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Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts

Friday, March 27, 2015

Mossad Chief Secretly Met With Top U.S. Officials Including Sitting Senators


The Intel Hub
February 1, 2012

A clandestine Washington visit by Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo, in which he privately met with multiple Senators and other top officials, was revealed in testimony  during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence attended by CIA director David Petraeus (CFR) and Intel Chief James Clapper.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Washington's Al Qaeda Ally Now Leading ISIS in Libya

 Republican senators McCain & Graham heroes to some, traitors to most. While they will not be punished by congress which acts unlawfully itself, this pair must be removed by the voters of those respective states. 

Additionally, state governors for years have condoned the respective national guard regiments to be deployed in the undeclared overseas wars upon many nations - and lives. Those unlawful acts should be nullified by governors immediately.

March 9, 2015 (Eric Draitser - NEO) - The revelations that US ally Abdelhakim Belhadj is now leading ISIS in Libya should come as no surprise to those who have followed US policy in that country, and throughout the region. It illustrates for the umpteenth time that Washington has provided aid and comfort to precisely those forces it claims to be fighting around the world.

According to recent reports, Abdelhakim Belhadj has now firmly ensconced himself as the organizational commander of the ISIS presence inside Libya. The information comes from an unnamed US intelligence official who has confirmed that Belhadj is supporting and coordinating the efforts of the ISIS training centers in eastern Libya around the city of Derna, an area long known as a hotbed of jihadi militancy.

While it may not seem to be a major story – Al Qaeda terrorist turns ISIS commander – the reality is that since 2011 the US and its NATO allies have held up Belhadj as a “freedom fighter.” They portrayed him as a man who courageously led his fellow freedom-lovers against the “tyrannical despot” Gaddafi whose security forces at one time captured and imprisoned many members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), including Belhadj.

Belhadj served the US cause in Libya so well that he can be seen receiving accolades from Sen. John McCain who referred to Belhadj and his followers as heroes. He was initially rewarded after the fall of Gaddafi with the post of military commander of Tripoli, though he was forced to give way to a more politically palatable “transitional government” which has since evaporated in that chaotic, war-ravaged country.

Belhadj’s history of terrorist activity includes such “achievements” as collaboration with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq, and of course his convenient servitude to the US-NATO sponsored rampage across Libya that, among other things, caused mass killings of black Libyans and anyone suspected of being part of the Green Resistance (those loyal to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya led by Gaddafi). Although the corporate media tried to make a martyr of Belhadj for his alleged torture via the CIA rendition program, the inescapable fact is that wherever he goes he leaves a violent and bloody wake.

While much of this information is known, what is of paramount importance is placing this news in a proper political context, one that illustrates clearly the fact that the US has been, and continues to be, the major patron of extremist militants from Libya to Syria and beyond, and that all talk of “moderate rebels” is merely rhetoric designed to fool an unthinking public.

The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend…Until He Isn’t

There is ample documented evidence of Belhadj’s association with Al Qaeda and his terrorist exploits the world over. Variousreports have highlighted his experiences fighting in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and he himself has boasted of killing US troops in Iraq. However, it was in Libya in 2011 where Belhadj became the face of the “rebels” seeking to topple Gaddafi and the legal government of Libya.

As the New York Times reported:
The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was formed in 1995 with the goal of ousting Colonel Qaddafi. Driven into the mountains or exile by Libyan security forces, the group’s members were among the first to join the fight against Qaddafi security forces… Officially the fighting group does not exist any longer, but the former members are fighting largely under the leadership of Abu Abdullah Sadik [aka Abdelhakim Belhadj].
So, not only was Belhadj a participant in the US-NATO war on Libya, he was one of its most powerful leaders, heading a battle-hardened jihadist faction that constituted the leading edge of the war against Gaddafi. Nowhere was this more clearly demonstrated than when the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) took the lead in the attack on Gaddafi’s compound at Bab al-Aziziya. In this regard, LIFG was provided intelligence, and likely also tactical support, from US intelligence and the US military.

This new information about Belhadj’s association with the suddenly globally relevant ISIS certainly bolsters the argument that this writer, among many others, has made since 2011 – that the US-NATO war on Libya was waged by terrorist groups overtly and tacitly supported by US intelligence and the US military. Moreover, it dovetails with other information that has surfaced in recent years, information that shines a light on how the US exploited for its own geopolitical purposes one of the most active terrorist hotbeds anywhere in the world.

According to the recent reports, Belhadj is directly involved with supporting the ISIS training centers in Derna. Of course Derna should be well known to anyone who has followed Libya since 2011, because that city, along with Tobruk and Benghazi, were the centers of anti-Gaddafi terrorist recruitment in the early days of the “uprising” all through the fateful year of 2011. But Derna was known long before that as a locus of militant extremism. FINISH READING

Sunday, March 8, 2015

John McCain's Terrorist Friends

1st pub. CV on 05.29.13
My Catbird Seat May 29, 2013 
"The Israel lobby’s involvement in all this is somewhat obscure, but WINEP has been on the scene providing quotes and rationales for US intervention, and now with the Israeli air strikes and all this talk of Hezbollah propping up a supposedly faltering Assad, it’s clear why: the Israelis want to use this opportunity to take out another of their enemies.

They lured us into attacking Iraq, and now they are insisting we go after Iran – but as an appetizer, so to speak, they’re inviting us to first gobble up Syria before partaking of the main course."

Friday, March 6, 2015

NOT AGAIN: More US AID, Missiles Shipped to al Nusra and ISIS in Syria, Iraq

March 5, 2015 By 21wire  

Two weeks ago, 21WIRE reported on how ISIS and other terrorists militants operating in Syria and Iraq are receiving regular weapons and ‘supply drops’  – forming a ‘rat line’ which seems to be playing a crucial role in keeping this highly profitable conflict going on both sides.

This week, it’s been reported that Jabhat Al-Nusra fighters have been brandishing US-supplied TOW missiles, as well as posing for pictures in front of boxes with the ‘U.S.’ insignia (see full report below).
Charles Lister @Charles_Lister Non-US-backed rebels use American TOW missile captured from #ISIS, which captured it from US-backed rebels!! #Syria 6:52 AM - 24 Feb 2015
This latest bombshell comes on the heals of last week’s report, where two British aircraft which were downed in Iraq. The aircraft appear to have been working the ‘rat lines’ – supplying various Islamist terrorist fighting groups who are active in the region. Fars News Agency explains:

“The Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee has access to the photos of both planes that are British and have crashed while they were carrying weapons for the ISIL,” Head of the committee Hakem al-Zameli said, according to a Monday report of the Arabic-language information center of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. He said the Iraqi parliament has asked London for explanations in this regard. The senior Iraqi legislator further unveiled that the government in Baghdad is receiving daily reports from people and security forces in al-Anbar province on numerous flights by the US-led coalition planes that airdrop weapons and supplies for ISIL in terrorist-held areas.”

Why are these ‘supply drops’ so important to this story? The US media has gone out of its way to spin the myth that “ISIS controls large parts of the Middle East”. The reality is that, while there are some cities and villages in Iraq and Syria which are under ISIS control, they do not control “large areas” of the region, and therefore require frequent air drops behind ISIS lines to maintain their military operations.

Such are the challenges of supplying ‘McCain’s Army’ in Syria, and Iraq. By insisting on fueling the Syrian conflict over the last 4 years, somehow, the US and its allies seem to be doing a fine job of supplying ISIS and maintaining their base of operations – keeping the planet’s most violent terrorists well fed, watered and armed – ultimately helping the US, UK, Saudi, Israel and other allies.

The Anglo-American Axis appears to be using the ‘ISIS Crisis’ as a front in order to undermine and ultimately unseat the Syrian government in Damascus – an outcome which would certainly turn Syria into another ‘Libya situation’ – permanently unstable and thus requiring indefinite Western military presence in the region, and later, to oversee the break-up of Syria.

In the image below, an American, or ‘USAID’ insignia can clearly be seen as an ISIS militant boasts about the mountain of supplies they are receiving.

It should be noted also that for decades, USAID has long been outed as a CIA front organization who has been instrumental in fueling wars and conflicts all around the globe…

THANK YOU UNCLE SAM: ISIS miscreant in Syria enjoying new supplies courtesy of US AID (Image Source: Almasdar News)
Al-Qaeda Militants Seize U.S. Supplied Weapons in Aleppo

Leith Fadel
Almasdar News

Two days after the disbandment of the second U.S. backed “moderate” rebel militia in six months, the Syrian Al-Qaeda branch “Jabhat Al-Nusra” (Al-Nusra Front) seized a large cache of TOW (wire-guided anti-tank) missiles inside Regiment 46 Base in southwestern Aleppo after defeating Harakat Hazzm (Movement of Steadfastness) in a short battle.


Images of Jabhat Al-Nusra fighters with the U.S. supplied TOW missiles surfaced on Monday morning, as they paraded around the captured Regiment 46 Base, posing for pictures in front of boxes with the U.S.’ insignia.

The growing fear of hardline Islamist groups getting ahold of these potent weapons has now become a reality for the hesitant western politicians, who questioned the distribution of these arms to militias affiliated with the likes of Al-Qaeda in Syria.

For Jabhat Al-Nusra, the confiscation of these powerful weapons will pay dividends for their fighters entrenched in rural areas that are swarmed with Syrian Arab Army (SAA) armored divisions; however, at what cost?

It is not clear how many TOW missiles the militants of Jabhat Al-Nusra were able to seize, but their photos depicted dozens of boxes in their possession.

[And while you're at it, how about some weapons shipments to terrorists in Syria. Who delivered these?]





21WIRE has detailed a number of reports which clearly indicate that American weapons and supplies are consistently making their way into the hands of al Qaeda, al Nusra and ISIS fighters. The US media have skillfully been spinning these embarrassing revelations to make it sound as if ISIS has somehow “just happened to acquire US weapons and supplies”.
Read more – finish reading/watching

Thursday, March 5, 2015

General Petraeus Accused of Founding ISIS/ISIL





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Western special services might be behind ISIS terrorists – Intel veteran

From Russia Today

The leaders of Islamic terrorists could be under the direct influence of NATO and Western powers using their movements to threaten Russia’s territorial integrity, says a former general of Russian military intelligence service.

There are some grounds to suspect that American and British special services could support the Islamic extremists in order to target the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation,” Lieutenant-General Nikolai Pushkaryov, formerly of the Central Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff said in an interview with the RIA-Novosti news agency. “The top of these movements can be under the influence of NATO agents,” he added.

The general also commented on the statement by the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, who promised to destroy any Islamic terrorist who voiced threats against Russia.

Kadyrov also told reporters that Chechen special services intended to hunt down and kill Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – the head of the Islamic State group (also known as ISIL and ISIS), adding that this man had been recruited to work for the US by General David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA, and former commander of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Back then, Kadyrov claimed the Islamic State “was acting on orders from the West and Europe.”

Pushkaryov said in his interview that he took Kadyrov’s words very seriously and believed that the head of the Chechen Republic could bring his plans to fruition. “I have a great respect towards Ramzan Kadyrov. If he and his men want to find this man, they would be capable of doing it,” he stated.

The head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, Aleksandr Bortnikov named the Islamic State as a primary threat at the meeting of the heads of special services of the CIS states on Wednesday.

Bortnikov said that IS terrorists receive combat training and experience in Iraq and Syria and then return to their home countries, including the CIS nations, as instructors, recruiters and experts in the terrorist underground. 

He added that the Taliban and other radical groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan were ready to adopt these methods and this carried additional threats to the CIS countries.

Russia has acknowledged the threat that comes from the Islamic State and promised to support countries and groups fighting against the organization. In September US Secretary of State John Kerry said that in his view Russia must join the international fight against the IS terrorists.

 The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for New Challenges and Threats, Ilya Rogachev, said that the country “did not expect any invitations and was not going to buy entry tickets,” into the US-led anti-IS coalition.

See our General Petraeus files:

Nov 21, 2012 ... Petraeus Affair: Shirtless FBI Pic Appears to Be Playful - ABC News. 
Sep 9, 2013 ... Another special forces veteran, retired Colonel James Coffman, worked with Steele and reported directly to General David Petraeus, who had ...
Nov 11, 2012 ... “What I do know is that an integral part of that firewall involved having information on Petraeus that would potentially damage his career, legacy ...
Nov 29, 2012 ... Petraeus is seeking to better the CIA's ability to create online identities for undercover spies. Currently, each internet user has a digital footprint ...
Oct 6, 2014 ... GEN David Petraeus - Director CIA (Aug. 2011) Resigned 11/9/12 Admitted Adulterer present Commander of U.S. and Coalition forces in ...
Sep 11, 2012 ... Could Theft of $500M Fuel in Afghanistan be another Thread to be Unraveled on Petraeus' Watch? Posted by Charleston Voice ...
Feb 1, 2012 ... Feinstein then indicated that she had met Mossad chief Pardo earlier in the week in Washington, with Petraeus adding that he too met Pardo ...
Mar 31, 2012 ... About two weeks after the strike, U.S. General David Petraeus, now the director of the CIA, met with Yemen's then-dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Aug 1, 2013 ... It is astounding to find that one of the handful of prospects being floated to become CIA director following the fall of General David Petraeus is a ...

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

48 suspicious banking deaths

1st pub. by CV Friday, August 22, 2014

Exclusive from...
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Our advice is if JP Morgan offers you a job: politely decline. The list of top level bankers dying under suspicious circumstances has been growing rapidly in recent months.

Whether these are genuine deaths or something more sinister one thing is for certain, banking is becoming one of the most dangerous industries to be involved in right now with an extremely high death per employee ratio.

The causes of death given for some of the bankers seems quite odd to say the least including one banker shooting himself 8 times with a nail gun and another being crushed to death by their own SUV.

With the global financial system heading towards a major crash in the near future are these people buckling under the pressure of what they see coming or are they being silenced because of what they know?

We can only assume it's a little of both.

Here's the list of top level bankers who have died recently:

DEAD (48)

July – Julian Knott, 45, JPMorgan Executive Director,Global Tier 3 Network Operations, SELF-INFLICTED GUNSHOT WOUND

June – Richard Gravino, 49, Application Team Lead, JP Morgan, SUDDEN DEATH cause unknown/pending

June – James McDonald – President & CEO of Rockefeller & Co – apparently self-inflicted, GUNSHOT WOUND

May – Thomas Schenkman, 42, Managing Director of Global Infrastructure, JP Morgan, SUDDEN DEATH, cause unknown/pending

May – Naseem Mubeen – Assistant Vice President ZBTL Bank, Islamabad, SUICIDE jumped

May – Daniel Leaf – senior manager at the Bank of Scotland/Saracen Fund Managers, FELL OFF A CLIFF

May – Nigel Sharvin – Senior Relationship Manager Ulster Bank manage portfolio of distressed businesses, ACCIDENTAL DROWNING

April – Lydia (no surname given) 52, France's Bred-Banque-Populaire, SUICIDE jumped

April – Li Jianhua, 49, Non-bank Financial Institutions Supervision Department of the regulator, HEART ATTACK

April – Benedict Philippens, Director/Manager Bank Ans-Saint-Nicolas, SHOT

April – Tanji Dewberry – Assistant Vice President, Credit Suisse, HOUSE FIRE

April – Amir Kess, co-founder and managing director Markstone Capital Group private equity fund, CYCLIST HIT BY CAR

April – Juergen Frick, Bank Frick & Co. AG, SHOT

April – Jan Peter Schmittmann – former CEO of Dutch Bank ABN Amro, (Possibly suicide, SHOT)

April – Andrew Jarzyk – Assistant Vice President, Commercial Banking at PNC Financial Services Group, MISSING/DEAD

March – Mohamed Hamwi – System Analyst at Trepp, a financial data and analytics firm, SHOT

March – Joseph Giampapa – JP Morgan lawyer, CYCLIST HIT BY MINIVAN

March – Kenneth Bellandro, former JP Morgan, SUICIDE jumped

Feb – John Ruiz – Morgan Stanley Municipal Debt Analyst, died suddenly, NO CAUSE GIVEN

Feb – Jason Alan Salais, 34, Information Technology specialist at JPMorgan, FOUND DEAD outside a Walgreens pharmacy

Feb –  Autumn Radtke, CEO of First Meta, a cyber-currency exchange firm, SUICIDE

Feb – James Stuart Jr, Former National Bank of Commerce CEO, FOUND DEAD

Feb – Edmund (Eddie) Reilly, trader at Midtown's Vertical Group, SUICIDE

Feb – Li Junjie, JP Morgan, SUICIDE

Feb – Ryan Henry Crane, SUDDEN DEATH cause unknown

Feb – Richard Talley, UNKNOWN CAUSE

Jan – Gabriel Magee, SUICIDE

Jan – William 'Bill' Broeksmit, HUNG/POSSIBLE SUICIDE

Jan – Mike Dueker, SUDDEN DEATH cause unknown

Jan – Carl Slym, SUICIDE

Jan – Tim Dickenson, SUDDEN DEATH cause unknown

Dec 2013 – Robert Wilson, a retired hedge fund founder, apparent SUICIDE leaped to his death from his 16th floor residence

Dec 2013 – Joseph M. Ambrosio, age 34, Financial Analyst for J.P. Morgan, died suddenly from Acute Respiratory Syndrome

Dec 2013 – Benjamin Idim, CAR ACCIDENT

Dec 2013 – Susan Hewitt – Deutsche Bank, DROWNING

Nov 2013 – Patrick Sheehan, CAR ACCIDENT

Nov 2013 – Michael Anthony Turner, Career Banker, CAUSE UNKOWN

Nov 2013 – Venera Minakhmetova Former Financial Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, CYCLIST HIT

Oct 2013 – Michael Burdin, SUICIDE

Oct 2013 – Ezdehar Husainat – former JP Morgan banker, killed in FREAK ACCIDENT when her SUV crushed her to death

Sept 2013 – Guy Ratovondrahona -Madagascar central bank, Sudden death - cause not confirmed

Aug 2013 – Pierre Wauthier, SUICIDE

Aug 2013 – Moritz Erhardt, SUICIDE

July 2013 Hussain Najadi CEO of merchant bank AIAK Group, SHOT

July 2013 Carsten Schloter, SUICIDE

July 2013 Sascha Schornstein – RBS in its commodity finance, MISSING

April 2013 David William Waygood, SUICIDE

Mar 2013 – David Rossi – communications director of troubled Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), SUICIDE
LETHAL BUT NON FATAL (MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A BANKER) 

Fang Fang – JP Morgan, China, DISGRACED

Nick Bagnall – Director at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, son accidentally killed himself while trying to re-enact a Tudor hanging

Robin Clark – RP Martin -Wolf of Shenfield City banker shot, SURVIVED

Kevin Bespolka – Citi Capital Advisors, Dresdner Bank, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, Seriously injured and son dead

Robert Wheeler, 49, a Deutsche Bank financial advisor, DISGRACED

Chris Latham – Bank of America, ON TRIAL, Murder for Hire

Igor Artamonov – West Siberian Bank of Sberbank, Daughter found dead (POSSIBLE SUICIDE)

Hector Sants, Barclays – resigned due to stress and exhaustion, after being told he risked more serious consequences to his health if he continued to work – a remarkable turnaround as the Church reportedly approached him two months later and was told he had made a full recovery,
POSSIBLY INTERESTING/MILDLY STRANGE

April 21st Bruce A. Schaal, 63, died suddenly Banker in Twin Lakes for 35 years

April 20th Keith Barnish 58, Died Suddenly (Still working as Senior Managing Director at Doral Financial Corporation. Previously Bear Stearns, Bank of America Senior Vice President

March 12th Jeffrey Corzine, 31, son of MF Global CEO and Chairman Jon Corzine involved in major banking crime was found dead in an apparent suicide.

Keiran Toman, 39, former banker who believed he was being stalked by a reality TV crew starved to death in a hotel room, an inquest heard today.
 

An inquest was opened after his death in July 2010 but his family asked for a second hearing as they were not informed. Police found all of Mr Toman's possessions in the room, but despite documents mentioning his family, failed to tell them he had died.

Nicholas Austin, 49, A former bank manager from Hersden died after drinking antifreeze in an effort to get high. was found in a coma by his wife Lynn at their home in Blackthorne Road on October 5. He died the same day.
—————————————————

Monday, February 16, 2015

Who Is the Ruler of Israel? by Uri Avnery

Posted By Uri Avnery On February 15, 2015 

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, of course.

Wrong

The real ruler of Israel is one Sheldon Adelson, 81, American Jew, Casino king, who was rated as the world’s tenth richest person, worth 37.2 billion dollars at the latest count. But who is counting?

Besides his casinos in Las Vegas, Pennsylvania, Macao and Singapore, he owns the U.S. Republican party and, lately, both Houses of the U.S. Congress.

He also owns Binyamin Netanyahu.

Adelson’s connection with Israel is personal. On a blind date, he fell in love with an Israeli woman.

Miriam Farbstein was born in Haifa, attended a prestigious high school, did her army service in the Israeli institute which deals with bacteriological warfare and is a multifaceted scientist. After an adopted son died of an overdose, she is devoted to the fight against drugs, especially cannabis.

Both Adelsons are fanatical supporters of Israel. Not just any Israel, but a rightist, supremacist, arrogant, violent, expansionist, annexationist, non-compromising, colonialist Israel.
Sheldon, Bibi & Miriam
In "Bibi" Netanyahu they found their man. Through Netanyahu they hope to rule Israel as their private fief.

To assure this, they did an extraordinary thing: they founded an Israeli newspaper, solely devoted to the furthering of the interests of Binyamin Netanyahu. Not of the Likud, not of a specific policy, but of Netanyahu personally.

Years ago I invented a Hebrew word for papers which are 
distributed for nothing. "Hinamon" translates, roughly, into "ragratis" or "gratissue" and was intended to denigrate. 

But I did not dream of a monster like "Israel Hayom" ("Israel Today") – a paper with unlimited funds, distributed every day for nothing in the streets and malls all over the country by hundreds, perhaps thousands of paid young persons.

Israelis love getting something for nothing. Israel Hayom is now the daily paper with the widest distribution in Israel. It drains readers and advertising revenue from its only competitor – Yedioth Ahronoth ("Latest News"), which held this title until then.

Yedioth reacted furiously. It became a ferocious enemy of Netanyahu. Yossi Werter, a commentator of the center-left Haaretz (which has a far lower circulation) even believes that the present election boils down to a contest between the two papers.

That is vastly exaggerated. Judged by political and social content, there is little to differentiate the two. Both are super-patriotic, warmongering and rightist. That is the journalistic recipe for attracting the masses anywhere in the world.

Yedioth is owned by the Moses family, a business-minded clan. The present, third-generation publisher is Arnon ("Noni") Moses, the publicity-shy boss of a large economic empire based on the paper. The paper serves his business interests, but he has no special political interests.

Adelson is unique.

In Israel, betting is forbidden by law. We have no casinos, and secret gambling dens are raided by the police. In our early youth we were taught that casino moguls are bad people, almost like arms merchants. They take the money off poor addicted people, throwing them into despair, even suicide. See Dostoyevsky.

Israelis read Israel Hayom (it’s something for nothing, after all), but they don’t necessarily like the man and his methods. So some members of the Knesset were encouraged to enter a bill forbidding gratis newspapers altogether.

Netanyahu and the Likud party did everything to obstruct this bill. But in the preliminary vote (necessary for private members’ bills) they were beaten in an amazing way. Even members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition voted for it. The cameras caught Netanyahu literally running in the Knesset plenum hall to gain his seat before the voting started.

The vote was 43 to 23. Almost half the Likud members absented themselves. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his party voted for the bill. So did ministers Ya’ir Lapid and Tzipi Livni.

From the preliminary vote to the final adoption, such a bill has to pass several stages. There was plenty of time to bury it in one of the committees. But Netanyahu was furious. A few days after the vote, he dismissed Lapid and Livni from the cabinet, causing the government coalition to break up and the Knesset to disperse.

Why did Netanyahu do such a foolish thing less then half way through his (third) term of office? There can be only one logical explanation: he was ordered to do so by Adelson, in order to prevent the adoption of the law.

If so, Adelson is now our chief lawmaker. Perhaps he is also our chief government-maker.

Money plays an ever-increasing role in politics. Election propaganda is made on television, which is very expensive. Both in Israel and the U.S., legal and illegal funds pour into the campaign, directly and indirectly. Corruption is abetted or tolerated by the courts. The very rich (known euphemistically in America as the "wealthy") exercise undue influence.

In the last U.S. presidential elections, Adelson poured rivers of dollars into the contest. He supported Newt Gingrich, and then Mitt Romney, with huge sums of money. In vain. Perhaps Americans don’t like to be ruled by captains of casinos.

For the next U.S. presidential elections, Adelson has started early. He has summoned to his Las Vegas casino HQ all leading Republican candidates, to grill them on their allegiance to him – and to Netanyahu. Nobody dared to refuse the summons. Would a Roman senator refuse the summons of Caesar?

In Israel, such rituals are superfluous. The Adelsons – both Miri and Sheldon – know who their man is.

The Israel Hayom newspaper is, of course, a big propaganda machine, totally devoted to the re-election of Netanyahu. All quite legal. In a democracy, who can tell a newspaper whom to support? We are still a democracy, for God’s sake!

It seems to be strange for a country to allow a foreigner, who never lived in the country, to have such enormous power over its future, indeed, over its very existence.

That’s where Zionism comes in. According to the Zionist creed, Israel is the state of the Jews, all the Jews. Every Jew in the world belongs to Israel, even if temporarily residing somewhere else. A few days ago, Netanyahu publicly claimed to represent not just the State of Israel but also the entire "Jewish People". No need to ask them.

Accordingly, Adelson is not really a foreigner. He is one of us. True, he cannot vote in Israel, though his wife probably can. But many people, including himself, believe that he, being a Jew, has a perfect right to interfere in our affairs and dominate our lives.

For example, the appointment of our ambassador in the U.S. Ron Dermer is an American, born in Miami, who was active in Republican politics. To appoint an American functionary of the Republican Party as ambassador of Israel to a Democratic administration may seem strange. Not so strange if Netanyahu acted under the orders of Sheldon Adelson.

It was Adelson who prepared the witches’ brew that is now endangering Israel’s lifeline to Washington. His stooge, Dermer, induced the Republicans in Congress – all of them dependent on Adelson’s largesse or hoping to be so – to invite Netanyahu to give an anti-Obama speech before both Houses.

While this intrigue was in preparation, Dermer met with John Kerry but did not tell him of Netanyahu’s coming. Neither did Netanyahu inform President Obama, who, in a fury, announced that he would not meet with the Prime Minister.

From the point of view of Israel’s vital interests, it is sheer madness to provoke the President of the United States of America, who controls American’s flow of arms to Israel and the American veto power in the UN. But from the point of view of Adelson, who wants to elect a Republican president in 2016, it makes sense. He has already threatened to invest unlimited sums of money to prevent the reelection of any Senator or Representative who is absent from Netanyahu’s speech.

We are nearing open warfare between the Government of Israel and the President of the United States.

Is someone playing roulette with our future?

Read more by Uri Avnery


Saturday, February 14, 2015

US Confirmed Existence of Israeli H-Bomb Program in 1987 by Grant Smith

Report Raises Questions over US Refusal to Enforce Own Foreign Aid Laws


by Grant Smith, February 14, 2015

Back in 1987, according to a tightly-held report produced for the Pentagon, (PDF) the Israelis were "developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level."

Such research was taking place in Israeli facilities similar to the major US nuclear weapons development sites. "The SOREQ and the Dimona/Beer Shiva facilities are the equivalent of our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. The SOREQ center runs the full nuclear gamut of activities from engineering, administration and non-destructive testing to electro-optics, pulsed power, process engineering and chemistry and nuclear research and safety. This is the technology base required for nuclear weapons design and fabrication."

Israel’s facilities at the time were stunningly advanced. "The capability of SOREQ to support SDIO and nuclear technologies is almost an exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories." The report, produced by the Institute for Defense Analysis for the Department of Defense was to provide an assessment of NATO and Israel’s weapons development initiatives of potential application to the Reagan Administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI more popularly known as "Star Wars."

Informal and Freedom of Information Act release of such information is rare. Under two known gag orders – punishable by imprisonment – US security-cleared government agency employees and contractors may not disclose that Israel has a nuclear weapons program. GEN-16 is a "no-comment" regulation on "classified information in the public domain." "DOE Classification Bulletin WPN-136 on Foreign Nuclear Capabilities" forbids stating what 63.9 percent of Americans already know – that Israel has a nuclear arsenal.

The 1987 report’s confirmation of Israel’s advanced nuclear weapons program should have immediately triggered a cutoff in all U.S. aid to Israel under the Symington and Glenn Amendments to the US Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Although 100 copies of the tightly-controlled report were apparently published, none seem to have made their way into the office of the President in time to cut off any of the $82 billion in aid subsequently delivered to Israel – or publicly issue the required waivers. This is done in the case of other countries with weapons programs operating outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation regime such as Pakistan.

Similarly, the US did not move to curb as required Israel’s weapons-related work using the Soreq reactor, lab and testing facilities – provided by US taxpayers in the late 1950’s under Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace Program under the provision they not be used for weapons programs.

The lack American presidential of compliance – right up to the present day – with Symington and Glenn may be why the Pentagon fought to restrict release of the unclassified report in federal court, citing perpetual "nondisclosure agreements." In December the DoD insisted that only the Israeli government had final authority over its release, before finally throwing in the towel. (PDF)

On the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to Congress and AIPAC to thwart a diplomatic deal over NNPT signer Iran’s civilian nuclear program, the report provides interesting reading to Americans tiring of US government corruption on this important foreign aid law and the non-proliferation regime.

Read more by Grant Smith

Monday, February 9, 2015

Rockefeller, Morgan, and War

"It's Why We Fight"...You didn't know?


This article is excerpted from Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, chapter 8, "Rockefeller, Morgan, and War" (1984; 2011).

During the 1930s, the Rockefellers pushed hard for war against Japan, which they saw as competing with them vigorously for oil and rubber resources in Southeast Asia and as endangering the Rockefellers' cherished dreams of a mass "China market" for petroleum products. On the other hand, the Rockefellers took a noninterventionist position in Europe, where they had close financial ties with German firms such as I.G. Farben and Co., and very few close relations with Britain and France.