A cover that declares a “War on Christians” is bound to get some attention.
Writing in the February 12 issue of Newsweek, author Ayaan Hirsi Ali‘s argument is just as blunt. Enough with all this talk “about Muslims as victims of abuse,” because really it’s the other way around:
A wholly different kind of war is underway–an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.
To suggest that a genocide is underway is, of course, a serious charge. And Hirsi Ali alleges that it is widespread:
In recent years, the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania.
To make matters worse the media have been cowed into silence, due to “the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation–a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia–and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.” She writes:
Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called “Islamophobia”–a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia.
So there is a genocide underway, and there are specific groups obscuring this fact and steering media away from covering this horror–in effect making them complicit in the genocide.
This is a remarkably serious charge. It is rather shocking to see it printed in a national magazine with so little evidence.
Ali’s piece is accompanied by a large graphic (which doesn’t appear to be online) labeled “Terrorist Attacks on Christians in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.” According to the graph, there were 45 such attacks in 2010. Violence of this sort is tragic; the anecdotes Hirsi Ali cites from Nigeria sound horrific.
But is it a genocide? And is the violence directed against Christians on the basis of religion? It is hard to see how one could make such a leap. In Egypt, for instance, Hirsi Ali points to an incident where Christian protesters were killed by state security forces. Hundreds have been killed in similar circumstances in Egypt over the past year. They were not all Christians, and they were not killed in a drive to stamp out members of a particular faith.
Hirsi Ali finds similar evidence elsewhere: “Since 2003, more than 900 Iraqi Christians (most of them Assyrians) have been killed by terrorist violence in Baghdad alone.” Of course, Baghdad has suffered terrible violence since the U.S. invasion and occupation. It is unclear why these particular deaths, a small percentage of total killings in Baghdad, should be considered part of a genocidal Muslim campaign against Christians. She adds that “thousands” of Iraqi Christians have fled their homes. But millions of Iraqis have done the same, across ethnic and religious lines. It’s hard to conclude that anti-Christian genocide is the story that is being kept out of the media by the likes of CAIR.
Hirsi Ali pleads with readers that we must “please get our priorities straight…. Instead of falling for overblown tales of Western Islamophobia, let’s take a real stand against the Christophobia infecting the Muslim world.”
It’s hard to know what she means; is there really some great danger that the West is doing too much to protect Muslims? The real implication here is that there is a genocide that must be stopped. That is an extremely serious charge. She fails to provide evidence to support that case, and manages to smear a major American Islamic advocacy group in the process.
February 16, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular |
Leave a comment
The British government has claimed the allegations by London and its western allies that Iran is covertly pursuing a military nuclear program are evidence-based.
London’s claim is diametrically opposed even to the anti-Iranian report by the UN nuclear watchdog’s chief that confirmed no evidence is yet available to support claims of a military side to Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities.
After Iran announced several breakthroughs in its civilian nuclear program on Wednesday, a British Foreign Office spokesman said the international concerns about Iran’s activities are “well-founded”.
“[The nuclear news from Iran] does not give any confidence that Iran is ready to engage meaningfully on the international community’s well-founded concerns about its nuclear programme,” a Foreign Office spokesman said.
However, the spokesman did not explain based on what evidence the western concerns could be described as “well-founded.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency accused Tehran of pursuing military nuclear ambitions in its latest safeguards report published in November.
Even in that report, the IAEA talked of “possible” military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.
It, nevertheless, drew condemnations from Iran and independent analysts who described the report as “biased” and “political” as it presented ‘no’ evidence to support the claim.
In reaction to the report, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the report is “a compilation of well-known facts that have intentionally been given a politicized intonation.”
The statement said the authors “resort to assumptions and suspicions, and juggle information with the purpose of creating the impression that the Iranian nuclear program has a military component.”
Russia accordingly dismissed calls led by the US for harsher UN Security Council sanctions against Iran saying more embargoes would be “an instrument of regime changes in Tehran.”
Following Russian and Chinese resistance to strong sanctions, the US and its European allies moved to impose unilateral sanctions on Iran on an arbitrary basis and outside the framework of international law.
This comes as the British Foreign Office spokesman who talked of “well-founded” concerns on Iran claimed the “peaceful” pressure – that is sanctions – on Iran is legitimate and Britain would continue to support such actions.
“[Until Iran addresses the international community’s concerns] we’ll only increase peaceful and legitimate pressure on Iran to return to negotiations,” the spokesman said.
February 16, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | International Atomic Energy Agency, Sanctions against Iran |
Leave a comment
Last October, Iran was falsely charged with a fake terror plot that didn’t pass the smell test. At best, it resembled a bad film script too implausible to believe.
Tehran was bogusly blamed for plotting to kill Saudi Arabia’s US ambassador. According to spurious accusations, an Iranian/American used car salesman and Mexican drug cartel hired assassin were involved.
You can’t make this stuff up, but major media scoundrels headlined it for days. They regurgitated a scheme too implausible to believe.
Official lies substituted for proof. They’re repeated to incite fear and justify retaliatory measures with public support. They include belligerence if ordered.
Unasked always is cui bono. Clearly, Iran’s only harmed by alleged terrorist attacks against America, NATO partners, Israel, or their allies. In contrast, Washington and Tel Aviv benefit greatly. As a result, new charges follow old ones.
On February 13, The New York Times headlined, “Israel Blames Iran for Attacks in India and Georgia,” saying:
On Monday, “(b)ombers targeted Israel embassy workers in” both countries’ capitals. New Delhi witnesses said a motorcyclist attached a bomb to an Israeli diplomat’s car, injuring his wife.”
An alleged Georgia plot was foiled. Conveniently, an Israeli Tbilisi embassy employee spotted a “strange object” in full view attached to its envoy’s car. If something real was planned, it would have been placed underneath out of sight. Even an amateur knows that.
Notorious pro-Israeli flack/Times writer Ethan Bronner headlined, “Israel Says Iran Is Behind Bombs,” saying:
“If actually carried out by Iran (implying they were), the attacks would be another indication that the leadership in Tehran was willing to reach beyond its borders against its enemies and expand its attacks to civilians.”
Bronner repeated the canard about Iran plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, adding:
“….Israel has said that Iran has planned to attack its citizens in various countries, but that those plots were stopped.”
Major media scoundrels are so used to suppressing truth and full disclosure, they wouldn’t recognize it if it jumped up and bit them in the nose.
For years, Israel manufactured bogus threats against its overseas based officials and other citizens. America does the same thing. Duplicitously pointing fingers the wrong way conceals their own crimes. They’re numerous, frequent, and horrific.
In contrast, Iran threatens no other country and hasn’t attacked one in over 200 years. Israeli/Washington terrorist charges are spurious. They’re made to stoke fear and justify ‘retaliatory’ measures.
Iran painstakingly avoids provocations. Despite clear evidence of Mossad’s involvement in killing its nuclear scientists and other destabilizing actions, Tehran refrained from retaliating.
Blaming Iran for the New Delhi and Tbilisi incidents is entirely spurious. Yet major media scoundrels headline it. So did Netanyahu calling Iran and Hezbollah “the world’s greatest exporter(s) of terror.”
“In the last few months, we have witnessed several attempts to target Israeli citizens and Jews in a series of countries, such as Azerbaijan and Thailand. In all of these cases were able to thwart these attacks in cooperation with local forces.”
Of course, doing so suggests Israeli involvement. Conveniently, alleged terror plots were foiled in the nick of time. Be suspicious. Be very suspicious.
At issue, of course, is blaming Iran, Syria, and other Israeli targets. It’s an old stunt used often by Israel and America. Both countries specialize in false flag attacks. They’re also behind alleged foiled terror plots.
Netanyahu added:
“The Israeli government and its security services will continue, with local security, to act against the international terror which Iran produces.”
In fact, Israel and Washington are the world’s leading state terror exponents. Incidents are conveniently blamed on others. It doesn’t wash.
Though evidence so far can’t prove it, Mossad, not Iran, was likely responsible for the latest ones. The tactic chosen replicated one of its favorites. It was classic Israeli state terrorism.
Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency) have long, odious terrorist histories.
Blaming victims, lawlessness, violence, crimes of war and against humanity, collective punishment, intimidation, attacking unarmed civilians, and overall brutality are Israeli specialties.
Combined, they define a rogue state, defiant of international law principles. It pursues its own interests ruthlessly and extrajudicially, anywhere in the world.
Israel began honing its skills during the Mandatory Palestine period. At the time, Jewish terrorist groups targeted Jews, Brits and Arabs. Involved were paramilitary Hagana members, Irgun headed by future prime minister Menachem Begin, and Lehi (also called the Stern Gang) led by another future prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir. They were rogue killers before entering politics.
Today the tradition continues under new management. Little wonder Israel’s history is so bloodstained. It involves individual and mass killings. Alleged Arab terrorists are blamed. Current favorites include Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Palestinian resistance groups.
Mossad specializes in various type car bombs. Assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was classic Israeli state terror.
On February 14, 2005, compelling visual and audio evidence revealed real time intercepted Israeli aerial surveillance footage of routes Hariri used on the day he was killed. Israel was clearly involved.
Syria initially was blamed. Assad denied responsibility. Hezbollah was later falsely named and indicted. It was typical Mossad targeting though no one at the time knew for sure. The powerful car bomb ripped a 30 foot crater in the street, injuring over 100 besides those killed.
No evidence proved Hezbollah’s involvement. Moreover, it had nothing to gain but plenty to lose. […]
Neither the India or Georgia incident caused deaths. That alone is suspicious. If Israel or other professional assassins want someone dead, bet on it. If targets escape unscathed or with minor wounds, smell a rat. The odor from New Delhi and Tbilisi is telling.
India Responds
India’s Foreign Minister SM Krishna announced an investigation. Protection for Israeli embassy staff was added. India’s Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the attack was committed by a “very well-trained person.”
Tali Yehoshua-Koren, wife of Israel’s defense attache was slightly wounded. After hospital treatment to remove shrapnel, she was released. Her husband said she’s recovering nicely.
The incident occurred one day after the fourth anniversary of Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyah’s assassination. He was falsely linked to terror attacks on American and Israeli targets.
In 2008, a Damascus car bomb claimed him. Israel was blamed at the time. It was typical Mossad terror. Israel, of course, denied it. In the 1970s, Mughniyah was a student brigade organizer. He aided Arafat and other senior PLO officials in Lebanon. He was falsely accused of masterminding the 1983 US Embassy Beirut attack, as well as truck bombing French and US marine barracks in Lebanon.
Without evidence, he and Hezbollah’s rap sheet include the 1983 US Lebanon embassy and marine barracks bombings, highjackings, hostage taking, rocket attacks against Israel, suicide bombings, and more. He and Hezbollah denied them, saying they only respond defensively when attacked against militants, not civilians.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accuses America and Israel of making false terrorist charges for political, not legitimate, reasons. At issue is its resistance to imperial aggression.
Argentinean officials also bogusly charged Mughniyeh in connection with the 1992 Israeli Buenos Aires embassy bombing. It killed 29 and wounded another 242 civilians.
In 1999, its authorities issued an arrest warrant for this attack and the 1994 AMIA (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) Buenos Aires bombing. It killed 85 and injured hundreds. Argentina has Latin America’s largest Jewish population. It numbers around 200,000.
Once named, it’s easy to pile on more accusations. Mughniyeh faced many, including the 1996 Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers bombing and a 2006 border incident Israel used to wage aggressive war on Lebanon.
A Final Comment
When it rains, it pours. On February 14, Haaretz headlined, “Suspected Iranian national maimed by own bomb in Bangkok,” saying:
“A man thought to be Iranian was seriously wounded in Bangkok on Tuesday when a bomb he was (allegedly) carrying exploded and blew one of his legs off, police and a government spokeswoman said.”
Be suspicious. If a professional assassin wanted someone dead, he or she would wouldn’t be wounded in the process.
The report added that “Shortly before, there had been an explosion in a house the man was renting” in central Bangkok. Both incidents smell, especially by pointing fingers at Iran with no corroborating evidence. Yet Haaretz headlined it without questioning charges that appear baseless.
Israel and Washington are spoiling for a fight. What better way to justify one than by state-sponsored false flags blamed on intended targets.
It’s the oldest trick in the book with a long sordid history. Be suspicious whenever headlines feature incidents without evidence. It suggests none exists and those blamed are innocent. Believe it!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
February 15, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism | Imad Mughniyah, Israel, Mossad |
Leave a comment
“We must hit, hit and hit them incessantly – not by means of large-scale war. Suddenly someone disappears there, someone is found dead here and somewhere else someone is found stabbed to death in a European nightclub.” – Ariel Sharon
Monday. February 13. 3.54 pm. A bomb explodes in the car of an Israeli diplomat. Three people, including the defence attaché’s wife Tal Yehoshua, are grievously injured.
30 minutes later, embassy officials are examining the remains of the vehicle in an area that has been cordoned off by the police.
Within three hours, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accuses the Hizbullah and Iran: “Iran, which stands behind these attacks, is the largest exporter of terror in the world. The Israeli government and its security forces will continue to work together with local security services against these terrorist actions.”
He is pre-empting the inquiry, and the media is already talking about “Hizbullah in Delhi” and “Israel targeted in India”. We are calling ourselves a soft state when our own hardliners and security forces have been killing citizens inside the country.
The question is not whether global terror is being fought on Indian soil but how much of it is being arranged here. If it is legitimate to ask about the role of local handlers, then why has there been no concern about the incident of a planned vengeance by Israelis?
Cut to a report a few days ago when there was palpable revenge. The couple, Shneor Zalman and Yaffa Shenoi, arrived in India on a multiple-entry visa in March 2010. After the visa expired, they went back and returned within a month. What was their purpose that they paid a “disproportionately high rent” of Rs. 50,000 a month for a house in Fort Kochi, Kerala? A senior official was quoted in a report saying: “Central intelligence got an alert about a covert operation being carried out by suspected Israeli agents after the 26/11 Mumbai terror strike in which south Mumbai’s Chabad House came under attack and six Jews, including a Rabbi and his pregnant wife, were killed. We have traced the couple’s financial transactions. They will be questioned before they are deported. Preliminary investigations suggest some Israelis are camping in various parts of the country.”
This comes from official sources and all that they think of is deporting the couple. There has been complete silence from the usually active dispensers of opinion, too.
Let us return to the scene of Monday’s crime. The Indian and international media have gone ballistic about it without a shred of evidence. If the argument is that the Indian prime minister’s house is in the vicinity and reveals lapses in our security, then why is no one apprehensive about our situation? It raises questions beyond safety measures. Why are we falling in line with Israeli rules? What is the American effort in this proxy war? It is not Hizbullah that is fighting in India, but Israel.
With the top leaders’ comments, Israel is not only holding India to ransom but also trying to play its victim-aggressor game here. A bomb that went off simultaneously in Georgia was defused, for it does not resonate well with the anti-Arab/Iran narrative. One is not condoning any such attacks, but this most certainly does not look like a war against Israel, a state that has got its armour in place. Mossad is as pervasive as the CIA.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, “It just shows that Israel and its citizens face terror inside and outside of Israel. We deal with it every day. We know how to identify exactly who is responsible for the attack and who carried it out. We will not allow this to affect our agenda.”
Has anyone questioned the agenda? The identification process assumes reprisal.
Blindly accepting the Israeli version of domestic links with groups will obviously lead to the blanket indictment of ‘jihadi’ organisations, many of them imagined entities of the right-wing parties. Is it not possible that some Hindutva terror groups now openly asserting themselves and held culpable for such activities could be used for Israel’s covert operations? Israel does not have suicide missions, but it understands the masochism paradigm only too well.
***
The revenge space is never empty. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum has written:
“The primitive sense of the just…starts from the notion that a human life…is a vulnerable thing, a thing that can be invaded, wounded, violated by another’s act in many ways. For this penetration, the only remedy that seems appropriate is a counter invasion, equally deliberate, equally grave. And to right the balance truly, the retribution must be exactly, strictly proportional to the original encroachment. It differs from the original act only in the sequence of time and in the fact that it is response rather than original act – a fact frequently obscured if there is a long sequence of acts and counteracts.”
We need to look at a few examples to emphasise our vulnerability.
Members of the orthodox Jewish Chabad India Trust have moved out of Nariman House and are residing in an unknown location due to security reasons. Soon after the Mumbai attacks, six members of a group called Zaka (acronym for Zihuy Korbanot Ason – Disaster Victim Identification) arrived in the city to collect and arrange the body parts and blood of Jews so that they could be returned to family members and were afforded a dignified burial according to Jewish law. The police investigations were not completed.
More recently, Israeli national Nurit Toker was booked by the Mumbai police under the Arms Act, 1959, for carrying two live cartridges in her backpack while travelling from Mumbai to Kathmandu. In her petition she mentioned that she had completed her compulsory three-year training in the Israeli army and these were her personal ammunition, compatible with the M-16 assault rifle acquired during her military training. She had not carried the rifle, though. Sec. 3 clearly states “there is no requirement of use or intention to use the arm or ammunition” to pursue the case. Yet, the Israel Consulate intervened to say that the accused had accidentally left bullets in her bag.
This is not the first such instance. In 2006, Noa Haviv had cleared customs at Mumbai airport as well as the security agencies of Israeli airline El Al at Tel Aviv and arrived with 16 bullets and a magazine in her check-in baggage. The Israeli consul general had stated then: “We have every reason to believe that it was an innocent mistake. She had borrowed this suitcase from her brother, who is a licensed weapons holder. She was not aware of the bullets inside when she packed her bags.” Amazingly, only the airline filed a case and not the Airports Authority of India or the security agencies of the government.
In a country that arrests whole families on mere “tip offs”, this leniency is alarming. Worse, all 171 passengers on the El Al flight had walked out of the green channel and cleared customs in 15 minutes. Why this express service? Even Indians returning from a holiday take longer. The customs official at the time had said, “…this was a flight coming from Israel, where security measures are stringent.”
Are we to depend on another state’s security assurances? Israel is not above suspicion. No country is.
***
The attack on the embassy staff took place in India. We cannot allow investigations to be outsourced. Hillary Clinton offered US assistance to probe into “these cowardly acts” because the “scourge of terrorism is an affront to the entire international community”.
In an editorial, The Pioneer uses this incident for its grand-standing: “Governments around the world are mindful of such occasions when Israelis, both diplomats and civilians, are likely be targeted; sadly, the Government of India chooses to ignore them, busy as the Home Minister is defending himself in a corruption case while intelligence agencies are pre-occupied with snooping on the Congress’s political opponents and conducting ‘surveys’ in election-bound States”. It adds, with alacrity, that at least the people should be agitated “if not the Government whose Ministers are at the moment unabashedly pandering to Muslim extremism in Uttar Pradesh”.
Are we to be on our toes for Israel? Why did the papers not write editorials when suspicious activities of Israelis were noticed by these intelligence agencies? Why suppress those?
As expected, Pakistan and its Inter Services Intelligence are used as an example. There has been no proof. Israel is using Indian susceptibility with regard to relationship with Pakistan. There is indeed an insurgency problem and the recent history of the Mumbai attacks. The fact that the Jewish Chabad House was one of the targets makes it appear as a legitimate connection. But Pakistan has closer ties with Saudi Arabia and is inimical to Iran, which is the current bone stuck in the throats of the western powers and Israel.
There are cursory references to the four Iranian nuclear scientists who were killed in the last two years. Instead, the bomb blast is being touted as revenge for the death of Hizbullah’s military chief Imad Mughniyeh in a car explosion. What is so important about the fourth death anniversary? Do also note that he was killed in Syria, so Israel has a virtual buffet meal at its disposal to point fingers at.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. “Israel perpetrated the terror actions to launch psychological warfare against Iran.”
There are sniggers, but Israel has every reason to perpetuate such mind-numbing ideas, if not actions. In 1948, Menachem Begin’s unit slaughtered the inhabitants of Deir Yassin. In 1953, Ariel Sharon led the slaughter of the inhabitants of Qibya, and in 1982 arranged for their allies to butcher around 2,000 in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. He had declared, “We must hit, hit and hit them incessantly – not by means of large-scale war. Suddenly someone disappears there, someone is found dead here and somewhere else someone is found stabbed to death in a European nightclub.”
The history if Israel is as damning as it is damaged. It has flouted every rule and yet got the benefit of protection.
India is most certainly not a soft power that some of our own commentators are shamelessly projecting it as. It is a bit obsessed and still suffers from a colonial hangover. It has created its cocoon of goodwill based on the flimsy delusion of being a developed nation where hybrid progress is sustained in a greenhouse. In that, it is not too different from some of the wealthy Arab states that are only concerned about how they sell their oil and for how much. Just as they have their pecking order, India maintains a stoical distance from the larger pool of South Asian countries by virtue of its “close relations” with those who matter.
Self-preservation is the goal of any society, but when it becomes opportunistic it is difficult to demarcate the lines of control and of control freaks. By a process of natural selection that imbues it as a ‘doctrinaire liberal’ society, India is being co-opted in an unholy war
Farzana Versey is a Mumbai-based writer. She can be reached at http://farzana-versey.blogspot.in/
February 15, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | India, Israel, Mumbai |
Leave a comment
The first to discover that teachers make perfect scapegoats was George W. Bush. When he ran for president for the first time twelve years ago, Bush had a problem. He wanted lower taxes to be his rallying cry, but while taxes in Texas, the state where he was governor, were indeed low, the schools in Texas were notoriously bad.
The numbers are no better today: Texas ranks 47th in the county in literacy, 49th in verbal SAT scores and 46th in math scores. To blind the public to the evidence of what low taxes do, Bush produced evidence of a miracle: When it comes to education money is not what matters, he declared; what matters is holding teachers accountable. In Houston, Bush told voters, the superintendent of schools held teachers accountable, and as a result Houston saw a dramatic improvement in school quality, particularly when measured by high school graduation rates. So convincing was the miracle that as soon as he took office Congress agreed to pass the Bush tax cuts and the No Child Left Behind law.
Eight years later the “Texas miracle” was exposed. It turned out that the numbers had been cooked: Instead of the 1.5% drop-out rate that Houston had reported, the actual rate was somewhere between 25 and 50 percent. And in order to boost test results children who were considered weak in even just one subject were prevented from entering the 10th grade, the year in which the tests were administered. But by then the truth no longer mattered because the ideas that taxes are not needed to run a democratic government and that teachers, not budgets, are responsible for the failure of schools had invaded the body politic.
When Bush ran for office the rate of unemployment was low and there was a surplus in the government coffers, rather than a deficit. Today the economic situation is dire and most Americans believe that inequality is the biggest problem that the country faces. Occupy Wall Street blames the 1% — but the 1% and their elected officials have found someone else to blame: Bad teachers are back.
A new study just out from economists at Harvard and Columbia would seem to offer the proof. The study does not claim that the measurement of teachers will produce better students–this was Bush’s claim and it has already been exposed–but instead that the measurement of teachers will make students richer as adults.
President Obama echoed themes from the study when in his State of the Union Address, instead of acknowledging Occupy Wall Street, he stuck it to teachers: ”A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance,” he said. “Give them [schools] the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones…and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.”
Unlike the Texas miracle, the Harvard-Columbia revelations are not based on fraudulent numbers. But what is deeply problematic is the spin that the authors give to their findings. The study examined the incomes of adults who, as children in the 4th through the 8th grades, had teachers of different “Value Added” scores, with Value Added defined as improvement in the scores of students on standardized tests. The study claims that the individuals who had excellent teachers as children have higher incomes as adults; we will examine the validity of this claim below. But first we must ask what these higher incomes mean. When they were children, these individuals were poor. What the H-C authors fail to mention is that even when they had excellent teachers as children and therefore have higher incomes as adults, these individuals, despite their higher incomes, remain poor.
The devil is in the details: the average wage and salary of a 28 year old in the H-C study who had an excellent teacher was $20,509 in 2010 dollars, $182 higher than the average annual pay of all 28 year olds in the study. How does this compare to the average salary and wage of a 28 year old in this country? The authors excluded from their study people whose income was higher than $100,000. As we shall see, this exclusion is problematic; but to do the comparison we must do the same. The average salary and wage in 2010 of a 28 year old who earned less than $100,000 a year was $29,041, 42% higher than the income of a 28 year old in the H-C who had an excellent teacher. In other words, even if we accept the numbers that the authors of the H-C study choose to spin, having an excellent teacher cannot pull people out of poverty.
The exclusion of people with high incomes involved some 4,000 individuals, or 1.2% of the sample. The authors justify it by claiming that such people are outliers. But what if it turned out those high income earners had “bad” teachers? Including them in the study would have completely changed the results. Excluding a large number of the best performers from a study about the effect of teaching seems strange.
There’s more. While the H-C study found a statistically significant, if meaningless, relationship between the “value added” of teachers and incomes at age 28, the authors did not find a statistically significant result at age 30. Why? In the study the authors explain this by the small number of 30 year olds in their sample. In their interviews with the media and in public presentations the authors do not mention this result at all. Yet the number of 30 year olds in their sample is 61,639, and these are all students who went to school in the same city. Is this a small sample? To gain an appreciation for the size of the sample consider the fact that in order to estimate the unemployment rate that it publishes every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics relies on a national survey of 60,000 households with an average of 1.95 adults in each. Surely if 120,000 peoples are a good size sample to study a labor force of 150 million people spread all over the country, a sample of 61,639 is a good size sample to study a population of fewer than 5 million elementary school students who all come from the same school system. By any measure the sample size is not only adequate, it is fantastically huge, and the result is not statistically significant.
But the statistically insignificant results for 30 year olds may have been inconvenient for the authors for another reason. An increase of $128 a year is small by any standard, so the authors resorted to estimating a lifetime increase in earnings due to this increase. To do that they assumed that the percentage increase in income, 0.9 of one percent, which they estimated for age 28, holds for each year of a person’s working life. And perhaps this is why the authors chose to ignore the results for the 30 year olds. All that their findings permit them to claim truthfully is that an excellent teacher increases average annual income by $128 at age 28, and that this effect disappears at age 30. But then there would have been nothing to report.
Doesn’t teacher quality matter? Not when it comes to explaining the deliberate assault on the wages of workers by executives with the support of most of our elected officials. A federal law permits states to pass the doublespeak Right to Work law. Boeing, a major recipient of government largess, has just moved production from Washington State to South Carolina because, according to Governor Nikki Haley, “We are fighting the unions every step of the way. We are a strong Right to Work state and going to stay that way.” The Supreme Court has recently ruled that executives can use shareholders’ money to their heart’s desire to influence elections. Executive pay remains totally out of control and totally unregulated. Government workers have lost the right to bargain collectively in several states. These are the laws that must be changed if we are to fight poverty. Does the president really believe that teachers can change all these laws by themselves when he says that “a great teacher can offer an escape from poverty?”
The attack on “bad teachers” is a dishonest diversion, and nothing more than a reincarnation of the Texas Miracle. The problem is the power of the 1%; the solution is to pass it to the 99%.
Moshe Adler teaches economics at Columbia University and at the Harry Van Arsdale Center for Labor Studies at Empire State College. He is the author of Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science That Makes Life Dismal (The New Press, 2010), which is available in paperback and as an e-book.
February 14, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | George W. Bush |
Leave a comment
No deaths, just long sought after provocations; a geopolitical gambit executed with the proficiency of Mossad.
“…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.) ”
-US foreign policy makers in the Fortune 500 funded Brookings Institution’s 2009 “Which Path to Persia?” report, pages 84-85.
~
“U.S. officials said they have seen no intelligence to indicate that Iran is actively plotting attacks on U.S. soil. But Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said the thwarted plot “shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.”
The warning about Iran’s more aggressive stance was included in written testimony that Clapper submitted to Congress on Tuesday as part of the intelligence community’s annual assessment of the nation’s most serious security threats.”
– “Iran, perceiving threat from West, willing to attack on U.S. soil, U.S. intelligence report finds,” Washington Post, January 31, 2012
~
“We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase … on both our guarded sites and ‘soft’ sites,” read the memo, with soft sites interpreted to mean potential targets such as synagogues and other Jewish community buildings. The letter was circulated by the head of security for Israel’s Consul General for the Mid-Atlantic States, ABC News said.”
-“‘Soft’ Target Threat Gets Community’s Attention,” The Jewish Week, February 7, 2012
Quite clearly, there is a premeditated conspiracy working ceaselessly to provoke Iran into a war it neither wants nor will benefit from in any conceivable way, and upon failing to provoke Iran, provocations will be manufactured in their stead, as seen in the recently botched “plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador on US soil,” later revealed to be a US sting operation involving DEA agents and a duped, entrapped patsy.
Now Israel is blaming two attacks on their own embassies, one in New Delhi, India and another failed attack in Tbilisi, Georgia, squarely on Iran. There were only minor injuries reported in the New Delhi attack which was carried out in a similar manner to those targeting Iranian scientists in Iran – attacks now admittedly the work of Israeli Mossad agents and US-funded, armed, trained, and harbored Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK) terrorists.
Iran clearly has nothing to gain by bombing Israeli targets abroad, especially in nations like India where such an act would not only give the West the provocation it is on record trying to “goad” out of Tehran for years, but also one that would unsettle relations with India which would directly effect the conflict in Afghanistan festering on Iran’s eastern border.
Conversely, a non-lethal attack on Israeli targets gives the Wall Street-London-Tel Aviv corporate-financier elite the exact provocation they have been fishing for on record since at least 2009. Reuters reports, “a bomb wrecked a car carrying the wife of the Israeli Defence attache as she was going to pick up her children from school.” All the emotional plot points exist to manipulate public opinion against Iran, and behind a Western attack that has so far been perpetually stalled by a world increasingly irate over the West’s global warmongering.
The degree to which this likely stunt will be successful in serving as a pretext for war (or at least further escalation) for an axis that has been waging a campaign of terror against Iran for years remains to be seen. This Wall Street-London-Tel Aviv axis has openly admitted they seek to provoke war with an unwilling adversary, and all three are experts at manufacturing provocations for otherwise unjustifiable acts of aggression.
Iran is an aggressive though not reckless nation – so says the US policy think-tank Brookings Institution in their own “Which Path to Persia?” report. Iran does not lack an accurate understanding of global public opinion, evident in their English news service, PressTV. Should Iran choose to finally strike out against the West for their blatant and consistent acts of war, they would most likely do so with global public opinion in mind – likely excluding the possibility of targeting a mother on her way to pick up her children from school.
As in any crime, big or small, the first and most pressing question to answer is, “cui bono” or, “to whose benefit?” An axis of Western powers desperately seeking a pretext for a war they’ve tried to start for years? Or a nation desperately trying to avoid war, weathering constant and overt acts of aggression directed at their economy, infrastructure, civilians, military leaders, and politicians, only to end up bombing an Israeli mother on her way to pick up her children from school? With this in mind, and with Iran squarely denying any responsibility for the attacks, the burden of proof lies entirely on Israel.
February 14, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | India, Iran, Israel |
Leave a comment
To-Be-NATO Ally Azerbaijan Proves its NATO-Worthiness
Today Iran’s foreign ministry summoned Azerbaijan’s ambassador to rebuke him for Azerbaijan’s alleged link to Mossad operations against the Iranian government. Earlier today, the London Times reported that Israel’s Mossad has been using Azerbaijan as a hub to spy on the Islamic Republic, citing testimony from a still- anonymous Mossad agent.
“Following the movements of the terrorists involved in assassination of Iranian scientists in Azerbaijan republic and the facilities provided to them to go to Tel Aviv in collaboration with Mossad spy network.”
Iran’s Press TV reports further on the meeting:
In a Sunday meeting with Azerbaijan’s envoy to Tehran Javanshir Akhundov, the Director General of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’ Office for Commonwealth and Caucasus Affairs voiced strong objection to the presence and unrestricted activity of Mossad intelligence agents in Azerbaijan, who are involved in espionage activities against the Islamic Republic.
The Times of London reported Saturday, citing testimony from an anonymous Mossad agent active in Azerbaijan referred to only as Shimon,
“This is ground zero for intelligence work,” Shimon told the Times. “Our presence here is quiet, but substantial. We have increased our presence in the past year, and it gets us very close to Iran. This is a wonderfully porous country.”
…
Last month Boiling Frogs Post broke the newly brewing story-line in the war propaganda against Iran involving an alleged Iranian terror plot in Azerbaijan, and had a follow up on the emerging ‘alleged’ details in the ‘alleged’ plot claiming Israeli diplomats and religious figures were the intended targets of the alleged Iranian assassination plot. We also provided analysis on the mainstream media spin on these developments here, and emphasized the timing and way-too-familiar false flag quality of the alleged plot:
While the pressure and the venues of attacks on Iran have been growing and escalating- think nuclear arms development accusations, meddling in Iraq accusations, alleged assassination attempt against Saudi Diplomat in the US accusations …, we suddenly get a brand new allegation accusing Iran of plotting a terror act in Azerbaijan. Not only that, the targets of this alleged terror plot happen to be none other than Israel. If that doesn’t give you pause, make it a long pause, followed by firm skepticism, well, your mental faculties may be in need of a serious check-up followed by a thorough tune-up.
We were the first site in the US to break and cover the story last month. We will continue our coverage and keep you posted.
February 13, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Azerbaijan, Iran, Mossad, NATO |
Leave a comment
This Monday, February 13, the Pentagon will release the details of its fiscal year 2013 budget. The press, congressional staff and think tank-types go through an annual routine, scrambling to get out their take on the numbers and some selected issues. Some of these efforts are quite predictable; this year we will surely hear about –
• how much growth or cuts are in the budget, depending on which baseline people select;
• what is the spending for the F-35, or the next generation bomber, or whatever hardware is the focus of attention;
• how much will US bases in Europe lose to help pay for the “pivot” toward Asia, and
• what is the administration going to do about sequestration next year?
These and more clever questions are sure to be asked. But if this year is like the past, the numbers, specifically those in the Pentagon’s press release, will be the wrong ones, and many of the important and fundamental issues will be distorted or ignored.
What follows is an effort to help people through the maze.
This year, the Defense Department has already released the top line numbers for 2013 and the next four years. They are at http://www.defense.gov/news/Fact_Sheet_Budget.pdf. But, as usual, they are incomplete-even for knowing the top line. They are discretionary spending (annual appropriations) and do not include mandatory spending (entitlement programs) in the DOD budget. The latter amount is only a few billion dollars (peanuts in DOD budget terms), but that only starts the list of missing numbers.
To identify defense spending not in the Pentagon budget you also need to know what the Department of Energy is spending for nuclear weapons, and what other agencies are spending for the National Defense Stockpile, the Selective Service and other activities that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) calls “Defense-related activities” in the “National Defense” budget function.
You probably will not find these in the Pentagon’s press materials because they frequently aren’t there. You can always find them at the OMB website, which will post its materials at some point Monday morning. But you’ll need to know just where to find the complete and accurate number display on the defense budget, lest you get lost in the blizzard of tables and tomes that OMB releases on budget day. At the OMB website, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb, hunt down a document in the 2013 budget materials called “Analytical Perspectives;” then go to the “Supplemental Materials” and find a table titled “Policy Budget Authority and Outlays by Function, Category, and Program.” For the past two years, it’s been numbered Table 32-1. All the National Defense spending categories are there: DOD, DOE/Nuclear, the other cats and dogs, and both discretionary and mandatory spending are listed. They are right at the top of this long table; “National Defense,” or budget function 050, is the first display. Get those numbers straight, and for completeness and accuracy you will be head and shoulders above the herd using just the Pentagon press release. There you can also find what the actual numbers were for 2011 and 2012, which given the chaos in Congress, has not been easy to sort out.
Getting to table 32-1 in Analytical Perspectives can be tricky. For example for 2012, it is not listed in the Table of Contents to “Analytical Perspectives,” and the “Supplemental Materials” for the entire budget did not show it; you want the “Supplemental Materials” for “Analytical Perspectives.” Also, in the past, there have been other tables labeled 32-2 or something close, but they show the wrong numbers. You don’t want them; you want “Policy Budget Authority and Outlays by Function, Category, and Program,” and it should, repeat should, be numbered 32-1, unless OMB has messed around with its formatting for 2013. Perplexing? Yup.
Next, you might want to assess national security spending not in the Pentagon or even the “National Defense” budget. In what should be Table 32-1 you can also find the budgets for Veterans Affairs (function 700) for additional costs of past and current wars, and International Affairs (150) for military and economic aid and other State Department programs integral to national security spending.
You can also find some spending for military retirement and DOD health care that is not in the National Defense budget function. They, however, are hard to tease out. You can find them if you word search in the pdf version of Table 32-1, especially in functions 550, 600 and 900 for “military retirement” and “DOD Retiree Health Care.” But they are a thicket of positive and negative numbers and tricky to net out to an accurate number. Perhaps it is best to simply be aware that they are there and that they can amount to low double digits of billions of dollars. Ask your favorite budget geek what they net out to. If he or she can’t sort it out in a day or two, get a new budget geek.
You still do not have all the defense related numbers. You don’t have the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Go back to the “Supplemental Materials” for “Analytical Perspectives.” There find “Appendix — Homeland Security Mission Funding by Agency and Budget Account” or “Table 33-1.” (At least that’s what they were labeled for 2012.) They should list the budget for DHS which is embedded inside the various budget functions in Table 32-1. But be careful; make sure you are not double counting any homeland security funding that shows up in both the National Defense budget function or 150 or 700 and the DHS budget. There should be tables that help you avoid the double counting.
Don’t look for any intelligence community spending; it’s $80 billion, give or take, but it’s not shown; it’s classified and embedded inside the 050 numbers. Don’t try to add anything for intel; if you do, you will be double counting about $80 billion.
Perhaps you will decide to include the defense share of the national debt, specifically the share of the interest payment in 2013 for the debt that can be attributed to DOD, or National Defense, or all of the above for 2013. Find the total interest payment in function 900 and make your calculation.
Add it all up and you will get about $1 trillion, very probably more; if you don’t get that high, you are missing something-something big.
Next you may want to make comparisons to show where defense spending is headed. Some will compare this defense budget to previous plans, showing a gigantic reduction. Some will compare it to last year’s spending, showing a tiny reduction-basically a flat budget. One comparison is mostly phony; one is not. (Hint: Last year I planned to win the lottery. I didn’t; ergo, my flat salary this year means a gigantic pay cut.)
If you want to go viral on phoniness, compare contemporary spending to historic defense spending using percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the measure. That way you can pretend the big recent increases are big decreases, and more huge increases should be oh-so affordable. Avoid this gimmick, especially those who use it. Apply that thought also to people who use the same gimmick for non-defense spending.
Finished with the numbers? Why not address some of the long term, fundamentally important (and disturbing) trends in US defense spending? Two chapters in the anthology “The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It” address such things. One is by Chuck Spinney, and I think it’s an important exposition. Find it at http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/01-spinney-w-covers.pdf. The other expands on DOD’s habitual misdirection on numbers and briefly addresses the shrinking and aging that are continuing in our combat forces and their equipment. I wrote that one; find it at http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/08-wheeler-w-covers.pdf. I am sending you this piece with enough time before budget day on Monday to read those short essays and to conjure up your own take on what they mean for questions you should be asking Monday.
I hope this helps. Have fun on budget day.
Winslow T. Wheeler is director of the Straus Military Reform Project and editor of The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It.
February 13, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Militarism | Military budget, OMB |
Leave a comment
An analysis by Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, which the U.S. Army has not approved for public release but has leaked to Rolling Stone magazine, provides the most authoritative refutation thus far of the official military narrative of success in the Afghanistan War since the troop surge began in early 2010.
In the 84-page unclassified report, Davis, who returned last fall after his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, attacks the credibility of claims by senior military leaders that the U.S.-NATO war strategy has succeeded in weakening the Taliban insurgent forces and in building Afghan security forces capable of taking primary responsibility for security in the future.
The report, which Davis had submitted to the Army in January for clearance to make it public, was posted on the website of Rolling Stone magazine by journalist Michael Hastings Friday. In a blog for the magazine, Hastings reported that “officials familiar with the situation” had said the Pentagon was “refusing” to release the report, but that it had been making the rounds within the U.S. government, including the White House.
Hastings wrote that he had obtained it from a U.S. government official.
Contacted by IPS Friday, Davis would not comment on the publication of the report or its contents.
Writing that he is “no Wikileaks guy Part II”, Davis reveals no classified information in the report. But he has given a classified version of the report, which cites and quotes from dozens of classified documents, to several members of the House and Senate, including both Democrats and Republicans.
“If the public had access to the classified reports,” Davis writes, “they would see the dramatic gulf between what is often said in public by our senior leaders and what is true behind the scenes.”
Davis is in a unique position to assess the real situation on the ground in Afghanistan. As a staff officer of the “Rapid Equipping Force”, he traveled more than 9,000 miles to every area where U.S. troop presence was significant and had conversations with more than 250 U.S. soldiers, from privates to division commanders.
The report takes aim at the March 2011 Congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, then the top commander in Afghanistan, and the Defence Department’s April 2011 Report to Congress as either “misleading, significantly skewed or completely inaccurate”.
Davis attacks the claim in both the Petraeus testimony and the DOD report that U.S. and NATO forces had “arrested the insurgents’ momentum” and “reversed it in a number of important areas”.
That claim is belied, Davis argues, by the fact that the number of insurgent attacks, the number of IEDs found and detonated and the number of U.S. troops killed and wounded have all continued to mount since 2009, the last year before the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops and 10,000 NATO troops.
Davis notes that Petraeus and other senior officials of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the U.S.-NATO command in Afghanistan, have boasted of having killed and captured thousands of insurgent leaders and rank and file soldiers, cut insurgent supply routes and found large numbers of weapons caches as well as depriving the insurgents of their main bases of operation since spring 2010.
If these claims were accurate measures of success, Davis writes, after the Taliban had been driven out of their strongholds, “there ought to have been a reduction in violence not a continual, unbroken string of increases.”
In fact, Davis writes, Taliban attacks “continued to rise at almost the same rate it had risen since 2005 all the way through the summer of 2011″ and remained “well above 2009 levels in the second half of 2011″ even though it leveled off or dropped slightly in some places.
Davis notes that total attacks, total number of IEDs and total U.S. casualties in 2011 were 82 percent, 113 percent and 164 percent higher, respectively, than the figures for 2009, the last year before the surge of 30,000 troops. The annual number of U.S. dead and wounded increased from 1,764 in 2009 to 4,662 in 2011.
The veteran Army officer quotes Congressional testimony by Adm. Mike Mullen December 2, 2009 as citing a lesser increase in Taliban attacks in 2009 of 60 percent over the 2008 level as a rationale for a significant increase in U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan, implying that the war was being lost.
Davis leaves no doubt about his overall assessment that the U.S. war effort has failed. “Even a cursory observation of key classified reports and metrics,” Davis concludes, “leads overwhelmingly to the conclusion that over the past two years, despite the surge of 30,000 American Soldiers, the insurgent force has gained strength….”
Davis is also scathing in his assessment of the Afghan army and police who have been described as constantly improving and on their way to taking responsibility for fighting the insurgents.
“What I saw first-hand, in virtually every circumstance,” writes Davis, “was a barely functioning organization – often cooperating with the insurgent enemy….”
Both in his longer report and in an article for Armed Forces Journal published online February 5, Davis recounts his experience at an Afghan National Police station in Kunar province in January 2011. Arriving two hours after a Taliban attack on the station, Davis asked the police captain whether he had sent out patrols to find the insurgents.
After the question had been conveyed by the interpreter, Davis recalls, “The captain’s head wheeled around, looking first at the interpreter and turning to me with an incredulous expression. Then he laughed.”
“No! We don’t go after them,” he quotes the captain as saying. “That would be dangerous!”
According to Davis, U.S. troops who work with Afghan policemen in that province say they “rarely leave the cover of the checkpoints”, allowing the Taliban to “literally run free”.
Describing the overall situation, Davis writes, “(I)n a number of high profile mission opportunities over the past 11 months the ANA (Afghan National Army) and ANP (Afghan National Police) have numerous times run from the battle, run from rumors, or made secret deals with the Taliban.”
The draft posted online notes after that statement that the classified version of the paper has been “redacted”, indicating that Davis provides further details about those “secret deals” in the classified version.
The Army dissenter calls on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to “conduct a bi-partisan investigation into the various charges of deception or dishonesty in this report….” He urges that such a hearing include testimony not only from senior military officials but from mid- and senior-level intelligence analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies.
Both Senate and House Armed Services Committees have exhibited little or no interest in probing behind the official claims of success in Afghanistan. That passive role reflects what many political observers, including some members of Congress, see as cozy relationships among most committee members, military leaders, Pentagon officials and major military contractors.
It remains to be seen whether Davis’s success in raising the issue of misleading claims of success in a front-page New York Times story February 6 and in subsequent television appearances will bring pressure on those committees from other members to hold hearings on whether senior military officials are telling the truth about the situation in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military leadership in Afghanistan is brushing off Davis’s critique as having no importance. During a briefing in which he claimed continued steady progress in Afghanistan, Army Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, deputy commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, dismissed the Davis report as “one person’s view of this”.
~
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.
February 13, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular | Afghan National Police, Afghanistan, Daniel Davis, International Security Assistance Force, NATO |
Leave a comment
In Russia Today’s recent Crosstalk program on Syria, guest James Morris was brave enough to incisively point out the taboo fact that the Israel lobby has been in the forefront in pushing a hardline interventionist approach for the US toward that divided country. The host and the two other guests on the show pooh-poohed the idea on the grounds that (in their minds) it would not be in Israel’s national interest to topple the secular Assad regime and possibly bring about an Islamist state that could be even more hostile to Israel. But when one moves from speculation to an analysis of the actual position of members of the Israel lobby, one can see that Morris was completely correct. Moreover, Morris was completely correct in pointing out that the Israel lobby’s position has nothing to do with ending oppression, and everything to do with Israeli security, as members of the Israel lobby have perceived Israel’s interest (which might not be the same as the Crosstalk threesome.)
The neoconservatives, the vanguard of the Israel lobby, have especially been ardent in their advocacy of a hardline, interventionist position toward Syria. Evidence abounds for this finding, but it is best encapsulated by an August 2011 open letter from the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (an organization which claims to address any “threat facing America, Israel and the West”) to President Obama, urging him to take stronger measures against Syria. Among the signatories of the letter are such neocon luminaries as: Elliott Abrams (son-in-law of neocon “godfather” Norman Podhoretz and a former National Security adviser to President George W. Bush); the Council on Foreign Relations’ Max Boot; “Weekly Standard” editor Bill Kristol; Douglas Feith (Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under George W. Bush and an author of the “Clean Break” policy paper); Joshua Muravchik (affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute [AEI], the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and “Commentary”); Frederick W. Kagan (AEI, co-author of the “surge” in Iraq); Robert Kagan (co-founder of the Project for the New American Century PNAC); James Woolsey (head of the CIA under Clinton and chair of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies); Randy Scheunemann (former President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and foreign affairs adviser to John McCain in his 2008 presidential campaign); Reuel Marc Gerecht (former Director of the Project for the New American Century’s Middle East Initiative and a former resident fellow at AEI); Michael Makovsky (advisor to the propagandistic Office of Special Plans, which was under Douglas Feith); John Hannah (senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy [WINEP] and a former national security adviser to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney); and Gary Schmitt (AEI and former President for the Project for a New American Century).
As Morris notes in his presentation, elimination of the Assad regime in Syria was not an idea conceived by either the neocons or the broader Israel lobby; rather it can be traced back to the Israeli Likudniks, being articulated by Oded Yinon in his 1982 piece, “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties.” In this article, Yinon called for Israel to use military means to bring about the dissolution of Israel’s neighboring states and their fragmentation into a mosaic of ethnic and sectarian groupings. Yinon believed that this would not be a difficult undertaking because nearly all the Arab states were afflicted with internal ethnic and religious divisions. In essence, the end result would be a Middle East of powerless mini-statelets that could in no way confront Israeli power. Lebanon, then facing divisive chaos, was Yinon’s model for the entire Middle East. Yinon wrote: “Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.” (Quoted in “The Transparent Cabal,” p. 51)
What stands out in the stark contrast to the debate taking place today is that Yinon’s rationale for eliminating the dictatorial regimes in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East had absolutely nothing to do with their oppressive practices and lack of democracy, but rather was based solely on Israel’s geostrategic interests-the aim being to permanently weaken Israel’s enemies. The neoconservatives took up the gist of the Yinon’s position in their 1996 Clean Break policy paper, whose authors included neocons Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Douglas Feith, which was presented to then incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It urged him to use military force against a number of Israel’s enemies, which beginning with Iraq would include “weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria.” Once again the fundamental concern was Israeli security, not liberty and democracy for the people of those countries. (“The Transparent Cabal,” p. 90)
Numerous neocons before and after 9/11 expressed the need to confront Syria in order to protect the security of both the United States and Israel, whose interests they claimed coincided. And this position on Syria was concurred in by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who, one month before the US invasion of Iraq, identified it, along with Libya and Iran, as an ideal target for future US action. Sharon stated: “These are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons [of] mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve.” (Quoted in “The Transparent Cabal,” p. 172)
A month after Bush’s 2004 re-election, Bill Kristol would emphasize the key position of Syria in the “war on terrorism.” He wrote in the “Weekly Standard” that because Syria was allegedly interfering with America’s efforts to put down the insurgency in Iraq, it was thus essential for the United States “to get serious about dealing with Syria as part of winning in Iraq, and in the broader Middle East.” (Quoted in “The Transparent Cabal,” pp. 253-254)
The close ties between Syria and Iran would begin to provide a fundamental reason for the neocons’ desire to take action against Syria. It was this factor that shaped neocon thinking on the Israel’s July 2006 incursion into Lebanon. Some months after the Israeli invasion, neocon Meyrav Wurmser would affirm that it was neocon influence in the Bush administration that was setting US policy on Lebanon, with the aim being a direct Israeli confrontation with Syria. “The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space,” Wurmser stated. “They believed that Israel should be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hizbullah. It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against Iran, but the thought was that its strategic and important ally should be hit.” Furthermore, “If Israel had hit Syria, it would have been such a harsh blow for Iran that it would have weakened it and [changed] the strategic map in the Middle East.” (Quoted in “The Transparent Cabal,” p. 278)
And any action by Iran to protect its Syrian ally would provide a casus belli for the United States to attack Iran, which is what the neocons sought. Michael Ledeen opined, “The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus and they are not going to fall as a result of fighting between their terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon on the one hand, and Israel on the other. Only the United States can accomplish it.” (Quoted in “The Transparent Cabal,” p. 279)
Bill Kristol argued the same point in his article, “It’s Our War,” underscoring the need for direct American involvement in the ongoing conflict. America “might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression [arms provided to Hezbollah] with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.” (Quoted in “The Transparent Cabal,” p. 279)
As can be seen, the goal of eliminating the Assad Baathist regime has existed among Israeli Likudniks and the neocons for some time. And it currently propels the demand for militant action against the Syrian government. Moreover, action taken against Syria has become viewed as a way of seriously weakening Iran (perceived as a much more dangerous enemy), or even leading to war with it. That Israel might not benefit from regime change in Syria, and that some in Israel might actually fear such a development, does not alter the obvious fact that the neocons and much of the overall Israel lobby support it. And it is they who affect the policy of the United States.
February 13, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Israel, Syria |
Leave a comment
“An international cabal of pan-African and global imperialist interests are combining forces to destabilise Africa”
Once again, the spotlight is on Africa as four Kenyans – three political leaders and a journalist – have been indicted at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Once again, the question that has never been answered is, why Africa? And why the speed? In Anglo-Saxon parts of the world, some leaders are treated with kid gloves when they commit ‘crimes against humanity’. Others, like the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former US President George Bush, go on to write memoirs defending their abuse of international laws.
Let us put this in context, in Ivory Coast, ex-President Laurent Gbagbo was ‘abducted’ (the words used by Jerry John Rawlings, former President of Ghana) at midnight and carted off to The Hague. In my view, his crimes remain unknown except to the French and his Ivorian adversaries. Charles Taylor (Liberia) remains in The Hague incarcerated. Now we learn that all along, the former President of Liberia may have been a CIA agent. So we can guess why the leadership of the United States would like to see him remain in The Hague. He knows too much. In the case of Libya, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his sons were even indicted before the ICC could establish whether they had committed crimes ‘against humanity.’ Other Africans from the Democratic Republic of the Congo are also facing charges in The Hague. In the Sudan, a sitting head of state, President Omar Bashir, has also been indicted. The queue of Africans waiting to be hanged by this international court is endless.
Yet, a cursory glance at the world also tells of many crimes committed against ordinary citizens – from Palestine to Afghanistan, to Libya and, of course, Iraq. Who bears responsibility for these crimes? Are we suggesting that the lives of Iraqi, Libyan and Palestanian children and women do not matter? How come no one is facing so-called justice in The Hague?
This raises serious questions about the selective justice and double standards of the international systems of justice that is selectively applied to Africa and especially African leaders by the so-called ‘international community’. It leaves me with no option but to conclude that the ICC has become a vehicle for enforcing neocolonial interest in Africa, which members of the UN Security Council can exploit. What is even more worrying is that the ICC has become a tool in the hands of vicious African elite/politicians fighting for the national cake. All it takes is to convince the so-called international community that your opponent needs to go to The Hague. I will suggest in all seriousness that serious crimes against humanity have been committed in Libya by NATO forces, and by both sides in the post-election crisis in the Ivory Coast. But we are yet to see some action on that front. The work of the ICC will make sense, and justice will be served, if the leaders who authorised the bombing of Tripoli under the guise of UN resolutions also face the same justice that the Kenyans are supposedly going to face.
In the case of Kenya, the facts should be separated from the chaff. There was post-election violence in which over 1,000 citizens died, some under gruesome conditions. Someone or some groups bear responsibility for this. As usual, the international community, and a flaking Kenyan leadership, abdicated responsibility for punishing those responsible to a horde of international experts and UN rapporteurs with lengthy reports.
Maybe, these people did some good, but these reports are now gathering dust while all attention is paid to the antics of the chief prosecutor of the ICC Luis Moreno-Ocampo. The man now thinks he is a celebrity in Kenya. ‘Kenyans love me’, he is reported to have said. Second, the Kenyan ruling class failed to set up a local tribunal to address cases of post-election violence and historical injustices, thereby fuelling the feeling among ordinary Kenyans that the ICC route was the only way to seek justice. Third, the Kenyan elite, especially those in civil society, seem united in their view that to end ‘impunity’, they need the intervention of some foreign ‘knight in armour’ who should descend in Kenya to take out the bad guys (their leaders who are responsible for impunity). I suggest that impunity is deep-seated in Africa, and its historical and structural causes should be addressed. Impunity has colonial and neo colonial roots. The ICC can only deal with the symptoms.
In Kenya, the ICC debate, like most debates, has become a lawyers’ paradise where people talk of ‘the Rome statute’ and similar words with arrogant recklessness and self-satisfaction. That African heads of states signed up to this is ‘Rome statute’ is not in doubt, but for good reasons. Others refused. But this does not constitute a blood oath to which we are bound for life, as the juju takers in Nollywood movies suggest.
The debate about how to seek justice for the victims of the post-election violence in Kenya seems to have been relegated to a few campaigners. The internally displaced people (citizens) of Kenya are still living in IDP camps. Women who were abused have not been offered counseling or financial compensation or support to deal with the consequences of the abuse. Children of IDP families are not receiving quality primary education as their families are on the move and lack stability. Kenya is yet to heal, as the ruling elite and the so-called international community engages in futile and sometimes endless debates about ‘impunity’ and the ICC. The nongovernmental organisations and civil society have been caught up in this maze as some seek publicity for themselves and their organisations at the expense of real justice for victims. Playing to the international gallery has become the endgame in Nairobi. Who speaks for the IDPs? Who speaks for the women who were abused?
This reminds me of Sierra Leone. When I visited Freetown after the civil war, there was a lot of talk about ‘impunity’ and justice, as we are hearing today. The UN Tribunal for Sierra Leone was set up in a huge compound in Freetown as a justice centre of some sort to deal with so-called perpetrators of the civil war, nothing about the victims. It was full of young European and American lawyers recruited as ‘investigators’, with their fanciful laptops and mobile phones. All was set for justice. Down the road was an amputee camp, where amputees, real victims of the savage civil war, lived in unimaginable abject poverty. So the question I asked myself was: where is our sense of priority? Are we condemning the living, young as they are, to a life of penury, so that some octogenerian leaders can be put on trial, and for what purpose? Millions of dollars were spent on this illusive justice while the youthful victims of the civil war – ex-combatants and their families – were abandoned by the same international system which has ripped off Sierra Leone for its diamonds. Is that the African sense of justice? Many Sierra Leoneans and other West Africans had the same feeling; we could only shake our heads in disbelief. In the case of Sierra Leone, most of the so-called perpetrators died in jail awaiting trials.
I would suggest that Kenya is headed in that same direction. The broad sense of seeking social justice for victims has been pushed to the dustbin of history as people seek retribution, and settle petty political scores of a different nature. Whether the four indicted individuals deserve to be indicted by the ICC or not is for Kenyans to answer. But some of us will never know, as only those with voices and access to Kenya’s media which is embedded with powerful interests, and positions that appeal to or support the marginalisation of Africa, and the abuse of African leaders in the international system get heard. But it would be churlish and ahistorical to separate what is happening to the Kenyan four. It is part of a broader cat and mouse game of humiliating African leaders to serve the global imperialist interests of some countries, and to justify their continued plunder of the continent and its resources, a game in which Africa will always emerge as the loser.
In the case of the Kenyan four, I cannot help but feel that this is more about the impending election (2012 0or 2013), than about justice for victims. Some in the international community and their minions have suggested that some ethnic groups should be sidelined. A dangerous proposition for a country seeking to build a cohesive society.
In a contribution to Pambazuka News last year, I suggested that an international cabal of pan-African and global imperialist interests are combining forces to destabilise Africa. This is a continuation of this debate. The idea that shipping four Kenyans (Africans) to join the already high number in The Hague is somehow the best way to achieve justice does not appeal to me. My position will be the same if these four were Libyan, Nigerian, Ghanaian or Ugandan. I believe that Africa has come of age to settle its own problems. I believe that neither the US nor British governments will subject their citizens, especially, young, intelligent and committed politicians, to the sort of humiliation that the four Kenyans are being subjected to in the name of fighting impunity.
The ICC has time and time again proven that it is beholden to countries that are not even signatories to the Rome statute (for example the United States, as in the case of President Charles Taylor). Ocampo has proven that he is anti-African, that his interest is only in persecuting and prosecuting Africans because we have made ourselves vulnerable to this process. This same court which acknowledges that African countries are signatories ignores the voice of the African Union leadership – those we have elected to represent our interest as Africans. Will the ICC ignore the leaders of France, the UK, the European Union and the United States? Yet, the ICC ignored the AU in the case of Sudan, and ignored the pleas of Kenya’s Vice President who had the support of the majority of progressive thinking African leaders in the Africa Union. This underlies the contemptuous attitude towards African leaders by lower officials in international organisations. Why do we allow this to happen?
In the case of Kenya, what is even more worrying is the impact of this process on the national psyche. It destabilises the country, creates unnecessary anxiety and fuels rumours of the dangerous type. Kenyans need closure to the post-election violence if they are to build a cohesive and progressive society based on the ethic of the 2010 constitution. The intelligentsia is supposed to lead this struggle, but it is failing as they are devoid of any ideological leanings or clarity. ‘Human rights’ is treated as if it is value-free, with no ideological underpinnings. The debate about political transition in Kenya is being sidelined and made to look moribund as the country frets and is on tenterhooks awaiting decisions from the ICC. In Kenya, the ICC has been elevated to a ‘god’ with the prosecutor as some sort of deity. Dissenting voices are silenced or seen as irrelevant to this debate.
However, it is important for Africans to realise that there is no alternative to nation-building and to local processes. Neither the US nor France will abdicate such awesome responsibilities to a foreign court or subject the whole nation to such unnecessary anxiety. Africans must have the courage and steadfast belief in our ability to change the continent, to deal with abuses and seek justice on our own terms. For me, the ICC will always remain an imperialist-led institution set up to hold back the forces of progress, while undermining African institutions and our ability to deal with forces of retrogression and ‘impunity’. It is time for African leaders to take charge and not hand over the continent to some faceless ‘judges’ of the international system.
February 12, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular | Africa, Hague, International Criminal Court, Kenya, Laurent Gbagbo, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Sierra Leone |
Leave a comment
Bill Clinton’s bombing of Serbia should serve as an inspiration, Fouad Ajami opines in the Wall Street Journal:
In this Syrian ordeal, President Obama has a similar opportunity to stop “the killing of innocents” in Homs, Hama and Deraa. The Damascus regime is living on bluster, running out of money, and relying on an army that has no faith in the mission given it or in the man at the helm. It could be brought down without a massive American commitment.
We could, with some moral clarity, recognize the Syrian National Council as the country’s legitimate government, impose a no-fly zone in the many besieged areas, help train and equip the Free Syrian Army, prompt Turkey to give greater support to defectors from Syrian units, and rally the wealthy Arab states to finance the effort.
There are risks to be run, no doubt. But at present we have only the shame of averting our eyes from Syrian massacres. If we act now, President Obama, when he pens his memoirs, could still claim vindication, or at least that he gave Homs and Hama and Deraa his best.
This is the same Middle East expert who predicted in 2002 that “after liberation in Basra and Baghdad, the streets are sure to erupt in joy.”
Like his friend Paul Wolfowitz, Ajami’s being so wrong about the consequences of the U.S. invasion of Israel’s then-enemy du jour appears not to have done his career any harm. A 2003 profile in The Nation noted that the Lebanese-born American
attached himself to such powerful patrons as Laurence Tisch, former chairman of CBS; Mort Zuckerman, the owner of US News & World Report; Martin Peretz, a co-owner of The New Republic; and Leslie Gelb, head of the Council on Foreign Relations.
No doubt Ajami’s “powerful patrons” are just as concerned as he is about the “the killing of innocents” in Syria.
February 12, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Council on Foreign Relations, Fouad Ajami, Free Syrian Army, Syria |
Leave a comment
Butchered by “Healthcare” is Robert Yoho’s plain-spoken account of how American medicine stopped being a profession and became an industry. 341 pages. Over a thousand references. Thirty-eight chapters.
Aletho News
