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Larijani: Iran proud of backing Hezbollah

Press TV – July 30, 2010

Iranian Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani says Iran takes pride in Lebanon’s Islamic resistance movement for its steadfast Islamic stance.

Speaking in Iran’s northern Mazandaran Province on Thursday, Larijani praised Hezbollah for its resistance against oppression and said, “Hezbollah nurtures the original ideas of Islamic Jihad,” IRNA reported.

The Iranian official further slammed the West for charging Iran with “its support of terrorism” and said, “The real terrorists are those who provide the Zionist regime with military equipment to bomb the people” in the region.

Larijani also made a reference to the Western-brokered sanctions on Iran over its nuclear energy program and said the Islamic Republic has always emphasized negotiations but will not bow down under pressure from the bullying powers.

“They speak of the Iranian threat against the Zionist regime… but never elicit public opinion on the Zionist regime’s atomic warheads and other missiles,” he noted.

The UN Security Council passed a US-sponsored anti-Iran resolution on June 9 that imposes restrictions on the country’s economy and energy sectors.

The move was to pressure the Islamic Republic to resume nuclear talks.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has recently said that Tehran would return to talks only if certain conditions are met.

The Iranian chief executive pointed out that the Western countries should announce their stance on Israeli “bombs” and say whether they abide by the regulations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

July 30, 2010 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Bomb Iran?

Neocon Nutballs Ramp Up Campaign

By GARETH PORTER | July 30, 2010

Reuel Marc Gerecht’s screed in the Weekly Standard seeking to justify an Israeli bombing attack on Iran coincides with the opening of the new Israel lobby campaign marked by the introduction of  House resolution 1553   expressing full support for such an Israeli attack.

What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran.

That has long been the Israeli strategy for Iran, because Israel cannot fight a war with Iran without full U.S. involvement. Israel needs to know that the United States will finish the war that Israel wants to start.

Gerecht openly expresses the hope that any Iranian response to the Israeli attack would trigger full-scale U.S. war against Iran. “If Khamenei has a death-wish, he’ll let the Revolutionary Guards mine the strait, the entrance to the Persian Gulf,” writes Gerecht. “It might be the only thing that would push President Obama to strike Iran militarily….”

Gerecht suggests that the same logic would apply to any Iranian “terrorism against the United States after an Israeli strike,” by which he really means any attack on a U.S. target in the Middle East.  Gerecht writes that Obama might be “obliged” to threaten major retaliation “immediately after an Israeli surprise attack.”

That’s the key sentence in this very long Gerecht argument. Obama is not going to be “obliged” to join an Israeli aggression against Iran unless he feels that domestic political pressures to do so are too strong to resist. That’s why the Israelis are determined to line up a strong majority in Congress and public opinion for war to foreclose Obama’s options.

In the absence of confidence that Obama would be ready to come into the war fully behind Israel, there cannot be an Israeli strike.

Gerecht’s argument for war relies on a fanciful scenario of Iran doling out nuclear weapons to Islamic extremists all over the Middle East. But the real concern of the Israelis and their lobbyists, as Gerecht’s past writing has explicitly stated, is to destroy Iran’s Islamic regime in a paroxysm of U.S. military violence.

Gerecht first revealed this Israeli-neocon fantasy as early as 2000, before the Iranian nuclear program was even taken seriously, in an essay written for a book published by the Project for a New American Century.  Gerecht argued that, if Iran could be caught in a “terrorist act,” the U.S. Navy should “retaliate with fury”. The purpose of such a military response, he wrote, should be to “strike with truly devastating effect against the ruling mullahs and the repressive institutions that maintain them.”

And lest anyone fail to understand what he meant by that, Gerecht was more explicit: “That is, no cruise missiles at midnight to minimize the body count. The clerics will almost certainly strike back unless Washington uses overwhelming, paralyzing force.”

In 2006-07, the Israeli war party had reason to believed that it could hijack U.S. policy long enough to get the war it wanted, because it had placed one of its most militant agents, David Wurmser, in a strategic position to influence that policy.

We now know that Wurmser, formerly a close adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu and during that period Vice President Dick Cheney’s main adviser on the Middle East, urged a policy of overwhelming U.S. military force against Iran.  After leaving the administration in 2007, Wurmser revealed that he had advocated a U.S. war on Iran, not to set back the nuclear program but to achieve regime change.

“Only if what we do is placed in the framework of a fundamental assault on the survival of the regime will it have a pick-up among ordinary Iranians,” Wurmser told The Telegraph.  The U.S. attack was not to be limited to nuclear targets but was to be quite thorough and massively destructive. “If we start shooting, we must be prepared to fire the last shot. Don’t shoot a bear if you’re not going to kill it.”

Of course, that kind of war could not be launched out of the blue.  It would have required a casus belli to justify a limited initial attack that would then allow a rapid escalation of U.S. military force.  In 2007, Cheney acted on Wurmser’s advice and tried to get Bush to provoke a war with Iran over Iraq, but it was foiled by the Pentagon.

As Wurmser was beginning to whisper that advice in Cheney’s ear in 2006, Gerecht was making the same argument in The Weekly Standard:

“Bombing the nuclear facilities once would mean we were declaring war on the clerical regime. We shouldn’t have any illusions about that. We could not stand idly by and watch the mullahs build other sites. If the ruling mullahs were to go forward with rebuilding what they’d lost–and it would be surprising to discover the clerical regime knuckling after an initial bombing run–we’d have to strike until they stopped. And if we had any doubt about where their new facilities were (and it’s a good bet the clerical regime would try to bury new sites deep under heavily populated areas), and we were reasonably suspicious they were building again, we’d have to consider, at a minimum, using special-operations forces to penetrate suspected sites.”

The idea of waging a U.S. war of destruction against Iran is obvious lunacy, which is why U.S. military leaders have strongly resisted it both during the Bush and Obama administrations.  But  Gerecht makes it clear that Israel believes it can use its control of Congress to pound Obama into submission. Democrats in Congress, he boasts, “are mentally in a different galaxy than they were under President Bush.” Even though Israel has increasingly been regarded around the world as a rogue state after its Gaza atrocities and the commando killings of unarmed civilians on board the Mavi Marmara, its grip on the U.S. Congress appears as strong as ever.

Moreover, polling data for 2010 show that a majority of Americans have already been manipulated into supporting war against Iran – in large part because more than two-thirds of those polled have gotten the impression that Iran already has nuclear weapons.  The Israelis are apparently hoping to exploit that advantage. “If the Israelis bomb now, American public opinion will probably be with them,” writes Gerecht. “Perhaps decisively so.”

Netanyahu must be feeling good about the prospects for pressuring Barack Obama to join an Israeli war of aggression against Iran.  It was Netanyahu, after all, who declared in 2001, “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.”

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist with Inter-Press Service specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam“, was published in 2006.

July 30, 2010 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Israel linked to exiled sheikh’s bid for ‘coup’ in Gulf emirate

By Robert Booth and Ian Ferguson | The Guardian | 28 July 2010

Israel is aiding an exiled Arab sheikh who is vying to seize control of a strategically important Gulf emirate only 40 miles from Iran.

The Israeli ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, has met Sheikh Khalid bin Saqr al-Qasimi, the exiled crown prince of Ras al-Khaimeh (RAK), who asked him to help with his campaign to oust the leadership of the northernmost state in the United Arab Emirates.

The meeting took place in London in March and has been followed by phone calls and wider assistance and advice, according to records of the relationship seen by the Guardian.

Khalid, who has been based in London and has hired a solicitor from Ickenham as his agent, is bidding to replace his ailing father, Sheikh Saqr, and half brother, Sheikh Saud, to take control of RAK.

Israel’s involvement in what would be a bloodless coup in one of the most sensitive regions in the world, would be “extremely uncomfortable”, according to Dr Christopher Davidson, an expert on the politics of the UAE at Durham University.

Khalid, who was sent into exile in 2003, claims RAK is now acting as a trafficking hub for nuclear arms parts to Iran and has spent more than £4m on an international public relations and lobbying campaign to persuade American politicians and the pro-Israel lobby in the US that it would be safer if he were in charge.

The alliance with Israel is the latest twist in the already extraordinary saga of Khalid’s bid to return to power. In June the Guardian revealed that his fighting fund was being channeled through Peter Cathcart, a 59-year-old miniature steam railway enthusiast and parish council chairman who runs a family firm of solicitors in Ickenham, west London.

He in turn was spending it on top Washington lobbyists, Californian PR consultants and military experts to draw up dossiers damning the regime in RAK.

Prosor has pressed his contacts in the US government on behalf of Khalid whose aides asked for help setting up meetings in Washington with anyone interested in their claims about RAK’s alleged sanctions busting, particularly concerning parts for the Iranian nuclear programme, plot records seen by this newspaper show.

An email from Cathcart to the ambassador’s office reports that “His Highness … very much enjoyed his meeting with the ambassador”.

In April Cathcart arranged for the two men to speak on the phone when the sheikh was in Oman and a note of the conversation recorded by Cathcart shows the ambassador “is working with certain people from his side” and “promised that the matter will be solved in his [the sheikh’s] favour”.

Sheikh Saqr is understood to be dying in hospital in Abu Dhabi and his son, Sheikh Saud, 54, the sitting crown prince, has been told to begin preparations for his wake, a significant event in emirates politics, which is likely to be attended by Abu Dhabi’s rulers, who will have a large influence over which of the sons will succeed him.

“By meeting with the Israeli ambassador, he is sending out signals to Abu Dhabi and Washington DC that he will be hawkish on Iran if it comes to war,” said Davidson. “This is a new kind of coup. It doesn’t involve slitting throats, but instead spending large sums of money on global communications. It is the first of its kind and I am betting on it being successful. I think by the end of the summer we will have a verdict.”

Asked about Israel’s involvement, Peter Ragone, a spokesman for Khalid, said: “There is significant interest in the current RAK regime’s relationship to Iran, particularly in the context of trying to stop the flow of arms, goods and technology from going through RAK to the Islamic Republic. Sheikh Khalid and representatives from his team meet with elected officials, high-ranking government officials and media representatives of various countries all the time. In fact, this week Sheikh Khalid’s representatives are in Washington DC meeting representatives of the US foreign policy/national security establishment who are very concerned about the activity in RAK.”

Odelia Englander, a spokeswoman at the Israeli embassy in London, declined to comment.

July 28, 2010 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

An Anti-War Movement That Won’t Cave to Obama or Israel

By Glen Ford  —  07/28/2010

For at least two years, there has been no anti-war “movement” worthy of the term – one that calls the aggressor by his name (starts with “O”) and gives no pass to apartheid Israel. There’s good reason to believe a corner has been turned, with last weekend’s anti-war conference in Albany, New York.

A renewed anti-war movement is under construction, one that breaks decisively from the Cult of Obama, demands an end to all U.S. aid to the Israeli “apartheid regime,” and calls for “immediate, total and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, and the immediate closing of all U.S. bases in those countries.”

Nearly 600 delegates – twice the initial expectations – took part in the United National Anti-War Conference, held at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Albany, New York, July 23 through 25. The mission: to rescue the anti-war movement from the rubble of its collapse with the ascent of Black Democrat Barack Obama to the presidency.

As George Bush exited the White House, the phony anti-war forces – people and groups that only oppose Republican wars – exited the movement. Activist and author David Swanson’s list of those that have made their peace with Obama’s wars include: Campaign for America’s Future, the Center for American Progress, DailyKos, Democracy for America, Moveon.org, National Organization for Women, Open Left, the Out of Iraq Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, Talking Points Memo, True Majority.

Black America, historically the most anti-war of all major U.S. demographic groups, remains emotionally invested in the First Black President – if not in his foreign and domestic policies. The great confusion in African American ranks over the true nature of Obama’s policies represents a huge problem for the Left – especially the Black Left. Yet, that façade, too, will crumble under the weight of events.

Organized labor’s reflexive instinct is also to back the Democrat in office, even when that means backing into a knife. But the reality of Obama, Inc. is by now inescapable to every honest unionist – and the anti-war movement only has need of the honest ones.

The conference voted to support the October 2 March for Jobs in Washington, DC, sponsored by the NAACP and both feuding wings of organized labor, as well as Rev. Jesse Jackson’s joint venture with the United Auto Workers for an August 28 mobilization in Detroit.

This writer pressed union-affiliated attendees on whether, in the end, labor and the NAACP will turn the October 2 march into a “rah-rah” session for Obama and the Democrats? “Not this time,” said a Black labor activist from upstate New York.

We shall see. Conference organizers were determined that there be a large and vocal anti-war contingent to the October 2 action. Leaders of the Black is Back Coalition say they intend to take part, as well, unless march organizers impose political conditions that make it impossible.

In the longer run, a “bi-coastal mass spring mobilization” is planned for New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles on April 9, 2011. Organizers envision actions in the interim that build momentum to the big events, when once again the anti-war movement might put many thousands of peaceful “boots on the ground.” To accomplish this, the scope of organizing must be widened. “A prime component of these mobilizations will be major efforts to include broad new forces from youth to veterans to trade unionists to civil and human rights groups to the Arab, Muslim and other oppressed communities to environmental organizations, social justice and faith-based groups.”

In addition to the demand for unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, the Conference called for:

“The allocation of the trillions spent on wars and corporate bailouts to massive programs for jobs, education, health care, housing and the environment. Compensation to be paid to the peoples whose countries the U.S. attacked and occupied for the loss of lives and massive destruction they suffered,” and

“Reverse and end all foreclosures. Stop the government attacks on trade unions, civil and democratic rights, and immigrant communities.”

Conferees endorsed a flurry of other “action plans,” from opposition to U.S. military intervention in Africa, to “no war or sanctions against Iran,” to the “immediate freedom” of imprisoned human rights lawyer Lynn Stewart.

U.S. aid to Israel was the most contentious issue to arise at the conference. Israel supporters employed delaying tactics in an attempt to derail the Palestine Solidarity Caucus’s proposal for an “end to U.S. aid to Israel – military, economic, and diplomatic. End U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the blockade of Gaza.” Opponents claimed inclusion of the resolution would make it impossible for them to recruit labor activists into anti-war ranks – as if Zionists rule everywhere in the House of Labor. After a series of dilatory maneuvers by the pro-Israel faction, the Conference overwhelming endorsed the Palestine Solidarity Caucus position.

Perhaps the most poignant moment of the weekend came when Ralph Poynter read a letter from his companion in struggle for nearly fifty years, Lynne Stewart, who had been part of the conference steering committee. “I have been out of the steering apparatus due to my unavailability,” she wrote. “Serve the people with honesty, kindness and respect. Love the struggle.”

Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

July 28, 2010 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

War against Iran more likely — thanks to Wikileaks

By Paul Woodward on July 28, 2010

If the release of the Pentagon Papers epitomized the value of government leaks as a means of speaking truth to power, Wikileaks at this point can claim no such distinction.

As if to underline the extent to which the Afghan war logs are making the fog of war more, not less, dense, Katrina vanden Heuvel says: “more than a few commentators — including Daniel Ellsberg himself — have called [the war logs] a 21st-century Pentagon Papers.”

She may understandably have been misled by a headline in The Guardian that read: “Daniel Ellsberg describes Afghan war logs as on a par with ‘Pentagon Papers’.” However, “These documents are not the Pentagon Papers — we still await their equivalent for Afghanistan,” is what Ellsberg unambiguously told the Financial Times.

While Wikileak’s founder, Julian Assange, is no doubt sincere in his hope that these intelligence revelations will expose the futility of war, the fact is, because intelligence is not intelligent it can very easily be used to serve a host of diverging political agendas.

If opponents of the war in Afghanistan now feel better armed, so do proponents of an expanding war in Pakistan. Likewise, those pushing for military action against Iran will welcome a new supply of ammunition served by Wikileaks.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported:

Cooperation among Iran, al Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups is more extensive than previously known to the public, according to details buried in the tens of thousands of military intelligence documents released by an independent group Sunday.

U.S. officials and Middle East analysts said some of the most explosive information contained in the WikiLeaks documents detail Iran’s alleged ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda, and the facilitating role Tehran may have played in providing arms from sources as varied as North Korea and Algeria.

The officials have for years received reports of Iran smuggling arms to the Taliban. The WikiLeaks documents, however, appear to give new evidence of direct contacts between Iranian officials and the Taliban’s and al Qaeda’s senior leadership. It also outlines Iran’s alleged role in brokering arms deals between North Korea and Pakistan-based militants, particularly militant leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and al Qaeda.

Here we see one of the most bizarre twists in the story: US government sources now using the leaked documents to buttress the current anti-Iran narrative and in the process acting as though the intelligence reports are providing information that hadn’t been accessible inside government until they were leaked!

At the very same time, the State Department’s leading expert on Iran, John Limbert — a genuine source of intelligence and “the most qualified person on the Iran team at State in the three decades I have lived in the United States,” according to Haleh Esfandiari, head of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars — is about to resign.

At Foreign Policy, Barbara Slavin writes:

[I]t’s hard not to view Limbert’s departure as a turning point and yet another missed opportunity in U.S.-Iran relations. A number of players with more skeptical views about the prospect of rapprochement with Tehran — such as White House aide Dennis Ross and nonproliferation experts like Robert Einhorn and Gary Samore — appear to be driving U.S. policy now, and the president himself blames the Iranian government for failing to respond to his outreach.

What could please the attack-Iran lobby more than to see the departure of the most skilled American proponent of engagement and at the same time to be served a prize piece of propaganda by an outfit aligned with the anti-war movement?!



July 28, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Bigoted idea from WWF employee

In the war on global warming, why not steal Saudi Arabia’s nameplate, break it, and take photos of it in a toilet?

WWF – WWF deeply sorry for nameplate incident at climate meeting

Gland, Switzerland, 28.07.10: Global environment organisation WWF apologised unreservedly for the actions of an employee who was involved in an incident at the June meeting of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The incident was gravely offensive to the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and to the meeting as a whole. It involved the taking and distribution of offensive photographs featuring the official nameplate of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Oxfam apologizes for incident at UN climate [scam] meeting | Oxfam International

An Oxfam employee was part of a discussion with two people from WWF that eventually led to one of the WWF employees taking the nameplate of Saudi Arabia. The nameplate was broken, put in a toilet bowl and photographs of it circulated around the convention center. The Oxfam employee did not take part in the act but was in the room when the nameplate was taken.

Flashback: Ruckus at climate talks over vandalism of Saudi nameplate – World Report – World – Dalje.com

[June 11, 2010] UN climate talks in Bonn were rocked by angry outbursts on Friday after Saudi Arabia’s conference nameplate was vandalised and its national flag was said to have been abused.

H/T – Tom Nelson

July 28, 2010 Posted by | Islamophobia, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

U.S. to pay for Israeli long range missile supremacy

By Reuters and Haaretz Service | July 25, 2010

Israel and the United States have signed an agreement to make the Arrow II ballistic shield capable of shooting down missiles at a higher altitude, the Israeli Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

The Arrow III will allow Israel “to deal with the threat of ballistic missiles with long range” and will give it “the ability to shoot down weapons of mass destruction outside the atmosphere”, the ministry said in a statement.

Israel, which describes its Arrow system as a defense against Iran, says the upgraded version will cap off its multi-tier air defenses.

The Arrow is jointly produced by state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries and the American firm Boeing Co. and has absorbed close to e1 billion in direct U.S. funds since its 1988 inception.

Israel’s defense forces have been planning to eventually operate three anti-missile systems: Iron Dome to tackle rockets with a shorter range of up to 60 kilometers; David’s Sling – known also as Magic Wand – which has a range of hundreds of kilometers; while the Arrow 3 is designed to shoot down missiles outside the earth’s atmosphere.

All three will be operated by anti-aircraft units of the IAF, which has been working to coordinate the functioning of its layer-cake air defenses.

Last year, the air force said  that the Arrow III would take more than four years to complete and that would depend on what resources were made available for the project.

Two weeks ago U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Andrew J. Shapiro said the United States intended to expand its military aid to Israel in the hopes that such aid would allow Israel to reach tough decisions in its peace talks with the Palestinians.

Speaking at the Brookings Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington D.C., the assistant secretary spoke of the administration’s intention to enhance the annual security aid it provides Israel, saying that in “2010, the administration requested [from Congress] $2.775 billion in security assistance funding specifically for Israel, the largest such request in U.S. history.”

Specifically mentioning the in-development Arrow missile defense system, Shapiro had said that “given the threat Israel faces from short- and medium-range missiles, Israeli air and missile defense systems are an area of particular focus, including the Arrow Weapon System to counter long-range ballistic missile threats and David’s Sling to defend against short-range ballistic missiles.”

“For our part, we are working with Israel to upgrade its Patriot Air and Missile Defense System, which was first deployed during the Gulf War, and have installed advanced radar systems to provide Israel early warning of incoming missiles,” Shapiro added.

A day before that, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said that the United States would continue to maintain Israel’s military advantage as well as protect it in the diplomatic arena, adding that the American commitment to Israel’s security was “not negotiable.”

July 26, 2010 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

The Special Tribunal of Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanese Plot. Part 1: “Syria is Guilty!”

By Yusuf Fernandez | Al Manar |  July 25, 2010

Most international experts consider that it is the national jurisdiction of Lebanon, and not the Special Tribunal of Lebanon (STL), that should have investigated and prosecuted the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005. They argue that according to the UN Resolution 1664, the bomb attacks are not counted as crimes that needed to be tried by an international tribunal. In fact, the UN had only previously taken such a measure – to set up a new international tribunal – to prosecute the most serious international crimes, as genocide and ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia and the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda. Significantly, the Israeli genocide against Palestinian and Lebanese peoples has never led to the creation of a similar international court.

For example, the July 2006 war caused heavy loss of human life, population displacement and massive destruction in critical infrastructure and properties in Lebanon. Most of them were the result of serious violations of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Protocol on the protection of the victims of international armed conflicts. These violations were war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, there was no UN resolution which recognized them as such, or even condemned them. The UN Security Council did not create an international commission, let alone a court, to investigate the violations of the international law committed during the war.

This is in strong contrast with the case of Hariri’s assassination. It suggests that the Western powers think that some deaths are more important than others from a political view. This hypocritical stance has damaged the credibility of international law and has persuaded many people that international justice is driven by political considerations.

Therefore, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was the first international court set up exclusively to prosecute less serious crimes that are only international because the UN Security Council decided they should be so. This demonstrates that there was a clear political purpose behind the creation of the tribunal.

There is no doubt either that the enemies of Lebanon, Syria and Arabism – first of all Israel and the Bush Administration- saw the tribunal as a tool to accomplish their goals – those that they failed to achieve in the battlefield against the Resistance or by killing thousands of Lebanese in Beirut, Qana or many other places of the country.

In this context of manifest international injustice and double standards, who can trust an international tribunal which has been set up by those who express day by day their anti-Lebanese views? Someone has only to read UN reports about the implementation of the Resolution 1701 to see that Lebanon is always the guilty party. Israel’s daily provocations and threats, including violations of the Lebanese air space, are mostly ignored or played down.

FALSE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST SYRIA

Shortly after the assassination of Rafiq Hariri on February 14, 2005, the pro-West and anti-Syrian forces in Lebanon launched a campaign to blame Syria for the crime despite the lack of any evidence of Syrian involvement. These forces forgot Syrian efforts to protect Lebanon from the Israeli aggression because they were actually against Arabism and some of them had supported the signature of a “peace treaty” with Israel in 1983, which was only an imposed surrender to the Zionist entity and was later annulled due to the pressure of the Lebanese population.

Amid massive protests from a large number of Lebanese who had been pushed to believe that Syria was undoubtedly guilty of the crime, Damascus put an end to its 29-year military and intelligence presence in Lebanon. Soon after, the United Nations called for an investigation into al-Hariri’s assassination.

Damascus claimed that Washington wanted to use the UN investigation to put an end to Syrian influence in the region. The Bush Administration considered Syria to be one of its main enemies in the Middle East and it explains that the first investigations of the Tribunal were aimed at finding any kind of evidence implicating Syria in the murder. More recently, US neocons believed that the UN probe would undermine the attempts by the Obama administration to engage Syria diplomatically just as it would prevent Damascus from successfully making a case for the Israeli withdrawal from the Syrian Golan Heights, which Israel took over in 1967 and is obliged by the UNSC Resolution 242 to return to Syria in exchange for peace.

In Lebanon, politicians aligned with the March 14 coalition (made up by anti-Syrian and pro-West political parties) insisted once again that Syria was to blame for the former PM´s death. They also extended their criticism to the Resistance, which supported strong links with Syria and opposed to Western and Israeli influence on the country.

Some experts already then warned that the STL was politicized. Joshua Landis, co-director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, claimed that “a lot of people have their hopes pinned on this, particularly the people from the Bush administration.”

Some senior US diplomats claimed that Syria was being uncooperative and, as a consequence of it, the Security Council might impose sanctions on Syrian officials: the president, the prime minister, the defense minister, the foreign minister and members of Parliament. Under these proposed sanctions, UN member states would have been prohibited from hosting these officials and their assets in those countries would have been frozen.

The first reports from the UN International Independent Investigation Committee (IIIC) appeared to support claims by the US and Lebanon´s 14 March camp that Syria was implicated in the murder. Detlev Mehlis, the first IIIC Commissioner released in October 2005 an interim report which claimed that there was “converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement” in the assassination.

Mehlis was actually a favorite of the pro-Israeli neocons who served in the Reagan Administration. His investigation of the 1982 La Belle Discotheque bombing attack in West Berlin was used as pretext by the US government to launch a 1986 air attack on Libya. Mehlis concluded that Libya was behind the Berlin attack conveniently at the same time that neocons in the US administration, including Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Scooter Libby, and others were calling for an attack on Muammar Qaddafi. The fact that he was appointed as the IIIC Commissioner is a clear evidence of strong Israeli influence on the tribunal.

Key to Mehlis´s assertions were the testimonies of two witnesses, Hussam Hussam and Mohammed Zuhair al-Siddiq, who said that Syrian and Lebanese officials had ordered the attack on al-Hariri´s convoy. Siddiq claimed that Damascus and former Lebanese President Emile Lahoud had given the order to kill Hariri. He added that four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals and a number of Lebanese and Syrian politicians were also involved.

In October 2005, Mehlis published a report, whose electronic version mentioned the names of some Syrian officials who were allegedly involved in the assassination. Some Western media then claimed that the conclusion of the investigation would show that Syria had played a decisive role in the crime.

However, some weeks after the release of the October 2005 interim report, Hussam and Siddiq’s testimonies were found to be unreliable. Hussam started trying to sell his story to several Lebanese media outlets. When his name and role as a witness were leaked by New TV later that year in November, he abruptly left the country for Syria. Days later, he reappeared on Syrian state television and fully changed his testimony, claiming that he fabricated the tale after being tortured, drugged, and offered money by March 14 leaders.

For his part, former Syrian secret intelligence agent Mohammad al-Siddiq also proved to be a false witness. He left France after obtaining a fake Czech passport and fled to the United Arab Emirates, where he was arrested. He told reporters that he had received his passport from the French General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) in order to escape Lebanese justice. While being in France under the protection of DGSE, the French Police eavesdropped on his telephone calls and found out that Siddiq had lied to the tribunal.

Therefore, the report´s conclusions were proved to be false as well as its anti-Syrian claims. All these scandals undermined the credibility of the tribunal and led to Mehlis´s resignation.

In an apparent acknowledgement that the Bush administration had originally sought to use the al-Hariri case to pressure Damascus, an anonymous US official then told the International Crisis Group that the March 14 coalition could no longer assume that the tribunal will automatically deliver a damning indictment of Syrian complicity in the murder. This new situation sparked outrage among pro-March 14 Lebanese and some Western commentators. Shibli Mallat, a prominent Lebanese law professor, accused Brammertz from the pages of TIME magazine of a “total dereliction of duty” and said that he “single-handedly destroyed” the investigation. Michael Young warned in the Lebanese newspaper Daily Star of “grave damage being done to the UN’s credibility.” March 14 leaders implored the UN to give some kind of public indication that Damascus was still involved in the murder, but to no avail.

July 26, 2010 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Beyond a ’strategic liability’–the special relationship has made the U.S. ugly

By Scott McConnell on July 22, 2010

I received one of the coveted invitations to Tuesday’s Nixon Center’s debate between Chas Freeman and Robert Satloff over whether Israel is or is not an American strategic asset. It was a sign of the intense interest in the topic (and perhaps too in Chas Freeman) that, in the dog days of summer, it looked to be the most popular Nixon Center luncheon of the year. The guest list seemed almost scientifically balanced: in apparently equal number were representatives from the sturdy Arabist Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and several more or less like-minded organizations, as well as from AIPAC, the ADL, the JTA. But with one exception, the audience was exceedingly polite throughout.

In his prepared remarks, Chas Freeman described succinctly all that the US does for Israel, financially and diplomatically, then noted that it gets in return virtually none of the strategic benefits one typically receives from allies. Israel is so unpopular in its region that its participation in any joint project is sufficient to drive others away. For his part, Satloff claimed that Israel is America’s best bargain for ally ever. In manner, he was almost smugly confident and self assured. At the outset he talked about his reluctance at accepting the invitation, wondering whether his participation would “lend legitimacy” to a question which is out there “on the fringes, (though not only there)” . He stated that the issue of Israel’s strategic value was never debated “in the Situation Room” and nor by a “vast majority” of military leaders and national security specialists agree, across the political spectrum. I suspect if Satloff was so certain of this, he wouldn’t have bothered to come.

Like David Frum, (but for different reasons) I found the debate interesting but slightly unsatisfying. I think Freeman’s points are unassailable, but there would be many who would also be persuaded that Israel proved itself as a Cold War ally, demonstrating the superiority of American avionics (in dogfights with Syria) and, through its military strength, weakening the Soviet foothold in the region. (Walt and Mearsheimer also wrote there was much to be said for Israel’s strategic value during the Cold War.) And I would acknowledge that these points in Israel’s favor were not anticipated by the early Cold War strategists who felt, initially, that American support for Israel would be incredibly costly in geostrategic terms, in the short and medium term. Satloff of course also emphasized Israel’s technical prowess, its success in devoloping drones so Americans can strike Afghan targets from computer screens in Nevada, and its high tech industry. All very Dan Senor– though it’s never explained why Israel needs to occupy the West Bank and starve Gaza for its computer industry to thrive. Satloff seemed pleased to contrast the relative peace around Israel with the situation in the Gulf: See, Americans, for the cost of a mere $100 billion in aid, the Levant plus Egypt is relatively pacified, while the Gulf is full of war.

I think Freeman was excellent, but what I believe is his most salient point he expressed tangentially, and in segments, and in truth is not the kind of thing that can be argued well in debate, because it is grounded in sentiment and inference rather than cold facts. I would put it this way: that the nature of Washington’s alliance with Israel, and especially the extreme deference to Israeli sensibilities that seems inextricable from it, had pulled the United States into an ever expanding arc of conflict with the Muslim world, a conflict that is far from inevitable and in fact unnecessary—and that this conflict has made us a target of terrorism and has already eroded our constitutional liberties, as well as costing us hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of dead and wounded. Freeman noted that several terrorist operatives have mentioned American support for Israel as an important motivator for their actions, but they have other, also serious, reasons for their hatred. Would the United States have had troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, the residue of the first Iraq war, without Israel and its lobby? A case could be made either way. I don’t believe we would be at war with Iraq now without Israel, though the proponents of that war now work overtime to claim that no, Iran was always Israel’s preferred target. We certainly would not be working ourselves into a froth over the remote possibility of an Iranian nuclear deterrent without Israel’s prodding.

But how exactly do you quantify the cost of appearing as blatantly hypocritical (about democracy, about human rights) to hundreds of millions of Muslims? Satloff can and did claim that Arabs (quietly) support a war against Iran and say that when Arab governments complain about American support for Zionism, it is more or less meaningless. Perhaps it is; the governments are weak, autocratic, not very effective and hardly beloved by their own people.

The question period was slightly more expansive. Joe Klein (who I would depict as near neutral in this debate) asked in his signature fashion a pointed question to each figure. I asked Satloff whether his calculus might change if the two-state solution negotiation were to end (or to be generally acknowledged to be over) and Israel was seen, more clearly as a state denying political rights to four million people under occupation. His answer surprised me: there has been a two state negotiation going on since 1937 (the time of an early British partition proposal) and it’s still ongoing. He could not have made it clearer that Israel and its American spokesman enjoy the pretext of a peace process—it can go on forever!– while Israel, which got its state 62 years ago, continues to settle and seize the land it wants.

Satloff was full of condescending praise for the Obama administration for “correcting its error” of asking for a settlement freeze in Jerusalem as a prelude to negotiations. Indeed, he smugly noted that Obama had learned the error of his ways very quickly, so deserved double praise! Generally I found Satloff an interesting character, exuding confidence, expressing forceful talking points at every turn. And they all take a moment to unravel—yes, what he said is a kind of half-truth, and the other half is false. But if the statements come cascading out, expressed rapidly and cogently enough, it can work. I imagine that being in a room with Netanyahu has the same effect.

The one volatile moment came when someone with an Israeli accent (from the guest list I surmise it was Amitai Etzioni, but I’m not certain) challenged Freeman for claiming that one of the things America had learned from Israel was targeted assassination and torture. He was vehement, and mentioned (a good debating point) the Phoenix program in Vietnam. Freeman replied that he had heard first-hand from Israelis about Israeli assassinations and torture, Israelis who had grown repulsed by them. The element that isn’t revealed in the exchange is a complex one—what our interrogators have learned from Israeli ones, whether the entire Israeli colonizing discourse about Muslims, and sex and shame has fed into Abu Ghraib type atrocities. I believe it has, but connecting the dots can’t be done in a debate.

In his post on this, David Frum says that Freeman didn’t play the part of coldly calculated realist. I think there’s something to this, and Chas, though he certainly has excellent realist credentials, does argue and think in terms of values as well. So do most realists I know. Coming away from the debate, I felt more strongly that the question of Israel in the United States is going to be decided on the basis of values, as much as strategic costs and benefits. That’s a realm where Israel as a democracy has an overwhelming advantage, and where Israel as an apartheid occupier has none whatsoever.

July 22, 2010 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Europe Considers New Penalties for Iran

Al-Manar, 20/07/2010

In line with the US unilateral sanctions beyond the UNSC sanctions, the European Union is considering tough new sanctions against Iran to protest its nuclear program, including banning investment in the oil and gas sector and tightening restrictions on shipping and finance.

The new measures, which are subject to agreement by European Union foreign ministers, cover dozens of senior Iranian officials and companies, and aim to put new pressure on the government in Tehran by cutting off Europe’s investment in major sectors of the Iranian economy.

A draft of the proposed new measures names 41 Iranian people, 57 companies or other entities, 15 additional companies thought to be controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and three deemed to be under the control of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines.

Senior European diplomats will discuss the proposed sanctions on Thursday.

Under pressure from the United States and Europe, Russia and China voted last month with 11 other UN Security Council nations for a fourth set of sanctions on Iran over its uranium enrichment. The sanctions target Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, ballistic missiles and nuclear-related investments.

Weeks later, US President Barack Obama signed into law far-reaching new unilateral sanctions on Iran that aim to curb Tehran’s fuel imports and deepen its international isolation. Russia and China denounced the move.

Last month, European Union leaders agreed in principle to go ahead with tighter measures as part of a two-track strategy to try to deal with Tehran’s nuclear program. While trying to tighten the economic screw, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has also made it clear she is ready for talks with Iran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili.

Thursday’s meeting of European Union diplomats will give the first indication of whether national governments inside the bloc will exert pressure on it to water down its plans. But discussion at a summit meeting of the bloc in June led to a swift agreement on the sectors to be the focus of penalties.

The draft, which bans the supply of items needed for nuclear materials, weapons and ammunition, spells out detailed new restrictions for the energy sector. These would bar the “sale, supply or transfer of key equipment and technology” for refinement, liquefied natural gas, exploration or production. European companies would not be able to provide technical or financial help “to enterprises in Iran that are engaged in the key sectors of Iranian oil and gas industry.”

European Union governments would be forced to monitor Iranian banks in their jurisdiction closely. Financial transfers above 35,000 euros, or about $45,000, would require prior authorization.

Iranian banks would be prohibited from opening new branches or subsidiaries in the 27-nation bloc. There would be a ban on providing insurance and reinsurance “to the government of Iran, or to entities incorporated in Iran or subject to Iran’s jurisdiction.”

Countries in the bloc would stop “all cargo flights operated by Iranian carriers or originating from Iran with the exception of mixed passenger and cargo flights.”

The measures, which would be issued next Monday, include a list of senior officials who would be barred from entering the European Union, including Ali Akbar Ahmadian, chief of the Revolutionary Guards joint staff; Morteza Safari, commander of the navy; and Hosein Salimi, commander of the air force.

Money and economic resources owned or controlled by companies and entities regarded as close to the government or controlled by it would be frozen. These include First East Export Bank, Bank Sepah and Bank Sepah International.

July 21, 2010 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Holy Land 5 case reveals double standard in enforcement of US law

The Electronic Intifada, 20 July 2010
An US federal agent at the Holy Land Foundation in Bridgeview, Illinois, as the contents of the office are seized on 4 December 2001. (AFP PHOTO/Scott Olson)

“I had no intention in my mind and my heart but to help the Palestinian indigenous people who are and have been facing unusual economic distress … nothing in my life was as satisfactory and as self-fulfilling as knowing that I could sign a check. It is the only evidence you have against me, signing the check.”

At a special session on Palestinian political prisoners at the US Social Forum in Detroit last month, Noor Elashi recited that statement given by her father, Ghassan, when he was sentenced by a federal court in May 2009. Ghassan Elashi is the co-founder of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), which was the largest Muslim charity in the US before it was shut down by the Bush Administration in 2001.

Sending aid not just to Palestinians living under the thumb of Israel’s military occupation, but to people in Bosnia, Albania, Chechnya and Turkey, the HLF was also involved in local and national humanitarian relief. The organization set up food banks on the East Coast, helped victims of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and provided assistance to people after floods and tornadoes devastated parts of Iowa and Texas in the 1990s.

Three months after the 11 September 2001 attacks, the US Treasury department froze the HLF’s bank accounts as the Executive branch shut down the organization under the auspices of the PATRIOT Act. Using a new provision called the Material Support Law, the US State Department accused the five HLF founders — now dubbed the Holy Land Five — of providing “assistance” to designated “terrorist groups” (namely Hamas) in Palestine. The Bush Administration immediately closed the organization and launched aggressive charges against the charity workers. There was no hearing, and the prosecution was authorized to use secret evidence.

Several other American faith-based relief organizations were also caught in the post-11 September hysteria of charity closures under the same new laws and executive orders. The legislation has been challenged by civil rights groups in the US Supreme Court as unconstitutional, but was upheld and used to sentence Ghassan Elashi, a father of six who immigrated to the US in 1978, to 65 years in prison.

On 21 June 2010, the Supreme Court ruled to continue to authorize prosecutions of charities under the Material Support provision, disappointing families and supporters of the Holy Land Five and troubling US-based organizations that directly support grassroots humanitarian programs in the Middle East.

Noor Elashi, a 24-year-old master of fine arts candidate at the New School in New York City, told The Electronic Intifada that her father’s legal team is in the middle of appealing the entire HLF case. “The attorneys are working with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights,” she said. “The overall impression is that the upholding of the Material Support Law is not the best thing that could happen regarding this case. It’s not the most positive step. But that said, there are so many other grounds for appeal, such as evidentiary issues and the prosecution’s use of an anonymous witness.”

Prosecutors working for the Bush Administration accused the HLF of supporting Hamas by trying to “win hearts and minds” of the Palestinian population through humanitarian assistance, and that the charities HLF worked with were “front groups” for the political party. But after several years of wiretapping phone lines, seizing documents and following money trails, the prosecution couldn’t support its allegations of an HLF-Hamas connection. Elashi said they then resorted to calling on an anonymous Israeli intelligence officer, who called himself “Avi,” as a key witness who told the jury he was an expert who could “smell Hamas.”

“It was the only time in the history of the United States that a witness inside a courtroom was allowed to remain anonymous, so the defense couldn’t cross-examine him,” Elashi said. “That in and of itself is huge grounds for appeal.”

In fact, Israeli intelligence officers, in an unprecendented move, were allowed to testify in secret using pseudonyms and disguises and without the defense being given a full opportunity to cross-examine them during the 2006 federal trial in Chicago of American citizen Muhammad Salah and stateless Palestinian Abdelhaleem Ashqar. Accused of “racketeering” charges related to fundraising for Hamas, both men were acquitted of all the terrorism-related charges, but each was found guilty on single counts of obstruction of justice; Salah for lying on a form in a civil case and Ashqar for refusing to testify before a grand jury.

Additionally, the US government infamously led a lengthy, repressive, and racist assault against the Palestinian-American professor and political activist Dr. Sami al-Arian. Al-Arian, who remains under house arrest following a six-year prison sentence — which included spending 43 months locked in solitary confinement — was also charged, as the HLF were, under the Material Support Law.

Elashi stressed that the HLF was never convicted of giving charity to designated “terrorist” groups, but in the end they were convicted of conspiring to give charity to zakat or charitable committees in Palestine.

“I feel like at this point, anybody is at risk,” Elashi said. “This is the time to be worried. What essentially can happen is that any American can be prosecuted for giving any type of charity, or any type of aid. Even a former president is at risk of being prosecuted,” she said, referring to how Jimmy Carter has helped train election workers in Lebanon.

“The problem with the law is that it’s way too vague,” Elashi added, “and because it’s way too vague, it really singles out groups from the rest of the population, and typically singles out Muslim charities as well as Arab-American individuals. And it’s all being done in the name of national security, but what it’s really doing is shredding the constitution and causing an economic chokehold on occupied Palestine.”

Elashi told The Electronic Intifada that despite the circumstances, her father is extremely hopeful about the appeals process. “Opening the charity was a form of optimism,” she said. “He knew from the first day that when he started the charity it was going to be a challenge. Soon after, he got attacked from pro-Israeli politicians and lobbyists, who tried to link the charity to Hamas and acts of violence. He continued to do everything possible to make sure that the charity kept running, and did pretty much what every other American aid organization did — USAID, the Red Cross, and the UN all gave money to the very same zakat committees that were listed in the HLF indictment.”

The Elashi family has not been allowed to visit Ghassan in prison, Noor Elashi said, for quite some time. In the fall of 2009, after one of the visits, a prison guard told the inmates and the families to disperse. But Noor’s younger brother Omar — who lives with Down’s Syndrome — ran to hug his father, and at that point the prison guard yelled at Ghassan, saying that he disobeyed orders. The guard filed a complaint that led to an internal investigation, and the prison ruled that there would be a six-month to one-year visitation ban.

Even after Ghassan was moved to another prison, the visitation ban moved with him. “We get two phone calls from him every month, which is significantly less than we would get from any other prison,” Elashi said. “We hope to finally see him in September or October.” Ghassan is currently being held inside a Communications Management Unit (CMU) in Illinois, a block within some prisons that are nicknamed “little Guantanamos” due to the overwhelming population of Muslims and people of Arab and Middle Eastern descent.

Defense Attorney Nancy Hollander, on behalf of the Holy Land Five, told The Electronic Intifada that the legal team is optimistic about the appeal. “We are currently working on our brief to the Fifth Circuit,” Hollander remarked. “The current deadline is 3 August, but that might get extended into September. All of our clients have been moved to other prisons. We are in contact with them regularly. We remain hopeful.”

Meanwhile, private, US-based, pro-Israel groups are currently sending millions of dollars every year to support illegal settlement colonies and right-wing Zionist settlers in the occupied West Bank. The New York Times reported on 5 July that at least 40 US-based organizations are actively donating more than $200 million in tax-deductible “gifts” to build and sustain illegal settlements. According to the Times, some of the donations also pay for “legally questionable” items such as bulletproof vests, guard dogs, weapon accessories and armored security vehicles (“Tax-Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank“).

Daniel C. Kurtzer, the former US ambassador to Israel, told the Times “a couple of hundred million dollars makes a huge difference” in terms of supporting the settlement industry, and if carefully focused, “helps to create a new reality on the ground.”

As of now, there is no indication that any of these faith-based, pro-settlement groups will face the kind of treatment and lengthy, expensive trials under the guise of the Material Support Law like those the Holy Land Five have faced. Noor Elashi told The Electronic Intifada that there is an obvious double standard being applied and enforced against her father and his colleagues.

However, she said that her father “feels his ordeal like he feels a fly on his shoe … He believes that it’s going to pass, and he’s still very proud of everything he’s accomplished. His work has been the most rewarding part of his life. He’s helped people rebuild homes and has given hungry people food. That’s what nourishes him. So he’s optimistic about the appeal.”

At the US Social Forum in Detroit, Elashi read the last part of her father’s statement upon his sentencing. “We helped Palestinian orphans and needy families, giving them hope and life,” he stated. “We gave them hope and life … And what was the occupation giving them? It was providing them with death and destruction. And then we are turned criminals. That is irony.”

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July 20, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

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