U.S. government smear campaign against reporters exposing the drone wars

by John Hanrahan

Why is the New York Times enabling a U.S. government smear campaign against reporters exposing the drone wars?

The Times let government officials anonymously attack a group of journalists and a lawyer who have uncovered evidence that belies the White House's claim that drones aren't killing many civilians. Was their rationale for that justified?

A human rights lawyer and a group of investigative journalists who have exposed the extensive civilian casualties from CIA drone strikes in Pakistan are being smeared by anonymous U.S. government officials, who have even accused them of being sympathetic to al Qaeda.

Two of the anonymous accusations came in articles in The New York Times, despite the paper's own rules against personal attacks by unnamed sources.

Pakistani human rights attorney Shahzad Akbar and the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) say the campaign is intended to deter mainstream news organizations from reporting that the White House is lying about how many innocent people are being killed by the drone strikes.

President Obama's top terrorism adviser John O. Brennan recently contended that civilian deaths were "exceedingly rare." The BIJ, though, puts total drone deaths in Pakistan since 2004 at between 2,440 and 3,113, and they say between 479 and 821 of the dead were civilians, including 174 children. Drone attacks in Pakistan have dramatically increased since Obama took office: President Bush was responsible for 52; Obama for 270 and counting.

Relying on the BIJ’s comprehensive research and his own investigations in support of a number of clients who are drone victims or families of victims and who are suing the CIA, Akbar has for the last two years sharply challenged U.S. government assertions regarding civilian casualties, most recently by filing two lawsuits in Pakistan, demanding a criminal investigation into the killings by Hellfire missile of some 50 people, including tribal elders in Waziristan in March 2011. (See Niemanwatchdog.org's May 10 story, Civilian drone victims, unrecognized by the U.S. government and public, seek justice.)

Akbar's public criticisms of the program, including naming the CIA station chief in Pakistan and calling for his trial on murder charges for drone killings of civilians, has made him a particular thorn in the side of U.S. officials.

The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism is a not-for-profit organization made up of former editors and reporters for major U.K. news organizations that undertakes investigations on a variety of subjects for various print and broadcast outlets in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Akbar and BIJ senior reporter Chris Woods both spoke recently at an international drone conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the peace group Code Pink, the U.K.-based human rights group Reprieve, and the Pakistan-based Foundation for Fundamental Rights, which Akbar heads.

Woods told the conference audience that his organization had been subjected to an anonymous smear campaign by the CIA. The agency, he said, has attacked his organization’s findings aggressively “and has asked our partners” — newspapers and broadcasters who have collaborated with BIJ — not to use BIJ’s reports.

Two of the anonymous smears came from unnamed U.S. government sources quoted in two separate New York Times articles reporting on Akbar’s and BIJ’s findings. The writer of both stories was the Times's highly regarded national security reporter, Scott Shane.

Brennan, in June 2011, asserted that in the preceding 12 months, "there hasn't been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we've been able to develop."

In an August 11, 2011 Times article, Shane reported Akbar and BIJ's evidence to the contrary. But he also wrote: “American officials accuse Mr. Akbar of working to discredit the drone program at the behest of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, the Pakistani spy service. Mr. Akbar and others who know him strongly deny the accusation.”

Shane quoted another human rights lawyer who worked with Akbar in Pakistan and who described the anonymous charges of ISI connections as “not credible at all.” But the article also allowed unnamed officials to take a shot at BIJ: “American officials said the Bureau of Investigative Journalism report was suspect because it relied in part on information supplied by Mr. Akbar, who publicly named the C.I.A.’s undercover Pakistan station chief in December when announcing his legal campaign against the drones.”

More recently, on February 8, the Times reported the BIJ’s findings that the CIA’s drone attacks in Pakistan “have repeatedly targeted rescuers who responded to the scene of a strike, as well as mourners at subsequent funerals.” But after highlighting BIJ’s report, the article then allowed a “senior American counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity” to not just question the report’s findings, but to state: “One must wonder why an effort that has so carefully gone after terrorists who plot to kill civilians has been subjected to so much misinformation. Let’s be under no illusions — there are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help al Qaeda succeed.”

That latter direct quote essentially allowed the anonymous source to declare critics of the drone program as traitors and dupes.

Shane, in written responses to a number of questions that Nieman Watchdog posed to him about the two articles, said he believes this particular quote was not necessarily directed at BIJ, calling it “ambiguous, and I wish I had been able to clarify it.” He added: “Based on all my reporting over the last couple of years, I believe U.S. government officials have in mind not BIJ or other journalists as sympathizers of Al Qaeda but militants and perhaps ISI officers who supply what they consider disinformation on strikes to journalists.”

The Times’ own “Confidential News Sources Policy,” in an effort to stop the overuse or unfair use of anonymous sources, states, among other things: “We do not grant anonymity to people who use it as cover for a personal or partisan attack.”

But Shane defended the use of the anonymous quotes in the two articles, saying that he and his editors agreed that the quotes were needed to give “some voice from the other side” — that is, the government — in articles reporting allegations of civilian deaths. Until the drone-strike program is made overt and government officials can talk more freely about it, Shane said, “journalists often have a choice of quoting anonymous officials or writing stories about accusations of bad strikes and innocent deaths and including no response at all. I feel it's important to include some voice from the other side, and my editors have agreed. In addition, it seems to me important to citizens to know what the government says, even if some citizens find the statements unpersuasive or worse.”

The problem, though, with the U.S. government as the anonymous “voice from the other side,” is that the real unrepresented “voice from the other side” in the mainstream news media is that of the civilian victims. Their voices and names seldom appear in the mainstream media.

Shane should be credited for writing the two articles that gave headlines and space to the drone-strike critics. But those government officials are not so oppressed that they should be allowed to anonymously trash their critics’ reputations and motivations. Readers might reasonably assume that the Times wouldn’t run such quotes anonymously and without proof unless there were some truth to them.

Because the drone strikes occur in remote, inaccessible areas, Akbar said at the conference, “The CIA is the only source as to what’s happening on the ground in Waziristan,” so U.S. officials always tell western reporters that only armed “militants” were targeted and killed. Relying on that as the truth would be comparable, he said, to reporters relying on only the Taliban’s or other militants’ version of events when they “administer horrible punishment on citizens.” His goal, Akbar said, is to publicize cases of drone killings of civilians, using the names of the civilian dead, to force the “American president to admit that he is klling children and women in your name” and to show that the drone attacks “are not making America safer, because you are only creating more enemies.”

* * *

Since Shane’s response sheds light on what he describes as the dilemma of dealing with government officials on programs that are classified, but nevertheless very public, here is his response in full to our questions:

“The drone program, as I have written, is in the strange category of classified but public information, which creates difficulties both for government officials and for journalists. Many outsiders and some government officials think the situation is untenable and that the program should be made overt, so that real debates could take place on Congress and the public on these issues.

“In the meantime, journalists often have a choice of quoting anonymous officials or writing stories about accusations of bad strikes and innocent deaths and including no response at all. I feel it's important to include some voice from the other side, and my editors have agreed. In addition, it seems to me important to citizens to know what the government says, even if some citizens find the statements unpersuasive or worse.

“In the first [August 11] story you mention, read carefully everything about Shahzad Akbar. The story subjects to scrutiny the claim that he's an ISI tool and presents evidence to the contrary. The quote in the second story is ambiguous, and I wish I had been able to clarify it. Based on all my reporting over the last couple of years, I believe US government officials have in mind not BIJ or other journalists as sympathizers of Al Qaeda but militants and perhaps ISI officers who supply what they consider disinformation on strikes to journalists.

“It's interesting and useful to criticize journalists struggling with such dilemmas — it's a sport I have often enjoyed myself — but for a reporter this story poses real challenges without easy choices.”

John Hanrahan is a former executive director of The Fund for Investigative Journalism and reporter for The Washington Post, The Washington Star, UPI, and other news organizations.

Courtesy: Global Research.

By Paul Robert Craig

By Syed Areeb Uddin

Karachi – World’s 8th biggest metropolitan city, that was nick named the city of lights is home to almost all the lingual of the country, who come here for a greater experience in life. This business hub of Pakistan is now seen as a problematic, aggressive and treacherous city. Target killings, robbery, street crime, land/drug mafia and other such antisocial activities symbolize it. Apart from the off-putting aspects Karachi generates the country’s most revenue whereas country’s economy rests on this business hub of the country.

All such virtues and de-merits of Karachi are unbeatably evident, however now it makes one feel that Karachi is losing all kinds of tranquility and fortune for its populace. Threatening and losing of an ordinary citizen is so prevalent that it loses more than 50 people usually every week.

When analyzed there are many diverse causes which make Karachi such a non-befitting place but what is needed to be realized it’s the defense and authoritative mechanism of the city which fails to work in a desired way. In the Musharraf era, the City government system was introduced which was considered to be a workable technique to run administrative affairs around the system, but soon was dominated and defeated by the mafias making city situation get worse and today prevalent law less-ness has faded away the essence of a peaceful breath!

Faisalabad and Karachi has a humongous difference in population, count and ratio. However their government structures are still the same. For examples the entire population of Faisalabad is about a population in a single town in Karachi, even though there is evident need to expansion for a city district system in Karachi there seems none. Its highly spoken that things go unheard in Pakistan – else what's going to happen when there is deficiency in responsible bodies! 

 Similarly Lahore is the second biggest city. Making demographic comparisons Lahore supports 70 lakh people while Karachi has a population of 2 crore. Now what seems to be a very strong factor which can improve the situations of Karachi is the number of governing bodies and its employs serving the nation. Same is the setup of governance for Lahore which supports a small fraction of the population that Karachi has – same a DCO and a mayor for both the cities!

What can make things better in Karachi is immediate attention towards treating it as a VIP city which is of no harm as it produces the major income and supports international business the most as compared to the rest of the country. Addition and distribution of authorities will be able to bring out solutions and practical way outs for the major issues of the city like infrastructural town level issues. Also if new and small town based law enforcing agencies will be introduced i.e that has to deal with the town only, this will solve lingual disputes and street crime – the everyday devastations of the city.

Although the number of employs like policemen for Karachi and Lahore might vary but it doesn’t differ that much when both of them run under the same body like for example as previously compared the demography of Faisalabad and small town of Karachi – the people of Faisalabad will have adequate access to the Police and vice versa but in the same situation people of Karachi will have to go over the city level to get their issues resolute.

Industrialization and the business platform can expand in Karachi if its security is looked after more extensively. Investors, traders look for a safe place to do their business, and Karachi needs to ensure that it doesn’t stop attracting the market.

It is very important for the government to provide security for this business hub on Pakistan, where major international and national chain’s of businesses are head quartered. The city of the stock market and the State Bank! Security and opportunities for market propagation will ensure that Karachi rises again from its ashes.

Pak Army/ISI is a willfull Target of USA

"And why don't they leave........"

NOTES FROM A SOCIAL SCIENTIST

“…Who is stopping them?”

By Dr. Haider Mehdi

“Our time of awareness is a lightening flash

A blinding interval in which to know and suffer.”

                                                                                     Mirza Ghalib, translated by Adrienne Rich

Consider it the ultimate blinding lightening flash or a slap in the face of the nation, or whatever your intellect or political affiliation allows you to believe, the title of this column is a verbatim quote of Pakistan’s convicted Prime Minister, in response to a question asked by a CNN interviewer in London recently.  The British interviewer had sought the PM’s opinion on media reports that a sizable number of Pakistanis wanted to leave the country because of rampant corruption, political and fiscal mismanagement, breakdown of law and order, safety and security concerns, and lack of appropriate governance in the country.  The convicted Prime Minister, in a matter of fact manner, and with an air of absolute belief in his judgment on the question, quipped “And why don’t they leave…Who is stopping them?”

Let me take you back in time a bit: Marie Antoinette, queen of France, married to Louis XVI, when informed that the people of France had no bread to eat, purportedly said, “Let them eat cake.” This was prior to the French Revolution (1789) when eventually the French people, tired of poverty, deprivations, class society, bad governance, corruption and massive excesses of the nobles and ruling elite, publicly beheaded them. 

But that was the 18^th century. France was a monarchy. Queen Marie Antionette’s response was rooted in her ignorance and alienation from the people of France.  What else could have been expected of a ruling monarch that considered the common French citizens as their “subjects,” entitled to no better treatment or rights than “slaves” and whatever the monarchy willed it to be.  Indeed, the king/queen was the embodiment and the law unto themselves – France was king and queen, and king and queen were France – French people existed at their pleasure and perished at their will – and that was that.

In recent times, Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Emperor of Iran, the “darling” of the West and their front “henchman” in the Middle East, prior to the Iranian People’s Revolution in 1979, is reported to have “asked his opponents in Iran to leave HIS country if they did not like him.”  This showed the incredible ignorance and preposterous arrogance of a Shahan-shah who, intoxicated with power and wealth, considered himself omnipotent — Reza Pahlavi was Iran and Iran was Reza Pahlavi.  The state existed for the emperor, and the emperor was the state. In this mental disposition of alarming political and conceptual “madness,” Reza Shah’s personal view of “state” and its citizens is understandable – that is, if one is inclined to believe that a nation can be governed by a ruling elite and its leadership that is gruesomely insane and grotesquely suffers from a complete and lurid lunacy.

The question is: What is Yousef Raza Gillani’s excuse? This is May 2012. Supposedly, Pakistan is a democratic country. The convicted Prime Minister was elected by a democratically-elected parliament – and the Prime Minister’s conviction came after due process of law in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.  Understandably, logically and rationally, that is if one believes in democratic norms, the citizens of Pakistan are not the “subjects” of the incumbent PPP ruling regime or its Prime Minister. The “state” of Pakistan is not Yousef Raza Gillani, nor is Yousef Raza Gillani, the Pir from Multan, the state or law unto himself. Citizens of Pakistan are entitled to full civil, political, legal and democratic rights, and no one, not even a sitting Prime Minister, has the moral-ethical-political authority to tell them Well, you don’t like me, then leave the country.  Who is stopping you? 

This is absolute arrogance, unfathomable ignorance, and an inexcusable assault on the dignity of the nation.  But above all, the convicted PM’s emotionally-loaded, ethically-flawed, politically incorrect and sentimental barrage (Why don’t they leave? Who is stopping them?) is a direct consequence of the incumbent PPP regime’s total alienation from the mainstream populous in the streets of Pakistan.

The fact of the matter is that the PPP’s entire political leadership suffers from an incongruity, an incapability and an intellectual-political incapacity to conceptualize a strategic vision of a democratic Pakistan and its democratic-political management.  The PPP incumbent regime is entirely focused on maintaining the political status quo in the country and preserving their political power at all cost, no matter what.  The Zardari-Gillani junta considers “democracy” as a process of skillful manipulations, a craft of buying and selling loyalties, naming a price and paying it out of the national exchequer, and to hold onto power irrespective of democratic ethical-moral constraints or legitimacy of political power.  No wonder then, that today’s Pakistan stands at the verge of a failed state (the CNN interviewer in London insultingly termed Pakistan as a failed society in the face of Yousef Raza Gillani).

The convicted Pakistani Prime Minister’s visit to Britain has raised more questions on the integrity and credibility of the Zardari-Gillani regime than resolved any fundamental or important issues facing Pakistan.  In the first place, British hospitality to Gillani does not provide legitimacy to the convicted Pakistani Prime Minister, nor can it overturn the SC’s conviction. If anything, it made a public mockery of fundamental democratic norms and conventions for which Britain (needlessly) prides itself now.  Contradictions in British political behavior are becoming vividly visible – so be it.

Then there are some other important questions that still further undermine Gillani’s personal political conduct, political integrity and political credibility.  For instance, why did Gillani and Cameron have a lengthy private meeting? Did Gillani once again compromise Pakistan’s national interests and sovereignty on the issue of US-Nato supply routes?  Is Pakistan going to open US-Nato supply routes on conditions laid down by the Americans and their allies? Has there been, once again, secret arrangements and commitments between the US-Nato and Zardari-Gillani regime?  Has Cameron, on behalf of US-Nato, assured political support to Zardari’s incumbent presidency and covert backing to the PPP in Pakistan’s general election? Are the commercial incentives offered to Pakistan by Cameron subject to conditionalities? What are those conditions?   And so on and so forth? 

Will Gillani, on his return, publicly share with the nation what was talked about and agreed upon by him and the British Prime Minister? I do not think so.  The Pakistani people are being, once again, cheated by their ruling elite: that is what Gillani’s visit to England was all about – secret commitments, secret understandings, and surrendering Pakistan’s national interests to US-Nato dictates – in exchange for the West’s support of the vested interest groups in tomorrow’s Pakistan. 

Indeed, the US-Nato would not like to see a nationalist government come to power in Pakistan because they are fearful that a nationalist government would not serve their geo-political interests in the region.

The question is: Can this stop a transformation of political culture in Pakistan? Can they block a process of “Change” that is already underway in this country?

The Pakistani people are at a crossroads of an ultimate battle between what it is now and what it ought to be tomorrow!!

This is our blinding lightening flash of awareness in which to know, suffer, and prevail over our adversaries!!

We will…we will…we will…!

By Hamid Waheed

The U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited India’s capital recently to meet with government officials and business leaders. It is  hoped that Ban would have also discussed India’s own human rights record. A New York-based rights group accuses India of abuses like extrajudicial killings and widespread torture by troops and police. Ban should press the Indian government to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which gives the military sweeping powers to act in troubled and insurgency-wracked areas, including Indian-controlled Kashmir and the states of Manipur and Nagaland. The humane stance on Siachen by Pakistan also leads the social  organisations to impress on India to stop environmental and human rights violations .

By S. M. Hali

Following the exposé by “Danger Room” that a course taught at the US Defence Department’s Joint Forces College propagated “total war” against Muslims; the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff has ordered the entire US military to scour its training material to make sure it doesn’t contain similarly hateful material.  It is reprehensible that the US military taught its future leaders that a ‘total war’ against the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims would be necessary to protect America from Islamic terrorists. The future generation of senior US military officers are asked to consider using the lessons of ‘Hiroshima’ in their war against Islam to wipe out whole cities at once, targeting the ‘civilian population wherever necessary.’ The controversial course has since been canceled by Pentagon but its planner, Lieutenant Colonel Michael A. Dooley continues to maintain his teaching position at the Norfolk, Virginia College.

“Danger Room” has performed public service by exposing the Colonel Dooley, whose course may have caused serious damage since hundreds of Colonels and equivalent in the US Armed Forces have attended the course and taken up responsible positions in the US military. Colonel Dooley and his ilk have thrown the Geneva Convention IV of 1949 into the garbage pail, declaring them irrelevant, propagating the application of “the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki” to Islam’s holiest cities, and bringing about “Mecca and Medina['s] destruction.”

The power point presentation of the controversial course comprises slides in which Dooley ridicules the concept of “moderate Islam”, distorts the definition of Jihad and quotes Qur?nic Verses and Hadith out of context, stating that Islam exhorts its followers to hate Jews and Christians, commanding the faithful (Muslims) to wage war against them.

It is a cause for serious concern since we are not talking about twisted bigots like the Florida Pastor Terry Jones, who burned copies of The Holy Quràn or the US troops who accidentally burnt pages from the Muslims’ Holy Book in an incinerator at Bagram Air Base,

Class in progress - Islam is the enemy

 Afghanistan but senior members of the US military, who form the backbone of the world’s sole super power. Pentagon should be seriously concerned how a small group of self ordained counterterrorism experts have managed to penetrate the US military, intelligence and institutions of higher learning, in its heinous mission of propagating that the enemy of the US is not Al-Qaeda but the religion of Islam. Dooley, through his contentious course, exposed the participants to other rabidly anti-Muslim demagogues, brought in as guest lecturers. With their help, the participants of the course were led to the ultimate but repugnant conclusion, evident from his July 2011 presentation: “We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam. It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”

Dooley’s eight-week class commenced with a benign two-part history of Islam delivered by David Fatua, a former West Point history professor. He then launched the heavy artillery through a trio of guest lecturers famous for their incendiary views of Islam. Shireen Burki, who had declared during the 2008 election that “Obama is Osama bin Laden’s dream candidate”, in her lecture to the Joint Forces Staff College  told students that “Islam is an imperialist/conquering religion.” Stephen Coughlin, in his talk to Dooley’s class suggested that al-Qaida helped drive the overthrow of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak and Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. It was part of a scheme by Islamists to conquer the world. Former FBI employee John Guandolo informed the conspiratorial World Net Daily website last year that Obama was only the latest president to fall under the influence of Islamic extremists. Guandolojustified the Crusades, writing that they “were initiated after hundreds of years of Muslim incursion into Western lands.”

In his reference material for the Joint Forces Staff College class, Guandolo not only spoke of today’s Muslims as enemies of the West. It also included a video lecture from Serge Trifkovic, a defense witness in several trials of Bosnian Serb leaders convicted of genocide of Muslims. The video supposedly shows President Obama—the commander-in-chief of the senior officers attending the course—admitting that he’s a Muslim. The US administration should not only take severe disciplinary action against Dooley and Major General Joseph Ward, commandant” of the school, for trying to heighten inter-religion discord but for discrediting the commander-in-chief of the US forces, President Obama, being portrayed as a traitor.

Now And In The Future

An Analysis 

by Lawrence Davidson 

Part I – The Death Knell of the Two State Solution

Over the past month Palestinian leaders have begun to publicly acknowledge that continuing actions by the Israeli government, and corresponding inaction by the "international community," have destroyed any reasonable hope of a viable and independent Palestinian state. 

Listen to Ahmed Qurei, who held high office in the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat: "It is probably no longer possible to create the kind of state that we want. Now we must choose between two stark choices: either we settle for a worthless state made of hapless ghettoes and miserable slums…or struggle for one unitary and democratic state where Jews and Arabs can live equally in all of Mandate Palestine…" 

Among many Palestinian Islamic leaders, hope for the future now exists only in the form of a Quranic prophecy, which tells of Islam’s divinely inspired victory over the Jews in Palestine as punishment for the unholy behavior of the Israeli state. This might be compared to the Christian Zionist’s prophecy of the triumph of Israel presaging the second coming of Christ. 


Either way it goes, a unitary secular and democratic state or God’s intervention, Israel as a "Jewish State" is seen as terminal. Of course, that is not how the politically minded Zionists, led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party, see it. Netanyahu has recently formed a "unity" government with the major opposition party, Kadima, and by doing so appears to have secured his political leadership for some time to come. So, what sort of scenario do these Zionists seek to realize now and in the future? 


Part II – The Zionist Scenario:

How do Zionist leaders see the future? As far as I understand the situation, here is their projected scenario:

1. The Zionist leadership sees victory (Israel’s sovereign possession of all the land of Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River – some even covet Jordan) as inevitable. It is just a matter of time. This assessment is based on power relations. On the one hand, the Israelis have vast military superiority over the Palestinians and have defeated all the Arab forces sent against them. On the other, they have the United States and a good portion of Europe in their political pockets. So how can they lose? 

2. Victory means ethnically cleansing the land of most of the Palestinians–a process that is on-going. Every effort is being made to force as many as possible into exile. This is being done by an on-going policy of making life as miserable as possible for all non-Jewish natives of Israeli controlled territory. For instance, it is public knowledge in Israel (if not the U.S.) that "policebrutality against Palestinians has been routine for decades." Those who, despite all, refuse to leave, are being territorially restricted and economically marginalized. It is often speculated that the model for the latter situation is the Indian reservations in the U.S. as they existed circa 1870. And indeed, for Zionists this model can be more easily rationalized than the ghettos of old Europe. 

2a. In the process of this ethnic cleansing, the number of Palestinians who die is irrelevant to the Zionist leadership. The Palestinians, like the American Indians, are seen as hardly human. If the Zionists could make them all disappear without serious international repercussions they would do so. 

3. All this having been accomplished, Zionist leaders plan to simply maintain the status quo and wait. They believe that, just as was the case of the American Indians, the world will eventually forget the fate of the Palestinians, and this forgetting will seal Israel’s dominion over the land. At least from the Zionist point of view, that is the end of the story.


By the way, Zionists are not the only ones betting on this sort of scenario. The Chinese in Tibet, and the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, are also counting on the world forgetting their victims. And, in each case they might be right. However, it is the Zionists who are running the greatest risks pursuing this strategy of conquest. Why is that the case? 


Part III – Problems For The Zionist Scenario 

1. Israel is not a great power like China, and does not occupy a half-forgotten spot on the globe like Sri Lanka. It is very much on the map as far as vast numbers of people are concerned, both supporters and opponents. Of course, Israel continues to enjoy the patronage and protection of a great power, the U.S. But, as unlikely as it might seem at present, this can change. 

2. It is not the 18^th and 19^th centuries anymore and outright colonial domination is no longer in favor. The only way Israel can commit crimes with impunity is by: (a) playing the holocaust card and (b) sustaining the political clout of its lobbies. The first practice is rapidly wearing thin almost everywhere one looks. The second, on the other hand, is the key to their patronage and protection. Yet counter lobbies are even now evolving, and an increasingly vocal international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is on-going. The past 95 years of solid Western backing of Zionist political goals (counting from the Balfour Declaration) does not make the future a sure thing for the Israelis and their ideological supporters. 


3. As they conquer Palestine they destroy Judaism. Here is the greatest irony: ultimate success of the Zionist strategy marks the ultimate corruption of official, organized Judaism. This is so because such success seals the devil’s bargain that ties the organized aspect of this religion to the racist and anti-human goals of Zionist ideology. With the death knell of the Palestinian state comes the death knell of official Judaism. 

3a. Do you want to know why anti-Semitism appears to be on the rise? Because the Zionists have changed the definition of the term. The traditional definition tells us that anti-Semitism is hatred for Jews as Jews. The new, Zionist inspired definition, includes opposition to anything the "Jewish state" of Israel does. Oppose the political goals of Zionism and you allegedly oppose Jews and Judaism. Ergo, you’re an anti-Semite. 

3b. This assertion on the part of Zionists is, of course, a modern innovation. Yet it gains popularity based on the premise laid down by Joseph Goebbels that "if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Nonetheless, the truth is that Zionism and Israel have never been synonymous with Judaism. All Jews are not and never have been Zionists and all Zionists have never been just Jews. That being the case, the claim by Zionists that Israel and its government represent Jewry en masse is false. Yet the lie is stated over and again. The Jews who object to this false claim are now labeled "self-hating Jews." This too is nonsense. 

Part IV – What of Palestinian Resistance?


The most striking thing about the list of obstacles given above is that Palestinian resistance in places like the West Bank, Gaza and Israel proper, is not on it. Why? Again, it has to do with power relations. When, during the Second World War, resistance manifested itself against Nazi occupation, the cost was remarkably high. Partisans might shoot a German soldier, but then the German Army would shoot 50 civilians as punishment. Nonetheless, the Germans lost the war and most of the Nazis from that time have been hunted down and given their own punishment. 

The Israelis have employed the Nazi strategy of disproportionate revenge and collective punishment from the very inception of the Israeli state. If anything, the kill ratio they exact from the Palestinians is even higher than the Nazi average. But the same powers that once brought low the Nazis now either support or turn a blind eye to the savagery of the Israelis.


Under these circumstances the Palestinians have indeed been worn down. In Gaza they are confined to the world’s largest open air prison and in the West Bank most of their leaders are either in prison or have been turned into collaborators. It has gotten to the point where the most effective act of resistance they can muster is the threat that over a thousand of them, locked away in Israeli prisons without charge or trial, will starve themselves to death. 

Part V – Conclusion 

The death knell of the two state solution and its corresponding corruption of official Judaism is not the end of the story. But, the final chapter can no longer be written by the Palestinians alone. The West began the present horror in the "Holy Land" when it sought to pay for the sin of European anti-Semitism by allowing the destruction of the Palestinian people. Ultimately, it is only with help from the West that the situation can be put right. However, as long as they are under the corrupting influence of Zionism, most governments will not seek to do so. So this corrective effort has to be undertaken by a movement of civil society – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. And the Jews of the world better hope and pray for its success. For it is not just the fate of the Palestinians that rides on the outcome. It is the fate of the Jews as well.

By Franklin Lamb

Beirut

It might require a semanticist with Noam Chomsky’s  erudition to explain to some of  us more obtuse  the meanings, context, and policy nuances of two similar and repeated phases heard  in Lebanon earlier this month by two well listened to guests . During over-lapping visits of top US and Iranian officials to Lebanon; one warned and threatened Lebanon, while the second praised Lebanon’s “achievements”.  Admittedly, divining these Lebanese ‘achievements” is no mean task.

Making the front page lead paragraph in a number of Beirut and Middle East dailies last Friday were nearly simultaneous summations by the two visitors as they articulated their country’s policy toward Lebanon.

One visitor was Jeffrey Feltman, the long serving US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, who for all intents and purposes in still US Ambassador to Lebanon and elsewhere in the Levant.  Mr. Feltman is well known in Lebanon and many here actually view him as a too frequent visitor, who rather like the Li'l Abner comic strip character Joe Btfsplk, personifies the World’s worst jinx who always travels with a dark cloud over his head. Assistant Secretary Feltman repeated his seven year mantra during a meeting with Prime Minister Najib Mikati, of warnings for the Lebanese government and citizens to break with Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran.

On the arguably more positive side, as he had so many times in the past, Assistant Secretary Feltman renewed the United States’ commitment to “a stable, sovereign and independent Lebanon”.   And he repeated these words to the President of the Chamber of Deputies Speaker Nabih Berri, Progressive Socialist Party Leader MP Walid Jumblatt, Lebanese Forces Party President Samir Geagea, Maronite Bishop of Beirut Boulous Matar, and March 14 politicians.  All of whom presumably hear the words in their sleep by now as all visiting US officials repeat Feltman’s buzz words.

A few hours earlier, another visitor, the Iranian First Vice President, Mohammad Rida Rahimi, having arrived in Lebanon in a bid to implement agreements signed between both countries, some since 1996, pledged Iran’s commitment to Lebanon’s  “freedom, independence and sovereignty”.

The two gentlemen used 67% of the same key words but their meanings appear vastly different and that’s why some of us, certainly this observer, could use some help from a serious student of the subject.

Feltman told his interlocutors that he came to Lebanon to express his country’s “grave concern" on a number of issues including Hezbollah and its links with Iran and Syria. He also gave instructions on next year’s parliamentary elections which his team, the March 14 opposition, has threatened to boycott.  If they do, according to some analysts here, their decision will have resulted from Feltman’s instructions.

The Beirut Daily, As-Safir, reported that Feltman's sole purpose was to lash out at Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah.

And he did.

Feltman repeatedly warned that "if some sides in Lebanon seek to circumvent the sanctions on Iran then the Lebanese government will face “very serious complicated problems with the international community. The “International Community” is increasingly defined as “US allies”.During his meeting at the obsequious and literally genuflecting pro-Saudi MP Boutros Harb's house, whose front page photograph showed the MP bowing deeply to Feltman, threatened that “the United States is keen not to allow any exploitation of the bank secrecy in Lebanon, in order to bypass the sanctions on Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria. This enters deep into US strategy."

Feltman’s threats continued as he sought to pressure businessmen in Syria and Lebanon:  "Not abiding by the US and International sanctions will have dangerous repercussions on the Lebanese banking sector."  More than once Feltman warned the Lebanese, with reference to the recent unilateral sanctions imposed on the Central Bank of Iran, not to underestimate the American capacity to monitor and trace deposits and transfers. Most Lebanese are generally aware that US Treasury officials have been swarming Lebanon the past two years in order to intimidate Lebanon’s banking sector and shore up the failing US sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Assistant Secretary Feltman, as he has done for the past seven years, repeated to his Lebanese hosts that the US would consider providing arms to the Lebanese army.  While nearly everyone in Lebanon realizes that the American Congress will veto even shoe laces for the Lebanese army without Israel’s approval, Iran is ready to help.  Lebanese Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn announced this week that Iran is ready to ship weapons to the Lebanese army and that the shipments will begin as soon as Prime Ministers Najib Mikati’s government finalizes its own political decision.  “The Iranian weapons are ready Ghosn told a Beirut Daily As-Safir. “ Our request is there [in Iran]. What is missing is a political decision from the Cabinet to provide support for the Lebanese Army.”  Mr. Feltman is working diligently to assure that the Cabinet does not give its approval.

While Feltman was busy so was Iranian First Vice-President Rahimi.  Rahimi signed three memorandums of understanding agreed upon in previous meetings.

During his meetings, the Iranian first Vice President stressed his country's “total support for Lebanon on the political, economic, and development levels.”

According to sources attending the Joint Lebanese-Iranian Higher Committee meeting, Rahimi discussed Iranian support to Lebanon on the oil, electricity, economic, trade, and agricultural levels, in addition to Iran's interest in constructing water dams.

 To give credence to his words, Rahimi presented a $40 million Iranian grant to Lebanon to pay for the construction of a dam in the Batroun region. He further announced that as the agreement's executive program has been signed in both Tehran and Beirut, Iranian engineers will soon arrive in Lebanon to begin a project that the American government has discussed since the late 1970’s but has always conditioned US help to Lebanon on “better relations” with Israel.

With respect to Lebanon’s continuing electricity crisis, which leaves many in Lebanon with only 4-8 hours of government electrify per day, an Iranian Energy Ministry official said over the weekend that Iran would begin providing Lebanon with electricity next week. Abdolhamid Farzam, the Iranian Energy Ministry's official in charge of foreign exchanges, was reported as saying that Iran would supply Lebanon with 50 Megawatts during an initial phase, to be boosted to 200 MW in the second phase.

On the subject of Israel, which is said to deeply concern Feltman, one American stringer for a major US daily who was covering the two envoys visit noted that Embassy sources advised that Feltman was in a bad mood during part of his visit for a few reasons. One was because he was not advised of the Iranian Vice-Presidents simultaneous visit. Another was because he not told about the May 12th celebrations organized by Hezbollah and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah speech that were sure to dominate a news cycle.  The Hezbollah mass event was to acknowledge the success of its building and construction unit, WAAD (‘promise), in completing after nearly four years of nearly 24/7 rebuilding, 275 high rise apartment buildings housing more than ten thousand citizens in South Beirut. The destruction was caused by American weapons in the hands of Zionist forces and destroyed with carpet bombing Dahiyeh/Haret Hreik neighborhoods during the 33 days of the July 2006 aggression against Lebanon.

Feltman complained that there were American citizens who were tenets in some of the recently completed buildings that cost more than $ 450 to rebuild, despite both Hezbollah and its construction company, Jihad al Binna being put on US terrorism lists at his initiative.  He reportedly demanded an investigation.

According to the same sources, Assistant Secretary Feltman was grousing over discouraging reports that another one of his projects, this one to salvage Camp David, was experiencing turbulence.  Specifically, he was briefed that the current front runner in the May 23-24 Egyptian Presidential election, Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, has branded Israel a "racist state" and repeated to cheering crowds that the 1979 peace treaty with Israel was "a national security threat" that had to be scrapped and added that Israel and its supporters were “enemies of the Egyptian people.”

To make matters and his mood worse, the American Assistant Secretary was informed that another strong Egyptian presidential candidate, Ahmed Shafiq is exciting crowds with his campaign claim that the former air force chief had shot down two Israeli planes during the War of Attrition which Egypt declared between 1969 and 1970. "General Ahmed Shafiq has a great military record and career," his campaign statement said.

Priding himself on being an adherent of realpolitik, Feltman is observing Israel being rejected by Arabs, Muslims and increasingly by the grounding swelling movement by people of good will including his own countrymen.  He reportedly told one interviewer recently that he sees his role as “trying to staunch the coming tsunami of global rejection and delegitimization of Israel, and it’s not going to be easy.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Vice-President Rahimi’s program included a meeting with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, and a visit to the hugely popular with many Lebanese families, "Iran" Gardens in the southern village of Maroun al-Ras located on Lebanon's borders with occupied Palestine. From this hillside vantage point, on a clear day one can see Akka and other ethnically cleansed areas.

Similar words from Washington and Tehran to Beirut via experienced envoys. But fundamentally different approaches and deeds as has so often has been the case over the past decade.

Washington has, in important strategic respects, handed Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and soon more of the Persian Gulf countries to Iran’s rising presence and influence.

Next is likely Lebanon.

Can Palestine be far behind?

By Alan Hart

As Ilan Pappe has said, most Israeli Jews have no idea of what they did to the Palestinians in 1948. (He also said that those who do know don’t think that what was done was wrong). But that’s only the tip of an iceberg of ignorance.

Because of the mainstream media’s complicity in Zionism’s suppression of the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, most Americans and Europeans of all faiths and none have no idea of the enormity of Zionism’s crimes.

The Arabic word for what happened in the months before and after Israel’s unilateral declaration of independence on 14 May 1948 is Nakba, meaning catastrophe. That’s a one word description of the fact that upwards of 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were dispossessed of their land, their homes and their rights, but complete understanding requires knowledge of something else. Nakba was not simply an event in history. It is a process of ethnic cleansing, a process that has been on-going for 64 years to date and is continuing.

A timely reminder of this fact was contained in an article for the web site This Week in Palestine by Ibrahim Matar, an economist writing from Jerusalem.

He opened his piece by quoting a statement made by Ra’anan Weitz, the director of the Jewish Agency’s Settlement Department in 1948. “I ploughed Palestine into earth by ordering the demolition of 300 abandoned Palestinian villages from the Negev to the Galilee.” (The quotation was from an interview Weitz gave to the Jerusalem Post published on 7 March 1997).

Matar ended his piece with these words of his own:

“The bottom line to the tragedy of the Palestinians is that the Catastrophe of 1948 is still going on, as Jewish colonisation of the West Bank continues to expand. The objectives of the Jews have not changed since the early part of the twentieth century. Their motto continues to be ‘dunum after dunum of land’ for the exclusive use of Jews.

The Jews claim that the Palestinians wish to destroy Israel. The fact is that the Jews have already literally destroyed Palestine, and in front of the watchful eyes of the world community represented by the Quartet, they continue with their policies and practices to complete the liquidation of the Palestinian presence in historical Palestine.”

Question: Is completion of the liquidation of the Palestinian presence in historical Palestine really Zionism’s mission?

I believe the answer is “Yes”, and that unless the major powers led by America summon up the will to call and hold Zionism’s monster child to account for its crimes, there will be a final ethnic cleansing of Palestine at some point in a foreseeable future.

Footnote

I also believe that Matar should be more precise with his language. His use of “the Jews” implies that all Jews everywhere are responsible for Zionism’s crimes. That is not so, but… If the rising global tide of anti-Israelism is not to be transformed into anti-Semitism, making another great turning against Jews everywhere inevitable at some point, the Jews of the world must play their necessary part in containing and confronting Zionism. As I never tire of pointing out, silence is not the way to refute and demolish a charge of complicity in Zionism’s crimes.