Several media outlets reported this month on an alarming finding from a new U.S. government study: Iran’s intelligence ministry, as CNN put it, constitutes “a terror and assassination force 30,000 strong.”
The claim that the intelligence ministry has a whopping 30,000 employees, first reported by a conservative website, spread to other outlets including Wired and the public radio show the Takeaway and landed elsewhereonline, even on the intelligence ministry’s Wikipedia page. All cited the new government study, put out by an arm of the Library of Congress called the Federal Research Division.
So how did the government researchers come up with the number? They searched the Internet — and ended up citing an obscure, anonymous website that was simply citing another source.
The trail on the 30,000 figure eventually ends with a Swedish terrorism researcher quoted in a 2008 Christian Science Monitor article. But the researcher, Magnus Ranstorp, said he isn’t sure where the number came from. “I think obviously that it would be an inflated number” of formal employees, said Ranstorp.
We inquired with six Iran experts, and none knew of any evidence for the figure. Some said it might be in the ballpark while others questioned its plausibility.
“Whether the figures emanate from Iran or from western reporting, they are generally exaggerated and either meant as self-aggrandizing propaganda, if self-reported by Iran, or just approximations based on usually scant data or evidence,” said Afshon Ostovar, a senior Middle East analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses who writes frequently on Iran. The number “could be more or less accurate, but there’s no way to know.”
Gary Sick, a longtime Iran specialist in and out of government, said the entire Federal Research Division study “has all the appearance of a very cheap piece of propaganda and should not be trusted.”
Sick pointed to the study’s use of questionable Internet sources as well as flat-out errors. In one section, for example, the study lays out in detail how “Iran’s constitution defines” the intelligence ministry’s official functions. The problem, as Sick notes: Iran’s constitution doesn’t mention an intelligence ministry, let alone define its functions.
Federal Research Division Chief David Osborne said in an email the report “was leaked to the media without authorization” and declined to comment further “because it is proprietary to the agency for which it was written.”
This is what we know about the 30,000 figure and its provenance:
On the morning of Jan. 3, the conservative Washington Free Beacon ran a story headlined, “Iran Spy Network 30,000 Strong.” The outlet said it had obtained a “64-page unclassified report” on the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and published it with the story.
The Federal Research Service of the Library of Congress, which produced the study, provides “fee for service” research to other government agencies using the resources of the library. The study’s title page names no author but says it was produced under an agreement with an arm of the Pentagon called the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office. (That office did not respond to requests for comment.)
The study flatly states that Iran’s intelligence ministry has “more than 30,000 officers and support personnel.”
But it also hedges. It notes Iranian intelligence is “a difficult subject to study because so little information about it is publicly available.” The study does not claim to feature any original intelligence or reporting. It says its main sources are news websites and Iranian blogs.
“The reliability of blog-based information may be questionable at times,” says the report. “But it seems prudent to evaluate and present it in the absence of alternatives.”
The evening after the report was first published, CNN ran a segment on what it called “troubling new details on a new report of Iran’s intelligence service.” The story compared the 30,000 figure to the roughly 100,000 employees in the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies and offices, and went through various attacks over the years attributed to Iranian intelligence.
A CNN spokeswoman said the network “checked the number with sources that led us to feel comfortable that the report was in line with the national security community’s understanding.”
As support for the 30,000 claim, the study cites a post on a website, iranchannel.org, which aggregates news critical of Iran’s government.
That post, from 2010, turns out to merely excerpt another study from yet another source.
That study, titled “Shariah: The Threat to America,” was put out by the hawkish Center for Security Policy. As the title suggests, it doesn’t focus on Iran but rather the purported threat of Islamic law.
The study briefly mentions that Iran’s intelligence ministry has “up to some 30,000 officers and support staff.” Its source: the 2008 article in the Christian Science Monitor.
That piece refers to Iran’s intelligence ministry having “some 30,000 on the payroll by one count,” which came from Ranstorp, the Swedish terrorism researcher.
Ranstorp told us that while he did not recall citing the figure to the Monitor, it might have originated with Kenneth Katzman, a Mideast specialist with the Congressional Research Service who often writes on Iran.
Katzman told us that the figure did not come from him. He added that 30,000 did not seem “inordinately unreasonable” but that he does not know of evidence supporting it.
Bill Gertz, the Washington Free Beacon reporter who obtained and published the Federal Research Service study, told ProPublica he stands by his story.
“In my 30-plus years in reporting on national security issues, I have found that such unclassified reports often use press reporting of such numbers to avoid having to use classified information,” Gertz said. “I also know that most of the people who write such reports have access to classified information about the subjects they write about and I doubt they would publish a figure that would be contradicted by classified assessments of the number of personnel in the [intelligence ministry].”
Gertz also pointed to another report on Iran, this one produced in 2010 by private intelligence firm Stratfor. But that report says that, as of 2006, Iran’s intelligence ministry had just 15,000 employees. It does not cite a source for the figure.
Yemeni citizens, rights groups and lawmakers have vehemently condemned the presence of US Marine troops on Yemeni soil and the transformation of a five-star hotel in the capital, Sana’a, into a US military base, Press TV reports.
In interviews with Press TV, the legislators and human rights activists harshly criticized the conversion of the capital’s Sheraton Hotel into a military building and said they considered the presence of American forces as an occupation of their country.
The Yemenis argued that the US move to bring in the Marines for the protection of its diplomatic mission is merely a pretext for US domination on the ground.
“American Marines entered the country before the revolution and their numbers have increased… it’s similar to what happened when Britain occupied southern Yemen decades ago. The presence of Marine forces in the large number can only be described as an occupation,” political activist Abdu Ahmed said.
The US embassy in Sana’a reportedly booked all the rooms in the Sheraton Hotel, firing 200 members of the hotel’s staff after paying them a severance payment equal to six months of salary.
“We feel insecure. Anyone who goes up on the rooftop of his building will be targeted with a red light pointed to his chest. So if we can’t feel safe in our own country where can we find security and peace of mind?” said a Yemeni citizen.
The growing US domination has sparked numerous mass demonstrations, particularly in the Sada’a governorate to the north of the capital Sana’a.
The protesters in these demonstrations expressed the peoples’ total rejection of foreign intervention in their country’s affairs.
The increasing number of US assassination drone attacks, which mostly target innocent civilians, were also lambasted by the human rights groups.
The activists said the growing US interference in Yemen’s affairs is considered a flagrant violation of the Middle Eastern country’s sovereignty.
“Giving [approval to] US Marines to violate the country’s sovereignty is treason and those giving approval must be prosecuted. The assassinations are carried out right after the US intelligence apparatus received names of people suspected of being involved in al-Qaeda. There are a number of normal people on these lists, who can be easily arrested and brought to justice if found guilty,” human rights activist Abdulrahaman Barman noted.
Washington uses its assassination drones in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia, claiming that they target the terrorists. The attacks, however, have mostly led to massive civilian casualties.
TEL AVIV, Israel – Israel’s Channel 2 TV station reported on Sunday that 100 fighter jets from around the world are training in Israel, including preparation for possible intervention in Syria.
The foreign pilots and aircraft arrived in the country in recent days, and will examine crisis scenarios if Syria uses chemical weapons, the report said.
It did not release the names of the countries participating.
Last week, the TV channel said the Israeli air force was preparing for the joint training, which would include practicing bombing runs and air-to-air combat.
Are they STILL pushing this absurd line? The Jewish Chronicle is propagandising again.[1] In its recent article “Britain’s anger with Israel over 1982 Lebanon War,” the JC states the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador to the UK in June 1982 “provided the spark for Ariel Sharon to spearhead Israel’s incursion into Lebanon.” The JC states that the ambassador was “shot in the head by Palestinian terrorists,” and that the “invasion of southern Lebanon” demonstrated “Israel’s determination to stamp out terrorism from its northern border.” NOT BY A LONG SHOT, GUYS.
In case you missed it, the ambassador was shot by a Jordanian who was working within the Abu Nidal Organisation (ANO)—which in turn was run by a Palestinian who had been based in Jordan, Syria, Sudan and Iraq . . . but not in Lebanon. The ANO was characterised by its international, mercenary approach. The Jordanian gunman was accompanied by a cousin of Abu Nidal. . . and an Iraqi intelligence operative.
At best, the JC is being disingenuous. The 1982 military invasion of Lebanon was simply an escalation of Israeli aggression dating back decades—the aim of which was to eradicate the Palestinian resistance. The 82 invasion targeted the PLO, with whom the ANO were enemies. Thus the attempted assassination has long been widely acknowledged to have been a thin pretext. Yet the JC laments that, when the ambassador was shot, Israel had had to defend itself by running over Lebanon—a tired and feeble excuse.
As stated at the 7th emergency special session of the UN General Assembly (16 August 1982):
“For more than two months now the international community, as a whole, has focused its attention on Lebanon, where one of the most lethal wars of aggression the Middle East has ever known throughout its history is going on. The capital of a member nation of the United Nations [Beirut] has been besieged by the armed forces of a neighbor State [Israel].
This premeditated operation, which has already resulted in thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian civilian victims, was planned well in advance, designed to bring about a final solution to the Palestinian problem. At the same time, acts of intimidation and terrorism towards the Palestinians on the West Bank of the Jordan and in the Gaza Strip are increasing, leaving the victims convinced that the only way, to survive is to submit to domination.
Thus the military operations conducted by Israel in Lebanon replicate the political war against the PLO . . . . the Israeli leaders continue to flout the fundamental principles contained in the Charter and to violate numerous resolutions of the United Nations which, however, presided over the creation of the State of Israel. The most recent and most flagrant example of this attitude was Israel’s rejection of resolutions 508 (1982), 509 (1982), 512 (1982), 513 (1932) and 516 (1982) of the Security Council, and resolution ES-7/5 of the General Assembly, which all required Israel to put an end to the hostilities and to withdraw its forces behind the internationally recognized frontiers of Lebanon. The diplomatic efforts which have been undertaken here and there have always been met by the same Israeli reaction. That is, an escalation of violence.” [2]
The platitudes of the JC are routine. This article does serve, however, to draw attention to one disheartening reality. The attitude of far too many—not just Israelis, but also Americans, Arabs and Europeans—has been to view the Palestinians as nothing more a problem. Send them here, send them there, blast them into oblivion, just sort it. But the Palestinians are not a problem, they are a people. They deserve neither scorn nor pity; they deserve simple human equality. Was Britain “angry” with Israel for stampeding Lebanon in its attempt to eliminate the Palestinian “problem” and to pave the way toward a greater Israel? In retrospect, it seems they were not angry enough.
One of the many satisfying aspects of Flynt’s appointment as a professor of international affairs and law at Penn State is his service on the faculty editorial board for the new Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs, published jointly by Penn State’s Dickinson School of Law (DSL) and School of International Affairs (SIA). As its name suggests, the Journal focuses on subjects that lie at the intersection of law (international or national) and international relations. In keeping with the traditional law review model, Flynt’s wonderful colleague, Executive Editor (and assistant dean at DSL and SIA) Amy Gaudion oversees a talented batch of student editors from both schools who produce each issue.
The newest (second) issue of the Journal (vol. 1, no. 2) is out, see here. It includes our most recent article, “The Balance of Power, Public Goods, and the Lost Art of Grand Strategy: American Policy Toward the Persian Gulf and Rising Asia in the 21st Century”; for a pdf version, click here. It also includes pieces by (among others) Harold James, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Ronald Deibert, and P.J. Crowley. The issue grew out of a series of presentations that the Journal sponsored over the course of the last academic year around the theme of America’s emerging national security narrative.
Our article seeks to explore the roots of the worsening crisis in American foreign policy, of which America’s dysfunctional policy toward Iran is an especially salient manifestation. As we write,
“While no single factor explains the relative decline of American standing and influence in world affairs, one of the most important is the failure of American political and policy elites to define clear, reality-based goals and to relate the diplomatic, economic, and military means at Washington’s disposal to realizing them soberly and efficaciously. Defining such ends and relating the full range of foreign policy tools to their achievement is the essence of what is known among students of international relations and national security practitioners as ‘grand strategy.’ Questions of grand strategy are becoming an increasingly important element in America’s emerging national security narrative—because of accumulating policy failures, relative economic decline, and the rise of new power centers in various regional and international arenas.”
To explore what is wrong with contemporary American grand strategy and what it would take to put that strategy on a sounder course, our article evaluates “Washington’s posture toward two regions where the effectiveness of American policy will largely determine the United States’ standing as a great power in the 21st century: the Middle East (with a focus on the Persian Gulf) and rising Asia (with a focus on China).” As we explain,
“Fundamental flaws in America’s stance vis-à-vis these critical areas have contributed much to the erosion of the United States’ strategic standing. Over time, deficiencies in policy toward each of them have become synergistic with deficiencies in policy toward the other. Recovering a capacity for sound grand strategy will require a thoroughgoing recasting of American policy toward both—and a more nuanced appreciation of the interrelationship between these vital parts of the world for U.S. interests.”
We have come more and more to appreciate that recasting American policy in this way must necessarily be preceded by a kind of “cultural revolution” in the United States. Since the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy has been increasingly driven by a grand strategic model—we call it the “transformation model” in our article—in which “the United States seeks not to manage distributions of power but to transcend them by becoming a hegemon, in key regions of the world and globally.” Such a commitment to hegemony—an assertion of military, economic, and ideological dominance that aims to micromanage political outcomes in far-flung parts of the world and to remake, or at least to subordinate, vital regions in accordance with American preferences—is deeply problematic, strategically as well as morally.
Strategically, the transformation model rejects a lesson that balance of power theorists, foreign policy realists, and astute students of international history all know:
“While hegemony seems nice in theory, in the real world it is unattainable; not even a state as powerful as the United States coming out of the Cold War can achieve it. Pursuing hegemony is not just quixotic; it is counter-productive for a great power’s strategic position, dissipating resources…and sparking resistance from others. Pursuing hegemony ends up making you weaker. This is the critical factor that has undermined the effectiveness of American foreign policy over the last 20 years or so.”
Notwithstanding such a dismal record, the commitment to hegemony remains deeply rooted in American strategic and political culture. It is grounded in venerated notions of American exceptionalism and of the United States as “the indispensable nation.” It is driven by a teleological view of history reflecting a culturally-conditioned belief in “progress”—the inevitable triumph of liberal, secular modernism over other ways of looking at human and social existence—and a conviction that, ultimately, everyone wants to be “just like us.”
Of course, one can argue that there are resources available in American political culture to push back against the embrace of hegemonic foreign policy. For all that the United States has come, over the course of its history, to embody an ideology of liberal universalism, many of its founders (e.g., James Madison) and early leaders could well be described as hard-core “republican (small ‘r’) realists,” who understood that imperial ambitions are bound to undermine liberty at home and national strength abroad. But, for a long time, the relative balance of cultural resources has been tilted ever more in favor of liberal hegemony as the reigning paradigm for American foreign policy.
Tom Friedman has been getting better on the Middle East lately, though he still has a long way to go before he can be taken seriously, at least in terms of his analytical acuity as opposed to his unfortunate influence. For example, consider today’s column on Obama and Chuck Hagel: not bad at all (though certainly not up to Steve Walt on the same topic, at http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/), with the rather large exception of his remarkable contention that Israel “is surrounded by more implacable enemies than ever.”
Well, let’s see about that. To the west of Israel is Egypt–ok, probably not as “friendly” to Israel as in the Mubarak days, but with no indication that the new regime intends to abandon its peace treaty with Israel. To the north is Lebanon, too weak to threaten anyone but itself and with no intention–that includes Hezbollah–of embarking on an unprovoked attack (maybe not even a provoked one) against Israel. To the northeast lies Syria, which under the Assads, father and son, has not only rigorously prevented any attacks on Israel from its soil but has been willing to sign a peace treaty with it, if only Israel would withdraw from the Golan Heights.
To the east is Jordan, if anything a de facto ally of Israel. Finally, close by lies Saudi Arabia–the same Saudi Arabia that for thirty years has been the leader of the Arab Peace Initiative, which offers Israel not only a peace treaty but full normalization of diplomatic and economic relations, provided that Israel ends its occupation and agrees to a two-state settlement with the Palestinians.
Who’s left? Well, Iraq is over 500 miles away, possibly a threat to Israel under Saddam Hussein, at least in theory, but obviously not today. Ok, Iran, the single implacable enemy of Israel, but at 1000 miles away, hardly “surrounding” Israel, and in any case lacking all capability or any apparent intention of attacking Israel–as opposed to the other way around.
Perhaps Friedman was sick during the week when they taught world geography in the third grade. Even so, that hardly explains why the Times would allow such mind-boggling absurdity to be published.
It all started out simply enough. The nonprofit Council for the National Interest, of which I am president, recently tried to buy an advertisement in American History magazine.
The ad was to promote a new book by CNI’s founder, former Congressman Paul Findley, offering discounted copies through the CNI website.
The book, Speaking Out: A Congressman’s Lifelong Fight Against Bigotry, Famine, and War, is a fascinating memoir of Findley’s nine decades of life. It describes his depression-era childhood, World War II service in the South Pacific, experiences as an editor of a small town corn-belt newspaper, and 22 years as a Congressman grappling with everything from farm issues, to Vietnam, to Israel-Palestine.
The ad featured the cover of Findley’s book and four strong endorsements, including the following by Bill Moyers:
“There is a place in America called Findley Country. Inspired by its founding father, the people who live there cherish principled politics, political courage, and speaking truth to power (even when it hurts). Paul has given us a lively recollection of a robust and honorable life in public service, grounded in a patriot’s devotion to the country he loves.”
American History magazine refused to run our advertisement.
In fact, Advertising Director Julie Kershenbaum gratuitously informed us that they would not publish it in any of the 10 other U.S. history magazines owned by the same company. She said that the chain’s CEO and publisher, Eric Weider, had personally made the decision.
The reason? CNI is allegedly “anti-Israel.”
In reality, CNI is a nonpartisan organization founded 20 years ago by highly principled former U.S. Congressmen and diplomats. Our board members include several ambassadors.
CNI provides in-depth, transparently sourced information on the history and current situation in Israel-Palestine, on U.S. Middle East policies, and on their impact on American citizens, in line with our mission to work for U.S. Middle East policies that serve the national interest; that represent the highest values of our founders and our citizens; and that work to sustain a nation of honor, decency, security, and prosperity.
We oppose failed national policies that prolong the tragic violence in the Middle East, that place perceived Israeli interests over American ones, and that drain billions of dollars from the American economy.
Although many Americans are unaware of this, Americans are closely connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We give well over $8 million per day to Israel, a state smaller than New Jersey. On average, Israelis receive 10,000 times more U.S. foreign aid per capita than other people throughout the world. And this costs us significantly more – some analysts have placed the total cost at approximately $15 million per day.
We feel that it is essential that Americans become thoroughly informed about this conflict, which has cost multitudes of lives and created potentially catastrophic instability in the Middle East for over 60 years.
Yet, because the owners of what may be the world’s largest publisher of history magazines are partial to Israel, readers of 11 key American history magazines will neither be permitted to read about Findley’s autobiography nor even see the CNI name.
Troubled by this censorship, I phoned Publisher Eric Weider to discuss his decision. When he failed to return my calls, I began to research his company. Who were the people deciding what information could or could not reach American history fans?
While many people might picture the publishers of these magazines as scholars dedicated to the disinterested study of history, I discovered a very different situation.
Instead, I found out that the magazines are part of a massive and lucrative empire based on bodybuilding and related products: an empire that has been investigated and convicted for using false claims to sell potentially dangerous “nutritional supplements” and for publishing “obscene” magazines, run by powerful people with powerful friends in high places who’ve opposed the regulation of such supplements.
Not the profile readers might expect, though Publisher Weider is now interviewed in the media as an expert on American history – one whose commentary supports the alleged necessity of American wars in the Middle East.
The Weider History Group’s Eleven Magazines
The entity known as the Weider History Group publishes several history-related websites and eleven magazines: America’s Civil War, American History, Aviation History, Armchair General, British Heritage, Civil War Times, Military History, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vietnam, Wild West, and World War II.
All but one of these publications were originally independent magazines. Some of them are decades old. Civil War Times has been around for half a century; American History since the 1960s.
In 2006 the Weider History Group took over them all, acquiring them from another magazine chain.
Not everyone was pleased with the change. Civil War Times Editor Chris Lewis eventually resigned over the new direction the magazines were taking. He circulated an email explaining why he had decided to leave:
“I am a lifelong reader and care a great deal about this publication—which is why I cannot be a part of the ‘new direction’ that the magazines in this group are either already going in, or will be going in soon. There is no respect here anymore for history, historians or the core audience.”
The Empire that Owns American History
The Weider History Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Weider Health and Fitness, Inc., which in turn is part of a larger Weider empire valued at a billion dollars. The Weiders were initially Canadian promoters who are known for largely creating the business of modern bodybuilding and its multitude of spin-off products. Brothers Ben and Joe Weider founded the empire 70 years ago. Ben later said that his original dream had been to be an architect but that anti-Semitism had prevented this. Today, the principals are Joe Weider and Ben Weider’s son, Eric.
By the 1990s the Weider empire consisted of numerous brands and over a thousand products. These include bodybuilding extravaganzas and competitions; a wide range of exercise equipment and purported body enhancing devices; diverse publications; and a dazzling collection of “fitness products” and “nutritional supplements”– pills, powders, potions, and programs.
The latter are a large part of the Weider empire’s moneymaking machine. They include weight gain products, weight loss products, muscle health products, etc. An example is Weider BodyShaper Diet & Energy tablets “for Mental Energy and Thermogenesis.”
While many people purchase Weider products and some may deliver fully on their extravagant promises, federal investigations have found that a number of them do not.
Weider merchandise has been the subject of a number of federal investigations, and Weider companies have been found guilty of fraud on several occasions. The Weiders have worked to prevent legislation that would have further restricted the kinds of supplements sold by their companies.
In the 1970s U.S. postal officials found the Weider company had engaged in false claims involving a number of its products: “Slimmer Shake,” also known as “Weider’s Weight Loss Formula, XR-7;” “Slim Guard;” “Joe Weider’s Crash Weight Gain Formula #7;” “5 Minute Waist Slimmer Plan;” “5 Minute Body Shaper Plan;” and “Beauti-Breast of Paris,” a device which promised to enlarge breasts.
In 1981 the FTC found the company had made fraudulent claims regarding its “Slim-Quick formula.” The FTC also concluded that under some circumstances the weight-loss concoction could be significantly dangerous to health and required the company to add warning labels.
In 1986 the FTC forced Weider Health & Fitness Inc. to refund the purchase price paid by those who bought its “Anabolic Mega-Pak” or “Dynamic Life Essence” pills.
In 2000 Weider Nutritional International settled an FTC complaint involving false claims for PhenCal and was required to pay $400,000, a sum unlikely to have caused much pain to a billion dollar operation.
An Empire Built on Bodybuilding
The foundation of the Weider empire was originally the business of bodybuilding, and this still remains a significant part of its focus. According to anthropologist Alan Klein, the Weiders own “the largest conglomerate of bodybuilding products in the world.”
The Weiders founded the International Federation of Body Builders (IFBB) in 1946 and Joe Weider has been called the “czar” of bodybuilding.
In a 1998 book, former Mr. Universe Bob Paris stated that the Weiders “control bodybuilding.” (To learn more about bodybuilding see the montage at the IFBBpro website. As of this writing, the Weider history magazines have a banner ad on the site.)
Paris writes that the Weiders would pressure the most promising young bodybuilders into signing contracts with them. Anyone who publicly criticized or questioned any of the policies of the IFBB or its officers, Paris wrote, could be suspended. The officers seem to have mostly been the Weiders themselves or their friends.
Paris states:
“[T]he Weider brothers claim that the IFBB and the Weider companies are separate and completely unrelated. Only the most naive fool would believe that. They should simply say that, yes, they are completely linked… but of course if they did that, then nasty words like monopoly or conflict of interest would start getting thrown around….”
Another writer reported that a connection to the Weiders spelled success for an aspiring bodybuilder, but for a price: “…from that point on, the bodybuilder’s career is owned by the Weider corporation.”
The Arnold Schwarzenegger Connection
It was the Weiders who discovered future movie star/California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and brought him to America. They got the aspiring bodybuilder an apartment, bought him a car, and crafted him into a celebrity, tutoring him on everything from his exercise regimen and real estate investments to how to wear his hair. Joe Weider told the New York Times, “We created Arnold.”
The Weiders supported Schwarzenegger for California governor and remain close to him. Schwarzenegger declared July 9, 2007 “Joe Weider Day.” As we will see, there is a further connection. But first, we need to examine another aspect of the Weider business machine.
The Weider empire has also long included an array of magazines, mostly focused on bodybuilding and fitness. A few in past years seem to have crossed the line into lewdness and Joe Weider was twice indicted for producing and distributing obscene literature. In 1957 he was placed on a five-year probation.
In 2003 the Weiders sold this line of publications (the more obscene ones had been abandoned) to American Media, which also publishes the National Enquirer and Star tabloids, for $350 million.
This was less than a clean break, however, as the businesses seem to have arranged a mutually beneficial association, some of it apparently touching on Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Joe Weider remained in charge of the magazines under American Media, while American Media director David Pecker signed a contract to co-sponsor major bodybuilding contests with the Weiders.
With this new Weider-Pecker alliance came a change in how American Media’s tabloids covered Schwarzenegger, who was then running for California governor, and whose previous steroid use, sexual affairs (one allegedly with a minor), bullying groping incidents, etc. were the kind of fodder that often fuels tabloids.
According to an article in the San JoseMercury News, “Tabloids Starry-Eyed for Schwarzenegger,” by Dion Nissenbaum, Pecker promised Weider that his tabloids would “lay off’’ Schwarzenegger and “not dig up any dirt” on the gubernatorial candidate. In fact, following its deal with Weider, American Media now seemed to be promoting Schwarzenegger.
The Mercury News reported that American Media produced a 120-page glossy magazine called Arnold, the American Dream, “crammed with flattering photographs” that auspiciously hit the streets just as Schwarzenegger headed into the final lap of his campaign for governor.
The next year, after Schwarzenegger became governor, Pecker made him executive editor of Flex and Muscle & Fitness, promising him an estimated $8 million over the next five years for helping to “further the business objectives” of the company, according to the LA Times.
If anyone wondered how a sitting governor of one of the nation’s largest states would have time for such a position, Advertising Age reported that this was “a largely honorary position” and according to a Schwarzenegger aide “would only take up a ‘nominal amount’ of the governor’s time.”
The following year Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation that would have cracked down on the use of supplements by student athletes.
A number of these supplements have been tied to serious health consequences. The medical community has warned that potential health effects include liver cancer, heart disease, impaired testicular function, and neurodegenerative effects.
Following Schwarzenegger’s veto, critics accused him of a conflict of interest, since supplements constituted a large portion of the advertising in the magazines that were paying him so generously for his work.
Advertising Age also made a point of noting that Schwarzenegger’s veto of legislation that would have regulated supplements “highlighted Mr. Schwarzenegger’s decades-long relationship with Joe Weider, the godfather of the supplement business.”
While Schwarzenneger was governor, and since, he has also worked to promote Israel. In a speech at an event at the Israeli Consulate Schwarzenegger proclaimed, “I love Israel. When I became governor, Israel was the first country that I visited.”
“I’ve had the pleasure of being there many times,” Schwarzenegger said, “and have seen it from a bodybuilding point of view, from a tourist’s point of view, from an entertainer’s point of view, from the governor’s point of view, forming trade relationships with Israel in order. I have been a long-time friend of Israel.”
The Orrin Hatch Connection
The Weiders have a history of working against public health regulation of supplements, despite evidence that some supplements can be dangerous to health – sometimes fatally so.
In 1994, according to a report on Weider Nutrition International in the International Directory of Company Histories, Vol.29, the Weiders worked with Utah Senator Orrin Hatch to successfully counter the FDA’s attempts to regulate supplements. Many Weider companies are headquartered in Utah.
The company history reports that a bill sponsored by Hatch entitled “the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act” was passed “to prevent the Food and Drug Administration from over-regulating the health products industry.”
“Later that year,” the report states, “Weider Nutrition honored Senator Hatch for his work on the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to Salt Lake City to present Hatch with Weider’s first annual award for major health contributions.”
A 2001 article in the Washington Monthly, “Scorin’ with Orrin: How the gentleman from Utah made it easier for kids to buy steroids, speed, and Spanish fly,” gives the details.
Washington Monthly reports that the FDA had not bothered to participate in debates over Hatch’s bill, because it believed the law was so obviously bad it would never pass. However, Hatch sneaked the bill through in a late-night session, the magazine reports. Afterward, a pharmacist and public health expert appalled at the bill remarked: “I do not understand how a single member of Congress voted for it.”
Washington Monthly concludes, “Thanks to Hatch, the U.S. now has standards as low as those in many Third World countries for the sale of many products with serious, pharmacological effects. The results have been deadly. Between 1993 and 1998, the FDA linked at least 184 deaths to dietary supplements, which are now suspected of contributing to the sudden deaths of three football players in August.”
Six years later, a number of athletes who had taken American supplements were devastated when they failed drug tests at the 2000 Olympics. Unbeknownst to these athletes, the supplements contained substances banned internationally because of the dangers they posed to health.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) warned athletes to avoid American supplements, particularly those manufactured in Utah, which had become known as the “Cellulose Valley of the U.S. supplement industry.”
When Olympic officials and others specifically blamed Hatch for the problem, Weider and other manufacturers met with him to encourage him to keep the supplements as unregulated as possible. Washington Monthly reports that Hatch’s office “apparently reassured them that the senator would continue to defend their interests.”
While Hatch is reportedly a true believer in alternative medicine, the article pointed out: “There’s big money in dietary supplements, and Hatch has taken his fair share in campaign contributions.”
Loren Israelson, executive director of the Utah Natural Products Alliance, which represents the Utah supplement industry, lauded Hatch’s commitment: “He is by far our greatest advocate. No one rises to the issue the way Sen. Hatch does. He’s a true believer in natural health.”
Weider Foundations
The Weider empire is not limited to the U.S. The Weiders have promoted bodybuilding (and Weider products) worldwide. There are now IFBB groups in 182 countries, and there are photos of Weider with diverse government officials, including Ronald Reagan, Yasser Arafat, and Menachem Begin.
Multimillionaires often set up tax-deductible foundations and the Weiders have created several.
The Ben Weider foundation has donated gyms around the world as part of their bodybuilding outreach, including in Israel and Palestine. Ben endowed what is now known as the “Ben Weider Jewish Community Center in Montreal” and also supported two Lubavitch institutions, a charismatic and sometimes controversial branch of Orthodox Judaism. He was an admirer of Lubavitch head Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, a religious leader who was a major force in Israel; Israeli leaders – including Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Benjamin Netanyahu – would often visit him when they were in the U.S. and seek his advice. A widely revered but controversial leader, Schneerson was held by some followers to be the Messiah. Less widely known is the fact that he made statements that Jews are a different and superior species to non-Jews.
There is also a Joe Weider Foundation; Joe Weider is CEO and Eric Weider has been CFO and is currently President. This entity has given several large grants to a Los Angeles-based organization called American Friends Of Aish HaTorah. Aish HaTorah is an Israeli organization that opposes Jewish assimilation and promotes Israel in the United States. It has been connected to the production of pseudo-documentaries promoting Islamophobia that were distributed in the U.S.
Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, a strong Israel proponent himself, calls Aish “just about the most fundamentalist movement in Judaism today. Its operatives flourish in the radical belt of Jewish settlements just south of Nablus, in the northern West Bank, and their outposts across the world propagandize on behalf of a particularly sterile, sexist and revanchist brand of Judaism.”
Among its multitude of activities, Aish has a program to create and equip advocates for Israel on American campuses. These “Hasbara Fellows” as they’re termed, operate on over 120 campuses.
Joe Weider is one of six North American chairmen of The Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah. This focuses on bringing political leaders, corporate executives, investors, and entertainment personages on private trips to Israel to increase their support for Israel.
Weider Empire Acquires History Magazines
The same year the Weiders sold their muscle and fitness magazines they began their foray into history magazines. Working out of the same San Fernando offices, they published the first in their new chain, Armchair General, the following year. A Reuters story on the launch announced:
“The Los Angeles publisher that made its fortune on the dreams of armchair musclemen everywhere now wants to get Americans pumped up on a new avocation — becoming armchair generals.
“Eric Weider, whose family firm sold mainstream America on bodybuilding and Arnold Schwarzenegger, on Tuesday launched Armchair General, an ‘interactive’ war magazine aimed at selling military history to the masses.”
The Weiders’ market analysis showed a potential readership of “more than 35 million lifelong devotees.” Eric Weider, who had moved to California from Canada many years before, became an American citizen around this time.
While Eric Weider appears to be a genuine history buff, he apparently has no training or degree in history. He has a Master’s degree in business administration and has spent most of his life working in his family’s business empire, mostly in its bodybuilding and “nutritional supplements” divisions.
A Business Week c.v. lists the following positions: President and Chief Executive Officer of Weider Health and Fitness Inc., President of the Joe Weider Foundation, Chairman of Schiff Nutrition International Inc., Director of a number of public and private companies in the United States and Canada, including Nutripeak, Inc., Hillside Investment Management, Inc., Organ Recovery Systems and Life Science Holdings, and Weider Health and Fitness, a subsidiary of Schiff Nutrition International Inc.
Nevertheless, TV and radio shows hosted by such people as Tucker Carlson and Al Rantel feature Eric Weider as “an historian” to provide what is promoted as expert commentary on current events and today’s wars.
Weider is an engaging speaker, but the history he cites is highly selective and is used to support military action in the Middle East. On the Rantel show he suggested that American presidents should ignore polls indicating what Americans want and instead “instill the will” to fight.
The Weider History Group and Israel-Palestine
A survey of the publications’ website, HistoryNet, shows most articles and commentaries regarding Israel-Palestine to be Israel-centric. They often extol the Israeli military.
The publications’ articles during and following Israel’s 2008-9 massive attack on Gaza largely consisted of cheering Israel’s victory. The articles failed to mention that this allegedly proud conquest (fueled by massive American money and weaponry) was over one of the world’s poorest populations (largely thanks to Israeli policies). They also failed to mention that Palestinians have no navy, no air force, and no real army, and that their resistance groups are minimally armed.
When Israel finally ended its three-week long invasion of the densely populated enclave (during which Israeli forces had killed 1,400 Palestinians, 470 of them women and children; many others elderly men), a Weider HistoryNet article bemoaned Israel’s decision “to break off its punitive expedition into Gaza prematurely—despite the superb performance of the Israel Defense Force….”
The HistoryNet articles emphasized Israel’s need “to defend itself” against Palestinian rockets, but they failed to report that these are largely small, homemade projectiles and that Palestinian resistance forces began firing them only after Israel had already invaded Gaza numerous times and killed and injured hundreds of Palestinians of all ages.
They also neglected to mention that, before the invasion, these rockets had killed a total of approximately 19 Israelis – ever. (The total fatalities from Gaza rockets through November 2012 are 29. During the same time, according to the Israeli organization B’Tselem, Israeli forces killed over 4,000 Gazans.)
The articles erroneously claimed that Israel invaded Gaza because the Palestinian Hamas group had violated a ceasefire agreement with Israel. In reality, it was Israel that had violated the ceasefire three times – killing seven Palestinians – before some Palestinian groups then resumed rocket fire.
Finally, the Weider articles failed to inform readers that Israel had been planning the invasion for six months ahead of time, as revealed by a Jewish Chroniclearticle applauding Israel’s effective “hasbara” (propaganda) campaign during the operation.
Eric Weider himself has occasionally posted pro-Israel comments on the site’s forums. In one he responds to a member’s posting about Israeli fighters flying over Gaza several times a day to create sonic booms in order to frighten the people below, who would dive for shelter. Weider comments: “Next thing you know the Israelis will start talking excessively loudly! Their cruely [sic] knows no bounds!” In another thread, Weider states, “It is important to recognize that there is a lot of anti-semetic [sic] inspired Anti-Israel sentiment in the world.”
Eric Weider and George Washington
Eric Weider expresses great admiration for George Washington and has begun a petition to restore his birthday as a federal holiday. He has written: “If I have a historical role model I would say that I most admire George Washington and I do my best to conduct myself in a way that he (and my father) would approve of.”
Yet, Weider seems to be violating one of Washington’s major recommendations:
In his Farewell Address, Washington warned against a “passionate attachment” to any foreign nation, saying that such attachments were “particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.”
If Eric Weider looked at the CNI website when he decided to censor it from his 11 magazines, he saw prominently displayed on the homepage a picture of the American forefather who he has called “first in his heart.”
Under this he saw an excerpt from his role model’s famous speech in which Washington warned: “Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.”
On our homepage Weider would have also seen a history article on the U.S.-Israel relationship that contains considerable new, somewhat explosive information. Much of this would quite likely be of interest to readers of American history magazines, if they were allowed to learn of it.
Determining the future through controlling the past
It is disturbing to find that a chain targeting American history enthusiasts is exploiting its considerable power in furtherance of a political agenda of such monumental significance.
Multitudes of lives have been lost and destroyed in Middle East wars – many thousands of them American. Israel is the core issue in the Middle East and key cause of hostility to the U.S., is a factor in the American economic crisis, is embedded in U.S. electoral politics, and plays a significant role in many aspects of American policy formation. It is essential that Americans become well informed on Israel and on our relationship to it.
Author George Orwell’s words capture the profound significance of the Weider censorship within its history magazines: “Who controls the past controls the future.” Or, in the words of someone who posted to an online bodybuilding forum about the Weiders’ ownership of history publications: “Of course, if you control the writing of history… you gain power.”
The way to avoid a dangerously darkening future, I feel, is to free the past to full, open, and unfiltered inquiry. Our forefathers created freedom of the press because they rightly understood the necessity of a fully informed populace for the survival of our democratic republic.
The only way to counter the manipulation of powerful media owners is to expose their actions widely and to demand better. I hope all those who love knowledge, who care about the United States, and who value the lives of others on the other side of the world will help disseminate this information. It is time to stop allowing those who own the press to abuse their massive power.
Israel has rebuffed a UN call to adhere to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open itself to international inspectors, calling the suggestion a “meaningless mechanical vote” of a body that “lost all its credibility regarding Israel.”
In a 174-6 vote, the United Nations General Assembly demanded in a non-binding call that Tel Aviv join the NPT “without further delay,” in an effort to create a legally binding nuclear-free Middle East.
Washington, Israel’s strongest ally, surprised no one by voting against the resolution – but did approve two paragraphs that were voted on separately, which called for universal adherence to the NPT and for all non-signatory governments to join.
The UN body “has lost all its credibility regarding Israel with these types of routine votes that are ensured passage by an automatic majority and which single out Israel,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor was quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying.
The Assembly’s call on Israel comes days after a large majority of its members voted to grant Palestine statehood state status and just weeks after the an escalation of violence between Gazans and Israel’s occupation forces. Palmor stressed, however, that since the NPT vote takes place annually, the Palestinian victory is not connected.
Israel is not a signatory to the 1970 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, the main objective of which is to is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology. Despite near-universal acknowledgement that Tel Aviv maintains a powerful nuclear arsenal, Israeli officials promote a position claiming their government will “not be the first country to introduce weapons into the Middle East.”
The Middle East’s only democracy possesses as many as 400 nuclear warheads, along with various ways to deliver them. It is also one of four countries known to have nuclear weapons that are not recognized as Nuclear Weapons States by the NPT. The others are India, North Korea and Pakistan.
Israel follows a policy known as “nuclear opacity,” which it sees as a deterrent against its neighbors.
The timing of the Israeli dismissal of the call for transparency comes less than two weeks after Washington’s withdrawal from December’s nuclear-free Middle East conference, to be held in Finland and sponsored by Russia, the UK and the US.
State Department officials said the international effort is being postponed because of “a deep conceptual gap [that] persists in the region on approaches towards regional security and arms control arrangements,” and because “states in the region have not reached agreement on acceptable conditions” for the meeting, quotes the IPS.
But many blamed Israel’s refusal to accept the terms as the real reason for postponing the regional nuclear drive.
“The truth is that the Israeli regime is the only party which rejected to conditions for a conference,” Iranian diplomat Khodadad Seifi told the General Assembly on Monday, as he called for “strong pressure on that regime to participate in the conference without any preconditions.”
The meeting is now expected to be held early next year.
There are currently five nuclear-weapon-free zones in the world, according to the UN: Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, South-East Asia, Central Asia, and Africa.
The recent hostilities between the Gaza Strip and Israel have to be viewed in context of a broader geopolitical chessboard. The events in Gaza are tied to Syria and the US’s regional maneuvers against Iran and its regional alliance system.
Syria has been compromised as a conduit for weapons to Gaza, because of its domestic instability. Israel has capitalized on this politically and militarily. Benjamin Netanyahu has not only tried to secure his own election victory in the Knesset through an attack on Gaza, but has used the US-sponsored instability in Syria as an opportunity to try and target the arms stockpiles of the Palestinians.
Netanyahu calculated that Gaza will not be able to rearm itself while Syria and its allies are distracted. The bombing of the Yarmouk arms factory in Sudan, which Israel says was owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, was probably part of this plan and a prelude to Israel’s attack on Gaza.
In this chess game, sit the so-called “Moderates”— a misleading label jointly utilized by Messrs George W. Bush Jr. and Tony Blair to whitewash their regional cabal of tyrants and backward regimes — alongside the Obama Administration and NATO. These so-called Moderates include the desert dictators of the feudal Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jordan, Mahmoud Abbas, and Turkey. In 2011, the ranks of the Moderates were augmented by the NATO-installed government of Libya and the GCC/NATO-supported anti-government militias that were unleashed in Syria.
On the other side of the chessboard defiantly sits the Resistance Bloc composed of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah (and Hezbollah’s partners in Lebanon, like Amal and the Free Patriotic Movement), the so-called Palestinian Rejectionists, and increasingly Iraq. The Muslim Brotherhood, which has emerged as a new regional force, is being increasingly prodded into the Moderate camp by the US and the GCC in an attempt to ultimately play the sectarian card against the Resistance Bloc.
Stark contrasts between Gaza and Syria
Israel’s attack on Gaza was a litmus test. All those voices continuously pushing for America’s McJihad against the Syrian government in the name of freedom vanished from their podiums or suddenly went silent when Israel attacked Gaza. Al Jazeera’s tele-preacher Yusuf Al-Qaradawi and Saudi Arabia’s dictator-selected Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz went silent. Adnan Al-Arour — the Saudi-based exiled kooky Syrian cleric who, as one of the spiritual heads of the Syrian anti-government forces, has threatened to punish anyone that says that Al-Qaeda is among their ranks — even berated Hamas and the Palestinians for fighting Israel.
The fighting in Gaza really placed them in a fix. Here we see the contradictions in their “Arab Spring.” We now see who really pays lip service to Palestinian liberation and who does not. Moreover, the foreign supporters of the Syrian National Coalition, a rehash of the Syrian National Council, are ironically all supporters of Israel.
This is why mentioning the support that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah have provided for Gaza has become a taboo among the supporters of the anti-government forces in Syria. All they can say is that any acknowledgment of the support that Tehran, Damascus, and Hezbollah have provided to Gaza is an attempt to sanitize “Bashar Al-Assad and his supporters.”
Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah helped the Palestinians in Gaza
The Iranian Fijr-5 symbolically ingrains Tehran’s support for Palestine. Despite the fact that Israel and Gaza are by far not equal, it was predominately Iranian arms and technology that changed the balance of power. Tehran has been the main ally and supporter of the Palestinian resistance. The US, Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Iran itself have all acknowledged this in different ways.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is unapologetically pro-Iranian, has openly stated that everything Gaza used in the fight against Israel, from its bullets to missiles, has been generously provided by Tehran. It was even reported during the fighting that Hezbollah, using a special unit dedicated to arming the Palestinians, resupplied the Gaza Strip with some of its own long-range missiles.
This has all taken place while the cads in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have instead armed the Syrian anti-government militias. Egypt and Jordan continue to be major partners in preventing Iranian arms from reaching the Palestinians.
Palestinian fighters have also been trained in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Ironically, the anti-government forces in Syria are also targeting members of the Palestinian Liberation Army in Syria.
The support that the Resistance Bloc has given the Palestinians puts those actors, like Turkey and Qatar, opposed to the Syrian government in a real predicament. These so-called Sunni states were embarrassed; not only did they fail to help a predominately Sunni population, but their insincerity was exposed. This is why there is an active effort to deny the support that Iran and its allies have provided for Gaza.
A boy looks up as he walks in the rubble of a destroyed shop in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on November 26, 2012 (AFP Photo / Mahmud Hams)
A boy looks up as he walks in the rubble of a destroyed shop in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on November 26, 2012 (AFP Photo / Mahmud Hams)
De-linking Hamas from Resistance Bloc to start a Muslim Civil War
As a back story to all this, the Israeli attack on Gaza and the Moderate’s wooing of Hamas is more than just about neutralizing Gaza. Hamas leaders are being tempted to choose between the Moderate and Resistance camps and increasingly between governing or active resistance to the Israeli occupation. Through this, some form of accommodation to the US and Israel is being sought from Hamas. The aims are to de-link the Palestinians, particularly Hamas, from the Resistance Bloc in order to portray Iran and its allies as a Shiite alliance bent on dominating the Sunnis.
If you are foolish enough to fall prey to it, welcome to the unfolding “American fitna” (schism) that aims to ignite a regional Muslim civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis. The Obama administration is trying to construct and line up a Sunni axis against the region’s Shiite Muslims.
It is a classic strategy of divide and conquer that envisions America and Israel dominating the region as the Muslims are incapacitated by their bloodletting. The Shia are systematically being vilified courtesy of the new media war: Iran, Hezbollah, Bashar Al-Assad (an Alawi who is increasingly labeled a Shiite for the benefit of this project), and Nouri Maliki’s administration in Iraq are being portrayed as the new oppressors of the Sunnis. In their place Turkey, with its virtually stillborn neo-Ottomanism foreign policy, and Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood are being presented as the champions of the Sunnis. Never mind that Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi has continued the blockade of Gaza for Israel or that Turkey’s Erdogan lost his voice for a while when Israel began bombing Gaza.
The US is trying to use Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to control Hamas, because it was Cairo that established a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza. While Iran offers military technology, logistical support, and finance the Egyptians are being presented as Gaza’s ticket to establishing some form of normality and the GCC as alternative funding. This is why Qatar’s Emir Al-Thani visited Gaza to tempt Hamas with his declining supply of petro-dollars.
Shiite and Sunni divisions are political constructs
Inside Hamas there are internal differences over this. While Damascus, Tehran, and Hezbollah desired some form of public acknowledgment about their vital assistance to Hamas and the Palestinians, Hamas officials were careful about their statements. When Khaled Meshaal thanked Egypt, Qatar, and Tunisia during an important press conference, he narrowly mentioned Iran.
Meshaal’s politicking was not lost on Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who responded hours later by rhetorically asking who supplied and painstakingly transferred the Fajr-5 missiles into Gaza? Nasrallah asked people to look past Gaza’s fair-weather friends, like the Qataris and Saudis who think they can buy their ways into the grace of the Palestinians, but to look at Gaza’s tested friends who allowed Gaza to stand on its own two feet. Then the Lebanese leader reaffirmed the ongoing support of the Resistance Bloc for the Palestinian people.
Despite its politburo’s position on Syria, Hamas is still a part of the Resistance Bloc. There is a new format now. If Greece and Turkey were at odds with one another as two NATO allies, then Hamas can have its differences with Syria and still be allied with the Resistance Bloc against Israel.
The divide in the Middle East is not a sectarian one between Shiites and Sunnis, but fundamentally political. The alliance of the predominately Sunni Muslim Palestinian resistance movements and the Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanon’s largest Christian political party, with predominately Shiite Muslim Iran and Hezbollah should defuse such a perception that the US and its allies are trying to cultivate.
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has criticized the cancellation of a conference on banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
In a statement issued on Friday, NAM strongly condemned the opposition of the US, Russia, Britain and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the conference that was originally scheduled to be held in Finland’s capital, Helsinki, in December, upon an agreement reached during the 2010 NPT Review Conference.
The movement emphasized that the conference should be held before the end of 2012, voicing the NAM member states’ full support for the establishment of a Middle East region free of nuclear weapons.
It also urged the Israeli regime, the only non-signatory to the NPT in the Middle East, to destroy its nuclear weapons, place its nuclear facilities under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) supervision and carry out all its atomic activities in accordance with international non-proliferation regulations.
On November 23, the US announced that the Helsinki conference cannot be convened at this point due to the special conditions in the Middle East.
The major event has reportedly been cancelled on US worries that its long-time ally in the region, the Israeli regime, would come under fire as the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
Israel is widely known to possess between 200 and 400 nuclear warheads.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaei called on Friday for joint efforts to pursue the idea of creating a Middle East region free of weapons of mass destruction.
He said that the nuclear weapons of Israel, which has a dark background in state terrorism and resorting to aggression, threat and bullying against other countries, are a real threat to regional and international peace.
“It is necessary that the international community swiftly and firmly counter this threat,” the Iranian envoy pointed out.
The Israeli regime rejects all the regulatory international nuclear agreements – the NPT in particular – and refuses to allow its nuclear facilities to come under international regulatory inspections.
“What do they want from Jaramana? The town brings together people from all over Syria and welcomes everybody.” These were the anguished words of one distraught resident in the Syrian town of Jaramana that was devastated by multiple deadly explosions this week.
The death toll has yet to be confirmed. Early reports on the blasts said 34 were killed. Later, the toll was put at more than 50, with over 120 injured, many critical. All of the victims were civilian.
Over the past 20 months, Syria has witnessed dozens of massacres and horrific car bombings in its capital Damascus and in other cities and countless villages across the country. But the latest atrocity in Jaramana, located close to the capital, is distinguishable perhaps because it most clearly shows the vile Machiavellian mentality of the perpetrators in their broader strategy towards the Middle Eastern country.
As the words of the shell-shocked resident above indicate, Jaramana can be seen as an exemplar of the pluralist nature of the Syrian society, “welcoming everybody”. The town is particularly known for its Christian and Druze Muslim communities, who by all accounts have coexisted peacefully for centuries. The populace is also largely supportive of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
This Wednesday morning, as workers, mothers and school children were going about their usual daily routine, two massive no-warning explosions ripped through the heart of Jaramana. The second blast was detonated minutes after the first one when bystanders were rushing to the scene to aid the wounded. The heinous calculation of the perpetrators was to maximise the killing and suffering.
“What do they want from Jaramana?” The answer is revealed in the resident’s subsequent words: “The town brings together people from all over Syria and welcomes everybody.”
The terrorist war on Syria, which the Western media trumpet as a “pro-democracy uprising”, is aimed at precisely the opposite of pluralist coexistence. What the terrorists want is to tear the tolerant soul out of the country and plunge its people into an internecine, hate-filled sectarian bloodbath.
The targeting of Jaramana is a deliberate, brutal calculation to precipitate such a bloodbath. The town has been inflicted with several similar, although less deadly, bombings in recent months. On 29 October, a car bomb killed 11 people.
There are no military or state security installations in Jaramana. As noted, it is a urban district known for its tolerance towards mixed religions and cultural heritage. But, for the terrorists and their fiendish mentality, that civic virtue made Jaramana a prime target.
The armed militants in Syria are driven by Sunni extremists of Wahhabist or Salafist tendencies, who see pluralist coexistence of Sunni, Shia, Alawite, Druze, Christian, Jews and non-believers as anathema to their demented puritanical ideology.
Other elements within the Syrian armed militant groups would appear to be simply “soldiers of fortune” – mercenaries and criminal opportunists who have no particular religious affiliation.
However, taken together, these various militant factions are united by one criminal goal: to smash Syria, ruthlessly and recklessly.
The Syrian society, as it currently exists with its emphasis on secular pluralism, must be destroyed at all costs by these extremists and criminal opportunists. The most effective way to sabotage Syria is to unleash a sectarian bloodbath and to pit communities at each other’s throats. That will ensure the collapse of the central government and the splintering of society into sects. In this intended milieu of violence, chaos and fear, Syria will then be at the mercy of those who want to dominate this proud, historic country.
The enemies are well known. Western governments have had their knives out for Syria over many years, seeing it as a strategic obstacle of popular resistance to Western imperialism and Zionism in the Middle East. The Sunni regimes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and latterly Egypt under Mohammed Morsi want to see Syria roped into their camp, with the added appeal of undermining Iran’s regional influence.
Saudi Arabia’s autocrats are particularly obsessed with defeating what they perceive jealously as the Shia Crescent represented by Iran, Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Both of these agenda converge on the objective of isolating Iran and setting up the Islamic Republic for an all-out military assault.
Syria is therefore a crucial geopolitical prize for the West and its regional allies. The supposed advocacy of democratic reforms by Western governments and their corporate media mouthpieces is of course a cynical cover for their criminal imperialist agenda. That particular ridiculous lie is exposed by the West’s collusion with the most repressive dictatorial regimes on the planet – the Persian Gulf monarchies – in “liberating” Syria.
Also, if Saudi Arabia and Qatar are so concerned about the welfare of their Arab Muslim brothers in Syria, why aren’t these supposedly chivalrous monarchs sending weapons and fighters to help the besieged Palestinian people of Gaza?
A measure of the Syrian prize is the criminal lengths to which the enemies of Syria are willing to go in order to vanquish the country and install their self-styled regime.
The massacres of families and children in villages like Houla and Qubair; the cold-blooded execution of civilians forced to kneel before their killers; and the callous bombing of civilians as seen this week in Jaramana are techniques of terror that the Western governments and their allies have perfected elsewhere over several decades. The Americans used such demonic scientific terrorism in Central America; the French in North Africa; and the British in East Africa and more recently in Northern Ireland.
Syria is witnessing the worst of all possible criminal assaults – the evolution and amalgamation of Western state terrorism fueled with the petrodollars of mindless Arab despots.
Adding to the abomination, many of the crimes in Syria have been filmed by the perpetrators and subsequently released claiming that they were the action of government forces. One incident was the explosive demolition of a mosque by the mercenaries in Aleppo, who were filmed laughing at their war crime. Western media claimed it was the Syrian national army, only for it to emerge that it was actually the members of the so-called Free Syrian Army.
Recent claims that the Syrian armed forces are using cluster bombs to kill children have been given the usual Western media prominence. But given the track record of the Western-backed mercenaries and the Western propaganda machine, the weight of suspicion surely lies on them.
Within hours of the mass murder of the innocents in Jaramana, the United Nations General Assembly in New York adopted a draft resolution condemning the Syrian government for what it called “widespread human rights abuses”.
The condemnation was co-sponsored by the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – the very sponsors of Western state terrorism plunging the Syrian people into a bloodbath. The UN stands as an institution that is not just a debased propaganda tool, it is a propaganda tool splattered with the blood of innocents.
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Originally from Belfast, Ireland, Finian Cunningham (born 1963) is a prominent expert in international affairs. The author and media commentator was expelled from Bahrain in June 2011 for his critical journalism in which he highlighted human rights violations by the Western-backed regime. For many years, he worked as an editor and writer in the mainstream news media, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. He is now based in East Africa where he is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring. He co-hosts a weekly current affairs programme, Sunday at 3pm GMT on Bandung Radio.
In the course of his much-ridiculed albeit deadly serious ACME bomb speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu asserted that “the medieval forces of radical Islam” stand in the way of Israel’s desire for “a Middle East of progress and peace.” As evidence of these freedom-hating, anti-modern forces supposedly “bent on world conquest,” Netanyahu cited the Sept. 11 besieging of U.S. embassies throughout the region.
The Israeli prime minister was repeating a theme he had been given the opportunity to develop earlier in an interview on prime-time American television. Addressed by NBC’s “Meet the Press” host David Gregory as “the leader of the Jewish people” (Gregory himself is Jewish), Netanyahu was asked whether he thought a “containment strategy” would work on Iran, as it had with the Soviet Union. Iran was different, Netanyahu responded, because its “rationality” could not be relied upon since it is “guided by a leadership with an unbelievable fanaticism.” To emphasize the purported threat of nuclear-armed mullahs in Tehran, the Israeli leader drew a terrifying mental picture for his American audience: “It’s the same fanaticism that you see storming your embassies today. You want these fanatics to have nuclear weapons?”
While there is much controversy about the reasons for the assaults on U.S. diplomatic missions on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, widespread Muslim outrage over a YouTube video insulting the Prophet Muhammad was clearly a factor in triggering at least some of the ensuing anti-American riots. In light of Netanyahu’s subsequent emphasis on these vivid examples of “fanaticism” to advance the narrative of an Iranian “nuclear threat” in an increasingly unstable region in which Tel Aviv remains Washington’s “one reliable ally,” it’s certainly worth exploring whether the deliberately offensive anti-Islam video may have been the work of pro-Israel provocateurs. As former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said on NBC’s “Morning Joe” regarding what position America should take toward the Muslim world, “If there are evil forces at work trying to provoke violence between us and you, we have the obligation to investigate and to crack down.”
In what appears to have been an artfully contrived red herring, initial reports did indeed point to an Israeli source of the provocative video. The Wall Street Journal and Associated Press—two media outlets often accused of pro-Israel bias—were suspiciously credulous of someone claiming to be an Israeli-American real estate developer who said he was the writer and director of “Innocence of Muslims.” This “Sam Bacile” gratuitously added that the production had been funded by “about 100 Jewish donors.” Almost immediately, the dubious story was debunked by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg—a former prison guard in the Israel Defense Forces whose reporting has at key junctures served to advance Tel Aviv’s interests—when a self-described “militant Christian activist” named Steve Klein assured him that “the State of Israel is not involved.” Absolving the Jewish state of any culpability, Klein eagerly pointed the finger at Egyptian Copts and American evangelicals. A self-satisfied Goldberg summed up the story in a tweet: “A group of Christians smearing Muslims libels Jews.”
Notwithstanding Goldberg’s terse dismissal of an Israeli connection, the Jew-libeling Christians actually turned out to have close ties to the pro-Israel Islamophobia network led by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Spencer’s Jihad Watch group has been indirectly funded by Aubrey Chernick, a Los Angeles-based software security entrepreneur and former trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the influential think tank created in 1985 by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Spencer’s provocative writings on Islam are also publicized by The Gatestone Institute, whose founder and director Nina Rosenwald has held leadership positions in AIPAC and other mainstream pro-Israel organizations. In a July 2012 profile in The Nation magazine, Max Blumenthal dubbed the heiress to the Sears Roebuck fortune “The Sugar Mama of Anti-Islam Hate.”
This past February, in a post on her Atlas Shrugs blog entitled “A Movie about Muhammad: An Idea whose Time Has Come,” Geller solicited funds for a film that would show “Muhammad’s raids, plunders, massacres, rapes, assassinations and other crimes.” According to the controversial pro-Israel provocateur, it was “a brilliant idea” by Ali Sina, whom she introduced as a “renowned ex-Muslim author, founder of FaithFreedom.org and SION Board member.” SION, whose similarity to Zion is hardly coincidental, stands for “Stop Islamization of Nations,” a group co-founded by Geller and Spencer which held its inaugural International World Freedom Congress in New York on Sept. 11 “to combat the Islamic supremacist war against free speech.” Ali Sina’s solicitation for funds assured readers of Geller’s blog that “given the subject matter” it could become “one of the most seen motion pictures ever.” Revealingly, he asked them, “Recall Danish cartoons?”—an earlier media-catalyzed provocation in which pro-Israel, anti-Islam propagandists such as Daniel Pipes cited freedom of speech as they incited Muslim outrage against the West.
Two years earlier, on the ninth anniversary of 9/11, Geller and her partners-in-provocation held a rally to protest the construction of an Islamic community center a few blocks from the site of the demolished World Trade Center. Among those who took part were a couple of extremist Coptic Christian activists who would later be involved in the making and distribution of “Innocence of Muslims.” Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital, another Egyptian-American named Morris Sadek was filmed with a crucifix in one hand and in the other a Bible with the American flag sticking out of it, shouting “Islam is evil!”
As McClatchey reported on Sept. 15, it was Sadek who had triggered the anti-American outrage in the Muslim world with a timely phone call to an Egyptian reporter. On Sept. 4, the Washington, DC-based provocateur phoned Gamel Girgis, who covers Christian emigrants for the al Youm al Sabaa daily newspaper, to tell him about a movie he had produced. According to Girgis, Sadek wanted to screen it on Sept. 11 “to reveal what was behind the terrorists’ actions that day—Islam.”
As with most of the mainstream media’s coverage of the post-Bacile story, the McClatchey report made no mention of Morris Sadek’s ties to the Geller-Spencer Islamophobia network or his extreme pro-Israel views. On his blog dedicated to the “National American Coptic Assembly”—of which he describes himself as “a president”—Sadek provides an erratically punctuated outline of what he claims should be “The Coptic Position on Israel”:
We recognize the sacred right of the state of Israel and the Israeli people to the land of historic Israel.
“The right of Return” of the Jewish people to the land of their foremothers and forefathers is a sacred right. It has no statute of limitation. The return must continue to enrich the Middle East.
We recognize Jerusalem as simply a Jewish city, It must never be divided. She is, and shall always be, the united capital of Israel.
The future of the Palestinians lies with the Arab states. A Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria constitute an imminent danger to world peace.
The Chantilly, Virginia-based National American Coptic Assembly, Inc., a private company with a staff of two, has an estimated annual revenue of $97,000. Considering the fawning pro-Israel statements of its principal—not to mention his priceless contribution to Netanyahu’s relentless campaign to induce a U.S. attack on the “fanatics” in Tehran—it’s not too difficult to speculate as to the most likely source of that income.
Maidhc Ó Cathail is an investigative journalist and Middle East analyst. He is also the creator and editor of The Passionate Attachment blog, which focuses primarily on the U.S.-Israeli relationship.
Part One, The Record, treats the history of garlic as evidence. From the clay garlic bulb placed in an Egyptian grave nearly six thousand years ago, through the Ebers Papyrus, through Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen, the Arab physicians under Avicenna, the medieval herbals, Culpeper, and the plague years, to the last era in which Western physicians prescribed garlic as a matter of course, which ran from 1850 to 1945. It closes with the living traditions that never stopped using it, and with the folklore of charms, vampires and the evil eye.
Part Two, The Chemistry and the Evidence, sets out what is known about why a clove has no smell until it is cut, and why the order of crush, rest and heat changes the medicine. It then reads the clinical evidence against the historical record — bacteria, blood and vessels, cancer epidemiology, metals and fatigue — and names the trials that went against garlic as directly as the trials that went for it, including the 2007 Stanford trial funded by the US National Institutes of Health which found that raw garlic, garlic powder and aged garlic extract moved LDL cholesterol no more than placebo did. It then turns to onion, garlic’s closest relative, and reads the newer evidence published since 2015, before closing with the whole of the record through the terrain lens.
Part Three, Why Medicine Set It Aside, asks the question directly. One chapter contrasts the pharmaceutical model of isolating a single active compound with the folk model of combining whole plants, and reports what the garlic evidence says about which model works better. One chapter examines the economics of research on a plant that cannot be patented. One chapter — Fire Cider — tells the story of a folk preparation whose name was taken into a United States trademark by a Massachusetts company in 2012, and won back by three herbalists in 2014 who documented forty years of prior use through Rosemary Gladstar and her students into the older tradition.
Part Four, Garlic in Practice, is the working manual — the kitchen pharmacy, traditional uses by body system, a full chapter on safety and interactions, and a complaint-by-complaint practical guide. The book closes with The Trial That Was Never Run — a one-chapter reading of the whole evidential architecture.
At the back: two appendices (a traditional list of uses, and a preparation quick-reference), a full bibliography, and a live index.
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The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has criticized the cancellation of a conference on banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
Part One, The Record, treats the history of garlic as evidence. From the clay garlic bulb placed in an Egyptian grave nearly six thousand years ago, through the Ebers Papyrus, through Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen, the Arab physicians under Avicenna, the medieval herbals, Culpeper, and the plague years, to the last era in which Western physicians prescribed garlic as a matter of course, which ran from 1850 to 1945. It closes with the living traditions that never stopped using it, and with the folklore of charms, vampires and the evil eye.
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