The sad reality - US government officials now face a “pro Israel” litmus test before they can work for the government:

The following was posted by Stephen M. Walt on his blog at Foreign Policy: 

Ha’aretz says U.S. officials face ‘pro-Israel’ background check

Associate Professor Jake Lynch, director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney has written the following fantastic piece, published in the Sydney Morning Herald, about America being in a constant state of war:

How America is constantly at war

JAKE LYNCH
June 26, 2009

Early this year was a turning point in America’s relations with the rest of the world, and not just because Team Obama took over. What tells us more about the underlying dynamics of global conflict is that the US switched, at some point following the inauguration, from being a country usually at peace to one usually at war.

The modern era of American war fighting started with what President Franklin Roosevelt called the “date of infamy”: Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, which brought GIs into World War II. To this point, 811 months have passed, and the US has now spent 406 of those at war. That doesn’t count the innumerable logistical efforts, starting with the Berlin airlift, clandestine operations and proxy wars - even the odd peacekeeping mission.

It is derived from adding the 46 months it took to get Japan to surrender in the Pacific to 37 months of the next episode of all-out combat, in Korea. Identifying the Vietnam starting point is tricky, but the first American military hardware - helicopters - and personnel to fly them arrived in South Vietnam on December 11, 1961.

The formal ceasefire came 134 months later, and for a while the idea of sending Americans to fight overseas fell into disrepute. It was rehabilitated through small-scale deployments like Grenada in 1983 and the invasion of Panama in 1989: two months each.

Then came Desert Storm,where it took three months to eject the forces of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991.

There followed the ill-starred attempt in Somalia in 1992-93 (10 months) and the bombing of Yugoslavia in the Kosovo conflict of 1999 (another three). The US has been at war in Afghanistan since October 2001, and again in Iraq from March 2003.

American troops are due to withdraw from Iraqi cities this weekend, perhaps marking an end point there, after 76 months, though the country seethes with latent conflicts. Afghanistan now stands at 93 and counting.

Total: 406 out of 811, more than half.

I’ve counted each month in the overlap twice, to reflect the uniqueness of two major wars happening at once. One might ask whether the US actually ever stopped being at war with Iraq, given the constant air patrols over the no-fly zones, the ever-tightening sanctions regime and the occasional intensification of air strikes.

For the US to be at war should not be surprising, but seen as normal: not “man bites dog” but “dog bites man”. In every case, our attention has been directed to particular, external causes, or threats, from South-East Asian nations “falling like dominoes” to communism, to Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction”.

Instead, we should be looking for general, internal causes. What is it about America that keeps it at war and what intensifies the pressures to war?

A colossal arms industry needs periodic advertising campaigns, on slogans like “shock and awe”, more now because the era of shareholder value means ever greater returns are required, to meet market expectations.

Obama’s first defence budget in early April kept up the previous level of spending. The share price of all the major weapons suppliers turned sharply upwards just beforehand and they’ve been outperforming the stockmarket ever since. Recently, the industry inveigled Congress into an appropriation the military itself doesn’t want, the redundant F-22 fighter.

Then there’s the media. As secretary of state, Colin Powell became America’s chief spokesman for invading Iraq. TV companies waved the flag. His son, Michael Powell, was then the chairman of a Federal Communications Commission planning to deregulate the industry. NBC, one of the three major TV networks, is majority owned by General Electric, which is a major military supplier and contributor to the Bush presidential campaigns.

A proliferation of on-air experts and commentators from corporate-funded think tanks push military stratagems. The idea for the “troop surge” in Iraq was launched, for instance, by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, with a column in The Washington Post.

Where does that leave us? Australian troops are about to take part in Operation Talisman Sabre, in central Queensland, the biennial joint training exercise geared towards maintaining “interoperability” with their US counterparts. We are rehearsing for the next war, and we should think long and hard about whether we really want to.

Obama has spoken about the need for America to regain its leadership as an innovator of civilian technological applications. He may re-regulate media. He may cut the Pentagon’s procurement budgets and he may promote inclusive dialogue and negotiation in Afghanistan.

He may prove a peacemaker: but the underlying momentum, in large sections of the US economy, is pulling in the opposite direction.

In an interview last week with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, CBS journalist Katie Couric got more than she bargained for.

Whilst pressing Ahmadinejad about Neda Soltan, an Iranian woman who was shot and killed by Iranian forces during a protest in June this year, Couric showed a photo of the womans body and asked “what would you say to her family?” - President Ahmadinejad conveyed his sorrow at her death, then turned the tables on Couric and produced his own photograph of another woman. He asked Couric if she knew who the woman was. Couric said she didn’t. And thats when the fun begins.

The woman in Ahmadinejad’s Photograph is Marwa Ali El-Sherbini - who was stabbed to death 20 times by a neo Nazi inside a German Court. The woman’s husband ran to her aid only to be shot at by German police.

Ahmadinejad asks why the Western Media didn’t report on Marwa Ali El-Sherbini’s death in the same manner as they did with Nada Sultan. Ahmadinejad raises some very good points, well worth a watch:  

I wonder why they never actually get arrested…? Oh thats right, everyone is affraid of wrath of the lobby. Shame.

“LONDON — Lawyers have asked a British court to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli defense chief Ehud Barak, who is in the country to meet with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other officials.

Tayab Ali, one of several lawyers representing a coalition of Palestinian groups, said papers his group filed in the City of Westminster Magistrates Court accuse the Israeli defense minister of violating the Geneva conventions and committing war crimes while directing the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip that began late last year.

“We think anybody suspected of war crimes should be brought to justice,” said Ali, whose brought the case on behalf of a group of civilians and a human rights organization inside Gaza.”

Read full article here

In his debut appearance at the United Nations, Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi came out swinging as he chastised the UN  for failing to prevent the 65 wars that have occured since it was founded in 1945.

“It should not be called the Security Council, it should be called the “terror council,” he said.

I have to admit - the man has a good point. One word from the US and any plan the UN has gets vetoed.

Is it any wonder that Karzai is in the lead? As an ex-employee of Unocal, one of the major companies involved in the Trans-Afghan Pipeline, it would seem that his popularity amongst Western backers comes with a price. Karzai gives the US a safe route for their oil/natural gas pipeline - the US give Karzai the Presidency.  Once again “democracy” will be overlooked:


AFP: “Karzai had been tipped to ease to a second term, but a strong campaign from former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and reports of miserable turnout in the president’s southern powerbase have boosted speculation of a run-off vote.


“Negotiations are well under way for Abdullah to accept defeat at the first round. It may depend on what he gets in exchange,” one Western diplomat in Kabul told AFP on condition of anonymity.


Western backers of Karzai’s government have urged presidential candidates to refrain from premature announcements, respect the electoral process and for their supporters to keep calm.


“The Karzai camp says they have 70 percent of the vote. We have to wait and see in the coming days. It’ll be problematic if the results drag out,” said Haroun Mir, from Afghanistan’s Centre for Research and Policy Studies.”

Australian and US troops engage in joint millitary operations and training in our very own backyard. Its called “Operation Talisman Sabre” and is basically a pre meditated war crime in the making.

Michael Swartz’s latest article “Colonizing Iraq - The Obama Doctrine?” is a must read:

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“Unfortunately, not just for the Iraqis, but for the American public, it’s what’s happening in “the dark” — beyond the glare of lights and TV cameras — that counts. While many critics of the Iraq War have been willing to cut the Obama administration some slack as its foreign policy team and the U.S. military gear up for that definitive withdrawal, something else — something more unsettling — appears to be going on.”

In an article about Babak Rahimi, assistant professor of Iranian and Islamic Studies at UCSD, journalist Matthew T. Hall from the Union Tribune in San Diego gave me a lovely little plug. Thanks Matthew:

Reuben Brand, a freelance journalist based in Pakistan earlier this year, called Rahimi “a very brave individual” and posted this on the PBS site: “There should be more writers of this ilk who tell the stories others won’t.”