Lawrence Franklin
How Israel Wages War on the U.S.—By Way of Deception
January 6, 2010 by Jeff Gates · 8 Comments
The Manipulation of U.S. General Colin Powell and Pakistani Cricket Star Imran Khan
Mass media and popular culture are powerful tools of manipulation when wielded by those skilled at waging way by way of deception. When shaping the opinion of an unsuspecting public, the star power of military leaders and sports heroes is routinely appropriated.
That duplicity was on display in February 2003 when Colin Powell gave false testimony to the U.N. Security Council that helped launch the U.S.-led invasion of a Muslim nation. Similar duplicity was deployed in May 2005 when Pakistani cricket icon Imran Khan launched from Islamabad a false story that provoked outrage at the U.S. in Muslim nations.
Since the “bread and circus” era of the Roman Empire, pop culture has proven a potent means to distract and misdirect. With the modern reach of mass media, pop culture can be deployed not just to manipulate the public’s mental state but also to promote for political office high-profile personalities such as astronauts, newscasters, war heroes and even well known comedians.
Those who induced the U.S. to wage war in Iraq on false pretenses used Secretary of State Colin Powell for that purpose when he was dispatched to the U.N. to vouch for phony intelligence. The Powell “brand” as a credible four-star general was appropriated by pro-Israeli war-planners to market the false impression that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories.
By deploying a public official’s known integrity to obscure their duplicity, those complicit in this deceit discredited both Powell and the U.S. while also undermining the credibility of the U.N. The phony intelligence on which Powell relied was provided by George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, and vouched for by Paul Joyal, reportedly Tenet’s Ashkenazi Chief of Staff.
A similar power-of-association ploy emerged two years later when the pop culture celebrity of Imran Khan was appropriated to provoke violence worldwide that damaged the image of the U.S. A global crisis commenced soon after those handling public relations for this legend of the cricket world summoned reporters to a May 6, 2005 press conference in Islamabad.
As an international sports figure, Khan’s star power and his position as a Pakistani politician directed media attention to an April 30th issue of Newsweek where Ashkenazi journalist Michael Isikoff reported that U.S. interrogators had flushed a Koran down a toilet in an attempt to exert pressure on Muslim combatants in custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Not until May 16th did Newsweek editors publish a partial retraction along with an apology in The New York Times conceding that the widely reported story was inadequately supported by the facts. By then Isikoff’s tale of Koran desecration had gone viral.
Game Theory Warfare
The story provoked massive anti-U.S. demonstrations in Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt, Indonesia, Palestine, Jordan, Bangladesh, Sudan and Malaysia. Though the Guantanamo inmate retracted his statement, by then the story had done lasting damage to U.S. interests throughout the Islamic world while adding plausibility to the thematic Clash of Civilizations.
In game theory terms, the results were foreseeable because the reaction was mathematically predictable; the response could be projected—within an acceptable range of probabilities.
See: How Israel Wages Game Theory Warfare
As an Ashkenazim-dominated global media spread this provocation worldwide, the “probabilistic” outcome induced protests in Central Asia, unrest in Uzbekistan and calls for an “Islamic revolution” in Pakistan where violent protests left 16 dead.
Why would a world-renowned Pakistani cricket star be used to publicize in Islamabad an unsubstantiated story from a U.S. magazine? Answer: Khan’s pop culture status ensured that an identifiable demographic group (cricket fans) would quickly learn about—and react to—a provocation featured in a leading U.S. news weekly.
That media-induced provocation proved its potency as the story stoked extremism. For Tel Aviv’s game theory war-planners, the anticipated response became a potent weapon in the arsenal of the agent provocateur.
Mass Media as a Geopolitical Force-Multiplier
Cricket has long been a mainstay in nations historically under British colonial rule. When the desecration story was promoted in Islamabad, the editors of Newsweek, a Washington Post publication, successfully discredited not only the U.S. but also the U.K. by provoking outrage among Muslims worldwide. A bombing in London two months later was motivated by this “desecration” according to a cousin of one of the attackers on July 7, 2005.
By associating the story with a sports icon, Newsweek breached the literacy barrier common to less developed nations (54% in Pakistan). As the story spread by word-of-mouth, this provocation reached tens of millions among the illiterate as well as sports fans of younger age for whom extreme reactions come more readily.
By launching the provocation from Pakistan, the response also weakened President Pervez Musharaff, a key U.S. ally with the Taliban active in Pakistan’s western provinces and Al Qaeda suspected of seeking refuge there. Isikoff’s tale also served as a potent recruiting tool for Islamic fundamentalists. At a critical juncture, the (foreseeable) result further endangered coalition troops and also pre-staged today’s plausibility of Pakistan as a source of jihadists.
Formerly a Musharaff supporter and anti-corruption crusader, Khan had become an outspoken critic of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. By appropriating the Khan “brand,” Newsweek assured the global reach of this provocation as a pop culture star’s celebrity gained traction for a story guaranteed to prove troublesome for the U.S.-Pakistan alliance.
The timing of this provocation also addressed a key strategic need for Israel. Initial response to the April 30th article was muted. The May 6th press conference overlapped a critical May 4th news cycle when U.S. Defense Department analyst Lawrence Franklin appeared in a U.S. District Court outside Washington where he was charged with leaking to the Israel lobby classified Pentagon materials on Iran.
The pop culture-catalyzed protests and riots diverted the public’s attention away from wartime espionage by a purported ally. Instead mainstream media marketed a tale certain to outrage Muslims abroad while downplaying facts certain to anger Americans at home. The Washington Post media group has been under Ashkenazim control since June 1933 when patriarch Eugene Meyer acquired the flagship newspaper at auction.
The Newsweek provocation also diverted attention from the fact that Franklin worked for senior pro-Israeli war-planners: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary Douglas Feith who oversaw the Office of Special Plans, a key source of the “fixed” intelligence that induced the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Brand Appropriation
Whether appropriating Colin Powell’s integrity or Imran Khan’s celebrity, such “associative” weaponry works the same: the power of association is deployed by those adept at manipulating thought and emotion in order to influence behavior and shape policy in plain sight. Such operations are commonplace for those skilled at waging war by way of deception—the motto of the Israeli Mossad, the intelligence and foreign operations arm of the Jewish state.
From a geopolitical perspective, the appropriation of these “brands” mimics how Israel appropriated and systematically discredited Brand America. Over the six-decade history of this entangled alliance, our association with this enclave of nuclear-armed religious extremists cost us the global goodwill that an earlier generation earned at untold cost in blood and treasure.
The U.S. continues this perilous relationship only at great risk. Any nation that views this enclave as a legitimate sovereign state only further enables this trans-generational treachery.
Lawrence Franklin
When Will Americans Come to the Aid of Palestine?
July 21, 2009 by Jeff Gates · 2 Comments
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.
