next day when Timosian showed up for work, he was told that a British officer, his sergeant and two Indian Gurkha soldiers had come to the hospital early that morning. Staff members overheard the Gurkha soldiers talking with the wounded patients, who were not as dumb as they had pretended. The patients saluted the visitors, covered themselves with sheets and, without signing the required release forms, left the hospital with their visitors. Today there is no doubt in my mind that the anti-Jewish riots of 1941 were orchestrated by the British for geopolitical ends. David Kimche is certainly a man who was in a position to know the truth, and he has spoken publicly about British culpability. Kimche had been with British Intelligence during WW II and with the Mossad after the war. Later he became Director General of Israel's Foreign Ministry, the position he held in 1982 when he addressed a forum at the British Institute for International Affairs in London. In responding to hostile questions about Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the refugee camp massacres in Beirut, Kimche went on the attack, reminding the audience that there was scant concern in the British Foreign Office when British Gurkha units participated in the murder of 500 Jews in the streets of Baghdad in 1941. The Bombings of 1950-1951 The anti-Jewish riots of 1941 did more than create a pretext for the British to enter Baghdad to reinstate the pro-British regent and his pro-British prime minister, Nouri el-Said. They also gave the Zionists in Palestine a pretext to set up a Zionist underground in Iraq, first in Baghdad, then in other cities such as Basra, Amara, Hillah, Diwaneia, Abril and Karkouk. Following WW II, a succession of governments held brief power in Iraq. Zionist conquests in Palestine, particularly the massacre of Palestinians in the village of Deir Yassin, emboldened the anti-British movement in Iraq. When the Iraqi government signed a new treaty of friendship with London in January 1948, riots broke out all over the country. The treaty was quickly abandoned and Baghdad demanded removal of the British military mission that had run Iraq's army for 27 years. Later in 1948, Baghdad sent an army detachment to Palestine to fight the Zionists, and when Israel declared independence in May, Iraq closed the pipeline that fed its oil to Haifa's refinery. Abd al-Ilah, however, was still regent and the British quisling, Nouri el-Said, was back as prime minister. I was in the Abu-Greib prison in 1948, where I would remain until my escape to Iran in September 1949. Six months later-the exact date was March 19, 1950-a bomb went off at the American Cultural Center and Library in Baghdad, causing property damage and injuring a number of people. The center was a favorite meeting place for young Jews. The first bomb thrown directly at Jews occurred on April 8, 1950, at 9:15 p.m. A car with three young passengers hurled the grenade at Baghdad's El-Dar El-Bida Café, where Jews were celebrating Passover. Four people were seriously injured. That night leaflets were distributed calling on Jews to leave Iraq immediately. The next day, many Jews, most of them poor with nothing to lose, jammed emigration offices to renounce their citizenship and to apply for permission to leave for Israel. So many applied, in fact, that the police had to open registration offices in Jewish schools and synagogues. On May 10, at 3 a.m., a grenade was tossed in the direction of the display window of the Jewish-owned Beit-Lawi Automobile Company, destroying part of the building. No casualties were reported. On June 3, 1950, another grenade was tossed from a speeding car in the El-Batawin area of Baghdad where most rich Jews and middle class Iraqis lived. No one was hurt, but following the explosion Zionist activists sent telegrams to Israel requesting that the quota for immigration from Iraq be increased. On June 5, at 2:30 a.m., a bomb exploded next to the Jewish-owned Stanley Shashua building on El-Rashid street, resulting in property damage but no casualties. On January 14, 1951, at 7 p.m., a grenade was thrown at a group of Jews outside the Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue. The explosive struck a high-voltage cable, electrocuting three Jews, one a young boy, Itzhak Elmacher, and wounding over 30 others. Following the attack, the exodus of Jews jumped to between 600-700 per day. Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country. The terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews. Among the most important documents in my book, I believe, are copies of two leaflets published by the Zionist underground calling on Jews to leave Iraq. One is dated March 16, 1950, the other April 8, 1950. The difference between these two is critical. Both indicate the date of publication, but only the April 8th leaflet notes the time of day: 4 p.m. Why the time of day? Such a specification was unprecedented. Even the investigating judge, Salaman El-Beit, found it suspicious. Did the 4 p.m. writers want an alibi for a bombing they knew would occur five hours later? If so, how did they know about the bombing? The judge concluded they knew because a connection existed between the Zionist underground and the bomb throwers. This, too, was the conclusion of Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whom I had the opportunity to meet in New York in 1988. In his book, Ropes of Sand, whose publication the CIA opposed, Eveland writes: In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel. . . . Although the Iraqi police later provided our embassy with evidence to show that the synagogue and library bombings, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaigns, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had "rescued" really just in order to increase Israel's Jewish population." Eveland doesn't detail the evidence linking the Zionists to the attacks, but in my book I do. In 1955, for example, I organized in Israel a panel of Jewish attorneys of Iraqi origin to handle claims of Iraqi Jews who still had property in Iraq. One well known attorney, who asked that I not give his name, confided in me that the laboratory tests in Iraq had confirmed that the anti-American leaflets found at the American Cultural Center bombing were typed on the same typewriter and duplicated on the same stenciling machine as the leaflets distributed by the Zionist movement just before the April 8th bombing. Tests also showed that the type of explosive used in the Beit-Lawi attack matched traces of explosives found in the suitcase of an Iraqi Jew by the name of Yosef Basri. Basri, a lawyer, together with Shalom Salih, a shoemaker, would be put on trial for the attacks in December 1951 and executed the following month. Both men were members of Hashura, the military arm of the Zionist underground. Salih ultimately confessed that he, Basri and a third man, Yosef Habaza, carried out the attacks. By the time of the executions in January 1952, all but 6,000 of an estimated 125,000 Iraqi Jews had fled to Israel. Moreover, the pro-British, pro-Zionist puppet el-Said saw to it that all of their possessions were frozen, including their cash assets. (There were ways of getting Iraqi dinars out, but when the immigrants went to exchange them in Israel they found that the Israeli government kept 50 percent of the value.) Even those Iraqi Jews who had not registered to emigrate, but who happened to be abroad, faced loss of their nationality if they didn't return within a specified time. An ancient, cultured, prosperous community had been uprooted and its people transplanted to a land dominated by East European Jews, whose culture was not only foreign but entirely hateful to them. The Ultimate Criminals Zionist Leaders. From the start they knew that in order to establish a Jewish state they had to expel the indigenous Palestinian population to the neighboring Islamic states and import Jews from these same states. * Theodor Herzl, the architect of Zionism, thought it could be done by social engineering. In his diary entry for 12 June 1885, he wrote that Zionist settlers would have to "spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country." * Vladimir Jabotinsky, Prime Minister Netanyahu's ideological progenitor, frankly admitted that such a transfer of populations could only be brought about by force. * David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, told a Zionist Conference in 1937 that any proposed Jewish state would have to "transfer Arab populations out of the area, if possible of their own free will, if not by coercion." After 750,000 Palestinians were uprooted and their lands confiscated in 1948-49, Ben Gurion had to look to the Islamic countries for Jews who could fill the resultant cheap labor market. "Emissaries" were smuggled into these countries to "convince" Jews to leave either by trickery or fear. In the case of Iraq, both methods were used: uneducated Jews were told of a Messianic Israel in which the blind see, the lame walk, and onions grow as big as melons; educated Jews had bombs thrown at them. A few years after the bombings, in the early 1950s, a book was published in Iraq, in Arabic, titled Venom of the Zionist Viper. The author was one of the Iraqi investigators of the 1950-51 bombings and, in his book, he implicates the Israelis, specifically one of the emissaries sent by Israel, Mordechai Ben-Porat. As soon as the book came out, all copies just disappeared, even from libraries. The word was that agents of the Israeli Mossad, working through the U.S. Embassy, bought up all the books and destroyed them. I tried on three different occasions to have one sent to me in Israel, but each time Israeli censors in the post office intercepted it. British Leaders. Britain always acted in its best colonial interests. For that reason Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour sent his famous 1917 letter to Lord Rothschild in exchange for Zionist support in WW I. During WW II the British were primarily concerned with keeping their client states in the Western camp, while Zionists were most concerned with the immigration of European Jews to Palestine, even if this meant cooperating with the Nazis. (In my book I document numerous instances of such dealings by Ben Gurion and the Zionist leadership.) After WW II the international chessboard pitted communists against capitalists. In many countries, including the United States and Iraq, Jews represented a large part of the Communist party. In Iraq, hundreds of Jews of the working intelligentsia occupied key positions in the hierarchy of the Communist and Socialist parties. To keep their client countries in the capitalist camp, Britain had to make sure these governments had pro-British leaders. And if, as in Iraq, these leaders were overthrown, then an anti-Jewish riot or two could prove a useful pretext to invade the capital and reinstate the "right" leaders. Moreover, if the possibility existed of removing the communist influence from Iraq by transferring the whole Jewish community to Israel, well then, why not? Particularly if the leaders of Israel and Iraq conspired in the deed. The Iraqi Leaders. Both the regent Abd al-Ilah and his prime minister Nouri el- Said took directions from London. Toward the end of 1948, el-Said, who had already met with Israel's Prime Minister Ben Gurion in Vienna, began discussing with his Iraqi and British associates the need for an exchange of populations. Iraq would send the Jews in military trucks to Israel via Jordan, and Iraq would take in some of the Palestinians Israel had been evicting. His proposal included mutual confiscation of property. London nixed the idea as too radical. El-Said then went to his back-up plan and began to create the conditions that would make the lives of Iraqi Jews so miserable they would leave for Israel. Jewish government employees were fired from their jobs; Jewish merchants were denied import/export licenses; police began to arrest Jews for trivial reasons. Still the Jews did not leave in any great numbers. In September 1949, Israel sent the spy Mordechai Ben-Porat, the one mentioned in Venom of the Zionist Viper, to Iraq. One of the first things Ben-Porat did was to approach el-Said and promise him financial incentives to have a law enacted that would lift the citizenship of Iraqi Jews. Soon after, Zionist and Iraqi representatives began formulating a rough draft of the bill, according to the model dictated by Israel through its agents in Baghdad. The bill was passed by the Iraqi parliament in March 1950. It empowered the government to issue one-time exit visas to Jews wishing to leave the country. In March, the bombings began. Sixteen years later, the Israeli magazine Haolam Hazeh, published by Uri Avnery, then a Knesset member, accused Ben-Porat of the Baghdad bombings. Ben-Porat, who would become a Knesset member himself, denied the charge, but never sued the magazine for libel. And Iraqi Jews in Israel still call him Morad Abu al-Knabel, Mordechai of the Bombs. As I said, all this went well beyond the comprehension of a teenager. I knew Jews were being killed and an organization existed that could lead us to the Promised Land. So I helped in the exodus to Israel. Later, on occasions, I would bump into some of these Iraqi Jews in Israel. Not infrequently they'd express the sentiment that they could kill me for what I had done. Opportunities for Peace After the Israeli attack on the Jordanian village of Qibya in October, 1953, Ben Gurion went into voluntary exile at the Sedeh Boker kibbutz in the Negev. The Labor party then used to organize many buses for people to go visit him there, where they would see the former prime minister working with sheep. But that was only for show. Really he was writing his diary and continuing to be active behind the scenes. I went on such a tour. Ben Gurion's Scandals by N.Giladi How the Haganah and Mossad eliminated Jews. Available in our BookstoreWe were told not to try to speak to Ben Gurion, but when I saw him, I asked why, since Israel is a democracy with a parliament, does it not have a constitution? Ben Gurion said, "Look, boy"-I was 24 at the time-"if we have a constitution, we have to write in it the border of our country. And this is not our border, my dear." I asked, "Then where is the border?" He said, "Wherever the Sahal will come, this is the border." Sahal is the Israeli army. Ben Gurion told the world that Israel accepted the partition and the Arabs rejected it. Then Israel took half of the land that was promised to the Arab state. And still he was saying it was not enough. Israel needed more land. How can a country make peace with its neighbors if it wants to take their land? How can a country demand to be secure if it won't say what borders it will be satisfied with? For such a country, peace would be an inconvenience. I know now that from the beginning many Arab leaders wanted to make peace with Israel, but Israel always refused. Ben Gurion covered this up with propaganda. He said that the Arabs wanted to drive Israel into the sea and he called Gamal Abdel Nasser the Hitler of the Middle East whose foremost intent was to destroy Israel. He wanted America and Great Britain to treat Nasser like a pariah. In 1954, it seemed that America was getting less critical of Nasser. Then during a three-week period in July, several terrorist bombs were set off: at the United States Information Agency offices in Cairo and Alexandria, a British-owned theater, and the central post office in Cairo. An attempt to firebomb a cinema in Alexandria failed when the bomb went off in the pocket of one of the perpetrators. That led to the discovery that the terrorists were not anti-Western Egyptians, but were instead Israeli spies bent on souring the warming relationship between Egypt and the United States in what came to be known as the Lavon Affair. Ben Gurion was still living on his kibbutz. Moshe Sharett as prime minister was in contact with Abdel Nasser through the offices of Lord Maurice Orbach of Great Britain. Sharett asked Nasser to be lenient with the captured spies, and Nasser did all that was in his power to prevent a deterioration of the situation between the two countries. Then Ben Gurion returned as Defense Minister in February, 1955. Later that month Israeli troops attacked Egyptian military camps and Palestinian refugees in Gaza, killing 54 and injuring many more. The very night of the attack, Lord Orbach was on his way to deliver a message to Nasser, but was unable to get through because of the military action. When Orbach telephoned, Nasser's secretary told him that the attack proved that Israel did not want peace and that he was wasting his time as a mediator. In November, Ben Gurion announced in the Knesset that he was willing to meet with Abdel Nasser anywhere and at any time for the sake of peace and understanding. The next morning the Israeli military attacked an Egyptian military camp in the Sabaha region. Although Nasser felt pessimistic about achieving peace with Israel, he continued to send other mediators to try. One was through the American Friends Service Committee; another via the Prime Minister of Malta, Dom Minthoff; and still another through Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia. One that looked particularly promising was through Dennis Hamilton, editor of The London Times. Nasser told Hamilton that if only he could sit and talk with Ben Gurion for two or three hours, they would be able to settle the conflict and end the state of war between the two countries. When word of this reached Ben Gurion, he arranged to meet with Hamilton. They decided to pursue the matter with the Israeli ambassador in London, Arthur Luria, as liaison. On Hamilton's third trip to Egypt, Nasser met him with the text of a Ben Gurion speech stating that Israel would not give up an inch of land and would not take back a single refugee. Hamilton knew that Ben Gurion with his mouth had undermined a peace mission and missed an opportunity to settle the Israeli-Arab conflict. Nasser even sent his friend Ibrahim Izat of the Ruz El Yusuf weekly paper to meet with Israeli leaders in order to explore the political atmosphere and find out why the attacks were taking place if Israel really wanted peace. One of the men Izat met with was Yigal Yadin, a former Chief of Staff of the army who wrote this letter to me on 14 January 1982: Dear Mr. Giladi: Your letter reminded me of an event which I nearly forgot and of which I remember only a few details. Ibrahim Izat came to me if I am not mistaken under the request of the Foreign Ministry or one of its branches; he stayed in my house and we spoke for many hours. I do not remember him saying that he came on a mission from Nasser, but I have no doubt that he let it be understood that this was with his knowledge or acquiescence.... When Nasser decided to nationalize the Suez Canal in spite of opposition from the British and the French, Radio Cairo announced in Hebrew: If the Israeli government is not influenced by the British and the French imperialists, it will eventually result in greater understanding between the two states, and Egypt will reconsider Israel's request to have access to the Suez Canal. Israel responded that it had no designs on Egypt, but at that very moment Israeli representatives were in France planning the three-way attack that was to take place in October, 1956. All the while, Ben Gurion continued to talk about the Hitler of the Middle East. This brainwashing went on until late September, 1970, when Gamal Abdel Nasser passed away. Then, miracle of miracles, David Ben Gurion told the press: A week before he died I received an envoy from Abdel Nasser who asked to meet with me urgently in order to solve the problems between Israel and the Arab world. The public was surprised because they didn't know that Abdel Nasser had wanted this all along, but Israel sabotaged it. Nasser was not the only Arab leader who wanted to make peace with Israel. There were many others. Brigadier General Abdel Karim Qasem, before he seized power in Iraq in July, 1958, headed an underground organization that sent a delegation to Israel to make a secret agreement. Ben Gurion refused even to see him. I learned about this when I was a journalist in Israel. But whenever I tried to publish even a small part of it, the censor would stamp it "Not Allowed." Now, in Netanyahu, we are witnessing another attempt by an Israeli prime minister to fake an interest in making peace. Netanyahu and the Likud are setting Arafat up by demanding that he institute more and more repressive measures in the interest of Israeli "security." Sooner or later I suspect the Palestinians will have had enough of Arafat's strong-arm methods as Israel's quisling-and he'll be killed. Then the Israeli government will say, "See, we were ready to give him everything. You can't trust those Arabs-they kill each other. Now there's no one to even talk to about peace." Conclusion Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that it is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth. Certainly it has been easier for the world to accept the Zionist lie that Jews were evicted from Muslim lands because of anti-Semitism, and that Israelis, never the Arabs, were the pursuers of peace. The truth is far more discerning: bigger players on the world stage were pulling the strings. These players, I believe, should be held accountable for their crimes, particularly when they willfully terrorized, dispossessed and killed innocent people on the altar of some ideological imperative. I believe, too, that the descendants of these leaders have a moral responsibility to compensate the victims and their descendants, and to do so not just with reparations, but by setting the historical record straight. That is why I established a panel of inquiry in Israel to seek reparations for Iraqi Jews who had been forced to leave behind their property and possessions in Iraq. That is why I joined the Black Panthers in confronting the Israeli government with the grievances of the Jews in Israel who came from Islamic lands. And that is why I have written my book and this article: to set the historical record straight. We Jews from Islamic lands did not leave our ancestral homes because of any natural enmity between Jews and Muslims. And we Arabs-I say Arab because that is the language my wife and I still speak at home-we Arabs on numerous occasions have sought peace with the State of the Jews. And finally, as a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, let me say that we Americans need to stop supporting racial discrimination in Israel and the cruel expropriation of lands in the West Bank, Gaza, South Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

How many of you can't read this? The Unthinkable Thought "Jesus said, 'It is to those who are worthy of my Mysteries that I tell my Mysteries.'" The Gospel of Thomas On the site where the Vatican now stands there once stood a Pagan temple. Here Pagan priests observed sacred ceremonies which early Christians found so disturbing that they tried to erase all evidence of them ever having been practised. What were these shocking Pagan rites? Gruesome sacrifices or obscene orgies perhaps. This is what we have been led to believe. But the truth is far stranger than this fiction. Where today the gathered faithful revere their Lord Jesus Christ, the ancients worshipped another godman who, like Jesus, had been miraculously born on 25 December before three shepherds. In this ancient sanctuary Pagan congregations once glorified a Pagan redeemer who, like lesus, was said to have ascended to heaven and to have promised to come again at the end of time to judge the quick and the dead. On the same spot where the Pope celebrates the Catholic mass, Pagan priests also celebrated a symbolic meal of bread and wine in memory of their saviour who, just like Tesus, had declared: "He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation." When we began to uncover such extraordinary similarities between the story of Jesus and Pagan myth we were stunned. We had been brought up in a culture which portrays Paganism and Christianity as entirely antagonistic religious perspectives. How could such astonishing resemblances be explained? We were intrigued and began to search further. The more we looked, the more resemblances we found. To account for the wealth of evidence we were unearthing we felt compelled to completely review our understanding of the relationship between Paganism and Christianity, to question beliefs that we previously regarded as unquestionable and to imagine possibilities which at first seemed impossible. Some readers will find our conclusions shocking and others heretical, but for us they are merely the simplest and most obvious way of accounting for the evidence we have amassed. We have become convinced that the story of Jesus is not the biography of an historical Messiah, but a myth based on perennial Pagan stories. Christianity was not a new and unique revelation but actually a Jewish adaptation of the ancient Pagan Mystery religion. This is what we have called 'the Jesus Mysteries Thesis.' It may sound farfetched at first, just as it did initially to us. There is, after all, a great deal of unsubstantiated nonsense written about the 'real' Jesus, so any revolutionary theory should be approached with a healthy dose of scepticism. But although this book makes extraordinary claims, it is not just entertaining fantasy or sensational speculation. It is firmly based upon the available historical sources and the latest scholarly research. Whilst we hope to have made it accessible to the general reader, we have also included copious notes giving sources, references and greater detail for those who wish to analyse our arguments more thoroughly. Although still radical and challenging today, many of the ideas we explore are actually far from new. As long ago as the Renaissance, mystics and scholars saw the origins of christianity in the ancient Egyptian religion. Visionary scholars at the turn of the nineteenth century also made com-paxable conjectures to our own. In recent decades, modern academics have repeatedly pointed towards the possibilities we consider. Yet few have dared to boldly state the obvious conclusions which we have drawn. Why? Because to do so is taboo. For 2,000 years the West has been dominated by the idea that Christianity is sacred and unique, whilst Paganism is primitive and the work of the Devil. To even consider that they could be parts of the same tradition has been simply unthinkable. Therefore, although the true origins of Christianity have been obvious all along, few have been able to see them, because to do so requires a radical break with the conditioning of our culture. Our contribution has been to dare to think the unthinkable and to present our conclusions in a popular book rather than some dry academic tome. This is certainly not the last word on this complex subject, but we hope it may be a significant call for a complete reappraisal of the origins of Christianity. THE PAGAN MYSTERIES In Greek tragedies the chorus reveals the fate of the protagonists before the play begins. Sometimes it is easier to understand the journey if one is already aware of the destination and the terrain to be covered. Before diving deeper into detail, therefore, we would like to retrace our process of discovery and so provide a brief overview of the book. We had shared an obsession with world mysticism all our lives which recently had led us to explore spirituality in the ancient world. Popular understanding inevtitably lags a long way behind the cutting edge of scholarly research and, like most people, we initially had an inaccurate and out-dated view of Paganism. We had been taught to imagine a primitive superstition which indulged in idol worship and bloody sacrifice, and dry philosophers wearing togas stumbling blindly towards what we today call 'science.' We were familiar with various Greek myths which showed the partisan and capricious nature of the Olympian gods and goddesses. All in all, Paganism seemed primitive and fundamentally alien. After many years of study, however, our understanding has been transformed. Pagan spirituality was actually the sophisticated product of a highly developed culture. The state religions, such as the Greek worship of the Olympian gods, were little more than outer pomp and ceremony. The real spirituality of the people expressed itself through the vibrant and mystical 'Mystery religions.' At first underground and heretical movements, these Mysteries spread and flourished throughout the ancient Mediterranean, inspiring the greatest minds of the Pagan world, who regarded them as the very source of civilization. Each Mystery tradition had exoteric Outer Mysteries, consisting of myths which were common knowledge and rituals which were open to anyone who wanted to participate. There were also esoteric Inner Mysteries, which were a sacred secret only known to those who had undergone a powerful process of initiation. Initiates of the Inner Mysteries had the mystical meaning of the rituals and myths of the Outer Mysteries revealed to them, a process which brought about personal transformation and spiritual enlightenment. The philosophers of the ancient world were the spiritual masters of the Inner Mysteries. They were mystics and miracle-workers, more comparable to Hindu gurus than dusty academics. The great Greek philosopher Pythagoras, for example, is remembered today for his mathematical theorem, but few people picture him as he actually was a flamboyant sage who was believed to be able to miraculously still the winds and raise the dead. At the heart of the Mysteries were myths concerning a dying and resurrecting godman, who was known by many different names. In Egyp he was Osiris, in Greece Dionysus, in Asia Minor Attis, in Syria Adonis, in Italy Bacchus, in Persia Mithras. Fundamentally all these godmen are the same mythical being. As was the practice from as early as the third century BCE, in this book we will use the combined name "Osiris-Dionysus" to denote his universal and composite nature, and his particular names when referring to a specific Mystery tradition. From the fifth century BCE philosophers such as Xenophanes and Empedocles had ridiculed taking the stories of the gods and goddesses literally. They viewed them as allegories of human spiritual experience. The myths of Osiris-Dionysus should not be understood as just intriguing tales, therefore, but as a symbolic language which encodes the mystical teachings of the Inner Mysteries. Because of this, although the details were developed and adapted over time by different cultures, the myth of Osiris-Dionysus has remained essentially the same. The various myths of the different godmen of the Mysteries share what the great mythologist Joseph Campbell called 'the same anatomy', just as every human is physically unique yet it is possible to talk of the general anatomy of the human body, so with these different myths it is possible to see both their uniqueness and fundamental sameness. A helpful comparison may be the relationship between Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Bernstein's West Side Story. One is a sixteenth-century English tragedy about wealthy Italian families, whilst the other is a twentieth-century American musical about street gangs. On the face of it they look very different, yet they are essentially the same story. Similarly, the tales told about the godmen of the Pagan Mysteries are essentially the same, although they take different forms. The more we studied the various versions of the myth of Osiris-Dionysus, the more it became obvious that the story of Jesus had all the characteristics of this perennial tale. Event by event, we found we were able to construct Jesus' supposed biography from mythic motifs previousl3 relating to Osiris-Dionysus: - Osiris-Dionysus is God made flesh, the saviour and 'Son of God'. - His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin. - He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on 25 December before three shepherds. - He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites ot baptism. - He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony. - He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honour him. - He dies at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. - After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory. - His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days. - His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine which symbolize his body and blood. These are just some of the motifs shared between the tales of Osiris-Dionysus and the 'biography' of Jesus. Why are these remarkable similarities not common knowledge? Because, as we were to discover later, the early Roman Church did everything in its power to prevent us perceiving them. It systematically destroyed Pagan sacred literature in a brutal programme of eradicating the Mysteries -- a task it performed so completely that today Paganism is regarded as a 'dead' religion. Although surprising to us now, to writers of the first few centuries CE these similarities between the new Christian religion and the ancient Mysteries were extremely obvious. Pagan critics of Christianity, such as the satirist Celsus, complained that this recent religion was nothing more than a pale reflection of their own ancient teachings. Early 'Church fathers,' such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Irenaeus, were understandably disturbed and resorted to the desperate claim that these similarities were the result of 'diabolical mimicry.' Using one of the most absurd arguments ever advanced, they accused the Devil of 'plagiarism by anticipation,' of deviously copying the true story of Jesus before it had actually happened in an attempt to mislead the gullible! These Church fathers struck us as no less devious than the Devil they hoped to incriminate. Other Christian commentators have claimed that the myths of the Mysteries were like pre-echoes of the literal coming of Jesus, somewhat like premonitions or prophecies. This is a more generous version of the'diabolical mimicry' theory, but seemed no less ridiculous to us. There was nothing other than cultural prejudice to make us see the Jesus story as the literal culmination of its many mythical precursors. Viewed impartially, it appeared to be just another version of the same basic story. The obvious explanation is that as early Christianity became the dominant power in the previously Pagan world, popular motifs from Pagan mythology became grafted onto the biography of Jesus. This is a possibility that is even put forward by many Christian theologians. The virgin birth, for example, is often regarded as an extraneous later addition that should not be understood literally. Such motifs were 'borrowed' from Paganism in the same way that Pagan festivals were adopted as Christian saints' days. This theory is common amongst those who go looking for the 'real' Jesus hidden under the weight of accumulated mythological debris. Attractive as it appears at first, to us this explanarion seemed inadequate.We had collated such a comprehensive body of similarities that there remained hardly any significant elements in the biography of Jesus that we did not find prefigured by the Mysteries. On top of this, we discovered that even Jesus' teachings were not original, but had been anticipated by the Pagan sages! If there was a 'real' Jesus somewhere underneath all this, we would have to acknowledge that we could know absolutely nothing about him, for all that remained for us was later Pagan accretions! Such a position seemed absurd. Surely there was a more elegant solution to this conundrum. THE GNOSTICS Whilst we were puzzling over these discoveries, we began to question the received picture of the early Church and have a look at the evidence for ourselves. We discovered that far from being the united congregation of saints and martyrs that traditiona! history would have us believe, the early Christian community was actually made up of a whole spectrum of different groups. These can be broadly categorized into two different schools. On the one hand there were those we will call 'Literalists', because what defines them is that they take the Jesus story as a literal account of historical events. It was this school of Christianity that was adopted by the Roman Empire in the fourth century CE, becoming Roman Catholicism and all its subsequent offshoots. On the other hand, however, there were also radically diffejent Christians known as 'Gnostics.' These forgotten Christians were later persecuted out of existence by the Literalist Roman Church with such thoroughness that until recently we knew little about them except through the writings of their detractors. Only a handful of original Gnostic texts survived, none of which were published before the nineteenth century. This situation changed dramatically, however, with a remarkable discovery in 1945 when an Arab peasant stumbled upon a whole library of Gnostic gospels hidden in a cave near Nag Hammadi in Egypt. This gave scholars access to many texts which were in wide circulation amongst early Christians, but which were deliberately excluded from the canon of the New Testament -- gospels attributed to Thomas and Philip, texts recording the acts of Peter and the 12 disciples, apocalypses attributed to Paul and James, and so on. It seemed to us extraordinary that a whole library of early Christian documents could be discovered, containing what purport to be the teachings of Christ and his disciples, and yet so few modem followers of Jesus should even know of their existence. Why hasn't every Christian rushed out to read these newly discovered words of the Master? What keeps them confined to the small number of gospels selected for inclusion in the New Testament? It seems that even though 2,000 years have passed since the Gnostics were purged, during which time the Roman Church has split into Protestantism and thousands of other alternative groups, the Gnostics are still not regarded as a legitimate voice of Christianity. Those who do explore the Gnostic gospels discover a form of Christianity quite alien to the religion with which they are familiar. We found ourselves studying strange esoteric tracts with titles such as Hypostasis of the Archons and The Thought of Norea. It felt as if we were in an episode of Star Trek -- and in a way we were. The Gnostics truly were 'psychonauts' who boldly explored the final frontiers of inner space, searching for the origins and meaning of life. These people were mystics and creative free-thinkers. It was obvious to us why they were so hated by the bishops of the Literalist Church hierarchy. To Literalists, the Gnostics were dangerous heretics. In volumes of anti-Gnostic works -- an unintentional testimony to the power and influence of Gnosticism within early Christianity -- they painted them as Christians who had 'gone native.' They claimed they had become contaminated by the Paganism that surrounded them and had abandoned the purity of the true faith. The Gnostics, on the other hand, saw themselves as the authentic Christian tradition and the orthodox bishops as an 'imitation church.' They claimed to know the secret Inner Mysteries of Christianity which the Literslists did not possess. As we explored the beliefs and practices of the Gnostics we became convinced that the Literalists had at least been right about one thing: the Gnostics were little different from Pagans. Like the philosophers of the Pagan Mysteries, they believed in reincarnation, honoured the goddess Sophia, and were immersed in the mystical Greek philosophy of Plato. 'Gnostics' means 'Knowers', a name they acquired because, like the initiates of the Pagan Mysteries, they believed that their secret teachings had the power to impart 'Gnosis' -- direct experiential 'Knowledge of God.' Just as the goal of a Pagan initiate was to become a god, so for the Gnostics the goal of the Christian initiate was to become a Christ. What particularly struck us was that the Gnostics were not concerned with the historical Jesus. They viewed the Jesus story in the same way that the Pagan philosophers viewed the myths of Osiris-Dionysus -- as an allegory which encoded secret mystical teachings. This insight crystallized for us a remarkable possibility. Perhaps the explanation for the similarities between Pagan myths and the biography of Jesus had been staring us in the face the whole time, but we had been so caught up with traditional ways of thinking that we had been unable to see it. THE JESUS MYSTERIES THESIS The traditional version of history bequeathed to us by the authorities of the Roman Church is that Christianity developed from the teachings of a Jewish Messiah and that Gnosticism was a later deviation. What would happen, we wondered if the picture were reversed and Gnosticism viewed as the authentic Christianity, just as the Gnostics themselves claimed? Could it be that orthodox Christianity was a later deviation from Gnosticism and that Gnosticism was a synthesis of Judaism and the Pagan Mystery religion? This was the beginning of the Jesus Mysteries Thesis. Boldly stated, the picture that emerged for us was as follows. We knew that most ancient Mediterranean cultures had adopted the ancient Mysteries, adapting them to their own national tastes and creating their own version of the myth of the dying and resurrecting godman. Perhaps some of the Jews had likewise adopted the Pagan Mysteries and created their own version of the Mysteries which we now know as Gnosticism. Perhaps initiates of the Jewish Mysteries had adapted the potent symbolism of the Osiris-Dionysus myths into a myth of their own, the hero of which was the Jewish dying and ~surreeting godman Jesus. If this was so, then the Jesus story was not a biography at all but a consciously crafted vehicle for encoded spiritual teachings created by Jewish Gnostics. As in the Pagan Mysteries, initiation into the Inner Mysteries would reveal the myth's allegorical meaning. Perhaps those uninitiated into the Inner Mysteries had mistakenly come to regard the Jesus myth as historical fact and in this way Literalist Christianity had been created. Perhaps the Inner Mysteries of Christianity, which the Gnostics taught but which the Literalists denied existed, revealed that the Jesus story was not a factual account of God's one and only visit to planet Earth, but a mystical teaching story designed to help each one of us become a Christ. The Jesus story does have all the hallmarks of a myth, so could it be that that is exactly what it is? After all, no one has read the newly discovered Gnostic gospels and taken their fantastic stories as literally true; they are readily seen as myths. It is only familiarity and cultural prejudice which prevent us from seeing tlae New Testament gospels in the same light. If those gospels had also been lost to us and only recently discovered, who would read these tales for the first time and believe they were historical accounts of a man born of a virgin, who had walked on water and returned from the dead? Why should we consider the stories of Osiris, Dionysus, Adonis, Attis, Mithras and the other Pagan Mystery saviours as fables, yet come across essentially the same story told in a Jewish context and believe it to be the biography of a carpenter from Bethlehem? We had both been raised as Christians and were surprised to find that, despite years of open-minded spiritual exploration, it still felt somehow dangerous to even dare think such thoughts. Early indoctrination reaches very deep. We were in effect saying that Jesus was a Pagan god and that Christianity was a heretical product of Paganism! It seemed outrageous. Yet this theory explained the similarities between the stories of Osiris-Dionysus and Jesus Christ in a simple and elegant way. They are parts of one developing mythos. The Jesus Mysteries Thesis answered many puzzling questions, yet it also opened up new dilemmas. Isn't there indisputable historical evidence for the existence of Jesus the man? And how could Gnosticism be the original Christianity when St Paul, the earliest Christian we know about, is so vociferously anti-Gnostic? And is it really credible that such an insular and anti-Pagan people as the Jews could have adopted the Pagan Mysteries? And how could it have happened that a consciously created myth came to be believed as history? And if Gnosticism represents genuine Christianity, why was it Literalist Christianity that came to dominate the world as the most influential religion of all time? All of these difficult questions would have to be satisfactorily answered before we could wholeheartedly accept such a radical theory as the Jesus Mysteries Thesis. THE GREAT COVER UP Our new account of the origins of Christianity only seemed improbable because it contradicted the received view. As we pushed further with our research, the traditional picture began to completely unravel all around us. We found ourselves embroiled in a world of schism and power straggles, of forged documents and false identities, of letters that had been edited and added to, and of the wholesale destruction of historical evidence. We focused forensically on the few facts we could be confident of, as if we were detectives on the verge of cracking a sensational 'whodunnit', or perhaps more accurately as if we were uncovering an ancient and unacknowledged miscarriage of justice. For, time and again, when we critically examined what genuine evidence remained, we found that the history of Christianity bqueathed to us by the Roman Church was a gross distortion of the truth. Actually the evidence completely endorsed the Jesus Mysteries Thesis! It was becoming increasingly obvious that we had been deliberately deceived, that the Gnostics were indeed the original Christians, and that their anarchic mysticism had been hijacked by an authoritarian institution which had created from it a dogmatic religion - and then brutally enforced the greatest cover-up in history. One of the major players in this cover-up operation was a character called Eusebius, who, at the beginning of the fourth century, compiled from legends, fabrications and his own imagination the only early history of Christianity that still exists today. All subsequent histories have been forced to base themselves on Eusebins' dubious claims, because there has been little other information to draw on. All those with a different perspective on Christianity were branded as heretics and eradicated. In this way falsehoods compiled in the fourth century have come down to us as established facts. Eusebius was employed by the Roman Emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the state religion of the Empire and gave Literalist Christianity the power it needed to begin the final eradication of Paganism and Gnosticism. Constantine wanted 'one God, one religion' to consolidate his claim of 'one Empire, one Emperor.' He oversaw the creation of the Nicene creed -- the article of faith repeated in churches to this day -- and christians who refused to assent to this creed were banished from the Empire or otherwise silenced. This 'Christian' Emperor then returned home from Nicaea and had his wife suffocated and his son murdered. He deliberately remained unbaptized until his deathbed so that he could continue his atrocities and still receive forgiveness of sins and a guaranteed place in heaven by being baptized at the last moment. Although he had his 'spin doctor' Eusebius compose a suitably obsequious biography for him, he was actually a monster -- just like many Roman Emperors before him. Is it really at all surprising that a 'history' of the origins of Christianity created by an employee in the service of a Roman tyrant should turn out to be a pack of lies? Elaine PageIs, one of the foremost academic authorities on early Christianity, writes: "It is the winners who write history -- their way. No wonder, then, that the traditional accounts of the origins of Christianity first defined the terms (naming themselves "orthodox" and their opponents "heretics"); then they proceeded to demonstrate -- at least to their own satisfaction -- that their triumph was historically inevitable, or, in religious terms, "guided by the Holy Spirit." But the discoveries [of the Gnostic gospels] at Nag Hammadi reopen fundamental questions." History is indeed written by the victors. The creation of an appropriate history has always been part of the arsenal of political manipulation. The Roman Church created a history of the triumph of Literalist Christianity in much the same partisan way that, two millennia later, Hollywood created tales of 'cowboys and Indians' to relate 'how the West was won' not 'how the West was lost.' History is not simply related, it is created. Ideally, the motivation is to explain historical evidence and come to an accurate understanding of how the present has been created by the past. All too often, however, it is simply to glorify and justify the status quo. Such histories conceal as much as they reveal. To dare to question a received history is not easy. It is difficult to believe that something which you have been told is true from childhood could actually be a product of falsification and fantasy. It must have been hard for those Russians brought up on tales of kindly 'Uncle Joe' Stalin to accept that he was actually responsible for the deaths of millions. It must have strained credibility when those opposing his regime claimed that he had in fact murdered many of the heroes of the Russian revolution. It must have seemed ridiculous when they asserted that he had even had the images of his rivals removed from photographs and completely fabricated historical events. Yet all these things are true. It is easy to believe that something must be true because everyone else believes it. But the truth often only comes to light by daring to question the unquestionable, by doubting notions which are so commonly believed that they are taken for granted. The Jesus Mysteries Thesis is the product of such an openness of mind. When it first occurred to us, it seemed absurd and impossible. Now it seems obvious and ordinary. The Vatican was constructed upon the site of an ancient Pagan sanctuary because the new is always built upon the old. In the same way Christianity itself has as its foundations the Pagan spirituality that preceded it. What is more plausible than to posit the gradual evolution of spiritual ideas, with Christianity emerging from the ancient Pagan Mysteries in a seamless historical continuum? It is only because the conventional history has been so widely believed for so long that this idea could be seen as heretical and shocking. RECOVERING MYSTICAL CHRISTIANITY As the final pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, we came across a small picture tucked away in the appendices of an old academic book. It was a drawing of a third-century CE amulet. We have used it as the cover of this book. It shows a crucified figure which most people would immediately recognize as Jesus. Yet the Greek words name the figure 'Orpheus Bacchus,' one of the pseudonyms of Osiris-Dionysus. To the author of the book in which we found the picture, this amulet was an anomaly. Who could it have possibly belonged to? Was it a crucified Pagan deity or some sort of Gnostic synthesis of Paganism and Christianity? Either way it was deeply puzzling. For us, however, this amulet was perfectly understandable. It was an unexpected confirmation of the Jesus Mysteries Thesis. The image could be that of either Jesus or Osiris-Dionysus. To the initiated, these were both names for essentially the same figure. The 'chance' discovery of this amulet made us feel as though the universe itself was encouraging us to make our findings public. In different ways the Jesus Mysteries Thesis has been proposed by mystics and scholars for centuries, but has always ended up being ignored. It now felt like an idea whose moment had come. We did, however, have misgivings about writing this book. We knew that it would inevitably upset certain Christians, something which we had no desire to do. Certainly it has been hard to be constantly surrounded by lies and injustices without experiencing a certain amount of outrage at the negative misrepresentation of the Gnostics, and to have become aware of the great riches of Pagan culture without feeling grief that they were so wantonly destroyed. Yet we do not have some sort of anti-Christian agenda. Far from it. Those who have read our other works will know that our interest is not in further division, but in acknowledging the unity that lies at the heart of all spiritual traditions -- and this present book is no exception. Early Literalist Christians mistakenly believed that the Jesus story was different from other stories of Osiris-Dionysus because Jesus alone had been an historical rather than a mythical figure. This has left Christians feeling that their faith is in opposition to all others -- which it is not. We hope that by understanding its true origins in the ongoing evolution of a universal human spirituality, Christianity may be able to free itself from this self-imposed isolation. Whilst the Jesus Mysteries Thesis clearly rewrites history, we do not see it as undermining the Christian faith, but as suggesting that Christianity is in fact richer than we previously imagined. The Jesus story is a perennial myth with the power to impart the saving Gnosis which can transform each one of us into a Christ, not merely a history of events that happened to someone else 2,000 years ago. Belief in the Jesus story was originally the first step in Christian spirituality -- the Outer Mysteries. Its significance was to be explained by an enlightened teacher when the seeker was spiritually ripe. These Inner Mysteries imparted a mystical Knowledge of God beyond mere belief in dogmas. Although many inspired Christian mystics throughout history have intuitively seen through to this deeper symbolic level of understanding, as a culture we have inherited only the Outer Mysteries of Christianity. We have kept the form, but lost the inner meaning. Our hope is that this book can play some small part in reclaiming the true mystical Christian inheritance. The Pagan Mysteries "Blest is the happy man Who knows the Mysteries the gods ordain, And sanctifies his life, Joins soul with soul in mystic unity, And, by due ritual made pure Enters the ecstasy of mountain solitudes; Who observes the mystic rites Made lawful by the Great Mother; Who crowns his head with ivy, And shakes his wand in worship ot Dionysus." Euripides Paganism is a 'dead' religion -- or more accurately an 'exterminated' religion· It did not simply fade away into oblivion. It was actively suppressed and annihilated, its temples and shrines desecrated and demolished, and its great sacred books thrown onto bonfires. No living lineage has been left to explain its ancient beliefs. So, the Pagan worldview has to be reconstructed from the archaeological evidence and texts that have survived, like some giant metaphysical jigsaw puzzle. 'Pagan' was originally a derogatory term meaning 'country-dweller,' used by Christians to infer that the spirituality of the ancients was some primitive rural superstition. But this is not true. Paganism was the spirituality which inspired the unequalled magnificence of the Giza pyramids, the exquisite architecture of the Parthenon, the legendary sculptures of Phideas, the powerful plays of Euripides and Sophocles, and the sublime philosophy of Socrates and Plato. Pagan civilization built vast libraries to house hundreds of thousands of works of literary and scientific genius. Its natural philosophers speculated that human beings had evolved from animals. Its astronomers knew the Earth was a sphere which, along with the planets, revolves around the sun. They had even estimated its circumference to within one degree of accuracy? The ancient Pagan world sustained a population not matched again in Europe until the eighteenth century. In Greece, Pagan culture gave birth to the concepts of democracy, rational philosophy, public libraries, theatre and the Olympic Games, creating a blueprint for our modern world. What was the spirituality that inspired these momentous cultural achievements? Most people associate Paganism with either rustic witchcraft or the myths of the gods of Olympus as recorded by Hesiod and Homer. Pagan spirituality did indeed embrace both. The country people practised their traditional shamanic nature worship to maintain the fertility of the land and the city authorities propped up formal state religions, such as the worship of the Olympian gods, to maintain the power of the status quo. It was, however, a third, more mystical, expression of the Pagan spirit which inspired the great minds of the ancient world. The thinkers, artists and innovators of antiquity were initiates of various religions known as 'Mysteries.' These remarkable men and women held the Mysteries to be the heart and soul of their culture. The Greek historian Zosimos writes that without the Mysteries "life for the Greeks would be unlivable" for "the sacred Mysteries hold the whole human race together." The eminent Roman statesman Cicero enthuses: "These Mysteries have brought us from rustic savagery to a cultivated and refined civilisation. The rites of the Mysteries are called "initiations" and in truth we have learned trom them the first principles of life. We have gained the understanding not only to live happily but also to die with better hope." Unlike the traditional rituals of the official state religions, which were designed to aid social cohesion, the mysteries were an individualistic form of.spirituality which offered mystical visions and personal enlightenment. Initiates underwent a secret process of initiation which profoundly trans-r formed their state of consciousness. The poet Pindar reveals that an initiate into the Mysteries "knows the end of life and its God-given beginning." Lucius Apuleius, a poet-philosopher, writes of his experience of initiation as a spiritual rebirth which he celebrated as his birthday, an experience for which he felt a "debt of gratitude" that he "could never hope to repay." Plato, the most influential philosopher of all time, relates: "We beheld the beatific visions and were initiated into the Mystery which may be truly called blessed, celebrated by us in a state of innocence. We beheld calm, happy, simple, eternal visions, resplendent in pure light." The great Pagan philosophers were the enlightened masters of the Mysteries. Although they are often portrayed today as dry 'academic' intellectuals, they were actually enigmatic 'gurus.' Empedocles, like his master Pythagoras, was a charismatic miracle-worker. Socrates was an eccentric mystic prone to being suddenly overcome by states of rapture during which his friends would discover him staring off into space for hours. Heraclitus was asked by the citizens of Ephesus to become a lawmaker, but turned the offer down so that he could continue playing with the children in the temple. Anaxagoras shocked ordinary citizens by completely abandoning his farm to fully devote his life to "the higher philosophy." Diogenes owned nothing and lived in a jar at the entrance of a temple. The inspired playwright Euripides wrote his greatest tragedies during solitary retreats in an isolated cave. All of these idiosyncratic sages were steeped in the mysticism of the Mysteries, which they expressed in their philosophy. Olympiodorus, a follower of Plato, tells us that his master paraphrased the Mysteries everywhere. The works of Heraclitus were renowned even in ancient times for being obscure and impenetrable, yet Diogenes explains that they are crystal clear to an initiate of the Mysteries. Of studying Heraclitus he writes: "It is a hard road to follow, filled with darkness and gloom; but if an initiate leads you on the way, it becomes brighter than the radiance of the sun." At the heart of Pagan philosophy is an understanding that all things are One. The Mysteries aimed at awakening within the initiate a sublime experience of this Oneness. Sallustius declares: "Every initiation aims at uniting us with the World and with the Deity." Plotinus describes the initiate transcending his limited sense of himself as a separate ego and experiencing mystical union with God: "As if borne away, or possessed by a god, he attains to solitude in untroubled stillness, nowhere deflected in his being and unbusied with self, utterly at rest and become very rest. He does not converse with a statue or image but with Godhead itself. And this is no object of vision, but another mode of seeing, a detachment from self, a simplification and surrender of self, a yearning for contact, and a stillness and meditation directed towards transformation. Whoever sees himself in this way has attained likeness to God; let him abandon himself and find the end of his journeying ." No wonder the initiate Sopatros poertcally mused, "I came out of the Mystery Hall feeling like a stranger to myself." THE SACRED SPECTACLE AT ELEUSIS What were these ancient Mysteries that could inspire such reverent awe and heartfelt appreciation? The Mystery religion was practised for thousands of years, during which time it spread throughout the ancient worid, taking on many different forms. Some were frenzied and others meditative. Some involved bloody animal sacrifice, while others were presided over by strict vegetarians, At certain moments in history the Mysteries were openly practised by whole populations and were endorsed, or at least tolerated, by the state. At other times they were a small-scale and secretive affair, for fear of persecution by unsympathetic authorities. Central toall of these forms qf the Mysteries, however, was the myth of a dying and resurrecting godman. The Greek Mysteries celebrated at Eleusis in honour of the Great Mother goddess and the godman Dionysus were the most famous of all the Mystery cults. The sanctuary of Eleusis was finally destroyed by bands of fanatical Christian monks in 396 CE, but up until this tragic act of vandalism the Mysteries had been celebrated there for over 11 centuries. At the height of their popularity people were coming from all over the then known world to be initiated: men and women, rich and poor, slaves and emperors -- even a Brahmin priest from India. Each year some 30,000 Athenian citizens embarked on a 30-kilometre barefoot pilgrimage to the sacred site of Eleusis on the coast to celebrate the autumn Mysteries of Dionysus. For days they would have been preparing for this important religious event by fasting, offering sacrifices and undergoing ritual purification. As those about to be initiated danced along the 'Sacred Way' to Eleusis, accompanied by the frenzied beat of cymbals and tambourines, they were accosted by masked men who abused and insulted them, while others beat them with sticks. At the head of the procession was carried the statue of Dionysus himself, leading them ever onward. After ritual naked bathing in the sea and other purification ceremonies the crowd reached the great doors of the Telesterion, a huge purpose-built initiation hall. Only the chosen few who were already initiated or about to be initiated into the secret Mysteries could enter here. What awesome ceremony was held behind these closed doors that touched the great philosophers, artists, statesmen and scientists of the ancient world so deeply? All initiates were sworn to secrecy and held the Mysteries so sacred that they kept this oath. From large numbers of hints and clues, however, we know that they witnessed a sublime theatrical spectacle. They were awed by sounds and dazzled by lights. They were bathed in the blaze of a huge fire and trembled to the nerve-shattering reverberations of a mighty gong. The Hierophant, the high priest of the Mysteries, was quite literally a 'showman' who orchestrated a terrifyingly transformative dramatic reenactment of sacred myth. He himself was dressed as the central character - the godman Dionysus. A modern scholar writes: "A Mystery Religion was thus a divine drama which portrayed before the wondering eyes of the privileged observers the story of the struggles, sufferings, and victory of a patron deity, the travail of nature in which life ultimately triumphs over death, and joy is born of pain. The whole ritual of the Mysteries aimed especially at quickening the emotional life. No means of exciting the emotions was neglected in the passion-play, either by way of inducing careful predispositions or of supplying external stimulus. Tense mental anticipations heightened by a period of abstinence, hushed silences, imposing processions and elaborate pageantry, music loud and violent or soft and enthralling, delirious dances, the drinking of spirituous liquors, physical macerations, alternations of dense darkness and dazzling light, the sight of gorgeous ceremonial vestments, the handling of holy emblems, auto-suggestion and the promptings of the Hierophant -- these and many secrets of emotional exaltation were in vogue." This dramatization of the myth of Dionysus is the origin of tragedy and theatre. But the initiates were not a passive audience. They were participants who shared in the passion of the godman whose death and rebirth symbolically represented the death and spiritual rebirth of each one of them. As a modern authority explains: "Dionysus was the god of the most blessed ecstasy and the most enraptured love. But he was also the persecuted god, the suffering and dying god, and all whom he loved, all who attended him, had to share his tragic fate." By witnessing the awesome tragedy of Dionysus, the initiates at Eleusis shared in his suffering, death and resurrection, and so experienced a spiritual purification known as 'catharsis.' The Mysteries did not offer religious dogmas to simply be believed, but a myth to be entered into. Initiation was not about learning something, but about experiencing an altered state of awareness. Plutarch, a Pagan high priest, confesses that those who had been initiated could produce no proof of the beliefs that they acquired. Aristotle maintains, "It is not necessary for the initiated to learn anything, but to receive impressions and to be put in a certain frame of mind." The philosopher Produs talks of the Mysteries as evoking a "sympathy of the soul with the ritual in a way that is unintelligible to us and divine, so that some of the initiates axe stricken with panic, being filled with divine awe; others assimilate themselves to the holy symbols, leave their own identity, become at home with the gods, affd experience divine possession." Why did the myth enacted by the Mysteries have such a profound effect? ENCODED SECRET TEACHINGS In antiquity the word mythos did not mean something 'untrue't as it does ( for us today. Superficially a myth was an entertaining story, but to the initiated it was a sacred code that contained profound spiritual teachings. Plato comments, "It looks as if those also who established rites of initiation for us were no fools, but that there is a hidden meaning in their teachings." He explains that it is "those who have given their lives to true philosophy" who will grasp the "hidden meaning" encoded in the Mystery myths, and so become completely identified with the godman in an experience of mystical enlightenment. The ancient philosophers were not so foolish as to believe that the Mystery myths were literally true, but wise enough to recognize that they were an easy introduction to the profound mystical philosophy at the heart of the Mysteries. Sallustius writes: "To wish to teach all men the truth of the gods causes the foolish to despise, because they cannot learn, and the good to be slothful, whereas to conceal the truth by myths prevents the former from despising philosophy and compels the latter to study it." It was the role of the priests and philosophers of the Mysteries to decode the hidden depths of spiritual meaning contained within the Mystery myths. Heliodorus, a priest of the Mysteries, explains: "Philosophers and theologians do not disclose the meanings embedded in these stories to laymen but simply give them preliminary instruction in the form of a myth. But those who have reached the higher grades of the Mysteries they initiate into clear knowledge in the privacy of the holy shrine, in the light cast by the blazing torch of truth." The Mysteries were divided into various levels of initiation, which led an initiate step by step through ever deepening levels of understanding. The number of levels of initiation varied in different Mystery traditions, but essentially the initiate was led from the Outer Mysteries, in which the myths were understood superficially as religious stories, to the Inner Mysteries, in which the myths were revealed as spiritual allegories. First the initiate was ritually purified. Then they were taught the secret teachings on a one-to-one basis. The highest stage was when the initiate understood the true meaning of the teachings and finally experienced what Theon of Smyrna calls "friendship and interior communion with God." THE INTERNATIONAL MYSTERIES The Mysteries dominated the Pagan world. No other deity is represented on the monuments of ancient Greece and Italy as much as Dionysus, godman of the Eleusinian Mysteries. He is a deity with many names: Iacchos, Bassareus, Bromios, Euios, Sabazius, Zagreus, Yhyoneus, Lenaios, Eleuthereus, and so the list goes on. But these are just some of his Greek names! The godman is an omnipresent mythic figure throughout the ancient Mediterranean, known in different ways by many cultures. Five centuries before the birth of Christ, the Greek historian Herodotus, known as 'the father of history', discovered this when he travelled to Egypt. On the shores of a sacred lake in the Nile delta he witnessed an enormous festival, held every year, in which the Egyptians performed a dramatic spectacle before "tens of thousands of men and women," representing the death and resurrection of Osiris. Herodotus was an initiate into the Greek Mysteries and recognized that what he calls "the Passion of Osiris" was the very same drama that initiates saw enacted before them at Eleusis as the Passion of Dionysus. The Egyptian myth of Osiris is the primal myth of the Mystery godman and reaches back to prehistory. His story is so ancient that it can be found in pyramid texts written over 4,500 years ago! In travelling to Egypt Herodotus was following in the footsteps of another great Greek. Before 670 BCE Egypt had been a closed country, in the manner of Tibet, or Japan more recently, but in this year she opened her borders and one of the first Greeks who travelled there in search of ancient wisdom was Pythagoras. History remembers Pythagoras as the first 'scientist' of the Western world, but although it is true that he brought back many mathmatical theories to Greece from Egypt, to his contemporaries he would have seemed anything but 'scientific' in the modern sense. A wandering charismatic sage dressed in white robes and crowned with a gold coronet, Pythagoras was part scientist, part priest and part magician. He spent 22 years in the temples of Egypt, becoming an initiate of the ancient Egyptian Mysteries. On returning to Greece he began to preach the wisdom he had learned, performing miracles, raising the dead and giving oracles. Inspired by Pythagoras, his disciples created a Greek Mystery religion modelled on the Egyptian Mysteries. They took the indigenous wine god Dionysus, who was a minor deity all but ignored by Hesiod and Homer, and transformed him into a Greek version of the mighty Egyptian Osiris, godman of the Mysteries. This initiated a religious and cultural revolution that was to transform Athens into the centre of the civilized world. The followers of Pythagoras were models of virtue and learning, regarded as puritans by their neighbours. Strict vegetarians, they preached non-violence towards all living things and shunned the temple cults that practised the sacrifice of animals. This made it impossible for them to participate in the traditional Olympian religion of Athens. Forced to live on the fringes of acceptability, they often organized themselves into communities that shared all possessions in common, leaving them free to devote themselves to their mystical studies of mathematics, music, astronomy and philosophy. Nevertheless, the Mystery religion spread quickly amongst the ordinary people and within a few generations the Egyptian Mysteries of Osiris, now the Mysteries of Dionysus, inspired the glory of Classical Athens. In the same way that Osiris was synthesized by the Greeks with their indigenous god Dionysus to create the Greek Mysteries, other Mediterranean cultures which adopted the Mystery religion also transformed one of their indigenous deities into the dying and resurrecting Mystery godman. So, the deity who was known as Osiris in Egypt and became Dionysus in Greece was called Attis in Asia Minor, Adonis in Syria, Bacchus in Italy, Mithras in Persia, and so on. His forms were many, but essentially he was the same perennial figure, whose collective identity was referred to as Osiris-Dionysus. Because the ancients recognized that all the various Mystery godmen were essentially the same mythic being, elements from different myths and rites were continually combined and recombined to create new forms of the Mysteries. In Alexandria, for example, a charismatic sage called Timotheus consciously fused Osiris and Dionysus to produce a new deity for the city callled Serapis. He also gave an elaborate account of the myth of the Mystery godman Attis. Lucius Apuleius received his initiation into theMysteries from a high priest named after the Persian godman Mithras. Coins were minted with Dionysus represented on one side and Mithras on the other? One modern authority tells us that "possessed by the knowledge of his own secret rites," the initiate of the Mysteries "found no difficulty in conforming to any religion in vogue." Like the Christian religion which superseded it, the Mysteries reached across national boundaries, offering a spirituality which was relevant to all human beings, regardless of their racial origins or social status. Even as early as the fifth century CE philosophers such as Diogenes and Socrates called themselves "cosmopolitans' -- "citizens of the cosmos" -- rather than of any particular country or culture, which is testimony to the international nature of the Mysteries. One modern scholar, commenting on the merging and combining of different mystery traditions, writes: "This went a long way towards weaning the minds of men from the idea of separate gods from the different nations, and towards teaching them that all national and local deities were but different forms of one great Power. But for the rise of Christianity and other religions, there can be little doubt but that the whole of the Graeco-Roman deities would continually have merged into Dionysus." OSIRIS-DIONYSUS AND JESUS CHRIST Osiris-Dionysus had such universal appeal because he was seen as an 'Everyman' figure who symbolically represented each initiate. Through understanding the allegorical myth of the Mystery godman, initiates could become aware that, like Osiris-Dionysus, they were also 'God made flesh.' They too were immortal Spirit trapped within a physical body. Through sharing in the death of Osiris-Dionysus initiates symbolically 'died' to their lower earthly nature. Through sharing in his resurrection they were spiritually reborn and experienced their eternal and divine essence. This was the profound mystical teaching that the myth of Osiris-Dionysus encoded for those initiated into the Inner Mysteries, the truth of which initiates directly experienced for themselves. Writing of the Egyptian Mystery godman Osiris, Sir Wallis Budge, who was keeper of antiquities in the British Museum, explains: "The Egyptians of every period in which they are known to us believed that Osiris was of divine origin, that he suffered death and mutilation at the hands of the power of evil, that after great struggle with these powers he rose again, that he became henceforth the king of the underworld and judge of the dead, and that because he had conquered death the righteous might also conquer death. "He represented to men the idea of a man who was both God and man, and he typified to the Egyptians in all ages the being who by reason of his sufferings and death as a man could sympathise with them in their own sickness and death. The idea of his human personality also satisfied their cravings and yearnings for communion with a being who, though he was partly divine, yet had much in common with themselves. Originally they looked upon Osiris as a man who lived on the earth as they lived, who ate and drank, who suffered a cruel death, who by help of certain gods triumphed over death, and attained unto everlasting life. But what Osiris did they could also do." These are the key motifs that characterize the myths of all the Mystery godmen. What Budge writes of Osiris could equally be said of Dionysus, Attis, Adonis, Mithras and the rest. It also describes the Jewish dying and resurrecting godman Jesus Christ. Like Osiris-Dionysus, he is also God Incarnate and God of the Resurrection. He also promises his followers spiritual rebirth through sharing in his divine Passion. CONCLUSION The Mysteries were clearly an extremely powerful force in the ancient world. Let's review what we've discovered about them: - The Pagan Mysteries inspired the greatest minds of the ancient world. - They were practised in different forms by nearly every culture in the Mediterranean. - They comprised Outer Mysteries which were open to all and secret Inner Mysteries known only to those who had undergone a powerful process of mystical initiation. - At the heart of the Mysteries was the myth of a dying and resurrecting godman - Osiris-Dionysus. - The Inner Mysteries revealed the myths of Osiris-Dionysus to be spiritual allegories encoding spiritual teachings. The question which intrigued us was whether the Mysteries could have somehow influenced and shaped what we have inherited as the "biography" of Jesus? Unlike the various Pagan Mystery godmen, Jesus is traditionally viewed as an historical rather than a mythical figure, literally a man who was an incarnation of God, who suffered, died and resurrected to bring salvation to all humankind. But could these elements of the Jesus story actually be mythical stories inherited from the Pagan Mysteries? We began investigating the myths of Osiris-Dionysus more closely, searching for resemblances with the Jesus story. We were not prepared for the overwhelming number of similarities that we uncovered. Diabolical Mimicry "Having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, the wicked spirits put forward many to be called Sons of God, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things that were said with regard to Christ were merely marvellous tales, like the things that were said by the poets." Justin Martyr Although the remarkable similarities between the myths of Osiris-Dionysus agd the supposed "biography" of Jesus Christ are generally unknown today, in the first few centuries CE they were obvious to Pagans and Christians alike. The Pagan philosopher and satirist Celsus criticized Christians for tryingto pass off the Jesus story as a new revelation when it was actually an inferior imitation of Pagan myths. He asks: "Are these distinctive happenings unique to the Christians -- and if so, how are they unique? Or are ours to be accounted myths and theirs believed? What reasons do the Christians give for the distinctiveness of their beliefs? In truth there is nothing at all unusual about what the Christians believe, except that they believe it to the exclusion of more comprehensive truths about God." The early Christians were painfully aware of such criticisms. How could Pagan myths which predated Christianity by hundreds of years have so much in common with the biography of the one and only saviour Jesus? Desperate to come up with an explanation, the Church fathers resorted to one of the most absurd theories ever advanced. From the time of Justin Martyr in the second century onwards, they declared that the Devil had plagiarized Christianity by anticipation in order to lead people astray? Knowing that the true Son of God was to literally come and walk the Earth, the Devil had copied the story of his life in advance of it happening and created the myths of Osiris-Dionysus. The Church father Tertullian writes of the Devil's "diabolical mimicry" in creating the Mysteries of Mithras: "The devil, whose business is to pervert the truth, mimics the exact circumstances of the Divine Sacraments. He baptises his believers and promises forgiveness of sins from the Sacred Fount, and thereby initiates them into the religion of Mithras. Thus he celebrates the oblation of bread, and brings in the symbol of the resurrection. Let us therefore acknowledge the craftiness of the devil, who copies certain things of those that be Divine." Studying the myths of the Mysteries it becomes obvious why these early Christians resorted to such a desperate explanation. Although no single Pagan myth completely parallels the story of Jesus, the mythic motifs which make up the story of the Jewish godman had already existed for centuries in the various stories told of Osiris-Dionysus and his greatest prophets. Let's make a journey through the 'biography' of Jesus and explore some of these extraordinary similarities. SON OF GOD Despite Christianity's claim that Jesus is the "only begotten Son of God." Osiris-Dionysus, in all his many forms, is also hailed as the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of God, yet equal with the Father. Dionysus is the "Son of Zeus, in his full nature God, most terrible, although most gentle to mankind." Jesus is "Very God of Very God." Dionysus is "Lord God of God born." Jesus is God in human form. St John writes of Jesus as "the Word made flesh." St. Paul explains that "God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh? Dionysus was also known as Bacchus, hence the title of Euripides' play The Bacchae, in which Dionysus is the central character. In this play, Dionysus explains that he has veiled his "Godhead in a mortal shape" in order to make it "manifest to mortal men.. He tells his disciples, "That is why I have changed my immortal form and taken the likeness of man." Like Jesus, in many of his myths the Pagan godman is born of a mortal virgin mother. In Asia Minor, Attis' mother is the virgin Cybele. In Syria, Adonis' virgin mother is called Myrrh. In Alexandria, Aion is born of the virgin Kore. In Greece, Dionysus is born of a mortal virgin Semele who wishes to see Zeus in all his glory and is mysteriously impregnated by one of his bolts of lightning. It was a popular tradition, recorded in the most quoted non-canonical text of early Christianity, that Jesus spent only seven months in Mary's womb. The Pagan historian Diodorus relates that Dionysus' mother Semele likewise was said to have also had only a seven-month pregnancy. Justin Martyr acknowledges the similarities between Jesus' virgin birth and Pagan mythology, writing: "In saying that the Word was born for us without sexual union as Jesus Christ our teacher, we introduce nothing beyond what is said of those called the Sons of Zeus." Nowhere was the myth of the 'Son of God' more developed than in Egypt, the ancient home of the Mysteries. Even the Christian Lactantius acknowledged that the legendary Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus had "arrived in some way at the truth, for on God the Father he had said everything, and on the Son." In Egypt, the Pharaoh had for thousands of years been regarded as an embodiment of the godman Osiris and praised in hymns as the Son of God. As an eminent Egyptologist writes, "Every Pharaoh had to be the Son of God and a human mother in order that he should be the Incarnate God, the Giver of Fertility to his country and people." In many legends the great prophets of Osiris-Dionysus are also portrayed as saviours and sons of God. Pythagoras was said to be the son of Apollo and a mortal woman called Parthenis, whose name derives from the word parthenos, meaning "virgin." Plato was also posthumously believed to be the son of Apollo. Philostratus relates in his biography of Apollonius that the great Pagan sage was regarded as the "Son of Zeus." Empedocles was thought to be a godman and saviour who had come down to this world to help confused souls, becoming "like a madman, calling out to people at the top of his voice and urging them to reject this realm and what is in it and go back to their own original, sublime, and noble word." Mythic motifs from the Mysteries even became associated with Roman Emperors who, for political reasons, cultivated legends about their divine nature which would link them to Osiris-Dionysus. Julius Caesar, who did not himself even believe in personal immortality, was hailed as "God made manifest, the common saviour of human life." His successor, Augustus, was likewise the "saviour of the universal human race." and even the tyrannical Nero is addressed on an altar piece as "God the deliverer for ever." In 40 BCE, drawing on Mystery myths, the Roman poet and initiate Virgil wrote a mystical 'prophesy' that a virgin would give birth to a divine child. In the fourth century CE Literalist Christians would claim that it foretold the coming of ]esus, but at the time this myth was interpreted as referring to Augustus, said to be the "Son of Apollo," preordained to rule the Earth and bring peace and prosperity. In his biography of Augustus, Suetonius offers a cluster of 'signs' that indicated the Emperor's divine nature. One modern authority writes: &am

What is The Vatican policy against the Orthodox Church? GIANTS ACT like giants, hence their undertakings are on a gigantic scale. Years are reckoned by decades, decades by centuries. Geographical areas are made to embrace nations or even continents, while the histories of institutions and of races are seen in perspectives not easily comprehended. Because of this, their actions, being in harmony with their extraordinary magnitude, will escape the notice of individuals unable to size up the vast historical panoramas which, although clearly scrutinizable by retinas of gigantic forms, yet are partly blurred and often wholly invisible to others. The Catholic Church, the greatest surviving giant in the world, is a colossus with no peer in antiquity, experience and above all, in her determination to dominate the human race. To reach such a goal, she will suffer no rivals, tolerate no competitors, put up with no enemies. Giants who, like her, were found roaming in the deep valley of history, she fought with bloody claws and a ruthlessness to shame the Attillas, the Genghis Khans and all the other scourgers of civilization. Many she led to their destruction; others she subjugated for good; some were annihilated, but some resisted and escaped all her guiles. More than one survived, and even fought relentless battles that echoed with sanguinary echoes in the corridors of the centuries and that are still being fought as ferociously as in olden times, now, in the very midst of the twentieth century. Vatican diplomacy is the oldest diplomacy in the world. Most of those it fought were either shrunk to nothing by time or blotted out by history, and to modern ears all its multifarious intrigues would sound as hollow and as unreal as they have become strangely unrelated to the ever-bewildering events of our day. Yet not all the ancient foes of the Vatican have been reduced to mere landmarks of the past. Some have bridged bygone centuries to the present, and one of them, the most formidable of all, the Orthodox Church, a peer to Catholicism in antiquity, is as much a reality in our time as is the Vatican itself. The antagonism of these two ancient colossi has produced the longest diplomatic war in the history of man, which is still being fought as fiercely, as ruthlessly and as unscrupulously as ever. Catholic intrigues against Orthodoxy, since its inception, are uncountable. They fill the annals of the first millennium; and from the beginning of the second, when in 1054 the Orthodox Patriarch, Michael Cerulanius, brought about the final breach between the Eastern and Western Churches, until the fall of Constantinople, they remained paramount in the history of medieval Europe. The goal of this thousand-year war is simple: the destruction or subjugation of the Orthodox Church or its voluntary or forcible integration into the Catholic Church. The unscrupulousness of Vatican diplomacy to reach this objective, prior to and after the fall of Byzantium, is hardly matched by parallel exertions in history, its most blatant intrigues of the period being veritable masterpieces of diplomatic cunning and double-dealing. Councils, religious compromises, political bargaining, secret negotiations with Orthodox patriarchs, pacts with the Byzantine emperors - everything and every device was used at one time or another to put Orthodoxy in fetters. We can mention the pact struck with the last Orthodox emperor of Constantinople, who, to obtain a promise of help in the defense of the Orthodox capital against the gathering Mohammedan armies, pledged to the Vatican the mass conversion of the Orthodox Church. From the smashing of the Orthodox Church's political pillar, the Byzantine empire, in 1453, to the crumbling of its political successor, the Russian Czarist Empire, in 1917, the Vatican-Orthodox relations were characterized by a period of comparative diplomatic lull. This was due to historical factors, the most outstanding of which was that, in the course of the centuries, the center of Orthodoxy had shifted en masse from the Near East to the West, where its former missionary lands became its new home - namely, to Holy Russia. There the Orthodox Church struck deep roots. More than that: as Rome had been the first Rome, Constantinople had been the "second Rome," so now Moscow became the "third Rome." Moscow, Philothey said in the fifteenth century, was the natural successor of Constantinople. Now that Constantinople had fallen, the only Orthodox empire left in the world was the Russian. The Russian nation alone, therefore, henceforward became the true repository of the Orthodox faith. The idea of an Orthodox empire became the Russian's paramount idea. Church and State were integrated, linked by a common messianic purpose. Having found such fertile soil, soon the Orthodox Church regained its old vigor and splendor. As of old, committing its ancient mistake, it identified itself as intimately with the Russian empire as it had previously done with the Byzantine. From about 1721, when Peter the Great, after his Spiritual Regulation, made the Orthodox Church a branch of Czarism, until the Bolshevik Revolution, Caesaro-popism made her invincible against the machinations of the Vatican and almost impregnable to its attack on the religious, diplomatic and political fronts. Her immense strength, however, was her fatal weakness, as the fall of Czarism would automatically entail the fall of the Orthodox Church - which, in fact, occurred in 1917. From then onward the machinations of Vatican diplomacy were resumed with renewed vigor wherever Orthodoxy existed - in the Balkans, in Russia, in Northeast Europe, and, indeed, even in the Near East. Catholic instruments used to hamper, undermine, boycott and subjugate the Orthodox Church have been extremely varied, ranging from converted White Russians to Turkish officers, beginning and ending with diplomatic or political intrigues of all kinds, as can easily be imagined. A typical case occurred after the First World War, when the fortunes of war put the fate of Constantinople in the balance. Immediately following the outbreak of hostilities, Lloyd George, Zaharoff and Premier Venezelos of Greece, signed an agreement by which the Greeks were to get the former Orthodox capital, This provoked a storm of protest from various quarters. The strongest, however, did not come from any Western State, but from the Vatican. The British government, with whom the final decision rested, became the particular target of Papal displeasure. Constantinople should never be ceded to the Orthodox Church, was the Vatican's request. This was tactfully ignored. Thereupon, Catholic diplomacy having looked elsewhere for support, soon found an unexpected ally in an unexpected quarter, a Turkish officer by the name of Kemal, who in no time dispelled Rome's anxiety by a brilliant victory at Smyrna. Kemal's victory precluded any possibility of Greece getting the ancient Orthodox capital. Kemal Ataturk was not slow to perceive that identification of the interests of the young Turkey and of the Vatican could be mutually beneficial, and a tacit but real alliance was unofficially agreed upon. The fruits that it bore were various. They ranged from the heavy punishment and even death of any Turkish soldier found harming Armenian Christians, to the granting of special privileges to the Catholic Church in Turkish territory. But in the eyes of Rome, its paramount result was that the Orthodox Church had been prevented from returning to its ancient seat. As long as an independent Turkish nation existed, Constantinople, by remaining incorporated in it, would never pass to her, The new Turkish republic, therefore, must survive and prosper. Following this strategy, the curious spectacle of the Vatican supporting a Moslem nation ruled by an atheist dictator became a discreet feature of Catholic diplomacy. Kemal Pasha, in gratitude for the unofficial pressure exerted in his favor by Catholic diplomacy in many European quarters, maintained a tacit understanding with the Vatican throughout his tenure of office; an alliance, this, which, although almost unnoticed, yet more than once stultified various conflicting interests in the Middle East. Kemal Ataturk, who had been the instrument of "a great victory for the Pope," as the Osservatore Romano triumphantly put it, commenting upon Kemal's military victory at Smyrna, a decade or so later became the instrument of a second, which symbolically was even more significant. The center of the Orthodox Church since the foundation of the Byzantine Empire of Constantine the Great in A.D, 324 has been the great Church of St. Sophia, which for over a millennium had come to symbolize Orthodoxy perhaps even more than St. Peter's in Rome symbolizes the Mother Church of Catholicism, From St. Sophia the Orthodox Patriarchs ruled almost like Popes of the East, until the fall of Constantinople. After the fall, notwithstanding the shifting of the center of Orthodoxy, St. Sophia continued to be the greatest symbol of Orthodoxy: a link bridging her past with the present, and her present with a future when St. Sophia would become once more the Mother Church of all Orthodox the world over. Such a dream, however, was soon to be shattered, at least for a comparatively short period, when in 1935 Kemal, in one of his boldest steps to modernize Turkey, converted St. Sophia into a museum of Romano-Byzantine-Christian and Ottoman-Muslim art. The humiliation of the center of Orthodoxy could not have been more bitter. A thing worthy of notice is that, prior to Ataturk's decision, the Vatican was informally consulted about any possible objections to St. Sophia's transformation. The Vatican, which thunders so promptly whenever a nation threatens to secularize Catholic schools or churches, not only did not object, but actually tacitly approved and even encouraged Kemal in his scheme. It was thus that, when finally the muezzin, having climbed the minarets of St. Sophia, called in echoing accents to the faithful for the last time and the great building became officially a museum, whereas in the East the Moslems exculpated themselves to Allah for the sacrilege and the Orthodox world heard of the change with a heavy heart, at the Vatican there were smiles. Enigmatic, it is true, but very clear to those who understood the secret code of diplomacy. If the first upheaval created by the First World War had enabled the Vatican to score a significant victory against the Orthodox Church, that same world had unexpectedly opened up a tremendous vista of conquests for Catholic diplomacy by causing the simultaneous thunderous fall of two great empires which until then had partially dominated both the East and the West alike - i.e. the Turkish and the Russian empires. This meant not only the tumbling of two massive political units, but also - and for the Vatican this had an even more significant meaning - the tumbling of the caliphate as the supreme bead of Islam, and of the czar as the supreme head of the Orthodox Church. The downfall of czarism, in addition to being a political event of the first magnitude, spelled the disintegration of the power of the Orthodox Church, centered in the person of the czar. The centralization of political-religions power, by binding both, meant that the downfall of one would spell the downfall of the other. This is precisely what occurred. The Russian Revolution consequently, by sweeping away czarism, swept away also the established Orthodox Church. The latter fell, not only because of her ties with the civil power, but also owing to the intrinsic dead weight which she had grown within herself. The Orthodox Church, in fact, had become a formidable reactionary power in her own right, whose economic tentacles spread to every nook and cranny of Holy Russia, controlling with an iron grip the minds and bodies of its inhabitants. She had over 80,000 churches and chapels and an army of 120,000 priests, supplemented by thousands of monasteries and convents, inhabited by another 100,000 monks and nuns. She controlled enormous wealth in land and buildings, owning 20,000,000 acres of the richest land and, at the time of the outbreak of the revolution, a bank balance of eight billion rubles and an income of about 500,000,000 rubles a year. Her influence was truly enormous and was at the service of the czar, whose absolutism was further advocated by priests who took to politics. Without mentioning the monk Rasputin, the clergy sent to Parliament were of the most reactionary kind. The Third Duma saw forty-five priests, none of whom belonged to the liberal party; the next Duma had forty-eight, forty of whom represented the most reactionary movements. Whenever there were elections, the Orthodox Church supported the czar and preached against any social or political reform. The Bolshevik Revolution, when it came, swept away this formidable tool of reaction as ruthlessly as it did czarism. The immense church property was nationalized, schools were requisitioned, the clergy were brought to political impotence: in short, the separation of Church and State was made a reality, and the Orthodox Church, despoiled of her magnificence, was reduced overnight to the naked poverty of early Christendom. All these portents were followed with sinister fascination by the Roman Curia. When, therefore, in 1917 the Bolsheviks took over, at the Vatican, incredible as it may seem, there was jubilation. If the Bolsheviks were a terrible menace, they were also a blessing in disguise. Had they not pulled down the Orthodox Church, Rome's seemingly immovable rival? Had they not become the instruments for her approaching total disintegration? The Russian Revolution had thus opened for the Vatican an immense field for Catholic conquest. A bold policy might result in what Catholicism had attempted in vain for over one thousand years: the reunion of the Orthodox Church, via a mass conversion of the Russians, in addition to the spiritual incorporation of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, the Polish Orthodox Ukrainians and all the other different Orthodox groups in Eastern Europe - in fact, practically the whole Orthodox world. Orthodox resistance against the soviets found no sympathy whatsoever in Rome. On the contrary, it was welcomed in the hope that, by defying the new atheistic government, the Church would be given a mortal blow and would be wiped out for good. It was while waiting for the Orthodox Church to receive the last blow that would finally bury her, and while the whole of Europe kept repeating, "This Lenin cannot last" - and by Lenin was meant Bolshevik Russia - that the Vatican unobtrusively made the first moves directed at attaining simultaneously its two main goals: acceleration of the stab in the back for what it believed to be an already moribund Orthodox Church, and its grandiose scheme for the mass conversion to Catholicism of the Orthodox millions. Count Sforza, a leading figure in the Italian Foreign Office was approached by Pope Benedict XV, via one of the Popes most intimate confidants, and, under the seal of secrecy, was asked whether he would facilitate the entry of a number of Catholic priests into Russia. "Seeing my surprise," Count Sforza afterward related: Monti (the Pope's confidant) explained, and it was evident that he was repeating the very words of the Pope: "His Holiness thinks that even these crimes and this blood will one day be of service if it is going to be possible, when the wave of irreligion has passed, to attempt a Catholic evangelization in Russia. Orthodoxy no longer has any deep rooted life; its end as the official religion offers possibilities which would never have existed so long as a Czar, Protector of the Church, continued to reign."1 On receiving a favorable reply, on the orders of Benedict XV, "young priests began desperately studying Russian and the history of the Orthodox Church."1 Catholics with Russian experience and Catholic Russians overnight became top counsellors, chief among these being a Russian diplomat who, besides having become converted to Catholicism, had been ordained a Catholic priest: Alexander Evreinow, who was often consulted by the leading figures of the Vatican Secretariat of State. From Rome, Vatican activities spread toward Russia itself. Negotiations between Rome and Moscow continued with varying fortune, the Bolsheviks being seemingly bent on pursuing crafty tactics. Yet at the Vatican the hopes that its patient efforts would eventually be rewarded by the conversion of "a country of 90,000,000 people to the true religion" remained very bright. "The moment has arrived propitious for rapprochement" (between the Vatican and Moscow), --wrote the Osservatore Romano, "inasmuch as the iron circle of Caesaro-popism, which hermetically closed Russian religious life to all Roman influences, has been broken." At this point one question might come to the fore, in view of subsequent events. Surely Vatican diplomacy could not possibly trust the promises of the Bolsheviks? And, if so, why did it go on negotiating? The answer is simple, the transactions were useful as preparatory ground for the eventual grand-scale conversion of Russia after Bolshevik Russia had collapsed. For the key to Vatican diplomacy, then as now, was just this. It must be remembered that at that period expeditionary forces were being dispatched by various Western countries to kill the revolution; indeed, that Catholic Poland had invaded Russian territory, and that anti-Bolshevik armies, encouraged, sponsored and supported by the West, were roaming inside and outside Bolshevik Russia, in attempts to bring about its early downfall. The Chancelleries of Europe were buzzing with plans and counter-plans of all kinds to bring nearer the blessed day. The Vatican, consequently, based its moves on a possibility which at this period was practically a certainty for diplomatic Europe" Actual political conditions [inside Russia] form a grave obstacle; but this obstacle," pontificated again the Osservatore Romano, "has a temporary character." The climax of the Vatican-Bolshevik negotiations was reached in 1922, when the Conference of Genoa offered the most incredible spectacle of the Bolshevik Foreign Minister, Chicherin, and the Pope's representative, the Archbishop of Genoa, toasting one another in public. Vatican diplomacy thought it had scored a triumph, or, at least, was about to score one. Chicherin's "concessions," however, were but an amplification of the basic soviet rule that, as the separation of Church and State was an accomplished fact, there was the amplest scope for any Church zealous of proselytizing. The Vatican, whose scheme remained immense, interpreted this as favorable to itself, and plans for the "Catholicizing of Russia" were put forward. These, however, soon incurred great difficulties, owing to the delaying soviet tactics. But what gave Vatican diplomacy a shock, and its understanding with the soviets a matter of urgency, was that the Bolsheviks, giving a literal interpretation to their constitution, had applied religious freedom with equal impartiality to various Protestant bodies, which had meanwhile made soundings for the Protestant evangelization of the Russians. This was not all. Atheistic and anti-religious organizations of all kinds were also flourishing everywhere, sponsored by the State itself. But, still worse, the moribund Orthodox Church, instead of resignedly giving up the ghost, was still alive - indeed, was giving alarming signs of recovering. The incursion of the Protestants into what the Vatican had envisaged as its exclusive field, but, above all, the ominous recovery of the Orthodox Church, convinced it that time was pressing. Vagueness had to be replaced by concrete action, to force the hand of the soviets. The Vatican changed its tactics. The phase of patient, secretive negotiations was over. That of the diplomatic mailed fist was initiated. This consisted of indirect pressure, via Catholic friendly or allied nations, upon whomsoever Vatican diplomacy decided to attack. A Papal messenger arrived at the Genoa Conference. He bore a missive whose content was simple. It asked the powers not to sign any treaty whatsoever with Bolshevik Russia unless "freedom to practice any religion" was guaranteed. Freedom, the Vatican explained to the soviet representative at this juncture, meant complete freedom "for the Catholic Church." With regard to the other Christian denominations (Protestant and Orthodox), the Vatican would not object to any "restrictive" measures that the soviets might take against their exertions. Previous to this, the Vatican had made sure of the support of some of the countries participating in the Conference by discreetly "briefing" Catholic and anti-communist representatives assembled there. The Vatican's efforts ended in nothing, the Genoa Conference having failed. In 1927 the last semi-direct attempts at agreement between the Vatican and Moscow took place. The Vatican declared its dissatisfaction with "the soviet proposals," and relations with Moscow were broken off for good. Something of paramount importance which, more than anything else, made the Vatican adopt another diplomatic policy had meanwhile occurred. The Orthodox Church, although still stunned by the 1917 blow, had rapidly adapted herself to the changed situation. The separation of Church and State, which the Vatican had reckoned would kill her, had turned out to be a more invigorating factor than her former identification with the government which had caused her downfall. Orthodoxy, in fact, had begun to reorganize itself, and in the religious domain had already almost recovered its former strength. In these conditions, the original grandiose scheme of the Vatican had become obsolete. The policy of conversion was therefore discarded and a new one adopted. This rested upon the forcible overthrow of soviet Russia via military attack. The original plan, based upon the formula that the soviet regime was of a "temporary character," was re-adopted. The various Foreign Offices of the world were still conceiving different schemes for the overthrow of the Bolsheviks. Had these succeeded, the Catholic Church would have penetrated Russia in their wake. It became increasingly evident, however, that to base a whole strategy upon this kind of "intervention" was to pursue an increasingly unrealistic policy. And within a few years, although the plan was once more discreetly dropped, it was nonetheless promptly replaced by another, no less grandiose: the total mobilization of the West against soviet Russia, to be carried out, no longer by direct military intervention, but by an ideological and emotional anti-Bolshevik crusade, preparatory to an eventual physical attack. The scheme soon became a reality, thanks to the timely growth of a most sinister political portent: fascism, whose fundamental policy was war against communism. The Vatican, which had already concluded an alliance with its original founder, supported similar movements everywhere it could, with a view of converting the whole of Europe into a monolithic anti-Bolshevik bloc. Its ultimate objective: a military invasion of Russia. By 1930-31 the West had already been "emotionally roused to war against godless Russia." Only three years afterward, Hitler, having gone into power, began to voice his ambition of acquiring the Ukraine; three more years, and the Anti-Comintem Pact was signed between Nazi Germany and Japan (1936). Russia was being swiftly enclosed in an iron ring, from the West and from the East. Two more years, and the first surrender of Europe to Hitler was made at Munich (1938), when the four powers - two fascist dictatorships, Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, on the one side, and two democracies, England and France, on the other - tried to settle the fate of Europe by sacrificing Czechoslovakia at the altar of appeasement. It was the Vatican which, during this crisis, specifically asked the British Premier, Chamberlain, to exclude Russia from the Conference. This at a time when Great Britain was seeking a pact with Russia, to strengthen her bargaining weight against Hitler. The exclusion proved fatal. Hitler emerged wholly victorious, and the Second World War was made inevitable. In the following year Hitler occupied the whole of Czechoslovakia. During the Finnish War in 1939, Great Britain and France, with the Vatican in the background, instigated the expulsion of soviet Russia from the League of Nations, and, in close cooperation with the Vatican, mobilized world opinion against her, speaking of this campaign as a crusade. Two years later the Vatican's grand strategy bore its fruit. Hitler, backed by the might of a nazified European continent, attacked soviet Russia. The grandiose vistas dreamed of at the fall of the czar were dreamed of once more, to the chanting of hallelujahs in St. Peter's. The Institute Pro Russia, in Rome, which had been languishing for so long, now pulsated with feverish activity,2 and Catholics were urged to renew their devotions to Our Lady of Fatima. Yes, the promise of the Virgin, so curiously in harmony with the Vatican's grand scheme, at long last was coming true. Within a few months, the Nazi armies had reached the outskirts of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad. Soviet Russia was about to be destroyed. The Nazi armies and the Catholic legions fighting by their side, after their initial triumph, were hammered back. And ultimately, to the horror of the Vatican, it was the Russians who entered Berlin and not Hitler who entered Moscow. Vatican diplomacy had received yet another resounding defeat. But even before this had been completed, with its typical suppleness it had already launched yet another anti-Bolshevik, anti-Orthodox grand scheme, in cooperation with a new partner, which was even more powerful than its former Nazi ally - i.e. the United States of America. The new campaign had been launched while the guns of the Second World War were still echoing in the battlefields of both Europe and Asia, and the people of the world were looking forward with a prayer in their hearts to an era of tranquility and peace, As, after the First World War, Vatican diplomacy operated simultaneously a many-branched anti-soviet strategy, so, after the Second, it launched another, no less formidable than the first. The ultimate objective being the same, fundamentally its policy remained the same. In addition to its new main partners, playing the role of Nazi Germany vis-a-vis soviet Russia, new tactical moves directed at implementing it were carefully studied and carried out. These, although seemingly disconnected, in reality were closely knit into an inter-continental pattern embracing the whole world. The principal tactical features of this new strategy took the form of: (a) mobilization of the Catholics of the Near East; (b) mobilization of the Orthodox Church outside Russia; (c) mobilization of Islam; and (d) general intensification and speeding up of the ideological and military mobilization of the West. These four types of political machination were carried out almost simultaneously, with a technique which was greatly different from that used after the First World War, when the Vatican, having failed to carry on its intrigues against the Orthodox Church inside Russia, had shifted its operations against her outside Russia - that is to say, in the Balkans. After the Second World War the Vatican began to mobilize all Catholics in the Near and Middle East. It was thus that, as the various Balkan countries became sealed to Catholic diplomacy, the Vatican became increasingly active outside the Balkans - e.g. with the Chaldean Catholics, mainly centered in Iraq; the Maronites in Lebanon; the Copt-Catholics in Egypt; the Melkites, or Greek Catholics, and others to be found in practically all these territories, as well as in Syria, Trans-Jordan and Palestine. Simultaneously with this, it approached the Orthodox Church outside the communist world with a view to inducing it to side with the Vatican, or, at least, with the Vatican’s political allies in their anti-Russian, anti-communist wars. Unofficial negotiations were initiated, but, owing mainly to Orthodoxy's deep-rooted suspicion of the Vatican, these yielded very little result. Indeed, it looked as though they would prevent any real rapprochement altogether. Vatican diplomacy waited for a while and then resorted to a master move. It sent to the Middle East, no longer Catholic diplomats, but the envoy of the two most powerful men in the West: Mr. Myron Taylor, the representative of the President of the U.S.A., and simultaneously, on this particular mission, representative of the Pope vis-a-vis the Orthodox leaders whom he went to meet. It was thus that, at the beginning of February, 1949, when the cold war against Russia was at its height Myron Taylor arrived in Istanbul, where, in his dual capacity, he met the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagorar. Mr. Taylor put forward concrete plans for the cooperation of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, in the face of the "communist threat to religion," at the same time trying to ascertain the "true" current status of the Orthodox churches in communist-dominated countries, and the ways in which communism might be using these churches to strengthen its position in Eastern Europe and in Near East areas. Having discussed such matters, both with the Orthodox leaders and with the Apostolic delegate in Turkey, Myron Taylor, to make his argument for Orthodox cooperation more convincing, stated in no doubtful terms that the "cooperation" of Orthodoxy was not only wished for by the Vatican but was "wanted" by the U.S.A. The whole point of the Vatican's choice of Myron Taylor, the representative of the American President, to meet the Eastern Orthodox leaders, was to lay emphasis precisely on this. It was the trump card of Vatican diplomacy, so well screened behind the American envoy. For it must be remembered that Greece, where the Orthodox Church was at its strongest, had been saved by America from becoming a communist country only a short while before. Following the end of the Second World War, a bloody civil war between Right and Left devastated Greece for several years. Great Britain poured in troops to reinforce the anti-communist faction. The left, however, owing chiefly to the support of the population, was near to winning, and the U.S.A. had to intervene. Military and financial aid was rushed to the country. The left was defeated. Extreme right-wing forces were installed in power. Throughout the civil war and the British and American intervention, the Orthodox Church played a paramount role. Indeed, at one time the Greek Orthodox Patriarch became head of the Greek government. The Orthodox Church, having identified itself with the right and with the American interventionists, consequently had the support of the Greek government, sponsored by the U.S.A. Withdrawal of American protection would have meant the fall of the right-wing Greek government, in which case the fate of the Greek Orthodox Church would have been precisely a repetition in miniature of the fate of the Russian Orthodox Church on the fall of the czar. The dispatch of the American envoy as the Vatican's representative, with his emphasis on the American desire to see the cooperation of the Orthodox Church, was political blackmail of the first order which the Vatican had accomplished by using political, non-Catholic pressure. Precisely one year later the mission bore its first real fruit. In February, 1950, His Beatitude the Patriarch Cristoforos of Alexandria arrived in Athens to prepare with Archbishop Spiridon, head of the Orthodox Church in Greece, for an event of the greatest significance: the summoning of a Pan-Orthodox Synod. The new Synod, once translated into less directly theological terms, meant a political council of the Orthodox churches to keep step with the anti-communist war of their protector, the U.S.A. The Orthodox Church within the communist region countered soon afterward, when Patriarch Alexei of Moscow "extended" the Russian Church's jurisdiction to include Hungary (March, 1950). This was followed by a counter-blow from the Russian Orthodox Church in the United States, which announced that it had officially broken all ties with the Orthodox Church of Moscow. Metropolitan Bishop Krimowicz, of Springfleld, Mass., was appointed Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in the United States, and Metropolitan Bishop Jaroshevich Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in foreign countries (October, 1950). In December, 1951, Metropolitan Leonty, the Orthodox Church's U.S. Primate, and the Bishops of Alaska and San Francisco, invested a one-time officer of the czarist army as the first Orthodox Bishop of Washington. 3 Moves and counter-moves followed one another in quick succession in the years that followed, until the bridges were totally burnt on either side. The Orthodox Church had been split asunder, one part, the larger, in soviet Russia, the center of the communist world, the other in the U.S.A., the center of Western capitalism. Division means weakness. The Vatican had maneuvered its opponent where it had planned to maneuver it, in readiness for reducing further its unity and thus bringing nearer its ultimate downfall. Simultaneously with these moves, Vatican diplomacy was busy setting in motion one of the greatest religious-political forces in the world, Islam. Islam, the historic enemy of Christianity, had always loomed large in Vatican diplomacy's plans against the Orthodox Church. Cautious unofficial exchanges between the Vatican and various Arab countries, particularly the most influential Islamic country in the Middle East, Egypt, were begun in the years that followed the Second World War. These bore exceptional results. In 1946 an Arab delegation, composed of Christians and Moslems, paid an official visit to the Pope, and in 1947 the Moslem East made its first official approach to the Vatican. Egypt exchanged representatives with the Pope, and sent to Rome a Minister Plenipotentiary. Other Moslem countries - e.g. Syria, Lebanon, Iran - followed Egypt's example, and soon even those Moslem lands which had not yet officially exchanged diplomats were unofficially in close touch with Rome. The Vatican’s mobilization of the Islamic world culminated in 1950, when the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Salah ed Din, disclosed that Egypt and the Vatican had been conducting secret negotiations and had agreed upon the establishment of a "united Roman Catholic-Moslem front against communism." 4 The following year, Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, went to Rome for a whole week, where he saw the Pope and other Vatican dignitaries: "The time has come for us to collaborate loyally, both as a nation and a religious entity, in the rebirth of a common patrimony," he declared, speaking on Radio Rome, "and in . . . the creation of a united front between Islam and Christianity against communism." 5 The foundations of a Catholic-Islamic partnership had been skillfully laid by Vatican diplomacy. From then onward, particularly during 1951-52, and in spite of many vicissitudes, it continued to be solidified, to the present day. Islam is a potentially formidable religious-political unit. Whoever succeeds in exerting even a partial influence upon it will wield a power capable of provoking political and social repercussions in many strategically important parts of the world. From Spanish and French Morocco to Egypt, Persia, Pakistan, Indonesia, indeed, to within the very soviet Union itself, housing 25,000,000 Moslems, as well as within communist China, housing another 50,000,000. The potentialities of the Moslem world as a formidable anticommunist, anti-Russian, religious-political instrument, did not escape the attention of another anti-communist power, the U.S.A. The American mobilization of the Islamic countries had been initiated by Roosevelt himself, who, just before his death (1945), had envisaged meeting Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, King Farouk of Egypt and others, for the amalgamation of the Near and Middle East into the framework of American global foreign policy. Since then, Vatican-American interests ran ever closer, until, within a few brief years, they were transformed into a veritable Vatican American alliance. The material might of the U.S.A. and the spiritual power of the Catholic Church, by mobilizing the religious influence of Islam and the political energies of the Arab world, had encircled soviet Russia in a religious-political iron ring, the precursor of a military one. It's objective: for the U.S.A., the destruction of a mighty ideological and economic.enemy; for the Catholic Church, the destruction, not only of communism, but of soviet Russia, the new protector of her religious rival, the Orthodox Church. In bygone centuries the Vatican schemed stubbornly and tirelessly with the Turkish Empire, with the Austrian Empire, with Moslem, Buddhist and other potentates, to bring about the downfall of czarist Russia, so as to weaken the Orthodox Church. In the twentieth century it schemed with equal pertinacity with the Europe which arose after the First World War, with fascism and nazism before and during the Second, in order, by causing the downfall of soviet Russia, to paralyze a regenerated Orthodoxy. After the Second World War it continued in its relentless scheming with the U.S.A., with a "dollarized" Europe, with the Arab nations and other Asiatic countries, to annihilate the U.S.S.R., in order, once again, to subjugate its Orthodox rival. Following the changed political world habitat, the Vatican renewed its attempts by wooing the Orthodox Church with plans of "Dialogues," initiated by Pope John XXIII - a policy of blandishment instead of the old one of intrigues. The new policy soon yielded unusual dividends. Relics were returned, e.g. the skull of St. Andrew, which had rested in St. Peter's, Rome, since 1462, sent back in 1964 by Pope Paul VI, to its original place, Patras, following the request by the Orthodox Metropolitan of Patras to Pope John XXIII the previous year. Cordial relations with the traditionally morose orthodoxy were established. With the result that even the world's largest orthodox body, the Patriarchate of Moscow, finally agreed to convoke a Pan Orthodox Conference to discuss "a dialogue" on equal terms with Rome. This was preceded by an unique meeting: that of Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople with Pope Paul VI in Jerusalem (January 1964), followed in 1965 by the elevation of several Cardinals of the oriental churches in communion with Rome. That same year the 14 orthodox churches participating in the Pan-Orthodox Conference at Rhodes sent a delegation to Rome, to establish the first formal contact with the Vatican since one of the last Union attempts in 1439. The "dialogue" continued after the Second Vatican Council was over. And, although formal progress was made, the profound rivalry between the two Churches remained. The Orthodox Church's main basic fear of ultimate absorption by Rome being still the major obstacle bedeviling their relationship. Catholic scheming, it should never be forgotten, has for its ultimate objective, not only the annihilation of an ideological enemy, represented by soviet Russia, but also the annihilation of a religious foe, which the Catholic Church is more determined than ever to reduce to total subjugation and, indeed, to wipe from the face of the earth: the ever-resurgent Orthodox Church, the millenarian enemy she has sworn either wholly to absorb or wholly to demolish and destroy.

Is Islam - A Religion of Terror ? A bomb goes off in a marketplace in Jerusalem. A suicide bomber launches himself into a bus full of women and children in Tel Aviv. Foreign tourists get massacred at a holiday resort in Luxor, Egypt. Villages upon villages get annihilated in Algeria. The list of events worldwide which have come to symbolise the 'Islamic terror' are endless. From the times in the 70's and 80's when Pan Am and TWA aeroplanes would be highjacked, to the mid 80's in war torn Lebanon where Americans and Europeans would be held as hostages for years; all such incidents have come to be identified with the religion of Islam. Such incidents from past and present have undoubtedly affected Muslims worldwide and more so in the West. Any Muslim, who wants to practice his/her religion and expresses the pious desire to live under the banner of Islam, is labelled a fundamentalist or extremist. Any Muslim man who walks down a busy street in London or Paris (and Paris moreso) with a beard and a scarf on his head, is looked upon as being a terrorist who's probably got an AK47 stashed somewhere on his person. Muslim women who are veiled can't go anywhere in the Western world without being taunted as being oppressed or being mad (for covering up). However, are such beliefs and opinions about Islam really justified? Exploding the myth One of the many short comings which has arisen in the West, is judging Islam by the conduct of a minority of its people. By doing this, segments of Western society have deliberately played off the desperate actions of many Muslims, and have given it the name of Islam. Such behaviour is clearly not objective and seeks to distort the reality of Islam. For if such a thing was done - judge a religion by the conduct of its people - then we too could say that all Christianity is about is child molesting and homosexuality [1] whilst Hinduism was all about looting and breaking up mosques [2]. Generalising in such a manner is not seen as being objective, yet we find that the Western world is foremost in propagating this outlook on Islam. So what is the reality of Islam? How does one dispel the myths which have been created and spread so viciously? The only way to examine Islam is to simply examine its belief system. Look at its sources, the Qur'an and Sunna, and see what they have to say. This is the way to find the truth about what Islam says about terror, terrorism and terrorists. One who is sincerely searching for the truth, will do it no other way. The very name Islam comes from the Arabic root word 'salama' which means peace. Islam is a religion which is based upon achieving peace through the submission to the will of Allah. Thus, by this very simple linguistic definition, one can ascertain as to what the nature of this religion is. If such a religion is based on the notion of peace, then how is it that so many acts done by its adherents are contrary to peace? The answer is simple. Such actions, if not sanctioned by the religion, have no place with it. They are not Islamic and should not be thought of as Islamic. Jihad The word jihad sends shivers down the spines of many Westerners. They readily equate this term with violence and oppression. However, it must be said that the meaning of jihad, as a 'holy war', is something which is totally foreign and not from Islam. If anything, such a description belongs more so to Christianity and its adherents. It was terms like this which were used to justify the slaughter and pillage of towns and cities during the crusades by the Christians. By simply looking into the sources of Islam, one is able to know that the true meaning of jihad is to strive/make effort in the way of Allah. Thus striving in the way of Allah can be both peaceful and physical. The Prophet Muhammed (saws) said: "The best jihad is (by) the one who strives against his own self for Allah, The Mighty and Majestic" [3] In the Qur'an, Allah also says: "So obey not the disbelievers, but make a great jihad (effort) against them (by preaching) with it (the Qur'an)" (Surah Al-Furqan 25:52) By controlling and fighting against ones desires, the Muslims can then also physically exert themselves in the path of Allah. It is this physical or combative jihad which receives so much criticism. Because of the sheer ignorance of this type of jihad Islam is regarded as terror, and Muslims are regarded as terrorists. However, the very purpose of this physical jihad is to raise the word of Allah uppermost. By doing this, it liberates and emancipates all those who are crying out for freedom all over the world. If the likes of the pacifists of this world had their way, then the world would indeed be full of anarchy and mischief. The combative jihad seeks to correct this as Allah says in the Qur'an: "And if Allah did not check one set of people by means of another, the Earth would be full of mischief. But Allah is full of bounty to the worlds" (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:251) Such would be the corruption on this Earth if there had never been a combative jihad that Allah says: "For had it not been that Allah checks one set of people by means of another, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, wherein the name of Allah is mentioned much, would surely have been pulled down. Indeed Allah will help those who help His (cause). Truly Allah is All strong, All mighty" (Surah Al-Hajj 22:40) This combative jihad being both defensive and offensive, is something which is commanded by Allah upon the Muslims. Through this command the oppressed and weak are rescued from the tyranny of the world: "And what is the matter with you that you do not fight in the cause of Allah and for those weak, ill treated and oppressed among men, women and children whose only cry is; 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors and raise for us from you one who will protect and raise for us from you one who will help" (Surah An-Nisa 4:75) Anyone who knows the early history of Islam, will know that all those nations and empires which came under the fold of Islam were indeed previously oppressed. When the companions of the Prophet Muhammed (saws) went out for the offensive jihad against the Egyptians, the Persians and the Romans, we find that the people did not resist against them at all. Rather, they accepted Islam on such a scale, that it is inconceivable that the jihad of Islam could be anything other then a liberation for these people; a liberation from centuries of tyranny. In fact, with the Byzantine Egyptians and the people of Spain, the Muslims were even beckoned to come and liberate these lands from the oppression of their kings. This is the glorious track record of the Muslim jihad. Compare this with the brutal track record of warfare in the Western world over the centuries. From the crusades against the Muslims to the days of colonial warfare, the Western world has killed, destroyed and plundered everything which has come in its way. Even today this merciless killing goes on by the Western nations. While claiming to be about world peace and security, Western nations are ready to bomb innocent civilians at the drop of a hat. The classic example of this is the recent bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan. Whilst claiming that Sudan and Afghanistan were havens for Islamic terrorists, the bombings of these two nations could not have come at a better time for the American president Bill Clinton. The destruction of innocent lives which were a result of these bombings clearly seem to have been an attempt by Clinton to avert attention away from his sexual misdemeanours; [4] something which he so often gets caught up in. Without doubt this was the reason for such terror from the American military upon innocent people. This is the same American military which claims to enter the worlds trouble spots under the guise of being peace keepers. But "… when it is said to them; 'Make not mischief on the Earth', they say; 'We are only peace makers'. Indeed they are the ones who make mischief, but they perceive it not" (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:11-12) The hypocrisy of the West is indeed astounding. By looking at the rules and regulations of this combative jihad it will be clear to any sincere person that this is indeed the religion of truth. When fighting an unjust enemy, no matter how unjust they are, it is forbidden by Islam that their retreating forces are mutilated, tortured or slaughtered. The treacherous violation of treaties and carrying out assassinations after a cease fire, are also prohibited. Allah says in the Qur'an: "And fight in the way of Allah those who fight you. But do not transgress the limits. Truly Allah loves not the transgressors" (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:190) Not transgressing the limits means not to kill women and children, for the Messenger of Allah (saws) "forbade the killing of women and children" [5]. Not transgressing the limits means that the elderly, the sick, monks, worshippers and hired labourers are not attacked. Not transgressing the limits means not killing animals wantonly, burning crops and vegetation, polluting waters and destroying homes, monasteries, churches and synagogues: "Allah does not forbid you to deal justly and kindly with those who fought not against you on account of religion, nor drove you out of your homes. Indeed, Allah loves those who deal with equity" (Surah Al-Mumtahinah 60:8) After reading such passages from the Qur'an and knowing about what Islam commands and prohibits in jihad, the rules of warfare are given a new meaning; a meaning of justice. How sad it is then, that whilst Islam is condemned for striking terror into the hearts of the people, the likes of the Serbs, the Indian army in Kashmir and the Israeli soldiers in Palestine are left untarnished for the atrocities they have committed in the name of warfare. So what about suicide bombing, is this too a part of jihad in Allah's path? From what has already been stated above, it can be deduced that this is not from the religion. However, unfortunately many Muslims have taken suicide bombing as being a virtuous act by which one receives reward. This could not be further from the truth. The Prophet (saws) said: "Those who go to extremes are destroyed" [6]. Suicide bombing is undoubtedly an extremity which has reached the ranks of the Muslims. In the rules of warfare, we find no sanction for such an act from the behaviour and words of the Prophet Muhammed (saws) and his companions. Unfortunately, today (some misguided) Muslims believe that such acts are paving the way for an Islamic revival and a return to the rule of Islam's glorious law. However, we fail to bear in mind that the Prophet (saws) said: "Do not be delighted by the action of anyone, until you see how he ends up" [7] So, for example what is the end of a suicide bomber in Palestine?, a leg here, an arm there. Massive retaliation by the Israeli's in the West Bank and Gaza. More Muslims killed and persecuted. How can we be delighted with such an end? What really hammers the final nail in the coffin of this act, is that it is suicide; something which is clearly forbidden in Islam. The Messenger of Allah (saws) said: "He who kills himself with anything, Allah will torment him with that in the fire of Hell" [8] Some are under the misconception that by killing oneself for an Islamic cause, one commits an act which deserves Paradise. Once when a man killed himself, the Prophet (saws) said: "He is a dweller of the Fire". When the people were surprised at this, the Prophet (saws) said: "A person performs the deeds which to the people appears to be the deeds befitting the dweller of Paradise, but he is in fact one of the dwellers of the Fire" [9] The taking of ones life which Allah has given as a trust to the human, is a great sin. Likewise the taking of other lives (which is so often the case with suicide bombing) is also forbidden, as human life is indeed precious: "...If anyone killed a person not in retaliation for murder or to spread mischief in the land, it would be as if he killed the whole of mankind. And (likewise) if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the whole of mankind" (Surah Al-Maaida 5:32) Thus, all other types of extremities such as hostage taking, hijacking and planting bombs in public places, are clearly forbidden in Islam. The Media By going through the teachings of Islam, it is clear that such a religion has only come to benefit mankind - not to destroy it. So why is there so much hatred for this noble religion in the West? The answer is simple, the media. It is the Jewish influenced media of the West which has portrayed Islam to be something that it is not. During the 70's and 80's when the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) were carrying out daring highjacks on the worlds airways, the media in the West portrayed it as being Islamic. When the Shi'ite suicide bombers of the 80's were causing so much havoc in the Lebanon and in the Gulf region, the media in the West portrayed it as a part of Islam. However, it is known by the heads of the media that the likes of the PLO were not an Islamic organisation, and that according to Islam, Shi'ites are outside the fold of Islam [10]. Yet such facts are never portrayed by a media which seeks to cover the truth of this religion. A number of years ago, when the Oklahoma City bomb went off, a headline in one of the newspapers, 'Today' [11], summed up this attitude. With a picture of a fire fighter holding a dead child in his arms, the headline read: "In The Name of Islam" Time has of course proven that this bigoted assumption was incorrect, as Timothy McVeigh, a right wing radical now faces the death penalty for the crime [12]. Likewise the bombs which went off in the Paris metro in 1995, were also blamed on Muslim fanatics. It has now emerged that the Algerian secret service who having routinely bribed many European journalists and MPs, were actually behind it. The desire to throw a veil over Islam is immense by these people: "They intend to put out the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will complete His light even though the disbelievers hate (it)" (Surah As-Saff 61:8) Whilst trying to destroy Islam through this instrument of the media, the Jews clearly try to portray an image of themselves as being the oppressed people. Every year, we are reminded as to how many Jews perished under the Nazis in World War II. We are made to feel sorry for these same people who have gone on to commit so many crimes upon the Palestinian people. Some may say that this is a racist and biased viewpoint. But we say; If this media was not run and orchestrated by the Jews and was truly neutral, then why are Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, two former Israeli prime ministers, not held aloft as being terrorists? Anyone who knows about the history of the Palestinian occupation will tell you that these two men were members of the Stern Gang and Irgun, two notorious Jewish terror groups who killed many innocent people [13]. If this media was truly impartial, then why does it not tell about the extent of the Israeli bombardment and illegal occupation of Southern Lebanon and its people? [14] And if this media really had nothing against the religion of Allah, then why does it not inform the people that every day hundreds are entering the religion of Islam? Such things will never be highlighted in the Western media, simply because to do so would be against their very interests. With such immense pressure against it, it is indeed a blessing from Allah that Islam goes from strength to strength. It continues to grow faster then any other religion in the Western world, conquering the hearts and minds of thousands. All this should not even surprise us though, for Allah has promised us that this religion will prevail: "It is He who has sent His Messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, so that He may make it victorious over all other religions, even though the disbelievers detest it" (Surah As-Saff 61:9) It is a must that humanity comes towards the religion of Islam. Without it, we will continue to slip down the road of inequity and darkness. With it we can establish a society of justice and peace. Religion of terror? ... no. The way forward? ... yes. "There is no compulsion in religion. The right path has indeed become distinct from the wrong. So whoever rejects false worship and believes in Allah, then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that will never break. And Allah is All Hearing, All Knowing" (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:256) Footnotes [1] By using the many cases of child abuse and homosexuality by priests, Such a generalisation about Christianity could be made [2] By using the incident of the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodya, India in December 1992 by Hindu zealots, such generalisations could be made about Hinduism [3] Authentic - Reported by At-Tabaranee [4] Years of sexual liaison with a White House aide, Monica Lewinski, has been proved against Mr Clinton. Since this time, a number of other women have also claimed that they have had affairs with the president. And this is the same man who propagates family values and to whom millions look up to! [5] Reported by Bukhari - Eng. Trans, Vol.4, p. 160, No. 258 [6] Authentic - Reported by Ahmed [7] Authentic - Reported by Ahmed [8] Reported by Muslim - Eng. Trans, Vol. 1, p.62, No.203 [9] Reported by Muslim - Eng. Trans, Vol. 1, p.64, No.206 [10] The beliefs which are contained in the books of the Shi'ites places them outside of the fold of Islam generally. However, upon the individual Shi'ite, the proofs need to be established before one can say that he or she is a disbeliever [11] This newspaper no longer exists [12] It is strange indeed that whilst the Western media criticises Islamic law for being barbaric and harsh, not a word is said about the fact that McVeigh too will be executed just as someone would in an Islamic state [13] These two groups killed Arabs, Jews and the British. They are accredited with the massacre at the village of Deir Yassin, in which many innocent people were butchered [14] Despite the fact that the UN has even made a resolution against Israel for this illegal occupation, no 'democratic peace loving nation' (like the USA!) has bothered to implement it

an anime show like tenchi muyo??? looking for a show that like tenchi muyo can some help me?? 38,341 have donated. You can help Wikipedia change the world! » Donate now! From the fundraising blog – Wikibooks and the Future of Free Education "Probably the best thing modern world has ever achieved." — Frei Klaus [Hide this message] [Show more] Tenchi Muyo! From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Tenchi Muyo! 天地無用! (No Need for Tenchi!) Demographic Shōnen Genre Adventure, fantasy, harem OVA: Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki Director Masaki Kajishima (original creator) Hiroki Hayashi (OVA 1) Kenichi Yatani (OVA 2) Kenichi Yatagai (OVA 2-3) Studio AIC Licensor Geneon (OVA 1 and 2) VAP (OVA 3) Geneon (OVA 1 and 2) FUNimation Entertainment (OVA 3) Episodes 20 Released 25 September 1992 - 14 September 2005 OVA: Tenchi Muyo! Mihoshi Special Director Kazuhiro Ozawa Studio AIC Licensor Geneon Geneon Episodes 1 Released 25 March 1994 TV anime: Tenchi Universe Director Hiroshi Negishi Studio AIC Licensor Geneon Geneon Network TV Tokyo [show]Other networks: Cartoon Network, International Channel (AZN Television) Cartoon Network ABS-CBN Original run 2 April 1995 – 24 December 1995 Episodes 26 TV anime: Tenchi in Tokyo Director Yoshihiro Takamoto Studio AIC Licensor Geneon Geneon Network TV Tokyo [show]Other networks: Cartoon Network, International Channel (AZN Television) Cartoon Network Original run 1 April 1997 – 23 December 1997 Episodes 26 TV anime: Tenchi Muyo! GXP Director Shinichi Watanabe Studio AIC Licensor VAP FUNimation Entertainment Network NTV [show]Other networks: FUNimation Channel Original run 3 April 2002 – 25 September 2002 Episodes 26 Movie: Tenchi Muyo! in Love Director Hiroshi Negishi Studio AIC Licensor Geneon Geneon Released 20 April 1996 16 August 1996 Runtime 95 min. Movie: Tenchi Muyo! Daughter of Darkness Director Satoshi Kimura Studio AIC Licensor Geneon Geneon Released 8 August 1997 31 March 1998 Runtime 60 min. Movie: Tenchi Forever! Director Hiroshi Negishi Studio AIC Licensor Geneon Geneon Released 24 April 1999 10 October 1999 Runtime 95 min. Manga: No Need For Tenchi! Author Hitoshi Okuda Publisher Kadokawa Shoten VIZ Media Chuang Yi Serialized in Comic Dragon Jr VIZ Media Original run 16 December 1994 – 9 June 2000 Volumes 12 Manga: The All-New Tenchi Muyo! Author Hitoshi Okuda Publisher Kadokawa Shoten VIZ Media Serialized in Comic Dragon AGE Original run 26 July 2000 – 9 December 2005 Volumes 10 Related works Magical Girl Pretty Sammy (1995-97) Magical Project S (1996-97) Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure (1999) Sasami: Mahō Shōjo Club (2006) Tenchi Muyo! (天地無用!, Tenchi Muyō!?), is an anime, light novel, and manga series about a boy named Tenchi Masaki and the alien women who loved him. The original series, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, is a six episode OVA (Original Video Animation or Direct-to-Home Video) series; released in Japan in 1992–93. As its popularity grew, it spurred a seventh episode (also known as the Tenchi Special) and the stand alone Mihoshi Special. In 1994-95, the second OVA series was created and released, featuring episodes 8–13. From 2003 to 2005, a third OVA series was released, with episodes 14–19, centering around the three goddesses introduced in the second OVA series. This is then followed by a special twentieth episode which centered around some of the remaining plot threads towards Tenchi's mother, as well as Noike, who was introduced in episode 15. The series can be somewhat confusing too, due to it having several continuities. The Tenchi Muyo franchise has a manga series developed after an animated version was released, when typically the reverse is true. Tenchi Muyo! was one of the early successes for AIC, the animation company behind it, which went on to create El-Hazard, Battle Athletes, Oh My Goddess!, Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure and many other anime series. The main artist for the series is Masaki Kajishima. The name of the manga is a play on words. Tenchi muyō (天地無用, Tenchi muyō?) in Japanese means "This way up", a phrase written, for example, on boxes to show they should not be upturned. 無用 muyō also means "unnecessary", thus with a lead character "Tenchi" this name could also mean "unnecessary Tenchi", more often translated to "No need for Tenchi" (even so far as the episode titles for the first TV series to have the running gag of having the titles start with "No need for...") The name 'Tenchi' also means 'Heaven (or the sky) and Earth' so one could also take the title to mean "No Need for Heaven and Earth." Contents [hide] 1 Canon 1.1 Series 1.1.1 Summary 1.1.2 Tenchi Muyo! OVA series, Kajishima canon 1.1.3 Tenchi Muyo! OVA series, Hasegawa canon 1.1.4 Tenchi Universe, a.k.a. the Negishi canon 1.1.5 Tenchi in Tokyo 1.1.6 Movies 1.2 Manga 1.3 Spin-offs 2 English adaptations distributor history 3 Locations 4 Trivia 5 External links [edit] Canon [edit] Series [edit] Summary The three major series continuities are Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, Tenchi TV/Universe, and Tenchi in Tokyo. The first series, TM!R, is the original OVA (Original Video Animation) which introduces the core characters. Tenchi TV/Universe and Tenchi in Tokyo are spin-offs that utilize the same characters, with the addition of Kiyone Makibi, though the back story is quite different from the original OVAs. The first of the spin-offs was Tenchi Muyo! TV (also known as Tenchi Universe), in 1995; it is a twenty-six episode TV series that retells the original series differently. This anime was one of a few anime to be broadcast on PBS member station KTEH in San Jose, California.[citation needed] [edit] Tenchi Muyo! OVA series, Kajishima canon Main article: Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki The canon accepted by series creator Kajishima is as follows: Animation Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA 1 (episodes 1-6) Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA 1 Special, The Night Before the Carnival (episode 7) Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA 2 (episodes 8-13 + the bonus episode 13.5) Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 3 (episodes 14-19) Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 3 Special (episode 20) Tenchi Muyo! GXP: Galaxy Police Transporter Other Materials Shin Tenchi Muyo! Jurai (novel, tells of Azusa's life from a boy to the events in episode 13) Shin Tenchi Muyo! Yosho (novel, tells of Yosho's life from a boy until he defeats Ryoko on Earth) Shin Tenchi Muyo! Washu (novel, tells of Washu's life from when she was found 20,000 years ago through the loss of her child to politics. The death of her friend Naja is not discussed.) Tenchi Muyo! GXP 01 (novel, novel form of the TV series with very little NB) Tenchi Muyo! GXP 02 (novel, 2006 release) Tenchi Muyo! GXP 03 (novel, 2006 release; contains lots of stuff not seen in the anime) Various dōjinshi from Kajishima Various interviews with Kajishima The book 101 Questions and Answers of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Oh-Ki (also titled 101 Secrets) [edit] Tenchi Muyo! OVA series, Hasegawa canon Naoko Hasegawa, writer of episodes 3 and 5 the first OVA series, uses a different continuity, which includes the following: Animation Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 1 (episodes 1-6) Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki Galaxy Police Mihoshi's Space Adventure (also known as the Mihoshi Special), though except for the framing sequence, much of the story is as an exaggeration by Mihoshi and is not considered canon. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki Manatsu no Eve (Tenchi Muyo! Daughter of Darkness) (movie 2) Other Materials Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki Manatsu no Carnival (radio drama) A series of 13 novels by Hasegawa, including the Manatsu no Eve book upon which the movie was based upon. A few characters from OVA 2 (episodes 8-13.5), such as Tokimi, Emperor Azusa, and Empress Misaki, make appearances in Hasegawa's novels. However, the episodes and events from OVA 2, as well as episode 7, do not take place in Hasegawa's canon. Hasegawa also worked on the TV series, which includes her characters Kiyone and (in the movies) Achika, but the TV series is not considered to be in the same continuity. [edit] Tenchi Universe, a.k.a. the Negishi canon Main article: Tenchi Universe Called the "Negishi canon", after Hiroshi Negishi, the director who was the main creative force behind the series and connecting movies, Tenchi Universe (known as Tenchi Muyo! TV in Japan) has no sentient Jurai trees, Ayeka is not closely related to Katsuhito, and Washu is the person sealed in the cave. Kiyone has a major role in this series. Also, this series has a stronger emphasis on Ryoko, as shown in the show's opening credits and in some episodes, as well as Tenchi Forever. Animation Tenchi Muyo! TV (Tenchi Universe), 26 episodes Tenchi Muyo! in Love (movie 1) Tenchi Muyo! in Love 2: Haruka Naru Omoi (Tenchi Forever!) (movie 3) Other Material A manga, also written by Negishi, was produced as a tie in to TMiL2, though it is uncertain if this manga is part of established Negishi canon: Tenchi Muyo! In Love 2: Eternal Memory (manga) [edit] Tenchi in Tokyo Main article: Tenchi in Tokyo Shin Tenchi Muyo! (known as Tenchi in Tokyo in English), in 1997, is a third version of the story, centered on Tenchi's high school adventures in Tokyo. It is also a twenty-six episode TV series and many of the returning main characters have been portrayed differently with some slight personality changes. Animation Shin Tenchi Muyo! (26 episodes) [edit] Movies There are also three movies: Tenchi Muyo! in Love, Tenchi Muyo! Manatsu no Eve (The Daughter of Darkness) (1997), and Tenchi Muyo! in Love 2: Haruka Naru Omoi (Tenchi Forever!), 1999. Movies 1 and 3 are intended to be in, and match with, the Tenchi Universe continuity. Movie 3 concludes the Tenchi Muyo! TV (Universe) series. The continuity of movie 2 is more complicated. It is written by Naoko Hasegawa, who co-wrote the first OVA series and wrote several Tenchi novels in Japanese; the movie is based on one of her novels. Movie 2 is sometimes believed to be in Tenchi Universe continuity because of the presence of Kiyone and because Ayeka refers to my brother's tree instead of your tree while speaking to Katsuhito. Neither of these are related to Tenchi Universe; Kiyone is present because she originated from Hasegawa's OVA-based novels, and the Ayeka line is a misleading translation. In reality, the movie is an animated version of the Hasegawa novel of the same name, and is part of her continuity. In Japanese, a name or title may be used in some circumstances where English would require a pronoun; saying "brother's tree" to Katsuhito does not mean that her brother is someone other than him. Furthermore, in the Universe series it is never demonstrated that she has a brother. Tenchi Muyo! in Love (1996) Tenchi Muyo! in Love was the first of the Tenchi films, taking place within the Universe timeline. The movie is about how the gang must save Tenchi from utter disappearance by capturing a criminal named Kain, which had traveled back in time to destroy Tenchi's mother, Achika so that Tenchi isn't born to threaten his conquest of Jurai. In order to save Achika and Tenchi, Tenchi and crew travel back in time to the year of 1970 to protect Achika. Tenchi Muyo! Daughter of Darkness (1997) Tenchi the Movie 2: The Daughter of Darkness (Manatsu no Eve) is the second Tenchi movie. The movie is about a girl named Mayuka who appears out of nowhere claiming to be Tenchi's daughter. Ryoko and Ayeka are jealous and/or suspicious, Sasami befriends her, Kiyone and Mihoshi are the same, and Washu suspects something. Mayuka turns out to have been created by the demonic villain Yuzuha, who wanted revenge on Yosho because after befriending Yosho as a child she was banished by Jurai. Tenchi Forever! (1999) Tenchi Forever! (Tenchi Muyo! in Love 2) is a continuation of the first TV series (Tenchi Universe) and sequel to the original film. After a fight between Ryoko and Ayeka, Tenchi runs into the mountains to be seduced by a beautiful woman and disappears. Six months later, he is found with a woman named Haruna and he has forgotten his previous life. [edit] Manga The Tenchi manga consists of two series, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-oh-ki and Shin Tenchi Muyo! (the shin here means new and has no connection to the second television series, Shin Tenchi Muyo) are written by Hitoshi Okuda. They have been released in America as No Need for Tenchi and The All-New Tenchi Muyo!. Unlike most anime/manga combinations, for Tenchi the anime came first, and the manga is considered non-canon. It is based on OVA series 1 and 2. Since the manga originally began in Japan before the release of OVA 2, the OVA 2 elements are not introduced immediately at the beginning. Because the manga is non-canon, new elements introduced in the manga do not carry over to the anime. Manga series released in the US: "No Need for Tenchi" series! (Volumes 1-2, earlier half of volume 3, 4-6, first half of 7, and 8-12.) "No Need for Tenchi: Magical Girl Pretty Sammy" (Later half of Volume 3, based on the "Pretty Sammy" OVAs. Not thought of as part of the manga storyline) "No Need for Tenchi: Tenchi in Love" (Second half of Volume 7, based on the first Tenchi movie. Has characters from the Tenchi Universe timeline. Not thought of as part of the manga storyline) "Tenchi Muyō: Sasami Stories" (A collection or reprint of several of the Sasami related events that happened in the No Need for Tenchi! manga series. However, the book itself is in the new smaller format, and also features bonus comics in the back that were printed over the years. The bonus comics are not thought of as part of the overall manga story.) "The All-New Tenchi Muyō!" (Volumes 1-10; It continues the No Need for Tenchi! manga, but with a smaller page format. Introduces several new characters that weren't in the original manga.) [edit] Spin-offs The first Tenchi spinoff is the Pretty Sammy, the Magical Girl series, a magical girl series where Sasami is the lead character. The first use of Pretty Sammy was in the Tenchi Muyo! Sound File, a Japanese-only music video release. The same animation was used in the ending of the Mihoshi Special. In 1995, a three episode Pretty Sammy OVA series began, where Sasami, who is known as Sasami Kawai, magically becomes Pretty Sammy. The second Pretty Sammy is a TV series (titled in America as Magical Project S), which came out in 1996. This series is a separate continuity from the OVA series. Pretty Sammy also appears in the Mihoshi Special and in an alternate reality sequence in the Tenchi Universe series. The second is Tenchi Muyo! GXP, which was released in Japan in 2001. The series takes place during the Kajishima version of the OVA continuity, and is set a year after the events of the third OVA series despite being released first chronologically. The main character of this twenty-six episode TV series is Seina Yamada, a friend of Tenchi Masaki who accidentally joined the Galaxy Police. Many characters from Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki make appearances in this series, including the use of Seiryo as a major character and a full-fledged Tenchi Muyo! crossover in episode 17. Sasami: Mahou Shoujo Club, currently shown in Japan as 2006, is recognized as the third spin-off with Sasami, known here as Sasami Iwakura, as the main character. The animation style here is saccharine compared to the other titles, but the hold over characters from the franchise (particularly Misao of Pretty Sammy) are still fairly recognizable. Other versions of Tenchi Muyo! are also available as graphic novels, video games and radio dramas. The series Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure is also thought to be related to the Tenchi Muyo universe, due to the blatant use of the "Lighthawk Wings" associated with the Jurai dynasty in Tenchi Muyo. Mecha Jinv from Dual! appear in Tenchi Muyo! GXP, Kiyone, Ramia, and Misao appear in a brief easter egg cameo in the series' OVA special, and there is much speculation concerning the ancient civilization that the character "D" is from. Kajishima has hinted that Dual! does, in fact, relate to Tenchi Muyo!. The creator of both DUAL! and Tenchi Muyo!, Masaki Kajishima, confirmed that DUAL! is in fact an alternate version of the Tenchi Muyo! universe. [edit] English adaptations distributor history The manga is published in English in North America by Viz Communications. In Singapore it is published in English by Chuang Yi as No Need for Tenchi! Pioneer USA (now Geneon Entertainment) has brought out most of the releases in the USA up to 2002. They released the Tenchi OVA series, the Mihoshi Special episode, both of the Tenchi Muyo! television series, and all three of the Tenchi Muyo! movies. Pioneer USA has also distributed the Pretty Sammy spinoff, with both the Pretty Sammy OVAs and Magical Project S TV series. On DVD the Mihoshi Special is released with Pretty Sammy, not with the rest of the Tenchi series. OVA1 and OVA2 were released on DVD in the UK in 2004. A single boxset was released in the UK which includes OVA1, OVA2 and the Mihoshi Special. When first aired in 2000 on Cartoon Network's Toonami in America, Cartoon Network did some editing to the character's lines. The girls (mostly Ryoko) often drink 'tea' throughout the series. However, their 'tea' is often poured and distributed like sake, a Japanese rice wine. Characters often begin to blush, slur their words together, hiccup, and slowly decline in their mannerisms as they chugged down their 'tea.' This was done to prevent backlash from the more conservative American audiences. The delivery of lines from the characters, however, implies that the characters are aware of the double entendre (ex.: "You can't drink THAT kind of 'tea' at school!") In addition to substituting 'tea' for sake, Cartoon Network also digitally painted swimsuits on several female character to cover up nudity during bathhouse scenes, and carried out extensive edits for language and other adult content, including references to sex, masturbation, and 'peeping'. FUNimation Productions licensed the second Tenchi Muyo! spinoff series Tenchi Muyo! GXP for distribution in the United States in 2003, and released it in 2004. FUNimation also licensed the third OVA series and released it on DVD starting July 2005. FUNimation has kept most of the original dub voice cast except for Petrea Burchard, who dubbed Ryoko's voice in the Pioneer/Geneon releases. She is replaced by Mona Marshall in the GXP and OVA 3 series. [edit] Locations Alpha – A planet from the Tenchi Muyo! OVA series, ruins on the planet were attacked by Kagato but otherwise nothing else has been seen or said of it. Balta- an autonomous planet within the Juraian territories, named after and ruled by the Balta family, which were also the rulers of the old Balta pirate guild. Beta – a planet from the Tenchi Muyo! OVA series. The only mention in the series is that several people disappeared in the planet's mystery spot once. Chobimaru – in the Tenchi Muyo! OVA series and GXP, it is a planet-sized spaceship belonging to the Kuramitsu family and operated by the Galaxy Police. Inside it has oceans, plants, and animal life along with the artificial structures. The ship also has firepower capable of destroying an entire planet. Earth - Also known as "Terra", home of the human race-and Tenchi Masaki's house is located here. Galaxy Police Headquarters - A giant space station shaped like an arc. It houses many Galaxy Police officers and acts much like a massive police station. Galaxy Academy - Three massive ring worlds together that are the size of a solar system. Many cultures and races co-inhabit this place, which houses both scientific and military schools as well as many civilian merchant areas. Jurai — The seat of the powerful Juraian Empire, the homeworld of First Princess Ayeka, and the abode of intelligent trees descended from a goddess in the anime Tenchi Muyo!. Raynza Republic - A unknown number of worlds that borders with the Juraien empire's territory, but not with the rest of the Galactic Union. Are now allies with Jurai thanks to a political marriage. Ryuten - One of Jurai's "sister planets" within the No Need For Tenchi! Manga. Aside from being a luxurious planetary resort, Ryuten is the sole proprietor of the giant trees used by Jurai's royal family. Craftspeople of the planet shape and carve the wood for use as prodigious spacecraft, with the master sculptor given the highest seat of authority. Seniwa - Home planet of the Kuramitsu family and one-time rival of Jurai. The two planets once were involved in a bitter Cold War, but have since became close allies. Tolane - A planet administered by the Galactic Science Academy, where Kagato had kidnapped Washu and taken Ryoko and Ryo-Ohki as slaves. Tokimi's Temple- Actually the home realm of the Chousin, this place is a massive area of altered space and time where all three - Tokimi, Washu and Tsunami - resided at one time. The area is made of many worlds with chaotic geometries. [edit] Trivia Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. The creator of Tenchi Muyo!, Masaki Kajishima, named several of the characters after locations in his Okayama Prefecture hometown. [1] Guardians of Order published an English-language role-playing game based on OVA Episodes 1-13. The game, now out of print due to the expiring of the license, was moderately successful but is mainly of interest for combining many of the design elements that would be incorporated a few months later into the second edition of Big Eyes, Small Mouth and for the insights its writers gave on Tenchi's dilemma. The Japanese title logo of Tenchi Muyo! makes a cameo appearance as graffiti in issue 1 of the Mark Waid / Alex Ross graphic novel series Kingdom Come, right after Norman McCay leaves Wesley Dodds's funeral and starts walking through the streets. [edit] External links FUNimation's Official Tenchi Muyo! Site AIC's Official Tenchi Muyo! Site Formerly the Unofficial AIC BBS FAQ and now the Tenchi Muyo! FAQ Tenchi Muyo Another Universe — Very Useful Resource Site covering all of the Tenchi Series, Movies, and Spin-Offs as well as the latest news. It's famous for hosting an expansive family tree, which details the complex relations between all OAV characters. Tenchi in Tokyo — Wiki dedicated to the Tenchi anime series. 101 Tenchi Muyo Facts — Masaki Kajishima himself answers 101 of the most important and frequent fan-submitted questions about his story. h2g2 article on Tenchi Muyo Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia Tenchi Muyo Papercraft Okayama Tenchi Muyō! map [show]v • d • eTenchi Muyo! Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki series Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (1992–2005) • Tenchi Muyo! GXP (2002) Tenchi Universe series Tenchi Universe (1995) • Tenchi Muyo! in Love (1996) • Tenchi Forever! (1999) Pretty Sammy series Magical Girl Pretty Sammy (1995–1997) • Magical Project S (1996–1997) • Sasami: Mahou Shoujo Club (2006) Other series Tenchi Muyo! Mihoshi Special (1994) • Tenchi in Tokyo (1997) • Tenchi Muyo! Daughter of Darkness (1997) Manga No Need For Tenchi! (1994–2000) • The All-New Tenchi Muyo! (2000–2005) People Masaki Kajishima (creator) • Yōsuke Kuroda • Hitoshi Okuda • Sharyn Scott • List of Tenchi Muyo! cast members Studios / Distributors AIC • Pioneer / Geneon • VAP • FUNimation Entertainment [show]v • d • eTenchi Muyo! characters Main Characters Tenchi • Ryoko • Ayeka • Sasami • Mihoshi • Washu • Noike • Kiyone • Ryo-Ohki The Chousin Washu • Tsunami • Tokimi Villains Kagato • Dr. Clay • Z • Yugi • Kain • Yuzuha • Haruna • Seiryo • Tarant • Yakage • Shima Brothers • Yume • Mikamo & Yataka • Garyu • Dark Washu Masaki Family Katsuhito • Nobuyuki • Achika • Tennyo • Airi • Rea Guardians & Royalty of Jurai Azaka & Kamidake • Azusa • Funaho • Misaki • Seto Galaxy Police Mihoshi • Kiyone • Noike • Seina • Amane • Kiriko • Ryoko Balta • Neju • Minami • Misao • Sabato • Mashisu Pretty Sammy Sasami Kawai • Pixy Misa • Ramia • Rumiya • Chief Pretty Sammy characters • Chief Magical Project S characters Others Nagi • Sakuya • Mayuka • Zero • Fuku • Minagi • Hiwa • Asahi • Kazuma • Tama • Chief GXP characters • Gohgei • Ibara • Noike Miscellaneous Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki • Tenchi Universe • Tenchi in Tokyo • Tenchi Muyo! GXP • Pretty Sammy • Sasami: Mahou Shoujo Club Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenchi_Muyo%21" Categories: Anime OVAs | Anime series | Anime films | Manga series | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since October 2007 | Articles with trivia sections from June 2007 | Adventure anime and manga | Anime of the 1990s | Anime of the 2000s | Anime with original screenplays | Fantasy anime and manga | Harem anime and manga | Romance anime and manga | Shōnen | Tenchi Muyo! | Viz Media manga ViewsArticle Discussion Edit this page History Personal toolsSign in / create account Navigation Main Page Contents Featured content Current events Random article interaction About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact Wikipedia Donate to Wikipedia Help Search Toolbox What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Printable version Permanent link Cite this article Languages العربية Deutsch Español Français 日本語 Português Suomi Svenska 中文 This page was last modified 19:45, 9 November 2007. 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The Viewpoints of Islam and Christianity Regarding Allah (God) ?Will this be the end? The distinguishing feature of Islam is its insistence on absolute monotheism and the forbidding of anything, at all, to be associated with God. This includes the refusal of the idea that Jesus (peace be upon him), the Messenger of God, was God. Allah says in the Qur'an: Surely they have disbelieved who say that Allah is the Messiah [Jesus], the son of Mary. But the Messiah said, "O Children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Truly, whoever sets up partners in worship with Allah, then Allah has forbidden Paradise for him, and Fire will be his abode. And for the wrongdoers there are no helpers. Surely, they have disbelieved who say, "Allah is the third of three," for there is no God but Allah Who is one. And if they do not cease what they say, verily, a painful torment will befall the disbelievers among them.... The Messiah, the son of Mary, was nothing other than a messenger; many were the messengers who passed before him. His mother was a woman of truth.... (5:72-75) Muslims believe that neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament had mentioned in any way that Jesus was the son of God. According to a contemporary American scholar, Barbara Brown: The doctrine of divinity states that Jesus is the Son of God, the Word of God made flesh. Even though Jesus himself never claimed to be divine, Paul gave him this attribute for one reason - to gain converts among the Gentiles. The Gentiles were pagans who were used to worshipping gods that had wonderful legends and myths behind them. Several of the pagan deities of the time such as Mithras, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris were all the offspring of a supreme ruling god, and each had died a violent death at a young age, coming back to life a short time later in order to save their people. Paul took this into account, giving the pagans something similar in Christianity. He attributed divinity to Jesus, saying he was the Son of God, the Supreme, and that he too had died for their sins. In doing so, Paul compromised the teaching of Jesus with pagan beliefs in order to make Christianity more acceptable to the Gentiles. The term "son of God" was not something new. However, it had been used in the Old Testament to refer to David (Saul 2:7) and his son Solomon (I Chronicles 22:100) and to refer to Adam (Luke 3:38) in the New Testament. In his famous Sermon on the Mount, detailed in Matthew 5, Jesus tells his listeners, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." In all cases, the term "son of God" was not meant to be applied literally but to signify love and affection from God to the righteous. "Son of God" means a special closeness to God, not to be of God. After all, people are sons of God, and Allah is the creator of all life.[7] Christians who lived during the time of Jesus (peace be upon him) believed that he was the divine messenger to them, bringing them the words of God and guiding them. However, after the ascension of Jesus to heaven, Saint Paul, who was deeply influenced by Roman paganism, wanted his preaching of Christianity to be more appealing to the Gentiles, so he compromised the teachings of Jesus (peace be upon him) by adopting certain pagan ideas and interpolating them into Christianity. Thus, the idea of the trinity spread even though it was not part of the original teachings of Jesus (peace be upon him). 2. Divine Justice ('adl) Anyone who believes in Islamic monotheism must believe in the Almighty's justice. Because Allah is just, He never wrongs His creatures, for injustice is an evil deed while He is far from doing evil. Because He is omniscient, He does not neglect anything, and because He is self-sufficient, He has no cause to wrong others. Since He owns everything, He does not need the actions of anyone. His wisdom also transcends the universe. Thus, unlike some human beings, He has no cause for injustice: "He is always standing firm on justice. There is no God but Him, the Mighty, the Wise." (3:18) "And your Lord does not deal unjustly with anyone." (18:49) "We[8] did not wrong them, but they wronged themselves." (16:118) Just as Allah encourages human beings to emulate some of His attributes, such as being patient and forgiving, He also tells us to follow the way of justice. "Say: 'My Lord has enjoined upon me justice.'" (7:29) Although common people may falter in this area, none of the prophets of God or their successors ever committed any act of injustice. Allah's justice embraces the entire universe. Whoever ponders over the existence of the universe and the order therein will not only observe the spread of Allah's justice over His entire creation but also each of its signs apparent in all aspects of nature -- from the physical world to the biological world, and from the microcosmos to the macrocosmos. The justice of God is particularly visible in the fate and destiny of human beings, and in their freedom of choice. Although Allah's justice encompasses everything, people should pray to Allah to treat them not with His justice but rather with His mercy, for if He treated people solely with His justice and punished them immediately for all of their sins, humanity would have perished a long time ago. Predestination or Free Will? The question of man's predestination or freedom of choice has preoccupied mankind throughout the ages and continues to be discussed by Islamic philosophers and scholars. Ultimately, two schools of thought regarding this question have emerged. One, called the Compulsionists, holds that human beings have no freedom of choice whatsoever in life. Every decision people make, every word people say has been predestined since the time of creation. If someone is faithful, it is not he who decides to embrace the faith; if someone is unfaithful, it is not he who rejects the faith. All has been written. The second school of thought, the Free Will school, declares that human beings are masters of their own acts. This notion is in concordance with the Qur'an, which states: "None will be wronged in anything, nor will you be requited anything except that which you used to do," (36:54) as well as: "The truth is from your Lord. So whomever wills, let him believe, and whoever wills, let him disbelieve." (18:29) From these two verses, it is clear that human beings have the freedom to act but must bear the moral responsibilities for their own actions. Furthermore, the acknowledgement of divine justice itself forces people to accept that their every action is not predestined. The beginning of guidance is always from Allah, but the beginning of man's destruction is in his own erroneous opinions. "Whatever good reaches you is from Allah, but whatever evil befalls you is from yourself." (4:79) 3. Prophethood (nubuwwa) The prophets were the people who received divine revelation. Allah has sent numerous prophets and messengers to humankind since the dawn of history. These prophets were of two types: "local" and "universal." While the local prophets were sent with specific messages to specific groups of people, the universal prophets were sent with messages and books for all of humankind. There were only five universal prophets, and their names were Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad (may the peace of Allah be upon all of them). A unique characteristic of all the prophets and messengers is that they were infallible - that is, they never committed any sin. The easiest way to see this is to consider that these people were the examples sent for humanity to follow, and so if they committed errors, people would be obliged to follow their errors, thereby making the prophets and messengers untrustable. Infallibility means protection, and, in Islamic terminology, means the spiritual grace of Allah enabling a person to abstain from sins by his own free will. This power of infallibility and sinlessness does not make a person incapable of committing sins; rather, he refrains from sins and mistakes by his own power and will. Infallibility is essential since the job of the prophets and messengers is not only to convey the divine scriptures of Allah but also to lead and guide humanity towards the right path. Therefore, they have to be role models and perfect examples for mankind. This has basis in both the Qur'an and conventional wisdom; the Qur'an mentions infallibility 13 times. Allah says to the Satan: "Certainly you shall have no authority over My servants except those who follow you and go astray." (15:42) The Satan then says to Allah: "By Your might, then I will surely mislead them all, except Your chosen servants among them [the messengers and imams]."(38:82) Not only did Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) not commit any sins, but he was also never harsh to human beings or animals. Allah says: "And by the mercy of Allah you dealt with them [people] gently, and had you been severe and harsh-hearted, they would have broken away from you." (3:158) In most societies, people with bad records would be ineligible to be presidential, governmental, or mayoral candidates since they would be expected to lead society and be good examples of righteousness and honesty. Unfortunately, as a campaign of distorting the image of the prophets of God, many distorted stories exist today, such as the stories in the present-day version of the Old Testament accusing Prophet David (peace be upon him) of adultery with Baathsheba, Prophet Noah (peace be upon him) getting drunk, Prophet Lot (peace be upon him) committing incest, and Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) committing adultery with the Ethiopian women. These are examples of the ethical wrongdoings and moral weaknesses that the enemies of Allah tried to ascribe to His pure messengers. The Holy Qur'an[9] speaks of the sins attributed to certain prophets such as Adam (peace be upon him). These verses should not be understood literally in the sense that Adam was committing a sin; allegorical verses are common in the Qur'an. Adam (peace be upon him) did not disobey the obligatory commands of Allah; the command that he did not honor was a recommended command, and, therefore, in the Islamic law, he cannot be considered to have committed a sin. Although Allah preordained who the prophets were going to be, the prophets nonetheless had to strive for this position. The foremost example of this testing that the prophets had to endure can be seen in the life of Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him), the father of the prophets. Abraham (peace be upon him) was born into an idolatrous society, but by the purity of his nature he recognized that the idols his people worshipped were capable of nothing, neither harm nor good. So one day, when no one was present, he smashed all of them but the largest, and when the people came to him and asked who had destroyed their gods, he told them to ask the remaining statue if they really believed that their stone idols had power. Although the people realized at that point that their idols were powerless, they didn't know how to respond, so out of shame and anger they cast Abraham (peace be upon him) into a huge fire. But Allah protected Abraham (peace be upon him) from the fire and confounded the plots of the polytheists.[10] After being tortured for and then saved by his faith in Allah, Abraham (peace be upon him) still had to undergo the hardest test of obedience to Allah - the direct order, from Allah, to sacrifice his son Ishmael.[11] This order came to him in a dream, and although sadness overwhelmed him, he was a strong believer in Allah and did not question it. Ishmael too accepted the command of Allah unquestioningly and allowed his father to lead him to a mountaintop to be sacrificed. His only request was that his father place him face down so that his father would not see his expression as he was being killed. Abraham (peace be upon him) raised his blade, still ready to comply with the command of Allah. But just then came the revelation that this had only been a test, that God would not order Abraham (peace be upon him) to sacrifice his son, and that Abraham (peace be upon him) could sacrifice a sheep in his stead. This event is commemorated every year on a holiday called the Feast of Sacrifice ('eid al-adhaa) on which animals are killed and the meat distributed to the poor. After passing these tests, Abraham (peace be upon him) became the leader of humankind as well as the father of the prophets of the three main monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Although Allah sent prophets to every group of people on the earth, the Qur'an only mentions the names of 25 of them. The first of them was Adam (peace be upon him), the father of humanity, and the last of them and the seal of the prophets was Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family). Why did Allah send different prophets and different religions? The way of Allah is one, and because the final messenger, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), has come, there should be no dispute as to what is the right way to follow. However, throughout history, different messengers with slightly different messages were sent to different peoples because the religious needs of humanity were growing and developing just as the human race was itself growing and developing, and also because different civilizations needed different types of guidance. Nevertheless, the source and basic message behind them was the same - namely, Allah the Exalted and Glorious. Allah sent Moses (peace be upon him) with the Torah as a light and guidance for the Children of Israel (the Jews) along with many other prophets such as David, Solomon, and so on (peace be upon them). 1,500 years after Moses, Allah sent Jesus (peace be upon him), the son of Mary (peace be upon her), confirming the Torah and bringing the Gospel which has also been likened to guidance and light. Finally, 600 years after Jesus (peace be upon him), Allah sent Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) with the Qur'an to confirm all the messages before him and to complete the revelation of religion to mankind. Since all the Judeo-Christian-Islamic prophets were sent sequentially, the question arises as to why Judaism, Christianity, and Islam now exist as separate religions. The answer is that the followers of these religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity, corrupted the original teachings given to them and ended up making sects of their own rather than following the pure word of God. But as the Qur'an says: For each of you, We have made a Law and a clear way. If Allah had willed, He would have made you one nation but that He may test you in what He has given you. So strive as a race in good deeds. Your return is to Allah; then He will inform you about that which you used to differ. (5:48) The Life of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family)[12] In 6th-century CE Arabia, the majority of people were pagans. They lived in tribes, each with its own leader. Some were farmers, others traders, but many reared camels and raided other tribes for booty. It was into this society, in CE 570, that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) was born in Makkah. His parents died and he was looked after first by his grandfather and then by his uncle. As he grew up, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) became known as Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) al-Amin, 'the trustworthy'. He worked for a wealthy older widow, Khadija, who, impressed with his honesty, asked him to marry her. He was twenty-five, and they remained married until her death twenty-five years later. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) often used to go from the bustle of Makkah for periods of reflection in a cave outside the city. During one such time, when he was forty years old, he heard the voice of the angel Jibril giving him a command: Recite in the Name of your Lord who creates, Creates man from a clot. Recite! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful, Who taught the use of the pen, Taught humankind that which they knew not. (96:1-5) Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) repeated the words until he had learned them by heart. He rushed home and related his experience to his wife, who comforted and reassured him. Khadija and the Prophet's young cousin 'Ali (peace be upon him) were the first people to understand and accept that Allah had chosen 'the trustworthy one' to deliver his final guidance. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) continued to receive revelations for over twenty years. As time passed, it became clear to ever-increasing numbers of people that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) was indeed a Messenger of Allah. The least receptive were those powerful Makkans who trafficked in idols and slaves and benefited most from idol worship and the pilgrim trade. They treated Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) with derision. Despite this, he continued to deliver the revelations of Allah's mercy and justice, which were welcomed by the poor and oppressed. The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), his family, and followers were driven from Makkah. For three years they sheltered in a valley outside the city in conditions of hardship and hunger. Narrowly escaping assassination in Makkah, the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) traveled to Madina in CE 622. The migration from Makkah to Madina, known as the Hijrah, became the starting point of the Muslim calendar. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) was very well received in Madina where he became head of what was to become the first Islamic state. In CE 630, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) and his followers entered Makkah. At the Ka'bah, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) cleared the hundreds of idols from inside and proclaimed that truth had come and falsehood had vanished. He was 63 when he died, and by the time of his death the majority of people in Arabia had accepted Islam as their way of life. The final verse of the Qur'an to be revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), a few days before his death, was this: "Today I [Allah] have perfected for you your religion, completed my favor upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion." (5:3) 4. Succession to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) (imama) All of the prophets and messengers of God had successors, and just as Allah appointed His prophets and messengers for the guidance of mankind, He also appointed successors to the prophets and messengers as a matter of necessity. Abraham (peace be upon him) was succeeded by two of his sons, Isaac and Ishmael (peace be upon them), while Moses (peace be upon him) was succeeded by his brother Aaron (peace be upon him) and Jesus (peace be upon him) by two prophets whom the Qur'an mentions in the chapter called "Ya Sin". (36:13-14) Likewise, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) was succeeded by twelve distinguished successors, one after another. These successors were called imams and were appointed by Allah, not by humankind. The right to ordain imams belongs only to Almighty Allah, and the Qur'an speaks about this in many verses: "And remember when your Lord said to the angels, 'Verily I am going to place a successor (khalifa)." (2:30) Allah addressed Prophet David (peace be upon him) as such: "O David! Verily We have placed you as a successor on earth." (38:26) "And remember when the Lord of Abraham tried him with certain commands which he fulfilled; Allah said to him, 'Verily I am going to make you a leader (imam) of mankind.'" (2:124) Allah also attributes the right of appointing leaders to Himself: "We made from among them leaders, giving guidance under Our command." (32:24) During his lifetime, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) specifically mentioned the names of the leaders that would come after him, that there would be twelve of them, and that all of them would be descended from a particular Arab tribe called Quraysh.[13] The twelve successors to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) are as follows: Imam 'Ali ibn Abi Talib (600-661) Imam 'Ali (peace be upon him) was the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law and the one about whom he said: "I am the city of knowledge and 'Ali is its gate." He also said, "Whoever considers me his leader, 'Ali is also his leader." 110,000 people heard the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) say this at a place called Ghadir Khum. Muslims and non-Muslims alike recognized Imam 'Ali (peace be upon him) for his wisdom, bravery, and justice. Many of his sayings and speeches have been preserved in a book called The Peak of Eloquence (Nahj al-Balagha). He was assassinated by members of a fringe movement while he was praying. Fatima az-Zahra (562-580) Although not one of the successors, Fatima al-Zahra (peace be upon her) is included in this list because of her high status and importance. Fatima al-Zahra (peace be upon her) was the daughter of the beloved Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him and his family) from his respected wife Khadija. She was born in Makkah on the twentieth day of Jumaada al-Thaani (the sixth month of the Islamic calendar). Although he had several children, Fatima was his favorite, for she was carrying the light of the message of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) to the generations to come through her offspring. A chapter of the Qur'an[14] was revealed about her: Verily We have granted you [Prophet Muhammad] al-kawthar[15] Therefore, turn in prayer to your Lord and sacrifice for Him. And he who makes you angry - he will be cut off from offspring. She and her father had a mutual attachment; 'Aisha, one of the wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), has said: "I never saw a person who so resembled her father in speech, movements, and gestures more than Fatima, and once she goes to visit her father, he stands, takes her hand, kisses it, and places her in his own seat."[16] Fatima was so emotionally and spiritually close to her father that he declared: "Fatima is part of me. Whoever angers her angers me, and she is the mother of her father."[17] Fatima proved to be the best daughter to her father, mother for her four children (Hasan, Husain, Zaynab, and Um Kalthoum), and the ideal wife for her husband Imam 'Ali (peace be upon him). She was the perfect example of a virtuous, righteous lady in Islam. She set many examples in her social and political life. As a result of the conflict over power after the demise of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), Fatima al-Zahra (peace be upon her) died at the age of 18 years. Imam Hasan ibn 'Ali (625-670) Imam Husain ibn 'Ali (626-680) : Imam Husain (peace be upon him) revolted against the tyrant of his time, Yazid the son of Mu'awiyah. He left his hometown of Madina to go to the city of Makkah and then with 72 of his followers and close family members to Iraq where he was brutally massacred on the day of Ashura[18] in the city of Karbala, 60 miles to the south of Baghdad. Imam Husain (peace be upon him) stood for truth, sacrificed himself for truth and justice, and fought corruption and aggression. The battle of Karbala represents the battle between truth and falsehood, good versus evil, and justice versus aggression, oppression, and tyranny. Therefore, he became the beacon of light for all free people in this universe, shook the foundations of the Muslim nation with his martyrdom, and steered the consciousness of the Muslim people at that time. Hundreds of revolutions and revolts followed his martyrdom until the corrupt empire of Bani Umayyah collapsed. Imam Husain (peace be upon him) still plays a very significant role in the life of the Muslims in their endeavor to fight injustice and deviation in all societies. Imam 'Ali ibn al-Husain (659-713) Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (676-733) Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq (702-765) : Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (peace be upon him) was the son of Muhammad al-Baqir (peace be upon him) and was the sixth imam of the school of the ahl al-bayt. He was born on the seventeenth day of Rabi' al-Awwal (the third month of the Islamic calendar) in the city of Madina. He learned from his father the sciences of religion and the teachings of Islam and became the authority of jurisprudents, scholars, and preachers after the martyrdom of his father. He made the mosque of Madina a university from which to spread Islamic ideology and graduated hundreds of scholars versed in Islamic sciences and prophetic traditions. Scholars and preachers gave their testimonies acknowledging his great standing and abundant knowledge. One of them, Sibt al-Jawzi has said, "Never have I seen scholars less knowledgeable in the presence of a man like al-Sadiq." The men of knowledge and piety saw in Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (peace be upon him) a leader, a scholar, and an unmatched educator. He was also a great social personality and an effective political force in the leading political circles. Imam al-Sadiq (peace be upon him) taught two of the leaders of the other Islamic schools of jurisprudence: Abu Hanifa (Nu'man ibn Thabit) and Malik ibn Anas. Imam al-Sadiq (peace be upon him) uttered thousands of hadith (Prophetic traditions) regarding every facet of life. He extensively discussed Islamic ethics, mannerisms, integrity, goodness of character, and acts of worship in addition to jurisprudence and debated with leaders of other schools of thought. Imam al-Sadiq (peace be upon him) was poisoned by the caliph of his time and was buried in the cemetery of al-Baqi' in Madina. Imam Musa al-Kazim (746-799) Imam 'Ali ar-Rida (765-818) Imam Muhammad al-Jawad (811-835) Imam 'Ali al-Hadi (827-868) Imam Hasan al-Askari (846-874) Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi (869-present) : Imam al-Mahdi is the last of the imams of the people on earth, and with him the line of succession to the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) ends. Because of the necessity of having a representative from Allah present on the earth, he still - by the will of Allah - lives in this world, but he does not live in public view. He will, however, reappear towards the end of human civilization at a time when the world has been filled with evil and injustice to restore order and make justice prevail. These imams were the authorities of Allah among mankind. Like the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), they were all special personalities in matters of knowledge, forbearance, morality, and justice. The Family of the Prophet (Ahl al-bayt) The ahl al-bayt are the immediately family of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), namely: his daughter Fatima al-Zahra; his cousin, son-in-law, and first successor Imam 'Ali; and his grandchildren Hasan and Husain (peace be upon them). The purity of these five is spoken of in the Qur'an: "Allah only wishes to remove all uncleanliness from you, O People of the House (ahl al-bayt), and to make you as pure as possible." (33:33) Like the prophets and the prophets' successors, these five were infallible, free from all sin or error. Near the end of his life, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "It is probable that I will be called soon, and I will respond. So I leave behind me among you two weighty things: the Book of Allah [the Qur'an], and my Ahl al-Bayt. Verily, Allah, the Merciful, the Aware, has informed me that these two will never be separated from each other until they meet me at the fountain in Heaven called Kawthar."[19] The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) has also said: "The parable of my ahl al-bayt is similar to that of Noah's ark. Whoever embarks on it will certainly be rescued, but whoever opposes the boarding of it will surely be drowned."[20] The necessity of taking hold of both things that the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) left behind cannot be overemphasized; those who choose to follow the Qur'an but not the guidance of the ahl al-bayt will invariably go astray. As a rule, the prophets of Allah did not ask any reward for the pain and suffering they endured while attempting to guide mankind. In fact, this refusal to accept compensation can be seen as the mark of a prophet: "Obey those who ask no reward from you and who have themselves received guidance." (36:21) However, by the command of Allah, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) made one slight exception; although he refused to accept anything for himself, he was commanded to say: "I do not ask you for any reward except love for my relatives [the ahl al-bayt]." (42:23) Love for the Prophet's ahl al-bayt does not benefit the Prophet himself (peace be upon him and his family) so much as it does the one who approaches them with kindness and loyalty and in return derives knowledge, guidance, and blessings from Allah. Imam 'Ali (peace be upon him) has spoken about the ahl al-bayt: We, the ahl al-bayt, possess the doors of wisdom and light of governance. Beware that the paths of religion are one and its highways are straight. He who follows them achieves and secures the aim and objective. And he who stands away from them goes astray and incurs repentance.[21] The example of the descendants of Muhammad - peace and blessing of Allah be upon him and his descendants - is like that of stars in the sky. When one star sets another one rises.[22] We are lights of the heavens and the earth and the ships of salvation. We are the repository of knowledge, and towards us is the homecoming of all matters. Through our Mahdi (the final successor to the Prophet) all arguments shall be refuted, and he is the seal of the imams, the deliverer of the ummah (the Muslim nation), and the extremity of the light. Happy are those who hold onto our handle and are brought together upon our love.[23] 5. The Day of Judgement and the Resurrection (qiyama) Approximately 1,200 verses of the Qur'an speak of life after death and the Day of Resurrection, as do a vast number of sayings related from Prophet Muhammad and his successors (peace be upon all of them). This number reveals the importance and significance of life after death and emphasizes that the life of the human being does not end at death but in fact continues afterwards towards a new life - indeed, its true life. Allah placed human beings on the earth to test them, and so different people live for different lengths of time before they die and their souls are separated from their bodies. Their souls then live on, facing the grave and the questioning therein. After that, the souls return to their bodies which will be resurrected on the Day of Judgement, on which day they will receive whatever they deserve according to their beliefs and deeds in life. Some people will go to Heaven, also called the Garden, or the Paradise. Others will go to Hell, oftentimes called the Fire. And a select few will be brought into a state of nearness to God. Both Heaven and Hell have different levels; the worst of people will be in the lowest depths of Hell, while the best of them will be in the highest parts of Heaven. Death and Life after Death And they ask you concerning the spirit. Say: "The spirit, it is one of the things, the knowledge of which is only with my Lord, and of knowledge, you mankind have been given only a little. (17:85) Although humanity has been permitted to know only a little about life after death right now, the Holy Qur'an still reveals some of the secrets surrounding the soul. The Qur'an says: It is Allah who takes away the souls at the time of their death, and those that die not during their sleep. He keeps those souls for which He has ordained death and sends the rest for a term appointed. Verily, in this are signs for people who think deeply. (39:42) The soul will be buried along with the body in the grave. It could get permission from Allah to depart from the grave, but it must go back to it again. Each individual, if faithful, faces two paradises after death, or if he is unfaithful and a sinner, two hells.[24] One of them is for the souls before the Day of Judgement, and the second is the permanent abode. Once Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) sent two messengers to the city of Antioch to call for monotheism and the worshipping of Allah. One of the men of that town embraced the faith and followed them, so the king of the land ordered that righteous man to be killed. When he died, he said: "Verily I have believed in your Lord. So listen to me. It was said to him when the disbelievers killed him, 'Enter paradise.' He said, Would that my people knew what my Lord Allah has forgiven me for and made me one of the honored ones.'" (36:25-27) The paradise that he had entered was of the kind, called barzakh, that the soul lives in before the Day of Judgement; on the Day of Judgement everyone will know the fate of everyone else, and there will be no need, as above, to tell others. The descriptions of both types of hellfire are very vivid and painful: "Evil torment encompassed Pharaoh's people - the fire: they are exposed to it morning and afternoon, and on the day when the Hour will be established." (40:46) Islam teaches that the parting of the soul is accompanied with severe pain. The moment of death has been described: Nay! When the soul reaches the collarbone, and it will be said, "Who can cure him and save him from death?" and he, the dying person, will conclude that it is the time of departing, and he is shrouded; the drive on that day will be to your Lord. (75:26-30) Remember that the two recording angels receive each human being after attaining the age of puberty, one sitting on the right and one on the left, to note his actions. Not a word does he utter but there is a watcher sitting by him to record it. And the stupor of death will come in truth; this is what you have been avoiding. And the trumpet will be blown; that will be the day whereof warning had been given, and every person will come forth with an angel to drive him and an angel to bear witness. It will be said to the sinners: "Indeed, you were heedless of this. Now We have removed your covering, and sharp is your sight this day." (50:17-22) But for the true believers, the departure of the soul will be peaceful: It will be said to the pious: "O you in complete rest and satisfaction, come back to your Lord well-please yourself and well-pleasing unto Him. Enter then among my honored servants, and enter my Paradise." (89:27-30) Repentance and Forgiveness Repentance is the giving up of sin and is the best way of expressing regret for having committed one. It involves both sincerely regretting having committed the particular sin and then resolving never to do it again. Repentance is the source of and means to success: "Turn to Allah, O Believers, that you may be successful." (24:31) No matter how grievous a person's sin may be, the forgiveness of Allah is greater, and no one should be ashamed to turn towards Allah in repentance because Allah can erase the sins of whomever He pleases. Say: "O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, despair not of the mercy of Allah; verily, Allah forgives all sins. Verily, He is the Forgiving, the Merciful. (39:53) Tell My servants that I am the Forgiving, the Merciful. (15:49) Will they not turn to Allah and ask His forgiveness? Allah is the Forgiving, the Merciful. (5:74) Your Lord is full of forgiveness for mankind in spite of their wrongdoing. (13:6) Despite His ability to destroy mankind if he so willed, the main characteristics of Allah are forgiveness and mercifulness, and for this reason Muslims begin nearly every action, speech, or endeavor with the words, "In the name of Allah, the most Merciful, the most Compassionate."[25] Repentance is of benefit both now and during the Hereafter. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) has narrated that repenting brings an increase of wealth, protection from danger, and an easing of hardships and difficulties. Furthermore, it has been said that the fastest way to attain nearness to Allah is to humble the self before Allah and admit to wrongdoing. The benefits of repentance for the next life are obvious - entrance into Paradise and safety from the Hellfire. Repentance will be accepted up until the moment of death. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) once said that if a person seeks repentance one year before dying, Allah will accept it. Even if a person seeks repentance one day before dying, Allah will accept it. Then he pointed to his throat and said that even if someone seeks repentance before his soul reaches here, Allah will accept it. Nonetheless, repentance should be done as soon as possible and should not be delayed; this point has been emphasized again and again in the Islamic tradition. Imam 'Ali says: "How numerous are the procrastinators who postpone [repenting and doing good deeds] until death overtakes them!"[26] Repentance should be done in secrecy and privacy. People can establish a direct link to Allah while seeking repentance without the necessity of a third person interfering and in fact should not let others know about their sins. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) once told Imam 'Ali (peace be upon him): "O 'Ali, blessed is he whom Allah looks upon while he is weeping for the sin that none is aware of except Allah."[27] In addition to not revealing his own sins, every person must conceal the faults of his brother or sister in religion to preserve that person's honor and society. That person's faults may be dealt with personally and privately but must not be spread among society. A person who sincerely repents is loved by Allah and is as if he or she had never committed any sins at all. Imam al-Baqir (peace be upon him) has said: "He who repents of his sins is as one who has not any burden of sin."[28] But repentance must be sincere; Allah knows who sincerely regrets misdeeds and who is just saying words. A person came to Imam 'Ali (peace be upon him) and said, "Astaghfirullah, I seek Allah's forgiveness," and the Imam (peace be upon him) replied: Do you know what asking Allah's forgiveness is? It is a word that stands on six supports. The first is to repent over the past. The second is to make a firm determination never to revert to it. The third is to discharge all the rights of people so that you may meet Allah quite clean with nothing to account for. The fourth is to fulfill every obligation which you ignored in the past so that you may now be just with it. The fifth is to aim at the flesh grown as a result of unlawful earning so that you may melt it by grief of repentance till the skin touches the bone and a new flesh grows between them. And the sixth is to make the body taste the pain of obedience as you previously made it taste the sweetness of disobedience. On such an occasion, you may say, "I seek Allah's forgiveness."

Why do so many 9/11 victims families, Ph.D's and gov't officials insist that 9/11 was an inside job? Virginia Deane Abernethy, Ph.D., anthropologist, author, Population Politics Ed Asner, actor, activist Marshall Auerback, international portfolio strategist for David W. Tice & Associates, Inc. Catherine Austin Fitts, Asst. Secretary of Housing in the first Bush administration Keidi Obi Awadu, aka The Conscious Rasta, talk show host, LIBRadio Michael Badnarik, Libertarian candidate for President Byron Belitsos, publisher, Origin Press, author Planetary Democracy Philip J. Berg, Esquire, former deputy attorney general, Pennsylvania Medea Benjamin, activist, author, co-founder, Global Exchange and Code Pink Dennis Bernstein, investigative reporter, radio host of KPFA's Flashpoints Steve Bhaerman aka Swami Beyondananda, author, political comedian Brad Blanton, Ph.D., psychotherapist, author, Radical Honesty Saniel Bonder, spiritual teacher and author, Great Relief Dr. Robert Bowman, USAF Lt. Col. (Rtd.), founder, Institute for Space and Security Studies John Buchanan, author, candidate for the Republican Party Presidential nomination, 2004 Gray Brechin, Ph.D., author, environmental historian, professor, UC Berkeley Fred Burks, presidential interpreter for Bush, Clinton, Cheney, and Gore Norma Carr-Rufino, Ph.D., author, professor of management, San Francisco State University Angana Chatterji, Ph.D., scholar-activist and professor of anthropology Paul Cienfuegos, co-founder, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County David Cobb, attorney, national presidential candidate, US Green Party John Cobb, Ph.D., theologian, co-author, For the Common Good Ernest Callenbach, founder/editor, Film Quarterly, author, Ecotopia Kevin Danaher, Ph.D., author, speaker, co-founder, Global Exchange Stephen Dinan, author, Radical Spirit Ronnie Dugger, journalist/author, co-founder, Alliance for Democracy Daniel Ellsberg, author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers Jodie Evans, co-founder, Code Pink Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University Michael Franti, musician, filmmaker, human rights worker Janeane Garofalo, actress, comedienne, talk show host, Air America Radio Jim Garrison, Ph.D., president, State of the World Forum, author, America as Empire Bruce Gagnon, Chair, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space Ric Giardina, author, consultant, speaker, former Director of Trademarks and Brands for Intel John Gray, Ph.D., #1 bestselling author, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus Stan Goff, 25-year Army Special Ops veteran, author, Full Spectrum Disorder Melvin Goodman, senior fellow, Center for International Policy, author, former Senior Analyst, CIA, professor, National War College Morton Goulder, Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter David Ray Griffin, Ph.D., theologian, author, New Pearl Harbor Doris "Granny D" Haddock, campaign finance crusader, NH Democratic candidate for Senate Thom Hartmann, radio host; author, Unequal Protection Richie Havens, singer, songwriter, performer, artist Paul Hawken, bestselling author, environmentalist, entrepreneur, founder of Smith & Hawken Randy Hayes, founder, Rainforest Action Network, US National Director, Direction Conservation Richard Heinberg, author, The Party's Over, core faculty, New College of California Van Jones, executive director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Rob Kall, editor, OpEdNews.com, president, Futurehealth, Inc. Georgia Kelly, executive director, Praxis Peace Institute Sean Kelly, Ph.D., author, professor of philosophy and religion, CA Institute of Integral Studies John Joseph Kennedy, Democratic Write-in Presidential Candidate for 2004 Mimi Kennedy, actress, Dharma and Greg, progressive activist Faiz Khan, M.D., Triage Emergency Physician on 9/11, Assistant Imam David Korten, author, When Corporations Rule the World Frances Moore Lapp?, author, Diet for a Small Planet; founder, Small Planet Institute Scott M. Legere, 25 year radio broadcaster as Scott Ledger, Tampa FL Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN Magazine, author, Healing Israel/Palestine Michael Levine, bestselling author of Deep Cover, journalist, 25-year veteran of the DEA Joanna Macy, Ph.D., eco-philosopher, author Enver Masud, founder, The Wisdom Fund, author, The Truth About Islam John McCarthy, former Special Forces Captain, president, Veterans Equal Rights Protection Advocacy Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Cynthia McKinney, five-term Congresswoman from Georgia Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., author, professor, co-founder, Green Earth Foundation Mark Crispin Miller, media critic, author, professor, New York University Joseph W. Montaperto, New York City Fire Department Leuren Moret, geoscientist, radiation specialist, environmental commissioner Ralph Nader, Independent candidate for President Craig Neal, author, co-founder, The Heartland Institute, former publisher, Utne Reader Jeff Norman, executive director, Tour of Duty Jenna Orkin, Esquire, World Trade Center Environmental Organization Kelly Patricia O'Meara, investigative journalist, public relations Michael Parenti, Ph.D., author, Superpatriotism and The Terrorism Trap Edward L. Peck, former US Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq, former Deputy Director to the White House Task Force on Terrorism Peter Phillips, Ph.D., professor, Sonoma State University, director, Project Censored Henri Poole, Internet pioneer, board member, Free Software Foundation Robert Rabbin, author, speaker, creator of TruthForPresident.org Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., sociologist, author, The Cultural Creatives John Renesch, business futurist, author, Getting to the Better Future John Rensenbrink, professor emeritus, Bowdoin College, co-founder, US Green Party John Robbins, author, founder, EarthSave International William Rodriguez, 9/11 rescue effort hero, founder, Hispanic Victims Group Neal Rogin, Emmy-award winning writer, performer, social observer Allen Roland, Ph.D., psychotherapist, published author and peace activist Rosemary Radford Ruether, professor of feminist theology, Graduate Theological Union Michael Ruppert, publisher/editor, From The Wilderness, author, Crossing the Rubicon Chris Sanders, founder, Sanders Research Associates Karl W. B. Schwarz, President, CEO, Patmos Nanotechnologies, LLC Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, author, Drugs, Oil, and War Firefighter Kevin Shea, FDNY Hazmat Operations Michelle Shocked, singer/songwriter, activist Indira Singh, risk management and computer systems consultant J. Michael Springmann, attorney, former Foreign Service Officer, US Department of State Douglas Sturm, Ph.D., university professor emeritus, Bucknell University Marjorie Hewit Suchocki, Ph.D., theologian, author Chuck Turner, Boston City Council James W. Walter Jr., venture investor, philanthropist, founder of Walden Three Dan Whaley, E-commerce pioneer, founder of GetThere.com, acquired for $750M Burns H. Weston, J.S.D., Professor of Law Emeritus, Director, Center for Human Rights, U-Iowa Howard Zinn, professor, historian, author, A People's History of the United States Family Members Joanne Barbara, wife of FDNY Asst. Chief of Dept. Gerard Barbara Gayle Barker, sister of William A. Karnes, WTC Michele Bergsohn, wife of Alvin Bergsohn, Cantor Fitzgerald Derrill Bodley, father of Deora Bodley, passenger on Flight 93 Kathryn C. Bowden, sister of Thomas H. Bowden, Jr. WTC1, 104th floor Janet Calia, wife of Dominick Calia, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC1 Maggie Cashman, wife of William Joseph Cashman, United Flight 93 Lynne Castrianno Galante, sister of Leonard Castrianno, 1WTC, 105th floor Elza Chapa-McGowan, daughter of Rosemary Chapa, Pentagon Bruce De Cell, father-in-law of Mark Petrocelli North Tower, 92nd floor Ralph D'Esposito, father of Michael D'Esposito, WTC, 96th floor Loisanne Diehl, Surviving Spouse, Michael D. Diehl, WTC2, 90th floor Adina D. Eisenberg, sister of Eric Eisenberg, WTC Jonathan M. Fisher, son of Dr. Gerald Paul "Geep" Fisher, Pentagon Michael J. Fox, brother of Jeffrey L. Fox, Tower 2, 89th floor Laurel A. Gay, sister of Peter A. Gay, AA Flight 11 Irene Golinsky, wife of Col. Ronald F. Golinski USA RET, Pentagon Lori, Jerry, and Beatrice Guadagno, sister and parents of Richard Guadagno, Flight 93 Kristen Hall, daughter of fallen firefighter Thomas Kuveikis 9/11 Kurt D. Horning, father of Matthew D. Horning, WTC Tower One, 95th floor Jennifer W. Hunt, wife of William C. Hunt, Euro Brokers John Keating, son of Barbara Keating, passenger on AA Flight 11 L. Russell Keene II, father of Russ Keene III, WTC2, 89th floor, KBW Peter Kousoulis, sister died in WTC Paul & Barbara Kirwin, parents of Glenn Davis Kirwin, Cantor Fitzgerald 105th floor Barbara Krukowski-Rastelli, mother of William E. Krukowski, NYC firefighter Laura and Ira Lassman, parents of Nicholas C. Lassman, died in WTC, Tower One Johnny Lee, husband of Lorraine Greene Alicia LeGuillow, mother of Nestor A. Cintron III Francine Levine, sister of Adam K. Ruhalter, who died on 9/11 Bob McIlvaine, father of Robert McIlvaine, WTC, Merrill Lynch Mary McWilliams, mother of FF Martin E. McWilliams- Engine 22 Daryl J. Meehan, brother of Colleen Ann Barkow, WTC 1, 105th floor Elvira P. Murphy, wife of Patrick Murphy, WTC 1 Natalee Pecorelli, sister of Thomas Pecorelli of Flight 11 James L Perry, M.D and Patricia J. Perry, parents of John W. Perry, Esq., NYPD Officer 9/11 David Potorti, brother of James Potorti, North Tower, WTC, Marsh & McLennan Terry Kay Rockefeller, sister of Laura Rockefeller, North Tower, WTC Grissel Rodriguez-Valentin, wife of Benito Valentin, WTC1, 94th floor Alissa Rosenberg-Torres, widow of Luis Eduardo Torres, post-9/11 mother, writer Elaine Saber, mother of Scott Saber Julie Scarpitta, mother of Michelle Scarpitta, WTC Building 2, 84th floor Paula Shapiro, mother of Eric Eisenberg, WTC2 Elizabeth Turner, wife of Simon Turner, lost on 11th September 2001 Adele Welty, mother of Firefighter Timothy Welty, FDNY, Squad 288 Joan W. Winton, mother of David Winton, WTC, South Tower, 89th floor David Yancey, husband of Vicki Yancey, American Airlines Flight 77 Nissa Youngren, daughter of Robert G. LeBlanc, flight 175 Late Signatories (starting toward 200...) Rita M. Haley, President, National Organization for Women, New York Chapter Immortal Technique, Harlem-based hip-hop artist with Viper Records, Revolutionary I&II Bob Kirkconnell, served in the U.S. Air Force 27 years, reaching the rank of Master Sergeant Dennis Kyne, former Army air medic, 18th Airborne Corps during Gulf War I, musician, author, "Support the Truth" Paul Landis, author, "Stop Bush Now!" Eric H. May, former Army military intelligence officer and media essayist Charles Shaw, Editor, Newtopia Magazine, National Peace Action Coordinator, National Green Party Peter Erlinder, professor, William Mitchell College of Law, past-President National Lawyers Guild Daniel Robert Rezac, 2004 Vice-Presidential Write-In Candidate, former Aviator & Armor Officer, Army National Guard, B.S.B.A. Joel Horwitz, lost beloved cousin in WTC 1 Jessica Murrow, lost husband Stephen Adams, Beverage Manager, Windows on the World, WTC 1 Ellen Mariani, lost husband Neil on Flight 175 Jean Hunt, disabled survivor of Pentagon attack Ralph & Brigitte Sabbag, lost son Jason in WTC 2 FEEL FREE TO RESEARCH ANY NAME ON THE LIST I JUST POSTED!!!

Why do so many 9/11 victims families say 9/11 was an inside job? Virginia Deane Abernethy, Ph.D., anthropologist, author, Population Politics Ed Asner, actor, activist Marshall Auerback, international portfolio strategist for David W. Tice & Associates, Inc. Catherine Austin Fitts, Asst. Secretary of Housing in the first Bush administration Keidi Obi Awadu, aka The Conscious Rasta, talk show host, LIBRadio Michael Badnarik, Libertarian candidate for President Byron Belitsos, publisher, Origin Press, author Planetary Democracy Philip J. Berg, Esquire, former deputy attorney general, Pennsylvania Medea Benjamin, activist, author, co-founder, Global Exchange and Code Pink Dennis Bernstein, investigative reporter, radio host of KPFA's Flashpoints Steve Bhaerman aka Swami Beyondananda, author, political comedian Brad Blanton, Ph.D., psychotherapist, author, Radical Honesty Saniel Bonder, spiritual teacher and author, Great Relief Dr. Robert Bowman, USAF Lt. Col. (Rtd.), founder, Institute for Space and Security Studies John Buchanan, author, candidate for the Republican Party Presidential nomination, 2004 Gray Brechin, Ph.D., author, environmental historian, professor, UC Berkeley Fred Burks, presidential interpreter for Bush, Clinton, Cheney, and Gore Norma Carr-Rufino, Ph.D., author, professor of management, San Francisco State University Angana Chatterji, Ph.D., scholar-activist and professor of anthropology Paul Cienfuegos, co-founder, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County David Cobb, attorney, national presidential candidate, US Green Party John Cobb, Ph.D., theologian, co-author, For the Common Good Ernest Callenbach, founder/editor, Film Quarterly, author, Ecotopia Kevin Danaher, Ph.D., author, speaker, co-founder, Global Exchange Stephen Dinan, author, Radical Spirit Ronnie Dugger, journalist/author, co-founder, Alliance for Democracy Daniel Ellsberg, author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers Jodie Evans, co-founder, Code Pink Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University Michael Franti, musician, filmmaker, human rights worker Janeane Garofalo, actress, comedienne, talk show host, Air America Radio Jim Garrison, Ph.D., president, State of the World Forum, author, America as Empire Bruce Gagnon, Chair, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space Ric Giardina, author, consultant, speaker, former Director of Trademarks and Brands for Intel John Gray, Ph.D., #1 bestselling author, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus Stan Goff, 25-year Army Special Ops veteran, author, Full Spectrum Disorder Melvin Goodman, senior fellow, Center for International Policy, author, former Senior Analyst, CIA, professor, National War College Morton Goulder, Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter David Ray Griffin, Ph.D., theologian, author, New Pearl Harbor Doris "Granny D" Haddock, campaign finance crusader, NH Democratic candidate for Senate Thom Hartmann, radio host; author, Unequal Protection Richie Havens, singer, songwriter, performer, artist Paul Hawken, bestselling author, environmentalist, entrepreneur, founder of Smith & Hawken Randy Hayes, founder, Rainforest Action Network, US National Director, Direction Conservation Richard Heinberg, author, The Party's Over, core faculty, New College of California Van Jones, executive director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Rob Kall, editor, OpEdNews.com, president, Futurehealth, Inc. Georgia Kelly, executive director, Praxis Peace Institute Sean Kelly, Ph.D., author, professor of philosophy and religion, CA Institute of Integral Studies John Joseph Kennedy, Democratic Write-in Presidential Candidate for 2004 Mimi Kennedy, actress, Dharma and Greg, progressive activist Faiz Khan, M.D., Triage Emergency Physician on 9/11, Assistant Imam David Korten, author, When Corporations Rule the World Frances Moore Lapp?, author, Diet for a Small Planet; founder, Small Planet Institute Scott M. Legere, 25 year radio broadcaster as Scott Ledger, Tampa FL Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN Magazine, author, Healing Israel/Palestine Michael Levine, bestselling author of Deep Cover, journalist, 25-year veteran of the DEA Joanna Macy, Ph.D., eco-philosopher, author Enver Masud, founder, The Wisdom Fund, author, The Truth About Islam John McCarthy, former Special Forces Captain, president, Veterans Equal Rights Protection Advocacy Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Cynthia McKinney, five-term Congresswoman from Georgia Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., author, professor, co-founder, Green Earth Foundation Mark Crispin Miller, media critic, author, professor, New York University Joseph W. Montaperto, New York City Fire Department Leuren Moret, geoscientist, radiation specialist, environmental commissioner Ralph Nader, Independent candidate for President Craig Neal, author, co-founder, The Heartland Institute, former publisher, Utne Reader Jeff Norman, executive director, Tour of Duty Jenna Orkin, Esquire, World Trade Center Environmental Organization Kelly Patricia O'Meara, investigative journalist, public relations Michael Parenti, Ph.D., author, Superpatriotism and The Terrorism Trap Edward L. Peck, former US Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq, former Deputy Director to the White House Task Force on Terrorism Peter Phillips, Ph.D., professor, Sonoma State University, director, Project Censored Henri Poole, Internet pioneer, board member, Free Software Foundation Robert Rabbin, author, speaker, creator of TruthForPresident.org Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., sociologist, author, The Cultural Creatives John Renesch, business futurist, author, Getting to the Better Future John Rensenbrink, professor emeritus, Bowdoin College, co-founder, US Green Party John Robbins, author, founder, EarthSave International William Rodriguez, 9/11 rescue effort hero, founder, Hispanic Victims Group Neal Rogin, Emmy-award winning writer, performer, social observer Allen Roland, Ph.D., psychotherapist, published author and peace activist Rosemary Radford Ruether, professor of feminist theology, Graduate Theological Union Michael Ruppert, publisher/editor, From The Wilderness, author, Crossing the Rubicon Chris Sanders, founder, Sanders Research Associates Karl W. B. Schwarz, President, CEO, Patmos Nanotechnologies, LLC Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, author, Drugs, Oil, and War Firefighter Kevin Shea, FDNY Hazmat Operations Michelle Shocked, singer/songwriter, activist Indira Singh, risk management and computer systems consultant J. Michael Springmann, attorney, former Foreign Service Officer, US Department of State Douglas Sturm, Ph.D., university professor emeritus, Bucknell University Marjorie Hewit Suchocki, Ph.D., theologian, author Chuck Turner, Boston City Council James W. Walter Jr., venture investor, philanthropist, founder of Walden Three Dan Whaley, E-commerce pioneer, founder of GetThere.com, acquired for $750M Burns H. Weston, J.S.D., Professor of Law Emeritus, Director, Center for Human Rights, U-Iowa Howard Zinn, professor, historian, author, A People's History of the United States Family Members Joanne Barbara, wife of FDNY Asst. Chief of Dept. Gerard Barbara Gayle Barker, sister of William A. Karnes, WTC Michele Bergsohn, wife of Alvin Bergsohn, Cantor Fitzgerald Derrill Bodley, father of Deora Bodley, passenger on Flight 93 Kathryn C. Bowden, sister of Thomas H. Bowden, Jr. WTC1, 104th floor Janet Calia, wife of Dominick Calia, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC1 Maggie Cashman, wife of William Joseph Cashman, United Flight 93 Lynne Castrianno Galante, sister of Leonard Castrianno, 1WTC, 105th floor Elza Chapa-McGowan, daughter of Rosemary Chapa, Pentagon Bruce De Cell, father-in-law of Mark Petrocelli North Tower, 92nd floor Ralph D'Esposito, father of Michael D'Esposito, WTC, 96th floor Loisanne Diehl, Surviving Spouse, Michael D. Diehl, WTC2, 90th floor Adina D. Eisenberg, sister of Eric Eisenberg, WTC Jonathan M. Fisher, son of Dr. Gerald Paul "Geep" Fisher, Pentagon Michael J. Fox, brother of Jeffrey L. Fox, Tower 2, 89th floor Laurel A. Gay, sister of Peter A. Gay, AA Flight 11 Irene Golinsky, wife of Col. Ronald F. Golinski USA RET, Pentagon Lori, Jerry, and Beatrice Guadagno, sister and parents of Richard Guadagno, Flight 93 Kristen Hall, daughter of fallen firefighter Thomas Kuveikis 9/11 Kurt D. Horning, father of Matthew D. Horning, WTC Tower One, 95th floor Jennifer W. Hunt, wife of William C. Hunt, Euro Brokers John Keating, son of Barbara Keating, passenger on AA Flight 11 L. Russell Keene II, father of Russ Keene III, WTC2, 89th floor, KBW Peter Kousoulis, sister died in WTC Paul & Barbara Kirwin, parents of Glenn Davis Kirwin, Cantor Fitzgerald 105th floor Barbara Krukowski-Rastelli, mother of William E. Krukowski, NYC firefighter Laura and Ira Lassman, parents of Nicholas C. Lassman, died in WTC, Tower One Johnny Lee, husband of Lorraine Greene Alicia LeGuillow, mother of Nestor A. Cintron III Francine Levine, sister of Adam K. Ruhalter, who died on 9/11 Bob McIlvaine, father of Robert McIlvaine, WTC, Merrill Lynch Mary McWilliams, mother of FF Martin E. McWilliams- Engine 22 Daryl J. Meehan, brother of Colleen Ann Barkow, WTC 1, 105th floor Elvira P. Murphy, wife of Patrick Murphy, WTC 1 Natalee Pecorelli, sister of Thomas Pecorelli of Flight 11 James L Perry, M.D and Patricia J. Perry, parents of John W. Perry, Esq., NYPD Officer 9/11 David Potorti, brother of James Potorti, North Tower, WTC, Marsh & McLennan Terry Kay Rockefeller, sister of Laura Rockefeller, North Tower, WTC Grissel Rodriguez-Valentin, wife of Benito Valentin, WTC1, 94th floor Alissa Rosenberg-Torres, widow of Luis Eduardo Torres, post-9/11 mother, writer Elaine Saber, mother of Scott Saber Julie Scarpitta, mother of Michelle Scarpitta, WTC Building 2, 84th floor Paula Shapiro, mother of Eric Eisenberg, WTC2 Elizabeth Turner, wife of Simon Turner, lost on 11th September 2001 Adele Welty, mother of Firefighter Timothy Welty, FDNY, Squad 288 Joan W. Winton, mother of David Winton, WTC, South Tower, 89th floor David Yancey, husband of Vicki Yancey, American Airlines Flight 77 Nissa Youngren, daughter of Robert G. LeBlanc, flight 175 Late Signatories (starting toward 200...) Rita M. Haley, President, National Organization for Women, New York Chapter Immortal Technique, Harlem-based hip-hop artist with Viper Records, Revolutionary I&II Bob Kirkconnell, served in the U.S. Air Force 27 years, reaching the rank of Master Sergeant Dennis Kyne, former Army air medic, 18th Airborne Corps during Gulf War I, musician, author, "Support the Truth" Paul Landis, author, "Stop Bush Now!" Eric H. May, former Army military intelligence officer and media essayist Charles Shaw, Editor, Newtopia Magazine, National Peace Action Coordinator, National Green Party Peter Erlinder, professor, William Mitchell College of Law, past-President National Lawyers Guild Daniel Robert Rezac, 2004 Vice-Presidential Write-In Candidate, former Aviator & Armor Officer, Army National Guard, B.S.B.A. Joel Horwitz, lost beloved cousin in WTC 1 Jessica Murrow, lost husband Stephen Adams, Beverage Manager, Windows on the World, WTC 1 Ellen Mariani, lost husband Neil on Flight 175 Jean Hunt, disabled survivor of Pentagon attack Ralph & Brigitte Sabbag, lost son Jason in WTC 2 http://www.justicefor911.org/

Why do so many 9/11 victims families, Ph.D's and gov't officials insist that 9/11 was an inside job? Virginia Deane Abernethy, Ph.D., anthropologist, author, Population Politics Ed Asner, actor, activist Marshall Auerback, international portfolio strategist for David W. Tice & Associates, Inc. Catherine Austin Fitts, Asst. Secretary of Housing in the first Bush administration Keidi Obi Awadu, aka The Conscious Rasta, talk show host, LIBRadio Michael Badnarik, Libertarian candidate for President Byron Belitsos, publisher, Origin Press, author Planetary Democracy Philip J. Berg, Esquire, former deputy attorney general, Pennsylvania Medea Benjamin, activist, author, co-founder, Global Exchange and Code Pink Dennis Bernstein, investigative reporter, radio host of KPFA's Flashpoints Steve Bhaerman aka Swami Beyondananda, author, political comedian Brad Blanton, Ph.D., psychotherapist, author, Radical Honesty Saniel Bonder, spiritual teacher and author, Great Relief Dr. Robert Bowman, USAF Lt. Col. (Rtd.), founder, Institute for Space and Security Studies John Buchanan, author, candidate for the Republican Party Presidential nomination, 2004 Gray Brechin, Ph.D., author, environmental historian, professor, UC Berkeley Fred Burks, presidential interpreter for Bush, Clinton, Cheney, and Gore Norma Carr-Rufino, Ph.D., author, professor of management, San Francisco State University Angana Chatterji, Ph.D., scholar-activist and professor of anthropology Paul Cienfuegos, co-founder, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County David Cobb, attorney, national presidential candidate, US Green Party John Cobb, Ph.D., theologian, co-author, For the Common Good Ernest Callenbach, founder/editor, Film Quarterly, author, Ecotopia Kevin Danaher, Ph.D., author, speaker, co-founder, Global Exchange Stephen Dinan, author, Radical Spirit Ronnie Dugger, journalist/author, co-founder, Alliance for Democracy Daniel Ellsberg, author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers Jodie Evans, co-founder, Code Pink Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University Michael Franti, musician, filmmaker, human rights worker Janeane Garofalo, actress, comedienne, talk show host, Air America Radio Jim Garrison, Ph.D., president, State of the World Forum, author, America as Empire Bruce Gagnon, Chair, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space Ric Giardina, author, consultant, speaker, former Director of Trademarks and Brands for Intel John Gray, Ph.D., #1 bestselling author, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus Stan Goff, 25-year Army Special Ops veteran, author, Full Spectrum Disorder Melvin Goodman, senior fellow, Center for International Policy, author, former Senior Analyst, CIA, professor, National War College Morton Goulder, Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter David Ray Griffin, Ph.D., theologian, author, New Pearl Harbor Doris "Granny D" Haddock, campaign finance crusader, NH Democratic candidate for Senate Thom Hartmann, radio host; author, Unequal Protection Richie Havens, singer, songwriter, performer, artist Paul Hawken, bestselling author, environmentalist, entrepreneur, founder of Smith & Hawken Randy Hayes, founder, Rainforest Action Network, US National Director, Direction Conservation Richard Heinberg, author, The Party's Over, core faculty, New College of California Van Jones, executive director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Rob Kall, editor, OpEdNews.com, president, Futurehealth, Inc. Georgia Kelly, executive director, Praxis Peace Institute Sean Kelly, Ph.D., author, professor of philosophy and religion, CA Institute of Integral Studies John Joseph Kennedy, Democratic Write-in Presidential Candidate for 2004 Mimi Kennedy, actress, Dharma and Greg, progressive activist Faiz Khan, M.D., Triage Emergency Physician on 9/11, Assistant Imam David Korten, author, When Corporations Rule the World Frances Moore Lapp?, author, Diet for a Small Planet; founder, Small Planet Institute Scott M. Legere, 25 year radio broadcaster as Scott Ledger, Tampa FL Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN Magazine, author, Healing Israel/Palestine Michael Levine, bestselling author of Deep Cover, journalist, 25-year veteran of the DEA Joanna Macy, Ph.D., eco-philosopher, author Enver Masud, founder, The Wisdom Fund, author, The Truth About Islam John McCarthy, former Special Forces Captain, president, Veterans Equal Rights Protection Advocacy Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Cynthia McKinney, five-term Congresswoman from Georgia Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., author, professor, co-founder, Green Earth Foundation Mark Crispin Miller, media critic, author, professor, New York University Joseph W. Montaperto, New York City Fire Department Leuren Moret, geoscientist, radiation specialist, environmental commissioner Ralph Nader, Independent candidate for President Craig Neal, author, co-founder, The Heartland Institute, former publisher, Utne Reader Jeff Norman, executive director, Tour of Duty Jenna Orkin, Esquire, World Trade Center Environmental Organization Kelly Patricia O'Meara, investigative journalist, public relations Michael Parenti, Ph.D., author, Superpatriotism and The Terrorism Trap Edward L. Peck, former US Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq, former Deputy Director to the White House Task Force on Terrorism Peter Phillips, Ph.D., professor, Sonoma State University, director, Project Censored Henri Poole, Internet pioneer, board member, Free Software Foundation Robert Rabbin, author, speaker, creator of TruthForPresident.org Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., sociologist, author, The Cultural Creatives John Renesch, business futurist, author, Getting to the Better Future John Rensenbrink, professor emeritus, Bowdoin College, co-founder, US Green Party John Robbins, author, founder, EarthSave International William Rodriguez, 9/11 rescue effort hero, founder, Hispanic Victims Group Neal Rogin, Emmy-award winning writer, performer, social observer Allen Roland, Ph.D., psychotherapist, published author and peace activist Rosemary Radford Ruether, professor of feminist theology, Graduate Theological Union Michael Ruppert, publisher/editor, From The Wilderness, author, Crossing the Rubicon Chris Sanders, founder, Sanders Research Associates Karl W. B. Schwarz, President, CEO, Patmos Nanotechnologies, LLC Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, author, Drugs, Oil, and War Firefighter Kevin Shea, FDNY Hazmat Operations Michelle Shocked, singer/songwriter, activist Indira Singh, risk management and computer systems consultant J. Michael Springmann, attorney, former Foreign Service Officer, US Department of State Douglas Sturm, Ph.D., university professor emeritus, Bucknell University Marjorie Hewit Suchocki, Ph.D., theologian, author Chuck Turner, Boston City Council James W. Walter Jr., venture investor, philanthropist, founder of Walden Three Dan Whaley, E-commerce pioneer, founder of GetThere.com, acquired for $750M Burns H. Weston, J.S.D., Professor of Law Emeritus, Director, Center for Human Rights, U-Iowa Howard Zinn, professor, historian, author, A People's History of the United States Family Members Joanne Barbara, wife of FDNY Asst. Chief of Dept. Gerard Barbara Gayle Barker, sister of William A. Karnes, WTC Michele Bergsohn, wife of Alvin Bergsohn, Cantor Fitzgerald Derrill Bodley, father of Deora Bodley, passenger on Flight 93 Kathryn C. Bowden, sister of Thomas H. Bowden, Jr. WTC1, 104th floor Janet Calia, wife of Dominick Calia, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC1 Maggie Cashman, wife of William Joseph Cashman, United Flight 93 Lynne Castrianno Galante, sister of Leonard Castrianno, 1WTC, 105th floor Elza Chapa-McGowan, daughter of Rosemary Chapa, Pentagon Bruce De Cell, father-in-law of Mark Petrocelli North Tower, 92nd floor Ralph D'Esposito, father of Michael D'Esposito, WTC, 96th floor Loisanne Diehl, Surviving Spouse, Michael D. Diehl, WTC2, 90th floor Adina D. Eisenberg, sister of Eric Eisenberg, WTC Jonathan M. Fisher, son of Dr. Gerald Paul "Geep" Fisher, Pentagon Michael J. Fox, brother of Jeffrey L. Fox, Tower 2, 89th floor Laurel A. Gay, sister of Peter A. Gay, AA Flight 11 Irene Golinsky, wife of Col. Ronald F. Golinski USA RET, Pentagon Lori, Jerry, and Beatrice Guadagno, sister and parents of Richard Guadagno, Flight 93 Kristen Hall, daughter of fallen firefighter Thomas Kuveikis 9/11 Kurt D. Horning, father of Matthew D. Horning, WTC Tower One, 95th floor Jennifer W. Hunt, wife of William C. Hunt, Euro Brokers John Keating, son of Barbara Keating, passenger on AA Flight 11 L. Russell Keene II, father of Russ Keene III, WTC2, 89th floor, KBW Peter Kousoulis, sister died in WTC Paul & Barbara Kirwin, parents of Glenn Davis Kirwin, Cantor Fitzgerald 105th floor Barbara Krukowski-Rastelli, mother of William E. Krukowski, NYC firefighter Laura and Ira Lassman, parents of Nicholas C. Lassman, died in WTC, Tower One Johnny Lee, husband of Lorraine Greene Alicia LeGuillow, mother of Nestor A. Cintron III Francine Levine, sister of Adam K. Ruhalter, who died on 9/11 Bob McIlvaine, father of Robert McIlvaine, WTC, Merrill Lynch Mary McWilliams, mother of FF Martin E. McWilliams- Engine 22 Daryl J. Meehan, brother of Colleen Ann Barkow, WTC 1, 105th floor Elvira P. Murphy, wife of Patrick Murphy, WTC 1 Natalee Pecorelli, sister of Thomas Pecorelli of Flight 11 James L Perry, M.D and Patricia J. Perry, parents of John W. Perry, Esq., NYPD Officer 9/11 David Potorti, brother of James Potorti, North Tower, WTC, Marsh & McLennan Terry Kay Rockefeller, sister of Laura Rockefeller, North Tower, WTC Grissel Rodriguez-Valentin, wife of Benito Valentin, WTC1, 94th floor Alissa Rosenberg-Torres, widow of Luis Eduardo Torres, post-9/11 mother, writer Elaine Saber, mother of Scott Saber Julie Scarpitta, mother of Michelle Scarpitta, WTC Building 2, 84th floor Paula Shapiro, mother of Eric Eisenberg, WTC2 Elizabeth Turner, wife of Simon Turner, lost on 11th September 2001 Adele Welty, mother of Firefighter Timothy Welty, FDNY, Squad 288 Joan W. Winton, mother of David Winton, WTC, South Tower, 89th floor David Yancey, husband of Vicki Yancey, American Airlines Flight 77 Nissa Youngren, daughter of Robert G. LeBlanc, flight 175 Late Signatories (starting toward 200...) Rita M. Haley, President, National Organization for Women, New York Chapter Immortal Technique, Harlem-based hip-hop artist with Viper Records, Revolutionary I&II Bob Kirkconnell, served in the U.S. Air Force 27 years, reaching the rank of Master Sergeant Dennis Kyne, former Army air medic, 18th Airborne Corps during Gulf War I, musician, author, "Support the Truth" Paul Landis, author, "Stop Bush Now!" Eric H. May, former Army military intelligence officer and media essayist Charles Shaw, Editor, Newtopia Magazine, National Peace Action Coordinator, National Green Party Peter Erlinder, professor, William Mitchell College of Law, past-President National Lawyers Guild Daniel Robert Rezac, 2004 Vice-Presidential Write-In Candidate, former Aviator & Armor Officer, Army National Guard, B.S.B.A. Joel Horwitz, lost beloved cousin in WTC 1 Jessica Murrow, lost husband Stephen Adams, Beverage Manager, Windows on the World, WTC 1 Ellen Mariani, lost husband Neil on Flight 175 Jean Hunt, disabled survivor of Pentagon attack Ralph & Brigitte Sabbag, lost son Jason in WTC 2 Feel free to research any name on this list. Here's another coincidence: Not one zionist on the above list. Hmmmmm....

Does this facts prove that greeks are stolling Macedonian history?? Macedonia and Alexander were never greeks? Documents of the Continued Existence of Macedonia and the Macedonian Nation for a period of over 2500 years What follows are documents that speak of the continued existence of Macedonia and of the Macedonian nation through the last 25 centuries. Macedonia is clearly distinguished from Greece (Hellas), Thrace, Illyria, Bulgaria, Serbia, and the Macedonians are likewise distinguished as distinct nation from the Greeks, Thracians, Illyrians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians, as nation which continued to exist and survive trough the centuries (makedonika.org). 500 B.C. - 500 A.D. Macedonia and the Macedonians as distinct nation in the works of the ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish historians, as well in the works of the modern German, French, English, American historians. 586 A.D. From the "Miracles of St. Demetrius of Salonika, I ": "...For if one was to imagine them in a heap, not only the Macedonians gathered in Salonika... Certainly he who inspired the Macedonians with courage..." Mirac. I, 13, p.1285-14; 1313 758-759 A.D. From the Chronographia of Theophanes the Confessor "That year Constantine plundered the Sclavinii throughout Macedonia and subjugated the rest." Theoph., I, p.430, 21-22. From the Chronographia Tripertita by Anastasius Bibliothecarius: "In the eighteenth year of his reign, Constantine enslaved the Sclavinii of Macedonia and he subjugated the rest." A. B., p.282, 20-21. 8th Century From Strabonos Epithomatus: "And now, in that way almost all of Epirus, Hellada, the Peloponnese and Macedonia have also been settled by the Skiti-Slavs." C. Muller, Geographi graeci minores, Paris 1882, p.574. 821-823 A.D. From the letter of Michael II to the honorable Ludwig: "Thomas...having gathered our barges and dromon, had the opportunity to arrive in (some) parts of Thrace and Macedonia." Mansi, Michaelis Belbi et Theophilii....Florentinae, 1759 904 From On the Capture of Salonika by John Cametinae: "...I introduce you to the same, the great and the first city of the Macedonians..." J.K. Begunov, Kozma Prezviter v slavjanskih literaturah, Sofia 1976, p. 297 First half of 10th C. From On the Themes by Constantine Porphyrogenitus: "... So from a kingdom Macedonia turned into a province and now it has reached the position of a theme and strategy." C. Porfirogenito, De thematibus, Citta del Vaticano, 1952. 986 From the History of Leo the Deacon: "...since they robbed the region of the Macedonians mercilessly, destroying all adults.". Leonis Diaconi Historiae, Paris 1864, p. 311. 1041 From the Annals of Bari: "...he had already written to Sicily from where the unfortunate Macedonians, Paulicians and Calbrians arrived." G.H. Pertz, Annales Barenses, Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores V, p.53. 1064 From the Chronicle of John Zonaras: "The Uzians...invaded Macedonia and plundered it, and reached Hellada". Ioannis Zonorae Epitomae historiarum, Vol. VIII, Ed. Th. Buttner-Wobst, Bonnae 1897, p.678. 1072-1073 From the History of Necephorus Vryenius: "...for the Scythians were carrying out sudden attacks in Thrace and Macedonia." Nicephori Bryenii commentarii, Ed. A. Meicke, Bonnae 1836, p.100, 102. 1083-1085 From De expeditione Yerosolymitana by Radulfo Cadonis: "...Beomund Guiscard sailed across the Adriatic and occupied Macedonia." Tancredi in expeditione Yerosolymitana ....Paris, 1854, p.499. c. 1106 From the letter of Theophylactes of Ohrid to Gregorius Camaterus: "...do not retain such a man in the narrow regions of our Macedonia...". Theophylacti, col. 496, B-C. Beginning of 12th Century From the Byzantine satire Timarion: "The day of Saint Demetrius in (Salonika) is as great a festival as the Panathinei in Athens or Panionii in Miletus; it is a grand Macedonian celebration in which not only the Macedonian people gather, but people of all sorts and from all directions: Greeks from different regions of Hellada, the Mizian tribes...". Vizantiiski Vremenik, Moscow VI 1953, p. 367. 1185 "Woe, woe, the city of Salonika is captured, I say, the metropolis of the Macedonians." Ephraimi Chronologici caesares; Ed. J.P. Migne - PG 143 , Paris 1891, p.198. Beginning of 13th C. From the synod records of the Ohrid Archibishopric: "Ioannis Ierakar by birth Macedonian". J. Pitra, Analacta sacra et classica specilegio Solesmensi parta, t. VI Juris ecclesiastici graecorum selecta paralipomena. Parissis et Romae 1891, col. 315. 1246 Ser was one a large city, but the Bulgarian Ivan had demolished when besieging it and other Macedonian cities. Georgii Acropolitae Opera, Recensuit A. Haisenberg vol. I, Lipsiae 1903, p.74-75, 77 1282-1321 ...that king's alliance is certain and unanswering, just as long as he can settle near to Macedonia. While he was spending his time on these (matters), the protostrator Theodore Sinadinus, once freed from the West, arrived in Byzantium. He governed Prilep, the neighbouring regions and the lower Macedonian towns. Ioan Cantacuzeni Historiarum libri IV, Ed. J.P.Migne - PG Paris 1866, p.94 1305 At the battle of Apros in 1305 there were five syntaxeis, differentiated by ethnicity: the Alans and Tourkopouloi in the van, followed by the Macedonians, the Anatolians, the Vlach infantry and the Thelematarioi. The Late Byzantine Army. Mark C. Bartusis 1992. p.256 1326 ...I beleive you know that Strimon...is the largest of all those that biscet Thrace and Macedonia... Nicephore Gregoras, Correspondence. Paris 1927, p.30-50. Middle 14th C. ...Stefan became king of the Tribals. After he had set off from the region of the Ionian Sea, he razed Epidamnus to the ground, went into Macedonia and made Skopje the capital... The king left the city of Skopje, taking with him men experienced in battle and a strong army and subordinated to his rule the places in the vicinity of Kastoria. Then having moved camp, he subjugated all of Macedonia, except for Terma... Laonici Chalcocondiae Historiarum. Ed. J. P. Migne - PG t.CLIX (Paris, 1866) col. 36, B-37, C. 1349 (Code of) the honorable and Christ-loving Macedonian Tsar Stefan, Serbian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Dalmation, Arbanasian, Hungarian Wallachian and indipendent ruler of many other regions and lands... Lj. Stojanovic, Stari srpski zapisi i natpisi. Knj. III, Beograd 1905, p. 41 (nbr.4949). Middle of the 14th C. A Slav inscription from the church of St. George at Upper Kozjak in which a man called Bratan signs himself as being from Macedonia. Z. Rosolkovska-Nikolovska, Crkvata Sv. Georgi vo Goren Kozjak vo svetlinata na novite ispituvanja - Zbornik "Kiril Solunski", Kn. I, Skopje, MANU 1970, p. 222. 15th C. I remember the great subordination under which the Turk holds the emperor in Constantinople and all the Greeks, Macedonians and Bulgarians....As I said earlier, there are many Christians who are forced to serve the Turk, such as Greeks, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians, Esclavinians, Rasians and Serbians... Bertrand de la Brocuiere, Putovanje preko mora, Beograd 1950, p.134-135, 140-141. 13th Century - 15th Century Byzantine historians of the Palaiologan period (13th Century - 15th Century) rarely make any distinction more specific then "Thrace" and "Macedonia". Thus we read of the "Thracians" and "Macedonians", the "Thracian and Macedonian armies", the "army" or "forces from Thrace and Macedonia"… For these historians the border between the two areas was the Nestos River or Kavalla. To the west was Macedonia to the east was Thrace. The Late Byzantine Army. Mark C. Bartusis 1992. p.65 1461-1462 When the enemy forces are battered, no one doubts that the whole of Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly, Greece or Attica and the Peloponnese will return to the faithful....Inspired by this example the Thessalians, the Greeks, the Poloponnesians, the Epirans and the Macedonians will all rebel and will win ... Jovan Radonic, Gjurac Kastriot Skenderbeg i Arbanija u XV veku - Spomenik XCV (1942), p. 128-129. August 8th, 1470. The Sultan stopped and spent the night ...in afield that represented the Macedonian border...The River Vardar is nearby, which flows through Macedonia...of which some are Greeks, others Macedonians, Wallachs and even Italians, as well as other nations....Greeks and Macedonians live there... Gio Mario degli Angiolelo, A. Matkovski i P. Angelkova, Nekolku kratki patopisi za Makedonija, Glasnik na INI, VXI/1 (1972), p. 246-247. 1557 ...It is located in Thessaly, which borders on Macedonia, where the plague has reduced much of the population... Nbljudeni na mnozhestvo redki i zabelezhitelni neshta, videni v Grcija, Azija, Judea, Egipet, Arabia i drugi chuzhdi strani ot Pierre Belon d'Man, Sofia 1953, p.132-133; Frenski patepisi za Balkanite, XV-XVIII v. Sofia 1975, p. 95-98. 1566 ...called Jakov; I laboured for much time and many years for this work (in order to contribute) to the holy books. I came out of Macedonia, my fatherland, and I entered.... Lj. Stojanovich, Stari srpski zapisi i natpisi I, p. 203-204. 1579 German ruler Rudolph II to the Pope: ..the deliverer of this letter, don Petar Crnovic...born in Salonika and the other parts of Macedonia... A. Theiner, Vitera monumenta Slavorum meridionalium illustrantia. II. Zagrabiae 1875, p. 70. 1589 Gavril, Archbishop of Ohrid to Archduke Ferdinand of Habsburg: ...the Turk, who from day to day has pursued and blackmailed us and our ancestors ....in the whole of Macedonia, Greece and the nearby countries...then among our countries we have Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Oltenia... Landesregierungsarchive - Innsbruck, VI 50. 1593 Project by Alexander Komulovic to expel the Ottomans from the Balkans ...In other parts of Epirus and Macedonia almost all are Christians of the Greek ritual... Biblioth. Barberiana cod. mnc. LVIII, 33, - Starine (Zagreb), Knj. XIV (1882), p. 86-87. August 11th, 1607 The Duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I, sends his own man of trust to Macedonia. ...who had arrived from Albania and Macedonia... V. Makrusev, Istoriski spomenici Juznih Slovena i okolnih naroda, Beograd 1882, p. 297-299. April 6-24, 1618 (Senato Secreta. 337. Macedonia) ...The nobility of Macedon do not wish to have anything to do with the king of Spain... Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice and other libraries in Northern Italy, London 1864, Vol XV, p. 201-202. 1624 A letter from Pope Urban VIII to the Archbishop of Ohrid, Porphyrius Palaelogus To the respected brothers Porphyrius Paleologus, Patriarch of Justiniana Prima of Ohrid and the other subordinate archbishops, bishops of Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania and of the other side of Macedonia. A. Theiner, Vetera monumenta Slavorum II, (Zagrebiae 1875), p. 123. 1690 Manifesto of the Austrian Emperor Leopold I to the Nations of the Balkans ...Therefier we kindly call all the people who live throughout Albania, Servia, Mysia, Bulgaria, Silistria, Illyria, Macedonia and Rashka... J. Radonjic and M. Kostic, Srpske privilegije od 1690 do 1792. SAN, Posebna izdanja CCXXV, Beograd 1954, p. 26-27. April 26th, 1690 Letter of protection from Leopold I. ...This is to inform you that two Macedonians, Marko Kraida born in Kosana and Dimitri Georgi Popovic, born in Macedonian Salonika, have told us that the Macedonian people, with respect for our most righteous task, with devotion and zeal towards our service....we graciously accept them under our imperial and royal mercy and in any case and way the above mantioned Macedonian people, cordially recommending to each and all of our willing commanders not to attack the Macedonian people....Issued in Vienna, April 26th, 1690. Representatives: defenders of the Macedonian people.... J. Radonic, Prilozi za istoriju Srba u Ungarskoj u XVI, XVII and XVIII veku. Knj. I, Matice srpske, nbr 25 and 26, Novi Sad 1908, p. 52-53. 1704 The French treveller and writer Paul Luca on Macedonia ...and hour after midnight for Kavalla, which is six miles away and once was a large Macedonian city by the sea coast. We should note that almost all the villages in Macedonia are full of Christians and there are few Turks. A. Matkovski and P. Angelakova, Patuvanjata na francuskiot petepisec Pol Luka niz Makedonija od 1704 do 1714-Istorija v/2 (1969). p. 101. End of 18th C. Reports by the French Consul in Salonika, Felix de Beaujour, about Macedonia. The pashalik of Salonika includes the whole of Lower Macedonia and covers 700 sq. miles....it must be noted that here I am only speaking about the most populated part of Macedonia; since Upper Macedonia and Epirus are less populated....In Macedonia, as in Poland, the peasants die from hunger, while the masters live in abundance of gold... Felix de Beaujour, Voyage militaire dans l'Empire Othoman, I, Paris 1829, p. 127-128. n.1; p.130, 132. 1821 Macedonians pertecipate in the Romanian uprising ...At that time there was a man they called Sludzar Todor who urged all the foreigners (mostly Macedonians) to rebel against the boyar... Marko K. Cepenkov, Makedonsko narodno tvoreshtvo, Kn. X, Skopje 1972, p.308 1846 ...I learnt the Slav alphabet from my father Makedonski, who calls himself so because we are Macedonians, and not Greeks.... Georgija Makedonski, Bogosluzhbena kniga "Opshti minej" - vo crkvata vo s. Radibush, Kriva Palanka, posledna nepagirana stranica. 1851 Bulgarian Comments on the language of J.H. Dzinot ...May the inhabitants of Skopje and those who speak similarly forgive me, but they do not understand our language and cannot speak either... "Bolgarski", Tsarigradski Vestnik, nbr. 55 (6.X.1851, p. 19). 1858 Education in Veles ....Archbishop Antim declared to his peers that all peoples have been enlightened by the Greeks and so it is necessary that Greek should be taught in the schools of Veles, and not Macedonian, since the children alrady know their own language from their home... J. N. Iz Velesa u Makedoniji: Srbski Dnevnik, nbr. 44 (1858) (according to Branislav Vraneshevic, Vojvodinska javnost, p. 320-321). 1865 A note from the priest Demetrius: In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I, priest Demetrius, was born in the village of Ogut, in the Kriva Palanka region. and held the services in my native village, when in the year of our Lord 1848, the champions of the town of Kriva Palanka employed me as a priest against the will of His Grace, the Greek priest Kir Gavrail. Mr. Mikhail Makedonski interceded most in favor of my appointment, because I'm a Macedonian by birth and hold the services in the Slav language. Such was the Fate of my fatherland Macedonia, to suffer from the Greeks, so that they will not give us peace even today, although everyone knows that Macedonia is an older state then their kingdom. We had our own Slav educators, Cyril and Methodius, who left us our Slav alphabet. They were Macedonians born in Salonika, the glorious capital of Macedonia. Our Greek bishop does not admit this, so we do not want him to be our priest, but we want to have our own arch-priest, a Slav, for time everlasting. Amen. Zapis vo knigata Zitie Svetih vo Krivopalaneckata crkva. Pretposledna nepagirana strana. January 28, 1867 To the Editor of "Makedonija" newspaper: ...The Greeks and the greacomans have met the newspaper with sorrow, since they always tried to hellenize the Macedonians, destroying also the Archibishopric of Ohrid -The Spark of Our Future. Yet, however hard they have tried to stop us from making progress, they could not entirely uproot the feelings of the Macedonians that they are Macedonians. T.I. Kusev, Makedonija, Istanbul, Nbr. I (1/28/1867) March 25, 1870 ...lets us consider those of the present Macedonians who blinded by concealed glow of Hellenic wisdom, accept that they should scorn and revoke their own nationality...the time seems opportune for me to exclaim:Ah, how far away the time really is when Hellas, as everybody calls her today, was subjected to Macedonian authority... Stefan Zahariev, Chitalishte, Istanbul, I/7, 1871, p.214-216. November 30, 1870 ...A teacher named Mr. Shapkarevic...has come to visit me...the same day the books you had sent me...arrived. But as soon as he saw them he said that they should not be taught in the Macedonian schools, since they were in the Bulgarian dialect; and that we should take his books which are in the Macedonian dialect... Pravo of 10/30/1870 (according to B. Koneski, Kon Makedonskata prerodba, p.68). February 1874 A letter from P.R. Slaveykov to the Bulgarian Exarch: Your Grace, I arrived in Salonika on the evening of the 14th of last month (January 1874). I immediately went to meet all the important local people and some others from the other Macedonian towns. My aim was to gather information as son as possible on what was to be necessary for the succes of the mission with which you had entrusted me. I first met Father Averkij Zografski, and the following day Father Petar Dimitrov as well, the local president of the community. I may inform you, Your Grace, that the wind from here, from Salonika, blows and scatters to all sides. These two clergyman, to my mind, are the leaders of the movement fot the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, although one should not neglect Ohrid and to certain extent Bitola, Veles and Skopje either. The Uniate movement here is not without roots, as they think in Constantinople, especially His Grace, Count Ignatiev. During the time I have been in Macedonia I have ascertained the same we had formerly known and written three years ago. Now, as then or twenty years ago, we are dealing with the Macedonian question. In talks with few Macedonian "patriots" I have understood that this movement, which had been only bare words till a few years ago, is now clear and precise thought - "The Macedonians are not Bulgarians" and they persistenly strive, regardless of the price, to obtain a separate church of their own. They also have the support in their separatism of smoe high clergyman in Constantinople, especially His Grace Nathaniel Ohridski, Panariot Plovdivski, and Archimandrite Hariton Karpuzov. I have understood this month from reliable sources that there are letters which arrive every day from Constantinople to the Salonika community, and are then sent to the other communities in the provinces. The letters are written in this spirit. One such letter, which the Salonika community sent to the community of Voden, calls upon the inhabitants of Voden to break off all their relations with theExarchate until the Macedonian Church question is settled, because "now is the moment". Mr. Kuzman Shapkarev from Ohrid, who is well known to us, has done a great deal to spread the idea of the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid; he consatnly travels between Kukish and Ohrid and v.v., but at whose expanse, I do not know. Mr. Dimitar Makedonski, "the Macedonian textbook writer", is no less active, reciving salary as a teacher from the Exarchate and from local Lazarists. Owing to such unreasonable sermons by the Macedonian patriots that the church question has been settled only in favor of the Bulgarians, there is discontent among the people towrds the eparchies of th4 Danube and Adrianople vilayets as well as envy because of the earlier awakening of the Bulgarians. One can especially feel a great resistance against the East Bulgarian variant in literature. A general impression is that the local people think that the Macedonians have been done a great harm with the settlement of the church question in favor of the Danubian and Thracian Bulgarians. This discontent has already grown into distrust of the Exarchate and its higher echalons. and there is an attitude formed that the local Macedonian dialect should be declared a literary language and a Macedonian hiearchy established. Great attention, Your Grace, should be paid to His Grace Nathaniel, who promised the local people taht as soon as he comes to his eparchy he will take steps for the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid. He seems to be connected with the Macedonian craftsman in Constantinople, among whom he spreads the news about the agreement with the Patriarchate. For their own part they inform their own people in Macedonia about this. It causes great discontent here. Consequently, separatism has its roots in the secret circle of Constantinople. If you press them there, the commotion wil calm down here. Silence the trumpet, there won't be any echo! The question of Father Nil is a highly delicate one, because he has barricaded himself in Kukush and does not want to return. His ambition seems to have made him to this. He stuffed his head with the thought of becoming the Archbishop of Ohrid ar at least Metropolitan of Salonika. As an Exarchate delegate he spreads the news about the agreement with the Patriarchate as the " most informed person". He decribes the Exarchate to the people as indifferent and passive in saving the Macedonian population from Greek spiritual slavery. Father Nil, who proved to be completely immature, seems to be a hireling of the highest Turkish vilayet authorities. However, his disobidiance to his headquarters began at the moment when he was summoned to return to Constantinople. Instead of obeying orders, he remained waiting there. His disobidiance also comes as a result of the suggestions that have been arriving from Constatinople. He maintains constant relations with Bishop Panaret and Nathaniel especially with the latter, who has suggested he stay in Macedonia until he gets an appointment for Ohrid and arrives in Macedonia. I think that Father Nil should be cast out of Macedonia at any cost and sent to Constatinople, because he is dangerous here. He already acts under the protection of the local Lazarists and the French consul. Thoughts of the restoration of the Archbishop of Ohrid at the moment are most prevalent here, in Salonika. Here the schemes are being devised and here the hotheads are gathering. These thoughts of course are not based upon mature foundation, especially since Midhat-Pasha has been dismissed from Salonika. But they are gradually spreading to northern Macedonia, although they are not very clear. Some say one thing to the people and others say another. There is danger, if steps are not taken from spme authoritative place, of creating a genral ideal. Then the consequences would be much more serious. The best thing would be if His Grace, Count Ignatiev, were to visit Macedonia, because the population feels a secret hope thet only Russia could help them. Tomorrow, with Gos's help, I intend to meet some of the elders from the local community. I shall try to convince them of the groundlessnes of their aspirations for a separarte Church when they already have one in the form of the Exarchate. Certainly the most difficult question will be that of the appointment of bishops of Macedonian origin and especially that of the cheirotonia of Father Hariton. I kiss Your Grace's right hand. Salonika, Fabruary 1874. Your obedient P.R. Slaveykov Another letter from P.R. Slaveykov: Your Grace, I sent you a letter via a trustworthy man two days ago, in which I briefly described to you the situation in Salonika and Macedonia in connection with the unreasonable movement for the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid in union with the Roman Catholic Church. After the meeting with some of the local elders I have understood that there were everywhere wide discussions for a broader plan, namely, to create a Uniate Church in Macedonia. According to reliable sources, only the cheirotonia of Father Hariton is awaited before action will be taken. Until the blessing of the Pope for the proclamation of the Uniate Archbishopric of Ohrid arrives, the bishops with their eparchies will be constituent apart of the Uniate Church with their seat in Adrianople. Then Father Nathaniel will be appointed Archbishop of Ohrid and the following appointments will be made in the eparchies: Father Panaret for the Pelagonia eparchy, Brother Kozma Prechistenski for the Debar eparchy, Father Nil Izvorov for the Salonika eparchy and Father Dorotej for the Skopje eparchy. The other eparchies, for which there are no candidates proposed, will temporarily be governed by the neighboring archpriests. Father Nil will be Bishop of Salonika, Kukush and Voden. Father Hariton, after his ordination, will also become bishop of the Serez and Melnik eparchies. Father Dionisij, as an archimandrite, will temporarily govern the Strumica eparchy. I have personal impression, Your Grace, that nobody here is asking for a real union with the Roman Catholic Church. It is simply a means of restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid. Catholic circles also feel this and therefore have no great confidence in the people with whom they are negotiating. So I do not think it is too late to actin order to overcome the discontent, which later could be subdued. The Uniate movement is more dangerous in the places where formerly there was a Union because of similar reasons. Kukush comes in the first place, followed by Dojran with sympathy from Strumica, Maleshevo and Voden. The Salonika, Serez, Melnik and Drama villages lag behind them. There is not any powerful stirring of the Uniate propaganda indeed, but where there is smoke there must be fire. The appointment of Bishop Nil is expected for the fire to blaze forth. The Poljanin eparchy will immediately turn into a Union and the Strumica and Voden eparchies will join in, as well as a huge number of villages in Salonika, Drama, Serres and other eparchies. The other Macedonian eparchies will certainly be shattered, too, first the Veles eparchy and then the Skopje one. The Veles eparchy is also dissatisfied with its bishop, Damaskin, while at the same time the citizens of Veles, aroused by a craving for power, believe that they should govern Macedonia in religious matters. The causes of such a situation in the whole of Macedonia are very obvious. The Macedonian eparchies and towns I have already mentioned are extremely embittered by the serious position of the Church and the people in which they find themselves. The spreading of the idea of restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid upon an Uniate basis is also helped by the French and Austrian consuls, who promise full protection before the Turkish authorities and persecution of the Constantinople Patriarchate. The Greeks themselves indirectly help the spreading of the Union in Macedonia, expecting the Exarchate to become weak because of the Union and thus finding allies in the liquidation of the Catholic propaganda in Macedonia. I have concluded this from the talks I had with the Greek consul in Salonika. He was not in the least worried at the danger of the spread of the Union in Macedonia. On the contrary, Greece is seeking support for its economic and national activity in Macedonia. According to the opinion of the Greek consul, the part of the people who will not accept the Union, disillusioned with the Exarchate, will remain under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate. In the talks I had it was not by chance that the agents and adherents of the Union mentioned that the "Macedonian question" could only be settled through the Union. In order to make full use of the discontent and bitterness of the people against the Exarchate, they strengthen their accusation against the Exarchate. They speak about the Macedonian question upon a religious basis, but at the same time stir up the old separatist trends among the Macedonians - to create a new ethnic region through the Union - in the spirit of Midhat-Pasha's schemes. As the Roman Catholic agents worked out a cultural and national program for the Union in 1860 for the liberation of the Bulgarian people from the Patriarchate, they now also appear with a specific program for the spiritual and national liberation of the Macedonian eparchies through the Union. The Macedonian activists already widely use the expression the Macedonian movement in their language of communication, by which one should understand independent national and church liberation. I must emphasize strongly, Your Excellency, that this is a factor of an important political character - separatism is being spread starting from a religious basis towards a broader national one. After the talks I had with Father Petar Dimov I felt that he has slowly retired from being drawn into the Union. Today he has officially renounced the Union and sent a letter to You expressing his loyalty to the Exarchate. I also talked to Father Averkij. He told me that he would also withdraw from the movement if appointments for the Exarchate bishops were issued by the autumn. My attitude towards these two Church dignitaries was moderate and friendly, because any repressive measures could stir up spirits. .... Your spiritual child P.R. Slaveykov S. Dimevski, Dve pisma na P. R. Slaveykov za makedonizmot. - Razgledi XIV, 5(1972), p.561-566 April 6, 1878 in Salonika To the Right Honorable Austen Henry Layard "...Russian agents are busy in the country, and even here, trying to get petitions that the whole of Macedonia be included in Bulgaria... They tell the people: If you remain out, your state (and you see what it is) will be worse then it was before, while if you attach yourselves to us and our cause, you will get all the benefits accruing to a large and powerful Kingdom, under Russian protection... I remain... Edward B. Barker British Museum, London, Dmss Layard Papers, Vol. LXXXIX Addd. 39.019, 186-187. 1878 From the record of the Imperial Russian secret archives on the arrangement and government of the Balkan regions. ...Count Shuvalev demands that all the necessary measures for pacification of Macedonia be undertaken. For its purpose, it would be desirable to send competent agents there, and to proclaim to the Macedonians on behalf of the Governor, the Emperor, that His Highness is concerned about their fate, as much as for the other Slavs, and they will be granted the same freedom as that of the Bulgarians, now already liberated.... Dokumenti iz sekretnite arhivi na Ruskoto pravitelstvo. Sofia 1893, p.11-12. 1878 The rules of the Macedonian Rebel Commitee of the Kresna Uprising It is well known to all of us that this ill-fated country of ours, Macedonia, owing to the egoistic aims of the Great Powers, was gain left to Turkey after the Congress of Berlin. As a result of that, in certain regions of our fatherland many scenes full full of blood, known to all of us, took place....We rebelled as advocates of freedom. With the blood we shed all over Macedonian fields and forests, we serve freedom, as the Macedonian army of Alexander of Macedon did, with our slogan "Freedom or Death!" The aim of the Uprising in Macedonia 1.The uprising in Macedonia...should be extended all over Macedonia. 2. Those people from Macedonia who feel themselves to be Macedonians and love the freedom of their fatherland are taking part in the uprising. From the private archives of Cyril, Patriarch of Bulgaria, Arch. of Act 2341, AE 50, pp. 30-61. The Residence of the monastery of Dragolevci, Sofia, P.R. Bulgaria. June 8, 1879 Georgi Pulevski to Despot Badzovic: ...The Bulgarians here are playing tricks with us and are turning the water to their mill alongside divine Nathaniel, who is a Macedonian, but rather inclined towards the Bulgarians... Arhiv Srbije (Beograd) Fond: Ministarstvo prosvete, P. nbr. 981/8.VI.1879; Razgledi XIV/10 (1972), p. 1132. March 23, 1881 Manifesto of the Provisional Government of Macedonia: ...our dear Macedonia, our dear homeland is calling upon you: you who are my faithful children, you who are descendants of Aristotle and Alexandar the Great, you in whose veins Macedonian blood flows, do not let me die, but help me!... President Vasil Chomo, Secretary Nikola Trajkov in Kjustendil Centralnii Gosudartsvenii Arhiv Okjabarskii revoljucii i socialtieskoga stroitelstva SSSR, Moskva - Fond Gr.Ignatieva No.730 - opis No. 1, ed.hr.79; Lj. lape, Odbrani tekstovi za istorijata na makedonskio narod, II del, Skopje 1976, p.256-258. May 9, 1888 Salonika. Temko Popov to Despot Badzovic ...I shall try to write to you, as far as possible, in our language, replacing the words I don't know with Bulgarian ones. What else can I do, Despot? While our language could one dictate to the other Slav languages, it has now remained the poorest of all, and like a begger, it serves either Bulgarian or Serbian....Let us no lie to ourselves, Despot, tha national spirit in Macedonia has reached such a stage today that even if Jesus Christ had come to the Earth, he would not have been able to persuade the Macedonian that he was a Bulgarian or a Serb, excepting those Macedonians in whom Bulgarian propaganda has already taken root. In order to convince yourself of this, you must have Bulgarianism in view. Bulgarian propaganda has now been working for 20 years in Macedonia, in the blindest of times - when Hellenism, coming from and entirely alien nation, started to take root in the Macedonian heart; bu