A Plea Grows in Brooklyn:An Open Letter to District 11

An Open Letter to the Concerned Constituents of New York's 11th Congressional District:

By now, I am sure you are well aware of the appalling and unconscionable retraction of Brooklyn congresswoman Yvette Clarke's signature from two recent Dear Colleague letters to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding lifting the illegal siege of Gaza and permitting Palestinians to travel between the Occupied Territories. Whereas I was proud of Ms. Clarke's initial stance and courage to be one of the very few who signed onto the letters, I am absolutely outraged by this sudden reversal.

For the past year or so, Ms. Clarke, Democratic representative of New York's 11th District, has been one of the very few humane politicians on the issue of Palestine. She did not sign onto a bogus, seemingly pro-ethnic cleansing bill (H. Con. Res. 111) entitled, "Recognizing the 61st anniversary of the independence of the State of Israel," and was one of only 36 legislators to cast a "no" vote on the AIPAC-written Congressional call to dismiss and bury the findings of the Goldstone Report. Nevertheless, it appears that a meeting with a group of local ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders on February 1 has led Ms. Clarke to regret her support for those two letters.

After this meeting, Ms. Clarke released an Open Letter to her constituents, in which she claimed to "understand how important the safety and security of Israel is to my constituents and the close ties that many share with the great Jewish State [sic]" and regretted adding her signature to the two letters, which she now amazingly concludes, "do not reflect my record with regards to Israel." She goes on to write that the letters "have a provocative and reactionary impact, as they do not provide a complete, and therefore accurate, picture of the situation. They also do not offer a constructive and two-sided balanced solution to the issues facing the region."

Within her despicable "apology" are even the repeated lies about the "threat" that Iran, which has no nuclear weapons and has not attacked any country in over two centuries, now poses to the colonial-settler, expansionist, aggressive, and nuclear-armed garrison apartheid state of Israel. "Israel finds itself confronted with a belligerent Iran that is not only rapidly pursuing nuclear weapons, but also rearming Hezbollah and Hamas which sit on Israel’s northern and southern borders respectively," she writes. "Given the multi-faceted security threats that Israel faces, I added my name to a letter to President Obama encouraging him to adhere to the 2007 Memorandum of Understanding signed between then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledging $30 billion in security assistance over the next 10 years." How's that for a "balanced" view of Iran's (totally legal) nuclear program (which is constantly subject to intrusive monitoring by the IAEA) and the "constructive" use of American tax dollars at a time of extreme economic hardship here in the United States?

In her sniveling, belly-crawling retraction, Ms. Clarke essentially concludes that the letters she originally signed "are uneven in their application of pressure and do not sufficiently present a balanced approach/path to peace." Her cowardice is revealed in full, as she continues, "Please know that I will continue to be the strong and unwavering supporter of the State of Israel as I have been throughout my entire public life while working with the Administration and my colleagues in Congress to ameliorate human suffering wherever it may exist." Apparently, that suffering is no longer extended to Palestinians when Ms. Clarke is threatened by a gang of Brooklyn Zionists.

This about-face by Ms. Clarke is especially disheartening since, unlike some of her fellow New York representatives like Anthony Weiner, Peter King, Gary Ackerman, and Eliot Engel, she has lately been showing signs that she will not always pledge unquestioned allegiance to anti-Palestinian legislation or bow down to pressure from Zionist interest groups. In September 2009, being one of her constituents, I received a letter from Ms. Clarke that specifically highlighted her growing concern about "the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip." In this letter, Ms. Clarke hoped to address the "crisis" and help alleviate "the human suffering" by requesting the US State Department to release emergency funds to both UNRWA and ERMA. She expressed her support for H. Res. 66 (though she had not voted for it in Congress) which mentions the impact of Israel's attacks on Gaza and its Palestinian civilians, notes Israel's bombing of UN facilities, elaborates on the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's blockade of Gaza, and cites Israel’s responsibility for the welfare of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip under international law and "called on the government of Israel and representatives of Hamas to implement an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, and to allow unrestricted humanitarian access in Gaza."

The McDermott/Ellison Letter, entitled "Support Improvements in Gaza Humanitarian Conditions," sent to Obama, and which Ms. Clarke initially signed onto, clearly condemns Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks but warns against the immorality and illegality of collective punishment in Gaza via the stifling blockade, concluding that "fulfilling the needs of civilians in Israel and Gaza are mutually reinforcing goals." Furthermore, the letter elaborates, "the unabated suffering of Gazan civilians highlights the urgency of reaching a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and "the current blockade has severely impeded the ability of aid agencies to do their work to relieve suffering." Citing the lack of free movement in and out of Gaza, lack of potable water and purification facilities, lack of sufficient and diversified food and agricultural materials, lack of medicine and health care products, lack of proper sanitation supplies and infrastructure, lack of construction materials, fuel, and spare parts, and the denial of both imports and exports into and out of Gaza, the letter states that "both the number of trucks entering Gaza per month and the number of days the crossings have been open have declined since March [2009]. This crisis has devastated livelihoods, entrenched a poverty rate of over 70%, increased dependence on erratic international aid, allowed the deterioration of public infrastructure, and led to the marked decline of the accessibility of essential services."

The other letter Ms. Clarke has now disavowed is the Moran/Inglis Letter, entitled "Support Higher Education Opportunities for Gazan Students in the West Bank" and forwarded to Hillary Clinton. It calls for the easing or lifting of "Israel’s near-total ban on travel from Gaza to the West Bank, even for educational purposes," a ban that has been in place for the past decade and has resulted in Palestinian students in Gaza having "no access to the many degree programs that are not available in the Gaza Strip, including in humanitarian fields such as occupational and speech therapy," leaving, as their only remaining option, the "difficult and expensive option of traveling abroad for study – a path available only to a privileged few." The letter cites the "recommendation of the Bertini Report, incorporated into the 'Road Map,' that 'Israel should ensure that all children, students and teachers have full access to schools and universities throughout the West Bank and Gaza,'" continuing that, in 2007, even Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that students from Gaza should be allowed to study in the West Bank due to the "positive humane implications" that would likely result. Nevertheless, the letter stresses, "since this judgment in 2007, Israel has not issued a single entry permit to a Gazan student for the purpose of traveling to study in the West Bank – despite numerous applications." The letter reasonably concludes that "Ensuring that students from Gaza have access to a higher education in the West Bank promotes U.S. foreign policy interests by investing in the future of the region – those bright, talented young people seeking to better themselves and their society."

It seems that Ms. Clarke has now changed her mind. With her insistence that these facts are not "constructive" nor "balanced," she has apparently forgotten that Palestinians live under a brutal occupation while Israelis do not. She apparently no longer wishes to insist that a besieged and brutalized population of 1.5 million unemployed, starving and homeless Palestinians be allowed access to food, water, shelter, heat, and electricity in a desperate effort to thwart what both Israeli professor Tanya Reinhart and founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel Omar Barghouti have accurately characterized as Israel's "process of slow and steady genocide" of the Palestinian people. She now has no interest in allowing Palestinians to move freely across illegally walled-up borders or through humiliating and dehumanizing checkpoints, thereby solidifying her support for the devastating blockade of Gaza, the world's largest open-air prison, in spite of a recent call on the Obama administration by seven leading Middle East peace and human rights organizations, including B'Tselem, J Street, and Rabbis for Human Rights, to "use America's unique relationship with Israel to persuade it to lift the closure of its border crossing with Gaza now," given that the US-supported Israeli siege "harms Israel's security," "exacts an unacceptable toll on innocent Palestinians," "offends American humanitarian values, and is collective punishment that violates international law."

It might follow that Ms. Clarke now believes that the Israeli murder of over 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza last year, over 400 of whom were children, and the accompanying and deliberate damage or destruction of over 20,000 homes, not to mention 1,500 factories and workshops, 281 schools and universities, 15 hospitals, 43 medical clinics, 20 mosques, 50 U.N. facilities, 10 water and sewage arteries, 10 electricity-generating stations, 2 bridges, along with cars, boats, ambulances, college dormitories, government and municipal facilities, the Ministries of Justice, Finance, Interior, Education, and Prisoner Affairs, City Council offices, television stations, police stations, courts, marketplaces, greenhouses, dairies, parks, a zoo, charities, cemeteries, and 80% of all agricultural properties, including all farms and crops, are all part of a legitimate Israeli desire for "self-defense."

Obviously, this is the same "self-defense" that fights homemade rockets, some ancient Kalashnikovs, and thrown stones with Boeing-made AH-64 and AH-64D Apache Longbow fighter helicopters, F-16 and F-15 Eagle fighter planes, F-16 Peace Marble II and III Aircraft, Boeing 777s, Arrow missiles, Arrow II interceptors, AGM-114 D Longbow Hellfire missiles, and GBU-9 small diameter bombs. And that's just from Boeing. US arms manufacturer Raytheon has supplied Israel with Bunker Buster bombs, Tomahawk missiles, and a newly upgraded Patriot missile system, while Lockheed Martin gave them F-16s and a Hellfire precision-guided missile system. "Self-defense" is also carried out by Caterpillar Inc.'s D9 military bulldozer, which is specifically designed for Israel's use in invasions of built-up areas. Clearly, Ms. Clarke must be well-aware that the US government purchases these Caterpillar bulldozers itself and sends them to the Israeli army as part of its annual foreign military assistance package, of which she brags about supporting. She must also be keenly aware that such sales are governed by the US Arms Export Control Act, which limits the use of US military aid to "internal security" and "legitimate self defense" and prohibits its use against civilians along with the Foreign Assistance Act which explicitly prohibits US assistance "to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons, or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, and the security of person, unless such assistance will directly benefit the needy people in such country." Even without the overwhelming and irrefutable evidence found in the Goldstone Report, it seems like this was written with Israel in mind. Alas...

So, what did those "local ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders" promise Ms. Clarke (or threaten her with) in order for her to "regret" caring about the unimaginable suffering of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government and paid for by Ms. Clarke's Congress and Brooklyn tax dollars? What has caused her to grovel and kowtow to the racist, Zionist elements of her constituency at the expense of US and international law, human rights, social justice, basic human decency, and her own, now non-existent, integrity?

What can we all do to bring to Ms. Clarke's attention the truth of the matter? Should we simply barrage her office with phone calls, leaving messages that voice our disappointment and discouragement, but nothing more? Would it be possible to arrange a meeting with her in order to explain a few things? Remember, she's up for reelection this year, so this is the time for her to listen (but also the reason she's now pandering to the Zionist vote).

Who's in and what's the next step?

Thank you for reading,

Nima Shirazi
Brooklyn, NY
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com

The New York Crimes:All The Lies That Fit to Print

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
- Albert Einstein
"The age of military attacks is over, now we've reached the time for dialogue and understanding. Weapons and threats are a thing of the past...even for mentally challenged people."
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 11/23/2009

The American political, academic, and media establishment has long been beating the drums of war with Iran and, as the author of The New York Times' latest OpEd encouraging the US bombing of that country, University of Texas professor Alan J. Kuperman has now emerged as the Keith Moon of sensational jingoism and, considering his concept of reality, morality, and legality, is probably twice as crazy.

Mr. Kuperman, in a piece published on December 23rd and titled "There’s Only One Way to Stop Iran", stridently advocates for an immediate, unilateral, unprovoked and devastating aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities. He writes,

"Since peaceful carrots and sticks cannot work [with Iran], and an invasion would be foolhardy, the United States faces a stark choice: military air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities or acquiescence to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons."

Apparently, Mr. Kuperman's "one way" is a premeditated act of war, a preemptive attack on a sovereign nation that has not threatened nor invaded any country in over two and half centuries. The "stark" choices that Mr. Kuperman proposes do not include the obvious legal answer: for US policy to abide by international law and ratified treaties guaranteeing the right of Iran to a peaceful nuclear energy program and therefore cease threatening Iran with homicidal military action.

Though Mr. Kuperman claims to believe that "negotiation to prevent nuclear proliferation is always preferable to military action," he immediately turns around to state, "We have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons." He concludes with the dire warning that "Postponing military action merely provides Iran a window to expand, disperse and harden its nuclear facilities against attack. The sooner the United States takes action, the better."

Mr. Kuperman even believes that "Iran's atomic sites might need to be bombed more than once to persuade Tehran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons." His suggestions not only defy all basic logic and reason, but, more perversely, demonstrate his utter contempt for global jurisprudence, basic facts, and human life.

Despite being a highly educated scholar, Mr. Kuperman, who has a Ph.D. in political science from MIT, reveals a stunning lack of historical knowledge, a general disinterest in providing any sort of supporting evidence or documentation for his baffling assumptions, and a bewildering inability to discern truth from propaganda, all of which, unfortunately, inform his outrageous conclusions. In fact, there are so many unsubstantiated claims and outright lies packed into the relatively short article, it's an absolute wonder that The New York Times chose to print it. Has the Grey Lady laid off all its fact-checkers?

Then again, it should probably come as no surprise that the "newspaper of record" has no qualms about printing fiction masked as truth, as seen with the relentless build-up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq just seven years ago.

First of all, Kuperman's constant mischaracterizations of Iran's wholly legal energy program as an illicit, covert effort to build a nuclear bomb stands in stark contrast to all available information provided and accepted by both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitors Iran's nuclear program, and the intelligence community of the United States, which spies on Iran's nuclear program. The IAEA has repeatedly found, through intensive, round-the-clock monitoring and inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities - including numerous surprise visits to Iranian enrichment plants - that all of Iran's centrifuges operate under IAEA safeguards and "continue to be operated as declared."

In an IAEA report from as far back as November 2003, the agency states that "to date, there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities referred to above were related to a nuclear weapons programme." Then, after extensive inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, the IAEA again concluded in its November 2004 report that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities."

In May 2008, the IAEA reported that it had found "no indication" that Iran has or ever did have a nuclear weapons program and affirmed that "The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material [to weaponization] in Iran." Earlier this year, IAEA spokesperson Melissa Fleming even issued a statement clarifying the IAEA's position regarding the flurry of deliberately misleading articles in the US and European press claiming that Iran had enriched enough uranium "to build a nuclear bomb." The statement, among other things, declared that "No nuclear material could have been removed from the [Nantanz] facility without the Agency's knowledge since the facility is subject to video surveillance and the nuclear material has been kept under seal."

This assessment was reaffirmed as recently as September 2009, in response to various media reports over the past few years claiming that Iran's intent to build a nuclear bomb can be proven by information provided from a mysterious stolen laptop and a dubious, undated - and most likely forged - two-page document. The IAEA stated, "With respect to a recent media report, the IAEA reiterates that it has no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapon programme in Iran."

Both the out-going and in-coming Director-Generals of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei and Yukiya Amano, respectively, have stated that there is absolutely no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Even the United States' National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which aggregates classified information from 16 American intelligence and security agencies, concluded in a formal evaluation of Iran's "Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities" in November 2007 that Iran had no active nuclear weapons program. A recent Newsweek report, from September 16, 2009, indicates that, despite what is constantly repeated by administration officials and warmongers like Mr. Kuperman, the NIE stands by its 2007 assessment and that "U.S. intelligence agencies have informed policymakers at the White House and other agencies that the status of Iranian work on development and production of a nuclear bomb has not changed."

Jeremy R. Hammond of Foreign Policy Journal accurately points out the "important difference between the U.S. intelligence community’s and the IAEA’s assessments," continuing, "According to the 2007 NIE, Iran had a nuclear weapons program until 2003. According to the IAEA - the international nuclear watchdog agency actively monitoring Iran’s program and conducting inspections in the country - there is no proof Iran ever had a nuclear weapons program."

Nevertheless, in a mere 1492 words, Mr. Kuperman refers to, what he terms, Iran's "bomb program" eight times and makes ten additional references to Iran's so-called pursuit of a nuclear weapon arsenal, nuclear weapons techniques, weapons-grade enrichment, and weapons trafficking. One can only assume, then, that he has information that neither the IAEA inspectors nor the United States government has yet to uncover and examine.

Perhaps, devoid of any actual evidence, Kuperman simply takes as a matter of faith that the Iranian government is intent on and committed to acquiring nuclear weapons. Maybe he's just worried about supposed apocalyptic ideologies of modern governments which blend theocracy and republicanism and agrees with war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, who warned during his September 24 speech at the UN, in what may have been the single most ironic and self-unaware statement since "Let them eat cake", that "the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction." This amazing statement came from the designated (not elected) Prime Minister of a self-described "Jewish State" which currently has upwards of 400 nuclear warheads yet has never signed the NPT and is therefore not subject to inspection and monitoring.

But if faith really is a consideration, due to the fact that Iran is a deeply religious society and a constitutionally mandated Islamic Republic, perhaps Mr. Kuperman should be aware that, on August 10, 2005, Iranian nuclear negotiator Cyrus Naseri informed an emergency meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors that a religious decree unconditionally prohibiting the acquisition of nuclear weapons was in effect. He stated,

"The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the fatwa that the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office just recently, in his inaugural address reiterated that his government is against weapons of mass destruction and will only pursue nuclear activities in the peaceful domain.

The leadership of Iran has pledged at the highest level that Iran will remain a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT and has placed the entire scope of its nuclear activities under IAEA safeguards and Additional Protocol, in addition to undertaking voluntary transparency measures with the agency that have even gone beyond the requirements of the agency's safeguard system."

Furthermore, Congressional foreign policy advisor Gregory Aftandilian, speaking at a Center for National Policy event titled “A Nuclear Middle East” in October 2008, stated rationally that Iran is "not stupid" and "has a long history, thousands of years, of statecraft…Tehran is not suicidal."

Even more to the point, the government and military of Iran has a strict "no first strike" policy, something that countries like the United States and Israel obviously don't have. Iranian government and military officials have long stated that they will act in self-defense only if their country is attacked and have never issued threats about initiating aggression against another nation. As General Hoseyn Salami, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Air Force, remarked on an Iranian news program on September 28, 2009, "As long as our enemies act within a political domain, our behavior will be completely political. However, if they want to leave the domain of political action and enter the domain of military threat, then our action will be exactly and completely military."

Whereas Iran operates legally with defensive consideration for its own security in the face of constant bellicose rhetoric and aggressive posturing from both Washington and Tel Aviv, Mr. Kuperman's advice to the US government directly contravenes international law. In fact, even the threat of attack is prohibited by the Charter of the United Nations, which states, "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." (Article 2, paragraph 4)

In July 1946, Robert Jackson, the chief US prosecutor at Nuremburg after World War II, stated in his Closing Argument of the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal that of all Nazi war crimes, including invasion, occupation, mass displacement, concentration and extermination camps, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, "the central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds them all together, is the plot for aggressive wars."

When the judgment of the IMT was delivered a few months later, it maintained that "To initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

The Nuremburg judgment had a profound influence on subsequent international law; its findings and conclusions served as the framework for UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), The Geneva Convention on the Laws and Customs of War (1949) and its additional protocols (1977), The Nuremberg Principles (1950), The Convention on the Abolition of the Statute of Limitations on War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity (1968), and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998).

Considering Mr. Kuperman has a Masters degree in international relations and international economics from the Bologna-based Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, one might assume he would have a strong grasp on these governing principles of international law. Alas, as his policy suggestions seem based upon myriad misunderstandings of simple information and are tantamount to the supreme war crime of aggression, it appears that his higher education is not the only thing about Kuperman that's bologna based.

Kuperman begins his OpEd by declaring that the recent draft agreement proposed by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (all of them nuclear weapons states) and Germany (which engages in "nuclear sharing" with the United States, widely seen as a major breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty itself) was defective from the outset and would have aided Iran on, as Kuperman would have us believe, its nefarious quest to build nuclear bombs. He claims that the proposal, which called for roughly 70% of Iran's accumulated low-enriched uranium to be sent to Russia and France for further processing before it was returned (sometime in the future) for use in a medical reactor core in Tehran, would have "rewarded [Iran] with much-coveted reactor fuel despite violating international law" and "fostered proliferation" because "the vast surplus of higher-enriched fuel Iran was to get under the deal would have permitted some to be diverted to its bomb program."

The Western proposal was met with considerable and understandable skepticism from all segments of Iranian establishment who see the offer as being a way to permanently stop Iran's enrichment capabilities, which are legally guaranteed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran has been a signatory for over 40 years. Iran's Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani warned on October 24 that "Westerners are insisting to go in a direction that suggests cheating." Iran's head-of-state Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking on November 4, also cautioned against the deal, stating, "When we carefully look at the situation, we notice that [the United States and its allies] are hiding a dagger behind their back."

Even Mir Hossein Mousavi, presidential challenger and leader of the current opposition movement, criticized the proposal in late October when he declared, "If the promises given [to the West] are realized, then the hard work of thousands of scientists would be ruined." Mehdi Karroubi, another opposition leader and presidential hopeful, accused Ahmadinejad's administration of abandoning national interests by negotiating with the IAEA.

Nevertheless, Time reported that "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on October 29 that 'conditions have been prepared for international cooperation in the nuclear field' and his administration is 'ready to cooperate.'" Furthermore, Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, Armed Forces chief of staff General Hassan Firouzabadi, and Iran's representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh all expressed a desire to use diplomatic efforts to find a reasonable and suitable solution to the current standoff.

In early December, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki stated that Iran was "willing to exchange most of its uranium for processed nuclear fuel from abroad" in a phased transfer of material with full guarantees that the West "will not backtrack an exchange deal." Mr. Mottaki proposed that Iran would agree to initially hand over 25% of its uranium in a simultaneous exchange for an equivalent amount of enriched material in order to fuel the medical research reactor. The remainder of the uranium would be traded over "several years."

In response, The New York Times reported that this proposed timetable was immediately rejected by Western powers. The US government-sponsored Voice of America quoted an unidentified senior US official as claiming that the Iranian counter-proposal was inconsistent with the "fair and balanced" draft agreement. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has previously threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran, urged Iran to "accept the agreement as proposed because we are not altering it."

Apparently, the US government is unaware of what a "draft agreement" is. By definition, it is a proposal - a "draft" - not a final, binding accord. It is a primary piece of negotiation that can and should be revised by all parties until a mutually beneficial agreement is reached. The West appears to only accept its own offers and dismisses any other suggestions. This is not diplomacy, this is no "outstretched hand." This is, quite simply, an illegal and imperial ultimatum dictated to the sovereign nation of Iran by historically aggressive, colonial powers.

As The New York Times reported,

"Mr. Mottaki also suggested that the Western news media had helped torpedo the October agreement by framing it in hostile terms that confirmed Iran’s fears of losing its nuclear supplies.

'We said we are in agreement on the principles of the proposal, but suddenly the Western media announced that 1,200 kilograms of uranium would be leaving Iran to delay the construction of a nuclear bomb,' Mr. Mottaki said, according to Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency. 'Is this the answer to Iran’s confidence-building?

Still, Mr. Kuperman mischaracterizes Iran's supposed acceptance-then-rejection of the absurd Western proposition. "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad initially embraced the deal because he realized it aided Iran's bomb program," he writes, and then claims that "under such domestic pressure, Mr. Ahmadinejad reneged."

Mr. Kuperman declares that "Tehran’s rejection of the deal was likewise propelled by domestic politics - including last June's fraudulent elections and longstanding fears of Western manipulation." Not only does this statement simply assume that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad was stolen and illegitimate (a tired narrative devoid of any substantiated evidence), he dismisses foreign involvement - namely that of the US - in Iranian affairs by employing the word "fears" rather than "facts."

Perhaps Mr. Kuperman is unaware that in 2007, ABC News reported that George W. Bush had signed a secret "Presidential finding" authorizing the CIA to "mount a covert 'black' operation to destabilize the Iranian government." These operations, according to current and former intelligence officials, included "a coordinated campaign of propaganda broadcasts, placement of negative newspaper articles, and the manipulation of Iran's currency and international banking transactions." The Sunday Telegraph corroborated this information when it stated, "Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs."

It is also well-known that, a year later, the Bush administration was granted $400 million with which to further destabilize Iran via, as the Washington Post reported at the time "activities ranging from spying on Iran’s nuclear program to supporting rebel groups opposed to the country’s ruling clerics…" The rebel groups supported by such funding and training include, according to both Counterpunch's Andrew Cockburn and the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the militant Sunni group Jundullah, or "army of god," and the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK or PMOI), which maintains an "enduring position on the State Department's list of terrorist groups."

Although Washington officially denies involvement, the Sunday Telegraph reports that funding for Jundallah's "separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now 'no great secret', according to one former high-ranking CIA official," whose claims were confirmed by former US State Department counter-terrorism agent Fred Barton, who said that Jundallah's terrorist activities "inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime." Among the bombings and violent attacks for which Jundallah has claimed responsibility are the killings of nine Iranian security guards in 2005, another 11 in a 2007 bombing, at least 16 Iranian police officers in a 2008 attack, and, most recently, the deadly bombing of a security gathering in southeast Iran on October 18, 2009 which killed 35 people including several top regional security officials and provincial commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

Further, ABC News has reported that, according to Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials, Jundallah is "responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran" and "has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005." The report continued,

"U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight. The money for Jundullah was funneled to its leader, Abdelmalek Rigi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states."

These connected Iranian exiles are members of the MEK, the Iranian opposition network that, in 1981, assassinated about 70 high ranking Iranian officials including cabinet members, elected parliamentarians, and the new Chief Justice when it bombed state headquarters. After the Iranian Revolution, the group moved its headquarters to Iraq and was supported by Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War that claimed the lives of over a million people. The MEK also claims responsibility for informing the United States and its allies about Iran's supposed nuclear weapons program, for which no verifiable evidence has ever been found.

On December 15, 2009, Texas Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee addressed Congress regarding that fate of MEK exiles currently living in Camp Ashraf in Iraq. The Congresswoman pleaded for the Obama administration to "save" the "Iranian dissidents [who] are now huddled [at Camp Ashraf], fearful for their lives." She claimed that the Iraqi government, which is now tasked with guarding the camp after US forces recently handed over control, had put the exiles "at risk of arbitrary arrest, torture or other forms of ill treatment and unlawful killing," and described the MEK - which, again, is designated as a terrorist group by the US State Department - as "dissidents who simply want to live in peace and alone." Apparently, Ms. Jackson-Lee saw nothing wrong with begging the United States to support terrorists, as long as those terrorists have the goal of toppling the Iranian government.

Plus, just last week, Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that a number of MEK members have been arrested for violent activity and destruction of public and private property at recent anti-government protests in Tehran.

American involvement, both overt and covert, in Iranian affairs is beyond doubt, thereby making Mr. Kuperman's blow-off of Iran's "fears of Western manipulation" completely absurd.

In a June 24, 2009 interview on Al Jazeera reporter Josh Rushing asked former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft if the US has "intelligence operatives on the ground in Iran," to which Scowcroft simply replied, "Of course we do."

The very next day, USA Today reported that "the Obama administration is moving forward with plans to fund groups that support Iranian dissidents" via the US Agency for International Development (USAID) program which has long been known as a cover for the US government to fund regime change operations in various parts of the world.

A few days later, during a June 28 CNN interview with Robert Baer, Fareed Zakaria asked the retired 21 year CIA veteran and former Middle East undercover operative, "Isn’t it true that we do [try to destabilize the regime]? Don’t we fund various groups inside and outside Iran that do try to destabilize the government?" Baer answered, "Oh absolutely," adding, "There is a covert action program against Iran where the [U.S.] military is running; a covert action against Iran from Iraq and Afghanistan."

One month later, on July 26, Mr. Zakaria interviewed Seyyed Mohammad Marandi, a North America studies professor and political analyst at the University of Tehran. Mr. Marandi revealed that "Right now you have almost 40 television channels in Persian being broadcast into Iran from the United States and Europe - basically funded by the American government and European governments, or in some cases owned - which have played a very negative role over the past few weeks, turning people against one another... in many cases, they call for riots, and they call for violence." Mr. Zakaria, for unknown reasons, took it upon himself to deny these widely-accepted and well-evidenced allegations.

The veracity of such claims was confirmed a couple of weeks later, on August 9, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared "Now, behind the scenes, we were doing a lot," Clinton said. "We were doing a lot to really empower the protesters without getting in the way. And we're continuing to speak out and support the opposition."

Even John Limbert, embassy hostage turned Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Near East at the US State Department, chimed in during a December 10, 2009 interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. He stated that the United States government "will not sit silently" and "will not ignore what happens on the streets of Tehran," continuing that, "we believe, as we have always believed, that the Iranian people deserve decent treatment from their government."

This is a truly amazing thing for a US official to say, especially one who worked in Tehran during the Iranian Revolution thirty years ago. At that time, the United States government supported, both vocally and materially, the brutal dictatorship of the Shah of Iran, referred to as "an island of stability" by President Carter in 1977. Under the Shah's tyrannical rule, a Time article from January 7, 1980, tells us, "Dissent was ruthlessly suppressed, in part by the use of torture in the dungeons of SAVAK, the [US and Israeli-trained] secret police."

Furthermore, the Time article continues,

"The depth of its commitment to the Shah apparently blinded Washington to the growing discontent. U.S. policymakers wanted to believe that their investment was buying stability and friendship; they trusted what they heard from the monarch, who dismissed all opposition as 'the blah-blahs of armchair critics.' Even after the revolution began, U.S. officials were convinced that 'there is no alternative to the Shah.' Carter took time out from the Camp David summit in September 1978 to phone the Iranian monarch and assure him of Washington's continued support." [emphasis mine]

Limbert, of all people, should know better than to claim that the US government cares about the rights and desires of the Iranian people. What it really cares about, and has always cared about, is fueling protests of anti-imperial governments and bolstering opposition to administrations that repel American hegemony, hubris, and dominance.

It may also be interesting to note that, whereas the US Department of Defense considers "protests" to be a type of "low-level terrorist activity," according to one of its 2009 training manuals, State Department official Limbert takes great pride in saluting the "brave people of Iran...who are going out on the street and demonstrating." One wonders if he also salutes anti-war protesters here in the United States.

But this is all just the tip of Mr. Kuperman's iceberg of deliberate disinformation.

Insisting multiple times during his piece that Iran is "violating international law" by not responding to UN Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate halt to its enrichment program, Mr. Kuperman again demonstrates his own lack of awareness of the fundamental principles of jus cogens, or peremptory norm, as it applies to the authority of UNSC resolutions and the NPT agreement. Again, this is surprising due to Mr. Kuperman's current role as director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas at Austin and his former stint as Senior Policy Analyst for the nongovernmental Nuclear Control Institute.

Mr. Kuperman might want to review the tenets of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty first. Article IV of the treaty states:

1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop, research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty [which prohibit the transfer or acquisition of nuclear weapons].

2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world. [emphasis mine]

As neither the IAEA nor the US intelligence community has found any evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, Iran not only has the legal right to develop and produce peaceful nuclear energy on its own soil, but it has the inalienable right to do so, under the terms of the NPT. Under these terms, no one and nothing - government, agency, council, resolution, draft agreement - can infringe upon Iran's right to operate power plants and enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear program.

Therefore, any resolutions calling for Iran's inalienable right to be relinquished are, in and of themselves, wholly illegal. Paranoid suspicions, demonizing propaganda, and allegations without evidence are totally insufficient to demonstrate any violations of the NPT by the Iran government.

Cyrus Safardi of IranAffairs, in addition to supplying supporting documentation from the UN's own International Law Commission and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, explains,"

Article 103 of the UN Charter says that UNSC resolutions trump obligations under international treaties such as the NPT. However, Article 103 does not apply to sovereign rights and jus cogens. It is a general and well-recognized principle of international law that UNSC resolutions that are contrary to jus cogens are ultra vires and NOT binding."

With this in mind, it is clear that all UNSC resolutions that "demand" Iran suspend enrichment and close its intrusively monitored and meticulously inspected nuclear facilities - UNSC resolutions 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), and 1803 (2008) - are contradictory, illegal and consequently non-binding.

Furthermore, Safardi writes that "Iran's safeguard agreement with the IAEA, and the IAEA statutes, only permit a referral to the UNSC when there has been a diversion of fissile material for non-peaceful use." Since the IAEA had previously confirmed that there had been no such diversion and without any evidence of a nuclear weapons program, its referral of the Iranian nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council was, as CASMII founder Abbas Edalat points out, "politically motivated and illegitimate." Edalat continues,

"On February 15th [2007], Stephen Rademaker, the former US Assistant Secretary for International Security and Non-proliferation confessed that the two crucial votes by India against Iran in the Governors’ Board of the IAEA which led to Iran’s referral to the Security Council were indeed the result of US coercion. Incidentally India, like the other US allies Pakistan and Israel, is not a signatory to the NPT and has developed nuclear bombs which is tolerated and supported by the US.

Because the IAEA's referral of Iran's file to the UNSC was unwarranted and because the UNSC resolutions are themselves illegal, Iran has no reason to abide by them and is therefore under no obligation to halt its nuclear program, as Mr. Kuperman keeps insisting.

In fact, the United States is currently in violation of the NPT itself, insofar as "the US has refused to negotiate for complete disarmament and verification per treaty terms and actively plans to use nuclear weapons, including first-strike use against 'enemies' who may only become threats in the future," according to Carl Herman of the Examiner.

Even though Mr. Kuperman deems violations of international law cause enough to justify military campaigns, he doesn't seem to mind Israel's constant trespasses and consistent ignoring of numerous Security Council resolutions since 1967.

Continuing, Mr. Kuperman declares that "while Iran permits international inspections at its declared enrichment plant at Natanz, it ignores United Nations demands that it close the plant, where it gains the expertise needed to produce weapons-grade uranium at other secret facilities like the nascent one recently uncovered near Qom."

Isn't everything "secret" until it's announced? What Mr. Kuperman probably knows, but refuses to say since it would weaken his argument for illegally bombing another country and willfully murdering innocent people, is that the new Fordo nuclear facility was actually announced to the IAEA by Iran itself, in advance of the panicky press conference held on September 25 by President Obama, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and French President Nicholas Sarkozy. "I can confirm that on 21 September, Iran informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction in the country," IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said.

Under its current safeguards agreement with the Agency, Iran is not obligated to inform the IAEA of any new facilities until six months before the introduction of nuclear material to the site. Since the Fordo enrichment plant is not yet operational, and won't be for another 18 months, Iran has broken no rules. In fact, the site was announced a full year before it needed to be. As Ali-Akbar Salehi, Iran's nuclear chief, remarked, "This installation is not a secret one, which is why we announced its existence to the IAEA."

Ahmadinejad even pointed out that the agreements and guidelines between Iran and the IAEA do not require approval by the United States. "We have no secrecy, we work within the framework of the IAEA," he said. "This does not mean we must inform Mr Obama’s Administration of every facility that we have."

That Mr. Kuperman would claim the Fordo site near Qom was "secret" is unsurprising, considering the same constant refrain in media outlets like the New York Times. What is interesting is his allegation that the facility allows Iran to acquire knowledge about producing nuclear weapons is especially bizarre considering that, after inspectors surveyed the new plant, IAEA Director-General ElBaradei declared that the agency's monitors found "nothing to be worried about," continuing, "It's a hole in a mountain."

"The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things," ElBaradei said. Due to the constant threats by the US and Israel to bomb Iran, especially by arm-chair warriors like Mr. Kuperman, it should come as no surprise that the Iranian government might be interested in defending their scientific facilities and technological progress from such attacks. In fact, not doing so would be irresponsible.

Without providing even a shred of evidence, Mr. Kuperman states that "Iran supplies Islamist terrorist groups in violation of international embargoes." He is obviously referring to Hamas and Hezbollah, two democratically-elected resistance groups, which are consistently demonized in the Western press for being opposed to Israeli settler-colonialism, illegal and oppressive occupation, and American military imperialism. What is left out, of course, is that the US-supported Israeli siege of Gaza is itself "illegal" and displays "profound inhumanity," according to John Ging, Gaza's director of operations for the refugee agency UNRWA. Furthermore, according to the Policy Declaration of the new Government of the Republic of Lebanon, issued on November 26, 2009,

“It is the right of the Lebanese people, Army and the [Hezbollah led-]Resistance to liberate the Shebaa Farms, the Kfar Shuba Hills and the northern part of the village of Ghajar as well as to defend Lebanon and its territorial waters in the face of any enemy by all available and legal means.”

As a result, Lebanon expert Franklin Lamb explains, "Legally, constitutionally, and politically, Lebanon’s new National Unity Government policy legitimizes, embraces, and incorporates by reference, according to some Pentagon and State Department analysts, the National Lebanese Resistance," and affirms that Hezbollah and the State of Lebanon are "inseparable and indivisible with respect to defending this country from foreign interference and occupation. It affixes the Governmental imprimatur for liberating Lebanese lands still occupied by Israeli forces." Lamb continues,

"According to some international lawyers, it also fulfills UN Security Council Resolution 1559 regarding disarming militias because Lebanon has in effect declared that the arms of the Hezbollah led Resistance are part of the defense of Lebanon itself and not a particular movement or political party. This Policy statement satisfies UNSCR 1701 for the same reason."

Mr. Kuperman also does not address how American funding of the Israeli occupation and military support for its frequent invasions, massacres, and war crimes violate numerous US statutes including the Arms Export Control Act (P.L.80-829) which states that exported weaponry must be relegated to "internal security” and “legitimate self-defense” only, the Foreign Assistance Act (P.L.97-195) which holds that “No assistance may be provided…to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” and the Foreign Ops Appropriations Act's "Leahy Law" which demands that no aid be provided to "any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible evidence that such unit has committed gross violations of human rights." One look at the UN Goldstone Report proves that the United States has consistently violated its own legislation with regard to Israel, as well as numerous international laws. For example, the US is violating the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which the US claims it will not fulfill until 2023, even though the convention requires the elimination of these weapons by 2012 (already an extension from 2007). Also, Obama has rejected inspection protocol for US biological weapons despite his stated dedication to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and has refused to ratify the international antipersonnel landmine ban, despite being lauded by the Nobel Peace Prize committee for his commitment to "disarmament and arms control negotiations."

In his New York Times piece, Mr. Kuperman warns that "If Iran acquired a nuclear arsenal, the risks would simply be too great that it could become a neighborhood bully." Clearly, the argument assumes, only the United States and Israel should be allowed to bully Middle Eastern countries with their own nuclear arsenals, invasions, occupations, and international impunity.

He then goes on to state that "history suggests that military strikes could work," claiming that "Israel's 1981 attack on the nearly finished Osirak reactor prevented Iraq's rapid acquisition of a plutonium-based nuclear weapon and compelled it to pursue a more gradual, uranium-based bomb program."

This is a dubious conclusion to draw based on the fact that the Iraqi nuclear program before 1981 was peaceful, under intensive safeguards and monitoring, and that the Osirak reactor was, as Harvard physics professor Richard Wilson has explained, "explicitly designed by the French engineer Yves Girard to be unsuitable for making bombs. That was obvious to me on my 1982 visit."

What Mr. Kuperman also omits is that the Israeli attack, code named Operation Opera, took the lives of ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian researcher and was widely lambasted by the international community, prompting a UN General Assembly resolution (36/27) on November 13, 1981 that "strongly condemn[ed] Israel for its premeditated and unprecedented act of aggression in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct, which constitutes a new and dangerous escalation of the threat to international peace and security."

The resolution also reaffirmed Iraq's "inalienable sovereign right" to "develop technological and nuclear programmes for peaceful purposes" and stated that, not only was Iraq a party to the NPT, but had also "satisfactorily applied" the IAEA safeguards required of it. Conversely, it noted "with concern" that "Israel has refused to adhere to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and, in spite of repeated calls, including that of the Security Council, to place its nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards."

In addition to condemning "the misuse by Israel, in committing its acts of aggression against Arab countries, of aircraft and weapons supplied by the United States of America," the resolution reiterated "its call to all States to cease forthwith any provision to Israel of arms and related material of all types which enable it to commit acts of aggression against other States" and requested "the Security Council to investigate Israel's nuclear activities and the collaboration of other States and parties in those activities" and "institute effective enforcement action to prevent Israel from further endangering international peace and security through its acts of aggression and continued policies of expansion, occupation and annexation."

Furthermore, the General Assembly demanded that "Israel, in view of its international responsibility for its act of aggression, pay prompt and adequate compensation for the material damage and loss of life suffered" due to the illegal and lethal attack.

For Mr. Kuperman, this constituted a successful mission (which, considering that none of the UN's demands have ever been met over the past 30 years, perhaps it was). Truth be told, this is an unsurprising conclusion for someone who claims that "the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that the United States military can oust regimes in weeks if it wants to." Perhaps Mr. Kuperman doesn't get out much.

That might explain why Mr. Kuperman also claims that "Iran could retaliate [in response to a US air strike] by aiding America’s opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it does that anyway," without any evidence to back up that assertion. Is he unaware that Iran is a longtime enemy of both the Taliban and Al Qaeda and enjoys moderately good relations with the puppet government in Iraq? Does he not remember that Iranian intelligence provided valuable assistance to the US military before the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001? Does he not know that the claims that Iran supplies weapons to Iraqi militias and resistance fighters have been repeatedly debunked?

Take, for example, the time in 2008 when a cache of thousands of weapons was seized during raids of Mahdi Army arsenals around Karbala. Military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner, when asked in May 2008 about the proportion of Iranian weapons then in the hands of Iraqi fighters, muttered the standard deflection and insinuation that the resistance groups "could not do what they're doing without the support of foreign support [sic]" and then broadly defined such "support" as training, funding, and arming fighters with weapons. The evidence, eventually handed over to the Iraqi government by US forces a few months later, was found to provide no solid proof that the weapons came from Iran and the charges were withdrawn after a meeting with Iranian officials. The allegations collapsed once and for all when the weapons were looked at again by the Americans who, via a military spokesman, "attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin." The entire embarrassing episode was summed up by Keith Olbermann on Countdown at the time:

"Major General Kevin Bergner convened a news conference in Baghdad last Wednesday to list 20,000 items of ammunition, explosives, and weapons captured or uncovered by US and Iraqi governmental forces in the last few weeks of fighting. 45 rocket-propelled grenades, 570 assorted explosive devices, 1800 mortars and artillery rounds. The point? This was the big day, this was the day, according to the LA Times, that the American military was to show the media of the world the conclusive evidence that at least some of the weaponry used by Iraqi insurgents had been supplied by Iran. The US military spokesman confirming to that newspaper that that's what the dog-and-pony-show was to include. They were all ready to show off Iran's tangible responsibility for some of the haul of the machinery of death, to establish the link between American fatalities and Iran: trademarks or company logos or Made in Tehran stickers or something.

When US experts took a second look at all this stuff, they then said 'None of this is from Iran.' 20,000 blowing-up things? Hard count of those supplied by Iran: zero. Percentage of the whole imported from Iran: no percent. Amount of tangible evidence linking Iran to anti-American uprisings in Baghdad: none. You do realize, they are making this up about Iran!"

And still, despite all the painfully obvious truth of the matter, US military officials continued to accuse Iran of channeling weaponry to Shia militias who are opposing the illegal US occupation in Iraq. In late May 2008, Gareth Porter reported in IPS News that the alleged weapons were clearly not of Iranian origin (they were mostly manufactured in China, Russia, and the former Yugoslavia) and were obtained by Iraqi militias on the international black market.

With a quick look at some other facts, it can even be argued that the US military has itself provided lethal weaponry to Iraqi "insurgents" on a scale that could easily be called negligent collaboration. In August 2007, the Pentagon admitted to losing track of a whole third of the total weapons distributed to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005. As a result, states Global Research, "The 190,000 assault rifles and pistols roam free in Iraqi streets today."

As his battle cry draws to an end, Mr. Kuperman suggests that "air strikes could degrade and deter Iran's bomb program at relatively little cost or risk, and therefore are worth a try."

The costs and risks that Mr. Kuperman so deftly avoids addressing are the lives and livelihoods of the people of Iran. No type of "surgical" or "precision" bomb-dropping can avoid the loss the human life. A country of 70 million living, breathing, working, walking, talking, laughing, crying, dissenting, protesting, counter-protesting, praying, not praying, dreaming, wishing, hoping, loving human beings deserves far more consideration and calculation than what Mr. Kuperman provides or could ever understand.

New York politician Charles Evans Hughes, who, in the early 20th Century, served as Governor of New York, United States Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, once said, "War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals."

With this in mind, let's hope there's a special cell in hell reserved for lying warmongers like William Kristol, Judith Miller, and now, Alan Kuperman.

*****

GOLDSTONEWALLED!US Congress Endorses Israeli War Crimes

"It is part of morality not to be at home in one's home."
- Edward Said
On the afternoon of November 3, 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of House Resolution 867 (H.Res.867), an AIPAC-backed bill that urges both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to "oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the "Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict," referred to commonly as the "Goldstone Report." With this vote, the US Congress has not only enshrined its opposition to investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity found to be committed during last winter's Israeli massacre of over 1,400 Palestinians in the closed-off Gaza Strip, but has also affirmed its outrageous and unconscionable commitment to Israel's continuous unfettered aggression and singular unaccountability to international law, rules of military engagement, human rights, and basic morality.

In their successful effort to (yet again) shield the State of Israel from any and all scrutiny or criticism over its illegal use of collective punishment and excessive force against an imprisoned, impoverished, and defenseless civilian population, Congressional supporters of H.Res.867 sought to discredit the UN's 575-page report of meticulously-documented human rights violations. After visiting Gaza, conducting 188 individual interviews of victims and witnesses, studying more than 300 reports, submissions and other documentation including medical reports and forensic analysis of weapons and ammunition remnants collected in Gaza, amounting to more than 10,000 pages, and reviewing over 30 videos and 1,200 photographs, the Mission, led by South African Justice Richard Goldstone, concluded that "violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity" were committed by both parties (Israel and Hamas) during the Israeli assault on Gaza (A/HRC/12/48 p.423).

Goldstone's impeccable and unimpeachable credentials cannot be overstated. As a member of the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, Goldstone was responsible for uncovering and publicizing allegations of the extensive violence committed by Apartheid South African security forces, paving the way for subsequent investigations by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after South African democratization. He served as a judge for the Constitutional Court of South Africa, chairman of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and was a member of the International Panel of the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (CEANA), tasked to identify and prosecute Nazi war criminals who had emigrated to Argentina. In 2004/5, he was a member of the Volker Committee investigation into the UN’s Iraq oil-for-food program.

The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that, according to a lecture Goldstone delivered in Jerusalem in 2000, he "believes bringing war criminals to justice stems from the lessons of the Holocaust," which he described as "the worst war crime in the world." In Goldstone's view, the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the lessons learned by the international community in the wake of their discovery have "shaped legal protocol on war" and "constituted the basis for the concept of universal jurisdiction."

Not only this, but in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, his own daughter Nicole (once a resident of Israel) even described Goldstone, who is Jewish, as "a Zionist" who "loves Israel." Goldstone currently serves as a trustee at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, the harrowing conclusions and reasonable recommendations of the UN commission were quickly denounced by many US officials (not to mention the pathetic 'who, me?' outrage and phony self-righteousness exhibited by their Israeli counterparts), most of whom had not even read the report in its entirety; their smug derision of the dispassionate facts presented in the report made perfectly clear their intention to cover-up Israeli war crimes and, in so doing, legitimize and endorse Israel's ongoing suppression, dehumanization, starvation, occupation, and slaughter of the Palestinian people.

As it has in the past, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), rushed to Israel's defense. This is the same team that, almost two weeks into the Israeli bombardment, co-sponsored House Resolution 34, a Pelosi-led non-binding declaration that "recogniz[ed] Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza" and "reaffirm[ed] the United States strong support for Israel." H.Res.34 called upon the House of Representatives to express "vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders, and [to recognize] its right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against Hamas's unceasing aggression," in addition to claiming that Israel had "facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza" during the assault. The resolution also called on "all nations" to "condemn Hamas for deliberately embedding its fighters, leaders, and weapons in private homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, and otherwise using Palestinian civilians as human shields, while simultaneously targeting Israeli civilians" and "to lay blame both for the breaking of the 'calm' and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame belongs, that is, on Hamas."

The resolution made no mention whatsoever to the crippling Israeli blockade, the devastating and ceaseless air and ground assaults by the Israeli military, or the fact that it was the IDF that had, in fact, broken the ceasefire in the first place. The resolution passed almost unanimously (390-5) on the very same day that the Palestinian death toll in Gaza reached 765, half of them children and women, with thousands more wounded, including hundreds in critical condition. As Congress affirmed its "vigorous support [of] and unwavering commitment" to Israel, municipal buildings, homes, and mosques in Gaza were shelled relentlessly by the Israeli military using US weaponry. Five days earlier, the Israeli Air Force had launched an attack on a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya, killing over 40 people and wounding over 100 more.

Over seven months later, when the Goldstone Report was released, Representatives Berman and Ros-Lehtinen returned to the drafting table.

Howard Berman, the self-described liberal who voted for the invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003 as well as the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, was described in an article in the Jewish Daily Forward as a "staunch supporter of Israel" and "a cautious backer of the peace process" whose "interest in the Jewish state was one of the main reasons he first sought a seat on the [House Foreign Relations] committee." Berman, possibly in an effort to one-up Joe Biden, boasts that "Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist." Larry Weinberg, an AIPAC board member, confirms Berman's ethno-supremacist credentials saying, "I have known Congressman Berman for many years, and I am continually impressed by his personal commitment to strengthening the bond between the United States and Israel...He is not only a leader on our issues, but he is a friend to many in the pro-Israel community."

Berman is adamant about placing harsh sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which he constantly mischaracterizes as a "nuclear weapons" program. He, along with his trusty sidekick Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has recently proposed HR 2194, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which seeks to impose sanctions on companies that help Iran to import refined petroleum products or that help it to increase its domestic refinery capacity. In a September speech, Berman claimed that the United States "will be in a much stronger position to maximize our ability to obtain crippling sanctions because of our sincere effort to engage [Iran]." What an enticing proposal for Iran to engage! The speech also contained this brilliant nugget regarding the terrifying menace of a nuclear-armed Iran: "We’re not talking about a regime that has the same calculus - that same sense of restraint - as we do about the use of such a weapon." Perhaps the Congressman forgot that, in addition to being the biggest stockpiler of nuclear weapons on the planet in clear violation of its obligations to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States is also the only country in the history of the world to ever use nuclear weapons. And it used them on innocent civilians. Twice.

Ros-Lehtinen, meanwhile, is not only the most senior Republican woman in the US House, a hawkish Zionist, and a supporter of the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, the Military Commission Act, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the military coup in Honduras. She is also against the funding of stem cell research, affirmative action (scoring a 31% favorability by the NAACP), and civil rights (scoring a dismal 14% by the ACLU) encourages continued sanctions against Cuba (the country of her birth), and has openly called for the assassination of Fidel Castro.

Additionally, as journalist Franklin Lamb points out, Ros-Lehtinen, along with Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, is a pillar of the "fake US Congressional Human Rights Caucus, founded in 1983 which in its quarter century of self congratulatory investigations of Human Rights abuses has yet to find a single human rights abuse by Israel, irrespective of any murders, slaughtering of innocents, home demolitions, political incarcerations, religious bigotry, illegal use of American weapons, illegal siege of Gaza, and serial invasions of Lebanon, and the continuing theft of Syria’s Golan heights. Over the past few years the CHRC has become an Iran-bashing forum for all manner of Zionist zealots and kooks spreading falsehoods and defamations against Islam and the Islamic Republic."

Once H.Res.867 was drawn up, it was rapidly co-sponsored by over 200 other representatives before hitting the House floor for a vote.

The resolution itself neither addresses nor disputes any of the Goldstone Report's actual findings or conclusions. Instead, via a series of deliberately misleading, factually inaccurate, and unrelated "whereas" clauses, it seeks to delegitimize the entire Fact Finding Mission as a whole, oftentimes personally attacking its members in an effort to show anti-Israel tendencies or bias. What the resolution actually amounts to is a repetition of Israeli propaganda and Zionist apologia masquerading as a legal and moral defense of indefensible Israeli military aggression.

The wide support it received in Congress demonstrates that the United States House of Representatives is determined only to promote human rights and international law with regards to how it relates to the protection of Israeli Jews and, in equal measure, proves its unequivocal and unabashed disregard, if not outright contempt, for the rights and lives of Palestinians.

The text of H.Res.867 is rife with blatant inaccuracies, decontextualized mischaracterizations, and a thorough lack of historical perspective. Many of these factual errors were addressed and corrected in a letter written by Judge Goldstone himself to both Berman and Ros-Lehtinen on October 29.

For instance, in one of its 33 "whereas" clauses, the resolution claims:

"...the mandate of the 'fact-finding mission' makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel's defensive measures."

This is a deliberate, decontextualized falsehood. The mandate called for the UN Mission "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after." (A/HRC/12/48, p.13)

Palestinian rocket attacks, in addition to Israeli military operations, were clearly included in this mandate. Additionally, had those who wrote and supported the House resolution actually read the contents of Goldstone Report rather than simply making things up, they would have been well aware that, in addition to Palestinian rocket attacks and their consequences being mentioned at length in the report's Introduction, there is also an entire 20-page chapter (XXIV, p.346-366) entitled "The Impact on Civilians of Rocket and Mortar Attacks by Palestinian Armed Groups on Southern Israel," which practically begins with the following statement: "Since April 2001, Palestinian armed groups have launched more than 8,000 rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel."

After exhaustively documenting the impact of these rocket attacks, including Israeli fatalities, physical injuries, psychological trauma, mental health, damage to property, the impact on the right to education and on the economic and social life of affected communities (both Israeli and Palestinian within southern Israel), the Mission states that "There is no justification in international law for the launching of rockets and mortars that cannot be directed at specific military targets into areas where civilian populations are located" and concludes that because these rockets cannot be aimed at specific targets, "one of the primary purposes of these continued attacks is to spread terror," an act which it explicitly states is "prohibited under international humanitarian law." (A/HRC/12/48, p.365) It continues:

"...the launching of unguided rockets and mortars breaches the fundamental principle of distinction: an attack must distinguish between military and civilian targets. Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population...

...From the facts available, the Mission finds that the rocket and mortars attacks, launched by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, have caused terror in the affected communities of southern Israel and in Israel as a whole. Furthermore, it is the Mission’s view that the mortars and rockets are uncontrolled and uncontrollable, respectively. This indicates the commission of an indiscriminate attack on the civilian population of southern Israel, a war crime, and may amount to crimes against humanity. These attacks have caused loss of life and physical and mental injury to civilians and damage to private houses, religious buildings and property and have eroded the economic and cultural life of the affected communities." (A/HRC/12/48, p.366) (emphasis mine)

The Goldstone Report is perfectly clear. The House Resolution is deliberately false. Furthermore, as Jeremy R. Hammond of Foreign Policy Journal deftly points out, the resolution "ignores the fact that even if Israel’s military operations were justifiable as 'defensive measures,' Israel would still be legally obligated to conduct its operations in accordance with international law, and to conduct investigations into alleged war crimes conducted by its own forces."

The resolution and its supporters repeatedly refer to the Goldstone Report as "one-sided," referencing comments made by both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice, who called its initial mandate "unbalanced, one sided and basically unacceptable." However, as Goldstone himself explains, "the House resolution fails to mention that notwithstanding my repeated personal pleas to the Government of Israel, Israel refused all cooperation with the Mission. Among other things, I requested the views of Israel with regard to the implementation of the mandate and details of any issues that the Government of Israel might wish us to investigate," continuing,

"This refusal meant that Israel did not offer any information or evidence it may have collected regarding actions by Hamas or other Palestinian groups in Gaza. Any omission of such information and evidence in the report is regrettable, but is the result of Israel’s decision not to cooperate with the Fact-Finding mission, not a decision by the mission to downplay or cast doubt on such information and evidence."

The Israeli government even denied the Mission entry to Israel in order to interview witnesses and tour affected communities such as Sderot [sic; the real name of the town is Najd] and Ashkelon [sic; the real name of the town is al-Majdal]. Israeli witnesses had to be flown to Geneva or Jordan to be interviewed. Other interviews were conducted over the phone and via the internet. "I believed that Israel would cooperate," Goldstone told Ha'aretz. "It turned to be a naïve expectation."

So what was Congressman Berman's response?

"Justice Goldstone is correct. The Government of Israel decided not to cooperate with the Mission, based on its biased mandate, as well as the UNHRC's long history of anti-Israel bias. I find that position, at the least, understandable."

Understandable or not, Berman's resolution omits Israel's refusal to cooperate, while at the same time claiming that Hamas, which did cooperate with the Mission and allowed its members full access to Gaza, was "able to significantly shape the findings of the investigation mission's report by selecting and prescreening some of the witnesses and intimidating others." In turn, Goldstone replied, "The allegation that Hamas was able to shape the findings of my report or that it pre-screened the witnesses is devoid of truth. I challenge anyone to produce evidence in support of it."

Berman's only "evidence" is his subsequent claim that "the commission conducted some of its proceedings through holding televised open hearings in Gaza. Given its total control of Gaza and its ability to intimidate, Hamas almost certainly would have been able to control the access and message of each witness attending a televised open hearing. What is beyond doubt is that witnesses were keenly aware that Hamas was monitoring the televised proceedings and likely to inflict reprisals for any unwelcome testimony." The only thing that seems "almost certainly" "beyond doubt" is Berman's ceaseless proclivity to make baseless assumptions about a place he's never been and an incredibly stalwart and resilient people he's never met.

It is doubtful that Berman would also conclude that past testimonies given by Israeli soldiers regarding the gross misconduct and war crimes committed in Gaza were also the result of militaristic intimidation, most likely agreeing with the aborted military probe that, unsurprisingly, found the allegations to be "based in hearsay" and "rumors," and declared an end to the probe. According to Congressman Berman, the only apparent trustworthy source on what happens in Gaza is the Israeli government. What a relief.

In reality, the Goldstone Report's findings are unequivocal and unambiguous. Among many other conclusions, it found that Israel's "repeated failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians appears to the Mission to have been the result of deliberate guidance issued to soldiers, as described by some of them, and not the result of occasional lapses" and that "the destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and residential houses was the result of a deliberate and systematic policy by the Israeli armed forces. It was not carried out because those objects presented a military threat or opportunity, but to make the daily process of living, and dignified living, more difficult for the civilian population." (A/HRC/12/48, p.407)

The Mission found that Israeli operations, in many cases, constituted "an assault on the dignity of the people" and included not only "the use of human shields and unlawful detentions sometimes in unacceptable conditions, but also in the vandalizing of houses when occupied and the way in which people were treated when their houses were entered. The graffiti on the walls, the obscenities and often racist slogans, all constituted an overall image of humiliation and dehumanization of the Palestinian population." (A/HRC/12/48, p.407)

Because the Israeli government has consistently claimed that all phases of "Operation Cast Lead" were thoroughly and extensively planned, that legal opinions and advice were given throughout the planning stages and at certain operational levels during the campaign, and that, according to the Government of Israel, almost no mistakes were made during the planning or operation itself, the Goldstone Report concludes that "what occurred in just over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability." Furthermore, "Whatever violations of international humanitarian and human rights law may have been committed, the systematic and deliberate nature of the activities described in this report leave the Mission in no doubt that responsibility lies in the first place with those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the operations." (A/HRC/12/48, p.408)

Clearly, these revelations are far too damning for the US Congress, which funds the Israeli military apparatus to the tune of $3 billion each year and provides devastating weaponry with which to slaughter Palestinians by the hundreds, to bear and therefore must be buried. With this in mind, it is all too obvious that H.Res.867 is meant to be a distraction from the truth; it is a deliberate and disingenuous deflection of well-documented, substantiated, and widely corroborated evidence of Israeli war crimes that, in its reflexive self-righteousness, reveals itself to be no more than a study in double standards, moral relativism and selective outrage.

As such, the resolution and its uncreative backers in the House, resorted to obvious repetitions of hasbara in a well-coordinated effort to silence all criticism of Israeli actions, cover-up evidence of Israeli war crimes, and condone any and all military aggression, invasion, and occupation - no matter how illegal, inhumane, or truculent - committed by any so-called "democracy" in the name of "self-defense."

When the resolution made it to the floor of the House on Tuesday afternoon, Congress members from all over the country lined up to lend their vocal support to Reps. Berman and Ros-Lehtinen and the resolution. They all basically said the same thing: that the wicked, blood-lusting terrorists of Hamas used Palestinians as human shields and that a victimized, peace-loving, democratic Israel, via the findings of the Goldstone Report, is being unfairly condemned for merely acting out of self-defense.

Ros-Lehtinen, in her defense of H.Res.867, called the Goldstone Report a "575-page hatchet job" that "persecut[ed] Israel for defending herself," claiming that the Mission "disregarded evidence that Hamas and other such groups in Gaza used innocents as human shields and deliberately launched attacks from schools, from hospitals, from mosques." (Congressional Record H12234 11/3/09)

By the time these statements were made, Judge Goldstone had already addressed them thusly: "It is factually incorrect to state that the Report denied Israel the right of self-defense," he wrote in his letter to Berman. "The report examined how that right was implemented by the standards of international law."

The Report itself even addresses Israel's claim to self-defense. It concluded:

"While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.

In this respect, the operations were in furtherance of an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience and for its apparent support for Hamas, and possibly with the intent of forcing a change in such support. The Mission considers this position to be firmly based in fact, bearing in mind what it saw and heard on the ground, what it read in the accounts of soldiers who served in the campaign, and what it heard and read from current and former military officers and political leaders whom the Mission considers to be representative of the thinking that informed the policy and strategy of the military operations." (A/HRC/12/48, p.406)

In response to the unsubstantiated, albeit constantly repeated, claims that Hamas militants hide behind innocent civilians as a defensive strategy, Goldstone notes that the Mission found no conclusive "evidence that Hamas forced civilians to remain in their homes in order to act as human shields. Indeed, while the Government of Israel has alleged publicly that Hamas used Palestinian civilians as human shields, it has not identified any cases where it claims that civilians were doing so under threat of force by Hamas or any other party."

Nevertheless, because the issue of Hamas using civilians as "human shields" is so deeply ingrained in the Zionist propaganda talking points of both Israeli and American apologists for Israeli atrocities, any contradiction of this assumed justification for the willful murder of vast numbers of innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military is brushed aside as an absurd fabrication and distortion of reality. As such, despite relevant facts and evidence to the contrary, it is repeated again and again by Israeli and American officials, parroted by an uncritical media, and in entrenched in the psyche of the gullible public to become indisputable doctrine.

Desmond Travers, who was one of the four members of Goldstone's UN Mission, addressed the "human shield" allegation in a recent interview with Harper's Magazine. A retired Colonel of the Army of the Irish Defence Forces and the former Commandant of its Military College, Travers has also served in "command of troops with various UN and EU peace support missions." In response to a question regarding whether "Hamas deliberately inserted its fighters among civilians" and therefore was responsible for deliberately increasing the civilian death toll of the conflict, Travers said this:

"We found no evidence that Hamas used civilians as hostages. I had expected to find such evidence but did not. We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. Gaza is densely populated and has a labyrinth of makeshift shanties and a system of tunnels and bunkers. If I were a Hamas operative the last place I’d store munitions would be in a mosque. It’s not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are many better places to store munitions. We investigated two destroyed mosques — one where worshippers were killed — and we found no evidence that either was used as anything but a place of worship."

As part of the House floor debate, Congressman Ron Klein (D-FL) claimed that the Goldstone Report "does nothing to advance peace and security in the Middle East" but rather "serves to reinforce the deep mistrust that pervades the region and excuses the actions of terrorist groups and their state sponsors." He did not discuss how identifying war crimes and human rights violations would be anathema to promoting peace and security.

"The Goldstone Report ignores the facts," Klein continued. "The terrorist threat surrounding Israel's defensive actions in Gaza require a decisive response, and any sovereign nation would have and should have done what Israel did," adding, "I would urge U.N. member states to devote time and thoughts to the realities of human rights around the world, not Israel." (CR H12233 11/3/09) Clearly, for Ron Klein, the 'realities of human rights around the world' and 'Israel' are mutually exclusive.

Eliot Engel (D-NY) claimed that the Goldstone Report is "part of an ongoing effort at the U.N. to single out Israel and to deny Israel the same rights accorded to other nations" and that it "equates Israel's long-delayed acts of self-defense [sic] with Hamas' 12,000 intentional, indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians since 2001." He closed his comments by urging Congress to "stand by" Israel. (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Eric Cantor (R-FL) claimed that "For years, without provocation, Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza launched thousands of deadly rockets at Israeli civilians. The attacks laid siege to entire swaths of Israelis. By last December, Israel said enough was enough." (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Steny Hoyer (D-MD) echoed Cantor's statements, saying,

"The Goldstone Report largely neglects the context within which Israel's action took place. Why is that context so vital, and why is the report so empty without it? Because for years — for years — Israel has been the target of asymmetrical warfare for terrorists who hide behind civilians and aim to kill civilians. For 8 years before Operation Cast Lead, Hamas, aided by Iran and others, launched deadly rockets and mortar fire into Israel, even after Israel dismantled its Gaza settlements, even after it withdrew its military. More than 6,000 rockets have fallen indiscriminately on southern Israel’s cities and towns. I can't imagine there is one of us in this Chamber that if Canada or Mexico rained down six missiles on our civilian population — not 6,000 on our population — that there would be a Member here who would not want decisive response to stop that assault." (CR H12238 11/3/09)

Dan Burton (R-IN) also chimed in with a short speech that sounded like it was written in a joint fit of Alzheimer's disease and Tourette's syndrome. In it, he declared that "Israel has been our friend forever," which is an odd thing to say considering that Burton was already ten years old by the time the colonial European Zionist founders of the State of Israel unilaterally declared its independence. Burton continued:

"Ariel Sharon tried to reach out in a peaceful way to give Gaza back to the Palestinians [sic]. And what happened? Hamas goes in there and starts launching missile after missile after missile at innocent people, blowing them up, trying to kill them. They want to destroy Israel, as does Iran [sic]...

...There shouldn’t be one vote, not one vote in this place against Israel.

And the people who are making these comments on the other side of the aisle really bother me, because Israel has been such a great friend of ours and they have been trying to reach peace over there forever [sic]. And, instead, they keep getting rocket attack after rocket attack, and then they are criticized for human rights problems because they defend themselves [sic].

If we launched missiles into Michigan, I guarantee you, Michigan would be really ticked off at us and would want to stop it and would do everything they could to stop it. We ought to support Israel." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

Against her better judgment, even Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) decided to lend her version of recent history to the Congressional Record:

"In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza to allow the Palestinians to begin building a state. They didn’t. Instead, Hamas used the Gaza to terrorize the Palestinian people and as a launch pad to rain missiles on Israeli cities, 8,000 rocket attacks in a 3-year period. In the fall of 2008, even more rockets fell on innocent Israelis and the situation became untenable...For those who suggest that Israel used disproportionate force, I say Israel used extraordinary restraint: missile after missile, injury after injury, death after death, and year after year." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

The issues raised by these Representatives are indicative of a staggering amount of misinformation that permeates the halls of Congress and beyond. Hoyer's suggestion that the Goldstone Report neglects to contextualize last winter's assault is a statement devoid of all fact, due either to the Congressman's intentional desire to obfuscate the truth or, perhaps more likely, his unfamiliarity with the Report's actual contents. Part One includes extensive historical background of Israel's policies toward Palestinians, including the devastating three-year blockade (A/HRC/12/48, p.82-85), and Palestinian resistance to ongoing oppression, subjugation, apartheid, and aggression in both Gaza and the West Bank (albeit beginning in 1967, thereby omitting the true context of a century of Zionist colonization in Palestine, the Nakba, and almost two decades of martial law for Arab citizens of Israel; chances are, however, this is not the missing information Steny Hoyer wishes to include). The Report clearly states the importance of context:

"The Mission is of the view that Israel's military operation in Gaza between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 and its impact cannot be understood or assessed in isolation from developments prior and subsequent to it. The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed at pursuing Israel's political objectives with regard to Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole. Many such policies are based on or result in violations of international human rights and humanitarian law." (A/HRC/12/48, p.404)

Also included is the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Whereas the Representatives speaking in favor of adopting H.Res.867 refer to the withdrawal as an Israeli move toward peace that was met by Palestinian violence, the Report provides a much more fact-based assessment of the Gaza narrative, revealing that under the disengagement plan, "the Israeli armed forces continued to maintain control over Gaza’s borders, coastline and airspace, and Israel reserved 'its inherent right of self-defence, both preventive and reactive, including where necessary the use of force, in respect of threats emanating from the Gaza Strip.'" (A/HRC/12/48, p.49)

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, in an article written in the midst of the Gaza massacre early this year and published in the Guardian, elaborates on the implications of the Israeli withdrawal:

"To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.

The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel."

The Goldstone Report, both in its "Context" section (A/HRC/12/48 p.46-61) and Chapter IV (entitled "Applicable Law," p.71-81), discusses how the Israeli military occupation of Gaza did not end with the withdrawal, stating,

"Israel removed both settlements and military bases protecting the settlers from the Gaza Strip, redeploying on Gaza’s southern border and repositioning its forces to other areas just outside the Gaza Strip. In addition to controlling the borders, coastline and airspace, after the implementation of the disengagement plan, Israel continued to control Gaza's telecommunications, water, electricity and sewage networks, as well as the population registry, and the flow of people and goods into and out of the territory while the inhabitants of Gaza continued to rely on the Israeli currency." (A/HRC/12/48, p.49)

Shlaim is even more direct in his description of the aftermath of Israeli "disengagement":

"Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison."

The focus on the number of Palestinian rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into southern Israel (a statistic that ranges generally from 6,000 to 8,000) is oft-repeated and used, most recently by members of Congress, to demonstrate the "asymmetrical warfare for terrorists" in Gaza inflicted upon the innocent Israelis.

A quick look at the facts reveals a very different perspective of what "disproportionate" really means. The Goldstone Report states that, in the mere fourteen months from the September 2005 disengagement until November 2006, "the Israeli armed forces fired approximately 15,000 artillery shells and conducted more than 550 air strikes into the Gaza Strip. Israeli military attacks killed approximately 525 people in Gaza. Over the same period, at least 1,700 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel by Palestinian militants, injuring 41 Israelis." (A/HRC/12/48, p.51-52)

Such statistics show that for each homemade rocket we are told terrorizes and traumatizes the children of Sderot, there are at least nine Israeli shells on Gaza that bring death and destruction to Palestinian children who are already forced to live in constant horror and humiliation.

In all of 2007, five Israelis, none of whom were children, were killed in Israel in incidents involving Palestinian violence. The same year, over three hundred Palestinians in Gaza, 29 of which were children, were killed by Israeli violence (another 91, including 14 children, were killed by Israeli or settler violence in the West Bank). The following year, up through October 2008, a total of 30 Israelis, including 4 children, were killed by Palestinian violence. In contrast, in the first ten months of 2008, 389 Palestinians, including 69 children, were killed by Israel in Gaza alone, not to mention the 56 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Israel. Between December 27, 2008 and January 21, 2009, the Israeli air force, navy, and army murdered 926 Palestinian civilians, including 313 children, 116 women, 497 civilian men, and 255 non-combatant police officers, wounded over six thousand, and left tens of thousands homeless. 236 Palestinian combatants were also killed. Disproportionately, 10 of the 13 Israelis killed in those 26 days were Israeli soldiers, four of whom died by friendly fire.

The actual "asymmetry" of Israel's bombardment of Gaza is also evident when considering that, as Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups fight with conventional weapons, homemade rockets, and thrown stones, the IDF employs tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, unmanned drones, howitzer artillery, as well as the illegal use of such destructive weaponry as white phosphorous, flechette missiles, dense inert metal explosive (DIME) munitions, and even depleted and non-depleted uranium. (A/HRC/12/48, p.194-199)

Although resolution advocates like Eric Cantor describe Palestinian rocket attacks as being initiated "without provocation," the truth reveals something completely different. It is clear from such New York Times, Reuters, Ha'aretz, Guardian, Yediot Ahronot, The Times (UK), BBC, and Amnesty International reports that Israel broke the ceasefire, leading to an escalation of events eventually culminating with Operation Cast Lead. It has even been conclusively proven that, with regard to who breaks ceasefires more often, the Israeli military or Palestinian militants, "a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week."

Even the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a governmental think tank that, according to its own website, "serves shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress" and whose "experts assist at every stage of the legislative process" providing "Congress with the vital, analytical support it needs to address the most complex public policy issues facing the nation" found in a February report titled Israel and Hamas: Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009):

"For the first five months [of the Egyptian-mediated, six-month tahdiya beginning in June 2008], the cease-fire held relatively well. Some rockets were fired into Israel, but most were attributed to non-Hamas militant groups, and, progressively, Hamas appeared increasingly able and willing to suppress even these attacks. No Israeli deaths were reported..." (CRS R40101, 2/19/09)

This corroborates the reporting of New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner, who wrote on December 18, 2008 (over week before Israeli launched its ruthless assault) that, in its efforts to abide by the truce, "Hamas imposed its will [over other armed resistance groups] and even imprisoned some of those who were firing rockets." In fact, the terms of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas included, not only the halting of rocket fire from Gaza, but also the Israeli agreement to lift its brutal economic blockade of Gaza, which had been in place before Hamas was even voted into power. The siege, nevertheless, continued unabated. Therefore, whereas Hamas upheld their obligations to the ceasefire, Israel did not. Hamas leaders even offered to extend the ceasefire beyond its December 19 expiration date. Israel ignored the proposal, opting instead to carpet bomb civilian neighborhoods and incinerate, mutilate, and dismember children with banned and experimental weaponry.

Essentially, the Congressional claims of relentless and unprovoked Palestinian aggression against a peaceful Israeli population are not only unfounded, they assume the exact opposite of the truth. The "What-if-Mexico or Michigan" analogies also fall short under even the most cursory scrutiny. All real evidence turns such suggestions into a preposterous joke at which no one is laughing.

At one point, during the Congressional debate over H. Res.867, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer's effort to place the blame for Israel's brutal blockade, deprivation, starvation, collective punishment, and massacre of Palestinians in Gaza squarely on the democratically-elected leadership of Hamas took a tellingly racist turn. "Tragically, civilians in Gaza suffered and continue to suffer. They suffer in major part from the determination of their imposed leaders to pursue indiscriminate terror," he began.

"Is there anybody here who doubts that if those children living there for decade after decade after decade were European children or American children or Jewish children that they would still be there in those [refugee] camps? I say to you, not the case. Why are they there? Because the Arab community does not want to absorb them, and their leaders will not seek a meaningful peace. That is why they’re there." (CR H12238 11/3/09)

Why Hoyer believes that "the Arab community" would be responsible, let alone obligated, to "absorb" Palestinians is never explained. Palestinians in Gaza don't ask for absorption elsewhere; their home is Palestine, not Jordan, Lebanon, or Egypt. They were expelled from what is now Israel and, under international law, are entitled - not to be "absorbed" by other countries - but to return to their homes.

Gary Ackerman (D-NY), who actually traveled to Israel with NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly (on the Mayor's private jet) during the Gaza Massacre to show his support for the murder of hundreds of defenseless Palestinians by the Israeli military, entered his remarks into the Congressional Record, calling the Goldstone Report "a pompous, tendentious, one-sided political diatribe" that, for all its "facts" and "context" contains "very little truth" and "very little wisdom." (CR H12244 11/3/09)

Ackerman makes clear his contempt for the authors of the Report by stating, "In the self-righteous fantasyland inhabited by Judge Goldstone and his colleagues, there's no such thing as terrorism; there's no such thing as Hamas (and if it does exist, it's certainly nothing to fear); there's no such thing as legitimate self-defense; and war is like a sporting event, rather than the most ghastly, destructive, chaotic phenomenon we human beings are capable of creating." Ackerman himself could benefit from a reality check in the form of testimony by a young Israeli reservist who, upon reflecting on his role as a remote operator of Predator drones conducting airstrikes on civilian centers and residential neighborhoods in Gaza, said the following:

"It feels like hunting season has begun...Sometimes it reminds me of a Play Station game. You hear cheers in the war room after you see on the screens that the missile hit a target, as if it were a soccer game."

Although Congressional opponents of H.Res.867 were few and far between, a number of courageous Congress members took up the mantle of human rights, international law, and even American legislative process by voicing their dissent and urging their colleagues to side with morality and legality, rather than denial and impunity.

Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison led the opposition, stating that the resolution "should be opposed because it suppresses inquiry, inquiry that is the hallmark of democratic societies" (CR H12234 11/3/09) and asking, "Why are we going to pass a resolution without holding a single hearing? Why is the House voting for a resolution which condemns a report that few Members have fully read?" (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) addressed Palestinian rocket attack and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, remarking, "The urgency and the gravity of these harsh realities on both sides require that Congress act always with an eye toward peace and reconciliation." She concluded that supporting H.Res.867 "doesn’t lead us to securing Israeli peace and security nor Palestinian peaceful coexistence and for their citizens a life of respect." (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) called the resolution "blatantly biased," stating that it "damages U.S. credibility" and "seeks to hide the ugliness of the Gaza war by covering up violent excesses committed against innocent civilians by both Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces," including the use of "American-made white phosphorous shells" in civilian areas and the needless killing of "hundreds of Palestinian women and children and elders." McCollum also noted that the resolution calls for double standards when evaluating war crimes. "There must be only one standard for respecting human rights," she said. "A single standard by which we must hold ourselves and our friends and our adversaries accountable. Establishing situational standards for respecting human rights is dishonest and only encourages actions that destroy human dignity and life." (CR H12239 11/3/09)

Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) called the resolution "a deliberate diversion" and challenged Congress "and the committees of jurisdiction to invest their time and resources into more constructive efforts that further the cause of peace." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

Rep. John Dingell (D-NY) rose to oppose the resolution by stating, simply, "This is a bad bill. It’s a bad resolution. It is unfair. It is unwise. It contributes nothing to peace. It establishes a bad precedent, and it sets up a set of circumstances where we indicate that we’re going to just arbitrarily reject a U.N. finding and a U.N. resolution and that we’re going to have that as a precedent. This is bad." Dingell spoke to the universality of international law:

"Neither Israel nor Hamas, nor any other country or other non-state political act is exempt from international human rights laws or free of consequence for violations of them. If nothing else, the Goldstone Report should serve as a document from which Israel and Hamas, and the rest of the international community can use to ensure that future human rights violations do not take place in civilian areas and that their militaries and fighters are actively working toward minimizing civilian casualties in the future." (CR H12237 11/3/09)

Two of the strongest opponents of the resolution were Brian Baird (D-WA) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Baird, in a statement released the night before the vote, stated, "if our own country is truly to stand for human rights and the rule of law, and if facts matter, how can we do other than insist that legitimate questions and evidence are followed by further investigation and, if necessary and warranted, appropriate consequences?" The statement continued:

"H.Res. 867 is very serious business. If, as Goldstone asserts and the evidence I have seen supports, there were in fact gross violations of international law and human rights on all sides, we cannot in good conscience support H.Res. 867.

This is about much more than just another imposed political litmus test that we are all too often asked to perform. This is about whether we as individuals and this Congress as an institution find it acceptable to drop white phosphorous on civilian targets, to rocket civilian communities, to destroy hospitals and schools, to use civilians as human shields, to deliberately destroy non-military factories, industries and basic water, electrical and sanitation infrastructure. This is about whether it is acceptable to restrict the movement, opportunities and hopes of more than a million people every single day."

On the floor of the House, Baird, who has visited Gaza and seen first-hand the affects of Israel's assault, made one last appeal to his colleagues. "Do not pass this resolution. Support this fine jurist," he said. "Give justice, true justice, a chance to be heard." (CR H12237 11/3/09)


Kucinich reprimanded fellow Congress members for their suppression of the truth in supporting H.Res.867, declaring, "Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist," continuing, "Behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian." The Ohio Representative stated that "if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read concerning events it has totally ignored about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution." He accused resolution supporters of "tacitly approv[ing] violations of international law and international human rights" and warned that "if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?" (CR H12237-8 11/3/09)

Nevertheless, despite the noble objections of these representatives and the call of numerous human rights organizations to oppose the bill and support the Goldstone Report's findings and recommendations, Congress voted overwhelmingly (344-36) to pass H.Res.867, thereby white-washing war crimes in a successful bid to allow Israel to unconditionally slaughter Palestinians with impunity.

Brooklyn Representative Yvette Clarke was one of only 36 members who voted against the legislation. The day after the vote, a statement appeared on her website, explaining her position. "Consideration of this resolution completely circumvented the legislative process, preventing an accurate and thorough vetting of the findings of the Goldstone Report," she wrote. "This highly unusual legislative maneuver, which denied members a single subcommittee hearing, raises questions regarding the claims in this resolution." She also stated that the "language stating that it should be U.S. policy to 'oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration…in multilateral fora' is excessively broad and inconsistent with our national commitment to human rights and the rule of law."

This national commitment to human rights and the rule of law was recently affirmed by Dr. Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary of the US Bureau of International Organization Affairs in her September 14, 2009 remarks to the High-Level Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, in which Brimmer declared that the United States was pleased to rejoin the community of nations on the United Nations Human Rights Council due to the Obama Administration's renewed efforts to advance "one of the most fundamental roles of the state: to protect and advance human rights." Brimmer continued,

"We can not pick and choose which of these rights we embrace nor select who among us are entitled to them. We are all endowed at birth with the right to live in dignity, to follow our consciences and speak our minds without fear, to choose those who govern us, to hold our leaders accountable, and to enjoy equal justice under the law. These rights extend to all, and the United States can not accept that any among us would be condemned to live without them."

During a press briefing two weeks later, Brimmer added that the United States "must do everything in our power to end the suffering of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians." Addressing the findings of the Goldstone Report, she said, "We encourage domestic investigations of credible allegations of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law."

The United States Congress, at the bidding of AIPAC and the Israeli government, did not heed this call, nor did they act as true representatives of their constituents. A Rasmussen poll from December 31, 2008, taken just days after Israel launched its devastating assault on Gaza when Israeli propaganda was at its height and revelations of war crimes were far from being exposed, found that Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip." While the American public at large slightly favored Israeli aggression (44-41%, with 15% undecided), Democratic voters overwhelmingly opposed the Israeli offensive - by a 24-point margin (31-55%). Despite such a majority of Democratic disapproval of Israeli military action at the time, a staggering 70% of Democratic Representatives (179 out of 255) voted in favor of H.Res.867 on Tuesday.

On January 2, 2009, Salon.com commentator Glenn Greenwald posed the following query:

"Is there any other significant issue in American political life, besides Israel, where (a) citizens split almost evenly in their views, yet (b) the leaders of both parties adopt identical lockstep positions which leave half of the citizenry with no real voice? More notably still, is there any other position, besides Israel, where (a) a party's voters overwhelmingly embrace one position (Israel should not have attacked Gaza) but (b) that party's leadership unanimously embraces the exact opposite position (Israel was absolutely right to attack Gaza and the U.S. must support Israel unequivocally)? Does that happen with any other issue?"

The answer is a resounding no because the US Congress adheres to the strict doctrine of "Israel Über Alles" at all times, no matter what the facts are.

The late Edward Said wrote, "The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial."

The Goldstone Report came to the same conclusion, echoing the voices of those struggling for the universal values of human rights, social justice, legal equality, and basic morality, when it stated:

"The international community as well as Israel and, to the extent determined by their authority and means, Palestinian authorities, have the responsibility to protect victims of violations and ensure that they do not continue to suffer the scourge of war or the oppression and humiliations of occupation or indiscriminate rocket attacks. People of Palestine have the right to freely determine their own political and economic system, including the right to resist forcible deprivation of their right to self-determination and the right to live, in peace and freedom, in their own State. The people of Israel have the right to live in peace and security. Both peoples are entitled to justice in accordance with international law." (A/HRC/12/48 p. 404)

With the passing of H.Res.867, two days after what would have been Edward Said's 74th birthday, Congress made perfectly clear that it not only seeks to deny and suppress the truth, but is itself, in the words of its own resolution, "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy."

Not only does the United States House of Representatives not accurately represent the views of the American people, let alone those of the rest of world, it is - unequivocally - no home to morality.

*****

Indoctrination & Education:Who's Really Brainwashing Our Children?

Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war. - Maria Montessori, physician and educator


I am certainly not in the habit of defending Barack Obama against his detractors, but the controversy drummed up by rabid right-wing hysterics over the President's back-to-school speech on Tuesday is quite simply bizarre and absurd. However, the manufactured uproar and outrage over the President's socialist/fascist/communitarianist (hey, pick an ideology, any ideology!) "brainwashing" of unsuspecting and impressionable students on one of their first days of school brings up very real and very serious concerns over both the potential and realities of aggressive government indoctrination and the abuse of open access to America's youth.

In the days leading up to Obama's fifteen-minute long, syndicated speech, the conservative netherworld was abuzz over what sort of cultish and dangerous hypnotism our Kenyan-born Commie Muslim commander-in-chief would dish out in classrooms all over the country. The paranoia and fear promoted by political and media demagogues and repeated thoughtlessly by their audience of ventriloquist dummies created a sort of dual-McCarthyism, equal parts Joe and Charlie.

Last week, Glenn Beck warned listeners of his radio show about the dangers of Obama's upcoming speech and "the indoctrination of your children," saying that the Presidential address was evidence of the "get 'em while they're young" approach of of big government's brainwashing tactics. Meanwhile, NewsBuster's contributing editor Mark Finkelstein repeatedly compared the address to Chinese communism, likened Obama to Mao Zedong, and even inquiring in one blog post whether "our MSM report on the interesting parallel between our president's plan for our children and the approach of another Great Leader from the past?" Then there was Mark Steyn, a Canadian author and political commentator, who, while speaking on the Rush Limbaugh Show made extensive reference to Saddam Hussein’s cult of personality in Iraqi schools and warned against Obama's attempt to do the same here in the United States.

On September 2nd, Michelle Malkin accused Obama's classroom address (still six days away at that time) of serving as a government tool for recruiting "junior lobbyists" to serve as foot-soldiers for promoting his crazed liberal agenda, citing the "activist tradition of government schools" (I think they're called public schools, actually) as evidence:

"Zealous teacher's unions have enlisted captive schoolchildren as letter-writers in their campaigns for higher education spending. Out-of-control activists have enlisted their secondary-school charges in pro-illegal immigration protests, gay marriage ceremonies, environmental propaganda stunts, and anti-war events."

Yeah, if only.

In a recent article, Lauri Regan of American Thinker wrote that "Obama has turned his team of brainwashers on the task of indoctrinating America's youth...My children are off limits," while Townhall.com's Meredith Jessup bemoans the loss of mandatory prayer and religion in public schooling as "big-government influence continues to be ushered in." Jessup thusly concludes that "This massive abuse of government power - reaching into our kids' classrooms - is unacceptable."

A OneNewsNow column from September 4th identifies Diane Jewell, a parent in Indiana, as worrying that "her daughter is being indoctrinated into socialism" by attending public Junior High School. Jewell believes that "it is not Obama's place to talk to children directly, without parental input" adding that she is "very concerned with the increasing involvement of federal government in education." Obviously, Jewell now "regrets her decision to quit homeschooling and in retrospect she wishes she had stayed at home in order to continue homeschooling her daughter."

In a September 1 post featured on her tellingly-titled "Atlas Shrugs" blog (and headlined "Obama in the Classroom: Keep Your Kids Home from School September 8"), Newsmax.com contributor Pamela Geller wrote,

The fascist in chief is taking his special brand of brainwashing to the classroom. Keep your kids home. I think this man is a threat to our basic unalienable rights. I don't want him indoctrinating my children. Seriously.

Ask your school what their participation is in this leftist indoctrination outrage. Keep politics out of the classroom. Keep communists and their propagandists away from small children.

Seriously?

Not to be outcrazied, American Family Association radio host and conservative activist Bryan Fischer wrote in a September 1 column that Obama's speech "is likely to be an exercise in nation-wide indoctrination...The capacity for mischief here is enormous." Then, echoing Geller's sentiments that parents should opt their children out of viewing the speech, Fischer continues,

Unless we get public assurances from the White House that the president won't address health care or global warming or the homosexual agenda (under the color of "human rights for people different than us") this might be a great time for parents to exercise their opt-out authority and give their students a biography of George Washington to read while the President turns the minds of an entire generation to mush.

WorldNetDaily news editor Bob Unruh floated the idea that Obama's speech to students has "been cited as raising the specter of the Civilian National Security Force, to which he's referred several times since his election campaign began, but never fully explained" while also pointing out how creepy it is for the elected President of the United States of America to speak directly to the nation's children about the importance of education. "Parents across the country are rebelling against plans by President Barack Obama to speak directly to their children through the classrooms of the nation's public schools without their presence, participation and approval," Unruh wrote, before quoting random insane rantings of conservative web-forum comments:

"He's recruiting his civilian army. His 'Hitler' youth brigade," wrote one participant in a forum at Free Republic.

"I am not going to compare President Obama to Hitler. We'll leave that to others and you can form your own opinions about them and their analogies. ... However, we can learn a lot from the spread of propaganda in Europe that led to Hitler's power. A key ingredient in that spread of propaganda was through the youth," wrote a blogger at the AmericanElephant.com blog, where the subject of the day was a national "Keep-Your-Child-at-Home-Day."

"Totalitarian regimes around the world have sought to spread their propaganda and entrench their power by brainwashing the children. I guess it's easier to indoctrinate a six-year-old instead of fighting a 26-year-old or being challenged by a 46-year-old in the voting booth," the blogger wrote.

Brett Curtis, an engineer from Texas, told the New York Times that the idea of the speech "seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child," and would therefore keep his three children home from school that day since he doesn't "want our schools turned over to some socialist movement." Jim Greer, the Republican Party chairman in Florida, said he "was appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology," and warned that the address "does not allow for healthy debate on the President's agenda, but rather obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President’s initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates." Greer was certain that, because the Democrats had a rough summer of hijacked town hall meetings, "now that school is back in session, President Obama has turned to American's children to spread his liberal lies, indoctrinating American's youngest children before they have a chance to decide for themselves."

Meanwhile Kansas City talk show host Chris Stigall, with thoughts of sugar plums and executive pedophilia floating in his head, stated that he "wouldn’t let my next-door neighbor talk to my kid alone; I’m sure as hell not letting Barack Obama talk to him alone."

Never mind the sheer ignorance of all these people, especially the clear fact that none of them knows the definition of fascism or socialism, or could explain the difference between a democracy and a republic, for that matter. Never mind the fear-mongering and hateful resentment of a recently beaten-up political party. Never mind the fact that Obama's speech wound up being totally innocuous, completely devoid of politics whatsoever, and called upon this nation's students to take pride in their education, try hard, and do their best to achieve their goals. Never mind that, as Time.com's Michael Scherer put it, "President Obama's speech to your kids reads like a paean to individual striving and free market capitalism, the sort of thing that Ayn Rand and Barry Goldwater might have signed onto. At root, Obama's message is one of individual responsibility, a disquisition on the freedom of American youth to fail or succeed on their own tenacity and merits," and was anything but "lefty, neo-socialist, communitarian brainwashing."

Never mind that this country's education system is already tailor-made to spread misinformation, entrench mythologies, and promote American exceptionalism to our young children. American history, as taught in schools, is generally nonsense meant to instill and preserve a sense of City-on-a-Hill nationalism, along with healthy doses of tall-tale founding myths, gung-ho militarism, and ethnic cleansing justification in the form of righteous Manifest Destiny. As James W. Loewen explains in his 1995 book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, textbooks used to teach our children "leave out anything that might reflect badly upon our national character." More to the point, Helen Keller (y'know the deaf, mute, and blind kid who was actually a radical and progressive political thinker, one of the founders of the ACLU, and a staunch supporter of the NAACP and actual socialism) stated clearly why American history is made up of gross simplifications and hero worship: "People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions...Conclusions are not always pleasant." Anyone who has actually studied real American history knows this to be true.

Students in the United States are taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America and proved that the earth was round (not true); they are not taught that Columbus was a genocidal manic (true). Institutionalized racism and ethnocentrism is all but ignored in history class, Native Americans are demonized as savages (they weren't) and colonists (who were savages) are celebrated as civilized co-existers. (The reason the Pilgrims in New England had such bountiful crops is because all the Native Americans who planted them had either died from European-borne plague or had fled in fear of plague, which John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, called "miraculous.") Students are taught that Albert Einstein failed his math class (he didn't, and was, in fact, a mathematical prodigy by the age of 12). They learn that Isaac Newton was hit on the head by a falling apple and "discovered" gravity (not true), Benjamin Franklin flew a kite in a storm and "discovered" electricity (also not true), and that George Washington chopped down his father's prized cherry-tree and then didn't lie about doing it. (This is a fairy tale created by a man named Mason Locke "Parson" Weems, author of the "biography" The Life of George Washington, with Curious Anecdotes Laudable to Himself and Exemplary to his Countrymen, in which Weems recalled many fantastic, adulatory confabulations about a fabulously deified Washington, with particular emphasis on his overwhelming moral fortitude and infallibility. At various points in the work, Weems refers to Washington as a "hero," a "demigod," "the Jupiter Conservator" [or, "Jupiter, Savior of the World"] and, quite simply, the "greatest man that ever lived".)

Perhaps it was Weems' Washington biography that Bryan Fischer wants children to read while they're busy skipping Obama's speech. Additionally, what makes Fischer's suggestion that the President's speech would turn "the minds of an entire generation to mush" especially ironic is that the school system in this country already is doing just fine pulverizing truth and stifling critical thought without Obama's help.

Never mind that in November 1988, President Ronald Reagan spoke directly to students on political issues via C-Span. During his address, Reagan even called taxes "such a penalty on people that there's no incentive for them to prosper...because they have to give so much to the government." Never mind that in 1989, President George H.W. Bush spoke to America's youth about drugs via a live television feed. Then, in 1991, he delivered another speech on the value of education via a telecast on CNN and PBS. Media Matters for America reminds us that "while president, George H.W. Bush gave a speech to schoolchildren intended 'to motivate America's students to strive for excellence; to increase students' as well as parents' responsibility/accountability; and to promote students' and parents' awareness of the educational challenge we face.'" According to an article inThe Washington Post from October 2, 1991, the "White House sent letters to schools across the nation to encourage teachers and principals to allow students to tune in the speech, which was also carried live by the Mutual Broadcasting and NBC Radio Network. The live television and radio coverage was arranged at the request of the Education Department."

Never mind that, as researcher Simon Maloy points out, George W. Bush posted a "teacher's guide" on the White House website intended to help students understand the "freedom timeline" and encouraged them to "explor[e] the biographies of the President, Mrs. Bush, Vice President, and Mrs. Cheney."

Never mind that Obama tells our nation's children, "What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future," while Bush promoted an agenda to make the United States, in his own words, "a more literate country and a hopefuller country," especially by urging us, in a May 1, 2002 speech, to "take advantage of our fantastic opportunistic society." Whereas on Tuesday Obama spoke of responsibility and accountability, encouraging our young students to stay in school and to "develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country," Bush told a crowd in South Carolina on February 21, 2001 that if "you teach a child to read...he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.” Bush also pointed out, in early January of 2000, that “One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures” and philosophically mused that “Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" Sure, Obama may have motivated whole classrooms full of young, inspired minds with his hopeful expectations when he concluded that "Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future," but Bush hit the nail on the head when, in LaCrosse, Wisconsin on October 18, 2000, he dazzled his audience with this deft word-smithery: "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."

And yet, apparently it didn't seem dangerous for that man to be allowed to talk to children. In school.

Wow.

But hey, regardless of everything else, one thing seems clear. The right-wing commentators attacking Obama's student address all seem to have something in common: they sure do love America's innocent children and want to protect them, at all costs, from the malevolent machinations (whether Fascist or Communist..or both, together, no matter how mutually exclusive they may be) of a nefarious federal government brain trust. How dare the commander-in-chief and his minions seek to manipulate, indoctrinate, and take advantage of our country's young people by luring them into blindly supporting and advancing the president's every whim? How can decent, freedom-loving, and patriotic citizens simply stand back and do nothing about the looming specter of brainwashed hordes of American students, duped and enlisted by an administration's imperial motivations and ideological agenda, pouring out of government schools as robotic, unthinking recruits and unwitting defenders of a terrifyingly authoritarian regime?

It would come as no surprise that the very same people lambasting Obama for attempting to infiltrate America's school system in an effort to indoctrinate the malleable minds of our youth are staunch advocates of the United States' military might, planetary hegemony, who put "Support Our Troops" bumper stickers on their American-made, gas-guzzling clunkers. The irony here is that the people who are apparently trying to "protect" our children from the grasp of "big government" have no problem with federally-mandated programs that, not only allow, but guarantee US military recruiters access to school kids. It seems that while they fear the multicultural commander-in-chief's motives for telling students to study hard, they are just fine with the military's invasion of those same students' privacy in an effort to condition them to kill indigenous people in foreign countries at the behest of that same commander-in-chief.

A recent piece by journalist David Goodman reveals:

"In the past few years, the military has mounted a virtual invasion into the lives of young Americans. Using data mining, stealth websites, career tests, and sophisticated marketing software, the Pentagon is harvesting and analyzing information on everything from high school students' GPAs and SAT scores to which video games they play. Before an Army recruiter even picks up the phone to call a prospect...the soldier may know more about the kid's habits than do his own parents."

Goodman, in his Mother Jones article, explains that a provision slipped into the No Child Left Behind act by Louisiana Republican then-Representative (now Senator) David Vitter and signed into law by George W. Bush in 2002, was a boon to military recruiters. The provision "requires high schools to give recruiters the names and contact details of all juniors and seniors. Schools that fail to comply risk losing their NCLB funding." As a result, Goodman continues, "this little-known regulation effectively transformed President George W. Bush's signature education bill into the most aggressive military recruitment tool since the draft. Students may sign an opt-out form — but not all school districts let them know about it."

But that's not all.

Goodman reports that, in 2005, it was discovered that the Pentagon had spent the past two years amassing records from Selective Service, state DMVs, and data brokers to create a database of tens of millions of young adults and teens, some as young as 15. The result of this massive data-mining project, overseen by the Joint Advertising Market Research & Studies program, is a recruiting database holding over 34 million names. The JAMRS database, run by credit report heavyweight Equifax, is described by its own website as "arguably the largest repository of 16-25-year-old youth data in the country."

Ari Rosmarin, Senior Advocacy Coordinator at the New York Civil Liberties Union and currently working on the NYCLU's "Project on Military Recruitment and Students’ Rights," explains how difficult, if not impossible, it is for students to opt-out of the JAMRS database. In an interview on Democracy Now!, Rosmarin said, "According to the Pentagon, the only way to what they call opt-out of the database is for your parent — a student cannot do this his or herself — a parent needs to send a letter to the Pentagon, asking the Pentagon to take their student out of the list. And even then, you’re not removed from the list; you’re put into what’s called a suppression file, which is a separate list within the JAMRS system and database system that keeps you away out of that list, but you’re never really removed from the list."

Even though the NYCLU filed and ultimately settled a lawsuit against the Pentagon in 2005, charging them with violating the Privacy Act and the Defense Act, which prohibits keeping information on students as young as fifteen, maintaining the information for over three years, the collection of Social Security numbers, and clarifying opt-out information, the military refused to cease the collection of racial and ethnic data.

This data is vital because the recruiters prey on poor and minority students. As a result, black and latino kids wind up in the military in disproportionate numbers to all other demographics. Eric Ruder reports, "In 1995, Tom Wilson, then a high-level official in charge of the Army's personnel department, let the truth slip out in an interview. He explained how the military targeted students 'particularly in inner cities...I hesitate to use the term at-risk kids, but kids who would otherwise be called at-risk.'" Perhaps the war-crazy right-wing in this country was worried that if minority students are inspired by an African-American president's motivation to become writers, inventors, doctors, lawyers, or architects, there might not be enough soldiers left to invade and occupy more foreign countries.

The Pentagon spends roughly $600,000 every year collecting information from commercial data brokers such as the Student Marketing Group and the American Student List, which keep records on millions of high school students. The government also secretly gathers information from unsuspecting internet users, vocational test-takers, and even videogame enthusiasts. Goodman reports,

This year, the Army spent $1.2 million on the website March2Success.com, which provides free standardized test-taking tips devised by prep firms such as Peterson's, Kaplan, and Princeton Review. The only indications that the Army runs the site, which registers an average of 17,000 new users each month, are a tiny tagline and a small logo that links to the main recruitment website, GoArmy.com. Yet visitors' contact information can be sent to recruiters unless they opt out, and students also have the option of having a recruiter monitor their practice test scores. Terry Backstrom, who runs March2Success.com for the US Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, insists that it is about "good will," not recruiting. "We are providing a great service to schools that normally would cost them."

Recruiters are also data mining the classroom. More than 12,000 high schools administer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a three-hour multiple-choice test originally created in 1968 to match conscripts with military assignments. Rebranded in the mid-1990s as the "ASVAB Career Exploration Program," the test has a cheerful home page that makes no reference to its military applications, instead declaring that it "is designed to help students learn more about themselves and the world of work." A student who takes the test is asked to divulge his or her Social Security number, GPA, ethnicity, and career interests—all of which is then logged into the JAMRS database. In 2008, more than 641,000 high school students took the ASVAB; 90 percent had their scores sent to recruiters. Tony Castillo of the Army's Houston Recruiting Battalion says that ASVAB is "much more than a test to join the military. It is really a gift to public education."

To put all its data to use, the military has enlisted the help of Nielsen Claritas, a research and marketing firm whose clients include BMW, AOL, and Starbucks. Last year, it rolled out a "custom segmentation" program that allows a recruiter armed with the address, age, race, and gender of a potential "lead" to call up a wealth of information about young people in the immediate area, including recreation and consumption patterns. The program even suggests pitches that might work while cold-calling teenagers. "It's just a foot in the door for a recruiter to start a relevant conversation with a young person," says Donna Dorminey of the US Army Center for Accessions Research.

The efforts of aggressive military recruiters are also aided by a number of popular videogames. One of them, "American's Army," was created by the Pentagon itself and is available to play free online. According to Goodman, "one in four males between the age of thirteen and twenty-four have played this game" and the users who play it are, according to the Army, "29% more likely to be interested in serving in the military." The other is the insanely popular Xbox game "Halo 3," which has sold more copies than the entire Harry Potter series. The Army spent over a million dollars to sponsor the game and, in turn, players can link automatically from the game to the GoArmy.com recruiting website.

There have been endless stories about recruiting misconduct and lies military recruiters tell our nation's vulnerable youth, once the recruiting process begins in earnest. Recruiters lie about non-binding contracts, "no combat" clauses in contracts, and threaten young recruits who change their minds about joining the military after signing up for the Delayed Enlistment Program.

But it seems that this stuff doesn't bother conservative commentators or lawmakers, few of whom have actually served in the military themselves. The inconsistency of right-wing attacks never ceases to boggle the mind. They fear big government infiltration of public schools and yet support the most appalling example of big government: endless war and aggressive imperialism. In order to stay at war and maintain the Empire, the United States needs soldiers, by any means necessary. It doesn't seem to matter that while some schools don't have adequate or appropriate learning materials or resources for their students and faculties and that vital programs like "music" are being cut from budgets due to lack of funding, the US government, under President Barack Obama, has a yearly defense budget of over $700 billion (which doesn't include the $100 billion per year that Iraq and Afghanistan cost). In fact, as Goodman tells us, "for every new GI it signed up last year, the Army spent $24,500 on recruitment. (In contrast, four-year colleges spend an average of $2,000 per incoming student.)"

On second thought, maybe Obama just wants our nation's children to stay in school so that military recruiters know right where to find them. Hey, Fischer, what's that cherry-tree story again?

AJAX REDUX: US Heavy Meddle in Iran

Tehran | August 19, 1953

Tehran | June 13, 2009
The Western press has clearly taken a side and has successfully managed to drag its uninformed audience along with it. News reports all refer to the continuing groundswell of protest to the election results as an "unprecedented" show of courage, resistance, and people power against the government not seen in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

But what we have seen this past week seems to have far more in common with the events of fifty-six years ago, rather than just thirty.

In 1953, the United States government, at the behest of Britain, tasked CIA operatives Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. and Donald Wilber to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Iran, in order to put an end to the process of oil nationalization by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. This nationalism "outraged the British, who had 'bought' the exclusive right to exploit Iranian oil from a corrupt Shah, and the Americans, who feared that allowing nationalization in Iran would encourage leftists around the world." The coup d'etat, which took a mere three weeks to execute, was accomplished in a number of stages. First, members of the Iranian Parliament and leaders of political parties were bribed to oppose Mossadegh publicly, thereby making the government appear fragmented and not unified. Newspaper owners, editors, columnists and reporters were then paid off in order to spread lies and propaganda against the Prime Minister.

Furthermore, high-ranking clerics, influential businessmen, members of the police, security forces, and military were bribed, as well. Roosevelt hired the leaders of street gangs in Tehran, using them to help create the impression that the rule of law had totally disintegrated in Iran and that the government had no control over its population. Stephen Kinzer, journalist and author of All the Shah's Men, tells us that "at one point, [Roosevelt] hired a gang to run through the streets of Tehran, beating up any pedestrian they found, breaking shop windows, firing their guns into mosques, and yelling, 'We love Mossadegh and communism.' This would naturally turn any decent citizen against him." In a stroke of manipulative genius, Roosevelt then hired a second mob to attack the first mob, thereby giving the Iranian people the impression that there was no police presence and that civil society had devolved into complete chaos, with the government totally incapable of restoring order. Kinzer elaborates,

They rampaged through the streets by the tens of thousands. Many of them, I think, never even really understood they were being paid by the C.I.A. They just knew they had been given a good day’s wage to go out in the street and chant something. Many politicians whipped up the crowds during those days...They started storming government buildings. There were gunfights in front of important buildings.

After all was said and done, Prime Minister Mossadegh had been deposed and a military coup returned the monarchy to Iran by installing the pro-western Mohammed Reza Pahlevi on the Peacock throne. The Shah's brutal, tyrannical dictatorship - established, supported, and funded by the United States - lasted 26 years. In 1979, the Iranian people returned the favor.

So what have we been seeing in Iran this past week?

Whereas there is scant evidence of any actual voter fraud or ballot rigging in the recent reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the popular movement we've been seeing on the streets of Tehran and elsewhere is being treated by the American media as some sort of new revolution; an energized, grassroots, and spontaneous effort to overthrow the leaders of the Islamic Republic in favor of a secular, pro-Western "democracy."

Yet, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that, whereas there are surely thousands of sincere and committed activists and participants in the recent protests, what we are witnessing may very well be the culmination of years of American infiltration and manipulation of both the Iranian establishment and public.

Back in 2005, the United States government was already funding groups it designated as terrorist organizations to carry out violent attacks within Iran in order to destabilize the Iranian government. In 2007, ABC News reported that George W. Bush has signed a secret "Presidential finding" which authorized the CIA to "mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government." These operations, according to current and former intelligence officials, included "a coordinated campaign of propaganda broadcasts, placement of negative newspaper articles, and the manipulation of Iran's currency and international banking transactions."

In May of that same year, the London Telegraph reported that Bush administration zealot John Bolton revealed that an American military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.” Two weeks later, the Telegraph independently verified the ABC report, saying that, “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”

Daniel McAdams tells us that, at the time, "the president met with the Congressional Star Chamber, the “gang of 8″ House and Senate leaders, and was granted the authorization to use some $400 million for among other things, as the Washington Post reported, “activities ranging from spying on Iran’s nuclear program to supporting rebel groups opposed to the country’s ruling clerics…"

Then, in early May 2008, Counterpunch's Andrew Cockburn revealed that "Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents was 'unprecedented in its scope.'

"Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department's list of terrorist groups.

Similarly, covert funds can now flow without restriction to Jundullah, or "army of god," the militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan – just across the Afghan border - whose leader was featured not long ago on Dan Rather Reports cutting his brother-in-law's throat.

Other elements that will benefit from U.S. largesse and advice include Iranian Kurdish nationalists, as well the Ahwazi Arabs of southwest Iran.

Of course, US officials denied any "direct funding" of Jundallah, but admitted regular contact since 2005 with its leader Abd el Malik Regi, who was widely reputed to be involved in heroin trafficking from Afghanistan. Funding has reportedly been funneled through Iranian exiles with connections in Europe and the Gulf States.

Furthermore, on June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker confirmed all of these reports, writing, “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and Congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.” Among the activities Hersh cited were "gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program", "undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions" and "trying to undermine the government through regime change [by] working with opposition groups and passing money."

But the US campaign against Iran didn't come to a halt with the ascension of President Obama. There is no evidence to conclude that the $400 million dollars Bush signed off on has been put to different use (like, say, funding public schools or healthcare.) In early June 2008, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar wrote, "Obama, with his peace overtures [to Iran], serves as the smiley-face mask for some pretty loathsome activities. The U.S. government claims to be fighting terrorism, yet is sponsoring groups that plant bombs in mosques, kidnap tourists as well as Iranian policemen, and fund their activities with drug-running in addition to covert subsidies courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers." He continues,

"What’s going on in Iran today – a sustained campaign of terrorism directed against civilians and government installations alike – is proof positive that nothing has really changed much in Washington, as far as U.S. policy toward Iran is concerned. We are on a collision course with Tehran, and both sides know it. Obama’s public "reaching out" to the Iranians is a fraud of epic proportions. While it’s true that our covert terrorist attacks on Iran were initiated under the Bush regime, under Obama we’re seeing no letup in these sorts of incidents; if anything, they’ve increased in frequency and severity."

Days before the Iranian election, a suicide-bomber killed at least 25 people, and wounded over 125 others, inside a prominent Shi'a mosque in the city of Zahedan, in the southeast province of Sistan-Baluchistan. The rebel Sunni group, Jundallah, which is linked to the US, claimed responsibility for the blast, which was immediately followed up by attacks on banks, water-treatment facilities, and other key installations in and around Zahedan, including a strike against the local campaign headquarters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Last year, Jundallah ( which is committed to establishing a Baluchi Islamic state in southeastern Iran and parts of Pakistan and one of whose founding members is allegedly the infamously waterboarded al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) kidnapped 16 Iranian policemen and videotaped their execution. There was also recently an attempted bombing of an Iranian airplane, which took off from the southwestern city of Ahvaz on the Iraqi border, which has a heavily Arab population. These recent events add up to what Raimondo refers to as "a small-scale insurgency" arising in Iran’s southern provinces.

Both the White House and State Department immediately denounced these attacks and denied any involvement in what they called "recent terrorist attacks inside Iran." Furthermore, there were reports that the Obama administration was considering adding Jundallah to the State's Department's list of terrorist organizations. However, analyst Steve Weissman notes, "the administration suddenly backed away from making the terrorist designation or from otherwise indicating that it would stop the destabilization campaign."

(Incidentally, one of the only two provinces in Iran that went for Mousavi last Friday was Sistan-Baluchistan and crowds of about 2,000 people have taken to the streets in Ahvaz since the election.)

Support for Jundallah - which in what could be the result of a savvy public relations suggestion by the Pentagon, recently changed its name to the Iranian People's Resistance Movement - is just one way the United States has worked to foment an anti-Iranian united front within the country on the verge of the Presidential elections. As such, we are told, "the U.S. is, in effect, conducting a secret war against Tehran, a covert campaign aimed at recruiting Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities – who make up the majority of the population in certain regions, such as in the southeast borderlands near Pakistan – into a movement to topple the government in Tehran, or, at least, to create so much instability that U.S. intervention to 'keep order' in the region is justified."

Ken Timmerman, the executive director of the right-wing Foundation for Democracy in Iran, which is the Persian Service of Voice of America (VOA), "spilled the beans on activities of the other arm of US meddling overseas, the obscenely mis-named National Endowment for Democracy, in a piece written one day before the election," McAdams tells us. Timmerman apparently stated that “there’s the talk of a 'green revolution' in Tehran," prompting McAdams to "wonder where that 'talk' was coming from. Timmerman did not appear to be writing from Iran." McAdams continues,

Timmerman went on to write, with admirable candor and honesty, that:

“The National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting ‘color’ revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques.

“Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.”

Yes, you say, but what does a blow-hard propagandist like Timmerman know about such things? Well, he should know! His very spooky Foundation for Democracy in Iran has its own snout deep in the trough of NED’s “open covert actions” against the Iranian government.

How does the “Foundation for Democracy in Iran” seek to “promote democracy” in Iran with our tax dollars? Foundation co-founder Joshua Muravchik gives us a hint in his subtly-titled LA Times piece, “Bomb Iran.”

Additionally, Weissman warns of Timmerman's devious sincerity: "Please note that this comes from a very involved right-wing critic who personally knows the expatriate Iranian community," he writes. "It is impossible to know how much government money went to these groups, since Congress has purposely exempted the National Endowment for Democracy from having to make public how it spends taxpayer money."

Even more recently, commentator Stephen Lendman reports that former Pakistani Army General Mirza Aslam Beig told Pasto Radio on June 15 that "undisputed" intelligence proves CIA interference in the internal affairs of Iran. "The documents prove that the CIA spend $400 million inside Iran to prop up a colorful-hollow revolution following the election" and to incite regime change for a pro-Western government.

So, are we finally seeing that $400 million pay off in Iran this past week?

There are plenty of clues that reveal the Iranian street protests we're seeing daily in the news may not be all we're told they are. Indeed, the sheer numbers of protesters are impressive and anyone who feels that an injustice has occurred should certainly take to the streets - and not be subject to any sort of police brutality - but much of what we've seen and heard in the past two weeks shows signs of orchestration and bears fingerprints of foreign manipulation.

Many of the protesters we have seen are well-dressed westernized young people in Tehran who are carrying signs written in English, reading, “Where is My Vote?” and other such slogans in English. If the young voters of Iran were addressing their frustrations to their own government, why weren't they speaking the same language? Protesters seen in many YouTube videos and interviewed on American television also speak perfect English. An early message received through a social networking site after the election, sent to the National Iranian American Council and subsequently reported by the American media, came from (allegedly) an Iranian in Tehran. It read:

“I am in Tehran. Its 3:40 in the morning. I’ve connected with you [by hacking past the government filter]. It’s a big mess here. People are yelling from their houses – ‘death to the dictator.’ They are setting up a military government. No one dares to go out. No one has seen Mousavi today. Rumor has it that they have arrested him. I don’t have an email but I will contact you again.

Help us.”

The idea of an Iranian, aware of the long history of US interference in Iranian affairs, beseeching an audience in America for "help" is, to put it lightly, dubious.

(The same should definitely be said about a recent OpEd featured in the New York Times last Sunday which was supposedly written by "a student in Iran." The article, clearly hoping to galvanize the American readership into strongly supporting pro-Mousavi protesters against the Iranian government, was almost surreal. In it, the author - curiously named "Shane M." which is perhaps the least Iranian name ever - denies the accuracy of pre-election polling by writing, "let’s not cloud the results with numbers that were, like bagels, stale a week later." Later, he describes a scene from the widespread pre-election pro-Mousavi street parties in Tehran, including this observation: "A girl hung off the edge of a car window “Dukes of Hazzard” style." What possible young "Iranian student" would casually reference bagels and Dukes of Hazzard is beyond me, but I can probably think of a few CIA agents that may enjoy both.)

As for the widespread claim, published in nearly every major newspaper, that Mousavi had been disappeared, imprisoned, or put under house arrest, it obviously wasn't true considering that the very next day Mousavi was addressing a crowd of tens of thousands in the middle of Tehran from the roof of his car.

Furthermore, the chants we hear of “death to the dictator, death to Ahmadinejad” don't make much sense coming from Iranian citizens. As Paul Craig Roberts points out, "Every Iranian knows that the President of Iran is a public figure with limited powers. His main role is to take the heat from the governing grand Ayatollah. No Iranian, and no informed westerner, could possibly believe that Ahmadinejad is a dictator. Even Ahmadinejad’s superior, Khamenei, is not a dictator as he is appointed by a government body that can remove him." Roberts goes on to say,

The demonstrations, like those in 1953, are intended to discredit the Iranian government and to establish for Western opinion that the government is a repressive regime that does not have the support of the Iranian people. This manipulation of opinion sets up Iran as another Iraq ruled by a dictator who must be overthrown by sanctions or an invasion.

Early reports of the Tehran rallies revealed that pro-Mousavi protesters were throwing rocks at Iranian police and security forces, as well as burning police motorcycles, city buses, and even private and government buildings. In contrast, we also heard of riot police beating protesters, gas and water cannons being used on crowds, and Basiji paramilitary groups opening fire on peaceful demonstrators. Even though Iranian officials have blamed recent street violence on Mousavi supporters and marchers point to pro-government gangs, accusing them of staging incidents in order to justify further "crackdown" of dissent, the truth may be even more sinister. As one pro-Mousavi protester, who has taken part in every single march so far this week, told Newsweek, "I think some small terrorist groups and criminal gangs are taking advantage of the situation." American money well-spent, perhaps.

According to the national intelligence services, a group of US-linked terrorists who had planned to set off twenty explosions in Tehran were discovered. Nevertheless a bomb still went off near the shrine of Iran's revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, killing one and injuring two.

Despite the rise in violence in the past week, Khamenei has consistently differentiated between what he believes are rebel groups and non-political protesters and "the electoral fans and supporters" of Mousavi. He is quoted as saying that "those who devastate the public assets and private belongings of the people are carrying out the aggressive actions without any political purposes" and urged the defeated presidential candidates to utilize "legal venues" to voice their complaints. Khamenei stated, "the destiny of elections would be determined on the ballots, not on the palm of the streets."

Officials in the Iranian government are well-aware, and appropriately suspicious, of foreign meddling in their domestic affairs. Ali Larijani, the pragmatic, moderate conservative Speaker of Parliament and frequent Ahmadinejad opponent, said recently in a live televised speech, "those who under the mask of political fans of a certain movement or candidate impose damages to the public properties or paralyze the daily life of ordinary people are not among the protestors who want their votes to be virtuously preserved," adding that "the liberty of demonstrations should be respected, and those who are in charge of issuing certifications to legitimize the protesting rallies should cooperate and issue them constructively."

The Western media is certainly not helping matters. It should be remembered, first off, that both the BBC and New York Times played important roles in the 1953 overthrow. Bill Van Auken's The New York Times and Iran: Journalism as State Provocation tells us of the documentation of journalism as the media arm of the imperial state, including the direct military participation of one of its CIA-connected reporters in the coup against Mossadegh:

In 1953, [the New York Times] correspondent in Tehran, Kennett Love, was not only a willing conduit for CIA disinformation, but also acknowledged participating directly in the coup. He subsequently wrote of giving an Iranian Army tank column instructions to attack Mossadegh's house. Afterwards, the Times celebrated the coup and demanded unconditional support for the Shah’s regime.

The BBC is known to have spearheaded Britain's own propaganda campaign, broadcasting the code word ("exactly") that launched the coup d'état itself. Even the rise and importance of new media has to be viewed critically - something Western journalists aren't very good at. CNN recently created a new disclaimer icon to account for all the "unverified" material they've been broadcasting 'round the clock in their effort to stand with protesters and against the Iranian government.

The Iranian "twitter boom" has, to a certain extent, been engineered by a small group of anti-Ahmadinejad advocates in the United States and Israel. Whereas media organizations excitedly report about young Iranians twittering away on the streets of Tehran, it's clear that most of the activity is simply Americans "tweeting" amongst themselves. Nevertheless, the US government requested that Twitter postpone a scheduled downtime for maintenance so that tweeting from Iran could go uninterrupted. But, of course, this isn't meddling. Additionally, Caroline McCarthy of CNET News reports that "Users from around the world are resetting the location data in their profiles to Tehran, the capital of Iran, in order to confuse Iranian authorities who may be attempting to use the microblogging tool to track down opposition activity." While I'm not sure about "confusing" Iranian authorities, I am sure that actions like this serve to overhype the scope, reach, and importance of social networking and alternative media in Iranian politics and activism. The voices of the Iranian people should, of course, be heard and listened to - but the twittering mass of American, European, and Israeli support can hardly be said to speak on behalf of the Iranian public.

This disingenuous statement of President Obama may offer us some insight. In the early days of the post-election protests, he said, "It is not productive, given the history of US and Iranian relations to be seen as meddling in Iranian elections."

American meddling, Mr. Obama? Never! Especially not when our government is responsible for thirty years of sanctions, overt and covert operations designed to weaken one of the only countries that has ever successfully stood up to American imperialism in the face of aggressive efforts to foment dissent and promote regime change.

*****

Please also read Jeremy R. Hammond's exceptional piece on Foreign Policy Journal, entitled "Has the U.S. Played a Role in Fomenting Unrest During Iran's Election?"

*****

In Fraud, We Trust?

Douter de tout ou tout croire, ce sont deux solutions également commodes, qui l'une et l'autre nous dispensent de réfléchir.

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought.

- Jules Henri Poincaré, La Science et l'Hypothèse (1901)


By now, we all know the story:

Still high from Barack Obama's Cairo speech and Lebanon's recent elections that saw the pro-Western March 14 faction barely maintain its majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the mainstream media fully expected a clean sweep for "reformist" candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Iran's June 12th presidential election. They reported surging poll numbers, an ever-growing Green Wave of support for the challenger, while taking every opportunity to get in their tired and juvenile epithets, their final chance to demonize and defame the incumbent Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom they were convinced had absolutely no chance of winning reelection.

The turnout was a massive 85% by most estimates, resulting in almost forty million ballots cast by the eligible Iranian voting public.

Before the polls even closed, Mousavi had already claimed victory. "In line with the information we have received, I am the winner of this election by a substantial margin," he said. "We expect to celebrate with people soon." However, according to the chairman of the Interior Ministry's Electoral Commission, Kamran Daneshjoo, with the majority of votes counted, the incumbent president had taken a seemingly unassailable lead.

And so it was. Ahmadinejad won. By a lot. Some said by too much.

It didn't take long before accusations started flying, knee-jerk reactions were reported as expert analysis, and rumor became fact. As Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei congratulated Ahmadinejad on his landslide victory, calling it a "divine assessment," the opposition candidates all cried foul. Mousavi called the results "treason to the votes of the people" and the election a "dangerous charade." Karroubi described Ahmadinejad's reelection as "illegitimate and unacceptable."

The Western media immediately jumped on board, calling the election a "fraud," "theft," and "a crime scene" in both news reports and editorial commentary. Even so-called progressive analysts, from Juan Cole to Stephen Zunes to Dave Zirin to Amy Goodman to Trita Parsi to the New Yorker's Laura Secor, opined on the illegitimacy of the results. They cited purported violations, dissident testimony from inside sources, leaked "real" results, and seeming inconsistencies, incongruities, and irregularities with Iran's electoral history all with the intention of proving that the election was clumsily stolen from Mousavi by Ahmadinejad. These commentators all call the continuing groundswell of protest to the poll results an "unprecedented" show of courage, resistance, and people power, not seen in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

To me, the only thing unprecedented about what we're seeing in Iran seems to be the constant media hysteria, righteous indignation, and hypocritical pseudo-solidarity of the West; a bogus, biased, and altogether presumptuous and uncritical reaction to hearsay and conjecture, almost totally decontextualized in order to promote sensational headlines and build international consensus for foreign intervention in Iran.

The foregone (and totally unsubstantiated) conclusions drawn by a rabid, clucking media have led to an ever-growing outrage over the elections results. Weak theories are tossed around like beads on Bourbon Street and assumed to be "expert analysis" and beyond reproach. By now, the accusations are well-known. However, with a little perspective and rational thought, the "evidence" that purportedly demonstrates proof of a fixed election winds up sounding pretty forced. With closer inspection and added context, the arguments crumble and are revealed not to be very compelling, let alone convincing.

We read that the reelection of Ahmadinejad was impossible, unbelievable. It was a sham, a hoax, and a coup d'etat. But, in fact, there is no alleged, let alone substantive, proof to suggest that the results were fixed beyond mere speculation, biased and baseless assumptions, and suspect hearsay. It appears quite clear that the pre-election predictions of a soaring Mousavi victory by the Western press were nothing more than the consequence of presumptuous wishful thinking. Analyst James Petras tells us,

"What is astonishing about the West’s universal condemnation of the electoral outcome as fraudulent is that not a single shred of evidence in either written or observational form has been presented either before or a week after the vote count. During the entire electoral campaign, no credible (or even dubious) charge of voter tampering was raised. As long as the Western media believed their own propaganda of an imminent victory for their candidate, the electoral process was described as highly competitive, with heated public debates and unprecedented levels of public activity and unhindered by public proselytizing. The belief in a free and open election was so strong that the Western leaders and mass media believed that their favored candidate would win."

Most of these claims rest on the brash and offensive assumption that these "experts" know how Iranians would vote better than Iranians do. Clearly, they argue, Mousavi would win his hometown of Tabriz in the heart of East Azerbaijan, since he's an ethnic Azeri with an "Azeri accent" and Iranians always vote along geographical and ethnic lines. And yet, Ahmadinejad won that province by almost 300,000 votes. Curious, no?

Well, no.

As Flynt Leverett points out,

Ahmadinejad himself speaks Azeri quite fluently as a consequence of his eight years serving as a popular and successful official in two Azeri-majority provinces; during the campaign, he artfully quoted Azeri and Turkish poetry – in the original – in messages designed to appeal to Iran’s Azeri community. (And, we should not forget that the Supreme Leader is Azeri.) The notion that Mousavi was somehow assured of victory in Azeri-majority provinces is simply not grounded in reality.

Furthermore, in a pre-election poll Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi. Furthermore, Petras notes, "The simplistic assumption [of the Western media] is that ethnic identity or belonging to a linguistic group is the only possible explanation of voting behavior rather than other social or class interests. A closer look at the voting pattern in the East-Azerbaijan region of Iran reveals that Mousavi won only in the city of Shabestar among the upper and the middle classes (and only by a small margin), whereas he was soundly defeated in the larger rural areas, where the re-distributive policies of the Ahmadinejad government had helped the ethnic Azeris write off debt, obtain cheap credits and easy loans for the farmers. Mousavi did win in the West-Azerbaijan region, using his ethnic ties to win over the urban voters."

Additionally, it should be noted that, although there is a wide diversity of ethnic groups within Iranian society, most of them share a common history and Iranian identity. This is certainly the case within the Azeri community of Northwest Iran. We have been told for quite some time now that "public opinion polls suggest that foreign pressure to discontinue Iran's nuclear program has contributed to a rise in patriotism because public support for the Iran's nuclear program has been strong. Support for the program transcends political factions and ethnic groups." Considering that Ahmadinejad's four years of standing strong in the face of such aggressive and threatening foreign pressure has played well with the public, as opposed to Mousavi's more conciliatory tone with regards to bettering relations with Western powers, it is hardly a stretch or a surprise that Ahmadinejad would be supported by such large swaths of the population across all demographics.

The voting habits of ethnic Lur voters in reformist candidate Mehdi Karroubi's home province are also assumed to be known by Western analysts. If he won five million votes in 2005, why did he only clear about 300,000 this time around? How could Ahmadinejad win in Tehran, when Mousavi's base of upper and middle class cosmopolitan youths, university students, and wealthy business-owners reside there? Plus, Mousavi is said to have been popular in urban areas, where Ahmadinejad was seen as holding less sway. So how could Mousavi possibly lose? These questions are valid, for sure, but they have equally rational answers.

Karroubi wasn't a contender in this race like he was four years ago. There was no incumbent president at that time (President Khatami had just completed his second term) and the candidate field was wide open. Karroubi had a pro-reform and pro-populist message that appealed to many unsure of whom to vote for. He did well in his hometown. But 2009 is not 2005. After four years of Ahmadinejad's presidency, the rural Iranian voting bloc strongly supports his economic, domestic, and foreign policies. It is irresponsible to assume that Karroubi's "reformist" support would turn heavily to Mousavi since Karroubi had no chance of winning this year. He has long been a staunch opponent of Iranian political stalwart and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is closely aligned with Mousavi. Karroubi's populist approach to the economy is more like Ahmadinejad's than Mousavi's.

Esam Al-Amin, writing for Counterpunch, astutely observes,

The double standard applied by Western news agencies is striking. Richard Nixon trounced George McGovern in his native state of South Dakota in the 1972 elections. Had Al Gore won his home state of Tennessee in 2000, no one would have cared about a Florida recount, nor would there have been a Supreme Court case called Bush v. Gore. If Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards had won the states he was born and raised in (South and North Carolina), President John Kerry would now be serving his second term. But somehow, in Western newsrooms Middle Eastern people choose their candidates not on merit, but on the basis of their “tribe.”

The fact that minor candidates such as Karroubi would garner fewer votes than expected, even in their home regions as critics charge, is not out of the ordinary. Many voters reach the conclusion that they do not want to waste their votes when the contest is perceived to be between two major candidates. Karroubi indeed received far fewer votes this time around than he did in 2005, including in his hometown. Likewise, Ross Perot lost his home state of Texas to Bob Dole of Kansas in 1996, while in 2004, Ralph Nader received one eighth of the votes he had four years earlier.

Ahmadinejad didn't win Tehran, even though this falsehood is repeated constantly in the Western press as evidence of vote tampering. He won Tehran province, yes, but not the metropolitan area. In Tehran proper, which has a total population of about 7.7 million, Mousavi received 2,166,245 votes, which is over 356,000 more than the incumbent Ahmadinejad, and in Shemiranat - the affluent and westernized Northern section of the greater Tehran area, abounding with shopping malls and luxury cars - Mousavi beat Ahmadinejad by almost a 2 to 1 margin, winning 200,931 votes to Ahmadinjead's 102,433. In fact, according to the official numbers, Ahmadinejad lost in most cities around the country, including Ardabil, Ardakan, Aqqala, Bandar Torkaman, Baneh, Bastak, Bukan, Chabahar, Dalaho, Ganaveh, Garmi, Iranshahr, Javanroud, Kalaleh, Khaf, Khamir, Khash, Konarak, Mahabad, Mako, Maraveh Tappeh, Marivan, Miandoab, Naghadeh, Nikshahr, Oshnavieh, Pars-Abad, Parsian, Paveh, Pilehsavar, Piranshahr, Qeshm, Ravansar, Shabestar, Sadooq, Salmas, Saqqez, Saravan, Sardasht, Showt, Sibsouran, Yazd, Zaboli, and Zahedan. This deficit was more than made up for, however, in working class suburbs, small towns and rural areas. (Since the election, Ahmadinejad's detractors have enjoyed flaunting the statistic that only 30% of Iranians live in the countryside, without realizing that the adjoining blue-collar neighborhoods and less affluent suburban sprawl of urban centers are not counted as "rural" areas.)

But weren't the pre-election polls indicating an easy victory for Mousavi? No, they weren't. An Iranian opinion poll from early May, conducted in Tehran as well as 29 other provincial capitals and 32 important cities, showed that "58.6% will cast their ballots in favor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while some 21.9% will vote for Mousavi." Even though Western media likes to tell us that polling is notoriously difficult in Iran, there was plenty of pre-election data to analyze. Al-Amin writes,

More than thirty pre-election polls were conducted in Iran since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main opponent, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, announced their candidacies in early March 2009. The polls varied widely between the two opponents, but if one were to average their results, Ahmadinejad would still come out on top. However, some of the organizations sponsoring these polls, such as Iranian Labor News Agency and Tabnak, admit openly that they have been allies of Mousavi, the opposition, or the so-called reform movement. Their numbers were clearly tilted towards Mousavi and gave him an unrealistic advantage of over 30 per cent in some polls. If such biased polls were excluded, Ahmadinejad’s average over Mousavi would widen to about 21 points.

One poll conducted before the election by two US-based non-profit organizations forecast Ahmadinejad's reelection with surprising prescience. The survey was jointly commissioned by the BBC and ABC News, funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and conducted by the New America Foundation's nonprofit Center for Public Opinion, which, "has a reputation of conducting accurate opinion polls, not only in Iran, but across the Muslim world since 2005." The poll predicted an election day turnout of 89%, only slightly higher than the actual 85% who voted (that's a difference of fewer than 2 million ballots). According to pollsters Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty, the "nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin - greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election."

Moreover, we hear incessantly about Iran's all-important youth vote. According to many estimates, about 60% of Iran's population is under 30 years old; however, what isn't often reported is that almost a quarter of the population is actually under 15 years old. There are about 25 million Iranians between 15 and 29, which is about 36% of the population of the entire country. Voting age in Iran is 18. Additionally, Ballen and Doherty conclude,

"Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.

The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud."

Furthermore, this poll was conducted before Ahmadnejad's impressive showing in widely watched televised debates against his opponents. The debates, aired live nightly between June 2nd and 8th, pitted candidates one-on-one for ninety minutes. According to news reports, the Ahmadinejad-Mousavi debate was watched by more than 40 million people. Leverett notes,

American “Iran experts” missed how Ahmadinejad was perceived by most Iranians as having won the nationally televised debates with his three opponents – especially his debate with Mousavi.

Before the debates, both Mousavi and Ahmadinejad campaign aides indicated privately that they perceived a surge of support for Mousavi; after the debates, the same aides concluded that Ahmadinejad’s provocatively impressive performance and Mousavi’s desultory one had boosted the incumbent’s standing. Ahmadinejad’s charge that Mousavi was supported by Rafsanjani’s sons – widely perceived in Iranian society as corrupt figures – seemed to play well with voters.

Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s criticism that Mousavi’s reformist supporters, including former President Khatami, had been willing to suspend Iran’s uranium enrichment program and had won nothing from the West for doing so tapped into popular support for the program – and had the added advantage of being true.

Anyone who actually watched the debates (one wonders how many Western reporters, pundits, Iran "experts," and commentators are included in this demographic) would have known first-hand how singularly uncharismatic Mousavi was and how particularly lackluster was his debating style. Mousavi is a mumbler, a low-talker, and has about as much on-screen personality as Ben Stein on Klonopin. (How this man, absent from Iranian politics for the past twenty years, could become the leader of an energetic protest movement is anyone's guess, but you might want to ask the CIA first.)

Conversely, Ahmadinejad - as both his supporters and detractors would readily admit - is nothing if not an engaging, animated, and impassioned speaker. His outspoken nature and refusal to be bullied by opponents is apparent to anyone who has ever heard or seen him speak, whether they agree with what he says or not. Anyone who believes Mousavi won these debates either didn't actually watch them and/or decided to uncritically believe talking points distributed by the Mousavi campaign about their candidate's inspired performance.

Opponents of Ahmadinejad in the Western press - or, more accurately, everyone in the Western press - consistently refer to Ahmadinejad as an entrenched, establishment politician who has the unconditional backing of Iran's powerful theocratic hierarchy. As such, the current unrest in the nation's capital has been described as a grassroots, largely secular movement aimed at upsetting the religious orthodoxy of the government - embodied in such reports by Ahmadinejad himself - in an effort to fight for more personal freedoms and human rights in defiance of the country's revolutionary ideals. These reports betray the journalists' obvious misunderstanding of Iranian politics in general, and certainly of President Ahmadinejad's personal politics in particular.

In fact, Newsweek reported that, on Wednesday morning of last week, Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, who was with her husband throughout the presidential campaign, felt the need to remind a group of students that she and her husband still believe in the ideals of the revolution and don't regard anti-Islamic Revolution elements as their allies.

Furthermore, even though here in the US, he is variably referred to as "hardline" and a religious conservative, Ahmadinejad is far more of a populist politician, consistently favoring nationalization, the redistribution of Iran's oil wealth, controlled prices of basic consumer goods, increased government subsidies, salaries, benefits, and insurance and continued opposition to foreign investment over his opponents' calls for more free-market privatization of education and agriculture, as well as the promotion of neoliberal strategies. Leading up to the election, Mousavi condemned what he called Ahmadinejad's "charity-based economic policy." I wonder how that attack played with the middle, lower, and impoverished classes of Iran's voting public. Oh right, Ahmadinejad got 63% of the vote, even if Juan Cole didn't want him to.

Ahmadinejad has often drawn the ire of both Iranian clerics and legislators alike for his outspoken views. In March 2008, The Economist noted that influential conservative clerics are said to be irritated by his "folksy and superstitious brand of ostentatious piety and his favouritism to men of military rather than clerical backgrounds." The conservative Rand Corporation even reminds us, "He is not a mullah; public frustration with rule by mullahs made this a very positive characteristic. He comes from a working-class background, which appealed to lower-income Iranians, the bulk of the electorate, yet he has a doctorate in engineering." In the 2005 presidential election, Ahmadinejad emerged as a dark horse to challenge front-runner and assumed shoe-in, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. As the son of a blacksmith, "Ahmadinejad benefited from the contrast between his modest lifestyle and Rafsanjani’s obvious wealth, commonly known to stem from corruption." The Rand report reiterates that "Rafsanjani is extraordinarily corrupt."

During both his presidential campaigns of 2005 and 2009, Ahmadinejad focused far more on "bread and butter" issues to win over his constituents, rather than on religion, saying things like this in his speeches: “People think a return to revolutionary values is only a matter of wearing the headscarf. The country’s true problem is employment and housing, not what to wear.”

In the past three months of campaigning for reelection, the incumbent made over sixty campaign trips throughout Iran, while Mousavi visited only major cities. Throughout the recent debates, Ahmadinejad took the opportunity to attack rampant corruption among high-ranking clerics within the Iranian establishment. The New York Times reported that "He accused Mr. Rafsanjani, an influential cleric, and Mr. Rafsanjani’s sons of corruption and said they were financing Mr. Mousavi’s campaign. Mr. Ahmadinejad also cited a long list of officials whom he accused of unspecified corrupt acts, including plundering billions of dollars of the country’s wealth." The article continued,

Mr. Ahmadinejad contended that the early founders of the Iranian revolution, including Mr. Moussavi, had gradually moved away from the values of the revolution’s early days and had become “a force that considered itself as the owner of the country.”

He suggested that some leaders had indulged in an inappropriately lavish lifestyle, naming, among others, a former speaker of Parliament, Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri, who has opposed some of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s policies. Mr. Nouri, a conservative, ran unsuccessfully for president in 1997. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks seemed to suggest a deepening divide between the president and a number of influential leaders, including some conservatives who belong to a faction that has supported Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Whereas these remarks may have struck a chord with the Iranian public, they provoked a stern rebuke from Supreme Guide Khamenei at last Friday's post-election prayer service. Khamenei, breaking a long-standing tradition of not mentioning specific people during his address, defended Rafsanjani's reputation by describing him as "one of the most significant and principal people of the movement in the pre-revolution era...[who] went to the verges of martyrdom several times after the revolution," also pointing out his bona fides as "a companion of Imam Khomeini, and after the demise of Imam Khomeini was perpetually a comrade of the leader."

Rafsanjani is currently the speaker of the Assembly of Experts, an 86 member elected council of clerics responsible for appointing and, if need be, dismissing and replacing the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic. In September 2007, Rafsanjani was elected speaker after decisively defeating a candidate supported by Ahmadinejad. He is also currently the leader of the Expediency Council which is "responsible for breaking stalemates between the Majlis and the Guardian Council, advising the Supreme Leader, and proposing policy guidelines for the Islamic Republic." As such, the Expediency Council limits the power wielded by the conservative Guardian Council, a body consisting of twelve jurists who evaluate the compatibility of the Majlis [Parliament]'s legislative decisions with Islamic law and the Iranian constitution. Moreover, in 2005, Khamenei strengthened the role of the Expediency Council by granting it supervisory powers over all branches of government, effectively affording the Expediency Council and its leader, Rafsanjani, oversight over the presidency. As a result, Rafsanjani retains a tremendous amount of power within Iranian politics. His strong support, both outspoken and financial, for Mousavi should show clearly that Mousavi - who was the Iranian Prime Minister during the Iran-Iraq War - is not some scrappy reformist challenger to the upper tiers of the Islamic Republic. He is as establishment as anyone else, if not more so.

But that's not all. Asia Times correspondant M.K. Bhadrakumar explains,

For those who do not know Iran better, suffice to say that the Rafsanjani family clan owns vast financial empires in Iran, including foreign trade, vast landholdings and the largest network of private universities in Iran. Known as Azad there are 300 branches spread over the country, they are not only money-spinners but could also press into Mousavi's election campaign an active cadre of student activists numbering some 3 million.

The Azad campuses and auditoria provided the rallying point for Mousavi's campaign in the provinces. The attempt was to see that the campaign reached the rural poor in their multitudes who formed the bulk of voters and constituted Ahmadinejad's political base. Rafsanjani's political style is to build up extensive networking in virtually all the top echelons of the power structure, especially bodies such as the Guardian Council, Expediency Council, the Qom clergy, Majlis, judiciary, bureaucracy, Tehran bazaar and even elements within the circles close to Khamenei. He called into play these pockets of influence.

The Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri has already come out against the election results, once again showing that the dynamic of the Iranian government is not that of a monolithic dictatorship, but a complex network of power plays. Basically, what we're seeing is all politics, and not a revolutionary uprising.

As allegations of fraud spread, Mousavi supporters in the United States seemed not to be able to get their stories straight. In co-ordinated mass emails, sent widely to promote protests across the country (and with all the "grassroots" pizzazz of those corporate-sponsored Republican Teabagging Parties in April), a number of unsubstantiated claims are noted as "Basic Statistics."

Some claim that there were not enough ballots available to the voting public, while others suggest that there were too many ballots in an attempt to stuff ballot boxes with pro-Ahmadinejad votes. It is claimed that "Voting irregularities occurred throughout Iran and abroad. Polls closed early, votes were not counted and ballots were confusing." Without providing any evidence of any of these accusations, the message reveals its own inaccuracy by deliberately spreading misinformation. Because turnout on election day was so high in Iran, polls actually remained open for up to four extra hours to allow as many people to cast ballots as possible. If Iranian authorities were prepared for a totalitarian takeover of the country after a faked election, why bother to keep polls open?

Also, the ballots weren't confusing. They had no list of names or added legislative initiatives. They had one single, solitary question on them: Who is your pick for president? There is one empty box to note a number corresponding to the candidate of your choice and another box in which you are to write the candidate's name. No hanging chads, no levers to pull, no political parties to consider. Just write the name of the guy you want to win. How is this confusing?

The suggestion that the ballots were counted too quickly to reflect a genuine result is in itself bizarre and unfounded. Al-Amin tells us, "There were a total of 45,713 ballot boxes that were set up in cities, towns and villages across Iran. With 39.2 million ballots cast, there were less than 860 ballots per box...Why would it take more than an hour or two to count 860 ballots per poll? After the count, the results were then reported electronically to the Ministry of the Interior in Tehran."

The elections in Iran are organized and monitored. The ballots are counted by teachers and professionals including civil servants and retirees, much like here in the US. An eyewitness from Shiraz provides this account:

"As an employee in City Hall, I was assigned to be a poll worker/watcher at the University of Shiraz on election day and here it was impossible for cheating to have taken place! There were close to 20 observers, from the Guardian Council, the Ministry of the Interior, and more than four-five representatives/observers from each candidate. Everybody was watching every single move, stamp, piece of paper, etc. from the checking of the Shenas-Nameh (personal indentification documentation) to the filling of the ballot boxes, to the counting of each ballot under everyone's eyes, and then registering the results into the computer and sending them to the Interior Ministry...Also, we had extra ballots in Shiraz. It's possible that in some of the smaller villages they ran out of ballots, but the voting hours were extended."

The opposition messages state that "The two main state news agencies in Iran declared the winner before polls closed and votes were counted." Actually, as mentioned above, it was Mousavi who declared his own victory several hours before the polls closed. Paul Craig Roberts, who is himself a former US government official, suggests that Mousavi's premature victory declaration is "classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the preemptive declaration of victory and the release of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don't see through this trick."

Circulating emails even contain this tidbit: "Two primary opponents of Ahmadinejad reject the notion that he won the election." Talk about proof!

Even Mousavi's own official letter of complaint - delivered to the Guardian Council after five days of promoting protests and opposition rallies on the streets of Tehran - is short on substantive allegations and devoid of hard evidence of anything remotely suggestive of voter fraud. The letter, which calls for an annulment of the election results and for a new election to take place, expounds on many non-election related issues, such as the televised debates, the incumbent's access to state-owned transportation on the campaign trail and use of government-controlled media to promote his candidacy. All previous Iranian presidents, including the reformist Mohammad Khatami, who is a main supporter of Mousavi, have used the resources at their disposal for election purposes. Plus, whereas the last point certainly seems unfair, it hardly amounts to fraud. The debates - the first ever held in the history of the Islamic Republic - also served to even up the score for Ahmadinejad's challengers.

Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, writing for the Asia Times, explains further:

Mousavi complains that some of his monitors were not accredited by the Interior Ministry and therefore he was unable to independently monitor the elections. However, several thousand monitors representing the various candidates were accredited and that included hundreds of Mousavi's eyes and ears.

They should have documented any irregularities that, per the guidelines, should have been appended to his complaint. Nothing is appended to Mousavi's two-page complaint, however. He does allude to some 80 letters that he had previously sent to the Interior Ministry, without either appending those letters or restating their content.

Finally, item eight of the complaint cites Ahmadinejad's recourse to the support given by various members of Iran's armed forces, as well as Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki's brief campaigning on Ahmadinejad's behalf. These are legitimate complaints that necessitate serious scrutiny since by law such state individuals are forbidden to take sides. It should be noted that Mousavi can be accused of the same irregularity as his headquarters had a division devoted to the armed forces.

Given the thin evidence presented by Mousavi, there can be little chance of an annulment of the result.

In response to the accusation of there being more votes in certain areas than registered voters, it must be acknowledged that in Iran, unlike in the United States, eligible voters may vote anywhere they wish - at any polling location in the entire country - and are not limited to their residential districts or precincts as long as their information is registered and valid in the government's database. Families vacationing North to avoid the stifling heat of the South would wind up voting in towns in which they are tourists. Afrasiabi even points out that, whereas "Mousavi complains that in some areas the votes cast were higher than the number of registered voters...he fails to add that some of those areas, such as Yazd, were places where he received more votes that Ahmadinejad."

Are these irrefutable examples of an election that was free of all outside interference, irregularities, or potential problems? No, of course not. But there is also no hard proof of a fixed result, let alone massive vote rigging on a scale never before seen in Iran, a country that - unlike the United States - has no history of fraudulent elections.

On the Table & Off the Map:Threats, Lies, and Iranian Elections

Eight days after Barack Obama delivered his much-touted speech in Cairo, Iranians are going to the polls to vote for their own president. Although reelection for incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seemed to be guaranteed just a few weeks ago, there now appears to be growing potential for an upset victory by challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been running a campaign as the candidate of change.

Mousavi is no new-comer to the Iranian political stage. He held the now-defunct post of Prime Minister from 1981 to 1989 (which was, at the time, an executive position much akin to the current presidency) during Iran's brutal eight-year war with Iraq. Currently the president of the Iranian Academy of Arts, the trilingual Mousavi - Farsi, Arabic, and English - served as a presidential adviser from 1989 to 2005 and held a position on the Expediency Council, Iran's highest arbitration body.

In the American and European mainstream media, Iranian supporters of Mousavi are routinely referred to as "more educated," "better off," and "pro-Western" than their counterparts who support Ahmadinejad. The Iranian economy, which has seen rising inflation and slowed growth in the past four years, has become a major point of contention during the campaign process and recent debates. The President has been blamed for three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions, diminishing Iranian prestige and reputation internationally, and Mousavi even chided him as arrogant and driving Iran toward "dictatorship."

Ahmadinejad's detractors point to all these factors as proof of his failed leadership; however, a closer look into the accusations may reveal a different story - or, at least, a different perspective.

Ahmadinejad is a populist who is seen as having "a deep sympathy for the poor" and has worked very hard to redistribute wealth across the wide range of socioeconomic tiers of Iranian society. He has helped the poor and lower middle class by increasing pensions (sometimes by more than doubling them), loans, and government workers’ wages, also increasing and maintaining financial support for the families of those killed or wounded during the Iran-Iraq War. The New York Times reports that Ahmadinejad "has also handed out so-called justice shares of state firms that are selling stock to the public, and provided low-interest loans to young married couples and entrepreneurs."

Still, opponents claim that his focus on redistribution, rather than creation, of wealth within Iran has harmed the Iranian economy and has resulted in increased unemployment, especially in Iran's vast young population. Nevertheless, his supporters disagree. “Who says Ahmadinejad created unemployment?” twenty-five year old market worker Hamid Nassiri told the Times. “It’s not true at all. He is from the people, and he attends to the people’s needs.”

In fact, even though discussion of the Iranian economy seems to be working against Ahmadinejad, Kelly Campbell of the U.S. Institute of Peace has thoroughly debunked many of the myths about Iranian economic turmoil, explaining that the country has "actually performed well in aggregate terms, with a moderate rate of growth in the last ten to fifteen years, including healthy GDP and per capita growth in investment. In the last three years, Iran's actual growth rate has averaged 5.8 percent." Kelly continues,

Nor do economic indicators support assertions by some observers that inflation is much higher than the rate stated by the Iranian government. In the last fifteen years, the consumer price index (CPI) has increased by a factor of forty-two; if the inflation rate were actually twice the reported rate, the CPI would have increased by a factor of 950. Prices have increased by a factor of five in the last ten years, not twenty, as some claim. While this rate of inflation is cause for concern, it is in line with the depreciation of the exchange rate.

[Another] myth is that Iran suffers from widespread poverty and rising inequality. The poverty rate actually declined throughout the 1990s and continues to fall, and is low by international standards—especially when compared to that of other developing countries. Government public service and social assistance programs have helped to reduce poverty, particularly in rural areas. In addition, economic inequality throughout Iran has remained fairly stable and does not appear to be increasing.

Over the past few years, Ahmadinejad has also courted economic alliances with a number of Latin and South American nations, promising $1 billion to help develop Bolivia's oil and gas sector, opening a trade office in Ecuador, and entering into various agreements with Nicaragua, Cuba, Paraguay, Brazil and, of course, Venezuela. Surprisingly, however, not all of these overtures have to do with oil trade. In 2007, Nicaragua received a loan of over $200 million from Iran to build a hydroelectric dam and, in August of last year, Ahmadinejad donated $2 million for the construction of a hospital. The Council of Hemispheric Affairs' Braden Webb reports that "Venezuela and Iran are now gingerly engaged in an ambitious joint project, putting on-line Veniran, a production plant that assembles 5,000 tractors a year, and plans to start producing two Iranian designed automobiles to provide regional consumers with the 'first anti-imperialist cars.'"

Ahmadinejad's inroads into Latin and South American, in order to act as "counter-lasso" to the United States, have certainly upped his anti-imperialism credentials - so much so, in fact, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called the strong relations “disturbing.”

Mousavi, on the other hand, has set his sites closer to home, attacking Ahmadinejad for focusing on the Americas rather than "investing in Iran's neighboring countries...the President has obviously failed to get his priorities right.” Mousavi, on the other hand, favors increased privatization and foreign investment. "We should create an economic revolution to fight inflation," he said during a televised debate. "The private sector is a vital part of our plans to revive the country's economy." Believing that Ahmadinejad squandered excess oil revenue while in office, Mousavi insists, "The oil industry should improve. Right now our economy is solely restricted to oil exports without realizing that the oil industry is dependent on other economic sectors" and that "stable economic policies will help Iran to attract foreign investment."

As a self-described reformist, Mousavi has rallied a strong following by calling for more freedom of the press, freedom of information, more professional opportunities for women, the abolition of the so-called "Morality Police," as well as noting that "blinkered attitudes and false interpretations of Islamic teachings do not satisfy public interests and only trigger the country's backwardness." He wishes to push for more personal freedoms, lifting the state ban on private television stations, and also believes that the supervision of police and law enforcement forces should be handed over to the President, rather than remaining in the hands of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

As to Mousavi's claims that Ahmadinejad is dictatorial, the fact that Ahmadinejad has no control over Iran's military, doesn't have final say on foreign policy matters, has no power over the nuclear energy program, and has often been challenged by both the Majlis (Parliament) and Judiciary, quickly exposes those accusations as campaign rhetoric and name-calling. In fact, the Iranian legislature rejected more than two-thirds of Ahmadinejad's recommendations for ministers which resulted in it taking almost a year before his Cabinet was fully staffed. Hardly the trajectory of a tyrant.

The view from the United States appears to be that, with a Mousavi win on Friday, relations between Iran and America will improve. Mousavi clearly strikes a more conciliatory tone when discussing international affairs than does Ahmadinejad, who has always been consistent in his insistance that Iran has every legal right to enrich uranium under the protocols of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that sanctions against Iran imposed by UN Security Council resolutions are themselves illegal.

"Our country was harmed because of extremist policies adopted in the last three years...My foreign policy with all countries will be one of detente," Mousavi said after first announcing his candidacy. "We should try to gain the international community's trust while preserving our national interests." He has also said, “In foreign policy we have undermined the dignity of our country and created problems for our development."

Nevertheless, the former prime minister insists that "Iran will never abandon its nuclear right" and echoes the statements of both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad when saying, "If America practically changes its Iran policy, then we will surely hold talks with them."

It is clear that an electoral victory for Mousavi would be seen as a political victory for Barack Obama as well. It is assumed that Mousavi is more "rational and reasonable" than Ahmadinejad and would therefore be more amenable to Washington's demands, regardless of how illegal and hypocritical those demands may be. As such, he is the preferred candidate by Western analysts and politicians.

But how different would the United States treat Iran, really?

Back in 2003, soon after the invasion of Iraq, the Iranian government sent a "proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States" and the fax suggested everything was on the table - including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups." Flynt Leverett, a senior director on the National Security Council staff at the time, described the Iranian proposal as "a serious effort, a respectable effort to lay out a comprehensive agenda for U.S.-Iranian rapprochement." A Washington Post report from 2006 revealed that the document listed "a series of Iranian aims for the talks, such as ending sanctions, full access to peaceful nuclear technology and a recognition of its 'legitimate security interests.' Iran agreed to put a series of U.S. aims on the agenda, including full cooperation on nuclear safeguards, 'decisive action' against terrorists, coordination in Iraq, ending 'material support' for Palestinian militias and accepting the Saudi initiative for a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The document also laid out an agenda for negotiations, with possible steps to be achieved at a first meeting and the development of negotiating road maps on disarmament, terrorism and economic cooperation."

The proposal was roundly rejected by the Bush administration.

The then-government of reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami - now a Mousavi supporter - even voluntarily suspended uranium enrichment from 2003 to 2005 and still received nothing but lies and threats from the United States and its European allies. As Ahmadinejad recently pointed out, "There was so much begging for having three centrifuges. Today more than 7,000 centrifuges are turning," in turn, asking, "Which foreign policy was successful? Which one created degradation? Which one kept our independence more, which one gave away more concessions but got no results?"

Many commentators point to a new approach from Barack Obama's Washington, which they believe should be reciprocated from Tehran. Apparently, Obama's recent Cairo speech appealed to many Iranians, even government officials. Ali Akbar Rezaie, the director-general of Iran's foreign ministry's office responsible for North America commended the new tone coming from the US president, saying, "Compared to anything we've heard in the last 30 years, and especially in the last eight years, his words were very different...People in the region received the speech, from this angle, very positively, with sympathy." He added that the upcoming Iranian election would set the stage for a new chapter in US-Iran relations. "After the election we will be in a better position to manage relations with the United States," he said. "We'll be at the beginning of a new four-year period, and the political framework will be clear."

But what has Obama said to or about Iran that should prompt such positive and optimistic responses? Not a whole lot.

Exactly one year to the day before his Cairo speech, and the day after clinching the Democratic nomination for president, Obama stood before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and stated that "There is no greater threat to Israel — or to the peace and stability of the region — than Iran." He said this about a country that has not threatened nor attacked any other country in centuries and harbors absolutely no ambitions of territorial expansion. The same can obviously not be said about Israel, or the United States. Obama continued,

The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists. Its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.

Obama threatened Iran with ratcheted up pressure, if it did not bend to American demands - demands based on unfounded accusations and outright lies. This pressure would not be limited to "aggressive, principled diplomacy" but would include "all elements of American power to pressure Iran." Just to be clear, Obama promised his audience to "do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

In his inaugural address, Obama seemed to calm down and offered the Muslim world "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect." A week later, during an interview with Al Arabiya TV, the new president reiterated his insistence that the US was now "ready to initiate a new partnership [with the Muslim world] based on mutual respect and mutual interest."

Two months later, in March, Obama addressed the Iranian people and government directly by releasing a taped message on the occasion of the Iranian New Year. The message urged a "new beginning" in diplomatic relations. Obama said,

"My Administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran, and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek, instead, engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect."

Obama's emphasis on "mutual respect" is striking considering the near constant usage of that phrase in Iranian overtures for years. Many Iranian officials, including UN ambassador Javad Zarif, former president Rafsanjani, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamidreza Assefi, have been calling for international relations based on "mutual respect." The Mossadegh Project's Arash Norouzi points out, as far back as February 2000, then President Khatami was saying, "We believe in existing alongside, and forging relations with, all countries...on the basis of mutual respect and interests." Then, in early 2004, then Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazzi said, "We call for positive and constructive dialogue on the basis of mutual respect." In December 2007, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki stated, "As senior Iranian officials have reiterated, we welcome any rational approach that is based on mutual respect."

Ahmadinejad himself has used the phrase a number of times ever since he was the mayor of Tehran and running for president. More recently, in a July 2008 interview with NBC News, Ahmadinejad wondered if the United States was finally beginning "a new approach; in other words, mutual respect, cooperation, and justice? Or is this approach a continuation in the confrontation with the Iranian people but in a new guise?"

Some say that where Ahmadinejad is confrontational, Mousavi will be more mollifying. But Ahmadinejad has always been ready for diplomatic engagement with the United States, despite what you may hear constantly in the mainstream media. In fact, the day after Obama's Al Arabiya interview, Ahmadinejad delivered a speech in the Iranian town of Kermanshah. This is how his speech ended:

We welcome change but on the condition that change is fundamental and on a right course, otherwise the world should know, that anyone with the same speaking manner of Mr. Bush, same language of Mr. Bush, the same spirit of Mr. Bush, adventurism of Mr. Bush, even using new words to speak to the nation of Iran, the answer is the same Mr. Bush and his lackeys received over the years.

We hear that they are making plans for Iran. We in turn wait patiently, listen carefully to their words, carefully assess actions under the magnifying glass and if a real change occurs in a fundamental way, we shall welcome it.

In May, at the request of Barack Obama, the Pentagon updated its plans for using military force against Iran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates explained that "as a result of our dialogue with the president, we've refreshed our plans and all options are on the table." So much for not advancing threats.

Obama's appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and long-time AIPACer Dennis Ross as top Iran advisor is also troubling. Clinton once threatened to "totally obliterate Iran" if it ever attacked Israel with the nuclear weapons it doesn't have and has suggested that negotiations with Iran, while doubtfully being fruitful, will be primarily useful to garner support for more “crippling” multilateral sanctions. Also, it has long been said that Ross has advocated an "engagement with pressure" strategy of dealing with Iran which, as Ismael Hossein-Zadeh explains, "means projecting or pretending negotiation with Iran in order to garner broader international support for the US-sponsored economic pressure on that country." In a recent New York Times Op-Ed, former National Security Council staff members Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett relate what Ross revealed to them regarding his cynical strategy:

In conversations with Mr. Ross before Mr. Obama’s election, we asked him if he really believed that engage-with-pressure would bring concessions from Iran. He forthrightly acknowledged that this was unlikely. Why, then, was he advocating a diplomatic course that, in his judgment, would probably fail? Because, he told us, if Iran continued to expand its nuclear fuel program, at some point in the next couple of years President Bush’s successor would need to order military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets. Citing past “diplomacy” would be necessary for that president to claim any military action was legitimate.

They also make it clear that, "the Obama administration has done nothing to cancel or repudiate an ostensibly covert but well-publicized program, begun in President George W. Bush’s second term, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to destabilize the Islamic Republic. Under these circumstances, the Iranian government — regardless of who wins the presidential elections on June 12 — will continue to suspect that American intentions toward the Islamic Republic remain, ultimately, hostile."

Even more recently, during his speech in Cairo, Obama, after once again mentioning "mutual respect," said that "any nation - including Iran - should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty." Whereas this sounds like an unprecedented admission by a sitting US president, it's important to remember what Bush said to Charlie Gibson back in 2002 during an ABC News interview: "Matter of fact, I said this in a press conference, that it's the sovereign right of Iran to have civilian nuclear power, and I agree, and I believe that."

As Iran Affairs' Cyrus Safdari points out, "Arguably, Bush's statement is more sweeping than Obama's...compare 'may have some right' to 'has a sovereign right'." He continues,

In any case, Iran's absolute and unqualified and unquestionable right to access the full nuclear fuel cycle is based on international law and not for Obama or Bush to decide. Iran has the same rights to nuclear technology (or any other technology) as Japan, Argentina, Brazil, the USA...

Nor is it up to Iran to "prove that its aspirations are peaceful" (code words for "must give up enrichment and forever rely on us to power their economy".) Iran has signed the NPT and after years of inspections, no evidence has been found of any weapons program. The burden is therefore on Iran's accusers to prove their allegations, and not vice versa.

Meanwhile, not only is Iran's nuclear program legal, it is under heavy scrutiny by the IAEA. Just recently, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, confirmed Tehran's continued cooperation with the UN nuclear agency while at the same time it continues its uranium enrichment activities. He told reporters, “After six years of intrusive and robust inspection and issuance of 24 reports, the director general has once again reported to the world that there is no evidence of any diversion of nuclear material or case of prohibitive nuclear activities.“

Nevertheless, Obama presented Iran on Sunday with a "clear choice" of halting its nuclear and missile activity or facing increased isolation.

Maybe the US just doesn't like Ahmadinejad, what with his deliberately being mistranslated and intentionally misquoted by Western media. Blamed for threatening to "wipe Israel off the map" (an idiom that doesn't even exist in Farsi), Ahmadinejad is constantly called a Holocaust denier for questioning why the horrific Nazi genocide of European Jews resulted in the violent displacement and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Ahmadinejad has never threatened to attack Israel, but rather hopes that the people of Palestine can all - Jews, Christians, and Muslims - vote for whatever type of government system they are to live under. Ahmadinejad's willingness to bring up issues pertaining to Zionism without worrying about the delicate sensibilities of Western audiences has made him a pariah.

Obviously, it is seldom remembered that, in 2001, the former Iranian president and putative moderate, Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is now heavily supporting Mousavi's run for office, declared that although Israel would be destroyed by an atomic bomb, the Muslim world would only be damaged by one and therefore "such a scenario is not inconceivable." Nevertheless, the LA Times noted back in 2006, "four years later, when Rafsanjani was running for president, Washington and its European allies were eagerly hoping that he would win." Apparently, an actual threat of nuclear destruction didn't seem to bother Western powers at the time. Now all they talk about is a fictitious one.

Still, hopes are that Mousavi will be more tactful in his discussion of Zionism and Israel's reliance on the Holocaust for its own existential validation. Recently, when asked about his views on the Holocaust, Mousavi said: "Killing innocent people is condemned. The way the issue [Holocaust] was put forward [by Ahmadinejad] was incorrect," but continued in a manner almost identical to the incumbent president, "Of course the question could be that why Palestinians should be punished for a crime committed by Germans?"

As millions of Iranians flood to the polls today to vote, it may become clear that a vote for Ahmadinejad is more a vote for continued Iranian resistance to US influence and hegemony in the region, whereas a vote for Mousavi is a vote for possible reconciliation based on Iranian fears, American demands, and Israeli paranoia and deception.

And so, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Obama's Cairo Speech, Part IIElectile Dysfunction, or Timing is Everything!

While endless analysis of Obama's nuanced words in Cairo is being conducted, it may be wise to examine when Obama chose to deliver his speech to the 3,000 invited guests at Cairo University and millions more worldwide.

Obama's overtures to the Muslim world come as the Middle East is poised for two important elections in the next week - one in Lebanon on June 7th, the other in Iran on June 12th.

Analyst Rannie Amiri explains that "due to the Lebanon’s complex, sectarian-based political framework, understanding the mechanics and dynamics behind its upcoming parliamentary vote is more complicated" than that of Iran's presidential election. There are two main political coalitions in Lebanon, dubbed March 8 and March 14. Amiri clarifies:

The March 8 Alliance is named after the date of a massive 2005 Beirut rally organized by Hezbollah that expressed opposition to its disarmament, support for Syria, and resistance to Israel. The coalition is primarily comprised of Hezbollah, Nabih Berri’s Amal party, and the secular Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of General Michel Aoun. Unlike Nasrallah and Berri who are Shia Muslims, Aoun is a Maronite Christian and thus draws support from this and other Christian constituencies.

The March 14 Alliance is also named after the date of a huge 2005 Beirut demonstration, but one decidedly anti-Syrian. It occurred exactly one month after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and heralded the beginning of the “Cedar Revolution.” This ultimately led to the withdrawal of all Syrian troops from Lebanon after 29 years. March 14 is the current Western-backed, ruling coalition and is principally comprised of Sunni, Druze, and Christian parties. It is led Saad Hariri, billionaire son of Rafiq, and his Future Movement forms its largest bloc.

While the March 8 coalition wields veto power over cabinet decisions as part of the power-sharing agreement reached through the May 2008 Doha Accord and holds 58 seats in Lebanon's National Assembly, the March 14 alliance has 70 seats. Whereas Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah has encouraged a stable, unified Lebanese government that represents the will of the people, saying, "...it is in the interest of Lebanon and its stability that there is understanding and partnership among Lebanese in running their country's affairs,” his opponent, Parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri, remarked coldly, "We will not take part in the government if the March 8 Alliance wins the elections..."

It is suggested that there are only about 30 contested seats, and therefore, "March 8 need only win an additional seven to gain the parliamentary majority." Were this to happen, it would be a frustrating turn of events for the United States, Israel, and their Middle Eastern allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, further shifting popular representation in Lebanon against Western influence and toward continued imperial and colonial resistence.

As such, the stakes are high for the Obama Administration. In the past few weeks, both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden have dropped by Beirut in order to lend their support to the March 14 faction and assure the Lebanese voters that the United States will not interfere with the upcoming elections. Oh, the irony. Clinton called for an election "fair and free of outside interference" and the White House explained that Biden's visit was meant "to reinforce the United States' support for an independent and sovereign Lebanon."

Hezbollah stated that the surprise visits by the top ranking US officials raised "strong suspicion and amounted to a clear and detailed interference in Lebanon's affairs." This fear appears to be well-founded considering the US view that continued financial and military assistance to Lebanon would be contingent on which Lebanese political faction wins on Sunday.

After meeting with Lebanese president Michel Suleiman, Biden stated, "I assure you we stand with you to guarantee a sovereign, secure Lebanon, with strong institutions" and that "the election of leaders committed to the rule of law and economic reform opens the door to lasting growth and prosperity as it will here in Lebanon." Nevertheless, Biden said that the US "will evaluate the shape of our assistance programs based on the composition of the new government and the policies it advocates."

Parliamentarian Hassan Fadlallah, who is aligned with Hezbollah, was clear about his party's feelings regarding the Biden visit. "It appears that this visit is part of a US bid to supervise the electoral campaign of a Lebanese party which feels threatened politically...in light of the expected outcome of the legislative vote," he said.

Not suprisingly, neither Clinton nor Biden mentioned the numerous arrests of pro-Western Lebanese MPs on charges of spying for Israel, as well as the widespread use of voter fraud to tip the scales against Hezbollah. As American journalist Franklin Lamb reports,

Longtime Hezbollah Shia opponent, Ahmad al-As’ad has set up an anti-Hezbollah Shia organization called the Lebanese Option Gathering and has fielded 19 candidates against Hezbollah. He openly admits getting a large quotient of Saudi support to compete against Hezbollah in the south and the Bekaa and is thought to be allied with the pro-US Hariri team. As’ad knows his group cannot win and that the overwhelming number of Shia will vote for Hezbollah. His goal is not so much to get voters to vote against Hezbollah, but to keep them from voting for Hezbollah. Then when the votes are counted, Israel and the anti-Hezbollah centers can declare that “Hezbollah is losing support among its base, because it got fewer votes than in 2005 etc...”

To make this happen, As’ad operatives having been “renting” Voter ID Cards for up to $1000 each. The cards are turned over in exchange for $1000 and are to be returned on Monday June 8 after the votes are counted.

Meanwhile, in Iran, tensions are mounting as the country gears up for its tenth presidential election next week. The four candidates were vetted from a staggering 475 registered applicants - 433 men and 42 women - by the twelve member Guardians Council, tasked with scrutinizing the qualifications of candidates and approving their ability to handle the country’s affairs. While the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Secretary of State Expediency Council and former chief of Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps Mohsen Rezaei are running on conservative and traditionalist platforms, former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi is being promoted as a "moderate" reformist candidate. The only real challenge to Ahmadinejad's re-election comes from former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who is campaigning as a “reformist who upholds the principles“ of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Mousavi has been gaining support in urban areas while Ahmadinejad has rural backing locked in his favor. Mousavi has stated his commitment to the Iranian Constitution while also promoting increased access to information and a more conciliatory foreign policy. In a recent televised broadcast, he said that Iran "should move towards a state in which the government is bound to provide the citizens with any information - Military and security information should be the only exceptions," continuing that Iran's hopes for further development "is not possible without the freedom of the media and the press."

On the foreign policy front, Mousavi has held firm that the Iranian nuclear program will proceed lawfully, promising that "all the achievements, approaches and progress that have been made should not be abandoned." He articulated his desire for international diplomacy over the nuclear program, stating, "There are two issues regarding our nuclear program: the first is the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, which is in our national interests and thus cannot be abandoned. The second issue is what some countries say about possible diversions in our nuclear program. This is what we are ready to discuss with other countries."

With respect to Iran's tense relationship with the United States, Mousavi sees the new Obama Administration to be a departure from the aggressive rhetoric of the Bush past. "The US has changed its tone," he said. "Starting relations with the US is not a taboo, should they practically change their stance." This statement is consistent with the messages of Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who have both called for the US to act differently in the international arena, rather than just talking about it. Mousavi showed his tempered approach to foreign affairs - a contrast to the consistently confident posture of Ahmadinejad - by saying, "Iran is not a friend of the US, but America is an influential country in the world with great economic and military capabilities. It is right that we are a powerful nation, but our power should not lead us to act unreasonably. We can not face the US alone."

Ahmadinejad, too, has advocated for diplomacy during the campaign. "Washington's political echelons have relentlessly signaled their willingness for a dialogue with Iran's government officials," he said in late May, adding, "If the talks are held on an equal footing, we have no objection. We would like to discus a whole range of international issues." Nevertheless, Ahmadinejad was proud to mention the fact that he never resorted to "currying favor with Western countries" in order to succeed in his goals as the Iranian executive.

As debates and campaigns heat up, violence has also been introduced to the election environment. The Washington Post reported that "Five people died Monday in an arson attack on an Iranian bank in the southeastern city of Zahedan, where a suicide bombing in a Shiite mosque last week killed 25 people." The Iranian government has said that the Islamist separatist group Jundullah, which claimed responsibility for the mosque bombing and regularly carries out attacks and kidnappings in the region, receives support from the United States and is linked to al-Qaeda.

Khamenei called for stability and solidarity in the face of such needless violence. "Shiite and Sunni brothers, various ethnic groups and political and social currents should observe unity in matters related to elections or matters not related to elections," he said Monday, adding that the bombing "is awash with Israeli and US fingerprints." Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying, "The extremist groups in the region are linked with some foreign forces in Afghanistan," while Jalal Sayah, deputy provincial governor of the Sistan-Baluchistan province that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, said that at least three people have been arrested with regards to the terrorist attacks, adding, "According to the information obtained they planted the bomb at the behest of the United States and its allies."

So what does all this Western interference in upcoming Middle Eastern elections have to do with Obama's speech in Cairo?

A lot.

In one of the strongest parts of his speech, Obama discussed democracy and his belief in the value of self-determination. He stated his commitment "to governments that reflect the will of the people," and claimed that "America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election." He continued,

...I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere...America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people."

Obviously, the United States did not recognize the legitimacy of the crushing Hamas win over Fatah in the US-backed and closely monitored 2006 Palestinian elections. Ever since its parliamentary victory, Hamas has been isolated and demonized by the West. If the operative word in Obama's statement seems to be "peaceful," he should also turn his sights on Israel.

The far-right Israeli government, lead by Netanyahu - and made more dangerous by the appointment of fascist Avigdor Lieberman as Foreign Minister - is not subject to Obama's dictates. While Hamas is told to "play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people" by putting an end to violence, recognizing past agreements, and recognizing Israel's right to exist, the same is not demanded of Israel. The billions of dollars in US aid to Israel is not in jeopardy of being cut off depending on who runs the so-called "Jewish state." The support of the United States, militarily, financially, and diplomatically will not be re-evaluated due to Israel's continued aggression against Palestinians, threats to Iran, denial of Palestinian rights (both within Israel and in the Occupied Territories), refusal of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state, and clear contempt for international law that prohibits all settlement activity on occupied land, collective punishment, discriminatory laws, and the construction of the Apartheid Wall that separates Palestinian communities from their own land.

So, while President Obama promotes representative government in a region severely lacking in democracy, American officials, operatives, and proxies are attempting to undermine the integrity of two elections. Their efforts to influence the political outcome in both Lebanon and Iran in order to wind up with more pro-Western leadership seem to be anathema to Obama's own feelings about following "the will of the people."

Obama's Cairo Speech, Part I:A New Beginning or The Old Hypocrisy?

On Thursday June 4, 2009 - the day before the 42nd anniversary of Israel's conquest of remaining Palestinian land, two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day, and 425 years to the day that Sir Walter Raleigh established the first English colony in the New World on Roanoke Island - President Barack Obama delivered a much-anticipated speech that many hoped would be an unprecedented historical game-changer for US foreign policy and demonstrate a fundamental shift in America's relationship with the so-called "Muslim world."

Thousands of words could easily be written about whether or not Obama met or dashed these hopes in his wide-ranging speech at Cairo University. Did he rise to the challenge of the century with respect, grace, and compassion? Or did he take the occasion to endorse continued Israeli hegemony, American imperialism, and Western power over indigenous people and cultures?

Are we to laud his Qur'anic quotations, his denouncement of negative Islamic stereotypes, his use of the terms colonialism, occupation, and Palestine? Should we marvel at his understanding that, as a direct result of Western imperialism and the Cold War, many Muslims were "denied rights and opportunities" and that Muslim countries were "treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations"? Should we be thrilled by his acknowledgement that Iran, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has the inalienable "right to access peaceful nuclear power" even though he never mentioned Israel by name when saying that "no single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons" and pointing out "that some countries have weapons" while "others do not." What about his extraordinary admission that "the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government"?

Should we dance the hope-and-change two-step because Obama acknowledged the "undeniable" suffering, displacement, dehumanization, and "legitimate aspirations" for dignity, opportunity, and statehood of the Palestinian people? Should we spend time comparing and contrasting the adjectives "unbreakable" with "intolerable"? Should we be encouraged by Obama's reference to Israel's "right to exist" that deliberately didn't include the usual ethnocentric qualifier, "as a Jewish state"? What about his bold rejection of on-going illegal Israeli settlement activity? His association of the Palestinian resistance to occupation and desire for "full and equal rights" to the African-American struggle against the brutality of slavery and the "humiliation of segregation"? His juxtaposition of the Palestinian narrative with that of Apartheid South Africa?

What are we to make of Obama's soaring rhetoric and inspiring calls for unified humanity? What about the staggering hypocrisy? How passionately should it be pointed out that, as Obama declared his "relentless" commitment to "confront violent extremists" who threaten the American people and his outright rejection of "the killing of innocent men, women, and children," unmanned Predator and Reaper drones, adorned with the stars and stripes, were screeching through the skies over Afghanistan and Pakistan, perhaps adding to the appalling death toll already racked up by the young Obama Administration. Should people be reminded that, just one month ago, these murderous air strikes took the lives of over 120 Afghan civilians in the village of Granai in a single day? What about the fact that, in his first 100 days, the new president has managed to create over two million Pakistani refugees?

While mentioning how the events of 9/11 traumatized the American people, claiming that the United States of America is not some "self-interested empire," and declaring that the actions of "extremists" are "irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam," Obama omitted any mention of the 700 US military bases that dot the globe or the four million Iraqi refugees created by the US invasion of that country. He said that al Qaeda has "killed people of different faiths - but more than any other, they have killed Muslims." Obama then didn't mention the one million-plus dead Iraqis that Al Qaeda didn't kill over the past six years, the same million people the United States did kill.

Obama quoted the Qur'an by saying that "whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind" and that "whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind." So then, how many mankinds have the US military obliterated in its attempt to protect Americans half a world away?

Of 9/11, Obama declared, "The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with."

Consider this: if the word "America" were changed to "Palestine" and "al Qaeda" to the "Israeli military," the president would have been talking about Israel's devastation of Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, bombardment of Gaza this past winter, and stated determination to attack Iran. Of course, these connections were not made by Obama.

In one of the most telling sections of his fifty minute speech, Obama stated that "Palestinians must abandon violence...It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That's not how moral authority is claimed; that's how it is surrendered."

Obama's plea for peaceful resistance and denouncement of violence is certainly commendable, especially for a US president. But something doesn't quite seem right. He addressed these remarks only to Palestinians, once again affirming the propagandistic narrative that Arabs engage in immoral terror while Israel acts only in necessary self-defense. This is absurd. Not a single word was said about Israel's deadly attacks on the locked up and starving population of Gaza, during which the Israeli military killed over 1,400 Palestinians - 85% of whom were civilians - including over 400 children. Obama didn't feel the need to condemn the use of US-supplied missiles and bombs, white phosphorus and DIME, tanks, bulldozers, drones, and bullets to murder the sleeping children and terrified elderly of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalya. Apparently, Obama doesn't feel as if Israel surrendered its moral authority by keeping Palestinians under military occupation for a quarter century, for arresting and sometimes lethally shooting those who peacefully protest against the continued annexation of Palestinian land (17 Palestinians protesting the Wall have been killed by Israeli soldiers since 2004), or for keeping thousands of Palestinians in Israeli prisons for years without charges or trials. Israelis who protest their state's aggressive and racist behavior are vilified; the courageous youths who refuse to serve in the occupation are imprisoned.

Nor was the irony more shameful as when Obama asked the "Palestinians to focus on what they can build," without adding that, during the Gaza assault, Israel destroyed over 5,000 homes, 16 government buildings, 20 mosques, and many schools, universities, and hospitals. Israel attacked ambulances, UN installations and shelters, food warehouses, factories, and energy plants. Clearly, although Obama called for an end to illegal settlement activity in the West Bank (and made no mention of dismantling existing Israeli colonies and outposts which are each and every one of them illegal under international law), the continued building and maintenance of Israeli checkpoints, watchtowers, Apartheid Wall, and segregated bypass highways that bisect Palestinian land was not questioned.

True, Obama did declare his support for a Palestinian state and called for Israel to recognize Palestine's "right to exist." He also mentioned Israel's stifling occupation of the West Bank and the suffocating blockade and economic siege of Gaza by saying:

...Israel must also live up to its obligation to ensure that Palestinians can live and work and develop their society. Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be a critical part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

These are fine words from the most powerful person on the planet and it should be the hope of all advocates of human rights and international law that Obama follows up these demands and suggestions with action. There is always the fear that lofty goals and pretty speeches serve to strengthen Israeli means to meet American ends. But, with Obama's overtures in Cairo, there may now be the possibility of a better start.

The Laws of the Land?Over the Shills and Far Away

In response to my latest article, a comment was posted by "Jack Shattuck" (probably a shill, but whatever) on OpEd News. Naturally, I replied.

Posted below is first his comment, followed by my own response. Enjoy.

*****

Israeli right to settle in Palestine under international law

posted by Jack Shattuck
The San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920, the Mandate for Palestine conferred on Britain by the Principal Allied Powers and confirmed by the League of Nations unanimously on July 24, 1922, the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920, and the Anglo-American Convention of December 3, 1924 respecting the Mandate for Palestine all authorized the entire area of Palestine as ripe for settlement as the Jewish National Home. The Mandate for Palestine was subsequently incorporated as still binding under Article 80 of the UN Charter.

The San Remo Resolution on Palestine became Article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres which was intended to end the war with Turkey, but though this treaty was never ratified by the Turkish National Government of Kemal Ataturk, the Resolution retained its validity as an independent act of international law when it was inserted into the Preamble of the Mandate for Palestine and confirmed by 52 states.

The phrase “in Palestine”, another expression found in the Balfour Declaration that generated much controversy, referred to the whole country, including both Cisjordan and Transjordan (today's state of Jordan). It was absurd to imagine that this phrase could be used to indicate that only a part of Palestine was reserved for the future Jewish National Home, since both were created simultaneously and used interchangeably, with the term “Palestine” pointing out the geographical location of the future independent Jewish state. Had “Palestine” meant a partitioned country with certain areas of it set aside for Jews and others for Arabs, that intention would have been stated explicitly at the time the Balfour Declaration was drafted and approved and later adopted by the Principal Allied Powers. No such allusion was ever made in the prolonged discussions that took place in fashioning the Declaration and ensuring it international approval.

The decisive moment of change came on May 14, 1948 when the representatives of the Jewish people in Palestine and of the Zionist Organization proclaimed the independence of a Jewish state whose military forces held only a small portion of the territory originally allocated for the Jewish National Home. The rest of the country was in the illegal possession of neighboring Arab states who had no sovereign rights over the areas they illegally occupied, that were historically a part of Palestine and the Land of Israel and were not meant for Arab independence or the creation of another Arab state. It is for this reason that Israel, which inherited the sovereign rights of the Jewish people over Palestine, has the legal right to keep all the lands it liberated in the Six Day War that were either included in the Jewish National Home during the time of the Mandate or formed integral parts of the Land of Israel that were illegally detached from the Jewish National Home when the boundaries of Palestine were fixed in 1920 and 1923. For the same reason, Israel cannot be accused by anyone of “occupying” lands under international law that were clearly part of the Jewish National Home or the Land of Israel. Thus the whole debate today that centers on the question of whether Israel must return “occupied territories” to their alleged Arab owners in order to obtain peace is one of the greatest falsehoods of international law and diplomacy.

In the Anglo-American Convention of 1924, the United States recognized all the rights granted to the Jewish people under the Mandate, in particular the right of Jewish settlement anywhere in Palestine or the Land of Israel. The 1924 Convention was ratified by the US Senate and proclaimed by President Calvin Coolidge on December 5, 1925. This convention has terminated, but not the rights granted under it to the Jewish people.

That above authentic international law has been replaced by an ersatz international law composed of illegal UN Resolutions. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907 are acts of genuine international law, but they have no direct application or relevance to the legal status of Judea, Samaria and Gaza which are integral territories of the Jewish National Home and the Land of Israel under the sovereignty of the State of Israel. These acts would apply only to the Arab occupation of Jewish territories, as occurred between 1948 and 1967, and not to the case of Israeli rule over the Jewish homeland. The hoax of the Palestinian people and their alleged rights to the Land of Israel as well as the farce that results from citing pseudo-international law to support their fabricated case must be exposed and brought to an end.

*****
...to which I replied:

Your Unfortunate Decision to Get Involved
My dear Mr. Shattuck,

It's lovely to find supporters of colonialism are alive and well and posting comments on OpEd News. Whereas I could go point by point and dissect your bizarre "legal" justifications for the dispossession, displacement, and disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people, I'm not going to waste my time.

What I will say, however, is that your legal justifications are based solely on the premise that European colonialism and mandate control in the Near and Middle East was legal, valid, and altogether a-okay. You reference declarations, conventions, and resolutions made by one group of people (European and American colonists and imperialists) on behalf of another group of people (Zionist Jews of Europe) to deny an indigenous third group of people (Palestinian Arabs) of their rights to self-determination and sovereignty. Your arcane political proclivities are far better suited for a century ago, in the company of such notable disciplines as eugenics and racial hygiene theory. My sincere condolences about time-travel not yet being possible.

You seem to argue that the European sectioning of foreign lands is somehow justified and legal - that native land can be given away with the flick of a quill in the British Parliament. You fail to mention anything about The Great Game, or even the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, which effectively sought to slice up Arab land according to colonial whim and power sharing among European powers, namely Britain and France. Even by your inane standards of international law (which seem to be about as complex as holding a piece of paper signed by some white guy and shrugging your shoulders), the Sykes-Picot Agreement would be of vital importance.

Documents from the British National Archives, later declassified, reveal certain intentions which you leave unmentioned. For example, it becomes clear that promises of Arab independence were made to Hussein bin Ali (Sharif of Mecca) with regards to Palestine, in particular, by British officials such as Lord Kitchener among others. For instance, the minutes of a December 5, 1918 Cabinet Eastern Committee meeting clearly discuss the issue of Palestine. In attendance at the meeting were Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon (chair), General Jan Smuts, Lord Robert Cecil, T. E. Lawrence, General Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and representatives of the Foreign Office, the India Office, the Admiralty, the Wax Office, the Treasury, and your beloved Lord Balfour.

(Lord Arthur James Balfour was, of course, a notorious anti-semite. Sponsor of the 1905 Aliens Act intended in part to restrict Jewish immigration to Great Britain, Balfour was widely maligned in the British Jewish community. In fact, Balfour's later pro-Zionist efforts were decried by a Jewish member of the Cabinet as "anti-semitic in result.")

Anyway, during the Cabinet meeting in 1918, Lord Curzon stated:

"The Palestine position is this. If we deal with our commitments, there is first the general pledge to Hussein in October 1915, under which Palestine was included in the areas as to which Great Britain pledged itself that they should be Arab and independent in the future...Great Britain and France - Italy subsequently agreeing - committed themselves to an international administration of Palestine in consultation with Russia, who was an ally at that time...A new feature was brought into the case in November 1917, when Mr Balfour, with the authority of the War Cabinet, issued his famous declaration to the Zionists that Palestine 'should be the national home of the Jewish people, but that nothing should be done - and this, of course, was a most important proviso - to prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.' Those, as far as I know, are the only actual engagements into which we entered with regard to Palestine." [emphasis mine]

Furthermore, an appendix of a secret memorandum, prepared by the Political Intelligence Department of the British Foreign Office and used by the British delegation at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, clearly held:

"The whole of Palestine...lies within the limits which His Majesty's Government have pledged themselves to Sherif Husain [sic] that they will recognize and uphold the independence of the Arabs."

What you fail to mention in your dubious catalogue of decontextualized European and American accords of the early 20th Century is that, at the time of the Balfour Declaration – which is seen as some sort of legal victory and precedent for the legitimacy of Zionism by Israel apologists – the British government had absolutely no jurisdiction over the region in question. There was no Mandate, no international treaty or law granting the administrative auspices of Palestine to a member of the British government. The Balfour Declaration was not a binding agreement of any kind – it was merely a letter drafted by Lord Alfred Milner, sent to Lord Rothschild, expressing Balfour's pro-Zionist intentions at the bidding of future Israeli president Chaim Weizmann. On its own, it has no place in international law.

Not only this, but it directly contradicts (and does not take precedence over) the Anglo-French Declaration of November 1918, which pledged Great Britain's and France's commitment to "the complete and final liberation of the peoples who have for so long been oppressed" under the Ottoman rule and assistance in "the setting up of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the free exercise of the initiative and choice of the indigenous populations." The Declaration agreed "to further and assist in the establishment of indigenous Governments and administrations in Syria and Mesopotamia which have already been liberated by the Allies, as well as in those territories which they are engaged in securing and recognising these as soon as they are actually established."

The document continues:

"In pursuit of those intentions, France and Great Britain agree Far from wishing to impose on the populations of those regions any particular institutions they are only concerned to ensure by their support and by adequate assistance the regular working of Governments and administrations freely chosen by the populations themselves; to secure impartial and equal justice for all; to facilitate the economic development of the country by promoting and encouraging local initiative; to foster the spread of education..." [emphasis mine]

Your argument rests on the assumption that Zionism had the legal support required to disenfranchise an entire people, a native population, and transfer sovereignty rights over to newly-arrived European immigrants of Jewish descent. This is patently ridiculous as can easily be surmised by the above documentation. Self-determination for the Arab populations of the Near and Middle East were secured in legal documentation; the "Jewish National Home" was suggested in personal correspondence.

Even Balfour himself understood the problematic incongruity his own Declaration created. As he wrote to Lord Curzon:

"The contradiction between the letters of the Covenant [of the League of Nations] and the policy of the Allies is even more flagrant in the case of the 'independent nation' of Palestine than in that of the 'independent nation' of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose to even go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country though the American Commission is going through the form of asking what they are.

The Four Great Powers [Britain, France, Italy and the United States] are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, and future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion that is right." [emphasis mine]

Clearly, those who favor colonialism, racial supremacy, and ethnic cleansing can stand over there with Balfour, Jabotinsky, and Shattuck. I'll be over here with the supporters of self-determination, equality, and human rights such as Albert Einstein, Martin Buber, and Hannah Arendt.

Jack, you cite the precedent of the 1920 San Remo Conference and the resulting resolution, and yet you completely fail to actually look at the stipulations of said resolution, namely the specific references to the indigenous population of Palestine. The document agreed,

"To accept the terms of the Mandates Article...with reference to Palestine, on the understanding that there was inserted in the process-verbal an undertaking by the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine..." [emphasis mine]

And also that:

"The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." [emphasis mine]

By no stretch of the imagination or the English language can these documents, arrogantly put forth by imperial and colonial powers in the attempt to divvy up the Near and Middle East between them, be regarded as the legal justification for denying the population of their own human, civil, and religious rights in deference to the Zionist project. Your clear misunderstanding, or deliberately selective reading, of these resolutions reveals your racist agenda and determination to falsify information in order to promote the ethnic cleansing, aggressive land grabs, and cultural supremacy essential to the Zionist cause. (This is clearly evident when you claim the 1920 Franco-British Boundary Agreement and subsequent 1923 caveats to be universally accepted and unchanged delineations of national borders – they are not. The boundaries established were based on colonial Mandate administration and have nothing to do with the recognized borders of future, independent states. Accordingly, you should always remember that the state of Israel was unilaterally declared independent in 1948 by a minority, immigrant population and still has no internationally recognized borders.)

Your prejudice is made even more obvious with your purposeful omission of the 1919 King-Crane Commission from your absurd analysis. The Commission, an officially US government-sponsored investigation into the desire of the indigenous Arab population of the Near East for self-determination and sovereignty following the fall of the Ottoman Empire, was conducted in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and what was then Anatolia. The Commission was created directly by President Woodrow Wilson, who was unsatisfied by the backroom dealings of the European powers. The resulting report concluded, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Arab majority preferred an American mandate (as opposed to British or French, due to the well-known hegemonic intentions and nefarious colonialism of those European powers) with a democratically elected constituent assembly. Those interviewed believed that, in order to achieve self-sufficiency and independence, the United States was their best bet given the circumstances. (Oh, how things have changed!)

The Commission, in hopes of finding the most equitable and moral solution to the Near Eastern power vacuum, found that securing egalitarian self-determination for the native populations of what it regarded as "Greater Syria" (namely, Syria, Israel, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza in today's terms) was of utmost importance and based its recommendations with that in mind.

With specific regards to the Zionist enterprise, already well underway, the report candidly emphasized that the only possible way to establish a Jewish state – a colonial entity reliant on enforcing a political ideology of ethnic supremacy and cultural dominance – would be through violent and military means. As a result, the Commission dismissed the moral and peaceful viability of a Jewish state, stating clearly what everyone knows: that the Zionist project demanded and anticipated "a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants to Palestine".

To be clear, the Commission found nothing problematic with continued, or even increased, legal Jewish immigration to Palestine (as part of "Greater Syria") as long as the new immigrants would regard themselves as equal citizens living alongside the native population. Still, to avoid all misunderstanding, it warned that "the erection of such a Jewish State" could never "be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

The European colonial powers heeded none of the warnings, recommendations, or desires of the indigenous populations it hoped to rule.

Consequently, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George – who later, in 1936, referred to Adolph Hitler as "the greatest living German" - and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, drafted the provisions of the San Remo Resolution and the Treaty of Sèvres, enabling Britain to seize mandated control over Palestine and Iraq, while "giving" Syria to France (which had already ruled Lebanon since 1918).

The findings of the King-Crane Commission were deliberately suppressed and kept from the public after its completion. In 1922, the United States Congress passed a joint resolution supporting the establishment of a "Jewish National Home" in Palestine, echoing the sentiment of the Balfour Declaration. Two months later, the Commission report was released.

At the time, Edward Mandell House, President Wilson's aid, in a letter that predicted the result of the pending implementation of the suggestions of the Balfour Declaration, wrote: "It is all bad and I told Balfour so. They [the British] are making [the Middle East] a breeding place for future war."

Balfour himself knew his Declaration didn't jive with the formal treaties and resolutions that followed. He even wrote to Curzon:

"What I have never been able to understand is how [the Balfour Declaration] can be harmonized with the [Anglo-French] declaration, the Covenant [of the League of Nations], or the instruction to the [King-Crane] Commission of Enquiry."

It should also be noted that, even though you claim the Balfour Declaration gave full settlement rights to Jewish immigrants in all of Cisjordan (Palestine) and Transjordan (modern day Jordan), you are wrong. The area East of the Jordan River had long been included in the area promised to Sharif Hussein as early as 1915. Whereas Palestine and Transjordan remained a single administrative unit under British control until 1946, this was a matter of administrative convenience for the Mandate and in no way indicated any recognition of Zionist claims to the East Bank of the Jordan. In 1922, Transjordan became an autonomous political entity, formalized by an new clause added to the governing charter of the Mandate of Palestine. It subsequently became independent in 1928.

Your willful and intentional distortion of the truth is even more apparent in your refusal to include the vital 1922 White Paper in your analysis. The Paper served to clarify the British view and interpretation of the Balfour Declaration. The results are perfectly clear to anyone who takes the time to read them. Among its findings, the Paper states:

"Unauthorized statements have been made to the effect that the purpose in view is to create a wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used such as that Palestine is to become "as Jewish as England is English." His Majesty's Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. They would draw attention to the fact that the terms of the Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded 'in Palestine.' In this connection it has been observed with satisfaction that at a meeting of the Zionist Congress, the supreme governing body of the Zionist Organization, held at Carlsbad in September, 1921, a resolution was passed expressing as the official statement of Zionist aims 'the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community, the upbuilding of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national development.'" [emphasis mine]

Therefore, Jack, your assertion that it would be "absurd to imagine that this phrase could be used to indicate that only a part of Palestine was reserved for the future Jewish National Home" is wholly contrary to the British government's own determination.

The White Paper also states that "the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status." [emphasis mine] As such, when you claim that the state of Israel "inherited the sovereign rights of the Jewish people over Palestine," you are, quite simply, lying.

Using these arguments not only undermines your own ethnocentric motivation, but also reveals your supporting materials to be insufficient at best and totally disingenuous at worst.

(Incidentally, you should really try compiling your own research in the future, rather than cutting and pasting the bigoted writing of hacks like the laughably propagandistic Ariel Center for Policy Research's Howard Grief, who endorse racist policies in order to erase the well-established historical and cultural narratives of the Palestinian people in their ugly attempt to make reality disappear altogether so that Zionist apologists can feel less guilty about promoting and justifying ethnic cleansing and the aggressive, illegal, and immoral seizure of Eretz Yisrael. To pass off numerous paragraphs of Grief's unfortunate Policy Paper No. 147 as your own writing isn't just embarrassing, it's straight–up plagiarism. Cool it.)

Amazingly, you also attempt to use the Anglo-American Convention in defense of Zionist expansionism and land theft. Ratified by the US Senate and approved by President Calvin Coolidge, the Convention, you say, reaffirmed American support for the stipulations of the Mandate and encouraged Jewish colonization of Palestinian land. Again, you fail to provide any sort of context for your documentation. The Convention was approved the year following the passing of the Immigration Act of 1924 which placed severe limitations on foreign immigration to America and established quotas based on national and ethnic origin. Widely regarded as legislation put forth due to the growing nativism, xenophobia, and anti-semitism in the US at the time, the Act was vehemently opposed by most American Jews. Do you not find it curious that the same administration that attempted to resist the increasing Jewish immigration to this country was more than happy to support immigration to a land it had absolutely no control over, half-way across the world? Your consistent use of citing racist legislation for your own propagandistic purposes is quite unimpressive.

Israel remains an unjust and expansionist remnant of aggressive colonialism in a largely post-colonial modern world. It is people like you, Mr. Shattuck, that stymie any advancement toward justice and actively seek to thwart the promotion of human rights and equality for all people. You spread lies and falsified historical references in order to proliferate disinformation and deflect reasonable criticism of the Zionist project and its horrific consequences.

Unfortunately for you and people like you, there are facts to back up the most basic truths in this world. And those facts will never be in your favor.

Hmm, I guess I did wind up dissecting your awful justifications. Go figure.

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