Brilliant analysis by Norman Finkelstein on Israel’s callous act of piracy on the Gaza flotilla:

Hamas recently sent US President Barack Obama a letter outlining the need for America to change it’s policy and “double standards” concerning it’s involvement in the Palestinian cause.

Taher An-Nunu, a Hamas Spokesman, said in a press release that the letters include “a request for Obama to change his policy towards the Palestinian people and their rights.” An-Nunu also said the letters did not deviate from official government policy, which imparts upon Hamas the right to resist Israel, armed or otherwise, until Israel withdraws from areas occupied after the Six-Day War in 1967.

The following is an interesting article by Gordon Duff, Senior Editor of Veterans Today, linking the recent failed bombing in Times Square to Mossad:

Times Square Bomb Hoax, Israeli Intel Group Shows It’s Hand

Israelis Blame Taliban Group, One They Have Been Working With For Years

By Gordon Duff Staff Writer / Senior Editor

Who would have believed it?  Only days after a warning of an Israeli “false flag” bombing against the US “in the works” a massive car bomb is discovered in Time Square!  Better yet, though no intelligence organization in the world could discover anyone claiming responsibility for this embarrassing failure, SITE Intelligence, a group rumored as the “voice of the Mossad” has placed the blame on the Pakistani Taliban.

This is the same group that has come up with numerous bin Laden “audio” tapes, seemingly, though tiny and nearly totally unstaffed, whenever it is convenient for Israel to point a finger at someone, magically Site Intelligence, run by former IDF soldier Rita Katz, whose father was executed as a spy by Saddam Hussein, makes another “unbelievable” intelligence find.

Site Intelligence finds are not only timely for Israel, when the world is focused on claims they have been planning a ‘dirty bomb’ attack to send the US to war against Iran, but always tend to support mysterious organizations run from the caves of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region.

SMOKING GUN?

After the demise of Iraq, victim of falsified intelligence, now eliminated as an Israeli competitor, all eyes turned to Pakistan, Islam’s only nuclear state.  To establish footholds to destabilize Pakistan, a pro-Indian/Israeli government under President Karzai was installed in Kabul.

After 9 years, no evidence of any terrorist activity involved in 9/11 has been found in Afghanistan.  The great “net” meant to catch Osama bin Laden and armies of Al Qaeda terrorists came up empty.  Instead, we are told from reliable sources that Arab nations friendly to the US released criminals, transporting them to Afghanistan.

These “foreign fighters” actually little more than “extras” in a massive global theatre, kept the small US forces engaged for years, all without any purpose other than to establish that a terrorist organization must have been in Afghanistan because there certainly was one after 2002.

SURROGATE WARFARE ON PAKISTAN

In addition to installing a government that would work directly with Israel and India to organize terrorist attacks on Pakistan, funding to destabilize the oil and gas rich republics of the former Soviet Union had to be raised.

Opium production under the Taliban had been eliminated.  The new government quickly began a resurgence of opium production and heroin processing.  Aided by agents of the Indian RAW and Israeli Mossad, the governments of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan quickly fell under the influence of the 65 billion dollar a year Afghanistan drug empire.

Though the drugs may have been from Afghanistan, multiple intelligence agencies from Israel, India, Turkey and others, aided by military contracting firms contracted to the CIA, carried this plan forward.

Continual news stories tying Pakistan to failures to suppress terrorism or rumoring involvement in terrorism themselves flowed onto the world scene through western mainstream media, providing a clear footprint of a classic Mossad operation.

NO SO “UNEXPECTED”

With the demise of Al Qaeda, an unnamed Taliban organization with a website only visible to one person on earth has now declared a mysterious and shadowy war against the United States, in New York City, a city under tight security but one with a very large Israeli/Mossad presence.

This was the same city where the “dancing Israeli’s,” celebrated 9/11 after filming the attacks.  Their advance knowledge of the attacks has been one of the many puzzle pieces tying Israel to 9/11.

However, it wasn’t until the “crotch bomber” of last Christmas that the breadth of Israel’s penetration of US security was demonstrated with Abdulmohammed’s attack tying directly to Tel Aviv.

Anyone who visits New York is aware that security there, especially in Time Square is the highest of anywhere in the world.  The intelligence organizations protecting New York, including the world’s best police force, leave only one organization as capable of this kind of effort, an organization with massive resources in the area, numerous Israeli/American assets and many residual relationships with Gulliani/Kerik/Bush era friends, friends conveniently “asleep at the switch” on 9/11.

TIMING

Recent intelligence leaks from several agencies have warned of an impending “9/11 style” attack on a high value target in the US or Europe.  Reports indicated that a conventional bomb enhanced with nuclear material would be used.  Such a weapon would indicate sufficient “WMD” credentials in whipping up the necessary war frenzy to get the American public to overlook the history of falsified intelligence that drove them to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

However, a quickly thrown together “prank” terror attack taking advantage of the environmental disaster in the gulf and the president’s presence there, when coordinated with the press campaign already in motion attempting to smear the Obama administration with the Katrina failures during the Bush presidency, is just too convenient.

With Iranian president Ahmadinejad and Secretary of State Clinton both scheduled to be in New York in the next 24 hours, and recent stories out of Israel trying to tie Iran to the Taliban, the issue of “timing” is a critical one.

The “managed press” aspect of this attack, the phony “web based” confession, the “keeping you safe” scare tactics and the continual drumming of Islamophobia is unmistakable.

ISREAL TIES TO PAKISTAN TALIBAN WELL ESTABLISHED

The group blamed in the Site Intelligence/Israeli report, the Pakistani Taliban has been responsible for hundreds of attacks in Pakistan, killing thousands of citizens.  However, reliable sources have tied this group directly to Mossad/RAW training camps inside Afghanistan and Balochistan.  The Pakistani Taliban have long been allies of Israel and India with 2000 terrorist trainers inside Afghanistan arming Pakistani Taliban terrorist group.

This has been confirmed, not only in direct briefings with the Pakistani ISPR and ISI but US military intelligence sources as well, who dispute the number of terrorist trainers, not their presence.

Terrorist groups inside Balochistan, the remote Pakistan province said to be a haven for Mossad attacks against Iran, claim to be headquartered in Israel.  These groups work directly with the Pakistan Taliban and are another indication of this current “stunt” turning back on non-Islamic planners.

ALWAYS THE SAME, “WHO GAINS?”

With Iran taking the propaganda offensive to the United States, a nation increasingly distancing itself from, not only the idea of supporting an Israeli attack on Iran, but Israel herself.  Israel is under pressure to reestablish itself as America’s partner in a long discredited “war on terror” that has been a huge embarrassment to the US.

A “very public” attack like his is a message to President Obama.  “We can go where we want and our control of the press will put the blame on anything we do, on you.”

With over 90% of America’s terror arrests turning out to be innocent bystanders, some tortured for years, untold numbers “disappeared,” Bush era failures have soured public support for hunting terrorist leaders who have increasingly been either captured by Pakistan or have been found to be negotiating with US forces.  The “war on terror” had become an “Israeli franchise,” making billions in increased military aid, some covertly transferred to Israel through “weapons replenishing” and fat military contracts taken from American firms.

The Marines in Afghanistan are using MRAP vehicles built in Israel, a country with nearly one million guest workers while America has over 30 million unemployed and an unused technology and industrial base better equipped for such production.

With the signature of this bombing being so close to that of the “crotch bombing,” an attack with Israeli fingerprints from Nigeria to Yemen to Amsterdam, the “superfast” accusation against a Pakistani group was no surprise.

ONGOING INVESTIGATION/FOX “ISRAELI ASSET” NEWS ATTACKS OBAMA

With New York police discounting the Pakistan connection to the bombing immediately, Fox News has unleashed an attack on the Obama administration in a well orchestrated manner, accusing democrats of “failing to protect the American people.”

With both Site Intelligence and Fox News tied directly to Israel and the signature and timing of this attack showing clear Israeli fingerprints, Fox may be right.

America may be unable to protect itself from a nation still seen by most Americans as a close ally.  No other nation has the capability of such an attack or the influence to orchestrate the news, an act already in motion.

If any finger is pointing anywhere, Fox News is telling us “Israel did it.”

Below is my latest illustrated thought in a small series of silly musings on the world around us - published today in the Window Dressers Arms:

"Ahmed the exchange student"

The following article by Eric Margolis is from the Toronto Sun:

WARS SENDING U.S. INTO RUIN

U.S. President Barack Obama calls the $3.8-trillion US budget he just sent to Congress a major step in restoring America’s economic health.

In fact, it’s another potent fix given to a sick patient deeply addicted to the dangerous drug — debt.

More empires have fallen because of reckless finances than invasion. The latest example was the Soviet Union, which spent itself into ruin by buying tanks.

Washington’s deficit (the difference between spending and income from taxes) will reach a vertiginous $1.6 trillion US this year. The huge sum will be borrowed, mostly from China and Japan, to which the U.S. already owes $1.5 trillion. Debt service will cost $250 billion.

To spend $1 trillion, one would have had to start spending $1 million daily soon after Rome was founded and continue for 2,738 years until today.

Obama’s total military budget is nearly $1 trillion. This includes Pentagon spending of $880 billion. Add secret black programs (about $70 billion); military aid to foreign nations like Egypt, Israel and Pakistan; 225,000 military “contractors” (mercenaries and workers); and veterans’ costs. Add $75 billion (nearly four times Canada’s total defence budget) for 16 intelligence agencies with 200,000 employees.

The Afghanistan and Iraq wars ($1 trillion so far), will cost $200-250 billion more this year, including hidden and indirect expenses. Obama’s Afghan “surge” of 30,000 new troops will cost an additional $33 billion — more than Germany’s total defence budget.

No wonder U.S. defence stocks rose after Peace Laureate Obama’s “austerity” budget.

Military and intelligence spending relentlessly increase as unemployment heads over 10% and the economy bleeds red ink. America has become the Sick Man of the Western Hemisphere, an economic cripple like the defunct Ottoman Empire.

The Pentagon now accounts for half of total world military spending. Add America’s rich NATO allies and Japan, and the figure reaches 75%.

China and Russia combined spend only a paltry 10% of what the U.S. spends on defence.

There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and 255,000 service members stationed abroad, 116,000 in Europe, nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea.

Military spending gobbles up 19% of federal spending and at least 44% of tax revenues. During the Bush administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — funded by borrowing — cost each American family more than $25,000.

Like Bush, Obama is paying for America’s wars through supplemental authorizations ­— putting them on the nation’s already maxed-out credit card. Future generations will be stuck with the bill.

This presidential and congressional jiggery-pokery is the height of public dishonesty.

America’s wars ought to be paid for through taxes, not bookkeeping fraud.

If U.S. taxpayers actually had to pay for the Afghan and Iraq wars, these conflicts would end in short order.

America needs a fair, honest war tax.

The U.S. clearly has reached the point of imperial overreach. Military spending and debt-servicing are cannibalizing the U.S. economy, the real basis of its world power. Besides the late U.S.S.R., the U.S. also increasingly resembles the dying British Empire in 1945, crushed by immense debts incurred to wage the Second World War, unable to continue financing or defending the imperium, yet still imbued with imperial pretensions.

It is increasingly clear the president is not in control of America’s runaway military juggernaut. Sixty years ago, the great President Dwight Eisenhower, whose portrait I keep by my desk, warned Americans to beware of the military-industrial complex. Six decades later, partisans of permanent war and world domination have joined Wall Street’s money lenders to put America into thrall.

Increasing numbers of Americans are rightly outraged and fearful of runaway deficits. Most do not understand their political leaders are also spending their nation into ruin through unnecessary foreign wars and a vainglorious attempt to control much of the globe — what neocons call “full spectrum dominance.”

If Obama really were serious about restoring America’s economic health, he would demand military spending be slashed, quickly end the Iraq and Afghan wars and break up the nation’s giant Frankenbanks.

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.

My latest article “The American wars” was published today at Online Opinion - As the year comes to an end I thought it would be a good time to have a long hard look at what we have achieved over the past eight years of bloodshed. The piece deals with our contemporary history, Iraq, Afghanistan, American involvement and the abhorrent loss of life that has occured because of it:

The American wars

By Reuben Brand

The past eight years of our history have been marred with violent bloodshed, war, fear, terrorism, propaganda and countless loss of life. There are a myriad questions that need to be asked and answered to make any kind of logical sense of this mess, but one reoccurring theme is the role America plays surrounding our dark devolution into the new millennium.

Throughout my travels in the Middle East region, I frequently hear the same issue being raised, “America is a very big problem”. It doesn’t matter whether I am in Pakistan, Syria, Oman, Kuwait, or any where else, the sentiment remains the same: “America is a very big problem.”

Contemporary history as we know it began on September 11, 2001, when two iconic towers fell in New York and more than 2,700 lives were lost.

As tragic as any loss of life is, are we expected to believe that the deaths which occurred on 9-11 could possibly justify the invasion of Afghanistan, the systematic detainment, torture and abuse of countless civilians on no charge other than suspicion, the illegal invasion of Iraq on the premise of weapons of mass destruction and according to analysis of UNICEF data by Australian scientist, Dr Gideon Polya, the brutal deaths of 6.6 million Afghanis (both violent and avoidable) and 1.2 million Iraqis? It is a largely disputed figure, but one that has now been published and proven by ORB, an independent UK based Research Company.

Are we really expected to believe these wars that have shattered the lives and homes of millions of Afghanis and Iraqis leaving many as destitute refugees, that have completely destroyed two countries, and which now conveniently have US backed puppets installed as their “democratic” leaders, are being fought to ensure the safety and freedom of the West, primarily America, from some form of barbaric terrorism? Does anyone else not see the irony in this?

Keep the West safe from terrorists by terrorising everyone who looks, dresses and sounds different. Especially those who don’t agree with the doctrine or ideology of the world’s super power. “If it looks like the enemy, shoot it!” were the rules of engagement given to Sergeant Ken Davis on his first tour of Iraq. Yes, I tend to agree with the sentiment of the region: “America is a very big problem.”

Any honest person would have to ask the question “why didn’t America invade the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?” It is now widely accepted that Iraq and Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9-11. We all know that al-Qaida is primarily a Saudi backed organisation; its leader, Osama bin Laden, is a Saudi; and it was 19 men, many of whom were Saudi nationals, who hijacked three planes, flew two into the World Trade Centre and one into the Pentagon. This is all common knowledge.

Al-Qaida attacks America, so America in all its wisdom and “intelligence” decimates Afghanistan and leads a pre-emptive strike and invasion of Iraq - go figure.

In an address to the nation on March 17, 2003, just two days before the horrific Shock and Awe bombing of Baghdad, former US President George W. Bush stated that “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to posses and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised”.

The only weapons of sizable measure found in Iraq were the weapons US and coalition forces used to kill the Iraqis.

There were no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, we all know that.

Perhaps Bush, in one of his many misspoken moments got the word WMD mixed up with MWD, a term used by geophysicists while surveying and drilling for oil. Measurement While Drilling to be exact. There are plenty of MWDs in Iraq - not exactly a threat to global security, more like an asset to financial security.

The US government misled its own people, lied to the world and created a war deemed illegal under international law. A war that continues to be in grave violation of the Geneva Conventions. A war for which we are all now paying the price.

Lord Bingham, one of Britain’s most authoritative judicial figures and retired senior law lord, delivered a speech in late 2008 regarding the invasion of Iraq. “If I am right that the invasion of Iraq by the US, the UK, and some other states was unauthorised by the Security Council there was, of course, a serious violation of international law and the rule of law,” he said.

Bingham continued with explicit reference to the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib: “Particularly disturbing to proponents of the rule of law is the cynical lack of concern for international legality among some top officials in the Bush administration,” he added.

OK, so we have a fair idea of why Iraq was invaded, but what about Afghanistan? The US says it is looking for bin Laden - with all the technology in the world and they still can’t find him? It makes you wonder that perhaps Afghanistan has something more valuable on offer.

It does: Afghanistan holds the keys to the rich natural gas and oil of the Caspian Basin, which will be transported through the yet to be developed Trans Afghan Pipeline - a blueprint the US has had on the backburner for some years now. Once implemented, this lucrative pipeline will hungrily carry all the natural resources it possibly can across Afghanistan, down into the seaport of Gwadar in south-western Pakistan.

Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan also allows the US to keep pressure on the only Islamic country to possess nuclear weapons. Pakistan poses a serious threat to US control in the region: “destabilise and disarm” is the general theme, how it will be played out is yet to be seen.

Just as Bush propagated his lies about Iraq concealing some of the “most lethal weapons ever devised,” President Obama, six years on, remarked on March 27 this year that “we are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and allies - So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Slightly more eloquent than his predecessor, but it is more or less the same old rhetoric.

In a White Paper from the Interagency Policy Group’s Report on US. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan it was stated that “in Pakistan, al-Qaida and other groups of jihadist terrorists are planning new terror attacks. Their targets remain the US homeland, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Europe, Australia, our allies in the Middle East, and other targets of opportunity.” Well that just about covers the globe, so according to this report al-Qaida is planning to destroy the entire world. Quite ambitious for a group whose leader lives in a cave.

Obama delivered another speech earlier in the year about “responsibly ending the war in Iraq”. Desperate to try to turn the humanitarian disaster that America created into some kind of humanitarian aid mission, Obama made it clear that “America’s men and women in uniform have fought block by block, province by province, year after year, to give the Iraqis this chance to choose a better future. Now, we must ask the Iraqi people to seize it,” he said.

To seize what? A country that you destroyed? It’s a farcical remark. The whole idea of an irresponsible country preaching about “responsibly ending the war in Iraq”, is ludicrous. The responsible thing to do would have been not to invade in the first place.

Obama then went on to portray US military violence and aggression as acts of friendship and kindness:

“Our nations have known difficult times together. But ours is a bond forged by shared bloodshed, and countless friendships among our people. We Americans have offered our most precious resource - our young men and women - to work with you to rebuild what was destroyed by despotism - So to the Iraqi people, let me be clear about America’s intentions. The United States pursues no claim on your territory or your resources. We respect your sovereignty and the tremendous sacrifices you have made for your country.”

The pre-emptive strike doctrine, the shock and awe campaign, the routine torture and humiliation of innocent civilians at Abu Ghraib and the countless other war crimes perpetrated by the US tells us another story about respecting sovereignty.

So what have we achieved over the past eight years of blood thirsty war? Is the world a safer place now? No. Of course it isn’t. We have achieved more mistrust, more hatred, a new arms race, more support for the Taliban and other insurgency groups and, most devastatingly, we have achieved on average, the violent deaths of many Afghanis and Iraqis everyday for the past eight years.

Congratulations, what an achievement.

There are no quick fixes, but it’s about time Team America backed off and stopped trying to police the world - their vigilante actions create a pile of bodies wherever they go. Honestly ask yourself if the past eight years of bloodshed has been worth it.

A Nobel Peace Prize winner escallating a war in an already war ravaged country and sending an additional 30,000 troops to the region - Oh the sad, sad irony

Obama’s rhetoric, although far more eloquent, is much the same as his predecessor:

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: