There have been major developments this week, all of them bad, including Putin re-nominating Medvedev as his Prime Minister, and Bibi Netanyahu invited to Moscow to the Victory Day Parade in spite of him bombing Syria, a Russian ally, just on the eve of his visit. Once in Moscow, Netanyahu compared Iran to, what else, Nazi Germany. How original and profound indeed! Then he proceeded to order the bombing of Syria for a second time, while still in Moscow. But then, what can we expect from a self-worshiping narcissist who finds it appropriate to serve food to the Japanese Prime Minister in a specially made shoe? The man is clearly batshit crazy (which in no way makes him less evil or dangerous). But it is the Russian reaction which is so totally disgusting: nothing, absolutely nothing. Unlike others, I have clearly said that it is not the Russian responsibility to “protect” Syria (or Iran) from the Israelis. But there is no doubt in my mind that Netanyahu has just publicly thumbed his nose at Putin and that Putin took it. For all my respect for Putin, this time he allowed Netanyahu to treat him just like Trump treated Macron. Except that in the case of Putin, he was so treated in his own capital. That makes it even worse.
[Interestingly, while whining about “Nazi Iran” Netanyahu did say something truly profound and true. He said “an important history lesson: when a murderous ideology emerges, one has to push back against it before it is too late”. That is indeed exactly what most people across the world feel about Israel and its Zionist ideology but, alas, their voice is completely ignored by those who rule over them. So yes, it sure looks to me like it is becoming “too late” and that the consequences for our collective cowardice – most of us are absolutely terrified from speaking the plain truth about our Zionist overlords – will cost us all a terrible price.]
Then, of course, there is Donald Trump pulling out of the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in spite of Iran’s full compliance and in spite of the fact that the US does not have the authority to unilaterally withdraw from this multilateral agreement. But being the megalomaniac that he is, and not to mention the spineless lackey of the Israel Lobby, Trump ignored all that and thereby created further tensions between the US and the rest of the world whom the US will now blackmail and bully to try to force it to support the US in its rabid subservience to Israel. As for the Israelis, their “sophisticated” “strategy” is primitive to the extreme: first get Trump to create maximal tensions with Iran, then attack the Iranians in Syria as visibly and arrogantly as possible, bait the Iranians into a retaliation, then bellow “OI VEY!!!” with your loudest voice, mention the Holocaust once or twice, toss in a “6 million people” figure, and get the US to attack Syria.
How anybody can respect, never mind admire, the Israelis is simply beyond comprehension. I sure can’t think of a more contemptible, nasty, psychopathic gang of megalomanical thugs (and cowards) than the Israelis. Can you?
Nonetheless, it appears undeniable that the Zionists have enough power to simultaneously force not one, but two (supposed) superpowers to cave into their demands. Not only that, they have the power to do that while also putting these two superpowers on a collision course against each other. At the very least, this shows two things: the United States has completely lost its sovereignty and is now an Israeli protectorate. As for Russia, well, she is doing comparatively better, but the full re-sovereignization the Russian people have voted for when they gave their overwhelming support to Putin will not happen. A comment I read on a Russian chat put it: “Путин кинул народ – мы не за Медведева голосовали” or “Putin betrayed the people – we did not vote for Medvedev”. I am not sure that “betrayed the people” is fair, but the fact that he has disappointed a lot of people is, I think, simply undeniable.
It is still way too early to reach any conclusions at this point, and there are still way too many unknown variables, but I will admit that I am very worried and that for the first time in 4 years I am having major doubts about a fundamental policy decision by Putin. I sure hope that I am wrong. We will find out relatively soon. I just hope that this will not be in the form of a major war.
In the meantime, I want to refocus on the Skripal case. There is one outright bizarre thing which I initially dismissed, but which really is becoming disturbing: the fact that the Brits are apparently holding Sergei and Iulia Skripal incommunicado. In other words, they have been kidnapped.
There was this one single telephone call between Iulia Skripal and her sister, Victoria, in which Iulia said that she was okay (she was clearly trying to reassure Victoria) but it was clear that she could not speak freely. Furthermore, when Victoria mentioned that she would want to visit Iulia, the latter reply ‘nobody will give you a visa’. After that – full silence. The Russian consulate has been making countless requests to have a visit, but all that the Brits have done since is have Scotland Yard post a letter which was evidently not written by Iulia and which said “I have access to friends and family, and I have been made aware of my specific contacts at the Russian Embassy who have kindly offered me their assistance in any way they can. At the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services, but, if I change my mind I know how to contact them”. What friends?! What family?! Nonsense!
Her sister tried to contact her many times through various channels, including official ones, and then in total despair, she posted the following message on Facebook:
“My darling sister, Yulia! You are not communicating with us, and we don’t know anything about you and Sergey Victorivich. I know that I have no right to interfere in your affairs without asking your permission, but I worry too much. I worry about you and your dad. I also worry about Nuar. [Nuar is Yulia Skrial’s dog, whom she left to stay at a kennel center, while she was traveling to the UK.] He is now at the dog hotel, and they want to get paid. We have to decide something what to do with him. I am ready to take him and to take care of him until you come back home. Besides Nuar, I am concerned about your apartment and your car. Nothing has been decided about their safety and maintenance. We can help with all that, but I need your power of attorney in my or my sister Lena’s name. If you think that all of these is important, draw up a power of attorney form in a Russian consulate in any country. If you won’t do that, we will understand and won’t interfere in your affairs.
Vika“
No reply ever came.
I just entered the following query into Google: “Skripal”. April 10th has an entry saying that she was released from the hospital. That is the most recent one I have found. I looked on Wikipedia, the same thing, there is nothing at all.
I have to admit that when I first heard the Russian complaints I figured that this was no big deal. I thought “the Brits told the Skripals that Putin tried to poison them, they are probably afraid, and possibly still sick from whatever it is which made them sick, but the Brits would never outright kidnap two foreign citizens, and most definitely not in such a public way”.
I am not so sure anymore.
First, let’s get the obvious one out of the way: the fear for the security of the Skripals. That is utter nonsense. The Brits can organize a meeting between а Russian diplomat in the UK at a highly protected UK facility, with tanks, SAS Teams on the standby, helicopters in the air, bombers, etc. That Russian diplomat could speak to them through bullet-proof glass and a phone. And, since the Russians are all so dangerous, he can be searched for weapons. All which the Skripals need to do is to tell him/her “thank you, your services are not needed”. Conversation over. But the Brits refuse even that.
But let’s say that the Skripals are so totally terrified of the evil Russians, that they categorically refuse. Even by video-conference. It would be traumatic for them, right? Okay.
What about a press conference then?
Even more disturbing is that, at least to my knowledge, nobody in the western corporate media is asking for an interview with them. Snowden can safely speak from Russia and address even large conferences, but the Skripals can’t speak to anybody at all?
But here is the worst part of this: it has been two months already since the Skripals are held in total secrecy by the UK authorities. Two months, that is 60 days. Ask any specialist on interrogation or any psychologist what kind of effect 60 days of “specialized treatment” can do to a person.
I am not dismissing the Russian statements about “kidnapping” anymore. What I see is this: on substance, the Skripal false flag has crashed and burned, just like MH17 or the Douma chemical attack, but unlike MH17 or Douma, the Skripals are two witnesses whose testimony has the potential to result in a gigantic scandal, not just for the May government, but for all those spineless Europeans who showed “solidarity” with Britain. In other words, the Skripals will probably never be allowed to speak freely: they must either be killed or totally brainwashed or disappeared. Any other option would result in a scandal of planetary magnitude.
I can’t pretend like my heart goes out to Sergei Skripal: the man was an officer who gave an oath and who then betrayed his country to the British (he was a British agent, not a Russian one as the press writes). Those holding him today are his former bosses. But Iulia? She is completely innocent and as of April 5th (when she called her sister Victoria), she was clearly in good health and with a clear mind. Now she has been disappeared and I don’t know which is worse, the fact that she might never reappear or that she might one day reappear following months of British “counseling”. As for her father, he paid for his betrayal and he too deserves a better fate than being poisoned, used and then disappeared.
In the big scheme of things (the Zionists war against our entire planet), two individuals like Sergei and Iulia Skripal might not matter. But I think that the least we can do is to remember them and their plight.
This also begs the question of what kind of society we live in. I am not shocked by the fact that the British state would resort to such methods (they have always used them). I am shocked that in a so-called western “democracy” with freedom, pluralism and “European values” (whatever that means) the Brits could get away with this.
How about some “solidarity” with the Skripals – you, Europeans?!
May 11, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Benjamin Netanyahu, European Union, Israel, Iulia Skripal, JCPOA, Russia, Sanctions against Iran, UK, Zionism |
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The Great March of Return is a nonviolent protest that Palestinians in Gaza started on March 30 in order to serve notice to Israel that the Palestinians have never given up on their right, as refugees, to return to the homes and villages taken from them in the Nakba and thereafter. Since the onset of the March, residents of Gaza have gathered on the Gaza side of the border. The Gazans have been met with lethal violence from Israel. In addition to live fire, Israeli forces have used rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas grenades against protesters, medical crews and journalists. As of May 7, Israel has killed forty seven Palestinians and wounded 7000. No Israelis have been wounded.
Israel has shown its usual genius for controlling the narrative, and has justified its brutal response as ‘defending the border’ although in fact, no Palestinians have successfully crossed the border.
Until bad publicity ended the practice or at least the filming of it, young Israelis displayed the hubris of the oppressor, crowding on bleachers to watch Gazans get shot. Although no Israeli has been wounded, the American media continues to describe the event as if both sides were fighting with equal brutality.
At first glance it seems little has been gained by the besieged Gazans. Palestinians remain stuck with the ‘terrorist’ label. But it is not Palestinians who are evicting people from their homes, stealing their land, or setting up apartheid roads and streets on Palestinian land. And it is not the Palestinians who have forced people into Gaza, making it the most densely populated land in the world, the world’s largest open air prison camp.
The Palestinian protest brings to light the scale of Israeli fearfulness, it may even be possible that Israeli’s deadly aggression points at Jewish guilt. After all, the Israelis know who are the indigenous people of the land they occupy.
By any reasonable measure, it is the Israelis who are the terrorists. Israel currently holds 6500 Palestinians incarcerated, including 500 held indefinitely in “administrative detention” without trial or charges, 350 children, six lawmakers and 700 who require urgent medical attention. Israel has been particularly brutal to Palestinian children. Since 2000, an estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been detained and prosecuted in military courts. Various international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, and Israeli groups, such as B’Tselem, have documented the fact that Israel subjects Palestinian children to abuse and torture, both physical and psychological.
Thus it is clear that the Great March of Return is an effort to fight what has become an intolerable situation for Palestinians. This is why Gazans, many of them refugees, are willing to march unarmed to the border when the response is so violent. The intention to make the March a peaceful protest was a deliberate one, designed to put the lie to Israel’s depiction of itself as a victim to remind the Israelis who the true people of the land are and to highlight the brutality of the occupation under which Palestinians live.
It might be instructive to look at the Great March of Return in comparison to two of the great nonviolent movements of the twentieth century, India throwing off British rule and the fight against legal segregation (Jim Crow laws) in the American south. As in Gaza, in India and in the civil rights movement, the protestors were initially accused of being the perpetrators of violence.
Gandhi pioneered the concept of ‘Satyagraha,’ literally meaning ‘holding firmly to truth’ and as the term has come to mean, non violent protest. Although Gandhi championed Satyahraha for moral reasons, Gandhi had no better weapon available to effectively resist the British. Prior to Gandhi’s rise to power, Congress Party militants had committed individual ‘terrorist’ acts that had had little effect, and the people who mounted local uprisings were brutally suppressed. In one such protest in the province of Amritsar, Muslims and Hindus staged a massive protest. The British response, the massacre known as Jallianwala Bagh, was deliberately savage in order to produce a “moral effect” as General Dyer said. The British murdered at least 400 Indians, and followed the executions with a wave of random arrests, torture and public floggings.
Satayagraha presented an alternative to the usual response of protest followed by everyday submission to oppression. In fact, Gandhi accused the British rule of being particularly despicable because it left the Indians helpless and emasculated through its systems of taxation and class divisions. India, having been robbed of its economic and moral strength, was in no position to get into an armed conflict with the British. Satyagraha and its resultant publicity was simply the most effective strategy available to expose the injustice of British rule and to display the righteousness of Gandhi’s cause.
Although King read and admired Gandhi, his rationale for nonviolent protest was slightly different. King led nonviolent protests to highlight the extreme violence of the other side. King believed that there “was a deep, incurable sickness in our militaristic society, something that could not be fixed without radical change.”
Blacks in the south did not have access to the power of the state and its weaponry. King sympathized with the frustrations of Black rioters and regarded the threat of violence by Blacks as overstated by the United States. He told American leaders they lacked the moral authority to instruct Black citizens to disavow violence. “The users of naval guns, millions of tons of bombs, and revolting napalm can not speak to Negroes about violence,” he said.
Eventually the televised pictures of violent attacks perpetrated by police and civic leaders against unarmed men, women and children made support for Jim Crow laws less tenable. The federal government was forced to step in to protect the Black protestors and to avoid such federal intrusion, many of the Jim Crow laws were repealed.
Both Gandhi and King understood that their movements were too large to be won through negotiation. Nonviolent protest did not bring immediate results in either case. But by using nonviolence to highlight the violence that the ruling class used to keep the oppressed in their places, King and Gandhi were able to create a shift in the narrative to allow others to understand an intolerable situation. In some ways, these huge issues are not exactly “winnable.” “The grievances were not simply the material kind, which could be solved by slight adjustments to the status quo,” 1960s activist Hayden wrote.
I believe that the situation for Palestinians has reached that point where negotiation by interest groups is not possible. Israel has made clear that there are no two states available for a two state solution. Increasingly it seems that the only equitable long term solution is for Israel to recognize the Palestinian right of return and to become a country of all of its people.
Gaza does not possess the weaponry to fight Israel, but it does have the will to protest. We are in the early stage of a mass nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to an illegitimate authority. With time, perhaps the Gazans’ Palestinian brothers in the West Bank will join a similar protest. The brave soldiers of the great march of return have done more to expose the brutality of the Israeli regime than any violence, however well justified. Israel has proved its willingness to shoot thousands of unarmed Palestinians. Israel is outnumbered if not outarmed.
Can they really shoot millions without the world reacting?
If you have wondered why our Media is biased you may reach the conclusion that the media is not the solution but is a continuation of the problem. It is to us to demand that our media cover the conflict impartially and expose the very real hunting game that the Israeli Army is playing in Gaza.
May 10, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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GAZA – The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas condemned in the strongest terms the British Crown Prince’s projected participation in an Israeli celebration marking the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Israeli occupation entity.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said: “By taking part in the Israeli event, Prince Charles turns a blind eye to the displacement and deportation of the Palestinian people, along with the heinous massacres perpetrated by Zionist gangs in 1948 and which were primarily green-lighted by the British government.”
“His participation will be a sign of Britain’s continuous complicity with the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people”, the statement read. “The participation will certainly give the Israelis green light to continue its crimes and massacres against the Palestinian people, land, and holy sites.”
Hamas called on the Crown Prince to cancel his participation in order not to cause more pain to the people of Palestine and backtrack on the notorious Balfour Declaration, which led to the Nakba.
The movement also called upon the people of Britain to reject the visit, pressure the Prince to rescind his decision, and to speak up for the oppressed Palestinian people.
May 10, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Hamas, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
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Much of the study of Islamophobia is directed at the social and political causes and manifestations, including religious and political dimensions and racist characteristics. However, Islamophobia is also used as a strategic tool or weapon; i.e., in pursuit of national agenda.
Many of us are familiar with Islamophobic movements within the Buddhist majority in Myanmar (against the Rohingya minority), and within Hindu nationalist parties in India. It is important to note, however, that it is characteristic of these movements that they direct their Islamophobia against particular groups of Muslims within their own societies, and are less concerned with creating an international movement against Islam.
This is what makes the case of Israel unique. Although Israel, like Myanmar and India, seeks to marginalize and ultimately eliminate a specific population of Muslims – in this case the mostly Muslim Palestinians – part of its strategy for doing so includes encouraging and fostering Islamophobia internationally. Thus, for example, Israel has successfully pursued strong military and diplomatic ties with the governments of Myanmar and India, and especially the Islamophobic movements within those countries.
It is clear, therefore, that Islamophobia within Israel is not only a matter of organized bigotry and social hatred, which one finds in other societies, but also of instrumentalizing or weaponizing Islamophobia as a strategic tool to legitimize and justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the territories under Israel’s control, as well as to support Israeli aggression towards other mostly Muslim countries in the region. Promoting and fostering Islamophobia internationally helps to increase and solidify international support for the Zionist genocidal project. It is therefore treated as an important tool of Israeli and Zionist international influence.
My attention was first brought to this fact in casual but unusual circumstances. In early 1993 my family and I were on vacation at a Club Med in France where there were also Israeli intelligence officers and their families. I got into a discussion with one in particular, who said that with the fall of the Soviet Union, Islam would replace communism as the new enemy. It sounded a bit far-fetched, but in retrospect he knew what he was talking about, and more important, he was in a position to help make it happen, which of course it did.
The groundwork was laid much earlier. As Deepa Kumar at Rutgers University reports, the effort to tie Islam to terrorism started at a Zionist funded neoconservative conference on international terrorism in 1979. Then, after a second such conference in 1984, “both US neocons and Zionists worked together to convince Western policy makers that ‘Islamic terrorism’ would replace communism as the West’s next great threat. By tying Islam to terrorism, neocons would gain political cover for their imperialistic ambitions in the Middle East, and Zionists would benefit from garnering Western sympathies for their struggle against Palestinian ‘terrorism.’”
Since then, researchers like Sarah Marusek, David Miller and others have cataloged international Zionist networks that sponsor Islamophobic propaganda and policies. The work of Pamela Geller and the so-called American Freedom Defense Initiative is one of the well-known examples. Geller’s anti-Islam billboards and bus advertisements are familiar to many, as well her so-called “Muhammed Art Exhibit and Contest” in Garland, Texas in 2015, resulting in the police killing of two armed men.
Geller is hardly alone, however. According to the Center for American Progress, the US has six major organizations that manipulate Islamophobia in order to further US support for Israel. These are the Center for Security Policy, the Society of Americans for National Existence, the Middle East Forum, Jihad Watch, Stop Islamization of America, and the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Sarah Marusek includes even more groups in her paper entitled “The Transatlantic Network: Funding Islamophobia and Israeli Settlements”, published in the anthology, What is Islamophobia?
These organizations constitute a network, as Marusek says, but the complete network is much wider and more diverse than the assets concerned with promoting Islamophobia. They are known as the sayanim, the Hebrew word for helpers or assistants, and are composed of Zionists who have achieved important and useful positions in societies from which they can exercise powerful initiatives, especially when they operate in concert. Thus, for example, friendly journalists can work with lobbyists and others to quickly and massively spread influence, information, analysis and disinformation that are useful to Israel.
Such initiatives require coordination, intelligence, strategic planning, covert action, technical assistance, and other expertise. For many years, the sayanim were coordinated by the Mossad. However, following a 2010 report from the influential Reut Institute (a prestigious strategic think tank in Israel), organizational changes were made that moved such responsibility to the Ministry of International Relations, Intelligence and Strategic Affairs – better known as the Ministry of Strategic Affairs. The report also notes that there are as many as 4,000 sayanim in each of the major centers of power and influence, such as London and New York. A concentration of sayanim in important sectors of society that inform the public, such as film, entertainment, journalism, education and social media permits them to help shape public opinion.
In line with Reut Institute recommendations, the Strategic Affairs Ministry has grown in size and secrecy over the last decade. Reut projected that Israel’s main strategic threat would no longer be to its military security but rather to its image and influence in other countries, especially the US and Europe. According to this view, BDS was to be regarded as a serious threat, as well as the human rights NGOs, Palestine solidarity groups and the critical alternative press. The Ministry of Strategic Affairs was therefore selected to coordinate a major new effort to combat this perceived threat.
The Strategic Affairs Ministry has informally been called the Hasbara Ministry, using the Hebrew word for explanation or propaganda. It certainly is that, but also much more. The reorganization of the Strategic Affairs Ministry can be compared in scope to that of the Homeland Security Department. A lot of security and intelligence functions were transferred from or shared with Mossad. The Ministry became responsible for propaganda, influence and manipulation in other countries. Coordination of the sayanim became part of its purview, as did thousands of students who were paid or received scholarships in return for haunting social media and the comments sections of websites. The purpose was to dominate the media, insofar as possible, in countries vital to Israel’s plans and intentions, and to sway public opinion toward outcomes determined by Israel’s strategic goals.
Many readers are familiar with the “Brand Israel” campaign. Its function, suggested by the Reut Institute, is to mold Israel’s image in the media of the US and other countries. Its tactics are PR on steroids, such as, for example, slipping subliminal questions into the Jeopardy quiz program and idyllic holy land vacations into Wheel of Fortune, but permeating nearly everything we see, hear and read in film, entertainment, journalism, education and social media for the purpose of molding public opinion. With enough effort of this kind, we will presumably think of Israel as Disneyland.
Another example is Facebook and the personal collaboration between Mark Zuckerberg and Benjamin Netanyahu. After a meeting with Netanyahu, Zuckerberg hired a former employee at the Israeli embassy in Washington to be in charge of censoring so-called “fake news” on Facebook. Only Facebook has the actual figures of who gets censored, but anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that a lot more anti-Zionists than Zionists are affected. Similarly, Islamophobic postings and Tweets seem to be at least somewhat resistant to censorship compared to ones that are labeled anti-Semitic (which are often merely critical of Israel).
But it’s not just about making Israel look like the good guys. Demonizing and dehumanizing Muslims also helps to justify Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, as well as its belligerent policies toward its mainly Muslim neighboring countries. A successful program of Islamophobia helps to support Israel’s pogroms of Palestinians in Gaza, its settlements in and economic strangulation of the West Bank, its invasions of Lebanon, its attacks against Syria, and its promotion of US wars against Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Making the US military a proxy for Israel greatly multiplies Israel’s capability, which is why Israel and its US lobby are working hard to create a new international war against Iran.
In order to provide the Strategic Affairs Ministry with all possible means of making such operations possible and successful, it has been assigned some important intelligence functions, including black ops and psy-ops capabilities, which used to be the exclusive purview of the Mossad. This gives the ministry greater capability to engage in digging up or inventing dirt about people it wants to harm or discredit, especially in the BDS movement and other pro-Palestinian groups.
The hand of the Strategic Affairs Ministry is not always obvious, and it takes care to shun the light. But occasionally its actions become known, as with the Aljazeera exposé of Israeli operative Shai Masot, working from the Israeli embassy in London and coordinating the actions of British citizens working with Israel. He coached them on how to demonize and “take down” members of parliament, including the Foreign Office Minister, Alan Duncan, who was considered insufficiently supportive of the effort to suppress BDS.
Al Jazeera has produced a similar exposé on the workings of Israel and its US lobby, but the release has been indefinitely delayed, which may be an indication of Israel’s power and influence and the effectiveness of the operations coordinated by the Strategic Affairs Ministry. Nevertheless, a glimpse of such operations can be seen in the 2004 espionage indictments against AIPAC lobbyists Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman. The indictments were ultimately dropped, partly because sensitive information would have to be revealed in order to successfully prosecute the cases (or perhaps that was just the excuse used to cover the fact that Tel Aviv gets to decide who gets prosecuted, not Washington).
France can be considered an extreme case. People have been arrested there for wearing a Free Palestine T-shirt. PayPal and several large banks in France recently closed the accounts of all organizations that support BDS, which has been ruled anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism is broadly defined, as you can see, and it is illegal in France. You can be fined or jailed for practicing it.
But not for Islamophobia. Islamophobia is free speech but anti-Semitism is racism. In fact, the French equivalent of AIPAC, known as CRIF, has publically declared that “Islamophobia is not a form of racism. We have long drawn attention to the danger of conflating Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. To do so would impede all criticism of Islam, such that the fundamental rights of [other] religions could not be respected. The CRIF will therefore block all resolutions against Islamophobia”.
The writings of Jacob Cohen are instructive in this regard. He has published a remarkable and very comprehensive exposé on the promotion of Islamophobia in France, including the actions of Israeli operatives and French Zionist organizations. But there’s a catch. In order to publish it in France without being arrested or sued, he has to disguise it as very thinly veiled fiction, in this case O.P.A. Kabbalistique sur les Nouveaux Indigènes. It is available only in French, but even in that language you have to know the persons and groups to which he refers with pseudonyms, and few outsiders know the French scene well enough to recognize more than a handful of them.
So what can we conclude from all this information about the involvement of Israel and the Zionist movement in sponsoring Islamophobia? The point is that some sources of Islamophobia are not attitudes or social structures. We have to face the fact that there is a very potent, resourceful, well organized and well funded international movement that sees Islamophobia as a strategic tool in pursuit of its national interest. For this reason, it is largely impervious to education or negotiation or legal considerations.
In fact, Israel is also pursuing an apparently contradictory effort to encourage interfaith cooperation between Jews, Muslims and Christians, but with the same goal in mind. That goal is to blunt criticism of Israel, whether by getting people to hate Muslims and thereby endorse Israel’s belligerence and ethnic cleansing, or by pressuring Muslims not to criticize Israel out of concern for potentially offending their Jewish brothers and sisters. Since the two strategies are aimed at different populations, I suppose that they might be able to work simultaneously. This is often how PR campaigns work.
The point is that in all the efforts at fostering tolerance and understanding we are faced with an adversary that is working quite diligently in the opposite direction for reasons that have nothing to do with how they view Islam as a religion or Muslims. This is therefore a different type of challenge in trying to overcome Islamophobia.
• This article is a revised version of a paper read at the 9th Annual Islamophobia Conference in Berkeley, California, April 29, 2018.
Paul Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.
May 10, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Islamophobia, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Facebook, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Nearly everyone loses by President Donald Trump’s decision on Tuesday to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) relating to Iran’s nuclear energy program and to reinstate the “highest level” of sanctions while also threatening secondary sanctions on any country that “helps” the Iranians. The whole world loses because nuclear proliferation is a disaster waiting to happen and Iran will now have a strong incentive to proceed with a weapons program to defend itself from Israel and the United States. If Iran does so, it will trigger a regional nuclear arms race with Saudi Arabia and Egypt undoubtedly seeking weapons of their own.
Iran and the Iranian people will lose because their suffering economy will not now benefit from the lifting of sanctions and other economic inducements that convinced it to sign the agreement in the first place. And yes, even the United States and Israel will lose because an agreement that would have pushed back by ten or fifteen years Iran’s timetable if it were to choose to develop a weapon will now be reduced to a year or less. And the United States will in particular lose because the entire world will understand that the word of an American president when entering into an international agreement cannot be trusted.
The only winners from the withdrawal are President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will enjoy the plaudits of their hardline supporters. But their victory will be illusory as the hard reality of what they have accomplished becomes clear.
Failure of JCPOA definitely means that war is the only likely outcome if Tel Aviv and Washington continue in their absurd insistence that the Iranians constitute a major threat both to the region and the world. A war that might possibly involve both the United States and Russia as well as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel would devastate the region and might easily have potential to escalate into something like a global conflict.
The decision to end the agreement is based on American domestic political considerations rather than any real analysis of what the intelligence community has been reporting. Deep-pocketed Iran-hating billionaires named Sheldon Adelson, Rebekah Mercer and Paul Singer are now prepared to throw tens of millions of dollars at Trump’s Republican Party to help it win in November’s midterm elections.
Those possessed of just a tad more foresight, to include the Pentagon and America’s European allies, have strongly urged that JCPOA be continued, particularly as the Iranians have been fully in compliance, but there is a new team in Washington. America’s just-confirmed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not exactly endorse the ludicrous Israeli claim made by Benjamin Netanyahu two weeks ago that Iran has a secret weapons of mass destruction program currently in place, but he did come down hard against the JCPOA, echoing Trump in calling it a terrible agreement that will guarantee an Iranian nuclear weapon. The reality is quite different, with the pact basically eliminating a possible Iranian nuke for the foreseeable future through degradation of the country’s nuclear research, reduction of its existing nuclear stocks and repeated intrusive inspections.
The failure of the JCPOA is not about the agreement at all, which is both sound and workable. There is unfortunately an Israeli-White House construct which assumes that Iran is both out to destroy Israel, for which no evidence has been revealed, as well as being singularly untrustworthy, an odd assertion coming from either Washington or Tel Aviv. It also basically rejects any kind of agreement with the Iranian government on principle so there is nowhere to go to “fix” what has already transpired.
The United States has changed in the past seventeen years. The promotion of policies that were at least tenuously based on genuine national interests is no longer embraced by either political party. A fearful public has allowed a national security state to replace a constitutional republic with endless war as the inevitable result. Presidents once constitutionally constrained by legislative and judicial balance of power have successfully asserted executive privilege to become like third world dictators, able to make war without any restraint on their ability to do so. If America survives, historians will no doubt see the destruction of the JCPOA as the beginning of something new and horrible, where the government of these United States deliberately made a decision to abandon a beneficial foreign treaty to instead opt for a path that can only lead to war.
May 10, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, JCPOA, Sanctions against Iran, United States, Zionism |
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The Turning on Russia Series
In the months and years following the Arab-Israeli war of October 1973, the issue of Israel and its security would become so enmeshed in American policy as to become one and the same. The lesson of October 1973 that détente had succeeded in securing American and Soviet interests, was anathema to the entire neoconservative agenda and revealed its true hand. At the time a majority of American Jews were not necessarily against better U.S.-Soviet relations. But with the forceful hammering of influential right-wing neoconservative pundits like Ben Wattenberg and Irving Kristol and the explosive manifestation of the Evangelical Christian Zionist movement, many of Israel’s liberal American supporters were persuaded to turn against détente for the first time. According to the distinguished State Department Soviet specialist Raymond Garthoff’s Détente and Confrontation ; “Analytically and objectively the American-Soviet cooperation in defusing both the Israeli-Arab conflict, and their own involvement in a crisis confrontation, may be judged a successful application of crisis management under détente.” But as Garthoff acknowledges, this success threatened “Israel’s jealously guarded freedom of action to determine unilaterally its own security requirements,” and set off alarm bells in Tel Aviv and Washington.
With Richard Nixon on the ropes with Watergate and Vietnam dragging to a conclusion, American foreign policy was open to external pressure and within a year would fall permanently into the hands of a coalition of pro-Israel neoconservative and right-wing defense industry lobbying groups. These groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the American Security Council and Committee on the Present Danger would set about to make American interests and their own personal crusade to control the greater Middle East, interchangeable.
The issue of U.S. support for Israel, its neoconservative backers and its dedicated anti-Russian bias has a long and complicated history dating back long before Theodor Herzl’s19th century Zionist Project. Zionism was not instilled in American thinking by Jews but by 16th and 17th century British Puritans whose sacred mission was to reestablish an ancient Kingdom of Israel and fulfill what they believed to be biblical prophecy based on the King James Version of the bible.
Britain’s Anglo/Israel movement found common cause with the British Empire’s 19th and early 20th century political goals of controlling the Middle East through Jewish resettlement of Palestine which culminated in the Balfour declaration of 1917. This long term plan of the British Empire continues on today through American policy and what has been dubbed the Zionist Project or the Yinon plan. Add the 700 million strong worldwide Evangelical movement and its 70 million Christian Zionists in the United States and American foreign policy towards the Middle East becomes an apocalyptic confluence of covert agendas, ethnic grudges and religious feuds locked in permanent crisis.
It has been argued that the neoconservative’s slavish adherence to Israel makes neoconservatism an exclusively Jewish creation. Numerous neoconservative writers like the New York Times’ David Brooks tar critics of Israel as anti-Semites by accusing them of substituting the term “neoconservative” for “Jew.” Others argue that “neoconservatism is indeed a Jewish intellectual and political movement” with “close ties to the most extreme nationalistic, aggressive, racialist and religiously fanatic elements within Israel.”
Although clearly acting as a political front for Israel’s interests and an engine for permanent war, neoconservatism would never have succeeded as a political movement without the support and cooperation of powerful non-Jewish elites. New America Foundation co-founder Michael Lind writes in The Nation in 2004, “Along with other traditions that have emerged from the anti-Stalinist left, neoconservatism has appealed to many Jewish intellectuals and activists but it is not, for that reason, a Jewish movement. Like other schools on the left, neoconservatism recruited from diverse “farm teams” including liberal Catholics… populists, socialists and New Deal liberals in the South and Southwest… With the exception of Middle East strategy… there is nothing particularly “Jewish” about neoconservative views on foreign policy. While the example of Israel has inspired American neocons… the global strategy of today’s neocons is shaped chiefly by the heritage of cold war anti-Communism.”
Add to that the abiding influence of Britain’s Imperial policy-makers following World War II – the British creation of Pakistan in 1947 and Israel in 1948 – and the hidden hand of a global imperial strategy is revealed. Pakistan exists to keep the Russians out of Central Asia and Israel exists to keep the Russians out of the Middle East.
Whether American democracy could have survived the stresses put upon it by the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War and the ongoing frauds posed by neoconservatism now poses an answerable question. It couldn’t. Fletcher School international law professor Michael Glennon maintains the creation of the national security state in 1947 as a second, double government effectively renders the question mute. He writes “The public believes that the constitutionally-established institutions control national security policy, but that view is mistaken. Judicial review is negligible; congressional oversight is dysfunctional; and presidential control is nominal. Absent a more informed and engaged electorate, little possibility exists for restoring accountability in the formulation and execution of national security policy.”
The motion to kill détente and hobble Henry Kissinger’s balance of power or “realist” foreign policy quickly followed the 1973 war in the form of the anti-Soviet amendment to the Trade Act known as Jackson-Vanik. Sponsored by Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington and Representative Charles A. Vanik of Ohio but engineered by Albert Wohlstetter acolyte Richard Perle, trade concessions and virtually anything regarding Moscow would be forever linked to the Zionist Project through Jewish emigration to Israel from the Soviet Union.
Supported by organized labor, traditional conservatives, liberals and neoconservatives, Jackson-Vanik hobbled efforts by the Nixon/Ford administration to slow the arms race and move towards a permanent easing of tensions with the Soviet Union. It removed control of American foreign policy from the President and Secretary of State while delivering it permanently into the hands of the old anti-Stalinist/Trotskyist neoconservatives.
Jackson-Vanik overcame liberal support for détente because of an intellectual dishonesty within the non-communist left that had been roiling America’s intelligentsia since the 1930s. That dishonesty had transformed left wing Trotskyists into the CIA’s very own anti-Soviet cultural Cold Warriors and aligned them with the goals of the West’s right-wing. By the 1950s their cause was not about left or right, or even liberal anti-Communism versus Stalinism. It was about exchanging a value system of laws and checks and balances for a system alien to America. As Frances Stoner Saunder’s describes in her book The Cultural Cold War, it was simply about grabbing power and keeping it. “‘It’s so corrupt, it doesn’t even know it,’ said [legendary Random House editor] Jason Epstein, in an uncompromising mood. ‘When these people talk about a “counter-intelligentsia”, what they do is to set up a false and corrupt value system to support whatever ideology they’re committed to at the time. The only thing they’re really committed to is power, and the introduction of Tzarist-Stalinist strategies in American politics. They’re so corrupt they probably don’t even know it. They’re little, lying apparatchiks. People who don’t believe in anything, who are only against something, shouldn’t go on crusades or start revolutions.”
But neoconservatives did go on crusades and start revolutions and continued to corrupt the American political process until it was unrecognizable. In 1973 neoconservatives did not want the United States having better relations with Moscow and created Jackson-Vanik to obstruct it. But their ultimate goal as explained by Janine Wedel in her 2009 study the Shadow Elite, was a Trotskyist dream; the complete transfer of power from an elected government representing the American people to what she referred to as a “new nomenklatura,” or “guardians of the national interest,” free from the restraints imposed by the laws of the nation. Wedel writes, “Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late senator from New York and onetime neoconservative, suggested that this kind of suspension of the rules and processes was what motivated him to part ways with the movement in the 1980s: ‘They wished for a military posture approaching mobilization; they would create or invent whatever crises were required to bring this about.’”
The synthesis of James Burnham’s Cold War ethos (established formally by Paul Nitze in his 1950 NSC-68) together with Trotskyism (espoused by the core neoconservatives) combined with this aggressive new support for Israel empowered America’s neoconservatives with a cult-like political influence over American decision-making that would only grow stronger with time.
As envisaged by James Burnham, the Cold War was a struggle for the world and would be fought with the kind of political subversion he’d learned to master as a leading member of Trotsky’s Fourth International. But joined to Israel by Burnham’s fellow Trotskyists and the underlying influence of British Israelism – it would enter an apocalyptic mythos and resist any and all efforts to bring it to an end. John B. Judis, former editor of the New Republic relates in a 1995 Foreign Affairs book review of the Rise of Neoconservatism by John Ehrman: “In the framework of international communism, the Trotskyists were rabid internationalists rather than realists or nationalists… The neoconservatives who went through Trotskyist and socialist movements came to see foreign policy as a crusade, the goal of which was first global socialism, then social democracy, and finally democratic capitalism. They never saw foreign policy in terms of national interest or balance of power. Neoconservatism was a kind of inverted Trotskyism, which sought to ‘export democracy’ in [Joshua] Muravchik’s words, in the same way that Trotsky originally envisaged exporting socialism.”
Through the eyes of the State Department’s Raymond Garthoff, the moves against détente in 1973 are viewed from the narrow perspective of a professional American diplomat. But according to Judis in his article titled “Trotskyism to Anachronism: The Neoconservative Revolution” the legacy of NSC-68 and Trotskyism contributed to a form of apocalyptic thinking that would slowly exclude the professional policy-making process from the realm of empirical observation and replace it with a politicized mechanism for creating endless conflict. “The constant reiteration and exaggeration of the Soviet threat was meant to dramatize and win converts, but it also reflected the doomsday revolutionary mentality that characterized the old left.”
In the end, Judis argues that the neoconservative success at using self-fulfilling prophecies to kill détente actually made the Cold War far more dangerous by encouraging the Soviet Union to undertake a military buildup and expand its influence which the neoconservatives then used as proof that their theories were correct. In effect, “Neoconservatism was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It helped precipitate the crisis in U.S.-Soviet relations that it then claimed to uncover and respond to.”
Writing in the summer of 1995 with the Cold War finally ended and the storm passed, Judis considered neoconservatism as the subject of ridicule, describing key neoconservatives as merely political anachronisms and not the thriving political dynamo described by John Ehrman in his book. But in the end Ehrman turned out to be right, the neoconservative crusade had not come to a close with the end of the Cold War but had only entered a new and more dangerous phase.
Copyright © 2018 Fitzgerald & Gould All rights reserved
May 10, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | AIPAC, JINSA, Middle East, United States, Zionism |
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This all happened by accident. This isn’t who we are. We didn’t mean it. Honest.
Gina Haspel is almost certainly going to be the next director of the CIA. This shouldn’t happen, but it will.
For those unfamiliar: Haspel was deputy head of the Agency under now-secretary of state Mike Pompeo. But that wasn’t her first job. She also oversaw the CIA torture programme in a secret black-site in Thailand. In 2005 she was promoted (probably because she’s really good at torturing people), and was then in charge of the CIA’s global network of torture sites.
This makes her a terrible person, but probably quite a good CIA agent.
Just to be clear, this is not a theory a rumor or a smear. Nobody debates these facts. This was her job. She supervised torture camps.
The response in the press is pretty disheartening, to be honest. Or, at least would have been, before reading the news and being outraged became my full-time unpaid job.
NBC said it makes her a “controversial” figure.
This story, from CNBC, went with a beautifully disgusting headline:
Trump picks Gina Haspel as first female CIA director—her history with torture could hamper her confirmation
Her “history with torture” doesn’t mean she should be in prison, doesn’t mean she’s an inhuman monster, doesn’t even make her exempt from government office, no. It just might be a bit of a complication. Like a drunk-driving conviction or an affair with a porn star. Torturing people is an embarrassing faux pas.
CNN reports:
She could be the first woman ever to run the CIA
… deciding to headline her genitalia rather than her long history of breaking international law. I would suggest “She could be the first torturer to ever run the CIA” as a better headline. It is, unfortunately, not true… but that’s never stopped CNN before.
The HuffPo at least has the sense to be seemingly undecided about it, just not in the way that you’d think:
Gina Haspel’s dark past makes her a complicated figure for feminists to support.
“Complicated” to support, is an interesting phrase. Some might have gone with “impossible” or “morally repugnant”. Trying to turn this into some kind of ethical quandary for feminists is offensive. Rather like the Guardian’s pitiful attempts to show the sympathetic side of the soldiers in the Abu Ghraib torture pictures.
Speaking of The Guardian… our trusty friend has a new story on Haspel today… its headline?
Gina Haspel must atone for her past to become CIA director
They don’t exactly say how one “atones” for a past as a professional torturer, but then this is The Guardian. There’s not to reason why, there’s just to puff out comfy certitude.
It refers to the detention and torture of people who were never charged or faced trial as “one of the darker chapters in modern US history”… which feels so much like simultaneous under and over statement, it’s actually hard to correct.
It’s NOT one of the darker chapters in US history, ancient or recent. But only because of everything else The Guardian refuses to report on. Torturing a few hundred people is nothing compared to starving 500,000 Iraqi children to death, when you think about it.
The Western press tend to talk about torture as if it was a temporary blip, an accident. A speed bump on our moral high-road. It is none of those things. The West LOVES torture, we have a long tradition of it. The CIA wrote handbooks on it in the 1960s. America tortured people for decades before they got caught. They claim to have stopped now, but they would have claimed they never started… before the leaks happened. It’s almost certainly still going on. Believing otherwise is just naive.
Our side tortures people. People who probably don’t know anything and never did anything.
… not that being guilty or having information justifies torture. That’s the rhetorical trap the media sets around torture. The debate about “effectiveness”.
We don’t ban torture because it doesn’t work, just like we don’t eat babies because it’s expensive and we don’t ban slavery because it’s really hard to find good chains. Even addressing the pragmatic angle is inappropriate. Torture is wrong, and a civilised society does not question that fact.
Of course, the “moral ambiguities” around torture are only for our side. The other side have no ambiguity. If they use torture – even only allegedly – then they are evil. Assad’s (thus far theoretical) torture prisons are one of the reasons we should invade Syria. (You remember, Amnesty International recreated one using echo-location). Unfounded accusations of torture have been levelled at Cuba and Venezuela over the years too.
It’s “torture” when they do it, you understand. Not “enhanced interrogation”. It’s “not who we are”, but it IS who THEY are.
For all that, Barack Obama remains the only modern leader to publicly admit to the use of torture. Remember that when the pronouncements about “our enemies” start flying around.
We have documented, and confessed, cases of using torture. Assad and Putin, Tehran and Beijing, Venezuela and Cuba, do not.
And the people who carried out this torture? They’re getting promoted.
Imagine Putin admitted the FSB tortured Chechens who had committed no crimes, and then appointed one of the torturers as head of the FSB. Would our press demand he “atone” for his dark past? Would we call him a “controversial” figure? Or would there be long editorials about Russia “thumbing their noses at international norms”?
Gina Haspel is a war criminal. The Hague was literally made for people like her. But she will never be charged, she will never be tried, she will never be hanged. Because she’s one of OUR monsters, doing dark deeds for our side. She will face no reckoning from us, instead we ask only that she “atone”, whatever that means.
It is so easy to forgive the crimes of the monsters you create.
May 9, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | CIA, Human rights, United States |
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The United States is so far doing virtually no trade with Iran anyway. In 2017 total US exports to Iran were just 138 million dollars, and total imports a mere 63 million dollars, figures entirely insignificant to the US economy. By contrast, for the EU as a whole imports and exports to Iran were each a very much more substantial 8 billion dollars in 2017 and projected to rise to over 10 billion dollars in 2018.
There is one very significant US deal in the pipeline, for sale of Boeing aircraft, worth $18 billion dollars. It will now be cancelled.
Which brings us to the crux of the argument. Can America make its will hold? Airbus also has orders from Iran of over US$20 billion, and it is assumed those orders will be stopped too, because Airbus planes contain parts and technology licensed from the US. It is possible, but unlikely, that the US could grant a waiver to Airbus – highly unlikely because Boeing would be furious.
Now even a $20 billion order is probably in itself not quite big enough for Airbus to redevelop aircraft to be built without the US parts or technology (which constitute about 8% of the cost of an airbus). But the loss of a $20 billion order on such capricious grounds is certainly big enough for Airbus to look to future long term R & D to develop aircraft not vulnerable to US content blocking. And if Iran were to dangle the Boeing order towards Airbus too, a $38 billion order is certainly big enough for Airbus to think about what adaptations may be possible on a timescale of years not decades.
Read across from aircraft to many other industries. In seeking to impose unilateral sanctions against the express wishes of its “old” European allies, the USA is betting that it has sufficient global economic power, in alliance with its “new” Israeli and Saudi allies, to force the Europeans to bend to its will. This is plainly a very rash act of global geopolitics. It is perhaps an even more rash economic gamble.
We are yet to see the detail, but by all precedent Trump’s Iran sanctions will also sanction third country companies which trade with Iran, at the least through attacking their transactions through US financial institutions and by sanctioning their US affiliates. But at a time when US share of the world economy and world trade is steadily shrinking, this encouragement to European and Asian companies to firewall and minimise contact with the US is most unlikely to be long term beneficial to the US. In particular, in a period where it is already obvious that the years of the US dollar’s undisputed dominance as the world currency of reference are drawing to a close, the incentive to employ non-US linked means of financial transaction will add to an already highly significant global trend.
In short, if the US fails to prevent Europe and Asia’s burgeoning trade with Iran – and I think they will fail – this moment will be seen by historians as a key marker in US decline as a world power.
I have chosen not to focus on the more startling short term dangers of war in the Middle East, and the folly of encouraging Saudi Arabia and Israel in their promotion of sustained violence against Iranian interests throughout the region, as I have written very extensively on that subject. But the feeling of empowerment Trump will have given to his fellow sociopaths Netanyahu and Mohammed Bin Salman bodes very ill indeed for the world at present.
I shall be most surprised if we do not see increased US/Israeli/Saudi sponsored jihadist attacks in Syria, and in Lebanon following Hezbollah’s new national electoral victory. Hezbollah’s democratic advance has stunned and infuriated the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia but been reported very sparsely in the MSM, as it very much goes against the neo-con narrative. It does not alter the positions of President or Prime Minister, constitutionally allocated by religion, but it does increase Hezbollah’s power in the Lebanese state, and thus Iranian influence.
Iran is a difficult country to predict. I hope they will stick to the agreement and wait to see how Europe is able to adapt, before taking any rash decisions. They face, however, not only the provocation of Trump but the probability of a renewed wave of anti-Shia violence from Pakistan to Lebanon, designed to provoke Iran into reaction. These will be a tense few weeks. I do not think even Netanyahu is crazy enough to launch an early air strike on Iran itself, but I would not willingly bet my life on it.
The problem is, with Russia committed to holding a military balance in the Middle East, all of us are betting our lives on it.
May 9, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Sanctions against Iran, Saudi Arabia, United States, Zionism |
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Against all common sense, moral considerations and international law, U.S. President Donald Trump tonight decided to place the United States outside the international so-called community and isolate itself, not Iran.
He withdrew the United States from what is one of the most important negotiated peace-oriented agreements that have ever been signed: the one that prevents Iran (if it has ever wanted to) from acquiring nuclear weapons: The Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, JCPOA, of July 2015 – all about this agreement and its text here).
Noteworthy is that the nuclear deal is incorporated into international law by UN Security Council Resolution 2231, even though the U.S. already at that point stated – as an exceptionalist state – that it did not consider the deal binding for it.
With the exception of Germany, the deal was negotiated – cynically, of course – by countries which have themselves thousands of nuclear weapons.
It never mentioned the only state in the region that possesses them, against international law in the form of UN resolutions and, additionally, has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). That state is Israel whose nuclear weapons Western politicians and their loyal, politically correct media omit mention of – as systematically and uniformly as if orchestrated by an invisible hand from above.
Back in 2014-15, many of us stated that the alternative to a negotiated deal would be war. I am still of the belief that President Trump’s announcement tonight will turn out to be a declaration of war on Iran. A series of developments since then in the Middle East point dangerously in the same direction.
Towards the end, his speech was extremely bellicose and one long systematic violation of the UN Charter’s Article 2.4 that “all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
Without a doubt, both the decision itself, the way it was announced as well as the threats stated relating to the future was nothing but a series of indisputable violations of the UN Charter. For all practical purposes he seems also to question that Iran has the right to self-defence according to the UN Charter’s Article 51.
It cannot be deemed acceptable that the U.S. or Israel or any other country can deny Iran a right to have conventional missiles and other military equipment, at least not as long as other countries – including these two exceptionalist and nuclear-armed countries – have much more of such weapons themselves and there are no international agreements that prohibit such types of weapons.
Who has and who has not honoured the JCPOA?
It’s the United States that has never honoured its commitments according to the JCPOA: Old sanctions not lifted fully, new sanctions installed, and control by the US Treasury of all currency exchange that takes place via the dollar with the aim of punishing corporations and banks that trade and invest in Iran.
Towards the end, Trump declared his admiration for and non-conflict with the Iranian people.
But since 1979 his country has done everything in its power to cause troubles, economic in particular, to the Iranian people. He seems to now have a perverse joy in announcing new sanctions and – well, at the end of the long road kill people: Remember the 13 years of sanctions on Iraq that killed more innocent Iraqis than the military invasion and occupation did? Trump’s sanctions are open-ended.
In contrast to this, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and all other experts, Iran has fulfilled its side of the agreement in every detail.
CNN states on the page where the announcement was made: “Note: The Director of National Intelligence, Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense have all said in last two months they are complying with the deal.” (“They” being the Iranians, JO).
Trump’s reference to Israeli PM Netanyauhu’s stand-up comedian-like speech a few days ago only shows how incredibly little evidence his administration has as that speech has been debunked completely by a series of independent experts, including Gareth Porter here. In addition, it was 1992 when Mr. Netanyahu first began talking about Iran attempting to go nuclear.
No wonder the West talks about fighting fake because others use fake. No wonder it blames others for international law violations. It’s called psycho-political projection of one’s own dark sides. And nuclear weapons and threats and lies belong to the dark sides.
Why Iran is not a threat
Unfortunately for the US militarist foreign policy circles, Iran is not a threat to the US or its allies. It pure nonsense.
For more than 250 years Iran has not invaded anyone – not exactly a record the West and Israel can match. Iran is in Syria fighting the terrorism which the U.S. allegedly fights too since 9/11 2001 (with the marvelous result that 17 years later 80 times more people worldwide are being killed in political terror actions than back then).
Iran is in Syria upon invitation by the legitimate government of Syria and, thus, in compliance with international law. So is, by the way, Russia. Whereas every other state or group – NATO allies, friends like Saudi Arabia and Israel on Syrian land, sea and air territory or through money, weapons and terrorism-support are involved through gross violation of international law, including the UN Charter.
Is Iran a big military power?
To judge that, let’s see what the just published figures by SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, tell.
The military expenditures of Iran with 80+ million people and a huge territory is US$ 15 billion. In the event of an attack on Iran, it may – may… – be supported by Russia or China but that is unlikely.
Who must Iran perceive as the likely coalition to attack it? It depends of course on who starts it – if Israel should start it, it would hardly do so without a prior green light by the U.S. and its commitment to help out. Saudi-Arabia is now the third largest military power in military expenditure terms, i.e. larger than Russia.
Israel’s military expenditures are US$ 16 billion – larger than Iran’s with a population about 1/10 of Iran. And, remember, Israel has nuclear weapons.
Saudi Arabia has been building up against Iran for a long time and built a coalition. Saudi military expenditures stand at US$ 69 billion. Oman’s are US$ 9 billion. Bahrain US$ 1 billion. So, a little dependent on one’s geo-political assumptions and hypotheses, we arrive at Iran US $ 15 billion against 16+69+9+1 = 95 or a 15:95 regional ratio.
It’s inconceivable that the U.S., France and the U.K. would not intervene. Indeed, the U.S. tonight declared war on Iran.
The military expenditures of the United States stand at US$ 610 billion, France at US$ 69 billion and the United Kingdom at US$ 47 billion.
So, is Iran a threat? Is Iran likely to start a war?
No matter what you might otherwise think of Iran, it is not a threat. It knows very well that it has 4 nuclear weapons states against it and a group of adversaries and Iran-hating leaderships whose combined military expenditures are, roughly speaking and according to the latest figures, a combined US$ 820 billion and way more technically sophisticated. And it knows that while its own military expenditures are US $ 16 billion – that the combined, thinkable international coalition that could get involved in a war in and around Iran is 55 times more resourceful in military terms.
So forget it. It’s exemplary fake foreign policy nonsense.
They are neither mentally ill nor suicidal in Tehran. In addition, in sharp contrast to almost all its potential military enemies, it is defensive in is military posture and foreign policy. Iran has gained strength in the region mostly because Western/NATO countries have produced one devastating, predictable war fiasco after the other.
Will the friends of the U.S. have the civil courage to speak up and take action now?
Will the NATO allies and EU friends – who have been woefully incapable of showing solidarity with Iran by standing up against the United States’ permanent non-commitment to and violation of the JCPOA – now be able to change course?
Why have they so submissively and leaderlessly avoided setting down their feet and saying to Washington: Dear friend, we will take action against you if you withdraw from the JCPOA because that step endangers all of us, could release a new round of violence, make the Second Cold War with Russia even colder and send millions of refugees our way. That will be our red line, a concept you surely understand!
Did NATO/EU really believe that President Macron’s and Chancellor Merkel’s pathetic appeasement attempts – such as talking in favour of a new agreement because the JCPOA “is not enough” – at the White House stage would charm and persuade Trump and his war-mongering, neo-con, militarist team with obsessed Iran-haters such as Trump, Bolton and Pompeo?
Of course: Neither NATO allies – or a country such as Sweden for that matter – will show the necessary civil courage to stand up against Donald Trump’s reckless de facto war declaration on Iran tonight. They will talk and express concern, in the best of cases.
For years, they have taken order from His Master’s Voice, their state-financed institutional researchers and military academy experts have had about the same freedom of creativity as their former colleagues had in the German Democratic Republic, at the time. Loud and clear criticism of U.S. foreign policy still a taboo?
For how long? With how much more pain brought down on innocent people in foreign lands?
And it is anyhow too late now. NATO/EU allies have not dared to speak truth to the Captain:
“The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody’s shouting
“Which side are you on?”
-Bob Dylan, “Desolation Row” (1965)
The major ones likely to stand with Iran in this dark hour are Russia and China.
And Iran will need – and deserves – our sympathy. If there ever was a case for the need of standing with the Iranian people, this is it.
They have suffered more than enough over decades – yes due to the domestic corruption and economic mismanagement but in particular due to these suffocating sanctions. And it is the people – anywhere and therefore in Iran too – who will pay the highest price, as did – and still do – the Serbian people, the Afghan people, the Iraqi people, the Libyan people, the Syrian people and the Yemeni people, to mention a few.
Whether the – deceptively “soft” sanctions which over years turn into Weapons of Mass Destruction – or bombings, invasions, arms trade, splitting of sovereign states and other war crimes: the innocent citizens who never touched a gun are always and without exception those who suffer most.
Nobody believes a word of your statement about your respect and admiration of the Iranian people, Mr. Trump. With this step you obviously could not care less about their welfare and the peace of the region.
What should ideally be done now?
Just a few – non-violent – ideas that reflect what should be relevant to discuss objectively and in proportion to the violation of international law and ignorance of the common global good that the U.S. by its president’s statement is solely responsible for:
+ Allies and friends of the U.S. impose selected economic sanctions on the U.S. leadership to not only talk but show that they mean business.
+ Allies and friends of the U.S. summon the U.S. ambassadors to their countries for hard talk.
+ Allies and friends threaten to close U.S. military bases in their countries and demand withdrawal of U.S. troops (and secret forces) from them.
+ Everybody begin to practice civil disobedience against the U.S. by trading, investing and otherwise cooperating with Iran, its people and institutions. After all, the U.S. is now deliberately trying to bully everybody else in whose interest it is to cooperate in various ways with Iran. If enough countries, corporations and banks just ignore the U.S. threats, the U.S. legal system will not be able to handle all these cases.
+ More countries should now decide to trade oil in other currencies than the US dollar.
+ Citizens around the world go visiting Iran, see and hear for themselves what the well-educated, cultured, hospitable and discussion-happy Iranians are truly like – because the mainstream media and politicians have provided close to no information about the people, culture, history – and suffering – of the Iranian people but only conveyed negative perspectives and images conducive to confrontation and future warfare.
+ In addition: people-to-people exchanges below and above the state level is always peace-promoting and, secondly – it’s way more difficult to accept military activity against countries you know from your own experience and in which you have made friends. So, as much citizens diplomacy as possible! Now!
– All until the U.S. backs down from its new sanctions, stops violating international law also verbally in its dealings with Iran and, finally, accepts that other countries do what is in their interest vis-a-vis Iran without Washington’s intimidation, threats or other preventive actions. If you leave a deal because you think it is in your interest, you cannot also influence its outcome and legitimately prevent others from acting in their best interest. It’s as simple as that!
Was this a declaration of war?
I think: Yes. However, the U.S. doesn’t bother about declaring war, it just does them.
From now on the U.S. will invent reasons for confronting Iran, accusing Iran, threatening Iran. It will feel more free to do so being outside the deal. The only countries that are happy about the announced policy are those already ganging up against Iran.
The rest of the world will distance themselves or condemn this step – but it is not likely that the U.S. will listen. It’s constitutionally unable to, seeing itself as the Exceptionalist, Chosen Country, the global ruler. # 1 in a system tends to teach and not learn…
It doesn’t necessarily mean war on Iran tomorrow. I hope by all my heart that I’m wrong and it will never happen.
But given Trump’s decision and all the other events and trends and coalition-building against Iran since 2015, it is much much more difficult from today to ignore the risk of a US-led attack or war on Iran.
We must remember that the US conflict with Iran is not only about nuclear weapons but also about a long and very conflictual relationship since the CIA-led coup against Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister in 1953 (who had the cheek to believe that Iran’s oil belonged to the Iranians). It’s about today’s Syria, Israel, Saudi-Arabia and, since yesterday, Iran-supported Hezbollah in Lebanon.
And – perhaps less easy to grasp but perhaps most importantly – it’s about the decline of US Empire worldwide and, therefore, an ever-increasing reliance on that last power dimension where the U.S. is still second to none: the MIMAC, the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex.
The hammer will be used if it is the only tool in the toolbox no matter the problem to be fixed.
As a postscript, here is an interview with me on Iran’s international PressTV made nine hours before President Trump’s announcement. Another will follow that was made right after it and as a comment also on Iranian President Rouhani’s very balanced, moderate reaction to it.
May 9, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Israel, JCPOA, Sanctions against Iran, United States, Zionism |
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The other day I learned that the British Zionist pressure group Campaign Against Antisemitsm, an organisation that cares about bigotry against one people only, has launched a new short course. They teach their supporters “how to build bridges with natural allies” so they can fight antisemitsm together. Someone should explain to these ultra Zionist campaigners that ‘natural allies’ do not need bridges to be built. Bridges are only required when is a need to span noticeable obstacles.
CAA’s unusual interpretation of the notion of ‘bridge building’ will help us to grasp today’s topic: Zionism and Africa or more precisely Jews and Blacks.
Jews often brag about their contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. According to some Jewish historians, a large amount of the funds for the NAACP came from Jewish sources – some experts estimate as much as 80%. Dr. King himself is regarded by many Zionists as their historic ally. Jewish sources often quote this defence of Zionism attributed to Dr. King. “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!”
Howard Sachar begins his article Jews in the Civil Rights movement, by claiming that “nowhere did Jews identify themselves more forthrightly with the liberal avant-garde than in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. At the height of the anti-integration effort, in 1957, Rabbi Ira Sanders of Little Rock testified before the Arkansas Senate against pending segregationist bills.”
This would seem a positive moment in Jewish history until we remember that Judaism has sustained ‘segregation bills’ for two millennia. What are kosher dietary rules if not ‘segregation bills?’ I guess that we have all heard the Judaic and the Zionist attitude toward mixed marriage. Even within the Palestinian solidarity movement, many Jews choose to march within segregated racially oriented political cells (JVP, IJAN etc.)
I guess that CAA’s references to ‘bridge building with natural allies’ may help us to grasp the Jewish attitude to the Civil Rights Movement and solidarity movements. From a Jewish perspective the Blacks of the south were, to a certain extent, a ‘natural ally.’
Seemingly, some of the greatest voices of the Civil Rights Movement were Jews. Sachar writes “Jewish participation in the Civil Rights movement far transcended institutional associations. One black leader in Mississippi estimated that, in the 1960s, the critical decade of the voter-registration drives, ‘as many as 90 percent of the civil rights lawyers in Mississippi were Jewish.’… They worked around the clock analysing welfare standards, the bail system, arrest procedures, justice-of-the-peace rulings.”
Probably among the most famous Civil Rights heroes were the three young voter registration workers, Jewish New Yorkers, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman co worker, and James Chaney a Black man from Mississippi. The three were abducted and murdered by Klansmen and local law enforcement officers. This tragic event increased the nation’s awareness of the human crisis in the South.
But I am afraid that this is where the good story ends. Historically the Jewish attitude towards Blacks has been nothing short of a disaster. It is difficult to decide how to enter this colossal minefield.
In Jewish culture the word shvartze (Black, Yiddish) is an offensive term referring to a low being, specifically a Black person (“She’s dating a shvartze. Her grandmother is probably rolling over in her grave”). The reference to shvartze chaya is a direct reference to ‘black beast,’ meaning the lowest of the low. Shvartze chaya is also how Ashkenazi Jews often refer to Arab and Sephardi Jews. I guess that at least culturally some Ashkenazi Jews find it hard to deal with the colour black, especially when it comes on people. It is therefore slightly peculiar to witness white Ashkenazi Jews complain about white supremacy. If they are genuinely interested in combating white exceptionalism, maybe they should first uproot those vile symptoms from their own culture. I guess that kicking the racist ball into the goyim’s court is much easier.
We witness an anomaly — the same people who played a fundamental role in the civil rights movement, are themselves instrumental in an historic racist segregation project. The same people who supported the rights of Black Americans are implicated in deep cultural racism.
In order to grasp the Jewish institutional attitude toward Blacks we will review the ADL’s attitude to the Nation of Islam (NOI) in general and Louis Farrakhan in particular. The ADL claims that Farakhan is one of “America’s Leading Anti-Semite.(s)”
NOI according to the ADL, has “maintained a consistent record of anti-Semitism and racism since its founding in the 1930s.” The ADL’s site states that “under Louis Farrakhan, who has espoused and promoted anti-Semitism and racism throughout his 30-year tenure as NOI leader, the organization has used its programs, institutions, and media to disseminate its message of hate.”
“He (Farakhan) has repeatedly alleged that the Jewish people were responsible for the slave trade as well as the 9/11 attacks, and that they continue to conspire to control the government, the media, Hollywood, and various Black individuals and organizations.”
The question we want to ask at this stage is whether Farakhan’s criticism targets ‘The Jews’ as a people, race or ethnicity or does he actually target elements and sectors within the Jewish universe? A quick study of Farakhan’s cherry picked quotes provided by the ADL reveals that Farakhan doesn’t really refer to ‘the Jews’ as people. In most cases he refers to segments within the Jewish elite that are indeed politically dominant (AIPAC) and culturally corrosive or at least problematic.
But the question goes further. If the Jews do empathise with Blacks and their suffering why can’t they take a bit of criticism from the likes of Farakhan? If Jews care for the Other, as we are asked to believe, how come all this caring disappears once Farakhan appears on the scene? Unfortunately, the Jewish supporters of Palestine can operate like the ADL in this regard, occasionally acting as a thought police suppressing any reference to Jewishness as the driving force in Jewish history and Israeli criminality in particular.
Maybe the CAA’s peculiar understanding of the notion of bridge building is an accurate description of the Jewish political apparatus. What we see is a search for ‘natural allies’ that serve the Jewish cause rather than a humane empathic course towards peace, harmony and a better world. Jewish New Yorker Philip Weiss expressed this sentiment brilliantly in an interview with me. “I believe all people act out of self-interest. And Jews who define themselves at some level as Jews — like myself for instance — are concerned with a Jewish self-interest. Which in my case is: an end to Zionism.” Weiss supports Palestine because he believes it is good for the Jews. For him the Palestinians are natural allies. Similarly, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, who as a young German Zionist rabbi sought a potential collaboration with Nazi Germany, ended up as a leading Civil Rights figure marching alongside Dr. King supporting human rights. For the late Rabbi Prinz, Dr. King and the civil rights movement were natural allies, they were good for the Jews.
As you surely noticed, I have not mentioned the role of Jews in slavery. This horrendous chapter in human history is not within my field of study.* But I do see, like the rest of you, how the Jewish State treats Black refugees. I do see how Israel locks up Blacks for being Black. I grew up in a country that looked down at people with dark skin. When I left Israel in the 1990s, Ethiopian Jews couldn’t donate blood. Jews are probably split on their attitude to Blacks and this is good. But Jewish culture and politics have a lot of ground to cover before they can be considered ethical, universal or even empathetic.
* Those who seek answers to questions regarding the salve trade should consider reading Werner Sombart’s The Jews and Modern Capitalism or tune themselves to the scholarship of Tony Martin and his writings on the Jews and their role in the salve trade.
May 9, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Israel, United States, Zionism |
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The Turning on Russia Series
“Stanley Fischer, the 73–year-old vice chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, is familiar with the decline of the world’s rich. He spent his childhood and youth in the British protectorate of Rhodesia… before going to London in the early 1960s for his university studies. There, he experienced first-hand the unravelling of the British Empire… Now an American citizen, Fischer is currently witnessing another major power taking its leave of the world stage… the United States is losing its status as a global hegemonic power, he said recently… The U.S. political system could take the world in a very dangerous direction…”
A Shrinking Giant, Spiegel Online, 9/11/2017
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the creation of the so called Wolfowitz Doctrine in 1992 during the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush, the United States claimed the mantle of the world’s first and only Unipower as well as its intention to crush any nation or system that would oppose it in the future. The New World Order foreseen just a few short years ago becomes more disorderly by the day, made worse by varying degrees of incompetence and greed emanating from Berlin, London, Paris and Washington. As a further sign of the ongoing seismic shocks rocking America’s claim to leadership, by the time Stanley Fischer’s interview appeared in the online version of the conservative German magazine Der Spiegel, he had already announced his resignation as vice chair of the Federal Reserve; eight months ahead of schedule. If anyone knows about the decline and fall of empires it is the “globalist” and former Bank of Israel president, Stanley Fischer. Not only did he experience the unravelling of the British Empire as a young student in London, he actually assisted in the wholesale dismantling of the Soviet Empire during the 1990s.
As an admitted product of the British Empire and point man for its long term imperial aims, that makes Stanley Fischer not just empire’s Angel of Death, but its rag and bone man.
Alongside a handful of Harvard economists led by Jonathan Hay, Larry Summers, Andrei Shleifer, Anatoly Chubais and Jeffry Sachs, (the Harvard Project) Fischer helped to throw 100 million Russians into poverty overnight – privatizing, or as some would say piratizing – the Russian economy. Yet, Americans never got the real story because a slanted anti-Russia narrative covered the true nature of the robbery from beginning to end. As described by public policy scholar and anthropologist Janine R. Wedel in her 2009 book Shadow Elite, “Presented in the West as a fight between enlightenment Reformers trying to move the economy forward through privatization, and retrograde Luddites who opposed them, this story misrepresented the facts. The idea or goal of privatization was not controversial, even among communists… the Russian Supreme Soviet, a communist body, passed two laws laying the groundwork for privatization. Opposition to privatization was rooted not in the idea itself but in the particular privatization program that was implemented, the opaque way in which it was put into place, and the use of executive authority to bypass the parliament.”
Intentionally set up to fail for Russia and the Russian people under the cover of a false narrative, she continues “The outcome rendered privatization ‘a de facto fraud,’ as one economist put it, and the parliamentary committee that had judged the Chubais scheme to ‘offer fertile ground for criminal activity’ was proven right.”
If Stanley Fischer, a man who helped bring about a de facto criminal-privatization-fraud to post-empire Russia says the U.S. is on a dangerous course, the time has arrived for post-empire Americans to ask what role Stanley Fischer played in putting the U.S. on that dangerous course. Unknown to Americans is the blunt force trauma Stanley Fischer and the “prestigious” Harvard Project delivered to Russia under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin during the 1990s. According to The American Conservative’s James Carden “As the Center for Economic and Policy Research noted back in 2011… ‘the IMF’s intervention in Russia during Fischer’s tenure led to one of the worst losses in output in history, in the absence of war or natural disaster.’ Indeed, one Russian observer compared the economic and social consequences of the IMF’s intervention to what one would see in the aftermath of a medium-level nuclear attack.”
Neither do most Americans know that it was President Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1970s grand plan for the conquest of the Eurasian heartland that boomeranged back to terrorize Europe and America in the 21st century. Zbigniew Brzezinski spent much of his life undermining the Communist Soviet Union and then spent the rest of it worrying about its resurgence as a Czarist empire under Vladimir Putin. It might be unfair to say that hating Russia was his only obsession. But a common inside joke during his tenure as the President’s top intelligence officer was that he couldn’t find Nicaragua on a map. If anyone provided the blueprint for the United States to rule in a unipolar world following the Soviet Union’s collapse it was Zbigniew Brzezinski and if anyone could be said to represent the debt driven financial system that fueled America’s post-Vietnam Imperialism, it’s Stanley Fischer. His departure should have sent a chill down every neoconservative’s spine. Their dream of a New World Order has once again ground to a halt at the gates of Moscow.
Whenever the epitaph for the abbreviated American century is written it will be sure to feature the iconic role the neoconservatives played in hastening its demise. After emerging from their Marxist/Leninist cocoon after World War II their movement helped to establish the Cold War. And from the chaos created by Vietnam they set to work restructuring American politics, finance and foreign policy to their own purposes. Dominated at the beginning by Zionists and Trotskyists but directed by the Anglo/American establishment and their intelligence elites, the neoconservatives’ goal was to deconstruct the nation-state through cultural cooptation and financial subversion and in that they have been overwhelmingly successful. From the end of World War II through the 1980s the focus of this pursuit was on the Soviet Union, but since the Soviet collapse in 1991, their focus has been on dismantling any and all opposition to their global dominion.
Shady finance, imperial misadventures and neoconservatism go hand in hand. The CIA’s founders saw themselves as partners in this enterprise and the defense industry welcomed them with open arms. McGill University economist R.T. Naylor, author of 1987’s Hot Money and the Politics of Debt, described how “Pentagon Capitalism” had made the Vietnam War possible by selling the Pentagon’s debt to the rest of the world. “In effect, the US Marines had replaced Meyer Lansky’s couriers, and the European central banks arranged the ‘loan-back’” Naylor writes. “When the mechanism was explained to the late [neoconservative] Herman Kahn – lifeguard of the era’s chief ‘think tank’ and a man who popularized the notion it was possible to emerge smiling from a global conflagration – he reacted with visible delight. Kahn exclaimed excitedly, ‘We’ve pulled off the biggest ripoff in history! We’ve run rings around the British Empire.’” In addition to their core of ex-Trotskyist intellectuals early neoconservatives could count among their ranks such establishment figures as James Burnham, father of the Cold War Paul Nitze, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Zbigniew Brzezinski himself.
From the beginning of their entry into the American political mainstream in the 1970s it was known that their emergence could spell the end of democracy in America and yet Washington’s more moderate gatekeepers allowed them in without much of a fight. Peter Steinfels’ 1979 classic The Neoconservatives: The men who are changing America’s politics begins with these fateful words. “THE PREMISES OF THIS BOOK are simple. First, that a distinct and powerful political outlook has recently emerged in the United States. Second, that this outlook, preoccupied with certain aspects of American life and blind or complacent towards others, justifies a politics which, should it prevail, threatens to attenuate and diminish the promise of American democracy.”
But long before Steinfels’ 1979 account, the neoconservative’s agenda of inserting their own interests ahead of America’s was well underway attenuating American democracy, undermining détente and angering America’s NATO partners that supported it. According to the distinguished State Department Soviet specialist Raymond Garthoff, détente had been under attack by right-wing and military-industrial forces (led by Senator “Scoop” Jackson) from its inception. But America’s ownership of that policy underwent a shift following America’s intervention on behalf of Israel during the 1973 October war. Garthoff writes in his detailed volume on American-Soviet relations Détente and Confrontation, “To the allies the threat [to Israel] did not come from the Soviet Union, but from unwise actions by the United States, taken unilaterally and without consultation. The airlift [of arms] had been bad enough. The U.S. military alert of its forces in Europe was too much.”
In addition to the crippling Arab oil embargo that followed, the crisis of confidence in U.S. decision-making nearly produced a mutiny within NATO. Garthoff continues, “The United States had used the alert to convert an Arab-Israeli conflict, into which the United States had plunged, into a matter of East-West confrontation. Then it had used that tension as an excuse to demand that Europe subordinate its own policies to a manipulative American diplomatic gamble over which they had no control and to which they had not even been privy, all in the name of alliance unity.”
In the end the U.S. found common cause with its Cold War Soviet enemy by imposing a cease-fire accepted by both Egypt and Israel thereby confirming the usefulness of détente. But as related by Garthoff this success triggered an even greater effort by Israel’s “politically significant supporters” in the U.S. to begin opposing any cooperation with the Soviet Union, at all. Garthoff writes, “The United States had pressed Israel into doing precisely what the Soviet Union (as well as the United States) had wanted: to halt its advance short of complete encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army east of Suez… Thus they [Israel’s politically significant supporters] saw the convergence of American-Soviet interests and effective cooperation in imposing a cease-fire as a harbinger of greater future cooperation by the two superpowers in working toward a resolution of the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian problem.”
Copyright © 2018 Fitzgerald & Gould All rights reserved
May 9, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | Middle East, Russia, UK, United States, Zionism |
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A leaked video appears to show a child being executed at close range in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula by an army officer [Twitter]
A leaked video appears to show a child being executed at close range in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula by an army officer.
In the 30 second video the young boy is lying on a hill partially covered in white material. Moments before his death he asks for his mother.
“Don’t worry,” replies the army officer. “We’ll call your father to pick you up. We’ll cover you,” he adds, before shooting him in the head.
The incident took place in 2015 though the video was leaked today after being sent to Egyptian activist Haitham Ghoneim by a soldier who was serving in Sinai.
Ghoneim drew attention to a statement posted on Twitter in March this year which shows a picture of what looks like the same young boy with bomb-making equipment placed next to his body. The army spokesman vows to destroy terrorist dens and hotbeds and declares success in eliminating a terrorist cell and arresting 345 individuals.
Although the video cannot be independently verified, if it is true this young boy is another victim of the heavy-handed war on terror Egyptian security forces are waging in Sinai which purports to be against the local Daesh affiliate, Sinai Province. Under this counterterror operation authorities have forcibly disappeared hundreds of civilians. Several have been extrajudicially executed and then presented to the public as terrorists.
Egyptian authorities released a video last year which alleges to show an anti-terror raid that killed ten Daesh fighters yet experts who analysed the footage said there were indications that it was fake, for example the positions of the bodies suggest they had been moved. At least some of the men in the footage were arrested some months before its release.
In April last year Mekameleen TV station based in Istanbul broadcast a video of an Egyptian military officer executing young men then placing their rifles next to the bodies for photographs to film them and then removing the guns. Two of the victims were identified as 16-year-old Daoud Sabri Al-Awabdah and his brother, 19-year-old Abd Al-Hadi Sabri, who were forcibly disappeared on 18 July 2016.
A violent crackdown in Sinai has been ongoing since 2013 but intensified earlier this year when the government launched Sinai 2018 ahead of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s deadline to “restore stability and security” in the region.
Roads have closed isolating cities from each other and the North Sinai governorate from Egypt’s mainland. There is not enough food, schools and universities have shut and homes are being evacuated and demolished including around Al-Arish airport to create a security buffer zone.
Arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings are rife yet the details of what takes place in the region are murky. Journalists and human rights organisations are not allowed into Sinai without permission from the government, which is rarely granted.
READ:
Extrajudicial execution of 54 people over ‘terrorism’ allegations
May 8, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | Egypt, Human rights, Zionism |
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Aletho News
