“The world is watching the people of Burma take to the streets to demand their freedom, and the American people stand in solidarity with these brave individuals,” - George W. Bush
09/28/07 "ICH" -- -- Watching the pro-democracy marches in Burma both inspires and sickens me. I am inspired by seeing thousands of red-robed monks leading the demonstrations and sickened by the violence they are being met with by the military.
Seeing the images of the monks and others being beaten reminds me of the Democratic Convention in 1968 where Chicago police beat the living daylights out of demonstrators who were there to try and force the party to come closer to the budding anti-war movement. It didn’t work. Instead of wonderful pro-peace candidate, Eugene McCarthy, the party nominated Johnson’s VP, Hubert Humphrey. We know what happened next: Nixon. After last night’s Democratic “debate” I am terrified and assured that the Democrats will have another pro-war nominee.
The other event in my memory that the pro-democracy movement in Burma reminds me of is Kent State, Ohio in May, 1970. Four students were killed and nine were wounded marching against escalation of the Vietnam debacle.. I have heard from many people who were of age to protest the Vietnam war at that time that the killings had the affect of frightening them into not protesting, or scaling their protests back.
Of course the present state of our nation is not as overtly oppressive as the government of Myanmar (Burma), presently where a Nobel Peace Laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi has been under house arrest there for years, but we who have been paying attention to events can see that America is on the precipice of serious fascism and only the brave actions of Americans committed to freedom, democracy and peace will help stem the tide of this rising neo-fascism that doesn’t march through our streets in goose-step and swastikas, but is creeping into our lives like cat’s paws.
According to Chris Rowthorn, in his brilliant article, When America Went Fascist, we went fascist on December 11, 2000 when the Supreme Court appointed George as our unelected, un-democratic and illegal President. Although it is easy and tempting to blame everything on BushCo, this is about the only assertion that I disagree with in his article.
What about during the Clinton regime? Does anyone remember Elian Gonzales or The Branch Davidians in Waco? Let’s go back further. What about when Truman dropped to WMD on hundreds of thousands of innocent victims in Japan? What about Korea? Eisenhower and the Military Industrial Complex? What about the Gulf of Tonkin? What about Watergate? What about Panama? Kosovo? Nicaragua? Free trade agreements that hurt workers in all countries that are involved in them and what about the abuse of language in this country: Patriot Act; Homeland Security; Clear Water and Clean Skies—and the No Child Left Behind Act that leaves every child behind and is just a funnel to the recruiter’s office?
There are just a few measures that we can use to stop this slide and Rowthorn articulates what has become an important part of my platform. Only vote for candidates that promise the following things…for president, or any other federal elective offices:
* Repeal the Patriot Act
* Repeal No Child Left Behind
* Scale down the Department of Homeland Security and rename it so it loses its Nazi
tone and is brought under civilian control.
* Restore habeas corpus and close all torture camps by repealing the Military Commissions’ Act.
* Repeal all contracts with paid mercenary killer companies.
* Restore the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
* Repeal all BushCo-Presidential directives (especially Directive 51) and review all laws that contain signing statements.
* Restore the 4th Amendment by enforcing warrants for spying on Americans.
* Impeach Bush and Cheney-post presidency so they can’t receive federal benefits.
* Bring all troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and review military needs for other bases around the world.
* Repeal all free trade agreements.
* Kick AIPAC and other lobbyists out of the halls of Congress where they have no business.
One of the most profound ways we can stop this descent into fascism is by impeaching, removing from office and incarcerating George Bush and Dick Cheney, et al. I am very skeptical of a complicit Congress, Inc doing anything about them in this term. I am also very skeptical of a “professional” and fascist military leadership taking their oath of service seriously and above their corporate-military allegiance to the Executive Branch recently and so tellingly revealed by General Betray-Us, so a military coup is out of the question and has the tricky element of becoming a military dictatorship.
I was supposed to be in court today in Washington, DC for my last arrest. I didn’t go because I am not under allegiance and repudiate the fascists that run our government and the enforcers who are doing their best Nazi-job of “following orders” in oppressing our rights as Americans.
Why are they beating up a Reverend who served in the Air Force, and honorably left after the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq, for wanting to attend a hearing in Congress?
Why are they arresting a Gold Star Mother for exercising the very freedoms for which George Bush freakishly says her son died?
Why are my daughter and assistant under indictment for Contempt of Congress when BushCo have steadily refused to testify before committees under oath, or any other way? As a matter of fact, Betray-Us wasn’t even put under oath that day in the House.
Why are college students being tasered for asking the same questions that we all want answered from John Kerry who threw our Representative Republic in the garbage along with the 2004 election?
Why are nooses being hung in the South?
Why do any of us pay our Federal Taxes to a government that we abhor and which we adamantly disagree with? Why do we allow our hard earned money to be used for murder and oppression?
Why is Congress giving BushCo more authority to begin a New World War?
Where are religious leaders to lead us in pro-democracy demonstrations? Most of our mainstream religions suffer from the same neo-fascism that our governmental leaders suffer from.
Why do we march in DC on Saturdays and get arrested just to get arrested? It’s time to descend on DC on a weekday and make commitments to our world and our posterity to over throw this fascism right now?
When can we have a country-wide massive general strike?
Recent reports show that Saddam made overtures to America through the UAE and Spain to go into exile weeks before the March, 2003 invasion of Iraq. Of course, the overtures were rejected because George’s small mind was already made up to invade Iraq before he became president in some sick way to either show up or gain approval from a dysfunctional family. What if Spain’s former President Aznar had spoken up then? What if Colin Powell, George Tenet, or any of the criminal neocons had spoken up to prevent this horrible loss of life and pain before it even started?
I wouldn’t be under a bench warrant right now. Rev wouldn’t be recovering from a badly sprained ankle. Casey would be alive and hundreds of thousands of others would be alive.
We can’t count on anyone but ourselves. It’s now up to we the people to follow the example of our brothers and sisters in Burma to courageously confront the anti-democracy/pro-fascist elements of our society.
Contact Cindy at: Cindy@CindyforCongress.org
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is a co-founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
Monday, October 01, 2007
This Coup (against the USA) and The Next One by Daniel Ellsberg
I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a police state.
If there’s another 9/11 under this regime … it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.
Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? … They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they’re not now they will be after another 9/11.
And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran - an escalation - which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in this country, including detention camps, mainly for Middle Easterners but not exclusively.
It’s a little hard for me to distinguish the two contingencies; they could come together. Another 9/11 or an Iranian attack in which Iran’s reaction against Israel, against our shipping, against our troops in Iraq above all, possibly in this country, will justify the full panoply of measures that have been prepared now, legitimized, and to some extent written into law. …
This is an unusual gang, even for Republicans. [But] I think that the successors to this regime are not likely to roll back the assault on the Constitution. They will take advantage of it, they will exploit it.
Will Hillary Clinton as president decide to turn off NSA after the last five years of illegal surveillance? Will she deprive her administration of her ability to protect United States citizens from possible terrorism by blinding herself and deafening herself to all that NSA can provide? I don’t think so.
Unless this somehow, by a change in our political climate, of a radical change, unless this gets rolled back in the next year or two before a new administration comes in - and there’s no move to do this at this point - unless that happens I don’t see it happening under the next administration, whether Republican or Democratic.
The Next Coup
Let me simplify this and not just to be rhetorical: A coup has occurred. I woke up the other day realizing, coming out of sleep, that a coup has occurred. It’s not just a question that a coup lies ahead with the next 9/11. That’s the next coup, that completes the first.
The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of our Constitution, … what the rest of the world looked at for the last 200 years as a model and experiment to the rest of the world - in checks and balances, limited government, Bill of Rights, individual rights protected from majority infringement by the Congress, an independent judiciary, the possibility of impeachment.
There have been violations of these principles by many presidents before. Most of the specific things that Bush has done in the way of illegal surveillance and other matters were done under my boss Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War: the use of CIA, FBI, NSA against Americans.
I could go through a list going back before this century to Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus in the Civil War, and before that the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 18th century. I think that none of those presidents were in fact what I would call quite precisely the current administration: domestic enemies of the Constitution. What I swore as a Marine officer and State and Defense Department official-along with every other officer and official and member of Congress-to defend the Constitution against, along with foreign enemies.
I think that none of these presidents with all their violations, which were impeachable had they been found out at the time and in nearly every case their violations were not found out until they were out of office so we didn’t have the exact challenge that we have today.
That was true with the first term of Nixon and certainly of Johnson, Kennedy and others. They were impeachable, they weren’t found out in time, but I think it was not their intention to in the crisis situations that they felt justified their actions, to change our form of government.
It is increasingly clear with each new book and each new leak that comes out, that Richard Cheney and his now chief of staff David Addington have had precisely that in mind since at least the early 70s. Not just since 1992, not since 2001, but have believed in Executive government, single-branch government under an Executive president - elected or not - with unrestrained powers. They did not believe in restraint.
When I say this I’m not saying they are traitors. I don’t think they have in mind allegiance to some foreign power or have a desire to help a foreign power. I believe they have in their own minds a love of this country and what they think is best for this country - but what they think is best is directly and consciously at odds with what the Founders of this country and Constitution thought.
They believe we need a different kind of government now, an Executive government essentially, rule by decree, which is what we’re getting with signing statements. Signing statements are talked about as line-item vetoes which is one [way] of describing them which are unconstitutional in themselves, but in other ways are just saying the president says “I decide what I enforce. I decide what the law is. I legislate.”
It’s [the same] with the military commissions, courts that are under the entire control of the Executive Branch, essentially of the president. A concentration of legislative, judicial, and executive powers in one branch, which is precisely what the Founders meant to avert, and tried to avert and did avert to the best of their ability in the Constitution.
Founders Had It Right
Now I’m appealing to that as a crisis right now not just because it is a break in tradition but because I believe in my heart and from my experience that on this point the Founders had it right.
It’s not just “our way of doing things” - it was a crucial perception on the corruption of power to anybody including Americans. On procedures and institutions that might possibly keep that power under control; because the alternative was what we have just seen, wars like Vietnam, wars like Iraq, wars like the one coming.
That brings me to the second point. This Executive Branch, under specifically Bush and Cheney, despite opposition from most of the rest of the branch, even of the cabinet, clearly intends a war against Iran which is crazy even by imperialist standards, standards in other words which are accepted not only by nearly everyone in the Executive Branch but most of the leaders in Congress. The interests of the empire, the need for hegemony, our right to control and our need to control the oil of the Middle East and many other places:. That is consensual in our establishment. …
But even by those standards, an attack on Iran is insane. And I say that quietly, I don’t mean it to be heard as rhetoric. Of course it’s not only aggression and a violation of international law, a supreme international crime, but it is by imperial standards, insane in terms of the consequences.
Does that make it impossible? No, it obviously doesn’t, it doesn’t even make it unlikely.
That is because two things come together that with the acceptance for various reasons of the Congress - Democrats and Republicans - and the public and the media, we have freed the White House - the president and the vice president - from virtually any restraint by Congress, courts, media, public, whatever.
And on the other hand, the people who have this unrestrained power are crazy. Not entirely, but they have crazy beliefs.
And the question is what then, what can we do about this? We are heading towards an insane operation. It is not certain. It is likely. … I want to try to be realistic myself here, to encourage us to do what we must do, what is needed to be done with the full recognition of the reality. Nothing is impossible.
What I’m talking about in the way of a police state, in the way of an attack on Iran is not certain. Nothing is certain, actually. However, I think it is probable, more likely than not, that in the next 15, 16 months of this administration we will see an attack on Iran. Probably. Whatever we do.
And … we will not succeed in moving Congress probably, and Congress probably will not stop the president from doing this. And that’s where we’re heading. That’s a very ugly, ugly prospect.
However, I think it’s up to us to work to increase that perhaps small- anyway not large - possibility to avert this within the next 15 months, aside from the effort that we have to make for the rest of our lives.
Restoring the Republic
Getting back the constitutional government and improving it will take a long time. And I think if we don’t get started now, it won’t be started under the next administration.
Getting out of Iraq will take a long time. Averting Iran and averting a further coup in the face of a 9/11, another attack, is for right now, it can’t be put off. It will take a kind of political and moral courage of which we have seen very little…
We have a really unusual concentration here and in this audience, of people who have in fact changed their lives, changed their position, lost their friends to a large extent, risked and experienced being called terrible names, “traitor,” “weak on terrorism” - names that politicians will do anything to avoid being called.
How do we get more people in the government and in the public at large to change their lives now in a crisis in a critical way? How do we get Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, for example. To change their priorities and their performance as Democratic leaders in the House and Senate? What kinds of pressures, what kinds of influences can be brought to bear to get Congress to do their jobs? It isn’t just doing their jobs. Getting them to obey their oaths of office.
I took an oath many times, an oath of office as a Marine lieutenant, as an official in the Defense Department, as an official in the State Department as a Foreign Service officer. A number of times I took an oath of office which is the same oath office taken by every member of Congress and every official in the United States and every officer in the United States armed services.
And that oath is not to a Commander in Chief, which is not mentioned. It is not to a fuehrer. It is not even to obey superior officers. The oath is precisely to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign or domestic.
Now that is an oath I violated every day for years in the Defense Department without realizing it, when I kept my mouth shut when I knew the public was being lied into a war as they were lied into Iraq, as they are being lied into war in Iran.
I knew that I had the documents that proved it, and I did not put it out then. I was not obeying my oath, which I eventually came to do.
I’ve often said that Lt. Ehren Watada - who still faces trial for refusing to obey orders to deploy to Iraq which he correctly perceives to be an unconstitutional and aggressive war - is the single officer in the United States armed services who is taking seriously his obligation to uphold his oath.
The president is clearly violating that oath, of course. Everybody under him who understands what is going on and there are myriad, are violating their oaths. They can stop doing that. And that’s the standard that I think we should be asking of people.
Congressional Courage
On the Democratic side, on the political side, I think we should be demanding of our Democratic leaders in the House and Senate - and frankly, of the Republicans too - that it is not their highest single absolute priority to be reelected, or to maintain a Democratic majority so that Pelosi can still be Speaker of the House and Reid can be in the Senate, or to increase that majority.
I’m not going to say that for politicians they should ignore that, or that they should do something else entirely, or that they should not worry about that.
Of course that will be and should be a major concern of theirs, but they’re acting like it’s their sole concern. Which is business as usual. “We have a majority, let’s not lose it, let’s keep it. Let’s keep those chairmanships.” Exactly what have those chairmanships done for us to save the Constitution in the last couple of years?
I am shocked by the Republicans today that I read in the Washington Post who yesterday threatened a filibuster if we … get back habeas corpus. The limiting of habeas corpus with the help of the Democrats did not get us back to George the Third, it got us back to before King John 700 years ago in terms of counter-revolution.
We need some way of recalling to recalling to them their obligations; and Ann Wright and Ray McGovern had one way, of sitting in in Conyers’ office and getting arrested. Ray McGovern was pushed out of the Petraeus hearing the other day for saying the simple words “swear him in” when it came to his testimony.
I think we’ve got to somehow get home to them [in Congress] that this is the time for them to uphold the oath, to preserve the Constitution, which is worth struggling for in part because it’s only with the power that the Constitution gives Congress responding to the public, only with that can we protect the world from madmen in power in the White House who intend an attack on Iran.
And the current generation of American generals and others who realize that this will be a catastrophe have not shown themselves willing to uphold their oaths any more than the civilians. They might be people who in their past lives risked their bodies and their lives in Vietnam or elsewhere, like [Colin] Powell, yet would not and will not risk their career or their relation with the president to the slightest degree.
That has to change. And it’s the example of people like those up here who might bring home to our representatives that they as humans and as citizens have the power to do likewise and to find in themselves the courage to protect this country and protect the world. Thank you.
Daniel Ellsberg was put on trial in 1973 for leaking the Pentagon Papers, but the case was dismissed after four months because of government misconduct. He is the author of “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.“
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
If there’s another 9/11 under this regime … it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.
Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? … They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they’re not now they will be after another 9/11.
And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran - an escalation - which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in this country, including detention camps, mainly for Middle Easterners but not exclusively.
It’s a little hard for me to distinguish the two contingencies; they could come together. Another 9/11 or an Iranian attack in which Iran’s reaction against Israel, against our shipping, against our troops in Iraq above all, possibly in this country, will justify the full panoply of measures that have been prepared now, legitimized, and to some extent written into law. …
This is an unusual gang, even for Republicans. [But] I think that the successors to this regime are not likely to roll back the assault on the Constitution. They will take advantage of it, they will exploit it.
Will Hillary Clinton as president decide to turn off NSA after the last five years of illegal surveillance? Will she deprive her administration of her ability to protect United States citizens from possible terrorism by blinding herself and deafening herself to all that NSA can provide? I don’t think so.
Unless this somehow, by a change in our political climate, of a radical change, unless this gets rolled back in the next year or two before a new administration comes in - and there’s no move to do this at this point - unless that happens I don’t see it happening under the next administration, whether Republican or Democratic.
The Next Coup
Let me simplify this and not just to be rhetorical: A coup has occurred. I woke up the other day realizing, coming out of sleep, that a coup has occurred. It’s not just a question that a coup lies ahead with the next 9/11. That’s the next coup, that completes the first.
The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of our Constitution, … what the rest of the world looked at for the last 200 years as a model and experiment to the rest of the world - in checks and balances, limited government, Bill of Rights, individual rights protected from majority infringement by the Congress, an independent judiciary, the possibility of impeachment.
There have been violations of these principles by many presidents before. Most of the specific things that Bush has done in the way of illegal surveillance and other matters were done under my boss Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War: the use of CIA, FBI, NSA against Americans.
I could go through a list going back before this century to Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus in the Civil War, and before that the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 18th century. I think that none of those presidents were in fact what I would call quite precisely the current administration: domestic enemies of the Constitution. What I swore as a Marine officer and State and Defense Department official-along with every other officer and official and member of Congress-to defend the Constitution against, along with foreign enemies.
I think that none of these presidents with all their violations, which were impeachable had they been found out at the time and in nearly every case their violations were not found out until they were out of office so we didn’t have the exact challenge that we have today.
That was true with the first term of Nixon and certainly of Johnson, Kennedy and others. They were impeachable, they weren’t found out in time, but I think it was not their intention to in the crisis situations that they felt justified their actions, to change our form of government.
It is increasingly clear with each new book and each new leak that comes out, that Richard Cheney and his now chief of staff David Addington have had precisely that in mind since at least the early 70s. Not just since 1992, not since 2001, but have believed in Executive government, single-branch government under an Executive president - elected or not - with unrestrained powers. They did not believe in restraint.
When I say this I’m not saying they are traitors. I don’t think they have in mind allegiance to some foreign power or have a desire to help a foreign power. I believe they have in their own minds a love of this country and what they think is best for this country - but what they think is best is directly and consciously at odds with what the Founders of this country and Constitution thought.
They believe we need a different kind of government now, an Executive government essentially, rule by decree, which is what we’re getting with signing statements. Signing statements are talked about as line-item vetoes which is one [way] of describing them which are unconstitutional in themselves, but in other ways are just saying the president says “I decide what I enforce. I decide what the law is. I legislate.”
It’s [the same] with the military commissions, courts that are under the entire control of the Executive Branch, essentially of the president. A concentration of legislative, judicial, and executive powers in one branch, which is precisely what the Founders meant to avert, and tried to avert and did avert to the best of their ability in the Constitution.
Founders Had It Right
Now I’m appealing to that as a crisis right now not just because it is a break in tradition but because I believe in my heart and from my experience that on this point the Founders had it right.
It’s not just “our way of doing things” - it was a crucial perception on the corruption of power to anybody including Americans. On procedures and institutions that might possibly keep that power under control; because the alternative was what we have just seen, wars like Vietnam, wars like Iraq, wars like the one coming.
That brings me to the second point. This Executive Branch, under specifically Bush and Cheney, despite opposition from most of the rest of the branch, even of the cabinet, clearly intends a war against Iran which is crazy even by imperialist standards, standards in other words which are accepted not only by nearly everyone in the Executive Branch but most of the leaders in Congress. The interests of the empire, the need for hegemony, our right to control and our need to control the oil of the Middle East and many other places:. That is consensual in our establishment. …
But even by those standards, an attack on Iran is insane. And I say that quietly, I don’t mean it to be heard as rhetoric. Of course it’s not only aggression and a violation of international law, a supreme international crime, but it is by imperial standards, insane in terms of the consequences.
Does that make it impossible? No, it obviously doesn’t, it doesn’t even make it unlikely.
That is because two things come together that with the acceptance for various reasons of the Congress - Democrats and Republicans - and the public and the media, we have freed the White House - the president and the vice president - from virtually any restraint by Congress, courts, media, public, whatever.
And on the other hand, the people who have this unrestrained power are crazy. Not entirely, but they have crazy beliefs.
And the question is what then, what can we do about this? We are heading towards an insane operation. It is not certain. It is likely. … I want to try to be realistic myself here, to encourage us to do what we must do, what is needed to be done with the full recognition of the reality. Nothing is impossible.
What I’m talking about in the way of a police state, in the way of an attack on Iran is not certain. Nothing is certain, actually. However, I think it is probable, more likely than not, that in the next 15, 16 months of this administration we will see an attack on Iran. Probably. Whatever we do.
And … we will not succeed in moving Congress probably, and Congress probably will not stop the president from doing this. And that’s where we’re heading. That’s a very ugly, ugly prospect.
However, I think it’s up to us to work to increase that perhaps small- anyway not large - possibility to avert this within the next 15 months, aside from the effort that we have to make for the rest of our lives.
Restoring the Republic
Getting back the constitutional government and improving it will take a long time. And I think if we don’t get started now, it won’t be started under the next administration.
Getting out of Iraq will take a long time. Averting Iran and averting a further coup in the face of a 9/11, another attack, is for right now, it can’t be put off. It will take a kind of political and moral courage of which we have seen very little…
We have a really unusual concentration here and in this audience, of people who have in fact changed their lives, changed their position, lost their friends to a large extent, risked and experienced being called terrible names, “traitor,” “weak on terrorism” - names that politicians will do anything to avoid being called.
How do we get more people in the government and in the public at large to change their lives now in a crisis in a critical way? How do we get Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, for example. To change their priorities and their performance as Democratic leaders in the House and Senate? What kinds of pressures, what kinds of influences can be brought to bear to get Congress to do their jobs? It isn’t just doing their jobs. Getting them to obey their oaths of office.
I took an oath many times, an oath of office as a Marine lieutenant, as an official in the Defense Department, as an official in the State Department as a Foreign Service officer. A number of times I took an oath of office which is the same oath office taken by every member of Congress and every official in the United States and every officer in the United States armed services.
And that oath is not to a Commander in Chief, which is not mentioned. It is not to a fuehrer. It is not even to obey superior officers. The oath is precisely to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign or domestic.
Now that is an oath I violated every day for years in the Defense Department without realizing it, when I kept my mouth shut when I knew the public was being lied into a war as they were lied into Iraq, as they are being lied into war in Iran.
I knew that I had the documents that proved it, and I did not put it out then. I was not obeying my oath, which I eventually came to do.
I’ve often said that Lt. Ehren Watada - who still faces trial for refusing to obey orders to deploy to Iraq which he correctly perceives to be an unconstitutional and aggressive war - is the single officer in the United States armed services who is taking seriously his obligation to uphold his oath.
The president is clearly violating that oath, of course. Everybody under him who understands what is going on and there are myriad, are violating their oaths. They can stop doing that. And that’s the standard that I think we should be asking of people.
Congressional Courage
On the Democratic side, on the political side, I think we should be demanding of our Democratic leaders in the House and Senate - and frankly, of the Republicans too - that it is not their highest single absolute priority to be reelected, or to maintain a Democratic majority so that Pelosi can still be Speaker of the House and Reid can be in the Senate, or to increase that majority.
I’m not going to say that for politicians they should ignore that, or that they should do something else entirely, or that they should not worry about that.
Of course that will be and should be a major concern of theirs, but they’re acting like it’s their sole concern. Which is business as usual. “We have a majority, let’s not lose it, let’s keep it. Let’s keep those chairmanships.” Exactly what have those chairmanships done for us to save the Constitution in the last couple of years?
I am shocked by the Republicans today that I read in the Washington Post who yesterday threatened a filibuster if we … get back habeas corpus. The limiting of habeas corpus with the help of the Democrats did not get us back to George the Third, it got us back to before King John 700 years ago in terms of counter-revolution.
We need some way of recalling to recalling to them their obligations; and Ann Wright and Ray McGovern had one way, of sitting in in Conyers’ office and getting arrested. Ray McGovern was pushed out of the Petraeus hearing the other day for saying the simple words “swear him in” when it came to his testimony.
I think we’ve got to somehow get home to them [in Congress] that this is the time for them to uphold the oath, to preserve the Constitution, which is worth struggling for in part because it’s only with the power that the Constitution gives Congress responding to the public, only with that can we protect the world from madmen in power in the White House who intend an attack on Iran.
And the current generation of American generals and others who realize that this will be a catastrophe have not shown themselves willing to uphold their oaths any more than the civilians. They might be people who in their past lives risked their bodies and their lives in Vietnam or elsewhere, like [Colin] Powell, yet would not and will not risk their career or their relation with the president to the slightest degree.
That has to change. And it’s the example of people like those up here who might bring home to our representatives that they as humans and as citizens have the power to do likewise and to find in themselves the courage to protect this country and protect the world. Thank you.
Daniel Ellsberg was put on trial in 1973 for leaking the Pentagon Papers, but the case was dismissed after four months because of government misconduct. He is the author of “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.“
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
Daniel Ellsberg Calls for Actions to Prevent War with Iran
by Michael Yoder
ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. - The date Aug. 4, 1964 still haunts Daniel Ellsberg, despite the passage of more than 40 years.
He was a 33-year-old on his first day at the Pentagon as special assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton. It also was the day the North Vietnamese navy allegedly fired 21 torpedoes at U.S. naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Ellsberg was one of 100 people who saw top secret transmissions later in the day saying the attack never happened, yet President Lyndon Johnson used the alleged incident to drive the U.S. into full-scale war in Vietnam.
“I knew Congress was being deceived into a declaration of war and that the public was being totally deceived into a landslide victory for a man who was about to plunge them into a big war,” Ellsberg told a crowd of more than 200 people Thursday evening at the inaugural Ware Seminar on Global Citizenship at Elizabethtown College’s Center for Global Citizenship.
The 76-year-old activist gained notoriety during the Vietnam War when he released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and other newspapers, detailing internal U.S. policy decisions regarding the war and its escalation.
Ellsberg said in the last few weeks he has begun to think a coup has occurred in the presidency of George Bush, which he characterized as a “rogue administration.”
He said that if a new 9/11 terrorist attack happens in the United States, the president would not hesitate to suspend and dismantle the Constitution and that hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners and dissidents could end up in detention camps. “I think we’re in danger - we’re in a crisis,” he said.
Ellsberg pointed to actions taken by Bush that he said violate the law, including endorsing warrantless surveillance and lying to Congress about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. At the same time, he was quick to chastise the Democrats in Congress, saying that by going along with Bush’s war they’ve failed their duty to uphold the Constitution.
He said the Senate resolution passed Wednesday declaring Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization is an invitation for Bush to declare war on Iran.
Ellsberg compared Wednesday’s resolution to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, passed Aug. 7, 1964, that gave Johnson a virtually blank check for combat in North Vietnam. He laid out a scenario of $200 a barrel for oil, the possibility of retaliatory attacks against the U.S. and the president keeping open the “nuclear option” to attack Iran. He said he is asking people in government who have information that could stop such a war before it happens to not do what he did by releasing the Pentagon Papers after the war started. He said they should do what he didn’t do - release the information before a disaster happens. “Don’t wait till the war has started,” Ellsberg told the audience. “Don’t wait till the bombs are falling or thousands more have died.”
Ellsberg said he has been called a traitor numerous times for breaking a “vow of secrecy” when he released the Pentagon Papers. But Ellsberg said he took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution - the same oath all military and public servants are required to take.
“It is not an oath to the president,” Ellsberg said. “And it’s not an oath to keep secrets. And it’s not an oath to the commander in chief, or the Fuhrer or Caesar or to the flag. “It is an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. - The date Aug. 4, 1964 still haunts Daniel Ellsberg, despite the passage of more than 40 years.
He was a 33-year-old on his first day at the Pentagon as special assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton. It also was the day the North Vietnamese navy allegedly fired 21 torpedoes at U.S. naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Ellsberg was one of 100 people who saw top secret transmissions later in the day saying the attack never happened, yet President Lyndon Johnson used the alleged incident to drive the U.S. into full-scale war in Vietnam.
“I knew Congress was being deceived into a declaration of war and that the public was being totally deceived into a landslide victory for a man who was about to plunge them into a big war,” Ellsberg told a crowd of more than 200 people Thursday evening at the inaugural Ware Seminar on Global Citizenship at Elizabethtown College’s Center for Global Citizenship.
The 76-year-old activist gained notoriety during the Vietnam War when he released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and other newspapers, detailing internal U.S. policy decisions regarding the war and its escalation.
Ellsberg said in the last few weeks he has begun to think a coup has occurred in the presidency of George Bush, which he characterized as a “rogue administration.”
He said that if a new 9/11 terrorist attack happens in the United States, the president would not hesitate to suspend and dismantle the Constitution and that hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners and dissidents could end up in detention camps. “I think we’re in danger - we’re in a crisis,” he said.
Ellsberg pointed to actions taken by Bush that he said violate the law, including endorsing warrantless surveillance and lying to Congress about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. At the same time, he was quick to chastise the Democrats in Congress, saying that by going along with Bush’s war they’ve failed their duty to uphold the Constitution.
He said the Senate resolution passed Wednesday declaring Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization is an invitation for Bush to declare war on Iran.
Ellsberg compared Wednesday’s resolution to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, passed Aug. 7, 1964, that gave Johnson a virtually blank check for combat in North Vietnam. He laid out a scenario of $200 a barrel for oil, the possibility of retaliatory attacks against the U.S. and the president keeping open the “nuclear option” to attack Iran. He said he is asking people in government who have information that could stop such a war before it happens to not do what he did by releasing the Pentagon Papers after the war started. He said they should do what he didn’t do - release the information before a disaster happens. “Don’t wait till the war has started,” Ellsberg told the audience. “Don’t wait till the bombs are falling or thousands more have died.”
Ellsberg said he has been called a traitor numerous times for breaking a “vow of secrecy” when he released the Pentagon Papers. But Ellsberg said he took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution - the same oath all military and public servants are required to take.
“It is not an oath to the president,” Ellsberg said. “And it’s not an oath to keep secrets. And it’s not an oath to the commander in chief, or the Fuhrer or Caesar or to the flag. “It is an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
How to Make Iraq Look Like Whipped Cream - So What About Iran? By URI AVNERY
A respected American paper posted a scoop this week: Vice-President Dick Cheney, the King of Hawks, has thought up a Machiavellian scheme for an attack on Iran. Its main point: Israel will start by bombing an Iranian nuclear installation, Iran will respond by launching missiles at Israel, and this will serve as a pretext for an American attack on Iran.
Far-fetched? Not really. It is rather like what happened in 1956. Then France, Israel and Britain secretly planned to attack Egypt in order to topple Gamal Abd-al-Nasser ("regime change" in today's lingo.) It was agreed that Israeli paratroops would be dropped near the Suez Canal, and that the resulting conflict would serve as a pretext for the French and British to occupy the canal area in order to "secure" the waterway. This plan was implemented (and failed miserably).
What would happen to us if we agreed to Cheney's plan? Our pilots would risk their lives to bomb the heavily defended Iranian installations. Then, Iranian missiles would rain down on our cities. Hundreds, perhaps thousands would be killed. All this in order to supply the Americans with a pretext to go to war.
Would the pretext have stood up? In other words, is the US obliged to enter a war on our side, even when that war is caused by us? In theory, the answer is yes. The current agreements between the US and Israel say that America has to come to Israel's aid in any war - whoever started it.
Is there any substance to this leak? Hard to know. But it strengthens the suspicion that an attack on Iran is more imminent than people imagine.
* * *
Do Bush, Cheney & Co. indeed intend to attack Iran?
I don't know, but my suspicion that they might is getting stronger.
Why? Because George Bush is nearing the end of his term of office. If it ends the way things look now, he will be remembered as a very bad - if not the worst - president in the annals of the republic. His term started with the Twin Towers catastrophe, which reflected no great credit on the intelligence agencies, and would come to a close with the grievous Iraq fiasco.
There is only one year left to do something impressive and save his name in the history books. In such situations, leaders tend to look for military adventures. Taking into account the man's demonstrated character traits, the war option suddenly seems quite frightening.
True, the American army is pinned down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even people like Bush and Cheney could not dream, at this time, of invading a country four times larger than Iraq, with three times the population.
But, quite possibly the war-mongers are whispering in Bush's ear: What are you worrying about? No need for an invasion. Enough to bomb Iran, as we bombed Serbia and Afghanistan. We shall use the smartest bombs and the most sophisticated missiles against the two thousand or so targets, in order to destroy not only the Iranian nuclear sites but also their military installations and government offices. "We shall bomb them back into the stone age," as an American general once said about Vietnam, or "turn their clock back 20 years," as the Israeli Air Force general Dan Halutz said about Lebanon.
That's a tempting idea. The US will only use its mighty Air Force, missiles of all kinds and the powerful aircraft-carriers, which are already deployed in the Persian/Arabian Gulf. All these can be sent into action at any time on short notice. For a failed president approaching the end of his term, the idea of an easy, short war must have an immense attraction. And this president has already shown how hard it is for him to resist temptations of this kind.
* * *
Would this indeed be such an easy operation, a "piece of cake" in American parlance?
I doubt it.
Even "smart" bombs kill people. The Iranians are a proud, resolute and highly motivated people. They point out that for two thousand years they have never attacked another country, but during the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war they have amply proved their determination to defend their own when attacked.
Their first reaction to an American attack would be to close the Straits of Hormuz, the entrance to the Gulf. That would choke off a large part of the world's oil supply and cause an unprecedented world-wide economic crisis. To open the straits (if this is at all possible), the US army would have to capture and hold large areas of Iranian territory.
The short and easy war would turn into a long and hard war. What does that mean for us in Israel?
There can be little doubt that if attacked, Iran will respond as it has promised: by bombarding us with the rockets it is preparing for this precise purpose. That will not endanger Israel's existence, but it will not be pleasant either.
If the American attack turns into a long war of attrition, and if the American public comes to see it as a disaster (as is happening right now with the Iraqi adventure), some will surely put the blame on Israel. It is no secret that the Pro-Israel lobby and its allies - the (mostly Jewish) neo-cons and the Christian Zionists - are pushing America into this war, just as they pushed it into Iraq. For Israeli policy, the hoped-for gains of this war may turn into giant losses - not only for Israel, but also for the American Jewish community.
* * *
If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not exist, the Israeli government would have had to invent him.
He has got almost everything one could wish for in an enemy. He has a big mouth. He is a braggart. He enjoys causing scandals. He is a Holocaust denier. He prophesies that Israel will "vanish from the map" (though he did not say, as falsely reported, the he would wipe Israel off the map.)
This week, the pro-Israel lobby organized big demonstrations against his visit to New York. They were a huge success - for Ahmadinejad. He has realized his dream of becoming the center of world attention. He has been given the opportunity to voice his arguments against Israel -- some outrageous, some valid - before a world-wide audience.
But Ahmadinejad is not Iran. True, he has won popular elections, but Iran is like the orthodox parties in Israel: it is not their politicians who count, but their rabbis. The Shiite religious leadership makes the decisions and commands the armed forces, and this body is neither boastful nor vociferous not scandal-mongering. It exercises a lot of caution.
If Iran was really so eager to obtain a nuclear bomb, it would have acted in utmost silence and kept as low a profile as possible (as Israel did). The swaggering of Ahmadinejad would hurt this effort more than any enemy of Iran could.
It is highly unpleasant to think about a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands (and, indeed, in any hands.) I hope it can be avoided by offering inducements and/or imposing sanctions. But even if this does not succeed, it would not be the end of the world, nor the end of Israel. In this area, more than in any other, Israel's deterrent power is immense. Even Ahmadinejad will not risk an exchange of queens - the destruction of Iran for the destruction of Israel.
* * *
Napoleon said that to understand a country's policy, one has only to look at the map.
If we do this, we shall see that there is no objective reason for war between Israel and Iran. On the contrary, for a long time it was believed in Jerusalem that the two countries were natural allies.
David Ben-Gurion advocated an "alliance of the periphery". He was convinced that the entire Arab world is the natural enemy of Israel, and that, therefore, allies should be sought on the fringes of the Arab world - Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, Chad etc. (He also looked for allies inside the Arab world - communities that are not Sunni-Arab, such as the Maronites, the Copts, the Kurds, the Shiites and others.)
At the time of the Shah, very close connections existed between Iran and Israel, some positive, some negative, some outright sinister. The Shah helped to build a pipeline from Eilat to Askelon, in order to transport Iranian oil to the Mediterranean, bypassing the Suez Canal. The Israel internal secret service (Shabak) trained its notorious Iranian counterpart (Savak). Israelis and Iranians acted together in Iraqi Kurdistan, helping the Kurds against their Sunni-Arab oppressors.
The Khomeini revolution did not, in the beginning, put an end to this alliance, it only drove it underground. During the Iran-Iraq war, Israel supplied Iran with arms, on the assumption that anyone fighting Arabs is our friend. At the same time, the Americans supplied arms to Saddam Hussein - one of the rare instances of a clear divergence between Washington and Jerusalem. This was bridged in the Iran-Contra Affair, when the Americans helped Israel to sell arms to the Ayatollahs.
Today, an ideological struggle is raging between the two countries, but it is mainly fought out on the rhetorical and demagogical level. I dare to say that Ahmadinejad doesn't give a fig for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he only uses it to make friends in the Arab world. If I were a Palestinian, I would not rely on it. Sooner or later, geography will tell and Israeli-Iranian relations will return to what they were - hopefully on a far more positive basis.
* * *
One thing I am ready to predict with confidence: whoever pushes for war against Iran will come to regret it.
Some adventures are easy to get into but hard to get out of.
The last one to find this out was Saddam Hussein. He thought that it would be a cakewalk - after all, Khomeini had killed off most of the officers, and especially the pilots, of the Shah's military. He believed that one quick Iraqi blow would be enough to bring about the collapse of Iran. He had eight long years of war to regret it.
Both the Americans and we may soon be feeling that the Iraqi mud is like whipped cream compared to the Iranian quagmire.
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is o a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
Far-fetched? Not really. It is rather like what happened in 1956. Then France, Israel and Britain secretly planned to attack Egypt in order to topple Gamal Abd-al-Nasser ("regime change" in today's lingo.) It was agreed that Israeli paratroops would be dropped near the Suez Canal, and that the resulting conflict would serve as a pretext for the French and British to occupy the canal area in order to "secure" the waterway. This plan was implemented (and failed miserably).
What would happen to us if we agreed to Cheney's plan? Our pilots would risk their lives to bomb the heavily defended Iranian installations. Then, Iranian missiles would rain down on our cities. Hundreds, perhaps thousands would be killed. All this in order to supply the Americans with a pretext to go to war.
Would the pretext have stood up? In other words, is the US obliged to enter a war on our side, even when that war is caused by us? In theory, the answer is yes. The current agreements between the US and Israel say that America has to come to Israel's aid in any war - whoever started it.
Is there any substance to this leak? Hard to know. But it strengthens the suspicion that an attack on Iran is more imminent than people imagine.
* * *
Do Bush, Cheney & Co. indeed intend to attack Iran?
I don't know, but my suspicion that they might is getting stronger.
Why? Because George Bush is nearing the end of his term of office. If it ends the way things look now, he will be remembered as a very bad - if not the worst - president in the annals of the republic. His term started with the Twin Towers catastrophe, which reflected no great credit on the intelligence agencies, and would come to a close with the grievous Iraq fiasco.
There is only one year left to do something impressive and save his name in the history books. In such situations, leaders tend to look for military adventures. Taking into account the man's demonstrated character traits, the war option suddenly seems quite frightening.
True, the American army is pinned down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even people like Bush and Cheney could not dream, at this time, of invading a country four times larger than Iraq, with three times the population.
But, quite possibly the war-mongers are whispering in Bush's ear: What are you worrying about? No need for an invasion. Enough to bomb Iran, as we bombed Serbia and Afghanistan. We shall use the smartest bombs and the most sophisticated missiles against the two thousand or so targets, in order to destroy not only the Iranian nuclear sites but also their military installations and government offices. "We shall bomb them back into the stone age," as an American general once said about Vietnam, or "turn their clock back 20 years," as the Israeli Air Force general Dan Halutz said about Lebanon.
That's a tempting idea. The US will only use its mighty Air Force, missiles of all kinds and the powerful aircraft-carriers, which are already deployed in the Persian/Arabian Gulf. All these can be sent into action at any time on short notice. For a failed president approaching the end of his term, the idea of an easy, short war must have an immense attraction. And this president has already shown how hard it is for him to resist temptations of this kind.
* * *
Would this indeed be such an easy operation, a "piece of cake" in American parlance?
I doubt it.
Even "smart" bombs kill people. The Iranians are a proud, resolute and highly motivated people. They point out that for two thousand years they have never attacked another country, but during the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war they have amply proved their determination to defend their own when attacked.
Their first reaction to an American attack would be to close the Straits of Hormuz, the entrance to the Gulf. That would choke off a large part of the world's oil supply and cause an unprecedented world-wide economic crisis. To open the straits (if this is at all possible), the US army would have to capture and hold large areas of Iranian territory.
The short and easy war would turn into a long and hard war. What does that mean for us in Israel?
There can be little doubt that if attacked, Iran will respond as it has promised: by bombarding us with the rockets it is preparing for this precise purpose. That will not endanger Israel's existence, but it will not be pleasant either.
If the American attack turns into a long war of attrition, and if the American public comes to see it as a disaster (as is happening right now with the Iraqi adventure), some will surely put the blame on Israel. It is no secret that the Pro-Israel lobby and its allies - the (mostly Jewish) neo-cons and the Christian Zionists - are pushing America into this war, just as they pushed it into Iraq. For Israeli policy, the hoped-for gains of this war may turn into giant losses - not only for Israel, but also for the American Jewish community.
* * *
If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not exist, the Israeli government would have had to invent him.
He has got almost everything one could wish for in an enemy. He has a big mouth. He is a braggart. He enjoys causing scandals. He is a Holocaust denier. He prophesies that Israel will "vanish from the map" (though he did not say, as falsely reported, the he would wipe Israel off the map.)
This week, the pro-Israel lobby organized big demonstrations against his visit to New York. They were a huge success - for Ahmadinejad. He has realized his dream of becoming the center of world attention. He has been given the opportunity to voice his arguments against Israel -- some outrageous, some valid - before a world-wide audience.
But Ahmadinejad is not Iran. True, he has won popular elections, but Iran is like the orthodox parties in Israel: it is not their politicians who count, but their rabbis. The Shiite religious leadership makes the decisions and commands the armed forces, and this body is neither boastful nor vociferous not scandal-mongering. It exercises a lot of caution.
If Iran was really so eager to obtain a nuclear bomb, it would have acted in utmost silence and kept as low a profile as possible (as Israel did). The swaggering of Ahmadinejad would hurt this effort more than any enemy of Iran could.
It is highly unpleasant to think about a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands (and, indeed, in any hands.) I hope it can be avoided by offering inducements and/or imposing sanctions. But even if this does not succeed, it would not be the end of the world, nor the end of Israel. In this area, more than in any other, Israel's deterrent power is immense. Even Ahmadinejad will not risk an exchange of queens - the destruction of Iran for the destruction of Israel.
* * *
Napoleon said that to understand a country's policy, one has only to look at the map.
If we do this, we shall see that there is no objective reason for war between Israel and Iran. On the contrary, for a long time it was believed in Jerusalem that the two countries were natural allies.
David Ben-Gurion advocated an "alliance of the periphery". He was convinced that the entire Arab world is the natural enemy of Israel, and that, therefore, allies should be sought on the fringes of the Arab world - Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, Chad etc. (He also looked for allies inside the Arab world - communities that are not Sunni-Arab, such as the Maronites, the Copts, the Kurds, the Shiites and others.)
At the time of the Shah, very close connections existed between Iran and Israel, some positive, some negative, some outright sinister. The Shah helped to build a pipeline from Eilat to Askelon, in order to transport Iranian oil to the Mediterranean, bypassing the Suez Canal. The Israel internal secret service (Shabak) trained its notorious Iranian counterpart (Savak). Israelis and Iranians acted together in Iraqi Kurdistan, helping the Kurds against their Sunni-Arab oppressors.
The Khomeini revolution did not, in the beginning, put an end to this alliance, it only drove it underground. During the Iran-Iraq war, Israel supplied Iran with arms, on the assumption that anyone fighting Arabs is our friend. At the same time, the Americans supplied arms to Saddam Hussein - one of the rare instances of a clear divergence between Washington and Jerusalem. This was bridged in the Iran-Contra Affair, when the Americans helped Israel to sell arms to the Ayatollahs.
Today, an ideological struggle is raging between the two countries, but it is mainly fought out on the rhetorical and demagogical level. I dare to say that Ahmadinejad doesn't give a fig for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he only uses it to make friends in the Arab world. If I were a Palestinian, I would not rely on it. Sooner or later, geography will tell and Israeli-Iranian relations will return to what they were - hopefully on a far more positive basis.
* * *
One thing I am ready to predict with confidence: whoever pushes for war against Iran will come to regret it.
Some adventures are easy to get into but hard to get out of.
The last one to find this out was Saddam Hussein. He thought that it would be a cakewalk - after all, Khomeini had killed off most of the officers, and especially the pilots, of the Shah's military. He believed that one quick Iraqi blow would be enough to bring about the collapse of Iran. He had eight long years of war to regret it.
Both the Americans and we may soon be feeling that the Iraqi mud is like whipped cream compared to the Iranian quagmire.
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is o a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
REFLECTIONS OF PRESIDENT FIDEL CASTRO: One more argument for the UN
WHILE working on the already famous Greenspan book, I read an article published by El País, a Spanish newspaper with a circulation of more than 500,000, according to reports; I would like to pass this on to the readers. It is signed by Ernesto Ekaizer, and it literally reads:
"Four weeks before the Iraq invasion which happened in the night of March 19 to 20, 2003, George W. Bush publicly sustained his demands of Saddam Hussein in the following terms: disarmament or war. In private, Bush acknowledged that war was inevitable. In a long private conversation with the then Spanish president, José María Aznar, held on Saturday, February 22, 2003 at the Crawford Ranch in Texas, Bush made it clear that the moment had come to get rid of Saddam. ‘We have two weeks. In two weeks our military will be ready. We will be in Baghdad at the end of March', he told Aznar.
"The moment has come to get rid of Saddam.
"As part of this plan, Bush had accepted, on January 31, 2003 – after an interview with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair – to make a last diplomatic maneuver: to introduce a second resolution to the United Nations Security Council. His objective: to clear the way legally for a unilateral war that the United States was getting ready to unleash with more than 200,000 soldiers who were in the region ready to attack.
"Bush was aware of Blair’s internal difficulties and he knew of Aznar’s. Only seven days before that meeting at the Crawford Ranch, three million people were demonstrating in several Spanish cities against the imminent war. ‘We need your help with our public opinion’, Aznar asks. Bush explains to him the scope of the new resolution that he is going to present: ‘The resolution will be tailor made to help you. I don’t care about the content’. To this, Aznar replies: ‘That text would help us to be able to co-sponsor it and be its co-authors, and get many people to sponsor it’. Aznar then offers to give Bush European coverage, together with Blair. Aznar’s dream of consolidating a relationship with the United States, following in the footsteps of the United Kingdom, was about to become reality.
"Aznar had traveled with his wife, Ana Botella, on February 20 to the United States making a stopover in Mexico to persuade President Vicente Fox –unsuccessfully– of the need to support Bush. On the 21st, the couple, accompanied by the President’s assistants, arrived in Texas. Aznar and his wife stayed at the ranch guest house.
"In the meeting on the following day, Saturday, President Bush, his then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Daniel Fried, the chief of European Affairs at the National Security Council, were present. Aznar, on his side, was accompanied by his international policy advisor, Alberto Carnero and the Spanish Ambassador in Washington, Javier Rupérez. As part of the meeting, Bush and Aznar had a four-way telephone conversation with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Italian President Silvio Berlusconi.
"Ambassador Rupérez translated from the English for Aznar and also from the Italian for Condoleezza Rice; another two interpreters did the same for Bush and his collaborators. It was Rupérez who drafted the minutes of the conversation in a memorandum that has been kept secret until today.
"The conversation is impressive because of its direct, friendly and even menacing tone when, for example, they refer to the necessity of some countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola, Cameroon and Russia, members of the UN Security Council, voting for the new resolution as a show of friendship towards the United States or else they would have to suffer the consequences.
"They are cautioned about zero expectations for the work of the inspectors, whose chief, Hans Blix, had dismantled just one week earlier, on February 14, the arguments presented by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell at the Security Council on February 5, 2003, with ‘solid facts’ enthusiastically supported by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ana Palacio. The same facts that Powell himself later described as a bunch of lies.
"The Blix Report
"According to Blix, Iraq was taking steps towards active cooperation in solving the pending issue of disarmament. His tone had been less critical than that of his report of January 27, 2003. ‘Since we arrived in Iraq three months ago we have made more than 400 inspections, with no advance warning at 300 sites. Until now, the inspectors have found no prohibited weapons…If Iraq decides to cooperate even more closely, the period of disarmament by the inspections can still be short´, the chief inspector pointed out.
"The General Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed El Baradei released information on February 14 that there were still some technical issues left to clear up. But, he added, ‘now there are no more disarmament problems left to solve’. According to him, absolutely no proof had been found that Iraq had been carrying out nuclear activities or activities related to nuclear energy, another clear lie about what Powell had stated about the Iraqi nuclear program.
"Both the first results of the inspections and the end of the United States preparations led Bush to set the beginning of the military operation towards the date of March 10, 2003. Later, nine days were added in order to get the second resolution. The process of moral persuasion in which Aznar and Palacios worked by phone and in bilateral meetings did not succeed in pulling in more than four votes: those of the three promoters and Bulgaria. They needed 9 votes.
"The failure of this legal coverage for the imminent war led Bush, with Blair and Aznar, to agree to a summit meeting in the Azores on March 16, 2003, a place suggested by Aznar as an alternative to Bermuda for a reason he explained to Bush: ‘Just the name of these islands suggests an item of clothing that is not exactly the most appropriate for the seriousness of the moment in which we find ourselves’. There, on that March 16, Blair, Bush and Aznar decided to replace the United Nations Security Council. They usurped its functions to declare war on Iraq at their own risk. On the morning of March 17, the United Kingdom ambassador at the UN announced in New York the withdrawal of the second resolution. A defeat in the voting would have complicated even further the race towards war."
Fidel Castro Ruz
September 27, 2007.
7:25 p.m.
Translated by ESTI
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -- Edward R. Murrow
"Four weeks before the Iraq invasion which happened in the night of March 19 to 20, 2003, George W. Bush publicly sustained his demands of Saddam Hussein in the following terms: disarmament or war. In private, Bush acknowledged that war was inevitable. In a long private conversation with the then Spanish president, José María Aznar, held on Saturday, February 22, 2003 at the Crawford Ranch in Texas, Bush made it clear that the moment had come to get rid of Saddam. ‘We have two weeks. In two weeks our military will be ready. We will be in Baghdad at the end of March', he told Aznar.
"The moment has come to get rid of Saddam.
"As part of this plan, Bush had accepted, on January 31, 2003 – after an interview with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair – to make a last diplomatic maneuver: to introduce a second resolution to the United Nations Security Council. His objective: to clear the way legally for a unilateral war that the United States was getting ready to unleash with more than 200,000 soldiers who were in the region ready to attack.
"Bush was aware of Blair’s internal difficulties and he knew of Aznar’s. Only seven days before that meeting at the Crawford Ranch, three million people were demonstrating in several Spanish cities against the imminent war. ‘We need your help with our public opinion’, Aznar asks. Bush explains to him the scope of the new resolution that he is going to present: ‘The resolution will be tailor made to help you. I don’t care about the content’. To this, Aznar replies: ‘That text would help us to be able to co-sponsor it and be its co-authors, and get many people to sponsor it’. Aznar then offers to give Bush European coverage, together with Blair. Aznar’s dream of consolidating a relationship with the United States, following in the footsteps of the United Kingdom, was about to become reality.
"Aznar had traveled with his wife, Ana Botella, on February 20 to the United States making a stopover in Mexico to persuade President Vicente Fox –unsuccessfully– of the need to support Bush. On the 21st, the couple, accompanied by the President’s assistants, arrived in Texas. Aznar and his wife stayed at the ranch guest house.
"In the meeting on the following day, Saturday, President Bush, his then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Daniel Fried, the chief of European Affairs at the National Security Council, were present. Aznar, on his side, was accompanied by his international policy advisor, Alberto Carnero and the Spanish Ambassador in Washington, Javier Rupérez. As part of the meeting, Bush and Aznar had a four-way telephone conversation with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Italian President Silvio Berlusconi.
"Ambassador Rupérez translated from the English for Aznar and also from the Italian for Condoleezza Rice; another two interpreters did the same for Bush and his collaborators. It was Rupérez who drafted the minutes of the conversation in a memorandum that has been kept secret until today.
"The conversation is impressive because of its direct, friendly and even menacing tone when, for example, they refer to the necessity of some countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola, Cameroon and Russia, members of the UN Security Council, voting for the new resolution as a show of friendship towards the United States or else they would have to suffer the consequences.
"They are cautioned about zero expectations for the work of the inspectors, whose chief, Hans Blix, had dismantled just one week earlier, on February 14, the arguments presented by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell at the Security Council on February 5, 2003, with ‘solid facts’ enthusiastically supported by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ana Palacio. The same facts that Powell himself later described as a bunch of lies.
"The Blix Report
"According to Blix, Iraq was taking steps towards active cooperation in solving the pending issue of disarmament. His tone had been less critical than that of his report of January 27, 2003. ‘Since we arrived in Iraq three months ago we have made more than 400 inspections, with no advance warning at 300 sites. Until now, the inspectors have found no prohibited weapons…If Iraq decides to cooperate even more closely, the period of disarmament by the inspections can still be short´, the chief inspector pointed out.
"The General Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed El Baradei released information on February 14 that there were still some technical issues left to clear up. But, he added, ‘now there are no more disarmament problems left to solve’. According to him, absolutely no proof had been found that Iraq had been carrying out nuclear activities or activities related to nuclear energy, another clear lie about what Powell had stated about the Iraqi nuclear program.
"Both the first results of the inspections and the end of the United States preparations led Bush to set the beginning of the military operation towards the date of March 10, 2003. Later, nine days were added in order to get the second resolution. The process of moral persuasion in which Aznar and Palacios worked by phone and in bilateral meetings did not succeed in pulling in more than four votes: those of the three promoters and Bulgaria. They needed 9 votes.
"The failure of this legal coverage for the imminent war led Bush, with Blair and Aznar, to agree to a summit meeting in the Azores on March 16, 2003, a place suggested by Aznar as an alternative to Bermuda for a reason he explained to Bush: ‘Just the name of these islands suggests an item of clothing that is not exactly the most appropriate for the seriousness of the moment in which we find ourselves’. There, on that March 16, Blair, Bush and Aznar decided to replace the United Nations Security Council. They usurped its functions to declare war on Iraq at their own risk. On the morning of March 17, the United Kingdom ambassador at the UN announced in New York the withdrawal of the second resolution. A defeat in the voting would have complicated even further the race towards war."
Fidel Castro Ruz
September 27, 2007.
7:25 p.m.
Translated by ESTI
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -- Edward R. Murrow
WHY Does Google Censor Cuba?
A number of services offered by the grand search engine are not available to Cubans, and with no explanation given. Federal prohibitions enabling the US blockade of the island could be the key to the mystery
By: Amaury E. del Valle
The largest and most-used search engine on the Internet is marking its tenth anniversary. Over that that time it has censored a series of services, making them inaccessible in Cuba – and with no clear explanation why.
«We’re sorry, but this service is not available for your country» is the brief message that appears in English on the computer screen when anyone on the island tries to access one of the mega-searcher’s well-known utilities, such as Google Earth, Google Desktop Search, Google Code or Google Toolbar.
The Google.com website —famous the world over for providing a simple and quick way to find information on close to 8.2 billion web pages— is consulted more than 200 million times a day. In addition, it offers its users other facilities, like searching for free or open source code, finding maps and aerial photos, locating on-line ads or finding information lost on one’s own computer. However, these options are not available in Cuba.
The computer giant
Google is considered by many to be a prototypical high-tech firm. It was founded on September 27, 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two computer science doctoral students at Stanford University. Starting up out of a friend’s garage, and with financing from family and friends, they created their site using a search algorithm that they cracked.
At the beginning, eight people made up the entire Google staff, for a while still in the garage. Later moved to a modest office, while today the mega-firm has hundreds of employees, with its central offices in California and branches in Dublin, Ireland and Buenos Aires.
With profits considered among the highest in the computer industry, it is one of the most valuable companies on the stock exchange. Recently it expanded with several buyouts and mergers, such as the October 2006 acquisition of the famous video site YouTube, for $1.65 billion, and the April 2007 acquisition of DoubleClick, a company specializing in internet publicity, for which Google paid the jaw-dropping sum of $3.1 billion.
In addition, Google is engaged in highly significant projects, among these being the development of online tools for word processing that challenge the hegemony of Microsoft Office and Windows. Likewise, it has become a world news reference service through its Google News.
To all this must be added the increasingly global vision of the virtual world enabled the launching of vital online utilities, such as those for translating (Google Translate), books and school information searches, a technique that allows one to situate their webpage in a good position for a searcher (also known as PageRank), and the creation of local sites in each country, including Cuba.
Being located in United States —and despite its seemingly liberal philosophy— Google not only complies with that country’s laws, but has increasingly strengthened its complicity with those policies.
Prohibitive listing
A simple request from a Cuban server to access certain Google services will prompt a courteous but definitively negative response from several of these sites. Among the forbidden fruits are:
Extraterritorial limits
The cases above constitute a mere sample of some of the programs that Google denies Cuba. What is curious is that some of these, such as Google Earth or Google Desktop, were not at first prohibited. For several months Cuban nationals could load them, something that is not possible today.
It is ironic that the blocking of other features —like Google Code Search, which supposedly promotes the altruism of free software— are in contradiction to what the creators of Google have always declared themselves to be defenders.
Some of these restrictions, such as not being able to download programs that require payment, can be easily explained by US blockade laws against Cuba, which prevent most commercial transactions with the island. However, these laws directed against Cuba can be applied in third countries, like Spain and Argentina.
In the case of the Iberian nation, for example, Google Desktop states in its «Terms and Conditions” that these “will be regulated for and interpreted in accordance with Spanish legislation and regulations.»
That would mean that the denial by Google in Spain to offer this program to Cuba could be violating Spanish laws, because there is no type of commercial limitation between Cuba and that country that prevents the exchange of products.
This same situation arises with Argentina, a country where the administrative offices of many Google are located, and to whose national laws the company is subject. Therefore the denial of some service by virtue of the American Helms-Burton Act, or any other another absurd US regulation, would be in fact a violation of the laws of that South American country.
A question without an answer
It would be absurd not to recognize that the enormous utility of Google is an indispensable tool for the acquisition and exchange of knowledge.
The Cuban government has even facilitated Google’s effort to create a customize page for the island under the national domain «cu.»
It is necessary then to wonder why the super searcher doesn't respond equally and facilitate national access to all of its benefits; or is it that perhaps Google is also blockading us now?
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
By: Amaury E. del Valle
The largest and most-used search engine on the Internet is marking its tenth anniversary. Over that that time it has censored a series of services, making them inaccessible in Cuba – and with no clear explanation why.
«We’re sorry, but this service is not available for your country» is the brief message that appears in English on the computer screen when anyone on the island tries to access one of the mega-searcher’s well-known utilities, such as Google Earth, Google Desktop Search, Google Code or Google Toolbar.
The Google.com website —famous the world over for providing a simple and quick way to find information on close to 8.2 billion web pages— is consulted more than 200 million times a day. In addition, it offers its users other facilities, like searching for free or open source code, finding maps and aerial photos, locating on-line ads or finding information lost on one’s own computer. However, these options are not available in Cuba.
The computer giant
Google is considered by many to be a prototypical high-tech firm. It was founded on September 27, 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two computer science doctoral students at Stanford University. Starting up out of a friend’s garage, and with financing from family and friends, they created their site using a search algorithm that they cracked.
At the beginning, eight people made up the entire Google staff, for a while still in the garage. Later moved to a modest office, while today the mega-firm has hundreds of employees, with its central offices in California and branches in Dublin, Ireland and Buenos Aires.
With profits considered among the highest in the computer industry, it is one of the most valuable companies on the stock exchange. Recently it expanded with several buyouts and mergers, such as the October 2006 acquisition of the famous video site YouTube, for $1.65 billion, and the April 2007 acquisition of DoubleClick, a company specializing in internet publicity, for which Google paid the jaw-dropping sum of $3.1 billion.
In addition, Google is engaged in highly significant projects, among these being the development of online tools for word processing that challenge the hegemony of Microsoft Office and Windows. Likewise, it has become a world news reference service through its Google News.
To all this must be added the increasingly global vision of the virtual world enabled the launching of vital online utilities, such as those for translating (Google Translate), books and school information searches, a technique that allows one to situate their webpage in a good position for a searcher (also known as PageRank), and the creation of local sites in each country, including Cuba.
Being located in United States —and despite its seemingly liberal philosophy— Google not only complies with that country’s laws, but has increasingly strengthened its complicity with those policies.
Prohibitive listing
A simple request from a Cuban server to access certain Google services will prompt a courteous but definitively negative response from several of these sites. Among the forbidden fruits are:
- Google Earth: A program that displays high-quality satellite-captured aerial images of locations all over the world
- Google Sky: Since August 2007, Google has offered non-Cubans a virtual telescope that allows users to virtually peer into space.
- Google Desktop: This tool permits the possibility of locating ones own e-mail messages, files, chats and visited web pages, avoiding having to have to organize files and messages manually.
- Google AdSense: This is a service for webmasters and companies seeking publicity via the Internet.
- Google Adwords: Quick and easy tool that allows the posting of ads online.
- Google Code Search: Launched on October 5, 2006, this feature allows users to browse the web for Open Source or Free Code. This allows program developers to exchange knowledge and take advantage of the experiences of others.
Extraterritorial limits
The cases above constitute a mere sample of some of the programs that Google denies Cuba. What is curious is that some of these, such as Google Earth or Google Desktop, were not at first prohibited. For several months Cuban nationals could load them, something that is not possible today.
It is ironic that the blocking of other features —like Google Code Search, which supposedly promotes the altruism of free software— are in contradiction to what the creators of Google have always declared themselves to be defenders.
Some of these restrictions, such as not being able to download programs that require payment, can be easily explained by US blockade laws against Cuba, which prevent most commercial transactions with the island. However, these laws directed against Cuba can be applied in third countries, like Spain and Argentina.
In the case of the Iberian nation, for example, Google Desktop states in its «Terms and Conditions” that these “will be regulated for and interpreted in accordance with Spanish legislation and regulations.»
That would mean that the denial by Google in Spain to offer this program to Cuba could be violating Spanish laws, because there is no type of commercial limitation between Cuba and that country that prevents the exchange of products.
This same situation arises with Argentina, a country where the administrative offices of many Google are located, and to whose national laws the company is subject. Therefore the denial of some service by virtue of the American Helms-Burton Act, or any other another absurd US regulation, would be in fact a violation of the laws of that South American country.
A question without an answer
It would be absurd not to recognize that the enormous utility of Google is an indispensable tool for the acquisition and exchange of knowledge.
The Cuban government has even facilitated Google’s effort to create a customize page for the island under the national domain «cu.»
It is necessary then to wonder why the super searcher doesn't respond equally and facilitate national access to all of its benefits; or is it that perhaps Google is also blockading us now?
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
Israeli military aid to Burmese regime: Crisis in Burma - it's good for the Zionists!
jews sans frontieres
AN ANTI-ZIONIST BLOG - BROWSING THE MEDIA
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Crisis in Burma - it's good for the Zionists!
News just in the from the World War IV Report. Killing unarmed demonstrators in Burma is good for Jews. See this:
The Burmese junta currently shooting unarmed protestors received a cynical plea for restraint from the Israel government on Sept. 29. According to the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, the Israeli foreign ministry announced "Israel is concerned by the situation in Myanmar, and urges the government to demonstrate restraint and refrain from harming demonstrators." The article ended by pointing out that "Israel denies selling weapons to Burma or Myanmar." (Ha'aretz, Sept. 29)
Not true, according a March 1, 2000 report in the authoritative British publication Jane's Intelligence Review by William Ashton. The article, titled "Myanmar and Israel develop military," details how Israeli companies and the Israeli government have been supplying and developing weapons for the Burmese regime, and sharing intelligence:
In August 1997 it was revealed that the Israeli defence manufacturing company Elbit had won a contract to upgrade Myanmar's (then) three squadrons of Chinese-built F-7 fighters and FT-7 trainers. The F-7 is a derivative of the Mikoyan MiG-21 'Fishbed' jet fighter. The FT-7 is the export version of the GAIC JJ-7, itself a copy of the MiG-21 'Mongol-B' trainer. Since they began to be delivered by China in 1991, the Myanmar Air Force has progressively acquired about 54 (or four squadrons) of these aircraft, the latest arriving at Hmawbi air base only last year. In related sales, the air force has also acquired about 350 PL-2A air-to-air missiles (AAM) from China and at least one shipment of the more sophisticated PL-5 AAMs.
Since their delivery to Myanmar, these new aircraft have caused the air force considerable problems. Several aircraft (and pilots) have already been lost through accidents, raising questions about the reliability of the Chinese technology. There have also been reliable reports that the F-7s were delivered without the computer software to permit the AAMs to be fired in flight. Also, the air force has complained that the F-7s are difficult to maintain, in part reflecting major differences between the structure and underlying philosophy of the Myanmar and Chinese logistics systems. Spare parts have been in very short supply. In addition, the air force seems to have experienced difficulties in using the F-7 (designed primarily for air defence) in a ground attack role. These, and other problems, seem to have prompted the air force to turn to Israel for assistance.
Of course if there are sanctions against Burma, as it's not "illegal" to discuss boycotts of states other than Israel, this will be even better for Jews because Israel has always been chief among sanction busters. Ask a South African. No ask a Rhodesian. Oh dear, you can't ask a Rhodesian, Rhodesia no longer exists.
Israeli military aid to Burmese regime: Jane's
http://ww4report.com/node/4491
Submitted by David Bloom on Sat, 09/29/2007 - 20:14.
The Burmese junta currently shooting unarmed protestors received a cynical plea for restraint from the Israel government on Sept. 29. According to the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, the Israeli foreign ministry announced "Israel is concerned by the situation in Myanmar, and urges the government to demonstrate restraint and refrain from harming demonstrators." The article ended by pointing out that "Israel denies selling weapons to Burma or Myanmar." (Ha'aretz, Sept. 29)
Not true, according to a March 1, 2000 report in the authoritative British publication Jane's Intelligence Review by William Ashton. The article, titled "Myanmar and Israel develop military pact," details how Israeli companies and the Israeli government have been supplying and developing weapons for the Burmese regime, and sharing intelligence:
In August 1997 it was revealed that the Israeli defence manufacturing company Elbit had won a contract to upgrade Myanmar's (then) three squadrons of Chinese-built F-7 fighters and FT-7 trainers. The F-7 is a derivative of the Mikoyan MiG-21 'Fishbed' jet fighter. The FT-7 is the export version of the GAIC JJ-7, itself a copy of the MiG-21 'Mongol-B' trainer. Since they began to be delivered by China in 1991, the Myanmar Air Force has progressively acquired about 54 (or four squadrons) of these aircraft, the latest arriving at Hmawbi air base only last year. In related sales, the air force has also acquired about 350 PL-2A air-to-air missiles (AAM) from China and at least one shipment of the more sophisticated PL-5 AAMs.
Since their delivery to Myanmar, these new aircraft have caused the air force considerable problems. Several aircraft (and pilots) have already been lost through accidents, raising questions about the reliability of the Chinese technology. There have also been reliable reports that the F-7s were delivered without the computer software to permit the AAMs to be fired in flight. Also, the air force has complained that the F-7s are difficult to maintain, in part reflecting major differences between the structure and underlying philosophy of the Myanmar and Chinese logistics systems. Spare parts have been in very short supply. In addition, the air force seems to have experienced difficulties in using the F-7 (designed primarily for air defence) in a ground attack role. These, and other problems, seem to have prompted the air force to turn to Israel for assistance.
According to sources in the international arms market, 36 of Myanmar's F-7 fighters are to be retro-fitted with the Elta EL/M- 2032 air-to-air radar, Rafael Python 3 infrared, short range AAMs, and Litening laser designator pods. The same equipment will also be installed on the two-seater FT-7 fighter trainers. In a related deal, Israel will also sell Myanmar at least one consignment of laser-guided bombs. Since the Elbit contract was won in 1997, the air force has acquired at least one more squadron of F-7 and FT-7 aircraft from China, but it is not known whether the Israeli-backed upgrade programme will now be extended to include the additional aircraft. Myanmar's critical shortage of foreign exchange will be a major factor in the SPDC's decision.
The army has also benefited from Myanmar's new closeness to Israel.
As part of the regime's massive military modernisation and expansion programme, considerable effort has been put into upgrading the army's artillery capabilities. In keeping with its practice of never abandoning any equipment of value, the army clearly still aims, as far as possible, to keep older weapons operational. (Pakistan, for example, has recently provided Myanmar with ammunition for its vintage 25 pounder field guns). The older UK, US and Yugoslav guns in the Tatmadaw's [Myanmar Armed Forces] inventory have been supplemented over the past 10 years with a range of new towed and self-propelled artillery pieces. Purchased mainly from China, they include 122mm howitzers, anti-tank guns, 57mm Type 80 anti-aircraft guns, 37mm Type 74 anti-aircraft guns and 107mm Type 63 multiple rocket launchers. In a barter deal brokered by China last year, the SPDC has also managed to acquire about 16 130mm artillery pieces from North Korea. Despite all this new firepower, however, the army has still looked to Israel to help equip its new artillery battalions.
Around 1998 Myanmar negotiated the purchase of 16 155mm Soltam towed howitzers, possibly through a third party like Singapore. These guns are believed to be second-hand pieces no longer required by the Israel Defence Force. Last year, ammunition for these guns (including high explosive and white phosphorous rounds) was ordered from Pakistan's government ordnance factories. Before the purchase of these new Chinese and North Korean weapons, Myanmar's largest artillery pieces were 105mm medium guns, provided by the USA almost 40 years ago. Acquiring the Israeli weapons thus marks a major capability leap for Myanmar's army gunners. It is possible that either Israel or Pakistan has provided instructors to help the army learn to use and maintain these new weapons.
Nor has the Myanmar Navy missed out on Israeli assistance. There have been several reports that Israel is playing a crucial role in the construction and fitting out of three new warships, currently being built in Yangon.
Myanmar's military leaders have long wanted to acquire two or three frigates to replace the country's obsolete PCE-827 and Admirable- class corvettes, decommissioned in 1994, and its two 1960s-vintage Nawarat-class corvettes, which have been gradually phased out since 1989. As military ties with China rapidly grew during the 1990s, the SLORC hoped to buy two or three Jiangnan- or even Jianghu-class frigates, but it could not afford even the special 'friendship' prices being asked by Beijing. As a compromise, the SPDC has now purchased three Chinese hulls, and is currently fitting them out as corvettes in Yangon's Sinmalaik shipyard.
According to reliable reports, the three vessels will each be about 75m long and displace about 1,200 tons. Despite a European Community embargo against arms sales to Myanmar, the ships' main guns are being imported (apparently through a third party) from Italy. Based on the information currently available, they are likely to be 76mm OTO Melara Compact guns, weapons which (perhaps coincidentally) have been extensively combat-tested by the Israeli Navy on its Reshef- class fast attack missile patrol boats. The corvettes will probably also be fitted with anti-submarine weapons, but it is not known what, if any, surface-to-surface and SAMs the ships will carry.
Israel's main role in fitting out the three corvettes is apparently to provide their electronics suites. Details of the full contract are not known, but it is expected that each package will include at least a surface-search radar, a fire-control radar, a navigation radar and a hull-mounted sonar.
The first of these warships will probably be commissioned and commence sea trials later this year.
Only sales or a strategic imperative?
While Myanmar remains a pariah state, subject to comprehensive sanctions by the USA and European Community, it is unlikely that Israel will ever admit publicly to having military links with the Tatmadaw. Until it does, the reasons for Israel's secret partnership with the Yangon regime will remain unclear. A number of factors, however, have probably played a part in influencing policy decisions in Tel Aviv.
There is clearly a strong commercial imperative behind some of these ventures. From a regional base in Singapore, with which it shares a very close relationship, Israel has already managed to penetrate the lucrative Chinese arms market. It is now aggressively seeking new targets for sales of weapons and military equipment in the Asia- Pacific. These sales are sometimes supported by offers of technology transfers and specialised advice. This approach has led to fears among some countries that Israel will introduce new military capabilities into the region which could encourage a mini arms race, as others attempt to catch up. The weapon systems being provided to the Myanmar armed forces are not that new, and the Asian economic crisis has dramatically reduced the purchasing power of many regional countries, but Israel's current activities in Myanmar will add to those concerns.
Given the nature of some of these sales, and other probable forms of military assistance to Myanmar, these initiatives would appear to enjoy the strong support of the Israeli government. In addition to the ever-present trade imperative, one reason for this support could be a calculation by senior Israeli officials that closer ties to Myanmar could reap diplomatic and intelligence dividends. For example, Myanmar is now a full member of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) which, despite the economic crisis, is still a major force in a part of the world which has received much closer attention from strategic analysts since the end of the Cold War. Israel's regional base will remain Singapore, but it is possible that Tel Aviv believes Myanmar can provide another avenue for influence in ASEAN, and a useful vantage point from which to monitor critical strategic developments in places like China and India.
In particular, Israel is interested in the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the transfer of technologies related to the development of ballistic and other missiles. Myanmar has close military relations with China and Pakistan, both of which have been accused of transferring sensitive weapons technologies to rogue Islamic states, such as Iran. Myanmar is also a neighbour of India, another nuclear power that has resisted international pressure to curb its proliferation activities. Yangon could thus be seen by Israel as a useful listening post from which to monitor and report on these countries.
Also, despite accusations over the years that Myanmar has developed chemical and biological weapons, and more convincing arguments that Israel has a sizeable nuclear arsenal of its own, both countries share an interest in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Myanmar's support for anti-proliferation initiatives, in multilateral forums like the UN General Assembly and the Committee on Disarmament, would seem to be worth a modest investment by the Israeli government in bilateral relations with the SPDC. In addition to training Myanmar agriculturalists in Israel, assisting the Tatmadaw to upgrade its military capabilities seems a sure way of getting close to the Yangon regime.
Israel's repeated denial of any military links with Myanmar are not unexpected. Israel has never liked advertising such ties, particularly with countries like Myanmar, South Africa and China, which have been condemned by the international community for gross abuses of human rights. Even Israel's very close military ties with Singapore are routinely denied by both sides. Yet there seems little room for doubt that, after the 1988 takeover, Israel did start to develop close links with the SLORC, which are continuing to grow under the SPDC. In these circumstances, it would be surprising if Israel was not still looking for opportunities to restore the kind of mutually beneficial bilateral relationship that was first established when both countries became independent modern states in 1948.
It is noteworthy that Elbit Systems is one of the Israeli companies involved in Myanmar. Elbit supplies electronics used in the separation wall that Israel is building illegally in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, enclosing up to 10% of Palestinian land on the "Israeli" side. It is ironic that Israel expresses concern about protestors being killed by the Burmese military it supplies, when Israel itself has killed ten Palestinians protesting the annexation of large sections of their farmland, and injured hundreds of others, including Israeli and international demonstators, who have been beaten, arrested and expelled by the Israeli military. (JPost, Sept. 5) Just today in the village of Bil'in in the West Bank, the Israeli military injured nine non-violent protestors, according to the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC, Sept. 29)
That the Burmese military has fired into crowds recalls that a month into the second Palestinian intifada, before any armed attacks or shooting came from the Palestinian side, Israeli forces had fired 1.3 million bullets at Palestinians, according to Yitzhak Laor, an Israeli columnist who often writes for Ha'aretz:
A month after the Intifada began, four years ago, Major General Amos Malka, by then No. 3 in the military hierarchy, and until 2001 the head of Israeli military Intelligence (MI), asked one of his officers (Major Kuperwasser) how many 5.56 bullets the Central Command had fired during that month (that is, only in the West Bank). Three years later Malka talked about these horrific figures. This is what he said to Ha'aretz's diplomatic commentator, Akiva Eldar about the first month of the Intifada, 30 days of unrest, no terrorist attacks yet, no Palestinian shooting:
Kuperwasser got back to me with the number, 850,000 bullets. My figure was 1.3 million bullets in the West Bank and Gaza. This is a strategic figure that says that our soldiers are shooting and shooting and shooting. I asked: "Is this what you intended in your preparations?" and he replied in the negative. I said: "Then the significance is that we are determining the height of the flames." (Ha'aretz, 11.6.2004).
It was a bullet for every Palestinian child, said one of the officers in that meeting, or at least this is what the Israeli daily Maariv revealed two years ago, when the horrible figures were first leaked. It didn't much change "public opinion", neither here nor in the West, neither two years ago nor 4 months ago when Malka finally opened his mouth. It read as if it had happened somewhere else, or a long time ago, or as if it was just one version, a voice in a polyphony, hiding behind the principle theme: we, the Israelis are right, and they are wrong. (Counterpunch, Oct. 20, 2004)
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
AN ANTI-ZIONIST BLOG - BROWSING THE MEDIA
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Crisis in Burma - it's good for the Zionists!
News just in the from the World War IV Report. Killing unarmed demonstrators in Burma is good for Jews. See this:
The Burmese junta currently shooting unarmed protestors received a cynical plea for restraint from the Israel government on Sept. 29. According to the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, the Israeli foreign ministry announced "Israel is concerned by the situation in Myanmar, and urges the government to demonstrate restraint and refrain from harming demonstrators." The article ended by pointing out that "Israel denies selling weapons to Burma or Myanmar." (Ha'aretz, Sept. 29)
Not true, according a March 1, 2000 report in the authoritative British publication Jane's Intelligence Review by William Ashton. The article, titled "Myanmar and Israel develop military," details how Israeli companies and the Israeli government have been supplying and developing weapons for the Burmese regime, and sharing intelligence:
In August 1997 it was revealed that the Israeli defence manufacturing company Elbit had won a contract to upgrade Myanmar's (then) three squadrons of Chinese-built F-7 fighters and FT-7 trainers. The F-7 is a derivative of the Mikoyan MiG-21 'Fishbed' jet fighter. The FT-7 is the export version of the GAIC JJ-7, itself a copy of the MiG-21 'Mongol-B' trainer. Since they began to be delivered by China in 1991, the Myanmar Air Force has progressively acquired about 54 (or four squadrons) of these aircraft, the latest arriving at Hmawbi air base only last year. In related sales, the air force has also acquired about 350 PL-2A air-to-air missiles (AAM) from China and at least one shipment of the more sophisticated PL-5 AAMs.
Since their delivery to Myanmar, these new aircraft have caused the air force considerable problems. Several aircraft (and pilots) have already been lost through accidents, raising questions about the reliability of the Chinese technology. There have also been reliable reports that the F-7s were delivered without the computer software to permit the AAMs to be fired in flight. Also, the air force has complained that the F-7s are difficult to maintain, in part reflecting major differences between the structure and underlying philosophy of the Myanmar and Chinese logistics systems. Spare parts have been in very short supply. In addition, the air force seems to have experienced difficulties in using the F-7 (designed primarily for air defence) in a ground attack role. These, and other problems, seem to have prompted the air force to turn to Israel for assistance.
Of course if there are sanctions against Burma, as it's not "illegal" to discuss boycotts of states other than Israel, this will be even better for Jews because Israel has always been chief among sanction busters. Ask a South African. No ask a Rhodesian. Oh dear, you can't ask a Rhodesian, Rhodesia no longer exists.
Israeli military aid to Burmese regime: Jane's
http://ww4report.com/node/4491
Submitted by David Bloom on Sat, 09/29/2007 - 20:14.
The Burmese junta currently shooting unarmed protestors received a cynical plea for restraint from the Israel government on Sept. 29. According to the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, the Israeli foreign ministry announced "Israel is concerned by the situation in Myanmar, and urges the government to demonstrate restraint and refrain from harming demonstrators." The article ended by pointing out that "Israel denies selling weapons to Burma or Myanmar." (Ha'aretz, Sept. 29)
Not true, according to a March 1, 2000 report in the authoritative British publication Jane's Intelligence Review by William Ashton. The article, titled "Myanmar and Israel develop military pact," details how Israeli companies and the Israeli government have been supplying and developing weapons for the Burmese regime, and sharing intelligence:
In August 1997 it was revealed that the Israeli defence manufacturing company Elbit had won a contract to upgrade Myanmar's (then) three squadrons of Chinese-built F-7 fighters and FT-7 trainers. The F-7 is a derivative of the Mikoyan MiG-21 'Fishbed' jet fighter. The FT-7 is the export version of the GAIC JJ-7, itself a copy of the MiG-21 'Mongol-B' trainer. Since they began to be delivered by China in 1991, the Myanmar Air Force has progressively acquired about 54 (or four squadrons) of these aircraft, the latest arriving at Hmawbi air base only last year. In related sales, the air force has also acquired about 350 PL-2A air-to-air missiles (AAM) from China and at least one shipment of the more sophisticated PL-5 AAMs.
Since their delivery to Myanmar, these new aircraft have caused the air force considerable problems. Several aircraft (and pilots) have already been lost through accidents, raising questions about the reliability of the Chinese technology. There have also been reliable reports that the F-7s were delivered without the computer software to permit the AAMs to be fired in flight. Also, the air force has complained that the F-7s are difficult to maintain, in part reflecting major differences between the structure and underlying philosophy of the Myanmar and Chinese logistics systems. Spare parts have been in very short supply. In addition, the air force seems to have experienced difficulties in using the F-7 (designed primarily for air defence) in a ground attack role. These, and other problems, seem to have prompted the air force to turn to Israel for assistance.
According to sources in the international arms market, 36 of Myanmar's F-7 fighters are to be retro-fitted with the Elta EL/M- 2032 air-to-air radar, Rafael Python 3 infrared, short range AAMs, and Litening laser designator pods. The same equipment will also be installed on the two-seater FT-7 fighter trainers. In a related deal, Israel will also sell Myanmar at least one consignment of laser-guided bombs. Since the Elbit contract was won in 1997, the air force has acquired at least one more squadron of F-7 and FT-7 aircraft from China, but it is not known whether the Israeli-backed upgrade programme will now be extended to include the additional aircraft. Myanmar's critical shortage of foreign exchange will be a major factor in the SPDC's decision.
The army has also benefited from Myanmar's new closeness to Israel.
As part of the regime's massive military modernisation and expansion programme, considerable effort has been put into upgrading the army's artillery capabilities. In keeping with its practice of never abandoning any equipment of value, the army clearly still aims, as far as possible, to keep older weapons operational. (Pakistan, for example, has recently provided Myanmar with ammunition for its vintage 25 pounder field guns). The older UK, US and Yugoslav guns in the Tatmadaw's [Myanmar Armed Forces] inventory have been supplemented over the past 10 years with a range of new towed and self-propelled artillery pieces. Purchased mainly from China, they include 122mm howitzers, anti-tank guns, 57mm Type 80 anti-aircraft guns, 37mm Type 74 anti-aircraft guns and 107mm Type 63 multiple rocket launchers. In a barter deal brokered by China last year, the SPDC has also managed to acquire about 16 130mm artillery pieces from North Korea. Despite all this new firepower, however, the army has still looked to Israel to help equip its new artillery battalions.
Around 1998 Myanmar negotiated the purchase of 16 155mm Soltam towed howitzers, possibly through a third party like Singapore. These guns are believed to be second-hand pieces no longer required by the Israel Defence Force. Last year, ammunition for these guns (including high explosive and white phosphorous rounds) was ordered from Pakistan's government ordnance factories. Before the purchase of these new Chinese and North Korean weapons, Myanmar's largest artillery pieces were 105mm medium guns, provided by the USA almost 40 years ago. Acquiring the Israeli weapons thus marks a major capability leap for Myanmar's army gunners. It is possible that either Israel or Pakistan has provided instructors to help the army learn to use and maintain these new weapons.
Nor has the Myanmar Navy missed out on Israeli assistance. There have been several reports that Israel is playing a crucial role in the construction and fitting out of three new warships, currently being built in Yangon.
Myanmar's military leaders have long wanted to acquire two or three frigates to replace the country's obsolete PCE-827 and Admirable- class corvettes, decommissioned in 1994, and its two 1960s-vintage Nawarat-class corvettes, which have been gradually phased out since 1989. As military ties with China rapidly grew during the 1990s, the SLORC hoped to buy two or three Jiangnan- or even Jianghu-class frigates, but it could not afford even the special 'friendship' prices being asked by Beijing. As a compromise, the SPDC has now purchased three Chinese hulls, and is currently fitting them out as corvettes in Yangon's Sinmalaik shipyard.
According to reliable reports, the three vessels will each be about 75m long and displace about 1,200 tons. Despite a European Community embargo against arms sales to Myanmar, the ships' main guns are being imported (apparently through a third party) from Italy. Based on the information currently available, they are likely to be 76mm OTO Melara Compact guns, weapons which (perhaps coincidentally) have been extensively combat-tested by the Israeli Navy on its Reshef- class fast attack missile patrol boats. The corvettes will probably also be fitted with anti-submarine weapons, but it is not known what, if any, surface-to-surface and SAMs the ships will carry.
Israel's main role in fitting out the three corvettes is apparently to provide their electronics suites. Details of the full contract are not known, but it is expected that each package will include at least a surface-search radar, a fire-control radar, a navigation radar and a hull-mounted sonar.
The first of these warships will probably be commissioned and commence sea trials later this year.
Only sales or a strategic imperative?
While Myanmar remains a pariah state, subject to comprehensive sanctions by the USA and European Community, it is unlikely that Israel will ever admit publicly to having military links with the Tatmadaw. Until it does, the reasons for Israel's secret partnership with the Yangon regime will remain unclear. A number of factors, however, have probably played a part in influencing policy decisions in Tel Aviv.
There is clearly a strong commercial imperative behind some of these ventures. From a regional base in Singapore, with which it shares a very close relationship, Israel has already managed to penetrate the lucrative Chinese arms market. It is now aggressively seeking new targets for sales of weapons and military equipment in the Asia- Pacific. These sales are sometimes supported by offers of technology transfers and specialised advice. This approach has led to fears among some countries that Israel will introduce new military capabilities into the region which could encourage a mini arms race, as others attempt to catch up. The weapon systems being provided to the Myanmar armed forces are not that new, and the Asian economic crisis has dramatically reduced the purchasing power of many regional countries, but Israel's current activities in Myanmar will add to those concerns.
Given the nature of some of these sales, and other probable forms of military assistance to Myanmar, these initiatives would appear to enjoy the strong support of the Israeli government. In addition to the ever-present trade imperative, one reason for this support could be a calculation by senior Israeli officials that closer ties to Myanmar could reap diplomatic and intelligence dividends. For example, Myanmar is now a full member of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) which, despite the economic crisis, is still a major force in a part of the world which has received much closer attention from strategic analysts since the end of the Cold War. Israel's regional base will remain Singapore, but it is possible that Tel Aviv believes Myanmar can provide another avenue for influence in ASEAN, and a useful vantage point from which to monitor critical strategic developments in places like China and India.
In particular, Israel is interested in the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the transfer of technologies related to the development of ballistic and other missiles. Myanmar has close military relations with China and Pakistan, both of which have been accused of transferring sensitive weapons technologies to rogue Islamic states, such as Iran. Myanmar is also a neighbour of India, another nuclear power that has resisted international pressure to curb its proliferation activities. Yangon could thus be seen by Israel as a useful listening post from which to monitor and report on these countries.
Also, despite accusations over the years that Myanmar has developed chemical and biological weapons, and more convincing arguments that Israel has a sizeable nuclear arsenal of its own, both countries share an interest in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Myanmar's support for anti-proliferation initiatives, in multilateral forums like the UN General Assembly and the Committee on Disarmament, would seem to be worth a modest investment by the Israeli government in bilateral relations with the SPDC. In addition to training Myanmar agriculturalists in Israel, assisting the Tatmadaw to upgrade its military capabilities seems a sure way of getting close to the Yangon regime.
Israel's repeated denial of any military links with Myanmar are not unexpected. Israel has never liked advertising such ties, particularly with countries like Myanmar, South Africa and China, which have been condemned by the international community for gross abuses of human rights. Even Israel's very close military ties with Singapore are routinely denied by both sides. Yet there seems little room for doubt that, after the 1988 takeover, Israel did start to develop close links with the SLORC, which are continuing to grow under the SPDC. In these circumstances, it would be surprising if Israel was not still looking for opportunities to restore the kind of mutually beneficial bilateral relationship that was first established when both countries became independent modern states in 1948.
It is noteworthy that Elbit Systems is one of the Israeli companies involved in Myanmar. Elbit supplies electronics used in the separation wall that Israel is building illegally in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, enclosing up to 10% of Palestinian land on the "Israeli" side. It is ironic that Israel expresses concern about protestors being killed by the Burmese military it supplies, when Israel itself has killed ten Palestinians protesting the annexation of large sections of their farmland, and injured hundreds of others, including Israeli and international demonstators, who have been beaten, arrested and expelled by the Israeli military. (JPost, Sept. 5) Just today in the village of Bil'in in the West Bank, the Israeli military injured nine non-violent protestors, according to the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC, Sept. 29)
That the Burmese military has fired into crowds recalls that a month into the second Palestinian intifada, before any armed attacks or shooting came from the Palestinian side, Israeli forces had fired 1.3 million bullets at Palestinians, according to Yitzhak Laor, an Israeli columnist who often writes for Ha'aretz:
A month after the Intifada began, four years ago, Major General Amos Malka, by then No. 3 in the military hierarchy, and until 2001 the head of Israeli military Intelligence (MI), asked one of his officers (Major Kuperwasser) how many 5.56 bullets the Central Command had fired during that month (that is, only in the West Bank). Three years later Malka talked about these horrific figures. This is what he said to Ha'aretz's diplomatic commentator, Akiva Eldar about the first month of the Intifada, 30 days of unrest, no terrorist attacks yet, no Palestinian shooting:
Kuperwasser got back to me with the number, 850,000 bullets. My figure was 1.3 million bullets in the West Bank and Gaza. This is a strategic figure that says that our soldiers are shooting and shooting and shooting. I asked: "Is this what you intended in your preparations?" and he replied in the negative. I said: "Then the significance is that we are determining the height of the flames." (Ha'aretz, 11.6.2004).
It was a bullet for every Palestinian child, said one of the officers in that meeting, or at least this is what the Israeli daily Maariv revealed two years ago, when the horrible figures were first leaked. It didn't much change "public opinion", neither here nor in the West, neither two years ago nor 4 months ago when Malka finally opened his mouth. It read as if it had happened somewhere else, or a long time ago, or as if it was just one version, a voice in a polyphony, hiding behind the principle theme: we, the Israelis are right, and they are wrong. (Counterpunch, Oct. 20, 2004)
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States
In a speech at Columbia University, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended Iran's right to nuclear power but denied Iran was seeking to build nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad's appearance sparked widespread protests at Columbia. We speak with Trita Parsi, author of "Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States" and Baruch professor Ervand Abrahamian, co-author of "Targeting Iran."
Ervand Abrahamian, Iran expert and CUNY Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is the author of several books on Iran and the co-author of a new book from City Lights called "Targeting Iran."
Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the largest Iranian-American organization in the US. He is the author of "Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States."
AMY GOODMAN: For more on Ahmadinejad's visit, we're joined by two guests. Ervand Abrahamian is an Iran expert and CUNY Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College here at the City University of New York. He's the author of several books on Iran, co-author of a new book from City Lights called Targeting Iran. And joining me from Washington, D.C. is Trita Parsi. He’s the president of the National Iranian American Council, the largest Iranian American organization in the United States, author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States.
First, Ervand Abrahamian, can you talk about the president's visit? Did anything he said -- this is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- surprise you?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Well, I was surprised because he didn't really use the opportunity to try to lower the tempo, the serious problem we have now, which is we're at the abyss of war, basically. And there are people pushing for war in the next few months. And this would have been a very good opportunity to try to smooth things over, try to calm the tempo down.
And it's not just he who missed the opportunity. I think Bollinger missed the opportunity. In fact, Bollinger's speech was like a drumbeat for war. And most of the questions from the audience missed the opportunity. They dealt basically with important identity questions, but they didn't really deal with the issue that we are really on the abyss of war. And this is a far more serious issue than, you know, either ethnic or gender issues.
And he, actually, I think -- although he made some statements about Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons, he could have been more forthright and more categorical about the policies of Iran in terms of the nuclear project.
AMY GOODMAN: Does this remind you of Saddam Hussein before the war?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: It does. In fact, Ahmadinejad didn't say it last night -- yesterday, but his policy is that there is no likelihood of war, because no one in their right senses would think of invading or attacking Iran. And that's the premise he works on, which is, I think, a completely wrong premise, because he doesn't seem to understand American politics, the same people who gave us the war on Iraq, the same people who are running foreign policy now. But he begins from the premise that no one in their right senses would think of attacking Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, you have written a very interesting book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States. Can you take us back in time and talk about the relationship, the secret dealings, between these three countries?
TRITA PARSI: Israel has for a very long time been a critical factor in America's formulation of a policy vis-à-vis Iran. But what's really interesting is that the influence of Israel has gone in completely different directions, if we just go back fifteen years. During the 1980s, in spite of the Iranian Revolution, in spite of Ayatollah Khomeini’s many, many harsh remarks about Israel, far, far worse than what anything Ahmadinejad has said so far, Israel at the time was the country that was lobbying the United States to open up talks with Iran to try to rebuild the US-Iran relations, because of strategic imperatives that Israel had. Israel needed Iran, because it was fearing the Arab world and a potential war with the Arabs.
After 1991, ’92, that's when you see the real shift in Israeli-Iranian relations, because that's when the entire geopolitical map of the Middle East is redrawn. The Soviet Union collapses. The last standing army of the Arabs, that of Saddam Hussein, is defeated in the Persian Gulf War. And you have an entirely new security environment in the Middle East, in which the two factors, the Soviets and the Arabs, that had pushed Iran and Israel closer together suddenly evaporate. But as their security environment improves, they also start to realize that they may be ending up in a situation in which they can become potential threats to each other. And that's when you see how the Israelis shift 180 degrees. Now the Israeli argument was that the United States should not talk to Iran, because there is no such thing as Iranian moderates.
And ever since, the Israelis and the pro-Israel interest in the United States have lobbied to make sure that there is no dialogue or there’s no rapprochement between the United States and Iran. And the Iranians have done similar things. They have undermined every US foreign policy initiative in the Middle East that they feared would be beneficial to Israel. So the real shift in Israeli-Iranian relations come after the Cold War, not with the revolution in 1979.
AMY GOODMAN: But I also do want you to go right back to 1948 and talk about that period up to 1991. What were the secret relationships?
TRITA PARSI: Well, immediately after Israel was founded, Iran was actually one of the states on the committee at the UN who was preparing a plan, and they were against the partition. They were against the idea of creating two states. And Iran, at the time, said that this would lead to several decades of crisis. But once Israel was a fact, the Iranian government felt that because it was facing a hostile Arab world, as well as a very hostile Arab ideology, Pan-Arabism, Israel was a potential ally for the Iranians, particularly as Israel started to shift closer and closer to the Western camp and the United States. So throughout the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the Iranians and the Israelis were working very, very closely together, had a very robust alliance.
They tried to keep it secret. It wasn't necessarily very secret, but Iran never recognized Israel de jure. They recognized it de facto. They had an Israeli mission in Tehran, but they never permitted it to be called an embassy. They had an Israeli envoy to Tehran, but they never called him an ambassador. When the Israeli planes were landing at the Tehran airport, they created -- they built a specific tarmac off the airport for Israeli planes to land, so that no one would really see that there are so many El Al planes flying to Tehran. And the reason why the Iranians were doing this is because, on the one hand, they needed Israel as an ally because they were fearful of the Arab world, and, on the other hand, they felt that if they got too close to Israel, they would only fuel Arab anger towards Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, you have a number of revelations in your book. One of them is that the Iranian prime minister asked Israel permission to assassinate Khomeini. Describe the circumstance.
TRITA PARSI: Circumstances was right before the revolution, in which the Israelis were very, very concerned. They were fearful that the new regime would be very hostile to Israel, and they weren't certain that they would be able to build the same type of secret relations with Iran as they had during the time of the Shah. It later on turned out that they actually did have that ability, not to the same extent, but they still could do it.
But the Iranian prime minister was eager to be able to get rid of Khomeini, fearing -- thinking that by Khomeini being eliminated, the revolution would be able to move in a different direction. And he asked the Israelis if they could do it, because Khomeini at the time was in Paris; the Iranians did not have the ability to do anything, but they thought that perhaps the Israelis would. The Israeli answer was apparently that this is not Israel's job and that Israel is not the policemen of the world.
AMY GOODMAN: What about Israel reaching out to Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War?
TRITA PARSI: After the first Persian Gulf War, there was a thinking in Israel at the time that Saddam had now been weakened, he was no longer a real threat, and at the end of the day the real potential threat in the future, the rising power, was Iran. So the Israelis were trying to find different ways of being able to find some sort of a modus vivendi with Saddam Hussein.
This significantly angered the Clinton administration, that was pursuing a policy of isolating both Iran and Iraq at the same time, and they were very annoyed that the Israelis were trying to find some sort of a relationship with Saddam in the midst of all of that.
Now, the Israeli initiative didn't go anywhere, but it was guided by the thinking that Iran was going to be the major threat. And even though Iran at the time really was not a threat to Israel, Israel already at that time treated it as an actual threat.
AMY GOODMAN: The United States foiling Iran's plan to withdraw support from Hamas and Hezbollah.
TRITA PARSI: We talked about that before, that there was a 2003 proposal that the Iranians sent over to the United States trying to find a larger accommodation between the United States and Iran, in which they basically put all the different issues on the table, including an offer, within the framework of the negotiations, to disarm Hezbollah and turn it into a mere political organization -- had that happened, there would probably not have been a war last year between Israel and Lebanon -- secondly, to end all support for Islamic jihad and Hamas and encourage the Palestinians to go a political route, rather than military route, in their dealings with Israel.
But what’s revealed in the book, as well, that has not been out in the media a lot is that prior to giving this proposal to the United States, the Iranians were fishing it around in Europe, trying to create some support for it. And, most importantly, they went to places that they knew Israelis were going to be. And they were presenting the framework, the concept of this grand bargain, and they wanted to make sure that the Israelis felt that this would not be something that would come at their expense, because they were concerned that the Israelis would try to undermine it. So they were basically sending a signal: Look, if we can have this accommodation with the United States, we will disentangle and basically not be so involved in the Israeli-Palestinian issue anymore.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi is author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States. Our guest also, Ervand Abrahamian, Iran expert, Distinguished Professor at Baruch College. I wanted, Professor Abrahamian, to read from Juan Cole's piece, who says, talking about Ahmadinejad, “He has been depicted as a Hitler figure intent on killing Israeli Jews, even though he is not commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces, has never invaded any other country, denies he is an anti-Semite, has never called for any Israeli civilians to be killed, and allows Iran's 20,000 Jews to have representation in Parliament,” that Khamenei is the one with the real power.
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: He is right on target, yes. I think Juan Cole sums it up. And the question is, then, why is basically in American politics so much focused on Ahmadinejad? I think he serves the function that Saddam Hussein played. He's an easy person to demonize. And yesterday's Bollinger's introduction, when he described him as a dictator, I think, shows how little people like Bollinger really know about the Iranian political system. One can call Ahmadinejad many things, but a dictator he is by no means. He can’t even -- he doesn't even have the power to appoint his own cabinet ministers. It's a presidency with very limited power. And to claim that he is in a position to threaten the United States or Israel is just bizarre, frankly. I think someone like Bollinger should know more about Iran before they sling around smears like terms such as “dictator.”
AMY GOODMAN: Well, talk about Khamenei, then, if he is the one with real power.
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Here, again, he is, you can say, the Supreme Leader, but the Iranian system is actually very sort of a collective leadership. The foreign policy is made in a council, where the Supreme Leader appoints those members, but there are very different views there. And Ahmadinejad does not run that committee. Someone like Rafsanjani has a great deal of influence. The former President Khatami has a great deal of influence. And they are much more willing to negotiate.
In fact, they were, I think, the people who offered this grand bargain in 2003 to settle all the issues with the United States. And for reasons that are not clear, the White House just basically brushed it aside. They were not interested in pursuing this. And this is why it leads me to think that this administration is adamant in resolving the nuclear problem by military force, because if it was interested in resolving it through diplomacy, there were offers made to them to follow that route, and they have very consciously decided not follow the diplomatic routes. So if you don't follow the diplomatic route, the only other route there is is the military route. And, of course, it’s only a question of time when they decide on air strikes.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Trita Parsi, about this Newsweek magazine report that says that Vice President Cheney considered provoking an exchange of military strikes between Iran and Israel in order to give the US a pretext to attack Iran. A few months before he quit, the Middle East Adviser to Cheney, David Wurmser, told a small group of people that Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz and perhaps other sites, in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out. Citing two knowledgeable sources, Newsweek put out this report. Your response?
TRITA PARSI: I think it's definitely a plausible scenario, because one thing that we know for certain, with great certainty, is that the Israelis lack the military capability to take out Iran's nuclear program. They can attack it, but they cannot destroy it. And the only thing that it would result to is some sort of Iranian retaliation, which would then suck the United States right into the conflict, because the United States would not be able to stand without it -- outside of it, and obviously many elements in the White House would probably prefer to immediately get into it.
One of the things that I describe in the book that I think is extremely important is that when you take a look at how Iran has made its decisions vis-à-vis Israel, it's actually been geopolitical and strategic factors that have been driving their decisions. It’s not been ideology. And I think this is a critical point, because right now you have a metaphor being presented by Bibi Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud Party, in which he's saying that it's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And then he goes on to imply that Ahmadinejad is Hitler. If we accept that premise, that it is 1938, that Iran is Germany and Ahmadinejad is Hitler, then who, which leader, in his or her right mind, would want to play the role of Neville Chamberlain? It's a metaphor whose premise basically puts us in a situation in which conflict is completely inevitable. And there's no other way, because negotiations and diplomacy simply cannot be pursued.
Fortunately, this is a false premise. Iran and Israel and the United States and Israel are not engaged in an ideological zero-sum game battle. This is a strategic rivalry. It is solvable, but it requires a tremendous amount of diplomacy to be able to find a way out of it. And unfortunately, right now, diplomacy is the last thing that one can describe the foreign policies of these countries, particularly the Bush administration.
AMY GOODMAN: I interviewed exiled Iranian activist Azar Derakhshan earlier this summer. She's the editor of the Women of March 8 magazine and helped organize the 2006 European march against anti-women laws in Iran. I just want to play an excerpt from my conversation with her. This is Azar Derakhshan.
AZAR DERAKHSHAN: I have seen a portrait in the media, Western media. In the media, there is two sides. There is the United States and government of Iran. There are clashes. And the people, the voice of people is absent completely. And the opinion of -- foreigner opinion, they think that this thing, the future of Iran is going to be decided by these two powers.
I try to tell to the people in foreigner countries, in European countries, it's not true, this portrait. There is another fact, very important. The people of Iran, the movement, they are going to take the future. They are not forced to choose between neither the United States, neither the government of Iran. There is another force in Iran. If really somebody wants to prevent the war, the clashes, should be support this movement, this movement for equality, for freedom.
We don't need United States to liberate us. First of all, we are here, and this is our legitimate to liberate ourselves. We want to decide about our future ourselves. We want to fight our native enemy by ourselves. We don’t need -- that’s first. Second one, we already have seen, because Afghanistan and Iraq, they are neighbor of Iran. And the women of Iran, they can see it. Maybe before, not, but right now it’s really -- it’s enough to know what kind of program they have for the people of Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Iranian dissident, Azar Derakhshan. Professor Abrahamian, your response?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Well, I think she's right in that there are -- Iran is a very complicated society. There are very different political movements. And the idea that somehow it's a frozen system, that it's not going to change, already precludes any type of possibility of negotiations and changes. In fact, the Iranian system has an electoral system -- is and electoral system. We are going to come up with elections very soon. There is no guarantee that Ahmadinejad would be re-elected again. It's very possible that reformers, liberals, would get in into power again.
AMY GOODMAN: When is the election?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: In less than two years' time. And the base, in fact, of Ahmadinejad’s -- I would say the core base -- is very similar to Bush's core base. It's about 25%. For him to get re-elected, he has to stretch out and find independents and others, and this is going to be very hard. If the reformers can actually rally around one candidate, as they did in the 1990s, they could have landslide victories, in which over 70% of the electorate was voting for liberals and reformers.
AMY GOODMAN: And what direction would a US attack on Iran push the election?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Oh, it would play right into the hands of Ahmadinejad, because you would have a national emergency. He would declare, basically, the country's in danger. Everyone would have to rally around the flag. People who disliked him would keep their mouth shut. At a time of when the existence of the state is in question, you don't mess around with the leaders. He would basically be able to act as a much more of a strongman national leader.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, you've had unusual access to US decision makers, Israeli decision makers, Iranian leaders. What is your sense of a strike, the US or Israel, on Iran? Is it imminent?
TRITA PARSI: Well, I don't think an Israeli strike is imminent, unless there is some sort of coordination with the United States with the aim of being able to draw the US into the conflict. I do believe that some sort of a conflict between the United States and Iran is quite probable right now, mindful of the lack of diplomacy that is taking place.
And I also do believe that this is not necessarily something that will go away automatically just because there's going to be a change of government in the United States within the next two years. Many of the decisions that are made right now have the impact of limiting the maneuverability of future administrations. We're making it more and more difficult, not only for this administration, but also for future administrations, to pursue diplomacy.
And what we're seeing in the Middle East right now is not necessarily just a conflict over what's going on in Iraq or about Iran's nuclear program. This is a conflict that, at the end of the day, is about two powerhouses in the region, and it's a conflict about hegemony, for lack of a better word.
And these type of shifts, with the United States currently declining and finding itself in a more and more difficult situation in Iraq and with Iran finding itself in a stronger position and acting very, very confidently, these type of shifts historically do not take place peacefully, unless there is a tremendous amount of diplomacy. And again, we're not seeing that right now.
And I’m very concerned that even if we manage to avoid war for the next two years, the next US administration may find itself in a position in which its maneuverability is so limited that the military option once again becomes a very viable one for them.
AMY GOODMAN: Could Ahmadinejad be playing a game like Saddam Hussein, where if it is clear he doesn't have nuclear weapons, he's weaker, the US would be more likely to attack? He looks at the example of North Korea, where they do have nuclear weapons, and now the US is just pursuing a diplomatic option?
TRITA PARSI: I think there's a combination of two. On the one hand, I think a lot of his statements and his behavior is aimed to be a deterrent against the United States. He's acting confident, and he's talking about the United States not being able to attack. This is a way of saying that the US can't do it, and if you do it, you will face a tremendously difficult situation. So he's doing this partly, too, as a deterrence. It has the negative impact of scaring the daylights out of a lot of people, including a lot of Iran's neighbors that are now gravitating towards the United States's position, because they are very fearful of what Ahmadinejad may be capable of doing.
At the same time, I do believe that, to a certain extent, but not fully, he has actually convinced himself that Iran is in such a strong position, the United States is in such a weak position, that it can't do it. But I think it's a combination of these two. And I think it's important to keep in mind that most of the belligerence that he's doing is probably for the purpose of deterrence, not necessarily as an offensive strategy.
AMY GOODMAN: Iran's role in Iraq?
TRITA PARSI: Sorry?
AMY GOODMAN: Iran's role in Iraq?
TRITA PARSI: I think the Iranians have played a game in Iraq in which they basically have invested in every potential faction in Iraq, making sure that whoever comes up on top is going to be a player who has strong relations with Iran, because it's in Iran’s hardcore national interest to make sure that Iraq never again becomes a hostile state, so they never have to experience the eight-year war that they had with Iraq in the 1980s. So, again, I think we're seeing a policy by the Iranian government there that is quite independent of whether Ahmadinejad is in power or not. It's probably something that another Iranian government would be pursuing, as well, at least under this regime that we're having in Iran right now.
And I think the only way for the United States to be able to find a way out of Iraq is not only to talk to the Iranians, but really include all of the other neighbors of Iraq into the process, giving these neighbors not only a stake in the outcome, but also a stake in the process itself. We have a tremendous amount of problems with what the Saudis are doing in Iraq and also what the Jordanians are doing. We're not talking about that at all. On the contrary, we’re just focusing on Iran's role.
AMY GOODMAN: Saudi's role, very briefly?
TRITA PARSI: Saudi’s role -- well, a military report just came out about two months ago -- it was leaked in the LA Times -- that showed that about 45% of all the suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi nationals. We've known for quite some time that there's a lot of money flowing into Iraq from Saudi Arabia that is going to the Sunni insurgents, because their belief is that they're fighting a war against Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. We're not talking about that.
On the contrary, Saudi Arabia got praised by Ambassador Crocker during his testimony. And I think it's a very one-sided way of looking at the problems we're facing in Iraq. And as long as we pursue a very political perspective on the Iraqi situation, then I fear that we will continue to be in a rather difficult mess over there.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, I want to thank you very much for being with us.
TRITA PARSI: Thank you so much for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Your book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States. And a final question for Professor Abrahamian: Are you afraid for your people? Are you afraid for the people of Iran?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Yes. I’m very much concerned that in the next few months there will be air strikes. I think what we saw before with Iraq, we are having a rerun of that, very much the same rhetoric. The same type of people are pushing for war and using even the same sort of arguments that often -- unsubstantiated arguments blown out of proportion. For instance, the constant drumbeat that Iran is actually supplying weaponry to the insurgents that are killing Americans, this is basically saying that Iran has already declared war on the United States. When you try to actually pin down what is the evidence for that, it boils down to the yellowcake stories and the stuff about Saddam Hussein being behind al-Qaeda. Until the United States actually gets real evidence that Iran is providing lethal weapons to the insurgents, I would not accept any of those arguments at face value.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Abrahamian, thank you, as well, for being with us. Ervand Abrahamian is author of the book Targeting Iran.
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
Ervand Abrahamian, Iran expert and CUNY Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is the author of several books on Iran and the co-author of a new book from City Lights called "Targeting Iran."
Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the largest Iranian-American organization in the US. He is the author of "Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States."
AMY GOODMAN: For more on Ahmadinejad's visit, we're joined by two guests. Ervand Abrahamian is an Iran expert and CUNY Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College here at the City University of New York. He's the author of several books on Iran, co-author of a new book from City Lights called Targeting Iran. And joining me from Washington, D.C. is Trita Parsi. He’s the president of the National Iranian American Council, the largest Iranian American organization in the United States, author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States.
First, Ervand Abrahamian, can you talk about the president's visit? Did anything he said -- this is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- surprise you?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Well, I was surprised because he didn't really use the opportunity to try to lower the tempo, the serious problem we have now, which is we're at the abyss of war, basically. And there are people pushing for war in the next few months. And this would have been a very good opportunity to try to smooth things over, try to calm the tempo down.
And it's not just he who missed the opportunity. I think Bollinger missed the opportunity. In fact, Bollinger's speech was like a drumbeat for war. And most of the questions from the audience missed the opportunity. They dealt basically with important identity questions, but they didn't really deal with the issue that we are really on the abyss of war. And this is a far more serious issue than, you know, either ethnic or gender issues.
And he, actually, I think -- although he made some statements about Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons, he could have been more forthright and more categorical about the policies of Iran in terms of the nuclear project.
AMY GOODMAN: Does this remind you of Saddam Hussein before the war?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: It does. In fact, Ahmadinejad didn't say it last night -- yesterday, but his policy is that there is no likelihood of war, because no one in their right senses would think of invading or attacking Iran. And that's the premise he works on, which is, I think, a completely wrong premise, because he doesn't seem to understand American politics, the same people who gave us the war on Iraq, the same people who are running foreign policy now. But he begins from the premise that no one in their right senses would think of attacking Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, you have written a very interesting book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States. Can you take us back in time and talk about the relationship, the secret dealings, between these three countries?
TRITA PARSI: Israel has for a very long time been a critical factor in America's formulation of a policy vis-à-vis Iran. But what's really interesting is that the influence of Israel has gone in completely different directions, if we just go back fifteen years. During the 1980s, in spite of the Iranian Revolution, in spite of Ayatollah Khomeini’s many, many harsh remarks about Israel, far, far worse than what anything Ahmadinejad has said so far, Israel at the time was the country that was lobbying the United States to open up talks with Iran to try to rebuild the US-Iran relations, because of strategic imperatives that Israel had. Israel needed Iran, because it was fearing the Arab world and a potential war with the Arabs.
After 1991, ’92, that's when you see the real shift in Israeli-Iranian relations, because that's when the entire geopolitical map of the Middle East is redrawn. The Soviet Union collapses. The last standing army of the Arabs, that of Saddam Hussein, is defeated in the Persian Gulf War. And you have an entirely new security environment in the Middle East, in which the two factors, the Soviets and the Arabs, that had pushed Iran and Israel closer together suddenly evaporate. But as their security environment improves, they also start to realize that they may be ending up in a situation in which they can become potential threats to each other. And that's when you see how the Israelis shift 180 degrees. Now the Israeli argument was that the United States should not talk to Iran, because there is no such thing as Iranian moderates.
And ever since, the Israelis and the pro-Israel interest in the United States have lobbied to make sure that there is no dialogue or there’s no rapprochement between the United States and Iran. And the Iranians have done similar things. They have undermined every US foreign policy initiative in the Middle East that they feared would be beneficial to Israel. So the real shift in Israeli-Iranian relations come after the Cold War, not with the revolution in 1979.
AMY GOODMAN: But I also do want you to go right back to 1948 and talk about that period up to 1991. What were the secret relationships?
TRITA PARSI: Well, immediately after Israel was founded, Iran was actually one of the states on the committee at the UN who was preparing a plan, and they were against the partition. They were against the idea of creating two states. And Iran, at the time, said that this would lead to several decades of crisis. But once Israel was a fact, the Iranian government felt that because it was facing a hostile Arab world, as well as a very hostile Arab ideology, Pan-Arabism, Israel was a potential ally for the Iranians, particularly as Israel started to shift closer and closer to the Western camp and the United States. So throughout the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the Iranians and the Israelis were working very, very closely together, had a very robust alliance.
They tried to keep it secret. It wasn't necessarily very secret, but Iran never recognized Israel de jure. They recognized it de facto. They had an Israeli mission in Tehran, but they never permitted it to be called an embassy. They had an Israeli envoy to Tehran, but they never called him an ambassador. When the Israeli planes were landing at the Tehran airport, they created -- they built a specific tarmac off the airport for Israeli planes to land, so that no one would really see that there are so many El Al planes flying to Tehran. And the reason why the Iranians were doing this is because, on the one hand, they needed Israel as an ally because they were fearful of the Arab world, and, on the other hand, they felt that if they got too close to Israel, they would only fuel Arab anger towards Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, you have a number of revelations in your book. One of them is that the Iranian prime minister asked Israel permission to assassinate Khomeini. Describe the circumstance.
TRITA PARSI: Circumstances was right before the revolution, in which the Israelis were very, very concerned. They were fearful that the new regime would be very hostile to Israel, and they weren't certain that they would be able to build the same type of secret relations with Iran as they had during the time of the Shah. It later on turned out that they actually did have that ability, not to the same extent, but they still could do it.
But the Iranian prime minister was eager to be able to get rid of Khomeini, fearing -- thinking that by Khomeini being eliminated, the revolution would be able to move in a different direction. And he asked the Israelis if they could do it, because Khomeini at the time was in Paris; the Iranians did not have the ability to do anything, but they thought that perhaps the Israelis would. The Israeli answer was apparently that this is not Israel's job and that Israel is not the policemen of the world.
AMY GOODMAN: What about Israel reaching out to Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War?
TRITA PARSI: After the first Persian Gulf War, there was a thinking in Israel at the time that Saddam had now been weakened, he was no longer a real threat, and at the end of the day the real potential threat in the future, the rising power, was Iran. So the Israelis were trying to find different ways of being able to find some sort of a modus vivendi with Saddam Hussein.
This significantly angered the Clinton administration, that was pursuing a policy of isolating both Iran and Iraq at the same time, and they were very annoyed that the Israelis were trying to find some sort of a relationship with Saddam in the midst of all of that.
Now, the Israeli initiative didn't go anywhere, but it was guided by the thinking that Iran was going to be the major threat. And even though Iran at the time really was not a threat to Israel, Israel already at that time treated it as an actual threat.
AMY GOODMAN: The United States foiling Iran's plan to withdraw support from Hamas and Hezbollah.
TRITA PARSI: We talked about that before, that there was a 2003 proposal that the Iranians sent over to the United States trying to find a larger accommodation between the United States and Iran, in which they basically put all the different issues on the table, including an offer, within the framework of the negotiations, to disarm Hezbollah and turn it into a mere political organization -- had that happened, there would probably not have been a war last year between Israel and Lebanon -- secondly, to end all support for Islamic jihad and Hamas and encourage the Palestinians to go a political route, rather than military route, in their dealings with Israel.
But what’s revealed in the book, as well, that has not been out in the media a lot is that prior to giving this proposal to the United States, the Iranians were fishing it around in Europe, trying to create some support for it. And, most importantly, they went to places that they knew Israelis were going to be. And they were presenting the framework, the concept of this grand bargain, and they wanted to make sure that the Israelis felt that this would not be something that would come at their expense, because they were concerned that the Israelis would try to undermine it. So they were basically sending a signal: Look, if we can have this accommodation with the United States, we will disentangle and basically not be so involved in the Israeli-Palestinian issue anymore.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi is author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States. Our guest also, Ervand Abrahamian, Iran expert, Distinguished Professor at Baruch College. I wanted, Professor Abrahamian, to read from Juan Cole's piece, who says, talking about Ahmadinejad, “He has been depicted as a Hitler figure intent on killing Israeli Jews, even though he is not commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces, has never invaded any other country, denies he is an anti-Semite, has never called for any Israeli civilians to be killed, and allows Iran's 20,000 Jews to have representation in Parliament,” that Khamenei is the one with the real power.
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: He is right on target, yes. I think Juan Cole sums it up. And the question is, then, why is basically in American politics so much focused on Ahmadinejad? I think he serves the function that Saddam Hussein played. He's an easy person to demonize. And yesterday's Bollinger's introduction, when he described him as a dictator, I think, shows how little people like Bollinger really know about the Iranian political system. One can call Ahmadinejad many things, but a dictator he is by no means. He can’t even -- he doesn't even have the power to appoint his own cabinet ministers. It's a presidency with very limited power. And to claim that he is in a position to threaten the United States or Israel is just bizarre, frankly. I think someone like Bollinger should know more about Iran before they sling around smears like terms such as “dictator.”
AMY GOODMAN: Well, talk about Khamenei, then, if he is the one with real power.
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Here, again, he is, you can say, the Supreme Leader, but the Iranian system is actually very sort of a collective leadership. The foreign policy is made in a council, where the Supreme Leader appoints those members, but there are very different views there. And Ahmadinejad does not run that committee. Someone like Rafsanjani has a great deal of influence. The former President Khatami has a great deal of influence. And they are much more willing to negotiate.
In fact, they were, I think, the people who offered this grand bargain in 2003 to settle all the issues with the United States. And for reasons that are not clear, the White House just basically brushed it aside. They were not interested in pursuing this. And this is why it leads me to think that this administration is adamant in resolving the nuclear problem by military force, because if it was interested in resolving it through diplomacy, there were offers made to them to follow that route, and they have very consciously decided not follow the diplomatic routes. So if you don't follow the diplomatic route, the only other route there is is the military route. And, of course, it’s only a question of time when they decide on air strikes.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Trita Parsi, about this Newsweek magazine report that says that Vice President Cheney considered provoking an exchange of military strikes between Iran and Israel in order to give the US a pretext to attack Iran. A few months before he quit, the Middle East Adviser to Cheney, David Wurmser, told a small group of people that Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz and perhaps other sites, in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out. Citing two knowledgeable sources, Newsweek put out this report. Your response?
TRITA PARSI: I think it's definitely a plausible scenario, because one thing that we know for certain, with great certainty, is that the Israelis lack the military capability to take out Iran's nuclear program. They can attack it, but they cannot destroy it. And the only thing that it would result to is some sort of Iranian retaliation, which would then suck the United States right into the conflict, because the United States would not be able to stand without it -- outside of it, and obviously many elements in the White House would probably prefer to immediately get into it.
One of the things that I describe in the book that I think is extremely important is that when you take a look at how Iran has made its decisions vis-à-vis Israel, it's actually been geopolitical and strategic factors that have been driving their decisions. It’s not been ideology. And I think this is a critical point, because right now you have a metaphor being presented by Bibi Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud Party, in which he's saying that it's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And then he goes on to imply that Ahmadinejad is Hitler. If we accept that premise, that it is 1938, that Iran is Germany and Ahmadinejad is Hitler, then who, which leader, in his or her right mind, would want to play the role of Neville Chamberlain? It's a metaphor whose premise basically puts us in a situation in which conflict is completely inevitable. And there's no other way, because negotiations and diplomacy simply cannot be pursued.
Fortunately, this is a false premise. Iran and Israel and the United States and Israel are not engaged in an ideological zero-sum game battle. This is a strategic rivalry. It is solvable, but it requires a tremendous amount of diplomacy to be able to find a way out of it. And unfortunately, right now, diplomacy is the last thing that one can describe the foreign policies of these countries, particularly the Bush administration.
AMY GOODMAN: I interviewed exiled Iranian activist Azar Derakhshan earlier this summer. She's the editor of the Women of March 8 magazine and helped organize the 2006 European march against anti-women laws in Iran. I just want to play an excerpt from my conversation with her. This is Azar Derakhshan.
AZAR DERAKHSHAN: I have seen a portrait in the media, Western media. In the media, there is two sides. There is the United States and government of Iran. There are clashes. And the people, the voice of people is absent completely. And the opinion of -- foreigner opinion, they think that this thing, the future of Iran is going to be decided by these two powers.
I try to tell to the people in foreigner countries, in European countries, it's not true, this portrait. There is another fact, very important. The people of Iran, the movement, they are going to take the future. They are not forced to choose between neither the United States, neither the government of Iran. There is another force in Iran. If really somebody wants to prevent the war, the clashes, should be support this movement, this movement for equality, for freedom.
We don't need United States to liberate us. First of all, we are here, and this is our legitimate to liberate ourselves. We want to decide about our future ourselves. We want to fight our native enemy by ourselves. We don’t need -- that’s first. Second one, we already have seen, because Afghanistan and Iraq, they are neighbor of Iran. And the women of Iran, they can see it. Maybe before, not, but right now it’s really -- it’s enough to know what kind of program they have for the people of Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Iranian dissident, Azar Derakhshan. Professor Abrahamian, your response?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Well, I think she's right in that there are -- Iran is a very complicated society. There are very different political movements. And the idea that somehow it's a frozen system, that it's not going to change, already precludes any type of possibility of negotiations and changes. In fact, the Iranian system has an electoral system -- is and electoral system. We are going to come up with elections very soon. There is no guarantee that Ahmadinejad would be re-elected again. It's very possible that reformers, liberals, would get in into power again.
AMY GOODMAN: When is the election?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: In less than two years' time. And the base, in fact, of Ahmadinejad’s -- I would say the core base -- is very similar to Bush's core base. It's about 25%. For him to get re-elected, he has to stretch out and find independents and others, and this is going to be very hard. If the reformers can actually rally around one candidate, as they did in the 1990s, they could have landslide victories, in which over 70% of the electorate was voting for liberals and reformers.
AMY GOODMAN: And what direction would a US attack on Iran push the election?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Oh, it would play right into the hands of Ahmadinejad, because you would have a national emergency. He would declare, basically, the country's in danger. Everyone would have to rally around the flag. People who disliked him would keep their mouth shut. At a time of when the existence of the state is in question, you don't mess around with the leaders. He would basically be able to act as a much more of a strongman national leader.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, you've had unusual access to US decision makers, Israeli decision makers, Iranian leaders. What is your sense of a strike, the US or Israel, on Iran? Is it imminent?
TRITA PARSI: Well, I don't think an Israeli strike is imminent, unless there is some sort of coordination with the United States with the aim of being able to draw the US into the conflict. I do believe that some sort of a conflict between the United States and Iran is quite probable right now, mindful of the lack of diplomacy that is taking place.
And I also do believe that this is not necessarily something that will go away automatically just because there's going to be a change of government in the United States within the next two years. Many of the decisions that are made right now have the impact of limiting the maneuverability of future administrations. We're making it more and more difficult, not only for this administration, but also for future administrations, to pursue diplomacy.
And what we're seeing in the Middle East right now is not necessarily just a conflict over what's going on in Iraq or about Iran's nuclear program. This is a conflict that, at the end of the day, is about two powerhouses in the region, and it's a conflict about hegemony, for lack of a better word.
And these type of shifts, with the United States currently declining and finding itself in a more and more difficult situation in Iraq and with Iran finding itself in a stronger position and acting very, very confidently, these type of shifts historically do not take place peacefully, unless there is a tremendous amount of diplomacy. And again, we're not seeing that right now.
And I’m very concerned that even if we manage to avoid war for the next two years, the next US administration may find itself in a position in which its maneuverability is so limited that the military option once again becomes a very viable one for them.
AMY GOODMAN: Could Ahmadinejad be playing a game like Saddam Hussein, where if it is clear he doesn't have nuclear weapons, he's weaker, the US would be more likely to attack? He looks at the example of North Korea, where they do have nuclear weapons, and now the US is just pursuing a diplomatic option?
TRITA PARSI: I think there's a combination of two. On the one hand, I think a lot of his statements and his behavior is aimed to be a deterrent against the United States. He's acting confident, and he's talking about the United States not being able to attack. This is a way of saying that the US can't do it, and if you do it, you will face a tremendously difficult situation. So he's doing this partly, too, as a deterrence. It has the negative impact of scaring the daylights out of a lot of people, including a lot of Iran's neighbors that are now gravitating towards the United States's position, because they are very fearful of what Ahmadinejad may be capable of doing.
At the same time, I do believe that, to a certain extent, but not fully, he has actually convinced himself that Iran is in such a strong position, the United States is in such a weak position, that it can't do it. But I think it's a combination of these two. And I think it's important to keep in mind that most of the belligerence that he's doing is probably for the purpose of deterrence, not necessarily as an offensive strategy.
AMY GOODMAN: Iran's role in Iraq?
TRITA PARSI: Sorry?
AMY GOODMAN: Iran's role in Iraq?
TRITA PARSI: I think the Iranians have played a game in Iraq in which they basically have invested in every potential faction in Iraq, making sure that whoever comes up on top is going to be a player who has strong relations with Iran, because it's in Iran’s hardcore national interest to make sure that Iraq never again becomes a hostile state, so they never have to experience the eight-year war that they had with Iraq in the 1980s. So, again, I think we're seeing a policy by the Iranian government there that is quite independent of whether Ahmadinejad is in power or not. It's probably something that another Iranian government would be pursuing, as well, at least under this regime that we're having in Iran right now.
And I think the only way for the United States to be able to find a way out of Iraq is not only to talk to the Iranians, but really include all of the other neighbors of Iraq into the process, giving these neighbors not only a stake in the outcome, but also a stake in the process itself. We have a tremendous amount of problems with what the Saudis are doing in Iraq and also what the Jordanians are doing. We're not talking about that at all. On the contrary, we’re just focusing on Iran's role.
AMY GOODMAN: Saudi's role, very briefly?
TRITA PARSI: Saudi’s role -- well, a military report just came out about two months ago -- it was leaked in the LA Times -- that showed that about 45% of all the suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi nationals. We've known for quite some time that there's a lot of money flowing into Iraq from Saudi Arabia that is going to the Sunni insurgents, because their belief is that they're fighting a war against Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. We're not talking about that.
On the contrary, Saudi Arabia got praised by Ambassador Crocker during his testimony. And I think it's a very one-sided way of looking at the problems we're facing in Iraq. And as long as we pursue a very political perspective on the Iraqi situation, then I fear that we will continue to be in a rather difficult mess over there.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, I want to thank you very much for being with us.
TRITA PARSI: Thank you so much for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Your book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States. And a final question for Professor Abrahamian: Are you afraid for your people? Are you afraid for the people of Iran?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Yes. I’m very much concerned that in the next few months there will be air strikes. I think what we saw before with Iraq, we are having a rerun of that, very much the same rhetoric. The same type of people are pushing for war and using even the same sort of arguments that often -- unsubstantiated arguments blown out of proportion. For instance, the constant drumbeat that Iran is actually supplying weaponry to the insurgents that are killing Americans, this is basically saying that Iran has already declared war on the United States. When you try to actually pin down what is the evidence for that, it boils down to the yellowcake stories and the stuff about Saddam Hussein being behind al-Qaeda. Until the United States actually gets real evidence that Iran is providing lethal weapons to the insurgents, I would not accept any of those arguments at face value.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Abrahamian, thank you, as well, for being with us. Ervand Abrahamian is author of the book Targeting Iran.
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
INTERVIEW WITH INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST SEYMOUR HERSH - 'President Bush Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has consistently led the way in telling the story of what's really going on in Iraq and Iran. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke to him about America's Hitler, Bush's Vietnam, and how the US press failed the First Amendment.
Seymour Hersh began his career as a police reporter. But since then, he has risen to become one of the most important investigative journalists in the history of American journalism. Hersh first made a name for himself in 1969 by uncovering the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, for which he won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize. Hersh has worked for the New Yorker since 1992 and in 2004 was instrumental in uncovering the US military's abuses of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Hersh was in Berlin this week to accept the Democracy Prize handed out by the political journal "Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik."
Hersh: We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them. Khrushchev and Mao and of course Stalin, and for a little while Gadhafi was our Hitler. And now we have this guy Ahmadinejad. The reality is, he's not nearly as powerful inside the country as we like to think he is. The Revolutionary Guards have direct control over the missile program and if there is a weapons program, they would be the ones running it. Not Ahmadinejad.
For now, American troops are on the Iraq side of the border with Iran. Might that change?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was just in New York (more...) for the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, he said that he is only interested in civilian nuclear power instead of atomic weapons. How much does the West really know about the nuclear program in Iran?
Seymour Hersh: A lot. And it's been underestimated how much the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) knows. If you follow what (IAEA head Mohamed) ElBaradei (more...) and the various reports have been saying, the Iranians have claimed to be enriching uranium to higher than a 4 percent purity, which is the amount you need to run a peaceful nuclear reactor. But the IAEA's best guess is that they are at 3.67 percent or something. The Iranians are not even doing what they claim to be doing. The IAEA has been saying all along that they've been making progress but basically, Iran is nowhere. Of course the US and Israel are going to say you have to look at the worst case scenario, but there isn't enough evidence to justify a bombing raid.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is this just another case of exaggerating the danger in preparation for an invasion like we saw in 2002 and 2003 prior to the Iraq War?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where does this feeling of urgency that the US has with Iran come from?
Hersh: Pressure from the White House. That's just their game.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What interest does the White House have in moving us to the brink with Tehran?
Hersh: You have to ask yourself what interest we had 40 years ago for going to war in Vietnam. You'd think that in this country with so many smart people, that we can't possibly do the same dumb thing again. I have this theory in life that there is no learning. There is no learning curve. Everything is tabula rasa. Everybody has to discover things for themselves.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Even after Iraq? Aren't there strategic reasons for getting so deeply involved in the Middle East?
Hersh: Oh no. We're going to build democracy. The real thing in the mind of this president is he wants to reshape the Middle East and make it a model. He absolutely believes it. I always thought Henry Kissinger was a disaster because he lies like most people breathe and you can't have that in public life. But if it were Kissinger this time around, I'd actually be relieved because I'd know that the madness would be tied to some oil deal. But in this case, what you see is what you get. This guy believes he's doing God's work.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what are the options in Iraq?
Hersh: There are two very clear options: Option A) Get everybody out by midnight tonight. Option B) Get everybody out by midnight tomorrow. The fuel that keeps the war going is us.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of people have been saying that the US presence there is a big part of the problem. Is anyone in the White House listening?
Hersh: No. The president is still talking about the "Surge" (eds. The "Surge" refers to President Bush's commitment of 20,000 additional troops to Iraq in the spring of 2007 in an attempt to improve security in the country.) as if it's going to unite the country. But the Surge was a con game of putting additional troops in there. We've basically Balkanized the place, building walls and walling off Sunnis from Shiites. And in Anbar Province, where there has been success, all of the Shiites are gone. They've simply split.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is that why there has been a drop in violence there?
Hersh: I think that's a much better reason than the fact that there are a couple more soldiers on the ground.
SPIEGEL ONLINE:So what are the lessons of the Surge (more...)?
Hersh: The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not. When he first announced the Surge in January, he described it as a way to bring the parties together. He's not saying that any more. I think he now understands that ethnic cleansing is what is going to happen. You're going to have a Kurdistan. You're going to have a Sunni area that we're going to have to support forever. And you're going to have the Shiites in the South.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the US is over four years into a war that is likely going to end in a disaster. How valid are the comparisons with Vietnam?
Hersh: The validity is that the US is fighting a guerrilla war and doesn't know the culture. But the difference is that at a certain point, because of Congressional and public opposition, the Vietnam War was no longer tenable. But these guys now don't care. They see it but they don't care.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: If the Iraq war does end up as a defeat for the US, will it leave as deep a wound as the Vietnam War did?
Hersh: Much worse. Vietnam was a tactical mistake. This is strategic. How do you repair damages with whole cultures? On the home front, though, we'll rationalize it away. Don't worry about that. Again, there's no learning curve. No learning curve at all. We'll be ready to fight another stupid war in another two decades.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of course, preventing that is partially the job of the media. Have reporters been doing a better job recently than they did in the run-up to the Iraq War?
Hersh: Oh yeah. They've done a better job since. But back then, they blew it. When you have a guy like Bush who's going to move the infamous Doomsday Clock forward, and he's going to put everybody in jeopardy and he's secretive and he doesn't tell Congress anything and he's inured to what we write. In such a case, we (journalists) become more important. The First Amendment failed and the American press failed the Constitution. We were jingoistic. And that was a terrible failing. I'm asked the question all the time: What happened to my old paper, the New York Times? And I now say, they stink. They missed it. They missed the biggest story of the time and they're going to have to live with it.
Interview conducted by Charles Hawley and David Gordon Smith
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
Seymour Hersh began his career as a police reporter. But since then, he has risen to become one of the most important investigative journalists in the history of American journalism. Hersh first made a name for himself in 1969 by uncovering the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, for which he won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize. Hersh has worked for the New Yorker since 1992 and in 2004 was instrumental in uncovering the US military's abuses of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Hersh was in Berlin this week to accept the Democracy Prize handed out by the political journal "Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik."
Hersh: We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them. Khrushchev and Mao and of course Stalin, and for a little while Gadhafi was our Hitler. And now we have this guy Ahmadinejad. The reality is, he's not nearly as powerful inside the country as we like to think he is. The Revolutionary Guards have direct control over the missile program and if there is a weapons program, they would be the ones running it. Not Ahmadinejad.
For now, American troops are on the Iraq side of the border with Iran. Might that change?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was just in New York (more...) for the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, he said that he is only interested in civilian nuclear power instead of atomic weapons. How much does the West really know about the nuclear program in Iran?
Seymour Hersh: A lot. And it's been underestimated how much the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) knows. If you follow what (IAEA head Mohamed) ElBaradei (more...) and the various reports have been saying, the Iranians have claimed to be enriching uranium to higher than a 4 percent purity, which is the amount you need to run a peaceful nuclear reactor. But the IAEA's best guess is that they are at 3.67 percent or something. The Iranians are not even doing what they claim to be doing. The IAEA has been saying all along that they've been making progress but basically, Iran is nowhere. Of course the US and Israel are going to say you have to look at the worst case scenario, but there isn't enough evidence to justify a bombing raid.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is this just another case of exaggerating the danger in preparation for an invasion like we saw in 2002 and 2003 prior to the Iraq War?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where does this feeling of urgency that the US has with Iran come from?
Hersh: Pressure from the White House. That's just their game.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What interest does the White House have in moving us to the brink with Tehran?
Hersh: You have to ask yourself what interest we had 40 years ago for going to war in Vietnam. You'd think that in this country with so many smart people, that we can't possibly do the same dumb thing again. I have this theory in life that there is no learning. There is no learning curve. Everything is tabula rasa. Everybody has to discover things for themselves.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Even after Iraq? Aren't there strategic reasons for getting so deeply involved in the Middle East?
Hersh: Oh no. We're going to build democracy. The real thing in the mind of this president is he wants to reshape the Middle East and make it a model. He absolutely believes it. I always thought Henry Kissinger was a disaster because he lies like most people breathe and you can't have that in public life. But if it were Kissinger this time around, I'd actually be relieved because I'd know that the madness would be tied to some oil deal. But in this case, what you see is what you get. This guy believes he's doing God's work.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what are the options in Iraq?
Hersh: There are two very clear options: Option A) Get everybody out by midnight tonight. Option B) Get everybody out by midnight tomorrow. The fuel that keeps the war going is us.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of people have been saying that the US presence there is a big part of the problem. Is anyone in the White House listening?
Hersh: No. The president is still talking about the "Surge" (eds. The "Surge" refers to President Bush's commitment of 20,000 additional troops to Iraq in the spring of 2007 in an attempt to improve security in the country.) as if it's going to unite the country. But the Surge was a con game of putting additional troops in there. We've basically Balkanized the place, building walls and walling off Sunnis from Shiites. And in Anbar Province, where there has been success, all of the Shiites are gone. They've simply split.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is that why there has been a drop in violence there?
Hersh: I think that's a much better reason than the fact that there are a couple more soldiers on the ground.
SPIEGEL ONLINE:So what are the lessons of the Surge (more...)?
Hersh: The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not. When he first announced the Surge in January, he described it as a way to bring the parties together. He's not saying that any more. I think he now understands that ethnic cleansing is what is going to happen. You're going to have a Kurdistan. You're going to have a Sunni area that we're going to have to support forever. And you're going to have the Shiites in the South.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the US is over four years into a war that is likely going to end in a disaster. How valid are the comparisons with Vietnam?
Hersh: The validity is that the US is fighting a guerrilla war and doesn't know the culture. But the difference is that at a certain point, because of Congressional and public opposition, the Vietnam War was no longer tenable. But these guys now don't care. They see it but they don't care.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: If the Iraq war does end up as a defeat for the US, will it leave as deep a wound as the Vietnam War did?
Hersh: Much worse. Vietnam was a tactical mistake. This is strategic. How do you repair damages with whole cultures? On the home front, though, we'll rationalize it away. Don't worry about that. Again, there's no learning curve. No learning curve at all. We'll be ready to fight another stupid war in another two decades.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of course, preventing that is partially the job of the media. Have reporters been doing a better job recently than they did in the run-up to the Iraq War?
Hersh: Oh yeah. They've done a better job since. But back then, they blew it. When you have a guy like Bush who's going to move the infamous Doomsday Clock forward, and he's going to put everybody in jeopardy and he's secretive and he doesn't tell Congress anything and he's inured to what we write. In such a case, we (journalists) become more important. The First Amendment failed and the American press failed the Constitution. We were jingoistic. And that was a terrible failing. I'm asked the question all the time: What happened to my old paper, the New York Times? And I now say, they stink. They missed it. They missed the biggest story of the time and they're going to have to live with it.
Interview conducted by Charles Hawley and David Gordon Smith
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
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