Friday, August 29, 2014

Did Certain Foreign Governments Facilitate the 9/11 Attacks?

Some thirteen years after the event, the shadow of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon still darkens our world. The legacy of that terrible day has impacted not only our foreign policy, bequeathing to a new generation an apparently endless "war on terrorism," it also has led directly to what is arguably the most massive assault on our civil liberties since the Alien and Sedition Acts. Getting all the information about what happened that day – and why it happened – is key to understanding the course we have taken since.

This was supposed to have been the purpose of the 9/11 Commission, whose massive report is now looked to as the primary source on the subject. Yet there is another, far more specific investigative report, the one issued by the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress, entitled "Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001."

If you actually take the time to read the report, all goes along swimmingly (except for occasional redactions) until you get to p. 369, whereupon the text is blacked out for the next twenty-eight pages.
What is in the twenty-eight censored pages? 

You aren’t allowed to know that, but members of Congress can read them provided they write to the heads of the Senate and House intelligence committees and get permission. If such is granted, they are escorted into a soundproof carefully guarded room in the company of various spooks, where they get to read the material: they aren’t allowed to take notes.

Do you get the impression someone has something to hide?

The censored section is entitled "Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters," and the introduction – left largely intact – is instructive: 

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Billionaires Make War on Iran

There is a group of Jewish American billionaires who are apparently doing their best to make sure than negotiations with Iran go nowhere in the mistaken belief that they are doing what is best for Israel. And they would also appear to be assisted in their efforts by the White House, which is at the same time claiming that it wants the talks to be successful. The odd relationship is currently playing out in a Manhattan courtroom where the Justice Department is seeking to squash a lawsuit that it fears might expose the extent to which the government has hypocritically played fast and loose with classified information while simultaneously sending journalists and whistleblowers to jail over allegations that they have done the same.

The power and wealth of the anti-Iran groups as well as their unrivalled access to the United States government means that a policy of détente with Iran, which would be a no brainer based on both American and Iranian interests, only proceeds by fits and starts with the US Congress and much of the media lined up solidly to stop the effort. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated educational foundation, which have focused on the “Iranian threat” over the past three years, have a combined budget of more than $90 million while AIPAC’s spin-off the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) has $8.7 million.

The American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) efforts are more diversified but uniformly hawkish when it comes to the Middle East. It has a budget of $45 million. Identified multi-million dollar donor/supporters of AIPAC, AEI, and WINEP include Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands, Paul Singer of Elliot Management hedge fund and Bernard Marcus of Home Depot.

Other right wing think tanks including Heritage and Hudson in Washington also support unrelenting pressure directed against Iran. Even the more centrist Brookings Institute is hard core when it comes to Middle Eastern politics by virtue of its Saban Institute funded by Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban. And then there are the mainstream Jewish organizations to include the Anti Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and the American Jewish Congress, all of which have vast resources and unparalleled access to the White House, Congress and the media.

All the pro-Israel anti-Iran groups engage in pressure tactics on Capitol Hill and have been effective in dominating the political debate. Of thirty-six outside witnesses brought in to testify at seven Senate hearings on Iran since 2012 only one might be characterized as sensitive to Iranian concerns. The enormous lobbying effort enables the anti-Iran groups to define the actual policies, move their drafts of legislation through congress, and eventually see their bills pass with overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate. It is democracy in action if one accepts that popular rule ought to be guided by money and pressure groups rather than by national interests.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Monday, August 25, 2014

ISIS: Made in Washington, Riyadh – and Tel Aviv

The Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) is being touted as the newest "threat" to the American homeland: hysterics have pointed to Chicago as the locus of their interest, and we are told by everyone from the President on down that if we don’t attack them – i.e. go back into Iraq (and even venture into Syria) to root them out – they’ll soon show up on American shores.

How is this supposed to work? Well, you see, that monster who beheaded James Foley had a British accent, and there are reports of more than a few Brits (and Americans) traveling to Syria to fight on behalf of ISIS. So these jihadi "internationalists" could always just fly back to either Britain or the US, where another 9/11 would shortly be in the works.

Let’s put aside the FBI statement that, while Americans abroad may be in some unspecified degree of danger, ISIS represents "no credible threat" to the continental United States. If we take the ISIS-threatens-us-at-home war propaganda seriously we have to believe Western law enforcement agencies, with all the tools at their command – including near total surveillance of online and telephonic communications worldwide – have no idea what dubious characters have traveled to Syria via, say, New York or London, and would in any case be powerless to prevent their return.

In short, we have to invade yet another country (or two) because our own post-9/11 security arrangements are virtually nonexistent – in spite of having spent untold billions on building them up.

Can that really be true?

If we step back from the hysteria generated by the beheading of US journalist James Foley, what’s clear is that this new bogeyman is the creation of the United States and its allies in the region.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Staged Provocations Ahead Possible US-Syrian War

With the alleged brutal murder of American journalist James Wright Foley, a wave of anger and aggression across Western audiences has been generated. Upon that wave rides two objectives. One is to create plausible deniability for the West which created the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS), the other is to create a further pretext to justify a resurgence of direct US military intervention across the region.

While the focus has been on ISIS in Iraq, there is still another war -linked directly to Iraq’s current conflict – being waged across the border in Syria. Syrian forces have continued making gains across the country, routing NATO-backed terrorist forces and restoring order in cities and towns that have been ravaged by war for years. ISIS strongholds in the eastern Syrian city of  Raqqa, have until now long escaped the focus of Syrian forces occupied by more urgent campaigns around Hama, Homs, Damascus, Daraa, Idlib, and Aleppo. Now, the Syrian Army is shifting forces east. 

While the West feigns an adversarial position regarding ISIS, it was the West itself that created it, specifically to confront the Iranian arc of influence stretching from Tehran, through Baghdad, Damascus and along the Mediterranean in Lebanon. The elimination of ISIS and other terrorist organizations fighting under or alongside its banner without first achieving regime change in Damascus would effectively mean defeat for the United States and its collaborators in the Middle East. 

To intervene before the deathblow is delivered to NATO-backed terrorists in Syria and before the tide is turned against them in Iraq, the West may attempt to provoke, stage, or otherwise create a pretext to militarily intervene in Syria, and expand its operations in Iraq. 

More Dead Journalists, Another Downed Airliner… 

The alleged death of James Wright Foley has created significant outrage amongst public opinion. It has created the illusion of confrontation between ISIS and the United States, and has served to further vilify ISIS itself. The Western media is still struggling to maintain the illusion that ISIS stands apart from other terrorists operating in Syria, and with that narrative, the West is simultaneously bolstering ISIS in Syria under the guise of arming and aiding “moderates,” while it conducts token airstrikes on ISIS in Iraq. 

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

The UN Has Laid the Foundation and Location For World War III

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was finalized in 1982, countries can lay claim to the ocean floor well beyond their borders so long as they can provide convincing scientific evidence to prove that a particular seabed is an extension of their continental shelf. Already, countries have sovereign rights to resources within 200 nautical miles of their territorial waterways. For a country to determine whether they have economic sovereignty beyond that distance, the UN agreement requires comprehensive mapping that establishes some sort of geologic justification for the claim. And where the Arctic is concerned, Canada, the US, Norway, Russia, and Denmark have been amassing scientific evidence for more than a decade in an effort to increase their piece of this resource-rich pie.

The process of determining the national origins of several sea shelves is a multi-generational endeavor. The United Nations is dragging its feet on making any determination as to the validity of claims upon the Arctic region. It appears that the failing world’s national economies cannot afford to wait 20, 30, 40 years before laying claim to such a vast amount of wealth. This is a prescription for war and I submit that this is being done deliberately by the globalists controlling the UN.

The UN’s Motivation to Start WW III

The United Nations is ultimately controlled by the global elite. In fact, the origins of the modern UN owes it location and prominence to David Rockefeller who provided both the seed money and the land in New York City for its present location.

The ubiquitous purpose underlying the shenanigans of the global elite is to establish order out of chaos, or more accurately, the New World Order out of manufactured chaos. The best way to build the New World Order is to destroy the old one and the most efficient method of doing that is creating the conditions that will lead to World War III.

Read the entire article

Friday, August 15, 2014

Let Congress Vote on Iraq War III

Last week, we were told there were 40,000 Yazidis on Sinjar Mountain facing starvation if they remained there, and slaughter by ISIS if they came down.

But a team of Marines and Special Forces that helicoptered in has reported back that, with a corridor off the mountain opened up by U.S. air strikes, the humanitarian crisis is over. The few thousand who remain can be airdropped food and water. The rest can be brought out.

The emergency over, President Obama should think long and hard about launching a new air war in Iraq or Syria. For Iraq War III holds the promise of becoming another Middle East debacle, and perhaps the worst yet.

America would be entering this war utterly divided. We are not even agreed on who the enemies are. Hillary Clinton thinks we should be tougher on Iran and that Obama blundered by not aiding the Syrian rebels when they first rose up to overthrow President Bashar Assad.

Veteran diplomats Ryan Crocker, William Luers and Thomas Pickering argue that Assad is not the real enemy. The Islamic State is, and we should consider a ceasefire between the Free Syrian Army and Assad.

“It makes no sense for the West to support a war against Assad as well as a war against the Islamic State,” they write, “Assad is evil but … he is certainly the lesser evil.”

Read the entire article

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Israeli Genocide and its Willing Accomplices

Outside of Israel and its organized supporters in the major Zionist organizations, world public opinion and most experts in international law see the Jewish State’s invasion of Gaza and its systematic attack on civilians and basic infrastructure as a crime against humanity.

The purpose of this essay is 4-fold: 1. To identify the nature of the crime – the genocidal character of the armed assault and the sequence leading up to it; 2. To identify the direct perpetrators of the war crimes and their domestic and international accomplices; 3. To explain the ties binding leaders, policymakers, propagandists, accomplices and followers, including their ideologies, material interests and organizational structure which make these crimes not only possible, but met so far with impunity and 4. To identify the larger imperial interests with which Israel allies with the US, and in pursuit of which, the Gaza assault is a horrifying dress rehearsal.

The ‘Morality’ of Prison Guards in a Genocidal State

Policymakers in the genocidal state run a highly militarized society where citizens and soldiers, criminals and professionals, torturers and sociopaths can and do coexist within the same person. Cold rationality is harnessed to mass murder, technology to massive devastation, language to euphemisms, and executioners parade themselves as victims (and vice versa). Moral precepts become debased and supplanted by the ethics of mass murder. Moralists, rabbis, and ethical philosophers all join to bless the bombs dropped on hospitals and schools and homes and all living things – even the dead and buried do not rest in peace when the cemeteries are bombed.

Rulers, imbued with a genocidal vision, see only military objectives – an oppressed people do not exist – all human existence and institutions in the target areas are to be demolished. The destruction of human life, of Palestinian daily existence has become the ultimate goal of this obscene operation.

The practical decision to exterminate Palestinians was conscious, planned, and pursued with implacable resolve at the very top and carried out with savage enthusiasm by Israel’s ‘citizen army’. 

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Washington Opened The Gates Of Hell In Iraq: Now Come The Furies

The late, great critic of the American Imperium, Chalmers Johnson, popularized the salient concept of “blowback”. That is, the notion that if you bomb, drone, invade, desecrate and slaughter—collaterally or otherwise— a people and their lands, they might find ways to return the favor.

But even Johnson could not have imagined the kind of blowback coming ferociously Washington’s way now. Namely, the mayhem being visited on much of Iraq by American tanks, armored personnel carriers, heavy artillery, anti-aircraft batteries and other advanced weaponry that has fallen into the hands of the very jihadist radicals that have been the ostensible target of Washington’s entire multi-trillion “war on terrorism”.

No question about it. The ISIS terrorists are winning against the hapless Iraqi military and even the formidable Kurdish peshmerga fighters—using some of the most lethal arms that the US military-industrial complex could concoct.

Yes, that wasn’t supposed to happen. During the bloody years after George W. Bush declared “mission accomplished” the Iraqi’s were ostensibly provided the arms and training to provide for their own defense. The American “occupation”, therefore, was really not all that. Instead, it was actually an exercise in “nation-building” that would bequeath to the people Washington had “liberated”  a self-governing democracy equipped with the means to insure internal order and external security. Washington politicians—including President Obama—gave endless speeches about that. You can look them up!

Except…except….Iraq was never a nation. At least the Ottomans knew that you don’t put Shiite’s, Sunni and Kurds in the same parliament or police force, and most certainly not the same army!

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Zionist Thought Cops Reduce Australian Newspaper to Quivering Bowl of Jelly

Sydney Morning Herald can’t apologize enough for editorial cartoon and accompanying column

"We apologize unreservedly for this lapse and the anguish and distress that has been caused....It was wrong to publish the cartoon in its original form.”

The fact-based cartoon has been retracted 

Sydney, Australia — An influential Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, has retracted and said it was "wrong" to publish a July 26 cartoon about Gaza that ignited howls of outrage from Zionists. In an August 3 editorial, the Herald denounced its own cartoon, saying that it "invoked an inappropriate element of religion, rather than nationhood, and made a serious error of judgment.” The cartoon, by Glen Le Lievre, depicted "an elderly man, with a large nose, sitting alone, with a remote control device in his hand, overseeing explosions in Gaza," according to the newspaper.  His armchair had a Star of David on it, "and the man was wearing a kippah, a religious skullcap.”

Initially, the newspaper defended the cartoon, explaining that Le Lievre's drawing was inspired by "news photographs of men seated in chairs and lounges, observing the shelling of Gaza.”

The Herald’s initial defense was correct. As Harriet Sherwood reports (below), Israelis did indeed gather on hillsides to watch and cheer as their military dropped bombs on Gaza: "Israelis drank, snacked and posed for selfies" against a background of explosions in civilian areas.

Why is it wrong to satirize, in a cartoon, an actual occurrence that is now part of the history of the Gaza war — the heartless contempt which many Israelis have exhibited for the lives of Palestinian civilians? This is reality. Why can’t Israeli partisans stomach reality? Why must the supposedly secular and independent media of Australia bow to the demands of nationalist and religious-fanatic reality-deniers, who find truth highly offensive to their tender sensibilities and raging egotism? 

Read the entire article

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Israel, Genocide, and the ‘Logic’ of Zionism

History is full of ironies: World War I, marketed to Americans as a "war to end all wars," paved the way for an even more massive slaughter. The invasion and conquest of Iraq – which was supposed to augur what George W. Bush hailed as a "global democratic revolution" – instead ushered in a new era of chaos, bloodshed, and tyranny in the region. And in the year 2014, the state of Israel, founded in large part as a reaction to the Holocaust, has embarked on a policy of genocide in Gaza.

The Israelis and their international amen corner are increasingly open about this: a recent article in the Times of Israel – since taken down – was quite explicit in averring that Israel’s "right of self-defense" includes the option of wiping out the entire population of Gaza:

"Hamas has stated forthrightly that it idealizes death as much as Israel celebrates life. What other way then is there to deal with an enemy of this nature other than obliterate them completely? … [A]nyone who lives with rocket launchers installed or terror tunnels burrowed in or around the vicinity of their home cannot be considered an innocent civilian."

According to the author, Israeli-American Yochanon Gordon – a regular Times of Israel columnist – "the nature of this enemy" must "automatically cause the rules of standard warfare to be suspended." After arguing for a policy of genocide throughout the piece, Gordon poses a question to "humanitarians": "If political leaders and military experts determine that the only way to achieve its goal of sustaining quiet is through genocide is it then permissible to achieve those responsible goals?"


Gordon’s answer is clear enough, in spite of his insincere-sounding "apology," but hey – you might say – this is just an opinion piece by someone who lives in Cedarhurst, New York: it doesn’t fairly reflect Israeli public opinion. Yet polls report most Israelis say the IDF isn’t using enough force in Gaza, and as for the Times of Israel: although they took down Gordon’s pro-genocide piece they published a very similar article that very day – which was not taken down – making essentially the same argument. Entitled "1 Samuel 15:18," the author – one Irwin Blank, another American with dual Israeli nationality – argues that the Jewish people have been pursued by "Amakelites" in one form or another throughout their history, and must finally take measures to eliminate their ancient nemesis. The title is a reference to this Biblical passage:

Friday, August 1, 2014

Religious Left and Barack Obama Unite to End American Democracy

For months, President Barack Obama said there were limits to his power to protect people living illegally in the U.S. from deportation. Now, he is considering broad action to scale back deportations that could include work permits for millions of people, according to lawmakers and immigration advocates who have consulted with the White House.

The shift in White House thinking came after House Republicans said they wouldn’t take up immigration legislation, which Mr. Obama and advocates for immigrants had hoped would create a path to citizenship for many in the U.S. illegally.

Mr. Obama already has offered work permits and safe harbor from deportation to so-called Dreamers—about 500,000 people brought to the U.S. illegally as children. The new action could expand those protections to their parents or to other sets of illegal immigrants.”

This talk of a mass executive amnesty should be regarded as a trial balloon. If there is opposition, he may not go through with it—after all, an election is coming up and millions of Americans are out of work. But that that will only happen if Americans make their voices heard—and don’t allow the Religious Left and the Obama Administration to hand away our country by fiat.