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The Staggering Cost of Israel to Americans

If Americans Knew – April 12, 2013

Updated: August 8, 2014

Israel has a population of approximately 7.8 million, or a million fewer than the state of New Jersey. It is among the world’s most affluent nations, with a per capita income similar to that of the European Union.[1] Israel’s unemployment rate of 5.8% is better than America’s 7.3%,[2] and Israel’s net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 30th in the world while the US sits in last place at a dismal 193rd.[3]

Yet, Israel receives more of America’s foreign aid budget than any other nation.[4] The US has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined—which have a total population of over a billion people.[5]

And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with Israel.

Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on Israel, and whether it is worth Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let’s take a look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.

Before the Iraq War in 2003

Direct Foreign Aid

According to the Congressional Research Service , the amount of official US aid to Israel since its founding in 1948 tops $121 billion (adjusting for inflation, $233.7 billion as of March 2013), and in the past few decades it has been on the order of $3.1 billion per year.[6] (In 2014, for example, this amounted to $8.5 million every single day.)

But this money is only part of the story. For one thing, Israel gets all of its aid money at the start of each year, rather than in quarterly installments like other countries.[7] This is significant: It means that Israel can start earning interest on the money right away – interest paid by the US since Israel invests these funds in US Treasury notes. In addition, because the US government operates at a deficit, it must borrow money in order to give it to Israel and then pay interest on it all year. Together these cost US taxpayers more than $100 million every year.

Israel is also the only recipient of US military aid that is allowed to use a significant portion annually to purchase products made by Israeli companies instead of US companies. (The costs to Americans caused by this unique perk are discussed below.)

In addition, the US gives roughly $1.6 billion per year to Egypt and Jordan in aid packages arranged largely in exchange for peace treaties with Israel. The treaties don’t include justice for Palestinians, and are therefore deeply unpopular with the local populations.[8]

On top of this, the US gives more than $400 million to the Palestinian Authority each year,[9] much of it used to rebuild infrastructure destroyed by Israel and to bolster an economy stifled by the Israeli occupation.[10] This would be unnecessary if Israel were to end the occupation and allow the Palestinians to build a functioning and self-sustaining economy.

Yet, there’s still much more to the story, because parts of US aid to Israel are buried in the budgets of various US agencies, mostly the Department of Defense. For example, since at least 2006, the American Defense budget has included between $202 and $504 million per year for missile defense programs in Israel.[11]

In all, direct US disbursements to Israel are higher than to any other country, even though Israelis only make up 0.1% of the world’s population. On average, Israelis receive 7,000 times more US foreign aid per capita than other people throughout the world, despite the fact that Israel is one of the world’s more affluent nations.[12] And that number rises significantly when one considers disbursements to Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority and Defense spending on behalf of Israel.

Additional Ad hoc support for Israel

Dr. Thomas Stauffer, a Harvard economist and Middle East studies professor who twice served in the Executive Office of the President, wrote a comprehensive report about all components of the relationship with Israel’s cost to American taxpayers for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in 2003. He wrote:

“Another element is ad hoc support for Israel, which is not part of the formal foreign aid programs. No comprehensive compilation of US support for Israel has been publicly released. Additional known items include loan guarantees… special contracts for Israeli firms, legal and illegal[13] transfers of marketable US military technology, de facto exemption from US trade protection provisions, and discounted sales or free transfers of ‘surplus’ US military equipment. An unquantifiable element is the trade and other aid given to Romania and Russia to facilitate Jewish migration to Israel; this has accumulated to many billions of dollars.”[14]

Israel has often used its privileged access to US military technology against both the US government and US corporate interests. According to the Associated Press in 2002,

“In France, Turkey, The Netherlands and Finland, Israeli companies have edged such U.S. firms as Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics out of arms deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years. The irony, experts say, is that tens of billions of U.S. tax dollars and transfers of American military technology helped create and nurture Israel’s industry, in effect subsidizing a foreign competitor.”

The AP article quoted a vice president at the Aerospace Industries Association of America, who bluntly said, “We give them money to build stuff for themselves and the U.S. taxpayer gets nothing in return.”[15]

Meanwhile, according to the Christian Science Monitor , Israel has also “blocked some major US arms sales, such as F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s. That cost $40 billion over 10 years.”[16]

Even worse, Israeli weapons “buttress the arsenals of nations such as China that the United States considers strategic competitors, alarming US military planners,” the Associated Press article went on to report. “[In 2001] US surveillance planes flying along China’s coast were threatened by Chinese fighter jets armed with Israeli missiles… Had Chinese fighter pilots been given the order to fire, they could have brought down the US planes with Israeli Python III missiles… US defense chiefs say Israel sold China the missiles without informing the United States.”[17]

Lost jobs, trade, and standing

One of the most devastating indirect costs of the US alliance with Israel was the Arab oil boycott of 1973. The Arab states imposed the boycott in protest of U.S. support of Israel during the 1973 war, in which Arab countries attempted to reclaim lands Israel had invaded and occupied in 1967.

“Washington’s intervention triggered the Arab oil embargo which cost the U.S. doubly: first, due to the oil shortfall, the US lost about $300 billion to $600 billion in GDP; and, second, the US was saddled with another $450 billion in higher oil import costs,” wrote Stauffer in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.[18]

Then there’s the cost in lost jobs. “US policy and trade sanctions reduce US exports to the Middle East about $5 billion a year, costing 70,000 or so American jobs,” Stauffer estimates. “Not requiring Israel to use its US aid to buy American goods, as is usual in foreign aid, costs another 125,000 jobs.”[19]

But perhaps the most damaging cost to the US has been its loss of standing in the Arab and Muslim worlds, where US largesse towards Israel as it commits human rights violations[20] provokes deep resentment. “To many of the world’s Muslims, it places the US taxpayer on the Israeli side of its conflicts with Arabs,” observed the Associated Press article.[21]

According to Harvard professor Stephen Walt, “The 9/11 Commission reported that 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s ‘animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with US foreign policy favoring Israel.’ Other anti-American terrorists—such as Ramzi Yousef, who led the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center—have offered similar explanations for their anger toward the United States.”[22]

There are many more potential categories of costs that are even more difficult to quantify. All in all, Stauffer estimates that Israel cost the US about $1.6 trillion between 1973 and 2003 alone—more than twice the cost of the Vietnam war.[23]

Costs since Stauffer’s study in 2003

Israel’s cost to American taxpayers has remained high since Stauffer’s 2003 study. The US currently gives Israel an average of $3 billion a year in military aid, under an agreement signed by the Bush administration to transfer $30 billion to Israel over ten years, starting in 2009.[24]

All of the other extras and costs remain and in some cases have increased since 2003. For example, “Despite a tough economic climate and expected US budget cuts—including drastic cuts to the US military budget—US lawmakers will provide $236 million in fiscal 2012 for the Israeli development of three missile defense programs,” reported Israeli newspaper Haaretz.[25]

In addition, the US government “has provided $205 million to support the Iron Dome, manufactured by Israel’s state-owned Raphael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. The system uses small radar-guided missiles to blow up in midair Katyusha-style rockets with ranges of 3 miles to 45 miles, as well as mortar bombs… Legislation moving through the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives would give Israel additional $680 million for the Iron Dome system through 2015.”[26]

And if, as many experts believe, the US would not have invaded Iraq without intense and sustained pressure from Washington insiders who advocate actively on behalf of Israel,[27] this adds yet another dimension of staggering cost to the equation: “hundreds of billions of dollars, 4,000-plus U.S. and allied fatalities, untold tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, and many thousands of other US, allied, and Iraqi casualties,” according to retired US foreign service officer Shirl McArthur.[28]

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda Bilmes put the cost of the Iraq War at over $3 trillion, and incalculably more if you take into account the opportunity costs of the resources spent on this unproductive war. For example, higher oil prices due to the war have had a devastating impact on America’s economy, and so have the surging federal debt and the servicing of that debt. Without the war, the 2008 financial crisis almost certainly would not have been as severe, and the Afghanistan war most likely would have been shorter, cheaper, and more effective.[29]

The Israel lobby and partisans are currently gunning for a war with Iran with the same zeal they showed in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[30] By all estimates, the costs of a war with Iran will be much higher than the Iraq war. In addition to the loss of life, analysts predict, for example, that if Iran’s oil production were taken out of the world market, gas prices would rise 25-70 percent.

If the Straits of Hormuz (straits adjacent to Iran through which 20% of the world’s oil production passes on a daily basis) were attacked or blockaded, the cost of oil would skyrocket to a level never seen before, and the economic recession or depression that followed would be nothing short of “apocalyptic,” according to Matthew Yglesias writing for Slate .[31]

Reasons and Consequences

So now we are back to the question of why America continues to pour money into a state that commits daily human rights violations, defies US strategic interests,[32] provokes rage and resentment among billions of people,[33] competes with and crowds out US interests using technology subsidized by US taxpayers, and sells America’s military secrets to its enemies.[34]

The answer is simple and summed up well by professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in their ground-breaking article in the London Review of Books , “The Israel Lobby,”[35] and their book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy .[36]

“Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?” the article asks. “One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.

“Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby.’ Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country—in this case, Israel—are essentially identical.”[37]

AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is consistently ranked in the top two most powerful lobbies in Washington.[38] And it is only one arm of the much larger, multi-faceted, and well-financed Israel lobby.[39]

According to Congressman Jim Moran, “AIPAC is very well organized. The members are willing to be very generous with their personal wealth. But it’s a two edged sword. If you cross AIPAC, AIPAC is unforgiving and will destroy you politically. Their means of communications, their ties to certain newspapers and magazines, and individuals in the media are substantial and intimidating. Every [Congress] member knows it’s the best-organized national lobbying force.”[40]

Senator Joseph Lieberman proudly stated, “Any attempt to pressure Israel, to force Israel to the negotiating table by denying Israel support, will not pass in Congress… Congress will act against any attempt to do that.”[41]

It’s true: The US Congress, along with the executive branch, overwhelmingly support virtually any action or wish of the Israeli government, no matter how at odds with US national interest or security,[42] primarily because of the power of the Israel lobby.[43]

Even when two AIPAC employees were indicted on espionage charges in 2005, and it was determined that they had obtained classified US government information illegally and passed it to Israeli agents, the charges were quietly dropped on technicalities.[44] AIPAC fired both employees and issued a statement that they were fired because their actions did not comport with AIPAC standards.[45] One of the fired employees, Steven Rosen, filed a lawsuit for defamation, claiming his actions were, in fact, common practice at AIPAC.[46]

When Israel attempted to sink a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Liberty , in 1967, killing 34 Americans and injuring over 170, it still failed to put a dent in aid to Israel.[47] Indeed, aid quadrupled the following year.[48]

Though Congressmen receive payments and support from the lobby in exchange for their loyalty, the American taxpayer is left footing the bill. As detailed above, the total cost has run from a bare minimum of $121 billion since 1948 (the cost of foreign aid alone) to $1.6 trillion or more, factoring in Defense appropriations, oil crises, the sinking of the USS Liberty , the heightened risk of terrorism, lost trade and co-opted technology, and countless other factors. If the Iraq war and the increased risk of a war with Iran are factored in, the cost skyrockets even higher.

Critics point out how much brighter our future would be if we had invested these billions or trillions in veteran rehabilitation and care, education, job creation, social security, housing, environmental clean-up and prevention, roads, bridges, health care, and scientific and health research. Or if Americans had simply held onto their tax dollars and used them as they saw fit, in our own economy. If some of the higher estimates are closer to the mark, our support for Israel could easily have covered the $700 billion TARP bailout with a great deal left over for massive stimulus spending and/or tax breaks.

If Israel were using these funds for a good purpose, one could debate whether the price was worth it. But Israel uses most of the money to prolong a 47-year military occupation (which regularly involves gross violations of international law),[49] commit egregious human rights violations,[50] and destroy billions of dollars worth of Palestinian homes and infrastructure[51] (resulting in still more U.S. tax money being sent to Palestinians to rebuild demolished homes, hospitals, and schools), while building illegal, Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land.[52]

It makes the prospect of peace ever more distant, creates dangerous hostility to the US, placing Americans in peril, and puts the US Congress in violation of the Arms Export Control Act,[53] all for the sake of campaign contributions.

There is no good reason to keep throwing good money after bad in a failed, ill-founded policy. It’s long past time for a fundamental rethinking of the American government’s blank check to Israel.

This report was produced by If Americans Knew analysts, particularly Pamela Olson, a President’s Scholar at Stanford University 1998-2002 with a major in Physics, a minor in Political Science, and 1600 GRE scores. Before coming to IAK, Olson lived and worked in the West Bank; worked as a researcher in Moscow, Siberia, and China; and was a research analyst at the Institute for Defense Analysis. She is the author of Fast Times in Palestine.

This analysis updates the groundbreaking 1998 work by Richard Curtiss, “The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers,” published in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Mr. Curtiss, following military service in World War II, served for 30 years as a career Foreign Service Officer. He received the U.S. Information Agency’s Superior Honor Award and the Edward R. Murrow award for excellence in Public Diplomacy, USIA’s highest professional recognition. Upon retirement, Mr. Curtiss co-founded and the American Educational Trust, which produces the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. He is also the author of two books on U.S.-Middle East relations. A more extensive bio can be read here.

[1] “Country Comparison: GDP Per Capita (PPP),” CIA World Factbook, 2012. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html

[2] “Country comparison: Unemployment rate,” CIA World Factbook, 2012. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2129rank.html

[3] “Country comparison: Current account balance,” CIA World Factbook, 2012. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html

[4] US Department of State, “State and USAID – FY 2013 Budget, February 13, 2012. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/02/183808.htm

[5] Richard Curtiss, “The Cost of Israel to the American People,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 1998. http://www.ifamericansknew.org/download/cost-new.pdf

[6] Ora Coren and Nadan Feldman, “U.S. aid to Israel totals over 233.6b over six decades,” Ha’aretz, March 20, 2013. http://www.haaretz.com/business/u-s-aid-to-israel-totals-233-7b-over-six-decades.premium-1.510592

Jeremy Sharp, “US foreign aid to Israel,” Congressional Research Service, April 11, 2014. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

[7] Clyde R. Mark, “Israel: US Foreign Assistance,” Congressional Research Service, April 26, 2005 http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/IB85066.pdf

(Particularly noteworthy is the subsection of this report entitled, “Special Benefits for Israel.)

[8] US Department of State, “State and USAID – FY 2013 Budget,” February 13, 2012. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/02/183808.htm Most of this money goes to elites rather than the general population, adding to the resentment about these policies.

[9] Jim Zanotti, “US foreign aid to the Palestinians,” Congressional Research Service, September 30, 2013. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22967.pdf

[10] “Sustaining Achievements in Palestinian Institution-building and Economic Growth,” World Bank, September 18, 2011. http://unispal.un.org/pdfs/WBank09-2011_AHLCReport.pdf Quote from the report: “Ultimately, in order for the Palestinian Authority to sustain the reform momentum and its achievements in institution-building, remaining Israeli restrictions must be lifted.” See also: Dan Murphy, “Amid Palestinian statehood push, a grim World Bank report on the West Bank, Gaza,” Christian Science Monitor, September 14, 2011. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2011/0914/Amid-Palestinian-statehood-push-a-grim-World-Bank-report-on-the-West-Bank-Gaza Quote from the article: “The World Bank says that recent economic growth in Gaza and the West Bank has been almost entirely thanks to foreign aid, that a slowing of foreign aid delivery has presented the PA with a possible fiscal crisis, and that Israeli policies continue to stand in the way of sustainable economic improvement in the territories.”

[11] Jeremy Sharp, “US foreign aid to Israel,” Congressional Research Service, April 11, 2013. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

[12] US Department of State, “State and USAID – FY 2013 Budget, February 13, 2012. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/02/183808.htm

[13] ‘Illegal transfers’ refers to several instances in which Israel has been accused of violating the Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits the use of US military assistance for purposes other than legitimate self-defense. For example, during Israel’s invasions of Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, the Israeli air force dumped tens of thousands of cluster bomblets over wide civilian areas, resulting in horrific and long-lasting civilian casualties with dubious military utility. That’s not even to begin to touch on daily Israeli violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories. Despite overwhelming evidence of Israeli violations of international law using US-supplied weapons, the US Congress has done little to comply with its own laws against funding such violations.

[14] Thomas Stauffer, “The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 2003. http://ifamericansknew.org/stat/stauffer.html Stauffer’s original paper, prepared for the conference: “The United States and the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities” at the William S. Cohen Center for International Policy, University of Maine, and the US Army War College in October 2002, is posted here: http://www.solargeneral.com/library/cost-of-us-middle-east-policy-an-economic-overview-dr-thomas-r-stauffer.pdf (PDF) and here: http://www.scribd.com/Abegael88/d/88696279-Cost-of-Us-Middle-East-Policy-an-Economic-Overview-Dr-Thomas-r-Stauffer

[15] Jim Krane, “U.S. Aid to Israel Subsidizes a Potent Weapons Exporter,” Associated Press, June 20, 2002. http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/p-krane.html

[16] David Francis, “Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US,” Christian Science Monitor , December 9, 2002. http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html

[17] Jim Krane, “U.S. Aid to Israel Subsidizes a Potent Weapons Exporter,” Associated Press, June 20, 2002. http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/p-krane.html

[18] Thomas Stauffer, “The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 2003. http://ifamericansknew.org/stat/stauffer.html Stauffer’s original paper, prepared for the conference: “The United States and the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities” at the William S. Cohen Center for International Policy, University of Maine, and the US Army War College in October 2002, is posted here: http://www.solargeneral.com/library/cost-of-us-middle-east-policy-an-economic-overview-dr-thomas-r-stauffer.pdf (PDF) and here: http://www.scribd.com/Abegael88/d/88696279-Cost-of-Us-Middle-East-Policy-an-Economic-Overview-Dr-Thomas-r-Stauffer

[19] David Francis, “Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US,” Christian Science Monitor , December 9, 2002. http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html

[20] For a small sampling of Israeli human rights violations, see Amnesty International’s “Annual Report: Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories 2013” http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/annual-report-israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territories-2013, Human Rights Watch’s most recent reports http://www.hrw.org/search/apachesolr_search/israel, and the publications of B’Tselem (the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) http://www.btselem.org/publications

[21] Jim Krane, “U.S. Aid to Israel Subsidizes a Potent Weapons Exporter,” Associated Press, June 20, 2002. http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/p-krane.html

[22] Stephen Walt, “Whiff of Desperation,” Foreign Policy, April 25, 2011. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/whiff_of_desperation?page=full

[23] David Francis, “Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US,” Christian Science Monitor , December 9, 2002. http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html

[24] Shirl McArthur, “A conservative estimate of total direct US aid to Israel: more than $130 billion,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2008. http://ifamericansknew.org/stat/130bill.html

[25] Natasha Mozgovaya, “Obama signs bill that includes added U.S. military assistance to Israel,” Haaretz, December 24, 2011. http://www.Haaretz.com/blogs/focus-u-s-a/obama-signs-bill-that-includes-added-u-s-military-assistance-to-israel-1.403268

[26] “U.S. eyes funding boost for Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ shield,” Reuters, May 17, 2012. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/us-usa-israel-irondome-idUSBRE84G10P20120518

[27] John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby,” London Review of Books , March 23, 2006. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby See also: Stephen J. Sniegoski, “The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel,” Ihs Press, September 1, 2008.

[28] Shirl McArthur, “A conservative estimate of total direct US aid to Israel: more than $130 billion,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2008. http://ifamericansknew.org/stat/130bill.html

[29] Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, “The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond,” Washington Post , September 5, 2010. http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/09/stiglitz-and-bilmes-the-true-cost-of-the-iraq-war.html

(Update: the original article has been removed from the Washington Post website, as well as the cache.)

[30] See articles at http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/new/lobby/targeting-iran/

[31] Matthew Yglesias, “War for No Oil,” Slate, March 7, 2012. view link

[32] See, for example: Mark Landler, “Obama Presses Netanyahu to Resist Strikes on Iran,” New York Times, March 5, 2012. www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/world/middleeast/obama-cites-window-for-diplomacy-on-iran-bomb.html And: “Biden condemns new Israeli settlement plan,” USA Today, March 9, 2010. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-03-09-Israel_N.htm

[33] Andrew Sullivan, “Why Continue to Build the Settlements?” The Daily Beast, March 30, 2012. http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/03/why-beinart-matters.html Excerpt: “The deliberate population of occupied lands violates the Geneva Conventions. The occupation itself enrages the Arab and Muslim world and creates a huge drag on the US’s strategic need to build up allies among emerging Arab democracies, and defuse Jihadism across the globe.” See also: Philip Weiss, “Former State Department official says Obama calls for human rights and democracy are ‘undercut’ by position on Palestinians,” Mondoweiss , April 2, 2012. http://mondoweiss.net/2012/04/former-state-dept-official-says-obama-calls-for-human-rights-and-democracy-are-undercut-by-position-on-palestinians.html

[34] Jim Krane, “U.S. Aid to Israel Subsidizes a Potent Weapons Exporter,” Associated Press, June 20, 2002. http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/p-krane.html

[35] John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby,” London Review of Books , March 23, 2006. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby

[36] John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, August 2007.

[37] John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby,” London Review of Books , March 23, 2006. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby An earlier book by former Congressman Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby, first exposed this in 1985. Findley and others founded the Council for the National Interest to try to counter this.

[38] Jeffrey Birnbaum, “Washington’s Power 25: which pressure groups are best at manipulating the laws we live by?” CNN Money , December 8, 1997. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1997/12/08/234927/index.htm Other top contenders include the American Association of Retired Persons, with over 40 million members, and the National Rifle Association.

[39] “Introduction to the Israel lobby,” Council for the National Interest , August 19, 2011. http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/new/lobby/

[40] Michael Lerner, “The Israel Lobby,” Tikkun Magazine , September/October 2007. http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/Lerner-the-israel-lobby

[41] Jeremy Sharp, “US foreign aid to Israel,” Congressional Research Service, April 11, 2014. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

[42] Max Fisher, “Should U.S. Veto UN Measure Condemning Israeli Settlements?” The Atlantic Wire , January 20, 2011. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/01/should-u-s-veto-un-measure-condemning-israeli-settlements/21438

[43] “Even if Democrats and Republicans bicker on every other issue, AIPAC leaders seemed constantly eager to stress that one thing on which the parties can come together is unswerving devotion to Israel.” Gregory Levey, “Inside America’s powerful Israel lobby,” Salon , March 16, 2007. http://www.salon.com/2007/03/16/aipac Just recently has there been some high-level pushback against AIPAC’s hegemonic power in Washington. See, for example: Robert Dreyfuss, “AIPAC: Still the chosen one?” Mother Jones , September/October 2009. http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/aipac-still-chosen-one And: Alex Kane, “Sunlight on the lobby: AIPAC’s push for war exposed in ‘Atlantic’ magazine blog,” Mondoweiss , February 24, 2012. http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/sunlight-on-the-lobby-aipacs-push-for-war-exposed-in-atlantic-magazine-blog.html

[44] Wikipedia, “Steven J. Rosen.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_J._Rosen#The_indictment_of_Rosen_and_Weissman

[45] Nathan Guttman, “AIPAC Gets Down and Dirty in Pushback vs. Defamation Suit,” The Forward, November 16, 2010. http://forward.com/articles/133172/aipac-gets-down-and-dirty-in-pushback-vs-defamatio

[46] Jeff Stein, “Ex-AIPAC official got at least $670,000 from donors,” Washington Post, November 19, 2012. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/11/ex-aipac_official_got_670000_from_private_donors.html

[47] The findings of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty , the Recall of Military Rescue Support Aircraft while the Ship was Under Attack, and the Subsequent Cover-up by the United States Government can be read at http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-commfindings.html

[48] Jeremy Sharp, “US foreign aid to Israel,” Congressional Research Service, April 11, 2014. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

[49] Jeremy R. Hammond, “Rogue State: Israeli Violations of U.N. Security Council Resolutions,” Foreign Policy Journal, January 27, 2010. http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/01/27/rogue-state-israeli-violations-of-u-n-security-council-resolutions

[50] For a small sampling of Israeli human rights violations, see Amnesty International’s “Annual Report: Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories 2013” http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/annual-report-israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territories-2013, Human Rights Watch’s most recent reports http://www.hrw.org/search/apachesolr_search/israel, and the publications of B’Tselem (the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) http://www.btselem.org/publications

[51] See, for example, “Frequently Asked Questions,” The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. http://www.icahd.org/faq And Rory McCarthy, “Hamas offers $52m handouts to help hardest-hit Gazans,” The Guardian, January 25, 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/26/hamas-payout-gaza-infrastructure

[52] “Israeli Settlements on Palestinian Land,” If Americans Knew, May 2002. http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stat/settlements.html

[53] The Arms Export Control Act prohibits the use of US military assistance for purposes other than legitimate self-defense. Despite overwhelming evidence of Israeli violations of international law using US-supplied weapons (a few of them outlined in citations above), the US Congress has done little to comply with its own laws against funding these violations.

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Saudi, UAE Ask Their Citizens to Leave Lebanon

Al-Manar | February 23, 2016

Saudi Arabia has advised its citizens Tuesday against travel to Lebanon and urged those already in the country to leave it, citing “safety” concerns, a few days after it halted military aid to Lebanon.

“The Foreign Ministry calls on all citizens not to travel to Lebanon for their own safety,” the Saudi news agency SPA quoted a ministry official as saying.

“It also urges citizens residing in Lebanon or visiting it to leave and not to stay there unless for utmost urgency while observing vigilance and caution,” the official added.

The ministry also called on Saudis in Lebanon to contact the kingdom’s embassy in Beirut for “the necessary help and attention.”

UAE has also banned its citizens from traveling to Lebanon and decided to downsize its diplomatic mission in the country, according to AFP.

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, UAE | Leave a comment

Mogherini warns of possible Turkey-Russia ‘hot war’ over Syria

Press TV – February 23, 2016

The European Union (EU) foreign policy chief has cautioned against the risk of a war with active military hostilities between Turkey and Russia over Syria, where regional powers have sided with warring sides to the conflict gripping the Arab country.

Federica Mogherini issued the warning during a debate at the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee in the Belgian capital city of Brussels on Tuesday.

“We are always referring to Syria as a proxy war among regional actors,” Mogherini said, adding, however, that the current situation in Syria risks becoming “something bigger”.

“I’m not thinking of a cold war. No, we risk a hot war among different actors than the one we always think of. Not necessarily Russia and the United States, but Russia and Turkey, could be,” she said.

Russia launched its own anti-terror campaign in Syria on September 30, 2015, upon a request from the Damascus government. The airstrikes have expedited the advances of Syrian forces against militants.

On the contrary, Turkey is among the main supporters of militants fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Ankara has also been accused on numerous occasions of being involved in illegal oil trade with the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group.

All sides to Syria conflict should respect truce

In another development on Tuesday, the Arab League urged all sides to the conflict in Syria to adhere to the terms of a ceasefire deal announced by the United States and Russia the previous day.

The 22-member body said in a statement that Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby believes that the truce will be “an important step towards a political settlement of the Syrian crisis.”

On Monday, Washington and Moscow said the ceasefire has been planned to take effect in Syria on February 27.

Over the past few weeks, Syrian government forces, backed by Russia’s air cover, have managed to gain major positions from the foreign-backed militants.

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | European Union, Russia, Turkey | Leave a comment

Netanyahu demands anti-Zionist posters be removed from London Underground

RT | February 23, 2016

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly asked the UK government to have hundreds of posters protesting Israeli occupation of Palestine removed from the Tube.

The Haaretz newspaper reported Tuesday that the Israeli prime minister himself had asked that the posters, which may have been posted in their hundreds, be removed.

The posters appeared on Sunday as part of a mass fly-posting effort to mark the annual Israeli Apartheid Week.

The posters on the London Underground trains hit out at a number of targets, including controversial UK private military firm G4S, which is involved in the running of Israeli prisons.

Transport for London (TfL) said that the posters would be taken down.

“It is flyposting and therefore an act of vandalism, which we take extremely seriously,” A TfL spokesman told the Evening Standard.

“Our staff and contractors are working to immediately remove any found on our network,” the spokesman added.

Some Jewish community groups said that the posters amounted to “smears” against Israel.

“These posters are awful smears that do nothing to contribute to peace and dialogue, placing significant strains on inter-community relations across London,” a London Jewish Forum spokesman told Haaretz.

“They are an act of vandalism, seeking to undermine the UK’s relationship with Israel and designed to foster discomfort. We welcome Transport for London’s commitment to quickly remove them.”

The posters were reported Monday as the Palestinian envoy to the UK Manuel Hassassian told the Independent newspaper that the decision to invite Israeli parliament speaker Yuli Edelstein to address an event held in the UK Parliament risked legitimizing Israeli expansionism, given Edelstein’s background.

“Mr Edelstein lives on an illegal Israeli settlement built on Palestinian land and he publicly opposes Palestinian statehood,” Hassassian said.

Edelstein is due to address the British Group Inter-Parliamentary Union in March.

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | Benjamin Netanyahu, G4S, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, UK, Zionism | Leave a comment

On abolishing the CIA, Sanders is in some distinguished company

RT | February 23, 2016

Washington insiders were abuzz over a revelation that Bernie Sanders had once advocated abolishing the CIA. Blasting Sanders for his ancient argument, the Clinton campaign forgot to mention that many illustrious US leaders have shared the same intention.

While campaigning for the US Senate in 1974, a 33-year-old Sanders called the Central Intelligence Agency “a dangerous institution that has got to go,” describing it as a tool of US corporate interests accountable to no one “except right-wing lunatics who use it to prop up fascist dictatorships.”

This is according to a story in Politico, which called Sanders an “extreme leftist” and prominently featured a quote from one of Hillary Clinton campaign advisers – who also happens to be the former chief of staff to a CIA director.

“Abolishing the CIA in the 1970s would have unilaterally disarmed America during the height of the Cold War and at a time when terrorist networks across the Middle East were gaining strength,” the paper quoted Jeremy Bash, former chief of staff to Leon Panetta. Panetta was CIA director between 2009 and 2011 and Bill Clinton’s chief of staff in 1994-97. “If this is a window into Sanders’ thinking, it reinforces the conclusion that he’s not qualified to be commander in chief.”

Arguing that the CIA was a vital US weapon at the time does not match up with historical facts, however. The Agency was famously caught off-guard by the Cold War’s sudden and peaceful resolution – an end in which it played no part.

“We should not gloss over the enormity of this failure to forecast the magnitude of the Soviet crisis,” former CIA Director Stansfield Turner wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1991. “Yet I never heard a suggestion from the CIA, or the intelligence arms of the departments of Defense or State, that numerous Soviets recognized a growing, systemic economic problem.”

One of the CIA’s many dubious Cold War activities was to support Islamist rebels in Afghanistan, among them international volunteers that included a young Osama bin Laden.

Wanting to dismantle the CIA was hardly a radical notion in 1974, Jon Schwarz of the Intercept pointed out. After the agency’s fiasco with the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, President John F. Kennedy said he would like to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.” At the same time, the State Department proposed stripping the agency of its covert powers.

Following JFK’s assassination in 1963, former president Harry Truman wrote that he would “like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President… and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere.”

In his 1969 memoir, Present at the Creation, Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, wrote that he had the “gravest forebodings” about the CIA when it was established, and warned the president that “as set up neither he, the National Security Council, nor anyone else would be in a position to know what it was doing or to control it.”

While that may sound like ancient history, there is the matter of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democratic Senator from New York, who also called for abolition of the CIA and even sponsored a bill in 1995 to that effect. Hillary Clinton would be elected to Moynihan’s seat in 2000, and praised him upon his death in 2003 as a “man of passion and understanding about what really makes this country great,” Schwarz notes.

Mere months after Bernie Sanders made his “extremist” call for the elimination of the CIA, US lawmakers set up congressional committees to rein in runaway intelligence agencies. The Pike Committee on the House side and the Church Committee on the Senate side worked to tighten oversight on the CIA, NSA, and other parts of the US intelligence apparatus, which had, until then, been operating unchecked.

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Bernie Sanders, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Human rights, United States | Leave a comment

Hillary Clinton, The Council on Foreign Relations and The Establishment

By Matt Peppe | Just the Facts | February 22, 2016

When asked by Wolf Blitzer in January if she was “the establishment,” Hillary Clinton replied: “I just don’t understand what that means. He’s been in Congress, he’s been elected to office a lot longer than I have.” Several weeks later, her Democratic primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders made the case in a debate that the issue was who had the support of more powerful elected officials, arguing that Clinton has the support of “more governors, mayors, members of the House.”

Clinton framed the notion of “the establishment” as consisting solely of political bodies of elected officials. Sanders simply argued that a better indicator of the establishment is one’s power and influence within political circles.

As part of the “two for the price of one” that Bill Clinton promised during his rise to the Presidency, Hillary is forced to hide from her role in the creation of the neoliberal New Democrats, the dominant faction of the party. During their joint reign in the White House, the Clintons steered the party far to the right with their draconian criminal justice measures, assault on welfare, liberalization of trade, and deregulation of banking. Their cronies continue to staff the highest ranks of the party and the Obama administration.

Clinton, in a desperate piece of deflection, resorted to playing the gender card: “Senator Sanders is the only person who I think would characterize me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as exemplifying the establishment.” This fatuous identity politics is meant to distract from her decades-long tenure at the top of the political system and collusion with those who exercise control over it. Of course, as Bernie points out, Hillary most represents and enjoys the support of the Democratic faction of the political establishment.

But framing the issue as simply a matter of party politics and the electoral system misses the point. Elected officials are merely the public face of the establishment. The broader establishment is the elite class that determines economic policy.

There is no building that says “Establishment” on the door, but there is a century-old institution made up of wealthy and influential representatives of business, Wall Street, corporate law, academia and government. It is a creation of the elite ruling class to ensure their control over shaping policy for their own benefit. Their decisions result in funneling money – and, hence, power – into the hands of a small percentage of capitalists who exercise control over the political process in a positive feedback loop.

In their book Imperial Brain Trust, Laurence Shoup and William Minter write that: “The Council on Foreign Relations is a key part of a network of people and institutions usually referred to by friendly observers as ‘the establishment.’ ” [1]

The Council was founded after World War I in response to growing domestic social tensions and labor unrest. Socialism was gaining in popularity among the American public in an economic environment marred by exploitative working conditions and skyrocketing inequality.

The Council’s mission was to carry out long-term planning for a national agenda. The agenda was meant to undermine a domestic-oriented program that would involve collective decision making to achieve self-sufficiency, and thereby reduce the country’s dependence on foreign resources, trade, and other governments.

Some of the many multinationals that subscribed to the CFR’s Corporation Service included General Motors, Exxon, Ford, Mobil, United States Steel, Texaco, First National City Bank and IBM. [2]

“The Council, dominated by corporate leaders, saw expansion of American trade, investment, and population as the solution to domestic problems. It thought in terms of preservation of the status quo at home, and this involved overseas expansion,” Shoup and Minter write. [3]

This imperialist agenda was achieved through manufacturing the consent of the masses (what they called “public enlightenment”), as well as developing foreign policies and ensuring government officials supported and executed these policies.

The Council has been remarkably successful in its mission. It has achieved a monopoly over foreign policy planning, and become thoroughly integrated with the government that carries out policy prescriptions. Entire administrations have drawn their foreign policy officials from the ranks of the Council. There is a steady two-way flow of personnel between the Council and government.

Both Bill and Chelsea are current members of the CFR. While Hillary herself is not a member, she is no doubt influenced by her immediate family’s ties to the Council. Additionally, her role as Secretary of State involved close collaboration with the Council, as she made clear in a 2009 speech at the Council’s office in Washington:
“I am delighted to be here in these new headquarters. I have been often to – I guess – the mothership in New York City. But it’s good to have an outpost of the Council right here down the street from the State Department. We get a lot of advice from the Council, so this will mean I won’t have as hard a go to be told what we should be doing, and how we should think about the future.” One of many people whose career was launched by his association with the Council was Henry Kissinger. In the late 1950s, he was appointed the director of a study group on nuclear weapons, in collaboration with several of the Council’s directors. The result was a book authored by Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.

Kissinger went on to serve as possibly the most influential foreign policy official in history under Richard Nixon (and later Gerald Ford), as both Secretary of State and National Security Adviser. He helped carry out war crimes when he transmitted President Nixon’s order “anything that flies on anything that moves” to General Alexander Haig, directing a massive, secret bombing campaign of Cambodia hidden from Congress and the American public.

Kissinger’s tenure also saw him intimately involved with the military coup led by General Pinochet to overthrow and kill democratically-elected President Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973; the invasion by Indonesia of East Timor in 1975 and the subsequent genocide against the native East Timorese; the South African invasion of Angola in 1975 and attempted installation of a puppet ruler amenable to the apartheid regime; and the Dirty War in Argentina in which leftist opposition members were killed an disappeared.

Rather than being subjected to prosecution, or even suffering a loss of prestige, Kissinger has seen his reputation rise in the decades following his genocidal actions, whose strategy was in line with the designs peddled by the Council.

Clinton wrote that “Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state.” She noted that they share “a belief in the indispensability of continued American leadership in service of a just and liberal order.”

Clinton’s abstract and idealistic rhetoric exemplifies the bipartisan, imperialist agenda formulated and propagated by the Council on Foreign Relations. The humanitarianism is a guise for the pursuit of United States political and economic hegemony across the world. The people who belong to this elite club have internalized the imperialist worldview that the U.S. is an “indispensable nation” that upholds “a just and liberal” world order, and use this belief to rationalize their Machiavellian exertions of power abroad.

The establishment is not made up of any one party, gender, or government organization. It is made up of people who are involved, directly or peripherally, in formulating and carrying out the plans of a tiny elite class – plans that ignore the 99 percent of the Americans in whose names they act, and the billions of people whose lives their decisions impact. There is no one whose social relationships and professional career typifies this more than Hillary Rodham Clinton.

References

[1] Shoup, Laurence H. and William Minter. Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations & United States Foreign Policy. Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press, 1977/2004. (pg. 9)

[2] Ibid. (pg. 50)

[3] Ibid. (pg. 23)

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | CFR, Council on Foreign Relations, Hillary Clinton, United States | Leave a comment

Jamaica: Judge Orders ‘Death Squad’ Records Turned Over

teleSUR – February 23, 2016

Jamaica’s Police Commissioner Carl Williams has been ordered by a justice of the country’s Supreme Court to turn over the personnel records of officers accused of forming part of a “death squad,” The Gleaner reported Monday.

Jamaica’s Independent Commission of Investigations, took Commissioner Williams to the Supreme Court in order to obtain the records of 11 officers charged with murder in connection to suspicious deaths at the hands of police.

The investigation stems from homicides in the Clarendon Parrish, which had originally been reported as civilian deaths.

The commission had been trying to negotiate the release of the records but faced stiff opposition from Williams, who argued that the officers were entitled to professional privilege and protected by a constitutional right to privacy.

“Between the (national police force) and us, there was a respectful disagreement as regards what information we could get regarding the disciplinary records of their men, of reviews done of shootings, of plans for planned operations,” commission head Terrance Williams told The Gleaner.

The commission is interested in the records in order to determine if superior officers were complicit or connected to the alleged murders of civilians.

“That is, did they plan the operations properly? Did they review the operations properly? Did they select members of teams properly?” asked Terrance Williams.

Supreme Justice Bryan Sykes said Commissioner Williams has 120 days to hand over the files.

Organizations such as Jamaicans for Justice have denounced brutality and the widespread use of what has been described as “extra-judicial killings” at the hands of Jamaican police.

The Independent Commission of Investigations was established in 2010 in response to these allegations.

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Jamaica | Leave a comment

Obama Administration Fails to Make Progress on Reforming US Drone Program

Sputnik — February 23, 2016

US President Barack Obama’s administration has failed to implement reforms regarding the controversial drone policy to make it more transparent, accountable and consistent with national security interests, according to a report by the US think tank Stimson Center published Tuesday.

“Little progress has been made during the past year and a half to enact reforms that establish a more sensible US drone policy consistent with America’s long-term security and economic interests. The lack of a clear drone policy risks leaving a legacy on drone use that is based on secrecy and a lack of accountability that undermines efforts to support the international rule of law,” the report reads.

In 2014, the Stimson Task Force, comprising senior military and intelligence officials, recommended public disclosure of targeted drone strikes, thorough review of past and present drone strikes and their effectiveness and detailed reports explaining the legal basis of the US lethal drone program, among other recommendations.

The proposals were later backed by UN experts, including the adviser to Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Sarah Knuckey.

The US military has increasingly relied on drones to conduct operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria and Iraq. Critics have slammed the practice for resulting in a significant number of civilian deaths and the destruction of infrastructure unrelated to terrorists.

Data collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism shows that US drone strikes have killed up to 1,000 civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen over the past 10 years.

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | Afghanistan, Human rights, Obama, Pakistan, Somalia, United States, Yemen | Leave a comment

Scotland’s Anti-Colonial Struggle

By Craig Murray | February 22, 2016

I have a meeting today in London with the Ambassadors of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador to brief them on Scotland’s continuing struggle for Independence. These nations have been at the forefront of the international movement against colonialism, and know all about the sharp end of neo-Imperialism and the evil-doing of the CIA and other western security agencies.

The test of the Independence of a state is nothing to do with domestic or regional government, or even with bilateral arrangements with the state from which it secedes. The test of Independence is, purely and simply, whether or not you are recognised by other states as independent. That is the very clear cut position in international law. For this reason, it is essential that Scotland reaches out, not just within the EU but to the entire international community. Ultimately we need these people to vote and lobby for us in the United Nations and other international institutions.

Frankly, the SNP is rubbish at this. I am doing this meeting because the hierarchy of the SNP spurned the approach from the Ambassadors, as previously detailed on this blog. This reluctance seems part of the hierarchy’s effort to be NATO friendly and thus CIA friendly. The Ambassadors would far rather be meeting with an official SNP representative than a nobody like me. Unfortunately the SNP won’t do it. That is a disgrace.

I can increasingly foresee, as Westminster governments move ever further to the right and encroach more and more on civil liberties, a situation arising where Scotland wishes to claim its independence without the consent of Westminster. In that situation, we will need all the international support we can get, just as the Palestinians have been making headway in UN institutions. Work needs to be put now into laying the foundations for that support. Personally I would characterise Scottish Independence as an anti-colonial struggle; use of Scots as British cannon fodder and integration of the Scots elite into the Metropolitan elite does not make Scotland any less a colony. Rome had an African Emperor, but still her African possessions were colonies.

But even for those who do not accept that analysis, there is no doubt that Scottish Independence would have a highly beneficial impact on the global balance of power. The weakening of the USA’s most powerful sidekick; the lessening of the UK’s ability to participate in illegal neo-imperial invasions and to host weapons of mass destruction; the re-opening of the question of the undemocratic Security Council structure at the UN.

Then there is also the positive role Scotland can play as a major contributor to UN Peacekeeping Forces, and a voice for sanity, reason, human rights and the pre-eminence of international law. An independent Scotland as a state party will be able to request the International Criminal Court to lay war crime charges against Blair and Straw for the illegal invasion of Iraq, which would be a powerful deterrent to future aggressive war.

I am but one man and a private individual. Everything I can do, I shall.

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Illegal Occupation | ALBA, NATO, Scotland, SNP, UK | Leave a comment

Killing by Sanctions

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • February 23, 2016

While Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who is currently advising presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, famously said that the estimated 500,000 children who died as a result of U.S. sanctions on Iraq was “worth it.” It was, perhaps, a rare moment of candor from a politician, an admission that Washington is willing to support ostensibly non-lethal measures in such an all-encompassing fashion as to produce mass deaths of people who have no ability to influence the actions undertaken by their government. Sanctions are collective punishment, a blunt edged weapon used all too frequently by Washington to compel foreign governments to submit without having to go to war. There is nothing benign about them and Americans should regard them as potentially just as deadly as direct military intervention.

There are currently a number of countries that are subject to U.S. enforced sanctions but only three fall under the category of “state sponsors of terrorism.” They are Iran, Syria and Sudan. That status entails a number of U.S. Government sanctions including a ban on arms-related exports and sales; controls over exports of dual-use items; prohibitions on economic assistance; and imposition of miscellaneous financial and other restrictions. The financial measures require the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank or other international financial institutions and prohibit any U.S. person from engaging in a financial transaction with a terrorism-list government without a Treasury Department license issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The license and other approvals are reported to be complicated and the process is extremely difficult to navigate, discouraging anyone from having business dealings with the targeted countries.

Other sanctions are not always directly related to terrorism. They sometimes target select individuals and organizations that are considered by the U.S. government to be focal points of some aberrant behavior. A number of Russian officials have been sanctioned over Ukraine and even over the functioning of the country’s judiciary while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been sanctioned both for its involvement with radical groups and its support of Tehran’s missile program. But the most devastating sanctions are those which are directed against a country and nearly everything that it does economically, which was the case with Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Currently, Sudan falls under that category.

I recently spent a week in Sudan as the guest of a NGO. The objective was to show a group of hopefully influential foreign visitors the devastating effect of sanctions on the local economy. We visitors were of course aware that we were being fed a line that was most favorable to the government position so we also spoke to other Sudanese who were not necessarily part of the program as well as to United States government officials working at the Embassy.

The status of state sponsor of terrorism was bestowed on Sudan back in 1993 after the Sudanese government invited Osama bin Laden to stay in the country. Subsequently it was also claimed that Khartoum was supporting radical groups in Africa and elsewhere, to include Boko Harum, Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Since that time the conditions that led to the designation have changed dramatically. Bin Laden was asked to leave and relations with a number of militant groups were severed. Sudan has even severed diplomatic relations with Iran.

The latest edition of the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism states that “Sudan remained a generally cooperative partner of the United States on counterterrorism. During the past year, the Government of Sudan continued to support counterterrorism operations to counter threats to U.S. interests and personnel in Sudan.” Beyond that, the Sudanese intelligence service has been active in sharing information on terrorists in neighboring countries, to include Yemen, Uganda, Eritrea, Somalia, Chad and Libya. The information has been of such value that in 2010 the United States intelligence community advocated decoupling intelligence sharing from restrictions imposed on bilateral contact due to concerns over developments in Darfur.

In 2010 John Kerry, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, pledged to the Sudanese government that the terrorism designation would be lifted but failed to follow through. Later, in 2013, as Secretary of State, he was reminded of his promise by his Sudanese counterpart but apparently was thwarted in taking any action by advisers around President Barack Obama, most notably Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Both had in part made their reputations by writing and speaking to condemn Sudan. They were among the first to describe the conflict in Darfur as a genocide and are correctly perceived as hostile to any change in Sudan’s status.

The other sanctions on Sudan, referred to as a “comprehensive trade embargo,” blend claims of terrorism support with alleged human rights violations. They were imposed by Bill Clinton in 1997 and supplemented under George W. Bush in 2006. The last of these were linked to what has been described as a civil war starting in 2003 pitting the mostly Arabic speaking north of the country against the mostly indigenous black African south and west. The western media depicted the conflict in a racial context as well as in terms of religion, with Muslim pitted against Christian and animist, but the reality was much more complex than that with groups also dividing along linguistic, tribal and even occupational lines, sometimes featuring nomadic herdsmen against farmers.

Most sources agree that the various wars in and around Sudan have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese as well as between 14,000 and 200,000 who were reportedly “enslaved” in abductions carried out by both sides. The conflict in Darfur has been described as a genocide with a government supported militia known as Janjaweed and the rebels together having been accused of carrying out numerous atrocities. As a consequence, Sudan’s then-and-now president Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been on the receiving end of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.

Al-Bashir, it should be noted became president by virtue of a military coup, though he has now been elected to office three times, once in an uncontested election in 1996 and in 2010 in a multiparty election that was described as “highly chaotic, non-transparent and vulnerable to electoral manipulation.” The most recent election took place on April 2015 and was strongly criticized by the U.S., Britain and Norway, all of whom had sent observers. Al-Bashir heads the ruling National Congress Party, but in fact he rules largely by fiat. He is either very popular or very unpopular with the Sudanese people depending on whom one talks to.

Genuine moves towards Sudanese democracy through the mechanism of a currently ongoing National Discussion are promising but are likely to slowly evolve in reality. The country’s legal system is based on Sharia but there is general tolerance of other religions in practice if not in law. The National Museum has a section relating to Christianity in Sudan and there is a Christian hour on television every Sunday. The Roman Catholic cathedral is located near the government center and there is also an active Coptic community. Christian community leaders openly support the existing government, just as they do in Syria, perhaps recognizing that available alternatives might be much worse.

A cease fire with the southern states in Sudan in 2005 led to the involvement of a United Nations Mission and a referendum in 2011 resulted in secession from the north. South Sudan is now an independent country that is enduring its own birth pangs. There are some reports of continued violence possibly instigated by Khartoum as well as little noticed government repression in the southern Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, which have been largely closed to the media and foreign NGOs pending yet another referendum to determine their future status.

Darfur followed with its own peace agreement in 2006. It is relatively quiet though military operations against a final hold out group of rebels in the region continue. Humanitarian and UN affiliated groups are in Darfur to monitor the process of reconciliation and it is expected that there will be another referendum to determine the region’s final status. At least some of the continuing unrest has been attributed to the activity of radicals from Chad, who are able to freely cross the open 600 mile long border to enter Darfur.

Business leaders in Khartoum note that there has been considerable economic growth in Sudan in spite of sanctions, concentrated in the sectors of oil, agriculture and mining. Since 1997, Sudan has been working with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to initiate reforms and create sustainable growth. There is, however, considerable official corruption and across the board poverty, largely among those engaged in agriculture.

In spite of some positive developments, Washington’s sanctions have blocked almost all business with Sudan. Selling or buying anything to or from Sudan requires clearance by OFAC and is largely limited to agricultural, communications or medical products. The paperwork requires months to complete and the actual purchases have to be made through third parties, meaning that everything costs more and comes without warranties, service or support. This is because the United States has effectively shut down any banking transactions or extensions of credit with Sudan and when no one can get paid except by suitcases full of cash it becomes impossible to conduct business. Few foreign banks exist in Sudan and they are very careful about how they operate. Even the IMF is reportedly having difficulty in funding its own projects in country. It all means that Sudan cannot pay its bills through conventional correspondent banking arrangements as foreign banks are fearful of being fined by the United States. No one is willing to take that risk.

To be sure, part of Sudan’s economic woes come from its sustaining a war economy in response to the unrest in several regions. But beyond that no investment money coming in due to sanctions means no improvement in agricultural technology, which would benefit the poorest part of the population, or in health care or in education. Poverty has been increasing due to sanctions and attempts to evade the restrictions have resulted in smuggling, money laundering and an increase in unconventional banking to include hawala transfers that are not subject to normal bank controls. Because Sudan is currently not integrated into the international banking system its transactions cannot be monitored to prevent terrorist money transfers.

And there is also a human price to pay for inability to move money. Sudanese health care providers believe that many preventable deaths are attributable to persistent lack of medicinal supplies or diagnostic equipment due to sanctions. Even if the numbers are overstated, that is almost certainly true. In a recent case three patients in Darfur died for lack of renal dialysis solutions.

I oppose sanctions in principle because I believe they are a blunt instrument that punishes innocent civilians when broadly construed while having no effect at all when directly targeting the country’s relatively wealthy and unreachable government officials. If sanctions are to make any sense they should be designed to achieve a quantifiable result but that is rarely the case and they frequently serve no purpose whatsoever beyond dishing out punishment. It has been claimed that sanctions actually worked in Sudan because its government has moved to meet some of Washington’s demands over Darfur and South Sudan, but that is a simplistic explanation for rather more complex phenomena that were likely driven by multiple constituencies and interests.

More often than not, sanctions harden a government’s resolve to resist, as they did in Cuba, and even become useful to the regime as an excuse for government failures. The explanation provided by George W. Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, that sanctions “send a message… to start behaving differently when they deal with their own people. That’s what this is all about,” is hubristic imperialism at its finest. It is reported in Sudan that many young Sudanese hate the United States and it is not difficult to understand why.

And there are good selfish reasons for the United States to lift sanctions and normalize relations with Khartoum. Sudan is an autocracy but no worse than American allies like Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Egypt. It is active in fighting alleged rebels but is far more restrained than the current Saudi military intervention in Yemen. And though Khartoum has had sometimes ambivalent relationships with Islamic radicals it has been far less engaged in that fashion than Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. So Sudan passes the smell test for being a disagreeable regime that is compatible with the United States’ broader interests.

And those broader interests are clear, including allowing American companies to participate in the future development of the country. U.S. sanctions have forced the Sudanese to turn to Moscow and Beijing for assistance. Russia is involved in gold mining and China is increasingly engaged in transportation, communications and energy projects. The Sudanese rail network and its international air carrier Sudan Air have collapsed due to lack of spare parts for their U.S. made hardware, an opportunity for American suppliers to quickly reenter the market. It is not in the U.S. national interest to create conditions favorable to competitors seeking to dominate the potentially large and developing Sudanese economy, ceding to them a significant foothold in East Africa by default.

Furthermore, Sudan is a bridge between Africa and the Arab world. It harbors no international terrorists and is a relative oasis of calm in a region in turmoil, well placed to monitor developments in neighboring Egypt, Chad, Libya, Somalia, Eritrea, Zaire, Central African Republic, Uganda and Yemen. It has made a significant contribution in counterterrorism and could do even better if properly motivated and provided with the tools needed, potentially playing a major role in the U.S. sponsored Partnership for Regional East Africa Counterterrorism. Normalizing relations with Sudan’s banks could, inter alia, stop money laundering and shut down possible terrorist money transfers.

There is, in short, no good reason to continue the status quo apart from the objections of two Obama advisers who have a personal stake in depicting Sudan in the most negative fashion. Unfortunately U.S. foreign policy has drifted away from supporting actual national interests and is mired in responding to various constituencies, in Obama’s case the “responsibility to protect” advocates. One can quite imagine that with something like a Marco Rubio it would revert to the mindless belligerency mode, but as both models seek to remake foreign governments they should equally be eschewed. Countries like Sudan and Iran should not be made to feel that they are permanently under the heel of the American jackboot. Nor should Washington feel compelled to play that role. Except in those rare situations where trade embargoes can inhibit flows of weapons to belligerents in a hot war, sanctions are useless, diminishing both those who apply the punishment and those who are on the receiving end. They should never be considered a serious instrument for foreign policy.

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | Africa, Samantha Power, Sanctions against Iran, Sudan, Susan Rice, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

Breaking down the US-Russia ceasefire plan for Syria

RT | February 22, 2016

Following Moscow and Washington’s announcement of a joint ceasefire deal for Syria, the war-torn country may be on the verge of the biggest peacemaking breakthrough since fighting broke out there five years ago. Here is how the proposed truce should work:

When does it start?

The ceasefire will become official at midnight Damascus time on Saturday, February 27 (or on Friday at 22:00 GMT). Those who subscribe to the agreement have to publicly declare that they will desist from hostilities by a deadline 12 hours before the ceasefire comes into effect, and inform the White House or the Kremlin.

Who does it apply to?

It is clearer which parties it doesn’t apply to: “‘Daesh’ [Islamic State], ‘Jabhat al-Nusra’ [an al-Qaeda offshoot], or other terrorist organizations designated by the UN Security Council,” according to the Joint Statement. The Syrian government, as well as the oft-mentioned “moderate opposition” factions and the Kurds, will have to take it upon themselves to put down arms – or face consequences.

If the sides agree, what will be expected of them?

Participants are obligated to “cease attacks with any weapons, including rockets, mortars, and anti-tank guided missiles” and “refrain from acquiring or seeking to acquire territory from other parties to the ceasefire.” They must also allow “unhindered and sustained” access to humanitarian assistance missions and employ only “proportional force” in self-defense against those not party to the agreement.

How will the ceasefire function in practice?

Moscow and Washington will “work together to exchange pertinent information,” such as up-to-date maps indicating which sides have agreed to the ceasefire, and where they are located. The parties that are confirmed to have agreed to the ceasefire conditions should no longer come under fire from either side. The firepower is then expected to be concentrated on Islamic State and other jihadists.

How will it be monitored?

A Task Force will be set up, co-chaired by Moscow and Russia, which will “promote compliance and rapidly de-escalate tensions,” serve as an arbiter to “resolve allegations of non-compliance,” and refer “persistent” truce-breakers to senior officials to “determine appropriate action, including the exclusion of such parties from the arrangements of the cessation of hostilities.” A direct hotline will be set up between Moscow and Washington to avoid internal squabbles and improve contact inside the Task Force. The statement also leaves a role for public institutions and journalists in keeping the peace, promising that the ceasefire “will be monitored in an impartial and transparent manner and with broad media coverage.”

Ceasefire in Syria to commence at midnight on Feb. 27 – Russia & US

February 22, 2016 Posted by aletho | Militarism | Al-Nusra, Da’esh, Russia, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

‘White Book of crimes’: Report on war crimes by pro-Kiev forces in Donbass released in English

RT | February 10, 2016

A report on war crimes committed by Kiev’s army and militia in eastern Ukraine is now available in English. It’s compiled by Russia’s Investigative Committee and covers 54 criminal cases.

The report, entitled ‘The Tragedy of South-Eastern Ukraine: The White Book of Crimes’, was initially published last year in Russian and edited by Investigative Committee Chairman Aleksandr Bastrykin.

Some 2,500 volumes of evidence collected for the book include testimonies of over 100,000 witnesses.

“The book provides evidence of international and transnational crimes committed on the territory of Ukraine, collected by Russia’s Investigative Committee dealing with the relevant criminal proceedings, as well as records of international organizations on the matter and comments of scholars specializing in international law,” said committee spokesman Vladimir Markin.

Wednesday’s presentation of the book in English was aimed at attracting the attention of the international public to the problem of combating international crimes in Ukraine. Representatives of 14 foreign states, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Organization for Migration were invited to take part.

“The presentation highlighted the discoveries made by the Investigative Committee during its probe into the war crimes and other offences against the peace and security of the people in Ukraine, including the attack on the Russian Embassy in Kiev,” Markin added.

During the presentation, the Committee exposed those involved in the alleged crimes, as well as the sources they based the report on. Among other issues, they raised the question of transferring the collected evidence to the international justice authorities, so that they could decide whether Kiev should be brought to justice.

Markin stressed that the electronic versions of both Russian and English editions of the publication will be available on the official website of the Investigative Committee in the nearest future.

The agency dealing with the war crimes in Donbass was created as part of Russia’s Investigative Committee in 2014. It works closely with all departments that operate in areas where the majority of refugees from the southeast of Ukraine arrive in Russia.

Kiev’s “special operation” in the east of Ukraine aimed at suppressing the protest movement in the Donbass Region has been in progress since the middle of April 2014.

The operation brought about numerous civilian casualties and the general destruction of local infrastructure: according to the UN figures for December 2015, more than 9,000 people died in the conflict and some 20 thousand more were injured. Over 1.3 million lost their homes, as stated in the previous UN report published in August.

February 22, 2016 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | Ukraine | Leave a comment

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02.13.2026

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A prolific scholar and activist, he devoted his life to challenging power, imperialism, and inequality. … continue

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