Canadian Jewish News November 14, 2002

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Canadian Business and Current Affairs
Copyright 2002 Canadian Jewish News
Canadian Jewish News

November 14, 2002

SECTION: v.32(45) N 14'02 pg 13-14; ISSN: 0008-3941
CBCA-ACC-NO: 5500961
LENGTH: 742 words

BODY:
In less than three weeks, the war in Iraq ends with a decisive American victory.

The incessant bombardment of Baghdad prompts an internal uprising. Nearly half of Saddam Hussein's army deserts him.

The chaos results in Iraq reverting back to its former rulers and the current ruling royals in Jordan -- the Hashemites. Jordan and Iraq are now a consolidated kingdom. To smooth over the change, the Shiites, Kurds and West Bank Palestinians each have their own self-rule within the kingdom.

Jewish settlers in the West Bank are granted joint Israeli-Jordanian citizenship.

Does this sound like a pipe dream?

Perhaps, but when the source of the information is John Loftus, a former American Justice Department prosecutor with access to CIA and top secret nuclear files, it may not be baseless prognostication.

In a matter-of-fact style, Loftus delivered an engaging speech entitled "The truth about terrorism" at the opening of the Jewish Book Fair at the Leah Poslun's theatre Nov. 2.

A Pulitzer Prize nominee and the first Irish-Catholic president of the Florida Holocaust Museum, Loftus has a positive outlook on the gloomy Middle East.

The author of four history books said, "I think this [war on Iraq] will be one of the best things that has ever happened to Israel."

He sees the war triggering a waning of Muslim fundamentalism in the Mideast, a trend already in motion as television and the Internet penetrate the Arab world.

"Ignorance is an essential tool for dictators," Loftus said. "Television has been able to pierce that level of ignorance."

As proof, he said opinion polls show "83 per cent of the people in Iran want the fanatical Mullahs out." And he speculated that there could be a domino effect of authoritarian Arab regimes falling.

But Loftus conceded there is a "50 per cent chance that this will work out."

Neither did he paint an entirely rosy picture, noting that Palestinians will launch terror attacks on Israel during the war and Hezbollah might fire missiles with chemical weapons into Israel.

But with Israel's population immunized and the limited potential of missile-launched biological weapons to inflict mass suffering, Loftus isn't concerned.

The kicker in this is oil, he said. He predicted that with an American-friendly merged Jordan-Iraq kingdom, Iraq's current output of one million barrels of oil a day will be boosted to three million.

That will negate the need for oil from Saudi Arabia, a country Loftus pinpointed as the main fundraiser of Islamic terrorism.

The dominant sect in Saudi Arabia are the Wahabbi's who Loftus described as a "militant, violent, puritanical sect... the Ku Klux Klan of Islam."

He said the Saudis fund 80 per cent of the mosques in the United States where clerics ''teach Wahabbism as if it is mainstream Islam.''

Saudi money is funneled to ''charities'' based in Virginia. That money, for which the Saudis receive a tax break, is eventually used to fund suicide bombers, he said.

"Israel, when they raided Arafat's compound, found evidence of the Saudi funding," but the Americans encouraged Israel to "keep quiet" as the Saudis continue to sell oil to America at a discounted rate, he said.

Indeed, keeping quiet on the truth about Saudi Arabia is a must in CIA circles, Loftus said.

"At the CIA, if you want to ruin your career, all you have to do is write up an expose on Saudi Arabia."

He said up to $300 million in Saudi money is paid to al-Qaeda, as "the Saudis bribe al-Qaeda to stay away from Saudi Arabia."

As sinister as this all seems, Loftus said the flow of dirty money paved the way for a lawsuit.

"If I donate money to charities, I can sue them to find out where the money went."

That is precisely what Loftus told the U.S. Department of Justice he would do unless they took action.

And they did take action, shutting down several Islamic charities in the United States, including Global Relief International, which was based in Illinois.

And this past August, Loftus and a team of more than 40 lawyers filed an unprecedented $1 trillion lawsuit against the Saudi royal family on behalf of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The author of The Secret War Against the Jews and Unholy Trinity, both of which he co-authored with Mark Aarons, is coming out with another book called Prophets of Terror: Jonathan Pollard and Peace in the Middle East.

Return to John's Media Appearances Section