Power Drunk Hillary Clinton - Wreaked Destruction on the Middle East

JUSTIN RAIMONDO ARTICLE Hillary’s War The Pentagon tried to stop her – unfortunately, to no avail by Justin Raimondo, February 02, 2015 What’s happening in Libya today is a crime: murder, rape, looting, chaos, a war of all against all. The perpetrator, the one key person who made all this possible, is a well known personage in American politics, a former Secretary of State and the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. What Hillary Clinton did to Libya is a crime on a scale rivaled only by the crimes of the Bush administration in Iraq – and there is a definite parallel in the methodology of the criminals. Libya has been pretty much off the public’s radar screen ever since the US intervention that led to Muammar Qaddafi’s downfall – and the ugly aftermath in which the US ambassador was murdered by the very people Washington was intent on "liberating." Now the aftermath is getting even uglier. The country is imploding, with two rival governments claiming suzerainty, but describing Libya’s situation as a state of "civil war" is a bit of an understatement. If ever there was such an entity as a "failed state" – that is, a state that has simply collapsed, and is dragging the rest of society down along with it – then Libya fits the definition to a tee. If we liken a society to the human body, then we can say Libya’s immune system is down, allowing a deadly infection to invade and take root – in this case, the "Islamic State," or "caliphate," known as ISIS, which first reared its head in Syria and is now spreading into Libya. [Suzerainty =  a power that controls the foreign affairs of a tributary vassal state, while allowing the subservient nation internal autonomy.] Last week ISIS gunmen stormed Tripoli’s five-star Corinithia Hotel and opened fire at everyone in sight: ten people were killed, five of them foreigners, including one American. A communiqué from the "Tripoli province" of ISIS took responsibility for the attack, which they said was in retaliation for the death of captured Al Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Liby, who died of liver cancer in a US hospital after being captured by US Special Forces. Both Libya and Syria have been test cases in the experimental laboratory of America’s "regime-change" mad scientists – and both have given birth to Islamist Frankenstein monsters, turning on their creators with a vengeance. But who created them? Who are the Dr. Frankensteins who brought these monsters to life? The administration of George W. Bush lied us into war in Iraq, ignoring the warnings of war critics who presciently predicted the dissolution of the Iraqi state and the chaos we see there today. America’s alliance with "moderate" Sunni Islamists in Anbar province, credited with supposedly driving out Al Qaeda during the much-vaunted "surge," armed and trained the ISIS-led fanatics who have conquered that same region today. And yet while Team Bush can fairly be given some of the blame – by setting the general context of the disaster – the Obama administration is hardly innocent. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, took up a longstanding goal of the previous administration in pushing for a regime change campaign aimed at Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad: together with General David Petraeus, former CIA chief, she argued for arming the Syrian rebels, in concert with John Kerry and Republican allies like Sen. John McCain. This was part of a general strategy taken up during her tenure at Foggy Bottom, which sought to get ahead of the so-called Arab Spring and ally the US with "moderate" Islamists. The old secular-socialist despots, such as Assad and Libya’s Qaddafi, were finished, went the theory, and so the US should ally itself with this Wave of the Future so as not to be caught flatfooted by the rush of events. In Libya, this meant backing a motley collection of Islamist radicals with, at most, a few degrees of separation from al-Qaeda. This move was championed by Secretary Clinton, along with national security advisor Susan Rice and Samantha Power, then Special Assistant to the President for Human Rights – but not without pushback from the Pentagon. The generals didn’t want to get involved in what they viewed as a dubious adventure with unpredictable results. Who were these rebels we were supporting? The whole operation was "intelligence-lite," as a recent series of articles in the Washington Times puts it. The Times reports a full-scale Pentagon effort to avert US intervention: "Top Pentagon officials and a senior Democrat in Congress so distrusted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2011 march to war in Libya that they opened their own diplomatic channels with the Gadhafi regime in an effort to halt the escalating crisis, according to secret audio recordings recovered from Tripoli. "The tapes, reviewed by The Washington Times and authenticated by the participants, chronicle U.S. officials’ unfiltered conversations with Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s son and a top Libyan leader, including criticisms that Mrs. Clinton had developed tunnel vision and led the U.S. into an unnecessary war without adequately weighing the intelligence community’s concerns." Just as neoconservatives in key positions in the Bush administration manipulated the intelligence in order to shape the debate over the Iraq war, deceiving Congress and the American people, so the Hillaryites in the Obama administration did the same in the brief debate over the Libyan intervention.  As the Times relates: “‘You should see these internal State Department reports that are produced in the State Department that go out to the Congress. They’re just full of stupid, stupid facts,’ an American intermediary specifically dispatched by the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Gadhafi regime in July 2011, saying the State Department was controlling what intelligence would be reported to U.S. officials." Secretary Clinton, National Security Advisor Rice, and "humanitarian interventionist" Power argued that Qaddafi’s speech in which he called Libyan rebels "rats" toward whom he would show "no mercy" indicated a "genocide" was imminent in the eastern city of Benghazi. The media blindly accepted this assertion, as is their wont when it comes to government claims, but as the Times reports: "[D]efense intelligence officials could not corroborate those concerns and in fact assessed that Gadhafi was unlikely to risk world outrage by inflicting mass casualties, officials told The Times. As a result, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, strongly opposed Mrs. Clinton’s recommendation to use force." The generals feared they were being handed yet another foreign policy hot potato by the politicians, and in this they were indubitably correct: the Times says Hillary "repeatedly dismissed the warnings offered by career military and intelligence officials" – and prevented any of those warnings from reaching the President or members of Congress. Readers with long memories will recall similar suppressed (albeit leaked) warnings from dissident members of the intelligence community as George W. Bush and his neocon-controlled national security bureaucracy marched us to war in Iraq. The intelligence, they warned, was bogus; there were no "weapons of mass destruction," and the "evidence" for their existence was ginned up out of whole cloth. Surreptitious recordings of a US agent on assignment for the Pentagon reveal the President referring to the Libyan adventure as "all Secretary Clinton’s matter" – in effect washing his hands of it. According to the tapes, the Pentagon’s man in Libya told a top Libyan official – who was trying to negotiate a peaceful end to the crisis – that Army Gen. Charles H. Jacoby, Jr., a top aide to Adm. Mullen, "does not trust the reports that are coming out of the State Department and CIA, but there’s nothing he can do about it." At one point, the Pentagon liaison tells his Libyan contacts "I can tell you that the President is not getting accurate information." Sound familiar? As in the case of the Iraq war, intelligence made public was cherry-picked in order to support a preordained conclusion, and the facts didn’t matter all that much anyway. The Times cites a senior Pentagon official who says: "The decision to invade [Libya] had already been made, so everything coming out of the State Department at that time was to reinforce that decision.” The paper also quotes a senior intelligence official familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations as saying: “Neither the intervention decision nor the regime change decision was an intelligence-heavy decision. People weren’t on the edge of their seats, intelligence wasn’t driving the decision one way or another." Facts? Who needs them? Hillary was determined to have her war, and not even the efforts by the Qaddafi family to effectively surrender were going to stop her: "On the day the U.N. resolution was passed, Mrs. Clinton ordered a general within the Pentagon to refuse to take a call with Gadhafi’s son Seif and other high-level members within the regime, to help negotiate a resolution, the secret recordings reveal. A day later, on March 18, Gadhafi called for a cease-fire, another action the administration dismissed." But the anti-interventionist generals in the Pentagon didn’t give up even then. The Times reveals that General Carter Ham, who headed up the US African Command (Africom), tried to negotiate a 72-hour ceasefire with the Libyan regime. The possibility presented itself through the person of retired Navy Rear Admiral Charles Kubic, who was a business representative in Libya: Kubic says he was approached by top Libyan officials who were ready to negotiate a truce. Kubic relayed the proposal to Lt. Col. Brian Linvill, who was Africom’s Libya specialist, who informed Gen. Ham. The Africom chief agreed it was a good idea. According to Kubic: “The Libyans would stop all combat operations and withdraw all military forces to the outskirts of the cities and assume a defensive posture. Then to insure the credibility with the international community, the Libyans would accept recipients from the African Union to make sure the truce was honored. “[Gadhafi] came back and said he was willing to step down and permit a transition government, but he had two conditions. First was to insure there was a military force left over after he left Libya capable to go after al Qaeda. Secondly, he wanted to have the sanctions against him and his family and those loyal to him lifted and free passage. At that point in time, everybody thought that was reasonable.” The problem was that reasonableness had nothing to do with it: Obama having handed her the authority, Hillary was on her dry run as commander-in-chief and she wasn’t about to let the Pentagon stand in her way. She ordered Ham to "stand down two days after the negotiations began," reports the Times. Kubic says: "If their goal was to get Gadhafi out of power, then why not give a 72-hour truce a try? It wasn’t enough to get him out of power; they wanted him dead." They got what they wanted. They also got a failed state that has become a terrorist haven – and a dead US ambassador, along with several other Americans murdered in the same Benghazi attack. All under Secretary Clinton’s watch. Against the available intelligence, which proffered no evidence of an "imminent genocide," Hillary took her cues from Donald Rumsfeld, whose infamous disquisition on "unknown unknowns" represented the merger of foreign policy and speculative fiction. Citing Rwanda and the early stages of the Balkan conflicts, Clinton averred that inaction would be the equivalent of standing by while a "humanitarian disaster" unfolded. Evidence to the contrary was therefore not admissible because, after all, it might happen. Even as intelligence and military officials were warning that the aftermath of NATO’s Libyan campaign would be highly problematic, Secretary Clinton ignored them and instead pursued her politically-driven agenda – at a cost of thousands of lives, and a terrorist implantation in Libya. Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) put it well: "I think there was a rush headlong toward war in Libya and [the State Department and the administration] weren’t listening to anyone saying anything otherwise, including the Defense Department and intelligence communities, who were saying, ‘Hold on a minute. This may not be a good idea.’ "Hillary’s judgment has to be questioned. Her eagerness for war in Libya should preclude her from being considered the next commander in chief." Amen, brother! http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/02/01/hillarys-war/ COMMENT LOL ... thought this guy's spell-check had gone haywire. Nope.  I just haven't come across the term 'suzerainty' before: Suzerainty:   a power that controls the foreign affairs of a tributary vassal state, while allowing the subservient nation internal autonomy. What I got out of this is that Hillary Clinton is a disgusting person and so is anyone associated with her, even if it's just for a book launch photo op. It's just mind-blowing that peoples lives are destroyed and that entire regions are drawn into mayhem created by these power-drunk idiots. ..................................................................................   PS  The 'power drunk' conclusion is probably a bit too simplistic.  Hillary Clinton and other US political figures that banded together to cause the mayhem in Libya did so on behalf of whoever they really represent (ie their political donors and backers).

US Foreign Policy & Middle East Mayhem

U.S. foreign policy and the end of the ‘United’ States Mordechai Ben-Menachem | Monday Feb 2, 2015 10:58 AM The “Perfect Storm” brewing in the Middle East is not, and will not be limited to the Middle East. Organized Islamic terrorism at its most brutal, fed by the Saud family that almost every Western leader just kowtowed to, is only a part of this storm cloud. This is the family that has spent $100 billion, taken from U.S. and European tax payers, on the spread of Wahhabism. Their oil was discovered by Americans. Wells were developed by Americans – all with American investment – and then were taken from the rightful owners by infamous Saud family greed. The massive atavistic greed and hedonism are, and remain, unrivaled in human history. This greed funds destruction of the West that fueled and finances it. According to myriad political sources, President Obama and his administration have shoveled $10 million to Benjamin Netanyahu’s political opponents in the coming Israeli national elections in an attempt defeat Netanyahu’s Likud Party in March – in addition to sending strike teams of political ‘advisors’ to aid the Left. This is against both US and Israeli law, but the Netanyahu government is limited in what it can say because that would ‘enflame’ the frayed relationship even more. Worse for the U.S. administration is that this pathetic attempt is unlikely to succeed. The 2009 Cairo speech attempted to install a Muslim Brotherhood, super-radical regime in Egypt. Egypt very nearly dissolved into chaos and bankruptcy as a result, only saved at the eleventh hour by the brilliant and brave El Sisi. The U.S. ended its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, creating Mongol-like chaos throughout the region. In Libya, the U.S. ran an illegal gun-running operation to supply al Qaeda out of its embassy compound in Benghazi, until it backfired. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Afghanistan have dissolved into chaos as a result of direct U.S. involvement. They tried to collapse Tunisia and Bahrain, as well, but fortunately failed in those attempts. The president claimed, “we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material” – blatantly untrue, at every level. In fact, he and his administration have worked continuously to facilitate Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapon capability, as well as effective delivery tools. President Obama admitted that the “Iran talks,” ridiculously designated “negotiations to fool the unwary,” have only a “50-50 chance” of succeeding. Even worse, in his State of the Union message, he made it clear that there is no plan, strategic or other, to deal with the only likely and indeed possible, outcome. His administration’s lack of any strategic plan fails at every level, but worst of all, it fails to acknowledge that the consequence of failed nuclear ‘talks’ result in an Iranian regime with operational nuclear weapons, aimed and poised to pound the United States, Europe, and Israel. The West’s inability, and worse, unwillingness, to recognize the enormity of the threats facing it puts the entire world in inestimable danger, greater danger than the world has seen for a thousand years. American inaction is the greatest danger. The current American administration may turn out to be historically responsible for embroiling the world in a war more terrible than any ever seen before. It is indeed too awful to contemplate and it may result in a new Dark Ages from which the world will have to suffer for many decades or centuries. Should it come to that, Obama’s true legacy will be ‘less’ than that of Chamberlain. Every American needs must live in great fear of the coming year and a half, and even more, of the consequences of a follow-on election in 2016 that could spell the end of the United States (with at least an emphasis on the word ‘united’). Persia delenda est … Ceterum censeo Persia esse delendam? [Latin, Google Translate:  Iran is to be destroyed ... But I think Iran should be destroyed?] http://humanevents.com/2015/02/02/u-s-foreign-policy-and-the-end-of-the-united-states/ COMMENT Thought this was an interesting article. Writer's obviously extremely opposed to Iran. Not sure about that Google Latin translation.  Too tired to look for alternative translations. Read somewhere else that the US is meddling in Israel's domestic politics, but I think it was put down to US national individuals doing their own thing.  But it wouldn't surprise me if the US was maybe trying to sway votes away from Likud Party, who represent right wing voters and policies. Read elsewhere about Saudi Arabia funding Wahhabism, which I think is Islamic fundamentalism and extremism. Don't know enough about Egypt or el Sisi to comment. The writer, Mordechai Ben-Menachem (if I've found the correct Mordechai Ben-Menachem), is an ordained rabbi and a Zionist, so that may have bearing on the message in the article. According to the mideastoutpost site, Mordechai Ben-Menachem anticipates nuclear war in the region and these are his remarks regarding war affecting Israel, as at 2012: RK: How likely is war in the region and how will it affect Israel? MBM: 100% likely There is no doubt that there will be war. The questions are: When?  How many?  With whom?  How big?  Will the US openly attempt to block and weaken Israel?  [1] This made me laugh: RK: You were associated with Ben Gurion University for a long time. What do you make of the appalling number of Israeli academics who side with Israel’s enemies? MBM: Firstly, the ‘appalling number’ is not as large as the media present it.  The traitors are in political science and other such departments.  [...]  There is no political activity in Life Sciences, Engineering, Medicine or Natural Sciences.  Some 90% of the university people are normal. [1] It's hard to take the article too seriously when the writer has what some might call 'extreme views' of his own: The Book says this land belongs to Jews and everyone else is rejected.  Believe or disbelieve, as you like.  Facts tell their own story. [1] So I probably wouldn't freak out too much about the 'new Dark Ages' coming our way ... yet.  On the other hand, it's hard to shake off the 'we're all doomed' feeling that you get when you look at aspects of the Middle East. ------------------------------------------------ LINKS [1]  AN INTERVIEW WITH MORDECHAI BEN MENACHEM BY RUTH KING.

Netanyahu - More Than Electoral Campaign Bluster

ISRAEL Israel's ability to influence inter'l community, in general, + USA, in particular, is damaged by Netanyahu's election moves  Netanyahu has set 3 'fires': > US Congress diplomatic “terror attack” > Golan Heights > settlements tender / expansion From article:   As Netanyahu rampages, Israel's interests are but collateral damage The prime minister has become a ticking cluster bomb, discharging its lethal load at timed intervals and destroying the remains of Israel’s standing in the world. http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.640046  .................................................................................... COMMENT Thought this was worth sharing. Seems like Netanyahu and Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman are on the same rampaging page: Sounds like #Israel Foreign Minister Lieberman wants 3rd war in #Lebanon http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4621448,00.html … Took Lieberman's remarks seriously and considered that maybe Israel is aiming to fire up a conflict with Lebanon, but now I'm thinking maybe it's all in line with Netanyahu's election campaign moves. Anyway, I thought this was an interesting way to look at what's going on right now, although I'm not entirely convinced this is all merely voter influencing behaviour. Since Netanyahu took office in 2009: Can I Take a Tax-Deduction on My Donation to Israeli Settlements in Palestine?American charities funnel millions of dollars to support the building of illegal settlements in the occupied territories. It's time for this to end. By Eric Goldstein January 29, 2015"... from the beginning of 2009 until the beginning of 2014, the settlement population grew 23 percent — more than double the rate of the overall Israeli population, which expanded 9.6 percent." "In late December, another 380 new housing units in East Jerusalem settlements were approved." "This growth is partly being funded by millions of dollars from tax-exempt American charities, which help expand and support settlements." https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/29/illegal-tax-deduction-charity-israel-settlements-palestine-irs/  Judging by the settlements article, Netanyahu's policies are consistent and have a tangible, progressive impact on what is going on in the Middle East.

VIDEO - Noam Chomsky - On Film 'American Sniper'

VIDEO - Noam Chomsky - On Film 'American Sniper' Source - YouTube Drawn to this by the Janet Allon, Greenleft article [HERE]: " ... most extreme terrorist campaign of modern history, if not ever ― Obama’s global assassination campaign, the drone campaign, which officially is aimed at murdering people who are suspected of maybe someday planning to harm us.” Chomsky recommends reading some of the transcripts with drone operators, calling them “harrowing” in their dehumanising treatment of people who are targeted." [Greenleft] At the end of the video, Chomsky says: "Obama may recall, when he won the Nobel Prize, he said "Make no mistake, evil does exist in the world," and he's right; he knows exactly where to find it." [Noam Chomsky] Some strong words from Noam Chomsky. It's mind-blowing that people around the world are being killed by the US government, without trial and merely on suspicion that they may represent a future 'threat'.   Yet the US drone program -- employing unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), which are remotely controlled by the CIA's Special Activities Division -- barely gets mentioned. Human Rights Watch reported: US has carried out at least 400 drone strikes since Obama took office, reportedly killing upwards of 2,600 people, according to independent research groups. Source - HRW - Mar 2014 - here. That's over 2,600 in the space of about 5 years. Seems like 'targeted killings' aren't really precise. But it's a preferred way of conducting war, precisely because of its remote and 'invisible' nature ... the public at home aren't going to complain, as it doesn't affect them in ways that traditional war does (ie burying the war dead).

Article - "The Only "Lowlife Scum" in the McCain Hearing Was Henry Kissinger" | John McCain

The Only "Lowlife Scum" in the McCain Hearing Was Henry Kissinger By Gregory Krieg January 31, 2015 "Arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes!" The strained, sing-song chant that sent Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) into a twitching fit of rage on Thursday afternoon had died out by the time security escorted one last graying activist from the hearing room. For McCain, though, the quarrel never ends. This was no ordinary disruption, and the man seated before the panel, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, was no ordinary guest. That goes to explain McCain's jarring choice of words when he finally, and now infamously, called the departing protesters "lowlife scum." YouTube VIDEO  https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1422579428&v=OYMtEGLmD_Y&x-yt-cl=85114404&feature=player_embedded If McCain was the pit bull in this setting, then Kissinger was the decaying clapboard chop-shop he was intent on defending. The intruders, in their defiance, were mauled for having attempted to carry out a "citizen's arrest" of the 91-year-old Nobel Prize winner for atrocities committed by the U.S. government during the 1970s in countries including Vietnam, Laos, East Timor and Chile. The senator's resulting outburst, in its wild-eyed wonder, had the unfortunate effect of overshadowing the substance of the their charges: namely, that the bloated figure wheeled out before them had, in the course of an eight-year run as the chief U.S. foreign policy strategist, masterminded a series of violent overt and covert campaigns against civilians and democratic governments across Southeast Asia and Latin America. Kissinger spent a little more than two of those years — beginning officially on Jan. 20, 1969, and ending on that same date in 1977 — serving concurrently as secretary of state and national security adviser to President Richard Nixon and, after his resignation, Gerald Ford. His power, and the seemingly counterintuitive respect he inspires, cannot be overstated, nor can it be rationally explained. There are hundreds of thousands of deaths on his crooked shoulders. Millions more were physically or psychologically wounded.  The secret bombing of Cambodia: The German-born "president whisperer" made his first dark mark on the planet in early 1969, when, confronted with continued advances by North Vietnamese fighters from bases in neighboring Cambodia, he and Nixon conspired to order a top-secret bombing campaign called Operation Breakfast, which turned into the longer-running Operation Menu. It might seem quaint today, given the mind-bending frequency of executive power overreaches, but Nixon's authorization to strike inside eastern Cambodia and Laos would come to represent a then-unprecedented scale of wartime deceit and illegality. Over the next four years, the U.S. would drop millions of tons of explosives on the neutral countries, all the while denying the program's existence at every turn. "Estimates of the number of people killed begin in the low hundreds of thousands and range up from there," Henry Grabar wrote in the Atlantic, "but the truth is that no one has any idea." World Without Genocide, a watchdog organization, estimates that 750,000 Cambodians were killed between 1970 and 1974, most of them by "American B-52 bombers, using napalm and dart cluster-bombs to destroy suspected Viet Cong targets." No one in the U.S. had anything more than a suspicion it was happening until May 9, 1969, when the New York Times published a story titled "Raids in Cambodia by U.S. Unprotested." Kissinger responded swiftly, telling aides and the president, "We must crush these [leakers and journalists]. We must destroy them." Infamous FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover was more than happy to oblige and, as told in Robert Weiner's Enemies: A History of the FBI, the two quickly set up wiretaps on the aides Kissinger suspected had leaked the story. Kissinger denied it all until 1992, when he conceded his part in the process of settling a related lawsuit. Backing Indonesia's invasion of East Timor: Kissinger's role in Vietnam fills volumes, but it's his and America's ostensible absence in East Timor on Dec. 7, 1975, that speaks more directly to his malignant diplomatic tactics. Traveling alongside President Gerald Ford, Kissinger led a Dec. 6 meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, with Indonesian dictator Suharto. The focus was on East Timor, at the time a small Southeast Asian territory recently abandoned by the colonial Portuguese. With Ford concerned about regional Communists filling the vacuum and Suharto, an ally, with his eyes set on an invasion and occupation, Kissinger asked the Indonesians to wait until the U.S. delegation left to begin their assault. Additionally, he promised to supply Suharto with American arms, over the inevitable objections of Congress. "We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem and the intentions you have," Kissinger told Suharto, the details emerging via transcripts released in 2001. "We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens, happens after we return. If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the president returns home."  The transcripts also reveal Kissinger asking Suharto if he anticipated a "long guerrilla war." Suharto responded that it would be "small." And so the Americans left. The invasion of East Timor, carried out with a steady flow of American support, was swift. They waited one day. The fight lasted much longer, carrying on for nearly a quarter-century. The estimated death toll: 200,000. Suharto died in 2008 after stepping down a decade earlier, following the deaths of 500 student protesters. Taking down the Chilean government: Sept. 11 means something very different, but just as painful, for the people of Chile. On that date in 1973, a CIA-backed coup ousted and assassinated the country's democratically elected President Salvador Allende. The socialist was replaced with Gen. Augusto Pinochet, a right-wing thug who would rule the country as a dictator for 17 brutal years. After Allende was elected on Sept. 4, 1970, Kissinger declared in a memo to Nixon that the vote "poses for us one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere." "Your decision as to what to do about it may be the most historic and difficult foreign affairs decision you will make this year," he wrote. U.S. businesses had hundreds of millions tied up in Latin America, which has been and remains a target for strategic American enemies. Kissinger decided that allowing Allende to remain in power would create an "insidious model effect." That is to say: Other countries under the American hemispheric umbrella might see that they could democratically elect a government and make decisions without the U.S. Soon after the Sept. 11, 1973, coup, Kissinger was quick to order his man in Santiago to deliver to Pinochet "our strongest desires to cooperate closely and establish firm basis for cordial and most constructive relationship." He did, and Kissinger's shop in Washington, D.C., working with the CIA began a long relationship with the regime. Chile's murderous National Intelligence Directorate was built by American agents.  [Looks like 'Kissinger's shop' is the National Security Council, going by entry in Aaron Wildavsky's book] Pinochet's military dictatorship, one of a number of right-wing juntas that dominated, degraded and bled Latin America in the 1970s and '80s, killed thousands and tortured an estimated 29,000, according to a survey conducted by a government commission. The great majority of those crimes happened in 1973, with Kissinger in close contact the whole way. After he left, his Reaganite disciples supported the regime through its demise in 1990. So what the fuck was Henry Kissinger doing in Washington, D.C., last Thursday? On the face of it, Kissinger had been summoned to discuss foreign policy matters with the Senate Armed Services Committee. The hearing, called "Global Challenges and the U.S. National Security Strategy," was as inscrutable as the title suggests. In reality, Kissinger was on Capitol Hill because he, like so much "scum" before him, sticks to and feeds off all innocent life around him. He was invited because, to people like McCain, he represents the brand of blunt hegemonic history that Americans are (or at least should be) desperate to reclaim. But Henry Kissinger's time is in the past. There are new "challenges." Many of them, like President Barack Obama's drone killing program, probably make the old man smile. Some day soon, Kissinger will die. If only his legacy could be buried with him. http://mic.com/articles/109508/the-only-low-life-scum-in-the-mc-cain-hearing-was-henry-kissinger COMMENT Another great article.   Good for me as a learning aid. Really enjoyed this.

Mulshine - "Menendez blames everyone but himself for the mess he helped make in the Mideast" - Syria

PAUL MULSHINE ARTICLE Menendez blames everyone but himself for the mess he helped make in the Mideast: Mulshine Paul Mulshine | The Star Ledger By Paul Mulshine | The Star Ledger on January 31, 2015 at 3:28 PM, updated January 31, 2015 at 4:07 PM When I was a lad my mother would on occasion ask me why I did something. "Because Johnny told me to," I would reply. "If Johnny told you to jump in the lake, would you jump in the lake?" she'd reply. In the case of Bob Menendez, apparently so. He not only jumped in the lake, but he pulled a lot of people in with him. That's the only logical conclusion after reading that op-ed piece he wrote attacking me for pointing out that his advocacy of a rebellion in Syria led directly to the rise of ISIS in that country and Iraq. Menendez doesn't deny that it was his goal to have Syrian strongman Bashar Assad deposed. He doesn't deny that the rebellion he and others advocated permitted ISIS to move into the parts of Syria formerly controlled by Assad. Instead he complains that:     Mulshine criticizes me for pushing the U.S. "to take an active role in supporting the rebels fighting to oust Syrian dictator Bashar Assad."     But that exact position is the administration's policy, arguing that "Assad must go" and supporting the training and equipping of the Syrian opposition. President Barack Obama over Labor Day 2013 even came within minutes of approving air strikes against Assad for gassing Syrians and crossing his self-imposed red line.     It is also the position of Senators from liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to conservative Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) who voted with me in September 2013 to provide lethal and non-lethal assistance to vetted Syrian opposition groups.     Mulshine is free to disagree, but if he wants to cast blame, it should be distributed evenly amongst nearly all officials in power from President Obama, to Secretary Kerry, to former Secretary Clinton, on down who understand that the Assad regime has lost its legitimacy. Or in other words, "They told me to jump in the lake and I jumped." At the time he and the rest were deciding that "Assad must go" as they put it, Menendez was the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If he had dug in and pointed out that the U.S. would be better off propping up Assad as a bulwark against the Muslim Brotherhood, he might have had some influence in heading off this fiasco. But how could he have known the effort to depose Assad would go so horribly wrong and lead to the rise of ISIS? Uh, by reading my columns. When it comes to foreign policy, I seek out the people who understand the Mideast. See my prior columns warning of the folly of "liberating" our enemies here. These are not politicians. I've yet to meet one who had even the vaguest notion of who's fighting whom in that neck of the woods. Instead I seek out ex-CIA agents like Bob Baer or ex-Green Berets like Pat Lang. These guys saw this fiasco coming from the very beginning. An example from a column critical of GOP presidential contender and leading "neo" conservative Rick Santorum's foreign policy stance in which I cited Baer (italics mine):     Thanks to the insistence by the neoconservatives -- which is the polite way of saying "knucklehead" -- that everyone should be freed from dictatorial rule, Islamic fundamentalists are now in a position to control much of the Mideast.     Once freed from the horrible Hosni Mubarak, Baer noted, the Egyptians promptly sacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo. If the dictatorship in Syria falls, he said, Israel will be surrounded on all sides by angry Muslims. All of them will have the freedom and opportunity Santorum and his fellow neocons wanted them to have.     "We really do have to wake up," Baer said. "We do not have the money to play out our fantasies." Baer said that in my column way back in 2011. If Menendez had been talking to Mideast experts instead of Beltway insiders back then, he would have known that deposing Assad would lead to the rise of Islamic fundamentalists. Then there was this advice from Baer in May of 2013 concerning the disaster in Benghazi that followed the fall of Moammar Gadhafi:     Gadhafi had his faults, but at least he kept our embassy staff safe. The same wasn't true for the unsteady coalition that succeeded him. The task of embassy security has to be entrusted to the locals, said Bob Baer, a former CIA agent with years of experience in the Mideast.     "Were we going to put a Marine division in Benghazi to protect it?" asks former CIA agent Bob Baer. "The Salafis were everywhere."     The Salafis are a militant branch of the Sunni brand of Islam. They're also active on the rebel side in the civil war in Syria. Yet the neocons want the United States to aid those rebels, as well. Almong those neocons were Menendez's committee comrades John McCain and Lindsey Graham. McCain was so crazy he actually traveled to Syria to give moral support to the rebels - something we're now prosecuting average citizens for doing, by the way. Yet Menendez listened to them instead of trying to get a more realistic point of view from people like Baer. In October of 2011, I quoted Baer about Santorum's pledge to support Syrian rebels:     "Who does he propose supporting in Syria?" Baer said. "Anyone with any common sense knows it's the Muslim Brotherhood that would take over. There are no white hats in Syria." By the way, it's been obvious for more than 30 years that there are no white hats in Syria. Back then, Assad's father had to blow up an entire town to halt the Muslim Brotherhood in its effort to take Syria. Yet there's Menendez, still looking for "vetted moderate rebels" to fight against Assad in Syria. And now his defense is that everyone else inside the Beltway was just as naïve? Pat Lang could have cured that naivete - if only the senator had sought him out. The former Vietnam Green Beret and longtime denizen of the Mideast was among the experts I quoted in a column I did on the "Assad must go" consensus last July:     Former Vietnam Green Beret and veteran Mideast operative Pat Lang recalled being ostracized at conferences for suggesting that Assad might not be going anywhere.     "It was an article of faith in the Washington think-tank policy establishment that Assad was going to go down," Lang said. "I asked these guys continually, 'How do you know that?' The answer usually was hostile sullenness." Hostile sullenness: That's a perfect description of our senior senator's attitude. He could simply admit he was wrong, but instead he attacks those who were right. By the way, among them was a guy who could be challenging our governor for the Republican nomination for president next year. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is the leading genuine - as opposed to "neo" - conservative in Congress. He had this to say when I asked him in 2013 about the pressure being put on Obama to attack Syria:     As for Paul, he said there's something wrong when Republicans are on the same side of the issue as the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. That's New Jersey's own Sen. Robert Menendez, who Paul termed "the leading proponent of getting us involved in war." The best I can say for Menendez is that at least he's a Democrat. I can't stand it when Republicans like McCain and Graham fall for this bleeding-heart nonsense about "liberating" the people of the Mideast at U.S. expense. But Democrats believe in wasting our money on social engineering. So at least he's consistent. But he's catching a lot of heat from his fellow Democrats for his attack on President Obama. Menendez accused Obama of repeating "talking points straight out of Tehran" in a speech about the need to negotiate with the Iranians over nuclear issues. But thanks to people like Menendez, Obama's got little choice but to be nice to the Iranians. Like it or not, the Iranians are our de facto ally in the effort to eliminate ISIS from Iraq and Syria. Once Menendez and the neocons kneecapped Assad, there was no one left to fight the Sunni madmen that rose to power in the vacuum. Now it's up to the Shia to beat back their ancient enemies the Sunni. And the Shia in Iran actually know how to fight, unlike the Shia that George W. Bush put in charge of Iraq. Menendez pats himself on the back for having voted against the Iraq War. But back then his vote had little meaning; it was one of 435 in the House. During the run-up to the Syria debacle, however, he held the single most powerful foreign-policy position in the Senate. And he said things like this:     Beyond arming the "moderate elements" of the rebels, the senator said he was open to considering options like tearing up Syrian airfields.     "If (Syrian President Bashar) Assad continues to have unlimited air power and artillery, that's a hard battle to win," Menendez said. "You can't just simply send them a pea shooter against a blunderbuss at the end of the day, or else . . . time is not on our side, and our vital national security interests will not be pursued." That air power is now being used to bomb ISIS. But if Menendez had had his way, those planes would be stuck on the ground. [ie Syrian planes.] As for "vital national security interests," we never had any concerning Syria. Assad was willing to work with us on any effort against Islamic fundamentalists, for the simple reason that they have always wanted to overthrow his secular regime. There's plenty more of this to be found, all of it equally shortsighted. That's bad enough. Worse, even at this late date Menendez doesn't seem to realize the dimensions of the debacle he helped create as chairman. What he helped create is nothing less than a Sunni-vs.-Shia war for control of the region. You've got to pick one. If you oppose Iran, then you support ISIS. If you oppose ISIS, then you support Iran. And it should be obvious to anyone taking the traditional America-first position, which side to take. The Shia make up less than a tenth of the world's Muslims and they are concentrated in a small area in the Mideast. Iran is a regional power with a defense budget one-hundredth the size of our own. The Sunni, by contrast, control major countries such as Pakistan and have colonies all over the world, including in such countries as France, Great Britain and the U.S. They have vast oil wealth and expansionist goals. And then of course there are secular leaders like Assad. Why anyone would believe it is in the U.S. interests to depose a secular leader in a Muslim land is a mystery to every true conservative in America. Menendez does not pretend to be a conservative of course. He's a flaming liberal and unlike McCain, Graham and the rest of the neocons, he admits it. But the sole job of a politicians is to make decisions. You have to take your pick which side you're on. There's no middle ground. Anyone who can say "vetted moderate rebels" without laughing should be disqualified from further comment on the Mideast. And it's no excuse to say that someone told you to say it. If they told you to jump in the Potomac, Senator, would you jump? I think we know the answer to that one. I'll lend you a wetsuit. The water's cold this time of year. http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/01/menendez_blames_everyone_but_himself_for_the_mess.html COMMENT Really enjoyed reading this article. Noticed Marco Rubio has popped up again.  Gee, fancy that. McCain would support corporate-military interests & 'liberation' is just a useful tool to further the agenda of interests he supports (including, most likely, the agenda of the pro-Israel lobbies, judging by information on McCain). Lindsey Graham would most likely also support those same interests, judging by these extracts from Wikipedia: Lindsey Graham Graham is a leading foreign policy hawk and interventionist.  He is known for his willingness to be bipartisan and work with Democrats ... Military Graham was commissioned as an officer and Judge Advocate in the United States Air Force in 1982. He was placed on active duty and in 1984, he was sent to Europe as a military prosecutor and defense attorney, serving at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany. After four years in Europe, he returned to South Carolina and then left active duty in 1989.  He subsequently entered private practice as a lawyer. ... joined the South Carolina Air National Guard in 1989, where he served until 1995, then joining the U.S. Air Force Reserve. During the Gulf War, he was recalled to active duty, serving as a Judge Advocate at McEntire Air National Guard Station in Eastover, South Carolina, where he helped brief departing pilots on the laws of war. In 2004, Graham received a promotion to Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve at a White House ceremony officiated by President George W. Bush. Graham served in Iraq as a reservist on active duty for short periods during April and two weeks in August 2007, where he worked on detainee and rule-of-law issues. He also served in Afghanistan during the August 2009 Senate recess. Since then, Graham has been assigned as a senior instructor for the U.S. Air Force JAG Corps. He also serves as an Air Force Reserve appellate judge. NSA In response to the 2013 disclosures about the United States National Security Agency and its international partners' global surveillance of foreign nationals and U.S. citizens, Graham said that he was "glad" the NSA was collecting phone records. Foreign Policy A leading foreign policy hawk, Graham supports an interventionist foreign policy.  Graham and his fellow Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman, who were frequently dubbed "the three amigos", travelled widely, pushing for American military intervention, particularly after the September 11 attacks. On November 6, 2010, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Graham called for a pre-emptive military strike to "neuter" the Iranian regime. He is an advisor to The Atlantic Bridge. Graham is an unabashed supporter of Israel. Graham threatened to derail the confirmation of President Obama's nomination for secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, remarking that Hagel "would be the most antagonistic secretary of defense towards the state of Israel in our nation’s history." On February 28, 2013, Graham criticized President Obama and both political parties on the Senate floor for allowing the budget reduction to occur with "two-thirds of the budget" exempt from reductions and said the impact on the Department of Defense would create a "hollow military" that "invites aggression". Graham also said the U.S. should aim to "drive the Russian economy into the ground." Graham is close friends with Arizona Senator John McCain. He supported McCain's presidential bid in 2000 and served as national co-chairman of McCain's 2008 presidential bid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsey_Graham Getting back to McCain, the conclusion that McCain is also a pro-Israel senator like his friend Lindsey Graham appears supported: John McCain During the 2008 presidential campaign, McCain's advisors stated that they were not in favor of the peace negotiations then ongoing between Israel and Syria. ... McCain has courted the support of individuals and groups that are opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state. In 2008, McCain's advisors stated that they did not favor continuing the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. John McCain has called the crisis with Iran "the most serious crisis we have faced – outside of the entire war on terror – since the end of the Cold War." "Nuclear capability in Iran is unacceptable," said McCain. McCain has cited Iran's stance towards Israel as justification for his aggressive policy towards Iran, saying, "Iran is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. That alone should concern us but now they are trying for nuclear capabilities. I totally support the president when he says we will not allow Iran to destroy Israel." McCain tried to persuade FIFA to ban Iran from the 2006 World Cup, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denials as the reason since such denials in Germany, where the competition was held, are illegal. In June 2008, a group of congressional Democrats criticized McCain for voting against 2005 legislation that would have toughened sanctions against Iran. "McCain tries to give the impression that he's tough on Iran, but when it came time to stand up to party leaders and Big Oil, John McCain stood down," said senator Frank Lautenberg. [Big Oil won?] McCain supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the U.S. decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein. McCain was an advocate for strong military measures against those responsible for the September 11 attacks in 2001 and supported the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. On August 14, 2009, McCain, along with Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, met with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli "to talk... about a transfer of American military equipment."  At the meeting, Gaddafi's son Muatassim "emphasized Libya's interest in the purchase of U.S. lethal and non-lethal military equipment," and McCain "assured Muatassim that the United States wanted to provide Libya with the equipment it needs."   During the 2011 Libyan civil war, McCain called for the removal of Gaddafi from power, due to Gaddafi having "'American blood on his hands' from the 1988 Lockerbie bombing."  In April 2011, he became the 'highest-profile Western politician' to visit the rebels in Libya, urging Washington to consider a ground attack that aims for the absolute removal of Gaddafi.  He later said the airpower policy that Obama had pursued should be the model for American actions against other countries in the region. "It is time to bring Kosovo – and the Balkans with it – out of the 1990s and into the 21st century by recognizing Kosovo's independence. During the crisis in the Serbian breakaway province of Kosovo in 1999, McCain urged President Clinton to use all necessary force. McCain maintains a relatively moderate stance concerning Pakistan, although he has recognized the South Asian nation as an important part of US Foreign Policy. In the aftermath of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination (in December 2007) McCain appeared to rule out the option of US forces entering Pakistan, saying that it was not an appropriate time to "threaten" Pakistan.  [What's the deal here?] McCain was a fierce opponent of Putin's Invasion of Chechnya describing it as "a bloody war against Chechnya's civilian population." He stated "Yes, there are Chechen terrorists, but there are many Chechens who took up arms only after the atrocities committed by Russian forces serving first under Boris Yeltsin's and then Putin's orders." [Supports Chechnya extremists.] McCain is a strong supporter of ballistic national missile defenses.  Russia threatened to place short-range nuclear missiles on the Russia’s border with NATO if the United States refuses to abandon plans to deploy 10 interceptor missiles and a radar in Poland and the Czech Republic.  In April 2007, Putin warned of a new Cold War if the Americans deployed the shield in the former Eastern Bloc.  Putin also said that Russia is prepared to abandon its obligations under a Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 with the United States. During the Syrian civil war that began in 2011, McCain was a vocal supporter of the U.S. intervening militarily in the conflict on the side of the anti-government forces. He called for arming the Free Syrian Army with heavy weapons and for the establishment of a no-fly zone over the country. McCain also stated his agreement with the belief that the U.S. is a "Christian nation." On September 30, 2007, he clarified his remarks by saying "What I do mean to say is the United States of America was founded on the values of Judeo-Christian values, which were translated by our founding fathers which is basically the rights of human dignity and human rights."  McCain also stated, “I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values.” In February 2013, McCain reiterated his belief that America is "a Judeo-Christian nation." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_John_McCain What about this guy, Bob Menendez?  Here's a bit about Menendez: Bob Menendez Parents:  Cuban immigrants / 1953Menendez, who is described as very close to Republicans on foreign policy voted for the failed Kosovo Resolution, authorizing the use of military force against Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War.   He was an early advocate of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities. Wikipedia .................................................... First Latino chair of the Foreign Relations Committee Menendez fiercely pro-embargo - Cuba Menendez represents the pro-Israel wing of the Democratic party — thanks in part to the large Jewish population in New Jersey — that has been pushing the President to get tougher on Iran. Menendez (with Republican Senator Mark Kirk) co-authored sweeping sanctions 2012 against Iran ... Menendez has voiced reservations about Chuck Hagel, Obama’s nominee to run the Pentagon, because of Hagel’s past statements on Iran. Menendez "chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2010, outraising Republicans $130 million to $115 million in a big GOP year." http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/14/meet-bob-menendez-kerrys-successor-on-the-foreign-relations-committee/ In the Time article, Menendez is described as representing "the pro-Israel wing of the Democratic party." So, it looks as though there may be a common influence on US foreign policy:  pro-Israel senators.