Archive for December, 2009
Brzezinski: It’s Time for Obama to Channel His Hopes into Audacious Actions
Note what Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski so accurately conveys below with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being the primary motivation for the tragic 9/11 attack (and the earlier attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 as well) as such is also conveyed via the exchange with 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton in the ‘What Motivated the 9/11 Hijackers? See testimony most didn’t’ youtube linked on the right at http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM and at http://REPRESENTATIVEPRESS.ORG as well
The Bottom Line (to the Afghan quagmire):
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2009/10/bottom-line.html
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Subject: January/February Pre-Release: Brzezinski: It’s Time for Obama to Channel His Hopes into Audacious Actions
December 11, 2009
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Iraq war was for Israel (not for Iraqi oil!)
One just has to read Dr. Stephen Sniegoski’s ‘The Transparent Cabal’ book (which was mentioned in the ‘The Independent’ UK newspaper via http://tinyurl.com/ye3ozac ) to know that the neocons pushed US into the Iraq quagmire to secure the realm for Israel in accordance with their ‘A Clean Break’ agenda (see http://tinyurl.com/2mnptm):
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0912/14/sitroom.02.html
Lucrative Iraqi oil deals going to everyone but — get this — everyone but American firms.
Why is the U.S. losing out in Iraq right now?
What is going on?
I’m Wolf Blitzer.
You’re in THE SITUATION ROOM.
Critics of the Iraq War long maintained oil was the driving force behind the U.S. invasion. But the U.S. is actually one of the biggest losers in the latest battle over rights to tap Iraq’s lucrative oil fields.
Who won?
Get this — the Russians, the Europeans and the Chinese.
Our foreign affairs correspondent, Jill Dougherty, is joining us now with more on this story.
I would assume the U.S. has a right to be pretty angry, given the trillion — maybe a trillion dollars the U.S. taxpayers have spent in Iraq and the thousands of American lives lost.
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, and when you look at the contracts, you have Russia’s LUKOIL along with Norwegian’s Statoil gaining a huge contract. Chinese got contracts. Even Angola got a contract. Now, it’s not as if the Americans were completely exed out, because Exxon and Occidental as a consortium did get in contracts. This shows business is business, and we’re free from outside influences. In fact today, Wolf, I asked Secretary Clinton about this and she’s putting the best face on it. She says what we think is important is that foreign investment is back in Iraq. If it came out the other way, if Americans got all the contracts, it would be very hard to defend against that idea that the United States went into Iraq because of oil.
BLITZER: It does come at a time, at an awkward moment for the Obama administration. Just the other day Defense Secretary Robert Gates went to Iraq, risking his life still to go there. He had a scheduled meeting with the Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki he says I don’t have time to see you so he went back to his little area, had dinner with other folks. That was pretty shocking.
DOUGHERTY: Pretty notable. They did reschedule it for the next day. But look at his situation, al Maliki is in a very bad domestic situation. They’ve had this spate of terrorist attacks. He’s under the gun, in fact that meeting he went back to was on that subject, and the other part is the elections are coming up March 7th. He has to look as if he’s not under the numb of the Americans.
BLITZER: Still, when you think about it, it’s — I guess it’s pretty shocking given the huge American investment of treasure and blood that was made in Iraq.
DOUGHERTY: That’s really a legitimate point, but I was talking to some experts today. What they say is regardless of who got the contracts, it’s important that the oil industry in Iraq revive. They need money to pay their bills. Look at their budget, it’s primarily due to oil money. So regardless of how it works out, it’s good for Iraq, ultimately good for the world that that oil get back on track.
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U.S. firms lag in bids for Iraqi oil
Russians, Europeans and Chinese win most contracts for developing major fields
By Ernesto Londoño
Sunday, December 13, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/12/AR2009121201277.html
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Great job neocons, massive neocon failure. Thousands dead, billions wasted and China gets the oil.
U.S. Oil Companies Lose Out in Iraq Oil Auction
Posted Dec 14, 2009 by ■ Martin Laine
European and Asian bidders were the big winners in this weekend’s auction of Iraq’s lucrative oil field auction while U.S. companies were left out in the cold.
According to a report in the Financial Times, European companies Royal Dutch Shell, Gazprom, and Lukoil, and Asian companies China’s CNPC and Malaysia’s Petronas were the big winners. This was the second auction of Iraq’s oil reserves, and reportedly the largest in history. The reserves auctioned off total more than the reserves of Mexico, the U.S. and the U.K. combined.
In June, at the first such auction, BP was the first western oil group to be allowed access to the Iraqi fields since the industry was nationalized in 1972.
Speaking before the Congressional Natural Gas Caucus in October, oil magnate T. Boone Pickens said the cost in lives and money entitled U.S. companies to some of the Iraqi crude.
“They’re opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world. We’re entitled to it,” he said. “Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars. We leave there with the Chinese getting the oil.”
American companies won bids on just two of the 10 fields up for auction, surprising many observers.
“Iraq finally opened its doors after six years of war, and instead of U.S. companies, you have Asians and Europeans leading the way,” said Ruba Husari, editor of Iraq Oil Forum.
Analysts said concerns over security, particularly with the recent wave of coordinated bombings, may have kept American companies away.
Israel confirms U.K. arrest warrant against Livni – Haaretz – Israel News
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1134978.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8414916.stm
UK ready to ‘alter legal system to appease Israel’
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=114555§ionid=351020601
Israeli MPs call for boycott of British goods
Take a look at what is mentioned about Miliband via the youtube linked at the following URL:
It is the first time a UK court has issued a warrant for the arrest of a former Israeli minister.
The warrant, granted by a London court on Saturday, was revoked on Monday when it was found Ms Livni was not visiting the UK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8415123.stm
UK ponders law change after Tzipi Livni arrest warrant
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8415161.stm
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2009/01/israel-attacks-gaza-silence-from.html
Why are Obama & Clinton Silent about Israel’s Massacre of Palestinians in Gaza?
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-are-obama-clinton-silent-about.html
What motivated the 9/11 hijackers? See testimony most didn’t
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1bm2GPoFfg&feature=PlayList&p=F81BB573C9C0C7B2&index=0&playnext=1
Gorilla in the Room is US Support for Israel:
US says Times report shows greater need for sanctions against Iran
US says Times report shows greater need for sanctions against Iran |
‘Alarming’ secret document details Iran’s nuclear goals
Obama’s Foolish and Unjust Policy on Iran and Nuclear Weapons
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/12/04/obamas-foolish-and-unjust-policy-on-iran-and-nuclear-weapons/
What Christians Don’t Know About Israel
“We believe with absolute certitude that right now, with the White House in our hands, the Senate in our hands and The New York Times in our hands, the lives of others do not count the same way as our own.” - Israeli journalist, Arieh Shavit
Grace Halsell
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/halsell.html
American Jews sympathetic to Israel dominate key positions in all areas of our government where decisions are made regarding the Middle East. This being the case, is there any hope of ever changing U.S. policy? President Bill Clinton as well as most members of Congress support Israel—and they know why. U.S. Jews sympathetic to Israel donate lavishly to their campaign coffers.
The answer to achieving an even-handed Middle East policy might lie elsewhere—among those who support Israel but don’t really know why.. This group is the vast majority of Americans. They are well-meaning, fair-minded Christians who feel bonded to Israel—and Zionism—often from atavistic feelings, in some cases dating from childhood.
I am one of those. I grew up listening to stories of a mystical, allegorical, spiritual Israel. This was before a modern political entity with the same name appeared on our maps. I attended Sunday School and watched an instructor draw down window-type shades to show maps of the Holy Land. I imbibed stories of a Good and Chosen people who fought against their Bad “unChosen” enemies..
In my early 20s, I began traveling the world, earning my living as a writer. I came to the subject of the Middle East rather late in my career. I was sadly lacking in knowledge regarding the area. About all I knew was what I had learned in Sunday School.
And typical of many U.S. Christians, I somehow considered a modern state created in 1948 as a homeland for Jews persecuted under the Nazis as a replica of the spiritual, mystical Israel I heard about as a child. When in 1979 I initially went to Jerusalem, I planned to write about the three great monotheistic religions and leave out politics. “Not write about politics?” scoffed one Palestinian, smoking a water pipe in the Old Walled City. “We eat politics, morning, noon and night!”
As I would learn, the politics is about land, and the co-claimants to that land: the indigenous Palestinians who have lived there for 2,000 years and the Jews who started arriving in large numbers after the Second World War. By living among Israeli Jews as well as Palestinian Christians and Muslims, I saw, heard, smelled, experienced the police state tactics Israelis use against Palestinians.
My research led to a book entitled Journey to Jerusalem. My journey not only was enlightening to me as regards Israel, but also I came to a deeper, and sadder, understanding of my own country. I say sadder understanding because I began to see that, in Middle East politics, we the people are not making the decisions, but rather that supporters of Israel are doing so. And typical of most Americans, I tended to think the U.S. media was “free” to print news impartially.
“It shouldn’t be published. It’s anti-Israel. ”
In the late 1970s, when I first went to Jerusalem, I was unaware that editors could and would classify “news” depending on who was doing what to whom. On my initial visit to Israel-Palestine, I had interviewed dozens of young Palestinian men. About one in four related stories of torture.
Israeli police had come in the night, dragged them from their beds and placed hoods over their heads. Then in jails the Israelis had kept them in isolation, besieged them with loud, incessant noises, hung them upside down and had sadistically mutilated their genitals. I had not read such stories in the U.S. media. Wasn’t it news? Obviously, I naively thought, U.S. editors simply didn’t know it was happening.
On a trip to Washington, DC, I hand-delivered a letter to Frank Mankiewicz, then head of the public radio station WETA. I explained I had taped interviews with Palestinians who had been brutally tortured. And I’d make them available to him. I got no reply. I made several phone calls. Eventually I was put through to a public relations person, a Ms. Cohen, who said my letter had been lost. I wrote again. In time I began to realize what I hadn’t known: had it been Jews who were strung up and tortured, it would be news. But interviews with tortured Arabs were “lost” at WETA.
The process of getting my book Journey to Jerusalem published also was a learning experience. Bill Griffin, who signed a contract with me on behalf of MacMillan Publishing Company, was a former Roman Catholic priest. He assured me that no one other than himself would edit the book. As I researched the book, making several trips to Israel and Palestine, I met frequently with Griffin, showing him sample chapters. “Terrific,” he said of my material.
The day the book was scheduled to be published, I went to visit MacMillan’s. Checking in at a reception desk, I spotted Griffin across a room, cleaning out his desk. His secretary Margie came to greet me. In tears, she whispered for me to meet her in the ladies room. When we were alone, she confided, “He’s been fired.” She indicated it was because he had signed a contract for a book that was sympathetic to Palestinians. Griffin, she said, had no time to see me.
Later, I met with another MacMillan official, William Curry. “I was told to take your manuscript to the Israeli Embassy, to let them read it for mistakes,” he told me. “They were not pleased. They asked me, `You are not going to publish this book, are you?’ I asked, `Were there mistakes?’ `Not mistakes as such. But it shouldn’t be published. It’s anti-Israel. ‘”
Somehow, despite obstacles to prevent it, the presses had started rolling. After its publication in 1980, I was invited to speak in a number of churches. Christians generally reacted with disbelief. Back then, there was little or no coverage of Israeli land confiscation, demolition of Palestinian homes, wan ton arrests and torture of Palestinian civilians.
The Same Question
Speaking of these injustices, I invariably heard the same question, “How come I didn’t know this?” Or someone might ask, “But I haven’t read about that in my newspaper.” To these church audiences, I related my own learning experience, that of seeing hordes of U.S. correspondents covering a relatively tiny state. I pointed out that I had not seen so many reporters in world capitals such as Beijing, Moscow, London, Tokyo, Paris. Why, I asked, did a small state with a 1980 population of only four million warrant more reporters than China, with a billion people?
I also linked this query with my findings that The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post—and most of our nation’s print media—are owned and/or controlled by Jews supportive of Israel. It was for this reason, I deduced, that they sent so many reporters to cover Israel—and to do so largely from the Israeli point of view.
My learning experiences also included coming to realize how easily I could lose a Jewish friend if I criticized the Jewish state. I could with impunity criticize France, England, Russia, even the United States. And any aspect of life in America. But not the Jewish state. I lost more Jewish friends than one after the publication of Journey to Jerusalem—all sad losses for me and one, perhaps, saddest of all.
In the 1960s and 1970s, before going to the Middle East, I had
written about the plight of blacks in a book entitled Soul Sister, and the plight of American Indians in a book entitled Bessie Yellowhair, and the problems endured by undocumented workers crossing from Mexico in The Illegals. These books had come to the attention of the “mother” of The New York Times, Mrs. Arthur Hays Sulzberger.
Her father had started the newspaper, then her husband ran it, and in the years that I knew her, her son was the publisher. She invited me to her fashionable apartment on Fifth Avenue for lunches and dinner parties. And, on many occasions, I was a weekend guest at her Greenwich, Conn. home.
She was liberal-minded and praised my efforts to speak for the underdog, even going so far in one letter to say, “You are the most remarkable woman I ever knew.” I had little concept that from being buoyed so high I could be dropped so suddenly when I discovered—from her point of view—the “wrong” underdog.
As it happened, I was a weekend guest in her spacious Connecticut home when she read bound galleys of Journey to Jerusalem. As I was leaving, she handed the galleys back with a saddened look: “My dear, have you forgotten the Holocaust?” She felt that what happened in Nazi Germany to Jews several decades earlier should silence any criticism of the Jewish state. She could focus on a holocaust of Jews while negating a modern day holocaust of Palestinians.
I realized, quite painfully, that our friendship was ending. Iphigene Sulzberger had not only invited me to her home to meet her famous friends but, also at her suggestion, The Times had requested articles. I wrote op-ed articles on various subjects including American blacks, American Indians as well as undocumented workers. Since Mrs. Sulzberger and other Jewish officials at the Times highly praised my efforts to help these groups of oppressed peoples, the dichotomy became apparent: most “liberal” U.S. Jews stand on the side of all poor and oppressed peoples save one—the Palestinians.
How handily these liberal Jewish opinion-molders tend to diminish the Palestinians, to make them invisible, or to categorize them all as “terrorists. ”
Interestingly, Iphigene Sulzberger had talked to me a great deal about her father, Adolph S. Ochs. She told me that he was not one of the early Zionists. He had not favored the creation of a Jewish state.
Yet, increasingly, American Jews have fallen victim to Zionism, a nationalistic movement that passes for many as a religion. While the ethical instructions of all great religions—including the teachings of Moses, Muhammad and Christ—stress that all human beings are equal, militant Zionists take the position that the killing of a non-Jew does not count.
Over five decades now, Zionists have killed Palestinians with impunity. And in the 1996 shelling of a U.N. base in Qana, Lebanon, the Israelis killed more than 100 civilians sheltered there. As an Israeli journalist, Arieh Shavit, explains of the massacre, “We believe with absolute certitude that right now, with the White House in our hands, the Senate in our hands and The New York Times in our hands, the lives of others do not count the same way as our own.”
Israelis today, explains the anti-Zionist Jew Israel Shahak, “are not basing their religion on the ethics of justice. They do not accept the Old Testament as it is written. Rather, religious Jews turn to the Talmud. For them, the Talmudic Jewish laws become `the Bible.’ And the Talmud teaches that a Jew can kill a non-Jew with impunity.”
In the teachings of Christ, there was a break from such Talmudic teachings. He sought to heal the wounded, to comfort the downtrodden.
The danger, of course, for U.S. Christians is that having made an icon of Israel, we fall into a trap of condoning whatever Israel does—even wanton murder—as orchestrated by God.
Yet, I am not alone in suggesting that the churches in the United States represent the last major organized support for Palestinian rights. This imperative is due in part to our historic links to the Land of Christ and in part to the moral issues involved with having our tax dollars fund Israeli-government- approved violations of human rights.
While Israel and its dedicated U.S. Jewish supporters know they have the president and most of Congress in their hands, they worry about grassroots America—the well-meaning Christians who care for justice. Thus far, most Christians were unaware of what it was they didn’t know about Israel. They were indoctrinated by U.S. supporters of Israel in their own country and when they traveled to the Land of Christ most all did so under Israeli sponsorship. That being the case, it was unlikely a Christian ever met a Palestinian or learned what caused the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This is gradually changing, however. And this change disturbs the Israelis. As an example, delegates attending a Christian Sabeel conference in Bethlehem earlier this year said they were harassed by Israeli security at the Tel Aviv airport.
“They asked us,” said one delegate, “`Why did you use a Palestinian travel agency? Why didn’t you use an Israeli agency?’” The interrogation was so extensive and hostile that Sabeel leaders called a special session to brief the delegates on how to handle the harassment. Obviously, said one delegate, “The Israelis have a policy to discourage us from visiting the Holy Land except under their sponsorship. They don’t want Christians to start learning all they have never known about Israel.”
Richard Ingrams’s Week: Will Zionists’ links to Iraq invasion be brushed aside?
Richard Ingrams’s Week: Will Zionists’ links to Iraq invasion be brushed aside?
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Writing in The Independent on Sunday, our former ambassador to Libya, Oliver Miles, points out that two members of the Iraq inquiry are Jewish and that one of them, Sir Martin Gilbert, “has a record of active support for Zionism”.
“Such facts,” says Mr Miles, “are not usually mentioned in the mainstream British and American media.” (This column has been a lonely exception to the rule.)
Sure enough, to prove the ambassador’s point, he was swiftly denounced by a leading representative of the mainstream media, The Times. “Oliver Miles’s contribution to the debate is extraordinary and disgraceful,” proclaimed an editorial on Wednesday. “The members of the panel are eminent in scholarship and public service. They should be allowed to get on with their deliberations without a volley of snide attack and irrelevant innuendo.”
The ambassador’s comments and the attention paid to them by The Times may be helpful in the long run, if only by drawing attention to the Israeli dimension in the Anglo-US invasion of Iraq in 2003, a dimension that hitherto has scarcely been mentioned. Yet it is a fact that the campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein was initiated, well before 9/11, by a group of influential American neocons, notably Perle, Feith and Wolfowitz (once described by Time magazine as “the godfather of the Iraq war”) nearly all of whom were ardent Zionists, in many cases more concerned with preserving the security of Israel than that of the US.
Given that undeniable fact, the pro-Israeli bias of Sir Martin Gilbert and Sir Lawrence Freedman, both of them supporters of the 2003 invasion, is a perfectly respectable point to raise. It is equally legitimate to ask if at any point the panel will investigate or even refer to the US neocons and their links to Israel. Call me snide if you like, but I very much doubt they will.
Don’t shed a tear for closed Borders
Not long ago, in the massive Borders bookshop at Oxford Circus, I asked for the biography section, only to be told that there wasn’t one. At other times, I have dropped into the shop on my way to the office, only to be driven out by the pounding background music. A few weeks ago, the shop closed down and now the whole business has gone into liquidation.
The usual sorts of explanations are on offer – the effects of the recession, fierce competition from internet retailers and the supermarkets. The plain fact is that the bookshops have closed down because they weren’t any good.
You had only to look around to see why piles and piles of books by or about celebrities – Jeremy Clarkson, Ant and Dec, Stephen Fry – filled the windows and the main display tables as you came in. These books were there not because Borders thought they were what the public might like to buy, but because the publishers had paid big money for them to be promoted like this.
The bookshop was now no different from a big DIY store renting out its shelves to publishers. The retailer played little part in the process and there was certainly no need for him or her to have any special knowledge of books.
Publishers will be in mourning following the collapse of Borders, but it might turn out to be good news for small, independent bookshops – or anyone, for that matter, who believes that there is a world of difference between selling books and selling pots of paint.
All in a flap about the habits of red kites
A correspondent takes me to task for my remarks last week about the climate-change deniers, in the course of which I quoted William Cobbett as saying: “Never write about any matter that you do not well understand.”
All very well, the correspondent says, but it’s a bit rich “coming from someone who spouts off about red kites when obviously knowing nothing about ecology”.
I will admit it. I’m not even sure that I know what ecology means. As for kites, all I have done is to question the view of kite-lovers that these birds of prey are essentially benefactors to the community as they live on carrion and road kill.
Funnily enough, it was Cobbett himself who helped to persuade me that this rosy view of the kite was misplaced. Writing in America in 1797, he describes a gathering of lawyers being intimidated by the arrival of the US Chief Justice Thomas McKean: “The little scrubby lawyers (with whom the courts of Philadelphia are continually crowded) crouched from fear just like a brood of poultry when the kite is preparing to pounce in amongst them…”
Unlike me, Cobbett, a farmer’s son, knew a great deal about such matters and will himself have observed the scene of savagery that he describes, which suggests that the kite is not quite the peaceful carrion-guzzling creature that the RSPB brigade would have us believe.
Of course, it is possible that the habits of kites are nowadays different from what they were in the 18th century. I will await the views of the expert ecologists on this point.
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Press TV interview with Dr. Stephen Sniegoski about his ‘The Transparent Cabal’ book:
http://tinyurl.com/thetransparentcabal
Britain’s Inquiry into the Iraq War and the Israel Lobby Taboo (by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski)
One just has to read Dr. Stephen Sniegoski’s ‘The Transparent Cabal’ book to see how the JINSA/PNAC/AEI Neocons pressured for US (via JINSA/PNAC/AEI associated Dick Cheney whose wife is a fellow at AEI) to invade Iraq in order to secure the realm for Israel in accordance with the ‘A Clean Break’ agenda (access the ‘A Clean Break’ link at the upper right of http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM if interested further):
In-Depth Discussion: In Israel’s Interest – US Policy Influenced by Media and Neocon Agenda:
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-depth-discussion.html
Stephen Sniegoski’s lecture on his book, “The Transparent Cabal”:
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/08/16/stephen-sniegoskis-lecture-on-his-book-the-transparent-cabal/
Civil War(s) in Iraq/Afghanistan: Back Door to War on Iran (by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski):
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/09/14/civil-wars-in-iraq-afghanistan-back-door-to-war-on-iran/
John Mearsheimer on the Afghan quagmire:
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/11/03/john-mearsheimer-on-the-afghan-quagmire/
What motivated the 9/11 hijackers? See testimony most didn’t:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1bm2GPoFfg&feature=PlayList&p=F81BB573C9C0C7B2&index=0&playnext=1
The Gorilla in the Room is US Support for Israel:
‘The Transparent Cabal’ mentioned in ‘The Independent’ (UK) newspaper
Dr. Stephen Sniegoski’s ‘The Transparent Cabal’ book was just mentioned in “The Independent” by long-time British journalist Richard Ingrams who, in
discussing the role of the neoconservatives (regarding the current Iraq war
investigation), writes:
“These facts and many in the same vein can be found in two scholarly,
well-argued books – The Israel Lobby by Professors John Mearsheimer and
Stephen Walt, and The Transparent Cabal by Stephen Sniegoski. I recommend them to Howard Jacobson and anyone else who may be interested in this important issue.”
Richard Ingrams’s Week: Ian Fleming’s creations are preferable to reality
You could say a similar mistake was made by the producers of the James Bond films when they changed 007′s chief M into Dame Judi Dench. Dame Judi is, as we know, a national treasure, much loved and cherished for her performances at the Old Vic and elsewhere. But she hardly seems the sort of person who is going to put the fear of God into Smersh or al-Qa’ida.
Much the same is true of Sir John Sawers, the real-life M, who could be seen live on TV this week giving his evidence to Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq inquiry. Once the private secretary to Tony Blair, Sir John Sawers, umm-ing and ah-ing his way along, seemed a singularly unimpressive figure, the sort you wouldn’t even pass the time of day with at the office Christmas party. Equally uninspiring was another of nature’s stooges, Sir John Scarlett, formerly head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, who also gave evidence to the inquiry and who seemed to find it a strain putting his words in the right order.
Of course, it may be the case that the heads of MI6 have always been like that, and it was only us poor suckers, fed on Ian Fleming’s fantasies, who imagined them as quietly spoken supermen nursing war wounds and speaking 16 languages.
But if they weren’t at all like that, at least they had the good sense to remain in the shadows, leaving us with our comforting illusions.
The evidence is there in print
It may be due to the popularity of the internet but people don’t seem to be reading books as much as they used to. The other day, for example, the Daily Mail headlined the “exclusive” news that our faulty intelligence about Saddam’s WMD had been provided by an Iraqi cab driver. But I read that story originally in a fascinating book called Curveball which I mentioned in this column in February last year.
I hesitate to accuse my colleague Howard Jacobson of ignorance because he is an exceptionally well-read man, more so than me. But all I would say in defence of his critique of my recent comments about the American neocons is that I read it all in books. As long ago as 1996, three of the most influential neocons – Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser – wrote a report, A Clean Break, for the incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him to “focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right”.
A few years later, those same men, now in the American government, were advising George Bush to adopt exactly the same policy. And it was not me but an Israeli journalist, Akiva Eldar who at the time warned the neocons that they “are walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments and Israeli interests”.
These facts and many in the same vein can be found in two scholarly, well-argued books – The Israel Lobby by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, and The Transparent Cabal by Stephen Sniegoski. I recommend them to Howard Jacobson and anyone else who may be interested in this important issue.
A politician unafraid to speak honestly
Asked by a rival paper to choose my book of the year I nominated Chris Mullin’s diary A View from the Foothills, which I have just finished reading.
At a time when MPs are getting such a bad press it is reassuring to find at least one of them who is a decent human being genuinely concerned with the welfare of his fellow human beings and not just someone on the make – which is what everybody, after yet more revelations about expenses, nowadays assumes all MPs to be.
A junior minister, first under John Prescott then with Clare Short and lastly at the Foreign Office in the days of Jack Straw, Mullin never loses sight of how limited his powers are, even, for example, when it comes to trying to control the spread of Cupressus leylandii.
Interesting, too, to be reminded of the powerful spell that Tony Blair exercised over MPs even one as worldly wise as Chris Mullin. As the dogged defender of the Birmingham Six, who posed with them on the steps of the law courts after their eventual acquittal, Mullin knew better than anyone the way in which judges are prepared to ignore the vital evidence in order to uphold the status quo. Yet when Lord Hutton produced his shameful whitewash of Blair in 2004, Mullin shared the general feelings of relief, reporting that “suddenly a great cloud lifted” with Blair looking “happier than he has done for months”.
Never mind. I can forgive Mullin anything, if only for this description of Christmas: “We opened our presents by the tree… I did my best to look cheerful but I find it a deeply depressing experience watching children who have everything piling up new possessions. Such a relief when it was over.”
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24366.htm
Additional at http://TINYURL.COM/THETRANSPARENTCABAL
Britain’s Inquiry into the Iraq War and the Israel Lobby Taboo (by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski)
The Chilcot Inquiry: Britain’s 9/11 Commission
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-LS5t31Xdo
Richard Ingrams UK Independent article referenced above also mentioned the Mearsheimer/Walt (‘The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy’ book – see http://www.israellobbybook.com & http://tinyurl.com/mearsheimer as well).
One just has to read Dr. Stephen Sniegoski’s ‘The Transparent Cabal’ book to see how the JINSA/PNAC/AEI Neocons pressured for US (via JINSA/PNAC/AEI associated Dick Cheney whose wife is a fellow at AEI) to invade Iraq in order to secure the realm for Israel in accordance with the ‘A Clean Break’ agenda (access the ‘A Clean Break’ link at the upper right of http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM if interested further):
In-Depth Discussion: In Israel’s Interest – US Policy Influenced by Media and Neocon Agenda:
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-depth-discussion.html
A New and Revealing Study of the Influence of the Neocons
The Making of Recent U.S. Middle East Policies (favorable review of Dr. Stephen Sniegoski’s ‘The Transparent Cabal’ book):
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison09202008.html
The Middle East Policy Council (MEPC which Ambassador Chas Freeman was the head of ) did a positive review of ‘The Transparent Cabal’ in their ‘Middle East Policy’ publication which is referenced at the following URL:
Review of Transparent Cabal in Middle East Policy
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2009/04/08/review-of-transparent-cabal-in-middle-east-policy.php
Will Stephen J. Sniegoski’s Dissection of the Neocons Get ‘Boycotted’ (see links posted at bottom of comments section)?
Karen Kwiatkowski review in “The Independent Review.”
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/12/27/kwiatkowski-review-of-transparent-cabal/
Stephen Sniegoski’s lecture on his book, “The Transparent Cabal”:
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/08/16/stephen-sniegoskis-lecture-on-his-book-the-transparent-cabal/
Civil War(s) in Iraq/Afghanistan: Back Door to War on Iran (by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski):
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/09/14/civil-wars-in-iraq-afghanistan-back-door-to-war-on-iran/
Iraq war was for Israel (not for Iraqi oil!)
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/12/15/iraq-war-was-for-israel-not-for-iraqi-oil/
John Mearsheimer on the Afghan quagmire:
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/11/03/john-mearsheimer-on-the-afghan-quagmire/
What motivated the 9/11 hijackers? See testimony most didn’t:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1bm2GPoFfg&feature=PlayList&p=F81BB573C9C0C7B2&index=0&playnext=1
The Gorilla in the Room is US Support for Israel:
Ron Paul: “It’s Time to Leave Afghanistan”, 12-10-09
It’s Time to Leave Afghanistan
http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2009/12/11/its-time-to-leave-afghanistan/
Posted By Rep. Ron Paul On December 11, 2009 @ 11:00 pm In Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Statement before the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee on December 10, 2009.
Mr. Speaker thank you for holding these important hearings on US policy in Afghanistan. I would like to welcome the witnesses, Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry and General Stanley A. McChrystal, and thank them for appearing before this Committee.
I have serious concerns, however, about the president’s decision to add some 30,000 troops and an as yet undisclosed number of civilian personnel to escalate our Afghan operation. This “surge” will bring US troop levels to approximately those of the Soviets when they occupied Afghanistan with disastrous result back in the 1980s. I fear the US military occupation of Afghanistan may end up similarly unsuccessful.
In late 1986 Soviet armed forces commander, Marshal Sergei Akhromeev, told then-Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, “Military actions in Afghanistan will soon be seven years old. There is no single piece of land in this country which has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier. Nonetheless, the majority of the territory remains in the hands of rebels.” Soon Gorbachev began the Soviet withdrawal from its Afghan misadventure. Thousands were dead on both sides, yet the occupation failed to produce a stable national Afghan government.
Eight years into our own war in Afghanistan the Soviet commander’s words ring eerily familiar. Part of the problem stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. It is our presence as occupiers that feeds the insurgency. As would be the case if we were invaded and occupied, diverse groups have put aside their disagreements to unify against foreign occupation. Adding more US troops will only assist those who recruit fighters to attack our soldiers and who use the US occupation to convince villages to side with the Taliban.
Proponents of the president’s Afghanistan escalation cite the successful “surge” in Iraq as evidence that this second surge will have similar results. I fear they might be correct about the similar result, but I dispute the success propaganda about Iraq. In fact, the violence in Iraq only temporarily subsided with the completion of the ethnic cleansing of Shi’ites from Sunni neighborhoods and vice versa – and all neighborhoods of Christians. Those Sunni fighters who remained were easily turned against the foreign al-Qaeda presence when offered US money and weapons. We are increasingly seeing this “success” breaking down: sectarian violence is flaring up and this time the various groups are better armed with US-provided weapons. Similarly, the insurgents paid by the US to stop their attacks are increasingly restive now that the Iraqi government is no longer paying bribes on a regular basis. So I am skeptical about reports on the success of the Iraqi surge.
Likewise, we are told that we have to “win” in Afghanistan so that al-Qaeda cannot use Afghan territory to plan further attacks against the US. We need to remember that the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, was, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, largely planned in the United States (and Germany) by terrorists who were in our country legally. According to the logic of those who endorse military action against Afghanistan because al-Qaeda was physically present, one could argue in favor of US airstrikes against several US states and Germany! It makes no sense. The Taliban allowed al-Qaeda to remain in Afghanistan because both had been engaged, with US assistance, in the insurgency against the Soviet occupation.
Nevertheless, the president’s National Security Advisor, Gen. James Jones, USMC (Ret.), said in a recent interview that less than 100 al-Qaeda remain in Afghanistan and that the chance they would reconstitute a significant presence there was slim. Are we to believe that 30,000 more troops are needed to defeat 100 al-Qaeda fighters? I fear that there will be increasing pressure for the US to invade Pakistan, to where many Taliban and al-Qaeda have escaped. Already CIA drone attacks on Pakistan have destabilized that country and have killed scores of innocents, producing strong anti-American feelings and calls for revenge. I do not see how that contributes to our national security.
The president’s top advisor for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said recently, “I would say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the simplest sense, the Supreme Court test for another issue, we’ll know it when we see it.” That does not inspire much confidence.
Supporters of this surge argue that we must train an Afghan national army to take over and strengthen the rule and authority of Kabul. But experts have noted that the ranks of the Afghan national army are increasingly being filled by the Tajik minority at the expense of the Pashtun plurality. US diplomat Matthew Hoh, who resigned as Senior Civilian Representative for the U.S. Government in Zabul Province, noted in his resignation letter that he “fail[s] to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war.” Mr. Hoh went on to write that “[L]ike the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by [the Afghan] people.”
I have always opposed nation-building as unconstitutional and ineffective. Afghanistan is no different. Without a real strategy in Afghanistan, without a vision of what victory will look like, we are left with the empty rhetoric of the last administration that “when the Afghan people stand up, the US will stand down.” I am afraid the only solution to the Afghanistan quagmire is a rapid and complete US withdrawal from that country and the region. We cannot afford to maintain this empire and our occupation of these foreign lands is not making us any safer. It is time to leave Afghanistan.
Read more by Rep. Ron Paul
- Who Wants More War? – December 7th, 2009
- Saving Face and Losing Lives – October 13th, 2009
- Instead of Bombs and Bribes,
Let’s Try Empathy and Trade – October 5th, 2009 - International Bailout Brings Us Closer to Economic Collapse – June 24th, 2009
- Hold the Torturers Accountable – May 25th, 2009
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Ron Paul was excellent on C-SPAN’s ‘Washington Journal’ (especially near the end about the money wasted on the Iraq/Afghan quagmires):
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/12/04/ron-paul-was-excellent-on-c-spans-washington-journal/
| http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/#34444334
Ron Paul on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Ron criticizes Ben Bernanke and the Fed. Explains the Austrian Economic view of how the “system is evil.” Tells how he as President would have pulled all the troops home from wars and from all the foreign bases around the globe. |
John Mearsheimer on the Afghan quagmire:
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/11/03/john-mearsheimer-on-the-afghan-quagmire/
The bottom line (to the Afghan quagmire):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdNlNuQJuf0
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Civil War(s) in Iraq/Afghanistan: Back Door to War on Iran (by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski)
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/09/14/civil-wars-in-iraq-afghanistan-back-door-to-war-on-iran/
Great Speech, But What About Israel-Palestine?
Great Speech, But What About Israel-Palestine?
http://mediamattersaction.org/blog/200912110004
What motivated the 9/11 hijackers? See testimony most didn’t
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1bm2GPoFfg
The Gorilla in the Room is US Support for Israel
IS OBAMA REALLY PREPARING FOR CIVIL WAR?
IS OBAMA REALLY PREPARING FOR CIVIL WAR?
http://newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin554.htm
There will be a violent revolution in America (Max Keiser)