A Tonkin Gulf Incident in the Gulf of Oman?
BY PAT BUCHANAN • UNZ REVIEW • AUGUST 6, 2021
A week ago, the MT Mercer Street, a Japanese-owned tanker managed by a U.K.-based company owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer, sailing in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Oman, was struck by drones.
A British security guard and Romanian crew member were killed.
Britain and the U.S. immediately blamed Iran, and the Israelis began to beat the war drums.
Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said action against Iran should be taken “right now.”
Tuesday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned Israel could “act alone.” “They can’t sit calmly in Tehran while igniting the entire Middle East — that’s over,” said Bennett. “We are working to enlist the whole world, but when the time comes, we know how to act alone.”
Wednesday, Gantz ratcheted it up, “Now is the time for deeds — words are not enough. … It is time for diplomatic, economic and even military deeds. Otherwise the attacks will continue.”
Thursday, Gantz went further: “Israel is ready to attack Iran, yes. … We are at a point where we need to take military action against Iran. The world needs to take action against Iran now.”
And what do the Americans say?
“We are confident that Iran conducted this attack,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “We are working with our partners to consider our next steps and consulting with governments inside the region and beyond on an appropriate response, which will be forthcoming.”
Iran, however, has repeatedly denied that it ordered the attack.
What makes the attack puzzling is its timing, as it occurred just days before the inauguration of the newly elected president of Iran, the ultraconservative hardliner Ebrahim Raisi.
Query: Would Raisi have ordered a provocative attack on an Israeli-owned vessel, just days before taking office, when his highest priority is a lifting of the “maximum pressure” sanctions imposed on his country by former President Donald Trump? Why?
Would Raisi put at risk his principal diplomatic goal, just to get even with Israel for some earlier pinprick strike in the tit-for-tat war in which Iran and Israel have been engaged for years? Again, why?
If not Raisi, would the outgoing president, the moderate Hassan Rouhani, have ordered such an attack on his last hours in office and risk igniting a war with Israel and the U.S. that his country could not win?
Could the attack have been the work of rogue elements in the Iranian Republican Guard Corps? Gantz and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid claim that Saeed Ara Jani, head of the drones section of the IRGC, “is the man personally responsible for the terror attacks in the Gulf of Oman.”
Or was this simply a reflexive Iranian reprisal for Israeli attacks?
For years, Israel and Iran have been in a shadow war, with Iran backing Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the Shia militia in Syria and Iraq.
Israel has both initiated and responded to attacks with strikes on Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, and by sabotaging Iran’s nuclear program and assassinating its nuclear scientists.
But whoever was behind the attack in the Gulf of Oman, and whatever the political motive, the U.S. was not the target, and the U.S. should not respond militarily to a drone strike that was not aimed at us.
No one has deputized us to police the Middle East, and we have not prospered these last two decades by having deputized ourselves.
With America leaving Afghanistan and U.S. troops in Iraq transiting out of any “combat” role, now is not the time to get us ensnared in a new war with Iran.
Lest we forget. It was in an August, 57 years ago, that the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred, which led America to plunge into an eight-year war in Vietnam.
President Joe Biden’s diplomatic goal with Iran, since taking office, has been the resurrection of the 2015 nuclear deal from which former President Donald Trump walked away. In return for Iran’s reacceptance of strict conditions on its nuclear program, the U.S. has offered a lifting of Trump’s sanctions.
Whoever launched the drone strike sought to ensure that no new U.S.-Iran deal is consummated, that U.S. sanctions remain in place, and that a U.S. war with Iran remain a possibility.
But, again, why would Tehran carry out such a drone attack and kill crewmen on an Israeli-owned vessel — then loudly deny it?
Since he took office, Biden has revealed his intent to extricate the U.S. from the “forever wars” of the Middle East and to pivot to the Far East and China. By this month’s end, all U.S. forces are to be out of Afghanistan, and the 2,500 U.S. troops still in Iraq are to be repurposed, no longer to be designated as combat troops.
Those behind this attack on the Israeli-owned vessel do not want to reduce the possibility of war between the United States and Iran.
They want to make it a reality. We ought not accommodate them.
Washington’s Terrorist Friends: Prominent Americans Continue to Support a Murderous Cult
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 5, 2021
One might ask if Washington’s obsession with terrorism includes supporting radical armed groups as long as they are politically useful in attacking countries that the US regards as enemies? It is widely known that the American CIA worked with Saudi Arabia to create al-Qaeda to attack the Russians in Afghanistan and the same my-enemy’s-enemy thinking appears to drive the current relationships with radical groups in Syria.
Given the fact that Iran continues to be the Biden Administration’s enemy du jour, it is perhaps not surprising to observe that the US also supports terror groups that are capable of attacking targets in the Islamic Republic. To that end, recently a number of former senior government officials and politicians were involved in cultivating their relationships with the Iranian terrorist group Mojahedin e Khalq (MEK), which held its most recent annual international summit in Paris for three days starting on July 10th. The event was online due to French COVID prevention guidelines and the featured speaker was Michele Flournoy, former US undersecretary of defense for policy under President Barack Obama. Flournoy was once considered a front runner to be President Joe Biden’s defense secretary and she currently heads a consulting firm WestExec Advisors that she co-founded with current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken which has had considerable influence over staffing and other issues in the White House. In her talk, she accused Iran of posing a danger to the security of the Middle East, the United States, and to its own people, elaborating how “Since 1979, every US administration has had to deal with the threat posed by Iran’s revolutionary regime and the Biden administration is no different. Iran is one of the most urgent foreign policy issues on the president’s desk.” She called for an “internal regime change” in the Islamic Republic.
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers also spoke before the online gathering. Speakers included House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Democratic Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. Also participating were Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida and both Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. Former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile also spoke as did former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said that the MEK should be “blessed and protected.”
The summit self-described as “the largest-ever online international event dedicated to liberating Iran” with the objective of “inciting uprisings against the government in the Islamic Republic.” Though it would be charitable to suggest that the congressmen and former officials were largely involved to pick up the generous fees paid to speakers, it must also be noted that knowledge of MEK and its history is readily available on the internet and elsewhere. Flournoy in particular should have known better but even she, after the fact, claimed implausibly that she did not know that she was speaking to a former terrorist group that had killed Americans.
It should also be observed that the participating Congressmen all have extremely close ties to Israel and its domestic lobby, which have been assiduous in their efforts to vilify Iran as America’s designated enemy. To be sure, no one at the summit even mentioned Israel’s use of MEK operatives to carry out assassinations of scientists and sabotage operations inside Iran.
MEK is a curious hybrid creature in any event in that it pretends to be an alternative government option for Iran even though it is despised by nearly all Iranians. It is considered to be both irrelevant and ineffective but Iran hatred is so prevalent that it is greatly loved by the Washington Establishment which would like to see the Mullahs deposed and replaced by something more amenable to US and Israeli worldviews.
MEK is run like a cult by its leader Maryam Rajavi, with a number of rules that restrict and control the behavior of its members. One commentary likens membership in MEK to a modern-day equivalent of slavery. A study prepared by the Rand corporation for the U.S. government conducted interviews of MEK members and concluded that there were present “many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse and limited exit options.”
The group currently operates out of a secretive, heavily guarded 84 acre compound in Albania that is covertly supported by the United States intelligence community, as well as through a “political wing” front office in Paris, where it refers to itself as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). MEK is financially supported by Saudi Arabia, which enables it to stage events in the United States and in Europe where it generously pays politicians to make fifteen-minute speeches praising the organization and everything it does. It’s bribing of inside the Beltway power brokers and its support by Israel proved so successful that it was removed from the State Department terrorist list in 2012 by Hillary Clinton even though it had killed Americans in the 1970s.
As indicated above, MEK made the transition from terrorist group to “champions of Iranian democracy” by virtue of intensive lobbying of Iran haters. A Guardian article also describes how “A stupendously long list of American politicians from both parties were paid hefty fees to speak at events in favor of the MEK, including Rudy Giuliani, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, Elaine Chao and former Democratic party chairs Edward Rendell and Howard Dean – along with multiple former heads of the FBI and CIA. John Bolton, who has made multiple appearances at events supporting the MEK, is estimated to have received upwards of $180,000. According to financial disclosure forms, Bolton was paid $40,000 for a single appearance at the Free Iran rally in Paris in 2017.”
It apparently has never occurred to the congressmen and senior officials that the MEK group had a whole lot of history before it appeared on the scene in Washington and began buying American politicians. MEK, which consisted of a group of dissident students having Marxism inspired anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist roots, had a bloody falling out with the Iranian revolution leaders in 1979, forcing it to resettle at Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad. It was protected by Saddam Hussein and used to carry out terrorist attacks inside Iran. It was also fiercely anti-American beginning back in the 1970s when it was still in Iran, to include attacks on US businesses and denunciations of the United States presence in Iran under the Shah. In 1979 it supported executing the US Embassy hostages rather than negotiating their release. One of its songs went “Death to America by blood and bonfire on the lips of every Muslim is the cry of the Iranian people. May America be annihilated.”
Within the US government, MEK was notorious for its assassination of at least six US Air Force officers and civilian defense contractors. One particularly audacious ambush in which two air force officers were murdered by MEK while being driven in from the airport was reenacted for each incoming class at the Central Intelligence Agency training center in the late 1970s to illustrate just how a perfectly executed terrorist attack on a moving vehicle might take place.
Given how currently nearly every news cycle includes stories about fake news on social media, it is surprising that MEK is never mentioned. Its current Albanian operational center uses banks of computers manned by followers, some of whom are fluent in English, who serve as bots unleashing scores of comments supporting regime change in Iran while also directing waves of criticism against any pro-Iranian pieces that appear elsewhere on social media, to include Facebook and Twitter. By one account, more than a thousand MEK supporters manage thousands of accounts on social media simultaneously. The objective of all the chatter is to convince the mostly English-speaking audience that there is a large body of Iranians who are hostile to the regime and supportive of MEK as a replacement.
It is an indisputable fact that over the past ten years, members of both major parties in Congress have either traveled to the group’s compound in Albania or spoken via video messages or live appearances in exchange for hefty speaking fees. The support provided by prominent officeholders and policymakers to include effusive praise of a terrorist group that is viscerally anti-American and has killed US officials is a disgrace. It is also a symptom of deeper problems in terms of how our foreign policy has been developed through the ascendancy of special interests. That America’s Iran policy should lead to praise of a radicalized extremist cult that is funded by authoritarian Saudi Arabia and politically supported by apartheid Israel ignores US actual interests at our peril.
No indication of Iran’s involvement in Israeli tanker attack: Russia
Press TV – August 2, 2021
A senior Russian foreign ministry official strictly rejects existence of any indications pointing to Iran’s likely involvement in a recent attack on an Israeli oil tanker off the Omani coast.
“We have not the slightest reason to believe [that Iran was involved in the attack],” the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Asian Department Director, Zamir Kabulov told Russia’s Sputnik news agency on Monday.
In a statement on Friday, Zodiac Maritime, the Israeli-owned firm managing the tanker, said that two crewmen, a Briton and a Romanian, had been killed in the assault.
The Israeli regime and its sworn allies, the United States and the UK, rushed to accuse Iran of having a role in the incident, without providing any evidence. The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also alleged that the attack was deliberate and coordinated by Tehran.
Kabulov, however, reiterated Russia’s stance, saying Moscow’s refusal to corroborate such accusations was because “we have no facts.”
“When there are facts, then we will work out our position,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has summoned Britain’s chargé d’affaires and Romania’s ambassador to convey Tehran’s strong protest, reminding the envoys that the source of instability in the Persian Gulf was not the Islamic Republic, but actually extra-regional presence.
Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh has also refuted such accusations as “absolutely groundless,” saying they feature “contradictory,” “hollow,” and “provocative” claims.
The official also sounded a strong warning against any act of adventurism targeting the Islamic Republic’s interests based on the unfounded claims.
Foreign Ministry: Any adventurism will be met with Iran’s immediate, powerful response
Press TV – August 2, 2021
The spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry has warned against any possible act of adventurism against the country’s interests, pledging “immediate, powerful, and serious” response to any such move.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will not hesitate, even for a moment, to defend its security and national interests, and will answer any possible adventurism with immediate, powerful and serious action,” Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters on Monday.
The Iranian ministry’s spokesman was reacting to recent statements by US and British top diplomats about Iran’s role in the Thursday attack on an Israeli tanker off the coast of Oman.
Without providing any proof, foreign ministers of both the United States and the UK accused Iran of having a direct role in the attack, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken alleging “we are confident that Iran conducted this attack, which killed two innocent people, using one-way explosive UAVs.”
His British counterpart, Dominic Raab, also reflected on the matter, saying that the “unlawful and callous” attack had highly likely been carried out by Iran using one or more drones.
“Their coordinated statements contain contradictory phrases. They first accuse the Islamic Republic without providing any evidence and then speak of the ‘possibility’ [of Iran’s role in the attack],” Khatibzadeh said in reference to Raab saying, “UK assessments have concluded that it is highly likely that Iran attacked the MV Mercer Street in international waters off Oman on 29 July using one or more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).”
The foreign ministry spokesman stressed that Iran is a country that supports safe and secure marine traffic in the Persian Gulf and international waters, which enjoys the longest water border in the strategic region.
Noting that Iran is always ready to work with regional countries to provide maritime security, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said, “Tehran considers the presence and interventions by transregional forces in the Persian Gulf waters and its littoral countries as detrimental to regional stability and security.”
“It is regrettable that these [Western] countries, which have been supportively silent in the face of terrorist sabotages and attacks on Iran’s commercial ships in the Red Sea and international waters, are now leveling politically-motivated baseless accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, if they have any proof to back their baseless claims they must offer them,” the Iranian spokesman said.
Khatibzadeh’s remarks came after earlier on Monday, an informed Iranian source said that Iran will give a strong and crushing response to any measure taken against its national interests and security, blaming Britain and the US for the consequences of such moves against Tehran.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman also talked to media on Sunday, saying that recent accusations leveled against Tehran by Israel and the United States about attacking an Israeli-owned merchant ship in the Sea of Oman are “childish” and influenced by the Zionist lobby in the United States.
“The illegitimate Zionist entity must stop leveling baseless charges against Iran. This is not the first time that this regime brings up such accusations [against Tehran],” he added.
Khatibzadeh noted that such accusations are leveled by the well-known lobby of the Zionist regime in the United States, adding, “The Zionist regime’s officials must know that such projectionist moves will not help them in any way.”
In recent months, several other Israeli-managed ships have come under attack on various maritime routes across the world.
The attacks come against the backdrop of the Israeli regime’s unrelenting assaults on cargo ships across the Persian Gulf region and elsewhere.
Joe Biden Bows to Force Majeure
Kneeling before Israelis is latest indication of who rules in Washington
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JULY 13, 2021
If one were only limited to viewing or reading the US mainstream media the story of how President Joe Biden went down on his knees to honor two visiting Israelis would never have surfaced. Fortunately, the story did make considerable waves in both the Israeli and the alternative media, though not enough to convince the faceless editors at CBS news and elsewhere to run with it. The kneeling incident reportedly took place while Biden was meeting in the White House with soon-to-be retired Israeli president Reuven Rivlin. Rivlin was doing something like his victory lap, having presumably completed his term of office without being charged with corruption, which is what the Jewish state’s leaders have traditionally been noted for.
In fact, the good news re Israeli corruption is that recent ex-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been dogged by corruption charges for years, no longer can claim immunity and just might now have to pay the piper and go to jail together with his lovely wife Sara. The thought of Netanyahu in the slammer brings tears of joy to my eyes, not only because he is dishonest and a thief, but also because he was part of an Israeli spy ring that obtained nuclear triggers to construct bombs, which was operating against the United States back when he lived here in the 1970s-80s. But that is another story for another day.
Rivlin was in town to say goodbye but also to discuss Iran. The Israeli view on Iran is that the Mullahs have a secret nuclear weapons program so any kind of agreement with them allows work to proceed clandestinely. Israel believes that allowing the United States to re-enter into 2015’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) would take the heat off Iran and would virtually guarantee that the Islamic Republic would wind up with a nuclear weapon, which would threaten the entire region, most particularly Israel and the Saudis. This line is, of course, being echoed by Israel’s many friends in the United States.
The other view, supported by both the United Nations and the US intelligence community, is that it is Israel rather than Iran that has a secret nuclear arsenal which is not subject to international inspection. Everyone but Israel believes that Iran, for its part, long ago gave up an exploratory program that might plausibly have led to a weapon. The only so-called evidence challenging that view consists of information on a lap top that was fortuitously discovered by some opponents of the Iranian government which had previously been fabricated by Israeli intelligence and placed so as to be found and exposed.
Biden, completely predictably, assured the Israeli president that his personal commitment to the Jewish state is “iron-clad.” No doubt Rivlin for his part passed the Israeli view regarding Iran on to Biden during their meeting, though there has been no subsequent document describing in any detail that aspect of their discussion. The White House press release described their interaction as follows: “President Biden conveyed his unwavering support for Israel’s security and his commitment to deepening the cooperation between the two countries across all fields. The leaders discussed the many challenges facing the region, including the threat posed by Iran. The President emphasized that under his administration, Iran will never get a nuclear weapon. He also assured President Rivlin that the United States remains determined to counter Iran’s malign activity and support for terrorist proxies, which have destabilizing consequences for the region.”
In reality, of course, it is Israel and the US that are nuclear armed and have been supporting terrorist proxies in the Middle East, but we’ll give that one a pass. Rivlin had with him his 45 year-old chief of staff, a Haredi Orthodox Israeli woman named Rivka Ravitz who has borne twelve children. Many Orthodox Jews apparently believe that procreating up to maximum capacity is a requirement that comes straight from Yahweh. Joe responded with something like delight at the report of the “cheaper by the dozen” offspring and he got so excited that he went down on one knee to honor the lady and, presumably, her boss. And to make matters worse, a photographer who accompanied the Israeli entourage was in the room with the beaming trio and was able to take a picture of Joe on one bended knee, though it also has been claimed that he might have gone down on both knees which raises the question how he managed to get back up at his age. Are Secret Service Agent required to lift up kneeling presidents?
So here we have the president of the United States down on one or two knees in front of two former Israeli government officials. Doesn’t look good, does it? But it could be a metaphor for what the entire United States government and Establishment choose to do when it comes to Israel. Too bad there is no recording of what Honest Joe was saying as he was going down. Was it the usual inarticulate mumble or something acknowledging the power and majesty of his visitors? As noted above, avowed Zionist Joe reportedly said either before or maybe after his prostration that the commitment to Israel is “iron-clad,” which one might suggest to be the unofficial motto of the United States Congress.
I know that Joe Biden and almost everyone else in Washington politics would not share my view of the Israel-US relationship, which to put it succinctly goes as follows: the United States relationship with Israel is a strategic liability that has been a major factor in US involvement in avoidable wars that have cost a great deal of money and have done terrible damage to actual interests, while also leading to the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians and American soldiers. On top of that, the US inexplicably gives Israel, a wealthy nation, billions of dollars each year and uncritical political support that has contributed to America’s sharply declining international standing. Finally, though the Israel Lobby that has brought all of this about through corruption of congress and the media includes a rabid Christian Zionist subset, the money and access to genuine political power nearly all comes from American Jewish groups and wealthy individuals who are guilty of dual loyalty, or actually singular loyalty to Israel. They should all be registered as “foreign agents” to make completely clear where their allegiance lies.
Biden is, to be sure, a funny bloke who wants to pretend to being a devout Roman Catholic while also supporting abortion as a form of birth control. He also appears to want to be President of the United States while giving “iron-clad” guarantees of loyalty to a foreign country. Given that, his kneeling to Israeli officials in the Oval Office is under the circumstances appropriate as it reflects who is actually in charge. Biden, like Nancy Pelosi and the other bottom crawlers that make up the US Congress, reflexively and automatically defers to Israel and to the powerful Jewish community on both foreign policy and many domestic issues. If one cannot accept that simple truth it will become impossible to understand what is actually at play.
Apart from a handful of liberals, who in the Congress is complaining about using readily and even illegally supplied American weapons to kill Gazans? What do we have to do to have a president that actually puts Americans first, since neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden seem prepared to do so? It is an unavoidable fact that on so many of these issues the American federal and even many state and local governments have been dominated by Israel’s interests. The only question is “What can be done to change that dynamic?” That’s the underlying problem, but change just might come if and when more Americans begin to realize the extent to which their president and governing system have been compromised and their tax dollars stolen by Israel!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
House committees pass $20 mill per day on behalf of Israel
By Alison Weir | Israel-Palestine News | July 12, 2021
Congressional committees recently passed two bills that contain provisions to disburse a total of over $7 billion on behalf of Israel in the year 2022. This works out to almost $20 million per day.
These provisions were included in the bills despite the fact that Israel just committed another onslaught against Gazan men, women, and children; despite Israel’s many actions that harm Americans; despite the fact that most Americans think the U.S. already gives Israel too much money; and despite the fact that aid to Israel is illegal under U.S. laws.
On June 30th, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense approved a bill that gives Israel half a billion dollars, and on July 1st the House Appropriations Committee advanced a bill that disburses nearly $6.4 billion on behalf of Israel.
APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE BILL
The latter bill, currently called the “2022 State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations” bill, includes a measure that would give Israel $3.3 billion in military aid. The Committee’s press release on the bill, however, does not mention the funding for Israel.
In addition to this $3.3 billion, the bill includes the following funding that benefits Israel:
• An additional $58 million on related programs for Israel, which AIPAC points out in a series of proud tweets that list them.
• The bill provides $1.65 billion to Jordan and $1.4 billion to Egypt stemming from previous agreements with their governments to desist from advocating for Palestinian rights.
• It also contains a section to provide $225 million for alleged assistance to Palestinians. In reality, such funding is largely intended to benefit Israel, and is often proposed and/or receives support from Israel partisans such as Nita Lowey.
Rationales given in the bill for this funding are that it would “advance Middle East peace” (i.e. lead Palestinians to accede to Israeli demands); “improve security in the region” (be used by the Palestinian Authority to continue to round up resistance fighters – the Palestinian Authority is known as Israel’s “day-to-day partner in governing the West Bank”); and to “address urgent humanitarian needs” (but doesn’t mention that these needs are caused by Israel’s ongoing military attacks and financial policies against Palestinians).
Portions of the aid are used as a combination threat and bribe; the money will not be provided if “the Palestinians obtain the same standing as member states or full membership as a state in the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof” or if “the Palestinians initiate an International Criminal Court (ICC) judicially authorized investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians.”
Such ‘humanitarian’ funding for Palestinians is considered important for Israel, as two prominent Israel advocates explain:
“Funding for Palestinian assistance programs has always flowed with bipartisan support because it was determined to reinforce Israel’s security and provide a measure of U.S. leverage and influence.
This logic was ratified by the support of the Israeli government for these programs. Israeli authorities understood that a breakdown in security, an economic collapse or a humanitarian crisis in the West Bank would place an enormous burden on Israel.”
These additional provisions bring the total amount of Americans’ tax money to be disbursed on behalf of Israel in the Appropriations Committee bill to at least $6.7 billion.
Added to that is the half billion in the defense subcommittee bill passed on June 30th, making the total amount of money to be disbursed on behalf of Israel approximately $7.2 billion.
These provisions were passed despite the fact that most voters would likely oppose them, since, as mentioned above, surveys indicate that the majority of Americans don’t support such large funding to Israel. However, very few Americans know about the proposed funding, since mainstream U.S. news companies almost never report on such legislation (unlike Israeli and Israel-focused U.S. media).
EVEN MORE MONEY FOR ISRAEL…
And there are numerous additional expenditures on behalf of Israel throughout the bill that are not included in the above tabulation.
Among these are funding for operations to dismantle the Arab League boycott of Israel; millions of dollars provided for Jews resettling in Israel; portions of the $20 billion to “Democracy Programs” and the $4.5 billion to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that are used to oppose support for Palestinian rights as allegedly ‘antisemitism’; funding to countries such as Bahrain, UAE, Morocco, and others resulting from enticements to procure their ‘normalization‘ policies with Israel, etc. A thorough examination of such additional programs could quite possibly add another billion dollars to be disbursed for Israel.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before House Appropriation Subcommittee hearing on 2022 State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations bill on June 7, 2021. (Blinken had helped give Israel millions of additional dollars during its 2014 massacre of Gazans.) (C-Span)
AIPAC IS PLEASED
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – possibly the most famous of the hundreds of pro-Israel groups in the U.S. – applauded Congressional leaders for their action in passing the measures:
This money to and for Israel is not new. Over the years, Israel has received far more U.S. tax money than any other country on earth: on average over 7,000 times more per capita than anyone else.
And in addition to all of this are the lives destroyed and the multi-trillion dollar cost of the Iraq war, a tragic and disastrous quagmire promoted by Israel and its American partisans.
And on top of this are the costs, in both lives and treasure, of Israel-influenced policies regarding Syria, Iran, and others.
It’s time to end Israel’s strangle hold over American politicians. To tell your Congress members to vote against this massive funding for Israel, go here.
(And to tell them to enact legislation that protects Palestinian children, go here.)
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
Documents reveal US pressure on ex-Yemeni regime to agree on normalizing ties with Israel
Press TV – July 12, 2021
The interior ministry of Yemen’s National Salvation Government has released a series of confidential documents detailing the United States pressure on the administration of former Yemeni dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to normalize relations with Israel and lift the blockade on products made in the Israeli occupied territories.
According to the documents, the US embassy in Sana’a had asked then-Yemeni authorities to end the economic embargo on Israeli goods, and not to participate in any activities deemed harmful to the Tel Aviv regime, the official Yemeni news agency Saba reported.
The papers expose the level of Washington’s and Tel Aviv’s discontent and frustration with the blockade, and how US officials left no stone unturned to force former Yemeni officials into opening the Arab country’s market to Israeli businesses and their products.
The former US ambassador to Yemen, Thomas C. Krajeski, called on Saleh’s regime to lift sanctions on companies with first-, second- or third-degree ties to Israel, which was not turned down by the Yemeni side.
Then-Yemeni foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, later told the US ambassador that the so-called embargo on US and Israeli goods was not actually being enforced.
The documents go on to reveal that the US embassy urged the Yemeni foreign ministry not to dispatch representatives to an anti-Israel event at the University of Damascus in Syria.
Moreover, the American diplomat described Yemen’s removal of boycott of Israeli products as the fundamental prerequisite for the Arab state’s membership in the World Trade Organization, and its access to free trade and international investment.
Last month, Spokesman for Yemen’s Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced that Yemeni security forces had arrested a man involved in espionage activities on behalf of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.
Saree said in a tweet at the time that more details on the matter will be provided in a documentary entitled “The Spy of Mossad in Yemen.”
The documentary will shed light on part of Israel’s intervention in the country and “the plan to target Yemen militarily, and other secrets revealed for the first time,” the senior Yemeni military figure pointed out.
The developments come as earlier reports said that Israel and the United Arab Emirates have been working to establish a spy base on Yemen’s strategically-located island of Socotra.
The UAE has also been accused of constructing an air base on the Mayyun Island, situated off the Yemeni coast in the Bab el-Mandeb.
Both activities have drawn strong condemnation from the Yemeni government, which has described them as violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and international law, especially following the illegally-run tours to Socotra from Abu Dhabi, some of which included Israeli tourists.
“The transfer of tourists to the Socotra Island reveals the plans and programs of the occupying UAE, which are in line with the Zionist schemes to dominate Yemeni islands as well as the steps towards normalization with the regime,” a statement read back then.
Yemen’s popular Ansaullah resistance movement has previously threatened to attack Israel if it was “involved in any action against Yemeni people.”
The Israeli regime took the threats seriously, and deployed its Iron Dome and Patriot missile systems around the southern city of Eilat early this year.
Joe Biden Picks Up the Baton from Barack Obama
By Vladimir Odintsov – New Eastern Outlook – 07.07.2021
Barack Obama, the once US President, member of the Democratic Party, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, fought four wars.
Republican Donald Trump who succeeded him preferred not to increase the number of war zones and conflicts involving the United States Armed Forces.
It is thus not surprising that some members of the international community began to attentively monitor USA’s foreign policies once Joe Biden became the head of US administration. What steps will he take in relation to armed conflicts that the United States is embroiled in? What regions could the new US President start wars in?
Such concerns stem from the fact that Joe Biden had previously supported military interventions, and in matters of foreign policy, he is probably more of a “hawk”, i.e. a politician who tends to escalate conflicts, than a dove.
For instance, back in the day, he voted for the resolution authorizing military air operations and missile strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In addition, the United States supplied Bosnian majority Muslim fighters with weapons. Thousands of civilians, including 400 children, died as a result of NATO-led bombing.
As Senator, Joe Biden also supported the 2001 US military operation in Afghanistan, arguing that Washington was obliged to attack the Afghanis “whatever the cost”. According to some estimates, the number of people who died during the war in Afghanistan may be as high as 360,000, including 26,000 children.
Since 1998, Joe Biden talked about use of force in Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power. In 2003, he was an ardent supporter of the Operation Iraqi Freedom, which resulted in over 200,000 civilians dead, of which about 40% were children. Because uranium containing weapons were used by the United States in Iraq, it has been suggested that there could be a link between cancer incidence (a 17-fold growth compared to 1991!) among the population in Iraq and their use.
In 2011, the then Vice President, Joe Biden followed Obama administration’s policies, including the intervention in Libya. NATO air strikes killed hundreds of civilians, and the Libyan civil war that followed resulted in many more deaths.
After winning the presidential election, Joe Biden “declared his presidency would not be a third Obama term” but a number of reports since then have challenged his assertion. Barack Obama played a crucial role during Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. One could even say that the former’s popularity helped the latter win the presidency.
As regards the US military budget, which was determined back under Barack Obama at a total of $1.3 trillion, Joe Biden promised during his election campaign that he would not dramatically decrease spending on national defense. He also did not hide his satisfaction with the amounts spent on the Barack Obama era nuclear modernization programs. The current President would probably also like to ensure that US armed forces are well-equipped with the latest weapons, equipment and ammunition.
During Barack Obama’s presidency, Joe Biden said he was an advocate for arms control and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. In fact, he stated that reducing the threat of a nuclear attack was a priority for the administration. Then Vice President expressed his belief that the United States needed to “keep pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”.
Now that Joe Biden has been in his new role as President for approximately six months, there has been an increasing number of signs indicating that his administration intends to return to Barack Obama era policies if possible. Still, it is unquestionably difficult to do so to a full extent because times have changed and so has the geopolitical situation.
According to an article published by The Spectator, “Joe Biden ordered his first big missile sally, a retaliatory strike in Syria” in early March 2021, during which the US “air forces dropped seven 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) at a crossing used by Iranian-backed militia groups, reportedly killing 17”. At the time, some lawmakers expressed concern about the move as the new President ordered the military operation without congressional authorization.
On June 28, 2021, President Joe Biden directed military forces to conduct defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region”, as reported by CNN.
According to an article in the Türkiye newspaper, Joe Biden instructed the US military command to soon step up military activities in Syria and get rid of Iranian presence in the region to appease Israel. Syrian field commanders during in an interview with the publication confirmed the news and gave further details of the American plan. In particular, the United States was in the process of recruiting 30,000 local fighters in order to conduct a large scale operation in Eastern parts of Syria, between the city of Al Bukamal, near the border with Iraq, and Al-Tanf (one of three official border crossings between Iraq and Syria). The military campaign is expected to last at least 8 months and will begin at the same time within the 250-km region between Al Bukamal and Al-Tanf. The publication also claims that US officials have asked their Turkish counterparts for permission to use two of their military bases for training and equipping the mercenaries. Supposedly, these fighters are to be paid $300 while their leaders – $600 to 1,000 depending on their rank.
Joe Biden wrote “a letter to Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Patrick Leahy” regarding the air strikes in Syria, which was published on the White House website on June 29, 2021. In it, he stated that the United States stood “ready to take further action, as necessary and appropriate, to address further threats or attacks”.
Aside from military operations in the Middle East, the US President has all but declared the start of two cold wars against Russia and the PRC.
The author believes that increasing domestic polarization over a number of years could lead to a major public rift in the United States. In fact, during the 2020 election, “317 retired generals and admirals signed an Open Letter” warning that America was in deep peril and was fighting for survival. At the beginning of May, 2021, over 120 retired US generals and admirals published another open letter, which said that “without fair and honest elections” the Constitutional Republic was lost, and some former military leaders may not be on the side of the current Democratic President. A major rift could thus be brewing within the nation.
And so could external military conflicts, as the US leadership does not know any other ways of dealing with its domestic issues, of which there are as many as during the Civil War, without inciting conflicts in other countries.
Hence, the possibility of escalations in tensions abroad is growing, for instance, between the United States and the PRC in the Taiwan Strait as well as the South China Sea; or in the Korean Peninsula. It is also possible that the US leadership will try to involve other Western nations in its confrontation against Russia and its allies. Still, it is unlikely that such moves will benefit the current US administration. After all, not all Americans would choose to send their children to fight in yet another war. In addition, the current balance of military power has been shifting. China’s and Russia’s growing military clout and stockpiles of cutting edge weapons are indicative of the fact that the United States may not emerge victorious in a confrontation against them.
In the author’s opinion, the Biden administration could consider waging a brief war that the US is capable of winning as an option in order to unite the divided nation and raise levels of patriotism among the populace. It would be even better if fighters from, for instance, Syria, South America or other parts of the world, were to take part in such a conflict instead of US servicemen.
It’s Time to Say ‘No’ to US Blockade on Lebanon
By Marwa Haidar | Al-Manar | July 8, 2021
US officials have repeatedly made it clear that it will prevent Lebanon from receiving crude oil from Iran, tightening the noose on the Middle Eastern country which has been facing the harshest economic crisis in decades.
A year ago, in July 2020, former US Secretary of State Mile Pompeo said taking oil from Iran would be “unacceptable.”
“It would be sanctioned product for sure, and we’ll do everything we can to make sure that Iran cannot continue to sell crude oil anywhere, including to Hezbollah in the region…,” the ex-diplomat said in remarks on July 8, 2020.
Pompeo’s remarks were in response to Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah who said at time that the Lebanese Resistance group was in discussion with the government about Iran supplying refined oil products to Lebanon in exchange for Lebanese pounds to ease pressure on the plummeting currency.
This year, and amid the increasingly severe fuel shortages that brought long queues at service stations in recent months, Sayyed Nasrallah renewed the Iranian offer to sell Lebanon oil in exchange for Lebanon pound.
Responding to Sayyed Nasrallah, US Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea said that importing fuel oil from Iran “is not a practical solution.”
“What Iran is looking for is a sort of dependent state that it can use to carry out its agenda. There are much better solutions than turning to Iran,” the US envoy said in remarks earlier last month.
Nearly a month after renewing the Iranian offer, it seems that no Lebanese official “has the courage” to press for importing fuel supplies from the Islamic Republic, with many parties and figures fearing Washington’s sanctions.
In his latest speech last week, Sayyed Nasrallah Lashed out at the US over tightening the blockade on Lebanon by preventing Lebanon from approving deals with any Eastern country, including China and Iran.
His eminence said that the US ambassador “sheds crocodile tears and deceives the Lebanese by providing some masks,” stressing that Washington has been the main supporter of the corrupts and money embezzlers in Lebanon.
Turning to Lebanese statesmen, Sayyed Nasrallah made it clear: that they have to make some sacrifices for their country and override the fear of the US sanctions.
The Hezbollah S.G. said that saving the country from the socioeconomic crisis deserves courageous decisions by several Lebanese figures and parties, hinting out that now it’s time to say ‘no’ to Washington.
US neocons Bolton & PNAC lay down weapons of war for protest signs with their new ‘Turkish Democracy Project’
By Helen Buyniski | RT | July 5, 2021
The aging neocons who have been practicing regime change ops in the Middle East for decades are now launching a project targeting Turkey – perhaps in honor of the deceased Don Rumsfeld.
Erdogan’s Turkey has long been something of a thorn in Washington’s paw, given its ongoing refusal to buy inferior US military equipment (it was booted from the US’ F-35 program for insisting on buying Russian S-400 missiles, making the Americans who still store their nukes at Incirlik somewhat nervous), its refusal to place the good of Israel above its own benefit, and its rumblings of discontent regarding the US’ pleas for support (or at least safe passage) to its Syrian ‘moderate rebel’ militant groups, which Ankara considers to be little more than terrorists.
Under the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has become quite recalcitrant indeed, far from the ideal domesticated state keen to babysit American nukes and stage American missiles in exchange for coveted membership in the deteriorating NATO structure (not long ago fetchingly described by French President Emmanuel Macron as “brain dead”). Clearly what it needs is a shot in the bottom from that great big needle marked ‘Democracy’ – and who better to deliver that than the good old boys from the Project for a New American Century, many of them the old same men who led and lied the US, blindfolded, into the chaos of Iraq.
Enter the Turkish Democracy Project, a non-profit organization which – it should be clear from the name – has nothing to do with democracy or, really, Turkishness. The group’s website is about as subtle as a nuclear bomb, blaming President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for “dramatically alter[ing] Turkey’s position in the international community and its status as a free and liberal democracy” and calling for “a nonprofit, non-partisan, international policy organization that opposes its destabilizing behavior, supports genuine democratic reform, and holds the forces of corruption and oppression within Turkey to account.” In other words: “We want a piece of your country. Resist and be annihilated.”
It’s not that the US thinks Turkey is stupid. But they believe, and are likely correct, that the US will never have as good a time as now to strike. With its military still feared by many parts of the world (even though its bark is at this point far worse than its bite, and its image still suitably ferocious to put much of the actual war-fighting business to fleeing instead of fighting), the main business must be – if the US expects to do something other than flee home with its tail between its legs – “shock and awe.”
But given that these shock and awe tactics will be taking place in the Middle East, an area which has seen the worst the US can throw at its enemies over the last 20 years of perpetual warfare and realizes all the money in the world can’t give even the largest military on Earth the stamina of the gods, it’s likely these dyed-in-the-wool bloodshed-artists will have to change with the times. To invade a militarily competent nation like Turkey – especially one which, inconveniently, happens to be backed by NATO – is unlikely to be a walk in the park, no matter how many phony war crimes the PNAC crew manage to cook up. Gas attacks have become cliche, and any talk of “weapons of mass destruction” will elicit a chortle at best.
So the TDS, if recent events are any indication, has instead gotten to work with the kind of color revolution-style events that have largely replaced shock and awe in other regime-change hotspots. They’re cheap, they’re easy, and in this case – a protest in Istanbul against Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention? – they require exactly zero imagination. It’s much easier to con the rest of NATO if you don’t have to make them think.
Thousands of activists took to the streets on Thursday, either on their own or hailing from various NGOs, denouncing Turkey’s withdrawal from the European human rights treaty known as the Istanbul Convention. Erdogan’s executive order removing Turkey from the treaty, first adopted back in March, argued the country’s women are protected by domestic laws rather than the international human rights treaty – which he argued had been “hijacked” by the LGBTQ+ community.
The hoary old PNAC boys behind the TDS likely couldn’t believe their luck when something like this fell into their lap. But will they be able to modernize?
The group’s CEO is Mark Wallace, who’s also the CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran – another unsubtly named regime-change operation (and a regime change that has failed repeatedly). An old hand at overthrowing Middle Eastern nations the old-fashioned way, Wallace held several positions with the George W. Bush administration while the nation was attempting to crush Iraq (apparently shocked the children had run forward with IEDs instead of handfuls of wildflowers to welcome their new rulers).
Indeed, numerous fellow veterans of the Iraq regime change effort and abortive attempts to overthrow Iran have bubbled up in the swamp gas to give regime change in Turkey a go. Wallace is joined by other bottom-feeders like former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman and UANI intel chief Norman Roule, as well as glorified mustache-carrier, would-be thug, and former Trump national security adviser John Bolton. Former Bush adviser Frances Townsend is there, as is former associate deputy director of operations for the CIA (and Blackwater vet) Robert Richer. At least a few members of the shadowy pro-Israel Foundation for the Defense of Democracies were listed and then memory-holed, and Bush’s brother Jeb is there, a speech bubble forever hovering above his head reading “please clap.”
Oddly enough, however, the only currently listed actual employee aside from CEO Wallace is a (presumably) former assistant English professor at Princeton University. No, that’s not suspicious at all. Carry on, I’m sure Turkey will welcome you (and your desired partitioning of the country) with open arms!
With Erdogan still trustingly paying his country’s NATO dues, Ankara is unlikely to expect any sort of real attack, though the leader is likely on guard, given former President Trump’s on-again, off-again announcement to clear out US soldiers from Syria. He is likely to be on the lookout for foreign meddlers among the protesters, however. And Erdogan’s allies with their ears to the ground both inside and outside Turkey have already pegged this absurd attempt at bringing back ‘democracy’ for what it really is. While some have linked it to the infamous Gulen movement, referring to the cleric who most recently was accused of trying to overthrow Erdogan in 2016, Gulen’s movement itself seems to have ties to the same ‘Greater Israel’ plan to redraw the lines on the map of the Middle East, a plan Israeli military strategist Oded Yinon devised decades ago (and which the neocons appear to have used as their foreign policy guide ever since). Former Turkish opposition lawmaker Aykan Erdemir, senior director for Turkey at the FDD, was accused of being connected to Gulen in 2017 and had his assets seized, strengthening the case for the connection between Gulen’s organization and the notoriously pro-Israel FDD.
But with all of NATO’s heads turned to this human rights drama, surely the other countries in the alliance also participating in the drawing-and-quartering of Syria won’t expect a military attack on Turkey as well – not without some warning. The map of Greater Israel shows Turkey losing a mere corner of their land compared to Syria, which takes quite a beating – one which Turkey clearly expects to be a part of, having already staked its claim effectively to certain border regions of Syria under the logic of keeping the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) away. But this is all temporary, and eventually the region must settle into its new form. An Israel-first arrangement will not go down well with any of the other combatants, and, unlike the US and its European partners, Turkey won’t just sit on its hands and sigh wistfully while its share of the Syrian pie is handed to the US by way of Tel Aviv.
Because that’s who the ultimate beneficiary of this mess is supposed to be. Named after the Israeli military strategist who devised it, the Yinon project hopes to balkanize the Middle East and assemble the shards into a single nation consisting of the choicest morsels of those countries in between the Euphrates and the Nile rivers. Iraq has already been cut in half, Syria has shrunk dramatically even as the war goes on, and Egypt is run by a pliant leader who will do what the US and Israel tell him – as General Wesley Clark said over a decade ago, the plan was to take out seven countries in five years. They’re running a bit behind, but never underestimate the abilities of a bunch of old war criminals with nothing to lose.
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Telegram.
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From the Archives
Mutually Assured Delusion (MAD)
By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | November 5, 2013
Groupthink: A pattern of thought charaterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.
Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets, by Roland Benabou, published in the Review of Economic Studies. Benabou also has a talk (ppt slides) on this subject.
First, a definition of groupthink (from the ppt slides):
Janis (1972)’s eight symptoms [of groupthink]:
- illusion of invulnerability
- collective rationalization
- belief in inherent morality
- stereotyped views of out-groups
- direct pressure on dissenters
- self-censorship
- illusion of unanimity
- self-appointed mind guards
Sound like any groups that we know? … continue
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