north-korea-leader-kim-jong-un-talks-with-army-representatives-data(Image: Sir Lanka Guardian)

By George Katsiaficas

The current threat of a major war in Korea is akin to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when the US and the USSR nearly waged nuclear war. Peaceful coexistence was assured only after an agreement was reached for Russia to withdraw its missiles from Cuba and for the US to pull its own out of Turkey.

In recent weeks, as a similar standoff has escalated in Korea, the US has sent B-2 bombers from Missouri and B-52s from Guam to fly up to the Demilitarized Zone between South and North Korea. These flights are as close to a threat of a first strike—possibly a nuclear one—that the US can make.

President Obama’s recent policy shift to an “Asian pivot” is perceived in North Korea as a direct threat to its existence.  Before the Asian pivot, Saddam Hussein agreed to disarm, after which Iraq was invaded and he was killed. Gaddafi faced a similar fate after he destroyed his major weapons systems. North Korea is clearly interpreting these events as reasons NOT to disarm. The harder the US now presses North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, the more they feel menaced.

In 1993, the US came quite close to bombing North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear plant. Harvard professor Ashton Carter publicly stated he was telephoned by the Pentagon and asked to assist them in determining bomb targets. Only the personal intervention of former President Jimmy Carter prevented a US first strike. Carter flew to Pyongyang, met Kim Il-sung (Kim Jong Un’s grandfather) and negotiated an “Agreed Framework,” according to which North Korea shut down Yongbyon and the US and its allies were supposed to supply fuel oil to the North.

For decades now, North Korea has stated that it will forsake its nuclear weapons and rocket program if the US Senate signs a peace treaty to end the state of war. (The armistice of 1953 was only a cease fire.) Whether one believes them or not, isn’t diplomacy worth another attempt to diminish the threat of war?

As the world’s preeminent military power, the US has a responsibility to prevent wars. One such means to do so in Korea would be for President Obama publicly to state that the US will not make a first strike against North Korea. Rather than seeking to reduce tensions, however, the US has ratcheted them up, and as a result, US companies will sell billions of dollars of missile systems to South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.

President Obama has repeated stated that our main strategic partner in Asia is Japan, even as Japan presses territorial claims against China, both Koreas, Vietnam, and the Philippines concerning islands it took when the Japanese Empire expanded before the end of the second world war. Unlike Germany, which has apologized for Nazism, educated its citizens, and paid reparations, Japan has never apologized for the war, never properly explained its atrocities to its citizens, and refuses to express its regret to the more than 100,000 “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery. In fact, Japan has repeatedly refused to apologize to these women even when pressed by US congressional resolutions. In the long run, the US should consider multilateral alliances, rather than a preeminent one with Japan, in order to diminish regional tensions.

In the past few days, Fox News and others have repeatedly called attention to that “nut” in North Korea who’s trying to prove himself. Yet Kim Jong Un is a mere figurehead in the world’s most Confucian society, where young people must respect their elders and listen to them. An aging military bureaucracy runs North Korea, not the young grandson of their “Dear Leader.” If we allow Kim Jong Un to be demonized while a major war breaks out, hundreds of thousands of people will perish in its first hours—no matter who is to blame.

It is not too late for the Obama administration to change course and find a peaceful solution to this crisis—if that is what they want to do.

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George Katsiaficas is a professor, sociologist, author, and activist. He teaches at the Wentworth Institute of Technology and specializes in social movements, Asian politics, U.S. foreign policy, and comparative and historical studies. He is the author or editor of eleven books including The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life (AK Press, 2006); Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party (co-edited with Kathleen Cleaver, Routledge, 2001); The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968 (South End Press, 1999) and the forthcoming Asia’s Unknown Uprisings (PM Press, Fall 2011). His writings can be found at www.ErosEffect.com.

Patrick Clawson of the influential neo-con Washington Institute for Near East Studies OPENLY suggests that the US should provoke Iran into taking the first shot.

by William A. Cook

Clowns befuddle a crowd. They appear a pretense of the normal but caricatured to evoke laughter, surprise, at times derision, but always in context where they absorb self-deprecation, become the butt of jokes, become the audiences’ self, a make believe self, receiving the jibes, jests and buffoonery never allowed when alone. Thus do they become vessels of deep seated self- ridicule, inhibited expression, personal inadequacy, a self-conscious parody of the normal.  They are used images, commodities to be bought and sold for the purchaser’s benefit, set amidst their fellows as manikins to be pinched and probed, facsimiles of all, but receivers of ridicule to protect their brethren.

Such is the figure of Patrick Clawson, Director of Research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as he appeared before his fellows, his scholarly brethren seated silently in respectful adulation at WINEP’s self-proclaimed international conference on near East policy. He appeared as all clowns appear from the side curtains, an Ichabod figure from Irving’s legend’s, lanky, thin, staccato stepping toward the podium, a believer in mystical gods, historical covenants, justifications of actions found encrypted in the yellow stained pages of ancient scrolls, called upon to deliver his sacred yet startling message to his colleagues.

They after all exist as aborted children of the State of Israel, a direct issue of AIPAC, a think-tank of intellectuals created for the sole purpose of extolling the State of Israel while condemning all who would question Israel’s policies or people. They are guardians of G-d’s chosen, paid exorbitant salaries to praise and justify Israel’s actions, a bastion of constant comment to blunt the cries of the world’s communities to bring Israel to justice. They labor hard and long to cloak their owners’ illicit behaviors, their illegal wars, their deception and deceit that it may continue with impunity. They like the clowns garb themselves in costumes to hide their true purpose; they create icons that mask their true intent, lease a suite of offices in prestige towers in the heart of Washington, ride in chauffeur driven limousines, dress in Italian styled pin striped suits, sit at mahogany desks behind sophisticated computers, and rest comfortably in cushioned chairs as the atmosphere is regulated to apt comfort levels. All this splendor belies their reality as the raucous romp of the clowns beneath the big top, surrounded by balloons and cotton candy and parade music, belies their function to become the receptacle of their audiences’ anxiety and frustrations.

Watch Clown Clawson amble to the podium, nonchalantly glancing to his presumed peers who sit at either side of the podium awaiting his intervention and words of wisdom as they face a crisis of apparent calamity, how to force the United States to attack Iran. Obama’s intransigence against an attack, while Netanyahu’s absolute determination to attack necessitates a swift mental solution, a strategy heretofore not considered, one for the unencumbered mental concentration of their Clown. “Send in the Clown” that he may perform before all the fools that incestuously congregate at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy.

As he gathers his wits mumbling at the podium, he notes the dilemma that confronts these masterminds of strategic planning, a stalled action plan against the Iranian people. How to solve it? Clawson acts like the trickster of Native myths, the buffoon brought forth to unveil the truth behind the intellectual drivel that poured from the scholars as they pontificated on the existential threat to Israel of the impending existence of an Iranian atomic bomb, of the unfortunate limits to an Israeli unilateral response and the consequent need for the United States to step into the breach, an act, indeed, of moral significance.

Send in the clown to unmask the hidden agenda that lurked beneath the recorded time of this conference, the unstated purpose of holding forth in discourse for the public’s benefit that the occupant of the White House might hear what his next step on behalf of the American people must be. After all, these intellectual presentations become tomorrow’s news and their presenter tomorrow’s expert guest on countless talk shows that all Americans might understand that they too are under existential threat, that their fear level should be rising to red, that there is no solution but the one afforded by these brilliant minds.

Send in the Clown to utter in fool fashion the obvious, “be nasty,” “after all people, we’re in the game,” it’s time to jump start the war with Iran with a little imagination, follow the examples of prior American Presidents, let Pearl Harbor happen, fix a Gulf of Tonkin attack, do something, anything to “force” an American reaction in support of Israel, and since we know the current President is not disposed to such actions, we need to take matters into our own hands, “after all people, we are in the game,” we are already undertaking clandestine action in Iran, and we do this even though we are not appointed to be representing Americans, even though we do not engage ourselves in real action, no boots for us on the ground, just type away at our computers, comfortable with our Starbucks, a lunch with cocktail, and an opera in the evening, “after all people, we are in the game” and if we don’t make it happen it won’t, and think how grateful the American people will be as they shoulder once more their responsibility to make the world safe for democracy, shield their only friend in the mid-east, and kill and slaughter yet another people that did nothing to them on behalf of Israel. Send in the Clown!

How cute the Clown who raises his eyebrows as his head bobs forward to utter yet again “after all people, we are in the game,” and his shoulders rise jerkily in step with his image of the submarine that just might not rise from the oceans depths, it happens and “who would know why?” And that sophisticated audience, scholars all, titter and clap at the clever solution offered by their clown. So simple, so clever, so monstrous– the diabolicalness is masked in the jovial mannerisms of the Clown.

As he retreats from the podium, the viewer awakes to the inhumanity of this figure, this Scholar, Researcher, this Clown. Perhaps it is his lack of experience, his absenteeism from the battlefield, his life played out in college, in fraternities, in business classes that teach the value of loyalty to the company, in churches that teach devotion to a faith and the comfort it brings in knowing one is on the right side of g-d, even in economics where his expertise would recognize the necessity of success in the form of wealth and the means to acquire it, that without it there is no “standard of living” like that provided in the US, that one’s goal in life is self, self-gratification, self-determination with your peers, self-aggrandizement, an objectivism that drives roughshod over any and all who get in your way—the American way of life that expunges from his mind what is “nasty” and excludes from concern the lives of any not part of one’s personal club, indeed, it is his job not to worry about those kinds of people. “After all people, we are in the game.”

But what of the sailors on that submarine that disappeared, who left port believing their nation was not at war, but who become, at the ravings of a Clown, victims of faceless men who have determined that they must be sacrificed to jump start their war while innocent men and women are blamed for it, the virtues of impunity that attend “false flag” operations.  Here lie the vanquished beneath the never changing sea, lost in the darkness of its depths and the absolute darkness of this soulless Clown who joked his brilliance before his peers oblivious to the consequences of his jollity.  No thought here of the sailor’s mother or father, no thought here of the children of this man or of his future snuffed out because this idiot vomited out of his mouth the way to move forward with his agenda and that of his peers, “after all people, we are in the game.”

But the consequences are far greater than the lost sailors in our Clown’s descriptive false flag; “after all people,” this act will propel the world into a catastrophic war, and we will “not be in a game.” Put this in context; here’s the Clown, an appointed researcher for an exclusive think tank the purpose of which is to push the Israeli agenda in the United States at all costs. These un-appointed individuals draw up strategic plans for the US government, maneuver them into strategic places in the Pentagon, the Congress, the State Department, and into the Executive Branch in order to bring them to action. This action is to force the US to go to war on behalf of Israel. That the people of the US do not favor such a war, that hundreds and thousands of their soldiers, the sons and daughters, the fathers and mothers of American families will be the fodder for WINEP’s war is irrelevant to them since they work for Israel and for AIPAC. The end purpose alone counts—their end purpose. That is what Patrick Clawson told us in that released video, a video I suspect WINEP wishes never saw the light of day. The absolute arrogance of his presentation, the total commitment he uttered in his remarks tell of a man incapable of human sympathy, oblivious to international law, uncaring, bestial.

 

How does one contend with such affectation, such pedantry, such charlatanism posing as enlightened man? How brutally ugly is this suggestion to recommend slaughter of those who have done nothing illegal, nothing personal to you or your family, who are to be but pawns in the hands of ruthless men, men who hide themselves in the garb of others forcing blame on the  innocent while gaining impunity from dastardly crimes. How lacking in human sympathy the acts designed by a nation willing and capable of carrying out such uncivilized acts while it touts in advertisements across this nation, “In a war of civilized men against savages, support the civilized men, support Israel.” How ironic that the clowns have become the savages beneath their huge floppy feet, their bulging bellies, their bulbous red noses, their rabbit like protruding eyes, and their flopping ears, proclaiming to the world, this is what we really believe, deceive all, destroy all, for the sake of Israel. “After all people, we are in the game.”

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Prof. William A. Cook

 William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. His works include Psalms for the 21st Century, Mellon Poetry Press, Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy, The Rape of Palestine, The Chronicles of Nefaria, and most recently in 2010, The Plight of the Palestinians. He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com.

The Israeli army’s chief of staff states that in the past three years, “US taxpayers have contributed more to the Israeli defense budget than Israeli taxpayers,” according to a report in the Jerusalem Post, a prominent Israeli newspaper.

by Alison Weir

According to the report, Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi made the statement during a speech on September 11th. In it he emphasized: “We must preserve ties with the United States. I believe this is a security necessity.”

According to the newspaper the speech was at the Calcalist Conference, which appears to be an annual event in Tel Aviv sponsored by the Calcalist newspaper, an Israeli Hebrew-only daily financial newspaper. It is is part of the group that publishes Yedioth Ahronoth, the largest circulation newspaper in Israel.

American taxpayers give Israel over $3 billion per year (over $8 million per day), more than to any other nation, despite the fact that Israel is smaller than New Jersey and is in the top 30 richest countries in the world.

Per capita, Israelis receive $10,000 more U.S. tax money than average.

Some of the other top recipients of US tax money, Egypt and Jordan, were provided this assistance in return for diplomatic recognition of the Israeli state.

According to the Congressional Research Service, Israel is given this money in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year. Americans then pay interest on money they have given to Israel, while Israel makes interest on it.

In recent years Israel has reported a lower unemployment rate than the US and a better account balance.

Ashkenazi’s statements are extremely significant, since this is the first time that an Israeli leader has pointed out that American taxpayers pay more to Israel’s defense budget than do Israelis.

If the costs of the Iraq war, which was largely pushed by Israel partisans in the Bush administration, were added into the equation, the American tax money on behalf of Israel would quite likely dwarf the amount paid by Israeli taxpayers.

Some top economists predict that the cost of the Iraq war will be $3 trillion.

Israel has a population of about 7 million people.

Today, Israel partisans are similarly pushing attacks on Iran.

Israel has frequently been accused of using American funds in violation of U.S. arms control laws.

Ashkenazi and War Crimes Accusations

IN 2010 Turkey issued an arrest warrant for Ashkenazi for Israeli forces’ killing of 9 civilians, including one who held American citizenship.

In 2008 a complaint was filed at the Hague accusing Ashkenazi of war crimes. Accusers stated:

On 27th December 2008, the suspect, Chief of Staff, ordered the Israeli army to attack densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. For three weeks, 1,500 tons of bombs were dropped from the air on residential neighborhoods in Gaza and tens of thousands of artillery shells were fired from tanks. For 3 weeks, the army damaged and destroyed houses, schools, hospitals, infrastructure, water and electrical plants, killed more than 1,300 people, hundreds of them children, and injured about 5,300 people. Thousands of houses were bombed or shelled and 50,000 residents were made homeless, without shelter.

Prior to this, the suspect was part of a group, which implemented a siege on 1.5 million people in the Gaza Strip, denying them a regular supply of food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity for 18 months.

According to international law, it is absolutely prohibited to bomb residential areas in a way that interrupts the lives of civilians; to carry out executions without trial, to collectively punish; to destroy or damage hospitals, schools and homes. The prohibitions against collective punishment were enshrined in the Geneva Conventions after the behavior of the Nazis in Europe during World War II when they destroyed entire villages to punish residents for sheltering the resistance. 194 countries agree with the prohibitions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

In December 2008, a complaint was filed in the Hague against the suspect, on suspicion that he had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity for ordering the siege of Gaza.

Source: Veterans News Now

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Alison Weir is an American freelance journalist and founder and Executive Director of If Americans Knew and president of The Council for National Interest.
Ms. Weir writes and speaks on issues covering the situation in Palestine/Israel, addresses the historical context and provides critique of how the media covers issues which challenges U.S. foreign policy and well-funded lobby interests. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s major sources of instability. Americans are directly connected to this conflict, and increasingly imperiled by its devastation. It is the goal of If Americans Knew to provide full and accurate information on this critical issue.
For more information visit her website at Allison Weir Official Web Site She can be reached at contact@ifamericansknew.org.

Sabra-Shatila Massacre

Franklin Lamb

Shatila Camp.

The Sabra-Shatila Massacre: it seems like a dozen weeks, not 30 years ago. This year American citizens received messages to stay away from Beirut and the annual commemoration of the Israeli facilitated Massacre at Sabra-Shatila from their State Department and Beirut Embassy. The latter’s staff on 9/19/12 completed destroying sensitive documents and packing all non-essential items.  The French government too told its citizens not to come to Beirut or participate in “mass gatherings because of concerns over sudden random violence”.

But they came.  Despite the well-meaning admonitions from their governments, they came in numbers greater than ever before. They came to bear witness with the survivors and their families to the horror of this crime against Palestinians and to plead for justice.

One elderly lady from Haifa, Palestine said bitterly, as foreign delegations paid their respects at Shatila’s Martyr’s cemetery, “At least God is punishing Sharon!”  She was referring to the coma the architect of the massacre went into six years ago and who is being sustained in a vegetative mass at the cost of $ 400,000 annually, partly paid for by American taxpayers.  She lamented, that not one person has ever been arrested, no one tried, or convicted and Israel has refused to open its file on the events surrounding the slaughter. Nor has the American government ever demanded that Israel do so. The Lebanese government has never even investigated the massacre as a crime.

Authors, photo-chroniclers and historians of the 1982 massacre, Mya Shone and Ralph Schoenman, replied to a recent New York Times article on the massacre by reminding us this week that “Ha’aretz recounted on September 26, 1982 the high level planning that preceded the invasion in service to “the long term objective aimed at the expulsion of the whole Palestinian population of Lebanon beginning with Beirut.”  Shone and Schoenman remind us that the London Sunday Times reported on the same day: “This carefully pre-planned military operation (to send Israeli selected militia into Shatila while the IDF sealed the camp to prevent possible escape) to ‘purge’ the camps was called Moah Barzel (Iron Brain); the plan was familiar to Sharon and Begin and was part of Sharon’s larger plan discussed by the Israeli cabinet on July 17.”

Each year, local or regional events impact the annual Shatila commemoration events differently. This year during some of the five days of events that took foreign visitors to Palestinian camps including Shatila and Mar Elias camps in Beirut, Burj Shemali and Al-Buss camps in the south and up north to Nahr al Bared (Cold River) which was destroyed by the Lebanese army in 2007 during the Fateh al Islam events, there were discussions at meetings and on the buses of the arrival back into Shatila camp and the other 11 camps of approximately 10, 000 Palestinian refugees from Syria. They are being received as honored guests by fellow Palestinians but they urgently need help.

Arriving refugees tell of how there are some splits in their community over the Syrian chaos the same as in the Shia, Sunni, Christian, and Druze communities. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which was ejected five weeks ago from Yarmouk camp by other Palestinians,  is claiming that Palestinians who do not not endorse President Assad 100 percent are with Al Qaeda and the FSA (Free Syrian Army).  On the other hand, the FSA claim that Palestinians who refuse to join them are with Ahmad Jabril, the PFLP-GC leader. Yamouk camp residents pay the price from both sides. Most Palestinians want nothing to do with the politics of the Syrian crisis but only to live in peace.

Most of those who were recently forced out of Yarmouk camp in Damascus and back into Shatila had never visited the locus of the slaughter they miraculously survived 30 years ago. Some expressed deep emotions on returning and observing parts of the camp that remain much the same as they were following the nearly 50 hours of butchery between September 16-18, 1982.

One gentleman from Yarmouk camp,  a Christian, who in 1976 was driven out of Tel A Zaatar Palestinian camp as it was destroyed by Christian militia, and who was living in Shatila at the time of the 1982 massacre, expressed his shock of how the current residents are living at such low heath, nutrition, and social-economic standards.  He expressed surprise to a visiting American delegation at finding no right to work or ability to own a home. Both of which, he explained, plus many more rights are enjoyed by Palestinian refugees in Syria. All the Palestinian refugees arriving from Syria, who were interviewed by this observer, found conditions in Shatila to be much worse today than at the time of the massacre, 30 years ago.

Most of the Palestinians arriving from Syria are temporarily staying with friends or relatives in Lebanon’s 12 camps. 500 families are temporarily lodged in Saida, 30 miles south of Beirut, with 350 families sardine-canned in Ein el Helwe camp, already extremely densely populated with approximately 20,000 refugees. Roughly 500 Palestinian families, refugees once more, are housed temporarily in the Bekaa valley bordering Syria, including 250 families staying at Jilil (Wavell) camp. Scores or other Syrian Palestinian refugees are being housed in Bedawi camp near Tripoli. A major problem in all the camps is that the severe overcrowding and limited water and electricity are creating extended family tensions.

To date not much organized aid has been distributed.  UNWRA is still in the process of making lists of the arriving refugees from Syria, reminding one of the time it took for that UN agency to access the needs of the Nahr al Bared displaced refugees in 2007. The UNCHR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, whose mandate does not include Palestinians, is also studying the problem.

But the need for aid is now and urgent. Meeting with individuals on 9/20/12 from the Palestinian camp committees and the local and international NGO community, three urgent needs were identified facing the refugees from Syria, whose numbers swell following each Palestinian killed in Syria.  On 9/19/20, 18 more Palestinians were killed and so the numbers coming to Lebanon will swell over the next few days.

Among the three most urgent problems facing the arriving Palestinians from Syria are Social problems ranging from finding places to live, food, education and preventing youth from joining local Lebanese militia who offer $100 per day to Palestinian youth to work as hired guns. A few do fight on both sides of the Syrian conflict while their mothers and fathers are urging them to ‘stay off the streets.”

UNWRA has the capacity to help with elementary and secondary schooling in its 52 schools in Lebanon. Hoda al Turki, the hard working spokesperson for UNWRA in Lebanon has been worried about the difference in curriculum in UNWRA schools in Lebanon and Syria schools where Palestinians are educated. UNWRA does not operate schools in Syria. But the afternoon of 9/20/12 a solution was announced and a curriculum has been agreed on. One of the problems was that Syrian schools teach the Nakba and Palestinian history but UNWRA schools are forbidden to teach anything about Palestine lest its funding be cut by the US government under pressure from the Zionist lobby.

So far the medical needs of the arriving refugees are being met at UNWRA facilities.

Some are proposing housing the refugees in schools, as was done following the Nahr al Bared fighting, but the schools are needed for classes.

One very important Lebanese governmental humanitarian gesture was announced today ( 9/20/12) and it is that Lebanese General Security, in charge of visa and immigration matters, has waived all fees for arriving and departing Palestinian refugees.  Permission to remain, previously granted for only 7 days, will be granted indefinitely without Kafkaesque applications and interview processes. This is a major boon for the refugees since they have been ruthlessly exploited on both sides of Maznaa Lebanon-Syria border crossing, with demands for bribes and per head “transit fees” which quickly stripped many families of the limited cash they had.

One example: While trying to cross into Lebanon two weeks ago, Um Ahmad was confronted by a security guard who barked:  “if there is no phone number in Lebanon you need to go back to where you came from in Syria”. She replied to the security officer, “Sir, you should show us some mercy please.  You know that we are running away from war, we are not here on a vacation.”  He replied coldly:” no phone number, no entry!” A request for a bribe was delivered.

The government of Lebanon deserves praise for its humanitarian action. Hopefully the Syrian government will follow suit and facilitate the departure and hopeful return of Palestinian refugees.

The main economic problem is that the arriving refugees, like all Palestinians in Lebanon will not be allowed to work.

The third problem is with security issues.  Lebanon has announced that it cannot absorb more refugees. Yet the figure of 10,000 more expected Palestinians may easily double. For Palestinians who have been in Lebanon since 1948, many are reaching their limits of tolerance of the conditions they are forced to live in without elementary civil rights.

There is general agreement here that while ‘photo-op’ one time NGO aid distributions help and are much appreciated, the way they tend to be unorganized so far is resulting in refugee families being herded like cattle from place to place to receive various forms of limited aid and they are being stripped of their dignity.  Sometimes refugees are forced to sit in the sun until the TV crews arranged by the donors arrive to film this “act of charity in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

To its credit, Hezbollah has been helping some. The Syrian refugees whether Sunni, Christian or Druze have received some aid from a center near Saida.  Hezbollah Social Work Committee member Alhaji Mohammed al-Haj said Hezbollah was assisting our “Syrian brothers as part of the duty to return the favor for what they did for us in the July war and out of a moral and national obligation of the resistance.”

What is required without further delay is for an urgent stakeholders meeting to be convened. Including the PLO factions, local and international NGO’s,  Donors, the Palestine Red Crescent Society, UNRWA, EU and UN groups as well as local political parties in order quickly produce an executable plan  avoiding duplications, to address these needs.

Shatila camp residents, on this 30th anniversary of one of their darkest hours, are planning to lead this call with a unified, strong, sustained Palestinian voice to help their sisters and brothers from Syria.

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Franklin P. Lamb is Director, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Wash.DC-Beirut and Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC Email: fplamb@gmail.com

By JAMAL KANJ*

ON the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a new ‘sanitised war’ is reshaping the future of America’s military industrial complex.

The drones, or the new robotic war, is operated by a galaxy of military bases stretching from the Creech Air Force Base in the desert of Nevada, traversing through CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, before landing on new desert airstrips in the Middle East.

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’ main mission is tracking and targeted killing of alleged terrorists.

Earlier this month, a drone using the newly introduced, more accurate Small Smart Weapon or Scorpion missile, delivered a direct hit, by mistake, killing 13 family members near the town of Rada, Yemen.

Following the raid, Yemeni activist Nasr Abdulla said: “I would not be surprised if a hundred tribesmen joined the lines of Al Qaeda… This part of Yemen takes revenge very seriously.”

Last May, a Yemeni official told The Washington Post: “There is a psychological acceptance of Al Qaeda because of US strikes.”

In modern history, no military power was able to unequivocally win a guerilla war.

The hardest fought battle is for the hearts and minds of the average person; the US is squarely losing this war. The drone killings of innocent bystanders, by mistake or utter recklessness, breeds resentments and new Al Qaeda recruits.

The latest was not an isolated incident. A 2009 study by Daniel Byman at the Brookings Institute concluded that drone strikes have killed “10 or so civilians” for “every mid- and high-ranking (terrorist) leader”.

US officials continue to downplay the loss of civilians while publicly asserting their best efforts to avoid “collateral damage”.

But this claim is disputed by Micah Zenko of the Council of Foreign Relations, who recently wrote: “The claim that the 3,000+ people killed in roughly 375 non-battlefield targeted killings were all engaged in actual operational plots against the US defies any understanding of the scope of what America has been doing for the past 10 years.”

Another major blunder was last November’s killing of more than 24 Pakistani soldiers in what became known as the Salata incident, prompting the government to close the border for Nato supplies into Afghanistan.

Last June, 18 civilians were killed at a wedding in the village of Logar, forcing the Afghan president to demand a halt to drone strikes.

Eleven years after 9/11, every branch of the US military, including the CIA, has its robotic drones operating throughout the world.

US Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Georgetown University professor Gary Solis warned that allowing CIA civilian agents to engage in armed conflict would directly contravene US laws.

The drone franchise business has branched into a new extension of the military industrial complex, with its parallel lobbying arm backing the new, permanent war economy manifested by more than 60 new cross-functional military bases around the globe.

Late last year, online magazine Salon referred to a Congressional Budget Office report saying the “Department of Defence plans to purchase 730 new medium-sized and large unmanned aircraft systems” in the next decade.

Like the intercontinental missiles in the sixties, and Star Wars technology in the 1980s, robotic drone warfare is reinventing the military industrial complex of the 21st century.

The only victor in this longest of US foreign wars is a coalition of single-issue think tanks, political leaders and business hucksters driven by mutual interest fostered by a culture of killing, vengeance and profit.

SEE ALSO:

INTIFADA PALESTINE – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW – With Jamal K. Kanj: Author Children of Catastrophe

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* Mr Kanj (www.jamalkanj.com) writes frequently on Arab issues and is the author of Children of Catastrophe, Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America. This article was first published by the Gulf Daily News newspaper

Dr. Elias Akleh

The daily incremental violent Syrian attacks and the orchestrated anti-Syrian political postures of most of the Western countries and some of the Arab states had become a low level war, spear-headed by foreign terrorist groups, some misguided Syrian groups, and vastly divided Syrian political opposition, aimed at the destruction of Syrian civil infrastructure and social fabric rather than the alleged declared goal of ousting of Al-Assad’s regime and the installation of Western-type democracy.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980’s its friendly allies in the Middle East were left helpless to be claimed by the only remaining world unilateral power; the USA. A scheme of controlling the whole Middle East was morphed under different names during different times according to changing political situations. Such names included the New World Order, the Greater Middle East, the New Middle East, Spreading Democracy in the Middle East, Nuclear Free Middle East, War Against (Islamic) Global Terror, Axis of Evil, and finally the Arab Spring.

The American Power Elite spared no expense of the American tax Dollars, American technologies and military resources to execute the New Middle East scheme, whose ultimate goal is to protect, to preserve and to expand the Zionist project of establishing Greater Israel in the heart of the Middle East to, initially, control the whole region.

The expansionist Zionist Israeli state project had faced major setbacks and is threatened to fail. Israeli citizens are tired of facing insecurity, of constant wars and of losing their sons. Israel’s wars against its neighboring Arab countries have become so costly and had failed to accomplish their objective. Israel’s 2006 war against Lebanon failed to destroy Hezbollah, who has become a more powerful military opponent. Israel’s 2008/2009 war against Gaza Strip had failed to accomplish its objectives despite all the military power Israel had mustered. The Israeli economic situations are becoming so harsh even though Israel is feeding on the American tax money. Jewish alia (immigration to Israel) has been reversed and many young Israelis are leaving back to their parents’ original countries. To preserve their Zionist project Zionist leaders needed American help.

The American wars in Somalia, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan proved to be very costly financially, militarily, and politically. These wars plus the American unconditional political, financial and military support for international-laws-violating terrorist Israel have tarnished the image of the USA as a democratic loving society. The deteriorating American economy and the unfair administration’s bailouts of corrupting financial institutions had put a heavy burden on the American citizens. Many had lost their businesses, their jobs, and their homes. Encountering beggars at every freeway entrance begging for a dollar or for “work for food” has become a common phenomenon. A report by the American Department of Agriculture states that 17 million Americans, a dramatic increase from 800 thousands in 2011, are under the poverty line and cannot secure their daily meals. It is estimated that 47 million Americans are living on food stamps. People could not take it anymore and started to organize, i.e. the 99% and the Occupy Movements, and to protest the policies of the administration. Many American cities are declaring their bankruptcy one after the other. To preserve control over America and to continue their imperialist expansion the Power Elite had to resort to the old tactic of “Order through Chaos” to accomplish its plans in the Middle Eastern region.

Order through chaos refers to the process of inciting hatred and division between different ethnic and religious groups within a country, whose strategic geopolitical location and natural resources are coveted by the Power Elite, to create military conflicts and terror attacks leading to many human massacres of innocent citizens. Under the allegation of obligation to protect human lives and providing humanitarian aid American and NATO troops are shipped to that country and eventually affect a regime change installing a new government that becomes subservient to Western powers.

Terror groups are also created, financed, trained and armed to wreak havoc in other countries eventually leading to either military coups or Western invasion of that country. Some examples of these Western sponsored terrorist operations go back to Operation Gladio that was responsible for terror attacks, assassinations and coups in European and North African countries. Operation Condor is an American supported campaign of political repression, terror and assassination in Latin American countries such as Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil during the late 1970’s. Operation Northwoods was a 1962 American covert operation to commit terror attacks against the Cuban community in Miami, to hijack planes, or to blow up American ships and to blame the attacks on Cuban government of Fidel Castro in order to create public support for a war against Cuba.   The American failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba had the goal of inciting a popular uprising, similar to the Arab Spring uprisings, against Fidel Gastro.  The Salvador Option model consists of American trained and armed military death squads that turned El Salvador in the 1980’s and later Iraq in 2003 into virtual killing fields.  Al Qaeda is a CIA trained, armed and Saudi financed terror group with the initial goal of attacking former Soviet Union troops in Afghanistan, and then later directed to perpetrate terror attacks against any country the American administration decides to interfere in militarily. Although many evidences and scientific analyses point to a false flag inside job, the 911 terror attack had been used as a justification to invade Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and every other target in the whole world the American administration claimed as a terrorist base. The misguided so-called Arab Spring is another elaborate scheme of new order in the Middle East through chaos, by the manipulation of misguided citizens and the use of state sponsored financed and armed terrorist groups, whose goal is to disintegrate, to divide, and to destroy Arab states neighboring Israel especially Syria and Lebanon.

Syria has always been targeted for a regime change by the Western power elite. In 1949 the CIA had led a coup against then Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli, who opposed the establishment of Israel, allowed the establishment of a communist party in the country, and opposed the construction of Saudi Arabian oil pipeline. Al-Quwatli regained presidency in 1955 and signed a military pact with the Soviet Union, as a result of the 1956 British/French/Israeli attack on Egypt, providing communism a strong foothold in the Middle East.  In 1957 a secret Anglo-American assassination plot was drawn by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and American President Dwight Eisenhower against al-Quwatli. Syria was pulled in the Lebanese civil war of 1976-1990 when the CIA informed Syria that Israel was about to send troops to occupy Southern Lebanon. Immediately after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called for the invasion of Syria too as part of the alleged Spreading Democracy in the Middle East plan. When Rafic Hariri, a former Lebanese Prime Minister, was assassinated in 2005 the American administration hastened to accuse Syria even without any evidence. Now, under the alleged continuation of the so-called Arab Spring, Syria is faced with a terrorist war aimed at the destruction and division of the country.

Syria is the primary target of the Arab Spring scheme due to its support to Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas, who oppose and resist the Israeli occupation and expansion in the region. Besides weakening these resistance groups the collapse of Syrian Al-Assad’s regime would open the road to Iran and close any Russian marine access to the Mediterranean Sea. A global anti-Syrian alliance of US, UK, France, Israel, Turkey, some Lebanese factions, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and lately Jordan and Kuwait, was formed to overthrow Syrian Al-Assad regime. This anti-Syrian alliance sent their special operation forces and foreign mercenaries into Syria to incite hatred and conflict by committing terror attacks against different ethnic groups and Syrian forces, while at the same time waged a media war against Syrian government.

There are many so-called Syrian opposition groups such as Syrian National Council (SNC), National Movement for Change, the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCCDC), the Islamist Movement for the Fatherland, The Bloc for Liberation and Development, the Turkmen National Bloc, and the Kurdish Movement for a New Life among other less popular groups. Each has its own political goals and agenda depending on which foreign country is financing it. Their only uniting factor is the toppling of Al-Assad’s regime without any clear plan for what comes after that. The SNC failed to unite all these political factions under its banner, and to unite all the different militia groups under the Free Syrian Army. This failure was due to its calling for foreign military intervention in Syria, a demand strongly rejected by genuine political Syrian oppositional groups such as the NCCDC, who boycotted the “Friends of Syrian” conference in Tunis. The SNC had also ignored the Kurdish demands during its July 2012 meeting in Cairo. Many political oppositional groups did not accept the real goals of the anti-Syrian campaign as declared by Burhan Ghalioun, the President of the SNC, when he stated that the new Syrian government, run by the SNC, would dramatically realign the power structure of the region with the West (and with Israel by implication) and with the reactionary Arab monarchy regimes of the Gulf by cutting off Syrian military pact with Iran, and ending support to anti-Israeli occupation resistance freedom fighters such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Unlike his father, Bashar al-Assad studied in UK and was exposed to other cultures. He adopted a more lenient form of governing which gained him more popularity among his people. To avoid a destructive fate similar to Libya, Al-Assad’s regime adopted serious reforms, called for referendum, established new constitution, called for democratic election, limited the term of presidency, and called for dialogue with the opposition.

These reforms dealt a political defeat to the anti-Syrian alliance, who claimed to seek and support democratic change in Syria. They pushed the opposition groups to reject the new constitution, refuse any dialogue, and demand al-Assad’s ousting. At the same time they pushed more weapons and money to the militia groups urging them to spread havoc in the country to create humanitarian crises blamed on the Syrian regime that would lead to foreign intervention. Terrorists, including Al-Qaeda, were shipped to Syria. They attacked cities and perpetrated savage massacres against innocent citizens. Their first massacre in Houla (1, 2, & 3) failed to produce the results they wanted. So they perpetrated other massacres such as Daret Asseh, and Aleppo.

Foreign, American, NATO and Arab, military intervention in Syria was not possible due to the Syrian/Iranian military defense pact and to the Russian and Chinese veto in the UN. The anti-Syrian alliance was left with only one option; military and financial support to the foreign militia, mercenaries, and Al-Qaeda terrorist groups operating in Syria to weaken and to destroy the country. They do that openly, shamelessly, and in violation of all international laws.

The American administration and NATO give themselves the right to invade, occupy, and destroy other countries across the globe under the justification of fighting Al-Qaeda terror groups, they themselves had originally created, while deny the same right to Syrian regime, who is fighting terrorists within its own country.

SEE ALSO

The Snake Behind the Arab Spring  by Dr. Elias Akleh

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Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the “Nakba” of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the “Nakseh” of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on the web in both English and Arabic.

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

Decline results when a nation is betrayed by craven leaders, who crawl and humiliate themselves before a minority of thuggish mediocrities pledged to a foreign state without scruples or moral integrity.

by James Petras and Robin Eastman Abaya

Introduction:  A Week of National Humiliation:

From March 4th to March 9th, 2012, 13,000 militant Israel Firsters, took over “political Washington”[1] and imposed a foreign regime’s (Israel) political agenda to the rousing applause and appreciation of their captive vassal US legislators and executives who crowded the halls and platforms groveling for the imperious nods of their visiting Israeli overlords[2].  The annual meeting of the American (sic) Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most outrageous public display of Zionist-Jewish power as it shapes US foreign policy.  The sole purpose of AIPAC is to ensure Israel’s unchallenged military and political power over a huge region from North Africa to the Persian Gulf.  Over three quarters of the US Congress members paraded themselves before the AIPAC, as well as President Obama and Vice President Biden and any high ranking Cabinet members in any way related to US foreign policy (Secretary of State Clinton, Secretary of Defense Panetta included).  They all loudly parroted the political agenda and military priorities that the AIPAC has imposed on the United States.

AIPAC: A launch pad for Israeli Leaders

The AIPAC gathering is clearly not a meeting of “just another lobby”[4]: It is the launch pad used by Israel’s top political and military leaders to drag the US into another major war in the Middle East – this time against Iran[5].  Shimon Peres, Israel’s President opened the conference, setting the militarist tone and political framework for US President Obama who followed, slavishly echoing the language and substance of the Israeli leader[6].  The following day the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, spoke, and forcefully laid out the line for a US war against Iran [7]with thousands of prominent and respectable Jewish Americans, Israel Firsters, leaping to their feet dozens of times in fanatic support for a US war – a war, in which few, if any, of them, their children, relatives or friends will suffer loss of life or limb[8].  This was the same Bibi Netanyahu who once opined that the 9-11 attack on the US benefited Israel because it linked the US closer to Israeli interests.

Not since the War of 1812, which saw the British occupation and burning of Washington, has the US capital been so utterly humiliated by a foreign power.  Unlike the British crown, which then negotiated a peace settlement, allowing the US to regain its sovereignty and capital, the Israeli leaders and their rabid “fifth column” demand a military agreement, in which Israel dictates the terms under which the US goes to war with Iran.

Israeli leaders have not secured the submission of the US because of Israel’s military, economic or political superiority:  They have a puny economy, a fraction of the US nuclear weapons and have few allies and even less public approval in the international community.  But they do have at least a half million fanatical, unconditional Zionist militants in the United States, including thousands of loyal multi-millionaires and billionaires who fund the campaign of both Democrat and Republican parties[9].  AIPAC is the vanguard of Israel’s shock troops in the US.  Highly disciplined and organized, AIPAC lobbyists invade the offices of every Congressperson armed with a legislative script carefully prepared by and for the State of Israel[10].  They have secured the full commitment of most members of Congress for Israel’s agenda waving both dollar signs and stars (of David).  As past history has amply demonstrated, Congressional staff or legislators who dare hesitate or ask for time to reflect, rapidly find themselves on the receiving end of AIPAC’s political bullying and threats which usually secure acquiescence.  Refusal to capitulate to AIPAC means the end of a political career in Washington.

The Israeli (and therefore AIPAC’s) agenda is to pursue an unprovoked war, either initiated by the US or as part of a US-backed Israeli sneak attack, against the sovereign Islamic Republic of Iran[11].  Iran is targeted today because the other opponents of Israel’s colonization of Palestine have been destroyed in previous Zionist-backed US wars, namely Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and the ongoing proxy war against the Assad regime in Syria.

Today Israeli leaders insist that Iran should be violently denied what over 120 other nations practice freely:  the legal enrichment of uranium for medical, commercial and scientific purposes.  Past Israeli propaganda, echoed by the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations, falsely claimed Iran possessed nuclear weapons or … was in the process of manufacturing them and therefore posed an ‘existential’ threat to Israeli.  Even the mere ‘capacity’ to enrich uranium for medical purposes (many times below the level needed for a weapon) is presented as a major threat to the Jewish State.   Meanwhile, the 27 US intelligence agencies (in their yearly ‘findings’) and even the US-influenced International Atomic Energy Agency have found no such evidence of an ongoing weapons program – thus the need for bizarre terms like ‘existential threat’.

Israel’s high command has now come up with a new flimsy pretext for war.  Iran’s potential (through its advanced scientific and technical manpower and research centers) for acquiring a ‘nuclear weapon capability’ may constitute a sufficient cause for war[13]. In other words, Israel has ordered its 13,000 AIPAC militants, to demand every US Congress person vote for a war resolution on the basis of Iran’s current uranium enrichment program geared to medical uses and on its sophisticated scientific and intellectual potential!  Meanwhile, the Mossad has launched a not-so-secret program of terrorist assassinations of Iranian scientists – in their homes, offices and universities; with nary a protest from the ‘Zionized’ US press.

Israel’s Willing Executioners

Netanyahu’s newest criterion for war (Iranian capability) has the blind support of the major Jewish organizations in the US[14].  American Zionists are the willing executioners promoting an aggressive, unprovoked, military attack against the homeland (and homes) of 75 million Iranians.  Let us be clear, there are naked genocidal impulses permeating some of the pronouncements of leading US Jewish religious leaders.  The executive vice president of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbi Herring, suggested that Israel should consider “the use of tactical nuclear weapons in areas that aren’t so populated or in the open desert  …to show the Iranians that their lives are on the line, that Israel won’t go quietly”.[15]  The rabbi did not specify whether population centers of a quarter of a million inhabitants or less qualify under his definition of “not so populated” and therefore are suitable targets for this educational display of thermo-nuclear destruction, “just to show the Iranians”….  Let us keep in mind that among the Zionist fundamentalists, “not a few organizational leaders … wanted to use tactical nuclear weapons right now”.

When Netanyahu gave the command to the AIPAC delegates to invade the US Congress and secure a war commitment on the basis of Iran’s ‘capacity’ (for uranium enrichment), there was no debate and no dissention among the ‘shock troops’ – only blind unanimous approval among Jewish American citizens for their foreign master. These respectable Jewish-Americans marched lock-step in platoons right up to the Congress members on their lists, canned arguments in one hand and Israeli-ghost-written legislation in the other.  They boast of having rounded up a substantial majority of elected US representatives – for war!

If Israel’s power in the US depends on AIPAC’s tight control over the US Congress, the lobby, for its part, depends on the power of the wider Zionist power configuration permeating strategic political and administrative offices, political party structures and the electoral process itself.  This, in turn, depends on Zionist media influence linked back to economic and financial power.  The democratic and representative process has been totally crushed under this narrow-focused juggernaut for war on behalf of Israel.

AIPAC’s Congressional and Executive Collaborators

While much has been made of the influence AIPAC exercises over the US Congress and Executive via ‘lobbying’, better termed intimidation and pressure tactics, a great part of its success is based on the larger Zionist matrix of power operating within the government, civil society and the economy.  When AIPAC lobbyists approach Congress members with Israeli-dictated foreign policy priorities in hand, they coordinate and are given a major platform by the forty-plus elected Zionist legislators who, just happen, to occupy strategic positions, such as the chairpersons of Congressional committees dealing with foreign policy, especially policy related to the Middle East.  In other words, AIPAC’s conquest of Congress is ‘by invitation’.  The relation is ‘reciprocal’.  AIPAC and the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations and various fundraisers mobilize money and activists to help elect the reliable Zionists to office.  Once in place, they openly collaborate in writing pro-Israel legislation and ensuring that ‘majorities’ vote the ‘right way’.

Mark Dubowitz, executive director of “Foundation for Defense of Democracies” helped write the latest (Iran) sanctions bill … (Financial Times March 6, 2012, pg. 9).  The “Foundation” is better known as an unconditional and unquestioning promoter of Israel’s agenda.  Dubowitz is one of many un-elected ‘legislators’ who write and promote laws at Israel’s behest.  The legislation to impose sanctions on Iran, authored by Dubowitz, is designed to brutalize and starve 75 million Iranian citizens into submission to further Israel’s goal of unquestioned supremacy in the Middle East.

AIPAC’s operations are not confined to Congress or  to the electoral process.  From the Reagan Administration to the Obama Administration, AIPAC has supplied committed Zionists to key positions in the Treasury, State Department, National Security Council and the President’s inner circle of advisors on the Middle East[18].  AIPAC pressure ensures the appointment of Zionists to the executive branch and has led to the creation of special administrative posts designed specifically to pursue Israel’s agenda.  A good example of AIPAC’s success is the post of Undersecretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Intelligence.  The position was first held by Stuart Levey, a Zionist zealot, whose whole purpose was to design and implement US (and later EU) sanctions against Iran.  His replacement, David Cohen, a clone also from AIPAC, is the author of legislation pushing for punitive sanctions against Syria.

Dennis Ross, widely known as ‘Israel’s lawyer’ and a former AIPAC leader, was appointed senior adviser to Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, was the architect of US support for Israel’s starvation blockade and criminal bombing of Gaza (1999), the murderous invasion of Lebanon (2006).  He has provided ‘cover’ for Netanyahu’s  massive building of Jews only settlements on occupied Palestinian lands and his cynical ‘peace negotiations’ ploy.

Jeffrey Feltman, the current AIPAC front man in the State Department, is  the key official in charge of Middle East affairs, especially Lebanon, Syria and Iran[21].  Obama’s own inner circle of advisers is dominated by unconditional Israel supporters, including David Axelrod as chief confidant and the former Presidential Chief of Staff, dual US-Israeli citizen and current Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel[22].   What is striking is the constant cycle from leadership and activity in Zionist (Israeli-front) organizations, entry into powerful government post, return to one or another pro-Israel think tank, ‘civic organizations’,  electoral office or lucrative private practice – all promoting the interests of Tel Aviv.

AIPAC and the 52 Grassroots Organizations

AIPAC’s power in Washington depends on the activism of hundreds of thousands of American Zionists affiliated with organizations under the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (MAJO).  While there is considerable overlap of membership,  MAJO leaders openly serve as a transmission belt for Israel: transmitting the political line from Tel Aviv to their membership, including activist doctors, dentists and stock brokers in New York, Miami, Kansas City, Los Angeles and San Francisco and all points north, south, east and west.  When AIPAC has ‘trouble’ securing an elected representative’s sign-on to legislation for sanctions against whichever country is currently targeted by Israel, the reluctant legislator becomes a prime target for local Zionist notables and ‘fund raisers’, who pay them a ‘visit’ to persuade, if possible, threaten retaliation, if necessary.  If a legislator still refuses to hew to Israel’s line, or considers service to a foreign power to be harmful to United States, he/she will soon find that AIPAC has raised millions of dollars to fund a campaign of slander and electoral defeat.

Along with these upper middle class ‘grass roots’ activists there are the numerous highly politicized Zionist mega-millionaires and billionaires, like Adelson, Saban and scores of others, who make no bones about being fanatical Israel Firsters and donate  millions to Congresspeople willing to subordinate US interests to Israel’s quest for Middle East supremacy.

Besides this legal corruption of the political process, there is the issue of illegal espionage and thuggery on AIPAC’s part, most recently evidenced by the ongoing law-suit by one of two former top AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen caught spying for Israel (passing classified documents on US military policy towards Iran).   Rosen, who was acquitted in a highly manipulated ‘trial’, maintains that AIPAC routinely encouraged its officials to secure confidential US government documents for Israel.

And then there are the prominent free-lance Zionists, who engage in vicious, highly publicized, political thuggery, physical assaults and blackmail against critics of Israel[26].  The most prominent defamers, like Abraham Foxman of the Anti (sic) Defamation League, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz, manipulate legions of respectable and wealthy thugs to pressure schools, universities and other employers to censor and fire critics of Israel.  These Zionist organizations far exceed the reach and effective blacklisting of an earlier generation of witch hunters, like Senator Joseph McCarthy, who were rank amateurs in comparison.  The recent antics of Israel-Firster Andrew Adler, editor of the Atlanta Jewish Times, whose call for the Israeli Mossad to assassinate President Obama[27] led merely to his resignation as editor after several weeks of nervous outrage (but no federal investigation or charges).

What is striking here is that while most respectable Zionists dissociate themselves from AIPAC spies and verbal assassins, the power of the Israel Firsters ensures that such goons and thugs are rarely charged for their crimes and have never gone to jail.

The wider impact of Zionist influence and thuggery is evident in the timorous self-censorship of the majority of Americans who privately express fear and loathing at the confrontational, strident and abusive Zionist-Americans pushing a foreign agenda.

Israel, Zionism and the Mass Media

The mass media is a key political resource, which the pro-Israel power configuration exploits to the full.  Not a single major print, television, film or radio outlet is willing to provide a balanced account of the Israel-Palestine conflict[30].  Israel’s dispossession of thousands of Arab families from their homes and the daily terrorist Zionist settler and military assaults against Palestinians protesting land seizures go unreported[31].  The hundreds of nuclear weapons in Israel’s arsenal are never mentioned while the Jewish State’s hysterical claims that non-nuclear Iran represents an existential threat are repeated and magnified, ad nauseam.  The leaders of the 52 know their Goebbels:  A lie repeated often enough becomes an accepted truth.

Zionism and Leveraging Power

What is crucial in understanding the Zionist Power Configuration’s stranglehold over our government is how it leverages power.  For example, a tiny minority falsely claims to speak for all American Jews, who represent about 3% of the US population.  However, based on this claim, they mobilize and raise funds to elect the committed Zionists who hold about 10% of the seats in the US Congress and Senate.  These representatives, in turn, enjoy the support of a tiny cadre of super rich Zionists, whose promotion allows them to gain control over key committees dealing with Middle East policy and security.

Domestic security has been deeply influenced by the Zionist-Israeli agenda:  Former US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey and Homeland Security Tzar, Michael Chertoff have been among the most prominent officials orienting US domestic security to focus on critics of Israel and the entrapment of Muslim citizens in bizarre webs of phony terrorist plots, while real domestic security has suffered and civil rights have been shredded.  The over-representation of Zionists on the US Supreme Court (3 out of 9) and the careful selection of recent justices, like Justice Sotomayor, underscore the profound nature of the process as it extends to the judiciary.

The Zionist Power Configuration controls the Mid-East policies of both Democratic and Republican Party and their Presidential nominees through their Congressional and political party power bases.  The US President, in turn, is leveraged, in order to secure key policy appointments for Zionists in the State Department, Treasury and Pentagon.  Their leverage in the foreign policy establishment allows Zionist officials to put pressure on allies and clients in the United Nation and European Union to support policies, such as Israel’s boycott and punishment of the elected Hamas government in Gaza and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

Leverage is how Israel, an infinitely small and insignificant state with less than 1% of world GNP, exports and market shares and occupying .001% of the world’s territory, can play such a disproportionate role in the reconfiguration of power in the Middle East.  Through its American-Zionist influentials, Israel has manipulated the US into a quagmire of wars in the Middle East, costing the world’s consumers of oil untold billions of dollars and pushing the world economy into recession.

Israel’s “Petroleum Tax”: War Threats and the Price of Gas

During the first 3 months of 2012, the price of oil rose 15% (over 30% since the summer 2011) largely due to Israel’s war mongering and threats to launch an offensive war against Iran.  Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Peres and Foreign Minister Lieberman have all repeatedly demanded the US bomb Iran, or failing that, they warn, Israel would launch its own offensive war against the Iranian people and drag the US into another war.

Almost all oil experts and political analysts agree that the spike in oil prices is a result of Israel’s war mongering, as major international oil speculators bet that an Israeli assault on Iran will provoke a major disruption in production and transportation of petroleum in the Middle East and provoke a global shortfall.

The 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations have added to the war hysteria by echoing and embellishing on Israel’s claims of an Iranian nuclear threat (or Iran’s “growing capacity” to threaten Israel in the future).

During the first three months of this year alone, the increased price of gasoline – or more accurately Israel’s war tax on the American consumers and drivers costs an additional 60 cents a gallon, or $9 dollars more to fill a 15 gallon tank.  This represents the tribute the Zionist power configuration has imposed on the American consumers in their push for a new war on Israel’s behalf.  No US politician would dare discuss this issue, let alone speak up and tell the Zionist chattering classes and their “beloved leaders” to stop pimping for war or else risk the cutting off of Israel’s $3 billion dollar annual handout from the US taxpayers.

Leading economists have stated that the price hike in petroleum (caused by a bellicose Israel) is stunting growth and pushing the US and EU back into recession … costing millions more job losses[35].  If we add the consumer losses caused by high gas prices to the losses in world economic output, the mere war chants of Netanyahu, Lieberman, Peres and the AIPAC will cost the global economy hundreds of billions over the course of the year.

Any mention of Israel’s gas tax on the American family’s budget will elicit outraged accusations of anti-Semitism from respectable Zionists and ugly threats from their thug accomplices.  When Obama performed his infamous annual belly crawl to pleasure the AIPAC delegates and their Israeli guests, in the midst of cheers over his re-affirmation of America’s unconditional loyalty to the state of Israel, he also quietly asked Israel to lower the war cries at least until after the November elections because of its effects on the price of gasoline on the American voter.

The high price of oil is damaging Obama’s chances for re-election.  The American electorate may not understand the real cost of Obama’s submission to Israel and may not be aware of Israel’s gas tax, but they are holding their putative President responsible for their pain at the pump!  There is only one thing that Obama cherishes more than Zionist support and that is the votes of an economically squeezed American electorate, who are turning against him in droves as the price of gasoline soars.

Conclusion

The week of March 4 to 11, 2012 will go down in history as a week of national humiliation; a time when legions of fanatical American Zionists took over Washington; when the entire Cabinet, led by President Obama, groveled before the officials of a foreign state – in the heart of Washington DC.  When the President and Prime Minister of Israel directed their foreign legionaires to march on the US Congress and shove their flimsy pretexts for  war with Iran into the faces of cringing legislators, the simplistic and idiotic message was: Bomb Iran because it may soon have … a nuclear ‘capacity’.  If asked what constitutes capacity, they quote their beloved leaders in Tel Aviv, including the semi-literate (former nightclub bouncer) Foreign Minister Avi Lieberman, the morally corrupt Bibi Netanyahu and the quietly diabolic Shimon Peres that Iranians can ‘enrich uranium’ – a capacity long held by 125 other countries.

It is with supreme arrogance that the followers of AIPAC and the 52 Presidents penetrate the US government in order to serve a foreign government.  None bother to hide their past, present or future affiliations with the state of Israel.  They are backed by prestigious Zionist academics, whose tendentious justifications for war have already sent tens of thousands of US soldiers to an early grave or to the wards of military and veteran hospitals and clinics across the country: They have sold us the argument that by serving the interests of the State of Israel we serve the United States.  From this, it only follows that to break the law and act as an unregistered agent for a foreign power, to transfer highly classified government documents to Mossad agents at the Israeli embassy and to threaten Americans who criticize or oppose Israel is a patriotic act[37].  Naval analyst Jonathan Pollard, the convicted US master-spy for Israel, is widely celebrated in Israel as an honorary Colonel in the IDF and a hero; the leaders of the major Zionist organizations are again pressuring Obama to release this traitor.

The documented performance of the leading Zionists in public office in the United States over the past two decades has been an unmitigated disaster. The self-proclaimed best and brightest have led the country into the worst economic and military catastrophes in a century.  It was Alan Greenspan, as head of the Federal Reserve, who de-regulated the financial sector and optimized conditions for the mega-swindles and speculative frenzy bringing down the entire financial system.  It was his replacement, Ben Bernacke, who pushed for trillions of US tax-payer dollars in bail-out funds to save his cronies on Wall Street and set them back on course, in the last 2 years, to repeat their speculative orgy – and allow such tribal compatriots as Stephen Schwartzman to reap $213 million in earnings in 2011.

It was Fred Kagan, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Libby, Abrams and Ross, as well as their less prominent lieutenants, who pushed the US into wars on Israel’s behalf in Afghanistan and Iraq, all the while confidently predicting ‘low cost, quick victories’ (even slam-dunks).  Never has such a cohort of Ivy League mediocrities collectively produced so many disastrous policies in such a brief historical time while never being held in any way, shape or form responsible or accountable for their performance.  It is obvious that these policy disasters did not result from faulty intellect or lack of an elite education.  Their apparent ignorance of historical, political, economic and military realities was a result of their blinding Zionist loyalties to the Israeli state whose real interests they embraced.  This lack of accountability guarantees that this process will continue until the US, as a republic, is destroyed for the masses of its misled citizens.

In order to justify a war against Israel’s regional adversaries, these blind mediocrities have distorted the realities of Arab nationalism.  It was with supreme tribal arrogance and racism that they assured themselves that Arabs could never sustain prolonged resistance to their imperial juggernaut.  They believed precisely what their tribal religion/ideology told them:  They were a chosen people (genetic studies aside).  They were the most financially successful investors or speculators.  They attended and taught at the most prestigious universities.  When, on occasion, a leading Zionist philanthropist, like Bernard Madoff, fell afoul—and actually went to jail– it was because, like his fellow tribalists,  Milken, Boesky and Pollard — he didn’t buy his one way ticket to Israel soon enough.

When a country, like the United States, is in decline, it is not because of external competition:  Declining competitiveness is only a symptom.  It is because of internal rot.  Decline results when a nation is betrayed by craven leaders, who crawl and humiliate themselves before a minority of thuggish mediocrities pledged to a foreign state without scruples or moral integrity.

Source: My Catbirdseat

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James Petras latest book is The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattacks

(Atlanta:  Clarity Press 2011) 2nd edition.

Kourosh Ziabari

You would certainly know Yvonne Ridley or at least heard of her name if you have been a regular follower of Press TV, especially in Britain, albeit before the state-run media regulator Ofcom took the news network off the Sky platform, depriving millions of Britons of the opportunity to watch a TV channel which has always tried to shed a light on the obscured, concealed aspects of the events and tell the truth about what’s happening around the world. Ridley is a renowned British journalist, war correspondent and TV host. She made the headlines on September 28, 2001 when she was arrested by the Taliban members in Afghanistan while working for the Sunday Express. She converted to Islam after she was released by Taliban on October 9, 2001 and became an outspoken critic of Zionism and the mainstream media’s portrayal of the War on Terror. Ridley is a member of the National Union of Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists. She is a devoted philanthropist and humanitarian activist. Yvonne Ridley has written two books called “In the Hands of the Taliban” and “Ticket to Paradise.”
Ridley took part in an interview with me, discussing her viewpoints regarding the prospect of Iran-West relations, the expansionistic policies of the Israeli regime in the Occupied Palestine and the popular uprisings of the Arab world widely known as Arab Spring.

Kourosh Ziabari: One of the recent events which stained the already blurred relations between Iran and the UK was Iranian students’ assault on the British embassy in Tehran in the late 2011. Some political analysts say that it was an undiplomatic action and Britain’s response in closing the Iranian embassy in London was natural. However, some others believe that it was an intrinsic consequence of the UK’s hostile policies toward Iran. What’s your viewpoint in this regard?

Yvonne Ridley: As the UK Government found out last year, when students get angry and in a destructive mode nothing will stop them. The Conservative Party headquarters in London was trashed and vandalized by angry students in the UK who felt they had been lied to over the increase in student fees. And they caused much more damage to the Tory Party HQ than the rampaging students in Tehran, yet no one accused the British police of turning a blind eye or encouraging acts of vandalism and violence. The UK Government was, however, outraged but I feel it used the event as an opportunity to accelerate hostile relations between both countries.

KZ: Tensions between Iran and the West has been mounting in recent months, especially since IAEA released its latest report on Iran’s nuclear program. What’s your prediction for the future of Iran-West relations? Do you foresee any chances of reconciliation and restoration?

YR: The tensions are predictable and there is a weary feeling of deja vu among anti war activists who fear the worst between Iran and the West having witnessed a similar build up of hostilities over non-existed WMD in Iraq during Saddam’s rule.

KZ: Israel, the U.S. and their European allies have repeatedly threatened Iran against a preemptive military strike. Are these war threats realistic or merely media propaganda aimed at intimidating the Iranians? Why doesn’t the UN take any decisive action against the states who propagate such threats and spread fear?

YR: The UN is weak and in the sway and influence of America but I doubt if there will be a military strike, for several different reasons. The USA is struggling in Afghanistan against the Taliban, a bunch of ill-equipped fighters in flip flops and shalwa khameez so there is no way it would tackle Iran which has a strong army, is armed and will retaliate. Furthermore there are tens of thousands of U.S. and other western civilians, oil workers, missionaries and NGOs in Iraq and if one single strike touched Iranian soil, there is a very real danger 10 million or so Shiite in neighboring Iraq will rise up against westerners. This could manifest itself in another disastrous hostage situation similar to the one in Iran from which the USA has still not psychologically recovered.

KZ: The U.S. and its European allies are persuasively lobbying around the world to convince the economic partners of Iran join the global sanctions, especially the newly proposed oil embargo against Iran. Will these sanctions bear fruit for the U.S. or it will backfire? Will the economic pressures finally bring Iran to its knees?

YR: Iran is not marginalized or as isolated as the U.S. and UK would want. Several countries in the Euro-zone rely on Iran for cheap oil while Russia, China, Brazil, Venezuela and other countries in South America have expressed solidarity with Iran.

KZ: President Barack Obama had promised during his presidential campaign that he would pursue a policy of detente and tension easing with the Muslim world, especially Iran, and follow the path of diplomacy and “change” to resolve Iran’s nuclear controversy. But we saw that he followed the path of his predecessor and even talked of the option of a nuclear strike against Iran. What’s your idea about his approach toward the Middle East in general, and Iran in particular? Has he fulfilled his promise of change?

YR: This latest U.S. president, given a Nobel peace Prize because he was not George W. Bush, is a one-term president. He made many promises on the road to the White House and broke more than 60 percent of them. He is, sadly, a man who promised to deliver so much and failed. He escalated the war in Afghanistan, was forced to retreat from Iraq – make no mistake the departure of American troops in Iraq was reluctantly done and the soldiers left in one of the quietest U.S. exits in history.

KZ: What has been in your view, the main stimulus behind the revolutions of the Arab world? We know that corrupt regimes had existed in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen for many decades, but the nations of the region revolted against their rulers all at once. What’s the reason in your view?

YR: The people lost their fear in the tyrants, most installed and supported by the West; and as they grew stronger they began to rediscover their Faith in God and as they got closer to their Faith they became stronger as they held on tight to the Rope of Allah.

KZ: Will the chained revolutions of the Arab world, especially the revolution in Egypt, weaken the status of Israel in the Middle East? What about the U.S.? Political commentators believe that if the revolutionaries in Bahrain and Yemen achieve their goal, the United States will lose two of its strategic allies in the region. What’s your take on that?

YR: The U.S. was caught out by the Arab Spring, but since the CIA missed the fall of the Berlin Wall it is hardly surprising that there was a huge intelligence failure in this area. Israel is unusually mute because it is very concerned over what is going to manifest from the revolutions and it can no longer rely on the USA to crack the whip and make the tyrants pull their people into line. The U.S. has already lost its control in the region and should Yemen and Bahrain succumb to the will of the majority then it will lose strategic allies.

KZ: It seems that the United States will not lift its unconditional support for Israel, at least in the foreseeable future, and Israel will be able to continue its repressive policies in the occupied lands and with regards to the subjugated people of the West Bank and Gaza Strip like before. What’s your assessment regarding the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Will the Arab League supported initiative for peace help solve the crisis?

YR: My belief in this solution has been the same for more than three decades, much longer than I’ve been a Muslim. The Palestinian people will be victorious because they have time and patience on their side. In 50 years time their children will ask: “Was there really a state called Israel?” Israel is on a permanent war footing and not one single country can survive in that situation forever. I’ll give the Zionist another decade before it implodes.

KZ: Israel is the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and it’s not a signatory to Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well. The United States has not allowed a comprehensive investigation of the nuclear facilities of Israel so far, and Tel Aviv regime is continuing to develop nuclear bombs in its underground installations. Isn’t the nuclear program of Israel a threat to international peace and security?

YR: What nuclear weapons? Israel says it has no nukes! Pf course the world knows they are lying thanks to the heroic Christian convert Mordechai Vanunu who is still being persecuted for telling the world about the Zionist State’s deadly arsenal of nuclear weapons. The poor man has served his sentence but he is still not allowed to leave Israel where he is under continuous surveillance. The vindictiveness of the state knows no bounds when it comes to this man.

KZ: And finally, let me ask your idea about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Why has such a revolutionary movement taken shape in the U.S.? What are the major grievances of the protesters? What’s your idea regarding the government’s treatment of the protestors?

YR: A number of American people have woken up to the injustices of capitalism and what is being done in their name by the U.S. Government – this wonderful movement has captured the imagination of many and while they are taking their fight to the streets of the USA and the West there is another army that the USA should really be concerned about … Anonymous. They are leading the battle in cyber-warfare and are showing that when the people rise up and they begin to lead the leaders become increasingly irrelevant. Watch this space.

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Kourosh Ziabari is an Iranian freelance journalist and media correspondent. His articles and interviews have appeared on a number of media outlets and news websites including Tehran Times, Press TV, Global Research and Foreign Policy Journal.

Bahrainis rally for political reforms in Budayia City, West of the capital Manama, on March 9, 2012.

Paul Balles

This morning burning tires on the highway filled the air with black smoke and blocked traffic.

Yesterday, Molotov cocktails killed a policeman trying to keep order.

The day before saw oil spread on the roads so that cars would slip and slide and collide with each other.

When police in the UK act to suppress mob violence with tear gas or water cannon, the Western press refers to it as riot control.

When police in Bahrain try to control destructive thugs with the same batons as used in the UK or America, the police are castigated for torture.

When police in the West face protestors who resist, they use pepper spray and tasers to quell the violence.

When police in Bahrain attempt to quell violence with tear gas, they are accused of using excessive force.

When Western journalists write stories about demonstrations, the public gets the seamy side of a response.

When Bahrain denies visas to journalists, they know those journalists only report what’s sordid.

When New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof writes that Bahrain “represents a brutal, family-run dictatorship…” he’s surprised when he gets called for that untruth.

When Western reporters refer to the monarchs in Arabia, they consistently call them dictators. They know, full well, the negative connotations of their choice of words.

When Western journalists refer to monarchs or members of royal families in Europe or Asia, they respectfully call them king or queen or prince and princess.

When the Western media refers to Middle Eastern royal families and their supporters, they refer to them less pleasantly as regimes.

When the Western media refers to the families of Western royals, they respectfully label them royalty.

What right do Western journalists have to belittle countries that they have never lived in and know little about?

What right have members of the Western media to accept unverified reports of events?

What right have Westerners to prescribe democracy for countries with governance that has been better than democracies?

What right have Western democracies to assume that their democracies are the best form of government for all?

What right do members of Western democracies have to pretend that their system of government is faultless when it suffers from gridlock that prevents anything from being achieved?

What right have Western democracies to pretend that their system of government is the best when they have never measured it against other systems?

Why doesn’t the press challenge contradictory American statements about being “in lockstep with Israel” while simultaneously calling for a “diplomatic solution”?

Why doesn’t the press report that America’s removal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq is meant to deploy them and surround Iran in support of an Israeli strike?

Why do journalists interview only a few protestors while ignoring staunch defenders of the realm?

Why does Reporters without Borders complain about journalists being refused visas when those reporters haven’t reported fairly?

Why do Western media lie repeating the slogan “Reporting all the news from all angles” when they know they don’t?

Why don’t Western media anchors and reporters start doing what they claim they do? Why don’t they report ALL the news from ALL angles?

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About the Author

Throughout his life as an educator, Dr. Paul J. Balles, a retired American university professor and freelance writer, has lived and worked in the Middle East for 40 years – first as an English professor (Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain), and for the past ten years as a writer, editor and editorial consultant.
He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month. He writes a weekly op-ed column for Akbar Al Khaleej (Arabic). He has also edited seven websites, including bahrainthismonth.com, womenthismonth.com