The crowd that gathered in an airplane hangar in the desert roared with excitement when the man on stage vowed to murder women and children.
It was just another Donald Trump campaign event, and the candidate had affirmed his previously made pledge not only to kill terrorists but to “take out” their family members, too. Outrageous as that might sound, it hardly distinguished Trump from most of his Republican rivals, fiercely competing over who will commit the worst war crimes if elected. All the chilling claims about who will preside over more killings of innocents in distant lands — and the thunderous applause that meets such boasts — could easily be taken as evidence that the megalomaniacal billionaire Republican front-runner, his various opponents, and their legions of supporters, are all crazytown.
Yet Trump’s pledge to murder the civilian relatives of terrorists could be considered quite modest — and, in its bluntness, refreshingly candid — when compared to President Obama’s ongoing policy of loosing drones and U.S. Special Operations forces in the Greater Middle East. Those policies, the assassinations that go with them, and the “collateral damage” they regularly cause are based on one premise when it comes to the American public: that we will permanently suspend our capacity for grief and empathy when it comes to the dead (and the living) in distant countries.
Classified documents recently leaked to the Intercept by a whistleblower describe the “killing campaign” carried out by the CIA and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command in Yemen and Somalia. (The U.S. also conducts drone strikes in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya; the leaked documents explain how President Obama has institutionalized the practice of striking outside regions of “active hostilities.”) Intelligence personnel build a case against a terror suspect and then develop what’s termed a “baseball card” — a condensed dossier with a portrait of the individual targeted and the nature of the alleged threat he poses to U.S. interests — that gets sent up the chain of command, eventually landing in the Oval Office. The president then meets with more than 100 representatives of his national security team, generally on a weekly basis, to determine just which of those cards will be selected picked for death. (The New York Times has vividly described this intimate process of choosing assassination targets.)
Orders then make their way down to drone operators somewhere in the United States, thousands of miles from the individuals slated to be killed, who remotely pilot the aircraft to the location and then pull the trigger. But when those drone operators launch missiles on the other side of the world, the terrifying truth is that the U.S. “is often unsure who will die,” as a New York Timesheadline put it.
That’s because intel on a target’s precise whereabouts at any given moment can be faulty. And so, as the Timesreported, “most individuals killed are not on a kill list, and the government does not know their names.” In 2014, for instance, the human-rights group Reprieve, analyzing what limited data on U.S. drone strikes was available, discovered that in attempts to kill 41 terror figures (not all of whom died), 1,147 people were killed. The study found that the vast majority of strikes failed to take down the intended victim, and thus numerous strikes were often attempted on a single target. The Guardianreported that in attempts to take down 24 men in Pakistan — only six of whom were eventually eliminated in successful drone strikes — the U.S. killed an estimated 142 children.
Trump’s plan merely to murder the relatives of terrorists seems practically tame, by comparison.
Their Grief and Mine
Apparently you and I are meant to consider all those accidental killings as mere “collateral damage,” or else we’re not meant to consider them at all. We’re supposed to toggle to the “off” position any sentiment of remorse or compassion that we might feel for all the civilians who die thanks to our country’s homicidal approach to keeping us safe.
I admit to a failing here: when I notice such stories, sometimes buried deep in news reports — including the 30 people killed, three of them children, when U.S. airpower “accidentally” hit a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, last October; or the two women and three children blasted to smithereens by U.S. airpower last spring at an Islamic State checkpoint in northern Iraq because the pilots of two A-10 Warthogs attacking the site didn’t realize that civilians were in the vehicles stopped there; or the innumerable similar incidents that have happened with remarkable regularity and which barely make it into American news reports — I find I can’t quite achieve the cold distance necessary to accept our government’s tactics. And for this I blame (or thank) my father.
To understand why it’s so difficult for me to gloss over the dead, you have to know that on December 1, 2003, a date I will never forget nor fully recover from, I called home from a phone booth on a cobblestone street in Switzerland — where I was backpacking at the time — and learned that my Dad was dead. A heart attack that struck as suddenly as a Hellfire missile.
Standing in that sun-warmed phone booth clutching the receiver with a slick hand, vomit gurgling up at the back of my throat, I pressed my eyes closed and saw my Dad. First, I saw his back as he sat at the broad desk in his home office, his spot of thinning hair revealed. Then, I saw him in his nylon pants and baseball cap, paused at the kitchen door on his way to play paddle tennis. And finally, I saw him as I had the last time we parted, at Boston’s Logan Airport, on a patch of dingy grey carpet, as I kissed his whiskered cheek.
A few days later, after mute weeping won me a seat on a fully booked trans-Atlantic flight, I stood in the wan light of early December and watched the employees of the funeral home as they unloosed the pulleys to lower Dad’s wooden box into the ground. I peered down into that earthen hole, crying and sweating and shivering in the stinging cold, and tried to make sense of the senseless: Why was he dead while the rest of us lived?
And that’s why, when I read about all the innocent civilians we’ve been killing over the years with the airpower that presidential candidate Ted Cruz calls “a blessing,” I tend to think about the people left behind. Those who loved the people we’ve killed. I wonder how they received the news. (“We’ve had a tragedy here,” my Mom told me.) I wonder about the shattering anguish they surely feel at the loss of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, friends. I wonder what memories come to them when they squeeze their eyes closed in grief. And I wonder if they’ll ever be able to pick up the pieces of their lives and return to some semblance of normalcy in societies that are often shattering around them. (What I don’t wonder about, though, is whether or not they’re more likely to become radicalized — to hate not just our drones but our country and us — because the answer to that is obvious.)
Playing God in the Oval Office
“It’s the worst thing to ever happen to anyone,” actor Liam Neeson recently wrote on Facebook. He wasn’t talking about drone strikes, but about the fundamental experience of loss — of losing a loved one by any means. He was marking five years since his wife’s sudden death. “They say the hardest thing in the world is losing someone you love,” he added. I won’t disagree. After losing her husband, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg posted about “the brutal moments when I am overtaken by the void, when the months and years stretch out in front of me, endless and empty.” After her husband’s sudden death, author Joan Didion described grief as a “relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.”
That squares with the description offered by a man in Yemen who had much of his extended family blown away by an American drone at his wedding. “I felt myself going deeper and deeper into darkness,” the man later told a reporter. The drone arrived just after the wedding party had climbed into vehicles strewn with ribbons to escort the bride to her groom’s hometown. Everyone’s belly was full of lamb and it was dusk. It was quiet. Then the sky opened, and four missiles rained down on the procession, killing 12.
U.S. airpower has hit a bunch of other weddings, too. And funerals. And clinics. And an unknown and unknowable number of family homes. The CIA’s drone assassination campaign in the tribal regions of Pakistan even led a group of American and Pakistani artists to install an enormous portrait of a child on the ground in a frequently targeted region of that country. The artists wanted drone operators to see the face of one of the young people they might be targeting, instead of the tiny infrared figures on their computer consoles that they colloquially refer to as “bugsplats.” It’s an exhortation to them not to kill someone else’s beloved.
Once in a while a drone operator comes forward to reveal the emotional and psychic burden of passing 12-hour shifts in a windowless bunker on an Air Force base, killing by keystroke for a living. One serviceman’s six years on the job began when he was 21 years old and included a moment when he glimpsed a tiny figure dart around the side of a house in Afghanistan that was the target of a missile already on its way. In terror, he demanded of his co-pilot, “Did that look like a child to you?” Feverishly, he began tapping messages to ask the mission’s remote observer — an intelligence staffer at another location — if there was a child present. He’ll never know the answer. Moments later, the missile struck the house, leveling it. That particular drone operator has since left the military. After his resignation, he spent a bitterly cold winter in his home state of Montana getting blackout drunk and sleeping in a public playground in his government-issued sleeping bag.
Someone else has, of course, taken his seat at that console and continues to receive kill orders from above.
Meanwhile Donald Trump and most of the other Republican candidates have been competing over who can most successfully obliterate combatants as well as civilians. (Ted Cruz’s comment about carpet-bombing ISIS until we find out “if sand can glow in the dark” has practically become a catchphrase.) But it’s not just the Republicans. Every single major candidate from both parties has plans to maintain some version of Washington’s increasingly far-flung drone campaigns. In other words, a program that originated under President George W. Bush as a crucial part of his “global war on terror,” and that was further institutionalized and ramped up under President Obama, will soon be bequeathed to a new president-elect.
When you think about it that way, election 2016 isn’t so much a vote to select the leader of the planet’s last superpower as it is a tournament to decide who will next step into the Oval Office and have the chance to play god.
Who will get your support as the best candidate to continue killing the loved ones of others?
French special forces and intelligence commandos are engaged in covert operations against Islamic State group militants in Libya in conjunction with the United States and Britain, the French newspaper Le Monde reported Wednesday.
It said President Francois Hollande had authorized “unofficial military action” by both an elite armed forces unit and the covert action service of the DGSE intelligence agency in the conflict-ridden North African state, which has two rival governments and largely ungoverned desert spaces.
What Le Monde called “France’s secret war in Libya” involved occasional targeted strikes against leaders of the ultra-radical Islamist group, prepared by discreet action on the ground, to try to slow its growth in Libya.
The defense ministry declined comment on the substance of Le Monde’s story, but a source close to Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he had ordered an investigation into “breaches of national defense secrecy” to identify the sources of the report.
Hollande said that France was at war with the Islamic State group after it claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks on bars, restaurants, a concert hall and the national soccer stadium in Paris on Nov. 13 last year, killing 130 people.
The ministry has previously confirmed that French aircraft recently conducted reconnaissance flights over Libya, where France took a leading role in a 2011 NATO air campaign that helped rebels overthrow Moammar Gadhafi’s autocratic rule.
It has also confirmed that France has set up an advance military base in northern Niger on the border with Libya.
Le Monde said French intelligence had initiated a previous strike last November that killed an Iraqi known by the nom de guerre Abu Nabil who was the senior Islamic State group leader in Libya at the time.
Le Monde said specialist bloggers had reported sightings of French special forces in eastern Libya since mid-February.
It quoted a senior French defense official as saying: “The last thing to do would be to intervene in Libya. We must avoid any overt military engagement, but act discreetly.”
While Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who is currently advising presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, famously said that the estimated 500,000 children who died as a result of U.S. sanctions on Iraq was “worth it.” It was, perhaps, a rare moment of candor from a politician, an admission that Washington is willing to support ostensibly non-lethal measures in such an all-encompassing fashion as to produce mass deaths of people who have no ability to influence the actions undertaken by their government. Sanctions are collective punishment, a blunt edged weapon used all too frequently by Washington to compel foreign governments to submit without having to go to war. There is nothing benign about them and Americans should regard them as potentially just as deadly as direct military intervention.
There are currently a number of countries that are subject to U.S. enforced sanctions but only three fall under the category of “state sponsors of terrorism.” They are Iran, Syria and Sudan. That status entails a number of U.S. Government sanctions including a ban on arms-related exports and sales; controls over exports of dual-use items; prohibitions on economic assistance; and imposition of miscellaneous financial and other restrictions. The financial measures require the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank or other international financial institutions and prohibit any U.S. person from engaging in a financial transaction with a terrorism-list government without a Treasury Department license issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The license and other approvals are reported to be complicated and the process is extremely difficult to navigate, discouraging anyone from having business dealings with the targeted countries.
Other sanctions are not always directly related to terrorism. They sometimes target select individuals and organizations that are considered by the U.S. government to be focal points of some aberrant behavior. A number of Russian officials have been sanctioned over Ukraine and even over the functioning of the country’s judiciary while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been sanctioned both for its involvement with radical groups and its support of Tehran’s missile program. But the most devastating sanctions are those which are directed against a country and nearly everything that it does economically, which was the case with Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Currently, Sudan falls under that category.
I recently spent a week in Sudan as the guest of a NGO. The objective was to show a group of hopefully influential foreign visitors the devastating effect of sanctions on the local economy. We visitors were of course aware that we were being fed a line that was most favorable to the government position so we also spoke to other Sudanese who were not necessarily part of the program as well as to United States government officials working at the Embassy.
The status of state sponsor of terrorism was bestowed on Sudan back in 1993 after the Sudanese government invited Osama bin Laden to stay in the country. Subsequently it was also claimed that Khartoum was supporting radical groups in Africa and elsewhere, to include Boko Harum, Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Since that time the conditions that led to the designation have changed dramatically. Bin Laden was asked to leave and relations with a number of militant groups were severed. Sudan has even severed diplomatic relations with Iran.
The latest edition of the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism states that “Sudan remained a generally cooperative partner of the United States on counterterrorism. During the past year, the Government of Sudan continued to support counterterrorism operations to counter threats to U.S. interests and personnel in Sudan.” Beyond that, the Sudanese intelligence service has been active in sharing information on terrorists in neighboring countries, to include Yemen, Uganda, Eritrea, Somalia, Chad and Libya. The information has been of such value that in 2010 the United States intelligence community advocated decoupling intelligence sharing from restrictions imposed on bilateral contact due to concerns over developments in Darfur.
In 2010 John Kerry, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, pledged to the Sudanese government that the terrorism designation would be lifted but failed to follow through. Later, in 2013, as Secretary of State, he was reminded of his promise by his Sudanese counterpart but apparently was thwarted in taking any action by advisers around President Barack Obama, most notably Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Both had in part made their reputations by writing and speaking to condemn Sudan. They were among the first to describe the conflict in Darfur as a genocide and are correctly perceived as hostile to any change in Sudan’s status.
The other sanctions on Sudan, referred to as a “comprehensive trade embargo,” blend claims of terrorism support with alleged human rights violations. They were imposed by Bill Clinton in 1997 and supplemented under George W. Bush in 2006. The last of these were linked to what has been described as a civil war starting in 2003 pitting the mostly Arabic speaking north of the country against the mostly indigenous black African south and west. The western media depicted the conflict in a racial context as well as in terms of religion, with Muslim pitted against Christian and animist, but the reality was much more complex than that with groups also dividing along linguistic, tribal and even occupational lines, sometimes featuring nomadic herdsmen against farmers.
Most sources agree that the various wars in and around Sudan have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese as well as between 14,000 and 200,000 who were reportedly “enslaved” in abductions carried out by both sides. The conflict in Darfur has been described as a genocide with a government supported militia known as Janjaweed and the rebels together having been accused of carrying out numerous atrocities. As a consequence, Sudan’s then-and-now president Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been on the receiving end of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
Al-Bashir, it should be noted became president by virtue of a military coup, though he has now been elected to office three times, once in an uncontested election in 1996 and in 2010 in a multiparty election that was described as “highly chaotic, non-transparent and vulnerable to electoral manipulation.” The most recent election took place on April 2015 and was strongly criticized by the U.S., Britain and Norway, all of whom had sent observers. Al-Bashir heads the ruling National Congress Party, but in fact he rules largely by fiat. He is either very popular or very unpopular with the Sudanese people depending on whom one talks to.
Genuine moves towards Sudanese democracy through the mechanism of a currently ongoing National Discussion are promising but are likely to slowly evolve in reality. The country’s legal system is based on Sharia but there is general tolerance of other religions in practice if not in law. The National Museum has a section relating to Christianity in Sudan and there is a Christian hour on television every Sunday. The Roman Catholic cathedral is located near the government center and there is also an active Coptic community. Christian community leaders openly support the existing government, just as they do in Syria, perhaps recognizing that available alternatives might be much worse.
A cease fire with the southern states in Sudan in 2005 led to the involvement of a United Nations Mission and a referendum in 2011 resulted in secession from the north. South Sudan is now an independent country that is enduring its own birth pangs. There are some reports of continued violence possibly instigated by Khartoum as well as little noticed government repression in the southern Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, which have been largely closed to the media and foreign NGOs pending yet another referendum to determine their future status.
Darfur followed with its own peace agreement in 2006. It is relatively quiet though military operations against a final hold out group of rebels in the region continue. Humanitarian and UN affiliated groups are in Darfur to monitor the process of reconciliation and it is expected that there will be another referendum to determine the region’s final status. At least some of the continuing unrest has been attributed to the activity of radicals from Chad, who are able to freely cross the open 600 mile long border to enter Darfur.
Business leaders in Khartoum note that there has been considerable economic growth in Sudan in spite of sanctions, concentrated in the sectors of oil, agriculture and mining. Since 1997, Sudan has been working with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to initiate reforms and create sustainable growth. There is, however, considerable official corruption and across the board poverty, largely among those engaged in agriculture.
In spite of some positive developments, Washington’s sanctions have blocked almost all business with Sudan. Selling or buying anything to or from Sudan requires clearance by OFAC and is largely limited to agricultural, communications or medical products. The paperwork requires months to complete and the actual purchases have to be made through third parties, meaning that everything costs more and comes without warranties, service or support. This is because the United States has effectively shut down any banking transactions or extensions of credit with Sudan and when no one can get paid except by suitcases full of cash it becomes impossible to conduct business. Few foreign banks exist in Sudan and they are very careful about how they operate. Even the IMF is reportedly having difficulty in funding its own projects in country. It all means that Sudan cannot pay its bills through conventional correspondent banking arrangements as foreign banks are fearful of being fined by the United States. No one is willing to take that risk.
To be sure, part of Sudan’s economic woes come from its sustaining a war economy in response to the unrest in several regions. But beyond that no investment money coming in due to sanctions means no improvement in agricultural technology, which would benefit the poorest part of the population, or in health care or in education. Poverty has been increasing due to sanctions and attempts to evade the restrictions have resulted in smuggling, money laundering and an increase in unconventional banking to include hawala transfers that are not subject to normal bank controls. Because Sudan is currently not integrated into the international banking system its transactions cannot be monitored to prevent terrorist money transfers.
And there is also a human price to pay for inability to move money. Sudanese health care providers believe that many preventable deaths are attributable to persistent lack of medicinal supplies or diagnostic equipment due to sanctions. Even if the numbers are overstated, that is almost certainly true. In a recent case three patients in Darfur died for lack of renal dialysis solutions.
I oppose sanctions in principle because I believe they are a blunt instrument that punishes innocent civilians when broadly construed while having no effect at all when directly targeting the country’s relatively wealthy and unreachable government officials. If sanctions are to make any sense they should be designed to achieve a quantifiable result but that is rarely the case and they frequently serve no purpose whatsoever beyond dishing out punishment. It has been claimed that sanctions actually worked in Sudan because its government has moved to meet some of Washington’s demands over Darfur and South Sudan, but that is a simplistic explanation for rather more complex phenomena that were likely driven by multiple constituencies and interests.
More often than not, sanctions harden a government’s resolve to resist, as they did in Cuba, and even become useful to the regime as an excuse for government failures. The explanation provided by George W. Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, that sanctions “send a message… to start behaving differently when they deal with their own people. That’s what this is all about,” is hubristic imperialism at its finest. It is reported in Sudan that many young Sudanese hate the United States and it is not difficult to understand why.
And there are good selfish reasons for the United States to lift sanctions and normalize relations with Khartoum. Sudan is an autocracy but no worse than American allies like Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Egypt. It is active in fighting alleged rebels but is far more restrained than the current Saudi military intervention in Yemen. And though Khartoum has had sometimes ambivalent relationships with Islamic radicals it has been far less engaged in that fashion than Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. So Sudan passes the smell test for being a disagreeable regime that is compatible with the United States’ broader interests.
And those broader interests are clear, including allowing American companies to participate in the future development of the country. U.S. sanctions have forced the Sudanese to turn to Moscow and Beijing for assistance. Russia is involved in gold mining and China is increasingly engaged in transportation, communications and energy projects. The Sudanese rail network and its international air carrier Sudan Air have collapsed due to lack of spare parts for their U.S. made hardware, an opportunity for American suppliers to quickly reenter the market. It is not in the U.S. national interest to create conditions favorable to competitors seeking to dominate the potentially large and developing Sudanese economy, ceding to them a significant foothold in East Africa by default.
Furthermore, Sudan is a bridge between Africa and the Arab world. It harbors no international terrorists and is a relative oasis of calm in a region in turmoil, well placed to monitor developments in neighboring Egypt, Chad, Libya, Somalia, Eritrea, Zaire, Central African Republic, Uganda and Yemen. It has made a significant contribution in counterterrorism and could do even better if properly motivated and provided with the tools needed, potentially playing a major role in the U.S. sponsored Partnership for Regional East Africa Counterterrorism. Normalizing relations with Sudan’s banks could, inter alia, stop money laundering and shut down possible terrorist money transfers.
There is, in short, no good reason to continue the status quo apart from the objections of two Obama advisers who have a personal stake in depicting Sudan in the most negative fashion. Unfortunately U.S. foreign policy has drifted away from supporting actual national interests and is mired in responding to various constituencies, in Obama’s case the “responsibility to protect” advocates. One can quite imagine that with something like a Marco Rubio it would revert to the mindless belligerency mode, but as both models seek to remake foreign governments they should equally be eschewed. Countries like Sudan and Iran should not be made to feel that they are permanently under the heel of the American jackboot. Nor should Washington feel compelled to play that role. Except in those rare situations where trade embargoes can inhibit flows of weapons to belligerents in a hot war, sanctions are useless, diminishing both those who apply the punishment and those who are on the receiving end. They should never be considered a serious instrument for foreign policy.
It seems that Nigerians have to fear not only the extremist group Boko Haram, but also official soldiers who have proved to carry out extrajudicial killings, where the soldiers act as merciless as insurgents that have been spreading death and destruction in the African country.
According to the Associated Press, farmers and villagers across Nigeria are being arrested upon allegations that they belong to the extremist group Boko haram. The stunning part of the story is that many of these detained people disappear and do not return.
According to the source, Nigerian soldiers detained a teacher and two middle-aged farmers in Duhu village. Some residents, who knew the men, insisted they did not belong to the extremist group, and marched to a nearby military base to demand their release.
The military denied detaining elementary school teacher Habu Bello and farmers Idrisa Dele and Umaru Hammankadi even though several villagers told the news agency they watched as the men were taken away by uniformed soldiers.
“If you have a problem with someone, you can influence the military to pick them up and then you will never hear about them again,” human rights lawyer Sunday Joshua Wugira told AP from his offices in the northeastern city of Yola, where police are investigating the January killings of three brothers from the Fulani tribe.
In one act of terror, APreported that a teenager said she was captured last year by Boko Haram fighters who attacked her village and killed her father.
“Soldiers arrived to hunt down extremists, but interrogated my three brothers instead. Vigilantes then seized and killed them,” she said.
The girl did not only suffer from Boko Haram’s terror, but even worse from the terror of the Nigerian soldiers as well. The 16-year old girl was kidnapped by Boko Haram at 16 and raped in captivity; she was freed in November when soldiers attacked the extremist camp where she was being held. She tried to return to her home village, but had to flee again because vigilantes threatened to kill her unborn child, calling it a “terrorist baby,” she said.
“I don’t have any figures, but I can confirm to you that there have been a series of complaints about extrajudicial killings,” Duhu district leader Mustapha Sanusi said.
Since 2011, the military has been responsible for the deaths of some 8,000 detainees who were shot, starved or tortured, which counts more than a third of the estimated 20,000 people killed during the 6-year-old insurgency.
The APreport also said that refugees panicked in January when they found the trussed-up body of a refugee with his head bashed in at the Shettima Ali Monguno Teachers Village camp on the outskirts of Maiduguri.
“We now fear more for our safety because we cannot tell who is good or bad among us,” said one young refugee, insisting on anonymity for safety. “Our camp is well fenced and secured, yet one of us was murdered over the night.”
“People are living in fear and believe that at the end of the day they will never get justice,” said lawyer Wugira, who underlined that he has been offering free services yet due to this fear most disappearances go unchallenged.
Maidhc Ó Cathail: Do you see Cologne, 2015 as a turning point or the beginning of the end for European civilization?
Jean Bricmont: I am not sure what European civilization means, but if it survived the two World Wars, it will survive Cologne 2015. One should not exaggerate what happens with the refugees. I am of two minds about that. On the one hand, I don’t think it is such a big deal; what are a few million refugees among 500 million Europeans? On the other hand, polls show that a majority of people in European countries do not want to “welcome” more refugees and I think it is their right to do so (even if personally I don’t think it is such a big deal).
What I call the moral left wants to force the population to be altruistic with respect to the refugees. But the population who is never consulted on the issue of refugees and who is constantly asked to make sacrifices because “there is no money” understandably does not accept this moral discourse.
Maidhc Ó Cathail: How is what you wrote in Humanitarian Imperialism related to the current refugee crisis?
Jean Bricmont: Well, the same people who encouraged “humanitarian” interventions and “support” for armed insurrections abroad, that have led to perpetual wars, generating a constant flow of refugees, are now demanding that the population of our countries “welcome the refugees”. They first generate chaos there, then they applaud chaos here. It cannot last forever. One can see signs of widespread popular revolt against that. Now, I am not optimistic about the way this revolt will go, because, since the left has been almost totally won over to the cause of humanitarian interventions and its corollary of welcoming the refugees, this revolt will almost certainly benefit mostly the (far) right.
Maidhc Ó Cathail: Do you believe that guilt over the Holocaust is the driving force behind Germany’s decision to accept over a million refugees?
Jean Bricmont: It was not “Germany” that made that decision but Mrs. Merkel, to the consternation of many and perhaps most Germans. Her personal motives are unclear. For a minority of Germans who actively welcome the refugees, the Holocaust is no doubt a factor. But the younger generations, all over Europe, are fed up with this artificial guilt (how can anyone be guilty of events that occurred before their birth?). So,also in Germany, there is a lot of negative feelings with respect to the refugees.
Maidhc Ó Cathail: Do you think that one can be against US wars and Israeli occupation and at the same time have reservations about Muslim immigration to Europe?
Jean Bricmont: Yes, of course. But I am very reluctant to see this immigration (as several people do) as a “plot” from the US and Israel to “Islamize” Europe. For one thing, the Zionists here are divided: it is true that some of them are for more open borders, but others are afraid of the “Islamisation” of Europe, since they know that Muslims are not exactly fond of the “Jewish state”. I don’t believe such Islamisation takes place, but I think one should be pragmatic about immigration. We will never have really open borders, unlike what some of the far left demands (otherwise we would really be quickly overwhelmed and a far right reaction would occur to stop that), nor will we have completely closed ones. It is only a question of degree. The problem is that some of our “elites” live in a dream world where more globalization is always viewed as good and the wishes of the population are despised and ignored. That creates the risk of a dangerous backlash.
MAIDHC Ó CATHAIL is a widely published writer and political analyst. In addition to having written a monthly column for Beo!, his work has been published by Antiwar.com, Arab News (Saudi Arabia), Consortium News, Forward Magazine (Syria), Journal of Turkish Weekly, Khaleej Times (UAE), Ma’an News Agency (Palestine), Middle East Monitor, Palestine Chronicle, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, RT, Tehran Times, The Nation (Pakistan), The Unz Review, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and many more.
Having confirmed a strike on an ISIS camp in Libya, Washington officials had difficulties explaining under which legal authority the US acts. While the Pentagon cites post-9/11 legislation, stripped of such powers, the State Department refers to unnamed international laws.
On Friday, the US announced that its warplanes targeted a training camp near the Libyan city of Sabratha, reportedly killing up to 40 people. The Pentagon has treated the attack as a success as it declared the elimination of a Tunisian national, Noureddine Chouchane, who was an Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) facilitator in Libya.
Also known as “Sabir,” the militant is believed to be behind the deadly attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis in March 2015.
However, regardless of its achievement, the US authority to carry out strikes on Libyan soil has again come into question. It has appeared that Washington does not have a single answer.
After briefing reporters on Friday, the Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook was asked to clarify under what authority the US came to Libya, given that no Americans had been killed in the 2015 Tunisia attack.
“We have struck in Libya previously under the existing Authorization for the use of [military] force,” Cook replied.
The Pentagon’s spokesperson allegedly referred to the AUMF, which was passed and then signed by President George W. Bush shortly after 9/11, in September 2001, to target al-Qaeda. It authorized United States Armed Forces to carry out attacks against those responsible for September 11.
However, the Defense Department “believes” that the AUMF can be used 15 years later to fight ISIS.
“We believe that this was carried out under international law and, specifically, that this operation was consistent with domestic and international law,” Cook said, while not explicitly referring to any particular legislation.
In February 2015, President Obama did propose his own AUMF, which “does not address the 2001 AUMF”, but the draft was rejected by the Congress in December.
Other AUMF drafts, including for example, one of the most recently submitted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have not gotten Congressional approval either.
RT has also tried to clarify the US’s authority for the attack with the State Department, but failed to get a conclusive answer.
RT’s Gayane Chichikyan: “Under what legal authority did the US carry out strikes in Libya this morning?”
State Department’s Mark Toner: “It was in full accordance with international law. We’ve talked about this many times. I’d refer you to the Department of Defense to speak about specifics.”
Chichikyan: “So not the AUMF? It’s – it was international law?”
Toner: “Exactly. I mean – exactly.” He then refused to “get into details here,” again readdressing the question back to the Pentagon.
Approved by ‘some Libyan authority’?
At the same time both departments unanimously stress that “the Libyan authorities were aware” about the US’s strike. However, when asked to specify what “Libyan authorities” he referred to, Toner seemed to be at a loss, saying that “there is some governmental structure present” there.
“The new – well, I mean, there’s obviously Libyan authorities on the ground,” he replied to a question about Libya’s recently announced unity government. “It’s not – we’re still working to stand up the Government of National Accord. We want to see it returned and establish itself in Tripoli.”
Meanwhile, as experts tell RT, until its approval, the UN-backed unity government does not have powers to authorize foreign intervention.
“There is really no Libyan authority in existence that’s able to invite them [the US], so I think they did it on their own authority,” Oliver Miles, former UK ambassador to Libya, said. Miles believes the Libyans would oppose “very strongly” any foreign intervention.
Five years after the US-led force toppled Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya remains in a power vacuum, which dragged the country into a civil war and let terror groups gain a foothold in the region.
There is a glimpse of hope for improvement and stability as the unity government, consisting of 13 ministers and five ministers of state, was formed Sunday and is currently expecting Libya’s eastern parliament’s approval.
The State Department “disagrees” that the US’s devastating intervention in Libya in 2011 has been a reason for its current involvement in Libya.
“We’re very clear-eyed in our assessment that when we see ISIL take these kinds of actions, we need to be able to strike at them,” Toner said, stressing that it is not “second intervention.”
In the meantime, the Pentagon has announced that it “will go after ISIL whenever it is necessary, using the full range of tools at our disposal.”
Call it a Freudian slip, but US President Barack Obama appears to have come clean, for once, on the connection between American foreign policy and the so called Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.
In an address earlier this week to the leaders of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), gathered in California, Obama was answering questions from news reporters on various international topics. On the matter of terrorist groups expanding their foothold in Libya, the president said the following: “With respect to Libya… we will go after ISIS wherever it appears, the same way we went after al Qaeda wherever they appeared.”
In casual parlance the phrase “go after” can mean “to destroy”. But the more literal meaning and perhaps the one that Obama inadvertently let slip is simply “to follow”–as in a partnered way.
In that case, what Obama is referring to is the actual foreign policy function of ISIS and its related al Qaeda terror network. Wherever these groups appear, then Washington appoints itself to follow them under the pretext of fighting terrorism.
This pretext works very efficiently to nullify problems of international law. When the US sends its military into a foreign country to ostensibly combat terrorism then it is untrammeled by legal objections that it is violating other countries’ sovereignty. What would normally be seen as a gross violation –a military invasion by the US –is neatly transformed into an “anti-terror”operation. And if the incumbent foreign government complains about the “benevolent US assistance” then it can be toppled because it is “siding with the terrorists”.
This is, of course, the whole rationale behind the so-called War on Terror that Washington crafted in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Just uttering the phrase War on Terror gives Washington license to invade and ransack any foreign state it chooses, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, where more than one million people were killed by US forces “hunting down terrorists”.
Before that, the official pretexts were “War on Communism”or “War on Drugs”. But with the collapse of the “Evil Soviet Empire”, the first of these pretexts became redundant. Although, Washington and its NATO allies are trying their best to revive the “Russian Scare” by demonizing Vladimir Putin as the “new Hitler in Europe”. As for the War on Drugs, it didn’t quite have the required kick to pump up the Pentagon’s $600 billion annual budget, or to enthuse the American public, many of whom rather enjoy drugs anyway.
But the War on Terror, now that is, or at least was, a satisfying wheeze. It also has the added benefit of allowing federal authorities to crack down on civil rights and make all sorts of invasive controls over individual liberty, as in the latest controversy of the FBI demanding that Apple give them a digital key for unlocking phones and computers.
The primary function, however, remains: the terror groups, whether they go by the name of al Qaeda or ISIS, give Washington the convenient cover to militarily invade any country on the globe. The real agenda being regime change or commandeering the natural resources of the target country for the gratification of Wall Street banks and other American corporations –in the exact same scam that pertained in the old days of Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, who later confessed to being a henchman on behalf of US capitalism, by overthrowing governments in Central America and the Caribbean during the early 1900s.
Admittedly, sometimes the terrorists do get whacked by the Pentagon. No doubt about it that Obama and his generals have killed numerous al Qaeda-linked operatives with assassination drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Many more innocent civilians have also been murdered along the way by US drones.
The assassination of terror cadres by Washington may seem like a contradiction to the overall argument here that there is a mutual connection between the two. However, we shouldn’t think of Washington as a monolith. There are no doubt people within the US establishment who are dedicated to genuinely fighting terrorism, and sometimes they succeed.
But that doesn’t negate the central point that the US has covertly created these same terrorist groups to expedite its own foreign policy and geopolitical ambitions. We can’t go into the full history here, but it is well documented that the CIA engendered, mobilized and weaponized al Qaeda “the database” to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s. It wasn’t just the CIA. British MI6, French DGSE and Pakistani ISI were involved, as were the Saudi regime who provided the billions of dollars of finance and fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology that perversely empowers cadres to kill anyone –men, women and children –whom is designated an “infidel”. In other words, perfect proxy killers for the powers-that-be.
Despite the propaganda pumped out in the Western mainstream media of a US-led coalition “fighting terrorism” in Syria, the hard fact is that al Qaeda, ISIS and a plethora of other terrorist mercenary brigades were sent into Syria by the same US-led coalition for the purpose of regime change against the Russian and Iranian-allied government of President Bashar al-Assad. Readers can look up the candid admission of Lt General Michael Flynn, the former chief of US Defense Intelligence Agency as to the cynical calculations that Washington made in unleashing the terrorists on Syria.
If the US were really fighting terrorism in Syria then how do you explain this headline from McClatchy News referring to the huge discrepancy in Russian bombing raids compared with American. “Russia hit 1,888 targets in Syria in a week; the US count? Just 16”.
Face it. Until Russia intervened last September, the ISIS terror network had proliferated under US “bombing” to such an extent that Syria was in danger of being overthrown (as according to Washington’s plan).
Having failed in that mission largely because of Russia’s military intervention over the past five months, the fallback option provided by the terror groups is that they could be used to justify an outright military invasion of Syria by the US-led coalition, in the form of NATO-member Turkey and Saudi Arabia along with the other American-Arab puppet-regimes.
As Obama let slip at the ASEAN summit this week: “Wherever ISIS or al Qaeda appears, we will go after them.”
Well said Mr President. For once, you told the plain truth.
PS. The ASEAN venue where Obama was speaking at in Sunnylands, California is called “Rancho Mirage”. Kind of appropriate, don’t you think?
NATO and US plan attacks against Libya under the pretext of rooting out Islamic State in an effort to fix what they had broken in the country and to restore security and stability, said political commentator Abdel Bari Atwan.
Following the US Congress considering re-launching military action in Libya last month, US warplanes have targeted an alleged Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) camp in the Libyan city of Sabratha on Friday. The mayor of Sabratha, Hussein al-Thwadi, told Reuters the planes hit a building in the Qasr Talil district, adding that 41 people were killed and six others wounded. The NYTreportedthe strike targeted a senior Tunisian operative linked to terrorist attacks in Tunisia last year.
RT: Is this the official start of US military action in the country?
Abdel Bari Atwan: Yes, I believe that now NATO and America in particular is planning all-out attacks against Libya under the pretext of rooting out Islamic State from certain areas. I believe now the Americans are trying to fix what they had broken in Libya, which is the security and stability, the establishment, the government… I don’t know why they are rushing towards Libya like that because they haven’t had any mandate from the UN to go to Libya and bomb as they like. The second thing is that neighboring countries of Libya like Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, all of them actually said clearly that they are against any American or Western intervention in Libya because such intervention will create more problems than they solve. I think it is surprising and it could make the situation worse in Libya.
RT: NATO supported the uprising against Gaddafi in 2011, now the US is back to bomb Libya. Will it help to stop ISIS or expand the chaos further?
ABA: Actually, this proves clearly that the first intervention was not necessary and it was completely counterproductive. Because this kind of military intervention created that environment, the best environment for Al-Qaeda and other armed militia to prevail in Libya. And also we can say that the NATO intervention prepared the ground, the incubator for the Islamic State to set up bases in Sirte, in Sabratha, in Benghazi, in the south of Libya… This is the outcome of uncalculated or miscalculated American and NATO intervention in Libya…
Every villain needs a safe house and the Islamic State (IS) is no exception. Luckily for IS, it has two, possibly three waiting for it, all of them courtesy of NATO and in particular the United States.
The war in Syria has been going particularly poor for IS. With Russian air power cutting their supply lines with Turkey and the Syrian Arab Army closing in, it may soon be time for them to shop for a new home.
If the war is going bad for IS, it is going even worse for the supporting powers that have armed and funded them. To understand where IS might go next, one must first fully understand those supporting powers behind them. The premeditated creation of IS and revelations of the identity of their supporters were divulged in a Department of Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo first published in 2012.
It admitted:
If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).
The DIA memo then explains exactly who this “Salafist principality’s” supporters are (and who its true enemies are):
The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.
Before the Syrian war, there was Libya…
The DIA memo is important to remember, as is the fact that before the Syrian conflict, there was the Libyan war in which NATO destroyed the ruling government of Muammar Qaddafi and left what one can only described as an intentional and very much premeditated power vacuum in its place. Within that vacuum it would be eventually revealed through the death of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens that from the Libyan city of Benghazi, weapons and militants were being shipped by the US State Department first to Turkey, then onward to invade northern Syria.
And it appears the terrorists have been moving back and forth both ways through this US-sponsored terror pipeline. IS has since announced an official presence in Libya, and Libya now stands as one of several “safe houses” IS may use when finally pushed from Syria altogether by increasingly successful joint Syrian-Russian military operations.
Before Libya, there was Iraq…
Iraq, devastated by a nearly decade-long US invasion and occupation, has teetered on the edge of fracture for years. Sectarian extremism is eagerly promoted by some of the US’ strongest regional allies, particularly Saudi Arabia. The US itself has been cultivating and encouraging the separatist proclivities of select Kurdish groups (while allowing Turkey to invade and torment others) in the north, while Wahhabi extremists seek to dominate the north and northwest of Iraq.
IS itself has made its way into all of these trouble spots, coincidentally. And should the terrorist organization be flushed for good from Syria, it may find these spots yet another “safe house” that surely would not have existed had the US not intervened in Iraq, divided and weakened it and to this day worked to keep it divided and weak.
Before Iraq there was Afghanistan..
Of course, and perhaps the most ironic of all of IS’ potential “safe houses,” there is Afghanistan. Part of the alleged reasoning the United States embarked on its war in Afghanistan, stretching from 2001 to present day, was its supposed desire to deny terrorists a safe haven there.
Yet not only are terrorists still using the country as a safe haven, as pointed out in great detail by geopolitical analyst Martin Berger, the US intervention there has created a resurgence of the illegal illicit narcotics trade, and in particular a huge resurgence of opium cultivation, processing and exporting. This means huge financial resources for IS and its supporters to perpetuate its activities there, and help them project their activities well beyond.
Berger’s analysis lays out precisely the sort of narco-terrorist wonderland the US intervention has created, one so perfect it seems done by design, a blazing point on a much larger arc of intentionally created instability.
Where Russian bombs cannot follow…
Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan would be ideal locations to move IS. Libya’s state of intentionally created lawlessness gives the US and its allies a fair degree of plausible deniability as to why they will be unable to “find” and “neutralize” IS. It will be far more difficult for Russia to organize military resources to effectively strike at IS there. Even in Iraq, Russia has significant hurdles to overcome before it could begin operating in Iraq to follow IS there, and only if the Iraqi government agreed.
Afghanistan would be problematic as well. The ghosts of Russia’s war in Afghanistan still linger, and the US is already deeply entrenched, allegedly fighting a terrorist menace that seems only to grow stronger and better funded by the presence of American troops.
But while IS will be safe from complete destruction in Syria, where it looks like finally Damascus and its allies have begun to prevail, relocating outside of Syria and its allies arc of influence in the Middle East will drastically reduce its ability to fulfill its original purpose for being, that is, the destruction of that very arc of influence.
Furthermore, its reappearance elsewhere may change regional geopolitical dynamics in unpredictable ways. It is very unlikely IS’ new neighbors will wish to sit idly by while it broods. Libya’s neighbors in Egypt and Algeria, Afghanistan’s neighbors in Pakistan, China and Iran, and Iraq itself along with Syria and Lebanon, all may find themselves drawn closer together in purpose to eliminate IS in fear that it may eventually be turned on any one of them as it was on Syria.
What is least likely is that those “supporting powers” realize this is a trick tried one time too many. While that is certainly true, it appears to be the only trick these powers have left. They will likely keep IS around for as long as possible, if for no other reason but to exhaust its enemies as they attempt to chase it to the ends of the earth.
It is particularly ironic that the Zionist-controlled media are pushing the agenda of multiculturalism in Europe while insisting on the right of Israel, the world’s only racist, apartheid state, to exist. At the same time, the conditions for this artificial, dystopian form of multiculturalism involve the destruction of some of the world’s most successful multi-racial states such as Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria and, if they succeed, possibly Eritrea.
What we are witnessing here is a process of engineered acculturation where people are being uprooted, displaced and abandoned to the limitless tyranny of the market and commodity fetishism. The boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea are, to quote Freisleben again, ‘Rothshild’s slaughterships’, the slave-boats of Zionism’s New World Order.
Jacques Attali is one of France’s most respected Zionist penseur, and has been an advisor to successive French governments. He has referred to globalisation’s war against the nation-state as the ‘Somalisation of the world’. Attali has predicted that the Westphalian state will be destroyed during the epochal chaotic transition to a ‘gouvernement mondial’, a global state with Jerusalem as its capital. The idea might appear as utterly far-fetched to a reasonable person but Zionists are not reasonable people and it should be of deep concern that the world’s most powerful governments are being advised by such influential racist fanatics with overtly global ambitions.
At a meeting of World Jewish Congress in 2014, Attali referred to the Jews in France as a privileged class. Therefore, in order to prevent Muslim immigrants from developing resentment of this ethnocentric class rule, Attali suggested that rich Jews should help create a French Muslim petite-bourgeoisie. They should also, he argued, finance the Imams in order to prevent objections to Zionism. In other words, an elite of French Muslims should be groomed by Zionist Jews so that they can keep the proletarian Muslims driven from North Africa and the Middle East by Zionism from overthrowing their Jewish overlords, both at home and in their countries of exile.
As the mass media drum up Islamophobia while glorifying Al-Qaida terrorists in Syria in the service of Zion, the ancillary regimes of the Jewish state, namely Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are zealously implementing Attali’s suggestions. Giulio Meotti for the Israeli National News reports:
A few days ago, the president of the Sorbonne, Philippe Boutry, signed an agreement with the attorney general of the state of Qatar. Within the next three years, the Islamic monarchy will finance the studies of hundreds of Syrian immigrants at the Parisian academic jewel. The Sorbonne has accepted 600,000 euros per year for three years.
Jacques Attali is on record stating the he does not consider non-Jews as human beings. The view that non-Jews are subhuman comes from Talmudism and does not necessarily represent the views of secular or Orthodox Jews. There IS a difference.
In France, the rise of the Marine Le Pen’s Front National is increasing steadily. Le Pen’s party appears to have the backing of a considerable portion of Zionism, which may account for why Le Pen’s image and stature has dramatically improved in the French press. The Front National is now being courted by prominent public intellectuals as the party of the oppressed. Its reactionary agenda is being marketed as ‘left-wing’ and ‘anti-globalisation’. Although Marine Le Pen opposed the war against Libya-as opposed to the Trotskyite Jean Luc Melanchon, who supported it- Le Pen has supported all other French wars of aggression in Africa, such as the French bombing and invasion of Mali and the French invasion of the Central African Republic. Nor has Le Penn ever called into question the French financial control of many Francophone neo-colonies in Africa. Le Pen is a populist playing up to popular discontent, exploiting the despair of the masses with empty slogans and a hefty dose of xenophobia, adroitly eschewing any reference to the real problem in France: capitalism.
The Europe depicted by Michel Houellebecq in his nightmarish novel Soumission– submission- where a French Muslim community led by a Muslim Brotherhood political party faces Marine Le Pen, is inexorably becoming a reality.
The French and European political scene is being irrevocably set for a Huntingtonian ‘clash of civilisations’. The clichéd theory of the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ against all non-Jews appears so crude and essentialist, so simple and vulgar in its implications, as to pass for irrational, urban and ‘anti-Semitic’ folklore, which, of course, it is. But objective and rational analysis of the centrality of the “Jewish question” and Zionism in the context of the current, global power-configuration is more urgent than ever. For if we do not bring Zionism under control, Zionism will eventually control us. This also applies to Jews. As Professor Yoakov Rabkin in his book Comprendre L’Etat d’Israel: Ideologie, Religion et societe, argues:
Paradoxically, Jewish nationalism is conceptually compatible with anti-Semitics theories, for it also postulates the impossibility of the Jew becoming a full and equal member of European society. History shows that the attraction of Zionism augments with the intensity of anti-Semitism or of economic difficulties, which explains the fact that relatively few British, American or French Jews have accepted the Zionist project since its inception up to to today and rarely leave their countries to settle in Israel. (p. 49)
In 2013, the European Jewish Parliament was set up by Jewish Ukrainian billionaire and (ironically) neo-Nazi Ihor Kolomoyski. While the organisation claims to be an NGO, it functions according to the structures of a veritable parliament. Why does an ethnic minority in Europe have its own parliament? Will other ethnic minorities in Europe receive their own parliament too? Perhaps Jews deserve their own European parliament because they are officially recognised as ‘Europe’s chosen people’, as its ‘constitutive minority’. That is what was said in the opening remarks of a conference held in Israel in 2013, sponsored by the Konrad Adenhauer Foundation.
Since the counter-revolutions in Eastern Europe of 1989, Jewish supremacy has accompanied the triumph of neo-liberalism and globalisation in Europe and the United States. This racial supremacy is being stealthily enshrined in US law. In 1991, the 102nd US Congress passed a resolution on the Noahide Laws. These are seven laws which Jewish rabbis believe should rule the lives of non-Jews, while Jews are to be ruled by a special set of laws.
The aforementioned racist Rabbi Manachem Mendel Schneerson, of the Lubavitch Movement, is praised in the resolution.
In 1995 Professor Ernest S. Easterly of the Southern University Law Centre presented a paper entitled “The Rule of Law and the New World Order” to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
An expert in Jewish law, Easterly is a zealous proponent of the Noahide Laws. He referred to the passing of the laws by the US congress in 1991 as “the first rays of dawn” which “evidence the rising of a yet unseen sun”. According to Micheal A. Hoffman: The Jewish Encyclopedia envisages a Noahide regime as a possible world order immediately preceding the universal reign of the Talmud.
While it is possible to simply ignore these policy documents as aberrant and marginal manifestations of ruling class ideology, they nonetheless constitute a sinister form of racism and religious bigotry, one which has, to a large extent, been unperceived.
Belgian physicist Jean Bricmont was ostracized and branded an ‘anti-Semite’ by the French media after he argued that it is high time Zionism was discussed and debated by non-Jews. Pro-Zionist and ostensibly ‘anti-Zionist’ literature and discourse tends to be dominated by Jews. And many Jewish ‘leftists’ tend to ignore the primacy of the Jewish Lobby in the formulation of US foreign policy. Instead, they advance the theory that Israel is simply a colony of the US empire, a tool with which to control the Middle East. This is patent nonsense to anyone who has studied what sociologist James Petras refers to as the ‘Zionist power-configuration’ in the United States, a power-configuration that extends to Europe and beyond.
During the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003 Jewish ‘leftists’ blamed the US ‘neo-cons’ and their desire to control Iraq’s oil for the drive towards war. Little or no mention was made of the fact that the real driving force behind the propaganda campaign for the war on Iraq came from the Jewish Lobby. This is amply documented in James Petras’ book The Power of Israel in the United States.
The strategic imperatives of the Zionist entity require the division and conquest of all Arab lands, so as to clear the Middle East in preparation for expanded Israeli colonisation, as stipulated in the Yinon Plan and the project of Eretz Israel-Greater Israel. Yet we were being told by many Jewish leftists that the Iraq invasion was a ‘war for oil,’ in spite of the fact that Western corporations had already acquired as much Iraq oil as they could manage.
Most anti-imperialist intellectuals in the Middle East will tell you that the war against Syria is a proxy-war waged by the Jewish state in order to create the conditions of a ‘New Middle East’ a euphemism for Greater Israel. Yet, many Jewish critics of US policy in Syria insist that it is the United States (plus Israel). An historical analogy might be helpful here. For centuries Ireland was colonised by the British Empire. Irish farmers paid rent to British aristocrats who had dispossessed them. Ireland was impoverished from debt. Although some Irishmen played an important role in the British army and served in high office throughout the empire, no one could claim that it was the ‘Irish Lobby’ in London who persuaded the British to conquer India, Hong Kong or Kenya or that the Irish nation somehow benefited from those conquests. Empires exploit colonies. Colonies do no exploit empires. If Israel were a colony of the United States, then we would surely see the emergence of an Israeli national liberation movement from US exploitation and colonisation! No such movement exists.
Zionist and crypto-Zionist Jews, through their control of both the corporate and much of the ‘alternative’ media, have managed to play down the centrality of the Jewish state’s role in America’s foreign wars and the importance of Jewish ‘hasbara’-propagandists and ‘sayonim’- helpers in that war effort. They ignore the fact that the only state which is really benefiting from America’s wars is Israel.
One might object to the thesis of Israel’s power over US foreign policy by citing the very clear differences expressed by Washington and Tel Aviv regarding Iran’s nuclear programme. Here, surely, one might argue, the United States is not following Israel’s agenda. While Israel’s Likudniks oppose the deal with Iran, more ‘moderate’ Zionists agree with the compromise. For Israel and the United States, the deal with Iran is but a stepping stone towards an infiltration and destabilisation of the Islamic Republic. Diplomatic and business contacts with the West will inevitably facilitate greater ideological and intelligence penetration of Iran by the US and Israel, while the proxy- terrorist groups fighting against Iran in Yemen, and Syria will continue to receive support from the Mossad and the CIA. In fact, the Zionist destabilisation of Iran has already begun. The Kurdish social movement in Iran is supported by Israel.
The litmus-test for distinguishing the genuine anti-Zionist from the crypto-Zionist is the question of Israel’s relationship to the United States and Europe. As for the independent
media, one will often find that the bullying and derisive techniques of the corporate media to discredit dissidents are employed to discredit those who would dig too deeply into the Zionist machinations of US imperialism. The fallacy of reductio ad absurdum is a particularly common technique. This usually involves discrediting an anti-Zionist theory by falsely implying that the proponent of that theory believes in the supernatural, that he is a deranged simpleton who believes the world is run by goblins and such like. Another technique is the reductio ad Hitlerum, whereby those who discuss the problem of Jewish supremacy are compared to racists such as Adolf Hitler.
Jewish ‘anti-imperialist’ pundits regularly become ‘leaders’ and ‘gurus’ of ‘leftist’ movements and often use their credibility to police how issues of ethnicity, class and nationalism are conceptualized and discussed. Once people among their ‘ranks’ probe too deeply into Zionist intrigue, Zionist racial supremacy, warning signals are promptly sent out of a ‘far right’ and ‘fascist’ infiltration of the ‘movement’, this in spite of the fact that ‘fascism’ is precisely what genuine anti-Zionists are denouncing.
Such techniques sometimes work but more often than not, they only draw more attention to the suspicion among non Jewish critics of Zionism that an attempt is being made by ‘leftist’ Jews to deflect attention from the real sources of power in the capitalist world order, namely the Zionist power configuration.
It is therefore important for such individuals to occasionally re-emphasise their ‘opposition’ to Israel. In this sense, the Jewish ‘anti-imperialist’ bears a striking resemblance to the spokesmen of the Islamic State.
For what is the Islamic State or Da’esh other than the foreign legion of Israel. They have achieved in little time what no other Israeli proxy-force could have achieved. They have cleared vast territories of Iraq and Syria, have attacked Hamas in Gaza and have conveniently occupied the Sinai peninsula in Egypt. It is perhaps more apposite than ironic that security experts also refer to the Mossad as ISIS, Israel’s Secret Intelligence Service. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that official UN documents confirm Israel is covertly supporting Da’esh.
Like the Jewish pseudo anti-imperialists, the spokesmen of the Islamic State always refer to their hatred for “America” and the “freedoms of Americans” as the reason for their crusade. They do not seem to be too concerned about Israel, except, of course, when they miraculously manage to stage terrorist attacks on European soil, which often take place in formerly Jewish owned properties. Such attacks foment Islamophobia and the notion that Jews are hated and in danger, an agenda which serves Zionist regional and global hegemonic ambitions. In this sense one could argue that both the Islamic State and crypto-Zionists serve the same purpose: constantly deflecting attention from Zionism by blaming Israel’s giant, stultified Leviathan — the United States of America.
WASHINGTON — On Sunday, Bernie Sanders endorsed President Barack Obama’s violent, expansive foreign policy in an effort to distance himself from accusations of inexperience in matters of war.
Senator, while you were in New York, North Koreans launched a long range missile. As President, you’d face that kind of thing all the time, very often. And what Secretary Clinton is saying is that you don’t have the experience to be ready for those kinds of challenges on day one.
Sanders responded:
Well, that’s what she said about Barack Obama in 2008, and it turned out not to be true. I am impressed by the quality of his foreign policy.
Sanders also emphasized his vote against the Iraq War, which he said was “most important foreign policy issue in modern history.”
Under Obama, the U.S. military has expanded its presence throughout the globe, with bases or military advisors found in over 100 countries. Africa, in particular, has been transformed into what military scholar and journalist Nick Turse called a “laboratory for a new kind of war.”
In another echo of Obama’s foreign policy, Sanders made it clear during the interview that he won’t seek to end the wars in the Middle East, but rather would shift more of the burden of fighting them to foreign forces.
“We’ve got to learn the lessons of Iraq,” Sanders told Dickerson, “and that is that the United States of America cannot do it alone. We have to work in coalition with major countries and with Muslim countries whose troops will be on the ground.”
He added: “My main concern, in terms of the Middle East, is the United States does not get involved in perpetual warfare.”
The Obama administration aided local forces in the destabilization Libya, leading to the rise of extremism in that country. Last month, the Pentagon began laying the groundwork for new military actions in Libya, in order to quell the rise of Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the group commonly known in the West as ISIS or ISIL), which has flooded into the power vacuum left after the overthrow of the Gadhafi government.
And in Syria, U.S. aid has gone to so-called “moderate” rebels that were often allies of Daesh or al-Qaida. These rebel allies helped destabilize the nation, leading to one of the worst refugee crises the world has ever seen.
If it sounds like another term of Obama’s foreign policy, at least rhetorically, that’s because it is. Minus the inclusions of fair trade … it is nearly identical to the principles espoused by President Obama.
The recently released minutes from a November meeting between Erdogan and the EU prove that the Turkish strongman is manipulating the immigrant flow into Europe for strategic ends.
The Greek financial website euro2day.grpublished the shocking record of what transpired at a November meeting between Erdogan, Tusk, and Juncker in Antalya. In attempting to squeeze more money out of Brussels for his cooperation in halting the refugee flow, the Turkish leader thuggishly threatened that “We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses”, snarling to the EU leaders and rhetorically taunting them by asking “how will you deal with refugees if you don’t get a deal? Kill the refugees?”
€3 billion later, Erdogan shut up but he didn’t shut his borders, and the human wave continues to crash into Europe.
Now that the cat’s out of the bag and there’s a smoking gun to prove what most Europeans had already figured out by now — that the immigrant crisis is a strategically engineered weapon against them — the US has gone into full spin mode by doing what it does best, blaming Russia.
A day before the minutes were leaked, Carnegie Europe published a mudslinging piece which alleges in its title that “Putin Uses The Refugee Crisis To Weaken Merkel“, and a day after the Erdogan bombshell was made public, George Soros followed up with one of his famous speculative attacks (albeit this time non-financial) in which he ludicrously proclaimed that “Putin’s current aim is to foster the EU’s disintegration, and the best way to do so is to flood the EU with Syrian refugees.”
Ironically, but as is the established pattern, every time that the US is caught doing something unsavory, they always reflexively resort to blaming Russia for their own sins, and the immigrant crisis is no different. What’s new this time around, however, are the strange “anti-imperialist” bedfellows that they’ve aligned with in doing so.
‘Weapons Of Mass Migration’
The first thing to understand about the immigrant crisis is that the on-the-ground conditions for it were created by the US’ aggressive unipolar wars on the Mideast and North Africa, and that the resultant humanitarian catastrophe has been strategically weaponized by Washington and its allies for various geopolitical and economic ends.
Kelly M. Greenhill, an Associate Professor at Tufts University and Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, published a groundbreaking 2010 book about “Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy” in which she proved that there are at least 56 instances in which states have purposefully generated, provoked, and exploited massive waves of human migrations as an instrument to further their respective policies. Excerpts from her book were culled to form a summarized article that’s available for free at the Naval Postgraduate School’s website.
In terms of the present application of “Weapons Of Mass Migration”, the US and Turkey have a few overlapping goals in mind. Ghassan Kadi brilliantly explained that Erdogan wants to use the immigrants as leverage in order to extract financial and institutional concessions from the EU, while concomitantly flooding the West with Islamist-sympathizing individuals that can act as a fifth column of support for his expansionist policy of Neo-Ottomanism.
The latter goal segues in nicely with what the US wants to do, which is to kaleidoscopically fracture hitherto largely homogeneous European societies via provoked and prolonged Hobbesian conflict between the locals, refugees, and host governments. It’s aware that the civilizational dissimilarity between the native Europeans and the migrating Muslim masses will inevitably lead to multifaceted tension, and it aims to perpetually exploit the resultant identity cleavages in order to conveniently craft various Color Revolution scenarios in keeping certain governments in check and away from pragmatic cooperation with Russia and China (e.g. Nord Stream II, Turkish/Balkan Stream, and the Balkan Silk Road).
Qualifying Caveats And The Smoking Gun Pattern
It’s useful at this moment to point out that while there definitely are some legitimate refugees reaching Europe’s shores, many of the newcomers are economic migrants that aren’t even from Syria, and that a highly disproportionate number of the people who have come to the continent are draft-age young males. This is why the author collectively and more accurately refers to these people as immigrants and not “refugees”. Russian Defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov, American Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian have all recently warned that Daesh terrorists are actively infiltrating borders under the guise of being “refugees”, so there are absolutely some legitimate concerns about the types of people getting into Europe undetected.
Another thing is that “Islamist” isn’t a synonym for Muslim (as it’s commonly mistaken to be), but rather a label in referring to those that seek to impose Islam on others, such as Muslim Brotherhood and Wahhabi sympathizers. These individuals don’t have to be instructed on how to stir up problems in their host countries because their Islamist ideology naturally inspires them to clash with the locals, which thus organically satisfies the US’ 21st-century “Operation Gladio” plans. Regrettably, the sexual terrorist attacks in Cologne and other cities leave no doubt that many of these undesirable immigrants have already gotten into the EU, confirming that the US and Turkey’s destabilizing geopolitical plans are already in full swing.
Most Europeans figured out on their own that something was amiss about the whole immigrant crisis, questioning why so many of the new arrivals, if they were genuine refugees, would behave with such arrogant, ungrateful, and callous disregard for the host population that literally (as they were led to believe) saved their lives. The smoking gun of Erdogan’s transcribed threat, proving the degree of control that he has over the floodgates and his willingness to leverage this in as self-interested of a manner as possible, showed many Europeans that they weren’t wrong for questioning the mainstream media’s narrative on this whole matter.
Similar smoking guns have dispelled the Western myth about other high-profile crises as well. The Nuland-Pyatt recording proved that the US was scheming for regime change in Ukraine, and a 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency memo explicitly states that the Syrian “opposition” was full of terrorists from the beginning and that a “declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria”, which later turned out to be Daesh, was “exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want”. The latest revelation validates many people’s prior fears that the immigrant crisis had been strategically engineered, and it casts a damning light on the US’ role and intended agenda behind it. Tellingly, the faked hysteria that Putin is “flooding the EU with Syrian refugees” to “weaken Merkel” seems to imply that the German Chancellor’s days are numbered, but the US wants to cover its tracks and clumsily pretend that it’s Moscow which actually has something to gain by deposing its strategic Nord Stream II partner and not Washington like is actually the case.
Strange Bedfellows
Up until the point where the US had to begrudgingly acknowledge that strategically engineered “Weapons of Mass Migration” were being used against the EU and predictably blame it all on Russia, its allied “NGOs” and information outlets had categorically denied that such a planned phenomenon was taking place, slurring anyone who dared to even infer this possibility as being “racist”, “fascist”, and “white supremacist”. Astonishingly, this mainstream media-imposed “political correctness” and ideological intimidation was aggressively repeated by social and alternative media “activists” who fashioned themselves as (militant) far-left “anti-imperialists” — typically the sort of individuals who speak out against the US’ “thought police” or at least respect others’ right to do so.
These “anti-imperialists” claim to support Russia’s role in the world, yet state that border controls and assimilative & integrational immigration policies are some kind of “new fascism”. Apparently they never read President Putin’s 2012 manifesto on the topic, otherwise they would know that the Russian leader has a very firm and publicly declared stance against open borders and the Western conception of “multiculturalism”. By attacking concerned individuals that espouse these exact same principles as “racist”, “fascist”, and “white supremacist”, they’re indirectly attacking Russia and associating it with those slurs. It’s a documented fact that the tentacles of unipolar influence are long and deeply embedded in all sorts of social and political movements, so it’s reasonable to question whether these “anti-imperialist” voices are just “misguided activists” or if they’re really just anti-Russian provocateurs with an ideological ax to grind.
On 25 May, famous US actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“I have reflected and wanted to apologise for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding: “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now is the time to avoid hyperbole.”
But were Ruffalo’s earlier assessments, indeed, “not accurate, inflammatory and disrespectful”? And does equating Israel’s war on besieged, impoverished Gaza with genocide fit into the classification of “hyperbole”? … continue
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