As we all know only too well, the United States and Israel would hate to see Iran possessing nuclear weapons. Being “the only nuclear power in the Middle East” is a great card for Israel to have in its hand. But — in the real, non-propaganda world — is USrael actually fearful of an attack from a nuclear-armed Iran? In case you’ve forgotten…

In 2007, in a closed discussion, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that in her opinion “Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel.” She “also criticized the exaggerated use that [Israeli] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears.” ¹

2009: “A senior Israeli official in Washington” asserted that “Iran would be unlikely to use its missiles in an attack [against Israel] because of the certainty of retaliation.” ²

In 2010 the Sunday Times of London (January 10) reported that Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam, war hero, pillar of the Israeli defense establishment, and former director-general of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, “believes it will probably take Iran seven years to make nuclear weapons.”

Early last month, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a television audience: “Are they [Iran] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No, but we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability.” ³

A week later we could read in the New York Times (January 15) that “three leading Israeli security experts — the Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, a former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, and a former military chief of staff, Dan Halutz — all recently declared that a nuclear Iran would not pose an existential threat to Israel.”

Then, a few days afterward, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in an interview with Israeli Army Radio (January 18), had this exchange:

Question: Is it Israel’s judgment that Iran has not yet decided to turn its nuclear potential into weapons of mass destruction?

Barak: People ask whether Iran is determined to break out from the control [inspection] regime right now … in an attempt to obtain nuclear weapons or an operable installation as quickly as possible. Apparently that is not the case.

Lastly, we have the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, in a report to Congress: “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons. … There are “certain things [the Iranians] have not done” that would be necessary to build a warhead. ⁴

Admissions like the above — and there are others — are never put into headlines by the American mass media; indeed, only very lightly reported at all; and sometimes distorted — On the Public Broadcasting System (PBS News Hour, January 9), the non-commercial network much beloved by American liberals, the Panetta quote above was reported as: “But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability, and that’s what concerns us.” Flagrantly omitted were the preceding words: “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No …” ⁵

One of Israel’s leading military historians, Martin van Creveld, was interviewed by Playboy magazine in June 2007:

Playboy: Can the World live with a nuclear Iran?

Van Creveld: The U.S. has lived with a nuclear Soviet Union and a nuclear China, so why not a nuclear Iran? I’ve researched how the U.S. opposed nuclear proliferation in the past, and each time a country was about to proliferate, the U.S. expressed its opposition in terms of why this other country was very dangerous and didn’t deserve to have nuclear weapons. Americans believe they’re the only people who deserve to have nuclear weapons, because they are good and democratic and they like Mother and apple pie and the flag. But Americans are the only ones who have used them. … We are in no danger at all of having an Iranian nuclear weapon dropped on us. We cannot say so too openly, however, because we have a history of using any threat in order to get weapons … thanks to the Iranian threat, we are getting weapons from the U.S. and Germany.”

And throughout these years, regularly, Israeli and American officials have been assuring us that Iran is World Nuclear Threat Number One, that we can’t relax our guard against them, that there should be no limit to the ultra-tough sanctions we impose upon the Iranian people and their government. Repeated murder and attempted murder of Iraqi nuclear scientists, sabotage of Iranian nuclear equipment with computer viruses, the sale of faulty parts and raw materials, unexplained plane crashes, explosions at Iranian facilities … Who can be behind this but USrael? How do we know? It’s called “plain common sense”. Or do you think it was Costa Rica? Or perhaps South Africa? Or maybe Thailand?

Defense Secretary Panetta recently commented on one of the assassinations of an Iranian scientist. He put it succinctly: “That’s not what the United States does.” ⁶

Does anyone know Leon Panetta’s email address? I’d like to send him my list of United States assassination plots. More than 50 foreign leaders were targeted over the years, many successfully. ⁷

Not long ago, Iraq and Iran were regarded by USrael as the most significant threats to Israeli Middle-East hegemony. Thus was born the myth of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the United States proceeded to turn Iraq into a basket case. That left Iran, and thus was born the myth of the Iranian Nuclear Threat. As it began to sink in that Iran was not really that much of a nuclear threat, or that this “threat” was becoming too difficult to sell to the rest of the world, USrael decided that, at a minimum, it wanted regime change. The next step may be to block Iran’s lifeline — oil sales using the Strait of Hormuz. Ergo, the recent US and EU naval buildup near the Persian Gulf, an act of war trying to goad Iran into firing the first shot. If Iran tries to counter this blockade it could be the signal for another US Basket Case, the fourth in a decade, with the devastated people of Libya and Afghanistan, along with Iraq, currently enjoying America’s unique gift of freedom and democracy.

On January 11, the Washington Post reported: “In addition to influencing Iranian leaders directly, [a US intelligence official] says another option here is that [sanctions] will create hate and discontent at the street level so that the Iranian leaders realize that they need to change their ways.”

How utterly charming, these tactics and goals for the 21st century by the leader of “The Free World”. (Is that expression still used?)

The neo-conservative thinking (and Barack Obama can be regarded as often being a fellow traveler of such) is even more charming than that. Listen to Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at America’s most prominent neo-con think tank, American Enterprise Institute:

The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, “See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you Iran wasn’t getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately.” … And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem. ⁸

What are we to make of that and all the other quotations above? I think it gets back to my opening statement: Being “the only nuclear power in the Middle East” is a great card for Israel to have in its hand. Is USrael willing to go to war to hold on to that card?

William Blum is an American, historian and critic of United States foreign policy. He is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military & CIA Interventions Since World War II. He has described his life’s mission as: “If not ending, at least slowing down the American Empire. At least injuring the beast. It’s causing so much suffering around the world.“Mr. Blum can be reached through his website http://killinghope.org .

 Notes

1. 1.     Haaretz.com (Israel), October 25, 2007; print edition October 26 ^↩
2. 2.     Washington Post, March 5, 2009^↩
3. 3.     “Face the Nation”, CBS, January 8, 2012; see video^↩
4. 4.     The Guardian (London), January 31, 2012″ ^↩
5. 5.     “PBS’s Dishonest Iran Edit”, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), January 10, 2012^↩
6. 6.     Reuters, January 12, 2012 ^↩
7. 7.     http://killinghope.org/bblum6/assass.htm^↩
8. 8.     Video of Pletka making these remarks^↩

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A few days ago presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich told the people of Florida about his plans for a permanent colony- base on the Moon, and promised to work toward turning the satellite into the 51st US state. I, and many others, including our leaders and representatives, thought we already had one- a 51^st State. Our current president, Barack Obama, has publicly and repeatedly recognized the 51^st State. So did our previous president, George W. Bush. The United States Congress has been treating ‘it’ as such. The ordinary but informed public has acknowledged ‘it’ for years. Thus, there was not anything new or groundbreaking about the notion of a 51^st state in Gingrich’s recently publicized statements and promises. That was not what quickly grabbed my attention. And certainly that was not what I consider a brilliant idea coming from a not so brilliant man. What I considered brilliant, both as an idea and a solution to a major problem, was sending the 51^st state up to the moon.

For years I have been thinking and pondering about possible solutions to our 51^st state, considered by many in the world as the greatest threat to global peace and security- far more dangerous than Iraq, Iran or North Korea. For a very long time I have been searching for a possible answer to stopping what world human rights organizations consider a major human rights violator. I know I am not among the minority when it comes to this 51^st state, which has been declared a “ Nightmare for Human Rights”, even inside the walls of the timid United Nations. As a life-long advocate for children, how could I not seek solutions to the 51^st state problem, known for its ongoing torture, abuse and imprisonment of children? I even thought about relocating the 51^st state from its current location, and considered various spots ruled by the 51^st state’s creators and backers.

I never considered Britain as a possible ideal location for the 51st state. Way too Europe.  Add to that their dense population, rainy and damp climate, more vocal anti-51^st state population not shying away from boycotts, and their government’s  preference for continuing their neo-colonialist practices subtly (unlike their flashy and boisterous counterpart-USA) made it a wrong fit. 

Next, I was thinking of Connecticut. You must admit, it makes practical sense in some respects. After all, the 51^st state has had one of its representatives representing it right from Connecticut … for a long time. But then again, other impractical factors such as the state’s size, high population density, and un-desert-like climate quickly eliminated Connecticut as an option.

After that, I seriously looked into deserts in Nevada. Its population density looked right, and so did its climate. Things were looking good until my libertarian-leaning friends and colleagues begged me to give them a ‘pass.’ Because admit it, with such a long and thick record of illegal wars, illegal settlements … who would want to take a chance? It might start as a limited state-colony in the Mojave Desert, and before you know it would get greedy, move toward Arizona and California, cross borders and start claiming the entire desert and beyond. They would end up with repeated aggressions, human rights violations and wars, all instigated by the 51^st colony-state, and relying on past history they would have no one come to the rescue! I value my friends, so I gave them a pass.

I then began looking past places within the United States’ borders. In this technology and communication age, with our military bases all over the world, there was no reason not to look for a place outside the US for our 51^st state, as a new colony with a fresh-er start.

Australia looked pretty darn good. A huge continent, all those deserts, so very little population, brand new, and heck, it has been serving our government-military pretty well. Many still consider it a UK-Colony now partially shared and ruled by the US. However, that idea too had to be discarded. Why? The 51^st state is known to be very touchy when it comes to titles-names-appearances. In this case it was Australia’s nickname-The Land Down Under. The 51^st state would consider this option as ‘moving down,’ thus not acceptable. They would claim that moving to a place referred to as ‘Down Under’ would have possible-potential discriminatory and pejorative implications … And with that, gone was my last possible option-location. That is, until …

Newt Gingrich came up with one of his most brilliant ideas. Let me correct myself: He accidentally came up with the only brilliant idea of his life; even if he is not nearly brilliant enough to realize it. I am not talking about the technological or political campaign strategy aspects associated with this accidentally brilliant statement. I am talking about the possible destination and solution he may have come up with for the 51^st state; however unintended. I am talking about the new Gingrich solution to end one of the major causes of global conflicts, human rights abuses, and the constant thorn in our side. Let’s move the 51^st State up to the moon. It’s a win-win situation. They would be moving up, and would have the entire moon as their colony base, where they wouldn’t be loathed, hated and despised by millions. The world will have one less major constant conflict to deal with, one less major threat, and one less instigator of atrocious acts against humanity. So yes, let’s pursue the Moon, and move our 51^st state up there.

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Last week Boiling Frogs Post broke the newly brewing story-line in the war propaganda against Iran involving an alleged Iranian terror plot in Azerbaijan. Yesterday we had a follow up on the emerging ‘alleged’ details in the ‘alleged’ plot claiming Israeli diplomats and religious figures were the intended targets of the alleged Iranian assassination plot [All Emphasis Mine]:

Three Azerbaijani citizens who were arrested by security forces last week planned to attack Jewish targets, including Israeli ambassador to Baku Michael Lotem, a local media outlet reported Tuesday. Israeli sources also speculated that the terror cell members plotted to attack the embassy in Baku and the ambassador… The men are suspected of plotting to kill a rabbi and a teacher at the Ohr Avner Chabad Jewish Day School in Baku as revenge for the recent killing of a nuclear scientist in Tehran…Two of the suspects were identified as Rasim Aliyev and Ali Huseynov. According to reports, they received instructions from Balagardash Dadashov, who was in contact with Iranian intelligence and received a sniper rifle, pistols and explosive devices to attack Chabad emissaries operating in Baku.

…

As with many stories, especially those involving ‘alleged’ terrorism operations conducted by the nations on the list of our to-be invaded-occupied nations it is important to pay specific attention to the context, and other ancillary and related details and facts. Before we do that let’s note the most important fact in the case of Iran: which actor in the current global imperial pursuits has been the primary and most active force against Iran and for its invasion? I believe everyone would unanimously and very easily answer this question. Israel.

While the pressure and the venues of attacks on Iran have been growing and escalating- think nuclear arms development accusations, meddling in Iraq accusations, alleged assassination attempt against Saudi Diplomat in the US accusations …, we suddenly get a brand new allegation accusing Iran of plotting a terror act in Azerbaijan. Not only that, the targets of this alleged terror plot happen to be none other than Israel. If that doesn’t give you pause, make it a long pause, followed by firm skepticism, well, your mental faculties may be in need of a serious check-up followed by a thorough tune-up.

Now, let’s review the latest details providing needed context in the new allegations pointed directly at Iran by Israel and Azerbaijan.

Four days after we brought the readers’ attention to this significant developing story, four days late, the mainstream media began its coverage, of course with their own version. Here is a report by Reuters:

Authorities in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic bordering Iran, have arrested two men suspected of plotting to attack prominent foreigners including Israel’s ambassador and a local rabbi, officials and media reported on Wednesday.

The National Security Ministry said the men were connected to an Iranian citizen who had links with Iran’s intelligence.

…

Here is an excerpt clarifying Azerbaijan’s position and its intimate ties to Israel and the US, but fails to mention its status as ‘To-Be-NATO Member’ soon:

Azerbaijan, a secular Muslim country, is home to more than 9,000 Jews and has friendly ties with Israel and the United States. A major energy producer, it exports oil to Israel and imports weapons and military hardware.

And here is the US setting the stage for the next wave of conspiracy in setting up Iran:

The U.S. embassy issued a warning to its citizens saying “the possibility remains for actions against U.S. or other high-profile foreign interests in Azerbaijan”.

…

Diplomatic ties between Azerbaijan and Iran are cool, but Iranian companies operate and have stakes in oil contracts in the Caspian Sea state, which exports around 1 million barrels of crude a day (bpd) westward through a pipeline operated by a consortium led by BP.

…

Also yesterday, Israeli President Shimon Peres personally saluted Azerbaijan for allegedly foiling the alleged terror plot:

Peres, attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, told Ilham Aliyev that Israel saluted his country for “saving lives on your land from a murderous terrorist attack.” Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry revealed last week that it uncovered a cell planning terrorist attacks. Two Azerbaijanis and an Iranian citizen living in Iran were implicated in the plot. The two Azerbaijanis were arrested.

…

Here is what Aliyev emphasized:

Aliyev, according to Peres’s office, said the plot showed “to what degree we are in a difficult and dangerous neighborhood…Aliyev said Azerbaijan would continue to cooperate with Israel, especially on homeland security issues.

…

Speaking of relations getting more intimate between Azerbaijan and Israel:

During the signing ceremony SCC head noted that the State Customs Committee is interested in expanding cooperation with the Israeli Customs Directorate, “The agreement signed between the Azerbaijani and Israeli governments gives an impetus to bilateral relationships, and will accelerate the process of cooperation and integration of the parties.”

Azerbaijan has become an important trading partner with Israel on security and foreign affairs. Economic cooperation between Israel and Azerbaijan has grown significantly. In 2011, the trade between the two countries totaled more than $2.5 billion.

…

Remember those ‘conflicting’ reports on the ‘alleged’ Iranian assassination plot against the Saudi Diplomat in the US? You can refresh your memory here.  Well, this ‘alleged’ plot is also filled with ‘conflicting’ reports and details, already:

Conflicting reports have emerged about the terror plot. While local media said an Iranian-backed terror cell had planned to kill Jewish teachers at the Or Avner Jewish schooll just outside the capital Baku, other reports in the media claimed the men were offered $150,000 by Iran to assassinate Israel’s Ambassador Michael Lotem.

A spokesman for the Or Avner network of Jewish schools, however, denied on Tuesday night any knowledge of a planned attack. “The Jews of Baku and the administrators of the school have no information on what was reported in Azeri media last Thursday,” said the spokesman. “The community’s routine has not changed.”

…

Here is a video clip on this new alleged Iranian Terror Plot:

In the UK, the Telegraph also reported on the ‘alleged’ story, and of course, it added the usual UK twist and spice:

If true, the plot will be seen as the latest evidence of Iran’s intentions to strike at its enemies abroad. Last October, the US justice ministry said it had uncovered an Iranian conspiracy to use members of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

…

Speaking of Britain, the following data is also noteworthy:

The volume of investments made by BP and its partners in Azerbaijan amounted to $ 35 billion during its activity in the country, BP Azerbaijan company head Rashid Javanshir said during a ceremony of signing the agreement on the support with the National Olympic and National Paralympic Committees… BP will continue its activity to develop the economy as a whole and oil and gas industry in particular in subsequent years, he said.

…

We were the first US site to break and cover this still-brewing story. We will continue our coverage and rely on you to disseminate this new scheme in our nation’s desperate attempt to invade-occupy yet another nation.  Please stay tuned.

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Last week we broke the newly brewing story-line in the war propaganda against Iran here at Boiling Frogs Post. The new scenario was originated, disseminated and promoted by a known member of the loyal propaganda machine of our global imperial pursuits, Radio Free Europe. According to the new story-line, our soon-to-be-NATO member intimate ally regime in Central Asia, Azerbaijan, claims it has allegedly exposed an Iranian assassination plot and Iranian terror cell in its capital city-Baku [All Emphasis Mine]:

Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry (MNS) says it has uncovered a terror group that was plotting to assassinate public figures, RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service reports. The ministry said on January 19 that the group was planning terrorist acts and had illegally acquired firearms, military supplies, and explosives. The APA news agency quoted the MNS as saying that Azerbaijani citizens Rasim Aliyev, Ali Huseynov, and Balaqardash Dadashov — the latter of whom is living in Iran — coordinated efforts to acquire firearms and explosives.It said those materials were brought illegally to Azerbaijan from Iran.

The MSN said Dadashov was in contact with Iranian special service bodies and ordered the assassination of prominent foreigners living in Baku. It claims that Dadashov promised Aliyev — his brother-in-law — $150,000 for his work.The MSN said Dadashov had told his accomplices that he would discuss their plans with Iranian secret services.

…

Today, brewing in the background are new allegations and  further thickening of this new plot directed against Iran, providing further unsubstantiated details.  According to the unsubstantiated new claims those arrested by Azeri security forces last week planned to attack Jewish targets, including Israeli ambassador to Baku, Michael Lotem:

Three Azerbaijani citizens who were arrested by security forces last week planned to attack Jewish targets, including Israeli ambassador to Baku Michael Lotem, a local media outlet reported Tuesday. Israeli sources also speculated that the terror cell members plotted to attack the embassy in Baku and the ambassador.

…

The men are suspected of plotting to kill a rabbi and a teacher at the Ohr Avner Chabad Jewish Day School in Baku as revenge for the recent killing of a nuclear scientist in Tehran. The Iranian regime claimed Israel was behind the assassination. Two of the suspects were identified as Rasim Aliyev and Ali Huseynov. According to reports, they received instructions from Balagardash Dadashov, who was in contact with Iranian intelligence and received a sniper rifle, pistols and explosive devices to attack Chabad emissaries operating in Baku.

…

Azeri politicians are accusing Iran of creating provocations following the uncovering of an alleged terror plot to allegedly assassinate Israel’s ambassador to Baku.

“On one hand, Iran talks of Shiite Muslim brotherhood, but on the other it cooperates with and supports terrorists of Christian-Armenian,” said chairman of the country’s Civil Solidarity Party Sabir Rustamkhanly…

…

For the last few months the empire’s nuclear weapons allegations against Iran have produced very little results; they haven’t really stuck. Most likely the Saudi Prince-Ambassador Assassination Plot-Scenario was outsourced to a not very competent or bright Hollywood producer-director; it failed big time and it certainly was embarrassing to all secondary actors such as the FBI. The empire still hasn’t invaded Iran. The Caspian Sea is waiting, and so many are drooling. It must be time for a new scenario. A new script. A brand new actor. Welcome Azerbaijan, a thickening new assassination plot, an alleged scary terror cell in Baku, and alleged Israeli targets. The powers up there seem desperate, and desperation can do stupid things with irreversible damage.

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When it comes to elections and political fundraising there are certain magic words, sentences and phrases. Of course I am not talking about ‘increasing employment’ or ‘creating jobs.’ Those lines are used later- after the competition is almost ended, and the deal becomes pretty much a slam dunk. No. I am talking about the real political ‘magic words.’ As you know, as soon as they utter those magic words and make those pledges the money magically starts flowing into their campaign sack. And by that I don’t mean peanuts. I don’t mean humble individual contributions by voting citizens. I am talking about ‘serious money;’ magically serious, that is. I am talking millions; not in Lira or Peso, but in US dollars. You get it; no?

Okay. Mitt Romney just started using some of those magic words- magical lines. Let me give you an example, sure to bring some of those mega magical dollars into his camp.

On his website Mitt Romney suggests that the victim of Russian aggression would be, improbably, Central Asia. A Romney administration’s policies, he writes, would:

Deter Russian ambitions to its south by enhancing diplomatic ties, increasing military training and assistance, and negotiating trade pacts and educational exchanges with Central Asian states.

Magical indeed. You don’t have to read in between the lines. Just read the lines and you’ll see the mega dollar signs in the eyes of … who? Okay, let’s play it dumb and slow in case there are some MSM readers are among us reading this post. We want them to get it to. Special treatment.

So, Romney says he will ‘increase military training and assistance’ for all these Central Asia nations. Meaning:

We’ll give these Central Asian countries billions of dollars of our taxpayers’ money and ask these nations to turn around and hand those billions of dollars to our military industrial complex (MIC) and purchase their products: missile, guns, helicopters, F-16s, tanks …

We’ll give them training and a protection umbrella as in: We’ll establish more and bigger military bases in those countries, thus benefit our MIC by a few more billions of dollars.

We’ll negotiate (read pressure them into) better ‘deals’ aka ‘trade pacts’ with these countries. Basically we want to have our oil industry to get, control and manage all their oil-gas-mineral resources, rather than …let’s say China, or, Russia. Meaning, ongoing billions of dollars for our oil-energy and transportation giants…

We’ll have more ‘educational exchanges’ with these countries. Hmmmm, what kind of ‘education’ do we provide to that part of the world? Oh, right. We’ll put our NGOs in there and have them create and disseminate propaganda news/information created and dictated by our State Department and their master. We’ll control (aka ‘help them with’) their schools-universities by actually running their indoctrination process in conjunction with their (our) puppet dictator regimes. And of course we’ll have our CIA and extended operatives educate and train their governments and police forces in modern torture, rendition, secret assassination, censorship … practices.

Wow. Romney has mastered delivering all those promises with so few magical words! I see those dollar wheels turning manically in the eyes of MIC-OIL-Intelligence Industrial Complex. Don’t you?! Now, let’s sit back and watch those mega magical dollars flow into Romney’s already half-full campaign sack. Shall we?

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The official Israeli government explanation for the ‘disappearance’ of 750,000 Palestinian Arabs from the land (roughly half the Arab population in Palestine in 1948) was that they left “voluntarily.” The “new history” of Israel emerged within the past couple decades due to declassified documents relating to the 1948 war and its origins, and with a number of Israeli historians recreating the history of Israel and challenging the official story. David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel’s first Prime Minister, was a leading Zionist at the time. He and other Zionists “accepted” the UN partition plan, wrote Jerome Slater, “only as a necessary tactical step that would later be reversed.” In a 1937 letter to his son, Ben-Gurion wrote:

A partial Jewish state is not the end, but only the beginning. The establishment of such a Jewish state will serve as a means in our historical efforts to redeem the country in its entirety… We shall organize a modern defense force… and then I am certain that we will not be prevented from settling in other parts of the country, either by mutual agreement with our Arab neighbors or by some other means… We will expel the Arabs and take their places… with the forces at our disposal. [1]

In the same year, Ben-Gurion also wrote that, “The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.”[2] A year later, in 1938, Ben-Gurion told a Zionist meeting that, “I favor partition of the country because when we become a strong power after the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and spread throughout all of Palestine.” Palestine, as defined by the Zionists, had included the West Bank, Golan Heights in Syria, Jerusalem, southern Lebanon, and a significant degree of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.[3]

For any settler colonies, as the Zionists were, there are roughly four conditions which have to met if they are to survive. Graham Usher, an Israeli journalist, wrote that:

They must obtain a measure of political, military, and economic independence from their metropolitan sponsors. They must achieve military hegemony over, or at least normal relations with, their neighboring states. They must acquire international legitimacy. And they must solve their “native problem.”[4]

The Jewish state, as defined by leading Zionists such as David Ben-Gurion, was not to simply be Jewish in its sociopolitical structure, explained Ilan Pappé, “but also in its ethnic composition.” Further, this would be made possible “only by force.” To accomplish this task, an efficient military organization was built over several years, with extensive financial resources. The main Jewish paramilitary organization in Palestine was founded in 1920 in order to protect the Jewish colonies, assisted by “sympathetic” British officers. Orde Wingate, a British officer, was central to convincing Zionist leaders of the need for such a military organization, associating the idea of a Jewish state with militarism and an army. Wingate was assigned to Palestine in 1936, and had established close connections between the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah and the British forces during the 1936-39 Arab Revolt.[5]

In 1940, Ben-Zion Luria, a historian at Hebrew University who was also employed by the Jewish Agency in Palestine suggested that the Jewish National Fund (JNF) should conduct a registry of all the Arab villages in Palestine, numbering some 1,200 in all, which had spread across the countryside for hundreds of years. Luria stated that, “This would greatly help the redemption of the land” into Jewish hands. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) was founded in 1901 as one of the principal colonization organizations focused on buying Palestinian land to settle Jewish colonies. By the end of the Mandate in 1948, the Zionists had control over 5.8% of the land in Palestine.[6]

When news about the “village files” reached Yossef Weitz, the chief of the JNF settlement department (a major Zionist colonialist), he suggested that it be transformed into a “national project.” Other top Zionists became very enthusiastic about the project, of which the main emphasis was on mapping the villages. In several cases, these maps in the Israeli State Archives are all that remains of the entire villages. The British, aware of these projects, were unable to find the headquarters for the secret intelligence network that was established to construct the maps. By the later 1940s, the “village files” included much more than mere locations of villages, but rather had details about road access, the quality of the land, water resources, common sources of income for the local population, religious and sociopolitical affiliations, and even the age of individual men within the village. One important category, explained Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, was the index of “hostility,” referring to those individuals and communities which were ‘hostile’ to the Zionist project of colonization, which was largely determined according to examining the participation of certain villages and people in the Arab Revolt of 1936-39, which “included lists of everyone involved in the revolt and the families of those who had lost someone in the fight against the British. Particular attention was given to people alleged to have killed Jews.”[7]

The British, who had the Mandate over Palestine from 1923, when it was given to the British by the League of Nations, always saw Palestine as a highly strategic and vital imperial possession, largely due to its proximity to the Suez Canal, and thus, the route to Britain’s colonial “Jewel”, India. Palestine was considered a ‘buffer’ in the Middle East, in a land of potentially hostile peoples infused with the ideas of Arab nationalism. Just prior to World War II, the Arab population in Palestine revolted against the British rule in reaction to the dramatically increased rate of Jewish immigration and colonization of the land. The Arab Revolt (1936-39) presented the British with a civil war situation, which was suppressed by force of arms. Where the Arabs were a major problem for the British in the 1930s, the Zionists became a problem for the British in the 1940s, for they too turned to terrorist tactics to make British rule over Palestine impossible. Following World War II, the British Security Service (MI5), according to declassified documents from the agency, focused on the threat to Britain posed by Zionist terrorism, both within the Mandate and within Britain itself. The two main organizations identified by MI5 as terrorist groups were the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang, who had planned on taking the war against Britain to its home, hoping to send several terrorist “cells” to London to “beat the dog in his own kennel.” As the secret documents reveal, “MI5 was actually more concerned about the threat of Zionist terrorism than about the looming threat of the Soviet Union.”[8]

MI5’s wartime Director-General, Sir David Petrie, stated in 1946 in regards to the threat of Zionist terrorism that, “the red light is definitely showing.” From a network of informers within Zionist organizations, Britain uncovered plots to assassinate British politicians associated with Palestine policy, including the Prime Minister himself. The Stern Gang had, in 1944, assassinated the British Minister of State in the Middle East, Lord Moyne, and had also tried (on several occasions) to assassinate the British High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael. On July 22, 1946, the Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which was home to British government officials and personnel, and resulted in the deaths of 91 individuals, some of them Jews. Both MI5 and MI6 had offices in the Hotel at the time. As Britain responded with force against Zionist terrorist groups and other organizations, the extremist nature of the groups naturally increased. In October of 1946, the Irgun bombed the British Embassy in Rome, and conducted several sabotage operations against British military transportation routes in occupied Germany. In April of 1947, the British Colonial Office in London discovered an Irgun bomb consisting of 24 sticks of explosives, but the timer had broken, so the bomb did not detonate. In June of 1947, the Stern Gang launched a letter bomb campaign in Britain, “targeting every prominent member of the Cabinet,” totaling 21 in all, but none of them ultimately got through to their targets. Another letter bomb assault was undertaken by the Stern Gang in 1948.[9]

In June of 1946, the British Army in Palestine undertook a search for the Jewish Agency, Haganah, and Palmach to retrieve their arms and arrest specific members and leaders. The Zionist organizations, however, had infiltrated the British just as the British had infiltrated the Zionist organizations; thus, the Zionists had advanced warning of the raid and some top officials were able to avoid arrest. The chief of the Haganah, Moshe Sneh, which was the military branch of the Jewish Agency, was in liaison with the terrorist organizations Irgun and Lehi. David Ben-Gurion, the president of the Jewish Agency, was also wanted by the British for his complicity in terrorist attacks. All in all, during the raid, roughly 2,700 people were arrested, including a significant portion of the political leadership within the Palestinian Jewish community, and some arms caches were retrieved. The result, predictably, was to multiply the violence committed against the British in retribution for the raids and arrests. Thus, the British High Commissioner in Palestine, Sir Alan Cunningham, concluded that, “immediate partition is the only solution which gives a chance of stability.”[10]

This was largely the result of the Jewish Resistance Movement (JRM) which had emerged and developed between 1945 and 1946, consisting of the Haganah, Palmach, Irgun and Lehi, “directed and coordinated by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, despite the objections of some of its left-wing members.” The aims of the JRM were to “weaken or destroy British rule in Palestine.” The Haganah was founded as a territorial militia to defend Zionist settlements in Palestine, and in 1938, several Haganah units worked with the British to help crush the Arab Revolt. The British created the Palmach during World War II as an “elite offensive unit” in order “to assist [the British] in the event of a German invasion of Palestine.” In 1945, the Haganah engaged in a secret agreement with the terrorist groups Irgun and Lehi against the British Mandate government. The Irgun was formed in 1931 when several officers separated from the Haganah over socialist sympathies within the defense forces, and became a right-wing paramilitary army, standing in opposition to the original conception of socialist and labour Zionism. The Stern Gang (also known as Lehi) separated from the Irgun during World War II when the Irgun agreed to cooperate with the British. The Stern Gang was a radical far-right group which held many fascist sympathies, and even “pursued agreements with Mussolini and the Nazis in 1940,” though unsurprisingly, Hitler did not respond to the requests.[11]

It was within these various terrorist and paramilitary organizations that Plan D was formed among several Zionist leaders, most notably, David Ben-Gurion, to plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Throughout the 1940s, the planning stages of the village files went through many revisions, and encapsulated Plans A through D. In the planning stages during 1940, as one member of the data collection team, Moshe Pasternak, later recalled:

We had to study the structure of the Arab village. This means the structure and how best to attack it. In the military schools, I had been taught how to attack a modern European city, not a primitive village in the Near East. We could not compare it [an Arab village] to a Polish, or an Austrian one. The Arab village, unlike the European ones, was built topographically on hills. That meant we had to find out how best to approach the village from above or enter it from below. We had to train our “Arabists” [the Orientalists who operated a network of collaborators] how best to work with informants. [12]

A large network of informants had been established to gain intelligence on the Palestinian villages throughout the Mandate. The intelligence which was provided allowed for even more details into the village files, especially after 1943, as the expanded information included: “detailed descriptions of the husbandry, cultivation, the number of trees in plantations, the quality of each fruit grove (even of individual trees!), the average land holding per family, the number of cars, the names of shop owners, members of work shops, and the names of the artisans and their skills.” As time passed, and the village files collected more information, political affiliations were added in regards to individuals within the villages, and in 1945, information regarding village mosques, the names of the imams and even accounts of the inside of particular homes. As the end of the Mandate grew close, the village files increasingly provided information of a more militaristic nature: “the number of guards in each village (most had none) and the quantity and quality of arms at the villagers’ disposal (generally antiquated or even nonexistent).” In 1944, a small village was home to the training of informants and spies and from which they would conduct reconnaissance missions. The final report for the village files was in 1947, focusing on forming lists of “wanted” individuals. As Ilan Pappé explained:

In 1948, Jewish troops used these lists for the search-and-arrest operations they carried out as soon as they had occupied a village. That is, the men in the village would be lined up and those whose names appeared on the lists would be identified, often by the same person who had informed on them in the first place, but now wearing a cloth sack over his head with two holes cut out for his eyes so as not to be recognized. The men who were picked out were often shot on the spot… Among the criteria for inclusion in these lists, besides having participated in actions against the British and the Zionists, were involvement in the Palestinian national movement (which could apply to entire villages) and having close ties to the leader of the movement, the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husayni, or being affiliated with his political party. Given the Mufti’s dominance of Palestinian politics since the establishment of the Mandate in 1923, and the prominent positions held by members of his party in the Arab Higher Committee that became the embryo government of the Palestinians, this offense too was very common.[13]

Villages of roughly 1,500 people had about 20-30 individual “suspects” within them. In November of 1947, the Zionist military command concluded that, “the Palestine Arabs had nobody to organize them properly,” and that, “If not for the British, we could have quelled the Arab riot [the opposition to the UN Partition Resolution in 1947] in one month.” The Arabs, while constituting a demographic challenge to the Zionist aspirations for Palestine, were not a military threat. Their military structures and leadership were largely destroyed by the British during the Arab Revolt and the Zionists were also aware that the Arab states were disorganized and hesitant to move forward on the Palestine issue. Thus, it was the British that primarily stood in the way of the Zionist plans for Palestine, and with 100,000 troops stationed in the an area with roughly 2 million people, it was no small force to contend with. Thus, the Zionist leadership, and specifically David Ben-Gurion, began advocating to support the Partition in the hopes of establishing a small Jewish state in order to have a base from which to expand. In 1946, Ben-Gurion told a gathering of the Zionist leadership that they could accept a smaller state, but that, “We will demand a large chunk of Palestine.” Within a few months, the Jewish Agency created a map of a partitioned Palestine. The UN produced a partition map with less land allotted for the Jewish state. After the 1948-49 war, however, the new Jewish state had – through ethnic cleansing – established itself along the lines set out for it in the Jewish Agency map: all of Palestine, save the West Bank and Gaza.[14]

It was in this context that Plan C was evolved from Plans A and B. The British could not repress the eventual Jewish uprising in Palestine after World War II as they had the Arab Revolt prior to the war, and it was clear to the Zionist leadership that the British were on the way out, in no small part due to pressure from Zionist terrorism. In 1946, Plan C was finalized to prepare the Jewish military structures for their offense against the Palestinian population, including striking against political leadership, anti-Zionist Arabs, senior Arab officials, transportation routes, economic infrastructure, etc. Plan C added upon the village files information regarding leaders and activists within the Arab population and other “potential human targets.” Within a few months, the addition of “operational specifics” became the basis for Plan D, which envisioned a Jewish State composed of 78% of the land of Palestine, as set out in the Jewish Agency map. As for the one million Palestinians within those lands, Plan D was very specific:

These operations can be carried out in the following manner: either by destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their rubble), and especially those population centers that are difficult to control permanently; or by mounting combing and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the villages, conducting a search inside them. In case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state.[15]

As Ghazi Falah wrote in the journal, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Plan D’s “underlying objective was the nationwide conquest and control of territories.” Among the tactical objectives of Zionist forces were to occupy “all police fortresses/stations evacuated by British forces, and of Arab villages close to Jewish settlements; creating continuity between Jewish cities and neighbouring Jewish settlements; gaining control of lines of communications; besieging enemy cities; capturing forward bases of the enemy; counter attacks both inside and outside the borders of the State.”[16]

In November of 1947 the UN proposed the partition plan into two states, with Jerusalem and Bethlehem as an international zone. The UN partition plan vastly increased the amount of land for the Zionists, as Jewish land amounted to less than 7% of the total of Palestine in 1947, which was increased to 56% in the UN partition plan, leaving 42% for the Palestinians, who prior to partition had over 90% of the land. The Zionists immediately began the ethnic cleansing in December of 1947 prior to the British leaving, and the first Arab army did not invade until May of 1948, when the British left. Thus, under British rule, wrote Falah, “Jewish forces initiated a war of demographic and territorial expansion which took on the dimension of space purification – expulsion and prevention on the return of the expellees.” All able-bodies Jews within Palestine were mobilized by the Zionist forces to partake in the operation, with civilian Jews settling in the depopulated Palestinian villages in order to prevent any possible return of refugees. Civilians also imposed economic sanctions, disseminating propaganda, and preventing Palestinians from harvesting their crops. Destruction of Arab crops was a general policy, or to have Jewish settlers move in and harvest existing Arab fields in cleansed towns.[17]

Certain towns were then selected for massacres, usually carried out in small villages which had previously good relations with their Jewish neighbours. These towns were selected with the specific purpose of providing “lessons in toughness” for other Palestinians villages to incite them to leave and not return. Between May 1947 and March 1948, there were 92 cases of Zionist terrorism and massacres against Palestinians, organized by the Haganah in cooperation with the Irgun and Stern Gang. The small villages were chosen to be “victims,” to be an example – a terror campaign – to incite fear in the Palestinian population. One such massacre in April of 1948 killed 254 Arab civilians in one village. On top of the massacres, the rape of Arab Palestinian women, whether Christian or Muslim, was also a prominent feature of the more brutal cleansings. When the British left Palestine and the Arab states invaded, they prevented the Zionist forces from occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[18]

All in all, some 400 Palestinian villages were cleansed, forcing roughly 750,000 Palestinians to flee, leaving roughly 100,000 Palestinians within the newly conquered Jewish territories, who remained under a virtual state of martial law and concentrated in small pales within Israel, the state which was declared by the Zionists in May of 1948. Massive Jewish immigration commenced for survivors of the Holocaust as well as Jews from Arab nations and the Soviet Union.[19]

The men who carried out the ethnic cleansing of Palestine became the mythical heroes of the founding of the state of Israel, most notably David Ben-Gurion, and the future leaders of the Israeli army, Yigael Yadin and Moshe Dayan, along with prominent Arabist academics, who, much like the intellectuals of the Nazi state, were among the most systematically malevolent, responsible for the final decisions regarding which villages were to be eradicated and which villagers were to be executed. The operations of the Arabists – Orientalist intellectuals – “were supervised by Issar Harel, who later became the first head of Mossad and the Shin bet, Israel’s secret services.”[20] The ruthless murders, assassinations, and massacres – even of women and children – were not a mere ‘result’ of the war, as many historians have claimed, but were a matter of policy. As Ezra Dannin, the Israeli government adviser on Arab affairs stated that, “If the High Command believes that by destruction, killing, and human suffering its aims will be achieved faster, then I would not stand in its way. If we don’t hurry up, our enemies will do the same things to us.”[21]

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People’s Book Project.

[1]            Jerome Slater, “What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process,” Political Science Quarterly (Vol. 116, No. 2, 2001), pages 173-174.

[2]            Ilan Pappé, “The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 36, No. 1, Autumn 2006), page 9.

[3]            Jerome Slater, “What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process,” Political Science Quarterly (Vol. 116, No. 2, 2001), page 174.

[4]            Graham Usher, “Unmaking Palestine: On Israel, the Palestinians, and the Wall,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 35, No. 1, Autumn 2005), page 26.

[5]            Ilan Pappé, “The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 36, No. 1, Autumn 2006), pages 9-10.

[6]            Ibid, pages 10-11.

[7]            Ibid, page 11.

[8]            Calder Walton, “British Intelligence and the Mandate of Palestine: Threats to British National Security Immediately After the Second World War,” Intelligence and National Security (Vol. 23, No. 4, 2008), pages 435-436.

[9]            Ibid, pages 439-440.

[10]            Steven Wagner, “British Intelligence and the Jewish Resistance Movement in the Palestine Mandate,” Intelligence and National Security (Vol. 23, No. 5, 2008), pages 629-630.

[11]            Ibid, pages 630-631.

[12]            Ilan Pappé, “The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 36, No. 1, Autumn 2006), pages 11-12.

[13]            Ibid, pages 12-13.

[14]            Ibid, pages 13-15.

[15]            Ibid, pages 15-16.

[16]            Ghazi Falah, “The 1948 Israeli-Palestinian War and its Aftermath: The Transformation and Se-Signification of Palestine’s Cultural Landscape,” Annals of the American Association of American Geographers (Vol. 86, No. 2, 1996), page 259.

[17]            Ibid, page 261.

[18]            Ibid, page 262.

[19]            Graham Usher, “Unmaking Palestine: On Israel, the Palestinians, and the Wall,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 35, No. 1, Autumn 2005), page 27.

[20]            Ilan Pappé, “The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 36, No. 1, Autumn 2006), pages 18-19.

[21]            Jerome Slater, “What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process,” Political Science Quarterly (Vol. 116, No. 2, 2001), page 175.

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Israel emerged in the post-War period due to a great many complex domestic and international political reasons: to provide a place to direct the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, to allow the British to formally end the Mandate over Palestine which they held as their empire was crumbling, and to serve as a ‘buffer state’ for Western nations in the Middle East, a region of the world which was identified as a necessity to control in order to secure its vast oil resources and strategic position in relation to the East. America in the post-War period, however, was deeply divided in its strategic-imperial circles on whether or not to support the State of Israel, which did not become a stated and strong policy until the later 1950s. The State Department, in particular, full of individuals who were familiar with the politics and changes in the Middle East, were worried that support for Israel would threaten America’s interests in the region by antagonizing the Arab states and ruining America’s good reputation following the War. Others, however, won out in the end, largely by arguing that such a state in the Middle East would be a significant support to American interests, acting as a powerful ‘buffer’ against the spread of Arab nationalism and Pan-Arabism. In its first years, Israel walked a balance of receiving support from both the United States and the Soviet Union. With the rise of Nasser in Egypt, however, America saw its imperial interest in supporting Israel.

The notion of a “Jewish State” as a ‘buffer’ for the West had been a long-held desire among imperial strategists and was even a popular means of promoting the Zionist cause from leaders within the Zionist movement. In the early 20^th century, the Zionists, keenly aware of the British and French imperial rivalry in the Arab East, “knew how to convince London of the value of a British-controlled Jewish buffer-state in Palestine for the protection of the Suez Canal and imperial communications to India.”[1] In 1907, the London Colonial Conference emphasized the increasing interest in establishing a ‘buffer state’ for British imperial interests in the Near East. The Conference agreed “to establish a strong but alien human bridge in the land that links Europe with the Old World which would constitute, near the Suez Canal, a hostile power to the people of the area and a friendly power to Europe and its interests.”[2]

British imperial strategists were increasingly alarmed with the growing “Arab Awakening” emerging in the context of Arab indigenous nationalism. These fears of a growing and developing Arab nationalism informed British Prime Minister Campbell Bannerman when he stated at the 1907 Colonial Conference:

Empires are formed, enlarged and stabilized so very little before they disintegrate and disappear… Do we have the means of preventing this fall, this crumbling, is it possible for us to put a halt to the destiny of European colonialism which at present is at a critical stage?[3]

The answer Bannerman received from the commission he established to look at the question, was that it was necessary

[to fight] against the Union of popular masses in the Arab region or the establishment of any intellectual, spiritual or historical link between them… [and thus recommended] all practical ways of dividing them as such as possible should be taught, and one way of doing so would be to construct a powerful, human ‘barrier’ foreign to the region – a bridge linking Asia and Africa – thus creating in this part of the world, and near the Suez Canal, a force friendly towards imperialism and hostile towards the inhabitants of the region.[4]

The report submitted to Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman recommended the following actions:

1) To promote disintegration, division and separation in the region.

2) To establish artificial political entities that would be under the authority of the imperialist countries.

3) To fight any kind of unity – whether intellectual, religious or historical – and taking practical measures to divide the region’s inhabitants.

4) To achieve this, it was proposed that a “buffer state” be established in Palestine, populated by a strong, foreign presence which would be hostile to its neighbors and friendly to European countries and their interests. [5]

In 1917, the British issued the Balfour Declaration as a statement of support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (though it also stipulated that it was not to disadvantage or remove the Arab inhabitants of the land). In 1922, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration, though the State Department subsequently issued a notice stating that the resolution “did not constitute a commitment to any foreign obligation or entanglement.”[6] In 1936, the Arabs resorted to armed resistance within Palestine, and the British responded by crushing them. During World War II, under the British Mandate of Palestine, the Zionists were “forming, training and arming their forces under the ‘British Shield’.” At the same time, during the War, Zionists increasingly focused on promoting their cause in America, taking note of the declining influence of Britain and rising dominance of America.[7]

It was during the 1940s that America increasingly recognized the importance of the oil resources of the Middle East to the developing plans and concepts of American global hegemony following the War. Thus, American approaches to the region were “developed within an anti-Arab nationalist and hegemonic framework designed to protect American access to oil.”[8]

The Zionist leadership recognized this vital interest to the United States, and thus began to promote the Zionist cause along similar lines of securing American access to Middle Eastern oil. In the 1940s, American oil companies were largely against the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine, which they viewed as inimical to their interests in the region. In 1933, the Saudi King had granted the Rockefeller-owned Standard Oil exclusive rights over Saudi oil prospecting and extraction in the east of the country. The eventual formation of the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) as a joint venture between the House of Saud and Standard Oil (the House of Rockefeller) took place in 1943. The oil companies stressed the importance of American security over and for Saudi Arabia. Zionist leaders in America held several meetings with oil company executives in an attempt to secure their support for a Jewish state, but to little avail. In fact, an oil industry publication, Oil Weekly, editorialized in 1946 that, “a Jewish state established with American support might endanger the ability of the US to assure a steady supply of oil from the Middle East.”[9]

In 1946, an agreement was established between the American government and Aramco to build a pipeline between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean coast, though this ran into problems with the U.S. Congress blocking such efforts, leading Aramco to decide to build the pipeline separate from U.S. involvement. As it was deduced, “the best place to offload the oil would be Haifa bay in the north of Palestine, and an agreement to this effect was signed with Sir Allan Jordan Cunningham, the British High Commissioner for Palestine.” Zionists, simultaneously, sought to advocate the pipeline project as necessarily transporting through areas of Jewish settlement in Palestine, and thus, the promotion of a Jewish state along the pipeline route “would introduce a stable element loyal to the United States into the project,” and reduce security costs for America.[10]

A confidential memo produced for the Jewish Agency in Palestine in 1947, in close proximity of the United Nations partition of Palestine, was titled, “The Jewish National Home and American Oil in the Middle East,” which stated that the purpose of the Zionist movement:

…was to establish in Palestine a democratic society whose citizens would enjoy the living standard of advanced western states, in an economy based on modern agriculture, industry and scientific development.[11]

In 1945, a profoundly prophetic article was written by an American philosopher, William Ernest Hocking, in the journal The Muslim World, in which he explained the emerging conflict of “Arab Nationalism and Political Zionism.” Hocking stressed that with the increased pressures in the U.S. Congress to support the Zionist cause, America may be rushing into a situation which it does not fully understand, stressing the need to weigh humanitarian concerns for the remaining European Jews following the Holocaust with the political objectives that exist in the complex circumstances of the Middle East, “and consider to what extent the proposed means will serve the humanitarian end, and to what extent it will serve other ends.” While acknowledging that “a place or places of refuge for Jews driven from Europe must be provided,” the question of Palestine needs a wider context.[12]

In examining the economic conditions upon which the Jews would find themselves thrust into within Palestine, Hocking explained that for a country roughly the size of New Hampshire, only half of the land is cultivable, and yet, planners desired “a program of intensive industrialization” to be undertaken. Hocking questioned the viability of imposing a “forced industrialization” on a location with little rainfall, requiring imported fuel, and few water resources as “an appropriate center for an industry based on the resources of the wider Near East.” Further, Hocking noted that while the notion of Palestine as the natural home for the Jewish people is based upon religious principles, “a Palestine heavily industrialized is a Palestine defaced from this point of view for Jew, Moslem, and Christian alike,”[13] as industrialization would be an affront to the spiritual significance of the location for all peoples.

Asserting that the reasons for the support of a Jewish state are not humanitarian, but political, Hocking examined how the Jewish National Fund in Palestine had increasingly deprived land from Arab labourers, as land granted to Jewish settlers was, by law, only allowed to be cultivated by Jewish labourers, and thus, it “cease[d] automatically to be a place of possible residence or work to those [Arab] laborers.” As Sir John Simpson reported on that matter:

It ceases to be land from which the Arab can gain any advantage either nor or at any time in the future… He is deprived forever from employment on that land… Nor can anyone help him by purchasing the land and restoring it to common use. The land is in mortmain and inalienable. [14]

Thus, wrote Hocking, “the Arab masses as a whole have felt their relative position deteriorating,” and the true question, then, was “of the attitude of the slowly advancing power,” that is, the Zionist power. “Its strength, intelligence, cash backing, splendid equipment, render it in Arab eyes the more formidable” because of this exclusionary and discriminatory attitude: “Hence they have come to face the future with concern.” As to the question, increasingly discussed within the West, as to why the Arabs and Muslims cannot simply grant this small piece of land to the Jews and go elsewhere, Hocking explained:

Those who are promoting this view do not explain what they propose to do with the extensive religious establishments of Islam in Palestine, including the great mosques and various schools. These establishments are not, like those of the Christians, primarily of a memorial nature: they are important educational and devotional centers for a living religion, within the region of its central activity. To maintain such establishments a considerable local population is required and assumed: to deport the million Arabs to Iraq would be another way of strangling these institutions. [15]

Further, in terms of those arguments which favour deportation due to the “immense domain” of the Arab people, Hocking explained that the domain, in fact, is mostly desert, with the “cultivable portions” being strewn around the rim, “whose northern arch is known as the Fertile Crescent.” Thus, the advantages of Palestine for Jew and Arab alike come from its position on the Mediterranean coast:

Commercially it belongs to the European Area. Palestine stands in an important strategic position between Europe and the budding industrial development, not so much of Palestine itself as of the lands behind Palestine, Arab lands which are entering on a new economic era… If the future economic importance of Palestine is to be, as I surmise, commercial rather than agricultural or industrial, its prosperity will depend to a large extent on its relations to this growingly important hinterland. And vice versa, the prosperity of that hinterland might depend to a considerable extent on its relations with the financial powers, the warehouses, and the commercial lanes centering in Palestine and vicinity.[16]

This emphasizes the notion of a Jewish state in Palestine as a buffer between the West and the Near East, between the imperial powers and the growing spread of Arab nationalism. Thus for the Arabs, leaving Palestine to exclusive Zionist control would “amount to acceptance of a barrier between them and Europe at the outset of their newer national career.” Yet, even with all of the Palestinian and Arab desires for, like the Jews themselves, a “new beginning,” they are increasingly portrayed as “nomadic,” “backward,” and “half-civilized,” ignoring the fact that “it was the Arabs who for six hundred years preserved the classical culture of Greece for a dark Europe,” or that they are still emanating out of the oppressive domination of four centuries of Turkish rule. Thus, what was being asked of the Arabs was to accept their entire potential for progress as being entirely dependent upon the political state of Zionism, which had thus far shown enormous animosity and disregard for the Arab peoples within Palestine. Hocking concluded by writing:

I believe the political Zionists at this moment as distinct from the cultural Zionists who have built the noble Hebrew University and who know what a National Home must be, – I believe the political Zionists to be the chief enemies of the cause of Zionism as well as of the Jewish interests in the world of tomorrow. What can they hope to gain by extricating their brethren from the prejudices of Europe only to build a community in Palestine which has to be protected by Western force (and if we intervene, then by American force also) because it is cradled in an environment of distrust and fear cultivated by their own methods of realizing a misplaced nationalistic ambition? [17]

In the Truman administration in 1947, as the United Nations recommended the partition of Palestine into two states, the CIA released an assessment of the situation in one of its first major reports, which predicted that if a Jewish state were created, “war would break out between Arabs and Jews, and the Arabs would win.” While the former turned out to be true, the latter, of course, did not. However, without stating it outright, the CIA report essentially led to the assumed conclusion that, as Thomas Lippman wrote, “partition would be detrimental to the long-term interests of the United States and would ultimately augment rather than alleviate the suffering of the world’s Jews.”[18]

The United States, in 1947, had reached a point where a decision finally had to be made on the issue of a Jewish state in Palestine. Within Palestine itself, Jewish gangs (such as the Hagana, the Irgun, and the Stern Gang), “were waging a guerrilla war against the British,” and thus, the issue became central to the United Nations and global politics. In the White House, some of Truman’s closest advisers supported the Zionists, though his national security and foreign policy advisers, especially within the State Department, had opposed partition and the formation of a Jewish state, arguing that, “such an outcome would alienate the Arabs, jeopardize American strategic and economic interests throughout the Middle East, open the door to the political penetration of the Arab world by the Soviet Union, and possibly lead to the loss of the American oil bonanza in Saudi Arabia.” As the State Department chief for the Bureau of Near East and Africa Affairs, Loy Henderson, wrote to Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson in 1945:

In case the government of the United States should continue to press for the mass immigration of Jews into Palestine at this time, on humanitarian or other grounds, much of the work done in the Near East in recent years in building up respect for, and confidence in, the United States and in increasing American prestige, will be undone… The mere resentment of the Near Eastern peoples towards the United States on the ground that we have decided to disregard the Arab viewpoint with regard to Palestine would be unpleasant… It would be much more serious, however, if we should give them ground to believe that we do not live up to our firm promises already given. [19]

Henderson here was referring to the promise from the United States to engage in “full consultation” with the Arab states, primarily Saudi Arabia, in the lead up to any potential decision the United States would make on the issue. As the CIA report emphasized, partition would “solve nothing and would only intensify support for Zionist expansion,” and the report further stressed the importance of regional implications for the Arab states:

Arab nationalism is the strongest political force in the Arab world. It grew up in secret societies under Ottoman rule, came out into the open in the Arab Revolt of World War I, and has been the major factor in the independence movement in the Arab world ever since. Because of the strong ties between the various Arab states, political developments in any one country are of vital concern to Arabs everywhere. Palestinian independence is, consequently, the major aim not only of the Palestinian Arabs but also of Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Transjordanians, Egyptians and Saudi Arabians. It would be political suicide for any Arab government to ignore this situation. [20]

Tellingly, the report also predicted that the Arabs “fear that the Jews will consolidate their position through unlimited immigration and that they will attempt to expand until they become a threat to the newly won independence of each of the other Arab countries.” The CIA felt that this perception was, indeed, correct: “In the long run no Zionists in Palestine will be satisfied with the territorial arrangements of the partition settlement.” The CIA felt that such a partition would inevitably create “instability and hostility” in the Arab world.[21] In the immediate aftermath of partition, the CIA report predicted that “war would break out” between the Arabs and the Jews, that the Jewish populations in other Arab nations would be in danger, “American oil interests would be damaged,” and that the Zionists would “continue to wage a strong propaganda campaign in the US and Europe,” and that, “whatever the actual circumstances may be,” the Arabs would, said the report, “be accused of aggression,” which would “doubtless continue to influence the US public, and the US government [could], consequently, be forced into actions which [would] further complicate and embitter its relations with the entire Arab world,” and finally, the Soviet Union could make considerable political gains in the region as a result. Further, the report stated that eventually the Arabs could turn to “religious fanaticism,” which could become “an extremely powerful force.”[22]

Where the report was wrong, however, was in predicting that the Jewish state would fail in a war with the Arab states, having mistakenly underestimated the organizational capabilities of the military Zionist groups in Palestine, as well as over-estimating the cooperation of the Arab states, which actually had many suspicions of one another. As early as 1943, a special envoy dispatched by President Roosevelt to the Arab leaders to discuss Palestine, Colonel Harold Hoskins, stated that, “only by military force can a Zionist state be imposed upon the Arabs.”[23] This logic, of course, was not lost upon the Zionist military and strategic leaders, who had immense national ambitions.

These ambitions, however, were not merely political, but racial. In a disturbing parallel with the Nazi German state from which many European Jews would later escape to the Holy Land, several Zionist leaders were themselves drawing up plans for a program of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Palestine. As Israeli historian Ilan Pappé documented, Plan D, as it was called, “was the fourth and final version of vaguer plans outlining the fate that was in store for the native population of Palestine.” The first three plans involved obscure and vague means for dealing with the Palestinians, whereas the fourth plan – the final plan – was a detailed military document written and plotted out by less than a dozen Zionist leaders, led by David Ben-Gurion. Plan D was emphatic and adamantine in its purpose: to remove the Palestinian population from the land. Ethnic cleansing, as defined by the U.S. State Department, is “the systematic and forced removal of the members of an ethnic group from communities in order to change the ethnic composition of a given region.”[24] By definition, then, the Zionist leaders were preparing a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People’s Book Project.

Notes

[1]            Ibrahim Ibrahimi, “Review: The Making of the Jewish State,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 1, No. 1, Autumn 1971), page 122.

[2]            Adnan Amad, “History and Fiction in Boasson’s Comments on Galtung,” Journal of Peace Research (Vol. 10, No ½, 1973), page 151.

[3]            Anwarul Haque Haqqi, West Asia Since Camp David (Mittal Publications, 1988), pages 104-105.

[4]            Ibid, page 105.

[5]            Robert I. Rotberg, Israeli and Palestinian Narratives of Conflict: History’s Double Helix (Indiana University Press, 2006), page 220.

[6]            Michael C. Hudson, “To Play the Hegemon: Fifty Years of US Policy Toward the Middle East,” Middle East Journal (Vol. 50, No. 3, Summer 1996), pages 333-334.

[7]            Ibrahim Ibrahimi, “Review: The Making of the Jewish State,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 1, No. 1, Autumn 1971), pages 124-125.

[8]            Ibrahim I. Ibrahim, “The American-Israeli Alliance: Raison d’etat Revisited,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 15, No. 3, Spring 1986), page 23.

[9]            Zohar Segev, “Struggle for Cooperation and Integration: American Zionists and Arab Oil, 1940s,” Middle Eastern Studies (Vol. 42, No. 5, September 2006), pages 820-821.

[10]            Ibid, pages 822-823.

[11]            Ibid, pages 824-825.

[12]            William Ernest Hocking, “Arab Nationalism and Political Zionism,” The Muslim World (Vol. 35, No. 3, July 1945), page 216.

[13]            Ibid, pages 216-217.

[14]            Ibid, pages 219-220.

[15]            Ibid, page 220.

[16]            Ibid, pages 220-222.

[17]            Ibid, pages 222-223.

[18]            Thomas W. Lippman, “The View From 1947: The CIA and the Parititon of Palestine,” Middle East Journal (Vol. 61, No. 1, Winter 2007), page 17.

[19]            Ibid, pages 18-19.

[20]            Ibid, pages 19-21.

[21]            Ibid, pages 21-22.

[22]            Ibid, pages 22-23.

[23]            Ibid, pages 25-26.

[24]            Ilan Pappé, “The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Vol. 36, No. 1, Autumn 2006), pages 6-7.

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The United States last week turned the U.N. Security Council into a courtroom. It wanted to try Iranian suspects before foreign governments in the bizarre story of an alleged assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador to Washington. 

Behind closed doors in the council chambers U.S. officials admitted the story was “hard to believe.”  This is according to a Western diplomat who was among the council ambassadors shown evidence by U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, who was accompanied by  officials of the F.B.I., CIA and the State and Justice Departments.

It isn’t known whether the CIA official revealed classified information that went beyond the F.B.I. criminal complaint in the case, which was made public. The U.S. isn’t normally in the habit of sharing intelligence at the U.N. 

Reuters quoted a U.S. official saying classified wire transfer documents used to pay for the alleged assassination had “some kind of hallmark” showing they were approved by Major General Qasem Soleimani, head of the elite Iranian al-Quds Force. Because the circumstances of the story are so strange, one cannot rule out forgery by Iranian agents working for the U.S.—or for another government that may have even fooled at least some U.S. authorities. Just recall the forged Niger uranium document that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

The Clinton administration in 1999 went to court in the Southern District of New York in U.S.A. v. bin Laden in the African Embassy bombings. I covered the trial and saw al-Qaeda operatives on the witness stand. They were convicted by a civilian jury.  The Bush administration ridiculed criminal trials for the crime of terrorism and insisted it was a national security matter without any need to test innocence or guilt in a courtroom.  

When the Obama Justice Department wanted to try terrorism suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the same New York court, the Right howled until Obama backed down.  The handling of this alleged Iranian plot appears to be a weird hybrid between a criminal proceeding and a rush to judgment to convince foreign governments of two suspects’ guilt before they are even indicted. The U.S. is also inferring a sovereign state is involved, rather than merely rogue individuals, who, incidentally, are innocent until proven guilty. 

Though the U.S. admitted the story seems far-fetched, U.S. allies Britain, France, Germany and Colombia said they believed Rice’s U.N. presentation. These countries may be ready to support new sanctions against Iran—or other action, even though each of them presumably guarantees due process in their legal systems.

Rush to Judgment

On the day the alleged plot was revealed, and before a Grand Jury has even been empaneled,  Downing Street issued a statement “congratulating” U.S. authorities on the “successful operation to disrupt a conspiracy to attack diplomats” in the U.S. “The United Kingdom is in close touch with the U.S. authorities on this case. We will support measures to hold Iran accountable for its actions,” the British statement said. It did not prefix conspiracy with “alleged,” and assumed proof that the plot was already underway when “disrupted,” dismissing the possibility it was suggested to an Iranian-American suspect by the U.S. informant, posing as a Mexican drug gangster. 

Russia and China, who hold Security Council vetoes, must be convinced of Iran’s guilt to vote for increased U.N. sanctions. So far they aren’t. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s U.N. envoy, said after being briefed by Rice, “I’m not an expert, but we’re going to look at it very, very seriously. We have sent all the information received to Moscow. There will be contacts, and they’ll look at it very seriously.” Wang Min, the deputy ambassador of China, said, “They’re still investigating, right?”

Even a U.S. official admitted to Reuters that “a lot of people basically feel really suspicious about this.” He questioned the White House’s motive for “ratcheting this thing up so quickly” by going to the Security Council.

Reasons for Doubt

The reasons for the suspicion run deep on both political and legal grounds.

Politically, unless Iran is suicidal it makes little sense to provide the U.S. with a ready-made pretext for war. The alleged plot antagonizes the three countries that would likely be involved in an attack on Iran: the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel.  The F.B.I. complaint claims the suspects also wanted to bomb the Israeli embassies in Washington and Buenos Aires. Israel says it feels threatened by Iran’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statements questioning the Holocaust and wanting to return Israel to the Palestinians.  It is Israel and the U.S. that constantly threaten Iran.  Overthrowing the Iranian regime would extend Israeli and U.S. control of the region.

Probably for that reason Iran has never attempted a terrorist attack on U.S. soil before. Unless it wants war, it would be an odd time for it to start. Council on Foreign Relations analyst Ray Takeyh, hardly a Teheran defender, wrote in his book, Hidden Iran, that Iran has largely been out of the terrorism business in the Gulf since the mid-1980s and has adopted a more pragmatic foreign policy since. 

Gary Sick, a Columbia University Iran analyst, told CNN: “I find this alleged Iranian plot very hard to believe. In fact, this plot, if true, departs from all known Iranian policies and procedures. At a minimum both the public and the Congress should demand more detailed evidence before taking any rash or irreversible action.” Former CIA Middle East operative Bob Baer told the network:  “Everybody is looking for evidence that there is going to be a confrontation with Iran. Everybody is jumping on this as a sign of conflict to come. But there are many questions here that need to be answered.”

Operationally, it is odd that the professional al-Quds Force would use a hard-drinking, Iranian-American used car salesman in Texas, a man who often lost his cell phone and keys and couldn’t find socks to match, to contract a Mexican drug gang to carry out such an elaborate terrorist plot. 

“It is difficult to believe that they would rely on a non-Islamic criminal gang to carry out this most sensitive of all possible missions,” said Sick.  He said Iran’s history of assassinations were of  Iranian counter-revolutionaries in the 1980s, and “the bombings were always carried out by trusted proxies — normally a branch of Hezbollah. Iran’s fingerprints were always concealed beneath one or more layers of disguise. So why were they all of a sudden so sloppy? Why would they take this risk now?”

“There are very few groups operationally better than Iran’s Quds Force,” added Baer. “They know what they are doing. The only proxies they use are ones they’ve vetted. They don’t let their own citizens get involved.  It would be completely uncharacteristic for Iran to be caught red handed.”

The Sting

Legally, the alleged Iranian plot should be seen in the context of a growing trend of F.B.I. sting operations targeting Muslim-Americans.  There have been 17 such cases since 9/11, including the framing of a 19-year old Somali-American in Seattle who the F.B.I. talked into blowing up a “car bomb” last year at a Christmas Tree lighting. The bomb was fake. The prison sentence was real.

On the night of May 20, 2009 I returned home to my apartment in the Riverdale section of New York City to find the Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and top F.B.I. officials holding a press conference on the steps of a synagogue directly below my living room window.  It became clear early on in the press conference that the F.B.I. had recruited the “terrorists,” chosen the “targets,” made the “bomb” and then brought the “suspects” to the synagogue where they were promptly arrested as they were about to plant the fake device.  My question in the press conference about whether this was a sting operation was ignored. Afterward I spoke privately with a high-ranking F.B.I. official who told me an informant wearing sandals had been sent to a mosque in a poor black neighborhood of depressed Newburgh, New York. He proceeded to recruit locals for the “job.”

Most newspaper and television accounts of the incident omitted these details, reporting that the F.B.I. had “disrupted” a terrorism attack already underway. That burnished the F.B.I.’s image. They had saved us. But there is a big difference between the F.B.I. stopping a terrorism plot already hatched, and instigating one on its own from scratch. There were probably only two groups that could have planned the synagogue “bombing”:  al-Qaeda and the F.B.I.  And it wasn’t al-Qaeda.

This distinction was lost on the residents living near the synagogue. When told that the entire thing was contrived and carried out by the F.B.I., in effect keeping Americans frightened, one resident said, “I don’t care. I have a right to be afraid!” 

It later emerged in court that the F.B.I. had paid as much a $50,000 each to the men to pull it off.  They had also fed them marijuana. Colleen McMahon, the federal judge hearing the case, disagreed with the jury’s guilty verdict.

She said:  “The essence of what occurred here is that a government understandably zealous to protect its citizens from terrorism came upon a man [the supposed terrorism ringleader James Cromitie] both bigoted and suggestible, one who was incapable of committing an act of terrorism on his own …  It [the F.B.I.] created acts of terrorism out of his fantasies of bravado and bigotry, and then made those fantasies come true … The government did not have to infiltrate and foil some nefarious plot – there was no nefarious plot to foil.”

Judge McMahon said the defendants were “not political or religious martyrs,” but “thugs for hire, pure and simple.” But they were sentenced for life nonetheless.   U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder dismissed complaints from Muslim-America leaders that the stings were stoking anti-Muslim sentiment. 

Sting operations are illegal in some countries, like Sweden and the Netherlands. There is a fine line between a sting and entrapment, which is difficult to prove in court. It must be shown that the police provoked or talked the suspects into committing a crime, which they otherwise wouldn’t have committed. A sting is not entrapment if a suspect has been engaged in the crime in the past and is set up to be caught at it again.

The Informant

The relationship revealed in the criminal complaint between the U.S. informant and the Iranian-American target, Mansour Arbabsiar, is crucially important. In the Bronx synagogue case, for instance, the F.B.I. approached and befriended the targets.  In this case, U.S. officials say Arbabsiar approached a U.S. informant he thought was in the Zeta drug gang, because he knew the man’s aunt.

The F.B.I. complaint  makes no mention of this. It only says the two met on several occasions and spoke on the phone.  There’s no mention of the aunt. This is one of the fishiest parts of the government’s story. Of all the drug gang members in Mexico and Texas, what are the odds that Arbabsiar would happen to chose one that was a paid undercover U.S. agent?

It would seem more likely that the informant approached him.

But what a lucky break for the government. Here is Arbabsiar running into the feds’ arms with an order from his cousin back in Iran, Abdul Reza Shahlai, a senior commander of  the al-Quds Force, to at first kidnap the Saudi ambassador. It later became an assassination attempt.

The government’s case rests partly on two wire transfers from Iran for around $49,000 each as a down payment to the would-be assassins.  The money went into a dummy Justice Department account. It is impossible to believe a leader of the al-Quds Force wouldn’t  know that every transaction into or out of the U.S. of more than $10,000 is investigated. The criminal complaint even quotes the less-sophisticated Arbabsiar saying he would have to “send ten thousand, ten thousand, ten thousand. I don’t wanna send it to one guy, one shot.” It appears that these wire transfers were intended to be discovered and raises the possibility they were actually sent by foreign agents from Iran, violating U.N. sanctions making such transfers illegal.

The F.B.I. claims it wire-tapped Arbabsiar saying he wanted the ambassador dead. After his arrest he supposedly confessed the whole thing, after oddly waiving his right to an attorney. Despite the confession, his attorney now says he’ll plead not guilty. Why would he change his mind?

Arbabsiar’s friends nicknamed him Jack because of the kind of bourbon he swigged. He has  a petty criminal record and his friends say he was constantly hustling for money. The used-car dealer spoke from the U.S. on wiretapped telephone conversations with his cousin in Iran about the operation, referring to it in code as the sale of a Chevrolet. Gareth Porter suggests the real operation was a drug deal.  NBC News quotes law enforcement officials saying it was a drug deal, at least initially. Defense attorneys might well argue that the informant himself may have later suggested the assassination.

Gary Sick questions whether such a phone conversation could have even taken place.  “Whatever else may be Iran’s failings, they are not noted for utter disregard of the most basic intelligence trade craft, e.g. discussing an ultra-covert operation on an open international line between Iran and the U.S.,” he said.

The complaint says it was the informant’s idea where to kill the ambassador:  in a D.C. restaurant, whose name U.S. officials say was made up.  Perhaps like much of this story.

WMD?

Calling the non-existent device to blow up the phony restaurant a “weapon of mass destruction” in the complaint is also misleading and politically charged. WMD usually mean chemical, biological and nuclear weapons—none of which the complaint suggests would be used. It is especially charged as the U.N. has three times imposed sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment in its alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

Unlike the previous stings, which ruined the lives of Muslim Americans and unnecessarily frightened the American population, this case has the potential to terrify the people of Iran and the entire Middle East.

Emerging from the Security Council last week, Mohammed Khazaee, Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. and the highest-ranking Iranian official in the U.S., told me Washington was clearly using the alleged plot to build a case against his nation. I asked him if that meant war. “That would be a very dangerous game,” he told me. “Iran is a very strong country. We can take care of ourselves.”

George W. Bush in his memoirs admits he was unable to attack Iran because of a National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran had ceased trying to acquire a nuclear weapon. Bush declined to give Israel the bunker busting bombs they would need to strike underground Iranian nuclear facilities. 

It was revealed only last month that the Obama administration instead has indeed delivered the bunker busters.

The government’s case may not stand up in a New York federal courtroom. But that might not matter, since the Iranians are already guilty in the court of U.S. public opinion and in the foreign ministries of U.S. allies. The damage might be done before the legal process in this fantastic case plays itself out.

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Joe Lauria is an author, foreign affairs correspondent and investigative reporter. He has covered the United Nations for 19 years for numerous newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the London Daily Telegraph, the Montreal Gazette and the Johannesburg Star. Joe is a member of the Sunday Times of London’s investigative unit. He is co-author of A Political Odyssey, a look at America’s defense industry and the false threats it thrives on.

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Palestine is Already a Sovereign State & is Seeking Membership of the UN, Not Statehood

By Joe Lauria

A combination of mistakes—whether through ignorance or design—and significant omissions of fact have left the American public misinformed about why the Palestinians went to the United Nations last week and what they are trying to achieve.

The biggest error repeated across the media in hundreds of headlines and stories is that the Palestinians are seeking statehood at the U.N. In fact, Palestine is already legally a sovereign state and is seeking membership of the United Nations, not statehood. The United Nations does not grant or recognize statehood. Only states can recognize other states bilaterally. The U.N. can only confer membership or non-member, observer state status to already existing states. The U.N. Charter is clear. Article 4 says that only existing states may apply for U.N. membership.

Last Friday Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accepted an application for U.N. membership from PLO Chairman and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Ban sent the application to the Security Council, which began deliberating on it on Monday (Sept. 26).

The very act of the Secretary General accepting the membership application is an acknowledgement from the U.N. that Palestine is already a state, since only states can apply.

The Montevideo Convention of 1933 lays out the requirements for statehood: a population living on a defined territory with a government that can enter into relations with other governments. The Palestinians have all three. Though its borders with Israel are not set, other countries with border disputes have been admitted as U.N. members, such as Pakistan and India. Trygve Lie, the first U.N. Secretary-General, also wrote a 1950 memo that states do not need universal recognition to apply.

Palestine declared its independence on November 15, 1988, a fact found nowhere in the American mainstream reporting of the past week. A Palestinian walked out of the Al Asqa Mosque that day in Al Quds/Jerusalem and read the declaration aloud, much as someone read the American Declaration of Independence to a crowd in the courtyard of the Philadelphia State House on July 4, 1776.

Almost immediately one hundred nations recognized an independent Palestinian state. Since then 30 more nations have recognized Palestine, some having opened Palestinian embassies in their capitals. This crucial fact too was not reported in the U.S. media. For Palestinians and those countries that recognize them, Israeli troops are occupying a sovereign nation.

It was the same as when Morocco and then France and other nations recognized an independent United States years before the war against Britain was won. For Americans and those nations recognizing America , British troops became an occupation force, not an army defending British territory.

The problem for the Americans then and for the Palestinians now is that the occupying nation and the world’s biggest power are not among the 130 who’ve recognized them.

If there were a United Nations in 1777 the Americans could have applied for membership. And if Britain had a veto on the Security Council then as it does now, it would have blocked that membership.

Today neither the occupying power, Israel, nor the world’s biggest power, the U.S., recognizes Palestinian statehood. Thus the U.S. has vowed to veto the Palestinians’ membership resolution in the Security Council.

The U.S. had furiously lobbied to prevent the Palestinians from coming to the U.N. at all, including Congress threatening to cut off all aid. Having failed, Washington is now trying to delay a vote as long as possible while lobbying the several non-permanent members of the Security Council to abstain, or vote against.

But the Palestinians knew from the start the U.N. process would take weeks and have so far not backtracked on their plan one inch.

Membership in the U.N. requires a recommendation from the 15-member Security Council, secured with nine votes in favor and no vetoes. If the recommendation passes, the 193-seat General Assembly must approve with a two-thirds majority. Eight votes in favor or less would kill the Security Council membership resolution, sparing the U.S. from a veto that would cost them dearly on the Arab street.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Lebanon are among the Security Council members who have formally recognized Palestine and are firm about voting in favor. The U.S. isn’t bothering with them. But Nigeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia and Gabon have also recognized Palestine and are under extreme American, and in the case of Gabon, French pressure to at least abstain.

Falling short of eight votes would be an embarrassment for the Palestinians, but the Security Council route is only the first step. After a sure defeat in the Security Council, two options in the General Assembly remain.

President Abbas told reporters on his plane back home from New York that the Palestinians are willing to wait two weeks for the Security Council to act before going to the next step for membership. That step is to try to circumvent either a U.S. veto or less than nine votes in the Security Council in the General Assembly, employing a Cold War-era resolution known as Uniting for Peace.

It was introduced by the U.S. in 1950 to get around repeated Soviet vetoes on the Korean War. Francis Boyle, a legal adviser to Abbas, told me he has advised the Palestinian president to take this step. But the Palestinians would have to convince two-thirds of voting Assembly members that Palestinian membership would be a response to a “threat to peace, breach of the peace or an act of aggression” from Israel.

The U.S. and Israel would fight to keep this off the General Assembly agenda. But Boyle, who cautioned that he does not speak for the Palestinians, told me he thinks the Palestinians have the votes to overcome this.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a split in the PLO leadership on whether to use Uniting for Peace. Hanan Ashrawi, a PLO executive committee member, says it is still a viable option. But the Palestinians’ U.N. observer, Riyad Mansour, believes any membership bid must legally go through the Security Council first and there’s no getting around it. Abbas’ position on this is not clear. It will be interesting to see if the Palestinians try to use Uniting for Peace and what happens if they do.

If they decide against it or fail, their third option is to try to become a non-member, observer state, which needs only a simple majority of 97 votes in the General Assembly which the Palestinians clearly have.Becoming an observer state would be more than symbolic. It could reshape the balance of power between Israel and the Palestinians. As an observer state, Palestine could participate in Assembly debates, but could not vote, sponsor resolutions or field candidates for Assembly committees. But more importantly, it would allow Palestine to accede to treaties and join specialized U.N. agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), officials said.

Switzerland joined the ICAO in 1947 when it was still an observer state before becoming a U.N. member in 2002. Denis Changnon, an ICAO spokesman in Montreal, told me the treaty gives members full sovereign rights over air space, a contentious issue with Israel, which currently controls the airspace above the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians could bring claims of violation of its air space to the International Court of Justice.

If Palestine joins the Law of the Sea Treaty it would gain control of its national waters off Gaza, a highly contentious move as those waters are currently under an Israeli naval blockade. Boyle said he has advised Abbas to accede to treaties, including the Law of the Sea. If they do, the Palestinians could challenge the Israeli blockade at the ICJ as well as claim a gas field off Gaza, currently claimed by Israel.

Even more troubling for Israel and the U.S. would be Palestine joining the International Criminal Court. Ambassador Christian Wenaweser, president of ICC Assembly of State Parties, said in an interview a Palestine observer state could join the ICC and ask the court to investigate any alleged war crimes and other charges against Israel committed on Palestinian territory after July 2002, including Israel’s 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead war against Gaza that killed 1,400 Palestinian civilians.

Ashrawi says Israeli settlements in Palestine can be challenged as war crimes in the court as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The Palestinians know they must still negotiate borders, refugees, settlements, the occupation and Jerusalem. Abbas said pushing for U.N. membership did not mean he no longer wants to negotiate. Rather gaining membership or observer state status would give the Palestinians more leverage in those talks, he said.

In an effort to upstage and derail the Palestinians’ membership drive, just minutes after Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had finished addressing the General Assembly last Friday the so-called Quartet—the U.S., U.K., Russia and the U.N.—announced its vision of a one-year plan for a comprehensive settlement.

The Quartet dropped its repeated call for a settlement freeze and called for no preconditions for talks. The Palestinians, who are demanding a freeze before negotiations based on the pre-occupation 1967 borders, rejected the Quartet’s plan. Israel then announced 1,100 new settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.

The Quartet has failed again. Westerners cannot solve this problem. Maybe it’s time to make it the Quintet by adding the Arab League—to give voice to the Palestinians. How to get the U.S. media to become interested in more accurately reporting the Palestinian’s side of the story is another matter.

# # # #

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/28/shoddy-reporting-misrepresents-palestinian-un-bid/feed/ 1 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/15/the-eyeopener-usrael-vs-palestine-a-two-faced-rejection-of-a-two-state-solution/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/15/the-eyeopener-usrael-vs-palestine-a-two-faced-rejection-of-a-two-state-solution/#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:45:59 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=6645

Presenting Distinguished  Journalists Pepe Escobar & Joe Lauria

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to visit New York next week to unveil a formal bid for Palestinian membership in the United Nations. The bid has been widely reported since its announcement this month and has been fiercely opposed by the United States and Israel, who fear that such a bid represents a unilateral move on the Palestinians’ part toward implementing a two-state solution, something that they argue must be the result of negotiations between the parties.

The Palestinians have expressed frustration with Israel’s refusal to extend a 10-month moratorium on settlements in areas that are likely to be part of a future Palestinian state, and its rejection of the use of the 1967 borders with land swaps as the basis for a two-state solution.

Now all sides are shaping up for protracted political wrangling as the specter of a Palestinian UN membership bid has upset the balance of power in an already volatile region.

This is our EyeOpener Report by James Corbett on facts and issues missing in the mainstream media and comments by distinguished journalists Pepe Escobar and Joe Lauria on US-Israel vs. Palestine: :  A Two-Faced Rejection of a Two-State Solution:

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/15/the-eyeopener-usrael-vs-palestine-a-two-faced-rejection-of-a-two-state-solution/feed/ 1 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/08/ron-paul%e2%80%99s-chief-attorney-bruce-fein-his-clients-2/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/08/ron-paul%e2%80%99s-chief-attorney-bruce-fein-his-clients-2/#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:43:10 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=6378

Conflict of Interest? Compatible Interests? You Tell Me

Last month, on August 23, Bruce Fein became Ron Paul’s Chief Legal Advisor. In other words, Ron Paul became Bruce Fein’s Client. I have written in length about Bruce Fein as a crusty Beltway Foreign Agent and his involvement and guilt in the recent scandal involving Congresswoman Jean Schmidt. I’ve written extensively on this issue. Today I just want to list here some of Bruce Fein’s clients, and then ask you to consider and define the situation in terms of ‘interests.’ Here are a few well-known clients of Mr. Bruce Fein as exhibited by his lobbying firm:

A Few Foreign Nation Clients

Saudi Arabia
Pakistan
Turkey
Sudan

A Few Clients from the Banking & Fed Megas Pool

Bank of America
Morgan Stanley
Standard Charter Bank

Oil Industry

Exxon Mobile
BP
Chevron Texaco

Military Industrial Complex

Boeing
General Electric

International-Imperialistic- Parasitic Organizations

World Bank
IMF
United Nations

You see, there exists no conflict of interest among these Fein clients. When it comes to imperialistic and exploitative operations, the target puppet nations, the greedy oil and military industrial complex players, and the corrupt-criminal mega banking industry work hand-in-hand. Are you with me so far?

On the other hand, last time I checked Ron Paul challenged the Fed & the corrupt mega bankers. Last time I heard, Ron Paul unequivocally was voicing his disdain for US led international and imperialistic institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. Last time I looked, Ron Paul was on the ‘no-no list’ for the Military Industrial Complex lobby.

Now Ron Paul is Bruce Fein’s client. The above predators are also Bruce Fein’s clients. So what are we talking about here?

A Gigantic Conflict of Interest?

Compatible Interests?

If you think it is neither, which one of these clients’ interest comes first? Let me give it a bit of perspective with one example:

The Turkish clients paid Bruce Fein $500,000 in less than two years for him to represent their interests. How much is the Ron Paul campaign willing to pay Bruce Fein in order to surpass Turkey’s  client value to Fein? How much must th Paul campaign pay Bruce Fein for its interests to be put before those of Saudi Arabia, all those mega banks, MIC…?

These questions are yours to answer, and you may want to ask Bruce Fein directly. On September 12, Monday, at 12:30, Bruce Fein will be at Busboys & Poets (2021 14^th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009).  Please let me know what answers you find.

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/08/ron-paul%e2%80%99s-chief-attorney-bruce-fein-his-clients-2/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/05/countdown-day-7-bruce-fein-it-boils-down-to-%e2%80%98principle%e2%80%99/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/05/countdown-day-7-bruce-fein-it-boils-down-to-%e2%80%98principle%e2%80%99/#comments Tue, 06 Sep 2011 02:14:10 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=6211

Final: The Facts, Bruce Fein, Ron Paul, and the Next Step

Today is Day 7 on the campaign to raise awareness and alert re Bruce Fein, the greatest threat to the Ron Paul Camp to date. It may be my last one depending on the public response and feedback we receive from the already active and vigilant ‘true’ Paul supporters. I am going to start with one last response to Bruce-Mattie Fein agents who have hijacked several websites to deflect attention from the facts and the real issues. If you go and read the propaganda written by the Feins’ agents you’ll see why I refer to them as ‘agents.’ Either due to certain omega fatty acid deficiencies or natural genetic misfortune, these guys slip and make clear their close associations with both Bruce and Mattie Fein. Now, allow me to provide you with a concrete rebuttal to some of this misinformation that is being spread and planted by Feins’ agents:

“So what if he is representing foreign agents, foreign governments or foreign groups. He is an attorney after all, and it is his job to represent these people?”

Last time I checked attorneys represented their clients in courts. Last time I checked legal cases were not brought by attorneys before the CIA. Last time I checked lawyers did not argue their clients’ cases before State Department operatives. And last time I checked legal representation did not extend to going to Congress, wining and dining representatives, and funneling money into their pockets. Did I miss something when I checked all this last time?! Because this is what Bruce Fein writes and markets about the services he provides for foreign agenda clients, and if you read you hardly, if ever, come across any mention of legal-attorney representation:

“The Lichfield Group features unrivalled government, media, and business experience. Exemplary is the Group’s high level connections with the Department of Justice, the Department of State, and the Central Intelligence Agency, on the one hand, to The New York Times, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, and nationwide broadcast or cable networks on the other.

Whether a client is a giant corporation handcuffed by ill-conceived United States government policies or a foreign government anxious to influence the decisions of Congress, the President, agencies, the judiciary, or State governments, The Lichfield Group is armed with the skills and contacts indispensable for success.”

Just to show my generosity and kindness towards the IQ-challenged Fein agents I am going to recap: Bruce Fein is a foreign agent-lobbyist and that has nothing to do with ‘legal representation.’ He represents foreign agendas before the CIA, the State Department, the Congress, and the White House… Courts ain’t got nothing to do with this in-name-only ‘attorney.’ Where did you guys ever hear of cases being brought before the despicable Central Intelligence Agency-CIA?! What exactly are this Bruce Fein’s ties and close connections to the CIA and State Department he keeps bragging about?!

“Bruce Fein is a fine attorney. Regardless of his shady foreign ties and businesses, as the Chief Legal Advisor to Ron Paul Campaign he is bringing his highly regarded attorney expertise and services!”

As I am writing this piece, as has been the case since the ruling issued by the Congressional Ethics Committee, there is a fine group of legal experts who are working on getting the Bar Association to investigate and hopefully suspend Mr. Fein’s attorney license. This is a gigantic public scandal, not an allegation, people:

“In a statement released on August 5, the House Ethics Committee ruled that Rep Jean Schmidt has received multiple improper gifts totaling $500,000 from the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) between 2008 and 2010. The Committee ruled that Schmidt must pay the money back, However, she will not face sanctions by the House as she was able to pin the blame for her behavior on her attorneys Bruce Fein and David Saltzman.”

After investigating the case, the Ethics Committee says it was Bruce Fein who intentionally misled his client Rep. Schmidt and funneled half a million dollars of foreign lobby money to the Congresswoman. As I stated before, there are only two possible scenarios here:

His two possible explanations for this case would be: 1- I did not tell my client that my legal representation of her case was part of foreign lobby money funneling to her; 2- My client was fully aware of the foreign lobby bribery nature of my legal representation and services, but to protect her and my foreign bosses I took the blame. Under either explanation one glaring point remains clear, and that is the lack of ethics on behalf of the involved attorney-Bruce Fein.

Feins’ agents are out there trying to persuade the Paul Camp to ‘forget Fein’s foreign lobbyist status and businesses’;  that ‘you’ve got a darn good attorney as your chief legal advisor.’ It is not any of my ‘allegations’ they are countering here; it is the official findings by the House Ethics Committee. How is it going to look for Ron Paul and his supporters if and when it is announced that Bruce Fein is being barred from legal practice due to unethical practices as an attorney?! Who is going to defend Ron Paul for picking this kind of an attorney for this kind of high-official position?! What will the public say? The presidential candidate who picked a crusty foreign lobbyist and a barred attorney as his chief legal advisor?!

I did not have to invent Bruce Fein’s Foreign Lobbyist status. It is in Mr. Fein’s resume and his past and present practices, showcased by him right here. Mr. Fein’s intimate associations with the CIA, the State Department and the White House are not based on any allegations; it is in his resume as written by him. Mr. Fein’s position and membership in the Neocon Nest AEI is a fact that is highlighted and used by him when needed. The ruling on Mr. Fein’s foreign lobby money funneling scheme is not some rumor; it is in an official congressional report.

And finally, it is very hard for me to believe that the propaganda, misinformation and personal attacks on me recently could possibly be coming from any ‘true’ Ron Paul supporter. We are talking about libertarians, and libertarian-leaning people who refuse to stop the critical thinking process and readily summit to any authority. Take a look at the following propaganda example from the Daily Paul website, and tell me if this jibes with the Paul Camp motto:

“I’m all for questioning things, but in the context of a presidential campaign, our leader is Ron Paul. His decision is to keep Fein. Back him up, despite your opinions.”- Road Runner on Wed, 08/31/2011 – 13:40.

Since when do Ron Paul people advocate for a monarchy-kingdom where followers must follow their king/leader blindly without question? This is disgusting. A disgrace to any libertarian minded person! Here is another one:

“An adviser may not be central in the campaign, and could be there to simply “bolster the appearance of the management team”, just like they do with company investment portfolios. It even might be for the purpose of gaining some acceptance from neocons by having the AEI adviser, even though RP is not neocon oriented and might not even take any advice from him. In the end, I have to consider RP to be capable of making these decisions. He is experienced and may have some reasons and knowledge that we do not see.” - Big T Wed, 08/31/2011 – 12:25.

What are these people saying? It is totally okay if Ron Paul hired this guy in order to expand his base to include neocons?!

Okay, I am not going to waste my time with mind-boggling quotes attacking me personally, advocating a dictatorship style following, planting misinformation, and most importantly attributing all that to Ron Paul supporters. Instead, here is my message to all in the ‘true’ Paul Grassroots network:

It is okay to think highly of Bruce Fein’s speeches-writings on State Secrets Privilege and some First Amendment related topics. I’ve read some of those, and I happen to like the content. Fein has been in and around the Paul Camp, giving speeches and interviews since 2008. I had no problem with that. Have the man, pay the man, to write and publish articles. That’s fine. But do NOT let this man inside as a strategically positioned insider. Do not let this man become Ron Paul’s Chief Legal Advisor. A crusty foreign lobbyist, an unethical attorney involved in money-laundering-funneling for foreign agents, a CIA-State Department Insider, a known AEI Neocon, a covert Israel supporter, a man who has been playing all sides-from the ACLU to AEI to Turkey to Pakistan to Israel to Ron Paul…Well, that kind of man has NO place in the Ron Paul campaign as an insider, and has no place with Ron Paul.

I believe I have said and done my part for now. I have been in this particular fight for way too long. Causes to fight for have not decreased but increased. I believed this to be one of those causes worth fighting for, including taking vicious attacks and insults from Paul imposters. However, the decision is now yours to make and the next step is yours to take. In the end, it all boils down to sincerity and principle. Please let me know, and until then.

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/05/countdown-day-7-bruce-fein-it-boils-down-to-%e2%80%98principle%e2%80%99/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/02/countdown-day-4-nervous-fein-publicists-hard-at-work%e2%80%a6/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/02/countdown-day-4-nervous-fein-publicists-hard-at-work%e2%80%a6/#comments Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:02:39 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=6085 “Whether a client is a giant corporation handcuffed by ill-conceived United States government policies or a foreign government anxious to influence the decisions of Congress, the President, agencies, the judiciary, or State governments, The Lichfield Group is armed with the skills and contacts indispensable for success.”-Bruce Fein on his ‘recently erased’ Lobbying Firm the Lichfield Group

The internal discussions over the recent ‘Fein’ selection continue inside the Paul camp. Loyal and vigilant Paul supporters have been doing their part. And a few Fein publicists and friends have been hard at work planting misinformation, propaganda and false accusations on the net right and left. I guess this is a positive indicator – we have Fein and his publicists nervous. When false fronts get nervous they tend to expose themselves even further. And that’s good.

Fein publicists and propaganda planters have been  mainly targeting Ron Paul related sites and forums, and attacking everyone who even dares to question Bruce Fein’s highly questionable businesses and associations. For example: they claim Fein worked for AEI in 1981, and then left. Fein’s bio contradicts this. AEI contradicts this. Even Fein’s business advertisement geared towards his foreign governments contradicts this!

Here is what AEI says about their dear Fein, ‘Mr. Fein has been an adjunct scholar at AEI,’ and says this as of today, September 2, 2011.

When you look at Bruce Fein’s biographical information listed and promoted by him at his ‘very recently erased’ company website, you see this: “Mr. Fein has been an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute.”

Another interesting development: the Feins have been trying very hard to delete-erase their various companies’ websites and past information. Nervous Bruce and Mattie Fein quickly ran and got rid of their business website for ‘the Lichfield Group’, trying very hard to erase information on their actual businesses. However, as many of you know, nowadays it is very hard to get rid of past online information, and here is what we retrieved on Fein’s relationships and ongoing work as advertised at his company website and brochures seeking additional lobbying positions:

The Lichfield Group features unrivalled government, media, and business experience. Exemplary is the Group’s high level connections with the Department of Justice, the Department of State, and the Central Intelligence Agency, on the one hand, to The New York Times, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, and nationwide broadcast or cable networks on the other.

Whether a client is a giant corporation handcuffed by ill-conceived United States government policies or a foreign government anxious to influence the decisions of Congress, the President, agencies, the judiciary, or State governments, The Lichfield Group is armed with the skills and contacts indispensable for success.

As you can see the Fein couple is not selling good ole boring attorney appeal here. They say they are close to the CIA and State Department and Congress, and willing to influence them for foreign entities if the right dollar amount is paid.

Also, it is very interesting to see how twisting and misrepresenting facts in a not very ethical manner, apparently a ‘Fein’  trademark, shows itself in his representation of his marital status! The Fein publicists, since my article exposing the couple’s ‘Israel Lobby’ agenda,  have begun advertising the Feins as divorced, and concluding that ‘so Mattie Fein’s activities and associations do not in any way apply to Bruce; they are divorced!’ I did check my facts, and I did talk with credible sources: They did file for divorce a few years back, but with all sorts of business partnerships and strategic benefits in politics at stake they changed their mind, and nullified their filings. They are legally married. They are business partners. They have businesses together, and Fein has been his wife’s supporter in every single meaning of the word ‘support.’

I am not going to waste my time, and your time, countering every single bit of false information, accusation and propaganda that is going to be planted by Fein’s publicists. I believe those with a positive agenda who want to see this great threat to the Paul Camp gone are informed and vigilant enough to counter these recent false information planting operations on their own. As you can see, Fein is very nervously busy trying to erase his past; so are his publicists. Instead, I want to remind you that today is Day 4 of our countdown to remove Mr. Fein, the greatest ‘insider’ threat to the Paul campaign to date, and we are counting down.

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/02/countdown-day-4-nervous-fein-publicists-hard-at-work%e2%80%a6/feed/ 1 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/01/countdown-day-3-time-for-the-paul-camp-to-draw-the-line-on-%e2%80%98fein%e2%80%99-2/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/01/countdown-day-3-time-for-the-paul-camp-to-draw-the-line-on-%e2%80%98fein%e2%80%99-2/#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:30:10 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=6032

A Shark to Swim with Among other Sharks? Or, a Fox in the Henhouse?

 We are on Day Three and still no conclusive word from the Ron Paul campaign. I have received hundreds of e-mails and comments from objective and vigilant Paul supporters who are equally alarmed and troubled by Mr. Fein’s recently granted inside position. I have also received a few e-mails from Paul supporters who are trying very hard to justify this new troublesome addition. I want to quote from two such e-mails and respond to both:

‘Ron Paul is out in a sea full of sharks. He needs ruthless sharks like Bruce Fein to survive the other sharks. I think it is a good move and I don’t like people like you second guessing it.’

And here is another comment:

‘This was a brilliant and well-calculated strategic move by Paul. In order to expand his base and movement he needs to bring on board people like Fein. Would it be bad if we gain the support of some of those neocons? Would it be bad to have ACLU liberals or Jewish communities stop attacking Paul, and join him instead because of Fein. I think this was a wise choice by Ron Paul. The mainstream media loves Bruce Fein and he knows how to play and please the media…’

Please take a moment and reflect on these comments and this line of thinking. Have we heard this before? I believe we have. For many decades we have justified moves and actions like this by our candidates of choice instead of drawing the lines where they should be drawn. Because where would you draw the line? Why not try to recruit Karl Rove and bring him on board to lead Paul’s campaign press office? Why not hire Bill Kristol to bring in heavy weight neocons? Why not get a manager or two from AIPAC or JINSA to convert the pro Israel lobby Zionist voters? Why not?

Isn’t this the same ‘the end justifies the means’ mentality we’ve been fighting against? Isn’t this what we justifiably accuse the establishment of doing? Isn’t this a solid example of hypocrisy?

I remember the days when Obama supporters were assuring each other of their candidate having to have to make a few pacts with a few devils in order to win, and once he won he was going to boot them all out and make his supporters’ dreams come true. I recall how the Obama apologists were justifying Rahm Emmanuel’s appointment, and after him Gates, and after him Dennis Ross, and after him…until they began to lose count. Oh, I remember, don’t you?

What I am saying is this: One of the greatest strengths and appeal of the Ron Paul movement has been its grassroots quality, straight-forward approach, uncompromising attitude towards the compromised, and most importantly, steering clear of shady-corrupt-infested traps no matter the outer appeal or glitz.

Bruce Fein, the foreign lobbyist for several nations and foreign groups, the AEI nest’s neocon tenant, the reported compromiser of legal ethics …does not belong in the Ron Paul Camp. It’s time for the Paul Camp to draw the line on ‘Fein,’ and keep it there. Don’t let those lines get blurry and eventually disappear altogether. This is ‘Day Three’ in our countdown to remove Mr. Fein, the greatest ‘insider’ threat to the Paul campaign to date, and we are counting down.

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/01/countdown-day-3-time-for-the-paul-camp-to-draw-the-line-on-%e2%80%98fein%e2%80%99-2/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/31/countdown-day-2-ron-paul-camp-must-remove-this-new-%e2%80%98fein%e2%80%99-occupant/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/31/countdown-day-2-ron-paul-camp-must-remove-this-new-%e2%80%98fein%e2%80%99-occupant/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:47:32 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=5978 This is where Ron Paul stands admirably on Israel and its war propaganda against Iran: Cut Foreign Aid, Unshackle Israel and Leave Iran Alone!

This where John Bolton supported Fein(s) stand on Israel and war propaganda against Iran:

In 2010, Fein’s wife, Mattie Fein, began expressing the couple’s views on Israel and Israel’s interests openly. Some attribute that to Mattie Fein’s desperate need and her fierce competition with Harman over Israel lobby dollars. Here is Mattie’s response to the test question by the Zionist community:

7. Would you support Israel taking military action to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? Under what circumstances?

The United States should support whatever Israel believes is justified by national security worries over Iran.

Bruce Fein has many homes, including the Neocon Nest AEI. The Ron Paul Camp does not need Mr. Fein as an occupant. It certainly doesn’t.

This is ‘Day Two’ in our countdown to remove this occupant, Mr. Fein, a Ron Paul Camp new occupant and the greatest ‘insider’ threat to his campaign to date, and we are counting down.

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/31/countdown-day-2-ron-paul-camp-must-remove-this-new-%e2%80%98fein%e2%80%99-occupant/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/30/the-greatest-plot-against-the-ron-paul-camp-to-date/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/30/the-greatest-plot-against-the-ron-paul-camp-to-date/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:32:25 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=5930

Who ‘Really’ Is this Bruce Fein?  

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero

 Last week, right after publishing my article on Congresswoman Schmidt and Bruce Fein’s brilliant foreign lobby money rechanneling-laundering scheme, and to my shock, I found out about this:

The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign announced today that constitutional and international law expert Bruce Fein will join the campaign as senior advisor on legal matters.

“Bruce Fein’s participation adds to our campaign’s already intellectual heft, enabling us to more broadly engage the conversation about constitutionality, civil liberties and the dangers to national security of an increasingly interventionist foreign policy,” said Ron Paul 2012 Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton.

While some at Rep. Paul’s Camp were busy celebrating and cheering the announcement as a brilliant strategic move, I was frantically gathering cases and research notes, corresponding with current and former colleagues from the intelligence community who had come to support Rep. Paul, and communicating with a few friends with Rep. Paul’s Campaign who were equally troubled by this development.

I understand the ‘cheering’ side of Paul’s camp as they have been excited and impressed by the in- writing-and-words-only side of Bruce Fein. Not so different than those who were fired up and sold on the in-words-only rhetoric and promises staged by President Obama. The Constitutional Scholar Fein and the Constitutional Expert Obama. A Great Penman Fein and the Great Orator Obama…and of course the contradicting realities and the contradicting facts.

However, in this case, there are already too many established facts and too much history on Mr. Fein, and way too many rational and realistic people among Paul supporters to ring the alarm bells and counter this great threat before it’s too late. I will go as far as calling the penetration of the Ron Paul camp by Bruce Fein ‘the greatest threat to Paul’s camp to date,’ and will make a solid case for this characterization based on glaring and alarming facts; facts and concerns shared by several loyal Paul advisors today.

Who is the real Bruce Fein? Why there are so many different versions of Fein – one contradicting the other? How do his real actions and intimate associations stand in stark contrast to Ron Paul? What is the most likely plot in planting Mr. Fein within Paul’s campaign?

Foreign Lobby & Influence Peddling

Ron Paul has been consistent and exemplary in his strongly held principles on the Foreign lobby and influence peddling; a rarity in the US Congress. He has displayed intense disdain for foreign lobbying and foreign influence. He even considers congressional ‘junkets’ as another means to be compromised: stressing that he would not travel abroad on agenda-driven foreigners’ dime: “I just think it’s unnecessary for congressmen to travel overseas, and the people in our district were on my side,” he said in an interview. “You don’t need to go to Bosnia to understand we have no business there.”

With Bruce Fein you have exactly the opposite stand. He has been a crusty foreign lobbyist making millions of dollars peddling his foreign bosses’ interests and influence in Congress and government agencies. For Fein it has never mattered who the foreign client or what their agenda. He does not care whether his foreign clients are criminals or terrorists or dictators. As long as they pay him handsomely he’ll sell their agenda and interest no matter what they may be. The words ‘principle’ or ‘taking a stand’ have never entered this foreign lobbyist’s dictionary or comprehension:

One minute, on behalf of one set of his foreign designated ‘terrorist’ bosses, Bruce Fein is busy selling the need for a genocide declaration by the US Congress against one nation:

“For the past year I have written about Bruce Fein in many articles that have been widely published and circulated. He is reportedly paid $100,000 per month to tell lies in Washington about the Government of Sri Lanka… Who are the American individuals backing this group? Where are they getting their money to pay Bruce Fein? Does former US Ambassador Blake have something to do with them…”

The next minute, on behalf of another well-known foreign mob boss, Bruce Fein is busy peddling influence and selling Congress his foreign bosses’ anti-genocide agenda:

“In 2007, Ayasli transferred $30 million in stock to fund a new endeavor, the nonprofit Turkish Coalition of America. The organization is headquartered in a Washington suite that has also been listed as the address for the Turkish Coalition USA PAC, the lobbying firm of Lydia Borland (who has represented the Turkish government), and the law firm of Bruce Fein and Associates (Fein comprises half of the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund)…”

“materials put out by the Turkish Coalition of America and authored by a lawyer, Bruce Fein, who now represents Schmidt in the complaint, say that Congresswoman Schmidt has on numerous occasions voiced her opposition to such resolutions and maintains that the historical question is not appropriate for Congress to legislate. The congresswoman, based on her independent research, does not believe the tragic events constitute genocide…”

Bruce Fein sees no problem with representing foreign groups like this:

Fein hit the jackpot in 1991 when he signed on to represent Mozambique’s notorious guerrilla army, RENAMO, which was seeking to overthrow its country’s leftist government. When Fein came on board, RENAMO’s reputation has hit bottom…

…

Even the Reagan and Bush administrations kept their distance from RENAMO, despite their anti-Communist rhetoric…

…

Fein, however, eagerly signed up to flack for Dhlakama’s terror army. Like most foreign lobbyists, he bilked his client for huge sums of money while performing virtually no work.

Mr. Fine, who now fakes and preaches non-interventionism and anti-influence peddling only to echo Ron Paul, in real life has been practicing the exact opposite:

“Now, Fein has returned to lobbying and is working for a client that has the dubious distinction of making RENAMO look good: The Sudan. That country’s government is barred from receiving U.S. foreign aid because of its support for terrorism and because of its revolting human rights record. Amnesty International reports that the Sudanese government not only assassinates and tortures its “enemies,” but that paramilitary forces have kidnapped scores of children, who are believed to be held in domestic slavery by their abductors or taken to camps in remote rural areas, where they are trained for military service”

Here is another on-the-spot description of Real Bruce Fein as a crusty “Beltway Prostitute”:

“Well, well, well. Wasn’t Bruce Fein just recently condemning the Government of Sri Lanka for trying to put an end to the LTTE? But this time he’s defending a sovereign government for protecting itself – rather than slandering it using falsehoods. Now you see what I mean when I earlier referred to Mr. Fein as a “Beltway prostitute.” He will accept money from anyone who can pay the price – regardless of where that money came from, or who his legal and public relations services might unjustly hurt. What an embarrassment to the US legal profession.”

You see, for Mr. Fein pimping the Congress on behalf of foreign clients is about dollars. Nothing more; nothing less. Whether it is advocating additional foreign aid for one country while our nation is being bankrupted, or dragging our Congress to get involved with domestic meddling and the affairs of another foreign country, Bruce Fein has never been about the United States’ interests; just the opposite. Give Fein the dollars and he’ll sign up to lobby for any one: terrorists, corrupt foreign governments, mobsters, assassins …

Long pocketed as a ‘lobbyist’ by Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey, Tamil, and others, Bruce Fein is the exact antithesis to Ron Paul’s principled position on issues related to foreign lobby, corruption and influence peddling in government.

Overt Neocon Ties & Covert Israel Pedigree

Ron Paul has been in staunch opposition and a counter to Neocon agendas and field players. Whether on the Israel lobby and agenda driving the hawkish currents in our nation today, or the corporate war machine interests guiding our foreign policy practices, Paul has consistently stood firm and unrelenting.

Mr. Fein’s public pedigree makes it fairly easy to spot his overt ties and links. For example: he has been an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). By now I think the majority of Americans know about AEI’s claim to fame:

“AEI is the most prominent think tank associated with American neoconservatism, in both the domestic and international policy arenas.[10] Irving Kristol, widely considered a father of neoconservatism, is a senior fellow at AEI, and many prominent neoconservatives—including Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ben Wattenberg, and Joshua Muravchik—spent the bulk of their careers at AEI.”

A well-known couple of facts about AEI:

1- In order to be accepted by AEI, to become one of their scholars, proven neoconservative inklings and ties are the never-waivered prerequisites.

2- AEI seeks candidates who put Loyalty and Allegiance to Israel above all.

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt state in their controversial bestseller, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, that the tone of the right-leaning component of the Israel lobby results from the influence of the leaders of the two top lobby groups: AIPAC, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. They go on to list, as right-leaning think tanks associated with the lobby, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the American Enterprise Institute.

Acceptance to the tightly knitted and guarded AEI Neocon community also extends to family members and religious affiliations. Bruce Fein has passed both litmus tests in becoming a highly-regarded member of AEI. His wife, Mattie Fein, has been a vocal hawk, neocon propaganda distributor, and a very familiar face within the Beltway neocon community:

In 2007, Fein penned an opinion piece in the Washington Times calling on the United States to pledge military support to Iranian dissidents in the event of an uprising. Fein, whose father is of Iranian descent, was identified in the piece as the founder and president of the Institute for Persian Studies.

While Fein’s AEI and neocon connections and strong ties are overtly stated, his loyalties and allegiance to Israel and the Israel lobby are not; that is, until you start digging. A former AEI member who now works as a congressional aid stated, ‘Bruce Fein was liked and trusted there as ‘one of them,’ a real Jewish man loyal to Israel and its interests.’

Fein has been successful in playing both sides of this field, and keeping his Israel related activities and ties mainly covert. However, in 2010, Fein’s wife, Mattie Fein, began expressing the couple’s views on Israel and Israel’s interests less covertly. Some attribute that to Mattie Fein’s desperate need and her fierce competition with Harman over Israel lobby dollars. Here is Mattie’s response to the test question by the Zionist community:

7. Would you support Israel taking military action to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? Under what circumstances?

The United States should support whatever Israel believes is justified by national security worries over Iran.

And here is Bruce Fein’s buddy from AEI, the scandalous John Bolton, who’s been backing the Fein couple including Mattie Fein’s fundraising and campaign:

I was privy to some of the logistics involved in setting up the fundraiser that Bolton held for Mattie’s campaign. It amazed me how quickly some establishment Republicans tried to steal the thunder of Bolton’s appearance through various subterfuges and poaching, and it is a credit to the man’s character and timber that he refused to be a part of it. He was there to endorse Mattie Fein against Jane Harman, and he wouldn’t let third parties screw that up.

Mattie Fein’s established Neocon pedigree, her hawkish propaganda and activities nicely echoes Bolton’s own.  Some liken the relationship to mentor-protégé dynamics that began with the marriage to Fein and entry into the AEI circle.

The Question of Ethics …or Lack of

Even Ron Paul’s foes would admit that he has been a man of principle throughout his life; both inside and outside his congressional career. Those who may disagree with his political platform and stand would acknowledge his adherence to ethical practices, whether in his personal-family life or career.

Bruce Fein’s career on the other hand, in contrast to his writings and well-played public role, has been driven by lucrative foreign lobbying deals, influence peddling in the halls of Congress, the State Department and the CIA, and all that mostly for foreign agendas directly in conflict with those of Americans. Not only that, his regard for ethics as an attorney appears to be nonexistent. In his most recent scandal involving indirect funneling of foreign lobby dollars to Rep. Jean Schmidt, he was determined to have been intentionally misguiding his client on the sources of $500,000 dollars in legal fees:

In a statement released on August 5, the House Ethics Committee ruled that Rep Jean Schmidt has received multiple improper gifts totaling $500,000 from the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) between 2008 and 2010. The Committee ruled that Schmidt must pay the money back, However, she will not face sanctions by the House as she was able to pin the blame for her behavior on her attorneys Bruce Fein and David Saltzman

You can read the full report by the House Ethics Committee here. It remains to be seen whether anyone will go after Bruce Fein and his license for this highly scandalous case and ethics violations. His two possible explanations for this case would be: 1- I did not tell my client that my legal representation of her case was part of foreign lobby money funneling to her; 2- My client was fully aware of the foreign lobby bribery nature of my legal representation and services, but to protect her and my foreign bosses I took the blame. Under either explanation one glaring point remains clear, and that is the lack of ethics on behalf of the involved attorney-Bruce Fein. On the other hand, Mr. Fein appears to have had practice in riding ethics related scandals and waves. At least in the scandalous ethic violations case  involving Bruce Fein and his partner Ephraim Chukwuemeka Ugwuonye, Esq.

I started with that famous quote from Marcus Tullius Cicero because it applies to this report and the plots delivered from within. When it comes to Ron Paul’s Campaign no one would ever have to worry about known snakes and neocons like Paul Wolfowitz or Richard Perle. The enemy sent to you will be one who talks just like you; speaks your words and shouts your slogans. And does so very convincingly.

I have tried to be brief with carefully and well-sourced facts and cases to provide a factual profile for the real Bruce Fein. Considering the facts and who Mr. Fein is, and has been, why would he methodically go about attaching himself to Ron Paul and his campaign? After consulting with several well-respected and trust-worthy sources, the troubling answer was summed up in two possibilities:

1- This is a commonly used ploy by the establishment to penetrate Ron Paul and his camp which has been gaining momentum. This is where the plant carries inside information and strategic plans to the establishment, and simultaneously tries to exert negative influence over decision making and strategy-setting processes.

2- The plant willingly and knowingly becomes the fall-guy bringing down the target candidate. Highly damaging and scandalous information about the plant would be strategically released to the media-public, and the candidate suffers the ultimate consequences.

Personally I am leaning more towards the second possibility and here is why:

I was privy to the extensive rap sheet maintained on Mr. Fein, his foreign mob bosses and their operations at J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Mr. Fein is well aware of this rap sheet and the FBI’s long-maintained operations. I know with certainty that if released by the FBI, whether partially or completely, it would be used as ongoing front-page headlines by the media, to bring down the entire Paul campaign before the primaries.

Ron Paul already has a highly-respected constitutional scholar who is articulate, eloquent, passionate, and most importantly, trust-worthy, clean, and from outside the poisonous capital beltway. That person is Tom Woods. Paul does not need this man Fein. He does not need this glitzy-oily foreign lobbyist who stands in total contrast to Paul’s platform.

I like Ron Paul. I support his stand on foreign policy related matters and his objectives on what need to be changed. I applaud Paul’s stand on our liberties, and I back his quest for a much smaller government. I have done so for years. Please don’t let the establishment succeed in their plot. Bruce Fein is the greatest threat to Paul’s movement to date. He would be a stain – a taint; not one easily removed after the fact. Please begin the countdown, and have Ron Paul remove this man from the campaign as a trusted advisor and insider. Let the countdown begin today; at this hour -at this very minute. Before it is too late.

# # # #

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/30/the-greatest-plot-against-the-ron-paul-camp-to-date/feed/ 17 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/15/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-15-2011/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/15/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-15-2011/#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:50:01 +0000 Matthew http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=5455

The CIA, Lies & Intelligence, Spinning Iran’s Centrifuge, the Pentagon’s New China War Plan, Imperialist Freedom, NATO Report: US Raids in Afghanistan Tripled Since 2009, FBI Investigation Reveals DOD Contractors Stole Iraq Artifacts, The People’s Ponzi Scheme, How China Sees English Riots, Israeli Black Hole in Kosovo, Why Does Mainstream Media Disrespect Ron Paul? & More!

BFP Nightly Quote

“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom: and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too.” - W. Somerset Maugham

International Newsworthy

Spinning Iran’s Centrifuge

NATO & Turkey Support Armed Rebels in Syria 

NATO Report: US Raids in Afghanistan Tripled Since 2009 

Report: Libyan Rebels, Government Hold Talks in Tunisia 

Azerbaijan: Baku Hedging Its Economic Bets 

Israeli Black Hole in Kosovo 

Israel Seeks 20 More F-35 Stealth Jets 

UK: Concern Social Networks Targeted as BlackBerry Helps Police Identify Rioters 

* * * *

National Newsworthy

The Pentagon’s New China War Plan 

Boeing Spends $4.4 Million on Government Lobbying During Second Quarter 

FBI Investigation Reveals DOD Contractors Stole Iraq Artifacts

Obama’s Vineyard Vacation will Cost Taxpayers Millions of Dollars 

America’s 14 Most Ready to Riot Cities 

The People’s Ponzi Scheme

Officials Pressed by GOP to Release Defense Budget Review

Does FBI Investigation of Gulen Include Louisiana RSD?

New SEC Whistleblower Rules

* * * *

 Noteworthy Editorials

The CIA, Lies & Intelligence

Whither the Antiwar Movement?

Imperialist Freedom

The Greatest Elected Body that Money Can Buy 

Why Does Mainstream Media Disrespect Ron Paul?

How China Sees English Riots

* * * *

BFP Nightly Funnies

“After all the rioting in London this week, officials are worried that it could mean security problems for the Olympics next year. On the bright side, the guy running with the torch will just blend right in.” –Jimmy Fallon

Vote the Bastards Out

* * * *

BFP Nightly Video Potpourri 

Senator Durbin Disses Reporter’s Downgrade Question

Hitler Lives: 1945 Propaganda- Still Alive today

The Media Admits to Ignoring Ron Paul

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/15/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-15-2011/feed/ 1 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/12/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-12-2011/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/12/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-12-2011/#comments Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:22:34 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=5367

Escobar: Syria- Why the Regime Won’t Fall, Lebanon Intercepts Covert Arms Shipment Bound for Syria, DHS Trying to Make New Terrorist “Watchlist Service” Exempt from Privacy Act, Bank of America’s Backdoor Bailout, Begging for Change, Russia & Azerbaijan: An Obstacle to the U.S. in the Caucasus & More!

 BFP Nightly Quote

“Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today” – Mahatma Gandhi

International Newsworthy

Pepe Escobar: Syria- Why the Regime Won’t Fall

Lebanon Intercepts Covert Arms Shipment Bound for Syria

IED Attacks: Wikileaks Afghanistan War Logs

The Pain to Come for Chinese Export

Russia & Azerbaijan: An Obstacle to the U.S. in the Caucasus

Tajikistan: In Dushanbe “Religious Radicalism” Comes in Many Forms

France, Italy, Spain & Belgium Ban Short-Selling

* * * *

National Newsworthy

DHS Trying to Make New Terrorist “Watchlist Service” Exempt from Privacy Act

Former Counterterrorism Czar Accuses CIA Officials of 9/11 Cover Up

Washington Funds Venezuela’s “Made in the USA Opposition”

State Department Awards $200,000 to Elliott-Abrams Led Thinktank Repeatedly Cited by Israel’s Mass Murderer

Bank of America’s Backdoor Bailout

FDA Conducting a Secret War Against Dairy Farmers

Supreme Court Likely to Rule Big Oil Human Rights Abuse Lawsuits Possible 

* * * *

Noteworthy Editorials

Hiroshima & Nagasaki: 66 Years Later

Begging for Change

The Military: “Closer to you than your Family”

Over 160 Children Reported Among Drone Deaths 

* * * *

BFP Nightly Funnies

“Did you know that China has the exact same credit rating that we do? You’d think their credit would be better, but it’s not. Look who owes them all the money.” –Jay Leno

Obama Proposes Tax Increase On Meanest 2% Of Population 

Tyrannosaurus Debt

Tyrannosaurus Debt

* * * *

BFP Nightly Video Potpourri 

Video 1: We Now Have More Soldiers That Have Died by Suicide Than Conflict

Video 2: AIPAC Sends US Congress on Vacation

Video 3: Ron Paul’s Iowa Debate Q & A

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/12/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-12-2011/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/10/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-10-2011/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/10/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-10-2011/#comments Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:35:31 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=5304

The Mullahs’ Mouthpiece in the US, Despite Obama Opposition Torture Suit against Rumsfeld OK’d, Loophole Lets Big Political Donors Wear Multiple Fundraising Hats, Repression & Resistance in Kashmir, The Totalitarianism of the Progressive Mindset, TSA: Cannot Guarantee Accuracy of 900K Security Badges, Uzbekistan: Government Sites Hacked, Mossad’s Miracle Weapon: Stuxnet, Wisconsin Republicans Stave Off Recall Challenge & More!

 BFP Nightly Quote

The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference”- Bess Myerson 

International Newsworthy

US Drone Strike Kills 18 in Pakistan

The Mullahs’ Mouthpiece in the US (Iranian Opposition Terrorist Group-MEK)

Syrian-Saudi Ties Spiral Downward

Bahrain Hires DC PR Firm to Repair Post-Crackdown Image

Despite Amnesty Offer Fighting Continues in Somalia 

UN Warns of Growing Al Qaeda Threat in Yemen (as US lobbys for more war!)

Repression & Resistance in Kashmir

Mossad’s Miracle Weapon: Stuxnet

Uzbekistan: Government Sites Hacked

* * * *

National Newsworthy

CIA -US Military Operating Inside Mexico’s “Drug War”

Despite Obama Opposition Torture Suit Against Rumsfeld OK’d!

Antiwar Coalition Responds to US Helicopter Crash in Afghanistan

Wisconsin Republicans Stave Off Recall Challenge

US Senators Call for more ’Crippling’ Sanctions on Iran

Loophole Lets Big Political Donors Wear Multiple Fundraising Hats

TSA Cannot Guarantee Accuracy of 900,000 Airport Security Badges

Now the TSA Wants to Interrogate us, too

* * * *

Noteworthy Editorials

Pepe Escobar: My Minaret is Bigger than Yours

Inside MEK’s Massive Lobbying Push

The Totalitarianism of the Progressive Mindset

Syrians Must Win the Revolution on Their Own

AIPAC Has Only Two Major Donors?!

Riots in Britain: Back to the Future

* * * *

BFP Nightly Funnies

“By the way, the ratings agency is Standard & Poor’s. Who’s going to listen to a company whose name translates to Average & Below Average?” – Jon Stewart

New GOP Strategy Involves Reelecting Obama, Making his Life Even More Miserable

Doorbell

* * * *

BFP Nightly Video Potpourri 

Video 1: The Story of Silwan

Video 2: England Riots: ‘Stop Playing Politics, Turn Your Head to Streets’

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/10/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-10-2011/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/08/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-8-2011/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/08/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-8-2011/#comments Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:19:43 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=5180

Uproar in Egypt as US Funnels Aid, Obama Campaign to Get Big-Screen Bin Laden Boost, US Prepares for ‘Worse-Case Scenario’ with Pakistan Nukes, Funding Nicholas Schmidle, Military Spending Threatens America’s Future Strength, ‘Only’ 20% of House of Rep’s to Visit Israel During Summer Recess, Afghanistan’s Innocent Victims, Where Have Libya’s Children Gone? & More!

BFP Nightly Quote

“If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.”- Thomas Jefferson

International Newsworthy

US Prepares for Worse-Case Scenario with Pakistan Nukes

‘NATO Planning Military Attack on Iran’

Libya: Benghazi Blues

Turkey’s Erdogan & Calculated Syrian Affront

US-Bahrain Defense Pack Renewed; for 10 Years

Uproar in Egypt as US Funnels Aid via NGOs 

New U.S. Envoy in Israel to Clear Obstacles for Obama’s Second Term

Georgia: Putin Tweaks Tbilisi on Ossetian Annexation

* * * *

National Newsworthy

Obama Campaign to Get Big-Screen Osama Bin Laden Boost

End of the Road for Hedge Funds?

US Prepares for Military Intervention in Somalia

The Air Force to Spend $23 Billion on the “Escalade” of Spy Drones

Colorful Maps: US Military’s Costly Weapon in the War in Afghanistan

Military Spending Threatens America’s Future Strength

Solar Politics

Law Professors Ask SEC to Write New Political Donation Disclosure Rules for Business

Funding Nicholas Schmidle

‘Only’ 20% of US House of Representatives will Visit Israel During Summer Recess!

* * * *

Noteworthy Editorials

Afghanistan’s Innocent Victims

Barack Obama: The Bizarro FDR

The Dubious Death of Osama Bin Laden

Where Have Libya’s Children Gone?

* * * *

BFP Nightly Funnies

“Why doesn’t Israel want to become the 51st state? Because then it would only have two senators.”

Hitler Learns About Tent Cities & Housing Protests in Tel Aviv

* * * *

BFP Nightly Video Potpourri 

Video 1: The Essence of the Banking Industry…

Video 2: ‘Ending War’- Obama Flashback

Video 3: John Pilger’s War by Other Means- Part IV

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/08/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-august-8-2011/feed/ 1 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/03/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-19/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/03/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-19/#comments Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:43:35 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=5001

The US-Al Qaeda Buddy System, Lowering the War Ceiling, Obama Still Wall Street’s Honey, Getting Access to the Secrets of OBL Kill, Senate Intel Committee Blocks Report on “Secret Law”, Counter-Terrorism & China Pressure on Pakistan, Kosovo: The Gathering Storm, Sources: Israel’s Mossad Behind Tehran Assassinations, Video: Drunken Ben Bernanke on How Screwed US Economy Really is & More!

BFP Nightly Quote

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”- Thomas Jefferson

International Newsworthy

Counter-Terrorism & China Pressure on Pakistan

Russia: Automatic Protection for Official Reputations

Kazakhstan: Is State Sponsored Hacking Curbing Internet Freedom?

Kosovo: The Gathering Storm

Israeli Security Minister Calls for Massive Invasion of Gaza

Alarming Rise in Attacks on Palestinian Children

Sources: Israel’s Mossad Behind Tehran Assassinations

Russia Reaches out to Iran

* * * *

National Newsworthy

Senate Intel Committee Blocks Report on “Secret Law” 

Getting Access to the Secrets of Osama Bin Laden Kill

Officer: Raid was Always to Kill Bin Laden, Not to Capture him

Pentagon to Spend $42 Million to ‘Covertly’ Monitor & Influence Twitter & Other Social Networking Site 

Mullen: Debt Threatens Our Warmaking

Trillion-Dollar-Business: US War Spending Out of Control

Obama Still Wall Street’s Honey

Mobile Biometrics to Hit US Streets

An Unprecedented Cyber-Espionage Campaign &Intellectual Property Bonanza

6 Creepy Weapons the Police & Military Use to Subdue Unarmed People

* * * *

 Noteworthy Editorials

The US-Al Qaeda Buddy System

Imperial Quest for Riches Fuels Africa’s “Civil Wars”

‘Science’ & America’s Police State

Lowering the War Ceiling

Hiroshima, Nagasaki & the US Terror State

The Decline & Fall of the American Empire

* * * *

BFP Nightly Funnies

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” – Alexis de Tocqueville  

“A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen”- Winston Churchill  

Drunken Ben Bernanke Tells Everyone at Neighborhood Bar How Screwed US Economy Really is!

* * * *

BFP Nightly Video Potpourri 

Video 1: Raise the Debt Ceiling Rap Video

Video 2: The Last Word on Utopia by James Corbett

Video 3: John Pilger on War by Other Means- Part II

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/03/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-19/feed/ 3 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/03/our-probability-of-being-chosen-in-a-nation-of-suspects-2/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/03/our-probability-of-being-chosen-in-a-nation-of-suspects-2/#comments Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:00:54 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4989

The New Orwellian Airport Behavioral Inspections-Detections

TSA screeners are about to implement Orwellian behavioral inspections at airport security checkpoints. Who are these TSA screeners? These are the same low-level, incompetent, scandalous, molesting, abusive, and in some cases criminal people who have been creating one scandal after another. So what will these scandalous, incompetent and criminal police be doing to detect suspicious behavior? Most likely you have guessed it right. They will be watching you and maybe questioning you to determine whether you are suspicious, a suspect, or not. How are they going to do that, and based on what guidelines? According to their vague description, they will be looking for your “micro expressions,” such as lack of eye contact, acting agitated or nervous, that might “hint” at nefarious intent. How much hint is needed to be pulled over as a suspect? They don’t say. How agitated is considered suspiciously agitated? They don’t say that either. How much eye-aversion would count as a suspicious level of eye-aversion? They say nothing on that. How do the odds of being chosen by them increase by their own mood, biases, and various psychoses? Well, they don’t mention that either.

Basically, a bunch of already-proven incompetent, abusive, biased, and criminal people who have been high on their government-given limitless powers will be freely using their subjective judgment on whether you look or act suspicious, or not. Now I want you to think about agitation, eye-aversion, nervousness, being stressed out, being shy …Think about it, and then calculate the odds of you being determined a suspect, thus one of their chosen ones:

If you are one of those Starbuck’s addicts used to running on several shots of espresso, then place a good size bet on being one of the many TSA chosen ones. You know you are going to be jittery, and TSA will probably read your jitteriness as an ultimate indicator of your suspiciousness. You’ll be chosen.

If you are one of many ladies out there (like myself) with temperament-changing and mood-swinging monthly menstruation cycles, quickly check out the calendar and make sure your next flight does not coincide with that time of the month.

If you are one of those parents travelling with children, some of them in their terrible twos-threes or fours, see if you can ship the kids via cargo. We all know how frustrating and agitating it can be to travel and handle kids that age-especially when we go through shoe-removing, belt-removing, patting and groping checkpoints. Your frustrated and agitated state will probably land you in the circle of TSA’s chosen ones.

If you are one of the racial minorities …well, need I say more? Think of those abusive bigot cops incidents, multiply that several times, and there: those are the odds of you being selected as one who looks suspicious, thus a suspect, and therefore a chosen one.

If you happen to be shy, then you are totally out of luck. You know you most definitely will avert your eyes…at least once or twice while being watched-interpreted-detected. Do yourself a favor and cancel all your air travel. You ain’t gonna make it; you’ll definitely be a chosen one.

…

Actually, when it comes right down to it, if you are an ‘American,’ you may as well put all your bets on being TSA’s chosen one; at one point or another. Because the American Government has designated you, every single one of you as a ‘suspect.’ When it comes to your communications-phone, e-mail, etc. every single one of you is a suspect, according to your government, thus, under phone wiretaps and other communication related surveillance. Think about it, even the ‘ordinary’ airport security procedures you are forced to undergo are meant to screen you, check you out, as a suspect. Whether you engage in some sort of a suspicious behavior or not is actually a moot quandary. We, my friend, all of us, were designated as suspects nearly a decade ago. We may as well return that ticket, forget that darn flight, and drive while we can. Before the suspicious behavior detection police take over the roads and make that humiliating or impossible too.

# # # #

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/03/our-probability-of-being-chosen-in-a-nation-of-suspects-2/feed/ 6 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/02/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-18/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/02/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-18/#comments Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:16:18 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4970

Wall Street-ers Top Obama Re-election Supporters… more than 2008, ‘Israeli Style’ Airports in Ex America, The Development of ‘Privacy Killing Technologies’, Libya Transitional Council Rebels in Total Disarray, Mongolia Military Trains with US- Buys Fighters from Russia, US Grows a Tree of Tension with Iran, Video: War by Other Means & More!

 BFP Nightly Quote

 “The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.”-Charles Bukowski  

International Newsworthy

Mullen Demands Pakistan Launch a Military Offensive Against North Waziristan

Egyptian Army Clears Tahrir Square with Force

Libya Transitional Council Rebels in Total Disarray

China Blames Pakistan for Harboring Uyghur Terrorists

Russia Accuses US of Fueling Georgian ‘Revanchism’

Mongolia Military Trains with US, Buys Fighters from Russia

US Grows a Tree of Tension with Iran

Turkey: Military Resignation Strategy Backfires

* * * *

National Newsworthy

CIA Forced to Release Long Secret Official History of Bay of Pigs Invasion

Wall Street-ers Top Obama Re-election Supporters: Even more than 2008!

Debt Deal Barely Changes DOD Mega Spending Expectations

Who Gains from Debt Deal? The Pentagon, For One

Report: US Contractor in Iraq Charges Pentagon $900 for $7 Control Switch

Landsdowne Partners Sell Entire $850 Million Stake in Goldman Sachs

Manufacturing Growth Hits Lowest Levels in 2 Years

‘Israeli Style’ Airports in Ex America

* * * *

Noteworthy Editorials

U.S. ‘Black Hole’ Prison’s Activities Kept Secret

The Development of ‘Privacy Killing Technologies’: A Link to the Murdoch Scandal?

Debt Posturing

Kurram: Operation Eye-Wash in Pakistan

Why are Banks Bulldozing Foreclosures?

* * * *

BFP Nightly Funnies

“According to reports, Apple now has more cash on hand than the U.S. government. Which sounds impressive until you realize that Radio Shack has more cash on hand… Actually, the big difference between Apple and the government is that their stuff is made in China, while we’re owned by China. Two different things.” –Jay Leno

* * * *

BFP Nightly Video Potpourri 

Video 1: John Pilger on War by Other Means

Video 2: Rense & Susan Lindauer on NATO’s Libyan War Crimes

 

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/02/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-18/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/01/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-17/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/01/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-17/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 22:25:35 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4922

Karzai Brother’s Killer: Not Taliban, Iran Gas Pipeline Bombers Killed-Arrested, Iraq to buy 36 F-16 from USA, Getting Bin Laden: What Happened in Abbottabad ‘that’ Night?, Dual Classification of Open Source Information, The Essential Rules of Tyranny, Grappling with the Banality of Evil, USA Spies to Find you Through your Pictures & More!

BFP Nightly Quote

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before morning.”- Henry Ford

International Newsworthy

Official: ‘Associate’ Killed Karzai’s Brother, Not the Taliban 

Afghan Civilians Pay Lethal Price for New Policy on Air Strikes

CIA Pakistan Station Chief Clashed with Ambassador Munter

Iran: Authorities Say Gas Pipeline Bombers Killed, Arrested

Iraq’s Maliki to Buy 36 F-16 Fighters from US

Report: Iraq Deadlier Now Than a Year Ago

Turkey Seeks Solution to Army Resignation Crisis

Blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin’s Arrest: A Warning to the Growing Online Media

US-Russia ‘Reset’ Faces Biggest Challenge

Europe’s Right-Wing Populists Find Allies in Israel 

* * * *

National Newsworthy

Getting Bin Laden: What Happened that Night in Abbottabad

Dual Classification of Open Source Information

Here is how US Spies will Find you through your Pictures

Shhhhh! Spooks Want Drones as Silent as Owls 

The Collapse of America’s Middle Class

When a Cut is Not a Cut

Debt Deal a Partial Solution at Best?

* * * *

Noteworthy Editorials

The Essential Rules of Tyranny

Grappling with the Banality of Evil

Obama Administration’s Secret Law to Spy on Americans

John McCain: Ever Confused, Always for War

The US Debt Ceiling Deal

Ron Paul’s Challenge to the Left

Are the US & Taliban Ready to Tango?

* * * *

BFP Nightly Funnies

“Democrats warned that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, the government would cease to function. How would you be able to tell?” —Jay Leno

Al-Qaeda: US Mass Transportation Infrastructure Must Drastically Improve Before Any Terrorist Attacks!

Hot Deal in Georgia: Buy One TV Tower, Get 36 Towers Free. True!

* * * *

BFP Nightly Video Potpourri 

Video 1: Smart Meters & Your Right to Privacy

Video 2: Human Rights Group Warn of Severe Water Crisis in the Gaza Strip

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/08/01/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-17/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/29/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-16/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/29/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-16/#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:21:01 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4848

Senators Want Secret Warrantless Wiretap Renewal, Censorship of War Casualties in US, First Presidential Campaign Finance Report, The Harrowing Drone Damages in Pakistan, US Accuses Iran of “Secret Deal” with Al-Qaeda, DOD Full-Spectrum Cyberspace Budget Lunacy, The Coming Partition of Libya? & More!

BFP Nightly Quote

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”- President Woodrow Wilson

International Newsworthy

Edging Towards the  Partition of Libya?

Another Stinging Blow for the Libyan Rebellion

McCain Tells Libyan Rebels: End Abuses or Risk US Support

US Accuses Iran of “Secret Deal” with Al-Qaeda

Harrowing Exhibition Reveals Damage Done by Drones in Pakistan

Israelis Torture Palestinians with Impunity, similar to US Prisons

Palestinians Fear as Israel Destroying West Bank Water Sources

Turkey: Court Forbids Corruption-Busting Journalist from Writing

* * * *

National Newsworthy

Censorship of War Casualties in US

US Cannot Say How Many Had Communications Watched

Senators Want Secret Warrantless Wiretap Renewal

First Presidential Campaign Finance Reports Show Clout of Wall Street, Retirees

White House Recruits IMF Communications Chief

Senate Extends FBI Director Mueller’s Term

Obama’s scare tactics to get Democrats to vote for his Republican Wall Street plan

TSA Readying New Behavior Detection Plan for Airport Checkpoints  

Lockheed Martin Wins $72,000,000 Contract to Install Body Scanners

DOD Full-Spectrum Cyberspace Budget Lunacy

* * * *

Noteworthy Editorials

The War on Libya: An Imperialist Project to Create Three Libyas

Obama Drug Policy: Yet another Broken Promise

Become a Conspiracy Realist

America’s Rural Ghost Towns

The “Towers of Basel”: The World’s Biggest Central Bank Has Private Shareholders

Disastrous Outcomes from an Orchestrated Economic Crisis

The Looting of America: The Federal Reserve Made $16 Trillion in Secret Loans to Bankster Friends & the Media is Ignoring the Eye-Popping Corruption that Has Been Uncovered

* * * *

BFP Nightly Funnies

“I think I know now why we are occupying Iraq. In case we have to sell America and move to a smaller country.” —Bill Maher

“Texas governor Rick Perry said God is calling on him to run for President. But Michele Bachmann said that God is calling on her to run for President. You know, if God is that indecisive, he’s probably for Mitt Romney.” —Jay Leno

* * * *

BFP Nightly Video Potpourri 

Video 1: Ferengi Discusses Earth Economics (Star Trek)

Video 2: Coal Lobby Warns Wind Farms May Blow Earth Off Orbit

Video 3: Ron Paul “What’s a Dollar?”

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/29/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-16/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/28/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-15/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/28/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-15/#comments Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:12:34 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4828

The Moral Bankruptcy of American Spooks, US Missile Shield May Be Precursor for Attack on Iran, Al-Qaeda Leader Hails Syrian Protestors, Ford Takes US Taxpayers Bailout & Deserts Sinking Ship, Feds to Grab Land for Homeland Security, Hidden Hegemony: Canadian Mining in Latin America, What is a Dollar? & More!

BFP Nightly Quote

 “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”- Thomas Jefferson

International Newsworthy

US Missile Shield May Be Precursor for Attack on Iran 

Iran Explores Russia’s Plan

Russia Vows Response to US Magnitsky Blacklist

Kyrgyzstan: Detained Turkish Terror Suspect now Unwanted at Home

Al-Qaeda Leader Hails Syrian Protestors

In Afghanistan Parents Balk at ‘Suicide’ Schools

Torture Still Rampant in Post Revolution Egypt

Libya Campaign is Running into the Sand

Defense for Children International Report: Palestinian Children Endure Systematic Abuse from Israeli Military Courts

****

National Newsworthy

Nervous Hillary Clinton Urges Veto on Foreign Relations Bill

Pelosi: ‘It is Clear we Must Enter an Era of Austerity’!

Ford Takes US Taxpayers Bailout & Deserts Sinking Ship: Builds 3 New Car Factories in China!

The Secret Bailout of General Electric (GE)

Greater Lack of Healthcare Access for Rural America

Feds to Grab Land for Homeland Security

TSA Agent Poses as Cop to Harass Woman

US Embargo Forces German PayPal Users to Forgo Cuban Goods

****

Noteworthy Editorials

The Moral Bankruptcy of American Spooks

The New York Times’ Ostrich Act on JFK Assassination Getting Old

Obama Returns to the Fraud of Equal Sacrifice

What is a Dollar?

Fooling People: Something Obama is Really Good at

Hidden Hegemony: Canadian Mining in Latin America

Analysis: Why Mumbai? Why Now?

****

BFP Nightly Video Potpourri 

Video 1: Social Security Reform Bill Encourages Americans to Live Faster, Die Younger!

Video 2: 5.8 Million Israelis get $100,000,000,000 in US Tax Dollars While American States are falling apart

Video 3: Rebel Militias Include the Human Traffickers of Benghazi

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/28/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-15/feed/ 1 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/27/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-14/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/27/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-14/#comments Wed, 27 Jul 2011 23:24:34 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4798

Halliburton Whistleblower Wins in Court: $970K, Obama: Bin Laden Death Ups Terror Risk for Americans, The Most Dangerous Word in the World, US in ‘”Denial” Over China’s Pacific Plans, The Political Theater & the Debt Ceiling Crisis & More! 

International Newsworthy

US in ‘Denial’ Over China’s Pacific Plans 

Britain Expels Diplomats & Officially Recognizes Libyan Opposition

Former Russian Foreign Minister: “What will Happen after Gadhafi?”

US ‘Threatens’ Reaction to Iran over Rising Violence in Iraq  

Iran Courts Post-Mubarak Egypt, Worrying Allies

NATO Bargaining Hard on Turkish Air Defense

Jordan Receives $1 Billion Grant from Saudi Arabia

Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Behind Docu-Reality Series ‘Is.Real 2011′

Israeli President: Syrian Leaders Assad Must Go

Afghanistan: Long-Term Deal with US Conditional

****

National Newsworthy

Here We Go Again- Obama: Bin Laden Death Ups Terror Risk for Americans!

Why Are US Lawmakers Determined to Make the Job Crisis Worse?

Hedge Funds Regulation: Not Working

Near-Bankrupt Alabama County Once Hired DC Lobbyists

Poll: 46% of Americans Think Most in Congress are Corrupt

Anthrax Emergency Use of Doxycycline Hyclate

Halliburton Whistleblower Receives $970K for Exposing Halliburton No-Bid Contract in Iraq

****

Noteworthy Editorials

US Sponsored “Democracy” in Colombia: Political Assassination Poverty & Neoliberalism

The Solution to America’s Debt Ceiling Crisis: Looting What Has Already Been Looted…

The Political Theater & the Debt Ceiling Crisis: Are we Being Had?

The Most Dangerous Word in the World

How Obama Squandered the High Hopes of Those Who Elected Him

****

Video 1: Classic Johnny Carson Lie Detector for Politicians

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/27/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-14/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/26/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-13/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/26/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-13/#comments Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:28:02 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4758

US Envoy: NO Rush to Leave Afghanistan, A Saudi Beacon for Iraq’s Sunni Militias, The Cyber-Security Industrial Complex, UK Farmers Find Promise in a Crop Illegal in Afghanistan, Goldman Sachs: US Credit Risk if Wars Counted as ‘Cuts’, How America Became an Empire & More!

 International Newsworthy

A Saudi Beacon for Iraq’s Sunni Militias

Amnesty International Website Blocked in Saudi Arabia

The Cause of the Latest Russian-Kyrgyz Energy Row 

New US Envoy: NO Rush to Leave Afghanistan

NATO Admits: 5 Children Wounded in Afghanistan Air Strike

Afghan Lawmakers Tackle Karzai on US Deal 

Britain Farmers Find Promise in a Crop Illegal in Afghanistan

Iraq “Ignores” US-Imposed Sanctions Against Iran 

NATO Strikes Kills 7 in Libya Hospital

****

National Newsworthy

Goldman Sachs: US Credit Risk if Wars Counted as ‘Cuts’

Federal Reserve Attorneys: Fed Banks are NOT Agencies but “Independent  

Corporations” with “Private Boards of Directors”

Pentagon: US Transport Funds End Up with Taliban!

Top Cyber Official Resigns Abruptly

Super Congress Moves Forward Despite Tea Party Opposition

Navy Vet Arrested After Videotaping Police in Tampa

****

Noteworthy Editorials

The Cyber-Security Industrial Complex 

How America Became an Empire 

As the American Empire Spreads Abroad, it Becomes a Police State at Home

The Spinning of Polls & Demonization of Palestinians 

Obama: Job Destruction Makes us Richer?

****

 Video1: CIA Funding & Manipulation of the US Media

Video 2: We Are Mad As Hell & Can’t Take This Any More!

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/26/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-13/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/21/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-9/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/21/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-9/#comments Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:51:18 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4633

Dubai Murder-Accused Had Kiwi Link?, How to Lobby for a Foreign Government & Not Get Arrested, Yemen Conflict: Generating More Child Soldiers, Obama Top Recipient of Murdoch’s News Corp Donations?!, Religious Wars in the Balkans was Orchestrated by USA & NATO, Idle Kingdom: Saudi Arabia & More!

Newsworthy

US War Planes Attack Southern Iraq

Yemen Conflict: Generating More Child Soldiers

Carrots for India, Sticks for Pakistan

The Role of UN Security Council in Unleashing an Illegal War against Libya

Dubai Murder-Accused Had Kiwi Link?

A Brief List of Israeli Mossad’s Most Audacious Plots 

****

Pakistan Gave 4 Million Dollars to Illegal Kashmiri Lobby Group in Washington

Obama Top Recipient of Murdoch’s News Corp Donations?!

FBI ‘Anonymous’ Raid on Brooklyn Loft over DDOS Attack

Adding Up Human Cost of Iraq-Afghan Wars

****

How to Lobby for a Foreign Government & Not Get Arrested

Religious Wars in the Balkans was Orchestrated by USA & NATO

Idle Kingdom: Saudi Arabia’s Increasing Jobless Youth

****

Video- Ron Paul: ‘Freedom is a Young Idea & we are Throwing it Away’

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/21/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-9/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/20/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-8/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/20/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-8/#comments Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:38:48 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4583 CIA Trains Coverts Units of Afghans, Rep. Burton ‘had no inkling‘ Lobbyist Linked to Spy Agency, CIA Bank Accounts Used to Funnel Oil Deal Money, Creating a Military State, Echelon Dwarfs Murdoch’s “News of the World” & More!

Newsworthy

CIA Trains Coverts Units of Afghans

US Senators Warn Beijing on South China Sea 

Deadly New Zealand Earthquake Unearths Israeli Spy Ring

Bahrain: Washington & London Endorse Dialogue with Tyrants & War Criminals & Torturers

How Israel & Its Allies Thwarted Gaza Aid Flotilla

Foreign Investment Begin to Pour into Iraq

****

Rep. Burton ‘had no inkling’ Lobbyist Linked to Spy Agency

Pentagon Seeks To Manipulate Social Media for Propaganda Purposes

CIA Bank Accounts Used to Funnel Oil Deal Money, Court Documents Claim

House Threatens Pakistan Aid over Bin Laden Wives

Fed Charges Activist as Hacker for Downloading Millions of Academic Articles

****

Creating a Military State

 How AIPAC’s Stealth Political Action Committees Undermine US Elections 

Echelon: Dwarfs Murdoch’s “News of the World”

1 Million Dead in Iraq? 6 Reasons the Media Hide the True Human Toll of War … And Why we Let Them

The Kingdom & the Towers

Guilty Men: The Political Origins of the Meltdown

Why Obama Should Think Medium

****

Video- Dennis Kucinich: “War Takes Money from the American People & Gives it to War Profiteers”

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/20/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-8/feed/ 1 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/19/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-7/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/19/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-7/#comments Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:39:26 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4547 How Israel Offered to Sell South Africa Nuclear Weapons, DOJ Lawyers Contradict FBI Findings in Anthrax Case, USS Cole Bombing Case “Too Tainted” for Death-Penalty Trial, Predator Drones & the International Mafia, Austerity for Everyone, Except the DOD & More!

Newsworthy

US Rebuffs Russians Ingenuity on Iran

Missile Shield in Turkey? NATO Military Action against Iran Implies Suicide

Drone War in Pakistan: Photos from the Ground Showing Civilian Casualties

Canadian Military Stages Show of Force against Russia in Arctic

How Israel Offered to Sell South Africa Nuclear Weapons

100 Hours in Israeli Detention for Trying to Visit Bethlehem

****

DOJ Lawyers Contradict FBI Findings in Anthrax Case

DOJ Casts Serious Doubt on its own Claim about the Anthrax Attack

 USS Cole Bombing Case “Too Tainted” for Death-Penalty Trial

Obama Nominates Former Ohio AG, A Loyal Democratic Donor, to Lead New Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Hollywood Producer Was an Israeli Nuclear Agent

****

US War Dept Dances on the Ceiling

Predator Drones & the International Mafia

Imperial Priorities: Obedience First, Character Last

Afghanistan: Hearts, Minds & Murders

Austerity for Everyone, Except the DOD

****

Video 1: In the Past 6 Years Only One Palestinian Minor Acquitted out of 835 Charged with Stone-Throwing!

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/19/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-7/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/18/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-6/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/18/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-6/#comments Mon, 18 Jul 2011 23:29:05 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4490 Israel-Made Weapons in Karachi, The Criminalization of the British Media, Former Senator: 9/11 “Major Cover Up”, Has America Become a Nation of Psychotics?, Do Banksters Run American Foreign Policy? & More

Newsworthy

Arrest of Ex-CIA Lawyer Sought Over Drone Use

Crackdown, Intimidation & Torture in Bahrain

 Major Reshuffle amid Protests in Egypt

President Karzai’s Advisor Shot Dead

Civilians Make Up Over 90% of the US Drone Casualties in Pakistan

Israel-Made Weapons Seized in Karachi : Rehman

Israel to Attack Iran in Fall?

The Criminalization of the British Media

****

White House Obama Bin Laden Kill Show Gaps

Former Senator Bob Graham: 9/11 a Major “Cover Up”

TSA Threatens Congressman for Disclosing 25,000 Security Breaches by the TSA!

Lawmakers Doth Protest Too Much Over ATF Scandal

Do Banksters Run American Foreign Policy?

Has America Become a Nation of Psychotics?

 Obama Campaign Raises Record Sums from the Wealthy

Romney: Euro-Trashing Politics

Video: Former CIA Analyst Tells CNN she is Carrying the Water for Obama in Libya When the Interview Abruptly Ends:

Video: Gulen Charter School Sexual Assault & Bribes

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/18/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials-6/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/12/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/12/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials/#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:07:47 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4328 Pakistan Punished in Pipelinestan, Moving Toward Guerilla War in Afghanistan, Drone Strikes as Police Work!, Israel Withheld Evidence in Killing, The Assassination of Ahmed Wali Karzai & More!

I am going to start with a piece of news you all have already seen and read. I am listing this only because I will be posting a relevant commentary tomorrow, so here we go, starting with an article by Guardian:

Ahmed Wali Karzai’s assassination leaves gaping hole in Afghan politics 

Amid the confusion of breaking news reports following Ahmed Wali Karzai’s assassination, I mentioned the name of the alleged assassin, Sardar Mohammed, to someone close to the murdered man. The reaction was a gasp of disbelief.

Mohammed, who commanded a force of men who ran checkpoints close to Ahmed Wali’s hometown of Karz, had worked for the Karzai family for years and was from the same Popolzai tribe and district. The fact that he was allowed to bring his weapon into Ahmed Wali’s presence shows just how trusted he was. It seems likely that there was a personal motivation behind the attack, despite the Taliban claim of responsibility. Kandahar is a hotbed of long-running personal vendettas.

Isaf [the International Security Assistance Force) now has a chance to push for more inclusive politics in Kandahar, if it is sufficiently deft and willing to engage directly with those Ahmed Wali had marginalised. But his death leaves a massive hole in the fabric of Kandahari power politics, and shows the dangers inherent in a strategy that relies on individual powerbrokers.

Ahmed Wali was the linchpin of the south’s pro-Karzai network, a pan-tribal alliance brought together by money and mutual security. There is now no clear successor to Ahmed Wali, and certainly no one who can combine his vast financial influence, iron-fisted methods and closeness to the president. …More 

The following article will give you a better idea on who Ahmed Wali Karzai really was:

Afghan CIA Drug Kingpin Shot Dead by Own Bodyguard

Ahmad Wali Karzai, the half brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards Tuesday morning. Friend and trusted head of security Sardar Mohammed shot him in the head and chest. Mohammed was in turn shot and killed by fellow bodyguards. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assassination.

In 2009 it was reported that Karzai was a major player in the Afghan opium trade. According to reports, other members of the Karzai family are involved “head-to-heels” in the drug business.

Ahmad Wali Karzai also worked for the CIA.

“The CIA has been complicit in the global drug trade for years,” a former intelligence official told Newsmax in 2002. “The CIA did almost the identical thing during the Vietnam War, which had catastrophic consequences – the increase in the heroin trade in the USA beginning in the 1970s is directly attributable to the CIA.” … More

You’ll have my comments on this tomorrow. Until then, as far as Ahmed Wali Karzai goes.

…………………………………………………………………………..

Another great article by Pepe Escobar on Pakistan:

Pakistan ‘punished’ in Pipelineistan

Before the end of 2011, Pakistan will start working on its stretch of the IP (Iran-Pakistan) gas pipeline – according to Asim Hussain, Pakistan’s federal minister for petroleum and natural resources. The 1,092 kilometers of pipeline on the Iranian side are already in place.More

IP, also known as “the peace pipeline”, was originally IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India). Although it badly needs gas for its economic expansion, faced with immense pressure by the George W Bush – and then Barack Obama – administrations, India still has not committed to the project, even after a nearly miraculous agreement for its construction was initialed in 2008. …

And this one from Afghanistan front:

US Moves Toward Afghan Guerilla War

The United States is beginning an interesting new dimension to the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan. Counter-insurgency efforts will be complemented by an expanded unconventional warfare campaign in many insurgent-controlled areas. This change in approach may have a considerable impact on the stalemate and hasten meaningful negotiations.More 

The US is training scores of Special Forces teams to infiltrate into and operate in areas that the Taliban and other insurgent forces have gained control of in the past few years. Such operations have been in effect for a few years now, but the program is enjoying greater support. Many recently retired special forces personnel …

…………………………………………………………………………

Drone strikes are police work, not an act of war?

Launching an air strike in another nation would normally be considered an act of aggression. But advocates of America’s rapidly expanding unmanned drone programme don’t see it that way.

They are arguing, as Tom Ricks writes on his blog The Best Defense over at Foreign Policy, that the campaign to kill militants with missile strikes from these unmanned aircraft, is more like police action in a tough neighbourhood than a military conflict.

These raids conducted by sinister-looking Predator or Reaper aircraft in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen – and since last month in Somalia - should not be seen as a challenge to states and their authority. Instead they are meant to supplement the power of governments that are either unable to or unwilling to fight the militants operating from their territories.

They are precise, limited, strikes aimed at taking down specific individuals, and in that sense are more like the police going after criminals, rather than a full-on military assault. Ricks writes: 

“Police work involves small arms used precisely. Drones aren’t pistols, but firing one Hellfire at a Land Rover is more like a police action than it is like a large-scale military offensive with artillery barrages, armored columns, and infantry assaults.” … More

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 American Jew refused entry to Israel on suspicion of converting to Islam

With regard to a young American Jew named Harald Fuller-Bennett, the Taglit-Birthright project to some extent achieved its goal. The project brings young Jews from around the world for a trip in Israel “in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people,” to quote its own words. And indeed, about two years after coming on a Taglit-Birthright tour, Fuller-Bennett intended to visit Israel again.

But this time, the people working to diminish the distance between him and Israel were two Tel Aviv lawyers, Omer Shatz and Iftach Cohen, and Jerusalem District Court Judge Yoram Noam. Together, they overturned a bizarre attempt by the Shin Bet security service to accuse him of having connections with terrorists and intending to convert to Islam – for which reasons it barred him from entering Israel for 10 years.

Fuller-Bennett is now 30 years old. On his Taglit-Birthright tour in January 2008, he said, “I gained a lot of sympathy for Israelis and for the multitude of challenges they face (and the many mistakes the government is currently making in facing them ). We had a number of engaging Israeli military members on our bus. I am still Facebook friends with some of them. My conversations with them taught me much about the complexity of modern Israel, and the difficulty of being born into a state with a siege mentality.”

Fuller-Bennett joined a group within the Taglit program called “Peace, Pluralism and Social Justice.” He is not certain that this subgroup of Taglit is still active, but the fact of its existence shows the organizers recognized that there are young Jews whose interest in Israel has not eliminated their capacity for criticism. “We had questions about Israel but wanted to see for ourselves,” Fuller-Bennett said. … More

Israel withheld video evidence of Rachel Corrie’s killing, says her father Craig

The family of Rachel Corrie, the US activist killed in Gaza while protesting against house demolitions in 2003, on Monday claimed the Israeli military authorities withheld video evidence during the Corries’ civil lawsuit and misled US officials on crucial details.

Craig Corrie, Rachel’s father, told a press conference in Jerusalem that the footage from a surveillance camera near the scene of his daughter’s death submitted to the court was “incomplete”. Additional video material obtained by the family showed Rachel’s body in a different spot to the place identified by some military commanders, he said. He also alleged that the Israeli military had misled US officials on the position of Rachel’s body when she was killed. … More

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Here is an interesting commentary on media:

Empire and the Criminalization of the Media: The Fourth Estate is Bankrupt

From the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth imperialism was the dominant national ideology, transcending class and party divisions. Britain was saturated in the ethos and attitudes of empire. They infused plays and books and, later, films. They informed school textbooks. They inspired paintings, prints and engravings. They filled newspapers and magazines. They figured in advertisements and packaging. The impact was arguably greater than that of any previous dominant ideology because its pre-eminence coincided with the rise of the mass market and the mass media. – ‘Imperialism and juvenile literature’ edited By Jeffrey Richards. Manchester University Press, 1989

So what’s changed? Not much really. Today of course, the ideology of imperial expansion now masks itself as ‘humanitarian intervention’ or ‘democracy-building’.

Our Victorian ancestors were less coy about colonizing, claiming to be on a ‘civilizing mission’. But ‘civilizing’ the Libyans, the Iraqis or the Afghans would be a step too far in these allegedly politically correct times but it’s the same thing by another name.

Yet the abyssmal failings of Western ‘democracy’ are all around us. We have governments that regardless that an ‘opposition’ exists are effectively one-party states and have been ever since the early years of the 20th century. …More

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And finally an excellent video report by our partner James Corbett for Global Research.ca on Drone Wars:

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/12/bfp-select-nightly-news-editorials/feed/ 3 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/11/bfp-nightly-selection-of-noteworthy-news-editorials-2/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/11/bfp-nightly-selection-of-noteworthy-news-editorials-2/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:35:57 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4297 Time for Upping the Iran Propaganda … Again, Pakistan: Tide In-Tide Out, South Sudan Independence & What it’s Really About, Israelis Torture of Children in the Occupied Territories, Torture Whitewash & More

 

Here are two news articles on Pakistan-US relations (While reading the following recall my related article here on Bin-Laden Death Script):

Pakistan Seeking Even Closer Ties with China 

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s increasingly “close and effective defense ties” established with China during the past decade will allow Islamabad to “fill the gap” arising from the prospect of reduced military aid from the United States, a senior Pakistani official said on Sunday after reports emerged of cuts of up to $800 million in U.S. aid.

Amid tense relations with the United States, Pakistan officials have increasingly pointed towards Beijing as the country’s natural ally, offering the possibility of becoming at least a half-substitute to ties with the US. … More 

Pakistan Defiant as U.S. Cuts off $800 Million in Military Aid

The Obama administration leaks critical stories on a seemingly daily basis to the American press, which riles Pakistani public and official opinion against the United States. Many in Pakistan believe that there is a concerted American effort to weakened Pakistan and its armed forces, among the largest in the world.

“The U.S. can’t decide they if they want to stay in this relationship or cut Pakistan off,” said Cyril Almeida, a columnist with Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper. “And Pakistan needs to work out whether it wants to be on the wrong side of international opinion and on the wrong side of the U.S.”

Since 2001, the U.S. has provided $21 billion in civilian and military assistance to Pakistan, including $4.5 billion in the 2010-2011, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. Two bills in Congress over the last week, which were voted down, would have cut off aid to Pakistan altogether. …More

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I guess it is time for the administration to step up the Iran propaganda … again; here is what I mean:

Top al-Qaida Ranks Keep Footholds in Iran

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — On a cold March morning last year, an Iranian diplomat was flown home nearly 15 months after being kidnapped by gunmen in an ambush on the Pakistani side of the Khyber Pass.

Iran hailed the release as a victory for its intelligence agents, who they claimed staged a rescue mission into the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Western officials and others saw it differently: A turning point in Iran’s dealings with al-Qaida.

Negotiations to free the captive diplomat are believed to have reached high-level al-Qaida figures, Western officials say. In return for its help, al-Qaida demanded better conditions for dozens of people close to Osama bin Laden who have been held under tight security in Iran, including some of the terror chief’s children and the network’s most senior military strategist Saif al-Adel. …More

US concerned about Iran arming Iraq militants-Panetta

(Reuters) – Leon Panetta, on his first visit to Iraq as U.S. defense secretary, said on Monday the United States is concerned about Iran providing weapons to Iraq militants and will take unilateral action when needed to deal with the threat.

“We are very concerned about Iran and the weapons they are providing to extremists here in Iraq. And we’re seeing the results of that,” Panetta said. “In June we lost a hell of a lot of Americans as a result of those attacks. And we cannot just simply stand back and allow this to continue to happen …”

Iran threatens to attack Iraq-based Kurdish rebels

(Reuters) – Iran threatened Monday to take military action against the Iraq-based Kurdish rebel group PJAK, saying the head of Iraq’s Kurdistan region had handed the group land without telling the government in Baghdad.

A senior Iranian military official accused Masoud Barzani, the Kurdistan president, of “giving 300,000 hectares of land to the PJAK terrorist group without the knowledge of the central government in Baghdad,” the semi-official Fars news agency said. …More

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Noteworthy Editorials

Two Million Dead- Now what’s That South Sudan Independence About?

The New York Times produced a nice article the other day covering Independence Day in the new country of South Sudan. It mentioned all kinds of things, from the dignitaries who attended the ceremony, the history of warring that resulted in two million deaths, the continued threat from multiple insurgencies, the religious differences that divided the South from the North of Sudan (North: Muslim, South: Christian and Animist), the hellish heat dogging the festivities. It even noted that the new president wore his signature black cowboy hat, a gift from George W. Bush, and that someone in the crowd held up a sign reading, “Thank You George Bush.”

Just one teensy thing it nearly skipped: oil.

You have to wait, kid you not, 24 paragraphs (including after the hat-tip to Bush) to get this gem—which itself was nicely nestled in the midst of other sentences:

And relations with the north are still dicey. Negotiators have yet to agree on a formula to split the revenue from the south’s oilfields, which have kept the economies of both southern and northern Sudan afloat.

The key point is buried, and then buried again, and made to sound obscure. But make no mistake about the significance. Sudan is the third-largest producer of oil in sub-Saharan Africa. Or, should we say was. Because 85 percent of that oil came from the south. …More

The Business of America is War

Noted trends analyst Gerald Celente said it, and it’s true. In fact, America’s business is war, more war, multiple wars, permanent wars, pillaging one nation after another for wealth, power, and dominance, while homeland needs go begging.

America never was and isn’t now the “land of the free and home of the brave.” In fact, it’s become a “Let ‘em eat cake” society.

…

The empire never sleeps or tolerates anti-war activism, threatening its quest for unchallengeable “full spectrum dominance” over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to fight and win global wars against any adversary, including with nuclear weapons preemptively.

September 11, 2001 served as pretext to consolidate power, destroy civil liberties and human rights, and wage permanent wars against invented enemies for global dominance over world markets, resources, and cheap labor – notably at home and throughout … More

Torture Whitewash

How convenient is it that a door shuts on the Bush administration’s global program of extraordinary rendition and torture, just as America’s military-industrial complex plays musical chairs — with Republican holdover Robert Gates leaving as defense secretary, to be replaced by Leon Panetta, who has spent the last two years as the director of the CIA, while Gen. David Petraeus, the military commander in Afghanistan, takes over Panetta’s role at the CIA?

The answer has to be that it would be hard to conceive of a neater example of how the military and the intelligence agencies — or the CIA, at least — are at the very heart of government. …More

Col. Travers: Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children shows that it does not seek peace

Today I talked to Col. Desmond Travers, a member of the Goldstone mission on the Gaza conflict, who lives in the Republic of Ireland, about the Israeli treatment of children in the occupied territories.

Col. Travers: If the British had behaved toward children who threw stones at them in the manner that is the norm on the West Bank for the Israeli security forces– whereby children are rounded up in the evening and taken to places of detention, hooded, beaten, and in some cases tortured– the northern Ireland problem would not be resolved today. It would still be a place of conflagration.

Why is that? … More

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And here is a video clip on a recent Fethullah Gulen coverage by FOX News. I guess the MSM has started the nibbling process:

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/11/bfp-nightly-selection-of-noteworthy-news-editorials-2/feed/ 0 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/01/podcast-show-48/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/01/podcast-show-48/#comments Sat, 02 Jul 2011 01:15:13 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=4152 The Boiling Frogs Presents Russ Baker

Russ Baker joins us to discuss the case of the former Israeli Spy Chief Meir Dagan, who contends that Israel’s top leaders lack judgment, considers a military attack on Iran “a stupid idea”, and criticizes Israel for having failed to put forward a peace initiative with the Palestinians by foolishly ignoring the Saudi peace initiative promising full diplomatic relations in exchange for a return to the 1967 border lines. He talks about the Obama administration’s harsh and hawkish stand on Iran, the evidence pointing to a plan to create an “Arab Spring” for the Good Old Boys—CIA, banks, and oil companies, the poor journalism by the mainstream media in covering Libya and the alleged crimes committed by Qaddafi as a part of a larger disinformation effort of the sort that has always been part and parcel of war, and more!

Russ Baker is an award-winning investigative journalist and the author of Family of Secrets- – the Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years. He has written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Village Voice and Esquire. He has served as a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review, and is the founder of WhoWhatWhy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organization.

Here is our guest Russ Baker unplugged!

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/07/01/podcast-show-48/feed/ 3 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/05/24/obama%e2%80%99s-new-middle-east-policy-%e2%80%9cambitious-fiction-monarchial-bastards%e2%80%9d/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/05/24/obama%e2%80%99s-new-middle-east-policy-%e2%80%9cambitious-fiction-monarchial-bastards%e2%80%9d/#comments Tue, 24 May 2011 15:08:16 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=3725 Escobar Brilliantly Summarizes Obama’s New Middle East Policy

Pepe Escobar had another brilliant piece on Obama’s recent Middle East speech, and as always he is on the money:

So to make a story short, here’s a concise New Middle East Obama policy. We support “our” bastards (dictators) who are sophisticated enough to beat, arrest and kill their own people in the low hundreds (Bahrain). We get slightly annoyed by “our” war on terror collaborators who crudely beat, arrest and kill their own people also in the low hundreds (Yemen). We’re strongly inclined to ditch our support for unreliable, Iran-aligned dictators who beat, arrest and kill their own people in the high hundreds (Syria).

We unleash war – via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a weaponized arm of the United Nations – over unreliable oil-wealthy dictators who beat, arrest and kill their own people in alleged thousands (Libya). And we remain absolute mute about “our” monarchical bastards who pre-empt the possibility of democratic protests (Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia) or invade their neighbors to smash ongoing peaceful protests (Saudi Arabia).

            …

And this on Obama’s flowery rhetoric which failed big time to conceal what that speech was all about:

And when Obama stressed that “endless delay” won’t “make the problem go away” he totally missed the point; it’s by employing “endless delay” tactics that every Israeli government has kept settlement-building on overdrive and totally encircled East Jerusalem, while relentlessly applying a “divide and rule” strategy (pitting Fatah against Hamas) to crush Palestinian morale.

No flowery rhetoric can conceal that this is all about – what else – “protecting” Israel (mentioned 28 times in the speech). Further factual confirmation this weekend, when Obama addresses the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee bash, and next Monday, when Netanyahu addresses that Tel Aviv talk shop known as the US Congress.

You can read the entire article here, and tune in to our latest Podcast interview with Escobar here.

# # # #

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/05/24/obama%e2%80%99s-new-middle-east-policy-%e2%80%9cambitious-fiction-monarchial-bastards%e2%80%9d/feed/ 3 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/05/22/%e2%80%98move-over-aipac%e2%80%99-rocks-dc/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/05/22/%e2%80%98move-over-aipac%e2%80%99-rocks-dc/#comments Mon, 23 May 2011 02:39:52 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=3720 Great start for the Move Over AIPAC event in D.C. this weekend. I am planning to stop by in the next couple of days and shake everyone’s hand! Meanwhile, here are two video clips for you:

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/05/22/%e2%80%98move-over-aipac%e2%80%99-rocks-dc/feed/ 2 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/24/weekly-round-up-for-sunday-april-24/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/24/weekly-round-up-for-sunday-april-24/#comments Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:50:46 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=3416 Police State Status, TSA Pornographers, the Ever-Lasting Anthrax Mystery, Drone-Mania, Israel &Colonialism, Our So-Called Ally-Azerbaijan & More!

Hope you all had a nice week. I’ve been nursing my daughter who is recovering from her first strep throat: 103F fever, antibiotics, miserable cough, and of course sleepless nights. Thankfully, this morning she is feeling much better.

I’ve received several e-mails from our readers regarding the identity of ‘The Insider from Turkey,’ and some asking whether that’s ‘me.’ To answer your question: I am not ‘the insider from Turkey.’ This is a pseudo name for an accomplished investigative journalist friend of mine in Turkey. He or she is currently employed by a major publication, and considering her/his area of investigations/reporting for BFP, doesn’t want to lose his/her job, or even worse, end up in jail. As we know, Turkey is now the number one country in jailing reporters and truth tellers. We are expecting another controversial article this week from our insider friend in Turkey; stay tuned!

Also this week, Peter B Collins and I will be recording two highly noteworthy podcast interviews. We’ll have Dr. Aland Mizell on Imam Fethullah Gulen, his CIA ties and joint operations, his infamous US Charter School Empire and more, followed by Elizabeth Gould-Paul Fitzgerald on their recently released groundbreaking book ‘Crossing Zero.’

And now our list of noteworthy articles and developments for this Sunday, April 24:

On the Home Front & Police State Status

Obama Justice Dept. Sides with Police over Warrantless Spying

The U.S. Department of Justice under President Barack Obama has taken the position that law enforcement should be allowed to monitor Americans without a
The administration has appealed a federal appellate court ruling that nullified the assertion by police that they can attach GPS devices to automobiles without obtaining a warrant in order to track a suspect’s movements. The case involved an alleged cocaine distributor whom law enforcement monitored using a global positioning satellite tracking device for a month without seeking permission from a judge.

Police also have also been accused of expanding warrantless spying by extracting information from suspects’ cell phones without court authority. Law enforcement officers in Michigan have used cell phone “extraction” devices to lift text messages, photos, video and GPS data, to which civil libertarians object.

…

The unvarnished truth about Un-American TSA

We’re either gonna look at you naked or feel you up — your call.” That’s the choice the federal Transportation Security Administration offers any law-abiding citizen who wants to fly — and the fact that we’re willing to put up with it shows that there’s something seriously wrong in America today.

Two items last week put the problem in stark relief.

First was the viral video of a 6-year-old’s recent encounter with the agency in New Orleans. As ABC News described the clip, “It shows a TSA agent rubbing the young girl’s inner thighs and running her fingers inside the top of the girl’s bluejeans.”

Then on Friday, CNN revealed a list of “behavioral indicators” TSA uses to scope out travelers who deserve extra manhandling. Among the agency’s red flags are “arrogant” expressions of “contempt against airport passenger procedures.” Because, clearly, making a scene on the airport security line is sound strategy for anyone trying to sneak a bomb onto a plane.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about “American Exceptionalism,” and whether President Obama understands what makes America stand out among the family of nations.

I’ve always thought that what makes Americans exceptional is our ornery resistance to being bossed around.

But how long can that spirit survive the demands of modern “homeland security”? We’re building a country where you’re expected to stand by placidly while agents of the state run their rubber gloves under your innocent 6-year-old daughter’s waistband.

…

White House draft bill expands DHS cyber responsibilities

Under a White House plan, the Homeland Security Department will have far-reaching oversight over all civilian agency computer networks. The proposal would codify much of the administration’s memo from July 2010 expanding DHS’s cyber responsibilities for civilian networks.
The White House, however, is taking those responsibilities further, according to a source familiar with the document. The administration drafted a legislative proposal to give DHS many, if not all, of the same authorities for the .gov networks that the Defense Department has for the .mil networks.

Federal News Radio recently viewed a draft copy of the legislative proposal.

“I have to question why the Executive branch is writing legislation,” said the source, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it. “This is not a proposal or white paper like the White House usually sends to Capitol Hill. This is the actual legislation.”

The source said the 100-page document is going through interagency review. DHS sent the document around to agencies late last Friday and asked for comments by Monday. The source said few agencies had time to take a hard look at the document, especially in light of the possible government shutdown.
…

Privacy ‘bill of rights’ exempts government agencies

Two U.S. senators introduced sweeping privacy legislation today that they promise will “establish a framework to protect the personal information of all Americans.” There is, however, one feature of the bill (PDF) sponsored by senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) that has gone relatively unnoticed: it doesn’t apply to data mining, surveillance, or any other forms of activities that governments use to collect and collate Americans’ personal information.

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., McCain said the privacy bill of rights will protect the “fundamental right of American citizens, that is the right to privacy.” And the first sentence of the legislation proclaims that “personal privacy is worthy of protection through appropriate legislation.”

But the measure applies only to companies and some nonprofit groups, not to the federal, state, and local police agencies that have adopted high-tech surveillance technologies including cell phone tracking, GPS bugs, and requests to Internet companies for users’ personal information–in many cases without obtaining a search warrant from a judge.

…

Airport passenger screener charged in distributing child pornography

A passenger screener at Philadelphia International Airport is facing charges that he distributed more than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook, records show.Federal agents also allege that Transportation Safety Administration Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, who routinely searched airline passengers, uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.
…
Was FBI too quick to judge anthrax suspect killer?

WASHINGTON — Scouring the anthrax-laced mail that took five lives and terrorized the East Coast in 2001, laboratory scientists discovered a unique contaminant — a tiny scientific fingerprint that they hoped would help unmask the killer. One senior FBI official wrote in March 2007, in a recently declassified memo, that the potential clue “may be the most resolving signature found in the evidence to date.”

Yet once FBI agents concluded that the likely culprit was Bruce Ivins — a mentally troubled, but widely regarded Army microbiologist — they stopped looking for the contaminant, after testing only a few work spaces of the scores of researchers using the anthrax strain found in the letters. They quit searching, despite finding no traces of the substance in hundreds of environmental samples from Ivins’ lab, office, car and home.

It’s been two and a half years since Ivins committed suicide in the face of prosecutors’ threats to charge him with five murders, each carrying a potential death sentence. It’s been more than a year since the Justice Department, despite lacking hard proof, formally declared that Ivins “perpetrated the anthrax letter attacks.”

…

From Around the World
 
Azerbaijan police detain 65 in breaking up second pro-democracy rally this month

BAKU, Azerbaijan – Police in Azerbaijan detained 65 protesters Sunday as they broke up a pro-democracy rally for the second time this month. The rally was banned, but small groups of protesters made several attempts to march down streets in the centre of the capital, Baku, shouting “freedom” and calling for the ouster of the authoritarian government.

Police said 25 of those detained were released after a warning, but the remaining 40 would face charges.

An Associated Press reporter witnessed the arrests of more than 20 people, including two Swedish television journalists who were standing with other reporters on a central square.

Azerbaijan has been ruled since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, and he looks set to continue indefinitely after a referendum he pushed through in 2008 abolished presidential terms. Police called two opposition leaders in for questioning before the rally. The head of the opposition party Musavat, Isa Qambar, said he was questioned for seven hours Friday.

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Three myths of Israel’s insecurity

Here are the Three Sacred Commandments for Americans who shape the public conversation on Israel:

1. For politicians, especially at the federal level: as soon as you say the word “Israel”, you must also say the word “security” and promise that the United States will always, always, always be committed to Israel’s security. If you occasionally label an action by the Israeli government “unhelpful”, you must immediately reaffirm the eternal US commitment to Israel’s security.

2. For TV talking heads and op-ed pundits: if you criticize any policies or actions of the Israeli government, you must immediately add that Israel does, of course, have very real and serious security needs that have to be addressed.

3. For journalists covering the Israel-Palestine conflict for major American news outlets: you must live in Jewish Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv and take only occasional day trips into the Occupied Territories. So your reporting must inevitably be slanted toward the perspective of the Jews you live among. And you must indicate in every report that Jewish Israeli life is dominated by anxiety about security.

US opinion-shapers have obeyed the Three Commandments scrupulously for decades. As a result, they’ve created an indelible image of Israel as a deeply insecure nation. That image is a major, if often overlooked, factor that has shaped and continues to shape Washington’s policies in the Middle East and especially the longstanding American tilt toward Israel.
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Russia kills ‘Saudi Al-Qaeda leader’ in Chechnya

Russia on Friday announced the killing of Al-Qaeda’s top militant in the Caucasus in an operation analysts said marked one of the biggest successes by security forces in the region in years. Security officials identified the Saudi-born militant — known by the nom-de-guerre of Moganned — as a “religious authority” and top field commander responsible for the most recent bombings on Russian soil.

“Almost all acts of terror using suicide bombers in the last years were prepared with his involvement,” a spokesman for the National Anti-Terror Committee said in a televised statement.The rebel-linked kavkazcenter.com website confirmed that the militant was killed on Thursday in a clash with security forces in Chechnya that also claimed the lives of at least two other militants.

“The rats have started coming out of the woodwork,” the war-torn republic’s Kremlin-appointed leader Ramzan Kadyrov told news agencies after the death was confirmed. “Each one of them will be either arrested or destroyed.”

Russian officials said Moganned had been operating in the Northern Caucasus since 1999 and by 2005 had emerged as the main “coordinator” for handling money that was coming in from abroad to support the militant underground.

…

US sanctions Kurdish rebel leaders for trafficking

The United States is slapping drug trafficking sanctions on leaders of a Kurdish rebel group.

The U.S. Treasury Department said that it would add five individuals tied to Kongra-Gel to a sanctions list that already covers the group more generally.

They include Cemil Bayik and Duran Kalkan, who the U.S. says founded the group, as well as Remzi Kartal, Sabri Ok and Adem Uzun. The Treasury Department alleges that Kongra-Gel maintains a drug trafficking network across Europe that helps fund the group.

Kongra-Gel, formerly Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, has been fighting for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish areas of southeastern Turkey since 1984. The United States considers the group a terrorist organization.
…
Daily brief: U.S. drone strike reportedly kills 26 in NW Pakistan

As many as 26 people, including five women and children, were reportedly killed earlier today in a suspected U.S. drone strike targeting a compound used by local militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur in the Spinwam area of North Waziristan (Reuters, AP, WSJ, CNN, BBC, Geo). Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs, reportedly told Pakistani Army head Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani during his visit to Pakistan this week that the drone strikes would continue until the Pakistani military targets the Haqqani network in North Waziristan (ET). Pamela Constable points out that “this week, there was no smiling photo op” between Adm. Mullen and Gen. Kayani, indicating the current tense relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan (Post).  

In a step toward addressing Pakistan’s long-standing request for drone technology, the U.S. military said it will provide Pakistan with 85 Raven mini-drones, used for surveillance (Reuters). Pakistan is expected to receive some $3 billion in U.S. military aid in the next fiscal year. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Pakistan’s foreign secretary, Salman Bashir, who is currently in D.C., and said the U.S. and Pakistan should “work and succeed together” (ET).

…

At Least Nine Civilians Slain as Missiles Destroy Nearby Homes

Fresh off the angry rancor between US Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen and his Pakistani counterpart Gen. Parvez Kayani, the US has launched another drone strike at North Waziristan Agency. The latest strike targeted a “suspected militant compound” killing at least 26 people.

Though some of the slain are still being referred to as “suspects,” the missile strikes also destroyed some nearby homes killing at least nine civilians, five women and four children. Large numbers of people were also wounded according to local officials.

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Israel: UN recognition of a Palestinian state will turn us into ‘colonialists’

A source in the Israeli government warned of disaster dubbed “September’s tsunami” with regards to an expected UN recognition for the Palestinian state. Israel’s Channel Two broadcasted that the sources said with respect to the direct repercussions of recognising Palestine that it would have four detrimental results:

First, he said, the world’s perception of Israel will shift from an occupying state to a colonising state.

Second, countries that vote for a Palestinian state would enforce an economic boycott on Israel and cease trade and commerce with the Israeli state. The boycott will not be limited to the illegal settlements and their products, the source argued.

Third, Israel would be expelled from international trade organisations.

Fourth, the world would pressure Israel into “approving” the construction of the first Palestinian international airport in the West Bank.

The source noted that Israel’s official estimates suggest that from 192 member states in the UN’s general assembly around 180 could possibly vote for the recognition of Palestine, six would abstain and six others would oppose.

…

Marching for Anzac in the 51st State

The street where I grew up in Sydney was a war street. There were long silences, then the smashing of glass and screams. Pete and I played Aussies-and-Japs. Pete’s father was an object of awe. He weighed barely 100 pounds and shook with malaria and was frequently demented. He would sit in a cane chair, drunk, scything the air with the sword of a Japanese soldier he said he had killed. There was a woman who flitted from room to room, always red-eyed and fearful, it seemed. She was like many mothers in the street. Wally, another mate, lived in a house that was always dark because the black-out blinds had not been taken down. His father had been “killed by the Japs.” Once, when Wally’s mother came home, she found he had got a gun, put it in his mouth and blown his head off. It was a war street. 

The insidious, merciless, life-long damage of war taught many of us to recognize the difference between the empty symbolism of war and the actual meaning. “Does it matter?” mocked the poet Siegfried Sassoon at the end of an earlier slaughter, in 1918, as he grieved his younger brother’s death at Gallipoli. I grew up with that name, Gallipoli. The British assault on the Turkish Dardanelles was one of the essential crimes of imperial war, causing the death and wounding of 392,000 on all sides. The Australian and New Zealander losses were among the highest, proportionally; and 25 April, 1915 was declared not just a day of remembrance but the “birth of the Australian nation.” This was based on the belief of Edwardian militarists that true men were made in war, an absurdity about to be celebrated yet again.  

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/24/weekly-round-up-for-sunday-april-24/feed/ 2 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/22/podcast-show-40/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/22/podcast-show-40/#comments Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:07:47 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=3388 The Boiling Frogs Presents Grant Smith

Grant F. Smith joins us to discuss Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, a 2009 Council on Foreign Relations book authored by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. He tells us about rarely discussed “massive non-market subsidies and distortions” designed and implemented to benefit Israel, such as an agreement with the Pentagon for Israel to provide goods and services to the US military, and gain access to the US military procurement system, and other congressionally approved agreements that create jobs in Israel rather than in the US. Mr. Smith talks about AIPAC, Israel’s vast network of legal and illegal campaign contributions, their influence and propaganda infrastructure with the US media, and more!

Grant F. Smith is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government and Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal. He is a contributor to Radio France Internationale and Voice of America’s Foro Interamericano, and has appeared on BBC News, CNN, and C-SPAN.

Here is our guest Grant Smith unplugged!

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/22/podcast-show-40/feed/ 7 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/20/on-your-warnings-%e2%80%9cone-if-by-land-two-if-by-sea-%e2%80%a6the-labelers-are-coming%e2%80%9d/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/20/on-your-warnings-%e2%80%9cone-if-by-land-two-if-by-sea-%e2%80%a6the-labelers-are-coming%e2%80%9d/#comments Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:04:00 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=3377 I’m Every Woman & Here is How

To my good friends and supporters who have been warning and preparing me for the ‘siege to come’ after writing my last post on the Israel Lobby: Here I am still standing, stronger than ever, after speaking the ‘unspeakable.’ Granted some of those warnings were anything but friendly. I’d say they were more like ultimatums. Others reminded me of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride: watch out woman, the labeling Nazis are coming! As always I lost a few registered users and various forum followers, and gained some new forum friends and registered BFP followers; I’d say on balance I am up;-)

Here is what I have to say to those of you who have not very gracefully (and unsuccessfully) gone down the classic labeling attack route: your efforts were totally wasted. I don’t have a paid media job you can take away via your usual tactics. I don’t have a think tank or NGO position you can eliminate. I don’t have a book promotion you can try to sink. I don’t depend on advertisers to run this site, and you don’t have a way of putting it out of business…Basically I ain’t got nothing ‘you’ can take away. I would have thanked you if I were seeking publicity, since negative publicity is far better than no publicity, but since I don’t I don’t owe you a thank you either. And finally, I consider myself pretty much ‘label-proofed,’ and here is how: I’ve been every woman!

Despite many warnings by colleagues and friends I chose to report wrongdoing aka becoming a whistleblower. They said I’d be labeled a disgruntled employee. And some did try to stick that label to me, as they have done to all whistleblowers before and after me: the Disgruntled Government Employee.

My family warned me about disclosures concerning my home country Turkey. They said I’d be considered a Traitor. I chose to take that risk for what I believed to be the greater good (it’s debatable whether it was or not), and to some over there in Turkey, I became that; a Traitor.

When I went to the United States Senate with my documented disclosures both parties found me to be potentially worrisome. A Republican Senator told my legal representative: ‘on bringing up the issues regarding the Bush administration she sounds like a Bleeding Heart Liberal.’ A Senator from the other party had different worries: ‘Is she a trap set up by the Republicans? Because the stuff on the Clinton administration seems like a God Da.. Republican Ploy!’ So I became a God Da.. Republican Ploy and Bleeding Heart Liberal simultaneously. And to this date they haven’t come to any conclusion!

During my 7 years of legal and congressional battles with the Bush administration I may have become the left’s favorite whistleblower heroine, but I got tons of attacks from the blinded right for being a secret Democrats’ Puppet Woman. Then Obama came, and my unabashed criticism of him turned me into a villain in the blinded and wanna-be progressive Democrat community, and gave me a new name there: Anti Liberal Repug.

Then came this website, my articles, interviews, and commentaries:

I write on Imam Fethullah Gulen, and some attack me with Anti-Muslim & Anti-Islam labels.

I write on the Israel lobby contributions to candidates, and others come after me with Anti-Israel & Anti-Semite tags.

I write on the Turkish lobby and it’s octopus like tentacles in purchasing politicians, and I become Anti-Turkey & Anti-Turkish to some.

I interview a respected guest like Chris Hedges, and my new label becomes Socialist-Communist within certain circuits.

My Boiling Frogs Podcast presents an admirable expert Dr. Woods on significant issues, and I get Tea-Bagger labels thrown at me from various websites and forums.

I criticize certain Neocon policies, and I am an Unrealistic Liberal Fantasist to certain people who consider themselves realists.

I go after our out-of-control federal government police practices, and I am called Libertarian Anarchist by a few.

I stand by my rights and do my share by handing out information on TSA-DHS airport abuses, and many stop to call me Terrorist Sympathizer.

I choose to raise my daughter as a full-time stay at home mother, and to some I become a disgrace to the Feminist movement.

My whistleblower organization members happen to be mainly men, and I’m accused of being Sexist.

I could write pages and pages on the labels I have received, the things I’ve been accused of, and the names I’ve been called: Despicable Middle Eastern, Feminist, Anti-Feminist, Right Wing Mouthpiece, Left Wing Agent, Tea Bagger, Anarchist, Racist, Traditionalist, Modernist, Anti-Semite, Too Conservative, Too Liberal, Socialist, Communist, Islamist, CIA Mole, 9/11 Disinformation Agent, Sexist …

I am not going to disregard my long-term kind supporters and pass over the positives. It is just that it is hard to list nice and positive compliments (or labels), and not sound egotistical. You have kindly considered and called me: courageous, dignified, patriotic…and other similarly supportive adjectives. Even those of you who have complemented me in some strange ways with even stranger imagery to go with them, such as ‘when it comes to guts and courage far more testicularly endowed than most men in this country’!! I humbly thank you for all that.

So there you have it my recent Labelers. You see, I’ve been every woman, and I’ve lived through them all; I’m still standing. What are you gonna do about it, ey??!!
 

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/20/on-your-warnings-%e2%80%9cone-if-by-land-two-if-by-sea-%e2%80%a6the-labelers-are-coming%e2%80%9d/feed/ 15 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/18/is-israel-the-sole-determinant-of-us-presidential-elections/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/18/is-israel-the-sole-determinant-of-us-presidential-elections/#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:35:18 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=3346 They Say They Are…

Are the elections results of US presidential elections determined by 2% of the population? Can the five million or so Jewish population be counted as the US majority? Does the Israel lobby shape the majority of US voters’ decisions? Is Israel the main determinant of political elections’ results when it comes to high US public offices? I don’t know your take or answers to these questions, but we do have ‘theirs, on the record, loud and clear, and of course, delivered with hubris and cockiness:

Metzger to Obama: Release Pollard or lose reelection
By Jonah Mandel, Jerusalem Post

Chief Ashkenazi rabbi says he’s not making prophecy, just reflecting the feelings of US Jews who supported US president’s election.

Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger wants US President Barack Obama to know that unless he acts to release Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard, he will not be elected for a second time in November 2012.

“If Obama wants another term as president, he must immediately release Pollard,” the rabbi said on Saturday.
…

I don’t believe the above article is in need of any interpretation or explanation. It is pretty straightforward: Mr. President if you do A, we won’t let you get reelected, but if you do B, we will; yes, we have that much power and influence. The condition put on this one way negotiation has nothing to do with the topic I am discussing here. Period. In this case it is about Jonathan Pollard, the convicted Israeli spy who betrayed his nation and endangered lives. It could very well be about Iran: Mr. Obama you either attack or advocate for an attack on country X, and we’ll ensure you get reelected, or, stand against it, and lose your chance of getting reelected. Why? Because ‘we’ have that power. Because ‘we’ perceive country X as a threat to ‘us,’, and ‘we’ want you to put your nation at war for ‘us.’ 

Now you may say, ‘hey, that’s a ludicrous empty threat! Give or take two percent of the voting population can’t carry that level of influence over a United States President!’ And, you will be wrong; flat out wrong. It is true that the population of American adherents of Judaism was around 5 million, 1.7% of the total US population in 2007, and including those who identify themselves culturally as Jewish (but not necessarily religiously), around 6.5  million, 2.2% as of 2008. But who ever claimed that these things are all about size, and that only size matters?!!! If you don’t have the size you go about compensating for it; don’t you? Well, that’s exactly what ‘they’ have been doing, and doing successfully. How? In more than one way:

Shape the Voters’ Votes

So you want power and influence but there are too few of you, and you want your ‘men and women’ to get elected to high and mighty offices. You can’t multiply your 3 or 4 million votes by 30 or so. That option is out. But if you are shrewd and clever enough, if you are dedicated enough, and if you are rich and willing to pay for it enough, you can get the number of votes you need for your candidate. All you have to do is: shape the voters’ votes. And how do you shape the voters’ votes? One major way is to get ownership and or control and or management and or influence of the media. And ‘they’ have done exactly that, and have been doing ‘that’:

Declassified files from a Senate investigation into Israeli-funded covert public relations and lobbying activity in the United States were released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on July 23rd, 2010. The subpoenaed documents reveal Israel’s clandestine programs for “cultivation of editors,” the “stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines” as well as U.S. reporting about sensitive subjects such as the Dimona nuclear weapons facility.

…

Click here if you want to read the report detailing how ‘they’ successfully control, direct  and shape American media.

So, what else can you do?

Pay What it Takes- Every Candidate Has a Price

Do I even need to expand upon this particular means of getting one’s candidate of choice? Come on people, I don’t have to tell you how far big dollars will get you when put inside political candidates’ pockets , enabling them to successfully and fruitfully campaign. And that’s another means ‘they’ have been successfully pursuing. In 2006 The Washington Post had a fairly sanitized report on the Israel Lobby’s ‘known & direct’ donations between1990-2006:

Pro-Israel interests have contributed $56.8 million in individual, group and soft money donations to federal candidates and party committees since 1990, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. (By contrast, the center says, pro-Arab and pro-Muslim groups donated $297,000 during the same period.) Between the 2000 and the 2004 elections, the 50 members of AIPAC’s board donated an average of $72,000 each to campaigns and political action committees. One in every five board members was a top fundraiser for President Bush or John Kerry.

And a more recent report had this finding:

Since 1990 the Israel lobby has contributed $78 million to congressional incumbents and $94 million when including non-incumbents. The pro-Israel lobby ranks 40 in total campaign giving as compared to more than 80 other industries, reports the Center for Responsive Politics.
…

I want to emphasize: these dollar figures are only known and above board donations. There are many indirect and or under the table and illegal ways of getting big dollars into your candidates’ pockets. While working at the FBI I had the pleasure (Not!) of learning about a few of these scams. And the Israel lobby is a pretty well-known participant in ‘these’ practices in the United States.

I am not writing this piece to attack anyone. I am not attacking Israel or the Israel lobby. Not really. In fact, I am giving them credit due: They are clever and shrewd, they are rich and successful, and they are dedicated (not to the United States) enough to put shrewdness and cleverness and richness to work for ‘what’ they believe in, and ‘who/what’ they are loyal to. Good for them. Terrible for us whom I am directing this article to. This is about us, the American voters. You may say, ‘hey, I ain’t got the money, and I ain’t got the position or means necessary to influence the media. So I can neither buy politicians nor use the media marketing platform!’

And my response to you is:  I am not asking you to. All I am doing here is letting you see what I see, and letting you know what is out there in front of us; that is, if you haven’t already seen and don’t already know. Then, I’ll let you decide for yourself: Do I sit back, buy the things the media is marketing and selling, and let ‘them’ shape my vote easily? Or do I treat the media’s marketing campaign as I do Nike’s super performance ads when it comes to deciding on the candidate who will be getting my vote? Do I become enamored of the candidates with the glitziest and fanciest campaigns, or, do I direct my attention to the ones’ whose pockets have been left empty by foreign and special interests?

After all, it is your vote, and I am not going to spend more words or time trying to shape it, so please don’t let ‘them’ either.

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/18/is-israel-the-sole-determinant-of-us-presidential-elections/feed/ 17 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/02/16/obama-administration%e2%80%99s-neocon-easter/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/02/16/obama-administration%e2%80%99s-neocon-easter/#comments Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:39:43 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=3025 Resurrecting the Neocons: Marc Grossman in … Richard Perle & Douglas Feith in Queue

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has chosen a new special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan: a long-time controversial neocon, a man who has been famous for parading as a foreign agent in the lobby circuit, the scandalous former diplomat Marc Grossman. The not-so-gradual resurrection of the old neocon cabal under the Obama administration, led by Hillary Clinton, should not come as a surprise. According to Washington insiders, Richardl Perle and Douglas Feith have been consulted more than a few times in their ‘unofficial’ capacity, but are not far down in the queue to receive ‘official’ acknowledgement. This shouldn’t come as a surprise; at least to those who’ve been following the steady momentum building at the Obama White House towards a soon-to-come Neocon Easter.

Hillary Clinton appointed Dennis Ross as Special Advisor for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia; a man well-known as a hard-core neocon,  Paul Wolfowitz’ protégé, cofounder of the AIPAC sponsored Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and one of the loudest advocates for the Israel lobby. A man who is known to consider himself more Israeli than American; a Jewish American who is known to have spent ‘a lot of time’ in Israel to find his real identity-nationality.

We had Frederick Kagan, a neocon of choice for Mr. Obama, who was hired to manage General Petraeus on Afghanistan. A man whose father was born into a Jewish family in Lithuania; a man cherished by his bosses at the American Enterprise Institute; a man who authored the book, While America Sleeps, arguing in favor of a large increase in military spending and warned of future threats, including the imaginary WMD program in Iraq. We are talking about the man who was one of the main signatories of Project for the New American Century manifesto – the Neocon Bible. The man who was one of the Bush-Cheney administration’s favorite masterminds when it came to perpetual wars.

Let’s jump to our newest and by far the boldest Neocon addition to the Obama-Clinton Whitehouse. Marc Grossman is chosen by the administration to fill the seat vacated by Richard Holbrooke; another Jewish American Neocon who had been a man of choice for every administration in the last four decades. I suggest you read the article titled ‘Obama’s Neocon’ if you want to know a bit more about the old neocon shoes Mr. Grossman will be filling. As for our media’s usual sanitized version for Mr. Grossman’s background, the following by the neocon circle PR machine, the Washington Post, sums it up well:

In a nearly three-decade career at the State Department, Grossman served as assistant secretary of state for Europe and ambassador to Turkey. His last assignment, before retiring from the foreign service in 2005, was undersecretary for political affairs during the first administration of George W. Bush.

He now is vice chairman of the Cohen Group, which advises international business clients on overseas enterprises. Although the consulting group, headed by former defense secretary William Cohen, has several clients with contracts in South Asia, administration officials said they did not foresee any problem in clearing Grossman for the post.

…

From the mainstream media reporting similar to the above, ordinary Americans should at least gather this much:

Mr. Grossman had to be a Bush-Cheney administration favorite to be appointed as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the State Department’s third-ranking official, in 2001. In 2004, Grossman attained the Foreign Service’s highest rank when the President appointed him to the rank of Career Ambassador.

Grossman works for the sin city’s (Washington DC) lobby industry. Not only that, he actually represents foreign governments, foreign businesses and interests. The Cohen Group represents some of the country’s largest weapons manufacturers, companies that stand to benefit from weapons sales: Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Sikorsky…among others. Their list of controversial and or criminal entities includes companies such as DynCorp International. Through their partnership with DLA Piper, the Cohen group also serves foreign clients such as the Turkish government and business interest groups, Australia’s scandalous AWB, India and UAE. 

And here is what many Americans won’t be getting from the US media:

-  The investigative reports on Marc Grossman and his role in planting moles in US nuclear facilities:

An unnamed high-ranking State Department official helps a nuclear smuggling ring connected to Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan and Pakistan’s ISI to plant “moles” in US military and academic institutions that handle nuclear technology, according to FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. The State Department official apparently arranges security clearance for some of the moles, enabling them to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities, including the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent. The high-ranking State Department official who is not named by Britain’s Sunday Times is said to be Marc Grossman…

 
- John M. Cole, a former FBI Counterintelligence and Counterespionage Manager, has publicly confirmed FBI’s decade long investigation the former State Department Official, Marc Grossman:

John M. Cole, a former FBI Counterintelligence and Counterespionage Manager, has publicly confirmed the FBI’s decade long investigation of the former State Department Official Marc Grossman. Cole worked for 18 years in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. According to Cole, as in over one hundred cases involving Israeli espionage activities directed against the US government, the Grossman case was covered up and buried despite mountains of evidence that was collected.

Here is the public response from John Cole after the publication of The American Conservative magazine’s cover story:

“I read the recent cover story by The American Conservative magazine. I applaud their courage in publishing this significant interview. I am fully aware of the FBI’s decade-long investigation of the High-level State Department Official named in this article, Marc Grossman, which ultimately was buried and covered up. It is long past time to investigate this case and bring about accountability…”

-Marc Grossman was the originator of the Plame Leak:

Marc Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, prepares a memo about former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger to ascertain the truth or falsity of claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from that nation (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). The memo refers explicitly to Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as a CIA official and identifies her as Wilson’s wife, using the name “Valerie Wilson.” The second paragraph of the memo is marked with an “S,” denoting that Wilson is a covert operative for the agency.

-In late December 2005, Grossman joined Ihlas Holding, a large and alleged shady Turkish company which is also active in several Central Asian countries. Grossman is reported to receive $100,000 per month for his advisory position with Ihlas.

-In May 2010, DLA Piper, one of the world’s largest international lobby-law firms, hired Marc Grossman as their front man for their Turkish operations. The man in charge of one of DLA Piper major accounts-Turkey is none other than our good ole Dennis Hastert. That makes two former FBI criminal targets for one firm;-)

Now, with all these murky qualifications, you’d think the mainstream media would have a field day with Marc Grossman’s appointment by the Hillary-Obama administration; right? Wrong. So far, not a peep from the US media and that includes both the ‘R’ and the ‘D’ fronts. Same goes for the quasi alternatives. Not even a word about the ‘revolving door’ aspect of this scandalous appointment: A Foreign Agent, A Lobbyist, A man on the payroll of a shady foreign company for over $1 million a year…But then again, less than a month ago we witnessed another envoy, another appointment, with a major ‘CONFLICT OF INTEREST’ flag rising to its top that went completely censored in the US media. The scandal was widely reported by foreign media, such as the Independent, who actually broke the story, and even after that, we barely heard a peep:

Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama’s envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by urging Hosni Mubarak to remain President of Egypt, works for a New York and Washington law firm which works for the dictator’s own Egyptian government.

The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a “personal capacity”. But there is nothing “personal” about Mr Wisner’s connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises “the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government’s behalf in Europe and the US”. Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials – nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.

…

Mr Wisner is a retired State Department 36-year career diplomat – he served as US ambassador to Egypt, Zambia, the Philippines and India under eight American presidents. In other words, he was not a political appointee. But it is inconceivable Hillary Clinton did not know of his employment by a company that works for the very dictator which Mr Wisner now defends in the face of a massive democratic opposition in Egypt. So why on earth was he sent to talk to Mubarak, who is in effect a client of Mr Wisner’s current employers?

…

Patton Boggs states that its attorneys “represent some of the leading Egyptian commercial families and their companies” and “have been involved in oil and gas and telecommunications infrastructure projects on their behalf”. One of its partners served as chairman of the US-Egyptian Chamber of Commerce promoting foreign investment in the Egyptian economy. The company has also managed contractor disputes in military-sales agreements arising under the US Foreign Military Sales Act. Washington gives around $1.3bn (£800m) a year to the Egyptian military.

Mr Wisner joined Patton Boggs almost two years ago – more than enough time for both the White House and the State Department to learn of his company’s intimate connections with the Mubarak regime. The New York Times ran a glowing profile of Mr Wisner in its pages two weeks ago – but mysteriously did not mention his ties to Egypt.

…

I find this sentence in the above quotes really funny: “Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials” As far as our media goes, what’s odd about that?! They’ve been really consistent at remaining very ‘odd’ when it comes to reporting on ‘crucial, troublesome & very relevant’ facts like this one. And, Marc Grossman’s recent unofficial appointment to be official this Friday is another perfect example:

A long-time neocon, a Jewish-American with questionably strong ties to Israel, a long-term target of FBI counterespionage and counterintelligence investigations, a lobbyist, a foreign agent, an employee of a shady foreign business, a man associated with major treason scandals, Marc Grossman, is making his way back to the ‘new’ administration, following his several other co-species who’ve been sitting inside, leading the way for the rest of the co-species who’ve been eagerly waiting to be granted official entry cards. Thanks to the media, while the public is sitting in the dark, the Obama-Hillary White House is changing color to pastels,  getting ready for their Neocon Easter and the resurrection of the previously, and dubiously, advertised as long-gone and dead breed – Neo-cons.

 

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/02/16/obama-administration%e2%80%99s-neocon-easter/feed/ 11 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/10/25/going-on-record-on-labeling-labelers/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/10/25/going-on-record-on-labeling-labelers/#comments Tue, 26 Oct 2010 02:04:39 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=2514 Censorship Fanatics Come from All Walks of Life

It is funny and sad at the same time. In the course of one week I have gone from Anti-Semite to Anti-Muslim. Within a week I have been labeled Filthy Jew-Basher and Fear-Mongering Islamophobic. I find it funny since the logic-free arguments of these fanatic labelers who are running around like headless (and brainless) chickens has a priceless comic quality to it; in so many ways it is simply hilarious to watch and listen to them. And I say sad, because the fanatic censorship climate created by these ignoramuses is not limited to their own eco-system; its incestuous multiplication and spread has been swallowing not only their immediate vicinity but the entire society at large via revised encyclopedias, academia, media …and especially the highly polarized forums and blogs.

It began last week when I wrote a piece on how in certain election campaigns candidates have been competing with each other on their degree of loyalty to a foreign country-Israel. And they were doing this openly. Those without blinders and with common sense got my points:

-Shouldn’t these candidates’ electability be about commitment and loyalty to our nation, its interests, and addressing its current humongous problems? We would be raising hell if we heard a candidate pledging their unconditional loyalty to France, Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan; and yes, they are all considered allies whether you agree or not! Then why should it be different when it comes to this particular controversial foreign country, Israel?

-Don’t we all consider foreign contributions to and support for our representatives here something to be truly alarmed about? At least distasteful and disgraceful? Large sums, direct and indirect support, by AIPAC and the like would be just that. No? Let me put it this way, in case you don’t get it: If the foreign entities were named something like Al-Hasmani Qaliani Fattullah, many would go out of their way to flag them down. AIPAC and the like are no different. They are foreign, with their own sets of interests and agendas; allies or not.

Since one of the candidates in my piece happened to be one with more special background and even more related facts, I went ahead and included some of  those important documented facts. Then, the moment I posted the above piece the attacks started pouring from the fanatic left (now pay attention, I am not saying ‘all lefties’ but ‘fanatic left’): I was accused of being Anti-Semite, Anti-Jew, Anti-Liberal, Anti-Democrats, Anti-Socialist…

-I noted that Ms. Schakowsky’s husband is a convicted felon. The courts found him guilty, he confessed to his crimes, and he went to prison. I guess based on the fanatic liberal argument: this documented well-known public fact was caused by Anti-Semite Anti-Jewish Anti-Liberals Anti-Democrats investigators, law enforcement, courts, judges, and yes, even prisons. How dare they investigate, convict and imprison the husband of a Jewish Pro-Israel Democrat Congresswoman?!! Further, how dare I or anyone else talk or write about this during the election campaign?!

In that piece I wrote a section on Jan Schakowsky’s role in criminal investigations by the FBI involving Chicago, and provided a link to a related article. This opened up an old wound for blinded ultra partisan Democrats who loved me conditionally: As long as your case involves Dirty Dick & Bush, as long as you point a finger at larva like Republican Hastert, we love you and root for you! Make sure there ain’t no bad democrats involved in your case, ok?

-Well, I talked about that case during my testimony under oath. Considering what side of the DOJ-FBI I’ve been on, even with a minute trace of untruthful response by me under oath they would have landed on me with both feet (wearing combat boots!!).

My piece included quotes from news articles on Jan Schakowsky’s status with AIPAC, and that despite some cosmetic, for-show-only, appearance of glitches between the two, AIPAC has been her supporter for a long time, and that as far as AIPAC is concerned Schakowsky is ‘Kosher.’ 

Based on the Fanatic Left’s argument; AIPAC (and its support) are considered KaKa-BooBoo-NoNo, if the recipient of the support happens to be Bush Era Bad Men, such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and Paul Wolfowitz. They have always emphasized the evil AIPAC connections of those Bus Era Neocons, and since they reserve the sole right to Fanatic Political Correctness Censorship, no one, I mean no one from the left, accused them of Anti-Semitism. Now, if the same AIPAC happens to be an avid supporter of Democratic candidates, all previous deals are off – based on the pro-censorship fanatic left code.  To point out Schakowsky’s Israel & AIPAC ties are considered Anti-Semitic and Anti-Jewish, but to repeatedly publicize Bush-Era Jewish Neocons’ Israel & AIPAC connections and ties are ‘kosher.’ You see what I’m getting at?

A few days ago, and a few days after the Schakowsky-Israel article, I wrote a brief piece on an infamous and controversial preacher, Fethullah Gulen, his documented background and international status, the never-solved or resolved mystery of his $20 billion organization’s net worth, and his new status as the biggest charter school operator in the US, with over 130 charter schools in 25 states. For decades his schools have been known as Madrasas in Turkey and Turkic nations, and now, interestingly and curiously, this man, through a maze of networks-organizations has been taking over US taxpayer funded charter schools.

As soon as I posted the article the attack of the fanatic left began pouring. Now, after being labeled as Anti-Jew, I was being given the new title of Anti-Muslim. Their fanatic blogs have been spitting out labels like machine guns: fear-mongering, Anti-Islam, Tea-Partier, Neo-Nazi Propaganda machine…you name it – And, my Muslim background and ancestry notwithstanding! How comic & moronic! Oh well, that pretty much describes the bunch.

I’ve been having fun watching the correlation between my posts and my follower status on twitter and Facebook. It is one of my pastimes when I have a few idle minutes in life. This is how it goes:

I write a piece on the Turkish military’s bad deeds, and within minutes I see my follower numbers drop by a few; all ultra-national Turkish entities. And a few minutes later it goes up by a few; recipients of abuses by the Turkish Military.

I write a piece on Israel lobby-AIPAC and there it goes; a drastic drop. Within a day or two I get a fresh list of supporters from the Palestinian side.

I write a piece on the some of the awful deeds of the Bush Administration, and if it has the target words-Cheney-Rice-Ashcroft, I become a hit with a few on the left; my numbers go up, and then down by a few departing fanatic Republicans. A few days later I write about the changes on Obama’s promised changes and his awful deeds against civil liberties, transparency and accountability, and a group of blind lefties depart from my list of supporters…

You really get the picture now; no? In a way I get to laugh a bit. The moronic blinded partisanship and biases can be kind of entertaining due to their inherent stupidious nature and even more stupid acts. This is how their reasoning (lack of!)would work if it was turned on them:

Obama says Taliban are bad bad people. Taliban are Muslim, thus, Obama is Anti-Muslim.

Or

Obama’s civilian casualties in Afghanistan-Pakistan are all Muslim, thus, Obama intends to erase Muslims from the earth.

As I’ve repeated several times: the fanatic left’s stupidious reasoning is summarized in the above examples, and how could I take it seriously and not laugh?!

On the other hand, the situation saddens me greatly, because this is exactly what the establishment wants: large numbers of ignoramuses bickering, blinded irrational loyalties, a highly divided society where people are busy spitting at each other and eating one another rather than going after the joint enemies of all …

And finally, I am neither angry or being defensive. I am going to do exactly what I’ve been doing here at Boiling Frogs Post: write it as is, and say it as is. Our vigilant minority club has been expanding, and that’s all I need to keep at this as is. I have never bothered to post at fanatic right or fanatic left websites or blogs, so no worries there; I am not ban-able. I am not after a position with one of the fanatic left or right so-called alternative media outlets, so I don’t care about not being hire-able. I am not promoting a book or an upcoming movie, so having to be diplomatic (worthless by saying actually nothing, doing actually nothing) is not one of my problems. Unfortunately for you members of the moronic ignoramus political correctness censorship fanatics, I’ll be standing where I am and keeping on doing-saying-writing as usual. Within a few minutes after this post I’ll be checking the status of my Twitter-Facebook membership list, and I’ll be laughing at you allJ

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/10/25/going-on-record-on-labeling-labelers/feed/ 30 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/10/19/%e2%80%98kosher%e2%80%99-schakowsky-still-aipac%e2%80%99s-number-one-darling/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/10/19/%e2%80%98kosher%e2%80%99-schakowsky-still-aipac%e2%80%99s-number-one-darling/#comments Tue, 19 Oct 2010 15:48:26 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=2453 Fierce Competition Between Two Jewish Candidates in Chicago

According to the latest reports the degree of allegiance to Israel and its lobby has taken center stage in two Chicago election campaigns for a congressional seat. As far as the two candidates, the incumbent Jan Schakowsky and the Republican Joel Pollak, are concerned, this race and the issues are not about the tanking economy, over a trillion of dollars in deficit or unemployment, neither it is about our disastrous state of civil liberties, quagmire state of our wars, or speedily declining foreign standing and dignity. No.  The number one issue for both candidates is the level of allegiance to the State of Israel, the approval rating from Israel’s number one US lobby AIPAC, and the degree of religiosity in Judaism. The main question and top competition arena in Schakowsky v. Pollak is ‘Who does and will do more and better to represent and protect the Jewish interest?’ And so far our current representative, Ms. Jan Schakowsky seems to be way ahead (the emphasis are all mine;-):

Pollak tends to carry a map of the Middle East with him on the campaign trail, and to present it to the voters. Last week he visited the reform synagogue of B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Deerfield, Illinois, which hosted a debate between the two candidates. He spread the copy of the Google map in his possession and announced to the audience: “My focus tonight will be Israel.”

…

Pollak’s main obstacle is that Schakowsky was labeled ‘kosher’ by the pro-Israel community, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent lobby group, has praised her work.

…

I’d say Schakowsky is way ahead since her closeted ties and certain long-term commitments go beyond AIPAC, and extend to other Israeli and Turkish subsidiaries all operating under the main lobby’s umbrella.

Do you remember the cover-page story on Jan Schakowsky’s questionable loyalties and skeletons last November? Don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t have a clue since the Israel-Loving mainstream media made sure it stayed quiet and censored. The AmCon Magazine dared to explore the topic after my under oath testimony in Schmidt v. Krikorian case:

So the FBI was monitoring these connections going from a congressman to a congressman’s assistant to a foreign individual who is connected with intelligence to other intelligence people who are located at different embassies in Washington. And all of this information is in an FBI file somewhere?
EDMONDS: Two sets of FBI files, but the AIPAC-related files and the Turkish files ended up converging in one. The FBI agents believed that they were looking at the same operation. It didn’t start with AIPAC originally. It started with the Israeli Embassy. The original targets were intelligence officers under diplomatic cover in the Turkish Embassy and the Israeli Embassy. It was those contacts that led to the American Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations and then to AIPAC fronting for the Israelis. It moved forward from there.

…
GIRALDI: So the investigation stopped in Washington, but continued in Chicago?

EDMONDS: Yes, and in 2000, another representative was added to the list, Jan Schakowsky, the Democratic congresswoman from Illinois. Turkish agents started gathering information on her, and they found out that she was bisexual. So a Turkish agent struck up a relationship with her. When Jan Schakowsky’s mother died, the Turkish woman went to the funeral, hoping to exploit her vulnerability. They later were intimate in Schakowsky’s townhouse, which had been set up with recording devices and hidden cameras. They needed Schakowsky and her husband Robert Creamer to perform certain illegal operational facilitations for them in Illinois. They already had Hastert, the mayor, and several other Illinois state senators involved. I don’t know if Congresswoman Schakowsky ever was actually blackmailed or did anything for the Turkish woman.

…

I think it would be wise to also concentrate on Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s convicted husband, Bob Creamer. After all, this is Chicago! The following is from what I wrote a while back titled ‘Chicago! Not the Musical, but the Action-Suspense Docudrama!’

In March 2004 Schakowsky’s husband, lobbyist Robert Creamer, who was also executive director of the Illinois Public Action Fund, was indicted in federal court on 16 counts of bank fraud involving three alleged check-kitting schemes in the mid-1990s, leading several banks to experience shortfalls of at least $2.3 million. Later he pleaded guilty to tax violations and bank fraud for writing rubber checks and failing to collect withholding tax from an employee. Here is a report in USA Today:

Creamer, 58, a prominent Chicago political consultant, was accused of swindling nine financial institutions of at least $2.3 million while he ran a public interest group in the 1990s.Creamer told reporters Wednesday there was “no doubt that my actions a decade ago were very foolish and placed myself, my family, the organization and many of those who worked with me at considerable risk.”The indictment alleged Creamer caused a series of insufficiently funded checks and wire transfers to be drawn on accounts he controlled as executive director of the Illinois Public Action Fund. According to the indictment, he allegedly then used the inflated balances to pay the group’s expenses and own salary.

And here is more:

The husband of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) will spend five months in prison for committing bank fraud as part of his efforts to keep afloat a nonprofit group that he ran. U.S. Senior District Judge James Moran handed down the punishment on Wednesday to Robert Creamer, who also will serve 11 months under house arrest.

The sentence fell far short of the three-year prison term that prosecutors were seeking for Creamer, who pleaded guilty last year to writing a series of bad checks worth millions of dollars to numerous banks to generate cash — a scheme known as check-kiting.

…

Now, Rep. Schakowsky served on the organization’s board during the time the crimes occurred. She happened to sign all the IRS filings along with her husband during this almost decade long of … basically embezzlements. She was fully aware of her husband’s additional income of $100,000 from these fraudulent funds. Yet, this woman, who happens to be a Representative, claimed she had no idea, that she had not noticed, that she had not known or suspected.

I don’t know about you but no matter under which one of the two scenarios – she didn’t know or she knew and went along – this woman should have been kicked out of her congressional seat. Let’s take the first scenario:

If she is so dumb and stupid as to sign all these joint IRS documents and it doesn’t register that there are unaccounted for millions of dollars, she is not competent to be a congresswoman. PERIOD! If she is so irresponsible and intelligence-wise challenged to serve on this organization’s board, sign all the minutes and papers and bank dealings, and yet doesn’t realize millions of dollars are coming out of nowhere, then she is not capable and mentally unfit to occupy her current congressional seat, and should be removed. PERIOD! So here is the question for Schakowsky’s constituents: If she is telling the truth shouldn’t they be voting this uber gullible, stupid woman out of office?

Under the second scenario that we assume she knew: she is a criminal, and she should have joined her husband in jail. She was an accomplice in swindling nine financial institutions of at least $2.3 million.

As for Robert Creamer’s connections, we’ve already established his connection to Blagojevich :

Jan Schakowsky contributed $28,000 to Blagojevich, endorsed him in 2002 and 2006, and raised money for his campaign through 2008. Her convicted felon husband Robert Creamer worked for Rod Blagojevich before pleading guilty to tax and bank fraud.

From 2001-2002, Friends of Blagojevich paid more than $541,000 to a political consulting firm run by Schakowsky’s husband, Robert Creamer, according to state records. The firm, Strategic Consulting Group, reportedly provided “consulting,” “field consulting” and “predictive dialer” services to the Blagojevich campaign.

…

Okay, you can read the entire piece on Chicago here

Come on proud Chicagoans. Isn’t it time to set things straight? Are you going to stand up, pick a ‘real candidate,’ and cast your vote with conscious? Or are you going to say ‘oh well, this is Chicago!’ ?!
 

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/10/19/%e2%80%98kosher%e2%80%99-schakowsky-still-aipac%e2%80%99s-number-one-darling/feed/ 15 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/08/20/podcast-show-31/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/08/20/podcast-show-31/#comments Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:10:58 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=2173 The Boiling Frogs Presents Ray McGovern

Ray McGovern shares with us his analysis of the recent article published in the Atlantic written by the infamous American-Israeli writer Jeffrey Goldberg on Israel’s case for bombing Iran and the reasons why the United States should join in. He talks about the ramifications of the recent and ongoing WikiLeaks disclosures, the pitiful state of the mainstream media, the Internet as the new fifth estate, and more.

Ray McGovern’s 27-year career as a CIA analyst spanned administrations from John F. Kennedy to George H. W. Bush. Ray’s duties at CIA included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President’ Daily Brief (PDB). During the mid-eighties, Ray was one of the senior analysts conducting early morning briefings of the PDB one-on-one with the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Ray received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Fordham College, designated a Distinguished Military Graduate, he was commissioned upon graduation and served as an infantry/intelligence officer in the US Army from 1962-64. Ray holds an M.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham University and a certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown University. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

Here is our guest Ray McGovern unplugged!

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

 

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/08/20/podcast-show-31/feed/ 19 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/06/23/the-sanitized-gulen-coverage-continues%e2%80%a6/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/06/23/the-sanitized-gulen-coverage-continues%e2%80%a6/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:34:42 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=2061 …and the Real Dots Remain Unconnected

In my last update I covered the recent multi-agenda driven, censored and sanitized media coverage of the Gulen movement. He seems to be back in the news (mainly Turkish media) again with the Flotilla Incident, and again, with unconnected dots, and unmentioned points and facts. Interestingly, the Turkish mainstream media coverage appears to be less sanitized.

Let’s start with a recent piece published by the Wall Street Journal, written by someone we happen to know and like, Joe Lauria. Joe is one of the few, if not only, journalists who was granted access to Gulen for a direct interview (of course via translator(s) since Gulen doesn’t speak a single word of English, and let’s not forget his literacy level does not exceed the 5^th grade!). As you‘ll see below, the fluff article reads like one of Gulen’s bios available on thousands of websites. Knowing Lauria, and his style, it’s not difficult to guess why: WSJ didn’t have enough space? WSJ wanted to limit the piece to a few fluff points related to the current headlines on Flotilla? WSJ doesn’t consider Gulen’s ties to CIA’s Graham Fuller, or Israel’s Abramowitz note or news worthy?…Well, okay, you get my point, right?! I don’t have any ‘real’ inside information on what went on with the WSJ and it’s editors, but I think my guess is as good as any of my informed savvy readers Here is the article and a few excerpts:

SAYLORSBURG, Pa.—Imam Fethullah Gülen, a controversial and reclusive U.S. resident who is considered Turkey’s most influential religious leader, criticized a Turkish-led flotilla for trying to deliver aid without Israel’s consent.

…

Mr. Gülen said organizers’ failure to seek accord with Israel before attempting to deliver aid “is a sign of defying authority, and will not lead to fruitful matters.”

Mr. Gülen’s views and influence within Turkey are under growing scrutiny now, as factions within the country battle to remold a democracy that is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. The struggle, as many observers characterize it, pits the country’s old-guard secularist and military establishment against Islamist-leaning government workers and ruling politicians who say they seek a more democratic and religiously tolerant Turkey. Mr. Gülen inspires a swath of the latter camp, though the extent of his reach remains hotly disputed.

…

Mr. Gülen has long cut a baffling figure, as critics and adherents have sparred over the nature of his influence in Turkey and the extent of his reach. Leading a visitor on Wednesday past his front corridor—adorned with a map of Turkey, a verse from the Quran and a photograph of a Turkish F-16 jet over the Bosphorus—he portrayed himself an apolitical teacher. “I do not consider myself someone who has followers,” he said.

…

Okay, the rest is history; literally his bio. As you can see, not a word on the real stuff.

On the other hand, the Turkish press was not as audacious, and they couldn’t resist mentioning a few noteworthy points such as:

How Gulen has had the backing of the US-Israel Lobby

Lauria’s interview included the ‘Ergenekon’ topic & Sibel Edmonds’ infamous case

Then, there is this incredibly confused article at Asia Times on Gulen and AKP based on the Flotilla. I read the piece three times, trying to understand what it was trying to convey: simply a focus-less, aimless, pointless, jumble of facts, semi-facts and confused lines. You know I’m a big fan of Asia Times, do imagine my surprise…

Here is a rather bad opening, intended to be attention-grabbing and dramatic, but ending up as a cheesy attempt with worse to follow:

We’ve been had, boys and girls: the international community, the world press, Israeli intelligence, the United Nations, the lot of us. The existential drama off the Gaza coast turns out to be a Turkish farce, the kind of low comedy that in 1782 Wolfgang Mozart set to music in the opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan playing the buffo-villain Osmin and Turkish self-exiled preacher and author Fethullah Gulen as the wise Pasha Selim.

…

Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania

in the United States, was silent as a jinn in a bottle about politics until last Friday, when he told the Wall Street Journal that the Free Gaza flotilla’s attempt to run the Israeli blockage of Gaza “is a sign of defying authority, and will not lead to fruitful matters”.

…

For the secretive Gulen to criticize the Turkish government in the midst of its public rage against Israel is an imam-bites-dog story. Gulen appears to have positioned himself as a mediator with Israel. Turkey does not want to end its longstanding relationship with Israel; it wants Israel to become a Turkish vassal-state in emulation of the old Ottoman model.

…

The star of the comedy, at least for the Turkish media, is Gulen. The 78-year-old imam has lived in self-imposed exile for two decades, due to charges by Turkish prosecutors that he led a conspiracy to subvert the secular state. He presides over Turkey’s largest religious movement, commanding the loyalty of two-thirds of the Turkish police, according to some reports. His movement – a transnational civic society movement inspired by Gulen’s teachings – also controls a network of elite schools that educate a tenth of the high school students in the Turkic world from Baku to Kyrgyzstan. And it reportedly controls businesses with tens of billions of dollars in assets.

His movement has been expelled from the Russian Federation and his followers arrested in Uzbekistan by local authorities who believe his goal is a pan-Turkic union from the Bosporus to China’s western Xinjiang province (“East Turkestan” to Gulen’s movement).

…

I am not going to waste more space for this piece, but please take a look at it and tell me what this hodgepodge is trying to convey; a convoluted, self-interpreted, and highly confused snap shot of Turkish Ottoman History, AKP, Gulen Movement, Flotilla, US Foreign Policy, all in one garbled article…and since I included the awfully cheesy intro, I must finish with this equally corny finale:

Gulen, in short, is a shaman, a relic of pre-history preserved in the cultural amber of eastern Anatolia. Kemalism was sterile, brutal, secular and rational; the “moderate Islam” of Gulen is magical, a mystic’s vision of Ottoman restoration and a pan-Turkic caliphate.

The Erdogan government crafted the Mavi Marmara affair as a piece of theater, preparing the deus ex machina (god from the machine) entrance of Gulen himself, more Pagliaccio than Apollo, to be sure. The trouble is that the Turkish Islamists live in a world of magical realism in which theater and reality, human and jinn, desire and achievement blend into a mystical blur. Gulen explains in his The Essentials of the Islamic Faith that Allah created the jinn out of fire. And that is what the apologists for Turkish Islamism are playing with.

…

No one is mentioning why Gulen has been strongly backed by Israel, or, why he is such a loyal defender and supporter of Israel, especially the US-Israel lobby. No one is daring to mention one of his top backers in the US, another butler of Israel, Mort Abramowitz, or and how Abramowitz vouched for Gulen during his deportation hearing. No one is talking about Gulen’s other CIA bodyguard, Graham Fuller. No ‘real’ questions on Gulen’s ‘real’ sources of multibillion dollar funding…No emphasis on Gulen’s real role for the real US decision-makers’ use, and their strategy for Central Asia since 1997…

Some of these reporters have their hands tied by their MSM editors. Some of the semi- independent journalists have fallen for the creators of the smoke and mirrors. And others are simply guided by ignorance and utter dumbness emboldened by their arrogance. Well, they are just the latest being sold and fed garbage when it comes to Gulen.

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/06/23/the-sanitized-gulen-coverage-continues%e2%80%a6/feed/ 41 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/04/26/boiling-frogs-video-presents-colonel-larry-wilkerson/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/04/26/boiling-frogs-video-presents-colonel-larry-wilkerson/#comments Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:39:55 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=1906 Exclusive Interview: Tyranny & Politics of Fear, Loyalty to Israel vs. US

Boiling Frogs Post presents an exclusive interview with Colonel Larry Wilkerson on the tyrannical presidency and politics of fear, Israel’s interests versus US interests and the question of loyalties, and more:

As a card carrying member of the Likud Party, whose interest did Douglas Feith really serve?

Is our current situation due to incompetent leadership or venal leadership exploiting politics of fear?

  © KB Productions
All Rights Reserved

*A Special Thanks to Kristina Borjesson & Katrina Rill.

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/04/26/boiling-frogs-video-presents-colonel-larry-wilkerson/feed/ 12 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/03/28/updates-weekly-round-up-for-march-28/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/03/28/updates-weekly-round-up-for-march-28/#comments Sun, 28 Mar 2010 19:01:21 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=1854 Today marks Boiling Frogs Post’s fifth month of operation, and the last day of our fundraising campaign. On behalf of our team members I want to thank all of you for your support, with a special thanks to 658 of you who donated to our cause. We may not have reached our benchmark for our desired objectives and planned expansion, but we have you and a good start, so we’ll continue as best as we can, and work toward those objectives.

I am thrilled to announce the addition of a new team member, Luke Ryland, a good friend and a partner whom I have known and worked with since 2006; please welcome Luke and here is his bio:

Luke Ryland is an independent political analyst and online journalist based in Australia. He has been an expert commentator on the Sibel Edmonds case and nuclear black market cases for various progressive radio shows and online publications. Mr. Ryland’s work focuses on the nuclear black market, the Turkish lobby in the US, the energy and geopolitical wars in Central Asia, and the corruption of US Congress. Mr. Ryland has an MBA and a Bachelors degree in Commerce from the University of Melbourne. Visit Luke Ryland’s website.

We recently published Luke Ryland’s expose on FBI documents confirming major criminal investigations of Turkish operatives and their US official friends in Chicago. And here is a link to a recent interview with Mr. Ryland conducted by Scott Horton of AntiWar.Org: Click here.

Starting this coming Wednesday I’ll be on the road for a few weeks, traveling for work and personal matters. I won’t be out of touch. We have three Boiling Frogs interviews, one of which will be posted every other week: Professor Francis Boyle, Naomi Wolf, and Peter Phillips. Meanwhile, Peter B Collins and I will find ways to overcome significant time zone differences and connection difficulties, and continue to conduct additional interviews. We will also have articles and analyses by our contributors, and of course Paul Jamiol’s great editorial cartoons.

Here is my list of noteworthy articles and links from this past week:

Let’s start with our President, since we’ve been keeping tabs on his changes on his promised changes. The following piece is also related to the Obama White House’s 180 degree turn on protection for national security whistleblowers, which we’ve been covering for over a week.

A little secret about Obama’s transparency
Andrew Malcolm, LA Times

The current administration, challenged by the president to be the most open, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than Bush did.

The Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his predecessor, George W. Bush, as the most secretive in history, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republican did.

Transparency and openness were so important to the new president that on his first full day in office, he dispatched a much-publicized memo saying: “All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.”
One of the exemptions allowed to deny Freedom of Information requests has been used by the Obama administration 70,779 times in its first year; the same exemption was used 47,395 times in Bush’s final budget year.

An Associated Press examination of 17 major agencies’ handling of FOIA requests found denials 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50% from the 2008 fiscal year under Bush.
…

We’ve been keeping tabs, and our list of ‘Bush-Like’ and ‘Worse-Than-Bush’ points has been expanding continuously. Mr. Obama’s love and usage of State Secrets Privilege, his position against government whistleblowers, his support for illegal domestic wiretapping, his passion for wars and drones, his kind-heartedness towards torturers & other criminals…During his first few months in office, a few of his previously duped supporters were too generous and maybe a bit too naïve to label him ‘Bush-Lite.’ How about now? Is it time to call the President ‘Bush-Dark’? You be the judge; what say you?

……………………………………….

 Karzai talks peace with militant group linked to Taliban
Deb Riechmann, AP

President Hamid Karzai held an unprecedented meeting yesterday with representatives of a major Taliban-linked militant group, boosting his outreach to insurgency leaders to end the eight-year war.

Less certain is whether the talks with the weakened Hizb-i-Islami faction represent a game-changer in the conflict, given its demand to rewrite the Afghan constitution and force a quick exit of foreign forces.

It is the first time that high-ranking representatives of the group, led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, have traveled to Kabul to discuss peace. The reconciliation offer from Hekmatyar contrasts with his reputation as a ruthless extremist.

Hekmatyar, who is in his 60s, was a major recipient of US military aid during the war against the Soviets in the 1980s but fell out of favor with Washington because of his role in the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal. The US government declared Hekmatyar a “global terrorist’’ in February 2003, saying he participated in and supported terror acts committed by Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Unless that tag is removed, the designation could complicate any move by the United States to sign off on a deal, even though in recent years Hekmatyar has expressed a willingness to negotiate with the Karzai government. A spokesman for Hekmatyar said the delegation had lunch with Karzai at the presidential palace and planned to meet with him again.

…

Last January our team member duo, Liz Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, wrote an excellent piece on this opium dealing terrorist, who happened to get his grooming from our very own CIA. If you haven’t read the Gould-Fitzgerald piece titled ‘Apocalypse of the American Mind’, click here. Was he ever off the CIA list of ‘operators’? I for one would certainly doubt it.

………………………….

NATO rejects Russia’s demand to destroy Afghan poppy fields
Deutsche Press-Agentur

 Brussels – NATO and Russia clashed on Wednesday over how to tackle the drug problem in Afghanistan, where Western nations have been fighting a Taliban-led insurgency for eight years.

The country is the world’s largest producer of poppy seeds, a key ingredient in the manufacture of heroin. Russia is keen to pursue an aggressive eradication strategy, while Western allies fear that such an approach risks antagonizing the local population, who rely on selling poppy crops to survive.

The different points of view came to a head at a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council attended by the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Agency (FSKN), Victor Ivanov and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

‘Afghan opiates led to the death of 1 million people by overdose in the last 10 years, and that is United Nations data. Is that not a threat to world peace and security?’ Ivanov asked journalists after the meeting.

…

Russians know very well what this is about. After all, they used to be a major player in ‘this’ particular field, and now a bit grumpy because…their share of this pie has been significantly reduced? Certainly it’s not about a million+ deaths caused by ‘overdose;’ of that much I can assure you. So maybe our guys will let their guys have a bit more; like this maybe:

However, he stressed that there was ‘a very positive mood’ in the talks with Ivanov and said that the two sides agreed to boost an already existing programme that involves joint training of Afghan counter-narcotics police.

…

Please bring in your two cents (and more).

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In the last few days there have been numerous articles portraying the White House as tough on Israel, and depicting Israel-US relations as severely strained. Coincidentally, two months ago similar articles were written in Turkey on endangered ties – Turkey-Israel. In Turkey this usually happens when elected officials see the need, that is, fulfilling public expectations, albeit cosmetically, to appear ‘a bit’ tough on Israel. While they do that, the business of kissing up to Israel continues behind the scenes; as always.

Here is how badly strained is the relationship between the White House and the Israeli bosses:

Exclusive / Despite row, U.S. and Israel sign massive arms deal
Amos Harel, Haaretz

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week absorbing the full wrath of the Obama administration, the Pentagon and Israel’s defense establishment were in the process of sealing a large arms deal.

According to the deal, Israel will purchase three new Hercules C-130J airplanes. The deal for the three aircrafts, designed by Lockheed Martin, is worth roughly a quarter billion dollars. Each aircraft costs $70 million.

The aircrafts were manufactured specifically for Israeli needs, and include a large number of systems produced by Israel’s defense industry.

The deal will be covered by American foreign assistance funds. The Pentagon will issue a formal announcement on the matter on Thursday evening.

…

That’s right; that’s how strained things are! And here is another exposé on strained Obama-Israel relations; NOT!

Former Obama Aide New Head of AIPAC
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, Israel National News

Lee “Rosy” Rosenberg, a jazz recording industry veteran capitalist who accompanied U.S. President Barack Obama on his campaign trip to Israel two years ago, takes over on Sunday as the new president of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Rosenberg also served on the president’s national campaign finance committee.

The new AIPAC president hails from Chicago, the home state of President Obama, and also is on first-name terms with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, President Obama’s senior advisor.

…

My advice? Next time you read bologna articles on the Obama White House being tough on Israel, don’t believe it, go do your own bit of research, and determine for yourself who is the ‘servant’ and who is the ‘boss’ in this (Israel Lobby-US President) relationship;-)

……………………………………

And finally, two well-researched and nicely-written reports by my favorite publication, Asia Times:

‘Strategic depth’ at heart of Taliban arrests
By Shibil Siddiqi, ATimes

Pakistan has recently arrested a number of top Taliban leaders, including the second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, and many of the Quetta shura. It also killed in a drone attack Mohammad Haqqani, a leader of the powerful Haqqani network that Pakistan had been loath to target. Many commentators, including influential think-tanks such as the Carnegie Endowment, have struggled to explain Pakistan’s motivations behind the arrests and have hoped they embody a volte-face in its policies towards Afghanistan.

In actuality the arrests are far from representing a paradigm shift in Pakistani thinking. Pakistan’s approach to Afghanistan can be boiled down to two words: “strategic depth”, the holy grail of the nation ‘s strategic policy for more than two decades. Strategic depth remains the central pillar in Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan. However, the concept itself is being reinterpreted by Pakistan‘s security establishment as a consequence of the sliding balance of opportunities and threats, both foreign and domestic.

…

Read the rest here.

A Spy Unsettles US-India Ties
M K Bhadrakumar, ATimes

News that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had reached a plea bargain with David Coleman Headley, who played a key role in the planning of the terrorist strike in Mumbai in November 2008 in which 166 people were killed, has caused an uproar in India.

The deal enables the US government to hold back from formally producing any evidence against Headley in a court of law that might have included details of his links with US intelligence or oblige any cross-examination of Headley by the prosecution.

Nor can the families of the 166 victims be represented by a lawyer to question Headley during his trial commencing in Chicago. Headley’s links with the US intelligence will now remain classified information and the Pakistani nationals involved in the Mumbai attacks will get away scot-free. Furthermore, the FBI will not allow Headley’s extradition to India and will restrict access so that Indian agencies cannot interrogate him regarding his links with US and Pakistani intelligence.

In return for pleading guilty to the charges against him Headley will get lighter punishment than the death sentence that was probably most likely.

Headley’s arrest in Chicago last October initially seemed a breakthrough in throwing light on the operations and activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based terrorist organization, in India. But instead the Obama administration’s frantic efforts to cover up the details of the case have been taken to their logical conclusion.

…

Read the rest here. We’ll keep this story on our radar. There are tons buried and covered up here…

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/03/28/updates-weekly-round-up-for-march-28/feed/ 14 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/02/19/podcast-show-24/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/02/19/podcast-show-24/#comments Sat, 20 Feb 2010 03:17:25 +0000 admin http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=1713 The Boiling Frogs Presents Philip Weiss

Phil Weiss provides us with his experience and analysis of the US media’s stand, and their one-sided coverage and one-sided censorship on issues and cases related to Israel and the Israel lobby. He discusses the parallels between the tactics used in Gaza by Israelis and those implemented during the holocaust. Mr. Weiss talks about the Jewish identity question around the Israel lobby, the Obama administration’s hypocritical stand on and lame no-response response to the Goldstone Report, the importance of Jewish money and the Israel lobby to Obama and the Democrats, the recent changing perception of Israel, and much more!

Philip Weiss is an investigative journalist who has written for The Nation, The New York Observer, The American Conservative, Harper’s Magazine, and New York Times Magazine among other publications. He is the author of American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps and an editor of the website Mondoweiss, which covers the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Here is our guest Phil Weiss unplugged!

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/02/19/podcast-show-24/feed/ 18 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/30/updates-weekly-round-up-for-january-31/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/30/updates-weekly-round-up-for-january-31/#comments Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:53:46 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=1606 Fethullah Gulen does Tucson Arizona, Giraldi on Stealing Success Tel Aviv Style, Nighttime Terrorization in Afghanistan & More

It seems like I’ve been starting every single round up as ‘a quick one.’ Blame it on a life truly in the fast lane. Now I’ll be in an even faster lane for a couple of weeks, since I’ll be leaving tomorrow for ten days. And yes, I’ll be flying; meaning, I’ll be going through what I’ve been talking about, writing about, and truly dreading. If you don’t read about me on the front page of…let’s say Guardian-UK, since I’ve been a blacked-out person for a long time over here, by Tuesday, consider that as ‘she must have made it.’

I’m almost done with Part VI of my ‘The Makings of a Police State’. I’ll save it as a draft, go over it again, and post it while I’m gone; on or before Wednesday, February 3. There is one caveat, as almost always, I picked a place where high speed internet is a rarity. I’ll do my best to publish the piece, our next Podcast interview (Coleen Rowley), and one or two articles by our team members. We’ll see.

I am counting on you to take care of this site and nurture it with your comments while I’m goneJ

……………..

Fethullah Gulen Movement in Tucson Arizona Charter School?!

Thanks to a reader’s tip I became aware of this peculiar and interesting story published by Tucson Weekly. Those of you who’ve followed my case closely and those of you who’ve been following Mizgin’s articles will find this easy-to-miss story interesting. I haven’t had a chance to dig further, but I will. Meanwhile I’ll invite Mizgin to stop by and provide you with her sound analysis and feedback on our infamous Mr. Gulen, his dear protectors and trainers at Langley, Virginia, and his valuable contributions to Brzezinski’s Central Asia Dream. Without these relevant contexts and familiarity with Gulen’s movement the story may not register as of any significance:
 

Hidden Agenda?

Parents raise concerns that a Tucson charter school has ties to a Turkish nationalist movement

No one can knock the numbers. In recent years, students at Tucson’s Sonoran Science Academy have secured stellar scores in math, science and other categories. The academy has earned glowing mentions in national magazines such as U.S. News and World Report, and in 2009, was deemed Charter School of the Year by the Arizona Charter School Association.

But some parents of children who attend the academy on West Sunset Road believe it harbors goals reaching far beyond academia. They suspect the Sonoran Academy of being part of a confederation of learning institutions secretly linked to, and advancing, the cause of Turkish scholar and Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen

While most of those parents have resisted coming forward, fearing reprisal from an organization they say is known to target critics, one parent did agree to speak to the Weekly if we pledged to keep her identity hidden. The parent says she represents others at the academy who’ve become suspicious about the striking similarities of its educational programs to those of other schools around the United States which are operated by Turkish-born staff members.

…

According to this parent, all of these ties may lead covertly back to the Gülen movement, named for the scholar, who founded a network of schools around the world and now lives in exile in Pennsylvania. She says several Sonoran Academy parents believe the school has a hidden agenda to promote Gülen’s brand of Turkish nationalism, advance sympathy for that country’s political goals such as winning acceptance into the European Union, and discourage official acknowledgement of Turkey’s genocide against the Armenians during World War I.

…

Okay, I used up my quote quota limitation again. You can read the rest here.

Phil Giraldi on Stealing Success Tel Aviv Style

Last Wednesday Phil Giraldi had a nicely-done piece on Israel titled Stealing Success Tel Aviv Style. A must read editorial, since it is one of our topics of interest written by a man I respect, and interestingly related to my latest commentary on the New York Times last Wednesday. Here are a few excerpts:

A curious op-ed “The Tel Aviv Cluster” by the reliably neoconnish David Brooks appeared in the New York Times on January 12th. Brooks enthused over the prowess of Israel’s high tech businesses, attributing their success in large part to Jewish exceptionalism and genius, which must have provided the ultimate feel good moment for Brooks, who is himself Jewish. That Israel has a booming technology sector is undeniably true, but Brooks failed to mention other contributing factors such as the $101 billion dollars in US economic and military aid over the course of more than four decades, which does not include the additional $30 billion recently approved by President Barack Obama. American assistance has financed and fueled Israel’s business growth while the open access and even “preferential treatment” afforded to Israeli exporters through the Israel Free Trade Implementation Act of 1985 has provided Israelis with the enormous US market to sell their products and services. By act of Congress, Israeli businesses can even bid on most American Federal and State government contracts just as if they were US companies.

…

…And there is another aspect of Israel’s growing high tech sector that he understandably chose to ignore because it is extremely sleazy. That is the significant advantage that Israel has gained by systematically stealing American technology with both military and civilian applications. The US developed technology is then reverse engineered and used by the Israelis to support their own exports with considerably reduced research and development costs, giving them a huge advantage against American companies. Sometimes, when the technology is military in nature and winds up in the hands of a US adversary, the consequences can be serious. Israel has sold advanced weapons systems to China that are believed to incorporate technology developed by American companies, including the Python-3 air-to-air missile and the Delilah cruise missile. There is evidence that Israel has also stolen Patriot missile avionics to incorporate into its own Arrow system and that it used US technology obtained in its Lavi fighter development program, which was funded by the US taxpayer to the tune of $1.5 billion, to help the Chinese develop their own J-10 fighter.

…

You can read the entire piece here at AntiWar.

Night Time Terrorization of Afghans

On Friday Asia Times published a well-written and highly disturbing piece by Anand Gopal titled Terror Comes at Night in Afghanistan:

…

Sometime in the past few years, Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan’s rugged heartland began to lose faith in the American project. Many of them can point to the precise moment of this transformation, and it usually took place in the dead of the night, when most of the country was fast asleep. In the secretive US detentions process, suspects are usually nabbed in the darkness and then sent to one of a number of detention areas on military bases, often on the slightest suspicion and without the knowledge of their families.

This process has become even more feared and hated in Afghanistan than coalition air strikes. The night raids and detentions, little known or understood outside of these Pashtun villages, are slowly turning Afghans against the very forces they greeted as liberators just a few years ago.

…

Gopal continues with related real life stories too real yet too gruesome to be real. I highly encourage you to read the entire article and share it with others.

UN Envoy on Doomed Afghan Strategy

The Australian reports on a damning assessment and warning issued by outgoing UN Special Representative, Kai Eide. As you know, Eide too has been the subject of major controversy. Peter Galbrait accused Eide of colluding with Karzai in vote-rigging elections. So let’s keep that in mind:

He warned that the military focus was at the expense of a “meaningful, Afghan-led political strategy” and that Western troops and governments had left Afghans feeling they faced “cultural invasion”. Speaking before last night’s conference on Afghanistan, being held in London, he said the international community must stop operating according to “strategies and decisions that are taken far away from Afghanistan”.

“Very unfortunately, the political strategy has become an appendix to the military strategy,” he said. “The strategy has to be demilitarised – a political strategy with a military component.”

…

He expressed deep concern at the tactical approach of British and other Western troops, which aimed to remove the Taliban from an area, hold it and then develop local infrastructure and security forces.”The so-called clear, hold, build, military strategy has serious flaws,” Mr Eide said. “First of all, we are not able to `clear’ when our opponents are insurgents one day and a normal inhabitant of a village the next day. “We are not able to `hold’ because it takes time to train and put in place police and sub-national governance. “And we are not able to `build’ because we cannot expect civilian development agencies to come into what they feel is a military campaign.”

…

Former Marine accused of killing 2 Iraqis running for Congress

This was reported by AP on January 28:

Ilario Pantano announced his candidacy Thursday in Wilmington. He is seeking the Republican nomination. The 35-year-old wants to challenge Democratic Rep. Mike McIntyre for North Carolina’s 7th Congressional District.

Pantano shot two men in Mahmudiyah, Iraq, in 2004 and hung a warning sign on their corpses. He claimed self defense and a Marine general decided not to bring him to trial.

Here is a photo of Mr. Pantano with G. Gordon Liddy:

Needed Dosage of Secrecy for Blair Inquiry?

The following excerpts are from the Independent on the latest involving the Iraq Inquiry of Blair and his government:

Tony Blair’s long-awaited appearance at the Iraq inquiry looked set to be hampered last night after the Government refused to declassify crucial documents relating to his decision to take Britain to war.

The failure to release the papers led to calls yesterday for the inquiry to be suspended. While Sir John Chilcot’s team have been handed all the documents, they are unable to quote from classified material and may have to restrict questioning.

…

The missing documents feature prominently in the questions that Mr Blair is expected to face. The inquiry team are planning to ask about a series of secret letters he sent to President Bush in 2002, apparently pledging that British troops would “be there” if military action became necessary.

…

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/30/updates-weekly-round-up-for-january-31/feed/ 8 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/27/the-new-york-times-home-of-disgraced-editors-shady-reporters-agenda-driven-foreign-correspondents/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/27/the-new-york-times-home-of-disgraced-editors-shady-reporters-agenda-driven-foreign-correspondents/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:58:06 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=1559 From Judith Miller to Dean Baquet to Ethan Bronner

I am certain all of you know of the infamous New York Times reporter Judith Miller. You know, the dark lady who worked with the Bush administration’s Pentagon to sell us the war with Iraq – based on planted made-up stories on WMD; the one who was involved in the Plame case? The one who ended up not getting fired, but retired from the New York Times, took a job with the Fox News Channel, and joined the conservative Manhattan Institute think-tank? Yes, that Judith Miller you all know about.

I am sure many of you are aware of the New York Times decision to cover up and bury the story on NSA’s illegal domestic wire tapping program. Right? They were later forced to admit that they held the story on the eve of the 2004 presidential election. Basically, they protected the Bush administration and helped them get reelected.

I believe some of you are also familiar with the New York Times’ decision to hire the disgraced LA Times editor, Dean Baquet, after he was exposed for killing AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein’s documented revelations, and voluntarily disclosing those revelations to Negroponte and the head of NSA, Michael Hayden. Exactly! This same man was later hired by the New York Times and put in charge as head of their Washington DC Bureau – the perfect place for a rat who buries stories and leaks whistleblowers and their information to government officials.

Well, here is the latest on another New York Times character with a questionable pedigree who is positioned by the paper in another strategically sensitive and important division:

New York Times fails to disclose Jerusalem bureau chief’s conflict of interest

The New York Times has all but confirmed to The Electronic Intifada (EI) that the son of its Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner was recently inducted into the Israeli army. Over the weekend, EI received a tip suggesting this had been the case and wrote to Bronner to ask him to confirm or deny the information and to seek his opinion on whether, if true, he thought it would be a conflict of interest.

Susan Chira, the foreign editor of The New York Times wrote in an email to The Electronic Intifada this morning:”Ethan Bronner referred your query to me, the foreign editor. Here is my comment: Mr. Bronner’s son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner’s coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case.”

The Electronic Intifada also wrote to Clark Hoyt, the public editor of The New York Times, to confirm the information and ask for an opinion on whether this constituted a conflict of interest, but had yet to receive a response.Bronner, as bureau chief, has primary responsibility for his paper’s reporting on all aspects of the Palestine/Israel conflict, and on the Israeli army, whose official name is the “Israel Defense Forces.”

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Read the rest here.

How should we characterize New York Times’ criteria when it comes to selecting, hiring, and promoting their reporters for strategically important divisions of reporting? Do they have an unwritten but consistently practiced policy which says ‘Thou shall be a government approved rat, tied to special interests and agenda, shady and unethical by any standards, to be selected and placed in high places?’

Am I being fair?

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/27/the-new-york-times-home-of-disgraced-editors-shady-reporters-agenda-driven-foreign-correspondents/feed/ 19 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/05/minotbarksdale-nuclear-bent-spear-incident-part-ii/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/05/minotbarksdale-nuclear-bent-spear-incident-part-ii/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:12:53 +0000 Richard_Scott http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=1355 An Analysis & Critique

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” A. Conan Doyle

 

B52H bomber loaded with two pylons carrying 6 AGM-129 ACMs each in flight

Last month I posted part 1 of my piece on Minot/Barksdale here. In it, I reviewed the incident and the Defense Science Board’s final report on the incident in question. When the story broke, there were reports and writings all over the blogosphere connecting it with possible strikes against Iran, possible diversion for false-flag attacks here at home and even Chinese electronic tampering through backdoor access to Chinese-made semiconductors allegedly used in Air Force electronics. In this piece, I will examine some of these allegations as well as some of the deaths of Air Force personnel in an attempt to determine any relationship to the above incident.

As stated in Part 1, over 36 hours on August 29-30, 2007, two pylons of 6 AGM-129 cruise missiles one package containing inert payloads, the other 6 active nuclear warheads, were removed from the 5^th Bomb Wing secure ordnance storage at Minot AFB, mounted on a B-52H bomber like the one pictured above carrying identical pylon payloads and flown 1100 miles to Barksdale AFB where they were discovered by ground crews after sitting, unguarded on the tarmac for 11 hours. The resulting Nuclear Security Alert and it’s aftermath investigations led to a wholesale review of Air Force Nuclear Weapons Handling procedures and precipitated an unprecedented wave of disciplinary actions across the ranks, up to and including the resignations of the Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley and Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne. Although the weapons never left overall Air Force custody, they passed through five separate chain-of-custody handoffs requiring visual inspections on two bases until being discovered by the unloading crew at Barksdale.

The DSB final report found the following:

1. Over time, nuclear weapons movement procedures for bomber weapons have been compromised for expedient work processes. This evolution occurred without adequate review and approval above the Wing level.

2. There was confusion over applicability of nuclear weapons handling procedures for nuclear weapons systems that do not contain nuclear weapons.

3. The practice of storing nuclear munitions in the same facility with nuclear-test, nuclear-training and nuclear-inert devices led to confusion and unnecessary access to nuclear weapons.

4. The various levels of inspection activities failed to detect these changes in process which compromised established procedure. The Nuclear Operational Readiness Inspection process required only limited mission performance, sometimes generating as few as one aircraft being subjected to inspection.

This combined with the increased tempo of conventional bombing operations led to an overall erosion of standards within the nuclear weapons mission. In other words, it was a FUBAR SNAFU of the highest order. For me, the one glaring omission not addressed was how nuclear warheads, by all informed accounts, easily identifiable and rigorously alarmed to prevent improper movement, could have been removed from Secure Ordnance Storage in the first place without setting off alarms as soon as they crossed the threshold.

Others have asked this question and posited possible answers such as Dave Lindorff here, Wayne Madsen here and Larry Franklin here. All speculated that this was a case of an alternate command structure outside of the Presidential Command Authority staging weapons for use against Iran. Madsen went so far as to tie this incident to the Operation Orchard Strike by Israel against a suspected Syrian/North Korean nuclear site. Walter Pincus at the Washington Post generally echoed the DSB’s report here. So let’s take a look at the possible scenarios as outlined above.

Staging for an Iran Attack

Lindorff, Madsen and Franklin all posited a possible covert attack on Iran, Madsen wrote it was to coincide with the Israeli strike on Syria. To accomplish this, a separate chain of command was allegedly set up through the VP’s office and key elements in the Air Force command structure outside of the Presidential Command Authority. The problem with such a scenario is that the authentication procedures for nuclear launch in the PCA would be impossible to duplicate without detection. While there is a remote possibility that such a regime might work to move nuclear weapons, authorizing launch would be an entirely different matter. Also recognize that many of our nuclear weapons storage and Nuclear power plant facilities are secured with alarm and monitoring systems provided by Magal Security Systems, an Israeli government controlled security company. If the fix was in, this company or whichever one was tasked to build the Minot Security system would have to be involved as well. Such a situation would not reflect well on that firm’s reputation for infrastructure security. Also, since Barksdale AFB was home to the 2^nd Bomber Wing flying identical aircraft and having an identical weapons inventory, including AGM-129s, it would be much easier to stage such a scenario at Barksdale with fewer personnel involved. In any case, Gates’ housecleaning of the Air Force subsequent to this incident would seem to have removed many of the alleged links in this “alternate Chain-of-Command”.

False-Flag Attack/Missing Nuclear Weapon

The initial report published by Military Times stated that 5 operational nuclear weapons were found at Barksdale. This was later revised to 6 after the source location of the weapons was determined. Many posit that one of the warheads was removed somewhere in transit. The problem with this scenario is that every report I’ve read about this incident states that the AGM-129s were always prepackaged on pylons of 6 weapons each and only the warheads themselves were removed and replaced with dummies prior to tactical ferry. Once the pylons were moved from secure storage, they were mounted on the bomber as a whole unit rather than as individual weapons. Additionally, one commenter on Johnson’s article at TPM with experience in AF nuclear weapons storage pointed out that Barksdale’s 2^nd Bomber Wing is actually twice the size as the 5^th Wing at Minot, with twice the weapons storage area making it a better storage site for decommissioning.

Unexplained Personnel Deaths

Five Air Force Personnel died in the months surrounding this incident. Of these, only Airman 1st Class Todd Blue was even peripherally related to the incident. He died on Sept. 10, 2007. Blue served in the 5^th Security Forces Squadron at Minot. This unit is tasked with security for all weapons storage facilities of the 5^th Bomb Wing. What is unclear is whether Blue was on duty on the day of the incident in question. He did NOT have any responsibility for any weapons movements scheduling or operations and his role would have been to guard the facility and any approved nuclear warhead movements outside the storage area.

Air Force Captain John Frueh was found dead on Sept. 8, 2007 near Badger Peak in Washington State, just across the border from Portland, Ore. Where he had traveled to attend a friend’s wedding. Frueh, a major-selectee was attached to the USAF Special Operations Command, part of the JSOC unit headquartered at McDill AFB, Fla. Despite these facts, no connection was ever found between Frueh and the Minot/Barksdale Incident.

Senior Airman Clint Huff and his wife, Linda, were killed in a motorcycle accident near Shreveport, La. On Sept. 15, 2007. Huff, attached to the 26^th Operational Weather Squadron at Barksdale, also has no known connection to the Minot/Barksdale incident.

1^st Lieutenant Weston Kissel of the 23^rd Bomber Squadron of the 5^th Bomb Wing was killed in a solo motorcycle accident while on leave in Tennessee on July 17, 2007. While Kissel was a B-52 pilot, his death a month before the incident would leave him with no connection to it.

Senior Airman Adam Barrs, of the 5^th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, was killed in a single-car auto accident on July, 5 2007, as a passenger. The car was driven by Airman 1^st Class Stephen Garrett. There is speculation that Barr’s specialty, communications and navigations systems could be relevant to the incident but his death over the July 4^th holidays both predates the incident and had no direct link to it.

Additionally, the Military Times published a story stating 237 nuclear handling deficiencies in the Air Combat Command in total just since 2001. This report would also buttress the DSB’s conclusion of an overall erosion of nuclear handling procedures. Strangely enough, the actual Bent Spear incident is not included in that list. Scott Vest, a former USAF Captain and Munitions Specialist with the 5^th Bomb Wing at Minot also has an interesting article on the subject here that also buttresses the DSB report.

As for the Chinese semiconductor hack story, I only found one website postulating the theory. That I would have to dismiss out of hand due to the fact that semiconductor suppliers don’t have any knowledge of the use their products have after they are sold.

In conclusion, despite all the dire warnings and postulations, I see nothing here that would indicate anything other than the DSB’s findings of an erosion of the nuclear mission due to increased conventional operations, downgrading of the nuclear mission and personnel & budgetary cutbacks that were warned about to the Air Combat Command as far back as 1992. The scope of SecDef Gates’ housecleaning and the fact that resignations and disciplinary actions went all the way to the top of the Air Force command structure are consistent with both the gravity of the incident and the desire by the DOD to put their nuclear house in order.

# # # #

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/01/05/minotbarksdale-nuclear-bent-spear-incident-part-ii/feed/ 11 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/12/16/us-media-the-coverage-of-the-israel-palestine-conflict/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/12/16/us-media-the-coverage-of-the-israel-palestine-conflict/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:34:00 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=1185 Biased, Tainted, and Filtered?

A few days ago I was on the phone talking with a great journalist and one of the best analysts around on the US media. We were discussing various factors of influence on our media, including many so-called alternatives, and naturally, we started talking about the Israel Lobby Factor. You know, one of those extremely important topics many know about but very few dare to mention, and even then only in hushed voices, which tells you how deep and far-reaching their tentacles explore, exploit, and extinguish …

I will be writing about this factor now and then, and no, I won’t be doing it with trembling pen strokes or in a hushed voice.

So back to the real purpose of this post. She told me about a solid documentary on this same topic, US Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, produced by the Media Education Foundation. MEF produces and distributes documentary films and other educational resources to inspire critical reflection on the social, political, and cultural impact of American mass media. I encourage you to check out their site and some of their projects here. As soon as I hung up I went to my PC, clicked on the site, and played the film. It is slightly over an hour in length, but I was glued to my chair and watched the entire film, and later that night I watched it again.

Amazingly, this film was released three years ago! How in the world did I miss it?! Oh well, I’ll go ahead and blame that on our media tooJ Anyhow, some of you may also have missed this film, so here it is, please watch and let me know what you think:
 

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Produced by Media Education Foundation

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/12/16/us-media-the-coverage-of-the-israel-palestine-conflict/feed/ 16 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/12/01/the-one-sided-usage-of-hate-mongering-terminology/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/12/01/the-one-sided-usage-of-hate-mongering-terminology/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:00:06 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=990 Two Wrongs won’t make it Right but will make it Consistent

Gone with the previous administration are those coined, frequently used and misused, nauseating, and of course widely popularized by the media, phrases and terminologies such as Evil Doers and Axis of Evil. Yet, it hasn’t been the end of others, those geared to stereotype, misguide, and promote uninformed hatred. The latest with the Fort Hood Shooting has done just that: provide opportunity for those in the business of disseminating and breeding hatred and bigotry, who do so selectively and for the purpose of serving hidden agendas. Yes, I’m referring to the previously used and now again fashionable ignorant and nauseating term Islamo-Fascism.

My focus in this piece is not going to be the wrongness, the damaging, and the pure propaganda-making nature of the term, all of which it certainly is; some have covered this already and others are still doing it; my hat is off to them. I also don’t intend to dwell upon the notion of political correctness, since in some cases it is misused, goes way too far, and acts as hidden agenda-driven censorship. Instead, I’m going to concentrate on the propaganda machine’s selectivity when it comes to pairing up religion or nations with the word fascism, and have us all question the motives for and consequences of doing this.

Let me begin with a personal, in fact a very personal, story:

It was a breezy early spring evening in Tehran, in 1982. I was standing outside a very popular pizzeria with my mother and 8 year old sister, waiting for my dad who was inside, standing in line for our takeout pizza. While my mother was covered head to toe in compliance with the new Iranian regime’s dress code, I was loosely wearing a fashionable shawl which was covering my hair partially; call it the prelude to a soon-to-come teenage fashion consciousness, or defiance, or maybe even pure stupidity.

As we were standing and people watching a charcoal grey Range Rover with shaded glass came to a screeching halt right before us. We didn’t have to guess its occupants, since the regime’s police, known as ‘pasdaran’, were known to drive those vehicles, monitor the public outside for their compliance of dress code and behaviors, and arrest, jail, and punish the deviants. Four car doors opened at the same time, one of their modus operandi, practiced and perfected synchronization. Four bearded men in civilian clothes came out and surrounded us. One of them, the one in charge, stepped forward and motioned me to step forward, and said, ‘this is no way to dress for an honorable Muslim girl.’ My mother, whose face had turned chalky white, began pleading with the man – who pretended he was not hearing any of her words. He ordered me to get inside the car.

My father, who’d noticed the commotion from inside the pizzeria, stepped out, quickly walked to where we were standing, positioned himself right in between me and the pasdar in charge, and went on the offensive. First, he asked them to produce identification since they were clad in civilian clothes. The pasdar in charge obliged, and took out not one, but three official ID cards. Next, my father told them my age and that they had no right or justification to treat a child that way. The man in charge argued the opposite, and repeated his order for me to get inside the car. At this point, my father pulled out his ID cards, and told them who he was: the surgeon in charge of one of the largest hospitals, where many wounded and burned Iranian soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war were being treated. My father pointed his finger at the guy in charge and said, ‘You take her away, and I will make sure your comrades are taken care of just the same way; you catch my drift?’…

I won’t bore you with too many details, but suffice to say, amazingly, my dad’s offense worked. We were let go. But that was not the end of the story for me and my family. It was the beginning of a tumultuous journey to escape, to leave everything behind-savings, houses, cars…even photos, and go back to Turkey.
…

During that period my family used the word ‘fascism’ quite often. We referred to the pasdaran as the regime’s Gestapo and fascists. Even years after our migration our bitter first-hand experiences were thought of and articulated with that word: fascism. That said and admitted to, we never paired up, either in our thought processes or expressions, those fascistic practices with either the religion, in this case Islam, or the nationality, the Persians. My parents were what many coin Agnostic; we did not practice any religious rituals, nor did we follow any particular set of rules tied to a particular religion. That didn’t apply to my grandparents and the majority of our friends and neighbors, who were Muslims. Therefore we knew enough, had experience and knowledge enough, to know that what was done to us, what we experienced and escaped from, had nothing to do with religion; nothing whatsoever. The same principle applied to nationality. For us the phrase fascism applied to practices adopted by certain people or group(s) who happened to use religion (in our case ‘Islam’) to gain and maintain control and power – as simple as that.

This same general context can be expanded to include other fascistic practices throughout modern history. Hitler’s Germany certainly was a fascist regime, but it wasn’t called Germano-Fascism. Likewise Mussolini’s Italy was not labeled Italio-Fascism. Same with Stalin’s Russia and …Fascists use and exploit religion and or nationalism. They distort, manipulate, and misuse these pulse points to achieve their objectives: power and control.

Back to the hatred-breeding and selectively generalized term Islamo-Fascism. Whether it is Bin Laden and company, or the current Islamic Regime in Iran, or the Taliban, we are looking at the same phenomenon: the use of Islam to manipulate, gain control, expand, install fear, terrorize, exercise power…In almost all of these examples the manipulation starts with targeting the uneducated, uninformed, and underprivileged, which unfortunately constitutes the majority in third world nations.

Now, how about the educated elites with positions within the media and other channels of communications here in our country? What is their sorry excuse for crafting and disseminating this generalized and misguiding terminology, this propaganda, to elicit furor, misplaced anger and hatred, and increased bigotry?

The decision to use, package, and disseminate this lately popularized term, Islamo-Fascists, appears to be done consciously, and in a calculative way. Because let’s face it, if it were the fascism aspect of these practices and the used vehicle, the specific religion or nation, justifying and leading to the usage of the terminology, then why be so very consistently selective? Why depict the radicalization of Islam, but not other religions, as deploying and exercising fascism. Here is what I mean:

Is This a Case of Zionism Gone Fascism?

Here are a few excerpts from a fairly recent article exemplifying fascistic practices by a powerful group of Zionists in Israel and the US:

Right-wing groups in Israel want to create a climate of fear among left-wing scholars at Israeli universities by emulating the “witch-hunt” tactics of the U.S. academic monitoring group Campus Watch, Israeli professors warn. The watchdog groups IsraCampus and Israel Academia Monitor are believed to be stepping up their campaigns after the recent publication in a U.S. newspaper of an Israeli professor’s call to boycott Israel.

Both groups have been alerting the universities’ external donors, mostly U.S. Jews, to what they describe as “subversive” professors as a way to bring pressure to bear on university administrations to sanction faculty staff who are critical of Israeli policies.

This is how an Israeli Professor describes the practice:

“I have no hesitation in calling this a McCarthyite campaign,” said David Newman, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University, in Israel’s southern city of Beersheva. “What they are doing is very dangerous.“

And here is how another Israeli Professor puts it:

“The goal is to transform our students into spies in the classroom to gather information and intimidate us,” a senior Israeli lecturer said. “It’s a model of ‘policing’ faculty staff that has been very successful in stifling academic freedom in the U.S.“

The powerful Zionist group with ‘McCarthyism’ practices has been successfully operating in the United States, and has done so with 100% immunity and the lack of real exposure thanks to the selective US media, when it comes to reporting fascistic practices:

Both Israel Academia Monitor, established in 2004, and the later IsraCampus model themselves on Campus Watch, a U.S. organization founded by Daniel Pipes, an academic closely identified with the U.S. neoconservative movement.

Campus Watch has been widely accused of intimidating U.S. scholars who have expressed views critical of U.S. and Israeli policies in the Middle East. The organization’s goal, according to critics, is to pressure U.S. universities to avoid hiring left-wing lecturers or awarding them tenure.

I strongly urge you to take the time and read this article. This is one of many practices by Zionist groups and related lobbies and organizations. Almost none of them get the deserved media coverage to shed light on Zionist practices that are either pure fascistic by any rational standards or border on fascistic by irrationally tolerant standards. Can you point me to articles and analysis in the US media where these culprits are coined and identified as Ziono-Fascists?

Here are two excerpts from a well-written and argued editorial on the Israeli political system and Lieberman’s rhetoric:

Jefferson thought any state could only derive conditional loyalty from its subjects, if it served them faithfully. Lieberman inverts this. The state should not serve the people. The state is inherently legitimate, and if the people disagree, they are disloyal, and should be punished for it. Whether or not such state worship is a sufficient condition for a political ideology to qualify as fascist, it is certainly a necessary condition. Lieberman also wants to strip the Palestinians of citizenship, and hopefully expel them too. Indeed, Israeli professor Neve Gordon suspects it is a matter of time until Jewish leftists are also accused of disloyalty and stripped of their citizenship. Lieberman combines his intolerance of dissent with his overriding imperative – to create a Jewish state as ethnically pure as possible. Let us also not forget his disturbing glorification of the military. He has said that the Gaza war would have been successful, but the valiant soldiers were betrayed by a cowardly civilian leadership. Who can fail to notice the historical echoes?

If you consider Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel is an Apartheid state. It rules over these territories, but has not enfranchised their populations, and has even granted full citizenship rights only to the Jews who reside within the West Bank. Indeed, the Jews who live on colonies in the West Bank taking Palestinian land have roads built for their benefit, which the Palestinians in the West Bank cannot travel on…

Does the current status of Israel’s politics reflect the characteristics mostly found in fascism? The writer in this article seems to make his points based on the reality on the ground and undisputed facts:

One can expect little else from the Israeli mainstream, blinded as it is by decades of indoctrination and vested interests, or from Israel’s President Peres, whose political lexicon never included the T of Truth. But the world should be warned. Unlike Lebanon or Iran, Israel has not moved a single step forward in the Obama Era. On the contrary: With the rogue triumvirate of Netanyahu, Barak, and Lieberman, Israel is now ruled by the most nationalist, racist, and fanatical government it has ever had. On top of that, the main opposition party, led by the ultra-nationalist Livni and the opportunistic professional soldier Mofaz, offers yet another duplicate of the government’s narrative, so that the ever narrower public discourse is framed by two ideological and political twins, offering no alternative whatsoever. In fact, the Israeli far Right has now more than 80 percent of the seats in the Knesset – the rest being the Arab parties, Meretz, and a dubious dissenting faction within Labor. Thus the Israeli media consumer is not even exposed to anything but nationalist at best, racist at worst, anti-Palestinian, anti-peace, pro-occupation brainwashing.

…

The flow of laws and regulations against Israeli Arabs increased exponentially. A year ago, a forgotten British Mandate regulation from 1939, banning the import of books printed in enemy countries, was suddenly revived, closing the import gates on Arabic schoolbooks and all kinds of literature printed in Lebanon (a major publishing center in Arabic) and other Arab countries. No security issues are at stake: all imported books are subject to censorship anyway.

…

Netanyahu’s speech is just the tip of the iceberg. The war against the Israeli Palestinians is much wider than that. It is felt in the judicial system, where for example a Jewish farmer who shot Arab burglars in the back while they were fleeing from his farm, killing one and wounding another, was acquitted (and is now celebrated as a national hero). As Orly Noy writes (YNet, in Hebrew), “given the judicial and public atmosphere in Israel these days, nothing is more predictable than the acquittal of a Jew who exercised violence, even extreme, against an Arab citizen.” In another case, a Jewish man who murdered a taxi driver just because he was Arab was deemed “unfit to face trial.” A senior army officer who ordered his soldier to shoot a handcuffed, blindfolded Palestinian at point-blank range was merely accused of “improper conduct.” This accusation was found unreasonable even by the Israeli Supreme Court.

Let’s rewind and visit how these same Israeli practices were viewed and deservedly criticized by respect-worthy and highly regarded people more than six decades ago. I don’t think anyone reading this article can label or accuse Albert Einstein of Anti-Semitism or bias, so here he is, in his own words:

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

…

Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement. The public avowals of Begin’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.

…

A Shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants? 240men, women, and children – and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin. The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party.

Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model. During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.

…

Please read the entire letter, and marvel at the irony. If our agenda-driven media truly (but wrongly) believes in religion-driven fascistic practices, then let’s have them cover all these practices the same way and consistently. Because based on their standards this would certainly qualify to be termed Ziono-Fascism.

As I’ve said neither the horrendous records on Human Rights Abuses, nor war crimes, nor censorship, nor discrimination, nor assaults on free speech in Israel and abroad… is enough or grounds for the US mainstream media to use their beloved fascism word in conjunction with the nation, in this case Israel, or, religion, in this case extremist radical Zionists.

What happens when rarely some of these practices make their way into the US press? Well, the internet is your world so when you get a chance check out a few. I can assure you that you won’t find a single phrase like ‘Judeo-Fascism’ or ‘Ziono-Fascism’ or anything related to fascism, any derivation of the word fascism, being paired up with Israeli Zionists’ anti-democratic, anti-free speech, anti-humanitarian practices.

Why is that? Why the conscious and careful selectivity? Don’t get me wrong here. I truly despise seeing any nationality or religion being paired up with the term fascism for the purpose of creating perceptions based on stereotyping and bringing about hate-mongering. My first response and objective is to try to get these writers and speakers of the propaganda machine to stop it; period. When that proves to be futile, when they go on doing what they are doing, then, I ask them to at least be consistent. In this case the two wrongs won’t make it right, but at least it will make it consistent.
 

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]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/12/01/the-one-sided-usage-of-hate-mongering-terminology/feed/ 42 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/10/16/podcast-show-8/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/10/16/podcast-show-8/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:20:00 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/10/16/podcast-show-8/

The Boiling Frogs Presents John M. Cole

John M. Cole discusses his 18 year journey at the FBI as a Counterintelligence and Counterespionage Operations Manager. He talks about Turkish and Israeli espionage operations in the US, the infiltration of the Bureau by a Pakistani spy, abuses of FISA applications, the TRILOGY software fiasco, and more.

John M. Cole, Former Veteran Intelligence Operations Specialist, worked for 18 years in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division as an Intelligence Operations specialist and counterespionage manager. Cole is the author of While America Sleeps – now available at Amazon.

*Sibel’s Note- This interview was recorded prior to the cover story by the American Conservative Magazine. For a recent interview with John Cole visit Peter B Collins site: http://www.peterbcollins.com/podcast-45/

Here is our guest John Cole unplugged!

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/10/16/podcast-show-8/feed/ 15 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/27/grossman-confirmed-as-fbi-target-in-espionage-investigations/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/27/grossman-confirmed-as-fbi-target-in-espionage-investigations/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:03:00 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=74

Former FBI Official Confirms Buried Espionage & Corruption Cases

John M. Cole, a former FBI Counterintelligence and Counterespionage Manager, has publicly confirmed FBI’s decade long investigation of the former State Department Official. According to Cole, as in over one hundred cases involving Israeli espionage activities within the US government, this case too has been covered up and buried despite mountains of evidence collected.

Here is the public response from John Cole after the publication of The American Conservative magazine’s cover story:

“I read the recent cover story by The American Conservative magazine. I applaud their courage in publishing this significant interview. I am fully aware of the FBI’s decade-long investigation of the High-level State Department Official named in this article [Marc Grossman], which ultimately was buried and covered up. It is long past time to investigate this case and bring about accountability…”

In November 2006, in an article published by CQ on covered up espionage cases involving Israel, Cole was quoted extensively:

“John M. Cole, an FBI spy catcher who retired in 2004, says that from 1993 to 1995 alone, he had “125 open cases” of Israeli espionage, representing nearly half of all the investigations carried on in his Global Unit, part of the now-defunct National Security division.” Inside the FBI itself, Cole said, tracking suspected Israeli spies was hush-hush.In a sharp break with FBI procedures, he was prohibited from notifying field offices when an investigation crept into their jurisdictions. “No one was supposed to know we were investigating the Israelis,” Cole said.”

Stein’s article quoted several other FBI officials confirming Cole’s disclosure:

“The 125 figure “makes sense,” another former top FBI counterintelligence official said, speaking only on condition that he not be identified because of the issue’s sensitivity. This official called the Israeli embassy’s denials “horse [manure].” In fact, he said, U.S. officials repeatedly warned the Israelis to back off. But the finger-wagging only seemed to energize them. “We would call them in, call them on the carpet, and next week there would be 10 more cases,” he said. The Justice Department never seemed much interested in prosecuting them, he and other counterintelligence veterans said. Agents would get pissed off,” said the former top official. “We knew they were going to walk, that they were going to get a pass. . . . It was frustrating.””

John M. Cole, Former Veteran Intelligence Operations Specialist, worked for 18 years in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division as an Intelligence Operations specialist and counterespionage manager. Cole is the author of While America Sleeps, which will be available in bookstores this November. He was recently our guest on The Boiling Frogs Show.

Coming Soon: Boiling Frogs exclusive interview with John M Cole on his upcoming book and latest revelations

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/27/grossman-confirmed-as-fbi-target-in-espionage-investigations/feed/ 70 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/18/exclusive-interview-with-sibel-edmonds-by-the-american-conservative-magazine/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/18/exclusive-interview-with-sibel-edmonds-by-the-american-conservative-magazine/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:49:00 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/18/exclusive-interview-with-sibel-edmonds-by-the-american-conservative-magazine/

UPDATE

The American Conservative Magazine cover story is now available online!

‘Who’s Afraid of Sibel Edmonds?’

The new issue of The American Conservative Magazine with a cover story on my case and an exclusive interview with me is now available. It is a ‘must read’ story exposing treason in high places.

Here is how the ACM describes it on their site:

There’s a new issue of The American Conservative going to press today, and it includes a story that will make more than a few congressmen and foreign lobbyists intensely uncomfortable: an in-depth interview between Phil Giraldi and FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. She tells us exactly how Turkish intelligence have penetrated national secrets, suborned government officials, and blackmailed Congress. It’s going to be explosive.

This new issue is currently available to subscribers online at: http://amconmag.com/. The print copy will be out early next week.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/18/exclusive-interview-with-sibel-edmonds-by-the-american-conservative-magazine/feed/ 85 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/14/sunlight-foundation%e2%80%99s-expose-of-the-turkish-lobby/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/14/sunlight-foundation%e2%80%99s-expose-of-the-turkish-lobby/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:45:00 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/14/sunlight-foundation%e2%80%99s-expose-of-the-turkish-lobby/
The Joint Turkish-Israeli Lobby Forces

On September 10 Luke Rosiak of Sunlight Foundation wrote a thorough investigative piece on the Turkish lobby as it relates to the recent developments in the Schmidt v Krikorian case. Here is the best part of this expose:

“Lobbyists for the government of Turkey, including former congressmen Bob Livingston, made more than 2,260 contacts with officials in an unparalleled push to quash a resolution in Congress that would deem the events genocide.”

A simple click on the highlighted data will take you to the ‘overt’ working of our nation’s foreign lobbying machine. But allow me to walk you through this clicking:

The highlighted ‘contact’ will give you a little glimpse of ‘for sale ex-congressmen’ cashing in. Who do we have here specifically?

Ex Congressman, Former Speaker of the House, Bob Livingston serving his foreign masters with his lobby firm ‘Livingston Group.’ A bit of background here and here.

A group of ex congressmen, including Dick Gephardt and our many-times exposed scandalous ex Congressman, Former Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, with their lobby firm ‘DLA Piper.’ For a bit of background on this see here and here.

Not much surprise there, right? After all we’ve been paying attention to and covering a bit our Red Light District-turned-Congress. So let’s go to the part that never gets any coverage. You know, the area unanimously blacked out by our media.

The activated link for 2,260 will take you to the long-withheld ‘overt’ and ‘covert’ partnership and joint operations and lobbying between Turkish players and the Israeli-Jewish lobby. Please click and scan the list of Israeli lobbyists, their chapters, subchapters, distant chapters, hidden chapters…involved with Turkish lobby operations. Impressive list I reckon! Who do we have here:

AIPAC, JINSA, ADL, B’nai B’rith, JCPA, American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee, Jewish Council Public Affairs, Agudath Israel, Hadassah, Ohio Jewish Foundation, Seattle Jewish Leader, United Jewish Communities,… even Jewish Institute for National Security! I knew about the extremely active ominous Israel-Jewish lobby in the US, but I had no idea how many of these organizations, sister organizations, subchapters, hidden chapters… have been set up in the US!

Next, as I’ve said repeatedly, in many interviews, both overt and covert Turkish lobby and operations in the US were set up by AIPAC/JINSA by the Richard Perle-Douglas Feith duo. Here is their starting point: International Advisors Inc. After they were exposed, they shut it down and started ATC and ATAA, with all the other sister organizations, subchapters, hidden chapters…such as ATA-DC, ATA-Chicago, TACA, TABA…just like their Sister Israeli Lobby.

You may want to check out a couple of my interviews a few years back on this topic. There is one available on YouTube. An earlier one was during an interview with Scott Horton, which should be available in their archives.

I am thankful to Sunlight Foundation for making this data available to us – the citizens. For years I’ve been talking about the joint Turkey-Israel operations in the US targeted by FBI investigations but protected at the highest levels. The media, as they’ve very consistently done with any issue touching Israel-Turkey, never reported on these ties and operations. Also, since there was and is so very little information available on Turkey and related operations in the US (thanks to the Israel-driven media and publication industry), many people find it hard to understand or even believe. I understand there will be more coming from SF on this topic, so stay tuned and if you can, drop by their site and thank them for this service.

And here is the latest on the relevant Turkey & US Military Industrial Complex front:

U.S. eyes $7.8 billion missile sale to Turkey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration has notified Congress of a possible $7.8 billion sale of Patriot PAC-3 antimissile batteries and related gear to Turkey, the only NATO ally bordering Iran.

The sale would include 13 Patriot “fire units,” 72 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles and a range of associated hardware for ground-based air defense, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a notice made public Friday.

It estimated the cost at $7.8 billion, which would be one of the biggest U.S. government-to-government arms sales in years and would mark a return of Turkey as a major U.S. arms buyer.

….

The primary contractors for the Turkish sale would be Raytheon Co and Lockheed Martin Corp. The notice of a potential sale is required by law. It does not mean a sale has been concluded.

In the case of a NATO member such as Turkey, Congress has 15 days to block a proposed arms deal by passing a joint resolution of disapproval, though it never has stopped a sale once formally notified.

The proposed supply of the equipment to Turkey, along with U.S. logistical support, would not alter the basic military balance in the region, the notice to Congress said.

You can read the rest of this article by Reuters here.

This means until Congress approves the sale the ‘establishment’ is going to be ultra sensitive about anything that in any way touches Turkey related topics. That includes the pending Schmidt v Krikorian case, any visible article or editorial written on my testimony, any report issued by organizations like Sunlight Foundation…you get the point, right? You are looking at mega MIC corporations that have ‘a lot’ to lose if this deal is disturbed in any way. You have the fat lobby industry with tons at stake. You’ve got shady Turkish generals who will receive a big chunk of commissions once the deal is concrete. And of course we have the usual criminal and shady but semi invisible operatives involved who’ve been keeping the lid on the truth.

Meaning, that much more reason to follow and support the upcoming reports and investigative pieces by the Sunlight Foundation; monitor and disseminate developments in the Krikorian case (the MSM ain’t doing it; and we know very well why). And of course, keep visiting this site regularly since I’ll be posting significant developments and relevant information.

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/09/14/sunlight-foundation%e2%80%99s-expose-of-the-turkish-lobby/feed/ 45 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/08/31/podcast-show-5/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/08/31/podcast-show-5/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:12:00 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=62

The Boiling Frogs Presents Joe Trento

Joe Trento discusses our history with Iran-from the Mossadeq Era to the recent twitter campaign, Zbigniew Brzezinski’s foreign policy strategy and objectives in the region, and he talks about Israel, Saudi Arabia’s backing of Pakistan’s pursuit of the nuclear bomb & AQ Khan, the terrible state of US Media, the prospect of ‘real change,’ and more.

Joe Trento has spent more than 40 years as an investigative journalist, working with both print and broadcast outlets and writing extensively. Before joining the National Security News Service in 1991, Trento worked for CNN’s Special Assignment Unit, The Wilmington News Journal, and prominent journalist Jack Anderson. Trento has received numerous reporting awards and is the author of seven books, including America and The Islamic Bomb, Unsafe At Any Altitude, Prelude To Terror, The Secret History of the CIA, Widows, Prescription for Disaster: From the Glory of Apollo to the Betrayal of the Shuttle, and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration*For further reading visit Joe Trento’s site: http://dcbureau.org/

Here is our guest Joe Trento unplugged!

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/08/31/podcast-show-5/feed/ 32 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/08/13/podcast-show-3/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/08/13/podcast-show-3/#comments Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:39:00 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=56
The Boiling Frogs Presents Philip Giraldi

Philip Giraldi discusses the Israel Lobby, Larry Franklin, the recent scandal involving Representative Jane Harman, the continuous erosion of our civil liberties, and much more.

Philip Giraldi is a former CIA and DIA counter-terrorism officer, member of the American Conservative Defense Alliance, and contributing editor at The American Conservative magazine. He has a regular column, Smoke & Mirrors, on Antiwar.com.

Here is our guest Philip Giraldi unplugged!

]]> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/08/13/podcast-show-3/feed/ 114 http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/07/21/podcast-show-1/ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/07/21/podcast-show-1/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:49:00 +0000 Sibel Edmonds http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?p=46
The Boiling Frogs Presents James Bamford

James Bamford discusses the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, the ties between NSA and the nation’s telecommunications companies including the Israeli companies involved in intercepting highly sensitive communications for the U.S. government, the agency’s failings pre-9/11 and the relevant information blackout by the 9/11 Commission, the US mainstream media, President Obama’s ‘no change’ so far, and more.

James Bamford is one of the country’s leading writers on intelligence and national security issues. His books include “The Puzzle Palace,” “Body of Secrets,” “A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies,” and most recently “ The Shadow Factory”. Mr. Bamford coproduced NOVA’s “The Spy Factory”, which was based on his latest book. He has written for many magazines, including investigative cover stories for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine and The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and is a contributing writer for Rolling Stone. His 2005 Rolling Stone article “The Man Who Sold the War” won a National Magazine Award for reporting. He also spent a decade as the Washington investigative producer for the ABC News program, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, and taught at the University of California, Berkeley, as a distinguished visiting professor.

Here is our guest James Bamford unplugged!

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