Michael Mullen

Our Commander-in-Chief Needs Our Support

Forget your opinion of Barack Obama. Love him or loathe him, the reality remains unchanged: we have but one president at a time. And but one commander-in-chief.

U.S. national security is endangered—perhaps now more than at any time in history. Both the president and our military leaders are bound by an oath to defend this nation from all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Recent events suggest that, in cooperation with senior military officers, President Obama is battling a cunning and committed adversary. To prevail, he needs public support.

Be clear on this point: we were deceived to wage war in Iraq on fabricated intelligence. Only one nation had the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence to succeed with such an operation inside the U.S.

That same state now seeks to induce our invasion of Iran. Or Pakistan. In 1948, the Joint Chiefs of Staff cautioned Harry Truman about the “fanatical concepts” of this extremist enclave, especially its plans for “military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East.”

President Eisenhower saw this fledgling state in action when, during his 1956 presidential campaign, Britain, France and Israel sought to start a war with Egypt over control of the Suez Canal. London and Paris were quickly persuaded to abandon that effort. Not Tel Aviv.

When this Republican leader sought Congressional support, he found none. The former general turned instead to a televised address to counter an influence that has only grown stronger over the past 52 years. This month, a bipartisan 363 members of Congress committed themselves to an “unbreakable bond” with Israel—regardless of its behavior.

A similar commitment was addressed to the commander-in-chief over the signatures of 76 Senators led by Democrat Barbara Boxer of California. Republican Eric Cantor of Virginia and New York Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, unleashed a pro-Israel attack on Obama that sounded less like the Congress than the Knesset.

Forced to face the reality of an enemy within, our military leadership signaled Obama that they are prepared to cover his back. The oath of office mandates a defense against all enemies. Yet it also places our defense under civilian control.

Senior military officers now understand the need to mount a vigorous defense against an enemy adept at waging war “by way of deception.” That’s the operative credo of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence and foreign operations directorate.

In January, CENTCOM Commander David Petraeus dispatched a team to brief Admiral Mike Mullen on the adverse impact of Israeli behavior on U.S. security interests. As chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mullen was reportedly stunned.

General Petraeus also argued that CENTCOM should have oversight of Israel/Palestine. It’s long been known how to resolve those hostilities: declare Jerusalem an international city under U.N. protection and dispatch international troops to secure the area.

The Israeli government fired right back. On the early March arrival of Vice-President Joe Biden in Tel Aviv, the Netanyahu government announced the construction of 1,600 homes in the most contentious area in dispute.

When Netanyahu arrived two weeks later for a White House meeting, Obama’s cool reception set off a flurry of pro-Israeli ads in papers nationwide while Nobel peace laureate Elie Wiesel proclaimed, “Jerusalem is above politics.”

Meanwhile Israeli saber rattling moved into high gear as the “existential threat” of Iran again became the drumbeat of the nation’s pro-Israeli mainstream media. The Pentagon fired right backed with an announcement from the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy that U.S. military force against Iran is “off the table in the near term.”

Another adventure in the Middle East would be ruinous for the U.S. not only militarily but also financially and geo-strategically. That may well be what the Israel lobby has in mind as it seeks with its dominance in politics and media to induce another war that would further damage U.S. interests worldwide.

To defend against the manipulation of thought and emotion that typifies modern warfare, the Pentagon is mounting a vigorous counteroffensive. Though non-transparent to the public, its latest initiative was a shot across the bow of this enemy within.

On April 22, the Pentagon rescinded evangelist Franklin Graham’s invitation to a National Prayer Day event. News reports confirmed that his anti-Islam comments were contrary to a newly revised Pentagon policy meant to minimize such provocative rhetoric.

Though that analysis is correct, the underlying dynamics are more complex and far more troublesome for Israel. Those dynamics include its continued status as a legitimate state.

Tel Aviv well recalls a tape-recorded discussion in 1972 between Republican President Richard Nixon and evangelist Billy Graham, Franklin’s father, in which Graham agreed with a commander-in-chief that Jews control the media, calling it a “stranglehold.”

Franklin’s attacks on Islam overcompensated for his father’s agreement on that key strategic point. With this action, the Pentagon signaled confidence in the intelligence identifying a key source of the deception that has long plagued U.S. national security.

By urging that the Congress express its “unbreakable bond” with Israel, the lobby inadvertently conceded good news for America: this perilous bond is already broken.

Please defend the U.S.: support our Commander-in-Chief.

Michael Mullen

When Will Americans Come to the Aid of Palestine?

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.