Abdullah: U.S. Occupation 'Illegitimate' | Mar 28, 5:08 PM (ET) | By LEE KEATH
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - King Abdullah denounced the American military presence in Iraq on Wednesday as an "illegitimate foreign occupation" and called on the West to end its financial embargo against the Palestinians.
The Saudi monarch's speech was a strongly worded lecture to Arab leaders that their divisions had helped fuel turmoil across the Middle East, and he urged them to show unity. But in opening the Arab summit, Abdullah also nodded to hardliners by criticizing the U.S. presence in Iraq.
"In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war," said the king, whose country is a U.S. ally that quietly aided the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
...
"In wounded Palestine, the mighty people suffers from oppression and occupation," Abdullah said. "It has become vital that the oppressive blockade imposed on the Palestinians end as soon as possible so the peace process will get to move in an atmosphere without oppression."
The United States has so far rejected calls to end the financial embargo imposed on the Hamas-led Palestinian government formed after elections last year. Saudi Arabia and Arab states have called for an end to the sanctions after Hamas formed a new government last month that includes members of the moderate Fatah party.
Abdullah insisted that only when Arab leaders unite will they be able to prevent "foreign powers from drawing the region's future."
"The real blame should be directed at us, the leaders of the Arab nation," he said. "Our constant disagreements and rejection of unity have made the Arab nation lose confidence in our sincerity and lose hope."
The two-day summit plans to revive a 2002 initiative offering Israel peace with the Arab world if it withdraws from lands it seized in the 1967 Mideast war, a proposal the United States and Europe hope can build efforts to resume the long-stalled peace process. ...
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
American raid and arrests set scene for capture of marines
American raid and arrests set scene for capture of marines | By Patrick Cockburn in Arbil | Published: 26 March 2007
At 3am on 11 January US military forces raided the Iranian liaison office in the Kurdish capital Arbil and detained five Iranian officials who are still prisoners.
The attack marked a significant escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran.
Britain is inevitably involved in this as America's only important foreign ally in Iraq. In fact the US raid could have had even more significant consequences if the Americans had captured the Iranian official they were targeting. Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of the Kurdish president Massoud Barzani, told The Independent that "they were after Mohammed Jafari, the deputy chairman of Iran's National Security Council." ...
At 3am on 11 January US military forces raided the Iranian liaison office in the Kurdish capital Arbil and detained five Iranian officials who are still prisoners.
The attack marked a significant escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran.
Britain is inevitably involved in this as America's only important foreign ally in Iraq. In fact the US raid could have had even more significant consequences if the Americans had captured the Iranian official they were targeting. Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of the Kurdish president Massoud Barzani, told The Independent that "they were after Mohammed Jafari, the deputy chairman of Iran's National Security Council." ...
5 years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror ... That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly debatable
Terrorized by 'War on Terror' | How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America |
By Zbigniew Brzezinski | Sunday, March 25, 2007; Page B01
The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.
The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.
...
That is the result of five years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike the more muted reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered painful terrorist acts. In his latest justification for his war in Iraq, President Bush even claims absurdly that he has to continue waging it lest al-Qaeda cross the Atlantic to launch a war of terror here in the United States.
Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security entrepreneurs, the mass media and the entertainment industry, generates its own momentum. The terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts on terrorism, are necessarily engaged in competition to justify their existence. Hence their task is to convince the public that it faces new threats. That puts a premium on the presentation of credible scenarios of ever-more-horrifying acts of violence, sometimes even with blueprints for their implementation.
That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly debatable. A recent study reported that in 2003, Congress identified 160 sites as potentially important national targets for would-be terrorists. With lobbyists weighing in, by the end of that year the list had grown to 1,849; by the end of 2004, to 28,360; by 2005, to 77,769. The national database of possible targets now has some 300,000 items in it, including the Sears Tower in Chicago and an Illinois Apple and Pork Festival. ...
...
The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A case in point is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.
Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim air travelers, has also been its unintended byproduct. Not surprisingly, animus toward the United States even among Muslims otherwise not particularly concerned with the Middle East has intensified, while America's reputation as a leader in fostering constructive interracial and interreligious relations has suffered egregiously.
The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has been diluted if not undone, with some -- even U.S. citizens -- incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt access to due process. There is no known, hard evidence that such excess has prevented significant acts of terrorism, and convictions for would-be terrorists of any kind have been few and far between. Someday Americans will be as ashamed of this record as they now have become of the earlier instances in U.S. history of panic by the many prompting intolerance against the few.
In the meantime, the "war on terror" has gravely damaged the United States internationally. For Muslims, the similarity between the rough treatment of Iraqi civilians by the U.S. military and of the Palestinians by the Israelis has prompted a widespread sense of hostility toward the United States in general. It's not the "war on terror" that angers Muslims watching the news on television, it's the victimization of Arab civilians. And the resentment is not limited to Muslims. A recent BBC poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries that sought respondents' assessments of the role of states in international affairs resulted in Israel, Iran and the United States being rated (in that order) as the states with "the most negative influence on the world." Alas, for some that is the new axis of evil! ...
By Zbigniew Brzezinski | Sunday, March 25, 2007; Page B01
The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.
The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.
...
That is the result of five years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike the more muted reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered painful terrorist acts. In his latest justification for his war in Iraq, President Bush even claims absurdly that he has to continue waging it lest al-Qaeda cross the Atlantic to launch a war of terror here in the United States.
Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security entrepreneurs, the mass media and the entertainment industry, generates its own momentum. The terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts on terrorism, are necessarily engaged in competition to justify their existence. Hence their task is to convince the public that it faces new threats. That puts a premium on the presentation of credible scenarios of ever-more-horrifying acts of violence, sometimes even with blueprints for their implementation.
That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly debatable. A recent study reported that in 2003, Congress identified 160 sites as potentially important national targets for would-be terrorists. With lobbyists weighing in, by the end of that year the list had grown to 1,849; by the end of 2004, to 28,360; by 2005, to 77,769. The national database of possible targets now has some 300,000 items in it, including the Sears Tower in Chicago and an Illinois Apple and Pork Festival. ...
...
The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A case in point is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.
Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim air travelers, has also been its unintended byproduct. Not surprisingly, animus toward the United States even among Muslims otherwise not particularly concerned with the Middle East has intensified, while America's reputation as a leader in fostering constructive interracial and interreligious relations has suffered egregiously.
The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has been diluted if not undone, with some -- even U.S. citizens -- incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt access to due process. There is no known, hard evidence that such excess has prevented significant acts of terrorism, and convictions for would-be terrorists of any kind have been few and far between. Someday Americans will be as ashamed of this record as they now have become of the earlier instances in U.S. history of panic by the many prompting intolerance against the few.
In the meantime, the "war on terror" has gravely damaged the United States internationally. For Muslims, the similarity between the rough treatment of Iraqi civilians by the U.S. military and of the Palestinians by the Israelis has prompted a widespread sense of hostility toward the United States in general. It's not the "war on terror" that angers Muslims watching the news on television, it's the victimization of Arab civilians. And the resentment is not limited to Muslims. A recent BBC poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries that sought respondents' assessments of the role of states in international affairs resulted in Israel, Iran and the United States being rated (in that order) as the states with "the most negative influence on the world." Alas, for some that is the new axis of evil! ...
possible [Iraq] break-up would play into the hands of Israeli ‘extremists,’ making Israel the dominant minority in a region of minorities
Prince Hassan: Neocons and Israel Plan “New 100 Years of War” in the Middle EastMonday March 26th 2007, 6:46 pm
...
And what does Bin Talal and millions of Arabs know?
“After a keynote speech at the European Policy Centre in Brussels on the ‘coexistence of civilizations’ Prince Hassan Bin Tallal, crown prince of Jordan in the final days of the late King Hussein, spoke to Today’s Zaman…. Prince Hassan made it clear that the idea of breaking Iraq into pieces, as is circulating in some US and Israeli circles, would be a fatal mistake. The Jordanian prince warned that a possible break-up would play into the hands of Israeli ‘extremists,’ making Israel the dominant minority in a region of minorities.”
Prince Hassan “is now one of the leading intellectuals and activists of the Islamic world,” and yet his comments go unreported in this country. “I want to cite the Clean Break paper of 1996 attributed to the conservatives in the US. It seems to me that the concept of pan-Arabism, pan-Islamism, supra-national identity was actually taken to pieces by this paper, arguing somehow that fragmentation was taking place in that part of the world, so let us take full advantage of this. Muslims and Arabs do not need enemies as they are doing an excellent job of destroying each other. Of course this plays into the hands of Israeli extremists that believe Israel should emerge as the dominating minority in a region of minorities or a mosaic of minorities.”
The idea of taking “to pieces” Arab nationalism is hardly revelatory. “This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking,” writes Khalil Nakhleh in the publisher’s note to Israel Shahak’s transation of Oded Yinon’s A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties. “Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme,” going back at least to the memoirs of Moshe Sharett, former prime minister of Israel, as documented by Livia Rokach (Israel’s Sacred Terrorism: A study based on Moshe Sharett’s Personal Diary). Of course, until the Israelis hit the jackpot with the neocons, who were able to infiltrate the Bush administration and drive U.S. foreign policy, they were unable to carry out their master plan on the scale envisioned.
“End of the Westphalian system, the end of the Middle Eastern community of states, the beginning of a Balkanization that could lead, in the words of the former Iraqi Defense Minister Ali Allawi, to a new 100 years of war,” Hassan continues.
In short, a plan perfect for the Israelis and their neocon helpers. ...
...
And what does Bin Talal and millions of Arabs know?
“After a keynote speech at the European Policy Centre in Brussels on the ‘coexistence of civilizations’ Prince Hassan Bin Tallal, crown prince of Jordan in the final days of the late King Hussein, spoke to Today’s Zaman…. Prince Hassan made it clear that the idea of breaking Iraq into pieces, as is circulating in some US and Israeli circles, would be a fatal mistake. The Jordanian prince warned that a possible break-up would play into the hands of Israeli ‘extremists,’ making Israel the dominant minority in a region of minorities.”
Prince Hassan “is now one of the leading intellectuals and activists of the Islamic world,” and yet his comments go unreported in this country. “I want to cite the Clean Break paper of 1996 attributed to the conservatives in the US. It seems to me that the concept of pan-Arabism, pan-Islamism, supra-national identity was actually taken to pieces by this paper, arguing somehow that fragmentation was taking place in that part of the world, so let us take full advantage of this. Muslims and Arabs do not need enemies as they are doing an excellent job of destroying each other. Of course this plays into the hands of Israeli extremists that believe Israel should emerge as the dominating minority in a region of minorities or a mosaic of minorities.”
The idea of taking “to pieces” Arab nationalism is hardly revelatory. “This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking,” writes Khalil Nakhleh in the publisher’s note to Israel Shahak’s transation of Oded Yinon’s A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties. “Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme,” going back at least to the memoirs of Moshe Sharett, former prime minister of Israel, as documented by Livia Rokach (Israel’s Sacred Terrorism: A study based on Moshe Sharett’s Personal Diary). Of course, until the Israelis hit the jackpot with the neocons, who were able to infiltrate the Bush administration and drive U.S. foreign policy, they were unable to carry out their master plan on the scale envisioned.
“End of the Westphalian system, the end of the Middle Eastern community of states, the beginning of a Balkanization that could lead, in the words of the former Iraqi Defense Minister Ali Allawi, to a new 100 years of war,” Hassan continues.
In short, a plan perfect for the Israelis and their neocon helpers. ...
Monday, March 19, 2007
12 necons: regime has destroyed the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, and the remains of America’s moral reputation
Americans Have Lost Their CountryBy Paul Craig Roberts
03/01/07 "ICH" -- -- The Bush-Cheney regime is America’s first neoconservative regime. In a few short years, the regime has destroyed the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, and the remains of America’s moral reputation along with the infrastructures of two Muslim countries and countless thousands of Islamic civilians. Plans have been prepared, and forces moved into place, for an attack on a third Islamic country, Iran, and perhaps Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as well.
This extraordinary aggressiveness toward the US Constitution, international law, and the Islamic world is the work, not of a vast movement, but of a handful of ideologues--principally Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, John Bolton, Philip Zelikow, and Attorney General Gonzales. These are the main operatives who have controlled policy. They have been supported by their media shills at the Weekly Standard, National Review, Fox News, New York Times, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page and by “scholars” in assorted think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute.
The entirety of their success in miring the United States in what could become permanent conflict in the Middle East is based on the power of propaganda and the big lie.
Initially, the 9/11 attack was blamed on Osama bin Laden, but after an American puppet was installed in Afghanistan, the blame for 9/11 was shifted to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who was said to have weapons of mass destruction that would be used against America. The regime sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to tell the lie to the UN that the Bush-Cheney regime had conclusive proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Having conned the UN, Congress, and the American people, the regime invaded Iraq under totally false pretenses and with totally false expectations. The regime’s occupation of Iraq has failed in a military sense, but the neoconservatives are turning their failure into a strategic advantage. At the beginning of this year President Bush began blaming Iran for America’s embarrassing defeat by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents in Iraq.
Bush accuses Iran of arming the Iraqi insurgents, a charge that experts regard as improbable. The Iraqi insurgents are Sunni. They inflict casualties on our troops, but spend most of their energy killing Iraqi Shi’ites, who are closely allied with Iran, which is Shi’ite. Bush’s accusation requires us to believe that Iran is arming the enemies of its allies.
On the basis of this absurd accusation--a pure invention--Bush has ordered a heavy concentration of aircraft carrier attack forces off Iran’s coast, and he has moved US attack planes to Turkish bases and other US bases in countries contingent to Iran.
In testimony before Congress on February 1 of this year, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said that he expected the regime to orchestrate a “head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large.” He said a plausible scenario was “a terrorist act blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran.” He said that the neoconservative propaganda machine was already articulating a “mythical historical narrative” for widening their war against Islam.
Why is the US spending one trillion dollars on wars, the reasons for which are patently false. What is going on?
There are several parts to the answer. Like their forebears among the Jacobins of the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks of the communist revolution, and the National Socialists of Hitler’s revolution, neoconservatives believe that they have a monopoly on virtue and the right to impose hegemony on the rest of the world. Neoconservative conquests began in the Middle East because oil and Israel, with which neocons are closely allied, are both in the MIddle East.
The American oil giant, UNOCAL, had plans for an oil and gas pipeline through Afghanistan, but the Taliban were not sufficiently cooperative. The US invasion of Afghanistan was used to install Hamid Karzai, who had been on UNOCAL’s payroll, as puppet prime minister. US neoconservative Zalmay Khalilzad, who also had been on UNOCAL’s payroll, was installed as US ambassador to Afghanistan.
Two years later Khalilzad was appointed US ambassador to Iraq. American oil companies have been given control over the exploitation of Iraq’s oil resources.
The Israeli relationship is perhaps even more important. In 1996 Richard Perle and the usual collection of neocons proposed that all of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East be overthrown. “Israel’s enemies” consist of the Muslim countries not in the hands of US puppets or allies. For decades Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians such that today there is not enough of Palestine left to comprise an independent country. The US and Israeli governments blame Iran, Iraq, and Syria for aiding and abetting Palestinian resistance to Israel’s theft of Palestine.
The Bush-Cheney regime came to power with the plans drawn to attack the remaining independent countries in the Middle East and with neoconservatives in office to implement the plans. However, an excuse was required. Neoconservatives had called for “a new Pearl Harbor,” and 9/11 provided the propaganda event needed in order to stampede the public and Congress into war. Neoconservative Philip Zelikow was put in charge of the 9/11 Commission Report to make certain no uncomfortable facts emerged.
The neoconservatives have had enormous help from the corporate media, from Christian evangelicals, particularly from the “Rapture Evangelicals,” from flag-waving superpatriots, and from the military- industrial complex whose profits have prospered. But the fact remains that the dozen men named in the second paragraph above were able to overthrow the US Constitution and launch military aggression under the guise of a preventive/preemptive “war against terrorism.”
When the American people caught on that the “war on terror” was a cloak for wars of aggression, they put Democrats in control of Congress in order to apply a brake to the regime’s warmongering. However, the Democrats have proven to be impotent to stop the neoconservative drive to wider war and, perhaps, world conflagration.
We are witnessing the triumph of a dozen evil men over American democracy and a free press. ...
03/01/07 "ICH" -- -- The Bush-Cheney regime is America’s first neoconservative regime. In a few short years, the regime has destroyed the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, and the remains of America’s moral reputation along with the infrastructures of two Muslim countries and countless thousands of Islamic civilians. Plans have been prepared, and forces moved into place, for an attack on a third Islamic country, Iran, and perhaps Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as well.
This extraordinary aggressiveness toward the US Constitution, international law, and the Islamic world is the work, not of a vast movement, but of a handful of ideologues--principally Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, John Bolton, Philip Zelikow, and Attorney General Gonzales. These are the main operatives who have controlled policy. They have been supported by their media shills at the Weekly Standard, National Review, Fox News, New York Times, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page and by “scholars” in assorted think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute.
The entirety of their success in miring the United States in what could become permanent conflict in the Middle East is based on the power of propaganda and the big lie.
Initially, the 9/11 attack was blamed on Osama bin Laden, but after an American puppet was installed in Afghanistan, the blame for 9/11 was shifted to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who was said to have weapons of mass destruction that would be used against America. The regime sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to tell the lie to the UN that the Bush-Cheney regime had conclusive proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Having conned the UN, Congress, and the American people, the regime invaded Iraq under totally false pretenses and with totally false expectations. The regime’s occupation of Iraq has failed in a military sense, but the neoconservatives are turning their failure into a strategic advantage. At the beginning of this year President Bush began blaming Iran for America’s embarrassing defeat by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents in Iraq.
Bush accuses Iran of arming the Iraqi insurgents, a charge that experts regard as improbable. The Iraqi insurgents are Sunni. They inflict casualties on our troops, but spend most of their energy killing Iraqi Shi’ites, who are closely allied with Iran, which is Shi’ite. Bush’s accusation requires us to believe that Iran is arming the enemies of its allies.
On the basis of this absurd accusation--a pure invention--Bush has ordered a heavy concentration of aircraft carrier attack forces off Iran’s coast, and he has moved US attack planes to Turkish bases and other US bases in countries contingent to Iran.
In testimony before Congress on February 1 of this year, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said that he expected the regime to orchestrate a “head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large.” He said a plausible scenario was “a terrorist act blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran.” He said that the neoconservative propaganda machine was already articulating a “mythical historical narrative” for widening their war against Islam.
Why is the US spending one trillion dollars on wars, the reasons for which are patently false. What is going on?
There are several parts to the answer. Like their forebears among the Jacobins of the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks of the communist revolution, and the National Socialists of Hitler’s revolution, neoconservatives believe that they have a monopoly on virtue and the right to impose hegemony on the rest of the world. Neoconservative conquests began in the Middle East because oil and Israel, with which neocons are closely allied, are both in the MIddle East.
The American oil giant, UNOCAL, had plans for an oil and gas pipeline through Afghanistan, but the Taliban were not sufficiently cooperative. The US invasion of Afghanistan was used to install Hamid Karzai, who had been on UNOCAL’s payroll, as puppet prime minister. US neoconservative Zalmay Khalilzad, who also had been on UNOCAL’s payroll, was installed as US ambassador to Afghanistan.
Two years later Khalilzad was appointed US ambassador to Iraq. American oil companies have been given control over the exploitation of Iraq’s oil resources.
The Israeli relationship is perhaps even more important. In 1996 Richard Perle and the usual collection of neocons proposed that all of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East be overthrown. “Israel’s enemies” consist of the Muslim countries not in the hands of US puppets or allies. For decades Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians such that today there is not enough of Palestine left to comprise an independent country. The US and Israeli governments blame Iran, Iraq, and Syria for aiding and abetting Palestinian resistance to Israel’s theft of Palestine.
The Bush-Cheney regime came to power with the plans drawn to attack the remaining independent countries in the Middle East and with neoconservatives in office to implement the plans. However, an excuse was required. Neoconservatives had called for “a new Pearl Harbor,” and 9/11 provided the propaganda event needed in order to stampede the public and Congress into war. Neoconservative Philip Zelikow was put in charge of the 9/11 Commission Report to make certain no uncomfortable facts emerged.
The neoconservatives have had enormous help from the corporate media, from Christian evangelicals, particularly from the “Rapture Evangelicals,” from flag-waving superpatriots, and from the military- industrial complex whose profits have prospered. But the fact remains that the dozen men named in the second paragraph above were able to overthrow the US Constitution and launch military aggression under the guise of a preventive/preemptive “war against terrorism.”
When the American people caught on that the “war on terror” was a cloak for wars of aggression, they put Democrats in control of Congress in order to apply a brake to the regime’s warmongering. However, the Democrats have proven to be impotent to stop the neoconservative drive to wider war and, perhaps, world conflagration.
We are witnessing the triumph of a dozen evil men over American democracy and a free press. ...
Annual Herzliya Conference, U.S. presidential aspirants, neoconservatives and Israeli hawks were all invoking the Holocaust and annilliation
Hysteria at Herzliya | Contributed by Tom | By Patrick J. Buchanan
America is on a collision course with an Iran of 70 million, and the folks who stampeded us into Iraq are firing pistols in the air again.
01/31/07 "WND" --- - When Congress finally decides on just the right language for its "non-binding resolution" deploring Bush's leadership in this war, it might consider a resolution to keep us out of the next one.
For America is on a collision course with an Iran of 70 million, and the folks who stampeded us into Iraq are firing pistols in the air again.
At the annual Herzliya Conference, U.S. presidential aspirants, neoconservatives and Israeli hawks were all invoking the Holocaust and warning of the annihilation of the Jews.
Israel's "Bibi" Netanyahu, who compares Iran's Ahmadinejad to Hitler, said: "The world that didn't stop the Holocaust last time can stop it this time. ... Who will lead the effort against genocide if not us? The world will not stand up on behalf of the Jews if the Jews do not stand up on behalf of the world."
Said former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz: "Iran is the heart of the problem in the Middle East. It is the most urgent threat facing the world, and needs to be dealt with before it's too late." After meeting with the Department of State's Nicholas Burns, Mofaz called 2007 "a year of decision." ...
Richard Perle assured the conference that Bush will attack Iran rather than see it acquire nuclear weapons capabilities. Newt Gingrich also brought his soothing touch to the proceedings: "(C)itizens who do not wake up every morning and think about possible catastrophic civilian casualties are deluding themselves.
"Three nuclear weapons are a second holocaust. ... I'll repeat it. Three nuclear weapons are a second holocaust. ... Our enemies are fully as determined as Nazi Germany and more determined than the Soviets. Our enemies will kill us the first chance they get.
"If we knew that tomorrow morning we would lose Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, what would we do to stop it? If we knew that we would tomorrow lose Boston, San Francisco or Atlanta, what would we do?"
Mitt Romney agreed. Ahmadinejad's Iran is more dangerous than Khrushchev's Soviet Union, which put missiles in Cuba. For the Soviets "were never suicidal. Soviet commitment to national survival was never in question. That assumption cannot be made to an irrational regime (Iran) that celebrates martyrdom."
Ehud Olmert, mired in scandal, his popularity in the tank after the Lebanon fiasco, was as hawkish as Bibi: "The Jewish people, with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to let itself face the threat of annihilation once again. ... We will stand up against nuclear threats and even prevent them."
Came then U.S. peace candidate John Edwards. Keeping Iran from nuclear weapons "is the greatest challenge of our generation. ... To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table. ... Let me reiterate – all options."
Wrote the Financial Times' Philip Stephens of Herzliya, "I gave up counting the times I heard the words 'existential threat' to describe Iran's nuclear program capability."
A few weeks back, according to UPI's Arnaud De Borchgrave, Netanyahu declared that Israel "must immediately launch an intense, international public relations front first and foremost on the United States – the goal being to encourage President Bush to live up to specific pledges he would not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make clear to the (U.S.) government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the U.S. and the entire world, not only Israel."
Israel's war is to be sold as America's war. ...
America is on a collision course with an Iran of 70 million, and the folks who stampeded us into Iraq are firing pistols in the air again.
01/31/07 "WND" --- - When Congress finally decides on just the right language for its "non-binding resolution" deploring Bush's leadership in this war, it might consider a resolution to keep us out of the next one.
For America is on a collision course with an Iran of 70 million, and the folks who stampeded us into Iraq are firing pistols in the air again.
At the annual Herzliya Conference, U.S. presidential aspirants, neoconservatives and Israeli hawks were all invoking the Holocaust and warning of the annihilation of the Jews.
Israel's "Bibi" Netanyahu, who compares Iran's Ahmadinejad to Hitler, said: "The world that didn't stop the Holocaust last time can stop it this time. ... Who will lead the effort against genocide if not us? The world will not stand up on behalf of the Jews if the Jews do not stand up on behalf of the world."
Said former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz: "Iran is the heart of the problem in the Middle East. It is the most urgent threat facing the world, and needs to be dealt with before it's too late." After meeting with the Department of State's Nicholas Burns, Mofaz called 2007 "a year of decision." ...
Richard Perle assured the conference that Bush will attack Iran rather than see it acquire nuclear weapons capabilities. Newt Gingrich also brought his soothing touch to the proceedings: "(C)itizens who do not wake up every morning and think about possible catastrophic civilian casualties are deluding themselves.
"Three nuclear weapons are a second holocaust. ... I'll repeat it. Three nuclear weapons are a second holocaust. ... Our enemies are fully as determined as Nazi Germany and more determined than the Soviets. Our enemies will kill us the first chance they get.
"If we knew that tomorrow morning we would lose Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, what would we do to stop it? If we knew that we would tomorrow lose Boston, San Francisco or Atlanta, what would we do?"
Mitt Romney agreed. Ahmadinejad's Iran is more dangerous than Khrushchev's Soviet Union, which put missiles in Cuba. For the Soviets "were never suicidal. Soviet commitment to national survival was never in question. That assumption cannot be made to an irrational regime (Iran) that celebrates martyrdom."
Ehud Olmert, mired in scandal, his popularity in the tank after the Lebanon fiasco, was as hawkish as Bibi: "The Jewish people, with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to let itself face the threat of annihilation once again. ... We will stand up against nuclear threats and even prevent them."
Came then U.S. peace candidate John Edwards. Keeping Iran from nuclear weapons "is the greatest challenge of our generation. ... To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table. ... Let me reiterate – all options."
Wrote the Financial Times' Philip Stephens of Herzliya, "I gave up counting the times I heard the words 'existential threat' to describe Iran's nuclear program capability."
A few weeks back, according to UPI's Arnaud De Borchgrave, Netanyahu declared that Israel "must immediately launch an intense, international public relations front first and foremost on the United States – the goal being to encourage President Bush to live up to specific pledges he would not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make clear to the (U.S.) government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the U.S. and the entire world, not only Israel."
Israel's war is to be sold as America's war. ...
warned that the Bush administration’s policy was leading inevitably to a war with Iran, with incalculable consequences for US imperialism
A political bombshell from Zbigniew Brzezinski | Ex-national security adviser warns that Bush is seeking a pretext to attack Iran | By Barry Grey in Washington DC | 2 February 2007
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration, delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and warned that the Bush administration’s policy was leading inevitably to a war with Iran, with incalculable consequences for US imperialism in the Middle East and internationally.
Brzezinski, who opposed the March 2003 invasion and has publicly denounced the war as a colossal foreign policy blunder, began his remarks on what he called the “war of choice” in Iraq by characterizing it as “a historic, strategic and moral calamity.”
“Undertaken under false assumptions,” he continued, “it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean principles and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.”
Brzezinski derided Bush’s talk of a “decisive ideological struggle” against radical Islam as “simplistic and demagogic,” and called it a “mythical historical narrative” employed to justify a “protracted and potentially expanding war.”
“To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said.
Most stunning and disturbing was his description of a “plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran.” It would, he suggested, involve “Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” [Emphasis added].
This was an unmistakable warning to the US Congress, replete with quotation marks to discount the “defensive” nature of such military action, that the Bush administration is seeking a pretext for an attack on Iran. Although he did not explicitly say so, Brzezinski came close to suggesting that the White House was capable of manufacturing a provocation—including a possible terrorist attack within the US—to provide the casus belli for war.
That a man such as Brzezinski, with decades of experience in the top echelons of the US foreign policy establishment, a man who has the closest links to the military and to intelligence agencies, should issue such a warning at an open hearing of the US Senate has immense and grave significance. ...
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration, delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and warned that the Bush administration’s policy was leading inevitably to a war with Iran, with incalculable consequences for US imperialism in the Middle East and internationally.
Brzezinski, who opposed the March 2003 invasion and has publicly denounced the war as a colossal foreign policy blunder, began his remarks on what he called the “war of choice” in Iraq by characterizing it as “a historic, strategic and moral calamity.”
“Undertaken under false assumptions,” he continued, “it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean principles and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.”
Brzezinski derided Bush’s talk of a “decisive ideological struggle” against radical Islam as “simplistic and demagogic,” and called it a “mythical historical narrative” employed to justify a “protracted and potentially expanding war.”
“To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said.
Most stunning and disturbing was his description of a “plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran.” It would, he suggested, involve “Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” [Emphasis added].
This was an unmistakable warning to the US Congress, replete with quotation marks to discount the “defensive” nature of such military action, that the Bush administration is seeking a pretext for an attack on Iran. Although he did not explicitly say so, Brzezinski came close to suggesting that the White House was capable of manufacturing a provocation—including a possible terrorist attack within the US—to provide the casus belli for war.
That a man such as Brzezinski, with decades of experience in the top echelons of the US foreign policy establishment, a man who has the closest links to the military and to intelligence agencies, should issue such a warning at an open hearing of the US Senate has immense and grave significance. ...
Bush greeted by violent protests in Brazil
March 09, 2007 | Bush greeted by violent protests in Brazil
Tear gas, rubber bullets and protesters hurling bricks at police greeted President George Bush as he arrived in Brazil yesterday on the start of his five-nation Latin America tour.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and financial capital, a massive anti-Bush and anti-American demonstration poured down the main avenue. Protesters carried signs reading “Bush out of Iraq” and “Down with the Number One Terrorist George Bush.”
Organisers said the demonstration drew at least 30,000 people although police put the number at 10,000.
The demonstration turned violent after a group of protesters entered a prohibited area along the avenue. They threw rocks and sticks at police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets. ...
Tear gas, rubber bullets and protesters hurling bricks at police greeted President George Bush as he arrived in Brazil yesterday on the start of his five-nation Latin America tour.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and financial capital, a massive anti-Bush and anti-American demonstration poured down the main avenue. Protesters carried signs reading “Bush out of Iraq” and “Down with the Number One Terrorist George Bush.”
Organisers said the demonstration drew at least 30,000 people although police put the number at 10,000.
The demonstration turned violent after a group of protesters entered a prohibited area along the avenue. They threw rocks and sticks at police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets. ...
US, which only six years ago was positively perceived and admired by many people around the world, is now almost universally disliked and feared
March 7, 2007 | Clueless in Gaza | Karen Hughes and the collapse of American public diplomacy | Philip Giraldi
The numbers are not good. By every conceivable measure, the United States, which only six years ago was positively perceived and admired by many people around the world, is now almost universally disliked and frequently feared. The Pew Global Attitudes Project June 2006 polling reveals that even among America's closest traditional allies in Europe, with the sole exception of Britain, the U.S. is everywhere perceived unfavorably. Only 23 percent of Spaniards viewed the U.S. positively, while in key Muslim ally Turkey only 12 percent did so. In every country polled by Pew save only Germany, U.S. involvement in Iraq is seen as a greater threat to world peace than Iran's nuclear program. A Zogby poll conducted in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates last year revealed that only 12 percent of their aggregate populations view the U.S. favorably. More disturbingly, polling data from several sources is also indicating that many foreigners are beginning to regard the American people, not just U.S. foreign policy, as a part of the problem.
And it's not only foreigners who perceive the Bush foreign policy in negative terms. A poll conducted last month by Foreign Policy magazine queried 100 American experts on terrorism and international relations. Two thirds of those polled said that the existence of a "central front in the war on terrorism" located in Iraq is largely a fiction. Three quarters asserted that the U.S. is losing the international struggle against terrorism and that American policy is making the world a more dangerous place. When asked to pick the world's most threatening government, 9 percent selected the United States, including 14 percent of respondents who described themselves as "conservatives."
Those Americans who have watched with concern as the world's view of the United States deteriorated dramatically over the past six years are becoming increasingly convinced that the damage might be irreversible. A toxic brew of provincialism, jingoism, and sheer ignorance has come together to shape the Bush White House's outlook on the world, a view that is unfortunately shared by many in Congress. There is a major disconnect in terms of Washington's purely Manichean view of other countries and how the world looks at the U.S. in return. The "with us or against us" divide has poisoned the waters and has rendered compromise on many hitherto tractable issues nearly impossible. The United States is increasingly seen as an unprincipled schoolyard bully driven by narrow self-interest whose unpredictable behavior has long been tolerated but will never be embraced. ...
The numbers are not good. By every conceivable measure, the United States, which only six years ago was positively perceived and admired by many people around the world, is now almost universally disliked and frequently feared. The Pew Global Attitudes Project June 2006 polling reveals that even among America's closest traditional allies in Europe, with the sole exception of Britain, the U.S. is everywhere perceived unfavorably. Only 23 percent of Spaniards viewed the U.S. positively, while in key Muslim ally Turkey only 12 percent did so. In every country polled by Pew save only Germany, U.S. involvement in Iraq is seen as a greater threat to world peace than Iran's nuclear program. A Zogby poll conducted in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates last year revealed that only 12 percent of their aggregate populations view the U.S. favorably. More disturbingly, polling data from several sources is also indicating that many foreigners are beginning to regard the American people, not just U.S. foreign policy, as a part of the problem.
And it's not only foreigners who perceive the Bush foreign policy in negative terms. A poll conducted last month by Foreign Policy magazine queried 100 American experts on terrorism and international relations. Two thirds of those polled said that the existence of a "central front in the war on terrorism" located in Iraq is largely a fiction. Three quarters asserted that the U.S. is losing the international struggle against terrorism and that American policy is making the world a more dangerous place. When asked to pick the world's most threatening government, 9 percent selected the United States, including 14 percent of respondents who described themselves as "conservatives."
Those Americans who have watched with concern as the world's view of the United States deteriorated dramatically over the past six years are becoming increasingly convinced that the damage might be irreversible. A toxic brew of provincialism, jingoism, and sheer ignorance has come together to shape the Bush White House's outlook on the world, a view that is unfortunately shared by many in Congress. There is a major disconnect in terms of Washington's purely Manichean view of other countries and how the world looks at the U.S. in return. The "with us or against us" divide has poisoned the waters and has rendered compromise on many hitherto tractable issues nearly impossible. The United States is increasingly seen as an unprincipled schoolyard bully driven by narrow self-interest whose unpredictable behavior has long been tolerated but will never be embraced. ...