In this episode Eric Draitser covers recent developments and their implications in several regions including: Syria & Assad’s rejection of comparison with Libya-Egypt, Russia & Putin’s statement on the West clinging to Arab influence with airstrike democracy, Iran-China trade, CIA Director’s recent meeting with Saudi King in Jeddah, Mali & how the West cleared the way for Al-Qaeda’s African march … and more!

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. He is the editor and host of StopImperialism.com and the Stop Imperialism podcast. He has provided analysis for Russia Today, Dr. Webster Tarpley’s World Crisis Radio and other programs. His articles have appeared on GlobalResearch.ca, Infowars.com, and a variety of other news sites.

Investigative journalist and NATO expert Rick Rozoff joins us to discuss the largest-ever one-time expansion of NATO membership, NATO’s invitation to the Persian Gulf kingdom to join NATO’s partnership program in the region, and its consideration of Saudi Arabia as a key player in the region. With the threat of Western military action against Syria and Iran mounting, Rozoff explores NATO’s intention to recruit Saudi Arabia for the Persian Gulf partnership, and how the U.S. and its Western counterparts are promoting in the Arab world from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf is a lethal mixture of militarism, monarchism and theocracy. He also talks about the Syria situation and how the Gulf monarchies are supplying the funds as well as many of the arms and recruiting foreign religious extremists as fighters, while the U.S. and its NATO allies are preparing to arm anti-government forces with more advanced weaponry and train and advise them with Western Special Forces personnel.

Rick Rozoff is an investigative journalist based in Chicago and has been an active opponent of war, militarism and intervention for over 40 years. He manages the Stop NATO e-mail list , and is the editor of Stop NATO, a website on the threat of international militarization, especially on the globalization of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Mr. Rozoff has a graduate degree in European literature.

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NATO Promotes Lethal Mixture of Militarism, Monarchism & Theocracy in the Arab World

On June 18 Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Nizar Madani at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

The head of the Western military alliance extended an invitation to the Persian Gulf kingdom to join NATO’s partnership program in the region, stating “Saudi Arabia is a key player in the region and NATO would welcome the opportunity to engage the Kingdom’s government as a partner in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.�

The latter was launched in 2004 during the NATO summit in the Turkish city which gave the partnership its name, part of a series of sweeping measures that also saw the largest-ever one-time expansion of NATO membership – the absorption of seven new nations in Eastern Europe, including the first former Yugoslav and first three former Soviet republics – as well as committing the bloc to upgrading its other Middle Eastern military partnership program, the Mediterranean Dialogue (whose members are Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia), to that of the Partnership for Peace, which was used to elevate NATO’s 12 new post-Cold War members to their current status. Read more È

The amount of U.S. currency circulating outside banks rose sharply in July/August 2001.  The growth ran into the billions of dollars, and was concentrated in $100 bills.  These large-scale currency movements matter for anyone who cares about learning the truth about 9/11.

Under money laundering and other laws, assets can be frozen and seized in the banking system.  Knowing this, parties concerned that their assets might be frozen or otherwise at risk after 9/11 would have had an incentive to liquidate securities and banking accounts beforehand, and withdraw their money in difficult-to-trace ways.  This could have happened in U.S. banking and securities accounts, as well as accounts denominated in U.S. dollars outside the United States.  Finding the parties responsible for large-scale withdrawals of currency before 9/11 could help identify people aware of, if not responsible for, those events.

A banking crisis in Argentina can provide a relatively innocent explanation for the mid-2001 surge in currency shipments, at least in part.  But we still have no evidence of an honest, thorough investigation into other possible reasons for those shipments, reasons related to the crimes of September 11, 2001.  And the mid-2001 currency shipments to Argentina are worthy of 9/11 investigation, as well.

A third explanation has gained greater plausibility following recent 9/11 research.  Currency has a long history in covert operations.  Accelerated covert or other military action in Central Asia soon before 9/11 could have played a role in those mid-2001 currency shipments. Read more È

What Will Happen Today?

A hearing is scheduled today in a federal district court in New York City in a 9/11 case still winding its way through the court system.  The case was brought by thousands of relatives of people killed on 9/11, as well as insurance companies exposed to heavy losses.  The case was originally brought against defendants including members of the Saudi royal family and the Saudi government.  The plaintiffs are seeking to have the government of Saudi Arabia reinstated as a defendant, after it had previously been insulated under theories of sovereign immunity. 

Today’s hearing deals with issues relating to affidavits filed a few weeks ago by two former United States Senators in the case.  The material reportedly in these affidavits raises important questions about the integrity of the government’s 9/11 investigation. The affidavits came from Robert Graham, a former 18 year Senator from Florida, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and chairman of the Congressional Joint Inquiry, along with Robert Kerrey, former Senator from Nebraska and a member of the 9/11 Commission.  Read more È

Banking on Washington

Kenneth Wainstein earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in 1984, and went on to receive a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley in 1988.  He began working for the U.S. Justice Department in 1989 as an assistant U.S. attorney, with his work including narcotics and public corruption cases.  He served nine years in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington D.C. beginning in 1992, where he rose in rank to become the “Principal Assistant U.S. Attorney.�

In April 2001, Wainstein filled a vacancy and served as Interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.  Four months later, in August 2001, at a time of heightened importance for interdepartmental communication in counterterrorism efforts, he became the director of the Executive Office for US Attorneys at the Justice Department.  This office provided oversight and organizational services for U.S. Attorneys around the country.

During 2001, John Ashcroft was serving as the Attorney General of the United States, being appointed to that position in December 2000 by new President George W. Bush.  Ashcroft then served as Attorney General for the next four years.  At the FBI, within the Department of Justice, turnover was taking place at senior levels during 2001.  Louis Freeh served as Director of the FBI from 1993 until late June, 2001.  Thomas Pickard served as Acting Director of the FBI from June 25, 2001 to September 4, 2001, when Robert Mueller succeeded him. Read more È

9/11 Questions Bubble Up in the Media

On Friday February 24, Boiling Frogs posted an article titled “Media Sleepwalks, While History is in the Making.�  Three articles had come out the week before, one in the London Daily Telegraph and two in the Florida-based Broward Bulldog, raising important new questions about the crimes of September 11, 2001 and the quality of the government’s investigation.  In particular, these articles discussed new information and questions coming from former Senator Robert Graham, questions relating to secret documents that Graham described as running at odds with past government assertions in the 9/11 investigation. These three articles also raised new questions about the role of the government of Saudi Arabia.

The Feb 24 Boiling Frogs post discussed those three articles, and noted that there hadn’t been a single article in the mainstream media on the issues they raised, even though a week had gone by.  The post then asked if a valid prediction market could be established for the date when the media would wake up. Read more È

“One of the Greatest Material Prizes in World History�

In the midst of World War II, Saudi Arabia secured a position of enormous significance to the rising world power, America. With its oil reserves essentially untapped, the House of Saud became a strategic ally of immense importance, “a matter of national security, nourishing U.S. military might and enhancing the potentiality of postwar American hegemony.� Saudi Arabia welcomed the American interest as it sought to distance itself from its former imperial master, Britain, which it viewed with suspicion as the British established Hashemite kingdoms in the Middle East – the old rivals of the Saudis – in Jordan and Iraq.[1]

The Saudi monarch, Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman al Saud had to contend not only with the reality of Arab nationalism spreading across the Arab world (something which he would have to rhetorically support to legitimate his rule, but strategically maneuver through in order to maintain his rule), but he would also play off the United States and Great Britain against one another to try to ensure a better deal for ‘the Kingdom’, and ensure that his rivals – the Hashemites – in Jordan and Iraq did not spread their influence across the region. Amir (King) Abdullah of Transjordan – the primary rival to the Saudi king – sought to establish a “Greater Syriaâ€� following World War II, which would include Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, and not to mention, the Hejaz province in Saudi Arabia. The image and potential of a “Greater Syriaâ€� was central in the mind of King Abdul Aziz. The means through which the House of Saud would seek to prevent such a maneuver and protect the ‘Kingdom’ was to seek Western protection. As the United States had extensive oil interests in the Kingdom, it seemed a natural corollary that the United States government should become the ‘protector’ of Saudi Arabia, especially since the British, long the primary imperial hegemon of the region (with France a close second), had put in place the Hashemites in Transjordan and Iraq.[2] For the Saudis, the British could not be trusted. Read more È

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 “congratulatingâ€� U.S. authorities on the “successful operation to disrupt a conspiracy to attack diplomatsâ€� 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,â€� and assumed proof that the plot was already underway when “disrupted,â€� dismissing the possibility it was suggested to an Iranian-American suspect by the U.S. informant, posing as a Mexican drug gangster.  Read more È

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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