Funding Israeli Militarism, Belligerence and Occupation - by Stephen Lendman

From birth, Israel was a regional menace until America became its benefactor in the late 1960s. Now it's a global one, powerful with a large standing army and the latest weapons and technology, nuclear armed and ready to use them. It's belligerent on the slightest pretext or none at all, and a threat to world peace and security because US administrations since Lyndon Johnson supported a nation of 5.6 million Jews in an area the size of New Jersey, partnering in its worst crimes and abuses.

It's due largely to the Israeli Lobby's influence, or as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote in their book, "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy," America's Middle East policy is driven "almost entirely (by) US domestic politics, and especially (because of) the (Lobby's) activities....This situation has no equal in American political history."

In his book, "The Power of Israel in the United States," James Petras documented its enormous influence, explaining its roots throughout government, the business community, the dominant media, academia, the clergy, and powerful wealthy Jewish families. Broad support comes from thousands of dedicated activists, including doctors, lawyers, accountants, other professionals, philanthropists, and journalists given special prominence and benefits for their unwavering pro-Israeli reporting, suppressing decades of its militarism, belligerence, and illegal occupation while vilifying Israel's enemies.

As a result, Israel receives enormous benefits, including billions in annual aid, the latest weapons and technology, unrestricted US market access, and free entry of its immigrants. Its imperial wars, illegal occupation, and crimes of war and against humanity are supported. Harmful Security Council resolutions are vetoed and General Assembly ones ignored. As a result, it operates freely, including spying in America by covertly penetrating US military bases, the FBI, CIA, IRS, DHS and many other government agencies, remaining unaccountable for its actions.

Israel is unique as America's largest aid recipient, on the most favorable terms, and virtually anything more requested, given openly or covertly, in violation of the 1961 US Foreign Assistance Act (as amended), stipulating that no aid be provided to governments that engage:

"in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons, or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, and the security of person, unless such assistance will directly benefit the needy people in such country."

In 2004, the amended Act let the president provide aid to treat orphans, other vulnerable children, those with HIV/AIDS, and to set up schools and other supportive programs.

US Aid to Israel

In November 2008, Shirl McArthur of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) used Congressional Research Report (CRS) data for a "Conservative Estimate of Total Direct US Aid to Israel" since 1949, saying it's almost $114 billion, but explaining that determining the exact figure is impossible since parts are buried in various agency budgets, mostly the Defense Department's (DOD) or in forms not easily quantifiable.

He states:

"It must be emphasized that this analysis is a conservative, defensible accounting of US direct aid to Israel, NOT of Israel's cost to the US or the American taxpayer, not of the benefits to Israel of US aid. The distinction is important, because the indirect or consequential costs suffered by the US as a result of its blind support for Israel exceed by many times the substantial amount of direct aid" provided.

Besides Afghanistan and other Middle East conflicts, excluded from McArthur's data, is the mounting Iraq invasion and occupation cost, estimated by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes to be $3 trillion in their book titled, "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict."

They include an extra $2 trillion national debt, ad infinitum interest on it, veterans' healthcare and disability payments, the economic impact of lives lost and jobs interrupted, the higher cost of oil, the long-term economic impact, and numerous intangibles such as global anti-American sentiment, the near universal Arab world view that Washington attacked Iraq for Israel, and the US's reduced capability to respond to other global crises and address vital homeland needs.

In his June 2003 WRMEA article titled, "The Cost to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," Thomas Stauffer conservatively estimated it at around $3 trillion measured in 2002 dollars, nearly four times the amount for the Vietnam war, also in 2002 dollars.

Stauffer said US Israeli aid is way-understated:

"since much is outside of the foreign aid appropriation process or implicit in other programs. It comes to $1.8 trillion, including special trade advantages, preferential contracts, or aid buried in other accounts. In addition to the financial outlay," about 275,000 US jobs are lost annually.

His estimates include:

-- multi-fold oil price increases;

-- the effect on US jobs and exports;

-- economic and military aid,

-- special benefits to Israel, including privileged contracts for Israeli firms, legal and illegal weapons and technology transfers, exemption from US trade protection provisions, discounted "surplus" military equipment sales, low or no-interest loans, and other undisclosed costly benefits, exclusively for Israel.

He concluded that Israeli assistance and Middle East unrest "ha(ve) proven to be very expensive for the US," much higher than revealed figures. Their total costs "are some six times the official aid" with all related factors included such as the price of oil and burden on other regional states. "All states - not just the US - have borne the burden of conflicts in the Middle East."

Known US aid includes:

-- annual $3 billion direct appropriations;

-- undisclosed additional amounts;

-- millions annually to resettle immigrants;

-- disclosed and unknown billions in loan guarantees;

-- since 1981, economic aid in direct cash transfers, and since 1985 military aid the same way;

-- Israeli military loans as grants, repayment not required; Israel wants them called loans to avoid US monitoring; according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), "Technically, the assistance is called loans, but as a practical matter, the military aid is (given as) grants;"

-- economic aid is the same, Israel spending it as it pleases with no required accountability;

-- since 1982, Economic Support Fund (ESF) cash transfers come in lump sum form at the beginning of each fiscal year, no strings attached - a benefit afforded no other country, made even greater by investing it in US Treasuries;

-- special Foreign Military Sales (FMS) funding is also afforded to purchase American weapons and technology; other countries buy them through the Defense Department (DOD); Israel deals directly with US companies; other countries must comply with minimum purchase amounts; Israel has no such restriction; other countries let DOD disburse funds to suppliers; Israel pays them directly and is reimbursed by the US Treasury; under this arrangement, Israeli officials have committed serious offenses, including embezzlement and improper access to highly classified information on US weapons and technology;

-- US weapons suppliers provide offsets by purchasing Israeli products and services;

-- Israel may use over 26% of its aid to buy weapons, munitions and other equipment from its own companies; no other nation has this benefit; as a result, its arms industry is one of the world's largest and most sophisticated; in 2007, it was the 8th largest supplier to developing countries;

-- aid finances Israel's defense industry;

-- state-of-the-art weapons and technology are provided; and

-- America guarantees Israel's access to oil and finances its settlements - illegal under international law.

In April 1998, Washington designed Israel a "major non-NATO ally," qualifying it to receive Excess Defense Articles (EDA) under Section 516 of the Foreign Assistance Act and Section 23(a) of the Arms Export Control Act. As a strategic US ally, it gets unmatched preferential treatment.

In FY 2009, the If Americans Knew web site said America gave Israel $7 million or more daily. Palestinians got nothing, except to police their own people, strengthen Fatah against Hamas and other competing parties, some economic aid benefitting Israel and the West, and spotty amounts through USAID and to UNRWA and US-based NGOs for projects called "humanitarian."

In their above-mentioned book, Mearsheimer and Walt said:

"Since the October (1973) War, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts (given) any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct US economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War II. Total direct US aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars....In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year."

Over the last 20 years, Washington focused mainly on military aid, increasing it by $150 million annually since FY 2007, plus additional amounts for Israeli incursions, planned jointly with Washington.

Before 1998, Israel annually received military grants of $1.8 billion and economic ones totaling $1.2 billion. Beginning in FY 2009, by mutual agreement, economic aid is being reduced by $120 million and military grants increased by $60 million annually over 10 years. In August 2007, a memorandum of understanding afforded Israel $30 billion in aid for 10 years, plus later discovered undisclosed amounts, totaling billions.

Budgeted amounts go mostly for specific projects, such as Israel's Merkava tank, its Arrow anti-missile missile, other anti-missile systems, and the cancelled Lavi attack fighter. Grants also go to US - Israeli scientific and business cooperation organizations, the two largest being the BIRD (Binational Research & Development) Foundation and the BARD (Binational Agriculture and Research and Development) Fund.

Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report on US Foreign Aid to Israel - December 4, 2009

Its latest report affirms Israel as "the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since World War II," saying it gets nearly $3 billion annually, mainly as military assistance.

In August 2007, the Bush administration incrementally increased it by $6 billion over the next decade. For FY 2010, the Obama administration requested $2.775 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF). Congress provided $555 million of Israel's total FY 2010 FMF in PL (Public Law) 111-32, in the FY 2009 Supplemental Appropriations Act. HR 3081 and S 1434 contain the remaining funds.

On July 9, 2009, HR 3160 was introduced, the Israeli Foreign Assistance Appropriations Act, 2010. The bill was referred to committee and awaits further action.

Recent possible military sales include:

-- on September 29, 2008, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with associated equipment and training, a deal, if consummated, worth up to $15.2 billion; Israel wants up to 75 depending on the cost; negotiations continue, but reported disagreement was reported over its right to customize aircraft to its needs and the final per plane cost, from $100 - $200 million depending on the degree of customization;

-- on September 9, 2008, Patriot Missile Fire Unit upgrades, 1,000 GBU-39 small diameter guided bombs, and 28,000 M72A7 light anti-armor weapons, in total worth about $330 million; Israel already has US-supplied Hawk and Patriot missiles as well as its own defense systems; since 1988, both countries have been developing the Arrow Anti-Missile system, a weapon with theater ballistic missile capability; Arrow became operational in 2000; Arrow II is designed to deter longer-range conventional ballistic missiles, and other systems are under development, including Arrow III;

-- on July 30, 2008, nine C-130 J-30 aircraft with associated equipment and training, worth up to $1.9; billion; and

-- on July 15, 2008, four Littoral combat ships, worth up to $1.9 billion, and JP-8 aviation jet fuel worth up to $1.3 billion; in 2009, Israel declined to purchase these ships over cost concerns.

American Israeli aid began in 1949 with a $100 million Export-Import Bank loan and continued modestly for the next two decades. In 1962, Israel bought its first advanced weapons system, Hawk anti-aircraft missiles. In 1968, a year after the Six Day War, the Johnson administration assured Israel's regional military superiority. Since 1970, large-scale aid followed. In 1971, it was $545 million, and by 1974 Israel became America's largest aid recipient, two-thirds for military purposes.

After the 1979 Camp David Accords and Israel - Egypt Peace Treaty, Washington gave both sides $7.5 billion under the 1979 Special International Security Assistance Act, allocated 3 - 2 favoring Israel. Thereafter, regular and emergency economic and military aid followed. Today, Israeli allocations far exceed amounts given Egypt or any other nation.

In 1985, Congress appropriated special economic assistance of $1.5 billion under terms of a US - Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG), calling for neoliberal reforms and empowering Israel's Finance Ministry and national Bank.

Washington and Tel Aviv colluded for two goals:

-- balancing Israel's budget; and

-- cutting wages, prices, credit, public benefits, pensions, and the currency's value as well as curbing union power and establishing an exploitable temporary worker market.

It began Israel's race to the bottom by mass privatizations, welfare and social benefit cuts, and wealth shifted to the top as in America, the result being growing Jewish poverty, hunger and homelessness to the present.

In 1985, all US military aid became grants, what began for economic aid in 1981. Thereafter, generous supplemental aid followed, including after the Gulf and 2003 Iraq wars. The FY 2003 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act included $9 billion in loan guarantees over three years and $1 billion in military grants. Other amounts came earlier. They've continued ever since, some open, others covert, affording Israel exclusive preferential treatment.

The "special relationship" remains fixed under Obama, what he affirmed at the June 2008 AIPAC meeting that he's "a true friend of Israel," felt he was "among friends," stressed that "the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, tomorrow and forever," and, in fact, "as president, I will work with you to ensure that this bond is strengthened." He hasn't disappointed.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://prognewshour.progressiveradionetwork.org/

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Obama's "Brave New Africa" -- U.S. mercenaries killing Africans for minerals

Africa's first native son President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, may be its worst nightmare.

WMR's Africa sources report that a company that contracts to Pentagon and U.S. intelligence and homeland security agencies, Astrata Group Inc. (ATTG) of Los Angeles, has deployed private military contractors to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to track down and kill Rwandan Hutu refugees, claimed to be members of the Rwandan "Interhamwe" opposition to U.S.-backed Rwandan Tutsi dictator Paul Kagame, and kill them. ATTG, which it prefers to be called by its on-ground employees rather than Astrata, has reportedly ferried by helicopter into the eastern DRC U.S. private military contractors, many veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and directed them to take out Hutus and their allies in the region. Eastern DRC is rich is highly-prized col-tan, used in micro-electronic consumer products, as well as diamonds and gold. ATTG's motto is reportedly "Doing bad things to bad people."

In addition to U.S. military veterans, ATTG has reportedly hired British and French military veterans. The firm reportedly pays the military contractors in Africa in cash. ATTG is said to have agents serving in regular military forces who scout out for those whose enlistments are expiring for hiring. The key factor for hiring into ATTG is personality type. The new hires are introduced to their corporate handlers who introduce them to their paymaster who, in turn, provides them with cash for them to buy their own equipment from a list provided to them.

ATTG new recruits are given plane tickets by their handlers and then fly to their mission location where they meet their fellow team members.

Astrata's public relations tear sheet states the company provides "position-centric solutions for mining, surveying, and construction professionals worldwide. It operates in two segments, Geomatics and Telematics. The Geomatics segment offers high precision surveying/positioning instruments for surveying and construction professionals, the mining industry, government agencies, utility companies, and municipalities . . . the Telematics segment offers products, accessories, and services related to the business of remote monitoring of assets, including track-and-trace. This segment addresses the market for fleet management, workforce management, remote asset management and tracking, meter reading, and emergency services by providing hardware for global positioning system information and data collection, as well as the software needed to access and analyze the data through the Internet. In addition, the company offers a range of rugged mobile computing, wireless and location-based solutions, which combine GPS and global system for mobile telecommunications technologies. Astrata Group serves industrial, commercial, governmental entities, academic/research institutions, and professional customers in various markets, including surveying, utility, construction, homeland security, military, intelligence, mining, agriculture, public safety, marine, and transportation. The company was founded in 1986 and is based in Los Angeles, California."

Astrata markets vehicle tracking and immobilization systems, which permits law enforcement or other agents to slow down, stop, or speed up vehicles thought to pose a security threat.

Astrata, which is known as Astrata-Sirius outside the United States, went public in 2004. The firm is very active in Brunei and Southeast Asian waters, particularly the Straits of Malacca, where its private military contractors reportedly pose as tourists in boats to lure the attention of pirates who are then killed. The "tourists" have satellite phones in order to call in other boat squadrons in the event they require additional firepower.

On February 22, 2006, WMR reported: "The CIA's maritime interdiction program was designed to stop suspect cargo vessels on the high seas, mostly in the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, and search them for nuclear material and missiles and their respective components. The unique and most sensitive aspect of the CIA program was the use of Southeast Asian sea pirates to gain access to the interdicted vessels. The CIA's interdiction program began in the early 1990s . . . Special armed CIA units, masquerading as pirates themselves, accompanied the actual pirates on their fast boats when they attacked merchant vessels identified by other intelligence as likely trafficking in nuclear and missile cargo. The CIA teams, wearing personal dosimeters and using Geiger counters and other radiation detection equipment, would inspect cargo holds and containers as the 'official pirates' off-loaded commercial cargo such as electronic equipment, small vehicles, and other merchandise. The quid pro quo was that the CIA would not interfere with the pirates' looting of commercial cargo and the pirates would give the CIA teams first access to the cargo holds and containers. The two teams also provided each other mutual security. In most cases, the CIA had arranged to pay off local police, maritime police, and coast guards not to interfere with the joint CIA-pirate gang operations. The U.S. Navy was also instructed not to interfere in the pre-arranged piracy actions."

Astrata provides monitoring equipment for clients in Singapore, Senegal, Denmark, Italy, Jordan, Dubai, and United Kingdom, as well as for the Ministry of Transport of Iraq.

In 2008, Astrata announced that it had been awarded a $100 million contract to provide equipment to a "classified" client with an option of additional "product options."

In 2005, Astrata changed its NASDAQ market trading symbol to ATTG from "ATTA." Astrata CEO Anthony Harrison stated: "We are grateful for the thoughtfulness and prompt action by NASDAQ in changing our prior symbol, ATTA, which had been computer generated and inadvertently assigned and which may have had a disturbing association with the name of the lead hijacker in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center."

"The Rigis of Baluchistan" are actually the Rigis of the Shah's royal court and neocon swindlers

Move over Ahmad Chalabi and "Curveball," there is a new neocon act in town -- they are the Riggi family of Jundallah, the CIA-backed Iranian Baluchi terrorist group operating on Pakistani soil.

Iran has not only captured Abdolmalek Rigi, the head of the Jundallah terrorist group active in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province, his brother Abdolhamid Rigi, and gained valuable intelligence about CIA operations against Iran but has been able to link the Jundallah group to Washington-based neocons who front for Israeli and Iranian royal restoration interests. Some of the Washington neocon interests promoted the pre-Iraq War propaganda efforts of Iraqi National Congress official Ahmad Chalabi.

The support network for Jundallah in Washington was largely crafted by Richard Holbrooke, neocon think tanks, and Holbrooke's Perseus LLC "silent partner" George Soros and his array of Open Society Institute-funded anti-Iran non-governmental organizations (NGOs), according to information received by WMR's sources in south and east Asia. Holbrooke's Perseus private equity fund is linked to Soros through the Perseus-Soros BioPharmaceutical Fund, L.P.

Holbrooke also served as a director of the anti-Chinese American Himalayan Foundation led by the billionaire defense tycoon husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Blum. A previously reported by WMR, Holbrooke's central Asia strategy is to cause problems for trans-Asian oil and natural gas pipelines from countries like Turkmenistan, Iran, and Uzbekistan to China.

Holbrooke has also been involved in the legitimization of fraudulent elections through his membership of the board for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and as an advisory board member of Public Strategies, Inc. (PSI) , which represented Diebold Election Systems in 2004. PSI is now headed by Dan Bartlett, a former senior adviser to President George W. Bush.

More problematic for America's relations with Iran is Holbrooke's co-founding and co-chairmanship of the group, "United Against a Nuclear Iran," the advisory board of which includes such pro-Israeli neocons as James Woolsey and which was co-founded by Holbrooke's fellow pro-Israel "Trojan Horse" in the Obama administration, Dennis Ross.

The senior advisor to Holbrooke at the State Department is Iranian-American scholar Vali Nasr, a former professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. During the Bush administration, Nasr consulted with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on U.S.-Iranian relations. Nasr is close to the exiled family of Iran's late Shah. Nasr's father was the chief of staff for the Shah's wife, Empress Farah.

Abdolhamid Rigi has revealed that the Rigi's interlocutor with Washington and the CIA is his father's cousin, Amanollah-Khan Rigi, who, like Nasr's father, was a member of the Shah's royal court. In 2005, American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Michael Ledeen, a fanatic supporter of another Iranian terrorist group, the Mojahedin e Khalq (MEK), hosted Amanollah-Khan Rigi at a conference on a federalized Iran at the AEI's Wohlstetter Conference Center in Washngton, DC. In addition to the "Baluchi" representative Rigi, also participating in the conference were Iranian separatists representing Kurds and Azeris. Rigi boasted that he was the leader of a 300,000-member Baluchi tribe, which was a complete fabrication.

Amanollah-Khan Rigi is also deeply enmeshed in other neocon operations in Washington, including his advisory board membership for the Alliance for Democracy in Iran (ADI), a group linked to the neocon and Jewish-centric Hudson Institute, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

As much as it may be difficult to believe, Amanollah-Khan Rigi may be a bigger con-man that Ahmad Chalabi. Rigi is a registered real estate agent in New Jersey and was involved in an attempt to pawn off as a real a mummy of an alleged Persian princess. The "mummy" was offered for sale in October 2000 by Wali Mohammed Reeki (Rigi), a Baluchi tribal leader and camel breeder in Pakistan near the Afghan border. Rigi said he obtained the mummy from an Iranian salesman after an earthquake in Quetta, Pakistan and the mummy was on the block in the black antiquities market for between $11 and $30 million. Later, an archaeologist proclaimed the mummy to be that of a Persian princess who lived around 600 BC. Heightening interest in the mummy, she was later proclaimed by the archaeologist to be none other than Princess Rhodugune, the daughter of Persian King Xerxes I and a member of the Achaemenid dynasty.

But there was controversy over whether the mummy was a Persian or Egyptian princess married to a Persian prince since mummification was only known in Egypt, not Persia. Iran claimed that as a Persian princess, the mummy should be returned to Iran. Pakistan said that because the mummy was found in Quetta, it belonged to Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban said the mummy was taken from Afghanistan and that it belonged to Afghanistan.

However, it was later discovered that the mummy was not an ancient Persian princess but of a young woman who had probably been murdered in 1996. Pakistani police began arresting a number of Baluchis and others for murder.

Amanollah-Khan Rigi acted as a middleman for an "unknown" antiquities dealer in Karachi who claimed the mummy came from a Zoroastrian family in Iran. Rigi sent four photographs to New York's Metropolitan Museum hoping for a confirmation of the mummy's authenticity.

Essentially, the Holbrooke team of neocons and con-men is trying to do to Iran what Chalabi and neocons like Ledeen, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith did to Iraq, mostly through Chalabi and other frauds.


The takedown of Abdolmalek Rigi by the joint Iran-Pakistan intelligence operation in a two-plane decoy operation reported previously by WMR has now been confirmed by Kyrgyzstan's Foreign Ministry. The Kyrgyz government is now stating that Rigi was not arrested by Iran aboard the Kyrgystan airline that was forced to land in Bandar Abbas, Iran after taking off from Dubai. Even though Kyrgyz aviation authorities reported that two people were detained in Bandar Abbas, the Kyrgyz government is now claiming that no foreign nationals were apprehended on the plane. The Bishkek government is trying to provide plausible deniability that Iran and Pakistan conducted a decoy operation that saw Rigi taken directly from Pakistan to Iran on another small plane, while decoy personnel, masquerading as Rigi and his aide, were seen being taken off the Kyrgyz plane in Iran. It is now believed that Kyrgyz security personnel aboard the Kyrgyzstan flight tipped off Bishkek about the operation and that prompted Holbrooke to depart quickly for Georgia after Rigi's no-show at Manas.

WMR has also learned that Holbrooke met in Tbilisi, Georgia with Azeri Iranians working with former Savak agents for the Shah. Holbrooke's plan appears to be to coordinate anti-Iran activities with the Rigi smuggler tribe in Pakistan, Amanollah-Khan Rigi -- a CIA scamster who operates in the same fashion as Chalabi -- and Nasr, a pseudo-scholar linked to the Iranian royalists abroad.

Holbrooke's strategy is already having a boomerang effect in Uzbekistan and Russia. It turns out that Abdolmalek Rigi was to give ex-Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan guerillas at the Manas Airbase a pep talk in their native Dari language before heading into the volatile Fergana valley of Tajikistan to engage in training activities on behalf of the CIA. The Russian and Uzbek intelligence services are now aware of the CIA operation and are taking actions to counter it.

Assassinatos seletivos

Lejeune Mirhan *

Desta vez a mídia grande não teve como esconder. No último dia 20 de janeiro, agentes do Serviço Secreto de Israel, o Mossad, assassinaram, a sangue frio, após uma sessão de tortura, um dos líderes do grupo Hamas, que luta pela libertação da Palestina.

Mahmoud Abdel Rauf Al Mabhouh encontrava-se hospedado em um hotel na cidade de Dubai, nos Emirados Árabes Unidos. Passado um mês, muitas investigações, acho fundamental que comentemos sobre esse caso esta semana.

Uma prática criminosa de Israel

Não é de hoje que Israel assassina líderes palestinos. E isso ocorre não só nos territórios ocupados ilegalmente por esse Estado criminoso e agressor. Fazem isso em qualquer lugar do mundo. Na Faixa de Gaza, Israel chega a usar bombardeios de alta precisão, lançados de aviões de combate, que atingem a casa específica de um líder da resistência, matando não só a liderança como também toda a sua família. Fez isso inclusive com um dos fundadores do Hamas, xeque Ahmed Yassin, morto em 2004.

Neste caso, o líder assassinado é um dos fundadores das Brigadas Ezzedine Al-Qassam, uma espécie de braço militar do Hamas. Uma pessoa do alto escalão da direção do grupo, que funciona como partido político de orientação religiosa e que atua quase que exclusivamente na Faixa de Gaza. Mahmoud, de 50 anos, que morava na cidade de Damasco com sua família, fazia viagens constantes à Dubai, nos EAU. No último dia 19 de janeiro, quando chegou à capital dos Emirados, dirigiu-se diretamente ao Hotel Al Bustan Rotana e hospedou-se no quarto 230. No dia seguinte, sai para dar uma volta pela cidade e retorna por volta das 8h30.

A partir desse momentos, entra em operação os 11 agentes do Mossad (que em Hebraico quer dizer “Instituto”, que é o nome do Instituto de Espionagem e Tarefas Especiais de Israel). Todos disfarçados (apenas uma mulher no grupo), usando bigodes e perucas falsas, usando passaportes europeus verdadeiros acabam entrando em seu quarto. E, por ironia, colocaram na porta o aviso “não perturbem”.

Mahmoud foi torturado antes de morrer. Foi eletrocutado. Apanhou dos agentes. Sofreu estrangulamento, sufocamento. E acabou sendo morto por uma injeção de veneno aplicada em suas veias. Uma morte cruel, à sangue frio, perpetradas pelos agentes do sionismo.

As repercussões e desdobramentos

Os 11 terroristas que agiram à mando de Israel, usaram passaportes de cidadãos ingleses, irlandeses, um francês e um alemão. Todos os cidadãos são reais, existem e moram em Israel, possuindo cidadania israelense. Mas não sabiam da operação. Um deles inclusive comentou à uma rádio israelense: “fui dormir com pneumonia e acordei assassino procurado em todo o mundo”. Não se sabe até hoje se pessoas dos serviços secretos desses países estiveram envolvidos em fornecer tais passaportes, todos originais, não falsificados, aos agentes, que os receberam no aeroporto Ben Gurion, em Tel Aviv.

O chefe de política dos EAU, general Dahi Jalfan Tamin, já não tem mais dúvidas. Essa operação foi feita pelos agentes do Mossad, que entraram ilegalmente em Dubai com esses passaportes. Já foram arrolados 26 pessoas suspeitas de participarem da operação, cujo centro de comando, foi montado na Áustria. Mandatos de prisão para todos os suspeitos foram emitidos pela Política Internacional – INTERPOL.

Essa operação secreta foi realizada com a concordância e a expressa autorização do próprio primeiro Ministro de Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. O conceituado jornal inglês, Sunday Times divulgou essa notícia semana passada de que uma reunião em meados de janeiro teria ocorrido na sede do Mossad em Tel Aviv com a presença pessoal de Netanyahu e do chefe da agência de espionagem de Israel, Meir Dagan, de 63 anos e veterano dessas operações. A equipe teria estado inclusive presente e a frase que Netanyahu teria dito foi a seguinte: “O povo de Israel confia em vocês. Boa sorte”. A operação foi considerada relativamente simples e de “baixo risco” (sic), como quem diz, uma “simples rotina”, nos serviços executados por essa equipe, que leva o nome de Kidon que em hebraico quer dizer “Punhal” e é especializada em operações no exterior, de exterminar lutadores da resistência palestina e opositores do projeto sionista e colonial do Estado judeu.

Há um clima relativamente tenso entre os países cujos cidadãos tiveram seus passaportes usados, como a França, Alemanha, Irlanda e Inglaterra. Estes dois últimos chegaram a chamar os embaixadores de Israel junto às suas chancelarias para protestar formalmente pelo uso indevido dos passaportes. A França de Sarkozy exigiu completo esclarecimento e condenou com veemência o assassinato. A direitista Ângela Merkel preferiu o silêncio.

No governo de Israel reina o silêncio cúmplice de quem sabe de tudo, mas não pode confessar ao mundo. Reconhecer que isso foi feito pelo Mossad seria a confissão pública daquilo que todo o mundo já sabe: Israel é um estado bandido, um estado terrorista que passa por cima de todas as leis internacionais. Um estado pária na comunidade das nações.

Assim, ninguém admite em público a operação. Mas, a ex-chanceler, Tzipi Livni, hoje na oposição, líder do Kadima, partido de centro-direita, acabou confessando e vibrando publicamente com a operação. Disse publicamente que a morte de Mahmoud é “uma boa notícia” (sic), ou seja, uma alta autoridade, uma candidata a primeira Ministra nas últimas eleições (poderia ter sido nomeada como tal), vibra abertamente, não se constrange em apoiar o assassinato seletivo. É um péssimo exemplo ao mundo, mas uma confissão do que é Israel hoje no muno.

A União Europeia emitiu uma nota condenando essa operação e o uso indevido de passaportes de quatro de seus estados membros. Mas, cautelosa e subserviente à Israel e ao poder do sionismo internacional, não menciona na nota o nome desse país.

Do lado palestino, uma unanimidade nesse ponto. Todos os grupos, todas as facões em luta condenaram com veemência o assassinato. O enterro de Mahmoud em Damasco atraiu uma grande multidão. O líder no exílio do Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, fez veemente discurso emocionado, prometendo revidar essa brutal assassinato.

Esse episódio não deverá passar em branco. Mais uma vez, a paz vai ficando cada dia mais distante e quase impossível. Com práticas como essa, que Israel adota não há como chegar a uma paz justa e duradoura. Lamento tudo isso, mas os tempos de paz, de harmonia, de terra para os palestinos ainda estão distantes.

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* Presidente do Sindicato dos Sociólogos do Estado de São Paulo, escritor, arabista e professor. Membro da Academia de Altos Estudos Ibero-Árabe de Lisboa e da International Sociological Association.

Fidel: The latest meeting with Lula

Reflections of Fidel

(Taken from CubaDebate)

I met him in Managua in July 1980, thirty years ago, during the commemoration of the first anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, thanks to my contacts with supporters of Liberation Theology, which were initiated in Chile when I visited President Allende in 1971.

Through Frei Betto, I knew who Lula was, a labor leader in whom leftist Christians had placed their hopes at an early stage.

He was a modest worker in the metallurgical industry who stood out for his intelligence and prestige within the trade unions, in the great nation that was emerging from the darkness of the military dictatorship imposed by the yanki empire in the 1960s.

Brazil’s relations with Cuba had been excellent until the dominant power in the hemisphere forced them to succumb. Decades went by until they slowly returned to being what they are today.

Each country lived its own history. Our country had to endure exceptional pressure in the incredible stages experienced since 1959, in its struggle against the aggression of the most powerful empire to have existed in history.

For that reason, the meeting that has just taken place in Cancun and the decision to create a Community of Latin America and Caribbean States has great significance for us. No other institutional act in our hemisphere during the last century reflects a similar significance.

The agreement was reached in the midst of the gravest economic crisis that has taken place in the globalized world, coinciding with the greatest danger of an human environmental disaster and, at the same time, with the earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, the most painful human disaster in the history of our hemisphere, in the poorest country of the continent and the first in which slavery was eradicated.

While I was writing this "Reflection," just six weeks after the death of more than 200,000 people, according to official figures in that country, the dramatic news came in of the damage provoked by another earthquake in Chile, which resulted in the death of close to 1,000 people to date, according to official figures, and enormous material damage. Especially moving was the footage of the suffering of millions of Chileans materially or emotionally affected by that cruel blow of nature. Fortunately, Chile is a country with more experience with that type of phenomenon, much more developed and with more resources. If it hadn’t had more solid infrastructures and buildings, an incalculable number of people, possibly tens or even hundreds of thousands Chileans would have perished. There is talk of two million affected and potential losses that range from $15 billion to $30 billion. In its tragedy, it can count on the solidarity and sympathy of the peoples, among them ours, although given the type of cooperation needed there is little that Cuba can do, while its government was one of the first to express to Chile its sentiments of solidarity, when communications were still down.

The country that is currently putting to the test the capacity of the world to confront climate change and guarantee human survival is, without question, Haiti, for constituting a symbol of the poverty from which billions of people in the world are currently suffering, including a notable part of the peoples of our continent.

What has happened in Chile with an earthquake of the incredible magnitude of 8.8 on the Richter scale, although fortunately at a greater depth than the one that destroyed Port-au-Prince, obliges me to emphasize the importance and the duty of promoting the steps toward unity achieved in Cancun, although I have no illusions as to the difficulty and complexity of our struggle of ideas in the face of the effort of the empire and its allies, inside and outside of our countries, to frustrate the unifying and pro-independence task of our peoples.

I wish to confirm in writing the importance and symbolism that Lula’s visit and our latest meeting had for me, from a personal and revolutionary standpoint. Already close to the end of his mandate, he stated that he wished to visit his friend Fidel; an honorable description that I received from him. I believe that I know him well. On more than a few occasions we spoke fraternally, within and outside of Cuba.

On one occasion I had the honor of visiting him at his home, situated in a modest district of Sao Paulo, where he lived with his family. For me it was a moving encounter with him, his wife and his children. I will never forget the familial and healthy atmosphere of that home, and the sincere affection with which his neighbors greeted him, when Lula was already a prestigious labor and political leader. Nobody knew then if he would or would not reach the presidency of Brazil, given that the interests and forces opposing him were very great, but it gave me pleasure to talk with him. The post was not so important to Lula, either; what satisfied him, above all, was the pleasure of fighting, which he did with impeccable modesty; which he fully demonstrated when, having been defeated three times by his powerful adversaries, he only agreed to allow his nomination by the Workers Party under strong pressure from his sincerest friends.

I will not attempt to recount the times that we spoke before he was elected president; one of them, among the first, was in the mid-1980s when we were fighting in Havana against the Latin American foreign debt, which at that point amounted to $300 billion and had been repaid more than once over. He is a born fighter.

Three times, as I said, his adversaries, backed by huge economic and media resources, defeated him at the elections. However, his closest collaborators and friends knew that the time had come when that modest worker would be the candidate of the Workers Party and the forces of the left.

His opponents definitely underestimated him; they thought that he could not count on any majority in the legislative body. The USSR no longer existed. What could Lula signify at the head of Brazil, a nation of great wealth but scant development, in the hands of a rich and influential bourgeoisie?

However, neoliberalism was entering into crisis, the Bolivarian Revolution had triumphed in Venezuela, Menem was in free fall, Pinochet had disappeared from the scene and Cuba was resisting. But Lula was elected when Bush fraudulently won in the United States, stealing the victory from his rival Al Gore.

A difficult stage was beginning. The initial steps of the new president of the United States were to set in motion the arms race and with that, the role of the military-industrial complex, and to cut taxes for the rich.

On the pretext of combating terrorism, he reinitiated the wars of conquest and institutionalized murder and torture as instruments of imperialist domination. Facts related to the secret prisons, which exposed the complicity of the allies of the United States with that policy, cannot be published. In this way, he accelerated the worst economic crisis of those which, in a cyclical and growing manner, accompany developed capital, but this time with the privileges of Bretton Woods and without any of its commitments.

Brazil, for its part, in the last eight years under Lula’s direction, surmounted obstacles, increased its technological development, and promoted the weight of the Brazilian economy. The most difficult part was his first term, but he was successful and gained experience. With his tireless battling, serenity, sangfroid and growing dedication to the task, in such difficult international conditions, Brazil reached a GDP of close to $2 trillion. Information varies according to the sources, but all of them place it among the 10 largest economies in the world. Despite that, with a surface area of 8.524 million square kilometers, compared to the United States, which possesses just a little more territory, Brazil has only reached 12% of the gross domestic product of that imperialist country, which is plundering the world and deploying its armed forces in more than 1,000 military bases throughout the planet.

I had the privilege of attending his investiture in late 2002. Also present was Hugo Chávez, who had just confronted the traitorous coup d’état of April 11th of that year, and subsequently, the oil strike organized by Washington. Bush was already president. The relations between Brazil, the Bolivarian Republic and Cuba were always good, with mutual respect.

I had a serious accident in October 2004, which seriously limited my activities for months, and became gravely ill in late July 2006, in virtue of which I did not hesitate to delegate my functions as the head of the [Communist] Party and the State, in the proclamation of July 31st of that year, with a provisional nature, which I soon afforded a definitive one when I understood that I would not be in a position to assume them once again.

With respect to the gravity of my health, it allowed me to study and meditate; I devoted myself to that and to reviewing materials concerning our Revolution, and to publishing "Reflections" now and then.

After falling sick, I have had the privilege of being visited by Lula every time he has traveled to our country and speaking at length with him. I will not say that I always agreed with all of his politics. I am, on principle, opposed to the production of biofuels based on products that can be utilized as food, conscious that hunger is and may be increasingly a great tragedy for humanity.

However — and I say this in all frankness — this is not a problem created by Brazil, much less by Lula. It is an inseparable part of the world economy imposed by imperialism and its rich allies, who, in subsidizing their agricultural production, protect their internal markets and compete on the world market with food exports from Third World countries. These, in turn, are forced to import in exchange industrial articles produced with their own raw materials and energy resources, having inherited their poverty from centuries of colonialism. I perfectly understand that Brazil had no alternative, in the face of disloyal competition and U.S. and European subsidies, but to increase ethanol production.

The infant mortality rate in Brazil is still 23.2 per 1,000 live births, and the maternal one is 110 per 100,000 births, within the industrialized and rich countries, it is less than 5 and 15, respectively. Many other similar such figures could be cited.

Beet sugar, subsidized by Europe, snatched away from our country the market for sugar derived from sugar cane, precarious and temporary agricultural and industrial work which kept sugar workers unemployed for a large part of the time. The United States, for its part, also took over our best lands and their companies owned our industry. One day, abruptly, they stripped us of our sugar quota and blockaded our country in order to crush the Revolution and Cuba’s independence.

Today, Brazil has developed the cultivation of sugar cane, soy, and corn with high-performance machines that can be used for those crops with extremely high productivity. One day when I observed film footage of a 40,000-hectare piece of land in Ciego de Avila dedicated to soy cultivation, in rotation with corn, where they will try to work throughout the whole year, I exclaimed: that is the ideal socialist agricultural enterprise, highly mechanized with very high productivity per person and per hectare.

The problems of agriculture and its installations in the Caribbean are hurricanes, which in a growing number, are devastating its lands.

Also, our country has elaborated and signed with Brazil the financing and construction of an extremely modern port in Mariel, which will be of enormous importance for our economy.

In Venezuela, they are using Brazilian agricultural and industrial technology to produce sugar and use bagasse as a source of thermoelectric energy. They are advance-party teams which are working in a likewise socialist enterprise. In the Bolivarian Republic, they are using ethanol to improve the harmful environmental effects of gasoline.

Capitalism developed consumer societies and also the waste of fuel, which produced the risk of dramatic climate change. Nature took 400 million years to create what our species is consuming in just two centuries. Science has not yet solved the problem of what energy will replace that which is now generated by oil; nobody knows how much time it will require, and how much it will cost to solve it on time. Will it be available? That is what was discussed in Copenhagen, and the Summit was a total failure.

Lula told me that when ethanol costs 70% of the value of gasoline, it is no longer profitable to produce. With the largest forest on the planet, Brazil is to progressively reduce tree felling by 80%, he said.

Today it has the best technology in the world for drilling at sea, and can extract fuel located at a depth of 7,000 meters of water and in the sea bed. Thirty years ago, that would have seemed like a science fiction story.

He explained the high-level educational programs that Brazil proposes to take forward. He highly values the role of China at a world level. He said with pride that trade with that country has risen to $40 billion.

One thing is indisputable: the metal worker has currently become an outstanding and prestigious statesman who is listened to respectfully in all international meetings.

He is proud of having received the honor of the Olympic Games for Brazil in 2016 by virtue of the excellent program presented in Denmark. It is also to be the venue for the [FIFA] World Cup in 2014. All of this has been the fruit of the projects presented by Brazil, which surpassed those of their competitors.

One great demonstration of his selflessness was his refusal to seek reelection, and he trusts that the Workers Party will continue to govern Brazil.

Some persons, envious of his prestige and his glory, and worse still, those working for the empire, criticized him for visiting Cuba. They utilized for that the vile slander that has been used against Cuba for a half century.

Lula has known for many years that in our country, nobody was every tortured, no adversary’s assassination was ever ordered, and the people have never been lied to. He has the assurance that truth is the inseparable companion of his Cuban friends.

From Cuba, he left for our neighbor, Haiti. We informed him of our ideas about what we are proposing in terms of a sustainable, efficient program, especially important and very economic for Haiti. He knows that more than 100,000 Haitians were treated by our doctors and graduates of the Latin American School of Medicine after the earthquake. We talked about serious things; I know about his ardent desires to help that noble and suffering people.

I will keep an indelible memory of my most recent meeting with the president of Brazil, and I do not hesitate to proclaim it.

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 1, 2010

12:15 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

CIA Drug Trafficking, Here we go again...

The color of money in Afghanistan has a chemical signature

WMR has learned from its Asian intelligence sources that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has detected hundreds of millions of dollars worth of chemically-marked U.S. and foreign currency is flowing through Afghanistan, mostly from ships leaving Dubai and off-loading the cash in Pakistan for overland transit into Afghanistan.

The DEA fears the cash is being used by the CIA to traffic in opium in Afghanistan and then using the chemical markers on the bills to trace the money. The bills involved in the chemical marking program are reportedly U.S. dollars, euros, Indian rupees, and Saudi riyals.

The chemically-marked cash in Afghanistan differs from the Nigerian scam chemical markings in that the cash awash in Afghanistan is professionally marked whereas the Nigerian scam cash is superficially marked to lure unsuspecting people into buying worthless solvents to eradicate the markings.

The word from Afghanistan is that the country is awash in so much cash from the opium trade, American officials are perplexed as to what to do next.

WMR has obtained further details of the chemically-dyed cash program used by the team of U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke reportedly authorized the payment of one type of chemically-treated cash to failed presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah in order for his campaign to buy votes. Chemically-treated cash can later be retrieved. Holbrooke was hoping to fix the election for Abdullah but President Hamid Karzai engaged in even greater election fraud, ensuring his re-election.

Meanwhile, Holbrooke authorized the payment of a different type of chemically-treated cash to Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Karzai who is directly linked to Afghanistan's $4 billion annual drug producing and smuggling industry and is known to be on the CIA's payroll. Holbrooke was hoping to prove with the tainted cash the involvement of Ahmed Wali Karzai in the drug smuggling business as a way to help Abdullah against Hamid Karzai. The effort failed. Holbrooke recently suffered another major failure for his agenda when the leader of the Iranian Baluchi terrorist Jundallah movement, Abdolmalek Rigi, was arrested in a joint sting operation carried out by Iran's VEVAK intelligence and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Rigi was arrested when his plane was diverted to Bandar Abbas while he was en route to meet Holbrooke at the U.S. airbase in Manas, Kyrgyzstan.

Holbrooke also did not bargain for the way the large sums of cash get spread around the different competing interest groups in Afghanistan. Some of the marked cash destined for Karzai's brother and his Pashtuns ended up in the hands of Abdullah's Tajik supporters while the differently-marked cash for Abdullah's Tajiks wound up in the possession of Karzai's Pashtun opium smugglers. In addition, some of the treated cash in lawless Afghanistan found its way into the hands of the Taliban and even the ubiquitous private military contractors in the country.

The problem for Holbrooke's strategy now is that the CIA is running an independent drug smuggling operation in Afghanistan, using banks in Dubai as laundry machines, the DEA is being hamstrung by the CIA and is overwhelmed by the amount of drugs and cash flowing into and out of Afghanistan, and the Department of Treasury, with the approval of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is approving more and more U.S. currency to be dumped into Afghanistan while spending even more money for a cash retrieval effort involving hundreds of banks.

Dubai banks are unwilling to cooperate in the cash retrieval because the sudden influx of money from Afghanistan is helping Dubai's economy to recover after it went bust a few months ago. Adding to the problem is the involvement of Pakistan-based crime syndicate boss Dawood Ibrahim and his D-Company, on-and-off again collaborators of the CIA, in the drug money laundering. Last September, one of Ibrahim's top aides and money launderers, Naresh Jain, was arrested in India by Indian counter-narcotics officers. According to the Indian press, Jain, who re-located his base of operations from Dubai to New Delhi, was wanted by the DEA and Italian and British police after the two agencies conducted OPERATION KHYBER PASS. Jain is listed as a terrorist funder by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and he has been linked by the department to drug money laundering on behalf of the Taliban and "Al Qaeda." The cover story is that it is the Taliban that is benefiting financially from opium smuggling in Afghanistan when, in reality, it is the CIA and its Afghan proxies. "Al Qaeda" is merely a contrivance of the CIA.

The Afghan heroin smuggling network operated by Ibrahim's D-Company extended from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Turkey, Nigeria, Italy, and China. The Dubai money laundering operations extended from the emirate to Islamic hawala money exchanges in Nigeria, Italy, Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Bolivia, Democratic Republic of Congo and banks in the Cooks Islands, Cyprus, and Australia.

However, Holbrooke has apparently not learned from his experience with Jundallah and Karzai's drug trafficking family. WMR has learned that the Rigi-Holbrooke meeting at the Manas airbase was also to include a pre-arranged meeting between Rigi and captured members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), who have been converted from adherents of Osama Bin Laden's "Al Qaeda" to pipeline saboteurs, Holbrooke wanted to see an alliance between Jundallah and the reformed IMU guerrillas to plan operations targeting the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan-China (TUKC) gas pipeline that recently began operations. The United States used Jundallah to attack the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline in Baluchistan and Holbrooke was hoping that Rigi's experience would benefit the turned IMU terrorists who operate in the Fergana Valley of Tajikistan. The "reformed" IMU members have a price on their head -- the IMU is wanted by Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan for inciting Muslim rebellions, while the Russian SVR intelligence also keeps a wary eye on their activities. IMU stalwarts who have not joined the American side are routinely tracked down and killed by the CIA and U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan. The IMU members working for the United States are confined to places like Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and Manas in Kyrgyzstan for protection until they can be dispatched by the CIA to carry out their missions.

After the Iranian capture of Rigi, many of the IMU converts now fear ending up in a similar situation, being captured by the governments who have a price on their heads. Holbrooke was to travel to Ashgabat, the Turkmenistan capital after leaving Kyrgyzstan after the Iranian capture of Rigi. However, the Holbrooke meeting with Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov was canceled at the last minute due to a "scheduling conflict." Instead, Holbrooke traveled to Georgia where that nation's U.S. and Israeli puppet president, Mikhael Saakashvili, announced he was sending a further 1000 Georgian troops to fight in Afghanistan. WMR has learned that after it was known that Manas was being used as a rendezvous point between Rigi, ex-IMU members, and Holbrooke to plan sabotage against the TUKC pipeline, the Turkmen president told Holbrooke to stay away.

Holbrooke is pushing for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline which terminates in Gujarat. TAPI has been heavily-invested in by U.S. oil and oil services companies.

The ex-IMU guerrillas have been reduced at Bagram and Manas to smelling the cooking of bacon fat, American soldiers drinking beer and engaging in sex with young Muslim women.

What could be stirring among the CIA's Uzbek converts is a situation similar to the agency's co-opting the support of Jordanian intelligence officers in Afghanistan. On December 30, the world was told through the corporate media that a Jordanian triple agent for the CIA named Dr. Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, who reportedly worked for Al Qaeda, Jordan's General Intelligence Department (GID), and the CIA, walked into the CIA's Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan and blew himself up, killing seven CIA officers and contractors, including the base's female chief. An eighth person, said to be an Afghan security officer, was also reported to have been killed in the blast but then it was revealed that a Jordanian Army Captain named Sharif Ali Bin Zeid was also killed. Zeid was said to be Balawi's handler and he was given a royal state funeral in Amman.

However, Balawi has now surfaced in a "posthumous" video tape claiming that he double crossed his handler Zeid and the CIA. WMR previously suggested that it was Zeid who was likely the person who "switched sides." The recent videotape featuring a Balawi who is very much alive, cheerful, and with more of beard growth and a darker sun tan than photographs released of him some months ago, indicate that a Jordanian died in the Chapman base blast, but it was not Balawi.

Balawi says in a 43-minute videotape that he only expected to kill Zeid but that it was an unexpected gift to kill the CIA agents. Balawi states: "We planned for something but got a bigger gift, a gift from Allah, who brought us, through His accompaniment, a valuable prey -- Americans, and from the CIA. That's when I became certain that the best way to teach Jordanian intelligence and the CIA a lesson is with the martyrdom belt." Dr. Balawi also describes how he was recruited by the GID and then the CIA after his arrest in Jordan and how he was sent to Afghanistan to work as an agent for the CIA spying on "Al Qaeda." Balawi also states that GID helped in the 2006 killing by U.S. forces of Jordanian "Al Qaeda" operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who hailed from Balawi's Jordanian hometown of Zarqa, and the assassination by Mossad and the CIA of Imad Mughniyeh, the Lebanese Hezbollah military commander, in Damascus in 2008.

Balawi's post-death comments are probably the most amazing CIA asset revelations since CIA director William Casey granted The Washington Post's Bob Woodward an extensive four-minute interview on the Iran-contra scandal as Casey was drawing his last breath in his hospital bed in 1987.

Translations with Father Charlie: The Making of the Video

At the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, former Catholic Priest Charlie Hardy uses the gospel to explain why the U.S. media often mistranslates Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

By Al Giordano

Charlie Hardy, former Catholic priest, Wyoming native, residing for the past 25 years in Venezuela, and three-time participant in the School of Authentic Journalism. Photo: DR 2010 Noah Friedman-Rudovsky.

The variety of online videos coming out of the 2010 Narco News School of Authentic Journalism ranges from the deadly serious (as with the Torture in Egypt video that we premiered last week) to the humorous one we now unveil: Translations with Father Charlie.

It’s funny to many folks but it also reports serious content: how the US media routinely distorts the news out of Latin America and especially out of Venezuela.

Charlie Hardy is one of a special few who has taught and graduated from, now, all three sessions of the School of Authentic Journalism (2003, 2004 and 2010). A former Catholic priest who has worked 25 years in the slums outside of Caracas – now on a speaking tour in the United States - he told that history in an interview last week with the Kansas City Tribune:

“In 2002, there was a coup in Venezuela – somebody said to me afterwards “Hey take a look at Narco News”. I had never heard of narconews.com. It was an online newspaper, so I looked and they had a good article about what happened in Venezuela. Then I saw where they were going to have a school for authentic journalists. I thought well maybe I would become a journalist because I could see that the truth wasn’t getting out of Venezuela. So, I applied for a scholarship and then I got a letter saying “Sorry we don’t have enough money – we want someone in radio, video and so on down the line. It went onto say “But we do want you as a professor – you write too well and you don’t need the school but we need you”. Professors at the school pay their own way. This is a unique school, all of the students have scholarships, but all of the professors have to pay their own way.

A former priest gave me a thousand dollars and with that I was able to pay my fare and pay for my lodging and so on, and it’s still that way basically today. It’s been an exciting thing – if you were to look at Narco News and the students that are there from India, Egypt, Argentina from Chile, from Mexico - all over the world. And then you look at the quality of the people who give the classes.

For me it was a real privilege. One professor was Alvaro Garcia, he is now Vice President of Bolivia.

Another professor was Gary Webb who wrote the ‘Dark Alliance’ that was about the CIA getting drugs into Los Angeles. He won the Pulitzer Prize for some other writing but because of the ‘Dark Alliance’ he was blackballed. Other major newspapers came out and said they talked to the CIA and the CIA said they never did that…

It is that kind of people that Al Giordano of Narco News has recruited to give their time and to be with young people. That for me is just a hopeful thing.

Charlie has mastered the art of saying a lot in a small window of time (brevity is next to godliness, we try to teach our professors; some get that better than others) and so on Sunday morning February 7, in Mérida, Yucatán, when Charlie said he had a five minute presentation on how English language media often abuses the translation process when reporting from Spanish-speaking countries, I confidently gave him the floor.

His presentation was, as you will see in the video, a big hit, and it occurred to 2010 authentic journalism Scholar Katie Halper of New York that its content would be ideal for a viral video; that is, a video that could go “viral” or replicate widely throughout the Internet.

Katie took the initiative and leadership on producing the video, with strong assists from 2010 scholar Edwin Reed-Sanchez and professor (and 2004 graduate) Gregory Berger. Here is the result:

As part of our continuing series on “The Making of the Video” I asked Katie Halper to share her notes on how this video was made and what she learned in the process. (We’re also awaiting a similar recount from Edwin Reed-Sanchez, which we will post as an update when ready.)

Katie Halper, documentary filmmaker, video producer, social humorist, blogger and authentic New Yorker, is called to receive her diploma from the School of Authentic Journalism in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, on February 12, 2010. Photo: DR 2010 Noah Friedman-Rudovsky.

Katie writes:

When I heard Charlie Hardy tell the story featured in this video, I thought to myself, "this would make a great viral video!" I looked around the room and was happy to see that several people in the viral video group, of which I was a member, were filming the presentation. When I got the footage, however, what I found was an almost comically incomplete and nearly unusable rendering of Charlie's speech.

So I can communicate the humorous challenges presented in making this video, I'll need to explain very briefly and simply what "b-roll" is. B-roll is, to quote Wikipedia, "supplemental or alternate footage intercut with the main shot in an interview or documentary." This often includes reaction shots, shots of details in the room, archival footage, etc. Not surprisingly, the b-roll camera is the camera assigned to shooting the... b-roll. The other camera is what captures the main event, the person speaking or the action happening. OK. done with the techy part. I think we've all learned a lot.

The viral video group wound up filming around 75 percent of the plenaries that took place over the course of the school. As luck would have it, though, the sub team assigned to film Father Charlie was running late. In all fairness, the viral video group was overstretched because it had to both learn and teach viral video making and cover the various school events. This double duty, I think, had a cost on both the production of videos and the quality of the coverage. We always underestimate how much time, work, prep and stress goes into something as seemingly simple as filming presentations. Anyway, the main camera only caught the tail end of Charlie's talk. The good news was that the b-roll camera was filming from the beginning. The bad news was that since the b-roll camera was focused on reaction shots, it shot the audience and not Charlie. (Reaction shots are good, even necessary, because they contextualize the presentation, break up the footage and add another perspective. But they can't make up the bulk of a video.) And, since the b-roll camera is not intended to capture the content, per se, the camera started and stopped several times and missed much of what Charlie said. In other words, key parts of Charlie's presentation were either missing or, if captured by the b-roll camera at all, less than ideal because they didn't show Charlie's face. The lesson is when the main camera is running late, make the b-roll camera do the main camera work.

The missing parts of Charlie's speech wouldn't have been that bad had I used a voice-over. But I prefer avoiding voice-overs unless I want to emphasize the role of a narrator. In other words, had I put my own voice in, the video would have been, at least in part, about me. This works well in, for example, Greg Berger's Gringoyo videos, where he is making fun of the character who narrates the videos. I wanted to focus on the content of the video, which I had no role in.

So I used text (my own) and images of text (the newspaper) to explain the things Charlie had said but were not recorded. I used the reaction shots which caught Charlie's audio but focused on the audience, but the high ratio of audience faces to Charlie's face would have been bizarre so I used graphics to cover up some of the b-roll.

I had imagined using some kind of 1950's music to give the video a corny educational video sort of feel. Gregory Berger suggested the Latin lounge music, which I liked because it connected to the content. There were several things I wanted to do but didn't know how to do or manage to do in the short time we had, so I harassed Edwin (Dreadwin), who knew how to do them and/ or could do them 77 times faster than I could. Not only does Edwin have mad techy skills, he is also funny and has a good eye and came up with some of the visual tropes such as the red text "asshole" and the flashing "idiot."

Authentic journalism scholars Edwin Reed-Sanchez and Marine Lormant colaborate during the 2010 School in Mérida, Yucatán. Photo DR 2010 Jill Freidberg.

This was also a new experience for me content-wise. Most of my stand-up, writing and videos are ironic and satirical. I tend to make fun of those I disagree with by impersonating them, identifying with them, defending them etc. I made a series of videos, for example, which pretended to be for John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign but were clearly against him entitled Women for McCain, Gays for McCain and Jews for McCain. I've done some woman on the street videos in which I pretend to be more naive than I am ["McCain was in a war? Which one? World War II?"] in order to get people with whom I disagree to reveal their ideas, ignorance, incoherence, hypocrisy etc. In this case, though, the comedy was largely provided by Charlie's intentional humor. My job was not to make fun of Charlie, with whom I agreed. My job was to make Charlie's already funny presentation even funnier. To do this I mainly used images to heighten the comedy. The only thing I introduced was a pseudo serious religious tone at the beginning to trick the audience into thinking this was something it was not. And the style of the rest of the video was a parody of a certain genre of video but not a parody of Charlie.

Because I had never made a video in this tone and was expecting to make a more ironic oppositional one and am also a bit of a perfectionist, I kept doubting myself and the video [cue sad dramatic music and re-enactment of Katie pulling out her hair and throwing a laptop* across the room.] Greg was very encouraging, however, and prevented me from abandoning the project for something else. [Cue upbeat positive messaged hip hop music and reenactment of Katie & Greg putting broken laptop back together and high-fiving]. So I'd like to thank Greg... [cut to Oscars where Katie wins best viral video made by a left wing Latin American educational organizing collaborative school] and my parents and G-d.

I'm honored to have my video published by the same online newspaper that published the Torture in Egypt video. I'm also, however, embarrassed to follow it. Clearly the Egypt video is more alarming and moving. But the juxtoposition of the two videos also highlight the advantages and disadvantages of different types of video making. The Torture in Egypt video was not confined to any time, space, or narrative. This gave the team both the burden and freedom to find footage wherever they could. Their video is also much more successful as a viral video in that it requires much less context. This is definitely one of the downsides of filming an event, a speech, a presentation as opposed to something intended for a larger public made by a well known person such as, for example, Obama's State of the Union address. You don't need to know anything before seeing the video in order to get it. The Father Charlie video is a much more insular. Some questions the video didn't answer (because of time and not wanting to overwhelm people with text and information is) who is father Charlie? Where exactly is he talking? To whom? What is his relationship, if any, to Venezuela? Is he a priest? Was he a priest? While the the mass media's distortion and biases are universal issues, the actual event portrayed is much more specific. It's less than ideal for a a viral video.

*No laptop was actually thrown or hurt during the making of this video.

I'm in fact a lot more optimistic than Katie on this video's chances of going viral as I'm a great believer that humor is the key that opens many otherwise locked doors and minds. There simply is something irresistible about a former priest deconstructing the translation of "bad" words as a way to teach a powerful lesson about the abuses of the commercial media.

Kind reader: Would you like to help the Translations with Father Charlie video “go viral”? It informs and teaches a lot in a power-packed two minutes and 57 seconds. Let’s try this experiment: Post it to your blog, your Facebook page, Twitter a link to it, share it via email and in every other way. Let’s get it out there and together let's see how many viewers genuflect, er, salute!

Rachel Corrie Gets Her Day in Court

Robert Naiman

Just Foreign PolicyFebruary 28, 2010 On March 10, in the Israeli city of Haifa, American peace activist Rachel Corrie will get her day in court. Rachel's parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, are bringing suit against the Israeli defence ministry for Rachel's killing by an Israeli military bulldozer in Gaza in March 2003. Four key American and British witnesses who were present at the scene - members of the International Solidarity Movement - will be allowed into Israel to testify, despite having been barred previously by the Israeli authorities from entering the country. This reversal by the Israeli authorities is apparently due to U.S. government pressure, the Guardian reports. (Three cheers for any U.S. officials who contributed to this pressure. What else could you make the Israeli government do?) A Palestinian doctor from Gaza who treated Corrie after she was injured has not been given permission by the Israeli authorities to leave Gaza to attend. (This would seem to be important testimony concerning the nature of Rachel's injuries - did U.S. officials exert pressure for his appearance?) This case isn't just about accountability for Rachel's death. It's a test case for the power of the rule of law in Israel, when the rule of law comes into conflict with the policies of military occupation. When the rule of law in Israel comes into conflict with the policies of occupation, the rule of law often loses. But it does not always lose, particularly when the rule of law gets a boost from vigorous protest and political agitation. This month, Reuters reported, Israel began rerouting part of its "West Bank barrier" near the village of Bilin - the site of many Palestinian, Israeli, and international protests - in response to a petition filed in 2007 by Palestinians whose land was confiscated for the project. This was only a partial victory, because it only affected a minority of the confiscated land. But it shows that the rule of law in Israel is not totally impotent against the occupation, particularly when the rule of law is aided by protest and agitation. It's also a test case for the power of nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. It's a commonplace among some poorly informed commenters - Edith Garwood of Amnesty International cites Bono, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and President Obama as recent examples - that Palestinians should "find their Martin Luther King." But this commentary is foolish and retrograde, as Rahm Emanuel might say. A necessary condition for the ascendance of a King or Gandhi -type movement in Palestine is that if Palestinian nonviolence activists are killed by the Israeli occupation, the government of Israel pays a significant price for that killing. If the Israeli government can kill an American peace activist and pay little price, what chance do the Palestinian Kings and Gandhis have? It's instructive to do a press search on the recent developments in the Rachel Corrie case. Searching on Yahoo News, I found Israeli and Palestinian press, Jewish and Arab press, British and Australian press. But outside of the Seattle Weekly - Rachel is from Olympia, and Brian Baird is her Representative - I found no general US press. Isn't it remarkable that we Americans have to read the British press to find out about developments in the case of our compatriot? Isn't this state of affairs something that Bono, Nicholas Kristof and President Obama ought to reflect on, especially given the fact that they have significant ability to do something about it? The persistence of Rachel's case as a thorn in the side of the Israeli occupation authorities recalls the 1960s Costa-Gavras docudrama "Z," about the political fallout from the assassination by the U.S. - supported Greek government of the Greek parliamentarian and peace movement leader Gregoris Lambrakis. There is a powerful scene in the movie in which one of Lambrakis' associates visits Lambrakis' widow to deliver the news that four high-ranking military police officers have been indicted in the killing. On the way to meet her Lambrakis' associate passes a group of Greek students painting the letter "Z" on the sidewalk, meaning "he (Lambrakis) lives." Marveling at the students' determined activism in the face of mounting repression, Lambrakis' associate says, "It's almost as if he were alive." They murdered her, and yet she dogs them. It's almost as if she were alive.

Cowboy in Caracas Ex-Priest Charlie Hardy, Turned Journalist Speaks on Venezuela

Ex-Priest Turned Journalist Speaks on Venezuela

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Charlie Hardy spoke about his experiences in Venezuela to a large group at the Kansas City Public Library.

Credit: Michael McClure

Beth Brubaker

Published 02/26/2010 - 1:13 a.m. CDT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Beth Brubaker Email: editor@kctribune.com

Charlie Hardy is a former Catholic priest from Wyoming who has lived in Venezuela for the last twenty-five years. Hardy lived in a cardboard shack for eight of those in years in a barrio in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.

He spoke about his book “Cowboy in Caracas – A North American’s Memoir of Venezuela’s Democratic Revolution” at the Plaza Library on February 26, 2010. The following is a transcript of an exclusive interview Mr. Hardy granted to kctribune.com

Why did you decide to go to Journalism school?

“In 2002, there was a coup in Venezuela – somebody said to me afterwards “Hey take a look at Narco News”. I had never heard of narconews.com. It was an online newspaper, so I looked and they had a good article about what happened in Venezuela. Then I saw where they were going to have a school for authentic journalists. I thought well maybe I would become a journalist because I could see that the truth wasn’t getting out of Venezuela. So, I applied for a scholarship and then I got a letter saying “Sorry we don’t have enough money – we want someone in radio, video and so on down the line. It went onto say “But we do want you as a professor – you write too well and you don’t need the school but we need you”. Professors at the school pay their own way. This is a unique school, all of the students have scholarships, but all of the professors have to pay their own way.

A former priest gave me a thousand dollars and with that I was able to pay my fare and pay for my lodging and so on, and it’s still that way basically today. It’s been an exciting thing – if you were to look at Narco News and the students that are there from India, Egypt, Argentina from Chile, from Mexico - all over the world. And then you look at the quality of the people who give the classes.

For me it was a real privilege. One professor was Alvaro Garcia, he is now Vice President of Bolivia.

Another professor was Gary Webb who wrote the ‘Dark Alliance’ that was about the CIA getting drugs into Los Angeles. He won the Pulitzer Prize for some other writing but because of the ‘Dark Alliance’ he was blackballed. Other major newspapers came out and said they talked to the CIA and the CIA said they never did that.

Eventually Gary committed suicide. It is one of those stories of one of those people who did his best to be an authentic journalist and maybe was killed in the act of doing it. I say maybe because he died with two bullet holes in his head.

Some would say that is not possible, but I guess it is possible – who knows?

All I know that for me it was a privilege to be there.

This may sound strange, but I wasn’t impressed because he got a Pulitzer Prize, because I think John Kennedy got a Pulitzer Prize because his father, as I remember, knew some important people on the committee. It is that kind of people that Al Giordano of Narco News has recruited to give their time and to be with young people. That for me is just a hopeful thing.

So, I was Catholic priest – it was 1965 when I was ordained and came out of the seminary. Someone once said to me that when a young man is going to be ordained makes a choice that will determine the rest of his life. That choice is, does he want to serve the people or does he want to be a bishop. I would say the same thing about journalists today.

Journalism schools or Social Communication as they call it in Venezuela, are full of people. It’s hard to get into those schools because they want to be on television, they want to be stars. So I think that same question applies to young people today who want to be a journalist – do they want to serve the people and get the truth out, or do they want to be a star on television.

I was observing a demonstration in Caracas, and there was a woman from one of the major television stations and I knew right away that she had never attended the NarcoNews School of Authentic Journalism because part of it is security for a journalist. I remember being told “Never wear sandals to a demonstration – wear shoes that are tight on your feet in case something happens.” So here was this woman in high heels, and when the police fired some tear gas she wasn’t in any shape to run down the street. So it’s that question – there are reporters in high heels and reporters in ties who stay in fancy five star hotels who tell us what is happening around the world, and that to me is not authentic journalism – it’s the people who get out and talk to the people.

I have the same concerns for the U.S. On CNN recently I saw about three ads for Colombia (South America) in about forty minutes. The ads basically said “When you go to Colombia there is risk –beautiful beaches, the wonderful people the history and so on. The only risk when you go to Colombia is you may never want to leave. Our word for foreigner is friend”. Ok that’s what I see on CNN, but I know that there are over 3 million people from Colombia in Venezuela. You don’t find Venezuelans going to Colombia. Why have the people left – economic reasons but there is also people that have been driven out by paramilitaries, etc. Within Colombia there are over four million people who are displaced, who have been driven off their land. So, okay the word for foreigner is friend, but I wonder what the word is for the people who live there? If there are so many ads on CNN from Colombia, what kind of balanced news are you going to get from CNN about Colombia? About Venezuela? Venezuela is talked about as a dictatorship, it is not. Again, I am a gringo that has lived there 25 years, but we have never had as much freedom as we have today. Whether it is radio, television or newspapers, Hugo Chavez is portrayed as a dictator.”

The Wall Street Journal and the AP have reported this week that “the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights strongly cites a lack of independence of Venezuela's judiciary, the closing of news media outlets that are critical of the government and political discrimination and repression under Chavez.” What is your reaction?

“Someone asked me about the taking of five media licenses, but over 100 licenses were renewed because the people handed in the forms they were supposed to and did the things they were supposed to do. In America, if someone loses their license from the FCC is it President Obama who puts them off the air? These five stations didn’t fulfill the requirements of law, and since that time some of them have come forward with the papers they need. But they make a big deal – it’s Chavez who did this.

Regarding the Judiciary – in Venezuela we have five independent bodies, the executive, judicial, legislative – there’s also the people’s power which includes attorney general, ombudsmen and the controller. Then there is the electoral power. Interestingly, the president is a male but the president of the congress, the chief justice, the attorney general and the head of the electoral commission are all women. But, gee (the critics say) it is probably because Chavez is beating them or something. Even though he doesn’t appoint them – there is a process involved. Yes at the present moment – most people in congress are supporters of the current government. But part of the problem is that the opposition pulled out of most of the elections. They could have won seats in congress, so you can portray it any way you like.

The InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights – in 2002 there was coup – Chavez was kidnapped, he was gone – they wrote a letter to the dictator who took over and said “We hope you support human rights” they didn’t ask about the resident – where was he? This is not an unbiased commission.”

What is the stance of the Catholic Church in relationship to the government?

“The Catholic Church is very much supportive of President Chavez, but not all the bishops are. I was once in Mexico with Bishop Samuel Ruiz – who was bishop in the area where the Zapatistas are in Chiapas. We were talking for an hour about the Zapatistas. And I asked him “Do you mind if we talk about the Catholic Church for a while?” and he said “I thought we were talking about the Catholic Church. If you want to talk about us Bishops, fine, but we are only a part of the Catholic Church we are not the Catholic Church.” I also remember that I asked him if “Liberation Theology still existed and he said “Is there a theology of slavery?”

Many on the American right frequently accuse President Obama of being socialist or even communist – what do you think of that since you are living in a socialist country?

“I think we need talk about Socialism for the 21st Century not the 20th Century. We have two competing theories in the world right now – Capitalism or Socialism. On the one hand- Capitalism is about money and corporations and Socialism is about people. We need to decide what we think is more important – people or corporations?”

Charlie Hardy’s talk was sponsored by American Friends Service, Holy Family Faith Community, Colombia Support Network, Peaceworks, The Loretto Community of Kansas City and The Cross Border Network.

KCTribune wants to thank Judy Ancel and the The Cross Border Network for their assistance in arranging this interview.
www.crossbordernetwork.org