It is essential that US citizens understand that this conflict should not continue to be viewed as a symmetrical one anymore. When they do not hear about it, there are vicious violations of international law against Palestinians every day; including closures/blockades, settlement activities (population transfer on account of our land and natural resources), displacement, killings, detention and torture.
We were all occupied by the developments in the past few days, and shocked to find out about killings. The Israeli government kept from us all that the three settler teenagers were killed from the first day because they wanted to carry out a large military operation in the occupied Palestinian territory. This operation saw hundreds of Palestinians arrested, tortured, killed and injured. Dozens of attacks were also directed at the besieged Gaza Strip. Incitement to violence and hatred went very high.
Since 12 June 2014, the day the teenage settlers went missing, Israel declared that its operation had two aims: find them and put pressure on Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to abandon a recent unity agreement and return to full separation between Gaza and the West Bank. Now we know that the Israeli government knew they were killed from the first day; however, the operation to destroy Palestinian unity and reinstate separation is ongoing. Separation and isolation, if successful, will allow Israel to annex large areas in the West Bank and divide Palestinians to keep them under control by military force; as opposed to a peace agreement that would end the occupation of the territory captured by Israel in 1967. This is a typical case of using violence to achieve political; not security, gains. In doing so, Israel has violated the human rights of Palestinian civilians in many ways, and has created an environment that allowed for kidnapping, murdering, and running over of Palestinian children by Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
Americans need to understand this situation. This conflict has not started on 12 June this year, but decades ago. The occupation of oPt [occupied Palestinian territories] in the manner Israel is doing it has been, and will continue to be, the reason behind such tragedies. They should expect to hear about more serious violations of human rights and international law, and they will hear all the security justifications for them. I hope they understand that buying such justifications will only help such violations to continue as Israel pursues fragmenting and destroying the Palestinian people for political reasons.
Mahmoud AbuRahma is communications and international relations director for the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights in Gaza.
The Canadian media is awash with hysteria about what it calls a potential Iranian-sponsored terror attack in Ottawa.
Unsurprisingly, the hype is rooted in baseless innuendo typical of neocon warmongers who act as loudspeakers for the Zionist regime in Tel Aviv.
The neoconservative National Post, which is for all intents and purposes an Israeli propaganda organ, published a scurrilous piece on June 16 quoting from alarmist Canadian intelligence reports which state that Iran and Hezbollah (Lebanon’s national resistance movement) may be planning to strike Ottawa.
What evidence do these intelligence analysts proffer to support their slanderous assertions about Iran and Hezbollah? Absolutely none.
The National Post admitted the documents “do not specify the exact nature of the threat Tehran may pose to the Ottawa region.”
So they claim there is a “threat” but cannot even specify what that threat is or in what form it may manifest?
“[I]n the past,” the dubious intelligence report continued, “Iran has used its proxy force, Hezbollah, to attempt attacks internationally.”
This Zionist rhetoric looks as if it could have been written by Stephen Harper’s “good friend” Benjamin Netanyahu himself.
Despite feeble Zionist disinformation, Iran has not sponsored any international terror attacks. The bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Argentina in 1994, which took the lives of 85 people, is still unsolved. The Zionists immediately pinned the blame for the atrocity on their Iranian and Lebanese foes, offering not one particle of proof. Argentinian researcher Adrian Salbuchi contends that the attack was a false flag operation engineered by the Israeli secret services to swing public opinion against its enemies.
When in late 2013 Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez announced that she would launch a new joint Iranian-Argentinian probe into the 1994 attack, the Zionists went berserk and their mouthpieces in Ottawa and Washington condemned the move to have a real investigation into what happened, for obvious reasons.
Canada’s intelligence services function as a political tool of the neoconservative, pro-Zionist regime in Ottawa led by the rabid Likudnik Harper. As such, their reports about Iran, Hezbollah and anything else related to the Middle East, Arabs and “terrorism” cannot be considered to be anything but propaganda and misdirection designed to serve Israel’s geopolitical agenda.
In his book “Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid,” Canadian foreign policy expert Yves Engler documented the close ties between Canada’s spy agency CSIS and Israel’s spy agency Mossad. The two spook organizations work together closely, sharing intelligence and conducting joint espionage operations targeting Arabs in Canada and abroad. Mossad has often used forged Canadian passports on covert missions (even attempted assassinations), and CSIS has looked the other way.
What may lie behind this latest dose of Iranophobic poison emanating from Ottawa? The National Post says that the Canadian intelligence documents it based its story around are from late 2013, so why promote it now?
Well, a number of events that have unfolded over the past few weeks may explain it.
On June 13 three Israeli teens were allegedly kidnapped from an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank. The circumstances surrounding the alleged kidnapping are murky. Strangely, nobody has taken credit for the kidnapping nor has anyone demanded a ransom. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists the militant Palestinian resistance group Hamas is to blame for the abduction and vowed swift action against it Monday,” reported a June 16 Globe and Mail article.
If Hamas was behind the capture of the three Israelis, surely they would have demanded a prisoner exchange as thousands of Palestinians are unjustly held as political prisoners in Israeli jails. But they have not done this, and as the Globe noted, Hamas has nothing to gain from such a reckless move at this critical juncture when they have just recently formed a unity government with the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu called the new Hamas-PA unity government “bad for Israel.”
The only beneficiary of the kidnapping, it seems, is Israel.
Political analyst Kevin Barrett noted in a recent article on Veterans Today that this kidnapping incident may have been staged by Israel as a political stunt to undermine the new Palestinian unity government and to justify a crackdown on Hamas. “How dare the Palestinians unify against us,” the Zionist occupiers are saying to themselves.
Israel’s military chief of staff Benny Gantz has pledged a “broad operation” against Hamas. “Our aim is to find the three boys, bring them home and hurt Hamas as much as possible,” he said. Using the kidnapping incident as a pretext, Israel has arrested more than 160 Palestinians and conducted several air strikes in the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials are now lusting to re-arrest all 1,027 Palestinian prisoners who were freed in exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, reported the Globe.
“Israeli political leaders on the right,” the Globe article continued, “have demanded all sorts of punitive action be taken against Hamas [as a result of the unsolved kidnapping]: some advocate expelling the group’s leaders to Gaza; others want to annex parts of the West Bank… Minister Moshe Ya’alon hinted at a return to the practice of targeted killings – assassinations – of Hamas leaders.”
To back up his false flag hypothesis, Kevin Barrett cited a revealing June 15 Haaretz article headlined, “Mossad chief’s chillingly prescient kidnap prophecy.” In the article Israeli journalist Barak Ravid disclosed that, “Ten days ago, at a security cabinet meeting, Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo outlined a scenario spookily similar to the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens missing since Thursday night.”
The security meeting in question “dealt with the report of the Shamgar Committee on prisoner exchanges and on the Habayit Hayehudi bill that prohibits granting pardons to terrorists.”
Pardo and his colleagues tried to convince Israeli ministers not to pass the bill, arguing that it would “limit the government’s room for maneuver in future abduction cases, would keep its hands tied, and prevent it from considering other solutions for dealing with a potential crisis.”
“What will you do if in a week three 14-year-old girls will be kidnapped from one of the settlements?” Pardo asked. “Will you say there is a law, and we don’t release terrorists?”
As Haaretz inadvertently demonstrated, Zionists have quite a talent for predicting and foreshadowing future events. In 1979, the founder of Israel’s spy agencies, Isser Harel, predicted 9/11 with amazing precision, telling an Evangelical Zionist named Michael Evans over dinner that “Islamic fundamentalists” would eventually strike New York City’s “tallest building.”
Zionist neocons of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) think-tank spoke of a “New Pearl Harbour” that would facilitate their militarist foreign policy objectives exactly one year before the planes hit the twin towers in New York in 2001.
Israeli dirty tricks of this nature are nothing new. Shortly after 9/11, the Israelis were caught red-handed establishing a fake al-Qaeda cell in Gaza. Ariel ‘the butcher’ Sharon attempted to use the existence of the counterfeit “terror cell” as a pretext to bomb the beleaguered coastal enclave. “Israel ‘faked al-Qaeda presence’,” noted a Dec. 2002 BBC headline, which unveiled Israel’s deception.
A Sept. 10, 2001, Washington Times report also shed light on Israel’s penchant for ruthlessness and deception. Reporting on the content of a US Army study on the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Times article quoted the study’s authors who stated that Israel is “known to disregard international law to accomplish mission.” The US Army analysts were even more blunt in their assessment of Israel’s Mossad, characterizing the rogue agency as a “ruthless and cunning” wildcard that is “[capable of targeting] U.S. forces” and making it “look like a Palestinian/Arab act.”
Knowing Israel’s sordid history of false flags and dirty tricks, one would be foolhardy to dismiss the possibility that the “kidnapping” scandal that has unfolded over the past few days is yet another Machiavellian stage-play designed to derail Palestine’s unity government and expedite Israel’s expansionist aims.
With Syria and Iraq being overrun by bloodthirsty Western-backed mercenaries and brutes, Israel sees an opportunity to push forward with its imperialist schemes to neutralize Palestinian resistance to the occupation.
Ottawa’s ratcheting up of anti-Iranian hysteria at this conspicuous time can only be seen as a gesture of support for Tel Aviv’s campaign of terror in Gaza and the West Bank, deflecting international attention from the Israeli cuckoo in the nest.
Standing in front of a map of what both no doubt hope will one day be Greater Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and Tony Blair have today given a practical demonstration of chutzpah. Translated roughly as “audacity” (but could also mean “insolence”), the two men with blood on their hands tried to convince the world that the lives of three illegal Jewish settlers – “children,” said the Israeli PM – are worth more than the lives of over 1,300 Palestinian children killed by the Israelis since September 2000 at an average rate of 3 murders per day. This is entirely consistent with the view expressed by at least one extremist Rabbi, Yaacov Perrin, at the funeral of Baruch Goldstein, the terrorist settler who murdered 29 Palestinians while they prayed in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque in 1984: “Even one million Arabs,” claimed Perrin, “are not worth a Jewish fingernail.”
To the best of my knowledge, Blair has never, even as arguably the most ineffective “peace envoy” the world has ever seen, expressed regrets at the loss of Palestinian lives with as much gravitas as he employed to condemn the kidnapping of the settlers. If, indeed, that is what has happened to them; with no credible claims of responsibility, there is already talk on social media that the three will surface unharmed after spending a few days in a military facility somewhere in Israel having served their purpose of giving Netanyahu an excuse to try to break Palestinian will and the unity government in one brutal step. Israel has carried out false flag operations before, so why might this be any different?
According to statistics supplied by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, Israel is holding 196 Palestinian children in its jails. Although it regards Israeli citizens as adults from the age of 18, as far as sentencing is concerned, Palestinians aged 12 and over are “adults” in Israeli eyes. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) reports, “Every year between 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12, are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system.”
There are almost two hundred men held by Israel under so-called “administrative detention”. They have never been charged with or found guilty of any crime and their detention can be extended indefinitely. To all intents and purposes, they have been “kidnapped” by Israel’s occupation authorities.
All of this doesn’t matter, of course. With a compliant media at its disposal, Israel has once again been able to control the narrative so that Palestinian fatalities over the past few days are ignored and the missing settlers grab the headlines. This pattern is repeated in the lack of coverage of the almost daily Israeli military incursions into Gaza and attacks on farmers and fishermen, which go unreported. It is as if they have become so commonplace that they are not newsworthy. The PSC has monitored the BBC for its coverage of the conflict in Palestine: “[The Corporation] has a unique responsibility, enshrined in the BBC Charter, to provide news that is balanced, fair and accurate. In the case of its coverage of Palestine and Israel, this is not the case. Audiences are constantly presented with the Israeli perspective on events, while being kept in the dark about Israel’s atrocities committed against the Palestinians.” It is within that sort of context that we must view displays of solidarity by the likes of Netanyahu and Blair on any issue, not just missing settlers.
So when the Israeli prime minister declares that the Palestinian Authority should dissolve the newly-created unity government because “they cannot build a government that is backed by the kidnappers of children and the murderers of innocents” he should take a long, hard look at his own record, for that is exactly what his government, and those before it, are guilty of. Never mind the chutzpah, Netanyahu is being a “tsvuak” (hypocrite) of the highest order. Come to think of it, though, I think I prefer plain old schmuck; that suits him down to the ground.
I toured the recently opened 9/11 Museum last night. There is quite a bit to report. The size and scale of the building and many sections are actually impressive. One can see how the general public will be very taken by the entire presentation, and therefore, take what they see as truth.
However, if the original intent of the museum was to pay homage to those who perished, the exhibits are far off the mark. Instead, the creators have co-opted the tragedy to substantiate the official narrative. The museum just solidifies the shock & awe of the events of 9/11, and gives the public a visual and auditory experience that will be firmly etched in their memory far into the future.
There are exhibits on each of the towers. There are photos of their original construction. There were sections of steel columns, elevator parts, and parts of the foundation. There were displays of personal items of those who perished. There were many audio recordings with slide shows being projected of pictures of victims, survivors, and onlookers in a state of terror. There are film clips, and transcripts of conversations from that day. There is an ambulance and a fire truck, which show the damage from the debris. There are videos of the towers on fire. There are even photos of people jumping. Then there are even large videos of the demolition of each tower. But by the time people view these, they’ve been thoroughly distracted and emotionally overcome by the magnitude of the horror people experienced that day, so they cannot recognize the implications of the disintegration and free-fall of 110 stories of steel-framed structures.
There is a section on Osama Bin Laden, the alleged hijackers, Kaleed Sheikh Mohammed, and Al Qaeda. There were two film clips of hijackers passing through the airports. However, the one from Dulles has no time stamp and I think the only other one is actually taken from Portland, ME, not Logan Airport. Nevertheless, people viewing this display were shown exactly who the official narrative wants the blame to be attributed to.
To my surprise, there was even a small section on the public’s questioning of the events. This included photos of people calling for investigations, protestors claiming 9/11 was an inside job, and the cover of Popular Mechanics which supposedly debunked all those “conspiracy theories”. At least the museum planners can attempt to say they were thorough in addressing all of the “focus groups”. But this small section did nothing to go into the broad scope of alternative research based on science and journalistic analysis. If only they had a copy of “The New Pearl Harbor” by David Ray Griffin next to a copy of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses“.
Then, of course, there were quilts, photos, and artifacts that good hearted Americans created in tribute to those who suffered and died. There were photos and statements about how we all came together and rose above the tragedy because we’re resilient and won’t be defeated. After all, we have to keep up our “American exceptionalism”. The framers of the official account took an unspeakable tragedy and turned it into a cause for patriotism.
There was a digital presentation showing the flight paths. There where photos of Shanksville and the Pentagon. But by now you may be noticing there’s a glaring omission to this report. There is nothing on WTC7!I still can’t believe it when the museum covers so much of everything else.
To add further weight to this proposition, just think how the truth about WTC7 actually changes the meaning of everything in the museum! Just think how the entire official narrative caves in on itself. It boggles the mind…
The alternative flyer by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth is an essential educational tool. The cover looks similar to the official pamphlet, except it says “9/11 Reality: Welcome to the other story about 9/11.” This is the Visitor Guide For Truth Seekers. With the thousands of people visiting the 9/11 Memorial and 9/11 Museum daily, distributing these flyers is a huge opportunity to open the eyes of the public. This is our chance to counter the deliberate distortion of history. I urge us all to meet the challenge.
(sf911truth editor’s note: The headline above was in response to a June 5, 2014 article in Newsweek called “The 9/11 Museum’s Biggest Oversight: The World Trade Center’s Neighborhood“, written by Alexander Nazaryan, which laments the museum’s oversight of including any mention of the historical arabic roots of the part of New York City where the museum now resides. However, we think the oversight of mentioning WTC Building 7, a 47-story tall building that suddenly collapses at free fall speed on 9/11, even though it wasn’t hit by a plane, is the more egregious example of the museum omitting evidence, especially evidence that could lead to people questioning the official narrative.)
Leaked documents pertaining to the case against an American computer hacker currently serving a 10-year prison sentence have exposed discrepancies concerning the government’s prosecution and raise further questions about the role of a federal informant.
The documents — evidence currently under seal by order of a United States District Court judge and not made public until now — shines light on several aspects of the case against Jeremy Hammond, a 29-year-old hacktivist from Chicago, Illinois who was arrested in March 2012 with the help of an online acquaintance-turned-government informant. Last May, Hammond entered a plea deal in which he acknowledged his role in a number of cyberattacks waged by the hacktivist group Anonymous and various offshoots; had his case gone to trial, Hammond would have faced a maximum of life behind bars if found guilty by jury.
Articles published in tandem by The Daily Dotand Motherboard on Thursday this week pull back the curtain on the government’s investigation into Hammond and reveal the role that Hector Monsegur, a hacker who agreed to cooperate with authorities in exchange for leniency with regards to his own criminal matters, played in directing others towards vulnerable targets and orchestrating cyberattacks against the websites of foreign governments, all while under the constant watch of the US government.
Two-and-a-half years before Hammond pleaded guilty, Monsegur did the same upon being nailed with hacking charges himself. In lieu of risking a hefty sentence, however, Monsegur immediately agreed to aid the authorities and serve as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, eventually helping law enforcement nab Hammond and others. Last week, Monsegur was finally sentenced for the crimes he pleaded guilty to back in 2012 and was spared further jail time by the same judge who in November sent Hammond away for a decade.
Hector Xavier Monsegur
According to this week’s revelations, Monsegur did more than just inform for the FBI after his arrest. The articles suggest rather that from behind his internet handle “Sabu,” Monsegur solicited vulnerabilities and targets from a wide range of hackers and then handed them off to other online acquaintances, including Hammond, in order to pilfer, plunder and otherwise ravage the websites and networks of foreign entities and at least one major American corporation.
Combined, the articles and the evidence contained therein corroborate very serious allegations concerning the Justice Department’s conduct in the case against Hammond and numerous other hacktivists, while raising numerous questions surrounding the FBI’s knowledge in hundreds of cyberattacks and its documented efforts to coordinate those campaigns using their informant.
Excerpts from previously unpublished chat logs and other evidence used in the Hammond case and obtained by the Dot and Motherboard are cited to provide a new point-of-view concerning two matters in particular: the December 2011 hacking of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor; and a January 2012 campaign led by Anonymous against government websites in Brazil and the US.
Contrary to the government’s claims, the Dot article alleges that Hammond did not mastermind the hack against Stratfor, but was rather told to target the Texas-based intelligence firm after Monsegur was made aware of a vulnerability in its network by a mysterious hacker who used the handle “Hyrriiya.” Weeks’ worth of private chats and group messages logged by Monsegur for the FBI after his arrest confirm that Hyrriiya breached Stratfor first, then sent details to the hacker he knew as “Sabu,” who in turn personally recruited Hammond to take the attack to the next level. For the first time, a clear timeline now exists to show exactly how the hack was hatched first by Hyrriiya, then Monsegur. A claim made ahead of Hammond’s sentencing hearing in which he claimed to have never even heard of Stratfor until he was fed the target by Sabu is authenticated with the logs.
Motherboard’s report focuses on a span of time only weeks after the Stratfor hack earned Anonymous headlines around the globe. Monsegur at that time was maintaining a list of targets in Brazil that would then be dispersed among members of Anonymous and other hackers to be defaced en masse as part of at least two concurrent cyber operations carried out in early 2012: an anti-corruption campaign against the Brazilian government; and another op in response to the shutdown of file-sharing site Megaupload.
“Sabu would say he wanted so-and-so, that another hacking team wanted this particular target,” Hammond told Motherboard from prison last month. “Some Brazilian was looking for people to hack them once I gave him the keys.”
Previously, Hammond said that Monsegur directed Anonymous to target websites belonging to no fewer than eight foreign governments while he was fully cooperating with the FBI. Only now, however, has documentation surfaced to verify that claim and others about alleged acts of cyberwar carried out by the the government by proxy.
“It’s completely outrageous that they made Sabu into this informant and then, it appears, requested him to then get other hackers to invade sites and look for vulnerabilities in those sites,” Michael Ratner, an attorney for WikILeaks, told Motherboard. “What that tells you is that this federal government is really — it’s really the major cybercriminal out there.”
The articles were first published Thursday morning and were a joint effort by journalists Dell Cameron of the Dot, Daniel Stuckey of Motherboard and RT’s Andrew Blake.
Since 2010, I have been Press TV’s Canadian correspondent based in Calgary, Alberta. I have been forced by the actions and statements of Canada’s ruling neoconservatives to hone in on the role Zionists and the organized Jewish community play in Canadian society.
Canada’s current government has shifted this country from being a comparatively benign and peaceful nation to being a warmongering de facto colony of Israel. I believe the evidence suggests this didn’t just happen by accident; the Zionization of Canada was a carefully planned, well-oiled operation.
If I was wrong in my analyses of the interface between Canada’s government and pro-Israel forces, I believe I would have been invited on one of the many Zionist-controlled media organs here, debated by some high-IQ Zionist intellectual and exposed as erroneous and foolish. I believe it is because we at Press TV are accurate in our analyses of Canadian power and politics that a segment of the organized Jewish community has decided to turn to coercion.
I would like to make available an email I received from the Jewish Defense League, a group described in an FBI report entitled “Terrorism 2000/2001” as a “violent extremist organization:”
“Mr Blakeney,
In the middle of the last century, Jews had no right or means of response when they were demonised, persecuted and attacked by your ideological soulmates. Today, the world is a very different place. When we are attacked by hate-filled antisemites like you, we respond with all the resources at our disposal, and with extreme prejudice.
You clearly enjoy indulging your pathological hatred of Jews, but there are three things that you should remember: The code that we live by is ‘never again’; our loathing of those who incite hatred against Jews is stronger than their hatred of us; we didn’t choose you as an enemy, you chose us.”
There are several fallacies committed in this unpleasant email. Firstly, I am not a “hate-filled anti-Semite.” I define Anti-Semitism as an “irrational hatred of all Jews generically.” You have to dislike all Jews and irrationally so to qualify as an Anti-Semite in my book. I merely oppose the actions, arguments and assumptions of those Jews who are oppressors, warmongers, apologists for Israel and proponents of a Zionist exeptionalist police state, etc. Some Jews agree with me, some almost agree with me and others evidently hate me. Either way, criticizing those in power, regardless of their ethnicity, is a natural right which I embrace zealously.
Unlike the JDL, who claim they intend to act with “extreme prejudice” against me, I’m guided by post-judice insofar as my conclusions are derived from an analysis of the factual record. My analyses are rational, logical and evidence based. Evidence emerged of Israeli involvement in 9/11 and then I deduced that Israel conducts false-flag terrorism against the US. The evidence came first, then my conclusion.
Equally misguided is to characterize my alleged “hatred of Jews” as “pathological.” The usage of psychoanalytic verbiage to quash criticism of Jews is the product of Sigmund Freud and members of the Frankfurt School, Jewish thinkers who popularized their ethnocentric doctrines in the first half of the 20th Century. By describing my criticism of certain Jews as “pathological,” the writer of the email exempts himself from addressing the content of my criticisms. If my criticisms are the product of a psychopathology, then they have no relation to the real world and thus need not be addressed. How convenient.
Some academicians and law experts have advised me to take this threatening email to the authorities here in Canada. However, I am intuitively averse to having the state decide which emails are good and which are bad. I’d rather engage in debate and dialogue with my interlocutors. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that Canada’s current regime would ever prosecute Jewish ethnic activists like the members of the JDL. That would be in contravention of the Jewish-exceptionalist ideology that seemingly governs this country at the present time.
The Canadian state has defenestrated the values of British Common Law that once guided Canadian society (such as freedom of speech, freedom of expression, adversarial argumentation, habeas corpus and freedom of movement) in favor of the eliminationist ideology of Jewish exceptionalism. Critics of Jews find themselves arrested for “hate speech” or “inciting genocide” and non-Canadian citizens are barred from the country or deported.
For example, it has now been demonstrated that Canada’s ruling neoconservatives barred pro-Palestinian peace activist and parliamentarian George Galloway from Canada in 2009 at the behest of the JDL. This is one reason I don’t fear the JDL per se; there was a time when they had no political clout and thus had to actively engage in their own thuggery and aggression toward those whose perspectives they sought to suppress. Now they have Canada’s MPs and politicized police forces at their disposal to do their dirty work for them. If Mr. Galloway had turned up at the Canadian border in mid-2009, the police would have arrested and incarcerated the six-times-elected British MP, based on lobbying efforts by the JDL. In this epoch, the JDL can sit back and let Israel’s client regime in Ottawa do all the work.
The extent of the Zionization of Canada is revealed by the very presence of the JDL in this country. The militant organization is reportedly proscribed in the US and in many EU countries. In spite of this, periodically Meir Weinstein, leader of the JDL in Canada, pops up on our TV screens as if he is a moderate Canadian political pundit. Quite what the members of the JDL contribute to Canadian society other than aggressive censoriousness and ethnic tension is unclear.
In 1995 German ethnic-activist and historian Ernst Zundel had his house firebombed by Zionist terrorists who disagreed with his historical conclusions. A group called the Jewish Armed Resistance Movement claimed responsibility for the attack but the Toronto Star later claimed that the group had ties to the JDL. Instead of locking up those aggressors who arrogated to themselves the right to revoke Mr. Zundel’s freedom of speech and destroy his property, the police incarcerated Zundel under so-called anti-terrorism legislation, which was later found to be unconstitutional.
Another falsehood in the email is the claim that “we didn’t choose you as an enemy, you chose us.” I grew up in a philo-Semitic household with holidays to Israel and visits to Auschwitz (and I’m not even Jewish!). It was primarily Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and proven involvement in false flag attacks on Western countries that spurred me to voice criticism of certain Jews. Within recent days, Australia’s former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser has confirmed that Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty in June 1967. Is he a “pathological” “antisemite” too?
So, to repeat, my conclusions are post-judicial not prejudicial (I actually pre-judged Jews favorably). The Zionists want to use countries like Britain, Canada and the US as playthings to advance Israeli geopolitical goals, expending the blood and treasure of us stupid goyim rather than that of Jews. Certain Zionist fanatics in my view declared war on my historically philo-Semitic people not vice-versa.
I’m keen to engage in dialogue with my detractors. It seems because I have the moral high ground and evidence on my side that some Zionists are now resorting to coercion to silence me.
In my view, the pen is mightier than the sword. The JDL should take a leaf out of my book instead of trying to eliminate anybody who criticizes them and their fellow Zionist ideologues.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making familiar noises about Hamas and “terrorism” in the wake of the announcement of the Palestinian unity government. “I call on all responsible elements in the international community not to rush to recognise a Palestinian government which has Hamas as part of it and which is dependent on Hamas,” he is reported to have said. “Hamas is a terrorist organisation that calls for Israel’s destruction, and the international community must not embrace it. That would not bolster peace, it would strengthen terror.” Israel, let us not forget, is a nuclear-armed state with massive military capabilities which is occupying and colonising Palestinian land. It is the state for which successive political party leaders and prime ministers in Britain have expressed their unflinching support.
Netanyahu clearly needs a reminder that his state was itself founded on what has been called “Jewish terrorism”. As the world prepares to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Israel’s timeline of terror, which started well before the founding of the state, makes interesting reading. It was intended, quite deliberately, to attack the British Mandatory government at a time when Britain and its allies were leading the fight against Nazi Germany and the Axis powers.
Throughout 1944, as the Allies prepared for and invaded Europe to free it of the Nazi menace, the Irgun and Stern Gang Zionist terrorist groups carried out a series of bombings against police stations and other government offices across Palestine. Their terrorism was not confined to historic Palestine, however. In November 1944, two “Jewish terrorists” murdered Britain’s Lord Moyne, the Minister of State resident in Cairo. The plan, it is claimed, was to blame the murder on Arabs but the Egyptian police caught the murderers who were hanged after being tried and found guilty.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a strong supporter of Zionism, said in the House of Commons that such acts will make him “reconsider” his support “if our dreams for Zionism are to end in the smoke of assassins’ pistols and our labours for its future are to produce a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany.” Even the Executive of the Jewish Agency referred to the group behind the murder as a “terrorist organisation”.
British military and security personnel were also attacked: in September 1944 a policeman was killed in Jerusalem; in December 1946 an army officer was kidnapped and flogged; and in July 1947 two British sergeants were hanged by Irgun and their bodies were booby-trapped. The most infamous attack of all during that period was the July 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 British and local officials were killed.
Much has been made by Israel’s propagandists over the years about the visits of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Husseini, to Adolf Hitler, in order to court Nazi support for the Palestinian cause. Little is said, though, about the efforts of the eponymous Avraham Stern and his gang to do a deal with the Nazis “concerning the solution of the Jewish question in Europe”. This has been described as an “aberrant episode in Jewish history” which “should alert us to how far extremists may go in times of distress, and where their manias may lead.”
Throughout its short history, the state of Israel has committed many terrorist acts against Palestinian civilians. Former Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur is on record as stating that from 1948 onwards Israel always fought “against a population that lives in villages and cities.” Israeli military analyst Zeev Schiff has noted that Gur’s comments are basically an admission that the so-called Israel Defence Forces have “always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously.” Atrocities took place in places like Qibya, where sixty-nine villagers were killed in 1953, two-thirds of them women and children; and Kafr Kassem in 1956, where 48 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them women and children. In neighbouring Lebanon, Israeli troops facilitated the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 when up to 3,500 Palestinian refugees were slaughtered in their homes. The massive, and disproportionate Israeli onslaught against the largely civilian population of Gaza in 2008/9 and again in 2012 was merely the most significant of a long catalogue of such acts. Palestinian farmers and fishermen are attacked by the Israel “Defence” Forces on an almost daily basis, with an accompanying loss of life, limbs and livelihood.
Israel continues to condone the terrorist acts of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem; security forces regularly stand and watch as they commit their crimes, only springing into action when the victims are moved to defend themselves.
Arguably the biggest act of terrorism is Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of the land of historic Palestine. That this continues in the full view of history, the media and the international community is a disgrace matched only by its politicians’ attempts to justify it on the grounds of “self-defence”. Netanyahu’s latest bleats about Hamas and terrorism are one example of where – no apologies for paraphrasing Orwell once again – lies are made to appear truthful and murder becomes respectable. He presides over a government which is well-versed in the dark arts of terror against civilians.
The state of Israel was founded on terrorism and its timeline of terror is long and bloody, and has yet to reach its end. When politicians and journalists have the courage to challenge the Israeli prime minister’s outrageous claims in an objective manner, perhaps it will.
Jon Faine, of Radio 774 ABC Melbourne, interviews and insults former Australia Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser, in the process attempting to defend the indefensible, Israel.
In his book, Dangerous Allies, Mr Fraser’s suggests that it is time for Australia to formulate its own foreign policy and not, in future—as Captain Kirk might have put it—To blindly go where its current allies seek to lead it (my phrase, not Mr Fraser’s).
Faine is almost as rude and overbearing to this guest as he was towards Kevin Bracken, who was (at the time I made a video about his encounter with Faine), Victorian Branch Secretary of the Maritime Union and the President of the Victorian Trades Hall Council and was attempting to point out some of the many anomalies in the official 9/11 report, but was prevented from doing so by Faine’s obnoxious monologues.
In this video, I show excerpts from the Kevin Bracken video, which was uploaded in October, 2010, as well as from Friends of Israel — Enemies Inside the Gates, from which Jon Faine appears to have learned nothing. He is a gatekeeper for Israel, and has no business being in front of a microphone in the studios of the publicly-funded Australian Broadcast Corporation.
NOTES & LINKS
A recoding of the radio broadcast of May 9th, 2014 featuring Jon Faine, Damien Kingsbury and Malcolm Fraser can be found here: http://tunein.com/topic/?TopicId=7312…
The probe into the Maidan “snipers problem” – by the new Ukrainian government underwritten by it – continues. On May 13, the fascinating interim findings were partly revealed, at a press conference called by parliamentary investigation head Gennady Moskal. Bullet forensics exonerated the previously blamed Berkut security force. Something in the findings also placed the unidentified shooters somewhere – unspecified – among “the ranks of the protesters.” It could even have been the EuroMaidan militants, he admitted, but MP Moskal thought infiltrators from the government’s security service SBU made more sense.
He predicted decades of debate with no resolution, and a week later he announced that a number of key documents were destroyed, complicating the search. But whatever led the investigators to this apparently dead-end admission, it seemed like a break in the script that put the snipers in areas secured by the government of then-president Viktor Yanukovych. For those following the details, the May 13 revelation seemed like a bit of realism creeping in.
But then the current Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council – Andriy Parubiy – stepped forward, hinting at a divergent probe delving further into fantasy. His investigation blames Russia and Vladimir Putin for the snipers, even though it was Parubiy – not Putin – who was supposed to secure the “EuroMaidan” where, the evidence increasingly says, the problem snipers operated.
Sniper Commandant?
While he insists he’s not a fascist, Andriy Parubiy co-founded the Nazi-inspired Social National party, now Svoboda, in the 1990s. Outwardly, he went mainstream early on, and joined Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party, running security operations on the Maidan for the 2004 “Orange Revolution.”
In 2013-14’s more violent regime-change “protests,” he was given the same responsibility. As Euromaidan Commandant and head of the Self-Defense Committee, he was in charge of security for areas where the mob’s authority had overridden the government’s.
We now know (partly from MP Moskal) that – on the pivotal day of February 20, which will remain the main focus of this report – sniper shots first hit police forces, and came from buildings Parubiy controlled. Ukraine’s previous head of the Security Service (SBU) Alexander Yakimenkosaid so in March, after fleeing to Russia. When the Commandant proved unable to stop the sniping, which everyone claimed to be against, Yakimenko says he offered to send in a unit to help. He only needed a guarantee his men wouldn’t be shot by Parubiy’s, but he says that was denied. From all this, the SBU chief deduced the snipers were under Parubiy’s command and protection.
In truth, this failure to stop the killing could be due to malice, or incompetence, or some mix. Whatever the case, the resulting bloodshed was all but necessary for the Kiev Cabal to finally take over. And considering his eminent competence, they made Parubiy security chief for all of Ukraine as soon as they could.
Sniper Investigator?
Reports from early March, before the Yakimenko accusations, spoke of a parliamentary investigation Parubiy himself was selected to lead. The apparent conflict of interest may, or may not, be why MP Moskal now seems to be in charge of that.
But in a May 21 interview for Euractiv, Parubiy speaks of a probe that sounds different, a probe blaming Russian Special forces – Spetsnaz – for penetrating his security cordon. Asked about the snipers, with the note “you must have first-hand information,” he sidestepped his own direct knowledge and told Euractiv:
“Now that we are conducting investigations, we have found that 18 Spetsnaz, including snipers, were in Maidan. The investigation will reveal from which points they were shooting, but I can already say that they did everything they could to spill blood and provoke civil unrest.”
…
“We have a working hypothesis which would be confirmed or rejected by the investigation, that in the most difficult days they shot equally – at Berkut and at the Maidan activists. Their aim was to instigate a more violent civic unrest … that Russia could warm its hands at this fire.”
…
“We know that Russian snipers shot at both sides.”
As Washington’s Blognoted in March, “everyone agrees that the snipers were false flag terrorists sowing chaos and confusion. … they only disagree about who the responsible party is.” This is another example, and (as we’ll see) the worst theory yet. And just look at who is trying to feed it to us.
Master Thug
From February 18-20, security forces and civilians were, as Parubiy says, killed somewhat “equally” by these snipers to create “violent civic unrest.” But there was a telling pattern to how different parts of that were timed.
First, consider how ten unarmed policemen were shot dead the night of February 18th, forcing a decision to bring in armed security forces. That allowed later killings to be realistically blamed on them, as happened. (Were these the same provocateurs present a day and a half later, or a different shift?)
By the 20th, a force was assembled on the Maidan adequate to stomp the police out by noon and shoot the Berkut out of their nearest posts by 12:45. They even blocked the train bringing in the Army support, and readied to march up to the central government’s buildings and stomp whomever they wished. This force was under Parubiy’s leadership no later than his announcement early on the 21st that “all the leaders of the hundreds are declaring their consent to coordinated action, including the hundreds of the Right Sector … We’re in control of Kiev. We have seized control of the government quarter.”
It was only at that shift in power that the Parubiy “Spetsnaz snipers” unleashed their main killing spree. On video and within bare minutes, they picked off at least 30 unarmed civilians sent in behind the Hotel Ukraine, to top off “Heaven’s Hundred.” That is, this un-ambiguous, unforgivable “Yanukovych crime” was delivered as soon as the natural punishment for it had been placed.
Commandant Parubiy, who oversaw the distribution and timing of much of that violence, couldn’t deny its pattern helped them, as he said to Euractiv, “oust Yanukovich.” That prompted the question:
Q: So you recognize that you ousted Yanukovich?
A: Yes. He ran away.
Q: But he ran away because he was afraid for his life?
A: Yes of course. After so many deaths and such national tension, he understood that if he didn’t run away, the personal consequences could be very bad.
Under this plausible threat, the president fled. An 1:36 pm announcement from the Maidan ordered members of Parliament to meet at 3:00 to vote him out for good. They were given “a guarantee that the Parliament would not be stormed during the session.” The “hundreds” just snatched that option, but promised not to use it – unless maybe they were provoked by a wrong vote. In the end most of Parliament was willing to show up on the 22nd instead, and those agreed unanimously to impeach Yanukovych – and not be stomped. After all, Parubiy’s Maidan machine still controlled Kiev.
Confirming Yakimenko’s Charges
When he spoke on May 13, investigation head Gennady Moskal did not specify any sniper perches, just implied that they were behind the lines Parubiy was in charge of. By noon on the 20th, this had expanded to include at least the Maidan at large, the Trade Unions Hall (Maidan HQ), the Conservatory, and Hotel Ukraine. The October Palace and unknown other buildings fell into his hands just after noon.
Former SBU chief Yakimenko said in March the first shots “came from the Philharmonic Hall,” probably meaning the (musical) Conservatory. After that, “many have witnessed 20 people leaving the building” with their sniper gear in bags. These “split into two groups – 10 men each.” One of these “took a position at the Ukraine hotel,” right next-door, and “the Security Service lost track” of the other sniper team.
Parubiy must know by now where the snipers were, but he doesn’t want to tell us yet. The probe “will reveal from which points they were shooting,” he promises.
Yakimenko said “no weapons could be brought to Maidan without Parubiy’s permission. Hand guns, rifles, scopes – he had to agree to all of that.”
In one report, Parubiy gave a rough count of those armed with handguns – about 100. But he said “those people are not ours, they are unorganized,” just like the snipers. “This is kind of a problem.” This when he also said “we created a headquarters in the Maidan and we will not tolerate any action without coordinating with it.”
As mentioned above, Yakimenko says he offered to help Parubiy flush out the gunmen, but was rebuffed. If true, that suggests either a criminal denial of his incompetence, or the commandant’s active approval of the killing.
The SBU chief has a 20-man sniper team in Parubiy’s turf. The man who would know might refer to the same group when he speaks of “18 Spetsnaz, including snipers.” Maybe 20 was a visual estimate, and the “Russians” split up into groups of nine?
One might expect Parubiy to be embarrassed that his own secured buildings were so infiltrated, but he puts the villains “in Maidan.” The original claims of February had the snipers in or on government-held buildings further southeast. Why can’t he just say that now? Why openly claim such a humiliating security breach unless the alternative is even worse?
Parubiy even claims he failed to stop the snipers on the way back out. After sneaking in and unleashing this mayhem, they walked away from the Maidan undetected, and “I think they escaped from Ukraine,” he told Euractiv.
But it was reported at the time that two snipers were caught by his teams, one at least in the Hotel Ukraine. At mid-day on the 20th, an official tweet said, “members of Maidan Self-Defense captured one of the snipers. He is currently in Maidan headquarters.” But a different “Maidan commandant” – Stepan Kubiv – said he was just there and didn’t hear any such thing. A message of the 21st said a “sniper was caught on the 10th floor of the Hotel Ukraina … Personality to be identified,” but it never was. A later one heard that “maidan activists caught two snipers” total, but the source said nothing about their fate or identities.
If they were caught red-handed, why doesn’t Parubiy mention these snipers now? Did they even exist, outside these vague reports? Were they real, but managed to escape? Or did Parubiy order them released? The balance of reasons suggests the killers were under his command and protection, as Yakimenko said, and as the evidence always suggested.
Clearly Commandant Parubiy, of the February “Failures,” is not the best one to be speaking about the Maidan snipers. Expect the May interview to be his last word on that bloodshed.
Postscript: “Ensuring Peace and Safety”
In more promising areas, Andriy Parubiy remains the go-to guy. As the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, he’s now tasked with the brutal and confusing “anti–terrorist” operation in eastern Ukraine, and apparently in Odessa. This he wages with a “National Guard” that grew out of his murky Maidan machine, against those Ukrainians who dare to vote against the Kiev Cabal, pushing Ukraine deeper into civil war territory with violence he always blames on “Russian terrorists.”
Helping overturn two popular votes for Yanukovych, ensuring a third overthrow will never be needed, plus his new “security” work, has earned Parubiy friends in the “Democratic” West. He spoke to Euractiv while in Brussels, he said, “to participate in a session of the Ukraine-NATO working group” regarding the Russian “hybrid war” against Ukraine. As he explained it:
“When we speak about fighting terrorists, the best way is to find their centre of coordination, of financing. In this case, this centre is one person, it is Putin. That’s why I say – we have no crisis in Slavyansk, in Donetsk, in Luhansk. We have a crisis in Putin’s head. … if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, nobody can tell where his tanks will be tomorrow. … To stop Putin is not only Ukraine’s major goal. It should be the goal of the entire civilized world.”
In Parubiy’s dangerously unhinged thinking, even the massacre at the Trade Unions building in Odessa on May 2 “was a classic provocation in which pro-Russian groups had to seize the administration buildings in the same way it happened in Donetsk and Luhansk.” But this time, the anti-Putsch activists were clearly chased in, and followed in, by an ultra-nationalist lynch mob. He also contradicts himself by claiming the building was already “a kind of headquarters for the separatists,” where “the substance that provoked the blaze” was brought in by them “a long time ago.”
That’s why, he says, “when Molotov cocktails were thrown from the fourth floor at the participants of the Ukrainian rally, the substance inflamed” and an “explosion happened.”
Of course, on-site video and photos prove this was terrorism, and it seems the mob torched the building largely to hide their brutal murder of perhaps 272 citizens. That Parubiy was there to help coordinate it, after attending a top-level April 24 meeting to plan the Odessa “counter-terrorist” operation, makes it seem like state-sponsored terrorism. A former deputy head of the Odessa police, now fled to Donetsk, blames Parubiy for personally organizing the massacre. He was seen there on April 29th, delivering bulletproof vests to one Mykola Volkov – a criminal deputized as a “sotnik” (the term used for commanders of “hundreds” on the Maidan). Volkov was later seen shooting a pistol at the Trade Unions building, wearing a bulletproof vest, and phoning in a false story – possibly to Parubiy himself.
With Ukrainians all united but Moscow’s agents everywhere, the “security” chief told Euractiv, they needed an “overhaul” of “the entire security and defense sector,” and maybe civil society too, including “criminal groups” and “ethnic groups.”
The NATO allies had just heard the same and understood, promising “extensive support to the Ukrainian delegation” – including this false-flagging fascist thug – considering their “crucial role in ensuring peace and safety in Europe and the world.” Further, they “expressed readiness” to help in “reform” of the Parubiy’s defense and security sectors.
Events in Odessa, Maruipol, and elsewhere might have convinced the Cabal’s double-speaking Western allies that civil society “overhauls” are best left to Parubiy and his “Ukrainian rally” types.
To considerable media fanfare, the National September 11 Memorial Museum held a dedication ceremony on Thursday, May 15 and plans to open its doors to the general public this coming Wednesday, May 21.
The new museum pledges itself to “demonstrating the consequences of terrorism on individual lives and its impact on communities at the local, national, and international levels”—and if 9/11 hasn’t already been elevated to the status of a full-blown religion in America, this should do it once and for all.
The new 9/11 religion will be devoted to endlessly remembering the events of 9/11 (“Never forget!”), and its main center of worship will be—where else?—“Ground Zero.” Ah, but the vast majority of the museum is not above ground, but rather below it. This was done so that visitors may “be in the very space where the Twin Towers once stood,” and also “because federal preservation law mandated that those remnants be publicly accessible.”
In some respects you could think of the new religion as an offshoot of the holocaust religion, and should you doubt the analogy, consider that the museum houses a 2,500 square foot repository in which are now stored the unidentified human remains—mostly bags of pulverized bone—of more than a thousand 9/11 victims…or…that no less than the president of the United States, along with the mayor of New York, have pronounced the ground upon which the museum sits to be “sacred.”
“A lot of family members have agreed that this is the right approach,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, referring to the decision to store human remains on the site. “I’m confident this is being done respectfully after a lot of consultation with family members, and in a way that really dignifies this moment and the sacred ground we’re discussing.”
Consider also that, according to the museum’s website, “The National September 11 Memorial & Museum has partnered with the New York City Department of Education and the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education to develop a robust set of 9/11 lessons for K-12 classrooms.” It sounds almost like they’re planning to teach the kids the holocaust and 9/11 in the same lesson.
Built at a cost of $700 million, the museum features two “core” exhibition areas, both underground and located at the “archaeological heart of the World Trade Center site.” The exhibition halls are in proximity to what are known as the “Survivors’ Stairs,” and are packed with exhibits, including “artifacts, photographs, audio and video tapes” and much, much more.
But the possibility that Israel may have been one of the principle perpetrators behind the 9/11 attack doesn’t seem to be in the mix anywhere. At least there’s no mention of it on the official website, so if you do plan to visit the museum (admission $24), I wouldn’t count on seeing any exhibits on the luck of Larry Silverstein, the five dancing Israelis, Urban Moving Systems or its activities as a Mossad front operation, or a vast body of other evidence pointing to Israeli involvement in the attacks.
You will, however, should you show up on May 25—that’s four days after the main opening—get to attend a program entitled “9/11 Conspiracy Theories: Why They Exist and What Role They Play in Society,” featuring talks by Kathryn Olmstead and Michael Barkun. Both are noted academics, and both have authored books on the subject of conspiracy theories.
In fact, the 9/11 religion, as a main tenet of its faith, seems very much devoted to espousing the grandest conspiracy theory of them all—i.e. the official government narrative as determined by the 9/11 Commission, whose executive director, Philip Zelikow, is reportedly an Israeli/US dual citizen.
In that narrative, of course, we have 19 hijackers outwitting the intelligence agencies of the West, winging past NORAD defenses, ramming planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and accomplishing all this with relatively little flight training. And in case you should happen to forget, the 9/11 Museum seems quite intent on reminding you—these people were Muslims. One of the museum exhibits is to be a film entitled “The Rise of Al Qaeda,” which has set off a controversy (more about which below).
The 9/11 Memorial Museum consists of both the museum itself, as well as the 9/11 Memorial. The latter is located on the grounds above and around the museum, and its prominent features are two cascading reflection pools, each nearly an acre in size, bordering which the names of 9/11 victims are set in bronze.
The director of the museum is Alice Greenwald, while the CEO of the nonprofit overseeing both the museum and the memorial is Joseph Daniels. And then there is Clifford Chanin, who serves as the museum’s education director. Together the trio seems to be heavily involved in the day-to-day administration of the enterprise, and further they seem to be the three officials most often mentioned or quoted by the media.
In addition, all three—Chanin, Greenwald, and Daniels—are listed as having helped host a conference of the Council of American Jewish Museums that took place in March of 2013, while Chanin himself participated in one of the event’s panel discussions—entitled “Handle With Care: Sensitive Issues Surrounding Cultural Property”—along with Gabriel Goldstein, of Yeshiva University Museum, and Richard Freund, of the University of Hartford.
Chanin, by the way has also served as curator of the Legacy of Absence collection for the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, and reportedly also founded the Legacy Project, described as a nonprofit group “dedicated to documenting contemporary responses—in visual art, literature, film and public debates about memory—to historical traumas around the world.”
As you may imagine, obsessing over the holocaust— “in visual art, literature, film…” etc.—is a central preoccupation of the Legacy Project, but it seems Chanin has carried the same template into his work with the 9/11 Museum. On the official museum website, you can find an artists registry featuring a variety of artwork—from music and poetry to visual arts—with a 9/11 theme, plus information about the artists who created them.
One artist so featured is Lana Sokolov, an Israeli vocalist, choir conductor, and composer, who has a CD out entitled “Jewish Love Songs.” Ms. Sokolov is described as having been “active on the music scenes of Israel, Russia, and the US for the last 17 years,” and you can click here to watch a music video of her 9/11 song, “On That Day.”
Is there a continuum through all this? If Israelis were behind, or had a hand in, the destruction of the Twin Towers, then would it perhaps stand to reason that Israelis would also be behind (and profit from) the construction of the memorial built upon the same spot in their place?
The architect who designed the 9/11 Memorial, including its two pools, is Michael Arad, an Israeli/US dual national who previously served in the Israeli military. Reportedly Arad was chosen on the basis of having entered a competition, held back in 2003, in which contestants were invited to submit their designs for a 9/11 memorial. His design was selected out of a total of 5,201 entries, it was divulged.
“When I was in the Army, the unit I served in, you could never stop,” said Arad, speaking of his time served in the Israeli Army, which was during the first Intifada. “It was a volunteer unit, and there was a fairly high rate of attrition. The people stayed through are the people who were either great at it or the people who just didn’t know how to stop. And I fell into that second category.”
By all counts, Arad has an explosive temper, and he frequently clashed not only with other architects on the project, but also with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the government agency overseeing the task. Especially rocky, it seems, was his relationship with architect Daniel Libeskind, who is also Jewish.
Libeskind drew up what has been referred to as the “ground zero master plan,” and it seems an habitual source of friction between the two men was Arad’s “significant departures,” in his own design for the memorial, from Libeskind’s overall master plan for the entire 16-acre site. (Two other architectural firms also involved in the project were Davis Brody Bond and Snøhetta, and reportedly there was considerable bickering between Arad and the rest).
Perhaps the old adage about “two Jews and three opinions” is applicable here. But whatever the case, it seems the national memorial to the events of September 11 has been “hijacked,” in a manner of speaking, apparently in an effort to shape national perceptions—not only as they pertain to the substance and meaning of the tragic episode (tragic for the entire world), but also as to the character and distinctive traits of those purportedly behind the attacks.
As mentioned above, one of the museum exhibits is a film entitled “The Rise of Al Qaeda,” a short documentary—less than seven minutes long—but one over which there has been considerable controversy.
While it has not yet been made available to the general public, the video, narrated by NBC anchor Brian Willams, was screened before an interfaith advisory group, whose members have criticized it as inflammatory toward Muslims.
Their reactions are reported in an April 23, 2014 New York Times article, while two members of the group also registered their concerns in a letter to Greenwald, a letter which can be accessed in PDF form here.
As you know, many members of the Interfaith Advisory Group have expressed reservations about the narrative script for the documentary. Following our group’s request for a second viewing of the documentary and for a meeting with you, we expressed our concerns that, given the content of the video, museum visitors who do not have a very sophisticated understanding of the issues could easily come away equating al-Qaeda with Islam generally. We continue to posit that the video may very well leave viewers with the impression that all Muslims bear some collective guilt or responsibility for the actions of al-Qaeda, or even misinterpret its content to justify bigotry or even violence toward Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim (e.g., Sikhs). Equally troubling is Brian William’s narrative juxtaposed to the English translations. All American sources, news quotations and narrative are recorded in “Media English”, whereas translations from Middle Eastern sources were recorded in English or broken English with a heavy Middle Eastern accent.
The writers of the above are Peter Gudaitis, of New York Disaster Interfaith Services, and the Rev. Chloe Breyer, of the Interfaith Center of New York. According to the Times, they and other members of the group had been invited to take a pre-opening tour of the museum, to walk through and view its exhibits, and for the most part, says the Times, their impressions were favorable—that is, until they saw the film.
“As soon as it was over, everyone was just like, wow, you guys have got to be kidding me,” Gudaitis said.
Objections centered around the film’s use of such words as “Islamist” and “jihadist” without sufficient elaboration, possibly leaving the impression that Muslims in general condone terrorism. It was at this point that Gudaitis and Breyer wrote their letter to Greenwald—and yes, they did receive a reply from museum officials, but according to the Times, it was an unintentional one:
The response from the museum was immediate, though accidental: Clifford Chanin, the education director, inadvertently sent the group an email intended solely for the museum’s senior directors, indicating he was not overly concerned.
“I don’t see this as difficult to respond to, if any response is even needed,” he wrote.
A Muslim member of the interfaith group was so incensed over the matter he resigned from the panel.
“The screening of this film in its present state would greatly offend our local Muslim believers as well as any foreign Muslim visitor to the museum,” said Shiekh Mostafa Elazabawy, imam of Masjid Manhattan. “Unsophisticated visitors who do not understand the difference between Al Qaeda and Muslims may come away with a prejudiced view of Islam, leading to antagonism and even confrontation toward Muslim believers near the site.”
But the film has also been defended by Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, who supposedly “vetted” the script.
“The critics who are going to say, ‘Let’s not talk about it as an Islamic or Islamist movement,’ could end up not telling the story at all, or diluting it so much that you wonder where Al Qaeda comes from,” said Haykel, whose father is a Lebanese Christian and whose mother is Jewish.
Gudaitis and Breyer, in their letter, suggested some re-editing prior to the museum’s opening, or, should that not be possible, a disclaimer, placed either at the front of the film or in the room where it is shown, reading:
“This video in no way intends to imply that the vast majority of Muslims agree with or support the attacks perpetrated by the members of al-Qaeda. Most Muslim leaders and Muslim organizations worldwide have disavowed the ideology and actions of Al Qaeda. The Museum’s documentation of Al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism should not be mistaken for any implicit or explicit justification for racial, religious or ethnic profiling.”
But their suggestion was rejected. You can go here to watch a video of Chanin interviewed by Megyn Kelly on Fox News and insisting that, “The film will be shown as we’ve developed it.”
The issue of the storage of human remains at the museum has also stirred up a controversy. Museum officials assert that the decision was made in conjunction with the family members of 9/11 victims, and that it was handled respectfully… but not all the families are in agreement on that matter.
On Saturday, May 10, in a ceremony that had all the flavor of a religious rite, the remains were transported from the medical examiner’s office, where they were stored in the past, to the museum, to be housed in the special, 2,500 foot repository. Accompanied by blinking red lights, the procession was a solemn one, with more than 7,900 bags of bones and other remnants of the deceased victims being carried in three large, flag-draped containers.
According to one report, officials have stressed that “the remains will not be part of the museum’s exhibit and that their lost relatives’ bones will not be subjected to ghoulish gawking by strangers.” Nonetheless, the procession was met with a protest by a group of family members, many of them wearing black ribbons tied around their mouths. One of the protesters, Jim Riches, is quoted at length in a report at Voice of Russia.
“He was the hero before 9/11 and he was the hero after 9/11,” said Riches, speaking of his son, a 29-year-old firefighter who died in the attack and whose remains are among those that have yet to be positively identified by DNA sample.
Riches said the families were never polled to find out what they thought about the placement of the remains. He said many families wanted the remains above ground in a place that could be visited at any time, not one that closes at night like the museum will. “People have to pay 24-dollars to go pay their respects; it’s ridiculous”, he said.
Riches called the museum “a cash cow”. He said the nonprofit that runs the museum has paid their top executive and director close to half-a-million dollars a year. He said he thinks it’s “double what people from the National Park Service would bring in to do the same job at other national memorials like Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg and Shankesville.
“These guys are thinking of this as a revenue generating tourist attraction rather than being a memorial to our loved ones that would tell the story of what happened that day. We’re outraged,” he said.
You can also go here to access a website put up by the family members.
The dedication ceremony, held last Thursday, was attended in the main by dignitaries, family members (though presumably not the same ones protesting), and the media. On hand to deliver a speech was Obama, who at one point referred to the museum as a “sacred place of healing and of hope.”
But is it really? What are we to make of this museum, its architectural finesses, and its $700 million aggrandizement of a national tragedy? How do we interpret the stubborn refusal to change the “Rise of Al Qaeda” video or to at least put up the altogether reasonable disclaimer requested by the interfaith group? The museum seems very much to have been built, at least in part, with the intention of buttressing the official 9/11 narrative.
“In the battle for the American mind, reinforcements are often needed to stem the tide of truth,” writes Kenny, of the blog Kenney’s Sideshow, in a post on the museum put up on the day of the dedication ceremony.
And that may be an apt way of looking at it. The official 9/11 narrative is unraveling. Increasing numbers of people all over the world, including here in the US, have come to realize that it simply does not hold water. Perhaps, then, “reinforcements” were put in place, $700 million worth, in an effort to keep the whole artifice from falling apart at the seams.
The events of 9/11 gave birth to something truly monstrous. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives that day in New York, but it is a number relatively miniscule compared to the millions who perished in the wars which were fought afterward and which still go on to this day. At this point perhaps all one might do is ask the perennial question: Who benefited? The official mission of the 9/11 Memorial Museum, as defined on its website, is to “bear solemn witness” to the attacks, and also to “honor” the victims. Yet I wonder if this man…
…would feel himself so honored had he known that one day, in his memory, rising up in place of the building from which he plummeted, would arrive what could perhaps be thought of as a festival of the victorious posing itself as a canto to the dead. They say that in such moments as this, captured in the frame above, your whole life passes in front of your eyes. And truly I can only believe that at some point on the way down, free-falling past the office windows one by one, there came over him a sense of heightened consciousness, a moment of consummate awareness, of celestial, perhaps even omniscient realization, when the question mark in his mind turned into… an exclamation point!
The American Legion, founded in 1919, is the nation’s largest wartime veterans’ assistance organization.According to its mission statement, the Legion is committed to “devotion to our fellow servicemembers and veterans.”
Yet, Legion honchos are actively hostile to veterans of the USS Liberty – the most decorated ship since World War II. In fact Liberty is among the most decorated ships for a single engagement in the entire history of the U.S. Navy.
Despite the Liberty crew’s extraordinary record of heroism, Legion personnel have repeatedly treated Liberty veterans, their families, and their friends with arrogance, disrespect, and even disdain that many feel demeans these American servicemen, their ship, their service to their country, and the memory of their 34 fellow crewmembers who never returned.
Legion bigwigs have torpedoed American Legion members’ resolutions supporting the Liberty; prevented dissemination of information about the attack; refused to allow a booth by the Liberty Veterans Association at its 2013 national convention; and privately attempted to convince the Veterans of Foreign Wars to similarly prohibit a Liberty booth at its national convention. (The VFW rejected Legion advice and has again invited the Liberty crew to have a booth at the upcoming national convention in St. Louis.)
These actions have largely taken place behind closed doors, since there is considerable evidence that Legion members in general are supportive of Liberty survivors and their families – when they learn about them.
The animosity by Legion honchos toward Liberty veterans most likely has very little to do with the men who served on the USS Liberty, a typically diverse assortment of Americans from all over the United States.
The problem is that the foreign country that attacked them, killing 34 of their shipmates and injuring 174, was Israel. And while many people believe that the U.S. is the most powerful nation in the world today, this perception is not entirely accurate. Israel, through its pervasively embedded and extremely well financed lobby, is sometimes more powerful.
The Attack on the USS Liberty
Let’s look at what happened to the USS Liberty.[1]
In 1967 the Liberty, an electronics surveillance craft whose total armaments consisted of two pairs of 50 caliber machine guns for use in repelling boarders, was cruising in international waters in the eastern Mediterranean. On June 8th, after earlier aerial surveillance, Israeli air and sea forces suddenly attacked it.
Sortie after sortie of Israeli fighters and, eventually, torpedo boats pounded the largely defenseless ship with shells, rockets, napalm, and torpedoes.
Israeli forces machine-gunned stretcher-bearers, shot up life rafts, and killed seamen like one 20-year-old from Missouri who had played American Legion baseball.[2] Survivors describe the decks covered with body parts and running with blood. The Israeli onslaught lasted longer than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
During the attack, a U.S. aircraft carrier twice launched rescue flights that were then recalled. The commander of the aircraft carrier, Admiral Geis, later revealed that President Lyndon Johnson had ordered him to recall the aircraft because Johnson didn’t want our ally to be “embarrassed,” and the crew remained undefended.[3]
Crewmembers miraculously kept the ship afloat and worked to save as many lives as possible.
The tales of terror, fear and heroism are gripping. A doctor operated on fallen sailors despite his own extensive wounds, including a gunshot wound, broken kneecap, and 11 pieces of shrapnel in his abdomen, which he held together with a life jacket. The ship’s captain stayed at his battle station, exposed to fire, and remained in command for 19 hours straight, despite great pain and weakness from loss of blood. A 22-year-old sailor from Indiana was cut down while he tried to save shipmates. He was one of at least five crewmembers who received medals posthumously.[4]
Liberty crewmembers have a superlative record of service to their country. Among the awards won by the officers and crew of the USS Liberty are the Medal of Honor, two Navy Crosses, 13 Silver Stars, 20 Bronze Stars, nine Navy Commendations, 208 Purple Hearts, 294 Combat Action Ribbons, and the Presidential Unit Citation.[5] Another crewman was also a candidate for the Medal of Honor, America’s highest award, but there were too few witnesses left alive to provide the necessary substantiation.[6]
One would think that all Americans should know of the Liberty and its valiant crew. One would think that Hollywood cinematographers would have depicted The Liberty Story in wide screen and living color; that Liberty survivors’ solemn annual day of remembrance for their fallen shipmates would be broadcast by Fox News; and that the American Legion would be steadfast in honoring Liberty’s heroic crew.
None of this has taken place.
Israel claimed that the attack was a “mistake,” and its partisans went to work immediately to cover it up. Within a day of the attack, Senator Jacob Javits and a few others claimed on the Senate floor that it had been accidental. Crewmembers were ordered not to speak about it to anyone, from the press to family members to one another.
The Navy was given one week to look into crew behavior, rather than the six-month investigation that would normally be accorded an investigation of an attack on a Navy ship not engaged in hostilities.
After its weeklong inquiry, the Navy produced a report that focused on crew response, yet inexplicably declared the attack a case of “mistaken identity” without citing any evidence to that effect. Much later, it came out that the White House had ordered the Navy to include that conclusion, even though it had not been tasked with investigating the reason for Israel’s attack.
The press, with a few exceptions,[7] has largely ignored the attack on the Liberty, or portrayed it inaccurately.[8] Three major documentaries have been produced, but only one has been shown on national TV.[9] Hollywood has ignored the incident.
American Legion actions on the USS Liberty
The American Legion was the first organization to support Liberty survivors and call for an official investigation of the attack. However, as we will see, this quickly triggered anti-Liberty pressure that caused Legion management to back off, and today the American Legion does not have a single live resolution regarding the USS Liberty – this despite the fact that three resolutions on the Liberty have been passed by the general membership, and that many American Legion posts around the country have attempted to introduce others. In recent years, none of these has been allowed to make it to the convention floor.
The Legion’s stance is in stark contrast to that of other veterans’ organizations. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Disabled American Vets, The Retired Officers Association, and other veterans’ groups have placed wreaths on the Liberty graves at Arlington National Cemetery; the Legion has been conspicuously absent.[10] The VFW has at least seven resolutions on its books calling for an investigation of the attack, the most recent passed in July 2013.[11] The Legion has none.
In addition, a multitude of high U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials through the years have spoken in favor of the Liberty crew (see below).
Below is a chronology of the American Legion’s action—and inaction—on the Liberty.
1967
* Immediately following the attack, the American Legion membership passed a strong resolution on the incident. American Legion action was suggested by a New Hampshire resident, and the Legion National Commander Edward Davis, from North Dakota, encouraged him to write a resolution.[12]
This 1967 resolution condemned Israeli actions, which it called an “apparently deliberate attack.”[13] The resolution called on the U.S. government to “conduct a complete and thorough investigation of this incident” and to demand full payment from the Israeli government for compensation to the families, crew, and to the United States for the damage to the ship.[14]
After the resolution was passed, there were complaints from the Jewish War Veterans of America and some Jewish members of the American Legion, and the resolution was allowed to die without action.[15] The American Legion member who proposed the resolution stated later that the lack of follow through was due to pressure by pro-Israel organizations.[16]
For many years, Israel refused to compensate the United States for the ship it had destroyed, and the U.S. government failed to push the issue. Finally, twelve years later, a Senator announced that he intended to hold hearings on the matter. Israel quickly negotiated a settlement: Israel would pay $6 million for the ship; in exchange the U.S. dropped claims to $10 million worth of interest.[17] The ship was valued at $40 million.
1984
* In 1984 the American Legion Magazine commissioned an article on the Liberty, but then killed the article.
The article wasby James Ennes, a Naval officer seriously wounded on the Liberty who had in 1979 written the first book to give details of the attack. The book, Assault on the Liberty, was widely praised. The Naval Institute named it among its Notable Naval Books, and a Washington Post reviewer said it “should be required reading for all government employees.”
When Ennes submitted his article to the Legion magazine, however, it was rejected. Ennes received a kill fee and an apologetic letter from the editors, who said the editorial board had decided that his article was “too controversial.”[18]
When Ennes wrote again to the magazine, he was told that the Legion “no longer had a position on the subject.”[19]
(Another magazine, Retired Officer, with a circulation of 350,000 retired military officers, published Ennes’s article to wide acclaim. RO editors told Ennes that for months after they were “overwhelmed with mail” that supported the article and the Liberty crew.[20])
Also in 1984, the American Legion’s National Executive Committee passed a resolution that rescinded “all Foreign Relations Policy resolutions adopted by the Annual National Convention or the NEC, 1919-1976.”[21]
This resolution, entitled “Rescinding Obsolete Policy Resolutions dealing with Foreign Relations,” was passed at the Committee’s spring meeting. The general membership does not seem to have been consulted on this decision. Most American Legion members who voted in favor of a resolution on the USS Liberty probably have no idea this occurred.
1986
* In 1986, Liberty survivors pushed for resolutions calling for an investigation into the attack, which were passed at three local American Legion posts. Legion officials at the state level, however, rejected them, saying that “the national leadership of the Legion was opposed to resolutions on the subject.”
The survivors managed to bypass the state leaderships and took a resolution to the national convention in Cincinnati. Once there, however, Legion management used what the crew describe as “complicated maneuvers” to scuttle the resolutions. Some of this, according to crewmembers, involved changing the usual rules of the convention.[22]
Perhaps as a consolation prize, a resolution calling for a Liberty postage stamp was allowed to be passed by the membership and was sent to Washington.[23] This was the second attempt at such a stamp. In 1973 Louisiana Congressman John Rarick, a military veteran who had escaped from a German prison camp in World War II, had introduced legislation to issue a postage stamp “in honor of the brave men who served on the U.S.S. Liberty and U.S.S. Pueblo.”[24]
In both cases the efforts went nowhere. There is no indication that Legion management ever followed through on the attempt to have Congress issue a postage stamp honoring the crew. It died two years later.
1994
* In 1994 American Legion members managed to get a resolution on the Liberty passed, perhaps, again, because this time the resolution left out all calls for an investigation. The resolution “urge[d] the United States to formally and publicly recognize by time-honored tradition with customary style, honor, ceremony and publicity, the heroic actions of the officers and crew of the U.S.S. Liberty, her 34 killed in action, her 171 wounded and her decorated, including her Medal of Honor recipient, Captain William L. McGonagle.”[25]
The American Legion leadership decided to categorize this resolution as “legislative”, which meant that it would apply only to the two year Congress then in session. According to the Legion’s “Resolutions and Reports” handbook, resolutions with “legislative intent” must be re-submitted every two years. [26]
1998
* In 1998 five states (it appears that these were Arkansas, Kentucky, Montana, Texas, and, possibly, Alaska) introduced resolutions at the national convention calling for an investigation into the attack on the Liberty. The Legion’s Committee on International Relations killed them.
The chairman of the committee was John Brieden. Brieden’s college roommate was future Texas Governor Rick Perry, who in 2007 received Israel’s “Friend of Zion” award[27] for his fidelity to that nation. Perry later appointed Brieden to various veterans’ posts. Five years after blocking the Liberty resolutions, Brieden became American Legion National Commander.
2002
* In 2002 the Washington DC Legion delegation introduced a resolution calling for an investigation of the attack to a foreign relations subcommittee at the national convention. This was the first step towards procuring an American Legion resolution.[28]
I was present at this convention and witnessed most of what subsequently transpired. I had begun to investigate Israel-Palestine in fall 2000, a topic I had never previously studied. I was astonished at much of what I discovered, including the Israeli attack on the Liberty, which I had never heard about despite growing up in a military family.
When I heard that a resolution was going to be introduced at the national convention, I went with the delegation to observe what happened.
When the DC group introduced the resolution to the subcommittee, every American Legion delegate who addressed it spoke in favor of it. Delegate after delegate from diverse parts of America supported the resolution, and it was passed without objection.
The DC delegates were jubilant. When a resolution is passed at this level, they explained, it is virtually assured of adoption. Typically, the resolution is then rubber-stamped by the next committee, and passed along to the general membership, which then normally passes all such committee-recommended resolutions by one simple voice vote.
This resolution, however, was to be different.
The next day, American Legion staff told the Convention Committee on Foreign Relations that there was no need for such a resolution since the Legion already had passed resolutions on the Liberty. The staff and chair neglected to state that not a single resolution on the USS Liberty was live, and that therefore it was both necessary and appropriate to pass this one.
This communication succeeded in killing the resolution. The main staff member for this committee had served in Israel; it is possible he is an Israeli citizen. The Committee chairman was Thomas Bock, of Colorado.[29] Three years later Bock was American Legion National Commander.
That evening, back in D.C., Admiral Thomas Moorer (USN retired) heard about the scuttling of the resolution. Outraged, he wrote an open letter to the American Legion Commander requesting that the resolution be put before the general membership.
Admiral Moorer was chairman of an association of admirals and generals who want the US government to conduct a hearing on the USS Liberty. He was also the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the highest ranking military officer in the U.S. military — and a retired 4-star admiral who was once in charge of both the Pacific and Atlantic fleets. He was a Naval aviator and World War II hero; the Navy’s Tomcat fighter jet was named after him.
Moorer had long been outraged at the cover-up on the Liberty attack. In a 1997 memo, he called it a “wanton, sneak attack,” writing: “What is so chilling and cold-blooded, of course, is that they could kill as many Americans as they did in confidence that Washington would cooperate in quelling any public outcry.” Many of the crewmembers, Moorer wrote, were from “small country towns, probably a lot like Eufaula, Alabama, where I grew up, and they represent the basic core of America….” [30]
A woman named Josie Toth Linen, whose brother was killed on the Liberty, took copies of Admiral Moorer’s letter to the American Legion convention the following day and began handing them out to American Legion members. Within minutes Legion management ejected her from the convention.
Josie’s brother, Stephen Toth, had posthumously received a Silver Star, the third highest medal awarded by the US Navy, for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action” aboard the Liberty.[31] The citation stated, “Lieutenant Toth’s aggressiveness, composure under fire, and inspiring leadership were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”
Toth’s father, Captain Joseph C. Toth, had been a career Naval officer and decorated World War II veteran. Captain Toth died of a heart attack a year and a half after his son was killed. Family members felt the anguish at his son’s death contributed to his heart attack, along with distress at the government’s cover-up of the attack and its recall of rescue flights that might have saved his son’s life.[32]
Apparently none of this mattered to American Legion honchos.
After being ejected from the convention, Josie started to hand out copies of Admiral Moorer’s letter on the sidewalk outside the convention. Before long, a security officer working for the Legion attempted to have her arrested, calling Charlotte police officers to take her away.
Police officers refused to make the arrest, however, saying that Josie was breaking no laws. After a friendly exchange with Josie, the police officers departed.[33]
The Legion, however, continued to bar Josie from the convention, even though she was a member of the American Legion Auxiliary and had paid the hefty convention registration fee. All for the “crime” of handing out a letter from a World War II hero on behalf of her brother, who had been killed while serving his country, and for trying to help American veterans, the very purpose of the Legion itself.
The Legion commander, Richard J. “Ric” Santos of Maryland, a retired insurance adjustor (his military service consisted of five years in the Naval Reserve),[34] never responded to Admiral Moorer’s letter.[35]
2012
* In 2012, the American Legion Michigan department passed a Liberty resolution and submitted it to the national convention. The Michigan delegate to the convention, Ted Arens, says that American Legion Judge Advocate General Phil Onderdonk told him, “Your resolution is going nowhere.” Onderdonk, according to Arens, called the Liberty survivors “anti-Semites.”[36]
Arens reports that Onderdonk said: “The ship never should have been there, it was a spy ship.”[37]
Onderdonk’s claim that an American ship is not allowed in international waters is an extremely surprising statement, particularly from an official of a self-proclaimed patriotic American organization. Onderdonk’s view repeats a talking point promoted by Israel that has been rejected by all segments of the U.S. government, including the U.S. Navy.
It appears that Onderdonk chooses to ignore the Court of Inquiry’s statement, “USS Liberty wrote another chapter in the great heritage of Navy gallantry… her personnel, from Commanding Officer to the most junior seaman, deserve the highest accolades and acknowledgment it is possible to bestow for their valor and acts of courage.”[38]
Arens was not allowed to speak at the committee meeting, and the resolution was never placed before the convention.
The same day, Legion staff turned away two Liberty survivors who had traveled to the convention to staff a booth for the Liberty Veterans Association (LVA). The staff declared that the LVA was not on the list of registered booths.
The two Liberty crewmembers, Ernest “Ernie” Gallo[39] and Glenn Oliphant, asked if there was some mistake. The person registering vendors said she would check.
Oliphant, a soft-spoken Minnesotan and ordained Methodist minister who lost most of his hearing in the attack, tells what happened next: “Within a few minutes [convention official] Andrea Watson… arrived with three security guards.” Watson said they didn’t have a booth, and a security guard told them they had to leave immediately.
Oliphant says he asked Watson if she had a check for a booth from the Liberty Veterans Association that he believed had been sent in months earlier. Watson told Oliphant and Gallo that even if she had the check on her desk she would send it back to them.[40]
2013
* In 2013 The American Legion refused to allow Liberty survivors to have a booth at its national convention in Houston. Legion officials have refused to give a reason.
* The Legion similarly refused to publish a paid advertisement about the USS Liberty that a Legion member tried to place in the 2013 convention program. Again, Legion officials refuse to provide an explanation.
2014
* Legion officials tried to convince the VFW also to deny Liberty veterans a booth at their upcoming national convention.
VFW officials investigated the Legion’s accusations against Liberty crewmembers, found the Legion’s claims unconvincing, and invited the Liberty Veterans Association to again have a booth at the 2014 VFW national convention.
Legion FAQ misrepresents Liberty attack
* The American Legion’s website contains a “Frequently Asked Questions” column in which a segment on the Liberty[41] repeats the pro-Israel misinformation that supposedly “10 US investigations” found that the attack was an accident.
In reality, an official US Navy communication to Congress stated, “The Court of Inquiry was the only United States Government investigation into the attack,” and noted, “That investigation focused primarily on U.S. military communications problems prior to the attack and the heroic effort of LIBERTY’s crew in damage control during the aftermath of the attack.”[42]
It seems likely that the Legion’s FAQ is based on largely refuted claims made by a Miami bankruptcy judge, A Jay Cristol. (For more on Cristol and the alleged investigations see sidebar #1, “Questions about Cristol’s Liberty claims.”)
While the Navy’s weeklong inquiry called the attack a case of “mistaken identity,” the Navy attorney tasked with reviewing it before its release, Merlin Staring, found that this conclusion was unsupported by the content of the report. Staring was one of the Navy’s most brilliant attorneys. He eventually went on to become a Rear Admiral and the Chief Judge Advocate General of the US Navy, thus making him the senior legal authority in the Navy.
When Staring indicated that the report’s statement that the attack was an accident was unsubstantiated, his boss removed the report from his review – the only time in Staring’s long career that a report he was given to review was taken away from him. (Incidentally, Staring’s boss was Admiral John McCain, the present John McCain’s father.)[43]
Staring’s questions about the report were explained 30 years later.
The Naval officer who had been senior legal counsel for the Naval inquiry, Captain Ward Boston, came forward with an explosive revelation. President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had ordered them to conclude that the attack was a case of “mistaken identity” despite overwhelming evidence that the Israeli attack “was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew,” in Boston’s words.[44]
High Officials Say Attack Was Intentional
There is detailed evidence from Liberty crewmen and other military and intelligence personnel that the Israeli attack was intentional. Numerous extremely high US military, intelligence, and diplomatic officials have espoused this view. Among them are:
Dean Rusk, Secretary of State under LBJ;
Richard Helms, Director of the CIA
Rufus Taylor, Deputy Director of the CIA
Clark Clifford, special assistant to the President
Louis W. Tordella, National Security Agency (NSA) Deputy Director
General Marshall Carter, former director, NSA
Lucius Battle, former presidential advisor
Major General John Morrison, US Air Force, Deputy Chief NSA Operations
Oliver Kirby, former deputy director for operations/production, NSA
Lieutenant General William E. Odom, former director, NSA
Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, USN, Director NSA 1977-1981
Paul C. Warnke, Undersecretary of the Navy and later general legal counsel to the Department of Defense
Rear Admiral Merlin Staring, Staff Legal Office for Commander in Chief US Naval Forces Europe and later Chief Judge Advocate General of the Navy
George Ball, under secretary of state
Dwight Porter, US Ambassador to Lebanon
Lloyd M. “Pete” Bucher, US Navy, Commanding Officer USS Pueblo
Captain Ward Boston, senior legal counsel for the Naval Court of Inquiry
Rear Admiral Clarence “Mark” Hill, co-founder of the Naval Aviation Foundation
Admiral David McDonald, Chief of Naval Operations[45]
Vice Admiral Jerome King, Jr., Deputy Chief of Naval Operations[46]
In 2003 the Moorer Commission, an independent commission headed by Admiral Moorer, reported on Capitol Hill: “There is compelling evidence that Israel’s attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew.”
The Moorer report went on to state, “In attacking the USS Liberty, Israel committed acts of murder against U.S. servicemen and an act of war against the United States.”[47]
Israel attacks Liberty crew, again
Israel and its American partisans, however, have worked assiduously to promote Israel’s various versions that the attack was accidental. One of their targets was survivor James Ennes’s 1979 book, Assault on the Liberty.
Author John Borne, who wrote a book on the Liberty attack and its aftermath, describes Israel’s efforts against Ennes’s book: “Journalist friends told Ennes that the Israeli Government was working hard behind the scenes to discredit his story.”
Commander Ennes had sustained a major leg wound in the attack that required months-long hospitalization. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh wrote of Ennes’ gripping book “I’ve never read a more graphic depiction of war at sea…an insider’s book by an honest participant.”
The Israeli Foreign Office created a four-page criticism of the book, Borne reports, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has an annual budget of over $70 million,[48] published a six-page attack based on the Israeli document. Other pro-Israel organizations similarly circulated attacks on Ennes’s eyewitness book.[49]
Borne writes that media coverage of Ennes’s book, which had been enthusiastic, quickly dried up under this onslaught: “Interviews were arranged, then dropped, at ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ and ABC’s ‘Nightline.’ Work went ahead at ‘60 Minutes’ and was then canceled.”
Although some Israel partisans in the U.S. agree that the crew deserve an honest investigation of the incident, virtually all the institutional members of the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the U.S.[50] that have weighed in on the incident support Israeli versions over the testimony of the American crewmen and other American officials.
One of the most prominent American adherents of the Israeli version is a Miami bankruptcy judge and former Naval Reserve officer named A Jay Cristol. Cristol is the author of a 2001 book called The Liberty Incident, which was re-released in 2013 with a few additional chapters under the title, The Liberty Incident Revealed.
The two editions read largely like legal briefs for Israel[51] and are strongly criticized by eyewitnesses and other experts on the attack for what they say are its omissions, misinformation and unsupported claims.
American Legion Officials refuse to answer questions
For this article, I phoned and emailed the American Legion repeatedly with specific questions. The Legion answered only a few of these.
The Legion Librarian assisted me in finding the wording of some of the resolutions that had been passed. He confirmed that there are no live resolutions on the Liberty.
I asked one of the American Legion’s professional staff members about the inaccurate claims about the Liberty on the Legion website’s FAQ. It turned out the staff member was very familiar with the Liberty. He said he had previously researched it and agreed that there had not been an investigation. He said he would inform the Legion library that the FAQ needed to be corrected.
This correction was never implemented, however. When I followed up with the staff member, he referred me to Philip Onderdonk (the Legion official also mentioned above). Onderdonk, the staff member told me, was now in charge of handling my questions. Onderdonk has been the American Legion’s top lawyer for the past thirty years. (His military service consisted of serving as a contracting officer for a few years.[52])
I eventually reached Onderdonk, who brusquely told me I would receive an official statement from the PR department and hung up. When I called him back to ask when I would receive this, he said, “You’ll get it when you get it.” (I eventually did, but it answered none of my questions.) He then sputtered that I was part of an “anti-Israel” organization and hung up again.
I’m president of the Council for the National Interest, whose goal, announced on our website, is to work for “U.S. Middle East policies that represent the highest values of our founders and our citizens and that work to sustain a nation of honor, decency, security, and prosperity.”
Our mission states: “CNI seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values, protects our national interests, and contributes to a just solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is CNI’s goal to restore a political environment in America in which voters and their elected officials are free from the undue influence and pressure of foreign countries and their partisans.”[53]
CNI was founded two decades ago by Paul Findley, an 11-term Republican Congressman from central Illinois, and Paul “Pete” McCloskey, an 8-term Republican Congressman from California. Findley served in the Navy in the South Pacific in WWII, and McCloskey served in Korea, where he received the Navy Cross, Silver Star and two Purple Hearts as a Marine rifle platoon leader.
In 2010, CNI applied for a booth at the Legion national convention. Legion convention director Dick Holmes refused our application. He claimed that CNI’s policies were at odds with the American Legion’s.
While CNI’s principles, stated above, may differ substantially from those of Mr. Holmes, attorney Onderdonk, and some other Legion officials, I have found that they match those of what seems to be a large preponderance of Legion members. These members similarly want policies based on American interests and principles, rather than predicated on the desires of a foreign government.
After the Legion denied CNI a booth in 2012, I volunteered to help as a private citizen at the Liberty Veterans booth that year and was duly credentialed at the convention. After I had assisted at the booth for several hours, suddenly Holmes, Andrea Watson, and a few henchmen arrived at the booth. They said that I was not allowed to be at the booth, despite my credentials, and told me that if I didn’t leave the convention immediately I would be arrested. I left.
During my time at the booth, I had witnessed enormous support for Liberty veterans among American Legion members. Virtually every person who passed the booth turned out to be receptive and supportive. Some had known about the attack before and had been outraged ever since. Others had been unaware of it previously and were astounded at the cover-up. Many left the booth wearing USS Liberty buttons and promised to tell others about the incident.
After I was forced to leave the booth, a Liberty veteran and his wife continued without me, handing out hundreds of brochures and buttons to Legion members. Both were thrilled at the deep support and sympathy of Legion members from all over the U.S.
In 1997 Admiral Moorer described the Liberty reunions he had attended:
“They arrive in town with their whole entourage – grandmas, grandpas, grandchildren. They promote the memory of the boys who were killed and I respect them for that. They are mostly from small country towns, probably a lot like Eufaula, Alabama, where I grew up, and they represent the basic core of America that has enabled us to be a superpower for so long. These are the kind of people who will make certain that our liberty and freedom survive if fighting is what it takes.”
These are the families that the American Legion management continually opposes.
Venerable Florida columnist Charlie Reese once wrote about Liberty veterans, “These survivors deserve the support of the American people. Will you stand by them?”
Philip Onderdonk, Dick Holmes, and other Legion honchos have given their answer. Like Israel and many of its partisans, top Legion officials seem to feel that Israel can kill and injure American servicemen with impunity, insult them and their families, quash all questions, and successfully sweep Israel’s lethal attack under the rug.
I doubt most members will agree with them.
Sidebar 1:
Questions about Cristol’s Liberty claims
A plethora of articles, books, and witness statements support the conclusion that Israel intentionally attacked the USS Liberty. There appears to be only one book focused on the attack that takes a counter view: The Liberty Incident Revealed, by A Jay Cristol.[54]
Cristol is a bankruptcy judge and former Naval Reserve officer in Miami. [55] He visited Israel 15 times in the course of writing his book and suggests that those who rebut his conclusions on the Liberty are anti-Semitic, have hidden agendas, or are conspiracy theorists.[56]
In his book, Cristol essentially recounts the official Israeli version of the attack, which is at odds with that described by American eyewitnesses and numerous high US military, intelligence, and State Department officials.
Liberty specialists and survivors criticize Cristol’s book for omitting eyewitness testimony, key facts, and statements from US government investigators contradicting his conclusion. They also say the book misrepresents the facts and makes unsupported claims. As we shall see, these accusations are valid.
Historian John Borne, author of a PhD dissertation on the attack and a subsequent book, writes that Cristol “describes only the Israeli view, and the reader has no way to know that he is hearing only one side of a debate.” In a review of Cristol’s book, Borne details instances in which Cristol omitted critical information, rearranged the data to give a false conclusion, and neglected to interview important eyewitnesses.[57]
Similarly, Captain Ward Boston, senior legal counsel for the Naval Court of Inquiry that looked into the attack, stated that Cristol’s book “twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the attack.” In fact, Boston said that it was “Cristol’s insidious attempt to whitewash the facts” that motivated him to finally speak out in 2002about the behind-the-scenes intrigue in the Court of Inquiry.[58]
In the first edition of his book, published in 2001, Cristol listed Boston in the index and in the text wrote: “Boston brought two special assets in addition to his skill as a Navy lawyer. He had been a naval aviator in World War II and therefore had insight beyond that of one qualified only in the law. Also, Kidd knew him as a man of integrity.”[59]
After Boston revealed the presidential cover-up and the fact that all the evidence indicated that it had been an intentional attack, Cristol wrote an article calling Boston a liar.[60] In his current, 2013 version of the book, which claims to be “the definitive account,” Cristol fails to provide Boston’s detailed statements about the Court of Inquiry.[61]
Even in his chapter on a State Department conference in 2004 in which he discusses his appearance on a panel, he leaves out author James Bamford in his list of panelists (though he discusses him later), and does not tell readers that Bamford read into the record Boston’s dramatic legal declaration that the Naval Inquiry had been a sham, that Johnson had ordered the facts to be covered up, and that all the evidence had indicated that the Israeli attack was intentional.
Cristol’s questionable claims about Admiral Kidd
Cristol does mention Admiral Isaac Kidd, who was president of the Naval Court of Inquiry that produced the Navy’s report. Cristol claims a “close friendship” with Kidd, who is now deceased, and includes some complimentary statements about Cristol from a letter that he says Kidd sent him. (He does not include the complete letter.)
Boston, who said he remained in contact with Kidd after the two worked together on the Naval inquiry, questioned these statements. He described Kidd’s reaction after Cristol contacted him for his book. “The Admiral spoke of Cristol in disparaging terms and even opined that ‘Cristol must be an Israeli agent,’” Boston wrote in his legal declaration. “I don’t know if he meant that literally or it was his way of expressing his disgust for Cristol’s highly partisan, pro-Israeli approach to questions involving USS Liberty.”[62]
Boston went on to state: “I find Cristol’s claims of a ‘close friendship’ with Admiral Kidd to be utterly incredible. I also find it impossible to believe the statements he attributes to Admiral Kidd, concerning the attack on USS Liberty.” Rather, according to Boston, Kidd privately shared the conclusions of others who worked on the Navy report. “Every time we discussed the attack, Admiral Kidd was adamant that it was a deliberate, planned attack on an American ship,” wrote Boston.
“Contrary to the misinformation presented by Cristol and others, it is important for the American people to know that it is clear that Israel is responsible for deliberately attacking an American ship and murdering American sailors, whose bereaved shipmates have lived with this egregious conclusion for many years,” Boston declared.
Finally, Boston reveals that Cristol attempted to misrepresent a brief telephone interview he conducted with Boston before his first book. “Several years later, I received a letter from Cristol that contained what he purported to be his notes of our prior conversation,” declared Boston. “These ‘notes’ were grossly incorrect and bore no resemblance in reality to that discussion. I find it hard to believe that these ‘notes’ were the product of a mistake, rather than an attempt to deceive. I informed Cristol that I disagreed with his recollection of our conversation and that he was wrong.”
In a magazine interview, Boston said, “There is no question in my mind that those goddamned bastards tried to kill everyone on board. I was the counsel. I put witnesses on. I talked to kids never exposed to combat who’d seen their friend’s head blown off. Kids who were crying as they told me what they’d gone through. Those boys who had their heads blown away were not out fighting [the Israelis]. They were sunbathing. They weren’t even given a chance to get to their machine guns.”[63]
I personally interviewed Captain Boston in his Coronado home in 2003, where he described the facts he had found and the subsequent cover-up in outraged detail.
Deconstructing Cristol’s “investigations”
Cristol repeats in his book the Israeli talking point that multiple investigations have found Israel innocent of intentionally attacking the Liberty, but closer examination fails to support his claim. Cristol claims there were several Congressional investigations, yet the Reference Librarian at the Library of Congress found “no evidence that the Congress ever held hearings or launched an investigation into the June 8, 1967 incident with the USS Liberty.”[64]
An official Navy response to a Congressional inquiry went even further, saying, “The Court of Inquiry was the only United States Government investigation into the attack.” Moreover, the letter said, “That investigation focused primarily on U.S. military communications problems prior to the attack and the heroic effort of LIBERTY’s crew in damage control during the aftermath of the attack.”[65]
In reality, none of Cristol’s alleged “investigations” turn out to be real investigations, most of the examinations came to no conclusion or actually suggested that the attack was intentional,[66] an NSA report that Cristol claims absolved Israel of guilt actually considers this an “unanswered question” and tilts toward skepticism of the Israeli claims,[67] and the week-long Naval Inquiry has since been discredited. (Cristol’s claim is thoroughly laid to rest in a 2005 article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.[68])
Of all Cristol’s claimed investigations, the inquiry is the closest thing to a real investigation, yet Cristol fails to include the fact that the report states, “It was not the responsibility of the court to rule on the culpability of the attackers.”
Cristol also omits the statements from Boston and Rear Admiral Merlin Staring that the inquiry did not find evidence that the attack was accidental. [See main article for details.]
Cristol does mention Staring (though he misspells his first name[69]), but he leaves out Staring’s statement that “the conclusions recorded by the Court were ordered by the President of the United States and his Secretary of Defense and were inconsistent with and were contrary to any evidence the Court of Inquiry had adduced.”[70]
The publisher of Cristol’s first version of the book in 2001 was Brassey’s, Inc. Brassey’s was known for its works on military history and had been the U.S. subsidiary of Brassey’s Ltd, but in 1999 it had come under the ownership of Books International, a warehouse and distribution company based in Dulles, Va.[71]
Cristol has a number of connections to Israel.
In the preface to the first edition of his book, Cristol describes his longtime friendships with a number of high level Israeli officials and senior military officers. For example, he describes becoming a close friend of the Israeli Naval attaché as early as 1976. These Israeli friends, he boasts, “opened doors” for him.
Cristol writes in the preface that he began his research on the incident with a trip to Israel, rather than with American experts and crewmembers – at least one of whom lives in Florida.
Also in the preface to his first edition, Cristol reveals that the person who first suggested he write a book on the Liberty was Dr. Haim Shaked, a professor at the University of Miami.[72] Interestingly, Cristol fails to inform readers that Shaked is an Israeli citizen.[73]
The new edition of the book published by the Naval Institute contains none of this information, because, oddly, it omits this preface entirely. While second editions of books occasionally contain an additional preface for the new edition, standard practice is to also include the first one.
At the very bottom of Cristol’s website for his book is, in small print, “Disclaimer.” This links to an unusual, perhaps unique statement, for the website of a nonfiction book:[74]
Disclaimer
“The information on this site is provided ‘as is’ without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, arising by law or otherwise, including but not limited to warranties of effectiveness, completeness, accuracy, merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. The entire risk of using this information is born [sic] by the user.”
#
Sidebar 2:
The Naval Institute’s changing position on the Liberty
The new edition of A Jay Cristol’s book about the USS Liberty was published last September by the Naval Institute. This is a major about-face for the Naval Institute, which previously published articles rejecting Cristol’s conclusions and criticizing his first edition.
Decades earlier, the Institute praised James Ennes’s book detailing evidence that Israel’s attack was intentional. The Institute listed Ennes’s book among its “Notable Naval Books for 1980” and a review in the Institute’s ProceedingsMagazine praised it as “awesome.”[75]
In 2002, the Institute’s Proceedings magazine published a review of Cristol’s first edition by Rear Admiral Paul Tobin. Tobin disagreed with Cristol’s conclusion that Israel’s attack on the Liberty was accidental.[76]
In 2003, Proceedings printed an in-depth, 5,000-word article detailing numerous fatal flaws with Cristol’s book. The article also contained evidence that top NSA officials disagreed with Cristol’s conclusions.[77]
Specifically, this article reported that the NSA officials interviewed “were unaware of any agency official at that time or later who dissented from the ‘deliberate’ conclusion.” It quoted the NSA director from 1977-1981 as saying that he “flatly rejected the Cristol/Israeli thesis” and that this belief was based on his talks with senior NSA officials who had direct knowledge of the attack.
In 2005, Proceedings published yet another article blasting Cristol’s book, calling it “bad history.” The author, who had been a high level military analyst, wrote that the attack “was quite deliberate and well planned.”[78]
Yet, in 2012, the Institute reversed itself, announcing plans to print the second version of Cristol’s book.
The Institute’s current advertising campaign for the book proclaims that Cristol “interviewed all the major participants.” While it is quite likely true that Cristol interviewed Israeli officials, his alleged interviews with Liberty crewmembers consisted of attending a Liberty Reunion several years ago and having a few brief exchanges at the bar without identifying himself. He later listed those bar conversations as “interviews.” Few, if any, were aware that they were being “interviewed.”
One crewmember who was listed in Cristol’s acknowledgements for his first edition, Joe Lentini, has actually written an article that criticizes Cristol’s book as “based on half truths and highly questionable Israeli reports” and says that Cristol “reaches the wrong conclusions.” Lentini reports, on the other hand, that Ennes’s book is accurate.[79]
Some of the claimed endorsements of the book are also suspect.
For example, Cristol’s website features a sentence of praise from Rear Admiral Paul Tobin’s review, but leaves out Tobin’s main point: “I and almost all of the U.S. eyewitnesses do not agree with the author’s conclusion that it was an unfortunate accident.”[80]
Cristol claims to provide context on the Six-Day war but leaves out much information. For example, while he discusses highly regarded investigative journalist James Bamford and his books, he both misreports what Bamford had said about the Liberty, and he omits Bamford’s documentation that the war was planned well in advance in order to take as much land as possible while making it appear that Arab armies had attacked Israel (a fiction that Israel told the U.S. at the time, but now admits was false).[81]
Cristol also leaves out Bamford’s details on how Israeli forces slaughtered hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war, who were made to dig their own graves and were then machine-gunned – information that also was reported by Israeli media, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and others.[82]
Overall, Cristol’s book reads very much like a legal brief for Israel.[83] Not only does Cristol value the word of Israel, the attacker, over the word of the USS Liberty crew and numerous American military officers and officials, he consistently puts pro-Israel spin on confirmed facts. For example, Cristol quarrels with a U.S. Navy statement referring to the Liberty as a “noncombatant,” insisting that the Liberty – whose total armament consisted of two pairs of small machine guns for repelling boarders and whose off duty crewmembers were permitted to sunbathe openly on deck – was a “warship.”
Controversies at the Naval Institute
The U.S. Naval Institute was founded in 1873 and is located on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Despite its official-sounding name and Academy location, the Naval Institute is actually a private organization and has no official ties to the Academy or the U.S. Navy. It is run by a board of directors.[84]
It’s difficult to know the course of events that caused the Institute’s reversal of its previous position on the Liberty.
One factor may have been changes in personnel.
In recent years there have been a number of leadership changes in Proceedings magazine, the Naval Institute Press, and the Naval Institute itself. These seem to have resulted in a number of controversies, and some critics have suggested that new board members were promoting an agenda disliked by many of its members.
There were disputes regarding the board’s attempt to modify the Institute’s mission statement without input from its members, claims by its chair (disputed by some members) of financial instability, rumors of secret plans to sell off the Naval Institute Press,[85] and charges of a “businessman takeover” of the Naval Institute.[86] [87]
The vice chair and then chair during this period was Stephen M. Waters,[88] an investment banker who worked for many years at Lehman brothers, Morgan Stanley, etc. and eventually founded his own companies (some of which have connections to Israel).[89] He had served in the Navy for two years after college. [90]
The controversy over the plan to change the Institute’s 138-year-old-mission was particularly heated. Military columnist Thomas Ricks discussed it in a Foreign Policy article entitled “The crazy plan to change the longtime mission of the U.S. Naval Institute in Foreign Policy”[91].
Ricks wrote: “New players on the Institute’s Board of Directors — retired Navy flag officers and Board civilians who they’ve taken in — are proposing to drop the Institute’s stated mission and timeless role as the ‘Independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write in order to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to national defense’
“in favor of a new statement saying that the Institute exists to be ‘An Independent Forum advocating the necessity of global sea power for national security and economic prosperity.’
“There was uproar from the membership.[92]”
Ricks reports:
“How’s this grand scheme playing out? In the naval blogosphere the comments are universally against; I’ve yet to see anyone in favor. And the community is getting fired up to fire the Board, at least those pushing this harmful initiative.” According to Ricks, six board members were behind the proposal.
Among the multitude who publicly opposed the board’s move was the Proceedings editorial board[93]. In a statement published in the magazine, they wrote that the change was being pushed with an “uncharacteristic lack of open debate” and said they did do not understand “why the membership has not been able to hear, debate, and decide collectively what the outcome should be for such a historic determination.”
The proposed modification, they warned, had the “potential to change the character of the institution.” The editors were emphatic: “The independence of the Institute is paramount; without that openness, the Institute risks simply becoming an organ of whatever entity, whatever program, is deemed permissible by only a few, whomever those may be.”
An article in Marine Times[94] reported that critics felt that foisting advocacy onto the Institute “would imperil the editorial independence of their publications, including books, Naval History magazine and the journal Proceedings, which has often served as an avenue for active-duty writers to offer criticism of official policy.”
Vice Admiral Bob Dunn,[95] who had left active duty as the Navy’s top aviator, was another who adamantly opposed the change. He cautioned, “If those with the agenda of changing the mission carry the day in this instance, the Naval Institute as it has been known since 1873 will degenerate and eventually pass into history…”[96]
In his commentary he mentioned that in the upcoming Naval Institute election he was voting for only one of the proposed board members.
When it appeared that ninety percent of the Institute’s membership opposed the change and the board was clearly losing the vote, the board tabled the resolution on March 17, 2011.
Waters stepped down the next year but according to a Naval Institute staff member is still closely involved with the Institute. Vice Chair Nancy Brown, a retired Navy vice admiral, served as acting chair until the current chair took office, at which point she returned to her position as vice chair.
During this period, a significant change was made in the Institute’s book publishing arm. Rick Russell, who had been the associate publisher at Brassey’s and was the person who had chosen to publish Cristol’s book, was hired in 2007 to be the director of the Naval Institute Press.[97]
When Proceedings had published its 2005 review criticizing Cristol’s book, Russell had written in on behalf of Brassey’s defending Cristol’s narrative. Two years later he was hired to head up the Naval Institute Press.
The current chair of the Naval Institute is Admiral James G. Stavridis. Stavridis was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, and before he retired and became head of the Naval Institute, he served as Commander, U.S. European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Previously, Stavridis commanded US Southern Command in Miami.[98] (Some wonder whether these ties to Cristol’s turf are significant.)
Stavridis has spoken of his fondness for Israel. He visited the country early in his highly successful career, and in 2011 he received an award from the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), an advocacy group that promotes “strengthening Israel.”[99]
At the awards ceremony, Admiral Stavridis made a speech in which he gushed about “such a magical evening,” sang the praises of Israel in paragraph after poetic paragraph, and stated: “One of the great benefits of my job, as the commander of the U.S. European Command, is that I am charged with military-to-military relations between the United States and Israel. I’m fortunate to travel there often… I learn more about Israel with every visit…” [100]
There is no indication that Admiral Stavridis has ever visited the Arlington ceremony for the 34 USS Liberty crewmembers that Israeli forces killed on June 8, 1967, or listened to the mothers, sisters, sons and shipmates of the victims.
[1] One of the most thorough documents on the incident is “A Report: War Crimes Committed Against U.S. Military Personnel, June 8, 1967: Submitted to the Secretary of the Army in his capacity as Executive Agent for the Secretary of Defense, June 8, 2005”
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs has covered the subject well, as has the Link, CounterPunch.org, and journalists David Walsh and Bryant Jordan at military publications.
[8] See, for example, “American Media Miss the Boat: For USA Today, Freedom of the Press Means the Right to Report It Wrong,” CounterPunch, June 23/24, 2007
US news organizations have a pattern of reporting on the Middle East in a highly Israel-centric manner. For more on this see the media studies and analysis at http://ifamericansknew.org/media/ and the following articles:
US Media and Israeli Military: All in the Family, CounterPunch, Feb 25, 2010.
“Jodi Rudoren, Another Member of the Family: Meet the New York Times’ New Israel-Palestine News Chief,” by Alison Weir, CounterPunch, February 2012 http://ifamericansknew.org/media/meet-nyt.html
“Myra Noveck & the New York Times: Another journalist with children in the Israeli military,” by Alison Weir, CounterPunch, July 26, 2013.
(The History Channel, after airing the documentary, posted an Israel apologia criticizing the film that was authored by Judith Apter Klinghoffer, who currently lives in Israel.
[10] “The USS Liberty Affair,” by James Ennes, Jr. The Link, May-June 1984, Volume 17, Issue 2.
[11] Email communication from VFW. The VFW’s electronic achieves go back to 1996 and contain seven resolutions calling for an investigation. It is probable that there were also resolutions in the preceding 20 years, but these years are not yet part of the electronic archive.
[14] After refusing to pay the United States anything for the $40 million ship it had destroyed (the ship was damaged so badly that it ended up being sold for scrap), Israel finally paid $6 million. In exchange, the U.S. dropped claims to $10 million worth of interest.
Author John Borne points out, “It was not entirely coincidental that Senator Adlai Stevenson had announced… that he intended to hold hearings on the matter. The settlement was quickly negotiated and the matter finally closed. – Borne, John E. The USS Liberty: Dissenting History vs. Official History. 1995, 1995, p. 119.
[23] Communication from American Legion Librarian Howard Trace: “The text of resolution 385 from the 1986 National Convention is below. The Convention Committee on Credentials and Internal Affairs recommended that the resolution be referred to the Internal Affairs Commission, which was the action taken by the National Convention. At the October 1986 meeting of the National Executive Committee the Internal Affairs Commission recommended that the resolution be received and recorded, which was the action of the National Executive Committee.
WHEREAS, On June 8, 1967, while on official orders in International waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, the U.S.S. Liberty was attacked by Israeli air and naval forces; and
WHEREAS, 34 U.S. Seamen were killed and 170 were wounded in this attack and only the courage and resourcefulness of remaining crew members prevented further loss of life, and of the ship itself; and
WHEREAS, Men who died in that attack have never been honored by their country in any meaningful way; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, by The American Legion in National Convention assembled in Cincinnati, Ohio, September 2, 3, 4, 1986; that The American Legion should petition the United States Postal Service to design a postage stamp in memory of the U.S.S. Liberty and its courageous crew, and to have this stamp released on June 8, 1987, the 20th anniversary of the attack on the ship.
The Congressional Biographical Directory reports that Rarick had “served in the United States Army for three years in the Second World War during which time he was captured and later escaped from a German prison camp; awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.” http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=R000065
The statistic on number of wounded has grown through the years because the dispersal of the crew following the attack prevented the total number from being known. Currently, 174 crewmembers have been confirmed to have been injured during the attack. There may be others who have not yet come forward. In his book on the incident, Beyond Treason:Reflections on the Cover-up of the June 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty an American Spy Ship, Robert J. Allen writes that one additional injured crewmember has come forward, which would bring the total 175.
Giraldi, Philip. “Rick Perry Abuses His Office for Israel” August 4, 2011. Antiwar.com.
[28] The resolving clauses were, according to its author Dr. Ernest Sohns: “Congress should (1) conduct a full investigation and (2) that the public and surviving Liberty members and their families were entitled to an investigation.”
[30] Admiral Moorer had long been an outspoken critic of the cover-up on the Liberty. In a 1997 memo he wrote:
I have never believed that the attack on the USS Liberty was a case of mistaken identity. That is ridiculous. I have flown over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, thousands of hours, searching for ships and identifying all types of ships at sea.
The Liberty was the ugliest, strangest looking ship in the U.S. Navy.
As a communications intelligence ship, it was sprouting every kind of antenna. It looked like a lobster with all those projections moving every which way. Israel knew perfectly well that the ship was American. After all, the Liberty’s American flag and markings were in full view in perfect visibility for the Israeli aircraft that overflew the ship eight times over a period of nearly eight hours prior to the attack.
I am confident that Israel knew the Liberty could intercept radio messages from all parties and potential parties to the ongoing war, then in its fourth day, and that Israel was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria despite President Johnson’s known opposition to such a move. I think they realized that if we learned in advance of their plan, there would be a tremendous amount of negotiating between Tel Aviv and Washington.
And I believe Moshe Dayan concluded that he could prevent Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by destroying the primary source of acquiring that information – the USS Liberty.
The result was a wanton sneak attack that left 34 American sailors dead and 171 seriously injured. What is so chilling and cold-blooded, of course, is that they could kill as many Americans as they did in confidence that Washington would cooperate in quelling any public outcry. I have to conclude that it was Israel’s intent to sink the Liberty and leave as few survivors as possible. Up to the point where the torpedo boats were sent in, you could speculate on that point.
You have to remember that the Liberty was an intelligence ship, not a fighting ship, and its only defensive weapons were a pair of 50-caliber machine guns both aft and on the forecastle. There was little the men could do to fight off the air assault from Israeli jets that pounded the Liberty with bombs, rockets, napalm and machine gun fire for 25 minutes.
With the Liberty riddled with holes, fires burning, and scores of casualties, three Israeli torpedo boats closed in for the kill. The second of three torpedoes ripped through a compartment at amidships, drowning 25 of the men in that section.
Then the torpedo boats closed to within 100 feet of the Liberty to continue the attack with cannons and machine guns, resulting in further casualties.
It is telling, with respect to whether total annihilation was the intent, that the Liberty crew has reported that the torpedo boats’ machine guns also were turned on life rafts that were deployed into the Mediterranean as well as those few on deck that had escaped damage.
As we know now, if the rescue aircraft from U.S. carriers had not been recalled, they would have arrived at the Liberty before the torpedo attack, reducing the death toll by 25. The torpedo boat commanders could not be certain that Sixth Fleet aircraft were not on the way and this might have led to their breaking off the attack after 40 minutes rather than remaining to send the Liberty and its crew of 294 to the bottom.
Congress to this day has failed to hold formal hearings for the record on the Liberty affair. This is unprecedented and a national disgrace.
I spent hours on the Hill giving testimony after the USS Pueblo, a sister ship to the Liberty, was seized by North Korea. I was asked every imaginable question, including why a carrier in the area failed to dispatch aircraft to aid the Pueblo. In the Liberty case, fighters were put in the air – not once, but twice.
They were ordered to stand down by Secretary of Defense McNamara and President Johnson for reasons the American public deserves to know.
The captain and crew of the Liberty, rather than being widely acclaimed as the heroes they most certainly are, have been silenced, ignored, honored belatedly and away from the cameras, and denied a history that accurately reflects their ordeal.
I was appalled that six of the dead from the Liberty lay under a tombstone at Arlington Cemetery that described them as having “died in the eastern Mediterranean,” as if disease rather than Israeli intent had caused their deaths. The Naval Academy failed to record the name of Lt. Stephen Toth in Memorial Hall on the grounds that he had not been killed in battle. I intervened and was able to reverse the apparent idea that dying in a cowardly, one-sided attack by a supposed ally is somehow not the same as being killed by an avowed enemy.
Commander McGonagle’s story is the stuff of naval tradition. Badly wounded in the first air attack, lying on the deck and losing blood, he refused any treatment that would take him from his battle station on the bridge. He continued to direct the ship’s defense, the control of flooding and fire, and by his own example inspired the survivors to heroic efforts to save the ship. He did not relinquish his post until hours later, after having directed the crippled ship’s navigation to a rendezvous with a U.S. destroyer and final arrival in Malta.
I must have gone to the White House 15 times or more to watch the President personally award the Congressional Medal of Honor to Americans of special valor. So it irked the hell out of me when McGonagle’s ceremony was relegated to the obscurity of the Washington Navy Yard and the medal was presented by the Secretary of the Navy. This was a back-handed slap. Everyone else received their medal at the White House. President Johnson must have been concerned about the reaction of the Israeli lobby.
The Liberty Veterans Association deserves the encouragement of everyone who wants the facts of the Liberty incident revealed and proper homage paid to the men who lost their lives, to their families, and to the survivors. I have attended many of their reunions and am always impressed with the cohesion of the Liberty family. They arrive in town with their whole entourage – grandmas, grandpas, grandchildren. They promote the memory of the boys who were killed and I respect them for that. They are mostly from small country towns, probably a lot like Eufaula, Alabama, where I grew up, and they represent the basic core of America that has enabled us to be a superpower for so long. These are the kind of people who will make certain that our liberty and freedom survive if fighting is what it takes.
– The Link, Vol.30, Issue 3, July-August, 1997, published
[32] Witnesses report that Lyndon Johnson personally ordered rescue flights be recalled, saying that he didn’t want “our ally to be embarrassed.” Johnson later ordered that the one quickie inquiry into the attack cover up the fact that all the evidence indicated that it had been intentional. An excellent article about Johnson during this time and his close relationships with pro-Israel advisors such as Walt Rostow and friends such as Mathilde Krim (a former member of a Zionist paramilitary group) is “How LBJ’s Vietnam War Paralyzed His Mideast Policymakers,” by Grace Halsell, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1993, 20.
[33] Feeling that Legion members had the right to know of Admiral Moorer’s letter, I assisted Josie in handing it out. The Legion’s security official also tried, and failed, to have me arrested for an activity that was both highly legal and that was in accord with the Legion’s official mandate of helping U.S. veterans. Legion members, with only one exception, took the letter without objection. Some thanked me for distributing it.
[34] “American Legion leader enjoys homecoming visit,” By Beth Perdue, Standard-Times Correspondent, April 14, 2002.
[37] Military.com associate editor Jordan Bryant describes a brief interview he conducted with Onderdonk in which he asked Onderdonk about his comment to Arens.
Jordan writes, “Onderdonk acknowledged he told Arens the ship should not have been there ‘because it was too close to shore.’ He said he knew it was too close to shore because he had seen photos taken from where the ship was and you could see land.”
Bryant then pointed out two things to Onderdonk. “One was that Liberty’s location in international waters has never been in dispute. The other is that what he saw in the photos proves nothing, that I could see Morocco from Gibraltar but that did not put me in Moroccan waters.”
[43] The attorney, Merlin Staring, eventually became a rear admiral in charge of the entire legal department of the U.S. Navy. His speech at the Navy Memorial June 8, 2007 can be viewed at http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-staring.html
[46] King was a Captain and McDonald’s assistant in 1967. He said that no one at the time believed Israeli forces had confused the Liberty for a 37-year-old Egyptian horse transport half its length. King said, “It certainly was not mistaken identity. I don’t buy it. I never did. Nobody that I knew ever did either.” – James Scott, Attack on the Liberty, p. 233. Scott’s excellent book, published in 2009 by Simon and Schuster, contains significant information not available when Ennes and Borne wrote their books.
[51] Beyond Treason:Reflections on the Cover-up of the June 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty an American Spy Ship, by Robert J. Allen, J.D. particularly analyzes Cristol’s legalistic approach.
Allen, who is a retired police investigative captain, deconstructs some of Cristol’s strategies. For example, Allen writes that while “Judge Cristol in his book cites the Hearsay Rule to denigrate and impeach the witness contentions of the Liberty crew,” the reality is that such information is often “given a presumptive credence and probative value” and is regularly used in investigating crimes, obtaining search warrants, bringing about indictments in federal court, etc. (pp 110, 455-456) While Allen’s book is unfortunately marred by lack of editing and typos, it contains a useful forensic investigation of the attack, provides significant information on NSA actions, and demonstrates places where Cristol’s book at times inadvertently provides evidence counter to his claims.
[54] Some articles have also taken an anti-Liberty stand, including pieces by Steven Aftergood in Secrecy News and by Israeli Ambassador (and former Israeli military officer) Michael Oren in the New Republic. For a detailed rebuttal of the claims in these articles, some of which were taken up by Cristol, see
[55] It is difficult to learn much about Cristol’s personal background despite his prominent position as an author and governmental official, whether he received outside funding for his project, and the names of those who assisted him in writing his book. He refuses to divulge what the “A” in his name stands for (it appears to be Ahron) and has not responded to requests for an interview. It appears from census records that his great grandfather was among the first wave of Jewish colonists who had gone to Palestine in the late 1800s to create a Jewish state on land that that at that time was approximately 80 percent Muslim, 15 percent Christian, and 5 percent Jewish.
There have at times been criticisms of Cristol’s judicial actions in Miami. In his role as a bankruptcy judge in Miami, Cristol sometimes adjudicates cases involving extremely large sums of money. According to mainstream news reports, a Miami lawyer-accountant that Cristol sometimes assigned as a bankruptcy trustee was found to have been involved in a decade-long shell game. The IRS also said that the man, Lewis Freeman, owed millions of dollars for his public promotion of what they termed a tax dodge. Cristol’s connection to Freeman was mentioned in several articles about the scandal. The articles reported that Cristol called Freeman “an expert in his field” and said that his criminality came as “a total shock” to Cristol. Cristol called his fall from grace “an unimaginable, terrible tragedy.” An article pointed out, however, that Freeman’s work had been called into question years earlier and that some people had tried to remove him from a case at the time. See for example:
Siobhan Morrissey, “Fall From Grace,” ABA Journal, June 10, 2010.
John Pacenti and Jose Pagliery, “Prominent Miami Receiver Charged in Multimillion-Dollar Fraud,” Daily Business Review, Feb. 4, 2010
[57] Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1999, page 62, “The Liberty Incident,” By A. Jay Cristol, Univ. of Miami, 1997. Reviewed by John E. Borne.
See also: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May-June 2007, pages 26-27, “Special Report: Four Decades of Twisting Facts About Israel’s Attack on the USS Liberty,” By James Ennes
[58] Declaration of Ward Boston, Jr., Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.) Counsel to the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry’s investigation into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 2003, pages 42, 53, “Navy Captain, Other Officials Call for Investigation of Israel’s Attack on USS Liberty”
[61] Instead, he mentions only one small part of what Boston said, and then goes on to describe a strategy that lawyers use to discredit statements that hurt their case.
[62] Declaration of Ward Boston, Jr., Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.)
[63] “Navy Captain, Other Officials Call for Investigation of Israel’s Attack on USS Liberty,” By Delinda C. Hanley, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 2003, pages 42, 53
[66] For example, one of the alleged ten investigations was a report by a single individual, Clark Clifford, done without any staff and without a firm conclusion as to the cause of the attack. Cristol claims that Clifford later told him that the attack was “a mistake,” and then includes a partial quote from Clifford’s memoir that appears to substantiate this statement: “[T]here was no evidence that the highest levels of the Israeli government… were aware of Liberty’s true identity…”
However, Cristol leaves out Clifford’s statement in the same book demonstrating that Clifford did not believe in the “mistaken identity” version put forth by Cristol: “I do not know to this day at what level the attack on the Liberty was authorized and I think it is unlikely that the full truth will ever come out…” p. 447.
[67] On page 171 Cristol writes that the NSA “concluded in the report that the Liberty had been mistaken for an Egyptian ship as a result of miscalculations and egregious errors.”
However, the NSA report actually states, “The fact that two separate torpedo boat commanders made the same false identification only raises the question of the veracity of both commanders. The El Kasir [the Egyptian ship] was approximately one-quarter of the Liberty tonnage, about one-half its length, and offered a radically different silhouette. To claim that the Liberty closely resembled the El Kasir was most illogical.”
The report also specifically notes, “When NSA’s deputy director read the decision of the Israeli Defense Forces Preliminary Inquiry, he summed up his personal feelings on the subject by calling it ‘a nice whitewash.’”
Finally, Cristol fails to inform readers that the lead author of the report, William D. Gerhard, wrote a synopsis of the attack, Attack on the USS Liberty: An Edited Version of SRH-256, available in a book by the Aegean Park Press, that thoroughly discredits Cristol’s claim that the attack was unintentional.
This book reveals that Israel’s official preliminary investigation into the attack, “The Yerushalmi report,” was suppressed and reports that those who tried to obtain it were sometimes told that the release would “embarrass an ally.”
Gerhard’s book also includes a report by Carl F. Salans, a legal advisor to the U.S. Department of State, which examined the Israeli report that concluded that Israel’s attack was “accidental.” Salans’ report found that virtually every major Israeli point was contradicted by U.S. information.
Finally, the book also includes “A Juridical Examination of the Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty” by Lieutenant Commander Walter L. Jacobsen, JAGC, USN, published by the Naval Law Review, Winter 1986. This states: “The Israeli attack on the Liberty was intentional and premeditated.” It further says, “The decision to attack the Liberty was a conscious one, taken by Israeli leadership in the command center,” and provides considerable information for this conclusion.
[68] “Cristol Claim of 13 Investigations Into Israel’s Attack on USS Liberty a Travesty,”
By Terence O’Keefe, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2003, pages 14-15.
[69] While anyone should be forgiven for typos, it is perhaps revealing that Cristol continually calls Merlin Staring “Merwin” Staring, and does this in both versions of his book. This suggests that the Naval Institute did not fact-check the book before publishing it.
[76] Book Review: The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Israeli Attack on the U.S. Spy Ship, United States Naval Institute. Proceedings Annapolis. Author: Tobin, Paul, Aug 2002, p. 88
In addition to Inman, the officials were Oliver Kirby, the “godfather” of the NSA’s Auxiliary General Technical Research program; retired Air Force Major General John Morrison, the agency’s then-second-in-command; and former NSA Director retired Army Lieutenant General William Odom.
[78] “Liberty Victims Did Not Die in Vain,” by Anthony R. Wells, US Naval Institute Proceedings, March 2005, pp. 88-89.
[80] http://www.thelibertyincident.com/book.html and The Liberty Incident: The 1967 “Israeli Attack on the U.S. Spy Ship” United States Naval Institute. Proceedings Annapolis, Author: Tobin, Paul, Aug 2002, p. 88
Cristol also states that Vice Admiral Donald D. Engen praised his work. But the allegedly direct quote he cites from Engen’s book, “Wings and Warriors: My Life as a Naval Aviator,” is actually a modification of what Engen had written. In the book Engen actually calls Cristol “Rear Admiral [sic] Jay Crystol [sic],” bringing into question how carefully, or even whether, Engen read Cristol’s work. This is possibly why Cristol quotes him inaccurately.
[85] http://www.informationdissemination.net/2011/04/us-naval-institute-someone-lied-for-1.html – On the official Naval Institute blog a regular contributor wrote: “I honestly believe Steve Waters, John Morgan, Nancy Brown, and the other Board of Director members are dishonest and potentially deceitful, and I have been provided enough evidence to convince myself that legal counsel flat out lied to the membership today and to the face during a direct question from of one of the very few Naval Officers in attendance at the annual meeting. Until those people are no longer running the organization as members of the Board of Directors, I see no reason to volunteer my time supporting that organization, because USNI isn’t going anywhere anyway.”
Almost a year after an FBI agent shot and killed, under suspicious circumstances, a crucial witness in the Boston Marathon bombing case during a botched midnight interrogation in an Orlando apartment, serious questions are being raised about the FBI agent who fired seven shots into Chechen immigrant Ibragim Todashev last May 22.
Two investigations, one by the FBI itself and one by the Florida Attorney General’s office, exonerated the FBI in the shooting death, claiming the agent, never identified, had been acting in self-defense, when Todashev allegedly ran at him with a raised broom handle.
Now, in an excellent piece of investigative journalism, the Boston Globe has uncovered the identity of the agent, 41-year-old Aaron McFarlane, who joined the Bureau in 2008 after retiring on a $52,000 lifetime annual disability pension from a short stint as an officer in the Oakland Police Department.
Aside from the question of why someone who passed through the rigorous training program the FBI runs for its recruits at Quantico, VA would also qualify for a lucrative pension, it turns out that McFarlane also has a pretty checkered past at Oakland’s Police Department — a police department that has such an extraordinary record of corruption and brutality, that since 2012 it has been operated under the supervision of a federal court “compliance director,” whose job is to see that officers don’t brutalize residents or violate their civil rights.
McFarlane, the Boston Globe reported, did more than that as an Oakland cop. The paper reports that during his four years with the Oakland Police, he was the subject of two police brutality lawsuits and four internal affairs investigations. the paper found also that McFarlane, as a defense witness in a corruption trial, pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions from the prosecutor in that case, which involved officers.
The trial in question was the biggest corruption scandal in Oakland’s history. Filed in 2000, the case involved four police officers who called themselves the “Riders,” who were accused of beating and kidnapping people, making false arrests, planting evidence and falsifying police reports. The case ended up being short-circuited with no convictions under a settlement that had the city of Oakland paying damages of $10.9 million to some 119 victims of Oakland Police officer’s abuse and deceit, and with the whole department going into receivership.
According to the Globe’s report, the court transcript shows that when prosecutor David Hollister tried to ask McFarlane on the witness stand about a police report he had filed which appeared to have been falsified in order to “drum up a reason to arrest a man,” McFarlane pleaded the Fifth. Hollister told the Globe that the report in question “at first blush certainly appears to be criminal. I think on its face, Officer McFarlane should probably have some concerns about whether or not he violated Section 118.1 of the Penal Code in filing a false police report.”
Hollister also questioned McFarlane about another arrest he had made the same night of a man who suffered an unexplained head injury while being transported to jail. McFarlane said he “did not know” how the man in his charge was injured.
The city of Oakland also paid two settlements, for $22,500 and $10,000, in brutality cases brought against McFarlane and a fellow officer by two men who claimed they had been badly beaten by the two officers.
McFarlane’s record of apparent brutal behavior as a cop in Oakland is relevant to the Todashev case because it could explain why Todashev, who had agreed to talk with McFarlane in Todashev’s apartment, but later, according to Agent McFarlane, jumped up, ran to the front of the apartment, and then allegedly returned from the foyer brandishing a broomstick.
Unmentioned in the FBI’s story line of what happened, which was accepted at face value in the investigation conducted by the Orlando Florida State’s Attorney Jeffrey Ashton, was a bruise and a bloody contusion noted by the Orlando coroner on Todashev’s left cheek, right on the outside of the eye socket. The coroner said that injury was evidence of a “hard blow” to the head.
Was McFarlane, in that midnight interview, resorting to the behavior that got him in trouble in the Oakland Police Department?
As I wrote earlier, the pattern of bullets that McFarlane fired at Todashev — three to the upper middle of his back, one to the chest, two to the upper left arm and one into the top of the head, slightly to the rear of the crown, suggest not that he was shot in defense while charging at McFarlane and a Boston State Trooper also in the room, but that he was shot in the back multiple times while in the foyer attempting to flee the apartment — perhaps from a brutal beating.
As a police detective I showed the coroner’s report to pointed out, the bullets to the raised arm suggest that Todashev, hit three times in the back, may have realized he could not escape, and that he had turned, raising his left arm either defensively (he was a skilled martial arts expert and was right-handed), or along with his other arm in a sign of surrender. The last two shots had to have been the one to the chest, which blew out his aorta and would have been instantly fatal, and the shot to the head, which went straight through the center of the brain lodging in the cerebellum area — also a shot that would have been instantly fatal.
Neither Ashton nor the FBI are commenting on the Globe’s article. Ashton never did actually interview McFarlane or the other FBI agent who, inexplicably and in violation of FBI procedure, was not even in the apartment, but was outside during the entire interrogation, keeping a friend of Todashev’s from witnessing anything that was going on with his friend. Ashton instead had to rely on written answers about what happened provided by the FBI from the two men.
Hassan Shibly, a lawyer and executive director of the Council on Islamic American Relations (CAIR) Florida office, said he has sent a letter today to the US Department of Justice, the FBI and the Florida State’s Attorney’s office, demanding to know “whether the extensive history of substantial allegations of police corruption, misconduct, abuse, and civil rights violations made against the FBI agent who shot and killed” Todashev were known to them, as well as “why the state and federal investigations failed to mention” that McFarlane “had a history of settlements and allegations against him regarding misconduct under color of law.”
Clearly if McFarlane resorted to the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying under oath about apparent falsification of evidence against a suspect he had arrested, and had been the subject of brutality suit settlements as a cop, it would raise grave questions about the integrity of his account of what happened late on May 21 in Todashev’s apartment, when he was being interrogated by McFarlane.
As Shibly writes in his letter (a copy of which was provided to TCBH!):
“How do we know that the officer and FBI agent did not engage in misconduct that ultimately led to the killing of IbragimTodashev?
“How credible and thorough are the DOJ and State Attorney’s investigations-which relied heavily on testimony given by individuals who may have engaged in police misconduct, civil rights abuses, and evidence falsification-particularly when the DOJ and State Attorney’s investigations make no mention of the questionable history of the officer and agent involved?
Shibly also asks the FBI to explain whether it simply did not know about McFarlane’s Fifth Amendment plea in a corruption case and about his violent history in the Oakland Police Department, in which case “how can the public trust that the FBI is doing a competent job when hiring agents on whom the liberty and security of our nation depends?” Alternatively, he asks, if the FBI did know McFarlane’s history and didn’t see a problem with hiring him, he asks, “How then can the public trust the liberty and security of our nation to an agency that allows individuals with questionable backgrounds into sensitive positions.”
It’s a good question. In a real democracy, there would be a Senate investigation into this case.
Certainly the death of Todashev, whom the FBI claims was the closest friend of the elder brother suspected of having masterminded the Boston bombing, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was a serious blow to the investigation of that case.
But there is a darker possibility: that Todashev was being pursued and pressured, and was ultimately killed by the FBI, because he had information about the elder Tsarnaev’s relationship with the FBI–information that at a minimum could have embarrassed the Bureau, or that might even have shown the FBI to have been involved in some kind of “sting” operation gone wrong in Boston. The FBI, after all, has had undercover agents or informants involved in some 40 purported “terror” plots that it has “disrupted” since September 11, 2001. Was the Boston bombing supposed to have been another?
Shibly notes that CAIR, which is conducting its own investigation of the Todashev shooting, had already been aware of McFarlane’s identity, and knew about his checkered history of brutality and possible corruption as an Oakland cop, but he says the organization “but did not publicly release any such information to avoid jeopardizing any possible government investigations.”
Elena Teyer, Todashev’s mother-in-law, believes that McFarlane, a relatively inexperienced FBI agent who was dispatched from the Boston office to follow and question Todashev in Florida, was selected for the job precisely because of his police record of brutality and corruption, which she says meant he was “on the hook in order to save his job” at the FBI.
She says further evidence that there was a plan to kill her son-in-law was that the Bureau arranged for the arrest by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), on a bogus charge of visa violation, of Todashev’s live-in girlfriend, visiting Russian college student Tatiana Gruzdeva a fews days prior to the killing, and that a second agent physically removed a witness from the area outside the apartment half an hour before the killing of Todashev. That witness, a Green Card-holding legal Chechen immigrant named Husain Taramov, was barred by the US from returning to the US after he returned to Russia for Todashev’s funeral. (With both Taramov and Gruzdeva, who was deported to Russia last fall, removed permanently from the US, there were no witnesses for Ashton or the Justice Department to interview about the shooting except the agent who fired the shots and the Boston State Trooper who had been with him.)
Teyer, a Russian immigrant, US citizen, and retired veteran of the US Army, suggests the FBI wanted Todashev killed because he knew too much about Tsarnaev and his relationship with the “corrupted FBI.”
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I toured the recently opened 9/11 Museum last night. There is quite a bit to report. The size and scale of the building and many sections are actually impressive. One can see how the general public will be very taken by the entire presentation, and therefore, take what they see as truth.
Former SBU chief Yakimenko said in March the first shots “came from the Philharmonic Hall,” probably meaning the (musical) Conservatory. After that, “many have witnessed 20 people leaving the building” with their sniper gear in bags. These “split into two groups – 10 men each.” One of these “took a position at the Ukraine hotel,” right next-door, and “the Security Service lost track” of the other sniper team.
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