Iran in Obama’s Cross Hairs
By Margaret Kimberley | BAR | October 18, 2011
While the nation’s attention has been focused on the Occupy Wall Street movement, new dangers for this country and for the world have been created by the Obama administration. The president has made it clear that America’s interventionist path has not changed direction one bit. If anything, he has done what once would have seemed impossible, accelerating that direction more than his predecessor ever hoped.
In a period of just five months, Barack Obama has [purportedly] assassinated Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki without charge or trial. He attempted to kill Libyan president Moammar Gaddafi the same weekend of the bin Laden assassination. Ronald Reagan also tried to kill Gaddafi, but gave up after one attempt and decided not to spend any effort on regime change in Libya. Obama has out Reaganed Reagan by overthrowing Gaddafi and, along with his NATO partners, waging a war against a civilian population to place a puppet government in charge in Tripoli. Once again he has succeeded in making right wing dreams come true in ways that Republicans did not dare.
The al-Awlaki killing was all the more egregious because the victim was an American citizen. No matter. The president asserts that he has the right to decide if Americans should live or die. The constitutional law professor sees no need to even make his killings look legitimate by seeking indictments. He tells us that al-Awlaki plotted attacks or inspired attacks and we are supposed to believe it and be quiet.
Not content to act the part of the planet’s self-appointed executioner, Obama is taking actions and making statements which give the impression that he intends to take military action against Iran. Dick Cheney must be very jealous. Last week the administration claimed that yet another terror plot was being fomented on American soil before it was foiled in the nick of time by the FBI.
Of course, it was just another example of a plan which would not have existed had it not been instigated by an informant. The FBI continues in its sorry history of concocting crimes, all of them outrageous, but this has broader and more horrible implications.
By claiming that a foreign government was involved in contracting with Mexican drug dealers to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, the administration has made a clear case for war against the Iranian government. The calls for more inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities and for even tighter sanctions are just the beginning. Lest we forget, the occupation of Iraq was preceded by a year long campaign for political and public support.
Already, the British government has stated its belief in this preposterous supposed plot. The foreign secretary opined, presumably with a straight face, that the alleged plot “would appear to constitute a major escalation in Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism outside its borders.”
It is monstrous that such an obviously ludicrous scenario is being treated as true by the corporate media in this country, and by America’s allies. If Obama chooses to bomb Tehran and Isfahan, Democratic as well as Republican senators and congress members, the corporate media, and pundits regarded as “serious” people will all applaud him. Supporting mass murder will become the sine qua non for any journalist who wants to keep access with the White House, or any political candidate who needs to raise a lot of money. Progressives who marched against the occupation of Iraq will find reasons to demur if Obama goes on the path of mass murder.
For many years, this commentator and many others have been warning that Iran is under threat of American intervention. We may seem like the boy who cried wolf in the old children’s story. These warnings are not created out of thin air. They arise from careful study of this nation’s history and the Obama administration’s patterns of behavior.
Should such an action take place, it must be made clear that it is a crime. There is no justification for our government, and by extension American citizens, to kill Iranians. They are no threat to us and have a right to live without fear of being killed should an American president deem it expedient.
Hopefully that country is not as weak and defenseless as Iraq and Libya. The writing is on the wall and doesn’t look pretty. Remember, the boy in the story was eventually telling the truth. The wolf did show up and it acted as wolves always do.
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Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
October 19, 2011 Posted by aletho | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment
The Legend of Sirte
By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | October 17, 2011
A legend is being created that is going to haunt the people who have been propelled into power in Tripoli. In Sirte a handful of men have set an example of bravery in the face of impossible odds that will eventually find its place in Arab history. Weeks of missile and bomb attacks have reduced the centre of the city to ruins and killed an unknown number of civilians. The photos coming out of the city show Beirut-style devastation. The fighters defending the city would seem to be doomed. They have their backs to the sea and are surrounded on three sides. We don’t know who they are or how many of them there are. Some might be the remnants of the Libyan army and others civilians who have taken up arms to defend their city. We don’t know why they are fighting. We are told that they are just fighting for their lives. We are told that they are mercenaries, but mercenaries put down their arms when the money runs out. We are told that they are ‘Gaddafi loyalists’. That discredits them immediately. Noone really knows what they are fighting for, but their country has to be a possibility for at least some of them.
Why was this war launched? The Gaddafi who has now been dislodged is the same old Gaddafi who arrived in Rome a couple of years ago with photos of Umar al Mukhtar pinned to his tunic as he stepped off the plane. He is the same Gaddafi who was embraced in Paris by Sarkozy and, according to Saif al Islam, gave generously to Sarkozy’s election campaign. He is the same Gaddafi who was embraced by the ever-smiling Tony Blair in Tripoli. He was the same Gaddafi with whom Shell was very happy to do business. Between those occasions and now he didn’t change. Years ago it was the ‘stray dogs’ – Libyan dissidents – he wanted to hunt down. This year it was the ‘greasy rats’ he vowed to pursue street to street – zenga zenga – and house to house. This was what gave the US, Britain and France their justification for taking military action. This was not supposed to be about regime change, but that is how it ended and if it was not planned from the start it was inevitable once these three powers intervened.
Whatever Libyans thought of Muammar Gaddafi, there were no signs that anything like the majority supported the uprising against him. As Gaddafi himself asked on October 6: ‘The NTC, who gave them legitimacy? How did they obtain legitimacy? Did the Libyan people elect them? Did the Libyan people appoint them? And if only the power of NATO bombs and fleets grants legitimacy, then let all rulers in the Third World beware, for the same fate awaits you. To those who recognize this council as legitimate, beware. There will be transitional councils created everywhere and imposed upon you and one by one you shall fall’.
This was not a popular revolution or a war of liberation. This was not Egypt or Tunisia, where it was the people who overthrew the government. This was a war of conquest by Britain, France and the US, coordinating their efforts with armed groups on the ground. These three powers turned an uprising into a civil war, and then ensured victory for one side through the massive use of aerial fire power. The soldiers on the ground – the ‘Gaddafi loyalists’ – were as defenseless from the missiles being rained down on them as civilians in plain clothes. By themselves the ‘rebels’ would have been quickly scattered.
With the attack building up and the outcome all but certain, senior Libyan government ministers began to defect. The common metaphor is rats jumping from a sinking ship. Musa Kusa flew to London and told British intelligence everything he knew, which must have been quite a bit, because whatever crimes Gaddafi committed over the past four decades, Musa Kusa was in them up to his neck. Mustafa Abd ul Jalil was the Minister for Justice in the old regime. He also got out just in time. Deserting Gaddafi, he then agreed to head an interim governing council set up in collaboration with the attacking foreign powers. People who do this kind of thing are usually called traitors. In the Second World War Marshal Petain collaborated with the Nazis and would have been executed afterwards but for his advanced age and his distinguished war record in 1914-18. William Joyce (‘Lord Haw Haw’) was executed just for broadcasting Nazi propaganda against his own country, Britain. Vidkun Quisling acted as the regent for the Nazis in occupied Norway and was executed after the war for treason. The foreign powers with whom Mustafa Abdul Jalil has collaborated have attacked his country and killed thousands of his fellow countrymen, women and children. Unless the word has lost its meaning, that makes him a traitor, too.
With NATO planes clearing the path ahead all the way to Tripoli and then to Sirte, the end result was inevitable. Without air cover and without ground defence against aerial attack the Libyan army – the ‘Gaddafi loyalists’ – had no chance. There are numerous parallels in the long history of western attacks on Muslim countries. In 1882 a British fleet bombarded Alexandria and then blamed arsonists and brigands for the massive destruction they had caused. Troops were landed to restore the order which had just been destroyed. Egyptians tried to defend their country but against the firepower, training and and organization of a modern European army, they had no chance. In 1898 about 60,000 followers of the Sudanese khalifa, the successor to the mahdi, stormed across a plain outside Omdurman towards the British battle lines. It was their country and they fought for it with enormous bravery but against Maxim guns, lined up in a row on the battlefield, they also had no chance. There were exceptions to the rule. In the early 1880s the Sudanese destroyed the Hicks expeditionary army, but that was before the invention of the Maxim gun. In 1896 an Ethiopian army all but wiped out an Italian army in the battle of Adowa. Nearly four decades later an Italian army invaded Ethiopia again, suffering severe battlefield defeats before superior weaponry and the use of mustard gas gave them victory. Driven into exile, the emperor Haile Selassie told the League of Nations ‘It was us today. It will be you tomorrow’. Indeed it was.
In 1911 the Italians invaded Libya but failed to penetrate the interior because of the resistance of the Sanusi tribes and the small Ottoman force sent to do what it could, Libya then being part of the Ottoman Empire. In the 1920s Italy embarked on a full-scale program to tame the Libyans. Thousands were moved from Jabal al Akhdar in Cyrenaica and penned up in concentration camps. The resistance was led by a Quran teacher, Umar al Mukhtar, who was captured in 1931 and hanged in the Suluq concentration camp. Now, getting on for a century later, Libyans themselves have opened the door to another foreign attack on their country.
Without the ‘humanitarian’ intervention of the US, Britain and France, Gaddafi would be still be in Tripoli but thousands people now dead would be alive. The buildings and the infrastructure that has been destroyed would still be standing. Libya would still be the most advanced country in Africa, instead of a country that has been battered by war and will now need repairing in accordance with the prescriptions of ‘disaster capitalism’.
As an investment this war was not even a risky one. Libya is a large country with a relatively small population and almost no capacity to defend itself against outside attack by powerful states. It is rich in oil, foreign reserves and gold bullion. Would the attack even have been considered if it were poor? Its financial situation was far healthier than that of the countries attacking it. The notion that this was done for altruistic reasons has to be scotched immediately. Whatever the humanitarian packaging, ulterior motives lie behind every war launched by the western powers in the Middle East and North Africa over the last two centuries. The war on Libya is no exception. At a time of extreme financial crisis, the attacking countries are not sinking billions of dollars into the war without expecting a generous strategic and commercial return on their investment.
In all the weeks Sirte was being devastated from the air, where was the UN Security Council, which opened the door to the attack on Libya with its ‘no fly’ zone resolution but has taken no responsibility for the consequences? Where was the EU, where was the OIC, where was the Arab League, where was the outrage in the media, where were all the governments upholding a ‘responsibility to protect’ which had turned into a license to kill? They were all mute. Not a word of concern or even of condemnation passed their lips. They only wanted to talk about Syria. The pictures of destruction now coming out of Sirte give some indication of what Britain, France and the US have done. How many civilians have been killed we don’t know, but the estimates being made for the country as a whole suggest a death toll running into the tens of thousands. Such is the cost of ‘humanitarian intervention’. Such is the price the Libyans have had to pay for their own ‘liberation’. They did not want this war. It was the governments of the US, Britain and France who wanted this war, for reasons of their own, and used the rising in Benghazi as their leverage.
A country which was stable is now in turmoil. The news agencies refer to the government in Tripoli but there is no government in Tripoli. The ‘National Transitional Council’ has still not got its act together. Uncertainty, turbulence and possibly a spreading war of resistance lie ahead, as the implications of what has been done sink in. History is written by the victors, so we are told, but if this western triumph over yet another Middle Eastern madman cannot be consolidated, the day may yet come when Libyans will be building statues to commemorate the bravery of the small band of men who fought to the last for Sirte.
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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 18, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
Conduit for Saddam’s 45-min WMD threat and 9/11-Iraqi links calls ‘diabolical Iranian plot’ a ‘wake-up call’ for Obama
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | October 17, 2011
Sounding like he’s transcribing an Israeli Foreign Ministry press release, the Telegraph’s executive foreign editor Con Coughlin writes:
Such drastic action is unlikely now that the plot, which was ordered by terrorists working for the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force, has been uncovered, but it should serve as a wake-up call to President Obama as to where the real threat to American interests in the Middle East lies.
For much of his presidency Mr Obama has sought to pursue a policy of reconciliation with Iran, in the hope that the regime can be persuaded to renounce its illegal nuclear programme. And this is the thanks he gets – a plot to carry out terrorist attacks on the American mainland. The president should accept that Iran is a sworn enemy of the US – and act accordingly.
Readers of the British daily won’t be surprised that Coughlin is taking the supposedly “diabolical Iranian plot” seriously. He has quite a record. In a 2007 analysis of 44 articles written by Coughlin on Iran, the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) found that his “sources were unnamed or untraceable, often senior Western intelligence officials or senior Foreign Office officials” and that his “articles were published at sensitive and delicate times where there had been relatively positive diplomatic moves towards Iran.” Moreover, they discovered that
Coughlin was none other than the journalist who, with the help of unnamed intelligence sources discovered the fact that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes and unearthed the link between the 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Ata, and the Iraqi intelligence.
Could Coughlin’s penchant for spinning pro-Israel yarns have its origins in his college days? At 18 he won a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford where he read Modern History under the tutelage of the historian Simon Schama, the author of Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel, a study of the Zionist aims of Edmond James de Rothschild and James Armand de Rothschild.
October 17, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
The Libyan “Hit Squad” Hoax
By Andrew I. Killgore | Washington Report | December, 2000
Soon after President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, breathless articles about Libyan “hit [assassination] squads” began to occupy the front page of The Washington Post . For three weeks, Post readers—and the U.S. government—were obsessed with these squads, which reportedly originated in the Middle East, had reached Europe, and were currently in Canada, where they were poised to cross into the United States like a swarm of northern killer bees.
Just how a group of supposed assassins could be so easily tracked made the hit squad story ridiculous on its face. Suddenly, however, heavy concrete barriers surrounded the White House, Capitol Hill and the Department of State—where they remain today.
The hoax began to collapse when The Post assigned names to police-style composite drawings of the “assassins.” Arabic-language specialists recognized the names as those generally used by Shi’i Muslims. As this religious group had reason to dislike Qaddafi at the time, a chorus of doubts arose that the Libyan leader could ever have induced them to work for him.
Suddenly the hit squads disappeared from The Post, never to return. Five years later, a two-line item in The Post told the truth. The item appeared in a story, not about the hit squads, but about the Iran-Contra scandal, the worst foreign policy scandal in U.S. history.
Manucher Ghorbanifar, a small-time Iranian exile working in Washington for Mossad, Israel’s secret intelligence service, confessed in 1986 that he had dreamed up the hit squads. Why? “To hurt Libya, an enemy of Israel.”
October 17, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Lies behind the “Humanitarian War” in Libya: There is no evidence!
Uploaded by forestgamertube on October 15, 2011
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This document makes it possible to understand how international law and justice works, but mostly how its basic principles can be bypassed. The resolutions passed against Libya are based on various allegations : notably on the statement claiming that Gaddafi had lead jet attacks on his own people and engaged in a violent repression against uprising, killing more than 6000 civilians. These allegations were spread before they could have been verified. Even though it was on the basis of this claim that the Libyan Jamahiriya government was suspended from the United Nations Human Rights Council, before being referred to the United Nations Security Council.
One of the main sources for the claim that Gaddafi was killing his own people is the Libyan League for Human Rights, an organization linked to the International Federation of Human Rights (the FIDH). On the 21st of February 2011, the General-Secretary of the LLHR, Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir, initiated a petition in collaboration with the organization UN Watch and the National Endowment for Democracy. This petition was signed by more than 70 NGOs. Then a few days later, on the 25th of February, Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir went to U.N. Human Rights Council in order to expose the allegations concerning the crimes of Gaddafi’s government. In July 2011 we went to Geneva to interview Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir.
October 15, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment
Oren: Israel is taking “Iran plot” seriously — But can we take the ambassador seriously?
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | October 15, 201
On October 13, Haaretz’s Natasha Mozgovaya reported on an interview Michael Oren gave to MSNBC, in which the Israeli ambassador to the United States described the ludicrous plot as “definitely an escalation”:
“We know the Iran regime. This is an Iranian regime that has not only sponsored terrorist organizations in our area, Hamas and Hezbollah, that have fired thousands and thousands of rockets at our civilian population, but they’ve struck abroad as well,” Oren said in the interview.
The Israeli ambassador then went on to recount how Iran was responsible for the bombing of the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing over a hundred people.
Contrast Oren’s certainty about Iranian responsibility for the twin terror attacks in Argentina in the early 1990s with what investigative journalist Gareth Porter wrote in 2008 of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish centre:
In an interview last May James Cheek, Clinton’s Ambassador to Argentina at the time of the bombing, told me, “To my knowledge, there was never any real evidence [of Iranian responsibility]. They never came up with anything.” The hottest lead in the case, he recalled, was an Iranian defector named Manoucher Moatamer, who “supposedly had all this information.” But Moatamer turned out to be only a dissatisfied low-ranking official without the knowledge of government decision-making that he had claimed. “We finally decided that he wasn’t credible,” Cheek recalled. Ron Goddard, then deputy chief of the US Mission in Buenos Aires, confirmed Cheek’s account. He recalled that investigators found nothing linking Iran to the bombing. “The whole Iran thing seemed kind of flimsy,” Goddard said.
Are we to believe that the latest plot involving an even more dubious Iranian character — and a second attack on the Israeli embassy in Argentina! — is any less flimsy?
October 15, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Why I Published US Intelligence Secrets About Israel’s Anti-Iran Campaign
By Richard Silverstein | Truthout | 20 September 2011
In 2009, Shamai Leibowitz was working secretly for the FBI, translating wiretapped conversations among Israeli diplomats in this country. He passed some transcripts of these conversations to me, which described an Israeli diplomatic campaign in this country to create a hostile environment for relations with Iran. I published excerpts from them in my blog, Tikun Olam.
Leibowitz, who comes from a family of distinguished Israeli Orthodox public intellectuals, first came to prominence inside Israel when he signed a statement refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories. He went on to earn a law degree and was one of the Israeli attorneys who represented Palestinian Marwan Barghouti in his terror trial. In a statement certain to enrage Israelis and the Shin Bet officials responsible for apprehending Barghouti, Leibowitz likened his client’s leadership of his people to that of Moses. Though he was referring to the fact that Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite slave – which caused him to flee his homeland, accused of being the ancient equivalent of a terrorist – the subtlety of the historical comparison was undoubtedly lost on many Israelis.
Leibowitz came to this country as a New Israel Fund (NIF) fellow to earn a US law degree in international human rights at Georgetown University. Though he completed his degree, NIF ended his affiliation with its program when the Israeli spoke at a Cambridge public event endorsing a boycott of Israel. The story made its way into the Israel press thanks to pro-Israel activists monitoring his activities here. When a mini-furor broke out both in Israel and here, NIF, showing its support for free speech, dropped Leibowitz from the program, even though he never stated that his remarks at the Massachusetts event represented NIF in any way. The NGO simply couldn’t risk the wrath of the Israeli government since all its programming in Israel might be placed in jeopardy if it irritated the authorities.
Living in Washington, DC, the Israeli activist next took a job teaching American diplomats being posted to Israel about the country, its culture, history and language. Once again, the pro-Israel crowd reported to Ben Caspit, Israel’s right-wing columnist, that Leibowitz was now working for the State Department. He was subsequently fired from this job also.
The Israeli Orthodox Jew was known in his religious community as a fine Torah reader who beautifully chanted the Torah portion at his Orthodox synagogue. However, when a well-connected member discovered Leibowitz’ “past,” they told the rabbi that he must take this great communal honor from him or they would leave the congregation. Such shunning is, unfortunately, all too common in the Jewish community (remember Spinoza?) for those holding unpopular views of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Luckily, Leibowitz discovered a conservative synagogue whose rabbi embraced him despite his “baggage.” Throughout his subsequent trials and tribulations, this rabbi and community have stood behind Leibowitz and his family.
I began writing my blog in 2003. At the start, it was quite a lonely pursuit and there were almost no other blogs like it espousing a progressive approach to the Israeli-Arab conflict. In searching for an online community, I came across Shamai’s Pursuing Justice blog. When I read his last name, I presumed he might be related to the eminent Leibowitz family and wrote to him. He confirmed he was the grandson of Yeshaia Leibowitz, one of the most distinguished Israeli philosophers and public intellectuals. His aunt was Nechama Leibowitz, an eminent professor of Bible at Hebrew University, with whom I studied when I was a student there.
Shamai and I emailed each other infrequently. But our correspondence picked up during Operation Cast Lead, when we were both aghast at the role the IDF played in decimating Gaza and killing 1,400 – 1,100 of whom were civilians.
After the war ended, he called me on the phone, which was unusual because I’d never spoken to him directly before. He asked if I wanted to see some materials he could send me. Until then, I’d never had anyone offer me materials in such a way, but I agreed to review them.
Shortly thereafter, a package arrived in the mail. When I opened it, frankly I knew I was seeing official government materials, but I didn’t understand what I’d received, so I called him. It was then that Shamai explained that he was an FBI translator, responsible for translating tapes of Israeli diplomatic conversations which his agency was intercepting.
He also explained that he was convinced from his work on these recordings that the Israel foreign ministry and its officials in this country were responsible for a perception management campaign directed against Iran. He worried that such an effort might end with either Israel or the US attacking Iran and that this would be a disaster for both countries. Though he knew he might be putting himself in jeopardy, if he did nothing, he risked looking back on a disaster which he might’ve helped avert.
Lest anyone dismiss his concerns, note that Israel’s former Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, a man known for extreme taciturnity, publicly warned that Ehud Barak and Bibi Netanyahu proposed to a senior ministerial committee in 2010 that Israel attack Iran. Dagan almost single-handedly persuaded a majority of the ministers to defer an attack and to try nonlethal means instead, such as the Stuxnet cyber-attack, which Israel is known to have devised with likely US assistance. The Mossad director called a military attack on Iran the “stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” He knew, as Anthony Cordesman has reported, it would likely kill thousands of Iranians (directly) and Israelis (indirectly through revenge terror attacks), lead to massive responses by Iran and its proxies and possibly cause the closing of the Straits of Hormuz, a skyrocketing in world oil prices and potential economic catastrophe.
This month, Haaretz published this frightening characterization of Barak and Bibi’s current attitude on the subject:
Anyone who has spoken with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in small forums in recent months was astonished to hear a firm, determined, almost messianic tone regarding the nuclear threat and how it should be handled.
So, the danger of such an attack is very real. As we used to hear characters intone in TV and movies about nuclear apocalypse during my 1960s youth: “This is not a drill.”
Leibowitz knew I agreed with his pessimistic view of the situation, as I’d written on the subject before, and he figured I might have an interest in making these documents public. But first, I recognized the danger that this would pose to him, so we had many discussions about what to do with the material. I asked him for permission to consult confidentially with other journalists, as neither of us had leaked or published classified documents before.
I warned him a number of times that publishing the material could have serious negative consequences. At the time, I only considered that he might lose his job or the right to practice law or that the government might harass him for what he did. I didn’t consider the possibility that they might actually prosecute him for these leaks, which was what happened.
After these consultations, we both decided to go forward, but in what we felt was a discreet, controlled way. I would leak portions of the transcripts in a format designed to conceal the source and the specific identity of those individuals overheard in the surveillance tapes. I did this for about a month and published about five posts, including one in The Guardian UK’s Comment is Free.
The material published included references to Israeli diplomats briefing President-elect Obama on Operation Cast Lead while the war was being prosecuted, presumably in an effort to persuade him of the importance of continuing it, despite the pressure the incoming president was under to speak out against it. They revealed private, late-night meetings between the Israeli ambassador and a key Obama operative at which they presumably discussed how and whether the war would end in relation to the president-elect’s upcoming inauguration. Note that the war ended on January 18, and Obama was inaugurated on January 20. I’m certain this was no accident, but rather a carefully choreographed deal between the two sides. Obama never criticized the war publicly. Now we know why.
I noted that an Israeli diplomat ghost wrote some or all of a Boston Herald op-ed attacking Iran, to which a prominent Jewish attorney and community leader signed his name. In Minneapolis, the local Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) briefed the Chicago Israeli Consulate on the travel schedule and a meeting it held with Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim-American elected to Congress. Ellison, according to the tapes, was viewed as hostile to Israeli interests. In fact, the JCRC official told the Israeli diplomat that Ellison had just led a local trade delegation to Saudi Arabia (a big no-no) and was planning to join Rep. Brian Baird (D-Washington) in a fact-finding mission to Gaza in the aftermath of the war. This trip, too. was viewed with alarm by both parties in the transcripts.
“The JCRC director conceded implicitly in The American Jewish World that he monitored Ellison and reported to the consulate:
‘As part of our work fostering a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, the JCRC communicates from time to time with the Consul General’s office in Chicago … Accordingly, the JCRC’s conversations with the Consul General’s office have included discussions about members of Minnesota’s Congressional delegation, including Representative Ellison.'”
In Texas, a member of Congress held a meeting with a prominent Jewish campaign donor and consular official to discuss ways of advancing Israel’s legislative campaign against Iran, including punitive sanctions and alarming the US public with the dangers posed by that country and its supposed effort to produce a nuclear weapon.
In September 2008, before one of the presidential debates, an Israeli operative attempted unsuccessfully to meet with a debate panelist in order to plant a question about war against Iran: Would the candidates take military action against that country or accept a nuclear-armed Iran? The Israelis did NOT want any question that asked what the candidates might do if Israel attacked Iran.
Israeli diplomats were heard touting pro-Israel members of Congress and bad mouthing those viewed as hostile. There were tutorials in cultivation of members. These are excerpts of a post I wrote on April 28, 2009, detailing the methods and goals of such cultivation:
… Last month, Israeli diplomats in Jerusalem, Chicago and Washington made a series of calls to review the status of relationships with the Midwest’s members of Congress. Senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained to Israeli diplomatic personnel that the purpose of getting to know these elected officials was to advance Israel’s agenda in Congress.
Israeli diplomats are most interested in members of Congress who serve on the intelligence, defense, foreign affairs and appropriations committees since those deal with issues of most concern to Israel. This explains peripherally, why they would devote so much time and attention to cultivating Jane Harman, since she stood to become chair of the House intelligence committee if Pelosi had agreed to retain her on the committee (which she didn’t).
The Israeli officials … were annoyed at their inability to gain access to Sen. Russell Feingold despite the fact that his sister is a rabbi and has visited Israel. Note that a trip to Israel in their view is like a tetanus inoculation bestowing excellent pro-Israel health and antibodies against “pro-Arab propaganda.”
When a diplomat described Rep. David Obey as not a great friend of Israel and borderline hostile, the DC embassy representative reminded his staff that they could schedule meetings with staff when Congress members are not available (which presumably would positively influence their boss).
… The Israelis have noted that Sen. John Thune introduced anti-Iran legislation in the last session and that Rep. Mark Kirk planned to introduce new punitive legislation targeting that country. The Israelis sang the praises of Sen. Sam Brownback, who planned a conference that would exert economic pressure on Iran. The D.C. embassy plans to follow up with him to encourage his plans.
Sen. Clare McCaskill is a particular focus of the Israelis because she is a confidant of the president and a member of the armed services and homeland security committees. The Israelis plan to establish close relations with McCaskill and her staff. Another Missouri legislator, Russ Carnahan, receives no such royal treatment. He is viewed, like Obey, as not friendly to Israel. Why? Because during a meeting with him, he highlighted to the Israeli representative his sympathy for the poor people of Gaza. The reason for this sympathy in the eyes of the Israelis? The legislator was poisoned by information from the Arab lobby.
… One Israeli diplomat said that members of the St. Louis Jewish community conveyed their “expectations” to Carnahan and reminded him on which side his bread was buttered.
Israeli diplomatic staff have noted a problematic relationship with two Minnesota representatives, Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum. Though they consider Ellison, a Muslim, “not anti-Israel,” they noted he was quite attentive to the Arab lobby. Clearly they were keeping a close eye on Ellison’s schedule as they knew he was receiving an UNWRA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] briefing that very day about conditions in Gaza … The Israelis noted with displeasure that Ellison has teamed up with Washington State Rep. Brian Baird (the two visited Gaza together) …
… The Israelis are monitoring a new Indiana representative Andre Carson who like Ellison is Muslim. But it seems they’re playing “good Muslim, bad Muslim,” as Carson, they noted, hasn’t yet taken any “radical” positions and therefore might serve as a counter-weight to “bad Muslim” Ellison.
In the process of publishing this material, the Israelis became aware that their security was breached. They expressed concern about it, considered various possibilities for the origin of the leak (a mole was one theory), but continued their conversations. Eventually, Shamai thought it wasn’t a good idea to continue with our project as he didn’t wish to compromise the FBI investigation any more than necessary. He asked me to destroy the files I had, which I did by burning them.
Subsequently, late one night, I received an alarming phone call from Shamai in which he disjointedly disparaged my work, told me I was wasting my time and that everything I’d done was “silly.” It was so out of character that I was completely befuddled by his behavior. At that point, I knew our working partnership was at an end. But I didn’t consider at the time that perhaps he knew the FBI was already monitoring him and perhaps listening to the conversation.
Several months later, I discovered that Shamai had been indicted for leaking materials to me. I was shocked and troubled. But, largely, I felt powerless, since going public would only jeopardize him further. I consulted an attorney who warned me against it. I contacted friends of his, contributed to his legal fund and did whatever I could to defend him privately to journalists who contacted me.
It is almost unheard of for the federal government to prosecute employees who leak to journalists. The last such prosecution was of Samuel Morison in the early 1980s. Morison, who leaked a photograph of an advanced Soviet battleship to a military publication in return for money, received about the same sentence as Shamai. The former was also eventually pardoned by President Bill Clinton. In contrast, the FBI translator acted purely out of principle, received no compensation and did nothing to harm US military interests nor did he help a US enemy, as it could be argued Morison may have done.
I learned, this past summer, that Shamai was about to be released from prison. At around that time, I heard from Daniel Ellsberg on Facebook about one of the Israeli human rights cases about which I reported. I decided to confide in him about what had happened because I was beginning to form some ideas that my one-time partnership with Shamai should be more widely known.
It was Ellsberg who’d likened Leibowitz to Bradley Manning and called him a whistleblower. So, I contacted the Pentagon Papers leaker and I said to him that the Israeli activist was a whistleblower, but not in the traditional conception of the term. He didn’t blow the whistle on the United States or one of its agencies or programs. Instead, he blew the whistle on surreptitious foreign diplomatic activity in this country which he felt jeopardized US interests.
When The New York Times finally reported on this story earlier this month, the headline (though not the substance of the reporting) got the issues wrong as it focused on the US spying on Israel. That’s not the story, as Israel no doubt spies on the US embassy in that country. The true story was why and how Israeli diplomats were intervening so obtrusively in US political life. This was one of the reasons the FBI needed to know what they were doing here.
I went public for two reasons: one was to expose Israel’s propaganda campaign in this country against Iran. But just as importantly, I wanted Americans to know why Shamai Leibowitz did what he did. I wanted them to know that not only was he a whistleblower, a profile in courage, but that he is a person of conscience, who faced the full force of the US government during his prosecution. I wanted the world to know Shamai was a sacrificial victim who deserved to be honored rather than imprisoned.
Steve Rosen, when the government prosecuted him for receiving US government classified materials and leaking them to the Israeli government, got a gold-plated $8-million legal defense. His team was so strong that it fought for its clients tooth and nail and won a dismissal of all charges against them.
Shamai had no well-funded organization at his back. No family trust fund to protect him. He faced the choice of a jail sentence or a lifetime of repaying legal fees (or bankruptcy). This is a choice that no one in his position should ever be forced to make. He, no doubt, took the choice that was least objectionable.
Shamai’s prosecution is part of an alarming, aggressive Obama administration pursuit of such whistleblowers – who have included James Sterling and Thomas Drake. Drake, in particular, just faced down the government and reached a plea deal in which he was legally vindicated. But he had to bankrupt himself to do so. Those civil liberties activists who hoped for more and better from this administration compared to the previous one have been disappointed. Shamai Leibowitz’ prosecution is a black mark on the legacy of the Obama administration.
I, too, face some jeopardy, though the government has never prosecuted a journalist for publishing a government leak. If they came after me, it would be a first. But we’ve learned, unfortunately, that anything’s possible.
In all fairness, I should add that the government never approached me to testify in this case. Though if Shamai had resisted a plea bargain, I undoubtedly would’ve been placed in the awkward position of being pressured to testify, as Judith Miller was. I wasn’t contacted until after Leibowitz agreed to a plea bargain. And that questioning was not adversarial. Also the government agreed not to reveal my involvement and did not do so. That’s at least some consolation.
Finally, I think Americans should salute Shamai Leibowitz and wish him well. I know he has suffered a great deal and getting on with his life will be hard. If anyone deserves a break, he does.
October 12, 2011 Posted by aletho | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
‘Canada, accomplice in Israeli crimes’
Press TV | October 12, 2011
Iran’s representative at the United Nations says Canada is the main supplier of arms to Israel and is therefore an accomplice in all Israeli crimes committed in the occupied territories.
During the recent session of the General Assembly’s Disarmament and International Security Committee in New York, the Iranian delegation issued a statement condemning Canada’s silence towards Israel’s nuclear weapons program which poses a great threat to global security and is not under international inspection.
Regarding Canada’s claim that 20-percent uranium enrichment by Iran is illegal, the statement added, “This measure is completely legal and its aim is to provide fuel for the Tehran reactor which produces medical isotopes used to treat more than one million cancer patients.”
“[Nuclear] activities in Natanz and Qom [facilities] have never been clandestine as they were built according to International Atomic Energy Agency’s regulations… and the agency was informed beforehand and these facilities are currently under the permanent supervision of the Agency,” the statement said.
The statement added that Iran only started producing 20-percent enriched uranium after other countries refused to provide fuel for the Tehran reactor and the country was left with no option but to reach self-sufficiency in this regard.
During the recent session of the Disarmament and International Security Committee, the Canadian representative raised questions about Iran’s uranium enrichment program alleging that enriching uranium to 20 percent by Iran was not meant for peaceful purposes.
The United States and its Western allies have been accusing Iran of developing a military nuclear program, an allegation categorically rejected by Tehran.
Numerous inspections by the IAEA have found no evidence suggesting that Iran’s nuclear program is deviating towards military purposes.
Iran maintains that as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty it is fully entitled to the peaceful use of the nuclear technology to meet its growing energy demand and to treat cancer patients.
October 12, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment
Political Prisoners
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | October 12, 2011
It is good news that over 1000 Palestinian political prisoners will be released in a prison swap deal. But there are still thousands of Palestinian political prisoners. This Saturday we will be discussing in our cultural group the new book by Marwan Barghouthi about his life behind bars. He will apparently not be part of this prisoner exchange deal neither will Ahmed Saadat of PFLP nor other key leaders. For English readers on this list, I translated my review of Barghouthi’s book (originally in Arabic) and included it here. Below that I include some text on prisoners from my book “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment.” Hopefully those two sections will give you some idea about the struggles of political prisoners now in the news. Hopefully, Hamas (which did not get all it wanted but did score a political victory here) and Fatah (which scored a political victory by abandoning the futile US-led bilateral negotiations) could now implement their signed agreements especially on representation in the PNC.
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Comparing Books by political prisoners: Nelson Mandela and Marwan Barghouthi
Review by Mazin Qumsiyeh
I read Nelson Mandel’s inspiring autobiography many years ago. His book was titled “Long Walk to Freedom” because it was done after the end of apartheid. Marwan Barghouthi’s book is not an autobiography in that sense because our people’s walk to freedom is still ongoing. It is thus titled “One thousand days in prison isolation cell” and refers to a part of the struggle. We indeed look for the day that our political prisoners can write books at the end of the road to freedom.
Barghouthi’s book is dedicated to his wife, his children, to the Palestinian people, to the Arab and Islamic world, to all those who struggle and resist occupation and colonization, and to fellow prisoners. Mandela’s book similarly recalls family, people, and fellow political prisoners.
Barghouthi recalls his village life in Kuber with much passion and love in his newest book but you will find the national cause dominates the book. While Kuber is mentioned two or three times, Palestine is mentioned on just about every paragraph. Mandela had a rural beginning in a small village called Mvezo and still retains that love of the land. He was a shepherd and plowed lands. He dreamed of becoming a lawyer and was like Barghouthi interested in learning. He enrolled at Birzeit University in 1983 but due to exile and other factors only finished his bachelor degree in 1994 (in history and political science). In 1998, he got a masters in international relations. Both Mandela and Barghouthi led youth movements in their teens and became strong leaders even as they were pursued and jailed.
Mandela like Barghouthi reports on mistreatment, lengthy incarcerations, resisting, and all that you expect from someone who went through such experiences. Mandela like Barghouthi says that it is not what he actually did that he was being punished for but for what he stood for. Both were charged by the respective apartheid regimes of leading armed guerrilla groups.
Through these writings, you see a common characteristic: great humility. They do not elevate themselves above the thousands who struggle for freedom. Even though some of us consider them key leaders, they themselves see their role as foot soldiers. Barghouthi describes being beaten on his private parts and losing consciousness waking later to find a gash on his head from falling and hitting the cement wall. The gash left a permanent mark. But immediately after describing this, Barghouthi merely says (p. 21) that it is merely a small example of what tens of thousands of activists were subjected to.
In the mid 1950s Mandela devised a plan and convinced fellow ANC leaders to adopt it that created a decentralized structure. Cells are formed at the grassroots level and select among them leadership at intermediate levels which insured secrecy and yet some level of democracy and operational meaning. Barghouthi recalls how he was not happy about Arafat’s autocratic structure and especially those around Arafat many of them were corrupt and not dedicated to the Palestinian struggle.
Barghouthi and Mandela speak of psychological warfare including the games of good investigator and bad investigator played to break prisoners’ will. A lot of what he says about mistreatment in prison will not be new to Palestinians alive today. Most Palestinians above age 30 have tasted at least some of these pains. Of course Barghouthi suffered more than most Palestinian males his age.
Barghouthi talks about how critical the visit by his lawyer was to break his isolation and makes him feel connected to life outside the prison. Mandela also refers to the psychological boost received by knowing that people outside continue the struggle and care about the freedom of political prisoners.
Barghouthi states on page 130 how in prison you have lots of time to think. He recalls these thoughts in detail and they range from his feelings of solidarity with all persecuted and oppressed people around the world to poor programming on Palestinian television (when the channel was allowed in prisons). Barghouthi speaks about his passions like reading books. He speaks of his love for his family. He speaks of women’s liberation. He speaks of learning languages in jail. The thoughts of Mandela in jail also dealt with similar issues. Barghouthi describes solitary confinement as “slow death” (p. 81). Mandela calls them the “dark years”.
Barghouthi speaks about how the US and western positions put significant pressures on Arafat and that finally, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas was appointed prime minister. Abbas, according to Barghouthi, was known for his positions against resistance (p. 156). In one section he talks about how leadership did not rise to the challenge or match the enormous struggle, aspirations and needs of the people.
Barghouthi says on page 148 that Israel can defeat a particular leader or faction or group of people but cannot defeat the will of the Palestinian people. On the next page he articulates beautifully why resistance in all its types is so critical to success in achieving our collective goals. The cost of occupation and colonization must be made unbearable or at least more than the benefit from it for Israel to back off.
Barghouthi speaks about how his political actions did not stop in jail. He gives several examples including the Palestinian factions observing a cease fire that started 19 December 2001 on the eve of the visit by American envoy General Anthony Zinni. That cease fire lasted for nearly a month but was broken by Israel’s assassination of Ra’ed Karmi.
Barghouthi recalls that one of the more painful episodes was the abduction of his son Qassam. His letter to his son takes 30 pages of the book! It is an amazing letter that recalls the history of Palestine, the history of struggle, the history of the prisoner movement and much more. But the letter also reflects on feelings and attitude of Barghouthi himself in key periods of his life. How he felt when his son was born while he is in jail. How he built a relationship with his wife despite being a man spending most of his life either on the run or in jail. It is very detailed mentioning dates and events and surroundings that put the reader (his son and us) in those circumstances. He recalls the death of his father on August 5, 1985. He talked about his biggest pains (which were not the interrogations, torture or solitary confinement) but when he was exiled to Jordan in the late 1980s. Yet he also says that after his family joined him in exile from the homeland, the family life alleviated the pain of exile from his homeland. The letter ends with recommendations he gives to his son like any father gives to his son. But here the recommendations are about exercising, reading books, learning languages, and keeping friendly relations with fellow prisoners.
The book finishes with a section about his wife and a final section about collaborators in Israeli jails. It is significant that he decided to conclude with detailed exposure of the despicable methods of collaborations. Similarly, Mandela’s autobiography includes a section on treason.
Oliver Tambo described Mandela as passionate, fearless, impatient and sensitive. I never met either Mandela or Barghouthi personally but after reading these books, I can say that I agree not only with these adjectives applied to Mandela and Barghouthi but I can think of many others: humble, honest, intelligent, articulate, and I can go on but I will leave that to historians to give people their due. But knowing such people at least through their writings and writings of others about them adds to our conviction that freedom is inevitable to nations that have such individuals.
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Prison struggles in the book “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and empowerment”
In this book I discuss the efforts for release of political prisoners that started in the 1920s when the women’s movement in Palestine succeeded in gaining release of three prisoners (Chapter 6). In chapter 7, we find that “On 17 May 1936, prisoners in Nur Shams prison declared a strike and confronted the prison guards who ordered soldiers to open fire. One inmate was killed and several wounded as prisoners shouted in defiance: ‘Martyrdom is better than jail’.(ref) On 23 May 1936, Awni Abdel Hadi, secretary general of the Arab Higher Committee, was arrested.(ref)…. On 9 September 1939, fighters took over Beersheba government facilities and released political prisoners from the central jail.”
When the British government felt more confident in 1942-43 about the prospects of winning the war, it released some Palestinian political prisoners and allowed others to return from exile. Attempts to revive political activity during this period were nugatory. Awni Abdel Hadi returned from exile in 1943 and revived Hizb Al-Istiqlal, with help from Rashid Alhaj Ibrahim and Ahmed Hilmi Abdel Baqi, and even started a national fund.”
In other sections of the book, I discussed the struggle of Palestinians inside the Green Line, many of them ended in jail as political prisoners. Like Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, they supported their political prisoners and struggled for their release. The struggle in the occupied territories continued. When Israel introduced extensions of so-called ‘administrative detention’ (detention without trial) for up to six months, a strike among Palestinian political prisoners started on 11 July 1975.
Political prisoners in Israeli jails also organised themselves into effective committees [during the uprising of 1987] which carried out collective strikes which were especially effective in the 1980s and early 1990s.36 King interviewed Qaddourah Faris (from Fatah) who was a key leader of the prisoner movement. He talked about a successful hunger strike for humane treatment that involved 15,000 prisoners throughout Israeli jails.(ref) In 1990, Israel held over 14,000 Palestinian prisoners in more than 100 jails and detention centres at one time according to Middle Rights Watch.(ref) Even Israeli supporters like Anthony Lewis became outraged enough to write:
“The Israeli Government has taken thousands of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza into what it calls ‘administrative detention.’ That means they are held as prisoners, for up to six months at a stretch, without trial. At least 2,500 of the detainees are imprisoned in Ketziot, a tent camp in the burning heat of the Negev desert. On Aug. 16 Israeli soldiers shot and killed two of-the detainees there … The story had further grim details that I shall omit because they cannot be confirmed … The prisoners at Ketziot, it must be emphasised, have not been convicted of doing anything. They have had not a semblance of due process. They are there because someone in the Israeli Army suspects them – or wants to punish them. Mr. Posner went to Ketziot to see two Palestinian lawyers being held there and four field investigators for a West Bank human rights group, Al Haq. He concluded that they had been detained because of ‘their work on human rights and as lawyers.”(ref)
On 6 December 1998, during President Clinton’s visit, over 2,000 political prisoners went on hunger strike demanding to be released. Their message to both the Israeli and Palestinian leadership was not to negotiate issues that do not place their release on the agenda.
In September 1988, the Israeli army stated that the number of detainees it held was 23,600 and Peter Kandela reported cases of the use of torture on detainees.94 After the Oslo Accords many thousands of Palestinians were released. But many thousands more were imprisoned in the uprising that started in 2000. In total, over 700,000 Palestinians spent time in Israeli jails. On occasion, nearly 20 per cent of the political prisoners were minors.95
Political prisoners in Israeli jails also participated in non-violent resistance. Israel radio reported on a hunger strike by prisoners in the camps of Jenin, Ramallah and Nablus, who demanded improvement in their deplorable conditions in 1987.96 Al-Ansar prison in southern Lebanon, where thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese political prisoners were held by Israeli occupation forces, showed incredible acts of resistance and resilience, ranging from hunger strikes to refusal to obey orders to writing.97
Thousands of Palestinian prisoners went on a hunger strike from 15 August to 2 September 2004. During this time, the Israeli authorities tried various methods from persuasion to threats to beatings to break the strike; 13 UN agencies operating in the occupied areas expressed their concern.98
Outside the prisons, Palestinians and internationals protested and worked diligently to spread the word about the prisoners’ demands and their plight. It started with the prisoners’ families, many of whom joined the hunger strike. Crowds assembled on 16 August 2004 outside local offices of the Red Cross and marched to the Gaza headquarters of the United Nations where they delivered a letter addressed to Secretary General Kofi Annan, calling for him to apply pressure on Israel and improve the prisoners’ conditions. They demonstrated again in the thousands two days later.99 The PA, Palestinians inside the Green Line and the ISM called for hunger strikes outside the prisons to support the prisoners’ demands.100 The strike slowly gained momentum despite repressive measures.101 Israel’s Public Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi stated: ‘Israel will not give in to their demands. They can starve for a day, a month, even starve to death, as far as I am concerned’102 Eventually, the prison authorities conceded that the prisoners were entitled to some basic humanitarian rights.
Palestinian female political prisoners in Telmud Prison were mistreated and on 28 November 2004 their spokeswomen who complained about this was beaten and punished. When others complained, they too were punished, so they too went on hunger strike.103
Prisoners continued to use hunger strikes to protest against ill treatment and draw attention to their plight. For example, on 16 February 2006, Jamal Al-Sarahin died in prison. He was a 37-year-old ‘administrative detainee’ (held without charge or trial) who had been detained for eight months and badly mistreated. Prisoners called a one-day hunger strike.104
On 11 March 2006, a sit-down strike in front of the ICRC in Hebron was held to demand better treatment of prisoners. On 27 June 2006, 1,200 Palestinian political prisoners in the Negev Desert started a hunger strike to protest against the arbitrary and oppressive practices of the prison administration. In total, over 700,000 Palestinians have spent time in Israeli jails and the latest statistics show that 11,000 are still being held according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.105
By 2009, Palestinians in Israeli prisons had achieved a number of successes by non-violent struggle and civil disobedience, including wearing civilian clothes (no orange uniforms), access to news, reasonable visiting rights and better access to healthcare. But the Prison Administration continues to chip away at those rights.106 Unfortunately, the PA is forced to subsidise the cost to Israel of maintaining Palestinian prisoners.
Because so many people are jailed for their resistance activities, Palestinian society has a profound respect and appreciation for the sacrifices of the prisoners. Time spent in prison is considered a badge of honour. Prisons also shape character. One former prisoner stated:
Like any human community, there are contradictions, but there is a common thread in the experience in prison that gives us strength, a common goal, a common purpose. We are joined together in struggle, so our shared experiences only make us stronger.107
(Excerpts from the book: “Popular Resistance in Palestine” by Mazin Qumsiyeh, Pluto Press, Available in Arabic from Muwatin, Ramallah).
October 12, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
There Never Was an Egyptian Revolution
By Ahmed Amr | Dissident Voice | October 12th, 2011
The thrill is gone, the euphoria has faded and our mass delusions have been swept away to make room for the reality that there never was an Egyptian revolution. Eight months after deposing the old despot, Egypt is now in the firm grip of a new and improved military dictatorship – the Supreme Counsel of the Armed Forces. Any lingering doubt about the intentions of the generals to retain command and control of the ship of state vanished on Bloody Sunday.
There is no need for additional forensic evidence of what exactly transpired at Maspero, the site of a massacre that can only be called a crime against humanity. What started out as a peaceful march against religious persecution by Salafi vandals with a nasty habit of destroying Coptic churches turned into a blood bath. Two dozen demonstrators were murdered, the youngest of them 12 years old.
The only real question remaining is whether the slaughter was premeditated. From where I sit in Cairo, it sure looks that way. How else can one explain the outright lies and deceptions propagated by state owned media operatives?
The provocative coverage by State TV made it sound like Coptic gangs armed with machine guns had assaulted unarmed military police. And the public ate it up because they ‘saw’ it on their Telly. A call went out for ‘honorable’ citizens to go out and defend the army.
Of course, that story turned out to be a load of state manufactured manure. The online English language Al-Ahram website, also a government media outlet, gave a very different account.
A march of 10,000 Copts began today from Shubra to the State TV building in Maspero turned violent when protesters were attacked by stone throwing mobs from on top of the surrounding walls while they were trying to cross the Shubra tunnel. A 15-minute battle ensued as the Coptic protesters fought back and hurled stones at their assailants. Gun shots were fired in the sky, leaving terrified demonstrators wondering aloud if they were going to be shot.
During the attack, panic ensued as women protesters were told to stand under the bridge for safety as Coptic youth tried to contain the march. After the battle stopped the march, once again regained its peaceful nature and continued towards Maspero.
On their way to Maspero they stopped in the neighboring Galaa Street and were attacked once again. A car sped through the crowd and randomely shot at protesters. The march continued once again to Maspero where the protesters were attacked again with increased vigour and violence.
An Ahram Online correspondent at Maspero reports seeing glass being thrown down at protesters from inside the State Broadcasting building in Maspero while armoured personnel carriers were driven by the army through the crowds, hitting and running protesters over. Eyewitness accounts posted on Twitter detail people being shot by the armed forces and attacked by plain-clothed thugs, with fire consuming vehicles by the Nile.
So far confirmed as being among those killed are Mina Daniel, an activist and blogger; Wael Yunna, a journalist for Coptic TV; and Michael Mosaad, an activist and member of the Maspero Youth Coalition.
The protest was organised by the Maspero Youth Union, a group of young Coptic activists to protest against the recent violations against Copts. The protesters chanted, ‘raise your head high you are a Copt,’ and ‘no to burning of churches.’
The protesters also chanted against the army, shouting “the people want the fall of the Field Marshall Tantawi,” and chanted: “Tantawi, where is your army, our homes and churches are being attacked.”
The very next morning, the Arabic print version of Al-Ahram spared all of 150 words to report the story. The brief account didn’t even mention a clash or report on the casualties. This sanitary version of the events had Muslims and Christians marching peacefully chanting “Muslims and Copts are One Hand.” My best guess is that they didn’t want to squander all their recently acquired post-revolutionary virginity on a single story.
By Tuesday morning, Al-Ahram was back to usual form and reporting an eyewitness account from a wounded soldier who claimed he saw 14 of his comrades burned alive in an armored personnel carrier. The journalist who wrote that story is well-advised to invest a little money in a calculator. The official death toll is 25 killed. Of those, 21 have already been identified as Copts, two bodies are unidentified and it’s not exactly certain who the other two are. They could have been soldiers but then again they could have been Muslim activists who were marching in solidarity with their Coptic brothers. The army initially claimed that three of its soldiers had died and now refuses to confirm the exact count.
Usually, in similar circumstances, the soldiers who die in the line of duty are identified and their families are awarded compensation and press coverage to honor their sacrifice. So it could be that the military suffered no fatalities.
The bottom line is that the state owned press accounts were all over the place even though the reported events happened right under their noses. The site of the massacre was across the street from the State Television building at Maspero. State media, any state media, is always a suspect source of information. But when you get this level of confusion in Egyptian state media outlets, it is a sure sign of a cover-up.
The behavior of these ‘journalists’ – and I use that word very loosely – is very similar to what happened on February 2, 2011. That is exactly the same scenario that transpired during the infamous “Battle of the Camels” when armed thugs on horses and camels attacked demonstrators in Tahrir Square.
At the time, the army had already committed itself to protecting the demonstrators and volunteered to be a “custodian of the revolution.” But a curious thing happened – the army didn’t intervene and never bothered to explain how the hired goons had penetrated their lines or how they had managed to pass unnoticed through dozens of army checkpoints that were set up to enforce a curfew. That remains a taboo subject.
But there are some things we now know about the Battle of the Camel. It was a carefully orchestrated attempt by the Mubarak regime to abort the revolution and the plan included a very well-defined role for state media operatives. Their instructions were to ignore it and concentrate on reporting on ‘spontaneous’ outbreaks of support for the now deposed president. It’s fair to speculate that similar instructions were handed down to state media operatives on Bloody Sunday. For the record, these government salaried scribes are pretty much the same crowd that faithfully supported Mubarak for thirty years.
The massacre at Maspero came straight out Mubarak’s play book. Manufacture chaos, pose as a savior of the nation and extend the emergency laws or maybe go a bit further and declare martial law. Field Marshal Tantawi is already signaling the need to impose harsher measures against unidentified domestic and foreign provocateurs.
The Coptic demonstrators were not hooligans armed with machine guns; their ranks included women, children and sympathetic Muslim activists. And autopsies confirm that many of them were shot, stabbed, crushed by armored personnel carriers or beaten to death.
There is absolutely no need for a massive inquiry here. Just ask the soldiers and officers what their instructions were and who gave the orders. Pull in a few of the journalists on the state payroll and ask them the same thing. Round up a few of the thugs who attacked the demonstrators to determine if they acted ‘spontaneously’ or if they also had instructions. I’ll bet my last dollar that this was a False Flag operation to manufacture chaos and create enough sectarian tension to justify continued military rule.
Which gets me back to my initial thesis which is that there never was an Egyptian revolution. What happened in Egypt was a coup d’état that rode the back of a popular uprising, tamed it and now plans to re-establish six decades of military dictatorship. The generals were more than happy to get rid of Mubarak and his heir, a son who was not only a corrupt investment banker but also a draft dodger who never served a day in the military and was rumored to have a British passport.
The Copts who perished on Bloody Monday will go down as the last martyrs of the first Egyptian uprising or the first martyrs of the second Egyptian uprising. Either way, their blood will remain an indelible stain on Egyptian history. May God have mercy on their souls.
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Ahmed Amr is the former editor of NileMedia.com and the author of The Sheep and The Guardians – Diary of a SEC Sanctioned Swindle. He can be reached at: Montraj@aol.com.
October 12, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
Murder in Paradise
Special Report on the Bombing of Cuban Air Flight 455
By JOSÉ PERTIERRA | CounterPunch | October 11, 2011
Bridgetown, Barbados – It was a peaceful Wednesday afternoon in Barbados 35 years ago. Dalton Guiller had just finished a round of waterskiing and was refueling his boat on shore when a roar in the sky startled him. A low-flying and apparently damaged airliner was fast approaching from the west toward the beach. “It didn’t look right. It was too low. I then saw the plane rise slightly, bank to the right and crash into the water: nose and wing first,” said Guiller.
At the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados, Professor Cecilia Karch-Braithwaite also heard the loud droning of a passenger plane overhead. She told me, “It was unusual, because the aircraft was flying too low and was on a path that planes never take when they approach the airport.” She remembers seeing smoke coming from the side of the plane as it banked to the right and dove nose first into the waters of Paradise Beach. The university is located on a hill five miles from the beach.
I met Guiller and Karch-Braithwaite in Barbardos during last week’s ceremonies to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the murder of the 73 people aboard the Cuban passenger plane that crashed only a few minutes after takeoff from Seawell International Airport in Barbados. Their memories of that day are still vivid.
THE VICTIMS
The aircraft was a DC-8, flown by Cubana de Aviación. It had received its regular maintenance only 10 days earlier and carried 73 persons the day it crashed. The average age on board was a mere 30 years of age, because 24 members of the Cuban fencing team were returning to Cuba after having swept the gold medals at the Pan American games in Caracas, Venezuela. They boarded the plane wearing their medals. In total, there were 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and 5 Koreans.
THE BOMBS
At 1:23 p.m., local time, Seawell International Airport reported that the pilot, Wilfredo Pérez, called to report an emergency on board, “Seawell! Seawell! CU-455 Seawell. . . ! We have an explosion on board. . . . . We have a fire on board.” A forensic investigation made by Dr. Julio Lara Alonso established that two bombs exploded aboard CU-455, causing it to crash into the sea. The first bomb—under a passenger seat—ignited a fire near the front of the plane, and the second bomb, which exploded about eight minutes later in the rear bathroom of the plane, brought the plane down in seconds.
“I KILLED MORE THAN THE JACKAL”
Two Venezuelan nationals, Hernán Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, had left the bombs on the plane, before disembarking in Barbados. Lugo later told police officials that Ricardo boasted that the 73 people he killed on the plane were “more than the Jackal,” alluding to the famous terrorist Carlos the Jackal. “Now I’m the one who has the record, because I’m the one who blew up that thing,” he told Lugo.
Ricardo confessed to Barbadian and Trinidad officials who were investigating the crime that he and Lugo bombed the plane and that they worked for the CIA and Luis Posada Carriles. He even drew a diagram for them of the detonator he used to ignite the C-4 explosives he placed in the aircraft. He admitted to receiving $25,000 for downing the plane.
Lugo and Ricardo were extradited to Venezuela by Trinidad and Tobago. There they were convicted for their role in downing the plane and sentenced to 20 years. After serving their time, they were released. Lugo still lives in Caracas, driving a taxi to earn his living. The Miami Herald reported that Ricardo is now an undercover operative in Florida for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
THE MASTERMIND
In 1985 Luis Posada Carriles was indicted and prosecuted as the mastermind of the murder of the 73 persons aboard that plane. But before the Venezuelan court could pronounce a verdict, he escaped from prison. Within a few weeks, he landed a job with the CIA in an operation that later became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. The United States has never bothered to explain how it was possible for an international fugitive charged with 73 counts of first-degree murder to so quickly land a $120,000-a-year job with the CIA, arming Nicaraguan Contras.
THE HORROR
When he saw the plane crash into the water, Dalton Guiller immediately swung his small ski boat around and in two minutes arrived on the scene. “I was with two other chaps, and we went to see whether there were any survivors. Unfortunately, there were none,” he said. Surrounded by a strong of smell of fuel, Guiller surveyed the horror. “I saw suitcases, seats, and personal effects. I saw bodies: only one or two of them intact. The others were not full bodies.” He added, “They were suspended at the level of the sea. Perhaps the seat belts cut them off, I could not tell. It was just striking that two or three of the bodies were perpendicular under the sea. Trousers, but no top. Top, but no bottom.”
The forensic report performed by the Barbadian coroner describes the condition of the body of little Sabrina, a nine-year old Guyanese girl who was traveling with her family to Cuba: “Body of a girl around 9 years of age . . . . Brain missing, only facial bones, scalp, and hair remaining. Lungs and heart destroyed. Liver and intestines shattered. Buttocks missing on right lower limb. Compound fracture of tibia and fibula . . . “
THE HATRED
The impetus for the horror that invaded paradise that day in Barbados was hatred. Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, terrorists have murdered 2,478 Cubans and incapacitated 2,099 others.
Declassified U.S. intelligence cables reveal that Luis Posada Carriles had spoken of plans to “hit” a Cuban airliner only days before Ricardo and Lugo blew up CU-455. The CIA informed Washington, but no one uttered a word of warning to the Cuban or Venezuelan governments.
What happened in Barbados three and a half decades ago is not an isolated incident. The threat persists. From his lair in Miami, one of the masterminds of the attack on the Cuban airliner, Luis Posada Carriles, continues to call for violence against the Cuban people. His friends continue their efforts to violently lash out at the people of Cuba in an effort to terrorize them into supporting the forceful overthrow of the Cuban government.
OUR MAN IN LATIN AMERICA
Posada Carriles readily admits his relationship with the CIA. His lawyer told a federal court judge that everything his client did in Latin America he did in the “name of Washington.”
What, then, is it that Mr. Posada did in Latin America “in the name of Washington”? Besides the mass murder of the people aboard that passenger plane, Posada tortured Venezuelans in the 1970s, assisted in the murder of Nicaraguans in the 1980s, and trained Guatemalan and Salvadoran death squads in the 1980s and 1990s. He also planned a series of bombings at prominent Cuban hotels and restaurants in 1997, resulting in the murder of Italian businessman Fabio DiCelmo and the wounding of several others. He also conspired to assassinate the president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, several times, including in 2000 at the University of Panamá, where he planned to use 100 pounds of C-4 explosives to blow up a university auditorium full of students along with the Cuban president.
The cruelty of a 50-year war of terror against Cuba is abhorrent. The training that the United States has given Cuban-American terrorists is immoral. Providing them with weapons is a scandal: continuing to protect them an outrage.
THE DOUBLE STANDARD
In contrast to the United States, Venezuela does not assassinate those it alleges are terrorists. It relies on the rule of law to pursue them, but for the rule of law to be effective, the other parties to those laws, including the United States, must observe their legal obligations. When Posada Carriles illegally arrived in the United States in 1985, Venezuela immediately filed an extradition request, based on an extradition treaty that dates back to 1922 and on an international convention designed to combat terrorism: the Montreal Convention on Civil Aviation. Rather than extraditing Posada Carriles to Venezuela, the U.S. government instead tried him for minor immigration violations in El Paso, and a jury acquitted him of those in April of this year. He now lives freely in Miami.
United Nations Resolution 1373 forbids the harboring of terrorists by member nations. This resolution was introduced by the United States to combat terrorism after the tragedy of 9-11. Does it not also oblige the United States to extradite the terrorists it harbors?
THE CUBAN FIVE
Thirteen years ago, the United States government arrested, convicted and subsequently sentenced Five Cubans in Miami to long prison terms, but they were not terrorists.
The Five had gone to Miami to gather evidence against Cuban-American terrorists. In 1998, Cuba turned the evidence over to the FBI in the hope that the terrorists would be arrested and prosecuted. Yet the U.S. government didn’t arrest or charge the terrorists. Instead it arrested, charged, and imprisoned those who had gathered the evidence. The Cuban Five have been in jail now for 13 cruel years.
Gerardo Hernández is serving two life terms plus 15 years. The Court of Appeals ratified his sentence. Even if he dies in prison twice and resurrects each time, he would still not have completed his sentence.
Ramón Labañino was sentenced to a life term plus 18 years—subsequently the Court of Appeals ruled the sentence to be in violation of the law for being too harsh, vacated it and remanded his case to the same judge who had sentenced him. Judge Joan Lenard in Miami re-sentenced him and reduced the sentence to “only” 30 years.
Antonio Guerrero was sentenced to a life term plus 10 years. The Court of Appeals vacated his sentence, and Judge Lenard reduced it to “only” 21 years and ten months.
Fernando Gonzalez was sentenced to 19 years. The Court of Appeals vacated it, and Judge Lenard reduced it to “only” 17 years and 9 months.
René González was sentenced to 15 years. The Court of Appeals ratified his sentence, and he was released from jail on October 7. However, his release comes with conditions. He is not allowed to return to Cuba, as he wishes, to rejoin his wife and children but must instead remain in the United States for three more years—an additional punishment as cruel as it is irresponsible. The terrorists that the United States protects are free and would relish exacting their revenge on the man who monitored their activities on behalf of Cuba.
INDIFFERENCE VS. INDIGNATION
Getting the United States to extradite Luis Posada Carriles is not easy, and convincing President Barack Obama to free the Cuban Five will also be difficult. Neither case appears on the radar of American public opinion. The United States counts on the indifference of people. It knows that indifference is the unsung ally of injustice.
But as people learn about the history of terrorism against Cuba they grow indignant and demand justice. Indifference crumbles when confronted with indignation.
THE MEMORY OF THOSE KILLED
The 73 persons assassinated in cold blood 35 years ago in Barbados are not forgotten. As I stood on Paradise Beach in front of the monument to their memory, I listened to the national anthems of Cuba and Barbados and scanned the sea before me, where the plane lies at the bottom of Deep Water Bay, remembering that the remains of 58 persons were never recovered.
Standing next to me at the monument was the son of Wilfredo Pérez, the brave pilot who steered the aircraft away from the sandy beach to avoid killing dozens of Barbadians on shore. Wilfredo (he is named after his father) could have easily allowed hatred to consume him, but instead he became a psychologist. His life’s work is to help broken people to mend.
Killed aboard that plane was also Nancy Uranga, a pregnant 22-year-old fencer from Cuba. It is well known that 73 persons were killed that day over Barbados, but few know that Nancy was pregnant and that the terrorists killed her unborn child as well.
The terrorists also killed Carlos Cremata that day. Carlos was 41 years old. He was a member of the crew and also an actor. His friends and family recall that Carlos always greeted them with, “Viva la vida” (Long live life). One of his sons, Carlos Alberto Cremata, founded one of the world’s most renowned children’s theater companies—La Colmenita (The Little Beehive)—whose mission is “sembrar el amor” (to sow love). La Colmenita is now on tour in the United States.
There is a history of injustice in the waters of Paradise Beach in Barbados. The cold-blooded murder of the 73 people aboard that passenger plane was a crime against them, their families, and their countries. It was also a crime against Barbados and its people.
THE BAJAN-AMERICAN
The Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder Jr., is a Bajan-American. He was raised in a Bajan household in New York. His father, Eric Sr., was born in Barbados and married the daughter of Barbadian immigrants.
When he visited Barbados in 2008, the soon-to-be nominated Attorney General said, “I feel that I grew up partly in Barbados and partly in New York.”
History has now given him an opportunity to solve a mass murder that occurred in his parents’ home country 35 years ago. Mr. Holder can present to a United States District Court Venezuela’s request for the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles. He can also recommend that President Obama exercise his constitutional power of executive clemency to free the Cuban Five.
THE CHARACTER OF THE UNITED STATES AS A NATION
The extradition of Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela and the liberation of the Cuban Five are the responsibility of the United States and its people. More than merely legal issues, they are a moral imperative. At stake are not simply the facts of two particular criminal cases but bedrock principles of social justice and the character of the United States as a nation.
Will Eric Holder and President Barack Obama be up to the task? Will the people of the United States demand justice?
José Pertierra is an attorney. He represents the government of Venezuela in the extradition case of Luis Posada Carriles.
October 11, 2011 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular | 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
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How 1960’s French Nuclear Tests Are Still Claiming Lives in Algeria
Sputnik – 15.02.2018
On February 13, 1960, France carried out its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Reggane region. According to official statistics, 17 nuclear tests were carried out in total over the next 6 years. The area remains affected, and local scientists say that radioactive contamination has caused genetic mutations and irreversibly changed the region.
There are no official statistics on the number of victims. The only figures can be found in the records kept by the French representative of the local church, which lists 42,000 victims of nuclear tests. Three years ago, the French Ministry of Defense issued a statement, putting the number at 27,000 people. The victims include French soldiers as well as local Algerians who lived in the surrounding areas. … continue
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