The kosherest nosh ever

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economist.com


America’s mighty pro-Israel lobby may be less durable than it looks


BARACK OBAMA was visiting London at the time. Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, was in a Texas hospital with heart trouble. These gentlemen should count themselves lucky they were not there to hear Binyamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu speak to the American Congress on the morning of May 24th. Watching might not have helped their blood pressure. Days after his quarrel over the 1967 borders with Mr Obama, Israel’s prime minister turned in a bravura performance in the absent president’s backyard, earning a score of standing ovations and making it clear that although presidents come and go, Israel enjoys the support of Republicans and Democrats alike on Capitol Hill.

What explains this enduring support? The “lobby”, for a start. This week, as more than 10,000 supporters flooded Washington for the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the lobby strutted its stuff. Mr Obama spoke on the first day of the meeting, before flying off to Europe. On the second day, 67 senators and 286 members of the House joined the 10,000 at the gala dinner—perhaps the biggest kosher nosh in history. On the third, after Mr Netanyahu’s triumph on the House floor, delegates ascended the Hill to conduct more than 500 separate lobbying meetings. Behold, the congressman that keepeth an eye on his Jewish vote shall neither slumber nor sleep.

That Jews count in American politics is not in doubt. They are conscientious voters and a formidable source of campaign financing. Hence the relish with which Republicans pounced on evidence of a rift between Mr Obama and Israel over the 1967 borders. Although the disagreement (insofar as it was not synthetic) was about emphasis rather than substance, Eric Cantor, the (Jewish) leader of the Republican majority in the House, was “very concerned”. Mitt Romney, supposedly leading the race to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, proclaimed that Mr Obama had “thrown Israel under the bus”.

So much for politics stopping at the water’s edge. The Republicans would dearly love to turn American policy on Israel into a wedge issue for 2012. But this may well be impossible. For a start, Mr Obama, who at AIPAC promised his “ironclad” support for Israel’s security, has already put America’s money where his mouth is. He has provided what Israel admits to have been unprecedented co-operation on defence, and clamped harsh sanctions on Iran. And even if he could somehow be portrayed as wildly hostile to Israel, the Democrats on the Hill cannot be. Smelling danger, many joined the Republican scolding of the president. Harry Reid, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, did not explicitly repudiate Mr Obama’s reference to the 1967 borders, but made his displeasure plain. “A fair beginning to good-faith talks means that Israel cannot be asked to agree to confines that would compromise its own security,” he said.

More to the point, most Jews vote Democratic, and will probably continue to do so no matter what they think of the president’s attitude towards Israel. In this week’s Economist/YouGov poll, 33% of Americans thought that Mr Obama sympathised more with the Palestinians and only 11% that he sympathised more with the Israelis. Frank Luntz, another pollster, says that most American Jews oppose Mr Obama’s positions on Israel. Nonetheless, he predicts that an overwhelming majority of Jews will vote to re-elect the president in 2012. The explanation for this apparent paradox is simple. Most American Jews support Israel, but most do not care about it enough for it to affect the way they vote. Like other Americans, they are likelier to be influenced by past voting habits—and how they think the economy is faring.

In 2008, 78% of American Jews voted for Mr Obama, mostly because he was the Democrat. That proportion, cautions Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution, “is not Planck’s Constant”. Republicans are tantalised by Florida, a swing state with many older Jewish voters. Yet even there it is hard to see Israel as a decisive issue. Jews may not like Mr Obama’s stance on Israel, but Mr Luntz says that they are also unhappy about the influence of the tea-party movement on Republicans. Sam Abrams, a political scientist at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, cannot see any Republican being capable both of winning the nomination of the party in its current mood and appealing to Jewish voters.

Marrying out, and losing interest

Such trends are reassuring for Democrats. Perhaps surprisingly, it is AIPAC that has less reason to feel assured. This is because the attachment that American Jews feel to Israel is not only too weak, in most cases, to sway their vote. It may also be waning. Steven Cohen of the Hebrew Union College in New York is one of several scholars to say that apart from the Orthodox minority, younger Jews in America show less attachment to Israel than their elders.

Why this is happening is fiercely debated. One theory blames intermarriage; another that the young are alienated by Israel’s policies. Peter Beinart, the author in 2010 of a scathing critique of the Jewish establishment in the New York Review of Books, says that by drifting right and defending whatever Israel does, AIPAC and other leading Jewish organisations have become “intellectual bodyguards for Israeli leaders who threaten the very liberal values they profess to admire.” He says that a Zionism that emphasises Jewish victimhood and allows no empathy for the Palestinians is losing its resonance with younger Jews.

For the present, of course, AIPAC remains highly effective. It still towers over J Street, its doveish rival. Also secure for now is Israel’s standing in the United States. It is, after all, not only Jews who favour Israel over the Palestinians: just ask the evangelicals. As Mr Netanyahu told Congress, a close affinity binds the two nations. But if young American Jews really do turn away from Zionism, or are turned off by it, everything could one day change.

How Bibi tried to murder Hamas chief and got caught!

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Wayback Machine


The botched Mossad attempt to assassinate a Hamas leader is one of the biggest pratfalls in Israel's history


BY JONATHAN BRODER


it is being called the worst fiasco in the history of Israel's once-vaunted intelligence service, the Mossad. It raises, once again, serious questions about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's mental fitness. It provoked unprecedented expressions of disgust from the Clinton administration -- "we loathe him," one White House official remarked -- and left experienced observers to wonder what other disastrous pratfalls the Israeli leader has in store for the dying Middle East peace process.

The fiasco, which ranks right up there with the CIA's anti-Castro exploding cigars, involves a botched attempt by Mossad agents last month to assassinate Khaled Mashaal, a political leader of Hamas in Amman, Jordan. Jordan, you may remember, is one of the only Arab countries that has signed a peace treaty with Israel, and King Hussein, despite increasingly pro-Islamic sentiment in the desert kingdom, has served as Israel's most consistent apologist and defender in the Arab world.

In return for such largess, Prime Minister Netanyahu last month personally ordered the hit on Jordanian soil -- just one month before scheduled parliamentary elections there -- in retaliation for recent Hamas bombings in Jerusalem. Calling the attempt a "reckless betrayal" of the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, King Hussein demanded -- and got -- the release of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas' spiritual leader, who was serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail. Ten thousand "delirious" supporters turned out to greet Yassin Monday in the Gaza Strip. Hamas now appears even stronger than ever, while Netanyahu, in the words of the Associated Press, was left "struggling to explain why he struck a deal with the sponsors of bombings against Israeli civilians."

"I'd be laughing my ass off if this was happening in somebody else's country," Israeli columnist Zeev Chafets said. "Let's not forget that Netanyahu, the putz who ordered up this farce, is the same guy who controls Israel's nuclear arsenal. Watching him screw up used to be entertaining. Now it's scary."

Strategically, the botched assassination already has caused severe damage to Israel's relations with Jordan. Zeev Schiff, military editor for the Haaretz newspaper, said Netanyahu's choice of Amman as the locale for the assassination attempt was "akin to carrying out an operation of this kind in Washington or some other friendly capital."

Worse, the affair comes at a time when Netanyahu has been urging PLO leader Yasser Arafat to crack down on Hamas. As a result of the fiasco, Arafat already has halted his crackdown while receiving Yassin as a hero. With the expected release of more Hamas prisoners in exchange for the two captured Mossad agents, Israel's security problems can be expected to grow.

The details of the assassination attempt itself, pieced together from reports in the Israeli and Jordanian press and Salon interviews with U.S., Jordanian and Israeli officials, read like a Woody Allen parody of a cheap spy thriller.

The day two Hamas suicide bombers struck at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem on July 30, killing 16 Israelis, the Israeli cabinet met and voted to hunt down Hamas leaders wherever they could be found. According to Israeli officials, the broadly worded decision authorized the Mossad to begin drawing a number of plans to eliminate Hamas officials in a number of Arab capitals.

Sometime in late August, Mossad chief Dani Yatom presented Netanyahu with several assassination blueprints, including plans to liquidate Hamas officials in Damascus and Amman, the officials said. According to Israeli press reports, Netanyahu, who has publicly pointed the finger of responsibility at Damascus-based Hamas leaders for previous bombings, ruled out proposals for operations in the Syrian capital because they were too risky. But he did give the green light to hit Mashaal, described by Israeli and American experts as a relatively moderate Hamas political operative.

The method chosen to kill Mashaal was a lethal nerve toxin to be delivered through his skin. Late in September, two Israeli agents checked into the Intercontinental Hotel in Amman with Canadian passports that identified them as Shawn Kendall, 28, and Barry Beads, 36. On Sept. 25, the pair trailed Mashaal to his office, and as the Hamas official walked into the building, one of the agents came up behind him and held a device to Mashaal's left ear that stung him with the poison. The two agents then fled on foot.

Mashaal's bodyguard, an expert in martial arts, ran after them, but the Israelis jumped into a waiting vehicle and drove off. The bodyguard then flagged down a private car and gave chase as the two cars careened around corners at high speed. Suddenly, the first car stopped and the two Israelis jumped out, fleeing again on foot. Mashaal's bodyguard sprang from his own car and caught one of the Israelis by the back of his shirt.

Western and Jordanian press reports, quoting eyewitnesses, say the Israeli turned around and hit the bodyguard in the head with a blunt object, opening a wound that later required 18 stitches. Despite the blow, the bodyguard knocked out the Israeli with a single punch, pounced on the second Israeli, knocked him senseless and threw him down on an embankment. By this time, Jordanian security officers arrived and hauled the battered Israelis to a nearby police station.

Meanwhile, Mashaal began to feel the effect of the nerve toxin. Experiencing difficulty breathing and uncontrollable vomiting, he was rushed to hospital. By the next morning, Jordanian press reports said, Mashaal was unconscious, breathing through a respirator and running a temperature of 102 that did not respond to any treatment.

By this time, according to Jordanian officials, the two assailants had admitted under interrogation -- and had confessed on videotape -- that they worked for the Mossad. Canadian intelligence officials had examined their passports and determined they were forged.

Enter King Hussein. According to a the semi-official Jordanian Al-Rai newspaper, the monarch called Netanyahu demanding to obtain the antidote to the poison. Hussein warned Netanyahu that if Mashaal died, the two captured Israeli agents would be tried in public and hanged, and that Jordan would sever diplomatic relations with Israel. Netanyahu reportedly refused. The king then called President Clinton in Washington, urging him to pressure Netanyahu for the antidote. After a call from Clinton, Netanyahu finally relented, and a Mossad official administered the antidote, saving Mashaal's life. After the call, Clinton reportedly remarked bout Netanyahu: "I can't stand that man. He's impossible." Another senior White House official confirmed the remark, adding: "We loathe him."

The next day, Netanyahu, accompanied by several government ministers and security officials, secretly flew to Amman to demand the release of their captured agents. The normally gracious king refused to see them. But Hussein instructed his brother, Crown Prince Hassan, to tell the Israelis that the price of the agents' freedom would be high. In order to soothe the Islamic opposition in Jordan in advance of November's parliamentary election, Hassan said, the Israelis would have to release Sheikh Yassin. He also indicated the Israelis probably would have to release more Hamas prisoners before the agents could be returned.

Hassan then flew to Washington, where he showed President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reams of evidence against the Israeli agents, including the damning videotape. He also appealed to the president to take a firmer hand in preventing the disintegration of the peace process and told the Washington Post that he still feels "waves of nausea" when he thinks of Netanyahu's actions and their consequences for Middle East peace.

"I cannot understand how the Israeli prime minister thinks, and this causes me great worry," King Hussein told the London-based Al-Hayat

Predictably, the Labor Party opposition is screaming for Netanyahu's resignation, and a number of conservative columnists and retired generals have joined the chorus. A public opinion poll published Monday shows Netanyahu with a 32 percent approval rating among Israeli Jews, his lowest rating since he took office in June 1996.

But as in previous crises, Netanyahu is protected by his right-wing coalition, which commands a 68-seat majority in the 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu's opponents would need the support of 61 parliamentary deputies to topple his government in a vote of no-confidence and 81 votes to remove him personally.

"There's going to be a lot of screaming, but I can't see Netanyahu falling on his sword," Chafets said. "Sadly, I fear the only way he's going is resting on his sword, like a kabob."

SALON | Oct. 7, 1997
Jonathan Broder is Salon's regular correspondent.

Spook, Terrorist or Criminal? America’s Mysterious Files on Netanyahu

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From the Washington Report Archives

by Neve Gordon

Congress received him with great fanfare. President Clinton, who during the recent election campaign had backed his rival, Shimon Peres, appears to have had a change of heart. Yet who is Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and why did the political elite in the U.S. accept him with such warmth? A few important facts about Netanyahu and his objectives—which the U.S. media have obstinately neglected to report help to clarify the enigma.

Netanyahu has lived both in Israel and the U.S.: first grade in Israel; second and third in the U.S.; fourth through eighth in Jerusalem; high school in suburban Philadelphia; military service in Israel; B.A. and M.A. at MIT. He held dual citizenship, which enabled him to travel freely between both countries, study in the U.S., receive federal loans to cover his education costs at MIT and work legally. Like every U.S. citizen, Netanyahu has a social security number, a credit account, and numerous other files in a variety of government offices.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s files differ from those of most U.S. citizens. The Israeli weekly Ha’irreports that four requests for credit approval appear in U.S. social security file number 020-36-4537. Under each request one finds a different name: Benjamin Netanyahu, Benjamin Nitai, John Jay Sullivan and John Jay Sullivan Jr.—one man, four names.

Binyamin Netanyahu is the name Israel’s current prime minister was given at birth and which he now uses. In June 1973, during his studies at MIT, Netanyahu submitted a petition to the Boston court, asking to change his name from Netanyahu to Nitai; “I prefer a shorter name,” he wrote on the request form. The petition was approved, thus the second name has an explanation. The last two names, however, remain a mystery. Furthermore, the address attached to these names—somewhere in Malibu, California—does not exist. Who, then, is John Jay Sullivan?

Biranit Goren and Einat Berkovitch from Ha’ir tried to find out. They looked into Netanyahu’s credit account. This file is supposed to hold information regarding bank accounts, loans, credit cards and so forth; yet, surprisingly, the file was empty. It is as if Netanyahu never had a debt, had never taken out a loan, and always paid his bills up front and in cash.

Goren and Berkovitch then attempted to examine Netanyahu’s social security file, but were denied access. They did, however, find out that Netanyahu’s file has a different classification than most. They were denied access not merely due to the 1974 privacy act, but because the file had a “confidential” classification. Goren and Berkovitch have explained that such a classification only applies to five categories of people: those who work for one of three federal agencies—FBI, CIA, IRS—or those who are considered to be terrorists or criminals. Since it is unlikely that Netanyahu fits the latter two categories, or that he worked for the IRS, it appears that he was on the payroll of a security agency—the CIA or FBI.

Dual Citizenship

According to Israeli law, a person who runs for the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) cannot hold dual citizenship. Netanyahu claims that in 1982 he gave up his U.S. citizenship, yet he is unwilling to grant the press access to his file located in the U.S. Embassy in Tel-Aviv—the file which holds information regarding his citizenship. Interestingly, the status of his files in the U.S. has not changed, so according to U.S. law Netanyahu remains a U.S. citizen.

Netanyahu—the person who in 1982 left his job as a furniture salesman to be a policy adviser at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, and within 14 years became prime minister—is still in many ways a conundrum. By contrast, his political objectives are becoming clearer.

An Israeli proverb asserts that the intention of a person can be understood by examining the goals of his friends. And indeed, in order to gain insight into Netanyahu’s political objectives it is well worth looking at his acquaintances and financial supporters. Goren and Berkovitch report that Haagen-Daz founder Reuben Matheus, who contributed (until his death sometime last year) millions of dollars to Rabbi Meir Kahane’s fascist political party and to the Jewish settlement in Hebron, also contributed to Netanyahu. Marvin Josephine, the head of ICM, one of the biggest publishing companies in the U.S., is considered a major contributor to the Likud, and more specifically to Netanyahu. Another donor is Barry Slotnik, an attorney who has among his clients the Italian and Russian Mafias. (Slotnik was also a friend of Kahane, acclaiming him one of the biggest heroes in Jewish history.) Ted Arison, who owns cruise lines in the U.S., is considered not only a friend, but a confidant. His Calridge-Arison group is interested in purchasing “Bank Hapoalim,” the second largest in Israel.

Contributors and political allies from Australia—Joseph Brender, Bernard Moss, Mark Bissan and Jack Mendel—wish to invest in Israeli real estate and the textile industry. Mendel, one should note, lets Netanyahu use his luxury condo in Tel-Aviv. Sandy Eisenshtat, who allows Netanyahu to use his Jerusalem condo, owns an Israeli oil and gas company. In London, Netanyahu often stays with Rupert Murdoch.

Finally, Netanyahu has an ally in Ronald Lauder of the Este Lauder cosmetic dynasty who ran for mayor against Rudolph Giuliani. During his unsuccessful election campaign, Lauder called Giuliani an impostor who was not conservative enough to be a member of the Republican Party. Lauder is founder, major contributor, and chairman of Shalem Institute, a right-wing think tank located in Jerusalem. Dr. Hazoni, the Institute’s director, told Hanna Kim of the Israeli dailyHa’aretz that the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC and the Center for Social Policy Studies in London are his models. Like Heritage, which is thought to have developed Reaganomics, and the Center for Social Policy, which designed what is now called Thatcherism, it seems that Shalem Institute will introduce what in years to come will be known as Netanyism.

One of Netanyahu’s goals is to introduce an aggressive policy of privatization.

Following Thatcher, one of Netanyahu’s goals is to introduce an aggressive policy of privatization. According to Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shifer from Israel’s mass-circulationYediot Ahronot, a bill proposing to establish a government institution for privatization was presented for review in the Ministry of Justice less than two weeks after the elections. This bill would create a loophole allowing Netanyahu to sell government firms regardless of limitations specified in existing laws. Any government agency that is opposed to an act of privatization must send a written statement to a ministerial committee explaining its opposition. The statement must reach the committee within 30 days—otherwise it is automatically rejected. Netanyahu will chair the ministerial committee for privatization, while the ministers of justice and finance will be its only other two members.

Most important, if the bill passes, the committee will be exempt from a number of existing laws. For example, the committee will not be obliged to call for bids before selling government firms. Furthermore, according to the coalition agreements between Netanyahu and the different parties which are now members of government, the ministerial committee “will by law have the authority to determine on matters of privatization without the need to receive the approval of any other body.” Thus, for example, Netanyahu will be able to sell Bezek, Israel’s national telecommunication company, to his friend Lauder, who has had his eye on this company for some time.

Netanyahu’s real religion is privatization, Barneah and Shifer claim. In a recent interview, Netanyahu told them that he took upon himself many responsibilities “not in order to concentrate power but to liberate it.” He intends to sell Israel’s land, firms and communications to investors from around the world. It is not surprising that international corporations like him, which may well explain why the political elite in the U.S. was so enthusiastic about him.

Friends and Clients

Netanyahu’s friends are potential clients, but like most buyers they would prefer to purchase Israel under slightly better conditions. Israel’s annual inflation is approximately 13 percent, a figure which is still considered high for investment. Luckily, the unemployment rate has gone down considerably under four years of Labor government, from 11.5 percent in 1992 to 6 percent in 1996, thus enabling Netanyahu to utilize the known method of lowering inflation by raising unemployment.

As the director of Shalem Institute indicated, the U.S. and British economic programs of the 1980s are the two models Netanyahu intends to follow. In 1980, annual inflation in the U.S. was 13.5 percent and in Britain 18 percent, while unemployment was 7 percent and 5 percent respectively. In 1983, annual inflation went down to 3 percent in the U.S. and 4.5 percent in Britain, while unemployment rose to 10 percent in the U.S. and reached 11 percent in Britain. Imitating these economic policies goes hand in hand with cutting back the last remnants of Israel’s so-called welfare state.

According to Gideon Eshet from Yediot Ahronot, Finance Minister Dan Meridor was asked by Netanyahu to submit the government budget a week after he entered office. It seems that due to “Operation Grapes of Wrath” in Lebanon and a few other unexpected expenses, Israel’s deficit had risen from the anticipated $2.4 billion to slightly over $3 billion. The following are a few of the steps Meridor offered to take in order to lower the deficit: 1) Downsize the public sector by 10,000 jobs. 2) Freeze the Ministry of Education’s budget. The direct impact of this step is that there will be more students in every classroom. 3) Reduce the health benefits provided by the national health program, while simultaneously increasing the cost of the program. On top of that, the Finance Ministry wants to raise the price of medicine and add individual participation in hospitalization costs and doctor appointments. 4) Raise women’s retirement age from 60 to 65, while simultaneously reducing the pension people receive from social security. 5) Lower the subsidy for public transportation.

It is clear which sector—the poor—will pay for Israel’s deficit, and it is also evident how Netanyahu intends to lower inflation. This is not to say that everything Netanyahu wants, Netanyahu will get, since the opposition in Israel is still strong. It does indicate, however, that Netanyahu is not only a right-wing politician in the Israeli context—opposing peace with Israel’s neighbors—he is also right-wing in an economic and neo-conservative sense. Like a small child who sneaks into his parents closet, dons a pair of daddy’s shoes and begins walking around the house, Israel’s recently elected Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is attempting to mimic his U.S. and British progenitors—Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

***

Benjamin Netanyahu, Benjamin Nitai, John Jay Sullivan and John Jay Sullivan Jr. is the greatest terrorist of the 21st century. People who believe Boogieman Bin Laden was a great terrorist must urgently get a brain swap:

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Bibi and the Yo-Yos

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by Uri Avnery


IT WAS all rather disgusting.

There they were, the members of the highest legislative bodies of the world’s only superpower, flying up and down like so many yo-yos, applauding wildly, every few minutes or seconds, the most outrageous lies and distortions of Binyamin Netanyahu.

It was worse than the Syrian parliament during a speech by Bashar Assad, where anyone not applauding could find himself in prison. Or Stalin’s Supreme Soviet, when showing less than sufficient respect could have meant death.

What the American Senators and Congressmen feared was a fate worse than death. Anyone remaining seated or not applauding wildly enough could have been caught on camera – and that amounts to political suicide. It was enough for one single congressman to rise and applaud, and all the others had to follow suit. Who would dare not to?

The sight of these hundreds of parliamentarians jumping up and clapping their hands, again and again and again and again, with the Leader graciously acknowledging with a movement of his hand, was reminiscent of other regimes. Only this time it was not the local dictator who compelled this adulation, but a foreign one.

The most depressing part of it was that there was not a single lawmaker – Republican or Democrat – who dared to resist. When I was a 9 year old boy in Germany, I dared to leave my right arm hanging by my side when all my schoolmates raised theirs in the Nazi salute and sang Hitler’s anthem. Is there no one in Washington DC who has that simple courage? Is it really Washington IOT – Israel Occupied Territory – as the anti-Semites assert?

Many years ago I visited the Senate hall and was introduced to the leading Senators of the time. I was profoundly shocked. After being brought up in deep respect for the Senate of the United States, the country of Jefferson and Lincoln, I was faced with a bunch of pompous asses, many of them nincompoops who had not the slightest idea what they were talking about. I was told that it was their assistants who really understood matters.

SO WHAT did the great man say to this august body?

It was a finely crafted speech, using all the standard tricks of the trade – the dramatic pause, the raised finger, the little witticisms, the sentences repeated for effect. Not a great orator, by any means, no Winston Churchill, but good enough for this audience and this occasion.

But the message could be summed up in one word: No.

After their disastrous debacle in 1967, the leaders of the Arab world met in Khartoum and adopted the famous Three No’s: NO recognition of Israel, No negotiation with Israel, NO peace with Israel. It was just what the Israeli leadership wanted. They could go happily about their business of entrenching the occupation and building settlements.

Now Netanyahu is having his Khartoum. NO return to the 1967 borders. NO Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. NO to even a symbolic return of some refugees. NO military withdrawal from the Jordan River - meaning that the future Palestinian state would be completely surrounded by the Israeli armed forces. NO negotiation with a Palestinian government “supported” by Hamas, even if there are no Hamas members in the government itself. And so on – NO. NO. NO.

The aim is clearly to make sure that no Palestinian leader could even dream of entering negotiations, even in the unlikely event that he were ready to meet yet another condition: to recognize Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people” – which includes the dozens of Jewish Senators and Congressmen who were the first to jump up and down, up and down, like so many marionettes.

Netanyahu, along with his associates and political bedfellows, is determined to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state by all and any means. That did not start with the present government – it is an aim deeply embedded in Zionist ideology and practice. The founders of the movement set the course, David Ben-Gurion acted to implement it in 1948, in collusion with King Abdallah of Jordan. Netanyahu is just adding his bit.

“No Palestinian state” means: no peace, not now, not ever. Everything else is, as the Americans say, baloney. All the pious phrases about happiness for our children, prosperity for the Palestinians, peace with the entire Arab world, a bright future for all, are just that – pure baloney. At least some in the audience must have noticed that, even with all that jumping.

NETANYAHU SPAT in Obama's eye. The Republicans in the audience must have enjoyed that. Perhaps some Democrats too.

It can be assumed that Obama did not. So what will he do now?

There is a Jewish joke about a hungry pauper who entered an inn and demanded food. Otherwise, he threatened, he would do what his father did. The frightened innkeeper fed him, and in the end asked timidly: “But what did your father do?” Swallowing the last morsel, the man answered: “He went to sleep hungry.”

There is a good chance that Obama will do the same. He will pretend that the spittle on his cheek is rainwater. His promise to prevent a UN General Assembly recognition of the State of Palestine deprived him of his main leverage over Netanyahu.

Somebody in Washington seems to be floating the idea of Obama coming to Jerusalem and addressing the Knesset. It would be direct retaliation – Obama talking with the Israeli public over the head of the Prime Minister, as Netanyahu has just addressed the American public over the head of the President.

It would be an exciting event. As a former Member of the Knesset, I would be invited. But I would not advise it. I proposed it a year ago. Today I would not.

The obvious precedent is Anwar Sadat’s historic speech in the Knesset. But there is really no comparison. Egypt and Israel were still officially at war. Going to the capital of the enemy was without precedent, the more so only four years after a bloody battle. It was an act that shook Israel, eliminating in one stroke a whole set of mental patterns and opening the mind for new ones. Not one of us will ever forget the moment when the door of the airplane swung open and there he was, handsome and serene, the leader of the enemy.

Later, when I interviewed Sadat at his home, I told him: “I live on the main street of Tel Aviv. When you came out of that plane, I looked out of the window. Nothing moved in the street, except one cat – and it was probably looking for a television set.”

A visit by Obama will be quite different. He will, of course, be received politely – without the obsessive jumping and clapping – though probably heckled by Knesset Members of the extreme Right. But that will be all.

Sadat’s visit was a deed in itself. Not so a visit by Obama. He will not shake Israeli public opinion, unless he comes with a concrete plan of action – a detailed peace plan, with a detailed timetable, backed by a clear determination to see it through, whatever the political cost.

Another nice speech, however beautifully phrased, just will not do. After this week’s deluge of speeches, we have had enough. Speeches can be important if they accompany actions, but they are no substitute for action. Churchill’s speeches helped to shape history – but only because they reflected historic deeds. Without the Battle of Britain, without Normandy, without El Alamein, those speeches would have sounded ridiculous.

Now, with all the roads blocked, there remains only one path remains open: the recognition of the State of Palestine by the United Nations coupled with nonviolent mass action by the Palestinian people against the occupation. The Israeli peace forces will also play their part, because the fate of Israel depends on peace as much as the fate of Palestine.

Sure, the US will try to obstruct, and Congress will jump up and down, But the Israeli-Palestinian spring is on its way.

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Muslim grievances, popular royalty and why I was wrong about 9/11

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By Peter Wilby


Osama Bin Laden was a fool and a failure, and he was lucky that George W Bush, an even bigger fool, made him, for a while, into more than that. Muslims had legitimate grievances. For decades, western countries, led by the US, treated the Muslim world with imperialist contempt, regarding it mainly as a collection of oil wells to be raided at will. Seedy, corrupt dictators were propped up across the Middle East. Muslim dislike of the west's glitzy consumerism and sex-obsessed culture was patronised as medieval backwardness.

Muslims needed a charismatic and visionary leader to give them self-respect and lead a fightback, which was bound to involve violence - as the US and its allies never hesitated to use great violence in their own interests - and some inevitable instances of what Americans call collateral damage. Given his Messiah-like looks, Bin Laden might even have become a third world hero like Nelson Mandela who, we should recall, also led an armed resistance movement and was once denounced as a terrorist.

Bin Laden was too stupid to see the oppor­tunities. He preferred an obscure, mystical, death-obsessed nihilism, which could engage the support of only a tiny minority of Muslims. Al-Qaeda killed Muslims and non-Muslims, rich and poor, black, brown and white, indiscriminately. There was little apparent attempt to select targets of real strategic importance. The twin towers may have been the perfect symbol of American power and arrogance. Westerners intent on violence at least pretend to care about civilian casualties even if, in practice, they often don't.

Many terrorist movements issue warnings of attacks; they are still denounced as bloody murderers but retain at least tacit support from many people on whose behalf they are supposedly fighting, as the Provisional IRA did among Catholics in Northern Ireland. Al-Qaeda appeared deliberately to prioritise collateral damage, allowing western leaders to claim that it would more happily kill 300,000 New Yorkers than 3,000.

It is said that Bin Laden's death will give him the status of martyrdom and inspire Muslims to new heights (or lows) of resistance and revenge. I doubt it. In our parochial, ahistorical way, we talk about how the 11 September 2001 attacks changed the world for ever and suggest that this month's events in Abbottabad mark another watershed.

But Bin Laden will most probably end up as an unpleasant historical curiosity. In a few months, the brave, largely unarmed rebels of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen - who seem barely to have heard of Bin Laden - have inspired more people than he did in a lifetime. I think, and I hope, that they will prove of far greater historical importance.

Second thoughts

A footnote to the above. When I edited the NS issue immediately after 11 September 2001, I misjudged the nature and significance of what had happened, an error that was partially reflected in what became a notorious (though, in some quarters of the world, much-celebrated) leader. I wanted the cover line to say, over an image of the burning twin towers, "The Uprising". Colleagues dissuaded me. Rather belatedly, it occurs to me that I should thank them.

Never mind the ballots

When working people go on strike, they are usually denounced on all sides, by Labour as well as Tory politicians, left-wing newspapers as well as right-wing. Laws are proposed to make it more difficult for them to withdraw their labour. But when capitalists go on strike, it's a different matter. British Gas threatens to shut down its offshore drilling in Morecambe Bay, in protest against the government's decision to impose a windfall tax on the profits, and it gets a sympathetic hearing even from the Guardian. Note that neither British Gas nor the oil companies argue that the tax will wipe out the profits, only that the profits won't be high enough. Words and phrases such as greed, blackmail, holding the country to ransom, punishing innocent children and risking old folks' lives come to mind.

Perhaps our rulers, having made it as hard as possible for unions to organise strikes, could now apply similar principles to big companies and require shareholder ballots before they suspend operations.

The dear hunter

Feminists and Labour MPs - not categories that usually overlap all that much - are accused of being politically correct when they object to David Cameron telling the opposition's Angela Eagle to "calm down, dear". Yet the same people who criticise the left's concern for good manners are sticklers for correct behaviour. Cherie Blair declined to curtsey to the Queen and, according to some commentators, that would explain the lack of a wedding invitation to her and her husband. Would Cameron address the Queen or Lady Thatcher as "dear" and would we ever hear the last of it if he did?

Throne away

As for that wedding, one was unable to ignore it without facing "thought crime" charges of being joyless and unpatriotic. As the Queen now appears more popular than ever and the Duke of Camberwick Green (or whatever he's now called) a less crustily reactionary figure than his father, a bleak future of jubilees, weddings and royal births stretches ahead to the end of time.

Prince Charles was once the great republican hope. But anyone who lives long enough in Britain becomes a "national treasure", even the Duke of Edinburgh. Given his mother's genes for longevity, Charles will certainly have achieved that status when it is time for him to ascend the throne.


Peter Wilby was editor of the New Statesman from 1998-2005

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Conspiracy theories: Is the hidden hand Indian, internal or existential?

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By Saba Imtiaz


The questions and conspiracy theories about the well-executed attack on PNS Mehran have begun to circulate. But a look at existing patterns, threats and warning signs helps connect the dots.


Target



















A plume of smoke rises from the background as a military official uses a phone at the entrance to the Mehran naval aviation base which was attacked by militants on Sunday at 11 pm. Militants attacked the base, killing at least 10 people, officials said, the latest attack on a heavily guarded military installation in Pakistan. PHOTO: REUTERS


While other attacks have targeted military personnel, the PNS Mehran attack is different in that it directly targeted the P-3C Orion aircraft. “The attack has rendered the navy deaf and dumb,” said security analyst Ikram Sehgal. “The P-3C aircraft acts as the navy’s ears and eyes. There are three basic elements — anti-submarine warfare, radar capabilities and electronic intelligence.”

According to the US Navy, “Originally designed as a land-based, long-range, anti-submarine warfare patrol aircraft, the P-3C’s mission has evolved in the late 1990s and early 21st century to include surveillance of the battle space, either at sea or over land.” The aircraft attacked on Sunday were inducted into the navy in June 2010, as part of US military assistance to Pakistan. A press release at the time said that Pakistan Navy will receive eight P-3C aircraft by 2012.

Why the navy?

Pakistan’s armed forces have been under attack by militants for several years now, however the navy has rarely been targeted. In 2008, seven people were killed in a suicide attack at Lahore’s Naval War College. On December 1, 2009, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the naval headquarters in Islamabad.

On April 26, 2011, four people were killed and 26 were injured in twin bomb blasts on naval buses in Karachi. Two days later, six people were killed and seven injured in another attack on a bus carrying naval personnel near the Karsaz base. “These were soft targets,” says Sehgal. “But it should have been questioned as to why technicians, who were going to and from the naval base, were being targeted.”

While Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed responsibility for the attack, Sehgal believes that the beneficiaries of Sunday’s attack are countries that have ‘had designs on Pakistan’, and that this had “India’s Research and Analysis Wing’s signature all over it”. He said it was “far fetched” to believe that the attack could be retribution for the Pakistan Navy’s role in Combined Task Force 151, an international anti-piracy fleet that was commanded by the Pakistan Navy earlier this year.

Internal involvement

The security of Pakistan’s military bases has been in question for several years now. The attack on the military’s general headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 as well as frequent attacks on security check posts, bases and training centres is part of a pattern, both of infiltration of and radicalisation in the security forces, and the lack of adequate security measures.

A precedent for involvement by military personnel exists. Investigation into an assassination attempt on former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf found that the ammunition had been taken from a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) depot. Seven military officials — six of whom were from the air force — were convicted by a military court along with six civilians. According to a Dawn report in 2010, explosives used in the attacks on Karachi’s Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine were ‘sophisticated military explosives’.

A US embassy cable from 2006, which was released this month by WikiLeaks, highlights radicalisation in the air force. The cable quotes then-Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Operations Air Vice Marshal Khalid Chaudhry as saying that the airmen, most of who came from rural villages, were being radicalised by extremist clerics.

The cable quotes Chaudhry as saying, “You can’t imagine what a hard time we have trying to get them to trim their beards.”

The cable also reveals that Chaudhry claimed “to receive monthly reports of acts of petty sabotage, which he interpreted as an effort by extremists among the enlisted ranks to prevent PAF aircraft from being deployed in support of security operations in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas along the Afghan border.”

Radicalisation in the security forces was highlighted earlier this year when Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by a member of the Elite Force squad in Islamabad on January 4. A Los Angeles Times report in February highlighted the case of Zahid Manzoor Bajwa, a Punjab police official who had access to intelligence reports and is believed to have passed them on to the Taliban.

The PNS Mehran attack would have also required significant surveillance, which militant organisations have been able to conduct in the past, given their success at attacking the military’s Rawalpindi headquarters and buildings belonging to the Inter-Services Intelligence, Federal Investigation Agency and the Crime Investigation Department.

In the early 2000s, al Qaeda operatives had reportedly surveyed Karachi’s ports in preparation for a planned attack on the Strait of Hormuz and other ports used by the US Navy, according to the files of Guantanamo Bay detainees published by WikiLeaks.

A unique experience

A huge billboard outside the naval air force headquarters, which came under sustained attack for hours on Monday, says it all – “Pakistan Air Force Museum. Unique experience”.

“If these people can just enter a military base like this, then how can any Pakistani feel safe?” asked Mazhar Iqbal, 28, engineering company administrator taking a lunch break in the shade outside the complex where a crowd had gathered on a patch of grass to watch journalists set up camp as much as anything

He said he was from an insecure area of the city already infamous as a source of funding for militant groups.

“The government and the army are just corrupt. We need new leaders with a vision for Pakistan.”

Moin Babar, 35, a technical engineer, said people were trying to understand how the militants made it inside. “I heard that 15 went in through a sewer,” he said. Kamran Khalil, 48, a civil engineer, suggested, like many others, a conspiracy. “How can this happen? It’s taking them so long to resolve the issue. India or the CIA could have been behind this. They want to show that Pakistan forces are ineffective.”

Many in Pakistan were furious with the US operation to kill Bin Laden without sharing any intelligence beforehand with Islamabad, which they saw as a severe breach of sovereignty. “This is all a reaction to American policy in Pakistan,” said Atif Ali, a 30-year-old construction worker, standing near one billboard advertising audio equipment in which a beautiful woman says “Let’s play” and another advertising pizza.

with additional input by reuters

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24th, 2011.

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WikiLeaks cables are a neo-con conspiracy.

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By TODAY’S ZAMAN, DUBAI

• Negative image of Arabs tied to rising Islamophobia in the West
• Selective leaks being used to promote and affect events.

The lingering perception problem with regard to Arabs in the Western media is very much connected to rising Islamophobia in Europe and in the US, experts at the 10th Arab Media Forum held in Dubai last week said.

“Islam has become the new perceived enemy of the West after the fall of the Soviet Union,” said Philip Seib, professor of journalism and public diplomacy at the University of Southern California, during a panel discussion at the forum, which attracted over 2,400 media professionals from 40 countries. Seib stressed that more continual and balanced news coverage from the region was needed to overcome challenges of stereotyping of Arab citizens. “People want to know about the region, which was reflected when Al Jazeera's English news website registered a phenomenal increase in the number of hits after Egypt's revolution,” he added. Abdullah Bozkurt, Today's Zaman Ankara bureau chief, also shared Seib's concerns in his speech and said the anti-Muslim platform in Europe has developed itself from being the agenda of fringe, far-right parties into a mainstream political debate. “With the minaret ban in Switzerland and the Burqa ban in France, the anti-Muslim rhetoric became part of the law of the land. Islamophobia even became institutionalized with the gains of far-right parties in some European countries, and they are now set to become part of the coalitional governments. This is an alarming development,” he explained. During the 10th Arab Media Forum there were also discussions on whether or not the recent protest movements that swept the countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa have changed the image of Arabs. It explored whether there were signs of change from references in the Western media of Arabs being “violent, betraying, backward-thinking and women's rights-snubbing” to that of people who have the same aspirations and expectations as everybody else. According to a survey released during the forum, Western opinion leaders believed the Arab Spring will transform politics and society in the Middle East. The study, carried out by APCO Worldwide, an opinion research group, and completed early this month, polled 343 former and current diplomats and other opinion leaders in the United States and Europe. Of those polled, 67 percent said they either significantly or somewhat changed their views of Arab societies as a result of events unfolding in the region. "This is the first study of its kind that has looked at how events in the Middle East are shaping the views of opinion leaders in the West," Mamoon Sbeih, APCO's Arab region managing director said. The survey received a lukewarm reception from panelists, who said the results are quite optimistic and caught in the middle of political euphoria. Octavia Nasr, founder of US-based Bridges Media Consulting, said that the perception in the Western world changed because of the people of the Arab region and not due to the higher visibility of the Arab media in the international arena. She said that people in the West rarely watch Arab television channels or read newspapers and magazines from this region. Jacques Charmelot, editor at Agence France-Presse, also said the perception of the Arab world in the West changes whenever there is a crisis in this region. “Now Israelis are the bad boys, not the Arabs,” he underlined. Farah Al Atassi, a Syrian-American who is the executive director of US-based American Arab Communication and Translation Center, said Arabs have earned their freedom on their own. Bozkurt underlined that there are many challenges awaiting Arab citizens in the region in the aftermath of the region-wide uprisings. “When the communist regimes fell in Eastern and Central Europe, many people were jubilant and cheerful. Regimes had changed, but the problems continued. For example, the EU still blames Bulgaria and Romania for not battling wide-scale corruption in its reports and threatens to cut EU funds after the two-decade democratic experiment,” he said. The Today's Zaman columnist further argued that nations must invest in education to overcome prejudices about Arab citizens. He said historical references in school textbooks that feed into stereotyping must be removed and “reconstructed images” under the political discourse of the Cold War must be removed from books. “We may also develop partnership or internship programs among our young journalists to expose them to other cultures,” he stated. Social media versus traditional media The forum also discussed whether social media is gaining on the traditional media in that the former was credited with leading mass uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and others. The uprisings prompted a dramatic rise in use of Internet media. In Egypt, Google had a tenfold increase in news searches, while there was a 50 percent increase in video uploads to YouTube at the time of the Egypt uprising. “The notion that there is a competition between traditional media and social media is inaccurate; but if it were true, you would be up against a website like Facebook that has over 500 million users,” said Faisal J. Abbas, a London-based journalist and blogger. "The role of social media in the revolutions has been exaggerated," Sultan Al Qassemi, a journalist and Twitter user, said during a panel discussion. "It did play an important role. But social media facilitated -- it did not cause [the uprisings].The cause was corruption, graft, lack of human rights and oppression of young Arabs," he said. Tunisian blogger Zeid Al Heni, whose blog had been closed by the now ousted Bin Ali regime, said that half the Internet users in Tunisia are on Facebook, stressing the role played by social media during the Tunisian uprising in filling gaps that traditional media had left due to restrictions that were placed on it. Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, cautioned, however, that most of the people on Twitter are secular and liberal activists. “Americans and the international community start to think that this is a secular revolution, and they were looking only at one small part of a much broader revolution." He described the Muslim Brotherhood as "the most powerful force" in Egypt -- something that might not be apparent from social media. "The majority of Egyptians are not on Facebook. And the vast majority of Egypt and Arabs more generally are not on Twitter,” he said. The forum tackled the challenges faced by using citizen journalism to cover uprising in some countries when traditional journalists are banned or restricted. Nasr, also a former CNN journalist, said news networks' reliance on citizen journalists was risky but necessary when they are left with no other choice. However, the danger of relying on citizen journalists was also highlighted in the forum, during which video footage was shown of errors made by the Reuters, Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera networks where older footage was mistakenly aired, falsely claimed to have been filmed in Yemen and Syria, both of which currently face uprisings. Nabil Al Khatib, editor of the Al Arabiya news channel, said such events are used by regimes to discredit news channels, suggesting that some false news could be planted by governments looking to embarrass the channels and undermine their credibility. WikiLeaks conspiracy? The release of American diplomatic cables by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks was also raised in the Arab Media forum. Some panelists cheered because it shed light on certain events, while others cautioned about hidden agendas behind leaks. "WikiLeaks has become a source of information in the Arab world because of a lack of transparency," Hasni Abidi, director of Switzerland-based Center for Studies and Research on the Arab and Mediterranean World, said. "We should ask ourselves why Arab officials speak so openly with US officials. Why shouldn't we be honest when addressing our people? Honesty does exist in discussion with Arab officials. This is a media revolution," he said. Wayne Madsen, an investigative journalist from the US, described the leaks as a “neo-conservative conspiracy” aimed to disseminate false information. He said the media needed to be concerned about misinformation and false intelligence. “Data must not be based on conversations or gossip; therefore, vetting of news becomes a responsibility of the media,” he noted. Le Monde Editor-in-Chief Sylvie Kauffmann said there was some value in the cables, but the information needed to be verified and put into context before it got published. “WikiLeaks was always perceived as a resource of information obtained from gossip and not valuable content. But by using the tool in the right manner, valuable data put in context by the media can reflect positively on the industry,” Kauffman said. Matthew Bostrom, APCO Online director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), said that data available from sources such as WikiLeaks must be verified, particularly when it is political in nature. ‘Egypt faces economic and security challenges' In a keynote speech delivered at the 10th Arab Media Forum by Egypt's minister for culture and antiquities, Emad Abu Ghazi, the focus was on challenges faced by post-revolution Egypt. Abu Ghazi said that his country is facing two major challenges, namely security and the economy. He underlined that time is running out and people's patience is getting thinner every day. “Unfortunately, situations cannot be changed overnight after getting rid of several decades of despotism,” he said. Stressing that the regional media industry had not witnessed the growth seen in other parts of the world, Abu Ghazi partly attributed this to "repressive laws" and government control of media channels. "Some governments had brought repressive laws and codes against the media," he said, adding, "With the totalitarian regimes, Arab countries have witnessed years where the media were under the control of censorship." "During the past months in the region we have witnessed such historical events, which have highlighted the role of the media, especially new media. The street cannot be isolated from the media. There was an independent media that came forth through the Internet. It cannot be controlled by anyone," he explained. The Egyptian minister underlined that the new government has introduced various measures to ensure that people have other forums to highlight their demands, instead of taking to the streets each time. He revealed that more than 25 political parties have been formed so far as well as new trade unions and civil society organizations have been established. Abu Ghazi said the government is determined to bring everyone responsible for corruption to justice. “Right now only investigations [against former President Hosni Mubarak] have been carried out; the trial has not started yet. A number of people will be tried following the investigation, but we have to start from the head,” he said. When asked about recent turmoil in Egypt, Abu Ghazi said it was due to a lack of awareness. He said certain forces do not want the revolution to succeed. Thus they have been trying to destroy unity because coherent unity of the people is a guarantee of success. However, he expressed optimism that his countrymen will remain united and will not fall victim to such ploys. .

Top Republicans to welcome Netanyahu, who called 9-11 attacks “very good,” said anti-US terror helps Israel

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By Max Blumenthal

In three weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington to address Congress at the invitation of Republican Majority Speaker John Boehner. The appearance was designed to undermine President Barack Obama, with Netanyahu, the ardent Republican from suburban Philadelphia, hectoring the Palestinians and the Iranian regime while pledging an eternal war against terror. Before a uniformly supportive Congress, the cocksure Netanyahu had hoped to present a stark contrast to Obama, the unpopular ditherer mired in bad economic news and a messy military stalemate in Libya.

With the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, a hit personally authorized by Obama, the tables have turned. Netanyahu rushed to complement the American president, and he will inevitably be compelled to praise him again and again when he arrives in Washington. This is one reason why Akiva Eldar wrote that Bin Laden’s killing was “bad news for Bibi.”

But even before he had announced his upcoming trip to Washington, Netanyahu offered evidence that he would prefer for Bin Laden to be alive and kicking. In the immediate wake of 9-11, the New York Times’ James Bennett asked Netanyahu what the attacks would mean for Israel’s relations with the United States. “It’s very good,” Bibi replied before quickly correcting himself. ”Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.” Netanyahu said the attack would ‘’strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we’ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.”

Before an audience at Bar Ilan University in 2008, Netanyahu restated his belief that 9-11 was, as he said, “very good.” “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” Netanyahu said during a conference about re-dividing Jerusalem in the event of a peace treaty with the Palestinians.

Bibi’s logic was clear: as long as Americans could be duped into believing Israel was fighting its battle, the United States would support Israeli expansionism and intransigence. Bin Laden was useful indeed.

With Bin Laden gone, Netanyahu will likely try to sell Americans on new folk devils, from Hamas in Gaza to the nuclearized “new Hitler” in Iran. But these evildoers have expressed little, if any, interest in attacking the United States. And judging from Netanyahu’s past statements, he does not view this fact as “very good.”

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Related:

Netanyahu: My father foresaw 9/11 attacks in 1990s

Former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu Planned 9/11

Netanyahu planned 911:

Confirmation: Bin Laden “Clone” Killed at Abbottabad

Attack on Abbottabad House (New Revelations)

Former Chief of Army Staff

From the cool comfort of the White House Obama watched the drama of raid on the house in Abbottabad. This was a CIA operation, meant to fool the world and embarrass Pakistan but the fact of the matter is that the whole exercise was a fake and a lie, same as the 9/11 episode was to find an excuse to launch the Crusade against the Muslim World. On the day of attack, that is 2^nd May, I made the comment to the Pakistani media, that “It was a drama and a lie, to embarrass Pakistan. There was no Osama there, attack helicopters came from Tarbela base, carrying an Osama look-alike and killed him in cold blood, in front of his family members who were living in the house.” And that is coming true.

And now, as more information is coming through, it is getting clearer that Osama was killed in 2009 and his bullet ridden photo was published and the same picture was shown on 2^nd May 2011, but was immediately withdrawn, when the mistake was realized. The Iranian President, in his recent statement, has said “Osama was captured a few years back and now they have played the drama of killing him in Pakistan for political gains.”

Some of our eminent journalists, who visited the sites and interviewed eye-witnesses, have something very interesting to reveal: “The people from village Kund Hassan Zai of Kala Dhaka, claim that the two helicopters came from the direction of Tarbela, midnight ½ May, flying low, along the river and landed in the fields of Manab Khan, stayed there for about thirty minutes and flew away in the direction of Mansehra. In the morning we saw wheel marks of the helicopters and some trash also.” The locals of Abbottabad living in the proximity of the house said that “The two helicopters came over the house and as they hovered, we saw fire in the compound of the house, which soon got extinguished. If a helicopter had crashed and caught fire, the fire could not have been extinguished in such a short time. Later on, when we visited the site we saw burnt-up plastic pieces with letter ‘NSA’ written on one of the piece. There was no trace of a burnt-out helicopter.”

The local school teacher Muhammad Asif revealed: “There is no question of Osama living here for the last five years. This house is located a little away from the main road, on a lower ground. It has no telephone connection and no other communication facility. Other houses also have high boundary walls and we just cannot believe that such a high value target was living there, with no security cover at all.” A neighbour, said: “On several occasions I met Khan Sahib, his brother and children, living in this house but never saw any elderly person. They spoke Pashto, but spoke to us in Urdu. It appears the Americans brought here some one other than Osama and killed him, for a specific purpose.”

A neighbour, Latif Akbar says “on night 01/2 May, due to load shedding, there was no light when the two helicopters came over the house from the PMA side, past mid night. One helicopter threw a flare, which lit-up the area of Thanda Choa – Bilal Town. As the two helicopters hovered over the house, we came-out of our houses and saw about 20-25 soldiers jump-out, close to the outer wall of the house, while soldiers from the second helicopter, came sliding down the ropes inside the house compound. In the meantime, some 20-25 of us neighbours had collected in the lane leading to the house. Suddenly the lights were switched on and one of the soldiers shouted in Pashto: “Lights-off Laka” and soon the lights were switched-off. In the meantime, we heard three explosions and a portion of the boundary wall fell-down. Some of the people who had collected there, rushed inside through the gap, thinking it was Pak Army helicopter, which needed rescue but soon rushed back as they saw the foreigners. A few of these were taken prisoner and whisked away. We heard shots being fired from inside. The operation continued till about one thirty at night. Pak troops came later, when the two helicopters had flown away in the direction of Mansehra. Its surprising that for the next two days, the residents of the area and the media, had free access into the house.”

It is rather unfortunate that the government of Pakistan and the institutions fell victim to this ploy and accepted security lapses without finding answer, to these basic questions:

· This house was raided in 2009, to capture Abul Faraj and why couldn’t they find Osama then, if he and his family were living there since 2006?

· Reportedly, two of our fighter aircrafts scrambled, within thirty minutes of the raid, but failed to intercept. Why?

· Our civilian intelligence apparatus, such as the IB, CID and the SAC (Special Anti Crime) units have the prime responsibility for the security of the urban and rural population. What was their role and why the entire blame has fallen on the ISI?

· The USA had been our ally for the last half a century and we also earned the title of “most allied ally, and the non-NATO ally of USA” and yet we have been stabbed in the back and are being blamed for failing to protect ourselves, from this “friendly deceit.”

Senator John Kerry is in town and the joint declaration says: “Jointly we shall undertake such actions in the future”, which means that the drone attacks will continue and now we will be asked to capture Aiman-al-Zawahari and after him, the next and the next and the blood of innocent Pakistanis will continue to be spilled. Why can’t we have the courage to tell the Americans to lay-off because Osama, the source of all terrorism is dead? In fact terrorism started with the occupation of Afghanistan and will end when occupation ends, and that should have been the crux of the declaration, i.e., “the end game and the time frame of exit.”

General Mirza Aslam Beg is former Chief of Army Staff who has been deputy to General Zia and assumed the command after General Zia’s death. He is the founding Chairman of FRIENDS, a Think Tank established in Rawalpindi. He has a complete grasp over the situation in the region and reads the situation well. He is called upon by various TV Channels both Pakistani and Foreign for his expert views.

He is a regular contributor to www.opinion-maker.org and www.veteranstoday.com

Secret Society Freemasons and 9/11

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“The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.” — JFK, 1961 address to newspaper publishers

By Captain Eric H. May

Secret societies are a pernicious presence throughout the history of the United States. George Washington, our great inceptor, denounced the dark doctrines of Illuminism, which he believed threatened the Republic:

“The Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism (have) spread in the United States. … No one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am.”

Today’s Republican Party is derived from the Whig Party, as many know. Not many, however, know that the Whig Party was derived from our country’s first third party, the Anti-Masonic Party of the 1820′s and 30′s. The party’s opposition to Freemasonry was derived from the 9/11 murder of William Morgan, himself a Mason, who was blowing the whistle on what he had come to regard as a diabolic criminal system. The date of Morgan’s murder is chilling: 9/11, 1826.

On 9/11, 1857, a party of Mormons (a cult zealous about Freemasonry), massacred some 120 settlers passing through Utah on the way to California in what came to be called the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

These Freemasonic cult killings, of course, foreshadow 9/11/01, our New Pearl Harbor, which took place on the 175th anniversary of the Morgan murder and the 144th (12 x 12) anniversary of the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

The four airplane flight numbers are codes. I present them in chronological order, according to the official 9/11 story:

• 11 — The key number in most false flag terror attacks since 9/11/01.
• 175 — A not-so-subtle reminder of the Morgan murder for any potential whistle blowers.
• 77 — Struck the Pentagon on its 60th anniversary, and foretold the UK 7/7/05 attacks.
• 93 — Contais day numbers for the 9/11/01 and 3/11/04 (Madrid) attacks — between which there was a span of 911 days.

Since calendar coding is crucial to conspiracies, here are two separate terror timetables, the first anchored by 9/11/01, and the second by 6/6/06. Omit the zeros to see the occult (i.e., hidden) numbers:

9/11/01 Overt Calendar & Covert Schedule

• 10/12/2000 (1122) — Al Qaeda attacks USS Cole.
• 9/11/2001 (911) — Al Qaeda demolishes Twin Towers.
• 3/20/2003 (3223) — U.S. Invades Iraq.
• 3/11/2004 (311) — Al Qaeda bombs Madrid.
• 3/30/2004 (33) — BP Texas City refinery explodes.*
• 3/23/05 (323) — BP Texas City refinery explodes.

Decoded, it’s a master schedule:

• Between the Cole and the Towers: 333 days.
• Between the Towers and the Iraq War: 555 days.
• Between the Towers and Madrid: 911 days.
• Between the Towers and BP, Texas City, 3/30/04: 930 (93) days.*
• Between BP, Texas City, 3/30/04 and 3/23/05: 357 days
• Between BP, Texas City, 3/23/05 and 1/31/06: 313 days

6/6/06 Overt Calendar & Covert Schedule

• 10/11/2002 (11122) — Congress gives Bush illegal blank check for war on Iraq.
• 10/12/2002 (11222) — Bali bombings give Australia its causus belli.
• 4/19/04 (4194) — Attempted terror strike on Sears Tower.
• 7/7/05 (77) — London bombings renew UK zeal for Mideast wars.
• 5/3/06 (53) — Attempted terror attack on Sears Tower.
• 6/6/06 (666) — Key reference date; identical with Sears Tower zip code 60606 (666).
• 7/11/06 (711) — Mumbai bombings, which turns India against the Mideast.
• 7/12/06 — Israel invades Lebanon.

“Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control.” — JFK, 1961 address to newspaper publishera

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Is another European empire collapsing before our eyes?

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By Wayne MADSEN

The history of Europe is one of successive collapsed empires. Some, such as the Roman, Holy Roman, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires, simply overextended themselves and collapsed due to nationalist uprisings coupled with domestic political and economic inertia. Others, like the German Nazi, Soviet, Italian fascist, Napoleonic French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires collapsed as a result of their military aggression and incessant subterfuge from external forces.

The European Union appears to be suffering from the same symptoms as those experienced by the first category of failed European empires: over-extension, a stagnant and bloated bureaucracy, and economic collapse. As Europe strives to become a more unified and federal union, there has been a backlash from across its member states, with a North-South divide and economic turmoil now threatening to bring down the whole house of cards.

The rise of nationalist political parties in some of the EU’s heretofore staunchest pro-EU member nations and the collapse of some EU national economies due to predatory banking policies and America’s flooding of the global financial system with cheap dollars – a central bankers’ contrivance known as “quantitative easing” -- has created fault lines in Europe that not only threaten to bring down the euro and drive the European Central Bank into extinction but prompt some members to leave the EU altogether.

Although there have always been degrees of Euro-skepticism throughout Europe since the coming into force of the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993, which transformed the European Economic Community into the European Union and created the euro, anti-EU feelings now run the full gamut from right to left. Anti-EU fervor has not only increased in the traditionally Euro-skeptic nations of Denmark, the United Kingdom, and France but has gained a strong foothold in the earliest supporters of European integration, including Ireland, the Netherlands, Finland, Greece, and most importantly, Germany…

Denmark originally failed to ratify Maastricht and a referendum on the treaty in France narrowly passed. Denmark, upon ratification, insisted on four exceptions to the treaty. In 1985, Maastricht was preceded by the Schengen Agreement, which dropped border controls between the member nations, including non-EU members Switzerland and Norway. However, the UK and Ireland never agreed to the Schengen Agreement.

With the rise of nationalist and anti-EU political parties in EU member state legislatures and the European Parliament, coupled with the increase in North African illegal immigration to Europe following the popular revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, Schengen is being challenged by nations from Denmark and Finland to France and Italy. The North African political instability was originally triggered by the economic downturn of North African economies caused by Western bank policies that resulted in inflation, food shortages, and high unemployment. Soon, the conniving forces of Western bankers and multinational corporations linked to Western intelligence agencies and the George Soros labyrinth of non-governmental organizations sought to capitalize on the North African political transitions by implementing the shock doctrine policies inherent in vulture capitalism, I.e., in every crisis there is a profit to be made and state-run enterprises to privatize.

One of the original Euro-skeptical EU nations, Denmark, was the first nation to announce it was re-introducing border controls to keep out North African immigrants escaping the civil wars and strife in their home nations. The EU bureaucracy cried foul but Denmark saw support for its move from Italy and France, which also saw an influx of illegal migrants.

Meanwhile, the EU economic bailout packages for Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain, resulted in more prosperous EU nations, such as Germany, Finland, Netherlands, and Sweden, complaining about rescue packages for member states that had been preyed upon by the global bankers, relegating their bonds to below average and “junk” status. Unpopular austerity measures imposed by the EU and International Monetary Fund on Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, resulting in lay-offs of government workers, a rise in retirement age, and reduced pensions and workers’ benefits, resulted in popular disgust with the bankers and bureaucrats of the European Central Bank, EU Commission, and IMF. In Greece, violent demonstrations by workers were harshly put down by paramilitary and police forces.

Unpopular austerity measures brought about by the pro-EU Conservative-Liberal Democratic government of the UK also saw mass student and worker protests in London and other major cities. Anti-EU feelings also swelled within the Conservative Party itself. In the newer EU members in eastern Europe, where membership was originally seen as a welcome change from their former communist systems, anti-EU feelings skyrocketed in Latvia and Hungary, which, along with Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and EU aspirant member Iceland, found themselves as much abused by the IMF and its affiliates as the midtown Manhattan hotel chambermaid who was sexually set upon by IMF chief and ardent European integrationist Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Euro-skepticism, which runs the spectrum from the hard line and right-wing anti-EU British UK Independence Party, French National Front and Austrian Freedom Party to the softer anti-EU British Conservative Party and leftist Danish and Swedish Greens, has steadily morphed into a movement that no longer seeks EU reform but complete EU dissolution or something just short of it. There have been popular calls for the dumping of the euro and a return to the lira in Italy, Deutschemark in Germany, drachma in Greece, franc in France, and peseta in Spain.

There have been reports that Greece may be the first nation to withdraw from the euro zone. Anti-EU and global banking feelings are running high in Greece and Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou sees little room to maneuver with dictates on Greece’s collapsed economy coming from Frankfurt -- the headquarters of the European Central Bank -- and Brussels. Germany, the European Central Bank, and IMF fear that a financially independent Greece would simply default on its debts. However, defaulting on debt obligations engineered by the very banks that are now subjecting countries like Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Spain and Portugal to punishing and draconian austerity measures is exactly what workers’, pensioners’, and students’ groups advocate. The newly-invigorated popular movements of the left in the EU see defaulting on the banking vampires and vultures as the first step to renationalizing utilities and other former state-owned enterprises and scrapping the multinational capitalist system of derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, mortgage-backed securities and other financial “alchemy” schemes dreamt up by eyeglass pinch-nosed financial gnomes who relish in rewarding the greediest multinational corporations and banks.

The recent electoral success of the anti-EU True Finns Party has pushed Finland closer to the anti-EU sentiment found in its Nordic partners of Denmark and Norway. Norway never joined the EU and its strong economy has its Nordic partners wishing they, too, had opted to remain out of the bureaucratically top-heavy and financially-draining EU.

The rise of xenophobic anti-immigration right-wing parties in the EU is not the only political development that threatens the EU and its plans for a federal Europe. In the heart of the EU bureaucracy, Brussels, the Flemish Bloc not only seeks independence for Flanders and the dissolution of Belgium but wants Flanders to pull out of the EU. The idea of a non-EU Flanders just a few miles away from the European Commission headquarters is no longer hypothetical. The recent success of the Scottish National Party in the Scottish election may see an independent Scotland entering the EU on its own terms with a more anti-EU England and Wales pulling away from the EU.

Turkey, which has been rejected over and over again by a more nationalistic and anti-Muslim EU, is now enjoying strong economic growth. Many Turks now ask the question: who will benefit more from EU membership for Turkey? A financially-deteriorating EU might be anxious to grab Turkey’s economic wealth to bail out failed economies in Greece, Portugal, and Ireland. Turkey, which is now seeing new emerging markets open for its businesses in the Middle East and central Asia, could find itself constrained by an Israeli-influenced EU that might force Ankara to apply curbs on its economic relations with Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine.

The United States has relied on the EU as a natural complement to the arcane NATO military alliance. The EU-US-NATO alliance, which helped craft virtual EU protectorates masquerading as independent states in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo in the remnants of Yugoslavia, will be keen to maintain the status quo in Europe. However, with the peoples of Europe hitting the streets in protest and the fumes from Molotov cocktails and tear gas heavy in the air of Athens, London, and soon, other capitals, the United States, a declining “paper tiger” empire, will have little influence to stymie the breakup of the EU. Like it or not, the United States will soon see the collapse of an abortive European super-state based in Brussels and the subsequent return of sovereignty to the nations of Europe…

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Bin Laden, Killed in April 2011?

[].

As Ripley Said, “Believe It or Not”

[one of the most difficult read I have come accrss but I think you will get the point]

By Norton Nowlin

Must the American broadcast from the bottom of your heart reconcile Barack Obama’s contemporary self-vital broadcast proclamation including the intention of Osama bin Overloaded was only just killed by a U.S. Only one of its kind Forces band in Pakistan? Water supply, in peacefulness to pocket up this fascinating come forth, here was an consequence, not water supply celebrated in description, including the intention of occurred on the German-buff up border in Distinguished of 1939, which really desires to revisited, considered, and like a log compared to relevant actions including the intention of occurred before, on, and frankly including, September 11, 2001, in peacefulness to assert the certainty of the evenly ancient mug including the intention of, “sad description customarily repeats itself finished the decades and centuries.”

Frankly including Adolf Hitler was voted Chancellor of the German Weimar State, in 1933, the newly formed Agency of Propaganda, of the German Nazi government, started in intense to teach the German masses to reconcile and be thankful for the biased fabrication, and challenging-semitism, including the intention of would incrementally, but eventually, allocate Hitler and his thugs to announce war on Poland, the Soviet Union, and, before long, the United States, and to lower Germany and greatly of Europe to ashes. By 1939, the margin of the German broadcast were sweet greatly won over including the intention of Hitler was their fiscal liberator due to the overflowing corporate capitalism including the intention of flourished below the fascist Nazi regime, which perfectly eliminated unemployment, revalued the Deutsch-characteristic, and bent a vital war-calculate state including the intention of had been exactingly banned by the unenforced Treaty of Versailles, at the end of the At the initiation Planet War. Flush American hero Charles Lindbergh adorned Hitler as a genius. On the additional hand, including a Nazi margin, by 1933, in the German Administration, the Reichstag, Hitler was in effect allowable to apply any types of government and fiscal diplomacy including the intention of he sought after to disturb on the German broadcast; and as German Head Paul Von Hindenburg died, in 1934, Hitler called in the lead the Reichstag to announce him Fuhrer (dictator-chief) of the Nazi Third Reich, which they devastatingly chose to do.

As a consequence of Hitler’s henchmen, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels, being installed into distinguished positions of leadership in the Nazi government, the Nazi Agency of Propaganda headed by Goebbels top bolt from the blue the German media, which built-in touchtone phone logic, newspapers, magazines, and books. Not anything was in black and colorless, or freely expressed, including 1934, in challenger to Hitler or the Nazi regime lacking brutal in revenge revenge early the Nazi Brownshirts and SS. By ahead of schedule 1939, the margin of the German Jews had by now been disfranchised and relocated to Nazi concentration camps including the overwhelming praise of a margin of the German broadcast. The at that calculate step in the Nazi war schooling was the invasion of Poland, which occurred in September 1939. But the German masses had to be completely won over including the intention of Poland had bent the assault including the intention of called for German air force revenge and essential breakdown. This influential took the affect of an commanding propaganda tool, a water supply orchastrated sneaky schooling of ploy, cleverly bent by Himmler and Goebbels, called the Gleiwitz thing.

Former to 1939, the German Nazi bureaucracy was perfectly federal in scenery. This inside federal potential was comprised of loads of departments and agencies, and was located in Berlin, the hub of the Third Reich. Early here each dash of German go was successfully top bolt from the blue. The air force, comprised of the Wehrmach (Armed forces), Kriegsmarine (Fleet), and the Luftwaffe (Air Break down), was an instrument of the Nazi federal regime, and the Nazi Have fun, the dominating biased establishment was positioned in potential of all the air force forces. Nazi civilian officers, who had no genuine air force experience or information, were appointed by Hitler and his biased associates to supervise finished the genuine air force generals, field officers, and junior officers. The in rank logic for the air force was as tightly top bolt from the blue as was the German media, so including the intention of the 2.8 million men and women in German air force standardized release knew to be real what the Nazi regime was divulging them. Finished 99 percent of the men and women who served the German Nazi regime in standardized understood loyally in the biased and shared value of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. So, what does this say? Ninety-percent of all the murders committed by rank-and-draw collectively in a outline members of the German armed forces, early 1933 in anticipation of 1945 (the norm age of the predictable German GI was 30), were through believing including the intention of they were de rigueur according to instructions including the intention of had been agreed by stuck-up officers.

This affect up of propagandized mentality potential prevailed in Nazi Germany, primarily all through 1939 only former to the Gleiwitz thing. According to fussy minutes including the intention of emerged early the investigations associated including the Nuremberg (war crimes) Trials, Himmler and Goebbels pretended the Gleiwitz schooling and, thereafter, approved SS Chief Reinhard Heydrich and Gestapo Chief Heinrich Muller to carry out it. According to the void minutes, a tiny assemble of SS soldiers, led by an detective named Naujocks, were approved to dress in buff up air force uniforms and grab the touchtone phone logic rank at Gleiwitz, Germany. Including the ripple, the German soldiers announce an inflamatory challenging-German thought in buff up to the German broadcast, weary Hitler. To get on to the hit of the rank preview more perusasively influential, the SS ancient a lethal booster to eradicate a German Silesian, named Franciszek Honiok, who was widely celebrated for his buff up sympathies. Including they killed him, Honiok’s corpse was dressed to preview be fond of a buff up saboteur, agreed a gunfire wound, and gone including numerous additional corpses (German biased prisoners early the Dachu concentration camp killed and dressed in German Wermacht uniforms) to set the the boards for propaganda cinema and films to trade show the German state.

All of the diplomacy associated including the Gleiwitz thing were contrived by devious pragmatic fascists to fool a state of hangdog Germans into believing including the intention of an hit on a greatly weaker state, Poland, was eventually de rigueur to maintain the wellbeing of the Nazi state. And they were perverse deceptions, propaganda calculated by thugs to deceive in the first name of cruelty. Including primeval electronic technology, primarily associated including touchtone phone logic, and brutal thuggery, the Nazis succeeded in duping a state of literate, freedom-loving, intellectual creature beings to reconcile equipment including the intention of were austerely not real, and to help a war apparatus including the intention of dealt in “shock and awe” as it ground Poland to an extremely near marble-age affect up.

Does this signal, to any degree, modernly habitual? Water supply, let’s go yet to be in description 52 being to September 1990, as Head George H. Bush and Desk of Safeguard Dick Cheney told the American broadcast on inhabitant box including the intention of NSA satellite photos had exposed including the intention of all of Saddam Hussain’s fantastic Iraqi air force forces were balanced on the Saudi-Kuwati border, threatening an invasion of Saudi Arabia. So the full state got in the rear Surgical procedure Desert Storm, everywhere, before long, Baghdad, and most of Iraq, was pummeled by bombs and missiles in trade to the Marble Age. But, in hindsight, what would the norm American voter be inflicted including understood, and how would she be inflicted including responded, to the Bush/Cheney edict in this vicinity Saddam Hussain, if she had celebrated, former to including the intention of fantastic invasion of Iraq, including the intention of Bush’s and Cheney’s proclamation had release amounted to a bunch of fabrication?

What if the norm voter had celebrated including the intention of a Pulitizer nominated journalist, named Jean Heller (of the “St. Petersburg Era”), had been extremely suspicious of what Bush and Cheney had understood in this vicinity Saddam Hussain’s fantastic armed forces being balanced on the Saudi-Kuwati border threatening an invasion of Saudi Arabia. Jean Heller had been so suspicious including the intention of she won over her newspaper publisher to hold, early the Russians, satellite cinema full by the Soyez-Karta cash-building satellite of the constant disturb a curfew on the Saudi-Kuwati border, on October 8 and September 13, 1990, everywhere, everywhere Bush and Cheney had understood including the intention of NSA satellite photos had exposed the full Iraqi Armed forces coming up to invade. Heller obtained the photos and had the coat painstakingly analyzed by ex–Pentagon satellite photo analysts, one of whom was Peter Zimmerman (who had served including the U.S. Arms Potential and Disarmament Outfit all through the Reagan handing out). Their breakdown exposed something not so really startling to Heller. It exposed including the intention of Bush and Cheney had lied in this vicinity the photos. The Soyez-Karta cinema showed release in peace sand on including the intention of border disturb a curfew, and the detail including the intention of Saddam Hussain’s 500,000 man armed forces (including thousands of tanks and artillery) was in detail by no means here, but, extremely, closer the Kuwati-Iraqi border, and in southern Iraq.

So what did Jean Heller do including learning the certainty? In in the dead of night 2002, I spar to Jean by buzz in Florida, and questioned her what she had exposed in her investigation, and what her later actions had been. She told me including the intention of she had at approximately calculate ago called the Pentagon and challenged Cheney to freely equate photos, which he had blatantly refused to do. She, consequently, wrote her report, which was originally in print in the “St. Petersburg Era” on January 6, 1991. Even if the report was positioned in a suitable make on the AP and UPI line air force, the “St. Petersburg Era” was the release newspaper to reside in the able novelist’s report. This led me to reflect including the intention of Cheney must be inflicted including at approximately calculate ago called Bush, who doubtless through approximately unapproachable, if not threatening, calls to the foremost newspaper publishers, in greatly the constant make as JFK did to “New York Era” publisher, Orvil Dryfoos, as Dryfoos was peacefully “won over” by Kennedy not to circulate a report in this vicinity the Cuban missile pickle in October 1963. Currently, even if, Presidents be inflicted including their axmen (nameless ex-air force paramilitary strongmen), who do their unapproachable for them.

Consequently, are here any noticable similarities between the water-resistant surrounding the Gleiwitz thing in 1939, chief up to the invasion of Poland, and the U.S. assault on Iraq, called Surgical procedure Desert Storm, in 1991? At the initiation off, it would boost including the intention of, in cooperation, the Nazis and the U.S. federal government had potential of the state media, in peacefulness to get on to guaranteed including the intention of their propaganda went unchecked before the broadcast eye. Cruelty can in detail pocket the affect of an illusion of liberty and freedom, primarily as the citizens of a state are duped into thought including the intention of their inside federal government is dependability what is most brilliant for them. Secondly, broadcast died pointlessly in in cooperation instances, in 1939 and in 1991. As a consequence of the U.S. federal ploy, American GIs, who unknowingingly obeyed prohibited instructions to hit a state-state including the intention of shouldn’t be inflicted including been attacked, bland Iraqi civilians, and unsuspecting Iraqi soldiers died pointlessly in Surgical procedure Desert Storm. I infer including the intention of the foremost alteration between the Nazi Gleiwitz thing and the conspire hatched by Bush and Cheney to deceive the American broadcast is including the intention of, to my information, Bush and Cheney did not be inflicted including to peacefulness anyone murdered to consumate the ploy. Yet, if it had recommend itself to including the intention of de rigueur the boards in peacefulness to get on to guaranteed its end consequence, I don’t know total practicality force be inflicted including had its persuade.

Critical on a bit, to September 11, 2001, also celebrated as 9/11, here are now finished 1.5 million members of the U.S. electorate, comprising practically a few 9/11 victims’ families, who continue to steadily reconcile including the intention of the American Government was, in approximately way, frankly complicit in a federally pretended conspiracy to bomb the Planet Trade Crucial top towers and the Pentagon in peacefulness to initiation a additional inhabitant scare, such as the one including the intention of was bent by the hit on Treasure Haven in 1941. Such a following Treasure Haven-be fond of consequence was projected to bring the United States into conflict including the austere fundamentalist Islamic planet of the Median East (a distinctive broadcast and culture perceived as greatly an rival now as were the Japanese all through the 2nd Planet War). Loads of evenhanded and appreciative American citizens reconcile including the intention of this de jure state-of-war including Islam was originally pretended in eerie smoke-to the top place to pause on Capitol Bank, and in the operations place to pause at the Colorless Household, the CIA, and the Pentagon; and implemented as a extremely bloody broadcast entertainment, in peacefulness to care for the hardworking American electorate early abode in the lead the devious and incremental fiscal changes occuring nearly them, which be inflicted including, to appointment, near transformed the American bread into a devalued currency, and the independent American state into a comprehensive horror, all for the financial help of a extremely few extremely wealthy broadcast. The most essential of these changes be inflicted including occurred in check over of the fact including the intention of 1990, the greatest of them in check over of the fact including the intention of 2001; and the most noteworthy of these changes may maybe not be inflicted including been effected lacking the federal government grand a severely unjust, in the end unauthorized, set of restrictions on confidential liberty such as was the Jingoist Act (which near all members of Household of representatives devastatingly ordinary before flush conception the payment). In a nutshell, it has all been in this vicinity cash and the acquisition of vital cash-building assets by a extremely few, extremely wealthy man and women (in cooperation American and nameless nationals), who be inflicted including had the biased and fiscal potential, motive, and chance to affect domestic and nameless plot surrounded by the U.S. government for their financial help.

So, are we to completely reconcile, and be inflicted including total entrust in, the federal governments’s (Barack Obama’s) edict including the intention of Osama bin Overloaded was killed by a SEAL band in Pakistan in ahead of schedule April 2011? If he was killed, yield the in the dead of night, be inflicted including certain DNA hard through by a non-biased professor of micro-ecology, elected early 10 professors of micro-ecology early the Academe of Texas Affect Centers, out of a hat, and be inflicted including journalist Jean Heller here to hear and bestow the consequences of the hard to the state. Including the intention of’s the release way I would reconcile including the intention of it was “really” Bin Overloaded who was killed, whose death depiction was supposedly in print on the Internet. The water-resistant are the water-resistant, but blusher water supply helpful to a exhausted corpse may be only as influential to a significant part of a gullible American broadcast, who reconcile including the intention of the federal government can do and say no ill-treat, as Nazi propaganda was to the German broadcast. Dredge up including the intention of the Nazis, including primeval technology and cunning approach, were competent to pocket in the constant brilliant broadcast who, in generous part, gave the planet atomic energy. The box/Internet technology of the 21st Century is, doubtless, finished a thousand era more believable to a abandoned, egotistic, entertainment-bent American broadcast than the Nazis’ propaganda try was to an intellectual German state. And one of the most brilliant methods of disinformation the U.S. federal government has pretended in the continue 40 being has been by presenting, on box, touchtone phone logic, and the Internet, ordinary-drapped fa?ades of jingoism and jingoism even as freely comparing Nazi and communist cruelty including American “freedom and liberty,” assuring the electorate including the intention of they are prudent and reliable in the United States. And most of the electorates of voting-age American citizens, in check over of the fact including the intention of 1934, be inflicted including full the temptation, export into it hook, outline, and sinker, even as the federal government has bring about overtime in the rear their collective in trade to pocket dead their way of go. This has through the sad eventual reduction of the American state, and its beloved Constitution, as guaranteed as was the decline and reduction of the Roman Empire.


Norton R. Nowlin took M.A. and B.A. degrees in the shared and behavioral sciences early the Academe of Texas at Tyler, considered law for one full time at Thomas Jefferson Lecture of Law, in San Diego, California, and earned an ABA-ordinary water supply yet to be paralegal authoritative recollection early Edmonds Union Society, in Lynnwood, Washington. Mr. Nowlin has attended LaJolla, California’s Inhabitant Academe and Malibu’s Pepperdine Academe to attain adjust credits in affair management and economics. Mr. Nowlin also attained a Texas State Instruction Authoritative recollection, in shared studies, psychology, and government early the Academe of Texas at Tyler. A ex- California concord detective, paralegal, in print critic/investigate novelist, bard, and emancipated-stick fiction novelist, Mr. Nowlin resides in Northern Virginia including his partner, the distinction sums tutor, Diane C. Nowlin, and their two extremely gifted cats, Sissy and Josepheni.