Interview with Eric Margolis, internationally syndicated columnist and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses the conflict in Syria, where Western-backed instigators and a legitimate domestic opposition face off against the Assad regime – which still enjoys widespread popular support; the consequences of Syrian regime change for Palestinians, Iran and Hezbollah; what a truly democratic Middle East would look like; whether Egyptian sympathy for Palestinians will be tempered by continued US bribe money; and why the US needs to accept the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate political force – or deal with something far more radical later on. (source: antiwar.com)

Listen to this interview here. (19:52)

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles appear in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times and Dawn. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. He appears as an expert on foreign affairs on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC.

As a war correspondent Margolis has covered conflicts in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Sinai, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He was among the first journalists to ever interview Libya's Muammar Khadaffi and was among the first to be allowed access to KGB headquarters in Moscow. A veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right” in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would face in Iraq.

Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet and American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World.

By Paul J. Balles * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The biggest political mistake I've ever made was to vote for Barack Obama. I should have known that a really great campaign speaker and organizer would probably make an inept president.

All of Obama's emphatic talk about change sounded appealing; even though Washington has proven so often that it's incapable of changing. There are just too many self-interests needing trade-offs with other self-interests, none of which has public needs in mind.

The fact that Obama opposed the Iraq War carried a lot of weight with those who don't believe America should mind everybody else's business.

Many had enough of Bush-Cheney war-mongering for the neo-cons (aka American Zionists who desperately wanted America to take out Iraq before Saddam Hussein could wage the mother of all WMDs against Israel).

So the Zioncons made up stories, pretended that fiction was fact and lied about non-existent WMDs.

Some argue they even went so far as to arrange for the slaughter of 3000 plus people on 9/11 with Israel's help.

Let's say Mossad, Israel's intelligence deceivers, speaking perfect Arabic and pretending to be Arabs, infiltrated an Al Qaeda cell and hatched a plan to highjack four planes; and that would show everyone how clever Al Qaeda was.

Of course the hijackers knew nothing about any plan to fly into buildings like kamikaze pilots on a suicide mission.

Once they got into the air and managed to get control of the planes, there would be nothing else the hijackers had to do. Thank you very much; everything would now be on remote control, with planes being flown like drones and directed by the Pentagon.

All the Israeli-firsters needed to do now was trigger the already placed thermal devices in the Trade Centre buildings just before the time the flying drones were guided into the top of the twin towers.

Another plane was droned into a largely unoccupied wing of the Pentagon, and the last--not allowed to fly into the White House--was shot down over Pennsylvania.

The whole story is perfect enough to allow Bush to continue reading to school children in Florida and for Cheney to pretend fear of terror while hiding in a bunker under the White House.

Of course the dots had to be connected between hijackers and Al Qaeda who at first knew nothing about the operation, and later -Bin Laden hearing they were blamed for 9/11- ignorantly accepted credit.

Is there any better rationale for assassinating Bin Laden, once he was allowed to be found, than to keep him from eventually testifying that he had nothing to do with 9/11?

Once Bin Laden claimed credit for bombing America, the Taliban refused to turn him over to US authorities without evidence that Bin Laden was indeed guilty.

That provided enough reason for America to gather a coalition of 9/11 sympathizers to agree to invade Afghanistan. Does anyone seriously believe it took 10 years to find Bin Laden? Certainly Obama must know better!

Before locating and capturing the Al Qaeda mastermind, it was necessary to go to war with Iraq. In order to do that, Iraq had to be associated with the reign of terror connecting the triumvirate of evil: Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

North Korea was simply thrown into Bush's Axis of Evil to send a message to China while pretending that the US wasn't focusing only on Middle Eastern threats to Israel.

Now here's Barack Obama, foster child of Bush-Cheney, trying to prove to the Zioncons (who have already jumped ship) that he's as much a warrior for Israel as his predecessors were.

Shame on me for ignoring the lessons of history: a great campaigner can make an inept leader!

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He's a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the Gulf Daily News. Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

While we were not watching, conspiracy theory has undergone Orwellian redefinition.

A "conspiracy theory" no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy. Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps.

For example, online news broadcasts of RT have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times simply because RT reports news and opinions that the New York Times does not report and the US government does not endorse.

In other words, as truth becomes uncomfortable for government and its Ministry of Propaganda, truth is redefined as conspiracy theory, by which is meant an absurd and laughable explanation that we should ignore.

When piles of carefully researched books, released government documents, and testimony of eye witnesses made it clear that Oswald was not President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, the voluminous research, government documents, and verified testimony was dismissed as "conspiracy theory."

In other words, the truth of the event was unacceptable to the authorities and to the Ministry of Propaganda that represents the interests of authorities.

The purest example of how Americans are shielded from truth is the media’s (including many Internet sites’) response to the large number of professionals who find the official explanation of September 11, 2001, inconsistent with everything they, as experts, know about physics, chemistry, structural engineering, architecture, fires, structural damage, the piloting of airplanes, the security procedures of the United States, NORAD’s capabilities, air traffic control, airport security, and other matters. These experts, numbering in the thousands, have been shouted down by know-nothings in the media who brand the experts as "conspiracy theorists."

This despite the fact that the official explanation endorsed by the official media is the most extravagant conspiracy theory in human history.

Let’s take a minute to re-acquaint ourselves with the official explanation, which is not regarded as a conspiracy theory despite the fact that it comprises an amazing conspiracy. The official truth is that a handful of young Muslim Arabs who could not fly airplanes, mainly Saudi Arabians who came neither from Iraq nor from Afghanistan, outwitted not only the CIA and the FBI, but also all 16 US intelligence agencies and all intelligence agencies of US allies including Israel’s Mossad, which is believed to have penetrated every terrorist organization and which carries out assassinations of those whom Mossad marks as terrorists.

In addition to outwitting every intelligence agency of the United States and its allies, the handful of young Saudi Arabians outwitted the National Security Council, the State Department, NORAD, airport security four times in the same hour on the same morning, air traffic control, caused the US Air Force to be unable to launch interceptor aircraft, and caused three well-built steel-structured buildings, including one not hit by an airplane, to fail suddenly in a few seconds as a result of limited structural damage and small, short-lived, low-temperature fires that burned on a few floors.

The Saudi terrorists were even able to confound the laws of physics and cause WTC building seven to collapse at free fall speed for several seconds, a physical impossibility in the absence of explosives used in controlled demolition.

The story that the government and the media have told us amounts to a gigantic conspiracy, really a script for a James Bond film. Yet, anyone who doubts this improbable conspiracy theory is defined into irrelevance by the obedient media.

Prof. Niels Harrit

In America today, and increasingly throughout the Western world, actual facts and true explanations have been relegated to the realm of kookiness. Only people who believe lies are socially approved and accepted as patriotic citizens.

Indeed, a writer or newscaster is not even permitted to report the findings of 9/11 skeptics. In other words, simply to report Professor Harrit’s findings now means that you endorse them or agree with them. Everyone in the US print and TV media knows that he/she will be instantly fired if they report Harrit’s findings, even with a laugh. Thus, although Harrit has reported his findings on European television and has lectured widely on his findings in Canadian universities, the fact that he and the international scientific research team that he led found unreacted nano-thermite in the WTC dust and have offered samples to other scientists to examine has to my knowledge never been reported in the American media.

Even Internet sites on which I am among the readers’ favorites will not allow me to report on Harrit’s findings.

Beam cut in straight line in exact same fashion as a controlled demolition

The unwillingness or inability to entertain any view of 9/11 different from the official view dooms to impotence many Internet sites that are opposed to the wars and to the rise of the domestic US police state. These sites, for whatever the reasons, accept the government’s explanation of 9/11; yet, they try to oppose the "war on terror" and the police state which are the consequences of accepting the government’s explanation. Trying to oppose the consequences of an event whose explanation you accept is an impossible task.

If you believe that America was attacked by Muslim terrorists and is susceptible to future attacks, then a "war on terror" and a domestic police state to root out terrorists become necessary to make Americans safe. The idea that a domestic police state and open-ended war might be more dangerous threats to Americans than terrorists is an impermissible thought.

A country whose population has been trained to accept the government’s word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.

* Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds . He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Niels Harrit interview:

Video link: http://youtu.be/0lU-vu2JvZY

by William deB. Mills* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Al-Asad Airbase - from Google Earth

The Arab Spring is heating up, Egypt is gingerly opening the Rafah Gate, Syria is in crisis, the Palestinians are gearing up for a fall U.N. victory. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv, in deep denial, is murdering civilian demonstrators in neighboring countries for approaching its borders, refusing to negotiate sincerely even with its West Bank clients, and searching for a way to continue its campaign of expansion and ethnic cleansing. Are the extremist leaders of Israel crazy enough to launch a regional war, using the specter of an eventual Iranian nuclear bomb as the excuse? Perhaps irrational, perhaps just coldly calculating their own personal, short-term interest.

The recently retired chief of Mossad has just warned that they may be. This is a serious warning; Dagan has wrecked any hopes of a peaceful retirement as an Israeli hero he may have had; he has no doubt destroyed all his contacts with the Netanyahu regime, as well. He will be persona non grata in official Tel Aviv, a tough price for a man who managed all the state's secrets. He is being pilloried in the halls of government and much of the nation's media. But he has been supported by the other top Israeli spy chief (also recently retired and thus free to speak honestly to his country's people). What do Israel's intelligence chiefs know or suspect about the private calculations of the extremist (shall we, for simplicity, call them the "Israeli neo-con"???) faction whose bloody flag has brought it into power?

Iran, a country known to professionals as following a cautious, rational foreign policy, nevertheless--like many Israeli and U.S. politicians--talks tough, and thus is perceived on the Israeli (and U.S.) street as wild and crazy. Ahmadinejad, whose mouth is as out-of-control as Netanyahu's, will bear much of the blame if the extremist faction running Israel attacks Iran. It matters little, evidently, to voters in the U.S. or Israel that Iran has attacked no one (except its own people), while Israel only a decade ago was forced to give up its colonization of Southern Lebanon, provoked the overthrow of Hamas in 2006 after it had accepted democratic rules and won Palestine's only legitimate election, provoked and then launched a war of aggression against Lebanon in 2006, and provoked and then launched a war of aggression against Gaza in 2009. Now, Israel is murdering Syrian demonstrators on the border of between the territory Syria still controls and the Syrian Golan Heights that Israel seized in 1967.

Those are the facts. One may argue forever about justifications, but those are the facts, and the facts do not support the hypothesis that Iranian leaders are wild and crazy, nor do they support the hypothesis that Israeli leaders are rational. Note please that "rational" does not mean "nice" or "moral." It does, however, mean thoughtful, calculating logically one's interests, and avoiding self-defeating behavior.

• Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, support of the slaughter of Palestinian women and children refugees in Sabra and Shatilla, and refusal to depart provoked the organization of the liberation movement Hezbollah; that was not a rational policy from Israel's perspective.
• Israel's 2006 overthrow of Hamas' new democratic government of Palestine taught the violence-prone group that playing by democratic rules would only backfire because Israel could not be trusted. That was not a rational policy from Israel's perspective.
• Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon resulted in a draw with that same Hezbollah, ending the myth of Israeli invincibility. That was not a rational policy from the perspective of Israel.
• Israel's disproportionate use of murderous force against civilians on the 2010 Gaza aid flotilla wrecked its important strategic ties with Turkey. That was not a rational policy from the perspective of Israel.
• Israel's slaughter of Syrian-Palestinian demonstrators cutting barbed wire on the Golan Heights brings to mind the East German murder of Germans trying to cross the old Berlin Wall. That was not rational policy from the Israeli perspective.

And now the question is whether the faction guilty of the above acts might also be sufficiently irrational to launch mankind's first unprovoked nuclear war. The ex-chief of Mossad evidently thinks so.

In early May a report in the Iranian media that someone close to nationalist Iraqi leader Moqtada al-Sadr had claimed Israeli warplanes were massing at Al-Asad Airbase near Baghdad for an attack on Iran received little notice in the U.S. and was quickly dismissed by U.S. officials as "ridiculous." Whatever the truth of the story, clearly the fact that the idea was "ridiculous" in no way indicates that it could not be true, and Dagan's recent warning suggests that the report should be taken more seriously.

What all this adds up to is unclear; these war scares have occurred repeatedly over the past decade. Yet the remarks of Dagan bear careful consideration, and evidence that the "war scares" of the past in fact constituted very real threats continues to emerge.

• In 2007, Israel allegedly was drawing up plans to attack Iran directly from Israel, with one route reportedly going over Turkey, which at that time still had close relations with Israel.
• In 2008, Israel conducted a dress rehersal for an attack on Iran with 100 F-15s and F-16s, and Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz said at the time, "If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons we will attack."
• In 2009, the militant right-wing Israeli website DEBKA claimed that Israel planned to attack Iranian planes when they gathered for an airshow that was canceled by the Iranians at the last minute because of bad weather.
• In 2010, Israel allegedly planned to attack Iran via Georgia.

In early 2011, Haaretz commentator Aluf Benn explained the current political situation in Tel Aviv:

The activist view against Iran unites Barak and Netanyahu and gives sense to their shared place in the country's leadership. Bolstered by the incoming chief of staff, Yoav Galant, who is considered a supporter of their position, the prime minister and defense minister will seek to foil the Iranian nuclear program in their remaining time in office.

Journalist Yossi Gurvitz provided further details about the Tel Aviv war party's motivations:

[Barak's] defection [WM: from Likud to Netanyahu's party] was planned with Netanyahu. The latter was elected on one promise: Attacking Iran. He will have a problem facing the voters without one. Recently, the retiring chief of Mossad, Me'ir Dagan, tried to warn the public of such a war: you go to war, he said, only when the enemy's sword is at your throat. He also broke with Military Intelligence custom since 2000 - announcing Iran's bomb would be ready at next year's autumn - and said it won't reach a bomb until 2015. Yesterday, he had to somewhat back from that premise, and say Iran may pull a surprise. Still, this put a major crimp in Netanyahu's war rhetoric.

Netanyahu didn't take this sitting down: last week he informed the world that its problems are "Iran, Iran, and Iran". Netanyahu knows his coalition is dying, and that just about everyone are looking forward to the next elections. He must get to the polls with some achievement, or at least a massive distraction. Otherwise, all that people will remember is that Netanyahu was basically a humiliated peon of Liberman and Yishai. If he makes it to the polls in this condition, he will have a hard time defeating Livni.

Netanyahu has just one option to regain his grip on the national agenda: going to war. During wartime, the press automatically stands at the side of the government. At least during the first two weeks, before the IDF's screw-ups can be noticed. The war's reflected glory also covers the Minister of Defense. Netanyahu and Barak need a war. Obama seems too weak to rein them in. We should, therefore, watch with unusual suspicion any military move made by Israel in the coming months - from Lebanon to the Gaza Strip, and particularly Iran. The old saying is that war is the extension of diplomacy by other means - but all too often it is the extension of party politics.

The record of irrationality in Israeli foreign policy makes it dangerous to discount the threat of Israeli aggression. The continued U.S. control over the Al-Asad Airbase in supposedly independent Iraq at a time when the U.S. is committed to removing its troops offers troubling evidence of the plausibility of the claims that aggression is under consideration.

But most telling of all is the absence of any clear, unambiguous statement from the White House that the Obama Administration would reject and oppose any Israeli attempt to attack Iran in the absence of a clear and immediate Iranian threat to Israel. Even if Washington is totally opposed to an Israeli attack on Iran, the ambiguity in Washington rhetoric leaves a dangerous space for leaders in Tel Aviv to imagine that they can pull Washington along in their wake should they decide to start a war they cannot win. If they take the chance, and if they can play Washington one more time as they have so many times before, and if U.S. can end a war against Iran fast enough to avoid disaster for Israel, then Netanyahu and Barak can restore their political fortunes, roll over the Palestinians, and rule the Mideast. It is a nice daydream for a faction whose time may be nearly up.

Given the influence of this faction over the U.S. Congress, however, what is Obama to do? There are five private citizens in Israel today who have spent their lives defending Israeli national security and who now seem worried about that security: Meir Dagan, Gabi Ashkenazi, Amos Yadlin, Gad Shimron, and Yuval Diskin. Make no mistake: these are Israeli right-wing super patriots, their views will not be in accord with U.S. national security interests, and Obama's contacts with Israelis should be far broader than this group. But, in contrast to certain politicians, they represent what may be called the "rational right." If the security of the Israeli people is of concern to Obama, then perhaps he should take the time to invite these gentlemen to lunch.

* William deB. Mills is an American political scientist specializing in the future of the global political system. He recently published "Mideast Peace or Fascism," "Palestine and Global Security," "Hammering Islamic Radicals," "Smarter Iran Policy Begins With a New Attitude", and "Gaza: Laboratory for the Power-Hungry." Retired from a career in national security, where his final position was Director of Long-Range Analysis at the National Intelligence Council, he now write a foreign affairs blog at shadowedforest.blogspot.com, publish a newsletter on good governance, and develop ways of applying analytical methods (complex adaptive systems, scenario analysis, system dynamics) for the study of the future of international relations.

By Jonathan Cook * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Veronika, wife of Dirar Abu Sisi, holds up her husband's picture at the Islamic Centre in Kiev in this March 11, 2011 file photograph. Photo by: Reuters

Israeli officials confirmed that Dirar Abu Sisi, 42, was being held in Israel's Shikma prison, near Ashkelon, after a judge partially lifted reporting restrictions late on 20 March. However, the reasons for Abu Sisi's abduction are still covered by the gag order.

The whereabouts of Abu Sisi, the operations manager of Gaza's only power plant, have been the subject of intense speculation since he disappeared on 18 February as he travelled on a train to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

Sabotaging Gaza's power supply

Suspicions that he might have been spirited to Israel were raised by the Ukrainian spokesman of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees earlier this month.

A few days after his disappearance, Abu Sisi's wife, Veronika, a Ukrainian national, accused the Israeli spy agency Mossad of kidnapping him to extract information that could be used to disable Gaza's power station in a future confrontation with the enclave's Hamas rulers.

Israel bombed the plant during its three-week military assault, Operation Cast Lead, in winter 2008, causing blackouts across much of Gaza. Israel alsotargeted the power station in June 2006, cutting power to 700,000 Gazans for several months while it was fixed at a cost of more than 5 million dollars.

Abu Sisi's family suggested another reason why Israeli might consider him a high-value target. They say he had recently developed a method to reduce the plant's dependency on high-grade diesel fuel, the flow of which Israel controls into Gaza.

In January Hamas officials announced that the station's turbines had been modified to work on regular diesel, which is cheaper and can be smuggled in through tunnels from Egypt.

The Israeli media, on the other hand, have speculated that Abu Sisi must be a senior Hamas activist to have secured an important post at the plant. The family have denied the claim, saying he was not involved in any political faction and was appointed because of his skills as an engineer.

One of his Israeli lawyers, Smadar Ben Nathan, who met him for the first time at the court hearing on 20 March to lift the gag order, said she believed Israel had carried out the operation based on false information.

She called the abduction a "miscalculation", saying interrogators had dropped their original line of questioning. She said the gag order meant she could not discuss the case further.

No charges have been brought yet. Ben Nathan said her client had lost a great deal of weight and his health was deteriorating after more than a month incommunicado. His family is concerned that he is being tortured.

Although the Mossad is suspected of carrying out many assassinations on foreign soil – including a hit on a Hamas leader, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in a Dubai hotel last year – there are few examples of it seizing individuals in foreign countries to bring them to trial.

Ben Nathan said she could identify only two similar cases: Israeli agents captured the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, and smuggled Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear whisteblower, out of Italy in 1986.

Victor Kattan, an international law expert at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University, said Israel had broken several human rights laws in seizing him rather than invoking treaty agreements between the Ukraine and Israel and requesting his extradition.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, based in Gaza, said it had learnt the details of how Abu Sisi was seized from another Israeli lawyer who had access to him. They did not name him, apparently because the information was a violation of the gag order.

In a statement, the centre said three men, two of them apparently wearing official Ukrainian uniforms, had dragged Abu Sisi, hooded and handcuffed, from his carriage at a stop en route to Kiev, where he was due to meet his brother.

He was later interrogated in an apartment by six people who identifed themselves as Mossad agents, before being put on a plane. The flight took about four hours. The plane then made another flight of about an hour to Israel, the PCHR said.

Ukrainian complicity

Abu Sisi's brother, Yousef, accused Ukraine of being "deeply involved", adding that he had spent three weeks being "kicked like a football from one office to another" as he sought help from the police and various intelligence agencies. "At one point an official even threatened to make me disappear," he said.

Abu Sisi was in Ukraine to apply for citizenship so that he and his wife could immigrate with their six children, his brother said. "He was desperate to leave Gaza and and take his children to Ukraine away from the Israeli bombs and attacks. How could he be a threat?"

According to Veronika, her husband had encountered problems at an Interior Ministry office in the city of Kharkiv earlier on the day of his disappearance. Officials there had briefly refused to return his passport.

So far Ukraine has kept a low profile on the incident.

During an official visit to Israel last week by the Ukrainian prime minister, Mykola Azarov, reporters due to cover his meeting with Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, had their invitations withdrawn at short notice and without explanation.

However, during an interview with Israel's Haaretz newspaper while he was in Israel, Azarov responded to a question about Abu Sisi's disappearance: "We don't have clear information right now... I don't want to imagine that such things are carried out on the soil of a friendly state."

Abu Sisi's kidnapping was first brought to light by Richard Silverstein, an American blogger.

The Association of Civil Rights in Israel, which sought the removal of the gag order, said in its petition to the court: "It is inconceivable that the authorities in a democratic country be able to secretly arrest people and 'vanish' them from the public eye."

* Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair".

Its All In The Wiki-Math

By Gordon Duff * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

WikiMath

There is absolutely no question for the press that Wikileaks is totally phony, we all know it, it is blatantly slanted, clearly not only anti-American but aimed at Islam, the easy target of all time. Wikileaks is also trying to be more and more clever about seeming less the Mossad "game theory" construct that we all know it is. The "clever" is fun to watch, more "ham handed" than esoteric.

Much of the press seems to have gotten "talking points" from somewhere, leading them to the material Brzezinski picked up when he "trashed" Wikileaks. We did the "math" on the Afghanistan leak. 80% of the stories to hit the media mentioned Pakistan aiding the Taliban. We did the actual count and found 38 reports out of 92,000 documents that were unsubstantiated reports of Pakistani activity in Afghanistan.

"Four ...Ten Thousandths"....Where The Press Had To Go In Finding Intel On Pakistan In Wikileaks

We are seeing it again, Israel the hero, sparkling clean, a land of angels and wizards, surrounded by dirty Arabs and Paki's and now, seemingly worst of all, the corrupt and inept Americans, exposed for what they are, OK, almost exposed except for one thing, everything Americans are accused of in Wikileaks was done in support of Israel, at the direction of their powerful AIPAC lobby. Nothing of this is mentioned nor the fact that the leaders in Washington who formulated the policies Wikileaks is trashing are, largely, Israeli citizens.

Is Wikileaks planning, some day, to expose this gang, and show America to be the biggest victim of all?

If it looks too good to be true, trust me on this, run like hell!

REPORTER ANALOGY

Put yourself in the place of a decent and honest reporter. You wait, your pulse pounding, 92,000 documents. You have your entire staff, the obits guy, the restaurant critic, all sitting up at your house, pounding down tequila and espresso. Five of you and 92,000 documents, that's 18,400 each. You can each scan only 500 documents an hour, that's a day and a half, but you have a deadline and your Wikileaks lead story has to be in for the morning paper.

You get a text message to check your email. You have a list of articles there, the real "gold" among the senseless time wasting "chaff." You have one of those moments of moral dilemma. For a real reporter, in the real world, that moment came and went without notice.

'You've been wiki-had'

You've been Wiki-had!

GOLFING ANALOGY

With reporters finding, just the right places in Wikileaks, we wanted to look at the odds. Golfing is a good comparison, so we checked the odds of someone getting a "hole in one" playing golf. Is finding the right articles in Wikileaks easier or harder than getting a "hole in one" playing golf?

In 1999, Golf Digest reported, "One insurance company puts a PGA Tour pro's chances at 1 in 3,756 and an amateur's at 1 in 12,750."

That same issue reported that the "odds of an amateur making two holes-in-one in a round are 9,222,500 to 1."

Ireland's National Hole in One Club puts the odds a little lower for one ace: "The estimated odds of acing a hole with any given swing are one in 33,000."

And an article in the magazine Navy Newsstand, citing Sports Illustrated as its source, put the odds at 45,000 to 1 for "scoring a hole-in-one on a typical par-3 golf hole."

This is the comparison we came up with. With our odds, were there only one Wikileak, at 4,130 compared to "hole in one" odds for a golfing pro at 3,756, the analogy works. Thus, 38 out of 92,000 articles is about the same as getting a hole in one. However, when you consider this is the 3rd straight hole in one for Wikileaks, the odds figure to be well over 20 million to one against. Wikileaks beats the odds bigtime.

We call this "the luck of the press."

I am a member of the press, maybe, if I am lucky, I can find a $50,000 check and first class air to Israel in my mailbox. Any bets on my chances?

RIGGING THE GAME, BUYING THE UMPIRE, COOKING THE BOOKS..WIKIMATH

Oh, you didn't know we "farmed out" our intelligence? This is illegal, of course. Did America have private companies, some owned by Israelis, operating in Afghanistan, companies tied directly to the Mossad, producing intelligence reports that were then picked out by Wikileaks then hand fed to the press. Let's do the math.

This is the kind of thing former National Security Advisor Brzezinski is talking about. It is also what others in the media are talking about. Today, Wayne Madsen on Russia Today spoke of the same thing, how Wikileaks seems aimed directly at the enemies of Israel. Madsen, as with so many others, makes the point that Wikileaks is, as he says it, "cherrypicking" intelligence that seems to make Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu very happy.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXJUZMMNUpY

IS THERE A LESSON?

The last few days, Paul Craig Roberts and I have been trading emails, a three way debate with Robbie the Pict (actual name), a well known UK activist. Paul wrote this today:

"For example, the US print and TV media and the US government have made it completely clear that they have no regard for the First Amendment. Consider CNN's Wolf Blitzer's reaction to the leaked diplomatic cables that reveal how the US government uses deceptions, bribes, and threats to control other governments and to deceive the American and other publics. Blitzer is outraged that information revealing the US government's improprieties reached the people, or some of them. As Alexander Cockburn wrote, Blitzer demanded that the US government take the necessary steps to make certain that journalists and the American people never again find out what their government is up to."

So many, honorable people who have "fought the good fight" so long, like Roberts, have been hungry for something to hold on to that Wikileaks is defended to the last without the objectivity such things require. I was someone who, on 9/11, never imagined Osama bin Laden. My first words, "Oh g-d, I didn't think they would do it."

I meant Bush and Cheney. This is how I think, after all, I grew up "bad," a Detroit kid. Now, finally, Geraldo Rivera tells me I was right all along. I never had doubts, I only wondered how long it would take, not for the truth to come out, nobody wants the truth, but for it to become profitable to exploit the conspiracy. Welcome to that one.

Now we have divisions, those I call "Israeli shills" teamed with those who see the extremely flawed and even diseased Wikileaks as a big win because it supports the fight they have had against American duplicity. When is a "big win" a big loss?

My good friend, Paul Andrew Mitchell, had to remind me, Assange is an "odd duck" as a "whistleblower." He supports war, any war, anytime, anywhere. Assange may be the last man alive to support, without question, the 9/11 Commission but is planning to revealing the truth about space aliens and UFO's. In fact, as Mitchell points out, there isn't a hair's difference between the Mossad and CIA agenda and Wikileaks.

Even better, the Neocons are using Wikileaks as an excuse to censor the internet, multiple bills are in the works already, all conveniently timed to control the explosive 9/11 and AIPAC scandals that are the only real threats to Israel.

No wonder Assange is able to hide in plain site.

No Wikileak For Dr. Aafia? Time To Ask Why

It is Israel behind that mask and Wikileaks is simply a mask beneath a mask, or as Jeff Gates puts it, "psyops and game theory."

When are we going to read a Wikileak about organ theft rings or white phosphorous and American cluster bombs used against civilians in Gaza? Instead, we get "chickenfeed" about a politician?

Where are the Wikileaks on torture, rendition, Dr. Aafia or the phony intelligence on Iraq that led to the invasion in 2003? We are still waiting for a Wikileak on Israel's friend, Chalabi, the wanted criminal America made Prime Minister of Iraq, a decision that led to a full scale civil war.

Wikileaks is like mother's milk to people who have starved for openness and justice.

Wikileaks is mother's milk laced with arsenic.

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

By Alan Hart * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Some commentators, bloggers and other writers, were quick to jump to the conclusion that the avalanche of documents being released by WikiLeaks is part and parcel of an Israeli/Mossad deception strategy. One implication being that WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange is, knowingly or not, manipulated by Zionism.

On the basis of the first two or three days of the Wikileaked revelations as reported by the mainstream media, in America especially, there most definitely was a case for saying that the agenda best served by the leaked diplomatic cables was that of the Zionist state of Israel, its lobby in America and its many stooges in Congress. The essence of the case was in the message that Iran is the biggest single threat to the peace of the region and the world not only because the Israelis say so but also because Arab leaders agree with them.

In my last post I quoted Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, as saying he thought it was possible that Wikileaks was being fed and manipulated by intelligence services. And I stated my own belief of the moment that the question of whether or not this is so was worthy of investigation.

But as the flow of leaked cables increases, and with time for reflection, I no longer believe that such an investigation is necessary.

The problem is not the manipulation of WikiLeaks by any foreign intelligence service but, in effect, the manipulation by key players in the mainstream media, in America especially, of the material WikiLeaks is providing.

And here’s just one example to make the point.

When it learned from Wikileaked diplomatic cables that Arab leaders were at one with Israeli leaders in wanting the U.S. to attack Iran, journalism with integrity would have asked something like the following question. “Is Iran really the threat to the region and the world it is alleged to be by Israeli and Arab leaders?”

If that question had been asked, the honest answer would have been “No, of course it isn’t!”

As I and others have pointed out a number of times, even a nuclear-armed Iran would not pose a threat to Israel’s existence or that of the states of the impotent and repressive Arab regimes which are more or less content to do the bidding of America-and-Zionism. To really believe otherwise (as opposed to not really believing but saying so for propaganda purposes) is to assume that a nuclear-armed Iran would at some point launch a first strike. That would never happen because Iran would be inviting its own complete destruction.

If Iran does end up with a nuclear bomb or several, it will be for the purpose of deterrence only. (As I said in my last post, if I was an Iranian, even one who hated the regime of the mullahs, I would feel more secure in the face of Israeli and American threats if my country did possess a nuclear bomb for deterrence).

Though much of it was confirmatory for informed journalists and politicians, the Wikileaked information is new but the real problem is not. It is (generally speaking) the mainstream media’s lack of integrity, in America especially; a lack of integrity which, in its reporting of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, manifests itself in one of two ways – in some cases by knowingly peddling Zionist propaganda, in other cases by self-censoring the truth about Israel’s crimes out of fear of offending Zionism too much or at all.

In my view Assange has damaged his own cause by releasing details of facilities around the world which U.S. authorities regard as being vital to America’s national security. By doing so he has given his enemies in governments everywhere what they did not previously have – a fig leaf of justification for their efforts to silence him.

If they succeed, the threat to what passes for democracy in the Western world, in America especially, will be even greater than it currently is.

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

By Jeff Gates * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"The United States is the real victim of WikiLeaks. It's an action aimed at discrediting them."
--Franco Frattini, Foreign Minister of Italy

The impact of the WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables fits the behavior profile of those well versed in game theory warfare.

When Israeli mathematician Robert J. Aumann received the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic science for his work on game theory, he conceded, "the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel" has turned "Israel into the leading authority in this field."

The candor of this Israeli-American offered a rare insight into an enclave long known for waging war from the shadows. Israel's most notable success to date was "fixing" the intelligence that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq in pursuit of a geopolitical agenda long sought by Tel Aviv

When waging intelligence wars, timing is often the critical factor for game-theory war planners. The outcome of the WikiLeaks release suggests a psy-ops directed at the U.S.

Why now? Tel Aviv was feeling pressure to end its six-decade occupation of Palestine. With this release, its foot-dragging on the peace process was displaced with talk of an attack on Iran.

While the U.S. bore the brunt of the damage, the target was global public opinion. To maintain the plausibility of The Clash of Civilizations, a focus must be maintained on Iran as a credible Evil Doer.

With fast-emerging transparency, Israel and pro-Israelis have been identified as the source of the intelligence that took coalition forces to war in Iraq. Thus the need to shift attention off Tel Aviv.

WikiLeaks may yet succeed in that mission.

Foreseeable Futures

Game theory war planning aims to create outcomes that are predictable-within an acceptable range of probabilities. That's why Israeli war planners focus on gaining traction for a plausible narrative and then advancing that storyline step by gradual step.

For the Zionist state to succeed with its expansionist agenda, Iran must remain at center stage as an essential villain in a geopolitical morality play pitting the West against Islamo Fascists.

To displace facts with false beliefs-as with belief in the intelligence that induced the invasion of Iraq-momentum must be maintained for the storyline. Lose the plot (The Clash) and peace might break out. And those deceived may identify the deceiver.

Thus the timing of this latest WikiLeaks release. Its goal: to have us believe that it is not Tel Aviv but Washington that is the forefront of geopolitical duplicity and a source of Evil Doing.

Intelligence wars rely on mathematical models to anticipate the response of those targeted. With game theory algorithms, reactions become foreseeable-within an acceptable range of probabilities.

Control enough of the variables and outcomes become a mathematical inevitability.

The WikiLeaks Motive

Was the reaction to this latest WikiLeaks foreseeable? With exquisite timing, the U.S. was discredited with an array of revelations that called into question U.S. motives and put in jeopardy U.S. relations worldwide.

As the Italian Foreign Minister summarized: "The news released by WikiLeaks will change diplomatic relations between countries."

The hard-earned trust of the Pakistanis disappeared overnight. Attempts to engage Iran were set back. The overall effect advanced The Clash storyline. If Washington could so badly misread North Korean intentions, then why is the U.S. to be trusted when it comes to a nuclear Iran?

This Wiki-catalyzed storyline pushed Israel off the front page in favor of Iran.

Even U.S. detainees at Guantanamo are again at issue, reigniting that shameful spectacle as a provocation for extremism and terror. U.S. diplomats will now be suspected of spying and lying. What nation can now trust Americans to maintain confidences?

In short, the risks increased for everyone.

Except Israel.

Should Israel launch an attack on Iran, Tel Aviv can cite WikiLeaks as its rationale. Though an attack would be calamitous from a human, economic and financial perspective, even that foreseeable outcome would be dwarfed by the enduring hatred that would ensue.

That too is foreseeable-from a game theory perspective of those marketing The Clash.

The effect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq was predictable. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia foresaw it, noting simply that the U.S. invasion would "give Iraq to Iran as a gift on a golden platter."

With the elimination of Sunni leader Saddam Hussein, the numerically dominant Shiites of Iraq were drawn into the political orbit of the Shiite-dominant Iran.

Game theorists focus their manipulation of affairs on their control of key variables. Then events take on a life all their own. The impact of this discrediting release was wide-ranging and fully foreseeable.

A Mossad case officer explained Israel's success at waging war by way of deception: "Once the orchestra starts to play, we just hum along."

These, after all, are the leading authorities in the field.

* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide, Jeff Gates' latest book is Guilt by Association -How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (2008) his first release in the Criminal State series. His previous books include Democracy At Risk and The Ownership Solution. See his website Criminal State

Israeli psy-ops typically serve multiple purposes. Wikileaks is no exception.

By Jeff Gates * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

What is Tel Aviv to do now that it's known Israelis and pro-Israelis ‘fixed' the intelligence that induced the U.S. to war in Iraq?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Con me consistently for six decades and the relationship is over, as is Israel's credibility as a legitimate nation state.

Tel Aviv knows this. But what can the Zionist state do about it?

Answer: Wikileaks.

Why now? Misdirection.

Shine the spotlight on Washington to take it off Tel Aviv. That's good old-fashioned psy-ops. And challenge the credibility of the U.S. That's Wikileaks.

Any credible forensics would start by asking: to whose benefit? Then look to means, motive and opportunity plus the presence of stable nation-state intelligence inside the U.S.

Other than Israel, who else is a credible candidate? Notice how quickly Israel's role in the peace process vanished from the news. Now it's Iran, Iran and more Iran. To whose benefit?

Tel Aviv knows that the phony intelligence on Iraq leads to those skilled at waging war "by way of deception"-the motto of the Israeli Mossad.

Wikileaks are noteworthy for what's missing: the absence of any material damaging to Israeli goals.

But still Tel Aviv faces an unprecedented peril: transparency. Americans know they were duped. And Israel rightly fears that Americans will soon realize by whom.

Tepid Support will not Suffice

Obama has behaved as anticipated by those who produced his presidency. Anyone surprised at the lack of change in U.S. policy in the Middle East fails to grasp the power of the Israel lobby.

Did he hesitate to support their latest Israeli strategy for scuttling peace negotiations? Absent peace, the U.S. will continue to be the target of those outraged at America's unflinching support for Israel's thuggish behavior in pursuit of its expansionist goals.

Confirming the lobby's influence, Netanyahu announced he would not agree to halt settlements on Palestinian land until Obama reduced to writing a $3 billion bribe.

In return for a proposed 90-day freeze, what form of bribe will America provide? Twenty F-35 jets at $150 million each plus parts, maintenance, training and armaments.

That's $231 million per week or $1,373,626 per hour. What will the U.S. receive in return? A temporary partial freeze on settlements. How many more times can this ruse work?

Israel has evaded a peace agreement since it drove Palestinians from their land in 1948 and seized more land in 1967 to shape today's geopolitics.

Should Israel reach an agreement with the Palestinians, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposes a "comprehensive security agreement." At what cost no one knows. The U.S. Congress has already budgeted $30 billion for Israel over 10 years. This latest $3 billion is on top of that.

That doesn't include the cost to American credibility posed by an offer to veto U.N. recognition of Palestine as a state. And a pledge Never Again to pressure Israel on settlements. Plus the freeze omits East Jerusalem where Tel Aviv insists on moving ahead with new housing starts.

Timing Is Everything

By scheduling its latest incursion into Gaza between Christmas 2008 and the January 2009 Obama inaugural, Tel Aviv ensured only muted opposition during political down time in the U.S. Thus it came as no surprise to see an agent provocateur operation on Thanksgiving Day 2010 as Israel demolished a West Bank Mosque and a Palestinian village.

After seven hours of nonstop talks, Hillary Clinton praised Netanyahu as a "peacemaker." In return, he agreed only to "continue the process." Meanwhile, U.S. elections marked a major victory for Israel when incoming Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Jewish Zionist, announced that the new majority would "serve as a check on the Obama administration."

The Israel lobby has good reason to gloat. Confirming ongoing duplicity, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman proclaimed: "a permanent agreement is impossible."

Wikileaks' release of confidential diplomatic cables provides Israel an opportunity to undermine U.S. relations worldwide while also inflicting lasting damage on U.S. interests in the Middle East. After this, what nation would trust the U.S. to maintain a confidence?

In October, Turkey asked that the U.S. not share intelligence with Israel. Now who dares share intelligence with the U.S.?

This may signal the beginning of the end for the Obama presidency his domestic policy failures are eclipsed by his failures in foreign policy.

This may also signal pre-staging for the 2012 presidential primary with a weakened Obama forced to name Clinton as his running mate or stepping aside so she can lead the ballot.

Her 2008 presidential campaign promised recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state" and promised an "undivided Jerusalem as the capital." Tel Aviv was elated. A second Clinton presidency would ensure another victory for Israel-and no peace.

Israeli psy-ops typically serve multiple purposes. Wikileaks is no exception.

* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide, Jeff Gates' latest book is Guilt by Association -How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (2008) his first release in the Criminal State series. His previous books include Democracy At Risk and The Ownership Solution. See his website Criminal State

Al Qaeda Ink Cartridge Bomb

By Maidhc Ó Cathail * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

While Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) may have claimed responsibility for the parcel bomb plot, it's worth considering how this latest Yemen-linked terror scare has been a gift to their avowed enemies.

A mere two weeks before the discovery of mail bombs addressed to "two places of Jewish worship in Chicago", Rupert Murdoch sounded prescient as he received an award from the Anti-Defamation League for his support of Israel. "The terrorists continue to target Jews across the world," declared the media mogul in his acceptance speech. "But they have not succeeded in bringing down the Israeli government - and they have not weakened Israeli resolve." Equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, the Fox News owner smeared the growing worldwide condemnation of Israel's rogue behaviour as an "ongoing war against the Jews".

Binyamin Netanyahu, a frequent London house guest of Murdoch and a likely recipient of his political contributions, was quick to make hay of the foiled plot. Briefing the cabinet on his impending address to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, the Israeli prime minister told them that it would be "held against the background of reports about the attempt to attack the Jewish community in Chicago".

Linking the parcel bomb plot to some of the most iconic terrorist attacks of the post-9/11 era, Netanyahu said that "it does not matter if the target was a synagogue in Chicago or a railway station in Madrid, London, Mumbai or Bali". Deftly associating his increasingly isolated government with the victims of those attacks, the Israeli prime minister proclaimed: "We are facing a growing wave of terrorism by extremist Islam."

Netanyahu, never one prone to understatement, offered this analysis of the unsuccessful attempt to use desktop printers as terror weapons: "It is growing in the scope and brazen gall of its attacks, in the weapons with which it is arming itself, and in the sweeping objectives of the leaders of global terrorism."

He then assured his colleagues that "one of the main issues" he would be addressing in New Orleans with American Jewish leaders was "the steps that the civilized and free world must take in order to stop this wave that threatens us all."

Needless to say, those "steps" are unlikely to include an end to the 43-year occupation and colonization of the West Bank or a lifting of the four-year blockade of Gaza.

An American apologist for Israel's self-appointed guardian of "the civilized and free world" took a similar line. Joel Pollak, a Republican candidate in the mid-term elections, released a statement condemning the attempted terror attack, saying he would be spending the Jewish sabbath in West Rogers Park "in solidarity with the people of the ninth congressional district who were the direct targets of Al Qaeda terror". Sounding a lot like Netanyahu, Pollak attempted to rally his constituents by telling them, "We must not stop fighting to eradicate the twin evils of terror and hatred."

Again, we can take it as read that the "terror and hatred" Americans are being urged to combat only applies to Israel's enemies (PDF).

The Israeli news website DEBKA-Net-Weekly, which describes itself as "the leading geopolitical newsletter", has even attempted to implicate Israel's current enemy number one, Iran. The next issue, for subscribers only, promises to reveal "how the Al-Qaeda air package plot fit [sic] into the selective partnership between Tehran and Al-Qaeda and homes in on the areas where their schemes dovetail".

But how trustworthy is this "leading newsletter"?

"Debka is prepared mostly by former Mossad operatives. A reliable stream of information," Martin Peretz, the Islamophobic editor-in-chief of the staunchly pro-Israel New Republic assures us.

Ever since an Israeli firm let the Christmas Day crotch bomber "slip through" security at Schiphol Airport without a passport, a few influential voices with close ties to Israel have been instrumental in making Yemen "the new buzzword".

Appearing on Fox News two days later, the No. 1 pro-Israel advocate and leader in Congress, Senator Joe Lieberman, announced: "Iraq was yesterday's war. Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war."

Within a week, Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Saban Center in the Brookings Institution, had an op-ed in the Daily Beast titled "The menace of Yemen". Touting the botched Christmas Day plot as evidence of "the growing ambition of Al-Qaeda's Yemen franchise," Riedel called for "significant American support to defeat AQAP".

Riedel's employer, the Saban Center, is named after Haim Saban, the Israeli-American media mogul, who in 2002 pledged 13 million dollars to found the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Two years later, Saban admitted to the New York Times: "I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel."

"The US may be walking into a bit of a trap," warns Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen expert and doctoral candidate at Princeton University's Department of Near Eastern Studies.

That "trap" has been best described by a former CIA officer. "America's misguided war on terror", Philip Giraldi pointed out in a recent article, "is in fact a complete adoption of Israeli security paradigms without any regard for the actual threats that confront the US, making Israel's many enemies also the foes of Washington".

Israel must be very grateful indeed for this latest terror scare. If Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula did not exist, they might have to invent it.

* Maidhc Ó Cathail is a widely published writer based in Japan.

By Stephen Lendman * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Abraham Foxman

Founded by B'nai B'rith in 1913, its stated mission is "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all," calling itself "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency, (fighting) anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry...."

In fact, Abraham Foxman, its national director, uses high-mindedness and unfounded anti-semitism hysteria as cover for backing Jewish supremacy and the right of Israelis over Arabs, including by occupation and belligerently enforced apartheid.

One of the 52 listed Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization (CPMAJO) Zionist organizations, ADL disseminates pro-Israeli propaganda and conducts smear campaigns against Israeli critics, under the guise of fighting anti-semitism and supporting human rights equitably. Overall, in fact, its long history is disturbing.

In the late 1930s and 40s, it spied on suspected communist sympathizers, working with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), later called the House Committee on Internal Security until abolished in 1975, its functions transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Later in the 1980s, it engaged in private spying, the San Francisco Chronicle reporting that, in April 1993, police raided its offices, revealing a political spy operation aided by a corrupt police officer, Tom Gerard. Working with Roy Bullock, a political informant, files about thousands of Arab Americans and hundreds left-of-center northern California organizations were pilfered.

Among them were the National Lawyers Guild, ACLU, NAACP, the Rainbow Coalition, Greenpeace, the Nation of Islam, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Bay Area anti-Apartheid Network, Asian Law Caucus, CISPES, and 20 Bay area labor unions, none supporting hate or revolutionary activities.

Later it was revealed that ADL conducted similar operations nationally through its LEARN program (Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network), infiltrating local law enforcement agencies, bribing police officers, and securing non-public information illegally.

Its penchant for spying is now exposed, if not acknowledged, yet so far it's escaped prosecution and harsh class action suit judgments by admitting no wrongdoing, and agreeing to remove improperly obtained documents from its files. Henceforth, it promised:

• to refrain from seeking non-public information;
• contribute $25,000 to a Hate Crimes Fund;
• another $25,000 for a public school course; and
• $25,000 more to a fund for improving relations among Jews, Blacks, and other minorities.

After Israel's "War of Independence," its publication, "The Facts," called supporters of Palestinian justice anti-semites, including Barnard College Dean Virginia Gildersleve, Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of Theodore Roosevelt), and former American University of Beirut President Bayard Dodge. Its May 1948 publication charged:

"Their espousal of the Arab League cause and opposition to Zionism has been marked by the increasingly hostile attitude toward the Jewish people themselves. While anti-Zionism and sympathy for the Arab cause are not necessarily indications of anti-Semitic prejudice, there are many whose pro-Arab utterances and activities have contained sufficiently expressed or implied anti-Semitism to give cause for genuine alarm."

Thereafter, ADL used the same "guilt by association" and "guilt by juxtaposition" smears against other Israeli critics and pro-Palestinian supporters.

For example, in 1983, its handbook titled, "Pro-Arab propaganda in America: Vehicles and Voices" listed university faculty and staff members, critical of Israel and Zionism, calling them anti-semites, extremists, and radicals seeking to abolish the state of Israel and incite prejudice against Jewish Americans. Charges were, in fact, smears based on lies, distortions, and half truths, censuring numerous anti-Israeli critics.

Along with AIPAC, the Zionist Organization of America, and other prominent CPMAJO-listed groups, the ADL exerts enormous influence in America. Working closely with Mossad, the FBI, CIA, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ADL fronts for Israel without registering as a foreign agent. Using pressure, cajoling, and smear threats, it also demands media compliance, assuring one-sided pro-Israeli coverage.

ADL's Top US Anti-Israeli Groups

In early October, ADL published its top 10 list, including one Jewish-led one, Abe Foxman announcing:

"While there are hundreds of groups that organize and participate in various anti-Israeli activities, we have identified the largest and most well-coordinated anti-Israeli groups. These groups are not promoting peace. They are spreading propaganda to assault Israel's legitimacy. We want Americans to know who (they) are and what it is they really stand for, which is to delegitimize the Jewish state."

"These groups demonize Israel through various public campaigns. Their messages are one-sided and fail to take the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into account. They unfairly attack Israel while ignoring Palestinian terrorism and incitement. They apply a different standard to Israel than other countries, condemning it for implementing policies to protect its citizens."

The above statement reflects the last refuge of a scoundrel, blaming victims and their supporters, in this case, organizations for peace, equity and justice, unlike ADL and other pro-Israeli groups. Like all Jewish supremacists, they're for Israeli lawlessness, violence, aggressive wars, isolation, home demolitions, land theft, dispossessions, mass imprisonments, torture, targeted assassinations, and continued slow-motion genocide against millions of Palestinians, including besieged Gazans.

ADL's top 10 include:

(1) Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER)

Formed post-9/11, it's been activist against war, imperialism, bigotry, and represents other issues, including civil and human rights, and support for Palestinian equity and justice.

(2) Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition

It's "committed to comprehensive public education on the rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands of origin, and to full restitution of all their confiscated and destroyed property," according to international law.

(3) Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

In defending civil liberties, freedom of religion, diversity, tolerance, and democratic freedoms, it combats hate groups vilifying Islam and Muslims.

(4) Friends of Sabeel-North America (FOSNA)

It "promotes awareness and understanding" of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict "through educational programs for North American Christians....FOSNA seeks reconciliation between people of the Holy Land in a vision of peace based on principles of a just peace," including "the urgency of ending US support for Israel's illegal military occupation."

(5) If Americans Knew (IAK)

Its mission is "to inform and educate the American public on issues of major significance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported in the American media." It believes conflict resolution and justice depends on revealing truths, ones major US media sources suppress, supporting the worst of Israeli lawlessness.

(6) International Solidarity Movement (ISM)

A Palestinian-led initiative, it's committed to resisting Israel's occupation, oppression, domination, and apartheid through nonviolent, direct-action methods.

(7) Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)

It seeks equity, peace, security, and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians alike, through "grassroots organizing, education, advocacy, and media." It's the only US Jewish organization providing a voice for Jews and their allies, who believe that Middle East peace is only possible "through justice and full equality" for Jews and Muslims alike.

(8) Muslim American Society (MAS)

As a religious, charitable, social, cultural, and educational group, its mission is to "move people to strive for God consciousness, liberty, and justice, and to convey Islam with utmost clarity."

(9) Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

By "visualiz(ing) the Palestinian struggle," it opposes apartheid and occupation through protests, memorials, and other ways, highlighting their plight against Israeli aggression and occupation.

(10) US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USCEIO)

It's a "diverse coalition working for freedom from occupation and equal rights for all by challenging US policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Based on human rights and international law, it seeks peace, justice, and conciliation by "chang(ing) the US role," the essential way to do it.

A Final Comment

The contrast between ADL and the above groups is stark and revealing. Claiming human rights credentials, ADL backs the worst of Israeli lawlessness. Organizations like its top 10 support the rule of law, self-determination, equity, nonviolence, conciliation, and the right of everyone in the region to co-exist peacefully - notions Israel and its acolytes won't tolerate, ADL prominent among them.

Asking Obama to take the lead in an October 19 Jerusalem Post interview, Foxman expressed disdain for Palestinian self-determination, saying:

"Now is the time to send a message to the Palestinians and Middle Eastern and European nations that the US will not tolerate and sanction" Palestinians' creating a state unilaterally. "It has to be made clear to the Palestinians that they have to give up this pipe dream that their Arab and European friends (which ones he didn't say) will give them a state without them having to make concessions or sacrifices."

From most people this comment would shock. From Foxman it reflects his advocacy for enforced apartheid, the harsher the better, demanding all, giving nothing, what he's supported throughout his entire professional life, masquerading as a human rights champion.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

Vitriolic racism and hatred has become the Israeli norm

By Omar Radwan | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Israel appears to be awash with Jewish hate preachers. In the past, rabbis who issued racist edicts or offensive remarks about Palestinians or non-Jews were generally dismissed as radicals and extremists who were no more than a trifling annoyance to be ignored in the hope that they would simply go away. However, it is now clear that ignoring this problem has only made it worse. In the current climate in Israel, extremist hate preaching has apparently become the norm and it is being embraced, not just on the extreme political right but also by a disturbing number of Israelis in general, be they preachers, politicians, settlers or simply ordinary citizens. Hate-filled Israelis have become emboldened over the years by the knowledge that they can say and do almost anything without fear, knowing that they will not be condemned or, if they are, that nothing will come of it. That is due to the widespread support for their views across Israeli society as well as their religious leaders and the political elite.

What is particularly disturbing is that leading Israeli rabbis, who are meant to be the spiritual and moral guides of the Jewish people, are actually encouraging racism, physical violence and even the killing of Palestinians.

It is no longer shocking to read headlines such as "Leading rabbi encourages IDF soldiers to use Palestinian human shields". This particular headline relates to Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, who taught his students that "according to true Jewish values, your lives come before those of the enemy, whether he is a soldier or a civilian under protection. Therefore, you are forbidden from endangering your own life for the sake of the enemy, not even for a civilian." This sort of teaching, no doubt, goes some way towards explaining why the number of cases in which Palestinian children are being used as human shields by Israeli forces is increasing.

Vicious levels of discrimination against non-Jews have now escalated to the point that when Israelis of a more reasonable persuasion do something as simple as, for example, rent a property to an Arab, rabbis are now calling for them to be shunned and boycotted by their own Jewish communities. A recent report in Haaretz quoted a letter signed by a group of 18 prominent rabbis, including the Chief Rabbi of Safed, who wrote that renting properties to Arabs would deflate the value of Jewish homes and, "The neighbours and acquaintances [of a Jew who sells or rents to an Arab] must distance themselves from the Jew, refrain from doing business with him, deny him the right to read from the Torah, and similarly [ostracize] him until he goes back on this harmful deed".

It is not just Muslims who are on the receiving end of this campaign of hatred; even Christians in the region have long been subjected to disturbing and widespread campaigns of abuse from Israeli Jews. "I hate to say it", said Roman Catholic Father Massimo Pazzini of the Church of the Flagellation on the Via Dolorosa, "but we've grown accustomed to this. Jewish religious fanatics spitting at Christian priests and nuns has become a tradition."

The term "hate preacher" has often been used in the Western media about Muslims but it seems more appropriate to describe some of the Israeli rabbis for their recent statements and guidance.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

In the run-up to the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian "peace negotiations" Rabbi Ovadia Yosef wished that "all the nasty people who hate Israel, like Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas], vanish from our world". He went on to say, "May God strike them down with the plague along with all the nasty Palestinians who persecute Israel."

Although his statement was immediately condemned by America it did not come as a surprise to people who were already familiar with his 2001 call for the annihilation of Arabs, at which point he also said it was forbidden to be merciful to them.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro

In his controversial book The King's Torah, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro sanctioned the murder by Jews of non-Jews, including babies and children, who may pose an actual or potential threat to Jews or to Israel.

"It is permissible to kill the Righteous among non-Jews even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation," he wrote. "If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments because we care about the commandments there is nothing wrong with the murder."

This edict was seemingly made in response to the arrest of a Jewish terrorist who confessed to murdering two Palestinian shepherds in the West Bank, and was thus used to justify the killings.

Mordechai Eliyahu

According to a report by Khalid Amayreh in November 2009, "During the Israeli onslaught against Gaza earlier this year, Mordecahi Elyahu, one of the leading rabbinic figures in Israel, urged the army not to refrain from killing enemy children in order to save the lives of Israeli soldiers. He had even petitioned the Israeli government to carry out a series of carpet bombing of Palestinian population centres in Gaza. 'If they don't stop after we kill 100,' said the rabbi, 'then we must kill a thousand. And if they do not stop after we kill a thousand, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop, we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to stop them'."

According to Eliyahu's obituary in the Daily Telegraph in June this year

Rabbi Eliyahu wrote to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to say that, according to Jewish war ethics, an entire city (he referred to Gaza City) holds collective responsibility for the immoral behaviour of individuals.

Thus, he continued, there was no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians during a potential massive military offensive in Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket attacks. He ended his letter quoting from the Psalms: "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them."

He extended his hatred to those individuals worldwide who even show the slightest incidental support for Palestinians and said of the hundreds of thousands killed in 2004 by the Asian tsunami "those who died were paying for their governments' support of the Palestinians."

With statements such as these it is paradoxical Muslim preachers such as Dr Zakir Naik and Sheik Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, whose views are very moderate in comparison, are labelled as extremists. Although for years now Muslim leaders have (often undeservedly) been vilified as the most hate-filled preachers in the world, that title is now surely more deserved by Israeli rabbis such as those mentioned above.

By any means necessary, no matter how immoral, or corrupt.

It is strange for the spiritual leaders of a "chosen" people who stake their claim to the "holy" land use methods to achieve their goals that are decidedly "unholy". One recent ruling by Rabbi Ari Schvat, for example, gave "his blessing to female agents of Israel's foreign secret service, Mossad, who may be required to have sex with the enemy in so-called 'honey-pot' missions against terrorists." While there is apparently no limit on Jewish men using sex in an effort to infiltrate the enemy, he did make a few remarks about Jewish female 'honey-pots' stating, "If it is necessary to use a married woman, it would be best [for] her husband to divorce her... After the [sex] act, he would be entitled to bring her back." He also added, "Naturally, a job of that sort could be given to a woman who in any event is licentious in her ways." So, not only are these rabbis genocidal, but sexist as well.

That such comments are not causing moral outrage amongst conservative Jews in Israel and, indeed, in Jewish communities worldwide, is worrying. The concept of a woman defiling herself and committing any act of lewdness or adultery is something alien to most religions but the fact that Jewish women are being given the green light by Israel's rabbis to use such lascivious means to achieve the goals of Mossad demonstrates further that Israel really does not have any moral line across which it will not go.

The standard response to an article like this is to condemn it as "anti-Semitic". That is neither the intention nor, it is contended, the result; the statements quoted have been issued or uttered by rabbis and well-publicised. Some may even be directly responsible for the subsequent killings of innocent Palestinian civilians. Instead of lining up to shoot the messenger, detractors should pause instead and really consider what these rabbis have said; and then decide whether reporting anti-Gentile statements made by rabbis really does qualify as anti-Semitism. There are many Jews and rabbis in congregations all over the world who are desperate for peace in the Holy Land and are striving to stand up for the common humanity of us all, regardless of our faith background.

According to New York-based Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, rabbis like those quoted above "do not and cannot represent Judaism or the Torah," Indeed, Rabbi Weiss goes one step further: "The Zionist State of 'Israel', which is a rebellion against the Almighty, cannot represent the Torah or world Jewry true to the Torah." Referring to Rabbi Ovadia Yusef in particular, Rabbi Weiss added: "This rabbi is a member of Sephardic Jewry, Jews from Arab countries. If he would only look back at his own community's history, he would realize that Jews can, and did, live peacefully with Arabs, for many centuries. When Jews were persecuted, killed and expelled in other parts of the world, the Arab countries provided a safe haven and welcomed Jews with open arms. In Palestine as well, Jews enjoyed this hospitality when Palestinians and Jews co-existed in harmony for many generations, as is well-documented in Jewish books of that era. It was only Zionism, with its theft and oppression of the Palestinian people, that put an end to this co-existence." (http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Statements/20100819.cfm)

Racism and extremist preachers must be challenged, not least when they ply their wares in volatile areas like the Holy Land, where words can and all too often lead to murderous acts. People of faith and good faith must stand up to incitement to hatred; it would be refreshing to hear more leading rabbis condemning the hate preachers in Israel. Their silence is deafening.

By Khalid Amayreh * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Israelis, often thoroughly absorbed in their collective sanctimony and self-righteousness, seem never to stop repeating the eternal mantra that the Jews are a "light unto the nations" and Israel is "the only democracy in the Middle East". This week, several events occurring in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories highlighted the stark gap between what Israelis think about themselves and the reality.

On Sunday, five Jewish settlers from the Gush Itzion settlement south of Bethlehem slipped into the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Fajjar under cover of darkness in order to torch the Masjid Al-Anbiyaa (Mosque of the Prophets). The blaze gutted much of the interior of the mosque, including the carpet, and consumed as many as 15 copies of the Quran .

Before leaving the mosque, the attackers scrawled the words "revenge" and "price tag mosque", on the building in an act that was the fourth time in as many months that Israeli settlers had set Muslim places of worship on fire.

The settlers' reasoning for carrying out these mindless acts is mind-boggling. Settler leaders call these criminal attacks "a price- tag policy", in which Palestinian targets, for example mosques, are attacked every time the Israeli government decides to dismantle a settlement outpost or prevent settlers from seizing Palestinian property.

In other words, the Palestinians are made to pay for decisions and policies made by the Israeli government and deemed unacceptable by the settlers.

While the Israeli government did condemn the attack in Beit Fajjar, with Defence Minister Ehud Barak calling the perpetrators "terrorists", denouncing the culprits is one thing and catching and prosecuting them is quite another.

So far, not a single Israeli settler has been arrested in connection with the three previous mosque arsons committed by settlers. Even the Israeli media agree that there is "foul play" going on somewhere.

For their part, many Palestinians are convinced that the Israeli army and intelligence know the identity of the perpetrators. As one Palestinian Waqf official commented, "the snake doesn't bite its own tail." In a comment made to Al-Ahram Weekly, an official from Beit Fajjar's municipal council said that the Israeli government and the Jewish settlers were "two sides of the same coin".

"What do you expect this government to do? This is a settler government par excellence. Settlers torch the mosques, settlers carry out the investigation, and a settler judge eventually acquits the perpetrators of any wrongdoing. This is what is happening."

Such cover-ups and lies have long been the Israeli authorities' modus operandi where Palestinians are concerned. Also last week, an Israeli policeman shot and killed a Palestinian labourer in cold blood, when 39- year-old Saleh Kawazbeh, a father of five from the town of Sair north of Hebron, was looking for work in Jerusalem.

Initially, the policeman claimed that his gun had misfired, before claiming that he had thought his life was at risk. Eventually, however, he admitted that he "just hated Arabs". Kawazbeh's name has thus been added to the long list of Palestinian workers shot and killed because they tried to "enter Israel illegally".

In such cases the killers usually receive little more than a slap on the wrist from Israel's inherently racist justice system, which accords little respect to the lives of non- Jews. The murderer of Kawazbeh has been put under "house-arrest" for five days, for example, "pending investigations".

When things calm down, he will return to work, awaiting another opportunity to murder another Palestinian victim.

Just 24 hours after Kawazbeh was murdered in Jerusalem, another Palestinian worker died of a heart attack as a group of Palestinian labourers was being chased by Israel's paramilitary border guards, the Mishmar Gvul.

This worker's death captured the tragic situation facing tens of thousands of Palestinian workers, desperately trying to make ends meet even by throwing themselves in the path of death and destruction.

Yet casual killings are only one element of the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Humiliation comes next. This week, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz put a YouTube video on its Internet site showing an Israeli soldier dancing and making explicit sexual signs near a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian woman.

A few weeks ago, an Israeli female soldier did something similar, this time with two handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainees. The soldier, a Jew of Moroccan origin, described the experience as "sexy".

"In war, nothing is outlawed and nothing is illegal," she said.

Ordinarily, the Israeli army only gives the slightest rebuke to soldiers engaging in such activities, thereby encouraging others to indulge in similar behaviour.

The prevailing culture in Israel, where anti-Arab racism has reached the highest levels imaginable, is permissive when it comes to violating the rights, dignity and lives of Palestinians. In the words of one Jewish human rights activist, these things are "taken for granted" by the vast majority of Israeli Jews.

Then there is the story of Rabbi Ari Shvat who has ruled that illicit sex for the sake of national security, as reported by the Israeli Tzomet Institute, is perfectly legal. The Rabbi said that Israeli women, married or unmarried, may sleep with enemy men if this helps Israeli security.

The ruling, appearing as part of a study on "Illicit Sex for the Sake of National Security," claimed that so-called "honey-pot missions" were rooted in the Bible.

"If it is necessary to use a married woman, it would be best [for] her husband to divorce her. After the sex act, he would be entitled to bring her back," the Rabbi wrote.

According to the Rabbi, male agents of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad apparently have no limitations on sleeping with the female enemy. The Rabbi did not explain the Talmudic reasoning behind male exceptionalism in this regard.

However, some prominent Jewish authorities consider that sexual intercourse between a Jewish male and a gentile female constitutes the "sin of bestiality" since non-Jews are not viewed as bona fide human beings.

Lastly, the Israeli high court also decided this week to expel Irish Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire on the grounds that she had entered Israel illegally.

In response, Maguire challenged the Israeli court to treat Palestinians as Jews would want non-Jews to treat them. She called Israel "a clear-cut case of apartheid", infuriating the court and leading to her expulsion.

Maguire said she would continue to defend the human rights of the Palestinian people, adding that Israel had no right whatsoever to torment and besiege more than 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by invoking a mantra called Hamas.

* Khalid Amayreh a journalist based in the Occupied Palestinian town of Dura. He obtained his MA in journalism from the University of Southern Illinois in 1983.

What Israel Is Taught About Their "Best Friend In The World"

By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Bundy And Johnson, Jew Hating Plotters?

Though Tourney is certainly outspoken about Israel, this kind of reaction, against a retired member of America's armed forces seems ill-conceived at best, violating the unwritten code every intelligence operative lives by. Tourney and his wife were threatened. The threat was in public. The Tourneys are "civilians," non-combatants, hardly legitimate assassination targets.

This threat is timed with admissions by Israeli intelligence sources of, not only new and shocking reasons for the USS Liberty attack but of a previously unknown rift between Israel and the United States dating back to 1967. The roots of this confrontation begin in 1963 with President Kennedy's written demands to Israel that it dismantle its nuclear weapons program and extend into the present day, an unstated but bitter and poisonous feud.

Admissions are made, in the heat of anger, indicating that Israel had full foreknowledge of the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon better known as "9/11."

Israeli intelligence sources indicate that both operations had been infiltrated but no effort to prevent the attacks was made. Israel had long ago admitted it knew about the killing of the 241 Americans in Lebanon, well in advance. However, admissions that the terrorist organization said to have planned the 9/11 attacks had been similarly infiltrated is a disturbing revelation.

The rationale initially given American military sources for Israeli failure to warn the United States in 1983 was that such a warning would potentially endanger the value of Israeli intelligence sources.

That has all changed. We are now told that the "stand down" of intelligence sharing was and is based on retaliation against the United States for an incident in 1967. Israel claims that the United States, in combination with Egypt, planned a "nuclear castration" of Israel.

This runs totally opposite of accounts that place Johnson as Israel's "president of choice," accounts that support theories of Israel's complicity in the Kennedy assassination.

One of the most dangerous and controversial policy initiatives of Kennedy's presidency, even compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was Kennedy's insistence that the Middle East be free of nuclear weapons and that Israel dismantle its nuclear program by the end of 1963. The crisis reached a height during the summer of 1963 when Kennedy sent written demands to Israel demanding inspection of their nuclear facilities, demands that brought down one Israeli government.

As of November 22, 1963, Israel had not responded to the president's letter. No response has been issued to this day. Only journalist Helen Thomas, a good friend of President Kennedy, continued to demand that this issue be addressed. Her loyalty to President Kennedy's memory eventually cost her everything.

The intelligence community almost universally accepts that Israel killed Kennedy, especially when extrapolated through the total lack of media conspiracy "chatter" regarding this, the most obvious possible scenario. Compare this to police arriving on a murder scene; blood drenched suspect standing over a body with an axe in hand.

The first thing they ask, "Did you see who did it?"

The cottage industry of selling wild speculation over the Kennedy murder(s) that never touch on the Dimona demand are seen as conclusive. A nearly five decade disinformation campaign blaming everyone from organized crime to Corsican drug cartels has managed to hide any constructive focus from the general public.

Oliver Stone's film, JFK, was particularly notice worthy. According to Stone, Kennedy was killed by "southern boys" with too much time on their hands.

THE INCIDENT

Israel claims the United States was planning an attack on its nuclear facilities during the 6 Day War, using the "fog of war" as cover. They now privately claim the brutal attack on the USS Liberty was, not only defensive but a warning to the United States from, as Moshe Dyan calls it, "a junkyard dog."

Thus, the varying positions on, not only the USS Liberty but America's allegiances during the "6 Day War," are irreconcilable. Members of the USS Liberty crew were unaware of any such taskings as indicated in the Israeli accusations. However, carrier personnel with the American battle groups in the Mediterranean at the time have told this author the "load outs" were clearly for ground targets including "runway denial" munitions, cluster weapons designed to crater large concrete surfaces.

A ground attack could have been staged, Israel, Syria or Egypt.

Threats, such as those made against Tourney, were made against other American veterans openly angry at Israel for decades, demanding an explanation for the merciless attack on the US Navy ship in the Mediterranean in 1967, a carefully orchestrated attack of Israeli naval, air and airborne commandos, killing or wounding 201 of 296 crewmen.

We know for certain that the attack was a terrible embarrassment to the United States.

To cover up the incident, the captain was given a Medal of Honor, survivors were decorated, given duty stations of choice and silenced. Israel was allowed to claim they believed they were attacking an unarmed Egyptian cattle boat, an attack of a nearly "Pearl Harbor' scale.

We believed that Israel still held to this absurd cover. We were wrong, very wrong.

Over 40 years later, we learn from Israeli sources, their side of the story. When we heard it, we were flabbergasted. We now know why Israel is so hostile to USS Liberty survivors and involved in a covert struggle against the United States spanning decades, or at least what they now tell us.

This is their side of the story:

Israel says they were deeply suspicious of President Lyndon Johnson and his National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy, a Kennedy Administration hold-over. Israel feared that Johnson and Bundy planned to carry out Kennedy's plans for nuclear disarmament of Israel, by force if necessary.

Israel is said to have based their suspicions on information received from Soviet sources, information that they were told originated from James "Jesus" Angleton, CIA Counter-Intelligence Director. Angleton, who died in 1987, was the most controversial figure in America's intelligence community, accused of both being a Soviet mole and a rabid anti-communist, seeing imaginary threats everywhere.

Editor's note: The intelligence sharing relationship between Israel and the Soviet Union was, in itself, a reason for Israel to be fearful of American retaliation.

According to Israel, the USS Liberty was providing targeting data, they used the term "triangulation," as its role in a planned American attack which was to begin with the destruction of Israel's air forces by carrier based aircraft followed by the destruction of the Dimona nuclear complex.

America was believed to be working directly with Egypt and Syria, coordinating a two pronged attack on Israel to eliminate them as a threat to the region. Though overtly Egypt and Syria were allied to the Soviets, in fact Israel's influence with the Kremlin was known to be a source of broad suspicions in the American intelligence community.

Israel claims they attacked the USS Liberty as a "preemptive" strike to disrupt the planned US attack, a justified act of self-defense and proof that America is and always will be an untrustworthy ally and inherently anti-Semitic.

Increasingly, in ways not noticed publicly, relations with Israel have been strained. Americans are, on the whole, indifferent to the Palestinians living in Israel. Decades of branding all Palestinians as terrorists have indelibly imprinted unquestioning support for Israel in the minds of almost all Americans.

Despite broad control of the media in the United States and Western Europe by Israel, an undercurrent of mistrust exists and is becoming worse every day, a mistrust better characterized as a "falling out" of criminal co-conspirators rather than a moral awakening. Perhaps "junior partners" in America aren't getting a big enough percentage of "the take."

Even considering the stresses of two unsuccessful wars and a concurrent monumental economic crisis, the subtext of hostility, decades old but an active and festering animosity, particularly between two nations that are publicly "inseparable" is uniquely disingenuous.

If Israel hates an America and carries an agenda meant to bring America to its knees tied to, what it sees as American betrayal, how do we explain the political and military leaders who support them in their efforts?

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

Sahar TV Interview - Dr. Alan Sabrosky

The 9/11 issue is increasingly being framed as not “a conspiracy theory,” but “a legitimate controversy,” based on several unanswered questions and important scientific evidence emerging showing the official story line the American public has been fed about the 9/11 attacks is a lie.

Dr. Alan Sabrosky in a recent interview on Sahar TV, marking the 9^th Anniversary of the tragedy, once again challenges the truth of the official US Government Truth Commission and reiterates and re-affirms his earlier positions, among others that “….WT7 was absolutely a controlled demolition job…and if one of them was, then all three were”

Listen in:

Part 1:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LauNdT0X3XM

Part 2:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvWQWBGkzxo

Part 3:

Video link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZw_HbdBCvk

Re-produced below with the authors permission, is an earlier comprehensive thesis, written by him and published in several publications, which pretty much serves as a transcript for the above interview.
TREASON, BETRAYAL AND DECEIT : THE ROAD TO 9/11 AND BEYOND

By Alan Sabrosky*

The attacks on September 11, 2001 have been a defining moment for America. Although the losses were not great in terms of urban slaughter during WWII, the political and psychological impact on Americans of a concerted and visible attack in America were enormous -- indeed, it is an interesting "coincidence" that the attacks occurred on the one day of the year whose mention reinforces a public sense here of danger and emergency: 9-1-1.

With remarkably little reflection or concern with details and evidence, Americans accepted sweeping restrictions on civil liberties, torture as an instrument of government policy, and waged wars first in Afghanistan and later in Iraq, presumably punishing those who attacked America then or might do so in the future. A similar if less enthusiastic drama is unfolding today, as many of the same parties who brought us 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq are edging America into confrontation and war with Iran.

Like most Americans, I take a dim view of a fixation on conspiracies. I am also conscious of a remark by a French colleague some years ago to the effect that Europeans saw conspiracies everywhere, but Americans never saw them anywhere, and both were wrong. I am even less enthusiastic about presumed coincidences with global consequences driving policy, or superficial explanations of physical catastrophes that fly in the face of both logic and physical realities. With one war waning today, another getting hotter and a third "in the oven," it is high time to look hard at what brought us to this place.

Prelude to 9/11

Most of the world (but not Americans) understood for decades that American Middle East policy was weighted heavily towards Israel. Eisenhower could compel Israel to withdraw from the Sinai, but the last US President who forcefully opposed Israeli regional and nuclear ambitions was John F. Kennedy. His assassination brought Lyndon Johnson into the White House, so much a friend of Israel that he disregarded the deliberate Israeli attack on the USS Liberty during the 1967 war, in which over 200 US sailors and Marines were killed or wounded.

Shortly thereafter, pilgrimages to Israel and laudatory appearances before AIPAC (the powerful Jewish lobby in Washington) became effectively obligatory for Presidents and serious aspirants for the White House alike, with the Congress (both houses, both parties) being even more supportive - something commonly understood in Washington, but almost unknown elsewhere in the country.

A significant development in the 1990s was the formation of the neo-conservative think tank known as PNAC (Project for a New American Century), whose members prepared position papers for the Israeli government and for a future US Administration sharing their views. That happened in 2000 with the election of George W. Bush, and a contemporary writer summarized the tip of the neo-conservative iceberg in his first Administration this way:

The "outsiders" from PNAC were now powerful "insiders," placed in important positions from which they could exert maximum pressure on U.S. policy: Cheney is Vice President, Rumsfeld is Defense Secretary, Wolfowitz is Deputy Defense Secretary, I. Lewis Libby is Cheney's Chief of Staff, Elliot Abrams is in charge of Middle East policy at the National Security Council, Dov Zakheim is comptroller for the Defense Department, John Bolton is Undersecretary of State, Richard Perle is chair of the Defense Policy advisory board at the Pentagon, former CIA director James Woolsey is on that panel as well, etc. etc. (PNAC's chairman, Bill Kristol, is the editor of The Weekly Standard.) In short, PNAC had a lock on military policy-creation in the Bush Administration.

The presence of so many people from PNAC in key positions definitely sent a signal that US Middle East policy would henceforth be that of Israel, something that brought no joy to any other countries in the region, much less the long-suffering Palestinians. Mutterings about a supposed "Road Map" to some type of peace arrangement in such circumstances were utterly meaningless, and almost everyone except the American public understood this fact of life.

Far more significant in terms of subsequent events was the acknowledgement in one of PNAC's own documents that their program for America (and Israel) would not readily be accepted by the American people. What this meant, PNAC opined in 2000, was that "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."

9/11 Reconsidered

On September 11, 2001, the PNAC people in and out of government -- and by extension AIPAC and Israel -- "coincidentally" got the event they needed, barely eight months after coming into office. Most people are familiar with the basic details of that day -- two commercial aircrafts crashing into the two tallest buildings in New York City's World Trade Center (WTC), a third striking the Pentagon, and a fourth ending up in a Pennsylvania field. Few people will forget the images of the burning buildings, their collapse, the casualties, and the sense of shock and tragedy that ensued. Few should forget the passage of emergency legislation (the misnamed "Patriot Act"), the rush to attack Afghanistan for harboring the source of the attackers, or the later rush to attack Iraq to forestall "mushroom clouds" from its apocryphal "weapons of mass destruction."

The official 9/11 Commission's work and report were at best an incomplete exercise. Many people dismiss the findings of the Commission, and that includes its co-chairs. Many others who utterly distrust the 9/11 Commission report, dismiss the US Government's explanation of it, and point to both an official cover-up and an “inside job,” include veteran fighter pilots, EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians)(EMT interview), air defense experts, experienced commercial pilots, demolition experts, architects and civil engineers - none of them professions that inherently attract and retain the gullible and credulous.

Errors abound in the report. Among the more catastrophic is the collapse of a third WTC building (the 47-story WTC7) which was not hit by a plane, and fell in what appears to be a controlled demolition, but has essentially been sidestepped by the mainstream media (MSM). And this video interview (Interview) with a demolitions expert overseas explains clearly and succinctly what happened to WTC7, with the shock and chaos accompanying the impact of the aircraft serving to distract attention and conceal what happened overall. The overlay of the World Trade Center below shows the layout of the affected buildings:

Even more unbelievable is the "coincidental" salvage of an intact passport presumably belonging to one of the hijackers inside the plane that hit WTC2 -- and this was how the official 9/11 Commission report described it:

The passport was recovered by NYPD Detective Yuk H. Chin from a male passerby in a business suit, about 30 years old. The passerby left before being identified, while debris was falling from WTC 2. The tower collapsed shortly afterwards. The detective then gave the passport to the FBI on 9/11.

Reflections

Several things are very clear to me from a careful assessment of both official and critical evaluations of the 9/11 attacks. First, the striking aircraft alone simply could not have brought down either of the two buildings in the manner in which they fell, much less a third building which was not hit by a plane (I expect the one intended to do that as a "cover" had ended up in that Pennsylvania field), given the available physical evidence and a wealth of expert testimony. This means the attackers had assistance on the ground, and it had to have been active before the attacks occurred: preparing buildings for controlled demolition is not something done haphazardly in the midst of chaos.

Second, only two intelligence agencies had the expertise, assets, access and political protection to execute 9/11 in the air and on the ground: our CIA and Israel's Mossad. Only one had the incentive, using the “who benefits” principle: Mossad. And that incentive dovetailed perfectly with the neo-con's agenda and explicitly expressed need for a catalytic event to mobilize the American public for their wars, using American military power to destroy Israel's enemies. Only the unexpected strength of the Iraqi resistance kept Syria and Iran from being attacked in the second Bush Administration. Thus, the evidential trail for 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq run from PNAC, AIPAC and their cohorts; through the mostly Jewish neo-cons in the Bush Administration; and back to the Israeli government. None of the denials and political machinations can alter that essential reality. Terms such as treason, betrayal and deceit do not overstate the case against them.

Finally, we need to take a hard look at why the mainstream media (MSM) have paid more attention to Sarah Palin's wardrobe than they have to dissecting blatant falsehoods, discrepancies and inconsistencies in the US Government's treatment of 9/11 and its aftermath. And the reason is that on this issue, all are on the same side, and the official line is the one they all prefer - “all” meaning the PNAC alumni who took over the Bush Administration's national security apparatus and their counterparts in the Obama administration, AIPAC and the rest of the numerous Jewish PACs, the MSM owners and Israel. The depiction of the media management in America in 2002 is especially informative, and has not changed significantly since then:

Looking Ahead

Today we are getting the same line on Iran, from the same type of people -- Obama himself tries to be more independent, but most of the key staff and national security people in his Administration do not differ greatly on Israel and the Middle East from those of his predecessor. And the Congress has shown itself to be even more of AIPAC's lap-dog than the preceding Congress, an exercise in self-serving cowardice that admittedly has taken some doing. This is not a simple anti-Jewish canard or mindless prejudice, both of which are juvenile and self-defeating sentiments. They are a factual depiction of specific people in specific positions advocating specific policies and stonewalling specific attempts to elicit specific information about specific lies, misrepresentations and deceit.

AIPAC and company are riding a tiger in America, and if they ever slip, the resulting convulsion will be catastrophic for them and for Israel. The open unfolding of the 9/11 tragedy and its ensuing wars that is now occurring can be that slip. The human cost to America to date is some 60,000 people, military and civilian, killed or wounded on 9/11 and in Iraq and Afghanistan together, with more to come once we go to war with Iran (or get dragged into it following an Israeli attack on Iran). Much of the deliberately misdirected rage that followed 9/11 has given way to endurance and grief, captured all too well in the following picture of a military funeral here:

But grief is a close cousin to rage, and an enraged America is not pretty, as anyone familiar with our history can appreciate. Americans are often deceptive without meaning to be. To much of the world, they often come across as naive, bumbling innocents in the world of global politics. And on a day-to-day basis, there is much truth to that.

But an enraged America is a very different character. You have only to look at what happened in WWII to German and Japanese cities, towns and villages, where America slaughtered literally millions of German and Japanese civilians -- most of them women and children -- knew it was doing it, and cared nothing at all. The goal was to crush, and restraint was not a word used much at all.

If these Americans and those like them ever fully understand just how much of their suffering -- and the suffering we have inflicted on others -- is properly laid on the doorsteps of Israel and its advocates in America, they will sweep aside those in politics, the press and the pulpits alike whose lies and disloyalty brought this about and concealed it from them. They may well leave Israel looking like Carthage after the Romans finished with it. It will be Israel's own great fault.

Reference:

Danny Jowenko on WTC 7 controlled demolition.

US Mainstream Media not picking up on the story.

700 Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth --- Check out more info at: http://www.AE911Truth.org

*Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net