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‘Progressive’ advocate for notorious Israeli spy urges U.S. to use fake ‘Iran terror’ plot to strengthen sanctions

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | October 31, 2011

In his testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management hearing on “Iranian Terror Operations on American Soil,” Lawrence J. Korb counselled against military action, recommending instead that

The Obama administration should use the Iranian plot to convince our allies to recommit themselves to enforcing the current sanctions on Iran. This plot provides evidence of continued hostile Iranian behavior, evidence that should be used to bolster the international coalition against Iran.

Moreover, the United States should strengthen its own sanctions regime and press for stronger international sanctions that can garner the support of our allies in this coalition. The sanctions on Iran draw legitimacy from the fact that they have been approved by the United Nations and even involve some of Iran’s former allies, such as Russia and China. Maintaining the support of this robust coalition should be one of the primary goals of the U.S. response.

Simultaneously, the United States should continue its efforts to engage with the Iranian government. As Adm. Michael Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted last month, “even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had links to the Soviet Union. We are not talking to Iran, so we don’t understand each other.” Talking to Iran promotes stability in the U.S.-Iranian relationship and, to the greatest extent possible, denies the Iranian government the ability to use the specter of “evil America” as a means of unifying the Iranian people.

Concluding by saying that “Iranian aggression toward the United States cannot be tolerated,” the Center for American Progress senior fellow advised the Congressional hearing that “it is important that the U.S. response to the Iranian plot furthers our long-term goals: deterring Iranian aggression and protecting U.S. national security.”

Korb’s stated concerns for American national security, however, have to be weighed against the two decades the former assistant secretary of defense in Ronald Reagan’s administration has devoted to working for the release of Jonathan Pollard, the Israeli spy who “did more damage to the United States than any spy in history.” In a January 12 Foreign Policy op-ed, Korb revealed his role in Israel’s latest attempt to free Pollard:

On Jan. 4, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood in front of the Knesset to read a letter that he had sent to the president of the United States, calling for the release of Jonathan Pollard. The Israeli leader admitted that Pollard, a former U.S. naval intelligence analyst serving a life sentence for espionage, “was acting as an agent of the Israeli government.” He nevertheless contended that Pollard’s 25 years in prison represented a sufficient punishment for his crimes and pointed to the support of a number of former U.S. officials and congressmen for clemency.

Netanyahu’s request did not come as a surprise to me. On Dec. 20, 2010, after speaking to the Knesset, I met with the prime minister and urged him to go public with his request. Unless he did so, I argued, the issue would not gain the traction it needed. I also pointed out to him that he needed to publicly apologize and pledge to never again recruit Americans to spy against their country, which would allow supporters of Pollard’s release to respond effectively to the argument that the Pollard case was business as usual for Israel.

Dismissing the concerns of U.S intelligence professionals and prosecutors, Korb cited Netanyahu’s letter, which noted that the United States is “based on fairness, justice, and mercy,” and urged Obama to commute Pollard’s sentence. “It is the right thing to do,” he said.

The Center for American Progress, where Korb is a senior fellow, is funded by major individual donors such as George Soros, Peter Lewis, Steve Bing, and Herb and Marion Sandler. In a February 18 interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Soros confidently asserted, “I would like to bet that the Iranian regime will not be there in a year’s time.”

October 31, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Romney: U.S. ‘Should Not Play The Role Of Leader’ In Mid-East Peace, ‘Follow’ Israel Instead

By Ben Armbruster | Think Progress |  October 28, 2011

If Mitt Romney becomes president, there are a lot of important foreign policy decisions that he’d leave up to others. Most notably, Romney often says that whatever the generals decide, that’s the course he’ll take in Afghanistan (although he backtracked on that stance when pressed recently).

Now it seems that a President Romney will allow the Israeli government to decide American policy toward that country. The free daily newspaper Israel Hayom — a media outlet closely associated with right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — asked Romney if, as president, he would ever consider moving the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In his answer, Romney made some astonishing claims. First, that his policy toward Israel will be guided by Israeli leaders; second, on the Jerusalem issue, he’d do whatever Israel tells him to do; and third, he does not think the United States should take a leadership role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

ROMNEY: The actions that I will take will be actions recommended and supported by Israeli leaders. I don’t seek to take actions independent of what our allies think is best, and if Israel’s leaders thought that a move of that nature would be helpful to their efforts, then that’s something I’ll be inclined to do. But again, that’s a decision which I would look to the Israeli leadership to help guide. I don’t think America should play the role of the leader of the peace process, instead we should stand by our ally. Again, my inclination is to follow the guidance of our ally Israel, as to where our facilities and embassies would exist.

The policy that the American Embassy reside in Tel Aviv and not Jerusalem pre-dates the current administration. In fact, as Lara Friedman notes at Americans for Peace Now, the U.S. “does not recognize the sovereignty of any party in any part of Jerusalem (East or West)” and it’s “a policy that dates back to pre-1948, and has been followed by every U.S. Administration since, regardless of the President or party in the White House.”

In 1995, Congress passed a law allowing funding for the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, but the law includes an executive waiver allowing the president to invoke national security interests to block such a move. Every U.S. president since the law passed, Clinton, Obama and Bush, has invoked that waiver.

In an email to ThinkProgress, Jerusalem expert Daniel Seidemann laid out the consequences should Romney follow through on his pledge:

Were an American President be actually so irresponsible as to move the US embassy to Jerusalem outside of the context of a comprehensive permanent status agreement, such a President would contribute nothing to legitimizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Instead he would be following Israel into abject isolation, and the United States into an weakened and marginal regional and global role.

Mitt Romney the candidate falls short of making that irresponsible undertaking, and one would hope that if elected President he would find less devastating ways of protecting the US interest and aiding Israel to arrive at a conflict-ending agreement.

But it might also come as a surprise to some that Romney not only wants Israel to dictate U.S. policy, but that he does not want the United States to lead the peace process. Out on the campaign trail, Romney regularly says Obama “has thrown Israel under the bus.” But perhaps now we know who Romney thinks should be driving it.

October 29, 2011 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Hamas slams US congress moves to add freed detainees to terrorism list

Palestine Information Center – 29/10/2011

GAZA — The Hamas Movement strongly denounced some US congressmen for their call to include Palestinian ex-detainees, who were released as part of the recent swap deal with Israel, on the white house’s list of terrorism.

In a press statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC) on Saturday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum condemned this call as explicit incitement to murder and a green light for the Israeli occupation state to commit more crimes against the Palestinian people and kill freed prisoners.

The spokesman stated that the US unjust and double-standard policies were always the reason for the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people.

He stressed that the occupied people of Palestine who struggle for freedom always pay the price for the US support for the Zionist terrorism.

The US congress supports terrorism and the murder of women, children and innocent occupied people, and rejects the democracy that has brought Hamas to power, he noted.

The Hamas spokesman appealed to human rights organizations and the world’s free people to stand by the Palestinian freedom prisoners who were released recently and to mobilize worldwide support for them.

October 29, 2011 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

NYT Bureau Chief To Appear On Panel For Islamophobic Organization’s Film

By Eli Clifton | Think Progress | October 26, 2011

The New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief, Ethan Bronner, has stirred up controversy over recent speaking engagements. But an announcement on the 92nd St. Y’s website shows that Bronner is now scheduled to appear on a panel hosted by the Clarion Fund, an Islamophobic organization, to discuss the “threat of a nuclear Iran.”

The invitation, as it appears on the Clarion Fund’s website, reads:

On Monday, November 7, 2011, at 7:30 PM, the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, NY will host a panel discussion about the threat of a nuclear Iran, interspersed with clips from the award-winning documentary Iranium. The panel will be moderated by the film’s director, Alex Traiman, and will be simultaneously broadcasted in over 20 communities throughout the U.S. (details below).

Panelists include:

John R. Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Ethan Bronner, Jerusalem Bureau Chief, The New York Times
Nazie Eftekhari, Director, Iran Democratic Union
Richard Green, Executive Director, Clarion Fund
Richard Perle, former Chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Bush administration

Click HERE for details and to order tickets.

Bronner and the 92nd Street Y are free to associate themselves with whatever organizations they choose. But the fact that the Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief is lending his name to a Clarion Fund event, and the promotion of a film which advocates for military action against Iran, raises further questions about Bronner’s growing record of engaging in activities which could produce the appearance of a conflict of interest or undermine the impartiality of his reporting.

The Clarion Fund, which was profiled in the Center for American Progress’ Islamophobia report, “Fear, Inc.,” distributed the inflammatory anti-Muslim documentary Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against The West to 28 million swing state voters before the 2008 presidential election. Clarion is closely tied to Aish Hatorah, an evangelist, far-right, Israeli ultra-orthodox organization. Traiman, Iranium’s director and the moderator of the panel on which Bronner will appear, has close ties the Israeli far-right and lives in an ideological West Bank settlement.

Iranium, makes the case for attacking Iran and promotes an official U.S. policy of regime change. The film, much like the other documentaries produced by Clarion, portrays a clash of civilizations, promotes the view that Muslims value death over life and suggests that irrational hatred of Israeli and anti-Semitism is the only explanation for the frustration expressed by Muslim countries against the U.S.

~

Max Blumenthal adds:

By agreeing to speak at the Islamophobic Clarion Fund’s 92nd Street Y event on November 7 beside neoconservative Richard Perle and uber-hawk John Bolton, Ethan Bronner is explicitly violating New York Times ethical guidelines. After I published my report about Bronner’s unethical business arrangement with a right-wing Israeli public relations firm, the Times‘ Standards Editor Phil Corbett sent out a memo to the entire Times staff reminding them about the paper’s guidelines for speaking engagements. A staffer leaked the memo to Gawker. It included the following stipulations, which Bronner is clearly violating:

Speaking fees are generally not allowed from companies, lobbying groups or other sources that might raise questions about our impartiality.

— Even if an engagement does not involve a fee, we should avoid situations that would create an appearance of favoritism or suggest too close a relationship between a Times journalist and the people or institutions we cover.

 

October 27, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Libyan League for Human Rights General-Secretary’s Ties to Pro-Israeli Academic

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | October 21, 2011

As Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya pointed out in “Libya and the Big Lie: Using Human Rights Organizations to Launch Wars,”

One of the main sources for the claim that Qaddafi was killing his own people is the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR). The LLHR was actually pivotal to getting the U.N. involved through its specific claims in Geneva. On February 21, 2011 the LLHR got the 70 other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to sent letters to the President Obama, E.U. High Representative Catherine Ashton., and the U.N. Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon demanding international action against Libya invoking the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine.

According to the Jerusalem Post, however, the 70 “rights groups” were actually organised by UN Watch. UN Watch is affiliated with the American Jewish Committee, a key component of the Israel lobby.

In “Libya and the Big Lie,” Nazemroaya also notes another Israeli connection to the Libyan League for Human Rights. Sliman Bouchuiguir, the General-Secretary of the LLHR, appears to be a protégé of an influential American pro-Israeli academic:

Sliman Bouchuguir is an unheard of figure for most, but he has authored a doctoral thesis that has been widely quoted and used in strategic circles in the United States. This thesis was published in 1979 as a book, The Use of Oil as a Political Weapon: A Case Study of the 1973 Arab oil Embargo. The thesis is about the use of oil as an economic weapon by Arabs, but can easily be applied to the Russians, the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and others. It examines economic development and economic warfare and can also be applied to vast regions, including all of Africa.

Bouchuguir’s analytical thesis reflects an important line of thinking in Washington, as well as London and Tel Aviv. It is both the embodiment of a pre-existing mentality, which includes U.S. National Security Advisor George F. Kennan’s arguments for maintaining a position of disparity through a constant multi-faced war between the U.S. and its allies on one hand and the rest of the world on the other hand. The thesis can be drawn on for preventing the Arabs, or others, from becoming economic powers or threats. In strategic terms rival economies are pinned as threats and as “weapons.” This has serious connotations.

Moreover, Bouchuiguir did his thesis at George Washington University under Bernard Reich. Reich is a political scientist and professor of international relations. He has worked and held positions at places like the U.S. Defense Intelligence College, the United States Air Force Special Operations School, the Marine Corps War College, and the Shiloah Center at Tel Aviv University. He has consulted on the Middle East for the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. State Department and received grants such as the Defense Academic Research Support Program Research grant and the German Marshal Fund Grant. Reich also was or is presently on the editorial boards of journals such as Israel Affairs (1994-present), Terrorism: An International Journal (1987-1994), and The New Middle East (1971-1973).

It is also clear that Reich is tied to Israeli interests. He has even written a book about the special relationship between the U.S and Israel. He has also been an advocate for a “New Middle East” which would be favourable to Israel. This includes careful consideration over North Africa. His work has also focused on the important strategic interface between the Soviet Union and the Middle East and also on Israeli policy in the continent of Africa.

It is clear why Bouchuiguir has his thesis supervised under Reich. On October 23, 1973, Reich gave a testimony at the U.S. Congress. The testimony has been named “The Impact of the October Middle East War” and is clearly tied to the 1973 oil embargo and Washington’s aim of pre-empting or managing any similar events in the future. It has to be asked, how much did Reich influence Bouchuiguir and if Bouchuiguir espouses the same strategic views as Reich?

October 21, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Provoking a Path to Persia

The Saban Center’s prescient paper on war with Iran

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | October 20, 2011

In June 2009, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy published “Which Path to Persia?—Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran.” Writing in a tone strikingly reminiscent of the Project for a New American Century’s infamous pre-9/11 paper “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” the six co-authors noted that, “It seems highly unlikely that the United States would mount an invasion without any provocation or other buildup.” For a think tank specifically established by media mogul Haim Saban to protect Israel, this could prove to be a formidable obstacle impeding their desired march—of U.S. troops—to Tehran.

“In fact, if the United States were to decide that to garner greater international support, galvanize U.S. domestic support, and/or provide a legal justification for an invasion, it would be best to wait for an Iranian provocation, then the time frame for an invasion might stretch out indefinitely,” Saban’s think-tankers ruefully observed.

“With only one real exception, since the 1978 revolution, the Islamic Republic has never willingly provoked an American military response, although it certainly has taken actions that could have done so if Washington had been looking for a fight. Thus it is not impossible that Tehran might take some action that would justify an American invasion. And it is certainly the case that if Washington sought such a provocation, it could take actions that might make it more likely that Tehran would do so (although being too obvious about this could nullify the provocation). However, since it would be up to Iran to make the provocative move, which Iran has been wary of doing most times in the past, the United States would never know for sure when it would get the requisite Iranian provocation. In fact, it might never come at all.”

Seemingly undeterred by Iran’s frustrating unwillingness to provide the requisite provocation, the analysts continued to examine this option:

“As noted above, in the section on the time frame for an invasion, whether the United States decides to invade Iran with or without a provocation is a critical consideration. With provocation, the international diplomatic and domestic political requirements of an invasion would be mitigated, and the more outrageous the Iranian provocation (and the less that the United States is seen to be goading Iran), the more these challenges would be diminished. In the absence of a sufficiently horrific provocation, meeting these requirements would be daunting.”

Ruling out the likelihood of “an overt, incontrovertible, and unforgivable act of aggression—something on the order of an Iranian-backed 9/11 … given Iran’s history of avoiding such acts,” the authors went on to explore where “the question of provocation gets murky.”

“Most European, Asian, and Middle Eastern publics are dead set against any American military action against Iran derived from the current differences between Iran and the international community—let alone Iran and the United States,” they wistfully noted. “Other than a Tehran-sponsored 9/11, it is hard to imagine what would change their minds.”

Even Iran’s long-time Sunni rival in the region appeared recalcitrant to the idea. “Saudi Arabia is positively apoplectic about the Iranians’ nuclear program, as well as about their mischief making in Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories,” the pro-Israeli analysts empathised. “Yet, so far, Riyadh has made clear that it will not support military operations of any kind against Iran. Certainly that could change, but it is hard to imagine what it would take.”

Would a dastardly plot to blow up King Abdullah’s “hand-picked, trusted envoy” in a D.C. restaurant suffice, perchance?

At least, the lead author of “Which Path to Persia?” seems to think so. On October 11, Kenneth Pollack opined on “Iran’s Covert War Against the United States”: “It’s shocking, but not entirely surprising to learn that the United States government has evidence that the Iranian regime was trying to kill Saudi Ambassador to the United States Adel al-Jubeir.”

Posing as a responsible sceptic regarding the ludicrous plot, Pollack concluded that the ultra-cautious regime he analysed for the Saban Center two years previously—relevant information not provided to the reader—may have changed for the worse: “But, if this incredible claim is proven true, it should remind us that Iran also is not a normal country by any stretch of the imagination, and that in a Middle East already in turmoil we now face a more aggressive, more risk-taking Iran that may be looking to stir the pot in ways that it once found imprudent.”

As Stephen M. Walt remarked about an earlier Tehran-baiting paper by the Saban Center director, “It is hard to read this piece without hearkening back to Pollack’s The Threatening Storm, the book that convinced many liberals to support the invasion of Iraq in 2003. What made that book especially persuasive was Pollack’s depiction of himself as a former dove who had oh-so-reluctantly concluded that there was no option but to go to war.”

Interestingly, The Daily Beast/Newsweek which published Pollack’s op-ed is partly owned by Jane Harman, whose service in Congress reportedly included a quid pro quo with an Israeli agent, involving political donations from billionaire Haim Saban, to lobby the Department of Justice to reduce espionage charges against two officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Pollack, a former member of the National Security Council, was mentioned in the indictment against Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman as one of the government officials who provided information to the two former AIPAC employees about—you guessed it—Iran.

When asked “who would want to create the impression” that the United States needs to engage in military activity against Iran, former CIA operative Michael Scheuer replied, “If I was looking at a counterintelligence operation to decide where this information came from, I’d be very interested to see if I could find an Israeli hand or a Saudi hand.”

Thanks to Kenneth Pollack, that search can now be narrowed.

Maidhc Ó Cathail is a political analyst and editor of The Passionate Attachment.

October 19, 2011 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

CrossTalk: Tehran Baiting

RussiaToday on Oct 19, 2011


Washington claims it has uncovered an Iranian plot targeting the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. with assassination. However, the known facts about this plot go anywhere from the dubious to the outright unbelievable. Who is really behind this plot? That is, if there really was a genuine plot in the first place. And who benefits from seeing U.S.–Iranian relations go from bad to worse?

October 19, 2011 Posted by | Video, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Iran and the Hollywood Script: A Collaborative Effort

By Daniel McAdams on October 16, 2011

According to FBI director Robert Muller, the latest FBI-created-and-miraculously-defeated terror threat — this time straight out of Iran and straight from the top — was something “straight out of a Hollywood script.” Well, he should know so we’ll take him at his word.

Although the same neocons who are probably writing these Hollywood scripts are screaming “this means war!!”, we cannot help but wonder just how deep is the manipulation of our media and our government by shadow forces both foreign and domestic pushing us covertly toward another war.

Considering the latest news out of the UK, where the male partner of recently-departed-in-scandal Defense Secretary Liam Fox is revealed to have been working covertly with the Mossad to overthrow the Iranian government, these speculations should no longer be written off as the conspiratorial thinking of feverish minds.

Disgraced Secretary Fox had been jet-setting all over the world with his “best man,” Adam Werritty, in tow; Werrittty passed himself off as Fox’s de facto chief of staff, and it is in this capacity that he has been engaged over the past several years covertly bumping up the Iranian “opposition” — the same Green Movement that some of us were attacked for suggesting had a very, umm, Western flavor — and attempting to overthrow the Iranian regime.

Just the outlandish suggestion that a booze-addled Iranian immigrant used car salesman was plotting to have the Saudi ambassador assassinated was enough to have the media, ThinkTankistan, and the Left/Right interventionists screaming that an “act of war” had been committed by Iran and demanding an invasion. Yet why is it never an act of war when Western spooks go into Iran in a blatant attempt to overthrow its government and foment phony “Green Revolutions” where scores are killed?

With the Fox scandal breaking big in the UK, it is increasingly obvious that these scripts written to bring the US and its allies to a disastrous war on Iran are more of a collaborative effort, perhaps Hollywood, Langley, and Tel Aviv.

October 18, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Conduit for Saddam’s 45-min WMD threat and 9/11-Iraqi links calls ‘diabolical Iranian plot’ a ‘wake-up call’ for Obama

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | October 17, 2011

Sounding like he’s transcribing an Israeli Foreign Ministry press release, the Telegraph’s executive foreign editor Con Coughlin writes:

Such drastic action is unlikely now that the plot, which was ordered by terrorists working for the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force, has been uncovered, but it should serve as a wake-up call to President Obama as to where the real threat to American interests in the Middle East lies.

For much of his presidency Mr Obama has sought to pursue a policy of reconciliation with Iran, in the hope that the regime can be persuaded to renounce its illegal nuclear programme. And this is the thanks he gets – a plot to carry out terrorist attacks on the American mainland. The president should accept that Iran is a sworn enemy of the US – and act accordingly.

Readers of the British daily won’t be surprised that Coughlin is taking the supposedly “diabolical Iranian plot” seriously. He has quite a record. In a 2007 analysis of 44 articles written by Coughlin on Iran, the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) found that his “sources were unnamed or untraceable, often senior Western intelligence officials or senior Foreign Office officials” and that his “articles were published at sensitive and delicate times where there had been relatively positive diplomatic moves towards Iran.” Moreover, they discovered that

Coughlin was none other than the journalist who, with the help of unnamed intelligence sources discovered the fact that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes and unearthed the link between the 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Ata, and the Iraqi intelligence.

Could Coughlin’s penchant for spinning pro-Israel yarns have its origins in his college days? At 18 he won a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford where he read Modern History under the tutelage of the historian Simon Schama, the author of Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel, a study of the Zionist aims of Edmond James de Rothschild and James Armand de Rothschild.

October 17, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

The Libyan “Hit Squad” Hoax

By Andrew I. Killgore | Washington Report | December, 2000

Soon after President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, breathless articles about Libyan “hit [assassination] squads” began to occupy the front page of The Washington Post . For three weeks, Post readers—and the U.S. government—were obsessed with these squads, which reportedly originated in the Middle East, had reached Europe, and were currently in Canada, where they were poised to cross into the United States like a swarm of northern killer bees.

Just how a group of supposed assassins could be so easily tracked made the hit squad story ridiculous on its face. Suddenly, however, heavy concrete barriers surrounded the White House, Capitol Hill and the Department of State—where they remain today.

The hoax began to collapse when The Post assigned names to police-style composite drawings of the “assassins.” Arabic-language specialists recognized the names as those generally used by Shi’i Muslims. As this religious group had reason to dislike Qaddafi at the time, a chorus of doubts arose that the Libyan leader could ever have induced them to work for him.

Suddenly the hit squads disappeared from The Post, never to return. Five years later, a two-line item in The Post told the truth. The item appeared in a story, not about the hit squads, but about the Iran-Contra scandal, the worst foreign policy scandal in U.S. history.

Manucher Ghorbanifar, a small-time Iranian exile working in Washington for Mossad, Israel’s secret intelligence service, confessed in 1986 that he had dreamed up the hit squads. Why? “To hurt Libya, an enemy of Israel.”

October 17, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Liam Fox Is Not a ‘Useful Idiot’

By Gilad Atzmon | October 16, 2011

A rather stinky Israeli espionage mole has just been exposed in Britain. Yesterday, Liam Fox the Defence Secretary resigned following revelations about his dubious relationship with Adam Werritty. Some 17 years younger than Fox, Werrity has been involved with Fox both in business and in the conservative Atlanticist think-tank ‘The Atlantic Bridge’. While Fox was Defence Minister, Werrity visited Fox at the Ministry on many occasions, accompanied Fox on numerous official trips, attended some of his meetings with foreign dignitaries and used official-looking business cards which announced him as an ‘adviser’ to Fox – and all despite having no official government post whatsoever. However, it has now also been revealed that Fox and Werritty were heavily financed by the Israeli lobby and ‘beyond’.

In the The Daily Mail Craig Murray wondered whether Mossad was using both Fox and Werritty as ‘useful idiots’.

“Not only was Werritty being paid to act as an unofficial part of the Defence Secretary’s entourage, the money was coming from people who may have been ready to promote the interests of certain foreign governments, particularly the United States, Israel and Sri Lanka,” writes Murray. “While the United States is a very close ally, its commercial and other interests are not always identical to UK interests. Israel is not a military ally of the UK. There are often tensions between its interests in the Middle East and the UK’s interests, as in the attack on the Gaza Aid convoy which resulted in the death of Turkish citizens. Turkey is an ally of the UK, being a vital member of NATO.”

Murray suggests that “Key funding sources for Werritty were from the Israeli lobby and a rather obscure commercial intelligence agency,” and then wonders, “might Mossad be pulling Werritty’s strings, with or without his knowledge?”

I’m afraid the answer is only too obvious. For a long time I have contended that there are no Jewish conspiracies. Fox and Werritty were not ‘useful idiots’ – individuals who seem to naively support a foreign ideology or thought but in practice are cynically used by a foreign power. They knew exactly what they were doing and who they were aiding. Fox, who In 2006 said, “Israel’s enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together or we will all fall divided.” is a strong supporter of Israel and is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. Fox also supported the illegal war against Iraq, a war regarded by many as just another Israeli war but fought by American and British soldiers and in 2003 he voted for the invasion of Iraq. He also supports action against Iran.

So Fox and Werritty were not naïve. They knew exactly what they were doing and who were their donors. They fully understood their role and willingly did what was required. And I’m just as convinced that PM David Cameron and his cabinet knew exactly what they were doing when they amended Britain’s jurisdiction laws two weeks ago just so visiting Israeli war criminals could enjoy their stay.

But the tide has changed. The duplicity of our elected politicians and their ties with the Jewish lobby is now being closely scrutinized. The time has come for all of us in this country to put as much distance as we can between ourselves and Jerusalem.

October 16, 2011 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Oren: Israel is taking “Iran plot” seriously — But can we take the ambassador seriously?

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | October 15, 201

On October 13, Haaretz’s Natasha Mozgovaya reported on an interview Michael Oren gave to MSNBC, in which the Israeli ambassador to the United States described the ludicrous plot as “definitely an escalation”:

“We know the Iran regime. This is an Iranian regime that has not only sponsored terrorist organizations in our area, Hamas and Hezbollah, that have fired thousands and thousands of rockets at our civilian population, but they’ve struck abroad as well,” Oren said in the interview.

The Israeli ambassador then went on to recount how Iran was responsible for the bombing of the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing over a hundred people.

Contrast Oren’s certainty about Iranian responsibility for the twin terror attacks in Argentina in the early 1990s with what investigative journalist Gareth Porter wrote in 2008 of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish centre:

In an interview last May James Cheek, Clinton’s Ambassador to Argentina at the time of the bombing, told me, “To my knowledge, there was never any real evidence [of Iranian responsibility]. They never came up with anything.” The hottest lead in the case, he recalled, was an Iranian defector named Manoucher Moatamer, who “supposedly had all this information.” But Moatamer turned out to be only a dissatisfied low-ranking official without the knowledge of government decision-making that he had claimed. “We finally decided that he wasn’t credible,” Cheek recalled. Ron Goddard, then deputy chief of the US Mission in Buenos Aires, confirmed Cheek’s account. He recalled that investigators found nothing linking Iran to the bombing. “The whole Iran thing seemed kind of flimsy,” Goddard said.

Are we to believe that the latest plot involving an even more dubious Iranian character — and a second attack on the Israeli embassy in Argentina! — is any less flimsy?

October 15, 2011 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

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