Criminal State

Apartheid Wall

Unless President Barack Obama resolves to expunge “special” from the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship,” this entangled alliance will continue to ensure that the U.S. is portrayed as guilty by its association with Tel Aviv’s thuggish behavior in Palestine and elsewhere. And by the U.S. insistence that Israel not be held accountable under international law.

On July 3rd, Israeli ambassador Michael Oren claimed “Iran nuke could wipe Israel off the map in seconds.” An accurate translation reveals that what the president of Iran proposes is that Zionism be “erased from the pages of history.” But why quibble over words and their intent when Israel’s intent is to create a consensus that ensures war with Iran?

Two days after Oren’s saber-rattling speech, Vice-President Joe Biden was asked in a televised interview whether the Obama Administration would restrain Israeli military action against Iran. President Obama was then out of the country. A self-proclaimed Zionist, Biden responded, “Israel can determine for itself—it’s a sovereign nation—what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAZmO80dLfE

Unfamiliar with the refrain, “loose lips sink ships,” Biden’s cavalier comment evoked memories of Vice President Dick Cheney who routinely waited until his boss was out of town to make bellicose remarks that moved the U.S. steadily closer to war in Iraq.

Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, scrambled to offset the impression left by Biden’s comment. Astute strategists know it is the small impressions that, step-by-step, form the consensus beliefs that shape policy-making. It was the gradual drip, drip, drip of such impressions that created the (false) consensus belief that Iraq had WMD, ties to Al Qaeda and mobile biological weapons laboratories.

Pro-Israeli pundits quickly claimed that, with Biden’s comment, Washington had given Tel Aviv the green light to attack Iran. Mullen grabbed media attention to reconfirm the obvious: an attack on Iran could have “grave and unpredictable consequences.”

Arrogant, Aggressive & Above the Law

What has Israel done to quell these global jitters? Tel Aviv ordered a long-range Air Force exercise covering the same distance as from Israel to Iran. It dispatched through the Suez Canal a Dolphin class submarine, three of which are widely believed capable of launching a nuclear missile attack. And it sent a “message” to Iran by sailing two Saar class missile ships through the canal into the Red Sea, putting them within striking distance of Tehran.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News played its usual supporting role by announcing Israeli Navy Prepares for Potential Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities. To date, Barack Obama has shown little inclination to say no to Tel Aviv and show he means it. Instead, his administration has staffed up with advisers who are disproportionately pro-Israeli—more so even than the Bush and Clinton presidencies.

When in February he failed to support the nomination of Ambassador Charles Freeman as Director of the National Intelligence Council, Obama served global notice of just how much influence Israel wields over U.S. foreign policy. Opposition to Freeman was led by Steven Rosen, a former executive of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Though you would never know it from reports in mainstream media, Rosen had been indicted under the Espionage Act for transferring to the Israeli embassy classified Pentagon intelligence on Iran.

Adding insult to the Freeman injury, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder approved the withdrawal of charges against Rosen and co-conspirator Keith Weissman, another AIPAC executive. After receiving a 12-year sentence for conceding his complicity, Pentagon Iran analyst Lawrence Franklin saw his sentence reduced to time served under house arrest and was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. So much for accountability.

Just as he said not a word on Gaza, Obama remained silent on Freeman. Left to twist in the wind by the commander in chief, Freeman withdrew his nomination. When he vowed not to remain silent in his critique of the Israel lobby, Washington Post editors denied there was such a lobby, dismissed his critique as a “conspiracy theory” and attacked his comments as a “crackpot tirade.”

Though AIPAC avowed it took no stand on the appointment, reports confirm it leaned on key senators and later boasted that Obama was a “pushover.” In a fiery rejoinder to his critics, Freeman noted, “This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.”

Palestinians are correct to wonder how Americans could be so unresponsive to their abuse at the hands of a U.S. ally. What those in the Middle East fail to grasp is that Americans do not know. How could they? Mainstream media is dominated by pro-Israelis and the Israeli lobby politically dominates U.S. foreign policy in the region. http://criminalstate.com/blog/?p=99

Freeman was correct in the mid-1990s when he described the lobby’s “virtual hammerlock on American foreign policy.” The only difference now is that Israeli influence has grown far more systemic. An admirer of Israel, Freeman cautions: “Right now it is doing itself in and taking us with it.” By seeking to induce the U.S. to wage war in Iran, Tel Aviv confirms its agenda has little to do with U.S. interests and everything to do with its expansionist goals for the region.

Self-censorship in both politics and media precludes Americans from knowing the perils that accompany the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Nor do Americans know the horrors that this alliance has imposed on Palestinians. Activist Alison Weir dedicated an aptly named website to educating Americans: If Americans Knew. http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

Those who know are rarities. Those who know and criticize Israeli policy are routinely smeared with the toxic charge of anti-Semitism. Following Israel’s assault on Gaza, a high profile intimidation campaign against an academic critic at the University of California worked its intended silencing effect on academic critics nationwide. http://criminalstate.com/blog/?p=94

The behavior of this extremist nationalist enclave thrives in darkness, a condition that aptly describes U.S. media coverage of conditions in Palestine. Steadily more Americans are working to make Israel’s thuggish conduct transparent but the numbers are few and the challenges great.

The U.S. is branded abroad as a nation governed on the basis of informed consent. Yet pro-Israelis maintain a virtual lockdown on information and debate on Israel. The fight for Palestine must be waged and won in the U.S. where the appeasement of Israel relies on a lack of knowledge. If Americans knew, their support would be withdrawn. The U.S.-Israeli relationship will remain “special” only so long as Zionism can continue to operate in the shadows.

Criminal State, Distorted Media, Domestic Press, Foreign Press, Israel lobby, Politics, Uncategorized, Washington Politics aipac, Alison Weir, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Charles Freeman, conspiracy theory, Dick Cheney, Eric Holder, Fox News, If Americans Knew, Israel lobby, Joe Biden, Keith Weissman, Lawrence Franklin, mainstream media, Michael Mullen, Michael Oren, Rupert Murdoch, special relationship, Steven Rosen, U.S.-Israeli relationship

Unless President Barack Obama resolves to expunge “special” from the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship,” this entangled alliance will continue to ensure that the U.S. is portrayed as guilty by its association with Tel Aviv’s thuggish behavior in Palestine and elsewhere. And by the U.S. insistence that Israel not be held accountable under international law.

On July 3rd, Israeli ambassador Michael Oren claimed “Iran nuke could wipe Israel off the map in seconds.” An accurate translation reveals that what the president of Iran proposes is that Zionism be “erased from the pages of history.” But why quibble over words and their intent when Israel’s intent is to create a consensus that ensures war with Iran?

Two days after Oren’s saber-rattling speech, Vice-President Joe Biden was asked in a televised interview whether the Obama Administration would restrain Israeli military action against Iran. President Obama was then out of the country. A self-proclaimed Zionist, Biden responded, “Israel can determine for itself—it’s a sovereign nation—what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAZmO80dLfE

Unfamiliar with the refrain, “loose lips sink ships,” Biden’s cavalier comment evoked memories of Vice President Dick Cheney who routinely waited until his boss was out of town to make bellicose remarks that moved the U.S. steadily closer to war in Iraq.

Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, scrambled to offset the impression left by Biden’s comment. Astute strategists know it is the small impressions that, step-by-step, form the consensus beliefs that shape policy-making. It was the gradual drip, drip, drip of such impressions that created the (false) consensus belief that Iraq had WMD, ties to Al Qaeda and mobile biological weapons laboratories.

Pro-Israeli pundits quickly claimed that, with Biden’s comment, Washington had given Tel Aviv the green light to attack Iran. Mullen grabbed media attention to reconfirm the obvious: an attack on Iran could have “grave and unpredictable consequences.”

Arrogant, Aggressive & Above the Law

What has Israel done to quell these global jitters? Tel Aviv ordered a long-range Air Force exercise covering the same distance as from Israel to Iran. It dispatched through the Suez Canal a Dolphin class submarine, three of which are widely believed capable of launching a nuclear missile attack. And it sent a “message” to Iran by sailing two Saar class missile ships through the canal into the Red Sea, putting them within striking distance of Tehran.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News played its usual supporting role by announcing Israeli Navy Prepares for Potential Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities. To date, Barack Obama has shown little inclination to say no to Tel Aviv and show he means it. Instead, his administration has staffed up with advisers who are disproportionately pro-Israeli—more so even than the Bush and Clinton presidencies.

When in February he failed to support the nomination of Ambassador Charles Freeman as Director of the National Intelligence Council, Obama served global notice of just how much influence Israel wields over U.S. foreign policy. Opposition to Freeman was led by Steven Rosen, a former executive of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Though you would never know it from reports in mainstream media, Rosen had been indicted under the Espionage Act for transferring to the Israeli embassy classified Pentagon intelligence on Iran.

Adding insult to the Freeman injury, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder approved the withdrawal of charges against Rosen and co-conspirator Keith Weissman, another AIPAC executive. After receiving a 12-year sentence for conceding his complicity, Pentagon Iran analyst Lawrence Franklin saw his sentence reduced to time served under house arrest and was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. So much for accountability.

Just as he said not a word on Gaza, Obama remained silent on Freeman. Left to twist in the wind by the commander in chief, Freeman withdrew his nomination. When he vowed not to remain silent in his critique of the Israel lobby, Washington Post editors denied there was such a lobby, dismissed his critique as a “conspiracy theory” and attacked his comments as a “crackpot tirade.”

Though AIPAC avowed it took no stand on the appointment, reports confirm it leaned on key senators and later boasted that Obama was a “pushover.” In a fiery rejoinder to his critics, Freeman noted, “This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.”

Palestinians are correct to wonder how Americans could be so unresponsive to their abuse at the hands of a U.S. ally. What those in the Middle East fail to grasp is that Americans do not know. How could they? Mainstream media is dominated by pro-Israelis and the Israeli lobby politically dominates U.S. foreign policy in the region. http://criminalstate.com/blog/?p=99

Freeman was correct in the mid-1990s when he described the lobby’s “virtual hammerlock on American foreign policy.” The only difference now is that Israeli influence has grown far more systemic. An admirer of Israel, Freeman cautions: “Right now it is doing itself in and taking us with it.” By seeking to induce the U.S. to wage war in Iran, Tel Aviv confirms its agenda has little to do with U.S. interests and everything to do with its expansionist goals for the region.

Self-censorship in both politics and media precludes Americans from knowing the perils that accompany the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Nor do Americans know the horrors that this alliance has imposed on Palestinians. Activist Alison Weir dedicated an aptly named website to educating Americans: If Americans Knew. http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

Those who know are rarities. Those who know and criticize Israeli policy are routinely smeared with the toxic charge of anti-Semitism. Following Israel’s assault on Gaza, a high profile intimidation campaign against an academic critic at the University of California worked its intended silencing effect on academic critics nationwide. http://criminalstate.com/blog/?p=94

The behavior of this extremist nationalist enclave thrives in darkness, a condition that aptly describes U.S. media coverage of conditions in Palestine. Steadily more Americans are working to make Israel’s thuggish conduct transparent but the numbers are few and the challenges great.

The U.S. is branded abroad as a nation governed on the basis of informed consent. Yet pro-Israelis maintain a virtual lockdown on information and debate on Israel. The fight for Palestine must be waged and won in the U.S. where the appeasement of Israel relies on a lack of knowledge. If Americans knew, their support would be withdrawn. The U.S.-Israeli relationship will remain “special” only so long as Zionism can continue to operate in the shadows.

Criminal State, Distorted Media, Domestic Press, Foreign Press, Palestine, Politics, Washington Politics aipac, Alison Weir, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Charles Freeman, conspiracy theory, Dick Cheney, Eric Holder, Fox News, If Americans Knew, Israel lobby, Joe Biden, Keith Weissman, Lawrence Franklin, mainstream media, Michael Mullen, Michael Oren, Rupert Murdoch, special relationship, Steven Rosen, U.S.-Israeli relationship

President Obama’s decision to release top-secret torture memos was reached in the office of Rahm Emanuel over protests from the Director of Central Intelligence. Former Vice President Dick Cheney defended the practice, claiming America is safer for it. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi then sought to defend her criticism despite early knowledge of it.

Caught lying, Pelosi attacked the CIA. Director Leon Panetta defended Agency briefers and their detailed records of what Pelosi was told. Needing the Speaker’s help to spearhead his ambitious legislative agenda, Obama’s team brokered a peace between Democrats Pelosi and Panetta.

Why did both Republican Cheney and Democrat Pelosi support the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on one particular “high value” detainee? Answer: the case for war required a plausible “high-level link” between the secular Saddam—who hated religious fundamentalists—and the religious fundamentalists of Al Qaeda—who hated him. After 83 waterboardings, the link emerged in a confession.

Akin to the Inquisition, this detainee was “put to the question.” When proposing to wage a global crusade on false pretenses (The Clash of Civilizations), war-planners required One True Faith in that linkage. As in the Dark Ages, the confession was later recanted and the case collapsed—but only after the war in Iraq was well underway.

Even now that link remains an article of faith—alongside weapons of mass destruction, meetings in Prague and mobile biological weapons laboratories. All were bogus. But without this key link, the case would have been exposed as phony, even treasonous. However, the worst was yet to come—a November 18 White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a two-hour Oval Office encounter with this hawkish right-winger, an untested U.S. commander in chief met his Monica Lewinsky. Distracted by a promiscuous White House intern, Bill Clinton found himself embroiled in impeachment proceedings when he should have been keeping a closer eye on Al Qaeda. The allure of Netanyahu differs in kind but not in its impact on national security—and potentially on the Obama presidency.

The day before their meeting, Netanyahu met with an ebullient American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee. Obama’s Justice Department had not only withdrawn its espionage case against two AIPAC spies, the lobby had also silenced Obama while they savaged Charles Freeman, forcing him to withdraw his acceptance as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. A known skeptic of Israeli designs on the region, Freeman would have overseen the National Intelligence Estimate, coordinating the views of all 16 intelligence agencies.

By the time Netanyahu appeared alongside Obama, a U.S. president looked like he was a visitor in the office of the Israeli Prime Minister. Rather than issue photographs of their meeting as he did days earlier with Israeli president Shimon Peres, Obama granted Netanyahu a widely reported press conference in which he failed to press Israel’s new prime minister to end the four-decade occupation of Palestine as the top priority for achieving peace in the region.

Instead, he allowed the Israeli leader to use the White House as a pulpit to announce that peace with the Palestinians was a distant second to the risks posed by Iran. Romanced by Netanyahu and the pro-Israelis who populate his presidency, Obama once again fulfilled AIPAC’s wish list. By allowing pro-Israelis to control the White House agenda and Israelis to control the message, Obama signaled a go-ahead to those long determined to expand to Iran the war in Iraq.

While Netanyahu met with Obama, Israelis were pouring the foundations for settlement expansion, that conduct sent a clear signal to those waiting to see who controls foreign policy in the Obama administration. Only the next day did Secretary of State Clinton call for a halt to the settlements.

When Israeli jets bombed Gaza the next day, that conduct reconfirmed who controls U.S. policy. Only after their meeting did CIA Director Panetta urge that Israel not attack Iran. By then it was too late. America’s commander-in-chief had tipped his hand: what AIPAC wants, Israel gets.

Within 24 hours of their meeting, a letter was delivered to Obama by 76 Senators warning, “We must take into account the risks (Israel) will face in any peace agreement.” Within 48 hours, a 90-6 Senate vote denied Obama the funds required to close detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. In a resounding rebuke, both Democrats and Republicans decried his inexperience in national security—making the militaristic Netanyahu look “presidential” by comparison.

The vote tally was known well beforehand by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, Obama’s top political strategist. Both played key roles in producing this presidency. Both Obama and national security were victims of this sophisticated operation.

In stage-managing this series of back-to-back political debacles, Obama’s pro-Israeli advisers worked hand-in-glove with the Israel lobby to ensure he was left with few options but to support Israel’s designs on the region. Forced to prove his mettle, the commander-in-chief will find he has no hope of managing his way through the crises now awaiting him—except to back Israel’s expansionist agenda for the Middle East, ensuring more hatred for the U.S. while fueling The Clash. In the pursuit of Israel’s agenda, the Obama presidency is proving itself the missing link.

Uncategorized aipac, Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu, Charles Freeman, Chas Freeman, CIA Director, Clash of Civilizations, Dark Ages, David Axelrod, Dick Cheney, enhanced interrogation methods, espionage case, fixed intelligence, Guantanamo Bay, high value detainee, high-level link, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, missing link, mobile biological weapons laboratories, Monica Lewinsky, Nancy Pelosi, National Intelligence Council, National Intelligence Estimate, Obama presidency, One True Faith, Rahm Emanuel, Shimon Peres, spy case, The Clash, Torture memos, treason, waterboarding

The Need for Alternative Media

Why does democracy need alternative media? An earlier blog on the Criminal State website (”The New Heretics”) chronicles the role that mainstream media routinely plays in waging war by way of deception.

Ambassador Charles Freeman withdrew his nomination last week as the newly appointed chair of the National Intelligence Council. The withering attack unleashed on him by the Israel lobby may awaken a long-deceived public to the perils posed by six decades of accommodating America’s entangled alliance with the Zionist state.

Guilt by Association, the first release in the Criminal State series, condenses the how of Zionism to its duplicitous essence by making the analysis generic and not dependent on any particular time, place or circumstance. At the core of its duplicity lies an oft-deployed modus operandi: the displacement of facts with what people can be deceived to believe.

That “m.o.” operates the same regardless whether it’s an induced belief in Iraqi WMD, a consensus faith in the infallibility of unfettered financial markets, or a shared opinion that Israel is an ally. When waging war in the shared mindset (where else could a “consensus” reside?), the power of association is deployed as a weapon to deceive “the mark”—us.

Thus the stature of Colin Powell was used to lend credence (believability) to the phony intelligence used to deceive the UN Security Council that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories. Powell’s testimony made America look just like the Zionist state—a duplicitous government willing to deceive other governments to wage war on Israel’s behalf. Yet despite the consistency of this duplicity, we continue on with this entanglement, assured that this alliance is in America’s interest.

The Ancient Art of Deception

When deploying the power of association—whether to accredit or discredit—facts are irrelevant. In this case, the credibility of an honorable man was deployed to make a dishonorable case to invade Iraq for Greater Israel policy. For those who consider themselves above the law, the means justify the end. General Powell concedes he was used and has since rarely appeared in public. The result cost America untold amounts in blood, treasure and hard-earned credibility—the most essential capital of any legitimate nation state.

Those profiled in the Criminal State series wage war at the level of the mental state. All else flows downstream from what academics call the paradigm—the shared mindset. To target the public’s mental state is to wage war on informed consent, the foundation on which democracies depend. In today’s media-dependent politics, that’s where modern-day treason operates.

To address this systemic criminality requires tools of perception that enable the public to see this duplicity for themselves. The Israel lobby has so thoroughly intimidated the Congress and the Executive Branch that the battle to restore informed consent must now be fought from the bottom-up. In the media-dominated decision-making of the Information Age, this is what modern warfare looks like. Why would anyone expect otherwise?

This fact-displacing modus operandi depends on mainstream media to shape the shared mental state of the mark (us). Likewise when deceivers deploy the power of association. Both rely on a complicit media to manipulate opinions, impressions and emotions so that, in combination, fiction replaces facts as the basis for policy-making.

How long has U.S. policy been shaped by the criminal syndicate chronicled in Guilt By Association? Barack Obama is the tenth president covered by veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas. When, in his first press conference, she asked which nations in the Middle East have nuclear weapons, our commander-in-chief avoided an answer. That’s understandable.

According to his April 2007 filing with the Federal Elections Commission, Obama’s political career is traceable to the Chicago Outfit. Hotelier Penny Pritzker, Chicago’s Crown clan (defense contractors), and hedge fund billionaire George Soros were his top three contributors. The organized crime lineage of the Pritzker family dates from the Jewish syndicate of the 1920s. Soros represents a more modern vintage. Abner Mikva, former Clinton White House counsel, calls Obama “our first Jewish president” based on his roots in West Side Chicago politics.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and campaign manager David Axelrod were political activists in Chicago when the Israel lobby targeted Illinois Senator Chuck Percy for removal in 1984, two years after successfully targeting Illinois Congressman Paul Findley. Findley’s AIPAC-recruited replacement was Dick Durbin, now second in the Senate leadership. He shares a house in Washington with New York Senator Chuck Schumer who is third. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, from mobbed-up Nevada, is Mormon (aka the Lost Tribe of Israel).

Though comprising just 1.7% of the U.S. population, 15% of the Senate membership is Jewish. Add Mormons and Christian-Zionists (Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham, et.al.) and where does the national security of America rank when compared to Israel—whose security Obama described as “sacrosanct”? As Freeman pointed out, the danger we now face is not only to the U.S. but also to the continued existence of Israel—particularly when the mark awakens to the common source of this deceit.

March 16, 2009

Politics Abner Mikva, aipac, Alternative Media, Barach Obama, Charles Freeman, Chas Freeman, Chuck Percy, Chuck Schumer, Colin Powell, Criminal State, David Axelrod, Dick Durbin, George Soros, Greater Israel, Guilt By Association, Harry Reid, Israel lobby, Jewish president, Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham, Lost Tribe of Israel, Mormon, National Intelligence Council, New Heretic, Paul Findley, Penny Pritzker, Rahm Emanuel, UN Security Council, Zionism