FTR #566 Middle East Matrix — It Ain’t Necessarily So

He Who Tells the Truth Gets Chased out of Nine Vil­lages, Part III
Recorded August 27, 2006
REALAUDIO

The Matrix films enjoyed tremen­dous pop­u­lar­ity and cir­cu­la­tion in the last years of the 20th cen­tury. An adven­ture series, the films are pred­i­cated on the cog­ni­tive dom­i­na­tion of a cap­tive human race, held in thrall by a soci­ety of intel­li­gent machines. [...]

FTR #565 Middle East Matrix

Fac­tual exis­tence of Islamic fas­cism, in con­trast to George W. Bush’s use of the term.

Why did Berkeley paper run anti-Jewish column?

by Chip John­sonSAN FRANCSCO CHRONICLE
The fall­out from an opin­ion piece pub­lished in Berkeley’s twice-weekly com­mu­nity news­pa­per has mush­roomed well beyond the con­fines of the nation’s first des­ig­nated Nuclear-Free Zone.
And while it is not unusual for the Berke­ley Daily Planet’s exec­u­tive edi­tor and owner Becky O’Malley to pub­lish con­tro­ver­sial, far-flung opin­ion pieces and wacko reader responses, [...]

Pronouncing Blame on the Israel Lobby

by Dana Mil­bankWASHINGTON POST
It was quite a boner.
Uni­ver­sity of Chicago polit­i­cal sci­en­tist John Mearsheimer was in town yes­ter­day to elab­o­rate on his view that Amer­i­can Jew­ish groups are respon­si­ble for the war in Iraq, the destruc­tion of Lebanon’s infra­struc­ture and many other bad things. As evi­dence, he cited the influ­ence pro-Israel groups have on “John Boner, [...]

FTR #564 Interview with John Loftus

He Who Tells the Truth Gets Chased Out of Nine Vil­lages
REALAUDIO
There is an old Turk­ish proverb that goes: “He who tells the truth gets chased out of nine vil­lages.” In this pro­gram, Mr. Emory and John Lof­tus tackle the unen­vi­able task of dis­pelling some of the delib­er­ate dis­in­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing the recent Lebanon war, as well [...]

Worry About the West — Not Israel

by Vic­tor Davis Han­son
The reac­tions and media cov­er­age com­ing out of the West regard­ing this lat­est war in the Mid­dle East are as bewil­der­ing as they are instruc­tive.
Rep. John Din­gell, D-Mich., for exam­ple, recently said, “I don’t take sides for or against Hezbol­lah or for or against Israel .”
Mean­while, the West­ern news agency Reuters, responding [...]

Weapons and funding boost Hezbollah’s power

Sarah Chal­lands, CTV.ca News
Israel’s efforts to wipe out the capa­bil­i­ties of Hezbol­lah are now focus­ing on the caves and tun­nels of south­ern Lebanon’s sav­age ter­rain and just this week, Israel con­fi­dently claimed it had destroyed half of the Islamic mil­i­tant group’s arse­nal.
How­ever, while Hezbol­lah con­tin­ues to launch rock­ets capa­ble of hit­ting cities deep inside Israel, [...]

FTR #561 Economics 9/11, Part II

Recorded July 16, 12006
REALAUDIO

Con­tin­u­ing dis­cus­sion of the eco­nomic impli­ca­tions of vio­lence in the Mid­dle East, this pro­gram iden­ti­fies the oil-price increases stem­ming from the blood­let­ting as being of para­mount impor­tance. The more vio­lent and unsta­ble the Mid­dle East becomes, the more wealth pours into the cof­fers of the oil com­pa­nies and the oil pro­duc­ing countries. [...]

Mideast Stocks Hold Up Well Amid Conflict

Investors From Per­sian Gulf Region Seem Uncon­cerned by Insta­bil­ity; Israeli Shares Post Slight GainBy Karen Richard­son in New York and Yas­mine El-Rashidi in CairoTHE WALL STREET JOURNAL
THE ISRAELI-LEBANESE con­flict has been weigh­ing on stock mar­kets through­out the world for the past cou­ple of weeks — except in some of those coun­tries clos­est to the con­flict.
Investors [...]

Israel set war plan more than a year ago

Strat­egy was put in motion as Hezbol­lah began gain­ing mil­i­tary strength in Lebanon
Matthew KalmanCHRON­I­CLE FOREIGN SERVICE
Jerusalem — Israel’s mil­i­tary response by air, land and sea to what it con­sid­ered a provo­ca­tion last week by Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants is unfold­ing accord­ing to a plan final­ized more than a year ago.
In the six years since Israel ended its military [...]