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Though we have some established facts about the “what” of the Iraq war (how many U.S. soldiers were killed, how much money was allocated to the war, how military operations were conducted, how many Iraqi were reportedly killed or displaced, etc.), we continue to debate the REAL “WHY” of the Iraq war: whether the United States invaded Iraq to (1) search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, (2) spread democracy into Iraq, (3) control Iraqi oil, (4) protect Israel from Iraq, (5) protect Arab Gulf states from Iraq (6) destroy an ally of Al-Qaeda, or (7) achieve other objectives. Based on a careful review and synthesis of Topic 5 readings/PowerPoint slides/videos, write a 100 to 150 word-essay in which you discuss what is the SINGLE MOST important factor/force that appears to have embroiled the United States into the Iraq war? Who in the United States should be held accountable for this war? Should the Iraqi people be compensated for the loss of millions killed or injured or displaced? What should be done to avoid future embroilment of the United States into unnecessary wars (wars of choice)
Readings:
BACKGROUND TO THE U.S.-LED WAR IN IRAQ:
1. The Palestine-Israel conflict (1948-present) is one of the world’s major sources of war, violence, and oppression as illustrated by Israel’s two most recent wars on Lebanon in 2006 and on Gaza in December 2008 and early January 2009. It is a head-on struggle over Palestine between the continuously arriving Jewish settlers (who want to make Palestine a “Jewish state” or a “state for the Jews” whenever and wherever they live) and the native Muslim/Christian/Arab Palestinians who continue to resist dispossession and expulsion. The United States government is a pro-Israel partisan in this conflict, a position which continues to drive a wedge between the United States and the Arab/Muslim world.
2. The Cold War (1946-1991) refers to a period of political/economic/military rivalry between two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. The word “Cold” in the phrase ” Cold War” indicates that there was no direct military engagement between U.S. and Soviet forces. The American-Soviet Cold War was actually a series of bloody proxy wars, waged by superpower surrogates in the developing countries of the Global South. The two major Cold War wars were the American-Vietnam War 1959-1975 (where U.S. forces were ‘on the ground’ while Soviet forces were ‘in the background’) and the Soviet-Afghan War 1979-1989 (where Soviet forces were ‘on the ground’ while U.S. forces were ‘in the background’). The United States and the Soviet Union were defeated in Vietnam and Afghanistan, respectively. Even in these two cases much of the war-related human devastation, political turmoil, economic hardship, and ideological argument took place in the developing countries of the Global South, not in the developed countries of the Global North. For example, the American-Vietnam War killed 3 to 4 million Vietnamese and 1.5 to 2 million Laos and Cambodians and displaced millions more into refugees, compared to some 58,000 U.S. troops killed and 300,000 wounded. The Soviet-Afghan War killed between 700,000 and 1.3 million Afghans and threw another 4.5 million into refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran, compared to some 15,000 Soviet troops killed and 37,000 wounded in Afghanistan. One Israeli strategic goal during the Cold War was to have Western powers force the Soviet Union to let Soviet Jewry migrate to Palestine-Israel and have the United States pay for their resettlement. Read carefully the New York Times story about President George Bush complaining on television (September 12, 1991) about the “powerful political forces” of the Israel lobby lined up against “the lonely little guy” in the White House who wanted no more than a four-month delay of $10 billion loan guarantees requested by Israel to resettle Soviet Jews in Israel following the disintegration of the Soviet Union (Adam Clymer, ” Pro-Israel Lobby Readies for Fight,” New York Times, Sep 15, 1991. pg. A.9.).
3. During the Soviet-Afghan War, the CIA (under 3 U.S. administrations) and its associates elsewhere in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and China helped organize and train an ‘Islamist mujahedeen’ guerilla of Afghani, Arab, and Pakistani Muslims to fight and defeat the [“atheist”] Soviets in Afghanistan. In 1985, US President Ronald Reagan called the Afghan mujahedeen “freedom fighters” who “are our brothers.” Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi ambassador to US was quoted: “Bin Laden used to come to us when America—underline, America—through the CIA and Saudi Arabia, were helping our brother mujahideen in Afghanistan, to get rid of the communist secularist Soviet Union forces. Osama bin Laden came and said ‘Thank you. Thank you for bringing the Americans to help us. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recognized this fact on camera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzQ2KZWfjgs
. At that time, I thought he couldn’t lead eight ducks across the street.” The defeat and withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 led to a “failed state” in Afghanistan and opened the door to a power struggle between the “victorious” mujahedeen factions. The Afghan Taliban movement emerged out of the ruins of this power struggle and spread its control over most of the country between 1996 and 2001 before it was overthrown by the United States invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks which ex-Saudi Osama Bin Laden (an ally of the Afghan Taliban movement) and his al-Qaida followers planned, executed, and took credit for. Most countries around the world expressed sympathy and support for the United States under attack. But when the U.S. invaded Iraq (which did not attack the US, had no weapons of mass destruction, and had no link to 9/11), the world’s view of the United States began to change as many people worldwide began to realize that the Iraq war was not about what it was said to be about.
SELECTED READINGS AND VIDEOS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE BASIC GEOGRAPHY OF IRAQ AS WELL AS THE “WHAT,” “WHY,” “WHO,” AND ” AFTERMATH” OF THE U.S.-LED WAR IN IRAQ:
1. Learn the basic geography of Iraq (the strategic location of Iraq in the MIDDLE of the Middle East):
(a) Learn the basic geography of Iraq (size of population, area, languages, religions, ethnic groups, major rivers, significance of the oil sector, and GDP per capita) (b) Learn the name, location, major language, dominant ethnic group, and government type of each country bordering Iraq (c) Compare and contrast Iraq’s population size, ethnic groups, and GDP per capita with those of the United States. The information you need for the above (a), (b), and (c) is available from the online CIA World Factbook at:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
2. Learn the “what” of the U.S.-led war in Iraq (Human/financial/moral cost of the war): (a) Find out the estimates of US and Indiana casualties (deaths and wounded) in the Iraq war:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties
http://icasualties.org/Iraq/USCasualtiesByState.aspx
(b) Find out “What is the real death toll in Iraq?”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/iraq
(c) Find out the estimates of Iraqi refugees living inside and outside Iraq:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=24378&Cr=Iraq&Cr1
=
(d) Find out the estimates of Iraqi children believed to have died as a result of the sanctions imposed by the UN and enforced by the US and Britain on Iraq. Watch how former Secretary of State Albright “justifies” those sanctions (which killed hundred of thousands of children) in the following video clip:
(e) Find out the Iraq war budget allocations to date and the long-term/hidden costs of the Iraq war to the US government and to the State of Indiana:
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2008/02/how_much_has_the_war_in_iraq_c.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7092053.stm
(f) Find out the country where the head of the American company whose personnel are implicated in Abu Ghraib tortures received “anti-terror” training and an award? Read Robert Fisk’s The Trail of Torture: The Things Bush Didn’t Say in His Speech, CounterPunch, May 26, 2004,
http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/05/26/the-things-bush-didn-t-say-in-his-speech/
(g) Find out why the CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogations of al Qaeda suspects:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/06/cia.videotapes
(h) Watch PBS video “Iraqi Exodus” at:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1163078349/search/Iraqi%20Exodus/tag/Iraqi%20Exodus
3. Read critically about the “who” and the “why” of the U.S.-led war in Iraq: At least five different “explanations” or “justifications” or “excuses” were invoked to justify the Iraq war: (i) to search for illegal weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, (ii) to punish Iraq for an alleged Al-Qaeda-Hussein link, (iii) to spread democracy and freedom in the Middle East, (iv) to control oil fields and business contracts, and (v) to provide long term security for the State of Israel and/or the Gulf States.
The first and second explanations (search for illegal weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and to punish Iraq for an alleged Al-Qaeda-Hussein link) have already been dismissed as big lies). Read:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/13/iraq.usa
The third explanation (to spread democracy and freedom in the Middle East) has more to do with political rhetoric and demagoguery than with Middle East political reality. First, U.S. government’s best Arab friends and allies in the Middle East are Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, whose governments are monarchies, not democracies. Second, U.S. government’s special friend and ally in the Middle East is the State of Israel, dubbed “the only democracy in the Middle East.” But the State of Israel is at best a “Jewish ethnocracy” (democracy for Jews only). Israel was founded on the ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Christians from Palestine and continues to discriminate between Jews and non-Jews in a ‘legal’ manner (for example, the Law of ‘Return’). On the fourth explanation (oil), let’s point out the following: First, there is no public record of the big oil companies supporting the war in Iraq or the current confrontation with Iran (as James Petras, John Mearsheimer, Walt, and others have shown). Second, President Bush repeatedly promised to replace more than 75% of US oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. Third, President Obama’s ENERGY POLICY states explicitly that its central goal is to “end our addiction to foreign oil” and eliminate our current imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 Years.” Fourth, the American Jewish Committee’s top ENERGY POLICY had for a long time been focused on ending US oil imports from the Middle East as a strategy of weakening predominantly Arab OPEC. The following examples indicate that the shift to new sources of energy is not purely motivated by ‘economic’ and/or ‘environmental’ concerns. “If the U.S. continues to increase its reliance on foreign sources of oil, our dependence on OPEC member nations and rogue states (overlapping categories that include the nations with the largest share of the world’s proven oil reserves) will increase…. The American Jewish Committee, therefore, urges that the United States set as a primary national goal a comprehensive energy policy aimed at a substantial reduction in U.S. dependence on imported oil, with the potential for energy flexibility and near independence in the longer term.” —-The American Jewish Committee, “Energy Security for America,” May 5, 2003. “Our goal should be to replace hydrocarbons with carbohydrates.” —-US Senator Richard G. Lugar, The National Interest, Summer 2006. “Let us build on the work we have done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next ten years — thereby cutting our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East.” ——- President Bush’s State of the Union, CNN, 1/23/2007. “Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred…. and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries… We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” —– President Obama’s inaugural speech CNN, 1/20/2009. Moreover, Israel appears to be preparing the ground for a shift from ‘US dependence on Middle East oil’ to ‘US dependence on Israel’s new sources of energy.’ Read this promotion story “Israel and California cut world’s largest solar energy deal”:
http://www.israel21c.org/environment/israel-and-california-cut-worlds-largest-solar-energy-deal
On the fifth explanation (Israel), review carefully the following:
(a) Read “IRAQ: War Launched to Protect Israel – Bush Adviser:”
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23083
(b) When Vice-President Cheney launched the Iraq war campaign before a meeting of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (CNN.com, 8/26/2002), he told them: “The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action.” But Cheney campaign was simply the coronation of an Iraq war campaign launched by Israeli leaders themselves in the United States. For example, (i) on 4/14/2002, former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu came to Washington to brief U.S Senators and the editor of the Washington Post on the removal of Saddam; (ii) on 5/12/2002, Israeli Foreign Minister Peres appeared on CNN to say that “Saddam Hussein is as dangerous as bin Laden;” (iii) on 6/8/2002, former Israeli Prime Minister Barak wrote in the Washington Post: Bush “should, first of all, focus on Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein;” (iv) on 8/13/2002: Israeli Prime Minister Sharon told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Knesset that Iraq “is the greatest danger facing Israel;” and (v) on 8/16/2002: CBSNews.com reported: “Israel To U.S.: Don’t Delay Iraq Attack.” (See also Mearsheimer & Walt’s book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, 2007, p 234).
(c) Read the two stories about Congressman Jim Moran, D-Virginia, who said on the eve of the Iraq war “If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this.” Moran was pressured to apologize and resign from his leadership post:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/14/moran.remarks/index.html
(d) Learn about the book The dagger of Israel (1957), in which Indian journalist Rustom Khurshedji Karanjia published a secret Israeli plan involving, among other things, the partition of Iraq:
(e) Find out when and how did the Israelis bomb and destroy Iraq’/ s first nuclear plant near Baghdad?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/7/newsid_3014000/3014623.stm
(f) Find out what Ze’ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz
http://haaretz.com/
, said on June 2, 1982 about Israel’s “best” interest in the partition of Iraq: ” The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi’ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part”.
(g) Learn about Jewish-American Jonathan Jay Pollard, a US Naval civilian intelligence analyst and a convicted Israeli spy, who received a life sentenced in 1987 for stealing thousands of pages of classified documents on behalf of Israel. Pollard wrote in 1991: “Appeasement of Iraq Made Me A Spy.” Pollard, a sayan (plural sayanim, which Andrew I. Killgore describes as “Israel’s volunteer spies within the U.S. government, U.S. industry, and within the American Jewish community itself”) provided the Israelis with satellite photographs of Iraqi weapons sites (see Jonathan Jay Pollard, “Appeasement of Iraq Made Me A Spy, by Jonathan Pollard,” The Wall Street Journal – Originally published February 15, 1991. Posted to Web November 4, 2002:
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/1991/021591.htm
(h) Learn about Mossad Agent Ephraim’s comment in 1986 on building up Iraq as the “next target” and Saddam Hussein as “the big villain.” Ephraim was quoted: “After the bombing of Libya [Mossad’s Operation Trojan, 1986], our friend Qadhafi is sure to stay out of the picture for some time. Iraq and Saddam Hussein are the next target. We’re starting now to build him up as the big villain. It will take some time, but in the end, there’s no doubt it’ll work.” Source: Victor Ostrovsky, The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad’s Secret Agenda, New York: Harper Colins Publishers, 1994, page 117.
(i) Note the Mossad assassination of Canadian-American weapons developer Gerald Bull in Brussels in 1990. Gerald Bull allegedly helped Iraq build a “big gun”:
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0499/9904122b.html
(j) Note that the United Nations did not authorize the no-fly zones through which the US and Britain partitioned Iraq’s air space in 1992 [very much along the lines of the Israeli proposed partition plan of Iraq in 1957]:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2490361.stm
(k) Skim through the stories about Jewish-born Leslie Gelb, former editor and columnist for The Times and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, who wrote in The New York Times of 11/25/2003: The United States should “move in stages toward a three-state solution: Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south.” See how [then] Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware (chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee) and [currently] Vice President of the United States jumped on the bandwagon, while The New York Times of 8/19/2007 carefully dubbed the partitionig of Iraq “The Biden-Gelb plan” (at the same time an Iraq’ s Partition map appeared on the internet):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4777369.stm
http://temi.repubblica.it/limes-heartland/iraqs-partition/1106
(l) Read and learn from this New York Time story how the Iraqis in Baghdad call American soldiers “The Jews,” according to Jewish-American Thomas Friedman, “Jews, Israel and America,” The New York Times, October 24, 2004: “Many Iraqis have so much distrust for U.S. forces we found they’ve come up with a nickname for our troops,” Scott said. “They call American soldiers ‘The Jews,’ as in, ‘Don’t go down that street, the Jews set up a roadblock.’
(m) Find out which “catastrophic and catalyzing event” was used by the top pro-Iraq war party (the neoconservatives) as an excuse to justify the Iraq war? The Neoconservatives indicated that to speed up their preconceived plan they need: “some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” Print and review only the above quote on PAGE 51 of the September 2000 Report:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses
(n) Who are the neoconservatives (neocons) who conceived and pushed for the war in Iraq? According to the Jewish-American newspaper FORWARD, “If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.” See The Neoconservative Persuasion; Examining the Jewish Roots of an Intellectual Movement; The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping Of Public Policy; Commentary in American Life; The Neocon Reader;” Gal Beckerman, Forward, January 6, 2006, Vol. CIX, Iss. 31,583; pg. 12.
(o) Read carefully the brief biographies of the 12 key figures of the neoconservatives (The Christian Science Monitor, June 2005):
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/index.html
, It appears that this article has later been removed from the Internet.
(p) Compare and contrast Paul Wolfowitz’s call and plan to “OVERTHROW HIM [Saddam Hussein],” (The Weekly Standard, December 1, 1997) with the content of the Neoconservatives’ Letter to President Clinton (January 26, 1998):
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
(q) Watch and find out when was the Iraq Liberation Act signed into law and by whom?
(r) Read carefully “Transcript of Bin Laden’s October [2001] interview”:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/02/05/binladen.transcript/index.html
(s) Read the New York Times story entitled “WAR IN THE GULF: Muslims; Saudis Decree Holy War on Hussein,” …Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority has issued a decree sanctioning a holy war against Saddam Hussein by all Muslims and “those assisting them” to evict his forces from Kuwait. The “fatwa,” or religious decree, authorizing the “jihad,” or holy war, was issued by Sheik Abdulaziz bin Abdulla bin Baz, the head of the Council of Ulema, Saudi Arabia’s most senior Islamic authority. It was written at the beginning of the coalition’s offensive against Iraq, and published on Friday in a special edition of al-Muslimoon, the most popular Islamic weekly newspaper. Copies of the decree were posted today in several mosques across Riyadh…. “The fatwa removes any doubt about the religious justification for asking non-Muslims to help this country attack another Muslim country,” said a religious scholar, who spoke on condition that he not be identified…. The New York Times, January 20, 1991.
(t) Read “Saudi Cleric Issues Warning Over Militants,” Asharq Alawsat”, 01/10/2007:
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=10386
(u) Read one translation of “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, World Islamic Front Statement,” Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 23 February 1998:
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm
(v) What was the main request in the Neocons’ Letter to President Bush (September 20, 2001)?
http://www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter.htm
(w) Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Full program: House Session, Oct 5, 1998): http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/clip.php?appid=596696994 (x) See how Vice President Dick Cheney describes his relationship with Bernard Lewis (his intellectual and political mentor on the Middle East): “You simply cannot find a greater authority on Middle Eastern history — from classical Islamic civilization, to the Ottoman Empire, to the modern period — than this man [Lewis Bernard] and his works.”… After listening to Bernard Lewis’ advice on “the history and the way forward in the Middle East” following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said “I decided that day that this was a man I wanted to keep in touch with, and whose work I should follow carefully in the years ahead. Since then we have met often, particularly during the last four-and-a-half years, and Bernard has always had some very good meetings with President Bush… More than three decades ago, at the height of a secular era, he wrote a prescient article titled The Return of Islam. In the 1970s he studied the writings of an obscure cleric named Khomeini, and saw the seeds of a movement that would deliver theocratic despotism. In 1990, he wrote The Roots of Muslim Rage, which anticipated the terrorism of that decade. And in this new century, his wisdom is sought daily by policymakers, diplomats, fellow academics, and the news media.” Source: Dick Cheney, “Vice President’s Remarks at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia Luncheon Honoring Professor Bernard Lewis,” Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1 May 2006, The White House,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060501-3.html
(note that the link has been disabled on the new White House Website)
(y) Read the Washington Post story about a memo distributed on the eve of the Iraq war urging Israeli and pro-Israeli leaders: “You do not want Americans to believe that the war on Iraq is being waged to protect Israel rather than to protect America.” Here is the reference to the story: Dana Milbank, “Group Urges Pro-Israel Leaders’ Silence on Iraq; Memo Outlines Response If Hostilities Occur, Discourages Lecturing of Americans on Middle East,” The Washington Post, November 27, 2002. (z) Read “Rupert Murdoch and William Kristol: Using the Press to Advance Israel’s Interests”:
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/june2003/0306024.html
(z2) Watch “The Israel Lobby: Does it Have Too Much Influence on US Foreign Policy?” http://www.scribemedia.org/2006/10/11/israel-lobby/
4. Learn more about the “Aftermath” of the Iraq war: (a) Read carefully the Executive Summary (pages 6-8) and Recommendations 1, 9, 13, 15, 16, 22, 23, 26, 27, and 28 of The Iraq Study Group Report (December 6, 2006): “The United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict…”
http://media.usip.org/reports/iraq_study_group_report
(b) Review carefully Articles 4(1), 12(3), 21(1), 24(1), 26(1b), and 27 (all clauses) of the “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq” as they relate to the declared withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, the issue of immunity for US military and civilian elements in Iraq, and deterrence of internal or external security threats to Iraq: Article 27…”In the event of any external or internal threat or aggression against Iraq that would violate its sovereignty, political independence, or territorial integrity, waters, airspace, its democratic system or its elected institutions, and upon request by the Government of Iraq, the Parties shall immediately initiate strategic deliberations and, as may be mutually agreed, the United States shall take appropriate measures, including diplomatic, economic, or military measures, or any other measure, to deter such a threat.”
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/20081119_SOFA_FINAL_AGREED_TEXT
(c) Read carefully and critically President Obama’s speech (” REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING,” Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009: “The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09/
(d) Watch and/or read Bill Moyers’ interview with Jeremy Scahill (author of “BLACKWATER: THE RISE OF THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL MERCENARY ARMY”) on the Afghan war (June 5, 2009):
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06052009/watch.html
(e) Watch [late] Libyan Leader & African Union Chairman Qadhafi’s speech to the UN General Assembly, especially his views on UN reform, the African Union, and the Palestine-Israel conflict: “The countries of the African Union deserve a [UN Security Council] permanent seat. This is a debt from the past that has to be paid and has nothing to do with United Nations reform. It is a priority matter and is high on the agenda of the General Assembly. No one can say that the African Union does not deserve a permanent seat… With regard to the Palestinian situation, the two-State solution is impossible; it is not practical. Currently, these two States completely overlap. Partition is doomed to failure. These two States are not neighbors; they are coextensive, in terms of both population and geography. A buffer zone cannot be created between the two States because there are half a million Israeli settlers in the West Bank and a million Arab Palestinians in the territory known as Israel. The solution is therefore a democratic State without religious fanaticism or ethnicity.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hq1pUKbo4E
(f) Read “Confidential memo reveals US plan to provoke an invasion of Iraq” (June 21, 2009):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/21/iraq-inquiry-tony-blair-bush
(g) Extended Interview: U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill (July 23, 2009):
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/module.html?mod=0&pkg=malikivisit&seg=1
(h) Based on your learning about Topic 5, ask yourself about the prospect/future of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. For example, should there be an independent government investigation to identify those individuals and organizations responsible for embroiling and dragging the United States into the Iraq war? Or should we continue to blame America as a whole and every American for what happened and what could happen? Should there be apologies and reparations for the Iraqi people? See for example how the UN forced Iraq to pay compensation for its unlawful occupation of Kuwait (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991): The United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) received approximately 2.7 million claims seeking approximately US$352.5 billion in compensation for death, injury, loss of or damage to property, commercial claims and claims for environmental damage resulting from Iraq’s unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1991. Read “The UNCC at a Glance”:
http://www.uncc.ch/ataglance.htm
Textbook, pages 263-355 (The Lobby in Action–Taking Aim at Syria, Iran in the Crosshairs, The Lobby and the Second Lebanon War, Conclusion: What Is to Be Done?
Videos
Video: The secret files: Washington, Israel and the Gulf (60 min.): “Discusses how secret agreements and documents, since declassified, helped to shape U.S. foreign policy which led to our involvement in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.”
Video: Unfinished Business: The CIA and Saddam Hussein (45 mn): Peter Jennings (from ABC News) presents “An expose on the U.S. government’s overt and covert attempts to oust Sadam Hussein from power in Iraq.” For example, U.S. government’s attempts to oust Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq involved a covert public relations campaign which began when the CIA hired the Rendon Group to run a covert anti-Saddam propaganda campaign. Rendon Group spent more than $23 million in the first year of its contract on organizing a traveling photo exhibit of Iraqi atrocities, including videos and radio skits that ridiculed Saddam Hussein, even an anti-Saddam comic book.
Video: Paying the price: killing the children of Iraq (75 min.): John Pilger “investigates the effects of sanctions on the people of Iraq.” Contends that ten years of extraordinary isolation, imposed by the U.N. and enforced by the United States and Great Britain, have killed thousands of people. Also discusses illegal bombing campaigns conducted by the U.S. and Great Britain in “no-fly zones.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHn3kKySuVo
Video: Hijacking catastrophe: 9/11, fear, & the selling of American empire (the short version is about 25 mn): “This film discusses how the events of September 11, 2001 have influenced United States politics, from advancing a pre-existing military agenda to curtailing civil liberties and social programs. Places the Bush administration’s justifications for the war in the context of the struggle by neo-conservatives to increase American power globally by means of force. Contends that the administration has deliberately manipulated intelligence, political imagery, and fear to garner support for American military intervention.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF3I1qbOeX8
Video: Iraqi Exodus: The Iraq War and the Middle East’s Refugee Crisis, (57 mn): “This Wide Angle report travels to the front lines of the staggering refugee crisis that continues to unfold in the Middle East as Iraqis flee their war-torn hometowns to live either as exiles in neighboring countries or dislocated within Iraq’s borders. The situation in Syria and Jordan, where refugees cope with their new surroundings amidst government pressure and rising resentment from the local population, are spotlighted. In addition, Aaron Brown speaks with regional leaders about how the catastrophe is impacting the Middle East—and these millions of homeless Iraqis whose hope of return grows dimmer with each passing year.” This video is available at: http://video.pbs.org/video/1163078349/search/Iraqi%20Exodus/tag/Iraqi%20Exodus
Video: Criminal State Documentary [how the U.S. was deceived by Israel to wage war in the Middle East] (about 30 mn): Jeff Gates along with Anthony Lawson produce this startling new video that is an absolute necessity for every American who genuinely loves his country and knows something has gone very very wrong. In Jeff’s own words: What I tell people is that our specialty is enabling people to grasp “how” this duplicity operates in plain sight and, to date, with impunity. With that knowledge, they can sort out for themselves Who and Why. Absent that knowledge, they’re left adrift in the domain of conspiracy theorists, hate-mongers and such. We see this knowledge as essential in the transition to the Knowledge Society.
http://criminalstate.com/2010/01/criminal-state-documentary/
The Iraq war divided the Arabs, the Europeans, the Americans and caused a structural damage to Iraq’s society, state, & infrastructure
Aljazeera
*
1981: Israel bombs Baghdad [Osirak/Tammuz] nuclear reactor
BBC, June 7, 1981
Map of the Israeli Attack
Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the raid
Source: BBC, 5 June 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5020778.stm
*
Bill Kristol, Keeping Iraq in the Cross Hairs
“Moments after the [1991] Persian Gulf War was halted, Bill Kristol got a call from columnist Charles Krauthammer, and both were fuming over what they saw as unfinished business.”
Source: Washington Post, March 18, 2003; Page C01
*
“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”
Prepared by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000
A report prepared in 1996 by a neoconservative study group led by Richard Perle for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We read in the report:
…. “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq” is “an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right.”
Participants in the Study Group on “A New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000:”
Richard Perle, American Enterprise Institute, Study Group Leader
James Colbert, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Johns Hopkins University/SAIS
Douglas Feith, Feith and Zell Associates
Robert Loewenberg, President, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Jonathan Torop, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
David Wurmser, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Meyrav Wurmser, Johns Hopkins University
*
“A free Iraq will help secure Israel”
—U.S. President George W. Bush, September 2004 (NPR, 9/30/2004)
*
“I’m going to get it right for those soldiers because it’s important to Israel”
—U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate John Kerry, September 2004 (NPR, 9/30/2004)
*
“If you believe that the State of Israel will be more secure if the United States fails in Iraq, you and I have a disagreement.” —
Republican presidential candidate John McCain (JTA, 10/30/2007)
Iraq was invaded ‘to protect Israel’ – US official
Philip Zelikow, a member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (2001—03), executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (2005-06), told a crowd at the University of Virginia on September 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of September 11 and the future of the war on al-Qaeda:
“Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat [is] and actually has been since 1990 – it’s the threat against Israel… And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.”
Emad Mekay, “Iraq was invaded ‘to protect Israel’ – US official,” Asia Times Online, 31 March 2004, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FC31Aa01.html
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux I, 2007, page 31
*
“The war was about Israel’s security”
Group* Urges Pro-Israel Leaders’ Silence on Iraq;
Memo Outlines Response If Hostilities Occur, Discourages Lecturing of Americans on Middle East” The Washington Post, November 27, 2002:
“You do not want Americans to believe that the war on Iraq is being waged to protect Israel rather than to protect America.”
The memo coached: “(A)s an Israeli, most certainly don’t talk about why some Arab leaders and their people dislike the United States. Americans don’t want to be told by an Israeli why we have problems in the Middle East or why people hate us.”
*the Israel Project, a group funded by American Jewish organizations and individual donors.
*
Israeli newspaper Haaretz
5 April 2003
The U.S. war in Iraq was conceived “by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish.”
*
Moran steps down from leadership post
Lawmaker under fire for saying Jews push war with Iraq
CNN, March 14, 2003. http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/14/moran.remarks/index.html on the World Wide Web.
CNN, March 11, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/moran.jews/index.html
Lawmaker under fire for saying Jews support Iraq war
Moran apologizes; White House blasts comments
The War Began March 19, 2003
*
“Jews,” “Israel,” and “America”
Some times the words “Jews,” “Israel,” and “America” are interchangeable in the minds of many people in the Arab and Muslim worlds. For example, amidst the bloody chaos and destruction in U.S.-occupied Iraq, Scott Pelley of CBS News’s 60 Minutes was reported going around and asking Iraqis on the streets wondering if they had nicknames for Americans. He found that Iraqis “call American soldiers ‘The Jews,’ as in, ‘Don’t go down that street, the Jews set up a roadblock’”
Source: Thomas Friedman, 2004, “Jews, Israel and America,” The New York Times, October 24.
*
“From Israel’s perspective, the longstanding strategic threat of a massive military attack from the east led by Iraq through Jordan no longer exists because of the [Iraq] war.”
— Jewish Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham H. Foxman, August 2006 (ADL, 8/1/2006)
*
Israel’s 1957 secret plan to partition Iraq
Indian journalist Rustom Khurshedji Karanjia published the book The dagger of Israel (Bombay, Blitz Publications, 1957).
(ر. ك. كرانجيا، خنجر إسرائيل، شرح وتعليق بسام العسلي، دار المسيرة، بيروت، الطبعة الأولي، 1980، ص 61).
In the book, Karanjia published a secret Israeli plan involving, among other things, the partition of Iraq
*
Ze’ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Israel’s leading newspaper Ha’aretz,
wrote on 2 June 1982:
The “best” that can happen for Israeli interests in Iraq:
“The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi’ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part” (Ha’aretz 6/2/1982).
*
Oded Yinon’s “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”
Oded Yinon’s article which appeared in Kivunim (Directions), the journal of the Department of Information of the World Zionist Organization. Oded Yinon is an Israeli journalist and was formerly attached to the Foreign Ministry of Israel.
This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14–Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.
Published by the Association of Arab-American University Graduates, Inc. , Belmont, Massachusetts, 1982 , Special Document No. 1, (ISBN 0-937694-56-8), http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/The%20Zionist%20Plan%20for%20the%20Middle%20East
“The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.”–Khalil Nakhleh
“All the Arab States east of Israel are torn apart, broken up and riddled with inner conflict even more than those of the Maghreb… Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target…. Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times
is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization.”–Oded Yinon
Israel sees opportunity in possible US strike on Iraq
Israel promised support and assistance this week for a US war against Iraq
“If the Americans do not do this now,” said Israeli Deputy Defense Minister and Labor Party member Weizman Shiry on Wednesday, “it will be harder to do it in the future. In a year or two, Saddam Hussein will be further along in developing weapons of mass destruction. It is a world interest, but especially an American interest to attack Iraq.”
“And as deputy defense minister, I can tell you that the United States will receive any assistance it needs from Israel,” he added.
Source: The Christian Science Monitor, August 30, 2002,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0830/p08s01-wome.htm
*
Gelb’s Idea of Partitioning Iraq
Leslie Gelb, former editor and columnist for The Times and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in The New York Times of 11/25/2003:
The United States should “move in stages toward a three-state solution: Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south.”
Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, picked up the idea, while The New York Times of 19 August 2007 dubbed it “The Biden-Gelb plan.”
*
On 27 September, the Senate passed a resolution (75-23) urging the Bush administration to support “a political settlement among Iraq’s major factions based upon the provisions of the Constitution of Iraq that create a federal system of government and allow for the creation of federal regions.” CNN.com 9/30/07….
Heartland Eurasian Review of Geopolitics [originally created in China and Italy!?] apparently made and posted this map on its website, http://temi.repubblica.it/limes-heartland/iraqs-partition/1106
*
When asked in January 2008 to clarify whether there was any Israeli involvement in his decision to invade Iraq, President Bush said: “No, not at all. None whatsoever.”
Source: The White House, 1/2/2008.
When asked by Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot to clarify whether there was any Israeli involvement in his decision to invade Iraq, President George W. Bush said “No, not at all. None whatsoever.”[1] Elsewhere in the same interview President Bush acknowledged that “one of the things in politics that happens often is people sometimes won’t tell you really what’s on their mind.”
[1] The White House, “Interview of the President by Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer of Yediot Ahronot,” Oval Office, 2 January 2008, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080104-9.html
Tariq Aziz [was a member of the Revolutionary Command Council, a leader of the Ba’ath party, deputy prime minister, foreign minister]: ‘Britain and the US killed Iraq. I wish I was martyred’:
…. “Bush and Blair lied intentionally. They were both pro-Zionist. They wanted to destroy Iraq for the sake of Israel, not for the sake of the US and Britain.”…. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/05/iraq-us-tariq-aziz-iran
At a moment when almost all countries around the world were offering sincere sympathy and support to the United States after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush addressed the world in these terms:
“Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2001-09/a-2001-09-21-14-Bush.cfm
Lloyd Gardner and Marilyn Young reported that President George W. Bush said:
“I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. An I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.”
Lloyd Gardner and Marilyn Young, “Introduction,” in Lloyd Gardner and Marilyn Young, eds. Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam, Or How Not to Learn from the Past, New York: The new Press, 2007, pp. 1-15, page 12.
March 19, 2008: President Bush spoke at the Pentagon to mark the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom:
“The battle in Iraq is noble, necessary, and just.”
The White House, 3/19/2008
March 19, 2008: President Bush spoke at the Pentagon to mark the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom:
“The battle in Iraq is noble, necessary, and just.”
“Defeating the enemy in Iraq will make it less likely we will face this enemy here at home.”
“Because we acted against Saddam Hussein, the world is better and America is safer.”
“The ‘Surge’ Strategy Has Produced Dramatic Results In Iraq”
“The Stakes In Iraq Are Great”
“Political Progress Is Taking Place In Iraq” [10/2005: new constitution; 12/2005: election under new constitution]
The White House, 3/19/2008
President George W. Bush speaks to members of the Regimental Combat Team-2, Marine Wing Support Combat Patrol at Al Asad Airbase, Al Anbar Province, Iraq, Monday, September 3, 2007. White House photo by Eric Draper, The White House, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/images/20070903-1_d-0318-4-515h.html
Karen Hughes, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs , said she was tired of seeing the president presented as a “caricature.”
The New York Times, 10/31/2007
President Bush told the AEI neoconservatives: “You are some of the best brains in our country and my government employs about 20 of you.” …”Employs” is too weak a verb,” wrote James Atlas.
The New York Times, May 4, 2003
Israel
USA
Al-Majalla , 4/21/2001, http://www.al-majalla.com/ar/
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
*
America
Palestine
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Libya
Lebanon
Syria
Sudan
Iran
Islam
Etcetera
Etcetera
Israel
Adapted from Work by Ian Antonio, http://www.creative-holidays-spain.com/painting.html
Bullfighting toreador
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
“I know what America is.. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.”–Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, 1996-99 & 2009-present, “Fibi Netanyahu, In 2001, PM boasted of manipulating Oslo accords,” Tablet: A New Read on Jewish Life, http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/39692/fibi-netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, 1996-99 & 2009-present, when asked what 9/11 would mean for American-Israeli relations, responded: “It’s very good.” Realizing his maladroit gaffe, he then added: “Well, it’s not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy” for Israel from the United States: http://www.counterpunch.org/sugg10252005.html
“The U.S. can no longer afford $725 billion each year for defense, much of it borrowed. Given the poor return on our investment, it’s clear we need another strategy, one free of Zionist goals that advance behind serial conflicts and the debt incurred to fund them. We know what to do. What’s required is the leadership to do it.” Jeff Gates, 12/29/2010, http://criminalstate.com/2010/12/a-commonsense-solar-defense/
“Israel has f—– up United States foreign policy for years”—filmmaker Oliver Stone, The Jewish Chronicle, http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/36169/oliver-stone-jews-dominate-media
It’s the case of
‘a minnow swallowing a whale’
‘the tail wagging the dog’
“only by force can a Jewish state in Palestine be established or maintained”–US Army Lt. Col. Harold Hoskins, 1943
*
Islamic world
Israel
USA
alabonline, http://www.alarab.co.uk/
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
President Bush Middle East Tour
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
The Israelis
The Americans
The Arabs
Millions Worldwide Protest Iraq War
LONDON, Feb.15 — Several million demonstrators took to the streets of Europe and the rest of the world today in a vast wave of protest against the prospect of a U.S.-led war against Iraq.
Washington Post
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Madrid, Spain
Berlin, Germany
Istanbul, Turkey
Prague, Czech Rep.
Sydney, Australia
Seoul, South Korea
London, United Kingdom
Rome, Italy
New York, USA
Population: 28.9 million (2009 est.)
Ethnic groups: Arab 75%-80%, Kurdish 15%-20%, Turkoman, Assyrian, or other 5%
Religions: Muslim 97% (Shi’a 60%-65%, Sunni 32%-37%), Christian or other 3%
Languages: Arabic, Kurdish (official in Kurdish regions), Turkoman (a Turkish dialect), Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic), Armenian
Iraq’s oil sector provides over 90% of government revenue and foreign exchange earnings
GDP per capita (PPP): $3,600 (US GDP per capita: $46,400 (2009 est.)
Border countries: Iran 1,458 km, Jordan 181 km, Kuwait 240 km, Saudi Arabia 814 km, Syria 605 km, Turkey 352 km
Source: CIA
Geography
of Iraq
*
John E. Peters and Howard Deshong, Out of Area or Out of Reach: European Military Support for Operations in Southwest Asia, National Defense Research Institute, Prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, RAND, 1995, pages 23-24, http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2007/MR629
U.S.-Led Coalition Air and Ground Forces Deployed Against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War
In the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003
Iraq did not even control its airspace, shorelines, or a third of its territory.
Iraq was still recovering from:
The Iran-Iraq war 1980-88
The Gulf war of 1991
The no-fly zone war 1991-03
CIA Covert Operations 1995-96
UN/US Sanctions 1990-2003 (Sanctions killed some 1.7 million Iraqis between 1990-2000, WRMA 12/31/00)
Depleted uranium 1991– present
Some have said that the DU used in Iraq makes the Agent Orange used in Vietnam look like “orange juice.”
DoD, http://www.defendamerica.mil/iraq/iraq_nofly.html
Professor Doug Rokke, the US army physicist in charge of cleaning up depleted uranium in Kuwait told film maker John Pilger (The Secret War on Iraq, 12/20/2002):
“I am like most people in southern Iraq. I have 5,000 times the recommended level of radiation in my body.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-8PlJVhogs
*
Basic geography of Iraq
The “what” of the war
The “why” of the war
What shall be done?
Source: CIA
Geography of the Iraq War
*
“The conventional wisdom about Nixon-Kissinger relationship was that they worked as equals, or even that Kissinger was the teacher and Nixon the student” p. 135
“When I returned to government service in 2001, I invited Henry [Kissinger] to join the Defense Policy Board. He was routinely involved in advising me on national security issues. I also arranged for him to be able to meet regularly and privately with President Bush” p. 206
“Fifteen days after 9/11, the President asked me to join him in the Oval Office alone… He asked that I take a look at the shape of our military plans on Iraq… ‘Dick told me about your son’, he [Bush] said… What happened to [my son] Nick [who suffers from drug addiction]—coupled with the [9/11] wounds to our country and the Pentagon—all started to hit me. At that moment, I couldn’t speak… I had not imagined I might choke up in a meeting with the President of the United States” p. 425-426
“I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down as one of the worst secretaries of defence in history”—Senator John McCain, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6377687.stm
Sentinel, 2011
In the book My Year in Iraq (Simon & Schuster, 2006), Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III wrote, “Among my own assignments during almost three decades and as an American diplomat, I’d been Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s chief of staff and ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism under President Ronald Reagan, jobs that had taken me to almost every capital in the region. Every one but Baghdad.” Page 4
2006
As the senior American in Baghdad, I would be President George W. Bush’s personal envoy. My chain of command ran through Secretary of of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and straight to the president. I would be the only paramount authority figure—other than dictator Saddam–Iraqis had ever known. Page 4
2006
Like Adolf Hitler, Saddam was convinced destiny had chosen him for greatness… On May 9 [2003], my last day of preparation at the Pentagon, Don Rumsfeld had given me my marching orders in a memo… Undersecretary Douglas Feith had shown me a draft order for the ‘De-Baathification of Iraqi Society.’ He had underscored the political importance of the decree. ‘We’ve got to show all the Iraqis that we’re serious about building a New Iraq. Page 39
2006
In early May [2003], before we left for Iraq, [Senior Advisor for defense and security affairs, Walt] Slocombe had began discussions with top Pentagon officials, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, about the policy implications of Saddam’s army having melted away. Page 54
2006
On May 9, 2003, the day before our departure, I sent a memo to Secretary Rumsfeld, copied to Wolfowitz, DOD’s policy office and the General Counsel, summarizing these discussions and the tentative conclusion that we should formally dissolve Saddam’s army as well the security and intelligence services as a prelude to establishing Iraq’s new security services … and because we have to take into account the ethnic make-up and the history of the country, assembling a New Iraqi Army (NIA) would not be easy. Page 54
2006
The “exiles” comprised the small Iraqi Leadership Council (ILC) who had been selected during a conference of several hundred Iraqis in London in December 2002, which in turn had been a product of the Iraqi Liberation Act that President Bill Clinton had signed into law in 1998. This law made it U.S. policy to support efforts to “… remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein.” Page 42….
On Friday [May 16, 2003] afternoon, we were expecting seven Iraqi representatives to meet us in the palace conference room where I held staff meeting. The group, whom we had come to refer to as the G-7, included:
Ahmad Chalabi, of the Iraqi National Congress,a Shiite
Ayad Allawi, leader of the Iraqi National Accord, also a secular Shiite, was Chalabi’s chief rival
The two Kurds were Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, and his sometime ally and sometime rival, Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
The ILC also included Naseer Chaderchi, a respected seventy-year-old Sunni lawyer, who led the small, secular National Party
The other Shiite Islamist party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), was represented by Dr. Adel Mahdi and Hamid al-Bayati, reportedly because the party’s most senior leader in Baghdad, Abdul Aziz Hakim, was ill. I suspected Hakim’s illness might be “diplomatic,” since he was known to be distrustful of the Coalition’s motives. Page 46
2006
On May 19, I sent a memo to Secretary Rumsfeld detailing our recommendations for the dissolution of the Iraqi Defense Ministry and its ‘related entities.’… At the Pentagon on May 22 [2003], Feith carefully reviewed our draft order, which would formally abolish Saddam’s security and intelligence services. He asked us to clarify some of the wording, which we did to his full satisfaction…. Later that day, when Rumsfeld authorized me to proceed, I informed the president of the plan in a video teleconference. On Friday, May 23, 2003, I signed CPA Order No. 2, “Dissolution of Entities” Page 57
2006
It was after 11:00 P.M. when Brian McCormack and I got into my armored SUV for the run back to the Green Zone. Our convoy, as usual, consisted of two “up-armored” Humvees sheathed in tan slabs of hardened steel, a lead-armored Suburban, our Suburban, another armored Suburban following, and two more Humvees. Overhead, we had a pair of buzzing Bell helicopters with two Blackwater snipers each. Page 245
Simon & Schuster, 2006
For the last time, and again in the sweltering heat of Baghdad summer, I took off from the Green Zone for the twenty-minute flight to Baghdad Airport. The Chinooks landed behind several camouflaged C-130s, one of which was designated to fly me out of Iraq….After a ninety-minute flight, we landed at the military airport in Amman, Jordan. I called Francie, who by now had seen news reports of the early transfer of sovereignty. “I’m safe and free,” I said. “And I’m coming home.” Pages 394 and 396
Simon & Schuster, 2006
I suppose the best place is to begin at the beginning and to thank my wonderful agent, Marvin Josephson. It was he, on a visit to Baghdad, who first suggested that I write this book. So readers disappointed that I have followed his advice should take their grievance to Marvin. To me, however, Marvin was gift. I thank him for his help identifying a publisher and willingness to give sound advice on the book as the writing proceeded. And I am further indebted to him for suggesting that I engage Malcolm McConnell as my collaborator on the project. Page 399
Simon & Schuster, 2006
Some media treat March 19, 2003 as the beginning of the war, but the conflict for ordinary Iraqis never ended in March 1991 following Iraq’s defeat and exit from Kuwait. They [the Iraqis] would endure 12 years of punitive sanctions which the UN estimates killed nearly 1.7 million Iraqis.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80C83F02-A0D6-4624-8BD2-106439605C04.htm
Smoke rises from explosions during the first few minutes of a massive air attack on March 20, 2003 in Baghdad [GETTY]
“War is hell, but for Hollywood it has been a Godsend, providing the perfect dramatic setting against which courageous heroes win the hearts and minds of the movie going public. The Pentagon recognises the power of these celluloid dreams and encourages Hollywood to create heroic myths; to rewrite history to suit its own strategy and as a recruiting tool to provide a steady flow of willing young patriots for its wars….’Give a nineteen-year-old kid an automatic weapon, and it takes him four days to become God’” — Watch “Hollywood and the war machine” at http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/empire/2010/12/2010121681345363793.html
US Human Cost of the Iraq War
Over 4,398 dead and over 31,762 wounded in Iraq
93 dead and 722 wounded from Indiana
US dead and wounded in Iraq by state, 3/2003-3/2010 http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties
http://icasualties.org/Iraq/USCasualtiesByState.aspx
No available estimates of Iraqi wounded
At the end of 12/2007, the number of Iraqi “detainees” stood at 51,133— UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, December 2007, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Press/UNAMIJuly-December2007EN
Iraq’s cultural heritage (National Library and Archives, National Museum, and other significant cultural heritage sites) was looted
“Over 1000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003” —The British Opinion Research Business, January 2008, http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=120
See also the impact of sanctions: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80C83F02-A0D6-4624-8BD2-106439605C04.htm
4.7 million Iraqis were made refugees within the country or across the borders—United Nations News Centre, October 2007, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=24378&Cr=Iraq&Cr1=
Iraqi Human Cost of the War
*
Source: Iraq Body Count, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/ and http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/individuals/page1
Documented civilian deaths from violence
95,755 – 104,460
Confusion about the numbers produced by the project can be avoided by bearing in mind that: (1) IBC’s figures are not ‘estimates’ but a record of actual, documented deaths.; (2) IBC records solely violent deaths; (3) IBC records solely civilian (strictly, ‘non-combatant’) deaths.; (4) IBC’s figures are constantly updated and revised as new data comes in, and frequent consultation is advised. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/about/
Falluja doctors report rise in birth defects:
Doctors in the Iraqi city of Falluja are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion. BBC, 3/4/2010,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8548707.stm
Financial Cost
“The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More
As we head toward November [2008], opinion polls say that voters’ main worry is now the economy, not the war. But there’s no way to disentangle the two. The United States will be paying the price of Iraq for decades to come. The price tag will be all the greater because we tried to ignore the laws of economics — and the cost will grow the longer we remain”
Linda J. Bilmes, a former chief financial officer at the Commerce Department, teaches at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University, served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton. They are co-authors of “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. The Washington Post, 3/9/2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846_2.html
Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study
(Reuters) – The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said. Reuter, 3/14/2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314
“Three trillion dollars is a lot of money. In fact, for one sixth of that money, the US could put its entire social security system on a sound financial basis for the next 75 years.” BBC, 2/26/2008
US House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security
Hearing on Wartime Contracting
There 280,000 contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan (80 percent of the foreign nationals)—a ratio of 1 contractor per soldier deployed (C-Span, 8/21/2009)
“the State Department continues to award the company, formerly known as Blackwater, more than $400 million in contracts to fly its diplomats around Iraq, guard them in Afghanistan, and train security forces in antiterrorism tactics at its remote camp in North Carolina” (The New York Times, 8/21/2009)
An American flag flies in front of the United States Embassy in Baghdad.
By TIM ARANGO, New York Times, February 7, 2012
U.S. Planning to Slash Iraq Embassy Staff by as Much as Half
“BAGHDAD — Less than two months after American troops left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a sharp sign of declining American influence in the country.
Officials in Baghdad and Washington said that Ambassador James F. Jeffrey and other senior State Department officials were reconsidering the size and scope of the embassy, where the staff has swelled to nearly 16,000 people, mostly contractors.
The expansive diplomatic operation and the $750 million embassy building, the largest of its kind in the world, were billed as necessary to nurture a postwar Iraq on its shaky path to democracy and establish normal relations between two countries linked by blood and mutual suspicion. But the Americans have been frustrated by what they see as Iraqi obstructionism and are now largely confined to the embassy because of security concerns, unable to interact enough with ordinary Iraqis to justify the $6 billion annual price tag.” New York Times, 2/7/2012
SYNOPSIS: These extraordinary times–unprecedented in modern history–are marked by a worldwide depression and regional wars involving all the major imperial powers. This book exposes the roots of the crisis in the unsustainability of the United States’ military-driven empire building based on a volatile speculative economy, and influenced by Zionist policy makers committed to the colonialist state of Israel. It offers a critical study of the collapse of the empire and a profound indictment of the respectable and prestigious personalities either responsible for the debacle, or for its continuance. Petras provides clear insight into how the ramifications of the world depression and regional wars that originated in Washington and on Wall Street are extending throughout the world, provoking popular challenges especially in Latin America, while reinforcing the belligerency and increasingly fascistic nature of the state of Israel. He demonstrates how unending wars and a deepening capitalist depression have demolished the ideology of free market neo-liberalism and forced to the forefront the need for structural changes. He points out how the collapse of the capitalist free market and the need for large-scale, long-term interventions by the state have once again raised the question of whose interests states are presently promoting, and whose interests in actuality they should serve. Both in the United States and Latin America, center-left regimes are proposing economic reforms to try to save the capitalist system. However the deepening crisis is raising the prospect of mass support for 21st Century socialism, which focuses on public investment, ownership and control.
THE AUTHOR: James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet.
Source: The James Petras Website, 8/21/2009, http://petras.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=1785&more=1&c=1
U.S. debt overpowers National Debt Clock
NEW YORK (AP) — The National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of digits to record the growing figure. As a short-term fix, the digital dollar sign on the billboard-style clock near Times Square has been switched to a figure — the “1” in $10 trillion. It’s marking the federal government’s current debt at about $10.2 trillion. The Durst Organization says it plans to update the sign next year by adding two digits. That will make it capable of tracking debt up to a quadrillion dollars. The late Manhattan real estate developer Seymour Durst put the sign up in 1989 to call attention to what was then a $2.7 trillion debt.
CNN, October 30, 2008, http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/09/national.debt.clock.ap/#cnnSTCText
U.S. national debt clock in Times Square, New York.
U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison
near Baghdad
U.N. expert says torture in Iraq worse than under Saddam, USA Today, 9/21/2006
On February 7, 2002, President Bush signs an executive order that says Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions does not apply to Qaeda and Taliban captives. NYT, 12/8/07
Moral Cost
Top interrogators attended an “anti-terror” training camp in Israel and their boss received an award from Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz—Robert Fisk, The Independent, 5/26/ 2004
AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2724
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“Bush Makes Final [Sneak] Visit to Iraq
A man, apparently a journalist, threw two shoes at President Bush during a news conference in Baghdad”—The New York Times, December 14, 2008–http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/12/14/multimedia/1194835546483/bush-makes-final-visit-to-iraq.html
“Hitting someone with a shoe is a strong insult in Iraq. It means the person is as low as the dirt underneath the sole of a shoe, and the actions of Muntader al-Zaidi, a correspondent for an independent Iraqi television station, were condemned by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi government and other reporters at the news conference. Mr. Bush was unhurt and made a joke afterward, but the shoes have overshadowed other news coverage of the trip, including an attempt to showcase the new security agreement.” NYT, 12/15/2008
Video: Bush Dodges Shoes on Visit to Iraq:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/12/14/multimedia/1194835546483/bush-makes-final-visit-to-iraq.html
Iraqi reporter shouting: “This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog.”
http://www.alarab.co.uk/index.asp?fname=\2008\12\12-16\970c1.htm&dismode=x&ts=16/12/2008%2008:07:36%20ص
No diplomacy
Biden: That SOB Saddam is rolling over in his grave
Vice President Joe Biden celebrated the 2009 Independence Day with US troops, including his soldier son Beau, at their base near Baghdad, giving a speech that mocked Saddam Hussein…. “We did it in Saddam’s palace and I can think of nothing better… That SOB is rolling over in his grave right now.”
Alarabiya, 7/4/2009, http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/07/04/77806.html
Haaretz, 7/4/2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097692.html
The United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC)
The United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) was created in 1991 as a subsidiary organ of the UN Security Council. Its mandate is to process claims and pay compensation for losses and damage suffered as a direct result of Iraq’s unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait.
UNCC received approximately 2.7 million claims seeking approximately US$352.5 billion
So far UNCC awarded approximately US$52.4 billion in respect of approximately 1.55 million of these claims.
So far UNCC paid a total of US$26 billion to individuals, corporations, governments and international organizations. http://www2.unog.ch/uncc/ataglance.htm
“Iraqi parliamentarians are demanding Israel pay billions of dollars in reparations for a 1981 Israeli attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor, Baghdad’s daily al-Sabbah reported Thursday [2/12/2009]. “Iraq MPs seek reparation for 1981 Israeli attack on nuclear reactor,” Haaretz, 2/12/2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1063718.html
U.S. Occupation and Iraqi Resistance
“Marines Cast as ‘Mongols’ in Baghdad.”
Time,4/19/2003
Corporal Edward Chin, an ethnic Chinese from Burma, told CNN’s Paula Zahn (4/10/2003): “They wanted a flag on his head, the American flag.”
Aljazeera
Iraq ranked at the bottom of the 149 countries on the Global Peace Index 2010, http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi-data/#/2010/iraq/IQ
Baghdad ranked at the bottom of the 221 cities of the world’s best quality of living cities in 2010, http://www.vancouversun.com/life/food/Vancouver+Canucks+figure+they+need+momentum+Game+tonight/2944199/Vienna+world+best+city+live+Study/3073294/story.html?id=3073294#ixzz0qUeKeRCl
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98.8 percent of the inmates in American detention centers in Iraq are Iraqis. The New York Times, 11/22/07
92.7 percent of coalition casualties in Iraq are Americans, CNN, 11/22/07
“Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq”
“Signed in duplicate in Baghdad on this 17th day of November, 2008, in the English and Arabic languages, each text being equally authentic”
“Article 4: Missions: “The Government of Iraq requests the temporary assistance of the United States Forces for the purposes of supporting Iraq in its efforts to maintain security and stability in Iraq, including cooperation in the conduct of operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, outlaw groups, and remnants of the former regime.”
Article 12: Jurisdiction: “The United States shall have the primary right to exercise jurisdiction over members of the United States Forces and of the civilian component for matters arising inside agreed facilities and areas; during duty status outside agreed facilities and areas; and in circumstances not covered by paragraph 1.”
Article 21: Claims: “With the exception of claims arising from contracts, each Party shall waive the right to claim compensation against the other Party for any damage, loss, or destruction of property, or compensation for injuries or deaths that could happen to members of the force or civilian component of either Party arising out of the performance of their official duties in Iraq.”
Article 24: Withdrawal of the United States Forces from Iraq: “All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011”
Article 26 Iraqi Assets: “the United States shall ensure maximum efforts to: a. Support Iraq to obtain forgiveness of international debt resulting from the policies of the former regime. b. Support Iraq to achieve a comprehensive and final resolution of outstanding reparation claims inherited from the previous regime, including compensation requirements imposed by the UN Security Council on Iraq.”
Article 27: Deterrence of Security Threats: (1) “In the event of any external or internal threat or aggression against Iraq that would violate its sovereignty, political independence, or territorial integrity, waters, airspace, its democratic system or its elected institutions, and upon request by the Government of Iraq, the Parties shall immediately initiate strategic deliberations and, as may be mutually agreed, the United States shall take appropriate measures, including diplomatic, economic, or military measures, or any other measure, to deter such a threat… Iraqi land, sea, and air shall not be used as a launching or transit point for attacks against other countries.”
Source: The New York Times, 11/19/2008, http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/20081119_SOFA_FINAL_AGREED_TEXT
Dr. Dhari: Forthcoming Election is Formality
Dr. Sheikh Harith al-Dhari Secretary General of the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (HEYET) stated his suspicion over the transparency and fairness of the elections scheduled for Iraq in the seventh of March.
Sheikh al-Dari in an interview with the agency of Quds Press told that the results of these elections were pre-prepared by the U.S. administration and distributed to political allies in Iraq…
He stressed that the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (HEYET) will not be part of the forthcoming legislative elections, nor of the political process which is under brutal occupation.
Prof. Dr. Harith al-Dari described the current political process as a way to legalize the occupation and the confirmation of American hegemony over Iraq saying: “We will not be a party in the electoral process and in the political process as long as the occupation exists in Iraq. It is a principle we abide by it and we will be at the same position till the withdrawal of the occupation. Because realities on the ground proved that the political process is not the right path to the security of Iraq and its liberation. But it has been and still the U.S. project to achieve the wishes of America and its allies. ”
Sheikh Dari drew attention to the current political process saying: “It is fully built on the quota system and the constitution is biased and far from many communities in Iraq. Then the so-called security pact came to mortgage Iraq to decades and even centuries.
Secretary General clarified that the U.S. administration does not comply with provisions of the humiliated Agreement signed by the current government at end of 2008, as America will not withdraw from Iraqi cities during 2009 and will not withdraw from Iraq in 2011. It has also not committed to defending Iraq’s borders and sovereignty…
He pointed out that Iran is now roaming in Iraq in full view and eyes of the world, even it occupied al Fakka oil well that is Iraqi oil without doubt. When it is asked about America, she said that it is an internal matter, as if Iran and Iraq are one thing!! . .
Prof. Dr. Harith al-Dari concluded his statement saying that the “next election will be a formality and seats will be deployed by U.S. forces to allied forces, which would extend the security agreement. So do not count on anyone to these elections and should not pay attention to the media in the Arab world.” AMSI, 3/6/2010, http://www.heyetnet.org/eng/amsinews/5311-dhari-forthcoming-election-is-formality.html
Guide to groups competing in Iraqi polls
STATE OF LAW COALITION–This alliance is led by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and purportedly cuts across religious and tribal lines.
IRAQI NATIONAL ALLIANCE (INA)–This mainly Shia alliance is seen as one of the biggest rivals to the prime minister’s coalition.
KURDISTAN ALL–The Kurdish coalition is dominated by the two parties administering Iraq’s northern, semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
AL-IRAQIYYA (IRAQI NATIONAL MOVEMENT)–This alliance includes national Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, former prime minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shia, and senior Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlaq. They ran on a nationalist platform.
UNITY OF IRAQ COALITION–This group brings together a range of significant political figures, including Interior Minister Jawad Bolani and a leader of the Sunni anti-al-Qaeda militia in al-Anbar province, Ahmad Abu-Risha.
IRAQI ACCORD FRONT/AL-TAWAFUQ FRONT–The Iraqi Accord Front, an alliance of parties led by Sunni politicians, participated in the December 2005 elections but has since been weakened by splits and defections. It includes the Speaker of parliament Ayad al-Samarrai.
TRIBAL LEADERS–Tribal leaders were courted by major parties as it was thought they would play an important role in the election. Some of Iraq’s Sunni tribal leaders sprang to prominence when US forces began backing local sheikhs against al Qaeda in 2006.
MINORITIES–Smaller minorities, including Turkmen, Christians, Yazidis, Sabeans, Shabak and others, were thought likely to ally with bigger electoral lists in areas where they were not dominant.
BBC, 3/8/2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8540347.stm
Iraq election turnout 62%, officials say
Voting to elect 325-member parliament.
About 19 million eligible voters out of 28 million
Around 6,200 candidates from 86 factions competing
200,000 security personnel on duty in Baghdad
Key issues: Security, services and disqualification of alleged Baathists
Previous votes: Jan 2005 (transitional national assembly), Oct 2005 (constitution), Dec 2005 first post-invasion parliament, Feb 2009 (local elections)
BBC, 3/9/2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8556065.stm
Iraq coalition talks ‘open to all’ – Iyad Allawi
The leader of the secular alliance that narrowly won Iraq’s parliamentary election has offered to work with all parties to form a coalition government.
Iyad Allawi said his Iraqiya bloc would start by talking with the rival State of Law alliance of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, which it beat by two seats.
Mr Maliki has refused to accept the result and said he would challenge the count through the
courts.
Both the UN and US envoys to Iraq have said the 7 March poll was credible.
There is concern that a challenge to the result could be lengthy and divisive, endangering progress towards greater stability.
Sectarian violence erupted in Iraq as politicians took months to form a government after the last parliamentary election in 2005.
Police on Saturday raised the death toll to at least 52 from twin bombings a day earlier near a restaurant in the town of Khalis, 80km (50 miles) north of Baghdad. More than 70 people were injured in the blasts. BBC, 3/27/2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8590630.stm
Iyad Allawi has appointed a member of his bloc to begin coalition talks
Talabani, Hill discuss political moves and talks among winning blocs
Baghdad (NINA) – President Jalal Talabani discussed on Thursday evening, Apr. 1, with American Ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, the on going political moves and talks among political blocs that won the election.
In the meeting, Talabani stressed, “The necessity to provide suitable ground for joint work and constructive cooperation toward entrenching genuine partnership in the coming government.”
He pointed out to the efforts being exerted to activate and expand dialogue among political forces toward consolidating national unity.
They also discussed the Iraq-American relations on all levels.
For his part, Ambassador Hill asserted his country’s resolve to go ahead in supporting Iraq’s political and democratic process. / End
NINA, 4/1/2010, http://www.ninanews.com/English/News_Details.asp?ar95_VQ=ELLGEF
Video: The secret files:
Washington, Israel and the Gulf/ WETA, Washington. 1 videocassette (VHS) (60 min.), DS63.2.U5 S34 1992, Scheduled to be shown
Discusses how secret agreements and documents, since declassified, helped to shape U.S. foreign policy which led to our involvement in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.
The video reveals that in a 1943 secret memo to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, special envoy to the Middle East US Army Lt. Col. Harold Hoskins, warned against the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine: “… Not only you as President but the American people as a whole should realize that, if the American government decides to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine… they are committing the American people to the use of force in that area, since only by force can a Jewish state in Palestine be established or maintained.”
Video: Unfinished Business
An expose on the U.S. government’s overt and covert attempts to oust Sadam Hussein from power in Iraq
By Peter Jennings, ABC News, 1997
The Anti-Saddam Comic Book: PETER JENNINGS (VO) “According to the Rendon group’s own records, which we have obtained, Rendon spent more than $23 million in the first year of its contract alone. Rendon organized a traveling photo exhibit of Iraqi atrocities. He produced videos and radio skits that ridiculed Saddam Hussein, even an anti-Saddam comic book. The mission to eliminate the Iraqi dictator began as a covert public relations campaign.”
The CIA considered even depicting Saddam as gay
“According to the Washington Post’s security blog, some of America’s spooks believed that shooting a fake video of Saddam cavorting with a teenage boy might destabilise his regime in the runup to the US-led invasion in 2003. “It would look like it was taken by a hidden camera. Very grainy, like it was a secret videotaping of a sex session,” the Washington Post quoted one former CIA official as saying.
Nor was the Saddam sex tape the only idea floating around the more bizarre corners of the CIA’s Iraq Operations Group. Other ploys involved interrupting Iraqi television with a false newsflash that would announce Saddam was handing over power to his hated and feared son Uday. The presumed idea was to shock the Iraqi people into rising up against their leaders and thus make the invasion a lot easier.
Perhaps thankfully, the tape and fake news broadcast were never made and the Post reported that top CIA brass repeatedly rejected the ideas.” The Guardian, 5/26/2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/26/cia-saddam-hussein-gay-sex-smear-plot
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Video: Paying the Price: John Pilger exposes the devastating effect that UN sanctions have had on the children of Iraq. 2000
In a hard-hitting special report, award-winning journalist and filmmaker John Pilger investigates the effects of sanctions on the people of Iraq and finds that ten years of extraordinary isolation, imposed by the UN and enforced by the US and Britain, have killed more people than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
The UN Security Council imposed the sanctions and demanded the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons under the supervision of a UN Special Commission (UNSCOM). Iraq is permitted to sell a limited amount of oil in exchange for some food and medicine.
Pilger takes the former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, Denis Halliday, back to the crippled country for the first time since he resigned in protest over the sanctions back in September 1998. Together, they reveal an extraordinary portrait of life in a country with a decaying infrastructure and a population that Pilger says is being held hostage to the compliance of Saddam Hussein.
Pilger has brought back disturbing evidence that the “holds” on humanitarian supplies have paralyzed the country and devastated millions of people, many dying from curable diseases because life saving drugs are only available intermittently. He also finds that the breakdown of the clean water system and health facilities are having a tragic effect on young children, contributing to an alarming rise in their mortality rate.
Pilger also exposes the suffering caused to the civilian population by the illegal bombing campaign being conducted by US and Britain in the “no-fly zones” in northern and southern Iraq.
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Video: Hijacking catastrophe: 9/11, fear, & the selling of American empire
This film discusses how the events of September 11, 2001 have influenced United States politics, from advancing a pre-existing military agenda to curtailing civil liberties and social programs. Places the Bush administration’s justifications for the war in the context of the struggle by neo-conservatives to increase American power globally by means of force. Contends that the administration has deliberately manipulated intelligence, political imagery, and fear to garner support for American military intervention.
Written & directed by Jeremy Earp & Sut Jhally; Produced by Jeremy Earp; Edited by Kenyon King; Includes the full 64 min. version, an abridged 34 min. version, and 161 min. of additional footage, 2004.
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Video:
Iraqi Exodus: The Iraq War and the Middle East’s Refugee Crisis
This Wide Angle report travels to the front lines of the staggering refugee crisis that continues to unfold in the Middle East as Iraqis flee their war-torn hometowns to live either as exiles in neighboring countries or dislocated within Iraq’s borders. The situation in Syria and Jordan, where refugees cope with their new surroundings amidst government pressure and rising resentment from the local population, are spotlighted. In addition, Aaron Brown speaks with regional leaders about how the catastrophe is impacting the Middle East—and these millions of homeless Iraqis whose hope of return grows dimmer with each passing year. HV 640.5 .I75 I73 2008 (57 mn).
http://video.pbs.org/video/1163078349/search/Iraqi%20Exodus/tag/Iraqi%20Exodus
Think Tanks
In political strategy, a think tank is a group or an institution or a committee of experts organized to undertake intensive research and to give advice, especially to a government . Because they often receive funding from private donors, think tanks escape academic and government scrutiny and accountability.
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Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Robert Kagan, Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Frank Gaffney Jr. Source: The Christian Science Monitor, June 2005
“If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.”
Source: Forward (Volume 109, Issue 31,583), January 6, 2006, page 12.
Key neoconservative figures
Compare/contrast the views of the neoconservatives (who support Israel) and the conservatives (who oppose Israel)
Pat Buchanan: Hitler wasn’t a threat to U.S. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srwk5WwroXY&feature=related
CNN – David Duke vs. Blitzer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpTKbrgUz-s&feature=related
The Neoconservative Branch of the Israel Lobby
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The Power of Nightmares
In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
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Leo Strauss Fathered the Neoconservatives
Edward Rothstein wrote:
“Could any tyrant have plotted a more patient, thorough and ruthless path to power? Leo Strauss, the political philosopher who died in 1973, might have seemed just a harmless German-Jewish emigre, teaching Plato and Machiavelli at the University of Chicago.
But according to recent critics, he was actually preparing an intellectual putsch, which would take place 30 years after his death and culminate in the war in Iraq. His students and followers, these critics say, learned their lessons well and like good soldiers began a long march through a variety of institutions, seeking control. They maneuvered into foundations, institutes and departments of state and war. Then they began their shadow rule, leading the nation into foolhardy war.” …
Leo Strauss was “a believer in the use of ”noble lies” to manipulate the masses.” Strauss has been linked to “Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy secretary of defense; and Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defense Policy Board” [emphasis added]…..
The New York Times, 10 July 2006.
Leo Strauss: the intellectual father of the Neo-Cons/Leo-Cons..The child of middle-class Orthodox Jews, Strauss converted to Zionism while still in his teens… He advocated Zionism as a kind of “honest atheism.”
The neoconservatives “carry around literary or political magazines, not the Bible; they wear tweed jackets, not the petrol blue suits of Southern televangelists. Most of the time, they profess liberal ideas on social and moral questions. They are trying neither to ban abortion nor to impose school prayer. Their ambition lies elsewhere.” By “elsewhere” is meant the world of Washington politics and power…” President Bush told them: “You are some of the best brains in our country and my government employs about 20 of you.” …”Employs” is too weak a verb,” wrote James Atlas.
Leo Strauss, Leo Strauss: The Early Writings, 1921-1932, translated and edited by Michael Zank, State University of New York Press, 2002, page 64.
The New York Times, May 4, 2003
“I wish to say that the founder of Zionism, Herzl, was fundamentally a conservative man, guided in his Zionism by conservative considerations. The moral spine of the Jews was in danger of being broken by the so-called emancipation which in many cases has alienated them from their heritage, and yet not given them anything more than merely formal equality; it had brought about a condition which has been called “external freedom and inner servitude”… Political Zionism is problematic for obvious reasons. But I can never forget what it achieved as a moral force in an era of complete dissolution. It helped to stem the tide of “progressive” leveling of venerable, ancestral differences; it fulfilled a conservative function.” Leo Strauss’ Letter to the Editor of National Review, January 5, 1956, http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/005967.html
Neoconservative Political Strategy
In his book Breaking Ranks, Norman Podhoretz pinpoints the focus of the neoconservative branch of the Israel lobby: (1) “The inextricable connection between the survival of Israel and American military strength” (page 351), and (2) therefore supporting Israel means supporting “the [U.S.] defense appropriations out of which aid to Israel had to come” (page 357).
The neoconservatives reinforce the belief that America is “the only force for good”
The neoconservatives praise Theodore Roosevelt’s “big stick” and some of Woodrow Wilson’s ideals
The neoconservatives assert inspiring myths (true or not) that everyone could believe
The neoconservatives preach the myths in public without necessarily having to believe it in private
The neoconservatives talk about universalism to cover up their particularism
Norman Podhoretz, Breaking Ranks: A political Memoir (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1979), pages 357 and 351. See also Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear, A 2005 BBC film, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
The Project for the New American Century Think Tank
“Established in the spring of 1997, the Project for the New American Century is a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership. The Project is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project (501c3); the New Citizenship Project’s chairman is William Kristol and its president is Gary Schmitt.”
Source: http://www.newamericancentury.org/aboutpnac.htm
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Signatories of the Letter Calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power in Iraq
Elliott Abrams
Richard L. Armitage
William J. Bennett
Jeffrey Bergner
John Bolton
Paula Dobriansky
Francis Fukuyama
Robert Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
William Kristol
Richard Perle
Peter W. Rodman
Donald Rumsfeld
William Schneider, Jr.
Vin Weber
Paul Wolfowitz
R. James Woolsey
Robert B. Zoellick
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Neocons’ Letter to President Clinton (January 26, 1998)
“We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.”
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Neocons’ Letter to Newt Gingrich,
Speaker of the House, and Trent Lott
Senate Majority Leader
May 29, 1998
We recommended [to Clinton] a substantial change in the direction of U.S. policy: Instead of further, futile efforts to “contain” Saddam, we argued that the only way to protect the United States and its allies from the threat of weapons of mass destruction was to put in place policies that would lead to the removal of Saddam and his regime from power. http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqletter1998.htm
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President Clinton Signed The Iraq Liberation Act of October 31, 1998
“This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region” —–President Clinton
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Neocons’ Proposal of Rebuilding America’s Defenses
September 2000
The Neocons indicated that to speed up the process of transformation they had in mind they need:
“some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”
[One year later, 9/11 provided the ‘catalyzing event’ used by the neoconservatives to ‘justify’ the Iraq war]
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Neocons’ Letter to President Bush (September 20, 2001)
…. “But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [9/11] attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq”
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Vice President Cheney Kicked off the campaign for Iraq war on 8/26/2002
6. 8/26/2002: “The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action,” Cheney told a meeting of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/08/26/cheney.iraq/index.html
5. 8/16/2002: CBSNews.com reported: “Israel To U.S.: Don’t Delay Iraq Attack”
4. 8/13/2002: Israeli Prime Minister Sharon told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Knesset that Iraq “is the greatest danger facing Israel.”
3. 6/8/2002, former Israeli Prime Minister Barak wrote in the Washington Post: Bush “should, first of all, focus on Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein.”
2. 5/12/2002: Israeli Foreign Minister Peres appeared on CNN to say that “Saddam Hussein is as dangerous as bin Laden”
1. 4/14/2002: former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu came to Washington to brief U.S Senators and the editor of the Washington Post on the removal of Saddam. Mearsheimer & Walt, p 234
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Bernard Lewis:
Dick Cheney’s intellectual and political mentor on the Middle East
US Vice President Dick Cheney considers Bernard Lewis his intellectual and political mentor on the Middle East when he said “You simply cannot find a greater authority on Middle Eastern history — from classical Islamic civilization, to the Ottoman Empire, to the modern period — than this man [Lewis Bernard] and his works.”… After listening to Bernard Lewis’ advice on “the history and the way forward in the Middle East” following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said “I decided that day that this was a man I wanted to keep in touch with, and whose work I should follow carefully in the years ahead. Since then we have met often, particularly during the last four-and-a-half years, and Bernard has always had some very good meetings with President Bush… More than three decades ago, at the height of a secular era, he wrote a prescient article titled The Return of Islam. In the 1970s he studied the writings of an obscure cleric named Khomeini, and saw the seeds of a movement that would deliver theocratic despotism. In 1990, he wrote The Roots of Muslim Rage, which anticipated the terrorism of that decade. And in this new century, his wisdom is sought daily by policymakers, diplomats, fellow academics, and the news media.”[1]
[1] Dick Cheney, “Vice President’s Remarks at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia Luncheon Honoring Professor Bernard Lewis,” Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1 May 2006,
The White House, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060501-3.html
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Bernard Lewis and the Iraq War
“When Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait in 1990, … Almost every Middle expert in the country was invited to Washington and was asked his comments on the situation. That was my first meeting with high-level official Washington, and more important, my first meeting with Dick Cheney, at that time Secretary of Defense. We met on subsequent occasions over the years… The general feeling was that this …could be ‘another Vietnam’… I told them that I thought that the war, when it came, would be ‘quick, cheap and easy.’… The prompt and effective American response not only saved Kuwait but also Saudi Arabia, which was threatened and whose rulers relied entirely on American action to save them. Indeed, a quip at the time was that the marching song of the Saudi Arabian armed forces was ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’ … I was invited to Cheney’s home twice after 9/11 to dine with him and a small group of staff. My task was to talk about the Middle East and Islam and I found them a receptive audience asking excellent questions… I was invited to meet President George W. Bush on three occasions’—Source: Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian, Bernard Lewis with Buntzie Ellis Churchill, Viking, New York, 2012, pages 324, 326, 330, 331 .
Jacob Weisberg regards Bernard Lewis, who received the National Humanities Medal from President Bush in 2006 and the Irving Kristol Award from his disciples at the American Enterprise Institute in 2007, as “the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq.”[1]
[1] Jacob Weisberg, “Party of Defeat: AEI’s Weird Celebration,” Slate, 14 March 2007, accessed 30 June 2007, http://www.slate.com/id/2161800
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The Iraq war is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad
Thomas L. Friedman wrote in an “Editorial Desk” of The New York Times (November 30, 2003): “this [Iraq] war is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan… it is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad and it is a moral and strategic imperative that we give it our best shot.”
Paul Wolfowitz:
“Jerusalem Post’s Man of the Year”
2003
Paul Wolfowitz is “the principal author of the doctrine of preemption, which framed the war in Iraq” [and which became Bush Doctrine]….. he was declared the Jerusalem Post’s Man of the Year (the Jerusalem Post emphasized that “of course the year we are speaking of is the Jewish year”) in 2003 after U.S. forces invaded and occupied Iraq as he advised Bush to do so at a meeting in Camp David on September 15, 2001.
The Jerusalem Post, September 26, 2003.
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Shadia Drury documents [father of neoconservatives] German-Jewish émigré Leo Strauss’s understanding of the three types of men: the wise, the gentlemen, and the vulgar:
The wise are the lovers of the harsh unadulterated truth. They are capable of looking into the abyss without fear and trembling; for they recognize neither God nor moral imperatives. They are devoted above all else to their own pursuit of the ‘higher’ pleasures, which amount to consorting with their ‘puppies’ or young initiates.
The second type is the gentlemen, who are lovers of honour and glory. They are the biggest dupes for the conventions of their society, or the ‘illusions of the cave’, in Straussian lingo. Gentlemen are the true believer in God, honour, and moral imperatives; as a result, they are ready and willing to embark on acts of great courage and self-sacrifice on a moment’s notice.
The third type is the vulgar many who are lovers of wealth and pleasure. They are selfish, slothful, and indolent. They can be inspired to rise above their brutish existence only by fear of impending death or catastrophe.
The covert rule of the philosophers is facilitated by the overwhelming credulity of the gentlemen. For all his nobility, the gentleman is gullible and unworldly. And the more gullible and unperceptive he is, the easier it is for the wise to control and manipulate him. The philosopher must impart to him the harsh truths about the word and about his inferiors without destroying his ideals. The message is this. You are noble and honest; and the world is bound to be a better place if noble men such as yourself reign supreme. But virtue is bound to be defeated if she is naïve enough to play by the rules. If you want political power and success, you have to rely on deception, guile, and fraud. Besides, you know what the ordinary masses are like; they are content to live and die like beasts—eating, drinking, gambling, and fornicating. If you wish to move them to acts or courage and self-sacrifice, you must make them believe that their very existence is under threat. Anyone who thinks that politics is possible without guile and fraud is a fool. In this way, the wise provides the gentlemen with a brutalizing education. George W. Bush may well have been the perfect gentleman.”
Shadia B. Drury, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss, Updated Edition with a New Introduction by the Author, New York: Palgrave Macmilla, 2005, pages xv-xvi.
President Bush’s academic credentials
President Bush received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University in 1968 and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1975. He began a career in the energy business.
Source: The White House, “Biography of President George W. Bush,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/biography.html
“This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile.” —President Bush
Immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sep 11, 2001, US Pres George W. Bush referred to America’s war on terrorism as a “crusade.”
Vern L Bullough, “Set a place for Islam,” Free Inquiry, Buffalo: Spring 2002, Vol. 22, Iss. 2; pg. 20, 2 pgs
Anonymous, “Crusade in Iraq?” The Christian Century, Chicago: April 5, 2005, Vol. 122, Iss. 7; pg. 60, 2 pgs
Gary Leupp, “Is the war on terrorism really a Crusade?” The Arab American News, Dearborn, Mich.: June 4-June 10, 2005, Vol. 21, Iss. 1008; pg. 13
“The war was about weapons of mass destruction”
No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq
No ties between Iraq and AlQaeda existed
No threats to US security existed in Iraq
How Zionists Corrupt Knowledge
Those who induced the U.S. to war in the Middle East deployed knowledge like a weapon. With lengthy pre-staging, a narrative emerged that made it appear plausible—even desirable—to invade Iraq in response to the provocation of 911.
In retrospect, we now know that the knowledge on which the U.S. relied was false. All of it.
Iraqi WMD. Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda. Iraqi meetings in Prague with Al Qaeda. Iraqi yellowcake uranium from Niger. Iraqi mobile biological laboratories. All false, all traceable to pro-Israelis and all portrayed as true by media outlets dominated by pro-Israelis.
http://criminalstate.com/2011/01/the-seduction-of-the-knowledge-based-society/
http://criminalstate.com/2010/01/criminal-state-documentary
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“The war was about spreading democracy”
US closest friends and allies in the Middle East are eight Arab monarchies (Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates) and one Jewish ethnocracy (The State of Israel).
The Iraqi resistance movements question the legitimacy of the Iraqi Constitution because it was written under foreign occupation. The same could be said about the Iraqi elections.
The democratically elected Palestinian government (2006) was greeted by sanctions and blockade because it was led by Hamas (Arabic acronym of Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, or Islamic Resistance Movement), which does not recognize Israel very much as Israel does not recognize Hamas.
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“The war was about oil”
There is no public record of the big oil companies supporting the war in Iraq or the current confrontation with Iran. —James Petras, Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York
President Bush repeatedly promised to replace more than 75% of US oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.
Third, President Obama’s ENERGY POLICY states explicitly that its central goal is to “end our addiction to foreign oil” and eliminate our current imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 Years.”
The American Jewish Committee’s top ENERGY POLICY is focused on ending US oil imports from the Middle East as a strategy to weaken Arab dominated OPEC
NB: oil prices increased from around $22 a barrel in 2002 (before the Iraq war) to $147 in July 2008
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The Iraq Study Group Report concludes that the United States “will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless the United States deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict.” p. 39. http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/iraq_study_group_report
Population: 33.6 million (2009 est.)
Ethnic groups: Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, Aimak 4%, Turkmen 3%, Baloch 2%, other 4%
Religions: Sunni Muslim 80%, Shia Muslim 19%, other 1%
Languages: Afghan Persian or Dari (official) 50%, Pashto (official) 35%, Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen) 11%, 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) 4%, much bilingualism
GDP per capita (OER): $390 (2008 est.) (US: $47,000)
Border countries: China 76 km, Iran 936 km, Pakistan 2,430 km, Tajikistan 1,206 km, Turkmenistan 744 km, Uzbekistan 137 km
Geography of Afghanistan
The Khyber Pass links Afghanistan and Pakistan
Afghanistan’s distinctive relief and ethnic makeup
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The Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-89
When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the CIA (under President Carter and his NSA Brzezinski, and under Reagan and Bush administrations) and its associates elsewhere in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and China organized and trained a mujahedeen army of Afghani, Arab, and Pakistani Muslims to fight and defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan
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The Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-89
The Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) ended with the defeat of the Soviet Union and the destruction of Afghanistan.
The war killed between 700,000 and 1.3 million Afghans and threw another 4.5 million into refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran, while about 15,000 Soviet troops were killed and 37,000 wounded in Afghanistan
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Movements of CIA-trained guerillas and drugs outwards from Afghanistan after the 1979-89 Afghanistan war. Cooley’s Unholy Wars, page vii.
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755.unknown
Defining Terrorism
“Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant [including military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed or not on duty] targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience”—Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d), http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1999report/intro.html
Does Terrorism Work?
Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Israel accepted to negotiate with the Palestinians in 1993
Following Hezbollah’s attacks, Israel accepted to withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000
Following Al-Qaida’s 9/11 attacks, the US accepted the principle of a Palestinian state in 20002
Following Hamas’ suicide bombing campaigns, Israel accepted to withdraw from Gaza in 2005
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Senate study:
Bin Laden was within our reach
WASHINGTON (AP) — Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.
The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Laden’s escape laid the foundation for today’s reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.
Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry, as President Obama prepares to boost U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, has long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaeda leader and top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
USA Today, 11/29/2009, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-11-29-senate-report-bin-laden_N.htm
Excerpts: Bin Laden video
BBC, 29 October, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3966817.stm
“I will speak to you about the reasons behind these incidents [9/11 attacks]. I will honestly tell you about the minutes in which the decision was made so that you will consider. …The events that influenced me directly trace back to 1982 and subsequent events when the United States gave permission to the Israelis to invade Lebanon, with the aid of the sixth US fleet. … While I was looking at those destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust one in a similar manner by destroying towers in the United States so that it would feel some of what we felt and to be deterred from killing our children and women…”
“By his own account, KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks]’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. policy favoring Israel.” p. 147
Report claims CIA used ‘torture’
BBC, 3/16/2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7945783.stm
‘INTERROGATION METHODS’
CIA interrogation techniques used on al-Qaeda suspects “constituted torture”, according to a leaked report by the international Red Cross.
Waterboarding
Beatings
Sleep deprivation
Prolonged stress standing
Prolonged nudity
Confinement in a box
Denial of solid food
Source: ICRC Report
“I was told that they would not allow me to die but that I would be brought to the ‘verge of death and back again”—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
CIA director: Tapes of interrogations destroyed
The tapes were made in 2002 and destroyed in 2005, CIA Director Michael Hayden said in a letter to CIA employees obtained by CNN. CNN, 12/7/2007
President Bush: “I cannot describe the specific methods used [against Abu Zubaida]” BBC News , 9/6/2006
David Rose, a Vanity Fair contributing editor, wrote:
I ask [F.B.I. director Robert] Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”?
“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.”
David Rose, “Tortured Reasoning,” Vanity Fair, December 16, 2008,
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/12/torture200812?printable=true¤tPage=all
After reports of Abu Zubaydah’s torture, F.B.I. director Robert Mueller—pictured here before the Senate Intelligence Committee in February 2008—agreed that the bureau should play no part in future C.I.A. interrogations that use extreme techniques. By Ken Cedeno/Bloomberg News/Landov.
Terre Haute soldier killed in Afghanistan
U.S. Army Sgt. Dale Griffin — a TH South graduate — killed by roadside bomb
The Tribune Star, 10/28/2009 http://www.tribstar.com/news/local_story_301210400.html?keyword=topstory
By Arthur E. Foulkes
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE — A Terre Haute serviceman was among several U.S. military service personnel killed Tuesday in Afghanistan.
U.S. Army Sgt. Dale Russel Griffin, a 1999 Terre Haute South Vigo High School graduate, died after the vehicle in which he was traveling with several other soldiers was struck by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan.
wGriffin, who was a part of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, joined the Army immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to his mother, Dona Griffin, who was interviewed by the Tribune-Star earlier this month. At the time of that interview, Dona Griffin and husband Gene were leading volunteers at the Terre Haute Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints making about 40 blankets for U.S. servicemen and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While a senior at Terre Haute South, Dale Griffin was the state runner-up in wrestling in the 189-pound weight class. The following year, he won his weight class to help lead the Virginia Military Institute to a fourth-place finish in the All-Academy Wrestling Championship in 2000 at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He was named that tournament’s Most Outstanding Wrestler.
News reports from Afghanistan state that roadside bombs — also known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs — claimed the lives of eight American soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday.
Seven military service members and an Afghan civilian were killed in one attack hen an IED struck the vehicle in which they were riding while on patrol. An eighth soldier was killed in a separate attack, also by a roadside bomb blast.
According to an unnamed U.S. defense official quoted by the Associated Press, at least one of Tuesday’s blasts was followed by an intense exchange of gunfire with insurgents. A total of 55 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan this month.
Funeral arrangements for Dale Griffin are pending.
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
Idea Exchange
U.S. Marines speak with elders during a meeting in Helmand province, Afghanistan, Sept. 1, 2009. The Marines, assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, are meeting with residents to determine ways they can better serve one another. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Christopher R. Rye—US Department of Defense Official Website, 9/7/2009, http://www.defenselink.mil/
91,000 secret U.S. military documents on Afghanistan
“Summary
25th July 2010 5:00 PM EST
WikiLeaks has released a document set called the Afghan War Diary, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.
The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers, and mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related details.
The document collection is available on a dedicated webpage [http://wardiary.wikileaks.org].
The reports cover most units from the US Army with the exception of most US Special Forces’ activities. The reports do not generally cover top secret operations or European and other ISAF Forces operations.
We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from the total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source. After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.” — http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Afghan_War_Diary,_2004-2010
Similarity between the two Afghan wars
“On the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall [1989], it is now the US that is losing a war in Afghanistan, a war unlike the one that indirectly contributed to the breakup of the USSR. Where coalition forces today battle the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the Soviets in the 1980s fought the mujahideen, a Muslim army of volunteers that Moscow called terrorists. The anti-Soviet jihad, a brutal war funded by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Saudis, became too costly for Moscow, almost bankrupting the Soviet state. In a painful and humiliating withdrawal, the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February 1989, just a few months before the implosion of the Soviet system… The similarities between the two Afghan wars are countless. The Soviet generals kept requesting more men in order to gain control of this vast land because its high-tech war machinery did not work against such evasive enemies… Perhaps the most remarkable similarity between the two wars resides in their final objective: to transform Afghanistan into a friendly country by turning its political status into a replica of the invading superpower’s”
Loretta Napoleoni, Terrorism and the economy: how the war on terror is bankrupting the world (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2009), page xvii
Population: 176 million (2009 est.)
Ethnic groups: Punjabi 44.68%, Pashtun (Pathan) 15.42%, Sindhi 14.1%, Sariaki 8.38%, Muhagirs 7.57%, Balochi 3.57%, other 6.28%
Religions: Muslim 95% (Sunni 75%, Shia 20%), other (includes Christian and Hindu) 5%
Languages: Punjabi 48%, Sindhi 12%, Siraiki (a Punjabi variant) 10%, Pashtu 8%, Urdu (official) 8%, Balochi 3%, Hindko 2%, Brahui 1%, English (official; lingua franca of Pakistani elite and most government ministries), Burushaski and other 8%
GDP per capita (OER): $914 (2008 est.) (US: $47,000)
Border countries: Afghanistan 2,430 km, China 523 km, India 2,912 km, Iran 909 km –CIA
Geography of Pakistan
Pakistan’s millions displaced
Camp life for over 2 million Pakistanis displaced by conflict in the north-west region
United Nations Photo series http://www.un.org/apps/news/photostories_detail.asp?PsID=44
“America wanted to be here [in Afghanistan] to denuclearize, deislamise and delink Pakistan from China; a Zionist dream” –Raja Mujtaba, Managing Editor of Opinion Maker, http://www.opinion-maker.org/2010/07/the-last-hiccups-of-the-falling-empire/
[Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi] Ashkenazi’s India trip marks strong ties
Jerusalem Post, 12/7/2009
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1259831476468&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
“Amid a blossoming of Indian-Israeli defense relations, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi embarked on five-day visit to the Far East on Sunday, touching down in the Indian capital of New Delhi, where he will meet with his Indian counterpart, Gen. Deepak Kapoor.
The IDF Spokesman said the visit was part of the deepening of relations between the two countries and their armed forces. Kapoor was here for a working visit a month ago.
“In the past year, Israel has overtaken Russia as its main defense equipment supplier, and about 30 percent of India’s defense imports come from Israel, and that number is growing,” said Col. (Ret.) Behram A. Sahukar, a former fellow in India’s Terrorism and Security Studies at the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses….
Israeli defense officials say India can obtain solutions to the threat of terrorism from Israel that cannot be obtained from other countries.
“In the light of the Mumbai attacks of November 2008 and the murder of all six Jewish/Israeli hostages at the Chabad House, India-Israeli multifaceted counter-terrorism cooperation has become even more urgently needed,” Sahukar said.
At the same time, “the Indian experience in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency differs from Israel’s in some ways, though the threat might be similar,” he added.”
Population: 66 million (2009 est.)
Ethnic groups: Persian 51%, Azeri 24%, Gilaki and Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7%, Arab 3%, Lur 2%, Baloch 2%, Turkmen 2%, other 1%
Religions: Muslim 98% (Shia 89%, Sunni 9%), other (includes Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha’i) 2%
Languages: Persian and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic and Turkic dialects 26%, Kurdish 9%, Luri 2%, Balochi 1%, Arabic 1%, Turkish 1%, other 2%
GDP per capita (OER): $5,800 (2008 est.) (US: $47,000)
Border countries: Afghanistan 936 km, Armenia 35 km, Azerbaijan-proper 432 km, Azerbaijan-Naxcivan exclave 179 km, Iraq 1,458 km, Pakistan 909 km, Turkey 499 km, Turkmenistan 992 km
CIA
Geography of Iran
WikiLeaks, Iran, and the Peace Process
“WikiLeaks successfully removed peace talks from the news and restored talk of war with Iran.”—Jeff Gates, http://criminalstate.com/2010/12/why-is-jonathan-pollard-back-in-the-news/
“There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security, and for that reason and many others addressing Iran’s nuclear program has been one of our administration’s priorities” –Vice President Joseph Biden, 3/9/2010, JTA, http://jta.org/news/article/2010/03/09/1010996/biden-no-space-between-us-israel
Population: 4 million (2009 est.)
Ethnic groups: Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%
note: many Christian Lebanese do not identify themselves as Arab but rather as descendents of the ancient Canaanites and prefer to be called Phoenicians
Religions: Muslim 59.7% (Shia, Sunni, Druze, Isma’ilite, Alawite or Nusayri), Christian 39% (Maronite Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Chaldean, Assyrian, Copt, Protestant), other 1.3%
note: 17 religious sects recognized
Languages: Arabic (official), French, English, Armenian
GDP per capita (OER): $7,000 (2008 est.) (US: $47,000)
Border countries: Israel 79 km, Syria 375 km
CIA
Geography of Lebanon
In Any Future War, Only Israelis Fleeing From Occupied Palestine May Be Safe
Al-Manar TV, 5/25/2010, http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=139021&language=en
“25/05/2010 Hezbollah marked the tenth anniversary of the Resistance and Liberation Day Tuesday at the Sayyed Al-Shouhada compound in Beirut’s southern suburb. Official, religious, military, and popular figures attended the ceremony in which Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah delivered a speech for the occasion and tackled recent developments in Lebanon and the region.
The Hezbollah chief set a new formula that will be adopted in any new war with Israel saying that Hezbollah will attack Israel-bound ships if the Zionist entity imposed a sea blockade on Lebanon. “When the world will witness how these ships will be destroyed in Palestine’s regional water nobody will dare to go there just as they will block (others) from coming to our coasts,” his eminence told thousands of supporters.
Sayyed Nasrallah’s comments came amid a five-day drill in Israel- dubbed “Turning Point 4”- which was launched on Sunday to test the home front preparedness against possible missile strikes in any future war…
Israeli vessels used to deploy in Lebanese waters and besiege our shore; so today we add the sea to the terrain. I am not announcing that we possess a new weapon, but in 2006 we destroyed the Saar 5 vessel. What I am saying is that if you besiege our shore and our ports in any coming war, all of your military and commercial ships heading to Palestine will be under the fire of the Islamic Resistance across the Mediterranean. We are talking about the Mediterranean but we have not mentioned the Red Sea yet. We are determined to enter this new domain God willing. No one will dare sail to any port in occupied Palestine. However, if a ship with Israelis on board was leaving occupied Palestine, we might let it pass.”
Gulf Cooperation Council
External Security Challenges
“Iran—and Iraq under Saddam Hussein—opposes the inclination of the GCC states to seek assistance from international powers to balance the region’s security equation, arguing that Gulf security affairs should be restricted to the states of the Gulf. We might recall that the GCC countries have been at the forefront of those calling for this, as was mentioned in the statement of their first summit in 1981. However, Iran and Iraq did not propose a viable alternative regional security vision, and their words were contradicted by their actions. The actions of these two countries over the past decades espoused the opposite of what they had called for; this led to complications and to a strengthening of the international component of Gulf security.”
HE Abdulrahman Al Attiyah, “Security in the Gulf Region,” in Arabian Gulf Security: Internal and External Challenges, The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 2008, pp. 13-18.
Report of the National Commission on Terrorism (Submitted June 7, 2000)
“An astute American foreign policy must take into account the reasons people turn to terror and, where appropriate and feasible, address them.”
From the Forward by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III and Maurice Sonnenberg, Chairman and Vice Chairman, respectively, of the National Commission on Terrorism. The report was submitted to the President of the United States, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and the Republican and Democratic parties leaders on June 7, 2000, that is six months after the National Commission on Terrorism began its Congressionally mandated evaluation of America’s laws, policies, and practices for preventing and punishing terrorism directed at American citizens. The report was titled “COUNTERING THE CHANGING THREAT OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM,” Report of the National Commission on Terrorism. Pursuant to Public Law 277, 105th Congress. http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/commission.html
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U.S. announces new airport security measures
By the CNN Wires Staff, April 2, 2010 3:39 p.m. EDT, http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/04/02/airline.security/index.html?hpt=T2
Washington (CNN) — All flights entering the United States now will be subjected to increased levels of security screening, the federal government announced Friday.
A senior administration official said racial or religious characteristics could be used to identify passengers requiring a more thorough review, though the official insisted the system would not constitute racial profiling.
Race or religion could be part of “fragmentary information” being used to select passengers but will be used “only when we have reliable intelligence that suggests that someone with that characteristic is a potential terrorist,” the official said.
Among other things, passengers entering the U.S. from international destinations “may notice enhanced security and random screening measures throughout the passenger check-in and boarding process, including the use of explosives trace detection, advanced imaging technology, canine teams, or pat downs, among other security measures,” according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.
The new security measures are the result of a review President Obama ordered after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan, on December 25.
Andrew Gamble, The Spectre at the Feast, 2009, page 14
Osama bin Laden cost the U.S. “trillions”
CNN’s Richard Quest says the estimated $2.5 trillion that Osama bin Laden cost the U.S. economy is only the beginning. CNN, 5/3/2011, http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/05/03/exp.arena.bin.laden.costs.cnn
Since Bin Laden has attacked the United States because of its support for the State of Israel, one can argue that the State of Israel has cost the United States much more than $2.5 trillion since 2001
Omar bin Laden had asked [his father Osama] why not attack Israel before America, given that Israel was a “small country near to us,” while America was a “huge country far away from our shores.”
My father paused before explaining it this way. “Omar, try to imagine a two-wheeled bicycle. One wheel is made of steel. The other wheel is made of wood. Now, my son, if you wanted to destroy the bicycle, would you destroy the wooded or the steel wheel? “The wooded wheel of course,” I replied. “You are correct my son. Remember this: America and Israel are one bicycle with two wheels. The wooden wheel represents the United States. The steel wheel represents Israel. Omar, Israel is the stronger power of the two. Does a general attack the strongest line when in battle? No, he concentrates on the weakest part of the line. The Americans are weak. It is best to attack the weakest point first. Once we take out the weak wooden wheel, the steel wheel will automatically fail. Who can ride a bicycle with only one wheel? He patted my knee with his hand. “First we obliterate America. By that I don’t mean militarily. We can destroy America from within by making it economically weak, until its markets collapse. When that happens, they will have no interest in supplying Israel with arms, for they will not have extra funds to do so. At that time, the steel wheel will corrode and be destroyed by lack of attention.” Michael Scheuer, Osama Bin Laden, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 111-112. [Michael Scheuer was the chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit]
Statement from President Obama on death of Osama bin Laden
CNN, May 2, 2011 6:44 a.m. EDT
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON OSAMA BIN LADEN
East Room, 11:35 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/05/02/statement.obama/index.html
Bin Laden caught in ‘trap’ says Pakistani High Commissioner
Pakistan’s High Commissioner in the UK Wajid Shamsul Hasan believes the al-Qaeda founder and leader was led to the compound where he was found in an intelligence “trap”.
BBC, 5/2/2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13262133
Al Qaeda, in Web message, confirms bin Laden’s death
Al Qaeda released a statement on jihadist forums Friday confirming the death of its leader, Osama bin Laden, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist websites.
The development comes days after U.S. troops killed bin Laden in a raid on a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
The statement, translated by SITE, lauded the late militant, threatened to take action against the United States, and urged Pakistanis to “rise up and revolt.”
Bin Laden’s death will serve as a “curse that chases the Americans and their agents, and goes after them inside and outside their countries,” the message said.
“Soon — with help from Allah — their happiness will turn into sorrow, and their blood will be mixed with their tears,” it said.
The statement said al Qaeda will “continue on the path of jihad, the path walked upon by our leaders … without hesitation or reluctance.”
“We will not deviate from that or change until Allah judges between us and between our enemy with truth. Indeed, He is the best of all judges. Nothing will harm us after that, until we see either victory and success and conquest and empowerment, or we die trying.”
It said that Americans “will never enjoy security until our people in Palestine enjoy it.”
CNN.com, 5/6/2011, http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-06/world/bin.laden.qaeda.comment_1_site-intelligence-group-bin-laden-al-qaeda?_s=PM:WORLD
Phone call tipped off U.S. to bin Laden compound, source says
“(CNN) — A single phone call by Osama bin Laden’s trusted courier tipped off U.S. officials to his Pakistan compound, ultimately leading to the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader, a senior Pakistani intelligence official told CNN Saturday.
The telephone call the courier made was “not the final one — it was the initial piece of evidence” that sparked the focus on the compound in Abbottabad, the official said.
Four years ago, U.S. officials uncovered the identity of a trusted bin Laden courier — later identified as a Kuwaiti named Abu Ahmad — whom they believed was living with and protecting the al Qaeda leader.
The Washington Post, citing U.S. intelligence officials, reported Friday that Americans had intercepted a “catch-up phone call” Ahmad took from an old friend.
“This is where you start the movie about the hunt for bin Laden,” one U.S. official briefed on the intelligence-gathering leading up to the early Monday raid on the compound told the Washington Post.
The Pakistani official told CNN the phone call was made by the courier, though he didn’t know when….
Questions remain over why and how Pakistani intelligence officials could not have known bin Laden was hiding out in the city, which is home to a military academy and has a strong military presence.” CNN.com, 5/7/2011, http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/07/pakistan.bin.laden/index.html?hpt=T1
The Arab Revolt
Petras, James, The Arab revolt and the imperialist counterattack, Atlanta, GA : Clarity Press, Edition: 2nd ed., 2012, ISBN: 9780985271008
Contents:
— Washington faces the Arab revolts: sacrificing dictators to save the state
— Egypt’s social movements, the CIA and Mossad
— Roots of the Arab revolts and premature celebrations
— The Euro-US war on Libya: official lies and misconceptions of critics
— Libya and Obama’s defense of the “rebel uprising”
— Contextualizing the “Arab spring”: networks of empire and realignments of world power
— NATO’s war crimes in Libya: who grieves for the fallen heroes?
— The assassination of Osama bin Laden: its uses and abuses
— The assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki by fiat
— The Obama doctrine: making a virtue of necessity
— What future for the Washington-“Moderate Islamist” alliance?
— Appendix: indicators of social well being in pre-invasion Libya.
Gaddafi apologizes for Arab slave traders
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has apologized to African leaders on behalf of Arab nations for their involvement in the African slave trade.
“I regret the behavior of the Arabs… They brought African children to North Africa, they made them slaves, they sold them like animals, and they took them as slaves and traded them in a shameful way. I regret and I am ashamed when we remember these practices. I apologize for this,” Gaddafi said on Sunday at the Second Afro-Arab summit in Sirte, Libya, Reuters reported.
European Union-Africa Summit, 29-30 November 2010, Tripoli, Libya
Gaddafi: Africa’s ‘king of kings’
A meeting of more than 200 African kings and traditional rulers has bestowed the title “king of kings” on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The rulers, wearing gold crowns, sequined capes and colourful robes met in the Libyan town of Benghazi in what was billed as a first of its kind.
Col Gaddafi urged the royals to join his campaign for African unity.
Africa’s political leaders are lukewarm about his vision of merging their powers to create a single government.
“We want an African military to defend Africa, we want a single African currency, we want one African passport to travel within Africa,” Col Gaddafi told the assembled dignitaries, who come from countries such as Mozambique, South Africa, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The BBC’s Rana Jawad in the Mediterranean town of Benghazi says Libya’s leader wants them to create a grass-roots movement to press Africa’s political leaders to sign up to his vision.
Sheikh Abdilmajid from Tanzania told the BBC that the traditional rulers could play an important role.
“The people believe in the chiefs and kings more than they believe in their governments,” he said.
BBC, 29 August 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7588033.stm
The Real Reason for NATO Attacking Libya EXPOSED
Putin: Who gave NATO right to kill Gaddafi?
Gaddafi and Africa’s First Communications Satellite
“It was Gaddafi’s Libya that offered all of Africa its first revolution in modern times – connecting the entire continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting and several other technological applications such as telemedicine and distance teaching. And thanks to the WMAX radio bridge, a low-cost connection was made available across the continent, including in rural areas. It began in 1992, when 45 African nations established RASCOM (the Regional African Satellite Communication Organisation) so that Africa would have its own satellite an slash communication costs in the continent. This was a time when phone calls to and from Africa were the most expensive in the world because of the annual $500 million fee pocketed by Europe for the use of its satellites for phone conversations, including those within the same country. An African satellite only costs a one-time payment of $400 million and the continent would no longer have to pay $500 million annual lease. Which banker would not finance such a project? … Not surprisingly, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the US and Europe made only vague promises for 14 years. Gaddafi put an end to these futile pleas to Western ‘benefactors’ with their exorbitant interest rates. The Libyans put $300 million on the table; the African Development Bank added $50 million more and the West African Development Bank a further $27 million – and that is how Africa got its first communications satellite on 26 December 2007” p. 170-171
Gaddafi, the opponent of apartheid
“For most Africans, Gaddafi is a generous man, a humanist, known for his unselfish support for the struggle against the racist regime in South Africa. If he had been an egoist, he would not have risked the wrath of West to help the African National Congress (ANC) both militarily and financially in the fight against apartheid. This was why Mandela, soon after his release from 27 years in jail, decided to break the UN embargo and travel to Libya on 23 October 1997. For five long years, no plane could touch down in Libya because of the embargo. One needed to take a plane to the Tunisian city of Jerba and continue by road for five hours to reach Ben Gardane, cross the border and continue on a desert road for three hours before reaching Tripoli. The other solution was to go through Malta, and take a night ferry on ill-maintained boats to the Libyan coast. A hellish journey for a whole people, simply to punish one man” p. 173
Excerpt from “The Arab Revolt”
NATO’s War and the Phony “Rebel Uprising” Nothing is more obvious than the fact that the entire war against Libya was in every strategic and material fashion NATO’s war. The casting of the rag-tag collection of monarchists, Islamist fundamentalists, London and Washington-based ex-pats and disaffected Gaddafi officials as “rebels” is a pure case of mass media propaganda. From the beginning the ‘rebels’ depended completely on the military, political, diplomatic and media power of NATO, without which the de facto mercenaries would not have lasted a month, holed up in Benghazi. A detailed analysis of the main features of the conquest of Libya confirms this assault as a NATO war. NATO launched brutal air and sea attacks destroying the Libyan air force, ships, energy depots, tanks, artillery and armories and killed and wounded thousands of soldiers, police and civilian militia fighters. Until NATO’s invasion the mercenary ‘rebel’ ground forces had not advanced beyond Benghazi and could barely ‘hold’ territory afterwards. The ‘rebel’ mercenaries ‘advanced’ only behind the withering round-the-clock air attacks of the NATO offensive. NATO air strikes were responsible for the massive destruction of Libyan civilian and defensive military infrastructure, bombing ports, highways, warehouses, airports, hospitals, electrical and water plants and neighborhood housing, in a war of ‘terror’ designed to ‘turn’ the loyalist mass base against the Gaddafi government. The mercenaries did not have popular backing among Libyan civilians, but NATO brutality weakened active opposition against the ‘rebel’ mercenaries. NATO won key diplomatic support for the invasion by securing UN resolutions, mobilizing their client rulers in the Arab League, procuring US mercenary trained ‘legionnaires’ from Qatar and the financial backing of the rich rabble in the Gulf. NATO forced ‘cohesion’ among the feuding clans of self-appointed ‘rebel’ mercenary leaders via its (“freezing”) seizure of overseas Libyan government assets amounting to billions of dollars. Thus the financing, arming, training and advising by “Special Forces” were all under NATO control. NATO imposed economic sanctions, cutting off Libya’s income from oil sales.. NATO ran an intensive propaganda campaign parading the imperial offensive as a “rebel uprising”; disguising the blistering bombardment [over 30,000 air and missile assault on Libyan civil and military institutions] of a defenseless anti-colonial army as ‘humanitarian intervention’ in defense of ‘pro-democracy civilians‘—p. 76-78
Excerpt from “The Arab Revolt”
US and European rulers are neither ‘pro nor anti’ Islam, it all depends on their national and class position. Islamists who collaborate with Empire are “moderate” allies and if they attack an anti-imperialist regime, they become ‘freedom fighters’. On the other hand, they become “terrorists” or “fundamentalists” when they oppose imperial occupation, pillage or colonial settlements—p. 115
During President Carter’s administration, at the instigation of Brzezinski and Bernard Lewis, the CIA joined with Saudi Arabia’s ruling royalty in providing billions of dollars in arms and military supplies to Afghan Muslim fundamentalists in their brutal but successful Jihad overthrowing a modern, secular nationalist regime backed by the USSR—p. 116
The same ‘coalition’ of Islamists and the Empire has been glaringly obvious during NATO assault on Libya and continues in Syria. The Muslims provide the shock troops on the ground; NATO provides the aerial bombing, funds, arms, sanctions, embargoes and propaganda—p. 116
Emblematic of the “moderate Islamist” collaboration with US-UE imperialism is the role of Qatar, home to the ‘respectable’ Arabic media giant, Al-Jazeera, and the demagogic Qatari “spiritual guide” Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi. Sheikh Youssef quotes the Qur’an and Islamic moral principles in defense of NATO’s 8-month aerial bombing of Libya, which killed over 50,000 pro-regime Libyans (themselves Muslims)—p. 119
In Palestine, Washington, under the overweening control of Israel’s Zionist fifth column, has armed and financed Israel’s war against the popularly elected Islamist Hamas government in Gaza. Washington’s total commitment to the Jewish state and its colonial expansion and usurpation of Palestinian (Muslim and Christian) lands and property in Jerusalem and elsewhere reflects the profound and pervasive influence of the Zionist power configuration throughout the US political system. It regularly secure 90% votes in Congress, pledges of allegiance from the White House, and senior appointments in Treasury, State Department and the Pentagon —p. 117-118
Excerpt from “The Arab Revolt”
According to ‘rebel’ mercenary technocrats, NATO’s policy of systematic destruction will cost Libya at least a ‘lost decade’. This is an optimistic assessment of how long ‘reconstruction’ will take for Libya to regain the economic levels of February 2011. The major petroleum companies have already lost hundreds of millions in profits and over the decade are expected to lose billions more due to the flight, assassination and jailing of thousands of experienced Libyan and foreign experts, skilled immigrant workers and technical specialists in all fields, especially in view of the destruction of Libyan infrastructure and telecommunication systems. Sub-Sahara Africa will suffer a huge set-back with the cancellation of the proposed ‘Bank of Africa’, which Gaddafi was developing as an alternative source of investment finance and the destruction of his alternative communications system for Africa. The process of re-colonization involving imperial rule via NATO and UN mercenary ‘peace keepers’ will be chaotic, given the inevitable strife among hostile armed Islamist fundamentalists, monarchists, neo-colonial technocrats, tribal warlords and clans as they carve up their private fiefdoms. Intra-imperial rivalries and local political claimants to the oil wealth will further enhance the ‘chaos’ and degrade civilian life in a nation which had once boasted the highest per capita income and standard of living in Africa. Complex irrigation and petroleum networks, developed under Gaddafi and destroyed by NATO, will remain in shambles. As the example of Iraq has vividly proved, NATO is better at destroying than at constructing a modern secular state rooted in a modern civil bureaucracy, with universal free public education, a secular judicial system and modern health service—as enjoyed by Iraq before “shock and awe”—p. 78-79
Excerpt from “The Arab Revolt”
The following are only a few of the indicators of social well-being that speak to the efforts of the Gaddafi government to improve the lot of the Libyan people:
* Libya’s GDP per capita is $ 14,192.
* For each family member the state pays a $ 1,000 yearly subsidy.
* Unemployed are paid 730 $ monthly.
* The salary of a hospital nurse is $ 1,000.
* For every newborn $ 7,000 is paid .
* Newly weds are donated $ 64,000 to buy an apartment.
* To open a private business one gets a one-time financial aid of 20 000 $.
* Large taxes and duties are prohibited.
* Education and medicine are free.
* Education and Internships abroad are at government expense.
* There are chain stores for large families with symbolic prices for basic foodstuffs.
* For the sale of products past their expiry date large fines are levied, in some cases detention by the police is foreseen.
* A number of pharmacies have free dispensing.
* Counterfeiting medication is considered a major crime.
* No rental payments.
* No payment for electricity for the population.
* The sale and use of alcohol is prohibited, “prohibition” is a law.
* Loans for buying a car and an apartment are given at no interest.
* Real estate services are prohibited.
* If an individual decides to buy a car up to 50% of the price is paid by the state, to militia guards it donates 65% of the price.
* Gasoline is cheaper than water. A liter of gasoline costs $ 0.14. The profits from oil sale were spent on the population welfare and rising life standards.
* In Libya, much money is spent on irrigation by the country’s groundwater, the amount of which is about 100 annual runoffs of the Nile. By its scale, this water project has earned itself the name of “the Eighth Wonder of the World.” It provides 5-million cubic meters of water a day across the desert, greatly increasing the irrigated area. 4,000 kilometers of pipes are buried deep into the ground to secure them from the heat. All that was needed for the project was carried out mostly by Libya herself. Nothing was bought in the First World, which has never helped developing countries to rise from a supine position, and if it does, then with the further enslavement of the receiving country. With this water project, Libya was able to start a real “green revolution”, in the literal sense, that would solve a lot of problems with food in Africa. And most importantly, it would ensure stability and economic independence. At one time, Gaddafi said that Libya’s water project would be “the strongest response to America, which accuses Libya of supporting terrorism.” p. 124-125
See further readings and references at:
http://left.ru/2
011/2/shelestiuk204.phtml
“when Gaddafi was caught, his treatment at the hands of the rabble who found him hardly suggested that Libya had turned a page for the better. After being tortured and sodomized with a stick, he was executed in cold blood. A few days later, Libya’s interim leader declared annulment of all laws that contravened sharia.”– John Bradley, After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts, Palgrave, New York, 2012, page 133
U.S. deployment and Israel’s regional security framework
“The reviewed literature indicates that the question of Arab normalization with Israel tends to set the thermostat of the U.S. deployment in the Maghreb and makes it distinguishable from the wider U.S. deployment in the global South. Therefore let us point out the Israeli regional security concept that appears to have inspired political and security initiatives such as the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Barcelona Process. A couple of years before the November 1995 Barcelona Conference, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres published a book entitled The New Middle East, in which he presented the Israeli strategic vision of a “regional framework” for solving the “problems of the region.”
First, he argued that Israel’s ultimate goal was the creation of a “systematized regional structure” to provide security for Israel and regional stability against Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Second, he linked the success of the regional framework with the success of the “Arab-Israeli peace process.” Third, he recommended that individual members of the regional structure be bonded by both bilateral (nation-to-nation) and multilateral (nation-to-region) obligations. Fourth, he suggested that the regional structure should implement a system of data collection on military activities via the use of space satellites “in collaboration with the superpowers.” To sound the alarm and give more credibility and urgency to his proposed plan, Peres sent an extortionate warning against what he called the “astonishing Western shortsightedness” and the “naiveté” of “Western nations” after the First World War when they “failed miserably” because they “had no means of collecting information or of guarding peace” and lacked the support of friendly countries “outside” Europe. Finally, he concluded his scheme by citing the Roman proverb: “let him who desires peace, prepare for war” (Peres, 1993).
One can reasonably argue without sounding conspiratorial that Peres’ proposal served as the blueprint that partly guided some of the political goals and operational mechanisms within regional structures such as the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue, the NATO’s Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, and U.S. European Command’s (USEUCOM) Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative. These regional structures became a de facto crucible for normalization between Israel and the Arab world. For example, Arab joint chiefs of staff and/or defense ministers or their representatives meet now routinely with their Israeli counterparts within the framework of the NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue, something unthinkable before these regional structures suggested first in the book The New Middle East. These brainstorming ideas put “normalization with Israel” at the center of the Mediterranean Dialogue because joining the Dialogue means dealing with the Israelis one way or another.” Pages 236-238.
Mohameden Ould-Mey, “U.S.-Mauritania Relations and the Coriolis Force of Normalization with Israel,” In Les Etats-Unis et le Maghreb; regain d’intérêt? sous la direction de Abdennour Benantar, Alger: Centre de Recherche en Economie Appliquée au Développement (CREAD), pp. 227-263, http://faculty.indstate.edu/melyassini/U.S.-Mauritania%20Relations%20and%20the%20Coriolis%20Force%20of%20Normalization%20with%20Israel
‘Common Solutions to Common Problems’: [NATO] Secretary General visits Israel
Addressing ways to increase dialogue and cooperation between NATO and the Mediterranean Dialogue partners, NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, visited Israel on 9 February. NATO, February 9, 2011, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_70516.htm
Gaddafi attacks Sarkozy plan for Union of the Med
Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans for a Mediterranean Union will fuel Islamist terrorism and will be regarded as “imperialism” by many in Africa and the Arab world, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi warned yesterday.
The comments by the Libyan leader are a major setback to the French President’s Mediterranean project, his highest-profile initiative during France’s turn at the European Union’s six-month rotating presidency which began last week. Mr Sarkozy has invited all the EU’s 27 leaders plus premiers from 17 Mediterranean countries to a summit launching the new “Union” in Paris next week.
But Libya, which will boycott the meeting, has accused the EU of trying to divide Africa and the broader Arab world by drawing a Mediterranean Union map that echoes old colonialist designs for the region. “We shall have another Roman empire and imperialist design,” Col Gaddafi said in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, yesterday. “There are imperialist maps and designs that we have already rolled up. We should not have them again.”
The Telegraph, July 8, 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2277517/Gaddafi-attacks-Sarkozy-plan-for-Union-of-the-Med.html
During his visit, the Secretary General met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman. Following his meeting with the Prime Minister, Rasmussen highlighted that “I am here because Israel is a highly valued member of one of our partnerships, the so-called Mediterranean Dialogue.
17 Israelis make ‘Forbes’ 2013 billionaires list
http://www.jpost.com/Business/Business-News/17-Israelis-make-Forbes-2013-billionaires-list
Simon Dawson/BLOOMBERG –
Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler talks on his smartphone while walking past mining rubble during a visit to Comide SPRL’s Mashitu copper mine in the Katanga province of Congo.http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/dan-gertler-earns-billions-as-mine-deals-fail-to-enrich-congo/2012/12/27/c37d0100-4e31
-11e2-8b49-64675006147f_story_1.html
Dan Gertler earns billions as mine deals fail to enrich Congo
…Gertler has stakes in companies that control 9.6 percent of world cobalt production. That’s just the beginning of his influence in Congo, the largest country of sub-Saharan Africa, with the world’s richest deposits of cobalt and major reserves of copper, diamonds, gold, tin and coltan, an ore containing the metal tantalum that is used in consumer electronics. His Gibraltar-registered Fleurette Properties owns stakes in various Congolese mines through at least 60 holding companies in offshore tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands. Gertler, whose grandfather co-founded Israel’s diamond exchange in 1947, arrived in Congo in 1997 seeking rough diamonds. The 23-year-old trader struck a friendship with Joseph Kabila, who then headed the Congolese army and today is the nation’s president. Since those early days, Gertler has invested in iron ore, gold, cobalt and copper as well as agriculture, oil and banking. In the process, he’s built a net worth of at least $2.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index… “Dan Gertler is essentially looting Congo at the expense of its people,” said Jean Pierre Muteba, the head of a group of nongovernmental organizations that monitor the mining sector in Katanga province, with most of Congo’s copper. “He has political connections, so state companies sell him mines for low prices and he sells them on for huge profits. That’s how he’s become a billionaire.”… As a youth, Gertler got up at 5 a.m. to learn how to polish gems before heading to school. He joined his grandfather, Romanian emigre Moshe Schnitzer, at business meetings to watch him negotiate diamond deals. When Schnitzer died in 2007, Benjamin Netanyahu, now Israel’s prime minister, gave a eulogy. Gertler recalled a business lesson his grandfather imparted: “He told me: ‘Dan, you meet your bankers and you ask for credit only when you don’t need it. Just to secure it. Because when you need it, it is too late.’… Gertler flew between war-torn nations such as Liberia and Angola and the major diamond centers in the United States, India and Israel, buying and selling gems, he said.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/dan-gertler-earns-billions-as-mine-deals-fail-to-enrich-congo/2012/12/27/c37d0100-4e31-11e2-8b49-64675006147f_story_1.html
Israel’s ambassador to Senegal, Eli Ben-Tura, and Senegalese government minister Mamadou Talla speaking at an Israel Independence Day celebration at Dakar’s grand theater, April 30, 2013. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA), http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/05/07/3126016/amid-rising-islamism-in-africa-israel-senegal-ties-continue-to-flourish
Moroccan king funding preservation of Cape Verde Jewish heritage — but to what end?
Abdellah Boutadghart, right, of the Moroccan embassy in Senegal, and Rabbi Eliezer Di Martino from Lisbon on May 2 [2013] at Praia’s main cemetery. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
The Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project has a board stuffed with prominent Jewish Washingtonians, but its funding comes largely from one man — King Mohammed VI of Morocco. According to the group’s U.S. tax filings, the king was the organization’s sole listed donor in 2011, giving $100,000. Smaller donors make up about a quarter of the project’s funding, the CVJHP said… Unlike many Arab countries with once sizable Jewish communities, Morocco has taken wide-ranging steps to preserve its Jewish history. The Casablanca Jewish museum was restored, the small but colorful 17th century synagogue in Fez was renovated, and dozens of former Jewish schools and more than 100 synagogues were rehabilitated with funding from the crown.
In 2011, in a move that [Andre] Azoulay [a senior Jewish adviser to the king and a member of the project’s advisory board] calls unprecedented in the modern Middle East, the Moroccan constitution was changed to note that the country has been “nourished and enriched … [by] Hebraic influences,” among others… The king’s restoration activity already has brought benefits in the form of increased Jewish tourism. More than 19,000 Israelis entered Morocco in 2010, a 42 percent leap from the previous year, according to Israel’s Tourism Ministry. The World Federation of Moroccan Jewry says the kingdom receives another 30,000 non-Israeli Jews annually. Among them was Joel Rubinfeld, the Brussels-based co-chair of the European Jewish Parliament, who spent 12 days in Morocco in March meeting with government officials and visiting his mother’s hometown. Rubinfeld believes the government’s intention to honor the country’s Jewish past is sincere, but he said other considerations are at work as well.
“There may certainly be pragmatic incentives: attracting tourism and investments down the line,” Rubinfeld said. “For some, it is a political calculation to improve Morocco’s international standing.”
A Moroccan diplomat, who spoke to JTA on condition of anonymity, said the restoration project could bring political dividends for Morocco, which has been accused of human rights abuses in Western Sahara, a disputed territory to which the kingdom lays partial claim.
“To Morocco’s great consternation, the U.S. last month proposed the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara help monitor human rights,” the diplomat said. “It’s very useful for us to have someone — a strong lobby group, perhaps — to help talk the State Department out of this idea. The Jewish lobby is a very strong one.”
The board of the Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project includes Howard Berman, a former California congressman who chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee until his defeat last year; Daniel Mariaschin, the executive director of B’nai B’rith International; Herman Cohen, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state; and Toby Dershowitz, who heads a Washington public affairs consultancy.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 13, 2013, http://www.jta.org/2013/05/13/news-opinion/world/moroccan-king-funding-preservation-of-cape-verde-jewish-heritage-but-to-what-end
HM the King [of Morocco] chairs in Casablanca reception on occasion of Throne Day,
30 July 2013
“The sovereign gave the Alawite wissam of top officer rank to Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations”, Agence Marocaine de Presse,
http://www.map.ma/en/activites-royales/hm-king-chairs-casablanca-reception-occasion-throne-day
Malcolm Hoenlein receives award from King of Morocco
The sovereign gave the Alawite wissam of top officer rank to Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice President of the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Mohammed VI, King of Morocco presented Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, Conference of Presidents with the highest award given to a foreigner, reflecting the many years of friendship between the Conference of Presidents and Morocco during the tenure of his late father, King Hassan II at the Thrown Day Ceremonies. http://www.conferenceofpresidents.org/content/malcolm-hoenlein-receives-award-king-morocco
Meet Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo, Bahrain’s Jewish U.S. ambassador
One of Bahrain’s 36 Jews, Nonoo says she has never been discriminated against in her country, where woman are allowed to vote, choose to wear a headscarf and even drive.
The appointment of Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo (46), the first female Ambassador from Bahrain and the first Jewish Ambassador of an Arab country in Washington, was praised by U.S. diplomats when it was revealed recently in one of the Wikileaks cables.
It’s not rare to hear in diplomatic circles in Washington about the “smart move” the Bahrainis made, sending to the U.S. a Western-educated woman who represents a tiny minority of the kingdom’s population…
She was credited with organizing the meeting between King Hamad and Bahraini Jewish immigrants in the U.S. and arranged a dinner at the home of Rabbi Levi Shemtov, director of the Washington office of American Friends of Lubavitch, with the Bahraini foreign minister and representatives of U.S. Jewish organizations.
Haaretz, March 14, 2011, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/meet-houda-ezra-ebrahim-nonoo-bahrain-s-jewish-u-s-ambassador-1.349208
King Hussein of Jordan lights [Israeli] P.M.Yitzhak Rabin’s cigarette at royal residence in Aqaba. Photo: GPO,
The Jerusalem Post, July 25, 2013, http://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/This-Week-in-History-Peace-on-the-Eastern-border-320979
“While the nation [Jordan] cheered for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the [1991] Gulf War, its king was protecting Israel through its eastern frontier with Iraq.”
“In fact, my own personal experiences with the pro-Israel Lobby inside the United States demonstrate Israel’s intense interest in Africa. I have written about my experience with “the pledge” to support Israel that is forced on every candidate for the U.S. Congress; refusal to sign it, as I did, means not one dollar of the millions expended each election cycle in campaign contributions and can ensure the most vicious media demonization as the major descriptor of the un-cooperating candidate. The demonization of Alabama’s first Black Member of Congress since Reconstruction, Earl Hilliard, in his 2002 re-election campaign, with specific regard to his visits to Libya, immediately come to mind…
In fact, I was invited to lease my “Black” face to these very interests and get arrested in front of the Sudan Embassy to sow the very “Black versus Arab” narrative being tragically created in Libya which Nazemroaya describes so thoroughly in this current text. I note here that some Blacks inside and outside of the U.S. Congress did choose to accept this particular invitation and get arrested… While in Libya, I met many Africans who said that they chose to live there because of the pan-Africanism of the policies of the Libyan Jamahirya. In fact, while at an “Africans in the Diaspora Conference” there in January/February of 2011, I personally witnessed, along with a delegation of others from the United States, Muammar Qaddafi pledge $90 billion to a “United States of Africa” that would work together to build the Continent and counter the efforts to penetrate and recolonize it… Continental Africans attending these Tour-stops reminded audiences of Muammar Qaddafi’s support for Nelson Mandela and Africans struggling to rid the Continent of Apartheid at a time when Israel shared an alliance with that government. They also noted the Jamahirya government’s current support for many development projects throughout the Continent and for the budget of the African Union, itself. Therefore, many alarmed observers have pointed out that the U.S./NATO attack on Libya is actually an attack on all of Africa.”
Cynthia McKinney, 10 October 2011, http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-and-libya-preparing-africa-for-the-clash-of-civilizations/27029
U.S. Secretary of State Clinton told the African Union: “I know it’s true that over many years Mr. Qadhafi played a major role in providing financial support for many African nations and institutions, including the African Union… But… I urge all African states… to call for Qadhafi to step aside. I also urge you to suspend the operations of Qadhafi’s embassies in your countries, to expel pro-Qadhafi diplomats, and to increase contact and support for the Transitional National Council”—June 13, 2011, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. http://www.nepad.org/system/files/US%20SECTRARY%20OF%20STATE%20SPEECH%20AT%20THE%20AFRICAN%20UNION
Israel and Libya: Preparing Africa for the “Clash of Civilizations”
Introduction by Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. Congresswoman
Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy:
“…Together with our Nato allies and coalition partners, the United States, France and Britain have been united at the UN Security Council, as well as the following Paris Conference, in building a broad-based coalition to respond to the crisis in Libya. We are equally united on what needs to happen to end it… so long as Gaddafi is in power, Nato and its coalition partners must maintain their operations…Today Nato and its coalition partners are acting in the name of the United Nations with an unprecedented international legal mandate…Britain, France and the United States will not rest until the United Nations Security Council resolutions have been implemented…”-The Times, The Washington Post and Le Figaro. The Telegraph, 4/15/2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8452877/The-bombing-continues-until-Gaddafi-goes.html
Libya: Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy pledge to fight until Gaddafi goes — The Telegraph, 4/15/2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8452627/Libya-Barack-Obama-David-Cameron-and-Nicolas-Sarkozy-pledge-to-fight-until-Gaddafi-goes.html
The New York Times (April 1, 2011), often considered the leading Zionist newspaper in the world, noted that the “One Man [who] Made Libya a French Cause” was Jewish Bernard-Henry Levy who “managed to get a fledgling Libyan opposition group a hearing from the president of France and the American secretary of state, a process that has led both countries and NATO into waging war against the forces of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.”
“At least 30,000 people were killed and 50,000 wounded in Libya’s six-month civil war” –The Guardian, 9/8/2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9835879
.
At the same time, Qatar-based Egyptian Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi, Head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, and Osama Bin Laden Deputy Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri incited Libyans to overthrow Gaddafi and kill him.
Qaradawi
Zawahiri
America’s secret plan to arm Libya’s rebels
Obama asks Saudis to airlift weapons into Benghazi
Washington’s request is in line with other US military co-operation with the Saudis. The royal family in Jeddah, which was deeply involved in the Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, gave immediate support to American efforts to arm guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan in 1980 and later – to America’s chagrin – also funded and armed the Taliban.
But the Saudis remain the only US Arab ally strategically placed and capable of furnishing weapons to the guerrillas of Libya. Their assistance would allow Washington to disclaim any military involvement in the supply chain – even though the arms would be American and paid for by the Saudis.
The Independent, March 7, 2011, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/americas-secret-plan-to-arm-libyas-rebels-2234227.html
Qatar’s decision to send planes to Libya is part of a high-stakes game
For a country the size of Belgium with a population of 1.7 million, Qatar has been playing an extraordinarily high-profile role. This weekend four Qatari fighter jets are set to join the allied forces already off the Libyan coastline. The combat deployment is the first by an Arab or Muslim-majority country and thus of critical diplomatic significance.
Then there is the key role played in the “Arab spring” by al-Jazeera, the satellite TV channel set up by the emir in 199…
Qatari diplomacy is wide-ranging. Successfully bidding for the 2022 World Cup attracted global attention, as it was meant to. Qatar has good relations with the US, hosting its vast airbase at al-Udeid, and, relative to the rest of the region, with Israel too.
The Guardian, 24 March 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/24/qatar-planes-libya-high-stakes
U.A.E. Draws Praise From U.S. for Participation in Libya
U.S. officials announced Thursday that the United Arab Emirates followed through on its promise to provide warplanes to defend the U.N.-sanctioned no-fly zone over Libya.
This was welcome news to many coalition forces, who hoped to show the world that this is not another Western-only intervention in the Arab world.
“The U.A.E. further underscores the broad, international support for the protection of the Libyan people,” the White House said in a statement.
The White House thanked the U.A.E. and called its participation in Libya “critical”….
The U.A.E. is the second Arab country to send fighter jets to the region. Qatar had sent two fighters and two military transport planes, Reuters reported. The U.A.E has now made the largest Arab commitment to the effort by sending 12 fighter jets.
FoxNews.com, March 24, 2011, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/24/uae-draws-praise-participation-libya/
Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination
Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials.
The Washington Post, May 15, 2012, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-05-15/world/35454790_1_baba-amr-neighborhood-syrian-rebels-homs
U.N. says 93,000 killed in Syrian conflict (6/13/2013)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/us-syria-crisis-toll-idUSBRE95C08G20130613
Saudi mufti: Clerics should unite in fatwa on Assad –Saudi religious leader Sheikh Ayed al-Qarni called this week for all Muslim scholars to issue a joint fatwa (religious ruling) against Syrian President Bashar Assad and his government… and even said that assassinating Assad would be justified. Jerusalem Post, 14 march 2013, http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=306404
WAR IN THE GULF: Muslims; Saudis Decree Holy War on Hussein–Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority has issued a decree sanctioning a holy war against Saddam Hussein by all Muslims and “those assisting them” to evict his forces from Kuwait. The “fatwa,” or religious decree, authorizing the “jihad,” or holy war, was issued by Sheik Abdulaziz bin Abdulla bin Baz, the head of the Council of Ulema, Saudi Arabia’s most senior Islamic authority. It was written at the beginning of the coalition’s offensive against Iraq, and published on Friday in a special edition of al-Muslimoon, the most popular Islamic weekly newspaper. Copies of the decree were posted today in several mosques across Riyadh…. “The fatwa removes any doubt about the religious justification for asking non-Muslims to help this country attack another Muslim country,” said a religious scholar, who spoke on condition that he not be identified….
The New York Times, January 20, 1991, http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/20/world/war-in-the-gulf-muslims-saudis-decree-holy-war-on-hussein.html
France and Britain said they were prepared to arm Syrian rebels even without unanimous EU support, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Thursday. Al-Arabiya, 14 March 2013, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/2013/03/14/Paris-and-London-to-fund-Syria-s-rebels-without-EU-support.htm
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius
British Foreign Secretary William Hague
Former Mossad head Dagan: Israel should do whatever it can to bring down Syria’s Assad
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 29, 2013, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/former-mossad-head-dagan-israel-should-do-whatever-it-can-to-bring-down-syria-s-assad.premium-1.518081
Saudi preacher calls for ‘joint fatwa’ against [Syrian President] Assad
Alarabiya, March 12, 2013, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/2013/03/12/Saudi-preacher-calls-for-joint-fatwa-against-Assad.html
Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh hailed on Thursday senior Muslim cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi’s stance against Iran and Hezbollah, Al Arabiya television reported.
Alarabiya, June 6, 2013 http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/06/06/Saudi-Grand-Mufti-praises-Qaradawi-s-stance-on-Hezbollah.html
US and its European, Turkish, and Arab allies discuss with Syrian rebels ways to topple the Syrian government (Istanbul, Turkey, April 20, 2013), http://almayadeen.net/ar/news/syria-w5etVW,cOUWfO6GmAFdXDA
Saudi Foreign Minister
Qatari Foreign Minister
Turkish Foreign Minister
Syrian rebel chief
U.S. Secretary of State
Israeli Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said: “The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews.”
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 7, 2013 http://www.jta.org/2013/10/07/life-religion/ovadia-yosef-founder-of-shas-and-sephardi-sage-dies-at-93
Arab ministers agree with France to ‘strengthen’ Syrian opposition
French President Francois Hollande agreed on Friday with three Arab foreign ministers to strengthen the Syrian opposition in its battle against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, AFP reported.
The ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates “agreed on the need to strengthen international support for the democratic opposition to allow it to face attacks by the regime,” the Elysee said in a statement.
France and the United States are the main countries calling for military action over the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Al-Arabiya, 9/13/2013, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/09/13/Arab-foreign-ministers-visit-French-president-in-Paris-to-dis
cuss-Syria.html
French President Francois Hollande welcomes Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal (L), United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan (2ndR) and Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh (R) at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Sept. 13, 2013. (Reuters)
“A Veteran Saudi Power Player Works
To Build Support to Topple Assad
Officials inside the Central Intelligence Agency knew that Saudi Arabia was serious about toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad when the Saudi king named Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud to lead the effort.
They believed that Prince Bandar, a veteran of the diplomatic intrigues of Washington and the Arab world, could deliver what the CIA couldn’t: planeloads of money and arms, and, as one U.S. diplomat put it, wasta, Arabic for under-the-table clout….
For decades, wasta has been Prince Bandar’s calling card. The prince also wins U.S. officials’ trust in part because his background is, in its own way, so American. Though his father was a Saudi crown prince, his mother was a commoner, and he rose through the crowded royal ranks by force of will…
Saudi King Abdullah, whose mother and two of whose wives hail from a cross-border tribe influential in Syria, tried for a decade to woo Mr. Assad away from Iran’s sway. He failed…
Prince Bandar flew to Paris soon after for talks with French officials. In July he was in Moscow to meet with one of Mr. Assad’s prime supporters, President Vladimir Putin.
A generation ago, Prince Bandar, in a role foreshadowing his current one on behalf of Syrian opposition, helped the CIA arm the Afghan rebels who were resisting occupation by Soviet troops.”
The Wall Street Journal, 8/25/2013, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323423804579024452583045962.html
2013 First Edition
A narrative chronicle of World War I’s Arab Revolt explores the pivotal roles of a small group of adventurers and low-level officers who orchestrated a secret effort to control the Middle East, demonstrating how they instigated jihad against British forces, built an elaborate intelligence ring and forged ties to gain valuable oil concessions.
Anderson wrote, this was a time when the seed was planted for the Arab world “to define itself less by what it aspires to become than what it is opposed to: colonialism, Zionism, Western imperialism in its many forms.” New York Times, Books of The Times, September 8, 2013.
Watch this video clip: Former US Secretary Hillary Clinton explains how the US government created the Al Qada jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s but she did not explain that the reason was to force the Soviet Union to lift a ban on the emigration of Soviet Jews to Palestine, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzQ2KZWfjgs
Jackson-Vanik [sanctions imposed the US government against the Soviet Union and its successor states in order to allow the emigration of Soviet Jews] has been an extraordinary success in securing freedom of emigration in the Soviet Union and its successor states. Since 1975, 573,000 refugees — many of them Jews, evangelical Christians and Catholics — from areas of the former Soviet Union have been resettled in the United States. The Russian Jewish community in the United States today numbers between 750,000 and 1 million, though some estimates are twice as high. An estimated 1 million more Jews have immigrated to Israel during that time. For fiscal year 2001, 3,875 refugees from Russia were resettled, The White House, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-16.html
See the next four slides from topic 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzQ2KZWfjgs
On September 12, 1991, President George Bush complained on television about the Israel Lobby
the “powerful political forces” lined up against “the lonely little guy” in the White House who wanted no more than a four-month delay of $10 billion loan guarantees requested by Israel to resettle Soviet Jewry in Israel following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Source: Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg, Jewish power: inside the American Jewish power establishment, New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1996, pages xvi-xvii.
The Soviet Jewry migration movement claimed that “the Soviet Jewish community was suffering a slow death of assimilation” Gal Beckerman, “Soviet Jewry: The Struggle to Lift the Iron Curtain,” JTA Archive, http://archive.jta.org/topic/soviet-jewry
Sen. Edward Kennedy – ‘A great friend of Israel’
Jerusalem Post, 08/27/2009
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NB: On the eve of the assassination of President JF Kennedy in November 1963, his administration was battling to (1) register the Israel lobby as a foreign lobby and (2) reverse Israel’s Dimona nuclear weapons development program through U.S. inspections.
Grant F. Smith, Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., Washington, DC, 2008, page 29.
Israel clashed with the Soviet Union over Jewish emigration
“The main objective of Zionism was to bring about mass immigration into Israel of Jews from the countries to which they had been ‘dispersed,’ with particular attention focused on the Soviet Union… Stalin might have permitted a small stream of emigration, as an investment in Israel’s socialist beginnings, but what the Israeli leadership had set in progress was a mass exodus, which could only be seen as a damaging brain drain. Israel staged a series of political propaganda events to further this end, some of them on Soviet territory. For example, Stalin himself was aware that Golda Meir, then Israel’s ambassador to Moscow, was very active among Soviet Jews; her sphere of influence included several high-ranking figures and their family members. The Soviet foreign ministry was irritated by Israel’s repeated demands for permission to hold ‘cultural and educational events’ on Soviet territory, events that would involve Soviet Jews… This gave rise to the Doctors’ Plot, an alleged attempts to poison Stalin; a campaign was also launched to combat the so-called cosmopolitans, and restrictions were placed on the number of Jews hired to work for the government apparatus or admitted to higher education and training for state institutions. Matters came to a head in February 1953 when a bomb was detonated outside the Soviet embassy in Tel Aviv, wounding three embassy staff. Although the Israeli government was quick to apologize and vowed to find the perpetrators, the Kremlin announced that it was breaking off diplomatic relations. Within four months of Stalin’s death, however, diplomatic relations with Israel had been restored. This came after a crackdown by the new Soviet leadership on the organizers or perpetrators of any blatantly anti-Semitic activity… During the Six-Day War, Israel ignored Soviet demands for an immediate cease-fire. After the Golan Heights were captured, the USSR severed its diplomatic relations.” Source: [former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service] Yevgeny Primakov, Russia and the Arabs: Behind the Scenes in the Middle East from the Cold War to the Present, Translated from the Russian by Paul Gould, New York: Basic Books, 2009, pages 255-259
President Nixon was reported saying (in the Nixon-era Oval Office tapes released by the Nixon Library) that the United States “can’t blow up the world because of it [the emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union].”—JTA, 12/13/2010, http://blogs.jta.org/politics/
The Jackson-Vanik Amendment
[“the United States shall not conclude any commercial agreement with any such country, during the period beginning with the date on which the President determines that such country— (1) denies its citizens the right or opportunity to emigrate”]
“During the Cold War, the United States and the West used the issue of human rights as a platform to question the policies and ultimately the legitimacy of the Soviet Union. One aspect of that strategy was the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1974 Trade Act, which denied normal trading relations to non-market economies that restricted emigration rights. The amendment was particularly targeted to the Soviet Union’s practice at the time to deny Jews permission to emigrate.” The Legacy and Consequences of Jackson-Vanik: Reassessing Human Rights in 21st Century Russia , When: February 4, 2010; Where: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1424&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=588828
According to some, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s duplicity regarding Jackson-Vanik “would come to involve hiding a secret letter in which the Soviets backed off from a deal under which they would be waived from Jackson-Vanik in exchange for allowing 60,000 Jews to emigrate. (The jig was up only when the Soviets angrily printed the letter in one of their newspapers.)” JTA, 12/13/2010, http://blogs.jta.org/politics/
The Administration has begun consultations with Congress and interested groups on the possibility of graduating Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union from the provisions of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
“The Jackson-Vanik Amendment is contained in Title IV of the 1974 Trade Act. It effectively denies unconditional normal trade relations to certain countries, including Russia, that had non-market economies and that restricted emigration rights. Normal trade relations may be extended, on a conditional basis, to a country subject to the law only if the President determines that it complies with the freedom of emigration requirements of the amendment. Semi-annual reports on continued compliance of that country must be submitted to Congress. The President may also waive the emigration requirements.
Since 1994, Russia has been found in compliance with the Amendment’s freedom of emigration requirements. It continues to be subject to semi-annual compliance reviews. Ending the application of the Jackson-Vanik provisions to Russia requires legislation by Congress. This is a prerequisite to the extending unconditional or permanent normal trade relations to Russia.
Jackson-Vanik has been an extraordinary success in securing freedom of emigration in the Soviet Union and its successor states. Since 1975, 573,000 refugees — many of them Jews, evangelical Christians and Catholics — from areas of the former Soviet Union have been resettled in the United States. The Russian Jewish community in the United States today numbers between 750,000 and 1 million, though some estimates are twice as high. An estimated 1 million more Jews have immigrated to Israel during that time. For fiscal year 2001, 3,875 refugees from Russia were resettled.”–The White House, http://georgewbush-
whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-16.html
“That [Jewish] emigration [from the Soviet Union] existed at all was due to the actions of “realists” in the White House… In 1969, we introduced it into the presidential channel as a humanitarian issue because we judged that a foreign policy confrontation would lead to rejection and an increase of tensions with the Soviets. As a result, Jewish emigration rose from 700 a year in 1969 to near 40,000 in 1972. The total in Nixon’s first term was more than 100,000. We also submitted, with some success, several hundred hardship cases at regular intervals. To maintain this flow by quiet diplomacy, we never used these figures for political purposes.” Henry Kissing, Washington Post, 12/26/2010, http
://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/23/AR2010122304552.html
Ten years ago today the debate over the Iraq war came to Congress in the form of a resolution promoted by the Bush administration. The war in Iraq will cost the United States as much as $5 trillion. It played a role in spurring the global financial crisis. Four thousand, four hundred and eighty eight Americans were killed. More than 33,000 were injured.
As many as 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi civilians were killed. The monetary cost of the war to Iraq is incalculable. A sectarian civil war has ravaged Iraq for nearly a decade. Iraq has become home to al-Qaeda.
The war in Iraq was sold to Congress and the American people with easily disproved lies. We must learn from this dark period in American history to ensure that we do not repeat the same mistakes. And we must hold accountable those who misled the American public. –Former presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 2012, Page 11,
http://www.wrmea.org/wrmea-archives/520-washington-report-archives-2011-2015/nov-dec-2012/11464-what-they-said-iraq-ten-years-a-million-lives-and-trillions-of-dollars-later.html
Iraq: Ten Years, a Million Lives and Trillions Of Dollars Later
Iraqis inspect the site of a car bomb in central Baghdad’s Karrada district, Sept. 30, 2012. Nine car bombs and a shooting occurred that day in six Iraqi cities and towns, killing at least 15 people and wounding 42, officials said. (W.G. Dunlop/AFP/GettyImages)
Iraqi security personnel inspect the site of a bomb attack in Baghdad, May 30, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Thaier al-Sudani
More than 1,000 killed in Iraq violence in May 2013—Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/01/us-iraq-violence-idUSBRE95004P20130601
U.S. and Gulf Allies Pursue a Missile Shield Against Iranian Attack
WASHINGTON — The United States and its Arab allies are knitting together a regional missile defense system across the Persian Gulf to protect cities, oil refineries, pipelines and military bases from an Iranian attack, according to government officials and public documents…
Three weeks ago the Pentagon announced the newest addition to Persian Gulf missile defense systems, informing Congress of a plan to sell Kuwait $4.2 billion in weaponry, including 60 Patriot Advanced Capability missiles, 20 launching platforms and 4 radars. This will be in addition to Kuwait’s arsenal of 350 Patriot missiles bought between 2007 and 2010.
The United Arab Emirates acquired more than $12 billion in missile defense systems in the past four years, documents show. In December, the Pentagon announced a contract to provide the Emirates with two advanced missile defense launchers for a system called the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, valued at about $2 billion, including radars and command systems. An accompanying contract to supply an arsenal of interceptor missiles for the system was valued at another $2 billion, according to Pentagon documents.
Saudi Arabia also has bought a significant arsenal of Patriot systems, the latest being $1.7 billion in upgrades last year.
Thom Shanker, “U.S. and Gulf Allies Pursue a Missile Shield Against Iranian Attack”, New York Times August 8, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/world/middleeast/us-and-gulf-allies-pursue-a-missile-shield-against-iranian-attack.html?_r=1
U.S. President Barack Obama talks with Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes (C) and Senior Advisor David Axelrod (R) in the Oval Office, in this White House handout photograph taken on May 21, 2010 and released on June 7, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Pete Souza/The White House/Files
Special Report: Inside the West’s economic war with Iran
“Obama warned allies that oil sanctions were the only way to avert a new war between Israel and Iran. U.S. envoys pressed Iraqi, Libyan and, above all, Saudi officials to pump up their own crude supplies.”
Reuters, 12/28/2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/28/us-iran-sanctions-idUSBRE8BR04620121228
CIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup
Washington, D.C., August 19, 2013– Marking the sixtieth anniversary of the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, the National Security Archive is today posting recently declassified CIA documents on the United States’ role in the controversial operation. American and British involvement in Mosaddeq’s ouster has long been public knowledge, but today’s posting includes what is believed to be the CIA’s first formal acknowledgement that the agency helped to plan and execute the coup.
The National Security Archive, August 19, 2013, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/
Kermit Roosevelt, chief of CIA’s Near East operations division, and on-the-ground manager of the U.S.-U.K. coup plan.
Donald N. Wilber, an archeologist and authority on ancient Persia, served as lead U.S. planner of TPAJAX (along with British SIS officer Norman Darbyshire). He wrote the first CIA history of the operation (Document 1).
After the overthrow, an uneasy alliance obtained between the Shah (right) and his new prime minister. (www.iichs.org
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, left, smiles with Yasser Arafat in Tehran in February 1979. The Ayatollah’s son has his hand on Arafat’s shoulder. The popular revolt against the shah raised alarm bells in the West, which saw the shah as a trusted ally and counterweight to hardline Arab regimes and Palestinian radicals. http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20110213/NEWS03/702139957/-1/News#sthash.cEq10ABA.dpuf
The Iranian Revolution (1/1978-2/1979) and the Palestine-Israel Divide
Under the Shah monarchy, Iran had close ties with Israel. Iran was the second Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel after Turkey.
January 1979: The Shah was forced out of Iran
February 1979: Khomeini returned from exile to Iran
Iran ended its alliance with Israel, severed all diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel, expelled the Israelis from Iran, and considered Israel an illegitimate state.
Iran began its support for the Palestinians by turning over the Israeli embassy in Tehran to the Palestine Liberation Organization
From the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Adopted on 24 October 1979:
Article 16: Since the language of the Qur’an and Islamic texts and teachings is Arabic, and since Persian literature is thoroughly permeated by this language, it must be taught after elementary level, in all classes of secondary school and in all areas of study
Article 152: The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based upon the rejection of all forms of domination, both the exertion of it and submission to it, the preservation of the independence of the country in all respects and its territorial integrity, the defence of the rights of all Muslims, non-alignment with respect to the hegemonist superpowers, and the maintenance of mutually peaceful relations with all non-belligerent States.
Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria
Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran
Khaled Meshaal, Palestinian leader of Hamas
Muammar al-Gaddafi, Libyan Leader
Hasan Nasralla, Lebanese leader of Hezbollah
Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
Hu Jintao, President of China
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, King of Saudi Arabia
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the State of Israel
Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar
Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France
David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Saad-eddine Al-Hariri, Lebanese leader of the March 14 Alliance
Recep Erdoğan, Prime Minister of Turkey
The “Arab Spring” divide represents a “spillover infection” of the Palestine-Israel divide which continues to breed racism, sectarianism, & terrorism throughout the Middle East region
Think critically about what really divides the two camps as well as what unites each camp.
According to US diplomatic cables (2007), leaked by Wikileaks: “Some [Saudi] princes, most notably National Security Advisor Bandar Bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, are reportedly pushing for more contact with Israel. Bandar now sees Iran as a greater threat than Israel.” In 2012, King Abdullah appointed Bandar as Director General of the Saudi Intelligence Agency. http://cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=07RIYADH296&q=bandar%20bin%20sultan http://web.archive.org/web/20060614095551/http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030324fa_fact2
‘Israel opens diplomatic mission in unnamed Gulf state’, Times of Israel, May 12, 2013, http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-has-diplomatic-mission-in-unnamed-gulf-state/
Area: 185,180 sq km (slightly larger than North Dakota)
Border countries: Iraq 605 km, Israel 76 km, Jordan 375 km, Lebanon 375 km, Turkey 822 km. Coastline: 193 km
Population: 22,457,336 (July 2013 est.)
Age structure: 0-24 years: 54.7%
Ethnic groups: Arab 90.3%, Kurds, Armenians, and other 9.7%
Languages: Arabic (official), Kurdish, Armenian, Aramaic, Circassian
Religions: Sunni Muslim (Islam – official) 74%, other Muslim (includes Alawite, Druze) 16%, Christian (various denominations) 10%, Jewish (tiny communities in Damascus, Al Qamishli, and Aleppo)
Life expectancy at birth: 75.14 years
GDP (official exchange rate): $64.7 billion (2011 est.)
Agriculture – products: wheat, barley, cotton, lentils, chickpeas, olives, sugar beets; beef, mutton, eggs, poultry, milk
Military service age and obligation: 18 years of age Manpower fit for military service: males age 16-49: 5,055,510; females age 16-49: 4,884,151 (2010 est.)
CIA
Syrian Arab Republic
Nearly half of the 100,000 rebel fighters in Syria are jihadists or hardline Islamists
But after more than two years of fighting they are fragmented into as many as 1,000 bands
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10311007/Syria-nearly-half-rebel-fighters-are-jihadists-or-hardline-Islamists-says-IHS-Janes-report.html
Area: 637,657 sq km (slightly smaller than Texas)
Border countries: Djibouti 58 km, Ethiopia 1,600 km, Kenya 682 km. Coastline: 3,025 km. Geography note: strategic location on Horn of Africa along southern approaches to Bab el Mandeb and route through Red Sea and Suez Canal
Population: 10,251,568 (July 2013 est.)
Age structure: 0-24 years: 63.2%
Ethnic groups: Somali 85%, Bantu and other non-Somali 15% (including 30,000 Arabs)
Languages: Somali (official), Arabic (official, according to the Transitional Federal Charter), Italian, English
Religions: Sunni Muslim (Islam) (official, according to the Transitional Federal Charter)
Life expectancy at birth: 51.19 years
GDP (official exchange rate): $2.372 billion (2010 est.)
Agriculture – products: bananas, sorghum, corn, coconuts, rice, sugarcane, mangoes, sesame seeds, beans; cattle, sheep, goats; fish
Military service age and obligation: 18 is the legal minimum age for compulsory and voluntary military service (2012)
Manpower fit for military service: males age 16-49: 1,331,894; females age 16-49: 1,357,051 (2010 est.)
Federal Republic of Somalia
Britain withdrew from British Somaliland in 1960 to allow its protectorate to join with Italian Somaliland and form the new nation of Somalia. In 1969, a coup headed by Mohamed SIAD Barre ushered in an authoritarian socialist rule characterized by the persecution, jailing, and torture of political opponents and dissidents. After the regime’s collapse early in 1991, Somalia descended into turmoil, factional fighting, and anarchy. CIA
BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15336689
