The Ruthless Truth blog

Raw Story
Sun, 30 May 2010 21:26 EDT

© Unknown

Washington’s unprecedented backing for a UN resolution for a nuclear-free Middle East that singles out Israel has both angered and deeply worried the Jewish state although officials are cagey about openly criticising their biggest ally.
The resolution adopted by the United Nations on Friday calls on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and urges it to open its facilities to inspection.
It also calls for a regional conference in 2012 to advance the goal of a nuclear-free Middle East.
Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, with around 200 warheads, but has maintained a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its capabilities since the mid-1960s.
The document, which singles out Israel but makes no mention of Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, drew a furious reaction from the Jewish state who decried it as "deeply flawed and hypocritical."
But it was US backing for the resolution which has caused the most consternation among Israeli officials and commentators, who interpreted the move as "a resounding slap around the face" which has dealt a very public blow to Israel’s long-accepted policy of nuclear ambiguity.
Publicly, the Israel government has not criticised the US position but privately, officials expressed deep disappointment over the resolution, which Washington backed despite intensive Israeli efforts to block it.
According to the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "furious with the Obama administration for having failed to prevent the resolution from passing… and for choosing to support it."
"The American support for the resolution, after decades in which it supported Israel on this issue, came as a complete surprise," the paper said.
"In the secret talks that Netanyahu held with Obama’s men… Israel was promised that the resolution would not focus on Israel and that if it did, the Americans would vote against."
The left-leaning Haaretz daily said Israel had been "sacrificed by the US on the altar of a successful conference" in what constituted "a diplomatic victory for Egypt" which has campaigned against Israel’s nuclear arsenal.
Five years ago, the paper recalled, Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush, refused to accept parts of a draft document calling on Israel to join the NPT and dismissed the idea of holding talks to create a nuclear-free Middle East — even at the cost of the conference’s failure.
The controversial resolution was passed just days ahead of a key meeting between Obama and Netanyahu aimed at restoring friendly ties between the two allies which had been soured over a dispute about Jewish settlements.
But the Maariv daily said that Obama’s ‘last minute’ invitation for Netanyahu to visit the White House had clearly been planned with the NPT review conference in mind.
"It is reasonable to assume that the Americans knew they were going to deliver a blow to Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity and that Obama wanted to try to minimize the damage," the paper said.
The move draws a line under a long-held "agreement" between Israel and Washington dating back to 1969 under which the Jewish state was permitted to keep silent on its country’s nuclear potential while holding back from any nuclear test.
In return, Washington agreed not to exert or allow any pressure on Israel over its nuclear capabilities.
"It is an undeniably negative change to US policy" with regards to Israel’s nuclear programme, said Eitan Gilboa, an analyst from Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv.
Pointing to contradiction between Obama both applauding the resolution and criticising it for singling out Israel, Gilboa said Washington was "losing its leadership role because of the naive and unrealistic" outlook of its president.
Source: Agence France-Presse

 

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/209599-More-posturing-US-calls-for-Israel-to-sign-nuclear-Non-Proliferation-Treaty

 

Jeff Gates – #America‘s #Terrorist Ally: A Closer Look at #Israel‘s Role in #Terrorism | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/KgVQ 18:47:53

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Report finds new #Israeli war doctrine targets civilians http://ow.ly/KcKG 15:36:29

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Alan Hart – Does Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. have a point? | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/KaEb 13:13:42

What the U.S. Elite Really Thinks About Israel | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/JYox 21:40:28

Tweet Digest for 2009-12-09 | Sabbah Report

 

3 December 2009

In his December 1 speech at West Point announcing the deployment of 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, President Barack Obama attempted to justify a major escalation of a deeply unpopular war on the basis of lies and distortions. That he had to resort to such falsifications reflects both the reactionary character of his policy and the fact that it is being imposed in violation of the popular will.

To justify the escalation, Obama recycled the Bush administration’s myths about the “war on terror.” He cynically presented the US as an altruistic power, forced into a global war for democracy by the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

As he sought to frame US imperialist policy within the template of the “war on terror,” however, his speech descended into utter incoherence.

Obama’s account of the US’ recent wars contradicted his own assertion that Washington was single-mindedly pursuing Al Qaeda. In 2001, he said, the US attacked Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda—though most of the September 11 hijackers were, in fact, from Saudi Arabia, the US’ major Arab ally in the Middle East.

The US invasion was legitimate, he argued, because Afghanistan was Al Qaeda’s base of operations and the Taliban regime harbored and protected the terrorist group.

Obama brushed over the failure of the US invasion to dismantle Al Qaeda by saying that “after escaping across the border into Pakistan in 2001 and 2002, Al Qaeda’s leadership established a safe haven there.”

Thus, from 2002 to 2009, the US pursued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan supposedly directed against Al Qaeda, while the latter was based in another country altogether—Pakistan, a long-standing US ally.

Obama even suggested that Al Qaeda enjoys the protection of sections of the Pakistani state, declaring, “[T]here have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little, or seeking accommodation with those who use violence.”

This account raises an obvious and unexplained double standard. If the security of the American people required the US to invade Afghanistan and remove an Al Qaeda-friendly regime there, why shouldn’t the same apply to the government of Pakistan?

Instead, Obama hailed Pakistan as an ally in the struggle against “violent extremism” and called for a US-Pakistan partnership based on “mutual trust.”

This only demonstrates the fraudulent character of the official rationale for the war, which Obama and the rest of the US political establishment know to be a tissue of lies.

Then there is the question of the Afghan government in whose defense the US is supposedly waging war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. While initially praising the regime of President Hamid Karzai as a “legitimate government,” Obama went on to acknowledge that it suffers from “corruption, the drug trade, an underdeveloped economy, and insufficient security forces.”

In a display of utter cynicism, he claimed that Karzai’s recent reelection, universally recognized as the outcome of fraud and ballot-stuffing, had nevertheless produced a legitimate government. “Although it was marred by fraud,” Obama said, “that election produced a government that is consistent with Afghanistan’s laws and Constitution.”

Obama’s attempts to give noble-sounding reasons for deploying 30,000 more US troops were as sinister as they were self-contradictory. In Orwellian style, he told the Afghan people, who have already suffered US occupation for eight years, “We have no interest in occupying your country.”

He contrasted the US’ allegedly benevolent attitude towards Afghanistan with the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979-1989. In fact, the US has manipulated Afghan politics for 30 years.

continue

Jeff Gates
Criminal State
Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:55 EDT

© Nathan Paresh

The lead-up to the first U.S.-Iran talks in three decades saw a replay of the same modus operandi that induced the U.S. and its allies to invade Iraq in March 2003. Then as now, the invasion of Iran is consistent with a regime change agenda for Greater Israel described in a 1996 strategy document prepared by Jewish-Americans for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As with Iraq, the threat of weapons of mass destruction is again marketed as a causa belli. As with Iraq, the claim is disputed by weapons inspectors and intelligence analysts. The Iraqi program had been shut down a dozen years before the invasion. In Iran, there is no evidence that uranium is being enriched beyond the low levels required for energy and medical purposes.
Reports of a “secret” processing plant failed to note that Iran suspended uranium enrichment from 2003 until 2005. Seeing no change in the political climate except more sanctions and more Israeli threats to bomb its nuclear sites, Iran began building and equipping a new facility.
As with Iraq, there is no direct threat to the U.S. As with Iraq, mainstream U.S. media focused not on Israel – the only nation in the region known to have nuclear weapons – but on Iran. Enrichment is relatively easy compared to the steps required to design, build and reliably deliver a nuclear warhead. Activity around each of those steps can be readily detected.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that even if Iran were attacked, that does nothing to alter Iran’s nuclear prospects – except provoke them to develop the very weapons that the evidence suggests are not now being produced. Is this a calculated move to exert pressure on Tehran? Or to provoke them? Or is this a move by Washington to buy time from an “ally” that threatens an attack – with disastrous effects on U.S. interests and those of its genuine allies?
To catalyze a climate of insecurity among Jews, pro-Israelis periodically claim that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposes to “wipe Israel off the map.” A correct translation confirms that what he urged is that “this occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time.” Akin to the widely sought demise of the oppressive Soviet regime, that proposal enjoys the support of many moderate, secular and non-Zionist Jews who have long recognized the threat that Jewish extremists pose to the broader Jewish community.
No one can explain why Iran, even if nuclear armed, would attack Israel with its vast nuclear arsenal estimated at 200-400 warheads, including several nuclear-armed submarines. In mid-July, Israeli warships deployed to the Red Sea to rehearse attacks on Iran. As in the lead-up to war with Iraq, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is again beating the war drums. This is the same adviser who, four days after 9-11, advised G.W. Bush to invade Iraq.
Citing Iran’s “covert” facility, Wolfowitz claims it is “clear that Iran’s rulers are pursuing nuclear weapons….Time is running out.” Without a hint of irony, he argues that Iran (not Israel) “is a crucial test of whether the path to a nuclear-free world is a realistic one or simply a dangerous pipe dream.” In calling for “crippling sanctions,” Howard Berman, Jewish chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressed similar concerns as did Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, senior Republican on the Committee and also Jewish.
If pro-Israelis cannot induce a war with Iran, the ensuing stability will enable people to identify who fixed the intelligence that deceived the U.S. to invade Iraq. Only one nation possesses the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence to mount a covert operation over the lengthy period required to pre-stage, staff, orchestrate and successfully cover-up such an act.
The evidence points to the same network of government insiders and media proponents now hyping Iran. Who benefitted from war with Iraq? Who benefits from war with Iran? Not the U.S. or its allies unless, despite the evidence, Israel is viewed as an ally – rather than an enemy within.
Can the U.S. Muster a Breakthrough Strategy?
Like Afghanistan, Iran does not have a military solution. Nor does Iraq. Geopolitically, the greatest casualty of war in the region was the United States – its credibility tattered, its military overextended and its finances devastated by a debt-financed war that Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz projects could reach $3,000 billion. Compare that with the speedy exit and a $50 billion outlay that Wolfowitz assured policy-makers could be recovered from sales of Iraqi oil.
Those who induced that invasion persuaded Americans to commit economic and geopolitical hari-kari. No external force could have defeated the sole remaining super power. Instead the U.S. was deceived – by a purported ally – to defeat itself by an ill-advised reaction to the provocation of a mass murder on U.S. soil.
The only sensible and sustainable solution is one that serves unmet needs in the region while also restoring the credibility of the U.S. as a proponent of informed choice and free enterprise. While making transparent the common source of the deceit that induced the U.S. to war, policy-makers can also lay the foundation to preclude such duplicity in the future. That requires consultation among the U.S., its true allies and those nations in the region most affected by this treachery.
Only a design solution can counter today’s systemic sources of conflict, including the extremism fueled by extremes in education, opportunity, wealth and income. As with the fixed intelligence that induced the U.S. to war in Iraq, those sources of conflict are obscured by a compliant and complicit media with an undisclosed pro-Israeli bias.
A transnational network of think tanks could expose in real time how facts are displaced by what “the mark” can be deceived to believe. With the media dominance of pro-Israelis in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany and other Western allies, that task must include the capacity to show how this deceit operates in plain sight yet, to date, with impunity. Absent such transparency, systems of governance reliant on informed consent will continue to be manipulated to their detriment by those who hide behind the very freedoms that such systems are meant to protect.
Running parallel with that transparency initiative must be an education program that deploys the best available technology to close the gaps in learning that sustain extremes in opportunity. Only a truly international effort can succeed in that essential task. Only trans-cultural education can preempt the mental manipulation that induced war in Iraq and now pursues war with Iran as proponents of The Clash of Civilizations gradually transform that concept into a reality.
What we now see emerging is yet another example of how wars are induced in the Information Age. Why would anyone expect modern warfare to be waged in any other way? As the common source of this duplicity becomes transparent, the solution will become apparent.
Lasting peace requires a Marshall Plan able to accelerate the transition to the Knowledge Society. This systemic challenge cannot be addressed absent a systemic strategy. The restoration of friendly and cooperative relations must include the practical steps required to heal this widening divide with education at the core.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196830-Will-Israel-Ensure-that-History-Repeats-Itself-

Global Research, October 12, 2009

 

Mickey Huff, Webster Tarpley, Danny Schechter, Gail Davidson, Katherine Hughes on The Global Research News Hour

- 2009-10-16

Special Donation Drive for Victims of Typhoon Ketsana

Please support the relief efforts

- 2009-10-15

Obama and the Nobel Prize: When War becomes Peace, When the Lie becomes the Truth

- by Michel Chossudovsky – 2009-10-11

When fiction becomes truth and truth becomes fiction. When a global military agenda is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor.

Taliban influence in N Afghanistan to cripple NATO mission

- by Abdul Haleem – 2009-10-11

If we want Policy instead of Speeches

Vers La Verité Speech in Paris

- by Cynthia McKinney – 2009-10-11

Obama’s Prize Named For The Inventor of Dynamite

Will It Encourage Him To Become More “Transformational” Or Not?

- by Danny Schechter – 2009-10-11

Get Off Obama’s Back: Second Thoughts From Michael Moore

- by Michael Moore – 2009-10-11

Britain to train Pakistan’s Frontier Corps troops in Baluchistan

- by Jeremy Page – 2009-10-11

Afghanistan: Top Troop Request Exceeds 60,000

Commander Prefers 40,000 for Afghanistan, but His Report Gives Obama 3 Options

- by Peter Spiegel, Yochi Dreazen – 2009-10-11

U.S. ‘Personality Assassination’ of a Palestinian Ally

- by Nicola Nasser – 2009-10-10

US Economy: More Unemployment. Slowdown in the Pace of Job Losses

- by Bob Chapman – 2009-10-10

British Prime Minister: Afghan army training to be centre of NATO efforts

- 2009-10-10

After Nobel nod, Obama convenes Afghan war council

- by Stephen Collinson – 2009-10-10

Lawsuit to Attempt to Stop Swine Flu Vaccinations

- by Richard C. Cook – 2009-10-10

Massive expansions of US-NATO “counterinsurgency” in Afghanistan

McChrystal demands bloodshed

- by Larry Chin – 2009-10-09

US, Georgia to hold security talks

- 2009-10-09

VIDEO: “NATO’s attack on Serbia the ultimate crime against peace”

- 2009-10-09

US lawmakers pass 680-billion-dollar defense budget bill

- 2009-10-09

U.S. to establish effective missile defense system in Europe

- 2009-10-09

Sweatshop Conditions in US Cities

- by Stephen Lendman – 2009-10-09

Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan wants 40,000 more troops as minimum

- 2009-10-09

VIDEO: Torture accusations against the Bush Administration

- 2009-10-09

Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?

- by David Ray Griffin – 2009-10-09

US completing massive ‘bunker buster’ bomb

To be used against Iran?

- 2009-10-08

Collapse of the Greenback? Will the Dollar get an “Arab Oil Shock”?

- by F. William Engdahl – 2009-10-08

Obama’s Test: Democracy or Chaos in Latin America

- by Ramzy Baroud – 2009-10-08

Georgia to enter NATO?

- 2009-10-08

Greater Albania: Threat of A New US-NATO sponsored Conflict In Europe

- by Rick Rozoff – 2009-10-08

The Public Relations Machine for the Vaccine Complex

the role of the CDC

- by Richard Gale, Gary Null – 2009-10-08

Justice For Iraq

Legal Case Filed Against Four US Presidents And Four UK Prime Ministers For War Crimes

- by The Brussells Tribunal – 2009-10-08

A Media Failure Compounds The Financial Failure

The Press Is Still Missing The Story Of Fraud and Economic Decline Ahead

- by Danny Schechter – 2009-10-08

Obama’s Regulation of Credit Default Swaps

- by Washington’s Blog – 2009-10-08

Failed Economic Policies and Rising Unemployment in the United States of America

- by Bob Chapman – 2009-10-08

Big Brother FBI

Data-Mining Programs Resurrect "Total Information Awareness"

- by Tom Burghardt – 2009-10-08

Debt Moratorium in Iceland

- by Webster G. Tarpley – 2009-10-08

U.S to deploy Patriot missiles in Poland

- 2009-10-08

The Gaza War’s Effect on Women

- by Stephen Lendman – 2009-10-07

How the Feds Imprison the Innocent

- by Paul Craig Roberts – 2009-10-06

Humanitarian Disaster in the Philippines. In the Cruel Aftermath of Tropical Storm Ketsana

- by Michel Chossudovsky – 2009-10-06

Restoring a Viable System of Bank Credit

Bernanke Rolls Snake-eyes

- by Mike Whitney – 2009-10-06

The Permanent Destruction of Jobs in America

- by Washington’s Blog – 2009-10-06

Obama Efforts to Placate Right Wing Backfire

- by Sherwood Ross – 2009-10-06

Investigate and prosecute Bush officials and lawyers

National Lawyers Guild and other human rights groups issue open letter to Eric Holder

- by Marjorie Cohn – 2009-10-06

The Demise of the Dollar

- by Robert Fisk – 2009-10-06

The Afghan quagmire

- by Rahimullah Yusufzai – 2009-10-06

Missile Defense: U.S. military presence in Georgia

- 2009-10-06

The IMF to Play Role of Global Central Bank?

The Dollar Needs to be Devalued by Half?

- by Ellen Brown – 2009-10-05

Taliban Fighters Attack Outposts, U.S. Troops Killed in Battle

- by Joshua Partlow – 2009-10-05

Albright Deployed Snake, Missile Pins Against Putin, Hussein

- by Katya Kazakina – 2009-10-05

Israel’s largest defense company opens office in Azerbaijan

- by Rashad Suleymanov – 2009-10-05

The bear market rally will soon be over

There is only one place to be and that is in gold and silver related assets.

- by Bob Chapman – 2009-10-05

Surge in Unemployment in the US: No Economic Recovery in Sight

- by Shamus Cooke – 2009-10-05

Ineffectiveness and Dangers of Flu Shots

- by Stephen Lendman – 2009-10-05

Jailed farmers go on hunger strike in Honduras

- 2009-10-05

Afghanistan: Taleban storm Nato outpost

About 400 coalition troops this year — the majority of them American

- 2009-10-05