The Wahhabi-Likudnik war of terror By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE      The Wahhabi-Likudnik war of terror By Pepe Escobar The double suicide bombing targeting the Iranian embassy in Beirut - with at least 23 people killed and 170 wounded - was a de facto terror attack happening on 11/19. Numerology-wise, naturally 9/11 comes to mind; and so the case of the Washington-declared war on terror metastasizing - largely conducted by oozy forms of Saudi "intelligence". Yet don't expect the "West" to condemn this as terror. Look at the headlines; it's all normalized as "blasts" - as if children were playing with firecrackers. Whether carried out by a hazy al-Qaeda-linked brigade or by Saudi spy chief Bandar bin Sultan's (aka Bandar Bush's) goons, the Beirut terror attack is essentially configured as a major, Saudi-enabled provocation. The larger Saudi agenda in Syria implies getting both Hezbollah and Iran to be pinned down inside Lebanon as well. If that happens, Israel also wins. Once again, here's another graphic illustration of the Likudnik House of Saud in action. Nuance also applies. Bandar Bush's strategy, coordinated with jihadis, was to virtually beg for Hezbollah to fight inside Syria. When Hezbollah obliged, with only a few hundred fighters, the jihadis scurried away from the battlefield to implement plan B: blowing up innocent women and children in the streets of Lebanon. While Hezbollah welcomes the fight, wherever it takes place, Tehran's position is more cautious. It does not want to go all out against the Saudis - at least for now, with the crucial nuclear negotiation on the table in Geneva, and (still) the possibility of a Geneva II regarding Syria. Yet the House of Saud is not welcoming Geneva II anytime soon because it has absolutely nothing to propose except regime change. On Syria, the main pillar of Bandar Bush's strategy is to turn the previously "Free" Syrian Army into a "national army" of 30,000 or so fully weaponized hardcore fighters - mostly supplied by the "Army of Islam", which is nothing but a cipher for the al-Qaedesque Jabhat al-Nusra. King Playstation of Jordan, also known as Abdullah, collaborates as the provider of training camps near the Syrian border. Whatever happens, one thing is certain; expect Bandar Bush's goons to be carrying out more suicide bombings on both Lebanon and Syria. The Zionist/Wahhabi/Salafi axis The dodgy al-Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades in theory exist since 2005, placing the odd bomb here and there. One sheikh Sijareddin Zreikat tweeted responsibility for the Beirut terror attack. Curioser and curioser, the claim was "discovered" and translated into English by the Israeli disinformation website SITE. [1] Yet another Israeli intelligence disinformation site, DEBKAfile, claimed the terror attack was an Iran/Hezbollah false flag, based on a "Saudi warning" reaching "Western intelligence agencies, including Israel". [2] The rationale, according to "Saudi intelligence", was "to convince Hezbollah fighters consigned against their will to the Syrian battlefield". This does not even qualify as pathetic. Hezbollah is basically defending the Lebanese-Syrian border, and has only a few hundred fighters inside Syria. Moreover, no string of suicide bombings will deter Hezbollah and Tehran from regaining control of what really matters in the Syrian strategic context; the Qalamoun area. Qalamoun, ringed by mountains, is a 50-kilometer stretch bordering the Bekaa valley in Lebanon, between Damascus and al-Nabk, and right on the absolutely critical Damascus-Homs corridor of the M5 highway. The Syrian army is on the offensive in Qalamoun. Recapturing the whole area is just a matter of time. This means controlling the northern approach to Damascus. Hezbollah is helping in the offensive out of Bekaa valley. This does not mean they will camp out in Syria afterwards. Now for the false flag accusation. As far as real false flags are concerned, one just has to re-examine three recent international bombings that supposed victimized Israel. In India the bomb had no projectiles; it barely injured an Israeli attache. In Azerbaijan the bomb was miraculously "discovered" before it went off. And in Thailand, the bomb exploded too soon, injuring only a nearby Iranian. Crass Israeli disinformation is unmasked when it leaps into this conclusion: If Tehran is capable of such atrocities merely as a diversionary tactic, then perhaps Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin ought to take a really hard look at their negotiating partner across the table before signing a major deal Wednesday, Nov. 20, which leaves Iran's nuclear program in place. So this neatly ties up with the current Israeli hysteria about the Geneva negotiations, which also includes the umpteenth report by a News Corporation outfit, London's Sunday Times, that Saudi Arabia will help Israel to attack Iran. [3] It also ties up with the proverbial US shills spinning, gloating rather, that, "strategically, this de-facto Israeli alliance with the Saudis is an extraordinary opportunity for Israel". [4] Even such shills have to admit that the House of Saud is "blocking formation of any government in Lebanon, for example, to obstruct Iran's ally, Hezbollah". "Blocking" of course is a euphemism to normalize suicide bombing. And then comes the ultimate wishful thinking disguised as "analysis"; Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu "bidding to replace the United States as military protector of the status quo". Translation; the Likudniks dreaming of becoming the new military Mob boss of petrodollar Wahhabis. The enablers Bandar Bush's strategy - weaponizing and providing cover to Salafis, jihadis and every patsy or mercenary in between - will go on unabated. After Bandar Bush convinced Washington to get rid of the Muslim Brotherhood-friendly Qataris, the Saudis are the supreme warfare go-to channel. The Bandar Bush machine has ties with virtually every jihadi outfit in the Levant. It certainly helps that Bandar has the perfect cover; the fact that he knows and has cajoled every significant player in Washington. In the US, Bandar Bush remains a dashing hero, even eliciting fawning comparisons with Gatsby. [5] Right. And my name is actually Daisy. Even with its own embassy attacked in Lebanon, Iran is maintaining an extremely calibrated approach. The number-one priority is the nuclear negotiations in Geneva with the partner that really matters, the US. This explains Iran blaming the Beirut terror attack on the proverbial "Zionists", and not Saudi-enabled jihadis posing as "rebels" and part of the whole Bandar Bush nebula. For the moment though, enough of Orwellian newspeak. What happened in Beirut was a terror attack, cheered by Israel, and fully enabled by Saudis; a graphic display by the Likudnik-House of Saud axis. Notes: 1. Al-Qaida-linked group claims responsibility for deadly Beirut attack, Ha'aretz, November 19, 2013. 2. Incredible! Beirut bombings killing 25 people were self-inflicted by Iran and Hizballah as a diversionary tactic, DEBKAfile, November 19, 2013. 3. Israel, Saudi Arabia Unite For Attack On Iran, RT, November 17, '13. 4. The stakes of an Iranian deal, Washington Post, November 15, 2013. 5. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's Gatsby, Master Spy, The Daily Beast, November 16, 2013. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

France clueless on Iran By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE 

France clueless on Iran 

By Pepe Escobar 

Here is definitive proof - if any was needed - that the Gallic fit-throwing that burned the possibility of an interim Iranian nuclear deal last week in Geneva was completely pointless. 

The key "concern" expressed by Israel-firster French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to derail an interim deal was about the Arak heavy-water reactor. 

Well, UN inspectors this week reported that they had detected no


new developments in Arak over the three months since August. [1] 

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, was also in Tehran on Monday, and - unusually for his trademark paperboy role for Washington - had nothing to complain about. 

Fabius used the Arak gambit at the last minute in Geneva to derail the talks, provoking the ire of even fellow European diplomats. That was out of pure disinformation; Tehran was already doing what Fabius insisted they were not doing. 

A EU diplomat (non-French) confirmed to Asia Times Online that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had already informed US Secretary of State John Kerry about these euphemistically defined "confidence-building measures". Kerry was fully aware before he landed in Geneva on his way to sign an interim deal. 

But guess what: the French were clueless. Kerry did not tell anybody else on the P5+1 table (comprising the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany) because he feared any leaks. This proves once again that this infinitely complex negotiation is really between Washington and Tehran. Russia and China are behaving - so far - as sort of quiet (and wary) observers. Yet Kerry, Francophile that he is, should have know better about Gallic peacock instincts. 

Fabius - acting on orders of "popular" (26% and sinking) President Francois Hollande - started to pre-emptively torpedo the negotiations even before Kerry landed in Geneva. Arak was the perfect pretext to shade France's true agenda; to act as an agent of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and to secure future fat contracts from those paragons of democracy, the Wahhabi-dominated Gulf Counter-revolution Club, aka the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). 

So Fabius was not only totally clueless about privileged Kerry-Zarif information; he felt like a spurned lover (Moliere to the rescue). 

Make no mistake. Kerry - following President Barack Obama's brief - badly wants a deal. But as this is a P5+1 affair, he simply cannot out the French as spoilers. Thus the subsequent tactic earlier this week of "blaming" Iran - as in "they were not ready for a deal yet". 

Assorted European diplomats have been spinning, off the record, that yes, there was a nearly done deal, but the Iranian delegation still had to go back to Tehran to get ultimate approval from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. That's exactly the line that Kerry followed during the week. 

The whole saga restarts next Wednesday. There is no question Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif made sure the IAEA would be able to attest, from inside Iran, that goodwill is still the name of the game. This is how they controlled their own opposition - the hard line Revolutionary Guards. 

Heavy water Arak is not the problem. Heavy Gallic posturing is. Let's see whether the Fabius reactor will leak again next week, or whether Kerry will be able to contain it. 

Note:
1. IAEA: Iran has not expanded nuclear facilities in last 3 months, RT, November 14, 2013. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

China's market enigma By Pepe Escobar

This is EXTREMELY important.

China's development strategy up to 2022. 

Myself and Francesco Sisci - check out his 

companion piece as well - we're just two foreign

barbarians trying to make sense of the 

earth-shattering moves ahead. 

The Gang of Seven in Beijing is now ready

 to step on the gas - big time.

THE ROVING EYE China's market enigma By Pepe Escobar "The focus of the restructuring of the economic system ... is to allow the market [forces] to play a 'decisive role' in the allocation of resources." That's it? The whole world was breathlessly waiting - and this is what the world got: an enigma enveloped in a riddle inside a Chinese box, in the form of a cryptic communique issued by the long-awaited Third Plenum of the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s Central Committee. To know who is ultimately responsible for this - the first serious policy blueprint unveiled by the new Chinese leadership of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang - one just needs a glimpse at the photo: these are the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the men who really rule China. And what's at stake could not be more serious; no less than thestrategic choices addressing China's inevitable ascension to the status of world's number one economy. One should always remember how the CCP works. The Plenum was supposed to "forge consensus" among the CCP elite and set the tone for the next stage of China's breakneck development. And yet anti-climax seems to have become the operative concept here. The media frenzy in China, pre-Plenum, had been relentless - of a "change we can believe in" variety (no, nothing to do with American-style billion-dollar political campaigns). After all, the number 4 in the Politburo Standing Committee, Yu Zhengsheng, had publicly promised "unprecedented" reforms, leading to a "profound transformation in the economy, society and other spheres". The frenzy was mostly generated by a reform road map published by the State Council's Development Research Centre - the so-called "383 plan". In trademark Chinese numerology, the road map delineated the "three-in-one train of thought, the eight key areas and the three projects of reform". The secret of a successful reform would be "the proper handling of the ties between the government and the market". One of the authors of the report, Liu He, director of the Central Leading Group on Financial and Economic Affairs and a deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, actually became a superstar. And just before the Plenum, President - and CCP general secretary - Xi Jinping stressed, "reform and opening up are a never-ending process". I want my glasnost with ice, please So what will this glasnost with Chinese characteristics really amount to? Chinese public opinion still has not had access to the details of the dragon enigma inside the riddle - or vice-versa - although everything about these reforms directly impacts the lives of 1.3 billion people. Actually the box containing the enigma is hidden inside a pyramid - reflecting a decision process monopolized by a wise and benign party elite. "Transparency", here, does not even qualify as a mirror image. Everyone was expecting party pledges to increase the independence of the Chinese judiciary system and to keep fighting corruption and social injustice. Everyone was expecting a softening of the 33-year-old one-child policy - allowing more couples to have a second child; that's natural, considering the CCP aims for a consumer-based economy just as the Chinese population is aging. Everyone was expecting the tackling of land reform, directly linked to the new urbanization drive. And for the record, this is the first time the CCP acknowledged that "both the public and private sectors are the same important components of a socialist market economy and the important bases of our nation's economic and social development". In practice, this will mean the CCP breaking up state-sector monopolies in a few strategic industries. Private investment would be allowed, for instance, in banking, energy, infrastructure and telecommunications. This will also mean that many state-owned enterprises will cease to operate like arms of the government bureaucracy. In this case, expect fierce opposition from the proverbial entrenched interests - as in regional political elites fighting Beijing. The CCP's master plan is to expand the Chinese middle class to more than 50% of the population by 2050 (it's currently at 12%) - equalizing more consumption with social stability. For the moment, the public sector accounts for 25% of China's GDP. Most businesses in China are public/private enterprises already - but with 25% of all private enterprises having state-owned parent companies. Only 1.3% of Chinese workers are private entrepreneurs. Two-thirds of them previously worked in the party-state system. And 20% held a leadership position in their government or local party system. The central role of the state should not be altered by the coming reforms. After all, 40% of entrepreneurs are members of the CCP. They made a handsome profit from housing privatization. They offer no political opposition to the CCP - and will certainly profit from the reforms. What they want most of all is a more efficient system and more social justice. They harbor no regime change ideas. Watch these comrades rip In the end, the absolute key problem for China's next drive can easily be formulated Chinese-style; how to tweak the economy without any political reform. Even the Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping - arguably the greatest statesman of the second part of the 20th century - repeatedly stressed that economic reform in China would not go very far without a political system reform. In the short to medium term, it's hard to see the CCP allowing the caprices of the Goddess of the Market to shake, rattle and roll the Chinese economy at will. More "market", Western-style, will inevitably accentuate regional inequality to prohibitive levels - exactly when the CCP is trying very hard to ramp up the development of the poorer interior provinces. The cryptic communique is of course only an abbreviated road map. It will take days, weeks and even months for its detailed implications to sink in. What's certain is that the "decisive role" of market reform implies the CCP at the helm, monitoring every step of the process. It's like a ninja trying to tame a very powerful dragon non-stop. It will be an epic battle for the ages, to watch the CCP - an immense structural bureaucracy inbuilt in the Chinese government - perform this balancing act; matching its instincts for even stronger centralized control (not much glasnost allowed in the Internet, for example) with an explosion of social Darwinism caused by these "irrational" forces who couldn't care less about employment and social stability. Gweilos - or foreign barbarians in general - will underestimate Chinese resolve at their own peril. When the Little Helmsman launched his own economic reform - and brand of glasnost - in 1978, he turned the CCP upside down, all around, and squared the circle; breakneck economic development providing leeway to manage political problems, and some political changes allowing for even more breakneck economic development. So what if Xi and Li come up with a Deng remix - like inventing a new concept of market with Chinese characteristics? The sky - or China back to where it was for 18 of the past 20 centuries - is the limit. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Why France is playing 'stupid' on Iran By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE
Why France is playing 'stupid' on Iran
By Pepe Escobar 

PARIS - US Secretary of State John Kerry has famously stated the US "is not blind" or "stupid" in its push to clinch a historic deal over the Iranian nuclear program. [1] So now that the world has been informed, he must, cryptically, have been talking about France. 

The failed Geneva negotiations this past weekend over a temporary nuclear deal at least carried the merit of revealing who is really blocking it: the axis of fear and loathing composed by the Likudniks in Israel, the House of Saud, and the Francois Hollande administration in France. 

Torrents of bytes have already detailed how Israel routinely hijacks US foreign policy. Here's yet one more graphic demonstration of how Wag the Dog works. Last Friday evening, President Barack Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu asking him not to derail Geneva. Bibi then duly picked up the phone and called, in succession, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Hollande and asked them ... to derail Geneva. 

Hollande was the only one who followed Bibi's marching orders. And all this after Kerry himself had been lectured by Bibi at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on Friday morning. 

Flash forward to the coda, early Sunday morning. Not by accident, Wendy Sherman, the lead US negotiator on the Iranian nuclear dossier, a certified Israeli-firster and borderline racist, [2] flew from Geneva straight to Israel to duly "reassure" her true leader, Bibi, that no deal would be clinched. 

It's no secret that Bibi and the Likudniks also run a great deal of Capitol Hill. Apart from bombing Geneva, Bibi may also rack up another temporary victory, with the US Congress about to add even more sanctions on Iran by attaching them to the National Defense Authorization Act. 

Meet Bandar Fabius 
As far as French behavior is concerned, it is conditioned as much by the formidable Israeli lobby in Paris as hard cash from Gulf petro-monarchies. 

It certainly helped that, according to The Times of Israel, French parliament member Meyer Habib - also a holder of an Israeli passport, a former official Likud spokesperson in France, and a close pal of Bibi's - called French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to tell him Israel would attack Iranian nuclear installations if the current deal on the table was clinched. [3] 

Call it the AIPAC effect. Habib is the vice-president of the Conseil Representatif des Institutions juives de France, or CRIF - the French equivalent to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The ghostwriter of President Hollande's speeches also happens to be a member of CRIF. 

Fabius, grandiloquent and as slippery as runny Roquefort, invoked - what else - "security concerns of Israel" to derail Geneva. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javed Zarif were always extremely worried about being sabotaged by their own internal opposition, the hard line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. So their number one directive was that no details of the deal should be leaked during the negotiations. 

That's exactly what Fabius did. Even before Kerry landed in Geneva, Fabius was telling a French radio station that Paris would not accept a jeu des dupes ("fools' game"). 

The role of Fabius was pricelessly summed up by the proverbial unnamed Western diplomat telling Reuters, "The Americans, the EU and the Iranians have been working intensively for months on this proposal, and this is nothing more than an attempt by Fabius to insert himself into relevance late in the negotiations." [4] 

Terabytes of spin have been asserting that Washington and Paris are playing good cop-bad cop on the Iranian dossier. Not exactly; it's more like the Gallic rooster once again showing off. 

Hollande was gung-ho on bombing Damascus when Obama backed off at the 11th minute from the Pentagon's "limited" attack; Hollande was left staring at a stale bottle of Moet. On both Syria and Lebanon, Paris is unabashedly playing a mix of neocolonial hugs and kisses while sharing the bed with Israel and the House of Saud. 

But why, once again, shoot itself in the foot? Paris has lost a lot of money - not to mention French jobs, via automaker Peugeot - because of the Iran sanctions dementia. 

Ah, but there is always the seduction of Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush, and the Gulf petro-monarchies. In a nutshell; Bandar Fabius was nothing but playing paperboy for the House of Saud. The prize: huge military contracts - aircraft, warships, missile systems - and possible construction of nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia, a deal similar to the one energy giant French Areva clinched last year with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

The ghost of Montaigne must be squirming; France does not do irony anymore. Iran has no right to have its own nuclear plants, but France builds them and operates them for its Wahhabi clients.

The West doing Israel's bidding makes sense; after all Israel may also be interpreted as a Western aircraft carrier in the heart of the Arab Middle East. As for France doing the Wahhabis' bidding, just follow the money - from Veolia building and operating water desalination plants in Saudi Arabia to all those Rafale fighter jets to be unloaded. 

Qatar, that slavery paradise presented by FIFA with a World Cup, has already invested over US$15 billion - and counting - in France, from shares in Veolia and energy behemoth Total to construction firm Vinci, media giant Lagardere, and full control of Paris Saint Germain, home of the new King of Paris, football icon Zlatan "Ibracadabra" Ibrahimovic. Not to mention that Qatar has bought virtually every significant square inch between Madeleine and Opera in Paris. 

Hollande is a joke. This week he's on the cover of the Courrier International weekly (headline: "The Art of the Fall"), with pan-European media judging him "incoherent", "paralyzed" and "incompetent" (and these are the merciful epithets). On the weekend edition of the establishment Le Figaro daily, he was being destroyed because of France's (latest) credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poor's. 

King Sarko The First - aka former president Nicolas Sarkozy - must be beaming; Hollande is now the most unpopular president in French history. Paris remains great - but mostly for hordes of fleeting tourists from emerging markets, not for hordes of unemployed Parisians. 

So it's Bandar Fabius to the rescue! Gulf petro-monarchy cash is the salvation. In thesis, this show of "independence" should translate into billions of euros in contracts and investments. It also helps that "incompetent" Hollande is on an official visit to Israel in the next few days. 

That pivot to Persia
Forget about finding details of the real reasons for this "show of independence" in French mainstream media, apart from Le Monde Diplomatique's Alain Gresh in his blog. [5] 

Explanations are absolutely pathetic. France is "alone against all"; it has shown "responsibility"; it has "reaffirmed its independence". And of course all the blame lies on Kerry, who allegedly "came up with a text that nobody ever saw before". Every shill has scrambled to cast Israeli-firster Fabius as savior. And yet the Elysee Palace has stressed that Fabius was just following Hollande's orders - which, in thesis, meant renegotiating the "weak points" of the deal. Call it, essentially, "incompetent" Hollande showing Obama he's got balls. 

Paris has spun that the problems with the deal concern Tehran's heavy-water reactor in Arak and its stock of medium-enriched uranium. US and Iranian diplomats had been working hard towards a compromise; Tehran would keep building the reactor over the six-month period of the interim agreement, but tests would be with dummy fuel rods and ordinary water. 

Kerry was working on it until Fabius unleashed his peacock act in a long session that only finished late into Saturday morning. This led Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif to note, wryly, that the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany) needed to negotiate with each other before negotiating with Iran. 

The P5+1 internal mess could seriously compromise the next round of negotiations next week in Geneva. Yet Kerry, if he noticed it, managed to change his narrative to something even more theater of the absurd; he's now blaming Iran for the non-deal. [6] It's as if, after reading the French papers, he decided to atone for his sins. 

Arguably Iran has proved to the whole, real, flesh and blood "international community" that it wants a deal and it is willing to negotiate. But then there are the sanctions to be approved by the US Congress - a de facto internal American sabotage. Yet these are third-party sanctions - where other countries are "punished" by the US for trading with Iran. No one will take these seriously, starting with the Asian powers, Turkey and Russia. 

For the moment, no deal may seem better than a bad deal. It might happen at the next meeting, in Geneva on November 22. Most likely, a full interim deal will happen in a few months. The Obama administration wants a deal. France, for all its posture, is irrelevant. 

Worse. Paris is being "blind" and "stupid" - to adapt Kerry's words - by alienating French companies, in the energy sector, nuclear energy and manufacturing, from the fabulous possibilities unleashed by a normalized relationship between Iran and the West. If the Hollande gang believes they will be "saved" by the Wahhabis, they must be on mescal. 

It may take years - and it will. But Washington will inevitably find some sort of accommodation with Iran. US corporations want it. The energy-starved West wants it. Even the US hyperpower complex wants it - as it will give it way more leeway in Southwest Asia and beyond. The axis of fear and loathing of Israel, the House of Saud and France may play spoilers - but not for long. "Pivot to Asia"? Not before a pivot to Persia. 

Notes:
1. Iran nuclear talks: US 'not stupid' - John Kerry, BBC News, November 10, 2013.
2. The DNA of Iranians and Under Secretary Sherman, Counterpunch, November 4, 2013.
3. Israel will attack Iran if you sign the deal, French MP told Fabius, Times of Israel, November 10, 2013.
4. Iran nuclear deal unlikely as split emerges in Western camp: diplomats, Reuters, November 9, 2013.
5. Click here (in French).
6. Iran balked at Geneva nuclear deal, says John Kerry, The Guardian, November 11, 2013. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

JFK assassination conspirator shows up on CIA Allende ouster order

JFK assassination conspirator shows up on CIA Allende ouster order

The CIA's point man for Western Hemisphere operations, David Atlee Philiips, CIA cover name "Maurice Bishop," is the originator of a formerly Secret CIA order to the agency's Santiago, Chile station to "contact the [Chilean] military and  let them know USG [U.S. Government] wants a military solution." The "military solution" referred to in the October 7, 1970 order, which was heavily redacted before its release in 2000, would eventually result in the September 11, 1973 coup against democratically-elected Socialist President Salvador Allende Gossens by Chile's military chief, General Augusto Pinochet.

Although CIA-financed media continue to maintain that Allende committed suicide with an AK-47 during the military assault on the presidential palace, it is clear that Allende was assassinated. And when it came to assassinations, Phillips was unmatched in the CIA. Phillips, who hailed from Fort Worth, Texas, was the agency's liaison to the Cuban exile guerrilla group Alpha 66. Accused "Marxist" defector to the USSR, Lee Harvey Oswald, attended at least one meeting of Alpha 66 at which Phillips was also present. Phillips was also allegedly Oswald's CIA control officer in Dallas prior to the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. After the assassination, Phillips ensured that his young "apprentice" was silenced before he could reveal the extent of the conspiracy to murder the president.





Phillips was also assigned to the CIA station in Miami, JM/WAVE, which plotted to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. After he retired in 1975, Phillips was implicated in the 1976 terrorist car bombing on Sheridan Circle in Washington, DC that killed former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his American colleague, Ronni Moffitt of the Institute for Policy Studies. CIA director George H. W. Bush was also implicated in the car bombing.

Many JFK assassination experts have identified the black-haired man standing behind the reporter holding the microphone up to alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and the Dallas sheriff wearing the Stetson hat to be David Atlee Phillips.

Phillips's order to the CIA station in Santiago was to "use all available assets and stratagems including the rumor-mill to create at least some sort of coup climate." The memo instructs the CIA to attempt to provoke the left. The CIA Santiago station is ordered to give first priority to lay the groundwork for a military coup "between now and 24 October." The instructions state that "all other considerations are secondary . . . and (the station] should not let other activity [by it and its officers to] vitiate [spoil] this three-pronged task." The CIA station is ordered not to concern itself with the PDC [Christian Democratic Party], Frei [former Christian Democratic Party President Eduardo Frei Montalva, believed to have been medically assassinated by Pinochet's regime in 1982], Vital Center, and PN [National Party].

Atlee's final order is: "In sum, we want you to sponsor a military move which can take place, to the extent possible, in a climate of economic and political uncertainty." The "we" to which Atlee referred included then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger.

The same CIA playbook of fomenting political turmoil and economic chaos prior to staging military coups were used in other Latin American countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Ecuador, Honduras, Panama, Guatemala, and is being used at this very moment in Venezuela.

-----

Related note:

Due to the ground work and advance liaison with embassies in Washington required to examine the national archives of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay for information relating to the role of Kissinger in the Chile coup and Operation CONDOR, WMR has had to delay our planned archival hunt to early 2014. WMR again thanks all those who contributed to our special research fund to carry out this important research opportunity.

WMR will also be present in Dallas for the Coalition on Presidential Assassinations (COPA) conference, which will be held during the 50th anniversary observances of President Kennedy's assassination.

National Security Agency – The only part of the government that really listens to what you have to say By William Blum

The Anti-Empire Report #122

By William Blum – Published November 7th, 2013

http://williamblum.org/aer/read/122

National Security Agency – The only part of the government that really listens to what you have to say

The New York Times (November 2) ran a long article based on NSA documents released by Edward Snowden. One of the lines that most caught my attention concerned “Sigint” – Signals intelligence, the term used for electronic intercepts. The document stated:

“Sigint professionals must hold the moral high ground, even as terrorists or dictators seek to exploit our freedoms. Some of our adversaries will say or do anything to advance their cause; we will not.”

What, I wondered, might that mean? What would the National Security Agency – on moral principle – refuse to say or do?

I have on occasion asked people who reject or rationalize any and all criticism of US foreign policy: “What would the United States have to do in its foreign policy to lose your support? What, for you, would be too much?” I’ve yet to get a suitable answer to that question. I suspect it’s because the person is afraid that whatever they say I’ll point out that the United States has already done it.

The United Nations vote on the Cuba embargo – 22 years in a row

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We haven’t heard that for a very long time. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions):

Year	Votes (Yes-No)	No Votes
1992	59-2	US, Israel
1993	88-4	US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay
1994	101-2	US, Israel
1995	117-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1996	138-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1997	143-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1998	157-2	US, Israel
1999	155-2	US, Israel
2000	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2001	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2002	173-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2003	179-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2004	179-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2005	182-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2006	183-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2007	184-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2008	185-3	US, Israel, Palau
2009	187-3	US, Israel, Palau
2010	187-2	US, Israel
2011	186-2	US, Israel
2012	188-3	US, Israel, Palau
2013	188-2	US, Israel

Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.

Speaking before the General Assembly, October 29, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared: “The economic damages accumulated after half a century as a result of the implementation of the blockade amount to $1.126 trillion.” He added that the blockade “has been further tightened under President Obama’s administration”, some 30 US and foreign entities being hit with $2.446 billion in fines due to their interaction with Cuba.

However, the American envoy, Ronald Godard, in an appeal to other countries to oppose the resolution, said:

“The international community … cannot in good conscience ignore the ease and frequency with which the Cuban regime silences critics, disrupts peaceful assembly, impedes independent journalism and, despite positive reforms, continues to prevent some Cubans from leaving or returning to the island. The Cuban government continues its tactics of politically motivated detentions, harassment and police violence against Cuban citizens.”1

So there you have it. That is why Cuba must be punished. One can only guess what Mr. Godard would respond if told that more than 7,000 people were arrested in the United States during the Occupy Movement’s first 8 months of protest 2 ; that their encampments were violently smashed up; that many of them were physically abused by the police.

Does Mr. Godard ever read a newspaper or the Internet, or watch television? Hardly a day passes in America without a police officer shooting to death an unarmed person?

As to “independent journalism” – what would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money – secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba – would own or control most of the media worth owning or controlling?

The real reason for Washington’s eternal hostility toward Cuba? The fear of a good example of an alternative to the capitalist model; a fear that has been validated repeatedly over the years as Third World countries have expressed their adulation of Cuba.

How the embargo began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.” Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” 3 Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against its everlasting enemy.

The Cold War Revisited

I’ve written the Introduction to a new book recently published in Russia that is sort of an updating of my book Killing Hope. 4 Here is a short excerpt:

The Cold War had not been a struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. It had been a struggle between the United States and the Third World, which, in the decade following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, continued in Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, Yugoslavia and elsewhere.

The Cold War had not been a worldwide crusade by America to halt Soviet expansion, real or imaginary. It had been a worldwide crusade by America to block political and social changes in the Third World, changes opposed by the American power elite.

The Cold War had not been a glorious and noble movement of freedom and democracy against Communist totalitarianism. It had typically been a movement by the United States in support of dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and corrupt oligarchies which were willing to follow Washington’s party line on the Left, US corporations, Israel, oil, military bases, et al. and who protected American political and economic interests in their countries in exchange for the American military and CIA keeping them in power against the wishes of their own people.

In other words, whatever the diplomats at the time thought they were doing, the Cold War revisionists have been vindicated. American policy had been about imperialism and military expansion.

Apropos the countless other myths we were all taught about the Soviet Union is this letter I recently received from one of my readers, a Russian woman, age 49, who moved to the United States eight years ago and now lives in Northern Virginia:

I can’t imagine why anybody is surprised to hear when I say I miss life in the Soviet Union: what is bad about free healthcare and education, guaranteed employment, guaranteed free housing? No rent or mortgage of any kind, only utilities, but they were subsidized too, so it was really pennies. Now, to be honest, there was a waiting list to get those apartments, so some people got them quicker, some people had to wait for years, it all depended on where you worked. And there were no homeless people, and crime was way lower. As a first grader I was taking the public transportation to go to school, which was about 1 hour away by bus (it was a big city, about the size of Washington DC, we lived on the outskirts, and my school was downtown), and it was fine, all other kids were doing it. Can you even imagine this being done now? I am not saying everything was perfect, but overall, it is a more stable and socially just system, fair to everybody, nobody was left behind. This is what I miss: peace and stability, and not being afraid of the future.

Problem is, nobody believes it, they will say that I am a brainwashed “tovarish” [comrade]. I’ve tried to argue with Americans about this before, but just gave up now. They just refuse to believe anything that contradicts what CNN has been telling them for all their lives. One lady once told me: “You just don’t know what was going on there, because you did not have freedom of speech, but we, Americans, knew everything, because we could read about all of this in our media.” I told her “I was right there! I did not need to read about this in the media, I lived that life!”, but she still was unconvinced! You will not believe what she said: “Yes, maybe, but we have more stuff!”. Seriously, having 50 kinds of cereal available in the store, and walmarts full of plastic junk is more valuable to Americans than a stable and secure life, and social justice for everybody?

Of course there are people who lived in the Soviet Union who disagree with me, and I talked to them too, but I find their reasons just as silly. I heard one Russian lady whose argument was that Stalin killed “30, no 40 million people”. First of all it’s not true (I don’t in any way defend Stalin, but I do think that lying and exaggerating about him is as wrong)*, and second of all what does this have to do with the 70s, when I was a kid? By then life was completely different. I heard other arguments, like food shortages (again, not true, it’s not like there was no food at all, there were shortages of this or that specific product, like you wouldn’t find mayo or bologna in the store some days, but everything else was there!). So, you would come back next day, or in 2-3 days, and you would find them there. Really, this is such a big deal? Or you would have to stay in line to buy some other product, (ravioli for example). But how badly do you want that ravioli really that day, can’t you have anything else instead? Just buy something else, like potatoes, where there was no line.

Was this annoying, yes, and at the time I was annoyed too, but only now I realized that I would much prefer this nuisance to my present life now, when I am constantly under stress for the fear that I can possibly lose my job (as my husband already did), and as a result, lose everything else – my house? You couldn’t possibly lose your house in Soviet Union, it was yours for life, mortgage free. Only now, living here in the US, I realized that all those soviet nuisances combined were not as important as the benefits we had – housing, education, healthcare, employment, safe streets, all sort of free after school activities (music, sports, arts, anything you want) for kids, so parents never had to worry about what we do all day till they come home in the evening.

* We’ve all heard the figures many times … 10 million … 20 million … 40 million … 60 million … died under Stalin. But what does the number mean, whichever number you choose? Of course many people died under Stalin, many people died under Roosevelt, and many people are still dying under Bush. Dying appears to be a natural phenomenon in every country. The question is how did those people die under Stalin? Did they die from the famines that plagued the USSR in the 1920s and 30s? Did the Bolsheviks deliberately create those famines? How? Why? More people certainly died in India in the 20th century from famines than in the Soviet Union, but no one accuses India of the mass murder of its own citizens. Did the millions die from disease in an age before antibiotics? In prison? From what causes? People die in prison in the United States on a regular basis. Were millions actually murdered in cold blood? If so, how? How many were criminals executed for non-political crimes? The logistics of murdering tens of millions of people is daunting. 5

Let’s not repeat the Barack fuckup with Hillary

Not that it really matters who the Democrats nominate for the presidency in 2016. Whoever that politically regressive and morally bankrupt party chooses will be at best an uninspired and uninspiring centrist; in European terms a center-rightist; who believes that the American Empire – despite the admittedly occasional excessive behavior – is mankind’s last great hope. The only reason I bother to comment on this question so far in advance of the election is that the forces behind Clinton have clearly already begun their campaign and I’d like to use the opportunity to try to educate the many progressives who fell in love with Obama and may be poised now to embrace Clinton. Here’s what I wrote in July 2007 during the very early days of the 2008 campaign:

Who do you think said this on June 20? a) Rudy Giuliani; b) Hillary Clinton; c) George Bush; d) Mitt Romney; or e) Barack Obama?

“The American military has done its job. Look what they accomplished. They got rid of Saddam Hussein. They gave the Iraqis a chance for free and fair elections. They gave the Iraqi government the chance to begin to demonstrate that it understood its responsibilities to make the hard political decisions necessary to give the people of Iraq a better future. So the American military has succeeded. It is the Iraqi government which has failed to make the tough decisions which are important for their own people.” 6

Right, it was the woman who wants to be president because … because she wants to be president … because she thinks it would be nice to be president … no other reason, no burning cause, no heartfelt desire for basic change in American society or to make a better world … she just thinks it would be nice, even great, to be president. And keep the American Empire in business, its routine generating of horror and misery being no problem; she wouldn’t want to be known as the president that hastened the decline of the empire.

And she spoke the above words at the “Take Back America” conference; she was speaking to liberals, committed liberal Democrats and others further left. She didn’t have to cater to them with any flag-waving pro-war rhetoric; they wanted to hear anti-war rhetoric (and she of course gave them a bit of that as well out of the other side of her mouth), so we can assume that this is how she really feels, if indeed the woman feels anything. The audience, it should be noted, booed her, for the second year in a row.

Think of why you are opposed to the war. Is it not largely because of all the unspeakable suffering brought down upon the heads and souls of the poor people of Iraq by the American military? Hillary Clinton couldn’t care less about that, literally. She thinks the American military has “succeeded”. Has she ever unequivocally labeled the war “illegal” or “immoral”? I used to think that Tony Blair was a member of the right wing or conservative wing of the British Labour Party. I finally realized one day that that was an incorrect description of his ideology. Blair is a conservative, a bloody Tory. How he wound up in the Labour Party is a matter I haven’t studied. Hillary Clinton, however, I’ve long known is a conservative; going back to at least the 1980s, while the wife of the Arkansas governor, she strongly supported the death-squad torturers known as the Contras, who were the empire’s proxy army in Nicaragua. 7

Now we hear from America’s venerable conservative magazine, William Buckley’s National Review, an editorial by Bruce Bartlett, policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan; treasury official under President George H.W. Bush; a fellow at two of the leading conservative think-tanks, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute – You get the picture? Bartlett tells his readers that it’s almost certain that the Democrats will win the White House in 2008. So what to do? Support the most conservative Democrat. He writes: “To right-wingers willing to look beneath what probably sounds to them like the same identical views of the Democratic candidates, it is pretty clear that Hillary Clinton is the most conservative.” 8

We also hear from America’s premier magazine for the corporate wealthy, Fortune, whose recent cover features a picture of Clinton and the headline: “Business Loves Hillary”. 9

Back to 2013: In October, the office of billionaire George Soros, who has long worked with US foreign policy to destabilize governments not in love with the empire, announced that “George Soros is delighted to join more than one million Americans in supporting Ready for Hillary.” 10

There’s much more evidence of Hillary Clinton’s conservative leanings, but if you need more, you’re probably still in love with Obama, who in a new book is quoted telling his aides during a comment on drone strikes that he’s “really good at killing people”. 11 Can we look forward to Hillary winning the much-discredited Nobel Peace Prize?

I’m sorry if I take away all your fun.

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Notes

1. Democracy Now!, “U.N. General Assembly Votes Overwhelmingly Against U.S. Embargo of Cuba”, October 30, 2013 ↩
2. Huffingfton Post, May 3, 2012 ↩
3. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba (1991), p.885 ↩
4. Copies can be purchased by emailing kuchkovopole@mail.ru ↩
5. From William Blum, Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire (2005), p.194 ↩
6. Speaking at the “Take Back America” conference, organized by the Campaign for America’s Future, June 20, 2007, Washington, DC; this excerpt can be heard on Democracy Now!’s website ↩
7. Roger Morris, former member of the National Security Council, Partners in Power (1996), p.415 ↩
8. National Review Online, May 1, 2007 ↩
9. Fortune magazine, July 9, 2007 ↩
10. Washington Post, October 25, 2013 ↩
11. Washington Post, November 1, 2013, review of “Double Down: Game Change 2012” ↩

Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided attribution to William Blum as author and a link to this website are given.