“There is no recent credible first-hand information on when bin Laden was last seen,” writes Asia Times Online correspondent Syed Saleem Shahzad in his December 12, 2009 article, “Osama Can Run, How Long Can He Hide?”. This line, however, is tucked seventeen paragraphs into an article in which early on Shahzad asserts, “There is little dispute that bin Laden and his close associates, including his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, move around in the vast and inhospitable mountainous territory that straddles the Afghanistan-Pakistan border; the porous border exists only as a line on a map.”  

Shahzad quotes US national security advisor James Jones saying that “intelligence reports suggest that the Al-Qaeda chief is somewhere inside North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border.”  Shahzad doesn’t indicate whether or not he followed up on Jones’s statement by asking Jones how credible those suggestive reports were and why they were credible. Instead, he lends his own organization’s credibility to Jones’s statement. “Interaction with generally well-connected militant sources,” he writes, “leads Asia Times Online to believe that bin Laden, 52, is alive and healthy, despite a history of kidney trouble.”  

What kinds of well-connected militant sources are they and why should they be believed?  What proof that bin Laden is alive have these sources offered?  How has Shahzad confirmed what they told him about bin Laden being alive?

No one seems willing or able to provide proof of life or verification of bin Laden’s existence or death, yet the speeches, agendas and reporting referring to him in the unconfirmed present persist.

In his piece, Shahzad goes on to write about Bin Laden’s “numerous safe houses” and how hard it is to find the Al Qaeda leader.  “All the same,” he claims, “the net might be getting tighter.”  He draws this conclusion based on a CBS News report about a Predator drone killing “a top Al Qaeda official in the Pakistani border area.”  “Unnamed officials tell CBS News that the Al Qaeda figure killed was not Osama bin Laden nor his top deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, but that he was “one of the top five terrorists on the US wanted list”.   The rest of the CBS report, however, is all about how the kill is unconfirmed.  In fact, the report’s title “Top Al Qaeda Official Believed Killed” carries a built-in qualifier: “believed”. So does its lead, “CBS News has confirmed a Hellfire missile was fired from an unmanned Predator Drone and likely killed a top Al Qaeda official in Pakistan”.  The only thing CBS is confirming is that a Hellfire missile was fired from an unmanned Predator Drone.  The rest is qualified as “likely” and therefore unconfirmed, even though the unnamed source calls the kill a “major hit” with a name “recognizable to many”.  CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier further confirms that the kill is unconfirmed by reporting that officials told her “they have to study the strike zone, and the behavior of the al Qaeda operatives left behind to see either if they hold a funeral for the suspected target or somehow move to replace him to be able to confirm the target’s identity.”

Why is Dozier even reporting this story if the kill is unconfirmed?  Why is Shahzad using this unconfirmed report as an indication of anything?  

Asia Times Online correspondents, including Shahzad, have done a spectacular job of reporting on the Middle East in general and the Afghan and Iraq conflicts in particular.  American correspondents covering those areas would gain immeasurably from following their reporting.  But in this instance, Shahzad has fallen down the Osama rabbit hole. 

Shahzad, however, may be among the very few up to the task of actually getting to the bottom of whether or not Osama bin Laden still lives.

That’s the story to pursue.

*Other editorials by Kristina Borjesson about unverified press coverage of Osama bin Laden can be found at http://tr.im/CHWr and http://tr.im/CI0c.

Internationally acclaimed for her work, Kristina Borjesson has produced for major American and European television networks and published two groundbreaking books on the problems of the U.S. press: Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press and Feet to the Fire: the Media After 9/11, Top Journalists Speak out. Her awards include an Emmy and Murrow Award in TV, and the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse award for Media Criticism and two Independent Publishers Awards for her books.

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

When I read Mizgin’s recent great post about Richard Armitage and his involvement in the Golden Triangle, I rolled my eyes.  “Some Daily Kos reader out there,” I thought, “is, at this very moment, shouting ‘conspiracy theory’ at their computer.” The “conspiracy theory” accusation comes up any time a journalist or a whistleblower points out that U.S. officials and agencies have been complicit in the global drug trade.  In fact, it has been an effective tool to try and silence truth tellers at least since Alfred McCoy was viciously attacked for writing the Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia.  Never mind the fact that allegations against the Central Intelligence Agency or the State Department have often been vindicated with the passage of time.  It just can’t be true that America would support drug lords, can it?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is a resounding YES, IT CAN.  American agencies, including the C.I.A. and the State Department, have given aid and comfort to international drug lords in the past and apparently continue to do so.  Just read what the New York Times reported on October 28^th about Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a known drug dealer, being on the C.I.A. payroll:

The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power [Emphasis Added] to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

Gee, do ya think? Any enterprising individual of reasonable intelligence, using a minimum of Google research skills, could have determined that the drug trade out of Afghanistan has skyrocketed since late 2001, shortly after the U.S. removed the Taliban from power and installed Hamid Karzai as its puppet.   If the Times had been a little bit bolder, they might have written something like this:

The C.I.A is complicit in the illegal drug trade in Afghanistan, but this should surprise no one, as a peek at the historical record demonstrates drug complicity has become routine.  Just look at these facts:

1950s, Southeast Asia: The C.I.A. supports the Kuomanting (KMT) drug running in Burma.

1960s-1970s, Vietnam-Laos: Richard Armitage, Ted Shackley and Thomas Clines finance a portion of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam through the Southeast Asian heroin trade.

1980s, Southwest Asia: The C.I.A. supports Afghan rebels, many of whom, along with the Pakistani ISI, are known to be deeply involved in opium and heroin trade.

1980s, Latin America: The U.S. backs Contras, even though cocaine turns out to be a key source of their funding, and Panama dictator Manuel Noriega, also tied to the drug trade. Also in this time period, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Agent Michael Levine claims Attorney General Edwin Meese blew the cover of a DEA team investigating drug corruption at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

1990s, Burma: DEA Agent Richard Horn, whose case was recently settled with the Justice Department, is spied on by the State Department and C.I.A., apparently because Horn was being too aggressive in trying to shut down the opium trade from Burma.

1996-2002: Sibel Edmonds testifies that criminal elements in Turkey tied to the drug trade, with knowledge and acquiescence of the State Department, bring drugs into the U.S. and Europe.

None of these past Agency misdeeds were mentioned by the Times to give its story context. The reason for these omissions is obvious: the Times or someone in the American government had an axe to grind either with the C.I.A. or the Karzai government itself, and the story was only trotted out because it was convenient for the moment.  A few months from now, if some really enterprising journalists accuse the U.S. government of aiding the Afghan opium trade, the major newspapers will likely ignore them, or, worse, accuse them of being conspiracy mongers.  This is exactly how our trusted mainstream press has treated C.I.A. drug stories in the past:  When it is convenient to promote one of their pet agendas, the establishment media admit the shocking facts.  Then, when it is no longer serving its purposes, the same press turns around and marginalizes anyone repeating the same.  Take the example of Oliver North, Gary Webb, and the Washington Post.

According to a 1998 book Whiteout by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, in order to torpedo Oliver North’s 1994 Virginia Senate candidacy, the Post published a hard-hitting article on October 22, 1994, entitled “North Didn’t Relay Drug Tips”.  The gist of the story (written by Lorraine Adams) was that while he was running the illegal Contra War from his post on the National Security Council, North failed to forward to the Drug Enforcement Agency the evidence that several members of the FDN (the main Contra organization) were involved in the cocaine business. North had claimed to have “turned over to the DEA all evidence of Contra drug running” during his Congressional testimony.  The Post found the story useful at the time, given the newspaper’s opposition to North’s candidacy.  However, two years later, when journalist Gary Webb and the San Jose Mercury News tied the Contras to a large crack cocaine ring in Los Angeles, the Post apparently forgot its own reporting, and (along with the New York Times and Los Angeles Times) ripped Webb’s career apart.  Cockburn and St. Clair wrote:

Friday, October 4 [1996] the Washington Post went to town on Webb and on the Mercury News. The onslaught carried no less than 5,000 words in five articles. The front page featured a lead article by Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus, headlined, “CIA and Crack: Evidence Is Lacking of Contra-Tied Plot.”

The rest is history.  Webb was destroyed, which ultimately led to his suicide years later.  In the meantime, the U.S. Congress did nothing, which is something it is accustomed to doing in cases involving accusations of Executive Branch malfeasance.  Two years after Webb’s Dark Alliance series, the C.I.A. Inspector General actually released a report admitting aspects Contra drug running, but this report was barely covered by the same newspapers that had eviscerated the story in the first place.

The press gets away with their perpetual flip-flopping on drug-related issues for a simple reason: The “C.I.A. drug trade complicity” tale is not the kind of story the average citizen wants to believe.  This topic is a taboo because the public has been trained to have a visceral reaction to drugs.  Ever since propaganda films like Reefer Madness were released at the beginning of the 20^th Century, drug dealers have been made out to be public enemy number one and are hated perhaps even more than terrorists.  Recreational drugs are often portrayed as a weapon of mass destruction on America’s youth.  It just can’t be possible that our trusted officials — like Orrin Hatch, to cite one example, — would rail against drugs, claiming they endanger our children on the one hand, while moving in Congress to quash any attempt to hold federal agencies accountable for working with the pimps and pushers on the other. 

Wake up, America.  Our government’s acquiescence in the global drug trade is not just possible; it is an important part of our nation’s post-World War II history.  Obama’s surge in Afghanistan is doomed to failure, in part because our intelligence agencies are fostering the same poppy trade that helps finance our enemies, the Taliban.  We know it is doomed because all of the other C.I.A. drug operations have ended in similar catastrophes.  Of course, the one “success” the U.S. government could point to, if it were willing to admit the facts of its drug alliances, is the defeat of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan.  However, given what happened over a decade later on September 11, 2001, that “success” looks like an awful “short-sightedness” and “long-term failure”.  

It is sad to think how many of our young men and women are dying, or are permanently scarred, mentally or physically, in the false belief that they are engaged in some higher moral battle to bring democracy and an end to the heroin trade in Afghanistan.  Until the public realizes the truth about the dark history of U.S. intelligence agencies and drugs, such illusions about the morality of America’s endless wars will continue.

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

Pepe Escobar shares with us his background and experience as a roving journalist for over three decades. He provides us with an overview of President Obama’s recent trip to China, relevant analysis of ordinary Chinese people’s point of view and reaction, and China’s political and economic position today within the global context. Mr. Escobar discusses energy issues and the current struggle over the resource-rich Central Asia-Caspian regions as the new battle ground for the competing interests of Russia, China, Europe, and the United States, including various strategic alliances currently under way to tap into this oil-gas rich region. He talks about the absence of real coverage of the Eurasia region by the US media, the rarely-discussed and often obscured facts and realities involving the Bagram Prison in Afghanistan, and more!

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil is the roving correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for The Real News Network. He is an investigative journalist with three decades of experience in covering politics and conflicts around the globe. He’s been a foreign correspondent since 1985, based in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, and Bangkok. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in covering stories and cases from the Middle East to Central Asia, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was in Afghanistan and interviewed the military leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Masoud, a couple of weeks before his assassination. Mr. Escobar has made frequent visits to Iran and is the author of three must-read books: Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War, Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge, and Obama Does Globalistan.

Here is our guest Pepe Escobar unplugged!

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

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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For those of you who participate in Thanksgiving rituals, I hope you had a nice and feast-full TGD holiday. I truly enjoyed mine; I’m still feasting. Other than that it was a short and fairly calm week. As for our site here, I have a few noteworthy updates:

Two Part Series by Peter Lance

This coming week, starting on Monday, we’ll be publishing a two-part exclusive series by Peter Lance. So what is it going to be about? Here is a hint:

The Fort Hood shootings and the decision by the Justice Department to try 9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in New York City. What do the two biggest domestic terrorism stories in months have in common?

The answer lies locked up somewhere in custodial witness protection.

Lance’s piece is very engaging, well-researched, and comprehensive. Stay tuned for Part I on Monday, November 30.

Boiling Frogs Podcast Show & iTunes

Our apologies to those who previously subscribed to iTunes on our old site – 123realchange.blogspot.com – we thought that you would automatically be re-directed to the podcasts on this site, but for some reason that we don’t understand, this did not occur. Also, anyone who clicked on the iTunes icon on our sidebar was directed to the wrong address and could not access our latest podcasts. We have resolved the problem and you will now be directed to the correct address in iTunes that will allow you to subscribe to all our podcasts. Unfortunately, for those of you who previously subscribed, you will need to do so again – but it only takes a couple of clicks – just click the iTunes icon & the rest will be self explanatory.

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed Joins Boiling Frogs Post

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed has joined Boiling Frogs Post’s Editorials & Analyses Contributors. I am delighted to have Nafeez’ insightful and rarely-covered analysis on topics of our interest: Terrorism, US Foreign Policy, Radicalization & Violent Conflicts, CIA-Terrorism Nexus, Central Asia-Afghanistan-Pakistan, and other related topics. Here is his bio:

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is a bestselling author and political analyst. He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, and has taught courses in contemporary history and international relations theory at the University of Sussex. His Doctoral thesis investigated the radicalization processes and dynamics of violent conflict in the context of hierarchical social systems in the modern world. Dr. Ahmed has also published extensively on international security issues, including The London Bombings; The War on Truth; Behind the War on Terror; and The War on Freedom. He has been an expert commentator for BBC News 24, BBC World Today, Al-Jazeera English, among others. He is currently advising the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on engaging British Muslim communities. Visit Dr. Nafeez’ Website.

Noteworthy Links:

Azerbaijan’s Lobby Picks Grossman & Armitage to Reach Obama

Those of you who have already read my piece on President Obama’s administration’s no-difference difference from the previous administration, at least on topics and issues that matter most, and those of you who are familiar with my State Secrets’ Privilege case and the involved known US personalities, will find the following piece very relevant and significant. Those of you are not familiar with the mentioned areas, click here and here, for a quick general background.

Okay, back to the not-really-changing faces of the foreign lobby.  One of our regular readers gave me a heads up on this:

Director of Centre for Strategic Studies under Azerbaijan’s President to visit US

Baku. Lachin Sultanova – APA. Director of Centre for Strategic Studies under Azerbaijan’s President Elkhan Nuriyev will visit the US. The center told APA that on December 2, Nuriyev will meet with Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group international consulting organization,
Ambassador Marc Grossman, President of the Armitage International, Ambassador Richard Armitage and other political experts, inform the American diplomats and political analysts about the Center, discuss problems of regional security and prospects of the cooperation with other think tanks of the US.

On December 4, Elkhan Nuriyev will make a speech at the regional conference on the theme “Geopolitical state of the Caspian basin and America-Azerbaijan relations during Obama administration” organized by U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) in Chicago-Kent College of Law of Illinois Institute of Technology. The aim of the conference is to inform the U.S. experts about the geopolitical realities in the Caspian basin, Azerbaijan’s decisive position as the main source of the energy resources in the region and a transit country, role in the global energy security, importance of the strategic partnership between Baku and Washington, other security problems of the region.

Representatives of Azerbaijani Diaspora in the US, leading experts of the Chicago University and officials will attend the forum. Elkhan Nuriyev will meet with heads of think tanks of the US, have discussions on the regional projects on scientific cooperation between the analytical organizations of the two countries.

As you see I highlighted the ‘key names & key words.’ Again, many of my readers already know the significance of these key words/names. One significant fact that should be obvious to all:

When it comes to ‘foreign lobbies’ and the ‘known bad guys,’ not much seems to have changed under President Obama. You have the same old known traitors and in many ways shady guys like Richard Armitage and Marc Grossman who are chosen as Key Facilitators paving the way to the White House and Foreign Policy Making Machine. Oh, and please don’t forget Chicago…

Obama Administration Wants your Attention Diverted

The mainstream media and Democratic Party HQ connected websites seem to be busy trying to divert attention from the President’s determined assault on our civil liberties via renewing and extending the Patriot Act. Here are a few excerpts from a well-written and objective article by William Fisher:

With the health care debate preoccupying the mainstream media, it has gone virtually unreported that the Barack Obama administration is quietly supporting renewal of provisions of the George W. Bush-era USA Patriot Act that civil libertarians say infringe on basic freedoms. And it is reportedly doing so over the objections of some prominent Democrats.

When a panicky Congress passed the act 45 days after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, three contentious parts of the law were scheduled to expire at the end of next month, and opponents of these sections have been pushing Congress to substitute new provisions with substantially strengthened civil liberties protections. But with the apparent approval of the Obama White House and a number of Republicans – and over the objections of liberal Senate Democrats including Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Dick Durbin of Illinois – the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to extend the three provisions with only minor changes.

…

Fisher’s article goes on to provide more details related to the key provisions and responses from the civil liberties groups:

Pitts told IPS, “President Obama’s flip-flop on Patriot Act issues does as much damage as did his flip-flop on the FISA Amendments Act and telecom immunity last year. But it’s imperative that we fight, while we still can, to comprehensively reinsert requirements for fact-based, individualised suspicion, checks and balances, and meaningful judicial review prior to government intrusions.”

In a report on the Patriot Act, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, “More than seven years after its implementation there is little evidence that the Patriot Act has been effective in making America more secure from terrorists. However, there are many unfortunate examples that the government abused these authorities in ways that both violate the rights of innocent people and squander precious security resources.”

I strongly encourage you to read the entire article and take the time to write to your representatives. Most likely writing won’t do much good (sorry for sounding cynical, but after nearly a decade of dealing with Congress I dare say I’m being realistic), but still, it is better than not knowing and doing nothing which is exactly what the mainstream media and the partisan blog sites want you to do. Dare their operations geared to make you look the other way.

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