Mainstream Media, Warmongering

What a Whopper! U.S. Throws All the Demons in the Mix for the Mother Of All Anti-Iran Psy-Ops

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | October 11, 2011

Who said Barack Obama would bring sobriety and dignity to U.S. foreign policy? The president’s men, and Top Woman Hillary Clinton, have thrown every stereotypical demon of middle American nightmares into the psychological operations gumbo, to create a war hysteria against Iran. No reflexive terror button is left unpunished, no racial hysteria unexploited. Bubble, bubble, boil and trouble, the administration is cooking up an almost comically infernal witches brew just in time for Halloween.

What a confabulation! There’s the Mexican drug cartel hit men, the specter of a bomb exploding in a crowded, upscale Washington eatery, plus attacks on Israelis and, of course, in the background, the elite Quds unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. And if you believe the government story – well, that proves you are the typical America, and any idiot can keep you in a state of endless war.

How convenient this alleged plot is, to weave together the interests of the Mexican narco-regime, which is at war with some of its drug billionaires and in league with others, and a permanent lackey of the United States; Saudi Arabia, the most reactionary regime on the planet, where one family demonstrates its fitness to control the world’s largest oil reserves by building a skyscraper three times the height of the Empire State Building in the middle of a vast desert, and is also a collaborator with the United States in turning back the Arab Spring; and Israel, the uncontested champion violator of international law and United Nations resolutions, which maintains its supremacy in the Middle East and unique relationship to the United States by keeping the region permanently on the brink of Armageddon.

All four players now claim Iran has all but declared war on virtually everybody by plotting to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. But the whole thing smells more like the FBI’s schemes to frame Black men in Miami and Newburgh, New York, for terroristic attacks that never did, or could, happen.

Attorney General Eric Holder, the American entrapper-in-chief, says the Iranians wanted to pay $1.5 million to Mexican hit men to kill the ambassador, possibly by blowing up a DC restaurant where lots of congresspersons also dined. But it turns out that a Drug Enforcement Administration “confidential source” in Mexico was the guy the Iranians supposedly contacted for the hit, and that he came up with the bombing idea, and that the restaurant doesn’t even exist. A naturalized American who also kept his Iranian passport is now in custody. His alleged partner is an Iranian who, if you believe the U.S. government, was connected somehow to the Iranian Quds force. We are supposed to accept that this is how the Iranians make war against the western world.

Mexico says the plot was a threat to its national security, although it is not alleged that even one Mexican hit man was actually contacted. Israel – well, the Israelis are always trying to get the U.S. to attack Iran, so there’s nothing new, there. And the Saudis are pretending to be the injured party, even though they years ago promised the use of their airspace to Israel and the United States for the purpose of bombing Iran.

Iran calls the tale “a children’s story.” Which pretty much sums it up, except these American, Saudi, Mexican and Israeli children are vicious, straight out of Lord of the Flies.

October 12, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

US allegedly foils hit on Saudi ambassador, but how could Iran benefit from a crime like this?

RT | 11 October, 2011

American authorities reportedly disrupted an Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Washington declared that it is “committed to holding Iran accountable.”

Two men, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, have been charged with conspiracy to assassinate the Saudi Arabian diplomat Adel Al-Jubeir. The FBI has described Shakuri as a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds force. The plot also allegedly involved bombing attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington.

“The complaint alleges that this conspiracy was conceived, sponsored and directed from Iran and constitutes a flagrant violation of US and international law,” said US Attorney General Eric Holder, as quoted by Agence France-Presse.

“In addition to holding these individual conspirators accountable for their alleged role in this plot, the United States is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions,” he said.

Shakuri remains at large while Arbabsiar was arrested on September 29 at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport. He made an appearance in a Manhattan court on Tuesday.

Arbabsiar’s arrest came during a sting operation by the FBI and the US Drug Enforcement Administration. A holder of both US and Iranian passports, he is accused of being ready to pay $1.5 million for the murder of the Saudi ambassador. For the hit he allegedly turned to members of the Mexican drug cartel, who in fact were informants for the FBI.

Investigators also say Arbabsiar wired some $100,000 to an FBI undercover bank account as an advance for the assassination.

Iran has rejected claims by the US that Tehran was involved in a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington, saying this was a “prefabricated scenario” designed to “turn public attention away from domestic problems within the United States.”

In an open letter to the UN, written after the US accused Iran of plotting murder and terror acts on American territory, Iran’s UN ambassador Mohammad Khazaee strongly and categorically denied all allegations, calling them fabricated and “based on the suspicious claims of an individual.”

“Any country could accuse other countries through fabrication of such stories,” the ambassador wrote to the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, stressing that “This would set dangerous precedents in relations among states.”

The ambassador condemned the politically-motivated allegations of terrorism, calling them “a showcase of animosity towards the Iranian nation.”

The letter also mentions that it is Iran that has been a victim of the terrorist tactics of the US-supported Israeli regime that does not hesitate to kill Iranian nuclear scientists on Iranian soil.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency described the accusations as “America’s new propaganda scenario” against Iran.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, took the US claims seriously, thanking the US authorities for foiling the alleged attempt.

The US is already consulting its allies over the alleged assassination plot in a bid to press Europe to support new sanctions against Iran. The British government has been the first to discuss introducing new measures targeting Tehran.

British PM David Cameron’s spokesman Steve Field confirmed on Wednesday that London was in consultations with Washington about anti-Iranian sanctions but ruled out British involvement in any future military operation against Iran.

Something is amiss with Washington’s allegations, claims antiwar activist Brian Becker.

“I think that the US has climbed the escalation ladder, and whenever the escalation ladder is climbed, you ratchet up an attack against the other side; the other side then has to reciprocate,” he told RT. “I think we really need to question what is going on here. Is it really in the interest of Iran to carry out the assassination of this Saudi Arabian or Israeli ambassador in the heart of Washington at a time when the Iranian government knows the US is trying to find a pretext to escalate tensions with Iran?”

Becker declared that Iran would not benefit from a crime like this, as it would have brought Tehran closer to war with the largest military power in the world.

“The only beneficiaries are the Israeli regime and the United States government, which wants to ratchet up tensions against Iran,” concluded Becker.

October 12, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

The Israel Lobby’s Mastery of the Subtle Art of Persuasion

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | October 11, 2011

In Ken Silverstein’s Salon piece on the Israel lobby’s pro-Georgian section, he describes pro-Israeli organisations as “the true masters at spinning and pampering journalists.” To back up his claim, Silverstein provides a link to a fascinating article in the Boston Globe from 2007 entitled “I was lobbied by the ‘Israel lobby.’”

Beginning the piece with a brief overview of the debate surrounding the publication of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” Elaine McArdle admits that she wasn’t around when the controversy broke:

“I happened to be in Israel with eight other American journalists, on a first-class, all-expenses-paid tour funded entirely by AIPAC.”

McArdle goes on to acknowledge how susceptible her profession is to being lobbied by the lobby:

And although mainstream news organizations still bar their staff reporters from taking paid junkets, others aren’t shy at all. Recent tours have included staff from “The Daily Show” and reporters from Spanish and African-American media. “There’s hardly a journalist left in D.C. who hasn’t taken this trip,” one AIPAC representative told us, with only some sense of overstatement.

[…]

I’ve never written about foreign policy, and despite Mearsheimer and Walt’s book, I don’t have any reason to think of AIPAC as different than any other lobbying group. Still, after a friend gave them my name and the invitation came, I struggled over whether to accept such a lavish gift from an organization with something to sell. I consulted with other journalists, most of whom asked only one question: How could they get on the next AIPAC trip?

She then describes the trip:

Our weeklong tour would cost AIPAC around $5,000 per person, including six nights in first-class hotels, [AIPAC spokesman Josh] Block told me. AIPAC was asking nothing of us in return. No one in our group – mainly freelance writers like me, with little experience in foreign policy – had assignments to write about Israel.

And there was no hard sell in sight.

Flying business class meant free cocktails in the elite-passenger lounges at Logan and in Newark, hot towels and cold drinks fetched by the flight attendant, and a seat that folded into a bed. I slept the nine-hour flight to Tel Aviv. AIPAC handlers met us at the airport to smooth our passage through customs. A luxury bus drove us through the stunning countryside to Jerusalem, where we checked into the five-star Inbal Hotel in the heart of the city.

Over the next seven days, led by a renowned archeologist, we toured the desert by bus and the Old City in Jerusalem by foot. We lay on the beach in Tel Aviv, a city as vibrant and sophisticated as Manhattan. We saw the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and played with Ethiopian toddlers in an immigrant absorption center. On our first night in Jerusalem, we sat at an outdoor cafe smoking tobacco through an enormous hookah pipe as nearby tables of young men and women – many in army uniforms and carrying M-16s – laughed and flirted in the cool night air.

On her return to Boston, McArdle, who describes herself as an “experienced journalist,” wondered if she had been swayed by the experience and decided to consult some experts:

I was well aware that I had heard only one side of the story on my trip. So how could I be susceptible to persuasion? But I also knew that any lobbying group that drops thousands of dollars on someone expects to get something in return.

I called John A. Bargh, a Yale psychology professor who studies nonconscious influences on behavior, and walked him through the details of my junket. Did he think I was swayed by the experience? “Of course you are,” he said. “You’d almost have to be. And you can’t know it.”

A key tool in the subtle art of persuasion, he said, is reciprocity: offer someone a pleasant experience or gift and they feel an almost irresistible obligation to return the favor. The norm of reciprocity cuts across every culture, and the value of the gift is irrelevant: a cup of coffee is as effective as an extravagant trip. Another tool is to provide friendship and human connection – it’s inevitable that a bond will develop when you spend substantial time with someone, especially in a foreign place, where you depend on them.

In the case of the AIPAC junket, it was a one-two punch: an unforgettable and emotionally charged week with warm, likable people – generous hosts and tour guides whom I worried about after returning to the safety of life in Massachusetts.

Emily Pronin, an assistant professor of psychology at Princeton who studies how bias works in the human mind, told me that she and others have found that although we are quick to spot bias in others, bias in ourselves operates almost entirely on a subconscious level. She calls it the “bias blind spot.” Scalia’s cozy weekend was innocent in his own eyes. Doctors who worry about the sway of pharmaceutical companies over their colleagues insist that their own medical judgment would never be affected. Journalists think they’re too savvy to be hustled by lobbyists. We’re all operating under a fundamental misperception about the soft sell: that we’ll see it happening and avoid it.

“It’s a perception of bias as conscious, evil, corrupt behavior,” she told me. “As long as we think that’s how it goes, we’ll continue to say it doesn’t affect us.”

Since we’re all deeply invested in our own sense of integrity – and being accused of bias is an affront – we are primed to deny it. Because bias is subconscious, Bargh said, when our opinion does change we’ll convince ourselves that it’s because objective reality has changed, or that we didn’t have enough facts before.

With a new understanding of the subtleties of influence, McArdle found herself wondering how much her opinion on Israel had been moved by the trip:

It’s not hard for me to acknowledge that I’m much more sympathetic to the predicament of Israel than I was before I saw the place so extensively with my own eyes. Traveling the countryside has given me a much clearer picture of its precarious state, with a mere 9 miles separating the West Bank from Tel Aviv – less than from Boston to Concord, and easy distance for rockets. You can certainly see why Israel wouldn’t give up the West Bank until it has a partner it can trust. Its existence – and the lives of the people we met – are at risk.

Before the junket, I would have described myself as admiring of Israel but increasingly disturbed by its human rights violations.

Now I would say I find myself aligned with a growing group of former Israeli leftists, those who once believed a peaceful solution was imminent but after the debacle of Gaza have, with heavy hearts, lost their bearings and moved toward the center.

She concludes the piece thus:

Was I swayed by AIPAC? It is hard for me to say. I don’t think so. Of course I don’t.

The lobby, however, knows better.

October 11, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Israel lobby hypes a new Cold War with Russia

By Maidhc Ó Cathail |The Passionate Attachment | October 10, 2011

Ken Silverstein has a very interesting piece in Salon magazine on the lobbyists for Georgia who “wine and dine eager Washington journalists in a campaign to undo Obama’s ‘reset’ on Russia.” Silverstein, a contributing editor for Harper’s magazine, explains how Randy Scheunemann’s Orion Strategies creates a media echo chamber on Georgia and Russia:

Essentially it works like this: Tbilisi’s lobbyists generate contacts and information that they feed to sympathetic journalists. Orion frequently arranges interviews with Georgian officials and, not infrequently, stories centering on their charges magically appear soon afterward. Orion has wined and dined some reporters on its tab or picked up their travel expenses. There’s certainly nothing illegal about that but it’s worth noting that lobbyists are barred from maintaining these sorts of relationships with members of Congress because it so clearly presents, as we say in Washington, at least the appearance of impropriety.

Orion is friendly to and works with government officials and politicians who its reporter friends regularly cite (especially [John] McCain). Orion also works very closely with experts and organizations cited by these reporters, like the Foreign Policy Initiative, whose board of directors includes William Kristol, Robert Kagan and other neocons from the PNAC and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.

The journalists pick up on and spread each other’s work and [Orion’s Michael] Goldfarb, naturally, hawks their stories at his Twitter feed. Just last week, he called a new [Eli] Lake story a “must read.” The piece at the Newsweek/Daily Beast, featured an exclusive interview with Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who alleged that the bombing at the U.S. Embassy was “ordered at the most senior levels of the Russian government.” He was quoted as saying that Putin “is crazy about planning the individual details of special operations … I cannot imagine somebody touching a topic as sensitive as Georgia is for Russia, especially for Putin, without Putin having firsthand knowledge or command of it.”

Orion helps create a collective media reality that policymakers have to respond to. Other foreign governments also play this game, as do liberal and conservative interest groups, but rarely as well or so brazenly.

Silverstein notes that when Eli Lake alleged on the front page of the Washington Times on July 22 that a bomb blast near the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, the previous September had been “traced to a plot run by a Russian military intelligence officer, according to an investigation by the Georgian Interior Ministry,” Senators Mark Kirk, Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman and John McCain — the latter duo he aptly dubs “Senators Echo and Echo” — sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding intelligence briefings on the incident. As observers of the Israel lobby know only too well, the famous five are among AIPAC’s most reliable mouthpieces on Capitol Hill.

Among Orion’s other friends in the media, Silverstein names the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, formerly of Commentary magazine; the Weekly Standard’s Daniel Halper and Matthew Continetti; James Kirchick, an assistant editor at the New Republic; and Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin. Like Orion’s friendly senators, these pro-Georgian journalists are also well known for their staunch pro-Israeli views. While Silverstein doesn’t mention this, he does note that Rubin’s attendance at this year’s Herzliya Conference was paid for by the Emergency Committee for Israel with which Kristol and Goldfarb are associated.

To his credit, Silverstein admits that he “found it unpleasant to write this story” because he knows and likes some of the people involved. Moreover, he acknowledges that Orion also represents an organisation affiliated with George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, which funds some of his current research — “though not this article.” Silverstein doesn’t say anything, however, about the key role that Soros’s “philanthropy” played in fomenting the “Rose Revolution” that brought the billionaire financier’s not-so-democratic protégé to power. Or about how Saakashvili’s subsequent provocations of Moscow are hardly unconnected to Soros’s and the neocons’ grievance against Putin over his opposition to the looting of Russia by the predominantly Jewish oligarchs, some of whom have since fled to Israel.

October 10, 2011 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia, Jordan behind Syria unrest

Hassan Hanizadeh | Press TV | April 10, 2011

Syrian opposition leader Abdul Halim Khaddam at his home in Paris

The rise in anti-government protests and mounting political tension in Syria brings to mind the question about who is behind these deadly incidents.

A probe into the root causes of the latest events in Syria shows that the revolt is mainly supported by Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The revolt began in the city of Daraa, 120 kilometers south of the capital Damascus and near the border with Jordan.

Daraa is the birthplace of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, which has close ties to the people in the Syrian city.

Undoubtedly, the Syrians, like other nations in the region, have some legitimate demands which have prompted the government to plan fundamental reforms. However, the protests have come with unjustifiable violence by some suspicious elements.

Similar protests were seen in 1982 against the government of late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in the cities of Hama and Daraa.

Hafez al-Assad — the late father of current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — was president between 1970 and 2000 and was considered one of the powerful leaders in the Arab world.

Former Jordan King Hussein, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the then Saudi King Khalid incited Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood against Syria, when Hafez al-Assad backed Iran during the eight-year Iraqi-imposed war on Iran in the 1980s.

The fighting, which took place from 1982 to 1984, left more than 30,000 people dead, but the late Syrian president finally managed to end the crisis.

Saudi Arabia and Jordan continued their attempts to cause unrest in Syria after the death of Hafez al-Assad and his succession by his son.

Saudi Arabia, which often bows to US and Israel’s policies in the region, tried to destabilize Bashar al-Assad’s government by undermining his rule.

To this end, Saudi Arabia paid 30 million dollars to former vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam to quit Assad’s government.

Khaddam sought asylum in France in 2005 with the aid of Saudi Arabia and began to plot against the Syrian government with the exiled leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Khaddam, who is a relative of Saudi King Abdullah and former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, used his great wealth to form a political group with the aim of toppling Bashar al-Assad.

The triangle of Khaddam-Abdullah-Hariri is well-known in the region as their wives are sisters.

Khaddam’s entire family enjoys Saudi citizenship and the value investment by his sons, Jamal and Jihad, in Saudi Arabia is estimated at more than USD 3 billion.

Therefore, with the start of popular protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain, the Saudi regime saw an opportunity to drive a wedge between Tehran, Damascus and Beirut axis.

Due to the direct influence of the Saudi Wahhabis on Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, the people of the cities of Daraa and Homs, following Saudi incitement and using popular demands as an excuse began resorting to violence.

It is reported that the United States, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia formed joint operational headquarters in the Saudi Embassy in Belgium to direct the riots in southern Syria. Abdul Halim Khaddam, who held the highest political, executive and information posts in the Syrian government for more than 30 years, is said to have been transferred from Paris to Belgium to direct the unrest.

The reason for this was that based on French law, political asylum seekers cannot work against their countries of origin in France and therefore Khaddam was transferred to Brussels to guide the riots.

Jordan equipped the Muslim Brotherhood in the two cities with logistical facilities and personal weapons.

Although, Bashar al-Assad promised implementation of fundamental changes and reforms after the bloody riot in the country, the Brotherhood continued to incite protesters against him.

The Syrian state television recently broadcast footage of armed activity in the border city of Daraa by a guerilla group, which opened fire on the people and government forces. It is said that the group, which is affiliated to Salafi movements, obtained its weapons from Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Because Syria’s ruling party is from the Alevi tribes associated with the Shias, the Brotherhood, due to its anti-Shia ideas, has tried for three decades to topple the Alevi establishment of the country.

Hence, the recent riots in Syria are not just rooted in popular demands but harbor a tribal aspect and Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the US are directing the unrest for their future purposes.

In the eyes of these three, the removal of Syria’s Alevi government would cause the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut axis to collapse and would be followed by the gradual weakening and elimination of Lebanon’s resistance.

Therefore suadi and US efforts to topple Assad’s government are taking place with the aim of eliminating the last anti-Zionism resistance front.

This is while, considering the Syrian government’s experience in resolving difficult crises, it is unlikely that Saudi Arabia and Jordan will succeed in weakening or toppling the Syrian ruling system.

October 10, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Abdul Halim Khaddam, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

Hate Speech Finds a Mainstream Platform

By Mouin Rabbani | Jadaliyya | October 03 2011

It is not often that major international publications respond to crackpot opinion pieces in other newspapers. Yet Robert L. Bernstein’s latest tantrum against the Palestinians, which the Washington Post published instead of steering the author to an extremist website, was so far beyond the pale that The Economist felt compelled to issue a rejoinder.

Beneath the layers of dehumanization, delegitimization, distortion, and outright deceit, Bernstein’s argument is straightforward in tone yet crooked in reasoning: Israel is the victim of the Palestinians it has dispossessed and occupied; Palestinian (and Arab) hostility to Israel is—and is motivated by—anti-Semitism rather than dispossession and occupation; and anyone who disagrees with his putrid nonsense is an accomplice to incitement to genocide. His proof consists of a blend of his own imagination and assertions, and quotes from Palestinian Media Watch which is a propaganda outfit run by radical Jewish settlers that has been thoroughly discredited by serious scholars on every continent save Antarctica.

Bernstein concentrates his bile on the United Nations and human rights organizations, particularly Human Rights Watch which he apparently established. He accuses these organizations of being “accomplices” to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, which he re-defines as a campaign to commit genocide. The claim is laughable at best.

Rather than being an enemy of Israel, the UN established it. In the decades since 1948, the UN has systematically failed to redress the resultant ethnic cleansing of the vast majority of Palestinians from the territory that became Israel. Moreover, its Security Council has been instrumental in promoting Israeli impunity with respect to systematic violations of the UN Charter and other UN conventions.

This year alone, the Security Council, courtesy of yet another American nyet, ensured that Israel could continue expanding illegal settlements in occupied territory—a grave breach under international law—without consequence. Washington is currently working overtime to ensure that the Arab state in Palestine specified by the same resolution that led to Israel’s founding is not admitted to membership in the world body.

For Bernstein, that most of the world has already recognized this state means the planet is wrong and Israel is right. Anything he doesn’t like, after all, is evidence of an anti-Semitic conspiracy—and nothing more so than global support for Palestinian rights. One wonders how Bernstein would characterize the UN if it actually held Israel accountable for its actions the way it has Arab states like Iraq and Libya, and translated its annual confirmation of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination from ink to reality.

It is certainly true that the UN has devoted more column inches to the Palestine question than perhaps any other. This reflects not only the conflict’s unjustifiable longevity, but also the UN’s direct involvement and responsibility from its very outset—making Palestine the international question par excellence. This is a rather different reality from Darfur or Tibet. If the world body were genuinely hostile to Israel, the latter simply would not exist, let alone remain an active member that is simultaneously the world’s longest-serving occupying power.

The record of the human rights community on this issue is even worse than that of the UN. Until the eruption of the (first) Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s, Israel’s conduct—whether in the occupied territories, Lebanon or towards its Arab citizens—elicited barely a peep. Industry leaders like Bernstein, who never let the pursuit of justice get in the way of their politics and/or political calculations, played a crucial role in this respect. It was in fact primarily on account of Israel’s globally televised barbarism that it became impossible for Bernstein’s organization and others to continue lending Israel two blind eyes.

Even today, the record of many such organizations, and that of Human Rights Watch in particular, remains deeply problematic. As any serious reading of HRW literature confirms, the organization has been more—and more openly—critical of Arab states and even occupied Palestinians than it has of Israel. In HRW reports, Israel, unlike its neighbors, is neither explicitly condemned nor directly accused of war crimes, even when the evidence it has collected itself leaves room for no other conclusion. Bernstein aims to denounce HRW, but unintentionally helps explain the organization’s persistent shortcomings.

Like fanatic ethno-nationalists everywhere, Bernstein clearly believes Israel should be held to a different standard than other states—the standard of total impunity and a complete absence of accountability. But to suggest that his own outfit holds it to the same or higher standards than others reflects pure ignorance—if not his own then his reliance on that of others.

In this respect, one would do well to judge Bernstein by his ludicrous assertion that such organizations have “chosen to focus primarily on Israel.” A brief perusal of HRW’s Middle East page—which he either does not read or willfully misrepresents—reveals that a grand total of two of HRW’s sixty-five most recent statements on the region concern Israel/Palestine, one of them a condemnation of Hamas’ harassment of Palestinian activists.

Bernstein is perhaps at his most comical when invoking his settler friends from Palestinian Media Watch to denounce Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for rejecting Israel’s recent and novel demand, without precedent in international relations, for explicit recognition as a Jewish state. If his bizarre tantrum on this issue holds any water, surely it applies equally to the rest of the planet, including even the United States, which also has yet to formally indulge Binyamin Netanyahu on this score.

There are, needless to say, legitimate points that can and should be raised about the manner in which Palestinians and Arabs have responded to Israel’s usurpation of their rights. Yet Bernstein’s tirade relies primarily on gross exaggeration and outright falsification. And in refusing—like the settlers he champions—to even acknowledge that these same points apply in plentiful abundance to Israeli leaders, opinion makers, and educational curricula, he disqualifies himself from participation in the debate about Israel and Palestine, particularly where human rights are concerned.

Since Bernstein claims to be motivated by opposition to hate speech, he would do well to first desist from this reprehensible practice. Pending such an unlikely transformation, mainstream media such as the Washington Post have a moral as well as political obligation to deny such loathsome sentiment a platform.

October 8, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Radwan Ziadeh Calls For War On Syria

Ikras | October 7, 2011

State Dept Tool Radwan Ziadeh With Hillary

US State Department tool Radwan Ziadeh today called for a war on Syria. Speaking on Aljazeera’s prime-time, evening newscast “daily harvest”, Washington’s favorite Syrian “human rights activist” did not actually utter the word “war”, but that word is rarely used even by the powers that wage the war. Instead he opted for the agreed upon euphemism of “international protection.”

He went on to explain “international protection” would be justified under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Like the minute fraction of Arabs (they are always a minute fraction) that previously supported Western wars on Iraq and Libya, Ziadeh and a handful of like-minded friends are quick to cite Chapter 7 as a “legal basis” for their self-serving collaboration and a fig leaf for their treason. This is not the first time Ziadeh has expressed his support for a potential war on Syria, but he’s never been as clear as he was today.

Short of the American military invasion and occupation of Syria which Ziadeh is hoping for, at which time he can fly into Damascus on a US Air Force C-17 like Ahmad Chalabi arrived in Iraq, he is unlikely to ever return to the country where he would certainly be arrested and put on trial for treason regardless if the current regime remains in power or not. Ziadeh, who has appeared before anti-Syrian, Zionist groups, has also expressed his willingness, in the event he becomes part of a Western-installed regime in Damascus, to recognize the Zionist entity and continues his silence on Israel’s occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.

October 8, 2011 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Pro-Israeli hawk urges U.S. to “get tough” with sole Islamic nuclear power

Max Puts the Boot into Pakistan

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | October 7, 2011

While much attention has been paid to Admiral Mike Mullen’s allegations that Pakistan’s ISI was behind recent attacks on American targets in Afghanistan attributed to the Haqqani network, the subsequent call by an influential neoconservative pundit for the United States to “get tough with Pakistan” seems to have gone unnoticed.

Writing this week in two of the neoconservative flagship outlets, Commentary and The Weekly Standard, Max Boot argues for a more aggressive U.S. approach to Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency. “I suggest we start treating Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency the way we treated Iran’s Quds Force in Iraq,” Boot opines in Commentary, an influential magazine founded by the American Jewish Committee, a key component of the pro-Israel lobby. “That is to say, apply the full range of our power–everything from diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, to kinetic military action–to curb the menace posed by this group.”

Currently a senior fellow in national security studies at the influential Council on Foreign Relations, Max Boot clearly has the kind of influence that could turn his not-so-humble suggestion into American policy. In March 2010, General David Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command, turned to Boot for help when some articles appeared in the American media noting that Petraeus’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee implied that Washington’s uncritical support of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians was hurting U.S. interests in the region.

Petraeus forwarded one of the articles to Boot, with a note saying, “As you know, I didn’t say that. It’s in a written submission for the record….” In his reply, Boot dismissed the source’s credibility, but promised Petraeus that he would write “another short item pointing people to what you actually said as opposed to what’s in the posture statement.” Appreciative, but clearly still concerned to ingratiate himself with Israel’s powerful supporters, six minutes later Petraeus wrote back: “Thx, Max. (Does it help if folks know that I hosted Elie Wiesel and his wife at our quarters last Sun night?! And that I will be the speaker at the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps in mid-Apr at the Capitol Dome…).” When the Russian-born Jewish writer assured the four-star general that this wasn’t relevant since he wasn’t being accused of being anti-Semitic, a relieved Petraeus signed off with a “Roger!” followed by a smiley emoticon.

The embarrassing spectacle of one of America’s most eminent military commanders seeing fit to grovel in such a demeaning way before a young pro-Israeli hack would surely have ended General Petraeus’s career in Washington before it began if the American public had been made aware of the incident. The Israel-centric U.S. media, however, chose to studiously ignore the revealing Petraeus-Boot correspondence. As a consequence of the media’s silence, the servile Petraeus is currently director of the CIA, overseeing the murderous drone strikes which are predictably enraging the Pakistani people; while his self-assured confidant is goading American policy-makers from his safe perch at the neocons’ primary warmongering media outlets to escalate such provocative policies against the world’s sole Islamic nuclear power–a country which, not insignificantly, has been designated as Israel’s greatest strategic threat by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

While most Americans remain oblivious to the crimes being committed in their names around the world, those concerned about Pakistan’s security would do well to remember that what’s on the pages of Commentary and The Weekly Standard one day will most likely be on the lips of the Israel lobby’s compliant Congressmen and Pentagon and White House officials the next.

Maidhc Ó Cathail is an investigative journalist and Middle East analyst.

October 7, 2011 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Truth and Falsehood in Syria

By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | October 5, 2011

Ankara – As insurrection in Syria lurches towards civil war, the brakes need to be put on the propaganda pouring through the western mainstream media and accepted uncritically by many who should know better. So here is a matrix of positions from which to argue about what is going on in this critical Middle Eastern country:

1. Syria has been a mukhabarat (intelligence) state since the redoubtable Abd al Hamid al Serraj ran the intelligence services as the deuxieme bureau in the 1950s. The authoritarian state which developed from the time Hafez al Assad took power in 1970 has crushed all dissent ruthlessly. On occasion it has either been him or them. The ubiquitous presence of the mukhabarat is an unpleasant fact of Syrian life but as Syria is a central target for assassination and subversion by Israel and western intelligence agencies, as it has repeatedly come under military attack, as it has had a large chunk of its territories occupied and as its enemies are forever looking for opportunities to bring it down, it can hardly be said that the mukhabarat is not needed.

2. There is no doubt that the bulk of people demonstrating in Syria want peaceful transition to a democratic form of government. Neither is there any doubt that armed groups operating from behind the screen of the demonstrations have no interest in reform. They want to destroy the government.

3. There have been very big demonstrations of support for the government. There is anger at the violence of the armed gangs and anger at external interference and exploitation of the situation by outside governments and the media. In the eyes of many Syrians, their country is again the target of an international conspiracy.

4. Whatever the truth of the accusations made against the security forces, the armed groups have killed hundreds of police, soldiers and civilians, in total probably close to 1000 at this stage. The civilian dead include university professors, doctors and even, very recently, the son of the Grand Mufti of the Republic. The armed gangs have massacred, ambushed, assassinated, attacked government buildings and sabotaged railway lines.

5. Bashar al Assad has a strong base of personal popularity. Although he sits on top of the system it is misleading to call him a dictator. The system itself is the true dictator. Deeply rooted power in Syria – entrenched over five decades – lies in the military and intelligence establishment, and to a lesser degree in the party structure. These are the true sources of resistance to change. The demonstrations were Bashar’s opportunity to pass on the message, which he did, that the system had to change.

6. In the face of large scale demonstrations earlier this year the government did finally come up with a reform program. This was rejected out of hand by the opposition. No attempt was even made to test the bona fides of the government.

7. The claim that armed opposition to the government has begun only recently is a complete lie. The killings of soldiers, police and civilians, often in the most brutal circumstances, has been going on virtually since the beginning.

8. The armed groups are well armed and well organised. Large shipments of weapons have been smuggled into Syria from Lebanon and Turkey. They include pump action shotguns, machine guns, Kalashnikovs,RPG launchers, Israeli-made hand grenades and numerous other explosives. It is not clear who is providing these weapons but someone is, and someone is paying for them. Interrogation of captured members of armed gangs points in the direction of Saad al Hariri’s Future Movement. Hariri is a front man for the US and Saudi Arabia, with influence spreading well beyond Lebanon.

9. Armed opposition to the regime largely seems to be sponsored by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. In 1982 the government ruthlessly crushed an uprising initiated by the Brotherhood in Hama. Many thousands died and part of the city was destroyed. The Brotherhood has two prime objectives: the destruction of the Baathist government and the destruction of the secular state in favor of an Islamic system. It is almost palpably thirsting for revenge.

10. The armed groups have strong support from outside apart from what is already known or indicated. Exiled former Syrian Vice President and Foreign Minister, Abd ul Halim Khaddam, who lives in Paris, has been campaigning for years to bring down the Assad government. He is funded by both the EU and the US. Other exiled activists include Burhan Ghalioun, backed by Qatar as the leader of the ‘national council’ set up in Istanbul. Ghalioun, like Abd ul Halim Khaddam, lives in Paris and like him also, lobbies against the Assad government in Europe and in Washington. Together with Muhammad Riyad al Shaqfa, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, he is receptive to outside ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Syria on the Libyan model (others are against it). The promotion of the exiles as an alternative government is reminiscent of the way the US used exiled Iraqis (the so-called Iraqi National Congress) ahead of the invasion of Iraq.

11. The reporting by the western media of the situations in Libya and Syria has been appalling. NATO intervention in Libya has been the cause of massive destruction and thousands of deaths. The war, following the invasion of Iraq, is yet another major international crime committed by the governments of the US, Britain and France. The city of Sirte has been bombarded day and night for two weeks without the western media paying any attention to the heavy destruction and loss of life that must have followed. The western media has made no attempt to check reports coming out of Sirte of the bombing of civilian building and the killing of hundreds of people. The only reason can be that the ugly truth could well derail the whole NATO operation.

12. In Syria the same media has followed the same pattern of misreporting and disinformation. It has ignored or skated over the evidence of widespread killings by armed gangs. It has invited its audience to disbelieve the claims of government and believe the claims of rebels, often made in the name of human rights organisations based in Europe or the US. Numerous outright lies have been told, as they were told in Libya and as they were told ahead of the attack on Iraq. Some at least have been exposed. People said to have been killed by state security forces have turned up alive. The brothers of Zainab al Husni claimed she has been kidnapped by security forces, murdered and her body dismembered. This lurid account, spread by Al Jazeera and Al Arabiyya amongst other outlets, was totally false. She is still alive although now, of course, the propaganda tack is to claim that this is not really her but a double. Al Jazeera, the Guardian and the BBC have distinguished themselves by their blind support of anything that discredits the Syrian government. The same line is being followed by the mainstream media in the US. Al Jazeera, in particular, having distinguished itself with its reporting of the Egyptian revolution, has lost all credibility as an independent Arab world news channel.

13. In seeking to destroy the Syrian government the Muslim Brotherhood has a goal in common with the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia, whose paranoia about Shia Islam reached fever pitch with the uprising in Bahrain. Wikileaks revealed how impatient it was for the US to attack Iran. A substitute target is the destruction of the strategic relationship between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah. The US and the Saudis may want to destroy the Alawi-dominated Baathist regime in Damascus for slightly different reasons, but the important thing is that they do want to destroy it.

14. The US is doing its utmost to drive Syria into a corner. It is giving financial support to exiled leaders of the opposition. It has tried (and so far failed thanks to Russian and Chinese opposition) to introduce an extensive program of sanctions through the UN Security Council. No doubt it will try again and depending on how the situation develops, it may try, with British and French support, to bring on a no-fly zone resolution opening the door to foreign attack. The situation is fluid and no doubt all sorts of contingency plans are being developed. The White House and the State Department are issuing hectoring statements every other day. Openly provoking the Syrian government, the US ambassador, accompanied by the French ambassador, travelled to Hama before Friday prayers. Against everything that is known about their past record of interference in Middle Eastern countries, it is inconceivable that the US and Israel, along with France and Britain, would not be involved in this uprising beyond what is already known.

15. While concentrating on the violence of the Syrian regime, the US, European governments (especially Britain) have totally ignored the violence directed against it. Their own infinitely greater violence, of course, in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, doesn’t even come into the picture. Turkey has joined their campaign against Syria with relish, going even further than they have in confronting the Syrian regime. In the space of a few months Turkey’s ‘zero problem’ regional policy has been upended in the most inchoate manner. Turkey eventually lent its support to the NATO attack on Libya, after initially holding back. It has antagonised Iran by its policy on Syria and by agreeing, despite strong domestic opposition, to host a US radar missile ‘defence’ installation clearly directed against Iran. The Americans say its data will be shared with Israel, which has refused to apologise for the attack on the Mavi Marmara, plunging Israeli-Turkish relations into near crisis. So from ‘zero problems’, Turkey now has a regional policy full of problems with Israel, Syria and Iran.

16. While some members of the Syrian opposition have spoken against foreign intervention, the ‘Free Syrian Army’ has said that its aim is to have a no-fly zone declared over northern Syria. A no-fly zone would have to be enforced, and we have seen how this led in Libya to massive infrastructural destruction, the killing of thousands of people and the opening of the door to a new period of western domination.

17. If the Syrian government is brought down, every last Baathist and Alawi will be hunted down. In a government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood the status of minorities and women would be driven backwards.

18. Through the Syria Accountability Act, and through sanctions which the EU has imposed, the US has been trying to destroy the Syrian government for twenty years. The dismantling of unified Arab states along ethno-religious lines has been an Israel aim for decades. Where Israel goes, the US naturally follows. The fruits of this policy can be seen in Iraq, where an independent state in all but name has been created for the Kurds and where the constitution, written by the US, separates Iraq’s people into Kurds, Sunni, Shia and Christian, destroying the binding logic of Arab nationalism. Iraq has not known a moment’s peace since the British entered Baghdad in 1917. In Syria ethno-religious divisions (Sunni Muslim Arab, Sunni Muslim Kurd, Druze, Alawi and various Christian sects) render it vulnerable in the same way to the promotion of sectarian discord and eventual disintegration as the unified Arab state the French tried to prevent coming into existence in the 1920s.

19. The destruction of the Baathist government would be a strategic victory of unsurpassed value to the US and Israel. The central arch in the strategic relationship between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah will have been destroyed, leaving Hizbullah geographically isolated, with a hostile Sunni Muslim government next door, and leaving Hizbullah and Iran more exposed to a military attack by the US and Israel. Fortuitously or otherwise, the ‘Arab spring’ as it has developed in Syria has placed in their hands a lever by which they may be able to achieve their goal.

20. It is not necessarily the case that a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government in Egypt or Syria would be hostile to US interests. Wanting to be seen as a respectable member of the international community and another good example of ‘moderate’ Islam, it is likely and certainly possible that an Egyptian government dominated by the Brotherhood would agree to maintain the peace treaty with Israel for as long as it can (i.e. until another large scale attack by Israel on Gaza or Lebanon makes it absolutely unsustainable).

21. A Syrian government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood would be close to Saudi Arabia and hostile to Iran, Hizbullah and the Shia of Iraq, especially those associated with Muqtada al Sadr. It would pay lip service to the Palestine cause and the liberation of the Golan Heights but its practical policies would be unlikely to be any different from the government it is seeking to destroy.

22. The Syrian people are entitled to demand democracy and to be given it, but in this way and at this cost? Even now, an end to the killing and negotiations on political reform is surely the way forward, not violence which threatens to tear the country apart. Unfortunately, violence and not a negotiated settlement is what too many people inside Syria want and what too many governments watching and waiting for their opportunity also want. No Syrian can ultimately gain from this, whatever they presently think. Their country is being driven towards a sectarian civil war, perhaps foreign intervention and certainly chaos on an even greater scale than we are now seeing. There will be no quick recovery if the state collapses or can be brought down. Like Iraq, and probably like Libya, looking at the present situation, Syria would enter a period of bloody turmoil that could last for years. Like Iraq, again, it would be completely knocked out of the ring as a state capable of standing up for Arab interests, which means, of course, standing up to the US and Israel.

23. Ultimately, whose interests does anyone think this outcome would serve?

Jeremy Salt is associate professor in Middle Eastern History and Politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Previously, he taught at Bosporus University in Istanbul and the University of Melbourne in the Departments of Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science. Professor Salt has written many articles on Middle East issues, particularly Palestine, and was a journalist for The Age newspaper when he lived in Melbourne.

October 6, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Zainab al-Hosni, the “Flower of Syria,” Alive and on TV: Will Human Rights Organizations and Mass Media Issue Corrections?

By Yoshie Furuhashi | Monthly Review | October 5, 2011

Zainab al-Hosni, dubbed the “Flower of Syria,” who the Syrian opposition claimed was tortured and murdered, burned and decapitated, by the Syrian government, has just appeared on Syrian TV, very much alive.

The case of opposition propaganda about Zainab al-Hosni is particularly noteworthy because this is one that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the most influential human rights organizations, both eagerly seized upon, seeking to turn its sensationalist character into a spur to prod the UN Security Council to act against Syria.

Will AI and HRW, and mass media such as CNN, France24, and the Associated Press, which followed the human rights organizations and also uncritically promulgated the Syrian opposition claim, issue corrections? Or will they continue looking for a new Syrian opposition remake of Kuwait’s “incubator babies” story or the Libyan rebels’ “African mercenaries” story?

Here is the video of the TV interview with Zainab, who says she fled from her family home because her brothers were beating her:

October 5, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Reply to Avaaz re ‘Bolivia: Stop the crackdown’

By Derrick O’Keefe | September 28, 2011

To the Avaaz team,

I too am concerned by the violence of the Bolivian police in this incident and the lack of consultation of local indigenous peoples. I support the call for dialogue, consultation and debate within Bolivia to resolve this situation, and hope that such a resolution will respect the local ecology and indigenous rights.

However, I feel your petition call-out is irresponsible for failing to mention the long-standing and ongoing pressure, interference and threats against Bolivia’s government and process of social change by the governments of the United States, Canada and Europe — the very countries to whose citizens you are appealing to sign this petition.

Your call-out also elides important context and complexities; most importantly the fact that other mass social movement organizations (which include other indigenous peoples) have pushed for the highway’s construction and were planning to block the march before police intervened. The tensions between so-called ‘development’ and the preservation of forests and indigenous rights are more challenging given hundreds of years of colonial and neo-colonial domination of this small, poor and landlocked country.

Failing to provide this context leaves your members and supporters without any motivation to pursue their most important political task: challenging their own government’s policies that unequivocally back their multi-national corporations and pursue alliances with the most anti-democratic, anti-environment political elements in Bolivia.

Finally, I must say that I have noted in the past that your group — for its many laudable efforts — does have a tendency to promote rather soft or easy causes. I have written you in the past encouraging you to organize a campaign against the NATO occupation of Afghanistan and its corrupt, puppet government, but I never heard a response. With the upcoming 10th anniversary of this brutal, disastrous war, this would be a perfect time for Avaaz to launch an appeal to oppose the US, Canadian and other NATO governments’ policy of endless war.

Sincerely,

Derrick O’Keefe
Vancouver, Canada

Link for ‘Bolivia: Stop the crackdown’

Bolivia Rising notes:

Avaaz is a member of The Climate Group.

The Climate Group is pushing REDD: http://www.theclimategroup.org/_assets/files/Reducing-Emissions-from-Deforestation.pdf

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund also acts as an incubator for in-house projects that later evolve into free-standing institutions – a case in point being The Climate Group, launched in London in 2004. The Climate Group coalition includes more than 50 of the world’s largest corporations and sub-national governments, including big polluters such as energy giants BP and Duke Energy, as well as several partner organizations, such as NGO Avaaz. The Climate Group are advocates of unproven carbon capture and storage technology (CCS), nuclear power and biomass as crucial technologies for a low-carbon economy. The Climate Group works closely with other business lobby groups, including the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), which works consistently to sabotage climate action. The Climate Group also works on other initiatives, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard, a new global standard for voluntary offset projects. One marketing strategist company labeled the Climate Group’s campaign “Together” as “the best inoculation against greenwash.” The Climate Group has operations in Australia, China, Europe, India, and North America. It was a partner to the Copenhagen Climate Council.

http://www.theclimategroup.org/about-us/our-partners/

The U.S. backed Avaaz NGO (Soros funding) has never endorsed the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba. Neither has any other corporate green group.

The environmental movement? It’s a movement, all right. A movement to protect the world’s wealthiest families and corporations who fund the movement via tax-exempt foundations.

September 30, 2011 Posted by aletho | Environmentalism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Libya and the Big Lie: Using Human Rights Organizations to Launch Wars

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya | Don DeBar’s Blog | September 24, 2011

The war against Libya is built on fraud. The United Nations Security Council passed two resolutions against Libya on the basis of unproven claims, specifically that Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was killing his own people in Benghazi. The claim in its exact form was that Qaddafi had ordered Libyan forces to kill 6,000 people in Benghazi. These claims were widely disseminated, but always vaguely explained. It was on the basis of this claim that Libya was referred to the U.N. Security Council at U.N Headquarters in New York City and kicked out of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

False claims about African mercenary armies in Libya and about jet attacks on civilians were also used in a broad media campaign against Libya. These two claims have been sidelined and have become more and more murky. The massacre claims, however, were used in a legal, diplomatic, and military framework to justify NATO’s war on the Libyans.

Using Human Rights as a Pretext for War: The LLHR and its Unproven Claims

One of the main sources for the claim that Qaddafi was killing his own people is the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR). The LLHR was actually pivotal to getting the U.N. involved through its specific claims in Geneva. On February 21, 2011 the LLHR got the 70 other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to sent letters to the President Obama, E.U. High Representative Catherine Ashton., and the U.N. Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon demanding international action against Libya invoking the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. Only 25 members of this coalition actually assert that they are human rights groups.

The letter is as follows:

We, the undersigned non-governmental, human rights, and humanitarian organizations, urge you to mobilize the United Nations and the international community and take immediate action to halt the mass atrocities now being perpetrated by the Libyan government against its own people. The inexcusable silence cannot continue.

As you know, in the past several days, Colonel Moammar Gadhafi’s forces are estimated to have deliberately killed hundreds of peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders across the country. In the city of Benghazi alone, one doctor reported seeing at least 200 dead bodies. Witnesses report that a mixture of special commandos, foreign mercenaries and regime loyalists have attacked demonstrators with knives, assault rifles and heavy-caliber weapons.

Snipers are shooting peaceful protesters. Artillery and helicopter gunships have been used against crowds of demonstrators. Thugs armed with hammers and swords attacked families in their homes. Hospital officials report numerous victims shot in the head and chest, and one struck on the head by an anti-aircraft missile. Tanks are reported to be on the streets and crushing innocent bystanders. Witnesses report that mercenaries are shooting indiscriminately from helicopters and from the top of roofs. Women and children were seen jumping off Giuliana Bridge in Benghazi to escape. Many of them were killed by the impact of hitting the water, while others were drowned. The Libyan regime is seeking to hide all of these crimes by shutting off contact with the outside world. Foreign journalists have been refused entry. Internet and phone lines have been cut or disrupted.

There is no question here about intent. The government media has published open threats, promising that demonstrators would meet a “violent and thunderous response.”

Accordingly, the government of Libya is committing gross and systematic violations of the right to life as guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Citizens seeking to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly are being massacred by the government.

Moreover, the government of Libya is committing crimes against humanity, as defined by the Explanatory Memorandum to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Libyan government’s mass killing of innocent civilians amount to particularly odious offences which constitute a serious attack on human dignity. As confirmed by numerous oral and video testimonies gathered by human rights organizations and news agencies, the Libyan government’s assault on its civilian population are not isolated or sporadic events. Rather, these actions constitute a widespread and systematic policy and practice of atrocities, intentionally committed, including murder, political persecution and other inhumane acts which reach the threshold of crimes against humanity.

Responsibility to Protect

Under the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, you have a clear and unambiguous responsibility to protect the people of Libya. The international community, through the United Nations, has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help to protect the Libyan population. Because the Libyan national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their population from crimes against humanity, should peaceful means be inadequate, member states are obliged to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the UN Charter, including Chapter VII.

In addition, we urge you to convene an emergency Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council, whose members have a duty, under UNGA Resolution 60/251, to address situations of gross and systematic violations of violations of human rights. The session should:

Call for the General Assembly to suspend Libya’s Council membership, pursuant to Article 8 of Resolution 60/251, which applies to member states that commit gross and systematic violations of human rights.

Strongly condemn, and demand an immediate end to, Libya’s massacre of its own citizens.

Dispatch immediately an international mission of independent experts to collect relevant facts and document violations of international human rights law and crimes against humanity, in order to end the impunity of the Libyan government. The mission should include an independent medical investigation into the deaths, and an investigation of the unlawful interference by the Libyan government with the access to and treatment of wounded.

Call on the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights and the Council’s relevant Special Procedures to closely monitor the situation and take action as needed.

Call on the Council to remain seized of the matter and address the Libyan situation at its upcoming 16th regular session in March.

Member states and high officials of the United Nations have a responsibility to protect the people of Libya from what are preventable crimes. We urge you to use all available measures and levers to end atrocities throughout the country.

We urge you to send a clear message that, collectively, the international community, the Security Council and the Human Rights Council will not be bystanders to these mass atrocities. The credibility of the United Nations — and many innocent lives — are at stake. [1]

According to Physicians for Human Rights: “[This letter was] prepared under the guidance of Mohamed Eljahmi, the noted Libyan human rights defender and brother of dissident Fathi Eljahmi, asserts that the widespread atrocities committed by Libya against its own people amount to war crimes, requiring member states to take action through the Security Council under the responsibility to protect doctrine.” [2]

The letters signatories included Francis Fukuyama, United Nations Watch (which looks out for Israel’s interests), B’nai B’rith Human Rights Commission, the Cuban Democratic Directorate, and a set of organizations at odds with the governments of Nicaragua, Cuba, Sudan, Russia, Venezuela, and Libya. Some of these organizations are viewed with hostility as organizations created to wage demonization campaigns against countries at odds with the U.S., Israel, and the European Union. Refer to the annex for the full list of signatories for consultation.

LLHR is tied to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), which is based in France and has ties to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). FIDH is active in many places in Africa and in activities involving the National Endowment for Democracy. Both the FIDH and LLHR also released a joint communiqué on February 21, 2011. In the communiqué both organizations asked for the international community to “mobilize” and mention the International Criminal Court while also making a contradictory claiming that over 400 to 600 people had died since February 15, 2011. [3] This of course was about 5,500 short of the claim that 6,000 people were massacred in Benghazi. The joint letter also promoted the false view that 80% of Qaddafi’s support came from foreign mercenaries, which is something that over half a year of fighting proves as untrue.

According to the General-Secretary of the LLHR, Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir, the claims about the massacres in Benghazi could not be validated by the LLHR when he was challenged for proof. When asked how a group of 70 non-governmental organizations in Geneva could support the LLHR’s claims on Geneva, Dr. Buchuiguir has answered that a network of close relationship was the basis. This is a mockery.

Speculation is neither evidence nor grounds for starting a war with a bombing campaign that has lasted about half a year and taken many innocent civilian lives, including children and the elderly. What is important to note here is that the U.N. Security Council decided to sanction the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya on the basis of this letter and the claims of the LLHR. Not once did the U.N. Security Council and the member states pushing for war once bother to even investigate the allegations. In one session in New York City, the Indian Ambassador to the U.N. actually pointed this out when his country abstained from voting. Thus, a so-called “humanitarian war” was launched without any evidence.

The Secret Relationship between the LLHR and the Transitional Council

The claims of the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR) were coordinated with the formation of the Transitional Council. This becomes clear with when the close and cagey relationship of the LLHR and the Transitional Council becomes apparent. Logically, the Obama Administration and NATO had to also be a part of this.

Whatever the Transitional Council is and whatever the intent of some of its supporters, it is clear that it is being used as a tool by the U.S. and others. Moreover, five members of the LLHR were or would become members of the Transitional Council almost immediately after the claims against the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya were disseminated. According to Bouchuguir this includes Mahmoud Jibril and Ali Tarhouni.

Dr. Mahmoud Jibril is a Libyan regime figure brought into Libyan government circles by Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi. He would undemocratically be given the position of Transitional Council prime minister. His involvement with the LLHR raises some real questions about the organization.

The economist Ali Tarhouni on the other hand would become the minister for oil and finance for the Transitional Council. Tarhouni is Washington’s man in Libya. He was groomed in the United States and was present at all the major meetings about plans for regime change in Libya. As Minister of Oil and Finance the first acts he did were privatize and virtually handover Libya’s energy resources and economy.

The General-Secretary of the LLHR, Sliman Bouchuiguir, has even privately admitted that many influential members of the Transitional Council are his friends. A real question of interests arises. Yet, the secret relationship between the LLHR and the Transitional Council is far more than a question of conflict of interest. It is a question of justice and manipulation.

Who is Sliman Bouchuiguir?

Sliman Bouchuguir is an unheard of figure for most, but he has authored a doctoral thesis that has been widely quoted and used in strategic circles in the United States. This thesis was published in 1979 as a book, The Use of Oil as a Political Weapon: A Case Study of the 1973 Arab oil Embargo. The thesis is about the use of oil as an economic weapon by Arabs, but can easily be applied to the Russians, the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and others. It examines economic development and economic warfare and can also be applied to vast regions, including all of Africa.

Bouchuguir’s analytical thesis reflects an important line of thinking in Washington, as well as London and Tel Aviv. It is both the embodiment of a pre-existing mentality, which includes U.S. National Security Advisor George F. Kennan’s arguments for maintaining a position of disparity through a constant multi-faced war between the U.S. and its allies on one hand and the rest of the world on the other hand. The thesis can be drawn on for preventing the Arabs, or others, from becoming economic powers or threats. In strategic terms rival economies are pinned as threats and as “weapons.” This has serious connotations.

Moreover, Bouchuiguir did his thesis at George Washington University under Bernard Reich. Reich is a political scientist and professor of international relations. He has worked and held positions at places like the U.S. Defense Intelligence College, the United States Air Force Special Operations School, the Marine Corps War College, and the Shiloah Center at Tel Aviv University. He has consulted on the Middle East for the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. State Department and received grants such as the Defense Academic Research Support Program Research grant and the German Marshal Fund Grant. Reich also was or is presently on the editorial boards of journals such as Israel Affairs (1994-present), Terrorism: An International Journal (1987-1994), and The New Middle East (1971-1973).

It is also clear that Reich is tied to Israeli interests. He has even written a book about the special relationship between the U.S and Israel. He has also been an advocate for a “New Middle East” which would be favourable to Israel. This includes careful consideration over North Africa. His work has also focused on the important strategic interface between the Soviet Union and the Middle East and also on Israeli policy in the continent of Africa.

It is clear why Bouchuiguir has his thesis supervised under Reich. On October 23, 1973, Reich gave a testimony at the U.S. Congress. The testimony has been named “The Impact of the October Middle East War” and is clearly tied to the 1973 oil embargo and Washington’s aim of pre-empting or managing any similar events in the future. It has to be asked, how much did Reich influence Bouchuiguir and if Bouchuiguir espouses the same strategic views as Reich?

The “New North Africa” and a “New Africa” – More than just a “New Middle East”

A “New Africa” is in the works, which will have its borders further drawn out in blood like in the past. The Obama Administration and its allies have opened the gateway for a new invasion of Africa. United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) opened the salvos of the war through Operation Odyssey Damn, before the war on Libya was transferred to NATO’ Operation Unified Protector.

The U.S. has used NATO to continue the occupation of post-Second World War Europe. It will now use AFRICOM to occupy Africa and create an African NATO. It is clear the U.S. wants an expanded military presence in Libya and Africa under the disguise of humanitarian aid missions and fighting terrorism – the same terrorism that it is fanning in Libya and Africa.

The way is being paved for intervention in Africa under the guise of fighting terrorism. General Carter Ham has stated: “If we were to launch a humanitarian operation, how do we do so effectively with air traffic control, airfield management, [and] those kind of activities?” [4] General Ham’s question is actually a sales pitch for fashioning African military partnerships and integration, as well as new bases that could include the use of more military drones against Libya and other African countries. The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) have both made it clear that the Pentagon is actively trying to establish more drone bases in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to expand its wars. [WP] In this context, the AFRICOM Commander that there are ties between the Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in North Africa, and the Boko Harem in Nigeria. [6]

The War in Libya is a Fraud

General Ham has said: “I remain confident that had the U.N. not made the decision, had the U.S. not taken the lead with great support, I’m absolutely convinced there are many, many people in Benghazi alive today who would not be [alive].” [7] This is not true and a far stretch from reality. The war has cost more lives than it could have ever saved. It has ruined a country and opened the door into Africa for a neo-colonial project.

The claims of the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR) were never supported or verified. The credibility of United Nations must be questioned as well as many humanitarian and human rights organizations that have virtually pushed for a war. At best the U.N. Security Council is an irresponsible body, but it has clearly acted outside of due legal process. This pattern now appears to be repeating itself against the Syrian Arab Republic as unverified claims are being made by individuals and organizations supported by foreign powers that care nothing for authentic democratic reforms or liberty.

NOTES

[1] United Nations Watch et al., “Urgent Appeal to Stop Atrocities in Libya: Sent by 70 NGOs to the US, EU, and UN,” February 21, 2011:

http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1330815&ct=9135143

[2] Physicians for Human Rights, “PHR and Human Rights Groups Call for Immediate Action in Libya,” February 22, 2011:

http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/press/press-releases/news-2011-02-22-libya.html

[3] The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR), “Massacres in Libya: The international community must urgently,” respond, February 21, 2011:

Click to access article_a9183.pdf

[4] Jim Garamone, “Africa Command Learns from Libya Operations,” American Forces Press Service, September 15, 2011:

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=65344&reason=1

[5] Gregory Miller and Craig Whitlock, “U.S. U.S. assembling secret drone bases in Africa, Arabian Peninsula, officials say,” The Washington Post, September 20, 2011; Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Expands Drone Flights to Take Aim at East Africa,” The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), September 21, 2011.

[6] Garamone, “Africa Command Learns,” Op. cit.

[7] Ibid.

ANNEX: SIGNATORY OF THE URGENT LETTER FOR ACTION ON LIBYA

February 12, 2011 – Geneva, Switzerland

1. Hillel C. Neuer, United Nations Watch, Switzerland
2. Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir, Libyan League for Human Rights, Switzerland
3. Mary Kay Stratis, Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc., USA
4. Carl Gershman, President, The National Endowment for Democracy, USA
5. Yang Jianli, Initiatives for China, USA – Former prisoner of conscience and survivor of Tiananmen Square massacre
6. Yang Kuanxing, YIbao – Chinese writer, original signatory to Charter 08, the manifesto calling for political reform in China
7. Matteo Mecacci, MP, Nonviolent Radical Party, Italy
8. Frank Donaghue, Physicians for Human Rights, USA
9. Nazanin Afshin-Jam,　Stop Child Executions, Canada
10. Bhawani Shanker Kusum, Gram Bharati Samiti, India
11. G. Jasper Cummeh, III, Actions for Genuine Democratic Alternatives, Liberia
12. Michel Monod, International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Switzerland
13. Esohe Aghatise, Associazione Iroko Onlus, Italy
14. Harris O. Schoenberg, UN Reform Advocates, USA
15. Myrna Lachenal, World Federation for Mental Health, Switzerland
16. Nguyên Lê Nhân Quyên, Vietnamese League for Human Rights, Switzerland
17. Sylvia G. Iriondo, Mothers and Women against Repression (M.A.R. Por Cuba), USA
18. David Littman, World Union for Progressive Judaism, Switzerland
19. Barrister Festus Okoye,　Human Rights Monitor, Nigeria
20. Theodor Rathgeber, Forum Human Rights, Germany
21. Derik Uya Alfred, Kwoto Cultural Center, Juba – Southern Sudan
22. Carlos E Tinoco, Consorcio Desarrollo y Justicia, A.C., Venezuela
23. Abdurashid Abdulle Abikar, Center for Youth and Democracy, Somalia
24. Dr. Vanee Meisinger, Pan Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association, Thailand
25. Simone Abel, René Cassin, United Kingdom
26. Dr. Francois Ullmann, Ingenieurs du Monde, Switzerland
27. Sr Catherine Waters, Catholic International Education Office, USA
28. Gibreil Hamid, Darfur Peace and Development Centre, Switzerland
29. Nino Sergi, INTERSOS – Humanitarian Aid Organization, Italy
30. Daniel Feng, Foundation for China in the 21st Century
31. Ann Buwalda, Executive Director, Jubilee Campaign, USA
32. Leo Igwe, Nigerian Humanist Movement, Nigeria
33. Chandika Gautam,　Nepal International Consumers Union, Nepal
34. Zohra Yusuf,　Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Pakistan
35. Sekou Doumbia, Femmes & Droits Humains, Mali
36. Cyrille Rolande Bechon,　Nouveaux Droits de l’Homme, Cameroon
37. Zainab Al-Suwaij, American Islamic Congress, USA
38. Valnora Edwin,　Campaign for Good Governance, Sierra Leone
39. Patrick Mpedzisi, African Democracy Forum, South Africa
40. Phil ya Nangoloh, NamRights, Namibia
41. Jaime Vintimilla, Centro Sobre Derecho y Sociedad (CIDES), Ecuador
42. Tilder Kumichii Ndichia, Gender Empowerment and Development, Cameroon
43. Amina Bouayach, Moroccan Organisation for Human Rights, Morocco
44. Abdullahi Mohamoud Nur, CEPID-Horn Africa, Somalia
45. Delly Mawazo Sesete, Resarch Center on Environment, Democracy & Human Rights, DR Congo
46. Joseph Rahall, Green Scenery, Sierra Leone
47. Arnold Djuma, Solidarité pour la Promotion Sociale et la Paix, Rwanda
48. Panayote Dimitras, Greek Helsinki Monitor, Greece
49. Carlos E. Ponce, Latina American and Caribbean Network for Democracy, Venezuela
50. Fr. Paul Lansu, Pax Christi International, Belgium
51. Tharsika Pakeerathan, Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils, Switzerland
52. Ibrahima Niang, Commission des Droits Humains du Mouvement Citoyen, Senegal
53. Virginia Swain, Center for Global Community and World Law, USA
54. Dr Yael Danieli, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, USA
55. Savita Gokhale, Loksadhana, India
56. Hasan Dheeree, Biland Awdal Organization, Somalia
57. Pacifique Nininahazwe, Forum pour le Renforcement de la Société Civile, Burundi
58. Derik Uya Alfred, Kwoto Cultural Center, Southern Sudan
59. Michel Golubnichy, International Association of Peace Foundations, Russia
60. Edward Ladu Terso, Multi Media Training Center, Sudan
61. Hafiz Mohammed, Justice Africa Sudan, Sudan
62. Sammy Eppel, B’nai B’rith Human Rights Commission, Venezuela
63. Jack Jeffery, International Humanist and Ethical Union, United Kingdom
64. Duy Hoang, Viet Tan, Vietnam
65. Promotion de la Democratie et Protection des Droits Humains, DR Congo
66. Radwan A. Masmoudi, Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy, USA
67. María José Zamora Solórzano, Movimiento por Nicaragua, Nicaragua
68. John Suarez, Cuban Democratic Directorate, USA
69. Mohamed Abdul Malek, Libya Watch, United Kingdom
70. Journalists Union of Russia, Russia
71. Sindi Medar-Gould, BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, Nigeria
72. Derik Uya Alfred, Kwoto Cultural Centre, Sudan
73. Sr. Anne Shaym, Presentation Sisters, Australia
74. Joseph Rahad, Green Scenery, Sierra Leone
75. Fahma Yusuf Essa, Women in Journalism Association, Somalia
76. Hayder Ibrahim Ali, Sudanese Studies Center, Sudan
77. Marcel Claude Kabongo, Good Governance and Human Rights NGO, DR Congo
78. Frank Weston, International Multiracial Shared Cultural Organization (IMSCO), USA
79. Fatima Alaoui, Maghrebin Forum for environment and development, Morocco
80. Ted Brooks, Committee for Peace and Development Advocacy, Liberia
81. Felly Fwamba, Cerveau Chrétien, DR Congo
82. Jane Rutledge, CIVICUS: World Alliance of Citizen Participation, South Africa
83. Ali AlAhmed, The Institute for Gulf Affairs, USA
84.　Daniel Ozoukou, Martin Luther King Center for Peace and Social Justice, Cote d’Ivoire
85. Dan T. Saryee,　Liberia Democratic Institute (LDI), Liberia

Individuals
Dr. Frene Ginwala, former Speaker of the South African National Assembly
Philosopher Francis Fukuyama
Mohamed Eljahmi,　Libyan human rights activist
Glenn P. Johnson, Jr., Treasurer,　Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc.,　father of Beth Ann Johnson, victim of Lockerbie bombing

Source: UN Watch (Refer to note 1)

September 29, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

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