zaterdag 23 augustus 2014

The Saudi Connection

Why Washington’s War on Terror Failed
The Underrated Saudi Connection 


By Patrick Cockburn

[This essay is excerpted from the first chapter of Patrick Cockburn’s new book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprisingwith special thanks to his publisher, OR Books.  The first section is a new introduction written for TomDispatch.]

August 21, 2014 "ICH" - "Tom Dispatch" - There are extraordinary elements in the present U.S. policy in Iraq and Syria that are attracting surprisingly little attention. In Iraq, the U.S. is carrying out air strikes and sending in advisers and trainers to help beat back the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (better known as ISIS) on the Kurdish capital, Erbil. The U.S. would presumably do the same if ISIS surrounds or attacks Baghdad. But in Syria, Washington’s policy is the exact opposite: there the main opponent of ISIS is the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds in their northern enclaves. Both are under attack from ISIS, which has taken about a third of the country, including most of its oil and gas production facilities.
But U.S., Western European, Saudi, and Arab Gulf policy is to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, which happens to be the policy of ISIS and other jihadis in Syria. If Assad goes, then ISIS will be the beneficiary, since it is either defeating or absorbing the rest of the Syrian armed opposition. There is a pretense in Washington and elsewhere that there exists a “moderate” Syrian opposition being helped by the U.S., Qatar, Turkey, and the Saudis.  It is, however, weak and getting more so by the day. Soon the new caliphate may stretch from the Iranian border to the Mediterranean and the only force that can possibly stop this from happening is the Syrian army.
The reality of U.S. policy is to support the government of Iraq, but not Syria, against ISIS. But one reason that group has been able to grow so strong in Iraq is that it can draw on its resources and fighters in Syria. Not everything that went wrong in Iraq was the fault of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as has now become the political and media consensus in the West. Iraqi politicians have been telling me for the last two years that foreign backing for the Sunni revolt in Syria would inevitably destabilize their country as well.  This has now happened.
By continuing these contradictory policies in two countries, the U.S. has ensured that ISIS can reinforce its fighters in Iraq from Syria and vice versa. So far, Washington has been successful in escaping blame for the rise of ISIS by putting all the blame on the Iraqi government. In fact, it has created a situation in which ISIS can survive and may well flourish.

Using the al-Qa'ida Label

The sharp increase in the strength and reach of jihadist organizations in Syria and Iraq has generally been unacknowledged until recently by politicians and media in the West. A primary reason for this is that Western governments and their security forces narrowly define the jihadist threat as those forces directly controlled by al-Qa‘ida central or “core” al-Qa‘ida. This enables them to present a much more cheerful picture of their successes in the so-called war on terror than the situation on the ground warrants.
In fact, the idea that the only jihadis to be worried about are those with the official blessing of al-Qa‘ida is naïve and self-deceiving. It ignores the fact, for instance, that ISIS has been criticized by the al-Qa‘ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri for its excessive violence and sectarianism. After talking to a range of Syrian jihadi rebels not directly affiliated with al-Qa‘ida in southeast Turkey earlier this year, a source told me that “without exception they all expressed enthusiasm for the 9/11 attacks and hoped the same thing would happen in Europe as well as the U.S.”
Jihadi groups ideologically close to al-Qa‘ida have been relabeled as moderate if their actions are deemed supportive of U.S. policy aims. In Syria, the Americans backed a plan by Saudi Arabia to build up a “Southern Front” based in Jordan that would be hostile to the Assad government in Damascus, and simultaneously hostile to al-Qa‘ida-type rebels in the north and east. The powerful but supposedly moderate Yarmouk Brigade, reportedly the planned recipient of anti-aircraft missiles from Saudi Arabia, was intended to be the leading element in this new formation. But numerous videos show that the Yarmouk Brigade has frequently fought in collaboration with JAN, the official al-Qa‘ida affiliate. Since it was likely that, in the midst of battle, these two groups would share their munitions, Washington was effectively allowing advanced weaponry to be handed over to its deadliest enemy. Iraqi officials confirm that they have captured sophisticated arms from ISIS fighters in Iraq that were originally supplied by outside powers to forces considered to be anti-al-Qa‘ida in Syria.
The name al-Qa‘ida has always been applied flexibly when identifying an enemy. In 2003 and 2004 in Iraq, as armed Iraqi opposition to the American and British-led occupation mounted, U.S. officials attributed most attacks to al-Qa‘ida, though many were carried out by nationalist and Baathist groups. Propaganda like this helped to persuade nearly 60% of U.S. voters prior to the Iraq invasion that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and those responsible for 9/11, despite the absence of any evidence for this. In Iraq itself, indeed throughout the entire Muslim world, these accusations have benefited al-Qa‘ida by exaggerating its role in the resistance to the U.S. and British occupation.
Precisely the opposite PR tactics were employed by Western governments in 2011 in Libya, where any similarity between al-Qa‘ida and the NATO-backed rebels fighting to overthrow the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was played down. Only those jihadis who had a direct operational link to the al-Qa‘ida “core” of Osama bin Laden were deemed to be dangerous. The falsity of the pretense that the anti-Gaddafi jihadis in Libya were less threatening than those in direct contact with al-Qa‘ida was forcefully, if tragically, exposed when U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens was killed by jihadi fighters in Benghazi in September 2012. These were the same fighters lauded by Western governments and media for their role in the anti-Gaddafi uprising.

Imagining al-Qa'ida as the Mafia

Al-Qa‘ida is an idea rather than an organization, and this has long been the case. For a five-year period after 1996, it did have cadres, resources, and camps in Afghanistan, but these were eliminated after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. Subsequently, al-Qa‘ida’s name became primarily a rallying cry, a set of Islamic beliefs, centering on the creation of an Islamic state, the imposition of sharia, a return to Islamic customs, the subjugation of women, and the waging of holy war against other Muslims, notably the Shia, who are considered heretics worthy of death. At the center of this doctrine for making war is an emphasis on self-sacrifice and martyrdom as a symbol of religious faith and commitment. This has resulted in using untrained but fanatical believers as suicide bombers, to devastating effect.
It has always been in the interest of the U.S. and other governments that al-Qa‘ida be viewed as having a command-and-control structure like a mini-Pentagon, or like the mafia in America. This is a comforting image for the public because organized groups, however demonic, can be tracked down and eliminated through imprisonment or death. More alarming is the reality of a movement whose adherents are self-recruited and can spring up anywhere.
Osama bin Laden’s gathering of militants, which he did not call al-Qa‘ida until after 9/11, was just one of many jihadi groups 12 years ago. But today its ideas and methods are predominant among jihadis because of the prestige and publicity it gained through the destruction of the Twin Towers, the war in Iraq, and its demonization by Washington as the source of all anti-American evil. These days, there is a narrowing of differences in the beliefs of jihadis, regardless of whether or not they are formally linked to al-Qa‘ida central.
Unsurprisingly, governments prefer the fantasy picture of al-Qa‘ida because it enables them to claim victories when it succeeds in killing its better known members and allies. Often, those eliminated are given quasi-military ranks, such as “head of operations,” to enhance the significance of their demise. The culmination of this heavily publicized but largely irrelevant aspect of the “war on terror” was the killing of bin Laden in Abbottabad in Pakistan in 2011. This enabled President Obama to grandstand before the American public as the man who had presided over the hunting down of al-Qa‘ida’s leader. In practical terms, however, his death had little impact on al-Qa‘ida-type jihadi groups, whose greatest expansion has occurred subsequently.

Ignoring the Roles of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan

The key decisions that enabled al-Qa‘ida to survive, and later to expand, were made in the hours immediately after 9/11. Almost every significant element in the project to crash planes into the Twin Towers and other iconic American buildings led back to Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was a member of the Saudi elite, and his father had been a close associate of the Saudi monarch. Citing a CIA report from 2002, the official 9/11 report says that al-Qa‘ida relied for its financing on “a variety of donors and fundraisers, primarily in the Gulf countries and particularly in Saudi Arabia.”

The report’s investigators repeatedly found their access limited or denied when seeking information in Saudi Arabia. Yet President George W. Bush apparently never even considered holding the Saudis responsible for what happened. An exit of senior Saudis, including bin Laden relatives, from the U.S. was facilitated by the U.S. government in the days after 9/11. Most significant, 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission Report about the relationship between the attackers and Saudi Arabia were cut and never published, despite a promise by President Obama to do so, on the grounds of national security.

In 2009, eight years after 9/11, a cable from the U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, revealed by WikiLeaks, complained that donors in Saudi Arabia constituted the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide. But despite this private admission, the U.S. and Western Europeans continued to remain indifferent to Saudi preachers whose message, spread to millions by satellite TV, YouTube, and Twitter, called for the killing of the Shia as heretics. These calls came as al-Qa‘ida bombs were slaughtering people in Shia neighborhoods in Iraq. A sub-headline in another State Department cable in the same year reads: “Saudi Arabia: Anti-Shi’ism as Foreign Policy?” Now, five years later, Saudi-supported groups have a record of extreme sectarianism against non-Sunni Muslims.

Pakistan, or rather Pakistani military intelligence in the shape of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was the other parent of al-Qa‘ida, the Taliban, and jihadi movements in general. When the Taliban was disintegrating under the weight of U.S. bombing in 2001, its forces in northern Afghanistan were trapped by anti-Taliban forces. Before they surrendered, hundreds of ISI members, military trainers, and advisers were hastily evacuated by air. Despite the clearest evidence of ISI’s sponsorship of the Taliban and jihadis in general, Washington refused to confront Pakistan, and thereby opened the way for the resurgence of the Taliban after 2003, which neither the U.S. nor NATO has been able to reverse.

The “war on terror” has failed because it did not target the jihadi movement as a whole and, above all, was not aimed at Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the two countries that fostered jihadism as a creed and a movement. The U.S. did not do so because these countries were important American allies whom it did not want to offend. Saudi Arabia is an enormous market for American arms, and the Saudis have cultivated, and on occasion purchased, influential members of the American political establishment. Pakistan is a nuclear power with a population of 180 million and a military with close links to the Pentagon.

The spectacular resurgence of al-Qa‘ida and its offshoots has happened despite the huge expansion of American and British intelligence services and their budgets after 9/11. Since then, the U.S., closely followed by Britain, has fought wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and adopted procedures normally associated with police states, such as imprisonment without trial, rendition, torture, and domestic espionage. Governments wage the “war on terror” claiming that the rights of individual citizens must be sacrificed to secure the safety of all.

In the face of these controversial security measures, the movements against which they are aimed have not been defeated but rather have grown stronger. At the time of 9/11, al-Qa‘ida was a small, generally ineffectual organization; by 2014 al-Qa‘ida-type groups were numerous and powerful.

In other words, the “war on terror,” the waging of which has shaped the political landscape for so much of the world since 2001, has demonstrably failed. Until the fall of Mosul, nobody paid much attention.

Patrick Cockburn is Middle East correspondent for the Independent and worked previously for the Financial Times. He has written three books on Iraq’s recent history as well as a memoir, The Broken Boy, and, with his son, a book on schizophrenia, Henry’s Demons. He won the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005, the James Cameron Prize in 2006, and the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009. His forthcoming book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, is now available exclusively from OR Books. This excerpt (with an introductory section written for TomDispatch) is taken from that book.
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American Fascism

AMERICAN TRADITION

In tegenstelling tot wat journalisten als Geert Mak beweren, is de VS een politiestaat, die met een gemilitariseerde politie hetzelfde in het binnenland doet als het met zijn strijdkrachten in het Midden-Oosten doet en laat doen door zionistische fascisten.

Police Violence Has Been Going On Forever. No Wonder People Are Fed Up With It


Dit is het land dat bepaalt waar en wanneer de NAVO weer eens gewelddadig moet optreden om daar hetzelfde neoliberale kapitalistische regime af te dwingen als in de VS zelf. De Nederlandse politici en het VVD/PVDA kabinet gaan hier gehoorzaam in mee. De Amerikaanse politie is net als het Amerikaanse leger het apparaat waarmee de elite de armen eronder houdt. U zou zich moeten afvragen dat als de 'police violence has been going on forever' waarom dan in een zogeheten 'democratie' dit al die tijd mogelijk was.



Volkskrant Zionistische Propaganda

Dit is de wijze waarop de pro-Israelische polderpers bericht:

Flatgebouw Gaza stort in na Israëlische luchtaanval

redactie − 23/08/14, 20:13  − bron: ANP
© EPA.
Door een Israëlische luchtaanval in Gaza is een flatgebouw van 13 verdiepingen geraakt en vervolgens ingestort. Er zouden tientallen gewonden zijn.
  • © afp.
Volgens een woordvoerder van het Israëlische leger werd het gebouw door Hamas gebruikt als hoofdkwartier. Volgens omstanders woonden in het appartementencomplex 44 families.



Zo'n 5 minuten voor de aanval vuurde het leger een raket op het dak af als waarschuwing.

'Er zouden tientallen gewonden zijn.' Deze informatie komt van de Palestijnen. De Volkskrant houdt dus een slag om de arm. Maar nu de berichtgeving van het Israelische leger: de Volkskrant meldt niet dat er 'zo'n 5 minuten voor de aanval het leger een raket op het dak als waarschuwing' zou 'zijn afgevuurd.' Nee, de Volkskrant meldt zonder bronvermelding dat dit een onomstotelijk feit is. Bovendien is het 'flatgebouw van 13 verdiepingen' niet per ongeluk geraakt, maar expres omdat 'het gebouw door Hamas [werd] gebruikt als hoofdkwartier.' De Volkskrant voert dit aan als argument, maar dat is  het geenszins. Het betreft hier een oorlogsmisdaad omdat de burgers in het gebouw bewust als doelwit werden gekozen. We mogen aannemen dat de vluchtende burgers op de foto uit het ingestorte gebouw of de directe omgeving afkomstig zijn. Hoe moesten de burgers in eerste instantie weten dat het hier een zogeheten 'waarschuwing' was? Bij de Volkskrant-redactie bestaat ook geen logica.Deze tendentieuze verslaggeving heeft ertoe geleid dat het publiek een lage dunk heeft van de Volkskrant-journalistiek, die niets anders is dan zionistische propaganda. Waar moesten de zogeheten 'gewaarschuwde' burgers naartoe vluchten? Kijk, als iemand een bom plaatst in het Volkskrant-gebouw, dan kan de redactie alle kanten op vluchten  en zodra de politie heeft gecontroleerd dat er geen andere bommen liggen, kan ze weer het gebouw in. Maar de inwoners van een belegerde stad, die in strijd met het internationaal recht, wekenlang onder vuur liggen, waar kunnen die heen? En waar moeten ze de bommen verwachten? De Volkskrant doet alsof er een logica in de terreur zit, en dat maakt de redactie schuldig aan het vergoelijken van terrorisme. Wat kan men hiertegen doen in een democratische rechtstaat, of dat wat er voor door moet gaan?
In A History of Bombing (1999) schreef de Zweedse journalist Sven Lindqvist:
Throughout this century, it has been clear that the standard of living enjoyed by the industrial countries cannot be extended to the world's population. We have created a way of life that must always be limited to a few.
These few can make a broad middle class in a few countries and a small upper class in the rest. The members know each other by their buying power. They have a common interest in preserving their privileges, by force if necessary. They, too, are born into violence. 
Out of this violence, both that which has already been committed and that which is still dormant, the centuries of genocide emerge.
En zo leven wij nu in een tijd waarin een aanzienlijk deel van de Joods-Israeli's en een deel van de joden in de zogeheten 'diaspora' dezelfde mentaliteit vertonen als de nazi's onder Hitler. 'Global violence is the hard core of our existence.'

Zionist Fascism 229

Zou de maag omkeren van vicepremier Lodewijk Asscher wanneer hij het volgende verneemt? Dit wordt gedaan om ondermeer zijn 'recht op terugkeer' te garanderen:  

Israeli forces killed at least 100 Palestinians on Sunday, including 66 people in a single neighborhood of Gaza City, bringing the 13-day death toll to at least 437 people. The vast majority of them are civilians and include least one hundred children.
Early Sunday morning, Israel indiscriminately shelled the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiya, destroying homes and buildings. Dozens of the dead and hundreds of injured and maimed people were pulled from the rubble.
Inside al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s main medical center, a doctor says that the majority of those injured are children, and that the morgue was over capacity with victims of the massacre.


BREAKING: International Solidarity Movement just published a video of a young Palestinian man being shot by Israeli snipers while searching the rubble of Shujaya for his family.

**some may find the footage disturbing**
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBakqLUBWP0#t=102


Operation Protective Edge has not officially ended, but the IDF's Technological and Logistics Directorate (known as Atal in Hebrew) has released a number of figures it collected throughout the month-long conflict.

Some of the numbers published reveal what many in the IDF already knew, and one senior officer echoed on Thursday: 'It was basically a preview of what will happen in the next war with Lebanon, where we will have 80 Shuja'ias (buurten svh) and a significant hit on the economy.'

Hoe barbaars de Joods-Israelische strijdkrachten zijn blijkt wel uit het volgende:

Early Sunday morning, Israel indiscriminately shelled the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiya, destroying homes and buildings. Dozens of the dead and hundreds of injured and maimed people were pulled from the rubble.
Inside al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s main medical center, a doctor says that the majority of those injured are children, and that the morgue was over capacity with victims of the massacre.

Ondanks het feit dat de meerderheid van de gewonden kinderen waren, en vele doden kinderen, verheugde een hoge zionistische militair zich al op de volgende bloedbaden door te melden dat:

It was basically a preview of what will happen in the next war with Lebanon, where we will have 80 Shuja'ias  and a significant hit on the economy.

Joods-Israelische oorlogsmisdaden en misdaden tegen de menselijkheid.

Zionist Fascism 228

Updates from

The Electronic Intifada

In photos: Gaza families return home to horror and devastation

By Silvia Boarini on Aug 22, 2014 03:21 pm

Photojournalist Silvia Boarini documents the atrocities revealed during the days of ceasefire.

Read in browser »   Comment »   share on Twitter   Like In photos: Gaza families return home to horror and devastation on Facebook 

Univ. of Illinois admits pre-emptive firing of Israel critic Steven Salaita

By Ali Abunimah on Aug 22, 2014 01:51 pm

This transparent use of “civility” as a cover to fire a professor with outspoken views on Israel is almost identical to the pretext that was given by DePaul University in 2007 to deny tenure to Norman Finkelstein.

Read in browser »   Comment »   share on Twitter   Like Univ. of Illinois admits pre-emptive firing of Israel critic Steven Salaita on Facebook 

Isolate Israel "at every level," urges Palestinian-Canadian physician in Gaza

By Nora Barrows-Friedman on Aug 22, 2014 09:49 am

A Canada-based pediatric neurologist in Gaza discusses the long-term needs of hospitals, besieged and bombed by Israel, plus other stories.
Read in browser »   Comment »   share on Twitter   Like Isolate Israel "at every level," urges Palestinian-Canadian physician in Gaza on Facebook 

Video: Chicago Jewish activists disrupt Rahm Emanuel, Michael Oren at Israel fundraiser

By Ali Abunimah on Aug 22, 2014 09:33 am

The disruptions took place as dozens of Chicagoans rallied outside calling for an end to the attack on Gaza and for Israeli war criminals to be brought to justice.

Read in browser »   Comment »   share on Twitter   Like Video: Chicago Jewish activists disrupt Rahm Emanuel, Michael Oren at Israel fundraiser on Facebook 

Canada's tax-deductible support for Israel's crimes

By Yves Engler on Aug 22, 2014 04:10 am

The attacks on Gaza have led to a flood of inquiries about how Canadians can assist Israel’s military, according to one Zionist group.

Read in browser »   Comment »   share on Twitter   Like Canada's tax-deductible support for Israel's crimes  on Facebook 

In asymmetric Twitter war over Gaza, Palestinians are winning

By Belal Dabour on Aug 21, 2014 05:50 pm

Where Palestinian and Israeli narratives confront each other with no go-between, the Palestinians win.

Read in browser »   Comment »   share on Twitter   Like In asymmetric Twitter war over Gaza, Palestinians are winning on Facebook 

Israel kills human rights defenders and their families

By Adri Nieuwhof on Aug 21, 2014 01:28 pm

Israel’s refusal to allow human rights organizations entry to Gaza reflects a pattern of disrespect for the work of human rights defenders.
Read in browser »   Comment »   share on Twitter   Like Israel kills human rights defenders and their families on Facebook 

No deal with professor fired for Israel views is on Univ. of Illinois trustees' table

By Ali Abunimah on Aug 21, 2014 11:22 am

A Monday meeting of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees did not consider any settlement proposal regarding the case of Steven Salaita, The Electronic Intifada has learned.

Read in browser »   Comment »   share on Twitter   Like No deal with professor fired for Israel views is on Univ. of Illinois trustees' table on Facebook 

Zionist Fascism 227



As reported by The New York Times, an Israeli general and spokesman put the onus on civilians in this most-densely populated place on earth to get out of the way of his comrades’ missiles:
“We are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip very powerfully and will continue to do so in the coming hours,” Brig. Gen. Motti Almoz, the chief Israeli Army spokesman, said in a television interview on Friday night. “Every citizen in the Gaza Strip who has in proximity to him or his home weaponry, we view him to be a legitimate target,” General Almoz said. “We are asking him to leave the area because those targets are going to be attacked in the coming hours and coming days. We are here. We aren’t going to go anywhere until quiet arrives.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/world/middleeast/israel-gaza.html?_r=0 

Esther Voet. Raciste. CIDI 7


II Gij zult de naam van de Here, uw God, niet ijdel gebruiken

'Voor ik antwoord geef op jouw vraag of ik onderscheid maak tussen... degene jij zonet noemde (Jahweh, AV), God en Allah: ik heb liever niet dat je Zijn naam nog een keer gebruikt in dit huis. Als we er zo over praten zou ik het woord HaShem gebruiken, die andere naam werd maar eens per jaar door de hogepriester in de tempel genoemd en ik vind het storend dat jij, als niet-jood, Zijn naam nu, hier, zomaar gebruikt. Dit is mijn huis, mijn privé, hier heersen mijn regels...'

En in het internationaal recht gelden regels die door Israel al jarenlang geschonden worden, hetgeen door mevrouw Voet wordt goed gepraat. Waarom gaan haar regels wel op, en niet de regels van het internationaal recht? Waar berust deze schizofrenie op? 

VI Gij zult niet doodslaan...

De neutralisering van Hamas is, ook voor het Palestijnse volk, de enige oplossing.

http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4492/Nederland/article/detail/3723735/2014/08/23/De-tijd-dat-Joden-zich-domweg-lieten-afvoeren-is-voorbij.dhtml

De 'neutralisering van Hamas' is net zo'n eufemisme als de 'Endlösung der Judenfrage.' Ik vrees dat mevrouw Voet niet bij haar volle verstand is. 


Gaza: Palestinian killed 'by Israeli sniper' as he searched for family in rubble

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/gaza-palestinian-killed-by-israeli-3897217#ixzz3BEMG8mV0 
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook

ISIS 10

Augustus 2014, dezelfde maand dat National Geographic een uitgebreid artikel publiceert over 'Hunger in America, The New Face of Hunger' met gedocumenteerde informatie over 'Millions of working Americans don't know where their next meal is coming from' bericht The Huffington Post onder de kop:

het volgende:

Aug 22 (Reuters) - The United States is considering taking the fight against Islamic State militants into Syria after days of airstrikes against the group in Iraq and the beheading of an American journalist, the White House signaled on Friday.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/22/us-islamic-state-syria_n_5701415.html
Het zogeheten 'democratische Amerika' heeft dus geen geld om zijn eigen hongerige bevolking te voeden, maar wel genoeg geld om bijna anderhalf miljoen dollar te spenderen aan maar één Tomahawk kruisraket, waarvan 161 op Libië werden afgeschoten en meer dan 725 op Iraq, terwijl sinds 1999 de kosten van zo'n raket bijna zijn verdrievoudigd, alles bijeen zo'n 1,3 miljard dollar voor slechts één type wapen. 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/25/cruise-missiles-missile_n_840365.html



Het zal iedere lezer duidelijk zijn dat het legitimeren van een dergelijk systeem geen geringe opgave is. Hoe krijgt de macht burgers zover dat ze bereid zijn om deze waanzin te accepteren? Het antwoord is simpelweg: met behulp van de mainstream-media de bevolking zo bang te maken dat zij grove onrechtvaardigheid accepteert. Alleen een levensbedreigende externe vijand kan nog een interne cohesie bewerkstelligen.  
Tot ongeveer half juni 2014 had de westerse mainstream-pers nog nooit gehoord van ISIS, met andere woorden: binnen twee maanden heeft de westerse elite als het ware vanuit het niets een casus belli geschapen. Het is alsof ISIS van Mars is komen vallen; ineens bestaat er een goed georganiseerd, zwaar bewapende strijdmacht die het -- door de VS bewapende en getrainde Iraakse leger -- op de vlucht dreef met de allernieuwste peperdure wapens, en met een logistieke kracht waarvoor zelfs het Amerikaanse leger bewondering heeft. Als het Westen daadwerkelijk over een 'vrije pers' beschikte, dan zou de eerste vraag zijn geweest: Wie betaalt dit allemaal? Hoe komen deze extremisten aan de honderden miljoenen om een dergelijke succesvolle militaire operatie te kunnen financieren? Maar omdat de mainstream-pers gedisciplineerd is en de belangen van de neoliberale elite dient, wordt deze zaak alleen door kritische journalisten op internet serieus onderzocht. Op die manier was eerder bekend geworden dat Israel graag de ISIS-extremisten aan de macht wilde zien, en dat Saoedi Arabië de islamitische fundamentalisten van wapens voorzag. 
Israel Sides with Syrian Jihadists
SEPTEMBER 18, 2013
Exclusive: Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, has confirmed suspicions that Israel has taken the side of Syrian rebels in their bloody civil war and wants President Assad to fall even if that turns Syria over to al-Qaeda-connected jihadists, a disclosure that may change how recent events are viewed, reports Robert Parry.


Bovendien is bekend dat:

Saudi Arabia and Israel have been cooperating quietly on issues of shared interest for three years starting in the days of Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert. But the basis of understanding has broadened and strengthened in the four months since the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the falling-out between Abdullah and President Barack Obama over the latter’s Middle East policy.

ISIS. Is de voorste man links een Arabier of een Westerling? En wat zijn zijn handen merkwaardig bruin, op die ene witte vlek na.

Met andere woorden: het is niet absoluut krankzinnig te vermoeden dat Israel betrokken is bij een of andere vorm van steun aan ISIS. Saoedi-Arabië en Israel hebben één gemeenschappelijke vijand, en dat is Iran. De door het Westen gesteunde zogeheten Free Syrian Army, dat in Syrië vocht samen met ISIS tegen het Assad-regime en het strijdvaardige Hezbollah, waarvan Israel in 2006 verloor, omdat beide gesteund worden door Iran. 

Welnu, een onafhankelijke journalist zou zich onmiddellijk hebben afgevraagd: waarom laat Washington het toe dat bondgenoot Saoedie-Arabië wapens en logistieke steun verlenen aan een soennitische terreurbeweging als ISIS? Wat is het belang van de Amerikaanse plutocratie om hun 'vijandente laten bewapenen? En waarom wordt die vraag niet centraal gesteld door mijn mainstream-collega's? Men dient daar een antwoord op te geven wil de commerciële pers niet, net als voorafgaand aan de illegale Irak-inval, opnieuw een propaganda-rol spelen. Het probleem alleen is dat de mainstream-media nu eenmaal niets anders kan dan propaganda bedrijven voor het bestaande systeem. Dat begreep de Amerikaanse intelligentsia onder de gevestigde orde al in de jaren twintig van de vorige eeuw. De invloedrijke media-ideoloog en opiniemaker Walter Lippmann dat de elite erop moest toezien dat 'juiste' denkbeelden onder de massa werden verspreid. Lippmann benadrukte dat daarom:

public opinions must be organized for the press if they are to be sound, not by the press... Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event. Access to the real environment must be limited, before anyone can create a pseudo-environment that he thinks is wise or desirable.

Alleen de macht moet de grenzen van de werkelijkheid bepalen, en journalisten dienen die grenzen keurig over te nemen en moeten als opiniemakers erop toezien dat de werkelijkheid in de gewenste vorm wordt gepresenteerd. De massa en de pers worden niet geacht in staat te zijn om voor zichzelf te denken en om visies te ontwikkelen die de de macht ondersteunen. In dat proces waren volgens Lippmann beelden van eminent belang omdat 

pictures have always been the surest way of conveying an idea, and next in order, words that call up pictures in memory.

De commerciële massamedia zijn het perfecte medium om complexe gedachten terug te brengen tot ééndimensionale beelden die de consument dwingen partij te kiezen voor het  establishment. Lippmann hamerde er keer op keer op dat de massa's

have to take sides. We have to be able to take sides. In the recesses of our being we must step out of the audience on to the stage, and wrestle as the hero for the victory of good over evil. We must breathe into the allegory the breath of life.

Het resultaat is natuurlijk een gemanipuleerde schijnwereld om de massa en de massamedia in het gareel te houden. Professor Ewen:

Raised in a world that looked toward fact-based journalism as the most efficient lubricant of persuasion, Lippmann turned toward Hollywood, America's 'dream factory,' for inspiration. Never before had an American thinker articulated in such detail the ways that images could be used to sway public consciousness. Appeals to reason were not merely being discarded as futile, they were being consciously undermined to serve the interests of power. It is here, at the turning point where Lippmann unqualifiedly abandoned the idea of meaningful public dialogue, that the dark side of his ruminations on the power of the image was most dramatically revealed.

Edward Bernays, de grondlegger van de public-relations industrie, de man die 'was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine en die 'the father of the spinmeisters' was 'who manipulate our perceptions of politicians,' formuleerde het zo:

The counsel on public relations not only knows what news value is, but knowing it, he is in a position to make news happen. He is a creator of events.

Op die manier is een virtuele wereld ontstaan van persconferenties, reclameblokken, politieke babbelprogramma’s, roddel, infotainment, en talloze andere vormen van wat de befaamde Amerikaanse opiniemaker Walter Lippmann ‘pseudo-events’ noemde. Lippmann:

Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct a propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event. Access to the real environment must be limited, before anyone can create a pseudo-environment that he thinks is wise or desirable.

Dergelijke ‘pseudo-events’ zijn noodzakelijk omdat, volgens Lippmann, de massamens nagenoeg niet in staat is om rationeel te reageren op de wereld en dus een voorgeprogrammeerd propagandabeeld opgediend moet krijgen, een beeld dat de belangen van de rijke elite ondersteunt. In de werkelijkheid is belangrijker geworden dat iets ‘nieuwswaardig’ is dan dat het ‘real’ is. ‘Far more interest was shown in the performance than in what was said,’ zo definieerde de Amerikaanse historicus Daniel Boorstin de werkwijze van de mediadeskundigen. In zijn boek The Image (1961) schreef hij:

The efficient mass production of pseudo-events – in all kinds of packages, in black-and-white, in Technicolor, in words, and in a thousand other forms – is the work of the whole machinery of our society. It is the daily product of men of good will. The media must be fed! The people must be informed! Most pleas for ‘more information’ are therefore misguided. So long as we define information as a knowledge of pseudo-events, ‘more information’ will simply multiply the symptoms without curing the disease.


Op dit punt aangekomen stel ik het volgende: ISIS is een door het Westen in het leven geroepen en gebruikte organisatie om een nieuwe oorlog in het Midden-Oosten te rechtvaardigen tegenover een sceptisch publiek dat al sinds 2008 wordt gedupeerd na het failliet van het neoliberale kapitalisme. Dit is de enige verklaring waarom Washington accepteert dat zowel het islamitisch regime in Saoedie Arabië als het zionistisch regime in Israel ISIS steunt. De volstrekt overbodige morbide onthoofding van een Amerikaanse journalist, die twee jaar lang gevangen werd gehouden voordat hij als slachtoffer gebruikt kon worden, is onderdeel van een door westerse en Israelische geheime diensten opgesteld scenario van 'pseudo-events,' die nieuw grootscheeps geweld moet legitimeren. Ik stel met nadruk: moet, en wel omdat jaarlijks 58 procent van het beschikbare federale budget van de VS naar het militair-industrieel complex gaat. Dit gaat ten koste van onderwijs, gezondheidszorg, kunsten en wetenschappen, bejaardenzorg, volkshuisvesting etc. en kan alleen gelegitimeerd worden wanneer er een vijand is. Oorlog is dus noodzakelijk om de bestaande kapitalistische structuur te kunnen handhaven. Alles wat nu door de commerciële massamedia wordt bericht is een even grote leugen als dat Saddam Hoessein over massavernietigingswapens beschikte die in 45 minuten konden worden ingezet. U wordt opnieuw bedrogen. Het is zo knap opgezet dat zelfs de overgrote meerderheid van de ISIS-leden daadwerkelijk denken dat ze tegen het Westen vechten, terwijl ze niet beseffen dat ze gebruikt worden in een geopolitiek machtsspel van de NAVO. Wij leven inmiddels allen in een virtuele wereld. Meer later.

E la nave va. Het militair-industrieel complex draait op volle toeren.

Natascha van Weezel's 'REDELIJKHEID.'

In haar Parool -column van deze week liet Natascha van Weezel, die er vanuit gaat dat zij als joodse Nederlander die al  decennialang Israel...