| Author | Message | | Guest | |  | | Guest | | Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2002 7:25 am Post subject: Israeli "Homicide-Helicopter" pilots trained in th |
| Israeli Apache "Homicide-Helicopter" pilots trained in the USA according to what is mentioned by Robert Fisk in the following article which is a must read:
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=285777 | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2002 4:51 pm Post subject: The Israelization of America |
| http://www.antiwar.com/orig/brooks1.html
The Israelization of America
by James Brooks
December 7, 2002
US officials recently announced the somewhat jarring news that Israeli security forces will be training American soldiers in the techniques of urban warfare. Apparently Israel's illegal thirty-five year occupation of Palestine has enabled it to perfect tactics that our troops will need in a 'possible' war on Iraq.
Most informed Americans will receive this news with a sense of both foreboding and dislocation. The brutal tactics of the Israeli "Defense" Forces have been denounced for decades by human rights groups, the United Nations, and scores of foreign governments. Is this how we want our own troops to fight? Our sense of dislocation (even "topsy-turvy") in greeting this news traces to something else; the fact that Israel has always been our client, not the other way around. Why are the Israelis now teaching us?
Is this really something new, or is it merely an unusually explicit lesson in the continuing education of American power by the Israeli vanguard? Who has been learning from whom in this "special relationship"?
From Covert Crimes to Points of Pride
Over the past half century, Israel's organized terror against Palestinian civilians has moved from the relatively secret operations of special Israeli army and paramilitary units to globally televised depredations wrought with helicopter gunships, state-of-the-art tanks, and F-16 fighters. In the process, massacres like those perpetrated in the old days by Israeli army units at Deir Yassin and Qibya have been dwarfed, in terms of casualties, scope, and property damage, by today's daily and indiscriminate destruction in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Crimes that Israel once felt compelled to hide from the world are now on full display, vigorously defended by the Israeli government.
Fifty years ago, America also felt the need to conduct most of its international crimes far from public view. Interventions in the affairs of uncooperative nations (invariably conducted to "fight communism") were mostly secretive, CIA-led actions that made surreptitious use of special military units, typically called "American advisors" (Honduras, Guatemala, Iran, and Cuba provide a few relevant examples).
Now, emboldened by the demise of its only global counterweight, the Soviet Union, and encouraged by Israel's success in using conventional military forces in a public and illegal campaign against civilians, the US is increasingly eschewing the old "secret war" model in favor of direct and open military intervention with American troops. Witness Somalia, Haiti, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan during the past ten years.
Pre-emptive Action
Israel has long been criticized for taking pre-emptive military action against its perceived enemies. Two well-known examples are its surprise attack against a nearly-completed Iraqi nuclear power plant and its protracted, illegal and bloody occupation of southern Lebanon. Despite worldwide criticism of these and many other blatant violations of international law, Israel continued, and continues, undaunted.
The Clinton administration was noted for its fawning support of Israel's occupation, and for abandoning a long-standing US commitment (on paper only, of course) to return Palestine to its pre-1967 borders. Clinton also took a big page out of Israel's book on international relations, when he insisted, against strenuous objections from the United Nations, that the US has the right to launch pre-emptive strikes, and that NATO had the right to wage war on Yugoslavia without UN approval. This year, the Bush administration dropped all pretense of maintaining security with deterrence and adopted the illegal Israeli standard of pre-emptive strikes as official US policy.
Militarization of Politics
Our politicians have also learned much by example from our close and "special" relationship with the government of Israel. For decades, our pols have used cant, dissimulation and fraud to excuse Israel's most egregious crimes. In the process, much has been learned about how to turn acts of wanton destruction into a noble defense of freedom. Israel's willingness to keep 'pushing the envelope' of state terror has been invaluable in this process, training both American pols and media in the arts of propaganda required to justify ever-larger crimes.
Meanwhile, the American populace has been steadily learning to accept Israel's gross violations of human rights, international law, and common decency as
"necessary for peace and security", justified by "Israel's right to defend herself". This lesson in moral decay and desensitization is proving handy indeed, as the current US administration seeks to extend American hegemony in the Middle East by a new war of occupation.
The Terror Card
Following the tragedy of 9/11, Israel immediately recast its thirty-five-year occupation of Palestine as an essential front in the "war on terror". To extract maximum political advantage from our loss and grief, Israeli politicians like Ariel Sharon suggested, with typical touches of arrogance and self-satisfaction, that, finally, Americans know how Israelis have felt for years. We face a common and implacable enemy, they lectured us, leaving unspoken the message that we Americans had better develop some backbone and put our shoulder to the anti-terror wheel.
Of course, our politicians did not really require Israel's instruction to convert our tragedy into their political windfall. However, they quickly employed several rhetorical devices that, before 9/11, were most often found in Israel's political toolbox (domestic and foreign). Suddenly, all kinds of international and domestic issues were redefined as being part of the "war on terror", requiring new and drastic solutions that were, of course, necessary for "security", and often highly profitable for favored corporate interests.
No doubt our leaders saw major advantages to this radical simplification of world affairs. First, they could dispense with even the pretense of negotiation, because "you cannot negotiate with terrorists". They could neatly sidestep, or simply dispose of, human rights limitations imposed by law and the Constitution, because "terrorists have no respect for the rule of law". The "terror card" also enabled them to bulldoze public opposition to new and highly intrusive government surveillance, and so on.
Remote Funding
Just as Israel depends on billions of dollars annually from a compliant US government to maintain its military occupation and indifference to UN resolutions and international law, America's power axis also thrives on a steady flow of wealth from a similarly remote and supine source – the American people. And just as Israel makes it a point to occasionally disobey the orders of its US sponsors, so American politicians at the pinnacle of power pointedly disregard the many voices of the people that call for justice and peace. During consideration of the recent Congressional resolution supporting war on Iraq, Democracy Now reported that citizen messages to Congressional offices of both chambers and both sides of the aisle were running 10 to 1 against the resolution. Naturally, both the House and Senate passed the measure by overwhelming margins. The reply to the American public was clear; "We watch our push-polls. Pay your taxes and shut up."
Injustice at Home
Even within its own pre-1967 borders, Israel's human rights record is abysmal. Twenty percent of Israel's population is now comprised of non-Jewish Arabs who, by law, are systematically rendered second-class citizens in their own homeland. Special hells in Israel's complex legal and social caste system are reserved for Bedouins and African Jews. Israel's stubborn insistence on the primacy of the "Jewish state" and its institutionalized discrimination against non-Jews have set poor examples for America, where Israel is routinely hailed as a shining example of "Western democracy". We cannot quantify the debasing effects of this mass fantasy, but we can see that while America's own system of minority repression becomes increasingly severe, the public is told that pride in America's "liberty and equality for all" is at an all-time high.
Occupation
Israel's long war of attrition against the Palestinians has proven to America's power elite that it is possible to indefinitely occupy the land of another people, even in the face of nearly global opposition – if you're backed by enough raw power. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip constitute a kind of open-air laboratory and lecture hall, in which Israel demonstrates the advantages of occupation to its dutiful American pupil. These advantages include a dirt-cheap labor pool that can be turned on and off at will, the ability to emasculate and/or decapitate any effort at self-rule within the occupied lands, the utility of occupation as an object lesson and divisive thorn-in-the-side of neighboring enemies, and so on. Israel has also demonstrated the usefulness of sustained occupation for increasing a nation's overall military might. The constant war-footing, and the need for violent repression of a restive and disenfranchised people, create never-ending opportunities for the purchase and use of the latest military equipment, and for the containment of domestic politics.
One Lesson Not Learned?
While American power has in general been a very attentive student of Israeli policy and practice, there is one crucial lesson at the back of Israel's textbook that remains unlearned: Israel's approach will never create peace or achieve a just solution. Of course, that suits its purposes. The point of Israeli strategy is to grind the Palestinians into dust until they just blow away, and the last shreds of Palestine can be swept up into Greater Israel, always the goal of the military Zionists and their Laborite alter egos.
Unless forced to do otherwise, Israel, driven by a tragic and fundamentally racist ideology, will fight on for a hundred years to dispose of the "Palestinian problem". But American attempts to apply the localized Israeli model (designed to acquire land the size of Rhode Island) to a "global war on terror" are rewriting the definition of "over-reach". By following Israel's lead (which is constitutionally averse to just solutions) in the "war on terror", we ensure that the war will never be won and will never end. Increasingly, we suspect that our leaders may understand this lesson, too. And they're getting ready to send another 14 billion dollars in shiny red apples (disguised as new loan guarantees and military aid) to their beloved teachers in Jerusalem.
James Brooks of Worcester, Vermont is former marketing director of Vita-Flex Nutrition and was founding vice-president of the National Association of Equine Supplement Manufacturers. Past articles have been published on the NileMedia Web site. Currently Mr. Brooks serves as webmaster for Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel and publishes News Links, a daily e-mail digest of Middle East news and commentary. Brooks is also a member of the national Al-Awda Co-ordinating Committee.
Refer to the following URL for the links that were embedded in the above article:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/brooks1.html | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2002 5:13 pm Post subject: Israel “quietly” helps U.S. preparations |
| www.albawaba.com
November 04, 2002
Kuwait to allow U.S. attack Iraq from its soil as Baghdad hails Riyadh; Israel “quietly” helps U.S. preparations
Kuwait said Monday it would allow U.S. forces already in the country to use its bases in a possible strike on Iraq, but only if the action is sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council. "They (American troops) are here in our bases ... they are here, how can they not use them?" Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, deputy prime minister and foreign minister, told reporters.
"If there is a Security Council resolution, they will be used," he said of the bases. However, Kuwaiti armed forces will not participate in any war on Iraq, Sheikh Sabah said.
Meanwhile, Iraq hailed Saudi Arabia on Monday for saying it would not allow the United States to use its territory to launch a military attack against Iraq. "Saudi Arabia is thanked for its position which goes in line with Arab solidarity," Iraq's Culture Minister Hamed Yousif Hummadi told reporters.
He was commenting on Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al- Faisal's comments on CNN on Sunday in which he said his country would not allow Washington to use its facilities for any attack against neighboring Iraq even if a strike was sanctioned by the United Nations.
Israeli help
Israel is secretly playing a key role in U.S. preparations for possible war with Iraq, helping train soldiers and Marines for urban warfare, conducting clandestine surveillance missions in the western Iraqi desert and allowing the United States to place combat supplies in Israel, U.S. Defense and intelligence officials were quoted by the USA Today.
The activities are designed to help shorten any U.S.-led war with Iraq and reduce the risk that Israel would be attacked during such a conflict.
Because Israel's activities are classified, they have drawn little attention or criticism in the Middle East. "The Americans have asked us to keep a low profile, and we accept that," an Israeli official is quoted as saying. (Albawaba.com) | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2002 5:15 pm Post subject: Israeli "Homicide-Helicopter"..... |
| Re: Israeli "Homicide - Helicopter.....
Perhaps it is time to arm the UN workers to defend themselves against the IDF. The myth of the IDF --- tough Israelis protecting little Israel in is reality jackbooted thugs with advanced weapons killing civilians and unarmed UN workers. With the appointment of Elliot Abrams, as Senior director for Near East and North African Affairs the fate of the Palestinians is sealed. Another Zionist and this one is overseeing the conflict. Anything smell to you here? It's like a Turk overseeing the well being of Armenians in 1917. To borrow a line from Billy Martin with the recent appointments of Poindexter, Abrams and Kissinger, we now have have three liars appointed to our highest echelons of not approved positions.
Two of them convicted (Poindexter and Abrams) and one was born that way ----------- Kissinger.
* Martin was talking about Steinbrenner and Reggie Jackson. | | | | Guest | | Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 10:48 pm Post subject: Abrams Back in Capital Fray at Center of Mideast Battle |
| Abrams Back in Capital Fray at Center of Mideast Battle
December 7, 2002
Abrams Back in Capital Fray at Center of Mideast Battle
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/politics/07ABRA.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - Elliott Abrams, a pugnacious conservative and
passionate advocate of Israel, is no stranger to Washington's policy wars.
But Mr. Abrams's selection this week as President Bush's director of Middle
Eastern affairs at the White House plunged him into one of the sharpest
disputes in the nation's capital - the one in the administration over how to
deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mr. Abrams's appointment thrilled those who had criticized the
administration for being too tough on Israel and too deferential to the
Palestinians.(????) But it dismayed those, especially at the State
Department, who want Israel to ease its crackdown in the West Bank and Gaza.
An administration official said Mr. Abrams's ascension had created "serious
consternation" at the State Department. It was seen there, he said, as
likely to impede the efforts of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to work
with European nations to press Israel and the Palestinians to adopt a staged
timetable leading to creation of a Palestinian state in three years.
The timetable, known as a "road map," has been criticized by Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, though he endorsed it in principle this week. Supporters of
Israel in Congress, who had also criticized the road map approach, welcomed
the appointment of Mr. Abrams.
"There are two foreign policy teams in this administration on a lot of
issues," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who went to Harvard
with Mr. Abrams in the 1960's. "Clearly Elliott is coming out of the
hard-line team. But that is where Bush's heart is."
Mr. Abrams comes to his new job trailed by a cloud of controversy, most of
it having to do with his pleading guilty in 1987 to the charge that he
withheld information from Congress on the Reagan administration's efforts to
assist antigovernment guerrillas in Nicaragua.
He was pardoned by the first President Bush in December 1992. At the time,
plenty of people around Washington said Mr. Abrams would never be back as a
policy maker.
Now, not only is Mr. Abrams back - though not in a position that would
require confirmation by the Senate - but a raft of figures involved in the
battles over the Nicaragua guerrillas, known as the contras, are back, as
well. John M. Poindexter, a national security adviser to President Reagan
who was convicted in 1990 of five felony counts (the convictions were later
overturned), is directing a Pentagon project that would assemble information
on suspected terrorists.
John D. Negroponte, who was ambassador to Honduras during the time that the
contras were being given aid through that country in defiance of a law
barring such aid, is ambassador to the United Nations.
And Otto J. Reich, who was charged with running a covert domestic propaganda
campaign against the Nicaragua government, is a special envoy for western
hemisphere affairs at the State Department. (he was in PRISON as well!)
Administration officials say Mr. Abrams was picked for the Middle East and
North Africa portfolio under Condoleezza Rice, the national security
adviser, because a strong manager was needed and the previous director,
Zalmay Khalilzad, had been preoccupied with the reconstruction of
Afghanistan.(remember Afhanistan??)
"Everybody has enormous confidence in him," a senior administration official
said. "He is not just a good manager. He is an intellectual force in many
policy areas. Whatever controversy there was in the past is in the past."
Many of those critical of Mr. Abrams speak with admiration for his intellect
and management skills, which will be tested not only in the
Israel-Palestinian conflict but also if there is a war with Iraq, followed
by a long occupation and reconstruction.
But others say he has rankled some colleagues in the administration already.
For instance, during Secretary Powell's efforts to negotiate a resolution on
Iraq at the United Nations, Mr. Abrams spent some weeks at the United
Nations headquarters in New York.
Two officials critical of Mr. Abrams said his role was to make sure that
Secretary Powell did not make too many concessions to the Europeans on the
resolution's wording, pressing a hard-line view that was shared by Vice
President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Andrew Card,
the White House chief of staff.
One of these officials said Mr. Negroponte was upset by Mr. Abrams's
interventions. But a spokesman for Mr. Negroponte, Rick Grenell, said that
this was not true and that the ambassador "values Elliott's input." Another
official said cooperation between the State Department and the White House
was "as good as we've had in quite a while."
For associates and acquaintances, Mr. Abrams's new responsibilities reflect
the intensity of his ambitions and political passions. Like many so-called
neoconservatives, he began life as a liberal Democrat on many issues but
became disenchanted with the left, and especially in his case by student
protests at Harvard.
On Capitol Hill, he worked for two of the most prominent Democrats with
strong anti-Communist views, Senator Henry Jackson of Washington and Daniel
Patrick Moynihan of New York, before becoming a Republican and supporting
Mr. Reagan for president in 1980. Mr. Reagan appointed him to various
positions in the State Department in the 1980's.
Of his admission that he misled Congress on aiding the contras, Mr. Abrams
has defended himself by saying he was following administration policy at the
time. He has also said he was a victim of abuses by a special prosecutor, in
a way that Democrats later came to understand during President Clinton's
impeachment.
Mr. Abrams also has family ties to the neoconservative movement. His wife's
mother is Midge Decter, and her stepfather is Norman Podhoretz. Both are
leading members of the neoconservative pantheon and stern critics of liberal
cultural attitudes. (and zionist extremists)
Five years ago, Mr. Abrams wrote a book, "Faith or Fear: How Jews Can
Survive in Christian America," which argues against the loss of religious
faith among Jews and criticizes intermarriage as a danger to their survival
in America. He also urged Jews to make greater common cause with evangelical
Christians in rallying support for Israel.
He was a fierce opponent of the Oslo peace negotiations between Israel and
Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, even while they seemed to bear fruit.
He wrote in the 1990's that it was a mistake for Mr. Clinton to trust Mr.
Arafat. He advocated that position from the start of this Bush
administration, until it became Mr. Bush's position last June.
With the Middle East consumed by the spiral of suicide bombings and Israeli
retaliations, Mr. Abrams is certain to be among those advocating that Israel
be given wide latitude to battle terrorism. (wider than it already has
taken to kill civilians and UN workers?)
Associates say he is also considered likely to side with pro-Israel
Americans who say that the road map pressed by Secretary Powell does not
make it sufficiently clear that Mr. Arafat must be removed, and that
terrorism must cease entirely, before Israel makes any irretrievable
concessions on withdrawal from Palestinian territories.
Israel is also critical of the role being played in the drafting of the road
map by Europe, Russia and the United Nations, as well as by Egypt, Saudi
Arabia and Jordan. Critics say that these nations and groups are unlikely to
support removal of Mr. Arafat as a precondition of peace, as Mr. Bush does.
Longtime advocates of an aggressive American effort to support Middle East
peace negotiations say the administration appears to have pulled back from
pressing the road map, out of sensitivity to Mr. Sharon's objections - but
not to have abandoned it entirely, out of sensitivity to the Europeans and
Arabs.
"It does seem that the White House has decided to back off," said Martin
Indyk, a former adviser to Mr. Clinton. "If the administration were
preparing for a new push on the road map, this would be an unusual
appointment," he said, referring to Mr. Abrams.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/politics/07ABRA.html | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
