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Iran nuclear scientist assassinated

Press TV – July 23, 2011

A prominent Iranian physicist has been assassinated by unknown terrorists, informed sources with the Iranian police say.

The assailants who were riding a motorcycle attacked and killed Daryoush Rezaie, 35, in front of his house in eastern Tehran on Saturday afternoon, ISNA reported.

His wife sustained injuries during the attack and was immediately transferred to hospital.

According to Mohaghegh Ardabili University, Rezaie was a nuclear physicist.

On November 29, 2010, two other Iranian academics became the target of terrorist attacks. Unidentified terrorists detonated bombs in the vehicles of Dr. Majid Shahriari and Professor Fereydoun Abbasi in separate locations in Tehran. Shahriari was killed immediately but Abbasi and his wife sustained injuries.

On December 2, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that Mossad, CIA and MI6 spy agencies played a role in those attacks.

Meanwhile, Resolution 1747 adopted by the United Nations Security Council in March 2007 against the Islamic Republic cited Abbasi’s name as a “nuclear scientist,” thus suggesting that perpetrators behind the assassination could be traced through those who included the professor’s name in the UN resolution.

July 23, 2011 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Why Israel’s Struggle Is Our Struggle, Too

From the desk of Fjordman (associated with the Norwegian terror suspect) published in The  Brussels Journal on 2010-04-12

As Bat Ye’or showed in Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis and I elaborated in my own book Defeating Eurabia, Eurabia was born when Western European leaders abandoned their pro-Israeli stance due to Arab threats in the 1970s. This should serve as a reminder of how closely the fate of Europe is tied to that of Israel. Three years ago I wrote the essay Why Europeans Should Support Israel. As I stated there, “Bat Ye’or’s predictions about Arab anti-Semitism spreading in Europe as the continent’s Islamization and descent into Eurabia continues have so far proved depressingly accurate. This trend needs to be fought, vigorously, by all serious European anti-Jihadists. Not only because it is immoral and unfair to Israelis, which it is, but also because those who assist it are depriving Europeans of the opportunity to fully grasp the threat and understand the nature of the Jihad that is now targeting much of Europe as well.”

I remember one Holocaust survivor who was asked what he had learned from the Second World War. He replied that “When somebody says he wants to kill you, you should believe him.” Jews have learned this lesson the hard way, which is why they will fight, as they should, when people such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran brag about how they want to wipe out Jews in a “final victory.” The rest of us should fight, too.

The incessant demonization of Israel in the mass media prevents us from realizing that what we are dealing with is a global campaign of bloody conquest. Those of us who read the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) or websites such as Jihad Watch know that Islamic leaders and preachers regularly and openly brag about how they are planning to conquer our lands, defile our women and wipe out our civilization. When people say that they want to kill you and wipe out your culture you should take them seriously. They mean exactly what they say; it’s not a code word for “I feel so humiliated by Western support for Israel.”

And it’s not about “human rights,” either. The “human rights” of Muslims, especially those of Muslim women, are violated every single day in Muslim majority countries, not to mention those of the religious minorities who are unfortunate enough to live there. From an Islamic point of view, human rights are the invention of Western Crusaders. Groups such as Palestinian Hamas only talk about “human rights” to deceive a Western audience. What they really mean is “We hate you, infidel scum, and your worthless culture. Our brave Jihadists will slaughter you and crush you like bugs while we defile your women and keep your children as slaves.” Of course, if asked by the BBC, the CNN or The New York Times they will state their concern for “human rights” and “Islamophobia.” It sounds much better on TV.

If Arabs truly wanted peace with Israel they could have had peace a long time ago. But they don’t want peace. This is about the fact that Islam should dominate the entire world, starting with the Middle East. The Jews of Israel, in contrast, do not want to “take over the entire world,” they simply want a tiny piece of land where they can live in dignity and practice their religion in freedom. What is happening between Israelis and their neighbors is not a “cycle of violence,” any more than it is in the Indian subcontinent. After the partition of India, non-Muslim communities have been nearly wiped out in Pakistan due to persecution, whereas Muslims in the Republic of India have increased their numbers and enjoy special rights. It’s not about mutual ethnic cleansing; it’s about brutal Muslim oppression of non-Muslims, sanctioned by Islamic law and religious texts. The same goes for Thailand and Southeast Asia. Thai Buddhists do not have a history of bothering others; Muslims have an uninterrupted history stretching across 1400 years and several continents of doing so. Those who focus on the non-existing “Israeli aggression” serve to hide the global violence coming from the Islamic world.

I have exchanged emails with an Israeli gentleman who fears that we are approaching a new world war. Frankly, so do I, and the main reason for this is the irrational and suicidal behavior of the modern West. Having an anti-Western, pro-Islamic Marxist at the helm of the largest Western country doesn’t help, nor does it help that the European Union has de facto surrendered the entire European continent to ongoing Islamic colonization, and bans any opposition to this among the natives. I fear for the future of Europe, and of Israel. The Israeli gentleman hopes that Israel will survive yet another military clash with their Muslim neighbors, and perhaps be enlarged, due to their traditional Muslim inaptitude. He also believes, as do I, that the West is in a decadent phase and will soon face a financial collapse.

It bears repeating what I wrote regarding the retreat of the Western world order in 2007: These massive changes and the real or perceived weakness of the Western civilization that has been dominant globally for centuries could very well create a new world war. Multiculturalism and the inability or unwillingness of Western nations to uphold their borders from massive immigration is viewed by Muslims as an invitation for attack and a signal that their ancient Western rival is weak and ripe for conquest. This is no doubt the background for the ongoing aggressive posture by the Iranian president, among others.

Muslims really do believe that the time has now come for overthrowing the West and putting Islam into the global, dominant position it should have according to their scriptures. They will spare no efforts, including nuclear war, in achieving this goal. The Iranian president has quite openly stated that “Islam will soon rule the world,” which implies that they will have to destroy or subdue the West. Al-Qaeda strategists have earlier outlined a schedule for awakening the Islamic world and crushing the West, with a timeline stretching over the coming fifteen to twenty years. They still stick to this plan, which means that tensions are bound to escalate even further in the near future. Westerners need to understand that a world war of sorts with the Islamic world is already inevitable by now, no matter what we do. The only question is whether this will be a cold or a hot world war. We will rapidly approach the latter, if countries such as Iran are allowed to gain nuclear weapons and continued Muslim immigration pushes Western European nations to the brink of civil war. Iranian nukes need to be prevented at absolutely all costs, if we are to have any chance of avoiding further escalation of the most dangerous kind.

In the animal kingdom, if the top dog shows signs of weakness then the others will start competing about who should replace him as leader. The West – the USA very much included, not just Western Europe – is now showing unmistakable signs of weakness and ideological senility. This means that all of the major tectonic plates of global politics will soon make rapid moves, which will trigger a wave of earthquakes and political tsunamis that will completely alter the political landscape. I cannot say exactly how this will play out, but it will accelerate within the coming generation, probably already within the next five to ten years.

As the French writer Guillaume Faye puts it: “I believe that if you drive down the wrong side of the freeway you will eventually have a head-on collision. The precise moment such a collision will occur is difficult to predict, but it is certainly bound to happen. Within ten years or so we are going to be confronted with something never before seen. But more than race war, we are going to experience economic breakdowns, ecological crises, and catastrophic shortages of oil. . . . All the world’s governments operate with short-term agendas and nothing at this point is more disastrous. It is often said that the Earth is sick. But it is man that is sick.”

He thinks we are witnessing the early stages of an Islamic offensive: “Twice before in history it has sought to conquer Europe. The first time it was stopped by Charles Martel at Poitiers [in 732]; the second time, in the 17th century, it was beaten back at the walls of Vienna. Islam’s present conquering ambition was revived in Egypt in the 1920s. I’m convinced that certain Islamic leaders believe the moment is now right for a third offensive against the West. As the former Algerian president Houari Boumediène once boasted, the Islamic world today carries in the wombs of its women the weapons that will conquer Europe.”

We have forgotten both our Sun Tzu and our Machiavelli. It is ancient wisdom that you shouldn’t injure what you cannot kill. Either you fight a war properly, with the aim of utterly crushing your enemy’s spirit, or you make peace with him. Don’t tease or hurt him to make him angry and then retreat. This will make you look evil or weak or both, yet that is precisely what the West is doing in Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Waging a Politically Correct war against Muslims to make them love us and adopt democracy has to be the stupidest idea anybody has come up with. As columnist Caroline Glick points out, Arab societies are “strong horse” societies where everything boils down to being perceived as the strong horse. The Western world will prevail as long as we are seen as the strong horse and Muslims fear us more than they hate us. Now we give them absolutely no reason to fear us, therefore they despise us.

Muslims respond only to force, even in their own societies, as Wafa Sultan so correctly describes in her brave and brilliant book A God Who Hates. You have to forcefully puncture their always-inflated Muslim egos and make sure they understand that attacking us will gain them nothing, or worse, will be outright counterproductive. It’s the only way to deal with them. That goes for other enemies and potential rivals, too, but for Muslims in particular.

Western so-called leaders currently go out of their way to give Muslims more money and special treatment the more they threaten us, and actively silence those among their own people who oppose continued colonization by alien peoples. The entire West has an “I’m a brainwashed fool, please kick me and squeeze me for money”-sign on our backs. Nobody respects that. We’re the sick man of the world and the joke of the planet. This will not change until somebody forcefully pushes back. If the current crop of Western leaders doesn’t have what it takes then new leadership will be required. Either that or the West will be finished.

Mahathir Mohamad, the then-Prime Minister of the “moderate” Muslim majority country Malaysia, during the Islamic Summit Conference in 2003 called for Muslims to pool their resources to achieve a final victory over “the Jews.” Not everybody remembers that he also longed for a return to the glory days when “Europeans had to kneel at the feet of Muslim scholars in order to access their own scholastic heritage.” They want us to kneel and tremble in fear. That’s their ultimate goal, as stipulated in Islamic sharia, in the personal example of Muhammad and in their holy texts. They cannot and will not settle for anything less than that.

Rather than unfairly attacking Israel we should thank Israelis for having served as brave frontline soldiers against the global Islamic Jihad for generations. They are fighting our fight, and we spit them in the face for it. The truth is that Israelis have shown remarkable restraint and civilized behavior compared to the consistently uncivilized behavior of their enemies.

I don’t believe Islam can be reformed; that is impossible. But it has lived by the sword and could die by it. Perhaps a military defeat even more crushing and humiliating than 1967 will shatter the Muslims’ belief in Islam in its very foundations. If they keep on alienating all the major centers of power on the planet simultaneously – from the USA via Europe, Russia and India to China – then that could eventually turn out to be what they get.

July 23, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Yet another program on “What Do White, Jewish Think-Tankers in D.C. Think the U.S. Should Do About Iran?”

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | July 21, 2011

During Bloggingheads‘ latest installment of “What Do White, Jewish Think-Tankers in Washington D.C. Think the U.S. Should Do About Iran?” , former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block, now a fellow at the bizarrely-named Progressive Policy Institute (given its penchant for espousing hawkish foreign policy views, especially on Iran), gave a veritable tutorial on how to cram every long-debunked fear-mongering talking point about the Islamic Republic into a mere 50-minute conversation. […]

In the course of his discussion with Joel Rubin, Director of Policy and Government Affairs at the Ploughshares Fund, Block repeated (among other things) the false claim that Obama “exposed” a secret Iranian nuclear enrichment at Fordow in September 2009, insisted that Iran seeks hegemony over the Middle East and is violently involved in Iraq, advocated forcefully for regime change (though he called it “democratic change”, and was oh so sincere about it), was adamant about Iran’s headlong pursuit of nuclear weapons (any other perspective, like one based evidence, was “nonsense”), said that the IAEA itself has said Iran has a nuclear weapons program, and even added a new mathematical assessment of Iran’s nuclear progress. He said that Iran’s mere capacity to enrich uranium up to 20% is “90%, if not more, of the ability to get to the fuel you need for a nuclear weapon.”

Despite Rubin’s efforts to infuse certain facts into the discussion (filtered, of course, through a significant amount of silliness of his own), Block remained a blowhard, a blabbermouth, and a liar. The best part, perhaps, was when Block, furrowed his brow, and said:

I’d like to see no war. I’d like to see peace! But I think the best chance to get there, the best chance to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, which, by the way, it’s not just a question of them dropping a bomb on Israel. I mean, they went into the streets in 2009 and were brutal to their own people. They walk around saying Bahrain belongs to them. How will they act when they have a nuclear weapon? What kind of activity will we see then? Who will be able to stop them? How will they treat their people then?

Block advocated “more pressure” to “destabilize” the Iranian government in order to ensure his preferred outcome. He also refused to admit that Israeli and U.S. predictions about when Iran would obtain a nuclear weapon have been wrong for three decades. Rather, he credited sanctions for “working” over that time and then completely misrepresented the TRR nuclear deal between Iran, Brazil, and Turkey. […]

Block closed, predictably, by advocating a military attack on Iran by pretending to ask a rhetorical question.

July 22, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Fleitz of Fancy & A New Diehl on Iran: Iran Nuclear Scare Timeline Update

Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | July 20, 2011

Alarmist editorializing about Iran, its regional influence, and its nuclear energy program has picked up considerably in the past few weeks. In the wake of the latest IAEA report this past Spring which revealed no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, a hefty Sy Hersh article confirming that all 16 American intelligence agencies still stand by their 2007 assessment that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and the potential for a large-scale U.S. withdrawal from Iraq at the end of the year, career fear-mongers have been hard at work trying to re-raise the Iranian threat level from mild khaki to frantic crimson.

An opinion piece published last night in the Wall Street Journal is a perfect example of the heightened hysteria. The article, entitled “America’s Intelligence Denial on Iran“, was written by former CIA agent Fred Fleitz, a neoconservative Bomb Iraner who served as John Bolton’s State Department chief of staff and is currently a columnist for the right-wing outlet Newsmax.

Fleitz is intent on discrediting the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which has repeatedly found that Iran’s nuclear program is, at best, totally benign and, at worst, not an imminent threat to anyone. He leads with this:

Mounting evidence over the last few years has convinced most experts that Iran has an active program to develop and construct nuclear weapons. Amazingly, however, these experts do not include the leaders of the U.S. intelligence community. They are unwilling to conduct a proper assessment of the Iranian nuclear issue – and so they remain at variance with the Obama White House, U.S. allies, and even the United Nations.

Fleitz goes on to write that, “according to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control,” Iran currently has enough “low-enriched uranium” for “four nuclear weapons if enriched to weapons grade” and repeats the propaganda line about “an item recently posted to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps website [which] mused about the day after an Iranian nuclear test (saying, in a kind of taunt, that it would be a ‘normal day’).” Fleitz claims that the “message marked the first time any official Iranian comment suggested the country’s nuclear program is not entirely peaceful.”

Beyond demonstrating a severe lack of understanding about what the IAEA has actually reported and his willful omission of the huge difference between low-enriched uranium and weapons grade material, Fleitz tips his hand by relying on the over-hyped “Nuclear Test” post on the Iranian Gerdab website last month for his nuclear scare propaganda.

Fleitz writes that the latest NIE assessment is just as “politicized” and “poorly written” as its 2007 predecessor and similarly downplays the “true account of the Iranian threat” due to what Fleitz claims is the U.S. intelligence community’s apparent aversion to providing “provocative analytic conclusions, and any analysis that could be used to justify military action against rogue states like Iran.” He accuses the 2011 NIE of “poorly structured arguments and cavalier manipulation of intelligence”, all the while boasting of his own objections, which he says were routinely ignored and rebuffed by the report’s supervisors. He lays blame on what he determines is the NIE’s reliance on “former senior intelligence officers, liberal professors and scholars from liberal think tanks.”

He concludes:

It is unacceptable that Iran is on the brink of testing a nuclear weapon while our intelligence analysts continue to deny that an Iranian nuclear weapons program exists. One can’t underestimate the dangers posed to our country by a U.S. intelligence community that is unable to provide timely and objective analysis of such major threats to U.S. national security – or to make appropriate adjustments when it is proven wrong.

If U.S. intelligence agencies cannot or will not get this one right, what else are they missing?

Reading this, one might be forgiven for wondering why, rather than merely attacking the credentials of NIE sources, Fleitz doesn’t reveal a shred of evidence for his declaration that “Iran is on the brink of testing a nuclear weapon.” Oh right, never mind.

This sort of “analysis” from Fleitz is far from unexpected. Back in August 2006, Fleitz – then a House Intelligence Committee staffer – was the primary author of a Congressional report entitled, “Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States“, which served as a veritable catalog of false assertions about Iran’s nuclear program and, just like his Wall Street Journal piece, assailed the U.S. intelligence community for not sufficiently fear-mongering about the so-called Iranian threat. Among other exaggerations and outright lies, the report accused Iran of “enriching uranium to weapons grade” and stated that the IAEA had removed a senior safeguards inspector from Iran for “allegedly raising concerns about Iranian deception regarding its nuclear program and concluding that the purposed of Iran’s nuclear programme is to construct weapons” and for “not having adhered to an unstated IAEA policy baring IAEA officials from telling the whole truth about the Iranian nuclear program.”

The report contained so many false allegations and misrepresentations regarding the Iranian nuclear program, in fact, that the IAEA’s Director of External Relations and Policy Coordination Vilmos Cserveny wrote a letter to the Chairman of House Committee, Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), challenging the report’s “incorrect” assertions and criticizing it for promoting “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated information.”

Additionally, Cserveny described Fleitz’s accusations about the safeguards inspector as “outrageous and dishonest” and noted that “Iran has accepted the designation of more than 200 Agency safeguards inspectors, which number is similar to that accepted by the majority of non-nuclear-weapon States that have concluded safeguards agreements pursuant to the NPT.”

It appears that, five years later, Fleitz still chooses fantasy over facts.

Meanwhile, in the pages of the Washington Post, deputy editorial editor and Likudnik ideologue Jackson Diehl has picked up on the amplified push to blame the Iranian government for the recent deaths of American soldiers occupying Iraq. In an opinion piece published earlier this week, he writes, “The larger question is whether Iraq will be forced by a full U.S. pullout to become an Iranian satellite, a development that would undo a huge and painful investment of American blood and treasure and deal a potentially devastating blow to the larger U.S. position in the Middle East.”

Apparently, Arabs and Muslims are only truly liberated when under the influence of the United States.

Diehl believes that an Iraqi government that is bullied into allowing U.S. troops to continue occupying their country beyond the December 31, 2011 deadline would be “making the right choice.” If there is an American withdrawal, however, Diehl is worried about the potential consequences. He claims (citing a Fox News report) that an “offensive [is] already underway by Iranian-sponsored militias [which] shows that Tehran is ready to fight.” He writes that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, “like U.S. commanders in the Middle East, understands very well that without an American military presence, Iraq will be unable to defend itself against its Persian neighbor” and laments that, “without U.S. help, Iraqi forces cannot easily counter” Iranian-backed militias since “Iraq’s conventional forces are no match for those of Iran.”

Of course, what Diehl leaves out – beyond the fact that the evidence linking the Iranian government to recent resistance attacks in Iraq is sketchy at best – is that foreign occupation is what most people and non-U.S.-aligned governments in the region are most offended by, not alleged increasing Iranian influence. Yet, the horror of an Iraq allied with Iran is ever-present in the neoconservative community. Diehl even quotes career militarist Frederick Kagan of the neocon flagship, the American Enterprise Institute, as warning in a recent report that “[i]f Maliki allows the United States to leave Iraq, he is effectively declaring his intent to fall in line with Tehran’s wishes, to subordinate Iraq’s foreign policy to the Persians, and possibly, to consolidate his own power as a sort of modern Persian satrap in Baghdad.”

Oh dear, the Persians! Where are Aristagoras, Leonides and Themistocles when you need them?! It would be unsurprising to assume that Kagan’s neocon classicist father Donald is proud of his son’s ridiculous historical analogy.

To his moderate credit, Diehl does also present a slightly alternate perspective, one that naturally views Iran as a spooky menace (no other representation of the Islamic Republic is allowed in the mainstream press, of course), but that doesn’t necessarily see it as a hegemonic threat of imperial proportions. He reports that Antony Blinken, a senior aide to Vice President Joe Biden, resists the notion that Iran is capable of wielding such devious influence over Iraq, even without a massive U.S. military presence. “The danger of Iranian hegemony in Iraq,” Diehl writes, “is overstated by analysts such as Kagan,” according to Blinken.

Diehl closes by lamenting the recent departure Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who he describes as “the only Obama administration official who has publicly made the case for a continued U.S. military presence.” In a recent speech, Diehl recalls, Gates said that it would send “a powerful signal to the region that we’re not leaving, that we will continue to play a part,” adding, “I think it would be reassuring to the Gulf states. I think it would not be reassuring to Iran, and that’s a good thing.”

What Diehl omits is that Gates was actually speaking to the American Enterprise Institute when making these comments and that, much to the dismay of its many war-mongering members, has been credited by many as having single-handedly prevented an American attack on Iran.

The specter of a nuclear-armed and hegemonic Iran is still the bread-and-butter of Beltway Middle East reportage and analysis. Consequently, the fever-pitched fear-mongering never stops, despite what the facts are.

July 21, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Murdoch is not the only maggot in the rotten apple

By Stuart Littlewood  | My Catbird Seat | July 20, 2011

Having disposed of the Murdoch menace – for the moment anyway – it’s time for the British public to turn the spotlight on the other villains our craven politicians pay homage to.

Public enemy Number One is the pro-Israel lobby. An organization called the Conservative Friends of Israel states it has “twin aims of supporting Israel and promoting Conservatism. With close to 2000 activists as members – alongside 80% of Conservative MPs – CFI is active at every level of the Party”.

And the rot goes all the way to the top, with Conservative prime minister David Cameron endorsing it enthusiastically: “I am proud not just to be a Conservative, but a Conservative Friend of Israel; and I am proud of the key role CFI plays within our Party.”

Back in 2006 The Jewish Chronicle ran a report on the backers bankrolling Cameron’s bid for the party leadership. It was sent to the Committee on Standards in Public Life as an example of how the pro-Israel lobby infiltrates government and undermines the very principles the standards watchdog was established to uphold. But Zionist tentacles reach further than you think. The Committee ignored it.

At the time Cameron, a self-proclaimed Zionist, pledged: “If I become Prime Minister, Israel has a friend who will never turn his back on her…”

The Liberal Democrats allow a similar lobby group to flourish within their ranks. Its stated aim is to “maximise support for the State of Israel within the Liberal Democrats and Parliament”. Labour also has a virulent Israel supporters club that broadcasts Tel Aviv’s propaganda and, when in power, appoints Israel lobby stooges to key ministerial and other positions.

Britain, as everyone knows, has carved an unfortunate niche for itself as America’s poodle. But not enough people ask the key question: whose poodle is America? The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has the private parts of US Congress in such a vice that the Zionist regime’s interests come first in Washington. “Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel, we the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it,” Ariel Sharon told Shimon Peres at an Israeli cabinet meeting in 2001, according to Kol Yisrael radio.

Israel’s propaganda machine of course denies it. Nevertheless the US House of Representatives felt obliged to endorse, by 390 votes to 5, Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008/9, an atrocity that killed over 1,400 (mostly Palestinian civilians including a large number of women and children), wounded and maimed thousands more, left tens of thousands homeless and horrified the rest of the world.

The knock-on effect in the UK is inevitable. We too are so embroiled in the Zionists’ perpetual strife with the Islamic world that we’ve been sucked into the same cesspit. Britain is now one of the most hated nations on earth thanks to our cosy association with US-Israeli ambitions in the Middle East.

Meet the ‘Israel-firsters’

Israel was founded on terror, land theft, ethnic cleansing and extreme brutality. Why would the British Establishment wish to snuggle up to it? Why did Liam Fox, now Defence Secretary, famously say: “We must remember that in the battle for the values that we stand for, for democracy against theocracy, for democratic liberal values against repression – Israel’s enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together or we will all fall divided.”

As if that wasn’t absurd enough William Hague, now foreign secretary, came out with this in 2008: “The unbroken thread of Conservative Party support for Israel that has run for nearly a century from the Balfour Declaration to the present day will continue. Although it will no doubt often be tested in the years ahead, it will remain constant, unbroken, and undiminished by the passage of time.”

Undimished by the passage of crime, too. Tzipi Livni was Israeli foreign minister at the time of Operation Cast Lead and largely responsible for the unimaginable terror and destruction unleashed on Gaza’s civilians. Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of Operation Cast Lead and, lacking all remorse, she later declared: “I would today take the same decisions.” Obviously she is on several wanted lists. When a warrant for her arrest was issued in London she went whining to our then foreign secretary David Miliband, who apologized. When the Conservative coalition came in and Hague took over the Foreign Office who can forget how Hague rushed to prove his loyalty by promising that our universal jurisdiction laws would be changed to protect Israel’s suspected war criminals? It was “an appalling situation where a politician like Mrs Livni could be threatened with arrest on coming to the UK” he said.

David Cameron, for his part, told Conservative Friends of Israel: “The ties between this party and Israel are unbreakable. And in me, you have a Prime Minister whose belief in Israel is indestructible.”

And he recently told a Jewish audience: “I want to be clear, we will always support Israel… when Iran flouts its international obligations Britain is and will remain at the forefront of the international community in ratcheting up the pressure with tough sanctions. We will not stand by and allow Iran to cast a nuclear shadow over Israel or the wider region.”

Considering it is Israel which casts the nuclear shadow, menaces the region and flouts international laws and conventions, that remark was beyond ridiculous. Cameron, like Fox, seems determined to make Israel’s enemies Britain’s enemies when we have no quarrel with any of them.

Who gave him permission to spout such dangerous drivel in our name?

Hague too loves ratcheting up the violence. While still deeply embroiled in an unwinnable Afghan campaign he started bombing the hell out of Libya months ago – with no end in sight – and is now sending more British aircraft into “theatre” to intensify the carnage, seemingly oblivious to the fact that back home in Britain we are struggling to make ends meet with a monumental economic and financial deficit around our necks.

Who’s he doing all this bloodshed for? Certainly not for us.

Lacking military experience these Israel-firsters, liked Blair and others before them, show an unhealthy lust for death and destruction. They are what I believe our American cousins call ‘chicken-hawks’ – talking tough but taking care never to risk their own worthless skins.

Lawlessness rules, OK?

Another ardent admirer of the Zionist regime is James Arbuthnot, the Parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel. He told Parliament: “Everyone in this House should have an interest in Israel, because it is a country that embodies the values that we should stand for. Israel [has] become a bastion of the rule of law…”

Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu heads their Likud party, which is the embodiment of greed, racist ambition, lawlessness and callous disregard for other people’s rights. In any other country it would be banned and its leaders locked up. Yet Netanyahu is welcomed like a hero in the US and given 29 standing ovations by Congress.

Likud intends to make the seizure of Jerusalem permanent and establish Israel’s capital there. It will “act with vigor” to ensure Jewish sovereignty in East Jerusalem (which still officially belongs to the Palestinians as does the Old City). The illegal settlements are “the realization of Zionist values and a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel”. They will be strengthened and expanded. As for the Palestinians, they can run their lives in a framework of self-rule “but not as an independent and sovereign state”.

Are these the values Arbuthnot is suggesting we adopt?

Kadima, the party of Livni, Olmert and Barak, is little better and has also pledged to preserve the larger settlement blocs and steal Jerusalem.

As for Arbuthnot’s claim that Israel is a bastion of the rule of law, a UN fact-finding mission, dealing with the assault on the Mavi Marmara last year, declared that “no case can be made for the legality of the interception”.

But here’s Arbuthnot again, arguing the case for Israel… “Given that the flotilla was designed to be provocative and to end in violence, we should not blame Israel for the violence against which it failed to guard itself; the blame lies with those who went on to the flotilla expressly seeking martyrdom.”

The Mission considered that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza amounted to collective punishment and thus was illegal and contrary to Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The interception of the Mavi Marmara on the high seas was “clearly unlawful” and could not be justified even under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations (the right of self-defence).

The Centre for Constitutional Rights agrees that the blockade “cannot be reconciled with the principles of international law, including international humanitarian law”. http://bit.ly/oV2Bt9 [.pdf]

If the blockade is illegal, why is it allowed to continue? Because subservient Israel-firsters in London, Washington and other capitals won’t act. Lawlessness rules, OK?

Arbuthnot, by the way, is also chairman of Britain’s Defence Select Committee. Worrying, isn’t it?

Conflict of interests

The British government’s policy of shielding and cosseting Israel’s extremists makes all of us complicit in that regime’s crimes. How does this perverse devotion to a foreign power square with the Seven Principles of Public Life, especially the one about Integrity, which the government is supposed to uphold? The Principle of Integrity lays down that holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.

Do MPs and ministers not understand this simple imperative? If the Israel lobby has no influence, as some have claimed, how do our leaders explain away the 80 percent of Conservative MPs who are Friends of Israel? How do they explain the appointment of a Foreign Secretary who has been a Friend of Israel since boyhood and a minister in charge of Middle East affairs who is a former officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel?

There are rules about conflict of interests. Why aren’t they followed? Do we ever hear an MP or minister, when taking part in a Middle East debate, say “Mr Speaker, I wish the House to know that I am a staunch member of Friends of Israel and Jewish money paid for my election campaign”?

In his infatuation with Israel Mr Hague even stoops to provide cover for its mega-crimes. At the height of the murderous Gaza blitz, Hague announced to Parliament: “The immediate trigger for this crisis… was the barrage of hundreds of rocket attacks against Israel on the expiry of the ceasefire or truce.”

The truce with Hamas didn’t “expire”. It was violated after five months by Israeli forces in order to provoke Hamas and provide an excuse for the long-planned assault. Israel had also failed to deliver its side of the ceasefire bargain, which was to lift the blockade.

Our Middle East minister, Alistair Burt, is another comedian. He recently announced that Britain would not recognise a Palestinian state unless it emerged from a peace deal with Israel. London, he said, could “not recognise a state that does not have a capital, and doesn’t have borders”.

Hadn’t he heard? Palestine’s borders are the pre-1967 armistice lines as defined in UN resolutions and recognised by the international community. Where does Burt suppose Israel’s borders are? Is Israel where Israel is supposed to be, within internationally defined borders? No, it isn’t. Israel keeps its borders fluid, all the time grabbing a bit more land here and confiscating a bit more there. Yet London recognises Israel.

Burt, Hague, Cameron, Fox, Arbuthnot… there are many more like them. How can we be sure where their allegiance lies? Whom do they really work for?

I’ll leave the last word on Israel’s evil machinations to Sir Gerald Kaufman, the straight-talking Jewish MP. He said in a Commons debate in January 2008: “Is it not a fact that only international action can bring to an end the humanitarian disaster caused by collective punishment imposed by the gang of amoral thugs who comprise the Israeli Government and violate not only international law but the historic Jewish conscience?”

Sir Gerald’s family suffered horribly during the Holocaust and his sick grandmother was shot dead in her bed by a German soldier. “They’re not simply war criminals, they’re fools”, he said of the Israelis when Operation Cast Lead was launched. “My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.”

Cameron’s judgement, already wobbly, has finally been shot to pieces by his cosiness with Murdoch’s ‘mafia’, and he should be clearing his desk. Add to that his dangerous obsession with racist Israel which drags us into unnecessary wars against countries that pose no threat, and sacrifices our lads in uniform in an unjust cause, and it’s clear that he must go.

Our elected MPs belong to us, the British voters. Not to some gang of foreign thugs. We must mobilise to make sure they clearly understand this. And we must work to take back our parliament.

July 19, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Thinktank that promoted war w/ Iraq (& now Iran) was funded by Steinhardt, Saban, Bronfman, Feith and Marcus (of Home Depot)

By Philip Weiss on July 19, 2011

Eli Clifton at Think Progress has blown the lid off the funding for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the neocon shop that helped give us the Iraq war and that “has become one of the the premiere DC organizations promoting more aggressive actions against Iran.” The people who underwrite this stuff have traditionally remained anonymous. Clifton:

While FDD has a 10-year history of engaging in alarmist rhetoric and fear mongering — e.g. in 2002 FDD aired a series of ads conflating Osama bin Laden, Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein — and helped promote the “Bush doctrine” which led to the invasion of Iraq, its donors have, for the most part, hidden behind their anonymous contributions to the organization.

And who’s funding this shop?

Clifton’s exclusive–based on public records that he links in a pdf with his story– says that a lot of the usual suspects in the Israel lobby, Saban, Bronfman, Steinhardt, Mizrahi, Marcus and oh, Doug Feith’s father.

Canadians Edgar M. and Charles Bronfman, heirs to the Seagram liquor company fortune, contributed $1,050,000 to FDD between 2001 and 2004. Edgar M. Bronfman served as president of the World Jewish Congress from 1979 to 2007. Charles Bronfman, along with fellow FDD donor Michael Steinhardt cofounded Taglit Birthright which offers free trips to Israel for young Jewish adults. Steinhardt is a hedge fund mogul who contributed $850,000 to FDD from 2001 to 2004.

Other notable donors included: Home Depot cofounder Bernard Marcus who contributed $600,000 between 2001 and 2003; mortgage backed securities pioneer Lewis Ranieri contributed $350,000 between 2002 and 2004; and Ameriquest owner, and Bush administration ambassador to the Netherlands from 2006 to 2008, Roland Arnall contributed $1,802,000 between 2003 and 2004.

Other notable, but less generous, donors included: media mogul and Democratic Party donor Haim Saban, a surprising donor considering FDD’s Republican bent and Clifford May’s former role as an RNC spokesperson; The Israel Project director Jennifer Mizrahi; and Dalck Feith, father of former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith.

July 19, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Gaza condemns Israel’s interception of Dignity as act of ‘piracy’

Palestine Information Center – 19/07/2011

GAZA — The government in Gaza has expressed strong condemnation after Israeli naval forces surrounded the lone vessel that slipped past Greece’s Gaza flotilla ban, calling the move a ”new Zionist maritime piracy”, and placing some of the blame on the United Nations.

Three naval ships have intercepted the French yacht, dubbed Dignite – Al-Karama, and towed it into Israel’s Ashdod port with 16 activists and several journalists on board.

Tahir al-Nunu, a spokesman for the government in Gaza, has told the AFP that the UN must take some of the responsibility as it has yet to take sanctions against Israel over its lethal attack on the Mavi Marmara ship that joined the first Freedom Flotilla last year, which has emboldened Israel into continuing the same ”illegal and aggressive approach”.

Israeli soldiers intercepted the first Freedom Flotilla in late May 2010 and attacked the Mavi Marmara ship, killing nine and injuring many on board.

Nunu called on the international community to take a ”a clear position”.

He wondered: ”Is the Gaza siege legal and moral or not? The answer is certainly that it is neither legal nor moral.”

He said the matter calls for ”a serious stand against Israel, away from political hypocrisy and double standards”.

July 19, 2011 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

German government to subsidize sale of sixth submarine for Israel

IRNA | July 17, 2011

Berlin — German tax payers are to foot part of the bill for the highly controversial sale of a sixth submarine to Israel, the Hamburg-based news magazine Der Spiegel said in a report on Sunday.

The German government is to allocate 135 million euros from next year’s defense budget to pay for the Dolphin-class submarine, estimated to cost around 500 million euros.

The deal was apparently sealed during the latest Israel visit of German Defense Minister Thomas de Maziere.

Germany is already paying one-third of the one billion euro price tag for the fourth and fifth Dolphin submarine which are currently still being built for Israel.

Berlin subsidized also the first three submarines which it delivered to Israel in 1999 and 2000, having paid around 550 million euros (1.1 million D-Mark).

Germany has played a major role in arming the Israeli navy over the past 12 years.

The German government has kept silent on its military deals with the Zionist regime, refusing to reveal any details of the contract.

A hardline supporter of Israel, Germany, has become a major arms supplier of the illegal Jewish state despite a constitutional ban to send arms to crisis regions.

There are no official statistics available on the sale of German weapons to Israel as almost all arms exports to the Zionist regime are shrouded in extreme secrecy.

German arms deliveries to Israel between 1998 and 2001 reached reportedly around 900 million US dollars.

July 17, 2011 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Who might be wrongfully accusing ISI of killing journalist?

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | July 13, 2011

Writing in The National Interest, John R. Schmidt expresses some much-needed scepticism regarding the allegations that Pakistan’s military intelligence service was responsible for the murder of Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad:

If ISI was responsible for murdering Shahzad, it may well have been a first. … But why would ISI choose Shahzad as its first victim? He was not a big-name journalist, nor was he among those who raised embarrassing questions about ISI and the army over the Abbottabad raid on bin Laden. His Karachi-naval-base story did not accuse ISI of improper conduct, and it is not clear why it would have killed him over a story that, if it embarrassed anyone, would have embarrassed the Pakistani Navy, a relatively minor player in the nation’s military firmament. […]

But the fact remains that senior U.S. officials told the New York Times they had “reliable and conclusive” intelligence that ISI was responsible.

Schmidt might have asked who those “senior U.S. officials” are, and whether they might also have a motive for discrediting the ISI. As Justin Raimondo pointed out in a recent Antiwar.com piece,

While keeping the heat on for a direct attack on Iran, the powerful pro-Israel lobby — the driving force behind the anti-Iran crowd — is biding its time, confident they’ll win in the end. In the meantime, they are carefully building up momentum for the final push toward war, and a key part of that is agitating for a complete break in US-Pakistan relations.

The Lobby’s fingerprints are all over the latest anti-Pakistani agitprop. It was one Simon Henderson, described as the resident “expert” on Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), who recently released an alleged letter from a top official of the North Korean regime “proving” Pakistan supplied Pyongyang with nuclear technology. WINEP was founded by Martin Indyk, former research director of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as an “academic” adjunct to AIPAC, the primary conduit of pro-Israel propaganda in the US.

Considering such efforts by the Israel lobby to undermine US-Pakistan relations, isn’t it highly probable that the senior U.S. officials attempting to discredit the ISI also have close ties to Israel? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that the New York Times has served as a conduit for “reliable and conclusive” intelligence from American officials with questionable loyalties that turned out to be false. If Pakistan is to avoid the fate of Iraq, it had better identify clearly the source of its rapidly deteriorating relationship with a United States that has proven itself prone to self-destructive deception from that same source — and take action accordingly.

July 14, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Many Still Question Megrahi Conviction in Bombing of Pan Am 103

By Andrew I. Killgore | Washington Report | July 2011

Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basil Ali al-Megrahi was convicted on Jan. 31, 2001 of destroying Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988, killing the plane’s 259 passengers, including 179 Americans, and 11 people on the ground. Megrahi was tried under Scottish law by Scottish judges in a special court sitting at Camp Zeist, a former American military base in The Netherlands.

As readers of the Washington Report are aware, the American media coverage of the Lockerbie trial was very thin, despite the heavy loss of American lives. There seems to be a determined silence about even the existence of an organization called “Justice for Megrahi,” whose members include (full disclosure) this writer and several distinguished Britons, including Dr. Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the crash, and Dr. Robert Black, former professor of criminal law at Edinburgh University and creator of the idea of trying Megrahi and his co-defendant, Lamen Fhimah, in The Netherlands under Scottish law.

The revolution in Libya, and particularly the defection to Britain of former Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, has stirred some peripheral interest in Lockerbie. Before he became foreign minister, Koussa was head of Libyan intelligence, and close to Muammar al-Qaddafi. He would know what was in Qaddafi’s mind when he agreed to turn over Megrahi and Fhimah for trial. Was it because the Libyan leader thought the two men were guilty, or because he knew he was obliged to do so to gain sufficient Western approval for the development of his country, including increased oil production?

The April 9 Washington Post ran an article saying that Scottish officials had “met” with Koussa, who they think may have crucial information about Lockerbie. According to the article, “Prosecutors said that they would offer no additional details of their conversations with Koussa.” Just what did Koussa tell them, and why is no more information about the meeting forthcoming?

So far as this writer has seen, no American newspaper has mentioned that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled that Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice—a finding that presumably remains valid despite Megrahi’s release from prison on compassionate grounds. Yet, the Washington Post article writes that “the case remains open despite Megreahi’s conviction.”

The heavy lethargy of the American media on Lockerbie includes no word that many outstanding Britons who lost relatives or friends in the Lockerbie crash do not believe that Megrahi is guilty. If members of “Justice for Megrahi,” who obviously think he is not guilty, could possibly arrange a discussion with Moussa, it could clear up a lot of questions. Depending on Koussa’s answers, it could reopen the question of who really bombed Pan Am 103.

Andrew I. Killgore is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

July 11, 2011 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Multi-Billion-Dollar Terrorists and the Disappearing Middle Class

By James Petras | July 7, 2011

The US government (White House and Congress) spends $10 billion dollars a month, or $120 billion a year, to fight an estimated “50 -75 ‘Al Qaeda types’ in Afghanistan”, according to the CIA and quoted in the Financial Times of London (6/25 -26/11, p. 5). During the past 30 months of the Obama presidency, Washington has spent $300 billion dollars in Afghanistan, which adds up to $4 billion dollars for each alleged ‘Al Queda type’. If we multiply this by the two dozen or so sites and countries where the White House claims ‘Al Qaeda’ terrorists have been spotted, we begin to understand why the US budget deficit has grown astronomically to over $1.6 trillion for the current fiscal year.

During Obama’s Presidency, Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment has been frozen, resulting in a net decrease of over 8 percent, which is exactly the amount spent chasing just 5 dozen ‘Al Qaeda terrorists’ in the mountains bordering Pakistan.

It is absurd to believe that the Pentagon and White House would spend $10 billion a month just to hunt down a handful of terrorists ensconced in the mountains of Afghanistan. So what is the war in Afghanistan about? The answer one most frequently reads and hears is that the war is really against the Taliban, a mass-based Islamic nationalist guerrilla movement with tens of thousands of activists. The Taliban, however, have never engaged in any terrorist act against the territorial United States or its overseas presence. The Taliban have always maintained their fight was for the expulsion of foreign forces occupying Afghanistan. Hence the Taliban is not part of any “international terrorist network”.

If the US war in Afghanistan is not about defeating terrorism, then why the massive expenditure of funds and manpower for over a decade? Several hypotheses come to mind:

The first is the geopolitics of Afghanistan: The US is actively establishing forward military bases, surrounding and bordering on China.

Secondly, US bases in Afghanistan serve as launching pads to foment “dissident separatist” armed ethnic conflicts and apply the tactics of ‘divide and conquer’ against Iran, China, Russia and Central Asian republics.

Thirdly, Washington’s launch of the Afghan war (2001) and the easy initial conquest encouraged the Pentagon to believe that a low cost, easy military victory was at hand, one that could enhance the image of the US as an invincible power, capable of imposing its rule anywhere in the world, unlike the disastrous experience of the USSR.

Fourthly, the early success of the Afghan war was seen as a prelude to the launching of a sequence of successful wars, first against Iraq and to be followed by Iran, Syria and beyond. These would serve the triple purpose of enhancing Israeli regional power, controlling strategic oil resources and enlarging the arc of US military bases from South and Central Asia, through the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.

The strategic policies, formulated by the militarists and Zionists in the Bush and Obama Administrations, assumed that guns, money, force and bribes could build stable satellite states firmly within the orbit of the post-Soviet US empire. Afghanistan was seen as an easy first conquest the initial step to sequential wars. Each victory, it was assumed would undermine domestic and allied (European) opposition. The initial costs of imperial war, the Neo-Cons claimed, would be paid for by wealth extracted from the conquered countries, especially from the oil producing regions.

The rapid US defeat of the Taliban government confirmed the belief of the military strategists that “backward”, lightly armed Islamic peoples were no match up for the US powerhouse and its astute leaders.

Wrong Assumptions, Mistaken Strategies: The Trillion Dollar Disaster

Every assumption, formulated by these civilian strategists and their military counterparts, has been proven wrong. Al Qaeda was and is a marginal adversary; the real force capable of sustaining a prolonged peoples war against an imperial occupier, inflicting heavy casualties, undermining any local puppet regime and accumulating mass support is the Taliban and related nationalist resistance movements. Israeli-influenced US think-tanks, experts and advisers who portrayed the Islamic adversaries as inept, ineffective and cowardly, totally misread the Afghan resistance. Blinded by ideological antipathy, these high-ranking advisers and White House/Pentagon civilian-office holders failed to recognize the tactical and strategic, political and military acumen of the top and middle-level Islamist nationalist leaders and their tremendous reserve of mass support in neighboring Pakistan and beyond.

The Obama White House, heavily dependent on Islamophobic pro-Israel experts, further isolated the US troops and alienated the Afghan population by tripling the number of troops, further establishing the credentials of the Taliban as the authentic alternative to a foreign occupation.

As for the neo-conservative pipe dreams of successful sequential wars, cooked up by the likes of Paul Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams, Libby et al, to eliminate Israel’s adversaries and turn the Persian Gulf into a Hebrew lake, the prolonged wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have, in fact, strengthened Iran’s regional influence, turned the entire Pakistani people against the US and strengthened mass movements against US clients throughout the Middle East.

Sequential imperial defeats have resulted in a massive hemorrhage of the US treasury, rather than the promised flood of oil wealth from tributary clients. According to a recent scholarly study, the military cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have exceeded $3.2 trillion dollars (“The Costs of War Since 2001”, Eisenhower Study Group, June 2011) and is growing at over ten billion a month. Meanwhile the Taliban “tightens (its) psychological grip” on Afghanistan (FT 6/30/2011, p. 8). According to the latest reports even the most guarded 5-star hotel in the center of Kabul, the Intercontinental, was vulnerable to a sustained assault and take over by militants, because “high security Afghan forces” are infiltrated and the Taliban operate everywhere, having established “shadow” governments in most cities, towns and villages (FT 6/30/11 p.8).

Imperial Decline, Empty Treasury and the Specter of a Smash-Up

The crumbling empire has depleted the US treasury. As the Congress and White House fight over raising the debt ceiling, the cost of war aggressively erodes any possibility of maintaining stable living standards for the American middle and working classes and heightens growing inequalities between the top 1% and the rest of the American people. Imperial wars are based on the pillage of the US treasury. The imperial state has, via extraordinary tax exemptions, concentrated wealth in the hands of the super-rich while the middle and working classes have been pushed downward, as only low paid jobs are available.

In 1974, the top 1% of US individuals accounted for 8% of total national income but as of 2008 they earned 18% of national income. And most of this 18% is concentrated in the hands of a tiny super-rich 1% of that 1%, or 0.01% of the American population, (FT 6/28/11, p. 4 and 6/30/11, p. 6). While the super-rich plunder the treasury and intensify the exploitation of labor, the number of middle income jobs is plunging: From 1993 to 2006, over 7% of middle income jobs disappeared (FT 6/30/11, p. 4). While inequalities may be rising throughout the world, the US now has the greatest inequalities among all the leading capitalist countries.

The burden of sustaining a declining empire, with its the monstrous growth in military spending, has fallen disproportionately on middle and working class taxpayers and wage earners. The military and financial elites’ pillage of the economy and treasury has set in motion a steep decline in living standards, income and job opportunities. Between 1970 -2009, while gross domestic product more than doubled, US median pay stagnated in real terms (FT 7/28/11, p. 4). If we factor in the added fixed costs of pensions, health and education, real income for wage and salaried workers, especially since the 1990’s, has been declining sharply.

Even greater blows are to come in the second half 2011: As the Obama White House expands its imperial interventions in Pakistan, Libya and Yemen, increasing military and police-state spending, Obama is set to reach budgetary agreements with the far right Republicans, which will savage government health care programs, like MEDICARE and MEDICAID, as well as Social Security, the national retirement program. Prolonged wars have pushed the budget to the breaking point, while the deficit undermines any capacity to revive the economy as it heads toward a ‘repeat recession’.

The entire political establishment is bizarrely oblivious to the fact that their multi-hundred- billion-dollar pursuit of an estimated 50-75 phantom Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan has hastened the disappearance of middle income jobs in the US. The entire political spectrum has turned decisively to the Right and the Far-Right. The debate between Democrats and Republicans is over whether to slash four trillion or more from the last remnants of our country’s social programs. The Democrats and the Far-Right are united as they pursue multiple wars while currying favor and funds from upper 0.01% super-rich, financial and real estate moguls whose wealth has grown so dramatically during the crisis!

Conclusion

But there is a deep and quiet discomfort within the leading circles of the Obama regime: The “best and brightest” among his top officials are scampering to jump ship before the coming deluge: the Economic Guru Larry Summers, Rahm Emmanuel, Stuart Levey, Peter Orzag, Bob Gates, Tim Geithner and others, responsible for the disastrous wars, economic catastrophes, the gross concentration of wealth and the savaging of our living standards, have walked out or have announced their ‘retirement’, leaving it to the smiling con-men – President Obama and Vice-President ‘Joe’ Biden – and their ‘last and clueless loyalists’ to take the blame when the economy tanks and our social programs are wiped out. How else can we explain their less-than-courageous departures (to ‘spend more time with the family’) in the face of such a deepening crisis?

The hasty retreat of these top officials is motivated by their desire to avoid political responsibility and to escape history’s indictment for their role in the impending economic debacle. They are eager to hide from a future judgment over which policy makers and leaders and what policies led to the destruction of the American middle and working classes with their good jobs, stable pensions, Social Security, decent health care and respected place in the world.

July 10, 2011 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Extending the House of Freedom — From the Middle East to the former Soviet Union

By Maidhc Ó Cathail – The Passionate Attachment – July 10, 2011

Not content with having helped in no small way in bringing “freedom” to much of the Arab world during the “revolutionary” spring of 2011, Freedom House is now setting its sights on what it sees as another “Outpost of Tyranny” — the former Soviet Union. In a Foreign Policy op-ed piece, its president David J. Kramer and director of studies Christopher Walker argue:

While the collapse of the authoritarian regimes of the former Soviet Union may not be imminent, it is clear that they suffer from many of the same grave flaws that led to this year’s Arab revolts. Lacking established succession mechanisms and leaning heavily on informal, personality-based patronage networks, they are inherently unstable. Ultimately, the former Soviet states that are currently languishing under autocratic rule must confront, or be confronted by, the myriad problems they have left unresolved.

The transatlantic democracies, therefore, have a clear strategic interest in helping reforms occur sooner rather than later and under more orderly circumstances. A more peaceful, sustainable transition is more likely when it can be negotiated between the regime, the opposition and civil society than when it takes place under crisis conditions, when crowds are already massing on the streets.

David J. Kramer, who preceded Michael Posner as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, was a senior fellow at the neoconservative Project for the New American Century. He is currently on the advisory council of the “Iran Strategy Task Force” — a joint initiative of Freedom House and the Progressive Policy Institute. “The dominant issues in the Middle East are democracy and freedom. The Iran regime thinks that it can escape demands for change,” says one of its co-chairs. “The United States, and its allies, therefore need a strategy that will help Iranians attain the human rights they so richly deserve.”

One would hope that few human rights activists in the targeted countries would be taken in by such rhetoric. However, Freedom House’s successful wooing of the future “Arab Spring” protestors doesn’t bode well for the regimes in Iran and the former Soviet Union.

According to a New York Times report titled “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” some Egyptian activists baulked at taking money and training from a U.S. government-funded organization whose freedom-loving board of trustees includes such pro-Israel stalwarts as Thomas Dine, Max Kampelman, Kenneth Adelman, Paula Dobriansky and Joshua Muravchik:

Affiliating themselves with the American organizations may have tainted leaders within their own groups. According to one diplomatic cable, leaders of the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt told the American Embassy in 2009 that some members of the group had accused Ahmed Maher, a leader of the January uprising, and other leaders of “treason” in a mock trial related to their association with Freedom House, which more militant members of the movement described as a “Zionist organization.”

A prominent blogger, according to a cable, threatened to post the information about the movement leaders’ links to Freedom House on his blog.

There is no evidence that this ever happened, and a later cable shows that the group ousted the members who were complaining about Mr. Maher and other leaders.

Interesting also that Foreign Policy, which has Steve Walt as one of its bloggers, is now giving the staunchly pro-Israel Freedom House a platform to advocate for regime change in countries such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Talk about skewing foreign policy “while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.”

July 10, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

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