Our world is experiencing more violence, and we have president George Bush peddling his freedom around the world by saying that he will not attack North Korea, one of his axis of evil, while at the same time we have the Pentagon getting ready to unilaterally attack Iraq, another country of Bush's axis of evil.

We are getting involved into a spiral of ever greater violence as the U.S. increases its military expenditures and as the Pentagon will create its own Public Relations (PR) unit, the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), to spread lies around the world to combat the 21^st century new war against Terrorism. In the meantime, Israel prime minister Ariel Sharon joins Bush's strategy against terrorism and incites more violence in the Middle East by invading the Palestinian territories with tanks and by launching missiles against the compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in response to additional suicidal Palestinian bombings against Israelis.

No conventional media is ever referring to the possibility of experiencing state's sanctioned terrorism, and Bush's world wide PR work for an international coalition against terrorism is further highlighting the real possibility of state's sanctioned terrorism. As our democracies have been eroded, it wouldn't be surprising to have governments which deliberately disinform their citizens; and the creation of the Office of Strategic Influence in the U.S. is a proof of the covert activities infringing on our freedom. Therefore, I feel that president Bush is an hypocrite when he says that we must wage preemptive wars against terrorism to preserve our own freedom while at the same time he authorizes the establishment of organizations and the establishment of secretive policies to subvert our own freedom.

Yesterday, I casually came across the result of opinion polls on the violence in the Middle East and I realized that Americans overwhelmingly blame the Palestinians for this violence. However, I must say that our corporate media doesn't report properly the right of Palestinians to their own homeland and it doesn't report properly the peace protests in Israel. Lev Grinberg, professor of sociology at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, states that it is urgently needed to stop the cycle of violence in the Middle East and that it is urgently needed to stop Ariel Sharon's military directions against the Palestinians.

Over 210 Israeli Army reservists have signed a statement refusing to serve in the occupied territories rightly belonging to Palestinians. Ilan Feldman, a reservist who is serving in the occupied territories, says

"I witnessed some of the not so nice things done over there... even some atrocities... Last time, just a couple of weeks ago, they were shooting at us and when we shot back there were people who were shooting into taxis they saw, and houses, and people who had nothing to do with the shooting at us... If you can locate where the shots came from you shoot back there, but mostly you don't. You're happy with the trigger and you just keep shooting."

In Israel, thousands and thousands of people have been protesting against Ariel Sharon's militaristic approach to peace. Yes, there may be such a thing as State's sanctioned terrorism in our supposed democracies.

References:

Transcript - "The Accused" - Panorama BBC, 17 June 2001 http://indictsharon.net/

New Pentagon office to spearhead information war The Pentagon has established a new Office of Strategic Influence to market America's war on terrorism outside the United States, a Defense Department official said Tuesday. CNN, February 20, 2002 http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/02/19/gen.strategic.influence/index.html

The Arrogance of Occupation An Israeli Political Scientist speaks out, Lev Grinberg, Tikkun Magazine 12.14.2001 http://www.tikkun.org/index.cfm/action/current/article/79.html

More Jews Saying "NO" to the Occupation. The Peace Movement Revives, Tikkun Magazine 02.12.2002 http://www.tikkun.org/index.cfm/action/current/article/83.html

Dissent in the ranks One reservist claims the army is "trigger happy" BBC News, 20 February, 2002 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1831000/1831330.stm