CIA & US-Allied Intelligence - Lies, Propaganda, in-house plants & push to war

Editor of major newspaper says he planted stories for CIA By Ralph Lopez     Jan 26, 2015 in World  Becoming the first credentialed, well-known media insider to step forward and state publicly that he was secretly a "propagandist," an editor of a major German daily has said that he personally planted stories for the CIA.  Saying he believes a medical condition gives him only a few years to live, and that he is filled with remorse, Dr. Udo Ulfkotte, the editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's largest newspapers, said in an interview that he accepted news stories written and given to him by the CIA and published them under his own name. Ulfkotte said the aim of much of the deception was to drive nations toward war.  Dr. Ulfkotte says the corruption of journalists and major news outlets by the CIA is routine, accepted, and widespread in the western media, and that journalists who do not comply either cannot get jobs at any news organization, or find their careers cut short.  Dr. Ulfkotte is the author of a book currently available only in German, "Bought Journalists" (Kopp 2014.) Aged 55, he was also once an advisor to the government of German Chancellor Helmet Kohl.  The book has become a bestseller in Germany but, in a bizarre twist which Ulfkotte says characterizes the disconnect caused by CIA control of the western media, the book cannot be reported on.  Ulfkotte says: ""No German mainstream journalist is allowed to report about [my] book. Otherwise he or she will be sacked. So we have a bestseller now that no German journalist is allowed to write or talk about."" Among the stories Ulfkotte says he was ordered to plant in his newspaper over the years was a story that Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi was building poison gas factories in 2011. Ulfkotte also says he was an eyewitness to Saddam Hussein's use of poison gas against Iranians in the war between Iran and Iraq, but that the editors he worked for at the time were not interested, because Iraq was a US ally at the time.  Ulfkotte says he is better positioned to come forward than many journalists because he does not have children who could be threatened. Ulfkotte told the Russian newspaper Russian Insider (RI):  ""When I told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Ulfkotte's nwspaper) that I would publish the book, their lawyers sent me a letter threatening with all legal consequences if I would publish any names or secrets – but I don’t mind. You see, I don’t have children to take care of. And you must know I was severely injured during the gas attack I witnessed in Iran in 1988. I'm the sole German survivor from a German poison gas attack. I’m still suffering from this. I’ve had three heart attacks. I don’t expect to live for more than a few years."" Ulfkotte says that remorse of having "lied" to mass audiences over the years drove him to come forward. He told RI that he was:  ""taught to lie, to betray and not to tell the truth to the public."" Ulfkotte says:  ""I'm ashamed I was part of it. Unfortunately I cannot reverse this.""  Among the admissions that Ulfkotte makes in the interview are putting his own name to articles completely written by intelligence agencies. He said:  ""I ended up publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligence services, especially the German secret service.""  Ulfkotte detailed the pattern of cajolery and outright bribery used by the CIA and other US-allied intelligence agencies, for the purpose of advancing political agendas. Ulfkotte said:  ""once you're connected, you make friends with selected Americans. You think they are your friends and you start cooperating. They work on your ego, make you feel like you're important. And one day one of them will ask you 'Will you do me this favor'...""  Ulfkotte noted that a journalists on international press trips paid for by organizations close to the government are unlikely to submit a storyline not favorable to the sponsor.  Of the gassing of Iranians he had witnessed in the Eighties, Ulfkoppe said:  ""they asked me to hand over the photo's that I had made to the German association of chemical companies in Frankfurt, Verband der Chemischen Industrie. This poison gas that had killed so many Iranians was made in Germany.""  In an interview with Russia Today, Ulfkotte said that it was "not right" what he had done, and that his fear was that politicians were actively driving the world toward war:  ""it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do, and have done in the past, because they are bribed to betray the people not only in Germany, all over Europe. … I am very fearful of a new war in Europe, and I don’t like to have this situation again, because war is never coming from itself, there is always people who push for war, and this is not only politicians, it is journalists too. … We have betrayed our readers, just to push for war. … I don’t want this anymore, I’m fed up with this propaganda. We live in a banana republic, and not in a democratic country where we have press freedom...""  In his book "The CIA and the Media," Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein quotes William B. Bader, former CIA intelligence officer, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Baeder said:  ""There is quite an incredible spread of relationships. You don’t need to manipulate Time magazine, for example, because there are [Central Intelligence] Agency people at the management level.""  Bernstein writes:  ""The Agency’s relationship with the Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966, about ten CIA employees were provided Times cover under arrangements approved by the newspaper’s late publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. The cover arrangements were part of a general Times policy—set by Sulzberger—to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible.""  Ulfkotte was on the staff of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation from 1999 to 2003, according to his Wikipedia entry. He won the civic prize from the Annette Barthelt Foundation in 2003. http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/editor-of-major-german-newspaper-says-he-planted-stories-for-cia/article/424470 COMMENT So much for the 'free press'. The world's a corrupt cesspit ... and we're all doomed.  Look-Ups Arthur Hays Sulzberger publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961 anti Zionism & anti Jewish state supporter of the American Council for Judaism, founded in June 1942 to oppose Zionism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hays_Sulzberger Operation Mockingbird commencing 1950s, CIA campaign to influence media CIA "recruited leading American journalists into a network to help present the CIA's views, and funded some student and cultural organizations, and magazines as fronts. As it developed, it also worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns, in addition to activities by other operating units of the CIA." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird Udo Ulfkotte German journalist formerly an editor for one of Germany's main dailies, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) an advisor to the Kohl government 1986-1998 [Disclosed that]   CIA and German intelligence (BND) bribe journalists in Germany to write pro-NATO propaganda articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udo_Ulfkotte Looks like Operation Mockingbird has never really ended.

Israel & ICC

Israel’s attempt to undercut ICC is world’s worst tribute to Auschwitz liberation Why is the Jewish state seeking to unhinge the sole international body that's out to fulfill the promise of 'Never Again'?  By Jess Salomon    | Feb. 2, 2015 | 7:58 PM It is hard to imagine a less fitting tribute to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz than Israel’s international lobbying effort to cut funding to the International Criminal Court, an institution whose mandate is to hold individuals accountable for crimes such as, you guessed it, genocide. Yet, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it was revealed that a number of the ICC's top donors will reject Israel’s lobbying efforts to dent funding to the court, which is currently running on a very tight budget to deal with cases involving a Ugandan commander of the rebel Lord Resistance Army (that’s Kony’s gang), Congolese rebel commanders, and the former president of Côte d’Ivoire, among others. The states who said they would reject Israel's efforts to effectively cripple the court include Canada, a steadfast Israeli ally, and Germany, which, given its history, stated that it “couldn’t imagine” cutting funding. [ ...] ... Moreover, the ICC statute contains an essential jurisdictional safeguard in that it is complimentary to national jurisdictions. The ICC can only prosecute in cases where a member state has proven itself unwilling or unable to genuinely carry out the investigation or prosecution. It’s not like a team of international lawyers is about to swoop into Israel to kidnap her soldiers before she's had a chance to deal with them herself. Israel’s request that states stop funding the ICC – funds it needs to pay its staff – comes on the heels of her punishing the Palestinians for submitting to the court’s jurisdiction by holding back Palestinian tax dollars that the Palestinian Authority needs to pay its civil servants. (Well, at least Israel hasn't built a settlement on the court’s property.) Palestine should be lauded for taking the unilateral action of submitting itself to the ICC’s jurisdiction, for it represents a desire to peacefully address crimes committed on its territory by all parties. One of the major reasons to hold individual people accountable is to avoid assigning collective guilt – that is, to the Palestinian or Israeli people on the whole – and thereby stop a cycle of violent retribution by one group against another. Israel’s go-to argument is of course that international institutions are biased and politicized and, so, it chooses to boycott and obstruct them. But the ICC isn’t a political body, no matter what Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman claims. It isn’t even a part of the UN system. There have, however, been times when states made the court’s work next-to impossible, such as when the prosecutor was forced to drop charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta due a lack of evidence that was caused by Kenya’s obstruction, but that doesn’t seem to be Israel’s genuine concern. Rather, it seems that Israel is the one attempting to politicize the court. [ ...] EXTRACTS ONLY - FULL @ SOURCE http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.640409 COMMENT Another good article. This one is written by: Jess Salomon is a former UN war crimes lawyer from Montreal, Canada, who is now a stand-up comic. Wow, that's some career change. Anyway, this is a bit more on Israel and its lobbying against ICC.

USG - Google Investigation of WikiLeaks Staff - Broad Attack on Free Speech & Free Press

Google, gag orders and WikiLeaks: who’s lying? Jeff John Roberts    Feb. 2, 2015 - 6:26 AM PST The political fallout of WikiLeaks has passed, but the fury of law enforcement has not. More than four years after the organization published a trove of U.S. diplomatic cables, federal agents continue to wage a secret legal campaign to put the screws to those responsible. This month, a new twist to the story emerged as lawyers for WikiLeaks accused Google of betraying its users by secretly turning over their communications to the Justice Department. Google shot back that it did all that it could, but the government stifled the company with gag orders. The dispute suggests someone is not telling the truth but, at a deeper level, points to the problem of secret rabbit holes in the U.S. justice system that obscure the existence of criminal investigations. [ ... ] ... the biggest liar in the Google-WikiLeaks affair: the U.S. government, which claims that national security requires it to disregard even the most basic principles of procedural justice by scrubbing the very existence of certain dockets — including ones that appear to have no obvious tie to security. Keep in mind that the secret court orders related to the Google-WikiLeaks conflict are not about disrupting potential terrorist plots. Instead, they represent a process for the Justice Department to search the correspondence of people who consider themselves to be journalists, and to use gag orders to ensure it takes years to learn a search has taken place at all. This is just the latest spread of a shadow justice system that serves to breed paranoia and distrust. Whether you believe Google or WikiLeaks, their current dispute wouldn’t exist in the first place if the Justice Department scaled back its use of secret investigations. “Central to this whole question, is not just Google, but the federal government,” Ratner said. “This entire investigation, including the search warrants, is a broad attack on free speech and free press. It should have never begun, and certainly should have ended long ago.” EXTRACT ONLY - FULL @ SOURCE https://gigaom.com/2015/02/02/google-gag-orders-and-wikileaks-whos-lying/ COMMENT An example of the US government misusing the law to target and punish foreign journalists exercising free speech and freedom of press. PS   The impact of US secret investigations campaign against these journalists would have an implication for all journalists, including Americans.

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).