The Ruthless Truth blog

Ray McGovern
CounterPunch
Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:01 EDT

© Unknown

Participants at an otherwise informative discussion on "Iran at a Crossroads" at the Senate on Wednesday seemed at pains to barricade the doors against the proverbial elephant being admitted into the room – in this case, Israel.
This, despite the fact that the agenda virtually dictated that the elephant be allowed in. The cavernous hearing room also could have accommodated it – however awkward and untidy the atmosphere might have become.
Otherwise, as was entirely predictable, the discussion would be lacking a crucial element. Which is exactly what happened. Which is exactly what always happens.
The tongue-tied impediment displayed by some of the presenters can be chalked up mostly to the all-too-familiar timidity on Capitol Hill to countenance candid discussion of any issue on which Israel can be revealed to be a fly in the ointment.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, obtained use of the hearing room for the organizers of the discussion, the thoroughly professional National Iranian American Council headed by Professor Trita Parsi. This is to Levin’s credit, in my view.
At the same time, Sen. Levin holds the all-time-high record for PAC contributions from groups affiliated with the self-described "America’s Pro-Israel Lobby" – the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). I’m guessing that Levin’s office may have asked that some caution be exercised, so that it would be difficult for Fox News to misrepresent the proceedings as "Israel bashing."
Setting the Stage
In any case, a truly distinguished panel launched a discussion on "The U.S. and Iran: Back to Confrontation?" which Professor Parsi moderated. The panelists began by setting a fact- and reality-based context, which in turn raised hopes of a no-holds-barred discussion. Their observations included, or implied, the following:

The status of the U.S. as the "world’s sole remaining superpower" may have "turned a corner." In many key respects, China, India, Russia and Brazil now represent a rival "superpower" strong enough to thwart American policy objectives.

The consequences of nuclear weapons proliferation in the general area of the Persian Gulf would be so truly ominous that "everything imaginable" should be done to head it off.

The main "positive" of robust sanctions against a country like Iran is simply that those who impose them can feel good. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to target sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps without hurting the Iranian people at large.

The experience of the past several years demonstrates that the U.S. and Iran share – and can act on – a range of common interests (in Afghanistan, for example). Neither country would profit from hostilities involving Iran.

Iran is nowhere near a nuclear weapon, so there is time to reconsider what guarantees could be offered to Tehran to dissuade it from pursuing a nuclear weapons option.

No member of Congress has set foot in Iran since 1979.

No Discussion of Implications
With these observations on the table, it was as if the doors to the hearing room were clanked shut and bolted, lest the Israeli elephant be allowed to intrude. And this, despite a palpable yearning in the audience for the panelists to address uncomfortable questions like:

If there are no intrinsic factors dictating implacable hostility between Iran and the U.S., how does one account for its persistence? What promotes, what feeds it?
There was, of course, the sad history of 1953 when the CIA and British intelligence engineered the overthrow of Iran’s first democratically elected government, and the outrage of Iran’s holding 52 American hostages for 444 days at the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
But aside from those incidents, could the mutual hostility today have anything to do with Israel and its ability to enlist the U.S. behind Israeli strategic objectives?

Do the Iranian leaders see as contrived the oft-expressed concern that Iran might eventually obtain a nuclear weapon, when American officials do nothing about Israel’s actual nuclear weapons, or for that matter, those of Pakistan and India?

Is the real objective of Israel and, by extension, the U.S. the same as it was with respect to Iraq seven years ago – that is, "regime change"? (How I dislike using the euphemism in vogue for what we used to call overthrowing governments!)
Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton let drop last month that, even if Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, this does not "directly" threaten the United States.

Is it true, as one of the panelists asserted, that "No one believes that the Green (opposition) movement in Iran is supported by outside forces; that rather it is clearly an entirely indigenous, spontaneous movement?"
Into the memory hole went past news reports about the Bush administration earmarking $400 million to support covert operations designed to frustrate Iran’s nuclear program and to destabilize its political system. Also unmentionable were troubling reports that the United States has helped "good" terrorist organizations, like Jundullah, to strike violent blows against Iran’s regime.

Is it a given, as one afternoon panelist suggested, that "Everyone knows that the Israelis would not use their considerable nuclear arsenal except in self-defense"? It seems that when Israel is mentioned in these affairs, commentary must be only in the most positive light; there can be no suggestion that Israel might use, say, bunker-busting tactical nukes to destroy hardened Iranian targets.

Does the Israeli government honestly perceive an "existential threat" in Iran’s possible acquisition of a few nuclear weapons against the 200-300 devices already in Israel’s arsenal? If so, is Israel prepared to "defend itself" by attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, using the preventive-war justification which has long been a staple of Israeli policy, and was adopted kit and caboodle by Bush and Cheney?

Are the Israelis counting on U.S. logistical support for such a preventive attack – intelligence and operational planning support of the kind that enabled its surgical strike on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981? Are they expecting the kind of political support the United States provided in the wake of Israel’s September 2007 attack on a suspect nuclear-related facility being built in Syria?

Why is it that former Ambassador Robert Hunter, now an adviser to RAND and himself a passionate opponent of nuclear proliferation, can endorse the idea of a "nuclear-free Middle East," and then with a wan smile simply throw up his hands lamenting that that’s never going to happen. Why must this proposal be banned from the category of "everything imaginable," simply because "everyone is sure" that Israel would never go along?

If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu feels he can thumb his nose at the U.S. President (and Vice President) on the signal issue of Israeli settlements, is there reason to believe that Netanyahu is inclined to take into account repeated "please pleas" from the likes of Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, who has warned the Israelis publicly that an attack on Iran would be a "big, big, big problem for all of us?"

Was this week’s chutzpah-laden Israeli announcement of new settlement construction in East Jerusalem – in the midst of a visit by Vice President Joe Biden – a case of what one might call "practice mouse trapping," to test whether the Obama administration really has the toughness to push back in a meaningful way?

Ambassador Hunter was accompanied on the afternoon panel by prolific writer, Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, and Robert Malley, who served in senior positions at President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council and is now Program Director for Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group in Washington, D.C.
All three have a wealth of experience on the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and this gave rise to eventually dashed expectations of a more candid discussion of several related issues as they impinge on Iranian interests.
There are, of course, limits to what can be covered in an hour and a quarter. Still, there did seem to be distinct reluctance to include Israel in any discussion of the political obstacles preventing sensible accommodation between Tehran and Washington.
No doubt the main obstacle can be traced to the timeworn "passionate attachment" of U.S. leaders to Israel’s perceived interests, and the tendency to view them as identical to those of the United States. This politically and emotionally sensitive issue needs to be addressed openly and without fear – in the interest of Israeli, as well as Iranian and American citizens.
If Not Now, When?
Granted, volunteering to sponsor such a discussion would be seen as the kiss of death for the vast majority of lawmakers. But can it be that there is no group, no think tank with courage enough to arrange such a forum? For it truly needs to be done, and quickly, somewhere – whether permitted in a Senate office building, or not.
Without free discussion and greater understanding, there is virtually no prospect of lessened tensions. Rather, the volatile situation seems likely to get still worse, and could even include an Israeli provocation and/or a preventive strike on Iran.
Here Admiral Mullen is right; such actions would constitute a "big, big, big problem for all of us."
Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern@aol.com

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204763-Taboo-Thwarts-Candor-on-Israel-Iran

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Eric S. Margolis
Khaleej Times
Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:19 EDT

© Dan Balilty/AP
An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks in East Jerusalem, where Israel plans to build 1,600 homes.

The humiliation last week of US Vice President Joe Biden by Israel’s rightwing government showed once again who is really in charge of US Mideast policy. The stinging diplomatic insult suffered by Biden also delivered another body blow to the wobbling Obama administration.
Before arriving in Israel, Biden had repeated President Obama’s demand that Israel cease building new housing in East Jerusalem, which it holds in violation of international law and numerous UN resolutions.
Shortly before Biden was to arrive at an ‘intimate’ dinner put on by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel announced 1,600 new housing units would be built in East Jerusalem.
All the humiliated Biden managed to do was to arrive an hour-and-a-half late for dinner. He should at least have gotten on his plane and flown home.
How the mighty have fallen. Half a century ago, the great American President Dwight Eisenhower ordered Israel to get out of Sinai without delay or face a total cutoff of aid and diplomatic support. Israel got out.
Israel’s best newspaper, Ha’aretz put it perfectly: ‘Biden had to wipe spit off his face and say it was only rain.’
Adding to the black comedy, Israel’s hardline interior minister apologised for authorising illegal colonisation while Biden was in town and promised not to do it again – if Biden was next in Israel. This pathetic episode shows just how strong Israel is feeling these days. It forced candidate Obama to promise the Israel lobby in Washington that he would never press Israel into a peace settlement.
Then it scorned Obama’s calls for Israel to cease colonising the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and withdraws its 500,000 settlers.The Obama administration’s humiliation by Israel is having loud repercussions in Washington. There, pro-Israel Republicans are elated over Obama’s failure, the latest sign of presidential weakness.
Israel and just about everyone in Washington knows that Obama would not now dare to challenge Israel’s many supporters in the US Congress, or enrage Israel’s powerful American lobby when his administration is floundering and mid-term elections are on the political radar. The Republican Party is firmly in the grip of rural Protestant fundamentalists who believe an expanding Israel is an essential part of their Christian faith.
Israelis understand that the White House has to pretend to rebuke Israel in order to maintain good relations with its Arab allies, reassure them over the supposed Iranian threat, and pretend that the US-backed Palestinian authority of Mahmoud Abbas has legitimacy.
Biden’s humiliation was also shared by the hapless Abbas, who was just tiptoeing under US prodding into more useless ‘indirect’ negotiations with Israel. He was left looking confused and helpless. The Arab league huffed and puffed. Back to square one.
That suited Israel’s Netanyahu just fine. Israel is relentlessly gobbling up the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Its policy is to keep talking and stalling until there is nothing left to negotiate. The only power that can stop Israel’s colonisation campaign, which is destabilising the Mideast and bringing the threat of war with Iran, Syria and Lebanon, is the United States.
Israel’s self-confidence was shown by the assassinations in Damascus of Hezbollah leader Imad Mugniyah and the recent brazen murder in Dubai of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Israeli officials joked away this crime and dared the world to do something about it. Having just squelched international criticism of its savaging of Gaza and the UN’s ensuing Goldstone Report, Israel understandably felt it could face down any pressure from abroad.
Israel increasingly believed that Barack Obama will be a one-term president. Its American supporters never trusted Obama and worried he would press Israel into concessions to the Palestinians. As Republican electoral fortunes rise, Israel senses it has carte blanche to do whatever it desires. President Obama, the only man who could have thwarted Israeli expansion, is politically wounded.
Great powers must not be seen to lose face. One really must wonder why Obama, whose two most senior advisors are close to Israel, allowed Biden’s humiliation to take place. It was perfectly predictable. Stalin’s favourite expression came from Central Asia: ‘the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.’ Israel has clearly adopted this policy.
Eric Margolis is a veteran US journalist who reported from the Middle East and Asia for nearly two decades

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204764-Israel-and-a-Red-faced-Obama

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Mises Daily: Friday, March 12, 2010 by Antony P. Mueller

The recent improvement of the global economy, with particularly high economic-growth numbers for the United States, is just one more deception in a long series of deceptions that have plagued policy makers and investors. While official statistics register a rising gross domestic product, the long-term production potential of many economies around the world is actually contracting. The present economic expansion is brought about by massive stimulus policies. This kind of economic expansion does not constitute genuine economic growth.

It is quite common for policy makers, economic analysts, and commentators of all kinds to fail to distinguish between economic growth, which enlarges the productive capacity of an economy, and mere expansion of demand. Yet there is a huge difference between the kind of economic growth that comes as a consequence of victories in the battle against scarcity and the kind that is merely an output expansion resulting from increased spending.

The Austrian business-cycle theory emphasizes the problem of intertemporal misallocation due to monetary and fiscal stimuli. According to Austrian economic theory, stimulus packages induce the launch of projects that are bound to fail because their completion will be cut short by the lack of sustainable funding. In the short run, stimulus policies will bring an increase of the nation’s gross domestic product, yet what matters for long-term economic growth is not credit-induced demand but the nation’s capacity for production.

There is general agreement in the economics profession that the much-vaunted expenditure multiplier of Keynesian theory has quite different real and monetary effects depending on the state of the economy. However, the negative impact of stimulus policies on productivity is much less understood. When the economy expands due to fiscal or monetary stimulus, the productive capacity of the economy will actually decrease because the artificial expansion will mainly encourage malinvestment, i.e., the pursuit of business projects that are not viable in the long run.

It is easy indeed to fall into the trap of phony economic growth; as long as capacity utilization is below the normal level, demand expansions fueled by monetary and fiscal impulses increase economic activity. But the more the economy approaches full capacity, the more the effect on the production of real goods gets weaker and the effect on prices gets stronger. Eventually, this reaches the point when the monetary expansion only has inflationary price effects, and its impact on real production becomes nil.

When distortions in the economy are still small, and only a minor recession would be necessary to correct the misallocation, a modest amount of monetary or fiscal stimulus often will be sufficient to make the boom continue; this represents another source of deception. Central bankers and finance ministers enjoy praise for this cheap feat of having prevented what would otherwise have been only a mild and short slump. Yet by not letting mild recessions happen, these policy makers heap one pile of economic distortions upon another until the big downturn becomes unavoidable.

When finally confronted with the threat of a severe depression, these same authorities fall into panic. Acting in fear, they tend to deny experience and to flout prudence and rationality. In the face of a major economic downturn, monetary authorities resort to flooding the economy with even more easy money. Furthermore, their deficit spending heaps new debt upon old debt.

"There is a huge difference between the kind of economic growth that comes as a consequence of victories in the battle against scarcity and the kind that is merely an output expansion resulting from increased spending."

This pattern, which can be observed in many parts of the world, has also characterized US economic policy. By avoiding the small slump that most likely would have come after the stock-market crash of 1987, US monetary policy became highly expansive. It has continued that way ever since. Along the way, one bubble has followed the next, and consequently one bailout has led to the next.

After the economic dip of 2000, the US central bank’s loose monetary policy laid the groundwork of the housing bubble. When the bubble burst, government implemented a series of stimulus packages, and monetary authorities set the interest rate down close at the zero bound. As of now, new packages are on their way and the Federal Reserve’s reluctance to initiate its exit strategy is all too obvious.

As the collapse of the real-estate markets in the United States demonstrated, the credit boom has produced misallocations on a massive scale. The costs of many houses that were built when loans appeared easy to finance turned out to be unbearable. Projects that seemed to be financially manageable during the time of easy money had to be abandoned when the reality of scarcity was revealed. Investors and consumers were forced to retrench. Capital was lost, yet the debt burdens remain, and the fallout is felt throughout the entire economy.

As if economic history is to repeat itself, with each cycle getting worse, policy makers around the world repeat the old mistakes again and again. They have embraced, almost in unison, the rather crude belief that low interest rates and government spending will create wealth.

In the 1970s, in the face of the first oil-price shock, many governments and economists had great expectations of the stimulus policies in Europe and the United States. But the result was global stagflation. Japan practiced fiscal and monetary expansion on a grand scale since its economy entered a recession in the early 1990s, and the result has been stagnation ever since.

Despite the colossal efforts to sustain the boom in Japan, Europe, and the United States, the systemic fragilities of the global financial markets have not vanished, and business bankruptcies and unemployment are on the rise. What has been accomplished, however, is the formation of unsustainable levels of debt and of excess reserves in the banking sector, which could explode at any moment into a surge of inflation.

Fabricating bogus economic growth is highly appealing to policy makers because they can easily produce such "growth" by wasteful consumption for war, welfare, and all kinds of popular government programs. Each stimulus package at first incites irrational jubilation but leaves behind a wasteland of failed projects and frustrated expectations. This mental discouragement of investors and consumers will linger on for years after the boom has ended.

$22 $19

While monetary spending is limitless, and there is no scarcity of zeros to add to the price tag, production remains limited by the scarcity of the factors of production.

Fake booms and their consequent busts are directly linked to financial cycles, which in turn reflect the swings in money creation. Fiat money lies at the heart of this process. Credit-based economic expansion and its consequent malinvestments create economic illusions. The true tragedy of a fiat money regime is that bogus economic growth by way of monetary and fiscal stimulus can go on only until either the collapse of hyperinflation brings an end to the artificial boom or the amount of accumulated debt makes state bankruptcy inevitable.

Antony Mueller is a German-born economist who lives in Aracaju in Northeastern Brazil where he teaches at the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS). He is an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute USA and academic director of the Instituto Ludwig von Mises Brasil. See his website and blog. Send him mail. See Antony P. Mueller’s article archives.

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http://FFF.org
On March 1, 2010 Sheldon Richman gave the following speech at The Future of Freedom Foundations Economic Liberty Lecture Series at George Mason University.
Sheldon Richman is editor of The Freeman, published by The Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York, and serves as senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is the author of FFF’s award-winning book Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families; Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax; and Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State.
Mr. Richman’s articles on population, federal disaster assistance, international trade, education, the environment, American history, foreign policy, privacy, computers, and the Middle East have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, American Scholar, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Washington Times, Insight, Cato Policy Report, Journal of Economic Development, The Freeman, The World & I, Reason, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East Policy, Liberty magazine, and other publications. He is a contributor to the Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics.

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Soldiers in Alaska getting their concealed weapons right revoked

We need everyone’s support on this. This is what came down the chain for soldiers in Alaska about being able to carry concealed weapons. It’s not just happening to civilians anymore. Please get ACTIVE!
APVR-RUPM
DEPARTMENT THE ARMY
HEADQUARTERS, ARMY ALASKA
724 SERVICE LOOP
FORT RICHARDSON, ALASKA 99505-5000
21 FEB 06
MEMORANDUM FOR SEE DISTRIBUTION
SUBJECT: Concealed Weapons Policy (CG/CofS Policy #0-20)
1. Carrying concealed deadly weapons by USARAK Soldiers represents a significant risk to the
safety and welfare of this command. Accordingly, all Soldiers assigned or attached to USARAK
are prohibited from carrying a concealed deadly weapon in public places off of all USARAK
posts. All persons are prohibited from carrying concealed deadly weapons on USARAK posts
IAW USARAK Regulation 190-1.
2. Definitions:
a. Carry means on or about the person, or uncased within the immediate vicinity of the
person, so as to be available for immediate use, e.g. in the person’s automobile.
b. Deadly weapon means any fiream or anything designed for or capable of causing death or serious physical injury.
c. Concealed means hidden from plain view.
d. Firearm means a weapon, including a pistol, revolver, rifle, or shotgun, whether loaded or
unloaded, operable or inoperable, designed to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive charge or primer.
e. Public place means a place to which the public or a substantial group of persons has access. This includes locations involved in the sale of alcoholic beverages, highways,
transportation facilities, schools, places of business, places of amusement, parks, playgrounds and prisons. It also includes hallways, lobbies, and other portions of apartment houses and hotels
not constituting rooms or appartments designed for actual residence.
3. This policy is punitive. Soldiers who fail to comply with the requirements of this policy are subject to adverse administrative action and/or punishment under the
Uniform Code of Military
Justice.
CHARLES H. ACOBY
Major General, USA
Commanding
DISTRIB UTION:
A
This outrage must be answered immediately!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!!!
Please take a moment to send a note to your Representative and Senators,
the Pentagon, and this very confused General.
PLEASE FORWARD this information to everyone on your e-mail list and
especially to other local and national gun groups that should be
responding to this outrage.
Contact info

http://www.usarak.army.mil/main/cg2.htm

WILLIAM J. TROY
MAJOR GENERAL
UNITED STATES ARMY
COMMANDER, U.S. ARMY ALASKA
DEPUTY COMMANDER, ALASKAN
COMMAND
FORT RICHARDSON, ALASKA 99505-5000

http://gov.alaska.gov/parnell/contact/email-the-governor.html

Mr. Chris Cox
Director NRA-ILA
11250 Waples Mill Road
Fairfax, VA 22030

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