Was Fort Hood really the target of a terrorist attack? The first clue to the real culprit emerged when Senator Joe Lieberman sought to blame this mass murder on the U.S. military. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, he promised hearings on how the Pentagon protects its personnel from domestic terrorists.
Will Lieberman, an avowed Zionist, use this incident to insist that the U.S. do more to protect Jewish nationalists? More importantly, what do his concerns mean for homeland security?

Joe Lieberman has an ally in Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security. In April, this former Arizona governor warned about potential terrorism from U.S. troops returning from deployment in the Middle East. Though roundly attacked, she defended her position, calling it an “assessment not an accusation.”

When Army Major Nidal Hasan killed U.S. troops on the nation’s largest military base, was this evidence of “militant Islam”? Or did this military psychiatrist snap under pressure while treating returning vets on a base averaging ten suicides a month? Is there an undisclosed agenda behind those seeking to portray this act as the work of “Islamo fascists”?

To answer these questions requires a grasp of how “assets” are deployed by those skilled at waging war by way of deception. An asset is someone who has been profiled in sufficient depth that-when placed in a pre-staged time, place and circumstance-the person can be relied on to behave consistent with their profile.

Best Story Wins

Since the end of the Cold War, the predominant geopolitical narrative has been The Clash of Civilizations and its military counterpart: The Global War on Terrorism. How better to advance that storyline than to kill American soldiers even before they leave the U.S.? What’s the motive?

Imagine if the intelligence that induced the U.S. to war was proven “fixed” around a preset goal. What if the common source of that treachery is poised to become transparent? If you were complicit in this deception (an act of treason), how would you obscure those facts? How would you sustain a “Muslim terrorist” narrative once the intelligence “facts” are exposed as pre-staged fictions meant to advance an undisclosed Israeli agenda?

For those marketing The Clash premise, Dr. Hasan’s psychotic break was a blessing. At Family Security Matters, President Carol Taber describes this incident as “the Ft. Hood terrorist attack” by an “Islamist gunman.” Editor Pam Meister promotes “the shocking TRUTH (sic) behind these attacks so that we might ward off those yet to come.” Executive Vice-President Linda Cohen, who also serves as a trustee of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), offers advice certain to appeal to Lieberman and Napolitano:

“No one is safe now. Not you, not the military, not your children, not office workers nor subway riders, nor anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Is there a precedent for combining aberrant behavior and a mass murder to advance a preset agenda? Do you recall the sniper attacks around Washington, D.C. in October 2002?

Those murders commenced one day before debate began on Senate Resolution 46 proposed by Joe Lieberman to authorize the use of U.S. forces in Iraq. In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, Lieberman and Arizona Senator John McCain urged that the U.S. target not Al Qaeda but Iraq.

The nation’s capital became a city under siege when those attacks created insecurity and heightened anxiety as serial murders left ten dead and three wounded over a 10-day period. Those random shootings transformed the terror of 9-11 into a personal reality for Washington residents while Lieberman deployed phony intelligence to promote the invasion of a nation that had no hand in the mass murder of 9-11.

Assets and Sayanim

Once again: assets are profiled personalities catalyzed to act out known dysfunctions in ways that are advantageous based on the time, place and circumstances of their behavior. The totality of the facts suggests that Dr. Nidal Hasan may well have been such an asset.

Assets are typically identified, profiled and developed over lengthy periods of time. Their potential to act out a known personality disorder is held in reserve in the same way that a military commander holds troops in reserve for deployment at an opportune time.

How is an asset developed in plain sight and then tasked at the right moment? Only a careful investigation can identify those influences particular to Dr. Hasan, including what decisions led to his transfer to Ft. Hood and the circumstances there that triggered his behavior.

News reports to date are consistent with this analysis. For instance, his name appears as a participant for public briefings at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. As a registrant in the Obama presidential transition task force (”Thinking Anew-Security Priorities for the Next Administration”), he would have interacted with a team of nine “task force briefers.” Judging from their surnames, at least seven were Ashkenazim.

As a combat-stress psychiatrist, Dr. Hasan dealt daily with troubled vets at Walter Reed Hospital where the most grievously wounded are sent to recover, many of them amputees, disfigured or otherwise handicapped for life. While coping with that vicarious trauma, he was taunted for his Muslim beliefs and harassed for his Middle Eastern heritage even though he was born, raised and educated in the U.S..

Despite clear indications of internal turmoil, including repeated attempts to resign his commission, he was dispatched to a post known for its huge population of combat-stressed vets. He arrived anticipating orders to deploy to Afghanistan, realizing his worst nightmare. Meanwhile a commander-in-chief promising change made matters even worse in the region.

Israeli psy-ops rely on an extensive cadre of sayanim (Hebrew for volunteers) who are shielded from legal culpability by being told only enough to perform their narrow role when tasked to assist with operations on an as-needed basis. Otherwise, they gather and report useful intelligence. Thus the presence of sayanim throughout the U.S. government. A sayan may well have identified Nidal Hasan as a potential asset who could be developed and, as here, deployed.

At What Cost?

With evidence emerging that Israelis and pro-Israelis were the source of the sham intelligence that induced the U.S. to war, those responsible are scrambling to cover their tracks. Americans will soon realize what the facts confirm: Jewish nationalists deceived the U.S. in order to deploy our military to pursue Israel’s expansionist agenda for the Middle East.

Americans will soon awaken to the cost of this entangled alliance in blood and treasure. U.S. deaths in Iraq could top 4,300 this month with more than one million Iraqis dead from the war and from violence unleashed by those who manipulated this alliance to induce an invasion.

That brings us back to the uncomfortable but essential question: Was Homeland Security created to protect the U.S.? Or was it created to protect those who deceived the U.S.? Was this incident another example of the murderous misdirection deployed to pit Americans against Muslims to advance unacknowledged Zionist goals?

By shifting blame to the military, do Lieberman and Napolitano intend to use federal law enforcement to contain the outraged reaction of an informed public and an awakened military? Was Dr. Nidal Hasan a terrorist? Or was he a troubled pawn in an ongoing psy-ops campaign meant to revive a narrative that-like the fixed intelligence-was losing credibility?

Both the false intelligence and the anti-Muslim narrative feature a theme of fomenting hate and intolerance. On October 28th, President Obama signed into law ADL’s model hate crime legislation. Will that federal law now be deployed by Homeland Security to silence those who make transparent the common source of this deception?

How much longer before a long-deceived public-both in the U.S. and abroad-takes the steps required to ensure that never again is duplicity allowed to operate on such a scale?

* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide; an adviser to policy-makers worldwide; former counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee; and author of numerous articles and books including his latest book “http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/098213150X?ie=UTF8&tag=sabbahsblog-20&link
Code=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=098213150X” Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War

“http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=sabbahsblog-20&l=as2&o=1&a=098213150X”
Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution.
See “http://www.criminalstate.com” www.criminalstate.com

Also see:
“http://intifada-palestine.com/2009/07/17/how-the-israel-lobby-
took-control-of-u-s-foreign-policy/”

How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy
“http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=
article&sid=9000″

Dancing To Our Israeli Masters Veterans Today
“http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/11/09/todays-ancient-warfare-facts-vs-beliefs/”
“Permalink to Today’s Ancient Warfare: Facts vs. Beliefs” Today’s Ancient Warfare: Facts vs. Beliefs

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Dear Mr. President:

According to press reports, you intend to decide between November 7 and November 11 whether or not to send tens of thousands of American soldiers to Afghanistan. We are writing in advance of that decision to add our voice to those of Sen. Feingold, many House Democrats, and of a clear majority of Americans in urging you not to escalate this war, but rather to announce an immediate cease-fire followed by a withdrawal of all US troops in the fastest way consistent with the safety of our forces. We urge you to end the policy of using Predator drones to assassinate Pakistani civilians on the territory of their own country, in defiance of all concepts of international law. We also call upon you to cease all covert CIA and Pentagon operations in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and Iran.

No vital American interest is at stake in Afghanistan. Former Marine and State Department official Matthew Hoh is right: the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan have come to be viewed as invaders and occupiers, and the resistance they encounter has nothing to do with international terrorism. This war is futile, and now doomed to failure. There is no military solution to the problems that beset Afghanistan. Afghanistan and the rest of this tragically war-torn region need a Marshall Plan of peaceful economic development, through which some of the 15 million unemployed workers in our own country could find productive jobs. We have no confidence in the advice being given to you by military leaders like Gen. McChrystal, who has been implicated in torture in Iraq.

We supported your candidacy because we viewed you as the best chance for ending the wars of the Bush era. We applauded your rejection of the rhetoric of fear and division that was the stock in trade of Bush and Cheney. We are alarmed by the way that rhetoric has crept into your public pronouncements since your August address in Phoenix. Your decision on Afghanistan will represent the decisive turning point of your presidency. If you turn away from war, you will provide a profile in courage that will solidify your support and open up a new perspective for progressive reforms in our country. You will honor the spirit of John F. Kennedy, who was searching for an exit strategy from the Vietnam war. If you opt for a wider war, the resulting heavy casualties will destroy confidence in your leadership among your own most devoted advocates. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be poured down a rat hole, and will no longer be available for any reform and renovation of American society, which will increasingly fall behind the economic strength of other countries. Your domestic agenda will be halted, in the same way your predecessor Lyndon B. Johnson was crippled by the Vietnam war. Escalation of the Afghan war, in short, would be an act of political suicide for you, and of national suicide for our country.

We are keenly aware of the difficulties and animosities you face, and we have long done everything possible to give your administration the benefit of the doubt, even in the face of repeated disappointments. But we now approach the moment of truth: will you be a great progressive president, or will you prove too weak to turn away from the bankrupt policies institutionalized and entrenched under Bush and Cheney. Therefore, we want you to know our attitude before you decide on the proposed Afghan escalation. If you choose to escalate, we will oppose this policy with all the energy we possess. We will act to mobilize the largest possible anti-war demonstration in Washington DC and other cities before the end of 2009, and continuously thereafter. We will support anti-war candidates of any party in the 2010 elections. If you are still waging the Afghan war in 2011, we will be forced to seriously consider backing an explicitly anti-war primary candidate to challenge you during the Democratic primaries.

We therefore respectfully urge you to act in the spirit of your 2008 campaign – the spirit of hope and change, neither of which can survive the continuation or expansion of the hopeless Afghan war.

Cynthia McKinney, DIGNITY

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Holder Pledges Hate Crimes
Cooperation with ADL
By Rev. Ted Pike
11-12-9

Att. Gen. Eric Holder, featured speaker at the Anti-Defamation League’s American Heritage Dinner on October 17, praised ADL for its historic role in fighting all forms of intolerance and helping make the federal hate crimes law a reality. He called passage of ADL’s hate bill a “marvelous step of progress” and gratefully looks forward to close and continued cooperation with ADL in hate law implementation. ADL recently announced that, having spearheaded passage of The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, it will now lead stage two, a massive national campaign to train lawyers to become hate crimes prosecutors.

Holder says that, having been personally frustrated over the past 11 years in his efforts to help pass the hate bill, as Attorney General he is determined to begin immediate enforcement. “. . .the new hate crimes legislation will arrive not a moment too soon. And on the day that it becomes law, we will hasten to begin using it.”

Here are highlights of Holder’s speech – full of praise for ADL – and misrepresentations concerning the new hate law and the alleged “epidemic of hate” it claims to address.

“You – the members of the Anti-Defamation League – and I go way back. I first began convening meetings with members of the ADL in the early 90’s when I served as the United States Attorney in Washington, D.C. . . At that time I expressed my deep appreciation for the fact that you always have served as indispensable allies in some of the most important work our government does. And now, tonight, I once more have the opportunity to stand in solidarity with you, and to thank you for your constant, steadfast work to create a better country. A country free of discrimination; a country free of violence; a country free of hate. The Obama Administration could ask no better partner than the Anti-Defamation League as we jointly strive to attain the ideals of equal opportunity, equal rights, and equal justice for all. Members of the ADL – I salute you.”

Equal rights for all? That’s not what Holder said in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this spring. He asserted that the hate bill does not protect Christian ministers, whites, heterosexuals, policemen and members of U.S. military. Only favored groups, he said, such as homosexuals, blacks, Latinos, Jews, Muslims, and women will benefit under this new law. (See video “Holder Admits No Equality Under Hate Bill” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnziaXfYhc4).

In Holder’s speech to the ADL he continues this charade, asserting that under America’s new hate law “we will also continue to defend vigilantly the civil rights of all [italics mine] people in this country and prosecute criminal acts of discrimination wherever we find them.” “The new law expands the list of protected categories beyond race, color, religion or national origin, and for the first time, allows the federal government to prosecute violence undertaken because of the actual or perceived gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability of any person.”

Holder gives every impression, as ADL did through 19 years of hyping their hate bills to state and federal legislators, that all Americans are protected under hate laws according to “race, color, religion, or national origin.” In reality, ADL never intended any of its hate laws in America – or throughout the world – to protect anyone except those groups ADL considers victims of white, Christian, male, heterosexual civilization.

Holder goes on to note that “the desperate need for a strengthened federal law enforcement capability against hate crimes has been perfectly clear.” Perfectly clear? Holder was grilled repeatedly by Republican Senators during his Judiciary testimony, asking him to make perfectly clear if states are failing to adequately punish hate criminals. Holder couldn’t present even one example of such failure on the local level. What is perfectly clear is that there exists no “desperate need” for federal takeover of local law enforcement.

Further, Holder said that about 7,500 hate crimes a year since 1990, averaging one every hour of the day, “is a staggering figure. . .completely unacceptable.” Actually, out of an average of 11 million crimes annually reported by police to the FBI, alleged hate crimes average only 1/10 of one percent – hardly a level of criminal activity of the epidemic proportion portrayed by Holder and ADL. Less than five percent of these reported hate crimes have ever been established as fact by courts of law, yet Holder says the level of unreported level of hate crimes in America is probably “in the tens of thousands. This fact is enough to make one’s blood run cold.” Fact? How credible is an Attorney General who regards such undocumented speculation as “fact?”

This spring, ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center in their MIAC advisory to the Missouri State Police warned police to be suspicious of immigration protestors as possible domestic terrorists. Holder praises ADL for such proactive vigilance. “The ADL has done important work documenting increased activity by hate groups who recruit members using virulent, anti-immigration rhetoric that they present as legitimate opinion. Such language can have a devastating effect not just on an individual, but on an entire community.”

Entire communities devastated? All ADL pro-hate law propaganda from America to Europe to Australia allege that a hate crime is worthy of at least triple penalties because it savages not only the victim but “tears whole communities apart.” Such may have occurred in some instances during post-reconstruction lynchings in the American South. But when was the last time you read of such social devastation resulting from a hate crime in America? The very worst examples of hate crimes the ADL can put forward are the namesakes of the federal bill: the brutal murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd. Nevertheless, these had no such devastating effect upon homosexual or black communities in Wyoming or Texas. The social devastation which ADL claims results from states failing to prosecute hate crimes is a figment of ADL imagination.

Holder says, “The stubborn persistence of anti-Semitism saddens me” What is anti-Semitism? ADL’s Office of Global Anti-Semitism in the U.S. State Department says “anti-Semitism” means any “strong criticism” of Israel or its leaders, or claims that the Jews had Christ killed. Holder says any such anti-Semitic “hate speech” even as “a casual joke made in private when the speaker thinks no Jewish person is listening,” is very, very bad. It “should scald the conscience of every American.” He also promises that Muslims will be vigorously protected under America’s new hate law, just as they are in Canada, Britain, France and Australia.

Holder concludes with more flattery of ADL: “This organization has a great tradition of refusing to stand by when others are suffering. You are guided by your tenets, your precepts, and your values to come to the aid of others who need help. And so, this evening, I humbly call upon you to join me and this new administration in reaching out to all our American neighbors.”

Reach out to American neighbors? If there is one thing the federal hate law does not do, it is reach out to all Americans, providing equal hate crimes protection.

The only thing certain about the new federal hate law and charlatans like Holder and ADL, who helped create it and now enforce it, is that they will continue to deceive and manipulate all Americans to the benefit of only one minority: the anti-Christ Jews of ADL/B’nai B’rith International.

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By Victor Thorn

America’s astronomical debt is unsustainable. Will it lead to the collapse of our dollar? Or, could a swine flu pandemic cripple the nation’s healthcare system? A suitcase nuke in St. Louis would move us into a renewed state of panic.

Who could calculate the effect of another false-flag “lone nut” domestic terrorist like Timothy McVeigh? Each of these scenarios is very real because the global elite have historically used crisis to disorient and overwhelm the populace into a state of shock so that they can push through legislation that had already been penned (i.e. two successive levels of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act enacted via the OKC Bombing and 9-11).

Barack Obama’s primary thug, Rahm Emanuel, recently quipped, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.” New World Order elitists most certainly savor these moments. To them, crisis equals action, whether it’s a natural disaster, an orchestrated economic collapse, war, terror, or the instability of a coup.

When these “controlled chaos” events are foisted upon the public through the media’s shock and awe wizardry, the emergency suspends animation and people are far more open to suggestion and willing to comply. As such, we’re so focused on the misery and disaster that our personal interest is exploited before we realize what’s happening.

These architects of catastrophe thrive on tragedy. To them, it’s an opportunity that’s neither benign nor bloodless. Hark back to Sept. 11, 2001. With the masses in shock, government leaders implemented new policies as a form of social reengineering. To be successful, the hidden NWO oligarchs first had to create a blitzkrieg sense of isolation where our resistance was diminished by the disorientation of falling skyscrapers and a jet purportedly hitting the Pentagon. Suddenly, after being “invaded,” we didn’t live in the world we thought we lived in. The entire collective narrative had been altered.

At this stage, in true Machiavellian fashion, the manipulators saw us as blank slates upon which they could imprint their new ideas. Picture electroshock therapy patients whose original personalities are completely distorted and/or erased, only to be replaced by “reformed” ones. The same applies to Obama’s “fundamental transformation of America.”

After the deluge (either real or perceived), a framework is already intact to pass new laws. Disaster equals profit for the elite, and this requires the need for a new enemy to emerge (and be feared). To reinforce their agenda, heavy doses of propaganda are disseminated on the public. “If you’re patriotic and love freedom, you need to defend the homeland and our war against tyranny.”

Of course, opposition must be suppressed. So, if you don’t become a willing automaton in the collective whole, then your dissent is painted as unpatriotic (example: 9-11 “truthers”). Over the past century, an Orwellian prophecy of perpetual war and perpetual enemies has plagued America.

We went from hating Nazis to Communists, then Koreans and Vietnamese, to “extreme Islam” today. As our “war on terror” unfolded (a phrase coined by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), entire war profiteering economies were built on fear via our invasions of Afghanistan
and Iraq.

But this phenomenon shouldn’t surprise anyone. Spike event governance has always been the NWO’s modus operandi. By funding both the North and South during our Civil War, the Rothschild family came close to dividing America into two separate countries (all in their quest to create an all-powerful central bank).

In 1913, legislation creating the Federal Reserve and a federal income tax allowed America’s worst president ever—Woodrow Wilson—to lead us into World War I. Perpetual debt and interest payments to an international
banking cartel were the intended result.

The 1929 stock market crash allowed elite families such as the Rockefellers, Morgans and Vanderbilts to rake in millions, while the remainder wallowed in a decade long Great Depression. To “rescue” us, FDR conceived his socialist New Deal; then along with Winston Churchill, stood by while the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Our involvement in World War II soon followed. To climax this destruction, atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a form of “urban renewal.”

Japanese nationalists were eliminated, replaced by global industrialists and a new crop of slave laborers—“ made in Japan.” [One hundred years earlier, these slave laborers were immigrants to America working in sweat shops, coal mines, factories, or building railroads.]

In the ensuing years as the American economy boomed (a black and white Leave it to Beaver world), our CIA ran rampant, creating mayhem via their illegal experimentation.

Upon leaving office in January 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of a “military industrial complex.” Less than three years later in a coup d’etat, JFK was assassinated in Dallas. Virtually overnight, LBJ dramatically increased aid to Israel, ratcheted up our involvement in Vietnam, and unleashed his socialist Great Society.

The disgrace of Richard Nixon’s Watergate paved the way for David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission candidate, Jimmy Carter. More importantly, his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski (also a Trilateralist), lured the Russians into attacking Afghanistan. This spike event led to their version of Vietnam, and the USSR’s collapse.

Reminiscent of 1984, the same “freedom fighters” we financed to battle our Cold War enemy are now being financed by the Russians to fight us. Seems highly unlikely—evidence?

Spike events rule the world. The fall of Berlin’s Wall in 1989 served as a conduit to the European Union’s formation in 1993. Our Iran-Contra fiasco concealed a vast network of U.S. drug trafficking (including the crack epidemic in Los Angeles). Israel’s USS Liberty attack nearly started WWIII. China’s Tiananmen Square uprising opened the door to “reform at the barrel of a gun” (to quote Mao). As a result, China emerged as the world’s new slave labor capital, for their workers are too terrified to protest or demand their rights, as we see them.

Economically, stock market spike events via 1973’s oil embargo, Black Monday in 1987, and the dot.com, housing and banking bubble bursts have stripped billions from investors (while Wall Street manipulators reaped vast rewards behind the scenes). More recently, Hurricane Katrina exiled New Orleans’ poor while construction outfits like KBR profited handsomely.

The same transformation took place during Sri Lanka’s tsunami where privately owned fishing villages were usurped by corporate luxury resorts.

With the World Health Organization, IMF, World Bank, CFR, and Bilderberg elite guiding these catastrophes with their hidden hand, a quote by H.L. Mencken seems appropriate. “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the people alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Sadly, these demons become all too real, as we witnessed on 9-11. What will be the next spike event that sends society into turmoil while simultaneously creating the means to alter our world yet again?

Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and the author of many books on 9-11 and the New World Order. These include 9-11 Evil: The Israeli Role in 9-11 and Phantom Flight 93.

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The Anti-empire Report – 2009-11-04

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” — Voltaire

Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He’s holding off on Iran until he actually gets the prize.

Somalian civil society and court system are so devastated from decades of war that one wouldn’t expect its citizens to have the means to raise serious legal challenges to Washington’s apparent belief that it can drop bombs on that sad land whenever it appears to serve the empire’s needs. But a group of Pakistanis, calling themselves “Lawyers Front for Defense of the Constitution”, and remembering just enough of their country’s more civilized past, has filed suit before the nation’s High Court to make the federal government stop American drone attacks on countless innocent civilians. The group declared that a Pakistan Army spokesman claimed to have the capability to shoot down the drones, but the government had made a policy decision not to. [1]

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, behaves like the world is one big lawless Somalia and the United States is the chief warlord. On October 20 the president again displayed his deep love of peace by honoring some 80 veterans of Vietnam at the White House, after earlier awarding their regiment a Presidential Unit Citation for its “extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry”. [2] War correspondent Michael Herr has honored Vietnam soldiers in his own way: “We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.” [3]

What would it take for the Obamaniacs to lose any of the stars in their eyes for their dear Nobel Laureate? Perhaps if the president announced that he was donating his prize money to build a monument to the First — “Oh What a Lovely” — World War? The memorial could bear the inscription: “Let us remember that Rudyard Kipling coaxed his young son John into enlisting in this war. John died his first day in combat. Kipling later penned these words:

“If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.”

“The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature.” — James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, April 2, 1798.

A wise measure, indeed, but one American president after another has dragged the nation into bloody war without the approval of Congress, the American people, international law, or world opinion. Millions marched against the war in Iraq before it began. Millions more voted for Barack Obama in the belief that he shared their repugnance for America’s Wars Without End. They had no good reason to believe this — Obama’s campaign was filled with repeated warlike threats against Iran and Afghanistan — but they wanted to believe it.

If machismo explains war, if men love war and fighting so much, why do we have to compel them with conscription on pain of imprisonment? Why do the powers-that-be have to wage advertising campaigns to seduce young people to enlist in the military? Why do young men go to extreme lengths to be declared exempt for physical or medical reasons? Why do they flee into exile to avoid the draft? Why do they desert the military in large numbers in the midst of war? Why don’t Sweden or Switzerland or Costa Rica have wars? Surely there are many macho men in those countries.

“Join the Army, visit far away places, meet interesting people, and kill them.”

War licenses men to take part in what would otherwise be described as psychopathic behavior.

“Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him.” — Colonel Potter, M*A*S*H

“In the struggle of Good against Evil, it’s always the people who get killed.” — Eduardo Galeano

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a Taliban leader declared that “God is on our side, and if the world’s people try to set fire to Afghanistan, God will protect us and help us.” [4]

“I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.” — George W. Bush, 2004, during the war in Iraq. [5]

“I believe that Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis.” — Barack Obama. [6]

Why don’t church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion clinics?

God, war, the World Bank, the IMF, free trade agreements, NATO, the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, “anti-war” candidates, and Nobel Peace Prizes can be seen as simply different instruments for the advancement of US imperialism.

Tom Lehrer, the marvelous political songwriter of the 1950s and 60s, once observed: “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” Perhaps each generation has to learn anew what a farce that prize has become, or always was. Its recipients include quite a few individuals who had as much commitment to a peaceful world as the Bush administration had to truth. One example currently in the news: Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres which won the prize in 1998. Kouchner, now France’s foreign secretary, has long been urging military action against Iran. Last week he called upon Iran to make a nuclear deal acceptable to the Western powers or else there’s no telling what horror Israel might inflict upon the Iranians. Israel “will not tolerate an Iranian bomb,” he said. “We know that, all of us.” [7] There is a word for such a veiled threat — “extortion”, something normally associated with the likes of a Chicago mobster of the 1930s … “Do like I say and no one gets hurt.” Or as Al Capone once said: “Kind words and a machine gun will get you more than kind words alone.”

The continuing desperate quest to find something good to say about US foreign policy

Not the crazy, hateful right wing, not racist or disrupting public meetings, not demanding birth certificates … but the respectable right, holding high positions in academia and in every administration, Republican or Democrat, members of the highly esteemed Council on Foreign Relations. Here’s Joshua Kurlantzick, a “Fellow for Southeast Asia” at CFR, writing in the equally esteemed and respectable Washington Post about how — despite all the scare talk — it wouldn’t be so bad if Afghanistan actually turned into another Vietnam because “Vietnam and the United States have become close partners in Southeast Asia, exchanging official visits, building an important trading and strategic relationship and fostering goodwill between governments, businesses and people on both sides. … America did not win the war there, but over time it has won the peace. … American war veterans publicly made peace with their old adversaries … A program [to exchange graduate students and professors] could ensure that the next generation of Afghan leaders sees an image of the United States beyond that of the war.” [8] And so on.

On second thought, this is not so much right-wing jingoism as it is … uh … y’know … What’s the word? … Ah yes, “pointless”. Just what is the point? Germany and Israel are on excellent terms … therefore, what point can we make about the Holocaust?

As to America not winning the war in Vietnam, that’s worse than pointless. It’s wrong. Most people believe that the United States lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core, by poisoning the earth, the water, the air, and the gene pool for generations, the US in fact achieved its primary purpose: it left Vietnam a basket case, preventing the rise of what might have been a good development option for Asia, an alternative to the capitalist model; for the same reason the United States has been at war with Cuba for 50 years, making sure that the Cuban alternative model doesn’t look as good as it would if left in peace.

And in all the years since the Vietnam War ended, the millions of Vietnamese suffering from diseases and deformities caused by US sprayings of the deadly chemical “Agent Orange” have received from the United States no medical care, no environmental remediation, no compensation, and no official apology. That’s exactly what the Afghans — their land and/or their bodies permeated with depleted uranium, unexploded cluster bombs, and a witch’s brew of other charming chemicals — have to look forward to in Kurlantzick’s Brave New World. “If the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan eventually resembles the one we now have with Vietnam, we should be overjoyed,” he writes. God Bless America.

One further thought about Afghanistan: The suggestion that the United States could, and should, solve its (self-created) dilemma by simply getting out of that god-forsaken place is dismissed out of hand by the American government and media; even some leftist critics of US policy are reluctant to embrace so bold a step — Who knows what horror may result? But when the Soviet Union was in the process of quitting Afghanistan (during the period of May 1988-February 1989) who in the West insisted that they remain? For any reason. No matter what the consequences of their withdrawal. The reason the Russians could easier leave than the Americans can now is that the Russians were not there for imperialist reasons, such as oil and gas pipelines. Similar to why the US can’t leave Iraq.

Washington’s eternal “Cuba problem” — the one they can’t admit to

“Here we go again. I suppose old habits die hard,” said US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, on October 28 before the General Assembly voted on the annual resolution to end the US embargo against Cuba. “The hostile language we have just heard from the Foreign Minister of Cuba,” she continued, “seems straight out of the Cold War era and is not conducive to constructive progress.” Her 949-word statement contained not a word about the embargo; not very conducive to a constructive solution to the unstated “Cuba problem”, the one about Cuba inspiring the Third World, the fear that the socialist virus would spread.

Since the early days of the Cuban Revolution assorted anti-communists and capitalist true-believers around the world have been relentless in publicizing the failures, real and alleged, of life in Cuba; each perceived shortcoming is attributed to the perceived shortcomings of socialism — It’s simply a system that can’t work, we are told, given the nature of human beings, particularly in this modern, competitive, globalized, consumer-oriented world.

In response to such criticisms, defenders of Cuban society have regularly pointed out how the numerous draconian sanctions imposed by the United States since 1960 have produced many and varied scarcities and sufferings and are largely responsible for most of the problems pointed out by the critics. The critics, in turn, say that this is just an excuse, one given by Cuban apologists for every failure of their socialist system. However, it would be very difficult for the critics to prove their point. The United States would have to drop all sanctions and then we’d have to wait long enough for Cuban society to make up for lost time and recover what it was deprived of, and demonstrate what its system can do when not under constant assault by the most powerful force on earth.

In 1999, Cuba filed a suit against the United States for $181.1 billion in compensation for economic losses and loss of life during the first 39 years of this aggression. The suit held Washington responsible for the death of 3,478 Cubans and the wounding and disabling of 2,099 others. In the ten years since, these figures have of course all increased. The sanctions, in numerous ways large and small, make acquiring many kinds of products and services from around the world much more difficult and expensive, often impossible; frequently, they are things indispensable to Cuban medicine, transportation or industry; simply transferring money internationally has become a major problem for the Cubans, with banks being heavily punished by the United States for dealing with Havana; or the sanctions mean that Americans and Cubans can’t attend professional conferences in each other’s country.

These examples are but a small sample of the excruciating pain inflicted by Washington upon the body, soul and economy of the Cuban people.

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We don’t hear much of that any more. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the General Assembly on the resolution, which reads: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This is how the vote has gone:

How it began, from State Department documents: Within a few months of the Cuban revolution of January 1959, the Eisenhower administration decided “to adjust all our actions in such a way as to accelerate the development of an opposition in Cuba which would bring about a change in the Cuban Government, resulting in a new government favorable to U.S. interests.” [9]

On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.” Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” [10] Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo.

Notes

1. The Nation (Pakistan English-language daily newspaper), October 10, 2009 ↩
2. Washington Post, October 20, 2009 ↩
3. Michael Herr, “Dispatches” (1991), p.71 ↩
4. New York Daily News, September 19, 2001 ↩
5. Washington Post, July 20, 2004, p.15, citing the New Era (Lancaster, PA), from a private meeting of Bush with Amish families on July 9. The White House denied that Bush had said it. (Those Amish folks do lie a lot you know.) ↩
6. Washington Post, August 17, 2008 ↩
7. Daily Telegraph (UK), October 26, 2009 ↩
8. Washington Post, October 25, 2009 ↩
9. Department of State, “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba” (1991), p.742 ↩
10 Ibid., p.885 ↩
–

William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir, Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire, Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

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The ADL hailed the passage of the unconstitutional “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which according to the ADL, “provide for expanded federal involvement in investigating and prosecuting hate violence in America.” The bill is unconstitutional because it violates the 10th Amendment by granting the Federal Government authority over local and state government in prosecuting hate crimes. It violates the 14th Amendment by granting certain groups special protected status, as well the double jeopardy clause of the 5th amendment. This Bill does not provide equal protection to all Americans, instead it grants special rights to certain groups while making the rest of us 2nd class citizens.

At the Bill Signing Ceremony ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said, “the passage of this important, comprehensive and inclusive federal hate crimes law was long overdue.” Foxman added, “for 12 long years we have worked hard with coalition partners to build the case in Washington that this law was not just necessary, but vital to ensure that all victims of hate crimes would be covered, and that local and federal officials would have the tools they need to prosecute these horrific crimes to the fullest extent of the law. The passage of this bill is a monumental achievement, and a great day for America.”

In Canada were there are laws against hate speech, Jewish Free Speech activist Ezra Levant is concerned that the role major Jewish organizations have played in lobbying for hate speech will end up doing the exact opposite of the what these organizations claim to be fighting. “The federal anti-hate law that “official Jews” lobbied for and got passed has, 32 years later, backfired, sowing the seeds for political correctness, media chill and censorship that have undermined the values that define the Jewish People”, says Alberta lawyer, author and activist Ezra Levant.

Self Proclaimed Jewish Organizations primarily the Canadian Jewish Congress have been at the forefront for lobbying for restrictions against Free Speech. Canada has an Orwellian thought crimes enforcement Agency called the “Human Rights Tribunal .”

In September a human rights tribunal ruled that a section of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) that imposes criminal penalties for speech was unconstitutional. The Canadian Jewish Congress, along with B’nai Brith Canada and Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center ­called for an appeal. CEO of the CJC Bernie Farber said “what the decision has done is confuse everybody.”

Levant said “Jewish organizations continue to push for appeals, in effect calling for the censorship of expression. Jews are coming across “as whiners who want to shut you down, not debate you. Is this the image we want to project to 33 million Canadians, that we’re thin-skinned whiners? If you wanted to create a perfect caricature of a villainous Jew for anti-Semites to point to, you couldn’t do better than Burny and the CJC. They despise our freedom of speech. They demand censorship of their political opponents. They disparage any jurist who disagrees with them. And they do all this in the name of “the Jews.

Levant added, “if I weren’t a Jew, I’m afraid Burny would turn me into an anti-Semite. Nobody likes a bully telling you he wants to take away your freedom. And that bully says he speaks for all Jews. If Burny didn’t exist, Stormfront would have to make him up. Burny’s job is to make Jews less hated, not more hated. He’s making Jews more hated.”

Ezra Levant is right that if these organizations who claim to speak on behalf of all Jews continue to support  laws against freedom of speech it will create the image that Jews oppose free speech. These Jewish collectivist organizations enforces the image that socalled anti-semites have of Jews as a collective entity who all think alike entity rather than individuals. If you listen to those who are labeled as anti-semites such as David Duke, their negativity towards Jews is largely based on the activities of Jewish political organizations rather than personal hatred. The Organizations that claim to speak on behalf of Jewish people and are at the forefront of stifling freedom of expression are doing a major disservice to any Jewish individuals who believes in freedom of speech and the Constitution.

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A WorldNetDaily story reports that the bill sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) that would call for an audit of the Federal Reserve has been “gutted” in a congressional committee. The legislation, H.R. 1207, would also close loopholes that prevent transparency of Fed actions. It currently has over 300 co-sponsors in the House.

In a telephone interview with a Bloomberg reporter, Paul said that the bill had been stripped of measures closing loopholes that protect the Fed and blamed Rep. Melvin “Mel” Watt (D-NC), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology, for ripping the teeth out of the legislation. Watt has significant ties to the banking industry and received the largest share of his 2008 campaign contributions—over one-third of his total contributions for the cycle—from the finance, insurance, and real estate industry. Watt’s four largest contributors were Bank of America, headquartered in Watt’s district in Charlotte, Wachovia Corp., American Express, and the American Bankers Association.

Paul vowed to try to restore the gutted provisions of the bill through an amendment when it comes to the House floor for a vote.

The veil of secrecy that shrouds the Fed has only made it more mysterious, and monetary policy that much more complex and obscure, to the average American taxpayer. Political discourse over subjects like deficits and inflation tends to focus on fiscal policy, but this is only one half of the equation. It is time for more people to ask why the Fed should have a government-granted monopoly for the creation of money and what it does with its powers to alter the value of money and interest.

Below is an excerpt of the WND article quoting Rep. Paul on some of his criticisms of the Fed:

Paul long has been a critic of the secrecy of the Federal Reserve.

“Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar,” he said earlier. “Since 1913, the dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy.”

“Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations,” Paul said when the plan to audit the Fed was introduced. “While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed’s susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests.”

Paul has warned, “The Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments, and the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing these agreements. Why should a government-established agency, whose police force has federal law enforcement powers, and whose notes have legal tender status in this country, be allowed to enter into agreements with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight? Particularly when hundreds of billions of dollars of currency swaps have been announced and implemented, the Fed’s negotiations with the European Central Bank, the Bank of International Settlements, and other institutions should face increased scrutiny, most especially because of their significant effect on foreign policy. If the State Department were able to do this, it would be characterized as a rogue agency and brought to heel, and if a private individual did this he might face prosecution under the Logan Act, yet the Fed avoids both fates.”

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House to Vote on Resolution to Reject Goldstone Report

By Jeremy R. Hammond

November 02, 2009 “Information Clearing House” — The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday on a resolution calling on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora.”

Headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the U.N. report found that evidence indicates both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during Israel’s 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip, dubbed “Operation Cast Lead”, which began on December 27, 2008.

The report recommended that allegations of war crimes by both parties be investigated.

The current text of the proposed Congressional resolution, H. Res. 867, contains numerous factual inaccuracies, beginning with the assertion that the U.N. inquiry had “pre-judged” its findings and was “one-sidedly” mandated to “investigate all violations of international human rights law and International Humanitarian Law by . . . Israel, against the Palestinian people . . . particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression”.

The actual mandate adopted on April 3 was “to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.”

The quoted text is not from the April 3 mandate, but from U.N. General Assembly resolution S-9/1 on January 12, 2009, which resulted in the later appointment of the mission by the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Also, omitted in the draft resolution’s reproduction of the text are the words “occupying Power” before “Israel”. Under international law, the occupying power is in fact obligated to investigate allegations of war crimes and violations of human rights.

The draft U.S. resolution states that the Goldstone report “makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel’s defensive measures”.

But this criticism itself ignores the fact that even if Israel’s military operations were justifiable as  “defensive measures”, Israel would still be legally obligated to conduct its operations in accordance with international law, and to conduct investigations into alleged war crimes conducted by its own forces.

The draft resolution also makes no mention of the relentless siege of Gaza by Israel, or the fact that Hamas had been strictly observing a cease-fire agreed to in June, only firing rockets after Israel had first violated that truce with repeated attacks against Gazans, a continuation of the crippling siege, and an airstrike and invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces on November 4 that ultimately resulted in the complete breakdown of the truce.

It also makes no mention of the fact that the Goldstone report contains a section dedicated to examining the impact of rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militants on southern Israel, or that mission’s efforts to do so were impeded by Israel’s refusal to cooperate.

The draft resolution states that the U.N. mission “included a member who, before joining the mission, had already declared Israel guilty of committing atrocities in Operation Cast Lead by signing a public letter on January 11, 2009, published in the Sunday Times, that called Israel’s actions ‘war crimes’”.

That letter to the Sunday Times also stated, “We condemn the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and suicide bombings which are also contrary to international humanitarian law and are war crimes.”

But criticism of the Goldstone report on the similar basis that one of its members had beforehand declared Hamas guilty of war crimes is lacking in the draft resolution.

It calls the Goldstone report’s findings “that the Israeli military had deliberately attacked civilians during Operation Cast Lead” “unsubstantiated”. In fact, the 575 page report provides extensive documentation for its findings.

The draft resolution states that “the authors of the report, in the body of the report itself, admit that ‘we did not deal with the issues . . . regarding the problems of conducting military operations in civilian areas and second-guessing decisions made by soldiers and their commanding officers ‘ in the fog of war.’”

This is an outright fabrication. Those words do not in fact appear in the body of the actual report.

Those words actually come from an alleged e-mail from Richard Goldstone in which he explained why the U.N. report did not rely on a Colonel Kemp for its inquiry. The full text of the statement from that e-mail, replacing the part omitted in the draft resolution, reads “we did not deal with the issues he raised regarding the problems of conducting military operations in civilian areas…” (emphasis added).

The draft resolution states that Richard Goldstone had been quoted in the October 16 edition of the Jewish daily Forward as saying, “If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven”.

But omitted is the further context of that remark in the same article, which added, “He recalled his work as chief prosecutor for the international war crimes tribunal in Yugoslavia in 1994. When he began working, Goldstone was presented with a report commissioned by the U.N. Security Council based on what he said was a fact-finding mission similar to his own in Gaza.

“’We couldn’t use that report as evidence at all,’ Goldstone said. ‘But it was a useful roadmap for our investigators, for me as chief prosecutor, to decide where we should investigate. And that’s the purpose of this sort of report.”

The draft resolution asserts that the Goldstone report “in effect, denied the State of Israel the right to self-defense”, but offers no supporting evidence for this.

The Goldstone report found that “While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.”

The draft resolution states that “the report usually considered public statements made by Israeli officials not to be credible, while frequently giving uncritical credence to statements taken from what it called the ‘Gaza authorities’, i.e. the Gaza leadership of Hamas”, but offers no examples from the report.

The report does, in fact, question the credibility of Israeli officials. It notes in one instance that “it considers the credibility of Israel’s position damaged by the series of inconsistencies, contradictions and factual inaccuracies in the statements justifying the attack.”

In another example illustrating Israel’s lack of credibility, it “acknowledges that significant efforts [were] made by Israel to issue warnings”, but that “The credibility of instructions to move to city centres for safety was also diminished by the fact that the city centres themselves had been the subject of intense attacks”.

The Goldstone report also observed that “By refusing to cooperate with the Mission, the Government of Israel prevented it from meeting Israeli Government officials, but also from travelling to Israel to meet Israeli victims and to the West Bank to meet Palestinian Authority representatives and Palestinian victims.”

The U.N. report also noted that “In establishing its findings, the Mission sought to rely primarily and whenever possible on information it gathered first-hand. Information produced by others, including reports, affidavits and media reports, was used primarily as corroboration.”

The draft resolution asserts that “notwithstanding a great body of evidence that Hamas and other violent Islamist groups committed war crimes by using civilians and civilian institutions, such as mosques, schools, and hospitals, as shields, the report repeatedly downplayed or cast doubt upon that claim”.

The “great body of evidence” is an apparent reference to remarks from Israeli officials found to be demonstrably lacking in credibility, which were commonly simply repeated by U.S. officials and the mainstream media.

The U.N. mission did examine “whether and to what extent the Palestinian armed groups violated their obligation to exercise care and take all feasible precaution to protect the civilian population in Gaza” and found that “Palestinian armed groups were present in urban areas during the military operations and launched rockets from urban areas”.

But it “found no evidence, however, to suggest that Palestinian armed groups either directed civilians to areas where attacks were being launched or that they forced civilians to remain within the vicinity of the attacks.”

While there is no evidence that Hamas deliberately used civilians as human shields, the Goldstone report “investigated four incidents in which the Israeli armed forces coerced Palestinian civilian men at gunpoint to take part in house searches during the military operations” and concluded “that this practice amounts to the Use of Palestinian civilians as human shields and is therefore prohibited by international humanitarian law.”

The draft resolution, besides calling upon the White House and State Department to reject the Goldstone report and its recommendations, also “reaffirms its support for the democratic, Jewish State of Israel, for Israel’s security and right to self-defense, and, specifically for Israel’s right to defend its citizens from violent militant groups and their state sponsors.”

It makes no similar mention of the right of Palestinians to security and self-defense from Israel and its U.S. sponsor.

Human rights groups, including the Israeli organization B’Tselem, have called upon the international community to implement its recommendation that suspected violations of international law be investigated.

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H.RES.867

Title: Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the “Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” in multilateral fora.

Possibly written by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), H.R. 867 has 114 co-sponsors. The vote is expected to take place on Tuesday.

The author of the report, Richard Goldstone, has submitted a letter on this legislation pointing out serious factual errors in its assertions.

Voters are being urged to contact their representatives (U.S. House of Representatives 202.225.3121 or www.house.gov; U.S. Senate 202.224.3121 or www.senate.gov the Congressional switchboard) to oppose H.Res.867.

Sponsor: Rep Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana [FL-18] (introduced 10/23/2009)

COSPONSORS(114), ALPHABETICAL: (Sort: by date)
Rep Ackerman, Gary L. [NY-5] – 10/23/2009
Rep Aderholt, Robert B. [AL-4] – 10/28/2009
Rep Alexander, Rodney [LA-5] – 10/28/2009
Rep Baca, Joe [CA-43] – 10/29/2009
Rep Bachmann, Michele [MN-6] – 10/27/2009
Rep Bartlett, Roscoe G. [MD-6] – 10/29/2009
Rep Barton, Joe [TX-6] – 10/29/2009
Rep Berkley, Shelley [NV-1] – 10/27/2009
Rep Berman, Howard L. [CA-28] – 10/23/2009
Rep Bishop, Rob [UT-1] – 10/27/2009
Rep Blunt, Roy [MO-7] – 10/27/2009
Rep Bonner, Jo [AL-1] – 10/28/2009
Rep Boozman, John [AR-3] – 10/29/2009
Rep Brady, Kevin [TX-8] – 10/27/2009
Rep Broun, Paul C. [GA-10] – 10/29/2009
Rep Brown, Corrine [FL-3] – 10/29/2009
Rep Brown, Henry E., Jr. [SC-1] – 10/29/2009
Rep Buchanan, Vern [FL-13] – 10/27/2009
Rep Burton, Dan [IN-5] – 10/23/2009
Rep Calvert, Ken [CA-44] – 10/28/2009
Rep Campbell, John [CA-48] – 10/27/2009
Rep Cantor, Eric [VA-7] – 10/27/2009
Rep Cardoza, Dennis A. [CA-18] – 10/28/2009
Rep Carter, John R. [TX-31] – 10/28/2009
Rep Chaffetz, Jason [UT-3] – 10/28/2009
Rep Chu, Judy [CA-32] – 10/27/2009
Rep Conaway, K. Michael [TX-11] – 10/28/2009
Rep Crowley, Joseph [NY-7] – 10/27/2009
Rep Dent, Charles W. [PA-15] – 10/28/2009
Rep Diaz-Balart, Lincoln [FL-21] – 10/28/2009
Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] – 10/27/2009
Rep Faleomavaega, Eni F.H. [AS] – 10/27/2009
Rep Foxx, Virginia [NC-5] – 10/29/2009
Rep Franks, Trent [AZ-2] – 10/28/2009
Rep Frelinghuysen, Rodney P. [NJ-11] – 10/28/2009
Rep Garrett, Scott [NJ-5] – 10/29/2009
Rep Gerlach, Jim [PA-6] – 10/28/2009
Rep Graves, Sam [MO-6] – 10/29/2009
Rep Green, Gene [TX-29] – 10/29/2009
Rep Hall, John J. [NY-19] – 10/29/2009
Rep Hare, Phil [IL-17] – 10/29/2009
Rep Harman, Jane [CA-36] – 10/28/2009
Rep Hastings, Alcee L. [FL-23] – 10/27/2009
Rep Hastings, Doc [WA-4] – 10/27/2009
Rep Heller, Dean [NV-2] – 10/29/2009
Rep Hoekstra, Peter [MI-2] – 10/28/2009
Rep Israel, Steve [NY-2] – 10/27/2009
Rep Jenkins, Lynn [KS-2] – 10/27/2009
Rep Jordan, Jim [OH-4] – 10/29/2009
Rep Kagen, Steve [WI-8] – 10/28/2009
Rep King, Peter T. [NY-3] – 10/27/2009
Rep Kingston, Jack [GA-1] – 10/27/2009
Rep Kirk, Mark Steven [IL-10] – 10/28/2009
Rep Klein, Ron [FL-22] – 10/27/2009
Rep Kline, John [MN-2] – 10/29/2009
Rep Lamborn, Doug [CO-5] – 10/27/2009
Rep Lance, Leonard [NJ-7] – 10/28/2009
Rep Latta, Robert E. [OH-5] – 10/27/2009
Rep Linder, John [GA-7] – 10/27/2009
Rep LoBiondo, Frank A. [NJ-2] – 10/27/2009
Rep Lowey, Nita M. [NY-18] – 10/28/2009
Rep Mack, Connie [FL-14] – 10/27/2009
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. [NY-14] – 10/28/2009
Rep Manzullo, Donald A. [IL-16] – 10/28/2009
Rep Marchant, Kenny [TX-24] – 10/28/2009
Rep Markey, Edward J. [MA-7] – 10/28/2009
Rep Massa, Eric J. J. [NY-29] – 10/28/2009
Rep McCarthy, Carolyn [NY-4] – 10/29/2009
Rep McCaul, Michael T. [TX-10] – 10/28/2009
Rep McClintock, Tom [CA-4] – 10/29/2009
Rep McCotter, Thaddeus G. [MI-11] – 10/27/2009
Rep McHenry, Patrick T. [NC-10] – 10/27/2009
Rep McMahon, Michael E. [NY-13] – 10/27/2009
Rep McMorris Rodgers, Cathy [WA-5] – 10/28/2009
Rep Meek, Kendrick B. [FL-17] – 10/27/2009
Rep Miller, Candice S. [MI-10] – 10/29/2009
Rep Moran, Jerry [KS-1] – 10/27/2009
Rep Murphy, Tim [PA-18] – 10/29/2009
Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8] – 10/28/2009
Rep Paulsen, Erik [MN-3] – 10/27/2009
Rep Pence, Mike [IN-6] – 10/29/2009
Rep Peters, Gary C. [MI-9] – 10/28/2009
Rep Price, Tom [GA-6] – 10/28/2009
Rep Rehberg, Denny [MT] – 10/29/2009
Rep Reichert, David G. [WA-8] – 10/28/2009
Rep Roe, David P. [TN-1] – 10/27/2009
Rep Rogers, Mike J. [MI-8] – 10/28/2009
Rep Ross, Mike [AR-4] – 10/27/2009
Rep Rothman, Steven R. [NJ-9] – 10/28/2009
Rep Royce, Edward R. [CA-40] – 10/28/2009
Rep Ryan, Paul [WI-1] – 10/28/2009
Rep Scalise, Steve [LA-1] – 10/29/2009
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9] – 10/29/2009
Rep Schiff, Adam B. [CA-29] – 10/27/2009
Rep Schwartz, Allyson Y. [PA-13] – 10/29/2009
Rep Sensenbrenner, F. James, Jr. [WI-5] – 10/29/2009
Rep Sessions, Pete [TX-32] – 10/27/2009
Rep Shimkus, John [IL-19] – 10/27/2009
Rep Shuster, Bill [PA-9] – 10/28/2009
Rep Sires, Albio [NJ-13] – 10/27/2009
Rep Smith, Adrian [NE-3] – 10/28/2009
Rep Smith, Lamar [TX-21] – 10/28/2009
Rep Souder, Mark E. [IN-3] – 10/29/2009
Rep Thompson, Glenn [PA-5] – 10/28/2009
Rep Tiahrt, Todd [KS-4] – 10/27/2009
Rep Tiberi, Patrick J. [OH-12] – 10/29/2009
Rep Towns, Edolphus [NY-10] – 10/27/2009
Rep Wasserman Schultz, Debbie [FL-20] – 10/28/2009
Rep Waxman, Henry A. [CA-30] – 10/27/2009
Rep Weiner, Anthony D. [NY-9] – 10/28/2009
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] – 10/27/2009
Rep Wilson, Joe [SC-2] – 10/29/2009
Rep Wolf, Frank R. [VA-10] – 10/29/2009
Rep Young, Don [AK] – 10/29/2009

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by David Swanson

“Glaubt es mir – das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

On Thursday night I had the privilege of viewing a premier of a film together with its star. The theater was in the U.S. Capitol, and the film was “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” ( http://www.mostdangerousman.org ). This is a powerfully and engagingly constructed film about one of the most effective instances of whistle-blowing in our nation’s history.

Ellsberg risked life in prison to expose the lies that had taken this nation into war in Vietnam, lies from Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. And Nixon believed that Ellsberg had incriminating documents on his own lies, which led Henry Kissinger to call Ellsberg “the most dangerous man in America.”

Like most whistle-blowers, Ellsberg was not an outside reformer. He had promoted and advanced the war from inside the Pentagon. He had tried to be a force for moderation. But peace activists reached his conscience and persuaded him that he could and must do more. Those close to him supported his decision. Colleagues took similar risks to assist him. Major media outlets risked their futures to publish what Ellsberg gave them and to interview him while he was in hiding from the law. A member of Congress (former senator Mike Gravel, who was present on Thursday) risked his future to read the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record. The Supreme Court ruled against the president of the United States. And Ellsberg became a brilliant spokesman for his cause.

A lot of factors combined to create an incredible impact from the leaking of one 7,000-page pile of documents. This exposure helped end the war in Vietnam, and helped put some spine into our media outlets, our Congress, and our courts’ treatment of the First Amendment.

However, Ellsberg expected more. He expected Americans to change their thinking about wars. He expected us not to fall for obvious lies about wars anymore. He thought that people would digest and synthesize the untold story he exposed. So, in some ways, he was of course disappointed. And, of course, what good he did for the media and Congress quickly wore off.

In the film we’re told that the New York Times decided to publish top secret documents because it thought it would not be able to survive the disgrace of the world eventually learning that it had acquired the documents and not published them. This sounds like something out of Alice in Wonderland today in our world where the New York Times buries most interesting stories, where it dutifully kept a warrantless spying story secret for a year, where it still hasn’t reported on most of the stories found in the same book that forced that story out, and where it pushed war lies about Iraq and now does the same for Iran.

Most crimes today are public. Bush and Cheney brag about torture on television. Nothing happens. Documents like the Downing Street Minutes are studiously ignored. Whistleblowers post their stories on the internet. Congress no longer impeaches or even issues subpoenas. And the RAND Corporation, from which Ellsberg leaked his documents, held a propaganda-fest about escalation in Afghanistan on Capitol Hill the same day as the movie premier.

In the film we’re told that Americans were enraged to learn from the Pentagon Papers that the Vietnam War was being fought to “save face.” At RAND’s forum on Thursday, Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution openly argued for an escalation in Afghanistan, because withdrawal would mean a “huge PR victory for al Qaeda”.

Our crimes, like our system of campaign bribery or our degradation of journalism, are mostly out in the open now. No doubt there are documents in the White House or the Pentagon or RAND indicating knowledge of the hopelessness of quagmire continuation in Afghanistan. But who would ever dare leak them? Who would ever dare help that person do so? Once posted online, who would compel a newspaper or a television network to notice? Once the information was in the corporate media, who would force Congress to care? Once Congress cared, who would shut down Washington DC until the powers of subpoena and impeachment were revived?

It seems to me that what we need is not a new Dan Ellsberg for our generation. We need a whole new generation. We need dozens of Dan Ellsbergs and Dan Ellsberg accomplices throughout our government, and we need them to act frequently and with eternal vigilance. Luckily for us, Ellsberg has provided an ideal model for how to conduct yourself when in a position like his. Ellsberg has also written the foreword to a book by Ann Wright (who was there on Thursday) that provides more recent role models: http://voicesofconscience.com And those of us who are not in possession of classified crime records can help as well. We can raise bloody hell until Congress passes a media shield law and a whistle-blower bill of rights. We can befriend war-makers, modern-day Ellsbergs, and reach their hearts. And we can build media outlets that do real reporting. We must do these things. Lets do them for the most dangerous man in America.

David Swanson is the author of the new book “Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union” by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when tour will be in your town: http://davidswanson.org/book.

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Man who attacked Elie Wiesel on the attack again

By BRIAN HAMACHER

AP

First he attacked Nobel Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel in an elevator, and now famed Holocaust denier Eric Hunt is on the attack again, filing a lawsuit in Broward against Steven Speilberg and author Irene Weisberg Zisblatt.

Hunt, 25, who was convicted last year in the attack on Wiesel in San Francisco in 2007, claims Zisblatt’s new book “The Fifth Diamond: The Story of Irene Weisberg Zisblatt” is a fraud, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

The lawsuit, filed on Oct. 6 in Broward Circuit Court, alleges that “Zisblatt blatantly stole other Jewish people’s experiences during World War II and passed them off as her own in order to further the Jewish political agenda and profit off of these fantastical tales.”

Zisblatt, 80, survived the Holocaust and watched her parents and five siblings die in Concentration camps during World War II, and is now a resident of Pembroke Pines. She appeared in Spielberg’s 1998 documentary “The Last Days.”

Hunt, who is representing himself in the suit, adds that “the defendants must not go unpunished for tormenting Gentiles and instilling hatred in Jews using such hideous lies.”

Zisblatt’s son-in-law, Stuart Mermelstein, a Miami resident, called the lawsuit “absurd.”

“This lunatic has assaulted a survivor in the past,” Mermelstein, a lawyer, told the Sun-Sentinel. “And is posing a danger to my mother-in-law simply for speaking out and writing a book.”

A brief posting on erichunt.net, dated yesterday, announced the lawsuit, accompanied by a short video in which Hunt attempts to point out inconsistencies in Zisblatt’s retelling of the horrible events. It was the only posting on the site.

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