The largest imperial offensive since the Iraq invasion of March, 2003, is in full swing, under the banner of “humanitarian” intervention – Barack Obama’s fiendishly clever upgrade of George Bush’s “dumb” wars. Having failed to obtain a Libyan-style United Nations Security Council fig leaf for a “humanitarian” military strike against Syria, the United States shifts effortlessly to a global campaign “outside the U.N. system” to expand its NATO/Persian Gulf royalty/Jihadi coalition. Next stop: Tunisia, where Washington’s allies will assemble on February 24 to sharpen their knives as “Friends of Syria.” The U.S. State Department has mobilized to shape the “Friends” membership and their “mandate” – which is warlord-speak for refining an ad hoc alliance for the piratical assault on Syria’s sovereignty.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are swigging the ale with their fellow buccaneers. These “human rights” warriors, headquartered in the bellies of empires past and present, their chests shiny with medals of propagandistic service to superpower aggression in Libya, contribute “left” legitimacy to the imperial project. London-based Amnesty International held a global “day of action” to rail against Syria for “crimes against humanity” and to accuse Russia and China of using their Security Council vetoes to “betray” the Syrian people – echoing the war hysteria out of Washington, Paris, London and the royal pigsties of Riyadh and Doha. New York-based Human Rights Watch denounced Moscow and Beijing’s actions as “incendiary” – as if it were not the empire and its allies who were setting the Middle East and Africa on fire, arming and financing jihadis – including hundreds of veteran Libyan Salafists now operating in Syria.
Under Obama’s “intelligent” (as opposed to “dumb”) imperial tutelage, colonial genocidaires like France now propose creation of “humanitarian corridors” inside Syria “to allow NGOs to reach the zones where there are scandalous massacres.” NATO flatly rejected such a corridor in Libya when sub-Saharan Africans and black Libyans were being massacred by militias armed and financed by the same “Friends” that now besiege Syria.
Turkey claims it has rejected, for now, the idea of setting up humanitarian “buffer zones” along its border with Syria – inside Syrian territory – while giving arms, training and sanctuary to Syrian military deserters. In reality, it is Syrian Army troop and armor concentrations on the border that have thwarted the establishment of such a “buffer” – a bald euphemism for creating a “liberated zone” that must be “protected” by NATO or some agglomeration of U.S.-backed forces.
NATO, which bombed Libya non-stop for six months, inflicting tens of thousands of casualties while refusing to count a single body, wants desperately to identify some sliver of Syrian soil on which to plant the “humanitarian” flag of intervention. They are transparently searching for a Benghazi, to justify a replay of the Libyan operation – the transparent fact that prompted the Russian and Chinese vetoes.
Faced with the certainty of superpower-backed attack under the guise of “protecting” civilians in “liberated” territory, Syria cannot afford to cede even one neighborhood of a single city – not one block! – or of any rural or border enclave, to armed rebels and foreign jihadis. That road leads directly to loss of sovereignty and possible dissection of Syria – which western pundits are already calling a “hodge-podge” nation that could be a “failed state.” Certainly, the French and British are experts at carving up other people’s territories, having drawn the national boundaries of the region after World War One. It is an understatement to say that Israel would be pleased.
With the Syrian military’s apparent successes in securing most of Homs and other centers of rebellion, the armed opposition has stepped up its terror tactics – a campaign noted with great alarm by the Arab League’s own Observer Mission to Syria, leading Saudi Arabia and Qatar to suppress the Mission’s report. Instead, the Gulf States are pressing the Arab League to openly “provide all kinds of political and material support” to the opposition, meaning arms and, undoubtedly, more Salafist fighters. Aleppo, Syria’s main commercial and industrial city, which had seen virtually no unrest, was struck by two deadly car bombs last week – signature work of the al-Qaida affiliate in neighboring Iraq.
The various “Friends of Syria,” all nestled in the U.S./NATO/Saudi/Qatar cocoon, now openly speak of all-out civil war in Syria – by which they mean stepped up armed conflict financed and directed by themselves – as the preferred alternative to the protracted struggle that the regime appears to be winning. There is one caveat: no “Western boots on the ground in any form,” as phrased by British Foreign Secretary William Hague. It is the Libya formula, and might as well have come straight from Barack Obama’s mouth.
Syria is fighting for its national existence against an umbrella of forces mobilized by the United States and NATO. Of the 6,000 or so people that have died in the past 11 months, about a third have been Syrian soldiers and police – statistical proof positive that this is an armed assault on the state. There is no question of massive foreign involvement, or that the aim of U.S. policy is regime change, as stated repeatedly by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (“Assad must go,” she told reporters in Bulgaria).
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have chosen sides in the Washington-backed belligerency – the side of Empire. As groups most often associated with (what passes for) the Left in their headquarters countries, they are invaluable allies of the current imperial offensive. They have many fellow travelers in (again, what passes for) anti-war circles in the colonizing and neo-colonizing nations. The French “Left” lifted hardly a finger while a million Algerians died in the struggle for independence, and have not proved effective allies of formerly colonized people in the 50 years, since. Among the European imperial powers, only Portugal’s so-called Carnation Revolution of 1974, a coup by young officers, resulted in substantial relief for the subjects of empire: the withdrawal of troops from Portugal’s African colonies.
The U.S. anti-war movement lost its mass character as soon as the threat of a draft was removed, in the early Seventies, while the United States continued to bomb Vietnam (and test new and exotic weapons on its people) until the fall of Saigon, in 1975. All that many U.S. lefties seemed to want was to get the Republicans off their backs, in 2008, and to Hell with the rest of the world. Democrat Barack Obama has cranked the imperial war machine back into high gear, with scarcely a peep from the “Left.”
There was great ambivalence – the most polite word I can muster – among purported leftists in the United States and Europe to NATO’s bombardment and subjugation of Libya. Here we are again, in the face of existential imperial threats to Syria and Iran, as leftists temporize about human rights while the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” blazes new warpaths.
There is no such thing as an anti-war activist who is not an anti-imperialist. And the only job of an anti-imperialist in the belly of the beast is to disarm the beast. Absent that, s/he is useless to humanity.
As we used to say: You are part of the solution – or you are part of the problem. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are part of the problem.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
February 16, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Amnesty International, Libya, NATO, Syria |
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A cover that declares a “War on Christians” is bound to get some attention.
Writing in the February 12 issue of Newsweek, author Ayaan Hirsi Ali‘s argument is just as blunt. Enough with all this talk “about Muslims as victims of abuse,” because really it’s the other way around:
A wholly different kind of war is underway–an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.
To suggest that a genocide is underway is, of course, a serious charge. And Hirsi Ali alleges that it is widespread:
In recent years, the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania.
To make matters worse the media have been cowed into silence, due to “the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation–a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia–and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.” She writes:
Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called “Islamophobia”–a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia.
So there is a genocide underway, and there are specific groups obscuring this fact and steering media away from covering this horror–in effect making them complicit in the genocide.
This is a remarkably serious charge. It is rather shocking to see it printed in a national magazine with so little evidence.
Ali’s piece is accompanied by a large graphic (which doesn’t appear to be online) labeled “Terrorist Attacks on Christians in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.” According to the graph, there were 45 such attacks in 2010. Violence of this sort is tragic; the anecdotes Hirsi Ali cites from Nigeria sound horrific.
But is it a genocide? And is the violence directed against Christians on the basis of religion? It is hard to see how one could make such a leap. In Egypt, for instance, Hirsi Ali points to an incident where Christian protesters were killed by state security forces. Hundreds have been killed in similar circumstances in Egypt over the past year. They were not all Christians, and they were not killed in a drive to stamp out members of a particular faith.
Hirsi Ali finds similar evidence elsewhere: “Since 2003, more than 900 Iraqi Christians (most of them Assyrians) have been killed by terrorist violence in Baghdad alone.” Of course, Baghdad has suffered terrible violence since the U.S. invasion and occupation. It is unclear why these particular deaths, a small percentage of total killings in Baghdad, should be considered part of a genocidal Muslim campaign against Christians. She adds that “thousands” of Iraqi Christians have fled their homes. But millions of Iraqis have done the same, across ethnic and religious lines. It’s hard to conclude that anti-Christian genocide is the story that is being kept out of the media by the likes of CAIR.
Hirsi Ali pleads with readers that we must “please get our priorities straight…. Instead of falling for overblown tales of Western Islamophobia, let’s take a real stand against the Christophobia infecting the Muslim world.”
It’s hard to know what she means; is there really some great danger that the West is doing too much to protect Muslims? The real implication here is that there is a genocide that must be stopped. That is an extremely serious charge. She fails to provide evidence to support that case, and manages to smear a major American Islamic advocacy group in the process.
February 16, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular |
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The British government has claimed the allegations by London and its western allies that Iran is covertly pursuing a military nuclear program are evidence-based.
London’s claim is diametrically opposed even to the anti-Iranian report by the UN nuclear watchdog’s chief that confirmed no evidence is yet available to support claims of a military side to Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities.
After Iran announced several breakthroughs in its civilian nuclear program on Wednesday, a British Foreign Office spokesman said the international concerns about Iran’s activities are “well-founded”.
“[The nuclear news from Iran] does not give any confidence that Iran is ready to engage meaningfully on the international community’s well-founded concerns about its nuclear programme,” a Foreign Office spokesman said.
However, the spokesman did not explain based on what evidence the western concerns could be described as “well-founded.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency accused Tehran of pursuing military nuclear ambitions in its latest safeguards report published in November.
Even in that report, the IAEA talked of “possible” military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.
It, nevertheless, drew condemnations from Iran and independent analysts who described the report as “biased” and “political” as it presented ‘no’ evidence to support the claim.
In reaction to the report, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the report is “a compilation of well-known facts that have intentionally been given a politicized intonation.”
The statement said the authors “resort to assumptions and suspicions, and juggle information with the purpose of creating the impression that the Iranian nuclear program has a military component.”
Russia accordingly dismissed calls led by the US for harsher UN Security Council sanctions against Iran saying more embargoes would be “an instrument of regime changes in Tehran.”
Following Russian and Chinese resistance to strong sanctions, the US and its European allies moved to impose unilateral sanctions on Iran on an arbitrary basis and outside the framework of international law.
This comes as the British Foreign Office spokesman who talked of “well-founded” concerns on Iran claimed the “peaceful” pressure – that is sanctions – on Iran is legitimate and Britain would continue to support such actions.
“[Until Iran addresses the international community’s concerns] we’ll only increase peaceful and legitimate pressure on Iran to return to negotiations,” the spokesman said.
February 16, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | International Atomic Energy Agency, Sanctions against Iran |
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Alexander Cockburn’s latest piece at CounterPunch (2/10/12) included this from a tipster:
I was visiting ABC News the other day to see a friend who works on graphics. When I went to his room, he showed me all the graphics he was making in anticipation of the Israeli attack on Iran; not just maps, but flight patterns, trajectories and 3-D models of U.S. aircraft carrier fleets.
But what was most disturbing–was that ABC, and presumably other networks, have been rehearsing these scenarios for over two weeks, with newscasters and retired generals in front of maps talking about missiles and delivery systems, and at their newsdesks-–the screens are emblazoned with “This Is a Drill” to assure they don’t go out on air (like War of the Worlds).
Then reports of counter-attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon with rockets on Israeli cities–it was mind-numbing. Very disturbing–when pre-visualization becomes real.
Does that kind of thing actually happen? Well, yeah.
CBS “practiced” covering a U.S. bombing of Iraq back in 1998–and the footage was apparently fed to a satellite (L.A. Times, 2/20/98):
CBS jumped the gun Friday on a possible U.S. attack on Iraq: The network inadvertently transmitted a practice news report via satellite that could be picked up by television stations and viewers with special equipment.
To try out new graphics for combat coverage in the event the U.S. goes forward with the threatened bombing of Iraq, CBS anchor Dan Rather was rehearsing with Pentagon correspondent David Martin over a closed line between CBS‘s New York headquarters and its Washington news bureau. The report was mistakenly sent up to a communications satellite.
February 13, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering | ABC News, CBS |
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Paris – What if pollsters put this question to citizens of the United States and the European Union:
“Which is more important, ensuring disgruntled Islamists freedom to overthrow the secular regime in Syria, or avoiding World War Three?”
I’ll bet that there might be a majority for avoiding World War III.
But of course, the question is never framed like that.
That would be a “realistic” question, and we Westerners from the heights of our moral superiority have no time for vulgar “realism” in foreign policy (except Ron Paul, crying out in the wilderness of Republican primaries).
Because, in the minds of our political ruling class, the United States has the power to “make reality”, we need pay no attention to the remnants of whatever reality we didn’t invent ourselves.
Our artificial reality is coming into collision with the reality perceived by most or at least much of the rest of the world. The tenets of these conflicting views of reality are armed to the teeth, including with nuclear weapons capable of leaving the planet to insects.
Theoretically, there is a way to deal with this dangerous situation, which has the potential of leading to World War. It is called diplomacy. People capable of grasping unfamiliar ideas and understanding viewpoints other than their own, examine the issues underlying conflict and use their intelligence to work out solutions that may not be ideal but will at least prevent things from getting worse.
There was even an organizational structure created for this: the United Nations.
But the United States has decided that as sole superpower it doesn’t really need to stoop to diplomacy to get what it wants, and the United Nations has been turned into the instrument of US policy. The clearest evidence of this was the failure of the UN Security Council to block the NATO powers’ abuse of the ambiguous and contested Responsibility to Protect (“R2P”) doctrine to overthrow the Libyan government by force.
Early this year, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon rejoiced that: “The world has embraced the Responsibility to Protect – not because it is easy, but because it is right. We therefore have a moral responsibility to push ahead.” Morality trumps the basic UN principle of national sovereignty. Ban Ki-moon suggests that pushing ahead with R2P is no less than the “next test of our common humanity”, and announces: “That test is here – in Syria.”
So, the Secretary General of the UN considers the “moral responsibility” of R2P his main guideline to the crisis in Syria.
In case there was any doubt, the Libyan example demonstrated what that means.
A country whose rulers do not belong to the Western club made up of NATO countries, Israel, the emirs of the Gulf states and the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, is wracked by opposition demonstrations and armed rebellion, with the mix of the two making it difficult to sort out which is which. Western mainstream media hasten to tell the story according to a standard template:
The ruler of the country is a “dictator”. Therefore, the rebels want to get rid of him simply in order to enjoy Western-style democracy. Therefore, the people must all be on the side of the rebels. Therefore, when the armed forces proceed to repress the armed rebellion, what is happening is that “the dictator is killing his own people”. Therefore, it is the Responsibility 2 Protect of the international community (i.e. NATO) to help the rebels in order to destroy the country’s armed forces and get rid of (or kill) the dictator.
The happy ending comes when Hillary Clinton can shout gleefully, “We came, we saw, he died!”
Thereupon, the country sinks into chaos, as armed bands rove, prisoners are tortured, women are put in their place, salaries are unpaid, education and social welfare are neglected, but oil is pumped and the West is encouraged by its success to go on to liberate another country.
That at least was the Libyan model.
Except that in the case of Syria, things are more complicated.
Unlike Libya, Syria has a fairly strong army. Unlike Libya, Syria has a few significant friends in the world. Unlike Libya, Syria is next door to Israel. And above all, the diversity of religious communities within Syria is much greater and more potentially explosive than the tribal divisions of Libya. The notion that “the people” of Syria are unanimously united in the desire for instant regime change is even more preposterous.
Electoral democracy is a game played on the basis of a social contract, a general consensus to accept the rule that whoever gets the most votes gets to run the country. But there are societies where that consensus simply does not exist, where distrust is too great between different sectors of the population. That could very well be the case in Syria, where certain minorities, including notably the Christians and Alawites, have reason to fear a Sunni majority that could be led by Islamists who make no secret of their hostility to other religions. Still, perhaps the time has come to overcome that distrust and build an electoral democracy with safeguards for minorities. However, the one sure way to set back such a move toward democracy is a civil war, which is certain to revive and exacerbate hatred and distrust between communities.
Last month, at CounterPunch Aisling Byrne called attention to results of a public opinion poll funded by no less than the Qatar Foundation, which cannot be suspected of working for the Assad regime, given the Qatar royal family’s lead position in favor of overthrowing that regime. The key finding was that “while most Arabs outside Syria feel the president should resign, attitudes in the country are different. Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war – a specter that is not theoretical as it is for those who live outside Syria’s borders. What is less good news for the Assad regime is that the poll also found that half the Syrians who accept him staying in power believe he must usher in free elections in the near future.”
This indicates a very complex situation. Syrians want free elections, but they prefer to have Assad stay in power to organize them. This being the case, the Russian diplomatic efforts to try to urge the Assad regime to speed up its reforms appear to be roughly in harmony with Syrian public opinion.
While the Russians are urging President Assad to speed up reforms, the West is ordering him to stop the violence (that is, order his armed forces to give up) and resign. Neither of these exhortations is likely to be obeyed. The Russians would almost certainly like to stop the escalation of violence, for their own good reasons, but that does not mean they have the power to do so. Their attempts to broker a compromise, decried and sabotaged by Western support to the opposition, merely put them in line to be blamed for the bloodshed they want to avoid. In a deepening civil war situation, the regime, any regime, is most likely to figure it has to restore order before doing anything else. And restoring order, under these circumstances, means more violence, not less.
The order to “stop killing your own people” implies a situation in which the dictator, like an ogre in a fairy tale, is busily devouring passive innocents. He should stop, and then all the people would peacefully go about their business while awaiting the free elections that will bring the blessings of harmony and human rights. In reality, if the armed forces withdraw from areas where there are armed rebels, that means turning those areas over to the rebels.
And who are these rebels? We simply do not know…
With uncontrolled armed groups fighting for control, the insistent Western demand that “Assad must step down” is not really even a call for “regime change”. It is a call for regime self-destruction.
As in Libya, the country would de facto be turned over to rival armed groups, with those groups that are being armed covertly by NATO via Turkey and Qatar having an advantage in hardware. However, the likely result would be a multi-sided civil war much more horrific than the chaos in Libya, thanks to the country’s multiple religious differences. But for the West, however chaotic, regime self-destruction would have the immediate advantage of depriving Iran of its potential ally on the eve of an Israeli attack. With both Iraq and Syria neutralized by internal religious conflict, the strangulation of Iran would be that much easier – or so the Western strategists obviously assume.
At least initially, the drive to destroy the Assad regime relies on subversion rather than outright military attack as in Libya. A combination of drastic economic sanctions and support to armed rebels, including fighters from outside, notably Libya (whoever they are), reportedly already helped by special forces from the UK and Qatar, is expected to so weaken the country that the Assad regime will collapse. But a third weapon in this assault is propaganda, carried on by the mainstream media, by now accustomed to reporting events according to the pattern: evil dictator killing his own people. Some of the propaganda must be true, some of it is false, but all of it is selective. The victims are all victims of the regime, never of the rebels. The many Syrians who fear the rebels more than the present government are of course ignored by the mainstream media, although their protests can be found on the internet. A particular oddity of this Syrian crisis is the way the West, so proud of its “Judeo-Christian” heritage, is actively favoring the total elimination of the ancient Christian communities in the Middle East. The cries of protest that Syrian Christians rely for protection on the secular government of Assad, in which Christians participate, and that they and other minorities such as the Alawites may be forced to flee if the West gets its way, fall on deaf ears.
The story line of dictators killing their own people is intended primarily to justify harsh Western measures against Syria. As in Bosnia, the media are arousing public indignation to force the US government to do what it is in fact already doing: arming Muslim rebels, all in the name of “protecting civilians”.
Last December, US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said that the “end of the Assad regime would constitute Iran’s greatest setback in the region yet – a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran”. The “protection of civilians” is not the only concern on the minds of US officials. They do think of such things as the balance of power, in between their prayer breakfasts and human rights speeches. However, concern with the balance of power is a luxury denied less virtuous powers such as Russia and China. Surely the shift in the balance of power in the region cannot be limited to a single country, Iran. It is meant to increase the power of Israel, of course, but also the United States and NATO. And to decrease the influence of Russia. Thrusting Syria into helpless chaos is part of the war against Iran, but it is also implicitly part of a drive to reduce the influence of Russia and, eventually, China. In short, the current campaign against Syria, is clearly in preparation for an eventual future war against Iran, but also, obscurely, a form of long term aggression against Russia and China.
The recent Russian and Chinese veto in the Security Council was a polite attempt to put a brake on this process. The cause of the veto was the determination of the West to push through a resolution that would have demanded withdrawal of Syrian government forces from contested areas without taking into consideration the presence of armed rebel groups poised to take over. Where the Western resolution called on the Assad regime to “withdraw all Syrian military and armed forces from cities and towns, and return them to their original home barracks”, the Russians wished to add: “in conjunction with the end of attacks by armed groups against State institutions and quarters and towns.” The purpose was to prevent armed groups from taking advantage of the vacuum to occupy evacuated areas (as had happened in similar circumstances in Yugoslavia during the 1990s). Western refusal to rein in armed rebels was followed by the Russian and Chinese veto on Febuary 4th.
The veto unleashed a torrent of insults from the Western self-styled “humanitarians”. In an obvious attempt to foster division between the two recalcitrant powers, US spokespersons stressed that the main villain was Russia, guilty of friendship with the Assad regime.
Russia is currently the target of an extraordinary propaganda campaign centered on demonizing Vladimir Putin as he faces a lively campaign for election as President. A prominent New York Times columnist attributed Russian support to Syria to an alleged similarity between Putin and Assad. As we saw in Yugoslavia, a leader elected in free multi-party elections is a “dictator” when his policies displease the West. The pathetically alcoholic Yeltsin was a Western favorite despite shooting at his parliament. The reason was obvious: he was weak and easily manipulated. The reason the West hates Putin is equally and symmetrically obvious: he seems determined to defend his country’s interests against Western pressure.
The European Union has become the lapdog of the United States. This week the European Union is continuing to impoverish the Greek people in order to squeeze out money, among other things, lent by German and French banks to pay for expensive modern weaponry sold to Greece by Germany and France. Democracy in Europe is being undermined by subservience to a dogmatic monetary policy. Unemployment and poverty threaten to destabilize more and more member states. But what is the topic of the European Parliament’s main monthly political debate this week? “The situation in Russia.” One can count on orators in Strasbourg to lecture the Russians on “democracy”.
American pundits and cartoonists have totally internalized their double standards, so that Russia’s comparatively modest arms deliveries to Syria can be denounced as cynical support to dictatorship, whereas gigantic US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are never seen as relevant to the autocratic nature of those regimes (at most they may be criticized on the totally fictitious grounds of being a threat to Israel). To be “democratic”, Russia is supposed to cooperate in its own subservience to Washington, as the United States pursues construction of a missile shield which would theoretically give it a first-strike nuclear capability against Russia, arms Georgia for a return war against Russia over South Ossetia, and continues to encircle Russia with military bases and hostile alliances.
Western politicians and media are not yet fighting World War III, but they are talking themselves into it. And their actions speak even louder than words… notably to those who are able to understand where those actions are leading. Such as the Russians. The West’s collective delusion of grandeur, the illusion of the power to “make reality”, has a momentum that is leading the world toward major catastrophe. And what can stop it?
A meteor from outer space, perhaps?
DIANA JOHNSTONE is the author of Fools Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions. She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr
February 13, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Assad, Ban Ki-moon, Libya, NATO, Syria, United Nations |
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Bill Clinton’s bombing of Serbia should serve as an inspiration, Fouad Ajami opines in the Wall Street Journal:
In this Syrian ordeal, President Obama has a similar opportunity to stop “the killing of innocents” in Homs, Hama and Deraa. The Damascus regime is living on bluster, running out of money, and relying on an army that has no faith in the mission given it or in the man at the helm. It could be brought down without a massive American commitment.
We could, with some moral clarity, recognize the Syrian National Council as the country’s legitimate government, impose a no-fly zone in the many besieged areas, help train and equip the Free Syrian Army, prompt Turkey to give greater support to defectors from Syrian units, and rally the wealthy Arab states to finance the effort.
There are risks to be run, no doubt. But at present we have only the shame of averting our eyes from Syrian massacres. If we act now, President Obama, when he pens his memoirs, could still claim vindication, or at least that he gave Homs and Hama and Deraa his best.
This is the same Middle East expert who predicted in 2002 that “after liberation in Basra and Baghdad, the streets are sure to erupt in joy.”
Like his friend Paul Wolfowitz, Ajami’s being so wrong about the consequences of the U.S. invasion of Israel’s then-enemy du jour appears not to have done his career any harm. A 2003 profile in The Nation noted that the Lebanese-born American
attached himself to such powerful patrons as Laurence Tisch, former chairman of CBS; Mort Zuckerman, the owner of US News & World Report; Martin Peretz, a co-owner of The New Republic; and Leslie Gelb, head of the Council on Foreign Relations.
No doubt Ajami’s “powerful patrons” are just as concerned as he is about the “the killing of innocents” in Syria.
February 12, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Council on Foreign Relations, Fouad Ajami, Free Syrian Army, Syria |
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Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan has entered his 55th day of hunger strike. He has long passed the critical stage and is in danger of organ failure any moment now. In other words, Khader Adnan is dying.
The silence from international media is deafening. Much of the publicity highlighting Adnan’s case came from social media via Twitter and blogs.
Does a young father of two arrested in the dead of night from his home, held under illegal administrative detention i.e. no charges have been brought against him, beaten and tortured during his interrogation, hunger striking since December 18th—a day after his arrest—not warrant headlines?
Does his identity as spokesperson for the Islamic Jihad cloud the editors’ judgments? Does his long beard — most of which has now fallen out due to the effects of starvation — not make for sexy media attention?
Yesterday a group of Palestinians called up Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem Bureau, demanding to know the reason for the bureau’s nonexistent coverage regarding Khader Adnan. Why Al Jazeera English? Why not the myopic BBC—who’ve recently proclaimed their censorship of the word “Palestine” from their music programmes—or The Guardian or CNN? (The last one was a joke.)
As an Arab news source based in Jerusalem, Al Jazeera English holds the responsibility to report what is happening to Palestinians. Not only are they not covering the bombings in Gaza, but they are ignoring the ethnic cleansing happening under their noses in Jerusalem. They have also completely ignored the weekly, daily popular protests in Palestine, while at the same time attempting to present themselves as the voice of the people who are revolting against oppression in the Middle East.
The litany of crimes that Israel commits on a daily basis against Palestinians is long and ranges from land theft, ethnic cleansing, violence against men, women, and children, bi or tri-weekly bombing campaigns on the besieged people of Gaza, political arrests of dozens of Palestinians on a weekly basis including children as young as 13 years of age and institutionalized racism and discrimination that Palestinians face every day which prohibits them from living anything resembling a normal life. As a result many of us turn to blogs and twitter to find out what is happening which begs the question, what exactly is AJE correspondent Cal Perry being paid to report on in Palestine?
Furthermore, while all political prisoners are a shame to the countries imprisoning them, what was the criteria that Al Jazeera used to determine that a self professed Egyptian Zionist, Maikel Nabil, was more worthy of coverage than a Palestinian anti-Zionist?
Coverage of Maikel Nabil from Al Jazeera English:
Al Jazeera simply cannot state that Khader Adnan’s hunger strike is not news worthy as international human rights organizations have expressed alarm and condemnation over his detention and concern for his deteriorating health.
The following conversation took place between one caller and a woman from Al Jazeera English Jerusalem office, in response to that caller’s question about why Khader Adnan has been receiving so little exposure from Al Jazeera English.
“But there are other important stories we’re covering.”
“But Khader Adnan has been on hunger strike for 54 days in administrative detention and he’s dying.”
“But there are people dying everywhere.”
The caller was then directed to the editor, who said:
“With all due respect, it’s not up to you to tell us what to cover. I’m only accountable to my superiors in Doha.”
The editor continued to say that there will be a story on the website today so perhaps “you should wait before passing judgments.”
Did that mean that the caller should wait until Khader Adnan dies before he can get decent coverage?
The disrespect and arrogance that Al Jazeera English has shown to Palestinians with the lack of coverage has been nothing short of shocking. If Al Jazeera cannot commit itself to doing actual reporting about the cruelty of the Israeli occupation on a daily basis against Palestinians then it would be best for them to move their office to Tel Aviv or head back home to Qatar.
February 10, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture | Al Jazeera, Human rights, Hunger strike, Khader Adnan, Palestinian prisoners in Israel |
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The problem with US policy in the Middle East is that it now operates almost entirely at the political level: gone are the days when area experts were the heavyweights in the command center, weaving historical context, relationships and nuance into vital policy decisions.
Today you are more likely to have single-issue interest groups, commercial projects and election cycles impact key deliberations. It’s a short-term view: tactical more than strategic and black and white in its approach. Like a high-octane marketing campaign, it is heavily focused on key phrases, scene-setting, and narrative building.
The spotlight on Syria in recent weeks has been intense and the propaganda has been incessant: Regime massacres in Homs, evil Russia and China, a benevolent UN Security Council trying to save Syria, 1982’s Hama slaughter resuscitated, and an American ambassador left “disgusted” at the gall of others using veto power.
But take the hysteria down a notch or two, bring the debate back into the hands of measured, experienced observers, and the storyline may be tangibly different. Over the weekend, I had the privilege of receiving an email that reminded me of a time when area experts at the US State Department delivered honest assessments of events so that wiser decisions could be taken.
The missive was from a former US diplomat with service experience in Syria who has asked to remain unnamed. I am publishing the email below in its entirety for the benefit of readers:
I have serious problems with all the talk about military intervention in Syria. Everyone, especially the media, seems to be relying solely on anti-regime activists for their information. How do we know 260 people were killed by the regime in Homs yesterday? That number seems based solely on claims by anti-regime figures and I seriously doubt its accuracy.
I served over three years in Damascus at the US Embassy and I know how difficult it is to sort fact from rumor in that closed political society. We were constantly trying to verify rumors that we had heard about assassinations, regime arrests, etc., and that included the Agency, which was just as much in the dark as everyone else. Today, we have a skeleton embassy which I am sure is under constant surveillance and with very few personnel to go out and report on what is happening. When I was in Damascus over two years ago, I was less than impressed with the Embassy’s sources and with its understanding of the dynamics of what was going on Syria. And the same is true when I talk to officials at the State Department.
The media, and to an extent the Administration, have personalized the conflict in Syria as being about Bashar Assad and his family. They have consistently underestimated the sectarian nature of the conflict there. It is not just Bashar Assad and his family that are hanging onto power at all costs, it is the entire Alawi system of control of the country, including the military, the security services and the Baath Party. I believe that Alawites firmly think that if they lose power, the Sunnis will slaughter them, That was one reason Hafez and his brother Rifaat were so ruthless in Hama thirty years ago. And everyone in the West conveniently forgets the campaign of assassinations and suicide bombings carried out in the three or four years before Hama by the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the country. I personally witnessed the aftermath of such bombings in which several hundred people were killed. While the State Department, the CIA and other organs of government may have short historical memories, the people in Syria do not.
There have been few good analyses of the conflict in Syria. With the exception of the journalist Nir Rosen and the International Crisis Group, most reporting has been superficial and biased in favor of opponents of the regime. This is no basis on which to base policy, especially if officials in Washington are contemplating some form of military intervention. We would be opening a Pandora’s box of sectarian conflict that could easily spread to Lebanon, Israel, Kurdish areas of Iraq and elsewhere.
One irony of the current situation compared to thirty years ago is Iraq’s role. Then, we had reasonably good information that Saddam Hussein was supporting the Brotherhood with arms, explosives and facilitating the smuggling of both across the Syrian-Iraqi border. Today, the Maliki government in Baghdad appears to be supporting the Assad regime. And thirty years ago, we also had information that the Brotherhood leadership was given sanctuary in Jordan by King Hussein and in Saudi Arabia.
I don’t think we know how to play in this arena, just as we don’t understand how to play in the Afghanistan-Pakistan arena. US military intervention, whether under the guise of NATO or some other umbrella, could have serious unforeseen consequences for the US, Europe and the region. Officials in Washington should have the law of unforeseen consequences hammered into their heads every morning.
These thoughts are from a US diplomat with direct and fairly recent experience in Syria. Why don’t we ever hear similarly sober assessments from the figures in Washington? Part of the reason, of course, is the over-politicization of the policy-making process, which has long been wrested from the hands of able area experts and delivered into the arms of hawks, ideologues and politicians building campaign warchests.
It is worth mentioning that much of the US administration’s focus on Syria derives from its unhealthy fixation on Iran. In supporting Iran’s worldview that US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East must end, Syria has put itself in the crosshairs of American policy priorities.
The New York Times’ David Sanger wrote shortly after the Arab Awakening had devoured its first two dictators, Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak:
“Every decision — from Libya to Yemen to Bahrain to Syria — is being examined under the prism of how it will affect what was, until mid-January, the dominating calculus in the Obama administration’s regional strategy: how to slow Iran’s nuclear progress, and speed the arrival of opportunities for a successful uprising there.”
Efforts to undermine Bashar Assad’s government were a longstanding policy objective, even in the years before popular revolts hit the wider Middle East in 2011. WikiLeaks has revealed a veritable goldmine of information about Washington’s interventions in Syria, which include direct US financial assistance to opposition groups.
Dirty politics and geopolitical mudslinging aside, at the heart of this matter rests an issue that is fundamental to good policy-making: When do handy narratives simply become lies that spawn bad policies?
This WikiLeaks cable from 2006 illustrates Washington’s efforts to identify “opportunities” to expose “vulnerabilities” in the Syrian regime and cause sectarian/ethnic division, discord within the military/security apparatus and economic hardship. How will the US achieve this? The cable lists a whole host of Syrian vulnerabilities to be exploited, and then recommends:
“These proposals will need to be fleshed out and converted into real actions and we need to be ready to move quickly to take advantage of such opportunities. Many of our suggestions underline using Public Diplomacy and more indirect means to send messages that influence the inner circle.”
Propagandizing the American Public
Public Diplomacy, in effect, means propaganda – which under the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 specifies the terms in which the US government can disseminate information to foreign audiences. In 1972, the Act prohibited domestic access to information intended for foreign audiences – in other words, it became illegal for the US government to propagandize Americans.
But Washington has found many ways around this. After all, US citizens need to be “on board” the myriad overseas military adventures undertaken by successive administrations. How, then, does government stay within the confines of the law while propagandizing Americans so that they are pumped up for wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, maybe Iran), weapons sales to questionable allies (Saudi Arabia and Israel), and human rights violations (Guantanamo, drones)?
The fake story of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) targeting the US and its allies was an essential narrative in the build-up to military intervention in Iraq. Recall then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s testimony about evidence of Saddam’s WMD activities and President George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech when he falsely accused Iraq of procuring yellowcake uranium from Niger – the media scrutiny of these statements was wholly justified: it is illegal to lie to the American people.
Officials are careful about how they circumvent the restrictions of Smith-Mundt. The quickest way to feed Americans inaccurate, tainted or sometimes entirely false information is through “leaks.” Peruse any newspaper of record in Washington, New York or Los Angeles and you will see the foreign news sections chock full of leaks from “officials.”
The internet, too, is a natural playground for the dissemination of disinformation. Its vast reach across the globe, its millions of blogs with varying credibility – these lend themselves well to the game of public diplomacy.
Powell’s former Chief of Staff Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson – another ex-official who has spoken candidly about policy and process shortcomings since leaving his post – told me in April 2010: “(Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and others, for example, just ignored the law. They would put a story in a Sydney newspaper, for example, and then ‘internet it’ back to the United States. So you’re propagandizing the American people.”
Wilkerson insists: “we have a statutory divergence that needs to be fixed first – legislation that says you can’t mix public affairs, which is aimed at the American people, and public diplomacy, which is aimed at the international audience. We need to stop propaganda, period. We need to tell the truth. I understand we don’t give out state secrets, but why don’t we tell the truth?”
The problem with foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, is ultimately about the kinds of people making the decisions – ideologues with clear agendas: against Iran and for Israel; against the Syrian “dictator” but in favor of the Saudi, Bahraini, Yemeni, Qatari ones; against Iranian nuclear capability, defending 200 nukes in Israel; abusing UN veto power (80+ times), deriding others for exercising a veto (Russia, China), and so on and so forth.
“It’s broken – it’s utterly dysfunctional,” Wilkerson says about the decision-making process in government: “They put ideologues in to corral, corner, orchestrate, cajole, push, wheedle the civil servants into doing something that they think ought to be done.”
Back to Syria.
A reporter from a major western cable news network just emailed me about his visit to Syria: “I got back from Homs last month unconvinced that the country was rising up against the Assad regime, and far from convinced that there are any good guys.”
Very little is known about what’s going on in the country. And it is not necessarily because there is limited media there: the Arab League mission report lists 147 foreign and Arab media organizations in Syria. The reason we still do not know what is taking place in Homs is because there is a ferocious battle for narratives between two rigid political mindsets. And the current dominant narrative is the one coming out of Washington – which, according to Wikileaks, has been waiting for “opportunities” to seize upon “vulnerabilities” to undermine the regime of Bashar Assad.
Not give us the truth, mind you. But to pursue a policy objective that US citizens have not agreed upon because they are unaware of the facts.
Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.
February 10, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Homs, International Crisis Group, Middle East, Syria, United States Department of State |
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… In 2007, a few months after Santorum was ousted from the Senate in a landslide defeat, he accepted an invitation from right-wing provocateur David Horowitz to speak at “Islamo-Fascism Campus Awareness Week.” As I documented in my video report on Horowitz’s appearance at Columbia University that year, “Islamo-Fascism” week was a naked ploy to generate publicity for the frenetically self-promoting Horowitz while demonizing Muslim-Americans as a dangerous fifth column who required constant government monitoring and possibly worse. The event was so extreme that even Jewish groups like Hillel known for promoting Zionism on campus rejected it.
There is no video documentation or transcript of Santorum’s speech at Horowitz’s “Islamo-Fascism Awareness” event. However, I was able to find a transcript of a speech Santorum delivered at Horowitz’s invitation in March 2007. During his address, the ex-Senator declared the need to “define the enemy,” but he made little effort to distinguish between the general population of Muslims and violent Islamic extremists. If anything, he seemed to conflate the two.
Here are a few of the remarkable statements Santorum made at Horowitz’s event:
“What must we do to win? We must educate, engage, evangelize and eradicate.”
“Look at Europe. Europe is on the way to losing. The most popular male name in Belgium — Mohammad. It’s the fifth most popular name in France among boys. They are losing because they are not having children, they have no faith, they have nothing to counteract it. They are balkanizing Islam, but that’s exactly what they want. And they’re creating an opportunity for the creation of Eurabia, or Euristan in the future…Europe will not be in this battle with us. Because there will be no Europe left to fight.”
We should “talk about how Islam treats homosexuals. Talk about how they treat anybody who is found to be a homosexual, and the answer to that is, they kill them.”
“… the Shia brand of Islamist extremists [is] even more dangerous than the Sunni [version]. Why? Because the ultimate goal of the Shia brand of Islamic Islam is to bring back the Mahdi. And do you know when the Mahdi returns? At the Apocalypse at the end of the world. You see, they are not interested in conquering the world; they are interested in destroying the world.”
“The other thing we need to do is eradicate, and that’s the final thing. As I said, this is going to be a long war.”
The Islamophobic rant Santorum delivered at an event organized by a known bigot. … Full article
February 9, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Columbia University, David Horowitz, Eurabia, Santorum |
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Amid all the hype and hysteria over the so-called “radical” and “violent” roots of Islam and its prophet Mohammed, Steven Spielberg is set to direct,“Gods and Kings,” a biopic based on the Old Testament’s most beloved homicidal maniac.
According to the National Ledger, “The movie will see Moses presented as ‘the warrior of all warriors’ and will follow him from birth to death.”
The article goes on to say, “[It’s] a movie like a Braveheart-ish version of the Moses story – him coming down the river, being adopted, leaving his home, forming an army and getting the Ten Commandments.”
It will be interesting to see how Spielberg spins this one. If he stays true to the first five books of the Old Testament (otherwise known as the Torah), we should expect to see the “chosen ones” doing what they did best: stealing land, razing cities, taking women and children as slaves, looting, raping, pillaging—and lest I forget—the wholesale slaughter of innocent men, women, children, cattle, sheep, donkeys, and anything else that had a pulse.
Gee, I wonder if any of these lines will make their way into the script:
Exodus 15:14 The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestine.
Deuteronomy 2:25 This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven. They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you.”
Deuteronomy 2:34 At that time we took all his cities and completely destroyed them—men, women and children. We left no survivors.
Deuteronomy 2:35 But the livestock and the plunder from the towns we had captured we carried off for ourselves.
Numbers 21:35 So they killed him and his sons and all his people, until there was none left to him alive, and they possessed his land.
Deuteronomy 3:6 We completely destroyed them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying every city—men, women and children.
Deuteronomy 20:16 In the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.
Numbers 31:17 Kill all the boys [,] and kill every woman
If you think I’m taking this all out of context, then I suggest you read your Old Testament, or follow this link to the first in an excellent series of essays on the subject:
Warrior Prophet: Moses or Muhammad
I’m sure Spielberg will work his movie magic in convincing us all that these Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites all had it coming, and that Moses was simply taking orders from the man upstairs.
Oh, and let’s not forget the casting. Expect to see the Arabs portrayed as dirty, dark-skinned, wide-nosed psychotics with bloodshot eyes. Of course the Israelites will have Caucasian features and swimmers physiques with a light coat of perspiration that glistens off the stage lighting as their slow-motion swords slice the heads off their enemies.
HMMMM…I see a vision:
Brad Pitt: “Behold his mighty hand!”
February 8, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Book of Deuteronomy, Steven Spielberg |
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The short answer: Absolutely not!
Part of the long answer comes from Muhammad Sahimi, who recently told Antiwar Radio host Scott Horton that the inflammatory article published by World Net Daily (WND), entitled Ayatollah: Kill all Jews, Annihilate Israel is “totally bogus.”
Muhammad Sahimi is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Southern California (USC). He also frequently writes on Iranian politics for Payvand, the Huffington Post, Antiwar.com and several mainstream news outlets. He has a regular column for the Tehran Bureau of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and is fluent in Farsi.
According to Sahimi, the WND piece by Reza Kahlili is based entirely on an article by Alireza Forghani, who is described by Kahlili as “an analyst and a strategy specialist in [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei’s camp.”
However, Kahlili provides no proof of this and expects the reader to take his word for it. In response, Sahimi says that Alireza Forghani is nothing more than an “Iranian blogger” who has “no ties to the Iranian government…no official post anywhere…doesn’t even have a job.”
Forghani’s article first appeared on the website Alef, which Sahimi says is indirectly linked to an Iranian Member of Parliament but has no connection whatsoever to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. According to WND’s Kahlili, the fact that Forghani’s article “now is being run on most state-owned sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency,” shows that the regime endorses Forghani’s doctrine.
And what is Forghani’s “doctrine,” pray tell? According to Sahimi, Forghani does talk about a pre-emptive strike on Israel, but only because Israel is threatening to attack Iran. Sahimi compares this to the “Bush Doctrine”—“…take the fight to the enemy overseas before they can attack us again here at home.”
Sahimi goes on to say that Forghani talks about different population densities in various parts of Israel and postulates that if Iran were to attack Israel, these are some of the places Iran’s Shahab-3 missles can reach. “Then [Forghani] talks about—if Iran is to attack Israel—places like railroads, airports, nuclear facilities and so on can also be attacked by Iranian missles,” says Sahimi. “That is what he is saying.”
When Horton asks Sahimi, “Does he say kill all the Jews in Israel?”
“No,” he replies. “I don’t see anything that says that.”
As for Kahlili’s assertion that Forghani’s article contains quotes from Ali Khamenei that calls for the killing of all Jews, and the annihilation of Israel, Sahimi says, “There are no quotes from Khamenei—the current Supreme Leader—but there are two quotes from Khomeini, the leader of the [Iranian] Revolution.”
The first quote, according to Sahimi, basically states that most problems that Muslims are suffering in the Middle East are because of Zionism and U.S. support for Israel. “This is well known,” adds Sahimi. “Khomeini has said this many times. Then there is a second quote: ‘If the enemy attacks the lands of the Muslims or their borders, it is the duty of all Muslims to defend them by any means possible, including the sacrifice of one’s life and expenditure of one’s wealth.’”
One important thing to note: In the WND piece, Kahlili claims to be quoting from Forghani’s article, and writes in the third paragraph:
It is a “‘jurisprudential justification” to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”
Notice that Kahlili does not put full quotations around part of this sentence: no opening quotation>> to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”<<only a closing quotation
That’s because Forghani never wrote that, according to Sahimi. He goes on to say, “The Alef website itself says that this is the personal view of the author. The website does not support it, and it is not the policy of the Iranian government. This is one man’s opinion, and we should condemn it.”
Sahimi then points out the hypocrisy of those who are demonizing Iran over Forghani’s piece. “We have this kind of propaganda everyday among Israelis. Remember, for example in the 1980’s, Rafael Eitan, who was Chief of Staff for Israeli Defense Forces said, [“When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”] We have had all sorts of racist statements by citizens of Israel against Palestinians, against Muslims, against Iranians. But they don’t represent (at least officially) the view of the Israeli government. It’s the same case here. Some guy…somewhere…wrote a blog and said something…and all of a sudden this has become the official view of the Supreme Leader and the Iranian government? That’s just nonsense.”
As for the author of the WND piece, Sahimi describes Reza Kahlili as an “Iranian charlatan” who has no credibility. In fact, no one knows his true identity. He goes by a pseudonym and wears masks to conceal his identity when he gives talks. Kahlili claims to have been a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in the 1980’s, and that he worked as a double agent for the CIA, but decided to leave Iran in 1989. Sahimi points out that that was 23 years ago, and that the Revolutionary Guard of that era (during the Iran/Iraq War) was entirely different than what it is today. “So he has no insight or knowledge of what is going on in the Revolutionary Guard” says Sahimi. “More importantly, since he has arrived in the U.S., he has allied with the most extreme, warmongering factions. These guys look for anybody who may sound intelligent, and may be from Iran, in order to give credibility for the advocacy of war against Iran. Reza Kahlili is one of those.”
According to Sahimi, “In the Iranian community in the U.S., we have people who support sanctions against Iran. But even within that segment, [Kahlili] has no credibility. For instance, there are many Iranian satellite television stations here in L.A. that are constantly engaged in propaganda against the Iranian government. These stations have never interviewed this guy. It is totally amazing and frightening that the public is being this easily fooled by this propaganda.”
In other words, Kahlili is the type of guy that only fools the gullible Americans who have never met an Iranian, and get their daily dose of lies fed to them from the likes of Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and other nut jobs who have interviewed this creep.
In October 2011, Kahlili wrote a piece for The Washington Times, entitled KAHLILI: Iran already has nuclear weapons, where he asserts that “Not only does the Islamic Republic already have nuclear weapons from the old Soviet Union, but it has enough enriched uranium for more. What’s worse, it has a delivery system.”
WND is the bottom of the barrel, and they have now taken center stage as America’s foremost purveyor of yellow journalism.
February 8, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Ali Khamenei, Forghani, Iran, Muhammad Sahimi |
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Not even a week after Barack Obama declared that not too many civilians die in the CIA’s drone strikes in Pakistan, a new report from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism finds that “at least 50 civilians” have been killed in rescues attempts, 20 in strikes on funerals, with at least 282 total civilians killed since Obama took office.
That much you learn from the New York Times report by Scott Shane (2/6/12):
WASHINGTON — British and Pakistani journalists said Sunday that the CIA’s drone strikes on suspected militants in Pakistan have repeatedly targeted rescuers who responded to the scene of a strike, as well as mourners at subsequent funerals.
The report, by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, found that at least 50 civilians had been killed in follow-up strikes after they rushed to help those hit by a drone-fired missile. The bureau counted more than 20 other civilians killed in strikes on funerals. The findings were published on the Bureau‘s website and in the Sunday Times of London.
For some reason the Times felt it necessary to get an anonymous U.S. official–again–to smear the people trying to count the dead:
A senior American counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, questioned the report’s’ findings, saying “targeting decisions are the product of intensive intelligence collection and observation.” The official added: “One must wonder why an effort that has so carefully gone after terrorists who plot to kill civilians has been subjected to so much misinformation. Let’s be under no illusions–there are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help Al-Qaeda succeed.”
For the record, the Times’ policy on the use of anonymous sources:
We do not grant anonymity to people who use it as cover for a personal or partisan attack. If pejorative opinions are worth reporting and cannot be specifically attributed, they may be paraphrased or described after thorough discussion between writer and editor. The vivid language of direct quotation confers an unfair advantage on a speaker or writer who hides behind the newspaper, and turns of phrase are valueless to a reader who cannot assess the source.
February 7, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | al-Qaeda, Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Central Intelligence Agency, New York Times, Pakistan, Sunday Times |
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