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MER - WASHINGTON SCENE
AMERICA ON THE EDGE
MORE WAR, DESTRUCTION, HATRED
AND GROWING DANGERS AHEAD FOR 2005
MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 20 Oct:
The amazing thing about this American election is that in view of what
has happened in the U.S. and in the world the Democrats should be
running away with it -- and yet they are struggling everywhere and
likely to go down to defeat.
With Iraq exploding, with American troops increasingly dying and
bleeding, with the lies and deceptions from the Bush/Cheney/neocon
regime oozing from the nation's political pores, oil prices soaring,
the social infrastructure crumbling, the future of the Supreme Court in
the balance, much of the world enraged, and a mediocre President
clearly lacking brain-power to match the job...yet the Democrats still
can't manage to create real enthusiasm for their choice and for that
reason are likely to go down to defeat.
And this is the reality of contemporary American politics even after
the Democratic establishment shafted Howard Dean, raised such huge
unprecedented amounts of money, and worked so hard to try to tailor
their candidate and their policies to public opinion rather than
principle.
But even if the Democrats should somehow pull things out of the hat --
not likely at this point however -- then the also blleak reality will
come to pass and the neo-liberal foreign policy apparatchiks will take
charge from today's neo-cons. The differences however between Josephs
Biden and Lieberman and the Paul Wolfowitz crowd are far more in
rhetoric and style than in actual policies. Remember now the desired
choice of John Kerry and the Democratic establishment for
Vice-President was non other than John McCain.
Yesterday,
a few blocks from the White House, the Princeton University Club hosted
the former dean of the Harvard University Kennedy School -- and one of
the long-time Democratic Party policy operatives, Joseph Nye -- in a
'fictional' discussion of the U.S. and Israel deciding to 'take out'
Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
It was earlier this month that the Democratic Convention Keynoter, soon
to be Senator Barak Obama, publicly asserted the U.S. should be ready
to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
And when it comes to Israel and the political cancer that still keeps
spreading from the once Holy Land the Democratic Party is at least as
bad, and in some ways worse, than the Republican -- hard as that is for
many to understand with all the nuances and complexities involved.
Also yesterday a large group of more than 700 foreign policy academics
came forward with their own vote for Kerry couched in the guise of a
critique and warning about Bush and the neocons. Many complexities and
nuances here too, but that's for the future. Their 'Open Letter to
the American People' from 'Security Scholars for a Sensible Foreign
Policy' follows:
October,
2004
An Open Letter
to the American People:
We,
a nonpartisan group of foreign affairs specialists, have joined
together to call urgently for a change of course in American foreign
and national security policy. We judge that the current American policy
centered around the war in Iraq is the most misguided one since the
Vietnam period, one which harms the cause of the struggle against
extreme Islamist terrorists. One result has been a great distortion in
the terms of public debate on foreign and national security policy—an
emphasis on speculation instead of facts, on mythology instead of
calculation, and on misplaced moralizing over considerations of
national interest. We write to challenge some of these distortions.
Although we applaud
the Bush Administration for its initial focus on destroying al-Qaida bases
in Afghanistan, its failure to engage sufficient U.S. troops to capture
or kill the mass of al-Qaida fighters in the later stages of that war was
a great blunder. It is a fact that
the early shift of U.S. focus to Iraq diverted U.S. resources, including
special operations forces and intelligence capabilities, away from direct
pursuit of the fight against the terrorists. Many of the justifications
offered by the Bush Administration for the war in Iraq have been proven
untrue by credible studies, including by U.S. government agencies. There is no evidence that Iraq assisted al-Qaida,
and its prewar involvement in international terrorism was negligible. Iraq’s arsenal of chemical and biological weapons
was negligible, and its nuclear weapons program virtually nonexistent. In
comparative terms, Iran is and was much the greater sponsor of
terrorism, and North Korea and Pakistan pose much the greater risk of
nuclear proliferation to terrorists. Even on moral grounds, the case
for war was dubious: the war itself has killed over a thousand
Americans and unknown thousands of Iraqis, and if the threat of civil
war becomes reality, ordinary Iraqis could be even worse off than they
were under Saddam Hussein. The Administration knew most of these facts
and risks before the war, and could have discovered the others, but
instead it played down, concealed or misrepresented them.
Policy errors
during the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq have created a situation
in Iraq worse than it needed to be. Spurning
the advice of Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki, the Administration committed
an inadequate number of troops to the occupation, leading to the continuing
failure to establish security in Iraq. Ignoring prewar planning by the State Department and other US government
agencies, it created a needless security vacuum by disbanding
the Iraqi Army, and embarked on a poorly planned and ineffective reconstruction
effort which to date has managed to spend only a fraction of the money earmarked
for it. As a result, Iraqi popular dismay at the lack
of security, jobs or reliable electric power fuels much of the violent opposition
to the U.S. military presence, while the war itself has drawn in terrorists
from outside Iraq.
The results of this policy have been overwhelmingly negative for U.S. interests. While the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime
was desirable, the benefit to the U.S. was small as prewar inspections had
already proven the extreme weakness of his WMD programs, and therefore the
small size of the threat he posed. On
the negative side, the excessive U.S. focus on Iraq led to weak and inadequate
responses to the greater challenges posed by North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear
programs, and diverted resources from the economic and diplomatic efforts
needed to fight terrorism in its breeding grounds in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
and elsewhere in the Middle East. Worse,
American actions in Iraq, including but not limited to the scandal of Abu
Ghraib, have harmed the reputation of the U.S. in most parts of the Middle
East and, according to polls, made Osama Bin Laden more popular in some
countries than is President Bush. This
increased popularity makes it easier for al-Qaida to raise money, attract
recruits, and carry out its terrorist operations than would otherwise be
the case.
Recognizing
these negative consequences of the Iraq war, in addition to the cost in
lives and money, we believe that a fundamental reassessment is in
order. Significant improvements are needed in our strategy in Iraq and
the implementation of that strategy. We call urgently for an open
debate on how to achieve these ends, one informed by attention to the
facts on the ground in Iraq, the facts of al-Qaida’s methods and
strategies, and sober attention to American interests and values. Signed (All titles
and affiliations listed for purposes of identification only),
See
list of signatures
See,
e.g., James Fallows, “Blind Into Baghdad,” The Atlantic, January/February
2004; Peter W. Galbraith, "Iraq: The Bungled Transition," New
York Review of Books, September 23, 2004; David M. Edelstein, "Occupational
Hazards: Why Military Occupations Succeed or Fail," International
Security, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Summer 2004), Robin Wright and Thomas E. Rick,
“Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels” Washington
Post,
October 5, 2004.
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October 2004
Iran Next - Part 1 (October 31, 2004)
In a few days the American election itself will be history. The likelihood is the Bush/Cheney/neocon regime will remain in power; hard as that still is for so many to imagine and understand. Should the Democrats win the White House Middle East policies will be largely in the hands of the neoliberals and the super money-men like Haim Saban who when it comes to the Middle East and Israel have far more in common with the neocons than has yet been realized by many who will vote for them. Whatever happens on Tuesday next the build-up to attacking and if at all possible regime changing Iran is well underway and the showdown increasingly imminent.
Osama, Bush, Kerry - Past, Present, Future (October 30, 2004)
Few Middle East realities have been heard during this long grueling American election campaign. Most of the rhetoric has been extraordinarily self-righteous and self-serving, disingenuous and dishonest. Sad and tragic as it is to have to say, for many in the Middle East and around the world beyond American shores, tactics aside, the words of Osama Bin Laden ring more true to their experience and perspective regarding U.S. foreign policy than those of either George Bush or John Kerry.
Fahrenheit 9/11 - Watch It On Your Computer This Weekend (October 30, 2004)
Who would have imagined on 9/11 more than three years ago now that the top front-page story in the Washington Post Saturday before the 2004 election would be a picture of Osama Bin Laden addressing the American people! Reality keeps trumping fiction time after time in our era!
Escalating War Against the World after November 2nd? (October 29, 2004)
Whether the Americans are lead by Bush and the neocons, or by Kerry and the neoliberals, the reality is that both of the great American political parties are today dominated by their super-hawkish Israeli-connected elements and that both are heavily mortgaged to major, however competing, segments of the Israeli-Jewish lobby in Washington.
ARAFAT - Pathetic Symbolism for the 'Grand Old Man' of the Palestinians (October 29, 2004)
There is often such pathetic symbolism surrounding Yasser Arafat even as many of his people cling to his legacy as the 'symbol of Palestinian nationalism' -- itself nearly as tattered and frail as the Grand Old Man has himself become.
Bush Uncensored; Cheney Unauthorized (October 28, 2004)
MAKE SURE TO WATCH THESE TWO VIDEOS
ABOUT GEORGE BUSH and DICK CHENEY
Gaza Scam + Dem Party Emails American Jews (October 27, 2004)
The price for the past political trickery has already been very high. The poison of the Israeli-Arab conflict has spread continually for decades now and played a substantial role in bringing about today's 'Clash of Civilizations' whose end is yet in sight. The eventual future price for what is happening these days threatens to be higher yet, potentially catastrophic.
IRAN Attack Imminent? (October 24, 2004)
Though few in the world may fully realize it, international society is now at a historic moment and the future, even a potential World War III, is in the balance. Hence the leaks coming from Washington from those trying to warn, and to prevent, what the top neocons and Israeli operatives are pushing hard to bring about. Hence last month's extremely unusual 'Israeli Spy Scandal' which had officials in the FBI charging people working on the Iranian attack in coordination with the Israeli-Jewish lobby with espionage for Israel. Hence, as this article by a former National Security Council operative suggests: "Intelligence circles report that both intelligence agencies (CIA and Pentagon) are in open revolt against the Bush White House." It appears to have been quickly written and then quickly internet published using LebanonWire in the Middle East.
Cheney Uncovered - An Unauthorized Documentary by the CBC (October 23, 2004)
Reporter Jean Heller presented Soviet satellite photos which did not show Iraqi troops amassed on the Saudi border to the Pentagon.
"It's what it (the photos) didn't show that's more important. What you expected to see were tanks on the border. There was none that we could see.
I said, look, if you can prove to me that our story isn't true, we won't run it. And they just ignored it.
They have never shown those (U.S. satellite images) photos. Not then and not since."
New CIA 'Shocking' Cover-Up (October 22, 2004)
Completed in June, mandated by Congress nearly
two years ago, the CIA Report that names names
is being suppressed until after the election.
"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This report does that," said the intelligence official. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible."
Talk about American Imperialism and Chutzpah! (October 22, 2004)
The reaction in many quarters must be 'Oh My God'. Bill, Hillary, and Tenet all seek higher office! Talk about American Imperialism and Chutzpah!
The WARLORDS of AMERICA (October 21, 2004)
Regardless of what happens on 2 November in the U.S. election, one group or another of "the Warlords of America" will be in power in Washington. And the years now immediately ahead, regardless if the President is named Kerry or Bush, are quickly shaping up as likely to be the most dangerous in modern history.
America on the Edge (October 20, 2004)
The amazing thing about this American election is that in view of what has happened in the U.S. and in the world the Democrats should be running away with it -- and yet they are struggling everywhere and likely to go down to defeat.
Israel on Road to being Pariah State (October 15, 2004)
Indeed Israeli policies and attitudes have for some time now seriously poisoned political relations throughout the Middle East, substantially helped bring about the era of the 'Clash of Civilizations', and through the powerful Israeli/Jewish lobby in Washington pushed the United States into the invasion of Iraq and other militarist isolated policies whose dangerous and destructive ramifications will be felt for many years to come
The Next Generation of Palestinians (October 13, 2004)
If what has happened in Gaza in recent years would have happened in the USA (adjusted for population size) more than 100,000 Americans would have been killed and more than a quarter million homes destroyed by a foreign occupying army using battle tanks and attack helicopters against small resistance groups in cities and towns.
AMERICAN SECRET GULAG EXPANDING (October 14, 2004)
THE CIA has greatly expanded its activities throughout the Middle East including in Jordan and Egypt as well as Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other countries throughout the region. Of course the CIA and the Mossad are working more closely together than ever to control the region and enforce what is now essentially the militarily imposed 'new world order' first announced during the current President father's days in the White House. Before President Bush I became President he was in fact the Director of the CIA, whose main headquarters is now named after him.
AOL Censors MER (October 20, 2004)
AOL -- one of the largest internet service providers -- is blocking and censoring MER. Persons who subscribe to MER using an AOL email address can not receive MER -- it is being secretly censored from their mailboxes by AOL without notice of any kind. It is believed persons working for AOL may be censoring MER in coordination with Jewish Zionist groups. It may be that AOL has a special relationship with Jewish.com and other Israeli-connected groups in some way. It is all being done in secret with no notice of any kind to either AOL users or MER.
A few of the messages we have received from AOL subscribers to MER follow:
Major Iraq Attacks on Hold Until After U.S. Vote (October 11, 2004)
The Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit to Iraq in recent days. And soon after the American election the superpower military will be much more fully unleashed throughout the country preparing to push the U.S.-appointed strong-man Iyad Allawai forward in the carefully staged 'election' that will proceed if 'conditions are right'. In other words, just as Hamid Karzai was U.S. -installed and then essentially U.S.-elected in Afghanistan, the same template is now planned for Iraq.
U.S. Forces IMF into secret Iraqi debt 'forgiveness' scheme (October 11, 2004)
But maybe most of all in the longer run, and unspoken now for all of these reasons by the powers that be, once Iraq's prior debt to other countries is 'off the books', the new U.S.-installed and CIA-controlled government in Baghdad is free to sign agreements with the Americans -- secret or otherwise -- that will essentially mortgage Iraq's future oil revenues to the U.S.A. and those it approves.
Chomsky on American Force and Pre-emption (October 10, 2004)
"Bush planners know as well as others that the
resort to force increases the threat of terror,
and that their militaristic and aggressive posture
and actions provoke reactions that increase
the risk of catastrophe."
IRAN - Targeted by U.S. and Israel (October 9, 2004)
You would think after the Iraq debacle that the ability of the U.S. to blackball, sanction, and then attack, occupy and regime-change another country would be considerable reduced. Not so however as this article in Z Magazine helps explain with regard to Iran. Indeed, soon after the American election the situation will quickly escalate.
The Debates - Fixed and Controlled (October 8, 2004)
The moderators -- both from the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) -- could have, and should have, asked hard, probing, unexpected questions like this:
Israeli AIPAC Spy Scandal - Update (October 7, 2004)
It was just a month ago that the latest Washington spy scandal involving the very heart of the Israeli-Jewish Lobby had everyone buzzing. Then it faded from view as the corporate media moved on, as CBS News which originally broke the story found itself under assault, and as the election campaign and debates took center stage. Interesting, not one question from the PBS moderators about Israeli spying, nor even about the U.S. veto of the Security Council resolution condemning Israel, nor the International Court of Justice decision doing the same. Here's an update -- however inadequate -- from yesterday's L.A.Times. Though the real heart of the story should be AIPAC and the influence, tactics, and status of the Israeli-Jewish lobby; instead they focus on just the individual and not as they should on the large group of support persons and organizations. This should especially include, of course, the current cabal of largely Jewish neocons in top positions...including the one who hired Larry Franklin (Douglas Feith), and the ones who hired him (Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle).
AOL Blocks and Censors MER Articles (October 6, 2004)
AOL is blocking and censoring MER articles because of pressures originating with Jewish and Israeli groups.
Emergency U.N. Security Council Meeting on Israel (October 4, 2004)
The Springsteen 'Vote For Change' Concerts (October 5, 2004)
"The press has let the country down. It's taken a very amoral stand, in that essential issues are often portrayed as simply one side says this and the other side says that. I think that Fox News and the Republican right have intimidated the press into an incredible self-consciousness
about appearing objective and backed them into a corner of sorts where they have ceded some of their responsibility and righteous power." - Bruce Springsteen
Israel's Peacenik - Uri Avneri: Realities (October 5, 2004)
"Uri Avneri, along with many Israelis and Jews, rightly fears that at some point Israel will be the direct target of blame for it's major contribution to having brought about such terrorism in the world and pushing the U.S.
into invading Iraq. It is an understandable fear;
for it is to a significant degree true."
Iraq is a "disaster...that will haunt the U.S. for decades" - Wall Street Journal Reporter (October 2, 2004)
Iraq is a "disaster" that has deteriorated "into a
raging barbaric guerilla war" that will haunt the
United States for decades.
The Passion of the Bush (October 2, 2004)
As the modern-day American-Israeli led Christian-Jewish crusade to remake the Middle East in the name of 'democracy and freedom' proceeds, this new documentary is telling indeed. It was first shown at the Republican Convention in New York a few weeks ago; and now, as a kind of Bush-loving counter to Fahrenhite 9/11, the DVD is being rushed out in advance of the upcoming election.
U.S. and Israel Prepare for Iran + (October 1, 2004)
Even as the two branches of the American political establishment semi-debated last night who would fight the new wars better than the other, even as U.S. and Israeli battle tanks and attack aircraft bombed and killed in Iraq and Palestine worse than ever, preparations to either force compliance or attack Iran, Syria, Hezbollah (Lebanon), Hamas (Palestine), and North Korea soon after the American election are fast proceeding at the Pentagon and the CIA.
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