| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 9:29 pm Post subject: Urgent: Syria and Iran Next for JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neocons...? |
| Subj: Urgent: Syria and Iran Next for JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neocons...?
Date: 3/29/04 11:17:59 AM Pacific Standard Time
To: Tony Benn (who is president of the anti-war movement in the UK)
Dear Mr. Benn,
It was very good to hear your interview with Amy Goodman on 'Democracy Now' this morning and to talk with you in the UK moments ago as well (especially about the following which includes the excellent article by Gary Leupp for www.counterpunch.org that discusses how the JINSA/CSP/PNAC neocons like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz want to do further regime change in Syria and Iran as well for the benefit of Israel). It is important to keep in mind that JINSA/PNAC Neocons Richard Perle and Douglas Feith (both of whom are associated with JINSA/PNAC) wrote 'A Clean Break' for incoming Israeli Likudite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996 ('A Clean Break' mentioned for Israel to dissolve the Palestinian peace process and to do regime change in Syria and Iran--Perle and Feith had the US military do regime change in Iraq when they got into power in the current Bush regime as fellow Zionist extremist David Wurmser also co-authored 'A Clean Break' as he is now working for Dick Cheney as Cheney was/is also associated with JINSA/PNAC-the Palestinian peace process seems to have been effectively dissolved by the Israelis with their assasination of Yassin last week, so 'A Clean Break' seems to be moving full speed ahead with Israeli/US cooperation on such via the Likudites in Israel and the JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neoconservative cabal in the current Bush regime):
A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm:
http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm
More mention about 'A Clean Break' is included at the following URL:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=1032
War in Iraq Conceived in Israel:
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_conc1.htm
Please also access this Sunday Herald article (URL) about PNAC:
http://www.sundayherald.com/27735
This article about JINSA by Robert Fisk is very good as well:
http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles114.htm
Fisk mentions the following article (from 'The Nation' in the above referenced article):
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest
Chalabi's association with JINSA is mentioned by Isabel Hilton in this recent article that appeared in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1163563,00.html
Subj: G.Leupp: Yassin assasination: Prelude to attacking Syria? + Bleier
Date: 3/28/04 12:11:39 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: rbleier@igc.org
Friends:
Gary Leupp’s article is a realistic look at Sharon’s wider aims with regard to the Yassin assassination. Sharon’s goal which he evidently accomplished in spite of international condemnation, is to conflate Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation with the U.S. led war on terror, and, as Leupp emphasizes, to get U.S. sanction if not participation for future attacks on Hamas. Moreover, as Leupp indicates, Sharon envisions Israeli and/or U.S. attacks on Hezbollah, Syria, and eventually Iran.
Leupp believes that the U.S. was consulted beforehand and/or gave tacit or explicit approval to the Yassin assassination. There’s reason to believe that, on the contrary, the U.S. was surprised and embarrassed by the assassination in view of the upcoming visit by Sharon to the United States, and (as Jeff Blankfort has written) efforts to pacify Iraq before the November elections. A more realistic view of Israeli-U.S. communication regarding the Yassin assassination would spotlight the audacious quality of Sharon’s leadership and also the extraordinary power over U.S. Middle East policy wielded by Israel, its neocon supporters in high places in the Bush administration, and the Zionist lobby including evangelical Christians.
I would also emphasize that the main intention of the Yassin assassination was to destroy a pillar of Palestinian resistance to the threat of another wave of mass expulsions of the Palestinians which is the longer range intention of Zionism: i.e,, to rid the former Palestine of Palestinians. Despite the widespread condemnation of the Yassin assassination, the effect seems to be, as Sharon intended, an even closer identification of the United States with Israeli plans for the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors. Despite the egregious nature of the Yassin assassination, not one mainstream American political figure has had the temerity to condemn it. --
Ronald Bleier
www.counterpunch.org
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp03272004.html
Weekend Edition
March 27 / 28, 2004
Prelude to an Attack on Syria?
The Yassin Assassination
By GARY LEUPP
Everyone is predicting a spate of horrific suicide bombings in Israel as Hamas and other Palestinian groups respond to the "targeted assassination" of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (and killing of seven other people) by an Apache helicopter air strike a few days ago. According to MSNBC, Israel's army chief has stated that Yassir Arafat and the Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah will also be assassinated. I take it for granted that the assassins, proud of their work, convinced of its necessity and goodness, know exactly what they're doing. They have factored in ghastly reprisals, and have plans about how to follow up.
Some observations and predictions:
1. The foreign policy of the Bush administration has since 9-11 been steered by officials who have a well thought out and clearly articulated plan to affect regime change throughout the Middle East. Such change in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and a number of other Muslim countries is central to the neocons' world-transforming project. While Israel's security is not the key issue in Bush Middle East policy, it is a very important secondary one, and U.S. and Israeli policies are closely coordinated.
2. Last October 5, Israel responded to an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in Haifa by staging an air strike on Syria, the first time it had bombed Syria in 30 years. Ariel Sharon argued that Damascus "sponsors" Islamic Jihad and "Palestinian terrorism" in general and so Israel was acting in self-defense.
3. While condemned by European leaders, including the British foreign minister, and almost everybody else, the attack was justified by President Bush as necessary to "defend the homeland." (Note: not "your homeland" but "the homeland." Bush seems not to distinguish.) It was praised by leading neocon Richard Perle (then still on the Defense Policy Board), who declared, "I am happy to see the message was delivered to Syria by the Israeli air force, and I hope it is the first of many such messages." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz stated, "There will have to be change in Syria, plainly."
(This makes me recall the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel---an interesting novelette written around 160 BCE, and incorporated into the Old Testament. The neocons are, in effect, saying: "The handwriting is on the wall; Bashir Assad's days are numbered; his kingdom will be divided---not between the Medes and the Persians, but--- between the Americans and the Israelis." http://www.inisrael.com/golan/ )
4. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, administration point man on Syria, argued last fall in Congress for the "Syria Accountability Act," which was passed, 398-5, by the House of Representatives Oct. 16. (99% approval. Isn't it great to live in a democracy where well-informed elected officials can express varied views about the Middle East?) Then it sailed through the Senate.
Officially vilifying Syria (which has actually been an ally against al-Qaeda), it accuses Damascus of sponsoring terrorism, amassing weapons of mass destruction, and occupying Lebanon, and applies economic sanctions against the Arab nation. Bolton accuses Syria of allowing "terrorists" to cross its border to abet the resistance in Iraq, receiving some of those elusive WMD from Iraq, and providing banking services for the Iraqi resistance. So there is a long list of charges against Syria, as there was against Iraq, and as there is against Iran---enough to persuade the sufficiently impressionable that Syria should be attacked and occupied.
5. The assassination of the wheelchair-bound paraplegic 75 year old Yassin was condemned by Kofi Annan, and by European leaders, including British foreign minister Jack Straw, but Condoleeza Rice, speaking for the Bush administration, refused to criticize it, merely appealing for everybody in the region to keep calm. While the Bush administration denies any foreknowledge of the attack, it will of course stand by Mr. Sharon, whom Bush with his characteristic distance from the real world has dubbed "a man of peace."
6. The neocons have suffered a series of setbacks, including the highly embarrassing revelations of Bush's former top anti-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, who charges that Bush demanded intelligence forces concoct links between 9-11 and Iraq to justify an invasion. Anyone paying attention now knows that the Iraq stage of the Terror War was based on lies. The bleeding sore of the occupation saps Bush's political support, and he and his world-transforming ideologues may be out of jobs come November. That prospect doesn't make the neocons more humble, but rather more desperate to achieve such pieces of their ambitious program as they might in the next seven months.
7. This month has seen a "human rights" demonstration in Damascus and a couple days of Arab-Kurdish ethnic rioting following a soccer game. These are unusual events in tightly-controlled Syria. There may be an outside hand in them, endeavoring to destabilize the Syrian regime preparatory to some major, externally organized action.
8. A major Hamas suicide bombing would provide a fine pretext for an attack on Syria, perfectly legitimate to anyone predisposed to think Hamas=international terrorism=Syria.
9. At least one Hamas leaflet has suggested that the U.S. bears partial responsibility for Yassin's assassination: "The Zionists didn't carry out their operation without getting the consent of the terrorist American administration and it must take responsibility for this crime."
Let's think about this statement. If the U.S. government can say "you're for us or against us," and make no distinction between "terrorist organizations" and those who "sponsor" them, surely your good, decent, normal Palestinian on the street can draw a connection between an assassination conducted on the explicit orders of Ariel Sharon (whose government is, as the number one recipient of U.S. foreign aid, subsidized by the U.S. to a mind-boggling $ 3 billion---some say $ 6 billion---per year and enjoys about the most intimate relationship with Washington that any foreign government has ever had) and the American administration. Condoleeza Rice has said the U.S. had no prior knowledge of the assassination, but then she also says honest Richard Clarke's recent charges about Bush's handling of the al-Qaeda issue are "ridiculous." The sad fact is that Condi is ridiculous, and her job absolutely requires that she deny U.S. links to assassinations if such occur.
Is the Hamas statement implausible? It seems in fact unlikely that Sharon would undertake his extremely newsworthy action without consulting with the government which subsidizes his own. So Hamas could say: "We make no distinction between those defying international law and assassinating our leaders, and those who sponsor them." Still, it is unlikely that they would undertake an attack on Americans on U.S. soil, however much either al-Qaeda or the neocons might want that (and even be inclined to stage it) in order to exacerbate the confrontation between Islam and the west that they both relish, for their different reasons.
In any case, the statement about "responsibility for this crime" cited above was immediately trumpeted in the U.S. media as a Hamas threat to attack the U.S., something it has never done, would be stupid to do, and probably has no intention of doing. Hamas is not al-Qaeda, however much the Bushites want to conflate all opponents of the U.S. and Israel into a single, simple terroristic Evil. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge immediately indicated that Washington takes "quite seriously" a threat never explicitly made. But Hamas, as it mourns the loss of its founder, and speculates about what forces produced his murder, becomes demonized, al-Qaeda-ized, another object of American fear.
Start worrying now, everybody, that terrorist Hamas, angry about the death of their terrorist founder at the hands of our Israeli friends---a death we support---is going to attack us, because they blame us for it! That's the message.
Hamas having been hit by a strike condemned by the entire world (except the U.S. and Israel) and having, in perfectly rational response, expressed outrage, now in its injured state becomes more targeted by the U.S. than ever. Henceforth whatever Sharon does against Hamas, he will be able to depict as an effort to defend not merely his country but the American Homeland threatened by these angry anti-American Palestinians. And whatever measures the Bushites take against "Palestinian terrorism" will be undertaken as "Homeland Defense" measures as well, the Israeli and American homeland boundaries having been thoroughly blurred long since.
10. Let us say Perle's dream comes true and the Israeli air force does attack pro-Hamas Syria. Let's say it does so big-time, Sharon-style, and does major damage. Enough to cause enough disorder for the U.S. to argue that a deteriorating situation requires international intervention. The Iraq attack required months of preparation, but intervention in Syria will happen very quickly, coming like a thief in the night as it did in Haiti. Perle has suggested that there are troops to spare in Iraq that can occupy "weak" Syria in short order. Even if Israeli action provides the context, Israeli forces won't be needed, and U.S. action will be lent some thin international legitimacy if a few hundred "coalition" troops participate. Thus a second Arab nation will become Americanizedly "free," while Palestinians infuriated by these events will commit acts that will justify the "ethnic cleansing" of the West Bank.
I truly hope my imagination has gotten the better of me, that I am a false prophet, and that what I describe will not come to pass.
Hands off Syria!
Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa, Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa, Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_5945.shtml
U.S. News/Comment
The 10,000-Pound Elephant in the Room
By Michael Saba
Mar 27, 2004, 20:09
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March 27, 2004-Richard Clarke is all over the news these days. The author of "Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror" had his book released this week, the same week that he appeared as a key witness at the blue ribbon Sept. 11 Commission meeting which focused on what went wrong with America’s intelligence leading up to that fateful day.
Clarke, who retired from government service about a year ago, served 30 years under 7 US presidents, 5 of them Republican, as a national security expert.
Clarke has made all the major TV talk shows and appeared on all of the TV networks chastizing Bush and his administration for mistakes prior to Sept. 11 and criticizing President Bush and his key officials for their obsession to go to war with Iraq rather than focusing on Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.
Yet with all of this talk and criticism, something was missing. There was a 10,000-pound elephant in the room and, although everybody could see it, nobody wanted to mention it. That 10,000-pound elephant is Israel.
Clarke laid the blame and the Bush administration fought back. The Sept. 11 Commission also got into the act when Clarke testified. Everyone was blaming everyone else but no one mentioned Israel as a possible participant in the equation. And Clarke, although he was taking on the neoconservatives, normally ardent supporters of Israel, seemed to be avoiding the mention of the Jewish state like the plague. Some courageous political pundits such as Pat Buchanan, have consistently pointed out the role of Israel and the pro-Israeli lobby in driving the United States toward war with Iraq. Then recollections of Clarke’s earlier career came to mind.
Clarke served in both the Bush 1 and Clinton administrations. From 1989 to 1992 during Bush 1, Clarke served as the assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs overseeing sensitive US technology transfers. In a March 1992 report, State Department Inspector General Sherman Funk stated "alleged Israeli violations of US laws cited and supported by reliable intelligence information show a systematic and growing pattern of unauthorized transfers...dating back to about 1982." According to other US officials at that time, those Israeli violations date back to the early 1970s. Many of those alleged violations during the Reagan era include Israel’s illegal transfers of American technology to China.
The Funk Report heavily criticized State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for ignoring scores of intelligence reports on apparent violations of retransfer restrictions and other restrictions and for not reporting them to senior officials and Congress, as required by law.
The report also recommended that the then Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Richard Clarke be disciplined for his lack of oversight on Israel. Clarke was reprimanded and eventually lost his job. However Clarke, a consummate bureaucratic survivor, reappeared shortly after that on the National Security Council staff in the Clinton administration.
When the Funk Report was issued and Clarke was removed from his State Department position, Funk allegedly received threatening phone calls at his home. Funk was summoned to closed-door hearings in the US House of Representatives and was allegedly accused by Representative Tom Lantos of California of harming Israel while others reportedly joined in a verbal assault of Funk’s positions on Israel.
At that same time the Jerusalem Post reported, "It appears the bureaucratic target (of the Funk Report) was Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Richard Clarke. US officials reportedly say Clarke is being removed from his position for negligence." The Jerusalem Post goes on to quote a pro-Israeli activist as saying, "Clarke was a friend of Israel in an administration where they do not necessarily grow on trees. Somebody was out there to get him."
Also defending Clarke at that time in the Jerusalem Post were neoconservative, pro-Israeli advocates Michael Ledeen and Stephen Bryen claiming that there was "lack of proof that Israel had violated any agreements." Interestingly, both Ledeen and Bryen served in the Reagan administration at the same time as Clarke. Bryen was also reprimanded during that period for alleged improprieties regarding technology transfer to Israel. Bryen and Ledeen now serve on the US China Commission which oversees American technology transfers to China.
Clarke himself was quoted in a 1990 article in the Syracuse(NY) Post-Standard as saying, "The US benefits in a lot of ways from its strategic relationship with Israel" and went on to say that Israel could serve as a "war reserve stockpile" in expanding American military capabilities.
In Clarke’s book, he makes positive references to his friend, Richard Perle. The pro-Israeli Perle, known as the "Prince of Darkness" is widely credited as one of the architects of Bush’s attack Iraq policy.
And Clarke is quoted in the official biography of Steven Emerson as saying, "I think of Steve as the Paul Revere of terrorism...(Clarke) credits Emerson with repeatedly warning of Al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States. He adds that he would attend Emerson’s speeches whenever possible because ‘we’d always learn things we weren’t hearing from the FBI or CIA, things which almost always proved to be true." Emerson is one of the strongest pro-Likud, pro-Israeli advocates in the United States and is often cited for blaming the Arabs and Muslims for most of the acts of terrorism around the world.
Responding to Clarke’s interview on "60 Minutes" last Sunday night, White House spokesman Dan Bartlett referred to Clarke’s charges as a "red herring", something designed to draw attention from the real issue.
That "red herring", however, is quite different from the 10,000-pound elephant in the room. During an election year with friends of Israel, and especially close friends like Richard Clarke, permeating both political parties, nobody wants to mention that the elephant is in the room.
Dr. Michael Saba is the author of "The Armageddon Network" and is an international relations consultant
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=42001&d=27&m=3&y=2004
Subj: More than 40 senators said they supported Israel’s assassination
Date: 3/26/04 9:39:45 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: jblankfort@earthlink.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)
These senators had a choice on Thursday of attending the 9-11 hearings or meeting with their bosses, or rather one of their bosses, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations which generally lobbies the White House while leaving Congress to AIPAC. Hoenlein, it should be known, drafted the first counter-terrorism bill under the Clinton administration, as reported in the Forward at the time.. There are some folks who would have us believe that foreign policy originates in the White House.
40 senators out of 100! And check out the last line.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency 3.27.4
Jews meet Senate leaders
More than 40 senators said they supported Israel’s assassination of Hamas’ leader, a Jewish official said. The senators met Thursday with officials from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. While some senators voiced concern about the consequences of killing Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the lawmakers — including Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), minority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) — “supported Israel’s right to take whatever measures are necessary to defend itself,” according to Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Presidents Conference. The group also discussed the U.S. war on terrorism, Iran’s nuclear aspirations, U.S. sanctions against Syria and homeland security funding for U.S. Jewish institutions.
What Congressman Paul Findley Said on AIPAC (Zionist) Lobby:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/09/25/what-congressman-paul-findley-said-on-aipac-zionist-lobby.php
Access the 'Israel/Palestine' message board via clicking on the 'War against Terror' link after arriving at http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 9:42 pm Post subject: Liberating America From Israel |
| Liberating America From Israel
By Former Congressman Paul Findley
9-12-2
Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president during the past 35 years had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating, but any determined president - even President Bush this very day - could prevail and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying these facts before the American people:
Israel's present government, like its predecessors, is determined to annex the West Bank - biblical Judea and Samaria - so Israel will become Greater Israel. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who maintain a powerful role in Israeli politics, believe the Jewish Messiah will not come until Greater Israel is a reality. Although a minority in Israel, they are committed, aggressive, and influential. Because of deep religious conviction, they are determined to prevent Palestinians from gaining statehood on any part of the West Bank.
In its violent assaults on Palestinians, Israel uses the pretext of eradicating terrorism, but its forces are actually engaged advancing the territorial expansion just cited. Under the guise of anti-terrorism, Israeli forces treat Palestinians worse than cattle. With due process nowhere to be found, hundreds are detained for long periods and most are tortured. Some are assassinated. Homes, orchards, and business places are destroyed. Entire cities are kept under intermittent curfew, some confinements lasting for weeks. Injured or ill Palestinians needing emergency medical care are routinely held at checkpoints for an hour or more. Many children are undernourished. The West Bank and Gaza have become giant concentration camps. None of this could have occurred without U.S. support. Perhaps Israeli officials believe life will become so unbearable that most Palestinians will eventually leave their ancestral homes.
Once beloved worldwide, the U.S. government finds itself reviled in most countries because it provides unconditional support of Israeli violations of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the precepts of all major religious faiths.
How did the American people get into this fix?
Nine-eleven had its principal origin 35 years ago when Israel's U.S. lobby began its unbroken success in stifling debate about the proper U.S. role in the Arab-Israeli conflict and effectively concealed from public awareness the fact that the U.S. government gives massive uncritical support to Israel.
Thanks to the suffocating influence of Israel's U.S. lobby, open discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been non-existent in our government all these years. I have firsthand knowledge, because I was a member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee in June 1967 when Israeli military forces took control of the Golan Heights, a part of Syria, as well as the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. I continued as a member for 16 years and to this day maintain a close watch on Congress.
For 35 years, not a word has been expressed in that committee or in either chamber of Congress that deserves to be called debate on Middle East policy. No restrictive or limiting amendments on aid to Israel have been offered for 20 years, and none of the few offered in previous years received more than a handful of votes. On Capitol Hill, criticism of Israel, even in private conversation, is all but forbidden, treated as downright unpatriotic, if not anti-Semitic. The continued absence of free speech was assured when those few who spoke out-Senators Adlai Stevenson and Charles Percy, and Reps. Paul "Pete" McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, Earl Hilliard, and myself-were defeated at the polls by candidates heavily financed by pro-Israel forces.
As a result, legislation dealing with the Middle East has been heavily biased in favor of Israel and against Palestinians and other Arabs year after year. Home constituencies, misled by news coverage equally lop-sided in Israel's favor, remain largely unaware that Congress behaves as if it were a subcommittee of the Israeli parliament.
However, the bias is widely noted beyond America, where most news media candidly cover Israel's conquest and generally excoriate America's complicity and complacency. When President Bush welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, sometimes called the Butcher of Beirut, as "my dear friend" and "a man of peace" after Israeli forces, using U.S.-donated arms, completed their devastation of the West Bank last spring, worldwide anger against American policy reached the boiling point.
The fury should surprise no one who reads foreign newspapers or listens to BBC. In several televised statements long before 9/11,Osama bin Laden, believed by U.S. authorities to have masterminded 9/11, cited U.S. complicity in Israel's destruction of Palestinian society as a principal complaint. Prominent foreigners, in and out of government, express their opposition to U.S. policies with unprecedented frequency and severity, especially since Bush announced his determination to make war against Iraq.
The lobby's intimidation remains pervasive. It seems to reach every government center and even houses of worship and revered institutions of higher learning. It is highly effective in silencing the many U.S. Jews who object to the lobby's tactics and Israel's brutality.
Nothing can justify 9/11. Those guilty deserve maximum punishment, but it makes sense for America to examine motivations promptly and as carefully as possible. Terrorism almost always arises from deeply-felt grievances. If they can be eradicated or eased, terrorist passions are certain to subside.
Today, a year after 9/11, President Bush has made no attempt to redress grievances, or even to identify them. In fact, he has made the scene far worse by supporting Israel's religious war against Palestinians, an alliance that has intensified anti-American anger. He seems oblivious to the fact that nearly two billion people worldwide regard the plight of Palestinians as today's most important foreign-policy challenge. No one in authority will admit a calamitous reality that is skillfully shielded from the American people but clearly recognized by most of the world: America suffered 9/11 and its aftermath and may soon be at war with Iraq, mainly because U.S. policy in the Middle East is made in Israel, not in Washington.
Israel is a scofflaw nation and should be treated as such. Instead of helping Sharon intensify Palestinian misery, our president should suspend all aid until Israel ends its occupation of Arab land Israel seized in 1967. The suspension would force Sharon's compliance or lead to his removal from office, as the Israeli electorate will not tolerate a prime minister who is at odds with the White House.
If Bush needs an additional reason for doing the right thing, he can justify the suspension as a matter of military necessity, an essential step in winning international support for his war on terrorism. He can cite a worthy precedent. When President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation that freed only the slaves in states that were then in rebellion, he make the restriction because of "military necessity."
If Bush suspends U.S. aid, he will liberate all Americans from long years of bondage to Israel's misdeeds.
Mr. Paul Findley, who served as a Republican congressman from Illinois for 22 years, is the author of 'They Dare to Speak Out' and a member of the American Educational Trust's Foreign Relations Committee
From RePortersNoteBook.com | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 10:42 pm Post subject: Israeli report blasts intelligence for exaggerating the Ira |
| http://www.nowarforisrael.com
http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html
Subj: Israeli report blasts intelligence for exaggerating the Iraqi threat
Date: 3/29/04 10:07:51 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: jblankfort@earthlink.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)
What should be remembered is that Sharon his spokesman, Raanan Gissin, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz as well as former Labor PM Shimon Peres ,were all strong advocates for the war as were their neo-con colleagues in and around the US Defense Dept. and National Security Agency.
Israeli report blasts intelligence for exaggerating the Iraqi threat
By Dan Baron
JERUSALEM, March 28 (JTA) — Israel’s foreign intelligence services have come under public scrutiny with revelations they overestimated one major threat while underplaying another.
Hot on the heels of the testimony of former U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke accusing the Bush administration of ignoring pre-Sept. 11 U.S. intelligence reports because it was focused on Iraq, the Steinitz Report issued on Sunday blasted those in Israel who had pushed for the war on Iraq.
The 80-page report, compiled by the Knesset Subcommittee on Secret Services under lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, lambasted prewar assessments by Mossad and military intelligence officials that it was “very likely” Saddam Hussein had missiles with non-conventional payloads aimed at Israel.
That perceived threat prompted the Defense Ministry to issue millions of gas masks and order citizens to prepare sealed rooms, at a cost of millions of dollars.
“The military and political upper echelons are responsible for the mess-up,” said the Steinitz Report, which charged Israeli intelligence analysts with overconfidence and oversimplification.
The report also said Mossad and military intelligence officials are in need of a major overhaul after they failed to track Libya’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi abandoned the program in December in negotiations with the United States and Britain that were kept secret from Israel.
“The idea that a hostile nation like Libya, with an unpredictable leader like Gaddafi, was in the running to develop a militarized nuclear industry, without Israel getting the necessary advance warning from its intelligence service to act preventively or at least prepare accordingly, is — to put it mildly — intolerable,” the report said.
“The prime ministers lack the proper tools that would afford them real oversight and orientation on the intelligence apparatus and building a real force for intelligence analysis.”
Israel stayed on the sidelines of the Iraq war out of concerns its involvement would alienate the few U.S. allies in the Arab world.
But Israeli intelligence assessments were regularly fed to Washington.
“It is not inconceivable that assessments passed by an Israeli intelligence agency . . . to a friendly agency were bounced back and force, played a key role in that friendly agency’s planning, and ultimately ended up with the agency where they originated in the form of an analysis by an altogether different agency. Such assessments would immediately be perceived as another authoritative body bolstering and verifying the original Israeli view,” the report said.
Yet asked by reporters if Israeli intelligence might have misled the United States and its ally Britain as to Iraq’s real capabilities, Steinitz was more circumspect.
“American and British intelligence services had much better access to Iraq by simply sitting in Kuwait and other locations, and by being able to fly almost freely over Iraqi soil,” he said.
U.S. and British officials did not comment.
The Steinitz report did not recommend action against any specific intelligence officials. But it said military intelligence, which has swollen steadily in terms of manpower and funding since Israel’s failure to foresee the Arab assault which opened the 1973 Yom Kippur War, should be cut down in size.
Unit 8200, the military intelligence codebreakers — who, according to a recent report in the New Yorker magazine, tipped off the United States as to Iran’s nuclear buildup — should become a civilian agency, the report said.
Meanwhile, it called for the Mossad to be boosted. According to security sources, the spy agency has fallen into lethargy recently through a combination of military intelligence’s wide reach and an over-reliance on cooperation with foreign agencies.
The Prime Minister’s Office, which oversees all of Israel’s intelligence agencies, said it would consider the recommendations. | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 10:37 pm Post subject: Ahmed Chalabi's Ties To Mossad and Neocons |
| http://www.nowarforisrael.com
http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html
Ahmed Chalabi's Ties To
Mossad And Neocons
By Christopher Bollyn
RumorMillNews.com
4-26-3
When Gen. Abdul Karim Qasim ousted the Iraqi monarchy of King Faisal II in
July 1958, many Iraqis, like the family of Ahmed Chalabi, which had enjoyed close ties with the monarchy, were forced to flee the country.
Today, Chalabi is the man behind the self-declared government that has come
to power in Baghdad.
Chalabi, a non-practising Shia, is reportedly a close friend of the late Shah of Iran, the former Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan and Col. Oliver North of the Reagan
Administration, according to a recent paper on Chalabi for the South Asia Analysis Group titled "Ahmed Chalabi: The Janos Kadar of Iraq" by B. Raman, a Indian intelligence expert.
The head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), Chalabi comes from an
aristocratic Shiite family that was connected to the monarchy of Faisal. The
Iraqi monarchy had been installed by the British when they created the Iraqi
state after the first World War.
Chalabi's father was a member of the Faisal's Council of Ministers and
president of the senate nominated by Faisal and set up to provide the Iraqi monarchy with a democratic facade.
The Chalabi family fled to Jordan when King Faisal II was overthrown in 1958
by Qasim's group of army officers who had allegedly acted in collusion with the
Iraqi Communist Party.
Years later, Chalabi amassed a great deal of wealth as a banker in Jordan. However, in 1989, Chalabi was found guilty of embezzlement and fraud in a military court in Jordan and was sentenced to 22 years. Chalabi reportedly fled Jordan in the trunk of a car with over $20 million.
It was alleged that during his association with the bank Chalabi embezzled nearly $70 million and stashed it in secret Swiss bank accounts.
The financial improprieties that Chalabi was found to have been directly involved in led to the collapse the Jordanian bank he directed, Petra Bank.
At the time of its crash, Petra was the third-largest bank in Jordan, and the Jordanian government was forced to pay out $200 million to depositors who faced the loss of their savings.
In 1992, Mr Chalabi was tried in absentia and sentenced by a Jordanian court to 22 years jail on 31 charges of embezzlement, theft, misuse of depositor funds and currency speculation.
A report by Arthur Andersen subsequently found that Chalabi's Petra Bank's assets had been overstated by some $200 million. Many of the bank's bad loans were to Chalabi-linked companies in Switzerland and Lebanon.
A detailed 500-page Technical Committee Report was subsequently compiled for the Jordanian military attorney-general on June 10, 1990.
In the report Chalabi was named as being the man at Petra Bank who was directly responsible for "fictitious deposits and entries to make the income ... appear larger."
To this day, Chalabi insists that the charges were politically charged and the fact that there has never been formal extradition attempts prove the case was not genuine.
Chalabi is considered by experts to be a long-time collaborator with the CIA
and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at the Pentagon.
After fleeing Jordan, Chalabi went to Europe and founded the INC in 1992 at a meeting of some anti-Saddam Hussein exiles held in Vienna, Austria. James Woolsey, who became the Director of the CIA under President Bill Clinton, made Chalabi's INC the cutting-edge of the CIA's operations against Saddam Hussein. Chalabi allegedly became Woolsey's blue-eyed boy and the INC became the most favored recipient of CIA funds meant for the overthrow of Saddam, according to Raman.
In the 1980s, when he was associated with the Petra Bank, Chalabi, who was allegedly helping the Mossad, the Israeli external intelligence agency, used to visit Israel secretly.
During those visits, he became close to the late Albert Wohlstetter, who is reputed to be "a godfather of the neoconservative movement in the US," according to Raman.
Chalabi had met Wohlstetter during his student days at the University of Chicago, Raman wrote, but the friendship became close only after their meetings in Israel. Through Wohlstetter, Chalabi became acquainted with Richard Perle, who was Under-Secretary of Defence for international-security policy under President Reagan, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, both of whom served under President Ronald Reagan.
Perle, as chief of the Defence Policy Advisory Board, has been a strong supporter of Chalabi, but the CIA and the State Department have serious reservations about him.
Chalabi's criminal past notwithstanding, Chalabi is today being presented as the possible head of an interim Iraqi authority to provide an Iraqi face for what is likely to become an extended U.S. military occupation of Iraq.
"He is tipped to occupy an important post in the US occupation regime in Baghdad to create a new Iraqi intelligence agency, which would be loyal to the USA and protect its national interests," Raman wrote.
On April 16, two close associates of Chalabi said they had been elected
mayor and governor of Baghdad by tribal and religious chiefs acting with the
consent of the U.S. government.
INC General Jaudat Obeidi who, prior to his return to Iraq, had reportedly
lived in exile in Oregon claimed he had been selected mayor of Baghdad. And, with a massive media entourage, Mohammed Mohsen Zubeidi, proclaimed himself governor of a new interim administration for Baghdad.
A spokesman for the U.S. Marines in Baghdad denied that the United States
has recognized anyone to head up a new Iraqi government.
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=31508 | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2004 7:03 pm Post subject: Chalabi Poised to Rule Iraq |
| Subj: Chalabi Poised to Rule Iraq
Date: 4/3/04 5:15:11 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: hectorpv@comcast.net
To: hectorpv@comcast.net
Friends,
Chalabi Poised to Rule Iraq
Ahmed Chalabi, the tool of the neocons who spread the most extreme stories about Saddam’s non-existent WMD to bring the US into war, is now poised to achieve his goal: ruler of Iraq. Arnaud de Borchgrave writes that Chalabi is well-positioned to become the prime minister in the new government, which will be the most powerful governmental post.
It has been well-documented how Chalabi was long supported by the neocons and how the phony intelligence provided by his Iraqi group—the Iraqi National Congress (INC)—was used by the neocon-controlled Office of Special Plans (OSP) in the Defense Department and even by the CIA (pushed by Vice President Cheney).http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9890 http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7952660.htm
De Borchgrave writes: "Temporary constitutional arrangements are structured to give the future prime minister more power than the president. The role of the president will be limited because his decisions will have to be ratified by two deputy presidents, or vice presidents. Key ministries, such as Defense and Interior, will be taking orders from the prime minister."
De Borchgrave adds:
"If Mr. Chalabi's fast track to power is not derailed and he becomes prime minister in July, the president won't be able to fire him unless his two deputies agree. The provisional constitution seems tailor-made for Mr. Chalabi to call the shots into 2005.
"As head of the Governing Council's economic and finance committee, Mr. Chalabi already has maneuvered loyalists into key Cabinet positions in the provisional authority — finance, oil and trade. The Central Bank governor, the head of the trade bank and the managing director of the largest commercial bank also owe their positions to his influence."
Chalabi also has other sources of power. As head of the de-Ba'athification commission, he has tons of documents to use for blackmail purposes. "He also appears to have impressive amounts of cash at his disposal and a say in which companies get the nod for some of the $18.4 billion earmarked for reconstruction." Chalabi gets hefty kick-backs here. Furthermore, Chalabi "is still on the Defense Intelligence Agency's budget for a secret stipend of $340,000 a month."
De Borchgrave alludes to Chalabi’s role in getting the US to invade Iraq, though without connecting all the dots. "Referring to Mr. Chalabi, a former U.S. ambassador recently back from an extended trip to Iraq, said: ‘Anyone who can get the U.S. to invade Iraq must be a very clever politician. As for the people his INC coached in London to disinform the U.S. intelligence community about Saddam's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, you've got to hand it to the guy. Don't blame him. Blame the Pentagon for not seeing through him.’"
Of course, the neocons were using Chalabi and his lies for their own propaganda purposes, which De Borchgrave does hint at. "While in exile in London, Mr. Chalabi cultivated close contacts with Israeli officials."
"His strongest backers in Washington are Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and neoconservative theoretician ("An End to Evil") Richard Perle."
The fact of the matter is, of course, that Chalabi has been serving the interests of Israel and the neocons—in fact, he has been directly connected to the Israelis and the neocons—and has benefited immensely as a result.
Undoubtedly, Chalabi will be pursuing the neocon/Israel line as long as he can. He needs protection there in Iraq. And the more valuable he is, the greater protection he’ll get. Still it’s a lot safer in neocon think tanks in Washington or in Richard Perle’s villa in the south of France. The neocons are fortunate to have a mercenary on the scene in Iraq—sort of like when Israel had the South Lebanon Army (SLA) doing its dirty work in Lebanon. Of course, when Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon, the members of the SLA suffered the consequences from the enraged populace. But Chalabi is crafty and knows well the ways of the world.
_________________________________________________________
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040330-094240-7127r.htm
March 31, 2004
Chalabi poised to lead Iraq
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
With only three months to go before L. Paul Bremer trades in his Iraqi proconsul baton for beachwear and a hard-earned vacation, the country's most controversial politician is already well-positioned to become prime minister.
Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's heartthrob and the State Department's and CIA's heartbreak, has taken the lead in a yearlong political marathon.
Temporary constitutional arrangements are structured to give the future prime minister more power than the president. The role of the president will be limited because his decisions will have to be ratified by two deputy presidents, or vice presidents. Key ministries, such as Defense and Interior, will be taking orders from the prime minister.
Mr. Chalabi holds the ultimate weapons — several dozen tons of documents and individual files seized by his Iraqi National Congress (INC) from Saddam Hussein's secret security apparatus.
Coupled with his position as head of the de-Ba'athification commission, Mr. Chalabi, barely a year after he returned to his homeland from 45 years of exile, has emerged as the power behind a vacant throne.
He also appears to have impressive amounts of cash at his disposal and a say in which companies get the nod for some of the $18.4 billion earmarked for reconstruction. One company executive who asked that both his and the company's name be withheld said: "The commission was steep even by Middle Eastern standards."
Mr. Chalabi is still on the Defense Intelligence Agency's budget for a secret stipend of $340,000 a month.
The $40 million the INC has received since 1994 from the U.S. government also covered the expenses of Iraqi military defectors' stories about weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi regime's links with al Qaeda, which provided President Bush with a casus belli for the war on Iraq.
When Mr. Chalabi established the Petra Bank in Amman, Jordan, in the 1980s, he favored small loans to military officers, noncommissioned officers, royal guards and intelligence officers. He developed a close rapport with Crown Prince Hassan, who borrowed a total of $20 million. After Petra went belly up with a loss of $300 million at the end of the decade, Mr. Chalabi escaped to Syria in a car supplied by the crown prince — minutes ahead of the officers who had come to arrest him for embezzling his own bank. The Petra debacle left him sufficient funds to create the INC a few days later.
Today, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained mathematician says he has the documents that will prove he was framed by two Husseins — Saddam and the late king of Jordan — who wanted to put an end to his anti-Iraqi activities. Jordan used to get most of its oil from Iraq free of charge or heavily discounted, which explains why King Hussein declined to join the anti-Iraq coalition in the 1991 Gulf war.
Sentenced in absentia in Jordan to 22 years of hard labor for massive bank fraud, Mr. Chalabi hints he also has incriminating evidence of a close "subsidiary" relationship between Jordan's present King Abdullah and Saddam's sadistic elder son, Uday, killed last year in a shootout with U.S. troops.
Potentially embarrassing for prominent U.S. citizens, Mr. Chalabi's aides hint his treasure trove of Mukhabarat documents includes names of American "agents of influence" on Saddam's payroll, as well as several Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV news reporters who were working for Iraqi intelligence.
The final selection for prime minister will need the assent of the president and his two deputies — representing the country's three principal ethnic and religious groupings.
Standard-bearer for Iraq's 60 percent Shi'ite majority and free Iraq's first president will be Abdulaziz al-Hakim. He is the brother of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, killed last year with 90 worshippers when a car bomb rocked the country's holiest Shi'ite shrine in Najaf. With an Islamic green light from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, Mr. Hakim almost certainly will opt for Mr. Chalabi, a fellow Shi'ite, as prime minister.
Slated for one of the two vice-presidential slots is Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni octogenarian with a secular liberal outlook. He served as foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations before the Ba'athists seized power in a military coup in 1968. Mr. Pachachi's nod also may go to Mr. Chalabi.
For the third leg of the troika, rival Kurdish parties have agreed to unite behind Jalal Talabani, chief of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. His vote, now believed to be favorable, would make it three out of three for Mr. Chalabi.
Referring to Mr. Chalabi, a former U.S. ambassador recently back from an extended trip to Iraq, said: "Anyone who can get the U.S. to invade Iraq must be a very clever politician. As for the people his INC coached in London to disinform the U.S. intelligence community about Saddam's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, you've got to hand it to the guy. Don't blame him. Blame the Pentagon for not seeing through him."
If Mr. Chalabi's fast track to power is not derailed and he becomes prime minister in July, the president won't be able to fire him unless his two deputies agree. The provisional constitution seems tailor-made for Mr. Chalabi to call the shots into 2005.
As head of the Governing Council's economic and finance committee, Mr. Chalabi already has maneuvered loyalists into key Cabinet positions in the provisional authority — finance, oil and trade. The Central Bank governor, the head of the trade bank and the managing director of the largest commercial bank also owe their positions to his influence.
While in exile in London, Mr. Chalabi cultivated close contacts with Israeli officials.
He also has visited Iran several times to confer with leading ayatollahs in a bid for their support. He was given permission to open an INC office in Tehran.
His strongest backers in Washington are Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and neoconservative theoretician ("An End to Evil") Richard Perle.
•Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
