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Puppets in Revolt: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the United States

By James Petras :: 07.22.2011

Introduction

Empires are built through the promotion and backing of local collaborators who act at the behest of imperial rulers. They are rewarded with the outward symbols of authority and financial handouts, even as it is understood that they hold their position only at the tolerance of their imperial superiors.

Imperial collaborators are referred to by the occupied people and the colonial resistance as “puppets” or “traitors”; by western journalists and critics as “clients”; by the imperial scribes and officials as “loyal allies” as long as they remain obedient to their sponsors and paymaster.

Puppet rulers have a long and ignoble history during the 20th century. Subsequent to US invasions in Central America and the Caribbean a whole string of bloody puppet dictators were put in power to implement policies favorable to US corporations and banks and to back US regional dominance. Duvalier (father and son) in Haiti, Trujillo in the Dominion Republic, Batista in Cuba, Somoza (father and son) in Nicaragua and a host of other tyrants served to safeguard imperial military and economic interests, while plundering the economies and ruling with an iron fist.

Rule via puppets is characteristic of most empires. The British excelled in propping up tribal chiefs as tax collectors, backing Indian royalty to muster sepoys to serve under British generals. The French cultivated a francophone African elite to provide cannon fodder for its imperial wars in Europe and Africa. “Late” imperial countries like Japan set up puppet regimes in Manchuria and Germany promoted the Vichy puppets in occupied France and the Quisling regime in Norway.

Post-Colonial Rule: Nationalists and Neo-Colonial Puppets

Powerful national liberation, anti-colonial movements following World War II, challenged European and US imperial dominance in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Faced with the enormous costs of reconstruction in Europe and Japan and domestic mass movements opposed to continuing colonial wars, the US and Europe sought to retain their economic holdings, military bases via ‘political collaborators’. They would assume administrative, military and political responsibilities, forging new links between the formally independent country and their old and new imperial masters. The economic and military institutional continuities between colonial and post-colonial regimes were defined as ‘neo-colonialism’.

Foreign aid gave birth to and enriched an ‘indigenous’ kleptocratic bourgeoisie which provided a fig leaf to imperial resource extraction. Military aid, training missions and overseas scholarships trained a new generation of military and civilian bureaucrats inculcated with imperial-centered ‘world views’ and loyalties. The military-police-administrative apparatus was perceived by imperial rulers as the best guarantor of the emerging order, given the fragility of neo-colonial rule, their narrow base of appeal and the demands of the masses for substantive socio-economic structural changes to accompany political independence.

The post-colonial period was riven with long term large-scale anti-imperial social revolutions (China, Indo-China), military coups (throughout the three continents), international civil wars (Korea) and mostly successful nationalist-populist transformations (Iraq, India, Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, etc.). The latter became the bases for the non-aligned movements. Outright ‘colonial settler regimes’ (South Africa, Israel/Palestine, Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) were the exception. Complex “associations”, depending on the specific power relations between empire and local elites, generally increased income, trade and investments for the decolonized newly independent countries. Independence created an internal dynamic based on large scale state intervention and a mixed economy.

The post-colonial period of radical nationalist and socialist uprisings, lasted less than a decade in most of the three continents. By the end of the 1970’s, imperial backed coups overthrew national-populist and socialist regimes in the Congo, Algeria, Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and in numerous other countries. The newly independent radical regimes in the former Portuguese colonies, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and the nationalist regimes and movements in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Latin America were severely weakened by the collapse of the USSR and China’s conversion to capitalism. The US appeared as the sole ‘superpower’ without a military and economic counterweight. US and European military and economic empire builders saw an opportunity to exploit natural resources, expropriate thousands of public enterprises, build a network of military bases and recruit new mercenary armies to extend imperial dominance.

The question arose as to the form the new US empire would take: the means through which the remaining nationalist rulers would be ousted. Equally important: with the demise of the USSR and China/Indo-China’s conversion to capitalism, what ideology or even ‘argument’ would serve to justify the powerful thrust of post-colonial, empire building?

Washington’s New World Order: Colonial Revivalism and Contemporary Puppetry:

Western imperialism’s recovery from the defeats during the national independence struggles (1945-1970’s) included the massive rebuilding of a new imperial order. With the collapse of the USSR, the incorporation of Eastern Europe as imperial satellites and the subsequent conversion of radical nationalists (Angola, Mozambique etc.) to kleptocrat free marketers, a powerful thrust was given to White House visions of unlimited dominance, based on projections of uncontested unilateral military power.

The spread of ‘free market ideology’ between 1980 – 2000, based on the ascendancy of neo-liberal rulers throughout Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and a large swathe of Asia opened the door for unprecedented pillage, privatizations (mostly the same thing) and the concentration of wealth. Corresponding to the pillage and the concentration of a unipolar military power, a group of ultra-militarists, so-called neo-conservatives ideologues, deeply imbued with the Israeli colonial mentality entered into the strategic decision-making positions in Washington, with tremendous leverage in European spheres of power – especially in England.

History went into reverse. The 1990’s were inaugurated with colonial style wars, launched against Iraq and Yugoslavia, leading to the break-up of states and the imposition of puppet regimes in (Northern Iraq) ‘Kurdistan’, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia (former Yugoslavia). Military success, quick and low cost victories, confirmed and hardened the beliefs of the neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideologues that empire building was the inevitable wave of the future. Only an appropriate political trigger was necessary to mobilize the financial and human resources to pursue the new military driven empire.

The events of 9/11/2001 were thoroughly exploited to launch sequential wars of colonial conquest. In the name of a “word wide military crusade against terrorism”, plans were made, massive funds were allocated and a mass media propaganda blitz was launched, to justify a series of colonial wars.

The new imperial order began with the invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and the overthrow of the Taliban Islamic-nationalist regime, (which never had anything to do with 9/11). Afghanistan was occupied by the US – NATO – mercenary armies but not conquered. The US invasion and occupation of Iraq led the Islamic, nationalist and trade union anti-colonial forces to regroup and prolonged armed and civil resistance movements.

Because of widespread nationalist and anti-Zionist influence within the existing Iraqi civilian, police and military apparatus, neo-conservative ideologues in Washington opted for the total dismantling of the state. They attempted to refashion a colonial state based on sectarian leaders, local tribal chiefdoms, foreign contractors and the appointment and ‘clearance’ of reliable exile politicians as ‘presidential or ‘prime ministerial’ national fig leafs for the colonized state.

Pakistan was a special case of imperial penetration, military intervention and political manipulation, linking large scale military aid, bribes and corruption to establish a puppet regime. The latter sanctioned sustained violations of sovereignty by US warplanes (“drones” and piloted), commando operations and the large scale mobilization of the Pakistan military for US counter-insurgency operations displacing millions of Pakistan ‘tribal’ peoples.

The Puppet Regime Imperative

Contrary to US and EU propaganda, the invasions and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the military interventions in Pakistan were never popular. They were actively and passively opposed by the vast majority of the population. No sooner were the colonial civil officials imposed by force of arms and efforts began to administer the country then passive popular and sporadic armed resistance emerged. The colonial officials were seen for what they were: an alien, exploitative, presence. Treasuries were looted, the entire economy was paralyzed, elementary services (water, electricity, sewage systems, etc.) did not function, and millions were uprooted. The wars and occupations radically decimated the pre-colonial society and the colonial officials were hard pressed to create a replacement.

Billions in military spending failed to create a civil service capable of governance. The colonial rulers had severe problems locating willing collaborators with technical or administrative experience. Those willing to serve lacked even a modicum of popular acceptance.

The colonial conquest and occupation eventually settled on establishing a parallel collaborator regime which would be financed and subordinate to the imperial authorities. Imperial strategists believed they would provide a political façade to ‘legitimate’ and negotiate with the occupation. The enticement to collaborate was the billions of dollars channeled into the colonized state apparatus (and easily plundered through phony ‘reconstruction’ projects) to compensate for the risks of political assassination by nationalist resistance fighters. At the pinnacle of the parallel regimes were the puppet rulers, each certified by the CIA for their loyalty, servility and willingness to sustain imperial supremacy over the occupied people. They obeyed Washington’s demands to privatize public enterprises and supported Pentagon recruitment of a mercenary army under colonial command.

Hamid Karzai was chosen as the puppet ruler in Afghanistan, based merely on his family ties with drug traffickers and compatibility with warlords and elders on the imperial payroll. His isolation was highlighted by the fact that even the presidential guard was made up of US Marines. In Iraq, US colonial officials in consultation with the White House and the CIA chose Nouri al Maliki as the “Prime Minister” based on his zealous “hands on” engagement in torturing resistance fighters suspected of attacking US occupation forces.

In Pakistan the US backed a convicted felon on the lam, Asif Ali Zardari as President. He repeatedly demonstrated his accommodating spirit by approving large scale, long term US aerial and ground operations on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border. Zardari emptied the Pakistani treasury and mobilized millions of soldiers to assault and displace frontier population centers sympathetic to the Afghan resistance.

Puppets in Action: Between Imperial Subservience and Mass Isolation

The three puppet regimes have provided a fig leaf for the imperial savaging of the colonized people of the countries they preside over. Nouri al Maliki has over the past 5 years, not only justified the US occupation but actively promoted the assassination and torture of thousands of anti-colonial activists and resistance fighters. He has sold billion dollar oil and gas concessions to overseas oil companies. He has presided over the theft (‘disappearance’ or “unaccountable”) of billions of dollars in oil revenues and US foreign aid (squeezed from US tax payers). Hamid Karzai, who has rarely ventured out of the presidential compound without his US Marine bodyguards, has been ineffective in gathering even token support except through his extended family. His main prop was narco warlord brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, killed by his CIA certified Chief of Security. Since Karzai’s domestic support is extremely narrow, his main functions include attending external donor meetings, issuing press statements and rubber stamping each increase (“surge”) in US troops. The intensified use of Special Forces death squads and drone warplanes, inflicting high civilian casualties, has further enraged Afghans. The entire civilian and military apparatus nominally under Karzai is unquestionably, penetrated by Taliban and other nationalist groups, making him totally dependent on the US troops and warlords and drug traffickers on the CIA payroll.

The Pakistani puppet Arif Ali Zardari, despite strong resistance from sectors of the military and intelligence agencies, and despite 85% popular hostility to the US, has plunged the country into a series of sustained large scale military offenses against Islamist communities in the Northeast territories, displacing over 4 million refugees. Under orders from the White House to escalate the war against Taliban sanctuaries and their Pakistan armed allies, Zardari has lost all credibility as a ‘national’ politician. He has outraged nationalist loyalties by ‘covertly’ approving US gross violations of sovereignty by allowing US Special Forces to operate from Pakistan bases in their murderous operations against local Islamic militants. The daily US drone bombing of civilians in villages, on highways and in markets has led to a near universal consensus of his puppet status. While puppet rulers provide a useful façade for external propaganda purposes, their effectiveness diminishes to zero domestically, as their subservience before the imperial slaughter of non-combatants increases. The initial imperial propaganda ploy portraying the puppets as “associate” or “power-sharers” loses credibility as it becomes transparent that the puppet rulers are impotent to rectify imperial abuses. This is especially the case with pervasive human rights violations and the destruction of the economy. Foreign aid is widely perceived as nurturing widespread extortion, corruption and incompetent administration of basic services.

As the domestic resistance grows and as the imperial countries’ ‘will’ to continue a decade long war and occupation wanes, the puppet rulers, feel intense pressure to make, at least, token expressions of ‘independence’. The puppets begin to “talk back’ to the puppet-masters, attempting to play to the vast chorus of mass indignation over the most egregious occupation crimes against humanity. The colonial occupation begins to sink, under the weight of billion dollar a week expenditures from depleted treasuries.The token troop withdrawals, signal the growing importance and dependence on a highly suspect ‘native’ mercenary force, causing the puppets increasingly to fear for loss of office and life.

Puppet rulers begin to contemplate that it is time to probe the possibilities of making a deal with the resistance; time to voice popular indignation at civilian killings; time to praise the withdrawal of troops, but nothing consequential. No abandoning the protection of the imperial Praetorian Guard or, god forbid the latest tranche of foreign aid. An opportune time for Ali Zardari to criticize the US military intrusion, killing Bin Laden. Time for Al Maliki to call on the US to “honor” its troop withdrawal in Iraq. Time for Karzai to welcome the Afghan military takeover of a province of least resistance (Bamiyan). Are the puppets in some sort of ‘revolt’ against the puppet master? Washington apparently is annoyed: $800 million in aid to Pakistan has been held up pending greater military and intelligence collaboration in scourging the countryside and cities in search of Islamic resistance fighters. The Taliban assassination of Karzai’s brother and top political adviser Jan Mohamed Khan, important assets in buttering the puppet regime, signals that the puppet rulers’ occasional critical emotional ejaculations are not resonating with the Taliban “shadow government” which covers the nation and prepares a new military offensive.

The puppet ‘revolts’ neither influence the colonial master nor attract the anti-colonial masses. They signal the demise of a US attempt at colonial revivalism. It spells the end of the illusion of the neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideologists who fervently believed that US military power was capably of invading, occupying and ruling the Islamic world via shadow puppets projected over a mass of submissive peoples. The colonial example of Israel, a narrow strip of arid coastline, remains an anomaly in a sea of independent Islamic and secular states. Efforts by its US advocates to reproduce Israel’s relative consolidation through wars, occupations and puppet regimes has instead led to the bankruptcy of the US and the collapse of the colonial state. Puppets will be in flight; troops are in retreat; flags will be lowered and a period of prolonged civil war is in the offing. Can a democratic social revolution replace puppets and puppet masters? We in the United States live in a time of profound and deepening crises, in which rightwing extremism has penetrated the highest office and has seized the initiative for now but hopefully not forever. The overseas colonial wars are coming to a close, are domestic wars on the horizon?

July 23, 2011 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

The Losing Game of American Politics

What’s the Difference?

By JAMES ROTHENBERG | CounterPunch | July 22, 2011

Every four years we elect a president and the dramatic run-up to this spectacle has already begun. We can expect to be treated to near-daily tidbits of information from here on in. This is owing to the fact that, for the Democratic and Republican Parties, election day is everyday and an exploitable public is, as always, assuming the prone position.

These parties have two main tasks. The first is convincing the public that voting in the presidential election is the highest form of citizenship, and is therefore illustrative of patriotic spirit. The second task, hidden from the public, is to ensure their continued role as co-exploiter, and is therefore illustrative of the daily struggle for political power.

Whichever way the winds blow for these parties, the winner will claim to represent the will of the people, something we should be extremely leery of as a political concept.

How would we test the idea that the election of this or that party actually represented the will of the people? Taking a simple example, Gore argued that Bush’s proposed tax cuts would disproportionally benefit the wealthiest 1% of Americans, and the election was not 99-1, but a statistical tie. Obama argues that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest must go, but they’re not going anywhere. Given the dire straits our economy is presently in, and given the outlandish wealth and income disparities that exist in it, why would this issue even be close if the will of the American people had anything to do with it?

The political parties serve their own interests, just as regular people do. And just as regular people are selfish, so are the parties. They represent the will of the people to the extent that it can be useful to them. Where it is harmful, that is, when the will of the people comes into conflict with the will of the elites that the parties serve, the public loses and is subjected to a propaganda campaign to soothe its unrealized will.

Should it be needed, a remedy from elite sectors would be felt with immediacy and intensity.

There is no public remedy, save for the inevitable reassurance that it will come in the next election. Public remedy is of paramount importance in the history of our country. Our founding document, The Declaration of Independence, is a stunning example of a peoples’ unequivocal and radical remedy to a government unwilling to accede to the demands of its people. Now it is assumed, by virtue of little else besides the quadrennial march to the ballot box, that our government always embodies the will of its people.

Both parties want the country all aquiver about next year’s election. This is what they have, and so long as people show up and vote to validate the system, the system will be in good hands. Theirs!

I think the theme for 2012 should be, What’s the Difference?, because for the things that truly matter to the common man or woman, there is none between Bush and Obama, or between Obama and Palin/Bachmann. Even though no president moves beyond the party, liberals agonize over the calamity of a Palin or Bachmann presidency. Perhaps they like the idea of giving our “smarter” president a little more rope to hang themselves with.

For those wondering what degree of overstatement is intended with the “no difference” remark, here’s a little rundown:

Bush orders attacks on countries, Obama bombs relentlessly. Bush authorizes torture, Obama winks at it. Bush condones assassination, so does Obama. Bush takes the path to our becoming a national security state, Obama accelerates it. Bush targets whistle-blowers, Obama raises it to a first principle. Bush is secretive, Obama more so. Bush prefers to look forward, ignoring history. Obama prefers to look forward, ignoring justice.

Things are going to happen that are beyond the control of the common man or woman. Least of all will they be able to affect them at the ballot box. That’s a losing game. Great change will come in a way it has always come, through popular mass movements of people making demands. At a critical stage the government will recognize that it cannot afford not to be aligned with the movement.

The International Criminal Court has a case against Muammar Gaddafi for crimes against his people while putting down an uprising. It may be painful for an American to think about this, but consider what the reaction of a Bush or an Obama or any American president would be to a massive group of people, even non-violently, calling for a throwing off of the government. Do you picture the government sitting on its hands, or lying in wait? And would we embrace the same standard that we apply to Gaddafi?

No advocacy here. The comparison is presented solely to illuminate the lengths that any concentration of political power will go to when challenged, as when the Kingdom of Great Britain responded to events of July 4, 1776.

James Rothenberg can be reached at: jrothenberg@taconic.net

July 22, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Fleitz of Fancy & A New Diehl on Iran: Iran Nuclear Scare Timeline Update

Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | July 20, 2011

Alarmist editorializing about Iran, its regional influence, and its nuclear energy program has picked up considerably in the past few weeks. In the wake of the latest IAEA report this past Spring which revealed no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, a hefty Sy Hersh article confirming that all 16 American intelligence agencies still stand by their 2007 assessment that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and the potential for a large-scale U.S. withdrawal from Iraq at the end of the year, career fear-mongers have been hard at work trying to re-raise the Iranian threat level from mild khaki to frantic crimson.

An opinion piece published last night in the Wall Street Journal is a perfect example of the heightened hysteria. The article, entitled “America’s Intelligence Denial on Iran“, was written by former CIA agent Fred Fleitz, a neoconservative Bomb Iraner who served as John Bolton’s State Department chief of staff and is currently a columnist for the right-wing outlet Newsmax.

Fleitz is intent on discrediting the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which has repeatedly found that Iran’s nuclear program is, at best, totally benign and, at worst, not an imminent threat to anyone. He leads with this:

Mounting evidence over the last few years has convinced most experts that Iran has an active program to develop and construct nuclear weapons. Amazingly, however, these experts do not include the leaders of the U.S. intelligence community. They are unwilling to conduct a proper assessment of the Iranian nuclear issue – and so they remain at variance with the Obama White House, U.S. allies, and even the United Nations.

Fleitz goes on to write that, “according to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control,” Iran currently has enough “low-enriched uranium” for “four nuclear weapons if enriched to weapons grade” and repeats the propaganda line about “an item recently posted to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps website [which] mused about the day after an Iranian nuclear test (saying, in a kind of taunt, that it would be a ‘normal day’).” Fleitz claims that the “message marked the first time any official Iranian comment suggested the country’s nuclear program is not entirely peaceful.”

Beyond demonstrating a severe lack of understanding about what the IAEA has actually reported and his willful omission of the huge difference between low-enriched uranium and weapons grade material, Fleitz tips his hand by relying on the over-hyped “Nuclear Test” post on the Iranian Gerdab website last month for his nuclear scare propaganda.

Fleitz writes that the latest NIE assessment is just as “politicized” and “poorly written” as its 2007 predecessor and similarly downplays the “true account of the Iranian threat” due to what Fleitz claims is the U.S. intelligence community’s apparent aversion to providing “provocative analytic conclusions, and any analysis that could be used to justify military action against rogue states like Iran.” He accuses the 2011 NIE of “poorly structured arguments and cavalier manipulation of intelligence”, all the while boasting of his own objections, which he says were routinely ignored and rebuffed by the report’s supervisors. He lays blame on what he determines is the NIE’s reliance on “former senior intelligence officers, liberal professors and scholars from liberal think tanks.”

He concludes:

It is unacceptable that Iran is on the brink of testing a nuclear weapon while our intelligence analysts continue to deny that an Iranian nuclear weapons program exists. One can’t underestimate the dangers posed to our country by a U.S. intelligence community that is unable to provide timely and objective analysis of such major threats to U.S. national security – or to make appropriate adjustments when it is proven wrong.

If U.S. intelligence agencies cannot or will not get this one right, what else are they missing?

Reading this, one might be forgiven for wondering why, rather than merely attacking the credentials of NIE sources, Fleitz doesn’t reveal a shred of evidence for his declaration that “Iran is on the brink of testing a nuclear weapon.” Oh right, never mind.

This sort of “analysis” from Fleitz is far from unexpected. Back in August 2006, Fleitz – then a House Intelligence Committee staffer – was the primary author of a Congressional report entitled, “Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States“, which served as a veritable catalog of false assertions about Iran’s nuclear program and, just like his Wall Street Journal piece, assailed the U.S. intelligence community for not sufficiently fear-mongering about the so-called Iranian threat. Among other exaggerations and outright lies, the report accused Iran of “enriching uranium to weapons grade” and stated that the IAEA had removed a senior safeguards inspector from Iran for “allegedly raising concerns about Iranian deception regarding its nuclear program and concluding that the purposed of Iran’s nuclear programme is to construct weapons” and for “not having adhered to an unstated IAEA policy baring IAEA officials from telling the whole truth about the Iranian nuclear program.”

The report contained so many false allegations and misrepresentations regarding the Iranian nuclear program, in fact, that the IAEA’s Director of External Relations and Policy Coordination Vilmos Cserveny wrote a letter to the Chairman of House Committee, Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), challenging the report’s “incorrect” assertions and criticizing it for promoting “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated information.”

Additionally, Cserveny described Fleitz’s accusations about the safeguards inspector as “outrageous and dishonest” and noted that “Iran has accepted the designation of more than 200 Agency safeguards inspectors, which number is similar to that accepted by the majority of non-nuclear-weapon States that have concluded safeguards agreements pursuant to the NPT.”

It appears that, five years later, Fleitz still chooses fantasy over facts.

Meanwhile, in the pages of the Washington Post, deputy editorial editor and Likudnik ideologue Jackson Diehl has picked up on the amplified push to blame the Iranian government for the recent deaths of American soldiers occupying Iraq. In an opinion piece published earlier this week, he writes, “The larger question is whether Iraq will be forced by a full U.S. pullout to become an Iranian satellite, a development that would undo a huge and painful investment of American blood and treasure and deal a potentially devastating blow to the larger U.S. position in the Middle East.”

Apparently, Arabs and Muslims are only truly liberated when under the influence of the United States.

Diehl believes that an Iraqi government that is bullied into allowing U.S. troops to continue occupying their country beyond the December 31, 2011 deadline would be “making the right choice.” If there is an American withdrawal, however, Diehl is worried about the potential consequences. He claims (citing a Fox News report) that an “offensive [is] already underway by Iranian-sponsored militias [which] shows that Tehran is ready to fight.” He writes that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, “like U.S. commanders in the Middle East, understands very well that without an American military presence, Iraq will be unable to defend itself against its Persian neighbor” and laments that, “without U.S. help, Iraqi forces cannot easily counter” Iranian-backed militias since “Iraq’s conventional forces are no match for those of Iran.”

Of course, what Diehl leaves out – beyond the fact that the evidence linking the Iranian government to recent resistance attacks in Iraq is sketchy at best – is that foreign occupation is what most people and non-U.S.-aligned governments in the region are most offended by, not alleged increasing Iranian influence. Yet, the horror of an Iraq allied with Iran is ever-present in the neoconservative community. Diehl even quotes career militarist Frederick Kagan of the neocon flagship, the American Enterprise Institute, as warning in a recent report that “[i]f Maliki allows the United States to leave Iraq, he is effectively declaring his intent to fall in line with Tehran’s wishes, to subordinate Iraq’s foreign policy to the Persians, and possibly, to consolidate his own power as a sort of modern Persian satrap in Baghdad.”

Oh dear, the Persians! Where are Aristagoras, Leonides and Themistocles when you need them?! It would be unsurprising to assume that Kagan’s neocon classicist father Donald is proud of his son’s ridiculous historical analogy.

To his moderate credit, Diehl does also present a slightly alternate perspective, one that naturally views Iran as a spooky menace (no other representation of the Islamic Republic is allowed in the mainstream press, of course), but that doesn’t necessarily see it as a hegemonic threat of imperial proportions. He reports that Antony Blinken, a senior aide to Vice President Joe Biden, resists the notion that Iran is capable of wielding such devious influence over Iraq, even without a massive U.S. military presence. “The danger of Iranian hegemony in Iraq,” Diehl writes, “is overstated by analysts such as Kagan,” according to Blinken.

Diehl closes by lamenting the recent departure Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who he describes as “the only Obama administration official who has publicly made the case for a continued U.S. military presence.” In a recent speech, Diehl recalls, Gates said that it would send “a powerful signal to the region that we’re not leaving, that we will continue to play a part,” adding, “I think it would be reassuring to the Gulf states. I think it would not be reassuring to Iran, and that’s a good thing.”

What Diehl omits is that Gates was actually speaking to the American Enterprise Institute when making these comments and that, much to the dismay of its many war-mongering members, has been credited by many as having single-handedly prevented an American attack on Iran.

The specter of a nuclear-armed and hegemonic Iran is still the bread-and-butter of Beltway Middle East reportage and analysis. Consequently, the fever-pitched fear-mongering never stops, despite what the facts are.

July 21, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Michel Collon – Obama Sarkozy how many children did you kill this night?

July 20, 2011 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Thinktank that promoted war w/ Iraq (& now Iran) was funded by Steinhardt, Saban, Bronfman, Feith and Marcus (of Home Depot)

By Philip Weiss on July 19, 2011

Eli Clifton at Think Progress has blown the lid off the funding for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the neocon shop that helped give us the Iraq war and that “has become one of the the premiere DC organizations promoting more aggressive actions against Iran.” The people who underwrite this stuff have traditionally remained anonymous. Clifton:

While FDD has a 10-year history of engaging in alarmist rhetoric and fear mongering — e.g. in 2002 FDD aired a series of ads conflating Osama bin Laden, Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein — and helped promote the “Bush doctrine” which led to the invasion of Iraq, its donors have, for the most part, hidden behind their anonymous contributions to the organization.

And who’s funding this shop?

Clifton’s exclusive–based on public records that he links in a pdf with his story– says that a lot of the usual suspects in the Israel lobby, Saban, Bronfman, Steinhardt, Mizrahi, Marcus and oh, Doug Feith’s father.

Canadians Edgar M. and Charles Bronfman, heirs to the Seagram liquor company fortune, contributed $1,050,000 to FDD between 2001 and 2004. Edgar M. Bronfman served as president of the World Jewish Congress from 1979 to 2007. Charles Bronfman, along with fellow FDD donor Michael Steinhardt cofounded Taglit Birthright which offers free trips to Israel for young Jewish adults. Steinhardt is a hedge fund mogul who contributed $850,000 to FDD from 2001 to 2004.

Other notable donors included: Home Depot cofounder Bernard Marcus who contributed $600,000 between 2001 and 2003; mortgage backed securities pioneer Lewis Ranieri contributed $350,000 between 2002 and 2004; and Ameriquest owner, and Bush administration ambassador to the Netherlands from 2006 to 2008, Roland Arnall contributed $1,802,000 between 2003 and 2004.

Other notable, but less generous, donors included: media mogul and Democratic Party donor Haim Saban, a surprising donor considering FDD’s Republican bent and Clifford May’s former role as an RNC spokesperson; The Israel Project director Jennifer Mizrahi; and Dalck Feith, father of former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith.

July 19, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Prisoners Strike against Torture in California Prisons

By Marjorie Cohn | July 18, 2011

The torture of prisoners in U.S. custody isn’t confined to foreign countries. For more than two weeks, inmates at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison have been on a hunger strike to protest torturous conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) there. Prisoners have been held for years in solitary confinement, which can amount to torture. Thousands of inmates throughout California’s prison system have refused food in solidarity with the Pelican Bay prisoners, bringing the total of hunger strikers to more than 1,700.

Inmates in the SHU are confined to their cells for 22 ½ hours a day, mostly for administrative convenience. They are released for only one hour to walk in a small area with high walls. The cells in the SHU are eight feet by 10 feet with no windows. Flourescent lights are often kept on 24 hours per day.

Solitary confinement can lead to hallucinations, catatonia and even suicide, particularly in mentally ill prisoners. It is considered torture, as journalist Lance Tapley explains in his chapter on American Supermax prisons in The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse.

The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons (CSAAP), which is headed by a former U.S. attorney general and a former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, found: “People who pose no real threat to anyone and also those who are mentally ill are languishing for months or years in high-security units.” The commission also stated, “In some places, the environment is so severe that people end up completely isolated, confined in constantly bright or constantly dim spaces without any meaningful contact – torturous condition that are proven to cause mental deterioration.”

Prisoners in other California prisons have reported that medications, including those for high blood pressure and other serious conditions, are being withheld from prisoners on strike. “The situation is grave and urgent,” according to Carol Strickman, a lawyer for the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition. “We are fighting to prevent a lot of deaths at Pelican Bay. The CDCR [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] needs to negotiate with these prisoners, and honor the request of the strike leaders to have access to outside mediators to ensure that any negotiations are in good faith.”

One of the hunger strike demands is an end to the “debriefing process” at Pelican Bay. Prisoners are forced to name themselves or others as gang members as a condition of access to food or release from isolation. Naming others as gang members itself amounts to a death sentence due to retaliation by other prisoners.

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that incarceration in California prisons constitutes unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

July 19, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Arab MK Hanin Zuabi Stripped of Right to Speak in Parliament

PNN – 18.07.11

Tel Aviv – The Knesset ethics committee voted on Monday to strip Arab member of parliament Hanin Zuabi of her rights to address parliament and vote in committees.

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Hanin Zuabi speaks in parliament (File Photo)

The decision comes one year after Zuabi had other parliamentary rights taken away from her, including her diplomatic passport, financial help for legal assistance and the right to travel to countries Israel does not have official ties with.

The stripping of these rights came after Zuabi sailed on the Turkish ship the Mavi Marmara during last year’s Gaza flotilla.

Zuabi was first elected in 2009 as a member of Balad. The 42-year-old Palestinian from Nazareth is one of Israel’s 1.5 million Arab citizens.

When some of her parliamentary rights were revoked last year, Zuabi went to the High Court of Justice to get the privileges back, but they were ultimately stripped by a Knesset vote of 34-16.

MK Zuabi said on Monday that ‘this is the first time that the ethics committee of the Israeli parliament have punished parliamentarians for their behavior outside of parliament’, adding that MKs had been punished before but for conduct inside of parliament.

Zuabi continued, saying that the committee’s decision contradicts the rules of conduct for the committee and reflects a profound desire for a political vendetta, reflected by a hysteric racist right-wing majority that doesn’t differentiate between its right-wing positions and political legitimacy.

Zuabi stated ‘the political majority in Israel is not the source of legitimacy instead it should be the law, therefore the question is whether I did something against the law or not. I did not do anything contradictory to law, unless in this case the right-wing groups control the Israeli courts, creating a judicial system that reflects a right-wing majority.’

Zuabi also affirmed that the political immunity that is given to Knesset members is specifically granted to protect them from the oppression of the majority, so as to protect them from sanctions that might be imposed on them. Therefore the decision by the ethics committee conflicts with the immunity which should provide protection for MKs during such cases.

Zuabi has been a vocal critic of some of Israel’s policies both inside and outside the Knesset. Last week she was taken out of the Knesset hall by security officers after interrupting a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the recently-passed anti-boycott law.

July 18, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

UK media ignore Murdoch role in Iraq war

Press TV – July 17, 2011

After weeks of hue and cry about Murdoch gate there seems to be a prevalent unwritten agreement among the British main stream media to ignore one fact.

While ordinary British citizens are buried under piles of news about Murdoch’s empire hacking into the voicemails of the royal family, celebrities, high-ranking politicians, a murdered teenager and the relatives of the dead soldiers, almost all media fail to report the worst allegation: the endorsement of illegal war in Iraq.

Observers accuse Murdoch’s newspapers of being the main newspaper propagandizing the fraudulent military conflicts.

The media tycoon had given his full support to the illegal Iraq war, and many times praised former Prime Minister Tony Blair for his courage saying: “I think Tony is being extraordinarily courageous and strong on what his stance is in the Middle East.”

News International papers began doing their best convincing people about what they called the grave threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons, even two years before the publication of the government’s dossier on Iraq’s non-existent Weapon of Mass Destruction.

As the UK government was beating the drums of the war louder in 2003, Murdoch’s newspaper initiated even more pro-war propaganda. Murdoch who was a strong supporter of attacking Iraq and ousting Saddam, even said: “The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That’s bigger than any tax cut in the any country.” However after the invasion News International never apologized for the false information they had published pushing the economy to the brink of collapse.

Murdoch’s papers and TV channels have been backing all the wars imposed by Britain in the last thirty years and has continued backing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Murdoch’s media empire has even prepared the ground to keep the war in Libya going.

One may ask which one is more guilty? The Murdoch’s corporation or the other British media which are deliberately turning a closed eye to his role in recent wars?

July 18, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Murdoch scandal demonstrates that scores of people can maintain a conspiracy of silence for years

By Philip Weiss on July 16, 2011

In a week or so we will mark the 15th anniversary of the crash of TWA 800 in waters off Long Island, killing 230 people. I subscribe to the belief (bolstered by the work of scientist Tom Stalcup) that a missile brought the plane down, likely fired by mistake by an American submarine during a military training exercise that night.

One of the “problems” with my belief, people always said, was that scores of people would have been in on the truth, why didn’t any of them come forward? All the people serving on that sub, for instance. I always said– and I still do– that large groups of people can maintain such silence, if they have been successfully indoctrinated.

The Murdoch scandal demonstrates why I am right. The repulsive phone-hacking by Murdoch journalists was first exposed five years ago by the British police. At that time, only a couple of journos were implicated. Now it turns out the practice was widespread inside the Murdoch empire. Maybe even inside the U.S.?

Remember: this practice was clearly wrong and illegal. And scores of journalists were in on it, and said nothing. They feared for their jobs, they believed the Murdoch mission– who knows just why, but they were all indoctrinated.

A similar lesson can be drawn from the complicity of almost all the leading American Jewish organizations in supporting Jim Crow conditions in Israel and Palestine. They just smile and salute. Indoctrination works.

July 16, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Israeli Kindergarten Teachers To Raise Flag And Sing Anthem Every Week

By Kevin Murphy | IMEMC and Agencies | July 14, 2011

The Israeli Education Ministry has published new guidelines to Israeli kindergarten school teachers to raise the Israeli flag and sing the Israeli anthem every week with their students. The directive is part of new guidelines for Israeli kindergarten teachers published last week, according to Haaretz.

The plans will not be implemented in Palestinian Israeli schools.

The plans should come into effect come the new school year in September.

Nowhere in the new directive are there guidelines for teachers regarding teaching democratic or liberal values.

Reacting to the news, which comes during a long line of controversial Israeli laws aimed at suppressing dissent in Israeli society including the Boycott and Nakba laws, Prof. Gabi Solomon of the University of Haifa, an Israel Prize laureate for education, said that “it looks like a competition between members of the Likud to see who can push us faster into the arms of fascism”.

Prof. Yaron Ezrahi, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, offering a tongue in cheek analysis of the directive, said it should be implemented earlier. “Instead of wrapping the babies in a white sheet, they should wrap them in an Israeli flag, and hang Israeli flags over every bassinet, and make sure that in the delivery room they play ‘Hatikva’ in the background,” Ezrahi said.

In January Israeli teachers petitioned Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar to take action against the rising levels of racism among Israeli students targeted against Palestinians and Arabs.

Israeli teachers, speaking to YNet, gave personnel accounts of the racism they encountered in Israeli classrooms and spoke of skipping controversial sections in civics class to avoid inciting heated discussion.

“The teachers are truly despaired, they are exhausted, and some of them feel that mentally, dealing with the students is difficult,” said Myriam Darmoni-Sharvit, head of the civics faculty at the Center for Educational Technology. “When they are in the classroom, they feel like they are in a battlefield, which is why they often act to ‘survive’ and choose to skip chapters or teach the material through dry dictation in order to keep the calm.”

The Education Ministry has been working heavily to increase Israeli student’s Jewish and Zionist outlook. Minister Gideon Sa’ar has initiated a range of new programmes in schools towards this goal including school trips to the City of David in the Palestinian district of Silwan in Jerusalem, trips to Hebron as well as adopting a grave of a Israeli soldier killed in combat.

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