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A Curious Climate Analogy – Badly Reported by the NYT

By Kip Hansen | WUWT | September 8, 2013

The AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY just published a Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society titled: EXPLAINING EXTREME EVENTS OF 2012 FROM A CLIMATE PERSPECTIVE edited by Thomas C. Peterson, Martin P. Hoerling, Peter A. Stott, and Stephanie C. Herring. [hereafter EEE2012].

Kenneth Chang at the New York Times reported on the findings in an article, “Research Cites Role of Warming in Extremes”, on 5 September 2013. In this piece, Chang includes the following paragraph, which was picked up and repeated in the Andy Revkin’s NY Times Opinion Page blog, Dot.Earth, filed under Climate Change:

“The articles’ editors likened climate change to someone habitually driving a bit over the speed limit. Even if the speeding itself is unlikely to directly cause an accident, it increases the likelihood that something else — a wet road or a distracting text message — will do so and that the accident, when it occurs, will be more calamitous.”

This is unfortunate, for two reasons: 

1) The articles’ editors said no such thing.

2) Even if they had, what Chang says just happens not to be true in and of itself.

Andy Revkin , doubling down on Chang, says: “Ken Chang’s news article in The Times … . includes an apt analogy used in the introduction to the studies: [followed by the paragraph quoted above].” This too is unfortunately not true, for the above two reasons, an analogy can’t be apt if it wasn’t made and isn’t true,  and the fact that the analogy being referred to appears not in the introduction, but in the CONCLUSIONS AND EPILOGUE section, written by Thomas C. Peterson, Peter A. Stott, Stephanie C. Herring, and Martin P. Hoerling.

What Peterson et al actually said was:

“To help understand the difficulty of determining the anthropogenic contribution to specific extreme events, consider this driving analogy (UCAR 2012). “Adding just a little bit of speed to your highway commute each month can substantially raise the odds that you’ll get hurt some day. But if an accident does occur, the primary cause may not be your speed itself: it could be a wet road or a texting driver.” Similarly, while climate models may indicate a human effect is causing increases in the chances of having extremely high precipitation in a region (much like speeding increases the chances of having an accident), natural variability can still be the primary factor in any individual extreme event. The difficulty in determining the precise sensitivity of, according to our analogy, driving speed on risks of accidents in particular conditions (wet roads, texting drivers) can explain why somewhat different analyses of the same meteorological event can reach somewhat different conclusions about the extent to which human influence has altered the likelihood and magnitude of the event.” [EEE2012, page 64]

Point 1: The editors said no such thing:

Notice that Peterson says nothing about speed limits, nothing about speeding, and nothing about any subsequent accident being “more calamitous” – nothing at all about any of these three points. Chang makes up his own, new and improved analogy. Why? We can’t know – as a journalist, he should have reported what was actually said.

Point 2: Even if they had, what Chang says just happens not to be true in and of itself.

It is a long term, well understood fact that the safest driving speed on America’s highways is “a bit over the speed limit” – actually, more specifically, a bit over the average speed of the traffic on the road, which is often, on a wide open road, at or just a little bit over the speed limit. This is known as Solomon’s Curve, or the Crash Risk Curve, a graph that shows the least accidents happen to those who drive just a bit faster than the flow of traffic. Note that this has nothing to do with absolute speed (for example, 55 mph vs. 75 mph) but speed relative to the other cars and trucks.

So, was what was said in EEE2012 true?

“Adding just a little bit of speed to your highway commute each month can substantially raise the odds that you’ll get hurt some day.”

If you generally drive slower than the flow of traffic, if you are a strict 55 mph’er on an Interstate that flows at 67 1/2 mph, you’ll be safer if you “add a little bit of speed”, because you be involved in fewer (statistically) accidents. However, if you are recklessly already driving 75 mph on the same Interstate, and add a little bit of speed, you’ll be increasing your risk of accident and increasing the kinetic energy of any resulting crash (the last true for the 55 mph’er too).

On its face, in a plain everyday English sense, I’d say the analogy is false as used, because, well, it depends. But I’ll leave it up to the traffic engineers and statisticians — way too much wiggle-room in the phrases “just a little bit of speed” and “can substantially raise”.

My advice to journalists: Use direct quotes, stick to the facts, don’t make stuff up (and for Andy Revkin – don’t trust other journalists to have done these things, check them yourself).

My advice to Climate Scientists: Use analogies that are proven and demonstrably true – not just ones that seem true or sound nice, stick to the facts and don’t make stuff up.

*****

EEE2012 at http://www.ametsoc.org/2012extremeeventsclimate.pdf

Chang at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/science/earth/research-cites-role-of-warming-in-extremes.html

Revkin at http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/assessing-the-role-of-global-warming-in-extreme-weather-of-2012

Solomon’s Curve at http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/fzfeens/trans/Transport-lecture4.ppt , see slides 53 and 55

September 8, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Congress Denied Syrian Facts, Too

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | September 7, 2013

A U.S. congressman who has read the Obama administration’s classified version of intelligence on the alleged Syrian poison gas attack says the report is only 12 pages – just three times longer than the sketchy unclassified public version – and is supported by no additional hard evidence.

Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Florida, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also said the House Intelligence Committee had to make a formal request to the administration for “the underlying intelligence reports” and he is unaware if those details have been forthcoming, suggesting that the classified report – like the unclassified version – is more a set of assertions than a presentation of evidence.

“We have reached the point where the classified information system prevents even trusted members of Congress, who have security clearances, from learning essential facts, and then inhibits them from discussing and debating what they do know,” Grayson wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times on Saturday.

“And this extends to matters of war and peace, money and blood. The ‘security state’ is drowning in its own phlegm. My position is simple: if the administration wants me to vote for war, on this occasion or on any other, then I need to know all the facts. And I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

As I wrote a week ago, after examining the four-page unclassified summary, there was not a single fact that could be checked independently. It was a “dodgy dossier” similar to the ones in 2002-2003 that led the United States into the Iraq War. The only difference was that the Bush administration actually provided more checkable information than the Obama administration did, although much of the Bush data ultimately didn’t check out.

It appears that the chief lesson learned by the Obama administration was to release even less information about Syria’s alleged chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21 than the Bush administration did about Iraq’s alleged WMD. The case against Syria has relied almost exclusively on assertions, such as the bellowing from Secretary of State John Kerry that the Syrian government sure did commit the crime, just trust us.

The Obama administration’s limited-hangout strategy seems to have worked pretty well at least inside the Establishment, but it’s floundering elsewhere around the United States. It appears that many Americans share the skepticism of Rep. Grayson and a few other members of Congress who have bothered to descend into the intelligence committee vaults to read the 12-page classified summary for themselves.

Rallying the Establishment

Despite the sketchy intelligence, many senators and congressmen have adopted the politically safe position of joining in denunciations of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (where’s the downside of that), and the mainstream U.S. news media has largely taken to writing down the administration’s disputed claims about Syria as “flat fact.”

For instance, the New York Times editorial on Saturday accepts without caveat that there was “a poison gas attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime that killed more than 1,400 people last month,” yet those supposed “facts” are all in dispute, including the total number who apparently died from chemical exposure. It was the U.S. white paper that presented the claim of “1,429” people killed without explaining the provenance of that strangely precise number.

The New York Times editorial also reprises the false narrative that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Assad are to blame for the absence of peace negotiations, although the Times’ own reporters from the field have written repeatedly that it has been the U.S.-backed rebels who have refused to join peace talks in Geneva. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Getting Syria-ous About Peace Talks.”]

Nevertheless, the Times editorial states, “it was the height of cynicism for Mr. Putin to talk about the need for a Syrian political settlement, which he has done little to advance.” One has to wonder if the Times’ editors consider it their “patriotic” duty to mislead the American people, again.

Increasingly, President Barack Obama’s case for a limited war against Syria is looking like a nightmarish replay of President George W. Bush’s mendacious arguments for war against Iraq. There are even uses of the same techniques, such as putting incriminating words in the mouths of “enemy” officials.

On Feb. 5, 2003, before the United Nations Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell needled some intercepted quotes from Iraqi military officers to make some innocuous comments about inspecting weapons sites into proof they were hiding caches of chemical weapons from UN inspectors. Powell’s scam was exposed when the State Department released the actual transcripts of the conversations without some of the incriminating words that Powell had added.

Then, on Aug. 30, 2013, when the Obama administration released its “Government Assessment” of Syria’s alleged poison gas attack, the white paper stated, “We intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on August 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence.”

However, the identity of the “senior official” was not included, nor was the direct quote cited. The report claimed concerns about protecting “sources and methods” in explaining why more details weren’t provided, but everyone in the world knows the United States has the capability to intercept phone calls.

Reasons for Secrecy?

So, why didn’t the Obama administration go at least as far as the Bush administration did in putting out transcripts of these phone intercepts? A reasonable suspicion must be that the actual words of the conversation – and possibly other conversations – would have indicated that the Syrian high command was caught off guard by the Aug. 21 events, that the Syrian government was scrambling to figure out what had happened and why, that the intercepts were less incriminating than the paraphrase of them.

That fuller story might well have undercut the U.S. case for taking military action. So, the administration’s white paper left out conversations reflecting the Syrian government’s confusion. The white paper didn’t even bother to put in the actual quote from the one “senior official” who supposedly “confirmed” the chemical weapons use.

Indeed, although the white paper states that its conclusions were derived from “human, signals, and geospatial intelligence as well as a significant body of open source reporting,” none of that intelligence was spelled out in the unclassified version. It is now unclear how much more detail was provided in the 12-page classified version that Rep. Grayson read.

In his op-ed, Grayson wrote, “The first [unclassified version] enumerates only the evidence in favor of an attack. I’m not allowed to tell you what’s in the classified summary, but you can draw your own conclusion. On Thursday I asked the House Intelligence Committee staff whether there was any other documentation available, classified or unclassified. Their answer was ‘no.’”

So, what is one to make of this pathetic replay of events from a decade ago in which the White House and intelligence community make sweeping claims without presenting real evidence and the major U.S. news outlets simply adopt the government’s uncorroborated claims as true?

One might have thought that the Obama administration – understanding the public skepticism after the disastrous Iraq War – would have gone to extra lengths to lay out all the facts to the American people, rather than try to slip by with another “dodgy dossier” and excuses about the need to keep all the evidence secret.

President Obama seems to believe that “transparency” means having some members of Congress interrupt their busy schedules of endless fundraising to troop down to the intelligence committee vaults and read some pre-packaged intelligence without the benefit of any note-taking or the ability to check out what they’ve seen, let alone the right to discuss it publicly.

In my 35-plus years covering Congress, I can tell you that perhaps the body’s greatest weakness – amid many, many weaknesses – is its ability to investigate national security claims emanating from the Executive Branch.

Beyond all the limitations of what members of Congress are allowed to see and under what circumstances, there is the reality that anyone who takes on the intelligence community too aggressively can expect to be pilloried as “unpatriotic” or accused of being an “apologist” for some unsavory dictator.

Soon, the troublesome member can expect hostile opinion pieces showing up in his local newspapers and money pouring into the campaign coffers of some electoral challenger. So, there is no political upside in performing this sort of difficult oversight and there is plenty of downside.

And once an administration has staked its credibility on some dubious assertion, all the public can expect is more of a sales job, a task that President Obama himself is expected to undertake in a speech to the nation on Tuesday. That is why the Obama administration would have been wise to have developed a much fuller intelligence assessment of what happened on Aug. 21 and then presented the evidence as fully as possible.

In the days of the Internet and Twitter – and after the bitter experience of the Iraq War – it is a dubious proposition that the White House can rely on national politicians and Establishment news outlets to whip the public up for another military adventure without presenting a comprehensive set of facts.

~

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

September 7, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Legal loophole: US offers no apologies for hacking internet encryption

RT | September 6, 2013

The US Director of National Intelligence has issued a statement in response to a report revealing that the National Security Agency, with help from international allies, secretly inserted backdoors into various encryption and internet security services.

Intelligence agencies in the US and United Kingdom have spent millions to bribe technicians – perhaps even planting agents inside telecommunication companies – in a bid to penetrate the encryption used by hundreds of millions of people to protect their privacy online.

The report detailing the intelligence agency’s efforts was published Thursday by The Guardian, and is the latest result of the leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The office of James Clapper, director of US national intelligence, has responded by saying the government would simply not be doing its job if it did not use legally dubious techniques to quietly monitor Americans’ everyday communications.

“It should hardly be a surprise that our intelligence agencies seek ways to counteract our adversaries’ use of encryption,” read the statement issued Friday. “Throughout history, nations have used encryption to protect their secrets, and today, terrorists, cyber-criminals, human traffickers and others also use code to hide their activities.”

Close readers may focus their attention on the statement’s mention of “and others,” a loophole that conceivably writes the government a blank check to spy on anyone it sees fit.

“I am the other because I do not trust my government in general, or the people working for its security apparatus in particular,” wrote Ken White of the Popehat law and civil liberties blog.

“I am the other because I believe the security state and its representatives habitually lie, both directly and by misleading language, about the scope of their spying on us. I believe they feel entitled to do so,” he adds.

Among the representatives of the so-called “security state” is US President Barack Obama, who again drew the ire of civil liberty advocates this week when he appeared to admit that he lacks the knowledge of what exactly the NSA is doing.

Obama participated in a press conference at the G20 summit in which he was questioned about accusations from Brazil and Mexico that the NSA has spied on their heads of state.

“I mean, part of the problem here is we get these through the press and then I’ve got to go back and find out what’s going on with respect to these particular allegations,” said President Obama in St. Petersburg. “I don’t subscribe to all these newspapers, although I think the NSA does, now at least.”

Obama took time out of his G20 schedule to hold a closed doors session with Brazil’s President Rousseff for nearly 30 minutes on Thursday, to address the country’s outrage at allegations that her communications with top members of her government had been intercepted.

Related article

September 7, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Rousseff yet to decide on US visit

Press TV – September 7, 2013

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff says she will decide on whether to call off her visit to the United States over allegations of Washington’s spying on her based on President Barack Obama’s full response.

On Friday, Obama said that his administration would work with the Brazilian and Mexican governments to resolve tensions over allegations of spying.

Obama met separately with Rousseff and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on the sidelines of G20 international economic summit in the Russian city of St. Petersburg and discussed reports that the US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on their personal communications.

Earlier on Friday, Rousseff indicated she was not completely content with Obama’s assurances that the alleged spying on her communications by the NAS would be looked into during their meeting late on Thursday.

Rousseff added that the US president had agreed to provide a fuller explanation for the reported spying by September 11, and that she would decide whether or not to visit the US next month based in part on his response.

“My trip to Washington depends on the political conditions to be created by President Obama,” Rousseff told reporters on Friday.

Brazil’s TV Globo reported on September 1 that the NSA spied on emails, phone calls and text messages of Rousseff as president and Pena Nieto when he was a candidate.

The report was based on documents released by US surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor.

Angered by the report, Rousseff and her government have asked for a more complete explanation of the alleged spying.

Brazil argues that counterterrorism or cybersecurity concerns did not sufficiently explain why the NSA would spy on Rousseff’s communications.

The Brazilian government has already canceled a trip by an advance team to prepare for Rousseff’s next month visit to Washington.

Rousseff is scheduled to visit the White House in late October to meet Obama and discuss a possible 4-billion-dollar jet fighter deal, cooperation on oil and biofuels technology between the two biggest economies in the Americas, as well as other commercial projects.

Related article

September 7, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama Warned on Syrian Intel

Consortium News | September 6, 2013

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Is Syria a Trap?

We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.”

We have been down this road before – with President George W. Bush, to whom we addressed our first VIPS memorandum immediately after Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 U.N. speech, in which he peddled fraudulent “intelligence” to support attacking Iraq. Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled – or, at the least, very poorly advised.

The fraudulent nature of Powell’s speech was a no-brainer. And so, that very afternoon we strongly urged your predecessor to “widen the discussion beyond …  the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” We offer you the same advice today.

Our sources confirm that a chemical incident of some sort did cause fatalities and injuries on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus. They insist, however, that the incident was not the result of an attack by the Syrian Army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal. That is the most salient fact, according to CIA officers working on the Syria issue. They tell us that CIA Director John Brennan is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public – and perhaps even you.

We have observed John Brennan closely over recent years and, sadly, we find what our former colleagues are now telling us easy to believe. Sadder still, this goes in spades for those of us who have worked with him personally; we give him zero credence. And that goes, as well, for his titular boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has admitted he gave “clearly erroneous” sworn testimony to Congress denying NSA eavesdropping on Americans.

Intelligence Summary or Political Ploy?

That Secretary of State John Kerry would invoke Clapper’s name this week in Congressional testimony, in an apparent attempt to enhance the credibility of the four-page “Government Assessment” strikes us as odd. The more so, since it was, for some unexplained reason, not Clapper but the White House that released the “assessment.”

This is not a fine point. We know how these things are done. Although the “Government Assessment” is being sold to the media as an “intelligence summary,” it is a political, not an intelligence document. The drafters, massagers, and fixers avoided presenting essential detail. Moreover, they conceded upfront that, though they pinned “high confidence” on the assessment, it still fell “short of confirmation.”

Déjà Fraud: This brings a flashback to the famous Downing Street Minutes of July 23, 2002, on Iraq, The minutes record that Richard Dearlove, then head of British intelligence, reporting to Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior officials that President Bush had decided to remove Saddam Hussein through military action that would be “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.” Dearlove had gotten the word from then-CIA Director George Tenet whom he visited at CIA headquarters on July 20.

The discussion that followed centered on the ephemeral nature of the evidence, prompting Dearlove to explain: “But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” We are concerned that this is precisely what has happened with the “intelligence” on Syria.

The Intelligence

There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters — providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war.

According to some reports, canisters containing chemical agent were brought into a suburb of Damascus, where they were then opened. Some people in the immediate vicinity died; others were injured.

We are unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area. In fact, we are aware of no reliable physical evidence to support the claim that this was a result of a strike by a Syrian military unit with expertise in chemical weapons.

In addition, we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.

Senior opposition commanders who came from Istanbul pre-briefed the regional commanders on an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development,” which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria.

At operations coordinating meetings at Antakya, attended by senior Turkish, Qatari and U.S. intelligence officials as well as senior commanders of the Syrian opposition, the Syrians were told that the bombing would start in a few days. Opposition leaders were ordered to prepare their forces quickly to exploit the U.S. bombing, march into Damascus, and remove the Bashar al-Assad government

The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. And they were. A weapons distribution operation unprecedented in scope began in all opposition camps on August 21-23. The weapons were distributed from storehouses controlled by Qatari and Turkish intelligence under the tight supervision of U.S. intelligence officers.

Cui bono?

That the various groups trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have ample incentive to get the U.S. more deeply involved in support of that effort is clear. Until now, it has not been quite as clear that the Netanyahu government in Israel has an equally powerful incentive to get Washington more deeply engaged in yet another war in the area. But with outspoken urging coming from Israel and those Americans who lobby for Israeli interests, this priority Israeli objective is becoming crystal clear.

Reporter Judi Rudoren, writing from Jerusalem in an important article in Friday’s New York Times addresses Israeli motivation in an uncommonly candid way. Her article, titled “Israel Backs Limited Strike Against Syria,” notes that the Israelis have argued, quietly, that the best outcome for Syria’s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, is no outcome. Rudoren continues:

“For Jerusalem, the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assad’s government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.

“‘This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie,’ said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. ‘Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.’”

We think this is the way Israel’s current leaders look at the situation in Syria, and that deeper U.S. involvement – albeit, initially, by “limited” military strikes – is likely to ensure that there is no early resolution of the conflict in Syria. The longer Sunni and Shia are at each other’s throats in Syria and in the wider region, the safer Israel calculates that it is.

That Syria’s main ally is Iran, with whom it has a mutual defense treaty, also plays a role in Israeli calculations. Iran’s leaders are not likely to be able to have much military impact in Syria, and Israel can highlight that as an embarrassment for Tehran.

Iran’s Role

Iran can readily be blamed by association and charged with all manner of provocation, real and imagined. Some have seen Israel’s hand in the provenance of the most damaging charges against Assad regarding chemical weapons and our experience suggests to us that such is supremely possible.

Possible also is a false-flag attack by an interested party resulting in the sinking or damaging, say, of one of the five U.S. destroyers now on patrol just west of Syria. Our mainstream media could be counted on to milk that for all it’s worth, and you would find yourself under still more pressure to widen U.S. military involvement in Syria – and perhaps beyond, against Iran.

Iran has joined those who blame the Syrian rebels for the August 21 chemical incident, and has been quick to warn the U.S. not to get more deeply involved. According to the Iranian English-channel Press TV, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif has claimed: “The Syria crisis is a trap set by Zionist pressure groups for [the United States].”

Actually, he may be not far off the mark. But we think your advisers may be chary of entertaining this notion. Thus, we see as our continuing responsibility to try to get word to you so as to ensure that you and other decision makers are given the full picture.

Inevitable Retaliation

We hope your advisers have warned you that retaliation for attacks on Syrian are not a matter of IF, but rather WHERE and WHEN. Retaliation is inevitable. For example, terrorist strikes on U.S. embassies and other installations are likely to make what happened to the U.S. “Mission” in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, look like a minor dust-up by comparison. One of us addressed this key consideration directly a week ago in an article titled “Possible Consequences of a U.S. Military Attack on Syria – Remembering the U.S. Marine Barracks Destruction in Beirut, 1983.”

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Thomas Drake, Senior Executive, NSA (former)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan

Larry Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)

W. Patrick Lang, Senior Executive and Defense Intelligence Officer, DIA (ret.)

David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)

Todd Pierce, US Army Judge Advocate General (ret.)

Sam Provance, former Sgt., US Army, Iraq

Coleen Rowley, Division Council & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)

Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret); Foreign Service Officer (ret.)

September 6, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Obama’s Politics of War and US Public Opinion: The Great Divergence

By James Petras :: 09.05.2013

Introduction

As President Obama announces plans for another war, adding Syria to the ongoing and recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere, a profound gap has emerged between the highly militarized state and US public opinion.

A Reuters/IPSOS poll taken August 19-23 (2013) revealed that 60 percent of Americans surveyed stated that the United States should not intervene in Syria, while 9 percent said Obama should act. Even when the question was ‘loaded’ to include Obama’s bogus and unsubstantiated claim that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces “used chemicals to attack civilians”, almost twice as many Americans oppose US military intervention (46 percent to 25 percent). In panic and haste several pro Administration media outlets contracted new polls to better the results. What is striking about this finding is that despite the mass media and the Obama spokespeople’s saturation of the airwaves with atrocity images of “victims”, the US public is becoming more vehemently opposed to another imperialist war. Reuters/IPSOS poll of August 13 found 30.2 percent of Americans supported intervention in Syria if toxic chemicals were used, while 41.6 percent did not. In other words, as the Obama regime intensified preparations for war, opposition increased by over 16 percent.

Current and past polls and studies document that a substantial and enduring majority of Americans are opposed to ongoing wars (Afghanistan), even as the Executive Branch and Congress continue to finance and dispatch US troops and engage in aerial assaults in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.

If, as some scholars argue, militarism and ‘national security’ have become the secular religion of the State, it is clear that the majority of civil society are ‘non-believers’. The ‘true believers’ of militarism as the true path to empire building are firmly ensconced in Washington’s political establishment, among high powered ‘lobbies and influential propaganda mills’ known as “think tanks”. The militarist beliefs are embraced and are especially pervasive among highly placed officials with deep and long-standing ties to the Israeli power structure. The myths propagated by cynical political pundits that “the US public opinion gets the elected officials it deserves”; that “Congress and the President reflect the values and sentiments of the electorate”; flies in the face of the divergent attitudes and interests showing up in repeated polls. The vast majority of Americans are concerned with domestic economic issues such as deteriorating job opportunities and living standards, growing inequalities, the concentration of wealth (the Wall Street 1% issue), growing indebtedness of college graduates, the savage cuts in social programs in the face of soaring military expenditures and Wall Street bailouts. In other words the values, attitudes and interests of the vast majority of Americans diverge from those of the Washington establishment, the mass media and the power brokers who penetrate and surround the political elite.

War and Peace: Oligarchy and Democracy

This divergence raises fundamental questions about the nature of the American political system, the role and influence of the mass media and the power of minorities over majorities. Divergences, deep differences between rulers and ruled, has become the norm in the United States on all the big issues, domestic and foreign, of our day.

As the differences accumulate, deepen and grind, they ‘wear’ on our public; political “differences” become outright personal dislike, turning hostility to anger and even hatred of the O-man. His deceptions, the very words he mouths are repeated and jeered. Nothing is more irritating than to listen to a stale confidence man who still tries to fool a knowing public. They are onto him. His newly recruited Cabinet members of both sexes are seen as promoters of toxic lies who try their hand at justifying war crimes via moral ejaculations that resonate in their own ears and with the President, but not beyond.

Executive Prerogatives as Dictatorial Rule

The Presidential declarations of war against the opinion of vast majorities; the dictates to finance bank bailouts behind the backs of the 99%; the proclamations ending ongoing wars which continue; fabrications that serve as pretexts for new wars which resonate with the lies of the previous wars… all speak against a constitutional democracy.

It’s a dictatorship stupid! Nothing “constitutional” – that’s toilet paper! Legal hacks scratch their crotch and come up with past illegal executive orders to back new arbitrary declarations of war.

Electorates are ignored. Who calls the US a democracy except during electoral campaigns? War is the prerogative of the President, we are told. Sequential wars are the alternative to a national health plan. When the President mouths moral platitudes most ignore him, others jeer, curse and wish he would die.

The Case for Impeachment

When in the course of human history a President perpetuates and extends his power beyond the restraints of a constitutional order and willfully commits the American people to perpetual suffering and empties the public treasury of the wealth of its citizens, the question of impeachment rises to the fore. And it ill behooves the climbers and clamorers from foreign lands to flatter, cajole and threaten a President whose imperial pretensions nurture the ambitions of their Chosen State.

Profound and lasting divisions between rulers and ruled accompanied by unending and onerous hardships at a time when our people lack redress in petition and protest, sooner or later, will lead the American people to demand his impeachment. A trial via judicial procedures, condemnation according to judge and jury and incarceration for multiple and grave violations of the constitutional order will ensue. Executives, usurping the rights of the American people at the service of empire and their collaborators with traitorous intent, will not pass with impunity

Why and How the American Public is disenfranchised: the Tyranny of the Minority

It is not the military who choose to disenfranchise and ignore the vast majority of Americans opposed to new Middle East wars. The usurpers are mostly civilians, some of whom shed a foreign rifle to ply our President. Nor is the exclusion of the majority a hidden conspiracy of petrol companies – they have lost hundreds of billions to wars, not of their making, disrupting trade and production.

Idle chatter, flowing from leftist monthlies, liberal weeklies and a multitude of pundits, academics and ‘critical’ public intellectuals, decry the “military-industrial complex”. True their lobbyists seek military contracts, but they did not draw up ‘position papers’ for invading Iraq, nor submit and secure sanctions, and resolutions in Congress against Iran.

If we seek to identify the minority which secures its militarist agenda in the White House and Congress against the majority of Americans, it is clearly identifiable by its consistent, frequent and intrusive presence. It is a new version of the 1%– its called the Zionist power configuration.

One can be 99% sure that among the scant 11% of Americans who support US military intervention in Syria, the pro-Israel crowd and its acolytes are over-represented.

The evidence is clear: they are the most actively engaged in promoting war with Syria at the national and local levels. They are the pundits’ and news commentators promoting the Syrian government toxic gas ploy. They and other mass media pundits and publishers totally ignored the interview quoting the armed Syrian opposition admitting they “mistakenly set off the toxic gas”.

To the degree that we have moved from democracy to oligarchy, from a democratic to a militarist foreign policy, the powerful Zionist power structure has accumulated power and influence and in turn furthered the tyranny of the minority over the majority. Not alone, but certainly with their approval and to their advantage, the Zionist power configuration has marginalized Americans of all creeds, races and religions (including the majority of Jews and apostates).

Oligarchy facilitates minorities’ access to power: it is far easier to buy and blackmail a handful of corrupt wealthy legislators and a coterie of senior administration officials, than millions of citizens suffering the double onus of wars and declining living standards.

Limits of Mass Media Manipulation

The arbitrary power of the oligarchy and its collaborators, and their growing distance from the ruled, no longer is bridged by mass media propaganda. The Obama regime and most Washington think tanks have repeatedly saturated the print and electronic media with the most lurid images and horrendous atrocity stories of Syrian ‘war crimes’ to induce the American citizens to support US military intervention. Daily reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and all the major and minor television networks repeat ad nauseum the ‘need for war’, “our humanitarian war mission” to no avail. The mass media, the high powered propaganda campaign run by and for the war mongers in Washington and Tel Aviv has failed to gain any more than 10% of the US citizenry.

We have been told by media experts about the power of the mass media to manipulate the US public, as if it was a blank blackboard: the media write the script for the oligarchy and the masses repeat it. In fact, time and time again, a majority of US citizens have rejected “the line” of the mass media, especially on questions of peace and war, living standards and bank bailouts. The credibility of the mass media is near zero.

The public’s rejection of the Obama regime’s move to war with Syria is another example of the limits of mass propaganda. The public supported the Afghan and Iraq wars at the start. But as the wars ground on, became costly and new wars spread; and as the police state grew and living standards plunged, the public became wary. The domestic crises drove the message home: domestic decay accompanies imperial wars. No amount of empty rhetoric or high powered Zionist lobbying for wars for Israel could convince the American majority to continue to sacrifice their lives and their children’s and grandchildren’s living standards to endless wars, spiraling costs and harmful economic consequences.

The Quiet Rebellion of the Democratic Majority

No doubt the word is out: throughout Europe, vast majorities reject their ruler’s imperial wars, particularly the war in Syria. Even the British Parliament rose on its hind legs and said no. Only the decrepit French regime under Hollande, the colonial whore master, sided with Obama for a few days before Parliament convened. The media and their editorial writers, sense ‘trouble’. They start to quote doubting military officers, and to ask questions. “What are the consequences of bombing Assad and aiding al Qaeda?” … asks a retired General.

Obama faces the taunt of the Zionists, “not to waver and cower”. The printing presses of the White House Propaganda Office runs off thousands of reports of intercepted Syrian military directives ordering the use of toxic chemicals…. taken from ‘rebel’ sources; documents that nobody reads, or gives credence.

The White House declares red lines: the public cries ‘big lies’. Deception by the media and White House has been going on too long. The majority is fed up with the fabrication of weapons of mass destruction leading to the Iraq war, the phoney Libyan “atrocities”, the blatant cover-up of Israeli land grabs.

The specter of economic insecurity, of accumulating debts and precarious employment stalks the cities and towns of America. Anger and fear at home, so far, is focused against new wars abroad and their most visible exponent. The Obama regime is facing “a fall” sooner or later. Will his willing accomplices slink away to their think tanks? Will the oligarchs decide he is expandable, no longer useful, too far from the people, too arrogant? Too many ‘wars for Israel’? (Oh my god how did that slip in?) Not enough attention to ‘rebuilding America’? Time for a new election: all aboard. The people have spoken! A new president, less effusive, more mainstream is on order from the Oligarchy

With Obama’s fall, we learn that the mass media are not all powerful and that Israel’s well-wishers will not temper their demands for power even though they are a 1% minority. The majority can bring down a regime but can the create an alternative?

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September 6, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Against War in Syria: The Great Parliamentary Revolt of 2013

This video, introduced by journalist Joshua Blakeney, offers a selection of the best anti-war speeches delivered during the House of Commons debate on Syria that took place on August 29, 2013. The Con-Dem Coalition had proposed taking Britain into yet another war to help destabilize one of Israel’s adversaries, Syria. However, unlike in 2003 with the Iraq war, a sufficient number of British MPs were able to see through the war propaganda and voted to refrain from deploying UK forces to flight against the people of Syria.

Oded Yinon Plan: http://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-…

September 6, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Privacy, pulverized: NSA, GCHQ can bypass online encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

RT | September 5, 2013

The latest top-secret documents leaked to the media by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden reveal that United States and British spy agencies have invested billions of dollars towards efforts to make online privacy obsolete.

The New York Times, the Guardian and ProPublica all reported on Thursday that newly released Snowden documents expose the great lengths that the National Security Agency and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, have gone to in order to eavesdrop on encrypted Internet communications.

According to the latest Snowden leak, the NSA and its British counterpart have circumvented the encryption methods used to secure emails, chats and essentially most Internet traffic that was previously thought to be protected from prying eyes.

The price tag for such an endeavor, the Guardian reported, is around a quarter-of-a-billion dollars each year for just the US, and involves not just intricate code-breaking, but maintaining partnerships with the tech companies that provide seemingly secure online communication outlets.

“The files show that the National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have broadly compromised the guarantees that Internet companies have given consumers to reassure them that their communications, online banking and medical records would be indecipherable to criminals or governments,” James Ball, Julian Borger and Glenn Greenwald reported for the Guardian.

Outside of the shadowy collaboration with Silicon Valley companies, the governments have also reportedly employed supercomputers capable of decrypting codes commonly used by the most popular online protocols, including HTTPS, voice-over-IP and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

“For the past decade, NSA has lead [sic] an aggressive, multi-pronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies,” a 2010 GCHQ document referenced by the Guardian reads. “Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable.”

With regards to reaching that goal through private-sector cooperation, the Guardian reported that the NSA works with tech companies to “covertly influence” their products.

So significant is the leak, the Times and ProPublica reported, that intelligence officials asked that the documents not be published in fear that the disclosures would prompt surveillance targets, such as terrorist organization, to alter the way they communicate online.

In an editorial published alongside the scoop this week by ProPublica, reporters Stephen Engelberg and Richard Tofel said the outlet decided to go ahead with the story because “It shows that the expectations of millions of Internet users regarding the privacy of their electronic communications are mistaken.”

News of the agency’s vast code-breaking capabilities comes just weeks following the shuttering of no fewer than two Internet services that provided encrypted email for paying customers.

Last month, the founder of email provider Lavabit announced that he was shutting down his company because staying in business would likely force him “to become complicit in crimes against the American people.”

“Our government can order us to do things that are morally and ethically wrong, order us to spy on other Americans and then order us, using the threat of imprisonment, to keep it all secret,” Levison told RT.

The next day, competitor Silent Circle announced they’d be suspending their encrypted email service as well.

In the three months since Snowden fled the US and began leaking classified documents to the media, a number of international outlets have published revelations made possible by the analysis of top-secret files. According to the Times, Snowden supplied reporters with 50,000 documents, and the Guardian’s Greenwald said at least dozens were, in his opinion, newsworthy.

The latest revelation comes days after the media began reporting on the leaked US intelligence “black budget” supplied by Snowden. In that document, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper prefaced an executive summary by saying that America is “investing in groundbreaking cryptanalytic capabilities to defeat adversarial cryptography and exploit Internet traffic.”

According to the secret funding request, the US Consolidated Cryptologic Program asked for $11 billion in fiscal year 2013 towards covert, code-breaking programs.

September 5, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

The Most Awkward G20 Summit Ever

By Dan Beeton | CEPR Americas Blog | September 5, 2013

President Obama is in St. Petersburg, Russia to participate in the G20 Summit today and tomorrow, amidst a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and several G20 member nations. Looming over the summit are the Obama administration’s plans for a possible military attack on Syria, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that a U.S. military response without U.N. Security Council approval “can only be interpreted as an aggression” and UNASUR – which includes G20 members Argentina and Brazil, issued a statement that “condemns external interventions that are inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.”

New revelations of NSA spying on other G20 member nation presidents – Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico – leaked by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden and first reported in Brazil’s O Globo, have also created new frictions. Rousseff is reportedly considering canceling a state visit to Washington next month over the espionage and the Obama administration’s response to the revelations, and reportedly has canceled a scheduled trip to D.C. next week by an advance team that was to have done preparations for her visit. The Brazilian government has demanded an apology from the Obama administration. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, an anonymous senior Brazilian official underscored the gravity of the situation:

[T]he official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the episode, said Rousseff feels “patronized” by the U.S. response so far to the Globo report. She is prepared to cancel the visit as well as take punitive action, including ruling out the purchase of F-18 Super Hornet fighters from Chicago-based Boeing Co, the official said.

“She is completely furious,” the official said.

“This is a major, major crisis …. There needs to be an apology. It needs to be public. Without that, it’s basically impossible for her to go to Washington in October,” the official said.

Other media reports suggest that Brazil may implement measures to channel its Internet communications through non-U.S. companies. But when asked in a press briefing aboard Air Force One this morning, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes did not suggest that such an apology would be forthcoming:

Q   The Foreign Minister said he wanted an apology.

MR. RHODES:  Well, I think — what we’re focused on is making sure the Brazilians understand exactly what the nature of our intelligence effort is.  We carry out intelligence like just about every other country around the world.  If there are concerns that we can address consistent with our national security requirements, we will aim to do so through our bilateral relationship.

Such responses are not likely to go far toward patching things up with Brazil. It is conspicuously dishonest to suggest that the U.S. government “carr[ies] out intelligence like just about every other country around the world,” as no other country is known to have the capacity for the level of global spying that the NSA and other agencies conduct, and few countries are likely to have the intelligence budgets enjoyed by U.S. agencies – currently totaling some $75.6 billion, according to documents leaked by Snowden and reported by the Washington Post.

There are also signs that the Washington foreign policy establishment is troubled by the Obama administration’s dismissive attitude toward Brazil’s understandable outrage. On Tuesday, McClatchy cited Peter Hakim of the Inter-American Dialogue – essentially the voice of the Latin America policy establishment in Washington:

Peter Hakim, the president emeritus of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy group, noted that Secretary of State John Kerry had visited Brasilia last month to patch things up after the initial NSA leaks but “really did not do a very good job. He just brushed it off.”

Hakim said he believed the O Globo report, and he added that “snooping at presidents is disrespectful and offensive.”

Rousseff and Pena Nieto had to issue strong statements, Hakim said. “Both have to show they are not pushovers, that they can stand up to the U.S.,” he said.

The ongoing revelations made by Snowden have affected U.S. relations with other countries as well. As the Pan-American Post points out, Peña Nieto may continue to reduce intelligence sharing with the U.S.; he also said yesterday that “he may discuss the issue with President Barack Obama at the summit.” U.S.-Russian relations, of course, have also recently become tense following Russia’s granting of temporary political asylum to Snowden.

The G20 Summit also comes just after the IMF, at the direction of the U.S. Treasury Department, changed its plan to support the Argentine government in its legal battle with “vulture funds” – meaning that U.S.-Argentine relations may also be relatively cool.

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September 5, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Brazil to probe telecom companies implicated in NSA spying

RT | September 4, 2013

Brazil will probe telecommunications companies to see if they illegally shared data with the NSA after it was found the US had been spying on President Rousseff. Brazil’s government has accused the US of lying about the NSA’s activities in the country.

In response to the revelations, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency meeting of ministers. Following the meeting the government called on the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) to carry out checks on telecom companies based in Brazil to see if they collaborated with the NSA.

The Brazilian government denounced the NSA’s activities as “impermissible and unacceptable” and a violation of Brazilian sovereignty.

“[The US has] not given any reasonable explanations. In fact, all the explanations that have been given so far are false,” said Minister of Communications Paulo Bernardo.

The American ambassador to Brazil, Thomas Shannon, was summoned by the government to account for the reports of NSA snooping on Tuesday. He claimed the NSA does not monitor communications on Brazilian territory or collaborate with telecommunications companies.

Citing data leaked by Edward Snowden, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed on Sunday that the NSA had been monitoring both the Brazilian and Mexican presidents.

“It is clear in several ways that [Rousseff’s] communications were intercepted, including the use of DNI Presenter, which is a program used by NSA to open and read emails and online chats,” Greenwald told AP in an email.

Brazilian-US relations on rocks

In the wake of the new scandal Brazilian media is speculating whether the spy revelations will lead to a knee-jerk reaction from the Brazilian government and the cancelation of Dilma’s October visit to the States.

Citing a presidential spokesperson, Globo reporter Gerson Camarotti wrote that if a “satisfactory explanation” is not given by the Americans then Dilma “will not rule out canceling the visit.”

“There has to be a convincing explanation. If this doesn’t happen, the situation will become extremely delicate,” said the spokesperson.

US relations with Brazil have worsened considerably as a result of Edward Snowden’s leaks regarding the NSA’s massive spy network. Back in August, UK authorities detained Brazilian citizen David Miranda in a London airport over suspicions he was carrying leaked NSA data on behalf of his partner Glen Greenwald. UK law enforcement held Miranda for nine hours under the terrorist act and confiscated electronic equipment.

Brazil called Miranda’s detention without charges unjustifiable and called on the UK authorities to account for the move. Meanwhile Brazilian lawmakers have called for police protection for Greenwald and his partner.

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September 4, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Brazilian lawmakers call for police protection of Glenn Greenwald and his partner

RT | September 4, 2013

Lawmakers in Brazil have asked that American journalist Glenn Greenwald and his partner David Miranda receive protection from federal police, due to the importance of their testimony regarding an ongoing investigation of US spying practices.

On Tuesday, the Brazilian Senate began an official investigation into allegations that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been surveilling the country and even intercepted personal emails sent by President Dilma Rousseff.

Greenwald first broke the news of allegations that the NSA had been tapping Brazil’s communications several weeks ago, but a Sunday report aired on Globo TV made more pointed accusations that the Brazilian head of state had been targeted.

The American journalist’s reports of alleged NSA spying operations on South America – based on leaks provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden – have been making headlines in Brazil, based in large part on Greenwald’s column with O Globo newspaper.

Sunday’s revelations seemed to be a direct result of the extended detention of Miranda at London’s Heathrow Airport in mid-August. Miranda, a Brazilian national who lives in Rio de Janeiro with Greenwald, was held by officers for nine hours. His electronic equipment was confiscated by authorities. Believing the incident was an attempt at intimidation, Greenwald then indicated that his reporting on Snowden’s leaks would only pick up pace.

In a separate incident in July, Greenwald told media that he believed his home had been broken into and a laptop stolen after he contacted Miranda telling him to expect emailed NSA documents.

The fresh allegations of NSA spying have brought into question president Rousseff’s scheduled state visit to the US in October. Brazil has officially requested an explanation on the new reports by the end of the week, saying that Rousseff’s decision on whether or not to visit Washington will be based on that response.

According to AP, Government security spokesman Eduardo Sanchez confirmed on Tuesday that Brazil’s foreign ministry had contacted the US and requested an “in-depth investigation into the matter.”

During its first meeting on the NSA scandal, Brazil’s Parliamentary Inquiry Commission approved an application for police protection of Greenwald and Miranda.

A member of the committee, Senator Pedro Taques, decried allegations of spying on the country’s leadership.

“There’s been an attempt, not only against our national laws that involve the immunity and safety of our head of state, but other people as well,” he told reporters.

The new report provided by Greenwald also alleges that the NSA targeted Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, monitoring his communications prior to the country’s July 2012 election.

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September 4, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Simon Schama’s The Story of the Jews – History Vs. Chicken Soup

Review by Gilad Atzmon | September 3, 2013

On the day we learned that the BBC’s new Middle East editor, Raffi Berg, urged colleagues to downplay Israel’s siege of Gaza, the British broadcaster launched Simon Schama’s The Story of the Jews. I have only watched the 1st episode of this new BBC 2 grandiose series. But I already learned from Schama about Jewish greatness, the formation of his people and the continuum between the ancient Israelites and their contemporary followers: Schama and his local reform Synagogue in North West London. I also learned about Jehovah, the God that was invented by the Jews to choose them over all other people.

But will Schama or the BBC manage to answer the most crucial questions to do with Jewish history and identity? Will he be able to put current Jewish politics into ‘historical’ context? Will he be able to tell us why the Jewish lobby in the USA, Britain and France push relentlessly for global conflicts in general and wars against Iran and Syria in particular? Will Schama manage to enlighten us and suggest why Jews were “Stalin’s willing executioners” as Yuri Slezkin suggests in his invaluable book The Jewish Century? Will the BBC manage to elaborate on Israeli prominent writer Sever Plocker’s confession that “some of greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish”? Will the BBC be able to elucidate the crimes committed by the Jewish State in the name of the Jewish people? Will the BBC manage to delve on Anti-Semitism, It’s History and Causes following the incredible enlightening work of Bernard Lazare or will they fall into the same trap and agree amongst themselves that something is ‘pathologically wrong with the Goyim’?

I don’t hold my breath. Schama is obviously a master of concealment. When he speaks about the ‘godless Jew’ Freud, he presents him as a refugee ‘driven out by the Nazis’ but for some reason he fails to mention Freud’s vile contempt to the Aryans in particular (which predates Nazism and the rise of Hitler) and the Goyim in general.

History becomes a meaningful event when it exchanges with the present and our imaginary future – when the past throws light on the present and the future gazes at its origin with hesitance.

The Jewish past, as we know it, is an endless chain of blood baths and holocausts. Lame Jewish history, that is all too common, is an attempt to conceal this past. Will Schama unveil the concealed? Will he or the BBC manage to reduce all those Shoas and disasters into a historical principle? Did Schama learn the only valuable lesson from his godless Jew Freud and ‘unveil the concealed’, or is he cooking another therapeutic chicken soup?  

We will have to wait and see.

September 3, 2013 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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