Is Obama more Zionist Than Dubya Bush
By Yousef | Permission To Narrate | March 2012
Remember last year when there was a great deal of commotion about President Barack Obama’s reference to the 1967 lines being used as the basis of negotiated land swaps between Israel and Palestine?
It was hard to forget. Obama’s political foes and even some of his friends accused him of throwing Israel under the bus. Netanyahu used the opportunity to slam Obama for this and stated that “Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967”. In fact, when he said this before Congress they gave him one of 29 standing ovations.
As Republican candidates vie for the party’s nomination, they have not shied from using this issue to attack Obama as well, following Netanyahu’s lead.
But, successive administrations have stated the same thing time and again about the US position which is in line with UN Security Council Resolution 242. Most reasonable observers knew at the time that Obama’s statements where in no way a major shift in policy.
Or was it?
If it was, Jeffery Goldberg, for one, didn’t notice. He wrote, in a post titled ‘Did Obama Say Something so Different than Bush?‘ (emphasis mine):
In 2005, Geoge W. Bush stated that it is “unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949” (the 1967 boundaries of Israel, in other words). Today, Barack Obama said that he believes “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states
Seems straightforward enough. The immediate predecessor to Obama, George W. Bush, talked about the 1949 Armistice line which Goldberg tells us equals the 1967 line. So essentially, Bush and Obama had the same position, right? Here is an excerpt from President Bush’s speech in the Rose Garden in 2005 (emphasis mine):
Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice lines must be mutually agreed to. A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity of the West Bank, and a state of scattered territories will not work. There must also be meaningful linkages between the West Bank and Gaza. This is the position of the United States today, it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status negotiations.
If we go by Goldberg’s translation, 1949 Armistice lines = 1967 lines. This formula is not just the Goldberg standard. Here is the New York Times on this issue (emphasis mine):
Those commitments came in a letter from President George W. Bush which stated, among other things that “it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949,” another way of describing the 1967 boundaries.
To be sure, NPR checked with Glenn Kessler, author of the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” column to, well, check the facts:
President BARACK OBAMA: We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.
CONAN: And Glenn, is that a substantial change from what presidents have said before?
Mr. KESSLER: Yes, it is. I mean, in the context of diplomacy, what President Obama said that was different was that he actually referenced 1967, the 1967 lines, the de-facto border that had basically existed since the end of the 1948 war of independence.
CONAN: So if he had said the armistice lines of 1948, would that have been different?
Mr. KESSLER: No, what I did is I researched and looked at what all previous presidents had said, and actually they never said anything about lines one way or the other.
I’m not sure what kind of research Glenn did to miss the statement by President Bush buried deep down in this dusty archive. But its not just the fact the Bush made reference to the 1949 armistice line that contrasts with Kessler’s statements. He seems to be saying, like the New York Times, Jeffery Goldberg and even some Palestinians that the 1949 Armistice Line = the 1967 line.
Well, to be perfectly accurate, we are all wrong. The 1949 armistice line is not the same as the 1967 line. Here is why, check out the map of Gaza below (enlarge). The red line you see is the actual armistice line from 1949. The blue line is what we see on maps today which often is referred to as the Green Line or the 1967 line. So what happened to all the area, some 200km2, in purple?
Essentially, the Israelis just took it. The blue line is actually the 1950 modus videndi line. This was an agreement between Egypt, which filled the vacuum of power in Gaza at the time, and the Israelis that established a temporary buffer zone (the purple area) on the Arab side of the actual armistice line. The agreement divides the territory up into areas A,B and C and resulted in a permanent Israeli land grab. (Why does this sound so familiar?) Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, an outstanding Palestinian historical geographer, made a great presentation about this, the Nakba, and other Israel land grabs here at the Palestine Center.
There are areas other than Gaza where the lines diverge. This ironically includes the villages in the triangle area in the north eastern part of the West Bank which Israel was not supposed to enter and today, for reasons of ‘demographic threat’ probably wishes it never had. I’d encourage you to watch the whole presentation.
President Obama actually visited this purple area grabbed by the Israelis in the map above. President George W. Bush, despite all the damage his policies did in the region, clearly chose to use the language of the 1949 armistice line over the 1967 lines for a reason. By doing this, Bush actually signified the correct dividing line on which negotiations should be based. By reversing from the Bush language of “1949 armistice lines” to 1967 borders, Obama actually supported a Zionist land grab.
I wonder what his right-wing detractors have to say about that?
In sum, this is just another example of how, over time Zionist expansionism has taken more and more of Palestine, constantly changing the starting point and re-leveraging their negotiating position. It also goes to show you that over time, the temporary becomes permanent and a lie told often enough becomes truth. (At least we have the internet to set things straight.)
Is it any wonder why the Palestinians want a complete stop to any such expansion before even thinking of negotiations?
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“We Control America…”
By Jamal Kanj | February 6, 2012
In meeting with settlers in the “Jewish only” colony of Ofra in 2001, Benjamin Netanyahu was caught on camera explaining how he sabotaged the Oslo peace accords and bragging that: “… America is something that can be moved easily.” In 2003, Prime Minister Sharon was quoted as telling the Israeli president: “we [Jews] control America.”
Sharon and Netanyahu’s ominous declarations were proven over again this week at the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) meeting. On Monday night, unlike Obama’s, Netanyahu’s speech was attended by “more than two thirds of the [US members of] Congress.” The AIPAC convention is the largest coveted “donors’” gathering for aspirants US politicians.
Netanyahu’s ability to move America was validated once more in President Obama’s recent interview with the Atlantic Magazine and on Sunday by his unctuous speech at the AIPAC annual convention.
In the Atlantic magazine interview, the President seemed more concerned with assuring members of the foreign lobby that he was the best Israeli friend in the White House, for: “Every single commitment I have made to… Israel… I have kept.”
After elaborating on the supplementary military assistance, including the anti missile “Iron Dome” to protect Israelis and “ensuring that Israel maintains its qualitative military edge…” to shielding Israel for violating human rights at “the [UN] Human Rights Council… UN General Assembly, or… the Goldstone report.”
The President makes then a final pathetic plea to Christian and Jewish Zionists: “Why is it despite me never failing to support Israel on every single problem that they’ve had over the last three years, that there are still questions about that?”
At the AIPAC convention, Obama cited Israel more than 70 times. Yet, zilch for the US economy while pandering to members of a US foreign lobby. Other than blaming Palestinians for the failing peace process, the only significant addition to his magazine interview was an obsequious praise to the Polish native and current Israeli president, Shimon Peres who will be awarded the US presidential Medal of Freedom later this spring.
To his credit, president Obama did not succumb to demands by the Israeli prime minister to set a war ultimatum “redline” to the Iranians. While Israel, appears resolute to instigate war against Iran as the preferred option. The US military and leadership seems equally determined to leave war as the last resort option.
In both his AIPAC speech and magazine interview, it was disturbing however that the US president- the country arming Israel with the best technology and subsidizing its economy annually with over $5 billion of economic and military aid (including special supplementary assistance) – still foresaw Israel as equal to the US in making war decisions. Especially, when such decisions could lead to a global economic meltdown and leave devastating impact on the sluggish US economy.
It is for the first time in US history, a US President implicitly delegates war authority- with high credible probability of future US involvement- to a belligerent foreign entity.
Realizing such power, combined with the Jewish lobby’s authority over US election and foreign policy, Israeli Prime Minister will now press further, unfettered, with his declared intention to undermine the peace process with the Palestinians.
The President ended his AIPAC address by preempting impending Republican contenders’ speeches, making one last vigor plea reminding Israel firsters: “there is no shortage on speeches on the friendship between the United States and Israel…“ however judge me by “where my hearts lies” and by “what I have done-to stand up for Israel”
Would Obama’s superb servitude credentials suffice the insatiable AIPAC? Or would Republican presidential candidates prove to be more servile to the most powerful US foreign lobby?
~
Jamal Kanj writes frequently on Arab World issues and the author of “Children of Catastrophe, Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America”, Garnet Publishing, UK. Jamal’s articles can be read at www.jamalkanj.com, his email address is jkanj@yahoo.com
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Two Choices for Obama: War or More War
By Philip Giraldi | The Passionate Attachment | March 8, 2012
The United States is committing itself to a war on behalf of another nation and it is as if nothing is happening. Commentary on President Obama’s speech at AIPAC and his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been limited, apparently in the belief that if no one talks about it the war can begin on schedule. There has been plenty of coverage on Iran, however, all of it playing up the threat that the country allegedly poses. Some “thoughtful” commentary has been paying attention to Obama’s drawing a red line that is different from that of Israel, i.e. that military intervention should be dependent on preventing Iran’s actual acquisition of a nuclear weapon rather than its only having the capability to eventually develop one. Israel and its US lobby are seeking to make Iran’s technical ability to enrich uranium a casus belli rather than any proof of actual belligerent intent. That capability or “breakthrough” line has already been crossed which would suggest that the US should be at war with Iran already, precisely what Senators Graham, Lieberman, and McCain as well as their AIPAC sponsors would like to see. Obama is instead trying to delay the reckoning, until after elections in November if he can possibly manage it.
And the different red lines are really little more than a red herring. Obama has been drawn into supporting Netanyahu’s war whether he likes it or not. The American president did not bother to explain why Iran is a threat to the United States because it is clear that to attempt to make that argument would be to magnify the actual threat from Tehran far beyond reality. Iran does not threaten the United States and, given its puny economy and military budget, cannot do so. It would easily be contained even if it were to waste its limited resources on developing a crude nuclear device that it would be unable to deliver on target.
This pledge from Obama means that the US will actually be going to war on behalf of what the Israeli leadership considers to be a threat against itself, rightly or wrongly. Israel can defend itself if it feels threatened. It has a vast nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver the weapons on target to include ballistic missiles and submarines. It also has an extensive anti-missile defense system funded by the US taxpayer. Obama calls US support of Israel right or wrong as “having Israel’s back.” Why should the US have anyone’s back apart from those nations with which Washington has a defense treaty that clearly spells out the conditions for support? Who “has the back” of the American people against what Israel and Netanyahu might do?
Obama knows perfectly well that Congress and the media as well as his own financial backers from Chicago — the Pritzker and Crown families — would force the White House to join in any war on Israel’s behalf. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that too. Netanyahu can therefore have his war whenever he wants or he might opt to have his lackeys in the media and Congress crank up the pressure on Obama to produce regime change in the White House to bring in a pro-Israel nut case like Gingrich or Santorum, a guarantee that the United States will be at war with much of the rest of the world for the foreseeable future.
Philip Giraldi is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
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- Netanyahu Calls the Shots (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Liberal Whores
By Margaret Kimberley | Black Agenda Report | March 7, 2012
If liberals are good for anything, it is being outraged about all the wrong things. If one were to measure the amount of media debate in the past week, the conclusion might be that a law student being called a slut was the worst thing happening in the nation and the world. Liberals can’t be bothered to protest against war, even if they did so during the Bush administration, or indefinite detention, or targeted killings, or drone strikes, or the destruction of Libya or Somalia.
Rush Limbaugh, a man who would have to have been invented if he didn’t exist, called law student Sandra Fluke, a “slut” and a “whore” after she testified in favor of religious institutions being required to include contraception in their health care plans.
The liberals then lost their collective minds. There was no limit to their ire. One would have thought that Rush Limbaugh was killing Afghan children with drones, or torturing black Libyans, or planning to attack Iran. Of course, Limbaugh has absolutely no power to do any of those things. He is a celebrity, a media personality who advocates the right wing point of view. He is a sexist and a racist, but he has no power to take anyone’s life. That is Barack Obama‘s job.
Obama, like all American presidents, is among the slickest politicians of all time, but he is certainly no fool. He knew that Limbaugh handed him a political gift and he ran with it. Obama personally telephoned the aggrieved young woman while his liberal sycophants demanded that advertisers drop Limbaugh’s program. Republicans joined in the beat down and admonished the erstwhile standard bearer for his offensive language. Limbaugh was political toast, and Obama was king.
What could happen if these same people used as much energy opposing policies that literally kill thousands of people around the world? Quite a lot would change, but they don’t take actions against people in power because they don’t really care about what they do.
At the same time that these angry and outraged citizens were claiming victory against a radio personality they ought to be ignoring, the attorney general of the United States publicly claimed that the president of the United States has the right to kill at will whenever he feels like it.
Eric Holder traveled to an august educational institution, Northwestern University, and told a group of law students that they should get any crazy ideas about civil liberties out of their little heads. Holder asserts that the president can in fact decide to kill anyone he wants, as long as he claims that person is a terrorist. He doesn’t have to bother with indictments, charges, court rooms and other such old fashioned notions. Anwar al-Awlaki and his teenage son were both American citizens and were both killed by their president because he and a secret panel said they should die.
In making the case against the constitutional requirement for due process, the chief law enforcement officer in the country says that, “Due process and judicial process are not one in the same.” If that statement seems strange, it is because it is a bold faced lie. Never before, not even in the Bush administration, did lawyers make such bizarre arguments.
Despite being the attorney general, Holder is like middle level managers everywhere, saying that black is white or up is down if his boss says so. If his boss says that a person is a terrorist, then that person is dead and the rules will be changed to make it all very legal.
It is too bad that no one leapt to the defense of the Northwestern University law students who were forced to hear Holder’s offensive statements. There was no Sandra Fluke treatment for them. No one will call them and sympathize because they were exposed to vile language. In this case the offensive language came straight from the top, so if anyone was offended, well it is just too bad.
Perhaps liberals are sluts and whores. They are people of easy virtue, they don’t really have any principles and they sell themselves pretty cheaply. If Eric Holder isn’t a whore, then who is?
The same can be said for his boss too. No one becomes president without making the rounds on many a casting couch, the rich people’s casting couch. If they give the thumbs up, then the presidency is within reach. No one should be called a whore merely because they are sexually active. Selling oneself in order to be the head killer in chief on the planet is another matter. That is slut work of the very highest order.
Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
Eric Holder Tortures the Constitution
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | March 7, 2012
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder this week attempted to explain how the U.S. Constitution allows the American president to be a law unto himself – to be judge, jury and executioner. Those are the powers that President Obama claims are inherent in his office: the right to kill at will, based on evidence only he is fit to examine and assess. This is a system of law without courts, without evidence that either the public or the condemned person has a right to see, or to contest. One man, with the power of life and death over any inhabitant of the planet, including citizens of the United States.
They used to call such people kings. But even the English kings of old – at least since the signing of the Magna Carta 800 years ago – were compelled to recognize the principle that free men could only be punished based on the law of the land. The United States Constitution is rooted in the principle of due process of law, with the courts as final arbiters of whether the law has been served.
With the passage of preventive detention without trail or charge, and President Obama’s claim to have sole power to target any human being for death, the rule of law has been eviscerated, abolished by presidential decree and congressional acquiescence. A pillar of civilization has been toppled, but most people in the United States appear not to have noticed.
It turns out that due process of law is not what we thought it was, these last two centuries. Attorney General Holder defended the president’s authority to summarily execute, without sanction of the courts, or formal charges, or even evidence of crime, persons designated by him as enemies of the United States. You can’t get more king-like than that. Holder acted as if he’d found a previously undetected loophole in the Constitution. “‘Due process’ and ‘judicial process,’” he said, “are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security.” According to Holder, “The Constitution guarantees due process,” but it does not guarantee judicial process. In other words, the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee people access to the courts, even if they are targeted for execution. If that were true, it would be a worthless Constitution, but the U.S. Supreme Court has convincingly ruled, in a 2004 case, that citizens who are detained as enemy combatants have a right to confront the government on the facts of the matter “before a neutral decision maker” – that is, before a court of some kind. Certainly, such rights would apply to someone the president wants killed.
Ah, but this is war, says Eric Holder, and different rules apply. We could ask the rhetorical question: When does this war end? But Obama is clearly claiming to have rights that are inherent in the president’s national security powers. War is…whatever he says it is. Or, whatever President Romney or President Santorum say it is.
The Attorney General ultimately justifies the trashing of the Constitution on national security grounds. We have reached our national “hour of danger,” he says.
Holder is right about that. The danger is upon us, and it emanates from the White House. There’s a name for the danger: it’s called fascism, which happens when militarists and the worst capitalists get together and abolish due process and the rule of law – which the First Black President of the United States has already done.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Related articles
- Obama’s Kill Policy (jonathanturley.org)
- Eric Holder: U.S. Government Can Kill U.S. Citizens if the Threat is Serious and Capture “isn’t feasible” (reason.com)
- Holder’s Regressive Defense of Targeted Killings (dissenter.firedoglake.com)
Obama says when chips are down I have Israel’s back
Barack Bows Before AIPAC Like A Slave
Press TV – March 4, 2012
US President Barack Obama says Washington has remained and will remain committed to Israel’s security, despite Tel Aviv atrocities committed against Palestinians.
During his speech at the AIPAC Conference in Washington on Sunday, Obama said that there is no need to rely on his words to judge his commitment to Israel as the last three years of his record in office speaks for itself.
“At every crucial juncture, at every fork in the road, we have been there for Israel every single time,” Obama said.
Referring to Israel’s atrocities during its 22-day war on Gaza, Obama said that the US defended Israel against the Goldstone report, which accused Tel Aviv of war crimes against Gazans.
Noting that relations between Washington and Tel Aviv have never been so robust, Obama called Israel’s security sacrosanct.
“When Israel was isolated in the aftermath of the flotilla incident, we supported them. When the Durban conference was commemorated, we boycotted it, and we will always reject the notion that Zionism is racism,” He said.
“When resolutions are brought up at the Human Rights Council, we oppose them. When Israeli diplomats feared for their lives in Cairo, we intervened to help save them. When there are efforts to boycott or divest from Israel, we will stand against them,” Obama added.
“When the chips are down I have Israel’s back.”
The speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Conference, a pro-Israeli lobby group, is pivotal for Obama to keep Jewish voters [and campaign finance] happy in his 2012 reelection bid.
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Obama’s Corporate Tax Scam
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | February 29, 2012
Barack Obama can’t hide the fact that he is the One Percent’s president. Most of what he is dangling for the rest of us this election year turns out to be smoke and mirrors, yet he offers corporations a huge tax rate reduction – a gift that will keep on giving long after Obama is gone. It is typical Obama behavior. He sprinkles his speeches with phrases that mimic Occupy Wall Street, then turns around and promises the One Percent a bigger prize than George Bush could deliver.
Obama wants to lower the nominal corporate tax rate form 35 percent to 28 percent. For manufacturing industries, the rate would fall to 25 percent. Big Business has long complained – dishonestly – that American companies are put at a disadvantage by the highest tax rates in the world. But that’s only true on paper. When it comes to actually paying taxes, European corporations give a bigger share of money back to their governments and societies than U.S. companies do. The fact that the U.S. posts a higher official tax rate, while in the real world U.S. corporations pay lower taxes than Europe, is proof of the absolute corruption of the U.S. tax system, where corporations write the tax code and all of its loopholes.
Obama claims he will extract even more tax money from the corporations by doing away with loopholes. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that. The administration has no plans to revise the U.S. tax code any time soon.
Private studies show the average company pays an effective tax rate of substantially less than 20 percent, and a government study showed that more than half of American companies paid no taxes at all in at least one out of seven years.
Back in the Fifties, corporate taxes made up 28 percent of government revenues. In the Sixties, the corporate share was 21 percent of each dollar of taxes. Today, corporations only account for ten percent of the money the U.S. government takes in per year. In other words, they have never had it so good.
Hardly anyone outside the administration believes that the Obama plan will wind up collecting more corporate taxes than it gives away. The grassroots National People’s Action projects that permanently lowering the tax rate will cost the federal government $700 billion over the next ten years. The loss in revenue will increase pressures to cut programs that serve people – which is another way of saying that the 99 percent will pay for the tax reductions of the corporate 1%.
Even in the highly unlikely event that the Obama plan winds up collecting more tax money through closing down corporate loopholes, the president has already stated that the additional revenue will go right back into corporate pockets, in the form of new or existing tax breaks for favored industries, in manufacturing, clean energy, and research. This, of course, would be the biggest loophole of all. Under a Democratic or Republican administration, every corporation would claim to be a manufacturer, or to be doing research. And, President Obama can’t say the word “coal” without also saying “clean” – so that dirty industry would get tax breaks, too.
Obama’s whole plan is a tax giveaway, not a tax reform. And, that’s the point. It’s a billion dollar election year. Corporations need to know what kind of government their campaign contributions are buying.
Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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- Over Last 10 Years, General Electric’s Effective Tax Rate Was 2.3 Percent (thinkprogress.org)
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Obama Shoots the Messengers, Attacks Whistleblowers
By Marsha Coleman-Adebayo | Black Agenda Report | February 21, 2012
Barack Obama’s administration has launched attacks unparalleled since the McCarthy years on those who blow the whistle against corruption inside the federal government.
Obama has already charged more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined (as reflected in the list below.) Peter van Buren, a career foreign affairs officer at the Department of Department of State claims his job was threathened after writing, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. Van Buren, who became disillusioned by waste and hypocrisy while serving in Iraq, says “The number of cases in play [against whistleblowers] suggests an organized strategy to deprive Americans of knowledge of the more disreputable things that their government does. How it plays out in court and elsewhere will significantly affect our democracy.”
Van Buren points out that the pre-World War 1 Espionage Act has been used against “labor leaders and radicals like Eugene V. Debs, Bill Haywood, Philip Randolph, Victor Berger, John Reed, Max Eastman, and Emma Goldman. Debs, a union leader and socialist candidate for the presidency, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for a speech attacking the Espionage Act itself. The Nixon administration infamously (and unsuccessfully) invoked the Act to bar the New York Times from continuing to publish the classified Pentagon Papers.” But no other administration has used this legislation as liberally as President Obama who has authorized more drone attacks than any other American president.
Van Buren was writing on the blog Tom.Dispatch.com of Tom Engelhardt, a teaching fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California. Engelhardt in turn observes: “One thing is obvious. No one ever joins the government in order to be a whistleblower or leaker.Whistleblowers are created, not born,” speaking words that resonate with my experience as a whistleblower. Van Buren notes: “It is perhaps typical of whistleblowers and leakers that something they are privy to simply pushes them over the edge.” In my case it was the realization that government was failing to act against a U.S. multinational whose mining practices were leading to the injury and deaths of South African vanadium miners.
I continue to speak out against injustice, but it certainly has not made my life easier. Each week I get mails to my Facebook site from those who are whistleblowers or are close to whistleblowers. This week’s example is typical: “I know you don’t know me and I am taking a HUGE chance by writing you, but I have to at least try. My parents are going through some of the same things you went through at the EPA. Both top-level executives at federal agencies they have been retaliated harshly against. NO ONE seems to hear us. I’m begging for your help. Please help us… These agencies are corrupt and we are still on the bus fighting like Rosa.”
There is little I can do other than direct them to the National Whistleblower Center, give the names of lawyers and share a little human empathy. But there is no doubt that under this administration there is a concerted attack against those who dare to expose corruption in government or corporations.
Recently four employees of the Air Force Mortuary in Dover, Delaware, revealed that the Dover Air Force Base mortuary had lost and sawed off body parts and mishandled other remains of America’s war dead. Retaliation against them included firings, the placing of employees on indefinite administrative leave, and the imposition of five-day suspensions. Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner has accused the Air Force of deflecting blame — and a mortuary official of lying and obstructing the probe by firing one of the workers who blew the whistle. What remains to be seen is whether Lerner, an Obama political appointee, will distinguish herself from her disgraced predecessor by seriously investigating corruption under this administration.
At present six whistleblowers are suing the Food and Drug Administration for electronically spying on them when they tried to alert Congress about misconduct at the agency. This is the agency tasked with overseeing public health, food safety, medicines and medical devices. Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) launched an investigation in response to a lawsuit filed by six FDA whistleblowers and documents released by the National Whistleblowers Center that show the FDA targeted whistleblowers for special monitoring and intercepted personal communications to Congress, including emails to Senator Grassley’s staff. Senator Grassley, the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg whether or not whistleblowers were singled out for special monitoring based on a letter they wrote to President-Elect Obama’s Transition Team.
We are waiting to see the Army’s reaction to whistleblower Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, who documented in the Armed Forces Journal that senior leaders of the Department of Defense intentionally and consistently misled the American people and Congress about success in the Afghan War.
Those charged under the Espionage Act include:
- Former CIA officer John Kiriakou charged on January 23 for disclosing classified information to journalists about the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspects. The CIA also found an excuse to fire his wife, also employed by the Agency, while she was on maternity leave.
- Thomas Drake an employee of the National Security Agency revealed that it spent $1.2 billion on a contract for a data collection program called Trailblazer when the work could have been done in-house for $3 million. Drake’s home was raided at gunpoint and the agency forced him out of his job. He now works at an Apple Store. His attorney told Anti-war.com: “Too often, whistleblowers end up broken, blacklisted, and bankrupted.”
- Whistleblower Pvt. Bradley Manning, accused of leaking Army and State Department documents to the website WikiLeaks, spent more than a year in a U.S. Marine prison and was denied the chance even to appear in court to defend himself until almost two years after his arrest.
- Former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Morris Davis lost his career as a researcher at the Library of Congress for writing a critical op-ed for the Wall Street Journal and a letter to the editor at the Washington Post on double standards at the infamous prison.
- Robert MacClean was charged for blowing the whistle on the Transportation Security Administration.
Van Buren notes in his piece for Tom.Dispatch.Com “My travel vouchers from as far back as the law allows have come under “routine” re-examination. My Internet activity is the subject of daily reports. My credit reports have been examined for who knows what. Department friends who email me on topical issues have been questioned by agents of Diplomatic Security, the State Department’s internal police. My Freedom of Information Act request for documents to help defend myself and force State to explain its actions has been buried.”
And then we read investigative reports in the Washington Post, as an example, of 33 members of Congress that have steered more than $300 million in earmarks and other spending provisions to dozens of public projects that are next to or within about two miles of the lawmakers’ own property. We have yet to hear of action against them.
Freedom of the press and freedom of expression are American constitutional bulwarks. These important elements of the constitution provide protection for truth-tellers as the last defense against tyranny. It is a shame that a legacy of the first African American president is heightened repression against whistleblowers.
~
See Marsha on C-Span Book/TV at: www.marshacoleman-adebayo.org.
Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the author of No FEAR: A Whistleblowers Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA is available through amazon.com and the National Whistleblower Center. Dr. Coleman-Adebayo worked at the EPA for 18 years and blew the whistle on a US multinational corporation that endangered vanadium mine workers. Marsha’s successful lawsuit lead to the introduction and passage of the first civil rights and whistleblower law of the 21st century: the Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR.)
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- Inside President Obama’s War On The Fast & Furious Whistleblowers (forbes.com)
- Scientists suing the FDA after covert surveillance (newscientist.com)
Despite Domestic Cuts, U.S. Aid To Israel Up By $25 Million In Proposed Budget
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | February 15, 2012
An examination of the proposed U.S. budget submitted by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Congress this week shows that although billions of dollars will be cut from domestic programs and the U.S. military, annual aid to Israel remains intact, and includes an increase of $25 million from last year.
Last year, the U.S. government gave $3.075 billion in unrestricted aid to Israel, and this year’s proposed budget includes $3.1 billion. This aid is given in addition to around $3 billion in loan guarantees which, unlike other loans, do not have to be paid back.
The cuts in this Congressional budget include an 18% cut in aid to former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe, all of which have much lower GDPs than Israel. In fact, Israel is the only country receiving US aid to be above the 50th percentile economically – Israel is ranked in the richest one-third of countries in the world.
The U.S. State Department will receive a 10% decrease in funding for its programs in Iraq, despite the increased role of the State Department following the withdrawal of the U.S. military. U.S. combat operations overseas will be cut 23%, largely due to the military pullout from Iraq.
President Obama proposed the budget, which equals $3.8 trillion and includes over $1 trillion in cuts, in order to address the massive deficit left by former President George W. Bush. A bi-partisan committee, known as the ‘budget supercommittee’, tasked with recommending cuts last October failed to reach an agreement on what to cut, leaving it up to the President to propose a budget that would significantly reduce the deficit.
U.S. aid to Israel has been a part of each annual Congressional budget since 1967, and the amount has increased over time. Upon taking office, Obama recommended that U.S. aid to Israel continue at the $3 billion a year rate for the next ten years, totaling at least $30 billion (without counting loan guarantees and gifts of weaponry). The U.S. Congress overwhelmingly agreed with this assessment.
Related articles
- U.S. Government Pledges $3.8 Billion In Loan Guarantees To Israel (alethonews.wordpress.com)
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Obama: “The Devil” Made Me Take the Super Pac Money
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | February 7, 2012
President Obama is like comedian Flip Wilson’s character, Geraldine: He blames everything on the Devil. The Devil made him do it.
And so, the Devil has just forced Mr. Obama to put together his own infernal Super Pac, the demon-spawn of the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision allowing corporations and wealthy individuals to spend as much money as they like on elections. Only days ago, Obama was calling Super Pacs a “threat to democracy,” but that was then, and now it’s time to make sure that the president has an equal opportunity to join in the corruption. But, don’t blame Obama. The Koch brothers made him do it, with reports that the far-right siblings plan to gather $100 million in Super Pac money. As Geraldine would say, those Koch Devils made Obama do it.
Not that there’s any danger of Obama being outspent in his re-election bid. He’s raised more money than all the Republican candidates, combined. In fact, he’s raised a lot more money from employees of Mitt Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital, than Romney has. All indications are that Obama will win the race for Wall Street’s campaign contributions, hands down, no matter who the Republicans nominate, just as Wall Street preferred Obama to John McCain, four years ago.
Candidate Obama opted out of public financing in the 2008 campaign, the first president since Watergate to run without public funding. He had earlier promised to accept public financing, and the limits on spending that go with it, if McCain did. McCain kept his part of the bargain, but Obama was getting more money than he could bring himself to turn down. In fact, by that time, Obama had raised twice as much as McCain, so he couldn’t claim a disadvantage. Instead, Obama’s excuse was that the public financing system was “broken.” But, of course, it was Obama’s withdrawal that definitively broke the system, paving the way for the billion dollar election of 2012.
In the summer of 2007, Obama explained the difference between himself and all of his Democratic and Republican opponents, when it comes to taking money from the rich and greedy. “The argument is not that I’m pristine, because I’m swimming in the same muddy water,” he said. “The argument is that I know it’s muddy and I want to clean it up.” But there is no evidence that Obama wants to clean up campaign financing, only that he finds all kinds of excuses to take the money.
The Wall Street crowd loves Obama, and they show it with their checkbooks. He returns their love a thousand times over, by protecting their interests while skillfully hoodwinking the Democratic base into believing that he’s on their side. The most pitiful marks in this hustle are small contributors, who Obama claims are his real base of support. Back in 2008, he even claimed that his fundraising was a better reflection of democracy than public financing, because he had so many small contributors. But it turns out that Obama got almost exactly the same proportion of his campaign funds from the little guys as George Bush did, in 2004.
It’s a rich man’s game, in which the future of the country and the world is purchased cheaply with campaign contributions. It is common sense that the player that collects the most money, has also sold the most influence. This election year, just like last time, the top influence seller is Barack Obama.
Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Obama: Not Cool, Just Cold-Blooded
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | January 31, 2012
President Obama thinks killing people around the globe with drones is as cool as singing Al Green at the Apollo. In a live Web interview, Obama assured his audience that the U.S. unmanned drone force – now thought to number in the thousands and ranging from deadly Predators and Reapers to aircraft the size of small birds – was “kept on a very tight leash.” So, here we have a secret weapons program that violates other countries’ airspace and kills their citizens at will – and even kills American citizens without charge or trial – and Obama thinks that all he is obligated to do is give assurances that the weapons are on a “tight leash.”
The issue is not whether the American commander-in-chief has made sure that the drones are under his control, but that the United States is waging a terroristic war against at least four nations – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and possibly more – with not the slightest justification under international law.
The people of Iraq, who know a great deal about the effects of drones, are trying to figure out what their sovereignty and independence actually means when the U.S. State Department can fly drones above their cities as a safeguard to U.S. diplomatic installations. The question raised by Iraqis is not, Does Obama have those drones under tight controls, but Why is a foreign power, whose military was supposed to have left Iraq, flying aircraft in their skies? A New York Times article on Monday reported that the Iraqis’ were angry. But Obama dismissed their complaints as much ado about nothing; the article, he said was “a little bit overwritten.” I suppose Obama thinks he’s being cool, like breaking briefly into song at a Harlem fundraiser. But there is nothing cool about violating the territorial integrity of other countries – including nations like Iraq that Obama constantly describes as a U.S. ally.
Obama was too cool to let the U.S. Congress sweat him over the six-month aerial war waged by the United States and its NATO allies against the sovereign nation of Libya, at the conclusion of which Libya’s leader was murdered by U.S.-supported thugs. Obama apparently thought it was cool to stick a knife up Col. Gaddafi’s butt. The First Black President’s drones are busy over Somalia, whose government the U.S. and its African puppet allies overthrew in 2006, precipitating a humanitarian catastrophe that has only worsened as the U.S. war continues. All of Yemen is a killing zone for U.S. drones.
When the U.S. president arrogates to himself the right to bomb and kill at will, with no respect for national boundaries and sovereign rights, he makes himself an outlaw. So, I guess Obama is cool like Jesse James.
With his huge expansion of the drone terror wars and passage of preventive detention, Barack Obama has surpassed George Bush in lawlessness. But most Americans, especially African Americans, cannot imagine that Obama represents a danger to them. If George Bush had had thousands of drones that could fly up the hallway of an apartment building, ring the bell and assassinate whoever answered the door, Black folks would have been terrified. But, they’re not scared of Obama, because he…is oh so cool.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Related articles
- Obama concedes use of drones in Iraq (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- ‘US commits extrajudicial killings’ (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Obama Admits U.S. Drone Program Exists, But It’s Definitely Just for Special Terrorist Occasions (reason.com)
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Jack Ruby: Israel’s Smoking Gun
BY LAURENT GUYÉNOT • UNZ REVIEW • NOVEMBER 13, 2021
By a strange paradox, most Kennedy researchers who believe that Oswald was “just a patsy” spend an awful lot of time exploring his biography. This is about as useful as investigating Osama bin Laden for solving 9/11. Any serious quest for the real assassins of JFK should start by investigating the man who shot Oswald at pointblank in the stomach at 11:21 a.m. on September 24, 1963 in the Dallas Police station, thereby sealing the possibility that a judicial inquiry would draw attention to the inconsistencies of the charge against him, and perhaps expose the real perpetrators. One would normally expect the Dallas strip-club owner Jack Ruby to be the most investigated character by Kennedy truthers. But that is not the case. … continue
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