NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, 14 May 2004 — Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reportedly canceled his scheduled meeting with US President George Bush last week. The press speculated that Sharon, whose Likud Party rejected his Gaza Palestinian “ministate” vision, did not want to meet Bush without a plan in hand.

Funny. This has never stopped Sharon from traveling before. Maybe Sharon doesn’t want to answer any questions about the only thing Americans are talking about right now — US abuse, torture, and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners.

What might Sharon know about that?

Right now, Americans are so mesmerized by those photos, which daily increase in number and luridness, that the facts of who did what and who knew what, and just what the “hey” and worse went on in those prisons, are just dribbling out, like water from a leaky faucet.

What might Sharon know? He might know whether the four “contract” interrogators identified as the foremost abusers — John Israel, Steven Stephanowicz, Torin Nelson, and Adel Nakha — were trained in their “craft” in Israel, or by Israelis.

Initial news reports indicate that two companies, Titan of San Diego, California, and California Analysis Center Incorporated (CACI, pronounced “khaki”) of Arlington, Virginia, employed these now-notorious “contractors.” But Titan and CACI themselves reportedly deny being their “direct” employers. And Titan and CACI refuse to identify who is.

What might Sharon know? Well, surely he knows that CACI was founded in the 1960s by Herbert Kerr and Harry Markowitz, a Chicago Jew, who worked together at The Rand Corporation in the 1950s. Markowitz, a mathematics genius with a Ph.d. from the University of Chicago, received the 1990 Nobel prize in economics (shared) for his theory of “portfolio choice,” which allows market investors to analyze risk as well as their expected return. But Markowtiz and Kerr’s work at Rand was in computer matrix codes with industrial and defense applications. This is the work that CACI still does now. With creative innovations, apparently.

What might Sharon know?

Sharon certainly knows that in February 2004, the Jerusalem Fund of Aish Ha Torah, a Zionist “worldwide foundation” specializing in “educational outreach,” according to CACI’s own press release, gave CACI its Albert Einstein award “for promoting peace in the Middle East.” CACI’s CEO, Jack London, was presented the award by Israel’s Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski in a glittering, elaborate ceremony at the Jerusalem City Hall. The ceremony was billed as part of the “First Annual Defense Aerospace Homeland Security Mission of Peace to Israel and Jordan.”

CACI executives and other attendees were reportedly invited to Jordan in conjunction with the award ceremony.

What might Sharon know?

Well, Sharon must know that “other speakers and participants” included Robert Liscouski, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the US Department of Homeland Security; US Senators Evan Bayh (Indiana Democrat) and Bill Nelson (Florida Democrat) of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and US Congressmen John Linder (Georgia Republican) and John McHugh (New York Republican) of the House Armed Services Committee.

What else might Sharon know?

Sharon surely knows that the Jerusalem Fund’s CACI award reportedly recognized CACI’s “technological achievements in areas of defense and national security.”

One wonders: Does this include the kind of torture and abusive “innovations” so clearly documented in the uncontroverted and undeniable photographic record?

What else might Sharon know?

Sharon might know that the stated purpose of this US-Israeli get-together, which CACI calls a “mission,” was to promote “opportunities for strategic partnerships and joint ventures between US and Israeli Defense and Homeland Security companies.” While in Israel, the “mission’s” participants reportedly attended “high-level briefings and demonstrations on innovative technologies and their applications to homeland security, counterterrorism, and national defense.”

Wow! No wonder the Pentagon has no idea of what is going on in Iraq. It’s all in the hands of CACI and Israel!

What else might Sharon know? He might know that CACI views its role in the joint partnership between the US and Israel “as a provider of information technologies for helping fight the war on terrorism,” and plans to “transform the Middle East from a source of global instability into a peaceful, stable region.” So one must ask: Is the first step toward that goal to undress all the men? How does that work, exactly?

Does Sharon know?

And what do Rumsfeld and Bush know? Because CACI does not work alone, no. CACI itself proclaims that “CACI works directly with the US Department of Defense and the US intelligence community.”

CACI itself describes its “comittment” to “America and its allies” as “intense.”

What does Sharon know?

Sharon clearly knows that by “allies,” CACI means Israel. In July 2002, The Washington Post reported that Bush was told by Laurent Murawiec, a former French Defense Ministry advisor, to sever America’s alliance with Saudi Arabia, seize its oil fields, and freeze its assets.

And what entity issued Murawiec’s report?

The Rand Corporation, where the ideas that fuel CACI’s Middle East “mission” first congealed. Rand is the same place that employed neocon theorist Francis Fukuyama who, like CACI’s Jack London, was similarly honored by Israel and Zionist intelligencia at Tel Aviv University’s School of Government this past March. In his speech, Fukuyama, a professor at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, complained that Muslims are the only group actively resisting his “end of history” theory about the inevitable rise of pure democracy. Fukuyama told his Zionist audience that the world’s most pronounced “democracy deficit” is in the “Muslim Arab countries of the Middle East.”

Fukuyama’s comments were then elaborated upon by none other than Benjamin Netanyahu, who bounded onto the stage and spoke at length about Middle East “terrorism.”

What does Sharon know?

He knows that Israel’s place as an equal partner in the neocon worldview is assured, thanks to CACI’s efforts on behalf of Israel. Sharon knows plenty. But right now, he’ll stay home, and leave the talking to Rumsfeld and Bush.

Oh, but Rumsfeld and Bush have only just now seen those photographs, and only recently read the reports, right?

So they say.

The investigations, Rumsfeld and Bush assure us, have only just begun.