Caracas – This Friday the Venezuelan government formally “rejected” a U.S. State Department antiterrorism report issued a day earlier, describing the document as “plagued with false affirmations, political preconceptions, and veiled threats.”
In a press release issued today, Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the U.S. government seeks “to impose, by way of intimidation, its international policy of disregard and domination” and that the ongoing “refuge and protection” provided by the United Stated to confessed terrorist Luis Posada Carriles negated all “moral authority” in the U.S.’s so-called War on Terrorism.
The U.S. Country Reports on Terrorism 2010, issued on 18 August 2011, states that the U.S. State Department is “concerned about Hezballah’s fundraising activities in Venezuela,” and declares that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is continuing “to strengthen Venezuela’s relationship with state sponsor of terrorism Iran”. The report also claims that 2010 was another year in which Venezuela “was not cooperating fully with U.S. antiterrorism efforts.”
“Throughout the year,” the U.S. report asserts, “President Chavez rejected allegations that he or his government supported terrorism and instead accused the United States of sponsoring terrorism.”
In response to yesterday’s report, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry said it rejected, “in the most vehement manner, the accusations of the U.S. State Department” and that by issuing its report the U.S. government had “ratified its policy of permanent aggression against independent and sovereign governments such as that of Venezuela.”
According to the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry response, “the U.S. State Department tends to classify as ‘terrorists’ or ‘complacent with terrorism’ those governments and political organizations that do not bow down in the face of its imperial intentions.”
The Venezuelan government also affirmed that the United States “does not have the moral authority” to judge each country’s antiterrorism efforts, having given “refuge and protection to Luis Posada Carriles, an international criminal charged for terrorism.”
Luis Posada Carriles is wanted in both Venezuela and Cuba for his involvement in the 1976 downing of a Cubana de Aviacion airplane, killing all 73 people on board.
Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry also pointed out that “civilian massacres” committed and “undercover operations” carried out by U.S. forces abroad were “illegal operations” that only added to international skepticism towards U.S. antiterrorism efforts.
In recent years, right-wing U.S. Congressman Connie Mack and others have attempted to place Venezuela on the State Department’s list of “state sponsor of terrorism.” Unable to provide concrete evidence linking the Venezuelan government to U.S.-classified “terrorist” organizations such as Colombia’s Armed Revolutionary Forces (FARC) or Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Mack in recent months has sought to portray joint Venezuela-Iran economic development projects as Venezuelan support for Iran’s “desire for nuclear weapons.”
In response to a June 2011 hearing held by the U.S. Congress Western Hemisphere Subcommittee in which Mack called Venezuela a “hub” for international terrorism, the Venezuelan National Assembly responded by defining “true terrorism” as “that which has been carried out by the U.S. government through its military invasions,” referring specifically to the U.S. invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, among others.
August 20, 2011
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Wars for Israel |
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Just exactly what influence Omar “The Secret Minister” Suleiman retains over the military junta that rules Egypt is a question of utmost importance for those who live on the banks of the Nile River. With a resume including 20 years as head of Egyptian Intelligence he is not someone anyone of those who helped bring about the downfall of Mubarak can afford to ignore.
He was the CIA’s go to man when it came to doing the Agencies dirty work in the Middle East as well as being the liaison with Israel and was reported to be in contact with Mossad on an almost daily basis.
Suleiman is infamous for enforcing the blockade of Gaza, saying he wanted the Palestinians there to “be hungry but not starving” in punishment for supporting Hamas. Hungry as in a 40% level of malnutrition related disability rates amongst Gaza’s children.
Mubarak as Egypt’s Godfather was as lacking in charisma as any leader in the Arab world and ruled by brute force alone. Omar Suleiman was his consigliere and enforcer combined, and was reputed to having a hands on approach to how his torturers carried out their interrogations.
While Mubarak and Sons lived a very publicly ostentatious lifestyle and were well known for their corrupt and decadent ways, Suleiman “The Secret Minister” always preferred to remain behind the scenes, at least until those last desperate days of the Mubarak regime and his “appointment” to the new position of Vice President of Egypt. It was he who announced to the world that a military coup had been carried out and that Mubarak was officially “retired”.
Of course, every member of the Egyptian military junta that overthrew Mubarak had arrived on the Supreme Military Council with his appointment stamped “Approved by Suleiman”. While they may hate “The Secret Minister” one could expect that the junta leaders know that if they want to avoid ending their careers standing in a cage in an Egyptian court “they had better hang together or they will all hang separately”.
Suleiman put them where they are and who better to keep matters from really disintegrating? And who better to keep them informed about what the CIA will and will not approve of.
Today the whereabouts of Suleiman the Secret remains just that, a secret. The last time he was allegedly heard from was via a letter to Al-Ahram newspaper in which he disavowed any desire to be elected President of Egypt. No, all he wanted to do was “live a quiet life with his family”.
Trial by military courts, torture and disappearances, all the hallmarks of Suleiman the Secret are still a part of today’s Egypt and those who partied in the streets after the Coup against Mubarak had better be warned. Behind the scene and still pulling the strings, Suleiman the Secret remains a danger whose continued influence will be ignored at the peril of those who rejoiced at Mubarak’s downfall.
Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006.
August 17, 2011
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Civil Liberties, Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Wars for Israel |
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February 5, 2010
. . . I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . . [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong and beautiful principle.
Right now in my own private Bible time, I am working through Isaiah . . . and there is continually a coming back to what God gave to Israel initially, which was the Torah and the Ten Commandments, and I have a wonderful quote from John Adams that if you will indulge me [while I find it] . . . [from his February 16, 1809 letter to François Adriaan van der Kemp]:
I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.
. . . So that is a very long way to answer your question, but I believe that an explicit statement from us about our support for Israel as tied to American security, we would do well to do that.
August 15, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel |
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The Israeli army has stepped up its military activities in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region and is planning to station a number of unmanned aerial vehicles in the area in northern Iraq.
Israel plans to deploy new equipment, including six drones, in the region in cooperation with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, a Press TV correspondent in northern Iraq reported on Saturday.
Four of the aircraft will be stationed at the Khalidiyah airbase in the northern oil city of Kirkuk and two others will go to the airport in the city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh governorate.
Israeli intelligence agents and military advisers, equipped with special transmission devices, are also being sent to Mosul to train security forces in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.
Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani has reportedly agreed to the concession in return for the admission of a number of Iraqi Kurd students to Israeli universities.
Barzani gave Israel the green light to deploy military drones in northern Iraq without gaining the approval of the Iraqi central government in Baghdad, which has no diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv.
August 13, 2011
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Wars for Israel |
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Jesse Jackson, Jr. shaking hands with former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on a 2003 trip to Israel
Nearly 20 percent of the constituents of Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) live under the poverty line, and nearly 15 percent are unemployed. Jackson’s congressional district, covering parts of the south side of Chicago and its southern suburbs, has been hit harder than many others by the crises plaguing the economy. Many of his constituents are looking at even more cutbacks in social services, higher prices for food and fuel, and ever scarcer jobs.
During this August congressional recess, Rep. Jackson, Jr. should be at home, meeting with constituents and proposing to them how he will help them cope with their difficult circumstances. Instead, the politician is proudly gallivanting around Israel, in one of three separate congressional delegations heading there this month on all-expense-paid junkets organized by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), a so-called charitable affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most influential of the myriad pro-Israel lobbying outfits.In total, 81 representatives, nearly one-fifth of the entire House, will participate in these jaunts, which, according to The Washington Post, include “a round-trip flight in business class for lawmakers and their spouses (that alone is worth about $8,000), fine hotels and meals, side trips, and transportation and guides.”
Of course, these congressional delegations are not all fun and games. Members of Congress will be expected to sing for their lavish dinners by honoring President Bush’s 2007 pledge to provide the Israeli military with $30 billion of tax-payer-funded weapons between 2009 and 2018. So far, proposed increases in military aid to Israel have been spared from the budgetary chopping block by President Obama and a compliant Congress that treats Israeli militarism as more sacrosanct than medical care for seniors. This despite the fact that Israel misuses the funds, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act, to commit human rights abuses against Palestinians living under its illegal 44-year military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.
According to aidtoisrael.org, constituents in Illinois’ 2nd congressional district will be asked to cough up an astonishing $53 million in federal taxes as their pound of flesh for the Israeli military during this 10-year period. With this same amount of money, each year the federal government instead could give 650 low-income families housing vouchers, or retrain nearly 900 unemployed workers for green jobs, or fund early reading programs for nearly 1,600 at-risk children, or provide primary health care to more than 43,000 uninsured people in Rep. Jackson’s congressional district.
Yali Amit, an Israeli-American constituent of Rep. Jackson, Jr. called his office to oppose his participation in the trip to Israel. He was told that Rep. Jackson, Jr. wants to learn what is happening there because of his position on the appropriations subcommittee that approves military aid to Israel. Amit retorted that “you can’t learn what goes on there on a paid trip of a propaganda arm of the Israeli government.” And you certainly can’t learn about the devastating impact that these U.S. weapons have on unarmed Palestinian civilians, nearly 3,000 of whom were killed by the Israeli military over the last decade.
The House Committee on Ethics should open an investigation to determine if it is even legal for Members of Congress to be participating in junkets organized by AIEF. The guidelines of the committee are as bright and clear as the midday sun on a Tel Aviv beach in August. “The travel provisions of the gift rule severely limit the ability of Members and staff to accept travel from an entity that employs or retains a registered lobbyist or a registered agent of a foreign principal.” (Emphasis in original.)
Legistorm, which tracks congressional travel, explains that “even though AIPAC’s primary purpose is lobbying, its nonprofit arm [AIEF] appears to provide a loophole for sponsored travel.” However, this eureka loophole that AIPAC uses does not withstand scrutiny. According to the latest publicly available tax return of AIEF, the organization has no paid employees — an astounding feat in itself for an organization that raked in more than $26 million in 2009 and a mind-blowing accomplishment for an organization running three huge congressional delegations in one month.
An examination of AIPAC’s latest publicly available tax return reveals the sleight of hand. AIPAC reports that in 2009, it very generously contributed more than $3.2 million of employee salaries to cover the staff costs of AIEF. In other words, a 501(c)(4) organization with registered lobbyists is paying for the staff of a 501(c)(3) organization to run congressional delegations that cannot be funded by an organization that employs registered lobbyists.
Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen who helped draft the new post-Abramoff federal lobbying and ethics reform legislation signed into law in 2007, agrees that something is rotten in state of AIPAC. According to Holman, “The House ethics rules do not provide an exemption for 501(c)(3)s that are controlled and directed by a lobbying entity to pay for travel junkets for members of Congress. When the ethics rules were written in 2007 as part of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA), an exemption for 501(c)(3)s was written into the Senate rules – which I called the ‘AIPAC’ loophole – but the House under Speaker Pelosi stuck to strict travel rules for its members and declined to poke a comparable loophole into its ethics rules.
“Even if there were such a loophole in House rules,” Holman continues, “which there isn’t, it appears that the 501(c)(3) wing of AIPAC is little more than a front group designed to extend its lobbying activities beyond Capitol Hill. From 2000 to 2006, lobbyist Richard Kessler similarly attempted to evade the ethics rule prohibiting lobbyist- sponsored travel junkets by setting up a 501(c)(3) that he directly controlled to pay for the trips. HLOGA was passed in 2007 to end these types of evasions.”
Constituents should be irate that members of Congress accept fancy trips from AIPAC-affiliates and contributions from AIPAC-inspired political action committee (PACs) that result in the United States prioritizing weapons to Israel above our basic economic rights. And the Committee on Ethics must investigate AIPAC’s skirting of travel regulations and shut down these trips that it has until now allowed.
August 12, 2011
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Corruption, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel |
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MEMRI was cited 16 times in the so-called manifesto of Norwegian terrorist Anders Brevik
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department announced a $200,000 grant to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a Middle East media watchdog closely aligned with U.S. neoconservatives and Israel’s hawkish security establishment and rightist Likud Party. The grant was awarded “to conduct a project that documents anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and Holocaust glorification in the Middle East.” The announcement continues:
This grant will enable MEMRI to expand its efforts to monitor the media, translate materials into ten languages, analyze trends in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and glorification, and increase distribution of materials through its website and other outlets.
Finding examples of anti-Semitism is already a robust MEMRI project and one wonders why exactly they needed the cash: According to publicly available tax filings, MEMRI had nearly $5 million in revenue in 2007 and more than $4.5 million in revenue in 2008.
What’s more troubling, MEMRI has faced accusations of mistranslating items and cherry-picking incendiary sources to portray regional media and attitudes in an overly-negative fashion. One of the most common issues has been with MEMRI’s mistranslations which appear to show anti-Semitism on thin evidence. In 2007, CNN correspondent Atika Shubert checked MEMRI’s translations of a Palestinian children’s program against those provided by the cable news channel’s own interpreters:
Media watchdog MEMRI translates one caller as saying – quote – ‘We will annihilate the Jews.’ But, according to several Arabic speakers used by CNN, the caller actually says ‘The Jews are killing us.’ MEMRI told us it stood by its translation.
In other instances, MEMRI has been accused of twisting translations to portray criticisms of Israel and its driving ideology, Zionism, as anti-Semitic. In 2006, Rima Barakat, a Palestinian and Muslim activist and one-time Republican candidate for the Colorado state assembly, wrote in the Rocky Mountain News:
Halim Barakat (no relation), a professor at Georgetown University, published an article in Al-Hayat Daily of London titled “The wild beast that Zionism created: Self-destruction.” By the time MEMRI “translated” it, the title was distorted to “Jews have lost their humanity.” Barakat objected, “Every time I wrote Zionism, MEMRI replaced the word by Jew or Judaism. They want to give the impression that I’m not criticizing Israeli policy, but that what I’m saying is anti-Semitic.” It seems obvious that MEMRI is adamant on stigmatizing anyone who criticizes Israel and/or Zionism as being anti Jewish.
In a 2002 article, then-Middle East editor of the British Guardian newspaper Brian Whitaker criticized MEMRI for inaccuracies that reflected an agenda:
As far as relations between the west and the Arab world are concerned, language is a barrier that perpetuates ignorance and can easily foster misunderstanding.
All it takes is a small but active group of Israelis to exploit that barrier for their own ends and start changing western perceptions of Arabs for the worse.
The organization was founded as a U.S. tax-exempt non-profit in 1998 by now-Hudson Institute Mideast policy chief Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli-American, and current MEMRI president, Israeli Yigal Carmon, a 20-year veteran of the Israel Defense Forces (where he spent five years running Israel’s occupation of the West Bank) and top adviser to two Likud governments. An early archived version of the “about page” of MEMRI’s website lists five staff members, three of whom (including Carmon) have backgrounds in Israeli military intelligence. The same page lists one of MEMRI’s missions as “emphasiz(ing) the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel” — though the line has since disappeared from the website.
In addition to providing journalists and the public with translations, the media watchdog has attracted the attention of burgeoning (and closely linked) European and American anti-Muslim movements. MEMRI was cited 16 times in the so-called manifesto of anti-Muslim right-wing Norwegian terrorist Anders Brevik, showing up even more when MEMRITV was included.
MEMRI’s board of directors and board of advisers read as a veritable who’s who of right-wing supporters of Israel — including many neoconservative figues and their close allies — such as Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Steve Emerson, Norman Podhoretz and Alan Dershowitz.
August 12, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel |
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The decision of more than 90 U.S. senators to press President Obama for Iraq-style sanctions on Iran flew in the face of what some observers warned could be the beginning of a stress test of the international support for pressuring Iran and another step closer to a potential war with the Islamic Republic.
But a Tuesday press release [PDF] from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) brings to mind eery parallels between the escalation of sanctions against Iran and the slow lead up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The press release read:
AIPAC applauds today’s bipartisan letter—signed by 92 U.S. Senators—to the administration urging it to sanction the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), or Bank Markazi. The letter, spearheaded by Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Mark Kirk (R-IL), notes that the CBI lies at the center of Iran’s strategy to circumvent international sanctions against its illicit nuclear program.
Sanctioning Bank Markazi might, as mentioned by the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon, be interpreted as an act of war. But that doesn’t seem to bother AIPAC. Indeed, they’ve been down this sanctions road once before before the invasion of Iraq.
In June, Robert Dreyfuss interviewed former AIPAC senior Iran analyst Keith Weissman who offered details of how AIPAC and its allies in the Bush administration pushed the allegation that Saddam Hussein was in league with al Qaeda. More importantly, Weissman discusses AIPAC’s plans for ultimately bringing regime change in Iran. Dreyfuss writes:
Weissman says that Iran was alarmed at the possibility that the United States might engage in overt and covert efforts to instigate opposition inside Iran. He says that many in AIPAC, especially among its lay leadership and biggest donors, strongly backed regime change in Iran. “That was what Larry [Franklin] and his friends wanted,” he says. “It included lots of different parts, like broadcasts, giving money to groups that would conduct sabotage, it included bringing the Mojahedin[-e Khalgh], bringing them out of Iraq and letting them go back to Iran to carry out missions for the United States. Harold Rhode backed this…. There were all these guys, Michael Ledeen, ‘Next stop Tehran, next stop Damascus.’“
Indeed, as shown in the AIPAC press release, Iran is now the target of similar sanctions and bellicose rhetoric similar to those that targeted Iraq in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Sanctioning Iran’s central bank and imposing a de facto oil embargo on Iranian oil exports would appear to be pages torn from the playbook before the invasion of Iraq. … Full article
August 11, 2011
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Wars for Israel |
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By ALISON WEIR | August 11, 2011
You might think that twenty percent of the American Congress going on all-expense-paid, week-long junkets to a foreign country – paid for by a lobby for that country – would be considered newsworthy. Especially when the top Congressional leaders of both parties are leading the trips.
You would be wrong.
81 Congressional representatives from all over the country, led by Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, are traveling to Israel this month. Most are freshmen Congressmen and include half of all the freshmen Republicans voted into office in 2010.
The week-long trips are being paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), which was created in 1990 as a supporting organization of AIPAC, America’s major pro-Israel lobbying organization, and is located in the same building (AIEF, which is only one of numerous organizations pushing pro-Israel policies, has an annual budget of over $24 million with an even larger endowment.
This is an extraordinary situation. No other lobby on behalf of a foreign country comes anywhere near to controlling such wealth or taking so many of America’s elected representatives on a propaganda trip to their favorite country.
Not all those going on these trips are enthusiastic. The wife of one Congressman who made a similar trip some years ago said that she and her husband had never been exposed to such pressure in all their lives. She said that at one point on their trip, her husband – a normally extremely tough man – was curled up in a fetal position.
A staff member of one representative participating in this month’s junkets said the representative had no choice. If the Congressional rep didn’t go on the trip, the rep would be targeted by AIPAC, large quantities of money, including massive out-of-state money, would be raised for the opponent in the next election, and quite likely the representative would be defeated. The staffer said that the Israel Lobby is far too powerful to ignore and that American voters have no knowledge of what’s going on.
It’s no surprise that voters are unaware that their Congress people are being propagandized and pressured by a foreign lobby. Their news media almost never tell them.
The Associated Press, America’s number one news service, has decided not to report on a lobbying group taking 81 representatives to a foreign country in order to influence their votes.
Even though the trips are being reported by news media in Britain, Iran, India, Israel, Lebanon, and elsewhere, AP has decided to give it a pass. When contacted about this, an AP editor in Washington DC said they knew about the trips and were “looking into it.”
Taking a similar tack, the New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, CNN, ABC, et al, failed to inform Americans about the trips. (The Washington Post, after the story was posted throughout the blogosphere, finally covered it belatedly on page 13. The CBS website had a story on the situation, but CBS news made no mention of the junkets on-air.)
The only AP stories on the subject are scattered local stories about individual Congress people. For example, AP’s Chicago bureau reported that Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is taking part, without reporting that he was one of 81 representatives accepting these all-expense-paid junkets, and that his trip was being paid for by the pro-Israel lobby.
A few other American media reported the story in interestingly diverse ways:
Washington DC’s Politico covered it twice; the Atlantic’s AtlanticWire posted a story on people who were “kvetching” about the one-sided nature of the junkets, while emphasizing that some of the reps were also going to meet with some Palestinian leaders, but failed to report that this will apparently account for only a few hours out of the 7-day trip. LA’s Jewish Journal was remarkably forthright, reporting that “the congressional reps will be getting the dog and pony show,” and Commentary gloated at the “astonishing” number of representatives going on the trip, noting that “Congress is the backstop that gives Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu the ability to say ‘no’” to the President of the United States.
While Commentary claims that the willingness of Congressional representatives to go on all-expense-paid trips by one of the country’s most powerful lobbies “is a good reflection of American public opinion on the Middle East,” this is actually not accurate.
Surveys find that an extraordinarily strong majority of Americans – typically between two-thirds to three-quarters – do not wish the U.S. to take sides on Israel-Palestine.* Such widespread desire for neutrality is particularly noteworthy given that U.S. news media across the political spectrum are consistently highly Israeli-centric in their reporting.
It is quite likely that such voters would be unhappy to learn that a foreign lobby has such power over their elected representatives, leading them to give the favored nation, one of the smallest and wealthiest countries on the planet, over $8 million per day of American tax money when the U.S. is in the middle of a financial crisis.
Perhaps that’s why AP and others don’t tell them.
* * *
* Two thirds want the United States to “lean toward neither side” – Brookings: “Attitudes Toward the Middle East Peace Process: Surveys of Arab and Jewish Opinion in Israel and Public Opinion in the United States”.
71 percent favor not taking a side – World Public Opinion: “International Poll: Most Publics–including Americans–Oppose Taking Sides in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”.
65 percent favor not taking either side – CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. May 24-26, 2011. Adults nationwide.
“Although more Americans show sympathy for Israel than for the Palestinians, a strong majority has consistently felt that the US should play an even-handed role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since December 1998, Gallup and other organizations have asked respondents many times whether the US “should take Israel’s side, take the Palestinians’ side, or not take either side.” Strong majorities have consistently said the US should take neither side. In July 2000, 74% endorsed this position. Shortly after September 11th, 2001, this number dropped to 63% (Israel’s side rising to 27%) then recovered to 70% in early November (Israel’s side 20%). Israel’s military actions of April 2002 had little impact on this majority view. CNN/USA Today/Gallup found 71% in April for the US taking neither side” – World Public Opnion: “Israel and Palestine”.
~
Alison Weir is president of the Council for the National Interest and executive director of If Americans Knew. She can be reached at contact@cnionline.org.
Source
August 11, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Eric Cantor, Israel, Steny Hoyer, United States, United States Congress |
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The draft of a strategic deal between Washington and Kabul envisions giving the United States the authority to set up permanent military bases in Afghanistan.
American and Afghan official are set to discuss the deal at Loya Jirga (Traditional Grand Assembly) with tribal elders and political figures.
The recently-released draft shows that the US would be able to establish permanent military bases in Shindand, Shorabak, Kandahar, Bagram, and Khost.
According to the agreement, Washington can set up more military bases in other parts of Afghanistan whenever it deems necessary.
The military bases, which will be run based on US Army regulations, would be in complete control of the US government.
The Afghan airspace will be handed over to American forces after the strategic deal comes into effect.
If an agreement is reached on the permanent bases, US troops will remain on Afghan soil beyond 2014, when they are scheduled to transfer their security responsibilities to Afghan forces.
The draft also states that all US military and civilian personnel must act according to the American constitution at the time of military operations.
August 7, 2011
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Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel |
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Nathan Guttman at Moment discusses “myths” about the Jewish vote and concedes my points: Jews really don’t swing any state except maybe Florida, and the reason politicians pander to Jews is because of the money we bring to the process. Just imagine if evangelical Christians were so important in the process; would we ever hear the end of it in the liberal press? Do evangelicals have political diversity– I bet they do. And speaking of diversity, where is ours? Guttman also says that Jews don’t vote on Israel, but states that it’s a “threshhold” issue, and so long as a politician supports aid to Israel and is against an imposed solution on Israel, he’s fine. I.e., the issue isn’t politicized in our process. Everyone’s for that or they can’t play. Guttman:
• Myth: Jews can tip a swing state.
Rarely. The 2000 elections helped establish the myth that Jewish voters hold the power to decide a tight race. As election officials scrutinized ballots in Florida, some seemed to see an elderly Jewish swing voter behind every hanging chad. Florida remains an important battleground, and given the divided political makeup of the state and its large Jewish population, Jewish sun birds really can make a difference. Ohio is also a state where Jewish voters could play a role in a close race, although so far they haven’t. But the vast majority of Jewish voters vote in states that aren’t really in play, like New York and California, and their vote will hardly be noticed.
• Myth: Jewish money bankrolls election campaigns.
Maybe. It is commonly believed that more than half of political donations to Democratic races and more than a third of those to Republican races come from Jewish donors. Again, there are no hard numbers here, but counting the Cohens and Goldmans on campaign disclosure lists can give a strong impression that Jews are heavily involved in political giving.
August 4, 2011
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Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel |
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“Situation could turn to long, evil American series”
Former Deputy Head of the Phalange party in Lebanon, Lawyer Rashad Salameh, said some armed and financed factions were behind the recent developments in Syria, and noted that the Syrian state has positively dealt with the legal reform demands, “but it turned out that what was happening on ground was actually an organized military operation.”
In an exclusive interview with Al-Manar Website, Salameh said that a true conspiracy was targeting Syria, and that it may undermine the threats launched by some Western leaders to “isolate” the Syrian regime. He recalled that isolation was not new for Syria, and that Syrians were able to overcome this threat throughout all previous stages.
While expressing confidence in the awareness and sincerity of the Syrian people, he revealed that the Americans have offered to their thugs and allies in Lebanon a “promise” that the Syrian regime would collapse. He said that US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman has assured his allies, during his latest visit to Beirut, that the Assad regime in Syria would be toppled. He put the latest statement made by former Prime Minister Saad Hariri in this context, and expressed belief that Hariri got a cue of the American aims before issuing his statement in which he condemned the Syrian regime.
Concerning the international tribunal, lawyer Salameh said he was fully convinced of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah’s statement in this regard, and confirmed that the so-called Special Tribunal for Lebanon was violating all international standards. He found it strange how the indictment could turn into a “long and evil American series,” and stressed that serious investigation starts by questioning false witnesses who misled the investigation and, therefore, concealed the true culprits.
CONSPIRACY AGAINST SYRIA… SERIOUS
Lawyer Rashad Salameh told Al-Manar Website that the latest incidents in Syria were proof that the opposition movement, which started with legal reform demands, turned to something else. He noted that the Syrian regime positively dealt with the reform demands, mainly in relation with the multiplicity of parties, amendment of the constitution, holding elections, reinforcing political life, and increasing freedoms.
But Salameh said that incidents showed that military operations were taking place on ground, and backed the idea by pointing to the huge number of martyrs within the security forces and innocent civilians. “This huge number of martyrs signals that there’s an armed and financed side behind the incidents. It also shows that this side was well-prepared for these acts,” he added.
Salameh regretted that some Western states reject seeing the picture in its real form. He said that these sides were not demanding reform but the collapse of the regime. “This is a conspiracy which is using some tools seeking to create strife in Syria,” he warned. “Although they claim they are an opposition in opinion, everything shows they’re not. In fact, we’re before some armed groups that seek to attack official buildings, manipulate the train line, and explode oil pipelines. The Syrians cannot remain silent before such violations, crimes, threats to the general stability and security.”
While stressing that the Syrian army was still unified alongside the majority of the people in support of the current regime, he criticized the stances made by some Western states in support of the armed groups. “Some Western officials give themselves the right to claim, with an order tone, that this regime should end. Such rhetoric strengthens the international conspiracy theory, where some states that we believed to be democratic take part.”
Salameh recalled, in this context, the stances made earlier by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which he said that, as part of the NATO alliance, he would carry out any decision to militarily interfere in Syria in case such decision was issued by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). He also pointed to the statement made by Syrian former Deputy President Abdul Halim Khaddam who called, through an Israeli TV station, for a military operation in Syria. He said that all these signs show the depth of the conspiracy targeting Syria at this stage.
SYRIA HAS SUFFICIENT IMMUNITY TO RESIST
Lawyer Rashad Salameh commented on the latest stance made by US President Barack Obama in which he declared that the United States will continue to increase its pressure on the Syrian regime, and work with others around the world to isolate Al-Assad’s government.
Salameh pointed to the biased media coverage of the Syrian developments. He noted that some Arab and European media panels, including Italian Television, claimed Sunday that the number of victims exceeded 136 in Hamah only and that the total number of victims throughout Syrian districts exceeded 350. “It turned out that these numbers were not accurate, according to the same panels,” he said.
Concerning the American President’s promise to isolate the Syrian President, Salameh said that such threats are baseless. He recalled that Syria has experienced isolation for over five years, when former US President George W. Bush took the decision to isolate Syria. He said that Syria was able to overcome its crisis and restore its natural role, when France was more moderate.
He also said that Syria did not have fears over the Lebanese situation because Lebanon is a strong state. He said that Lebanon was great because of the resistance’s victories, alongside the Resistance-Army-People balance, which reflected Lebanon’s unity. He further pointed out the tense relations between Turkey and Syria.
While concluding that Syria had enough immunity to stand in the face of the conspiracy, he recalled the previous stage during the rule of late President Hafez Assad. “At that time, Syria was under siege from Turkey, Jordan and at the same time Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Yet, it was able to overcome this status through its relation with Lebanon and mainly, through the strategic relation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Therefore, this is not the first time in which Syria is targeted.”
AMERICANS PROMISED THEIR ALLIES
Salameh revealed that the Americans have offered their thugs and allies in Lebanon a “promise” that the Syrian regime would collapse. He said that US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman has assured his March 14 allies, during his latest visit to Beirut, that the Assad regime in Syria would be toppled.
Commenting on Feltman’s stance that Syrian President Bachar Assad will not triumph, Salameh noted that it was Feltman who launched such a slogan, not the Syrian nation. “If I was Syrian and I heard such statements, I would have perceived that there was an external danger and that claiming that the issue was purely internal was not true.” He also criticized the American administration’s claims that it refused the interference of anybody in Syria’s affairs “as if it was preventing the whole world, except itself, from interfering in others’ affairs.”
Salameh, who said Feltman’s promise to his allies, over the collapse of the Syrian regime, was not frank, also uncovered that the US diplomat advised his allies to stay silent. “Some of them accepted the advice but others did not,” he said, adding that he did not find strange the latest stance of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri. “Hariri was committed to the advice for a while, but it seemed that he got a dose of American reinforcements, so he issued the delayed statement,” he said. “Hariri must remember that Syria’s stability was an essential condition for Lebanon’s stability, and vice versa. His statement was not useful for Hariri himself, for Lebanon or even for the future of the ties between Lebanon and Syria.”
RADICALS NOT SUITABLE ALTERNATIVE
Salameh said that someone has convinced the American administration and its followers that the fate of the region can be in the hands of specific radicals, given that these radicals could be allies to the US. He warned against such an option, and recalled the dangerous sectarian conflict that recently took place in Egypt. He recalled, in this context, WikiLeaks’ cables that quoted former PM Saad Hariri as advising Jeffrey Feltman to “try Bayanouni (Muslim Brotherhood) and Abdul Halim Khaddam” and telling them that they would find them moderate. “It seemed that the Americans have believed Feltman’s advice and chosen to apply it,” he added.
Salameh, who said he fully trusted the Syrian nation’s originality, expressed belief that Syrians will not accept extremist radicals as an alternative for the current regime. “Under their control, freedom would not get any better. This is the alternative prepared by the ongoing conspiracy against Syria.”
TRIBUNAL… VOID
To conclude, Lawyer Rashad Salameh attacked the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and said he fully agreed with Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah in this context. He said that Sayyed Nasrallah’s vision reflected the truth, whether at the level of the investigation’s measures or the amendments to the internal rules of regulation.
Salameh said the tribunal was unconstitutional, and noted that the process has started at the moment in which the government of Prime Minister Fouad Saniora requested its creation under chapter seven. He pointed to the agreement that was signed between the United Nations and then Justice Minister Khaled Qabbani, which contradicted the constitution. “The Lebanese Republic cannot be the confined to the Justice Minister, as there’s a President who, according to the constitution, is the one eligible to sign external agreements. Add to this the fact that Saniora’s government was not constitutional.”
Salameh also pointed to the suspicious change of accusations according to the political developments. “At the beginning, Syria was the target, and the four officials were the victims. If an indictment was issued at the time, then the main suspect would have been Syria without doubt,” he stressed, adding that it has been proven that this tribunal violated all legal standards.
He also noted that Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah has offered solid evidence concerning an Israeli possible role in the assassination of former PM Rafiq Hariri, but that the tribunal chose to reject it. “Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare had declared that the evidence will not change the course of investigation even before receiving them,” he recalled.
“The US and Israel were the first to benefit from the crime. But they will never be among the suspects,” he stressed.
LONG AND EVIL AMERICAN SERIES…
In parallel, Salameh said that Lebanon should be ready for the sanctions some sides are seeking to impose against it. He noted, however, that such sanctions would include all Lebanon, and not a specific political party. He warned that such an option would undermine stability in the country and increase the horizontal division within the Lebanese.
Legally, Salameh also noted that Hariri’s murder was never among the crimes that should be explored by international tribunals. He noted that those concerned have sought to find the best definition of “terrorism” that could correspond to Hariri’s murder, and found it in a “silly” article in the Lebanese law. He noted that only in this law, there’s no reference to a crime against humanity, or annihilation.
According to Salameh, another violation of international law by this tribunal was the release of “various” indictments. “We believe that there’s only one indictment in all causes. With this cause, they’re promising us many. This is unpopular. We’re speaking of an indictment, not of an evil and boring American series.”
To end, Salameh stressed that whoever really wants the truth could not reach it through this tribunal and this investigation. He said that serious investigation must start by questioning the false witnesses who lied, misled the investigation, and hid the real culprit.
August 3, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel |
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The Lone Assassin: A Fascist Superman Travels Faster than a Speeding Bullet Versus the Police Moving Slower than an Arthritic Turtle
“So let us fight together with Israel, with our Zionist brothers against all anti-Zionists against all cultural Marxists/Multiculturalists”.
Anders Behring Breivik’s Manifesto
“. . . two more cells exist in my organization”. . .
Ander Behring Breivik in police custody (Reuters 7/25/11)
Introduction:
The July 22, 2011, bombing of the office of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Labor Party Jen Stoltenberg, which killed 8 civilians, and the subsequent political assassination of 68 unarmed activists of the Labor Party Youth on Utoeya Island, just 20 minutes from Oslo, by militant neo-fascist Christian-Zionists, raises fundamental questions about the growing links between the legal Far-Right, the ‘mainstream media’, the Norwegian police, Israel and rightwing terrorism.
The Mass Media and the Rise of Rightwing Terrorism:
The leading English language newspapers, The New York Times (NYT), the Washington Post (WP), the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and the Financial Times (FT), as well as President Obama, blamed “Islamic extremists”, upon the first police reports of the killings, publishing a series of incendiary (and false) headlines and reports, labeling the event as ‘Norway’s 9-11’, in terms, which echoed the ideological motivation and justifications cited by the Norwegian Christian-Zionist political assassin, Anders Behring Breivik himself. The July 23/24 front page of the Financial Times (of London), read “Islamist extremism fears: Worst Europe strike since 2005”. Obama immediately cited the terrorist attack in Norway to further justify his overseas wars against Muslim countries. The FT, NYT, WP and WSJ trotted out their self-styled “experts” who debated over which Arab/Islamic leaders or movements were responsible – despite Norwegian press reports of ‘the arrest of a Nordic man in police uniform’.
Clearly, the US mass media and political elite were eager to use the bombing and assassinations to justify ongoing overseas imperial wars, ignoring the burgeoning domestic extremist rightwing organizations and violent individuals who are the outgrowth of official Islamophobic hate propaganda.
When Anders Breivik, a known neo-fascist extremist, handed his weapons over to Norwegian police without resistance and claimed credit for the bombing and massacre, the second phase of the official cover-up took place: He was immediately described as “a lone wolf assassin”, who “acted alone” (BBC July 24, 2011) or as mentally deranged, downplaying his political networks, his American, European and Israeli ideological mentors and commitments, which led to his acts of terrorism. Even more outrageous, the media and officials ignored the fact that this complex, multiphase terrorist attack was beyond the capacity of one ‘deranged’ person.
Anders Behring Breivik had been a dues-paying member of a Far-Right political party, The Progress Party and a collaborator and contributor to an overtly neo-Nazi web site. He frequently focused his hatred on the ruling Labor Party for its relative tolerance of immigrants. He despised immigrants especially, Muslims, and was an ardent Christian-Zionist supporter of Israeli repression and terror against the Palestinian people. His criminal action was political in essence and embedded in a much wider political network.
The political elite and media have scrambled to deny the overlapping links between ‘legal’ ideological Islamophobes, like the American Zionists Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, the Dutch far-right Party of Freedom led by the hate-monger Geert Wilders and their counterparts in the Norwegian Progress Party who rail against the “Muslim threat”. The “direct action” terrorists take their cues from electoral parties, like the Progress Party, who recruit and indoctrinate activists, like Behring Breivik, who then leave the ‘electoral road’ to carry out their bloody carnage, allowing the ‘respectable’ hate-mongers to hypocritically condemn him… after the outrage.
The Lone Assassin: A Fascist Superman Travels Faster than a Speeding Bullet Versus the Police Moving Slower than an Arthritic Turtle:
The case for the “lone wolf terrorist” defies credence. It is a tissue of lies used to cover up state complicity, intelligence malfeasance, and the sharp right-turn in the domestic and foreign policies of NATO countries.
There is no basis to accept Breivik’s initial claim that he acted alone for several outstanding reasons: First, the car bomb, which devastated downtown Oslo, was a highly complex weapon requiring expertise and coordination – the kind available to state or intelligence services, like the Mossad, which specialize in devastating car bombs. Amateurs, like Breivik, with no training in explosives, usually blow themselves up or lack the skill required to connect the electronic timing devices or remote detonators (like the unsuccessful ‘shoe’, ‘underpants’ and ‘Times Square’ bombers have proved). Secondly, the details of (a) moving the bomb, (b) obtaining (stealing) a vehicle, (c) placing the device at the strategic site, (d) successfully detonating it and (e) then gowning up in an elaborate special police uniform with an arsenal of hundreds of rounds of ammunition and driving off in another vehicle to Utoeya Island, (f) waiting patiently while armed to the teeth for a ferry boat, (g) crossing with other passengers in his police uniform, (h) rounding up the Labor youth activists and commencing the massacre of scores of unarmed youth and finally (i) finishing off the wounded and hunting for those trying to hide or swim away – is not the activity of a lone zealot. Even the combination of Superman, Einstein and a world class marksman could not perform those tasks.
The media and NATO leaders must view the public as passive morons to expect them to believe that Anders Behring Breivik “acted alone”. He is willing to take a 20 year prison sentence if it means, as he maintains, that their collective action is the spark that ignites his comrades and advances the agenda of the violent and legal far rightwing parties. Facing a Norwegian judge on July 25, he publically declared the existence of “two more cells in my organization”. According to witness testimony on Utoeya Island shots from two distinct weapons were heard from different directions during the massacre. The police say they are… “investigating”. Needless to say the police have found nothing; instead they put on a “show” to cover their inaction by raiding two houses far from the massacre and quickly released the suspects.
The most serious political implication of the terrorist action, however, is the conspicuous complicity of top police officials. The police took 90 minutes to arrive at Utoeya Island, located less than 20 kilometers from Oslo, 12 minutes by helicopter and 25 to 30 minutes by car and boat. The delay allowed the right wing assassins to use up the ammunition, maximizing the death toll of young, anti-fascist activists and devastating the Labor youth movement. The police chief, Sveinung Sponheim, made the feeblest excuse and cover-up, claiming “problems with transport”. Sponheim argued that a helicopter “wasn’t on standby” and they “could not find a boat” (Associated Press, July 24, 2011). Yet a helicopter was available; it managed to fly to Utoeya and film the ongoing slaughter, and over half of Norwegians, a seafaring people for millennia, own or have access to a boat. A police force, faced with what the Prime Minister calls the ‘worst atrocity since the Nazi occupation’, moving at the pace of an arthritic turtle to rescue youth activists, raises the suspicion of some level of complicity. The obvious question arises as to the degree to which the ideology of right wing extremism – neo-fascism – has penetrated the police and security forces, especially the upper echelons? This level of “inactivity” raises more questions than it answers. What it suggests is that the Social Democrats only control part of the Government – the legislative, while the neo-fascists influence the state apparatus.
The plain fact is that the police did not save a single life. When they finally arrived, Anders Behring Breivik had run out of ammunition and surrendered turning himself over to the police. The police literally did not fire a single shot; they did not even have to hunt or capture the assassin. An almost choreographed scenario: Hundreds wounded, 68 unarmed, peaceful activists killed and the Labor youth movement decimated.
The police can claim “crime solved” while the mass media prattles about a “lone assassin”. The far right has a “martyr” to mask a further advance in their anti-Muslim, pro-Israel crusade. (It is reminiscent of the celebrated Israeli-American fascist mass murderer, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who slaughtered dozens of unarmed Palestinian men and boys at prayer in 1994).
Only two days before the political murders, the head of the Labor Party Youth Movement, Eskil Pederson, gave an interview to the Dagbladet, Norway’s second largest tabloid, in which he announced a “unilateral economic embargo of Israel from the Norwegian side” (Gilad Atzmon, July 24, 2011).
The fact of the matter is that the Norwegian military has no problem promptly dispatching 500 troops to Afghanistan, half way around the world and providing six Norwegian Air Force jets and pilots to bomb and terrorize Libya. And yet they can’t find a helicopter or a row boat to transport their police a couple hundred yards to stop a domestic right wing terrorist – whose murderous rampage was being described second by second by the terrorized young victims on their cell phones to their frantic parents?
The Imperial Roots of Domestic Fascism: Conclusion
Clearly, the decisions of Norway and other Scandinavian nations to participate in the US imperial crusades against Muslim and especially Arab people in the Middle East have aroused and energized the neo-fascist right. They now want to “bring the war home”; they want Norway to go further, to ‘cleanse the nation’ by expelling Muslims. They want to “send a message” to the Labor Party: Either it must accept a full neo-fascist pro-Israeli agenda or expect more massacres, more elected fascists, more followers of Anders Behring Breivik.
The “Progress Party” is now the second largest political party in Norway. If a “conservative” coalition defeats Labor, neo-fascists will probably sit in the Government. Who knows, after a few years of good behavior, they might find an excuse to commute their ex-comrades sentence . . . or proclaim him mentally rehabilitated and freed.
Clearly what is needed is the immediate withdrawal of all troops from imperial wars and a systematic, coherent and organized fight against domestic right-wing terrorists and their intellectual godparents, in America, Israel and Europe. Labor youth must go press on with their demand that the Labor Government, under Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg, recognize the nation of Palestine and implement a total boycott of Israeli goods and services. A national and international political-educational campaign must be organized to expose the links between respectable electoral fascists and violent terrorists. The Labor Youth martyrs of Utoeya Island should be cherished and their ideals taught in all the schools. Their far-right enemies and supporters whether overt, covert or directly complicit, should be exposed and condemned. The best weapon against the renewed neo-fascist onslaught is a political and educational offensive, taking up the anti-fascist, anti-Quisling (Norway’s notorious Nazi collaborator) fighting traditions of their grandparents’ era. It’s not too late – if the Labor Party, the Norwegian trade unions and the anti-fascist youth act now before the flood of resurgent fascism.
August 1, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel |
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The draft of a strategic deal between Washington and Kabul envisions giving the United States the authority to set up permanent military bases in Afghanistan.
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