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Progressives Embrace Humanitarian Imperialism – Again!

DemocracyNow! Hosts a Non-debate on Syria

By John V. Walsh | Dissident Voice | February 25th, 2012

“Foreign Intervention in Syria? A Debate with Joshua Landis and Karam Nachar” promised the headline on DemocracyNow! on 22 February. Eagerly I tuned in, hoping to hear a thorough exposé of the machinations of the US Empire in Syria on its march to Iran.

But this was neither exposé nor debate. Both sides, Landis and Nachar, were pro-intervention for “humanitarian” reasons. Nor did the host Amy Goodman or her co-host take these worthies to task for their retrograde views on imperial military action against a sovereign nation that had made no attack on the US. It was yet one more sign that the “progressive” movement in the West has largely abandoned its antiwar, anti-intervention stance.

The segment began with a clip of John McCain advocating yet another war, for the good of the Syrians of course, bombing them to save them. The first guest was Joshua Landis, a prof in Oklahoma whose bio tells us that he “regularly travels to Washington DC to consult with the State Department and other government agencies.” The other agencies are not specified, but he speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations and similar venues. Professor Landis represents the anti-intervention voice in the universe of Amy Goodman, but his opening words manifested the limits of that universe: “Well, I’m not opposed to helping the (Syrian) opposition.” He continued, “The problem right now, the dangers right now with arming the opposition, is that we’re not sure who to arm.”

Confused, I thought surely the next guest would be the anti-interventionist. He was Karam Nachar “cyber-activist” and Princeton Ph.D. candidate, working with Syrian “protesters” via “social media platforms.” That means he is safely ensconced in New Jersey far from where U.S. bombs would fall. Perhaps this fellow would say loud and clear the Syrians did not need the interference of the West, did not need sanctions to starve them nor bombs to pulverize their cities. Perhaps he would laud the Chinese-Russian proposal for both sides to stop firing and to negotiate a solution.

But he did not. He also was for intervention by the West. And he did not think the disorganization of the opposition, cited by Landis, justified hesitation or delay in arming that opposition. That and not any principled anti-interventionism distinguished the two sides in this “debate.” Said the cyber-activist: “Well, to start with, I disagree with Professor Landis’s portrayal of the situation with the Syrian opposition. It is true that, for instance, in the Syrian National Council, there are a lot of disagreements. But (the opposition is) still frustrated with the leadership of the Syrian National Council because of its inability to solicit more international support…. And I believe that the State Department, Secretary Clinton and the American administration is heading towards that. … It’s going to require a lot of money and a lot of courage and a lot of involvement on the part of the international community.” [Emphasis added]

And then the boy cyber-activist got nasty: “I am just a little wary that this overemphasis on how leaderless the Syrian opposition is actually a tactic being used of people who actually do not want the regime to be overthrown and who have always actually defended the legitimacy of the Syrian regime, and especially of Bashar al-Assad.” There it is. Even if one is for intervention in principle, no delay is to be countenanced. Such people are surely on the side of Bashar Al-Assad.

This is the kind of “debate” we get on “progressive” media outlets. It is not even a debate about whether there should be imperial intervention, once completely verboten on the Left, but when and under what circumstances military intervention should occur. This phony debate should simply be ignored whether it appears on DemocracyNow! or on NPR, increasingly indistinguishable in content and outlook or anywhere else. In fairness to Amy Goodman, just a few weeks back on February 7, she hosted the British writer and long time student of Syria, Patrick Seale. Said Seale: “I believe dialogue is the only way out of this. And indeed, the Russians have suggested to both sides to come to Moscow and start a dialogue. But the opposition says, ‘No, we can’t dialogue with Bashar al-Assad. He must be toppled first.’ Well, that’s a dangerous—a dangerous position to adopt.” That interview is well worth reading. And Goodman would do well to stick with that instead of shifting over to empty debates between interventionism now versus interventionism later. After repeatedly hosting the CIA consultant Juan Cole to cheer the cruel war on Libya, Goodman now seems to be going down the same path with Syria. It is a sad spectacle and one more indication of how little the “progressives” in the West understand the nature of Humanitarian Imperialism which uses human rights to sell war. It looks like it’s time to abandon Goodman and switch to Alyona.

John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com.

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February 25, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Syria’s Electronic Warriors Hit Al Jazeera

Leaked emails reveal dismay among Al-Jazeera staff over its “biased and unprofessional” coverage of Syria

By Wissam Kanaan | Al Akhbar | February 24, 2012

Damascus – On Wednesday, the entire staff of the Al Jazeera network allegedly received an email instructing them to change their computer and email passwords.

Earlier in the week, the network’s server had been hacked by the self-styled Syrian Electronic Army, and some of its secrets were released to the media.

The major find to be made public was an email exchange between anchorwoman Rula Ibrahim and Beirut-based reporter Ali Hashem. The emails seemed to indicate widespread disaffection within the channel, especially over its coverage of the crisis in Syria.

Ibrahim wrote to her colleague saying that she had “turned against the revolution” in Syria after realizing that the protests would “destroy the country and lead to a civil war.” She went on to deride the opposition Free Syrian Army, which she described as “a branch of al-Qaeda.”

Ibrahim also complained about the attitudes of various colleagues at the channel’s Doha headquarters, saying some of them “have refused to greet me ever since the outbreak of events in Syria because they hold a grudge against my sect.”

Hashem responded sympathetically, saying he had opted to sit on the fence after sending the channel footage of armed men clashing with the army which he had witnessed while reporting from northeastern Lebanon. He said that after he submitted the video, he was told to return to Beirut on the grounds that he was exhausted.

In her response, Ibrahim once again protested that she had “been utterly humiliated. They wiped the floor with me because I embarrassed Zuheir Salem, spokesperson for Syria’s Muslim Brothers. As a result, I was prevented from doing any Syrian interviews, and threatened with [a] transfer to the night shift on the pretext that I was making the channel imbalanced.”

Ibrahim also spoke of how Syrian activists invited onto Al Jazeera use terms of sectarian incitement on air, “which Syrians understand very well.”

Hashem wondered in response where the channel’s head of news, Ibrahim Hilal, stood in all this. Ibrahim answered that he was “stuck between a rock and a hard place: the agenda and professionalism…” … Full article

February 24, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Ales Bialiatski: legally a convicted criminal, ideologically a “human rights activist”

By Gearóid Ó Colmáin | Dissident Voice | February 24th, 2012

Excerpt

On the 8th of August as plans for the siege of Sirte in Libya were underway, American senator John McCain was already signaling that Belarus would be America’s next target for regime change. McCain referred to the imprisonment of Ales Bialiatski, the so-called “human rights” activist arrested by the Belarusian authorities for fiscal fraud in 2011.

Bialiatski is the vice-president of the International Federation of Human Rights, (Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l’Homme) a sub-organisation of which provided the United Nation’s Human Rights Council with false information in February 2011 accusing the Libyan government of “massacres” in Benghazi.

This false information served as a pretext for a war of aggression that led to the killing of tens of thousands of people, reducing a prosperous socially-oriented economy to rubble and imposing a corrupt foreign-selected dictatorship against the wishes of the Libyan people.

The barbaric destruction of the Libyan Jamahirya should serve as a sufficient lesson to any intelligent person of what NATO countries mean by “human rights,” “democracy,” and the “rule of law.”

Amnesty International’s condemnation of Bialiatski’s prosecution, without showing any proof of a miscarriage of justice on the part of the Belarusian courts, shows that the so-called “human rights” organization is more concerned with providing moral legitimacy for the foreign policy objectives of Western governments than protecting human rights.

Bialiatski was arrested by the Polish and Lithuanian police for fiscal fraud on intelligence supplied to them by Interpol. He was not arrested for his political opposition to the Belarusian government. This is not the first time Amnesty International has falsely accused Belarus of human rights violations and it is unlikely to be the last.

Since Bialiatski’s imprisonment, the Polish government has moved to prevent further Interpol arrest warrants issued from “undemocratic” countries. This is rather farcical coming from a state where wearing a Che Guevara T-Shirt could land you in jail!

The human rights charade is now becoming so ridiculous it is likely to backfire in the long term. Regime change specialists such as Canvas, a US funded colour revolution training centre based in Belgrade, are now orchestrating stunts involving the use of naked women protesting outside the KGB headquarters in Minsk. Behaviour of this kind would get one arrested in any country.

However, the point of the exercise is, in fact, to get arrested, film it and thereby embarrass the KGB. But the KGB, being an intelligence agency, have pre-empted their plans and the silly nudists have only succeeded in catching a cold and providing light entertainment for pedestrians, all in the cause of the “revolution.”

That Amnesty International should hold openly take sides in favour of US-funded pseudo-dissidents should not surprise us. After all, the head of Amnesty International USA Suzanne Nossel is a former assistant to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the man they call Dr. Stranglove, former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski is also a former board member of the same human rights organisation.

Full article

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February 24, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Azerbaijan Claims More Iranian Terror Plots Without Providing Details or Evidence

New Alleged Hezbollah-Iran Joint Terror Operations in Azerbaijan

By Sibel Edmunds | Boiling Frogs Post |  February 22, 2012

Azerbaijan claims it has ‘again’ busted another Iranian terror cell, but is refusing to provide any evidence or details. According to the report by the country’s state-run AZTV, on February 21 a terrorist cell operated by Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had been discovered and dismantled. Allegedly the busted group, with guns and explosives, were planning attacks on ‘unspecified’ foreign nationals.

Despite reporters’ attempts the Azeri government refrained from providing any additional information:

Speaking to EurasiaNet.org, a spokesperson for Azerbaijan’s Ministry of National Security refused either to confirm or to deny the station’s report. Strangely, pro-government and state-run news sites have proven similarly skittish about delving into the AzTV report; no news about the arrests could be found on any of these websites on the morning of February 22.

Strangely enough, to back up the story AZTV aired footage of terrorist arrests from an incident that occurred in 2008! This new development appears to follow the very same pattern as Azerbaijan’s claim on the ‘alleged’ assassination plot against Israeli officials in Azerbaijan by an Iran-Sponsored terrorist group last month.

Earlier today APA news agency reported new details about this latest alleged Iranian terror operation. Supposedly, the terrorist group operated under two ringleaders – “Hamid” for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and “Haji Abbas” for an armed wing of Hezbollah, Mugavimat. This is supposed to establish the collaborative effort between the Iranian government and Hezbollah:

Azerbaijani Ministry of National Security disarmed the terrorist group of Iranian intelligence agency “Sepah” and “Hezbollah” in Azerbaijan.

The group members gathered material reconnaissance materials. The illegally acquired many weapons, ammunitions, explosives and explosive devices and began preparations to commit a terror act.A group of persons were detained in Azerbaijan over the last several days. Member of Nardaran Sanhedrin Karbalai Natig Karimov told APA that the majority of detained as a result of operative measures taken by the National Security Ministry and law-enforcement bodes were the residents of Baku villages, especially Nardaran. They are accused of establishing armed unit, illegal keeping of weapon, betrayal of motherland and drug trafficking.

Earlier this month Boiling Frogs Post reported on Iran’s formal rebuke to Azerbaijan for housing and accommodating Israeli intelligence agents and assassins to execute assassination plots against Iranian nuclear scientists. Azerbaijan denied the accusations by the Iranian government.

It is also important to note that intimate US-NATO ally Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev visited the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels on February 15 and has also met with Israeli President Shimon Peres and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the past few weeks.

Boiling Frogs Post has been the only news site closely monitoring and reporting these developments in the US war on Iran operations’ Caucasus front. You can read our previous reports here, here, here and here.

February 22, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

Jodi Rudoren, Another Member of the Family: Meet the New York Times’ New Israel-Palestine News Chief

Past & Present NY Times Jerusalem Bureau Chiefs: Jodi Rudoren, Ethan Bronner, Steven Erlanger, Thomas Friedman
Past & Present NY Times Jerusalem Bureau Chiefs: Jodi Rudoren, Ethan Bronner, Steven Erlanger, Thomas Friedman
By ALISON WEIR | CounterPunch | February 21, 2012

Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun Magazine, is known for his frequent condemnations of Israeli violence against Palestinians. He is labeled “pro-Palestinian” for such statements and is regularly attacked by pro-Israel zealots who charge that he is disloyal to the Jewish state.

Yet, in reality, Lerner frequently speaks of his devotion to Israel and states that his actions are taken in considerable part to protect it.

A while ago Lerner explained the difference in his feelings about Israelis compared to his feelings about Palestinians. “[T]here is a difference in my emotional and spiritual connection to these two sides,” Lerner said.

“On the one side is my family; on the other side are decent human beings. I want to support human beings all over the planet but I have a special connection to my family.”

This statement comes to mind when one considers the New York Times bureau chiefs who cover Israel-Palestine.

Jodi Rudoren

The most recent person to be chosen for this powerful post at arguably the most influential newspaper in the United States is Jodi Rudoren. She takes the place of Ethan Bronner, who was preceded by Steven Erlanger, who was preceded by James Bennet, who was preceded by Deborah Sontag. All, according to an Israeli report, are Jewish.

Most Americans — particularly those who would object to only white reporters covering racial issues or only male reporters covering gender issues — are reluctant to discuss the potential bias in such a profoundly un-diverse system, having been conditioned to fear that such discussion would be “anti-Semitic” or would open the commentator to this extremely damaging accusation.

In Israel, however, it is considered appropriate to discuss the Jewish roots of American politicians and journalists since Israel was created specifically to be “the Jewish state,” Jews have elevated status in it, and the vast majority of Israeli land is officially owned by “world Jewry” (although some individuals have publicly opted out).

An article on the Jerusalem Post website, a major Israeli newspaper, focuses on this aspect. The article, “Judaism at the New York Times”, reports that “all New York Times’ bureau chiefs for at least the last fifteen years have been Jewish.”

The article’s author, Ashley Rindsberg, notes that “the Times doesn’t consistently send Russian Americans to its Moscow bureau… or Mexican Americans to lead its Mexico City bureau…” and asks, “Why does the New York Times consistently send Jewish journalists to head their central office in the Jewish State?”

Rindsberg, who like many conservative Israelis considers the Times’ reporting anti-Israel, provides a somewhat convoluted answer. The Times’ Jewish owners, Rindsberg posits, are uncomfortable with their Jewish identity. Therefore, he claims, they “would just as soon as not have reporters who could be identified for their Jewishness. And to prove it, they send Jews to the Jewish State to report in a most un-Jewish way.”

The Times’ history of pro-Israel coverage

Despite Rindsberg’s view of the Times, analysis shows its coverage to be consistently pro-Israel. A 2005 study found that the Times reported on Israeli deaths at rates up to seven times greater than its reports on Palestinian deaths, even though Palestinian deaths occurred first and in far greater numbers.

A 2007 study of the Times’ coverage of various international reports on human rights violations by Israelis and by Palestinians found that the Times covered reports condemning Israeli human rights violations at a rate only one-twentieth the rate that it covered reports condemning Palestinian human rights violations. The investigation found that during the study period there had been 76 reports by humanitarian agencies condemning Israel for abuses and four condemning Palestinians for abuses. The Times carried two stories on each side.

In its early years the Times specifically avoided assigning Jewish reporters to cover Israel out of concern that such journalists would have an inherent conflict of interest. This policy was reversed in 1979 after Abe Rosenthal became the paper’s executive editor and explicitly decided to choose Jewish journalists for the position.

While his first attempt failed (he had thought his choice, David Shipler, was Jewish), the Columbia Journalism Review reports that most of the journalists who succeeded Shipler, beginning with Thomas Friedman, have been of Jewish ethnicity. The article notes that “for a century [the Times] has served, in effect, as the hometown paper of American Jewry.”

Max Frankel

Former NY Times executive editor Max Frankel, who was an editor at the Times from 1972 through 2000, admitted in his memoirs: “I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert … Fortified by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish readers recognized, I wrote them from a pro-Israel perspective.”

An article by star reporter and author Grace Halsell describes her firsthand experience with pro-Israel bias at the Times in the early 1980s.

Halsell had written books about the plight of Native Americans, African Americans, and undocumented Mexican workers. She was a great favorite of New York Times matriarch Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, whose father had acquired the Times in 1896, whose husband and then son had run it next, and whose grandson is now in charge.

When Halsell next wrote a powerful book describing the Palestinian plight, she incurred Mrs. Suzberger’s displeasure and was quickly dropped by the Times. Halsell writes: “I had little concept that from being buoyed so high I could be dropped so suddenly when I discovered—from her point of view—the ‘wrong’ underdog.”

In her article Halsell quotes a revealing statement by an Israeli journalist following Israel’s 1996 shelling of a U.N. base in Lebanon that killed more than 100 civilians sheltering in it: “We believe with absolute certitude that right now, with the White House in our hands, the Senate in our hands and The New York Times in our hands, the lives of others do not count the same way as our own.”

Since 1984 New York Times bureau chiefs have lived in a house that was acquired for the Times by then Jerusalem Bureau Chief Thomas Friedman (now the Times’ lead foreign policy columnist). The building originally belonged to a Palestinian family forced out in Israel’s 1947-49 founding war. Israel afterward prevented the family from returning and reclaiming their home. Therefore, Times’ bureau chiefs are in the strange position of living in a home that was stolen from Palestinians (acquiring property by violent conquest is illegal in today’s world).

Recent Situation: Bronner, Kershner, & Khader Adnan

Rudoren’s predecessor as Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, has a son who enlisted in the Israeli military. When this conflict with impartiality was exposed, even the Times’ own ombudsman suggested that journalistic ethics required that Bronner be moved to a different beat. Yet, Times then-editor Bill Keller insisted that this gave Bronner “special sophistication” and kept him in his position.

Bronner’s colleague at the bureau has been Isabel Kershner, who will apparently be staying on. J.J. Goldberg, editor of the Forward, writes: “Isabel Kershner immigrated to Israel from her native England as a young woman and spent a couple of decades in Israeli journalism and Jewish education before joining the Times a few years ago. By now she’s thoroughly Israeli (and, for full disclosure, a friend).”

While pro-Israel Zealots vehemently attack Bronner and Kershner when they cover Palestinian victimization, the truth is that they overlook a great many instances. For example, a 33-year-old Palestinian father of two young girls (another child is on the way) was on a hunger strike that lasted for 66 days. He was was near death when he reportedly decided to end it on Feb 21.

The young man, Khader Adnan, was protesting his imprisonment by Israel – he was never charged with a crime – and the beatings and humiliations he endured from Israeli interrogators. There was an extended international campaign about him that grew even more urgent when doctors began warning after 45 days that he was at risk of death. Eventually, there was so much pressure world wide (including by  UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk and EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton) that Israel  announced it would release Adnan at the end of his “sentence.”

Yet, Bronner and Kershner – and Times columnists who frequently bemoan the alleged lack of a Palestinian Gandhi – did not publish a single story on Adnan until the 66th (and last) day of his hunger strike  – after the Washington Post had finally carried a report two days before. The Times’ headline was the very bland, “Hearing for Palestinian on Hunger Strike Is Set.

Palestinian prisoners

While Adnan’s is the longest Palestinian hunger strike on record, through the years there have been hundreds of hunger strikes by multitudes of Palestinians in Israeli prisons; the Times almost never reports on them. It’s revealing to compare their numerous stories on the Israeli tank gunner captured by Palestinians, Gilad Shalit, to the sparsity of their reporting on Adnan and others.

Overall, the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel seem largely to have been invisible to Times’ reporters. While there have been gruesome reports of their torture for decades, there is little indication that Bronner or Kershner have investigated this or made much, if any, effort to visit Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

Who is Jodi Rudoren?

Now that Bronner’s four-year term has come to an end (he says he initiated the transfer himself and was not pushed out over conflict of interest), it is not clear what went into new editor Jill Abramson’s decision to choose Rudoren for this powerful position.

A cum laude graduate from Yale, Rudoren’s journalistic experience appears to be limited to domestic subjects. Most recently she had been head of the Times’ Education bureau. She speaks what she calls “functional Hebrew” but no Arabic. It’s unknown how much time, if any, she has spent in Israel, whether she has family there, or whether she has family members in the Israeli military.

When Rudoren received a tweet by Palestinian-American author Ali Abunimah, who noted that she would be moving into stolen Palestinian property, she responded: “Hey there. Would love to chat sometime. About things other than the house. My friend Kareem Fahim [a New York Times associate] says good things.”

This friendly but somewhat flip response to a serious subject has caused Israel zealots to attack her. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg somewhat hysterically equated Abunimah, an author known for his intellectual analysis, with Israeli Jewish supremacists known for their violence.

Goldberg suggested that Rudoren should have “twinned” her tweet to Abunimah by reaching out to Kahanists — a group listed by both Israel and the U.S. as terrorists. Goldberg should be pleased to learn that Rudoren said she had done just that, telling the Jerusalem Post, “One of the people I followed before reaching out to Abunimah was David Ha’ivri.”

Ha’ivri is an extremist settler rabbi who was involved with Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane’s Kach terror group, celebrated the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin when he had begun to make peace with Palestinians, and was convicted some years ago for desecrating a mosque.

Abunimah, on the other hand, has written a book called “One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse,” in which he describes how Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace.

Rudoren’s knowledge of Hebrew may have been bolstered by her summertime attendance at Camp Yavneh, a Jewish camp in New Hampshire that has an Israeli flag at the top of its website and boasts of its “strong Israeli programming.” It features a six-weeks “summer in Israel” program, though it’s unknown whether Rudoren attended this.

The camp website states that the current boys’ head counselor “grew up in Gush Etzion, Israel, and has served as a Lieutenant Commander in the Israeli Army in charge of 150 soldiers in the Givatti Brigade.” Another counselor is a resident of the Israeli settlement of Efrat, which, like all Israeli settlements, is built on confiscated Palestinian land and is illegal under international law.

Despite an upbringing that appears to have included considerable immersion in Zionist mythology, indications are that Rudoren may be working to widen her view. She raves about a book by Peter Beinart called “The Crisis of Zionism” and retweeted a message by blogger Sami Kishawi. It’s interesting to note that the Times’ only other female Jerusalem bureau chief, Deborah Sontag, often provided exemplary coverage; her term seems to have ended early.

Tweeting like a J-Street official?

Jeffrey Goldberg – who moved to Israel, became an Israeli citizen, joined the Israeli army, and worked as a prison guard at one of Israel’s most brutal prisons – assures readers that Rudoren is still within the pro-Israel fold, commenting, “I don’t know Rudoren… I do know her sister, from synagogue, mainly, and I don’t think Jodi is some sort of anti-Israel activist…”

Goldberg is concerned, however, that she is tweeting “as if she’s a J Street official.” For Goldberg this veers dangerously toward anti-Israelism.

In reality, however, J Street is a pro-Israel organization whose positions are dictated by what is good for Israel. Its founder has just published a book entitled “A New Voice for Israel.” If Goldberg’s assessment of Rudoren is accurate, then it appears that once again the Times has a person at the helm of its reporting on Israelis and Palestinians for whom Israelis are “family.” Quite possibly, literally.

Rudoren may be intending to cover the region accurately and with fairness. To do so, however, it appears that she will need to overcome enormous ingrained bias, relentless and vitriolic objections of the organized pro-Israel community (quite likely including friends and family), and pressure by many powerful Times advertisers and colleagues.

On top of this, unless she chooses a different lifestyle than her predecessors’, she will be living in Israel, her children will go to Israeli schools, and her home will be one of the thousands confiscated from Palestinians who are now living and suffering largely out of sight, their daily humiliations and victimization for the most part invisible.

These winds may be so strong that even when Rudoren believes she has stood upright against them, an outside view may show her tilted far over in the Israeli direction, her reporting on Israel-Palestine, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, covering the gamut from A to C.

Let us hope that this doesn’t occur.

Let us hope Rudoren understands that good reporting does not equate a false narrative with a factual one; that she will not be, in Abunimah’s words, yet “another New York Times reporter for whom Palestinians are just bit players in someone else’s drama.”

Let us hope she understands that living in stolen property is not a good base from which to report honestly; that “balance” achieved by under-reporting Palestinian suffering while exaggerating that of Israelis is not balance, it is distortion. Let us hope, most of all, that she does not view some human beings as more important than others, but instead views all, regardless of their religion or ethnicity, as family.

~

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew and president of the Council for the National Interest. She can be reached at contact@ifamericanslknew.org.

February 22, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Bombing Iran: A Real Headache for Israel

By Steve Rendall – FAIR – 02/21/2012

Bombing Iran could be a real strain for Israel, reports Elisabeth Bumiller in the New York Times (“Iran Raid Seen as a Huge Task for Israeli Jets,” 2/19/12).  No one’s sure they can pull it off, what with the logistics involved:

Should Israel decide to launch a strike on Iran, its pilots would have to fly more than 1,000 miles across unfriendly airspace, refuel in the air en route, fight off Iran’s air defenses, attack multiple underground sites simultaneously–and use at least 100 planes.

Everyone apparently agrees on the task in front of Israel, as Bumiller puts it: “Given that Israel would want to strike Iran’s four major nuclear sites….”  Killing Iranians and spreading radioactive material over their countryside isn’t an issue for the Times, where Iran seems to exist only as an obstacle to Israeli strategic interests.

But, Bumiller reports, the job could exceed Israel’s offensive capabilities, raising the question of whether the U.S. might be “sucked into finishing the job.” A job she’s not altogether unexcited about:

Should the United States get involved–or decide to strike on its own–military analysts said that the Pentagon had the ability to launch big strikes with bombers, stealth aircraft and cruise missiles, followed up by drones that could carry out damage assessments to help direct further strikes. Unlike Israel, the United States has plenty of refueling capability. Bombers could fly from Al Udeid air base in Qatar, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean or bases in Britain and the United States.

Perhaps the most telling line in Bumiller’s cold, skewed accounting of the potential risks of an attack on Iran is in her peculiar notion of what would constitute a state of war:

Iran could also strike back with missiles that could hit Israel, opening a new war in the Middle East, though some Israeli officials have argued that the consequences would be worse if Iran were to gain a nuclear weapon.

War would ensue the instant Iran responded to being bombed? This is not only bizarre wording, it ignores the low-intensity war that has been waged against Iran over the past few years, including explosions at nuclear facilities, the assassination of its scientists and the arming of insurgent groups in Iran’s border areas.

February 21, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Media War Launched by Foreign Sides to Aggravate Situation in Syria’

SANA | February 21, 2012

MOSCOW – Chairman of the Syrian-Russian Friendship Association, Alexander Dzasokhov, stressed on Monday that a wide-range media war was launched against Syria a year ago, pointing out that foreign sides are destabilizing the situation in Syria.

In an interview with Russia 24 channel, Dzasokhov said that the situation in Syria is complicated, but a solution to the crisis is possible, considering the new constitution of Syria and the referendum on it on February 26, 2012 is ‘an important event’.

He added that the new constitution does not mention a one-party regime, and it includes other forms of parliamentary activities and several other articles consistent with the international standards of the democratic state.

Dzasokhov asserted Russia’s calls for solving the Syrian crisis without foreign interference, adding that Russia considers Syria a “pivotal country” in the Middle East, and it is committed to its sovereignty and stability.

He noted that millions of the Syrian people took to the streets to express their support to the Syrian leadership and commitment to the national unity, but Arab and European media are ignoring that and trying to fabricate the reality of the situation in Syria.

February 21, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Fikra: An Israeli Forum for Arab Democrats

A surreptitious WINEP project is pushing cataclysmic regime change in Syria

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | February 21, 2012

On February 10, subscribers to Fikra Forum’s mailing list received a bilingual (English and Arabic) letter from director David Pollock informing them:

In reaction to last week’s exclusive Fikra Forum report, Inside the Syrian Army by Ilhan Tanir, contributor Josef Olmert and I present analysis on how the U.S. and the international community should support the FSA [Free Syrian Army].

Five days later, Fikra Forum subscribers received another email with the subject title, “Leading Syrian Activist Calls for International Intervention.” In his introductory note, Pollock explained:

As the international community struggles to halt the Syrian regime’s brutal assault on its people, Fikra Forum would like to share our newest piece by Radwan Ziadeh, an official with the Syrian National Council and executive director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies. Ziadeh calls for intervention, urging the international community to form a coalition that legitimizes the SNC as the unified representative of the Syrian opposition and acknowledges the council’s plan for the future of Syria.

At the bottom of both Fikra Forum emails was the following address:

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy | 1828 L STREET NW | SUITE 1050 | WASHINGTON | DC | 20036 | US

However, if one were to visit the Fikra Forum website, one might get the impression that the “online community that aims to generate ideas to support Arab democrats in their struggle with authoritarians and extremists” was trying to hide its association with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the think tank created by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to “do AIPAC’s work but appear independent.” In its remarkably vague “About Us” section, the only clue to its affiliation with “the think tank AIPAC built” is this acknowledgement:

Fikra Forum is grateful to the Nathan and Esther K. Wagner Family Foundation for their contribution to the launch of Fikra Forum in the memory of Steven Croft, who during his life believed passionately in the power of ideas to transform lives.

Steven Croft’s February 20, 2009 Death Notice in the Chicago Tribune tells us a little more about those passionate beliefs:

He was also philanthropically involved in local, national and international organizations including the Arthritis Foundation, AIPAC, Israel Bonds and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Notwithstanding the apparent overlap, WINEP also appears to be coy about its relationship with Fikra Forum. Despite the fact that David Pollock is the Kaufman fellow at The Washington Institute, “focusing on the political dynamics of Middle Eastern countries,” there appears to be no mention there of the “unique online community” he directs “with the goal of generating ideas to produce a brighter future for Arab democrats.”

By an amazing coincidence, WINEP has its own “Fikra” (Arabic for “Idea”), which it describes as “a multiyear program of research, publication, and network-building designed to generate policy ideas for promoting positive change and countering the spread of extremism in the Middle East.” According to the Israel lobby-created think tank, its Project Fikra is:

A bold effort to counter the spread of extremism in the Middle East, the program seeks to inject creativity and new thinking into America’s engagement with youths, media, educators, and other key actors struggling for openness and tolerance in Arab and Muslim societies.

Among “the talents of Washington Institute scholars and associates” that Project Fikra brings together is David Pollock, whom it describes as “an expert on Middle Eastern public opinion and polling who worked as a leader on regional democratization and women’s rights.”

Apart from Pollock, a substantial number of Fikra Forum contributors are current or former WINEP fellows, including Ahmed Ali, Jon Alterman, Hassan Barari, Soner Cagaptay, J. Scott Carpenter, Steven Cook, Andrew Engel, Daniel Green, Dina Guirguis, Simon Henderson, David Makovsky, Joshua Muravchik, Magnus Norell, Michael Rubin, Robert Satloff, David Schenker, Michael Singh, Andrew Tabler, Eric Trager, and Margaret Weiss.

The rest of the contributors are from other pro-Israel think tanks, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the American Enterprise Institute; Soros-funded groups such as Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, and the Center for American Progress; various “democracy-promotion” organizations led by the National Endowment for Democracy and its affiliates; and an abundance of pro-democracy activists, bloggers and journalists they “helped nurture,” fomenting the wave of uprisings known as the “Arab Spring.”

While Pollock and many of the other Fikra contributors work for Israel’s U.S. lobby, perhaps the most interesting contributor to an online forum supposedly dedicated to Arab democracy is the aforementioned Josef Olmert. Although his Fikra Forum profile does acknowledge that the Israeli analyst was a director of the Government Press Office and advisor to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and later served as policy advisor to former Defense Minister Moshe Arens, it emphasizes his role as a “peace negotiator.” Fikra Forum readers are not informed, however, that Dr. Olmert is the brother of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or that both of their parents belonged to the terrorist Irgun organization.

Although Josef Olmert predicted elsewhere a “chaotic transition” in which “the violence that will unfold in Syria will dwarf everything that we have witnessed until now,” he assures Fikra Forum readers that “all support that could enable the FSA to continue and intensify its operations, alongside the continuing popular resistance, will help shorten the days of the dictatorship and save the lives of many innocent Syrians.”

Maidhc Ó Cathail has written extensively on Israel’s push for regime change in Syria.

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February 21, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Case for a Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy

“Responsibility to Protect” as Imperial Tool

By JEAN BRICMONT | February 20, 2012

The events in Syria, after those in Libya last year, are accompanied by calls for a military intervention, in order to “protect civilians”, claiming that it is our right or our duty to do so. And, just as last year, some of the loudest voices in favor of intervention are heard on the left or among the Greens, who have totally swallowed the concept of “humanitarian intervention”. In fact, the rare voices staunchly opposed to such interventions are often associated with the right, either Ron Paul in the US or the National Front in France. The policy the left should support is non-intervention.

The main target of the humanitarian interventionists is the concept of national sovereignty, on which the current international law is based, and which they stigmatize as allowing dictators to kill their own people at will.  The impression is sometimes given that national sovereignty is nothing but a protection for dictators whose only desire is to kill their own people.

But in fact, the primary justification of national sovereignty is precisely to provide at least a partial protection of weak states against strong ones. A state that is strong enough can do whatever it chooses without worrying about intervention from outside. Nobody expects Bangladesh to interfere in the internal affairs of the United States.  Nobody is going to bomb the United States to force it to modify its immigration or monetary policies because of the human consequences of such policies on other countries. Humanitarian intervention goes only one way, from the powerful to the weak.

The very starting point of the United Nations was to save humankind from “the scourge of war”, with reference to the two World Wars.  This was to be done precisely by strict respect for national sovereignty, in order to prevent Great Powers from intervening militarily against weaker ones, regardless of the pretext.  The protection of national sovereignty in international law was based on recognition of the fact that internal conflicts in weak countries can be exploited by strong ones, as was shown by Germany’s interventions in Czechoslovakia and Poland, ostensibly “in defense of oppressed minorities”.  That led to World War II.

Then came decolonization. Following World War II, dozens of newly independent countries freed themselves from the colonial yoke. The last thing they wanted was to see former colonial powers openly interfering in their internal affairs (even though such interference has often persisted in more or less veiled forms, notably in African countries).  This aversion to foreign interference explains why the “right” of humanitarian intervention has been universally rejected by the countries of the South, for example at the South Summit in Havana in April 2000. Meeting in Kuala Lumpur in February 2003, shortly before the US attack on Iraq, “The Heads of State or Government reiterated the rejection by the Non-Aligned Movement of the so-called ‘right’ of humanitarian intervention, which has no basis either in United Nations Charter or in international law” and “also observed similarities between the new expression ‘responsibility to protect’ and ‘humanitarian intervention’ and requested the Co-ordinating Bureau to carefully study and consider the expression ‘the  responsibility to protect’ and its implications on the basis of the principles of non-interference and non-intervention as well as  the respect  for territorial integrity and national sovereignty of  States.”

The main failure of the United Nations has not been that it did not stop dictators from murdering their own people, but that it failed to prevent powerful countries from violating the principles of international law: the United States in Indochina and Iraq, South Africa in Angola and Mozambique, Israel in its neighboring countries, Indonesia in East Timor, not to speak of all the coups, threats, embargoes, unilateral sanctions, bought elections, etc. Many millions of people lost their lives because of such repeated violation of international law and of the principle of national sovereignty.

In a post-World War II history that includes the Indochina wars, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, of Panama, even of tiny Grenada, as well as the bombing of Yugoslavia, Libya and various other countries, it is scarcely credible to maintain that it is international law and respect for national sovereignty that prevent the United States from stopping genocide. If the US had had the means and the desire to intervene in Rwanda, it would have done so and no international law would have prevented that.  And if a “new norm” is introduced, such as the right of humanitarian intervention or the responsibility to protect, within the context of the current relationship of political and military forces, it will not save anyone anywhere, unless the United States sees fit to intervene, from its own perspective.

US interference in the internal affairs of other states is multi-faceted but constant and repeatedly violates the spirit and often the letter of the UN Charter.  Despite claims to act on behalf of principles such as freedom and democracy, US intervention has repeatedly had disastrous consequences: not only the millions of deaths caused by direct and indirect wars, but also the lost opportunities, the “killing of hope” for hundreds of millions of people who might have benefited from progressive social policies initiated by leaders such as Arbenz in Guatemala, Goulart in Brazil, Allende in Chile, Lumumba in the Congo, Mossadegh in Iran, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, or President Chavez in Venezuela, who have been systematically subverted, overthrown or killed with full Western support.

But that is not all. Every aggressive action led by the United States creates a reaction. Deployment of an anti-missile shield produces more missiles, not less. Bombing civilians – whether deliberately or by so-called “collateral damage” – produces more armed resistance, not less. Trying to overthrow or subvert governments produces more internal repression, not less. Encouraging secessionist minorities by giving them the often false impression that the sole Superpower will come to their rescue in case they are repressed, leads to more violence, hatred and death, not less. Surrounding a country with military bases produces more defense spending by that country, not less, and the possession of nuclear weapons by Israel encourages other states of the Middle East to acquire such weapons. If the West hesitates to attack Syria or Iran, it is because these countries are stronger and have more reliable allies than Yugoslavia or Libya. If the West complains about the recent Russian and Chinese vetoes about Syria, it has only to blame itself: indeed, this is the result of the blatant abuse by Nato of Resolution 1973, in order to effect regime change in Libya, which the resolution did not authorize. So, the message sent by our interventionist policy to “dictators” is: be better armed, make less concessions and build better alliances.

Moreover, the humanitarian disasters in Eastern Congo, which are probably the largest in recent decades, are mainly due to foreign interventions (mostly from Rwanda, a US ally), not to a lack of them. To take a most extreme case, which is a favorite example of horrors cited by advocates of the humanitarian interventions, it is most unlikely that the Khmer Rouge would ever have taken power in Cambodia without the massive “secret” US bombing followed by US-engineered regime change that left that unfortunate country totally disrupted and destabilized.

Another problem with the “right of humanitarian intervention” is that it fails to suggest any principle to replace national sovereignty. When NATO exercised its own self-proclaimed right to intervene in Kosovo, where diplomatic efforts were far from having been exhausted, it was praised by the Western media. When Russia exercised what it regarded as its own responsibility to protect in South Ossetia, it was uniformly condemned in the same Western media. When Vietnam intervened in Cambodia, to put an end to the Khmer Rouge, or India intervened to free Bangladesh from Pakistan, their actions were also harshly condemned in the United States. So, either every country with the means to do so acquires the right to intervene whenever a humanitarian reason can be invoked as a justification, and we are back to the war of all against all, or only an all-powerful state, namely the United States (and its allies) are allowed to do so, and we are back to a form of dictatorship in international affairs.

It is often replied that the interventions are not to be carried out by one state, but by the “international community”. But the concept of “international community” is used primarily by the United States and its allies to designate themselves and whoever agrees with them at the time.  It has grown into a concept that both rivals the United Nations (the “international community” claims to be more “democratic” than many UN member states) and tends to take it over in many ways.

In reality, there is no such thing as a genuine international community. NATO’s intervention in Kosovo was not approved by Russia and Russian intervention in South Ossetia was condemned by the West. There would have been no Security Council approval for either intervention. The African Union has rejected the indictment by the International Criminal Court of the President of Sudan. Any system of international justice or police, whether it is the responsibility to protect or the International Criminal Court, would need to be based on a relationship of equality and a climate of trust. Today, there is no equality and no trust, between West and East, between North and South, largely as a result of the record of US policies. For some version of the responsibility to protect to be consensually functional in the future, we need first to build a relationship of equality and trust.

The Libyan adventure has illustrated another reality conveniently overlooked by the supporters of humanitarian intervention, namely that without the huge US military machine, the sort of safe no-casualty (on our side) intervention which can hope to gain public support is not possible. The Western countries are not willing to risk sacrificing too many lives of their troops, and waging a purely aerial war requires an enormous amount of high technology equipment. Those who support such interventions are supporting, whether they realize it or not, the continued existence of the US military machine, with its bloated budgets and its weight on the national debt. The European Greens and Social Democrats who support the war in Libya should have the honesty to tell their constituents that they need to accept massive cuts in public spending on pensions, unemployment, health care and education, in order to bring such social expenses down to an American level and use the hundreds of billions of euros thus saved to build a military machine that will be able to intervene whenever and wherever there is a humanitarian crisis.

If it is true that the 21st century needs a new United Nations, it does not need one that legitimizes such interventions by novel arguments, such as responsibility to protect, but one that gives at least moral support to those who try to construct a world less dominated by a single military superpower. The United Nations needs to pursue its efforts to achieve its founding purpose before setting a new, supposedly humanitarian priority, which may in reality be used by the Great Powers to justify their own future wars by undermining the principle of national sovereignty.

The left should support an active peace policy through international cooperation, disarmament, and non-intervention of states in the internal affairs of others. We could use our overblown military budgets to implement a form of global Keynesianism: instead of demanding “balanced budgets” in the developing world, we should use the resources wasted on our military to finance massive investments in education, health care and development. If this sounds utopian, it is not more so than the belief that a stable world will emerge from the way our current “war on terror” is being carried out.

Moreover, the left should strive towards strict respect for international law on the part of Western powers, implementing the UN resolutions concerning Israel, dismantling the worldwide US empire of bases as well as NATO, ceasing all threats concerning the unilateral use of force, stopping all interference in the internal affairs of other States, in particular all operations of “democracy promotion”, “color” revolutions, and the exploitation of the politics of minorities.  This necessary respect for national sovereignty means that the ultimate sovereign of each nation state is the people of that state, whose right to replace unjust governments cannot be taken over by supposedly benevolent outsiders.

It will be objected that such a policy would allow dictators to “murder their own people”, the current slogan justifying intervention.  But if non-intervention may allow such terrible things to happen, history shows that military intervention frequently has the same result, when cornered leaders and their followers turn their wrath on the “traitors” supporting foreign intervention.  On the other hand, non- intervention spares domestic oppositions from being regarded as fifth columns of the Western powers – an inevitable result of our interventionist policies.  Actively seeking peaceful solutions would allow a reduction of military expenditures, arms sales (including to dictators who may use them to “murder their own people”) and use of resources to improve social standards.

Coming to the present situation, one must acknowledge that the West has been supporting Arab dictators for a variety of reasons, ranging from oil to Israel, in order to control that region, and that this policy is slowly collapsing. But the lesson to draw is not to rush into yet another war, in Syria, as we did in Libya, claiming this time to be on the right side, defending the people against dictators, but to recognize that it is high time for us to stop assuming that we must control the Arab world. At the dawn of the 20th century, most of the world was under European control. Eventually, the West will lose control over that part of the world, as it lost it in East Asia and is losing it in Latin America. How the West will adapt itself to its decline is the crucial political question of our time; answering it is unlikely to be either easy or pleasant.

JEAN BRICMONT teaches physics at the University of Louvain in Belgium. He is author of Humanitarian Imperialism.  He can be reached at Jean.Bricmont@uclouvain.be

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February 20, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Arthur Silber Destroys What The Brainwashed Left Calls “Dissent”

By Saman Mohammadi | The Excavator | February 18, 2012

In his latest article, “Hardhitting, Dissenting Journalism — Without the Hardhitting, Dissenting Part,” Arthur Silber writes:

“In a recent essay, I mentioned Matt Taibbi as one of the examples of a phenomenon I call “The Obedient Dissenter,” and said I would be examining that phenomenon in further detail soon. This isn’t that lengthier analysis, but more in the nature of a sneak preview.

Taibbi posted this entry yesterday: “Another March to War?” His remarks deal with the major media’s warmongering about Iran and the distortions they rely upon. All true, and all old news to those who’ve been awake however briefly in recent years. Note what he drops into the middle of his discussion:

I’m not defending Achmedinejad, I think he’s nuts and a monstrous dick and I definitely don’t think he should be allowed to have nuclear weapons…

He shouldn’t be allowed to have nuclear weapons? Ahmadinejad is going to stock all those terrible nuclear weapons in his very own personal Closet of Worldwide Destruction? And then, some night when he’s had a few too many drinks or because he’s pissed off about not getting his favorite dessert, he’s going to haul out a missile and hurl it at some unsuspecting country? And he shouldn’t be allowed to have these weapons? Who’s going to enforce that prohibition, Taibbi — you and what military? Oh, that’s right: that would be the United States military.

In this manner, Taibbi reduces the most consequential matters of international relations to questions of personality — thus throwing open the door to all the gutter language used by every warmongering propagandist, all the talk of Ahmadinejad being the “new Hitler,” the embodiment of evil and so on. Taibbi even helpfully includes his entirely unsupported and extraordinarily dangerous opinion that Ahmadinejad is “nuts.” Way to fight the power, Taibbi!

Thus does Taibbi accept all the assumptions and premises of those he says he is criticizing. Thus does he concede the battle before the first shot is fired.”

The global 9/11 truth and justice movement has been saying this for a decade. What the brainwashed Left calls “dissent” is a big joke. They blindly accept the official government narrative of the biggest event of our lifetime – an event that launched a world war in the Middle East, and transferred trillions of dollars from funding for science, health care, infrastructure, and education to the banking-military-industrial-congressional complex.

The 9/11 Lie destroyed the American economy and the American Constitution. But both the brainwashed Left and Right are hanging onto the lie as if their very lives depended on it being true.

As Silber says, the delusional and stupid Left has conceded “the battle before the first shot is fired.” They should just get out of the way and let the real dissidents take care of business.

And if you try to educate these clueless “critics of U.S. foreign policy” about the 9/11 attacks and false flag terrorism in general they call you a nut and a conspiracy theorist. Very liberal-minded.

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February 18, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

War ‘Option’: You Will Comply or Else

By Ron Forthofer | Palestine Chronicle | February 18, 2012

Madeleine Albright, former U.S. ambassador to the UN and former Secretary of State in the Clinton administration, once asked General Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

Albright’s statement nicely captures the U.S. approach to dealing with troublesome leaders. By troublesome, I mean those who have the temerity to oppose U.S. positions and who, at the same time, are far too weak to pose a real military threat to the U.S. Examples of nations that had such troublesome leaders include Panama, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The leaders of Syria and Iran are also currently in the crosshairs.

Note the contrast between Albright’s words and those of President Eisenhower in his “Cross of Iron” speech in 1953. Eisenhower addressed the idea of regime change when he said: “Any nation’s right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.” He added: “Any nation’s attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.” Unfortunately the U.S., even under Eisenhower, did not base its actions on these words.

A pattern also emerges from examining the above one-sided conflicts that led to regime changes. The U.S. clearly feels no need for real diplomacy in these cases. For example, the U.S. often even refuses to talk with the other side. Instead, what passes for U.S. negotiation is the making of demands that the other side cannot accept. When the other side fails to accept all the U.S. demands, it faces U.S. action.

In general, the actions begin with a campaign by a compliant media here to frighten the U.S. population into supporting steps against the crazy leader who is a threat to his own people or to the U.S., covert acts including assassinations, creating and/or building up opposition leaders, threats of an attack against the enemy, the use of economic sanctions, and a military attack if the other steps haven’t worked. Sometimes the U.S. attacks without going through most of the other steps. In the case of Iraq, even acceptance of U.S. demands was not enough to prevent the illegal and unwarranted U.S.-led attack.

The U.S. sometimes seeks to enlist the UN to provide a legal cover for its actions. For example, the U.S. often seeks the UN’s support for the sanctions. However, if the UN doesn’t accept the U.S. position, the U.S. and/or some of its allies apply the sanctions anyway. The U.S. also often attempts to gain the UN Security Council’s support for a military attack. However, if the UN doesn’t go along with an attack, the U.S. then turns to NATO or forms an ad hoc coalition of nations willing to join in military action.

Unsurprisingly, the compliant corporate-dominated U.S. media seldom, if ever, address the morality or legality of this approach that usually leads to a U.S. military attack on a far weaker nation. For example, the threat or use of force, except in self-defense against an armed attack or, unless taken by the UN Security Council, is prohibited under the UN Charter.

Sanctions have been in vogue for the last twenty years or so. However, more and more people today realize that harsh economic sanctions are, in effect, collective punishment of innocent populations. The devastation sanctions cause, particularly those wreaked on Haitians and Iraqis, has led to more frequent discussions about their appropriateness and legality.

The legality and morality of the U.S. approach should be discussed, especially given the U.S. campaigns regarding Syria and Iran. However, in the U.S. today, it seems to be outside the realm of polite discussion to point out that the threats to attack Iran by the U.S. and Israel are violations of the UN Charter. Few in the corporate-dominated U.S. media also challenge the idea of preemptive self-defense.

President Eisenhower also had some strong opinions on preventive war. He said: “I don’t believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn’t even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing. … It seems to me that when, by definition, a term is just ridiculous in itself, there is no use in going any further.”

When the US says that no options are off the table, it raises the awful possibility of the use of nuclear weapons. The threat of the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state that has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty clearly is an extreme violation of the UN Charter.

Instead of the U.S. approach that relies heavily on the threat of the use of its military, real negotiations without preconditions are the key to resolving conflicts, including those with Syria and Iran.

– Ron Forthofer is a retired professor of biostatistics.

February 18, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington DC: FBI Foils Own Terror Plot (Again)

By Tony Cartalucci | BlacklistedNews.com | February 17, 2012

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has once again proven that the only thing Americans need fear, is their own government, with the latest “terror attack” foiled being one entirely of their own design.

USA Today reports that a suspect had been arrested by the FBI who was “en route to the U.S. Capitol allegedly to detonate a suicide bomb.” While initial reports portrayed the incident as a narrowly averted terrorist attack, CBS would report that a “high ranking source told CBS News the man was “never a real threat.”” The explosives the would-be bomber carried were provided to him by the FBI during what they described as a “lengthy and extensive operation.” The only contact the suspect had with “Al Qaeda” was with FBI officials posing as associates of the elusive, omnipresent, bearded terror conglomerate. The FBI, much like their MI5 counterparts in England, have a propensity for recruiting likely candidates from mosques they covertly run.

This is but the latest in a string of national terror plots carried out from start to finish by the FBI, who has made a business of approaching likely candidates and grooming them to carry out terror attacks. In September 2011, another FBI terror operation targeting the Capitol was “foiled,” involving a patsy who believed he was to take part in an assault that would involve multiple gunmen and even a drone bomber provided to him by the FBI.

And perhaps the most dubious of all, was the December 2010 Portland “Christmas Tree Bomber,” who was also approached by the FBI, provided demolition training, including a demonstration with live explosives performed in a Lincoln County park, and a van within which the patsy believed his handlers had provided him a bomb. The van with the inert device was parked next to a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony where the patsy attempted to detonate it remotely before being arrested by FBI agents.

It would later turn out that Portland had heroically withdrawn from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, (JTTF), with the operation then being carried out behind Portland Mayor Sam Adam’s back only for its conclusion to humiliatingly catch the mayor off guard. The city of Portland would eventually rejoin the JTTF after the fallout from the FBI’s own terror plot.

The FBI is carrying out what is essentially a campaign of entrapment fueling what alternative news outlet Media Monarchy appropriately calls “terronoia.” And while it is true that these incidents are being used to foment a climate of fear to justify the ongoing “War on Terror,” there is a more sinister implication readers must be aware of.

In 1993 the FBI was carrying out an identical “sting operation” in New York City. The target was the World Trade Center, the weapon of choice would be a bomb-laden van, that like the above mentioned attacks, was supposed to contain an inert device. Helping the FBI was an Egyptian informant, Emad Salem, who over the course of the investigation grew suspicious of the federal agents and began recording his phone conversations with them.

From these recordings released by the New York Times, it turns out that the FBI switched out the inert device for real explosives at the last moment resulting in an attack that killed 6 and injured over a thousand. Despite this evidence, the 1993 bombing is still to this day attributed to “terrorists” with the FBI’s involvement muted if ever mentioned.

The implications are of course, with the FBI’s current nationwide stable of patsies being trained, directed, and provided material support to carry out attacks which the FBI then “foils,” is that at any given moment, any one of these operations can be switched “live” just as in 1993. The resulting carnage can then be used to manipulate public opinion just as it was in 1993, 2001, on 7/7 in London, and in Madrid, Spain in 2004.

The risk rises exponentially now with Israel being confirmed to be training, arming, and directing US State Department-listed terrorist organization, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, also known as Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK). The US has also played an extensive role in supporting MEK which is currently carrying out a campaign of terror inside of Iran.

This is part of a plot by the US indicated in its own policy papers, openly conspiring to provoke war with Iran. This is best encapsulated in this often cited quote from US policy think-tank, Brookings Institution:

“…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.) ”

-Brookings Institution’s 2009 “Which Path to Persia?” report, pages 84-85.

The same report would go on to say:

“In a similar vein, any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.”

-Brookings Institution’s 2009 “Which Path to Persia?” report, page 52.

Clearly those in the West intent on striking Iran realize both the difficulty of obtaining a plausible justification, and the lack of support they have globally to carry out an attack even if they manage to find a suitable pretext. Brookings would continue throughout their report enumerating methods of provoking Iran, including conspiring to fund opposition groups to overthrow the Iranian government, crippling Iran’s economy, and funding US State Department-listed terrorist organizations (MEK) to carry deadly attacks within Iran itself. Despite these overt acts of war, and even considering an option to unilaterally conduct limited airstrikes against Iranian targets, Brookings noted there was still the strong possibility Iran would not allow itself to be sufficiently provoked:

“It would not be inevitable that Iran would lash out violently in response to an American air campaign, but no American president should blithely assume that it would not.”

The report continues:

“However, because many Iranian leaders would likely be looking to emerge from the fighting in as advantageous a strategic position as possible, and because they would likely calculate that playing the victim would be their best route to that goal, they might well refrain from such retaliatory missile attacks.”

-Brookings Institution’s 2009 “Which Path to Persia?” report, page 95.

With this in mind, and with the 1993 World Trade Center attack as a historical precedent, it is almost a certainty that the West and Mossad are carrying out the current global wave of bombings now being blamed on Iran. This includes two failed bombings in India and Georgia, and a more recent incident in Bangkok, Thailand.

Law enforcement officers across America may be witnessing the FBI conducting through their JTTF what they believe to be a “sting operation” that may end up being the next major terrorist attack on US soil – and the pretext for certain war with Iran.

The fears of Portland Mayor Sam Adams were well founded, and it took an act of terror to strong-arm him and the people of Portland into capitulating to the federal JTTF program. Local law enforcement, for the safety of themselves and the people they are charged to serve and protect, would be wise to keep an eye on the FBI – apparently the most likely source from which terror plots both “foiled” and “successful” are hatched.

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February 18, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

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