Every few weeks you have to sow fear, every few months you need to make threats, and once every year or two you have to have another little war. Blind cooperation between the defense establishment and the media holds the promise of another round of fighting. In that way, it's possible to escape some of the blame from the Goldstone report and wallow in the conditions we love best: being the victim, feeling threatened and uniting in the face of the great external danger allegedly in the offing.
The Israel Defense Forces will be above it all and cleanse itself of a series of suspicions and failures. This can also translate into huge budgets, glorified importance and influence for both the generals and the military commentators. It also creates good television ratings and sells sensationalist newspapers and advanced weapon systems. What's better than that for us?
Across the Middle East, the US is building heavily fortified embassies which cut off diplomats and create hostilities
After the US Congress agreed a $7.5bn aid package for Pakistan this autumn, the Obama administration was taken aback by the seemingly ungrateful reaction of its intended recipients. Pakistani opposition politicians fumed about "colonialism" and "imperialism". Military men spoke angrily of insults to national sovereignty implied in conditions attached to the aid.
But particular hostility was directed at US plans to spend over $800m on building a new, heavily fortified embassy in Islamabad, to be protected by the private security contractor, DynCorp. The activities of contractors in Iraq, notably Blackwater, have become notorious in the Muslim world. In addition, expanded US "bunker consulates" were announced for Lahore and Peshawar.
"Just the other day we had a television debate on America wanting to colonise us," one Pakistani said. "How easy it was for us to believe this when we hear of Blackwater setting up camp in our cities, buying hundreds of homes, not being accountable to the laws of our country, of hundreds of US marines on our soil, being allowed to enter without visas, of the enormous new US embassy being built which is like a mini-Pentagon."
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu Israel National News Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:18 EST
Seven United States senators have sponsored a bill that would abolish the "security" waiver that American presidents have used to prevent implementing a 1995 law declaring that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback, a long-time supporter of Israel, introduced the bill and said, "It is long overdue for America to recognize the sovereign right of Israel to choose Jerusalem as its capital city."
The proposed Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act law, number S. 2737, is "a bill to relocate to Jerusalem the United States Embassy in Israel" and has six co-sponsors--five Republicans, from Kentucky, Texas, Arizona, and Louisiana and Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
It would remove the current waiver, which gives the president authority to delay recognition of Jerusalem as the capital on the premise that doing so would endanger the security of the United States. Previous presidents, including George W. Bush, vowed during their election campaigns they would recognize Jerusalem as the Jewish State's capital but they have failed out to carry out their election promise.
Paul Craig Roberts Republic of Fools Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:42 EST
The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that "our" government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. Voters will vent their frustrations over their impotence on the president, which implies a future of one-term presidents. Soon our presidents will be as ineffective as Roman emperors in the final days of that empire.
Obama is already set on the course to a one-term presidency. He promised change, but has delivered none. His health care bill is held hostage by the private insurance companies seeking greater profits. The most likely outcome will be cuts in Medicare and Medicaid in order to help fund wars that enrich the military/security complex and the many companies created by privatizing services that the military once provided for itself at far lower costs. It would be interesting to know the percentage of the $700+ billion "defense" spending that goes to private companies. In American "capitalism," an amazing amount of taxpayers' earnings go to private firms via the government. Yet, Republicans scream about "socializing" health care.
Islamic fundamentalist militants are the enemies of Israel and Western governments, right? Think again. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed reports.
Once upon a time, the CIA trained, financed and supported Osama bin Laden and his mujahidin networks in Afghanistan to repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After the end of the Cold War, bin Laden turned against the West and we no longer had any use for him. His persistent terrorist attacks against us for more than a decade, culminating in 9/11, provoked our own response, in the form of the 'War on Terror'. This is the official narrative. And it's false. Not only did Western intelligence services continue to foster Islamist extremist and terrorist groups connected to al-Qaeda after the Cold War;they continued to do so even after 9/11.
The CIA's jihad
The story begins in the summer of 1979, six months before the Soviet invasion, when the CIA had already begun financing elements of an emerging Islamist mujahidin force inside Afghanistan. The idea, according to former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA Director Robert Gates, was to increase the probability of a Soviet invasion, and entrap 'the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire'.1
Philip Giraldi Antiwar.com Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:53 EDT
As readers of Antiwar.com certainly are aware, J Street was created a year and a half ago to serve as an alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). J Street supports creation of a viable Palestinian state that would exist side-by-side in peace with Israel. Unlike AIPAC, J Street advocates first negotiating issues rather than dropping bombs and it rejects the view that American Jews should close ranks and reflexively and unconditionally support every government in Israel. J Street targets liberal minded American Jews who are troubled by the Israel Lobby's right wing-Likud orientation. It promotes itself as pro-Israel, pro-American, and pro-peace, maintaining that it is possible to support Israel without having to endorse all Israeli government actions. It has recently concluded its first Washington conference which attracted a smattering of politicians. General James Jones, President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser, was a featured speaker.
As Washington reels from the news of 10.2 percent unemployment, the Center for Responsive Politics is out with a new report describing the wealth of members of Congress.
Among the highlights: Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven members of Congress are millionaires. That's 44 percent of the body - compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall.
Terrorism has been defined as "a criminal act that influences an audience beyond the immediate victim". We agree, but the question is, what entity today has the greatest capacity to carry out criminal acts and influence an audience beyond the immediate victim? Figure that one out, and you've got the real terrorists.
But first, let's look at some of the influences we've all come under during the month of October. Vaccination season has kicked off in US, Canada and UK and Obama has declared the swine flu a national emergency! Well, if Mr. Charm, Change and Hope says so, it must be true! Right? Read on and we'll take you through the talking points...
Paul Cullen Irish Times Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:33 EST
Israel's Greatest enemies are those who support its decline into moral degeneration and destruction, philosopher and political activist Noam Chomsky has told an audience in Dublin.
Chomsky, who is retired professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Israel was once a civilised society similar to those found in Scandinavia. Now, however, that has changed. There is high inequality just as in the US, and the social security system has collapsed, he said.
In the 1970s, he said, Israel had a choice between security within its existing borders and expansion into settlements and it chose expansion.
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"The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty" Adlai E. Stevenson
"There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle." Bill Moyers
"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." Simon Heffer in The Daily Mail, 7 June 2000
"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823
"A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the right of the people to know.": Murray I. Gurfein
One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to steadily convince them with propaganda that they're still free. N.A. Scott
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