Henk Hofland en de Massa 117

Interestingly, the decline in the trust in media is similar to the drop in trust in government and United States institutions.

Andrew Moran. The Collapse of American Media – New poll shows trust in media at all-time low. 30 september 2015

Wij, de elites van nu, missen noblesse oblige,

aldus luidde de kop in NRC Handelsblad van zaterdag 18 april 2015 boven de bewerking van Geert Mak's dankwoord voor het ontvangen van de Gouden Ganzenveer. De strekking was dat de 'huidige elite' weliswaar 'is gedemocratiseerd,' maar dat daardoor 'vooral éigen keuzes en prestaties' nu een rol spelen, 'de eigen show – ook al bouwt men voort op' datgene wat 'anderen' mogelijk hebben gemaakt. De bestseller-auteur stelt daar tegenover dat 'een goede elite [erkent] dat ze een elite is,' die als adel van de geest zich dient te houden aan de aloude regel ‘noblesse oblige,’ en wel 

in de breedste zin van het woord. Nog altijd. Kwaliteit, empathie en courage, ja, die hebben wij, als elite, in deze tijd nodig. Maar de grootste van deze drie is courage.

Ik had het niet treffender kunnen formuleren en daarom verrasten zijn woorden mij, aangezien Mak als bestseller-auteur van alles en nog wat kan zijn, maar in elk geval geen moedig mens. Dit kan eenvoudigweg niet aangezien hij zijn mainstream-publiek teveel moet behagen. Als er iets is wat hem ontbreekt dan is het juist 'kwaliteit' en 'courage,' terwijl zijn 'empathie' niet verder strekt dan zijn eigen, blanke, christelijke, neoliberale Europa van 'Geen Jorwert zonder Brussel.' Ik bedoel, een journalist die in zijn 550 pagina's tellende In America. Travels with JOHN STEINBECK anno 2014 nog steeds beweert dat 

America has functioned for decades as a keeper of order, as world policeman — not to mention all the aid it has dispensed,

en in één adem daaraan toevoegt dat 

True, with his eternal messianism, the 'quiet American' has also brought suffering or death to hundreds of thousands of people abroad, and indeed at home, in recent decades,

toont geen 'courage,' maar lafheid. Mijn oude vriend draait zijn publiek een rad voor ogen, gezien alle Amerikaanse oorlogsmisdaden Vietnam, Afghanistan en Irak en overal elders waar de VS na 1945 'een spoor van vernieling' heeft achtergelaten, oftewel een 'legacy of ashes,' zoals president Eisenhower aan het einde van zijn tweede termijn tegen de director van de CIA, Allen Dulles, opmerkte. Natuurlijk gelooft ook Mak niet echt in zijn bewering dat het imperium van Washington en Wall Street 'ordewaker en politieman' is wanneer dit ten koste gaat van ontelbare bloedbaden op talloze plaatsen in de wereld waar de belangen van de Amerikaanse elite geglobaliseerd moeten worden. Het begrip 'messianisme' moet de lezer dan ook met een korreltje zout nemen, het gaat om markten en grondstoffen. Maar als de bestseller-auteur dit toegeeft zal hij zijn imago en inkomen ernstig schaden. Mak zou vervolgens niet meer door het establishment worden onderscheiden met allerlei prestigieuze prijzen en onderscheidingen, en zijn boekenoplages zouden drastisch kelderen. De mainstream kent geen ruimte om te manoeuvreren. De macht bepaalt de marges van 'noblesse oblige.' Hoe weerzinwekkend de collaborerende houding van Geert Mak is blijkt uit ondermeer bij het lezen van Joshua Oppenheimer's artikel in de New York Times van dinsdag 29 september 2015, waarin deze bekende Amerikaanse documentaire-maker het volgende schreef:

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of a mass slaughter in Indonesia. With American support, more than 500,000 people were murdered by the Indonesian Army and its civilian death squads. At least 750,000 more were tortured and sent to concentration camps, many for decades.

The victims were accused of being 'communists,' an umbrella that included not only members of the legally registered Communist Party, but all likely opponents of Suharto’s new military regime — from union members and women’s rights activists to teachers and the ethnic Chinese. Unlike in Germany, Rwanda or Cambodia, there have been no trials, no truth-and-reconciliation commissions, no memorials to the victims. Instead, many perpetrators still hold power throughout the country.

Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous nation, and if it is to become the democracy it claims to be, this impunity must end. The anniversary is a moment for the United States to support Indonesia’s democratic transition by acknowledging the 1965 genocide, and encouraging a process of truth, reconciliation and justice.

On Oct. 1, 1965, six army generals in Jakarta were killed by a group of disaffected junior officers. Maj. Gen. Suharto assumed command of the armed forces, blamed the killings on the leftists, and set in motion a killing machine. Millions of people associated with left-leaning organizations were targeted, and the nation dissolved into terror — people even stopped eating fish for fear that fish were eating corpses. Suharto usurped President Sukarno’s authority and established himself as de facto president by March 1966. From the very beginning, he enjoyed the full support of the United States.

I’ve spent 12 years investigating the terrible legacy of the genocide, creating two documentary films, 'The Act of Killing' in 2013 and 'The Look of Silence,' released earlier this year. I began in 2003, working with a family of survivors. We wanted to show what it is like to live surrounded by still-powerful perpetrators who had murdered your loved ones.

The family gathered other survivors to tell their stories, but the army warned them not to participate. Many survivors urged me not to give up and suggested that I film perpetrators in hopes that they would reveal details of the massacres.

I did not know if it was safe to approach the killers, but when I did, I found them open. They offered boastful accounts of the killings, often with smiles on their faces and in front of their grandchildren. I felt I had wandered into Germany 40 years after the Holocaust, only to find the Nazis still in power.

Today, former political prisoners from this era still face discrimination and threats. Gatherings of elderly survivors are regularly attacked by military-backed thugs. Schoolchildren are still taught that the “extermination of the communists” was heroic, and that victims’ families should be monitored for disloyalty. This official history, in effect, legitimizes violence against a whole segment of society.

The purpose of such intimidation is to create a climate of fear in which corruption and plunder go unchallenged. Inevitably in such an atmosphere, human rights violations have continued since 1965, including the 1975-1999 occupation of East Timor, where enforced starvation contributed to the killing of nearly a third of the population, as well as torture and extrajudicial killing that go on in West Papua today.

Military rule in Indonesia formally ended in 1998, but the army remains above the law. If a general orders an entire village massacred, he cannot be tried in civilian courts. The only way he could face justice is if the army itself convenes a military tribunal, or if Parliament establishes a special human rights court — something it has never done fairly and effectively.

With the military not subject to law, a shadow state of paramilitaries and intelligence agencies has formed around it. This shadow state continues to intimidate the public into silence while, together with its business partners, it loots the national wealth.

Indonesia can hold regular elections, but if the laws do not apply to the most powerful elements in society, then there is no rule of law, and no genuine democracy. The country will never become a true democracy until it takes serious steps to end impunity. An essential start is a process of truth, reconciliation and justice.

This may still be possible. The Indonesian media, which used to shy from discussing the genocide, now refers to the killings as crimes against humanity, and grassroots activism has taken hold. The current president, Joko Widodo, indicated he would address the 1965 massacre, but he has not established a truth commission, issued a national apology, or taken any other steps to end the military’s impunity.

We need truth and accountability from the United States as well. U.S. involvement dates at least to an April 1962 meeting between American and British officials resulting in the decision to “liquidate” President Sukarno, the populist — but not communist — founding father of Indonesia. As a founder of the nonaligned movement, Sukarno favored socialist policies; Washington wanted to replace him with someone more deferential to Western strategic and commercial interests.

The United States conducted covert operations to destabilize Sukarno and strengthen the military. Then, when genocide broke out, America provided equipment, weapons and money. The United States compiled lists containing thousands of names of public figures likely to oppose the new military regime, and handed them over to the Indonesian military, presumably with the expectation that they would be killed. Western aid to Suharto’s dictatorship, ultimately amounting to tens of billions of dollars, began flowing while corpses still clogged Indonesia’s rivers. The American media celebrated Suharto’s rise and his campaign of death. Time magazine said it was the 'best news for years in Asia.'

But the extent of America’s role remains hidden behind a wall of secrecy: C.I.A. documents and U.S. defense attaché papers remain classified. Numerous Freedom of Information Act requests for these documents have been denied. Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, will soon reintroduce a resolution that, if passed, would acknowledge America’s role in the atrocities, call for declassification of all relevant documents, and urge the Indonesian government to acknowledge the massacres and establish a truth commission. If the U.S. government recognizes the genocide publicly, acknowledges its role in the crimes, and releases all documents pertaining to the issue, it will encourage the Indonesian government to do the same.

This anniversary should be a reminder that although we want to move on, although nothing will wake the dead or make whole what has been broken, we must stop, honor the lives destroyed, acknowledge our role in the destruction, and allow the healing process to begin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/opinion/suhartos-purge-indonesias-silence.html?_r=0 

De door de VS gesteunde 'genocide' in Indonesië voltrok zich tijdens de 'decennia,' waarin volgens Geert Mak de VS 'als ordebewaker en politieagent [fungeerde].’ Op die manier werken Mak en de westerse mainstream-pers in het algemeen eraan mee dat de terreur van het imperium 'remains hidden behind a wall of secrecy.' In dit opzicht zijn ze voor de macht nuttige propagandisten die gehoorzaam hun mond houden over 'America’s role in the atrocities' in zowel Indonesië als elders. Kenmerkend in dit verband is dat Volkskrant-opiniemaker Paul Brill op zijn beurt Reizen zonder John. Op zoek naar Amerika van zijn collega-opiniemaker Mak uitbundig prees als ‘een monumentaal boek,’ dat ‘qua betrouwbaarheid’ het ‘met gemak [wint]’ van John Steinbeck's boek Travels with Charley. De brutalen mogen dan wel de halve wereld hebben, maar wij hebben nog steeds de andere helft. Daarom, speciaal voor mijn mainstream-collega's in de commerciële massamedia neem ik opnieuw een fragment over uit de goed gedocumenteerde studie The American Deep State. Wall Street, Big Oil and the Attack on U.S. Democracy (2015) van de Canadese oud-diplomaat en emeritus hoogleraar Peter Dale Scott. In het dertiende en laatste hoofdstuk, getiteld 'Why Americans Must End America's Self-Generating Wars,' beschrijft Scott eerst de ondergang van het kortstondige Britse rijk om vervolgens paralellen te trekken met de huidige ontwikkeling: 

The Pax Americana in the Light of the Pax Britannica

The world is not condemned to repeat this tragedy under the Pax Americana. Global interdependence and above all communications have greatly improved. We possess the knowledge, the abilities, and the incentives to understand historical processes more skillfully than before. Above all it is increasingly evident to a global minority that American hypermilitarism, in the name of security, is becoming – much like British hypermilitarism in the nineteenth century -- a threat to everyone’s security, including America’s, by inducing and increasingly seeking wider and wider wars.

There is one consolation for Americans in this increasing global disequilibrium. As the causes for global insecurity become more and more located in our own country, so also do the remedies. More than their British predecessors, Americans have an opportunity that other peoples do not, to diminish global tensions and move towards a more equitable global regimen. Of course one cannot predict that such a restoration can be achieved. But the disastrous end of the Pax Britannica, and the increasingly heavy burdens borne by Americans, suggest that it is necessary. For American unilateral expansionism, like Britain’s before it, is now contributing to a breakdown of the understandings and international legal arrangements (notably those of the UN Charter) that for some decades contributed to relative stability.

It needs to be stated clearly that the American arms build-up today is the leading cause in the world of a global arms build-up – one that is ominously reminiscent of the arms race, fueled by the British armaments industry, that led to the 1911 Agadir incident and soon after to World War I. But today’s arms build-up cannot be called an arms race: it is so dominated by America (and its NATO allies, required by NATO policy to have compatible armaments) that the responsive arms sales of Russia and China are small by comparison:

'In 2010 …the United States maintained its dominating position in the global arms bazaar, signing $21.3 billion in worldwide arms sales, or 52.7 percent of all weapons deals…

Russia was second with $7.8 billion in arms sales in 2010, or 19.3 percent of the market, compared with $12.8 billion in 2009. Following the United States and Russia in sales were France, Britain, China, Germany and Italy.'

(A year later America’s total dominance of overseas arms sales had more than doubled, to represent 79 percent of global arms sales:

Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals.) 

And what is NATO’s primary activity today requiring arms? Not defense against Russia, but support for America in its self-generating War on Terror, in Afghanistan as once in Iraq. The War on Terror should be seen for what it really is: a pretext for maintaining a dangerously oversized U.S. military, in an increasingly unstable exercise of unjust power.

In other words America is by far the chief country flooding the world with armaments today. It is imperative that Americans force a reassessment of this incentive to global poverty and insecurity. We need to recall Eisenhower’s famous warning in 1953 that 'Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, is in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.'

It is similarly worth recalling that President Kennedy, in his American University speech of June 10, 1963, called for a vision of peace that would explicitly not be 'a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.' His vision was wise, if short-lived. After sixty years of the American security system – the so-called 'Pax Americana' – America itself is ever more caught up in an increasingly paranoid condition of psychological insecurity. Traditional features of American culture – such as respect for habeas corpus and international law – are being jettisoned at home and abroad because of a so-called terrorist threat that is largely of America’s own making. William Arkin (Amerikaanse politiek commentator en oud militair. svh) has written that Washington's fear has created 'the very real predicament — and the danger — of a nation permanently at war.'

Belangrijk is ook te weten dat al in 1961 president Eisenhower in zijn afscheidsrede de Amerikaanse bevolking waarschuwde voor de macht van wat hij 'het militair-industrieel complex' noemde:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html 

Dwight Eisenhower wist als president en oud-opperbevelhebber van de Geallieerde Strijdkrachten in Europa hoe gevaarlijk de macht van het Pentagon en de CIA was, maar zelfs hij was niet in staat die macht aan banden te leggen door haar onder democratische controle te brengen. Peter Dale Scott:  

Small bureaucratic cabals (kliek. svh) in Washington have also inadvertently contributed to larger disasters. The 1998 destruction of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania was two days after a letter from Aywan al-Zawahiri, published in a London Arab newspaper, promised retribution for the CIA's illegal kidnapping and rendition of al-Qaeda militants in Albania, resulting in their torture and killing in Egypt.

The same kidnapping illustrates another risk of small cabals operating within a large bureaucracy: because of the stovepiping (informatie zonder context geven. svh) of their intelligence, they may end up, as in Bosnia, fighting on opposite sides. The Dutch official observer Cees Wiebes reported a decade ago that, while one CIA cabal was kidnapping al-Qaedists in the Bosnian conflict, another cabal in the Pentagon was supplying al-Qaedists there.

'Arms purchased by Iran and Turkye with the financial backing of Saudi Arabia made their way by night from the Middle East. Initially aircraft from Iran Air were used, but as the volume increased they were joined by a mysterious fleet of black C-130 Hercules aircraft. The report (by Wiebes) stresses that the US was ''very closely involved'' in the airlift. Mojahedin fighters were also flown in, but they were reserved as shock troops for especially hazardous operations… The CIA's main opponents in Bosnia were now the mojahedin fighters and their Iranian trainers — whom the Pentagon had been helping to supply months earlier.' (aldus Richard J. Aldrich' artikel in de Guardian van 21 april 2002, getiteld 'America Used Islamists to Arm Bosnian Muslims,' summarizing Cees Wiebes Intelligence and the War in Bosnia. svh).

The result aggravated a chaos profitable only to those private military corporations (PMCs), like MPRI and Blackwater, who were given contracts to deal with it.

The Covert US-Saudi Alliance and the War on Terror

Of the $66.3 billion in U.S. overseas arms sales in 2011, over half, or $33.4 billion, consisted of sales to Saudi Arabia. This included dozens of Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, weapons described by the New York Times as needed for defense against Iran, but more suitable for Saudi Arabia’s increasing involvement in aggressive asymmetric wars (e.g. in Syria). (En nu in Yemen. svh)

These Saudi arms sales are not incidental; they reflect an agreement between the two countries to offset (compenseren. svh) the flow of US dollars to pay for Saudi oil. During the oil price hikes of 1971 and 1973 Nixon and Kissinger negotiated a deal with both Saudi Arabia and Iran to pay significantly higher prices for crude, on the understanding that the two countries would then recycle the petrodollars by various means, prominently arms deals.

Ik onderbreek even de uiteenzetting van Peter Dale Scott om te verwijzen naar de Amerikaanse film Network, die het thema van geld en politiek voor een groot publiek in beeld bracht.

Network is a 1976 American satirical film written by Paddy Chayefsky… about a fictional television network, UBS, and its struggle with poor ratings.

The film won four Academy Awards, in the categories of Best Actor (Finch), Best Actress (Dunaway), Best Supporting Actress (Straight), and Best Original Screenplay (Chayefsky).

In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.' In 2002, it was inducted into the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame as a film that has 'set an enduring standard for U.S. American entertainment.' In 2006, Chayefsky's script was voted one of the top-ten screenplays by the Writers Guild of America, East. In 2007, the film was 64th among the 100 greatest American films as chosen by the American Film Institute, a ranking slightly higher than the one AFI had given it ten years earlier.

Het plot gaat als volgt:

Howard Beale, the longtime anchor of the Union Broadcasting System's UBS Evening News, learns from the news division president, Max Schumacher, that he has just two more weeks on the air because of declining ratings. The two old friends get roaring drunk and lament the state of their industry. The following night, Beale announces on live television that he will commit suicide on next Tuesday's broadcast. UBS fires him after this incident, but Schumacher intervenes so that Beale can have a dignified farewell. Beale promises he will apologize for his outburst, but once on the air, he launches back into a rant claiming that life is 'bullshit.' Beale's outburst causes the newscast's ratings to spike, and much to Schumacher's dismay, the upper echelons of UBS decide to exploit Beale's antics rather than pull him off the air. In one impassioned diatribe, Beale galvanizes the nation, persuading his viewers to shout out of their windows 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' […] 

When Beale discovers that Communications Corporation of America (CCA), the conglomerate that owns UBS, will be bought out by an even larger Saudi Arabian conglomerate, he launches an on-screen tirade against the deal, encouraging viewers to send telegrams to the White House telling them, 'I want the CCA deal stopped now!' This throws the top network brass into a state of panic because the company's debt load has made merger essential for survival. Hackett takes Beale to meet with CCA chairman Arthur Jensen, who explicates his own 'corporate cosmology' to the attentive Beale. Jensen delivers a tirade of his own in an 'appropriate setting,' the dramatically darkened CCA boardroom, that suggests to the docile Beale that Jensen may himself be some higher power—describing the interrelatedness of the participants in the international economy and the illusory nature of nationality distinctions. Jensen persuades Beale to abandon the populist messages and preach his new 'evangel.' But television audiences find his new sermons on the dehumanization of society depressing, and ratings begin to slide, yet Jensen will not allow UBS executives to fire Beale. Seeing its two-for-the-price-of-one value—solving the Beale problem plus sparking a boost in season-opener ratings —  Christensen, Hackett, and the other executives decide to hire the Ecumenical Liberation Army to assassinate Beale on the air. The assassination succeeds, putting an end to The Howard Beale Show and kicking off a second season of The Mao Tse-Tung Hour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(film) 

Eén van de hoogtepunten van Network is de uitbarsting van de hoogste baas van het netwerk, Arthur Jensen, die kort maar krachtig op niet mis te verstane wijze tegenover Beale de hele zaak uit de doeken doet: 

Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? Do you think you've merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and inane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and sub-atomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and You Will Atone!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? 

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state - Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale; it has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality - one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock - all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Howard Beale: Why me?

Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI5hrcwU7Dk 

Een journalist die dit niet weet is geen knip voor de neus waard. Het brandende verlangen van Geert Mak naar 'hoop,' omdat '[i]k niet zonder hoop [kan], Stan, dat klinkt misschien wat pathetisch, maar het is toch zo,' heeft hem blind gemaakt voor de werking van de macht. En dus geldt ook voor hem: 'Because you're on television, dummy,' zolang hij maar de officiële zwart-wit versie van de werkelijkheid blijft herhalen, want anders kan de macht hem missen als kiespijn. Daarom schrijft Mak braaf dat 'Russia is on the move again. After the collapse of the Soviet Empire it wants to start making history once more, and how!' Het spreekt voor zich dat dit laatste niet kan. Volgens Mak, die in het kleine kikkerland wordt gezien als een grootheid, mag een land dan 457 keer groter is dan Nederland geen 'geschiedenis [maken].' Dat mag alleen de VS, het land dat in de ogen van mijn oude vriend na 1945 'decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent [fungeerde] – om maar te zwijgen van alle hulp die het uitdeelde.' Terwijl hij deze versleten mythe blijft verspreiden, schrijft hij met misnoegen over 'Old myths about Russian greatness and the Russian soul,' die 'are being dusted off.' Hij is geenszins in staat de realiteit te zien van de afgelopen vijf eeuwen westerse geweld dat ontelbare miljoenen slachtoffers veroorzaakte, grote delen van de wereld ontwrichtte, culturen vernietigde, volkeren uitmoordde en uiteindelijk uitmondde in Auschwitz en Hiroshima. Onweersproken blijft de herboren christen Geert Mak beweren dat de 'kracht van onze westerse samenleving onze democratie [is], onze variatie in ideeën, onze tolerantie, onze openheid tegenover andere culturen.' En dit alles in tegenstelling tot de verwerpelijke 'Russians' die volgens hem het gevoel hebben dat 'Western values and Western ways of thinking, are no longer paramount.' Het kan niemand verbazen dat met een dergelijke 'intelligentsia' het intellectuele niveau in Nederland zo schrikbarend laag is. Terugkerend naar de analyse van professor Scott over The American Deep State, zouden Mak en de Makkianen zich kunnen afvragen 

Why were Saudi royals with ‘links to 9/11’ allowed to leave the U.S. without being quizzed by the FBI?

en dat terwijl al het vliegverkeer in de VS was stilgelegd, en bekend was dat er nauwe banden waren tussen Saoedische 'royals' en de terroristen die de aanslagen hebben gepleegd. Bovendien had de polderpers zich werkelijk kunnen verdiepen in de vraag waarom de Amerikaanse regering over het volgende loog:

TIA now verifies flight of Saudis

The government has long denied that two days after the 9/11 attacks, the three were allowed to fly.

TAMPA - Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.

The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.

The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.

For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose.

But now, at the request of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight did take place and have supplied details.

The odyssey of the small LearJet 35 is part of a larger controversy over the hasty exodus from the United States in the days immediately after 9/11 of members of the Saudi royal family and relatives of Osama bin Laden.

The terrorism panel, better known as the 9/11 Commission, said in April that it knew of six chartered flights with 142 people aboard, mostly Saudis, that left the United States between Sept. 14 and 24, 2001. But it has said nothing about the Tampa flight.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2115127/Why-Saudi-royals-links-9-11-allowed-leave-U-S-quizzed-FBI.html 

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/09/Tampabay/TIA_now_verifies_flig.shtml 

Early warning: Prince Ahmed bein Salman (right, with the Clintons after winning the Belmont Stakes) has been accused of receiving contact from al-Quaeda.

Peter Dale Scott:

The wealth of the two nations, America and Saudi Arabia, has become ever more interdependent. This is ironic. In the words of a leaked US cable, 'Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda.' The Rabita or Muslim World League, launched and largely funded by the Saudi royal family, has provided an international meeting place for international Salafists including some al Qaeda leaders.

In short, the wealth generated by the Saudi-American relationship is funding both the al Qaeda-type jihadists of the world today and America’s self-generating war against them. The result is an incremental militarization of the world abroad and America at home, as new warfronts in the so-called War on Terror emerge, predictably, in previously peaceful areas like Mali. (Met als gevolg: Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (Minusma). 'Nederland levert sinds april 2014 een belangrijke bijdrage aan deze VN-missie. Het gaat om zo’n 450 man, 4 Apache-gevechtshelikopters en 3 Chinook-transporthelikopters.' svh) 

The media tend to present the 'War on Terror' as a conflict between lawful governments and fanatical peace-hating Islamist fundamentalists. In fact in most countries, America and Britain not excepted, there is a long history of occasional collaboration with the very forces which at other times they oppose.

Today America’s foreign policies and above all covert operations are increasingly chaotic. In some countries, notably Afghanistan, the US is fighting jihadists that the CIA supported in the 1980s, and that are still supported today by our nominal allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. In some countries, notably Libya, we have provided protection and indirect support to the same kind of jihadis. In some countries, notably Kosovo, we have helped bring these jihadis to power.

One country where American authorities conceded its clients were supporting jihadis is Yemen. As Christopher Boucek reported some years ago to the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace,

'Islamist extremism in Yemen is the result of a long and complicated set of developments. A large number of Yemeni nationals participated in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan during the 1980s. After the Soviet occupation ended, the Yemeni government encouraged its citizens to return and also permitted foreign veterans to settle in Yemen. Many of these Arab Afghans were co-opted by the regime and integrated into the state’s various security apparatuses. Such co-optation was also used with individuals detained by the Yemeni government after the September 11 terrorist attacks. As early as 1993, the U.S. State Department noted in a now-declassified intelligence report that Yemen was becoming an important stop for many fighters leaving Afghanistan. The report also maintained that the Yemeni government was either unwilling or unable to curb their activities. Islamism and Islamist activists were used by the regime throughout the 1980s and 1990s to suppress domestic opponents, and during the 1994 civil war Islamists fought against southern forces.^'

In March 2011 the same scholar, Christopher Boucek, observed that America’s war on terror had resulted in the propping up of an unpopular government, thus helping it avoid needed reforms:

'Our policy on Yemen has been...  terrorism and security and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, to the exclusion of almost everything else. I think, despite what -- what people in the administration say, we have been focused on terrorism. We have not been focused on the systemic challenges that Yemen faces: unemployment, governance abuses, corruption. I think these are the things that will bring down the state. It's not al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula… everyone in Yemen sees that we're supporting the regimes, at the expense of the Yemeni people.'

Stated more bluntly: One major reason why Yemen (like other countries) remains backward and a fertile ground for jihadi terrorism is America’s war on terror itself.

America’s is not the only foreign security policy contributing to the crisis in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has had a stake in reinforcing the jihadi influence in republican Yemen, ever since the Saudi royal family in the 1960s used conservative hill tribes in northern Yemen to repel an attack on southern Saudi Arabia by the Nasser-backed republican Yemeni government.

These machinations of governments and their intelligence agencies can create conditions of impenetrable obscurity. For example, as Sen. John Kerry has reported, one of the top leaders of Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) 'is a Saudi citizen who was repatriated to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo in November 2007 and returned to militancy [in Yemen] after completing a rehabilitation course in Saudi Arabia.'

Like other nations, America is no stranger to the habit of making deals with al Qaeda jihadis, to aid them to fight abroad in areas of mutual interest -- such as Bosnia – in exchange for not acting as terrorists at home. This practice clearly contributed to the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, when at least two of the bombers had been protected from arrest because of their participation in a Brooklyn-based program preparing Islamists for Bosnia. In 1994 the FBI secured the release in Canada of a U.S.-Al Qaeda double agent at the Brooklyn center, Ali Mohamed, who promptly went on to Kenya where (according to the 9/11 Commission Report) he 'led' the organizers of the 1998 attack on the U.S. Embassy.

aldus Peter Dale Scott.

Ahmad Al Osairi, the spokesman of the Saudi-led aggression against Yemen on Monday confessed to use of cluster bombs against Yemeni citizens by Saudi Arabia

'The bombs referred to by human rights observers as forbidden weapons were sold to Saudi Arabia by the United States,' said Osairi, according to the CNN Arabic network, in response to a question about the use of the CBU-105 cluster bombs by the aggressor Saudis in Yemen, which was objected by a human rights observer.

http://www.irna.ir/en/News/81595177/

Met betrekking tot de Saoedische terreur voeg ik het volgende toe aan Scott's tekst:

SHAM AND SHAME: SAUDI-US SLAUGHTER IN YEMEN SHOWS TRUTH OF TERROR WAR

Chris Floyd

Published: 29 April 2015 Hits: 10

Last week, the United States sent an armada to Yemen, to help enforce a blockade of the poverty-ridden country as it groans under the mass slaughter of Saudi Arabia’s American-backed war of aggression. Now the Saudis, employing the bombs they procured from U.S. war profiteers, have shut down aid shipments by air with a bombing raid on the capital, Sana’a. The result will be more hunger, suffering and death in one of the world’s poorest countries.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/2496-sham-and-shame-saudi-us-slaughter-in-yemen-shows-truth-of-terror-war.html

En nog recentere informatie: 

Western Complicity in Yemen Genocide Met With Media Silence

By Finian Cunningham

August 24, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "RT"   

In the latest atrocity in Yemen, Saudi warplanes bombed a residential area, killing at least 65 people. Most of the victims are reported to be civilians from the Salah district of Taiz, Yemen’s third largest city. 

The apparent war crime committed has tragically become an almost daily occurrence during five months of relentless aerial bombardment of Yemen by a Western-backed coalition of foreign powers.In recent days, there were similar air strikes on civilian centers in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida and the northern province of Saada. In the Hodeida strike, which killed several dock workers, the British charity Save the Children said it believed the attack was a deliberate bid by the Saudis to sabotage aid supplies to the civilian population.

READ MORE: Religious eugenics: How Saudi Arabia is sponsoring a frightening new movement in the ME 

Surely, this should be front page news, with CNN, the BBC and France 24, among other big Western media outlets, splashing it as their top story. The onus is on them because their governments are implicated in grave crimes. However, there has been no news coverage of the tragic events. Aside from some brief, vague reports of a generalized humanitarian crisis, there has been a wall of silence as to how the Western-backed Saudi-led coalition is pulverizing Yemeni civilians and creating the crisis. That suggests a deliberate blackout by Western media.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42712.htm 

http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.nl/search?q=saudi+terror 

Drie dagen na dit bericht verscheen rapport van Amnesty International: 

The Human Carnage of Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen

27 August 2015, 17:57 UTC

The Houthis and their allies are the declared targets of the coalition’s 5-month-old air campaign. In reality, however, it is civilians like little Rahma and her family who all too often pay the price of this war. Hundreds have been killed in such strikes while asleep in their homes, when going about their daily activities, or in the very places where they had sought refuge from the conflict. The United States, meanwhile, has provided the weapons that have made many of these killings possible.

The conflict has worsened an already dire humanitarian situation in the Middle East’s poorest country. Prior to the conflict, more than half of Yemen’s population was in need of some humanitarian assistance. That number has now increased to more than 80 percent, while a coalition-imposed blockade on commercial imports remains in place in much of the country and the ability of international aid agencies to deliver desperately needed supplies continues to be hindered by the conflict. The damage inflicted by a coalition airstrike last week on the port of the northwestern city of Hudaydah, the only point of entry for humanitarian aid to the north of the country, is only the latest example. The situation is poised to deteriorate further: The U.N. World Food Program warned last week of the possibility of famine in Yemen for millions, mostly women and children.

Bombs dropped by the Saudi-led air campaign have all too often landed on civilians, contributing to this humanitarian disaster. In the ruins of the Musaab bin Omar school, the meager possessions of the families who were sheltering there included a few children’s clothes, blankets, and cooking pots. I found no sign of any military activity that could have made the site a military target. But I did see the remains of the weapon used in the attack — a fin from a U.S.-designed MK80 general-purpose bomb, similar to those found at many other locations of coalition strikes.

This was far from the only instance where U.S. weapons killed Yemeni civilians. In the nearby village of Waht, another coalition airstrike killed 11 worshipers in a mosque two days earlier. There, too, bewildered survivors and families of the victims asked why they had been targeted.One of the two bombs dropped on the mosque failed to explode and was still mostly intact when I visited the site. It was a U.S.-manufactured MK82 general-purpose bomb, fitted with a fusing system also of U.S. manufacture. The 500-pound bomb was stamped 'explosive bomb' and 'tritonal' — the latter a designation indicating the type of explosive it contains.

Mistakes in the identification of targets and in the execution of attacks can and do happen in wars. In such cases, it is incumbent on the responsible parties to promptly take the necessary corrective action to avoid the recurrence of the same mistakes. But there is no sign that this is occurring in Yemen: Five months since the onset of the coalition airstrike campaign, innocent civilians continue to be killed and maimed every day, raising serious concerns about an apparent disregard for civilian life and for fundamental principles of international humanitarian law. Strikes that are carried out in the knowledge that they will cause civilian casualties are disproportionate or indiscriminate and constitute war crimes.

While the United States is not formally part of the Saudi-led coalition, it is assisting the coalition air campaign by providing intelligence and aerial refueling facilities to coalition bomber jets. The sum total of its assistance to the coalition makes the United States partly responsible for civilian casualties resulting from unlawful attacks. Washington has also long been a key supplier of military equipment to Saudi Arabia and other members of the coalition, providing them with the weapons that they are now unleashing in Yemen. Regardless of when the weapons used by coalition forces in Yemen were acquired — whether before or since the start of the air campaign — the countries that supplied the weapons have a responsibility to ensure that they are not used to commit violations of international law.

The poisonous legacy of these U.S.-made weapons will plague Yemen for years to come. In Inshur, a village near the northern city of Saada, I found a field full of U.S.-made BLU-97 cluster submunitions — small bombs the size of a soda can that are contained in cluster bombs. Many lie in the field, still unexploded and posing a high risk for unsuspecting local residents, farmers, and animal herders who may step on them or pick them up, unaware of the danger. In one of the city’s hospitals, I met a 13-year-old boy who stepped on one of the unexploded cluster bombs in Inshur, causing it to explode. It smashed several bones in his foot.

Cluster bombs were banned by an international convention in 2008. But in the 1990s, the United States sold the type of cluster bombs now littering the fields of Inshur to Saudi Arabia. Each of these cluster bombs contains up to 200 small bombs, which are dispersed by the bomb’s explosion over a large area. However, many of these smaller bombs often do not explode on impact, leaving a lethal legacy for years to come.

Coalition airstrikes have been particularly intense in the north of the country, notably in and around Saada, a Houthi stronghold that is home to some 50,000 people. When I visited the city in July, I was shocked by the extent of the destruction: Saada now lies in ruin, with most of the population displaced and private homes, shops, markets, and public buildings reduced to rubble in relentless and often indiscriminate air bombardments. A coalition spokesman said in May that the entire city of Saada was considered a military target, in breach of international humanitarian law, which demands that belligerents distinguish between civilians and military targets at all times.

International law is clearly being violated in Saada and the surrounding villages. A series of coalition strikes on a village in Sabr, near Saada, killed at least 50 civilians, most of them children, and injured nine others in the afternoon of June 3. Half of the village was completely destroyed.

Surviving villagers showed me the piles of rubble which used to be their homes. Ghalib Dhaifallah, a father of four, who lost his 11-year-old son Moaz and 27 other relatives in the attack, told me the boy had been playing with his cousins in the center of the village, at the precise point of impact of one of the airstrikes. 'We dug for days looking for the bodies; we recognized some body parts from the clothing only,' he told me.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/08/the-human-carnage-of-saudi-arabias-war-in-yemen/

Ondanks al deze door de VS gesteunde genocidale terreur houdt, in navolging van Madeleine Albright,  Geert Mak vol dat 

the United States is still the 'world's indispensable nation,' 

zoals zijn vader, dominee Catrinus Mak, nog in 1936 volhield dat de nazi-rassenwetten, waarbij joodse burgers uit de Duitse samenleving werden verbannen, 'tolerabel' waren. Geert Mak is het vlees geworden bewijs van het feit dat mainstream-opiniemakers niets van de geschiedenis leren. 

Geert Mak: 'Wij, de elites van nu, missen noblesse oblige.'

Geostrategic shift in the Asia-Pacific: Moscow, Manila push the envelope

September 28, 2015 Rakesh Krishnan Simha, RBTH

As the Chinese-American rivalry heats up the Asia-Pacific, the Philippines wants Russia to take the lead and cool things down.

The Philippines turns to Russia to help ease tensions in the Asia-Pacific. Source: Reuters

The Philippines, which played host to Russia’s first diplomatic mission in South East Asia in 1820, is rediscovering the value of old ties.

With its long maritime border and a simmering littoral dispute with China, the Philippines faces a serious security threat in its immediate neighbourhood. The solution to Manila’s insecurities may come from Moscow.

In July 2014, the deputy director of Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, Konstantin Biryulin, told the media in Manila: “We have similar problems in Russia and we know how to tackle them. That’s why we have a proposal regarding equipment which could help in controlling those areas.”

As well as ramping up economic cooperation between Russia and the Philippines, Biryulin said one of the purposes of his visit was to negotiate military technical cooperation with the Department of National Defense (DND). Such cooperation may include military hardware. According to one report, Russia may be offering radar and advanced surface-to-air missiles.

The groundwork for expanding military cooperation with the Philippines began in January 2012 when three Russian warships visited Manila (at the same time as two US destroyers). It was the first visit by the Russian Pacific Fleet to the Philippines in 96 years. The same year Russia made an unsuccessful bid to sell Yak-130 jet trainers to the Philippines Air Force.

Considering the nascent defence ties between the two countries, it’ll be years before high-octane Russian hardware arrives in Subic Bay. Because of historical reasons, the Filipinos believe their natural partner is the US. However, the equation between Russia and the Philippines is changing in the backdrop of regional tensions.

Carlos D. Sorreta, Director, Philippine Foreign Service Institute, believes in terms of security cooperation between the countries, there is much that can be done. “Compared to other regions, East Asia is where there is least contention between the US and Russia,” Sorreta says in a discussion paper titled Security Developments in the Asia Pacific: Philippine and Russian Perspectives. According to him, history should not be a hindrance to the Philippines and Russia working together in key political groupings like the ASEAN Region Forum, the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus process.

Sorreta adds: “Could Russia play a more dramatic role in security in the context of these institutions? I believe that it can do so and one possible area is for Russia to take a more active role in helping create the conditions where the nuclear powers can sign on to the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Treaty. On this issue, the Philippines would gladly work closely with Russia.”

No baggage

Russia’s biggest advantage is that it has no territorial claims in South East Asia. And unlike the US and China that seek to extend their influence in the region and are in fact frenetically preparing for a future clash, Russia’s interest lies in redistributing power in the region.

Manila-based journalist Al Labita says Russia has sought to contrast its low-key role in the region with that of the US. In fact, according to Artyom Lukin and Sergei Sevastyanov of Vladivostok’s Far Eastern Federal University, one reason President Vladimir Putin skipped the East Asian Summit in Cambodia in November 2012 was Moscow’s keenness to show that Russia wants to avoid taking sides on controversial regional issues.

China syndrome

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea on the basis of Chinese maps published in the 1940s, leading to a rash of disputes with its South East Asian neighbours.

Russia doesn’t want to be seen as siding with one or the other. In any dealings with regional players, Moscow is careful not to upset Beijing. The reasons are aplenty: China is now Russia’s leading trade partner; it’s a fellow-BRICS member; and it buys Russian weapons in bulk. Plus, in the backdrop of western sanctions, China is now its main financial backer.

But at the same time, Moscow can’t afford to give Beijing a free run. For, that would mean Russia reverting to its Cold War status of playing a side role in the region. “China clearly wants to be the dominant power in the region, something that could jeopardise Russia’s efforts to engage the region and develop its Far East area,” says Sorreta.

Elizabeth Wishnick of Columbia University agrees. In a policy memo titled ‘Russia: New Player in the South China Sea?’ she says it’s not the Sino-Russian strategic partnership that will make Russia more of a player in East Asia, as Russian policymakers originally thought nearly two decades ago, but rather Russia’s role in counterbalancing Chinese power in the region, via defence and energy ties with Southeast Asian states.

“Although Russia finds support in China for its global positions, on a regional level Russian leaders have sought to enhance their country’s independence of action through an increasingly varied Southeast Asian diplomacy, including traditional allies like Vietnam, but also unexpected partners such as the Philippines,” she says.

Russia’s Asia pivot

As tensions rise between China and the US and clashes occur between China and the littoral states over the Spratly Islands, the Philippines has begun to see the worth of Russian participation. This is happening even as the Americans are seen as befuddled in the region despite their so-called Asia Pivot.

In 'Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia', Amitav Acharya writes: “The US refusal to accept Manila’s claim that the scope of their mutual defence treaty covers its positions in the Spratly Islands further attests to the uncertain nature of their alliance relationship. A US-led balance of power approach may not be relevant to the task of preventing and managing small-scale regional conflicts, such as the resurgence of instability in Cambodia, border clashes in South East Asia, or armed conflict over the South China Sea islands.

Acharya adds: “Moreover, the ASEAN states share the view that a highly adversarial Sino-US relationship with a containment strategy will threaten regional stability. (The late Singapore strongman) Lee Kuan Yew, perhaps the most outspoken critic of a containment strategy, argues that a strong and belligerent US response to Chinese power will stroke nationalist and hardline sentiments in China, with the consequence that the medium and small countries of the region have to live with the results of an aroused and xenophobic China.”

Russia’s policy has been markedly different. It maintains good relations with China while deepening ties with countries in the region such as the Philippines that may have issues with China. “This is a good strategy and one that the Philippines could support,” says Sorreta. “It is a strategy that would require Russia not to take sides on who owns what, but would allow it to support actions that are based on the principles of international law and that reduce tensions.”

According to Wishnick, “China’s growing economic and military power in Asia has led to renewed interest in a greater Russian role in the region...With the US rebalancing policy leading to greater US engagement with the region, Russia, like ASEAN, has sought to chart a course in Asia that reduces the likelihood of US-China conflict. Similarly, regarding Japan, Russia has tried to encourage negotiation between Beijing and Tokyo in a bid to reduce tensions over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. From Russia’s perspective, China’s assertiveness in Asia has broader negative consequences in terms of precipitating an enhanced US military presence in the region.”

The outlook

In August, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario met on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Meetings in Kuala Lumpur. They agreed to facilitate the conclusion of several pending agreements between the two countries, including the establishment of an intergovernmental commission on trade, defence and military technical cooperation, and combating transnational crimes.

The greatest potential for improving ties is in the following areas:

Defence: Since both are starting from scratch, the trajectory can only go upward. Because the Philippines is increasingly concerned about its vast maritime borders, Russia should offer it the S-300 missile, which Moscow is contracted to supply to Syria and Iran. China is likely to protest but the S-300 is an air defence system and unless Beijing has plans to invade the Philippines it has no reason to go ballistic. Besides, China will soon receive the more advanced S-400 air defence system, so it has grounds for complaining.

Currently, the Philippines is locked into the western defence system because of its largely American hardware, but with Russia now offering platforms with a range of user requirements, Manila can ask for customised weapons that can be integrated into its existing systems. This is what Malaysia and Indonesia have done.

According to Sorreta, there are two clear advantages Russian arms sales policies have over the West: “One, Russian arms are more competitively priced. The other is that little to no conditions are attached to these sales.”

Energy: As the closest South East Asian country to the Russian Far East, including the oil and gas fields off Sakhalin Island, the Philippines expressed interest in positioning itself as a regional hub for the delivery of Russian fuel and energy products to other Asia-Pacific countries. Manila also aimed to diversify its energy sources and see energy cooperation with Russia as a key to secure the Philippines' energy security. Russian diplomats see such cooperation as a "promising area" for development.

In fact, without much fanfare Russia has become a key player in the East Asian energy sector. With the East Siberian-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline coming on stream, Russia now offers a viable alternative for countries that want to lower their dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

In September 2003, the Philippines received its first 700,000 barrels of imported crude oil from Russia, after Pilipinas Shell became one of the first oil companies to sign a deal with Russia. This year it imported 11.3 million barrels of crude oil from Russia, accounting for 17.5 per cent of the total crude oil mix. Saudi Arabia is the Philippines’ largest supplier at over 57 per cent, and although its main ally, the US, has asked Manila to impose sanctions on Russia, the good money is on the Filipinos sourcing more oil from Siberia and less from Saudi Arabia.

- http://asia.rbth.com/blogs/2015/09/28/geostrategic_shift_in_the_asia-pacific_moscow_manila_push_the_envelope_49603.html)