Dissident Veteran For Peace

On December 8, 2020, I wrote about the State of Texas' motion in the Supreme Court to allow it to file a complaint over alleged problems in the 2020 election in several states. Back then I made two observations relevant to the present post.

First, I said: "I think the State of Texas should have standing but that is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition and it's motion comes awfully late." Second, I said: "If, as seems likely, the Supreme Court refuses to hear this complaint then it's probably game over for all the election challenges."

The Supreme Court did indeed reject Texas' motion. Here's the full text of the Court's unsigned order:

The State of Texas's motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.

Now, it's clear Texas does not have an interest in how other states elect their own state officials. But the notion that they have no "judicially cognizable interest" in how other states elect the one President and VP of all of the United States defies logic and facially undermines constitutional republicanism. I'm not suggesting there were no reasonable grounds to deny Texas' motion but, rather, that the one the Court came up with was unreasonable. 

Supporters of Biden like to mention that many of the federal judges denying 2020 presidential election challenges have been Trump appointees. The implication is that the legal challenges have been so hollow that even Trump loyalists had to reject them.

There may truth to this but it doesn't follow that because Trump nominated these judges that they would necessarily do him any favors. That is the whole point of lifetime appointments for federal judges—to try to insulate them from political influence.

Also, Trump "relied on outside conservative legal organizations and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell" to select and manage the confirmation of his judicial nominees. Moreover, these are people who were on the judiciary career path long before anyone took a Trump presidency seriously and who always knew they would likely be on the bench long after Trump was gone. They might even despise Trump but were willing to accept a nomination (or, possibly, reject an election lawsuit) to advance their own careers and political commitments.

Thus, there are scant grounds to think Trump necessarily got special or even fair consideration of his post-election legal complaints. I'm not saying he was treated unfairly but that you cannot infer much from the fact that some Trump judicial appointees rejected his election claims.

###

The January 6, 2021, Capitol rioters are criminals who should be prosecuted. They are also fools and idiots who played right into the hands of the "progressive" authoritarians and their program of racism and repression.

Trump has now been impeached a second time on purely political grounds—they're afraid he'll beat them in another election. Barring a miraculous transformation I hope Trump quietly retires to another, far away country.

In any event, I read the new article of impeachment and it presents no sound legal basis to claim that Trump criminally incited the rioters. If prosecutors believe there is probable cause that Trump committed a crime then they should seek an indictment.

Instead, the Democrats and their media allies are simply hyping and milking the riot for every political advantage they can extract no matter how dishonest the effort. Referring to the upcoming impeachment trial, Jonathan Turley writes: "A private citizen is being called to the Senate to be tried for removal from an office that he does not hold." 

The Democrats had some conceivable legitimate grounds to impeach Trump while he was president though not on events connected to Russia or Ukraine. For instance, the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was, arguably, illegal under US and international law. It was also dangerous and counter to American strategic interests. Yet, because that attack was perceived to be in Israel's interests impeachment was never on the agenda for it.

Trump might also have been impeached for his attempt to suborn Mike Pence to violate the Constitution and federal law by unlawfully interfering with the certification of Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021. But, no, to impeach Trump for that would draw more unwanted attention to Pence who refused Trump's entreaties and followed the law while also undermining the Dems specious and profoundly hypocritical claims that for members of Congress to lawfully object to certification "borders on sedition or treason" and such.

###

The election of Donald Trump was always a symptom of the larger problems of, in no special order, economic inequality, toxic consumerism, empire, corporate globalization, Democratic race grifting for power, and the corruption of the media and political elites. Trump ran on a campaign that showed awareness of some of these problems but he was seemingly always a con man exploiting the justified grievances of millions of Americans. He betrayed them and never rose to the call of his office or of history.

Unfortunately, Trump's disastrous term has only worsened matters and emboldened "progressive" authoritarians to step up the repression of their political enemies, including the White working class, in general (which is not to say the GOP were ever their allies). This is Trump's fault, the fault of his many enemies, and, to no small extent, the fault of voters duped by him.

Biden claims he wants to unify the country but—and I hope I'm wrong when I say this—that's a lie to judge from so many of his other utterances and policy plans. When I saw recent photos of the unprecedentedly large military presence in the Capitol for the inauguration I was reminded of all the unpopular, repressive governments the US has propped in foreign countries over the years. Are chickens coming home to roost?

Virginia National Guard members in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 13, 2021 (U.S. Air National Guard photo by SSgt Bryan Myhr).

New Jersey National Guard members in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 12, 2021 (U.S. Air National Guard photo by MSgt Matt Hecht).

See also: Anointing Biden & Election Irregularity Allegations IV

 

Labels: Biden, class, Democrats, Empire, Iran, Israel, law, media, military, politics, race, repression, Supreme Court, Trump, voting

Here's the video description from the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy:

National Press Club 2/27/2017 Senator Chuck Schumer admits to journalist Sam Husseini that Israel has nuclear weapons. Under the Arms Export Control Act, the U.S. may not provide foreign aid to countries outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) absent waivers and sanctions.

Despite Israel's status outside the NPT congress passes multi-billion dollar aid packages every year, which the president signs into law.

Transcript follows: CH = Chuck Schumer, SH = Sam Husseini

Schumer is much less reticent to talk about Iran and nuclear weapons. In 2015, he called for "tougher and tougher sanctions" against Tehran and asserted: "A nuclear Iran is not only an existential threat to Israel, it is also a huge threat to the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Labels: Iran, Israel, Israel Lobby, nuclear weapons, politics, United States

I have no illusions about the quadrennial American presidential election circus. The mainstream media and the major parties are very effective in marginalizing the voices of any candidates that even mildly name or challenge the military-industrial-(propaganda) complex. In the highly unlikely event that a principled peace candidate was elected s/he would be resisted, hamstrung, and/or assassinated.

Nevertheless, the circus does provide a small opening to speak against the war machine and expose the bankruptcy of American media/politics-as-usual. In that spirit I offer the following three presidential campaign videos, which are unlike anything you'll ever see from a "respectable" establishment candidate.

The first two are from 2020 campaigns. The third video is actually a very timely debate video from Ron Paul's 2012 campaign on the subject of Iran. Click on the post labels for Gabbard and Paul to see other videos or posts.

If you care about trying to make peace and war part of the 2020 presidential campaign discussion and can afford it then please consider making a donation to the Mike Gravel and Tulsi Gabbard campaigns.

Labels: Democrats, Iran, media, Mike Gravel, politics, Republicans, Ron Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, United States, video, voting, War

Japan's Kyodo News is reporting that the Japanese government is casting doubt on U.S. claims that Iran was behind an attack last Thursday on the Kokuka Courageous, a Japanese-owned ship, near the Straits of Hormuz. I could not find the story on the Kyodo site but UPI and Japan Today are both running it.

UPI reports:

Japan is asking for more evidence from the United States Iran was responsible for attacks against two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman ...

The request for proof comes after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tehran is responsible for the attacks that forced the crew of the ships to be rescued and their cargoes unloaded.

The statements from Pompeo are "not convincing," a Japanese government source said Sunday, according to Kyodo News.

Japan Today reports:

A source close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, "These are not definite proof that it's Iran."

"Even if it's the United States that makes the assertion, we cannot simply say we believe it," he said.

If having expertise sophisticated enough to conduct the attack could be a reason to conclude that the attacker was Iran, "That would apply to the United States and Israel as well," said a source at the Foreign Ministry.

Curiously, UPI omitted the reference to the U.S. and Israel as having the capability to carry about the attack. Moreover, at this time it appears that UPI is the only American outlet to carry the story about high-level Japanese doubts.

Meanwhile, concerning the Norwegian-owned tanker Front Altair, Norway Today notes: "No country has supported the allegations of the Trump administration, except the British government." The U.S.-based News from Norway cites "a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Affairs" writing: "[Kjetil] Selvik also points, however, to Iran's arch-enemy, Saudi Arabia, which is closedly [sic] allied with Trump."

I've seen the U.S. government's supposed video evidence of Iranian involvement in the attacks. It appears to be drone footage. To call it inconclusive would be an understatement.

Even a stopped clock is correct twice-a-day, it is said. IMO, Ben Garrison epitomizes this adage—he misses the mark more often than not but when you're right, you're right. And Garrison's cartoon below is pretty close to the mark. However, Garrison features an atomic symbol on a mullah's head dress and he writes: "They [Iran] continue to work on nuclear weapons. Forget about nuclear power—they have plenty of oil for their electricity."

Garrison apparently doesn't know, believe, or care that last week the IAEA issued ("derestricted") a report indicating that Iran was still in compliance with the flawed JCPOA—meaning it is not now (if, indeed, it ever was) developing nuclear weapons—even though the U.S. has walked away from the agreement. Meanwhile, Israel, which "is not a party to any of the major treaties governing WMD nonproliferation, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC)", has 80-90 undeclared nuclear warheads, according to the SIPRI Yearbook 2019.

Garrison also apparently doesn't understand that oil and gas are Iran's major export commodities, i.e. the key source of foreign revenues used to buy goods and services Iran does not produce domestically. It makes sense that Iran, like other oil export dependent countries, would a consider a nuclear powered electricity generating capacity if, on balance, it increased net export revenues.

The U.S. developed its nuclear power industry despite having an abundant supply of coal for electrical generation. Personally, I think nuclear fission is a Pandora's box that should never have been opened but I can understand the short-sighted appeal of nuclear power generation even if it has never lived up to its promise in terms of costs, non-proliferation, and safety.

Labels: Ben Garrison, Iran, Israel, Japan, Neoconservatives, Norway, nuclear weapons, United States, War

Islam, he [Khomeini] would always claim, was "the religion of militant individuals who are committed to faith and justice. It is the religion of those who desire freedom and independence. It is the school of those who struggle against imperialism."

Source: Ayatollah Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini (from Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist) as quoted in Fields of Blood by Karen Armstrong (New York: Knopf, 2014) p. 332.

Labels: Empire, Iran, Islam, Karen Armstrong, quotations, religion, resistance

... the agreement has a significant downside too, in that it reinforces American hegemony. It does so by the very fact that the U.S. government is regarded by the media and others as the legitimate prosecutor, judge, and probation officer of Iran's government. The U.S. government, of course, commands overwhelming military power, and in that respect alone it has the ability to impose demands on others. But that does not mean an American president has the moral authority to do so.

Source: "2 Reasons to Be Happy About the Iran Deal, and 1 Reason Not to Be" by Sheldon Richman on Reason.com, July 16, 2015.

From almost all points on the US political spectrum, the merits of the "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action" turn on its impact and implications for Israel. If there ever could have been any doubt about that, there can be no more. Listen to any politician or look at any media coverage about the agreement. The issues are defined by Israeli interests. The "debate" is whether the deal is good or bad for Israel. For the "pro" deal faction, the agreement's removal of the "existential threat" to Israel is its marquee attraction. For the "anti" deal side, well, all we need to know is that the deal "will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven." The media attention, moreover, is dominated by the voices of Israelis and American Zionists and their apologists. Despite occasional lip service to "American interests," none of the participants in the "national discussion" explain how the agreement solves or does not solve specific US problems or implicates specific US interests. That's because it doesn't. That's because there aren't any! Indeed, the only specific "US interest" ever mentioned – repeatedly, by both sides of the argument – is protecting the Jewish state.

Source: "Where Did We the People Go?" by Peter Casey on Antiwar.com, July 31, 2015.



30 Aug 2015 Addendum: From a justice and peace perspective perhaps the best outcome of the September 17 a possible Congressional vote would be a veto-proof rejection of the Iran nuclear agreement, followed by a collapse of sanctions as European and other countries move to normalize economic relations with Iran in the face of extreme (as opposed normal, run-of-the mill) Zionist-driven American intransigence. I'm not saying this is the most likely outcome—though it is far from implausible—just, possibly, the most desirable. In this scenario, Iran would still be bound by the requirements of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Israel has never signed. They would also be bound by the reality that a nuclear weapons program—something Iranian authorities have repeatedly and credibly denied wanting—would be a strategic military liability for Iran.

05 Sep 2015 Addendum: Here's an interesting quote from Joseph Cirincione, Zionist tool and imperial nuclear policy expert: "The idea that the U.S. can impose sanctions on the rest of the world after we walk away from a deal that everyone else thinks solves the problem is the height of hubris. If the U.S. tried to sanction Chinese banks for trading with Iran, I think you would start to see a determined Chinese effort to move away from the dollar as central global currency. A view would take hold in the world that the U.S. could not be trusted anymore, and that you could not rely on the U.S. to provide stability and consistency in international relations." According to Cirincione, another selling point in favor of the US-Iran nuclear deal is: "At the end of that time, should Iran try to get a weapon, we will know with great precision where Iran’s critical nodes are located; we will have improved intelligence on their entire nuclear supply chain, and if we did have to go on a military strike, we'd be much more effective at conducting a strike after this deal than we are right now."

See also:

• "Iran has signed a historic nuclear deal – now it's Israel's turn" by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif
• "Iran-US Interim Agreement: Historic Breakthrough or Historic Sellout?" by James Petras

Labels: government, Iran, Israel, Israel Lobby, nuclear weapons, politics, United States, War, Zionism

Last December, in Puppets & Money I cited a Bloomberg report that said former Israeli central bankster Stanley Fischer (pictured at right) was the favorite to be Barack Obama's nominee for the No. 2 position in the US Federal Reserve System. And it came to pass that on January 10, 2014, Fischer was so nominated.

Also in December, Grant Smith published an exposé on Fischer identifying him as an ardent Israel-firster, the co-author, along with AIPAC, "of harmful U.S. economic policies on behalf of Israel". Below is an excerpt from Smith's "AIPAC's Fed Candidate Stanley Fischer on a Warpath Against Iran".

As Bank of Israel governor, Stanley Fischer played a central role in coordinating the implementation of AIPAC-generated sanctions against Iran – ostensibly over its nuclear program. Stuart Levey, the head of the U.S. Treasury Department's division for "Terrorism and Financial Intelligence," an office created after heavy AIPAC lobbying, met often with Fischer in Israel alongside the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and chiefs of both the Mossad and Shin Bet to explore how to "supplement" UN sanctions and end-run Russian and Chinese opposition. The Levey-Fischer strategy was "to work outside the context of the Security Council to engage the private sector and let it know about the risks of doing business with Tehran" particularly against European banks that had only partially drawn back their business dealings with Iran. In 2010, Israel dispatched Fischer to meet with Chinese and Russian "counterparts" in order to financially isolate Iran.

See also: "Should dual citizen of US/Israel be vice chair of our Federal Reserve Bank?" on Mondoweiss

Labels: banking, Iran, Israel, Israel Lobby, Jews

Labels: art and literature, Carlos Latuff, Iran, Israel, nuclear weapons, Obama

My first response this morning to the news of Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was disbelief. My next response was to recall part of a story on I heard on NPR yesterday, entitled "Capture Or Kill? Lawyers Eye Options For Terrorists." Below is a relevant excerpt:

Given the difficulty of detaining high-value terrorists in the United States, Cuba, Afghanistan, black sites or foreign countries, another possibility exists.

"To be perfectly blunt, I don't think that they'll pick them up at all," says Ken Anderson of the Hoover Institution and American University's Washington College of Law, who has written about these issues. "I think that we've actually allowed the courts to arrange the incentives to kill rather than capture."

Many national security experts interviewed for this story agree that it has become so hard for the U.S. to detain people that in many instances, the U.S. government is killing them instead.

Last month, American forces staged a raid on a car in Somalia. The man inside the car was a suspected terrorist on the FBI's most wanted list. American troops did not seize him. Instead, helicopters fired on the car, and commandos retrieved his body.

The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama has been widely described as "aspirational." It may be, however, that delusional is a more apt description in light of Obama's campaign promises and track record as president. Consider the following partial list:

• Candidate Obama pledged to expand the combat forces of the Marines and Army
• Candidate Obama pledged to escalate the war in Afghanistan
• President Obama authorized killer drone attacks in Pakistan in his very first week in office
• President Obama has not ended the US occupation of Iraq
• President Obama has not closed the Guantanamo prison
• President Obama has not ended the little discussed but deadly American military intervention in Somalia
• President Obama has been utterly unable to go beyond tepid, hollow rhetoric concerning murderous US-backed Israel
• President Obama has left "all options on the table" when it comes to US arm-twisting vis-a-vis Iran

With Nobel Peace Prize laureates like Obama who needs war mongers?

See also: "Professor Hakimi's Solution to Gitmo"

Labels: Afghanistan, drones, Empire, Iran, Iraq, Israel, militarism, Obama, Somalia, United States, War

Here's some news that will probably never see the light of day in most US news outlets.

Iran seeks arrest of 15 Israeli "war criminals"

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has asked Interpol to arrest what it says are 15 Israeli "war criminals" who were involved in the conflict in Gaza in December and January, the Tehran prosecutor said in remarks reported on Sunday.

Iran, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, said in December it had set up a court to try Israelis for attacking Gaza. It had said at the time it was ready to try those it accused in absentia.

"In the current week, we have completed our investigation (of) about 15 individuals who were among those criminals," Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi said.

"Based on our investigation and according to article two of the Interpol charter, we asked Interpol to arrest these suspects," he said in comments carried by Iranian state television, according to the BBC's monitoring service.

Mortazavi said Iran had drawn up charges against 34 Israeli commanders and 115 individuals, adding that the charges included "war crimes, invasion, occupation, genocide and crimes against humanity," the television reported.

Israel's 22-day assault on Gaza, which it said aimed to suppress Palestinian cross-border rocket fire, killed more than 1,300 Palestinians. Thirteen Israelis were killed.

Iranian officials have said Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza, scored a victory over Israel by surviving the Israeli attacks.

Israeli and U.S. officials have accused Iran of providing weapons and training to Hamas militants in Gaza. Iran insists it only gives moral, financial and political support to Hamas and the Palestinians.

Israel has promised its military personnel state protection from foreign prosecution.

(Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Dominic Evans)


Iran: Seeking Interpol warrants for Israelis

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's judiciary has asked Interpol to issue arrest warrants for 15 Israelis in connection with the Gaza offensive, Iranian state TV reported Monday. Interpol denied receiving such a request.

The TV said a court set up to investigate Iranian complaints against Israel provided Interpol with a list of Israeli leaders and details on accusations against them.

Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi was quoted as saying Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were all on the list. Others were top military officers involved in the recent offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers.

However, Interpol said it has not been asked to issue warrants for Israelis linked to the Gaza offensive. The international police agency said the denial was an "unusual step" for the organization because it "does not ordinarily comment on false stories reported in the media."

In Israel, Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor dismissed the purported Iranian request as a political stunt. "This does not even deserve to be dignified with a comment, this is crude propaganda, it is a ridiculous, why don't they investigate Hamas war crimes?" he said.

Iran does not recognize Israel and is the main backer of Hamas.

Israel said it launched its three-week assault on Gaza to halt years of rocket fire on Israeli communities. Some 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died in the offensive, officials have said.

Associated Press Writer Elaine Ganley contributed to this report from Paris.


INTERPOL issues denial of reported Iranian request seeking arrest of 15 senior Israeli officials

Statement by INTERPOL General Secretariat headquarters, Lyon, France

While INTERPOL does not ordinarily comment on false stories reported in the media, in light of the nature of recent erroneous articles reporting that INTERPOL is being used by Iranian authorities to seek the arrest of 15 senior Israeli officials on alleged charges of war crimes in Gaza, the Organization is taking the unusual step of making the following public statement:

"INTERPOL has neither been requested to issue by Iran, nor has it issued on behalf of Iran or any of its 187 member countries any Red Notices for persons wanted internationally or other requests seeking the arrest of senior Israeli officials for alleged war crimes in relation to the Gaza offensive in December and January."INTERPOL's Constitution strictly prohibits the Organization from making 'any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character'.

All further enquiries should be directed to the source reported in the media. Since INTERPOL has received no information in relation to the alleged false claim, INTERPOL is unable to comment further on this matter.


Here's the text of Article 2 of the INTERPOL Constitution:

Its aims are:
(1) To ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police authorities within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights';
(2) To establish and develop all institutions likely to contribute effectively to the prevention and suppression of ordinary law crimes.


And here's part of what INTERPOL says about war crimes investigations:

The General Secretariat is expanding its role in providing international co-ordination and support for law enforcement agencies in member countries and international organizations responsible for the investigation and prosecution of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against Humanity.

Interpol has been supporting member countries and the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals in the location and apprehension of criminals wanted for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against Humanity since 1994, primarily through the publication of Red Notices and the provision of other investigative assistance. However, many countries have recently expanded their activities in this field, and have established specialized units dedicated to the investigation and prosecution of these offences regardless of where they have occurred.

Labels: crime, Iran, Israel, Palestine, War

I recently received a copy of a hoax chain e-mail with the subject line: "General Eisenhower Warned Us." Below, with some minor edits, is the response I sent to the more than two dozen e-mails addresses listed as having received or sent it before I received it.

The "General Eisenhower Warned Us" message below is a sad example of anti-Muslim fear-mongering. This hoax chain e-mail is based upon an earlier 2007 hoax chain e-mail that said, "Recently, this week, UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum ... " (see Snopes.com). The current version (below) says, "This week, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred."

This sweeping generalization or stereotype, even, is absurd on its face. It claims: "[The Holocaust] 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred." As a press release for a 2006 scientific poll of UK Muslims noted: "There is no universal, monolithic Muslim opinion - there is as much variety as among non-Muslims." Regarding the holocaust and Muslims, it reported, "2% denied it happened entirely." The same poll found that a plurality of Muslim respondents believe the Holocaust happened "as History teaches".

Moreover, there is no evidence that the UK ever "debated" removing "The Holocaust" from its curriculum. The 2007 report that apparently elicited the Islamophobic frenzy, "Teaching Emotive and Controversial History 3-19," is available online and you can read it yourself. Nowhere in it is there any debate about not teaching about the Nazi holocaust.

The report notes the holocaust is one of several controversial subjects for some students and references on page 15 "a history department in a northern city recently avoided selecting the Holocaust as a topic for GCSE [General Certificate of Secondary Education] coursework for fear of confronting anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils." The GCSEs apply only to students aged 14 to 16. So, what you have here is one department in one city not selecting one topic for students aged 14-16 because of an unfounded or founded (we do not know which) fear of confronting "anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial" (whatever these mean) among SOME "Muslim pupils." That's all.

When the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth (Ynet is their online edition) covered the story in 2007, they reported:

" 'There is no evidence that schools are not teaching the Holocaust.' Orla Delegray of the Dept for Children, Schools and Families said.

" 'We have made clear there are certain, non-negotiable subjects which will be protected in schools and that includes the Holocaust,' she wrote. According to her, the British Education Ministry has even invested millions of pounds this year in subsidizing programs through which British students visit Auschwitz.

" 'The suggestion that the Holocaust is being dropped from the UK national curriculum is entirely false,' said Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust."

As for the bit about "Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' ..." that's a hoax, too. Calling the holocaust a myth is not Iranian state policy. The president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--who is second-in-command after the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei--has been accused in the West of holocaust denial but so has Norman Finkelstein, son of two holocaust survivors and the author of The Holocaust Industry. I've read several of Finkelstein's books, including The Holocaust Industry and he is no holocaust denier.

But to return to Ahmadinejad consider the testimony of Shiraz Dossa: "... Ahmadinejad has not denied the Holocaust or proposed Israel’s liquidation; he has never done so in any of his speeches on the subject (all delivered in Farsi/Persian). As an Iran specialist, I can attest that both accusations are false. U.S. Iran experts such as Juan Cole and UK journalists such as Jonathan Steele have come to the same conclusion."

So, now ask yourself with US troops occupying two predominantly Muslim countries, with Iran in the cross-hairs of Israel and US Neo-cons, and with predominantly Muslim Palestine under the thumb of US-backed Israel, who benefits from spreading lies and distortions that cast Muslims is such a very bad light. Who gets hurt?

If you are a Christian and you passed this "General Eisenhower Warned Us" garbage on to other people or failed to challenge it then shouldn't you ask yourself if you have sinned? Leviticus 19:16 says "You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbour: I am the Lord." Christians are not under the Law but that is no license to harm our neighbors or spread falsehoods.

According to Jesus: "It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles. ... what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person ..." They didn't have keyboards and computer mice in Jesus' day but it seems to me the principle is timeless and not restricted to one form of communication.

Perhaps the most offensive and most revealing part of this hoax is the closing. It says: "God Bless America!"

See also: Turning Muslim Children into Zionists
-----Original Message-----

Sent: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:44 am
Subject: Fwd: [Fwd: Fwd: Fw: General Eisenhower Warned Us]

Labels: Christianity, critical thinking, Empire, holocaust, Iran, Islamophobia, Jesus

It will not come as news to readers of this blog that the leaders of Israel and the mainstream American Jewish community have been pushing hard for an American attack on Iran for the last few years. Among other things, the bloody American quagmire in Iraq and the broad, if shallow, domestic opposition to the Bush administration's bellicose policies have, thus far, prevented such an attack. But there is reason to believe that as the clock runs out on Bush he may strike or if he does not Israel will. So, this post will be a kind of round up of recent news on the subject.

First, earlier this month Israel staged major war exercises that analysts are calling a dress rehearsal for an attack on Iran. Here are two excerpts from a report on Monday in the Middle East Times:

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli government has been forced to acknowledge a top-secret meeting held last Friday between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Aviam Sela, the chief architect of Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, after the media got wind of the details.

Unlike the recent ostentatious military exercise that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out over eastern Greece - involving over 100 F15 and F16 fighter jets - which was meant to be picked up by Western intelligence agencies and thereby spread Israel's message to the Europeans, the Americans, and the Iranians in particular, that Israel meant business about halting Iran's nuclear program, Friday's tete-a-tete was not meant to hit the headlines.

The Mediterranean exercise also included Israeli helicopters that could be used to rescue downed pilots. The helicopters and refueling tankers flew more than 900 miles, which is about the same distance between Israel and Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, American officials said.

Apart from sending Iran a very loud message, some experts say that another Israeli objective was to practice flight tactics, aerial refueling and all other details of a possible strike against Iran's nuclear installations and its long-range conventional missiles. ...

Israel is of the firm belief that Iran is approximately two years away from developing the technology that would enable it to develop nuclear weapons.

This is contrary to last December's U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran which assessed that Iran had ceased is nuclear weapons program.

The Israelis were visibly dismayed by this assessment and Olmert followed up the NIE's report with a quick visit to Washington where he outlined Israel's concerns and attempted to override the view of America's intelligence agencies with the Jewish state's perspective. ...

Many analysts are now commenting that it is not a question of if, in regard to an Israeli offensive operation against Iran, but when.

On the NIE controversy, it is by no means clear to me that the Israelis are "of the firm belief that Iran is approximately two years away" from being ready to develop nuclear weapon. What is clear is that the nuclear-armed Israeli leadership is trying hard to sell that story and they are not the only ones. As WorldNetDaily reported last December, "Editorials in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times also questioned the NIE report. The Los Angeles Times quoted an expert questioning whether the report sufficiently stressed Iran's enrichment activities."

Second, arch-Zionist and former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton is predicting an Israeli attack after the presidential election but before the inauguration. Here's an excerpt from yesterday's edition of the Telegraph of London:

Mr Bolton, an unflinching hawk who proposes military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, bemoaned what he sees as a lack of will by the Bush administration to itself contemplate military strikes. ...

Israel, however, still had a determination to prevent a nuclear Iran, he argued. The "optimal window" for strikes would be between the November 4 election and the inauguration on January 20, 2009.

"The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defences by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations .

"They're also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgement is they would not want to do anything before our election because there's no telling what impact it could have on the election."

But waiting for either Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, or his Republican opponent John McCain to be installed in the White House could preclude military action happening for the next four years or at least delay it.

My last item is a wild card bit--Bush has nominated a Jew to head the US Air Force. Here's part of how the Jerusalem Post reported the story earlier this month in "Jewish general named new USAF chief" (emphasis added):

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates launched the US Air Force in a new direction Monday by announcing an unusual choice as the service's next uniformed chief and by declaring an immediate halt to personnel reductions that he said had put the Air Force under too much wartime strain.

Before flying to Israel [sic!] to explain his moves to airmen and their commanders, Gates recommended that US President George W. Bush nominate Gen. Norton Schwartz, a Jewish 35-year veteran with a background in Air Force special operations, as the new Air Force chief of staff, replacing fired Gen. Michael Moseley. ...

"It's not a mainstream kind of thing" to choose an officer with Schwartz's extensive background in special operations, McPeak said. But Schwartz also has a variety of other experience, including holding senior positions on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "It's good to have that" broader perspective on the Air Force, said McPeak. ...

Schwartz had been thought to be in line for retirement, and his replacement as head of the US Transportation Command, Lt. Gen. William Fraser III, had been announced in April. ...

When the Jewish Community Centers Armed Forces and Veteran's Committee presented its Military Leadership Award to Schwartz in 2004, he said he was "Proud to be identified as Jewish as well as an American military leader."

Here's some of what the Jewish Daily Forward reported (emphasis added):

When he was a cadet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., in the early 1970s, Norton Schwartz did not hide his religion under his blue-and-white uniform.

A member of the academy’s Jewish choir before graduating in 1973, according to one of his classmates, Schwartz has since risen up the ranks and on June 9 was appointed Air Force chief by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

If confirmed by the Senate, Schwartz will be expected to immediately deal with an armed service that has been badly embarrassed by the recent mishandling of nuclear material. But Schwartz, one of only a few Jews in the top ranks of the military, will also have to face off with the difficult questions of religion at his alma mater. During the past decade, the Air Force Academy has developed a reputation for being a hotbed of evangelical Christian proselytizing, drawing numerous constitutional complaints. Opponents of this trend see a ray of hope in Schwartz’s appointment.

“He has the capacity to bring change and change this general feeling that the Air Force Academy likes you more if you’re an evangelical Christian,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

With his appointment, Schwartz becomes the third Jew in the top ranks of the military, alongside Lieutenant General Steven Blum, who heads the National Guard, and General Robert Magnus, who is the assistant commandant of the Marines. ...

Two months ago, the Defense Department announced that Schwartz was to retire at the end of the year from his position as head of the Transportation Command, which manages global air, land and sea transportation for the Defense Department. But it was soon after this that the Secretary of Defense learned that the Air Force had sent four fusing devices for ballistic missile nuclear warheads to Taiwan instead of sending helicopter batteries. This followed an incident last summer in which a B-52 bomber mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles flew to Louisiana from North Dakota. Gates ordered an internal probe, and on June 5 he ousted the top military and civilian officials at the helm of the Air Force. Four days later, he tapped Schwartz to be secretary of the Air Force.

Schwartz’s Jewish identity did not go unnoticed after his appointment, particularly given the current military tensions with Iran. Press TV, an Iranian English language media outlet, wrote an article last week, titled “U.S. Names Jewish as Air Force Chief.”

There have long been rumors that Schwartz’s predecessor, Michael Moseley, was opposed to a military attack on Iran. The appointment of Schwartz has prompted speculation in the Iranian press and on some blogs that the Bush administration is yet again seriously considering the military option to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

On the reference to "the recent mishandling of nuclear material" and how that may or may not be related to Schwartz's predecssor's removal and an attack on Iran see "B-52 Nukes Headed for Iran, Not For Decommissioning: Airforce Refused."

See also: Podhoretz Predicts US Attack on Iran

Labels: Carlos Latuff, Iran, Israel, Israel Lobby, Jews, John Bolton, nuclear weapons, War

For at least the second time, former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spells it out:

The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday [4/16/08] reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel.

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."

Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.

On 9/12/01, the New York Times reported:

Asked tonight what the attack meant for relations between the United States and Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, replied, "It's very good." Then he edited himself: "Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy." He predicted that the attack would "strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.''

on 9/20/01, Netanyahu told a US House Committee:

We have received a wake up call from hell. Now the question is simple: Do we rally to defeat this evil, while there is still time, or do we press a collective snooze button and go back to business as usual?

The time for action is now.

And he was already starting to wag the American dog to attack Iraq and Iran:

... Nor can we completely dismiss the possibility that a militant regime, like its terrorist proxies, will commit collective suicide for the sake of its fanatical ideology.

In this case, we might face not thousands of dead, but hundreds of thousands and possibly millions. This is why the US must do everything in its power to prevent regimes like Iran and Iraq from developing nuclear weapons, and disarm them of their weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, war on Iraq and Iran was on Netanyahu's wish list long before 9/11.

Labels: Iran, Iraq, Israel, Neoconservatives, Zionism

Edward S. Herman is an outstanding critical thinker and political essayist. Below is an excerpt from a piece published last December entitled "Great and Little Satan Free to Aggress and Ethnically Cleanse-Their Targets Have No Right of Self Defense (or Any Other Right Questioned by the Satans)."

To see those Western allies greatly agitated over the possibility that Iran might have a nuclear program that at some future date would allow it to produce such weapons, while taking Israel's arsenal as a given not even worthy of mention, reflects a gross political double standard that is both racist and illustrative of that famous "clash of civilizations," with the clash coming from Western initiatives, actions and threats.

Gates and the Iranian Versus Israeli Threat

While this double standard is not even discussible in the Western mainstream it is considered a major issue and is debated in the Arab world. Thus, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was confronted with the double standard at a conference in Bahrain organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, where Gates was urging the Arab states to press Iran to halt any nuclear activities. Gates was asked by Bahraini Minister of Labor Majeed al-Alawi whether Gates thought "the Zionist (Israeli) nuclear weapon is a threat to the region." Gates paused, and answered tersely: "No, I do not." A.P. reports that "Asked if U.S. acceptance of that was a double standard in light of Washington's pressure on Iran, Gates again said 'no,' and described the government in Jerusalem as more responsible than the one in Tehran. 'I think Israel is not training terrorists to subvert its neighbors. It has not shipped weapons into a place like Iraq to kill thousands of innocent civilians covertly,' said Gates. 'So I think that there are significant differences in terms of both the history and the behavior of the Iranian and Israeli governments.'" [1] This reportedly elicited a great deal of laughter among the Arab representatives present, but both the laughter and the issue at stake are outside the orbit of accepted thought in the West.

Labels: critical thinking, Iran, Israel, nuclear weapons, United States, War

The following is reposted from wartaxboycott.org.

A People’s Campaign to Defund the War

For over five years peace activists have voted, lobbied, marched, and taken direct action to first prevent and then end the war in Iraq. Courageous soldiers have refused to fight the war. But Congress repeatedly votes to appropriate billions of dollars to continue the war and appears ready to authorize a future military attack on Iran. It’s time for taxpayers who oppose this war to join together in nonviolent civil disobedience and show Congress how to cut off the funds for this war and redirect resources to the pressing needs of people.

Register and Prepare for April 2008

The organizers and signers of the 2008 War Tax Boycott urge all who oppose this war to register and prepare for an April 2008 nationwide boycott and redirection of the federal income taxes that fuel the war in Iraq. If you are new to war tax resistance, you will find the information you need to get started on this website, or you can check off that you need more information when you register. We urge those who are already refusing to pay for war (whether by reducing their income or not paying some or all of taxes due) to sign on also. The more who sign on, the louder our voices will be in Washington as we demand an end to war and show Congress how to use our money for life affirming programs.

This campaign was initiated by the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee and is being promoted by Voices for Creative Nonviolence, War Resisters League, the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Veterans for Peace, and the Nonviolent Direct Action Working Group of United for Peace and Justice.

Building the Boycott

This campaign to boycott and redirect war taxes was launched in September 2007 as Congress began its consideration of a Bush Administration request for an additional $190 billion appropriation for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was begun in the fall, ahead of tax season, so that those who want to refuse to pay for war could explore the options, decide what to do, and prepare to resist well before 2007 taxes are due. The campaign is being promoted by peace activists around the country and is partnered with CODEPINK's “Don't Buy Bush's War" campaign.

Labels: Iran, Iraq, resistance, United States, war tax resistance

I was watching the documentary film The Camden 28 last night. When they flashed a sound bite from Lyndon Johnson I was reminded of the ongoing Israeli and American propaganda campaign against Iran and especially the most recent episode where large, modern, heavily armed American warships go half-way around the world, steam in or near Iranian territorial waters, and then complain because Iranian speedboats are "threatening" them.

Here's part of what Johnson said to the American people following the now-debunked Gulf of Tonkin incident:

Aggression by terror against the peaceful villages of South Vietnam has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America.

Of course, the Gulf of Tonkin incident came to mind right away when I first heard about the recent incident with Iran last week but the similarity of rhetoric is what caught me when I heard the Johnson quote last night. Consider, for example, this excerpt from a January 8, 2008, report by Agence France Press:

US President George W. Bush on Tuesday blamed Tehran for a "provocative" weekend face-off between US and Iranian ships as he prepared to take his warning that "Iran is a threat" to the Middle East.

"We viewed it as a provocative act. It is a dangerous situation and they should not have done it, pure and simple," Bush declared in his first public remarks on Sunday's incident in the Strait of Hormuz.

Shortly after he spoke, the Pentagon released a video and audio tape that appeared to confirm its charge that Iranian speedboats swarmed three US warships in the Strait and radioed a threat to blow them up.

"My message today to the Iranians is, they shouldn't have done what they did," he added. "I don't know what their thinking was, but I'm telling you what I think it was, I think it was a provocative act."

Here's part of the story as reported on the same day on the ABC News web site:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iranian boats aggressively approached three U.S. Naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a main shipping route for Gulf oil, at the weekend and threatened that the ships would explode, U.S. officials said on Monday.

Iran dismissed U.S. concerns about the incident, saying it was a routine contact. But the Pentagon termed the Iranian actions "careless, reckless and potentially hostile" and said Tehran should provide an explanation.

"This is a very volatile area and the risk of an incident escalating is real," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. "It is a reminder that there is a very unpredictable government in Tehran."

Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, the commander of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which is based in the Gulf, said five Iranian fast boats moved aggressively toward the U.S. ships in international waters and their actions were "unduly provocative." ...

The incident was the latest sign of tension between Washington and Tehran, at odds over a range of issues from Iran's nuclear program to U.S. allegations of Iranian support for terrorism and interference in Iraq.

Of course, like the charges that Iran is a threat to the US, key parts of the incident are distortions or fabrications. As the Inter Press Service reports in a story entitled " How the Pentagon Planted a False Hormuz Story":

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (IPS) - Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the Jan. 6 U.S.-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows.

The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defence for public affairs in charge of media operations Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the Navy itself.

Then the Navy disseminated a short video into which was spliced the audio of a phone call warning that U.S. warships would "explode" in "a few seconds". Although it was ostensibly a Navy production, IPS has learned that the ultimate decision on its content was made by top officials of the Defence Department.

The Bush administration concocted or hyped a threat where no real threat existed. Who ever heard of such a thing? No matter, millions of American sheeple won't care, won't know, or, more likely, both. If they report it at all, the mainstream media will not give the hoax revelation anywhere near as much attention and prominence as the initial story garnered and the Bush administration and the Israel Lobby will continue to make hay with it. As the Associated Press reports today: "The push to contain Iran has been given new urgency by an incident in the Persian Gulf this month in which U.S. warships were harassed by the Iranian naval speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz."

And, writing for World Politics Review, Zionist Frida Ghitis observes:

Just when it looked like Israel was about to fail in its efforts to convince the world about the dangers posed by Iran, the Iranian regime itself stepped in to help Israel make its case.

When Iranian speedboats began harassing U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, it became clear that, with or without nuclear weapons, Iran can cause extraordinary pain to the entire world, sending oil prices sky high and leaving the planet's biggest oil producers unable to move their crude. That reminder from the busy sea lanes of the Persian Gulf could not have come at a more opportune time. (emphasis added)

Also, coming at a very opportune time is a New York Times article hyping the supposed threat posed by speedboats. "Iran Encounter Grimly Echoes ’02 War Game" by Tom Shanker opens with:

There is a reason American military officers express grim concern over the tactics used by Iranian sailors last weekend: a classified, $250 million war game in which small, agile speedboats swarmed a naval convoy to inflict devastating damage on more powerful warships.

In the days since the encounter with five Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz, American officers have acknowledged that they have been studying anew the lessons from a startling simulation conducted in August 2002. In that war game, the Blue Team navy, representing the United States, lost 16 major warships — an aircraft carrier, cruisers and amphibious vessels — when they were sunk to the bottom of the Persian Gulf in an attack that included swarming tactics by enemy speedboats.

If the war game is "classified" then that means the results have been leaked, undoubtedly with Bush adminstration connivance. And you have to get more than halfway into the article to learn that "The Blue Team defenses also faced cruise missiles fired simultaneously from land and from warplanes, as well as the swarm of speedboats firing heavy machine guns and rockets." Thanks New York Times for helping the Pentagon salvage a story that was fast going down the toilet by raising the specter of a swarm of boats firing rockets and backed by aircraft and cruise missiles where before only five Iranian speedboats existed.

See also:

• "CIA, Iran & the Gulf of Tonkin" by Ray McGovern on Consortiumnews.com
• "Iran showdown has echoes of faked Tonkin attack" by Nick Juliano on therawstory
• "Is Iran Trying to Start a War with the United States?" (satire) by Andisheh Nouaree, Free Times of Columbia, SC

Labels: Iran, Neoconservatives, War, Zionism

The video clip below is just three months old and comes originally from Israeli state television via Mosaic (the interview on that site starts at 21:12). In it the powerful neocon and editor of Commentary Norman Podhoretz advocates and predicts a US attack on Iran before Bush leaves office.

Labels: Iran, Israel, Israel Lobby, Neoconservatives, War

From "Israel tries to cut off Tehran from world markets" (1/26/07) by David Hearst in The Guardian (UK):

Israel is launching a campaign to isolate Iran economically and to soften up world opinion for the option of a military strike aimed at crippling or delaying Tehran's uranium enrichment programme.

Pressure will be applied to major US pension funds to stop investment in about 70 companies that trade directly with Iran, and to international banks that trade with its oil sector, cutting off the country's access to hard currency. The aim is to isolate Tehran from the world markets in a campaign similar to that against South Africa at the height of apartheid.

Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be pursued in international courts for calling the Holocaust a myth, and saying Israel should be wiped off the map. The case will be launched under the 1948 UN convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, which outlaws "direct and public incitement to genocide".

Before flying to London to spearhead the mission to sell the sanctions, the Likud party leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, said: "A campaign to divest commercial investment from Iran, beginning with the large pension funds in the west ... either stops Iran's nuclear programme or it will pave the way for tougher actions. So it's no-lose for us." ...

A senior official said: "They currently have problems but if the programme is allowed to continue without interruptions we estimate they will have mastered the technology this year. We expect a declaration from them in the next month, possibly on February 21, the day of the Islamic Revolution, that they have reached significant achievements.

"It will be a bluff, but it will have the potential of marketing Iran as a regional superpower. If they do it, a nuclear Iran will cast a long shadow over the whole of the Middle East; we will have Hizbullastan in Lebanon, Hamastan here, and Shiastan in Iraq."

Military analysts speaking at an annual conference in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, claimed that Israel was facing an "existential threat" from the Iranian uranium enrichment programme, which Tehran has consistently claimed was for a civilian nuclear fuel cycle. The only division of opinion was over the imminence of this threat.

Not that Israeli claims about an Iranian nuclear weapons program should be believed--they should not--but notice that the "existential threat" here is not that any rational person thinks Iran actually will use nuclear weapons against Israel--that would be suicidal as Israel alone has 200-300 nuclear weapons and modern German submarines to launch them from, then there's the massive American arsenal. Furthermore, an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel would undoubtedly kill a vast number of non-Israelis instantly and via fallout. No, the threat is that Israel and the US will no longer enjoy the same relative impunity to threaten or carry out attacks on a nuclear-armed Iran.

Labels: hasbara, Iran, Israel, nuclear weapons

It pays to read the Jewish press. Below are excerpts from "Book: Israel, Lobby Pushing Iran War" by Nathan Guttman, writing in the Jewish Daily Forward, December 29, 2006. This article has a very different spin from the interesting interview that Scott Ritter gave to Amy Goodman concerning his book Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change in October, 2006. From the Forward:

A former United Nations weapons inspector and leading Iraq War opponent has written a new book alleging that Jerusalem is pushing the Bush administration into war with Iran, and accusing the pro-Israel lobby of dual loyalty and “outright espionage.”

In the new book, called “Target Iran,” Scott Ritter, who served as a senior U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 and later became one of the war’s staunchest critics, argues that the United States is readying for military action against Iran, using its nuclear program as a pretext for pursuing regime change in Tehran.

“The Bush administration, with the able help of the Israeli government and the pro-Israel Lobby, has succeeded,” Ritter writes, “in exploiting the ignorance of the American people about nuclear technology and nuclear weapons so as to engender enough fear that the American public has more or less been pre-programmed to accept the notion of the need to militarily confront a nuclear armed Iran.”

Later in the book, Ritter adds: “Let there be no doubt: If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war that was made in Israel and nowhere else.”

Ritter’s book echoes recent high-profile attacks on the pro-Israel lobby by former President Jimmy Carter and by scholars Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. Ritter, who recently returned from a weeklong speaking engagement on The Nation cruise, speaks of a “network of individuals” that pursues Israel’s interests in the United States. The former weapons inspector alleges that some of the pro-Israel lobby’s activities “can only be described as outright espionage and interference in domestic policies.” Ritter also accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of having an inherent dual loyalty. He called for the organization to be registered as a foreign agent. ...

In his book, Ritter also accuses the pro-Israel lobby of invoking the memory of the Holocaust and of crying antisemitism whenever Israel is accused of betraying America. “This is a sickening and deeply disturbing trend that must end,” Ritter writes. ...

Ritter argues that the Bush administration knows that inspections can solve the Iranian nuclear problem but, at the urging of Jerusalem and its American allies, is in reality pursuing a different goal: regime change in Tehran.

“Israel has, through a combination of ignorance, fear and paranoia, elevated Iran to a status that it finds unacceptable,” Ritter writes in his book. “Israel has engaged in policies that have further inflamed this situation. Israel displays arrogance and rigidity when it comes to developing any diplomatic solution to the Iranian issue.” ...

In early 2004, Ritter charged in an interview on the Web site Ynet, operated by the daily Yediot Aharonot, that Israeli intelligence had deliberately overstated what it knew to be a minimal threat from Iraq in an effort to push America and Britain to launch a war. Ritter’s accusations were roundly rejected across the Israeli political spectrum. Security officials interviewed by the Forward insisted that no branch of the military could or would deliberately skew the findings in that way, but they also said that Israeli intelligence tended to exaggerate threats because it was operating under flawed assumptions.

Now Ritter is arguing that a similar effort is under way to produce an attack against Iran.

Speaking to the Forward this week, Ritter stressed that he is not accusing all American Jews of having dual loyalty, saying that “at the end of the day, I would like to believe that most of American Jews will side with America.” ...

Concerning the role of Israeli intelligence in pushing for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Guttman writes above: "Ritter’s accusations were roundly rejected across the Israeli political spectrum." This is simply untrue.

In "Israel knew Iraq had no nuclear weapons," Laurie Copans writes:

Jerusalem - A government critic said on Tuesday that Israel was aware before the war against Iraq that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction, but Israel did not inform the United States. ...

But lawmaker Yossi Sarid, a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, said on Tuesday that Israeli intelligence knew beforehand that Iraq had no weapons stockpiles and misled US President George Bush. ...

Last year Israel appointed a stern general, Amos Gilead, as its liaison with the population. Gilead filled the airwaves with dire warnings of possible chemical or biological attacks from Iraq.

Sarid, who represents the dovish opposition Meretz Party, said it was just a costly show - Israeli intelligence knew the threat was "very, very, very limited."

"It was known in Israel that the story that weapons of mass destruction could be activated in 45 minutes was an old wives' tale," said Sarid, regarding a claim leading up to the war.

"Israel didn't want to spoil President Bush's scenario, and it should have," Sarid said.

Israeli critics say the government of Sharon maintained the state of alert for its own political reasons, to help galvanise public opinion in favour of harsh steps against the Palestinians. ...

This explanation makes no sense. Israeli leaders have never been at a loss for excuses or public support to brutalize Palestinians. This is merely a smoke screen to obscure Israel's role in pushing for the American war on Iraq.

Then, there's this Associated Press article:

General: Israelis exaggerated Iraq threat

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli intelligence overplayed the threat posed by Iraq and reinforced the U.S. and British assessment that Saddam Hussein had large amounts of weapons of mass destruction, a retired Israeli general said Thursday.

The Israeli assessment may have been colored by politics, including a desire to see the Iraqi leader toppled, said Shlomo Brom, who was a senior Israeli military intelligence officer and is now a researcher with Israel's top strategic think tank. ...

In an article in Strategic Assessment, a publication of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, Brom said weapons of mass destruction probably would not be found in significant quantities in Iraq.

He said Israeli intelligence overplayed the potential danger before the war. ...

Brom told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that "Israeli intelligence was a full partner with the United States and Britain in developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capability." ...

Brom said the Israeli assessment may have been influenced by politics. "Israel has no reason to regret the outcome of the war in Iraq," he wrote, noting Saddam was an implacable enemy. ...

In the Strategic Assessment article Brom writes: "In the questioning of the picture painted by coalition intelligence, the third party in this intelligence failure, Israel, has remained in the shadows." Quite so.

In addition to the bogus Israeli intelligence, bogus American intelligence was cooked up by a cabal of Zionists in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. For more info on that group see:

• "Pentagon Office Home to Neo-Con Network" by Jim Lobe for the Inter Press Service
• "Special investigation: The spies who pushed for war" by Julian Borger in The Guardian (UK)
• "Decentralizing U.S. Intelligence: Office of Special Plans" by Tom Barry for the Interhemispheric Resource Center

Labels: hasbara, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Neoconservatives, Zionism