Friday, September 30, 2011
Libya and the Big Lie: Using Human Rights Organizations to Launch Wars
The war against Libya is built on fraud. The United Nations Security Council passed two resolutions against Libya on the basis of unproven claims, specifically that Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was killing his own people in Benghazi and Libya. The claim in its exact form was that Qaddafi had ordered Libyan forces to kill 6,000 people in Benghazi and Libya. These claims were widely disseminated, but always vaguely explained. It was on the basis of this claim that Libya was referred to the U.N. Security Council at U.N Headquarters in New York City and kicked out of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
False claims about African mercenary armies in Libya and about jet attacks on civilians were also used in a broad media campaign against Libya. These two claims have been sidelined and have become more and more murky. The massacre claims, however, were used in a legal, diplomatic, and military framework to justify NATO’s war on Libya.
One of the main sources for the claim that Qaddafi was killing his own people is the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR). The LLHR was actually pivotal to getting the U.N. involved through its specific claims in Geneva. On February 21, 2011 the LLHR got the 70 other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to sent letters to the President Obama, E.U. High Representative Catherine Ashton., and the U.N. Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon demanding international action against Libya invoking the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. Only 25 members of this coalition actually assert that they are human rights groups.
The U.S. has used NATO to continue the occupation of post-Second World War Europe. It will now use AFRICOM to occupy Africa and create an African NATO. It is clear the U.S. wants an expanded military presence in Libya and Africa under the disguise of humanitarian aid missions and fighting terrorism – the same terrorism that it is fanning in Libya and Africa.
False claims about African mercenary armies in Libya and about jet attacks on civilians were also used in a broad media campaign against Libya. These two claims have been sidelined and have become more and more murky. The massacre claims, however, were used in a legal, diplomatic, and military framework to justify NATO’s war on Libya.
One of the main sources for the claim that Qaddafi was killing his own people is the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR). The LLHR was actually pivotal to getting the U.N. involved through its specific claims in Geneva. On February 21, 2011 the LLHR got the 70 other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to sent letters to the President Obama, E.U. High Representative Catherine Ashton., and the U.N. Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon demanding international action against Libya invoking the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. Only 25 members of this coalition actually assert that they are human rights groups.
The U.S. has used NATO to continue the occupation of post-Second World War Europe. It will now use AFRICOM to occupy Africa and create an African NATO. It is clear the U.S. wants an expanded military presence in Libya and Africa under the disguise of humanitarian aid missions and fighting terrorism – the same terrorism that it is fanning in Libya and Africa.
Some Dare Call It Treason
“Guilt by Association makes treason transparent,” advertises the blurb on the back of this book. And if I were limited to so brief a summary, these are exactly the words I would choose! This book is a many-splendored thing, and I hope in the space of this review to be able to convey the enormous import of this book, and why you need to buy not just a copy for yourself but copies for all your loved ones and for anyone you seek to educate about the threat America's involvement with Israel poses not just to American values, but to our national security and to our survival as a nation.
Yes Israel and its Zionist Fifth Columnists in America are our real national enemy, yes they do “hate our freedom”and our putative ideals, yes they represent a genuine threat to our national security (unlike Iraq, Afghanistan and the myriad other countries towards whom they and their minions have adroitly pointed our guns), and yes they are immensely powerful, but yes, in the end, they too have feet of clay and the basis of their power can be understood and undermined and no, even the Jews themselves are not monolithic in support of racist Israel, as recently attested in the pages of Culture Wars by Israel Adam Shamir (whose roots are Russian-Jewish) and in the recently published, superlative work Overcoming Zionism by American Jewish writer Joel Kovel (in which he identifies the chief culprits as “power Jews” and baldly avers that “Israel does not have a right to exist”), if any proof were needed on this score after the prodigious groundbreaking work of the late, great Israel Shahak (who is frequently cited by Gates – it cannot be stated too often that not every Jew is a Zionist, and not every Zionist is a Jew; and we fail to recognize at our peril that anti-Zionist Jews number among our most important allies, and some non-Jewish Zionist sympathizers turn out to be our most dangerous enemies, especially when we fail to recognize them as such). But the Zionist project is part of a larger criminal conspiracy which is, in fact, an OPEN conspiracy, that bewilders even as it beggars the American body politic. In order to overcome an enemy we must first understand who and what he is, what his purpose is, how he operates. It is the great value of Guilt by Association that it brings out into bold relief the nature, identity, methodology and support system of this nefarious criminal syndicate; what has been “hidden in plain sight” for so long is finally made accessible to any open-minded reader.
This author is quick to pooh-pooh the already classic Walt-Mearsheimer study of the Israeli Lobby as too soft on Israel. While there is no disputing the accuracy of his criticism, we should also consider how much of a watershed event the publication of The Israel Lobby was, and how it paved the way for more radical efforts like this one, which pulls no punches about Israel's perfidy. Despite Jeff Gate's own considerable credentials (author, educator, attorney,financial policy advisor to 35 countries and counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance for seven years), the fact that those two professors made the subject academically respectable certainly has created a wider audience for bolder critics of the “special relationship.” But in strictly political terms, if Walt and Mearsheimer' s work was the icebreaker, Guilt by Association is the magnificent flagship following in its wake.
Yes Israel and its Zionist Fifth Columnists in America are our real national enemy, yes they do “hate our freedom”and our putative ideals, yes they represent a genuine threat to our national security (unlike Iraq, Afghanistan and the myriad other countries towards whom they and their minions have adroitly pointed our guns), and yes they are immensely powerful, but yes, in the end, they too have feet of clay and the basis of their power can be understood and undermined and no, even the Jews themselves are not monolithic in support of racist Israel, as recently attested in the pages of Culture Wars by Israel Adam Shamir (whose roots are Russian-Jewish) and in the recently published, superlative work Overcoming Zionism by American Jewish writer Joel Kovel (in which he identifies the chief culprits as “power Jews” and baldly avers that “Israel does not have a right to exist”), if any proof were needed on this score after the prodigious groundbreaking work of the late, great Israel Shahak (who is frequently cited by Gates – it cannot be stated too often that not every Jew is a Zionist, and not every Zionist is a Jew; and we fail to recognize at our peril that anti-Zionist Jews number among our most important allies, and some non-Jewish Zionist sympathizers turn out to be our most dangerous enemies, especially when we fail to recognize them as such). But the Zionist project is part of a larger criminal conspiracy which is, in fact, an OPEN conspiracy, that bewilders even as it beggars the American body politic. In order to overcome an enemy we must first understand who and what he is, what his purpose is, how he operates. It is the great value of Guilt by Association that it brings out into bold relief the nature, identity, methodology and support system of this nefarious criminal syndicate; what has been “hidden in plain sight” for so long is finally made accessible to any open-minded reader.
This author is quick to pooh-pooh the already classic Walt-Mearsheimer study of the Israeli Lobby as too soft on Israel. While there is no disputing the accuracy of his criticism, we should also consider how much of a watershed event the publication of The Israel Lobby was, and how it paved the way for more radical efforts like this one, which pulls no punches about Israel's perfidy. Despite Jeff Gate's own considerable credentials (author, educator, attorney,financial policy advisor to 35 countries and counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance for seven years), the fact that those two professors made the subject academically respectable certainly has created a wider audience for bolder critics of the “special relationship.” But in strictly political terms, if Walt and Mearsheimer' s work was the icebreaker, Guilt by Association is the magnificent flagship following in its wake.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Netanyahu’s ‘Jewish state’ stipulation a red herring
The United Nations, the EU, Russia and the US, as members of “the Quartet,” have stepped into the breach to break the impasse between Israelis and Palestinians before the UN Security Council vote on Palestinian statehood takes place. The US, long ago referred to as an honest broker, is now recognized as unfit because it is inextricably entwined with Israel’s interests. Its decades-long efforts have failed because it has acted like Tel Aviv’s advocate rather than an impartial intermediary.
The Quartet has produced a time-lined proposal aimed at the two-sides reaching agreement by the end of 2012 but, thus far, neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have given their okay. The US terms the proposal as “realistic and serious” but given that President Barack Obama promised the Palestinians a state by September this year and now says his country will veto the Palestinians’ UN application for statehood, Washington’s pledges are no longer credible.
While the Israeli government looks upon the proposal favorably subject to study, the Palestinian Authority (PA) say it’s unacceptable because it does not address the need for Israel to cease settlement expansion and fails to stipulate that any new Palestinian state should be drawn along pre-1967 borders as Obama advocated earlier this year before he was slapped down by the Israeli lobby and Congress.
Abbas insists that the ethnic cleansing (his words) of Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the construction of Jewish homes on the West Bank must cease before face-to-face talks can resume. He’s absolutely right to set that precondition when as each month passes Israel steps up construction shrinking even the 22 percent of historic Palestine that the PA has agreed to accept.
The Quartet has produced a time-lined proposal aimed at the two-sides reaching agreement by the end of 2012 but, thus far, neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have given their okay. The US terms the proposal as “realistic and serious” but given that President Barack Obama promised the Palestinians a state by September this year and now says his country will veto the Palestinians’ UN application for statehood, Washington’s pledges are no longer credible.
While the Israeli government looks upon the proposal favorably subject to study, the Palestinian Authority (PA) say it’s unacceptable because it does not address the need for Israel to cease settlement expansion and fails to stipulate that any new Palestinian state should be drawn along pre-1967 borders as Obama advocated earlier this year before he was slapped down by the Israeli lobby and Congress.
Abbas insists that the ethnic cleansing (his words) of Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the construction of Jewish homes on the West Bank must cease before face-to-face talks can resume. He’s absolutely right to set that precondition when as each month passes Israel steps up construction shrinking even the 22 percent of historic Palestine that the PA has agreed to accept.
THE TALMUD: SCALPEL THAT BLEEDS THE MIDEAST
Recently, Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan accused Israel of killing thousands of Palestinians over its 63-year history. He also said Israel exploits the Holocaust to curry world sympathy. Both charges are manifestly true. Even in the first months after Israel’s Deir Yassin massacre and terrorist expulsion of 800,000 Arabs in 1948, Israel shelled dozens of defenseless Arab towns and cities and killed thousands of Arabs who did not vacate their homes quickly enough. (See, “Israel: On the Way to Empire in the Mideast”and “Israel: Founded on Terror”)
Yet Netanyahu snapped back: “these are outrageous charges that have nothing to do with the facts. In Israel we are used to telling the truth and the truth is that these allegations are completely false.”
The boldness of Netanyahu to lie is a reminder that the state of Israel is founded upon the Babylonian Talmud, which permits Jews to deceive Gentiles.
The following is a modified reprint of a very important 2010 article. I update readers to the fact that the possibility of killing even innocent gentiles is very much in vogue among ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Israel today. It is also an important reminder of Jesus’ warning to “beware of the leaven [deceit and hypocrisy] of the Pharisees [Talmudic Judaism].” (Matthew 16:6)
Yet Netanyahu snapped back: “these are outrageous charges that have nothing to do with the facts. In Israel we are used to telling the truth and the truth is that these allegations are completely false.”
The boldness of Netanyahu to lie is a reminder that the state of Israel is founded upon the Babylonian Talmud, which permits Jews to deceive Gentiles.
The following is a modified reprint of a very important 2010 article. I update readers to the fact that the possibility of killing even innocent gentiles is very much in vogue among ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Israel today. It is also an important reminder of Jesus’ warning to “beware of the leaven [deceit and hypocrisy] of the Pharisees [Talmudic Judaism].” (Matthew 16:6)
The State of the Anti-War Movement
Ten years after the US invaded Afghanistan, the anti-war movement in America looks remarkably similar to what it was in 1972 – ten years after the US invaded South Vietnam. In each case, more than two-thirds of the American public oppose the war, but the press and ‘educated opinion’ – hence the ideological institutions, notably the universities – support it. Our rulers’ task, in cases 40 years apart, is therefore to make sure that democracy is ineffective.
Afghanistan (“Pipelinistan,” as Pepe Escobar says) is much more important to the US elite than Vietnam ever was. It’s the keystone of the region that the US State Department in 1945 said contained “the world’s greatest material prize” – Mideast oil. Today the US government is threatening, invading, and occupying countries from North Africa to the Indian subcontinent, and from Central Asia to the Horn of Africa – a vast circle with a 2,000-mile radius – the Greater Middle East. (The US military calls it “Central Command.”) Control and not just access to those energy resources is what the US government demands: the US in fact imports very little oil from the Mideast, but control gives the US government an unparalleled advantage over its oil-hungry rivals in Europe and Asia. We’re killing people in the Mideast and North Africa because China needs oil, and our government wants to control where they get it. Our government says that we’re conducting these vastly expensive wars to stop terrorism and protect civilians; but it’s obvious that, instead, we’re killing civilians and creating terrorists.
Finally, the US is a very different country today. In 1972 it was a wealthy and prosperous society, with a self-confident middle class. Forty years of Neoliberal counter-attack to “the Sixties” have seen wages and standards of living stagnate or decline, even before the crisis of 2007/8 – out of which the rich 1% prospered and the 99% declined even further.
The first task of the anti-war movement in 2011 is to overcome its co-option by the Democrats in the elections of 2006 and 2008, and dispel the propaganda fog of the Obama administration. Obama’s killing in the Mideast and Africa is more widespread, efficient, and brutal than Bush’s ever was, but the policy remains what it has been for more than a generation. The anti-war movement must make that clear to the American people – and that it’s being done in our name.
Afghanistan (“Pipelinistan,” as Pepe Escobar says) is much more important to the US elite than Vietnam ever was. It’s the keystone of the region that the US State Department in 1945 said contained “the world’s greatest material prize” – Mideast oil. Today the US government is threatening, invading, and occupying countries from North Africa to the Indian subcontinent, and from Central Asia to the Horn of Africa – a vast circle with a 2,000-mile radius – the Greater Middle East. (The US military calls it “Central Command.”) Control and not just access to those energy resources is what the US government demands: the US in fact imports very little oil from the Mideast, but control gives the US government an unparalleled advantage over its oil-hungry rivals in Europe and Asia. We’re killing people in the Mideast and North Africa because China needs oil, and our government wants to control where they get it. Our government says that we’re conducting these vastly expensive wars to stop terrorism and protect civilians; but it’s obvious that, instead, we’re killing civilians and creating terrorists.
Finally, the US is a very different country today. In 1972 it was a wealthy and prosperous society, with a self-confident middle class. Forty years of Neoliberal counter-attack to “the Sixties” have seen wages and standards of living stagnate or decline, even before the crisis of 2007/8 – out of which the rich 1% prospered and the 99% declined even further.
The first task of the anti-war movement in 2011 is to overcome its co-option by the Democrats in the elections of 2006 and 2008, and dispel the propaganda fog of the Obama administration. Obama’s killing in the Mideast and Africa is more widespread, efficient, and brutal than Bush’s ever was, but the policy remains what it has been for more than a generation. The anti-war movement must make that clear to the American people – and that it’s being done in our name.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Embattled Ahmadinejad stands his corner
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad delivered his most fiery and stinging speech at the United Nations General Assembly last Thursday. His purpose was partly to secure his legacy on the world stage (he is due to step down in 2013) and partly to brandish his hardline reputation at a time of increasing pressure on the domestic front.
Largely owing to his divisive and controversial persona, there is a dearth of balanced appraisal of Ahmadinejad's views and positions. A balanced appraisal of the Iranian president's positions, especially on foreign policy, requires a clear understanding of the conceptual framework guiding the same.
On the domestic front Ahmadinejad has been accused of accommodating a "deviant current" within his government and generally violating the ideological boundaries of the Islamic Revolution. There have even been murmurings that the president may be impeached before his second term expires in June 2013.
The president has ratcheted up the rhetoric on the world stage, partly to brandish his hardline reputation to the Islamic Republic and its supporters across the region, but more importantly perhaps to mobilize principalist opinion behind him with a view to deterring the establishment from undertaking further measures against his inner circle.
Largely owing to his divisive and controversial persona, there is a dearth of balanced appraisal of Ahmadinejad's views and positions. A balanced appraisal of the Iranian president's positions, especially on foreign policy, requires a clear understanding of the conceptual framework guiding the same.
On the domestic front Ahmadinejad has been accused of accommodating a "deviant current" within his government and generally violating the ideological boundaries of the Islamic Revolution. There have even been murmurings that the president may be impeached before his second term expires in June 2013.
The president has ratcheted up the rhetoric on the world stage, partly to brandish his hardline reputation to the Islamic Republic and its supporters across the region, but more importantly perhaps to mobilize principalist opinion behind him with a view to deterring the establishment from undertaking further measures against his inner circle.
Euro-Zone Prepares to Print Trillions in Advance of Greece Debt Default
It's not just the financial and economic world that's being turned upside down with fast changing events in motion that will impact for many years. Last week saw that maybe energy does not equal mass X the speed of light squared. Eeeek ! There goes Einstein's theory of general relativity and the past 100 years of physics (if true) over the event horizon and into a black hole, though the theory has always had something major missing which is why there existed the fundamental disparity between quantum mechanics and general relativity that maybe we will get much closer towards understanding if E=MC2 is busted.
Similarly the Euro-zone has reached the edge of its own event horizon of disappearing into a financial and economic black hole, the response to which is likely to be rampant Euro-zone money printing to monetize PIIGS debts that takes place following the orderly bankruptcy of Greece due to the impossibility of an economically contracting country being able to service an ever expanding debt mountain, a vicious cycle of ever higher debt to GDP triggering ever greater economic austerity, resulting in an even higher debt to GDP ratio as the economy contracts and the tax take falls.
Key measures being contemplated at the time of writing are :
Greece debt holders to take a 50% hair-cut i.e. cut Greece debt from Euro 340billion to Euro 170billion.
Cut the interest rate PAID on Greece debt, perhaps to even ZERO.
Expand the financial stability fund from 440 billion euros to at least Euro 2 trillion and perhaps even Euro 3 trillion by leveraging up by ECB money printing.
Re-capitalise the bankrupt European banks that would take a huge hit on a Greece default.
Similarly the Euro-zone has reached the edge of its own event horizon of disappearing into a financial and economic black hole, the response to which is likely to be rampant Euro-zone money printing to monetize PIIGS debts that takes place following the orderly bankruptcy of Greece due to the impossibility of an economically contracting country being able to service an ever expanding debt mountain, a vicious cycle of ever higher debt to GDP triggering ever greater economic austerity, resulting in an even higher debt to GDP ratio as the economy contracts and the tax take falls.
Key measures being contemplated at the time of writing are :
Greece debt holders to take a 50% hair-cut i.e. cut Greece debt from Euro 340billion to Euro 170billion.
Cut the interest rate PAID on Greece debt, perhaps to even ZERO.
Expand the financial stability fund from 440 billion euros to at least Euro 2 trillion and perhaps even Euro 3 trillion by leveraging up by ECB money printing.
Re-capitalise the bankrupt European banks that would take a huge hit on a Greece default.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
US: On War Path Against Her Ally Pakistan!
Occupation of Afghanistan and formulation of new rules on terrorism gave a godsend opportunity to India to punish its arch rival Pakistan on account of its venture in Kargil and its overall policy of defying Indian hegemony in South Asia. While the US military and NATO got busy in mopping up operation in Afghanistan, India had its own set of priorities. It was desperate to regain its influence in Afghanistan and to bash Pakistan. While the US had politely declined India’s advice that Indian military would attack Pakistan from the west in concert with US-NATO attack on Afghanistan from the north, it agreed to its suggestion to deceive Pakistan by pretending to be its close ally and then forcing it to become frontline state, severing ties with Taliban, sharing intelligence, making available its airbases, airspace, Karachi Port and land routes via Chaman and Torkham for logistic support.
Behind the ruse of helping Pakistan in fighting terrorism nabbing runaway terrorists, CIA and FBI opened outposts in selected regions of FATA and Balochistan and also gained control over immigration department on all major airports. In short time, CIA started dominating ISI in matters of intelligence acquisition since it had superior means at its disposal.
Resultantly, Pakistan today is a scene of violence, death and destruction. Whereas Pakistan has suffered the most in US dictated war on terror and is the biggest victim of terrorism, the sponsor of the war instead of sympathizing has declared that Pakistanis the most dangerous country in the world and nursery of terrorism. According to Adm. Mike Mullen, Pakistanis exporter of terrorism and aligned with Haqqani network based in Miranshah, a bustling town of North Waziristan(NW) and epicenter of economic activity. ISI has been directly accused that it had a hand in recent attacks in Kabul. A case has been cleverly built up on the pattern of endgame of Vietnam War in which story of safe havens was played up and Cambodia made a scapegoat to cover up US military’s failure.
The US leaders embarrassed from series of debacles in recent weeks are trying to make Pakistan a sacrificial lamb in order to hide US military’s failures. They are trying to enact 9/11 like situation and have given an ultimatum to Pakistan that it is either with the US or with the Haqqani network. Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Mike Mullen, Petraeus and Panetta who are firing threatening salvos should be realistic and try to understand that the American public as well as the world today is no more ignorant and will not get duped by psychological war again and again. They should know that neither the military and economic situation of USA is as strong as was in 2001, nor Pakistanis under a military dictator who could take decisions on behalf of the nation unilaterally. Rather, the US has become economically impoverished because of global economic meltdown and US excessive defence spending, and militarily weak and timid owing to the beatings it is receiving at the hands of Taliban in Afghanistan. Moreover, after the US lies about WMDs in Iraq were exposed, who would believe its Haqqani network story?
Behind the ruse of helping Pakistan in fighting terrorism nabbing runaway terrorists, CIA and FBI opened outposts in selected regions of FATA and Balochistan and also gained control over immigration department on all major airports. In short time, CIA started dominating ISI in matters of intelligence acquisition since it had superior means at its disposal.
Resultantly, Pakistan today is a scene of violence, death and destruction. Whereas Pakistan has suffered the most in US dictated war on terror and is the biggest victim of terrorism, the sponsor of the war instead of sympathizing has declared that Pakistanis the most dangerous country in the world and nursery of terrorism. According to Adm. Mike Mullen, Pakistanis exporter of terrorism and aligned with Haqqani network based in Miranshah, a bustling town of North Waziristan(NW) and epicenter of economic activity. ISI has been directly accused that it had a hand in recent attacks in Kabul. A case has been cleverly built up on the pattern of endgame of Vietnam War in which story of safe havens was played up and Cambodia made a scapegoat to cover up US military’s failure.
The US leaders embarrassed from series of debacles in recent weeks are trying to make Pakistan a sacrificial lamb in order to hide US military’s failures. They are trying to enact 9/11 like situation and have given an ultimatum to Pakistan that it is either with the US or with the Haqqani network. Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Mike Mullen, Petraeus and Panetta who are firing threatening salvos should be realistic and try to understand that the American public as well as the world today is no more ignorant and will not get duped by psychological war again and again. They should know that neither the military and economic situation of USA is as strong as was in 2001, nor Pakistanis under a military dictator who could take decisions on behalf of the nation unilaterally. Rather, the US has become economically impoverished because of global economic meltdown and US excessive defence spending, and militarily weak and timid owing to the beatings it is receiving at the hands of Taliban in Afghanistan. Moreover, after the US lies about WMDs in Iraq were exposed, who would believe its Haqqani network story?
BBC Speechless As Trader Tells Truth: "The Collapse Is Coming...And Goldman Rules The World"
In an interview on BBC News this morning that left the hosts gob-smacked (google it... it is the BBC after all), Alessio Rastani outlines in a mere three-and-a-half-minutes what we all know and most ignore. While the whole interview is worth watching, the money shot for us was "This economic crisis is like a cancer, if you just wait and wait hoping it is going to go away, just like a cancer it is going to grow and it will be too late!". While he dreams of recessions, sees Goldman ruling the world, and urges people to prepare, it is hard to disagree with much (or actually anything) of what he says and obviously interventions and machinations means we will have days like this (in Silver for instance), there is only one endgame here and we hope there is less hopeful euphoria (and more preparedness) as we pull back the curtain further and further.
While we do not know who this trader is, one thing we can be 100% certain of is that he will never appear on CNBC.
While we do not know who this trader is, one thing we can be 100% certain of is that he will never appear on CNBC.
NATO's War on Libya is Directed against China: AFRICOM and the Threat to China's National Energy Security
The Washington-led decision by NATO to bomb Gaddafi's Libya into submission over recent months, at an estimated cost to US taxpayers of at least $1 billion, has little if anything to do with what the Obama Administration claims was a mission to "protect innocent civilians." In reality it is part of a larger strategic assault by NATO and by the Pentagon in particular to entirely control China's economic achilles heel, namely China's strategic dependence on large volumes of imported crude oil and gas. Today China is the world's second largest importer of oil after the United States and the gap is rapidly closing.
If we take a careful look at a map of Africa and also look at the African organization of the new Pentagon Africa Command—AFRICOM—the pattern that emerges is a careful strategy of controlling one of China's most strategically important oil and raw materials sources.
NATO's Libya campaign was and is all about oil. But not about simply controlling Libyan high-grade crude because the USA is nervous about reliable foreign supplies. It rather is about controlling China's free access to long-term oil imports from Africa and from the Middle East. In other words, it is about controlling China itself.
The aim of the US-led regime change in Libya as well as the entire Greater Middle East Project which lies behind the Arab Spring is to secure absolute control over the world's largest known oil fields to control future policies in especially countries like China. As then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is reported to have said during the 1970's when he was arguably more powerful than the President of the United States, "If you control the oil you control entire nations or groups of nations."
If we take a careful look at a map of Africa and also look at the African organization of the new Pentagon Africa Command—AFRICOM—the pattern that emerges is a careful strategy of controlling one of China's most strategically important oil and raw materials sources.
NATO's Libya campaign was and is all about oil. But not about simply controlling Libyan high-grade crude because the USA is nervous about reliable foreign supplies. It rather is about controlling China's free access to long-term oil imports from Africa and from the Middle East. In other words, it is about controlling China itself.
The aim of the US-led regime change in Libya as well as the entire Greater Middle East Project which lies behind the Arab Spring is to secure absolute control over the world's largest known oil fields to control future policies in especially countries like China. As then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is reported to have said during the 1970's when he was arguably more powerful than the President of the United States, "If you control the oil you control entire nations or groups of nations."
Monday, September 26, 2011
Jewish Jihad and World War
Before I am assailed by the usual screams from the usual suspects, let me point out that the fear of Jewish jihadists starting a world war is not uniquely mine. There was an op-ed by Jewish dissident Sefi Rachlevsky in Haaretz Wednesday that said the same thing:
Netanyahu must be stopped from attacking Iran
“Worry over this issue doesn’t stem only from the assurance given by the prime minister’s friend, Dick Cheney, that Israel will attack; or from the messianic statements about a possible attack that Haaretz has recently quoted Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak as making in closed forums; or from former Mossad chief Meir Dagan’s warning that an attack will occur in the waning days of September in response to Israel’s increasing international isolation; or from heightened anxiety caused by the imminent closure of the operational window of opportunity.”
Thursday there was an unannounced morning emergency drill at the huge BP refinery in the Port of Houston area, followed by a BP emergency nine hours afterward In my Friday article, Texas City Terror Scare, Big Oil insiders, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that BP employees were afraid that they were being set up for a false flag attack, and that Israeli intelligence veterans had set up the Texas City counterterror program after 9/11.
My eight years of identifying BP, Texas City as one of the top U.S. false flag terror targets was corroborated by the Thursday publication of US Nuclear Weapons Unaccountable by Wayne Madsen. In it Madsen, like me a former military intelligence officer, identified the Port of Houston as the main conduit for Israeli smuggling of U.S. highly enriched uranium.
Netanyahu must be stopped from attacking Iran
“Worry over this issue doesn’t stem only from the assurance given by the prime minister’s friend, Dick Cheney, that Israel will attack; or from the messianic statements about a possible attack that Haaretz has recently quoted Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak as making in closed forums; or from former Mossad chief Meir Dagan’s warning that an attack will occur in the waning days of September in response to Israel’s increasing international isolation; or from heightened anxiety caused by the imminent closure of the operational window of opportunity.”
Thursday there was an unannounced morning emergency drill at the huge BP refinery in the Port of Houston area, followed by a BP emergency nine hours afterward In my Friday article, Texas City Terror Scare, Big Oil insiders, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that BP employees were afraid that they were being set up for a false flag attack, and that Israeli intelligence veterans had set up the Texas City counterterror program after 9/11.
My eight years of identifying BP, Texas City as one of the top U.S. false flag terror targets was corroborated by the Thursday publication of US Nuclear Weapons Unaccountable by Wayne Madsen. In it Madsen, like me a former military intelligence officer, identified the Port of Houston as the main conduit for Israeli smuggling of U.S. highly enriched uranium.
Abbas opens Pandora's box with bid
"[T]he Palestinian Spring is here," proclaimed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in front of a large crowd of cheering supporters in Ramallah on his return from New York. His popularity skyrocketed immediately after his bold speech at the General Assembly of United Nations and his submitting the Palestinian application for United Nations membership on Friday.
Abbas defied with his bid a very powerful American, Israeli and European pressure campaign, and this made him a hero in the eyes of countless Palestinians and Arabs. Ironically, the main confrontations, even at the UN, have yet to come, and his goals there are far from accomplished. These are still nothing compared to the more important and difficult task facing him, which is to channel the popular enthusiasm of his people into political action without unleashing deadly violence.
Faced with an American promise to veto the application at the UN Security Council, Abbas has few good alternatives. According to Omar Dajani, a legal expert and adviser to the Palestinian negotiators
... in order to win more than a symbolic victory this year, the Palestinians will need to achieve one or both of the following goals:
Secure sweeping international support for their territorial claims - in particular, their right to exercise sovereignty over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, subject only to minor and equitable negotiated revisions to the pre-1967 border, and
Obtain sufficiently broad recognition from world governments of Palestinian statehood to enable the International Criminal Court (ICC) to exercise jurisdiction to prosecute Israeli war crimes in Palestinian territory.
Abbas defied with his bid a very powerful American, Israeli and European pressure campaign, and this made him a hero in the eyes of countless Palestinians and Arabs. Ironically, the main confrontations, even at the UN, have yet to come, and his goals there are far from accomplished. These are still nothing compared to the more important and difficult task facing him, which is to channel the popular enthusiasm of his people into political action without unleashing deadly violence.
Faced with an American promise to veto the application at the UN Security Council, Abbas has few good alternatives. According to Omar Dajani, a legal expert and adviser to the Palestinian negotiators
... in order to win more than a symbolic victory this year, the Palestinians will need to achieve one or both of the following goals:
Secure sweeping international support for their territorial claims - in particular, their right to exercise sovereignty over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, subject only to minor and equitable negotiated revisions to the pre-1967 border, and
Obtain sufficiently broad recognition from world governments of Palestinian statehood to enable the International Criminal Court (ICC) to exercise jurisdiction to prosecute Israeli war crimes in Palestinian territory.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
The Emperor’s Speech
The speech Barack Hussein Obama gave before the UN General Assembly aimed to assure the world that the Atlantic Empire was still the world’s hegemon, strong as ever, and committed to persevere in the historical mission of ridding the world of things that weren’t nice. While meant to sound inspirational and even triumphant at times, it came off more as an attempt at self-reassurance, a plea to the world to ignore the observable reality and continue to accept the myth of Imperial omnipotence.
Almost at the start, Obama began making excuses. He inherited the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said, but is about to end them "from a position of strength." Those who have to say they are strong usually are not. And though he claimed both countries will soon enjoy a "normal relationship" with the U.S. as "sovereign nations," Obama promised an "equal partnership" with Iraq and "enduring partnership" with the Afghan people – meaning that in practice, they won’t be rid of U.S. garrisons, drones, spies and bribes just yet, and maybe not ever.
So, in Empire-speak, "sovereignty" is entirely meaningless, and "partnership" means taking orders without question. File that for future reference.
Though the Emperor painted an optimistic picture of human progress, declaring that the entire world needs to band together to achieve democracy and freedom from poverty, global warming, discrimination and all the usual utopian shibboleths, his vision lacked any grounding in reality.
It is not at all clear whether events in Africa are really as connected as Obama claims, or if the only thing they have in common is Empire’s hope to direct and control them. Such a delusion would be no less dangerous than the pernicious belief in harnessing the power of Islamic jihad to achieve geopolitical goals – a belief that persists despite the proof to the contrary offered by that September morning ten years ago.
Almost at the start, Obama began making excuses. He inherited the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said, but is about to end them "from a position of strength." Those who have to say they are strong usually are not. And though he claimed both countries will soon enjoy a "normal relationship" with the U.S. as "sovereign nations," Obama promised an "equal partnership" with Iraq and "enduring partnership" with the Afghan people – meaning that in practice, they won’t be rid of U.S. garrisons, drones, spies and bribes just yet, and maybe not ever.
So, in Empire-speak, "sovereignty" is entirely meaningless, and "partnership" means taking orders without question. File that for future reference.
Though the Emperor painted an optimistic picture of human progress, declaring that the entire world needs to band together to achieve democracy and freedom from poverty, global warming, discrimination and all the usual utopian shibboleths, his vision lacked any grounding in reality.
It is not at all clear whether events in Africa are really as connected as Obama claims, or if the only thing they have in common is Empire’s hope to direct and control them. Such a delusion would be no less dangerous than the pernicious belief in harnessing the power of Islamic jihad to achieve geopolitical goals – a belief that persists despite the proof to the contrary offered by that September morning ten years ago.
The Neocolonial Order is to Stay: A Puppet Government in Libya
The recent uprisings in the Arab states have seriously challenged the neocolonial orders in the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and North Africa. The uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia have been the struggles for ending neo-colonization and to progress toward self-determination and democracy, which haven’t succeeded yet. So far, the uprisings have led to the fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia on January 14, 2011 and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt on Feb 11, and it seems there are more to come. The Western powers backed Mubarak and Ben Ali for decades to rule in these countries. After their demise, they want to stop further uprisings by making some cosmetic changes in their regimes and preserve the status quo.
In Tunisia, the bellwether of the Arab uprisings, the situation has not changed much. It looks like the continuation of Ben Ali regime without Ben Ali himself. The election is now set for October 23, 2011, and that could lead to more protests and unrests in the streets of Tunisia. The main issues in the protests have been unemployment and problem of income inequality. Since the toppling of Ben Ali, however no real change has been seen to resolve these problems. Fouad Mebazza who has been acting president since January 15, 2011 and Beji Caid el Sebsi who has been acting prime minister since February both had served under Ben Ali regime. They are now manipulating the transitional process in order to continue to stay in power. In Egypt, a military junta belonging to the Mubarak regime is still ruling the country. Field-Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi has headed the junta since Mubarak was deposed. Nevertheless, the uprisings have continued to challenge the surviving junta. According to Al-Ahram newspaper, the election for the lower house People’ Assembly is going to be held on November 21, 2011. Other elections for the upper house and the presidency are planned to be held in 2012.
Now some war mongers are beating the drum for air raids on Syria and Iran. The West uses the strategy of divide-and-conquer to create civil wars to be followed by NATO – US air raids. At the same time, the West is protecting its client regimes against the ongoing people’s uprisings elsewhere in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, Jordan, and Bahrain. Whether the uprisings in the Arab World could succeed to end neocolonialism remains to be seen.
In Tunisia, the bellwether of the Arab uprisings, the situation has not changed much. It looks like the continuation of Ben Ali regime without Ben Ali himself. The election is now set for October 23, 2011, and that could lead to more protests and unrests in the streets of Tunisia. The main issues in the protests have been unemployment and problem of income inequality. Since the toppling of Ben Ali, however no real change has been seen to resolve these problems. Fouad Mebazza who has been acting president since January 15, 2011 and Beji Caid el Sebsi who has been acting prime minister since February both had served under Ben Ali regime. They are now manipulating the transitional process in order to continue to stay in power. In Egypt, a military junta belonging to the Mubarak regime is still ruling the country. Field-Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi has headed the junta since Mubarak was deposed. Nevertheless, the uprisings have continued to challenge the surviving junta. According to Al-Ahram newspaper, the election for the lower house People’ Assembly is going to be held on November 21, 2011. Other elections for the upper house and the presidency are planned to be held in 2012.
Now some war mongers are beating the drum for air raids on Syria and Iran. The West uses the strategy of divide-and-conquer to create civil wars to be followed by NATO – US air raids. At the same time, the West is protecting its client regimes against the ongoing people’s uprisings elsewhere in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, Jordan, and Bahrain. Whether the uprisings in the Arab World could succeed to end neocolonialism remains to be seen.
Friday, September 23, 2011
MASSIVE PROTESTS SHAKE WALL STREET AS MARKET CRUMBLES
In what may be a new type of protest, a large group of demonstrators descended last week on New York City’s Wall Street financial to protest the New York financial sector, International Bankers and the Federal Reserve’s questionable influences on the U.S. economy and on national political life.
The protest which sharply departed from traditional political and social movements of the past, is without a central leadership and apparently assembled after an on line call following an article in a media magazine.
The “Occupy Wall Street’ rally, the largest demonstration on the economy in years, brought together an ultra wide range of activists to a park just south of the original WTC 9-11 site. Traditional peace and left leaning groups found themselves joined by economic conservative elements and a diverse sample of political views from across the political spectrum. While originally focused on the U.S. financial condition. The demonstration almost immediately refocused to the activities of international banks, Non- Governmental organizations and the Federal Reserve. Old left protestors found themselves next to Ron Paul supporters and constitutionalists strongly questioning the activities of the largest banks and internationalists influences on Washington and world conditions.
But while many of the demonstrators said they were trying to cause a change along the lines of the Arab spring revolutions where large numbers of people occupied central squares, older more experienced and knowledgeable patriots at the scene noted that the Arab spring uprisings were a direct product of the American foreign policy establishment…and the British. French help was involved in the case of Libya. The level of general discomfort and desperation usually involved in serious political power change is also not present at this moment many observers said.
The protest which sharply departed from traditional political and social movements of the past, is without a central leadership and apparently assembled after an on line call following an article in a media magazine.
The “Occupy Wall Street’ rally, the largest demonstration on the economy in years, brought together an ultra wide range of activists to a park just south of the original WTC 9-11 site. Traditional peace and left leaning groups found themselves joined by economic conservative elements and a diverse sample of political views from across the political spectrum. While originally focused on the U.S. financial condition. The demonstration almost immediately refocused to the activities of international banks, Non- Governmental organizations and the Federal Reserve. Old left protestors found themselves next to Ron Paul supporters and constitutionalists strongly questioning the activities of the largest banks and internationalists influences on Washington and world conditions.
But while many of the demonstrators said they were trying to cause a change along the lines of the Arab spring revolutions where large numbers of people occupied central squares, older more experienced and knowledgeable patriots at the scene noted that the Arab spring uprisings were a direct product of the American foreign policy establishment…and the British. French help was involved in the case of Libya. The level of general discomfort and desperation usually involved in serious political power change is also not present at this moment many observers said.
The Untimely Death of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
It has now been more than ten years since about three thousand people were killed in a crime perpetrated by, well, it really isn’t quite clear who perpetrated the crime. There are all kinds of theories and suggestions proffered as to who is responsible for the crime and how it was really carried out. I think that if one looks into these theories and possibilities with an open mind it might surprise many the evidence that contradicts the “official” theory as to what happened. As one looks more closely at all the events of that day and weighs the preponderance of evidence the “official” story that was reported by the corporate media becomes less and less likely to be the real story as to what actually happened. Still, many people simply shut their eyes, put their heads down, and refuse to believe that they are being emotionally manipulated by the powers that be.
I mention 9/11 because of all the propaganda that I saw surrounding it’s ten year anniversary. Has it been ten years already? Can’t they just let that old wound heal? Do they have to keep opening it up, keep making the dread and horror felt on that day bubble to the surface? Of course they can’t. The powers that be want to keep you in fear, want to keep you confused and uncertain. They want you to turn to them in your hour of emotional distress and ask for their help. Of course, they will only be too glad to help you, if you simply let them impose upon your individual rights, just a little, just enough to take naked body scans of you and grope your sexual bits at the airports.
The worshippers of the state will cry “Foul!” at the slightest suggestion that there was any sort of conspiracy at any level of government that led to the 9/11 attacks. They can’t admit that the state, their god, is anything other than perfect and loving. No one involved in government could be that evil to plan that type of attack. Even if it’s pointed out how the federal government was at the very least so inept that they utterly failed that day the state cultists will make excuses for their divinity of choice, talk about all the good people that are trying to do their best for humanity inside the bureaucratic structure such as it is, and that if we just give them more power to violate individual rights that all mankind will be safe from all the boogiemen of the world and we will no longer have to worry. There are some people who simply refuse to grow up.
So long as 9/11 conspiracy theories can continue to open the minds of some who are willing to consider them and expose the incompetence and utter failure of the established political structure, I don’t think they should be proclaimed dead. Winning back our freedoms and returning to the principles our nation was founded upon likely will not be easy. Showing others how illegitimate the authorities have become is also a difficult proposition. We need to become an authority unto ourselves. Justice might never be served for the crimes that some of the ruling elite have engaged in, but the least we can do is to try to wrest their power and authority from them. We should use all the tools available to us to accomplish this. Nothing will change until those in power realize they can no longer get away with secrecy and conspiracy and the government won’t become open and transparent until enough of us care to make it so. The corruption will not go away until those who engage in it are exposed and shamed by their actions and the risks of engaging in such activities outweigh the benefits.
I mention 9/11 because of all the propaganda that I saw surrounding it’s ten year anniversary. Has it been ten years already? Can’t they just let that old wound heal? Do they have to keep opening it up, keep making the dread and horror felt on that day bubble to the surface? Of course they can’t. The powers that be want to keep you in fear, want to keep you confused and uncertain. They want you to turn to them in your hour of emotional distress and ask for their help. Of course, they will only be too glad to help you, if you simply let them impose upon your individual rights, just a little, just enough to take naked body scans of you and grope your sexual bits at the airports.
The worshippers of the state will cry “Foul!” at the slightest suggestion that there was any sort of conspiracy at any level of government that led to the 9/11 attacks. They can’t admit that the state, their god, is anything other than perfect and loving. No one involved in government could be that evil to plan that type of attack. Even if it’s pointed out how the federal government was at the very least so inept that they utterly failed that day the state cultists will make excuses for their divinity of choice, talk about all the good people that are trying to do their best for humanity inside the bureaucratic structure such as it is, and that if we just give them more power to violate individual rights that all mankind will be safe from all the boogiemen of the world and we will no longer have to worry. There are some people who simply refuse to grow up.
So long as 9/11 conspiracy theories can continue to open the minds of some who are willing to consider them and expose the incompetence and utter failure of the established political structure, I don’t think they should be proclaimed dead. Winning back our freedoms and returning to the principles our nation was founded upon likely will not be easy. Showing others how illegitimate the authorities have become is also a difficult proposition. We need to become an authority unto ourselves. Justice might never be served for the crimes that some of the ruling elite have engaged in, but the least we can do is to try to wrest their power and authority from them. We should use all the tools available to us to accomplish this. Nothing will change until those in power realize they can no longer get away with secrecy and conspiracy and the government won’t become open and transparent until enough of us care to make it so. The corruption will not go away until those who engage in it are exposed and shamed by their actions and the risks of engaging in such activities outweigh the benefits.
Veterans Today Supports Palestinian Statehood to Increase American National Security
Veteranstoday.com, the most widely read Military and Foreign Affairs Online Journal, urges President Obama to end the cycle of endangering American national security through continued ‘blank check’ support for Israel.
This multi-decade policy has been a disaster not only for American relations in the region, but for Israel and its neighbors, also.
“The biblical claims that Israel has used to claim divine right to the land have no historical basis whatsoever. It was entirely made up to justify the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians”, states Gordon Duff, senior editor.
“The real original Jews of the land were actually the Palestinians who converted to Christianity and then later to Islam. The early Zionists were ancestral Europeans, communists and atheists who dominated the early Zionist power structure, one aligned with the Soviets initially. Americans were sold a Hollywood production make believe story that is still with us today.”
“Even worse”, says Jim W. Dean, VT managing editor, “our own declassified intelligence going back to the 1948 war reveals that their long range conquest plans included pushing the original Jews, the Palestinians, off the land. They wanted to create ‘growing space’ for the large numbers of Diaspora Jews they were hoping to relocate to Israel with their capital and become a major regional power.”
This multi-decade policy has been a disaster not only for American relations in the region, but for Israel and its neighbors, also.
“The biblical claims that Israel has used to claim divine right to the land have no historical basis whatsoever. It was entirely made up to justify the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians”, states Gordon Duff, senior editor.
“The real original Jews of the land were actually the Palestinians who converted to Christianity and then later to Islam. The early Zionists were ancestral Europeans, communists and atheists who dominated the early Zionist power structure, one aligned with the Soviets initially. Americans were sold a Hollywood production make believe story that is still with us today.”
“Even worse”, says Jim W. Dean, VT managing editor, “our own declassified intelligence going back to the 1948 war reveals that their long range conquest plans included pushing the original Jews, the Palestinians, off the land. They wanted to create ‘growing space’ for the large numbers of Diaspora Jews they were hoping to relocate to Israel with their capital and become a major regional power.”
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Palestinian state still on the drawing board
All the suspense in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is focused on New York these days, where the 66th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations is underway. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is widely expected to turn to the UN Security Council on Friday as a first step in the process of applying on behalf of Palestine for recognition and membership in the UN.
At the same time, however, the Palestinians are under immense pressure, spearheaded by American diplomacy, to restart the peace talks and to drop the unilateral bid for statehood. Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity and media speculation, some sort of a last-minute compromise is a distinct possibility; in either case, any dramatic change would not follow immediately, if it follows at all, but would likely take months to unfold.
Two extraordinarily large delegations of Israeli and Palestinian officials are present in New York; the Palestinians, headed by Abbas, arrived from Jordan on Sunday, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined on Tuesday a sizeable group of ministers already waiting for him there.
This is significant, as it indicates a considerable capacity for making decisions on the ground, and thus for conducting last-minute negotiations on important topics. At the same time, it can also be a preparation for the intense diplomatic stand-off that is expected to ensue after the Palestinians apply for recognition at the UN.
At the same time, however, the Palestinians are under immense pressure, spearheaded by American diplomacy, to restart the peace talks and to drop the unilateral bid for statehood. Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity and media speculation, some sort of a last-minute compromise is a distinct possibility; in either case, any dramatic change would not follow immediately, if it follows at all, but would likely take months to unfold.
Two extraordinarily large delegations of Israeli and Palestinian officials are present in New York; the Palestinians, headed by Abbas, arrived from Jordan on Sunday, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined on Tuesday a sizeable group of ministers already waiting for him there.
This is significant, as it indicates a considerable capacity for making decisions on the ground, and thus for conducting last-minute negotiations on important topics. At the same time, it can also be a preparation for the intense diplomatic stand-off that is expected to ensue after the Palestinians apply for recognition at the UN.
US Desperate to Thwart Palestinian Statehood Bid
The determination shown by the Obama administration and Congress to ‘persuade’ the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from attempting to gain UN recognition of statehood is deplorable; their methods even more so.
US President Barack Obama, the man who pledged to bring about a Palestinian state, strongly objects to the Palestinian bid under the pretext that it is counterproductive to the peace process, which in reality has been defunct since former US President Bill Clinton left office in 2000.
As a man sympathetic to Palestinian aspirations prior to taking office, I wonder whether Obama likes what he sees in the mirror nowadays. Not only has he reneged on his promise to deliver a Palestinian state by September this year, he is vigorously opposing the creation of a state in name only. He is also using every tactic to bring US allies on his side while he twists the arm of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to proceed. Obama’s latest inducement aimed at luring the Palestinians to give up their right to a UN hearing was delivered by US envoys David Hale and Dennis Ross—dubbed ‘Israel’s lawyer’ by one of his former deputies.
The pair arrived bearing a written proposal for the resumption of face-to-face talks that instead of referring to Jewish colonies as ‘illegal’ attributed their existence to ‘demographic trends since 1967.’ It’s no wonder that Abbas considered this offer as ‘the last straw’ when its acceptance would have been tantamount to legalising Israeli expansionism.
US President Barack Obama, the man who pledged to bring about a Palestinian state, strongly objects to the Palestinian bid under the pretext that it is counterproductive to the peace process, which in reality has been defunct since former US President Bill Clinton left office in 2000.
As a man sympathetic to Palestinian aspirations prior to taking office, I wonder whether Obama likes what he sees in the mirror nowadays. Not only has he reneged on his promise to deliver a Palestinian state by September this year, he is vigorously opposing the creation of a state in name only. He is also using every tactic to bring US allies on his side while he twists the arm of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to proceed. Obama’s latest inducement aimed at luring the Palestinians to give up their right to a UN hearing was delivered by US envoys David Hale and Dennis Ross—dubbed ‘Israel’s lawyer’ by one of his former deputies.
The pair arrived bearing a written proposal for the resumption of face-to-face talks that instead of referring to Jewish colonies as ‘illegal’ attributed their existence to ‘demographic trends since 1967.’ It’s no wonder that Abbas considered this offer as ‘the last straw’ when its acceptance would have been tantamount to legalising Israeli expansionism.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Immigration, the Republicans, and the End of White America
Last June the U.S. Census disclosed that non-white births in America were on the verge of surpassing the white total and might do so as early as the end of this year. Such an event marks an unprecedented racial watershed in American history. Over the last few years, various demographic projections from that same agency and independent analysts have provided somewhat fluctuating estimates of the date—perhaps 2042 or 2037 or 2050—at which white Americans will become a minority. This represents a remarkable, almost unimaginable, demographic change from our country of the early 1960s, when whites accounted for over 85 percent of the population and seemed likely to remain at that level indefinitely.
Many years of heavy foreign immigration have been the crucial element driving this transformation, but even if all immigration—legal and illegal—were halted tomorrow and the border completely sealed, these demographic trends would continue, although at a much slower pace. Today, the median age of American whites is over 40, putting most of them past their prime child-bearing years. Meanwhile, America’s largest minority group, the rapidly growing population of Hispanics, has a median age in the mid-20s, near the peak of family formation and growth, while both Asians and blacks are also considerably younger than whites. In fact, since 1995 births rather than immigration have been the largest factor behind the near doubling of America’s Hispanic population.
As in most matters, public perceptions of America’s racial reality are overwhelmingly shaped by the images absorbed from the national media and Hollywood, whether these are realistic or not. For example, over the last generation the massive surge in black visibility in sports, movies, and TV has led to the widespread perception of a similarly huge growth in the black fraction of the population, which, according to Gallup, most people now reckon stands at 33 percent or so of the national total. Yet this is entirely incorrect. During the last hundred-plus years, American blacks have seen their share of the population fluctuate by merely a percentage point or two, going from 11.6 percent in 1900 to 12.6 percent in 2010. By contrast, five decades of immigration have caused Asian Americans—relatively ignored by the news, sports, and entertainment industries—to increase from 0.5 percent in 1960 to 5 percent today, following the fifteen-fold rise in their numbers which has established them as America’s most rapidly growing racial group, albeit from a small initial base.
These national changes in racial distribution have been quite uneven and geographically skewed, with some parts of the country leading and others lagging. For example, during the 1970s when I was a teenager growing up in the Los Angeles area, that city and the surrounding sprawl of Southern California constituted America’s whitest region, about the only large urban agglomeration whose racial character approximated that of the country as a whole—around 85 percent white—and my own San Fernando Valley area in particular exemplified the popular image of suburban picket fences and lighthearted “Leave It to Beaver” family comedies. Yet during the two decades that followed, Southern California underwent an enormous immigration-driven demographic transformation, creating a new Los Angeles which was almost 80 percent non-white and a surrounding region in which whites no longer held even a mere plurality.
Many years of heavy foreign immigration have been the crucial element driving this transformation, but even if all immigration—legal and illegal—were halted tomorrow and the border completely sealed, these demographic trends would continue, although at a much slower pace. Today, the median age of American whites is over 40, putting most of them past their prime child-bearing years. Meanwhile, America’s largest minority group, the rapidly growing population of Hispanics, has a median age in the mid-20s, near the peak of family formation and growth, while both Asians and blacks are also considerably younger than whites. In fact, since 1995 births rather than immigration have been the largest factor behind the near doubling of America’s Hispanic population.
As in most matters, public perceptions of America’s racial reality are overwhelmingly shaped by the images absorbed from the national media and Hollywood, whether these are realistic or not. For example, over the last generation the massive surge in black visibility in sports, movies, and TV has led to the widespread perception of a similarly huge growth in the black fraction of the population, which, according to Gallup, most people now reckon stands at 33 percent or so of the national total. Yet this is entirely incorrect. During the last hundred-plus years, American blacks have seen their share of the population fluctuate by merely a percentage point or two, going from 11.6 percent in 1900 to 12.6 percent in 2010. By contrast, five decades of immigration have caused Asian Americans—relatively ignored by the news, sports, and entertainment industries—to increase from 0.5 percent in 1960 to 5 percent today, following the fifteen-fold rise in their numbers which has established them as America’s most rapidly growing racial group, albeit from a small initial base.
These national changes in racial distribution have been quite uneven and geographically skewed, with some parts of the country leading and others lagging. For example, during the 1970s when I was a teenager growing up in the Los Angeles area, that city and the surrounding sprawl of Southern California constituted America’s whitest region, about the only large urban agglomeration whose racial character approximated that of the country as a whole—around 85 percent white—and my own San Fernando Valley area in particular exemplified the popular image of suburban picket fences and lighthearted “Leave It to Beaver” family comedies. Yet during the two decades that followed, Southern California underwent an enormous immigration-driven demographic transformation, creating a new Los Angeles which was almost 80 percent non-white and a surrounding region in which whites no longer held even a mere plurality.
U.S. Republicans submit resolution supporting Israel's right to annex West Bank
U.S. Representative Joe Walsh (R-IL), introduced on Monday a resolution (with 30 co-sponsors) to support Israel’s right to annex the West Bank in the event that the Palestinian Authority continues to push for vote at the United Nations.
“We’ve got what I consider to be a potential slap in the face coming up with the vote in the UN, which is absolutely outrageous,” Walsh told Politico website last July.
He was quoted as saying that "it’s clear that the United States needs to make a very strong statement. I would argue that the president should make this statement, but he’s not capable of making it. So, the House needs to make this statement, if the [Palestinian Authority] continues down this road of trying to get recognition of statehood, the U.S. will not stand for it. And we will respect Israel’s right to annex Judea and Samaria.”
Meanwhile on Sunday, Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) delivered the keynote address at the Jewish National Fund’s 2011 National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. Boehner said that it is the U.S.'s duty to stand by Israel "not just as a broker or observer – but as a strong partner and reliable ally.”
Referring to the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN, Boehner said that “Israel has demonstrated time and again it seeks nothing more than peace … a peace agreed to by the two states and only the two states. Like every prime minister before him, Prime Minister Netanyahu knows peace will require compromise – and he accepts that. He welcomes that."
“We’ve got what I consider to be a potential slap in the face coming up with the vote in the UN, which is absolutely outrageous,” Walsh told Politico website last July.
He was quoted as saying that "it’s clear that the United States needs to make a very strong statement. I would argue that the president should make this statement, but he’s not capable of making it. So, the House needs to make this statement, if the [Palestinian Authority] continues down this road of trying to get recognition of statehood, the U.S. will not stand for it. And we will respect Israel’s right to annex Judea and Samaria.”
Meanwhile on Sunday, Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) delivered the keynote address at the Jewish National Fund’s 2011 National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. Boehner said that it is the U.S.'s duty to stand by Israel "not just as a broker or observer – but as a strong partner and reliable ally.”
Referring to the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN, Boehner said that “Israel has demonstrated time and again it seeks nothing more than peace … a peace agreed to by the two states and only the two states. Like every prime minister before him, Prime Minister Netanyahu knows peace will require compromise – and he accepts that. He welcomes that."
Perry’s Faith-Based Foreign Policy Directive
If Rick Perry makes it to the White House, what will American foreign policy in the Middle East look like? We got a clear indication of that, recently, when he stated:
“As a Christian I have a clear directive to support Israel, from my perspective its pretty easy both as an American and a Christian. I am going to stand with Israel.”
Earlier, in an interview with the Weekly Standard, he was even more emphatic, averring that “My faith requires me to support Israel.”
What kind of faith requires knee-jerk support for a foreign country? Apparently, Perry is a follower of a Protestant brand of Christianity known as “dispensationalism,” which holds that the End Times are approaching – and that one of the signs of the imminent apocalypse is the gathering of the Jews in the land of Israel, as supposedly foretold in the Bible. Some dispensationalists equate this with the founding of the Israeli state, in 1947, and the subsequent migration of many Jews to that country. According to dispensationalist theology, this phenomenon prefigures the start of an earth-shattering war, one that will pit Israel against the Forces of Darkness, herald the rise of the Anti-Christ, and ignite a battle that will take place on the field of Armageddon – after which Christ will return to earth and the faithful will be “raptured” up into Heaven.
However, the idea that a US President’s religious convictions will compel him to support a foreign government, regardless of whether that support serves specifically American interests, is appalling – and dangerous. And we can see how dangerous it is by looking at Governor Perry’s attacks on the Obama administration for supposedly not kowtowing to Tel Aviv with sufficient obeisance. At a press conference held in New York City, where he appeared with an Israeli government official, Perry declared:
“As a Christian I have a clear directive to support Israel, from my perspective its pretty easy both as an American and a Christian. I am going to stand with Israel.”
Earlier, in an interview with the Weekly Standard, he was even more emphatic, averring that “My faith requires me to support Israel.”
What kind of faith requires knee-jerk support for a foreign country? Apparently, Perry is a follower of a Protestant brand of Christianity known as “dispensationalism,” which holds that the End Times are approaching – and that one of the signs of the imminent apocalypse is the gathering of the Jews in the land of Israel, as supposedly foretold in the Bible. Some dispensationalists equate this with the founding of the Israeli state, in 1947, and the subsequent migration of many Jews to that country. According to dispensationalist theology, this phenomenon prefigures the start of an earth-shattering war, one that will pit Israel against the Forces of Darkness, herald the rise of the Anti-Christ, and ignite a battle that will take place on the field of Armageddon – after which Christ will return to earth and the faithful will be “raptured” up into Heaven.
However, the idea that a US President’s religious convictions will compel him to support a foreign government, regardless of whether that support serves specifically American interests, is appalling – and dangerous. And we can see how dangerous it is by looking at Governor Perry’s attacks on the Obama administration for supposedly not kowtowing to Tel Aviv with sufficient obeisance. At a press conference held in New York City, where he appeared with an Israeli government official, Perry declared:
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Whose Country Is It, Anyway?
For there are causes of the stunted growth in the standard of living of the American family that neither party is willing to address, if either of them even recognizes those causes.
First is the immersion of the U.S. economy in a global economy. This plunged U.S. workers into direct competition with workers in Asia and Latin America willing to do the same jobs for far less, in factories where regulations are far lighter.
How do you stimulate the U.S. economy when the workers you retain or rehire with your stimulus billions head for Walmarts on Saturday to buy goods made in Japan, Korea and China?
Our $6 trillion in trade deficits in the Bush decade stimulated economies all over the world, just not our own. Indeed, the most successful economies of the last decade were China and Germany. Not coincidentally, they were the world’s two largest exporting countries.
There are time-honored ways that nations have turned around such situations. What prevents us from adopting them? An ignorance of our own history, the immense investment of our transnational corporations in the new global arrangement, and the opposition of a World Trade Organization to which we have surrendered our national sovereignty.
A second reason why the median income of American families is back to 1996 levels and sinking is mass immigration, legal and illegal.
First is the immersion of the U.S. economy in a global economy. This plunged U.S. workers into direct competition with workers in Asia and Latin America willing to do the same jobs for far less, in factories where regulations are far lighter.
How do you stimulate the U.S. economy when the workers you retain or rehire with your stimulus billions head for Walmarts on Saturday to buy goods made in Japan, Korea and China?
Our $6 trillion in trade deficits in the Bush decade stimulated economies all over the world, just not our own. Indeed, the most successful economies of the last decade were China and Germany. Not coincidentally, they were the world’s two largest exporting countries.
There are time-honored ways that nations have turned around such situations. What prevents us from adopting them? An ignorance of our own history, the immense investment of our transnational corporations in the new global arrangement, and the opposition of a World Trade Organization to which we have surrendered our national sovereignty.
A second reason why the median income of American families is back to 1996 levels and sinking is mass immigration, legal and illegal.
National Security Archive: Complete Declassified Pentagon Papers at Last!
For the first time ever, all three major editions of the Pentagon Papers are being made available simultaneously online. The posting today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org), allows for a unique side-by-side comparison, showing readers exactly what the U.S. government tried to hide for 40 years by means of deletions from the original text.
To make the most of this new resource, the Archive is unveiling a special contest inviting readers to make their own nominations for the infamous "11 words" that some officials tried to keep secret even this year!
Today's posting includes the full texts of the "Gravel" edition entered into Congressional proceedings in 1971 by Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) and later published by the Beacon Press, the authorized 1971 declassified version issued by the House Armed Services Committee with deletions insisted on by the Nixon administration, and the new 2011 "complete" edition released in June by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Accompanying the posting is the National Security Archive's invitation for readers to identify their own favorite nominees for the "11 words" that securocrats attempted to delete during the declassification process for the Papers earlier this year, until alert NARA staffers realized those words actually had been declassified back in 1971. Best submissions for the "11 words" -- as judged by National Security Archive experts -- will appear in the Archive's blog, Unredacted, and on the Archive's Facebook page. National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados wrote the introduction and analysis for the posting. Archive analyst Carlos Osorio coordinated the data processing for publication. Archive staff Wendy Valdes and Charlotte Karrlsson-Willis did the input, indexing and cross-referencing, and the Archive's webmaster Michael Evans managed the online publication of the Pentagon Papers.
To make the most of this new resource, the Archive is unveiling a special contest inviting readers to make their own nominations for the infamous "11 words" that some officials tried to keep secret even this year!
Today's posting includes the full texts of the "Gravel" edition entered into Congressional proceedings in 1971 by Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) and later published by the Beacon Press, the authorized 1971 declassified version issued by the House Armed Services Committee with deletions insisted on by the Nixon administration, and the new 2011 "complete" edition released in June by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Accompanying the posting is the National Security Archive's invitation for readers to identify their own favorite nominees for the "11 words" that securocrats attempted to delete during the declassification process for the Papers earlier this year, until alert NARA staffers realized those words actually had been declassified back in 1971. Best submissions for the "11 words" -- as judged by National Security Archive experts -- will appear in the Archive's blog, Unredacted, and on the Archive's Facebook page. National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados wrote the introduction and analysis for the posting. Archive analyst Carlos Osorio coordinated the data processing for publication. Archive staff Wendy Valdes and Charlotte Karrlsson-Willis did the input, indexing and cross-referencing, and the Archive's webmaster Michael Evans managed the online publication of the Pentagon Papers.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Ron Paul's Landslide Straw-poll Victory at Calif. GOP State Convention
Rep. Ron Paul won a landslide victory in the California Republican Party straw poll on Saturday, September 17 — an appropriate date considering September 17 is Constitution Day and the Texas Congressman is running for President as the champion of the Constitution.
The straw poll was held in Los Angeles as part of the state GOP’s Fall Convention. Paul garnered 44.9 percent of the vote (374 votes out of 833 cast), 15 percentage points ahead of second-place finisher Gov. Rick Perry, who got 29.3 percent. Former Gov. Mitt Romney came in a distant third at 8.8 percent followed by Rep. Michele Bachmann at 7.7 percent.
“This win is just the latest indication of our campaign’s growing momentum,” said Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton. “Americans are sick and tired of the status quo and Dr. Paul offers a real change, and hope for a free and prosperous future.”
This latest boost to Ron Paul’s campaign was not exactly what state party officials, who are not enthralled with Paul's candidacy, were hoping for.
But the national media largely ignored Paul’s star performance at the California Republican State Convention, though there were a number of exceptions.
The straw poll was held in Los Angeles as part of the state GOP’s Fall Convention. Paul garnered 44.9 percent of the vote (374 votes out of 833 cast), 15 percentage points ahead of second-place finisher Gov. Rick Perry, who got 29.3 percent. Former Gov. Mitt Romney came in a distant third at 8.8 percent followed by Rep. Michele Bachmann at 7.7 percent.
“This win is just the latest indication of our campaign’s growing momentum,” said Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton. “Americans are sick and tired of the status quo and Dr. Paul offers a real change, and hope for a free and prosperous future.”
This latest boost to Ron Paul’s campaign was not exactly what state party officials, who are not enthralled with Paul's candidacy, were hoping for.
But the national media largely ignored Paul’s star performance at the California Republican State Convention, though there were a number of exceptions.
Why America Needs to Dismantle Its Security Apparatus: Real Security begins with Creating a Policy of Peace
This means eliminating the Department of Homeland Security, closing down our 800 military bases on foreign soil, and slashing armaments spending by the War Department, the one euphemistically called the Department of Defense but which is, in fact, the spearhead of today’s naked American aggression in six countries.
Real security begins with creating a policy of peace, meaning non-intervention, in the affairs of other states. It means when the U.S. sends its sons and daughters abroad on official business, it sends the Peace Corps to help and not the Pentagon to obliterate. It means returning to the lost arts of diplomacy, restoring the State Department to its original relevance; it means scrapping the posture of arrogance that is known as American exceptionalism and not acting as the self-appointed policeman of the world; and it means settling disputes with other nations in the World Court, not on the battlefield; and lastly, and not the least, it means having the courage to put some trust in the organization to keep the peace in whose creation America played so large a role in founding, the United Nations.
In today’s America, the search for absolute security has assumed hysterical proportions, with DHS officials everywhere checking up on everybody, “probable cause” be damned, at airports and bus terminals and train stations. It has made every citizen the object of Federal suspicion and denied to 100,000 the right to board an airplane. Communist Russia’s Nikolai Lenin would have cheered this invasion of individual privacy, as he once said, “It is true that liberty is precious---so precious that it must be rationed.” Under Communism, the rights of the individual were ever subordinated to the State, and that is increasingly true of America today.
In today’s America, the Pentagon, which consumes 54 cents of every tax dollar, reigns supreme, making a mockery of President Truman’s words, “If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military.” Truman’s staff feared that concentrating all military offices under one roof might create an ogre and that nightmare has become reality. As James Carroll remarks in his “House of War”(Houghton Mifflin): “Secretary of War Henry Stimson, saw the new danger at once and warned of it, to no avail. After Stimson, dozens of others would sound alarms as the Pentagon usurped controls over the levers of the American economy and culture, over science, academia, and politics.” Or as the poet Robert Browning wrote, “A man in armor is his armor’s slave.”
Real security begins with creating a policy of peace, meaning non-intervention, in the affairs of other states. It means when the U.S. sends its sons and daughters abroad on official business, it sends the Peace Corps to help and not the Pentagon to obliterate. It means returning to the lost arts of diplomacy, restoring the State Department to its original relevance; it means scrapping the posture of arrogance that is known as American exceptionalism and not acting as the self-appointed policeman of the world; and it means settling disputes with other nations in the World Court, not on the battlefield; and lastly, and not the least, it means having the courage to put some trust in the organization to keep the peace in whose creation America played so large a role in founding, the United Nations.
In today’s America, the search for absolute security has assumed hysterical proportions, with DHS officials everywhere checking up on everybody, “probable cause” be damned, at airports and bus terminals and train stations. It has made every citizen the object of Federal suspicion and denied to 100,000 the right to board an airplane. Communist Russia’s Nikolai Lenin would have cheered this invasion of individual privacy, as he once said, “It is true that liberty is precious---so precious that it must be rationed.” Under Communism, the rights of the individual were ever subordinated to the State, and that is increasingly true of America today.
In today’s America, the Pentagon, which consumes 54 cents of every tax dollar, reigns supreme, making a mockery of President Truman’s words, “If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military.” Truman’s staff feared that concentrating all military offices under one roof might create an ogre and that nightmare has become reality. As James Carroll remarks in his “House of War”(Houghton Mifflin): “Secretary of War Henry Stimson, saw the new danger at once and warned of it, to no avail. After Stimson, dozens of others would sound alarms as the Pentagon usurped controls over the levers of the American economy and culture, over science, academia, and politics.” Or as the poet Robert Browning wrote, “A man in armor is his armor’s slave.”
A Palestinian State?
The decision by the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to claim a seat in the United Nations is a last ditch effort by one side of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to resolve the region’s eternal crisis peacefully. The statement largely drafted by Tony Blair on behalf of the “Quartet,” which essentially gave the Israelis everything they wanted – including acceptance of settlement expansion as “facts on the ground” – was “the final blow, the final straw,” according to top Palestinian Authority official Nabil Shaath.
At the point where the world’s three great Abrahamic religions meet, there the seismic plates of civilization brush up against each other – to inevitably violent effect. The creation of a new state in the very epicenter of this seismic disturbance is just asking for an earthquake of epic proportions.
With some few exceptions, the rest of the world is amenable to transitional solutions of one sort or another – some reform, short of full-fledged libertarianism achieved overnight, which will ameliorate the crisis and help find a peaceful way out. Not in Palestine. There the only solution is radical and immediate decentralization of power, in both the occupied territories and Israel proper – that is, the separation of mutually hostile populations into mini-“states,” with each community exercising its right of secession, street-by-street. This would, at least, reduce the scale of the violence, and rob the haters of their power to impose an extremist “solution” on the rest.
The US government’s self-appointed role in the region as mediator and “peace” broker is a textbook example of how interventionism leads to the exact opposite of its ostensible objectives. We tout a “peace process” that has only produced more war and stick our noses into snake pits where they don’t belong. Then we wonder why we get bitten.
At the point where the world’s three great Abrahamic religions meet, there the seismic plates of civilization brush up against each other – to inevitably violent effect. The creation of a new state in the very epicenter of this seismic disturbance is just asking for an earthquake of epic proportions.
With some few exceptions, the rest of the world is amenable to transitional solutions of one sort or another – some reform, short of full-fledged libertarianism achieved overnight, which will ameliorate the crisis and help find a peaceful way out. Not in Palestine. There the only solution is radical and immediate decentralization of power, in both the occupied territories and Israel proper – that is, the separation of mutually hostile populations into mini-“states,” with each community exercising its right of secession, street-by-street. This would, at least, reduce the scale of the violence, and rob the haters of their power to impose an extremist “solution” on the rest.
The US government’s self-appointed role in the region as mediator and “peace” broker is a textbook example of how interventionism leads to the exact opposite of its ostensible objectives. We tout a “peace process” that has only produced more war and stick our noses into snake pits where they don’t belong. Then we wonder why we get bitten.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Familiar Hawks Press Obama on Iraq Withdrawal
Released by the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) – the successor organisation of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) that championed the 2003 U.S. invasion – the letter warns against reported plans by the administration to reduce Washington's troop presence to 4,000 after Dec. 31, the date by which, according to a 2008 U.S.- Iraqi agreement, all U.S. forces are to be withdrawn.
Washington currently has about 45,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from an all-time high of 170,000 in late 2007 when they were used to tamp down sectarian violence that brought the country to the edge of all- out civil war.
The letter was signed by 40 policy and defence analysts, including a number of former senior George W. Bush administration officials who played key roles in the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq; among them, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Paul Bremer; his spokesman, Dan Senor; former Undersecretary of Defence Eric Edelman; and Vice President Dick Cheney's Mideast aide, John Hannah; as well as former White House aides Karl Rove, Marc Thiessen, and Peter Wehner.
A 4,000-troop residual force "is significantly smaller than what U.S. military commanders on the ground have reportedly recommended and would limit our ability to ensure that Iraq remains stable and free from significant foreign influence in the years to come," the letter asserted.
Washington currently has about 45,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from an all-time high of 170,000 in late 2007 when they were used to tamp down sectarian violence that brought the country to the edge of all- out civil war.
The letter was signed by 40 policy and defence analysts, including a number of former senior George W. Bush administration officials who played key roles in the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq; among them, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Paul Bremer; his spokesman, Dan Senor; former Undersecretary of Defence Eric Edelman; and Vice President Dick Cheney's Mideast aide, John Hannah; as well as former White House aides Karl Rove, Marc Thiessen, and Peter Wehner.
A 4,000-troop residual force "is significantly smaller than what U.S. military commanders on the ground have reportedly recommended and would limit our ability to ensure that Iraq remains stable and free from significant foreign influence in the years to come," the letter asserted.
Congress Sees Middle East Through AIPAC-Colored Glasses
During August recess this year, 81 members of Congress went on a junket to Israel funded by the Israel lobby group AIPAC (well, funded by the American Israel Education Fund, but they are really one and the same) to " learn first-hand about one of our closest friends and allies." While the representatives insist they got a balanced view, their itinerary belies that claim: 95% of their time was spent hearing the Israeli government point of view, with only one token meeting with Palestinian reps.
CODEPINK has filed a complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee stating that these trips—and the upcoming ones scheduled for December–violate the Congressional prohibition on traveling with a lobby group. We feel these Potemkin voyages are part of AIPAC’s grand plan to control and monopolize Congress, which is not just unethical, but dangerous. Their bias reinforces a disastrous U.S. policy of unconditional support for Israel that obstructs peace and runs counter to our national interests.
At a recent Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, entitled "Promoting Peace? Reexamining US Aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA)", we got a glimpse of what happens when Congress views the Middle East through AIPAC-colored glasses. Here are a few of examples of their tunnel vision:
The stranglehold AIPAC has over Congress is putting our nation on a collision course with history. The vast majority of the world’s nations support the Palestinian bid for statehood (120 of them already recognize the state of Palestine). The democratic movements sweeping the Arab world are clamoring for Palestinian rights. Unconditional U.S. support for Israel keeps the region in turmoil, pits us against world opinion and jeopardizes our national security. It’s time for Congress to take off the AIPAC blinders.
CODEPINK has filed a complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee stating that these trips—and the upcoming ones scheduled for December–violate the Congressional prohibition on traveling with a lobby group. We feel these Potemkin voyages are part of AIPAC’s grand plan to control and monopolize Congress, which is not just unethical, but dangerous. Their bias reinforces a disastrous U.S. policy of unconditional support for Israel that obstructs peace and runs counter to our national interests.
At a recent Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, entitled "Promoting Peace? Reexamining US Aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA)", we got a glimpse of what happens when Congress views the Middle East through AIPAC-colored glasses. Here are a few of examples of their tunnel vision:
The stranglehold AIPAC has over Congress is putting our nation on a collision course with history. The vast majority of the world’s nations support the Palestinian bid for statehood (120 of them already recognize the state of Palestine). The democratic movements sweeping the Arab world are clamoring for Palestinian rights. Unconditional U.S. support for Israel keeps the region in turmoil, pits us against world opinion and jeopardizes our national security. It’s time for Congress to take off the AIPAC blinders.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Gilad Atzmon: Israeli War Criminals Are Welcome Here
Earlier today Britain amended its universal jurisdiction law to the extent that Israeli war criminals can now enter the Kingdom without risk of arrest. British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould shamelessly called Israeli war criminal Tzipi Livni, against whom an arrest warrant was issued in 2009, and told her that the Queen has signed the amendment "to ensure that the UK’s justice system can no longer be abused for political reasons."
Ignoramus ambassador Gould should know that putting a war criminal behind bars is not a political matter, but an ethical necessity.
However, the amendment of the law is just another symptom of the Zion-ification of UK legal system and culture. I believe that the timing of this submissive dubious political decision couldn’t be more significant. This week a decade ago the English Speaking Empire adopted the Old Testament’s ‘eye for and eye’ (i.e. 'The War Against Terror') as its new official ideological mantra. Hence, it is far from being surprising that it is now following orders from Jerusalem.
If the West was once associated with Athens, it is clearly fixated by Jerusalem now. This is certainly a tragedy, yet not a Greek one.
Ignoramus ambassador Gould should know that putting a war criminal behind bars is not a political matter, but an ethical necessity.
However, the amendment of the law is just another symptom of the Zion-ification of UK legal system and culture. I believe that the timing of this submissive dubious political decision couldn’t be more significant. This week a decade ago the English Speaking Empire adopted the Old Testament’s ‘eye for and eye’ (i.e. 'The War Against Terror') as its new official ideological mantra. Hence, it is far from being surprising that it is now following orders from Jerusalem.
If the West was once associated with Athens, it is clearly fixated by Jerusalem now. This is certainly a tragedy, yet not a Greek one.
CIA Knew About 9/11
Former CIA Asset, Susan Lindauer, provides an extraordinary first-hand account from behind the intelligence curtain that shatters the government’s lies about 9/11 and Iraq, and casts a harsh spotlight on the workings of the Patriot Act as the ideal weapon to bludgeon whistle blowers and dissidents.
A terrifying true story of “black budget” betrayals and the Patriot Act, with its arsenal of secret evidence, indefinite detention and threats of forcible drugging, EXTREME PREJUDICE reveals one Asset’s desperate struggle to survive the brutal cover ups of 9/11 and Iraq.
EXTREME PREJUDICE delivers a high tension expose of the real facts surrounding the CIA’s advance warnings of 9/11 and Iraq’s contributions to the 9/11 investigation. For the first time, it discloses the existence of a comprehensive peace framework before the War, which would have accomplished all major U.S. objectives in Baghdad without a single casualty. A true life spy thriller that goes inside the Iraqi Embassy and prison on a Texas military base, EXTREME PREJUDICE reveals the depths of deception by leaders in Washington and London to promote a questionable image of their successful anti-terrorism policy, and the shocking brutality used to suppress the truth of their failures from the American people and the world community.
Above all, EXTREME PREJUDICE offers a critical examination from the defendant’s chair of the Patriot Act’s assault on the most cherished Constitutional rights in a Court of law, when liberty and freedom to dissent from government policy are the highest stakes.
A terrifying true story of “black budget” betrayals and the Patriot Act, with its arsenal of secret evidence, indefinite detention and threats of forcible drugging, EXTREME PREJUDICE reveals one Asset’s desperate struggle to survive the brutal cover ups of 9/11 and Iraq.
EXTREME PREJUDICE delivers a high tension expose of the real facts surrounding the CIA’s advance warnings of 9/11 and Iraq’s contributions to the 9/11 investigation. For the first time, it discloses the existence of a comprehensive peace framework before the War, which would have accomplished all major U.S. objectives in Baghdad without a single casualty. A true life spy thriller that goes inside the Iraqi Embassy and prison on a Texas military base, EXTREME PREJUDICE reveals the depths of deception by leaders in Washington and London to promote a questionable image of their successful anti-terrorism policy, and the shocking brutality used to suppress the truth of their failures from the American people and the world community.
Above all, EXTREME PREJUDICE offers a critical examination from the defendant’s chair of the Patriot Act’s assault on the most cherished Constitutional rights in a Court of law, when liberty and freedom to dissent from government policy are the highest stakes.
The $2 Billion UBS Incident: 'Rogue Trader' My Ass
The news that a "rogue trader" (I hate that term – more on that in a moment) has soaked the Swiss banking giant UBS for $2 billion has rocked the international financial community and threatened to drive a stake through any chance Europe had of averting economic disaster. There is much hand-wringing in the financial press today as the UBS incident has reminded the whole world that all of the banks were almost certainly lying their asses off over the last three years, when they all pledged to pull back from risky prop trading. Here’s how the WSJ put it:
The Swiss banking giant has been struggling to rebuild trust after running up vast losses in the original financial crisis. Under Chief Executive Oswald Grubel, the bank claimed to have put in place new risk management practices, pulled back from proprietary trading and focused on a low-risk client-driven model.
All the troubled banks, remember, made similar promises in the wake of the financial crisis. In fact, some of them used the exact same language. Some will recall Goldman’s executive summary from earlier this year in which the bank pledged to respond to a "challenging period" in its history by making changes.
"We reviewed the governance, standards and practices of certain of our firmwide operating committees," the bank wrote, "to ensure their focus on client service, business standards and practices and reputational risk management."
The Swiss banking giant has been struggling to rebuild trust after running up vast losses in the original financial crisis. Under Chief Executive Oswald Grubel, the bank claimed to have put in place new risk management practices, pulled back from proprietary trading and focused on a low-risk client-driven model.
All the troubled banks, remember, made similar promises in the wake of the financial crisis. In fact, some of them used the exact same language. Some will recall Goldman’s executive summary from earlier this year in which the bank pledged to respond to a "challenging period" in its history by making changes.
"We reviewed the governance, standards and practices of certain of our firmwide operating committees," the bank wrote, "to ensure their focus on client service, business standards and practices and reputational risk management."
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Al Qaeda was never an 'existential threat'
Last week, RAND Corp. published a study looking at homegrown jihadi terrorism. Of the 32 "plots" uncovered in the U.S. since 9/11, "only 10 developed anything resembling an operational plan that identified a specific target, developed the means of attack, and offered a sequence of steps to carry [it] out." "Of these, six were Federal Bureau of Investigation stings" involving fake bombs -- "on their own, only two individuals actually attempted to build devices. One was arrested while doing so, and the other's device failed."
The RAND report sums up: "Thus far, despite al Qaeda's intensive online recruiting campaign, their numbers remain small, their determination limp, and their competence poor."
In May 2010, after the Times Square bomber's jerry-rigged contraption of gas cans, firecrackers and fertilizer ruined his Pathfinder's upholstery, Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed "the most dangerous impression we can draw is that this threat no longer exists."
But by convincing ourselves that the threat is "existential," we've wasted trillions and built a surveillance state that refuses to recede with the waning al Qaeda threat. Complacency can be dangerous, but it's hardly the only danger.
The RAND report sums up: "Thus far, despite al Qaeda's intensive online recruiting campaign, their numbers remain small, their determination limp, and their competence poor."
In May 2010, after the Times Square bomber's jerry-rigged contraption of gas cans, firecrackers and fertilizer ruined his Pathfinder's upholstery, Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed "the most dangerous impression we can draw is that this threat no longer exists."
But by convincing ourselves that the threat is "existential," we've wasted trillions and built a surveillance state that refuses to recede with the waning al Qaeda threat. Complacency can be dangerous, but it's hardly the only danger.
Face-Off: Palestine v. Washington/Israel on Statehood
With the moment of truth arriving next week, rhetoric from both sides suggests Palestinians again will lose out.
Instead of an advocate representing them in New York, a collaborationist apparently will show up. Public statements and body language say so.
What could at last be looks likely to be denied. Instead of a new beginning, betrayal appears in the cards.
It’s almost no exaggeration saying the fix is in. What’ll finally emerge will be portrayed as a Palestinian win. In reality, it’ll be defeat – a worthless half loaf in place of what’s easily within reach.
With more than enough international support backed by international law at a time Israeli and US influence are weaker, a golden chance is slip-siding away.
The daily soap opera continues. Here’s the latest.
On September 14, Haaretz writer Avi Issacharoff headlined, “Palestinians trying to dodge pre-UN vote face-off with Obama,” saying:
“Next week, intense negotiations will be undertaken between the European Union, the PA and the American government regarding the specific formula of the request for Palestinian statehood recognition.”
Instead of an advocate representing them in New York, a collaborationist apparently will show up. Public statements and body language say so.
What could at last be looks likely to be denied. Instead of a new beginning, betrayal appears in the cards.
It’s almost no exaggeration saying the fix is in. What’ll finally emerge will be portrayed as a Palestinian win. In reality, it’ll be defeat – a worthless half loaf in place of what’s easily within reach.
With more than enough international support backed by international law at a time Israeli and US influence are weaker, a golden chance is slip-siding away.
The daily soap opera continues. Here’s the latest.
On September 14, Haaretz writer Avi Issacharoff headlined, “Palestinians trying to dodge pre-UN vote face-off with Obama,” saying:
“Next week, intense negotiations will be undertaken between the European Union, the PA and the American government regarding the specific formula of the request for Palestinian statehood recognition.”
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Ralph Nader: Americans ignore the cause of 9/11
After attending a 9/11 panel in northwest D.C. on Monday, Ralph Nader told The Nation‘s George Zornick that Americans had mostly ignored the reasons that the terrorist attacks occurred.
“All we want to say is that it was a terrorist attack, it was evil, don’t talk about what caused it,” he said. “What really lead to it was, one, we back dictators over there that repress and kill their own people with American arms. Two, we support the Israeli position against the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own state. And three, we have repeatedly failed — no matter how much money we spend — to defend our own country.”
“The folly of the military-industrial complex is that it not only erodes our economy and destroys a quality standard of living, but it also insures an empire which is insatiable in terms of the contracts that Lockheed Martin and others want to dominate the world,” Nader added. “It’s just the opposite of defense, an empire eventually devours its own people.”
Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) was booed at the CNN/Tea Party Republican debate on Monday night for trying to explain why al Qaeda had attacked the U.S.
“All we want to say is that it was a terrorist attack, it was evil, don’t talk about what caused it,” he said. “What really lead to it was, one, we back dictators over there that repress and kill their own people with American arms. Two, we support the Israeli position against the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own state. And three, we have repeatedly failed — no matter how much money we spend — to defend our own country.”
“The folly of the military-industrial complex is that it not only erodes our economy and destroys a quality standard of living, but it also insures an empire which is insatiable in terms of the contracts that Lockheed Martin and others want to dominate the world,” Nader added. “It’s just the opposite of defense, an empire eventually devours its own people.”
Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) was booed at the CNN/Tea Party Republican debate on Monday night for trying to explain why al Qaeda had attacked the U.S.
The True Cost of 9/11
Today, America is focused on unemployment and the deficit. Both threats to America's future can, in no small measure, be traced to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Increased defense spending, together with the Bush tax cuts, is a key reason why America went from a fiscal surplus of 2 percent of GDP when Bush was elected to its parlous deficit and debt position today. Direct government spending on those wars so far amounts to roughly $2 trillion—$17,000 for every U.S. household—with bills yet to be received increasing this amount by more than 50 percent.
Moreover, as Bilmes and I argued in our book The Three Trillion Dollar War, the wars contributed to America's macroeconomic weaknesses, which exacerbated its deficits and debt burden. Then, as now, disruption in the Middle East led to higher oil prices, forcing Americans to spend money on oil imports that they otherwise could have spent buying goods produced in the U.S. The Federal Reserve hid these weaknesses by engineering a housing bubble that led to a consumption boom. It will take years to overcome the excessive indebtedness and real-estate overhang that resulted.
Ironically, the wars have undermined America's (and the world's) security, again in ways that Osama Bin Laden could not have imagined. An unpopular war would have made military recruitment difficult in any circumstances. But, as Bush tried to deceive America about the wars' costs, he underfunded the troops, refusing even basic expenditures—say, for armored and mine-resistant vehicles needed to protect American lives or for adequate health care for returning veterans.
Military overreach has predictably led to nervousness about using military power, and others' knowledge of this threatens to weaken America's security as well. But America's real strength, more than its military and economic power, is its "soft power," its moral authority. And this, too, was weakened: As the U.S. violated basic human rights like habeas corpus and the right not to be tortured, its longstanding commitment to international law was called into question.
Moreover, as Bilmes and I argued in our book The Three Trillion Dollar War, the wars contributed to America's macroeconomic weaknesses, which exacerbated its deficits and debt burden. Then, as now, disruption in the Middle East led to higher oil prices, forcing Americans to spend money on oil imports that they otherwise could have spent buying goods produced in the U.S. The Federal Reserve hid these weaknesses by engineering a housing bubble that led to a consumption boom. It will take years to overcome the excessive indebtedness and real-estate overhang that resulted.
Ironically, the wars have undermined America's (and the world's) security, again in ways that Osama Bin Laden could not have imagined. An unpopular war would have made military recruitment difficult in any circumstances. But, as Bush tried to deceive America about the wars' costs, he underfunded the troops, refusing even basic expenditures—say, for armored and mine-resistant vehicles needed to protect American lives or for adequate health care for returning veterans.
Military overreach has predictably led to nervousness about using military power, and others' knowledge of this threatens to weaken America's security as well. But America's real strength, more than its military and economic power, is its "soft power," its moral authority. And this, too, was weakened: As the U.S. violated basic human rights like habeas corpus and the right not to be tortured, its longstanding commitment to international law was called into question.
Nexus of Islamphobia
A small group of inter-connected foundations, think tanks, pundits, and bloggers is behind the 10-year-old campaign to promote fear of Islam and Muslims in the U.S., according to a major investigative report released here Friday by the Center for American Progress (CAP).
The 130-page report, "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America," identifies seven foundations that have quietly provided a total of more than 42 million dollars to key individuals and organizations that have spearheaded the nationwide effort between 2001 and 2009.
They include funders that have long been associated with the extreme right in the U.S., as well as several Jewish family foundations that have supported right-wing and settler groups in Israel.
The network also includes what the report calls "misinformation experts" – including Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), Daniel Pipes of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum (MEF), Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, David Yerushalmi of the Society of Americans for National Existence, and Robert Spencer of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) – who are often tapped by television news networks and right-wing radio talk shows to comment on Islam and the threat it allegedly poses to U.S. national security.
The report, which was funded by the financier George Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI), comes at a particularly sensitive moment – just two weeks before the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and less than a month after the murders of 76 people in Norway by Anders Breivik whose Internet manifesto not only echoed themes propagated by the key U.S. Islamophobic ideologues, but also quoted directly from their writings in dozens of passages.
The 130-page report, "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America," identifies seven foundations that have quietly provided a total of more than 42 million dollars to key individuals and organizations that have spearheaded the nationwide effort between 2001 and 2009.
They include funders that have long been associated with the extreme right in the U.S., as well as several Jewish family foundations that have supported right-wing and settler groups in Israel.
The network also includes what the report calls "misinformation experts" – including Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), Daniel Pipes of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum (MEF), Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, David Yerushalmi of the Society of Americans for National Existence, and Robert Spencer of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) – who are often tapped by television news networks and right-wing radio talk shows to comment on Islam and the threat it allegedly poses to U.S. national security.
The report, which was funded by the financier George Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI), comes at a particularly sensitive moment – just two weeks before the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and less than a month after the murders of 76 people in Norway by Anders Breivik whose Internet manifesto not only echoed themes propagated by the key U.S. Islamophobic ideologues, but also quoted directly from their writings in dozens of passages.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
America: A Sunset Empire
The America: An Empire In Decline series examines the rise and decline of the American Empire. In Part 1, Dawn Of A New Century, I analyzed America’s original plans for the 21st century, immediately after the end of the Cold War, which imagined a world where the US would be the sole superpower and preventive diplomacy would be used to ensure no flare-ups occurred.
However, with the rise of the neoconservatives, first with the Project for the New American Century think tank and then later in the form of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Condoleeza Rice as Cabinet members in the Bush administration, a vision that saw the fall of the Soviet Union as an opportunity for the United States to become a full-fledged empire became deeply rooted in the American political and military psyche. They envisioned a world in which America would be the dominant economic, political, and military power and whose enemies and potential rivals would be kept in check. All they needed was an incident to make this possible and the devastating attacks on 9/11 provided an excuse for the US to God the globe.
In Onset of Imperial Decline, I examined America’s actions both at home and abroad. Domestically, the rights of citizens were being curbed in the name of the War on Terror due to the Patriot Act which allowed for the government to illegally spy on its citizens without a warrant. Abroad, America used 9/11 as a casus belli to launch an attack on Afghanistan, even though it was later revealed that the US had already been planning to invade Afghanistan prior to the attacks. It was also revealed that on 9/11, once notified of the attacks, Donald Rumsfeld ordered his aides to find a link between the attacks and Saddam Hussein as to create a pretext to invade Iraq. Soon after the invasion of Afghanistan, the US failed in an attempt to covertly overthrow Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, started its campaign of lies and deceit about Iran’s nuclear facilities, and engineered several pseudo-democratic uprising in eastern Europe to ensure a pro-Western encirclement was kept around Russia. The US then turned its attention to the continent of Africa, establishing a continental wide command there as to combat the influence of rival nations such as China. However, at home, due to the incompetence of Washington and the greed of Wall Street bankers, the US experienced a massive recession which led to ripple effects around the world.
In this final installment of the series, an examination of America’s recent foreign policy and military adventures will take place, concluding with a prediction of what may lay in the future for the Empire.
However, with the rise of the neoconservatives, first with the Project for the New American Century think tank and then later in the form of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Condoleeza Rice as Cabinet members in the Bush administration, a vision that saw the fall of the Soviet Union as an opportunity for the United States to become a full-fledged empire became deeply rooted in the American political and military psyche. They envisioned a world in which America would be the dominant economic, political, and military power and whose enemies and potential rivals would be kept in check. All they needed was an incident to make this possible and the devastating attacks on 9/11 provided an excuse for the US to God the globe.
In Onset of Imperial Decline, I examined America’s actions both at home and abroad. Domestically, the rights of citizens were being curbed in the name of the War on Terror due to the Patriot Act which allowed for the government to illegally spy on its citizens without a warrant. Abroad, America used 9/11 as a casus belli to launch an attack on Afghanistan, even though it was later revealed that the US had already been planning to invade Afghanistan prior to the attacks. It was also revealed that on 9/11, once notified of the attacks, Donald Rumsfeld ordered his aides to find a link between the attacks and Saddam Hussein as to create a pretext to invade Iraq. Soon after the invasion of Afghanistan, the US failed in an attempt to covertly overthrow Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, started its campaign of lies and deceit about Iran’s nuclear facilities, and engineered several pseudo-democratic uprising in eastern Europe to ensure a pro-Western encirclement was kept around Russia. The US then turned its attention to the continent of Africa, establishing a continental wide command there as to combat the influence of rival nations such as China. However, at home, due to the incompetence of Washington and the greed of Wall Street bankers, the US experienced a massive recession which led to ripple effects around the world.
In this final installment of the series, an examination of America’s recent foreign policy and military adventures will take place, concluding with a prediction of what may lay in the future for the Empire.
NATO's "Victory" in Libya
Desperate to declare NATO's mission in Libya a victory ahead of the September 19, 2011 deadline on their contrived UN Security Council resolution, already violated in every conceivable manner possible, NATO planes in tandem with NATO special forces obliterated Tripoli ahead of swarms of Libyan rebel troops led by notorious Al Qaeda thug Abdulhakim Hasadi (aka Balhaj.) Three weeks later, NATO's proxy Libyan representative, long-time globalist and servant of the West Mahmoud Gibril Elwarfally, touched down at Tripoli's airport, one of the few enclaves held by rebels in the city, to give the impression that his "National Transitional Council" (NTC) actually controls the capital and therefore the country.
In reality, Gibril (also spelled Jabril) is in control of nothing, apparently not even his own rebel forces, and stunts such as landing in Tripoli are desperate ploys to portray a sense of strength and resolve to garner continued "international support" as NATO's deadline quickly approaches. Libya's rebellion, despite the corporate-media's disingenuous presentation, is divided along tribal and ethnic lines, with most of Libya's rebels being motivated, not by aspirations for liberal-democracy, but rather by ideological extremism cultivated over the last 30 years by US and British intelligence in the eastern cities of Darnah and Benghazi. As NATO enables these violent ideologues to expand their control over the country, they are systematically committing war crimes including large-scale theft and looting, exiling entire civilian populations from cities, and wholesale genocide. They are also reportedly turning their weapons on one another.
To compound Gibril's precarious situation, the few fighters he has that are following orders are stretched thin between attempting to hold parts of Tripoli, holding other towns and cities beyond their Benghazi stronghold, and attempting to siege entire cities still standing defiantly against NATO and rebel conquest. The cities of Bani Walid and Sirte, both claimed by rebels as ripe to fall "within hours" have now entirely balked rebel advances, causing many forces to flee with reports that fighters coming back from the front lines are overwhelmed and demoralized.
Despite heavy, and quite obviously indiscriminate bombing by NATO for the better part of two weeks, resistance in these two cities is still fierce enough to keep the rebels well at bay. It is quite apparent that initial reports by Gabril's "NTC" that only 60-150 Qaddafi fighters remained in Bani Walid, were yet another lie and that the entire city's civilian population is putting up resistance. The number of "resisters" has gone up piecemeal as the rebel operation drags on, with the number of "Qaddafi soldiers" fighting in Bani Walid well past 1,000 now.
In reality, Gibril (also spelled Jabril) is in control of nothing, apparently not even his own rebel forces, and stunts such as landing in Tripoli are desperate ploys to portray a sense of strength and resolve to garner continued "international support" as NATO's deadline quickly approaches. Libya's rebellion, despite the corporate-media's disingenuous presentation, is divided along tribal and ethnic lines, with most of Libya's rebels being motivated, not by aspirations for liberal-democracy, but rather by ideological extremism cultivated over the last 30 years by US and British intelligence in the eastern cities of Darnah and Benghazi. As NATO enables these violent ideologues to expand their control over the country, they are systematically committing war crimes including large-scale theft and looting, exiling entire civilian populations from cities, and wholesale genocide. They are also reportedly turning their weapons on one another.
To compound Gibril's precarious situation, the few fighters he has that are following orders are stretched thin between attempting to hold parts of Tripoli, holding other towns and cities beyond their Benghazi stronghold, and attempting to siege entire cities still standing defiantly against NATO and rebel conquest. The cities of Bani Walid and Sirte, both claimed by rebels as ripe to fall "within hours" have now entirely balked rebel advances, causing many forces to flee with reports that fighters coming back from the front lines are overwhelmed and demoralized.
Despite heavy, and quite obviously indiscriminate bombing by NATO for the better part of two weeks, resistance in these two cities is still fierce enough to keep the rebels well at bay. It is quite apparent that initial reports by Gabril's "NTC" that only 60-150 Qaddafi fighters remained in Bani Walid, were yet another lie and that the entire city's civilian population is putting up resistance. The number of "resisters" has gone up piecemeal as the rebel operation drags on, with the number of "Qaddafi soldiers" fighting in Bani Walid well past 1,000 now.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Fallacy of Terrorism
The ‘War on Terror’ is a self-contradictory phenomenon that represents the grand delusion of the 21st century proponent of the oil led American corporate leadership. Its sole aim is global monopoly of politics and economy by dehumanizing the rest of the living humanity. Geared towards the frenzy of World War Three, the American neocons leadership was increasingly politically isolated, militarily belligerent and morally and financially bankrupt and defeated, more so, on the day photos of Abu Ghraib prison were made known to the morally conscientious humanity. Their unilateral military engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan have continued to produce disastrous human consequences for the people all over the globe. Millions of human beings have been killed and destroyed, their habitats poisoned with the aftermath of dangerous weapons and chemicals. Richard A. Clark (Former US National Security Chief- “the Lessons of 9/11”: the Daily Beast, 9/7/2011)) puts the facts into proper context:
“Looking back, we may see things that we do not want to revisit just yet, controversies that we wish to leave behind. For us to learn as a nation, however, for us to hand down to future generations what they need to know, we must be clear about what happened. We were attacked by a handful of people from a relatively small organization of fanatics who had tapped into the frustrations of a sizable minority of those who shared their ethnicity and religion. Our nation was stunned and wanted to unify in response. That desire for unity kept too many voices silent when they should have been contributing to a public debate about how to react. Wretched excesses were proposed and barely opposed. We invaded a country, Iraq that had nothing to do with the attack on us, but had everything to do with the preconceived plans of a cabal in and out of our government.”
The American led wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have made the global system of states redundant and the United Nations in particular, an impotent body – an onlooker meant just for discussions and ineffective role play in peace making or sustainable system of the working of the member states according to its mandate. The UN has failed to stop American and British encroachment in the Middle East, ethnically charged “war on terror”, the global village and the ideals of the safety and security of the world. The ideals of international peace and harmony have been dashed away by the few – be it Bush or Blair, Musharaf or Obama, none of them could be acceptable choices to the civilized humanity. They pursued self-motivated greed complementing ignorance – the driving force to manipulate the world, overwhelmed with action-reaction strategies of the past, dull, dead and irrelevant history. For their self-centered survival, they appear devoid of the reason, human spirit and intellectual foresight to face the realities of living history. Most of the humanity is acutely aware of the fallacy of the terrorism myth, for it is not Islam, Christianity or Judaism but those few who act and react to stranglehold the humanity for oil resources and monetary controls. Have the mindless warmongers ever thought of how the history will portray them – the time span in which they lived and acted, consequential impacts on the people, the outlook of culture of the so called civilized people pursuing animalistic ambitions and killings of fellow human beings?
“Looking back, we may see things that we do not want to revisit just yet, controversies that we wish to leave behind. For us to learn as a nation, however, for us to hand down to future generations what they need to know, we must be clear about what happened. We were attacked by a handful of people from a relatively small organization of fanatics who had tapped into the frustrations of a sizable minority of those who shared their ethnicity and religion. Our nation was stunned and wanted to unify in response. That desire for unity kept too many voices silent when they should have been contributing to a public debate about how to react. Wretched excesses were proposed and barely opposed. We invaded a country, Iraq that had nothing to do with the attack on us, but had everything to do with the preconceived plans of a cabal in and out of our government.”
The American led wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have made the global system of states redundant and the United Nations in particular, an impotent body – an onlooker meant just for discussions and ineffective role play in peace making or sustainable system of the working of the member states according to its mandate. The UN has failed to stop American and British encroachment in the Middle East, ethnically charged “war on terror”, the global village and the ideals of the safety and security of the world. The ideals of international peace and harmony have been dashed away by the few – be it Bush or Blair, Musharaf or Obama, none of them could be acceptable choices to the civilized humanity. They pursued self-motivated greed complementing ignorance – the driving force to manipulate the world, overwhelmed with action-reaction strategies of the past, dull, dead and irrelevant history. For their self-centered survival, they appear devoid of the reason, human spirit and intellectual foresight to face the realities of living history. Most of the humanity is acutely aware of the fallacy of the terrorism myth, for it is not Islam, Christianity or Judaism but those few who act and react to stranglehold the humanity for oil resources and monetary controls. Have the mindless warmongers ever thought of how the history will portray them – the time span in which they lived and acted, consequential impacts on the people, the outlook of culture of the so called civilized people pursuing animalistic ambitions and killings of fellow human beings?
The twin legacies of 9/11
"9/11" as it has come to be known is likely to have two enduring legacies, both of which will shape major features of international politics in the first half of the 21st century. First is the determined effort by the United States to accumulate as much hegemony as possible with a view to managing America's inevitable decline in the second half of the century by providing a soft landing. Second is the likely evolution of political Islam as a stable factor in regional politics.
The two enduring legacies of 9/11 outlined here, namely the struggle by the US to accumulate more and more national power in the first half of the 21st century and the birth pangs of a new generation of political Islamists in the Arab world, are likely to come into close contact sooner or later. Whether they collide or not will depend in part on the extent to which Islamists can transform into a stable factor in regional politics by becoming deeply entrenched in national governing structures.
As long as energy security is not directly threatened, the United States can live with empowered Arab Islamists, just as it has done with the Islamic Republic of Iran for the past three decades. A more lasting and stable understanding can only be achieved if the US modifies its regional policies, in particular its apparently unqualified and unconditional support for Israel.
While it is unrealistic, for the foreseeable future at least, to expect the US to abandon Israel to its fate, a more conditional American support for the Jewish state will go a long way to transforming the underlying geopolitical conditions of the region, with potentially beneficial results for long-term American interests in the Middle East and North Africa.
The two enduring legacies of 9/11 outlined here, namely the struggle by the US to accumulate more and more national power in the first half of the 21st century and the birth pangs of a new generation of political Islamists in the Arab world, are likely to come into close contact sooner or later. Whether they collide or not will depend in part on the extent to which Islamists can transform into a stable factor in regional politics by becoming deeply entrenched in national governing structures.
As long as energy security is not directly threatened, the United States can live with empowered Arab Islamists, just as it has done with the Islamic Republic of Iran for the past three decades. A more lasting and stable understanding can only be achieved if the US modifies its regional policies, in particular its apparently unqualified and unconditional support for Israel.
While it is unrealistic, for the foreseeable future at least, to expect the US to abandon Israel to its fate, a more conditional American support for the Jewish state will go a long way to transforming the underlying geopolitical conditions of the region, with potentially beneficial results for long-term American interests in the Middle East and North Africa.
Who Is Winning the War on Terrorism?
New fronts in our endless “war on terrorism” are opened, it seems, with each passing week: Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, the Philippines, Pakistan, and now Libya – where we are carrying out the new co-optation strategy of the Obama administration, which seeks to hijack the “Arab Spring” and utilize it as a weapon of against Islamist extremism. By setting up US-aligned “democratic” states in the Middle East, from Egypt to Libya and beyond, the Americans hope to inoculate the region against the virus represented by al-Qaeda.
This is a dangerous policy in so many ways that it would take more than a single column to even list them. Suffice to say that recent events in Egypt, and the growing influence of Islamist elements among the Libyan rebels, underscores how the “blowback” from our efforts could backfire in our faces.
We’ve spent trillions fighting this losing battle, but more than money has been lost – we’ve forfeited our freedom. The barrage of legislation enacted since 9/11 that empowers our government to openly spy on us in ways that would have been inconceivable before has effectively abolished our old republic, and replaced it with something else – a misshapen, polyglot creature, half “democratic” and fully authoritarian, which cannot sustain itself economically, and – for all its vaunting about exercising “world leadership” – shows every sign of descending into an irreversible decline.
For ten years they’ve been driving this country into the ground, just as bin Laden predicted they would. As dead as he is, he’s having the last laugh: his strategy is working.
Is it too late for us? I fear the answer to this question, because we cannot know it until that point is well behind us. I can only let the historians of the future argue the question, while here, in the present, I fight – in my small way – to influence their verdict.
This is a dangerous policy in so many ways that it would take more than a single column to even list them. Suffice to say that recent events in Egypt, and the growing influence of Islamist elements among the Libyan rebels, underscores how the “blowback” from our efforts could backfire in our faces.
We’ve spent trillions fighting this losing battle, but more than money has been lost – we’ve forfeited our freedom. The barrage of legislation enacted since 9/11 that empowers our government to openly spy on us in ways that would have been inconceivable before has effectively abolished our old republic, and replaced it with something else – a misshapen, polyglot creature, half “democratic” and fully authoritarian, which cannot sustain itself economically, and – for all its vaunting about exercising “world leadership” – shows every sign of descending into an irreversible decline.
For ten years they’ve been driving this country into the ground, just as bin Laden predicted they would. As dead as he is, he’s having the last laugh: his strategy is working.
Is it too late for us? I fear the answer to this question, because we cannot know it until that point is well behind us. I can only let the historians of the future argue the question, while here, in the present, I fight – in my small way – to influence their verdict.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
9/11 for Dummies: Top Five 9/11 Facts Everyone Should Know
In speaking with my fellow Americans about 9/11 ten years after the fact, I have found that many, sadly and unfortunately, have either forgotten what happened that terrible day or have purchased the propaganda delivered to them by their own “trusted” main stream US media.
What especially concerns me is the progressive dummying down of our youth; specifically those under 20 years old who either hardly remember that day as it happened or where not even born yet. These people must rely on what is told to them by “trusted” sources. In other words, our American youth are getting an even larger dose of propaganda then we did shortly after the event and it’s troubling.
As it stands, another lost generation can only accelerate the USA and it’s continued devolution towards Idiocracy. In my view, this is NOT in our best interests and so I write this “9/11 for Dummies” post in hopes that those with limited time to invest in truth can get enough of the facts to at least ask “Hey! What really happened that day?”
1. WTC Building 7: Why did it fall?
2. Pentagon: No Plane Debris
3. Shanksville: No Plane Debris
4. WTC Towers: Planes and Collapse
5. 9/11: The Perpetrators
The Common Cents Punish Opinion: So who benefited again? Oh that’s right, not us! And why is it that Zionism has it’s fingerprints everywhere from Douglas Fife, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Larry Silverstein et al…? Is it me or does everyone who benefited from 9/11 happen to be associated with global Zionism?
What especially concerns me is the progressive dummying down of our youth; specifically those under 20 years old who either hardly remember that day as it happened or where not even born yet. These people must rely on what is told to them by “trusted” sources. In other words, our American youth are getting an even larger dose of propaganda then we did shortly after the event and it’s troubling.
As it stands, another lost generation can only accelerate the USA and it’s continued devolution towards Idiocracy. In my view, this is NOT in our best interests and so I write this “9/11 for Dummies” post in hopes that those with limited time to invest in truth can get enough of the facts to at least ask “Hey! What really happened that day?”
1. WTC Building 7: Why did it fall?
2. Pentagon: No Plane Debris
3. Shanksville: No Plane Debris
4. WTC Towers: Planes and Collapse
5. 9/11: The Perpetrators
The Common Cents Punish Opinion: So who benefited again? Oh that’s right, not us! And why is it that Zionism has it’s fingerprints everywhere from Douglas Fife, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Larry Silverstein et al…? Is it me or does everyone who benefited from 9/11 happen to be associated with global Zionism?
True Lies and 9/11: Revelation and Ruin
The Cryptocracy's aims extend far beyond the gradual imposition of a national security police state and the erosion of our immemorial liberties, which George W. Bush's Justice Department torture advocate, John Yoo, recently said in the Wall Street Journal never happened. Their end goal is beyond conditioning us for Stalinist cattle car shakedowns at airport security, or warrantless eavesdropping on phone conversations, and sneak-and-peak home invasions.
Their highest objective is the murder of our minds by inculcating in us amnesia, apathy and abulia (loss of will). "Skynet" military robots -- now rolling off the assembly line -- will be too powerful for any citizen armed with a shotgun or AR-15 to be able to resist. Spiders are being genetically crossed with goats, and pigs with humans, while almost every corn and soy crop in the United States is now genetically modified. There's nary a peep or a whimper from "we the people" as these horrors are slowly imposed through our hypnotic acquiescence to their "inevitabilist" script.
Our industry has been dismantled and our jobs shipped overseas, while big business and the Obama administration call for amnesty for illegal immigrants and the importation of more executive-level aliens from India and China to manage what's left of American enterprise. (General Electric, headed by President Obama's "jobs' adviser," is moving its large medical device manufacturing unit to Communist China).
The "God bless America" crowd will dismiss my views as unpatriotic defeatism from a conspiracy nutjob. I don't mind. I've seen it before. I was a kid when President Kennedy was murdered. Who today believes he died solely at the hands of one man and one very talented rifle bullet? Let's see what the true believers will have to say in the Sept. 11 thaw that will seep into what’s left of our Republic in the year 2021, which just happens to be a sigificant number in the Babylonian numerology of Michelle Bachmann's rabbi.
Their highest objective is the murder of our minds by inculcating in us amnesia, apathy and abulia (loss of will). "Skynet" military robots -- now rolling off the assembly line -- will be too powerful for any citizen armed with a shotgun or AR-15 to be able to resist. Spiders are being genetically crossed with goats, and pigs with humans, while almost every corn and soy crop in the United States is now genetically modified. There's nary a peep or a whimper from "we the people" as these horrors are slowly imposed through our hypnotic acquiescence to their "inevitabilist" script.
Our industry has been dismantled and our jobs shipped overseas, while big business and the Obama administration call for amnesty for illegal immigrants and the importation of more executive-level aliens from India and China to manage what's left of American enterprise. (General Electric, headed by President Obama's "jobs' adviser," is moving its large medical device manufacturing unit to Communist China).
The "God bless America" crowd will dismiss my views as unpatriotic defeatism from a conspiracy nutjob. I don't mind. I've seen it before. I was a kid when President Kennedy was murdered. Who today believes he died solely at the hands of one man and one very talented rifle bullet? Let's see what the true believers will have to say in the Sept. 11 thaw that will seep into what’s left of our Republic in the year 2021, which just happens to be a sigificant number in the Babylonian numerology of Michelle Bachmann's rabbi.
Friday, September 9, 2011
The Cost of Wars Now at $5 Trillion
The unleashing of the U.S. military abroad also triggered a tidal wave of funding for the traditional military-industrial complex. Before 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had promised a leaner, meaner war fighting machine, with fewer soldiers bearing better high-tech weapons at less cost. That vision was quickly replaced with the biggest build-up of military hardware since the 1980s as the Pentagon’s budget more than doubled to nearly $700 billion – about as much as it spends on Social Security – in less than a decade.
The expansive overseas war on terror was coupled with its domestic equivalent – an explosion in domestic spending on anti-terror activities. It included beefed up federal bureaucracies to protect home land security; massive spending on contractors to provide services ranging from protecting computers from hackers to protecting ports from smugglers to protecting air travelers from hijackers. It also included, at least for a time, hefty grants to state and local governments for first responders in local police and fire departments, which was doled out, as federal grants often are, to every Congressional district in the country with only passing regard to the ones most likely to face a terrorist threat.
Homeland security budgets have seen a similar-sized increase, more than tripling in the past decade to an estimated $48.1 billion this year. This includes $5.5 billion for the Transportation Security Administration, which didn’t exist prior to 9/11. The U.S. has spent in excess of $600 billion on homeland security in the past decade, according to Chris Hellman of the National Priorities Project.
“The choice the U.S. walked through after 9/11 was the door to war,” said Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Boston University, who coordinated the war cost project. “The U.S. saw it as an act of war. But international law sees it as a crime. To treat terrorism as a crime would have entailed a much more intensified law enforcement response.
The expansive overseas war on terror was coupled with its domestic equivalent – an explosion in domestic spending on anti-terror activities. It included beefed up federal bureaucracies to protect home land security; massive spending on contractors to provide services ranging from protecting computers from hackers to protecting ports from smugglers to protecting air travelers from hijackers. It also included, at least for a time, hefty grants to state and local governments for first responders in local police and fire departments, which was doled out, as federal grants often are, to every Congressional district in the country with only passing regard to the ones most likely to face a terrorist threat.
Homeland security budgets have seen a similar-sized increase, more than tripling in the past decade to an estimated $48.1 billion this year. This includes $5.5 billion for the Transportation Security Administration, which didn’t exist prior to 9/11. The U.S. has spent in excess of $600 billion on homeland security in the past decade, according to Chris Hellman of the National Priorities Project.
“The choice the U.S. walked through after 9/11 was the door to war,” said Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Boston University, who coordinated the war cost project. “The U.S. saw it as an act of war. But international law sees it as a crime. To treat terrorism as a crime would have entailed a much more intensified law enforcement response.
The Story That Will Not Die!
1. The dredlock-looking pulverization was so complete, so instantaneous, far beyond any explosion I ever saw at the mines. Even huge quarry blast just makes rocks...and not that much nano dust.
2. The Lamont Seismic signature matched exactly the Nuclear Test ban Treaty signature.
3. The Russians have been able to make mini nuke craters exactly like what we saw swallow the building, yes even to 5 feet of radius and 5 feet of depth...it's that accurate a technique, created after they saw the neat rows of craters at NV Test Site. Could micro nukes make lakes? Well, slightly radioactive ones, so they failed as a 'construction' tool, but sure works good for demolishing buildings!
4. Dr Ed Ward MD has also confirmed Mini Nukes and they were what took out entire basements and also top floor to get things started, while it does look like some form of Therm Ate iswhat was used on individual collumns/floors, it could not create the dredlock nano particles with I beams flying a quarter mile. No way!
5. Radio isotopes were detected even after 5 billion gals of water diluted them to small amounts.
6. You got to love the lie about how Tritium came from the towers' EXIT signs! No, the tritium came from a Laser Triggered Mini H-bomb, which leaves little to trace. just pure energy. See National Ignition Facilit website for pics of pin head of Tritium being lasered to ignition! (By ignition they mean fusion ignition.)
2. The Lamont Seismic signature matched exactly the Nuclear Test ban Treaty signature.
3. The Russians have been able to make mini nuke craters exactly like what we saw swallow the building, yes even to 5 feet of radius and 5 feet of depth...it's that accurate a technique, created after they saw the neat rows of craters at NV Test Site. Could micro nukes make lakes? Well, slightly radioactive ones, so they failed as a 'construction' tool, but sure works good for demolishing buildings!
4. Dr Ed Ward MD has also confirmed Mini Nukes and they were what took out entire basements and also top floor to get things started, while it does look like some form of Therm Ate iswhat was used on individual collumns/floors, it could not create the dredlock nano particles with I beams flying a quarter mile. No way!
5. Radio isotopes were detected even after 5 billion gals of water diluted them to small amounts.
6. You got to love the lie about how Tritium came from the towers' EXIT signs! No, the tritium came from a Laser Triggered Mini H-bomb, which leaves little to trace. just pure energy. See National Ignition Facilit website for pics of pin head of Tritium being lasered to ignition! (By ignition they mean fusion ignition.)
Let’s Cancel 9/11
I’m talking about the tenth anniversary ceremonies for 9/11, and everything that goes with them: the solemn reading of the names of the dead, the tolling of bells, the honoring of first responders, the gathering of presidents, the dedication of the new memorial, the moments of silence. The works.
Let’s just can it all. Shut down Ground Zero. Lock out the tourists. Close “Reflecting Absence,” the memorial built in the “footprints” of the former towers with its grove of trees, giant pools, and multiple waterfalls before it can be unveiled this Sunday. Discontinue work on the underground National September 11 Museum due to open in 2012. Tear down the Freedom Tower (redubbed 1 World Trade Center after our “freedom” wars went awry), 102 stories of “the most expensive skyscraper ever constructed in the United States.” (Estimated price tag: $3.3 billion.) Eliminate that still-being-constructed, hubris-filled 1,776 feet of building, planned in the heyday of George W. Bush and soaring into the Manhattan sky like a nyaah-nyaah invitation to future terrorists. Dismantle the other three office towers being built there as part of an $11 billion government-sponsored construction program. Let’s get rid of it all. If we had wanted a memorial to 9/11, it would have been more appropriate to leave one of the giant shards of broken tower there untouched.
Ask yourself this: ten years into the post-9/11 era, haven’t we had enough of ourselves? If we have any respect for history or humanity or decency left, isn’t it time to rip the Band-Aid off the wound, to remove 9/11 from our collective consciousness? No more invocations of those attacks to explain otherwise inexplicable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our oh-so-global war on terror. No more invocations of 9/11 to keep the Pentagon and the national security state flooded with money. No more invocations of 9/11 to justify every encroachment on liberty, every new step in the surveillance of Americans, every advance in pat-downs and wand-downs and strip-downs that keeps fear high and the homeland security state afloat.
The attacks of September 11, 2001 were in every sense abusive, horrific acts. And the saddest thing is that the victims of those suicidal monstrosities have been misused here ever since under the guise of pious remembrance. This country has become dependent on the dead of 9/11 — who have no way of defending themselves against how they have been used — as an all-purpose explanation for our own goodness and the horrors we’ve visited on others, for the many towers-worth of dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere whose blood is on our hands.
Let’s just can it all. Shut down Ground Zero. Lock out the tourists. Close “Reflecting Absence,” the memorial built in the “footprints” of the former towers with its grove of trees, giant pools, and multiple waterfalls before it can be unveiled this Sunday. Discontinue work on the underground National September 11 Museum due to open in 2012. Tear down the Freedom Tower (redubbed 1 World Trade Center after our “freedom” wars went awry), 102 stories of “the most expensive skyscraper ever constructed in the United States.” (Estimated price tag: $3.3 billion.) Eliminate that still-being-constructed, hubris-filled 1,776 feet of building, planned in the heyday of George W. Bush and soaring into the Manhattan sky like a nyaah-nyaah invitation to future terrorists. Dismantle the other three office towers being built there as part of an $11 billion government-sponsored construction program. Let’s get rid of it all. If we had wanted a memorial to 9/11, it would have been more appropriate to leave one of the giant shards of broken tower there untouched.
Ask yourself this: ten years into the post-9/11 era, haven’t we had enough of ourselves? If we have any respect for history or humanity or decency left, isn’t it time to rip the Band-Aid off the wound, to remove 9/11 from our collective consciousness? No more invocations of those attacks to explain otherwise inexplicable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our oh-so-global war on terror. No more invocations of 9/11 to keep the Pentagon and the national security state flooded with money. No more invocations of 9/11 to justify every encroachment on liberty, every new step in the surveillance of Americans, every advance in pat-downs and wand-downs and strip-downs that keeps fear high and the homeland security state afloat.
The attacks of September 11, 2001 were in every sense abusive, horrific acts. And the saddest thing is that the victims of those suicidal monstrosities have been misused here ever since under the guise of pious remembrance. This country has become dependent on the dead of 9/11 — who have no way of defending themselves against how they have been used — as an all-purpose explanation for our own goodness and the horrors we’ve visited on others, for the many towers-worth of dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere whose blood is on our hands.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
9/11: Open Letter Challenge to ADL’s Abe Foxman
In your lengthy article Decade of Deceit: Anti-Semitic 9/11 Conspiracy Theories 10 Years Later, you label a number of named writers and commentators including me who say that Israel’s Mossad was or even might have been involved in the 9/11 terror attack as anti-Semitic, and you assert that they are demonizing “the Jews”.
The first is that when you know the difference, you can understand why it is perfectly possible to be passionately anti-Zionist (anti Zionism’s colonial enterprise) without being in any way, shape or form anti-Semitic in the sense of loathing and even hating all Jews everywhere just because they are Jews.
The second is that when you know the difference between Judaism and Zionism, you can understand why it is wrong to blame all Jews everywhere for the crimes of the hard core Zionists in Israel.
Defenders of Israel right or wrong assert that Judaism and Zionism are one and the same in order to make the charge, as you do Mr. Foxman, that criticism of Israel is by definition a manifestation of anti-Semitism. That, I will tell my German audience, is Zionist propaganda nonsense for a blackmail purpose, the purpose being to silence criticism and prevent informed and honest debate about Israel’s policies and actions.
And I will add this: “When you know the difference between Judaism and Zionism, you don’t have to be frightened about being falsely accused of anti-Semitism for speaking and writing the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel. You can say to your Zionist accuser, ‘Go to hell!’”.
The first is that when you know the difference, you can understand why it is perfectly possible to be passionately anti-Zionist (anti Zionism’s colonial enterprise) without being in any way, shape or form anti-Semitic in the sense of loathing and even hating all Jews everywhere just because they are Jews.
The second is that when you know the difference between Judaism and Zionism, you can understand why it is wrong to blame all Jews everywhere for the crimes of the hard core Zionists in Israel.
Defenders of Israel right or wrong assert that Judaism and Zionism are one and the same in order to make the charge, as you do Mr. Foxman, that criticism of Israel is by definition a manifestation of anti-Semitism. That, I will tell my German audience, is Zionist propaganda nonsense for a blackmail purpose, the purpose being to silence criticism and prevent informed and honest debate about Israel’s policies and actions.
And I will add this: “When you know the difference between Judaism and Zionism, you don’t have to be frightened about being falsely accused of anti-Semitism for speaking and writing the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel. You can say to your Zionist accuser, ‘Go to hell!’”.
Ten Years Later: Who Is Osama bin Laden?
This article below entitled Who is Osama bin Laden? was drafted on September 11, 2001. It was first published on the Global Research website on the evening of September 12, 2001.
Since 2001, it has appeared on numerous websites. The original September 12, 2001 posting is one of the most widely read articles on the internet, pertaining to Osama bin laden and Al Qaeda.
From the outset, the objective was to use 9/11 as a pretext for launching the first phase of the Middle East War, which consisted in the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan.
Within hours of the attacks, Osama bin Laden was identified as the architect of 9/11. On the following day, the "war on terrorism" had been launched. The media disinformation campaign went into full gear.
Afghanistan was identified as a "state sponsor of terror". The 9/11 attacks were categorized as an act of war, an attack on America by a foreign power.
The right to self-defense was put forth. On September 12, less than 24 hours after the attacks, NATO invoked for the first time in its history "Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - its collective defence clause" declaring the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon "to be an attack against all NATO members."
What happened subsequently, with the invasions of Afghanistan (October 2001) and Iraq (March 2003) is already part of history. In the wake of the NATO sponsored "Liberation" of Libya (August 20011), Syria and Iran constitute the next phase of the US-NATO military roadmap.
Since 2001, it has appeared on numerous websites. The original September 12, 2001 posting is one of the most widely read articles on the internet, pertaining to Osama bin laden and Al Qaeda.
From the outset, the objective was to use 9/11 as a pretext for launching the first phase of the Middle East War, which consisted in the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan.
Within hours of the attacks, Osama bin Laden was identified as the architect of 9/11. On the following day, the "war on terrorism" had been launched. The media disinformation campaign went into full gear.
Afghanistan was identified as a "state sponsor of terror". The 9/11 attacks were categorized as an act of war, an attack on America by a foreign power.
The right to self-defense was put forth. On September 12, less than 24 hours after the attacks, NATO invoked for the first time in its history "Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - its collective defence clause" declaring the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon "to be an attack against all NATO members."
What happened subsequently, with the invasions of Afghanistan (October 2001) and Iraq (March 2003) is already part of history. In the wake of the NATO sponsored "Liberation" of Libya (August 20011), Syria and Iran constitute the next phase of the US-NATO military roadmap.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)