AlterPolitics New Post

Mossad Frames The C.I.A. For Terrorist Attacks In Iran, As Israel Drags The U.S. Into War

by on Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 3:06 pm EDT in Iran, Middle East, World

Despite what has been described as a full-court press by the Obama Administration to convince Israel not to attack Iran, the Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. is now in fact preparing for such an attack.

The Administration fears a range of possible Iranian reprisals directed at American targets, including “assaults by pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq against the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, according to U.S. officials.”

As a deterrence, the U.S. has deployed 15,000 troops to Kuwait, and has now ordered a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf.

The Obama Administration had most recently begun to engage in a more diplomatic tact with Iran, hoping to diffuse the situation:

The U.S. and Iran, however, have taken steps in recent days apparently designed to ease tensions. Iran has agreed to host a delegation of United Nations nuclear inspectors this month. The U.S., meanwhile, has twice this month rescued Iranian sailors in the region’s seas.

But today, The Guardian reports that Iran’s Foreign Ministry sent a diplomatic letter to the Obama Administration citing “evidence and reliable information” that C.I.A. agents provided “guidance, support and planning” to those who lobbed a magnetic bomb at the car of 32-year old Iranian nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, killing him in Wednesday morning’s rush-hour traffic.

The U.S. not only denies the charges, it has forcefully condemned the civilian assassination: 

The assassination drew an unusually strong condemnation from the White House and the State Department, which disavowed any American complicity. The statements by the United States appeared to reflect serious concern about the growing number of lethal attacks, which some experts believe could backfire by undercutting future negotiations and prompting Iran to redouble what the West suspects is a quest for a nuclear capacity.

“The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this,” said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared to expand the denial beyond Wednesday’s killing, “categorically” denying “any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran.”

“We believe that there has to be an understanding between Iran, its neighbors and the international community that finds a way forward for it to end its provocative behavior, end its search for nuclear weapons and rejoin the international community,” Mrs. Clinton said.

The Israelis have not denied their own involvement. The Israeli Defense Force Spokesman stated on Facebook, as reported by ABC:  “I don’t know who settled the score with the Iranian Scientist, but I am certainly not shedding a tear.”

A bombshell story broke yesterday, written by Mark Perry for Foreign Policy Magazine, which appears to shed light on these assassinations, as well as the Iranians’ insistence the C.I.A. was involved.

It reveals that the Israeli Mossad, has been engaged in a false-flag operation, in which they posed as C.I.A. agents right “under the nose of U.S. intelligence officers, most notably in London,” and recruited members of the anti-Iran militant group, Jundallah, to commit terrorist attacks against the Persian nation. Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni terror group, “according to the U.S. government and published reports, is responsible for assassinating Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children.” 

The revelations in Perry’s article were garnered from a series of C.I.A. memos, written in the final years of the Bush Administration. These memos show that U.S. intelligence officials were barred from “even the most incidental contact with Jundallah, …[though] the same was not true for Israel’s Mossad.” The U.S. intelligence community was described as “stunned by the brazenness of the Mossad’s efforts.” 

These intelligence memos found their way to the highest levels of the Bush Administration, who became infuriated that their supposed ally was putting American lives at risk:

According to one retired CIA officer, information about the false-flag operation was reported up the U.S. intelligence chain of command. It reached CIA Director of Operations Stephen Kappes, his deputy Michael Sulick, and the head of the Counterintelligence Center. All three of these officials are now retired. The Counterintelligence Center, according to its website, is tasked with investigating “threats posed by foreign intelligence services.”

The report then made its way to the White House, according to the currently serving U.S. intelligence officer. The officer said that Bush “went absolutely ballistic” when briefed on its contents.

“The report sparked White House concerns that Israel’s program was putting Americans at risk,” the intelligence officer told me. “There’s no question that the U.S. has cooperated with Israel in intelligence-gathering operations against the Iranians, but this was different. No matter what anyone thinks, we’re not in the business of assassinating Iranian officials or killing Iranian civilians.”

Israel’s relationship with Jundallah continued to roil the Bush administration until the day it left office, this same intelligence officer noted. Israel’s activities jeopardized the administration’s fragile relationship with Pakistan, which was coming under intense pressure from Iran to crack down on Jundallah. It also undermined U.S. claims that it would never fight terror with terror, and invited attacks in kind on U.S. personnel.

“It’s easy to understand why Bush was so angry,” a former intelligence officer said. “After all, it’s hard to engage with a foreign government if they’re convinced you’re killing their people. Once you start doing that, they feel they can do the same.”

As furious as the Bush Administration and the Intelligence Community became with its largest foreign aid recipient, they feared political backlash by the Israel Lobby, and thus, did absolutely nothing:

A senior administration official vowed to “take the gloves off” with Israel, according to a U.S. intelligence officer. But the United States did nothing — a result that the officer attributed to “political and bureaucratic inertia.”

“In the end,” the officer noted, “it was just easier to do nothing than to, you know, rock the boat.”

Had they actually exposed the Israeli false-flag op, we wouldn’t have Iran — now on war-footing — blaming the C.I.A. for aiding and abetting terrorist bombings which continue to target their civilians.

An unnamed Senior Israeli government official, today, issued a statement to Ha’aretz, calling the U.S. intelligence report “absolute nonsense.” But in 2010, the Mossad was exposed for conducting similar false-flag operations against their European allies, when they assassinated a Hamas member in Dubai, while using forged passports from various European countries and Australia.

With all of this now out in the open, it should come as no surprise that a recent internal C.I.A. poll revealed U.S. intelligence officials consider Israeli spies to be the very worst U.S. allies — dead last on the list — among friendly spy services. 

What The Osama Bin Laden Video Reveals As Impetus For Terrorism: Israel

by on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 1:03 pm EDT in Afghanistan, Middle East, Pakistan, Politics, World

Fox & Friends recently spoke with former Head of CIA’s Bin Laden Unit, Michael Scheuer, about the Bin Laden videos obtained during the Navy Seal raid at the al-Qaeda leader’s compound.

One of the program’s hosts, after describing how Bin Laden seemed obsessed with his own self image, asked Scheuer if this is why the Obama Administration would release video tapes with no audio — merely to expose Bin Laden’s vanity:

My Question is, Clay mentioned ‘No audio on these tapes’, why did the government release them? You can’t glean a whole lot from them, there’s no audio, no real information. Is it to kind of demystify what we all know, and what people think of Bin Laden?

What the host was not anticipating was that Scheuer would use this question as an opportunity to debunk the official neocon/Fox News Channel “they hate us for our freedom” narrative:

No. No, the government has lied to the American people since 9/11. What they don’t want you to hear again is that Osama Bin Laden doesn’t care — and his organization and his allies do not care — about liberty in America, democracy in America, gender equality in America, or elections.

What Bin Laden was saying on the tape that they’re talking about almost certainly was, “We don’t care how you think or how you live. We want you out of our world, and we will attack you until you stop doing that.”

And of course Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton, and Mr. Obama have consistently told America this is about how we live and how we think, rather than what we do.

And as you might expect, the Fox News host promptly changed the subject, probably kicking himself for having ever asked the question.

HERE’S THE FULL INTERVIEW:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoNT-bq854E[/youtube]

Well, Haaretz has now reported what Bin Laden did actually say in his final video (filmed just before his death). Addressed to President Obama, the video was focused entirely on the plight of the Palestinians, and in particular US support of Israel.

Bin Laden was quoted as saying:

“America will not be able to dream of security until we live in security in Palestine. It is unfair that you live in peace while our brothers in Gaza live in insecurity.”

“Accordingly, and with the will of God, our attacks will continue against you as long as your support for Israel continues,” the al-Qaida chief said in the audio recording.

“So the message we wanted to convey through the plane of our hero, the fighter Umar Farouk, may God be with him, confirms a previous message which had been sent to you by our heroes of September 11,” bin Laden reportedly said in the minute-long recording.

Bin Laden’s statement that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict remains an impetus for terrorism, is consistent with what has already been stated by both former US President Bill Clinton and US Middle East envoy George J. Mitchell; as well as by nearly every cabinet member of the Obama Administration, who have asserted repeatedly that peace between Israel and the Palestinians is “vital to US national security interests”.

If President Obama were really serious about pressuring Israel to end the illegal settlements and embrace peace wouldn’t this new revelation be something he would add to his rhetorical arsenal in pressing the US Congress to stop undermining his Middle East peace efforts?

Wouldn’t he be using this revelation to bring the American public on board for tougher pressure on Israel? Since the 9/11 attacks, wars have been waged, trillions of dollars spent, tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives lost — all to allegedly “protect Americans from terrorism”. And here is Bin Laden (mastermind of 9/11) pointing directly at Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as an underlying cause for his terrorist attacks.

Unfortunately, President Obama does not want this topic to be part of the public discourse in the run up to his 2012 reelection campaign. Why? Because it would complicate his efforts at winning over America’s deep-pocketed pro-Israel political donors. Imagine Candidate Obama reaffirming his ‘sacrosanct’ commitment to Israel if it were widely known that this foreign country’s intransigence posed a direct threat to our national security. He’d be accused of treason.

In fact, Obama has been trying to repair frayed ties with pro-Israel groups and Israeli officials, due to the little pressure he actually did put on Netanyahu during the last two years. By recently promoting Dennis Ross — the ‘living embodiment‘ of the Israel Lobby — to Chief White House Middle East strategist the President sent a clear message to these groups that he has transitioned away from pursuing Middle East peace to accepting the status-quo.

Here is one possibility: Obama’s new strategy for peace in the Middle East may be — get this — to just do nothing.

The UN General Assembly (the same entity which recognized Israel as a state in 1948) is gearing up to declare Palestine a state along the 1967 borders this September, and the United States holds no veto power to stop it. Any future Israeli settlement expansion, or even a resistance in abandoning the present illegal settlements, would no longer be met with “unhelpful” comments from the US State Dept, but instead with harsh sanctions by the international community.

Let’s face it, the Israel Lobby (backed by full unflinching support of the United States Congress) will punish the President politically and contest all efforts to press Israel to choose peace over apartheid. So why should he continue to bother? It would make sense for him to just sit back and watch the UN General Assembly mandate the 1967 borders as the official dividing line between Israel and Palestine.

Essentially by doing nothing, the President will pay no political price (he’s powerless to stop it), he will assure peace in the Middle East under his Presidency, thereby removing a major impetus for world terrorism — crucial to the national security interests of the United States. And equally as important, the Palestinians will finally become free — free from the oppression, the violence, the cleansing, and bigotry they’ve endured over the last sixty years.

The President may have finally found a way to get his cake and eat it too.

The World Moves To Action: ‘Israel Must End Its Illegal Occupation!’

by on Saturday, December 11, 2010 at 12:06 pm EDT in Middle East, Politics, World

After having cringed through the most recent installment of the Middle East Peace ‘negotiations’, where the Netanyahu government publicly ‘castrated’ US President Barack Obama, the rest of the world appears to have had enough.

Incoming US Majority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), recently promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he and his fellow Republicans would unite against his own country’s President and vital national security interests, to stand firm with Israel.  This appears to have rattled the Obama Administration, who has all but thrown in the towel.  This week the State Department announced it was giving up on pressing Israel to slow down its illegal settlement expansion.

The US has proven itself, once again, powerless to apply an iota of pressure to its greatest foreign aid recipient, even when a peace agreement is essential to its own national strategic interests:

In recent months Barack Obama has said that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a “vital national security interest of the United States”. His vice-president, Joe Biden, has confronted Netanyahu in private and told the Israeli leader that Israel’s policies are endangering US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Senior figures in the American military, including General David Petraeus who has commanded US forces in both wars, have identified Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian land as an obstacle to resolving those conflicts.

Former President Bill Clinton recently stated that a Middle East Peace Agreement would “take about half the impetus in the whole world — not just the region, the whole world — for terror away.”  He said, “It would have more impact by far than anything else that could be done”.

The first to react to the failure of the US peace initiative were South American countries, including Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.  They announced they now formally recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders.  Israel fears that Mexico, Ecuador and El Salvador are about to follow suit.  None of these countries were amongst the more than 100 countries to already recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

It is now being reported that 26 former European leaders (who held power within the last ten years) sent a strong-worded letter last Monday to each of the governments of the 27 member states and to EU institutions, calling on the EU to punish Israel for its illegal occupation.  The EU Observer, which read the letter, reports it recommends the following:

Israel “like any other state” should be made to feel “the consequences” and face “a price tag” for breaking international law by building thousands of new Jewish homes on Palestinian land. […]

… That the EU: “Will not recognize any changes to the June 1967 boundaries, and clarify that a Palestinian state should be in sovereign control over territory equivalent to 100 percent of the territory occupied in 1967, including its capital in East Jerusalem.”

It also asks ministers to set an ultimatum of April 2011 for Israel to fall into line or see the Union seek an end to the existing US-led peace talks format in favour of a UN solution.

[In addition, The EU] should:

  • officially link its informal freeze on an upgrade in EU-Israel diplomatic relations to a settlement freeze;
  • block imports of products made in settlements but labeled as made in Israel;
  • make Israel pay the lion’s share of aid to Palestine;
  • send a high-level delegation to East Jerusalem to back Palestinian claims;
  • and reclassify EU support for Palestine as “nation building” instead of “institution building.”

The signatories of the letter include:

Former German chancellor Helmut Schmid, former German president Richard von Weizsacker, one-time Spanish leader Felipe Gonzales, ex-EU commission president and Italian PM Romano Prodi and the UK’s former EU commissioner Chris Patten.

It also represents the first time that the forerunner of EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, Javier Solana, has come out of the wings to challenge the newcomer.

Apparently, it’s become evident to the world that the US is NOT a fair and honest broker in this conflict.  And despite its ‘superpower’ status, its billions of taxpayer dollars in annual foreign aid to Israel, and its long history of vetoing UN Security Council Resolutions against Israel, due to domestic political forces (Read: the Israel lobby), the US is powerless to apply pressure to Israel in ways that would even benefit its own stated strategic interests.

UPDATE (Dec. 14, 2010):

It appears the EU Foreign Affairs Council decided to ignore the letter by the 26 former European leaders cited above.  They just released their Official Statement on the Middle East Peace Process.