| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2003 10:54 am Post subject: Misguided Mission of the JINSA/PNAC Neocon Cabal |
| http://www.nowarforisrael.com
http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/12/Counterpunch_1.html
http://nogw.com/warforisrael.html
http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20031219/index.php
Misguided Mission
It's clear that the president's brain is occupied by the neoconservatives who surround him. It's clear from their writings and policy statements that the neoconservatives believe the United States can become the dominant power on Earth.
This is a bad judgment that is dangerous and could become lethal. This is why thoughtful people believe it is imperative to defeat George Bush in the 2004 elections. This wrongheaded policy, cooked up by academics and journalists, is not one that will merely embarrass the United States. It is a wrongheaded policy that could have dire consequences for the American people.
This wrongheaded idea that the United States can now dominate the planet rests on a number of fallacies. Let's look at them.
Fallacy No. 1 is the belief that the rest of the world will acquiesce to American dominance. Russia, China and India, not to mention the Islamic World, are not about to go quietly into the sunset. All three have large populations, large amounts of natural resources, and nuclear teeth. Their nuclear teeth mean that the U.S. attempts to bully them will always fall short of being effective.
Fallacy No. 2 is the false belief that the United States is as strong as it was in 1945. The truth is we are much weaker. The great manufacturing capacity that became the "arsenal of democracy" has been eroded almost beyond recognition. Our agricultural base has been eroded. Iron ore and oil supplies have been seriously depleted. We are in fact dependent on imports not only for energy supplies but for manufactured goods, strategic minerals, parts for our own strategic weapons systems, and increasingly for food. We are running high federal deficits, high trade deficits and high current account deficits. The value of the dollar is eroding rapidly.
Fallacy No. 3 is the false belief that our military is undefeatable. This falsehood has been fed by the fact that since Vietnam, we have used our high-tech forces to attack small, poor, defenseless countries such as Grenada, Panama, Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq. But even Afghanistan and Iraq, both dilapidated and lacking all modern military technology, have put a great strain on America's military forces. We do not yet have full control of either country.
Our strength is not in our ground forces but in our high-tech air power and the ability to coordinate the two. One breakthrough in air-defense technology could seriously weaken us, and you can be sure both Russia and China are working assiduously to make that breakthrough. Before you dismiss Russia, you should remember that we are now dependent on Russian spacecraft to reach the space station and that Russia, not us, has the world's largest mobile intercontinental ballistic missile force.
If we are so strong, why has the president tread so carefully in his dealings with North Korea? Why not bully them as he did Iraq? Why not issue ultimatums? For the simple reason that we would pay a very high price in American casualties if we got into a war with North Korea. Don't forget, it is their civilian sector that is poor. They have put most of their resources into their military.
In 1945, the United States was the strongest and richest country on Earth. In 2003, we are one of, if not the, most indebted countries on Earth. Foreign holders of that debt could wreck our economy simply by deciding to dump their holdings on the market. Domestically we are a divided people with a decadent culture, if you can even call it a culture.
Far from entering a period of dominance, we are entering a period of great danger. Most empires have lasted about 250 years, and we are approaching that number. What we need are not empty heads controlled by pseudo-intellectual ideologues but the smartest, wisest leaders we can find. Our future depends on it.
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© 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2003 11:58 am Post subject: FASCISM IN AMERICA |
| Forwarded:
FASCISM IN AMERICA
PeaceFriends: I'm re-sending Dr. Lawrence Britt's summary of his critically important, sobering and scholarly analysis of fascism, that right-wing agenda, the US version of which I like to call "American Friendly Fascism" or "Neo-Conservativism." It can occur in governments, religious institutions, corporations, bureaucracies, families; any group that has a disdain for free and true, uncorrupted democracy.
=============================================
Fascism was not invented by Mussolini; he just put a convenient name to that right-wing, coercive, selfish, heartless, punitive, sexist, racist, xenophobic agenda that is backed up by soldiers and policemen who obey unjust orders without hesitation.
Fascism has been lurking in one form or another in all militarized countries throughout the history of the world, most notably in monarchies, oligarchies, theocracies, dictatorships, and even in democracies such as ours and Britain's since greedy power-hungry business or bureaucratic leaders started exploiting other people and their resources for their personal or corporate gain.
Control of the military and police to do the enforcing by coercive measures is critically important because average thinking people will not allow their resources to be stolen from them against their will . That's why fascists try to take control of the media, legislature, judiciary and executive branches of their nations and try to do the stealing legally or by edict.
The lessons are best learned by studying what happened in pre-Nazi Germany and Hitler's Germany, especially what rapidly happened to various minorities in the first year of Hitler's regime.
Reading Willian Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is sobering because of all the parallels between German fascism and the American right-wing agendas. Please forward this piece widely before the anti-fascist resistance movement gets crushed before it starts by the unelected Neo-Conservative usurpers in the Department of (In-)Justice, the Pentagon, the State Dept. and the White House. Gary.
===================================
The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Free Inquiry Magazine / Spring 2003
Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, studied the fascist regimes
of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto
(Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile). He found the regimes all had 14
things in common, and he calls these the identifying characteristics of
fascism. The article is titled 'Fascism Anyone?', and appears in Free
Inquiry's Spring 2003 issue on page 20.
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism -
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans,
symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as
are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in
fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in
certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way
or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long
incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need
to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or
religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists,
etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military -
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given
a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic
agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism -
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively
male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are
made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homo-sexuality are suppressed
and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family
institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media -
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in
other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government
regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives.
Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security -
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in
the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric
and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major
tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's
policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected -
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are
the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually
beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed -
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a
fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are
severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts -
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher
education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other
academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts
and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to
enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses
and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is
often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist
nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption -
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and
associates who appoint each other to government positions and use
governmental power and authority to protect their friends from
accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national
resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections -
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even
assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control
voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of
the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to
manipulate or control elections. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2003 10:16 am Post subject: Israel's Threat To World Peace |
| Subj: Israel's Threat To World Peace, by James David and Elite Israeli Troops refuse to serve in Palestinian Territories and oppress its people, by Molly Moore, Washington Post - REVOLTING!
Date: 12/25/03 2:28:50 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: josephanthony.yuja@tin.it
First the eloquent and compelling article by retired Brig. General James David on MMN on why ISRAEL's criminal apartheid policies against millions of Palestinians with Washington's support show utter contempt for Human Rights , morality and civilized behaviour/feelings everywhere and constitute the biggest threat to World Peace!!
General David's opinion is confirmed by the increasing number of senior Israeli officers and military people including recently Pilots, Elite troops who refuse to take part in missions and attacks that have nothing to do with their country's security (Washington Post article and Israeli Combatants' letter below) but whose wicked purpose (not so hidden anymore) is to further "dominate, expel, starve and humiliate" entire Palestinian Populations in the name of an expansionist and jewish only Israel on all of historical Palestine!! AJGY
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http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/3289/
Israel's Threat To World Peace
by James J. David
(Wednesday 24 December 2003)
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"Libya has never been a threat to the United States, and for that matter, Iraq was never a threat to the United States. The only threat Iraq or Libya posed was a threat to Israel's dominance of nuclear weapons in the Middle East."
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It seems that the entire world is praising American and British diplomacy for its efforts in convincing Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in announcing that Libya would cease work on its programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. This is quite an accomplishment, considering that Libya has been listed for more than 17years by the U.S. State Department as one of the major countries supporting state terrorism.
As wonderful as this news may be, the United States needs to concentrate its efforts towards the real obstacle to world peace. Libya was no threat to world peace, and neither was Iraq. If the United States devotes as much effort in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as they did with Libya's weapons of mass destruction then maybe the American people could rest a bit easier.
According to a recent poll by the Anti-Defamation League, forty-two percent of the American people consider Israel as a threat to world peace. What's even more astonishing is the result of a recent European poll that found 59 percent of Europeans considered Israel as the major threat to world peace with the United States coming in second. Libya wasn't even mentioned.
Libya has never been a threat to the United States, and for that matter, Iraq was never a threat to the United States. The only threat Iraq or Libya posed was a threat to Israel's dominance of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
While Iraq failed to obey one UN resolution fast enough, Israel has steadfastly refused to obey not just one UN resolution, but an incredible 69 UN resolutions. Israel's actions have brought outrage from a majority of the UN's member states on 69 separate occasions. They have condemned Israel for the destruction of Arab villages, for the murder of innocent women and children, for making war on neighboring states, for refusing to withdraw from invaded and occupied territory, for killing protesting students, for killing civilians protesting being expelled from their homes, for a transcontinental bombing raid against Tunisia, and for dozens of other violations. And on 29 other occasions, UN resolutions with real teeth in them, calling for Israel to withdraw from stolen land and allow self-determination for the Palestinian people among other things, would have been adopted but were vetoed by the one dissenting vote of the United States. When it comes to the exercising of any kind of real power against those who violate UN resolutions, it seems that some countries are "more equal than others." Israel gets away not only with an expansionist foreign policy, but with repeatedly and endlessly violating the most elementary human rights of her subject peoples. Although Israel's PR men would have us believe that Israel is an island of Western values in the Middle East, the truth is quite the opposite. Not only does Israel violate the most fundalmental human rights laws but Israel is also guilty of assassination, kidnapping, expulsion, detention without charges or trial, land confiscation, and collective punishment - not to mention Israel's long-standing practice of espionage against the United States, its principal benefactor and the attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American sailors and injured another 171.
Hardly a day goes by without the Israelis killing innocent Palestinian men, women, and children. Today they killed 8 Palestinians and wounded an estimated 300. Three days ago they killed a 6-year-old Palestinain boy just hours before a 13-year-old Palestinian boy died from a gunshot to his head. Twenty Palestinians have been killed in the past two weeks even though there hasn't been even one suicide bombing in over two months. And just last week the Israelis shot and killed a 21-year-old pregnant Palestinian mother trying to take her young son to the hospital. The Israelis have killed more than 500 women and children in the past 3 years. They have demolished more than 3000 Palestinian homes, causing more than 17,000 homeless, including 2300 children.
These stories never make the Headline News or the front pages of your local newspapers. You don't see President Bush or Condoleezza Rice out on the front lawn of the White House condemning the Israelis for killing innocent men, women, and especially children. The United States talks about a balanced Middle East Policy but just look at what we actually practice. We have one standard for the treatment of Israelis that is so high they cannot be criticized no matter what grisly crimes they commit. Then we have a second standard for the treatment of Palestinians that is so low we publicly finance their ethnic cleansing and torture.
President Bush may refer to Israeli policies as obstacles to peace but when it comes time for a vote in the U.N. Security Council on the illegal settlements, or the apartheid wall, or on assassinations, or any of the other Israeli criminal acts, the United States vetoes every move to condemn Israeli aggression. The United States could not even bring itself to condemn the Qana Lebanese refugee camp massacre of 1996 in which 103 innocent Lebanese civilians were killed. Is it any wonder the Arab world hates us? Is it any wonder America was attacked? How can the United States strive for world peace when Israel is allowed to do whatever it pleases? Supporting Israel may be politically correct, but the more we look the other way, the more violence there will be. American politicians jump on the Zionist bandwagon simply because they know that is where the power is. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Lobby and Jewish interest groups have effectively silenced any politician who is critical to Israeli policy.
Is the Israeli lobby and the Jewish control of our American politicians so powerful that our elected officials have lost all sense of moral right? Evidently, former President Jimmy Carter thought so when he was prompted to say, after he left office of course, that no politician dared to oppose its demands, because to do so would be "political suicide." They take our money, we fight and die in their wars, and, since both political parties are in their pocket, the American people don't have any choice in the matter. Sheilding Israel is an international embarrassment and places U.S. citizens in danger around the world, let alone danger to our own nation. It is time for the American people to face the fact that supporting Israel's criminal activities is the greatest threat facing America today. Disguising America's threat with anything else is nothing more than political spin and a decoy used as a means of savings one's career. Placing the blame on Israel would end one's political career.
The recent decision by Libya to abandon its weapons of mass destruction is just one step towards world peace. The bigger step would be for Israel to do the same. It is time for the United States to free itself from the grips of the Jewish lobby and to take a stand on the side of human mankind. It is time to use our foreign aid as leverage and to insist on Israel to abandon its weapons of mass destruction and to abide by International Law. It is time we stop fooling the American people. It is time to get tough with Israel. After all, Israel is the biggest threat to world peace.
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Elite Israeli Troops Refuse To Serve in the Territories
by Molly Moore (Washington Post) 22/12/2003
http://www.seruv.org.il/english/article.asp?msgid=86
ENGLISH SITE OF ISRAEL'S "COURAGE TO REFUSE" AND THE COMBATANTS' BRAVE AND ELOQUENT LETTER
http://www.seruv.org.il/english/default.asp
Courage to Refuse > Combatants Letter
We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, self-sacrifice and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it.
We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on reserve duty in the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people.
We, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides,
We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Occupied Territories destroy all the values that we were raised upon,
We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss of IDF’s human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society,
We, who know that the Territories are not a part of Israel, and that all settlements are bound to be evacuated,
We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.
We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.
We hereby declare that we shall continue serving the Israel Defense Force in any mission that serves Israel’s defense.
The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose – and we shall take no part in them. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 12:59 am Post subject: JINSA Chickenhawk Cheney after War with North Korea |
| Vice President Dick Cheney was on the board of advisors for JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) which would like to have US/UK soldiers die in order to do regime change in North Korea to prevent to current North Korean regime from potentially selling/transferring missles and/or WMDs to the perceived enemies of Israel (NO US/UK SOLDIER SHOULD HAVE TO DIE FOR ISRAEL):
http://www.nowarforisrael.com
Friday, December 26, 2003
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/
Dick Cheney personally intervened to stop negotiations concerning talks
for a peace agreement with North Korea. Cheney said
"I have been charged by the President with making sure that none of the
tyrannies in the world are negotiated with. We don't negotiate with
evil; we defeat it."
Raising the concept of evil evokes the idea of the 'axis of evil', and
makes the Korean issue one of Good versus Evil, which presumably can
never be concluded with negotiations. This is not just a gratuitous
insult to the North Koreans, it also makes light of the efforts being
made by China to eliminate the threat posed by a nuclear North Korea.
Cheney prevented negotiations from even starting. According to Cheney
and the neocons, North Korea is supposed to dismantle its nuclear
weapons before the Americans will even begin negotiations, and as the
weapons are the sole negotiating chip the Koreans have, they are not
going to do that. Cheney's hardass position is so stupid that Bush had
to have a conciliatory phone call with Chinese President Hu Jintao (you
know the United States is in trouble when Bush has to play the adult
role). Just as in Iraq, there appears to be a turf battle between the
insane neocons, and the realists in the State Department, with Bush
unwilling or unable to rein in the crazies. The context of this is that
the United States simply can't afford a war with North Korea, the cost
of which would make everyone forget about the mere hundreds of billions
spent on Iraq. The number of American troops required has been estimated
at 650,000 (and where will they be found?), and the number of American
casualties may be as high as 250,000. Unlike Iraq, North Korea actually
has weapons of mass destruction and will certainly use them. It also has
an army of 1.2 million people (!), one of the most powerful artilleries
in the world, and one of the largest special forces operations in the
world, tailored specially for fighting in the Korean peninsula. Raising
issues of good and evil in order to provide a snooty excuse to avoid
negotiating to prevent a war against such an opponent is criminally
stupid. USA Today reports the extent of the danger:
"The alternative to an agreement would be nothing like the relatively
painless initial combat victory over Iraq. If diplomacy fails, North
Korean troops are expected to fight and fight hard. U.S. officers
envision North Korea attacking in a sudden, violent lunge across the
border. The aim would be a decisive defeat of U.S. and South Korean
forces in fewer than 30 days, before reinforcements could arrive and
North Korea's economic weakness hampers its military, officials said."
North Korea's desperate economic situation means that they may see
themselves as having only one chance if the Americans aren't prepared to
negotiate: attack South Korea without warning. While the neocon
chickenhawks strut their stuff and get to feel like tough guys, the
United States takes a huge, and completely unnecessary, risk of utter
disaster. How much longer can the United States afford to keep Dick
Cheney around? posted at 3:52 AM
(5) Wolfowitz throws Tantrum at France, Germany, Russia and Canada
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2003 00:10:37 +1000 From: "makichris"
<chrispaul@netpci.com>
http://www.juancole.com/2003_12_01_juancole_archive.html#107121469040903099
Wolfowitz throws Tantrum at France, Germany, Russia and Canada: The
Failure of Emotional Intelligence
It transpires that the Pentagon order denying Iraq reconstruction
contracts to France, Germany, Russia and Canada was issued by Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. It created enormous anger in the US
allies of NATO. They feel that they have been putting themselves out
there for the US, and are now being screwed over. Germany has been
spending extra money and military resources on guarding the Red Sea and
the Horn of Africa from al-Qaeda incursions. Germany, France and Canada
all have troops in Afghanistan risking their lives for the US (al-Qaeda
has not blown up any tall buildings in Toronto). Even outside NATO,
Russia acquiesced in letting the US move into Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan, traditional Russian/Soviet spheres of influence, for its war
against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Wolfowitz's timing could not be worse. He issued the order just as Bush
envoy James Baker was about to make the rounds of Iraq's creditors,
asking for extensive debt forgiveness. Iraq owes $9 bn. to Russia, for
instance, and in international law the debt must be repaid by Iraq
regardless of regime changes. And, Russia's foreign minister promptly
announced that the US could kiss the prospect of any debt forgiveness
goodbye.
Since Iraq owes on the order of $40 bn. to Russia, France and other
European countries, and since the reconstruction budget so far is under
$20 bn., it is obvious that vastly more was to be gained by letting the
NATO countries and Europe have a few contracts and then getting them to
forgive or refinance the loans.
Instead, Wolfowitz was intent on scoring petty points. He had promised
to "punish" France for defying him. The move was so gratuitous and
immature that one can only guess something else lay behind it. There are
lots of reasons for which the Likudniks would like to make bad blood
between the US and France and Russia in particular. France is no longer
a knee-jerk supporter of Israeli militarism and expansionism. In part
this is because of the growth of the Muslim electorate in France. About
7% of French residents are Muslim, nearly 5 million persons, whereas
French Jews amount to only 600,000 or perhaps a bit more. France has
been alarmed at Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's combination Iron Fist and Land
Rustling, since it makes French Muslims upset. Likewise, Russia has a
more balanced view of the Arab-Israeli conflict. So, it may be that the
powerful Likudniks inside the US government are deliberately engineering
a diplomatic rift in NATO, so as to ensure that Paris and Moscow cannot
position themselves to influence Washington's position (usually supine)
toward Sharon's excesses.
I have concluded that the Bush team lacks Emotional Intelligence as
defined by psychologists such as Daniel Goleman. Emotional Intelligence
consists of the following:
"Self-awareness: Observing yourself and recognizing a feeling as it
happens.
Managing emotions: Handling feelings so that they are appropriate;
realizing what is behind a feeling; finding ways to handle fears and
anxieties, anger, and sadness.
Motivating oneself: Channeling emotions in the service of a goal;
emotional self control; delaying gratification and stifling impulses.
Empathy: Sensitivity to others' feelings and concerns and taking their
perspective; appreciating the differences in how people feel about
things.
Handling relationships: Managing emotions in others; social competence
and social skills."
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are completely blind to those things that give
rise to their anxieties, and are not good at handling their anger. They
want to lash out and bomb people as the response to every challenge.
After September 11 Wolfowitz first wanted to attack Iraq, and then when
he was informed he couldn't do that (yet) he wanted to bomb Kabul. But
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and the cosmopolitan city of Kabul is
mainly populated by Persian-speaking Tajiks who hated the guts of the
Taliban.
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are not good at emotional self control or
stifling impulses. They shout and pound desks and poke people in the
chest, and then they invade countries. They have already invaded two,
and have a list of at least 5 more they would like to go after. They
have no patience with the diplomacy that can often yield better results,
but which requires a willingness to wait.
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz have no sensitivity to others' feelings or
ability to see things from the perspective of their rivals, even within
the Bush administration. Is it really so hard to understand why the
French were skeptical of the need for an Iraq War? First the US
persuaded them to vote to send the Weapons Inspectors back in. They did
that, and Iraq let them back in, and then only a month later, before the
inspectors could possibly have accomplished anything, the US invaded.
Why bother with the inspection rigamarole at all? The French saw
themselves as having been suckered. They said they didn't see good
evidence of WMD in Iraq (it didn't exist). They felt the US was rushing
to war. So, instead of saying, well, allies sometimes disagree on policy
and we understand that you choose to sit this one out, Wolfowitz tried
to demonize France. And he is still slapping Paris in the face 8 months
later.
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are not good at managing emotions in others,
social competence, and social skills. The basic goal of a manager (and a
superpower has to manage diplomacy) is to create a win-win situation for
everyone on a team as far as possible. The last thing you want is for
some colleagues to be sulking and feeling unfairly treated. Yet Rumsfeld
and Wolfowitz have attempted to divide NATO into the countries willing
to acquiesce in US adventurism and those who decline to go along with
just any old war that Washington decides to fight. And they want to
punish the independent-minded, which is bound to create further bad
blood down the road (and further expense as the US taxpayers have to
take up the tasks the French and Germans disdain as a result of
Washington's pique).
If these guys were managing a company and I were deciding whether to
hire them, I'd take one look at the track record of deficiencies in
emotional intelligence and dump them immediately in favor of adults.
-- Joshua Micah Marshall http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Some interesting background on the decision to cancel the flights from
Paris to LAX. There seems to have been some disagreement between US and
French authorities over how to handle the information.
According to this report from the BBC, Department of Homeland Security
officials were pissed that the French had handled the matter so
publicly, thus losing a chance to possibly arrest the folks about whom
suspicion had been raised.
Meanwhile the DC correspondent of a major French media outlet tells me
that French authorities looked at the list of names provided by the
Americans and eventually concluded on their own that the people in
question had no ties to terrorism.
Finally, this report says that a spokesman for the French Prime Minister
"said the United States had threatened to refuse the planes permission
to land if they did take off," which again suggests a lack of a
completely harmonious interaction.
Needless to say, I don't know which of these stories are true or what's
behind them. In real-time, counter-terrorism has its own equivalent of
the fog of war. So even the players themselves may not know all the
details. And add to this the distinct possibility that reports we hear
may include disinformation intended to conceal from terrorists what law
enforcement authorities do or don't know.
But, assuming nothing terrible ends up happening, I'll be very curious
to find out more about just how this was all handled. Because few things
are more important than effective liaison and coordination between ours
and our allies intelligence services. And if the choppy political waters
are getting in the way, on either side, that's a big problem.
--
Peter Myers, 21 Blair St, Watson ACT 2602, Australia
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers ph +61 2 62475187
to unsubscribe, reply with "unsubscribe" in the subject line | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 11:27 am Post subject: Republicans Paint 'Large' Bullseye On Cheney's Back |
| http://www.nowarforisrael.com
Whither Cheney?
Republicans Paint 'Large' Bullseye On Cheney's Back
By Jim Lobe, InterPress Service
Sunday, December 28, 2003, The Manila Times
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2003/dec/28/yehey/opinion/20031228opi6.html
WASHINGTON- While the Democratic candidates battle for the
presidential nomination in the first half of next year,
Republicans will face a difficult choice of their own.
No, it will not be for the presidential nomination, which George
W. Bush - adding daily to his unprecedented campaign war chest by
hopscotching to various gold-plated fund-raisers - has already
sewn up.
Rather, the main battle is likely to be over the Number Two spot,
specifically over whether Vice President Dick Cheney will be on
the ticket.
Officially, all systems are "go" for a Bush-Cheney rerun. Indeed,
you can already see "Bush-Cheney" bumper stickers on the
enormous, gas guzzling sports utility vehicles (SUVs) that rumble
through the capital's streets.
And in a nationally broadcast television interview last week,
Bush himself insisted that, while all Cabinet positions are wide
open if he wins a second term, Cheney will be the man whose arm
he will grasp high over his head at the conclusion of this
summer's Republican National Convention in New York, where the
ticket is to be formally decided.
But even that has not quashed continuing speculation that Cheney
has a large bull's-eye on his back, painted there by Republican
"realists," who largely controlled the party through most of the
Cold War.
For them, Cheney has become a major liability, not only to Bush's
reelection chances, but - as the leader of the administration's
imperialist faction with the greatest direct influence on Bush
himself - to US economic and strategic interests abroad as well.
Within the administration, the realists are led by Secretary of
State Colin Powell, who remains by far the most popular Cabinet
official. More important players, however, are outside the
administration, albeit well within the Bush family circle.
They include top officials of the first Bush administration,
including former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who
chairs Bush Jr.'s president's foreign intelligence advisory
board, and former secretary of state James Baker, who just moved
back into the White House as Jr.'s personal envoy charged with
persuading Iraq's creditors to forgive tens of billions of
dollars of that country's foreign debt.
They also include the former president himself, according to
knowledgeable sources who say he has encouraged both Scowcroft
and Baker - as well as other prominent foreign-policy Republicans
like Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar
and Chuck Hagel - to try to get Cheney dumped from the ticket
next year.
Cheney, of course, served as Bush Sr.'s defense secretary. In
that capacity he clashed frequently with Scowcroft and Baker on
key issues, particularly how to deal with then-Soviet president
Mikhail Gorbachev - he remained distrustful to the end - and on
US reliance on multilateral institutions like the United Nations.
While the others favored continuity with what is sometimes called
a US hegemony strategy, where Washington pursues its foreign
policy in close consultation with its traditional allies and
through multilateral mechanisms, even while acting as the
ultimate guarantor of global peace and stability, Cheney leaned
more to a unilateralist and frankly imperialist course.
He was urged by then-undersecretary of defense, now deputy
defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, and then-Wolfowitz's chief
deputy, now the vice president's powerful chief of staff and
national security adviser, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
A growing number of analysts have come to see Cheney as the key
administration figure in moving the United States to war with
Iraq, even sanctioning what Newsweek recently referred to as a
"parallel government" that circumvented normal policy-making and
intelligence channels to persuade Bush to take unilateral action.
Without Cheney running interference for them, according to this
view, the neo-cons and other hawks, will quickly be marginalized
in a second Bush term.
While the invasion's quick success boosted Cheney's influence, as
well as that of the neo-conservatives in his office and around
Rumsfeld, the botch-up of the postwar occupation - brought home
to the public in the steadily rising number of US casualties -
created a major opening for the "realists" this autumn,
particularly as Bush's poll numbers began falling precipitously,
and his top political aide, Karl Rove, sensed disaster.
It was at this time that the administration began wooing Baker to
become Bush's personal envoy and that the national security
council, under Bush Sr.'s former Soviet specialist Robert
Blackwill, began taking more authority for both making and
coordinating foreign policy"particularly in Iraq - largely at the
Pentagon's expense.
Shortly after, a series of articles began appearing in the
mainstream press questioning Cheney's role in preparing the way
to Iraq.
In addition to a Newsweek cover story that noted Cheney's views
on the war on terrorism - seem to be shaped by flaky ideologues,-
a lengthy story in The New Republic, another influential
Washington publication, detailed many of his more "far-out"
views.
Those included his refusal to accept the painstaking findings of
US intelligence agencies that Saddam Hussein did not have a role
in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center or that an Iraqi
intelligence agent had not met with one of the September 11
hijackers in Prague five months before the attacks.
On Capitol Hill, Cheney, as Bush's chief legislative strategist,
was having an increasingly difficult time shepherding key
legislation, including his pet energy bill, through Congress,
while reports of overcharging in Iraq by Halliburton, the
construction company that he headed in the 1990s and in which he
retains a financial interest, prompted even loyal Republicans to
speak out for an investigation.
"Cheney's own actions have made him an unusually inviting
target," noted a November Los Angeles Times article, which argued
that Cheney's failures and his ties to Halliburton were fueling
doubts among Republican lawmakers.
"Cheney may prove to be a bigger domestic liability to Bush than
he is a foreign-policy burden," the authors wrote.
To the little extent he appears in public, Cheney displays no
doubts about his past role or his future. And this month's
capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and Libya's
agreement to dismantle certain weapons programs - both followed
by significant jumps in Bush's poll standings - are being
depicted as vindication for the hawks.
Moreover, unlike Rumsfeld, whose war time cockiness has given way
to a more subdued manner in recent months, Cheney remains a
picture of confidence, and has even hired new staff whose policy
views, particularly vis-C -vis "reshaping the Middle East," are
clearly on the far-right fringe.
Indeed, violating an informal administration ban on using the
word "empire" to describe US policy, Cheney sent out thousands of
Christmas cards this year that included a quotation from Benjamin
Franklin suggesting that God supports the administration's
imperial aims.
"And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice,
is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?" asked
the Cheney family's season's greetings. | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2004 11:59 am Post subject: FBI looks at Pentagon worker in Israel spy probe |
| FBI looks at Pentagon worker in Israel spy probe
Report: Suspect has ties to Wolfowitz, Feith
Saturday, August 28, 2004 Posted: 1:02 AM EDT (0502 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The FBI has evidence that a person who has been working at high levels in the Pentagon may be a spy for Israel, senior U.S. officials have confirmed to CNN.
The alleged "mole" working for Israel could have been in a position to influence Bush administration policy toward Iran and Iraq, one of the officials said on Friday.
However, another government official said the suspect is "not in a level to influence policy."
"He is an analyst in an undersecretary's office," this official said.
Sources said the FBI investigation has been going on for many months and more than one government employee is under investigation.
A senior Pentagon official confirmed to CNN that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "had been made generally aware that the Justice Department had an investigation going on."
The Pentagon issued a statement Friday, confirming it "has been cooperating with the Department of Justice on this matter for an extended period of time."
"It is the DOD [Department of Defense] understanding that the investigation within the DOD is limited in its scope."
CBS News, which first reported the story, said the FBI had developed evidence against the suspect, including photographs and conversations recorded through wiretaps.
The network said the alleged spy has ties to two senior Pentagon officials: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith.
Multiple sources have told CNN that the investigation is well along, and one government official described the evidence against the suspect as a "slam dunk case" and said "there has been no decision to prosecute the individual."
Officials said the suspect passed classified documents to Israel through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group.
But AIPAC released a statement late Friday calling the news reports "false and baseless."
The statement said AIPAC learned Friday that "the government is investigating an employee of the Department of Defense for possible violations in handling confidential information."
A designation of the material as confidential would indicate a much lower level of secrecy than if it had been designated as classified.
AIPAC said it "is cooperating fully" with government authorities, including providing documents and information and making staff members available for interviews. Sources told CNN that two AIPAC employees have been interviewed in the case by the FBI.
"Neither AIPAC nor any of its employees has violated any laws or rules, nor has AIPAC or its employees ever received information they believed was secret or classified," the statement said.
"AIPAC is an American organization comprised of proud and loyal U.S. citizens committed to promoting American interests. We do not condone or tolerate any violation of any U.S. law or interests."
Washington insiders note that it is not unusual for friendly governments to have access to certain classified information, so even if the allegations are correct, not everyone involved may have thought they were involved in espionage.
Still, one U.S. source is calling the case "a very serious matter."
David Siegel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, denied the allegations.
"The United States is Israel's most cherished friend and ally. We have a strong, ongoing, working relationship at all levels, and in no way would Israel do anything to impair this relationship."
An Israeli official in Washington said the U.S. government has not contacted the Israelis about any such investigation.
Despite the close relationship between the two countries, espionage against the United States on behalf of Israel would not be without precedent. Former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard is serving a life sentence for passing classified material to Israel.
The Justice Department, speaking for the FBI, refused to comment, saying only, "We cannot confirm or deny the report."
An FBI spokesman said the bureau has no comment on the CBS report.
CNN's David Ensor, Barbara Starr, Kelli Arena and Terry Frieden contributed to this report.
http://cnn.org/2004/US/08/28/fbi.spy/index.html | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2004 12:27 pm Post subject: The FBI investigation |
| http://www.warandpiece.com/
August 27, 2004
The FBI investigation.
For months, I have been working with my colleagues Paul Glastris and Josh Marshall on a story for the Washington Monthly about US policy towards Iran. In particular, it involves a particular series of meetings involving officials from the office of the undersecretary of defense for Policy Doug Feith and Iranian dissidents.
As part of our reporting, I have come into possession of information that points to an official who is the most likely target of the FBI investigation into who allegedly passed intelligence on deliberations on US foreign policy to Iran to officials with the pro-Israeli lobby group, AIPAC, and to the Israelis, as alleged by the CBS report. That individual is Larry Franklin, a veteran DIA Iran analyst seconded to Feith’s office.
Here is what I was told in the days before the FBI investigation came to light.
A source told me that some time in July, Larry Franklin called him and asked him to meet him in a coffee shop in Northern Virginia. Franklin had intelligence on hostile Iranian activities in Iraq and was extremely frustrated that he did not feel this intelligence was getting the attention and response it deserved. The intelligence included information that the Iranians had called all of their intelligence operatives who speak Arabic to southern Iraq, that it had moved their top operative for Afghanistan, a guy named Qudzi, to the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, that its operatives were targeting Iraqi state oil facilities, and that Iranian agents were infiltrating into northern Iraq to target the Israelis written about in a report by Seymour Hersh. According to my source, Franklin passed the information to the individual from AIPAC with the hope it could reach people at higher levels of the US government who would act on it. AIPAC presented the information to Elliot Abrams in the NSC. They also presented the part that involved Israelis who might be targeted to the Israelis, with the motivation to protect Israeli lives.
A couple weeks ago, my source told me, he was visited by two agents of the FBI, who were asking about Franklin. My source couldn’t tell if Franklin was being investigated for possible wrongdoing, or if the FBI was visiting him because Franklin required some sort of higher level security clearance or clearance renewal, perhaps in order to get some sort of new position or posting abroad. My source soon after ran into another official from Feith's office, the polyglot Middle East expert and Bernard Lewis protege, Harold Rhode. My source mentioned the FBI meeting and asked Rhode if Franklin was in trouble. “It’s not clear,” Rhode allegedly told my source.
[Indeed, I have since learned that Rhode has been interviewed by the FBI, but not, allegedly, as a subject of the investigation.]
A second source I met with this past week told me another story. A couple weeks ago, he got called by a consultant to the Pentagon he knows. A small group of Air Force reservists who speak Persian were being trained by the Pentagon at a camp in Virginia in a kind of Iran immersion course, that involved not only language immersion, but “how to play Iranian card games.” The consultant called my second source, an Iran expert, to see if this small elite group could meet with him. He said among the group of four that was supposed to come was Larry Franklin. Franklin in fact did not come, but sent his regrets in a note. My second source said by the way he was terribly impressed with the Iranian language skills that the group that did come possessed.
When the news broke tonight on CBS about the FBI investigation, I tried to get in touch with my first source. But when he answered his phone, he said he couldn’t talk, there were attorneys involved and he wasn’t free to discuss the case.
It’s no secret that some prominent neoconservative officials like Doug Feith, Vice Presidential advisor David Wurmser, and the former Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle are sympathetic to the government of Ariel Sharon and the Likud government. Feith, Wurmser and Perle co-authored the paper, A Clean Break, which advocated that Israel abandon the Oslo peace process. But Franklin, although a passionate advocate of regime change in Iran, is not really among them. From modest beginnings, Franklin reportedly put himself through school, earned a PhD, and is now the Pentagon’s top Iran analyst. It would be an irony if he were to be the target of an investigation into passing US intelligence to Israel.
A friend points out one other irony is that what the Pentagon official is alleged in the CBS report to have passed to AIPAC and the Israelis is essentially a diplomatic document that describes a draft US policy position to Iran; in other words -- hardly the crown jewels, and hardly enough to warrant wiretaps and surveillance of Aipac's offices, he says. "The Israelis can get that stuff by going directly to Condoleezza Rice." In other words, it's not deeply technical knowledge about US satellite technology, for instance, or information the Americans had gotten from the Jordanians, or information about say a possible secret US back channel to Hezbollah. He wonders if this case is not politically motivated. It's no secret as well that there's intense competition over who would be national security advisor in a second term Bush administration. Anything that taints Feith and Wolfowitz could benefit their internal Bush administration foes.
We obviously haven't heard the last of this yet. Stay tuned.
Update: Or does this story leaking now indicate rather, a case of "controlled burn?" An investigation that was leaked or interrupted before it could go further, as reader MC suggests? Franklin is seemingly more expendable than others.
Update II: I can't get over the sense this is a ruse, to get somebody else. As Wagster writes in the comments below:
The NYT reports tonight:
Government officials suggested Friday that investigators were seeking the cooperation of the Pentagon official being investigated.
Doesn't that seem to hint that they're using the media to put some heat on the guy, and that they suspect the involvement of others? Why else would they be seeking his cooperation?
Why else indeed.
Update III: Franklin has been investigated for this before, I'm told. What CBS has may not be the whole thing, but part of a pattern. What I have may be another part of a pattern. "There's got to be something else going on here," I'm told.
Update IV: This from Knight Ridder:
The FBI is investigating whether a Pentagon official provided highly classified information about U.S. policy toward Iran to the government of Israel, senior Bush administration officials confirmed Friday.
Investigators have conducted interviews in recent weeks in the potentially explosive case, which has been ongoing for more than a year and targets an individual in the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the officials said.
The case involves allegations that the unnamed Pentagon official passed highly classified data to a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which in turn provided that information to the government of Israel.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity, said the FBI also is investigating the same official's contacts with Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi and with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a controversial Iranian arms dealer. Chalabi was a source of much of the discredited pre-Iraq war intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida.
In June, U.S. intelligence officials said they had evidence that Chalabi's security chief had long been a paid agent of Iran's intelligence service and that Chalabi or an aide in his Iraqi National Congress had tipped the Iranians off that the United States had broken some Iranian communications codes. Chalabi has denied the charge.
The CIA has twice labeled Ghorbanifar, a figure in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, untrustworthy. Nevertheless, two Pentagon officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who worked on Iraq policy for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, met secretly with Ghorbanifar to discuss Iran.
I wish I could say more but it will have to wait for a few more days. But you can see where this is going. Anyhow, I am not sure Franklin really was the official in Feith's shop who had particularly close ties to Chalabi. I seriously wonder if Franklin is bait.
Update V: Thanks to Jonathan at Daily Kos for the link. | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
