The 5 Most Ludicrous War Claims in Obama’s Syria Speech

By Matthew Rothschild, September 10, 2013     

1. “I possess the authority to order military strikes.”

No you don’t, Mr. President. Only Congress has the authority to declare war, and ordering military strikes would be a clear act of war, thus violating the Constitution. It would also violate the War Powers Act, which says that the President can’t engage in hostilities without a declaration of war or specific Congressional authorization unless there is “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” And Syria has done no such thing.

2. Syria’s use of chemical weapons is “a danger to our security.”

Note that four paragraphs later, he said it wasn’t “a direct or imminent threat to our security.” So what kind of a threat is it? Well, a rather tenuous one. “Other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas and using them. Over time, our troops would again face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield.” Really? It is very unlikely that some dictator would do this because he would know that if he did, the U.S. would drop a nuke on his head. That was the warning that Saddam Hussein got from the U.S. in January of 1991, and he didn’t use his chemical weapons even as the U.S. was destroying most of his army. If that threat was enough to stop Saddam, it’s likely good enough to stop other dictators.

Obama also acknowledged that “the Assad regime does not have the ability to seriously threaten our military.”

3. “If fighting spills beyond Syria’s borders, these weapons could threaten allies like Turkey, Jordan, and Israel.”

Let’s just look at Israel. Obama contradicted himself just a few minutes later when he said, “Neither Assad nor his allies have any interest in escalation that would lead to his demise, and our ally, Israel, can defend itself with overwhelming force, as well as the unshakable support of the United States of America.”

4. “It’s true that some of Assad’s opponents are extremists. But Al Qaeda will only draw strength in a more chaotic Syria if people there see the world doing nothing to prevent innocent civilians from being gassed.”

Only? If U.S. missile strikes seriously degrade Assad’s military, they would certainly help the extremists who are allied with Al Qaeda in Syria.

5. “For nearly seven decades, the United States has been the anchor of global security. This has meant doing more than forging international agreements; it has meant enforcing them. The burdens of leadership are often heavy, but the world’s a better place because we have borne them.”

Was the U.S. an anchor of global security and an enforcer of international agreements when it overthrew the Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953, or the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954?

Is the world a better place because the U.S. helped overthrow Salvador Allende’s democratically elected government in Chile almost exactly 40 years ago?

Is the world a better place because the United States killed 3 million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and because we dropped 20 million gallons of napalm (waging our own version of chemical warfare) on those countries?

Is the world a better place because the United States supported brutal governments in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s, which killed tens of thousands of their own people?

Is the world a better place because George Bush waged an illegal war against Iraq and killed between 100,000 and a million civilians?

And what international agreements was the United States enforcing when it tortured people after 9/11?

Western rationality

by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, Voltaire Network| Damascus (Syria)| 7 September 2013

 

You liked the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the Vietnam War, the Kuwaiti incubators and the first Gulf War, the Racak massacre and the war in Kosovo, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the second Gulf War and the threats to Benghazi and the Libyan war? You will just love the gassing of civilians in Ghouta and the bombing of Syria.

In a statement released by the White House, the U.S. Director of Intelligence, James Clapper, said that 1,429 people were killed in a massive chemical attack on a dozen localities, August 21, 2013 in the suburbs of Damascus [1] .

The French services were unable to conduct an on-site victim toll, according to the declassified notes of intelligence coordinator Alain Zebulun [2]. However, they saw about 281 victims on videos, while the French "non-governmental" organization, Doctors Without Borders, counted 355 in hospitals.
Allied services all refer to videos. So, the Americans have collected a hundred on YouTube, while the French have only found 47. Washington and Paris consider them all as authentic. However, some of them were posted at 7:00 am, Damascus time (which explains why they are dated August 20th on YouTube, which is based in California), but with an almost midday sun, which implies they were filmed in advance [3].

All observers have noted the high proportion of children among the victims. The United States has counted 426, or more than a third. Some observers, but neither those of the US nor their French counterparts, were intrigued to find that victims were almost all of the same age and they had no families to cry over them. Stranger still, the gas would have killed children and adult men, but would have spared women.

The wide distribution of satellite channel images of victims allowed Alawite families near Latakia to recognize their children who had been abducted two weeks prior by the "rebels." This identification was long in coming because there are few survivors of the massacre by the allies of the United States, the United Kingdom and France in loyalist villages where more than a thousand bodies of civilians were discovered in mass graves.

Americans, British and French agree that the victims were killed by nerve gas that could be sarin or contain sarin. They claim to base their findings on their own analysis, carried out in their laboratories on samples collected by each of their services. However, the UN inspectors, who came on site to collect other samples will give their verdict in a dozen days. Indeed, the analyzes carried out by the Americans, British and French are unknown to the world scientific community for whom culturing tissue samples requires a much longer period.

Though it is clear that the children died of chemical poisoning, it is not at all certain that they were gassed. The videos show that the dying produce a white foam while sarin causes yellow emissions. The three Western powers also agreed to attribute the responsibility for this event to various extents to the Syrian Arab army. The U.S. Director of Intelligence says that its services observed the Syrian military, during the previous four days, mixing chemicals. The chairman of the British Intelligence Committee, Jon Day, assures that the Syrian Arab army is not at its first attempt and has used gas 14 times since 2012 [4] that is to say as many cases as reports of the use of chemical weapons by the United States during the Second Gulf War.

The revelations of the US, British and French services are corroborated by a telephone interception. According to this narrative, a senior official of Syrian defense would have made a panicked call to the head of the chemical gases unit about the massacre. However, the interception was not made ​​by the Americans, British or French, but was provided by Unit 8200 of the Israeli Mossad [5].

In summary, US, British and French services are 100% certain that the Syrian Arab army gassed an unknown number of civilians:

1. For this they would have used a new kind of old sarin gas that does not affect women.
2. For four days, the United States observed the preparing of the crime without intervening.
3. The day before use, the magic gas killed children who were kidnapped by jihadists two weeks earlier and more than 200 miles away.
4. These events are known through authentic films made and sometimes posted in advance on YouTube.
5. They are confirmed by a telephone interception produced ​​by the Israeli enemy.
6. Western secret services have a secret method for identifying sarin gas without having to culture human tissue.
7. As it would be the fifteenth such operation, the "régime" would have crossed a "red line " and should be "punished" by bombing it to deprive it of its means of defense.

In international law, war propaganda is the most serious crime because it makes all other crimes possible.

[1] " U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government ’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013 ", Voltaire Network, 30 August 2013.
[2] " Summary of the French Information about the chemical attack of 21 August 2013 ", Voltaire Network, 2 September 2013.
[3] " About videos of the massacre of August 21s ", Voltaire Network, 30 August 2013 .
[4] " Letter From the Chairman of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee on Syria ", Voltaire Network, 29 August 2013.
[5] “Israel’s role in the announcement of the attack against Syria”, Translation Alizée Ville, Voltaire Network, 1 September 2013.

Jabhat al-Nusra and Free Syrian Army: we want to free Maaloula from faithless christians!

Watch the video shot by Jabhat al-Nusra (linked to Al-Qaeda) militants as they attacked the town of Maaloula in Syria yesterday (Thursday 6th 2013):

-At 0:17, the guy says "bombing of Mar Sarkis Church, Allaho Akbar"
-At 1:36, the guy says: "targeting the Mar Takla monument".

This video another also shot by this by these militants as they entered the twon of Maaloula. They were shooting at houses and churches and at the mountains where the Safir Hotel, to which town residents fled, lies.

And this is a video a militant of Jabhat al-Nusra cutting a Syrian soldier open after killing him and eating his heart and internal organs as a sign of victory (contains graphic material).

Syrian Free Army (SFA) and Al-Qaeda linked Jabat al-Nusra, fighting under the umbrealla of Syrain rebels, are supported and funded by the all mighty US and the all blood-thirsty Bandar Bin Sultan's KSA. They say they want to free Maaloula from the "faithless" crusaders (i.e. Christians!!).

Notes:

1- Maaloula is a Christian town north of Damascus (population: 2000) whose residents are said to be the last speakers of Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ.

2- John McCain wants us to think that these people, i.e. the FSA and jabahat Al-nusra are moderate muslims and their "Allaho Akbar" screams whenever they kill, shoot, or bomb, are similar to the "thanks God" Christian say when rejoying in any occasion!

The Last Speakers of Aramaic

September 5, 2013 by Robert Moynihan, PhD.

The Last Remaining Speakers of Aramaic — the Language Spoken by Jesus — Live in a Town in Syria under Attack from Rebel Units Being Supported by the United States

“Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.”—William Shakespeare (from the play Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1, line 273)

“(United States) Senators on Wednesday tried to write a tight resolution authorizing President Obama to strike Syria under very specific circumstances, but analysts and lawmakers said the language still has plenty of holes the White House could use to expand military action well beyond what Congress appears to intend… The resolution puts a 60-day limit on Mr. Obama’s ability to conduct strikes, while allowing him one 30-day extension of that authority… ‘Wiggle room? Plenty of that,’ said Louis Fisher, scholar in residence at the Constitution Project and former long-time expert for the Congressional Research Service on separation of powers issues… Mr. Fisher pointed to the 1964 resolution that authorized a limited response to the Gulf of Tonkin, but that ended up being the start of an escalation of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war.” —Washington Times, September 4, 2013, reporting on developing legislation in the US Senate to permit President Obama to launch an attack on Syria

“On Wednesday morning, rebels from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra group launched the assault on predominantly Christian Maaloula, some 60 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Damascus, according to a Syrian government official and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-regime group…” —Associated Press dispatch, September 4, 2013
“Secretary of State John Kerry said at Wednesday’s hearing that Arab counties have offered to pay for the entirety of unseating President Bashar al-Assad if the United States took the lead militarily. ‘With respect to Arab countries offering to bear costs and to assess, the answer is profoundly yes,’ Kerry said. ‘They have. That offer is on the table.’” —Washington Post, September 4, 2013
“In an exchange with a senator, Kerry was asked whether it was “basically true” that the Syrian opposition had “become more infiltrated by al Qaeda over time.” Kerry said: “No, that is actually basically not true. It’s basically incorrect.” —Reuters dispatch, September 4, 2013 (yesterday), reporting on testimony in the US Congress of US Secretary of State John Kerry; Link

“They lie beautifully, of course. I saw debates in Congress. A congressman asks Mr Kerry: ‘Is al Qaeda there?’ He says: ‘No’… He is lying and knows he is lying. It’s sad.” —Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, commenting on testimony in the US Congress of US Secretary of State John Kerry, in the same Reuters dispatch

“The tragic consequences of the conflict are known. It has produced more than 110,000 deaths, numberless wounded, more than 4 million internal refugees and more than 2 million refugees in neighboring countries. In front of this tragic situation, the absolute priority is clear: to make the violence cease.” —Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican’s “foreign minister,” to nearly 200 assembled diplomats in the Vatican this morning

“The Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi denied that the Pope has called the Syrian dictator Assad. The news was published in the Argentine newspaper Clarin signed by Sergio Rubin, friend and biographer of Pope Francis.” —Agenzia Italia (AGI) dispatch, September 5, 2013

“Maaloula is a mountain village with about 2,000 residents, who are among a tiny group in the region that still speaks a version of Aramaic, the ancient language of biblical times also believed to have been spoken by Jesus.” —The same Associated Press dispatch from yesterday

“It is regrettable that, from the very beginning of the conflict in Syria, one-sided interests have prevailed and in fact hindered the search for a solution that would have avoided the senseless massacre now unfolding.”—Pope Francis, September 5, 2013, in a letter sent to Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, who is hosting a high-level summit of world leaders called the “Group of 20″ or “G20″ in St. Petersburg, Russia

The Pope Writes a Letter to Putin

Pope Francis continues to make almost desperate efforts to head off a looming escalation of the 2-year Syrian civil war.

He has called for a day of prayer and fasting on Saturday, September 7; he has spoken passionately about the suffering caused by war and the benefits of a negotiated peace; he has summoned the almost 200 ambassadors accredited to the Vatican to a briefing on the Holy See’s position (the meeting took place this morning); and he is even rumored to have telephoned directly to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to appeal to him to work for a ceasefire (the Vatican has denied the report).

Moreover, Pope Francis today sent a passionate letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his role as host of the “Group of 20″ nations meeting this weekend in St. Petersburg (US President Barack Obama is also attending, and met Putin there this morning in a moment that seems from the photograph to have been marked by some tension).

The civil war in Syria has been going on for more than 2 years. The war has pitted forces loyal to the Ba’athist (secularist) regime of President Bashar al-Assad, supported by Iran and Russia, against rebel, radical Muslim forces supported, for varying reasons, by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, France, and the United States, who seek to unseat Assad.

The Syrians since 1971 — so, for 42 years — have allowed the Russians to use the port of Tartus as a “Material-Technical Support Point” (Russian: Пункт материально-технического обеспечения, ПМТО) and not a “base”; Tartus is the last Russian military facility outside the former Soviet Union, and Russia’s only Mediterranean repair and replenishment spot, sparing Russia’s warships the trip back to their Black Sea bases through the Turkish Straits.

Recently, the Assad government forces seemed to be winning the war, rolling back a number of rebel positions.

But that momentum would likely change dramatically if the US and France were to intervene directly.

And that possibility now looms following a deadly chemical attack, which occurred on August 21, allegedly perpetrated by the Assad government (there has been considerable dispute about what the substance actually was, who actually used it, and how many were killed by it).
The United States and France have argued that the use of the gas by the regime requires a direct response, which is generally interpreted as meaning a cruise missile attack on Syrian government targets from ships offshore, but not the use of US or French troops (generally referred to as “no boots on the ground”).

The region is now filled with warships, and more are steaming toward the area. The map below shows only some of the vessels, particularly the American and Russian ones, leaving out the British, Turkish, Greek, Israeli and other vessels. (Click on map for larger view)

 

The confusing nature of the situation is shown by the fact that Britain, a staunch ally of the United States, last week decided against participation in such an attack, in a close vote, in part because many parliamentarians were not persuaded by the evidence presented that the gas attack had actually been launched by the Assad regime.

 

Other religious leaders have also issued appeals for restraint, and warned against a widening of the conflict.

The Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, asked about the Syrian situation on September 4 (yesterday) in Tallin, capital of Estonia, where he was visiting, said: “In Syria, the situation is tragic for all the inhabitants, and not only the Christians, beginning with the women and children. We pray that the terrible situation of war cease and that peace arrive in the hearts of men and throughout Syria.” He added: “We wish for a rapid resolution to escape from this impasse and to come to an Arab springtime, a true Arab springtime, and not just a formula.” He concluded: “We suffer for the two metropolitans (Orthodox and Syrian-Coptic) who were taken hostage on April 22 and about whom nothing today is known, not even whether they are still alive or dead. We pray and we appeal to all the political powers, civil and religious, to save these two men.”
See more here.

Patriarch of Baghdad: “Stop the fighting to prevent another Iraq”

The Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Baghdad, capital of Iraq, Luis Sako, has lifted his voice as well. “What justice will be done to the Syrians by air-raids? No one knows what black hole the country will be entering better than we Iraqis, who entered into that tunnel before they did, and, unfortunately, we have not been able to come out of it.”

He continued: “Why did those who say they are acting for the good of the Syrian people not intervene earlier, with pressure and diplomatic means? I am hearing the same discourses and the same proclamations that were made 10 years ago before the intervention in Iraq. Ten years have passed since then, and believe me, we have seen very little democracy and freedom.”
Ten years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq remains unstable, still subject to sectarian violence.
“Syria is already a fair way down this same road,” he said. “But an armed intervention from outside would do nothing but worsen the situation and would have unpredictable consequences for the country and the entire region.”

Sako has asked all of the Iraqi bishops to participate on Saturday in the day of prayer and fasting for peace called for by Pope Francis.

“If one wishes to stop the massacre of Syrian civilians,” Sako said, “the first step is to suspend the sending of arms and munitions to the warring parties and to put pressure on the regional powers who are aiding the confrontation to commit themselves to find a solution. This is a game that is being played on the heads of the Syrians, a game that hides inadmissible interests and ambitions, and which should be stopped by political means, not with more bombs.”

When Sako speaks of “inadmissible interests and ambitions,” he is referring to a whole series of interests and aims which are “in play” in this struggle.

This is not the place to go into detail on all of the interests in play, but it seems fitting to mention four.

First, there is the desire of many, from Israel to the US to even some in the Arab world, to eventually weaken Iran, which is Syria’s ally, and may or may not be building an atomic bomb (opinions vary and evidence publicly available seems inconclusive). So everything that happens in Syria is only to be fully understood in the context of a longer-term plan to encircle and perhaps attack Iran.
Second, there is the well-known “battle of the pipelines” (sometimes referred to as “Pipelinistan”). In this particular case, there is a huge gas field in Qatar, and also in bordering Iran, which could provide gas for Europe if shipped by pipeline through Syria and then under the Aegean Sea to Greece and beyond. But this pipeline — which is under construction in Qatar, but not yet built in Syria — threatens to diminish the influence of Russia, which provides much of the natural gas that heats Europe, from its own vast Siberian fields. So it is in part at the request of Russia that Assad has been blocking approval of this new gas pipeline. This has led many in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and in Europe and the US, to conclude that Assad must be replaced, by supporting rebels who will, when they overthrow Assad, approve the Qatari pipeline. Nevertheless, war is not the only option here, and perhaps not the best one: the way of diplomacy could perhaps find a solution, “cutting a deal” even with the Russians, so that all parties make some profit, and none loses everything.

Third, there has been a massive gas and oil field just recently discovered off of the Israeli, Lebanese, Syrian, and Cypriot coast, known as the “Leviathan” field. It has not yet been developed, but it promises to relieve the energy needs of all of those neighboring countries, and much of Europe as well. So there is a tremendous struggle on now, behind the scenes, to position regimes in the region to develop these massive resources and use the proceeds from them in ways suitable to the major powers.

Fourth, the general economic situation of the world, from the US, to Europe, to China, is marked by high levels of debt, slow or no growth, and high levels of unemployment, especially among youth. Attempts have been made since March of 2009 to spark growth by ultra-low interest rates, but it is not clear whether these attempts have benefited the economy at all, and interest rates in recent months have been spiking higher against the professed wishes of the US Federal Reserve. In this context, the economic impact of war, with the expense on weapons, fuel, and soldiers’ salaries, provides an economic boost which some economists think may be positive. In short, there is a desire in the West, among some, for a wider, more expensive war, to reverse the evident contraction looming over the global economy.

These remarks are, of course, incomplete.

But the one thing that can be said for certain is that cruise missiles know no distinction between walls of cement that house soldiers and walls that house civilians. Attacks on Syria will inevitably lead to civilian casualties. And there is no good reason why even one more child, one more mother, would have to die unjustly.

Patriarch Sako is right. The first step is to cut off all new shipments of arms into Syria. The second step is to ask all involved in the current fighting to stop fighting. To cease firing.

Then, under the auspices of an honest man, a just man, someone like Pope Francis, together with Muslims, secularists, Americans, and Russians, a conference could be called to draw up some sort of agreement to settle the open questions in this complex situation peacefully, not by war.
If this does not happen, the war could begin with a few cruise missiles, and the death of “a few” women and children, and then Russia could support Syria, and Syria could conceivably sink an American ship, using Russian technology, and we could be in a much wider war.

And people like the villagers in Maaloula, caught in the crossfire, are the ones who will suffer.
Villagers who for more than 2,000 years have kept not only the Christian faith, but the very language that Jesus spoke alive, the Aramaic language.

Do we really wish to risk killing and maiming these villagers, our brothers in Christ? Is that the legacy we wish to leave for all time to come, that in the early years of the 21st century, the so-called “Christian” nations of the West could find no other solution to helping to halt a civil war in Syria that could protect those Christians, those members of the body of Christ, those speakers of the language that Christ spoke?

American policies in the Middle East have led to the decimation of the Christian population of that region. The voices of those suffering Christians are seldom heard in the American media, and this is tragic.

There is a better way, and Pope Francis is the leading voice in the world today proposing that way. The world should listen to him.

Otherwise, what we seem likely to view in the Middle East will be what Mary warned of: “nations will be annihilated.”

More than ever, we need to heed this warning, and act in keeping with Our Lady’s urgent requests in order to bring about a “time of peace.”

 

Arab Spring Or "Post-Modern Coup D’états"

 Revolution vs. Counterrevolution: Whatever Happened to the Arab Spring?

by ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH,Counterpunch WEEKEND EDITION APRIL 13-15, 2012

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/13/whatever-happened-to-the-arab-spring/

Within the first few months of 2011, the U.S. and its allies lost three loyal “friends”: Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament.

Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit the “axis of resistance” (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in the Middle East, the US-Israeli “axis of aggression” and their client states in the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive.

Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included (1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya; (2) co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen; (3) crushing pro-democracy movements against “friendly” regimes ruling countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia “before they get out of hand,” as they did in Egypt and Tunisia;  and (4) using the age-old divide and ruletrick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shias, or Iranians vs. Arabs.

 1. Instigating Fake Arab Springs, or post-modern coup d’états 

Soon after being caught by surprise by the glorious uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the counterrevolutionary forces headed by the United States embarked on damage control. A major strategy in pursuit of this objective has been to foment civil war and regime change in “unfriendly” places, and then portray them as part of the Arab Spring.

The scheme works like this: arm and train opposition groups within the “unfriendly” country, instigate violent rebellion with the help of covert mercenary forces under the guise of fighting for democracy; and when government forces attempt to quell the thus-nurtured armed insurrection, accuse them of human rights violations, and begin to embark openly and self-righteously on the path of regime change in the name of “responsibility to protect” the human rights.

As the “weakest link” in the chain of governments thus slated to be changed, Gadhafi’s regime became the first target. It is now altogether common knowledge that contrary to the spontaneous, unarmed and peaceful protest demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, the rebellion in Libya was nurtured, armed and orchestrated largely from abroad. Indeed, evidence shows that plans of regime change in Libya were drawn long before the overt onset of the actual civil war [1].

It is likewise common knowledge that, like the rebellion in Libya, the insurgency in Syria has been neither spontaneous nor peaceful. From the outset it has been armed, trained and organized by the US and its allies. Similar to the attack on Libya, the Arab League and Turkey have been at the forefront of the onslaught on Syria. Also like the Libyan case, there is evidence that preparations for war on Syria had been actively planned long before the actual start of the armed rebellion, which is branded as a case of the Arab Spring [2].

Dr. Christof Lehmann, a keen observer of geopolitical developments in the Middle East, has coined the term “post-modern coup d’états” to describe the recent NATO-Zionist agenda of regime change in the region. The term refers to an elaborate combination of covert operations, overt military interventions, and “soft-power” tactics a la Gene Sharp:

“A network of think tanks, endowments, funds and foundations, which are behind the overt destabilization of targeted sovereign nations. Their narratives in public policy and for public consumption are deceptive and persuasive. Often they specifically target and co-opt progressive thinkers, media and activists. The product is almost invariably a post-modern coup d’état. Depending on the chosen hybridization and the resilience of government, social structures and populations perceived need for reform, the product can be more or less overtly violent. The tactics can be so subtle, involving human rights organizations and the United Nations that they are difficult to comprehend. However subtle they are, the message to the targeted government is invariably ‘go or be gone’” [3].

It is no secret that the ultimate goal of the policy of regime change in the Middle East is to replace the Iranian government with a “client regime” similar to most other regime in the region. Whether the policy will succeed in overthrowing the Syrian government and embarking on a military strike against Iran remains to be seen. One thing is clear, however: the ominous consequences of a military adventure against Iran would be incalculable. It is bound to create a regional (and even very likely global) war.

 2. Co-opting the Arab Spring (in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen) 

When the Arab Spring broke out in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, the US and its allies initially tried to keep their proxy rulers Hosni Mubarak, Ben Ali and Abdullah Saleh in power as long as possible. Once the massive and persistent uprisings made the continued rule of these loyal autocrats untenable, however, the US and its allies changed tactics: reluctantly letting go of Mubarak, Ali and Saleh while trying to preserve the socioeconomic structures and the military regimes they had fostered during the long periods of their dictatorial rule.

Thus, while losing three client dictators, the US and its allies have succeeded (so far) in preserving the three respective client states. With the exception of a number of formalistic elections that are designed to co-opt opposition groups (like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt) and give legitimacy to military rulers, not much else has changed in these countries. In Egypt, for example, the NATO/Israel-backed military junta of the Mubarak era, which now rules Egypt in collaboration with Muslim Brotherhood, has become increasingly as repressive toward the reform movement that gave birth to the Arab Spring as it was under Mubarak.

Economic, military and geopolitical policies of the new regimes in these countries are crafted as much in consultation with the United States and its allies as they were under the three autocratic rulers that were forced to leave the political scene. The new regimes are also collaborating with the US and its allies in bringing about “regime change” in Syria and Iran, just as they helped overthrow the regime of Gadhafi in Libya.

 3. Nipping Nascent Arab Springs in the Bud

A third tactic to contain the Arab Spring has been the withering repression of peaceful pro-democracy movements in countries headed by U.S. proxy regimes in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other kingdoms in the Persian Gulf area before those movements grow “out of hand,” as they did in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. Thus, in collaboration with its Western patrons, Saudi Arabia has over the past year cracked down viciously against peaceful protesters not only within its own borders but also in the neighboring country of Bahrain. Leading the invasion militaries of the Persian Gulf kingdoms into Bahrain last spring, the armed forces of Saudi Arabia continue with the support of Western powers to brutalize peaceful pro-democracy protesters there.

While the Saudi, Qatari and other Persian Gulf regimes have been playing the vanguard role in the US-Israeli axis of aggression against “unfriendly” regimes, NATO forces headed by the Pentagon have been busy behind the scene to train their “security” forces, to broker weapons sale to their repressive regimes, and to build ever more military basses in their territories.

“As state security forces across the region cracked down on democratic dissent, the Pentagon also repeatedly dispatched American troops on training missions to allied militaries there. During more than 40 such operations with names like Eager Lion and Friendship Two that sometimes lasted for weeks or months at a time, they taught Middle Eastern security forces the finer points of counterinsurgency, small unit tactics, intelligence gathering, and information operations—skills crucial to defeating popular uprisings. . . . These recurrent joint-training exercises, seldom reported in the media and rarely mentioned outside the military, constitute the core of an elaborate, longstanding system that binds the Pentagon to the militaries of repressive regimes across the Middle East” [4].

These truly imperialistic policies and practices show, once again, that the claims of the United States and its allies that their self-righteous adventures of “regime change” in the Greater Middle East are designed to defend human rights and foster democracy are simply laughable.

 4. Employment of the Divide and Conquer Tactic: Sunni vs. Shia

One of the tactics to crush the peaceful pro-democracy movements in the Arab-Muslim countries ruled by the US client regimes is to portray these movements as “sectarian” Shia insurgences. This age-old divide-and-rule tactic is most vigorously pursued in Bahrain, where the destruction of the Shia mosques is rightly viewed as part of the regime’s cynical policy of “humiliating the Shia” in order “to make them take revenge on Sunnis,” thereby hoping to prove that the uprising is a sectarian one [5].

Quoting Nabeel Rajab, who describes himself as secular with both Sunni and Shia family relatives, reporter Finian Cunningham writes: “The government is attempting to incite divisive sectarian tensions, to intimidate Sunni people into not supporting the pro-democracy movement because it is being presented as a Shia movement.”

Cunningham further writes: “The targeting of the Shia is a tactic by the regime to distort the pro-democracy movement from a nationalist one into a sectarian one. It is also a way of undermining international support for the pro-democracy movement by trying to present it as an internal problem of the state dealing with ‘troublesome Shia’. In this way, the Bahraini uprising is being made to appear as something different from the uprisings for democracy that have swept the region” [5].

In brief, the magnificent Arab Spring that started in Egypt and Tunisia in the early 2011 has been brutally derailed, distorted and contained by an all-out counter-offensive orchestrated by Western powers and their allies in the Greater Middle East, especially Israel, Turkey and the Arab League. How long this containment of democratic and national liberation aspirations of the Arab/Muslim masses will continue, no one can tell. One thing is clear, however: the success of the Arab (or any other) Spring in the less-developed, semi-colonial world is integrally intertwined with the success of the so-called 99% in the more-developed, imperialist world in achieving the goal of defeating the austerity policies of the 1%, reallocating significant portions of the colossal military spending to social spending, and enjoying a standard of living worthy of human dignity.

In subtle and roundabout ways, imperialist wars of choice and military adventures abroad are reflections, or proxies, of domestic fights over allocation of national resources: only by inventing new (and never ending) enemies and engaging in permanent wars abroad can the powerful beneficiaries of war and militarism fend off the “peace dividends” and enjoy the substantial “war dividends” at home.

In the fight for peace and economic justice, perhaps the global 99% can take a cue from the global 1%: just as the ruling 1% coordinate their policies of military aggression and economic austerity on an international level, so can (and should) the worldwide 99% coordinate their response to those brutal policies internationally. Only through a coordinated cross-border struggle for peace and economic justice can the workers and other popular masses bring the worldwide production of goods and provision of services to a standstill, and restructure the status quo for a better world—a world in which the products of human labor and the bounties of Nature could benefit all.

© Ismael Hossein-zadeh is Professor Emeritus of Economics, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. He is the author of The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave – Macmillan 2007) and the Soviet Non-capitalist Development: The Case of Nasser’s Egypt (Praeger Publishers 1989). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press.

References:

[1] Michel Chossudovsky, “When War Games Go Live.”

[2] See, for example, Dr. Christof Lehmann, “The Manufacturing of the War on Syria.”

[3] Dr. Christof Lehmann, “The National Counsel of Syria and U.S. Unconventional Warfare.”

[4] Nick Turse, “Did the Pentagon Help Strangle the Arab Spring?”

[5] Finian Cunningham, “Bahraini Rulers Play sectarian card in Bid to Trump Pro-democracy Movement.”

The Syria Crisis: Assessing Foreign Intervention

By Scott Stewart, Stratfor Global Intelligence, Dec. 15th 2011

The ongoing unrest, violence and security crackdowns in Syria have been the subject of major international attention since February. Our current assessment is that the government and opposition forces have reached a stalemate in which the government cannot quell the unrest and the opposition cannot bring down the regime without outside intervention.

In the Dec. 8 Security Weekly, we discussed the covert intelligence war being waged by the United States, Israel and other U.S. allies against Iran. Their efforts are directed not only against Tehran’s nuclear program but also against Iran’s ability to establish an arc of influence that stretches through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. To that end, the United States and its allies are trying to limit Iran’s influence in Iraq and to constrain Hezbollah in Lebanon. But apparently they are also exploring ways to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al Assad, a longtime ally of Iran whose position is in danger due to the current unrest in the country. In fact, a U.S. State Department official recently characterized the al Assad regime as a “dead man walking.”

We therefore would like to examine more closely the potential external efforts required to topple the Syrian regime. In doing so, we will examine the types of tools that are available to external forces seeking to overthrow governments and where those tools fit within the force continuum, an array of activities ranging from clandestine, deniable activities to all-out invasion. We will also discuss some of the indicators that can be used by outside observers seeking to understand any efforts taken against the Syrian regime.

Syria Is Not Libya

It is tempting to compare Syria to Libya, which very recently was the target of outside intervention. Some similarities exist. The al Assad regime came to power in a military coup around the time the Gadhafi regime took control of Libya, and the regimes are equally brutal. And, like Libya, Syria is a country that is quite divided along demographic and sectarian lines and is governed by a small minority of the population.

However, we must recognize that the situation in Syria is quite different than Libya’s. First, the fault lines along which Syrian society is divided are not as regionally distinct as those of Libya; in Syria, there is no area like Benghazi where the opposition can dominate and control territory that can be used as a base to project power. As our map indicates, protests have occurred throughout Syria, and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) claims to have a presence in many parts of the country.

Moreover, while some low-level, mostly Sunni soldiers have defected from the Alawite-controlled Syrian military to the FSA, Syria has not seen the large-scale military defections that occurred in Benghazi and eastern Libya at the beginning of that conflict that immediately provided the opposition with a substantial conventional military force (sometimes entire units defected). The Syrian military has remained far more unified and intact than the Libyan military.

Second, Syria simply does not have the oil resources Libya does. We have not seen the Europeans push for military intervention in Syria with the same enthusiasm that they did in Libya. Even France, which has been the most vocal of the European countries against Syria, has recently backed away from advocating direct military intervention. The strength of the Syrian military, specifically its air defense system — which is far superior to Libya’s — means military intervention would be far more costly in Syria than in Libya in terms of human casualties and money. In fact, Syria spent some $264 million on air defense weapons in 2009 and 2010 after the embarrassing September 2007 Israeli airstrike on a Syrian nuclear reactor.

With the future of Libya still unclear, it does not appear the United States and Europe have the political will or economic incentive to conduct another major military intervention (operations in Libya were very expensive). We also do not believe that regional powers interested in Syria, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Turkey, could take military action against Syria without U.S. and NATO support.

Regardless, it is important to remember that there are many options foreign governments can apply against the al Assad regime (or any regime, for that matter) that do not constitute outright invasion or even entail an air campaign supported by special operations forces.

The Force Continuum

As we examine some of the actions available along that force continuum, we should keep in mind that the steps are not at all static; there can be much latitude for action within each step. For example, training provided by mercenaries or the CIA’s Special Activities Division is far more low-key, and therefore easier to deny, than training provided by the U.S. Army’s Special Forces.

The least risky and least detectable option for a country pursuing intervention is to ramp up intelligence activities in the target country. Such activities can involve clandestine activities like developing contact with opposition figures or encouraging generals to conduct a coup or defect to the opposition. Clandestine efforts can also include working with opposition groups and nongovernmental organizations to improve their information warfare activities. These activities may progress to more obvious covert actions, such as assassinations or sabotage. Most of the actions taken in the covert intelligence war against Iran can be placed in this level.

Clandestine and covert activities often are accompanied or preceded by overt diplomatic pressure. This includes press statements denouncing the leadership of the target country, the initiation of resolutions in international organizations, such as the Arab League or the United Nations, and international economic sanctions. These overt measures can also include formally meeting with representatives of the opposition in a third country, as when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Dec. 6 with Syrian opposition members in Geneva.

The next level up the force continuum is to solidify a relationship with the opposition and to begin to provide them with intelligence, training and advice. In the intervention in Libya, this happened fairly early on as foreign intelligence officers and special operations forces traveled to places like Benghazi, then later the Nafusa Mountains, to provide the Libyan opposition with intelligence regarding Gadhafi’s forces, and to begin to train the militia forces to fight. In Syria there is still a very real issue of a lack of unity within the opposition, which is apparently more fragmented than its Libyan counterpart.

In this level, outside governments often take opposition fighters to a third country for training. This is because of the difficulty involved with training inside the home country, which is controlled by a hostile government that rightfully views the opposition as a threat. Already we are seeing signs that this is happening with the training of FSA members in Turkey.

Continuum Of Foreign Intervention

The next step beyond training and intelligence-sharing is to provide the opposition with funding and other support, which can include food, uniforms, communication equipment, medical assistance and even weapons. To restate a point, providing funding is not as aggressive as providing weapons to the opposition, so there is a great deal of latitude within this level.

When providing weapons, an outside government will usually try to supply opposition forces with arms native to their country. This is done to maintain deniability of assistance. For example, at the outset of international support for the mujahideen who were fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, efforts were made to provide the fighters with weapons consistent with what the Soviets and the Afghan communists were using. However, when those weapons proved insufficient to counter the threat posed by Soviet air superiority, the decision was made to provide U.S. FIM-92 Stinger man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) to the Afghan fighters. Tactically, the MANPADS greatly benefited the mujahideen on the battlefield. But since they were advanced, exogenous weapons systems, the MANPADS stripped away any sense of plausible deniability the U.S. might have maintained regarding its operations to arm the Afghans.

We saw a similar situation in Libya in May, when rebels began using Belgian-made FN-FAL battle rifles. While the rebels had looted many Gadhafi arms depots filled with Soviet-era Kalashnikovs, the appearance of the FN-FAL rifles clearly demonstrated that the rebels were receiving weapons from outside patrons. The appearance of Iranian-manufactured bomb components in Iraq in 2006-2007 was another instance of a weapon indicating foreign government involvement in an armed struggle.

Since furnishing weapons foreign to a country eliminates plausible deniability, we are listing it as a separate step on the force continuum. Unveiling the foreign hand can also have a psychological effect on members of the regime by signaling that a powerful foreign actor is supporting the opposition.

The next level begins to bring direct foreign involvement into play. This usually entails foreign special operations forces working with local ground forces and foreign airpower being brought to bear. We saw this model used in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, where the CIA, special operations forces and airpower augmented Afghan Northern Alliance ground troops and helped them to defeat the Taliban quickly. This model was also used successfully against the Gadhafi regime in Libya.

The highest and least exercised step on the force continuum is foreign invasion, like the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Preludes to Intervention

With this range of actions in mind, outside observers can look for signs that indicate where foreign efforts to support a particular struggle fit along the continuum.

Signs of a clandestine intelligence campaign can include the defection of critical officers, coup attempts or even major splits within the military. When figures such as former Libyan intelligence chief and Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa defected from the Gadhafi regime, they were doing so in response to clandestine intelligence efforts.

Signs of training and support will translate to increased effectiveness by the FSA — if they suddenly begin to employ new tactics, strike new targets, or show the ability to better coordinate actions over a wide geographic area, for example. Another sign of increased effectiveness would be if the FSA began to execute sophisticated asymmetrical warfare operations, such as coordinated ambushes or hit-and-run strikes directed against high-value targets. Foreign trainers will also help the FSA learn how to develop networks within the local population that provide intelligence and supplies, communication, shelter and early warning.

Outside training and intelligence support would lead to an increase in the strategic impact of attacks by armed opposition groups, such as the FSA. The opposition claims to have conducted several strikes against targets like the Syrian Directorate for Air Force Intelligence in suburban Damascus, but such attacks do not appear to have been very meaningful. To date these attacks have served more of a propaganda function than as a means to pursue military objectives. We are carefully monitoring alleged FSA efforts to hit oil and natural gas pipelines to see if they become more systematic and tactically effective. We have heard rumors of American, Turkish, French and Jordanian special operations forces training FSA personnel in Turkey, and if these rumors are true, we should begin to see results of the training in the near future.

As we watch videos and photos coming out of Syria we are constantly looking for evidence of the FSA possessing either an increased weapons supply or signs of external weapons supply. This not only includes a greater quantity of weapons, but different types of weapons, such as anti-tank guided missiles, mortars, mines, MANPADS and improvised explosive devices. We have yet to see either increased weapons or external weapons; the FSA appears to be using the weapons with which they defected.

If outside powers are going to consider launching any sort of air campaign — or establish a no-fly zone — they will first have to step up surveillance efforts to confirm the location and status of Syria’s air defense systems. This will lead to increased surveillance assets and sorties in the areas very close to Syria. Aircraft used in the suppression of air defenses would also be flown into the theater before launching any air operation, and an increase in aircraft, such as U.S. F-16CJ and British Tornado GR4s in Cyprus, Turkey or Greece, is a key indicator to watch. Increased EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft, both carrier-based aircraft that regularly transit the region aboard U.S. Carrier Strike Groups, would likewise be important to watch. Aircraft carrier battle groups, cruise missile platforms, and possibly a Marine Expeditionary Unit would also be moved into the region prior to any air campaign.

Like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, any invasion of Syria would be a massive undertaking and there would be clear evidence of a buildup to such an invasion. The likelihood of actions against Syria happening at the top of the force continuum is very remote. Instead we will need to keep focused on the more subtle signs of foreign involvement that will signal what is happening at the lower levels of the scale. After all, any comparison to a “dead man walking” makes one wonder if the United States and its allies will take steps to hasten demise of the al Assad regime.

With Friends Like These, Gingrich, Israel and the Palestinians

The US Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has declared that the Palestinians are an "invented" people, stating that they are no more than "terrorists" with "an enormous desire to destroy Israel"

During an interview with The Jewish Channel, a cable TV station, the former US House speaker and current Republican candidate for the US Presidency elections in 2012, said the following UNBELIEVABLY STUPID statements:

"Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire...I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic".

Then, comparing between the SO-CALLED State of Israel and the Palestinian people, Newt said, with a clear ass-kissing bias to the former:

“Right, but if I’m evenhanded between a civilian democracy that obeys the rule of law and a group of terrorists that are firing missiles everyday, that’s not even handed, that’s favoring the terrorists.”

Below is one of many articles written (by Uri Avnery) in reply to the words of STUPID STUPID NEWT!

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With Friends Like These, Gingrich, Israel and the Palestinians

by URI AVNERY, Counterpunch, Weekend Edition, Dec. 16-18, 2011

What a bizarre lot these Republican aspirants for the US presidency are!

What a sorry bunch of ignoramuses and downright crazies. Or, at best, what a bunch of cheats and cynics! (With the possible exception of the good doctor Ron Paul)”.

Is this the best a great and proud nation can produce? How frightening the thought that one of them may actually become the most powerful person in the world, with a finger on the biggest nuclear button!

BUT LET’S concentrate on the present front-runner. (Republicans seem to change front-runners like a fastidious beau changes socks.)

It’s Newt Gingrich. Remember him? The Speaker of the House who had an extra-marital affair with an intern while at the same time leading the campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton for having an affair with an intern.

But that’s not the point. The point is that this intellectual giant – named after Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest scientist ever – has discovered a great historical truth.

The original Newton discovered the Law of Gravity. Newton Leroy Gingrich has discovered something no less earth-shaking: there is an “invented” people around, referring to the Palestinians.

To which a humble Israeli like me might answer, in the best Hebrew slang: “Good morning, Eliyahu!”  Thus we honor people who have made a great discovery which, unfortunately, has been discovered by others long before.

* * *

FROM ITS very beginning, the Zionist movement has denied the existence of the Palestinian people. It’s an article of faith.

The reason is obvious: if there exists a Palestinian people, then the country the Zionists were about to take over was not empty. Zionism would entail an injustice of historic proportions. Being very idealistic persons, the original Zionists found a way out of this moral dilemma: they simply denied its existence. The winning slogan was “A land without a people for a people without a land.”

So who were these curious human beings they met when they came to the country? Oh, ah, well, they were just people who happened to be there, but not “a” people. Passers-by, so to speak. Later, the story goes, after we had made the desert bloom and turned an arid and neglected land into a paradise, Arabs from all over the region flocked to the country, and now they have the temerity – indeed the chutzpah – to claim that they constitute a Palestinian nation!

For many years after the founding of the State of Israel, this was the official line. Golda Meir famously exclaimed: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people!”

(To which I replied in the Knesset: “Mrs. Prime Minister, perhaps you are right. Perhaps there really is no Palestinian people. But if millions of people mistakenly believe that they are a people, and behave like a people, then they are a people.”)

A huge propaganda machine – both in Israel and abroad – was employed to “prove” that there was no Palestinian people. A lady called Joan Peters wrote a book (“From Time Immemorial”) proving that the riffraff calling themselves “Palestinians” had nothing to do with Palestine. They are nothing but interlopers and impostors. The book was immensely successful – until some experts took it apart and proved that the whole edifice of conclusive proofs was utter rubbish.

I myself have spent many hundreds of hours trying to convince Israeli and foreign audiences that there is a Palestinian people and that we have to make peace with them. Until one day the State of Israel recognized the PLO as the sole representative of the “Palestinian people”, and the argument was laid to rest.

Until Newt came along and, like a later-day Jesus, raised it from the dead.

* * *

OBVIOUSLY, HE is much too busy to read books. True, he was once a teacher of history, but for many years now he has been very busy speakering the Congress, making a fortune as an “adviser” of big corporations and now trying to become president.

Otherwise, he would probably have come across a brilliant historical book by Benedict Anderson, “Imagined Communities”, which asserts that all modern nations are invented.

Nationalism is a relatively recent historical phenomenon. When a community decides to become a nation, it has to reinvent itself. That means inventing a national past, reshuffling historical facts (and non-facts) in order to create a coherent picture of a nation existing since antiquity. Hermann the Cherusker, member of a Germanic tribe who betrayed his Roman employers, became a “national” hero. Religious refugees who landed in America and destroyed the native population became a “nation”. Members of an ethnic-religious Diaspora formed themselves into a “Jewish nation”. Many others did more or less the same.

Indeed, Newt would profit from reading a book by a Tel Aviv University professor, Shlomo Sand, a kosher Jew, whose Hebrew title speaks for itself: “When and How the Jewish People was Invented?”

Who are these Palestinians? About a hundred years ago, two young students in Istanbul, David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the future Prime Minister and President (respectively) of Israel, wrote a treatise about the Palestinians. The population of this country, they said, has never changed. Only small elites were sometimes deported. The towns and villages never moved, as their names prove. Canaanites became Israelites, then Jews and Samaritans, then Christian Byzantines. With the Arab conquest, they slowly adopted the religion of Islam and the Arabic Culture. These are today’s Palestinians. I tend to agree with them.

* * *

PARROTING THE straight Zionist propaganda line – by now discarded by most Zionists – Gingrich argues that there can be no Palestinian people because there never was a Palestinian state. The people in this country were just “Arabs” under Ottoman rule.

So what? I used to hear from French colonial masters that there is no Algerian people, because there never was an Algerian state, there was never even a united country called Algeria. Any takers for this theory now?

The name “Palestine” was mentioned by a Greek historian some 2500 years ago. A “Duke of Palestine” is mentioned in the Talmud. When the Arabs conquered the country, they called it “Filastin”, as  they still do”. The Arab national movement came into being all over the Arab world, including Palestine – at the same time as the Zionist movement – and strove for independence from the Ottoman Sultan.

For centuries, Palestine was considered a part of Greater Syria (the region known in Arabic as ‘Sham’).  There was no formal distinction between Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians and Jordanians. But when, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the European powers divided the Arab world between them, a state called Palestine became a fact under the British Mandate, and the Arab Palestinian people established themselves as a separate nation with a national flag of their own. Many peoples in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America did the same, even without asking Gingrich for confirmation.

It would certainly be ironic if the members of the “invented” Palestinian nation were expected to ask for recognition from the members of the “invented” Jewish/Israeli nation, at the demand of a member of the “invented” American nation, a person who, by the way, is of mixed German, English, Scottish and Irish stock.

Years ago, there was short-lived controversy about Palestinian textbooks. It was argued that they were anti-Semitic and incited to murder. That was laid to rest when it became clear that all Palestinian schoolbooks were cleared by the Israeli occupation authorities, and most were inherited from the previous Jordanian regime. But Gingrich does not shrink from resurrecting this corpse, too.

All Palestinians – men, women and children – are terrorists, he asserts, and Palestinian pupils learn at school how to kill us poor and helpless Israelis. Ah, what would we do without such stout defenders as Newt? What a pity that this week a photo of him, shaking the hand of Yasser Arafat, was published.

And please don’t show him the textbooks used in some of our schools, especially the religious ones!

* * *

IS IT really a waste of time to write about such nonsense?

It may seem so, but one cannot ignore the fact that the dispenser of these inanities may be tomorrow’s President of the United States of America. Given the economic situation, that is not as unlikely as it sounds.

As for now, Gingrich is doing immense

 damage to the national interests of the US. At this historic juncture, the masses at all the Tahrir Squares across the Arab world are wondering about America’s attitude. Newt’s answer contributes to a new and more profound anti-Americanism.

Alas, he is not the only extreme rightist seeking to embrace Israel. Israel has lately become the Mecca of all the world’s racists. This week we were honored by the visit of the husband of Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front. A pilgrimage to the Jewish State is now a must for any aspiring fascist.

One of our ancient sages coined the phrase: “Not for nothing does the starling go to the raven. It’s because they are of the same kind”.

Thanks. But sorry. They are not of my kind.

To quote another proverb: With friends like these, who needs enemies?

URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.