America in Iraq had tried a "short burst of violent action" in an attempt to "clear the decks"

Archbishop of Canterbury: US 'is worse than the British Empire at its peak' | Last updated at 19:14pm on 25th November 2007
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In an interview with Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel, reported in The Sunday Times, the head of the Church of England said America's attempts to accumulate influence and control around the world were "not working".

America in Iraq had tried a "short burst of violent action" in an attempt to "clear the decks", he said.

He told Emel magazine: "It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources in to administering it and normalising it.

"Rightly or wrongly, that's what the British Empire did - in India, for example.

"It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together - Iraq, for example." ...

But one thing is certain: the Israel Lobby is far too powerful for America’s good and Israel’s.

November 13, 2007 | The Lobby | By Paul Craig Roberts

Experts in the West and ordinary people in Arab lands have understood for many years that the United States does not have an independent policy toward the Middle East. President Jimmy Carter, a man of good will, tried to use American influence to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the source of dangerous instability in the Middle East. However, Israel was able to block Carter’s attempt, while blaming Yasser Arafat. Carter’s plan would have given rise to a Palestinian state. Israel did not want any such state, because obvious military aggression is necessary in order to steal the territory of an official state with defined borders. It is much easier to steal land from a non-state.

By preventing the rise of a Palestinian state, Israel has been able to continue with its theft of the West Bank. Palestinians who have not been driven out have been forced into ghettos, cut off from schools, hospitals, water, and their olive groves and farmlands. In a recent book, President Carter called the existing situation "apartheid." Carter was demonized by the Israel Lobby for his use of this word, but some experts consider Carter’s choice of words to be an euphemism for the continuation of what I. Pappe and N. G. Finkelstein call "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine."

That the vast majority of Americans know nothing of this is testimony to the power of the Israel Lobby.

A number of writers have exposed Israel’s misbehavior and the power of the Lobby, but until now, the Lobby has been able to marginalize its critics by smearing them as "anti-Semites," "Nazis," and "Jew-haters." In a new book, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt have broken the Israel Lobby’s power
to suppress truth by demonizing and intimidating all who would criticize Israel.
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This is a high price to pay for Israeli territorial expansion even if the U.S.-Israeli policy of war and coercion succeed. If military aggression fails to bring the Middle East under the hegemony of the U.S. and Israel, the dangers to energy flows and Israel’s existence could result in the use of nuclear weapons.

It remains to be seen how much more blood and treasure Zionist fanaticism will extract from Americans. But one thing is certain: the Israel Lobby is far too powerful for America’s good and Israel’s. ..

It is literally insane for the United States to expose the world to such risks for the sake of Israel’s misguided policy toward Palestine.

Other scholars, especially those whose sense of justice is offended by the cruel oppression Palestinians suffer at the hands of Israel, are more critical than Mearsheimer and Walt. The latter do Israel and the Lobby a service by defining the issue as one of U.S. and Israeli legitimate national interests rather than casting it as a case of crimes, inhumanity, and injustice.

Instead of legitimate national interests, James Petras, Bartle Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University in New York, sees "a level of crimes parallel to those of the Nazis in World War II." (The Power of Israel in the United States, 2006). Petras writes that

"the architects of the Iraqi war planned a series of aggressive wars of conquest based on the principle of domination by violence, torture, collective punishment, total war on civilian populations, their homes, hospitals, cultural heritage, churches and mosques, means of livelihood and educational institutions. These are the highest crimes against humanity."

"The worst crimes," Petras writes, "are committed by those who claim to be a divinely chosen people, a people with ‘righteous’ claims of supreme victimhood."
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American patriots who glorify in their country’s status as the "sole superpower" have much to learn about the subservience of their country’s foreign policy to a tiny state of five million people.

There is no better place to begin than with Mearsheimer and Walt’s The Israel Lobby. ..

Palestinians will not accept Israel as 'Jewish state': "no state in the world connects its national identity to a religious identity."

12/11/2007 | Erekat: Palestinians will not accept Israel as 'Jewish state' | By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service

Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization, rejected on Monday the government's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

In an interview with Israel Radio, Erekat said that "no state in the world connects its national identity to a religious identity."
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Olmert told the gathering that immediately at the start of negotiations following the summit, Israel will set a precondition that the Palestinians recognize Israel as "a Jewish state."

"I do not intend to compromise in any way over the issue of the Jewish state," Olmert said, thereby accepting the position of Livni and Barak. "This will be a condition for our recognition of a Palestinian state."
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Government officials did not deny reports in recent days that Israel had surprisingly softened its stance on the core issues - particularly on borders and Jerusalem. ...

Israel, US to set up joint committees on Iran: report

Israel, US to set up joint committees on Iran: report | Friday November 9, 2007

Israel and the United States have agreed to appoint two working committees in order to hone a joint strategy against Iran's nuclear ambitions, public radio reported on Friday.

Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz headed discussions on the matter in the United States this week, it said.

One committee will deal with intelligence on Iran's nuclear drive and the other with international sanctions, the chief weapon in an effort to convince Tehran to halturanium enrichment.

The next formal discussions between Israeli and US officials on Iran will be in two months in Israel, the radio station reported.

On Thursday, Mofaz called for Mohamed ElBaradei to be removed as head of UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying he had turned a blind eye to Iran's nuclear ambitions. ...

Deliberate Hypocrisy

Deliberate Hypocrisy | By Ghali Hassan | Oct 30, 2007, 09:33

While in Moscow in October 2007, U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice still had the time to preach U.S. “democracy” and “human rights”. Meanwhile in Iraq, daily indiscriminate bombing raids by U.S. forces on Iraqi civilians are continuing in flagrant violation of international human rights law. The aim of this deliberate hypocrisy is to manufacture delusions and induce moral bankruptcy among the population, and to justify the use of violence to further U.S.-Western imperialist agenda.

As the U.S. Secretary met with Russian “activists”, U.S. occupying forces in Iraq killed at least 34 innocent Iraqi civilians, including six women and nine children, and injured many more near Lake Tharthar, north of Baghdad. While these crimes are daily occurrence, the war against the Iraqi people has increased significantly. In addition to the rise in troop’s number – 170, 000 U.S. troops supplemented by 180,000 private mercenaries –, the number of bombs dropped on Iraq during the first six months of 2007 over the same period in 2006 has increased by five-fold. More than 30 tons of those have been cluster weapons, which targeted civilians and always resulted in a massacre of innocent civilians each time they are dropped.

As the Occupation continues, the death rate of Iraqis has doubled every year since 2003. The latest survey put the number of death to more than an estimated 1.22 million Iraqis, mostly women and children have been murdered since the 2003 U.S. aggression. The mass murder of Iraqis is not even discussed in public and the UN continues to play the role of an accomplice. ...
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In 2006, the Bush Administration was behind Israel’s invasion of Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah fighters there. In addition to the destruction of Lebanon vital infrastructure, Israeli aggression killed some 1,500 innocent civilians and turned more than half a million into refugees, with tacit U.S.-EU approval. Condoleezza Rice called Israel’s premeditated terror, the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”. And to make the situation worse, the U.S. and its allies not only refused to condemn or stop Israel’s terror against the civilians population, but the U.S. shipped bombs to Israel knowing in advance that the Israeli army was deliberately targeting innocent Lebanese civilians. Now, compare this with U.S. opposition to Turkey’s plan to stop Kurdish terror.

It follows, the term ‘terrorist’ is reserved for those who are rejecting U.S. domination and fighting to free themselves from U.S.-Israel Occupation. As rightly described by the late Pakistani scholar, Eqbal Ahmad, ‘terrorism’ is a floating signifier attached at will to Western enemies to evoke moral revulsion. The vagueness and inconsistency of its definition is key to its political usefulness.
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It is worth noting that three-quarters of Americans are against U.S.-Israel military threat to attack Iran. The same number of Americans favours a diplomatic solution to the (engineered) crisis. The drumbeat for war against Iran is pushed by U.S. Zionists (the so-called ‘Neocons’), the powerful pro-Israel Jewish Lobby, and by the Israeli regime. Just take a look inside one of these pro-war U.S.-based ‘think-tanks’ (institutes), and count those with “dual loyalty” to Israel and (maybe) to the U.S.

The push for war with Iran is part of a fascist anti-Muslims/anti-Arabs propaganda campaign in the U.S. and Europe. There are concerted efforts by inherently racist Zionists, the U.S.-Western media and the entertainment industry to dehumanised and vilified Arabs. Take a look at how the mass killing of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians is justified and applauded by U.S.-Western leaders and sold as part of U.S.-Western “shared values” to spread “democracy” and “human rights”. The campaign is a deliberate effort to spread fear and hatred, and build public support for war on Muslim nations, including Iran. ...

It's Not Only the Israel Lobby | Military industrial complex ... big oil ... Armageddonites ... conservatives ... Neocons ...

October 31, 2007 | It's Not Only the Israel Lobby | Other Interests Benefit from the Chaos | by Jon Basil Utley

The new, public debate about the Israel lobby is missing a major point – the lobby's allies, the many other interests in America that want chaos in the Middle East. For example, in the Walt-Mearsheimer book there is no listing in the index for "military-industrial complex." For all its vaunted power, the Israel lobby could not dominate America's Mideast policies without cover and active support from other powerful groups. Although AIPAC promotes the lobby's image in Congress as being all powerful, it isn't. The book does specify Christian Zionists as an integral part of the lobby, but it neglects many others.

Another important question is how, when polling data shows that most Jews opposed the Iraq war, did the Likud/settler minority faction take over the whole Israel lobby? ...

It was Likudniks headquartered at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington who first undermined the Oslo Peace Accords. They also urged attacking Iraq long before 9/11. Some, such as David Wurmser, even predicted that the attack could result in Iraq being "ripped apart," splintered into warring tribes for years. Polls show that most Israelis also want peace and support a Palestinian state (in fact, they voted out Likud); meanwhile, the Likudniks want America to attack Iran and Syria. They appeal to those who see a greater Israel "from the Nile to the Euphrates."

The Allies

The first major ally is the military-industrial complex, now funded by the new system of hidden congressional earmarks. Arnaud de Borchgrave first wrote about there being 15,000 defense budget earmarks. ....

Among the beneficiaries are the new mercenaries, all the companies subcontracted by the Department of Defense to provide everything from kitchen services to bodyguards and intelligence. All of these are very well paid and now have an interest in promoting unending wars. ...

The complex has seen military spending triple since 9/11. The collapse of communism had threatened them. As they faced lower budgets, they offered a plan to keep military budgets high. The bin Laden attack suited them perfectly. ...

Next come the religious fundamentalists' dominant minority of Armageddonites, those who see Israel's expansion as expediting the return of Christ. They see Bush as God's agent. They saw, in the words of Tom DeLay, that the war in Iraq was a prelude to the chaos necessary to bring about the "end times."

Then there's Big Oil. ... Kevin Phillips argues in his book American Theocracy that Big Oil supported the Iraq war. It feared that Washington had made American interests so unwelcome in much of the Muslim world that future concessions and contracts would be going to Chinese, French, Italian, Indian, and Russian companies. ...

Then come many leading American conservatives. Mostly ignorant of the outside world and still fighting the Cold War against the United Nations, they see the world as allied against America. They strongly sympathized with Bush's go-it-alone agenda. ...

During the first Iraq war in 1991, when I was a co-founder of the Committee to Avert a Mideast Holocaust, I saw how many conservatives still resented losing the Vietnam War and wanted to prove to recalcitrant Third Worlders that we could "win" such wars. Others are anti-Semitic and use support for Israel as a cover. Others admire Israel for doing what America could not: smash its enemies without caring about winning hearts and minds. Fox News' TV generals today often express such sentiments for unleashing "total war" (a euphemism for killing more civilians) as the way to win in Iraq. ...

Finally there are the neoconservatives, the brains of the War Party, the influential think-tankers and lifetime Washington policy wonks. Though many are Jewish, their support for belligerence is motivated mainly by the desire of some intellectuals for excitement, relevance, and power. It's a common trait of those who have never been out in the real world, especially business or the military. Remember that before 9/11 they were demanding a confrontation with Russia and then war with China over the U.S. spy plane incident. For them, any war would do; it did not have to be against Iraq. In fact, their founder, Irving Kristol, wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 1996 that America needed a real enemy, one "worthy of our mettle." Long before 9/11 others (John Bolton, for example) were urging the U.S. to abandon treaties and, indeed, ignore international law because it would constrain the imperialist policies they promoted.

In conclusion, this alliance of interests should be better understood. Aside from more wars, the risk, as Kevin Phillips has said, is that unending war with the Muslim world may do to America what the World War I did to England: weaken us irreparably.

Israel replied with a month of massive air attacks all across Lebanon ... What’s that? Washington is asking Turkey to show restraint...not attack Iraq

Hezbollah, PKK and American Hypocrisy | By Gwynne Dyer

10/31/07 "Arab News" -- - Fifteen months ago, the armed wing of Lebanon’s Hezbollah party, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and most other Western countries, attacked Israel’s northern border, capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing eight more. Israel replied with a month of massive air attacks all across Lebanon that destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, leveled a good deal of south Beirut, and killed around a thousand Lebanese civilians.

Washington, London, Ottawa and some other Western capitals insisted that this was a reasonable and proportionate response, and shielded Israel from intense diplomatic pressure to stop the attacks even when Israel launched a land invasion of southern Lebanon in early August, 2006. The operation only ended when Israeli casualties on the ground mounted rapidly and the Israeli government pulled its troops back.

So what would be a reasonable and proportionate Turkish response to the recent attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and most other Western countries, from northern Iraq into southeastern Turkey? More than forty Turkish civilians and soldiers have been killed in these attacks over the past two weeks, and a further eight Turkish soldiers were captured.

Well, it would be unreasonable for Turkey to bomb Iraq, where the PKK’s bases are, for any more than one month. It would be quite disproportionate for the Turkish Air Force to level more than a small part of Baghdad — say, 15,000 homes. Ideally, it should leave Baghdad alone and restrict itself to destroying some Kurdish-populated city in northern Iraq near Turkey’s own border. Moreover, when the Turks do invade Iraq on the ground, they should restrict themselves to the northern border strip where the PKK’s bases are.

What’s that? Washington is asking Turkey to show restraint and not attack Iraq at all? Even after the Kurdish terrorists killed or kidnapped all those Turkish people? Could it be that Turkish lives are worth less than Israeli lives? ...
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And here’s something even more peculiar. Iran, like Turkey, is already shelling Kurdish villages on the Iraqi side of the frontier that it suspects of sheltering or supplying the PKK/PJAK. How come President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney simply ignore these actions, when they have been working hard for the past year to build a case for attacking Iran? As Pat Buchanan noted on MSNBC’s “Hardball” last week: “Cheney and Bush are laying down markers for themselves which they’re going to have to meet. I don’t see how.” ...

US sees sharp fall in visitors: costing $94B, 200,000 jobs .... "it is the perception around the world that travelers aren't welcome,"

'Unwelcoming' US sees sharp fall in visitors | November 2, 2007

The number of foreign visitors to the United States has plummeted since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington because foreigners don't feel welcome, tourism professionals said Thursday.

"Since September 11, 2001, the United States has experienced a 17 per cent decline in overseas travel, costing America 94 billion dollars in lost visitor spending, nearly 200,000 jobs and 16 billion dollars in lost tax revenue," the Discover America advocacy campaign said in a statement.

Chairman Stevan Porter lamented the "extraordinary decline" in the number of overseas visitors to the United States, while the advocacy group's executive director, Geoff Freeman, blamed the slump on the shabby welcome many foreigners feel they get in the United States.

"It's clear what's keeping people away in the post-9/11 environment: it is the perception around the world that travelers aren't welcome," Freeman said. ...
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Last year, only 56 percent of Britons had a positive opinion of the United States compared with 83 percent in 2000, the Pew Global Attitudes report for 2006 shows.

Thirty-nine percent of French people saw the United States in a positive light last year, compared with 62 percent in 2000.

In Turkey 12 percent had good things to say about the United States last year - 40 percentage points down on 2000.

"The United States has to do what every other nation in the world does, and that is to promote itself to visitors," Freeman said.

"If you look at visitor numbers from the UK before 9/11, we had 4.8 million visitors. Last year, the number was 4.1 million.

"Looking to 2010, the Department of Commerce is projecting an increase in those numbers, but only of one percent over the course of 10 years.

"If I ran a business that had one percent growth in 10 years, I'd be fired," Freeman said.

Arabs cold shouldered by US candidates

Arabs cold shouldered by US candidates

While senior US government officials stream annually to AIPAC conference, they don't rush to the Arab-American leadership parley
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"None of the American leading presidential candidates whether Democrats or Republicans, showed up at the Arab American Institute national conference held this week in Detroit.

Some 600 Arab American leaders participated in the parley, considered to be the Arab equivalent of the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

While senior American government officials traditionally show up at the AIPAC meetings, as do half of the senators, the absence of the presidential front-runners from the Arab-American event was evident. Except for a marginal candidate named Ron Paul, all of the Republican candidates were absent, and didn't even bother sending a representative in their name.

Since the start of the Iraq war and the strong support from the Bush administration for Israel, most of the Arab American public has been disappointed by the Republicans and is expected this time to support the Democratic party. But only two relatively unknown Democrat candidates showed up at the conference – New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson and Congressman Dennis Kucinich, considered to be a clearly liberal candidate." ...

U.S. Plan Envisioned Nuking Iran, Syria, Libya ... planning to attack non-nuclear states ... reversed decades of U.S. nuclear policy

U.S. Plan Envisioned Nuking Iran, Syria, Libya | By Spencer Ackerman - November 5, 2007, 1:00PM

Despite years of denials, a secret planning document issued by the U.S. military's nuclear-weapons command in 2003 ordered preparations for nuclear strikes on countries seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including Iran, Saddam Hussein-era Iraq, Libya and Syria.

A briefing (pdf) on the document obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, showed that the document itself was created to flesh out a 2001 Bush administration revision of long-standing nuclear-weapons policy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review. That review was a Defense Department-led attempt to wean nuclear policy off a Cold-War focus on Russia and China, but the shift raised questions about what purpose nuclear forces would serve apart from deterring an attack. In March 2002, leaks indicated that the review would recommend preparations for nuclear attacks against WMD-aspirant states. Arms Control Today pointed out at the time that planning to attack non-nuclear states that were signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty reversed decades of U.S. nuclear policy. ...