My old teacher and mentor, Elie Kedourie, Professor of Politics at the University of London liked to say that Clio, the Greek muse of history had a great sense of humor and irony. This thought comes vividly to mind rereading one of the most important books ever written on the causes of the decline and disintegration of the British Empire in the first half of the 21th century, Correlli Barnett’s The Collapse of British Power.
Barrett’s enormous and still controversial masterpiece was published in 1972. Yet today it has a greater relevance than ever. For every time “Britain” is mentioned in the text, cross the word out, then replace it with “the United States” or “America” and his explanations for British decline and fall apply and explain even more presciently the current dilemmas of the United States.
Barnett gave as major reasons for the collapse of British power strategic over-extension after World War I when the British, already administering an empire covering one quarter of the entire land territory and one quarter of the human race, stretched even further and saw themselves as the global hyper-power and police, charged with maintaining a true World Order across the entire planet.
Today, those words and conceptions have an especially eerie and contemporary ring.
By claiming to be the global hyper-power, Barnett cogently argued, the British instead guaranteed that they could not even remain as an international superpower. They overextended and exhausted themselves. They over-stretched and exhausted their land combat forces in a plethora of minor wars and counter-insurgencies around the world, most notably in Iraq, Palestine, Ireland and Afghanistan – all regions that have today an astonishingly contemporary ring.
In the end Britain’s imperial leaders extended their network of guarantees to the tiny, unstable and narrowly parochial states of Central and Eastern Europe, ensuring their inevitable strategic collisions with first Germany and then the Soviet Union – again, strategic misconceptions that echo with especial relevance today.
Barnett most of all explored the crumbling and collapse of Britain’s once awesome industrial base. He put this down to a fatal, blind – indeed deluded – reliance on the workings of the free market without any government intervention, encouragement or protection for strategic industries.
Britain practiced Free Trade from 1860 to 1931 except for the four years of World War I at the very same time its arch rivals Germany, the United States and Imperial Japan applied high industrial and agricultural tariffs and successfully developed their modern industries and rural economies, dramatically raising the standard of living of their peoples in the process.
The British then, like the Americans today believed in Free Trade as an economic panacea blind to the avalanche of empirical, practical evidence to the contrary.
Like modern Americans, they laid exaggerated importance on theoretical university education in the humanities and on liberal theories of economics and politics, while their ruling elites were pathetically ignorant of what today are known in the United States as the STEM subjects – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
It is therefore no coincidence that Margaret Thatcher, the only British leader to revive and stabilize her country’s economy and international standing since World War II, had worked professionally as a research scientist in the chemical industry. Thatcher also regarded Barnett as her favorite historian and raised him to the House of Lords as a Life Peer, an almost unprecedented honor for an academic British scholar.
Today Thatcher is gone but Barnett lives on at a remarkable 91. He followed up his 1972 masterpiece with three searing sequels on how the British threw away the manufacturing advantages they still enjoyed after being rescued in World War II by the alliance and support of the United States and the Soviet Union. Those three later books, The Audit of War: The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation (1986), known in the United States as The Pride and the Fall; The Lost Victory: British Dreams and British Realities, 1945-50 (Macmillan, 1995) and The Verdict of Peace: Britain between her Yesterday and the Future remain definitive works today. They are known collectively as The Pride and Fall Sequence.
Ironically, Barnett greatly admired the America of the first half of the 20th century and held it up as an example of wise industrial, social, economic and strategic policies that Britain should have emulated but did not.
Instead the opposite happened, the Americans following the end of the Cold War plunged precisely into the same mad and futile dreams of eternal global leadership as the British had done, dragging them inexorably into one vicious, morally reprehensible and financially exhausting little “colonial” war after another to crush emerging national, social and economic movements around the world. They failed repeatedly.
Eventually these self-righteous and moralistic – but never moral – policies propelled Britain and its Empire into the one catastrophe they should have avoided at all costs – another world war.
Barnett recognized the fateful path the United States had taken. In 2003, never fearful of controversy he was scathingly critical of the US invasion of Iraq and its claimed moral and grand strategic goals. Clio, Muse of History must have applauded.
Translated for the first time on the occasion of the 12th anniversary of the event. All speeches of Hezbollah Secretary General during the 2006 war will be fully translated, subtitled and published in English for the first time on their anniversary this summer.
“We will not be the only ones to pay a price. Our homes will not be the only ones to be destroyed. Our children will not be the only ones killed. Our people will not be the only one to take shelter and move. This time is over: it was thus before 1982, before 2000. But this time is now over.” Hassan Nasrallah, July 14, 2006.
On July 13, Israel launched a large-scale aggression against Lebanon, using the pretext of Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers the day before. As the Winograd Report itself reveals, this war was long-planned (“the longest planned in Israel’s history; it had been preparing for this for six years”, stresses Norman Finkelstein), and was only hastened by the Israeli General Staff to allow the aggressor to plead self-defense, a false pretense that is the hallmark of the Zionist entity.
Until today, this falsification of history remains tenacious, but the date of the outbreak of this conflict is indeed July 13, not July 12. That is why Hezbollah designates this conflict as “The 33-Day War” (13 July-14 August), not the 34 days that Israeli propaganda, which unfortunately has a virtual monopoly in the West (even in the so-called alternative media, which too often takes the language elements of Israeli propaganda at face value), strives to impose.
Two little known events, then highlighted by Robert Fisk with the emphasis they deserve, have marked these first two days:
“There were reporters embedded in the Israeli navy, watching them shell the coast of Lebanon, and I’ve seen the footage. Then, suddenly, one of those Hetz-class gunboats is hit by an Iranian missile. And within a minute, Hezbollah’s television station, Al-Manar, which has been totally bombed, pulverized, pound into dust — it’s still broadcasting presumably from bunkers elsewhere in Beirut — suddenly shows all the embedded footage on television, like “Here’s the ship. Here it is firing on Southern Lebanon. This is the ship we hit.” Extraordinary bit of propaganda. I mean, absolutely amazing, outrageously so.
How on earth did they have those pictures aligned and ready to put out on the air within a few minutes of the attack on the gunboat? You know, Nasrallah came on television in Beirut within minutes after the Israelis had bombed his home and tried to kill him and, of course, failed to do so, saying, “You don’t have to worry about me, but go out onto the beach of Beirut and look out to sea, and you’ll see the ship burning.” My goodness me, that was a stunning piece of propaganda. But, of course, the embedded reporters, as usual, will do their job in extolling, I’m sure, the surgical strikes of the Israelis, “as usual.” I put that in quotation marks.”
The second event is perhaps less spectacular, not having been broadcast live at the very time of a meeting of the Israeli military command (who thus learned the destruction of his corvette on TV and hastened to deny the fact in shock, before admitting it later), but perhaps even more revealing of Hezbollah’s abilities:
“There’s another point which the Israelis have not talked about, because it’s under strict censorship in Israel, that the Hezbollah, who had weeks earlier sent a pilot-less reconnaissance drone over Israel, made, of course, in Iran, taking pictures, they had identified the headquarters of Israel’s top secret military air traffic control center at Miron in Northern Israel. This is basically where the military scientists are based. It’s like caves in a mountain. They’re untouchable. But the drone identified the antenna on the top of the mountain and put missiles onto it. Israel has a secret code name of Operation Apollo. Now, this was an extraordinary breech of Israeli security. Never, insofar as I know, since the ’73 war, has it been breeched like this.”
These two military exploits clearly distributed the roles from the beginning of the war: on the one hand, an army endowed with an unlimited power of destruction, pouring its firepower above all on civilians whom it was resolve to punish (in a few days, there were already more than 300 dead, thousands of wounded and nearly a million displaced), but unable to conduct a real ground operation because of the chronic weakness of its infantry, and on the other hand, a modest but extremely effective guerrilla force, targeting above all, with unthinkable success for Israel, military targets, and even winning the intelligence and psychological warfare hands down. Israel was amputated from the first day of a whole section of its military triad (aviation, navy, infantry). This radical impulse given to this conflict will only be confirmed later.
Sayed Hasan
Transcript:
I seek refuge with God against Satan the accursed.
In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, and prayers and peace be upon our Master (the Prophet) Muhammad and his pure family, upon his faithful companions and upon all the Prophets and Messengers. Peace be upon you and the mercy of God.
“If God comes to your aid, none can overcome you.” (Quran, III, 160) God the Most High and the Almighty has spoken the truth.
To begin with, in this first speech of mine after the success of Operation “Truthful Promise” (in which Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers) and the events that followed it (war against Lebanon), I wish to start by extending my regards and condolences to the families of martyrs, the families of martyrs who lost their dearest ones during these harsh and difficult days. But (they should know) that they lost them in the noblest confrontation and battle of our time, of (all warrior and epic) tales, and even of all History. And I extend my regards and greetings to the wounded, imploring God the Almighty and the Exalted to assist them and grant them healing and health.
I also wish to send my greetings to our enduring people of all towns and villages, remaining firmly rooted in their land, as they are firmly rooted in their faith.
And I also salute my brothers the Resistants, the fighters, patient, lucid, alert and steadfast at their position on all front lines, always ready to sacrifice for what they believe, longing ardently for martyrdom, holding their heads high.
In my first speech in these (decisive) days, after Operation “Truthful Promise”, I will (only) say a few words: a word to the Lebanese people, a word to the Resistance fighters, a word to the Zionists, and a word to the Arab leaders. I have nothing to say to the international community because, just like many members of our (Muslim) community, I never believed one day in the (effective) existence of an international community.
First, I say to the Lebanese people: O my dear people, who embraced the Resistance, thanks to whom it achieved victory and for whom it triumphed on May 25, 2000 (Lebanon’s liberation from Israeli occupation), this Lebanese people that shaped the first Arab victory in the History of the struggle against the Israeli enemy, despite the huge imbalance of forces, and despite the abandonment of the majority of our Arab brothers, the majority of our Muslim brothers and (a deafening) silence of the world (in spite of Israeli crimes in Lebanon). The Lebanese people have shaped the miracle of the victory, who stunned the world and humiliated the Zionists, these Zionists who (since then) look upon this people in a special, unique way, because he achieved a particular and distinct feat in the History of the struggle against them.
The battle today is not a battle for prisoners and for an exchange of prisoners. Some might say that the Zionist enemy would naturally respond to any capture of its soldiers, wherever it occurs in the world, against any army, any State with borders and bases (which may be targeted). But what is happening today is not a response to the capture of (Israeli) soldiers. This is a reckoning with the people, Resistance, State, military, political forces, regions, villages and families that inflicted this historic defeat on that aggressive usurper entity which was not accustomed to suffer defeats.
So today, we are facing a total war waged by the Zionists to settle all accounts with Lebanon, the people of Lebanon, the Lebanese State, the Lebanese army and the Lebanese Resistance, by way of revenge and retaliation for the feat achieved on May 25, 2000.
O my steadfast, resilient and noble people, who in his vast majority, I know, by his reason, his heart, his will, his culture, his thought, his love, his passion and sacrifices, is a noble people, decent, honorable and proud, and not a people of servility, subservience, cowardice and surrender. I tell you that in this confrontation, we have two choices, not (only) Hezbollah and the Resistance of Hezbollah, but all of Lebanon, the State, the people, the army, the Resistance and the political forces. We have two choices: either we all submit today to the conditions that the Zionist enemy wants to impose on us all, with the pressure, support, and backing of the USA, the (whole) world and, unfortunately, (some) Arab (leaders). Either we submit completely to their conditions, which will bring Lebanon into the Israeli era and under Israeli hegemony.
In total frankness this is the extent of the matter. The other choice is to resist, to persevere, to fight back, and as for me, relying on God the Almighty and Exalted, and on the confidence I have in Him, in the (Hezbollah) combatants and in you (Lebanese people), by the knowledge that I have of this people and this enemy, just as I always used to promise you victory, now I promise you victory once again. When (Israel launched the Operation) “Grapes of Wrath” in 1996, or (the Operation) “Settling of Accounts” in 1993, at first he had the upper hand, and our situation was much worse. But today, the situation is different. Believe me, and I mean it, the situation now is very different. We just have to wait, to resist, to face and to unite, and I know that the majority of our people is steadfast and prone to fight back, and ready to sacrifice, without need to be urged to do so, but I’m just explaining the situation and confirming our choice (to resist).
And as for what I want to tell the Resistance fighters, to my dear and beloved brothers, on which rest the hopes of all the Lebanese, of all Palestinians, all Arabs, all Muslims, all free and decent men of this world, all the oppressed, all the victims of injustice and torture, all those who love steadfastness, courage, honor, values and nobility, qualities quintessential to these fighters, and embodied by their presence on the battlefield and their struggle against the enemy, a brave and heroic struggle.
I say (to those fighters): Today you are, after God the Exalted and Most High, our hope and the hope of our (Arab and Muslim) Community. You are the symbol of our dignity and our nobility. You are the guardians of our honor, and it is through you that our dignity is preserved. You are the foundation of the victory of 2000, after God the Exalted and Most High. Today you have the responsibility, above anyone else, to preserve the victory, to safeguard the Liberation, the Resistance and our honor (against this aggression). You are living up to this responsibility and these expectations and you have proven so far, during these last days, that you are quite worthy of our hopes and our confidence, and whoever relies, after God, on you, demonstrates great lucidity, will see his hopes fulfilled and soon win a resounding victory.
And as to the Zionists, the inhabitants of the Zionist entity, at this moment, I tell you this: you’ll quickly discover, O (Israeli) people, how your new government (led by Ehud Olmert) and your new leaders are foolish, stupid, do not know how to assess reality, and do not have any experience in this area (war).
In polls (held in Israel), you affirm, (you) Zionists, that you have more confidence in my statements than in those of your leaders. This time, I invite you all to listen to me (very carefully) and mark my words: today we kept showing restraint despite the attack last night against the southern suburb (of Beirut), and attacks are increasing against all villages, every neighborhood, every street and every house in Lebanon. There is no difference between the southern suburb (of Beirut) and the city of Beirut, or any house in South Lebanon, the Bekaa, the North, Mount Lebanon, or any corner of Lebanon. This equation has now changed.
Today I will not say that if you strike Beirut, we will strike Haifa. I will not tell you that if you strike the southern suburb (of Beirut), we will strike Haifa. You wanted to end this equation, so let us forget it. You wanted an open war (with no red line), so be it! We are entering an open war, and we are ready, we are ready to such a war. A war at all levels. (We are ready to strike) Haifa, and, believe me, beyond Haifa, and well beyond (what is) beyond Haifa.
We will not be the only ones to pay a price. Our homes will not be the only ones to be destroyed. Our children will not be the only ones killed. Our people will not be the only one to take shelter and move. This time is over: it was thus before 1982, before 2000. But this time is now over. I promise you that this time is over. And therefore, you must also take responsibility for what your government does, and for what this government has undertaken.
From now on, you wanted an open war, so it will be an open war. You wanted, your government wanted to change the rules of the game, so be it, let us change the rules. Today you do not know whom you’re fighting. You are fighting the descendants (and authentic followers of the Prophet) Muhammad, of (Imam) Ali, of (his sons) Hassan and Hussein, of the family of the Prophet, and the Companions of the Prophet. You are fighting a people who has greater faith than anyone on the face of the earth. And you chose to enter into open war against a nation that is proud of its history, its civilization and culture, and also has the material capability, the ability, the experience, the know-how, the calm, the lucidity, the determination, the endurance and the courage (required). In the coming days, it will be between us and you, God willing.
As for the Arab leaders, I do not want to ask you about your history (of collaboration with the enemy). I have just a few words to say. We are “adventurers” (term used by Saudi Arabia to condemn the capture of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah). We in Hezbollah, are “adventurers”, yes! But we have been “adventurers” since 1982. And we have brought to our country nothing but victory, freedom, Liberation, dignity, honor, and pride. This is our history. This is our experience. This is our “adventure”.
In 1982, you said we were crazy, and the world said we were crazy (to believe we could defeat Israel). But we proved that we were the rational ones. As to (reveal) the identity of the true crazy people, that’s another question. I don’t want to get into a debate with anyone. I only say this: rely on your “reason” and we will rely on our “adventure”, and God is our support, and He is our Provider. [Since 1982], we never counted on you, not one moment. We relied on God, on our people, on our heart, on our own efforts and on our children. And today we do the same thing. And victory will follow, it will (certainly) follow with God’s grace.
The surprises I promised you (two days ago in case of Israeli invasion) will begin starting now. Right now, offshore, facing Beirut, the Israeli warship that bombed our infrastructure, civilian houses and inhabitants, watch it burn (live before your eyes), and it will sink, and with it dozens of Israeli Zionist soldiers.
It is only the beginning, and before the end, there will be many other things to say.
He is arguably the most notorious person in the 21st century.
The world takes for granted that Osama bin Laden was the architect of the “terror attacks” of Sept. 11, 2001. But why was this man singled out for this horrific crime? How did we learn of his alleged guilt? And what is the evidence used to support his guilt?
These questions are critical because the allegation against bin Laden led, less than a month later (on Oct. 7, 2001), to the launching of the Global War on Terror with the invasion of Afghanistan. The mission, called Operation Enduring Freedom and ordered by President George W. Bush, and was supposedly intended to capture or kill bin Laden.
This is what we know about the claims of evidence against bin Laden:
Just hours after the World Trade Center towers were destroyed, a man by the name of L. Paul Bremer appeared on an NBC affiliate in Washington D.C. Less than a minute into the interview with host Jim Vance, Bremer mentioned bin Laden as potentially being the mastermind of the event. It appears that the bin Laden myth was created at this point, and it soon went viral.
Who is L. Paul Bremer, and what was he doing in Washington at the time?
Bremer, like Bush, is a graduate of Yale and, like Bush, is also a member of the notorious Skull and Bones fraternity. After leaving government in 1989, he became managing director of Kissinger Associates, a consulting firm owned by Henry Kissinger. (It’s worth noting that Kissinger was the original choice to head the 9/11 Commission.)
In May 2003, following the introduction of “shock and awe” in Iraq, Bremer was named director of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Without question, he was a Republican insider. He was supposed to be on his way to New York City, to his office in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept., 11 but his plane was diverted due to the events of that morning.
In addition to speculating in the interview about bin Laden’s complicity, Bremer said that “terrorists declared war on the United States, and we declared war on the terrorists.” What was this supposed to mean? Would it follow that the United States would have carte blanche to invade any country anywhere if a terrorist or terrorists were thought to be living there? Would that include Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, or France?
Bremer also said, “We can’t throw away democratic freedoms and civil liberties that are the heart of our society.”
But those liberties were not thrown away; they were taken away by Bremer’s colleagues in the Bush administration. This happened through the passage of the Patriot Act, the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, the spying on Americans by the National Security Agency, the prosecution of whistleblowers, and the stifling our 1st and 5th Amendment rights. The list is long.
Bremer continued: “There will be consequences. In fact, I hope the most severe military consequences we can come up with.”
In this he was prescient. Using the justification of 9/11, the United States invasion of Afghanistan was followed by the invasion and destruction of Iraq, the bombing of Libya into the Stone Age, the arming and aiding of Saudi Arabia in their mission to destroy Yemen, and the instigation and perpetuation of the Syrian horror. Add in drone wars and proxy wars in God-knows-how-many countries, and Bremer must have swelled with pride over the level of carnage.
Bush names bin Laden
On the evening of Sept. 11, President Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office of the White House and said this: “Today was the Pearl Harbor of the 21st century. We think it’s Osama bin Laden.” For the second time on that day we hear the name bin Laden from a national bully pulpit.
Without a shred of evidence to support their claim, two high-profile government officials, speaking to Americans, put bin Laden in the crosshairs. He instantly became America’s public enemy number one, guilty by government decree.
The accusation was further reinforced by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who appeared on the BBC the morning of 9/11 (even before the buildings came down) and pointed to bin Laden and al-Qaeda as likely being behind the event. He called for the U.S. to launch an “operational, concrete war on terror.”
Before the dust had settled from the destruction of the towers, Bremer and Bush, along with Barak and the worldwide media, implicated bin Laden without offering any evidence. A little more than a week later, on Sunday, Sept. 23, Colin Powell made it official. With host Tim Russert on Meet the Press, Powell named bin Laden the architect of 9/11.
Russert asked Powell for evidence, and he responded: “We are hard at work bringing all of the information together, intelligence information, law enforcement information. And I think, in the near future, we will be able to put out a white paper, a document that will be able to describe quite clearly the evidence we have linking him [bin Laden] to this attack.” He told Russert he would make it available to him once it was completed.
Fleischer slams the door
The day after Powell’s promise, the New York Times devoted a front page article to the evidence that it believed was forthcoming, citing statements by government officials that “the evidence reaches from the southern tip of Manhattan to the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan.”
But the same afternoon, Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer met with the media and said Powell’s statement of a white paper had been “misinterpreted.” There was no plan to release the information. “It is classified.”
A reporter had the audacity to ask, “Is there any plan to present to the public evidence so the average citizen, not just Americans but people all over the world, can understand the case against bin Laden”?
Fleischer’s response was predictably condescending: “In a democracy it is always important to provide the maximum amount of information possible. But I think American people understand that there are going to be times when that information cannot immediately be forthcoming.”
On one issue, Fleischer spoke truthfully: the white paper was not immediately forthcoming. In fact, it has never been produced. No white paper exists in the public domain containing forensic evidence linking Osama bin Laden to the 9/11 attacks.
The arrogance, hypocrisy, and disregard for human life of this man and the entire Bush administration cannot be overstated. American troops were about to be sent to war. Many would die or be seriously injured for life. Afghan civilians, considered collateral damage, would be killed in large numbers as always happens in war. Yet no soldier, American citizen, or Afghan citizen was allowed to see the evidence cited to justify why the United States was about to invade one of the poorest countries in the world.
It gets worse.
The NATO alliance was formed following WWll, ostensibly to protect East European countries from naked aggression by the Soviet Union. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that an attack against any member nation is an attack against all member nations, was invoked for the first time on Sept. 11, 2001. And it wasn’t a small NATO country that needed help; it was the United States of America, the most powerful country in the world.
On Sept. 12, 2001, NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson summoned the North Atlantic Council to meet in Brussels. All 19 members agreed that the attack on the U.S. was an attack from abroad. All Robertson needed to invoke Article 5 was the responsible party with evidence to wage war on the perpetrators. He soon got what he needed, or so he thought.
U.S. State Department representative Frank Taylor met in secret with all NATO representatives on Oct. 2, 2001 and provided documents that supposedly contained “clear and compelling” evidence of bin Laden’s guilt to the Secretary General. After the meeting, Robertson met with the press and predictably said the evidence provided by Taylor was classified. In all, 29 countries joined the U.S. in the invasion of Afghanistan, including Britain, France, and Canada. They joined in the invasion of this tiny impoverished country based on “evidence” that the public could not see.
It gets even worse.
A revelation from the FBI
On June 5, 2006, investigative reporter Ed Haas from the Muckraker Report noticed from bin Laden’s Most Wanted Page on the FBI’s website that he was wanted for several crimes but not for 9/11. He eventually spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity of the FBI and the exchange went like this:
Haas: “Why is there no mention of 9/11 on Osama bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page?”
Tomb: “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden’s web page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.”
Haas: “How is this possible”?
Tomb: “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered it is turned over to the Department of Justice who then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a grand jury. In the case of bin Laden he has not been formally indicted and charged because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.”
So how does this work? Bremer, hours after the towers were destroyed, blamed bin Laden. Bush, later that day, blamed bin Laden. Powell days later on national television claimed to have solid evidence of bin Laden’s guilt. Taylor supposedly turned over “clear and compelling evidence” of bin Laden’s guilt to the head of the NATO Alliance a few weeks after 9/11. Yet, the chief law enforcement agency in the United States, the FBI, admitted years later that they have “no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.”
It should also be mentioned that a “confession video” by bin Laden was found in Afghanistan in December 2001, which was immediately used to bolster the claim of bin Laden’s guilt. The video was soon debunked by a leading expert on bin Laden, professor Bruce Lawrence of Duke University, who called the tape “bogus.”
This also begs the question as to why, if authentic, the tape was not used on bin Laden’s Most Wanted Page in the FBI file. One also has to wonder why this evidence, unlike all the other evidence the Bush administration claimed to have in its possession, was widely disseminated to the public while the rest remained classified.
And it gets worse yet!
Bush refuses to show proof
The evidence presented to NATO by Frank Taylor was in document form and immediately classified by U.S. and NATO authorities.
Before the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan, the country’s Taliban government offered to extradite bin Laden pending receipt of evidence of his guilt. But Bush refused the offer.
Could Bush have avoided the Global War on Terror by turning over the “clear and compelling” evidence in the Frank Taylor documents? The simple answer is no. There was no evidence to turn over.
The State Department documents were declassified in 2008 with little fanfare. Dr. Niels Harrit, a former professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen—now a researcher and writer active in the 9/11 Truth Movement—found them, and in an article on the Global Research website exposed them for public scrutiny.
According to Harrit’s assessment, “There is absolutely no forensic evidence that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated from Afghanistan.” He goes on: “Only a small part of the introductory text deals with 9/11. The main body of the text deals with the alleged actions of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the nineties.”
There isn’t now, nor was there ever, any evidence to connect Osama bin Laden to 9/11!
An addendum to the story, and certainly red meat for conspiracy theorists, seems to make the government’s case against bin Laden even more contrived. In a segment on NBC Nightly News with Dan Rather on Jan. 28, 2002, foreign correspondent Barry Peterson, standing in front of a military hospital in Pakistan, reported that bin Laden was getting a dialysis treatment on Sept. 10, 2001, a day prior to 9/11. According to Peterson, “He [bin Laden] arrived at the hospital in Rawalpindi under heavy security provided by the Pakistan secret service (ISI).”
If the report is accurate, it would be reasonable to wonder how an NBC News crew tracked down bin Laden while George Bush with 19 intelligence agencies at his disposal, never had a clue about his whereabouts.
We might also ask why Pakistan, an ally of the United States, didn’t turn bin Laden over to U.S. authorities after escorting him to one of his hospital visits. And we might wonder how bin Laden commuted from the mountains in Tora Bora to a hospital and back three times a week for kidney dialysis treatments.
And, years later, we might wonder why there is not a shred of evidence that supports the claim that bin Laden was killed in a Navy Seals raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2, 2011, as was reported and heralded by the Obama administration.
Public enemy number one
In a press conference at the White House on Sept. 13, 2001, President Bush said, “The most important thing for us is to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority, and we won’t rest until we find him.” It is important to note that by that date the government had still not declared publicly that there was evidence against bin Laden. He was guilty by decree only.
On March 13, 2002, less than seven months after the beginning of the Global War on Terror, justified by 9/11 and the accusations against bin Laden, Bush said this: “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It is not our priority.”
Then, in a speech delivered to a group of military officers on Sept. 5, 2006, Bush compared bin Laden to Lenin and Hitler. He said: “The world had ignored the writings of Lenin and Hitler and paid a terrible price. Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them.
Imagine if Winston Churchill had said that, “I really don’t care, it’s not that important, he is not our priority” when speaking about Hitler during the Battle of Britain? The absurd comparison to Hitler and the disparity, going back and forth from monster to afterthought and back to monster when speaking about bin Laden, in my view, speaks volumes.
Most citizens of the United States are decent and law abiding. Most pay their taxes willingly in a timely fashion. Most try to raise their families and teach them the difference between right and wrong. Most Americans are patriotic. Most would never harm anyone unless provoked. Most have integrity, decency, and values. Many have worn the uniform and taken an oath to serve and protect. So is it inappropriate to ask why our government and the press treat all of us like children? The bin Laden story is a testament to this along with the entire Global War on Terror, a complete fraud that has caused so much devastation to our reputation in the world and to the lives of millions in the Middle East and elsewhere.
If there is no clear, compelling evidence against the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, would it be fair to say that the Global War on Terror in its entirety, including the invasions, the bombings, the drone strikes, the millions killed, the tens of millions of refugees, all of the families destroyed, all of the despair and loss of hope the United States has brought to bear in so many parts of the world, is a fraud?
One would think.
Geoffrey O’Neill is a former Marine officer, Vietnam veteran, former business owner, and unexceptional American citizen who believes in the right of all people to live in peace and with dignity with their families. Geoffrey can be reached at goneill460@gmail.com
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: What is the immediate impact on the Iranian people of the Trump administration’s exit from the Iran nuclear deal?
Dr. Mohammad Marandi: Obviously, it is going to have a short term negative impact. People are concerned about the effect it will have on the economy and Iranian currency has dropped significantly. However, I believe that in the midterm the economy will stabilize, and as Iran reorientates its economy, trading partners and strategic partnerships things will stabilize. In the long term, I think Iran will probably even benefit because the US will no longer have any leverage that it can use against the country and its people.
Are not the economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration intended to provoke disturbances within the Iranian population in order to change the power in Iran?
Without a doubt. Actually, just recently in a speech in France to the MEK terrorist organization, a cult group which has killed 17 thousand Iranians through assassinations and bomb attacks and has also fought for Saddam Hussein, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer and close friend, admitted that the disturbances in Iran are not spontaneous and that they are carried out by their people. That does not mean there are no ordinary people who protest here and there, but the foreign role is obvious and we can see it through the western, Israeli, and Saudi, funded Persian media outlets like BBC Persian and VOA among others that attempt to create tensions and fear among Iranians.
Do you think there is a special program to assassinate Iranian scientists as was the case with Iraqi scientists where some sources have spoken of the existence of a special CIA unit responsible for assassinating scientists?
I have no idea about that, but we do know that Mohammad bin Salman has said in public that he wants to take the war into Iran and after that we saw the terrorist attacks on Tehran and an increased number of attacks alongside the Pakistani-Iranian border as well as the border between Iran and Iraq Kurdistan.
What is the exact role of the Zionist entity of Israel and its services in the assassination of Iranian scientists?
Israeli intelligence and the MEK terrorist organization worked together in this regard. In addition, Western intelligence agencies have in the past passed on IAEA information on Iranian scientists to the Israelis thus helping them carry out a number of murders.
What do you think of the alliance between the Saudis and the Israelis? In your opinion, is it tactical or strategic?
The alliance between Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE among others is not new at all. They have been cooperating closely for many decades now, but these Arab regimes have always been afraid to make this alliance public. However, Trump is putting a lot of pressure on these regimes to come out of the closet, especially because he wants to impose his so called deal of the century on the Palestinian people in order to destroy the Palestinian nation.
In your opinion, can Europe play a role in maintaining the nuclear agreement?
It’s possible. However, I am skeptical about the EU’s intentions and I am even more skeptical about their ability to grow a backbone in face of persistent American violations of their sovereignty and threats against their businesses and citizens.
In your opinion, why is it that Israel that massacres the Palestinian people has never been subjected to sanctions?
I think it is widely known that the Israeli regime is allowed to implement apartheid policies, carry out ethnic cleansing and colonization, the bombing of neighboring countries, the killing of civilians, the arrest children, and the confiscation of land.Western countries will give them blanket support no matter what the regime does.
What is your analysis of the situation in Syria? Can we say that Daesh is defeated definitively or is it moving towards reorganization?
The extremist groups including Daesh that were supported by western intelligence services and regional client regimes have been severely weakened and the Syrian Arab army and government have gained the upper hand. But the war is not over, al-Qaeda and other extremist groups continue to get foreign support and Western countries and media outlets have been trying to give cover to these extremist groups by calling them “moderates” and “rebels”, whereas in reality their ideologies are very similar to ISIS.
What do you think of the position of Morocco that has just cut off its relations with Iran by accusing Hezbollah of having armed the Polisario Front? Don’t you think that this maneuver bears the signature of the Saudis, Israelis and Americans?
I think it is quite clear especially taking into account the timing of the accusations that the Saudis and probably countries like the US and the UAE are behind this. But I do not have any specific information.
Why do you think Westerners are silent, both the media and the political institutions, in the face of the carnage that Saudi Arabia is committing in Yemen?
It is because of Saudi oil wealth, and because the destruction of Yemen is in the interest of the Saudi and Israeli regimes. Therefore, Western governments and western media outlets will not do anything meaningful to prevent the massacres or starvation. This is just one example of many. They did the same thing in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, and Afghanistan.
Interview realized by Mohsen Abdelmoumen
Who is Dr. Mohammad Marandi?
Born in 1966 in Richmond, Virginia, Mohammad Marandi is the son of Professor Alireza Marandi, a former Iranian Minister of Health and a former member of the Iranian Parliament. Mohammad Marandi lived until he was 13 in the United States before joining Iran. He is a political analyst and expert on American studies and postcolonial literature. Dr. Marandi is a graduate of the University of Tehran and the University of Birmingham where he received a PhD in English Literature. He teaches English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran where he is head of the graduate program in North American Studies.
The US conducted 105 atmospheric and underwater tests at its Pacific Ocean proving ground from 1946-1962. Massive amounts of radioactive fallout from those tests spread across the Pacific, causing severe health effects that have continued to this day.
One of the best-known incidents from this reckless and shameful history was the fate of the Japanese fishing boat the Lucky Dragon. Despite being 90 miles away from ground zero, all 23 crew members were covered in thick layers of fallout from the March 1, 1954 Castle Bravo explosion, which, at 15 megatons, was the largest US nuclear test. The entire crew suffered from acute radiation sickness and were hospitalized for months. One crew member died from his injuries.
As it turns out, the Lucky Dragon was not an anomaly. Japanese film maker Hideaki Ito has produced a documentary called “Exposure to Radiation—Post X Years,” which explores how the extensive tuna fishing ground came to be known as “the sea of death.” The fishing crews had no idea they were working in heavily contaminated waters, and contaminated tuna became a health hazard throughout Japan.
Hideaki and his crew surveyed affected communities some 50 years later, and spoke with public health experts about the limited data that’s available. Field maps obtained from what was then the US Atomic Energy Commission, show fallout paths extending across the Pacific and the US, reaching into Canada and parts of Central and South America. Today, cesium-137 from the tests has been detected in ground samples under houses in Okinawa, Kyoto, and Yamagata prefectures.
Hideaki’s full documentary exists only in Japanese. When he visited IPPNW last fall after a showing at an MIT film festival, we encouraged him to make at least a portion of the film available in English. He has now come back to us with an 11-minute abridged version that we highly recommend to anyone concerned about the health and environmental consequences of nuclear testing and their persistent legacy.
“Knowing how much damage was done in order to make nuclear weapons,” Hideaki told us, “I believe it will be a great accomplishment to abolish them.”
I disagree with President Donald Trump about practically everything. With two exceptions.
First, Trump said it from Day One: “Getting along with Russia and China and with everybody is a very good thing. It’s good for the world, it’s good for the U.S.” He said it again regarding his planned July 16 meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
That’s why the Trump-Putin summit has my attention. As U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley observed, “Only nuclear weapons have the capacity to wipe out humanity in the blink of an eye.”
In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis took us close to just that catastrophe. Thereafter, the two superpowers negotiated several treaties to decrease the risk of nuclear war. The system that evolved was called Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD: neither power could launch a first strike because the other could always retaliate. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty preserved that system by prohibiting deployment of weapons that could neutralize a retaliatory strike.
Is that crazy, or what? Could anyone seriously consider starting a nuclear war? Daniel Ellsberg gives the unpleasant answer in “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.” In fact, the so-called “missile defense” system, a gigantic boondoggle for the military-industrial complex, also looks like a plan to wage and “win” a nuclear war.
Such demented thinking was probably behind U.S. withdrawal, in 2002, from the ABM Treaty, and deployment of the “missile defense shield.” The shield, if effective, would make a nuclear first-strike thinkable, because it could defeat the retaliating strike.
Putin repeatedly asked the U.S. to discontinue its missile defense deployment, warning that Russia would have to take counter-measures. But the deployments have continued. Then, on March 1, Putin announced Russian development of new weapons that he claimed would render a missile shield ineffective.
Make your own assessment. You can see Putin’s speech at
Putin’s announcement was dismissed as “saber-rattling.” But his tone was not threatening. Rather, he invited the U.S. “to come to the negotiating table to give thought to an updated, future system of international security and civilization’s sustainable development.”
Thankfully, a few senators were listening. Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Edward J. Markey (D-MA) promptly urged the State Department to convene the next U.S.-Russia dialogue as soon as possible. Then in late June, Senator Merkley, along with Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Tina Smith (D-MN), Edward J. Markey (D-MA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) introduced a Senate resolution in support of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on the occasion of its “Golden Birthday.” The full resolution can be found at https://www.merkley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/NPT%20Resolution.pdf .
The planned Trump-Putin summit offers a chance to jump-start that overdue process. You can help with a couple of small but meaningful actions: (1) Contact the White House at (202) 456-1111 or https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ . Tell the President you support his meeting with Mr. Putin, and hope he will use it to discuss nuclear arms control. (2) Contact any or all of the above-mentioned Senators via the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or, if you reside in a State represented by one of them, via email. Thank the Senator for his or her work to support nuclear arms control and ask them to keep at it and keep you posted.
Unfortunately, the “Russiagate” investigation and widespread demonization of Putin and Russia create an atmosphere making it difficult to improve U.S.-Russia relations. This brings me to my second point of agreement with Trump, who has repeatedly denounced the investigation as a “witch hunt.” As appalling as most of Trump’s policies are, I can’t support the effort to unseat a constitutionally elected president by a campaign of disinformation and lies.
Robert Roth prosecuted consumer fraud for the attorneys general of New York (1981-91) and Oregon (1993-2007). A shorter version of this article originally appeared in the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard.
Ireland’s oldest university – Trinity College Dublin – gave Hillary Clinton an honorary doctorate in late June. It was one big love in. Clinton was paraded and praised like a people’s champion. And in return Clinton fawned over Dublin’s cutting edge liberal politics.
A Trinity College professor orated about Clinton: “Almost sixty-six million people have given her their vote of confidence, sharing her belief that a true democracy is a society in which everyone is equally valued as a human being.”
And Clinton’s response: “These last few years in Ireland have been a testament to the power of young people to shape the future – from the 2015 marriage equality referendum, which saw historic youth turnout, to this year’s abortion referendum…. No demographic is better positioned to be a force on the side of democracy, progress and equality.”
Behind these delusions, platitudes and lies there is a logic. A disturbing one – one that actually built Trinity College Dublin way back in 1592. And one that sustains the same College today in 2018. It sustains Clinton too. It’s the logic of imperialism. And the shameless culture of empire worship that goes with it.
Hillary Clinton personifies the last thirty years of US imperialism. And so by honoring her, Trinity College honors three decades of US savagery across the planet. Firstly, during Hillary’s “reign”, there were the wars which the US orchestrated – for example, in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. And secondly, there’s the neoliberal wars against the global working class which Bill and Hillary Clinton have sold nonstop – from NAFTA (1994) to the repeal of Glass-Steagall (1999) and onto the bailout of the banks (2008 – to the present). The resulting social chaos across the world is a testament to Hillary Clinton’s politics. She more than Donald Trump is the face of the corrupt American Empire.
Her contempt for America, democracy and the world is no secret. The Podesta emails (released by WikiLeaks in 2016) – for example – reveal a two faced politician: a Wall Street Clinton and a Main Street Clinton. For $225,000 a speech Clinton tells the banksters the truth. And for votes she tells the American people fairytales. In her own words: “But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”
Referring to the Podesta emails in October 2016, the New York Times noted that: “Mrs. Clinton describes herself as “far removed” from average Americans and their finances.” The reason? “The Clintons have made more than $120 million in speeches to Wall Street and special interests since Bill Clinton left the White House in 2001.” These facts sum up the deep politics of Clinton. To say the least, she represents America’s 1%.
And so she had no problem dismissing half of America’s 99% as “a basket of deplorables”. And no problem either conspiring against the other half of America’s 99% – those who vote Democrat. In November, 2017 CNN reported: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren [Massachusetts] said she believes that the Democratic National Committee [DNC] was “rigged” in favor of former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primary. Asked…… by CNN’s Jake Tapper whether she believes that the Democratic campaign organization was tipped in favor of Clinton over her primary opponent, independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Warren responded without hesitation: “Yes.””
Because Clinton’s political machine had all the corporate money – she or her handlers got to pick the members of the DNC. Therefore in key Democratic primaries the superdelegates, which decided the vote, were her puppets. Such are Clinton’s democratic credentials.
Clinton’s real heart of darkness, however, is found in the bowels of US foreign policy. The key to understanding Hillary Clinton’s view of the world and humanity is Madeleine Albright (Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State). And the key to understanding Albright’s dark heart is her infamous words on CBS television in 1996. Asked about the death of 500,000 children – caused by the US / UK sanctions against Iraq – Madeleine Albright said that “we think the price is worth it”.
This barbaric sentiment reflects the soul of Hillary Clinton’s Weltanschauung because it was Hillary who prompted Bill Clinton to appoint Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State. Hillary clearly identified herself with Albright’s take on the world. Writing in popsugar.com in 2016, Lisette Mejia quotes Albright as saying: “I would not have been secretary of state if it had not been for Hillary Clinton….. She would go to [Bill] and say,…. ’Why wouldn’t you name Madeleine? She is more in tune with your views than anyone else and she expresses them better than anyone else.”
The fact that Hillary Clinton tried to quickly follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton (she twice attempted to be the US President – in 2008 and 2016), indeed suggests that Madeleine Albright was “more in tune with [her own] views than anyone else”. And expressed “them better than anyone else”. And the fact that Hillary actually ended up following in the footsteps of Albright in the US Department of State (she was Obama’s first Secretary of State, 2009-13), points to a startling parallel between these two female imperialists. One that eerily manifested itself in another blunt barbaric remark caught on camera. When asked in a 2011 television interview to comment on the murder of Muammar al-Gaddafi (and indirectly on the murder of Libya – a clear case of genocide), Hillary casually said “we came, we saw, he [and Libya] died”. And then she laughed.
No one has expressed the horrors of US imperialism in the last three decades better than Hillary Clinton (in one guise or the other). And no one has supported them more than Hillary Clinton.
So why did Trinity College Dublin celebrate her? Firstly: as Edward Said wrote in a 2003 preface to his book Orientalism (1978), “there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn’t trust the evidence of one’s eyes watching the destruction and misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.” Trinity College Dublin is the embodiment of this chorus.
And secondly: Trinity College Dublin was built in 1592 by the first queen of chaos (Britain’s Queen Elizabeth I), so it only makes sense that it celebrates the latest queen of chaos – Hillary Clinton (the image is Diana Johnstone’s). The chaos theory of Empire is in the DNA of Ireland’s model university. Trinity College might reject the chaos of revolution (a statue of Edmund Burke – the critic of the French Revolution – guards the entrance of the university), but it has always defended the chaos of imperialism.
When Britain’s Tudor Queen built Trinity College in Dublin – the Irish were like the Iraqis and Libyans of today. They were fair game, thrash, expendable, a price worth paying and a laugh. And Trinity College rationalized it for the imperialists. That was it’s raison d’être.
Edward Said explains, in his book Culture And Imperialism (1993), the Irish situation back then as follows: “In Ireland, [Angus] Calder says, the idea of murdering Gaels was from the start ‘as part of a royal army or with royal approval, [considered] patriotic, heroic and just.’ The idea of English racial superiority became ingrained; so humane a poet and gentleman as Edmund Spenser in his View of the Present State of Ireland (1596) was boldly proposing that since the Irish were barbarian Scythians, most of them should be exterminated.”
The idea of Irish inferiority and the inferiority of colonized people’s everywhere ‘became ingrained’ in places like Trinity College Dublin. How else could the Empire have survived?
Today the American establishment continues what the British establishment started way back in the 16th century. And so places like Trinity College Dublin continue to dress up barbarism in the clothes of civilization – yesterday they did it for Britain, today for America. As Noam Chomsky has insinuated so often – the general rule is that intellectuals lie for a living. Ireland’s intellectual-class have just proved the point.
For decades Palestinians insisted that whatever European Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazi regime, Palestinians should not be made to pay for it.
That of course fell on deaf ears while generations of Zionist Jews continued to milk the horrors of the Second World War in order to justify to world opinion Israel’s genocidal policies in Palestine.
In 2000, American academic Norman Finkelstein produced a book that would eventually shed light on Zionist methods used to reap much financial as well as political capital out of the concentration camps.
Since then it has been revealed that much of the literature was often faked, exaggerated or imagined. These embarrassing revelations would come to light but rapidly swept under the carpet as long as Holocaust survivors were still alive and able to be wheeled out at any given opportunity to inflate Israel and Zionist organisations’ coffers.
Perhaps the most mystifying and tragic-comical is the heart-wrenching Anne Frank diary. Described for years as the account of a young teenage girl forced to live in hiding because of her Jewish faith, it emerged once the copyrights on the book came to an end that the story had in fact been written by her father thus extending by some thirty years the [copyrighted] monetary potential of this work whose authenticity is now difficult to ascertain.
Never the less, with all the Chutzpah Israel’s advocates are known for, the Diary we are told still represents an accurate depiction of life for the Franks during WW2. Except that its entire premise is now proved to be wrong and that those who exposed it in the past were accused of the dubious ‘absence of belief’ otherwise known as Holocaust denial. The most pressing case that comes to mind is that of French philosopher and resistance fighter Roger Garaudy who was accused of that very crime for noting that the original manuscript written in ball point pen could not have been genuine since those pens were introduced in the 50’s, years after the alleged demise of little Anne in Bergen Belsen.
His crime was considered such that when he died in 2012 his family were forced to cremate his remains, despite it being contrary to his religious beliefs, because the Jewish Defence League had promised to come and unearth his body and desecrate his grave.
Needless to say no action was taken against this group in France despite their threat against a deceased war hero who fought the Nazis.
Today of course Holocaust survivors are harder to come-by. Nature being what it is, these victims or supposed victims of Nazi crimes, are meeting their natural ending forcing Israel and its supporters to look for new ways to make money and increase the Israel sympathy capital.
That however is an increasing hard sell as more and more people come to the realisation that while Israel claims to be a victim, it is the one responsible of the occupying, destroying, slaughtering and subjugating of the Palestinian people.
A new era, a new financial plan
In recent years it has been more obvious that falling foul of the pro-Israel thought police is a career-jeopardising if not career-breaking move. This is why even the most notorious bigots, famed for spewing out hatred for all and sundry, are careful not to cross the ‘Jewish’ line.
Katie Hopkins well-known for her extreme views which included comparing drowned black children to cockroaches has always been very careful to broadcast her love for Judeo-Zionism. Often tweeting about her admiration for Israel and how Netanyahu is a brilliant leader. Yet even she fell foul of the ‘tribe’ when she called for a ‘final solution’ for Muslims. That vocabulary, viewed as exclusive to Jewish suffering lead to her consequent dismissal from her radio-hosting job which had up until then remained safe despite her outrageous outbursts.
In the context of dying Holocaust survivors coupled with young generations no longer interested in the WW2 narrative, new forms of funding have to be unearthed. For the Zionist lobby a new opportunity offering generous financial return has appeared: the Judicial sector.
Hiding, as ever, behind the dubious claim of Antisemitism, Zionist organisations have taken it upon themselves to sue left right and centre anyone breathing in the opposite direction of Tel Aviv, or should it be Jerusalem?
With anti-Semitism increasingly difficult to define Zionists in the UK have discovered a new lucrative project. Thanks to an ever favourable pro-complainant British legal system, Zio milk-maids have found a new cash cow with a near-endless supply udder. Irrespective of the value of the complaint, these organisations will make money whatever the outcome.
Forget the Holocaust industry and make way for the Judicial industry: a way to extract money from journalists, activists, authors and even comedians for saying something that Israel supporting Jews will claim is anti-Semitic in a bid to favour a Zionist narrative of world events i.e.: if Jews suffer from anti-Semitism, then the existence of Israel and supporting it –even when it commits endless crimes- is justified.
This financial planning has obviously been made easy by a complicit political class and media that has allowed the most dubious of definitions to apply to allegations of Antisemitism.
In today’s world claiming there is no anti-Semitism is anti-Semitic. Criticising the gunning down of 20 year old nurses is anti-Semitic, drawing a cartoon of Israeli premier is anti-Semitic actually even defending yourself from claims of anti-Semitism is well anti-Semitic. The buck –or should I say shekel- stops with Zionists and whoever says otherwise is an… you get the picture.
Looked at thoroughly some claims are truly ridiculous except that to Israel supporters they are anything but.
In recent years they have successfully brought charges against a plethora of free-thinkers and have made a great deal of money doing it.
When in 2014, the Israeli army was pounding yet again civilians in Gaza, a group of UK Zionist Jews decided that the most civilised response to this latest onslaught was to set up an organisation that would tackle anti-Semitism. The idea behind this latest Zionist endeavour is that criticism of excessive use of force against a people that have no army or navy and are living under siege is offensive to Jews.
Some would argue that it’s the mass slaughter of innocent men and women that should offend Jews as well as Christians, Muslims, Taoists, atheists, deists, agnostics, Sikhs etc… but it is apparently an affront to Britain’s Jewish population to report accurately on what happens in Gaza.
With that in mind the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) was founded in a bid to expose and counter ‘anti-Semitism through education and zero-tolerance enforcement of the law.’
Having identified a new source of financial reward, the CAA went about scrolling for any tweet any paragraph any t-shirt that could be construed as anti-Semitic that could therefore offer monetary returns.
The principle is simple. This organisation that operates as a British charity and thus benefits of charitable status, appeals for donations in order to take those it considers guilty to court.
Irrespective of the sheer absurdity of the claim, the CAA will force the accused to launch a costly defence with the added potential of earning dividends on the sideline.
The CAA, whose motto aptly calls for a ‘pursuit’ of justice, manages a dual tour de force of ruining financially or professionally someone and then making money out of his or her misfortune.
Ultimately it’s a win-win for outfits such as the CAA whose methods are slowly but surely shutting down debate.
Last month it was Israeli-born musician and author Gilad Atzmon who fell foul of the organisation headed by Gideon Falter.
Atzmon, who also studied mathematics, undertook the task the British media has failed to address and decided to look into the figures put forward by the CAA.
The figures, he wrote in a blog, didn’t add up and went on to say that these exaggerated claims are causing unnecessary fear mongering among Jews who interpret these as a return to more worrying times, when in fact life in Britain is perfectly safe for them and that very few will have experienced acts of hostility towards their faith or group.
While the essence of the blog was not scrutinised, a judge ruled that Atzmon had somewhat claimed Falter acted fraudulently and ruled in favour of the CAA.
Falter made £7.5k in the process while other relevant fees would swell lawyer’s accounts.
Falter is of course well-known to British courts. In 2009 he claimed to have over-heard a British Foreign Office official say ‘Fuck Jews’ in a gym. Rowan Laxton was said to be watching a report of an elderly Palestinian shot dead by Israeli soldiers when he uttered those fateful words.
While the official denied he said those exact words he was arrested, forced out of his job and sentenced to pay a fine and apologise for his alleged remark.
He appealed and consequently won when it emerged Falter could not have heard that or indeed any other outburst.
Rowan Laxton was reinstated and now serves as British high commissioner to Cameroon.
There is no report as to what happened to Falter after this. Did Falter hear the damning comments in which case how could Laxton win on appeal? If he was too far to hear anything Laxton said did Falter invent the incident or perhaps modify the wording of the outburst to suit his case? We shall never know, either way Mr Falter has a way of unearthing anti-Semitism few other British Jews could recognise.
Antisemitism? What anti-Semitism?
LSE professor Jonathan Rosenhead left the Labour party during the Blair years in disgust at the Iraq war, he returned after the much maligned Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader. Asked if he had ever experienced anti-Semitism, Rosenhead now in his autumn years insisted that he had never experienced any such animosity towards his faith but was far less reluctant to share his anti-Israel views with certain fellow Jews who’d proved to be far less tolerant of his political inclinations.
It would be difficult if not impossible to meet a black or Asian man of the same generation who had never experienced racism yet for all the glaring examples of bigotry towards visible minorities, it is allegations of anti-Semitism that get the most headlines.
This two-tier approach to bigotry is worrying and seems to imply that Jews are worthy of special attention thus re-enforcing the far right narrative that Jews are different.
In pursuing this hugely divisive and dangerous route for the health of democracy and freedom of speech in this country, organisations such as the CAA are willing to jeopardise the safety of those they claim to support in order to justify their ‘raison d’être.’
After all if there is no anti-Semitism, what would Falter, who studied law but does not practise –for reasons that remain unknown- do with his days?
Help the fight against poverty perhaps? Is there potential for ruining activists in that process and for boosting Israel’s narrative? No there isn’t.
In 1948, just prior to the foundation of Israel, six Polish Christians were executed without trial in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem by the fledgling country’s Jewish army, the Haganah. An investigative analysis on the killings – dubbed the Riftin Report – was compiled for future Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, but has never been made public until now.
Official refusal to disclose the document comes despite fervid recommendations by chief Israeli state archivist Dr. Yaacov Lozowick, and the campaigning of the investigative Akevot Institute.
According to Israeli official secrecy laws, the report should’ve been made accessible to the public in 1998 — however, state archivists argued it should remain classified. Dr. Lozowick sought to reverse this decision in 2014, but his recommendation was opposed by Ilana Alon, Director of the Israeli Defense Force and Defense Establishment Archives.
Lozowick’s case for declassification is available via various web resources. In it, he made clear there was “no justification” for refusing to publish the report after so many years had elapsed, and doing so demonstrated “the state has something to hide”.
“If after the passage of more than half a century the state is still concealing certain files from the public, it’s only because they contain particularly dark secrets — that is what the reasonable individual understands. A democratic society is obliged to allow a free discussion of its wars. The discussion is a guarantee of democratic resilience. This file perhaps contains material for such a discussion, but that is a reason to open it, not close it,” he explained.
The state archivist’s impassioned plea was nonetheless ignored, and the government committee overseeing the release of classified files blocked its publication for a further five years on unarticulated grounds — however, ministers did not restrict citizens from viewing the report ‘in-the-flesh’ at the Israeli archives. As a result, Akevot Institute researchers located and digitized a copy of the Riftin Report stored at the Yad Tabenkin Archives and prepared to publish it on their website, submitting its version to the Israeli Military Censor for review in November 2017. Several months later, they received a response.
“After Akevot issued a letter demanding the Censor give its decision within seven days, Akevot was provided with a copy of the report with each of the pages circled and stamped with the word “on hold”, in other words, barred from publication pending the final decision of the Military Censorship [committee]. Despite several reminders, for the past eight months, the [committee] has yet to provide a decision whether to allow the publication of this March 1948 document,” the group writes.
For the organization, the Riftin Report saga is a palpable microcosm of the wider issue of Israeli government determination to suppress archival material implicating the state in atrocities carried out against civilians when the country was in its infancy. For instance, the Military Court of Appeals is currently reviewing a historian’s request to declassify files relating to the 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre — an application steadfastly opposed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israeli Military Censor, and IDF Information Security Department. Authorities likewise repeatedly blocked attempts to declassify files related to the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre, although ultimately settled for publishing heavily redacted versions due to public pressure. … continue
During your presidential campaign you made some courageous statements about 9/11. You demolished Jeb Bush’s campaign by implying that George W. Bush deserved blame, not praise, for 9/11, which happened while he was president – he did not “keep us safe.” You derided “those people who knocked down the World Trade Center” and said such people wouldn’t have been there if you were president. And most interestingly of all, you told us to elect you so we “will find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center.”
You also made statements that, taken at face value, were egregiously false and libelous. You repeatedly claimed that Muslims danced and celebrated in New Jersey as the Towers came down. As the fake news MSM reported (correctly, for once) that was just not true. But if you had substituted Israelis for Muslims your statement would have been true. A team of Israeli spies was indeed arrested after they were caught wildly celebrating the completion of their successful operation. There is also some evidence, including a police audio tape, that other Israeli operatives were caught red-handed trying to blow up bridges and tunnels in New York on the morning of September 11, 2001.
During the first two years after 9/11, I may have been the only one of the more than 2,000 Muslims in Madison, Wisconsin who did not firmly believe that 9/11 was a false flag operation designed to smear Muslims and Islam. Certainly all of my Muslims friends and acquaintances believed this. Most of them were terrorized into silence by surprise visits from the FBI. It wasn’t until late 2003 that I seriously investigated 9/11 and learned that my co-religionists – and many other Christian and even Jewish 9/11 “truthers,” were right. Muslims were framed for 9/11, with malice aforethought.
Polls show that the vast majority of Muslims, worldwide and in America, knows or suspects that 9/11 was a false flag event. Yet this fact is almost never reported; and articulate Muslims representing the Muslim-majority view of 9/11 are never allowed to make their case in mainstream media, academia, think tanks, or other institutions of power in America or in Europe.
You have said “I think Islam hates us” and tried to ban Muslims from entering the US. These misguided remarks and policies are based on the false and libelous official story of 9/11, and the equally false and libelous official stories of the many other Israeli-sponsored false flag operations that have continued to drive the bogus “war on terror” (i.e. the hoax war that Israel uses to suck blood, treasure, and spirit from the USA).
Right now you are not managing our Middle East policy – and especially our policy toward Zionist apartheid Israel with its massive covert nuclear arsenal funded by the US taxpayer – on the basis of evidence, truth, or even a semblance of respect for the public interest. To your great credit, you have stated that we have gotten nothing for our seven trillion dollars spent in the Middle East. I totally support your view on that.
I beg of you, as a US-born citizen, please keep your campaign promise and make sure the American people find out who really “knocked down” the three World Trade Center towers. One participant, WTC owner Larry Silverstein—a close friend of Benjamin Netanyahu—has already admitted to participation in the demolitions – and briefed his plans for a 2002 re-build a year before 9/11. Please have each of the 103 people on this list http://www.whodidit.org/cocon.html properly investigated, including proper analysis of all stored NSA data on their network of calls and emails in the year prior to 9/11, and give America a chance to know the truth, to be liberated from the Deep State and its Zionist underbelly, to see that you mean it when you say we will find out who really planned, executed, and then covered up the 9/11 atrocity on US soil that murdered over 2,000.
13:40: Sergei and Yulia arrived at the Sainsbury’s upper level car park in The Maltings. The pair go to The Mill pub.
Approximately 14.20: They eat at Zizzi restaurant on Castle Street
15:35: They leave the restaurant
16:15: Emergency services are called by a member of the public to the bench where Sergei and Yulia are slumped on a bench
So: car park, pub, restaurant, bench. Simples? Not so, as we shall see.
On 28th March, an article appeared in the Sun, which talked about a 12-year-old boy from Salisbury, Aiden Cooper, who was apparently in a park with his parents, when he saw the Skripals and went over to them to feed the ducks:
“A schoolboy told yesterday how he was caught up in the poison spy drama after assassination target Sergei Skripal gave him bread to feed ducks. Aiden Cooper, 12, was playing in a park with pals when they saw Skripal and daughter Yulia beside a stream. They were handed bread and are among the last people to have had contact with the retired Russian military intelligence colonel, now fighting for his life.“
Of course, I would always want to have a large bucket of salt on standby when reading anything in The Sun, but in this case I see no reason why they, or the people quoted in the article, would make this up. In any case, the story was repeated in a number of other outlets (The Mirror, The Mail and Metro for instance), and it mentions that the parents only found out about the identity of the breadman when they were contacted by police.
Now, the interesting thing about The Mirror, The Mail and Metro pieces is that they are all either very wrong or very vague about a quite crucial detail. The Mirror and The Mail both tell us that the incident took place “near the Avon Playground”. And Metro tells us that the incident took place at “Riverside Park”.
For those of you not familiar with Salisbury, let me shed some light. The Avon Playground mentioned by The Mirror and The Mail is next to the Avon River, and it is also about 50 yards or so from the bench where the Skripals were found (as an aside, this is not the same Avon as in Stratford-upon-Avon. Avon is a Celtic word meaning river). As for Riverside Park mentioned by Metro, this may be a figment of their imagination, as no such named park exists in Salisbury. But the important point is that from the details given in these articles, nobody would think anything other than that the duck-feeding incident took place in the same park as the bench on which the Skripals were found.
Yet all three of these media outlets are wrong, and in a way that may well be very significant. Turning back to the report in The Sun, we find that it is by far the most detailed of all the reports on the duck incident. In fact, it appeared three days after the others appeared, with The Sun sending a reporter to interview the boy and his parents. Here is a snippet:
Aiden’s family were alerted after cops traced him from CCTV pics.
Aiden’s civil engineer dad Luke, 33, said: ‘Obviously we had seen the incident on the news but didn’t think we were involved at all. Aiden was playing in the park with his friends when they spotted the Russian gentleman and his daughter. Kids being kids they went over and he gave them some bread and they fed the ducks. We didn’t think anything of it until two weeks later when then the police knocked on our door.’
It was terrifying. We took Aiden to hospital for a load of tests and then the police told us they had to burn everything Aiden was wearing that day.’”
So presumably, Aiden and his friends were seen on camera, as was Sergei Skripal and possibly Yulia, and this was on 4th March. We aren’t told when in the day this was, but given that the police traced the family, and Aiden then had to go to hospital, it clearly must have been after the police claim Mr Skripal came into contact with nerve agent on his door handle.
But here’s the significant fact (I am indebted to a lady who contacted me to point it out, and I must say I kicked myself for not having realised it before). Unlike the media outlets mentioned above, The Sun doesn’t mention the name of the park, but the piece is accompanied by four photographs of Aiden with his parents in the park where they saw the Skripals, and indeed one of them has the caption “Aiden with his parents by the pond where he spoke to Skripal”. Here is one of the pictures:
But do you know something? This isn’t the Avon Playground. It isn’t even the non-existent Riverside Park. Do you want to know where it is? It happens to be Queen Elizabeth Gardens.
Why is this important? As you are probably aware, Queen Elizabeth Gardens is now a focal point of Skripal 2.0, as it is alleged to be the place where Dawn Sturgess, who has now sadly passed away, picked up a syringe or a container with the toxic substance in. And whilst I’m not entirely sure whether the location of the duck incident being in Queen Elizabeth Gardens, rather than the Avon Playground, has any bearing in terms of the cases themselves, it does raise three huge questions:
Firstly, according to the Metropolitan Police timeline at the top of this piece, there is no mention of Mr Skripal and Yulia going to Queen Elizabeth Gardens. Why is this, since according to the parents of Aiden Cooper, the police knew that they had been there, having seen footage of them feeding the ducks with their son and his friends?
Secondly, if the police knew that Mr Skripal and Yulia had been in Queen Elizabeth Gardens, and that this was after they were poisoned (as they claim), why was Queen Elizabeth Gardens not closed off immediately and subject to a clean-up operation, as were other places in the City where the Skripals were known to have visited?
Thirdly, assuming the latest official narrative, did the failure to close off and clean up Queen Elizabeth Gardens back in March, when it was known the Skripals had been there, make it more or less likely that someone would come into contact with the alleged nerve agent container at some point?
These are serious questions. I think you’ll agree that they deserve serious answers.
POSTSCRIPT
One or two comments suggest that a map would be helpful. Again, I am indebted to the lady who pointed the Queen Elizabeth Gardens connection out to me, who has helpfully created a map with the main areas of interest (see below).
Can I just caution about one thing though. The point of my post was not to try and work out whether Queen Elizabeth Gardens is important as regards the original case. I think we could go down endless rabbit holes trying to work out where the Skripals went, when they went there, and what this might mean. Unfortunately, we simply do not know this, as there is too much information that we are not party to.
What I am trying to do at the moment is exploit holes in the official story (of which there are more than a few). The police have not included QEG in their timeline, and yet they apparently know that the Skripals were there that day. Why have they not included it? Why did they not close the Gardens down? And had they done so, could this have prevented others from coming into contact with the substance?
I am not saying that I necessarily think there was a substance there. There may or may not have been. However, the point is that the authorities are saying this and yet those same authorities apparently know that the Skripals were there on 4th March, but have hushed this up. Therefore, we need to turn up the volume on it and they need to explain themselves.
Who created al Qaeda and DAESH? Who drove the fake stories of chemical attacks and WMDs? A compilation by Tim Anderson for Hands Off Syria.
NOTE. YouTube’s 9/7/18 response to this video: “Dear Hands Off Syria … After further review we have determined that, while your video does not violate our community standards, it may not be appropriate for a general audience. We have therefore age-restricted your video.”
BY LAURENT GUYÉNOT • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Is it true that “9/11 was an inside job”? Yes, insofar as Israel is “inside” the U.S. But for the 9/11 truthers who have identified Israel as the main perpetrators, “9/11 was an inside job” is at best a half-truth, and at worst an integral part of the Zionist operation, like a secondary flag sewn as a lining under the false flag of Islamism. Victor Thorn (1963-2017) wrote in his book 9/11 made in Israel: The Plot Against America (2011): “In essence, the ‘9-11 truth movement’ was created prior to Sept. 11, 2001 as a means of suppressing news relating to Israeli complicity. . . . The slogan ‘9-11 was an inside job’ was quite possibly the greatest example of Israeli propaganda ever devised.” In milder terms, it is “controlled opposition”.
A genuine truth movement would have pointed to Israel as the prime suspect from the start. From day one, it was obvious who would benefit. … continue
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“If after the passage of more than half a century the state is still concealing certain files from the public, it’s only because they contain particularly dark secrets — that is what the reasonable individual understands. A democratic society is obliged to allow a free discussion of its wars. The discussion is a guarantee of democratic resilience. This file perhaps contains material for such a discussion, but that is a reason to open it, not close it,” he explained.
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