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Dystopia revisited

By Paul Balles | Voice of Palestine | June 1, 2012

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious. –George Orwell, 1984

Many people have been shocked by the distortion, propaganda and downright lies appearing in the Western media over events in the Middle East.

But for someone living in the Middle East for 30 or 40 years, the lies are nothing new. The distorted conflicts fly furiously through the corrupt Western media.

When asked “What is the most effective military weapon the Israelis have?” The answer has to be “The control of the Western media.”

The domination of the media was decreed at the Zionist conference of 1897.

Gilad Atzmon, anti-Zionist and ex-Israeli Jew, describes it as the “Zionised Western media.”

The effect of this control dictates to the sluggish Western population which countries they may like and which they must hate.

Seventy-year-old Benjamin Freedman, an American anti-Zionist Jew, declared in a speech presented in 1961, “The Zionists rule these United States as though they were absolute monarchs of this country.”

Freedman declared that in 1916, when Britain was seriously considering a peace offered by Germans, on the basis of a status quo ante, the Zionists seized an opportunity to inform the British War Cabinet that they could still win the war.

They used the same techniques to brainwash the British War Cabinet that they have perfected in the media.

“We will guarantee to bring the United States into this war as your ally. The price you must pay is Palestine after you have won the war and defeated Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey.” Britain made that promise in October 1916.

Freedman revealed at that time the United States was totally pro-German; the newspapers…all the mass communication media was controlled by Jews who were pro-German.

When the Zionists saw the possibility of getting Palestine, everything changed overnight. Suddenly the Germans were no good. They were villains shooting Red Cross nurses and cutting off babies hands. They were Huns.

An insider during this time, and a few years before, Freedman described American President Woodrow Wilson “as incompetent when it came to determining what was going on as a newborn baby.” The same tactics were used in the media. The American people were duped into joining WWI as they were in going into Iraq.

What is notably absent from the information presentation is reportage of Israeli weaknesses and atrocities.

While US networks are virulent in presenting human tragedy, be it through crime, sickness, weather or other catastrophes, there is scant if any media exposure to human suffering caused by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Neglected veterans suffer the cause of divorces, children who have lost parents or parents unable to perform normally.

The American people appear perfectly content about being ruled by the Zionists. They call it their freedom, which they say other countries envy.

Aside from the US media in general, Zionism has permeated Christian churches and the education system.

This brain-washing has gone on for 100 years and is too deeply embedded for Americans to break out and become responsible and even-handed, especially in dealing with the Middle East.

To revisit George Orwell and 1984, it may not be too late to recognize the lies, their source and how they control us:

“…and if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”

If the future portrayed by Orwell is avoidable, the rest of the world must break from Western media control of radio, TV, films and newspapers.

******

Throughout his life as an educator, Dr. Paul J. Balles, a retired American university professor and freelance writer, has lived and worked in the Middle East for 40 years – first as an English professor (Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain), and for the past ten years as a writer, editor and editorial consultant. Dr. Balles is a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS

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June 21, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

How the Obama Administration Is Stalling Its Way to War with Iran

Deep-Sixing the China Option

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | TomDispatch | June 19, 2012

Since talks with Iran over its nuclear development started up again in April, U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that Tehran will not be allowed to “play for time” in the negotiations.  In fact, it is the Obama administration that is playing for time.

Some suggest that President Obama is trying to use diplomacy to manage the nuclear issue and forestall an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear targets through the U.S. presidential election.  In reality, his administration is “buying time” for a more pernicious agenda: time for covert action to sabotage Tehran’s nuclear program; time for sanctions to set the stage for regime change in Iran; and time for the United States, its European and Sunni Arab partners, and Turkey to weaken the Islamic Republic by overthrowing the Assad government in Syria.

Vice President Biden’s national security adviser, Antony J. Blinken, hinted at this in February, explaining that the administration’s Iran policy is aimed at “buying time and continuing to move this problem into the future, and if you can do that — strange things can happen in the interim.”  Former Pentagon official Michèle Flournoy — now out of government and advising Obama’s reelection campaign — told an Israeli audience this month that, in the administration’s view, it is also important to go through the diplomatic motions before attacking Iran so as not to “undermine the legitimacy of the action.”

New York Times’ journalist David Sanger recently reported that, “from his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons” — even though he knew this “could enable other countries, terrorists, or hackers to justify” cyberattacks against the United States.  Israel — which U.S. intelligence officials say is sponsoring assassinations of Iranian scientists and other terrorist attacks in Iran — has been intimately involved in the program.

Classified State Department cables published by WikiLeaks show that, from the beginning of the Obama presidency, he and his team saw diplomacy primarily as a tool to build international support for tougher sanctions, including severe restrictions on Iranian oil exports.  And what is the aim of such sanctions?  Earlier this year, administration officials told the Washington Post that their purpose was to turn the Iranian people against their government.  If this persuades Tehran to accept U.S. demands to curtail its nuclear activities, fine; if the anger were to result in the Islamic Republic’s overthrow, many in the administration would welcome that.

Since shortly after unrest broke out in Syria, the Obama team has been calling for President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, expressing outrage over what they routinely describe as the deaths of thousands of innocent people at the hands of Syrian security forces.  But, for morethana year, they have been focused on another aspect of the Syrian situation, calculating that Assad’s fall or removal would be a sharp blow to Tehran’s regional position — and might even spark the Islamic Republic’s demise.  That’s the real impetus behind Washington’s decision to provide “non-lethal” support to Syrian rebels attacking government forces, while refusing to back proposals for mediating the country’s internal conflicts which might save lives, but do not stipulate Assad’s departure upfront.

Meeting with Iranian oppositionists last month, State Department officials aptly summarized Obama’s Iran policy priorities this way: the “nuclear program, its impact on the security of Israel, and avenues for regime change.”  With such goals, how could his team do anything but play for time in the nuclear talks?  Two former State Department officials who worked on Iran in the early months of Obama’s presidency are onrecord confirming that the administration “never believed that diplomacy could succeed” — and was “never serious” about it either.

How Not to Talk to Iran

Simply demanding that Iran halt its nuclear activities and ratcheting up pressure when it does not comply will not, however, achieve anything for America’s position in the Middle East.  Western powers have been trying to talk Iran out of its civil nuclear program for nearly 10 years.  At no point has Tehran been willing to surrender its sovereign right to indigenous fuel cycle capabilities, including uranium enrichment.

Sanctions and military threats have only reinforced its determination.  Despite all the pressure exerted by Washington and Tel Aviv, the number of centrifuges operating in Iran has risen over the past five years from less than 1,000 to more than 9,000.  Yet Tehran has repeatedly offered, in return for recognition of its right to enrich, to accept more intrusive monitoring of — and, perhaps, negotiated limits on — its nuclear activities.

Greater transparency for recognition of rights: this is the only possible basis for a deal between Washington and Tehran.  It is precisely the approach that Iran has advanced in the current series of talks.  Rejecting it only guarantees diplomatic failure — and the further erosion of America’s standing, regionally and globally.

George W. Bush’s administration refused to accept safeguarded enrichment in Iran.  Indeed, it refused to talk at all until Tehran stopped its enrichment program altogether.  This only encouraged Iran’s nuclear development, while pollsshow that, by defying American diktats, Tehran has actually won support among regional publics for its nuclear stance.

Some highly partisan analysts claim that, in contrast to Bush, Obama was indeed ready from early in his presidency to accept the principle and reality of safeguarded enrichment in Iran.  And when his administration failed at every turn to act in a manner consistent with a willingness to accept safeguarded enrichment, the same analysts attributed this to congressional and Israeli pressure.

In truth, Obama and his team have never seriously considered enrichment acceptable.  Instead, the president himself decided, early in his tenure, to launch unprecedented cyberattacks against Iran’s main, internationally monitored enrichment facility.  His team has resisted a more realistic approach not because a deal incorporating safeguarded enrichment would be bad for American security (it wouldn’t), but because accepting it would compel a more thoroughgoing reappraisal of the U.S. posture toward the Islamic Republic and, more broadly, of America’s faltering strategy of dominating the Middle East.

The China Option

Acknowledging Iran’s right to enrich would require acknowledging the Islamic Republic as a legitimate entity with legitimate national interests, a rising regional power not likely to subordinate its foreign policy to Washington (as, for example, U.S. administrations regularly expected of Egypt under Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak).  It would mean coming to terms with the Islamic Republic in much the same way that the United States came to terms with the People’s Republic of China — another rising, independent power — in the early 1970s.

America’s Iran policy remains stuck in a delusion similar to the one that warped its China policy for two decades after China’s revolutionaries took power in 1949 — that Washington could somehow isolate, strangle, and ultimately bring down a political order created through mass mobilization and dedicated to restoring national independence after a long period of Western domination.  It didn’t work in the Chinese case and it’s not likely to in Iran either.

In one of the most consequential initiatives in American diplomatic history, President Nixon and Henry Kissinger finally accepted this reality and aligned Washington’s China policy with reality.  Unfortunately, Washington’s Iran policy has not had its Nixonian moment yet, and so successive U.S. administrations — including Obama’s — persist in folly.

The fact is: Obama could have had a nuclear deal in May 2010, when Brazil and Turkey brokered an agreement for Iran to send most of its low-enriched uranium abroad in return for new fuel for a research reactor in Tehran.  The accord met all the conditions spelled out in letters from Obama to then-Brazilian President Lula and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan — but Obama rejected it, because it recognized Iran’s right to enrich.  (That this was the main reason was affirmed by Dennis Ross, the architect of Obama’s Iran policy, earlier this year.)  The Obama team has declined to reconsider its position since 2010 and, as a result, it is on its way to another diplomatic failure.

As Middle Eastern governments become somewhat more representative of their peoples’ concerns and preferences, they are also — as in Egypt and Iraq — becoming less inclined toward strategic deference to the United States.  This challenges Washington to do something at which it is badly out of practice: pursue genuine diplomacy with important regional states, based on real give and take and mutual accommodation of core interests.  Above all, reversing America’s decline requires rapprochement with the Islamic Republic (just as reviving its position in the early 1970s required rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China).

Instead, three and a half years after George W. Bush left office, his successor continues to insist that Iran surrender to Washington’s diktats or face attack.  By doing so, Obama is locking America into a path that is increasingly likely to result in yet another U.S.-initiated war in the Middle East during the first years of the next presidential term.  And the damage that war against Iran will inflict on America’s strategic position could make the Iraq debacle look trivial by comparison.

~

Flynt Leverett is professor of international affairs at Penn State. Hillary Mann Leverett is senior professorial lecturer at American University. Together, they write the Race for Iran blog.  Their new book, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Needs to Come to Terms With the Islamic Republic of Iran (Metropolitan Books), will be published in January 2013.

Copyright 2012 Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

June 20, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Taliban praise India for not acting as US lapdog

Rehmat’s World | June 18, 2012

To great surprise to New Delhi, Pakistan-supported anti-US Afghan Taliban leaders have praised India for resisting US-NATO calls for greater involvement in Afghanistan.

There had been no assurance for the Americans, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters on Sunday. “It shows that India understands the facts,” he said.

Regional analysts believe India, Pakistan and the Taliban are asserting their independence from the American world order.

Last month, Hillary Clinton visited India in the hope of persuading the country to halt oil imports from the Islamic Republic or face sanctions itself. She was told by Indian officials that India needs to look after its own national interests rather than bow to US interests in the region. Last week, Barack Obama exempted India along with Turkey and Japan from the Zionists’ list of countries to be sanctioned for not following Israel’s anti-Iran agenda.

Early this month, US secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, made a 3-day stop in India on his way to Afghanistan. In New Delhi, he urged Indian leaders to take a more active military role in Afghanistan. During his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India national security adviser, Shiv Shankar and Indian Defense Minister A.K. Anthony – Panetta did not find them willing to have a military conflict with Pakistan by fighting against pro-Pakistan Taliban. India is America’s valued customer. In the past eleven years, India has bought around $8.5 billion worth of defense equipment from the United States.

Zionist Jewish professor Joel Brinkley (Stanford University) lamented in the San Francisco Chronicle (June 17, 2012) that after spending $1 billion and more than 3,000 lives lost during the last ten years – the victors in Afghanistan are China, India and Iran. … Full article

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June 18, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Unilateral sanctions on Iran to hurt Russia-US ties: Russian official

Xinhua – June 17, 2012

MOSCOW – Potential U.S.sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program will “deal a blow” to Russian-U.S. relations, a senior Russian official said Sunday, presuming a hard-line stance before the long-waited meeting of the heads of the two states.

Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov told reporters that U.S. sanctions on Iran would “run against international law and affect third countries.”

Moscow could not accept if Russian firms and banks become potential victims of such unilateral actions from the U.S., Ushakov warned.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama are to meet on the sidelines of the upcoming Group of 20 summit Monday in the Mexican city of Los Cabos.

The two leaders had agreed by phone in early May that they would meet for one and a half hours during the summit, Ushakov said, which would be the first since Putin returned to the top seat.

Putin’s absence from the Group of Eight summit last month in the United States and Obama’s no-show decision at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meeting in Russia’s Vladivostok in September augured a possible cool-down of the already soured Russia-U.S. relations amidst Putin’s tough words concerning the U.S.-led missile defense system in Europe.

A new round of talks between Iran and the six major world powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — is due on Monday in Moscow, a month after the last round of “six plus one” talks was held in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

June 17, 2012 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Senators urge Obama to stop talks with Iran, reveal Zionist influence

Press TV – June 16, 2012

Forty-four US Republican and Democrat senators have written a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to stop talks with the Islamic Republic altogether unless Iran “agrees to take immediate steps to curb its uranium enrichment activity.”

“Steps it [Iran] must take immediately are shutting down of the Fordow [nuclear] facility, freezing enrichment above five percent, and shipping all uranium enriched above five percent out of the country,” the letter published on Saturday added.

The US senators’ letter is verbatim echo of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks in an address he made to the Civil Services Commission in Jerusalem (al-Quds) on May 21, just two days before the P5+1 sit down in Baghdad for talks with Iran.

Netanyahu said in his speech that “Israel would only be satisfied if Iran halted all uranium enrichment and shipped its stockpiles out of the country.”

He added that Tehran must also close its underground Fordow nuclear facility at the city of Qom, south of the capital Tehran.

“This is the only way it will be possible to ensure that Iran does not get a nuclear bomb…. This is Israel’s position. It has not changed, and it will not change,” Netanyahu emphasized.

Referring to a third round of talks between Iran and the P 5+1– the US, Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany –, scheduled for Moscow on June 18 and 19, the senators wrote, “Were Iran to agree to and verifiably implement these steps, this would demonstrate a level of commitment by Iran to the process and could justify continued discussions beyond the meeting in Moscow.”

“On the other hand, if the sessions in Moscow produce no substantive agreement, we urge you to reevaluate the utility of further talks at this time and instead focus on significantly increasing the pressure on the Iranian government through sanctions and making clear that a credible military option exist,” they added.

The senators also threatened that “the window for diplomacy is closing” on Iran.

Iranian officials have frequently said the country would never give up its inalienable right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy, including by mastering the full cycle of nuclear fuel and all its components such as enriching uranium to levels allowed for by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

On Friday, June 15, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili once more emphasized that Tehran expects its right to nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment, be recognized during the upcoming talks with the P5+1 in Moscow as that right is clearly defined by the NPT.

He added that Iran’s nuclear activities are entirely under the control of the IAEA and the Islamic Republic is conducting its nuclear energy program in full compliance with the NPT.

~

Link for Letter

Signed by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), James Risch (R-ID), Ron Wyden (D-OR), David Vitter (R-LA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Mark Pryor (D-AR), John Cornyn (R-TX), Robert Casey Jr. (D-PA), John Boozman (R-AR), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Scott Brown (R-MA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John Hoeven (R-ND), Jeff Merkeley (D-OR), Daniel Coats (R-IN), Christopher Coons (D-DE), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Patrick Toomey (R-PA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Mike Lee (R-UT), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Rob Portman (R-OH), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Dean Heller (R-NV), Jon Tester (D-MT), Kay Hagan (D-NC), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Mark Warner (D-VA), Carl Levin (D-MI), and Mark Begich (D-AK).

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June 16, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

How the Israel lobby’s anti-Beijing startup now aids Syria’s rebels

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | June 15, 2012

In an article entitled “Hillary’s Little Startup: How the U.S. Is Using Technology to Aid Syria’s Rebels,” TIME Magazine reports that the Obama Administration has been providing media-technology training and support to Syrian dissidents by way of proxies such as the Institute for War & Peace Reporting and Freedom House. The title is a little misleading though. As the article reveals, it wasn’t Hillary Clinton that started it:

The program actually began four years ago with a different target: China. In 2008, Michael Horowitz, a longtime religious-liberty advocate, went to his friend Representative Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, and suggested setting aside funds to help Falun Gong, a religious group that Beijing has labeled a dangerous cult. The money was supposed to help the dissidents distribute software to jump China’s massive firewall and organize online as well as communicate freely with the outside world. Wolf succeeded in appropriating $15 million. But U.S. diplomats feared the move would derail relations with Beijing, and little money was spent. Then the 2009–10 Iranian protests and last year’s Arab Spring made Internet freedom a much more fashionable term in Washington. Congress soon forked over an additional $57 million to State to spend in the next three years. The money is split among three areas: education and training; anonymization, which masks users’ identities, usually through encryption; and circumvention technology, which allows users to overcome government censors so that their work—and that of repressive regimes—can be seen worldwide.

The destabilization program’s originators are hardly disappointed to see it now targeting one of Israel’s enemies. Michael Horowitz is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a neoconservative think tank with close ties to the Israeli right, from whence he mobilizes evangelical Christians on behalf of interventionist causes. His friend in Congress, Frank Wolf, can be also be relied upon to advance the Jewish state’s interests, such as he did when he helped block the appointment of Chas Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council, while denying that the lobby had anything to do with it.

As the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army continues to plunge Syria into chaos, the Israelis are no doubt pleased with the results of Horowitz and Wolf’s little startup.

June 14, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel lobby celebrates Treasury’s successful use of “financial tools” to support Arab Spring

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | June 14, 2012

In his introduction to “Finding a Balance: U.S. Security Interests and the Arab Awakening,” the recently published fifth volume (.pdf) of The Washington Institute’s counterterrorism lecture series, editor Matthew Levitt writes:

Together, these lectures provide a window into both the struggle against extremism and the challenges and opportunities presented by the Arab Spring during the Obama administration’s third and fourth years in office. From finding new counterterrorism partners to keeping al-Qaeda and other illiberal forces at bay as new regimes take root, Washington and its allies must continue showing the flexibility and creativity that produced the State Department’s CSCC and facilitated the Treasury Department’s spectacular success at using financial tools to support democratic transition in the Middle East (emphasis added). After all, events in the region are still unfolding, and the outcome remains to be seen. Even as Washington and its allies contend with an evolving but still potent terrorist threat—including the rise of homegrown violent extremism—they have much more work to do in aiding the forces of democracy and liberalism in the Middle East. Although al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been remarkably absent from the Arab Spring to date, violent or nonviolent Islamist extremists could still hijack the revolutions orchestrated by liberal Arab youths and turn them to their own purpose. Preventing this will require timely analysis and creative thinking of the kind presented in this volume.

As Daniel L. Glaser, assistant secretary for terrorist financing in the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, remarked in his lecture, “Treasury’s Response to the Arab Spring,” Levitt, the director of WINEP’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Treasury Department, “played an integral role in the development of Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.”

Those who still believe that the Arab Spring poses a threat to Israel need to consider this question: Why is the think tank AIPAC built so enthusiastic about the “spectacular success” of the lobby’s Treasury Department creation “at using financial tools to support democratic transition in the Middle East”?

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June 14, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Another Senator for Israel

By Philip Giraldi | The Passionate Attachment | June 13, 2012

It is ironic that the hard core supporters of Israel among the neoconservatives are hoping for a Republican victory in the fall even though the party that has passionate Israel firsters most deeply embedded continues to be the Democrats. To be sure, Eric Cantor, Republican majority leader in the House and the only Jewish congressman from the GOP, has done some heavy lifting for Benjamin Netanyahu, including advising the Israeli Prime Minister that congress would protect him in any conflict with President Barack Obama. Republican from Florida Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is descended from Sephardic Jews, has also burnished her pro-Israel credentials as chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee while other Republicans from the Bible belt reflexively praise Israel as, one assumes, a tenet of their faith.

But the breadth and depth of outspoken advocates of Israel in the Democratic Party goes far beyond anything the Republicans can muster. Thirteen Jewish Senators are all Democrats as are 26 of the 27 Jewish members of the House. The Democratic National Committee is headed by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz while Steny Hoyer, who is not Jewish, is Minority Whip in the House of Representatives and an outspoken passionate supporter of Israel. Other frequent sponsors of resolutions favoring Israel and condemning Iran and the Palestinians include Howard Berman, Steve Israel, Steve Rothman, Jan Schakowsky, Brad Sherman, Benjamin Cardin, Carl Levin, Frank Lautenberg, Charles Schumer and Joe Lieberman. The late Tom Lantos, often referred to as Israel’s congressman, was also a Democrat. Many of Israel’s friends have characteristically sought and attained powerful positions on committees that deal with foreign and defense policies to enable them to directly influence legislation favorable to Israel.

English: Official Congressional portrait of Co...One would think that more pro-Israel muscle wouldn’t be needed in congress, but yet another prominent Israeli firster is now being groomed for bigger things. Congresswoman Shelley Berkley is being promoted by the Democratic Party leadership to make a run for a Senate seat from the State of Nevada currently held by Republican Dean Heller. Berkley’s support of anything and everything Israel does is notable even by congressional standards. She is co-chair of the Israel Allies Caucus (part of the International Israel Allies Caucus Foundation) and has been described by the Jewish media as “one of the most hawkish pro-Israel voices in the US House.” She has co-sponsored six resolutions relating to Israel including one “recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza” and has been blistering in her condemnation of the several Gaza relief flotillas, which she evidently sees as boatloads of terrorists.

Berkley is also not shy about supporting other special interests. She is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee (an oxymoron if there ever was one) because she allegedly used her influence to block the closure of a kidney transplant facility in Las Vegas, where her doctor husband works. Given that lack of separation between her personal interest and her responsibility as a congresswoman one might have thought that she should have recused herself from the issue, though the scandal is unfortunately probably insufficient to derail her senatorial bid.

Unlike in some other recent congressional races in Illinois and New Jersey where Israel was a focal point, Berkley will no doubt campaign on local issues in Nevada because raising the ethnic card could prove risky. Heller is a Mormon in a state that has many of his co-religionists. But it should be assumed that if Berkley is elected to the Senate her advocacy of Israel and its policies will be a hallmark of her time in office, just as it has been during her time in the House of Representatives.

Philip Giraldi is the executive director of the Council for the National Interest and a recognized authority on international security and counterterrorism issues.

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June 13, 2012 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Paul Findley speaking on 45th anniversary of Israel’s deliberate attack on the USS Liberty

America-Hijacked | June 9th, 2012

Former Republican Congressman Paul Findley spoke the following words on the 45th anniversary of Israel’s deliberate attack on the USS Liberty:

June 8, 1967 is a day that will live in infamy. I am here to explain why. I state facts. I use plain language.

On that the day, the state of Israel, publicly posing as a close friend of the United States, almost succeeded in a deadly scheme to destroy a U.S. Navy ship and all sailors aboard, then blame the crime on an Arab government.  Why?  To stir American fury against all Arabs and bind America tightly in a permanent military alliance with Israel.

That scheme almost succeeded.  Listen to the details.

The USS Liberty was an intelligence -gathering ship patrolling the eastern Mediterranean in the late days of the Arab-Israel war of 1967.  Like today, America was Israel’s only major benefactor in the world.  President Lyndon Johnson’s secret decisions that day played a major role in making the United States today subservient to Israel.  Sadly, the facts remain little known.

The Liberty had only a couple of machine guns aboard.. Its identity was well marked. Its U.S. flag fluttered in a brisk breeze throughout bright daylight hours of June 8, 1967.  During morning hours, unmarked aircraft closely circled the Liberty.

The attack began at 2 p.m. and lasted more than an hour. When Israeli aircraft shot Liberty’s U.S. flag to pieces, a larger one was immediately hoisted in its place. Flying low, the planes strafed the deck with rocket fire and napalm, disabled all antennae, punctured the hull with hundreds of holes. When the ship seemed doomed, life rafts made of rubber were lowered into the sea but fighter planes shot them to pieces.

An Israeli torpedo boat, firing at close range, blasted a hole thirty-nine feet wide, only inches above water line.

Miraculously, just before the ship’s electrical equipment went dead, Seaman Terry Halbardier crawled across open deck amid lethal strafing and strung a cable from a damaged antenna to the transmission cabin. This made possible the broadcast of a lone SOS appeal for help.  Wounded by shrapnel during his crawl, Halbardier’s bravery saved the Liberty and crew from total destruction. One more torpedo hit would have sent the ship and crew to the bottom of the sea.

The distress message was heard aboard the USS Saratoga, a carrier patrolling near Crete. In response, the Saratoga launched fighter planes to defend the Liberty and reported the launch to carrier group commander Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis aboard the carrier America. Geis relayed the information to the White House.

Although aware the Liberty was still under attack, Johnson ordered Geis to cancel the rescue attempt.  On the Saratoga’s bridge, distraught sailors watched as the U.S. fighter craft turned back. On the ship’s radio they heard final frantic pleas for help from the Liberty. Amid the pleas were background sounds of shells exploding. Minutes later, Israeli commanders, by then aware of the Liberty’s radioed plea for help, halted the attack.

Aboard the Liberty, 34 U.S. sailors were dead and 171 seriously wounded.  Years later, two Navy veterans gave me details of the verbal exchange when President Johnson ordered the callback. Radioman Tony Hart, serving at a U.S. radio relay station in Morocco, listened intently to the entire conversation between President Johnson and Secretary McNamara in the White House and Admiral Geis at sea. This is what Hart recalls Secretary McNamara said to Geis, “Get those planes back on deck.” Geis replied, “But the Liberty is under attack and needs help.” McNamara shouted, “Get those goddam planes back on deck.” Aghast at the order, Geis, “Mr. Secretary, I wish to appeal that order to higher authority.” McNamara said, “I already have the president’s authority to call the planes back. He is right here.” Hart recalls Johnson then came on the phone and said to Geis, “I don’t care if the ship goes down, I’m not going to war with an ally over a couple of sailors.”  The stunned admiral said, “Aye, aye, sir.”

Until his death, the admiral agonized over what, despite the presidential order, he might have done to help the Liberty crew.

Over the years, I have attended several reunions of Liberty survivors and remain in close communication with several of them. During a recent gathering, retired Commander David Lewis, the senior Liberty intelligence officer, provided new details. He was critically injured in the assault and, after being airlifted to the Saratoga sick bay, he was summoned to the private cabin of Admiral Geis to hear details of the call-back. The deeply shaken admiral told Lewis he feared he would be ordered to remain silent about his verbal exchange with the president and McNamara.  He wanted Lewis, as a senior officer on the Liberty, to know exactly what was said.

Commander Davis told me, “Johnson’s order was probably the first time in history U.S. military forces were refused permission to help defend a U.S. Navy ship under attack.” Israeli officials, caught in a premeditated crime against a U.S. Navy ship, admitted the attackers were Israeli, then falsely claimed the assault was a case of mistaken identity.  What a cruel lie.

Johnson accepted Israel’s lie without protest, although convincing evidence the assault was deliberate was already available at highest levels of his administration.

The president quickly dispatched Admiral Isaac C. Kidd and staff to carry out what from the start was a bogus Court of Inquiry.  Before leaving. Kidd was instructed to issue a finding that cleared Israel of any blame.

Kidd and staff traveled to the Mediterranean, where the admiral personally threatened surviving crewmen, some of them still in hospital beds. Seaman John Hrankowski, one of the badly injured survivors, described the scene. “Admiral Kidd put on the stars and his uniform cap and said sternly: ‘If you tell anyone what actually happened, you will pay a fine, or go to prison, or worse.’” Hrankowski recalled: “We trembled. I was scared. He didn’t have to explain what the word worse meant.” After a week’s tour that included only limited, superficial interviews, Kidd’s group issued a finding that absolved Israel of any wrongdoing.  Forty years later, retired Navy Captain Ward Boston, the chief legal officer who had traveled with Admiral Kidd, publicly confessed that both he and Kidd privately believed at the time of the inquiry the assault was deliberate. In a public, sworn statement distributed widely,Boston stated that before the inquiry began, Johnson ordered Kidd to issue a finding that cleared Israel of blame.  Even today U.S. officials cling to the fiction of mistaken identity, acting as if Boston’s confession never occurred. Official navy records have been scrubbed clean of any reference to the launching of rescue aircraft  or their callback on presidential order.

Kidd, already a distinguished senior four-star admiral, should have refused the presidential order. He should have upheld time-honored tradition by refusing to engage in deceit.  By telling the truth, the American people—and the Congress–would know of the crime committed by Israel and likely prompt our government to proceed carefully in any future dealings with Israel.

You may ask: Why would Israel accept the high risk of public disclosure when it attempted to destroy the Liberty and its crew?

Commander Lewis told me he believes Israel wanted to sink the ship with no survivors, and then blame the crime on Egypt. This, he said, would create anti-Arab fury in the United States so intense Congress would declare war on Egypt and its Arab allies. Davis added, “They wanted us to be in the war to consolidate their gains.

They feared that without active [U.S.] support [of Israel] world opinion would have forced Israel to withdraw from captured lands.”  Lewis believes Israel’s scheme, if successful, would have locked America tightly and permanently with Israel and against Arabs.

Forty years later, the cover up was lifted but only slightly. Halbardier received the Silver Star medal for bravery.

In a supreme example of irony, Israel’s attempt to destroy the U.S. ship and crew did not damage the U.S.-Israeli relationship. The cover-up was so swift and so successful U.S. support of Israel’s war agenda actually emerged greatly magnified.  After the Liberty assault, aid to Israel increased from a trickle to a rising flood–unconditional financial, military, and diplomatic support of Israel, ultimately costing America billions of dollars and hundreds of lives.

We are honored to have survivors of the Liberty with us today.  I am a Navy veteran from World War II.

Retired men of the Navy, I am deeply ashamed at the government cover up that keeps the American people unaware of your bravery and sacrifice.  Gentlemen, I salute you. You are among the U.S. Navy’s greatest heroes.  Sadly, you are unsung heroes.

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June 10, 2012 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Avaaz: Empire Propaganda Mill Masquerading as Grassroots Activism

By Martin Iqbal | Empire Strikes Black | June 9, 2012

‘Activism’ and ‘human rights’ foundation Avaaz blames the Houla massacre on Assad and calls for foreign intervention. A peek into the background of Avaaz explains its pro-empire position, and who is really behind it.

The ultra-shadowy Avaaz Foundation is purportedly a non-governmental organisation that seeks to(1) “close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.”

A mere three days after the Houla Massacre in Syria, while all parties were clamoring to figure out what had happened and who was responsible, Avaaz took the opportunity to speculatively blame the Assad regime as part of an online petition campaign. What is even more disconcerting is that this ‘human rights’ organization also made a thinly-veiled call for foreign intervention – something which would undoubtedly result in astronomical human suffering.

Using emotive and crafty language,(2) Alice Jay (Avaaz’s Campaign Director) blames Assad for the Houla massacre indirectly, by alluding to the decision of several Western governments to expel Syrian diplomats:

Dozens of children lie covered with blood, their faces show the fear they felt before death, and their innocent lifeless bodies reveal an unspeakable massacre. These children were slaughtered by men under strict orders to sow terror. Yet all the diplomats have come up with so far is a few UN monitors ‘observing’ the violence. Now, governments across the world are expelling Syrian ambassadors, but unless we demand strong action on the ground, they will settle for these diplomatic half-measures.

This is immediately followed by a thinly-veiled call for an invasion of Syria by foreign powers:

The UN is discussing what to do right now. If there were a large international presence across Syria with a mandate to protect civilians, we could prevent the massacres while leaders engage in political efforts to resolve the conflict. I cannot see more images like these without shouting from the rooftops. But to stop the violence, it is going to take all of us, with one voice, demanding protection for these kids and their families. Sign the urgent petition on the right to call for UN action now and share this campaign with everyone.

The background of Avaaz sheds light on its unequivocal pro-war and anti-Syrian position.

Avaaz – Shadowy Beyond Belief

Avaaz’s latest 990 form,(3) from 2010, raises a number of questions. Avaaz has only 16 employees, and is listed as a ‘corporation’ for the purposes of the 990 submission. Oddly, for an organization that receives no governmental or corporate funding,(1) Avaaz received over $6.7 million in 2010, and paid its President over $180,000 as a salary (still feel good about donating?). On top of this, in 2010 Avaaz gave Res Publica (more on them later) a $100,000 grant. Avaaz is doing extremely well considering this and the fact that it was established relatively recently, in 2006. Where is all of this money coming from?

Avaaz is “incorporated as a non-profit 501(c)4 organization in the state of Delaware, USA“.(4) The foundation’s office is based in Manhattan, at 857 Broadway – the same address as Res Publica(5) – an entity which co-founded Avaaz along with Ricken Patel.

The background of Res Publica offers a glimpse into the nature of Avaaz. 24 Hours for Darfur and Darfurian Voices (using the same etymology of “Avaaz”, which means “voice” in Farsi and several middle eastern dialects) are two projects of Res Publica. These projects(5) are aimed at drawing international attention to Darfur – with a view to demonizing and vilifying the Arab government of Sudan:

This is part and parcel of a long-standing Israeli policy to split Sudan along ethnic, racial, and religious lines.

The Israelis have been dug into Sudan like ticks ever since the 1950′s,(6) fomenting conflict and orchestrating the secession of South Sudan – effecting the policy of separation of all sovereign (especially Arab) states along ethnic lines.

The funders and partners of Darfurian Voices, 24 Hours for Darfur, and Res Publica are incredibly revealing, and constitute a who’s who of Zionist, globalist, pro-empire organisations and bodies, even including the US State Department.(5)

One such partner, Genocide Intervention, boasts amongst its Board Rabbi Steve Gutow, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs who insists that the government should “support Israel”.(7) Gutow was also the founding regional director of AIPAC’s Southwest Region, and was the founding executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Another Board member is Ruth Messinger – president of American Jewish World Service, and member of Barack Obama’s Task Force on Global Poverty and Development.

Sitting alongside Gutow and Messinger is Joan Platt, who also serves on the board of Human Rights Watch – a prolific propaganda mill that has underpinned the NATO narrative of the wars on Libya and Syria. Human Rights Watch was also funded by Zionist heavyweight George Soros who contributed $100 million in 2010.(8)

Needless to say, George Soros’ Open Society Institute is also listed as one of Res Publica’s partners.

The Zionist ‘democracy promotion’ outfit known as the National Endowment for Democracy – which has been linked to the fraudulent atrocity reports disseminated against Muammar Gaddafi(9) – is also listed as a partner, as is the US State Department. No further comment should be necessary.

Ricken Patel, co-founder of Avaaz, has consulted for the International Crisis Group(10) – another pro-war ‘think tank’. The ICG boasts Israeli war criminal Shimon Peres and former Saudi ambassador to the US as senior advisers,(11) and George Soros as an Executive.(12) The ICG is peppered with such names at the highest levels such as: Shlomo Ben-Ami – Former Foreign Minister of Israel, Zbigniew Brzezinski – Former U.S. National Security Advisor, Stanley Fischer – Governor of The Bank of Israel, Matthew McHugh – Former U.S. Congressman and Counselor to the World Bank President, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen – Former Secretary General of NATO, Morton Abramowitz – Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and Ambassador to Turkey, and Wesley Clark – Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander (Europe).

The Chair of the ICG, Thomas R Pickering, is Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Russia, India, Israel, Jordan, El Salvador and Nigeria, and Vice Chairman of Hills & Company.

The President & CEO of the ICG is Louise Arbour – Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

What do these people have to do with the prevention of crises? The answer is nothing, absolutely nothing. The ICG is a body that exists to further the aims of its benefactors, which notably include NATO, the United States Government, and Israel.

Res Publica’s ‘About Us’ page also reveals(10) that Patel has consulted for the Rockefeller Foundation and the UN.

Akin to the ICG, Res Publica’s advisory board(13) features financiers, economists, and a former Clinton Chief of Staff.

The fraudulent ‘humanitarian intervention’ concept is built upon atrocious lies and emotive propaganda peddled by these networks of closely interconnected ‘human rights’, ‘democracy promotion’, and ‘crisis prevention’ groups. Before having an emotional knee-jerk reaction to these issues, we must inspect the people behind these voices. Avaaz’s recent petition feverishly entitled “Protect Syria’s Children Now!” currently has over 780,000 signatures. Orwellian ‘human rights’ outfits such as Avaaz have become adept at manipulating well-meaning activists and liberals into supporting the very agenda they purport to oppose – placing them firmly in the same camp as the most virulent Zionists, Neoconservatives, and war hawks one can imagine. This makes the illusory nature of the left-right dichotomy clearer than ever before, but even more worryingly it expedites the march of the NATO-GCC-Israeli war machine that now has Syria in its crosshairs.

Notes

(1) Avaaz.org – ‘About Us’

(2) Avaaz Petition: ‘Protect Syria’s Children Now!’

(3) Avaaz Foundation – Form 990: Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax, 2010

(4) Avaaz.org – ‘Avaaz Expenses and Financial Information’

(5) DarfurianVoices.org – ‘About Us’

(6) ‘Israelis can tell the whole story of Sudan’s division – they wrote the script and trained the actors’ by Fahmi Howeidi

(7) Genocideintervention.net – ‘Board’

(8) HRW.org – ‘George Soros to Give $100 million to Human Rights Watch’

(9) ‘Lies, Damned Lies, and Wikipedia’ by Martin Iqbal

(10) Therespublica.org – ‘About Us’

(11) Crisisgroup.org – ‘Crisis Group Senior Advisers’

(12) Crisisgroup.org – ‘Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees’

(13) Therespublica.org – ‘Advisory Board’

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June 9, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How not to stop the violence in Syria — Elie Wiesel’s latest bright idea

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | June 9, 2012

Touted on Twitter as a “must-read” by John McCain, Elie Wiesel had an op-ed in yesterday’s Washington Post titled “How to stop the Syria massacre.” Clearly distressed that the United States appears to be finally growing weary of fighting wars in Israel’s increasingly destabilized backyard, the prosperous Holocaust survivor lays on the guilt trip:

Military intervention? No. Why not? Because the American people are tired of waging distant wars. Because American families have lost too many sons and daughters in far-away conflicts. Should Syrian families suffer because of the help we have given others? Because of the sacrifices we have already made?

The warmongering Nobel Peace Prize laureate has another bright idea, however:

I am not sure that armed assistance is the only solution. Economic sanctions have proved to be relatively futile elsewhere. But why not imagine yet another option that might produce a dramatic effect?

Why not warn Assad that, unless he stops the murderous policy he is engaged in, he will be arrested and brought to the international criminal court in the Hague and charged with committing crimes against humanity?

Such a charge would have discouraging aspects. He would lose any support, any sympathy, in the world at large. No honorable person would come to his defense. No nation would offer him shelter. No statute of limitations would apply to his case.

If and when he realizes that, like Egypt’s dictator, Hosni Mubarak, he will end up in disgrace, locked in a prison cell, he might put an end to his senseless criminal struggle for survival.

Why not try it?

As Wiesel most likely knows from the efforts to “stop Gadhafi,” his humanitarian-sounding suggestion is almost guaranteed to have the opposite effect.

But American administrations should also know by now to be wary of his advice. All President Obama needs to do is to learn from the experience of his predecessor, George W. Bush:

In the winter of 2003, I sought opinions on Iraq from a variety of sources…. One of the most fascinating people I met with was Elie Wiesel, the author, Holocaust survivor, and deserving Nobel Prize recipient. Elie is a sober and gentle man. But there was passion in his seventy-four-year-old eyes when he compared Saddam Hussein’s brutality to the Nazi genocide. “Mr. President,” he said, “you have a moral obligation to act against evil.” The force of his conviction affected me deeply. Here was a man who had devoted his life to peace urging me to intervene in Iraq…

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June 9, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Do Americans “Need to Know” We’ve All But Declared War on Iran?

By Scott Shackford | Reason | June 7, 2012

While lawmakers work themselves up into a tizzy that the White House might be leaking classified information to make President Barack Obama look good (and wouldn’t it just be the living end if true, given Obama’s habit of prosecuting leakers?), Sen. John Kerry asks whether it’s appropriate for the media to actually let the public know what’s going on. Via Politico:

Sen. John Kerry on Wednesday questioned whether The New York Times should have published explosive stories last week about President Obama ordering cyberattacks against Iran’s nuclear program.

“I personally think there is a serious question whether or not that served our interest and whether the public had to know,” Kerry, the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, told reporters. “To me it was such a nitty-gritty fundamental national security issue. And I don’t see how the public interest is well served by it. I do see how other interests outside the United States are well served by it.” …

Earlier, Kerry said he was “disturbed” by the leaking of classified information cited in the Times story, saying it endangers U.S. national security and “begs retaliation” from America’s enemies. The chairman said he couldn’t understand how an American citizen could leak classified information that could potentially put the country at risk.

It’s not the act itself that “begs retaliation,” you see, it’s the reporting of it. The fact that there could be blowback for targeting a foreign nation’s nuclear program with a computer virus doesn’t mean you possibly shouldn’t do it. It means you should make sure you don’t tell your own public. After all, how would Iran ever conclude that the United States and Israel could be working together to design a virus to shut down their nuclear ambitions? Anybody could be the culprit! Anybody at all! They would never have figured it out had The New York Times kept their big traps shut.

Or, perhaps, they might have gotten a clue from this 2010 story from The Guardian that suggests Israel was responsible for it and that Stuxnet was pretty obviously designed to target Iran. Or maybe this story from Forbes.com from 2010 that talks about the suspicions and various theories that the United States and Israel were the sources of the virus.  Or perhaps this lengthy Vanity Fair investigative report from from last year that says, “[T]here is vanishingly little doubt that the United States played a role in creating the worm.” The fact is, The New York Times story merely revealed the truth that anybody who followed computer security news already suspected, and Iran doesn’t seem like the kind of nation that needs a metaphorical smoking gun before casting blame.

More to the point, launching the virus itself could ultimately give Iran (or others, because Stuxnet, like every other government venture, immediately got out of hand and ended up in places where it wasn’t meant to be) the tools to bring about that blowback Kerry is so worried about.  Via The Christian Science Monitor:

Although Stuxnet is estimated to have eventually destroyed as many as 1,000 high-speed Iranian gas centrifuges designed to enrich uranium, its importance was far larger than that, [German cybersecurity expert Ralph] Langner warned. It demonstrated that a cyberweapon could physically destroy critical infrastructure, and that process could also work in reverse.

“One important difference between a cyber offensive weapon and some kind of advanced bomb, for example, is that when the bomb blows up you can’t examine or reverse-engineer it,” says Joel Brenner, a former national counterintelligence executive in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

“Once you find the malware, on the other hand, once you find the code, you can see how it was done,” he says. “So we are going to see more operations of this kind – and the US’s critical infrastructure is undoubtedly going to be targeted. I still don’t think that the owners and operators of most of that infrastructure understand the gravity of this threat.”

The possibility that Stuxnet could come back to haunt us does seem to meet a certain “need to know” threshold. The New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet responded to Kerry via Politico:

“Our job is to report issues in the public interest, and this piece certainly meets that standard,” Dean Baquet, the Times managing editor, said in a statement to POLITICO. “As always with sensitive stories, we described the piece to the government before publication. No one suggested we not publish. There was a request to omit some highly technical details. We complied with the request after concluding it was not a significant part of the piece.”

Well, that ought to add more ammo to those who believe the White House is actually causing the leaks.

June 8, 2012 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

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