A New Push For Peace In Syria?

Why are there no serious peace talks to end the war in Syria? After robbing over 130,000 people of their lives, and evicting over 9 million refugees from their homes, the Syrian war has infected nearly every region of the Middle East. Yet among the U.S. and its regional allies there are no public discussions about a viable peace plan, only war talk.

It’s hard to talk peace when the United States is still maneuvering for war, having recently given $500 million to arm and train Syrian rebels, while also brokering a deal with Saudi Arabia to open a new Syrian rebel training camp, in addition to the one already functioning in Jordan. Instead of using Obama’s vast Middle East influence for peace he has used it to push war.

The brilliant failure of the U.S.-led Geneva peace talks on Syria was done without the seriousness demanded by the wholesale destruction of a nation. Obama used the talks to pursue “U.S. interests,” having purposely excluded Iran from the talks while trying to leverage disproportionate power for Obama’s “Free Syrian Army” rebels, who enjoy minuscule power on the ground as they used peace talks to make unrealistic demands.

Obama played a passive role in the peace talks, allowing them to flounder instead of publicly putting forth serious proposals that reflected the situation on the ground. There have been no talks since January and Geneva III is yet unscheduled, as Obama seems committed only to giving the rebels more bargaining power via more war, the logic being that if the rebels are armed and trained appropriately, they’ll eventually be able to win back enough land to force the Assad government to bargain on equal terms.

The giant void in the market for peace has opened up opportunities for Russia and Egypt, who reportedly are attempting to insert themselves as leaders in Middle East diplomacy, in part to expand their influence, in part to protect themselves from the conflagration of Islamic extremism the conflict is producing.

Mint Press reports on the still-developing story:

“Moscow and Cairo are preparing for a conference between the Syrian regime and the opposition in the hope of bringing them together in a transitional government that ‘fights terrorism’…the agenda of the conference to be held between the two sides includes establishing a transitional Syrian government with extensive powers while maintaining Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s authority over the army and security institutions.”

If such a proposal comes to fruition its merits must be seriously debated on the world stage, where Obama would very likely do his best to sabotage the peace. This is because Obama’s rebels on the ground in Syria — loosely organized under the “Free Syrian Army” banner — are powerless, and a Russia-led peace process would reveal this fact and apply it to a peace treaty, leaving little influence for the Obama administration in the new government. This is a peace deal Obama would rather kill.

Obama’s rebels are weak while the Syrian Government has made substantial military gains. Most notably a recent peace deal was won in Syria’s largest city Aleppo, modeled after the peace deal in Homs that allowed rebels to leave unarmed while giving de-facto control of the city to the government.

Interestingly, veteran Middle East journalist Robert Fisk recently questioned not only the relevance of Obama’s Free Syrian Army, but it’s very existence. Fisk explains:

“The Free Syrian Army I think drinks a lot of coffee in Istanbul. I have never come across it – except in the first months of the fighting, I’ve never come across even prisoners from the Free Syrian Army…You know, the FSA, in the eyes of the Syrians, doesn’t really exist. They’ve got al-Qaeda, Nusrah, various other Islamist groups, and now of course ISIS…But I don’t think they care very much about the Free Syrian Army. One officer told me that some have been accepted back into the Syrian Army, so they could go home. Others had been allowed to go home and they were not permitted to serve in the Syrian Army anymore. I think that the Free Syrian Army is a complete myth and I don’t believe it really exists and nor do the Syrians…”

Fisk’s analysis of the FSA punctuates the perspective of many who have long questioned whether the FSA had been totally absorbed by the Islamic extremist militias. At most the FSA exists in tiny irrelevant pockets, though Fisk thinks the FSA might be an Obama administration fantasy used to justify the ongoing Syrian war.

Aside from Obama’s weakness on the ground, there are broader geo-political reasons Obama would reject a Russia/Egypt-led peace. For one, the Obama Administration only recently made a long term investment in war, by giving the $500 billion to the Syrian rebels and training thousands more in Saudi Arabia, actions that effectively dismissed any meaningful reconciliation with Iran.

Obama chose instead to reinforce the close alliances with pariah states Saudi Arabia and Israel, and both are demanding that Syria be destroyed. By re-committing himself to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel, Obama has essentially abandoned peace with Syria and Iran, since Obama’s allies want Syria and Iran destroyed.

If Obama followed the lead of Russia and Egypt in the peace process, his allies would abandon him, since they’ve invested huge sums of money, arms, and their political livelihoods on making sure their governments and domestic companies profit off of the demise of the Syrian government.

This is the basis for the complete geo-political stalemate in the Middle East. Of course the giant U.S. corporations that benefit from Middle East dominance are applying maximum pressure to continue war. The stalemate has become so obvious and destructive in Syria that Russia and Egypt haveinserted themselves as power brokers, which would act to bolster their political-economic leverage while pushing the U.S. out.

Regional power scrambling aside, if a rational peace deal were put forth —whether it’s brokered by Russia, Egypt, or whomever — the world must demand that peace be pursued, lest the Syrian catastrophe continue.

Obama and his regional allies have proven totally incapable of producing any realistic peace proposal — they’ve been too consumed with war. Obama has yet another chance to recognize the results of this failed proxy war and accept a peace that is a 100,000 lives overdue, or it can forge ahead to expand the killing. Stopping the war is as easy as acknowledging the reality, and to forge a treaty that reflects it.

Will Seif al Islam Lead the Expulsion of the ISIS Affiliate, Al Fajr Libya?

Time will tell…

With the Abu Baker al-Siddiq Brigade, Zintan, Libya…

A second interview by this observer with Seif al Islam Gadhafi, formerly the heir apparent to his father Moammar, was sought and finally arranged as a follow up to an earlier one focusing of my interest in the Imam Musa Sadr case. That case involves a great crime against a great man and conciliator and his historic cause, and exposes those who betrayed him in Lebanon and two other countries while swearing their personal devotion and shedding crocodile tears over the past 36 years. That research is nearing completion and publication awaits DNA results from body samples more credible than the ones offered by the Bosnia laboratory two years ago and immediately demonstrated to be fraudulent. The story of why that particular lab was chosen and by who goes to the essence of the current stonewalling campaign with respect to informing the public about what exactly happened to Imam Sadr and his partners on 8/3l/1978 in Tripoli, Libya. It also identifies who instructed Gadhafi to kill them over the strong objections from the PLO’s Yassir Arafat who spoke with Gadhafi and tried to save the trio of Lebanese Shia.

But our discussion soon turned to other subject as Seif’s jailers may have taken seriously my joke that if they extended the original 20 minutes I was granted to two hours, I would deliver to them 10 US Visas and they could fill in any names the might choose. Truth told, of course I could not even get myself a passport renewal as former US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman reportedly sneered at a US Embassy Christmas party a few years back, “Lamb will serve ten years hard time in the Feds for hobnobbing with terrorists (Hezbollah in those days…who knows today?) when we get him back home.” I admit that Jeff and I both have a problem with Hezbollah. His is because Hezbollah just may liberate Palestine and mine is that Hezbollah needs to do more in Lebanon and use 90 minutes of Parliament’s time, where it has the power, to grant Palestinian refugees in Lebanon the right to work and to own a home.

Meanwhile, Da’ish (IS) is metastasizing fast in Libya through its main affiliate al Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn) and plans to add Tripoli, to its Islamic Caliphate along with Baghdad, Damascus, Amman and Beirut during the coming months and if necessary, years. This, according to Seif al Islam and representatives of the Zintan brigades based southwest of Tripoli as well as two representatives of other tribes and militia moving toward supporting the still vital Gadhafi regime remnants.

Libya may be the lowest hanging ripe fruit within easy reach of Da’ish (IS) and its growing number of affiliates, according to US Ambassador Deborah Jones during a recent visit to the US Embassy in Malta, to discuss her own problems in Libya which include the 8/31/14 take-over by al Fajr Libya (FL) of the US embassy compound barely a month after it was evacuated and moved to Tunisia for the second time since February of 2011. Secretary of State John Kerry reassured the media in Washington recently that “the embassy was not really closed, but had moved out of Libya”. One Religion Professor at Tripoli University joked last week that “Kerry is correct, the US embassy is here but it’s in a state of occultation. We can’t see it but it’s around and watches us.” A Libyan photographer who was at the embassy compound when Al Fajr Libya (FL) arrived reported that the Da’ish (IS) affiliate had moved into buildings inside the embassy complex claiming that they would ‘protect it’ as they carted off boxes of documents for ‘safe keeping.’ FL is described by a former Dean at Tripoli U. as between al Nusra and Da’ish (IS) with a fragile partnership between the two and presenting to the public “A Good cop-Bad cop tag-team with differences to be worked out once all the infidels are vanquished.

Libya, as with the Arab Maghreb, is on the cusp of a new wave of Islamist groups, and is moving beyond al-Qaeda of Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Abdelmalek Droukdel, to Baghdadi’s ISIS and its widely perceived logical offshoot ISIM being planted in North Africa and the Sahel. The threat of the Da’ish (Islamic State is already deeply anchored and expanding in the now lawless Libya, according to UN envoy Bernardino León. Several Libyan organizations recently announced their loyalty to IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. This has confirmed a speculation that IS has penetrated Libyan public institutions. The Ansar al-Sharia group, affiliated with ISIS, has declared authority during the last several days over the coastal city of Darna which is located strategically between Benghazi and the Egyptian border – just 289 km (179 miles) and 333 km (206 miles), respectively.

Countless militia are forming, merging, changing names and lying low as perceived interests dictate. Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria was retitled, revitalized and repackaged to enhance its appeal on social media as has the Furqan Brigade of the AQIM in Tunisia. Ansar Al-Sharia is another one becoming very active.The Uqba bin Nafi Brigade, has just declared allegiance to ISIS as has the Islamic Caliphate in the Islamic Maghreb. al-Ummah Brigade, which operates out of Libyan coasts and airports, another is Al-Battar is attracting pro-ISIS elements. Majlis Shura Shabab al-Islam (the Islamic Youth Shura Council), or MSSI. According to Libyan sources and journalist Adam al-Sabiri, writing in Al Akbar, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi asked these elements to deploy to the Libyan front to counter the attacks by the Libyan army led by Khalifa Haftar as part of Operation Dignity seeking to “purge Libya of terrorists.”

Libyan friends, some from three years ago, advise that more people have been killed in the past three years than during the 2011 revolution and they now fear a Somalia-like “failed state” given all the weapons, lawlessness, and growing number of Islamists. The South of Libya has not been spared the lawlessness, as tribal battles continue for control of a lucrative smuggling trade. Friends point out that the country no longer even bothers to celebrate the National Holiday commemorating the 10/23/2011 “total liberation of Libya.” “It’s a cruel joke” my friend Hinde advised as she explains that many Libyans yearn for the stability of the Gadhafi days. “Maybe wanting to turn the clock back is the same in Iraq and Egypt and Syria?” she wondered.

“The rampant regional, ideological and tribal conflicts are worse than the rule of the dictator,” said Salah Mahmud al-Akuri, a doctor in Benghazi. “Some Libyans are looking back to the old regime.”

Amidst all the chaos, Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni claimed last week that groups loyal to the IS, such as al Fajr Libya, are presently in control of the city of Derna and other Libyan towns and have begun summoning townspeople to public squares to witness declarations of fealty to Da’ish (IS), even beginning their signature public executions. Libya’s “government” claims that its “army” is preparing to expel Fajr Libya (FL) and retake the capital, as more militia rush to join FL. Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani’s said in a statement this week that he gave orders to the government forces to “advance toward Tripoli to liberate it and to free it from the grip of al Fajr Libya”. The Libyan embassy in Washington told a House Foreign Affairs committee staffer that they expect that residents in Tripoli will launch “a civil disobedience campaign until the arrival of the army.” Walking around the former “Green Square” this observer saw no signs of this rather he observed citizens stocking up on necessities or packing their cars. Later, Thani added, military forces in the strife-torn country “have absolutely united to also recapture Libya’s second city Benghazi from the local IS affiliate, al Fajr Liyba (FL). Leading one to wonder whether the Libyan “army” will fare better than Maliki’s did in Mosul and Anbar.

According to students and staff at Tripoli University, (known as Fatah University during the Gadhafi decades) a few of whom this observer first met in the summer of 2011, and who lived the political events in their country since while some of their friends and relatives, as in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, are preparing to leave and start a new life somewhere. Hasan, a Gadhafi supporter I was with nearly daily three years ago in Tripoli still curses what, “NATO did this to our country. The Gadhafi regime was changing as you know Franklin, but the reformers were prevented from making the changes that Seif al Islam and his associates got their father to agree to. Remember when Saif said “My father wants to live in a tent where he is most happy and write a history of the Jamahiriya (land of the masses). He will offer advice but have just a ceremonial role out of politics? You remember that? We believed Seif didn’t we?. Anyhow, khalas!, Libya is finished! NATO gave it to Da’ish just as they gave Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to Iran.”

Libya is now moving beyond al-Qaeda of Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Abdelmalek Droukdel, to Baghdadi’s ISIS and its widely perceived logical offshoot Islamic State in the Islamic Maghreb (ISIM-Damis) now expanding in North Africa and the Sahel. Former rebels who fought against Gadhafi have formed powerful militias and seized control of large parts of Libya in the past three years. Back in mid-august of 2011, the late American journalist Marie Colvin and I stood on the balcony of the Corinthia Hotel opposites the still empty Marriott where some kid was practicing sniping from the roof, at my expense, as I pointed out to Marie a body floating just off the beach of the Mediterranean across the road. We walked over and examined it and decided while it was dressed in religious garb the man may have been an army deserter; there were increasing numbers in those days, because of his military style boots. We alerted some militia guys driving along the corniche who said they would report the body and before long an ambulance did arrive. Two of the militia waded out waist deep and pulled in the bloated body to shore, unlaced his tan leather boots while holding their noses from the stench. They then threw the new boots in the back of their pick-up and drove off with no more than a smiling ‘shukran habibis’ (thanks dears). Later that day Marie and I counted a column of 143 pickups with AK-47 jubilant fist waving rebels entering along the coastal road toward downtown Tripoli having come from battles in the east around Misrata. In the next few days we discussed how there seemed to be countless ‘free-cigarettes, $200 on the first of each month and your personal Kalasnikov’ militia popping up like mushrooms after a summer rain. Three years ago one of their battle cries was “Death to Gadafi—Yes to Freedom!” Today one hears around Tripoli another slogan from the lips of young men many of whom may be the same, chanting, “Death to the kafirs (disbelievers,” or infidels) Yes to Islam!Abas (that’s all!”

Seif el Islam still resides at his cell in Zintan which, even though jail is jail, has been upgraded from when he was captured in the Sahara making his way toward Niger and his finger was cut off as a warning.

Seif, has proposed talks and is ready to participate in bringing together Libya’s warring parties and aiding the transition to what he claims he was working on before the February 17, 2011 uprising in Benzhazi which quickly spread. Seif’s team would likely include his father’s cousin and confident Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam, former Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kane, long-time Libyan diplomat, the widely respected Omar el Hamdi now is Cairo, and Seif’s sister Aisha, now living with his mother and children in the Gulf.

Seif has no illusions of returning Libya to the past, but argues that elements of the former regime deserved to be heard. “We were in the process of making broad reforms and my father gave me the responsibly to see them through. Unfortunately the revolt happened and both sides made mistakes that are now allowing extreme Islamist group like Da’ish to pick up the pieces and turn Libya into an extreme fundamentalist entity in their regional plans.”

With respect to Seifs trials, whether ins the Tripoli courthouse or at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the odds of either happening anytime soon, ior at all, are fading as negotiations for an arrangement are reportedly progressing.

A solution is being sought, according to sources at the Justice Ministry in Tripoli because there are many problems with Seifs case which was supposed to begin earlier this year, and the case has been criticized by a number of international actors. Not least for which how Libya and the ICC have handled their cases. For example, Human Rights Watch has accused the Libyan government of failing to provide adequate legal representation and the ICC it has been unable to compel the Libyan government to allow it access — just one of many challenges to the ICC’s legitimacy in recent years. Meanwhile it is likely that Seif’s jailers, who increasing respects and admires him, may have other ideas that would enhance their own standing in Libya. In addition, certain NATO countries are said to be privately discussing with Washington, Paris London and Bonn the idea of finding a role for Seif and certain of his associates and family members in “the new Libya.”

According to Seif, and former regime officials, several NATO countries have sent messages claiming they did not intend for his father to be killed but were searching during the summer of 2011 for a refuge for his father in Africa. Seif does not believe them.

Seif al Islam still has substantial influence among tribes still loyal to Gaddafi as well as former regime officials in the army and government. The delegation Seif could assemble, including Ahmad Gadaff al-Dam, would benefit from the latter’s still strong connections with Arab governments, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and the UAE as well as some European countries.

More on this and other subjects related to Seif and the growing international recognition over the need for expulsion of Islamists from Libya, and a possible significant role for Seif, are expected to be discussed publicly soon.

Tired of Writing About Genocide? Then Write About FOOD!

OMG, I am so sick and tired of writing about American-sponsored neo-Nazis in the Ukraine, American-financed genocide in Gaza and American-backed ISIS murderers in Syria and Iraq.  Geez Louise.  It’s enough to make me sick!

But not sick enough to stop eating.

Even though women and children are starving in Gaza and refugees in Erbil are hunkering down in city parks and Ukrainian babies are being shot by swastika-waving skin-heads, I still gotta have three or four square meals a day.

And all the average American can say about this insane world situation is, “Where the freak is Erbil?”  It’s in northern Iraq, stupid.  “Oh yeah?  So where is Iraq?”  It’s that rat-hole where three trillion of your tax dollars have been pounded down in the last 20 years.  Iraq is the reason you have no jobs, no infrastructure, no schools — and no solar heating.  

“But what’s a Gaza?”  Huh?

“It’s that charnel house in Palestine where Netanyahu practices being a fascist.”

“Who is Netanyahu?”  He’s that guy in Israel that you pay billions of dollars to every year so he can commit genocide.  Oh, good grief.

I need comfort food!  Now!

Forget about genocide and dead babies.  Let’s talk about sushi!  And mac ‘n’ cheese.  What is your favorite food?  I think mine is ice cream.  But I’m not sure.  Chocolate cake sounds good too.  

I once ate a beef stroganoff MRE in the Green Zone.  It was delicious.  And they had deep-fried tarantulas on offer at a roadside stall in Cambodia.  Yummers!  

Got caught in a massive five-day storm off of Antarctica one time and popped Dramamine like it was candy — but still managed to eat. 

Was stuck in Shenyang, China, for three weeks while waiting for my visa to North Korea to come through.  Thirteen million people in that city and only ten of them spoke English.  So I just drew a picture of a chicken and showed it to waiters.  That worked fine until one waiter brought me a live chicken.  Er, no.

And about a year later, when I finally did manage to get into North Korea, it was amazing to discover that Pyongyang featured luxury hotels, casinos, golf courses and elaborate 150,000-person choreographed mass games, all geared toward European tourists — who came in droves.  The food there, however, was on the level of mediocre California Chinese take-out — but I still felt guilty eating it, knowing how many North Koreans had starved to death in the past.

In Uganda, a young girl was selling homemade flour-and-grease chapatis on the street that were so good that I still dream about them.  “What’s a chapati?”  Oh shut up.

The hummus and matzos in Israel/Palestine were great, served under an olive tree in Hebron.  Loved Bethlehem and old Jerusalem — but why do people still keep accusing me of being anti-Semitic when I’m actually only anti-fascist and anti-apartheid?  I just don’t understand.  As Barb Weir is always fond of saying, “How come they never accuse the brave people who fought against apartheid in South Africa of being anti-white?”

On the beach in Yelapa, Mexico, an hour’s boat-ride south of Puerto Vallarta, friendly ladies will sell you lemon meringue pie right there on the beach.  But now you don’t even have to go to Yelapa to get it, you can buy lemon meringue pie right there in Puerto Vallarta.  Definitely worth the flight down if you can afford it — and if you can’t, there’s always the chocolate cream pie at the Sweet Adeline bakeshop here in Berkeley.  

In Motswedi, in northern South Africa, their potato fries are the best.  Just ask for Mma Peter if you go there.  Everyone knows her.  And give her a big hug from me if you do.

In Damascus, the oldest city in the world (I think), they had fabulous ice cream for sale in the souk.  That’s ICE cream, not ISIS cream.  If it had been ISIS cream, I wouldn’t have had to pay for it myself — Congress woulda footed the bill.

In al Anbar province, Iraq, I accompanied a U.S. Marine colonel and his staff to a “goat pull” thrown by the local sheik.  You gotta love goat meat.  But now that whole area is overrun by ISIS thugs, thanks to Bush, Obama and Hillary Clinton and their grand competition to see who can destabilize the Middle East best.

At a sidewalk cafe in Cairo, a waiter jokingly offered me 200 camels for my daughter Ashley’s hand in marriage.  At least I think he was joking.  And in the Caliphate of Saudi Arabia, biological mother to ISIS and Al Qaeda (America’s military-industrial complex is the father, but insists on keeping that fact on the down-low), I lived on KFC and Cinnabons at a high-end mall in Mecca.

In Haiti, you just gotta love their pumpkin soup.  In Afghanistan, their chicken kebobs were the best — unlike in Iran, where the kebobs tended to be rather dry.  Burma offered up excellent hand-made noodles.  Argentina had empanadas and beef.  Berkeley has the Berkeley Bowl, best produce store in the world.

I love food!  I love to eat!

So why do I keep thinking about all those poor starving children in Gaza and those poor slaughtered babies in Syria and Ukraine — thanks to the Yankee dollar?

What Did The White House Know?

Did Obama Know that ISIS Planned to Invade Iraq?

“I think we have to understand first how we got here. We have been arming ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) in Syria.  ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot, has been collaborating with the Syrian rebels whom the Obama administration has been arming in their efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”  – Senator Rand Paul, Interview CNN 

Today’s head-scratcher: How could a two-mile long column of jihadi-filled white Toyota Land rovers barrel across the Syrian border into Iraq–sending plumes of dust up into the atmosphere –without US spy satellites detecting their whereabouts when those same satellites can read a damn license plate from outer space? And why has the media failed to inquire about this massive Intelligence failure?

Barack Obama is a big proponent of “inclusive democracy” which is why he wants Iraqi prime minister Nouri al Maliki to either include more Sunnis in the government or resign as PM. In an interview with CNN, Obama said, “We gave Iraq the chance to have an inclusive democracy, to work across sectarian lines to provide a better future for their children and unfortunately what we’ve seen is a breakdown of trust…There’s no doubt that there has been a suspicion for quite some time now amongst Sunnis that they have no access to using the political process to deal with their grievances, and that is in part the reason why a better-armed and larger number of Iraqi security forces melted away when an extremist group, Isis, started rolling through the western portions of Iraq.

“Part of the task now is to see whether Iraqi leaders are prepared to rise above sectarian motivations, come together, and compromise. If they can’t there’s not going to be a military solution to this problem … There’s no amount of American firepower that’s going to be able to hold the country together and I’ve made that very clear to Mr Maliki and all the other leadership inside of Iraq (that) they don’t have a lot of time.” (New York Times)

Anyone who thinks Obama  gives a rip about sectarian problems in Iraq needs his head examined. That’s the lamest excuse for a policy position since the Bush administration announced they were sending troops to Afghanistan to “liberate” women from having to wear headscarves.  If Obama was serious about “inclusive democracy” as he calls it, then he’d withhold the $1.3 billion from his new dictator buddy, Generalissimo al Sisi of Egypt who toppled the democratically-elected government in Cairo, installed himself as top-dog in conspicuously rigged elections, and is now planning to execute 200-plus Egyptians for being members of a party that was legal just a few months ago.   Do you think Obama is pestering al-Sisi to be “more inclusive”?  No way. He doesn’t care how many people are executed in Egypt, anymore than he cares whether al Maliki blocks Sunnis from a spot in the government. What matters to Obama and his deep-state puppetmasters is regime change, that is, getting rid of a nuisance who hasn’t followed Washington’s directives. That’s what this is all about. Obama and Co. want to give al Maliki the old heave-ho because he refused to let US troops stay in Iraq past the 2012 deadline and because he’s too close to Tehran. Two strikes and you’re out, at least that’s how Washington plays the game.

So Maliki has got to go, and all the hoopla over sectarian issues is just pabulum for the News Hour. It means nothing. The real goal is regime change. That, and the partitioning of Iraq. In fact, the de facto partitioning of Iraq has already taken place. The Sunnis have basically seized the part of the country where they plan to live. The Kurds have nailed down their own territory, and the Shia will get Baghdad and the rest, including Basra. So, the division of Iraq has already a done deal, just as long as al Maliki doesn’t  gum up the works by deploying his army to retake the parts of the country that are now occupied by ISIS. But the Obama team probably won’t allow that to happen, mainly because the bigshots in Washington like things the way they are now. They want an Iraq that is broken into smaller chunks and ruled by tribal leaders and warlords. That’s what this is all about, splitting up the country along the lines that were laid out in an Israeli plan authored by Oded Yinon 30 years ago.  That plan has already been implemented which means Iraq, as we traditionally think of it, no longer exists. It’s kaput. Obama and Co. made sure of that.  They weren’t satisfied with just killing a million Iraqis, polluting the environment, poisoning the water, destroying the schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, and leaving them to scrape by on meager rations, foul water and a tattered electrical grid. They had to come back and annihilate the state itself, erase the lines on the map,  and remove any trace of a nation that was once a prosperous Middle East hub. Now the country is gone, vanished overnight. Poof. Now you see it, now you don’t.

Of course, al Maliki could try to reverse the situation, but he’s got his own problems to deal with. It’s going to be hard enough for him just to hold onto power, let alone launch a sustained attack on a disparate band of cutthroats who are bent on wreaking havoc on oil wells, critical infrastructure, pipelines, reservoirs, etc as well as killing as many infidels as humanly possible. No matter how you cut it, al Maliki is going to have his hands full.  Obama has already made it plain, that he’s gunning for him and won’t rest until he’s gone. In fact, Secretary of State John Kerry is in the Middle East right now trying to drum up support for the “Dump Maliki” campaign. His first stopover was Cairo. Here’s a wrap-up form the Sunday Times:

“Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Cairo on Sunday morning on the first leg of a trip that is intended to hasten the formation of a cross-sectarian government in Iraq. In his swing through Middle East capitals, Mr. Kerry plans to send two messages on Iraq. One is that Arab states should use their influence with Iraqi politicians and prod them to quickly form an inclusive government. Another is that they should crack down on funding to the Sunni militants in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The group is largely self-sustaining because of success in extortion and its plundering of banks in Mosul, Iraq. But some funding “has flowed into Iraq from its neighbors,” said a senior official on Mr. Kerry’s plane.” (Kerry Arrives in Cairo on Trip to Push for New Iraqi Government, New York Times)

How’s that for priorities? First we get rid of al Maliki, says Kerry, then we move on to less important matters, like that  horde of jihadi desperados who are descending on Baghdad like a swarm of locusts. Doesn’t that seem a little backasswards to you, dear reader?

And why isn’t Obama worried about a jihadi attack on Baghdad?   Think of it: If they did attack Baghdad and the capital fell into jihadi hands, then what? Well, then the Dems would take the blame, they’d get their butts whooped in the upcoming midterms, and Madame Hillary would have to take up needlepoint because her chances of winning the 2014 presidential balloting would drop to zero.  So, the fallout would be quite grave. Still, Obama’s not sweating it, in fact, he’s not the least bit worried. Why?

Could it be that he knows something that we don’t know?  Could it be that US Intel agents have already made contact with these yahoos and gotten a commitment that they won’t attack Baghdad if they are allowed to remain in the predominantly Sunni areas which they already occupy? Is that it? Did Obama offer the Baathists and Takfiris a quid pro quo which they graciously accepted?

It’s very likely, mainly because it achieves Obama’s strategic objective of establishing a de facto partition that will remain in effect unless al Maliki can whip up an army to retake lost ground which looks doubtful at this point.

But, here’s the glitch;  al Maliki is not a quitter, and he’s not going anywhere. In fact he’s digging in his heels. He’s not going to be blackmailed by the likes of Obama. He’s going to this fight tooth and nail. And he’s going to have help too, because young Shia males are flocking to the recruiting offices to join the army and the militias. And then there’s Russia; in a surprise announcement  Russian president Vladimir Putin offered to assist al Maliki in the fight against the terrorists, a move that is bound to enrage Washington. Here’s a clip from the Daily Star:

“Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday offered Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Moscow’s total backing for the fight against jihadist fighters who have swept across the Middle East country.

“Putin confirmed Russia’s complete support for the efforts of the Iraqi government to speedily liberate the territory of the republic from terrorists,” the Kremlin said in a statement following a phone call between the two leaders…
Russia is one of the staunchest allies of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad and has helped prop up his regime during three years of fighting against a hotchpotch of rebel groups, including the ISIL.”  ( Putin offers Iraq’s Maliki ‘complete support’ against jihadists, Daily Star)

That makes a third front in which Russia and the US will be on opposite sides. It’s just like the good old days, right?  Putin seems to be resigned to the idea that Moscow and Washington are going to be at loggerheads in the future. He’s not only opposed to a “unitary world order”, he’s doing something about it, putting himself and his country’s future at risk in order to stop the empire’s relentless expansion and vicious wars of aggression.  Needless to say, proxy wars like this can lead to rapid escalation which is always a concern when both parties have nuclear weapons at their disposal.  Now check this out from the Oil Price website:

“Here’s why the threat goes beyond Iraq and Syria…Modern Syria is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan and Israel to the south and Lebanon to the west.

‘Greater Syria’ incorporates most of the territories of each.

This is what ‘Syria’ means in the mind of Middle Easterners, says Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and author of the respected blog SyriaComment.com

‘If we can teach people that so many Arabs still think of Syria as Greater Syria, they will begin to understand the extent to which Sykes-Picot remains challenged in the region,’ said Landis.

Sykes-Picot, of course refers to the secret agreement drawn up by two British and French diplomats — Sir Mark Sykes and Francois George-Picot — at the end of Word War I dividing the spoils of the Ottoman Empires between Britain and France by drawing straight lines in the sand.

To this day, many Arabs refuse to accept that division and think of ‘Syria’ as ‘Greater Syria.’ Some go so far as to include the Arab countries of North Africa – which from the Nile to the Euphrates forms ‘the Fertile Crescent,’ the symbol of many Muslim countries from Tunisia to Turkey. And some even go as far as including the island of Cyprus, saying it represents the star next to the crescent.

Given that, anyone who thinks ISIS will stop with Iraq is delusional.”  (Insiders reveal real US aims in redrawing map of ME: Greater Syria, oil price)

Interesting, eh? So, if Mr. Landis is right, then the fracas in Iraq and Syria might just be the tip of the iceberg. It could be that Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh –who we think are the driving force behind this current wave of violence–have a much more ambitious plan in mind for the future. If this new method of effecting regime change succeeds,  then the sky’s the limit. Maybe they’ll try the same stunt in other countries too, like Turkey, Tunisia, Cyprus, and all the way to North Africa. Why not? If the game plan is to Balkanize Arab countries wholesale and transform them into powerless fiefdoms overseen by US proconsuls and local warlords, why not go on a regime change spree?

By the way, according to the Telegraph, Obama and friends knew what ISIS was up to, and knew that the terrorist group was going to launch attacks on cities in the Sunni territories, just as they have. Get a load of this:

“Five months ago, a Kurdish intelligence “asset” walked into a base and said he had information to hand over. The capture by jihadists the month before of two Sunni cities in western Iraq was just the beginning, he said.
There would soon be a major onslaught on Sunni territories.

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), a renegade offshoot of al-Qaeda, was about to take its well-known cooperation with leftovers of the regime of Saddam Hussein,  and his former deputy Izzat al-Douri, to a new level.

His handlers knew their source of old, and he had always proved reliable, officials told The Telegraph. So they listened carefully as he said a formal alliance was about to be signed that would lead to the takeover of Mosul, the biggest city north of Baghdad, home to two million people. …

‘We had this information then, and we passed it on to your (British) government and the US government,’ Rooz Bahjat, a senior lieutenant to Lahur Talabani, head of Kurdish intelligence, said. ‘We used our official liaisons.’

‘We knew exactly what strategy they were going to use, we knew the military planners. It fell on deaf ears.’  (How US and Britain were warned of Isis advance in Iraq but ‘turned a deaf ear, Telegraph)

“Deaf ears”?

I’m not buying it. I think the intelligence went straight to the top, where Obama and his neocon colleagues came up with the plan that is unfolding as we speak. They figured, if they just look the other way and let these homicidal madhatters seize a few cities and raise a little Hell, they’d be able to kill two birds with one stone, that is,  get rid of al Mailiki and partition the country at the same time. But, it’s not going to work out like Obama expects, mainly because this is just about the dumbest plan ever conjured up. I would give it an 80 percent chance blowing up in Obama’s face in less than a month’s time. This turkey has failure written all over it.

As for the sectarian issue, well, Iraq was never a sectarian society until the war.  The problems arose due to a deliberate policy to pit one sect against the other in order to change the narrative of what was really going on the ground. And what was really going on was a very successful guerilla war was being waged by opponents of the US occupation who were launching in excess of 100 attacks per day on US soldiers. To change the storyline–which was causing all kinds of problems at home where support for the war was rapidly eroding–US counterinsurgency masterminds concocted a goofy plan to blow up the Golden Dome Mosque, blame it on the Sunnis, and then unleash the most savage, genocidal counterinsurgency operation of all-time. The western media were instructed to characterize developments in Iraq as part of a bloody civil war between Shia and Sunnis. But it was all a lie. The bloodletting was inevitable result of US policy which the Guardian effectively chronicled in a shocking, but indispensable hour-long video which can be seen here. James Steele: America’s mystery man in Iraq – video

The US made every effort to fuel sectarian animosities to divert attention from the attacks on US soldiers. And due to a savage and deceptive counterinsurgency plan that employed death squads, torture, assassinations, and massive ethnic cleansing,  they succeeded in confusing Iraqis as to who was really behind the daily atrocities, the human rights violations and the mountain of carnage.

You’d have to be a fool to blame al-Maliki for any of this. As brutal as he may be, he’s not responsible for the divisions in Iraqi society. That’s all Washington’s doing.  Just as Washington is entirely responsible for the current condition of the country and for the million or so people who were killed in the war.

Obama’s West Point Address

President Barack Obama’s commencement address at West Point on May 28 managed to displease pretty much everyone in the nation’s commentariat. Before making an overall assessment of its significance, it is necessary to examine the validity and implications of Obama’s individual statements.

“[B]y most measures America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. Those who argue otherwise – who suggest that America is in decline or has seen its global leadership slip away – are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics.”

This key assertion, made at the beginning of the President’s address, does not stand to empirical scrutiny. In economic terms, America was far stronger vis-à-vis the rest of the world in 1945 than she is today. In more recent times, U.S. share of world GDP peaked in 1985 with just under 33 percent of global GDP (nominal). Between 2004 and 2014, United States’ share of global gross domestic product (GDP) adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) has fallen from 22.5 percent to 18.5 percent, and it is expected to continue falling. By the end of this year China will overtake the United States in gross domestic product, which had originally been projected to happen by the end of this decade. Analysts concede will gradually shift the ability to confer advantages or disadvantages on other countries – in other words, power – in China’s favor.

In military terms, while America enjoyed the nuclear monopoly in 1945-49, her period of undisputed unipolar dominance was between 1991 (the collapse of the USSR) and 2008 (Russia’s counterattack in South Ossetia). Although the Pentagon budget will drop from $600 billion this year to $500 billion in 2015, it will continue to account for over a third of the global total. The unsatisfactory outcomes in Iraq and Afghanistan and dented America’s image of military invincibility. As the Economist commented on May 3, “The yawning gap between Uncle Sam and his potential foes seems bound to shrink.” The prevailing view among most critical analysts is that over the past decade the U.S. has suffered military reverses, and now faces severe global competition.

As for the “global leadership,” it is unclear what exactly Obama had in mind. Russia and China are creating a powerful Eurasian counterweight to what they rightly perceive as Washington’s continuing bid for the global hegemony. India’s new prime minister is a potential partner at best, and certainly loath to acknowledge America’s “leadership.”  In the Islamic world, Obama’s attempts at appeasement – which started with the Cairo speech in 2009 – have not worked: The U.S. is now even more unpopular in the Muslim world than it was under George W. Bush. America is heartily disliked even in Turkey and Jordan, presumably our allies, not least because of the continuing drone strikes. American influence in Latin America is weaker now than at any time since Theodore Roosevelt, as manifested in the unanimous rejection of Washington’s efforts to effect a regime change in Venezuela. Members of the American elite class are . The NSA global spying network has infuriated even some otherwise reliable American friends in Western Europe. Most “Old Europeans” are remarkably resistant to U.S. pressure to agree to serious sanctions against Russia.

On balance it appears that Barack Obama is the one misreading history and engaging in partisan politics.

“Meanwhile, our economy remains the most dynamic on Earth, our businesses the most innovative.”

In reality, by most value-neutral parameters the American economy is chronically weak and insolvent:

• Far from growing, the economy contracted in the first three months of this year at the annualized rate of one per cent, and it is unclear where future growth would come from. Gross domestic income is also falling sharply, for the first time in years.
• There are fewer workers, they are less efficient than a decade ago, and new employment is mostly in low-paying part-time jobs. Labor force participation (the percentage of Americans at work) is low, at levels not seen since the stagnant economy of the 1970s. One-fifth of 80 million American families do not have a single employed member.
• Government dependence has reached epidemic levels: the number of Americans getting money or benefits from the federal government exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million. Welfare spending and entitlement payments account for 69 percent of the federal budget.
• One-third of all American households are living hand-to-mouth, one paycheck from poverty. The median annual income is 7.5 percent lower than in January 2008.
• The inflation-adjusted S&P500 is back to where it was in 2007. The single biggest buyer of stocks are the companies of the S&P500 itself. At $4 trillion, stock buybacks account for one-fifth of the total stock market value. The biggest buyback in market history added zero productive value to the companies concerned.
• The mountain of debt is nearing $17.5 trillion. The drivers of growing deficits and debt in the future are unfunded entitlement programs that are designed to transfer resources from working people to retirees. When the government pension and health care commitments which are missing from official budget figures are accounted for, the total national debt is nearly $95 trillion, more than seven times the published figure.
• The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency is almost over. Russia and China have joined forces in “de-dollarization” of their mutual transactions and are looking for a more productive and safe use for their monetary reserves. Their recent gas deal is the beginning of the end for the petrodollar. Eventually Washington will have to choose between an outright default and hyperinflation, and the rest of the world is waking up to that fact.

Some “dynamism,” some “innovation”…

“America continues to attract striving immigrants.”

Obama’s statement is correct. It does not illustrate America’s alleged strength as was his intent, however; it underscores this country’s major weakness. Illegal immigration is spiraling out of control, the Border Patrol is overwhelmed. If the influx continues at current high levels, the U.S. population will increase to almost half a billion in 2060 – more than a 50 percent increase. New immigrants – mostly from the Third World, unskilled, uneducated, and a net drain on American resources – and their descendants will account for over one hundred million of that increase. On current form, English-speaking Americans of European origin will become a minority in their own country four decades from now. They will inhabit an increasingly overpopulated, polluted, lumpenproleterized, permanently impoverished country. America unfortunately does continue “to attract striving immigrants,” mostly illegal ones and of poor quality. This is far greater threat to the survival of the United States in a historically or culturally recognizable form than terrorism or any conceivable alliance of foreign powers. Barack Obama does not understand this, or does not care, or – just as likely – cherishes the prospect.

“The values of our founding inspire leaders in parliaments and new movements in public squares around the globe.”

By “public squares” Obama was probably alluding to Kiev’s Maidan. Indeed, it has propelled some “new movements” to global prominence, such as the Svoboda party and the Right Sector. The Founding Fathers would be horrified to learn that, in the opinion of the President of the United States, their values have inspired Messrs. Tyahnybok, Yarosh, and other blood-soaked heirs to Stepan Bandera. This is on par with Senator Joseph Lieberman saying, “The United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.”

“And when a typhoon hits the Philippines, or schoolgirls are kidnapped in Nigeria, or masked men occupy a building in Ukraine, it is America that the world looks to for help.”

Obama is mixing apples (natural disasters) and pears (man-made ones). The problem of Islamic terrorism in Nigeria was exacerbated by the refusal of the Department of State under Hillary Clinton to place Boko Haram (“Secular Education is Sinful”) on the list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2011, despite the urging of the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and over a dozen Senators and Congressmen. The de facto protection thus given to Boko Haram has enabled it to morph into a state-within-the-state with an estimated 300,000 followers.

It would be ironic if “the world” were to look to America for help in Ukraine (which in any event it does not), since the course of crisis there has been, overwhelmingly, of Washington’s own making, as manifested in Victoria Nuland’s famous phone call to Ambassador Pyatt. The new Drang nach Ostenmakes sense from the point of view of the liberal globalist-neoconservative duopoly: there is no better way to ensure U.S. dominance along the European rimland in perpetuity than drawing Europe back into NATO (i.e. U.S.) security orbit in general and subverting the Russo-German rapprochement in particular. The “masked men” in buildings are a direct consequence of American meddling.

“So the United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century past, and it will be true for the century to come.”

It has never been true, it is not true now, and it never will be true. Madeleine Albright’s famous dictum was an arrogant statement by an immigrant ignorant of American history and a sign of her well-attested instability. It was reiterated in Bill Clinton’s 1996 speech, where he explained why he intervened, disastrously, in Bosnia: “The fact is America remains the indispensable nation. There are times when America, and only America, can make a difference between war and peace, between freedom and repression, between hope and fear.” That Obama has chosen to recycle such rubbish is a sign of intellectual and moral bankruptcy. “Indispensable” to whom, exactly? It is unimaginable for the leader of any other country in the world – Vladimir Putin, say, or Xi Jinping – to advance such a claim. It is tasteless at best and psychotically grandomaniac at worst, a latter day “Manifest Destiny” on steroids. The problem is that such hubristic delusions easily translate into non-negotiable foreign policy objectives. Resisting the will of the “indispensable nation” is ipso facto evil: Susan Rice’s condemnation of Chinese and Russian vetoes of the U.S.-supported UN Security Council resolution on Syria as “disgusting,” “shameful” and “unforgivable” comes to mind.

“Russia’s aggression towards former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors.”

Quite apart from the genesis of the crisis in Ukraine, to which “Russia’s aggression” hardly applies, Obama’s use of the term “former Soviet states,” plural, implies that in his opinion Ukraine is not the only “victim of Russia’s aggression.” Presumably he means Georgia, the only “former Soviet state” with which Russia has had a conflict since the collapse of the Soviet Union. If so, and there is no other explanation for his turn of his phrase, Obama has a dangerously flawed understanding of the August 2008 Georgian crisis.

Georgian then-President Mikheil Saakashvili’s order to attack South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali, was a breathtakingly audacious challenge to Russia, to which she was bound to react forcefully. That response was promptly exploited, for the first time since Gorbachev, by the American mainstream media machine and the foreign-policy community in Washington to paint Russia as a rogue power that is not only dangerous but intrinsically malignant. The vehemence of that rhetoric exceeded anything ever said or written about jihad, before or after September 11. To be fair, Saakashvili was led to believe that he was tacitly authorized to act as he did. President George W. Bush had treated Georgia as a “strategic partner” ever since the Western-engineered “Rose Revolution” five years earlier, and in early 2008 he strongly advocated NATO membership for Georgia. Washington had repeatedly supported Georgia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” which implied the right to use force to bring South Ossetia and Abkhazia to heel, just as it is supporting “resolute action” in Donetsk and Lugansk today. Saakashvili may be forgiven for imagining that the United States would have bailed him out if things went badly. It is noteworthy that he was not disabused of such notions. The calculus in Washington appears to have been based on a win-win scenario, not dissimilar to the current Ukrainian strategy. Had Georgian troops occupied South Ossetia in a blitzkrieg operation modeled after Croatia’s “Operation Storm,” while the Russians remained hesitant or ineffective, Moscow would have suffered a major strategic and (more importantly) psychological defeat after almost four years of sustained strategic recovery. If Russia intervened, however, she would be duly demonized and the U.S. would push for NATO consolidation with new vigor. “Old” Europeans – the Germans especially – would be pressed to abandon their détente with Moscow. A resentful Georgia would become chronically anti-Russian, thus ensuring a long-term American presence in the region.

In the event, like the Ukrainian army today, the Georgian army performed so poorly that a military fait accompli was out of its reach. Excesses against Ossetian civilians – just like the shelling of schools in Slavyansk today – made the “victim of aggression” narrative hard to sell, Obama’s “aggression” rhetoric notwithstanding.

“The question we face… is not whether America will lead but how we will lead, not just to secure our peace and prosperity but also extend peace and prosperity around the globe.”

It is unclear how, if at all, America will secure her own “peace and prosperity” in the years and decades to come, let alone how she can extend it “around the globe.” If this is a statement of Obama’s grand strategy, it is flawed in principle and unfeasible in detail. In this statement there is not a hint of an overall blueprint for action that matches our country’s resources to her vital interests. A sound grand strategy enables a state to deploy its political, military, economic, and moral resources in a balanced and proportionate manner, in order to protect and enhance its security and promote its well-being, never mind “the globe.” In Obama’s universe, however, there are no brains behind “indispensable,” heavy-handed diplomacy and military power. Obama creates a false dilemma (“the question we face”) unsupported by facts. China, India, Russia, the Muslim world and Latin America do not want to be “led,” quite the contrary. Old Europe is reluctant at best. Subsaharan Africa is an irrelevant mess. The question we face is not global leadership, but national survival.

“Regional aggression that goes unchecked, whether in southern Ukraine or the South China Sea or anywhere else in the world, will ultimately impact our allies, and could draw in our military. We can’t ignore what happens beyond our boundaries.”

This simultaneous dig at Russia and China reflects a hubristic world view that is unmatched by conflict-management resources. A sane American relationship with Moscow demands acceptance that Russia has legitimate interests in her “near-abroad.” Obama’ four-nation tour of East Asia last Aprilescalated existing U.S. military commitments to the region, created some new ones, deeply irritated China, and emboldened American allies and clients to play hardball with Beijing. Obama does not understand that it is extremely dangerous for a great power to alienate two of its nearest rivals simultaneously. The crisis in Ukraine is going on, but the situation in Asia is potentially more volatile. Dealing with both theaters from the position of presumed strength and trying to dictate the outcomes is perilous, as many would-be hegemons (Philip II, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, Hitler), blinded by arrogance, have learned to their peril. Obama has continued the hegemonist habit of instigating crises at different spots around the world, even though the resources are scarce and the strategy is fundamentally faulty. An overtly anti-U.S. alliance between Russia and China is now in the making. U.S. overreach led to the emergence of a de facto alliance in the Eurasian Heartland, embodied in the gas deal signed in Shanghai. Russia and China are not natural allies and they may have divergent long-term interests, especially in Central Asia, but they are on the same page when it comes to resisting U.S. hegemony, pardon, “leadership.” In the early 1970’s Dr. Henry Kissinger wisely understood the benefits of an opening to Beijing as a means of pressuring Moscow on the Cold War’s central front. Back then the USSR was far more powerful than the People’s Republic. Today, by contrast, China is much more economically and demographically powerful than Russia, and for the United States the optimal strategy would dictate being on good terms with the weaker party in the triangle. America does not have a policymaker of Kissinger’s stature today, who would understand the potential of a long-term understanding with Moscow as a tool of curtailing Chinese ambitions along the Pacific Rim.

“America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will. The military that you have joined is, and always will be, the backbone of that leadership.”

The notion that “the world stage” demands a “leader” is flawed. It is at fundamental odds with the balance-of-power paradigm, which has historically secured the longest periods of peace and unprecedented prosperity to the civilized world. Today’s world is being multipolarized, whether Obama the Exceptionalist likes that or not. The very idea of the self-awarded “world leadership” would appear absurd in the days of Bismarck or Metternich. Washington has neither the resources nor the minds for such a role, even if it were called for.

“The United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it — when our people are threatened; when our livelihoods are at stake; when the security of our allies is in danger.”

None of the above applied in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya… but enough of Obama. There was more rhetoric at West Point, including an ode to American exceptionalism and further references to America’s global leadership, but it just as tedious, vacuous and intellectually wanting as the first ten minutes of his address.

Overall, it is evident that the United States in Barack Obama’s final term has not given up the hegemonist habit of instigating crises at different spots around the world, even though the management resources are scarce and the strategy is fundamentally faulty. An overtly anti-U.S. alliance between Russia and China is now in the making. It will be a belated equivalent of the Franco-Russian alliance of 1893 – the predictable result of an earlier great power, Wilhelm’s Kaiserreich, basing its strategy on hubristic overestimation of its capabilities. U.S. overreach has led to the emergence of a de facto alliance in the Eurasian Heartland, embodied in last month’s energy agreement signed in Shanghai. Russia and China are not natural allies and they may have divergent long-term interests, especially in Central Asia, but they are on the same page when it comes to resisting U.S. hegemony.

In the early 1970’s Dr. Henry Kissinger wisely understood the benefits of an opening to Beijing as a means of pressuring Moscow on the Cold War’s central front. Back then the USSR was far more powerful than the People’s Republic. Today, by contrast, China is much more economically and demographically powerful than Russia, and for the United States the optimal strategy would dictate being on good terms with the weaker party in the triangle. It is unfortunate that America does not have a policymaker of Kissinger’s stature today, who would understand the potential of a long-term understanding with Moscow as a tool of curtailing Chinese ambitions along the Pacific Rim.

Judging by the West Point address, for the remaining two and a half years of Obama’s term U.S.-initiated global confrontations will continue as before. Instead of de-escalating the bloody mess to which she has made a hefty contribution, Victoria Nuland will continue encouraging her blood-soaked protégés in Kiev to seek a military end-game in the East. Instead of calming the South China Sea, Washington will continue encouraging its clients to be impertinent. And Putin and Xi will draw their conclusions: that they do have a powerful common enemy, a rogue regime not amenable to reason or rational calculus.

It cannot be otherwise, considering the Obama Administration’s 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, which is but a rehash of the strategic assumptions of the Bush era. In Obama’s words from two years ago, our “enduring national interest” is to maintain the unparalleled U.S. military superiority, “ready for the full range of contingencies and threats” amid “a complex and growing array of security challenges across the globe.” The Guidance itself asserts that the task of the United States is to “confront and defeat aggression anywhere in the world.” This is not a grand strategy but a blueprint for disaster—especially when combined with the interventionists’ urge to “confront and defeat” not only aggression as such but also “aggression” resulting from  internal conflicts irrelevant to the American interest (Syria, Ukraine) and putative threats to regional stability (Iran).

Obama is a more reluctant interventionist than McCain or Romney would have been, but he, too, does not recognize the limits of American power and does not correlate that power with this country’s security and prosperity. He fails to balance military and nonmilitary, short and long-term capabilities. He rejects the fact that the world is becoming multipolar again, while the relative power of the United States is in steady decline. Obama’s absence of a viable grand strategy produces policies that are disjointed, nonsensical, and self-defeating. He is prone, no less than his predecessor, to equate any stated political objective in some faraway land with America’s vital interests, without ever offering a coherent definition of those “vital” interests.

On both sides of the duopoly, the ideology of American exceptionalism and the doctrine of global dominance reign supreme. At a time of domestic economic weakness and cultural decline, foreign policy based on the American interest requires prudence, restraint, and a rational link between ends and means. Abroad, it demands disengagement from distant countries of which we know little; at home, a sane immigration policy.

It will not happen.

Economics of Non-Governmental Organizations

What is the first thing that comes to mind when the term NGO appears? Well, many will respond, the United Nations. Directly from a UN site is their definition for Non-governmental organizations. How uplifting and benign the altruistic effort, the deep-seated purpose and intention of such associations, frequently projects that noble endeavors need to enhance the governance process. The term governance essentially is a loaded political concept that benefits a model of economic activity that requires a managed society as opposed to a free, independent and individualistic economy.

“A non-governmental organization (NGO, also often referred to as “civil society organization” or CSO) is a not-for-profit group, principally independent from government, which is organized on a local, national or international level to address issues in support of the public good. Task-oriented and made up of people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of services and humanitarian functions, bring public concerns to governments, monitor policy and programme implementation, and encourage participation of civil society stakeholders at the community level.

Some conduct research and analysis in the legal and other fields (e.g. sociology, economics) relevant to the rule of law. In many cases, they produce reports with policy recommendations, for use in their advocacy.”

Of course, not all NGO’s fall into an identical pattern. Some can and do provide valuable services. However, exponents of coordinated liaison with civil authority that develops legal eminence for a social vision that defies the basic human nature of inherent autonomy, is dangerous. NGO’s seldom practice real charity, although they excel in social engineering.

Looking at the money trail provides evidence of actual intents. Investopedia explains How do NGOs get funding?

“The annual budget of an NGO can be in the hundreds of millions (or even billions) of dollars, fundraising efforts are important for the NGO’s existence and success. Funding sources include membership dues, the sale of goods and services, private sector for-profit companies, philanthropic foundations, grants from local, state and federal agencies, and private donations.”

That sounds all well and good. Nevertheless, when you get into the weeds on how funding actually works, the touchy feely aspects of raising money have a very different look. One example is the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), funding programs.

“Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are critical change agents in promoting economic growth, human rights and social progress. USAID partners with NGOs to deliver assistance across all regions and sectors in which we work and to promote inclusive economic growth, strengthen health and education at the community level, support civil society in democratic reforms and assist countries recovering from disasters.”

Among the types of NGOs that the Agency partners with are:

1. Cooperative Organizations

2. Foundations

3. Local and Regional Organizations

4. Private Voluntary Organizations

5. U.S. and International Organizations

Government grants presumably for promoting or enacting democratic reforms, discloses an ulterior motive behind the funding. That is natural and understandable in an era of competing political and economic systems. However, with the emergence of a unified New World Order agenda, the practice of doling out government money that undercuts the very existence of national sovereignty has taken a nefarious turn.

The always perceptive, Pat Buchanan weighs in and provides the evidence. US Funding NGOs to Advance New World Order?

“Cairo contends that $65 million in “pro-democracy” funding that IRI, NDI, and Freedom House received for use in Egypt constitutes “illegal foreign funding” to influence their elections. Yet this is not the first time U.S. “pro-democracy” groups have been charged with subverting regimes that fail to toe the Washington line.”

The motive to change political, social and economic relationships goes beyond countries influencing foreign policy objectives. When the likes of Ted Turner, George Soros, Warren Buffet and Bill & Melinda Gates use their foundation funds to back NGO’s that carry out the globalist agenda, private sector multi billionaires become an existential threat to humanity.

Add to this band of bandit brothers, who all have transformational goals, fostered with the wealth they accumulated by practicing crony corporatism, that diminishes our domestic standard of living, with their internationalization sentiments – Jeffrey Walker, Vice Chairman, United Nation’s Secretary General’s Envoy for Health Finance and Malaria, who proposes .

“It’s time for us to turn our attention to building and growing Generosity Networks that link the philanthropic passions of major donors with others who share those passions and are willing to work, collaboratively, to address the major causes of our day.”

Oh, that United Nations record of peaceful philanthropy for universal serfdom has worked so well. The pandemic resolutions for eugenic terminations are often the real intent behind many NGO front organizations.

The economics of world population dictate that market based businesses have no place in a world dominated by transnational monopolies and corporatist cartels. Non-governmental organizations are liberated to advance the “philanthropic passions” of the donors that would normally be suspect if implemented by mega corporations.

Those “so called” generosity networks are used as subsiding endowments for the integration of third world communities into the NWO feudal system of minimal expectations.

That old Peace Corp attitude that was based upon helping others to help themselves is now a mission for global vassal induction. So much for the myth of self-determination, in the land of the rationed and expendable economy, where only the conglomerate matters.

As affluence disparity widens from the mega rich, the former middle class recedes into subsistence level, on a path resembling those that international NGO’s are supposed to help. A true merchant based economy, with broad based business ownership, is the only solution to the controlled slave state.

Actual non-governmental organizations, that provide useful functions, must shed their tax-exempt preferences and government subsidies. Helping individuals with volunteer charity under a viable free enterprise economic model is preferable and necessary.

Breaking up monopoly trusts, eliminates the need for generosity networks, because individuals would be able to earn a livable way of life, independent of government and globalist welfare. Most NGO’s schemes are fronts for NWO causes.

Egypt’s Revolution After The Smoke Clears

Bonapartism…

In times of crisis people strive for easy answers to complex situations. In Egypt this has resulted in absurdly digestible sound bites, where one side is labeled “good”(the Muslim Brotherhood), the other “bad” (the army), and the revolution as a whole is condemned as an atrocity. But the situation in Egypt is especially contradictory, and untying the social-political knots of the revolution requires avoiding pre-packaged catchphrases.

Contrary to the claims of many, reports of the revolution’s death are greatly exaggerated. Those who predict that Egypt will inevitably enter a long period of military dictatorship forget that the Egyptian revolution destroyed such a dictatorship in 2011, and helped topple Morsi’s authoritarian government in July. The people in Egypt have not been cowed into submission, they are still in the streets, unafraid, consciously aware of their power. The Egyptian military is very aware of this fact, as their actions testify.

Although it’s a tragedy that innocent people have been killed, it’s also true that the Muslim Brotherhood represents not the revolution, but its adversary. Especially confusing is that another opponent of the revolution — the military generals — are leading the attack against the Brotherhood, which raises the question: why would one enemy of the revolution be attacking another?

The current, bizarre-seeming situation in Egypt is actually common in the history of revolutions, having started in the modern era with Napoleon Bonaparte, who, during the French Revolution, consolidated his power by aligning with certain social classes against rival sections, and switching allegiances when necessary to offset the power of his former allies, until all political rivals were weakened, allowing him and his army to act as arbitrator and ruler.

This now common feature of revolutions is often referred to as “Bonapartism” in honor of its founder and is a reflection of society in revolutionary upheaval, where different social classes are powerfully asserting themselves, though unable to out-power their adversaries, allowing the military to act as the Bonapartist “arbitrator.”

Bonapartism is also a sign of the political weakness of the military, which is not able to rule without aligning with certain segments of the population (this is why the Egyptian generals recently asked for mobilizations to signal “permission” to put down the Brotherhood’s civil disobedience actions, essentially using Egypt’s political left against the political right).

Bonapartism has been practiced by military dictatorships since Napoleon. In fact, Egypt’s popular military President Gamal Abdul Nasser — who instituted many progressive measures in Egypt — was himself a classic Bonapartist, though one who uncharacteristically leaned left.

For example, after surviving an assassination attempt from the Muslim Brotherhood, Nasser used the military to destroy the Brotherhood, while enjoying support from the political left in Egypt due to his progressive policies. After dealing with the Brotherhood, Nasser consolidated his power against the growing revolutionary left, by attacking both the communist party and trade unions. This political balancing act between political left and right is the hallmark of Bonapartism.

Nasser’s successor, Sadat, also used a Bonapartist strategy when he invited the Muslim Brotherhood back into Egypt to use as a right wing political battering ram against the Egyptian left. Sadat needed the Brotherhood as a political prop to help him reverse the progressive policies implemented under Nasser.

Mubarak, too, used the Brotherhood in this fashion, for the same reasons as Sadat. It’s true that both Mubarak and Sadat used aggressive measures against the Brotherhood at times, but they both allowed the group greater freedom for political organization than any other group, since the Brotherhood was a politically perfect compliment to the president’s right-wing, neo-liberal policies.

This pro-Brotherhood favoritism led to the situation where, after the fall of Mubarak, the Brotherhood was virtually the only organized political force in Egypt. After being dragged into the revolution kicking and screaming by their youth wing, the Brotherhood then opportunistically took power, while sharing none of the goals or vision of the revolutionaries.

One common way that commentators have been confusing the situation in Egypt is by portraying the Muslim Brotherhood as Ghandian revolutionaries striving to restore democracy. But in the same breath these analysts say, correctly, “God forbid” if the Brotherhood is allowed to implement their vision of a fundamentalist Islamic State in Egypt, since doing so would automatically reduce the liberties of women, non-fundamentalist Muslims, and religious minorities.

Yet another common mistake in assessing Egypt is to portray the conflict as secularists against Muslims. The Muslim Brotherhood does not have a monopoly over Islam in Egypt. Out of the millions of people who demanded the ouster of Morsi on June 30th, the vast majority of them were Muslims of the Sunni variety, just like the Muslim Brotherhood. But the Brotherhood’s fundamentalist version of Sunni Islam remains a minority opinion among Egypt’s Sunni majority.

A further flaw in analyzing current events in Egypt lies in forgetting how the situation developed, which requires that we delve into the not-too-distant past of June 30th, when millions of Egyptians demanded the departure of then-President Morsi. These massive demonstrations were obviously at least as large as the ones that toppled Mubarak, yet the Muslim Brotherhood failed to get the message, and have attempted to use militant civil disobedience in order to reinstate the unquestionably unpopular Morsi.

The military moved against the Brotherhood because they believed, correctly, that the majority of the population was behind them and against the Brotherhood, as evidenced by the much larger demonstrations that responded to the call of the military, not to mention mountains of other evidence documenting that opinion in working class Cairo neighborhoods has turned against the Muslim Brotherhood.

And although there are many who simply dismiss the June 30th demonstration of millions as a “conspiracy,” it’s impossible to force people to attend demonstrations with one united demand, “Morsi must go,” if they don’t want to be there. Many “pro-conspiracy” analysts simply seem not to understand the profound political significance of demonstrations of that size, as if they’re somehow common and not symptoms of a powerful revolution.

It’s true that the Egyptian generals — not to mention plotting foreign countries — are trying to implement their own agenda throughout the crisis, which always entails some conspiratorial maneuvering, but the demands of June 30th made it very clear where Egyptians stand on the issue: they spoke with their own voice.

Although the majority of Egyptians are now anti-Muslim Brotherhood, the military’s recent actions create new problems for Egypt’s revolutionaries. The power of the Brotherhood will be shattered, but the power of the military will be enhanced. To prevent the generals from abusing their power against the Egyptian working class, revolutionaries need to quickly plan a way to protect themselves while furthering the demands of the revolution.

Because the Egyptian left remains insufficiently organized, they must utilize the political strategy of the United Front, which unites broad sections of the population behind a limited number of popular demands. By doing this, the military generals will be powerless in the face of a united mass movement that is putting forth a positive program, as opposed to the current dynamic that is united around what Egyptians reject. A united front mass movement will win the hearts and minds of the rank-and-file Egyptian soldier, while also preventing the Brotherhood’s fundamentalism from gaining a fresh batch of recruits.

In Egypt the most immediate needs of the population — bread, jobs, social services, etc. — are the demands that continue to fuel the revolution and be the most uniting. If the political left put forth a plan using revolutionary methods to achieve these demands — reversing the privatizations, raising the tax rates on the wealthy, public works for employment, etc. — then the broader Egyptian working class would rally to achieve these goals, some of which were realized under President Nasser and reversed by Sadat and Mubarak.

The Egyptian revolution does not have years to solve these problems; the economy of Egypt is facing catastrophe, and drastic action must be taken immediately. This is one of the reasons Morsi was ejected from power: he thought he could continue the Mubarak attitude of doing nothing substantial for the majority of the population, half of which lives in abject poverty and the other half scrambling madly to avoid such a fate.

The higher expectations and new hopes inspired by the revolution must be accompanied by bold revolutionary actions capable of achieving these new expectations. Politics as usual is a thing of the past in Egypt. The revolution can avoid the fate of entrenched Bonapartism only if it is unequivocally aimed at addressing the pressing basic economic needs of the vast majority of the Egyptian population.

The Brotherhood’s Just Deserts

The really important news from Egypt is not the “martyrdom” of some hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and underage human shields set up for sacrifice by their leaders. It is not the brutality of the security forces fighting the emergence of a Khalifate within the state. It is the targeting of dozens of Christian churches, institutions and individuals all over Egypt by the MB, instigated by the leaders and eagerly carried out by the rank-and-file.

The Brotherhood has finally shown its terrorist character (a host of Western news editors excusing and implicitly justifying its acts as “reprisal attacks” notwithstanding). Attacking the helpless infidel has always been the essence of the MB’s scriptural sources of inspiration, the record of its predecessors through history, and the practice of its contemporary peers. As assorted jihadists fight Assad in Syria, the Christians suffer the most by far proportionate to their numbers. In Libya there were no Christians left after Gaddafy’s fall, so several Allied war cemeteries were vandalized. In Iraq, Saddam’s pious Shiite successors and their Sunni foes have effectively destroyed the two-million-strong Christian community, one of the oldest in the world.

At least the “Bulgarian Massacres” of 1878 and the Turkish genocide of a million-plus Armenians in 1915 and thereafter had a grim logic to it, following the Russian victories at Plevna and in the Caucasus respectively. The logic of the Brotherhood’s assault on Egypt’s Christians is to be found in chapter 9, verse 5, of the Kuran and in the example set by Muhammad and his early successors, the four “rightly guided” khalifs. That logic outweighs the pragmatic need not to dissipate forces and not to lose foreign support—not that the West cares. Had a Christian mob put to torch fifty-plus mosques and Islamic centers in Russia, say, that would have been the MSM lead story for days and weeks, never mind the dead. But the persecution, violence and bloodshed that is the daily lot of Christians in most majority-Muslim countries is under-reported or else grotesquely misrepresented.

As Wael Nawara, a former fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, pointed out in an excellent article last Wednesday, the question is not “Why was it so necessary to clear the sit-ins fully knowing that the blood toll was to be high,” but rather, “If it’s not too important, why did the Muslim Brothers’ react by setting the whole country on fire?” For six weeks, Nawara explains, the Rabia al-Adawiya encampment gradually expanded its borders, creeping to claim mile after mile of neighboring streets, including the highway which connects much of Cairo to the airport. The “sit-in” gradually morphed into a sprawling, fortified city-state with its own police force, complete with torture chambers and border guards. It came to manifest the MB’s “Parallel State,” and its conflict with the state of Egypt has now reached an existential phase “where for one to survive, the other had to go, at least ideologically and organizationally:

Over the past two and half years of the Egyptian revolution, several sit-ins were dispersed in Tahrir and other squares, with very few casualties, if any. It was never a big deal. But this was not just a sit-in, this was the flashpoint in an 85-year conflict between two states, the Muslim Brotherhood’s with its promised Caliphate state and the Egyptian national state, the oldest state history has known. Political factions can negotiate and split seats of power; people from different races, faiths and walks of life can coexist, but two states trying to govern the same people on the same piece of land cannot be together. This is the nature of the conflict now in Egypt and this is one explanation why the Brotherhood fights this battle as if it was Armageddon.

Three weeks ago Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the Egyptian army did not carry out a coup on July 3 but was only “restoring democracy.” (He retracted it with some waffle a day later.) That is nonsense. There had never been any democracy in Egypt so there is nothing to restore. The Muslim Brotherhood in general—as manifested by Morsi’s year in power—and its assault on the dwindling Coptic community in particular, are the living testimonial to the incompatibility of Islam with democracy as it is commonly understood in the postmodern West.

It cannot be otherwise. As Pope Benedict XVI said in his now famous lecture at the University of Regensburg six years ago, not to act reasonably—not to act with logos—is contrary to the nature of God. For a Muslim, God is absolutely transcendent, however; his will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Indeed, it is impossible to have total transcendence and self-limitation at the same time. Logos cannot be assumed in a supreme being that is so transcendent as to be devoid of personality. As then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger wrote in 1979, “the unrelated, unrelatable, absolutely one could not be a person. There is no such thing as a person in the categorical singular.” The result is a moral philosophy and a legal code that excludes the possibility of judgment based on any other source of authority but itself: the letter of revealed law and the precedent. Analogies thus derived stand above reason, conscience, or nature. A Muslim knows that a thing is right or not simply because Allah says so, or because his prophet has thus said or done. No other standard can be invoked.

The political consequences are crucial for all societies that derive their concept of authority from this image. Any notion of politics distinct from that implicit in complete submission to Allah is forbidden and sinful. A polity not based on Sharia is infidel ab initio; the notion of a society not based on the revealed will of Allah is haram. Any Western concept of justice, prudence, equality, or individual freedom—either Christian or derived from some deist-atheist construct—is incompatible with Islam. For Muslims to live together as sovereign individuals—the hallmark of today’s West—is literally unimaginable. It is beyond incompatible with the ideal of ummah, it is its diametrical opposite. The sovereignty of the individual is inconceivable. In his 1970 Islamic Declaration the Bosnian jihadist leader Alija Izetbegovic wrote that “A Muslim generally does not exist as an individual. If he wishes to live and survive as a Muslim, he must create an environment, a community, an order; change the world or be changed himself.”

The sovereignty of the people was accepted by the Muslim Brotherhood as a perfect tool to other ends—a step on the irreversible road to Sharia—but it was always seen by Morsi and his ilk as a sinful rebellion against the sovereignty of Allah. Hence their contempt and arrogance, hence their sophistry and duplicity. Only Allah creates our acts and enables us to act, not constitutions and assemblies and courts, which can and should be manipulated and twisted to suit his will.

The result goes beyond politics. An ikhwani a priori has no capacity for logical thought. Disjointed discourse is the norm. Conspiracy theorizing passes for serious discussion. This is the result of the theological and philosophical foundations of mainstream Sunnite Islam, as they were developed in the ninth and tenth centuries. They were tantamount to an “intellectual suicide” which remains at the root of the problem to this day. Since Allah is Pure Will, outside and above reason or nature. Literally everything is possible in a world in which there is no cause and effect, where man’s thoughts and actions are subsidiary and contingent, and Allah is the only actor.

For a self-confident West of yore, confronting such confused civilization would be a breeze. “Democracy” has changed the West, however, and the rot is proceeding apace. Roger Scruton thus finds the essence of the West in what he calls the “personal state,” which he approvingly describes as characterized by constitution, rule of law, and rotation of office-holders. As I noted last fall, such “society of individuals” is the bane of the West, the poison at its core. However defined, it is also incompatible with Islam. At one level the problem is Sharia. Its key concepts are “blasphemy” and “apostasy,” both incurring the death penalty. The whole edifice is based on the basic inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims, men and women, free men and slaves.

More fundamentally, Western-style democracy—Scruton’s Personal State—is impossible in the Muslim world because the affairs of men do not belong to men in the universe not governed by natural laws. In this universe, “democracy” is reduced to the act of voting, on the one-way street to Sharia. It is an advanced form of mob rule. “Creation is not imprinted with reason,” Robert Reilly noted of Islamic voluntarism in The Closing of the Muslim Mind, and therefore cannot reflect what is not there. There is no rational order, there are only the second-to-second manifestation of God’s Will. By contrast, “democracy” presupposes an ordered universe, a Cosmos, with a detached clock-maker or an impersonal set of natural circumstances as its spiritus movens, with Man’s self-validating reason as the final check and balance.

The gap between these two Weltanschauungen is unbridgeable. An orthodox Muslim will see each act in itself as fitting an occasion rather than as a link in a chain of cause and consequence. It is blasphemous to assert that Sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning, without adding “insh’Allah!” There is no logos, no law, no freedom separate from His divine caprice. Submitting, and touching the carpet in the direction of Mecca, is the only freedom possible.

The implications are dire. On the one side the “democratic” West has divorced reason from faith and subsequently sank into moral, cultural and demographic self-destruction resulting from its embrace of an unnatural and unworkable political creed. Western decrepitude is allowing the Brotherhood and its ilk to continue divorcing faith from reason with centuries-long gusto. They are impervious now, and will always be, to the concept of democracy based on the tenet of individual freedom. In addition to demography and fanaticism, this immunity is their greatest asset in its expectation of a victory of world-historical proportions some time later this century.

The Egyptian generals sense that this world would be unpleasant in general, and dangerously uncertain for themselves personally. They have much more at stake than The New York Times editorialists and American politicians. Hence the Brotherhood’s comeuppance, well deserved and long overdue. May the state of emergency in Egypt last for another thirty years.

Egypt: Blood In The Streets

Junta power runs Egypt. Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) generals decide policy. Interim officials serve at their pleasure.

On July 3, President Mohamed Morsi was ousted. Coup authority replaced him. It did illegitimately. His supporters want him reinstated. They’ve been camped out in Cairo for weeks. SCAF threatened to roust them.

Tensions remained high. Morsi supporters have been repeatedly attacked. Hundreds died earlier. Many others were injured. Scores are imprisoned. Arrests follow regularly.

Ahead of Wednesday’s action, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said:

“Law and order has to be in place, and people need to have access to their homes and work and so on.”

“Ultimately, this situation has to be resolved very soon.” He claimed efforts to end sit-ins would be “consistent with the law.” He lied saying so. More on that below.

Interim President Adly Mansour convened an emergency National Security Council meeting. Top SCAF and civilian officials attended.

Crackdowns were planned. Muslim Brotherhood officials urged Morsi supporters to join sit-ins. They called on Egyptian security forces to remain nonviolent, saying:

“We remind our sons and brothers from the great Egyptian army and the men of the Interior Ministry to not attack their peaceful brothers or besiege them or shed their blood.”

Morsi’s under house arrest. He’s at an unknown location. State agency Mena said he’s charged with conspiring with Hamas, killing prisoners and officers “deliberately with prior intent,” kidnapping officers and soldiers, spying, attacking public buildings, and setting fire to Wadi el-Natroun prison.

It claimed doing so helped him escape. During 2011 anti-Mubarak protests, he and other Muslim Brotherhood members were arrested and detained. Morsi said local residents freed them.

Ahead of Wednesday’s crackdown, SCAF threatened to “turn its guns” on pro-Morsi supporters, saying:

“We will not initiate any move, but will definitely react harshly against any calls for violence or black terrorism from Brotherhood leaders or their supporters.”

Its officials warned of civil war. What follows Wednesday’s crackdown remains to be seen.

On August 14, AP headlined “Egypt police storm 2 Pro-Morsi Camps in Cairo,” saying:

“Egyptian security forces, backed by armored cars and bulldozers, swept in Wednesday to clear two sit-in camps of supporters of the country’s ousted President Mohammed Morsi, showering protesters with tear gas as the sound of gunfire rang out at both sites.”

Numbers killed and injured aren’t confirmed. Muslim Brotherhood (MB) spokesman Walid Al-Haddad said 600. Another 9,000 were wounded, he added. Scores were arrested.

Another MB spokesman, Gehad El-Haddad claimed up to 2,000 killed and 10,000 injured. Intensive gunfire was heard. Official reports downplay numbers. Bodies were taken to makeshift morgues.

Senior MB leader Mohammed el-Beltagy estimated 300 deaths. He called on police and military forces to rebel. He urged Egyptians to protest publicly, saying:

“Oh, Egyptian people, your brothers are in the square. Are you going to remain silent until the genocide is completed?”

Hours later he was arrested. Witnesses said security forces used live fire on Morsi supporters. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton’s spokesman, Michael Mann, said:

“The reports of deaths and injuries are extremely worrying. We reiterate that violence won’t lead to any solution, and we urge the Egyptian authorities to proceed with utmost restraint.”

Most EU countries are NATO members. Belligerence and other forms of violence are official policy. Ashton’s concern for Egyptian lives lacks credibility.

She, other EU leaders and Washington don’t give a damn about SCAF ruthlessness. They care plenty about it making world headlines.

They want reports of state-sponsored violence suppressed. They want business as usual continued. They want it out of sight and mind abroad.

They want Israeli interests addressed. They include destroying Gaza’s tunnel economy, keeping Rafah crossing closed, and joint IDF/SCAF attacks on Sinai-based pro-Morsi Islamists.

Days earlier, SCAF promised to roust Morsi supporters. Around 7AM, they acted. Clashes occurred in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Aswan, Assiut, Minya, and other cities nationwide.

By mid-morning, state television said security forces finished breaking up Cairo sit-ins. Bulldozers began clearing makeshift camps.

Major roads into Cairo are blocked. Railway authority officials said trains in and out of the city were stopped. So are others serving major cities nationwide. It’s “for security reasons to prevent people from mobilizing,” they said.

Egypt’s Interior Ministry said security forces have “total control” over Nahda Square. “Police forces removed most tents.”

Access to the area was blocked. Egypt’s major state daily Al Ahram said the interim government warned “it would react sternly to acts of sabotage and attacks against state institutions.”

An official statement said:

“In accordance with government instructions to take necessary measures towards the sit-ins at Rabaa Al-Adawiya and Nahda, and for the safety of the country, security forces started taking measures to disperse the sit-ins early Wednesday.”

“The government insists on moving forward with the future roadmap in a way that guarantees that no faction will be excluded from participating in the political process which will achieve a democratic transition.”

It bears repeating. Egypt’s no democracy. Junta power rules. Appointed President Adly Mansour and other interim officials serve at its pleasure.

Events are fast moving. Egypt’s central bank ordered commercial banks to close branches in conflict areas. Some had power shut off.

The Ministry of Antiquities ordered Giza Pyramids closed to visitors. Cairo’s Egyptian museum was closed. MB officials are charged with inciting violence and/or conspiring to kill protesters.

MB’s London office said:

“The world cannot sit back and watch while innocent men, women and children are being indiscriminately slaughtered. The world must stand up to the military junta’s crime before it is too late.”

Egypt’s a tinderbox. Cairo’s a virtual war zone. Ousting Morsi along with unaddressed major grievances has millions nationwide enraged.

Blaming victims is policy. Egypt’s government made baseless accusations, saying:

“The government holds (MB) leaders fully responsible for any spilt blood, and for all the rioting and violence going on.”

Egypt’s Interior Ministry claimed it intercepted phone calls calling on supporters to attack police stations. Planned assaults were foiled, it added.

MB officials were arrested. Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed el-Tayeb urged restraint. He did so on state television. He opposed Morsi. He backed his ouster. He comments lack credibility.

Clashes erupted across Egypt. Minya, Assiut and Sohag Christian Coptic Churches were torched.

In Bani Suef south of Cairo, police cars were set ablaze. Clashes threaten to continue.

Interim President Mansour said diplomacy ended. SCAF gloves are off. Egyptian security forces are notoriously hardline.

Ahead of Wednesday’s crackdown, Robert Fisk asked:

“Why does the Egyptian crisis appear so simple to our political leaders yet so complicated when you actually turn up in Cairo?”

State media create “fantasies.” They claim SCAF “follow(ed) the will of the people” ousting Morsi. They exaggerated opposition crowds. They called them “the largest political demonstration(s) in history.”

Numbers reported suggested over half the adult working age population turned out. Unlike early 2011, “the country kept running.”

John Kerry claimed SCAF intervened to restore democracy. “Thank God for the Egyptian army,” Fisk added. He did so with tongue in cheek.

Le Monde’s Alain Gresh headlined his latest article “Shadow of the army over Egypt’s revolution,” saying:

The Muslim Brotherhood “faced a destabilisation campaign by the former regime, with the dissolution of the elected parliament, the police refusing to maintain public order and protect its premises (significantly the interior minister was reinstated in office after 30 June), and the courts acquitting former Mubarak officials.”

Media pluralism didn’t follow Morsi’s ouster, said Gresh. Some TV stations were banned. Journalists were arrested.

Ruling officials are hostile to critical foreign media. Interim leaders maintain “a ministry of information.” Doing so’s not a good sign.

State media ignore pro-Morsi demonstrations. Hundreds of thousands participate nationwide.

“A textbook example is the coverage of the repression of a sit-in organised by the Brotherhood on 8 July outside the headquarters of the Republican Guard, during which at least 50 people were killed,” said Gresh.

“Army spokesman Colonel Ahmed Mohammed Ali told the Associated Press: ‘What excessive force? It would have been excessive if we killed 300.’ ”

“The English-language website Madamasr has posted damning witness statements, especially one by a cameraman working for an opposition television station, which showed images of soldiers shooting at the crowd, for no reason.”

Interim President Mansour has links to the Mubarak regime and Saudi Arabia. He worked there for over a decade.

He published a constitutional declaration. It gives him full executive and legislative powers for six months. It does so ahead of elections.

Egypt’s government is dominated by neoliberal hardliners. They force-feed austerity on millions of poor people. They have added pain in mind. Doing so risks turning a tinderbox into a raging inferno.

Observers wonder “whether Egypt will ever see pluralist elections again, now that its first democratically elected president has been overthrown,” said Gresh.

Mansour and other interim officials remain silent about MB repression. Ignoring it means support.

Mohamed ElBaradei’s an apparent exception. He resigned saying:

“(T)he beneficiaries of what happened today are those who call for violence, terrorism and the most extreme groups.”

“It has become difficult for me to continue bearing responsibility for decisions that I do not agree with and whose consequences I fear. I cannot bear the responsibility for one drop of blood.”

ElBaradei wants to be Egypt’s president. Perhaps he believes resigning now makes it possible later. Allying with state-sponsored repression assures rejection.

Gresh wonders what’s next for Egypt. “How long will it be before people are put on trial for having demanded Mubarak’s resignation in 2011,” he asked?

“Perhaps the aim is to provoke the Brotherhood into resorting to violence, so as to allow a reinstatement of the state of emergency in the name of the war on terror.”

“Or the excuse may be the instability of the Sinai region, which predates Morsi.”

All sides vying for power and influence must “learn from their failures.” They must “abandon their secretive culture.”

Shutting MB and other Islamists out risks “pushing them on to a radical path that could cost Egypt dear(ly),” Gresh concluded.

On Wednesday, a state of emergency was declared. Martial law’s in effect. Major city 7:00PM – 6:00AM curfews were imposed. It’s effective until further notice.

MB supporters won’t back down. They pledged to die rather than quit. One Morsi protester perhaps spoke for others, saying:

“We don’t care about death. We believe in one thing. When your time to die comes, you will die.”

“So will you die as a courageous martyr, or as a coward? That’s the point: we want to die as martyrs.”

They want Morsi reinstitated. Civil war’s possible follow. MB spokesman Gehad El-Haddad twittered:

“8 hours of mass killings & not a single sane person in Egypt or in world 2 stop this!! Over 2,000 killed and & over 10,000 injured & world watches.”

Egypt’s a virtual war zone. Anything ahead is possible.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at .

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Fake Terror Alert Extended

Announced embassy and consulate closures continue all week. Perhaps longer if ordered. Doing so facilitates deception.

It reflects duplicitous fearmongering. It’s to fool people. It serves America’s hidden agenda. It targets dissent. It subverts civil liberties.

It’s to silence lawless NSA spying critics. On Sunday TV talk shows, Republicans and Democrats agreed. Terror threats justify NSA surveillance, they claim.

According to Senator Saxby Chambliss (R. GA), there’s “an awful lot of chatter out there.” NSA monitors it electronically. “If we didn’t have these programs then we simply wouldn’t be able to listen in on the bad guys.”

Senator Lindsey Graham (R. SC) said, “The NSA program is proving its worth yet again.”

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D. MD) added:

“The good news is that we picked up the intelligence. And that’s what we do. That’s what NSA does.”

Other congressional members made similar comments. They lack credibility. They facilitate lawless NSA spying. They aid and abet wrongdoing. They enlist public support for what demands condemnation.

On Sunday, a White House statement said the following:

“Early this week, the President instructed his National Security team to take all appropriate steps to protect the American people in light of a potential threat occurring in or emanating from the Arabian Peninsula.”

“Given the nature of the potential threat, throughout the week, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco has held regular meetings with relevant members of the interagency to ensure the US Government is taking those appropriate steps.”

“This afternoon, National Security Advisor Rice chaired a meeting with the Principals Committee to further review the situation and follow-up actions.”

“The President has received frequent briefings over the last week on all aspects of the potential threat and our preparedness measures. After today’s Principals meeting, the President was again briefed by Amb. Rice and Ms. Monaco.”

On August 4, the State Department issued an update on embassy and consulate closures, saying:

“Given that a number of our embassies and consulates were going to be closed in accordance with local custom and practice for the bulk of the week for the Eid celebration at the end of Ramadan, and out of an abundance of caution, we’ve decided to extend the closure of several embassies and consulates including a small number of additional posts.”

“This is not an indication of a new threat stream, merely an indication of our commitment to exercise caution and take appropriate steps to protect our employees including local employees and visitors to our facilities.”

“Posts in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Cairo, Riyadh, Dhahran, Jeddah, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat, Sanaa, Tripoli, Antananarivo, Bujumbura, Djibouti, Khartoum, Kigali, and Port Louis are instructed to close for normal operations Monday, August 5 through Saturday, August 10.”

“The following posts that are normally open on Sunday, but were closed on Sunday, August 4, are authorized to reopen for normal operations on August 5: Dhaka, Algiers, Nouakchott, Kabul, Herat, Mazar el Sharif, Baghdad, Basrah, and Erbil.”

At the State Department’s daily briefing, deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said:

“(W)e are taking precautionary steps out of an abundance of caution to protect our people and our facilities and visitors to those overseas facilities.”

“(W)e continue to refine our assessment of the threat. We continue, as you can imagine, to get new information and as we do so we’ll evaluate our security needs going forward.”

“Clearly, AQAP is the most active terrorist organization there and has been the most operationally active affiliate of al-Qaida core, but beyond that I’m not going to get into the details of the intelligence about who might be behind this threat.”

“I’m not going to comment further on why certain posts were selected and others weren’t.”

“(W)e’re going to continue pursuing terrorists who want to attack the United States, where they plan, operate. And I think you’ve seen during this Administration that we’ve done exactly that.”

“(W)e’re concerned about a threat to US interests and facilities and citizens, but I don’t want to go further than that.”

In other words, take official comments at face value. Don’t ask for proof. Don’t expect any. None exists. So-called terror threats are fake. Post-9/11, they’ve all been fabricated.

Don’t expect administration figures to explain. Don’t expect congressional members to do so. Don’t expect media scoundrels to challenge official lies.

They repeat them ad nauseam. They do it every time. They betray their readers, viewers and listeners in the process. It’s standard scoundrel media practice.

A previous article called the so-called terror alert fake. It’s like previous ones. They’re fabricated to generate fear.

They advance America’s imperium. They facilitate its fake global war on terrorism. They’re for political advantage. They distract.

They change the subject. They’re strategically timed. They justify wrongdoing. They escalate it. At times, they precede false flags.

Bush officials used color-coded alerts. They ranged from Green (low), Blue (guarded), Yellow (elevated), Orange (high) to Red (severe).

On April 26, 2011, a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) replaced them. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the following:

“Today I announce the end of the old system of color-coded alerts. In its place, we will implement a new system that’s built on a clear and simple premise: When a threat develops that could impact you – the public – we will tell you.”

“We will provide whatever information we can so you know how to protect yourselves, your families, and your communities.”

Post-9/11, every alert issued was fake. So-called threats were invented. They still are. Alleged chatter intercepted doesn’t exist.

Media scoundrels claim otherwise. They’re in lockstep with deception. They repeat the Big Lie. They regurgitate official policy. They don’t question it. They do it every time.

They facilitate America’s war on humanity. They have blood on their hands. They have much to answer for.

On August 5, New York Times editors headlined “Terrorism and the Embassies,” saying:

“The Obama administration’s decision to close nearly two dozen embassies and issue a worldwide travel alert was difficult to quarrel with.”

US officials claim “they uncovered one of the most serious plots against United States and other Western interests since Sept. 11, 2001.”

Fact check

Big lies launch wars. False flags are a longstanding US tradition. September 11, 2001 was state-sponsored terrorism.

It prevents peace. It began America’s global war on terrorism. It facilitates war on humanity. It continues unabated.

Don’t expect Times editors to explain. They call fake information “credible.”

“The United States cannot fail to take reasonable precautions at its embassies,” they say.

“The challenge is to manage risk while staying involved in the world. Al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and elsewhere will be a threat for the foreseeable future.”

Terrorists “R” us. The only threat Americans face is their own government. Hyped ones don’t exist.

On August 5, the Wall Street Journal headlined “US Terror Alert Prompted by High-Level al Qaeda Communications,” saying:

They’re “part of a larger collection of intelligence reports all pointing to plans for an imminent attack.”

They “set off alarm bells with the US government that continued through the weekend, indicating an attack could come as soon as Aug. 4.”

Travel warnings remain “through the end of August.”

“US intelligence analysts believe an attack would likely involve some type of bomb plot. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP, specializes in creative bomb-making techniques.”

“Al Qaeda hasn’t issued public statements addressing the warning.” Perhaps it’s because none exists. Don’t expect Journal contributors to explain.

Chicago Tribune editors repeated the Big Lie. They called the so-called terror threat the “most serious in years.”

ABC News chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz called the alert a “terrible reminder for Americans that we are still major targets.”

CBS News senior national security analyst Juan Zarate said, “These guys are for real, and they want to hit the United States. They are committed global jihadis.”

CNN’s national security analyst Peter Bergen said:

“Al Qaeda and aligned organizations have a long history of attacking US. embassies and consulates.”

“For al Qaeda, these diplomatic compounds are attractive targets because they symbolize American power and because their locations are widely known.”

NBC national affairs correspondent Tom Curry called the Al Qaeda threat “a major concern.”

“According to sources familiar with the intelligence,” he said, “two al Qaeda leaders, the number one figure of al Qaeda in Pakistan and the top al Qaeda leader in Yemen agreed that they ‘wanted to do something big’ times to ‘the day of Awesome,” which was Sunday.”

On August 5, ABC News hyped the Big Lie further, saying:

“There are growing concerns that an al Qaeda affiliate could use a new generation of liquid explosive, currently undetectable, in a potential attack, according to two senior US government officials briefed on the terror threat that has prompted the closing of nearly two dozen U.S. embassies.”

An unnamed US official called the so-called explosive “ingenious.” Allegedly it can make clothing a weapon. It’s a “liquid bomb.”

Details weren’t forthcoming. Security officials declined further comment. Perhaps it’s because so-called threats don’t exist. They have no credibility. They never did before. They don’t now.

According to Electronic Privacy Information Center lawyer Amie Stepanovich, issuing “these threats at this time perpetuates a culture of fear and unquestioning deference to surveillance in the United States.”

Hyping threats without corroboration show they have no basis in fact. They’re issued to deceive. They further destructive policies. They suggest potential false flags. Perhaps something big is planned.

A Final Comment

America’s a police state. It’s increasingly militarized. It’s cause for concern. Hyped terror threats escalate harshness.

The ACLU worries about the “militarization of policing in America.”

“Towns don’t need tanks,” it says. Neighborhoods “are increasingly being policed by cops armed with the weapons and tactics of war.”

“Federal funding in the billions of dollars has allowed state and local police departments to gain access to weapons and tactics created for overseas combat theaters – and yet very little is known about exactly how many police departments have military weapons and training, how militarized the police have become, and how extensively federal money is incentivizing this trend.”

Locking down America is official policy. Federal, state and local authorities are complicit. So-called counterterrorism targets fundamental freedoms. They’re on the chopping block for elimination. They’re practically gone already.

Another major homeland false flag may end them altogether. Perhaps it’s planned.

Last April’s Boston’s Marathon bombings left disturbing questions unanswered. State-sponsored terrorism was ignored.

Martial law followed. Other communities are threatened. Perhaps locking down America is planned. Chilling incidents suggest what’s coming. So do fake terror threats.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at .

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The Zionist-Nazi Collaboration

The fact that the initiation of the Zionist project had nothing to do with the Holocaust, as it developed more than a half century earlier, and the fact of the mostly indifference to the slaughter of Jews on the part of the founders of Israel, together with its collaboration with the Nazi Party, undermines Israel’s projected, and exploited, image as innocent victim.

Both Nazism and Zionism arose in tandem from small insignificant social movements in the early part of the 20th century, arguing, with equal force, that Jews were an alien and indigestible mass living in the midst of an otherwise pure Aryan population. Both movements contributed to the more general acceptance of this argument in Europe, and particularly in Germany, as mid-century approached, and both have to be responsible for the consequences.

In 1896, journalist Theodore Herzl’s book, Der Judenstaat (The Jews’ State), Herzl expressed his understanding of inevitability, permanence, and omnipresence of anti-Semitism and argued that the only solution was a separate state for Jews.  Herzl stated, in his book:

The Jewish question exists wherever Jews live in perceptable numbers. Where it does not exist, it is carried by Jews in the course of their migrations. We naturally move to those places where we are not persecuted, and there our presence produces persecution. …¹

In 1912, Chaim Weizman, Israel’s first president, and the Zionist advocate who had the most to do with lobbying the British for the Balfour Declaration of 1917, echoed this view, speaking to a Berlin audience:

… each country can absorb only a limited number of Jews, if she doesn’t want disorder in her stomach. Germany already has too many Jews.²

 

Chaim Weizman

Reflecting in 1949 in his autobiography, Trial and Error, Weizmann wrote:

Whenever the quantity of Jews in any country reaches the saturation point, that country reacts against them …

Weizmann, the chemist, invoking a metaphor from the sciences, added:

… the determining factor in this matter is not the is solubility of Jews, but the solvent power of the country. …

This cannot be looked upon as anti-Semitism in the ordinary or vulger sense of that word;

it is a universal social and economic concomitant of Jewish immigration, and we cannot shake it off …³

Ben Frommer, an American Revisionist, stated in 1935:

No matter what country he inhabits … [it] is not of the [his] tribal origins. … Consequently, the Jew’s attempt at complete identity with his country sounds spurious; his patriotism despite his vociferousness [sounds] hollow even to himself; and therefore his demand for complete equality with those who are of the essence of the nation naturally creates friction. This explains the intolerance of the Germans, Austrians, Poles and the increasing tide of antagonism in most European countries … It is presumptuous on the part of a Jew to demand that he be treated as lovingly as say a Teuton in a Teutonic country or a Pole in a Polish country. He must jealously guard his life and liberty, but he must candidly recognize that he does not ‘belong‘. The liberal fiction of perfect equality is doomed because is was unnatural. [Italics mine]⁴

Indeed, in 1925, Jacob Klatzkin, the co-editor of the massive Encyclopedia Judaica, wrote:

If our people is deserving and willing to live its own national life, then it is an alien body that insists on its own distinctive identity, reducing the domain of their life. It is right therefore, that they should fight against us for their national integrity … Instead of establishing societies for defense against the anti-Semites, who want to reduce our rights, we should establish societies for defense against our friends who desire to defend our rights.⁵

The understanding of Herzl, as well as the Zionists, about the inevitability of anti-Semitism was possibly self-fulfilling, for rather than opposing anti-Semitism in the first half of the 20th century, the Zionists found common cause with Hitler, Eichmann, and the Nazis and used anti-Semitism and Nazism as a means of achieving their end which was the establishment of a Jewish state. The two reactionary movements shared the view that German Jews were living in that country as a ‘foreign race’ and that the racial divide was essential to maintain. The Zionists’ use of Nazism involved, among other things, the blocking of avenues of escape to other countries of Europe’s Jews and diverting them to Palestine, even as the death trains began to roll in Europe. The rise of Nazism and Hitler to power was never, or almost never, opposed by the Zionists prior to the establishment of Israel.

Thus, in an article by Siegfried Moses, which appeared in the Rundschau, the official newspaper of the German Zionist Federation, and later, its head, stated:

… it is true that the defense against anti-Semitism is not our main task, it does not concern us to the same extent and is not of the same importance for us as is the work for Palestine …⁶

 

Rabbi Stephen S Wise

In 1934, Stephen Wise, head of the American Jewish Congress said:

… I cannot be indifferent to the Galuth [the Jewish diaspora living outside of Palestine] … if I had to choose between Eretz Israel and its upbuilding and the defense of the Galuth, I would say that then the Galuth must perish.⁷

On October 2, 1937, two SS officers, Herbert Hagen and Adolf Eichmann, disembarked in Haifa and were met by the Gestapo’s agent in Palestine, Fritz Reichert, and later in the day, Fevel Polkes, a Haganah agent, who showed the Nazi officials Haifa from Mt Carmel and then visited a kibbutz. Some years later, when Eichmann was hiding in Argentina, he taped a story of his excursion to Palestine, stating:

I did see enough to be very impressed with the way the Jewish colonists were building up their land. … In the years that followed I often said to Jews with whom I had dealings that had I been a Jew, I would have been a fanatical Zionist.⁸

 

Adolf Eichmann;

Eichmann had read Herzl’s book, Der Judenstaat, and also studied Hebrew.  In their trip report, the two SS officers paraphrased Polkes’s message to them:

The Zionist state must be established by all means and as soon as possible. … When the Jewish state is established according to the current proposals laid down in the Peel paper, and in line with England’s partial promises, then the borders may be pushed further outwards according to one wished.⁹

… in Jewish nationalist circles people were very pleased with the radical German policy, since the strength of the Jewish population in Palestine would be so far increased thereby that in the foreseeable future the Jews could reckon upon numerical superiority over the Arabs in Palestine.¹⁰

During his February trip to Berlin, Polkes proposed that the Haganah act as spies for the Nazi government and, as a sign of good faith, passed on intelligence information which was detrimental to their mutual enemies, the Communists.  History might have been very different had the Zionist component of Jewry opposed Nazism; there might never have been a Holocaust. And there might never have been a state of Israel, as some Zionists well understood.

Lenni Brenner puts it:

… of all of the active Jewish opponents of the boycott idea [of Nazi Germany], the most important was the world Zionists Organization (WZO). It not only bought German wares; it sold them, and even sought out new customers for Hitler and his industrialist backers.

The WZO saw Hitler’s victory in much the same way as its German affiliate, the ZVfD [the German Zionist Organization]: not primarily as a defeat for all Jewry, but as positive proof of the bankruptcy of assimilation and liberalism.¹¹

Here Brenner is referring to the so-called Ha’avara agreement, or ‘transfer agreement’.

In 1933, Sam Cohen, owner of a citrus export company in Tel Aviv, approached the German government with the proposal that emigrants from Germany could avoid the flight tax by instead purchasing German products, which would then be shipped to Palestine, along with their purchasers, where the new arrivals in Palestine could then redeem their investments after the sale of the products by import merchants.

Heinrich Wolff, the German Consul in Jerusalem, quickly realized the utility of such an arrangement in tamping the international boycott effort of German import goods. He wrote to Berlin:

Whereas in April and May the Yishuv [the European Jewish community in Palestine] was waiting boycott instructions from the United States, it now seems that the situation has been transformed. It is Palestine which now gives the instructions… It is important to break the boycott first and foremost in Palestine, and the effect will inevitably be felt on the main front, in the United States.¹²

Cohen had promised Heinrich Wolff that he would work behind the scenes at the forthcoming Jewish conference in London to weaken or defeat any boycott resolution.

Dr Fritz Reichert, the Gestapo’s agent in Palestine, later wrote to his headquarters:

The London Boycott Conference was torpedoed from Tel Aviv because the head of the Transfer in Palestine, in close contact with the consulate in Jerusalem, sent cables to London. Our main function here is to prevent, from Palestine, the unification of world Jewry on a basis hostile to Germany … It is advisable to damage the political and economic strength of Jewry by sowing dissention in its ranks.¹²

Negotiations with the Nazi government were taken over by the World Zionist Organization and Cohen was replaced by Chaim Arlosoroff, the Political Secretary of the Jewish Agency. Arlosoroff traveled to Berlin in May of 1933. He and the Nazis reached a preliminary understanding to continue Cohen’s arrangement. Arlosoroff returned to Tel Aviv where he was assassinated, most probably by some members of the Revisionist wing of Zionism headed by Jabotinsky who opposed any accommodation with the Nazis.

Negotiations continued, however, and an agreement was signed in 1933 between the Nazis and the World Zionist Organization which persisted until 1939 and the German invasion of Poland. The Ha’arava grew to become a substantial banking and trading house with 137 specialists in its Jerusalem office at the height of its activities. The sale of German products expanded to include destinations outside of Palestine, but the arrangement remained essentially the same as the one originally negotiated by Sam Cohen – that German Jews wishing to emigrate, rather giving up most or all of their wealth to the German government, could invest their money in a German bank which would be used for purchasing German export goods. The purchaser could then redeem his investment when the goods had been sold and after he had arrived in Palestine. The German government set the rules and the emigrant would lose typically in excess of 30% of his investment and, eventually, 50%.

Indeed, there was a fundamental incompatibility with the upbuilding of a Jewish state in Palestine and opposition to the Nazi program of extermination of Europe’s Jews. The Ha’avara agreement allowed the transfer of LP 8,100,000 (Palestinian Pounds; then $40,419,000) to Palestine along with 60,000 German Jews between 1933 and 1939. But it also had the effect of undercutting the international boycott effort and providing an inflow of capital to the German government owing to the sale of German manufactured goods abroad.

This understanding is important, as the Holocaust has been central in provoking sympathy for the State of Israel and in amplifying the claims for reparations from European governments. Sympathy for the victims of the Holocaust, whether Jews or Roma, is no less justified, but the state of Israel cannot maintain an air of complete innocence nor be the justified recipient of billions of dollars or reparations, very little of which is actually dispersed to Holocaust survivors.

Nor has Israel accepted the universal principle that states must pay reparations to ethnicities whom it has harmed, as Israel has ignored or denied the catastrophe of ethnic cleansing and massacres which it prosecuted against the Palestinian people in 1948.

The model of Jews fleeing a burning building; i.e., the Nazi Holocaust, and thus creating a redoubt of safety in the form of the state of Israel cannot be maintained. Aside from the fact that the Zionist project was initiated at least by the time of Herzl’s Der Judenstaat of 1896 and his founding of the World Zionist Congress a year later, and well before the Nazi ascension to power in the 1930s, the Zionists were little concerned with the slaughter of Jews in Europe and almost exclusively focused on building a state in Palestine.

 

Delegates at First Zionist Congress.

 

A proposal by the British, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, of November 1938, that Britain admit a thousand children directly into Britain was sternly opposed by Ben Gurion who told a meeting of the Labor Zionist in December:

If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transferring them to Eretz Israel, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel.¹³

By 1943, ample reports of massacres of Europe’s Jews were arriving in the US, though it garnered little of the mainstream press.

Jabotinsky’s “revisionist zionism”At this time, Peter Bergson, a Palestinian Jew and member of the Irgun, a militant offspring of the Revisionist Zionists, and his young colleagues, shifted their attention to saving Europe’s Jews. Bergson, who had been sent to New York City, by Revisionists leader, Jaobtinsky, in order to create American support of the establishment of a Jewish army in Palestine, and his colleagues formed the Emergency Committee to Save Europe’s Jews and initiated it with a conference attended by 1500 delegates including former President Herbert Hoover and New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. The delegates ultimately adopted an eight-point rescue program, the primary feature of which was the creation of a US government agency charged with saving Europe’s Jews. They also called for their allies to immediately attack the concentration camps and bomb railroads lines leading to them.

The conference’s program sought to avoid the issue of a Jewish state in Palestine, preferring to leave that to another day. Indeed, the efforts of Bergson were perceived by the American Jewish organizations, and especially by Rabbi Stephen Wise, head of the American Jewish Conference, as an effort to divert energy and attention away from Zionism and the upbuilding of a Jewish state in Palestine.

Bergson’s group sponsored full page advertisements in the New York Timesand other newspapers with such bold headlines as, “HELP Prevent 4,000,000 People from Becoming Ghosts.” Another read, “THIS IS STRICTLY A RACE AGAINST DEATH.”

The Emergency Committee also organized public events and rallies and a march by 450 Orthodox rabbis to the White House and the US Capitol. They also staged a theatrical production, entitled, We Will Never Die, authored by Academy Award winning screen writer Ben Hecht and included actors such as Edward G. Robinson with music written by Bertoldt Brecht. The play chronicled the contributions of Jews and addressed the current situation of Europe’s Jews.

The production played to 40,000 in Madison Square Garden and, in Washington, was viewed by Eleanor Roosevelt and hundreds of members of Congress.

Though the Emergency Committee had raised the consciousness of Americans for the plight of Europe’s Jews, their efforts were strongly opposed by America’s organized Jewish groups including Rabbi Stephen Wise and his American Jewish Congress.

In Buffalo, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh, local mainstream Jewish organizations attempted to block the production of We Will Never Die.

Most significant of the Emergency Committees’ actions was to provoke the sponsorship of a resolution, introduced in the House by Baldwin and Will Rogers Jr., and in the Senate by Guy Gillette, on November 9, 1943.

The full text follows:

Whereas the Congress of the United States, by concurrent resolution adopted on March 15 of this year, expressed its condemnation of Nazi Germany’s ‘mass murder of Jewish men, women, and children,’ a mass crime which has already exterminated close to two million human beings, about 30 per centum of the total Jewish population of Europe, and which is growing in intensity as Germany approaches defeat; and

Whereas the American tradition of justice and humanity dictates that all possible means be employed to save from this fate the surviving Jews of Europe, some four million souls who have been rendered homeless and destitute by the Nazis: therefore be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives recommends and urges the creation by the President of a commission of diplomatic, economic, and military experts to formulate and effectuate a plan of immediate action designed to save the surviving Jewish people of Europe from extinction at the hands of Nazi Germany.

Senator Gillette emphasized that the bill focused only on rescue and not on the issue of Palestine or a Jewish state.

It is not to be confused with the dispute over the future of Palestine, over a Jewish state or a Jewish army. The issue is non-sectarian. The sole object here is to rescue as many as possible of Hitler’s victims, pending complete Allied victory.

Stephen Wise tried unsuccessfully to persuade the sponsors of the bill to withdraw their support. But failing that, Wise traveled to Washington and testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Sol Bloom, stating that the resolution was ‘“inadequate” because it did not urge the British government to open Palestine to Jewish refugees” [italics mine].¹⁴

The lack of a reference to Palestine was, of course, intentionally absent from the bill.

Congressman Rogers also faced strong pressure from Zionists groups:

When it became known that I was becoming a member of the Bergson group, there was a terrific amount of pressure from all sorts of areas. I went back to Beverly Hills and I remember meeting with Rabbi Stephen S Wise in a synagogue. … He took me aside and said, ‘Now, young man. I knew your father very well. Now you are getting confused, you are getting mixed up with the wrong type of people. Let me tell you and steer you clear when it comes on, or want to meet the right people, the responsible people.’ He was quite the diplomat. He didn’t say, ‘If you get mixed up with them, you are not going to be reelected.’ He wasn’t that direct, but he made every pressure that he could, and where he know it would be effective.¹⁵

Gillette also faced strong opposition.

These people used every effort, every means at their disposal, to block the resolution. … [They] tried to defeat it by offering and amendment, insisting on an amendment to it that would raise the question, the controversial question of Zionism or anti-Zionism … or anything that might stop or block the action that we were seeking.¹⁵

On stationary with the letterhead of the American Jewish Congress, Stephen Wise wrote to Secretary of the Interior, Harold L. Ickles on December 23, 1943:

I was very sorry to note, as were others among your friends, that you had accepted the Chairmanship of the Washington Division of the Committee to Rescue European Jews. … I do not like to speak ill of you, not of us, concerning a group of Jews, but I am under the inexorable necessity of saying to you that the time will come, and come soon, when you will find it necessary to withdraw from this irresponsible group, which exists and obtains funds through being permitted to use the names of non-Jews like yourself.

Nor was Bergson beyond the crosshairs of the American Zionists. Bergson received an offer from Congressman Samuel Dickstein (D-NY) to meet with him in his DC office where it turned out that several other US Congressmen had also assembled. He was told, as paraphrased by Bergson, that unless he ‘behaved”, “we will deport you. … One shouldn’t mistake democracy with lawlessness, and don’t feel that you can just come to this country without – on temporary visitor’s visa and do whatever you wish …”¹⁵

Despite the opposition of the American Zionist community, the bill passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously only to die in the entire Senate.

According to a State Department memorandum, Rabbi Stephen Wise had expressed to State Department John Pehle, that Wise “had gone so far as to inform Mr Pehle that he regarded Bergson as equally great an enemy of the Jews as Hitler, for reasons that his activities could only lead to increased anti-Semitism.”¹¹

Reports of atrocities and mass murders in the Ukraine began arriving in the west in 1941. In January 1942, the Soviets issued a report of the working of the Einsatzgruppen, or the SS, and in May of that year, the Bund, the Jewish Workers Union of Poland and Russia, which was anti-Zionist, sent London a radio message that 700,000 people, most Jews, were exterminated in Poland. This message was repeated on the BBC two months later.

In April, even before the Bund broadcast, Moshe Shertok, later to become Israel’s second Prime Minister, wrote to British General and commander of the British Eight Army in North Africa:

The destruction of the Jewish race is a fundamental tenet of the Nazi doctrine. The authoritative reports recently published show that that policy is being carried out with a ruthlessness which defies description … An even swifter destruction, it must be feared, would overtake the Jews of Palestine.¹⁶

The focus here is on the hypothetical Nazi attack on Palestine, not on the slaughter actually taking place in Europe, but based, nonetheless, on Shertok’s understanding that such a slaughter was, in fact, taking place.

Despite the amply sufficient reports of massacres and exterminations, essentially nothing at all was done by the Zionist organizations, and reports of atrocities were consistently minimized.

 

Bernard Joseph (later Dov Yosef)

Dov Joseph, acting director of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department cautioned:

… against publishing data exaggerating the number of Jewish victim, for if we announce that millions of Jews have been slaughtered by the Nazis, we will justifiably be asked where the millions of Jews are, for whom we claim that we shall need to provide a home in Eretz Israel after the war ends.¹⁷

Yitzhak Gruenbaum, leader of the Jewish Agency’s Vaad Hazalah (Rescue Committee) who, in 1942 also believed the reports of atrocities taking place in Europe were exaggerated, offers a defense in his post war book, Bi-mei Hurban ve Sho’ah (In the Days of Holocaust and Destruction):

I want to destroy this assumption [that the Zionist leadership was to blame that it did not do everything possible to help the European Jews] in order to take out people from the occupied countries … it would be necessary for the neutral countries to provide refuge, that the warring nations open their gates to the refugees. …

How is it possible that in a meeting in Yerushalayim people will call: “If you don’t have enough money you should take it from Keren Hayesod [the Palestine Foundation Fund], you should take the money from the bank, there is money there.” I thought it obligatory to stand before this wave … .

And this time in Eretz Yisrael, there are comments: “Don’t put Eretz Yisrael in priority in this difficult time, in the time of destruction and European Jewry.’ I do not accept such sayings. And when some asked me: ‘Can’t you give money from the Keren Hayesod to save Jews in the Diaspora’? I said: no! And again I say no! … I think we have to stand before this wave that is putting Zionist activity into second row. …  I think it necessary to say here Zionism is over everything… [Italics mine]

… [W]e must guard Zionism. There are those who feel that this should not be said at the time a Holocaust is occurring, but believe me, lately we see worrisome manifestations in this respect: Zionism is above all – it is necessary to sound this whenever a Holocaust diverts us from our war of liberation in Zionism. Our war of liberation does not arise from the fact of the Holocaust in a straight forward manner and does not interlock with actions for the benefit of the Diaspora … And we must guard – especially in these times – the supremacy of the war of redemption [Italics mine].¹⁸

The irony is overwhelming. Though the memory and imagery of the Holocaust is not far from the lips of every Israel leader, particularly the present one, and though this imagery is exploited for the sake of gaining tolerance and forbearance from the international community, as well as reparations which go well beyond actuarial merits, there was little serious concern on the part of organized Zionism for those facing extermination in Europe. Rather the Holocaust was regarded as a threat which had the potential of diverting energy and resources from the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine which was by far their highest priority.

The fact that the initiation of the Zionist project had nothing to do with the Holocaust, as it developed more than a half century earlier, and the fact of the mostly indifference to the slaughter of Jews on the part of the founders of Israel, together with its collaboration with the Nazi Party, undermines Israel’s projected, and exploited, image as innocent victim.

At the end of the war a document, dated 11 January 1941, produced by Avraham Stern, proposing a military alliance and an understanding between the Third Reich and the Zionists was found in the German embassy in Ankara. It had been presented to two German diplomats in Lebanon, under Vichy at that time. The document was entitled, “Proposal for the National Military Organization (Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe and the Participation of the NMO in the War on the side of Germany.” The NMO, later to adopt the name Lohamamei Herut Yisrael, or lehi for short, was universally known by its British designation as the Stern gang.

The document read:

The evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is a precondition for solving the Jewish question; but this can only be made possible and complete through the settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine, and through the establishment of a Jewish state in its historical boundaries …  The NMO, which is well acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion that:

1. Common interests could exist between the establishment of a New Order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO.

2. Cooperation between the new Germany and a renewed volkish-national Hebrium would be possible; and,

3. The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East.

Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement, are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany’s side [italics mine].

This offer by the NMO … would be connected to the military training and organization of Jewish manpower in Europe, under the leadership and command of the NMO. These military units would take part in the fight to conquer Palestine, should such a front be decided upon.

The indirect participation of the Israeli freedom movement in the New Order in Europe, already in the preparatory stage, would be linked with a positive-radical solution of the European Jewish problem in conformity with the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Jewish people. This would extraordinarily strengthen the moral basis of the New Order in the eyes of all humanity.¹⁹

The Irgun, (the MNO) under Manachem Begin, and the Stern Gang, are sometime blamed, by mainstream Zionism, as being uniquely responsible for the more grotesque atrocities of Israel’s fight against both the Arabs and against the British in its quest for statehood; for example, the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, in which 96 mostly civilians were killed, and the massacre at Deir Yassin. In fact, both of these actions involved the coordination of these ‘dissident groups’ with the Haganah — the military under the direction of David Ben Gurion.

 

Yitzhak Yzernitsky — later to call himself Yitzhak Shamir,

Yitzhak Yzernitsky — later to call himself Yitzhak Shamir, and later to become Israeli Prime Minister, in fact, the longest serving Prime Minister of Israel except for David Ben Gurion — became the operations commander of the Stern Gang after Avraham Stern was killed by the British army in February of 1942. Under Shamir’s leadership, 14 assassinations were attempted of British officials with two successful ones, of Lord Moyne, the British Minister Resident in the Middle East, sitting in Cairo, and the UN Representative to Palestine, Count Folke Bernadotte, who received three bullets in the heart on the order of Stern’s operations commander and future Prime Minister – Yitzhak Shamir.

The Charter of the Stern Gang, or more accurately, the principles promulgated by Stern, included the establishment of a Jewish state “from the Nile to the Euphrates”, the ‘transfer of the Palestinian Arabs to regions outside of the Jewish state, and the building of the Third Temple in Jerusalem. It maintained offices outside of the Middle East – including Warsaw, Paris, London, and New York City, the latter headed by Benzion Netanyahu, the present Prime Minister’s father.

1. Herzl, Theodore, The Jewish State, p 9, 2007, BN Publishing [?]
2. Weizmann [?]
3. Weizmann, Chaim, Trial and Error, pv90-91 [?]
4. Frommer, Ben, The Significance of the Jewish State, Jewish Call, (Shanghai, 1935), p 10-11. [?]
5. Agus, Jacob, The Meaning of Jewish History, vol II, p 435. [?]
6. Edelheim-Muehsam, Margaret, Reactions of the Jewish Press to the Nazi Challenge, Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, vol V, (1960), p 312. [?]
7. Rabbi Wise, The New Palestine (14 February 1934), p 5-7. [?]
8. Eichmann, Adolf, “Eichmann Tells His Own Damning Story”, Life (28 Nov. 1960) p 22. [?]
9. Polkehn, Klaus, “The Secret Contacts: Zionism and Nazi Germany 1933-41″, Journal of Palestine Studies (Spring 1976), p 337. [?]
10. Hohne, Heinz, The Order of the Death’s Head, p 337. [?]
11. Brenner, Lenni, Zionism in the Age of Dictators, Lawrence Hill, (1983). [?] [?]
12. In Yisraeli, David, “The Third Reich and the Transfer Agreement,” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. VI (1971), P 131. [?] [?]
13. Gelber, Yoav, “Zionism and the Fate of European Jewry (1939-42),” Yad Vashem Studies, vol. XII, p 171. [?]
14. Brownfield, Peter Egill, “The Jewish Establishment’s Focus on Palestine: Did it Distract from Holocaust Efforts?” (Summer 2003). [?]
15. Ibid. Also, Brenner Lenni, Zionism in the Age of Dictators. [?] [?] [?]
16. Laqueur, “Jewish Denial and the Holocaust,” Commentary (December 1979, p 46. [?]
17. Gelber, Zionist Policy and the Fate of European Jewry, p 195. [?]
18. Gruenbaum, Yitzhak, Bi-Mei Hurban ve Sho’ah, p 62-70. [?]
19. Brenner, op. cit., p 267. [?]

William James Martin has written many articles on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Middle East. He can be reached at : .

Original Source : Dissident Voice
Source: William James Martin | My Catbird Seat

Fake Washington Terror Threat

They’re in various forms. They repeat with disturbing regularity. America’s war on terror targets Islam. At issue is duplicitous scaremongering. It advances Washington’s imperium.

Wars of aggression follow. False arrests target innocent victims. Terror threats repeat. They’re strategically timed. They change the subject. They divert attention.

They fool most Americans. They do so most of the time. Here we go again. Media scoundrels march in lockstep. They regurgitate Big Lies.

On August 2, The New York Times headlined “Qaeda Messages Prompt US Terror Warning,” saying:

“The United States intercepted electronic communications this week among senior operatives of Al Qaeda, in which the terrorists discussed attacks against American interests in the Middle East and North Africa, American officials said Friday.”

“The intercepts and a subsequent analysis of them by American intelligence agencies prompted the United States to issue an unusual global travel alert to American citizens on Friday, warning of the potential for terrorist attacks by operatives of Al Qaeda and their associates beginning Sunday through the end of August.”

Fact check

Al Qaeda’s a longstanding US asset. It’s used strategically as enemy and ally. Terror threats are fabricated. Bin Ladin was used as “Enemy Number One” years after he died.

Obama didn’t kill him. He was seriously ill with kidney disease. He had other illnesses. In December 2011, he died naturally. The Pakistan Observer reported it. So did BBC and Fox News.

In July 2002, The New York Times said he’s been dead for “almost six months.” He was “buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan.”

On August 1, 2013, The State Department headlined “Temporary Post Closures and Worldwide Travel Alert.” It’s like previous ones. They’re fake.

“The following posts normally open on Sunday will be closed” on August 3 and 4, 2013. It’s because of “increased security concerns.”

“For further information, please click on the links below. A Worldwide Travel Alert has also been issued.”

US Embassy Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

US Embassy Algiers, Algeria

US Embassy Amman, Jordan

US Embassy Baghdad, Iraq

US Consulate Basrah, Iraq

US Embassy Cairo, Egypt

US Consulate Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

US Embassy Djibouti, Djibouti

US Embassy Dhaka, Bangladesh

US Embassy Doha, Qatar

US Consulate Dubai, United Arab Emirates

US Consulate Erbil, Iraq

US Consulate Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

US Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan

US Embassy Khartoum, Sudan

US Embassy Kuwait City, Kuwait

US Embassy Manama, Bahrain

US Embassy Muscat, Oman

US Embassy Nouakchott, Mauritania

US Embassy Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

US Embassy Sana’a, Yemen

US Embassy Tripoli, Libya

According to an unnamed senior American official,”more than the usual chatter” was intercepted. Specifics were omitted. There are none. They don’t exist.

They come at Ramadan’s close. They followed Russia granting Snowden asylum. They came three days after fake Israeli/Palestinian peace talks began.

They’re during worsening economic crisis conditions. They affect growing millions. They’re when Washington threatens escalated war on Syria.

They’re at the same time administration officials try justifying institutionalized global spying. Meta-data mining is standard practice. NSA monitors everyone it targets all the time everywhere.

Russell Tice is a former Office of Naval Intelligence/Defense Intelligence Agency/NSA analyst. His career spanned 20 years.

In December 2005, he accused NSA and DIA of unconstitutionally wiretapping US citizens. He got national attention, saying:

“Everyone at NSA knew what they were doing was illegal, because it’s drilled into our heads over and over that it’s against NSA policy, that you do not do that. The choice is to speak out and get fired.”

On August 1, he was interviewed on PBS’ News Hour. He said NSA collects “everything.” It accumulates content “word for word, everything of every domestic communication in this country.”

Every phone call, email, and other personal communication is gathered and stored. Nothing escapes its scrutiny. It lies claiming otherwise. Meta-data collection is official policy. It’s longstanding. It’s done with technological ease.

Earlier he said NSA “targets, sucks-in, stores and analyzes illegally obtained content from the masses in the United States.”

Elected officials are monitored. So are federal judges. Candidate Obama’s phone was tapped. His private emails were read.

Public awareness grows. Fearmongering diverts attention. False flags shift attention from what matters. Administration officials take full advantage.

On August 2, Russia Today headlined “US issues global travel alert over al-Qaeda attack threat,” saying:

It “warn(ed) US citizens about the ‘continued potential for terrorist attacks’ in the Middle East and North Africa.”

It comes weeks ahead of the 12th 9/11 anniversary. It’s also the Benghazi, Libya first anniversary.

The travel alert remains throughout August. The State Department “alert(ed) US citizens to the continued potential for terrorist attacks, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa and possibly occurring and emanating from the Arabian Peninsula.”

“Current information suggest that al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorists attacks booth in the region and beyond and they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August.”

Americans were warned about potential dangers on subways, air travel, railways, ships, other forms of public transportation, and prime tourist sites.

Media scoundrels regurgitate fearmongering. They do it ad nauseam. On August 3, CNN headlined “US issues global travel alert, to close embassies due to al Qaeda threat.”

Embassy closings and travel alert warning remain in place. Britain and Germany said they’ll “close their embassies in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, on Sunday and Monday. The UK Foreign Office said it was a precautionary measure.”

An unnamed US senior official in Yemen called the threat there “much worse than it has (been) in a long time.”

According to other unnamed US officials:

“Various Western targets – not just those tied to the United States -are under threat.”

Former US ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill said:

“There have been incidents where they’ve closed down a number of embassies in the Middle East because the information is not specific enough to say that ‘embassy X’ got to be closed as opposed to other embassies.”

“But I think this, closing all of these embassies in the Middle East to North Africa, is in fact unprecedented. At least, I didn’t see this during my career.”

Unsubstantiated fearmongering lacks credibility. The usual “experts” hype it. US broadcasters and cable channels feature them. So do major broadsheets.

Notable past terror attacks were false flags. Perhaps Obama has another one in mind. Perhaps multiple ones. Maybe something major.

Last April’s Boston Marathon bombing was a black ops scheme. It was state-sponsored terrorism. Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were set up. They were innocent patsies.

They had nothing to do with it. Police murdered Tamerlan in cold blood. Dzhokhar faces longterm hard time.

The FBI bears responsibility for US terror plots. So does CIA. It’s longstanding policy. Post-9/11, it escalated.

Bush declared war on terrorism. Obama continues what he began. Washington needs enemies. When none exist, they’re invented.

Muslims are America’s target of choice. Innocent victims are entrapped. Doing so lets FBI operatives claim fabricated war on terror victories.

It lets NSA officials saying spying uncovers plots before they hatch. It lets America get away with murder. It does so on a global scale.

Lies, damn lies, and repeated lies facilitate state sponsored terrorism. It remains ongoing. Lots more is planned. America’s waging war on humanity. It’s longstanding US policy.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at .

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Egypt’s Crisis (II)

The U.S. policy on Egypt is in disarray, and both camps distrust America—the Muslim Brotherhood by default, its opponents from experience. Hillary Clinton was widely perceived as Morsi’s key foreign aider and abettor during his attempt to grab complete power in the aftermath of last year’s presidential election, and with good reason. She came to Cairo last July, only two weeks after the presidential election, and declared her support for “the military’s return to a purely national security role.” In the ensuing weeks she exerted a great deal of pressure on Egypt’s generals not to challenge Morsi’s assumption of full authority, while ignoring the fact that he came to power because the Muslim Brotherhood broke its pledge to stay out of the presidential race. She quietly supported Morsi’s ploy last fall to reconvene the constitutional assembly previously declared illegal by the courts because it was packed with the Muslim Brotherhood deputies posing as independents.

When Morsi issued a decree last November giving himself unprecedented authority, including immunity to any judicial oversight, hundreds of thousands took to the streets. Clinton’s State Department responded lamely, by urging “all Egyptians to resolve their differences… peacefully and through democratic dialogue.” On November 28, her spokeswoman Victoria Nuland further irritated millions of Egyptians by declaring that Morsi was seeking dialogue “with other stakeholders in Egypt” and that he was not an autocrat—escalating attacks against the Coptic Christian community, growing media censorship, and dictatorial decrees notwithstanding.

After Clinton’s departure the substance of policy has not changed. Last March Secretary of State John Kerry came to Cairo to express his support for Morsi and announced a $250 million aid package with no strings attached. In May the White House overrode a Congressional bid to withhold military funding to Egypt and tie the assistance to the respect for human rights. The news was ignored in the U.S. but it was given a great deal of prominence in Egypt and cemented the impression that Washington was supporting a repressive Islamist regime. Last June the demonstrations that led to Morsi’s downfall saw many placards accusing Obama of allying himself with “terrorists” and supporting a “fascist regime in Egypt.” On June 30 Cairo witnessed the biggest mass protest in history, but the State Department did not issue an equivalent to its February 2011 statement that the Egyptian people’s “grievances have reached a boiling point.”

The events of the past four weeks prove that autocracy is the only way to rule Egypt. Its “deep state” institutions—the military and the security services—have remained intact under Morsi. We are back to the spirit of 1952, when Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the monarchy and instituted the army’s self-perception as the guardian of the nation and the final arbiter of its best interests. As Nasser himself put it three years after the coup, “We felt with every fiber of our being that this task was our burden to bear, and that if we did not fulfill it, it would be as if we turned down a sacred task that Providence itself has imposed upon us.”

The same spirit was in evidence when General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, 58-year-old chief of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, addressed the nation after the July 3 coup. He repeatedly referred to the legitimacy the people have given to military action, but clearly implied that Egypt is too important to be ruled by its people. Many Egyptians now liken Sisi to Nasser, and the former seems keen to promote the parallel. Posters featuring Sisi and Nasser side by side have appeared all over Egypt. Another echo of the Nasser era is evident in the fierceness with which security forces have dealt with the Islamists in recent weeks. Sisi’s long-term aspirations remain unknown. He claims to have no political ambitions, but he may well change his mind if there is a “call from the people” for him to run for presidency.

“An arena of electoral democracy will be constructed,” according to a popular Egyptian blogger, “but many matters of grave national import will be outside its purview. And anyway, its outcomes can always be reversed.” The army understands what Morsi did not: that the Egyptian state is a complex, somewhat ramshackle institution in which divergent interests are mediated and reconciled by formal mechanisms and (more importantly) informal means, and not an object of heavy-handed Islamist experimentation which excluded many key stakeholders.

The true challenge to Egypt’s military is not the Muslim Brotherhood—its street protests can and will be contained—but the economy. Urgent reforms are needed to avoid starvation—currently postponed by injections of Saudi money—and Egypt’s descent into some form of Hobbesian nightmare. Those reforms would have to entail the army giving up its 20-percent-plus stake in the national economy. It should be possible for the officers to maintain their numerous privileges without necessarily running factories that make pasta, air conditioners, bed linen, and a host of other most un-military articles. Only then would it be possible to tackle Egypt’s many structural problems: lack of natural resources, demographic boom, inefficient land use, and institutionalized corruption at all levels. In the absence of comprehensive economic reforms and increased yields in the Nile Delta, Egypt’s prospects are grim.

The Power Behind The Rebels Why No Revolution Exists In Syria

The era of Arab Spring euphoria is long ended, having devolved into doubt, confusion or wholesale rejection. Libya and Syria put an abrupt end to the Arab Spring celebrations, with the current situation in Egypt adding to the frustration.

Part of the problem in deciding whether a particular side in these conflicts deserves support or rejection is a lack of criteria that can help to clearly define what is happening. Thus, different analysts describe the same events as a coup, revolution, or civil war. These definitions are totally different perspectives as to what is happening, and imply that the situations should include different levels of political support or rejection.

In Syria the question remains: is the situation a revolution or a civil war? What should be the basis for judging whether or not a situation in general is “revolutionary,” and why does it matter?

Below is an attempt to put forth a common sense definition of revolution and apply it to the events in Syria. When such a basic criterion is applied to Syria, it becomes clear that the ongoing events in Syria should not be labeled a revolution.

The label “revolution” is critically important because it implies that the overwhelming majority of people have decided and are dedicated to a specific path for society. This means that the “masses” are passionately intervening to change society, overcoming fear and repression until their objectives are met.

In this sense revolution is the highest form of democracy, since it’s the clearest expression of the People’s will, expressed through ongoing massive deliberate action, as opposed to the non-participatory form of democracy that is the western hallmark. The label “revolution” is especially important because a movement that has earned a clear revolutionary mandate should be supported without condition, albeit not without criticism.

In order to judge whether a revolution is afoot the evidence should be examined. Clues must be unearthed to decipher the attitudes, feelings, and energy of the social movement in question. Studying revolution is an attempt to gauge mass consciousness — not an exact science but a politically crucial one. All politicians do this as they attempt electoral campaigns, and all dictatorships gauge revolutionary consciousness to see if they have the power to crush it.

What are ways to gather evidence into revolutionary mass consciousness? In some ways the old adage, “you’ll know it when you see it,” is helpful in describing revolution, since revolutions produce floods of people all expressing pent up emotions, fighting in a united cause, which creates new forms of social solidarity that’s impossible to form during non-revolutionary situations. These surreal scenes made no one question whether the toppling of the dictator Mubarak was a “revolution.” It was simply obvious.

More specific evidence of revolutionary mass consciousness may include: gigantic demonstrations with united demands, mass civil disobedience, mass labor and student actions and strikes, occupations of public buildings, new forms of direct democracy (which may include new labor unions, new political parties, neighborhood committees, etc.) and other bold actions taken by masses of people who otherwise would take no such actions, such as confronting police and/or military, fighting off right-wing attacks, civil disobedience, ignoring military curfew rules, etc.  Through these types of extraordinary experiences the majority of the population undergoes a personal transformation during the course of revolution.

The ultimate sign that a situation has entered a revolutionary period is that the masses have directly intervened into social life as an independent, powerful force, through ongoing collective action. The people seek to actualize their power, creating a dynamic that shifts the balance of power away from the elites and their institutions. Governments becomes “destabilized,” elite authority is lost, and enforcement of laws becomes difficult or impossible. Even martial law is easily defeated by a strong revolution of the majority. Governments melt away.

Whether or not the social power can be fully and permanently shifted depends on the success or failure of the revolution; but the path of revolution has been entered when social equilibrium has tilted — the elites cannot rule in the same way. The people have invested in ongoing, mass actions to change society. The targeted regime thus becomes unbalanced and splits, unable to act collectively to suppress the revolution or neutralize it through concessions; every step the regime takes to resolve the situation only pushes the revolutionary movement forward. The surest sign of a revolution is its effect on the targeted regime, which becomes splintered and ineffective, its power made powerless.

Revolution is a display of power by working and poor people, who collectively choose to assert themselves into public life in order to change it. In non-revolutionary times working people do not actualize their power; they aren’t even aware that they have any, as they passively ignore any role in social life as individuals, silently delegating their political power to corporate-bought politicians.

There is no other social power equal to a revolutionary movement in modern society, since revolutions are famous for exposing the weakness of the elite and the elite-run state: armies crumble under revolutionary pressure as soldiers refuse to fire on peaceful protestors; police repression motivates the people to repress the police; secretive “security” agencies are shown powerless, and long-standing elite political parties are smashed. If successful in the long term, a revolutionary movement can fundamentally change society.

Let us now apply these basic criteria of revolution to Syria.

The first essential threshold of revolution was not crossed in Syria: the movement was not able to intervene in a way that was powerful enough to alter the power dynamic of society. The revolutionary movement did not grow large enough to truly challenge the Syrian government, and very soon the “revolutionaries” took the path of a guerrilla war — led not by the Syrian people, but a minority of religious extremists.

The evidence of this is plain to see: the only two social forces currently exercising their power in Syria are completely outside the control of working people — the Syrian government and the Islamist extremist militias. There is no third option for victory here, because the masses have not been powerful enough to assert themselves in an independent way — a basic precondition of revolution.

The two largest cities in Syria — Damascus and Aleppo — never experienced the mass demonstrations that you see in Cairo, Egypt. In fact, there have been several enormous pro-Assad demonstrations in Syria’s two largest cities, a fact always ignored by those who argue that there is a revolution afoot in Syria. A similar dynamic occurred in Libya, which showcased anti-government demonstrations in the eastern city of Benghazi, but never occurred in the Libyan capital in Tripoli. Obama thus declared that Libya as a whole was undergoing a “revolution,” so that the United States could militarily intervene.

The rebellion in Syria also never found soil in the other religious and ethnic minorities, who remain either passive or dedicated to the Syrian government for fear of ethnic-religious cleansing from the Sunni extremist rebels. The one exception is the Kurds, who have used the conflict to set up an autonomous zone that they are vigorously defending against the Islamist extremist ‘rebels.’

The uprising remains a largely Sunni Islam uprising, dominated by Sunni extremists who are armed and funded from the heartland of religious extremism, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and their paymaster the United States (a true axis of evil in regards to Middle East policy). This is a fact that many on the left refuse to see, or dangerously minimize in order to maintain their pro-rebel support.

Most Syrian analysts, however, admit that the most effective fighting force among the Syrian rebels is Jabhat al-Nursa, religious extremists that use terrorist tactics and are directly affiliated with al-Qaeda. But now this group’s dominance is being threatened by another Islamist extremist terror group, Ahrar al-Sham, which is funded and populated by Qatar and which is thought to have 10,000-20,000 fighters in Syria.

A list of the top ten powerful militias in Syria — with the exception of the Kurds — are fighting predominantly for an Islamic state, i.e., they are religious extremists who want nothing to do with democracy, equality or freedom. The Muslim Brotherhood cannot be characterized as a “moderate” group in Syria.

This is a crucial fact. The Islamist extremists are not mere “players” under an umbrella of rebel groupings. The extremists are the motor force of the rebels, who do the vast majority of the fighting, who dominate the “liberated” areas of Syria where fundamentalist Sharia law has been implemented, and who will rule the rest of the country if the Syrian government falls. In essence, they have become what claims to be the “revolution.”

By defining the extremists as mere “players” in the anti-Assad “coalition,” the true nature of the rebels is distorted: a political movement is defined by who leads it, who exercises power, and by the pursuit of specific political goals. By this more accurate definition the “rebels” must be described as Islamic extremists, who receive support from other minor political players who seek to oust the Syrian government.

In the rebel-controlled regions of Syria one can be executed for “blasphemy” or adultery, lose a limb for minor theft and other misdemeanors, and if you’re a woman you’ll be relegated to a permanent state of house arrest, except for the moments where a close male relative chooses to escort you out of the house, assuming you are completely hidden behind clothing.

To focus only on the “moderate” rebels and “revolutionary” minority is to purposely blind oneself to the lead actors in this drama, thus giving invaluable political cover to the most reactionary groups in existence, who make the current Syrian government look like liberals.

These facts are crucially important, and must be considered when comparing the current Syrian government — where women have many freedoms similar to American women — to its alternative, which places women as property of men without any semblance of civil rights. If the rebels of Syria are to be called “revolutionaries,” they are of the reactionary type.

It is true that there are smaller, non-extremist militias amongst the rebels, or those that function to protect neighborhoods, etc., but these militias do not constitute a powerful social force. They are essentially non-entities in this conflict amongst giants, and focusing almost exclusively on these groups ignores the fundamental reality of the conflict and purposely distorts what is actually happening.

The local “democratic” militias cannot be used as a justification for further militarizing a conflict that will inevitably bring western-backed religious zealots to power, to the detriment of all Syrians. To demand that these rebels be armed is to demand that Syria be fragmented and destroyed in an Iraqi-like fashion.

While glorifying the smaller militias, pro-rebel analysts also overstate the number of Syrian soldiers who’ve defected to the rebels. The exact number is impossible to know at this time. There are, of course, defectors in all wars, especially civil wars, but the myth that the Syrian rebels are densely populated by defecting soldiers of the Syrian army is best exposed by the fact — recognized by nearly all observers — that the Syrian army has remained very cohesive. A true “flood” of defectors is blatantly inconsistent with this fact, though always ignored by the pro-rebel groups.

Revolutions are notorious for cracking armies like eggs, especially in a prolonged revolutionary upheaval. The firmness and stability of the Syrian army offers yet more damning evidence against labeling the conflict a “revolution.”

This fact is rationalized away by pro-rebel analysts who argue that the Syrian military’s cohesiveness is due to the army’s dominance by Shia Muslims, specifically President Assad’s Alawite sect — and are therefore unquestionably loyal to the government, making them an especially unique sectarian army.

In reality, the Syrian military is composed overwhelmingly of Sunni Muslims, who constitute the majority of Syrians. It’s true that the Alawites have an over-representation in the military’s upper echelons, but the rank-and-file solider is predominantly Sunni, many from Syria’s countryside. A majority of these stereotypical Syrian soldiers would not mindlessly mow down their countrymen as the western media claims they have done.

The Syrian defectors’ story was mostly a useful propaganda piece for western countries — the U.S. specifically — to push people’s attention away from the Islamist extremists who make up the overwhelming majority of the armed struggle. Although there have been a couple of high-level defectors from the Syrian government, they’ve never expanded beyond token amounts, as the unity of the Syrian government continues to testify. The regime as a whole remains united and stable, which would be impossible if it were confronted by an ongoing nationwide powerful revolution.

More proof that Syria has not entered a revolutionary phase is the non-participation of the Syrian labor movement. All revolutions attract the attention and powerfully affect the nation’s labor movement. But Syria’s labor movement has either been passive or pro-Assad. The pro-rebel groups blame this fact on the labor movement’s blatant subservience to the Syrian government, but this explanation lacks obvious merit.

For example, before Egypt’s revolution the Egyptian labor movement was deeply connected to the Egyptian government, as was the Venezuelan labor movement’s connection to its government in pre-revolutionary Venezuela. But revolutions transform labor movements in the same way they splinter armies. Syria’s labor movement would have bent under the pressure of a real revolutionary movement, as all labor movements do when faced with the force of a real revolution.

It’s also untrue that Syria’s labor movement has been totally subservient to the Syrian government. Syria’s labor movement has directly confronted the government several times over the years, after the Assad government began adopting a privatization agenda and other neoliberal reforms in the country, which has put negative pressure on working class Syrians. Syrian unions are perfectly capable of acting independently and would have done so if they believed a revolution existed in their country that would have benefited working class Syrians.

More proof that Syria is not undergoing a revolution can be found by asking a simple question: how can the “revolutionary” movement in Syria realize its goals?

For example, if we accept the false premise that the revolutionary movement was “forced to take up arms,” and then accept the fact that Islamic extremists completely dominate the rebel battlefield, then we must conclude that the “revolution” has ended, since any prospect for a truly revolutionary conclusion is excluded from the basic math of the conflict.

Initially, the pro-democracy revolutionaries were united with other rebels that operated under the umbrella demand to oust President Assad; but now the “revolutionary” demand of the Islamists — who control the rebels — is the demand for an Islamic state.

The demand for an Islamic state should have instantly shattered any alliance between pro-democracy revolutionaries and the Islamists, but the pro-democracy rebels have largely refused to do this. They haven’t rejected the Islamists because without them they would be completely powerless. Zero evidence of a revolution would exist. If there are revolutionaries fighting under the Islamic black flag in extremist militias, they are doing a disservice to themselves and the future of their country.

The revolution thus finds itself without a way forward, since there is no independent demand that can currently be realized by the Syrian pro-democracy revolutionaries, who are currently unable to assert their power against the Islamic extremists or the Assad government. This “revolution” is a car without an engine or gas, stalled. A precondition of revolution is the ability for the masses to powerfully assert themselves into social life.  A revolution without a revolutionary movement is no revolution.

It is thus highly irresponsible to demand that the Syrian rebels be armed, while at the same time insisting that Syria be protected from “western intervention.” In fact, supplying arms to the rebels is a strategic form of U.S. intervention; arming, funding, and training rebels doesn’t happen without strings attached, loyalties and alliances created, promises made, and pro-western geo-political goals pursued.

To insist that the NATO or Gulf monarchies supply arms to the rebels is, in essence, to invite the United States to directly participate in the Syrian conflict on a deeper level (the Obama administration is already neck-deep involved, supplying thousands of tons of arms to the Syrian rebels covertly through the CIA).

The U.S. is already buying and trafficking arms, training and funding rebel fighters, all of which are considered U.S. investments in the future of the conflict, which, at any time, can be paid with interest via a direct U.S. military invasion — starting with a “no fly zone.” In fact, without the massive rebel support from the U.S. and its allies this conflict would have ended long ago and thousands of lives would have been spared.  Demanding that this bloodletting continue — especially without ANY prospect for a successful end — is to demand the destruction of Syria.

The last refuge of the pro-rebel analysis argues that, because there are “revolutionary democratic structures” that have been created in rebel-held areas, then we have indisputable evidence of revolution, and thus the rebel cause must be supported. Often cited as proof is the Local Coordinating Committees (LCC) in rebel areas, which are credited with food distribution and other forms of local administration.

But in a conflict covered in depth by cell phone videos and other means of communication, evidence of mass-based local coordinating committees — i.e. a revolutionary democratic structures — is scant. The LCCs have a snazzy website that puts forth the occasional pro-rebel statement — and YouTube videos of rebel military assaults — but it’s otherwise difficult to find any convincing evidence of a powerful revolutionary organization, nor is any ever offered by pro-rebel writers who champion the righteous cause of the LCC’s.

This is not to say that LCC’s do not exist, but like the neighborhood militias, their relevance has been greatly exaggerated in an attempt to define the Syrian situation as revolutionary and thus grant it a status of “unconditional support.”

In reality, all semi-objective media observers have noted that local administration and food distribution in rebel-held areas is dominated by the ruling political and military groups of the Islamic extremists. This fact relegates the LCC’s to a minor role at best, if they can even be considered politically relevant at all.

It’s certainly true that civilian democratic structures exist in Syria where there are power vacuums, much like civilian militias to protect neighborhoods. But temporary power vacuums should not be glorified as proof of a real revolutionary movement; it can just as easily prove that a country is being physically destroyed. These vacuums are filled, as they were in the city of al-Raqqa, when the Islamists enter the void. 

A real revolution does not need to search for evidence of its existence; it displays its power for all to see in massive mobilizations that shake the power of the targeted regime. But in Syria’s greatest city, Damascus, there does not exist a whimper, let alone a roar of revolution. If it’s true that the people in Damascus are “too scared” to openly rebel — as some pro-rebel groups claim — then they have obviously not yet entered the path of revolution, since overcoming fear is one of the first preconditions of revolution; without it there can be no revolutionary movement or action.

Without accepting some of the above criteria for judging a situation as “revolutionary,” a political analysis can run into deep trouble. The pro-rebel analysis has no real criteria that can decide when this “revolution” ceases to be revolutionary. By their method of analysis it seems possible to conclude that the revolution will go on forever — the situation will always remain “revolutionary” so long as certain revolutionary-appearing democratic structures can be unearthed, regardless of how well attended, effective, or whether or not they have any semblance of actual power.  This watered down definition of a revolution would qualify the U.S. Occupy Movement as a revolution, which of course it was not.

A revolutionary movement is inevitably a battle for power. It is the people asserting their power in order to change the power dynamic of society in their favor. For a revolution to exist the people must be in a position to assert their power. At this point President Assad can only be removed by either the Islamic extremists or the U.S. military.

A nation can be inhabited by entirely revolutionary-minded people, but there is no revolution unless people are massively asserting their power in the streets, workplaces, and neighborhoods. This is not the situation in Syria, where no revolution exists at this time.

The Future For Egypt Is Looking Increasingly Bloody

Cairo — Hundreds of thousands of people turned out outside Cairo’s Rabaa mosque yesterday to protest against the coup d’état in Egypt, while hundreds of thousands poured into Tahrir Square to support their favourite general, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who staged the coup-that-we-mustn’t-call-a-coup.

Grotesque, unprecedented, bizarre. Call it what you like. But the helicopters swooping happily over Tahrir, and the line of visor-wearing riot police and troops standing opposite the Muslim Brotherhood’s barricades, told their own story. Journalists should not be merchants of gloom, but things did not look too good in Cairo last night.

The saddest thing – the most tragic, if you like – was that the crowds in Nasr City, close to the airport road where the mosque stands, were as cheerful and welcoming as the masses in Tahrir who regard their opposite numbers as “terrorists” rather than supporters of Mohamed Morsi, the legally and democratically elected President of Egypt who was overthrown by the army three weeks ago. The tens of thousands of Egyptians crossing the Nile River bridges or sweating in the 40C heat on the highway to the airport were so happy they could have been heading for a football match.

But there the jollity ends. The Muslim Brotherhood men and women carried Morsi’s picture and had painted Stars of David on the military barracks near the mosque. The Brotherhood had piled thousands of sandbags around their tent encampment and piles of stones to hurl at anyone trying to move them. But the soldiers down the road – also, it has to be said, cheerful and quite friendly – were holding automatic weapons beside French and American-made armoured vehicles, and they also held wooden batons and were flanked by policemen in shoddy black uniforms.

It looked as if they were only a few hours away from moving in on the Brotherhood, and no matter how many bearded men were reading the Koran on the roadway – and they were quite literally doing that – it was difficult to imagine the coming hours being anything but deadly.

One point that stood out – and it may be unfashionable to say so – is that the Brotherhood supporters were generally poor and looked poor in their grubby abayas and plastic sandals. Some of the Tahrir demonstrators, who were truly revolutionaries against Mubarak in 2011, trooped over the Nile bridges waving posters of General al-Sisi. And one has to say, painful as it is to do so, that the sight of well-heeled people holding aloft the photograph of a general in sunglasses – albeit a wonderful and very democratic general – was profoundly depressing. What really happened to the 25 January 2011 revolution?

“We love the soldiers but we don’t need the general,” a scarved woman shouted near the Rabaa mosque, but Sisi is now a well-known face, the man who will return Egypt to its true revolutionary path, if you can forget for the time being that the first genuinely elected president in modern Egyptian history is probably incarcerated in one of those barracks we drive by so blithely on the way to the airport.

But Egypt does need a government. Driving back from Nasr City to central Cairo tonight, my car was blocked in a traffic jam because rival families were fighting a gun battle across the highway. About 1,000 Cairenes had joined in by throwing stones from an overpass. Two miles further on, a middle-aged woman was driven down by a motorcycle and lay on the road in great pain. Many of the drivers who saw her carried on their journeys, the noses of their families pressed to the window as this lady lay spread-eagled on the highway in her black dress. The near future does not look good.

Source: Robert Fisk | The Independent

Egypt After The Coup

Is Obama Backing ElBaradei?

Beirut — According to well-connected Washington sources, one being a Congressional staffer whose job description includes following political events in Egypt, it did not take Mohamed Mustafa ElBaradei, the Sharia legal scholar, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and for 12 years the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (1997-2009), very long at all to contact the Washington, DC law firm of Patton Boggs on 7/2/13. That is once it became evident that Egyptian President Mohamad Morsi might well be ousted by Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). The next day, ElBaradei’s representatives reportedly also made contact with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations [3] which claims to represent the 52 largest US based largest Jewish groups.

ElBaradei, perhaps the current front-runner to replace his long-time nemesis, Mohammad Morsi, moved fast to organize some key allies in Cairo and Washington to pick-up where his earlier failed Presidential campaign left off shortly before the 1/25/2011 Egyptian Presidential election. Patton Boggs, the K Street, NW Washington DC law firm, which last year had 550 lawyers and 120 lobbyists and is arguably the firm closest to the White House in terms of securing for its clients what they want from the approximately 5000 key decision makers in the US Capitol. The other nearly 11,800 federally registered lobbyists in Washington (there were only 300 as recently as when Lyndon Johnson was US President) lag far behind Patton Boggs in terms of political influence.

Patton Boggs new client wants the Pentagon and the White House to squeeze Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) who deposed President Morsi and arrange for himself to be appointed the interim President of Egypt pending early elections.

ElBaradei wants the same thing from Israel and its US lobby, the former having developed close relations under Morsi similar to what Israel enjoyed under Mubarak.

What ElBaradei’s representatives are reportedly offering the White House in exchange for Obama’s discrete assistance, is that it that the 1979 Camp David Accord, including all its elements will be observed and that in addition, additional guarantees will be given to Israel with the Zionist regime occupying Palestine will be given prime estate for its Embassy. In addition, Egypt under ElBaradei can be expected to toughen its stance on Iran’s nuclear program with altering and adjusting publicly some of his pre-2012 comments on Iran that the White House and Israel criticized as being “soft on the Islamic Republic.”

Israel is also being promised by ElBaradei’s agents, major security cooperation with Egypt, under which they also pledge to the White House, will continue to grow stronger. ElBaradei’s objective is to secure Barack Obama’s personal support during his jockeying for the White House imprimatur for the expected soon to be held Egyptian presidential election and before.

Once again, the Obama administration was caught by surprise as the enduring “Arab spring”, still in its infancy, increasingly portends ill for Western installed potentates in artificially Sykes-Picot style created “countries”.

Barack Obama reportedly has some doubts according to Congressional contacts and dear readers will likely recall his praise of Morsi after the two former University Professors had a chance to sit together and get to know one another. “I like this man”, Obama was reported to have told some staff members, “he thinks like me” as his wife Michele reportedly rolled her eyes and deeply exhaled.

When Morsi was deposed, Obama lamented: “We are deeply concerned by the decision of the Egyptian armed forces to remove President Morsi and suspend the Egyptian constitution. I now call on the Egyptian military to move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible through an inclusive and transparent process, and to avoid any arbitrary arrests of President Morsi and his supporters.”

Meanwhile, the SCAF, at the urging of ElBaradei’s team, is paying Washington and its ally’s sweet lip service regarding Obama’s expressed concerns. Shortly before the words were uttered by SCAF’s interim appointee, the State Department received a copy of the speech with the first paragraph high-lighted to assuage Obama. The first words of Sisi’s 7/1/13 statement read, “The armed forces will not interfere in the realm of politics or governance and will not overstep the role that it is assigned in a democracy, which stems from the desire of the people.” Those words sound good also in Foggy Bottom.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s Arab neighbors have expressed support for the military coup, but not Africa, where it has been reported that the African Union will suspend Egypt from all activities, following the unconstitutional power change.

Patton Boggs talking points to the Congress and Obama Administration include, but are not limited to, the following:

President Morsi had more than a year to show progress to the Egyptian people, with both institutional political legitimacy derived from their election victories and also strong popular support when they assumed full power from the armed forces in June 2012.

ElBaradei’s team is emphasizing that the Morsi government failed badly and the new government, hopefully led by ElBaradei, will now act more efficiently to move the country towards credible and legitimate institutions of governance.

ElBaradei’s campaign, as reported in the 4/4/13 edition of the New York Times also worked hard to convince the White House of what he called the necessity of forcibly ousting President Morsi, presenting several arguments that included documentation that Morsi had bungled the country’s transition to an inclusive democracy and wasted a year without following thru on any of his pledges or addressing the problems of:

Some Congressional analysts believe that one of Morsi’s biggest mistakes resulted from a deliberate policy of accommodation and not, as is commonly believed, confrontation. [4] He allowed the military to retain its corporate autonomy and remain beyond civilian control. Furthermore, he included in his cabinet a large number of non-Muslim Brotherhood figures who abandoned him within months when the going got tough, thus presenting to the public an image that the government was on the verge of collapse. Some have suggested that Morsi should have brought the military to heel soon after he assumed power and was at the height of his popularity, just as the military was at its lowest point in public perception. Monday morning quarter backing is now rampant to explain Morsi’s failures.

What the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohammad Morsi’s supporters do in the coming days at Tahir Square and across Egypt will likely determine the route and the ultimate success of ElBaradei growing juggernaut.

Meanwhile, as of 7/5/13, it appears that President Barack Obama may well help usher Mohammad ElBaredei into Egypt’s Presidential Palace. If the Obama administration has success there will be joy in Tel Aviv and at Patton Boggs victory party where a good number of the invited guests will almost certainly be carefully vetted by AIPAC.

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