If Western capitals and their international agencies have long decried sectarianism, and all other form of overt xenophobia, may it revolve around ethnicity, social class, gender, politics or faith, those powers have nevertheless leaned on elitism and selectivity to carry both their war propaganda and narrative in the Middle East.
I would personally argue that much of the hatred we have seen rise in the MENA – Middle East and Northern Africa, over the past decades, stem from Western powers’ desire to fragment, divide and segregate to better manipulate nations, and play communities against each other. This grand Balkanization of the Middle East the Yinon Plann laid out in the 1980s was not just another political exercise … it appears evident today that at its heart, such strategy spoke socio-political and sectarian engineering, before any real geographical re-arrangement. Beyond a simple game of border drawing, the Yinon Plan aimed to rise an Empire on the ashes of both a civilization, and a history – to hell with the consequences.
It was Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya in 2011 who best summarized the Yinon Plan, when he wrote: “[The Yinon plan] is an Israeli strategic plan to ensure Israeli regional superiority. It insists and stipulates that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through the balkanization of the surrounding Arab states into smaller and weaker states.”
The strategy, which was later on championed under another name by US Vice President Joe Biden to accelerate the break-up of Iraq into three separate entities: Shia, Kurds and Sunnis, provisions for a division of the Greater Middle East along both ethnic and sectarian lines, to better play into those ideological divisions which regional powers have wielded to assert their power. Amid a fragmented MENA, Israel would rise a Titan, not just militarily, but politically, as it would benefit from the absolute back-up of all Western capitals – if need be through coercion.
“The first step towards establishing this was a war between Iraq and Iran,” wrote Darius Nazemroaya, before he added: “The Atlantic, in 2008, and the US military’s Armed Forces Journal, in 2006, both published widely circulated maps that closely followed the outline of the Yinon Plan. Aside from a divided Iraq, which the Biden Plan also calls for, the Yinon Plan calls for a divided Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. The partitioning of Iran, Turkey, Somalia, and Pakistan also all fall into line with these views. The Yinon Plan also calls for dissolution in North Africa and forecasts it as starting from Egypt and then spilling over into Sudan, Libya, and the rest of the region.”
Interesting how our modern wars have followed the very pattern enounced once upon a 1982 by Zionist Israel …
But how is the Yinon Plan fitting into Syria’s humanitarian crisis, and Western powers’ propensity to selectively wave outrage before ever so pliable corporate media? Well … for one Syria’s humanitarian crisis’ make-up follows the very same pattern of division and ethno-sectarianism.
Entire regions of Syria have been ignored, neglected, and de facto sold out to the barbarism of Terror’s armies on account its communities follow Shia Islam, or Yezidism. Besieged by Wahhabi radicals, victimized and persecuted, those poor souls were never offered the courtesy of a whisper in the press … why such blindness if not an admission of guilt?
I recall rather clearly how loudly corporate media stumped their feet over Madaya – the lambasting and the delirious outrage against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over allegations he was purposely starving a city to command their submission. How silent media have been since it was proven that Madaya’s tragedy was in fact not President al-Assad’s making; but those militias’ the West has learnt to call “friendly” in its pursuit of regime change.
In a report for The Independent, Robert Fisk paints a reality too many journalists have sought to avoid – whether for financial comfort or ethical apathy.
Mr Fisk writes:
“This is the untold story of the three-and-a-half-year siege of two small Shia Muslim villages [Nubl and Zahra] in northern Syria. Although their recapture by the Syrian army – and by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Iraqi Shia militias – caught headlines for a few hours three weeks ago, the world paid no heed to the suffering of these people, their 1,000 “martyrs”, at least half of them civilians, and the 100 children who died of shellfire and starvation.”
There are many other villages like Nubl and Zahra today which suffer the same pain, and the same radical evil … yet their stories have never been told – worse still, their courage, and their resistance in the face of absolute infamy have never been celebrated.
Blinded by media lies, the public has forgotten that Syria’s war is in fact NOT a civil war, but a war against Terror – which Terror Western powers, and their regional allies: Saudi Arabia and Turkey in the lead, have been only too zealous to enable.
2011 Revolution was but a cover for a very violent takeover aimed at fragmenting Syria. To manifest such explosion of Syria’s sovereignty, war would need first to exacerbate sectarian and ethnic tensions, to then justify Balkanization.
First came Iraq, then Syria, and Libya … which nation will fall next to the madness of the Yinon Plan? From the looks of it, Egypt stands on shaky ground … the last potent military power in a long list of disappeared apparatus.
While war might not be in Egypt’s cards, its make-up does not allow for much sectarianism or ethno-centrism after all, there are many ways to break a country: economically, socially, politically etc …
How is Egypt’s economy faring these days?
As we look at Syria, as we observe the stand of a nation against covert imperialism we would do well to remember those strings being pulled in the darkness.
It is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran who often warned against “the real enemies”, those powers which from afar wield Takfirism to manifest the rising of a new socio-political order.
Will we dare see?
February 25, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Egypt, Israel, Libya, Middle East, Sudan, Syria, Yinon Plan, Zionism |
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While Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who is currently advising presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, famously said that the estimated 500,000 children who died as a result of U.S. sanctions on Iraq was “worth it.” It was, perhaps, a rare moment of candor from a politician, an admission that Washington is willing to support ostensibly non-lethal measures in such an all-encompassing fashion as to produce mass deaths of people who have no ability to influence the actions undertaken by their government. Sanctions are collective punishment, a blunt edged weapon used all too frequently by Washington to compel foreign governments to submit without having to go to war. There is nothing benign about them and Americans should regard them as potentially just as deadly as direct military intervention.
There are currently a number of countries that are subject to U.S. enforced sanctions but only three fall under the category of “state sponsors of terrorism.” They are Iran, Syria and Sudan. That status entails a number of U.S. Government sanctions including a ban on arms-related exports and sales; controls over exports of dual-use items; prohibitions on economic assistance; and imposition of miscellaneous financial and other restrictions. The financial measures require the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank or other international financial institutions and prohibit any U.S. person from engaging in a financial transaction with a terrorism-list government without a Treasury Department license issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The license and other approvals are reported to be complicated and the process is extremely difficult to navigate, discouraging anyone from having business dealings with the targeted countries.
Other sanctions are not always directly related to terrorism. They sometimes target select individuals and organizations that are considered by the U.S. government to be focal points of some aberrant behavior. A number of Russian officials have been sanctioned over Ukraine and even over the functioning of the country’s judiciary while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been sanctioned both for its involvement with radical groups and its support of Tehran’s missile program. But the most devastating sanctions are those which are directed against a country and nearly everything that it does economically, which was the case with Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Currently, Sudan falls under that category.
I recently spent a week in Sudan as the guest of a NGO. The objective was to show a group of hopefully influential foreign visitors the devastating effect of sanctions on the local economy. We visitors were of course aware that we were being fed a line that was most favorable to the government position so we also spoke to other Sudanese who were not necessarily part of the program as well as to United States government officials working at the Embassy.
The status of state sponsor of terrorism was bestowed on Sudan back in 1993 after the Sudanese government invited Osama bin Laden to stay in the country. Subsequently it was also claimed that Khartoum was supporting radical groups in Africa and elsewhere, to include Boko Harum, Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Since that time the conditions that led to the designation have changed dramatically. Bin Laden was asked to leave and relations with a number of militant groups were severed. Sudan has even severed diplomatic relations with Iran.
The latest edition of the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism states that “Sudan remained a generally cooperative partner of the United States on counterterrorism. During the past year, the Government of Sudan continued to support counterterrorism operations to counter threats to U.S. interests and personnel in Sudan.” Beyond that, the Sudanese intelligence service has been active in sharing information on terrorists in neighboring countries, to include Yemen, Uganda, Eritrea, Somalia, Chad and Libya. The information has been of such value that in 2010 the United States intelligence community advocated decoupling intelligence sharing from restrictions imposed on bilateral contact due to concerns over developments in Darfur.
In 2010 John Kerry, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, pledged to the Sudanese government that the terrorism designation would be lifted but failed to follow through. Later, in 2013, as Secretary of State, he was reminded of his promise by his Sudanese counterpart but apparently was thwarted in taking any action by advisers around President Barack Obama, most notably Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Both had in part made their reputations by writing and speaking to condemn Sudan. They were among the first to describe the conflict in Darfur as a genocide and are correctly perceived as hostile to any change in Sudan’s status.
The other sanctions on Sudan, referred to as a “comprehensive trade embargo,” blend claims of terrorism support with alleged human rights violations. They were imposed by Bill Clinton in 1997 and supplemented under George W. Bush in 2006. The last of these were linked to what has been described as a civil war starting in 2003 pitting the mostly Arabic speaking north of the country against the mostly indigenous black African south and west. The western media depicted the conflict in a racial context as well as in terms of religion, with Muslim pitted against Christian and animist, but the reality was much more complex than that with groups also dividing along linguistic, tribal and even occupational lines, sometimes featuring nomadic herdsmen against farmers.
Most sources agree that the various wars in and around Sudan have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese as well as between 14,000 and 200,000 who were reportedly “enslaved” in abductions carried out by both sides. The conflict in Darfur has been described as a genocide with a government supported militia known as Janjaweed and the rebels together having been accused of carrying out numerous atrocities. As a consequence, Sudan’s then-and-now president Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been on the receiving end of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
Al-Bashir, it should be noted became president by virtue of a military coup, though he has now been elected to office three times, once in an uncontested election in 1996 and in 2010 in a multiparty election that was described as “highly chaotic, non-transparent and vulnerable to electoral manipulation.” The most recent election took place on April 2015 and was strongly criticized by the U.S., Britain and Norway, all of whom had sent observers. Al-Bashir heads the ruling National Congress Party, but in fact he rules largely by fiat. He is either very popular or very unpopular with the Sudanese people depending on whom one talks to.
Genuine moves towards Sudanese democracy through the mechanism of a currently ongoing National Discussion are promising but are likely to slowly evolve in reality. The country’s legal system is based on Sharia but there is general tolerance of other religions in practice if not in law. The National Museum has a section relating to Christianity in Sudan and there is a Christian hour on television every Sunday. The Roman Catholic cathedral is located near the government center and there is also an active Coptic community. Christian community leaders openly support the existing government, just as they do in Syria, perhaps recognizing that available alternatives might be much worse.
A cease fire with the southern states in Sudan in 2005 led to the involvement of a United Nations Mission and a referendum in 2011 resulted in secession from the north. South Sudan is now an independent country that is enduring its own birth pangs. There are some reports of continued violence possibly instigated by Khartoum as well as little noticed government repression in the southern Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, which have been largely closed to the media and foreign NGOs pending yet another referendum to determine their future status.
Darfur followed with its own peace agreement in 2006. It is relatively quiet though military operations against a final hold out group of rebels in the region continue. Humanitarian and UN affiliated groups are in Darfur to monitor the process of reconciliation and it is expected that there will be another referendum to determine the region’s final status. At least some of the continuing unrest has been attributed to the activity of radicals from Chad, who are able to freely cross the open 600 mile long border to enter Darfur.
Business leaders in Khartoum note that there has been considerable economic growth in Sudan in spite of sanctions, concentrated in the sectors of oil, agriculture and mining. Since 1997, Sudan has been working with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to initiate reforms and create sustainable growth. There is, however, considerable official corruption and across the board poverty, largely among those engaged in agriculture.
In spite of some positive developments, Washington’s sanctions have blocked almost all business with Sudan. Selling or buying anything to or from Sudan requires clearance by OFAC and is largely limited to agricultural, communications or medical products. The paperwork requires months to complete and the actual purchases have to be made through third parties, meaning that everything costs more and comes without warranties, service or support. This is because the United States has effectively shut down any banking transactions or extensions of credit with Sudan and when no one can get paid except by suitcases full of cash it becomes impossible to conduct business. Few foreign banks exist in Sudan and they are very careful about how they operate. Even the IMF is reportedly having difficulty in funding its own projects in country. It all means that Sudan cannot pay its bills through conventional correspondent banking arrangements as foreign banks are fearful of being fined by the United States. No one is willing to take that risk.
To be sure, part of Sudan’s economic woes come from its sustaining a war economy in response to the unrest in several regions. But beyond that no investment money coming in due to sanctions means no improvement in agricultural technology, which would benefit the poorest part of the population, or in health care or in education. Poverty has been increasing due to sanctions and attempts to evade the restrictions have resulted in smuggling, money laundering and an increase in unconventional banking to include hawala transfers that are not subject to normal bank controls. Because Sudan is currently not integrated into the international banking system its transactions cannot be monitored to prevent terrorist money transfers.
And there is also a human price to pay for inability to move money. Sudanese health care providers believe that many preventable deaths are attributable to persistent lack of medicinal supplies or diagnostic equipment due to sanctions. Even if the numbers are overstated, that is almost certainly true. In a recent case three patients in Darfur died for lack of renal dialysis solutions.
I oppose sanctions in principle because I believe they are a blunt instrument that punishes innocent civilians when broadly construed while having no effect at all when directly targeting the country’s relatively wealthy and unreachable government officials. If sanctions are to make any sense they should be designed to achieve a quantifiable result but that is rarely the case and they frequently serve no purpose whatsoever beyond dishing out punishment. It has been claimed that sanctions actually worked in Sudan because its government has moved to meet some of Washington’s demands over Darfur and South Sudan, but that is a simplistic explanation for rather more complex phenomena that were likely driven by multiple constituencies and interests.
More often than not, sanctions harden a government’s resolve to resist, as they did in Cuba, and even become useful to the regime as an excuse for government failures. The explanation provided by George W. Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, that sanctions “send a message… to start behaving differently when they deal with their own people. That’s what this is all about,” is hubristic imperialism at its finest. It is reported in Sudan that many young Sudanese hate the United States and it is not difficult to understand why.
And there are good selfish reasons for the United States to lift sanctions and normalize relations with Khartoum. Sudan is an autocracy but no worse than American allies like Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Egypt. It is active in fighting alleged rebels but is far more restrained than the current Saudi military intervention in Yemen. And though Khartoum has had sometimes ambivalent relationships with Islamic radicals it has been far less engaged in that fashion than Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. So Sudan passes the smell test for being a disagreeable regime that is compatible with the United States’ broader interests.
And those broader interests are clear, including allowing American companies to participate in the future development of the country. U.S. sanctions have forced the Sudanese to turn to Moscow and Beijing for assistance. Russia is involved in gold mining and China is increasingly engaged in transportation, communications and energy projects. The Sudanese rail network and its international air carrier Sudan Air have collapsed due to lack of spare parts for their U.S. made hardware, an opportunity for American suppliers to quickly reenter the market. It is not in the U.S. national interest to create conditions favorable to competitors seeking to dominate the potentially large and developing Sudanese economy, ceding to them a significant foothold in East Africa by default.
Furthermore, Sudan is a bridge between Africa and the Arab world. It harbors no international terrorists and is a relative oasis of calm in a region in turmoil, well placed to monitor developments in neighboring Egypt, Chad, Libya, Somalia, Eritrea, Zaire, Central African Republic, Uganda and Yemen. It has made a significant contribution in counterterrorism and could do even better if properly motivated and provided with the tools needed, potentially playing a major role in the U.S. sponsored Partnership for Regional East Africa Counterterrorism. Normalizing relations with Sudan’s banks could, inter alia, stop money laundering and shut down possible terrorist money transfers.
There is, in short, no good reason to continue the status quo apart from the objections of two Obama advisers who have a personal stake in depicting Sudan in the most negative fashion. Unfortunately U.S. foreign policy has drifted away from supporting actual national interests and is mired in responding to various constituencies, in Obama’s case the “responsibility to protect” advocates. One can quite imagine that with something like a Marco Rubio it would revert to the mindless belligerency mode, but as both models seek to remake foreign governments they should equally be eschewed. Countries like Sudan and Iran should not be made to feel that they are permanently under the heel of the American jackboot. Nor should Washington feel compelled to play that role. Except in those rare situations where trade embargoes can inhibit flows of weapons to belligerents in a hot war, sanctions are useless, diminishing both those who apply the punishment and those who are on the receiving end. They should never be considered a serious instrument for foreign policy.
February 23, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | Africa, Samantha Power, Sanctions against Iran, Sudan, Susan Rice, Syria, United States |
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While those on the Republican side of the aisle are able to parade their support for the brutal, racist, and horrific Zionist settler state of Israel as a positive aspect of their campaigns, Democrats generally need to be a little more couched in terms of their position on Israel. This is not because the Democratic Party is any less dedicated to the facilitation of the Israeli campaign of extermination of the Palestinians, promotion of Israeli aggression in the Middle East, or any less beholden to AIPAC or the Israel lobby than the Republican Party. It is merely because a sizeable portion of the base of the Democratic party are either legitimately anti-war, opposed to genocide, or simply consumed with the desire to take up human rights causes (real or imagined).
Hillary Clinton, however, has been open in her unwavering support for the Zionist settler state on numerous occasions.
For instance, in 2000, when Clinton was running for New York Senate, she became embroiled in a Senate debate that essentially turned into a contest of who could placate and pledge allegiance to Israel the most. Clinton seems to have won that debate.[1] Consider the brief exchange:
Q: In recent weeks, scores of people have been killed in the Middle East. In view of what’s happened, do you think there should be a Palestinian state now?
CLINTON: Only as part of a comprehensive peace agreement. That’s always been my position, that [it should] guarantee Israel’s safety and security and the parties should agree at the negotiating table. A unilateral declaration is absolutely unacceptable and it would mean the end of any US aid.
LAZIO: That’s a change of heart for Mrs. Clinton, because back in 1998 you called for a Palestinian state. You undercut the Israeli negotiating position. The people of New York want to have somebody who has a consistent record. For eight years I have been consistent and strong in my support for the security of the state of Israel. Without equivocation. Without a question mark next to my name.
CLINTON: There is no question mark next to me. There’s an exclamation point. I am an emphatic, unwavering supporter of Israel’s safety and security. [2]
Clinton has also supported the “West Bank Barrier,” a construction that is not so much a border fence as it is a Ghetto divider. “This is not against the Palestinian people. This is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to change the attitudes about terrorism,” she stated.[3]
In 2006, Clinton attended a pro-Israel rally being held outside the United Nations headquarters in New York where she expressed support for Israel in the 2006 Lebanese-Israeli conflict. Clinton lumped Hamas and Hezbollah into the same category, condemning both, and expressing her undying love for the Israelis. “We are here to show solidarity and support for Israel. We will stand with Israel, because Israel is standing for American values as well as Israeli ones,” she said.[4]
Clinton has long opposed steps by the Palestinian Authority to attempt to declare its own state and receive recognition of Palestinian statehood. While the standard American line on the conflict is that a two-state solution is the only solution, Clinton has consistently opposed Palestinian efforts to seek full membership with the UN. Instead, Clinton suggested that the Palestinians should negotiate one-on-one with the Israelis, a method of negotiation that has brought the Palestinians nothing over the last 80 years. Obviously, Clinton’s line is one that would have the Palestinians weighed down in attempt to reason with the unreasonable until the Israeli war of attrition and genocide is completed. Eventually, when there are no Palestinians left, there will be no more Palestinian conflict. The logic is there but the morals are not.[5]
Clinton has also stated her support for “A strong Israeli military,” saying that it “is always essential, but no defense is perfect. And over the long run, nothing would do more to secure Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic state than a comprehensive peace.” In addition to supporting a strong Israeli military – courtesy of the American taxpayer – it is worthy of note that Clinton would likely find it difficult to recognize another country as a “Muslim” or “Christian” state.
In 2012, Clinton invoked the personal. She stated “protecting Israel’s future is not simply a matter of policy for me, it’s personal. I know with all my heart how important it is that our relation goes from strength to strength. I am looking forward to returning to Israel as a private citizen on a commercial plane.”
In 2014, Hillary offered strong support for the Israeli government, the state of Israel, and Benjamin Netanyahu when she stated in an interview with the Atlantic that “I think Israel did what it had to do to respond to Hamas rockets. Israel has a right to defend itself. The steps Hamas has taken to embed rockets and command and control facilities and tunnel entrances in civilian areas, this makes a response by Israel difficult.” Clinton was referring to the Israeli bombing of Gaza which resulted in large numbers of dead civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, all of which Clinton simply chalked up to the “mistakes” of war.
As Shadi Ashtari of the Huffington Post wrote regarding Clinton’s defense of Israel’s war operation,
The fog of war may be more of a Rorschach test, it turns out.
Here’s Hillary Clinton, on the downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane in Ukraine: “I think if there were any doubt it should be gone by now, that Vladimir Putin, certainly indirectly … bears responsibility for what happened.”
And here’s Clinton, on the bombing of a United Nations facility in Gaza: “I’m not sure it’s possible to parcel out blame because it’s impossible to know what happens in the fog of war.”
The two remarks were made less than three weeks apart, and offer a window into how one’s view of how the world should be, can color how it’s seen — or at least how it’s relayed to the public.
In her July interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Clinton forcefully implicated the Russian leader in a strike that claimed the lives of 298 passengers after overwhelming evidence indicated that Russian-supplied rebels shot down passenger liner MH17.
A few weeks later, on July 30, five Israeli shells rained down on a U.N. school at the Jabalia refugee camp, killing more than 15 people, mostly women and children. The attack, which also wounded more than 100 civilians, marked the second time in a week that a U.N. school housing hundreds of homeless Palestinians had been targeted.[6]
Indeed, Clinton has been vocal enough in support of Israel and its brutal treatment of Palestinians that Peter Beinart, an academic who regularly comments on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, once labeled her as “the Israeli government’s best spokesperson.”[7]
Gary Luepp of Counterpunch describes Hillary’s position on Israel as by writing that,
She has been an unremitting supporter of Israeli aggression, whenever it occurs. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz described her last year as “Israel’s new lawyer” given her sympathetic view of Binyamin Netanyahu’s 2014 bombardment of Gaza and even his desire to maintain “security” throughout the occupied West Bank. She postured as an opponent of Israel’s unrelenting, illegal settlements of Palestinian territory in 2009, but backed down when Netanyahu simply refused to heed U.S. calls for a freeze. In her memoir she notes “our early, hard line on settlements didn’t work”—as though she’s apologizing for it.
In 1999 as First Lady, Hillary Clinton hugged and kissed Yassir Arafat’s wife Suha during a trip to the West Bank. She advocated the establishment of a Palestinian state. She changed her tune when she ran for the New York Senate seat. When it comes to the Middle East, she is a total, unprincipled opportunist.[8]
It is this “opportunism” that Hillary is putting to good use when attempting to suck up money from wealthy Jewish donors. As Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti write for Politico in their article “Hillary Clinton Signals To Jewish Donors: I’ll Be Better For Israel,”
Hillary Clinton is privately signaling to wealthy Jewish donors that — no matter the result of the Iranian nuclear negotiations — she will be a better friend to Israel than President Barack Obama.[9]
But, even as donors increasingly push Clinton on the subject in private, they have emerged with sometimes widely varying interpretations about whether she would support a prospective deal, according to interviews with more than 10 influential donors and fundraising operatives.
. . . . .
Publicly, she’s expressed support for the negotiating process, which she secretly initiated during her time as secretary of state, but has also said “no deal is better than a bad deal.”[10] [11] [12]
. . . . .
At a fundraiser last month at the Long Island home of Democratic donor Jay Jacobs, Clinton was asked by an Orthodox rabbi about threats to Israel’s security. “She did stress in no uncertain terms her full and fervent support of the state of Israel and the defense of the state of Israel,” recalled Jacobs. “And the people in the audience who heard it seemed to be comfortable with her answer.”
. . . . . .
Clinton’s allies are carefully monitoring the sensitivities of a handful of hawkish Democratic mega-donors for signs that the Iran talks may be influencing their willingness to write million-dollar super PAC checks. Chief among that group is billionaire Hollywood entrepreneur Haim Saban, who sources say has spoken multiple times with Clinton and her top aides about the deal.
In April, he strongly suggested that Clinton opposed the deal. “I know where she stands, but I can’t talk about it,” Saban told an Israeli television news channel, adding under questioning, “She has an opinion, a very well-defined opinion. And in any case, everything that she thinks and everything she has done and will do will always be for the good of Israel. We don’t need to worry about this.”[13]
He soon backtracked, saying “I have no idea what Hillary thinks about the Iran deal.”[14] [15]
If one simply goes by Clinton’s campaign rhetoric and public speeches, then it is entirely justified to be unaware of Clinton’s position on the Iran deal, the State of Israel, or a possible plan for peace. If one follows the money and observes her past history, however, Hillary’s position on Israel is abundantly clear.
[1] “Hillary Clinton On War And Peace.” On The Issues. http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Hillary_Clinton_War_+_Peace.htm Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[2] “New York Senatorial Campaign Debate.” September 13, 2000. C-SPAN. http://www.c-span.org/video/?159214-1/new-york-senatorial-campaign-debate Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[3] Benhorin, Yitzhak. “Settlements, Iran, and Hamas: Hillary Clinton’s Israel Policy.” YNet News. April 12, 2015. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4646394,00.html Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[4] Benhorin, Yitzhak. “Settlements, Iran, and Hamas: Hillary Clinton’s Israel Policy.” YNet News. April 12, 2015. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4646394,00.html Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[5] Benhorin, Yitzhak. “Settlements, Iran, and Hamas: Hillary Clinton’s Israel Policy.” YNet News. April 12, 2015. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4646394,00.html Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[6] Ashtari, Shadi. “Hillary Clinton Twists Herself In Knots To Avoid Blaming Israel For UN Bombing.” Huffington Post. August 13, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/hillary-clinton-israel-gaza-school-bombing_n_5672881.html Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[7] Merica, Dan. “With Vocal Support Of Israel, Clinton Rankles Pro-Palestinian Americans.” CNN. August 11, 2014. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/11/with-vocal-support-of-israel-clinton-rankles-pro-palestinian-americans/ Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[8] Luepp, Gary. “The Warmongering Record Of Hillary Clinton.” Counterpunch. February 11, 2015. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/11/the-warmongering-record-of-hillary-clinton/ Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[9] Crowley, Michael. “Iran Talks: 5 Key Things To Watch.” Politico. June 27, 2015. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/iran-nuclear-talks-geneva-john-kerry-5-things-to-watch-119482 Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[10] Karni, Annie. “Clinton On Iran: ‘Diplomacy Deserves A Chance To Succeed.’” Politico. April 2, 2015. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/clinton-on-iran-deal-diplomacy-deserves-a-chance-to-succeed-116646 Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[11] Crowley, Michael. “Hillary Clinton’s Secret Iran Man.” Politico. April 3, 2015. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/hillary-clintons-secret-iran-man-116647 Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[12] “Hillary Clinton: No Deal Better Than ‘Bad Deal’ With Iran.” Associated Press. May 14, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/hillary-clinton-iran_n_5323991.html Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[13] Friedman, Naomi. “Saban Hints: Clinton Opposes Iran Deal.” The Hill. April 17, 2015. http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/239091-saban-hints-clinton-opposes-the-iran-deal Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[14] Goodman, Alana. “Top Pro-Israel Donor Unsure Of Clinton’s Position On Iran Deal.” April 21, 2015. http://freebeacon.com/politics/top-pro-israel-donor-unsure-of-clintons-position-on-iran-deal/ Accessed on September 8, 2015.
[15] Vogel, Kenneth P.; Parti, Tarini. “Hillary Clinton Signals To Jewish Donors: I’ll Be Better For Israel.” Politico. July 3, 2015. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-jewish-donors-israel-119705 Accessed on September 8, 2015.
Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 andvolume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President.
Brandon Turbeville’s new book, The Difference It Makes: 36 Reasons Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President is available in three different formats: Hardcopy (available here), Amazon Kindle for only .99 (available here), and a Free PDF Format (accessible free from his website, BrandonTurbeville.com).
February 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | AIPAC, Haim Saban, Hillary Clinton, Jay Jacobs, Middle East, Palestine, Zionism |
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When a prominent American political figure speaks boldly about Jewish-Zionist power, that’s news. So the remarks by South Carolina’s senior Senator in May 2004 that Iraq was invaded “to secure Israel,” and that “everybody” in Washington knows it, are indeed remarkable.
Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, a Democrat who has represented his state in the US Senate since 1966, is now serving his final term in Washington. That fact may also help explain why he’s now willing to defy the pro-Israel lobby and speak candidly about its power.
It began with an essay, headlined “Bush’s Failed Mideast Policy is Creating More Terrorism,” which appeared in the Charleston daily Post and Courier, May 6, 2004. “With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country?,” he wrote. “The answer: President Bush’s policy to secure Israel. Led by [Paul] Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Charles Krauthammer, for years there had been a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel’s security is to spread democracy in the area.”
Several Zionist organizations, as well as some prominent Jewish political figures, quickly chastised Hollings, and his remarks were denounced as anti-Semitic. But he didn’t back down. Instead, he rose in the Senate on May 20 to defend and explain his essay. “I don’t apologize for this column,” he said. “I want them to apologize to me for talking about anti-Semitism.” President Bush went to war in Iraq “to secure our friend, Israel” and “everybody knows it,” Hollings declared.
Referring to the cowardly reluctance of his Congressional colleagues openly to acknowledge this reality, he said that “nobody is willing to stand up and say what is going on.” With few exceptions, members of Congress uncritically support Israel and its policies due to “the pressures that we get politically,” he said. The pro-Israel lobby knows “how to make you tuck tail and run.” But “not the Senator from South Carolina,” he added, referring to himself. To emphasize the seriousness of his remarks, Hollings said: “I have thought this out as thoroughly as I know how, and it worries me that here we are…”
Bush’s motive in going to war for Israeli interests, Hollings charged, was to get Jewish support in election campaigns. “President Bush came to office imbued with one thought: reelection. I say that advisedly. I have been up here with eight Presidents. We have had support of all eight Presidents. Yes, I supported the President on this Iraq resolution, but I was misled. There weren’t any weapons, or any terrorism, or al-Qaida. This is the reason we went to war. He had one thought in mind, and that was reelection…
“That is not a conspiracy. That is the policy. I didn’t like to keep it a secret, maybe; but I can tell you now, I will challenge any one of the other 99 Senators to tell us why we are in Iraq, other than what this policy is here. It is an adopted policy, a domino theory of The [Zionist] Project For The New American Century. Everybody knows it [is] because we want to secure our friend, Israel…
“Let’s realize we are in real trouble. Saudi Arabia is in trouble. Israel is in trouble. The United States is in trouble. I am going to state what I believe to be the fact. In fact, I believe it very strongly. They just are whistling by on account of the pressures that we get politically. Nobody is willing to stand up and say what is going on.”
Hollings cited the role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most important pro-Israel lobby group in Washington, in determining US policy in the Middle East. “You can’t have an Israel policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here. I have followed them mostly in the main, but I have also resisted signing certain letters from time to time, to give the poor President a chance.
“I can tell you no President takes office — I don’t care whether it is a Republican or a Democrat — that all of a sudden AIPAC will tell him exactly what the policy is, and Senators and members of Congress ought to sign letters. I read those carefully and I have joined in most of them. On some I have held back. I have my own idea and my own policy…”
The Iraq war has been “a bad mistake,” said Hollings. “Getting rid of Saddam was not worth almost 800 dead GIs and over 3,500 maimed for life…” This war is “a mistake like Vietnam,” he added. “We got misled with the [1964] Gulf of Tonkin [incident]. We got misled here, and we are in that quagmire…
“The entire thing is a mess. Don’t give me ‘support the troops, support the troops.’ I have been with troops, about three years in combat, so don’t tell me about troops. I have always supported the troops.”
Source: Remarks by Ernest F. Hollings, May 20, 2004. Congressional Record – Senate, May 20, 2004, pages S5921-S5925.
See also: Iraq: A War For Israel.
February 17, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | AIPAC, Iraq, Israel, Israel Lobby, Middle East, United States, Zionism |
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Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, says Israel seeks government change in Syria in order to undermine the resistance front against the Zionist regime.
Israel prefers the Daesh Takfiri terrorists and al-Qaeda militants to the Syrian government, Nasrallah said in a televised address to the Lebanese nation on Tuesday, the Martyr Leaders Day.
He said the government of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad poses a danger to the interests of the Israeli regime.
Israel agrees with Saudi Arabia and Turkey that any solution to the crisis in Syria must not prolong the existence of the government in Damascus, Nasrallah said.
He added that Israel prefers the partition of Syria to a political settlement of the crisis in the Arab country.
Nasrallah rejected claims that the Syrian government will finally bow to pressures for the disintegration of the Arab country, saying Syrian forces are present everywhere across Syria, meaning that the government will not allow such partitioning and the “national will” is clearly against that.
He also slammed Turkey and Saudi Arabia for their active support of the militants in Syria, saying they have failed in their plots against the government of Assad.
Militants in Syria are suffering successive defeats, Nasrallah stated, pushing Saudi Arabia and Turkey to consider deploying ground troops into Syria under the banner of the so-called international coalition against the Takfiri Daesh terrorists.
The Hezbollah secretary general said the plan for sending troops into Syria is a plot by Ankara and Riyadh to maintain their position at the ongoing peace talks over Syria.
He said the resistance movement and their allied forces will not allow any country to determine the future of Syria.
‘Tel Aviv only sees own interests in region’
The Hezbollah chief said that the Israeli regime is also after the formation of an alliance with some Sunni states, warning the Arab countries that this would only serve the interests of the Israeli regime.
Israel only looks after its own interests, he warned.
Nasrallah drew the attention of Arab states to the Israeli crimes against Sunni states since its creation.
“How can any sane person in Sunni states consider Israel as a friend, ally or a protector?” he asked.
If Israel becomes an ally of Sunni states, “Palestine will be lost eternally,” he warned.
He added that Israel also sees Iran and the resistance movement in Palestine and Lebanon as threats.
February 16, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Da’esh, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Zionism |
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Clinton’s role in Syria has been to help instigate and prolong the Syrian bloodbath, not to bring it to a close.
In the Milwaukee debate, Hillary Clinton took pride in her role in a recent UN Security Council resolution on a Syrian ceasefire:
But I would add this. You know, the Security Council finally got around to adopting a resolution. At the core of that resolution is an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva, which set forth a cease-fire and moving toward a political resolution, trying to bring the parties at stake in Syria together.
This is the kind of compulsive misrepresentation that makes Clinton unfit to be President. Clinton’s role in Syria has been to help instigate and prolong the Syrian bloodbath, not to bring it to a close.
In 2012, Clinton was the obstacle, not the solution, to a ceasefire being negotiated by UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan. It was US intransigence – Clinton’s intransigence – that led to the failure of Annan’s peace efforts in the spring of 2012, a point well known among diplomats. Despite Clinton’s insinuation in the Milwaukee debate, there was (of course) no 2012 ceasefire, only escalating carnage. Clinton bears heavy responsibility for that carnage, which has by now displaced more than 10 million Syrians and left more than 250,000 dead.
As every knowledgeable observer understands, the Syrian War is not mostly about Bashar al-Assad, or even about Syria itself. It is mostly a proxy war, about Iran. And the bloodbath is doubly tragic and misguided for that reason.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the leading Sunni powers in the Middle East, view Iran, the leading Shia power, as a regional rival for power and influence. Right-wing Israelis view Iran as an implacable foe that controls Hezbollah, a Shi’a militant group operating in Lebanon, a border state of Israel. Thus, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel have all clamored to remove Iran’s influence in Syria.
This idea is incredibly naïve. Iran has been around as a regional power for a long time–in fact, for about 2,700 years. And Shia Islam is not going away. There is no way, and no reason, to “defeat” Iran. The regional powers need to forge a geopolitical equilibrium that recognizes the mutual and balancing roles of the Gulf Arabs, Turkey, and Iran. And Israeli right-wingers are naïve, and deeply ignorant of history, to regard Iran as their implacable foe, especially when that mistaken view pushes Israel to side with Sunni jihadists.
Yet Clinton did not pursue that route. Instead she joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and right-wing Israelis to try to isolate, even defeat, Iran. In 2010, she supported secret negotiations between Israel and Syria to attempt to wrest Syria from Iran’s influence. Those talks failed. Then the CIA and Clinton pressed successfully for Plan B: to overthrow Assad.
When the unrest of the Arab Spring broke out in early 2011, the CIA and the anti-Iran front of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey saw an opportunity to topple Assad quickly and thereby to gain a geopolitical victory. Clinton became the leading proponent of the CIA-led effort at Syrian regime change.
In early 2011, Turkey and Saudi Arabia leveraged local protests against Assad to try to foment conditions for his ouster. By the spring of 2011, the CIA and the US allies were organizing an armed insurrection against the regime. On August 18, 2011, the US Government made public its position: “Assad must go.”
Since then and until the recent fragile UN Security Council accord, the US has refused to agree to any ceasefire unless Assad is first deposed. The US policy–under Clinton and until recently–has been: regime change first, ceasefire after. After all, it’s only Syrians who are dying. Annan’s peace efforts were sunk by the United States’ unbending insistence that U.S.-led regime change must precede or at least accompany a ceasefire. As the Nation editors put it in August 2012:
The US demand that Assad be removed and sanctions be imposed before negotiations could seriously begin, along with the refusal to include Iran in the process, doomed [Annan’s] mission.
Clinton has been much more than a bit player in the Syrian crisis. Her diplomat Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi was killed as he was running a CIA operation to ship Libyan heavy weapons to Syria. Clinton herself took the lead role in organizing the so-called “Friends of Syria” to back the CIA-led insurgency.
The U.S. policy was a massive, horrific failure. Assad did not go, and was not defeated. Russia came to his support. Iran came to his support. The mercenaries sent in to overthrow him were themselves radical jihadists with their own agendas. The chaos opened the way for the Islamic State, building on disaffected Iraqi Army leaders (deposed by the US in 2003), on captured U.S. weaponry, and on the considerable backing by Saudi funds. If the truth were fully known, the multiple scandals involved would surely rival Watergate in shaking the foundations of the US establishment.
The hubris of the United States in this approach seems to know no bounds. The tactic of CIA-led regime change is so deeply enmeshed as a “normal” instrument of U.S. foreign policy that it is hardly noticed by the U.S. public or media. Overthrowing another government is against the U.N. charter and international law. But what are such niceties among friends?
This instrument of U.S. foreign policy has not only been in stark violation of international law but has also been a massive and repeated failure. Rather than a single, quick, and decisive coup d’état resolving a US foreign policy problem, each CIA-led regime change has been, almost inevitably, a prelude to a bloodbath. How could it be otherwise? Other societies don’t like their countries to be manipulated by U.S. covert operations.
Removing a leader, even if done “successfully,” doesn’t solve any underlying geopolitical problems, much less ecological, social, or economic ones. A coup d’etat invites a civil war, the kind that now wracks Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It invites a hostile international response, such as Russia’s backing of its Syrian ally in the face of the CIA-led operations. The record of misery caused by covert CIA operations literally fills volumes at this point. What surprise, then, that Clinton acknowledges Henry Kissinger as a mentor and guide?
And where is the establishment media in this debacle? The New York Times finally covered a bit of this story last month in describing the CIA-Saudi connection, in which Saudi funds are used to pay for CIA operations in order to make an end-run around Congress and the American people. The story ran once and was dropped. Yet the Saudi funding of CIA operations is the same basic tactic used by Ronald Reagan and Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s (with Iranian arms sales used to fund CIA-led covert operations in Central America without consent or oversight by the American people).
Clinton herself has never shown the least reservation or scruples in deploying this instrument of U.S. foreign policy. Her record of avid support for US-led regime change includes (but is not limited to) the US bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraq War in 2003, the Honduran coup in 2009, the killing of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, and the CIA-coordinated insurrection against Assad from 2011 until today.
It takes great presidential leadership to resist CIA misadventures. Presidents get along by going along with arms contractors, generals, and CIA operatives. They thereby also protect themselves from political attack by hardline right-wingers. They succeed by exulting in U.S. military might, not restraining it. Many historians believe that JFK was assassinated as a result of his peace overtures to the Soviet Union, overtures he made against the objections of hardline rightwing opposition in the CIA and other parts of the U.S. government.
Hillary Clinton has never shown an iota of bravery, or even of comprehension, in facing down the CIA. She has been the CIA’s relentless supporter, and has exulted in showing her toughness by supporting every one of its misguided operations. The failures, of course, are relentlessly hidden from view. Clinton is a danger to global peace. She has much to answer for regarding the disaster in Syria.
February 15, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Illegal Occupation, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Hillary Clinton, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United States |
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Coercive Engineered Migration: Zionism’s War on Europe (Part 8 of an 11 Part Series)
It is particularly ironic that the Zionist-controlled media are pushing the agenda of multiculturalism in Europe while insisting on the right of Israel, the world’s only racist, apartheid state, to exist. At the same time, the conditions for this artificial, dystopian form of multiculturalism involve the destruction of some of the world’s most successful multi-racial states such as Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria and, if they succeed, possibly Eritrea.
What we are witnessing here is a process of engineered acculturation where people are being uprooted, displaced and abandoned to the limitless tyranny of the market and commodity fetishism. The boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea are, to quote Freisleben again, ‘Rothshild’s slaughterships’, the slave-boats of Zionism’s New World Order.
Jacques Attali is one of France’s most respected Zionist penseur, and has been an advisor to successive French governments. He has referred to globalisation’s war against the nation-state as the ‘Somalisation of the world’. Attali has predicted that the Westphalian state will be destroyed during the epochal chaotic transition to a ‘gouvernement mondial’, a global state with Jerusalem as its capital. The idea might appear as utterly far-fetched to a reasonable person but Zionists are not reasonable people and it should be of deep concern that the world’s most powerful governments are being advised by such influential racist fanatics with overtly global ambitions.
At a meeting of World Jewish Congress in 2014, Attali referred to the Jews in France as a privileged class. Therefore, in order to prevent Muslim immigrants from developing resentment of this ethnocentric class rule, Attali suggested that rich Jews should help create a French Muslim petite-bourgeoisie. They should also, he argued, finance the Imams in order to prevent objections to Zionism. In other words, an elite of French Muslims should be groomed by Zionist Jews so that they can keep the proletarian Muslims driven from North Africa and the Middle East by Zionism from overthrowing their Jewish overlords, both at home and in their countries of exile.
As the mass media drum up Islamophobia while glorifying Al-Qaida terrorists in Syria in the service of Zion, the ancillary regimes of the Jewish state, namely Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are zealously implementing Attali’s suggestions. Giulio Meotti for the Israeli National News reports:
A few days ago, the president of the Sorbonne, Philippe Boutry, signed an agreement with the attorney general of the state of Qatar. Within the next three years, the Islamic monarchy will finance the studies of hundreds of Syrian immigrants at the Parisian academic jewel. The Sorbonne has accepted 600,000 euros per year for three years.
Jacques Attali is on record stating the he does not consider non-Jews as human beings. The view that non-Jews are subhuman comes from Talmudism and does not necessarily represent the views of secular or Orthodox Jews. There IS a difference.
In France, the rise of the Marine Le Pen’s Front National is increasing steadily. Le Pen’s party appears to have the backing of a considerable portion of Zionism, which may account for why Le Pen’s image and stature has dramatically improved in the French press. The Front National is now being courted by prominent public intellectuals as the party of the oppressed. Its reactionary agenda is being marketed as ‘left-wing’ and ‘anti-globalisation’. Although Marine Le Pen opposed the war against Libya-as opposed to the Trotskyite Jean Luc Melanchon, who supported it- Le Pen has supported all other French wars of aggression in Africa, such as the French bombing and invasion of Mali and the French invasion of the Central African Republic. Nor has Le Penn ever called into question the French financial control of many Francophone neo-colonies in Africa. Le Pen is a populist playing up to popular discontent, exploiting the despair of the masses with empty slogans and a hefty dose of xenophobia, adroitly eschewing any reference to the real problem in France: capitalism.
The Europe depicted by Michel Houellebecq in his nightmarish novel Soumission– submission- where a French Muslim community led by a Muslim Brotherhood political party faces Marine Le Pen, is inexorably becoming a reality.
The French and European political scene is being irrevocably set for a Huntingtonian ‘clash of civilisations’. The clichéd theory of the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ against all non-Jews appears so crude and essentialist, so simple and vulgar in its implications, as to pass for irrational, urban and ‘anti-Semitic’ folklore, which, of course, it is. But objective and rational analysis of the centrality of the “Jewish question” and Zionism in the context of the current, global power-configuration is more urgent than ever. For if we do not bring Zionism under control, Zionism will eventually control us. This also applies to Jews. As Professor Yoakov Rabkin in his book Comprendre L’Etat d’Israel: Ideologie, Religion et societe, argues:
Paradoxically, Jewish nationalism is conceptually compatible with anti-Semitics theories, for it also postulates the impossibility of the Jew becoming a full and equal member of European society. History shows that the attraction of Zionism augments with the intensity of anti-Semitism or of economic difficulties, which explains the fact that relatively few British, American or French Jews have accepted the Zionist project since its inception up to to today and rarely leave their countries to settle in Israel. (p. 49)
In 2013, the European Jewish Parliament was set up by Jewish Ukrainian billionaire and (ironically) neo-Nazi Ihor Kolomoyski. While the organisation claims to be an NGO, it functions according to the structures of a veritable parliament. Why does an ethnic minority in Europe have its own parliament? Will other ethnic minorities in Europe receive their own parliament too? Perhaps Jews deserve their own European parliament because they are officially recognised as ‘Europe’s chosen people’, as its ‘constitutive minority’. That is what was said in the opening remarks of a conference held in Israel in 2013, sponsored by the Konrad Adenhauer Foundation.
Since the counter-revolutions in Eastern Europe of 1989, Jewish supremacy has accompanied the triumph of neo-liberalism and globalisation in Europe and the United States. This racial supremacy is being stealthily enshrined in US law. In 1991, the 102nd US Congress passed a resolution on the Noahide Laws. These are seven laws which Jewish rabbis believe should rule the lives of non-Jews, while Jews are to be ruled by a special set of laws.
The aforementioned racist Rabbi Manachem Mendel Schneerson, of the Lubavitch Movement, is praised in the resolution.
In 1995 Professor Ernest S. Easterly of the Southern University Law Centre presented a paper entitled “The Rule of Law and the New World Order” to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
An expert in Jewish law, Easterly is a zealous proponent of the Noahide Laws. He referred to the passing of the laws by the US congress in 1991 as “the first rays of dawn” which “evidence the rising of a yet unseen sun”. According to Micheal A. Hoffman: The Jewish Encyclopedia envisages a Noahide regime as a possible world order immediately preceding the universal reign of the Talmud.
While it is possible to simply ignore these policy documents as aberrant and marginal manifestations of ruling class ideology, they nonetheless constitute a sinister form of racism and religious bigotry, one which has, to a large extent, been unperceived.
Belgian physicist Jean Bricmont was ostracized and branded an ‘anti-Semite’ by the French media after he argued that it is high time Zionism was discussed and debated by non-Jews. Pro-Zionist and ostensibly ‘anti-Zionist’ literature and discourse tends to be dominated by Jews. And many Jewish ‘leftists’ tend to ignore the primacy of the Jewish Lobby in the formulation of US foreign policy. Instead, they advance the theory that Israel is simply a colony of the US empire, a tool with which to control the Middle East. This is patent nonsense to anyone who has studied what sociologist James Petras refers to as the ‘Zionist power-configuration’ in the United States, a power-configuration that extends to Europe and beyond.
During the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003 Jewish ‘leftists’ blamed the US ‘neo-cons’ and their desire to control Iraq’s oil for the drive towards war. Little or no mention was made of the fact that the real driving force behind the propaganda campaign for the war on Iraq came from the Jewish Lobby. This is amply documented in James Petras’ book The Power of Israel in the United States.
The strategic imperatives of the Zionist entity require the division and conquest of all Arab lands, so as to clear the Middle East in preparation for expanded Israeli colonisation, as stipulated in the Yinon Plan and the project of Eretz Israel-Greater Israel. Yet we were being told by many Jewish leftists that the Iraq invasion was a ‘war for oil,’ in spite of the fact that Western corporations had already acquired as much Iraq oil as they could manage.
Most anti-imperialist intellectuals in the Middle East will tell you that the war against Syria is a proxy-war waged by the Jewish state in order to create the conditions of a ‘New Middle East’ a euphemism for Greater Israel. Yet, many Jewish critics of US policy in Syria insist that it is the United States (plus Israel). An historical analogy might be helpful here. For centuries Ireland was colonised by the British Empire. Irish farmers paid rent to British aristocrats who had dispossessed them. Ireland was impoverished from debt. Although some Irishmen played an important role in the British army and served in high office throughout the empire, no one could claim that it was the ‘Irish Lobby’ in London who persuaded the British to conquer India, Hong Kong or Kenya or that the Irish nation somehow benefited from those conquests. Empires exploit colonies. Colonies do no exploit empires. If Israel were a colony of the United States, then we would surely see the emergence of an Israeli national liberation movement from US exploitation and colonisation! No such movement exists.
Zionist and crypto-Zionist Jews, through their control of both the corporate and much of the ‘alternative’ media, have managed to play down the centrality of the Jewish state’s role in America’s foreign wars and the importance of Jewish ‘hasbara’-propagandists and ‘sayonim’- helpers in that war effort. They ignore the fact that the only state which is really benefiting from America’s wars is Israel.
One might object to the thesis of Israel’s power over US foreign policy by citing the very clear differences expressed by Washington and Tel Aviv regarding Iran’s nuclear programme. Here, surely, one might argue, the United States is not following Israel’s agenda. While Israel’s Likudniks oppose the deal with Iran, more ‘moderate’ Zionists agree with the compromise. For Israel and the United States, the deal with Iran is but a stepping stone towards an infiltration and destabilisation of the Islamic Republic. Diplomatic and business contacts with the West will inevitably facilitate greater ideological and intelligence penetration of Iran by the US and Israel, while the proxy- terrorist groups fighting against Iran in Yemen, and Syria will continue to receive support from the Mossad and the CIA. In fact, the Zionist destabilisation of Iran has already begun. The Kurdish social movement in Iran is supported by Israel.
The litmus-test for distinguishing the genuine anti-Zionist from the crypto-Zionist is the question of Israel’s relationship to the United States and Europe. As for the independent
media, one will often find that the bullying and derisive techniques of the corporate media to discredit dissidents are employed to discredit those who would dig too deeply into the Zionist machinations of US imperialism. The fallacy of reductio ad absurdum is a particularly common technique. This usually involves discrediting an anti-Zionist theory by falsely implying that the proponent of that theory believes in the supernatural, that he is a deranged simpleton who believes the world is run by goblins and such like. Another technique is the reductio ad Hitlerum, whereby those who discuss the problem of Jewish supremacy are compared to racists such as Adolf Hitler.
Jewish ‘anti-imperialist’ pundits regularly become ‘leaders’ and ‘gurus’ of ‘leftist’ movements and often use their credibility to police how issues of ethnicity, class and nationalism are conceptualized and discussed. Once people among their ‘ranks’ probe too deeply into Zionist intrigue, Zionist racial supremacy, warning signals are promptly sent out of a ‘far right’ and ‘fascist’ infiltration of the ‘movement’, this in spite of the fact that ‘fascism’ is precisely what genuine anti-Zionists are denouncing.
Such techniques sometimes work but more often than not, they only draw more attention to the suspicion among non Jewish critics of Zionism that an attempt is being made by ‘leftist’ Jews to deflect attention from the real sources of power in the capitalist world order, namely the Zionist power configuration.
It is therefore important for such individuals to occasionally re-emphasise their ‘opposition’ to Israel. In this sense, the Jewish ‘anti-imperialist’ bears a striking resemblance to the spokesmen of the Islamic State.
For what is the Islamic State or Da’esh other than the foreign legion of Israel. They have achieved in little time what no other Israeli proxy-force could have achieved. They have cleared vast territories of Iraq and Syria, have attacked Hamas in Gaza and have conveniently occupied the Sinai peninsula in Egypt. It is perhaps more apposite than ironic that security experts also refer to the Mossad as ISIS, Israel’s Secret Intelligence Service. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that official UN documents confirm Israel is covertly supporting Da’esh.
Like the Jewish pseudo anti-imperialists, the spokesmen of the Islamic State always refer to their hatred for “America” and the “freedoms of Americans” as the reason for their crusade. They do not seem to be too concerned about Israel, except, of course, when they miraculously manage to stage terrorist attacks on European soil, which often take place in formerly Jewish owned properties. Such attacks foment Islamophobia and the notion that Jews are hated and in danger, an agenda which serves Zionist regional and global hegemonic ambitions. In this sense one could argue that both the Islamic State and crypto-Zionists serve the same purpose: constantly deflecting attention from Zionism by blaming Israel’s giant, stultified Leviathan — the United States of America.
• Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven,
February 14, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Africa, Da’esh, European Union, France, Israel, Libya, Middle East, Multiculturalism, New World Order, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yinon Plan, Zionism |
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The US administration is preventing the country’s banks from doing business with Iran despite the lifting of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Washington says it has eased “secondary” sanctions targeting companies outside the US and Americans seeking certain businesses in Iran but most “primary” sanctions related to terrorism and rights accusations remain in place.
“Broadly, the US primary embargo on Iran is still in place,” John Smith, acting director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), told a congressional panel on Thursday.
That means the opening with Iran following the implementation of the nuclear accord “does not have any impact on us,” the AFP news agency quoted an official with one large New York bank as saying.
“We’re still very prohibited from engaging in just about any business activity with Iran except on very limited exceptions,” the official added.
US banks interested
According to AFP, several leading US banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are keen to enter the Iranian market.
They have reportedly turned to teams of lawyers and other specialists as they plumb the shifting legal terrain.
“We continue to monitor the developments in Iran,” Citigroup spokesman Kamran Mumtaz told the French news agency.
Several leading US banks are keen to enter the Iranian market, AFP says.
According to OFAC, all foreign banks operating in the US are forbidden from clearing US dollar-denominated transactions involving Iran through US banks.
Smith said non-US companies who provide support to Iranian entities “may face being cut off from the US financial system.”
Iranian officials say the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has decided to carry out all foreign trade in euros to avoid any complications.
Meanwhile, non-US banks that work in both Iran and the US are reportedly isolating Iranian business from their US assets to avoid possible American punishments.
The US government has also freed banks to make loans in some specific businesses and activities involving Iran such as sales of airplane parts.
Banks can further provide financing to US companies that import Iranian foods or carpets, pistachio nuts and caviar.
However, the nuclear accord still faces threats from US presidential candidates who have pledged to undo it after President Barack Obama is gone.
‘Business as normal’
Those threats have only harmed American entities which are blocked from joining a rush by non-US companies to cash in on trade opportunities in Iran.
On Monday, the world’s largest independent oil trader Vitol Group said it’s “business as normal” with Iran after the end of economic sanctions.
Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) also said it wanted to open a branch in Tehran “as quickly as possible,” becoming the first foreign lender to set up shop in Iran after the lifting of sanctions.
Major companies from Asia to Europe are rushing to resurrect trade with the global energy superpower which sits on the worlds’ biggest oil and gas reserves combined as well as massive mineral deposits.
Italy and France signed initial deals worth more than $40 billion in a variety of fields — from oil and gas to car manufacturing, construction, health and agriculture and clean energy development — last month during President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Europe.
Seeking to reassure, Paris unveiled an accord offering state guarantees to back French investments in Iran through credit management firm Coface in order to cover onsite non-payment risks.
February 14, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Wars for Israel | Iran, Sanctions against Iran, United States, Zionism |
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The Syrian Army and its allies have clearly turned the tide in the Syrian war. The “facts on the ground” have changed dramatically for all the major players, and constitute a major reversal for all the forces that have tried to institute “regime change” in Syria, in violation of its sovereignty. The Geneva “Peace Conference” opposition delegation, composed of marginal figures representing a tiny fraction of the armed anti-government factions but ostensibly speaking for all of them, is now largely irrelevant. As the terrorists and foreign mercenaries and their families flee Aleppo, thousands or tens of thousands of Syrian civilians are returning to their homes in secure government held areas.
Given the reversal of fortunes for Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the US, NATO and their allies and mercenaries, what’s next? The sensible thing would be for all the actors to declare victory by finishing off the ostensible terrorist enemy and accepting a face saving solution that includes a Syrian government commitment to reform, with expertise provided by a friendly international team of experts that puts Russia, the US, Europe, Iran and perhaps even Saudi Arabia on the same side.
But this is not the advice we are hearing from the advisers that got us into this mess in the first place, and who are disappointed that Syria might not go the way of Iraq, Libya and Somalia after all. They are suggesting that a more and bigger war is the way to complete the job of turning Syria into a failed state. Such a war would involve an invasion of Turkish forces amassed and poised on the border, direct intervention by Saudi forces, US and perhaps other NATO ground forces, and potentially Israeli forces as well.
Such a plan risks putting these forces directly in confrontation with Syrian and Russian units and objectives. It is a recipe for great power confrontation on a scale rarely seen since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Rarely, but not totally. When Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft on November 24, 2015, only very cool Russian heads prevented the unthinkable by deciding that the Russian response might best be served cold.
That dish is now on the table, and it is for the Turks and bigger warmongers to decide if they want to risk Armageddon by unleashing even greater forces of destruction. There are players that would love to do so; they profit from death, misery and cataclysm, and would never miss such an opportunity. Chief among them are the arms merchants that dominate in the US and Israel, the neoconservative movement, also heavily subsidized by Israel and its Zionist lobbies in other countries, and by Israel’s investment in weakening all potential adversaries. Saudi Arabia has decided that it has much the same adversaries and has therefore thrown its lot in with Israel. The Erdogan administration in Turkey finds that its interests, including territorial aggrandizement, are congruent, and US objectives are defined by the neoconservative movement and the Israel Lobby, which have kidnapped US strategic policy in this regard, to the dismay of the Foreign Service, intelligence and military professional core of the American government.
The Syria Solidarity Movement suggests that further escalation is not a solution, but that the application of international law can bring the hostilities to a close. Astonishingly, this a war in which there are few declared enemies. Of the many parties and their sponsored combatants, only the armed groups and the Syrian government have declared themselves to be enemies, unless you count the insincere protestations that “terrorist” groups are also enemies of the same nations that are aiding and abetting them.
Syria is still recognized universally and diplomatically as a sovereign state, and under international law no power may interfere in its security considerations except by invitation from the recognized government of that state. To seek “regime change” (overthrow) is strictly illegal under international law, and prohibited by the United Nations. Governments that are pursuing such an objective should be sanctioned by the UN, although there is no realistic possibility of such action.
The Syria Solidarity Movement believes that it is time to complete the expulsion of the terrorist and mercenary forces that have been attacking Syria for the last five years. This can be accomplished by denying all support of arms and funding from the US, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel and other countries. In addition, these countries can choose to either cooperate with the Syrian government and its allies to rid Syria of this scourge, or at least not interfere while Syrian, Russian and other allied forces complete the job. In this case, Syria can resume its role of providing government services and representation for its people, and its people can resume shaping their own government without outside interference.
It is time to end this ill-advised adventurism, and to put to flight the rascals and criminals, not only in Syria but also inside the countries whose strategic policies have been hijacked by gangs who are in many respects worse than those who bring beheadings and crucifixions to our computer screens.
The Syria Solidarity Movement
ILLEGAL USE OF OUR NAME: Counterpunch recently published an article from an individual claiming to be from “Syria Solidarity UK”. This constitutes infringement of the use of the name of the Syria Solidarity Movement and a misrepresentation of who we are. We wish to caution all persons and organizations against the fraudulent use of our name, even if published in good faith as a result of information provided by third parties. We are pursuing legal remedy and would not wish anyone to unnecessarily incur liability.
Paul Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.
February 12, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Israel, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United States, Zionism |
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Almost a month after Iran saw a series of nuclear-related economic sanctions lifted, new indications show certain segments of the Iranian economy still remain shut out in what could be a violation of the nuclear deal that the country reached with the P5+1 last summer.
The US Treasury Department is reportedly warning European countries and companies to shut out a leading sanctioned Iranian airline – Mahan Air – or risk US retaliation.
“Treasury is engaging closely with stakeholders around the world, including our partners in Europe, regarding our sanctions targeting Iran,” a Treasury official told Al-Monitor. “Regarding Mahan Air specifically, we are doing this by working with our partners to prevent Mahan Air from acquiring aircraft and aircraft parts and software, preventing the opening of new routes and working to get existing routes canceled.”
Certain economic sanctions against Iran were lifted in mid-January when a deal that the country had reached with the P5+1 – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – was implemented.
A central sector that saw the sanctions lifted was Iran’s aviation industry and a lucrative contract that the country later signed with Airbus over the purchase of planes clearly testified to that.
Even before the JCPOA was implemented, US President Barack Obama ordered to lift a decades-long ban on the sales of planes to Iran.
The Treasury official – who has not been named by Al-Monitor – has emphasized that the JCPOA “does not preclude us from designating any entities that support Mahan Air or facilitate its activities.”
Iranian officials are yet to react to this.
Mahan Air, which isn’t sanctioned by the European Union, currently operates flights to Milan, Athens, the German cities of Dusseldorf and Munich, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and several other destinations in the Middle East and Asia. Mahan Air had announced that flights to Copenhagen, Denmark, were to start next month but the route opening was discreetly delayed last month.
February 12, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | Iran, Mahan Air, Obama, Sanctions against Iran, United States |
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Seeing the government in Damascus as too far to the left, Washington has been trying to orchestrate a regime change in Syria since at least 2003
Documents prepared by US Congress researchers as early as 2005 revealed that the US government was actively weighing regime change in Syria long before the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, challenging the view that US support for the Syrian rebels is based on allegiance to a “democratic uprising” and showing that it is simply an extension of a long-standing policy of seeking to topple the government in Damascus. Indeed, the researchers made clear that the US government’s motivation to overthrow the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is unrelated to democracy promotion in the Middle East. In point of fact, they noted that Washington’s preference is for secular dictatorships (Egypt) and monarchies (Jordan and Saudi Arabia.) [1] The impetus for pursuing regime change, according to the researchers, was a desire to sweep away an impediment to the achievement of US goals in the Middle East related to strengthening Israel, consolidating US domination of Iraq, and fostering free-market, free enterprise economies. Democracy was never a consideration.
The researchers revealed further that an invasion of Syria by US forces was contemplated following the US-led aggression against Iraq in 2003, but that the unanticipated heavy burden of pacifying Iraq militated against an additional expenditure of blood and treasure in Syria. [2] As an alternative to direct military intervention to topple the Syrian government, the United States chose to pressure Damascus through sanctions and support for the internal Syrian opposition.
The documents also revealed that nearly a decade before the rise of Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra that the US government recognized that Islamic fundamentalists were the main opposition to the secular Assad government and worried about the re-emergence of an Islamist insurgency that could lead Sunni fundamentalists to power in Damascus. A more recent document from the Congress’s researchers describes a US strategy that seeks to eclipse an Islamist take-over by forcing a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Syria in which the policing, military, judicial and administrative functions of the Syrian state are preserved, while Assad and his fellow Arab nationalists are forced to leave office. The likelihood is that if this scenario plays out that Assad and his colleagues will be replaced by biddable US surrogates willing to facilitate the achievement of US goals.
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In 2005, Congress’s researchers reported that a consensus had developed in Washington that change in Syria needed to be brought about, but that there remained divisions on the means by which change could be effected. “Some call for a process of internal reform in Syria or alternatively for the replacement of the current Syrian regime,” the report said. [3] Whichever course Washington would settle on, it was clear that the US government was determined to shift the policy framework in Damascus.
The document described the Assad government as an impediment “to the achievement of US goals in the region.” [4] These goals were listed as: resolving “the Arab-Israeli conflict;” fighting “international terrorism;” reducing “weapons proliferation;” inaugurating “a peaceful, democratic and prosperous Iraqi state;” and fostering market-based, free enterprise economies. [5]
Stripped of their elegant words, the US objectives for the Middle East amounted to a demand that Damascus capitulate to the military hegemony of Israel and the economic hegemony of Wall Street. To be clear, what this meant was that in order to remove itself as an impediment to the achievement of US goals—and hence as an object of US hostility—Syria would have to:
o Accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state on territory seized from Palestinians, and quite possibly also Syrians and Lebanese, possibly within borders that include the Golan Heights, annexed from Syria by Israel in 1987 and occupied by Israel since 1967.
o End its support for militant groups seeking Palestinian self-determination and sever its connections with the resistance organization Hezbollah, the main bulwark against Israeli expansion into Lebanon.
o Leave itself effectively defenceless against the aggressions of the United States and its Middle East allies, including Israel, by abandoning even the capability of producing weapons of mass destruction (while conceding a right to Israel and the United States to maintain vast arsenals of WMD.)
o Terminate its opposition to US domination of neighboring Iraq.
o Transform what the US Congress’s researchers called Syria’s mainly publicly-owned economy, “still based largely on Soviet models,” [6] into a sphere of exploitation for US corporations and investors.
+++
US government objections to Syrian policy, then, can be organized under three US-defined headings:
o Terrorism.
o WMD.
o Economic reform.
These headings translate into:
o Support for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups.
o Self-defense.
o Economic sovereignty.
Terrorism (support for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups)
The researchers noted that while Syria had “not been implicated directly in an act of terrorism since 1986” that “Syria has continued to provide support and safe haven for Palestinian groups” seeking self-determination, allowing “them to maintain offices in Damascus.” This was enough for the US government to label Syria a state sponsor of terrorism. The researchers went on to note that on top of supporting Palestinian “terrorists” that Damascus also supported Lebanese “terrorists” by permitting “Iranian resupply via Damascus of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.” [7]
US Secretary of State Colin Powell travelled to Damascus on May 3, 2003 to personally issue a demand to the Syrian government that it sever its connections with militant organizations pursuing Palestinian self-determination and to stop providing them a base in Damascus from which to operate. In “testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 12, 2004, Powel complained that ‘Syria has not done what we demanded of it with respect to closing permanently of these offices and getting these individuals out of Damascus’.”
The Syrian government rejected the characterization of Hezbollah and Palestinian militants as “terrorists,” noting that the actions of these groups represented legitimate resistance. [8] Clearly, Washington had attempted to discredit the pursuit of Palestinian self-determination and Lebanese sovereignty by labelling the champions of these causes as terrorists.
WMD (self-defense)
“In a speech to the Heritage Foundation on May 6, 2002, then US Under Secretary (of State John) Bolton grouped Syria with Libya and Cuba as rogue states that… are pursuing the development of WMD.” [9] Later that year, Bolton echoed his earlier accusation, telling the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Bush administration was very concerned about Syrian nuclear and missile programs. By September 2003, Bolton was warning of a “range of Syrian WMD programs.” [10]
Syria clearly had chemical weapons (now destroyed), though hardly in the same quantities as the much larger arsenals of the United States, Russia and (likely) its regional nemesis, Israel. [11] Citing the Washington Post, Congress’s researchers noted that Syria had “sought to build up its CW and missile capabilities as a ‘force equalizer’ to counter Israeli nuclear capabilities.” [12] It should be noted, however, that the idea that chemical weapons can act as a force equalizer to nuclear weapons is not only untenable, but risible. In WWI it took 70,000 tons of gas to produce as many fatalities as were produced at Hiroshima by a single US atom bomb. [13] To have any meaning at all, the concept of WMD must include weapons that kill massive numbers of people (nuclear weapons) and exclude those that don’t (chemical weapons.) Otherwise, it is a propaganda term used to magnify the non-threat posed by countries seeking independence outside the US orbit which have CW and biological weapons, but which weapons are no match for the United States’ nuclear weapons and are dwarfed by the Pentagon’s own CW and BW arsenals. Deceptively labelling these weapons as WMD, makes a non-threat a large threat that must be dealt with through military intervention and thereby provides a public relations rationale for a war of aggression.
As to the substance of Bolton’s assertion that Syria had a wide range of WMD programs, the CIA was unable to produce any evidence to corroborate his claim. Alfred Prados, author of a 2005 Congressional Research Service report titled “Syria: U.S. Relations and Bilateral Issues,” listed CIA assessments of Syrian nuclear and BW programs but none of the assessments contained any concrete evidence that Syria actually had such programs. For example, the CIA noted that it was “monitoring Syrian nuclear intentions with concern” but offered nothing beyond “intentions” to show that Damascus was working to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. Prados also noted that Syria had “probably also continued to develop a BW capability,” this based on the fact that Damascus had “signed, but not ratified, the Biological Weapons Convention.” Prados conceded that “Little information is available on Syrian biological programs.”
US president George H.W. Bush is responsible for rendering the concept of WMD meaningless by expanding it to include chemical agents. Before Bush, WMD was a term to denote nuclear weapons or weapons of similar destructive capacity that might be developed in the future. Bush debased the definition in order to go to war with Iraq. He needed to transform the oil-rich Arab country from being seen accurately as a comparatively weak country militarily to being seen inaccurately as a significant threat because it possessed weapons now dishonestly rebranded as being capable of producing mass destruction. It was an exercise in war propaganda.
In 1989, Bush pledged to eliminate the United States’ chemical weapons by 1999. Seventeen years later, the Pentagon is still sitting on the world’s largest stockpile of militarized chemical agents. US allies Israel and Egypt also have chemical weapons. In 2003, Syria proposed to the United Nations Security Council that the Middle East become a chemical weapons-free zone. The proposal was blocked by the United States, likely in order to shelter Israel from having to give up its store of chemical arms. Numerous calls to declare the Middle East a nuclear weapons-free zone have also been blocked by Washington to shelter Israel from having to give up its nuclear arsenal.
Bolton, it will be recalled, was among the velociraptors of the Bush administration to infamously and falsely accuse Saddam Hussein’s Iraq of holding on to WMD that the UN Security Council had demanded it dismantle. In effect, Iraq was ordered to disarm itself, and when it did, was falsely accused by the United States of still being armed as a pretext for US forces to invade the now defenceless country. Bolton may have chosen to play the same WMD card against Syria for the same reason: to manufacture consent for an invasion. But as Congress’s researchers pointed out, “Although some officials… advocated a ‘regime change strategy’ in Syria” through military means, “military operations in Iraq… forced US policy makers to explore additional options,” [14] rendering Bolton’s false accusations academic.
Since the only legitimate WMD are nuclear weapons, and since there is no evidence that Syria has even the untapped capability of producing them, much less possesses them, Syria has never been a WMD-state or a threat to the US goal of reducing WMD proliferation. What’s more, the claim that Washington holds this as a genuine goal is contestable, since it has blocked efforts to make the Middle East a chemical- and nuclear-weapons-free zone, in order to spare its protégé, Israel. It would be more accurate to say that the United States has a goal of reducing weapons proliferation among countries it may one day invade, in order to make the invasion easier. Moreover, there’s an egregious US double-standard here. Washington maintains the world’s largest arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, but demands that countries it opposes should abandon their own, or forswear their development. This is obviously self-serving and has nothing whatever to do with fostering peace and everything to do with promoting US world domination. One US grievance with Assad’s Syria, then, is that it refused to accept the international dictatorship of the United States.
Economic reform (economic sovereignty)
In connection with Syria impeding the achievement of US goals in the Middle East, the Congressional Research Service made the following points in 2005 about the Syrian economy: It is “largely state-controlled;” it is “dominated by… (the) public sector, which employs 73% of the labour force;” and it is “still based largely on Soviet models.” [15] These departures from the preferred Wall Street paradigm of free markets and free enterprise appear, from the perspective of Congress’s researchers, to be valid reasons for the US government to attempt to bring about “reform” in Syria. Indeed, no one should be under the illusion that the US government is prepared to allow foreign governments to exercise sovereignty in setting their own direction economically. That this is the case is evidenced by the existence of a raft of US sanctions legislation against “non-market states.” (See the Congressional Research Service 2016 report, “North Korea: Economic Sanctions,” for a detailed list of sanctions imposed on North Korea for having a “Marxist-Leninist” economy.)
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To recapitulate the respective positions of Syria and the United States on issues of bilateral concern to the two countries:
On Israel. To accept Israel’s right to exist as a settler state on land illegitimately acquired through violence and military conquest from Palestinians, Lebanese (the Shebaa Farms) and Syrians (Golan), would be to collude in the denial of the fundamental right of self-determination. Damascus has refused to collude in the negation of this right. Washington demands it.
On Hezbollah. Hezbollah is the principal deterrent against Israeli territorial expansion into Lebanon and Israeli aspirations to turn the country into a client state. Damascus’s support for the Lebanese resistance organization, and Washington’s opposition to it, places the Assad government on the right side of the principle of self-determination and successive US governments on the wrong side.
On WMD. Syria has a right to self-defense through means of its own choosing and the demand that it abandon its right is not worthy of discussion. The right to self-defense is a principle the United States and its allies accept as self-evident and non-negotiable. It is not a principle that is valid only for the United States and its satellites.
On opposition to the US invasion of Iraq. The 2003 US-led aggression against Iraq was an international crime on a colossal scale, based on an illegitimate casus belli, and a fabricated one at that, and which engendered massive destruction and loss of life. It was the supreme international crime by the standards of the Nuremberg trials. Applying the Nuremberg principles, the perpetrators would be hanged. US aggression against Iraq, including the deployment of “sanctions of mass destruction” through the 1990s, which led to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, and was blithely accepted by then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as “worth it,” was undertaken despite the absence of any threat to the United States. The deliberate creation of humanitarian calamities in the absence of a threat, as a matter of choice and not necessity, in pursuit of economic gain, is an iniquity on a signal scale. What, then, are we to think of a government in Damascus that opposed this iniquity, and a government in Washington that demands that Damascus reverse its opposition and accept the crime as legitimate?
Whatever its failings, the Assad government has unambiguously adopted positions that have traditionally been understood to be concerns of the political left: support for self-determination; public ownership and planning of the economy; opposition to wars of aggression; and anti-imperialism. This is not to say that on a spectrum from right to left that the Assad government occupies a position near the left extreme; far from it. But from Washington’s point of view, Damascus is far enough to the left to be unacceptable. Indeed, it is the Syrian government’s embrace of traditional leftist positions that accounts for why it is in the cross-hairs of the world’s major champion of reactionary causes, the United States, even if it isn’t the kind of government that is acceptable to Trotskyists and anarchists.
+++
In 2003, the Bush administration listed Syria as part of a junior varsity axis of evil, along with Cuba and Libya, citing support in Damascus for Hezbollah and groups engaged in armed struggle to achieve Palestinian self-determination. [16] An invasion of Syria following the US take-over of Iraq in 2003 was contemplated, but was called off after the Pentagon discovered its hands were full quelling resistance to its occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. As an alternative to direct military intervention to topple the Syrian government, the United States chose to pressure Assad through sanctions and by strengthening the opposition in Syria, hoping either to force Assad to accept Israel’s territorial gains, end support for Hezbollah and Palestinian militant groups, and to remake the economy—or to yield power. However, as Congress’s researchers reveal, there were concerns in Washington that if efforts to bolster the opposition went too far, Assad would fall to “a successor regime (which) could be led by Islamic fundamentalists who might adopt policies even more inimical to the United States.” [17]
On December 12, 2003, US president George W. Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act, which imposed sanctions on Syria unless, among other things, Damascus halted its support for Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance groups and ceased “development of weapons of mass destruction.” The sanctions included bans on exports of military equipment and civilian goods that could be used for military purposes (in other words, practically anything.) This was reinforced with an additional (and largely superfluous) ban on US exports to Syria other than food and medicine, as well as a prohibition against Syrian aircraft landing in or overflying the United States. [18]
On top of these sanctions, Bush imposed two more. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the US Treasury Department ordered US financial institutions to sever connections with the Commercial Bank of Syria. [19] And under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the US president froze the assets of Syrians involved in supporting policies hostile to the United States, which is to say, supporting Hezbollah and groups fighting for Palestinian self-determination, refusing to accept as valid territorial gains which Israel had made through wars of aggression, and operating a largely publicly-owned, state-planned economy, based on Soviet models. [20]
In order to strengthen internal opposition to the Syrian government, Bush signed the Foreign Operations Appropriation Act. This act required that a minimum of $6.6 million “be made available for programs supporting democracy in Syria… as well as unspecified amounts of additional funds (emphasis added).” [21]
By 2006, Time was reporting that the Bush administration had “been quietly nurturing individuals and parties opposed to the Syrian government in an effort to undermine the regime of President Bashar Assad.” Part of the effort was being run through the National Salvation Front. The Front included “the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization that for decades supported the violent overthrow of the Syrian government.” Front representatives “were accorded at least two meetings” at the White House in 2006. Hence, the US government, at its highest level, was colluding with Islamists to bring down the Syrian government at least five years before the eruption of protests in 2011. This is a development that seems to have escaped the notice of some who believe that violent Islamist organizations emerged only after March 2011. In point of fact, the major internal opposition to secular Syrian governments, both before and after March 2011, were and are militant Sunni Islamists. Syria expert Joshua Landis told Time that White House support for the Syrian opposition was “apparently an effort to gin up the Syrian opposition under the rubric of ‘democracy promotion’ and ‘election monitoring,’ but it’s really just an attempt to pressure the Syrian government into doing what the United States wants.” [22]
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The US Congress researchers noted that despite “US calls for democracy in the Middle East, historically speaking, US policymakers” have tended to favor “secular Arab republics (Egypt) and Arab monarchies (Jordan and Saudi Arabia.)” [23] They noted too that since “the rise of political Islam as an opposition vehicle in the Middle East decades ago, culminating in the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran, US policymakers have been concerned that secular Arab dictatorships like Syria would face rising opposition from Islamist groups seeking their overthrow.” [24] “The religiously fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood,” which the Bush administration enlisted to pressure the Assad government, had long been at odds with the secular Syrian government, the researchers noted. [25]
Today, Islamic State operates as one of the largest, if not the largest, rebel groups in Syria. A 2015 Congressional Research Service report cited an “unnamed senior State Department official” who observed:
[W]e’ve never seen something like this. We’ve never seen a terrorist organization with 22,000 foreign fighters from a hundred countries all around the world. To put it in context—again, the numbers are fuzzy—but it’s about double of what went into Afghanistan over 10 years in the war against the Soviet Union. Those Jihadi fighters were from a handful of countries.” [26]
Islamic State differs from other militant Islamist opponents of the Syrian government in seeking to control territory, not only in Syria, but in Iraq and beyond. As such, it constitutes a threat to US domination of Iraq and influence throughout the Middle East and north Africa. In contrast, ideologically similar groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, limit the scope of their operations to Syria. They, therefore, constitute a threat to the Syrian government alone, and have proved, as a consequence, to be more acceptable to Washington.
The US government has publicly drawn a distinction between Islamic State and the confined-to-Syria-therefore-acceptable rebels, seeking to portray the former as terrorists and the latter as moderates, regardless of the methods they use and their views on Islam and democracy. The deception is echoed by the US mass media, which often complain that when Russian warplanes target non-Islamic State rebels that they’re striking “moderates,” as if all rebels apart from Islamic State are moderates, by definition. US Director of Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that “moderate” means little more than “not Islamic State.” He told the Council on Foreign Relations that “Moderate these days is increasingly becoming anyone who’s not affiliated with” Islamic State. [27]
The rebels are useful to the US government. By putting military pressure on Damascus to exhaust the Syrian army, they facilitate the achievement of the immediate US goal of “forcing a negotiated settlement to the conflict that will see President Assad and some his supporters leave office while preserving the institutions and security structures of the Syrian state,” [28] as Congress’s researchers summarize US strategy. Hence, Islamic State exists both as a useful instrument of US policy, and as a threat to US domination and control of Iraq and the broader Middle East. To Washington, the terrorist organization is a double-edged sword, and is treated accordingly. US airstrikes on Islamic State appear calculated to weaken the terrorist group enough that it doesn’t gain more territory in Iraq, but not so much that pressure is taken off Damascus. A tepid approach to fighting the hyper-sectarian terrorist group fits with US president Barack Obama’s stated goal of degrading and ultimately destroying Islamic State, which appears to mean destroying it only after it has served its purpose of exhausting the Syrian army. In the meantime, the anti-Shiite cut-throats are given enough latitude to maintain pressure on Syrian loyalists.
Congress’s researchers concur with this view. They conclude that “US officials may be concerned that a more aggressive campaign against the Islamic State may take military pressure off the” Syrian government. [29] This means that the US president is moderating efforts to destroy Islamic State to allow a group he decries as “simply a network of killers who are brutalizing local populations” [30] continue their work of brutalizing local populations. If he truly believed Islamic State was a scourge that needed to be destroyed, the US president would work with the Syrian government to expunge it. Instead, he has chosen to wield Islamic State as a weapon to expunge the Syrian government, in the service of building up Israel and fostering free market and free enterprise economies in the Middle East to accommodate US foreign investment and exports on behalf of his Wall Street sponsors. [31]
REFERENCES
1. Alfred B. Prados and Jeremy M. Sharp, “Syria: Political Conditions and Relations with the United States After the Iraq War,” Congressional Research Service, February 28, 2005.
2. Prados and Sharp.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Alfred B. Prados, “Syria: U.S. Relations and Bilateral Issues,” Congressional Research Service, March 13, 2006.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Israel signed the global treaty banning the production and use of chemical weapons, but never ratified it.
12. Ibid.
13. Stephen Gowans, “Rethinking Chemical Weapons,” what’s left, August 14, 2015.
14. Prados and Sharp.
15. Ibid.
16. Steve R. Weisman, “US threatens to impose penalties against Syrians,” The New York Times, April 14, 2003.
17. Prados and Sharp.
18. Prados.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Adam Zagorin, “Syria in Bush’s cross hairs,” Time, December 19, 2006.
23. Prados and Sharp.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Christopher M. Blanchard and Carla E. Humud, “The Islamic State and U.S. Policy,” Congressional Research Service, December 28, 2015.
27. James Clapper: US Director of Intelligence: http://www.cfr.org/homeland-security/james-clapper-global-intelligence-challenges/p36195
28. Blanchard and Humud.
29. Christopher M. Blanchard, Carla E. Humud Mary Beth D. Nikitin, “Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response,”Congressional Research Service,” October 9, 2015.
30. Blanchard and Humud.
31. Virtually every member of the Obama administration, past and present, is a member of the Wall Street-dominated Council on Foreign Relations, or additionally, has spent part of his or her career on Wall Street. Wall Street was a major source of Obama’s election campaign funding. The strong interlock between Wall Street and the executive branch of the US government is not unique to the Obama administration. See my “Aspiring to Rule the World: US Capital and the Battle for Syria,” what’s left, December 15, 2015.
February 11, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Hezbollah, Israel, Jabhat al-Nusra, Lebanon, Libya, Middle East, Palestine, Syria, United States, WMDs, Zionism |
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Hillary Clinton has written a letter to Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban (left), pledging to speak out publicly against the BDS campaign aimed at Israel
American billionaire George Soros donated $6 million to a super-PAC financing US Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton last month, a report says.
Soros has now provided a total of $7 million in this election cycle to Priorities USA Action, a super-PAC which raised $41 million on behalf of Clinton in 2015, according to the committee’s statement issued on Sunday.
The super-PAC raised $25.3 million during the last 6 months, and Soros’s contribution accounted for almost a quarter of its funding haul.
Haim Saban, an Israeli-American media tycoon, and his wife Cheryl have contributed a total of $5 million to Clinton’s super-PAC.
Clinton has written a letter to Saban, pledging to speak out publicly against the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign aimed at Israel.
Wealthy individuals, who are restricted by law from giving large amounts directly to candidates’ campaigns, donate to political action committees, commonly known as super-PACs.
American billionaire George Soros has contributed a total of $7 million to Hillary Clinton’s campaign so far
In the 2010 Citizens United case ruling, the US Supreme Court allowed unlimited independent spending by corporations in elections.
According to a study published by the New York Times, wealthy individuals and corporations have begun to replace powerless people as direct beneficiaries of the US political system and the Constitution.
Clinton is maintaining a slim lead over Senator Bernie Sanders in Iowa, according to a poll released on Saturday.
Clinton beat out rival Sanders in the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll. She has 45 percent support, with Sanders at 42 percent.
On Saturday, The New York Times endorsed Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination, a potential boost for the candidate two days before the Iowa caucuses.
Times editors wrote that they chose Clinton over her main rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, due to her experience and policy ideas.
The editorial board described Clinton as “one of the most broadly and deeply qualified presidential candidates in modern history.”
February 1, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | George Soros, Haim Saban, Hillary Clinton |
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Aletho News
Aletho News 