Paul Krugman, in the NYT (April 16, 2004):

Iraq isn't Vietnam. The most important difference is the death toll, which is only a small fraction of the carnage in Indochina. But there are also real parallels, and in some ways Iraq looks worse.

It's true that the current American force in Iraq is much smaller than the Army we sent to Vietnam. But the U.S. military as a whole, and the Army in particular, is also much smaller than it was in 1968. Measured by the share of our military strength it ties down, Iraq is a Vietnam-size conflict.

And the stress Iraq places on our military is, if anything, worse. In Vietnam, American forces consisted mainly of short-term draftees, who returned to civilian life after their tours of duty. Our Iraq force consists of long-term volunteers, including reservists who never expected to be called up for extended missions overseas. The training of these volunteers, their morale and their willingness to re-enlist will suffer severely if they are called upon to spend years fighting a guerrilla war.

Some hawks say this proves that we need a bigger Army. But President Bush hasn't called for larger forces. In fact, he seems unwilling to pay for the forces we have.

A fiscal comparison of George Bush's and Lyndon Johnson's policies makes the Vietnam era seem like a golden age of personal responsibility. At first, Johnson was reluctant to face up to the cost of the war. But in 1968 he bit the bullet, raising taxes and cutting spending; he turned a large deficit into a surplus the next year. A comparable program today — the budget went from a deficit of 3.2 percent of G.D.P. to a 0.3 percent surplus in just one year — would eliminate most of our budget deficit.

By contrast, Mr. Bush, for all his talk about staying the course, hasn't been willing to strike anything off his domestic wish list. On the contrary, he used the initial glow of apparent success in Iraq to ram through yet another tax cut, waiting until later to tell us about the extra $87 billion he needed. And he's still at it: in his press conference on Tuesday he said nothing about the $50 billion-to-$70 billion extra that everyone knows will be needed to pay for continuing operations.

This fiscal chicanery is part of a larger pattern. Vietnam shook the nation's confidence not just because we lost, but because our leaders didn't tell us the truth. Last September Gen. Anthony Zinni spoke of"Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and the lies," and asked his audience of military officers,"Is it happening again?" Sure enough, the parallels are proliferating. Gulf of Tonkin attack, meet nonexistent W.M.D. and Al Qaeda links."Hearts and minds," meet"welcome us as liberators.""Light at the end of the tunnel," meet"turned the corner." Vietnamization, meet the new Iraqi Army.

Shawn Macomber, a staff writer at the American Spectator, in frontpagemag.com (April 16, 2004):

Louis Freeh was and remains an intelligent, talented man and a true patriot. But that cannot stop us from judging his performance at the helm of the FBI – and the verdict is dismal. The problem was Freeh identified too well with the rank-and-file agent, according to investigative reporter and author Ronald Kessler.

“Freeh viewed his job as directing major cases, which would be like the chairman of GE designing a jet engine or sitting in for Tom Brokaw on NBC's Nightly News ,” Kessler writes in, The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI . “From procurement of computers to the services the bureau provides law enforcement, Freeh ignored what goes on in the rest of the bureau. With only six years as an agent, Freeh had never supervised a case, yet he considered himself the bureau's premier case agent.”

By ignoring the less glamorous duties of his post, Freeh put the FBI in a terribly disadvantaged position. The FBI's intra-office computer system was old and ineffectual. The 56k modems the agency used were so slow, agents frequently communicated using faxes instead. Inevitably, many of these memos were lost. There were so few around that numerous agents had to share computers. While Freeh diverted millions of dollars overseas to establish FBI bases (a desirable goal), the agency's headquarters here in America were falling into disrepair. The Information Technology programs the FBI did undertake went millions and millions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. In the absence of results even by the pathetic standards of the U.S. Congress, further monies were withheld. Freeh himself, despite his pro-technology rhetoric, booted the computer out of his office on day one and, incredibly, never used e-mail during his tenure as Director.

Freeh, then as now, complained that the real problem was the stinginess of the U.S. government. But a look at the numbers suggests otherwise. Between fiscal year 1992 and 1997 the FBI's budget increased 45 percent, from $2 billon to just under $3 billion. By 2001, the Bureau's budget stood at $3.4 billion. Freeh himself bragged about these increases as he left office. Those substantial increases point to a problem in management. A December 2002 audit by the Justice Department's Inspector General complained of the bureau's “inability to effectively complete IT projects within budget and schedule,” which had “reduced the FBI's credibility in the eyes of Congress.”

Just how bad did it get? Many of the FBI's computer systems not even have the technology to incorporate a mouse. “To store a single document on the Automated Case Support system required twelve separate computer commands,” Kessler writes. “On these green screened machines, the FBI could search for the word ‘flight' or the word ‘schools' – retrieving millions of documents each time – but not for ‘flight schools.' The CIA, in contrast, had been able to perform searches for ‘flight schools' on its computers since 1958.”

Having a former agent as Director was turning out to not be the plus it once was suggested to be, either. The distaste for supervisors he nursed as an agent came bubbling back to the surface. In The Bureau , Kessler quotes Freeh telling his assistant directors that he wanted them to “talk straight” with him. “If I'm full of sh-t, I want you to tell me,” he said, according to Kessler. Staff quickly learned that Freeh was not sincere about his desire for such dissent. Those who told him what he wanted to hear moved up the FBI ladder quickly, those who did not were ignored, shunned, and given “icy glares.” He would tell people their questions were “stupid,” rather than answering them. “Freeh killed the messenger,” one agent told Kessler. “After a while there were no more messengers.” Freeh's distaste for managers led him to decrease the number of agents assigned to headquarters by 37 percent. On the surface, the idea of putting more agents on the streets is attractive, but in practice it led to disarray at headquarters, which made everyone's job more difficult.

On Tuesday, Freeh told the 9/11 Commission he believed “that al-Qaeda declared war on the United States in 1996.” (And admittedly, he took a great deal of interest in the investigation into the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia the same year.) However, Freeh's congressional testimony in 1999 gives the lie to that. It appears his view of terrorsm took the PC posture of the Clinton administration. In that testimony two years before September 11 – and three years after he believed Osama bin Laden had “declared war” – Freeh said that the United States had “little credible intelligence at this time indicating that international or domestic terrorists are planning to attack United States interests domestically.” Instead, he insisted Americans were more threatened by “extremist splinter elements of right-wing groups.”

Among these domestic terrorists, Freeh included “militias,” “white-separatist groups,” “anti-government groups” (like Rush Limbaugh listeners), the “anti-abortion” (the overwhelmingly church-going, pro-life) movement, and “tax protestors.” That is, Freeh and Clinton were wary of being attacked by the “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

Despite the handicaps imposed by flawed leadership, the FBI's hardworking agents prevented 40 major terrorist attacks during the 1990s, saving thousands of lives. But even now, Freeh doesn't accept that the FBI had a blind spot on September 11. To this day, he maintains that he ran the agency well despite the allegedly tight-fisted ways of Congress. After years of ignoring the ever-depreciating technology in the FBI, citizen Freeh now insists before Congress that the Bureau's encryption software must be brought up to date. Why was this item not on his agenda during his eight years as Director?

Charles Goodson, Chairman Southern Parties of the Southwest, in PHXNews.com (April 15, 2004):

For some time I have pondered why are so many Iraqis are fighting against the U.S. led coalition, why are we still taking casualties? Then the answer hit me like a ton of bricks, there has been no surrender of the Iraqi Army, or Government under Saddam Hussein. Just because there is an Iraqi Governing Council, doesn’t mean that it is the legal Government of Iraq. Until there is a Surrender of the old government, that is to say, until the Government of Saddam Hussein formerly surrenders, there can be no real peace and the casualties will continue. Until Saddam Hussein or one of his high Ministers offers to surrender, the Iraqi Governing Council will be an illegal Government. Even the new Iraqi Constitution, won’t be legal until the Iraqi Constitution under Saddam is voided by the old Government.

You might be wondering why I have titled this paper,” is history repeating itself?” Because, something like this happened 139 years ago. A sovereign country was illegally invaded, and it’s Government replaced with a puppet government. The Government of the Confederate States of America, was never surrendered by President Davis nor by any of it’s high officials and it’s Constitution never voided. The U.S. became an occupying force and appointed new leaders, to enforce Federal rule. At gunpoint, the State Governments of the Confederacy were forced to approve new Constitutions while the old ones were still in force.

The duly elected officials of the Southern States were forcibly removed and new ones, loyal to Washington D.C. were appointed as taskmasters and overseers of the South. The rule of law was overthrown for the rule of the mob. Therefore the Confederate States Government, much like the old Government of Iraq, is still the valid and legal government of the Southern Republic known as the Confederate States of America. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America, is still the legal Constitution of the Southern Republic known as the Confederate States of America. The sooner we Confederates understand this, the sooner our country will be liberated.

For a liberated Confederacy,

Charles Goodson

Chairman Southern Parties of the Southwest

Nadine Gordimer, in the Independent (April 14, 2004):

To think we can look back at freedom as part of our history: a decade of attainment to follow on the long struggle against colonialism and its culmination in apartheid.

But what is history? The dictionary says: "A narrative of events; a story; a chronicle. A chronological record of events, as of a life, development of a country, the branch of knowledge that records and analyses past events."

From our experience of past centuries recorded and of the more immediate times within living memory, and finally in the lifetimes of even the young among us, we could add several further definitions.

To begin with: History is traditionally written by the victors in the conflict. It seems it is one of the fruits of victory: sweet for the victor, bitter for the vanquished. In our own case, our own South Africa, our own African continent, history has long been written and therefore taught from the point of the beliefs, the analyses of colonialists, for whether Dutch, British, Portuguese, French, Belgian, German, they were the victors over the indigenous peoples.

History has its phases, or its progress, whichever way the victors look at it. The history that was colonialism has ended, overcome in a struggle of many kinds over many years. In the 10 years of freedom we are celebrating this year we have been confronted among many other problems with the need to unmask, to uncover from its old colonial wrappings, the other side of our history.

I do not want to fall back on the term "alternative history", because I believe it would be as unrealistic as colonial histories were. To establish as much of the truth as is possible, while we are in the present, is our only guarantee of creating the best of democracy for the future, from our admirable start in a single decade.

But there is a vital adjunct to the historical chronicle. Individual people make the history. The individuals whose lives, before the historic dates, before the day and hour of crisis, the continuation of whose lives must go on beyond the blood, exile, imprisonment and sacrifice: it is this that is completed in literature - fiction, poetry, plays....

We cannot understand ourselves without knowing and acknowledging the past; that knowledge and understanding is the only guarantee we human beings have of never being doomed to repeat the past, its ghastly injustices, terrible events, its cost in suffering. To stride in the open air of democracy, our hard-won freedom, we need our historians and our makers of literature, the poets, the novelists, the playwrights. And to bring to light the new creative literary talents among young people we need a literate population, in city, village and so-called informal settlement, at all levels and ages.

In 10 years, the people of South Africa have achieved so much: may literacy for all in the new decade bring this basic human right, this essential for developing the economy, for any working life, and the lifelong revelation and joy of reading, to all. May we create the libraries, and nurture the new historians, poetry, prose and play writers to fill the shelves with what we have been, what we are, how we are making the present, and see the future of our country.

Charles Lane, a staff writer at the Washington Post, in Slate (April 14, 2004):

In the spring of 1941, a 46-year-old German intelligence officer named Lothar Eisentrager slipped across the Soviet-Chinese border and made his way to the Pacific port of Shanghai. There he assumed the name of Ludwig Ehrhardt and took charge of German espionage operations for the entire Far East—a mission that would ultimately lead to his conviction as a war criminal by an American military commission, a stretch at a U.S. Army prison in Bavaria, and a failed bid for freedom at the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, Eisentrager's long-forgotten case has re-emerged at the center of another Supreme Court struggle over the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

Next week, the justices will hear oral argument in appeals brought by 16 foreign nationals, held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who are accused of ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban. The court's decision could be one of its most important statements ever on executive power in wartime. As Eisentrager once did, the detainees seek the right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Put simply, they want a day in court. The Bush administration says American courts have no jurisdiction to hear their petitions because they are enemy combatants and foreign nationals, held outside U.S. territory. (Under a century-old lease with Cuba the United States has "jurisdiction and control" at Guantanamo, but Cuba retains "ultimate sovereignty.") Therefore, the administration argues, the United States can hold them on Guantanamo indefinitely, without access to counsel or other legal rights.

As authority for this proposition, the administration cites the Supreme Court's June 5, 1950, ruling in Johnson v. Eisentrager, in which the court held that the constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus does not apply to enemy aliens who, like Eisentrager and his 20 German co-respondents in the case, were detained by the United States on foreign soil. So far, a district judge in Washington and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit have agreed with the Bush administration.

But should Eisentrager control the outcome of the Guantanamo case? Lawyers for the detainees say the situations then and now differ significantly. When the German Reich capitulated on May 8, 1945, Eisentrager and other China-based Germans found themselves thousands of miles from a devastated homeland with no mission and no money. Approached by representatives of the Japanese high command, they signed contracts to help Japan's military. Until Japan surrendered the following August 15, the United States later charged, these Germans supplied the Japanese with intercepts of U.S. naval communications (including key information during the Battle of Okinawa), German-made aircraft parts, and tens of thousands of leaflets aimed at U.S. troops.

In early 1946, the Germans were rounded up by the American Military Mission in China, and an American military commission convened in Shanghai that fall to hear the case against them. Their post-V-E collaboration with the Japanese was prosecuted as a war crime—specifically, contributing to the military efforts of the United States' enemies after their own country's unconditional surrender.

The charge was creative, but the proceeding was no kangaroo court. The Germans' U.S.-supplied defense lawyers fought vigorously, winning acquittals for six defendants. But, in January 1947, 21 others were convicted and sentenced to prison in the U.S. occupation zone in Germany. Eisentrager got a life term.

From prison, however, Eisentrager was able to contact an American lawyer. On April 26, 1948, he filed for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court in Washington. On Sept. 30, 1948, Judge Edward A. Tamm dismissed the petition in a four-paragraph opinion. Since the Germans "are not now and have never been in the United States," Tamm wrote, they had no case. In April 1949, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously reversed, holding that the constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus applied to conduct by U.S. government officials, wherever they might be.

The Truman administration appealed to the Supreme Court. In his brief, Solicitor General Philip B. Perlman argued that, even if the Constitution follows the flag, as the D.C. Circuit had ruled, "it does not necessarily follow … that a judicial remedy is available. … There are many instances, particularly in the realm of foreign affairs and the conduct of war, in which the Executive is the primary and often the sole guardian of the Constitution." Eisentrager's lawyers countered that this "would make the exercise of fundamental rights depend on the accident of locus of incarceration."...

Even though they lost their case, Eisentrager and his co-defendants soon won their freedom. By 1950, the Truman administration was feeling pressure for leniency toward German war criminals; both within the United States and a fledgling West Germany, the argument was made that friction over war crimes prosecutions hurt U.S.-West German unity against the Soviet Union. Truman set up a clemency process that, continued by the Eisenhower administration, resulted in the emptying of the U.S. prison for German war criminals by 1958. In Eisentrager, ironically, the Truman administration won the legal authority to deal with German war criminals as it pleased, and then, for political reasons, used that authority to let them go...

Enda O'Doherty, in the Irish Times (April 12, 2004):

For former British foreign secretary Robin Cook, writing in the London Independent, President Bush's rhetoric in response to the latest violence was based above all on denial. It is difficult to believe, he concluded, that the coalition forces will find a solution until they first admit they have a problem.

Manuel Carvalho, writing in Publico of Lisbon, thought the coalition's problems were primarily due to its failure to understand history or respect its lessons. The US concept of "nation-building", he argued, was nothing other than "an extremist ideology, a dangerous combination of Messianism and voluntarism which is completely devoid of any sense of history". "In seeking to make Iraq a testing ground for this belief, Bush and his falange of radicals are demonstrating their complete failure to understand an elementary truth: you never make friends by the use of force." The "theologians" of Washington could do worse, Carvalho thought, than to read T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, where they would learn of the effect British invasion of Iraq in 1916 had on encouraging the emergence of Arab nationalism.

In the Daily Telegraph British historian Niall Ferguson wrote of a meeting he had had in Washington where an official charged with reconstruction in Iraq told him she was looking principally to central Europe's post-communist economies as a model for the Iraqi process.

"Not for the first time," wrote Ferguson, "I was confronted with the disturbing reality about the way the Americans make policy. Theory looms surprisingly large. Neoconservative theory, for instance, stated that the Americans would be welcomed as liberators, just as economic theory put privatisation on my interlocutor's agenda. The lessons of history come a poor second, and only recent history - preferably recent American history - gets considered." In 1917, Ferguson reminded us, a British general proclaimed in Baghdad: "Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators." Within a few months there was an anti-British revolt, which by 1920 had become a full-scale rebellion. The agitation began in the mosques and soon, contrary to British expectations, united Sunnis, Shias and even Kurds. After horror stories of mutilated British bodies and thousands of casualties, the rebellion was eventually put down by a campaign of aerial bombardment of tribesmen and punitive village-burning, followed by the installation of a puppet monarchy.

It seems that at the moment, Ferguson concluded, "US policy in Iraq is in the hands of a generation who have learnt nothing from history except how to repeat other people's mistakes".

Claude Salhani, UPI International Editor (April 12, 2004):

Since the eruption of the recent bloody clashes in Iraq, pitting U.S. and coalition troops against Shiites and Sunnis, the situation in the war-torn country has been alternatively compared to the Vietnam war and to the Palestinian intifada. But one missing comparison has been to that of a much closer analogy -- that of Syrian and Israeli involvement in Lebanon. In both instances, the same ingredients -- Shiite fanaticism and foreign forces were involved.

One of the great dangers that the United States now faces in becoming involved in inter- and intra-Iraqi disputes is that they can inadvertently become ingrained in the conflict, as has transpired last week when the U.S. civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer ordered the closure of a Shiite publication. The censure of al-Hawza, Sheik Moqtada Sadr's publication, was the spark that ignited the latest round of fighting and set off a popular Shiite uprising that risked spiraling out of control and growing to alarming proportions.

The hazard in such a situation is that American troops could find themselves turning into another armed faction in the conflict, adding to the problem rather than to its resolution.

A precedent for this is Syria's involvement in Lebanon.

As a reminder, Syrian troops entered Lebanon in 1976 at the height of the Lebanese civil war to ostensibly to help quell the fighting. Syrian troops arrived as part of an Arab Deterrent Force, a thinly veiled Syrian-led and dominant coalition, meant to give Syria an Arab and international blessing to intervene militarily in neighboring Lebanon.

Soon Syrian troops found themselves bogged down in inter-Lebanese politics and clashes, first siding with Christian militias fighting against Palestinian and Muslim-leftist forces. In due course, Syrian guns turned on the Christians (which were later backed by Israel) in support of the Palestinian-Muslim-leftist alliance.

Now 28 years later, the Syrians are still in Lebanon.

Another blatant comparison to the Lebanon conflict are the similarities between the firebrand, fiercely anti-American cleric Sheik Moqtada Sadr, and another young hothead Shiite cleric -- south Lebanon's Ragheb Harb.

If Harb's name does not ring any immediate bells, you are not alone. Outside of the immediate region, Harb did not raise much concern or make much news. But long before Hezbollah became a household name among counter-terrorist specialists or 24-hour cable news channels, Harb managed to win the attention of Israel to the point that they arranged for his assassination.

Sheik Harb, who came from a small village in south Lebanon called Jibsheet, had started a small movement of approximately 50-60 youngsters, called the Islamic Students Union. By the early 1980s, Harb began openly calling for armed resistance against Israel's occupation of Lebanon which had begun two years earlier, in 1978. At the time of the invasion, Harb was in Iran, but later returned to his native Jebsheet to fight the Israeli occupation with the blessing and support of Tehran's ayatollahs in 1980.

Does this scenario ring any bells yet?

According to the London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Iran is spending nearly $1 billion to fund at least 18 covert centers in Iraq. The centers operate as" charities" in Baghdad, Basra, Karbala, Najaf, Nasseriyah and Suleimaniyah. Iran is also reported to have sent hundreds of intelligence agents into Iraq over the last year and a half, many disguised as Iranian pilgrims and Iraqi refugees.

Another striking comparison between the Iraq of today and the Lebanon of yesterday can also be drawn between Harb and Sadr. Much like Harb's policy vis-à-vis the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, Sadr advocates a tough-line, militant approach toward the U.S. occupation of Iraq. And much like the mainstream Shiite clergy in southern Lebanon disapproved of Harb's militaristic solution to the Israeli occupation, preferring instead quiet, civil disobedience, so it would appear does Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani who frowns on Sadr's call to arms.

The underlying thread in both instances and both occupations that helped fuel the civilian uprising has been the suffering of the civilian population brought about by the continued occupation. Eventually, Harb's movement paved the way for the creation of Hezbollah, and as they say, the rest is history. And history in Iraq is dangerously close to repeating itself. ...

Michael Moran, MSNBC News (April 2, 2004):

In May of 2001, one of the very few public figures who genuinely raised a warning about the threat al-Qaida and other terrorist groups pose to America won an audience with the new vice president, Dick Cheney. The public figure was a Republican stalwart, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, head of an obscure commission that had just issued a report six months earlier, “ Toward a National Strategy for Combating Terrorism .”

In its executive summary, released in December 2000, Gilmore wrote: “The potential for terrorist attacks inside the borders of the United States is a serious emerging threat. … Because the stakes are so high, our nation's leaders must take seriously the possibility of an escalation of terrorist violence against the homeland.”

Gilmore's panel studied the problem for two years before the attacks, but he felt the threat was being ignored. “The political and media people had nothing but Chandra and Monica on their minds,” he told me. “Our hearings were open, public events. Not once in two years did a major media outlet cover them.”

Gilmore hoped his meeting with Cheney was a breakthrough. “I had personal ties to the new administration, and the vice president seemed interested. He took notes, and I had a follow-up with one of his aides a few months later,” Gilmore says. “But nothing really happened. In the end, we didn't see any evidence of any interest at all. No one called us to Congress, no one called us to the executive branch.”...

George Beres is an Oregon writer with religious roots in the Greek Orthodox Church. He has been a member of the Oregon Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East.

Observance of Easter Passion church services daily this week reminds me of the haunting seasonal music of the Greek Orthodox Church into which I was baptized. But a chance encounter a decade ago with the man responsible for translations in the Greek church reminded me that lyrics for some of the week's music are haunting in another way: the tragic prejudices they foster toward Jews. The attitudes are rooted in centuries of repetition in some scripture of the Christian church.

A priest of high rank in the Greek Archdiocese, Rev. Leonidas Contos, shared his concerns with me during the period when he was chief translator of text for the archdiocese, responsible for making clear and accurate translations from the original Greek into English. His main concern was revising translations of Holy Week services about the crucifixion. "In their existing form," he said, "they do something very unChristian. Some portions have for many generations demonized Jews as supposed killers of Jesus, leading to hatred of Jews among impressionable Christians."

That reminded me that many Christians don't seem to understand the cloud of prejudice they impose on neighbors who happen to be Jewish. Reading a published account of a Jewish friend's lifelong encounter with prejudice created some awareness. But a recent public discussion of the Mel Gibson film, "The Passion of Christ," convinces me we still don't get it. It reviewed the controversial new film and its interpretation of the death of Jesus, relevant because of debate that swirls over whether or not the effect of the movie brings to the surface latent anti-Judaism among some viewers.

Of five panelists, two--a minister of the First Christian Church and a Jewish university professor-- directly addressed the issue of the film building bigotry. They said they believe it does. There was uncertainty in the views of three others: a Roman Catholic priest; a Baptist minister, and the head of the Islamic Cultural Center.

The Baptist minister said he does not think the film "in any way is anti-Judaic." For me, he cast doubt on his credibility about the film when he said: "In all my years in the ministry, I've not been aware of anyone with anti-Jewish feeling."

The others skirted the edges of the question without addressing it. The priest said the film has caused him to "look at the crucifixion in an entirely different way," and removed from him "some of the complacency I had developed about the crucifixion." The Muslim said Islamic teaching accepts Christ, and rejects the idea he was crucified, but "We believe he was the Messiah of the Jews." From the audience, a Greek Orthodox priest pointed out that "Christians, like Jews, were killed because of Christ in the early centuries."

Evasiveness of three of the panelists and the cleric in the audience left unaddressed the fundamental question: Does the movie feed prejudice toward Jews?

The Christian Church minister placed the issue squarely on the table at the outset when he said: "The Holocaust of World War II could not have happened" had it not been for the way the church through the centuries has taught the passion story and the role in it of the Jewish people. He said impact of the movie, "while probably not intended, encourages anti-Judaism."

The professor was explicit: "This film is sado-masochistic. It is a reflection of the bloody, pre-Vatican II passion play. Its violence is pornographic. If one says this is based on the Gospel, then there has to be something wrong with the Gospel. The movie reverses 40 years of progress since Vatican II."

Personal experience plays a role for my Jewish writer friend, as it does for the professor. One wrote of a childhood memory, when a playmate told him, "You'll go to hell because you're Jewish; because you guys killed Jesus Christ." The other remembered "having to fight back when kids called me Christ-killer."

That reminded me of research 16 years ago for my published commentary about another controversial film on Jesus. Response to that movie among Christians was the opposite of today, when some churches have sent busloads of members to the Passion of Christ movie, which broke a record while making more than $125 million in its first five days. The earlier film was "The Last Temptation of Christ." I had to go out of town to see it, because boycotts by Christian filmgoers were expected to keep it from being shown in my town. Before seeing the film, I'd read the Nikos Kazantzakis book on which it was based.

Comments about being called Christ-killer related to something Kazantzakis wrote about his childhood on the island of Crete: "Every year during Holy Week that leads into Easter, Jewish children had to be on their guard. They were my friends. But I think they understood that other Cretan boys and I would have to hit them because of what Jews did to Christ."

A question from the audience at the discussion asked if heads of Christian sects could meet to agree on how to expurgate scripture of such bigotry.

While recognizing merit of the concept, the Christian Church minister said scripture is sacrosanct-- too sensitive for church leaders to ever consider revising.

As the discussion ended, I wondered: What set of values results in our being concerned over hate crimes that harm Jews, while we protect 1,900-year old writings that persist in encouraging those crimes?