Wide Asleep in America

The Kowtowing of CAP:ThinkProgress Buckles to Josh Block Bullying

2012-01-26T00:40:00.007-05:00

Looking over some of the most recent entries on the ThinkProgress Security blog, posts by neoconservative "Israel-Firster" witch-hunt targets Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton, along with associate Ben Armbruster, demonstrate the unfortunate victory of Josh Block's disgusting smear campaign. First, Zaid Jilani (the best guy TP ever had) leaves the organization. Now, the remaining bloggers (or, perhaps, just their editors) are doing their best to prove their fealty to the Democratic Party's hero-worship of Barack Obama (or simply opposing the GOP) by burnishing Obama's appalling credentials and have adopted somewhat ambiguous language that seems designed to pass the Josh Block/Jamie Kirchick/Jennifer Rubin smell test.

On Tuesday, Clifton wrote a piece fact-checking something Gingrich said during a recent debate in order to counter what Clifton called the Republican "smear" that Obama is "hostile to the Jewish state." The next day, in a piece purportedly "fact-checking" an AP "Fact-Check" of last night's State of the Union address, Ali Gharib praises Obama's "diplomatic" efforts against "Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program." He dismisses Russian skepticism over the suspicions regarding the Iranian nuclear program - which is fully monitored by the IAEA - by citing the heavily-politicized and widely-acknowledged-to-be-alarmist (and, at times, totally speculative, dubious, and totally wrong) IAEA report from last November (without doing any fact-checking of his own), claiming "the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency concluded in its latest report: 'While some of the activities identified…have civilian as well as military applications, others are specific to nuclear weapons.'"

In his posts about Iran, Gharib often includes some sort of variation on the following statement: "In June 2010 the Obama administration spearheaded an effort to pass Security Council sanctions against Iran's nuclear program that have proven effective in slowing its progress."

Gharib concluded his piece claiming that while "the world does not stand perfectly in line against Irans nuclear weapons, the world does not stand perfectly in line against Iran’s nuclear program holds some water, it’s understatement of U.S.-led international pressure and actions against Iran ignores the robust progress that’s been made since Obama took office." When his sloppy use of "nuclear weapons" was pointed out on Twitter, the post was altered to read "against Iran's nuclear program" instead.

Here's the original:

After editing (with no formal correction):

The same day, Armbruster reported on an interaction Newt Gingrich had with a protester on the campaign trail in Florida. The protester essentially asked if Gingrich planned on starting a war with Iran. In his report, Armbruster includes this paragraph (which seems boilerplate for any TP Iran post these days):

IAEA director general Yukiya Amano recently issued a warning about Iran's nuclear program. "What we know suggests the development of nuclear weapons," he said. And the U.N. nuclear watchdog is heading to Iran at the end of the month to seek answers on its nuclear program’s military dimension.

He then went on to write, "While Iran's nuclear program is a serious concern, Republicans on the campaign trail, including Gingrich, focus on war, rather than diplomacy, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."

In yet another post Wednesday, Armbruster wrote about the recent Navy SEAL raid on Somali pirates and "highlights the president's success in the face of threats to the security of the U.S. and its allies." He cites "some examples" over the past few years, including:

– TAKING OUT TERRORISTS: In addition to ordering the raids that killed bin Laden and al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Alwaki, dozens of high level terrorists have been taken out under President Obama’s watch.

– ISRAEL'S CAIRO EMBASSY: Last September, demonstrators in Cairo, Egypt ransacked the Israeli embassy calling for the Jewish state’s ambassador to be expelled after Israeli security forces killed Egyptian soldiers. President Obama intervened with U.S. assets to assist in evacuating the Israeli embassy staff. "I would like to express my gratitude to the President of the United States, Barack Obama," Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu said in a subsequent statement. "I asked for his help. This was a decisive and fateful moment. He said, 'I will do everything I can.' And so he did."

So, Israelis murder Egyptian soldiers and the hero of the story is Obama who "saves" Israeli diplomats? Also, more than ever, TP bloggers are referring to Israel as "the Jewish State." Gone is the truth-telling about the Iranian nuclear program; gone is the even cursory criticism of a colonial apartheid state. Clearly, CAP has been kowtowed.

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UPDATE: Phil Weiss notes another disturbing instance of post-scrubbing over at ThinkProgress Security today. Apparently, stating facts about Israeli connections to the Islamophobic Clarion Fund isn't kosher anymore, according to TP's editors.

What makes this all the more disheartening and disturbing is that this shift comes at a time when the mainstream media (namely the NYT and WashPo) have had to own up to their misleading statements about Iran and public criticism (or, at least, awareness) of the United States' bizarre and obsequious relationship with Israel is becoming less and less taboo. Beyond that, honest voices are even more important now, with warmongering about Iran reaching a fever pitch. That excellent reporters would cast aside the critical work they've done at LobeLog in order to stay on the "respectable" side of "serious" journalism is sad. Perhaps, of course, the TP editors are to blame, in which case the censorship is shameful and dishonest. Whereas the bloggers of TP were once on the cutting edge of mainstream dissenting discourse, Blockgate seems to have scared them into adherence with approved Beltway speak.

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UPDATE II: In a new post about recent comments made by Joint Chiefs chairman General Martin Dempsey, published this afternoon at 2:30pm, Ali Gharib commendably includes a vital piece of information that had recently been missing from previous ThinkProgress reports.

After quoting Dempsey as telling the National Journal that he "think[s] that it's premature to be deciding that the economic and diplomatic approach [on Iran] is inadequate," thereby pushing back against recent calls for military action, Gharib notes,

Neither the latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency nor the most recent reported estimate of the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Iran has made a decision to build a nuclear bomb. And Haaretz reported last week that Israeli intelligence concurs with this view.

Hopefully this kind of vital information and context will continue to make it into TP posts. I would be absolutely thrilled to have spoken too soon. Especially because I respect the work of Gharib and Clifton tremendously.

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We Aren't The World:Obama, Iran, and The Arrogance of Empire

2012-01-24T12:13:00.006-05:00

President Barack Obama released a statement on January 23, 2012 praising the EU's recent decision to embargo Iranian oil. The statement reads in full:

I applaud today's actions by our partners in the European Union to impose additional sanctions on Iran in response to the regime's continuing failure to fulfill its international obligations regarding its nuclear program. These sanctions demonstrate once more the unity of the international community in addressing the serious threat presented by Iran's nuclear program. The United States will continue to impose new sanctions to increase the pressure on Iran. On December 31, I signed into law a new set of sanctions targeting Iran's Central Bank and its oil revenues. Today, the Treasury Department announced new sanctions on Bank Tejerat for its facilitation of proliferation, and we will continue to increase the pressure unless Iran acts to change course and comply with its international obligations.

The United States and the EU combined account for only about 10% of world's population. How arrogant it is for Barack Obama to claim this represents the "unity of the international community," especially when the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) represents over 55% of the world's population and has repeatedly acknowledged its support for Iran's right to a peaceful nuclear program under IAEA safeguards?

On November 18, 2011, after the leaking of the latest IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program and hysterical alarmism that followed, the NAM released an 18-point statement outlining its reaction, and objections, to the report.

NAM, which is comprised of 120 UN member states plus a number of observers, "expressed its deep dissatisfaction and concern about 'selective submission of the IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano report to some member states and called it against the principle of equality of all countries."

Furthermore, NAM specifically noted the terms of the NPT when it "reaffirm[ed] the basic and inalienable right of all states to the development, research, production and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination and in conformity with their respective legal obligations. Therefore, nothing should be interpreted in a way as inhibiting or restricting the right of states to develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes. States' choices and decisions, including those of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear technology and its fuel cycle policies must be respected."

It also "emphasize[d] the fundamental distinction between the legal obligations of states in accordance with their respective safeguards agreements, as opposed to any confidence building measures undertaken voluntarily and that do not constitute a legal safeguards obligation."

In what is directly applicable to the current acts of murder and sabotage, as well as the rounds of illegal sanctions on the Iran (which by now surely add up the collective punishment of all Iranians - winning the hearts and minds, as always!), NAM also "reaffirm[ed] the inviolability of peaceful nuclear activities and that any attack or threat of attack against peaceful nuclear facilities -operational or under construction -poses a serious danger to human beings and the environment, and constitutes a grave violation of international law, of the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations, and of regulations of the IAEA. NAM recognizes the need for a comprehensive multilaterally negotiated instrument prohibiting attacks, or threat of attacks on nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful uses of nuclear energy."

It should be remembered that Natanz, the enrichment directed by the murdered Professor Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan and which was the target of international industrial sabotage via the Stuxnet virus, is under full IAEA safeguards and 24-hour surveillance, and has been subject to numerous surprise inspections. For nearly a decade, the IAEA has consistently confirmed that no nuclear material at Natanz (and elsewhere in Iran, for that matter) has ever been diverted to non-peaceful purposes.

Perhaps most importantly, NAM expressed doubt over the dubious and unauthenticated nature of the "alleged studies" accusations present in IAEA reports. It stated:

"While noting the D[irector] G[eneral]’s concern regarding the issue of possible military dimension to Iran's nuclear program, NAM also notes that Iran has still not received the documents relating to the 'alleged studies'. In this context, NAM fully supports the previous requests of the Director General to those Members States that have provided the Secretariat information related to the 'alleged studies' to agree that the Agency provides all related documents to Iran. NAM expresses once again its concerns on the creation of obstacles in this regard, which hinder the Agency's verification process."

Oh, how alone, how isolated, Iran is in affirming its own inalienable national rights!

In his statement today, Obama declares, "The United States will continue to impose new sanctions to increase the pressure on Iran."

How does such a brazen promise comport with his March 20, 2009 Nowruz announcement, cynically titled "A New Year, A New Beginning," that his "administration is now committed to diplomacy" which "will not be advanced by threats"? Oh right, that claim was made a mere nine days after he extended unilateral sanctions on Iran due to Iran supposedly posing what he called "a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States."

Considering the constant fear-mongering about Iran, it is no surprise that, according to a new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, nearly 30% of the American public now believes Iran "represents the greatest danger to the United States," a jump from 12% a year ago.

Pew reports,

Among those who are aware of the recent tensions between the U.S. and Iran over Iran's nuclear program and disputes in the Persian Gulf, a majority say that it is more important to take a firm stand against Iranian actions (54%) than to avoid a military conflict with Iran (39%). More than seven-in-ten Republicans (72%) say taking a firm stand is more important, as do a smaller majority (52%) of independents.

Democrats are more evenly split: 45% say taking a firm stand, 47% say avoiding a military conflict. This reflects a division of opinion within Democrats; while 52% of conservative and moderate Democrats say taking a firm stand is more important, that falls to 36% among liberal Democrats.

Propaganda sure does work.

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When Brainwashing Backfires:Military indoctrination at Nazi death camps stokes…universal democratic values!

2012-01-23T00:05:00.001-05:00

From Ha'aretz, "Study: IDF officers less committed to Jewish values after visits to Nazi death camps." The headline and subsequent report exposes unsatisfactory indoctrination levels in IDF soldiers.

The whole article is worth a read, especially to see how the paper doesn't quote the actual report at all, yet then tries to do damage control by referring to a different survey that showed increased indoctrination levels among Israeli high schoolers who take similar trips. But here's the key section:

The study found that before going on the trip, officers expressed a very high level of commitment to the Jewish people and to preserving their Jewish heritage, and high levels of solidarity with the fate of other Jews.

In contrast, they expressed a lower - though still high - level of commitment to more universalist ideas, such as understanding the universal context of the Holocaust.

After they returned from the trips, however, the researchers found a drop in commitment to all values related to Jewish identity, including the importance of the Land of Israel for the Jewish people, the importance of the IDF's existence, feelings of national pride in being Israeli, and a sense of a shared Jewish fate.

The study found a particularly dramatic decline in the importance the officers attached to Jewish and Israeli symbols, and to Diaspora Jewry.

The trips also produced a decline in IDF-related values, including commitment to the state and the army, feelings of leadership, and love of heroism.

In contrast, the trips produced no change in the officers' commitment to universal democratic values such as human dignity, the sanctity of life and tolerance.
As a result, Ha'aretz reports, "Army sources said they were 'stunned' by the findings, which seem to indicate that the trips are achieving the opposite of their declared purpose."

Note how the bad news of the report is that, following mandatory trips to Nazi death camps, tribalist and exclusivist ideologies decline while ideas "such as understanding the universal context of the Holocaust" and a "commitment to universal democratic values such as human dignity, the sanctity of life and tolerance" remain as strong.

Yeah, what a bummer.

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Cross-posted on Mondoweiss.

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The Hypocrisy of Mark Leibler:Indigenous Rights Advocate Denies Indigenous Rights to Palestinians

2012-01-22T12:02:00.018-05:00

"Australian Jew working to end discrimination against indigenous peoples," reads a proud headline from the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA) today, January 22, 2012. The article reports that a "high-profile Jewish Australian cited the effects of the Holocaust on his family as a driving force in his work to help 'end the exclusion' of Australia's Indigenous peoples from the nation's constitution"

The "Jewish Australian" is "Melbourne lawyer Mark Leibler, co-chair of the Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples", who has spent years fighting for the rights of the indigenous people of Australia. JTA quotes Leibler from a recent op-ed: "[R]acism doesn't just belong in another place or time. It casts a shadow here in Australia because it is still part of our nation's constitution.”

“It was racism and its off-shoot Nazism that caused my parents to flee Belgium in 1939," Leibler continues. "It was racism that saw my maternal grandparents murdered in Auschwitz. My family has never forgotten our debt to Australia. We owe our freedom, prosperity and the very lives of our children and grandchildren to this country. For me, one way I can help repay this debt is by working to change our constitution for the better.”

"As far as the constitution is concerned," Leibler laments, indigenous people "are invisible: no mention of their heritage and cultures; no mention of their place as the first inhabitants of this country and as the world's oldest continuing cultures." He adds that this deliberate omission and denial reflected "the values and beliefs of the time it was drafted. The founding fathers deserve our gratitude and respect. But their perspectives - including those on race - were of the 19th century, not the 21st."

Leibler's passionate fight for equal, constitutional rights for the indigenous in Australia is a just and noble cause to be sure, but a closer look at Leibler is illuminating. Leibler, who according to his own website is "one of Australia's leading tax lawyers and corporate strategists," has deep and powerful connections to Israel. Indeed, half of his "extended bio" [PDF] is dedicated to celebrating his Zionist credentials:

Mark is also Deputy Chairman of the National Australia Bank Yachad Scholarship Fund, which enables Australian scholars of diverse backgrounds - including indigenous scholars - to study in Israel and to return with ideas and experiences of advantage to Australia. His 2006 essay 'Crossing the Wilderness: Jews and Reconciliation', published in New Under Sun - Jewish Australians on Religion, Politics & Culture, examined the parallels between the Jewish and Indigenous Australian experience and considered the importance of land to both cultures.

Mark is deeply involved in Jewish affairs, occupying senior leadership roles in several Australian and international Jewish bodies. In Australia, he holds the positions of National Chairman of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, Life Chairman of the United Israel Appeal of Australia and Governor of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. He is also a Patron of the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Friends of Tel Aviv University. Mark served for ten years as President of the Zionist Federation of Australia and for six years as the President of the United Israel Appeal of Australia. Internationally, Mark recently completed his term as Chairman of the World Board of Trustees of Keren Hayesod - United Israel Appeal, serves on the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and holds office as a Governor of both Tel Aviv University and the University of Haifa in Israel.

Leibler's bio also includes accolades he received from Australian government officials including former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (who once declared of himself, "support for Israel and the Jewish community is in my DNA"). Another former Prime Minister, John Howard, said this in tribute to Leibler: "I want to salute his contribution to Jewish causes within his own country and also around the world. Mark is a single-minded, committed, dedicated Jew, a man who in every way has demonstrated himself as being a wonderful Australian citizen."

Leibler's position on the Executive of the Jewish Agency is instructive. The Agency, formed in 1929 by the 16th Zionist Congress, was and is still tasked with increasing Jewish immigration to and the continued colonization of historic Palestine. Keren Hayesod - United Israel Appeal (KH-UIA) is the leading fundraising agent for the Jewish Agency. According to the website for its Australian chapter, of which Leibler is Life Chairman, "[s]ince its inception in 1920, KH-UIA has assisted over three million Jews to make Aliyah and has helped them to find their way in Israeli society," and boasts, "KH-UIA is the main institution for financing the Zionist Organization's activities in Eretz Israel" which it deems the "ancestral homeland" of all Jews worldwide. The indigenous people of Palestine - Palestinians - are conspicuously absent from all Agency and UIA literature.

The following image containing three vintage UIA posters, one stating "Welcome Jabotinsky," is featured on the website of the United Israel Appeal of Australia:

(Incidentally, Vladmir Jabotinsky, in his 1923 Zionist manifesto, The Iron Wall, wrote, "Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or it falls by the question of armed force. It is important to speak Hebrew but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot – or else I am through with playing at colonization," adding, "Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population.")

The indigenous rights of the Palestinian people are directly anathema to the mission of both of the Jewish Agency and the United Israel Appeal. One wonders what Leibler thinks of the 1937 letter Israeli founding father David Ben-Gurion wrote to the then-head of the Jewish Agency in Palestine, Moshe Sharett (later, the second Israeli Prime Minister after Ben-Gurion), in which he stated, "Were I an Arab...an Arab politically, nationally minded...I would rebel even more vigorously, bitterly, and desperately against the immigration that will one day turn Palestine and all its Arab residents over to Jewish rule." The following year, Ben-Gurion told the Jewish Agency Executive, "I support compulsory transfer. I don't see in it anything immoral."

Moshe Sharett himself wrote in 1914, "We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but we have come to conquer a country from people inhabiting it...if we cease to look upon our land, the Land of Israel, as ours alone and we allow a partner into our estate - all content and meaning will be lost to our enterprise."

Just today, during a speech at the Jerusalem Symposium in Memory of Avi Schaefer, Natan Sharansky, current head of the Jewish Agency, said, "The State of Israel is the realization of Herzl's vision of an answer to anti-Semitism. After Herzl came Ben-Gurion, who viewed the Zionist project as the common mission of the Jewish people. Ben-Gurion's vision came to fruition through the Jewish Agency, and it has been a success."

So, what is to be made of Leibler's defense of indigenous rights at home in Australia while simultaneously working with groups that explicitly deny such rights to indigenous people in Leibler's beloved Israel? Are we to believe that Leibler considers Jewish Americans, Jewish Europeans, Jewish Ethiopians, Jewish Yemenis, and Jewish Australians to be the indigenous people of Palestine?

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UPDATE:
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
January 27, 2012 - For some reason, I excluded the following information from the above post. It's additionally illuminating:

Isi Leibler, for the uninitiated, is the former chairman of the Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress and former head of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. He lives in Jerusalem and writes regularly for the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom. Leibler also chairs the Israel Diaspora Committee of the right-wing Israeli think-tank Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

According to his bio, Leibler has "published a study on the threat post Zionism poses to the soul of Israel, titled Is the Dream Ending?." It can be read here [PDF].

Isi's wife Naomi is currently the World President of Emunah, a right-wing religious Zionist women's organization that has long encouraged tribalism and colonization. Here's some nice tidbits from their website:

The Children of Teheran

Naturally the country's pre-occupation with the problems of Aliya had long-term social and political repercussions. When European children from the Shoa were sent to Teheran, the various Israeli political parties dispatched representatives to entice them to come to Israel and adopt their particular ideology. The secular and anti-religious sections fought most aggressively in this struggle. We decided to go after the one-and two-year olds. We requisitioned some empty buildings at a Hapoel Hamizrachii kibbutz in Pardes Hanna and established the Neve Michael orphanage.

We entered the political arena as well, pressing for the inclusion of women's rights in every contract drawn up by the Keren Kayemet, the Jewish National Fund, with Hapoel Hamizrachi.

Building the foundation of a religious Zionist education

In 1956, when it was still easier to get from Jerusalem to New York than to Eilat, we decided to set up a religious nursery in Eilat. Naturally when Eilat's mayor heard of our plans he vigorously opposed them. We learned of a religious soldier stationed there and prevailed upon him and his wife to open a nursery in their home. It did not take long before he was asked to stop on the grounds that this was a 'political' matter, and men in uniform are barred from taking sides in political issues. We then transferred the nursery to a rented apartment despite the mayor's protests. Eventually a compromise was reached whereby we paid 1500 lirot to the Municipality and they would maintain it. The nursery grew into a first grade, and then to a full eight classes. Today Eilat boasts a religious elementary and high school.

Emunah also looks to the future:

Looking forward

In looking towards the next decade on the international scene we have set our sights on one of the greatest threats to world Jewry, assimilation and intermarriage. Here in Israel, we will continue building and expanding services for children and their mothers.

Awww, how sweet of them.

Meet the Leiblers: Champions of Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples.

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From the River to the Sea...?The One-Statism of Likud and the RNC

2012-01-20T18:04:00.006-05:00

The Republican National Committee (RNC) apparently supports a one-state solution in Israel/Palestine.

Journalist Mitchell Plitnick reports that, last week in New Orleans, the RNC unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a single, unified state of Israel encompassing all the land of historic Palestine.

The resolution essentially concludes,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the members of this body support Israel in their natural and God-given right of self-governance and self-defense upon their own lands, recognizing that Israel is neither an attacking force nor an occupier of the lands of others; and that peace can be afforded the region only through a united Israel governed under one law for all people.

With this statement, the RNC - as Plitnick deftly points out - now "officially supports not only continued Israeli possession of all the land it currently controls, but advocates 'one law for all people,' which does not exist now." He continues,

Israelis behind the Green Line live under Israeli law. So do settlers. But Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem are subject to a conglomeration of laws based on previous Jordanian law from before 1967, Israeli emergency laws and military regulations mostly adopted after 1967, and even some measure of old Ottoman laws, these particularly applied in East Jerusalem.

So, there is no interpretation possible other than that the RNC is also advocating complete Israeli annexation of the West Bank, including granting citizenship to the Palestinians living there.

I rather doubt that's what they intended, but that is what the resolution states. No doubt, the assembled delegates had no idea what they were advocating because they have no idea about the realities on the ground.

Relatedly, Yossi Gurvitz wrote this week that recent Israeli High Court of Justice decisions pave the way for not only de facto, but actually de jure, Israeli annexation of the West Bank. With these latest rulings, which Gurvitz outlines in his piece, the supreme court has essentially determined "that the occupation is eternal, as is the second-class status of Israeli Palestinians." Therefore, Gurvitz explains,

"Israel can keep pillaging the West Bank as if it has been annexed, as if it and the West Bank are one undivided territory, it may go on transferring settlers to the West Bank, and at the same time deny the right of Palestinians to move outside their designated zones.

[...]

"So, according to the High Court, what was once Mandatory Palestine is now inhabited by a religious group that has all the rights and by an ethnic group – which coincidentally, happens to be the indigent people – most of whose rights have been denied. So, next time someone asks you why you think Israel is an apartheid state, tell them the highest court in the land said so."

Perhaps most striking about the RNC resolution, however, is its reliance on Biblical history as setting the precedent for "Jewish" dominion over Palestine and all its inhabitants (separation between church and state be damned!). In its opening four paragraphs, the resolution quite literally uses the Bible as an historical land deed rather than a collection of ancient religious mythology:

WHEREAS, Israel has been granted her lands under and through the oldest recorded deed as reported in the Old Testament, a tome of scripture held sacred and reverenced by Jew and Christian, alike, as the acts and words of God; and

WHEREAS, as the Grantor of said lands, God stated to the Jewish people in the Old Testament; in Leviticus, Chapter 20, Verse 24: “Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey”; and

WHEREAS, God has never rescinded his grant of said lands; and

WHEREAS, along with the grant of said lands to the Jewish people, God provided for the non-Jewish residents of the land in commanding that governance must be in one law for all without drawing distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, as contained in Leviticus 24:22

Then today, a ThinkProgress News Flash, penned by Ali Gharib, reports:

RNC Distances Itself From Israel-Palestine One-State Resolution | After news broke that the Republican National Committee (RNC) passed a resolution at its winter meeting to seemingly abandon the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, spokesman Sean Spicer distanced the group from the resolution. He told BuzzFeed the resolution, which passed unanimously, was a non-binding, symbolic act. He pointed to the Republican Party Platform as "the only thing that matters." The 2008 platform calls for a two-state solution to the conflict. BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith wrote that the resolution indicates a Republican grassroots support for "a far more maximal Israel position than that held by any but the most hawkish Israeli parties."

It is interesting to note how Spicer points to an official Party Platform in order to quell talk of de facto (or, eventually, de jure) one-statism within the Republican Party (oh no, then Palestinians will be allowed to vote! The horror!). One wonders what the RNC's position on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party Platform is. The platform, still very much official (it is still found on the Knesset's own website) and neither amended or updated since the mid-1990's, not only vehemently opposes the "unilateral Palestinian declaration of the establishment of a Palestinian state" and threatens "immediate stringent measures in the event of such a declaration," but also states plainly:

The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting. (emphasis added)

While the Likud Platform "rejects out of hand ideas...concerning the relinquishment of parts of the Negev to the Palestinians," it more stridently declares:

The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.

The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel's existence, security and national needs.

Regarding Jerusalem, Likud insists:

Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem...The government firmly rejects attempts of various sources in the world, some anti-Semitic in origin, to question Jerusalem's status as Israel's capital, and the 3,000-year-old special connection between the Jewish people and its capital.

Incidentally, both human history and Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, disagree with Netanyahu's Party's stance on Jerusalem.

Likud also holds that "the Jordan Valley and the territories that dominate it shall be under Israeli sovereignty. The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel," and has promised to "extend Israeli law, jurisdiction and administration over the Golan Heights, thus establishing Israeli sovereignty over the area" and to "continue to strengthen Jewish settlement on the Golan."

The RNC clearly favors all of the above prescriptions for Palestine, as evidenced in its unanimous resolution vote and in the campaign rhetoric of leading GOP candidates. How does their distancing themselves from their own resolution - and therefore from the Likud charter - sit with Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of the U.S. Congress?

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UPDATE: It should be noted that the language used in the RNC resolution is identical to comments often made by Netanyahu himself, especially regarding the Biblical claim ("God-given right") to the land of Palestine and the protestations that Jews everywhere are the direct descendents of the ancient Hebrews and therefore West Bank settlers should not be considered immigrants, colonists or occupiers ("Israel is neither an attacking force nor an occupier of the lands of others").

For example, during his speech before Congress back in May 2011, Netanyahu (paying lip-service to a phony two-state solution) declared, "Two years ago, I publicly committed to a solution of two states for two peoples: a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state." He continued,

I recognize that in a genuine peace, we'll be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland. And you have to understand this: In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers.

We're not the British in India. We're not the Belgians in the Congo. This is the land of our forefathers, the land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace.

No distortion of history -- and boy, am I reading a lot of distortions of history lately, old and new -- no distortion of history could deny the 4,000-year-old bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.

You hear http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifthat? Jewish land.

In his speech, Netanyahu stated, "The Palestinians share this small land with us. We seek a peace in which they'll be neither Israel's subjects nor its citizens. They should enjoy a national life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people living in their own state," and later added, "I want to be very clear on this point: Israel will be generous on the size of a Palestinian state, but we'll be very firm on where we put the border with it."

How sweet of him.

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Israel: Still not doing Gandhi very well

2012-01-10T11:39:00.007-05:00

Gandhi on the Separation Wall (Photo: AP / Muhammed Muheisen)

Palestine News and Information Agency (WAFA) reports:

"An Israeli plan to build a statue for the late Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi on an East Jerusalem plot is actually a pretext to seize Palestinian land, the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER) said in a statement Sunday."

That Israel would erect a statue in honor of the great indigenous nationalist, anti-colonialist, and practitioner of non-violence speaks to either its complete lack of self-awareness and blindness to the appalling irony of its proposal or to its profound sense of humor. Recall not only what Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs at the Israel Ministry of Defense, Major General Amos Gilad, told U.S. officials that "we don’t do Gandhi very well" when discussing peaceful West Bank demonstrations and anti-occupation protests, but also what Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi himself had to say in 1938 (in part) about the imposition of Zionist colonization of Palestine:

The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and in-human to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.

The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.

I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. (emphasis added)

In response to these statements, which were published in Gandhi's Harijan newspaper, letters were written to Gandhi by people like Martin Buber and Judah Magnes, both putting their concepts of Jewish exceptionalism and disinterest in Palestinian self-determination on full display. American Zionist Hayim Greenberg even wrote something (in 1939) that could easily be found in the Jerusalem Post today: "I cannot avoid the suspicion that so far as the Palestine problem is concerned, Gandhi allowed himself to be influenced by the anti-Zionist propaganda being conducted among fanatic pan-Islamists."

A recounted conversation between Gandhi and British Labor party MP Sydney Silverman from March 1946 is remarkable for Silverman's incessant stream of hasbara; talking points that are still used by defenders of ethnic cleansing, mythologized history, and Israeli occupation and apartheid.

As far back as 1921, Gandhi understood well the Zionist intentions toward Palestine and the gross injustice of the Balfour Declaration. In Young India on March 23, 1921, he wrote,

Britain has made promises to the Zionists. The latter have, naturally, a sacred sentiment about the place. The Jews, it is contended, must remain a wandering race unless they have obtained possession of Palestine. I do not propose to examine the soundness or otherwise of the doctrine underlying the proposition. All I contend is that they cannot possess Palestine through a trick or a moral breach. Palestine was not a stake in the War. The British Government could not dare have asked a single Muslim soldier to wrest control of Palestine from fellow-Muslims and give it to the Jews. Palestine, as a place of Jewish worship, is a sentiment to be respected and the Jews would have a just cause of complaint against Mussulman idealists if they were to prevent Jews from offering worship as freely as themselves. By no canon of ethics or war, therefore, can Palestine be given to the Jews as a result of the War. (emphasis added)

In an interview he gave to London's Jewish Chronicle in early October 1931, he stated that "Anti-Semitism is really a remnant of barbarism," but explained:

Zionism in its spiritual sense is a lofty aspiration. By spiritual sense I mean they should want to realise the Jerusalem that is within. Zionism meaning reoccupation of Palestine has no attraction for me. I can understand the longing of a Jew to return to Palestine, and he can do so if he can without the help of bayonets, whether his own or those of Britain. In that event he would go to Palestine peacefully and in perfect friendliness with the Arabs. The real Zionism of which I have given you my meaning is the thing to strive for, long for and die for. Zion lies in one's heart. It is the abode of God. The real Jerusalem is the spiritual Jerusalem. Thus he can realise this Zionism in any part of the world. (emphasis added)

Unsurprisingly, Zionist propaganda was often used to refute Gandhi's views on the Jewish colonization of Palestine during the British Mandate. In response to the Jewish Chronicle interview, Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) chairman Rabbi Stephen Wise, speaking in late October 1931 at the Dinner of the Friends of Gandhi in New York in honor of Gandhi's 62nd birthday, countered, "Jews throughout the world cannot but help regretting the word of Gandhi spoken concerning Zionism. It is strange to find Gandhi alluding to Zionism as if it might mean the 're-occupation of Palestine', with all of the sinister military meaning which 'occupation' and 're-occupation' convey." Wise continued,

As for the Jewish settlers in Palestine, no one can sanely and honestly accuse them of resting their case on bayonets. Their title is immemorial, and they have returned to Palestine not to hurt and to wound, but to serve to enrich and to bless the land and all its people. This have they done from every point of view, economically, culturally, morally and spiritually.

[...]

Would that Gandhi knew that what he claims is the suffering and denial of his people in India is the status of the largest number of Jews in the world, that Jews have no desire for military occupation or forcible re-entry into Palestine, that they seek peaceably and, in a very real sense non-resistently, to live and labour and serve and to sacrifice for Palestine, which means to many Jews exactly what India means to Gandhi! (emphasis added)

The irony of Wise's words, considering the actions of pre-State Zionist terror militias, the Israeli military, and Jewish colonists over the intervening eight decades, is staggering.

Perhaps more striking, however, is what Gandhi wrote on July 14, 1946 in Harijan: "...in my opinion, they [the Zionists] have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism." He continued:

No wonder that my sympathy goes out to the Jews in their unenviably sad plight. But one would have thought adversity would teach them lessons of peace. Why should they depend upon American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine? (emphasis added)

Also of note is his answer to the question "What do you feel is the most acceptable solution to the Palestine problem?" posed to him by United Press of America on June 2, 1947. He replied, "The abandonment wholly by the Jews of terrorism and other forms of violence."

*****

A shorter version of this article was originally posted on Mondoweiss.

*****

The Shoah Must Go On:The Exploitation of Victimhood and the Israeli Trivialization of the Holocaust

2012-01-05T17:18:00.009-05:00

Orthodox children wearing outfits intended to invoke the Holocaust during a rally in Jerusalem, Dec. 31, 2011. (Photo: AP/Bernat Armangue)

Shortly after reading Phil Weiss' "Trivializing the anti-Semitism charge" post on Mondoweiss, I came across this new Daily Beast article about the Israeli habit of trivializing the Holocaust. The article stems from the recent ultra-Orthodox rallies in Jerusalem which mimicked and exploited iconic Holocaust imagery to protest "an effort by secular Israelis to roll back gender segregation on some bus lines and in certain neighborhoods—a dispute that has surged in recent weeks."

The article's author, Dan Ephron, writes that "even as Israel zealously guards the memory of the genocide, many Israelis invoke it frivolously in a manner that can seem shocking to outsiders and might even be illegal in some countries (the EU has a provision against trivializing the Holocaust, as do several European countries individually)."

The litany of "misuses" of Holocaust analogies and references is familiar:

In its more benign form, Israelis might talk about the 1967 line that divides Israel and the West Bank as "the Auschwitz border," or equate Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Adolf Hitler. Bauer recalls that during Israel’s Lebanon war in 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin famously likened the blockade against PLO leader Yasir Arafat in Beirut to the siege on Hitler's bunker near the end of World War II.

That Ephron uses the word "benign" to describe these ridiculous comparisons is either proof of his own trivialization of the very thing he is seeking to sanctify or, more likely, evidence that he just doesn't know the definition of the word "benign" (kindly, generous, gentle, benevolent). Surely, a benign reading of Ephron's word choice would be to assume he meant "banal" instead (i.e. commonplace, mundane, trite, bromidic, clichéd).

He continues,

...it's not uncommon to hear Israelis refer to other Israelis as Nazis as well. Jewish settlers regularly use the term against Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, as when troops are sent to dismantle unauthorized outposts. The late Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a well-known left-wing intellectual, once described settlers as “Judeo-Nazis.” Israeli traffic cops occasionally complain they’re called Nazis by the motorists they pull over.

Holocaust historian and Yad Vashem academic adviser Yehuda Bauer explains to Ephron, "People in Israel misuse the Holocaust in politics and other areas all the time," lamenting, "The comparisons tend to dilute the real significance of the Holocaust."

Still, the comparisons abound. Just today, a new headline at Ha'aretz reveals that Israeli Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman has "a very hostile attitude toward the media, reportedly calling Haaretz 'Der Sturmer' - the Nazis' propaganda paper."

After quoting the ever-inane Abe Foxman and describing a new effort in the Knesset to enact anti-trivialization legislation, Ephron ends with another quote from Bauer:

"Israel is a traumatized society that is thrown back onto the trauma all the time," he tells The Daily Beast. "When a society is traumatized like that, any opponent or perceived enemy is immediately equalized with the worst enemy Israel ever had."

Read that again. There are two important aspects of Bauer's observation.

First is the unassailable truth that the idea of perpetual and singular victimhood pervades Jewish Israeli society (and perhaps the American and European Jewish communities at large).

Peter Beinart, in his much-discussed 2010 New York Review of Books article, noted "In the world of AIPAC, the Holocaust analogies never stop, and their message is always the same: Jews are licensed by their victimhood to worry only about themselves."

Last year, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu used a nearly identical formulation in his speech to an obsequious U.S. Congress. "As for Israel, if history has taught the Jewish people anything, it is that we must take calls for our destruction seriously," he bellowed. "We are a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust. When we say never again, we mean never again. Israel always reserves the right to defend itself."

As this writer has pointed out before, Netanyahu's turn of phrase is ironic considering the title of former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg's 2008 book, "The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes," in which Burg exposes the purpose of playing the victim. "Victimhood sets you free," he writes.

Furthermore, over thirty years ago, in 1980, Israeli journalist Boaz Evron put it another way: "If we assume the world hates us and persecutes us, we feel exempted from the need to be accountable for our actions towards it."

Though Bauer, as quoted in Ephron's article, suggests that Israel is "thrown back onto trauma all the time," Israeli professor and historian Avi Shlaim addressed that particular formulation almost exactly three years ago as Israeli bombs, bullets, and white phosphorous tore Gaza and hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children to shreds. He wrote in The Guardian:

As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim. This is indeed a conflict between David and Goliath but the Biblical image has been inverted - a small and defenceless Palestinian David faces a heavily armed, merciless and overbearing Israeli Goliath. The resort to brute military force is accompanied, as always, by the shrill rhetoric of victimhood and a farrago of self-pity overlaid with self-righteousness. In Hebrew this is known as the syndrome of bokhim ve-yorim, "crying and shooting".

Seven months before that, in May 2008, Uri Avnery observed that

the Palestinians are suffering from several cruel strokes of fate: The people that oppress them claim for themselves the crown of ultimate victimhood. The whole world sympathizes with the Israelis because the Jews were the victims of the most horrific crime of the Western world. That creates a strange situation: the oppressor is more popular than the victim. Anyone who supports the Palestinians is automatically suspected of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

The second interesting aspect of Bauer's concluding quote is that the Nazis, who were in power from 1933 to 1945, are described as "the worst enemy Israel ever had." Israel was founded in 1948. Bauer is clearly - though perhaps unconsciously - equating "Israel" with "Jews" and utilizes his own Holocaust reference to reimagine history and erase Palestinian existence altogether.

In so doing, Bauer conforms his worldview to the epitome of Netanyahu's Zionist chauvinism: Israel is a "Jewish State" that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust, rather than one built - violently, colonially, and deliberately - atop the ruins of Palestine.

*****

UPDATE: Obviously, though not mentioned in the above piece, the foremost authority, commentator and critic of the Zionist misuse/overuse/exploitation of the Holocaust is Professor Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry.

The use and manipulation of the Holocaust trope and how it was and is still being exploited by neoconservative warmongers (first with regard to the invasion of Iraq and now with the drumbeat to war with Iran) was comprehensively and expertly examined by Gary Kamiya in a piece entitled "The boys who cry 'Holocaust'", published by Salon.com on November 22, 2011. I cannot recommend this article more highly. It is phenomenal.

The subject, along with the "anti-Semitism charge," is also examined excellently in Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir's documentary Defamation.

Here's a clip from Defamation featuring Finkelstein:

*****

Troll and Response: A Follow-Up

2011-12-25T23:46:00.025-05:00

In response to my recent article¹ about Alan Dershowitz's continued warmongering and lying about the legality (and morality) of an unprovoked first-strike on Iran by Israel, an internet troll often identifying himself as "Hamid" has posted identical comments on a number of websites where my article appeared, including Foreign Policy Journal² and Media With Conscience³.

Though the comments themselves are quite unimpressive, I am flattered that my writing is deemed troll-worthy by Zionist apologists and Dershowitz defenders. Hilariously, at one point, the troll's overzealousness betrayed his own manufactured authenticity. In response to a comment by Foreign Policy Journal editor Jeremy Hammond, the troll posted three identical comments in quick succession, using three different generic Iranian names:

Whoops.

Not one to let silly nonsense go unaddressed (though I really should), I replied to "Hamid" and will, for posterity, post both the original troll comments and my response below. I have left "Hamid"'s comments exactly as they appeared on Media With Conscience, where I first read them. My own comment, first posted at MWC, has been edited ever so slightly for clarity and to more attractively embed source links.

Enjoy.

Hamid - December 23, 2011

Dershowitz, is realistic. As I said earlier this
article is loaded with misrepresentations, and venom. Dershowitz is not
wrong on Israel’s right to defend herself from the evil axis, Iran
Ayatollahs, and the Jishadist everywhre. Dershowitz is right on target.
See this link and understand what this author,Nima Shirazi, is
defending: “Death to America” chants in Iran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... this recent Dec. 15, 2011 video:Jordanian
Sheik Nader Tamimi, Mufti of the Palestinian Liberation Army, to the
West: We Will Restore the Caliphate and You Will Pay the Jizya “or Else
We Will Bring the Sword to Your Necks”http://www.memritv.org/clip/en...

Hamid - December 23, 2011

This article does not have only a slew of misrepresentations and
falsehoods but also is out of context and misleading. It also shows a
vicious intention to demolish Dershowitz because one of his expertises
is criminal defense and criminal defendants thus sought his advice.
Dershowitz in all the cases cited by Shirazi was hired as a consultant
not as their attorney. And he has never “worked tirelessly” to defend
real criminals or child rape. Adolf Eichman too had Robert Servatius as
his defense lawyer. All the prosecuted neo-Naziz in Canada found in
Doug Christie a very effective defense lawyer. Why doesn’t Shiraz blame
Christie and Servatius for defending obvious criminals? By focusing on
Dershowitz, Shiraz shows his naked bias, which surely weakens his case,
if he ever had one.
However, this whole false characterization of
Dershowitz have nothing to do with the statement of Dershowitz
regarding Israel’s legal, moral and political right to defend her
citizens from vicious mad men, killers/terrorist Hamas/Hizaballah
proxies of Iran who for years openly proclaim statements that their goal
is to ‘wipe Israel of the Map’ conveniently omitting the fact that
these terrorists hide behind children, old man and women and stoop to
barbarism.
Further this statement “one can simply read his
justifications for the murder of civilians, as long as they’re Arabs
and/or Muslims.” is false. Check Shirazi’s own citation. And to cite the
Dersh, is beyond the pale! And “preemptive attack” is legal, only
logical and has always been so. Who is in the right mind would wait for
an enemy to attack knowing so? You? On “preemptive strikes” Shiraz
doesn’t know what he is talking about. There is a customary right of
“anticipatory self-defense” under international law. This goes well
beyond Article 51 of the UN Charter and finds its sources in the 17th
and 18th century, with the words of Hugo Grotius and Emmerich de Vatel.
Article 51 of the UN Charter does not overrise the customary rights of
anticipatory self-defense. With the advent of nuclear threats and
Islamic terrorism, anticipatory self-defense has a far greater
importance now than it had then because, simply stated, “international
law is not a suicidal pact” in the words of Louis René Beres.
In
addition, while it is true that the world raised hell when the Israelis
erased the Osiraq nuclear reactor in Iraq, the author fails to mention
that when the smoke evaporated and a few years later, the world couldn’t
have enough good words to thank the Israelis for doing so including
rational, kind, informed and peaceful Arabs and or Muslims!
I
would note that one can only deduce that it is apt to call Shirazi’s
diatribe and it seems this website too: “The Warped Morality of
Warmongers” since what he et al herein do is precisely defend terrorism
and hatred. Lumped in the same hornet’s nest with Richard Falk and
others, you lose all credibility.
Anybody who’s walking on clouds is apt to be carried away. — Franklin P. Jones (1906-????)
AND
ONE CAN SAY a lot MORE, BUT THIS WILL SUFFICE. Indeed as long as
Shirazi uses fake references about Dershowitz, it is not worth the time
and attention of anyone who cares for truth and peace.
Peace,

Here's my response:

Thank you for the dazzling tutorial in hasbara, Hamid, I'm sure readers here appreciate it as much as I do.

Your reliance on silly terms like "evil axis," "jihadists," "vicious mad men" and "killers/terrorist Hamas/Hizaballah proxies of Iran" and promotion of nonsense by well-known Likudnik propaganda outlet MEMRI⁴ condemns your entire discourse to absurdity - your 'clash of civilizations' worldview is as embarrassing as your racism and ignorance.

[As a side note, before I continue, MEMRI's Board of Directors and Board of Advisers reads a s a veritable Who's Who of warmongering NeoCons, career Islamophobes, and Zionist apologists, including Elliott Abrmas, Steve Emerson, Bernard Lewis, Elie Wiesel, Michael Hayden, Donald Rumsfeld, James Woolsey, John Ashcroft, John Bolton, Ehud Barak, Mort Zuckerman, Michael Mukasey, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Bremer, Natan Sharansky, Edgar Bronfman and - guess who?! - Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, Esquire himself.]

You write that "'preemptive attack' is legal, only logical and has always been so" and that I don't know what I'm talking about, yet your reference for such a claim is the lunatic rambling of Louis René Beres, who you fail to properly credit with providing the supremely faulty source material for your argument, choosing instead to essentially plagiarize his call for an illegal assault on Iran while giving him only a passing mention in your comment.

First, let's examine Beres. According to the right-wing "international Analyst Network", he has lectured at the "BESA Center for Strategic Studies [Bar-Ilan University], the Dayan Forum, the Likud Security Group, the Likud Chamber, the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies and the National Defense College (Israel Defense Forces)."⁵

In addition to working on projects for the U.S. Department of Defense, he has also coordinated with the hawkish Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), is on the Advisory Board of Israeli think tanks such as the NATIV Center for Policy Research and the Ariel Center for Policy Research, and was the Chair of "Project Daniel", an Israeli commission formed in 2003 to advise then-Israeli Prime Minister/war criminal Ariel Sharon on how best to attack Iran, among other appalling recommendations.⁶

In short, he is a right-wing ideologue who serves almost exclusively as a shill for Israeli warmongering.

His weird obsession with justifying "anticipatory self-defense" as a valid and legal doctrine to be used by Israel or the U.S. to bomb Iran relies solely on fabricated alarmism, the willful dismissal of factual information, and a wholly false representation of both the reality of the Iranian nuclear energy program and Iran's own defense doctrine.

Most of what you write, and which you fail to directly attribute to Beres, is taken from his July 24, 2005 article in The Washington Times entitled, simply, "Anticipatory self-defense."⁷ This piece is just a rehash of Beres' own previous writing and utilizes a few constantly repeated canards of his own creation, phrases with which Beres is obvious proud of himself for. One is the snappy straw man, "International law is not a suicide pact" (he uses this twice in this very article); the other is that "There can never be any stable balance of terror in the Middle East" (this actually doesn't mean anything at all, since it relies on defining "terror" only in the way Beres himself does).

In his Washington Times article (as he has elsewhere), Beres argues - shamefully unconvincingly, I might add - that based on the writings of 17th Century Dutch scholar Hugo Grotius and 18th Century Swedish jurist Emmerich de Vattel, international law grants nations the individual authority to attack another country "pre-emptively" if "the danger posed is 'instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation.'"

As I discussed in my own piece, this idea of "anticipatory self-defense" - which relies on the concept that an attack is imminent, explicit, and unavoidable - is in no way applicable to Iran with regards to Israel, let alone the United States, for myriad reasons, among them: Iran has no active nuclear weapons program nor has any decision been made within the Iranian government to activate such a program; even by the most stark predictions, based on a faulty premise of an active push for such weaponization of its nuclear program, an imaginary Iranian nuke would still be years away from a reality - an allegation that has been made repeatedly for nearly three decades now;⁸ Iran has consistently denied any intention of building nuclear weapons⁹ or attacking any foreign country¹⁰.

Naturally, one can believe Iran isn't telling the truth and has sinister intentions (despite the fact that there is literally no evidence to back up this assertion), but claiming that Iran has "openly" threatened any nation - including Israel - with aggressive, military force is totally and categorically false. For instance, Hamid's allegation that Iran has "for years openly proclaim[ed] statements that their goal is to ‘wipe Israel of the Map’" is demonstrably incorrect. It is a lie that has been debunked over¹¹ and over¹² and over¹³ and over¹⁴ and over¹⁵ and over¹⁶ and over¹⁷ and over¹⁸ and over¹⁹ again. Even the Washington Post finally agreed this year that this lame, repeated propaganda point isn't accurate.²⁰ No amount of appealing to Hamid's beloved MEMRI will turn this lie into a truth (and actually, MEMRI itself translated Ahmadinejad's 2005 comment this way: "Imam [Khomeini] said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history'" and makes clear, unequivocal parallels to the toppling of other entrenched regimes such as the Shah's Iran, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.²¹ My condolences.

Beres' own argument in favor of "anticipatory self-defense" rests not on the dubious legality of such an action, but instead on the hasbaric assumption that Iran is a suicidal martyr state that is willing to see itself destroyed in order to obliterate (to use Madame Secretary Clinton's genocidal parlance) Israel. This argument too is overused, overwrought and totally ridiculous. (It's also been addressed and debunked endlessly; see my own piece & Matt Duss' over at Foreign Policy, for example.)

Even taken at face value, the contention makes no sense. Why would a supposedly fanatical Islamist government that has acted in its own best interest and its ultimate interest of survival and maintenance of sovereignty, stability, and power for thirty years, sacrifice itself and its 74 million citizens - about 98% of whom are Muslim - in order to exterminate 6 million Israeli Jews and destroy the State of Israel, home to the third holiest site in Islam, centuries of Islamic history, and millions of Palestinians? Furthermore, if the Iranian government would go to such insane lengths just to kill some Jewish people and ensure its own destruction, why wouldn't it first set its sights on an easier target: the 25,000 Iranian Jews living right there in the Islamic Republic? Oh right, because the entire premise of this argument is irrational and stupid. (See here for further discussion of Jews in Iran: Jonathan Cook in The Guardian & Roger Cohen in The New York Times).

Without the premise of what Beres describes as "a suicide-bomber writ large — a state willing to 'die' to achieve certain presumed religious obligations," none of his supposed "legal" arguments hold any water or make any sense. (Even with the premise, "pre-emptive" and "anticipatory self-defense" is still completely and totally illegal until an Iranian army is amassed on the Green Line or an extant nuclear weapon is pointed at Tel Aviv - neither of which is ever going to happen.)

Beres, and the uncritical, ignorant parrots like Hamid who promote his work as anything other than complete garbage, has but one objective: to completely invert reality in a never-ending effort to portray Iran as a nuclear aggressor (one without a single nuclear bomb or means to deliver one, mind you) and Israel as a perpetual underdog victim (one with an arsenal of hundreds of nuclear weapons and which has a historical track record of ethnically cleansing an indigenous population, actively engaging in colonial expansionism, invading and occupying foreign lands, committing war crimes, institutionalizing apartheid and which continually²² threatens²³ to attack Iran).

One wonders, if Beres (and Hamid) actually believe Israel has a "right" to "pre-emptively" attack Iran, why do they not grant this very "right" to Iran itself? Since Israel consistently threatens Iran with an unprovoked assault, shouldn't Iran claim the "anticipatory self-defense" doctrine to launch a "pre-emptive" strike on a country dedicated to aggressive confrontation and with the military means to actually engage in such an act? The answer is obvious to people like Beres and Hamid: only Israel or the U.S. has the "right" engage in illegal assaults on sovereign nations; conversely, Iran, not being Israel or the U.S., has no such right to defend itself under seemingly similar circumstances.

As such, Hamid's contention that he is someone who "cares for truth and peace" would be shameful, if only it weren't so laughable.

Merry Christmas and better luck next time,

Nima Shirazi

P.S. Incidentally, despite claiming that "Dershowitz in all the cases cited by Shirazi was hired as a consultant not as their attorney," Hamid happens to be wrong. Dershowitz was indeed Claus von Bulow's lawyer (not simply an adviser) and has also defended war criminals such as Johan Tarculovski.²⁴ It is true, though, that lawyers are often in a position of defending abhorrent characters and such defense does not indicate a lawyer's own personal connection to his or her client's guilt, innocence, motives, or ideology. Actually, Dershowitz - who has spent most of his legal career as a professor rather than a litigator - generally takes on cases that pay well and increase his own celebrity and public visibility, not necessarily clients he ideologically agrees with.

Hamid is however correct to note that the single half-sentence I dedicated to Dershowitz's resume is largely irrelevant to the other 2,800 words in my original article.

*****

UPDATE:

December 26, 2011 - "Hamid" continues the hilarity. In answering my own response, he has posted the following comments (again on multiple sites):

click to enlarge
*****

The Warped Morality of a Warmonger:Why Alan Dershowitz is Wrong on Israel's 'Rights'

2011-12-13T21:21:00.039-05:00

"All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler...A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war.

I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, August 11, 1954^*

Renowned torture enthusiast and perennial Israel apologist Alan Dershowitz is in Tel Aviv this week attending an annual business conference sponsored by Globes and, as usual, has been busy equivocating for Israeli espionage, defending war criminals, and warmongering about Iran.

During a speech he delivered on Sunday December 11, Dershowitz opined, "Israel has the right morally and legally to strike Iran just as it did on [the Osirak nuclear facility] in Iraq in 1981."

This is not a new line for the famous attorney who has worked tirelessly to acquit both aspiring and successful murderers and war criminals and defend billionaires who commit - and millionaires who cover-up - child rape. In April 2010, Dershowitz wrote, "I am asserting, in unqualified terms, that Israel has an absolute right -- legally, morally, politically -- to take such an action if it deems it necessary to protect its citizens from a threatened nuclear attack." Even as far back as 2005, he told The Jerusalem Post, "Legally and morally both Israel and the United States would have the right to launch preemptive strikes against Iran’s nuclear program. Recall that leading Iranian mullahs have indicated that Iran would use its nuclear capacity to kill three million Jews. I also believe that targeted assassinations of criminals who are illegally building weapons of mass destruction, can, under certain circumstances, be justified morally. I think the legal case would be much harder to make."

Like everything else The Dersh says, his statements are clearly out of step with the basic tenets of international law and, unsurprisingly, ignore both historical facts and current reality in order to draw his despicable and dubious conclusions. To understand Dershowitz's warped concepts of morality, one can simply read his copious justifications for the murder of civilians, as long as they're Arabs and/or Muslims.

First of all, the premise of Dershowitz's appalling argument regarding an Israeli attack is the assumption that Iran is, in fact, hellbent on building nuclear weapons and threatening Israel with genocidal annihilation. Of course, neither claim is true. Both the IAEA and the United States government (after years of covert operations and aerial surveillance) continue to agree that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program. In early 2011, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told both houses of Congress, "We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons." Dershowitz's insistence that the summary execution of Iranian scientists can be "justified morally" demonstrates the depths of his depravity.

Furthermore, so-called "preemptive" military attacks are illegal and explicitly forbidden by Chapter I, Article 2.4 of the United Nations Charter. The UN Charter also makes clear that it recognizes the "inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations." (Chapter VII, Article 51) Note that the Charter specifies that an aggressive, military response is allowed only "if an armed attack occurs...," which undoubtedly rules out "preemptive," "precautionary," or "preventative" military action of one State against another. Dershowitz conveniently ignores this clear fact.

Beyond that, using the example of Israel's June 7, 1981 airstrike on Osirak to argue for the legality of a similar attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is not only disingenuous at best, it is deliberately deceiving and completely wrong. The Iraqi nuclear program before 1981 was peaceful and subject to intensive safeguards and monitoring. 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 Dershowitz omits from his ridiculous suggestion 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 Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the international community, including the United States.

Writing in The Guardian in 2002, Jonathan Steele reminded readers that "[t]he world was outraged by Israel's raid" and recalled some reactions:

"Armed attack in such circumstances cannot be justified. It represents a grave breach of international law," Margaret Thatcher thundered. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the US ambassador to the UN and as stern a lecturer as Britain's then prime minister, described it as "shocking" and compared it to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. American newspapers were as fulsome. "Israel's sneak attack... was an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression," said the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times called it "state-sponsored terrorism".

Within two days of the attack on Osirak, the Reagan administration suspended the shipment of F-16 fighter jets to Israel because of its contention that Israel had "violated its commitment to use the planes only in self-defense."

Ambassador Kirkpatrick, addressing a June 19, 1981 meeting of the United Nations Security Council, stated the Reagan administration's official views on the attack by condemning it as an "act of violence" that "gravely jeopardizes the peace and security" in the Middle East, "undermines the stability and well-being of the area," and "threatens global peace." Despite noting the "strength of United States ties and commitment to Israel" and insisting that the U.S. government "would approve no decision that harmed Israel's basic interests, was unfairly punitive or created new obstacles to a just and lasting peace," Kirkpatrick also told the Council,

Nonetheless, we believe the means Israel chose to quiet its fears about the purposes of Iraq's nuclear program have hurt, and not helped, the peace and security of the area. In my Government’s view, diplomatic means available to Israel had not been exhausted and the Israeli action has damaged the regional confidence that is essential for the peace process to go forward. All of us with an interest in peace, freedom and national independence have a high stake in that process. Israel's stake is highest of all.

That very day, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution expressing that the body was "[d]eeply concerned about the danger to international peace and security created by the premeditated Israeli air attack on Iraqi nuclear installations."

The resolution (S/RES/487) also "[s]trongly condemns the military attack by Israel in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct," "[c]alls upon Israel to refrain in the future from any such acts or threats thereof," warns that the attack undermined both the IAEA and NPT, calls on Israel to "urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards," and demands Israel provide Iraq with "appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered, responsibility for which has been acknowledged by Israel." (emphasis added, italics in original)

Later that year, after the Reagan White House had caved to Israeli pressure and resumed warplane deliveries, the UN General Assembly passed a similarly critical 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." (emphasis added)

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 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 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.

Only the United States and Israel voted against the resolution.

In August 2002, Mary Ellen O'Connell, law professor at the Moritz College of Law and Associate of the Mershon Center for International Security and Public Policy at Ohio State University, wrote an extensive analysis entitled "The Myth of Preemptive Self-Defense" for the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Task Force on Terrorism wherein she explicitly addresses the very misconception Dershowitz is attempting to put forward.

"Preemptive self-defense," O'Connell writes, "is clearly unlawful under international law." She explains, "The right of self-defense is limited to the right to use force to repel an attack in progress, to prevent future enemy attacks following an initial attack, or to reverse the consequences of an enemy attack, such as ending an occupation" and also points out that "the United States as a government has consistently supported the prohibition on such preemptive use of force." O'Connell continues, "the reality is that the United States has no right to use force to prevent possible, as distinct from actual, armed attacks. The further reality is that the United States does not advance its security or its moral standing in the world by doing so." Throughout her paper, O'Connell stresses that all nations are bound by these same rules.

Though O'Connell was writing in anticipation of an unprovoked US attack on Iraq, the parallels to the current American and Israeli bellicosity toward Iran are obvious and identically relevant. "There is no self-appointed right to attack another state because of fear that the state is making plans or developing weapons usable in a hypothetical campaign," she states, elaborating that "a state may not take military action against another state when an attack is only a hypothetical possibility, and not yet in progress—even in the case of weapons of mass destruction" since even "possession of such weapons without more does not amount to an armed attack."

In her eerily prescient analysis, published eight months before the US bombing, invasion, and occupation of Iraq, O'Connell suggests that "if an official argument is given at all for an invasion of Iraq, it is likely to be 'preemptive self-defense'", and continues:

The preemptive use of military force would establish a precedent that the United States has worked against since 1945. Preemptive self-defense would provide legal justification for Pakistan to attack India, for Iran to attack Iraq, for Russia to attack Georgia, for Azerbaijan to attack Armenia, for North Korea to attack South Korea, and so on. Any state that believes another regime poses a possible future threat— regardless of the evidence — could cite the United States invasion of Iraq.

O'Connell even uses the specific example of the Israeli destruction of Iraq's Osirak facility to prove her point. "Many representatives were impressed by the testimony of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency who testified that the IAEA had found no evidence of unlawful weapons development by the Iraqi government," she writes. "Not only did the IAEA find no diversion of nuclear material, but Israel put forward no evidence that an attack was imminent, let alone underway." With regard to the legality of such an unprovoked assault, she determines, "Permitting preemptive self-defense at the sole discretion of a state is fundamentally at odds with the [United Nations] Charter's design."

In defending Israel's "right" to commit what the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg described as "the supreme international crime" - namely, the willful initiation of a "war of aggression" - against Iran, Dershowitz also ignores the salient fact that the consequence of the Israeli bombing of Osirak was actually exactly the opposite of the stated goal of the operation. It was only after the Israeli attack that Iraq embarked on a nuclear weapons program.

The claims of Alan Dershowitz, in addition to being factually incorrect, legally unjustifiable and morally indefensible, are wholly unoriginal. Nuclear proliferation experts Leonard S. Spector and Avner Cohen, writing in the July/August 2008 edition of Arms Control Today, reveal that two days after the strike, "in a dramatic press conference in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin took full responsibility for the operation, praised its execution as extraordinary, and justified it both on moral and legal grounds. Begin referred to the strike as an act of “anticipatory self-defense at its best."

Mary Ellen O'Connell defines "anticipatory self-defense" as "armed responses to attacks that are on the brink of launch, or where an enemy attack has already occurred and the victim learns more attacks are planned." Clearly, as Israel was in no imminent danger of being attacked in 1981 by Iraqi nuclear weapons which didn't exist, Begin's triumphant boast was nothing more than a propagandistic lie. The neoconservative, AIPAC-driven rhetoric, echoed consistently by Dershowitz, warning of the existential threat now posed to Israel by Iran is an updated example of this very same falsehood.

Spector and Cohen continue:

The message that Begin conveyed was that the raid on Osiraq was not a one-time operation but rather a long-term national commitment. He ended his press conference with these dramatic words:
We chose this moment: now, not later, because later may be too late, perhaps forever. And if we stood by idly, two, three years, at the most four years, and Saddam Hussein would have produced his three, four, five bombs.… Then, this country and this people would have been lost, after the Holocaust. Another Holocaust would have happened in the history of the Jewish people. Never again, never again! Tell so your friends, tell anyone you meet, we shall defend our people with all the means at our disposal. We shall not allow any enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction turned against us.
A few days later, in a CBS News television interview, Begin reiterated this doctrinal point: “This attack will be a precedent for every future government in Israel.… [E]very future Israeli prime minister will act, in similar circumstances, in the same way.” (emphasis added)

The countdown to an imaginary Iraqi and Iranian nuclear bomb is a three-decade-old staple of Israeli and American fear-mongering. Naturally, the exploitation of Holocaust analogies and endless Hitler comparisons is all part of the routine, along with ad nauseum repetitions of long-debunked mistranslations of cartographic proportions.

In April 2010, Dershowitz, after following the lead of George W. Bush by accusing Obama of "appeasement", fulminated that, even if "the United States is prepared to accept a nuclear Iran...it has no right to require Israel to accept the risks posed by a nuclear armed country that has overtly threatened its destruction." He continued, "Every country in the world has the inherent right to protect its citizens from a nuclear attack. Israel, a nation that Obama has himself acknowledged was built on the ashes of one Holocaust, certainly has the right to take military action to prevent a second Holocaust, especially at the hands of a country that has explicitly threatened to wipe it off the map."

Still, Dershowitz wasn't finished:

The world ignored the explicit threats of one tyrant who threatened to destroy the Jewish people in the 1930s, and he nearly succeeded in the 1940s. Israel cannot be expected to ignore Hitler's successor, who while denying the first Holocaust, threatens a second one.

Dershowitz's own usage of Menachem Begin's "Never Again" nonsense should come as no surprise considering The Dersh's obvious affinity for plagiarizing propaganda.

It is no wonder that Dershowitz treats the Osirak attack as a successful and necessary mission to be emulated, if not overtly duplicated, with regard to Iran. The reason is that Israel never pays a price for its constant contravention of international law, denial of human rights, and indifference to, if not outright contempt for, any human life that doesn't fully support ethnic cleansing, apartheid, colonization, occupation, and institutionalized racism and discrimination against a displaced, dispossessed, devastated and demonized indigenous population.

Clearly, Israel has never followed through with its obligations as determined by the UN Security Council in 1981 and has continued to act aggressively and criminally ever since, with complete impunity and diplomatic protection from its superpower patron. The supposed "moral right" Dershowitz ascribes to an unprovoked and illegal Israeli attack on Iran - a sovereign nation of nearly 74 million people whose government consistently declares it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon or starting a war against the region's strongest military - isn't even worth discussing.

With his noxious comments in Tel Aviv, as with most everything else he says, writes, and does, Alan Dershowitz has once again revealed himself to be incapable of telling the truth or demonstrating even the most basic elements of reason or humanity in his obsessive determination to defend, and in this case encourage new, Israeli war crimes.

("Why are you laughing? This is my serious face.")
*****

* During a press conference on August 11, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was asked repeatedly about the possibility of the United States waging a "preventive war" on the Soviet Union. In addition to the above quote, given in response to a question posed by NBC reporter Ray L. Scherer, Eisenhower elaborated on his attitude toward "preventive war" after being asked by Washington Post correspondant Chalmers M. Roberts whether his opposition to such an idea was based solely on "military reasons":

"It seems to me that when, by definition, a term is just ridiculous in itself, there is no use in going any further. There are all sorts of reasons, moral and political and everything else, against this theory, but it is so completely unthinkable in today's conditions that I thought it is no use to go any further."

Incidentally, during the same briefing, Eisenhower addressed the previous year's (CIA-run) overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, saying, "We were faced in Iran with a situation that was highly dangerous to the world. Mossadegh was using his power, and the party-I don't know exactly how you pronounce it, but the Communist Party, Tudeh I guess--that party was using their power to lead Iran further and further away from the Western World. It looked almost as if a break was imminent from day to day...In Iran the situation has been greatly ameliorated; it looks much better, and we are very hopeful that the new agreement will soon bring back income to Iran on the basis that they can continue to advance, raising the standards in that country."

*****

Bluster Bombs:Israel's Empty Iran Threats Continue

2011-11-21T13:41:00.003-05:00

"An arms deal with the United States that will give Israel 25 of the most sophisticated fighter-bombers in the world, with a range of 3,600 miles, has slid through Congress with no objections by legislators and virtually no comment in the American media," says a report from The Independent (UK) before elaborating that the "twin-engined aircraft would enable the Israelis to carry out strikes deep into...Iran without refueling." The article continues, "The US, which is known to be worried about the development of weapons of mass destruction in the region, particularly weapons of a nuclear capability by Iran, appears to be reappointing Israel as local deputy sheriff, a role which ended with the disappearance of the communist threat in the Middle East."

That report was written in 1994.

Three years later, a story in the London Times, entitled "Israel Steps Up Plans for Air Attacks on Iran," revealed, "As part of a plan to neutralize Iran's nuclear and missile programs, Israel receives the first of 25 advanced F-15I fighter planes. There are two options to the reported plan: one is to target Iranian missile plants in the cities of Shiraz, Kuramabad, Farhin, and Semnan or to target foreign scientists rather than the buildings at the sites."

Indeed, for nearly three decades, the looming specter of bearded baddies in Tehran taking the world hostage with nuclear bombs has been trotted out time and again by government officials in the United States, Europe, and Israel. In addition to the repetition of strikingly similar sounding lies used to sell the invasion and occupation of Iraq, over the years, Israel has repeatedly threatened Iran with an unprovoked attack, conducted war games planning for such an operation, and has often boasted of its ability to carry out such an attack. And now, in the wake of the latest, thoroughly-overhyped IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program, rumors of an impending Israeli attack on Iran are once again circulating.

Accompanying the recycled allegations and renewed threats this time around are reports of the United States acquiring new 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs from Boeing capable of penetrating "hardened and deeply buried targets," such as Iranian military and nuclear installations, a totally absurd Iranian-Mexican-Saudi assassination plot, and a new bogus claim that "Iran supplied the Libyan government of Moammar Gadhafi with hundreds of special artillery shells for chemical weapons."

There's also the recent revelation that "Israel has been assembling a multibillion-dollar array of high-tech weapons that would allow it to jam, blind, and deafen Tehran's defenses in the case of a pre-emptive [sic] aerial strike" and which are designed to paralyze "Iran’s electric grid, Internet, cellphone network, and emergency frequencies for firemen and police officers." This type of electronic warfare against first responders, coupled with a bombing campaign, would purposefully increase Iranian civilian casualties and constitute war crimes against the Iranian people. Indeed, the judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg following World War II determined that "[t]o 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."

Meanwhile, Israel and the United States have engaged in numerous acts of industrial sabotage, espionage, and assassination in Iran; acts of lethal aggression that, were they carried out against any country other than Iran and by any other countries others than the Israel and the U.S., would be immediately and uncontroversially condemned as clear cases of international state-sponsored terrorism, if not outright warfare.

Threats of an imminent attack are nothing new. Promoted every few months to coincide with efforts to impose ever more "biting" sanctions on Iran for refusing to acquiesce to demands of dubious legality which abrogate its inalienable national rights as affirmed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, these threats serve to scare Russia and China enough into backing watered-down measures against Iran; measures which would never pass if not for Israeli saber-rattling.

As usual, charade of a public Israeli debate amongst current and former government officials about the wisdom of an assault is also on full display.

Responding to the IAEA report earlier this month, former Defense Minister and Army Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz declared, "This is a very serious report that represents an opportunity for the free world, and chiefly the United States, to take action. It is a test for the foreign policy of the Western world, led by President [Barack] Obama. It should be seen as an opportunity to change the trend, a change that is not the exclusive task of Israel." Mofaz is no stranger to empty threats as his comments to Yediot Aharonot, Israel's largest daily newspaper back in June of 2008 demonstrate. "If Iran continues its program to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it, " he said. "The window of opportunity has closed. The sanctions are not effective. There will be no alternative but to attack Iran in order to stop the Iranian nuclear program."

Despite describing media reports speculating on a potential Israeli attack as "outlandish...baseless and divorced from reality," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently downplayed the consequences of such an attack claiming Israeli casualties from an Iranian counterattack would be negligible, echoing similar claims by Uzi Rubin, former head of Israel's anti-missile Arrow program and now a defense industry consultant, and Israel Space Agency chairman Yitzhak Ben Israel. Speaking on CNN this Sunday, Barak struck an ominous tone, telling Fareed Zakaria, "I don't think that that is a subject for public discussion, but I can tell you that the IAEA report has a sobering impact on many in the world, leaders as well as the publics, and people understand that the time has come." The time for what, however, he left to the viewer's imagination.

Other officials agree that confronting Iran should be a collective effort. Speaking to a Russian news agency earlier this year, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon said he "strongly hope[s] that the entire civilized world will come to realize what threat this regime is posing and take joint action to avert the nuclear threat posed by Iran, even if it would be necessary to conduct a pre-emptive strike."

Ilan Mizrahi, Mossad's former Deputy Director and Israel's National Security Adviser explained that "if [military] action is taken, there will be some kind of consultation with the United States." Retired general Uzi Eilam concurred, saying a strike would "definitely not [happen] alone by a tiny country like Israel," despite reports that the Israeli government has refused to give the United States assurances that it won't take matters into its own hands.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, in an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN, voiced his opinion that he "wouldn't suggest to start immediately with a military operation" preferring instead to see "tighter economic sanctions [and] closer political pressure." He continued, "We don't want to jump alone, we are part of the civilization of the family of internationally responsible countries and we expect that leaders that make a promise will fulfill it." He also called Iran "spoiled and "morally corrupt," charges that might carry more weight were Peres not the president of a country that receives endless diplomatic cover and over $3 billion each year in military aid from the United States and which has been displacing and occupying an indigenous population for decades.

In August 2010, former IDF prison guard, perennial Iran alarmist and Israeli consigliere Jeffrey Goldberg foretold of "one day next spring" when "the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran...They will tell their American colleagues that Israel was left with no choice. They will not be asking for permission, because it will be too late to ask for permission."

And now this fall, we have another perennial alarmist Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute of Strategic Studies telling us, "The most likely possibility is that Netanyahu calls up Obama and says: 'I'm not asking for a green light, I'm just telling you that we've just launched the planes, don't shoot them down'...And in a U.S. presidential election year, I think it's unlikely that Obama would shoot them down," while Tablet magazine's Anshel Pfeffer warns that "in a close presidential race, with a GOP contender accusing him of going soft on Iran, Obama's only way to block an Israeli attack on Iran would be sending the U.S. Air Force to do the job instead."

In a recent speech, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the Western allegations about Iranian nuclear ambitions and supposed apocalyptic geno-suicidal irrationality. "The Iranian nation is wise," he said. "It won't build two bombs against the 20,000 you have." Iran has also consistently offered to open up its nuclear program to intrusive inspection (above and beyond what would even be required if it ratifies the Additional Protocol) and international partnerships, offers which have all been dismissed or ignored by the United States.

Former Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has warned that "Every citizen in the country has to be worried that these two fools, Netanyahu and Barak, are planning an attack on Iran."

Recent reports affirm that a majority of Israel's security cabinet, including IDF chief Benny Gantz, Mossad head Tamir Pardo, chief of military intelligence Aviv Kochavi and Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen, are against an attack.

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan has referred to the possibility a future Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as "the stupidest thing I have ever heard."

This past July, Jeffrey Goldberg, who consistently accuses Iranian leaders of being "eliminationist anti-Semites", told Salon's Justin Elliott, "Meir Dagan is doing what he's doing now because he's scared of an Israeli attack," he said. "If you don't think Bibi Netanyahu is crazy enough to launch an attack on Iran, you don't understand this prime minister."

With talk like that, who should the world really be afraid of?

*****

On Al Jazeera's "The Stream" with Kambiz Hosseini and Saman Arbabi, co-creators of Voice of America's "Parazit"

2011-11-17T23:06:00.011-05:00

I was on Al Jazeera's "The Stream" today along with Kambiz Hosseini and Saman Arbabi, the co-creators/hosts/producers of Parazit, a satirical political commentary program which has been broadcast on the U.S. government-funded Voice of America since late 2010. The discussion was lively and there was a lot more that I had wanted to say but didn't get the chance.

I could certainly dissect what they said and what I said, where we agree and where we differ. But rather than do all that, I'll just post the video. And below it, show some of the classy comments from the Parazit Facebook page. But that's all. For now.

*****

UPDATE:

November 19, 2011- The comments on the Parazit Facebook page (and also over at YouTube) keep getting classier. My favorites are the ones that (1) accuse me of being a paid agent of the Islamic Republic and (2) tell me to shut the fuck up/go fuck myself/go to hell/set fire to myself/blow myself up and other assorted activities.

One of the more interesting things I've learned since doing this show is that, unless you think Parazit is the greatest thing ever and don't care at all that they are funded by the U.S. government, you are not only an apologist for the Iranian government but also a fundamentalist Muslim. I didn't realize the choices were that stark, but luckily some Parazit fans have clued me in. Thanks guys.

Here's a hypothetical:

Two ex-patriate Americans living in Tehran work for PressTV and start an English-language show, which is then picked up by PressTV (where they already work), and which - along with Yakov Smirnoff-level comedy coupled with Benny Hill-esque slapstick - relentlessly (and rightfully) criticizes the U.S. government, makes fun of social and cultural mores, and mocks U.S. politicians and policy. Additionally, everything on the show uncritically echoes Iranian foreign policy and the official perspective on American imperialism, war crimes, unconditional support for Zionism, and blatant hypocrisy. Images of Troy Davis, Oscar Grant, Sean Bell, Rodney King, torture at Bagram and Guantanamo, civilian victims of drone strikes, police abuse at Occupy protests around the country are ubiquitous and the commentary on domestic spying, a two-tiered justice system, the treatment of whistleblowers, the exploding prison population, deportation of immigrants, corporate-controlled media, government lobbying, racial and gender inequality, and access to healthcare and social services is scathing.

This show is then broadcast into the United States. When criticized for being part of the Iranian state-run media, the creators of the show cry foul and insist they are given full editorial control over their show and that no one tells them what to write or say. They claim to be critical of the Iranian government, but give deferential, fawning interviews to government officials and make hardly any mention of Iranian politics on their own show. When asked why they avoid Iranian domestic problems and human rights violations of the Islamic Republic and accused of double-standards, they dismiss the allegations saying, "Hey, our show isn't about that stuff! It's about the United States!"

Now imagine the Iranian government has, for 30 years, tried to foment regime change in the United States (after seeing an Iranian-backed dictatorship fall at the hands of the American people) by supporting and arming a neighboring country in a war against the U.S. (and giving it biological and chemical weapons to use against American citizens), funding armed opposition groups to commit acts of terrorism against the U.S., consistently threatening to bomb the U.S. unless it gives up certain inalienable national rights, among other things.

Even if all the information of the program was well-documented and its content entertaining, do you think the show would have a credibility problem?

*****

UPDATE II:

November 20, 2011 - Some of the comments floating around about the show have noted the hypocrisy of Al Jazeera, a Qatari state-funded media outlet, addressing the issue of U.S.-funded Voice of America. This is indeed an interesting point and one that could be presented to Al Jazeera itself. To be clear, I was the only person on that program not in some way receiving payment - partially or completely - from a government.

But more importantly, the charge rests heavily on a false equivalence between the U.S. government and the Qatari government. Each government, like any government, has its own agenda, but to present the two as equally powerful and equate their motives is disingenuous. This is not to say, again, that the question of impartiality or bias isn't a valid one - it absolutely is - but there are certainly distinctions between Al Jazeera and Voice of America which should be considered.

Al Jazeera's page on Wikipedia notes, "Following the initial grant [of $137 million] from the Emir of Qatar, Al Jazeera had aimed to become self-sufficient through advertising by 2001, but when this failed to occur, the Emir agreed to several consecutive loans on a year-by-year basis ($30 million in 2004, according to Arnaud de Borchgrave). Other major sources of income include advertising, cable subscription fees, broadcasting deals with other companies, and sale of footage. In 2000, advertising accounted for 40% of the station's revenue."

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find updated budget or funding information.

The website Global Media Wars points out, "The homeland is Qatar, whose leader is rarely criticized. That said, Qatar doesn't get much coverage by any media, due to its tiny size and lack of geopolitical significance – outside of its creation of Al Jazeera." According to Pierre Tristam, "The network is heavily funded by Qatar’s royal family. Boycotts and pressure from other Arab regimes, most notably Saudi Arabia, keeps advertisers away and prevents the station from becoming self-sufficient." Additionally, earlier this year, Al Jazeera Arabic's Washington bureau chief Abderrahim Foukara said that "government of Qatar funds Al Jazeera with hundreds of millions of dollars annually."

It should also be remembered that the U.S. and Qatar have very friendly relations. The U.S. Department of State confirms, "Ties between the U.S. and Qatar are excellent," and acknowledges, "Qatari forces played an important role in the first Gulf War, and Qatar has supported U.S. military operations critical to the success of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom." Indeed, the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar serves as "host to a forward headquarters of United States Central Command, headquarters of United States Air Forces Central Command, and home to both No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group RAF and the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing of the USAF."

Last time I checked, Qatar wasn't funding American opposition groups, promoting regime change or imposing decades of sanctions on the United States. Also, Qatari government officials don't get millions of lobbying dollars from an American exile cult deemed a "terrorist organization" by Qatar promoting regime change in America. (I am in no way associating Parazit with the MEK, just providing some context regarding U.S. government policy towards Iran.)

As for Voice of America specifically, its history speaks for itself and I don't need to go into it here. Some consider the station to be straight-up propaganda, Saman Arbabi calls it "dry, hard news" (Parazit excepted, of course), and others think its efforts are admirable and necessary. This information about the amended Smith-Mundt Act is particularly interesting.

When the Bush administration decided to expand its VOA operations to Iran in 2005, Reuters quoted propaganda expert Nancy Snow of California State University, Fullerton, as saying, "People could see it as a sign that an invasion is coming. It's the sort of thing that happens before nations build up their war effort."

The budget of VOA (and its affiliates) for 2012 is $767 million, which is an increase of 2.5% from the current year. All funding is paid by the U.S. government (tax-payer dollars appropriated annually by Congress).

Here's a lovely photo of Voice of America's Broadcasting Board of Governors with Secretary of State Hillary "obliterate Iran" Clinton, who is also on the board (ex officio). The Board is appointed by the President of the United States. And yes, that's former George W. Bush spokesperson Dana Perino on the left. She's a board member, too.

*****

Propaganda Revisited:Iraq, Iran, and the Rhyming of History

2011-11-13T20:30:00.047-05:00

"It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison, and yet not free. To be under no physical constraint and yet to be psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national state or some private interest within the nation wants him to think feel and act."

- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1958)

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

- George W. Bush, Greece, NY (May 24, 2005)

Last night's GOP debate in South Carolina proved a few things (beyond revealing widespread Republican support for torture and the permanent military occupation of Middle Eastern countries): Republican candidates - with the notable exception of Ron Paul - are really scared of an Iranian nuclear weapons program that doesn't exist. In fact, some of them - not Herman Cain - would really like to see the Islamic Republic bombed by the United States or Israel or both as soon as possible.

Mitt Romney declared, "If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon." He added that, if harsh sanctions and continued sabotage and assassinations don't curb Iran's uranium enrichment, he would "absolutely" support a military assault to prevent an "unacceptable" Iranian nuclear weapon.

Newt Gingrich agreed, saying, "you have to take whatever steps are necessary." Rick Santorum was really hopeful that the United States is engaged in international terrorism by murdering Iranian scientists and encouraged the U.S. and Israel to "take out" Iran's "nuclear capability" with air strikes.

Herman Cain and Rick Perry, meanwhile, suggested that economic warfare is the way to go. Cain advocated further sanctions and financial support to Iranian terrorist groups like the MEK in order to foment violent regime change. Perry said, "This country can sanction the Iranian central bank right now and shut down that country's economy, and that's what the president needs to do," which would undoubtedly be an act of war.

Only Ron Paul dissented, stating that "it isn't worthwhile" to start a war with Iran. "I'm afraid what's going on right now," Paul reminded the crowd, "is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq and, you know, they didn't have weapons of mass destruction."

He's not wrong. By taking a trip down the memory hole, it's clear that what we've been hearing about Iran for the past three decades bears a striking resemblance to the lies we were told about Iraq in the years leading up to the invasion, occupation, and devastation of that country. The record demonstrates, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that fear-mongering and propagandizing about "weapons of mass destruction" was not solely a Republican pastime. Lying about evil Muslim nukes was, and continues to be, a bipartisan affair.

Away we go!

On November 29, 1990, veteran New York Times columnist William Safire rebuked "so-called experts" in their confident assessment "that Saddam Hussein would not have a complete nuclear weapons system for at least 5 to 10 years" and quoted President George H.W. Bush as telling an assembly of U.S. troops, "Those who would measure the timetable for Saddam's atomic program in years may be seriously underestimating the reality of that situation and the gravity of the threat." Safire added, "His press spokesman defined that timetable as "'within months.'" He also reported that Senator Ted Kennedy, who he described as "privy to new intelligence data similar to that given the President," had recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "the best estimates, I imagine, are eight or nine months, possibly, under the best of circumstances."

Safire continued, "This tells us that Mr. Hussein will probably be able to set off the largest truck bomb or land mine ever made next summer, with at least a deleterious effect on the local environment," and concluded:

[T]he new estimate also tells us this: Iraq's all-out nuclear weapons quest is a fact, not a theory -- and autonomous, not subject to blockade. If he can explode a test device by one means in months, it would be dangerously foolish to think he could not explode a weapon built by another means within a few years.

In his State of the Union address on January 27, 1998, Bill Clinton said, "Together we must also confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists and organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the missiles to deliver them." Directing his remarks to the Iraqi leader he added, "We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again."

The next month, on February 4, 1998, Clinton declared that "one way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction. That is our bottom line." Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott concurred and called for regime change in Iraq: "We should do everything we can to get this resolved and find a way to have him removed from office, one way or the other." Also in agreement was House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who explained, "My hope is that military planning will be designed to coerce him or replace him and will not simply punish him and leave him in charge of building the weapons. That's not a victory. That's a defeat."

On February 12, 1998, Delaware Senator Joe Biden stated, "Fateful decisions will be made in the days and weeks ahead. At issue is nothing less than the fundamental question of whether or not we can keep the most lethal weapons known to mankind out of the hands of an unreconstructed tyrant and aggressor who is in the same league as the most brutal dictators of this century." His colleague Senator Tom Daschle added, "It is essential that a dictator like Saddam not be allowed to evade international strictures and wield frightening weapons of mass destruction...Neither the United States nor the global community can afford to allow Saddam Hussein to continue on this path."

On February 18, 1998, discussing Iraq, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright warned on CNN "that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."

In a letter to Bill Clinton, sent on October 9, 1998, twenty-seven members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, including Daschle, Carl Levin, Chris Dodd, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Jon Kyl, Dianne Feinstein, Strom Thurmond, John Kerry, and Rick Santorum, called upon the president "to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

On December 16, 1998, California Representative Nancy Pelosi told Congress, "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process. The responsibility of the United States in this conflict is to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, to minimize the danger to our troops and to diminish the suffering of the Iraqi people."

On November 10, 1999, Madeleine Albright informed a gathering in Chicago that Saddam Hussein "has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction, and palaces for his cronies."

On December 5, 2001, nine Senators, including John McCain, Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, and Joe Lieberman, sent a letter to George W. Bush appealing for military action against Iraq: "The threat from Iraq is real, and it cannot be permanently contained. For as long as Saddam Hussein is in power in Baghdad, he will seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. We have no doubt that these deadly weapons are intended for use against the United States and its allies. Consequently, we believe we must directly confront Saddam, sooner rather than later."

In his very first State of the Union address, on January 2002, George W. Bush said, "Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror," before also claiming that "Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror" and insisting that "the Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade." He then referred to both, along with North Korea, as constituting "an axis of evil," which "threaten[s] the peace of the world." Bush continued, "By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger" and warned that "time is not on our side." Nevertheless, Bush declared, "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

Speaking to the press from Qatar on June 11, 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld responded to a question about a recent comment he had made doubting Iraqi claims:

I was asked a question about Iraq announcing the day before that they do not have weapons of mass destruction, and they asked me what I thought about that. I said, "That's a lie," and I may have even said, "That's a world class lie."

Now that's true; it is a lie. They do have weapons of mass destruction. They've used chemical weapons on their people, they have had an aggressive program to develop nuclear weapons, and there is no question that they are developing biological weapons.

Now why did I say that? I said that because it is true. The truth has a certain virtue it seems to me. What I said didn't raise tensions, what raises tensions in the region is Saddam Hussein developing weapons of mass destruction and threatening neighbors.

Speaking on Meet the Press to Tim Russert on August 4, 2002, then-Delaware Senator Joe Biden said, "We know he continues to attempt to gain access to additional capability, including nuclear capability."

Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars 103rd National Convention on August 26, 2002, Dick Cheney said, "But we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons...Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon...Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

Speaking with former Jerusalem Post correspondent and AIPAC newsletter editor Wolf Blitzer on CNN on September 8, 2002, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said, "We know that [Saddam Hussein] has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon. And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought, maybe six months from a crude nuclear device." She famously continued, "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't what the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

On September 10, 2002, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) wrote that "[h]igh-resolution commercial satellite imagery shows an apparently operational facility at the site of Iraq's al Qaim phosphate plant and uranium extraction facility (Unit-340), located in northwest Iraq near the Syrian border" and determined, "Unless inspectors go to the site and investigate all activities, the international community cannot exclude the possibility that Iraq is secretly producing a stockpile of uranium in violation of its commitments under Security Council resolutions. The uranium could be used in a clandestine nuclear weapons effort."

On September 12, 2002, George W. Bush told the United Nations General Assembly, "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons," continuing, "United Nations inspections also reveal that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard, and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons." He didn't stop there:

"Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its nuclear program — weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials, and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon...Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year."

He also asserted that "Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence," before stating, "The first time we may be completely certain he has a -- nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one."

On September 19, 2002, Carl Levin opened a Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on U.S. Policy on Iraq by stating, "We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."

On September 23, 2002, former Vice President Al Gore told the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, "What makes Saddam dangerous is his effort to acquire weapons of mass destruction. What makes terrorists so much more dangerous than they have ever been is the prospect that they may get access to weapons of mass destruction," continuing, "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." While encouraging diplomatic efforts, Gore concluded, "The president should be authorized to take action to deal with Saddam Hussein as being in material breach of the terms of the truce and therefore a continuing threat to the security of the region. To this should be added that his continued pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is potentially a threat to the vital interests of the United States."

On September 27, 2002, Senator Ted Kennedy, speaking at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said, "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed." Later in his speech, Kennedy declared, "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction," adding, "Clearly, we must halt Saddam Hussein's quest for weapons of mass destruction," then noted he was opposed to war.

In October 2002, a United States National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) judged with "high confidence" that "Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions." The NIE also stated, "If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year," but that even "[w]ithout such material from abroad, Iraq probably would not be able to make a weapon until 2007 to 2009."

On October 3, 2002, Senator Robert Byrd wrote in The New York Times, "We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities," adding, "Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons."

In a radio address on October 5, 2002, George W. Bush stated, "The danger to America from the Iraqi regime is grave and growing."

The same day, ubiquitous "nuclear expert" David Albright opined on CNN, "In terms of the chemical and biological weapons, Iraq has those now. How many, how could they deliver them? I mean, these are the big questions."

During a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 7, 2002, George W. Bush warned the crowd of Iraq's "drive toward an arsenal of terror," insisting that Iraq "possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons." Bush declared, "Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon." He added, "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."

The same day, Senator John Edwards addressed the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. and said, "My position is very clear: The time has come for decisive action to eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. I am a co-sponsor of the bipartisan resolution we're currently considering." He continued,

"Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave threat to America and our allies -- including our vital ally, Israel. For more than 20 years, Saddam has obsessively sought weapons of mass destruction through every possible means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons today, that he has used them in the past, and that he is doing everything he can to build more. Every day he gets closer to his longtime goal of nuclear capability. We must not allow him to get nuclear weapons."

On October 9, 2002, Senator John Kerry stated, "There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop nuclear weapons," and determined to "give the President of the United States the authority to use force — if necessary — to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."

While vigorously, eloquently and commendably opposing the resolution which would grant George W. Bush "authority" to wage war on Iraq, Senator Patty Murray nevertheless noted, "Over the years, Iraq has worked to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons...There can be no doubt that Iraq has continued to pursue its goal of obtaining weapons of mass destruction." A statement her office released also called Saddam Hussein an "evil menace."

The same day, Senator Chris Dodd declared, "There is no question that Iraq possesses biological and chemical weapons and that he seeks to acquire additional weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. That is not in debate."

On October 10, 2002, John Rockefeller, speaking on the Senate floor, said, "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years," he declared that "Saddam Hussein represents a grave threat to the United States," and determined "we must use force to deal with him if all other means fail."

Also addressing the Senate on October 10, 2002, Hillary Clinton said, "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program," adding, "It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Fellow New York Senator Chuck Schumer added, "Saddam Hussein is an evil man, a dictator who oppresses his people and flouts the mandate of the international community. While this behavior is reprehensible, it is Hussein's vigorous pursuit of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and his present and potential future support for terrorist acts and organizations, that make him a terrible danger to the people to the United States."

Concurring with his colleagues, John McCain declared, "Saddam Hussein is on a crash course to construct a nuclear weapon."

Then-Senator Rick Santorum also supported legislation authorizing military force in Iraq, noting that "Saddam Hussein has displayed remarkable staying power and a powerful appetite for acquiring weapons of mass destruction."

The same day, during a simultaneous debate in Congress, Representative Henry Waxman expressed his agreement with George W. Bush that "we cannot leave Saddam to continue on his present course. No one doubts that he is trying to build a nuclear device, and when he does, his potential for blackmail to dominate the Persian Gulf and Middle East will be enormous, and our efforts to deal with him [will] be even more difficult and perilous. The risks of inaction clearly outweigh the risks of action."

Two days later, on October 12, 2002, George W. Bush assured his radio audience, "Confronting Iraq is an urgent matter of national security."

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said on December 2, 2002, "Saddam Hussein does not exactly have a track record of telling the world the truth...If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world...And so it's, on the one hand, mildly encouraging that Iraq would now admit to what it's been doing. But on the other hand, a lie is still a lie...they sought to produce these for the purpose of production of nuclear weapons, not conventional."

On December 8, 2002, Senator Bob Graham revealed on Face the Nation, "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." He later repeated that he had personally "seen enough evidence...seen enough just to be satisfied that there has been a continuing effort by Saddam Hussein, since the end of the Gulf War, particularly since 1998, to reestablish and enhance Iraq's capacity, weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological and nuclear."

The next month, on January 9, 2003, when a reporter asked Fleischer whether it would be "disappointing...if there were no weapons there [in Iraq]," Fleischer responded confidently, "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."

During a speech at Georgetown University on January 23, 2003, John Kerry stated that "without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime" and who "presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation." Kerry continued, "And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction," reiterating that "the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real."

On January 28, 2003, George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union address. In it, he said, "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent," and declared:

"The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide."

Furthermore, Bush claimed, "With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region" and could "[s]ecretly, and without fingerprints...provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own." He assured the American people and the world that, on February 5, 2003, "Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi's legal -- Iraq's illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups."

Early in Colin Powell's presentation before the UN Security Council, he declared, "Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction," and doubled-down on this claim toward the end: "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more." He declared, "We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program," adding, "Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb."

Three days later, during a radio address, George W. Bush said, "The Iraqi regime has acquired and tested the means to deliver weapons of mass destruction. It has never accounted for thousands of bombs and shells capable of delivering chemical weapons. It is actively pursuing components for prohibited ballistic missiles. And we have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

On February 10, 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One that Iraq was "an imminent threat."

In a speech for the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute at the Washington Hilton Hotel on February 26, 2003, George W. Bush stated, "In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world -- and we will not allow it." After labeling Saddam Hussein a "tyrant" with "close ties to terrorist organizations," Bush declared:

The danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away. The danger must be confronted. We hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations and disarm, fully and peacefully. If it does not, we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way, this danger will be removed.

Bush then said, "A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions." He insisted that the Iraqi people "live in scarcity and fear, under a dictator who has brought them nothing but war, and misery, and torture," and that while "[t]heir lives and their freedom matter little to Saddam Hussein...Iraqi lives and freedom matter greatly to us."

On March 6, 2003, Bush held an evening press conference in the White House during which he claimed that Saddam Hussein and his "weapons of terror...are a direct threat to this country, to our people, and to all free people." Bush made numerous statements associating Saddam Hussein with "terrorist organizations" and the events of September 11, 2001. Answering a reporter's question, Bush said, "September the 11th should say to the American people that we're now a battlefield, that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist organization could be deployed here at home. So, therefore, I think the threat is real."

"The American people know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction," Bush said and described Saddam Hussein as "somebody who may some day decide to lob a weapon of mass destruction on Israel" and "a master at deception." Furthermore, Bush asserted that "if war is upon us because Saddam Hussein has made that choice," adding that "we will respect innocent life in Iraq."

"We will be changing the regime of Iraq, for the good of the Iraqi people," Bush explained.

The following day, March 7, 2003, twelve days before the United States invaded Iraq, Colin Powell again addressed the UN Security Council and commented on a recent IAEA report on Iraq. He said, "As we all know, in 1991 the IAEA was just days away from determining that Iraq did not have a nuclear program. We soon found out otherwise," adding, that "Iraq has obstructed the inspectors at nearly every turn over the years." He told the Council, "So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not." Though Powell paid lip-service to claim that "Nobody wants war," he warned against inaction, stating, "Iraq [is] once again marching down the merry path to weapons of mass destruction, threatening the region, threatening the world" and ending his address by stating, "The clock continues to tick, and the consequences of Saddam Hussein continued refusal to disarm will be very, very real."

On March 16, 2003, Dick Cheney told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that even positive overtures by Saddam Hussein would be ignored. "If he gave everything up tomorrow and stays in power, you have to assume that as soon as the world is looking the other way and preoccupied with other issues, he'd be back again rebuilding his weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons capabilities and once again reconstituting his nuclear program," Cheney said. "At the front of our concern is the proposition that the al Qaeda organization is absolutely determined to do everything they can to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons," Cheney later remarked. "Saddam Hussein becomes a prime suspect in that regard because of his past track record and we know he has developed these kinds of capabilities," he said, continuing "We know he has used chemical weapons. We know he has reconstituted these programs since the Gulf War. We know he's out trying again to produce nuclear weapons and we know he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the al Qaeda organization."

On March 17, 2003, George W. Bush told the nation, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised," continuing, "The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."

From the Oval Office on March 19, 2003, George W. Bush said, "The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder" and stressed that "[w]e come to Iraq with respect for its citizens, for their great civilization and for the religious faiths they practice. We have no ambition in Iraq, except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people."

On March 21, 2003, White House spokeman Ari Fleischer told the press, "Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly," and said the U.S. charges would be vindicated "in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." Regarding the large number of journalists embedded with the invading troops, Fleischer declared, "you will find the answers and they will speak volumes themselves."

The next day, speaking in Qatar, General Tommy Franks told reporters, "There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them."

On March 23, 2003, Kenneth Adelman, former Reagan official and Pentagon advisor, told The Washington Post, "I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction," claiming these caches were around Tikrit and Baghdad. The Post also quoted Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke as affirming the U.S. knowledge of "a number of sites" where Iraqi WMD would be found.

A week later, in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on March 30, 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explained that, at that point, the U.S. military invading Iraq "happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed," but assured his host, "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

On April 2, 2003, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw noted, "Saddam's removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of mass destruction."

On April 10, 2003, Ari Fleischer told a White House press briefing, "But make no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."

On April 20, 2003, David Albright of ISIS, despite being a source of many of the pre-invasion claims about Iraq's nuclear program, told the Los Angeles Times, "If there are no weapons of mass destruction, I'll be mad as hell. I certainly accepted the administration claims on chemical and biological weapons. I figured they were telling the truth. If there is no [unconventional weapons program], I will feel taken, because they asserted these things with such assurance."

Speaking on a panel entitled "Iraq: What Lies Ahead" held by the American Enterprise Institute on April 22, 2003 alongside Newt Gingrich, leading Iraq (and now Iran) hawk Charles Krauthammer declared, "Hans Blix had five months to find weapons. He found nothing. We’ve had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven’t found any, we will have a credibility problem."

Addressing factory workers at the Lima Army Tank Plant in Ohio on April 24, 2003, George W. Bush stated, "We are now working to locate and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," adding that "it's going to take time to find them. But we know he had them. And whether he destroyed them, moved them, or hid them, we're going to find out the truth. And one thing is for certain: Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction."

On April 25, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld explained that the U.S. was close to being able to "track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country." The same day, The New York Times quoted George W. Bush as telling Tom Brokaw aboard Air Force One, "I think there's going to be skepticism until people find out there was, in fact, a weapons of mass destruction program," but acknowledged, "it's going to take time to find them."

Speaking from his ranch in Crawford, Texas on May 3, 2003, alongside Australian Prime Minister John Howard, George W. Bush told the press, "Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The United States -- United Nations Security Council voted 1441, which made the declaration it had weapons of mass destruction. It's well-known it had weapons of mass destruction. And we've also got to recognize that he spent 14 years hiding weapons of mass destruction. I mean, he spent an entire decade making sure that inspectors would never find them. Iraq's the size of the state of California. It's got tunnels, caves, all kinds of complexes. We'll find them. And it's just going to be a matter of time to do so."

On May 4, 2003, Colin Powell told reporters, "And I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now."

On May 6, 2003, in the Oval Office, George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were asked by the press whether evidence of WMD would be forthcoming. Bush responded, "I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program. I will leave the details of your question to the experts, but one thing we know is that he had a weapons program. We also know he spent years trying to hide the weapons program. And over time the truth will come out and the American people will see that when we rid Saddam Hussein from -- got him out of power, we made America more secure." When a reporter asked what the Defense Secretary's thoughts were, Rumsfeld replied curtly, "I like the President's answer."

As the official story began to change, Condoleezza Rice defensively claimed that the U.S. government never expected that "we were going to open garages and find" weapons of mass destruction and, on May 13, 2003, General David Petraeus suggested all weapons may have been "destroyed years ago" or right before the war" or may still be "hidden." Nevertheless, on May 21, 2003, Marine Corps. commander General Hagee told The New York Times, ''Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found.'' A few days later, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers, in an Today Show interview on NBC, said "Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction."

On May 29, 2003, George W. Bush, during an interview with TVP, a Polish broadcast, "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."

Despite Bush's protestations, it was clear there were no weapons to find. During a teleconference on May 30, 2003, Lt. General James Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, admitted,

"It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Again, believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there. Now, what that means in terms of intelligence failure, I think, is too strong a word to use at this point. What the regime was intending to do in terms of its use of the weapons, we thought we understood or we certainly had our best guess, our most dangerous, our most likely courses of action that the intelligence folks were giving us. We were simply wrong. But whether or not we're wrong at the national level, I think, still very much remains to be seen."

In stark contrast to this statement, at a press briefing the very same day, Army Major General Keith W. Dayton, Defense Intelligence Agency operations director and head of the government's Iraq Study Group, said, "Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do, because I think there's a lot of information out there, and that's why I tell you, this is going to be a deliberate process, but it will be a long-term process as well. This is not necessarily going to be quick and easy, but it will be very thorough."

On June 9, 2003, following a White House Cabinet meeting, George W. Bush was quoted by Reuters as claiming, "Iraq had a weapons program. Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out they did have a weapons program."

On July 9, 2003, while accompanying George W. Bush on a trip to South Africa, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was asked by reporters whether the fact that no chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons have yet been discovered in Iraq cast any doubt on the pre-invasion intelligence or the decision to go to war. Fleischer, in one of the most surreal responses of all time, said,

"I think the American people continue to express their support for ridding the world of Saddam Hussein based on just cause, knowing that Saddam Hussein had biological and chemical weapons that were unaccounted for that we're still confident we'll find. I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are. We know he had them in the '90s, he used them. So just because they haven't yet been found doesn't mean they didn't exist. The burden is on the critics to explain where the weapons of mass destruction are. If they think they were destroyed, the burden is on them to explain when he destroyed them and where he destroyed them...It will take as long as it takes until they're discovered. The world is safer."

Incidentally, this entire press conference appears to have been scrubbed from the White House archives, but a copy of it remains on, of all places, the website of the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

On August 24, 2003, General Myers told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that the discovery of WMD would happen eventually, explaining, "the system we have in place, the process we have in place will work, and we’ll find what we are after."

On September 14, 2003, Dick Cheney told Tim Russert on Meet the Press, "There’s no doubt in my mind but what Saddam Hussein had these capabilities. This wasn’t an idea cooked up overnight by a handful of people, either in the administration or out of the CIA," later reiterating, "I think in the final analysis, we will find that the Iraqis did have a robust program...So I say I’m not willing at all at this point to buy the proposition that somehow Saddam Hussein was innocent and he had no WMD and some guy out at the CIA, because I called him, cooked up a report saying he did. That’s crazy. That makes no sense. It bears no resemblance to reality whatsoever."

On October 2, 2003, in a statement before Congress, former weapons inspector and Iraq Study Group head David Kay said, "We have not yet found stocks of weapons, but we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone." He added, "Despite evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material."

More than two years later, on December 2, 2005, General Tommy Franks said on Fox News, "No one was more surprised than I that we didn't find [weapons of mass destruction in Iraq]."

Later than month, on December 14, 2005, George W. Bush spoke at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. He told the gathering,

When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. This judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of governments who did not support my decision to remove Saddam. And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.

Unrepentant, Bush added, "Given Saddam's history, and the lessons of September 11, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a threat, and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power. We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal dictator. It is to leave a free and democratic Iraq in its place."

The consequences of such repeated lies have been devastating. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqis have been killed. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), "4.7 million Iraqis have been uprooted as a result of the crisis in Iraq. Of these, over 2 million are living as refugees in neighbouring countries." Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women have been widowed and an estimated 5 million Iraqi children have been orphaned. Under both U.S. occupation and a corrupt puppet government, the torture of Iraqis has continued.

Since March 19, 2003, at least 4,483 American military personnel have died in Iraq. Tens of thousands more have been wounded, an estimated 20% of all Iraq veterans suffer from PTSD, and an average of 18 veterans commit suicide every day.

And now, the same claims that drove the U.S. to invade Iraq are being made again, often by many of the same people promoting identical lies and stoking fear. The drums of war continue to beat louder and louder, attempting to drown out the voices of reason and reality.

In his 1946 introduction to Brave New World, Aldous Huxley wrote, "The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth."

Now is not the time to remain silent.

***** ***** *****

A debt of gratitude is due to the following sources for helping to make this post possible:

"Iraq WMD Lies: The Words of Mass Deception," What Really Happened

"Bush Administration Officials' Lies about Iraq's Supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction in Their Own Words," compiled by Jackson Thoreau, Global Research, 02.18.2004

"A History Of Lies: WMD, Who Said What and When," Information Clearing House

"In Their Own Words: Who Said What When," PBS, 10.09.2003

"Pre-War Quotes from Democrats," Reasons for War: Things You Might Have Forgotten about Iraq

*****

Reality Withdrawal:The Iran Nuclear Scare™ Cycle Continues

2011-11-12T17:13:00.013-05:00

A report from the semi-official Fars News Agency in Iran is sure to send the Bomb Iran crowd into a frenzy. But it shouldn't.

"Parliamentary sources revealed on Saturday that Iran's legislature is due to discuss the country's withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director-general released a biased report against Iran," Fars reported. The Vice-Chairman of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Kowsari said a commission would consider withdrawing from the NPT in response to "a relevant demand by a major political faction of the Iranian university students."

This news will surely be seized on by some in the foreign policy community as evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons capability. However, this is not the first time that conservative Iranian officials, as a result of politicized IAEA reports, sanctions, and continued military threats from Israel and the United States, have spoken of withdrawing from the treaty and ceasing its cooperation with the IAEA.

On July 24, 2003, Ali Larijani, who was then head of the state media outlet Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and member Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told a university audience, "Because we have obtained the essential (nuclear) technology, if they attack our facilities, we will withdraw from the NPT." Larijani is currently the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, the Majlis.

In late September 2004, Larijani was again quoted as saying, "If the Europeans and the United States exert excessive pressure on us, we will have no other choice" but to pull out of the NPT.

At the same time, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that "[l]eading conservative parliamentarian Hassan Kamran has prepared a bill for submission to parliament that would force the government to set a November deadline for the U.N. nuclear watchdog to take Iran off the agency's agenda," and quoted Kamran, who is a member of the parliament's Foreign Affairs and National Security commission, as saying, "The bill obliges the government to pull out of the NPT if the International Atomic Energy Agency does not meet the deadline."

In response, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazzi told CNN that Iran had no intention of leaving the Treaty. "No that is not our policy," he said. "We are sticking to NPT". Similarly, reformist politicians in the Majlis openly opposed the proposal.

On April 24, 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying, in response to the possibility of UN Security Council action against Iran, "Working in the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the agency is our concrete policy, [but] if we see that they are violating our rights, or they don't want to accept (our rights), well, we will reconsider."

Two weeks later, in May 7, 2006, a letter signed by at least 160 Iranian MPs was sent to the United Nations warning that, if issues related to Iran's nuclear and uranium enrichment programs were not settled in a peaceful manner, "there will be no choice for the Majlis but to demand the government withdraw the ratification of the additional protocol and put on its agenda a review of Article 10 of the NPT." Article 10 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty maintains that, in the interest of "national sovereignty," member states "have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the press, "We will not accept any resolution that is against our rights. Any action by the Security Council will have a negative influence on our cooperation with the agency. The involvement of the Security Council will direct the path of cooperation towards confrontation. It's obvious that the Security Council should not take any action that it is not capable of dealing with later because we will not refrain from our rights." Asefi also stated, "Suspension and pause is not on the agenda at all, and the Security Council should not do something that will get it into trouble later on," and "intervention by the Security Council in this issue is completely illegal."

Ahmadinejad reiterated, "If the signature of an international treaty threatens the rights of a nation, it will be of no value for that nation."

A few months later, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1696 which illegally called upon Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program. Four months after that, the Security Council passed its first round of sanctions against Iran, banning "the supply, sale or transfer, for the use by or benefit of Iran, of [nuclear-]related equipment and technology" and froze "the funds, other financial assets and economic resources" of key individuals and companies related to the enrichment program.

"Following the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1737 against Iran's nuclear activities, the Islamic Consultative Assembly discussed many possible options to show a proper reaction to the resolution, including a withdrawal from the NPT," said Kazem Jalali, Rapporteur of the Majlis' National Security and Foreign Policy Commission in early 2007. According to Fars News, Jalali added, "But a majority of the MPs supported a proposal on revising the country's attitude towards the International Atomic Energy Agency and accelerating the nuclear activities," continuing "Now that it is time for us to make use of our NPT rights, withdrawal from the treaty does not at all serve Iran's interests. Rather, we would like to view it as an option."

On September 29, 2009, Reuters reported that, in advance of renewed negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 in Geneva, "conservative hard-liner" Mohammad Karamirad, another member of the Foreign Affairs and National Security commission, declared, "If the Zionists and America continue their pressure on Iran and if the talks...do not reach a conclusion, then parliament will take a clear and transparent position, such as Iran's withdrawal from the NPT." Nevertheless, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's atomic energy organization, told reporters, "We are acting in the framework of the NPT. We are committed to our commitments."

Two months later, in late November 2009, after the IAEA passed a resolution censuring Iran, Karamirad repeated his warning: "The parliament, in its first reaction to this illegal and politically motivated resolution, can consider the issue of withdrawing from the NPT."

On June 17, 2010, despite another round of UN sanctions, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani stated, "The western countries' reactions should not make us angry and cause our withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)," adding that, at this time, "I think we should not withdraw from the IAEA or the NPT. We must provide the grounds for implementing the rules by strengthening them instead."

And now, another year, another IAEA report, more Israeli threats and American concern, a repeated Iranian call to withdraw from the NPT and frenzied hand-wringing and finger-wagging from the media.

Pretty boring, huh?

*****

UPDATE:

November 13, 2011 - A report from PressTV quotes another Majlis minister, a member of the parliament's presiding board, Mohammad-Hossein Farhangi as saying, "withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty seems to be more advantageous than remaining an NPT signatory and an International Atomic Energy Agency member," according to the official Majlis news agency, ICANA.

Due to the politicized nature of the IAEA and especially the recent report on Iran's nuclear program, Farhangi wondered, "Under such circumstances, what benefit does IAEA membership have for member states which have become signatories to the NPT? Isn't withdrawing from the NPT more beneficial?”

*****

The Iran Attack That Will Never Happen:Perennial Threats, Permanent Bluff

2011-11-10T14:43:00.026-05:00

It's been rough month for Iran hawks.

After the Justice Department's recent sensationalized announcement of an outlandish Iranian plot to enlist a bumbling former used-car salesman in Texas to hire a notorious Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington D.C., seasoned Iran watchers alongside major news outlets viewed the allegations with suspicion and openly doubted the veracity of such claims due to the plot's Clouseauesque implausibility.

When no national outrage followed the ridiculous assassination plot story, pundits and politicians for a military confrontation with the Islamic Republic quickly turned their attention to hyping a new report on the Iranian nuclear program issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In advance of the report's release, The Washington Post's neoconservative, Likudnik blogger Jennifer Rubin quoted war-booster Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies as telling her that "[Iranian head of state] Ali Khamenei appears to have decided that a nuclear bomb is a guarantor of regime survival and seems in no mood to compromise," adding that the new IAEA report "suggests that Iran is now on the brink of nuclear capability." Rubin herself wrote that the United States is now "on the verge of a national-security calamity. Soon, it seems, we’ll be presented with a choice: Accept a nuclear-armed Iran or take military action."

Once the report was leaked to the public by a well-connected Washington think tank it became clear that IAEA had no new information with which to implicate an active Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Julian Borger of The Guardian wrote,

There is something a little phoney about all the sound and fury. There is nothing in the report that was not previously known by the major powers. The West and Israel supplied most of the original tip-offs for the annex on weapons development, while Russia was briefed and no doubt knew one of its own scientists had been lecturing the Iranians on how to make explosive implosion devices (ostensibly for making tiny diamonds).

Former CIA officer and Georgetown professor Paul Pillar called the report a "yawner." In an article, published on November 9 in The Christian Science Monitor, Scott Peterson explains that "much of the information is years old, inconclusive – and perhaps not entirely real," and quotes American nuclear engineer and former IAEA inspector Robert Kelley as saying, "It's very thin, I thought there would be a lot more there. It's certainly old news; it's really quite stunning how little new information is in there." Kelley describes the IAEA report as a "real mish-mash" that includes some "amateurish analysis," concluding that the agency's efforts to "misdirect opinion shows a bias towards their desired outcome...That is unprofessional."

Peterson also notes comments by Shannon Kile, head of the Nuclear Weapons Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) who says, "there is no evidence [the Iranians] have a dedicated [nuclear weapons] program under way. It's not like they are driving toward nuclear weapons; it's like they're meandering toward capability."

But that hasn't stopped the Bomb Iran crowd from foaming at the mouth. Simon Henderson of the AIPAC-affiliated Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) believes "the IAEA report should serve to shift the public debate from whether Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, to how to stop it." Former Israeli army corporal and Iraq invasion booster Jeffrey Goldberg, writing for Bloomberg View, claimed the IAEA offered "further proof that the Iranian regime is bent on acquiring nuclear weapons."

Analysts for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments claim, "Iran might have both the technology and material to build a nuclear bomb in a matter of months" and suggest "the United States faces the difficult decision of using military force soon to prevent Iran from going nuclear, or living with a nuclear Iran and the regional fallout." Their recommendation: "Obama should take out Iran's nuclear program...before it's too late."

Predictably, former and current Senators of both parties, most House Representatives (past and present) along with most GOP presidential candidates, have recently threatened to begin a war with Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

In an opinion piece published today in The Wall Street Journal, Mitt Romney('s war-crazy cabal known as his "foreign policy team") writes, "Iran is making rapid headway toward its goal of obtaining nuclear weapons," and threatens Iran with "a very real and very credible military option" if he becomes president, promising to "restore the regular presence of aircraft carrier groups in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf region simultaneously" and "increase military assistance to Israel and coordination with all of our allies in the region."

The Wall Street Journal also published an editorial that unequivocally called for war in one of the most despicable displays of propaganda and lies of all time. After claiming, erroneously, that the new IAEA report "lays to rest the fantasies that an Iranian bomb is many years off, or that the intelligence is riddled with holes and doubts, or that the regime's intentions can't be guessed by their activities," and declared that "[t]he serious choice now before the Administration is between military strikes and more of the same. As the IAEA report makes painfully clear, more of the same means a nuclear Iran, possibly within a year." The editors determine, "No U.S. President could undertake a strike on Iran except as a last resort, and Mr. Obama can fairly say that he has given every resort short of war an honest try."

Editorials in both the The New York Times ("The Truth About Iran") and The Washington Post ("Running out of time") endorsed the IAEA's insinuations without the slightest hint of skepticism or scrutiny.

The Times called the report "chillingly comprehensive," curiously praised its "its meticulous sourcing" (one hundred percent of which is anonymous and unvetted), and called upon the UN Security Council to "to quickly impose a new round of even tougher sanctions on Iran." Clearly having learned a thing or two from its shameful reporting in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the Times' editors commendably note that "a military attack would be a disaster — and the current saber-rattling from Israel should make everyone nervous."

The Post, drawing conclusions that are actually rejected in the report itself, stated that "Iran's nuclear program has an explicit military dimension, aimed at producing a warhead that can be fitted onto one of the country's medium-range missiles." The so-called evidence, Post editors wrote, "ought to end serious debate about whether Tehran's program is for peaceful purposes," and spark serious contemplation about "what must be done to stop the program." While not overtly calling for military action (which they write "is not now justified" and "would only slow — not eliminate — Iran’s work on a bomb, while risking a conflagration in the Middle East"), the editorial warns that "the danger is growing, not diminishing," suggesting Iran is "at least a year or more away from completing" a bomb.

Tragically, even Ha'aretz's most rational and articulate commentator Gideon Levy believes the hype, lamenting in today's column, "Iran will apparently have an atom bomb, and that is very bad news."

The doomsday hysteria and call for military action that anticipated and followed the latest IAEA report is nothing new. In fact, we've been hearing these same dire warnings and aggressive threats relentlessly for nearly thirty years.

But even with all this bluster and alarmism, Iran is no closer today to being attacked by the United States or Israel than it was yesterday, last week, last year, or ten years ago. Quite simply, a military strike on Iran is not going to happen.

While pundits and politicians looking to score points push for escalation, decision makers in Tel Aviv and Washington appear much more cautious.

Recent comments by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Israel Radio, in response to the increasing bellicosity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, downplayed reports of a pending Israeli strike, calling such speculation "outlandish...baseless and divorced from reality." Back in May, the media went into a frustrated frenzy when former Mossad chief Meir Dagan referred to the possibility a future Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as "the stupidest thing I have ever heard."

Earlier this week, another ex-Mossad head Ephraim Halevy said that Iran is "far from posing an existential threat to Israel." Recent reports note numerous Knesset ministers - some of whom, like Moshe Yaalon, have close relations with Netanyahu - are opposed to a strike, along with giants of Israel's intelligence and military apparatus including IDF chief Benny Gantz, Mossad head Tamir Pardo, chief of military intelligence Aviv Kochavi and Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen.

Even more striking, however, is what Barak said later in the same radio interview about the potential consequences of such an attack, which recent reports have speculated would result in massive casualties. According to Reuters, Barak explained, "There is no way to prevent some damage. It will not be pleasant. There is no scenario for 50,000 dead, or 5,000 killed -- and if everyone stays in their homes, maybe not even 500 dead." This is one of the only times anyone, especially someone of Barak's political standing, has mentioned the true costs of war - human lives - though he makes clear he refers only to Israeli lives, not supposedly expendable Iranian ones. His comments speak more to what he sees as acceptable strategic casualties than any humanitarianism.

Still, the U.S. provided Israel with a shipment of previously-denied bunker-buster bombs in 2009, shortly after Barack Obama's inauguration and is planning on heavily arming its quisling puppet states in the Persian Gulf. Israel has recently conducted a series of military exercises and aerial drills in Europe and test-fired long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, of which Israel has at least 200. Such Israeli and American chest-thumping has been ongoing for years in an effort to intimidate Iran with a "credible military threat" that will never materialize.

As for the Obama administration’s response to the report, The National Journal quoted a senior administration official as saying, "The IAEA does not assert that Iran has resumed a full scale nuclear weapons program nor does it [demonstrate] how advanced the programs really are." Meanwhile, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters that "we need time to study it" before determining the next course of action.

Such a response is unsurprising. The U.S. military and intelligence community is well aware that Iran isn't Iraq or Afghanistan - it can actually defend itself and project retaliatory power well beyond its borders. In April 2010, Defense Intelligence Agency director Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess told the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, "Iran's military strategy is designed to defend against external threats, particularly from the United States and Israel. Its principles of military strategy include deterrence, asymmetrical retaliation, and attrition warfare."

The intelligence report delivered to Congress that day in conjunction with Burgess' testimony also revealed the assessment that Iran maintains a "defensive military doctrine, which is designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities," and followed that "Iranian military training and public statements echo this defensive doctrine of delay and attrition." This identical position was reaffirmed by Burgess' testimony in March 2011, during which he explained that, if attacked, "Iran could attempt to block the Strait of Hormuz temporarily with its navy, threaten the United States and its allies in the region with missiles, and employ terrorist [sic] surrogates worldwide. However, we assess Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict or launch a preemptive attack."

An attack on Iran would rapidly usher in the end of Israeli hegemony in the region and global American dominance. Clearly, neither the U.S. nor Israel will risk their hegemony in the region for a fight they can lose over allegations they know aren't true. They already did that once. And it didn't go well. An unprovoked, illegal assault on Iran would be incalculably worse.

Also, considering Russia and China no longer seem interested in "tougher sanctions" which they see as helping lay the groundwork for promoting violent regime change in Iran, the chance of any attack on Iran seems ever more far-fetched, regardless of what those pushing for military action might say.

So relax, everyone, no one's going to attack Iran.

*****

UPDATE: Today, Ha'aretz reports:

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that military action against Iran's contentious nuclear program could have unintended consequences, and ought to be a 'last resort'.

Panetta said he agreed with earlier assessments that a strike would only set Iran's nuclear program back by three years at most, adding that military action could fail to deter Iran and also have repercussions for other countries in the region and for U.S. forces based in the area.

*****

The New IAEA Report on Iran:An Initial Response to the Explosive Reactions...of the Press

2011-11-08T23:49:00.020-05:00

The leaking of the newest IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program has predictably sent the media into a fear-mongering frenzy.

The Jerusalem Post giddily reports that the IAEA says "the Islamic Republic was working to develop a nuclear-weapon design and was conducting extensive research and tests that could only be relevant for such a weapon."

The New York Times' Sanger and Broad published a story entitled "U.N. Agency Says Iran Data Points to A-Bomb Work," The Washington Post's Joby Warrick noted the exposure of "secret nuclear research by Iran," Reuters' Fredrik Dahl and Sylvia Westall reported that "Iran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be conducting secret research," Ha'aretz's Yossi Melman declared that "Iran has been working toward building a nuclear weapon since 2003," and Associated Press' George Jahn wrote that "the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency is its most unequivocal yet suggesting that Iran is using the cover of a peaceful nuclear program to produce atomic weaponry."

The Guardian writes that Iran "may be researching nuclear warhead", the BBC said Iran is "studying nuclear weapons", the Financial Times got in on the action by stating that "Iran has sought to design a nuclear warhead and has continued to conduct research on an atomic weapons programme," the Los Angeles Times reported that "credible evidence indicates Iran may be secretly working to develop a nuclear weapon," while CNN posted headline "Iran developing nuclear bombs," despite going on to report that the IAEA has "found no evidence that Iran has made a strategic decision to actually build a bomb."

Curiously, as of this writing, Commentary's Michael Rubin has so far stayed away from actually commenting on the report, posting only some excerpts from the document instead, and The Weekly Standard has yet to weigh in at all.

Anyone familiar with the history of IAEA reports on Iran will find very little in the way of revelation in the 13-page "bombshell" that everyone seems to be freaking out about. It's big on fluff, weak on substance.

Most of the allegations, described at great length and in minute detail, are are resurrected claims, the so-called "alleged studies documentation" - long known to rest somewhere on the spectrum of dubious to fabricated - gleaned from a mysterious, stolen laptop. Because of its questionable origin and authenticity, the IAEA has consistently shied away from giving such information much credence.

As a result, the agency has in the past been accused by "senior Western diplomats and Israeli officials" of "hiding data on Iran's drive to obtain nuclear arms." In response, IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire issued this statement:

Regrettably, time and again unidentified sources feed the media and Member States with misinformation or misinterpretation. This time around, there are articles claiming that the Secretariat is hiding information, and that there are sharp disagreements among staff members involved about the contents of the report. Needless to say, such allegations have no basis in fact.

On September 17, 2009, IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei published this press release:

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.

At the Board of Governors´ meeting on 9 September 2009, Director General Mohamed ElBaradei warned that continuing allegations that the IAEA was withholding information on Iran are politically motivated and totally baseless.

The Agency receives information from a variety of sources that may have relevance to the implementation of safeguards. All such information is critically assessed by a team of experts working collectively in accordance with the Agency´s practices.

The IAEA reiterates that all relevant information and assessments that have gone through the above process have already been provided to the IAEA Board of Governors in reports of the Director General.

In October 2009, the IAEA "admitted that some of the material in the now-infamous 'secret annex' about Iran's nuclear program exists, but claims it wasn't verifiable enough to release." Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy reported that "the classified information...was collected as part of the IAEA's annual volume on Iran but never made the final cut" due to the fact that IAEA authorities "decided they weren't confident in the authenticity of the information contained in the extra document, and they couldn't verify what that research had found."

Shortly thereafter, ElBaradei explained, "The IAEA is not making any judgment at all whether Iran even had weaponisation studies before because there is a major question of authenticity of the documents."

It appears that IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, the U.S.' man in Vienna, who in 2009 said, "I don't see any evidence in IAEA official documents about this," when asked whether he thought Iran was seeking nuclear weapons, has decided to change his mind. Maybe a secret visit to the White House less than two weeks ago "to meet top officials of the National Security Council about the coming report" had something to do with it.

For its part, the IAEA does its best to sound serious. By way of introducing the supposedly damning "Annex" section of its new report, the IAEA purports to having obtained "a large volume of documentation (including correspondence, reports, view graphs from presentations, videos and engineering drawings), amounting to over a thousand pages," documentation "of a technically complex and interconnected nature, showing research, development and testing activities over time."

The report concludes, "The information which serves as the basis for the Agency’s analysis and concerns, as identified in the Annex, is assessed by the Agency to be, overall, credible."

The insertion of the word "overall" and without going into specifics about which documents were verifiable and which were not is but one indication that the IAEA itself may not be wholly buying what it's trying to sell.

Additionally, at the beginning of certain subcategories of the detailed "Annex", the report gives brief explanations of various aspects of nuclear weaponization, information that one would expect any member of the IAEA Board of Governors to already know. For example, the section about "Nuclear components for an explosive device," opens with this tutorial: "For use in a nuclear device, HEU retrieved from the enrichment process is first converted to metal. The metal is then cast and machined into suitable components for a nuclear core." The next section, labeled "Detonator development," begins, "The development of safe, fast-acting detonators, and equipment suitable for firing the detonators, is an integral part of a programme to develop an implosion type nuclear device." The section marked, "Initiation of high explosives and associated experiments," explains that "Detonators provide point source initiation of explosives, generating a naturally diverging detonation wave. In an implosion type nuclear explosive device, an additional component, known as a multipoint initiation system, can be used to reshape the detonation wave into a converging smooth implosion to ensure uniform compression of the core fissile material to supercritical density," while the "Hydrodynamic experiments" section begins, "One necessary step in a nuclear weapon development programme is determining whether a theoretical design of an implosion device, the behaviour of which can be studied through computer simulations, will work in practice."

Introductions like these to sections heavy on technicalities and minutiae give the impression that the intended audience for this report is not a panel of experts and Agency ambassadors familiar with nuclear physics, but rather a malleable media and a gullibly alarmist public.

Whereas a lot of ground already covered regarding allegations of weapons research before 2003 is rehashed in the report, there is little in the way of new charges. In fact, the IAEA admits, "The Agency's ability to construct an equally good understanding of activities in Iran after the end of 2003 is reduced due to the more limited information available to the Agency."

The report cites information provided by two unnamed member states (Palau and Vanuatu, perhaps?) claiming that in 2008 and 2009, conducted studies involving "the modelling of spherical geometries, consisting of components of the core of an HEU nuclear device subjected to shock compression, for their neutronic behaviour at high density, and a determination of the subsequent nuclear explosive yield." The IAEA says "[t]he application of such studies to anything other than a nuclear explosive is unclear to the Agency."

Furthermore, one paragraph of the report states, "In an interview in 2007 with a member of the clandestine nuclear supply network, the Agency was told that Iran had been provided with nuclear explosive design information. From information provided to the Agency during that interview, the Agency is concerned that Iran may have obtained more advanced design information than the information identified in 2004 as having been provided to Libya by the nuclear supply network." (GOV/2011/65 C4.35)

If true (there are is no source material or footnoted reference available for this particular claim), it's curious to note that the same year, IAEA head Mohammad ElBaradei told the press in Washington D.C., "I have not received any information that there is a concrete active nuclear weapons program going on right now." Shortly thereafter, in February 2008, ElBaradei told the IAEA's 35-member Board of Governors, "We have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran's enrichment programme."

In September 2009, the IAEA "reiterated that the body has no concrete proof that Iran has or has ever had a nuclear weapons programme," and a month later, ElBaradei said, "I have been making it very clear that with regard to these alleged studies, we have not seen any use of nuclear material, we have not received any information that Iran has manufactured any part of a nuclear weapon or component. That's why I say, to present the Iran threat as imminent is hype."

One wonders what makes the 2007 interview with the "member of the clandestine nuclear supply network" so compelling now.

Despite all the allegations and supposed evidence found in the latest report, the IAEA still "continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs [locations outside facilities, all of which are situated within hospitals] declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement," as it has numerous times a year for nearly a decade. This verification, as affirmed in Article 2 of the IAEA's 1974 Safeguards Agreement with Iran, is the agency's "exclusive purpose" with respect to the Iranian nuclear program.

Overall, the release and subsequent fallout of this report, as has been the case so many years now with similar attempts to stoke fear about Iran, feels a lot like this scene from the 1983 John Landis film Trading Places, with the United States and Israel in the role of Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and Iran as Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy).

Unfortunately, it appears IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, whose independence and credibility may be irreparably damaged due to his decision to kowtow to Western demands and provide ample fuel to the warmongers' fire, is unaware that "it ain't cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving."

*****

UPDATE:

November 9, 2011 - A far more comprehensive and impressive analysis than mine has been written by the venerable Dr. Muhammad Sahimi over at Tehran Bureau.

These are also excellent breakdowns of the new IAEA report and renewed allegations:

b, Moon of Alabama

11.07.11 - On "Nuclear Iran" Allegations: Nanodiamonds Ain't Nuclear Bombs

11.08.11 - The New IAEA Report On Iran

11.09.11 - The IAEA Confirms My Nanodiamond Analysis

11.09.11 - The IAEA Report: A Dud With Little Consequences For Iran

Cyrus Safdari, IranAffairs

11.07.11 - Those "Alleged Studies" or "Possible Military Dimensions" in Iran

11.08.11 - Of "Soviet Nuclear Scientists" and "Steel chambers" - the "aluminum tubes" lie recycled for Iran?

11.08.11 - IAEA report on Iran: more of the same, more hype.

Jim White, Empty Wheel

11.08.11 - The Declining Credibility of the IAEA

Gareth Porter, IPS

11.09.11 - IAEA's "Soviet Nuclear Scientist" Never Worked on Weapons

*****

UPDATE II:

November 12, 2011 - A new innuendo-riddled Reuters article about a "shadowy military man believed to be at the heart of Iran's disputed atomic activities," just one more in the vast catalog of Fredrik Dahl reports that do their best to fear-monger about the Iranian nuclear program, contains one of the most inadvertently ironic and self-unaware sentences ever published in the mainstream press:

"He is a mystery man," an official, who declined to be named but is from a country which accuses Tehran of seeking to develop atomic bombs, said.

So, the anonymous "official" from a secret country that accuses Iran of nuclear weapons work (a country that no doubt has its own stockpile of about 400 unmonitored, undeclared nuclear warheads and has been tirelessly trying to scare the world about the looming specter of an atomic Iran for three decades) is calling an Iranian scientist a "mystery man"! How spooky!

Great work, Mr. Dahl, as usual.

*****

Rattling Sabers & Beating Drums:Fear-Mongering over Nuclear Iran Reaches a Fever-Pitch

2011-11-07T17:52:00.027-05:00

"Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

- Joseph C. Wilson IV, The New York Times, July 6, 2003

"Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."

- Oscar Wilde

[NOTE: It has been over ten months since I wrote, "The Phantom Menace: Fantasies, Falsehoods, and Fear-Mongering about Iran's Nuclear Program", a timeline of false U.S., Israeli, and European assertions regarding the supposed inevitability and immediacy of a nuclear-armed Iran, hysterical allegations that have been made repeatedly for the past thirty years.

Whenever new predictions and claims about Iran's nuclear program are released, I have added updates to my original piece. To read all past updates, click here. Culled from the past few months, here are some the latest.]

On June 17, 2011, U.S.News & World Report published a lengthy article by Purdue professor Louis René Beres and retired Air Force Gen. John T. Chain with the title "Israel's Options for Dealing With a Nuclear Iran." The writers claim that "Iran is closing in rapidly on full membership in the 'nuclear club'" and that "probably in the next two years, such membership can be conclusively confirmed." They then outline the various ways Israel could protect itself from an Iranian assault, completely ignoring the fact that Iran has never threatened Israel with attack, rather it's the other way around.

On August 22, 2011, speaking at a luncheon at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, Republican Senator and second-ranking member on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee James Inhofe declared, "We know - and it is not even classified for me to tell you today - that Iran will have the capability of delivering a weapon of mass destruction to western Europe and the eastern United States by 2015. I see that as the most imminent threat to this country right now. So that is a problem we are going to have deal with."

On August 28, 2011, Reuters, in an article quoting a senior Israeli defense official as saying that "Israel would not be able to halt Iran's reported quest for atomic weapons with a single strike," also reported, "Recent Israeli estimates do not show Iran developing nuclear weapons before 2015."

On September 6, 2011, the editors of The Washington Post claimed, "Iran has taken two more steps toward producing a nuclear weapon," before completely misrepresenting a new IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program. The editorial says Iran has "begun to use a new, more advanced centrifuge to enrich uranium, which could allow it to produce bomb-grade material in a much shorter time period, should it choose to do so" and is "creating a stockpile for which Tehran has no plausible legitimate use." It warns that, despite ongoing illegal actions (though not using those terms, of course) like industrial sabotage and assassinations, "the danger that Iran will become a nuclear power is growing, not diminishing," before declaring that "the grim reality is that Iran’s leaders have not been deterred from their goal of producing a weapon, and the project is making steady progress."

The Post also noted a study [PDF] by the Bipartisan Policy Center (a think tank established by U.S. senators) that warned of Iran acquiring the ability to produce enough highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in a mere 62 days, "a timeline that could fall to 12 days by the end of 2012."

Writing in The New Republic, Iran hysteric Greg Jones estimated "Iran can produce enough HEU for a nuclear weapon in about eight weeks from the time it decided to do so," a timeframe that would "shrink to only about four weeks by the end of next year, as Iran's enriched uranium stockpiles and enrichment capacity continue to increase." Jones concluded, "The international community has no choice but to already treat the Islamic Republic as a de facto nuclear state."

On September 14, 2011, Reuters reported that British Ambassador Simon Smith had told the IAEA's 35-nation governing board in Vienna, "The absence of a plausible economic or commercial rationale for so many of the nuclear activities now being carried out in Iran, and the growing body of evidence of a military dimension to these activities, give grounds for grave concern about Iran's intentions."

The same day, Jim Garamone of American Forces Press Service wrote that Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen told a gathering at the University of Miami, "Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons and wants regional hegemony in the Middle East."

On September 16, 2011, The New York Times published an editorial asserting that "Iran is still enriching uranium and refusing to come clean about its nuclear program." The editorial claimed, Iran has "greatly increased production of uranium to 20 percent purity instead of the 3.5 percent purity normally used to fuel nuclear power plants" which represents "a significant step closer to the 90 percent threshold required to make nuclear weapons fuel." The authors suggest the Obama administration should seek "even tougher punishments" than "sanctions and inducements" in order to get "Tehran's attention."

Barbara Slavin, writing for The Atlantic Council the same day in an article ominously entitled "As Iran Edges Closer to Nukes," states that although "Iran has not exactly been sprinting toward a bomb...the Iranian program – which Washington helped start in 1957 – is finally getting close to providing the wherewithal to make nuclear weapons." Slavin writes that Iran has amassed "enough material, if further enriched, for four or five nuclear weapons."

The following day, on September 17, 2011, Reuters reporter Frederik Dahl wrote of U.S. fears that "Iran and North Korea might covertly trade know-how, material or technology that could be put to developing atomic bombs." The report quotes Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as saying, "Were this traffic to be confirmed, that would deepen the suspicion that Iran is involved in nuclear activities which are clandestine and military in nature."

Speaking on panel on September 19, 2011, Mark Fitzpatrick, Director of Nonproliferation and Disarmament at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, opined that Iran "won't have [a nuclear weapon] tomorrow or next week or next month or a year from now," but noted that once Iran produces enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon, his assessment holds that it would take Iran "six months to weaponize."

Also on September 19, 2011, Reuters reported that during an IAEA meeting in Vienna U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu claimed, "Iran has continued to engage in a long-standing pattern of denial, deceit and evasion, in violation of its (nuclear) non-proliferation obligations," continuing, "Expanding, and moving underground, its enrichment to this level marks a significant provocation and brings Iran still closer to having the capability to produce weapons grade uranium." French Industry Minister Eric Besson was also quoted as telling the meeting that Iran's nuclear program "poses an unacceptable threat to the regime of non-proliferation and to regional stability," while the head of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission, Shaul Chorev told member states, "Israel has no doubt that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons."

On September 21, 2011, in advance of Barack Obama's speech to the United Nations General Assembly, war-mongering walrus John Bolton lamented in The National Interest that Iran has "marched inexorably forward with its nuclear weapons program."

Addressing the UN three days later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his most dire of warnings (which he's been making since at least 1995) about an Iranian nuclear weapon. "The greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction," he said, apparently unaware of the obvious irony of the leader of a self-described "Jewish State" claiming to speak on behalf of all Jewish people on the planet and colonizing Palestine on the pretense of a Biblical land deed and divine decree which has stockpiled upwards of 400 nuclear weapons yet refuses to official acknowledge their existence and preventing international monitoring and supervision. He continued, "The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons," and asked, "Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?"

David Albright of D.C. think tank Institute for Science and International Security and longtime Iran alarmist, was quoted in The Australian on September 26, 2011 as saying, "We believe if Iran broke out now they could have a bomb in six months," continuing, "They've done this right in front of our faces."

Reuters published an extensive analysis entitled "How close is Iran to the bomb?" on September 28, 2011 which noted, "Either Iran could build a nuclear bomb in a matter of months or it is unlikely to get such a weapon any time soon -- depending on which Western expert you talk to." In the article, Frederik Dahl writes that "Western-based analysts generally agree with their governments that Tehran is developing technology that could be used to make a bomb, but they disagree about just how close it is to success," citing various estimates from Greg Jones' two month timeline to Shannon Kile, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who said, "I just don't see how you can credibly say they are going to be eight weeks away or even 18 months away." The report states Mark Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), estimates "Iran could make a nuclear weapon in less than two years' time."

On October 3, 2011, writing in the Jerusalem Post, Yaakov Katz insisted, "As Iran continues its development of a nuclear weapon, Israel is growing more concerned that the Islamic Republic will embrace a policy of ambiguity, similar to the policy upheld in Israel regarding its own alleged nuclear capabilities." He added, "General assessments are that if it so decides, it would take Iran just a number of months for it to enrich a sufficient quantity of uranium to over the 90% that would be required for one nuclear device."

On October 4, 2011, Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported former Mossad chief Meir Dagan had told the Council for Peace and Security that "Iran's nuclear program was still far from the point of no return."

The same day, new U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was visiting Israel at the time, said during a press conference alongside his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak, "We are very concerned [about Iran] and the best approach for dealing with this threat is for all of us to make it clear to them that they cannot proceed on the path that they are on. We will work together to do whatever is necessary to make sure that they do not represent a threat to this region and it depends on countries working together."

On October 16, 2011, a New York Times report by David Sanger and Mark Lander stated, "President Obama is pressing United Nations nuclear inspectors to release classified intelligence information showing that Iran is designing and experimenting with nuclear weapons technology."

"Reza Kahlili," a former CIA spy claiming to have intimate knowledge of the Iranian nuclear program, wrote in The Washington Times on October 27, 2011, "The pressure the United States and the West is bringing to bear on Iran to keep it from acquiring nuclear weapons is all for naught. Not only does the Islamic Republic already have nuclear weapons from the old Soviet Union, but it has enough enriched uranium for more. What's worse, it has a delivery system."

"Kahlili" claimed that Mathew Nasuti, a former U.S. Air Force captain and State Department adviser, attended a March 2008 briefing in which a "Middle East expert" said "it was 'common knowledge' that Iran had acquired tactical nuclear weapons from one or more of the former Soviet republics" and also that "Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, an experienced intelligence officer and recipient of a Bronze Star, told me that his sources say Iran has two workable nuclear warheads." He also writes that Iran has "enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs," before calling for a military strike on Iran "before it's too late."

In a bizarre article, published in Ha'aretz on October 28, 2011, Louis René Beres, Leon Edney, and Thomas G. McInerney advocate for a coordinated, unprovoked military attack on Iran as an act of preemptive self-defense from "the genuinely existential risks posed in the 21st century by a nuclear Iran." The authors write that although "Israel is the country at greatest risk from Iranian nuclear weapons," the U.S. "is presently the only country that has the operational capability to undertake a successful preemptive mission to remove Iran's covert and illegal nuclear weapons program." The spooky conclusion is simple: "[I]f there is not an American defensive strike on Iran...[there will] be a fully nuclear Iran, led by irrational Shiite clerics." (Purdue professor Beres chaired Project Daniel in Israel, Edney was vice chief of U.S. naval operations, a NATO supreme allied commander and commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command, and McInerney served U.S. Air Force vice chief of staff, deputy chief of staff for operations and intelligence and vice commander-in-chief at the U.S. Air Force headquarters in Europe.)

The same day, the English-language website of Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Defense Ministry Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs Amos Gilad told students at Ashkelon College, "At the moment, there is no immediate nuclear threat, but there is definitely a great deal of motivation and determination for it," before noting, "Today the status is that they are at the starting point – they have uranium, they have the knowledge but they don't create (missiles) because of media publicity which is not initiated by them." Gilad declared, "The whole world is against the Iranians, the sanctions are effective, but it doesn't change Iran's strategic direction or their motivation. Iran is determined to obtain nuclear weapons and that is a major threat to Israel. If they achieve their goal it would be major game changer," as it would upset the current "balance of power" in the region.

During an October 30, 2011 interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC's This Week, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann claimed, "Iran has also stated they would be willing to use a nuclear weapon against the United States of America," despite the fact that fewer things could be further from the truth.

On October 31, 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again warned of an ongoing Iranian nuclear weapons program and told the Knesset, "A nuclear Iran poses a heavy threat to the entire world – and to Israel in particular."

A report by Ha'aretz on Netanyahu's push for an Israeli assault on Iran published on November 2, 2011, stated, "Western intelligence officials agree that Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear program. Intelligence services now say it will take Iran two or three years to get the bomb once it decides to (it hasn't made the decision yet )."

The same day, Damien McElroy and Alex Spillius of The Daily Telegraph claimed, "Iran is on course to build nuclear weapons, according to evidence compiled by United Nations inspectors." A new IAEA report, due out this week, "is likely to take the Middle East a step closer to a nuclear arms race," the report stated. The article, entitled "Iran making nuclear arms," included a quote from an unnamed Western diplomat declaring that the IAEA's upcoming assessment "makes an inescapable case that Iran has ambitions to militarise the uranium it has been enriching at its production facilities."

Another Daily Telegraph article, written the next day by Con Coughlin, stated that "Iran is on the verge of getting the Bomb," and called upon President Obama to "act," accusing him of failing to take "meaningful action...to curtail Iran's obsession with developing nuclear weapons." Coughlin claims the pending IAEA report "will demonstrate unequivocally that Iran is well on the way to acquiring nuclear weapons" and "will show that the country is seeking to engineer and test components that are only used in the production of nuclear weapons." According to Coughlin, "The inescapable conclusion is that, for all Tehran’s protestations that its nuclear intentions are entirely peaceful, the ayatollahs are close to achieving their long-held ambition of joining the exclusive club of nuclear-armed powers," a development he suggests will have "apocalyptic implications."

Also on November 3, 2011, Richard Norton-Taylor wrote in The Guardian, "The suggestion is that there is a 'window' now that would enable Israel on its own to strike Iran's nuclear sites. Next year, the 'window' would be left open to the US (and the UK) before Iran's nuclear weapons reached the point of no return."

Writing in Ha'aretz the same day, Ari Shavit waxed philosophically, "For the past decade it has been clear that we are facing an Iranian deadline. Time after time the deadline has been put off. But it is real and it is imminent. Unless an international miracle, or an interior-Iranian miracle takes place, we will reach the crossroads." Wondering whether Israel should "launch a military offensive or...emerge from nuclear ambiguity," Shavit worries, "If Israel is late to act in Iran, the implications could be critical to our survival. A nuclear bomb in the hands of fanatic Muslims could change our life entirely and could shorten our life span."

On November 5, 2011, a BBC report revealed that the IAEA "is planning to reveal evidence that Iran has been working secretly to develop a nuclear weapons capability, diplomats say," and that "the evidence is said to include intelligence that Iran made computer models of a nuclear warhead" along with "satellite images of what the IAEA believes is a large steel container used for high-explosives tests related to nuclear arms."

The Washington Post's Joby Warrick and Thomas Erdbrink wrote on November 6, 2011, "Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran's government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings." Warrick writes that according to ISIS's David Albright, "in 2003, Iranian scientists worked concurrently across multiple disciplines to obtain key skills needed to make and test a nuclear weapon that could fit inside the country’s long-range missiles." Furthermore, during a PowerPoint presentation, "Albright said IAEA officials, based on the totality of the evidence given to them, have concluded that Iran 'has sufficient information to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device.'"

Also on November 6, 2011, Israeli President Shimon Peres told AFP that "an attack on Iran" by Israel and other countries was "more and more likely," and that "The intelligence services of the different countries that are keeping an eye on (Iran) are worried and putting pressure on their leaders to warn that Iran is ready to obtain the nuclear weapon."

A report from Ha'aretz's Yossi Melman stated, "Iran is pursuing its nuclear weapons program at the Parchin military base about 30 kilometers from Tehran, diplomatic sources in Vienna say." The article continued, "According to recent leaks, Iran has carried out experiments in the final, critical stage for developing nuclear weapons - weaponization. This includes explosions and computer simulations of explosions. The Associated Press and other media outlets have reported that satellite photos of the site reveal a bus-sized container for conducting experiments."

The same day, November 6, 2011, The New York Times's resident fear-monger David Sanger published a lengthy article entitled "America's Deadly Dynamics With Iran" in which he claimed that, despite the recent covert war against the Islamic Republic conducted via computer viruses and murder of Iranian scientists, "The Iranians are digging their plants deeper underground, and enriching uranium at purities that will make it easier to race for a bomb. When Barack Obama was sworn into office, they had enough fuel on hand to produce a single weapon; today, by the I.A.E.A.'s own inventory, they have enough for at least four." Additionally, he quotes an unnamed "American official" as saying, "And there are reasons to wonder whether, in the end, this shadow war is simply going to delay the inevitable: an Iranian bomb or, more likely, an Iranian capability to assemble a fairly crude weapon in a matter of weeks or months." In what one can only hope is a ridiculously sloppy typo, Sanger also claims that the director of Iran's atomic energy program Fereydoon Abbasi, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt late last year, "travels the world offering assurances that Iran's interest in nuclear weapons is peaceful."

The following day, November 7, 2011, Sanger was back, this time with fellow alarmist William Broad, to report, "Details leaking out about an imminent report by United Nations weapons inspectors suggest they have the strongest evidence yet that Iran has worked in recent years on a kind of sophisticated explosives technology that is primarily used to trigger a nuclear weapon, according to Western officials who have been briefed on the intelligence," before adding, "But the case is hardly conclusive."

Also on November 7, 2011, The Washington Post's neoconservative, Likudnik blogger Jennifer Rubin quoted Iran hawk Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies as telling her that "[Iranian head of state] Ali Khamenei appears to have decided that a nuclear bomb is a guarantor of regime survival and seems in no mood to compromise," adding that the still unreleased IAEA report "suggests that Iran is now on the brink of nuclear capability."

With so much hysteria and hype, the IAEA report to be released this week will surely be anti-climactic. Iran has long stated that these allegations of nuclear weapons work are fabricated, a claim bolstered by the fact that the United States - which supplied the IAEA with the supposedly damning documents - has long refused to show original copies to either the IAEA or Iran.

Fever-pitched reports of an imminent Israeli attack have been surfacing in the press for decades. And, while both NATO and Russia have declared its opposition to a military strike on Iran, recent reports still raise the specter of a coordinated assault by Israel, the US, Britain, and France, supported by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf client states.

As the U.S. Congress follows AIPAC's lead to scuttle any chance for diplomacy in an ongoing effort to urge the Obama administration to attack Iran and a reported 41% of Israelis supportive of an assault by its own military, and the endless rhetoric declaring Iran an irrational, genocidal, suicidal martyr state fueled by "extreme fundamentalism," bellicose aggressor and "existential threat," it is instructive to recall - amidst the din of Western saber-rattling and beating Israel war drums - what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Al Jazeera correspondent during an interview in Tehran less than a month ago:

"We will never enter any war against the U.S. or against any other country. This is our policy...We have never attacked anybody. Why should we do that? Why should we start a war?"

Why indeed?

*****

Occupy Oakland & Mercenaries of the Oligarchy:The 99% vs. The Iron Heel

2011-10-26T00:42:00.038-04:00

"We are in power. Nobody will deny it. By virtue of that power we shall remain in power...We have no words to waste on you. When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns will our answer be couched. We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words--Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."

- Mr. Wickson, The Iron Heel by Jack London (1908), chapter 4

Jack London didn't just write tales of the Klondike Gold Rush and canine adventure stories. Sometimes he foretold the future. The above quote, written over a century ago and spoken by an aristocratic one-percenter in response to the rising tide of anti-plutocratic sentiment among the working class, is taken from London's dystopic novel, The Iron Heel.

The novel depicts a society of unregulated and unrestrained capitalism; a society of the impoverished and disenfranchised, the unemployed and the unrepresented, at the mercy of a tiny but ruthlessly aggressive corporate elite that controls the government. London describes the perception of "the great mass of the people [who] still persisted in the belief that they ruled the country by virtue of their ballots," when "[i]n reality, the country was ruled by what were called political machines. At first the machine bosses charged the master capitalists extortionate tolls for legislation; but in a short time the master capitalists found it cheaper to own the political machines themselves and to hire the machine bosses."

Furthermore, London delves into the deluded arrogance of the wealthy, stock-holding plutocrats, explaining, "They believed absolutely that their conduct was right. There was no question about it, no discussion. They were convinced that they were the saviours of society, and that it was they who made happiness for the many. And they drew pathetic pictures of what would be the sufferings of the working class were it not for the employment that they, and they alone, by their wisdom, provided for it." Later, he reiterates that "[t]he great driving force of the oligarchs is the belief that they are doing right. Never mind the exceptions, and never mind the oppression and injustice in which the Iron Heel was conceived. All is granted. The point is that the strength of the Oligarchy today lies in its satisfied conception of its own righteousness."

Clearly anticipating the recent talk of how important and benevolent "job-creators" are and how more equitable taxation policies would "punish success," London explains, "Out of the ethical incoherency and inconsistency of capitalism, the oligarchs emerged with a new ethics, coherent and definite, sharp and severe as steel, the most absurd and unscientific and at the same time the most potent ever possessed by any tyrant class."

At one point, London defines a political lobby as "a peculiar institution for bribing, bulldozing, and corrupting the legislators who were supposed to represent the people's interests" and excoriates journalists for their willingness, due to the fear of losing their jobs, "to twist truth at the command of [their] employers, who, in turn, obey the behests of the corporations." At one point, the "press in the United States" is described as "a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it." Likewise, London writes that Wall Street, "where was situated the stock exchange, and where the irrational organization of society permitted underhanded manipulation of all the industries of the country," deliberately "turned the stock market into a maelstrom where the values of all the land crumbled away almost to nothingness." Despite this economic turmoil, criminality and injustice, the Oligarchy remains terrifyingly "imperturbable, indifferent, and sure" in its "serenity and certitude." London foresees what we have recently witnessed: "Not only did it use its own vast power, but it used all the power of the United States Treasury to carry out its plans," later writing that "capture of the world-market by the United States had disrupted the rest of the world."

The revolutionary hero of the book, Ernest Everhard, at one point addresses an exclusive gathering of the local aristocracy known as The Philomath Club, consisting of "the wealthiest in the community, and the strongest-minded of the wealthy, with, of course, a sprinkling of scholars to give it intellectual tone." Everhard tells the crowd,

"No other conclusion is possible than that the capitalist class has mismanaged, that you have mismanaged, my masters, that you have criminally and selfishly mismanaged...You have failed in your management. You have made a shambles of civilization. You have been blind and greedy."

Later in the book, in a speech delivered in the halls of Congress, Everhard lambastes the delegates:

"You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy. You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel."

Jack London's The Iron Heel preceded Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here by about two and a half decades and George Orwell's 1984 by over 40 years. It anticipated the rise of totalitarianism in Europe over a decade before Mussolini's Blackshirts marched on Rome. In his Introduction to the 1980 edition of the book, Rutgers professor H. Bruce Franklin explains that London essentially defined Fascism before it even officially existed as "the form that the capitalist state assumes when the oligarchy feels that its economic and political power is seriously threatened by working class revolution."

Franklin proceeds to catalogue the brutal and authoritarian actions and abuses of The Iron Heel's ruling elite as envisioned by its prophetic author:

London foresees: the creation of attractive suburbs for the relatively privileged strata of the working class while the central cities are turned into what he calls "ghettoes" for the masses of unemployed and menial laborers, shoved into the darkest depths of human misery; the deliberate economic subversion of public education in order to spread illiteracy and ignorance; adequate food, health care, and housing priced above the reach of more and more people; the ubiquitous secret police infiltrating all organizations opposing the government; the establishment of a permanent mercenary army; the government conspiring in real and phony bomb plots, in the suppression of books and the destruction of printing presses, in witch hunts aimed at dissident labor leaders, professors, and authors, in destroying the reputations of some of its opponents, imprisoning many others and murdering the few it finds too formidable; spontaneous mass rebellions of the downtrodden people of the central cities; urban guerrillas battling the government's army of mercenaries and police in the canyons of the cities.

Clearly, from historic income inequality and over 15% of Americans living in poverty (that's 46.2 million people) to massive budget cuts for public education to FBI infiltration of peace groups to the ever-expanding surveillance state to the stifling of free speech to spooky terrorist plots allegedly thwarted by the very agencies that planned and funded them in the first place, Jack London was on to something. To say the least. The Occupy Wall Street movement around the globe is a testament to our new reality, as presaged by one of our renowned writers.

The Iron Heel is set primarily in California's Bay Area, London's home turf. Yesterday morning, Tuesday October 25, 2012, the non-violent, anti-corporatist protesters occupying two parks in Oakland met their own city's iron heel, jackboots in full riot-gear.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, "Under cover of darkness early Tuesday, hundreds of police swept into Oakland's Occupy Wall Street protest, firing tear gas and beanbag rounds before clearing out an encampment that demonstrators had hoped would stir a revolution," continuing, "Officers and sheriff's deputies from across the San Francisco Bay area surrounded the plaza in front of City Hall at around 5 a.m. and closed in. Eighty-five people were arrested, mostly on suspicion of misdemeanor unlawful assembly and illegal camping, police said." Reflecting on the raid and arrests which were carried out at the behest of Oakland mayor Jean Quan, interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said, "I'm very pleased with the way things went."

In response, thousands of protesters gathered later that same day and faced down a phalanx of Oakland's ~~Finest~~ Fascist, who responded by repeatedly attacking the crowd with more tear gas, batons, rubber bullets, beanbags, concussion grenades, flashbombs, and sound cannons. At one point, Oakland authorities, claiming the protest was "an unlawful assembly," issued this threat: "If you refuse to move now, you will be arrested. If you refuse to move now, chemical agents will be used" (see here) and later warned those peacefully standing their ground, "If you have respiratory problems now is the time to leave." They weren't kidding.

Despite protesters' solidarity appeals advancing riot police that "You are the 99%," Oakland forces carried out the bidding of the government on behalf of its Wall Street donors. Just as the NYPD, which last year accepted a massive $4.6 million donation from J.P. Morgan Chase via the New York City Police Foundation, the OPD has demonstrated its willingness to become the private army of the wealthy, abrogating free speech, freedom of assembly, and civil rights in order to crack down on peaceful protests against an unfair system. As London writes, "hired fighting men of the capitalists...ultimately developed into the Mercenaries of the Oligarchy" and later elaborates:

"The Plutocracy has all power in its hands today. It today makes the laws, for it owns the Senate, Congress, the courts, and the state legislatures. And not only that. Behind law must be force to execute the law. Today the Plutocracy makes the law, and to enforce the law it has at its beck and call the police..."

Meanwhile, as gas clouds wafted through the Oakland air, just across the bay in San Francisco, President Barack Obama was at a reelection fundraiser at the W Hotel for which guests shelled out at least $5,000 to attend. It was the latest stop on one of the president's "busiest donor outreach trips of the season." Last week, the Washington Post reported that "despite frosty relations with the titans of Wall Street, President Obama has still managed to raise far more money this year from the financial and banking sector than Mitt Romney or any other Republican presidential candidate."

It remains to be seen whether Obama addresses the police brutality and stifling of dissent that occurred just a few miles from where he dined with his donors, especially in light of what he had to say about the post-election protests and police response in Iran in mid-2009: "We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people." Earlier this year, Obama recalled what he termed the "peaceful protests...in the streets of Tehran, where the government brutalized women and men, and threw innocent people into jail."

In the speech he delivered upon accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Obama noted his apparent belief that "peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely" or "assemble without fear." He affirmed his support of "the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran," continuing, "It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear to these movements that hope and history are on their side."

Just last month, in front of the United Nations General Assembly, the president stated, "The Syrian people have shown dignity and courage in their pursuit of justice — protesting peacefully, standing silently in the streets, dying for the same values that this institution is supposed to stand for. And the question for us is clear: Will we stand with the Syrian people, or with their oppressors?"

One can only wonder if Obama will heed the words he spoke at the UN in September 2009, when he told world leaders, "The test of our leadership will not be the degree to which we feed the fears and old hatreds of our people. True leadership will not be measured by the ability to muzzle dissent, or to intimidate and harass political opponents at home. The people of the world want change. They will not long tolerate those who are on the wrong side of history."

Will the president remember what he said at the same podium a year later? "The arc of human progress has been shaped by individuals with the freedom to assemble and by organizations outside of government that insisted upon democratic change and by free media that held the powerful accountable," he declared.

Replying to Mr. Wickson's threats of violence and repression in order to maintain the Oligarchy's stranglehold on society, Ernest Everhard, noble protagonist of The Iron Heel, declares:

"We know, and well we know by bitter experience, that no appeal for the right, for justice, for humanity, can ever touch you. Your hearts are hard as your heels with which you tread upon the faces of the poor. So we have preached power. By the power of our ballots on election day will we take your government away from you."

With the Occupy movement growing stronger, more determined, fearless and united with every tear gas canister launched and each protester beaten, pepper sprayed, and arrested, it is surely a movement that can no longer be silenced or suppressed.

As Ernest's wife, fellow revolutionary, and narrator of The Iron Heel, Avis Cunningham Everhard asserts:

"The solidarity of labor is assured, and for the first time will there be an international revolution wide as the world is wide."

*****

UPDATE: On October 26, Bloomberg News reported on a dazzlingly self-unaware and absurd statement made by Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan last week at "a global town hall meeting" with the bank's employees.

"I, like you, get a little incensed when you think about how much good all of you do, whether it's volunteer hours, charitable giving we do, serving clients and customers well," Moynihan told the meeting, then addressing those protesting corporatocracy this way: "You ought to think a little about that before you start yelling at us."

Among the "good" that Bank of America has done is not paying any federal taxes in the past two years, "eliminating more than 30,000 jobs" and raising banking fees in an effort to cut costs and increase revenue to "help reverse a stock decline this year of more than 50 percent," not to mention being "ranked lowest in a 24-bank survey of small business customer satisfaction from J.D. Power and Associates this month" and being "named the country's second-worst company by Consumerist.com after BP Plc, the firm blamed for the worst U.S. offshore oil spill."

Furthermore, the ridiculous tone-deafness of Moynihan's comments once again call attention to how prescient Jack London's The Iron Heel was when published in 1908. When an inquiring young woman (the novel's narrator Avis Everhard) asks two wealthy businessmen and primary stock-holders of an industrial mill about the company's successful efforts to deny disability payments to an employee disfigured by heavy machinery, they dismiss her questions and instead sing their own praises. Avis describes their encounter (part of which was already quoted above) this way:

"I discovered that they had an ethic superior to that of the rest of society. It was what I may call the aristocratic ethic or the master ethic. They talked in large ways of policy, and they identified policy and right. And to me they talked in fatherly ways, patronizing my youth and inexperience. They were the most hopeless of all I had encountered in my quest. They believed absolutely that their conduct was right. There was no question about it, no discussion. They were convinced that they were the saviours of society, and that it was they who made happiness for the many. And they drew pathetic pictures of what would be the sufferings of the working class were it not for the employment that they, and they alone, by their wisdom, provided for it."

London, in a footnote, also quotes British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill from On Liberty: "Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority."

The patronizing sense of superiority oozing from Brian Moynihan's statement couldn't prove London and Mill more correct if they had written it themselves.

*****

UPDATE II:

A General Strike, A Work Holiday, and A Great National Picnic

"Who controls the government today? The proletariat with its twenty millions engaged in occupations? Even you laugh at the idea. Does the middle class, with its eight million occupied members? No more than the proletariat. Who, then, controls the government? The Plutocracy, with its paltry quarter of a million of occupied members."

- Ernest Everhard, The Iron Heel by Jack London (1908), chapter 9

October 27, 2011 - The connections between Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland in particular, and Jack London's prescient 1908 novel of popular, anti-capitalist revolution The Iron Heel continue to abound, and not just because Oakland, California is home to Jack London Square (currently, unoccupied).

Last night, at the Occupy Oakland encampment outside City Hall, thousands of attendees voted nearly unanimously in favor of a city-wide general strike to begin on November 2, 2011 in response to the repression and aggression of the Oakland Police Department (and elsewhere) that left many injured and one Iraq veteran in critical condition. Erik Oster of The Faster Times reports, "Of the 1,607 people subject to the vote, 1,484 voted in favor of the resolution, only 46 against it. 77 people abstained from voting."

The resolution, which has sent Oakland mayor Jean Quan into a spin-cycle, calls for "a city wide general strike and we propose to invite all students to walk out of school. Instead of workers going to work and students going to school, the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city. All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them."

Not coincidentally, the last major strike in U.S. history also happened in Oakland when, in the fall of 1946, "[f]aced with the continuing resistance of Oakland's retail merchants to unionization at Hastings and Kahn's department stores in downtown Oakland, 400 clerks from those stores went out on strike in late October."

The Oakland Museum of California recalls:

In early December, the strike escalated when store management, backed by Oakland's city government and conservative business elite, enlisted the aid of police to clear away pickets and protect strike-breaking delivery trucks. American Federation of Labor unions throughout Alameda County voted to strike in solidarity with the clerks. On December 3, 1946, 100,000 workers from 142 AFL unions -- including workers from factories, industries, services, retail stores, transportation systems and more -- declared a "work holiday" and walked off their jobs. The General Strike lasted until city and labor leaders settled on a compromise agreement, returning workers to their jobs on Dec. 5. In the months that followed, the populist Oakland Voters League brought together progressive factions in the city to elect four out of five labor candidates to the city council.

The upcoming Oakland strike has already initiated a call for a global strike in mid-May next year.

Though the specific circumstances varied, Jack London had predicted the 1946 strike by four decades. Describing the dire state of affairs in the country - and the world - London wrote, "The stage was set for a world-catastrophe, for in all the world were hard times, labor troubles, perishing middle classes, armies of unemployed, clashes of economic interests in the world-market, and mutterings and rumblings of the socialist revolution."

In order to divert attention away from civil unrest and increase dwindling military-industrial profits, the ruling Oligarchy of The Iron Heel forces the United States into war with Germany. London describes the beginning of the war this way: "On 4 December the American minister was withdrawn from the German capital. That night a German fleet made a dash on Honolulu, sinking three American cruisers and a revenue cutter, and bombarding the city. Next day both Germany and the United States declared war." (Remember, this was written 10 years before before World War I and three and a half decades - almost to the day - before the attack on Pearl Harbor)

The goals of the war are made clear: to "consume many national surpluses, reduce the armies of unemployed that menaced all countries, and give the Oligarchy a breathing space in which to perfect its plans and carry them out. Such a war would virtually put the Oligarchy in possession of the world-market."

Nevertheless, a General Strike called by anti-oligarchical revolutionaries in both Germany and the United States make it impossible for the war to proceed. Because of the plutocratic suppression of the middle and working classes, non-violent resistance grows. As London explains, "the general strike was a political strike." And it was effective:

Even the common laborers and all unorganized labor ceased work. The strike had tied everything up so that nobody could work. Besides, the women proved to be the strongest promoters of the strike. They set their faces against the war. They did not want their men to go forth to die. Then, also, the idea of the general strike caught the mood of the people. It struck their sense of humor. The idea was infectious. The children struck in all the schools, and such teachers as came, went home again from deserted class rooms. The general strike took the form of a great national picnic. And the idea of the solidarity of labor, so evidenced, appealed to the imagination of all. And, finally, there was no danger to be incurred by the colossal frolic. When everybody was guilty, how was anybody to be punished?

London writes of a country "paralyzed" wherein "not a train ran, not a telegraphic message went over the wires, for the telegraphers and railroad men had ceased work along with the rest of the population" and where "no wagons rumbling on the streets, no factory whistles, no hum of electricity in the air, no passing of street cars, no cries of news-boys--nothing but persons who at rare intervals went by like furtive ghosts, themselves oppressed and made unreal by the silence."

What London didn't predict (unsurprisingly) was the connectivity of instant communication and social media. He writes that, during the strike, "there were no newspapers, no letters, no dispatches" and that "[i]n San Francisco we did not know what was happening even across the bay in Oakland or Berkeley."

This time around, in the fall of 2011 rather than a fictionalized 1912, the whole world is watching.

*****

Plumbing the Depths of Deception:Nancy Scola Ignores the H2Occupation of Palestine

2011-10-19T19:34:00.017-04:00

An empty Palestinian agricultural reservoir
Jiftlik, Jordan Valley, West Bank, Palestine
© Amnesty International

An Israeli settlement swimming pool
Maaleh Adumim, West Bank, Palestine
© Angela Godfrey-Goldstein

"[It is] of vital importance not only to secure all water resources already feeding the country, but also to control them at their source."

- Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization and the first President of Israel, at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference

"And when I talk about the importance to Israel's security, this is not an abstract concept… It means that a housewife in Tel Aviv can open the tap and there's water running to it, and it's not been dried up because of a rash decision that handed over control of our aquifers to the wrong hands."

- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, May 17, 1998

"We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinians] never do return...The old will die and the young will forget."

- Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, July 18, 1948

"All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was."

- Toni Morrison

On October 18, The Atlantic published a lengthy article by Nancy Scola exploring the possible rationale for Texas Governor and terrible GOP Presidential nominee Rick Perry's deep and abiding affinity for Israel. Scola, after citing potential reasons such as "the religious affinities of a conservative Christian" and "a shared fighting spirit" (in addition to "oil", which is odd considering there's no oil in Palestine) for Perry's affection and admiration, suggests a different explanation:

In 2009, Perry told the Jerusalem Post that part of the Texas-Israel "connection that goes back many years" included the reality that "Israel has a lot we can learn from, especially in the areas of water conservation and semi-arid land." It raised the possibility that at the root of Perry's deep commitment and professed connection to Israel doesn't lie in what Texas has in abundance -- oil, faith, orneriness -- but what it lacks: water.

Scola goes on to explain that, when he was Texas agriculture commissioner in the 1990's, "Perry helped to lead the Texas-Israel Exchange, a program that aims to transfer knowledge between the two lands, where farming is a way of life but the water to do it with is often difficult to come by" and draws an environmental and hydrogeological parallel between the two regions. "Texas' mountain aquifers have their equivalent in Israel's karst aquifers," she writes, before quoting UT professor and water expert David Eaton as saying, "Israel doesn't have enough water, but they've figured out how to succeed."

Among the ways Scola describes Israel's victory over water scarcity through "a variety of technologies to try to squeeze the maximum possible water from dry land" are "projects focused on water reclamation -- that is, using treated waste water, including sewage, to irrigate, cool, or in manufacturing processes."

What Scola omits - and considering she devotes considerable space (nearly 2,000 words) to this issue, the omission can not be anything but willful and deliberate - is Palestine. In fact, the word itself never appears in the entire article, nor is the 44-year occupation and blockade that controls Palestinian lives each and every day.

The reason this omission is so glaring is because over 60% of Israel's fresh water supply comes from Palestinian aquifers in the West Bank, illegally seized in 1967 after a conflict instigated by Israel and subsequently controlled exclusively by the Israeli government and military in occupied Palestine.

An October 2009 report by Amnesty International entitled "Troubled Waters – Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water" notes that, in 1967, "Israel forcibly took control of water resources and imposed significant changes in the area's water sector. This included extracting large quantities of groundwater and diverting surface water for its own benefit, while preventing access by the local Palestinian population to these same resources."

In 1982, then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon transferred all West Bank water systems to the Israeli national water company Mekorot for the nominal price of one shekel. A decade later, the Oslo accords established a (so-called) Joint Water Management Committee, granting Israel a veto over all water resources, facilities and infrastructure in the West Bank.

Amnesty reveals that "[d]uring more than four decades of occupation of the Palestinian territories Israel has overexploited Palestinian water resources, neglected the water and sanitation infrastructure in the OPT, and used the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories] as a dumping ground for its waste – causing damage to the groundwater resources and the environment" and that "Israeli policies and practices in the OPT, notably the unlawful destruction and appropriation of property, and the imposition of restrictions and other measures which deny the Palestinians the right to water in the OPT, violate Israel's obligations under both human rights and humanitarian law."

The report's introduction states:

Lack of access to adequate, safe, and clean water has been a longstanding problem for the Palestinian population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Though exacerbated in recent years by the impact of drought-induced water scarcity, the problem arises principally because of Israeli water policies and practices which discriminate against the Palestinian population of the OPT. This discrimination has resulted in widespread violations of the right to an adequate standard of living, which includes the human rights to water, to adequate food and housing, and the right to work and to health of the Palestinian population.

The inequality in access to water between Israelis and Palestinians is striking. Palestinian consumption in the OPT is about 70 litres a day per person – well below the 100 litres per capita daily recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) – whereas Israeli daily per capita consumption, at about 300 litres, is about four times as much. In some rural communities Palestinians survive on far less than even the average 70 litres, in some cases barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended by the WHO for emergency situations response.

Access to water resources by Palestinians in the OPT is controlled by Israel and the amount of water available to Palestinians is restricted to a level which does not meet their needs and does not constitute a fair and equitable share of the shared water resources. Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the only source of underground water in the OPT, as well as all of the surface water available from the Jordan River of which Palestinians are denied any share.

The stark reality of this inequitable system is that, today, more than 40 years after Israel occupied the West Bank, some 180,000 – 200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities there have no access to running water and even in towns and villages which are connected to the water network, the taps often run dry. Water rationing is common, especially but not only in the summer months, with residents of different neighbourhoods and villages receiving piped water only one day every week or every few weeks. Consequently, many Palestinians have no choice but to purchase additional supplies from mobile water tankers which deliver water at a much higher price and of often dubious quality. As unemployment and poverty have increased in recent years and disposable income has fallen, Palestinian families in the OPT must spend an increasingly high percentage of their income – as much as a quarter or more in some cases – on water.

In the Gaza Strip, the only water resource, the southern end of the Coastal Aquifer, is insufficient for the needs of the population but Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the West Bank to Gaza. The aquifer has been depleted and contaminated by overextraction and by sewage and seawater infiltration, and 90-95 per cent of its water is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Waterborne diseases are common.

The report also documents how "[s]tringent restrictions imposed in recent years by Israel on the entry into Gaza of material and equipment necessary for the development and repair of infrastructure have caused further deterioration of the water and sanitation situation in Gaza, which has reached crisis point," causing both "water shortages and poor sanitation services" throughout occupied Palestine.

"Since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967," Amnesty reports, "it has denied its Palestinian inhabitants access to the water resources of Jordan River, preventing them from physically accessing the river banks and diverting the river flow upstream into Lake Kinneret/Tiberias/Sea of Galilee." Furthermore, "As well as depriving the Palestinians of a crucial source of water, the drying up of the Jordan River has had a disastrous impact on the Dead Sea, which has seen the fastest drop in its water level to an unprecedented low."

Consequently, without access to the Jordan, the Mountain Aquifer is the only remaining source of water for Palestinians in the West Bank. Still, despite having two other main water resources (Lake Kinneret/Tiberias/Sea of Galilee and the Coastal Aquifer), Israel "limits the amount of water annually available to Palestinians from the Mountain Aquifer to no more than 20 per cent, while it has continued to consistently overextract water for its own usage far in excess of the aquifer's yearly sustainable yield. Moreover, much of Israel's over-extraction is from the Western Aquifer, which provides both the largest quantity and the best quality of all the shared groundwater resources in Israel-OPT."

Clearly, the miracle of Israeli ingenuity that so enamors Rick Perry and impresses Nancy Scola is not so much technological advancement as it is illegal military occupation and heavily-armed dominance over Palestinian land and resources.

Yet, Israel not only appropriates and exploits Palestinian water supplies ("regardless of the consequences that this disproportionate and unfair division has for the Palestinian population in the OPT and its impact on Palestinians' human rights," says Amnesty) through its past and continual colonization, illegal annexation of land via the Apartheid Wall (which has isolated at least 39 groundwater wells from their Palestinian communities with more wells threatened for demolition in the Wall's "buffer zone"), and ethnic cleansing of indigenous populations, it also deliberately destroys what resources Palestinians still have.

During Israel's three-week Gaza massacre in the winter of 2008-9, the Israeli military "destroyed more than 30 kilometres of water networks – the equivalent of more than double the width of the strip at its widest – and 11 water wells," reports the Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene group (EWASH), a coalition of 30 leading humanitarian organizations operating in occupied Palestine.

Israeli forces also "carried out a strike against a wall of one of the raw sewage lagoons of the Gaza wastewater treatment plant, which caused the outflow of more than 200,000 cubic metres of raw sewage onto neighbouring farmland," reported the UN Fact-Finding Mission. The Goldstone Report continued,

The circumstances of the strike suggest that it was deliberate and premeditated. The Namar wells complex in Jabaliyah consisted of two water wells, pumping machines, a generator, fuel storage, a reservoir chlorination unit, buildings and related equipment. All were destroyed by multiple air strikes on the first day of the Israeli aerial attack. The Mission considers it unlikely that a target the size of the Namar wells could have been hit by multiple strikes in error. It found no grounds to suggest that there was any military advantage to be had by hitting the wells and noted that there was no suggestion that Palestinian armed groups had used the wells for any purpose.

The Mission determined that this assault ("carried out...unlawfully and wantonly") on water facilities constituted "a violation of the grave breaches provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention," explaining, "Unlawful and wanton destruction which is not justified by military necessity amounts to a war crime" and that such deliberate destruction "was carried out to deny sustenance to the civilian population, which is a violation of customary international law and may constitute a war crime."

Nearly three years after the bombardment of Gaza, the consequences of such war crimes are still devastating.

In March 2011, EWASH notes, "the Khuza’a municipality warehouse was hit by an airstrike destroying a large quantity of essential water and sanitation materials and spare parts to the value of over US$ 60 000. In April, the Al-Mintar water reservoir in Al-Quba area of Gaza City was hit leaving 30 000 people in eastern Gaza city with no water for three days." In mid-July 2011, "an Israeli airstrike destroyed an agricultural well in the eastern part of Beit Hanoun," injuring seven civilians including four children and three women. "The strike also caused damage to nine water tanks belonging to five households in the adjacent neighbourhood, serving 59 people," the report continues.

Whereas the destruction of water facilities in Gaza is the result of Israeli policies of deliberate deprivation and collective punishment, Israeli military actions in the continually colonized West Bank serve a different purpose. Amnesty reports, "[t]he Israeli army's destruction of Palestinian water facilities – rainwater harvesting and storage cisterns, agricultural pools and spring canals - on the grounds that they were constructed without permits from the army is often accompanied by other measures that aim to restrict or eliminate the presence of Palestinians from specific areas of the West Bank."

In the past two years, EWASH has documented "the destruction of 100 water, sanitation and hygiene structures, 44 cisterns, 20 toilets and sinks, 28 wells. This year alone, 20 cisterns have been destroyed," The Guardian reports. "Most of this is happening in Area C, which is under full Israeli military control." Israeli Occupation soldiers often shoot at vitally-needed Palestinian water tanks.

On December 14, 2010, Israeli occupation authorities demolished eleven water cisterns dug by Bedouin in the South Hebron Hills. Ha'aretz reported that "[t]he move, intended to push Bedouin off IDF firing ranges, left dozens of families in the region with no water for their sheep and livestock."

In March 2011, AFP reported that "Israeli troops have destroyed three water wells belonging to Palestinian villagers living near a sprawling Jewish settlement outside Hebron." Later that same month, Israeli authorities destroyed "an ancient water well and reservoir southeast of Bethlehem used by Palestinian Bedouin shepherds as their main sources of water."

On July 5, 2011, it was reported that "a convoy of Israeli Army, civil administration, and border police arrived in the Palestinian village of Amniyr accompanying a flat bed truck with a front end loader and a backhoe. Israeli settlers having a picnic at the settlement outpost next to the Susiya archaeological site looked on as the army destroyed nine large tanks of water and a tent." It was the fifth time this year.

Just one week ago, WAFA, the Palestinian News and Info Agency, reported, "The Israeli authorities Thursday handed a number of Palestinian farmers demolition orders of several water wells and green houses and stopped construction work of rehabilitating an agricultural road in an area in Kufr Al-Deek, a town in Salfit," according the town's mayor.

Drilling new wells and rehabilitating existing wells is prohibited in the West Bank without the authorized consent of the Israeli occupiers and Mekorot, Israel's National Water Company, routinely disrupts the flow of water to Palestinian land that relies on irrigation. Meanwhile, as Palestinians are "denied access to an equitable share of the shared water resources and are increasingly affected by the lack of adequate water supplies, Israeli settlers face no such challenges - as indicated by their intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools. The 450,000 Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million."

In her Atlantic column, Nancy Scola addresses none of these issues. Instead, she notes that many state governments in the U.S. have business partnerships with the State of Israel, noting that "the exchange between the state of Texas and the state of Israel is generally considered the oldest such relationship, and it is certainly one of the most robust."

Scola also quotes from a 1996 op-ed Rick Perry wrote for the Austin American-Statesman, in which he "bragged about teaming up with Israel, 'a country known for using technology to turn a desert into an agricultural oasis of productivity.'" This pernicious myth of "Desert-Bloomism", while articulated by Perry, is allowed to stand on its own, unchallenged, in Scola's article.

While Scola suggests Rick Perry's love affair with Israel may be based on a shared lack of water, it is abundantly clear that the common ground between the Texas governor and the Israeli government has far more to do with a shared lack of humanity.

*****

An earlier version of this post referred, at times, to the author of the Atlantic article as "Naomi Scola" rather than "Nancy Scola." My sincere apologies for the silly typos, Nancy.

*****

UPDATE:

January 17, 2012 - Israeli news outlet Ha'aretz reports today:

The French parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee published an unprecedented report two weeks ago accusing Israel of implementing "apartheid" policies in its allocation of water resources in the West Bank.

The extensive, 300-plus page French report was researched and written by Jean Glavany, a Socialist Party parliament minister, who has previously held posts as agriculture minister and cabinet secretary for past administrations. According to Ha'aretz, Glavany was assigned by the Foreign Affairs Committee "to report on the geopolitical impact of water in confrontation zones throughout the world" and had "visited Israel and the Palestinian territories on May 17-19 of last year" where he "met with several senior government officials, including Energy and Water Resources Minister Uzi Landau and Water Commissioner Uri Shani," both of whom were aware of his commission.

Ha'aretz reveals:

The report said that water has become "a weapon serving the new apartheid" and gave examples and statistics that ostensibly back this claim.

"Some 450,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians that live there," the report said. "In times of drought, in contravention of international law, the settlers get priority for water."

[...]

The report states that water is not allocated fairly to West Bank Palestinians and that Palestinians have no access to the territory's underground aquifers. Glavany said Israel was perpetrating a "water occupation" against the Palestinians.

"Israel's territorial expansion is seen as a 'water occupation' of both streams and aquifers," the report said.

It also said that "the separation wall being built by Israel allows it to control access to underground water sources" and to "direct the flow of water westward."

The report accused Israel of "systematically destroying wells that were dug by Palestinians on the West Bank," as well as of deliberately bombing reservoirs in the Gaza Strip in 2008-09. It also claimed that "Many water purification facilities planned by the Palestinian Water Ministry are being 'blocked' by the Israeli administration."

The Israeli government is furious with the Israeli embassy staff in Paris for not being aware of the report and working to undermine, spin, or alter its conclusions. Not a single point of fact has been refuted or questioned in the report; rather, the Israeli reaction has been simply to throw a fit that the truth is being published despite its best efforts to obfuscate and distract.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry criticized the its Paris-based diplomats for not "attempt[ing] to get a draft copy of the report so as to ensure that its conclusions were not overly harsh. Nor were Israel's allies on the French Foreign Affairs Committee contacted to ascertain whether the report could be moderated," Ha'aretz reports. Boohoo.

It's clear that it is getting increasingly more difficult for Israel to whitewash its deliberately discriminatory occupation policies.

*****

UPDATE II:

January 17, 2012 - The Israeli Foreign Ministry is in full damage-control mode and is continuing to whine and get their hasbara trolls out in force to mitigate the fallout from the Apartheid charge.

Today, from The Jerusalem Post:

Without a doubt, however, labeling Israel’s policies “apartheid” is an idea “not connected to reality,” Prof. Haim Gvirtzman of Hebrew University’s Earth Science Institute told The Jerusalem Post.

A new study by Gvirtzman, “Myths and Facts in Israeli-Palestinian Water Conflict,” was likewise released on Tuesday by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, in which the professor refutes claims that Israel is denying West Bank Palestinians their water rights.

“It is just the opposite of apartheid,” he told the Post, stressing that since Israel gained control over the area from Jordan, it has connected more than 700 villages to running water. “Apartheid is just imagination.”

*****

UPDATE III:

January 18, 2012 - Ben White, blogging for The Electronic Intifada, has posted a translation of the section of the French parliamentary report on water and geopolitics specifically devoted to the Apartheid issue of Israeli control over water resources in the West Bank.

After a brief overview of the South African version of Apartheid, the report states, "It is thus crystal clear, despite the fact that those who dare to use the word are few and far between, that the Middle East is the scene of a new form of apartheid." It courageously continues,

The segregation is racial but, since no one dares to say so, it is described chastely as "religious". But can the demand for a "Jewish" state really be described as purely religious?

Segregation is also spatial, a fact best symbolised by the wall built to separate the two communities...

[...]

The segregation is also haughty and contemptuous ("those people are irresponsible"...is an oft repeated mantra of some Israeli authorities), harassing and humiliating (the passage of checkpoints is rendered more stringent or more relaxed without warning) or even violent (the suppression of demonstrations regularly results in fatalities...).

Hence it definitely constitutes a "new apartheid".

[...]

Since the beginning of the conflict, from war to war, Israel's "territorial expansion" has been comparable, whether one likes it or not, to "water conquests" encompassing both rivers and aquifers.

And the fact is that water in the Middle East has become more than a resource: it is now a weapon.

The report notes that "450,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians," adding that "when a drought occurs, priority is given to settlers in breach of international law; the wall makes it possible to control access to underground water sources and prevents Palestinians from drawing water in the 'buffer zone' in order to facilitate the flow of water westwards; the 'wells' dug spontaneously by Palestinians in the West Bank are systematically destroyed by the Israeli army; [and] in Gaza water reservoirs were targeted by Israeli bombs in 2008-2009..."

*****

Wall Street's Mike vs. The People's Mic:A Mayor, A Movement, and a Great Divide

2011-10-08T14:47:00.061-04:00

"I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816

As Occupy Wall Street protests, demonstrations, and actions grow exponentially, expanding to hundreds of locations all over the world, New York City's billionaire philosopher king Mike Bloomberg has doubled down on his disdain for those occupying Liberty Plaza and the mass globalized mobilization movement they inspired and represent.

For the second week in a row, Bloomberg took to the airwaves on John Gambling's WOR radio show this past Friday and spouted nonsense about the occupiers and their motives. "The protests that are trying to destroy the jobs of working people in this city aren't productive," he told listeners. "What they're trying to do is take away the jobs of people working in the city, take away the tax base that we have." He lambasted labor unions for recently joining the fight with a smug don't bite the hand that feeds you-meets-the more you know comment. The salaries of municipal workers, he said, "come from - are paid by - some of the people they're trying to vilify," suggesting that if the financial industry were to become more equitable, "we're not going to have money to pay our municipal employees."

According to Mayor Mike, the goal of Occupy Wall Street is to "driv[e] the banks out of New York City," which is odd considering he has yet to attend the nightly 7pm General Assembly in the park or speak personally to any of the protesters. He would surely search the "Declaration of the Occupation of New York City" in vain for such a demand.

"Everyone's got a thing they want to protest, some of which is not realistic," Bloomberg said. "Some are legit, some aren't," he added.

The mayor's comments, CNN noted, "coincided with the city's announcement that 700 education workers will be laid off in an effort to close a budget gap. They also follow recently released census data that shows New York's poverty level has increased to 20.1%, the highest in more than a decade." The school aide, parent coordination, and public support jobs eliminated Friday were part of "one of the largest single-agency layoffs since Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office," the Associated Press reported, adding, "Unions representing the workers denounced the layoffs, saying most of the job losses would affect poorer communities that are already in need of critical social services."

Luckily for the mayor, the editors of the New York Daily News - a paper run by billionaire real estate tycoon Mort Zuckerman - had his back Friday, claiming that "in the real world, 700 school aides are slated to lose jobs because taxes from big, hated Wall Street have fallen through the floor and the unions refuse concessions." The editorial also declared, "The NYPD responded with admirable restraint when hundreds of demonstrators tried to breach a police line after Wednesday's big march," adding:

Some protesters have determined that their best hope of staying in the public eye is to provoke police action before cameras and cry victim.

Videos from the other night and the Daily News front page showed cops taking ground in a melee with a pepper-spray squirt and less-than-bruising whacks of nightstick on a backpack.

To gauge how mild it all was, the whimperers should Google videos of Chicago police outside the 1968 Democratic convention. Those protesters had both grounds for complaint and a cause that was at least coherent.

Readily available video of Wednesday night's clearly shows the kind of gentle love-taps the NYPD graciously bestowed upon protesters who mistakenly thought they had a right to walk on their own city's streets. Of course, this kind of commentary is unsurprising for an editorial board that routinely justifies - if not, glorifies - Israeli war crimes and the willful murder of peace activists in international waters.

A week ago, on the same radio program, Bloomberg claimed, "The protesters are protesting against people who make $40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That's the bottom line. Those are the people that work on Wall Street or on the finance sector." He also engaged in a bit of Obama's patented Don't-Look-Backism when he remarked, "I think we spend much too much time worrying about how we got into problems as to how we go forward...We always tend to blame the wrong people. We blame the banks – they were part of this, but so was Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and Congress and you and me. Everybody wanted the boom times."

In the wake of such comments, Zaid Jilani, a senior reporter for ThinkProgress, was quick to set the record straight. "Actually, the median salary for stockbrokers is approximately $88,000 a year. But that is besides the point. The demonstrators are not targeting the individuals who work on Wall Street, they are targeting the financial institutions and practices they represent," he wrote. "Recall, the banks were the primary actors who set off the global recession, and that recession plunged 60 million people into extreme poverty worldwide."

The mayor's disconnect with those occupying Liberty Plaza is clear. A former Wall Street equities trader himself, Bloomberg is currently the 12th wealthiest person in the United States and the 30th richest person on Earth, with an amassed fortune of $19.5 billion. If anyone embodies the 1%, in stark contrast to the 99% represented by Occupy Wall Street, it's Mike.

In an extraordinary article in Orion Magazine, Christopher Ketcham reveals many staggering facts about New York City's "top 1 percent of households, which...have an average annual income of $3.7 million." Ketcham reports,

These top wealth recipients - let's call them the One Percenters - took for themselves close to 44 percent of all income in New York during 2007 (the last year for which data is available). That's a high bar for wealth concentration; it's almost twice the record-high levels among the top 1 percent nationwide, who claimed 23.5 percent of all national income in 2007, a number not seen since the eve of the Great Depression. During the vaunted 2002–07 economic expansion - the housing-boom bubble that ended in our current calamity, this Great Recession - average income for the One Percenters in New York went up 119 percent. Meanwhile, the number of homeless in the city rose to an all-time high last year - higher even than during the Great Depression - with a record 113,000 men, women, and children, many of them comprising whole families, retreating night after night to municipal shelters.

But here's the most astonishing fact: the One Percenters consist of just 34,000 households, about 90,000 people. Relative to the great mass of New Yorkers - 9 million of us - they're nobody.

Between 2007 and 2009 alone, Mike Bloomberg's fortune increased from $5.5 billion to $16 billion, a leap that made him jump 125 spots from #142 to #17 on the Forbes list of the richest people in the world. He has $3.5 billion more now.

In fact, Bloomberg is so rich (how rich is he?!), he has more than two-and-a-half times as much net worth than Rupert Murdoch ($7.4 B) and is richer than former Google CEO Eric Schmidt ($6.2 B), Donald Trump ($2.9 B), Oprah Winfrey ($2.7 B), and the late Steve Jobs ($7 B) combined. Mike Bloomberg has so much money, he is out of touch with over 99.9% of the 1% of wealthiest Americans.

In March 2008, Bloomberg opposed a proposal by "Democratic Assembly members to raise income taxes by 12% on residents making more than $1 million a year" which "would raise $1.5 billion in state revenue a year," saying, "I think at this point, where we're in competition with other cities around the world for entrepreneurs and the best and the brightest, it's not the time to be raising taxes."

In February 2009, Bloomberg unveiled an initiative whereby the city would "invest $45 million in government money to retrain investment bankers, traders and others who have lost jobs on Wall Street, as well as provide seed capital and office space for new businesses those laid-off bankers might create." The New York Times reported:

City officials also plan to try to lure big banks and financial companies from Asia and elsewhere to set up operations in New York, filling some of the void created by the implosion of large American firms like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. They hope the federal and state governments will let them use $30 million in federal money to attract those companies and other financial firms to Lower Manhattan.

[...]

To head off criticism that the city is providing assistance to people who were paid large sums to work in a business whose excesses caused a global financial crisis, the mayor said that "these job losses affect people in a wide range of professions and income levels."

As usual, for Bloomberg, the innocent victims in desperate need of government aid are the Wall Street bankers themselves.

The following month, in response to a thousands-strong union-backed protest outside City Hall calling upon the mayor to raise taxes on those making a quarter-million dollars per year instead of cutting "$2.5 billion in education funding, $3.2 billion in health care" and "billions from programs for senior services, disability services, housing assistance and crisis intervention programs", Bloomberg again spoke out against taxing the wealthiest New Yorkers. "We can tax the rich, except that, if you haven't looked at the stock market lately, they aren't making any money," Bloomberg said on his Friday radio show. The rich, he claimed, "are the ones that buy in the stores so that people that work in the stores have jobs in the stores, generate sales tax. The rich are the ones that go to the expensive restaurants where, as a matter of fact, I looked at a list the other day of restaurants where the staff is unionized. They're the expensive restaurants. They're not the cheap restaurants." He concluded:

"You know, the yelling and screaming about the rich - we want rich from around this country to move here. We love the rich people."

In February 2010, Bloomberg used his weekly radio show to promote more and bigger Wall Street bonuses. "If you don't pay bonuses, we can't tax it," he said, adding, "Cops, firefighters, teachers, all municipal workers should be down there screaming, 'Pay Wall Street people more!' That's where their salaries come from."

A couple of months later, as President Barack Obama toured the country paying lip-service to financial reform, the Associated Press quoted Bloomberg as saying, "The bashing of Wall Street is something that should worry everybody...We're on their side." He reiterated his position on increased taxes on huge Wall Street bonuses with this gem: "If you want to worry about a few guys that got big bonuses, let me tell you, they will find someplace to work in this country or elsewhere. Those people bring in business. That's why they get paid those bucks."

And now, as Bloomberg rolls his eyes at the Occupy movement, his girlfriend Diana Taylor sits on the board of Brookfield Office Properties, the massive real estate corporation that owns Liberty Plaza. Whether or not there are any legal grounds for either the Bloomberg-controlled NYPD to attempt to shut down the peaceful, non-violent occupation or for Taylor and the Brookfield board to clear and close the park is debatable.

Bloomberg's veneration of wealth and Wall Street has since been repeated as a right-wing talking point in attempts to discredit and malign the protesters and their supporters.

This past week, Republican presidential front-runner and former pizza king Herman Cain dismissed millions of unemployed, disaffected and disillusioned Americans by commenting, "Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone's fault if they succeeded, it is someone's fault if they failed." The millionaire favorite of the fake-grassroots, corporate-backed Tea Party called the protests "un-American" and "anti-capitalism" and told The Wall Street Journal, "I don't have the facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration."

Meanwhile, Tea Party enthusiast millionaire Eric Cantor described the Occupiers as "growing mobs" and millionaire Mitt Romney called them "dangerous."

Long Island Congressman and Islamophobic fear-monger Pete King referred to Occupy Wall Street protesters as a "ragtag mob" and "anarchists" during an interview on Laura Ingraham's radio show on Friday, claiming, "They have no idea what they're doing out there." King continued, "They have no sense of purpose other than a basically anti-American tone and anti-capitalist [agenda]." Echoing Cain's fact-free suggestion that the demonstrators are just "a bunch of angry 1960s do-overs" whose primary goal is "to create chaos and take away the focus on the Obama record," King warned:

"[W]e have to be careful not to allow this to get any legitimacy. I'm taking this seriously in that I'm old enough to remember what happened in the 1960s when the left-wing took to the streets and somehow the media glorified them and it ended up shaping policy. We can't allow that to happen."

Of course, the crazy 1960s policies shaped by the anarchist left-wing that King derides include the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (the sweeping anti-discrimination and desegregation legislation), the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (prohibiting discriminatory voting practices), Lyndon Johnson's Executive Order 11246 (requiring "Equal Employment Opportunity") the same year, the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling on Loving v. Virginia (which "requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations"), and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, otherwise known as the Fair Housing Act. If King had his way, perhaps the Vietnam War would still be raging.

In their effort to impugn and vilify Occupy Wall Street, Republicans seem to be forgetting their own (opportunistic) populist rhetoric of just three years ago. In mid-September 2008, at a Florida rally during the homestretch of the presidential campaign, John McCain said, "This foundation of our economy, the American worker, is strong but it has been put at risk by the greed and mismanagement of Wall Street and Washington. Government has a clear responsibility to act in defense of the public interests, and that is exactly what I intend to do. We are going to make sure that American's accounts are protected."

Later in his speech that day, McCain declared, "When any Wall Street operator abuses the trust of the public, then they will face the consequences, and they will have a fight on their hands with the President of the United States."

To say such things these days (whether he believes them or not) would mark McCain - or anyone else for that matter - as an anti-American, success-punishing, Anarcho-Islamo-Maoist enemy of the free market, and of liberty in general.

And yet, despite such attacks, Occupy Wall Street continues to grow and galvanize, demonstrating on a daily basis that it is on the right side of history and police barricades. The nascent movement, less than a month old, is expanding faster and organizing stronger than terrified pundits and politicians can denounce or dismiss it. Complacency is being replaced by commitment and connectedness. Its message that there is a better way forward, one more equitable and just, reminding ourselves and our government that We - not corporations - are the People, is reverberating, collectively amplified a few words at a time, across the country and around the world.

*****

UPDATE:

October 10, 2011 - Before marching in a parade honoring genocidal maniac Christopher Columbus, Bloomberg stated he had no plans to forcibly shut down Occupy Wall Street any time soon. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday that he’ll allow the Wall Street protesters to stay indefinitely, provided they abide by the law, marking his strongest statement to date on the city's willingness to let demonstrators occupy a park in Lower Manhattan.

"The bottom line is – people want to express themselves. And as long as they obey the laws, we’ll allow them to," said Bloomberg as he prepared to march in the Columbus Day Parade on Fifth Avenue. "If they break the laws, then, we’re going to do what we’re supposed to do: enforce the laws."

Bloomberg said he has "no idea" how much longer the Wall Street demonstration will last. "I think part of it has probably to do with the weather," he said.

*****

UPDATE II:

October 13, 2011 - Just two days after uber-billionaire baron Bloomberg made his announcement that OWS protesters could stay in Liberty Plaza "indefinitely", the mayor visited the Park and soon thereafter released a statement regarding a pathetically transparent initiative by Brookfield Office Properties to temporarily clear out all protesters early Friday in order to clean the park. The statement, issued by Bloomberg's Deputy Mayor for Operations Cas Holloway, claimed that "the last three weeks have created unsanitary conditions and considerable wear and tear on the park." This claim echoes a letter sent by Brookfield to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly on Tuesday which cited "health and public safety issues" and declared that "conditions at the Park have deteriorated to unsanitary and unsafe levels." The letter also noted that "numerous laws [are] being broken including but not limited to lewdness, groping, drinking and drug use, to the lack of safe access to and usage of the Park, to ongoing noise at all hours, to unsanitary conditions and to offensive odors."

Anyone who has visited Liberty Plaza knows this is not true.

On October 6, New York State Senator Daniel Squadron and State Assemblyman Rory Lancman wrote a piece for The Huffington Post in which they praised the protesters for having "focused the world on the frustration felt by millions," identified Occupy Wall Street's core issues as "accountability on Wall Street for the financial crisis that tanked the global economy; shared sacrifice as we pull ourselves out of an economic mess that the middle class and working poor didn't create; and a political system controlled by people, not corporations," and outlined a few ways local and state government can respond positively through policy to address these demands.

Additionally, thirteen City Council members have written a letter opposing the looming eviction and calling upon the mayor to "respect the deep traditions of free speech and right of assembly that make this a great, free, diverse, and opinionated city and nation."

During a press conference across the street from the park, Margaret Chin, the City Council member whose district includes Wall Street, said, "I call on the mayor to do everything you can to make sure the peaceful demonstrations continue." Jumaane Williams, a Brooklyn Council member, addressed his comments to the mayor. "Hopefully you'll be remembered for something other than dismantling democracy in this city," he said.

Meanwhile, Congressman Jerry Nadler, who represents New York's eight district where the park is located, wrote in press release, "The City has an obligation to maintain public order, but it also has an obligation to respect the right to speak, to protest, and to petition the government for redress of grievances. Apart from the requirements of the Constitution, New York City has long been home to political protests of all kinds. The City should respect that tradition, and our core constitutional values, by working with Occupy Wall Street to ensure that they may continue their important work."

Whereas Bloomberg's spokesman Holloway also said the cleaning “will be done in stages and the protesters will be able to return to the areas that have been cleaned provided they abide by the rules that Brookfield has established for the park,” these new rules - unilaterally declared today by Brookfield - serve to effectively end the occupation by prohibiting "camping and/or erection of tents or other structures; lying down on the ground, or lying down on benches, sitting areas or walkways...; the placement of tarps or sleeping bags or other covering on the property; storage or placement of personal property on the ground, benches, sitting areas or walkways" and other such "rules" that, if enforced, would clearly and effectively put an end to the protest.

Unsurprisingly, such a transparent tactic has been met with tireless efforts by the occupiers to clean the park themselves (which they already do on a regular basis), challenge the new ordinance legally [PDF], and a steadfast refusal to leave.

An all-too-perfect metaphor for the gaping chasm between the OWSers and the mayor played out this evening. As every inch of Liberty Park was being scrubbed, mopped, and cleaned by protesters under the threat of imminent eviction, Bloomberg was attending a gala dinner reception just blocks away at the swanky Wall Street restaurant, Cipriani Club 55. When hundreds of protesters "attempted to deliver the mayor a petition with 310,000 signatures supporting their right to remain in the park...the mayor refused to come out of the restaurant, instead making his exit out of a back door," the Daily Mail reported.

On Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight, Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello had this to say about Occupy Wall Street, where he had performed earlier in the day: "First it was completely ignored, then they got pepper sprayed and New York City found out about it. Then 700 of them got arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge and the country found out about it. Now there's over 1,000 Occupies around the country and around the world."

"I'm not sure what's gonna happen, but that's good because it feels like anything can happen," he said later in broadcast. "It doesn't feel like this thing has a roof, it doesn't have a ceiling, like anything is possible."

Regardless of what happens tomorrow morning, in the rain on the corner of Broadway and Liberty, Occupy Wall Street will win and Bloomberg will lose.

So, it's your move, Mike. Checkmate.

*****

Also, watch this. Now.

*****

The Ninety-Nine Percent:This Is What #OccupyWallStreet Looks Like

2011-10-05T19:27:00.013-04:00

To sit in silence when we should protest
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox, I Protest, 1914

With so much effort being exerted by the right-wing lunatic punditocracy and commentariat, Citigroup fiancées with CNN programs, know-nothing pizza magnates and billionaire mayors to belittle and dismiss Occupy Wall Street protesters as "stereotypically aging hippies and young kids who could have just left a Phish concert," here's a look at who's actually down at Liberty Plaza.

Hero, 21
The Bronx, New York

John, 61
Croton-On-Hudson, New York

Alisha, 20
Las Vegas, Nevada

Kevin, 60, and John, 57
Queens, New York

Ronnie, 24
New York, New York

Taylor, 20
Catasauqua, Pennsylvania

Ari, 29
Chicago, Illinois

Michael, 20
The Bronx, New York

Susie, 52
Brooklyn, New York

Matthew, 28
New York, New York

Natalie, 26
Seattle, Washington

Lexi, 38
New Orleans, Louisiana

Samoa, 53
Brooklyn, New York

Hamza, 29
Utica, New York

Pat, 69
Erie, Colorado

Layla, 5 months
Brooklyn, New York

All photographs ©Nima Shirazi

The ever-intrepid and affable J.A. Myerson contributed to this report.

*****

I PROTEST
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1914

To sit in silence when we should protest
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance and lust
The Inquisition yet would serve the law
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle; Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills,
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and child-bearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.
Therefore do I protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong which holds one rusted link,
Call no land free that holds one fettered slave.
Until the manacled, slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee;
Until the Mother bears no burden save
The precious one beneath her heart; until
God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labor, let no man
Call this the Land of Freedom.

*****

The Department of Corrections:'Ben-Hur', the LA Times & A Place Called Palestine

2011-09-29T23:59:00.029-04:00

"You know the law - every son of Israel must have some occupation."

- Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Chapter IV

On September 26, The Los Angeles Times ran a short Calendar section item on new belated 50th anniversary, fully restored DVD and Blu-Ray editions of William Wyler's 1959 blockbuster biblical epic Ben-Hur. The film, which was based on an 1880 novel by former Civil War general and New Mexico territory governor Lew Wallace, is described the paper as a "period drama [that] revolves around Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), a Palestinian nobleman who is enslaved by the Romans, engages in one of the most thrilling chariot races ever captured on screen, and even encounters Jesus Christ."

As no innocuous (or factual) mention of "Palestine" goes unpunished, especially when the culprit is a major American publication, the Zionist advocacy group, The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), was immediately on the case.

The same day the Ben-Hur blurb appeared, CAMERA issued a call to its zealous supporters to contact the LA Times and complain about its usage of the term "Palestinian nobleman" to describe Ben-Hur's title character, claiming, "Of course, there was no such place as 'Palestine' in the time of Jesus, since the Romans didn't rename Judea as 'Palestina' until a hundred years after the death of Jesus."

Considering CAMERA's supposed interest in "accuracy", it should be noted that its condemnation calls Ben-Hur a "1951 Hollywood blockbuster." In reality, the film was released in November 1959.

Nevertheless, two days later, as a result of CAMERA's complain-campaign, the LA Times printed a correction to its original item. It apologized for referring to Ben-Hur as a "Palestinian nobleman" and continued:

"The character Ben-Hur was a Jew from Judea who lived long before the place now known as Palestine was given that name."

Unfortunately, the paper was far too quick to issue this correction and should have checked some primary sources rather than merely rely on the flurry of emails and phone calls from outraged and misinformed Zionists for their historical information.

To call CAMERA's claim that "there was no such place as 'Palestine' in the time of Jesus" is a matter of revisionism is an understatement. The allegation is not only simply false, it is a deliberate lie.

Specific references to "Palestine" date back nearly five hundred years before "the time of Jesus." In the 5th Century BCE, Herodotus, the first historian in Western civilization, referenced "Palestine" numerous times in his chronicle of the ancient world, The Histories, including the following passage describing "Syrians of Palestine":

"...they live in the coastal parts of Syria; and that region of Syria and all that lies between it and Egypt is called Palestine." (VII.89)

The above translation by Harry Carter is featured in the 1958 Heritage Press edition of Herodotus' famous work. Both older and newer versions corroborate the accuracy of the reference. A. D. Godley's 1920 translation of the crucial line states, "This part of Syria as far as Egypt is all called Palestine", while Robin Waterfield's 1998 updated Oxford translation renders the passage this way: "This part of Syria, all the way to the border with Egypt, is known as Palestine." An even more recent comprehensive, authoritative, and fully annotated volume entitled The Landmark Herodotus give us, "This region of Syria, together with all the land extending as far as Egypt, is called Palestine." (p.532) This version, published by Pantheon in 2007, also contains the following map on page 531:

A hundred years later, in the mid-4th Century BCE (still nearly four hundred years before the birth of Wallace's fictional hero), Aristotle made reference to the Dead Sea in his Meteorology. "Again if, as is fabled, there is a lake in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw it in it floats and does not sink, this would bear out what we have said," he wrote. "They say that this lake is so bitter and salt that no fish live in it and that if you soak clothes in it and shake them it cleans them." (II.3)

Two hundred years later, in the mid-2nd Century BCE, ancient geographer Polemon wrote of a place "not far from Arabia in the part of Syria called Palestine," while Greek travel writer Pausanias wrote in his Description of Greece, "In front of the sanctuary grow palm-trees, the fruit of which, though not wholly edible like the dates of Palestine, yet are riper than those of Ionia." (9.19.8)

Despite the claim that "the Romans didn't rename Judea as 'Palestina' until a hundred years after the death of Jesus," contemporaries of Jesus also routinely referred to Palestine as, well, Palestine. For instance, in the first decade of the 1st Century CE, the Roman poet Ovid mentioned Palestine in both his famed mythological poem Metamorphoses and his erotic elegy The Art of Love. He also wrote of "the waters of Palestine" in his calendrical poem Fasti. Around the same time, another Latin poet Tibullus wrote of "the crowded cities of Palestine" in a section called "Messalla’s Triumph" in his poem Delia. Incidentally, Ben-Hur's childhood friend and subsequent betrayer is named Messala.

The bulk of the action of Ben-Hur takes place in the third decade of the 1st Century CE. The noted Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo, writing around the very same time, opined, "Also Syria in Palestine, which is occupied by no small part of the very populous nation of the Jews, is not unproductive of honourable virtue." (XII.75)

The Jewish historian Josephus (c.37-100 CE), born and raised in Jerusalem and a military commander in Galilee during the First Jewish Revolt against the occupying Roman authority, acted as negotiator during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE and later penned vital volumes of Levantine Jewish history. His The Jewish War, Antiquities of the Jews, and Against Apion all contain copious references to Palestine and Palestinians. Towards the end of Antiquities, Josephus writes,

"I shall now, therefore, make an end here of my Antiquities; after the conclusion of which events, I began to write that account of the war; and these Antiquities contain what hath been delivered down to us from the original creation of man, until the twelfth year of the reign of Nero, as to what hath befallen the Jews, as well in Egypt as in Syria and in Palestine, and what we have suffered from the Assyrians and Babylonians, and what afflictions the Persians and Macedonians, and after them the Romans, have brought upon us; for I think I may say that I have composed this history with sufficient accuracy in all things." (XX.11.2) [emphasis added]

Josephus' own emphasis on accuracy appears to be far more credible than that of CAMERA.

Furthermore, according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, Palestine during antiquity was a "demographically mixed region" that was "understood to be the homeland of the Jews throughout the period, though in fact housing a minority of them." It continues, "More precisely, the Jews belonged to the small area around Jerusalem known in Greek as Ioudaia, whence the name Ioudaioi."

The claim that the Roman emperor Hadrian, eager to punish Jewish inhabitants of Judea after the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135 CE, officially changed the name of the region to "Syria Palaestina" or simply "Palestine" in 135 CE and forcing the Jewish community into exile is dubious at best, especially when, by then, the terms "Syrian Palestine" and "Palestine" had already been in use for over six hundred years.

It should certainly be pointed out that Wallace's original text of Ben-Hur makes no mention of "Palestine" and consistently refers to "Judea", "Judeans", "the land of Israel" and "Israelites." With this in mind, it is indisputable that an appropriate description of the Ben-Hur character would be as a "Judean prince" or even a "Jewish nobleman." Nevertheless, referring to him as a "Palestinian" is not at all inaccurate or incorrect, nor should it be in any way offensive or cause of umbrage. To lead a charge against such a reference is to promote not only the rewriting of history, both ancient and modern, but also to encourage the continual Zionist efforts to erase, destroy and deny Palestinian history and culture in their own historic homeland.

And yet, after being bullied by a factually-challenged propaganda outfit, a major U.S. newspaper went out of its way to announce that "Ben-Hur was a Jew from Judea who lived long before the place now known as Palestine was given that name," a statement clearly lacking in any semblance of accuracy.

It appears to be time for the Los Angeles Times to issue a correction on their correction.

Readers can contact the LA Times at readers.representative@latimes.com and its Arts & Entertainment editor at craig.turner@latimes.com

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A slightly shorter version of this article originally appeared on Mondoweiss.

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Nuclear Propaganda and the Failure of Journalism:Iran, the IAEA, and the Mainstream Media

2011-09-08T23:20:00.008-04:00

"The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment."

- Jacques Ellul

A new quarterly IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program was released on September 2 and, as usual, there's nothing revelatory or alarming about the Agency's findings. But you sure wouldn't know that from reading the mainstream media.

Writing for Reuters, Fredrik Dahl's piece on the latest IAEA report on Iran, which is supposed to be confidential but like all other reports on Iran was leaked to the press and public, is yet another example of alarmism when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program. Though posing as straight-forward reportage, Dahl's report actually misrepresents facts, provides a deliberately selective reading of available information, and fans the flames of militarized rhetoric, fear-mongering, and the ever-increasing obfuscation of the reality of Iran's nuclear program.

Mr. Dahl, with the help of editor Mark Heinrich (and later additional editing by David Stamp), appears to have decided to excise all relevant information regarding the IAEA's continual confirmation that absolutely no nuclear material has been diverted to military purposes, that there are no ongoing reprocessing activities, and that the IAEA has all safeguarded sites fully monitored, supervised, and secured. Facilities under IAEA supervision are all operating as declared to the Agency by Iran. None of this information appears in the Reuters report, of course, as it apparently doesn't jibe with the narrative of intransigent Iranian mullahs, deviously clutching fuel rods as they shake their fists in the air.

Furthermore, no mention is made of the increased communication and transparency between the IAEA and Iran noted in the report. The report notes that, in "August 2011, in response to Agency requests, Iran provided the Agency access to an installation where R&D on advanced centrifuges was taking place. During the Agency’s visit, Iran provided extensive information on its current and future R&D work on advanced centrifuges." (para C.3.29)

Instead, Dahl - despite considerable evidence to the contrary - writes that Iran "has long restricted the access of IAEA inspectors." In truth, Iran has never impeded IAEA inspectors' access to its safeguarded facilities. Other sites, to which the IAEA has long asked for access, do not fall under the Safeguards Agreement and are therefore not subject to inspection. This includes the heavy water plant at Arak. Still, as noted in this new IAEA report, Iran allowed IAEA inspectors access to the Arak plant on August 17, 2011, for the first times since 2005 (para. 33). It was not obligated by any of its agreements with the IAEA to allow such a visit. This fact of law is inconvenient to Iran hysterics and therefore does not get mentioned in these types of "news" articles.

Iran's nuclear sites and facilities are all under the 24-hour video surveillance by the IAEA, allow access to IAEA inspectors and inspections, and are subject to material seals application by the Agency. Furthermore, though not required or authorized under Iran's Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, as of February 2010, there had been 35 unannounced, surprise inspections of Iranian facilities since March 2007. There have surely been many more since.

In May 2007, the IAEA publicly denied reports about Iran hampering inspections of its nuclear facilities, as required by its Safeguards Agreement. "There is no truth to media reports claiming that the IAEA was not able to get access," IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire told reporters. "We have not been denied access at any time, including in the past few weeks." He added, “Normally we do not comment on such reports but this time we felt we had to clarify the matter.”

IAEA inspectors have consistently had open access to the gas conversion facility at Esfahan, the enrichment facility at Natanz, and the new lightwater reactor at Bushehr, as well as the secondary enrichment facility under construction at Qom (which, again, Iran declared to the IAEA a full year before required to, when it was, as then-IAEA Secretary General Mohammed ElBaradei described “a hole in a mountain” and “nothing to be worried about”).

The "Possible Military Dimensions" section of the report contains absolutely nothing new, save the spooky word "increasingly", which appears to be the only thing any reporter has mentioned thus far today. Even so, there appears to be no real reason why the word "increasingly" has been added to this report as there is literally no new evidence presented by the Agency to back up its "concern." Only vague mentions of "new information" acquired by "many Member States" (oooh, I wonder which those could be?!) is noted in the report, though none of this new information is presented or explained.

The IAEA explicitly states that "examples" of the "activities" about which the Agency is "increasingly concerned", despite never having offered any compelling or consistent evidence for Iran to address or substantiate, "were listed in the previous report." So, uh, nothing new there. But you wouldn't know that from Dahl's report.

As has been noted numerous times in the past, most of the content within IAEA reports on Iran at this point are boilerplate statements regarding the Additional Protocol, modified Code 3.1, and UNSC sanctions, which Iran (and international law, for that matter) maintains are illegal. Only by implementing the IAEA's Additional Protocols (which it did voluntarily for nearly two years) could Iran theoretically dispel all concerns. But Iran is not alone in this regard, as politicians, pundits, and the press would have you believe. Iran, along with 72 other countries, has a comprehensive safeguards agreement in force with the IAEA, but has not implemented the Additional Protocol suggested by the IAEA. The demands of implementing the AP is a standard recommendation for all countries that do not have one already in place, not just Iran.

It should be indeed noted that, in this new IAEA report, the Agency states that "Iran remains the only State with significant nuclear activities in which the Agency is implementing a comprehensive safeguards agreement but which is not implementing the provisions of the modified Code 3.1." (para. 45)

While Iran has maintained its readiness to consider implementing the Additional Protocol as long as its inalienable rights to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes are unconditionally recognized, as required by the NPT itself, Western powers refuse to even consider such a proposal. In light of these demands (which they have no authority to make, outside of international bullying and bombing threats), who is really obstructing substantive negotiations by refusing to acknowledge inalienable rights?

Notably, even a Congressional Research Service report, written by non-proliferation analyst Paul K. Kerr in February 2011, concludes that it is "unclear" whether or not Iran has ever actually violated its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, noting that the "U.N. Security Council has never declared Iran to be in violation of the NPT."

Moreover, Dahl writes, "Shifting enrichment activity to such a subterranean site [at Fordow, near Qom] could offer greater protection against any attacks by Israel or the United States, which have both said they do not rule out pre-emptive strikes to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons." What he omits is that, if the U.S. and Israel keep threatening such an attack (which is totally illegal under international law and would constitute a serious breach of the U.N. Charter), Iran would be irresponsible if it did not defend and secure its own scientific facilities (remember, there is literally no evidence of militarization). The fact that this type of defense frustrates warmongers in the U.S. and Israel has no bearing on the legality or rationality of such a decision by Iran. Frankly, the illegal and irrational moves are the ones taken by the two countries which consistently threaten to bomb another country and are annoyed by that country's self-defense mechanisms. War is Peace, Protection is Aggression.

The New York Times' David Sanger and William Broad and The Washington Post's Joby Warrick have also published very similar articles about the new IAEA report. Their tone and key points are nearly identical to Dahl's, their analyses similarly obtuse and their omissions just as deliberate.

Still, one paragraph in Warrick's report sticks out:

"Iran also is making good on promises to begin enriching uranium in a newly built bunker near the city of Qom. The formerly secret site, discovered by Western intelligence operatives and revealed to the world in September 2009, is being used to create a more highly enriched form of uranium, Iranian scientists told the IAEA."

As has been noted so many times before, the Fordow site was not "revealed to the world" in September 2009 by "Western intelligence operatives"; rather it was announced to the IAEA by Iran in accordance to Iran's obligations under its Safeguards Agreement and well in advance of any nuclear material being introduced to the site itself.

At the time, IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire stated, "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." Obama's revelatory press conference with Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy about the Fordow facility was held on September 25th. Nevertheless, this claim about the Western exposure of the facility is endless repeated in the press.

Furthermore, in an effort to promote Warrick's shoddy journalism, The Washington Post Twitter account posted the following:

A few days after the release of the latest IAEA report, David Sanger was back with another report. "Iran on Monday made its first counterproposal in two years to ease the confrontation with the West over its nuclear program," he wrote on September 5, "offering to allow international inspectors “full supervision” of the country’s nuclear activities for the next five years, but on the condition that the mounting sanctions against Iran are lifted." He continues, "In past years, Iran has agreed to specific “work plans” with the international atomic agency to allow inspections or turn over documents. But all of them have fallen apart."

This is totally untrue.

The one and only "Work Plan" implemented by the IAEA and Iran was agreed to in 2007 and defined modalities and a timetable in order to clarify all issues of concerns in relation to Iran's nuclear program.

Not only did the IAEA consistently report that it "has been able to verify the non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and has therefore concluded that it remains in peaceful use," but IAEA Director General Mohammad El-Baradei said on September 7, 2007, "For the last few years we have been told by the Security Council, by the board, we have to clarify the outstanding issues in Iran because these outstanding issues are the ones that have led to the lack of confidence, the crisis," adding, "We have not come to see any undeclared activities or weaponization of their programme."

The results of the "Work Plan", issued in IAEA reports from November 2007 and February 2008, confirmed that "Iran has provided sufficient access to individuals and has responded in a timely manner to questions and provide clarifications and amplifications." The IAEA made clear that "substantial progress" towards clarifying outstanding questions had been made and that "The agency has been able to conclude that answers provided on the declared past P-1 and P-2 centrifuge programs are consistent with its findings."

In February 2008, El-Baradei told the IAEA's 35-member Board of Governors, "We have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran's enrichment programme."

Beyond this, the IAEA openly admits to concealing from Iran most of its alleged evidence regarding "Alleged Studies" (later dubbed, "Possible Military Dimensions" when Yukiya Amano replace El-Baradei). For example, in its May 2008 report, the IAEA stated, "The Agency received much of this information only in electronic form and was not authorised to provide copies to Iran" and later revealed that while "the Agency had been shown the documents that led it to these conclusions, it was not in possession of the documents and was therefore unfortunately unable to make them available to Iran." Nevertheless, the IAEA still concluded that it had "not detected the actual use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies."

Part of this stockpile of dubious documentation, acquired by the IAEA from the United States and Israel, wasn't even credible enough for the agency to investigate. In 2009, the IAEA "admitted that some of the material in the now-infamous 'secret annex' about Iran's nuclear program exists, but claims it wasn't verifiable enough to release." Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy reported that "the classified information...was collected as part of the IAEA's annual volume on Iran but never made the final cut" due to the fact that IAEA authorities "decided they weren't confident in the authenticity of the information contained in the extra document, and they couldn't verify what that research had found."

El-Baradei even went so far as to debunk rumors circulating around the media that the IAEA was withholding vital and damning evidence of a Iranian nuclear weapons program in an effort to protect the Islamic Republic from scrutiny...or worse. The Director General released a statement affirming that the IAEA has "no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapon programme in Iran" and reported that during a meeting of the Board of Governors on September 9, 2009, he had "warned that continuing allegations that the IAEA was withholding information on Iran are politically motivated and totally baseless."

In 1924, Adolph Hitler reportedly declared, "Propaganda must confine itself to a very few points, and repeat them endlessly. Here, as with so many things in this world, persistence is the first and foremost condition of success."

Without reporting the truth and by endlessly repeating blatant falsehoods, the press is guaranteeing the public does not know the full truth about the Iranian nuclear program or the actual findings of the IAEA.

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