Surprising Results of CFR Survey – What the U.S. Elite Really Thinks About Israel By JEFFREY BLANKFORT

Posted on December 15, 2009 by kf1

The Council on Foreign Relations is always near the top of the Left’s list of bogeymen that stand accused of pulling the strings of US foreign policy. It is right up there with the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission, right? Wrong. If that was the case, those arguing that US support for Israel is based on it being a “strategic asset” will have a hard time explaining a Pew Research Center survey on America’s Place in the World, taken of 642 CFR members between October 2 and November 16. The Pew poll not only reveals that the overwhelming majority, two-thirds of the members of this elite foreign policy institution, believes that the United States has gone overboard in favoring Israel, it doesn’t consider Israel to have have much importance to the US in the first place.What can be concluded from the answers to questions that dealt with the Israel-Palestine conflict is that the general public forms its opinions from what it hears and reads in the mainstream media which are largely biased towards Israel while CFR members have greater access to as well as interest in obtaining more accurate information and are less susceptible to pro-Israel propaganda. That apparently not a single US newspaper saw fit to report on the opinions of CFR members, under those circumstances, is not surprising. The evidence:

(1) That on a list of countries that will be the “more important as America’s allies and partners” in the future, just 4 per cent included Israel which placed it in a tie with South Korea and far behinf China, 58 per cent, India, 55 per cent, Brazil,37 per cent, the EU, 19 per cent, Russia, 17 per cent, Japan, 16 per cent, the UK and Turkey, 10 per cent, Germany, 9 per cent, Mexico, 8 per cent, Canada, Indonesia, Australia and France at 5 per cent. CFR voters were allowed to make up to seven selections.(Q19)

(2) When asked which countries would be less important to the US, Israel, at 9 per cent was behind 22 countries including Canada and Mexico and in the region Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.(Q20)

(3) What was particularly revealing is that “in the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians,” only 26 per cent of the CFR sided with Israel, compared with 51 per cent of 2000 members of the general public who were polled over the same period. While but 16 per cent of CFR members sided with the Palestinians compared to 12 per cent of the public, 41 per cent of the CFRers sided with “both equally” as opposed to 4 per cent of the public. Supporting neither was 12 per cent of the CFR and 14 per cent of the public. (Q33)

(4) That the CFR has not had a major hand in making US Israel-Palestine policy nor is it in agreement with those who did is strikingly revealed by the response of its members when asked their opinion of US Middle East policies. The problem, according to 67 per cent of CFR members (as compared to 30 per cent of the public) is that the US favored Israeli too much, while only 2 per cent (as opposed to 15 per cent of the public) believed that US policy overly favored the Palestinians.. Twenty-four percent of the CFR believed US policy “struck the right balance” as did 29 per cent of the public. (Q34)

(5) The overwhelming majority of CFR members, 69 per cent, think that Pres.Obama is “striking the right balance” between the Israelis and Palestinians as compared with a slim majority, 51 per cent of the public. Thirteen percent of the CFR believes that Obama is “favoring Israel too much,” as compared with 7 per cent of the public, while 12 per cent thinks he is siding with the Palestinians, a position taken by 16 per cent of the public. (Q35)

Regarding Iran, one detects the same gap between the CFR and the public. Whereas a 64 per cent-34 per cent majority of the polled CFR members see Iran as a major threat to US interests, compared with a 72-20 per cent per cent majority of the public, only 33 per cent of the CFR would support an attack on Iran should it get a nuclear weapon as contrasted with 63 per cent of the public. (Q7)

The percentages are almost reversed when it comes to Pakistan with 63 per cent of the CFR supporting US military action were “extremists…poised to take over Pakistan,” whereas only 51 per cent of the public would approve such a move. (Q24). This is another indication of the success of Israel’s porte-paroles in the mainstream media in building up the Iran threat while downplaying the potential threats to the stabilty of nuclear-armed Pakistan. The entire Pew survey can be viewed here:

Click to access 569.pdf

Jeffrey Blankfort is a long-time pro-Palestinian activist and a contributor to The Politics of Anti-Semitism. He an be contacted at jblankfort@earthlink.net

Source

Posted in Empire, Zionism | Leave a comment

A New Inquisition? – Burqa Committees and Minaret Referenda By BOUTHAINA SHAABAN

Posted on December 11, 2009 by kf1

One does not really know how to respond to news stories which seem to evoke the Middle Ages in the west, when the inquisition against Muslims reigned: books were burned, mosques demolished, Muslims Christianized, innovators burned or drowned for suspicion of being witches. One hears about setting up committees, hearings and discussions about wearing the burqa or the veil and about sacrificial slaughtering of sheep in Europe which was once the continent of freedoms. We hear about the Swiss referendum which ended up with 57 per cent of those claiming to advocate freedom of worship supporting a ban on building minarets. There are also news of a growing number of those who oppose building mosques and minarets in France.

An opinion poll in France showed that the number of those who oppose building not only minarets, but mosques altogether is on the rise compared to eight years ago: 22 per cent in 2001 compared to 41 in the last poll. The number of those who do not oppose building mosques dropped to 19 per cent which is the lowest in a quarter century.

Future policies in the west and their repercussions aside, the decision to ban minarets in Switzerland – although churches there have towers similar to Moroccan minarets – under the guise of popular democracy, is a violation of the human right of the freedom to worship, the simplest and oldest right ever practiced by humans all over the world. For Muslims in the Middle East, who lived for thousands of years among mosques and churches next to each other, and the Sunday masses and church bells mixing with the Muslim call for prayer and the Friday prayers, the Swiss decision seems a form of racism against Islam and Muslims. We had assumed that all of this was part of the darkness of the European past of ignorance, backwardness and racial fanaticism, things supposed to have been dissipated by the light of democracy and the human rights charter long advocated by the west which claims to put pressure on “less civilized countries” to respect.

The strange thing is that the countries which give themselves the right to issue lists naming countries practicing religious discrimination against followers of other religions have not taken the trouble to add Switzerland to the list of countries which discriminate on religious grounds against Muslims in Switzerland. Neither did they criticize the debate going on against Muslims in France and Europe in general, which in itself is a form of racial discrimination against Muslims who are citizens of these countries and should enjoy citizenship rights, including the freedom of worship and freedom of religious affiliation.

Those waging this campaign against Islam and Muslims should remember that Islam, which has been spreading for the past fourteen centuries throughout the world, touched human souls by persuasion and conviction not force, and preserved different civilizations, religions and rituals in the countries which embraced it. Hence we see the different rituals and apparel in Asia, Africa, Europe, America, China and India. And that is why followers of other religions – Jews, Christians, Sabeans and others – still constitute part of the social and national fabric in Muslim countries, whereas eight million Muslims in Andalusia were either killed, Christianized or expelled.

It should be noted that God, in the Quran, addresses people and believers not Muslims alone, because the golden rule in Islam is that “those closest to God are the most righteous”. Islam came to complement other prophets and messengers who came before it; and one cannot be a Muslim unless s/he believed in all the other prophets and messengers and revere them in the same way s/he reveres Prophet Mohammad.

The difference between the true Muslim approach and the western approach is that Islam is based on co-existence and acculturation, while the dominant western civilization was based on the elimination of native people, settling in their land and expropriating their wealth after characterizing them as backward, primitive and ignorant to justify exterminating them.

Those coming from the Arab world, where churches and mosques embrace, where people worship God in their different ways, and where the main tenet is “Those among you closer to God are those who are good to each other”, are stunned by the fears expressed by the Swiss on minarets and mosques, women’s apparel and veils in schools. The Swiss, whom wealthy Muslims have entrusted with billions of dollars cannot bear to see a minaret!

This incapacity of the western mind to accept Muslims as equal citizens in rights and duties explains, more than anything else, western silence towards Israeli practices against Palestinians which are a shame to humanity.

Why does not the Organization of Islamic Conference issue a blacklist of the countries which deprive Muslims of religious freedom, their extremist parties, politicians, journalists and take measures against them? Why should labelling and definition remain an exclusive right of those who show clear racism and fanaticism towards Muslims? Why does not the OIC demand that the United States – which issues lists of terrorist organizations and countries which practice religious discrimination – add Israel to the terrorist list since it practices the ugliest forms of terrorism against unarmed civilians and Switzerland to the list of countries practicing religious discrimination?

Those who express reservations towards Islam because of women’s conditions, need only look at the condition of Iraqi women before and after American occupation. Here, I refer to Zayd al-Zubaidi’s report in al-Akhbar, December 4, 2009, titled “Women in Occupied Iraq: Widowed, Raped or Murdered”. Many people recall that one of Bush’s justifications of the war on Iraq and occupying it was “liberating Iraqi women”. The only liberty they got was to be raped by occupation soldiers, to care for orphans without any income, to suffer the loss of their husbands, brothers and children and the humiliation of occupation soldiers.

The rise in right-wing violence against minarets, mosques and Muslim women, and the spread of Islamophobia, hatred and violence against Muslims in the west, is linked to the appearance of brave voices in the United States and Europe calling for boycotting Israel and punishing its war criminals.

Ukrainian academics have said that Israel has stolen Ukrainian children in order to slice out their organs, which confirms what Swedish journalist Donald Bostrum and others have reported about Israel killing Palestinian children in order to steal their organs. British Jews are asking prime minister Brown to adopt the Goldstone report. Organizers in San Francisco have initiated a campaign to boycott Israel by publishing a list of ten companies which should be boycotted. The Australian city of Sidney has had demonstrations against a visit by Israeli deputy prime minister Sylvan Shalom to the city.

Research shows that Islam is spreading quickly despite – or maybe because – of oppressive measures against Muslims. In Britain, the name of Mohammad came second in popularity, after John; and Denmark, which published the defamatory cartoons of Prophet Mohammad, is witnessing a remarkable rise in the number of those who are embracing Islam. If the first prison guard in Guantanamo converted to Islam, although his task was to insure that Muslims are adequately tortured, no one will be able to eliminate minarets, mosques or veils. Neither will they be able to smother “God’s light with their mouths”. But it is the duty of all Muslims to take the position which honors their religion and the dignity of its followers, whether they are in Switzerland, France, Denmark or occupied Palestine.

Bouthaina Shaaban is Political and Media Advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former Minister of Expatriates. She is also a writer and professor at Damascus University since 1985. She has been the spokesperson for Syria and was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She can be reached through nizar_kabibo@yahoo.com

Source

Posted in Empire, History, Ideaology, Religion of Abraham | Leave a comment

What the News Stories Left Out – Hezbollah’s New Manifesto By FRANKLIN LAMB

Posted on December 4, 2009 by kf1

Dahiyeh, South Beirut.

Like many liberation and resistant movement ‘Manifestos’ ‘Charters’ or ‘Declarations’ issued to the public early in its founding — the African National Congress, Palestine Liberation Organization , Hamas, Algerian FLN, and various “Sons of Liberty” groups during the American Revolution, come to mind — Hezbollah has been criticized by its detractors over the years for some language in its 1985 “Open Letter” manifesto. Some have urged Hezbollah to remove “controversial language” such as the call for an Islamic Republic in Lebanon- even though the Party has made clear that establishing an Islamic Republic of Lebanon is no longer a priority and emphasizes that Lebanon’s diversity is respected, valued and permanent. Others have called Hezbollah’s 1985 manifesto ‘too religious” and too dogmatic for a broad international appeal political document.

Ideas for Hezbollah’s original 1985 Manifesto evolved over 30 months following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, during which time the new resistance movement worked to establish itself in the turbulent period of military invasions, occupations and numerous internal and external conspiracies against it. Many secret discussions were held concerning all manner of subjects including what the new organization would be called. Many favored the name “The Islamic Movement of Lebanon” but before the matter came up for a vote, another of the more than 20 new local resistance groups preempted that name. Others thought the name “Nation (Umma) of Hezbollah” was more inclusive. Under time pressure to agree on a name before the “Open Letter” was to be issued, the name “Hezbollah”, (“Party of God”) found in the Quran was agreed upon.

The Open Letter, addressed to “ The Downtrodden in Lebanon and in the World’ was published on February 16, 1985, a date purposely chosen because it was the first anniversary of the Israeli assassination, of the pre-Hezbollah resistance organizer Sheik Ragheb Harb, from the south Lebanon village of Jibsheet.

Hezbollah’s first Manifesto was first read at the al-Ouzai Mosque, down the hill and near the Mediterranean seashore, from the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp, by one of the founders of Hezbollah, the official spokesman for the nascent group, Sayeed Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, who has served for 28 years on its Shura Council and today heads Hezbollah’s political council. Perhaps by coincidence, on the same day that Hezbollah’s public manifesto was issued, Israel began a 10 week withdrawal from 168 towns and villages, comprising 55 percent of South Lebanon.

With respect to Shatila Camp and neighboring Burj al Barajneh camp — and later Rashidiyye Camp down south in Tyre — it was several weeks following Hezbollah ‘going public’ that the “War of the Camps” (May 1985-July 1988) would cause more death and destruction to Palestinians than the Sabra-Shatila Massacre. Despite pressure from their fellow Shia- the Amal militia- to join them in attacking the Camps to settle plenty of still festering pre-1982 scores from PLO abuses and crimes against the southern Shia, as well as to help Syria eliminate pro-Arafat partisans and gain sole control of the “Palestinian Card”, the newly organized Hezbollah insisted that its only enemies were the Israeli occupiers, which it was busy attacking. At the same time it repeatedly admonished Amal and Syria to end their assaults on Palestinian refugee camps. Eventually Syria, under Soviet and Arab pressure, called a halt to the criminal attacks, but to this day few Palestinians have forgiven it for this slaughter which killed more than 4,000 and wounded close to 7,000. Like Amal, Syria does not like to discuss this dark chapter and some of its officials express regret and shame.

With its “Open Letter” declaration Hezbollah entered a new phase, shifting the Party from secret resistance activity free from political or media interactions into public political work.

As noted above, from the day the manifesto was promulgated, some have been advising the Party to amend and ‘tone down’ the 1985 language which reflects a different period of Lebanese history and international conflict. Others aver that we are still in the same period, only more deeply. The original Hezbollah manifesto document reflects various views of the founders as well as the political thinking of senior Shia cleric Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. Some in Dahiyeh still call Fadlallah “the father of Hezbollah”, not for his active Party involvement which has never existed, so Hezbollah sources attest (not withstanding his name on the US terrorism list), but for his public speeches and sermons that inspired a generation of Resistance fighters in Lebanon and the region and continue to do so.

Some critics have used the Introduction to Hezbollah’s 1985 “Open Letter” to smear the Party as religious fanatics and appearing too ‘foreign’ and too Iranian.

It reads:

“We are often asked: Who are we, the Hezbollah, and what is our identity?

“We are the sons of the umma (Muslim community) – the party of God (Hizb Allah) the vanguard of which was made victorious by God in Iran. There the vanguard succeeded to lay down the bases of a Muslim state which plays a central role in the world. We obey the orders of one leader, wise and just, that of our tutor and faqih (jurist) who fulfills all the necessary conditions: Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini. God save him!

“By virtue of the above, we do not constitute an organized and closed party in Lebanon. nor are we a tight political cadre. We are an umma linked to the Muslims of the whole world by the solid doctrinal and religious connection of Islam, whose message God wanted to be fulfilled by the Seal of the Prophets, i.e., Muhammad. This is why whatever touches or strikes the Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines and elsewhere reverberates throughout the whole Muslim umma of which we are an integral part. Our behavior is dictated to us by legal principles laid down by the light of an overall political conception defined by the leading jurist (wilayat al-faqih).

“As for our culture, it is based on the Holy Koran, the Sunna and the legal rulings of the faqih who is our source of imitation (marja’ al-taqlid). Our culture is crystal clear. It is not complicated and is accessible to all.”

Some Party officials, as well as supporters, felt Hezbollah needed to issue a new document that would provide a clearer and wider vision on the resistance and its current political work and future social and ideological plan.

Against this backdrop, Hezbollah’s 7th Party Conference drafted a more contemporary 32-page Manifesto reflecting 28 years of political maturity. Not to recant its 25 year old “Open Letter” but rather to define issues not addressed in the party’s first manifesto and to set its future political path for “homeland of our fathers, ancestors, grandchildren, and the coming generations.”

The detailed document, in four parts, provides many specifics on how Hezbollah plans to work with the new Unity Government to improve Lebanon and the lives of its entire population.

Misleading main stream media reports

For many who rely on reports offered by US and European ‘news outlets’ a dramatically skewed view was presented the morning after Tuesday’s release of Hezbollah’s new political program at a large news conference in al Jinen Hall in Dahiyeh.

CNN’s report on yesterday’s event was typical:

Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) – Hezbollah’s chief on Monday announced the group’s new “manifesto,” which calls on all countries to “liberate Jerusalem” and declares the United States a threat to the world.

“American terrorism is the source of every terrorism in the world,” Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech from an undisclosed location. Hezbollah, a political party in Lebanon, is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel.

Nasrallah does not appear in public amid concerns for his safety. “We invite and call on all Arabs and Muslims and all countries keen on peace and stability in the world to intensify efforts and resources to liberate Jerusalem from Zionist occupation and to maintain its true identity and its Islamic and Christian sanctities,” Nasrallah said.

Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks. It has been linked to attacks against American, Israeli and other Western targets….He praised Iran and Syria, which are Hezbollah’s chief backers”.

Only then is the reader advised that Hassan Nasrallah “also touched on domestic issues.” In fact Hassan Nasrallah spoke for 80 minutes about domestic issues, the subject of and reason for the new Hezbollah manifesto.
Hezbollah’s new political program calls for “The elimination of political sectarianism as the main pre-condition to establish a true democracy as the Taif Accord stipulated and the formation of a national council for this end.”

The Hezbollah manifesto blames sectarianism “for being a strong obstacle to achieving a true democracy, whereby the elected majority can rule and the opposition can exercise its role.”

Despite Hezbollah’s desire for a sectarian-free democracy, Nasrallah said that until achieving it, his party accepts “consensus democracy” pursuant to the Constitution and National Pact. “Consensus democracy is a suitable political formula that ensures the participation of all parties,” he said.

Focusing extensively on the domestic level, Hezbollah, acting as a fully fledged political party, urged the implementation of administrative decentralization in order to promote balanced developmental projects over all Lebanese territories. It warned against the evolution of decentralization into any form of federalism, as he expressed the party’s opposition to any form of division, or masked federalism.

“We want a government that works for its citizens and provides the appropriate services in their education and medical care and housing to secure a decent life and to address the problem of poverty and provide employment opportunities,” the document reads. “We want a government that works to strengthen the role of women in society and enhance their participation in all fields.”

Nasrallah outlined his party’s vision for the Lebanese state, saying it must “guarantee public liberties, ensure national unity and protect its sovereignty and independence with a strong and capable army.” He stressed the importance of “modern” institutions, an economy built on agriculture and industry and a strong judiciary.

Hezbollah’s new manifesto also calls for a modern electoral law with “accurate electoral representation” and added that the state needs to cater to its citizens’ needs, empower the youth and women and prioritize education.

The new document maps out the party’s policy on a national defense strategy, saying that Lebanon needs to confront Israeli threats with a popular resistance supported by the people and a national army that ensures the country’s stability and security. “In the absence of strategic balance, the Israeli threat obliges Lebanon to endorse a defensive strategy that depends on a popular resistance participating in defending the country and an army that preserves the security of the country — in an integrated manner,” added Hezbollah’s Secretary-General. “Adopting the choice of the Resistance allowed Lebanon to achieve real independence and safeguard its sovereignty,” he added.

Hezbollah’s new political manifesto emphatically declares that the Palestinians have the right to resist through all forms, primarily armed struggle. It pledges Hezbollah’s work with all the Lebanese parties to grant Palestinian refugees in Lebanon “their civil and social rights,” while rejecting naturalization. It also calls for “direct Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue.” Nasrallah cited the 2000 Israeli withdrawal from the South, their 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, the 2006 July War, the first and second Intifadas as well as the Hamas takeover of Gaza, and the 2009 Gaza War as victories against Israel.

“We assure our constant and continuous support of the Palestinian people and cause against Israel,” he added.

Hezbollah’s new manifesto also calls on “Arab leaders to review their agreements with Israel and give up the idea of compromising with it, especially those who gambled on US administration policies.” Nasrallah added that “Israel has proved that is does not seek peace and uses negotiations to impose its conditions and to achieve its gains.” Hezbollah hopes the Arab and Islamic countries would “unite and commit to the liberation of the land and reject the alternatives of naturalization of Palestinians.”

“We call on the Arabs to set plans to liberate Palestinians in Israeli prisons,” Nasrallah added.

In its new political declaration, Hezbollah discusses Lebanon’s foreign relations, and calls for the country to “maintain its special relations with Syria because it is a political, security and economic need dictated by the two countries’ interests.” It declares that any “negative atmosphere” clouding these relations must be removed”.

According to Hezbollah, Lebanon’s relations with Syria are part of the country’s overall relations with the Arab world and its confrontation with Israel. “Lebanon is Arab in nature and belonging” and added that its interests “necessitate a commitment to just Arab causes.” He called some Arab countries’ disputes with Iran as a “stab to the back of Arab causes that only serves Israel and the US.”

Hezbollah’s new manifesto also stresses the importance of cooperation between Islamic countries and described Iran as an “important, central state in the Islamic world… which supports resistance movements in our area and supports Arab and Islamic causes.” He added that the “fabrications of contradictions” between Iran and Arab countries is a “stab in the back to the Arab cause, which serves only Israel and the US.”

As Hezbollah initiates its future work within the Lebanese polity, initial Lebanese and international reactions appear positive according to Hezbollah’s media office. The party now plans to enlist support for its new manifesto.

Wednesday’s Daily Star reported in an exclusive interview with David Miliband, the UK’s Foreign Minister, that his country intends to increase contacts and dialogue with Hezbollah’s politicians with European Union members considering the same. Meanwhile, Naharnet.com news bulletin reported that the U.S. Embassy “has denied media reports that U.S .Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman will visit Beirut this week.”

According to the same report, “The embassy also denied an al-Markaziya news agency’s report that the Obama administration would most probably replace Michele Sison as U.S. ambassador to Beirut”.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

Source

Hizbut Tahrir’s view on Lebanese politics – Interview – Asia Times – 10 Oct.2010

Posted in Lebanon, Middle East | Leave a comment

Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan

Posted on November 25, 2009 by kf1

The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency’s director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. “This is a parallel operation to the CIA,” said the source. “They are two separate beasts.” The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war–knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country.

Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. “Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government,” Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has “no other operations of any kind in Pakistan.”

A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source’s claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.

His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater’s covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, “From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct,” adding, “There’s no question that’s occurring.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me because we’ve outsourced nearly everything,” said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater’s role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater’s involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. “Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don’t have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it’s that simple. It would not surprise me.”

The Counterterrorism Tag Team in Karachi

The covert JSOC program with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007, according to the military intelligence source. The current head of JSOC is Vice Adm. William McRaven, who took over the post from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater’s presence in Pakistan is “not really visible, and that’s why nobody has cracked down on it,” said the source. Blackwater’s operations in Pakistan, he said, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified Defense contracts. “It’s Blackwater via JSOC, and it’s a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis.” The main JSOC/Blackwater facility in Karachi, according to the source, is nondescript: three trailers with various generators, satellite phones and computer systems are used as a makeshift operations center. “It’s a very rudimentary operation,” says the source. “I would compare it to [CIA] outposts in Kurdistan or any of the Special Forces outposts. It’s very bare bones, and that’s the point.”

Blackwater’s work for JSOC in Karachi is coordinated out of a Task Force based at Bagram Air Base in neighboring Afghanistan, according to the military intelligence source. While JSOC technically runs the operations in Karachi, he said, it is largely staffed by former US special operations soldiers working for a division of Blackwater, once known as Blackwater SELECT, and intelligence analysts working for a Blackwater affiliate, Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS), which is owned by Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince. The military source said that the name Blackwater SELECT may have been changed recently. Total Intelligence, which is run out of an office on the ninth floor of a building in the Ballston area of Arlington, Virginia, is staffed by former analysts and operatives from the CIA, DIA, FBI and other agencies. It is modeled after the CIA’s counterterrorism center. In Karachi, TIS runs a “media-scouring/open-source network,” according to the source. Until recently, Total Intelligence was run by two former top CIA officials, Cofer Black and Robert Richer, both of whom have left the company. In Pakistan, Blackwater is not using either its original name or its new moniker, Xe Services, according to the former Blackwater executive. “They are running most of their work through TIS because the other two [names] have such a stain on them,” he said. Corallo, the Blackwater spokesperson, denied that TIS or any other division or affiliate of Blackwater has any personnel in Pakistan.

The US military intelligence source said that Blackwater’s classified contracts keep getting renewed at the request of JSOC. Blackwater, he said, is already so deeply entrenched that it has become a staple of the US military operations in Pakistan. According to the former Blackwater executive, “The politics that go with the brand of BW is somewhat set aside because what you’re doing is really one military guy to another.” Blackwater’s first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

One of the concerns raised by the military intelligence source is that some Blackwater personnel are being given rolling security clearances above their approved clearances. Using Alternative Compartmentalized Control Measures (ACCMs), he said, the Blackwater personnel are granted clearance to a Special Access Program, the bureaucratic term used to describe highly classified “black” operations. “With an ACCM, the security manager can grant access to you to be exposed to and operate within compartmentalized programs far above ‘secret’–even though you have no business doing so,” said the source. It allows Blackwater personnel that “do not have the requisite security clearance or do not hold a security clearance whatsoever to participate in classified operations by virtue of trust,” he added. “Think of it as an ultra-exclusive level above top secret. That’s exactly what it is: a circle of love.” Blackwater, therefore, has access to “all source” reports that are culled in part from JSOC units in the field. “That’s how a lot of things over the years have been conducted with contractors,” said the source. “We have contractors that regularly see things that top policy-makers don’t unless they ask.”

According to the source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself as a company whose operatives have “conducted lethal direct action missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell. JSOC just ate that up,” he said, adding, “They have a sizable force in Pakistan–not for any nefarious purpose if you really want to look at it that way–but to support a legitimate contract that’s classified for JSOC.” Blackwater’s Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said. The source is not sure when the arrangement with JSOC began, but he says that a spin-off of Blackwater SELECT “was issued a no-bid contract for support to shooters for a JSOC Task Force and they kept extending it.” Some of the Blackwater personnel, he said, work undercover as aid workers. “Nobody even gives them a second thought.”

The military intelligence source said that the Blackwater/JSOC Karachi operation is referred to as “Qatar cubed,” in reference to the US forward operating base in Qatar that served as the hub for the planning and implementation of the US invasion of Iraq. “This is supposed to be the brave new world,” he says. “This is the Jamestown of the new millennium and it’s meant to be a lily pad. You can jump off to Uzbekistan, you can jump back over the border, you can jump sideways, you can jump northwest. It’s strategically located so that they can get their people wherever they have to without having to wrangle with the military chain of command in Afghanistan, which is convoluted. They don’t have to deal with that because they’re operating under a classified mandate.”

In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. “That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don’t know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan,” he said. “So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?”

Pakistan’s Military Contracting Maze

Blackwater, according to the military intelligence source, is not doing the actual killing as part of its work in Pakistan. “The SELECT personnel are not going into places with private aircraft and going after targets,” he said. “It’s not like Blackwater SELECT people are running around assassinating people.” Instead, US Special Forces teams carry out the plans developed in part by Blackwater. The military intelligence source drew a distinction between the Blackwater operatives who work for the State Department, which he calls “Blackwater Vanilla,” and the seasoned Special Forces veterans who work on the JSOC program. “Good or bad, there’s a small number of people who know how to pull off an operation like that. That’s probably a good thing,” said the source. “It’s the Blackwater SELECT people that have and continue to plan these types of operations because they’re the only people that know how and they went where the money was. It’s not trigger-happy fucks, like some of the PSD [Personal Security Detail] guys. These are not people that believe that Barack Obama is a socialist, these are not people that kill innocent civilians. They’re very good at what they do.”

The former Blackwater executive, when asked for confirmation that Blackwater forces were not actively killing people in Pakistan, said, “that’s not entirely accurate.” While he concurred with the military intelligence source’s description of the JSOC and CIA programs, he pointed to another role Blackwater is allegedly playing in Pakistan, not for the US government but for Islamabad. According to the executive, Blackwater works on a subcontract for Kestral Logistics, a powerful Pakistani firm, which specializes in military logistical support, private security and intelligence consulting. It is staffed with former high-ranking Pakistani army and government officials. While Kestral’s main offices are in Pakistan, it also has branches in several other countries.

A spokesperson for the US State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), which is responsible for issuing licenses to US corporations to provide defense-related services to foreign governments or entities, would neither confirm nor deny for The Nation that Blackwater has a license to work in Pakistan or to work with Kestral. “We cannot help you,” said department spokesperson David McKeeby after checking with the relevant DDTC officials. “You’ll have to contact the companies directly.” Blackwater’s Corallo said the company has “no operations of any kind” in Pakistan other than the one employee working for the DoD. Kestral did not respond to inquiries from The Nation.

According to federal lobbying records, Kestral recently hired former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, to lobby the US government, including the State Department, USAID and Congress, on foreign affairs issues “regarding [Kestral’s] capabilities to carry out activities of interest to the United States.” Noriega was hired through his firm, Vision Americas, which he runs with Christina Rocca, a former CIA operations official who served as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 2001 to 2006 and was deeply involved in shaping US policy toward Pakistan. In October 2009, Kestral paid Vision Americas $15,000 and paid a Vision Americas-affiliated firm, Firecreek Ltd., an equal amount to lobby on defense and foreign policy issues.

For years, Kestral has done a robust business in defense logistics with the Pakistani government and other nations, as well as top US defense companies. Blackwater owner Erik Prince is close with Kestral CEO Liaquat Ali Baig, according to the former Blackwater executive. “Ali and Erik have a pretty close relationship,” he said. “They’ve met many times and struck a deal, and they [offer] mutual support for one another.” Working with Kestral, he said, Blackwater has provided convoy security for Defense Department shipments destined for Afghanistan that would arrive in the port at Karachi. Blackwater, according to the former executive, would guard the supplies as they were transported overland from Karachi to Peshawar and then west through the Torkham border crossing, the most important supply route for the US military in Afghanistan.

According to the former executive, Blackwater operatives also integrate with Kestral’s forces in sensitive counterterrorism operations in the North-West Frontier Province, where they work in conjunction with the Pakistani Interior Ministry’s paramilitary force, known as the Frontier Corps (alternately referred to as “frontier scouts”). The Blackwater personnel are technically advisers, but the former executive said that the line often gets blurred in the field. Blackwater “is providing the actual guidance on how to do [counterterrorism operations] and Kestral’s folks are carrying a lot of them out, but they’re having the guidance and the overwatch from some BW guys that will actually go out with the teams when they’re executing the job,” he said. “You can see how that can lead to other things in the border areas.” He said that when Blackwater personnel are out with the Pakistani teams, sometimes its men engage in operations against suspected terrorists. “You’ve got BW guys that are assisting… and they’re all going to want to go on the jobs–so they’re going to go with them,” he said. “So, the things that you’re seeing in the news about how this Pakistani military group came in and raided this house or did this or did that–in some of those cases, you’re going to have Western folks that are right there at the house, if not in the house.” Blackwater, he said, is paid by the Pakistani government through Kestral for consulting services. “That gives the Pakistani government the cover to say, ‘Hey, no, we don’t have any Westerners doing this. It’s all local and our people are doing it.’ But it gets them the expertise that Westerners provide for [counterterrorism]-related work.”

The military intelligence source confirmed Blackwater works with the Frontier Corps, saying, “There’s no real oversight. It’s not really on people’s radar screen.”

In October, in response to Pakistani news reports that a Kestral warehouse in Islamabad was being used to store heavy weapons for Blackwater, the US Embassy in Pakistan released a statement denying the weapons were being used by “a private American security contractor.” The statement said, “Kestral Logistics is a private logistics company that handles the importation of equipment and supplies provided by the United States to the Government of Pakistan. All of the equipment and supplies were imported at the request of the Government of Pakistan, which also certified the shipments.”

Who is Behind the Drone Attacks?

Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The Obama administration has now surpassed the number of Bush-era strikes in Pakistan and has faced fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths. A drone attack in June killed as many as sixty people attending a Taliban funeral.

In August, the New York Times reported that Blackwater works for the CIA at “hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company’s contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft.” In February, The Times of London obtained a satellite image of a secret CIA airbase in Shamsi, in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan, showing three drone aircraft. The New York Times also reported that the agency uses a secret base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to strike in Pakistan.

The military intelligence source says that the drone strike that reportedly killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, his wife and his bodyguards in Waziristan in August was a CIA strike, but that many others attributed in media reports to the CIA are actually JSOC strikes. “Some of these strikes are attributed to OGA [Other Government Agency, intelligence parlance for the CIA], but in reality it’s JSOC and their parallel program of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] because they also have access to UAVs. So when you see some of these hits, especially the ones with high civilian casualties, those are almost always JSOC strikes.” The Pentagon has stated bluntly, “There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan.”

The military intelligence source also confirmed that Blackwater continues to work for the CIA on its drone bombing program in Pakistan, as previously reported in the New York Times, but added that Blackwater is working on JSOC’s drone bombings as well. “It’s Blackwater running the program for both CIA and JSOC,” said the source. When civilians are killed, “people go, ‘Oh, it’s the CIA doing crazy shit again unchecked.’ Well, at least 50 percent of the time, that’s JSOC [hitting] somebody they’ve identified through HUMINT [human intelligence] or they’ve culled the intelligence themselves or it’s been shared with them and they take that person out and that’s how it works.”

The military intelligence source says that the CIA operations are subject to Congressional oversight, unlike the parallel JSOC bombings. “Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that,” he says. “Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don’t care. If there’s one person they’re going after and there’s thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That’s the mentality.” He added, “They’re not accountable to anybody and they know that. It’s an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?”

In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan, according to the military intelligence source.

Mosharraf Zaidi, a well-known Pakistani journalist who has served as a consultant for the UN and European Union in Pakistan and Afghanistan, says that the Blackwater/JSOC program raises serious questions about the norms of international relations. “The immediate question is, How do you define the active pursuit of military objectives in a country with which not only have you not declared war but that is supposedly a front-line non-NATO ally in the US struggle to contain extremist violence coming out of Afghanistan and the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan?” asks Zaidi, who is currently a columnist for The News, the biggest English-language daily in Pakistan. “Let’s forget Blackwater for a second. What this is confirming is that there are US military operations in Pakistan that aren’t about logistics or getting food to Bagram; that are actually about the exercise of physical violence, physical force inside of Pakistani territory.”

JSOC: Rumsfeld and Cheney’s Extra Special Force

Colonel Wilkerson said that he is concerned that with General McChrystal’s elevation as the military commander of the Afghan war–which is increasingly seeping into Pakistan–there is a concomitant rise in JSOC’s power and influence within the military structure. “I don’t see how you can escape that; it’s just a matter of the way the authority flows and the power flows, and it’s inevitable, I think,” Wilkerson told The Nation. He added, “I’m alarmed when I see execute orders and combat orders that go out saying that the supporting force is Central Command and the supported force is Special Operations Command,” under which JSOC operates. “That’s backward. But that’s essentially what we have today.”

From 2003 to 2008 McChrystal headed JSOC, which is headquartered at Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where Blackwater’s 7,000-acre operating base is also situated. JSOC controls the Army’s Delta Force, the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, as well as the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron. JSOC performs strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas and special intelligence missions. Blackwater, which was founded by former Navy SEALs, employs scores of veteran Special Forces operators–which several former military officials pointed to as the basis for Blackwater’s alleged contracts with JSOC.

Since 9/11, many top-level Special Forces veterans have taken up employment with private firms, where they can make more money doing the highly specialized work they did in uniform. “The Blackwater individuals have the experience. A lot of these individuals are retired military, and they’ve been around twenty to thirty years and have experience that the younger Green Beret guys don’t,” said retired Army Lieut. Col. Jeffrey Addicott, a well-connected military lawyer who served as senior legal counsel for US Army Special Forces. “They’re known entities. Everybody knows who they are, what their capabilities are, and they’ve got the experience. They’re very valuable.”

“They make much more money being the smarts of these operations, planning hits in various countries and basing it off their experience in Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Ethiopia,” said the military intelligence source. “They were there for all of these things, they know what the hell they’re talking about. And JSOC has unfortunately lost the institutional capability to plan within, so they hire back people that used to work for them and had already planned and executed these [types of] operations. They hired back people that jumped over to Blackwater SELECT and then pay them exorbitant amounts of money to plan future operations. It’s a ridiculous revolving door.”

While JSOC has long played a central role in US counterterrorism and covert operations, military and civilian officials who worked at the Defense and State Departments during the Bush administration described in interviews with The Nation an extremely cozy relationship that developed between the executive branch (primarily through Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) and JSOC. During the Bush era, Special Forces turned into a virtual stand-alone operation that acted outside the military chain of command and in direct coordination with the White House. Throughout the Bush years, it was largely General McChrystal who ran JSOC. “What I was seeing was the development of what I would later see in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Special Operations forces would operate in both theaters without the conventional commander even knowing what they were doing,” said Colonel Wilkerson. “That’s dangerous, that’s very dangerous. You have all kinds of mess when you don’t tell the theater commander what you’re doing.”

Wilkerson said that almost immediately after assuming his role at the State Department under Colin Powell, he saw JSOC being politicized and developing a close relationship with the executive branch. He saw this begin, he said, after his first Delta Force briefing at Fort Bragg. “I think Cheney and Rumsfeld went directly into JSOC. I think they went into JSOC at times, perhaps most frequently, without the SOCOM [Special Operations] commander at the time even knowing it. The receptivity in JSOC was quite good,” says Wilkerson. “I think Cheney was actually giving McChrystal instructions, and McChrystal was asking him for instructions.” He said the relationship between JSOC and Cheney and Rumsfeld “built up initially because Rumsfeld didn’t get the responsiveness. He didn’t get the can-do kind of attitude out of the SOCOM commander, and so as Rumsfeld was wont to do, he cut him out and went straight to the horse’s mouth. At that point you had JSOC operating as an extension of the [administration] doing things the executive branch–read: Cheney and Rumsfeld–wanted it to do. This would be more or less carte blanche. You need to do it, do it. It was very alarming for me as a conventional soldier.”

Wilkerson said the JSOC teams caused diplomatic problems for the United States across the globe. “When these teams started hitting capital cities and other places all around the world, [Rumsfeld] didn’t tell the State Department either. The only way we found out about it is our ambassadors started to call us and say, ‘Who the hell are these six-foot-four white males with eighteen-inch biceps walking around our capital cities?’ So we discovered this, we discovered one in South America, for example, because he actually murdered a taxi driver, and we had to get him out of there real quick. We rendered him–we rendered him home.”

As part of their strategy, Rumsfeld and Cheney also created the Strategic Support Branch (SSB), which pulled intelligence resources from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA for use in sensitive JSOC operations. The SSB was created using “reprogrammed” funds “without explicit congressional authority or appropriation,” according to the Washington Post. The SSB operated outside the military chain of command and circumvented the CIA’s authority on clandestine operations. Rumsfeld created it as part of his war to end “near total dependence on CIA.” Under US law, the Defense Department is required to report all deployment orders to Congress. But guidelines issued in January 2005 by former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone stated that Special Operations forces may “conduct clandestine HUMINT operations…before publication” of a deployment order. This effectively gave Rumsfeld unilateral control over clandestine operations.

The military intelligence source said that when Rumsfeld was defense secretary, JSOC was deployed to commit some of the “darkest acts” in part to keep them concealed from Congress. “Everything can be justified as a military operation versus a clandestine intelligence performed by the CIA, which has to be informed to Congress,” said the source. “They were aware of that and they knew that, and they would exploit it at every turn and they took full advantage of it. They knew they could act extra-legally and nothing would happen because A, it was sanctioned by DoD at the highest levels, and B, who was going to stop them? They were preparing the battlefield, which was on all of the PowerPoints: ‘Preparing the Battlefield.'”

The significance of the flexibility of JSOC’s operations inside Pakistan versus the CIA’s is best summed up by Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “Every single intelligence operation and covert action must be briefed to the Congress,” she said. “If they are not, that is a violation of the law.”

Blackwater: Company Non Grata in Pakistan

For months, the Pakistani media has been flooded with stories about Blackwater’s alleged growing presence in the country. For the most part, these stories have been ignored by the US press and denounced as lies or propaganda by US officials in Pakistan. But the reality is that, although many of the stories appear to be wildly exaggerated, Pakistanis have good reason to be concerned about Blackwater’s operations in their country. It is no secret in Washington or Islamabad that Blackwater has been a central part of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that the company has been involved–almost from the beginning of the “war on terror”–with clandestine US operations. Indeed, Blackwater is accepting applications for contractors fluent in Urdu and Punjabi. The US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, has denied Blackwater’s presence in the country, stating bluntly in September, “Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan.” In her trip to Pakistan in October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dodged questions from the Pakistani press about Blackwater’s rumored Pakistani operations. Pakistan’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, said on November 21 he will resign if Blackwater is found operating anywhere in Pakistan.

The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that Blackwater “provides security for a US-backed aid project” in Peshawar, suggesting the company may be based out of the Pearl Continental, a luxury hotel the United States reportedly is considering purchasing to use as a consulate in the city. “We have no contracts in Pakistan,” Blackwater spokesperson Stacey DeLuke said recently. “We’ve been blamed for all that has gone wrong in Peshawar, none of which is true, since we have absolutely no presence there.”

Reports of Blackwater’s alleged presence in Karachi and elsewhere in the country have been floating around the Pakistani press for months. Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist who rose to fame after his 1997 interview with Osama bin Laden, claimed in a recent interview that Blackwater is in Karachi. “The US [intelligence] agencies think that a number of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are hiding in Karachi and Peshawar,” he said. “That is why [Blackwater] agents are operating in these two cities.” Ambassador Patterson has said that the claims of Mir and other Pakistani journalists are “wildly incorrect,” saying they had compromised the security of US personnel in Pakistan. On November 20 the Washington Times, citing three current and former US intelligence officials, reported that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has “found refuge from potential U.S. attacks” in Karachi “with the assistance of Pakistan’s intelligence service.”

In September, the Pakistani press covered a report on Blackwater allegedly submitted by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies to the federal interior ministry. In the report, the intelligence agencies reportedly allege that Blackwater was provided houses by a federal minister who is also helping them clear shipments of weapons and vehicles through Karachi’s Port Qasim on the coast of the Arabian Sea. The military intelligence source did not confirm this but did say, “The port jives because they have a lot of [former] SEALs and they would revert to what they know: the ocean, instead of flying stuff in.”

The Nation cannot independently confirm these allegations and has not seen the Pakistani intelligence report. But according to Pakistani press coverage, the intelligence report also said Blackwater has acquired “bungalows” in the Defense Housing Authority in the city. According to the DHA website, it is a large residential estate originally established “for the welfare of the serving and retired officers of the Armed Forces of Pakistan.” Its motto is: “Home for Defenders.” The report alleges Blackwater is receiving help from local government officials in Karachi and is using vehicles with license plates traditionally assigned to members of the national and provincial assemblies, meaning local law enforcement will not stop them.

The use of private companies like Blackwater for sensitive operations such as drone strikes or other covert work undoubtedly comes with the benefit of plausible deniability that places an additional barrier in an already deeply flawed system of accountability. When things go wrong, it’s the contractors’ fault, not the government’s. But the widespread use of contractors also raises serious legal questions, particularly when they are a part of lethal, covert actions. “We are using contractors for things that in the past might have been considered to be a violation of the Geneva Convention,” said Lt. Col. Addicott, who now runs the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. “In my opinion, we have pressed the envelope to the breaking limit, and it’s almost a fiction that these guys are not in offensive military operations.” Addicott added, “If we were subjected to the International Criminal Court, some of these guys could easily be picked up, charged with war crimes and put on trial. That’s one of the reasons we’re not members of the International Criminal Court.”

If there is one quality that has defined Blackwater over the past decade, it is the ability to survive against the odds while simultaneously reinventing and rebranding itself. That is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA and the State Department despite intense criticism and almost weekly scandals. Blackwater’s alleged Pakistan operations, said the military intelligence source, are indicative of its new frontier. “Having learned its lessons after the private security contracting fiasco in Iraq, Blackwater has shifted its operational focus to two venues: protecting things that are in danger and anticipating other places we’re going to go as a nation that are dangerous,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”

Source

‘Blackwater’ men nabbed, released – The Nation – 10 Dec.09

Posted in Pakistan, South Asia | Leave a comment

Republic of Fools – The Evil Empire – By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Posted on November 16, 2009 by kf1

The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. Voters will vent their frustrations over their impotence on the president, which implies a future of one-term presidents. Soon our presidents will be as ineffective as Roman emperors in the final days of that empire.

Obama is already set on the course to a one-term presidency. He promised change, but has delivered none. His health care bill is held hostage by the private insurance companies seeking greater profits. The most likely outcome will be cuts in Medicare and Medicaid in order to help fund wars that enrich the military/security complex and the many companies created by privatizing services that the military once provided for itself at far lower costs. It would be interesting to know the percentage of the $700+ billion “defense” spending that goes to private companies. In American “capitalism,” an amazing amount of taxpayers’ earnings go to private firms via the government. Yet, Republicans scream about “socializing” health care.

Republicans and Democrats saw opportunities to create new sources of campaign contributions by privatizing as many military functions as possible. There are now a large number of private companies that have never made a dollar in the market, feeding instead at the public trough that drains taxpayers of dollars while loading Americans with debt service obligations.

Obama inherited an excellent opportunity to bring US soldiers home from the Bush regime’s illegal wars of aggression. In its final days, the Bush regime realized that it could “win” in Iraq by putting the Sunni insurgents on the US military payroll. Once Bush had 80,000 insurgents collecting US military pay, violence, although still high, dropped in half. All Obama had to do was to declare victory and bring our boys home, thanking Bush for winning the war. It would have shut up the Republicans.

But this sensible course would have impaired the profits and share prices of those firms that comprise the military/security complex. So instead of doing what Obama said he would do and what the voters elected him to do, Obama restarted the war in Afghanistan and launched a new one in Pakistan. Soon Obama was echoing Bush and Cheney’s threats to attack Iran.

In place of health care for Americans, there will be more profits for private insurance companies.

In place of peace there will be more war.

Voters are already recognizing the writing on the wall and are falling away from Obama and the Democrats. Independents who gave Obama his comfortable victory have now swung against him, recently electing Republican governors in New Jersey and Virginia to succeed Democrats. This is a protest vote, not a confidence vote in Republicans.

Obama’s credibility is shot. And so is Congress’s, assuming it ever had any. The US House of Representatives has just voted to show the entire world that the US House of Representatives is nothing but the servile, venal, puppet of the Israel Lobby. The House of Representatives of the American “superpower” did the bidding of its master, AIPAC, and voted 344 to 36 to condemn the Goldstone Report.

In case you don’t know, the Goldstone Report is the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. The “Gaza Conflict” is the Israeli military attack on the Gaza ghetto, where 1.5 million dispossessed Palestinians, whose lands, villages, and homes were stolen by Israel, are housed. The attack was on civilians and civilian infrastructure. It was without any doubt a war crime under the Nuremberg standard that the US established in order to execute Nazis.

Goldstone is not only a very distinguished Jewish jurist who has given his life to bringing people to accountability for their crimes against humanity, but also a Zionist. However, the Israelis have demonized him as a “self-hating Jew” because he wrote the truth instead of Israeli propaganda.

US Representative Dennis Kucinich, who is now without a doubt a marked man on AIPAC’s political extermination list, asked the House if the members had any realization of the shame that the vote condemning Goldstone would bring on the House and the US government. The entire rest of the world accepts the Goldstone report.

The House answered with its lopsided vote that the rest of the world doesn’t count as it doesn’t give campaign contributions to members of Congress.

This shameful, servile act of “the world’s greatest democracy” occurred the very week that a court in Italy convicted 23 US CIA officers for kidnapping a person in Italy. The CIA agents are now considered “fugitives from justice” in Italy, and indeed they are.

The kidnapped person was renditioned to the American puppet state of Egypt, where the victim was held for years and repeatedly tortured. The case against him was so absurd that even an Egyptian judge ordered his release.

One of the convicted CIA operatives, Sabrina deSousa, an attractive young woman, says that the US broke the law by kidnapping a person and sending him to another country to be tortured in order to manufacture another “terrorist” in order to keep the terrorist hoax going at home. Without the terrorist hoax, America’s wars for special interest reasons would become transparent even to Fox “News” junkies.

Ms. deSousa says that “everything I did was approved back in Washington,” yet the government, which continually berates us to “support the troops,” did nothing to protect her when she carried out the Bush regime’s illegal orders.

Clearly, this means that the crime that Bush, Cheney, the Pentagon, and the CIA ordered is too heinous and beyond the pale to be justified, even by memos from the despicable John Yoo and the Republican Federalist Society.

Ms. deSousa is clearly worried about herself. But where is her concern for the innocent person that she sent into an Egyptian hell to be tortured until death or admission of being a terrorist? The remorse deSousa expresses is only for herself. She did her evil government’s bidding and her evil government that she so faithfully served turned its back on her. She has no remorse for the evil she committed against an innocent person.

Perhaps deSousa and her 22 colleagues grew up on video games. It was great fun to plot to kidnap a real person and fly him on a CIA plane to Egypt. Was it like a fisherman catching a fish or a deer hunter killing a beautiful 8-point buck? Clearly, they got their jollies at the expense of their renditioned victim.

The finding of the Italian court, and keep in mind that Italy is a bought-and-paid-for US puppet state, indicates that even our bought puppets are finding the US too much to stomach.

Moving from the tip of the iceberg down, we have Ambassador Craig Murray, rector of the University of Dundee and until 2004 the UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, which he describes as a Stalinist totalitarian state courted and supported by the Americans.

As ambassador, Murray saw the MI5 intelligence reports from the CIA that described the most horrible torture procedures. “People were raped with broken bottles, children were tortured in front of their parents until they [the parents] signed a confession, people were boiled alive.”

“Intelligence” from these torture sessions was passed on by the CIA to MI5 and to Washington as proof of the vast al Qaeda conspiracy.

Amb. Murray reports that the people delivered by CIA flights to Uzbekistan’s torture prisons “were told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they’d been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes.”

“I was absolutely stunned,” says the British ambassador, who thought that he served a moral country that, along with its American ally, had moral integrity. The great Anglo-American bastion of democracy and human rights, the homes of the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, the great moral democracies that defeated Nazism and stood up to Stalin’s gulags, were prepared to commit any crime in order to maximize profits.

Amb. Murray learned too much and was fired when he vomited it all up. He saw the documents that proved that the motivation for US and UK military aggression in Afghanistan had to do with the natural gas deposits in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The Americans wanted a pipeline that bypassed Russia and Iran and went through Afghanistan. To insure this, an invasion was necessary. The idiot American public could be told that the invasion was necessary because of 9/11 and to save them from “terrorism,” and the utter fools would believe the lie.

“If you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you’ll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It’s what it’s about. It’s about money, its about energy, it’s not about democracy.”

Guess who the consultant was who arranged with then Texas governor George W. Bush the agreements that would give to Enron the rights to Uzbekistan’s and Turkmenistan’s natural gas deposits and to Unocal to develop the trans-Afghanistan pipeline. It was Karzai, the US-imposed “president” of Afghanistan, who has no support in the country except for American bayonets.

Amb. Murray was dismissed from the UK Foreign Service for his revelations. No doubt on orders from Washington to our British puppet.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Source

Posted in Empire, Ideaology | Leave a comment

What Goldstone says about the US

Posted on November 13, 2009 by kf1

Opponents of the Goldstone report might well be hoping that after its lopsided condemnation in the US House of Representatives and successful relegation back to the UN’s Human Rights Commission, the report will become little more than an historical footnote in a decades-long conflict.

This might in fact occur, given the imbalance of power between the contending sides. But historians can do a great deal with footnotes.

When the glare of history is finally shone upon the whole affair, it might well turn out that the reasons for such vehement opposition from US politicians, and only tepid (at best) support for it among other major powers, have far more to do with their own geostrategic interests than with protecting Israel.

Back story

The report, written by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, has caused uproar in Israel and the US for its alleged bias against Israel and avoidance of serious criticism of Hamas. The condemnation, House Resolution 867, passed by a 344-36 vote.

Before the vote on the resolution, Goldstone sent a letter to members of Congress refuting most of the allegations contained in it. But his rebuttal did not lead to substantive changes in the report’s accusations and apparently had no effect on the vote.

Given the way in which opposition to the report unfolded it would be easy to conclude that this is merely another case of the vaunted Israel lobby shutting down any debate over Israel’s actions in the Occupied Territories.

Yet while Israel’s supporters no doubt took the lead in pushing the resolution, there is a back story to this drama that has likely played an equally, if not more important, role in the firestorm it has generated.

Why would the House go so far out of its way to stamp out even the consideration of war crimes accusations against Israel? And why would Barack Obama, the US president, have pressured Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, not to push the report in the UN when he had to know that such actions would cost Abbas most of his little remaining credibility among Palestinians?

Accessory to war crimes

There are two reasons for this.

Firstly, if Israel is guilty of committing systematic war crimes across Gaza and the West Bank, then the US, which supported, funded and armed Israel during the war, is an accessory to those crimes.

Goldstone explains in no uncertain terms that Gaza was not an aberration in terms of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Rather, it marked not only a continuation of Israel’s behaviour during the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, but “highlights a common thread of the interaction between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians which emerged clearly also in many cases discussed in other parts of the report”.

It referenced “continuous and systematic abuse, outrages on personal dignity, humiliating and degrading treatment contrary to fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law”.

“The Mission concludes that the treatment of these civilians constitutes the infliction of a collective penalty on those persons and amounts to measures of intimidation and terror. Such acts are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and constitute a war crime,” the report says.

Put simply, if there is blood on Israel’s hands, than it is has dripped all over America’s shirt.

Israel could not and would not have engaged in the level of wholesale destruction of Gaza painstakingly catalogued in the report without the support of the outgoing Bush administration, and acquiescence of the incoming Obama administration.

Israeli narrative challenged

Not only that, but on the same day the report was released the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel’s military leadership is preparing the country for yet another invasion of Gaza in the near future.

It is not clear how much of Gaza is left to be destroyed, but the report’s detailed discussion of Israel’s attacks on innumerable homes, mosques, schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities show what lengths Israel will go to to punish Gazans, and Palestinians more broadly.

There is also the larger context of the peace negotiations. If Israel can be guilty of humanitarian crimes at this level, then it puts the entire Israeli narrative about the occupation – that it is ultimately about preserving the country’s security – into question.

In fact, the report declares precisely this, in paragraph 1674, when it argues that the Gaza invasion “cannot be understood and assessed in isolation from developments prior and subsequent to it. The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed at pursuing Israel’s political objectives with regard to Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole”.

Almost everyone outside the US, including in Israel, understands that the occupation has always been about settlement, not security, since Israel could have militarily occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 indefinitely without establishing a single settlement, and could withdraw from all its settlements tomorrow and maintain a military occupation until it felt secure enough to turn the territory over to Palestinians.

As famed general Moshe Dayan once put it, the settlements in the Occupied Territories are essential “not because they can ensure security better than the army, but because without them we cannot keep the army in those territories. Without them the IDF would be a foreign army ruling a foreign population”.

But the US remains heavily invested in maintaining this security narrative; both because it is the core of the strategic alliance between the two countries with all the military, strategic and financial implications that come with it, and because, as with the Gaza invasion, the settlement enterprise could never have proceeded without US support, or at least acquiescence.

This dynamic continues to operate today, as the same day House Resolution 867 was passed, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, explained that the US preferred to return to peace talks even without a settlement freeze, despite the fact that not stopping settlement construction during negotiations has been deemed by former senior Israeli negotiators such as Moshe Ben Ami and Yossi Beilin as among the single biggest factors dooming the Oslo peace process.

The Obama administration refuses even to push the parameters painstakingly set by his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, before leaving office, to which both Israelis and Palestinians were very close to agreeing.

Alarming precedent

One has to wonder whether the US Middle East policy-making establishment, which is dominated by defence and security interests, is even interested in bringing about a speedy resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Beyond what the Goldstone report says about America’s role in Israel’s actions, the report holds a mirror up to US actions in its ‘war on terror’. In so doing it paints for US policy-makers and politicians a more frightening picture of a future in which all countries are held accountable for their actions.

Here it becomes clear that, as it has been for four decades, Israel is both the spear and the shield for the projection – and protection – of US power in the Middle East. It engages in activities the US cannot do openly, and it acts as the first line of defence when US interests might be attacked diplomatically.

In going after Israel, the report, however unintended, is going after the US, which has committed many of the same crimes (of which Israel is accused) in its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps through its drone attacks, in Pakistan and other countries. This is the report’s true danger, and why – from the US perspective – its accusations against Israel cannot stand.

Specifically, the idea of treating a Western-allied state, Israel, and a resistance movement, Hamas, as equally capable of committing war crimes and being held accountable for them, sets an alarming precedent for the US as its engagement in Iraq stretches on indefinitely and deepens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Why not hold the US (or Pakistan, China, Russia, or India for that matter) to the same standards as we hold the Taliban, al-Qaeda, or opposition movements in Kashmir, Chechnya or Tibet? None of these powers would allow this to happen.

Universal jurisdiction

Moreover, the report condemns the “Dahiya doctrine,” which involved the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations.

Although claiming to work hard to protect civilians in the countries it is occupying, one of the primary complaints against the US by citizens of Afghanistan or Iraq is the frequent killing of civilians and destruction of infrastructure, particularly if it could be deemed to be “supporting infrastructure” for “terrorists”.

And when such abuses are committed, paragraph 121 of the report reminds the world that “international human rights law and humanitarian law require states to investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute allegations of serious violations by military personnel”.

This is an indirect stab at the US judicial system, which has so far failed to hold anyone but a few low-level soldiers accountable for the numerous abuses committed by the US in Iraq and the ‘war on terror’ more broadly.

Perhaps the most dangerous suggestion in this regard is the report’s call for applying “universal jurisdiction” to the conflict.

As paragraph 127 states: “In the context of increasing unwillingness on the part of Israel to open criminal investigations that comply with international standards, the mission supports the reliance on universal jurisdiction as an avenue for states to investigate violations of the grave breach [of the] provisions of the Geneva Conventions.”

There is no power that wants its officials or military and security personnel subject to prosecution by other countries.

Uncritical victimology

In this regard, it is not coincidental that the same day resolution 867 was passed an Italian court convicted 23 former CIA agents of participating in the illegal rendition of an Italian imam, who claims he was subsequently tortured in captivity.

In June, the Italian newspaper il Giornale published an interview with Robert Seldon Lady, the CIA’s Milan station chief, in which he admitted, “Of course it was an illegal operation. But that’s our job. We’re at war against terrorism”.

This is a crucial statement, for it reveals that the US establishment believes that in a ‘war on terror’, there are no legal limits to what it can do. And if Israel is condemned for the same attitude, this would vitiate America’s ability to take whatever actions it desires, however illegal, to pursue its interests.

Obama might not take such actions, but his successors might. And if another major terrorist attack were to occur on US soil, there is little doubt that the gloves would once again come off, whether Obama wanted to keep them on or not.

In such a situation, the psychology of uncritical victimology that characterised post-9/11 America will be crucial to enabling such policies to be (re)put in place.

As the report quotes an Israeli professor (paragraph 1703): “Israeli society’s problem is that because of the conflict, Israeli society feels itself to be a victim and to a large extent that’s justified and it’s very difficult for Israeli society to move and to feel that it can also see the other side and to understand that the other side is also a victim.” This problem is equally difficult for Americans to overcome.

Report’s historical imprint

Among the final coincidences accompanying the passage of resolution 867 was its release the day after Clinton held a high-profile meeting in Morocco to champion the country’s recent official promotion of democracy.

But in her celebration of the Moroccan example she neglected to mention that press freedoms, the core of any democratic system, are suffering increasing restrictions in the country. Freedom of speech or challenging the country’s political-economic elite remains heavily circumscribed, especially when it comes from the country’s principal Islamically motivated opposition movement.

Of course, Clinton cannot push too hard for democracy in the Muslim world; democratically-elected governments would not tolerate many of the US’ core policies in the region, from uncritical support for Israel to its own military and economic alliances and activities.

The day after her Morocco meeting, Clinton was in Egypt, meeting once again with the Egypt’s autocratic leader, Hosni Mubarak, with not a word about democracy.

Against such policy interests, it might well be that the Goldstone report will be relegated to history without being acted upon.

What few of its opponents understand is just how big an imprint this most exhaustive study of the Israeli occupation will leave.

It might not help Palestinians and Israelis achieve peace today, but future historians will likely look upon it as a crucial document in exposing the realities of the American dominated Middle Eastern system for the world to see.

Mark LeVine is currently Visiting Professor at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, Sweden. His most recent books include Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books, 2009) and Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel-Palestine (Rowman Littlefield, 2008).

Source

Posted in Conspiracy, Empire, Ideaology, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Death in a court creates a martyr

Posted on November 12, 2009 by kf1

Marwa el-Sherbini

IT WAS while Marwa el-Sherbini was in the dock that the accused strode across a Dresden courtroom and plunged a knife into her 18 times. She had been recalling how the man had insulted her for wearing a hijab after she asked him to let her son sit on a swing last year.

Her three-year-old son, Mustafa, was forced to watch as his mother slumped to the courtroom floor.

Even her husband, Elvi Ali Okaz, could do nothing as his pregnant wife was killed by the 28-year-old Russian stock controller who was being sued for insult and abuse. As Mr Okaz ran to save her he, too, was brought down, shot by a police officer who mistook him for the attacker. He is now in intensive care in a Dresden hospital.

The horrific incident that took place a week ago has attracted little publicity in Europe, and in Germany has focused more on issues of court security than the racist motivation behind the attack. But 3000 kilometres away in her native Egypt, the 32-year-old pharmacist has been named the “headscarf martyr”.

Ms Sherbini’s funeral took place in her native Alexandria on Monday in the presence of thousands of mourners and leading government figures. There are plans to name a street after her.

Ms Sherbini, a former national handball champion, and Mr Okaz, a genetic engineer who was just about to submit his PhD, had reportedly lived in Germany since 2003. They were believed to be planning to return to Egypt at the end of the year.

Unemployed Alex W. from Perm in Russia was found guilty last November of insulting and abusing Ms Sherbini, screaming “terrorist” and “Islamist whore” at her, during the Dresden park encounter. He was fined 780 euros ($1370) but had appealed, which is why he and Ms Sherbini appeared face to face in court again.

Even though he had made his anti-Muslim sentiments clear, there was no heightened security and questions remain as to why he was allowed to bring a knife into the courtroom.

The government of Angela Merkel has been criticised for its sluggish response to the attack. The general secretaries of both the Central Council of Jews and the Central Council of Muslims, Stephan Kramer and Aiman Mazyek, spoke of the “inexplicably sparse” reactions from both media and politicians.

Because it occurred days after the French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave a speech denouncing the burqa, many Egyptians believe Sherbini’s death is part of a broader trend of European intolerance towards Muslims.

Media pundits such as Abdel Azeem Hamad, the editor of the newspaper al-Shorouk, have argued that if Ms Sherbini had been Jewish the incident would have received greater attention.

 Source

‘Hijab martyr’ rally due in Cairo

‘Veiled martyr’ killer gets life – SMH – 12 Nov.09

German convicted of Muslim murder  Al Jazeera 11 Nov.09

Posted in Disclosure, Ideaology, Redneckia | 4 Comments

The American Way of Abandonment

Posted on November 6, 2009 by kf1

When America is about to throw an ally to the wolves, we follow an established ritual. We discover that the man we supported was never really morally fit to be a friend or partner of the United States.

When Chiang Kai-shek, who fought the Japanese for four years before Pearl Harbor, began losing to Mao’s Communists, we did not blame ourselves for being a faithless ally, we blamed him. He was incompetent; he was corrupt.

We did not lose China. He did.

When Buddhist monks began immolating themselves in South Vietnam, the cry went up: President Diem, once hailed as the “George Washington of his country,” was a dictator, a Catholic autocrat in a Buddhist nation, who had lost touch with his people.

And so, word went out from the White House to the generals. Get rid of Diem, and you get his power and U.S. support. Three weeks before JFK was assassinated, Diem and his brother met the same fate.

When the establishment wished to be rid of a war into which it had plunged this country, suddenly it was “the corrupt and dictatorial Thieu-Ky regime” in Saigon that was simply not worth defending.

Lon Nol, our man in Phnom Penh, got the same treatment.

“In this world it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, but to be a friend is fatal,” said Henry Kissinger.

The army of South Vietnam and the Saigon government, the boat people of the South China Sea and the million victims of Pol Pot’s genocide can testify to that before the judgment seat of history

Thus the daily attacks on Afghan President Hamid Karzai — who sat beside Laura Bush as guest of honor at the 2002 State of the Union and got a standing ovation — as the corrupt ruler of a corrupt regime, whose brother, a narcotics trafficker, has been on the CIA’s payroll, seems a signal that the ritual is about to begin. The Karzai brothers should probably read up on the fate of the Diem brothers.

Yet never has an ally been more egregiously insulted in wartime than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s insulting of the Pakistanis on her “fence-mending” trip last week. In a meeting with editors, Hillary was asked why the United States was focusing its Predator strikes in the war on terror so heavily upon Pakistan.

Said Hillary, “Al-Qaida has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. … I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to.”

This is charging the Pakistani government, army and intelligence services with cowardice or collusion with bin Laden and al-Qaida in the war on terror. That it was made within hours of the bloodiest in a long series of terror attacks that have killed hundreds of Pakistanis only magnifies the insult.

So, too, does the fact that the Pakistani army, after cleansing the Swat Valley of the Taliban, is now fighting in South Waziristan in the most critical battle of the war.

But, if this is what the Obama administration and the Congress believe, why are they sending $7.5 billion in new aid to such a regime?

Moreover, the charge is, on its face, demonstrably false.

If Pakistan’s intelligence services, army and government all knew the exact location of bin Laden, we would know it. For we have people inside sympathetic to us, just as some are sympathetic to al-Qaida.

And if people inside discovered the exact location of bin Laden or al-Qaida, they would leak it to us, if only because the money on the table for such intelligence is irresistible.

Is Secretary Clinton suggesting there are people throughout the Pakistani government who have information that could make them rich for life, but refuse to reveal it out of purest loyalty to a gang of terrorists who are massacring their countrymen as well as Americans?

That there are warlords who are war criminals, allied with the Afghan regime and us, that drug-traffickers are abetted by high officials, that Karzai stole the election, no one denies.

That the Pakistani intelligence services are shot through with elements loyal to a Taliban they helped bring to power in Kabul, that there are Pakistani army officers who believe they should be defending their country against India, not fighting America’s war in Waziristan, is also undeniable.

But what does it avail us to insult these people who have cast their lot with us, many of whom will, with famines and friends, pay a far more terrible price than we if we lose these wars.

And if we are going to abandon these people, as we have so many others in the past, let us at least tell them, and ourselves, the truth. We didn’t know what we were getting into. We don’t have the stomach for a long war. We’re sorry we got you into this. Your big mistake was in trusting us. You folks should have known better.

Source

Opium, Rape and the American Way

Posted in Empire, Ideaology, Pakistan | Leave a comment

God’s Favorite Team (and Nation and Religion) By Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS

Posted on November 2, 2009 by kf1

The National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys provide a commentary on the imperialism undermining the soul of America. The commentary is seen in The Dallas Morning News reports of the mammoth new, $1.15 billion, Cowboys Stadium: it drew 105, 121 fans on opening day, which was “the largest regular-season crowd in NFL history.” The “huge stadium crowd finally got their first look at the stadium’s . . . 160-foot-long Mitsubishiis [,] the largest HDTV in the world. . . . The $40 million display is 54 yards long, more than 71 feet tall and hangs only 90 feet above the playing field.”

It is about bigger being better. Before kick-off, “photos of architectural wonders flashed on the team’s world-record video board,” including “The Great Wall of China. The Taj Mahal. The Roman Colosseum. And finally Cowboys Stadium.” Fans paid as high as “$40,000 per seat for the right to buy tickets, in addition to the tickets themselves: $340 per seat per game.”

Even “God” is a fan. “At the Cowboys’ previous home,” a news story states, “it was said that Texas Stadium had a hole in the roof so God could watch his favorite team. Now, one fan mused, God has an obstructed view, because of the gigantic video board hanging in the new Cowboys Stadium.”

But “God’s” favorite, prayerful, warmongering former president was on hand, and provides the bottom line of the commentary: “There was a countdown to the opening of the roof, a [pre-game] coin toss by” and “warm reception” for “former President George W. Bush,” with an American flag, held by members of the armed forces, covering the whole football field for the singing of the national anthem. (reports by Jeff Mosier and Jason Sickles; other staff reports; and “Dallas Cowboys season-ticket holders pay hundreds to thousands for seats, but say it was worth every penny,” by Theodore Kim and Scott Farwell, Sept. 21, 2009)

It is about “God’s . . . favorite team.” His favorite nation. His favorite Christian religion cradling “His only Son” and “Saviour of the world.” It is actually about an “endless war’s” roar of ethnocentric patriotism and imperialistic Christianity drowning out the reason of democratic humanness.

It is about the American flag covering and suffocating to death over one million Iraqi civilians, uprooting over four million more, destroying a country’s life-sustaining infrastructure, triggering terrible sectarian violence to this day, and unjustly sacrificing American lives and resources in a war based on lies. A criminal war launched by a self-professed “Christ . . . changed my heart . . . I pray daily . . . for peace,” American president. An openly religious president who repeatedly redefined America’s blatant so-called “Operation Iraqi Freedom” war crime as an act of God: “Freedom is not America’s gift to the world, it is Almighty God’s gift to every man and woman in this world.” And a significant majority of evangelical Christians said “Amen!” While many others said nothing.

Former President Bush’s religious battle cry evidently had a Biblical-like ring to most evangelical Christians: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” Bush’s religiously legitimized warmongering words also echoed the Christian Gospel’s imperialistic mission: a supposedly resurrected Jesus appeared to and commanded his disciples with, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. (Matthew 28: 16-20)

Imperialism by any other name . . . Whether in the name of “freedom” or in the name of “Christ.” It is about believing or perishing.

It is about one of the worst war criminals in the eyes of the world showing his face on the Dallas Cowboys Stadium’s 50-yard line and receiving “a warm reception” from 105,121 fans. A United Methodist war criminal, whose presidential library, museum and institute are now housed at his hierarchically-controlled and therefore predominately conventional denomination’s Southern Methodist University in Dallas. It is about imperialistic crimes against humanity legitimized by piety and patriotism.

It is about the American flag unfurled against the people of Afghanistan in an immoral eight- year war. Hundreds of innocent men, women and children in Afghanistan and Pakistan have been indiscriminately killed by US drone and other air strikes. As reported in The New York Times, “The [United States Special] forces have often been blamed for nighttime raids on villages, detentions and air strikes that have the population in southern Afghanistan to the point of revolt. (May 7, 2009) (See Alberts, “First the Torture of Truth . . . ,” CounterPunch, June 10, 2009)

The American flag is also a symbol of oppression in Pakistan, as over three million civilians have been made refugees by the US-pressured Pakistani military’s offensives against Taliban strongholds—with untold more displaced civilians to come as more than 100,000 already have fled South Wazinistan, where Pakistan’s air and ground forces, pushed and equipped by the US, are launching new attacks against the Taliban. (“Under Pressure, Pakistani Army Pushes into South Wazinistan,” By Spiegel Staff, Spiegel Online International, 10, 19, 2009)

The hatred toward America is reported to have spread from Afghanistan to Pakistan:

It is quite possible that Pakistan is already the world’s most anti-American country. From university professors to taxi drivers, most Pakistanis are convinced that the terror in their country is not homegrown, but a consequence of the US invasion of Afghanistan. (Ibid.)

And now an election fraud in Afghanistan, perpetrated by America’s “favorite” puppet president, Hamid Karzai. With a US-orchestrated new runoff election on November 7—to give the appearance of legitimacy to the war and justify the continuing sacrifice of American lives and resources. A war that is itself a terrible fraud perpetrated on us American people by our political leaders in our name.

Afghanistan is not about protecting America but about perpetual war for the profit of the arms and energy and reconstruction and security industries and for maintaining the political power of elected officials and the Pentagon. The so-called “war on terror” by any other name will continue to create far more enemies rather than make America more secure. A Catch-22 for us Americans and our designated “enemies”: the more enemies the more justification for war. And the more profit for those for whom war is good business and power-maintaining.

Tragically, many Americans still don’t get it. How being “God’s favorite team” or nation or religion is a curse rather than a blessing. Thus President Obama may re-package and continue former President Bush’s imperialistic policy by escalating America’s crimes against humanity in Afghanistan—and, like his predecessor, still show his face and receive “a warm reception” on a fifty-yard line or a pitcher’s mound.

“Forty-thousand dollars per seat” just for the privilege of buying tickets, which themselves “cost $350 per seat per game.” Being the “favorite” is a key to wealth, and breeds entitlement and privilege and often obliviousness to the needs and rights of those who are deemed disfavored. Such as the reported several thousand “recently or soon to be homeless” Detroit residents, who jammed a downtown convention center, pushing and shoving, “several received medical treatment for fainting or exhaustion, all “frantically trying to obtain applications for federal housing assistance.” (“Thousands Mob Detroit Center in Hopes of Free Cash,” By The Associated Press,” The New York Times, Oct. 7, 2009)

A few pay $40,000 just for the privilege of sitting in a seat to watch a Sunday football game, while many thousands of other people struggle to find a place to sit down. The connection here: the “favorite” ruling and privileged classes need the jobless, and thus prospective military-enlisting, poor to fight their profit-making wars and do their domestic “dirty work.” Economic injustice in the name of “freedom” or “God.”

The belief that one’s nation or religion is “God’s favorite” and thus the greatest and truest is imperialistic. Such assumed superiority leads people to justify imposing their will and way on other individuals and groups in violation of the latter’s inalienable right to be who they are. Thus former President Bush’s repeated statement that “America is the greatest nation on the face of the Earth” is contrary to the very meaning of democracy, which he supposedly was trying to “spread to the furthest corners of the earth.” So also, the belief that Jesus is “God’s only Son” and the “Saviour of the world,” breeds being the “favorite,” and thus contradicts his fundamental teaching, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

It is about loving one’s neighbor as oneself. Such love requires self-understanding. And it is about sowing self-understanding that we may reap understanding of others. It is about sowing understanding of others that we may reap appreciation of their humanness. It is about sowing humanness that we may reap justice. It is about sowing justice that we may reap peace—and security and fulfillment. Surely the vitality of any political ideology or religious belief is to be judged by the extent to which it teaches people to love themselves and to value and love other persons for themselves.

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain and a diplomate in the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org

Source

Posted in Empire, Ideaology, Religion of Abraham | Leave a comment

Our Shame is Complete – Abbas and the Goldstone Report By RAMZY BAROUD

Posted on October 20, 2009 by kf1

As Israeli bombs fell on the Gaza Strip during its one-sided war between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009, millions around the world took to the streets in complete and uncompromising outrage. The level of barbarity in that war, especially as it was conducted against a poor, defenseless and physically trapped nation, united people of every color, race and religion. But among those who seemed utterly unmoved, unreservedly cold were some Palestinian officials in the West Bank.

Mahmoud Habbash, the PA Minister of Social Affairs is but one of those individuals. His appearances on Aljazeera, during those fateful days were many. On one half of the screen would be screaming, disfigured children, mutilated women, and search parties digging in the dark for dead bodies, at times entire families. On the other, was Habbash, spewing political insults at his Hamas rivals in Gaza, repeating the same message so tirelessly parroted by his Israeli colleagues. Every time his face appeared on the screen, I cringed. Every unruly shriek of his, reinforced my sense of shame. Shame, perhaps, but never confusion. Those who understand how the Oslo agreement of September 1993 morphed into a culture that destroyed the very fabric of Palestinian society can fully appreciate the behavior of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank during the Gaza war, before it and today.

But especially today.

Those who hoped that the Israeli atrocities in Gaza would rekindled a sense of remorse among the egotistical elites in Ramallah, were surely disappointed when the PA withdrew its draft resolution supporting recommendations made by South African Judge Richard Goldstone. The Goldstone report is the most comprehensive, and transparent investigation as of yet into what happened in Gaza during the 23-day war. It decried Israeli terror, and chastised Palestinians as well. But the focus on Israel undoubtedly and deservingly occupied much of the nearly 600-page report. The next step was for the Human Rights Council to send the report for consideration to the United Nations Security Council, which was to study the findings for a possible referral of the case to the International Criminal Court e in the Hague. Such a move would have been historic. Knowing the full implications of such a possibility, Hamas accepted the report’s recommendations in full. Israel, backed by its traditional US ally, rejected it, leveling all sorts of accusations and insults on the world-renowned Jewish judge.

The draft resolution – condemning Israel and calling for the transfer of the report to the UNSC – was due for a vote at the Council on October 2. Alas, it was withdrawn at the behest of the Palestinian Authority and its president Mahmoud Abbas himself. Palestinian friends and allies at UNHRC were shocked, but obliged. They were equally disappointed when they watched PA envoys discussing the matter, not with the Asian, African or other traditional allies at the Council, but with US and European diplomats, who seemed to have a greater sway over Palestinian political action than those who have for decades supported Palestinian rights at every turn.

Something went horribly wrong. How could a leader of an occupied and suffering nation commit such a ‘mistake’, deferring an urgent vote and discussion on a report pertaining to the death of over 1,400 people, the maiming and wounding of thousands more, to a later date, six months from today?

Theories flared. Israeli and other media argued that US pressure on PA president Mahmoud Abbas was the main reason behind the supposedly unanticipated move. A positive vote on the resolution would jeopardize the ‘peace process’, therefore any action must be stifled for the sake of giving the ‘peace process’ a chance, was the rationale.

Amira Hass of Haaretz opined, “The chronic submissiveness is always explained by a desire to ‘make progress.’ But for the PLO and Fatah, progress is the very continued existence of the Palestinian Authority, which is now functioning more than ever before as a subcontractor for the IDF, the Shin Bet security service and the Civil Administration.”

Jonathan Cook, however, offered another view: “Israel warned it would renege on a commitment to allot radio frequencies to allow Wataniya, a mobile phone provider, to begin operations this month in the West Bank. The telecommunications industry is the bedrock of the Palestinian economy, with the current monopoly company, PalTel, accounting for half the worth of the Palestinian stock exchange.”

“No blood for mobile phones,” should perhaps be the new chant in Palestine. But it’s that sad fact that held the Palestinian will hostage for too many years. However, it’s not just mobile companies whose interests triumph over Gaza’s agony. Indeed, the post-Oslo culture has espoused a class of contractors. These are businessmen who are either high-ranking officials in the PA and the Fatah party, or both, or closely affiliated with them. Much of the billions of dollars of international aid that poured into Palestine following the signing of Oslo found its way into private bank accounts. Wealth generated more wealth and “export and import” companies sprung up like poison ivy amidst the poor dwelling of refugees throughout the occupied territories. The class of businessmen, still posing as revolutionaries, encroached over every aspect of Palestinian society, used it, controlled it, and eventually suffocated it. It espoused untold corruption, and, naturally, found an ally in Israel, whose reign in the occupied territories never ceased.

The PA became submissive not out of fear of Israeli wrath per se, but out of fear that such wrath would disrupt business, the flow of aid thus contracts. And since corruption is not confined by geographical borders, PA officials abroad took Palestinian shame to international levels. Millions marched in the US, in Europe, in Asia, South America and the rest of the world, chanting for Gaza and its victims, while some PA ambassadors failed to even turn out to participate. When some of these diplomats made it to public forums, it was for the very purpose of brazenly attacking fellow Palestinians in Hamas, not to garner international solidarity with their own people.

Readily blaming ‘American pressure’ to explain Abbas’ decision at the UNHRC no longer suffices. Even the call on the 74-year-old Palestinian leader to quit is equally hollow. Abbas represents a culture, and that culture is self-seeking, self-serving and utterly corrupt. If Abbas exits, and considering his age, he soon will, Mohammed Dahlan could be the next leader, or even Mahmoud Habbash, who called on Gaza to rebel against Hamas as Israel was blowing up Palestinian homes and schools left and right.

Palestinians who are now calling for change following the UN episode, must consider the Oslo culture in its entirety, its ‘revolutionary’ millionaires, its elites and contractors. A practical alternative to those corrupt must be quickly devised. The Israeli wall is encroaching on Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, and a new war might be awaiting besieged Gaza. Time is running out, and our collective shame is nearly complete.

Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

Source

Posted in Conspiracy, Empire, Middle East, Palestine | Leave a comment