Julian Assange Updates

1) This interview with George Galloway on Julian Assange is well worth a read. Here's a key extract:

"He is the most important publisher in the world today and over the last decade. Not a single story WikiLeaks has ever published has turned out to be wrong, and had to be retracted or significantly corrected. That is a record that neither the New York Times or any other mainstream publisher could ever dream of claiming. I think that the publishing activities of WikiLeaks have changed the world, certainly the world of journalism. Assange is not charged with hacking; he is not a hacker. He is a post box where whistleblowers can bring material which is then investigated so thoroughly that they have never got a story wrong. Then they publish it. Then the New York Times puts it on their front page and the Guardian puts it on theirs. Talk about hypocrisy! These people won prizes for running stories stories given to them by Julian Assange! And yet they have virtually danced on what they imagine to be his grave. That is what is difficult to take. WikiLeak's model of publishing was revolutionary and that is why they are in trouble." (Former British parliamentarian George Galloway speaks out on the violent criminalization of Julian Assange, Dennis J. Bernstein & Randy Credico, covertactionmagazine.com, 2/7/19)

2) Here's an interesting extract on Assange from the recent book by Vicky Ward, Kushner Inc. Greed. Power. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, 2019. (Note my square bracketed insertions.):

"In June, [Alexander] Nix [CEO of Cambridge Analytica} reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange because he had read that WikiLeaks planned to publish a trove of emails related to Hillary Clinton, the Democrats' presidential candidate. Those emails had been [allegedly] stolen - hacked - by Russian intelligence from the account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and from the Democratic National Committee. (In July 2016, the FBI started an investigation into the [alleged] thefts.) Nix, not one to be troubled by ethics, wanted to know if Assange would share the [allegedly] stolen material with him. More than a year later, The Wall Street Journal would report that Assange's answer was no." (p 82)

First They Came for Assange

A must-read from Greece's former finance minister and Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, Yanis Varoufakis:

"My meetings with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange all took place in the same small room. As the intelligence services of a variety of countries know, I visited Assange in Ecuador's London embassy many times between the fall of 2015 and December 2018. What these snoops do not know is the relief I felt every time I left.

"I wanted to meet Assange because of my deep appreciation of the original WikiLeaks concept. As a teenager reader George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, I, too, was troubled by the prospect of a high-tech surveillance state and its likely effect on human relations. Assange's early writings - particularly his idea of using states' own technology to create a huge digital mirror that could show everyone what they were up to filled me with hope that we might collectively defeat Big Brother.

"By the time I met Assange, that early hope had faded. Surrounded by bookcases featuring Ecuadorian literature and government publications, we would sit and chat late into the night. A device on top of a bookshelf emitted mind-numbing white noise to counter listening devices. As time passed, the claustrophobic living room, the badly hidden ceiling-mounted camera pointing at me, the white noise, and the stale air made me want to run out into the street.

"Assange's detractors have been saying for years that his confinement was self-inflicted: he hid in Ecuador's embassy because he jumped bail in the United Kingdom to avoid answering sexual assault allegations in Sweden. Women must be heard when reporting assault. Only the violence that men have inflicted upon women for millennia is viler than the disrespect and denigration to which women are subjected when they speak up.

"I recall saying to Julian that, had it been me, I would want to confront my accusers, and listen to them carefully and respectfully, regardless of whether official charges had been brought. He replied that he, too, wanted that. 'But, Yanis,' he said, 'if I were to go to Stockholm, they would throw me in solitary and, before I got a chance to answer any allegations, I would be bundled into a plane heading for a US supermax prison.' To drive the point home, he showed me his lawyers' offer to Swedish authorities to go to Stockholm if they guaranteed that he would not be extradited to the United States on espionage charges. Sweden never considered the proposal.

"During Assange's years in Ecuador's embassy, in circumstances that the United Nations deemed 'arbitrary detention,' many friends and colleagues mocked his fear - and lambasted me for believing him. Last September, the historian and feminist intellectual Germaine Greer summed up that belief on Australian public radio: 'He won't be extradited to the United States,' she said derisively, blaming Julian's lawyers for misleading him into fearing such an extradition while collecting his book's royalties.

"Now he is languishing in Belmarsh, a notorious English high-security prison, in a windowless basement cell with even less fresh air and light than before. Unable to receive visitors, he awaits extradition to the US. 'Let him rot in hell,' is a frequent response from good people around the world who were incensed by WikiLeaks' release of Hillary Clinton's emails ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, which blew fresh wind into Donald Trump's sails. Why, they ask, has Assange not released anything damning on Trump or Russian President Vladimir Putin?

"Before I explain why his detractors should reconsider, let me state for the record my personal frustration with his support of Brexit, his injudicious attacks against his feminist critics, his editorializing in favour of Trump, and, crucially, his communications with Trump's people. I expressed this frustration to his face several times. But castigating WikiLeaks for not publishing leaks that damage all sides equally is to miss the point. WikiLeaks was established as a digital mailbox where whistle-blowers could deposit information that is true and whose revelation is in the public interest. This is WikiLeak's sole obligation. By design, it cannot control who leaks what; its technology prevents even Assange from knowing a whistle-blower's identity. If this means that most leaks will embarrass Western powers, that is WikiLeaks' great, if imperfect, service to us - service that, to my frustration, was diminished by Julian's editorializing.

"Recent developments prove that his current predicament has nothing to do with the Swedish allegations or his role in aiding Trump against Clinton. With Chelsea Manning in prison again for refusing to confess that Assange incited, or helped, her to leak evidence of US atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the best explanation of what is going on comes from Mike Pompeo, Trump's first CIA director and now US Secretary of State.

"Pompeo described WikiLeaks as 'a non-state hostile intelligence service.' That is exactly right. But it is an equally accurate description of what every self-respecting news outlet ought to be. As Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky have warned, journalists who fail to oppose Assange's extradition to the US could be next on the hit list of a president who considers them the 'enemy of the people.' Celebrating his arrest and turning a blind eye to Manning's continued suffering is a gift to liberalism's greatest foes.

"Besides liberalism, Assange's persecution by the US security-industrial complex has another victim: women. No woman, in Sweden or elsewhere, will get justice if he is now thrown into a supermax prison for revealing crimes against humanity perpetrated by awful men in or out of uniform. No feminist goal is served by Manning's continued suffering.

"So here is an idea: Let us join forces to block Assange's extradition from any European country to the US, so that he can travel to Stockholm and give his accusers an opportunity to be heard. Let us work together to empower women, while protecting whistle-blowers who reveal nefarious behavior that governments, armies, and corporations would prefer to keep hidden."

Reading Brendan O'Neill

What happens when you just make it up as you go along? Well, chances are that what you write will end up looking something like an opinion piece by Brendan O'Neill - half-baked, propagandist. 

O'Neill, editor of Spiked, is often recycled in Murdoch's Australian, and it's easy to see why:

"[F]ocus too much on Islamist terrorism these days and you risk being accused of Islamophobia. 'Christians used to do this kind of thing,' they will say, inaccurately, to deflect attention from their own unwillingness to take a strong moral stance on Islamist extreme violence. Or they will point out that the US and Britain and other nations are still engaged in violent conflicts in the Middle East... even though they must know, somewhere inside their moral universe, that there is an immeasurable difference between America's military campaigns in the Middle East (which are wrong)... " (Islamist barbarism thrives on West's weak response, 26/4/19)

"Which are wrong"? Why the brackets, Brendan? Why the dropped voice? Why not say it loud and clear: AMERICA'S MILITARY CAMPAIGNS IN THE MIDDLE EAST ARE WRONG? And why not say why? Because Islamist terrorism has been the result of such campaigns - from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya and to Syria.

"... and the wilful slaughter of children queuing for sweets..."

Of course, our USraeli friends are never "wilful" when they slaughter children queuing for sweets:

"Witnesses to Sunday's incident said a missile that appeared to be a rocket hit an area just outside the gates of the Rafah Preparatory, a boys school where children were queuing to buy sweets and biscuits from stalls. The school had been providing shelter to more than 3,000 people - the same number that had been seeking refuge at a girls school in Jabaliya last Wednesday when it came under attack from a hail of Israeli shells. In contrast to that strike, which wrecked a classroom full of sleeping woman and children, the physical destruction this time appeared minimal: just a small but deep hole in the road where the missile had landed. But that clinical effect masked a devastating human cost. Pools of blood... were seen inside and outside the school, demonstrating how the blast's powerful impact had wished inside the grounds of what was supposed to be a safe haven." (Gaza school attacked as children queue for sweets, Robert Tait, telegraph.co.uk, 3/8/14)

Nothing personal there, of course, just good, clean collateral damage, right? Sorry about that, kids.

"Whether it is their accusations of Islamophobia or their morally relativistic comparison of today's new barbarism with the behaviour of Western armies, the liberal elites key aim seems to be to avoid having to take a strong position on this new, strange, spectacularly anti-human violence."

And, Brendan, what precisely do you mean by "liberal elites"? Do you mean someone like Obama's Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton? 

Was her position on "today's new barbarism" not "strong"? Didn't she propose defeating ISIS "on the battlefield" and working "with our allies to dismantle global terror networks"? (See Combating terrorism & keeping the homeland safe, hillaryclinton.com)

And yet you've already said, "America's military campaigns in the Middle East are wrong." So cut the crap and tell us what you mean by "a strong position."

The trouble with Clinton is that she doesn't seem at all interested in taking on certain regimes who inspire and stoke Islamist terrorism, and for obvious reasons:

"On the contributions given by state actors to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was US Secretary of State, Assange discusses one email in particular: 'There's an early 2014 email from Hilary Clinton... to her campaign manager, that states that ISIS is funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.' He states, 'Actually, I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection, perhaps because Saudi and Qatari money is spread all over the place including into many media institutions. Analysts know, even the US government has mentioned, or agreed with, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS, funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it's just some rogue princes using their cut of the oil money to do whatever they like but actually the government disapproves, but that email says that no, it's the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar that have been funding ISIS." (Never forget: the towering exposure of Hillary Clinton by Assange and WikiLeaks, Clinton Emerald, 21stcenturywire.com, 13/11/16)

Nor, for that matter, does the other side of the US coin, non-liberal, populist Donald Trump.

"A weak and morally disoriented West that will not strongly condemn the nihilistic ideology behind the slaughter of Christians in Sri Lanka..."

Now that "nihilistic ideology" wouldn't be Saudi Wahhabism, would it, Brendan?

 "... is a West that cannot feign surprise when such violence continues. It is no longer enough to say 'that's awful' and then move on; we need a serious reckoning with the war on Christians, the rise of seventh-century barbarism and the collapse of any semblance of moral restraint among the new terrorists."

And Brendan, isn't your phrase, "the rise of seventh-century barbarism," just a sneaky euphemism for Islam? Please explain why this isn't Islamophobia.

Bet you'd never conflate the barbarity of the Crusades with Christianity, or for that matter "America's military campaigns" - which you admit are ("wrong").

Lest We Forgot...

"Bill & Hillary Clinton & Obama until LAST WEEK murdered a million Muslims. Trump imposed a travel ban. And HE is the No 1 villain?" (George Galloway tweet, 30/1/17)

From Neoliberalism to Neofascism

There is much truth in this post-election statement by Cornel West, US philosopher, academic, social activist, author, public intellectual and member of the Democratic Socialists of America:

"The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph of Donald Trump shattered the establishment in the Democratic and Republican parties - both wedded to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians. The Bush and Clinton dynasties were destroyed by the media-saturated lure of the pseudo-populist billionaire with narcissist sensibilities and ugly, fascist proclivities. The monumental election of Trump was a desperate and xenophobic cry of human hearts for a way out from under the devastation of a disintegrating neoliberal order - a nostalgic return to an imaginary past of greatness.

"White working- and middle-class fellow citizens - out of anger and anguish - rejected the economic neglect of neoliberal policies and the self-righteous arrogance of elites. Yet these same citizens also supported a candidate who appeared to blame their social misery on minorities, and who alienated Mexican immigrants, Muslims, black people, Jews, gay people, women and China in the process. This lethal fusion of economic insecurity and cultural scapegoating brought neoliberalism to its knees. In short, the abysmal failure of the Democratic party to speak to the arrested mobility and escalating poverty of working people unleashed a hate-filled populism and protectionism that threaten to tear apart the fragile fiber of what is left of US democracy. And since the most explosive fault lines in present-day America are first and foremost racial, then gender, homophobic, ethnic and religious, we gird ourselves for a frightening future.

"What is to be done? First we must try to tell the truth and a condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak. For 40 years, neoliberals lived in a world of denial and indifference to the suffering of poor and working people and were obsessed with the spectacle of success. Second we must bear witness to justice. We must ground our truth-telling in a willingness to suffer and sacrifice as we resist domination. Third we must remember courageous exemplars like Martin Luther King Jr, who provide moral and spiritual inspiration as we build multiracial alliances to combat poverty and xenophobia, Wall Street crimes and war crimes, global warming and police abuse - and to protect precious rights and liberties.

"The age of Obama was the last gasp of neoliberalism. Despite some progressive words and symbolic gestures, Obama chose to ignore Wall Street crimes, reject bailouts for homeowners, oversee growing inequality and facilitate war crimes like US drones killing innocent civilians abroad. Rightwing attacks on Obama - and trump-inspired racist hatred of him - have made it nearly impossible to hear the progressive critiques of Obama. The president has been reluctant to target black suffering - be it in overcrowded prisons, decrepit schools or declining workplaces. Yet, despite that, we get celebrations of the neoliberal status quo couched in racial symbolism and personal legacy. Meanwhile, poor and working class citizens of all colors have continued to suffer in relative silence. In this sense, Trump's election was enabled by the neoliberal policies of the Clintons and Obama that overlooked the plight of our most vulnerable citizens. The progressive populism of Bernie Sanders nearly toppled the establishment of the Democratic party but Clinton and Obama came to the rescue to preserve the status quo. And I do believe Sanders would have beat trump to avert this neofascist outcome!

"In this bleak moment, we must inspire each other driven by a democratic soulcraft of integrity, courage, empathy and a mature sense of history - even as it seems our democracy is slipping away. We must not turn away from the forgotten people of US foreign policy - such as Palestinians under Israeli occupation, Yemen's civilians killed by US-sponsored Saudi troops or Africans subject to expanding US military presence. As one whose great family and people survived and thrived through slavery, Jim Crow and lynching, Trump's neofascist rhetoric and predictable authoritarian reign is just another ugly moment that calls forth the best of who we are and what we can do. For us in these times, to even have hope is too abstract, too detached, too spectatorial. Instead we must be a hope, a participant and a force for good as we face this catastrophe." (Goodbye, American neoliberalism. A new era is here, theguardian.com, 17/11/16)

Clinton Emailed

From John Pilger's interview with Julian Assange, Emails show Clinton Foundation funders also bankroll ISIS: the explosive interview with John Pilger, newmatilda.com, 5/11/16:

Pilger: The emails that give evidence of access for money and how Hillary Clinton herself benefited from this and how she's benefiting politically are quite extraordinary. I'm thinking of when the Qatari representative was given 5 minutes with Bill Clinton for a million dollar cheque.

Assange: And 12m from Morocco... For Hillary Clinton to attend [a party]

Pilger: In terms of US foreign policy, that's where the emails are most revealing, where they show the direct connection between Hillary Clinton and the foundation of jihadism, of ISIS, in the Middle East. Can you talk about how the emails demonstrate [that] those who are meant to be fighting the ISIS jihadists are actually those who have helped create it?

Assange: There's an early 2014 email from Hillary Clinton... to her campaign manager John Podesta that states ISIS is funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This is the most significant email in the whole collection, and... because Saudi and Qatari money is spread all over the Clinton Foundation. Even the US government agrees that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS. But the dodge has always been that it's just some rogue princes, using their cut of the oil money to do whatever they like, but that, actually, the government disapproves. But that email says that no, it is the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar that have been funding ISIS.

Pilger: The Saudis, Qataris, Moroccans, Bahrainis... were giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, and the State Department was approving massive arms sales, particularly to Saudi Arabia.

Assange: Under Hillary Clinton the world's largest ever arms deal was made with Saudi Arabia, [worth] more than $80 billion. In fact, during her tenure as secretary of state, total arms exports from the United States, in terms of dollar value, have doubled.

Pilger: Of course, the consequence of that is that ISIS has been created largely with money from the very people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation.

Assange: Yes.

(Assange goes on to reveal that Clinton is the public face of Wall Street and that "half the Obama cabinet was basically nominated by a representative from City Bank.")

Pilger: Why was she so enthusiastic about the destruction of Libya? What have the emails told us about what happened there, because Libya is such a source for so much of the mayhem now in Syria... and it was almost Hillary Clinton's invasion?

Assange: Libya... was Hillary Clinton's war. Obama initially opposed it, Hillary Clinton championed it. That's documented throughout her emails. She'd put her favorite agent, Sidney Blumenthal onto it. More than 1,700 out of the 33,000 of the emails we've published are just about Libya. It wasn't about cheap oil. She saw the removal of Gaddafi... as something she could use in her run-up to election as president. In late 2011, an internal document called the Libya Tick Tock was produced for her. It's a chronology of how she was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state, which resulted in around 40,000 deaths in Libya. Jihadists, ISIS moved in, leading to the European refugee crisis... As Gaddafi said at the time: 'What do these Europeans think they're doing, trying to bomb and destroy Libya? There's going to be a flood of migrants and jihadists out of Africa and into Europe,' and that's exactly what happened.

Romeo & Juliet, Tristan & Isolde, Hillary & Israel

A says-it-all document from hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factchecks:

Hillary Clinton & Israel: A 30-Year Record of Friendship, Leadership & Strength

From the State Department and both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, Clinton has made support for Israel one of her top priorities.

*As Secretary, Clinton's State Department reaffirmed the US commitment to preserving Israel's Qualitative Military Edge (QME) and requested increased assistance for Israel every year, from $2.55 billion when she took office to $3.1 billion in FY2013, a nearly 20% increase. She worked to build stronger defence programs for Israel, including upgraded Patriot missiles and the Iron Dome system, which blocked rockets from Hamas and Hezbollah and saved Israeli lives, as well as helping equip Israel with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. During her tenure, Prime Minister Netanyahu credited our 'unprecedented' security cooperation with Israel. She led international efforts to pass UN Security Council Resolution 1929, imposing the harshest sanctions on Iran in history. In 2012 she led negotiations to establish a ceasefire in Gaza and end rocket attacks from Hamas. She tirelessly fought efforts to delegitimize Israel: calling out the UN Human Rights Council for its 'structural bias' against Israel, criticizing the Goldstone report as 'one-sided,' and making sure that the United States blocked UN Security Council resolutions for Palestinian statehood.

*As a Senator from New York, Clinton championed legislation to get tough on Iran; helped lead the effort to crack down on Palestinian incitement in textbooks and schools; and fought successively to have Israel's Magen David Adom accepted by the International Red Cross. She introduced and co-sponsored numerous bills to support Israel; isolate and weaken terrorist groups and their state sponsors; and elevate the fight against anti-Semitism in the Middle East, Europe, and around the world.

*As First Lady, Clinton supported Israel's search for peace and the fight against terrorism, saying 'I understand the need never to compromise the security of Israel.' She traveled repeatedly to Israel and forged a lasting bond and friendships with Israeli leaders and people.

Clinton's Vision: Deepen Our Unshakable Commitment to Israel's Security

Clinton believes that Israel's security is a national priority for the United States. Israel must be able to defend itself by itself. As President, she will:

*Increase support for rocket and missile defense, including Iron Dome and David's Sling, and push to expand missile defense to northern Israel, so that Israel can defend itself against rocket attacks and medium-range missiles, and push for better tunnel detection technology to better protect Israel from infiltration by terrorists and weapons;

*Guarantee Israel's Qualitative Military Edge to ensure the IDF is equipped to deter and defeat aggression from the full spectrum of threats;

*Renew the US-Israel Memorandum of Understanding, providing a 10-year US commitment to provide Israel with the security assistance it needs to maintain the most capable military in the Middle East;

*Expand shared security and intelligence operations and US-Israel military exercises;

*Partner with Israel to advance the two-state vision of a Jewish and democratic Israel with secure and recognized borders.

Redouble US Leadership to Confront Regional Threats 

The threats emanating from the Middle East, including the dangers posed by Iran and its terrorist proxies, demand strong, smart and determined US leadership. As President, Clinton will:

*Vigorously enforce the nuclear agreement with Iran and not hesitate to take military action to protect the United States and our allies if Iran attempts to attain a nuclear weapon;

*Redouble the international pressure on Iran to end its support for terrorist proxies that threaten Israel and destabilize the region, from Lebanon to Gaza to Syria;

*Strengthen our alliances and partnerships to combat terrorism and improve the long-term trend lines in the region, from North Africa across the Middle East.

Defend Israel on the World Stage 

Israel is a vibrant democracy in a region dominated by autocracy. International organizations should work with Israel to advance our shared values, not attack it. As President, Clinton will:

*Veto any effort at the UN to short-circuit negotiations between the parties;

*Fight any effort to undermine Israel's security or impinge on its right to self-defence;

*Oppose anti-Israel bias in UN bodies and other international forums;

*Stand up against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement;

*Cut off efforts to unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood outside the context of negotiations with Israel.

Hillary Clinton & the Invasion of Iraq

As Hillary Clinton looks set to become the next US president, it should never be forgotten (or forgiven) that she voted for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and that 9/11, which Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with, was uppermost in her thinking at the time:

"I am honored to represent nearly 9 million New Yorkers... I come to this decision [to authorize the use of the USAF against Iraq] from the perspective of a Senator from New York who has seen all too closely the consequences of last year's terrorist attacks on our nation. In balancing the risks of action vs inaction, I think New Yorkers who have gone through the fires of hell may be more attuned to the risk of not acting. I know I am. So it is with conviction that I support this resolution." (Senate, 10/10/02)

Have a nice (US election) day...

Clinton Emails Reveal the Hold of Zionist Money over Democrats

This is a MUST-READ (from Mondoweiss) on the Faustian pact between the US Democratic Party and Zionist money: to the extent that the Dems cosy up to/ accommodate/ go soft on/ shut up about (however you care to put it) Israel, they will get big $$$ and immunity from being smeared as anti-Semitic:

"The latest emails from the Clinton campaign are radioactive. Two emails last year to campaign chairman John Podesta from Neera Tanden, head of the Clintonite thinktank Center for American Progress (CAP), lay bare the influence of Zionist money on the political process as nothing else has.

"The emails relate to Tanden's controversial invitation to right wing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyau to come to the thinktank, months after he had tried to destroy President Obama's Iran deal - for a fawningly-positive 'interview' in which Tanden barely touched on the prime minister's racist appeals to win reelection in Israel earlier that year.

"On November 11, the morning of the Netanyahu lovefest, Podesta asked Tanden for a bottom line on the event: 'What has been gained and what has been lost?' Tanden wrote back to him that afternoon that it was awful, but worth it, because CAP scored a big donor, and we won't be called anti-Semitic again.

'Nothing we have [ever] done [before] has pitted being a thinktank and being ideologically action-oriented against each other more harshly. At the end of the day we had to choose. So [the] answer is complicated. If I could have [had] the whole thing not happen, [I] would definitely have [had] it not happen. But it happened to us.

'Things gained: We will never be called anti-Semitic again. No matter what anyone writes. [The] mainstream press and people think we handled it just right - tough questions. I think for any dismissers, not that I think there were a lot, but we have definitely proven we're a thinktank. And it may have sealed the deal with a new board member.

'Things lost: Staff is riven. On both sides. We are holding a lot of meetings on that. Worse [sic] thing - someone leaked [a] staff statement. That kind of thing really changes the culture. How to keep that culture with that kind of leaking is going to be hard, but [we] need to navigate [it]. And far left hates me.'

"Tanden followed up with this jubilant email to Podesta on December 23: 'Jonathan Levine... is joining the board. So Netanyahu was worth it:)...'

"We noted how much Jonathan Levine, of Bain Capital, and his wife Jeannie, are committed to Israel in this post also based on a Tanden email. As to CAP's fears re a reputation for anti-Semitism, that is because a bunch of neoconservative Israel lobbyists bird-dogged it in 2011-2012 for staffers who were writing letters critical of Israel and the Israel Lobby on Think Progress. All those staffers were in essence purged/ walked out the front door in the end...

"So the dead hand of the past inside Jewish life - rich old donors - are controlling ME policy in liberal institutions... " (Invite to Netanyahu brought a big donor to Dem thinktank - and 'we'll never be called anti-Semitic again', Philip Weiss, mondoweiss.net, 31/10/16)

Captain Quint & the Shark

The thin line between American politics and Hollywood has been crossed. If Ronald Reagan was a second-rate actor, Trump and Clinton are second-rate movie characters:

"[Fox News' Megyn] Kelly cheerfully flicks the apocalyptic comments [of Newt Gingrich] to former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, the Christian hardliner who Trump knocked out of the Republican nomination race early on. She suggests to Huckabee that if he doesn't get behind Trump and 'fight tooth and nail,' it could cause recriminations within the party for years to come. 'That's exactly right, Megyn,' says Huckabee obediently. He later adds, '[Trump's] like Captain Quint in the original movie Jaws. He's vulgar, he's salty, he might even get drunk... he's the guy who's gonna save your butt and save your family. And so at the end of the day, when he kills the shark, you're happy about it. Now, Hillary is the shark. She's gonna eat your boat, she's gonna have open borders, immigration out the kazoo, and so the choice is, do you vote for Captain Quint, who's gonna save your family, or do you vote for the shark?' (Huckabee doesn't know Jaws well enough. Captain Quint ends up being eaten.)" ('I saw the slow death of democracy by a thousand cuts of the stupid and the vilr...', Nick O'Malley & Josephine Tovey, The Good Weekend, 29/10/16)

The War for Israel that Never Ends

Listen up:

"Make no mistake about it, there is a universal campaign for war on Syria. The rise of Hillary Clinton has emboldened the warmongers out there. There are many elements to this campaign. It includes the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties; the Gulf regimes and their lobbyists in Washington, DC; and of course the Zionist lobby through all of its branches. The DC think tanks are now part and parcel of the Zionist-Gulf lobbies in the US capital.

"The Gulf regimes are utilizing tactics of vilification and defamation against Arab and Western progressives who oppose war and destruction in Syria. When you read that Arab leftists have supported Bashar Al-Asad and his mafia regime, do not believe it. I find it hilarious to read such accusations by people who, only a few years ago, were official apologists for, or diplomats of, the Al-Asad regime, at a time when I, for example, was banned by the Syrian regime for years from entering Lebanon (for writings against the father tyrant, Hafidh Al-Asad), and was accused by official Syrian TV in 2012 of receiving money from the West to attack the Syrian regime. While only a minority of Arab leftists support the Al-Asad regime, the overwhelming majority of Arab liberals are supporters, apologists and stooges of the Gulf regimes.

"Arab leftists are on the whole opposed to the Syrian regime and its brutality while also condemning the transparent Western-Zionist-Gulf conspiracy against Syria and the Arab world. Those who advocated the NATO bombing of Libya, and who are responsible for the mess and destruction in Libya today, are trying to replicate the Libyan scenario in Syria under different headings and titles - or under the same headings and titles: the same propaganda techniques are being used, nakedly.

"They are resorting to a variety of tactics and tricks. They sometimes roll out a Syrian supporter of the Gulf regimes and label him a leftist when he hasn't been a leftist for more than 30 years, and when he writes against Arab leftists in Gulf regimes newspapers. They roll out people working for Gulf regime media and present them as neutral observers and as representatives of the silent majority. They roll out former Ba`thists and operatives of the Syrian regime who now pretend they have been fighting for 'peace and democracy' all their lives. They roll out people who have never studied the Middle East, and present them as the foremost experts on the region because they want to push for war and destruction in Syria. They roll out Western journalists who have never before shown any sympathy for Arab victims, and have them pose for the moment in the media as arbiters of sentiment and humanitarianism and as lovers of the Syrian people.

"They roll out Zionist haters of Arabs and Muslims and tell us that they are the real champions of the interests of the Syrian people. They use people such as Obama administration officials who have presided over war and destruction throughout the world, and have them to counsel war and destruction in Syria. They are willing to revive the rhetoric of the Cold War to present the war on Syria as the only safe and rational option for the US and 'national interests'. They even rely on the authority and opinions of a Jordanian regime royal who was installed in the UN to handle human rights from the standpoint of the US-Israeli alliance which put him in his post.

"It is time to raise our voices and to warn of the deadly and devastating consequences of war - or more war - on Syria. Those who still, laughably, claim that there are some secret secular, feminist, democratic Syrian rebels (whose names and identities are never revealed) out there are engaged in the same propaganda which preceded the US war on Iraq and on Libya. The scenario is obvious for all to see. Too many leftists and progressives have been intimidated into not speaking out against Western conspiracies in Syria for fear of being labeled as Asad regime supporters, just as Zionists have intimidated people into not speaking out against Israel for fear of being labeled anti-Semites.

"Don't let it happen, not now, not any time. Western governments and media don't want an end to the war in Syria; they want what have been the most favored Western policies for decades: the continuation of bloodshed by Arabs against Arabs, or by Muslims against Muslims. They want what they worked for in the Iran-Iraq war and the Lebanese civil war, that is, a never-ending war in order to safeguard Israeli aggression and occupation." (There is an orchestrated campaign for war in Syria, and it's in sync with the rise of Hillary Clinton, The Angry Arab News Service, 27/10/16)

Games Politicians Play

Classic grandstanding:

"A state Parliament in Australia on Thursday unanimously passed a motion that described US presidential nominee Donald Trump as 'a revolting slug unfit for public office.' Jeremy Buckingham... from the minor Greens party, introduced the motion to the New South Wales Legislative Council, the Parliament's upper house. 'This house... agrees with those who have described Mr Trump as 'a revolting slug' unfit for public office,' the motion said... Had any lawmaker objected to the motion, it would have been struck off the list of parliamentary business. Because there was no objection, the motion was recorded as having been unanimously agreed to by the Sydney-based house. 'It's great that all sides of Australian politics, from conservatives to liberals to Greens, agree that Donald Trump is a 'revolting slug' and completely unfit for public office,' Buckingham said in a statement." (Australian state lawmakers condemn Trump as 'revolting slug', apnews.com, 13/10/16)

So Trump's a slug, a sleazebag and a superfreak? So what? He's already toast. What about those with a far greater track record in awfulness?

What about the arms-dealing Obomber - $38 bn to Israel over the next 10 years/ $115 bn to Saudi Arabia since 2009?

What about Killary - "We came, we saw, he (Gaddafi) died. Hahaha"/ Hey, Putin, put up your nukes!?

If this one-time Parliamentary Friend of Israel really wants to make a splash, if he's really more buck than ham, let him try moving a motion calling on war criminal Benjamin Netanyau, who's been invited by the feds to (dis)grace our shores next year, to stay put.

Pigs will fly.

And the Winner Is?

You are girding your loins for the great debate, the one that may well decide whether or not you make it to the White House. Millions of Americans will be watching your every move. Millions of Americans will be hanging on your every word. Nothing, but nothing, can be allowed to distract you from your task of winning over Mr & Mrs America.

Except one thing - a one-and-a-half-hour meeting encounter with Benjamin Netanyahu.

So he can vet your speech and make a few changes:

"The candidates hunkered for much of Sunday, during which each broke from debate preparation to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - Trump in the morning and Clinton, reportedly, was to see him later in the day. Having already abandoned an early undertaking to be 'neutral' in the Israel-Palestine conflict, a statement issued by the Trump campaign after the 90-minute encounter, argued 'peace will only come when the Palestinians renounce hatred and violence and accept Israel as a Jewish State'. Trump also pledged a big shift in US policy, undertaking that if elected, he would recognise the contested city of Jerusalem as 'the undivided capital of the State of Israel'." (Election debate will be a mud wrestle, not a policy contest, Paul McGeough, Sydney Morning Herald, 27/9/16)

Only (?) in USrael.

Now What Was That About Kremlin Influence in US Politics?

A mind-blowing riff/update to Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy (2007) by mondoweiss.net's excellent Philip Weiss:

"Over the weekend there was a lot more talk about Donald Trump... loving Russia, and about how Vladimir Putin wants Trump to win. 'The hand of the Kremlin has been at work in this campaign for some time,' Hillary Clinton's campaign manager said on ABC. The Russian influence must be true because it's all over our media; but you can be sure it's only half true because they're saying it so loud. The other half of the truth is that Russia is going to lose, big (because the media are talking about it and because Trump is going down). And the media have a guilty conscience, because they know the US power structure is beholden to Israel, but they can't talk about that foreign influence.

"No one talks about the hand of Israel; but Hillary Clinton promises her biggest donor, Haim Saban, whose one issue is Israel, that she'll work against the boycott campaign and she'll meet Benjamin Netanyahu in her first month of office: the same Netanyahu who tried to undermine our president's signature foreign policy achievement by speaking and lobbying Congress under the president's nose, Netanyahu who said that America could be easily moved, Netanyahu who pushed the Iraq war in 2002 to transform the Middle East, even as Hillary Clinton was voting for that war.

"The latest batch of Clinton emails show that then Secretary of State Clinton was shuffling her schedule to meet with big Clinton Foundation donors who care about Israel. 'I'm on shuttle w Avigdor Libermann... I want to stop by to see hrc tonite for 10 mins,' wrote one of them.

"When Donald Trump tried to take a 'neutral' position on Israel, Hillary Clinton told the leading Israel lobby group AIPAC that he had 'no business' being president and she was going to take the relationship with Israel 'to the next level.' "When Bernie Sanders tried to stake out a neutral position on Israel, Clinton's catspaw at the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, complained privately, 'The Israel stuff is disturbing.' Or as Anne Lewis, Clinton's political guru who is also a Zionist, said, 'The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel.'

"Both Clinton, this summer, and Obama, four summers ago, squashed the party's grass roots when they made a move to change the party platform on Israel, because the nominees worried about losing big Jewish Zionist donors - whose influence over the Democratic Party is 'gigantic' and 'shocking,' JJ Goldberg and Stephanie Schriock of Emily's List said this spring.

"So Clinton made sure that the word 'occupation' didn't appear in the platform, in this the 50th year of the occupation. Just as Neera Tanden, the Clinton aide who heads a Democratic Party thinktank, censored articles that were critical of Israel; and a few months later the authors of those articles were no longer employed by her thinktank; and meantime Tanden kissed up to Benjamin Netanyahu, at the very time he was undermining President Obama on the Iran deal, and months after he had used racist appeals - 'Arab voters are coming out in droves' - to win another term.

"But let's talk about Russian influence.

"It has now been 10 years since The Israel Lobby paper was published in London - not here, because it couldn't be published here. Notwithstanding the article and book's impact, it's a shadow impact; everyone in the shadow of the establishment has read it and everyone in the establishment has read it too, but with a plain brown cover on it, as Colin Powell's former chief of staff joked. Because to be in the establishment you must deny its importance. The Atlantic, which commissioned and killed the original paper, continues to publish Jeffrey Goldberg, who once served in the Israeli military, and who helped give us the Iraq war with bad reports in 2002, and who tried to undermine the Iran deal and who calls the fascistic defense minister Avigdor Lieberman by his nickname 'Yvet' and the milquetoast centrist Yitzhak Herzog by his nickname 'Boogie.'

"And everyone in American public life calls the fascistic prime minister of Israel by his nickname, Bibi. Including PBS. I don't know what Vladimir Putin's nickname is, and I don't want to know.

"The central idea of the Israel lobby is simple and it has been confirmed a hundred times but the media will never report it directly. Here it is: United States support is an existential issue for Israel; but non-Jewish voters and leaders cannot be counted upon to love Israel on their own, and therefore the tiny American Jewish community must speak in one voice and (unified checkbooks) persuade American leaders that it's in the US's best interest to do so.

"Israel supporters confirm this idea again and again. 'What keeps me up at night is the dependence of Israel on the United States' - Abe Foxman. 'American Jews had a deferential attitude toward Israel. They saw their job to support Israel, to provide Israel with financial and political support it asked for' - Dov Waxman, scholar. 'Jews don't like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States... American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel' - the late neocon godfather Irving Kristol. 'We [Jews] don't need to be advocates for Palestinians. We need to be advocates for Israel... because the essence of Zionism is... you [Jews] shape your destiny, you don't let others do it' - perennial White House aide and peace processor-charade leader Dennis Ross.

"So the Emergency Committee for Israel, a group started by Kristol's son Bill, gives Arkansas Rep. Tom Cotton nearly $1m so he could become Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton after just 2 years in the House and then lead the charge against the Iran deal.

"But let's talk about Russia's influence.

"Israel's influence has distorted our politics for nearly 40 years. Tom Friedman told a British interviewer that George W Bush abandoned the peace process because he saw his father take on the Israel lobby and lose a second term. Tom Friedman said the Congress is 'bought and paid for' by the Israel lobby. Tom Friedman told an Israeli interviewer that if you put 25 neoconservatives on a desert island in 2002, we wouldn't have had an Iraq war.

"But Friedman never wrote about the lobby head on, a dereliction of duty if ever there was one. It is just too embarrassing or hurtful to talk about the role of Zionist Jews in US public life. The idea has to be suppressed because a) we all know that there is a dual loyalty element implicit in Zionism and talking about the lobby brings up the whole international-Jew canard; and b) the lobby has been effective by working behind the scenes as a 'nightflower,' so its purpose is defeated when people talk about it and everyone gets to weigh in. But if you don't talk about it, then everyone just accepts it as the given of the American power structure, which is where we are now. Chris Mathews is constantly doing Irish Catholic identity politics when Irish Catholic Americans come on his show, but he's afraid to say boo about the powerful pro-Israel Jews who own/run his employer Comcast, the largest media company in the country...

"From the start, empowered Jewish journalists denied that there was a lobby or it was powerful. Jeffrey Goldberg told the Center for Jewish History that it was no different from the ball-bearings lobby. David Remnick made the joke that if there wasn't an Israel lobby, Osama bin Laden would be able to go back into the construction business. And meanwhile he was publishing Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting about Saddam's links to Al Qaeda and Saddam's acquisition of WMD that helped the US get into Iraq. Why did Goldberg push this stuff? Was it out of concern for Israel? There's never been an accounting.

"And three years after his Osama joke, Remnick gave an interview to a Hebrew publication in which he acknowledged that the American Jewish community had sustained the occupation:

How long can you expect that they [US Jews] will love unconditionally the place called Israel? You've got a problem. You have the status of an occupier since 1967... Sorry it can't go on this way. The Jewish community is not just a nice breakfast at the Regency.

"But like Friedman, Remnick doesn't publish this analysis under his byline. It's out of the side of his mouth. He knows there's a price to be paid. With the exception of Yousef Munayyer, Remnick publishes Zionists - people like Ari Shavit, who works for AIPAC and lobbies Jewish kids on campus, and David Makovsky, of the AIPEC spinoff WINEP, who has said that checkpoints won't be so burdensome when Israel uses 'appropriate biometrics' for Palestinians in those lines. The magazine's go-to reporter on Israeli political trends is Bernard Avishai, who's very good, but let's be clear - a cultural Zionist.

"If you don't like Russia, you can surely still make your way in public life, but if you don't like Israel, it's a CLM, as they say at Goldman Sachs. Career Limiting Move. When Jim Clancy accused pro-Israel groups of doing 'hasbara,' or PR, around the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, he lost his job at CNN. When Jimmy Carter accused Israel of practicing apartheid, he got attacked on air by Wolf Blitzer and Terry Gross and was exiled from the Democratic Convention.

"And four reporters at the New York Times have had kids in uniform for Israel, including columnist David Brooks, the go-to pundit on NPR and PBS who said after his dozenth trip to Israel that he is 'gooey-eyed' about Israel. And the New York Times bureau chief in Israel lives in an addition to a house that was stolen from a prominent Palestinian journalist in 1948; and that journalist's daughter the physician and activist Ghada Karmi has written and spoken about visiting that house to try and overcome her pain; but one thing you can be sure of: That story won't be in the New York Times. Josh Marshall will tell you all about Russia influencing Trump, and meantime he names his baby after an Israeli war hero, but ho hum.

"But let's talk some more about the Kremlin.

"The media is all about how much money Paul Manafort got from the Ukrainians, but the media won't tell you that the two guys advocating the bombing of Assad in the New York Times work at a thinktank, WINEP, that the Israel lobby group AIPAC spun off, and one of those authors has called for American Jews to be 'advocates for Israel,' not for Palestinians. It won't tell you that Sheldon Adelson regrets wearing an American uniform, and wished he was wearing an Israeli uniform.

"It will never put all the facts together and name the trend, as I'm doing here right now, out of my back pocket. So I remember that Samantha Power once described the Israel lobby as 'a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import,' and as a result had to make the execrable rabbi Shmuley Boteach her consort in the rightwing Jewish community, so as to get the lobby's approval for her appointment to the UN job.

"And that Chuck Hagel once said that 'the Jewish lobby intimidates people' on Capitol hill, and he almost didn't become Defense Secretary because of that, and his grilling by the Senate resulted in a Saturday Night live sketch that didn't air in which Hagel was asked if he would 'fellate a donkey for Netanyahu.'*

"That's one good thing, everyone's now in on the joke. Even if the media can't discuss it, everyone knows it. Our system is rigged.

"But enough about all that. Let's talk about Russian influence." (Let's talk about Russian influence, 23/8/16)

[*See my 14/2/13 post USrael: The Movie.]

The Stakes in Syria

The Battle for Aleppo & the hypocrisy of US war propaganda, Bill Van Auken

"This week marks two years since president Barack Obama initiated the latest US war against Iraq and Syria, launched in the name of combating the Islamic State militia. The American president cast the new military intervention as not only a continuation of the 'global war on terrorism', but also a crusade for human rights, invoking the threat to Iraq's Yazidi population and insisting that he could not 'turn a blind eye' when religious minorities were threatened.

"The toll of this supposed humanitarian intervention has grown ever bloodier. According to a report released this week by the monitoring group Airwars to mark the anniversary, more than 4,700 civilian non-combatant fatalities have been reported as a result of the 'US-led Coalition's' air strikes (95% of which have been carried out by US warplanes). More innocent Iraqi and Syrian men, women and children have been slaughtered by American bombs in the course of two years than the total number of US soldiers who lost their lives during the eight years of the Iraq war launched by President George W Bush.

"All of Washington's lies and pretexts about its latest war in the Middle East - as well as the decade-and-a-half of wars waged since 9/11 - have been exploded in the course of the past several days as the US government and media celebrated purported victories by 'rebel' forces in the battle for Aleppo, Syria's former commercial capital.

"That the 'rebel' offensive has been organized and led by on organization that for years constituted Al Qaeda's designated Syrian branch, and the operation was named in honor of a Sunni sectarian extremist who carried out a massacre of captured Alawite soldiers, gave none of them pause. So much for the hogwash about terrorism and human rights!

"The scale of the military gains made by the Al Qaeda forces in Aleppo are by no means clear. They have, however, apparently succeeded in placing under siege the western part of the city, which is under the government's control and where the overwhelming majority of the population lives. The 'rebels' have killed and maimed hundreds of people with mortar and artillery rounds.

"Washington and its allies, the Western media and the human rights groups that accused the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad of crimes against humanity for bombing the jihadists in eastern Aleppo are now indifferent when these imperialist-backed terrorists are killing civilians in the western part of the city.

"Sections of the Western media have gone so far as to celebrate the exploits of 'rebel' suicide bombers for providing a strategic 'advantage' for the Western-backed militias. Among the most dishonest and duplicitous accounts of the recent fighting are those that have appeared in the pages of the New York Times, whose news coverage and editorial line are carefully tailored to serve the predatory aims of US imperialism.

"In a Monday article on Aleppo, the Times wrote that the challenge to government control had been mounted by 'rebels and their jihadist allies.' The article continued: 'A vital factor in the rebel advance over the weekend was cooperation between mainstream rebel groups, some of which have received covert arms support from the United States, and the jihadist organization formerly known as the Nusra Front, which was affiliated with Al Qaeda.'

"The newspaper reports this as casually as if it were publishing a report on the late artist formerly known as Prince. The Nusra Front changed its name to the Fatah al-Sham Front and announced its formal disaffiliation from Al Qaeda - with the latter's blessing - just one week before it launched the offensive in Aleppo.

"There is every reason to believe that this rebranding was carried out in consultation with the CIA in an attempt to politically sanitize direct US support for an offensive led by a group that has long been denounced by Washington as a terrorist organization.

"The Times never names any of the 'mainstream rebel groups' it says are fighting alongside the Al Qaeda militia, suggesting that they constitute some liberal progressive force. In point of fact, one of these groups, recently released a video showing its fighters beheading a wounded 12-year-old child, and virtually all of them share the essential ideological outlook of Al Qaeda.

"The Financial Times of London carried one of the frankest reports on the Aleppo 'rebel' offensive, noting that it 'may have had more foreign help than it appears: activists and rebels say opposition forces were replenished with new weapons, cash and other supplies before and during the fighting.' It cites reports of daily columns of trucks pouring across the Turkish border for weeks with arms and ammunition, including artillery and other heavy weapons.

"The newspaper quotes one unnamed Western diplomat who said that US officials backed the Al Qaeda-led offensive 'to put some pressure back on Russia and Iran,' which have both provided key military support to the Assad government.

"The Financial Times also quotes an 'unnamed military analyst' as stating that the character of the fighting indicated the Al Qaeda forces had received not only massive amounts of weapons, but also professional military training.

"Significantly, even as the fighting in Aleppo was underway, photographs surfaced of heavily armed British commandos operating long-range patrol vehicles in northern Syria. Similar US units are also on the ground. These are among the most likely suspects in terms of who is training Al Qaeda's Syrian forces.

"They would only be reprising the essential features of the imperialist operation that gave rise to Al Qaeda 30 years ago, when the CIA - working in close alliance with Osama bin Laden - supplied similar support to the mujahideen fighting to overthrow the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan.

"While the blowback from that episode ultimately gave us September 11, the present operation in Syria holds far greater dangers. In what is now openly described by the corporate media as a 'proxy war' in which Al Qaeda serves as US imperialism's ground force, Washington is attempting to overthrow Russia's key Middle East ally as part of the preparations for a war aimed at dismembering and subjugating Russia itself.

"The frontrunner in the US presidential contest, Democrat Hillary Clinton, has repeatedly signaled that she intends to pursue a far more aggressive policy in Syria and against Russia, making neo-McCarthyite charges of Vladimir Putin's supposed subversion of the US election process a central part of her campaign.

"Whether Washington can wait till inauguration day next January to escalate its aggression is far from clear. The 'rebel' gains in Aleppo may be quickly reversed and the fighting could end with the US-backed Al Qaeda militias deprived of their last urban stronghold.

"US imperialism is not about to accept the re-consolidation of a Syrian government aligned with Moscow. Pressure will inevitably mount for a more direct and more massive US intervention, threatening a direct clash between American and Russian forces.

"Fifteen years after launching its 'war on terror', Washington is not only directly allied with the supposed target of that war - Al Qaeda - but is preparing to unleash upon humanity the greatest act of terror imaginable, a third world war." (informationclearinghouse, 11/8/16)

The Rise of the Know-Nothings

This observation by antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo resonates with me:

"I've finally figured why so many pundits and journalists are signing on to the new cold war with Russia: they weren't alive during the last one. They have no memory of the Cuban missile crisis, they didn't grow up in the era of backyard bomb shelters: for them, Fail Safe and On the Beach are just old movies.

"Take Greg Sargent, an opinion columnist with the Washington Post, who was a twinkle in his parents' eyes when John F. Kennedy put American nukes in Turkey and the Russians responded by installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. So eager is he for a confrontation with Vladimir Putin that he tweeted this [Read these 3 quotes from Trump's ABC News interview side by side] the other day. I responded with this [Amazing how 'liberals' are ginning up WWIII with Russia - just like neocons ginned up the Iraq war. Get ready!]. And he fired back with this [Area man who pretends not to support Trump lashes out at mere act of pointing out his incoherence/ignorance.] - I must be a Trump supporter! As I told him, I hope he's alive after the next missile crisis with Russia - which will be coming real soon after Hillary Clinton takes office.

"Or take Josh Rogin, who writes about foreign policy for the Washington post: he's upset that Trump won't risk World War III by facing off with Putin over Ukraine. Trump must be 'in lockstep with Putin.' Yet Rogin didn't dispute the merits of what Trump had to say - that he'd consider recognizing the Crimean referendum - only implying that Trump was some kind of Manchurian candidate. I answered him here [Is he wrong? Or does that matter?], and he soon fled back into the nether reaches of the Twittersphere. And I'd make the same point about him that I made about Sargent: these people are children. They have no memory of the cold war. They never lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation. To them it's all a game." (It's getting scarier, 1/8/16)

God help us - the kids have taken over the msm asylum.

The Guardian Takes the Piss

From the Guardian's Candidates spar over Israel and fate of Palestinians in Democratic debate:

"The Democratic debate between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton on Thursday night was electrified by a series of feisty exchanges, but one especially pugnacious discussion stood out as a potentially historic moment in presidential politics: the candidates' dispute over Israel and the fate of Palestinians. Close observers of New York politics and the place within it of the city's prominent Jewish population were astonished that Sanders spoke openly and directly about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza while criticizing Israel and its prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, for responding disproportionately to Hamas provocations. Never before had such an outspoken pro-Palestinian message been delivered from the presidential campaign stage. During the debate, Sanders... allud[ed] to his heritage by saying that 'he spent many months of my life when I was a kid in Israel.' He was careful to describe himself as '100% pro-Israel." (Ed Pilkington, 16/4/16)

Surely, Ed Pilkington, chief reporter for Guardian US, is taking the piss here.

I mean, the 100% pro-Israel Sanders' characterisation of Israel's genocidal frenzy in Gaza as merely disproportionate AND the result of Hamas provocations... is an outspoken pro-Palestinian message?

Seriously?

And then this: the stolen, ethnically-cleansed land of Palestine is the Brooklyn-born (of Polish parents) Sanders' heritage?

OFFS...

Forget President Trump, Meet President Duggal

Whenever I read the latest off the wall ejaculation of a Donald Trump or a Ben Carson or a... I find myself wondering WTF is going on in the United States? Is it just the Republicans who are freaks, or are the Democrats just as scary?

After stumbling across, and perusing, the website of a breathless young American democrat, Shefali Razdan Duggal, and emerging from the experience gobsmacked, I'm more than ever convinced that the madness over there is bipartisan, across the board, and padded-wall-to-padded-wall.

So who is Shefali Razdan Duggal?

Click the 'About' button on her website and you get the following CV. As I read it, I found all sorts of questions thronging my tired brain: Is this woman normal? Is this normal? Is this what America does to you? Is she off with the pixies? Are they all off with pixies? Whaaat?! Does she have a life? Seriously? Is she for real? Is America for real? Is this what's coming down the US presidential track? And so on.

Yes, the CV which follows is mind-numbingly tedious, but bear with me and read it all the way through because it's the necessary back story for my next post on future President Shefali Razdan Duggal, OK?

"SHEFALI RAZDAN DUGGAL is a member of the Democratic National Committee's National Finance Committee and is a Co-Chair for the DNC Women's Leadership Forum. Shefali is a Presidential Appointee (President Barack Obama) to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which oversees the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, for a term expiring January 15, 2018. She is also on the National Finance Committee for Hillary for America (the Hillary Clinton 2016 Presidential Campaign). Shefali is also on the National Board of Directors for Emily's List (an organization dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to all levels of government) and is a member of the Democratic National Committee's Hope Institute Board (a network of supporters willing to serve as mentors to Hope Fellows as they explore careers in politics.) Shefali is also on the National Advisory Board of Doctors for America, the National Advisory Board of Beyond Bollywood (Smithsonian Museum), the National Advisory Board of Inside Washington (Miami University), the Advisory Board of Emerge America, Senior Advisor for South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), and an Adviser to viiv.tv. Shefali is involved with Human Rights Watch and currently works on various US Senate and Congressional campaigns throughout the country.

"Previously, Shefali was a member of President Barack Obama's National Finance Committee (NFC) for the 2012 Presidential reelection campaign, a Co-Chair for Obama Victory Trustees (OVT) and a member of the Northern California Finance Committee for President Barack Obama.

"Shefali was a member of the Credentials Standing Committee for the 2012 Democratic Convention and was an At-Large Delegate to the Convention from the State of California. In addition, Shefali was active in Senator Barack Obama' 2008 Presidential campaign where she was a Trustee for the DNC South Asian & Young Professional Outreach, co-hosting a number of fundraising events for both the Senator and his surrogates. She previously worked with Senator Hillary Clinton's 2008 Presidential campaign where she was a member of the campaign's Northern California Steering committee and the Women for Hillary Committee. Shefali was also on the Finance Committee for the Kamala Harris for California Attorney General Campaign and was a member of her Transition Team. In addition, she was Executive Director of Indus Women Leaders, a national South Asian women's organization, and is a graduate of Emerge, a political leadership training program for Democratic women. Shefali was also a Board Member of the Indian American Leadership Initiative, an organization focused on promoting South Asian political participation. Earlier in her career, Shefali worked as a Political Analyst at Staton Hughes, a political strategy firm, and also worked for the MA Democratic Party, NH Democratic Party, and Senators Ted Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein. Shefali worked on Vice President Al Gore's 2000 Presidential Campaign, and was an At-Large Delegate to the 2000 National Democratic Convention from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A Kashmiri born in Hardiwar U.P. India, Shefali moved to the United States at a very young age and grew up in Cincinatti, Ohio. Shefali is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, having received an BS in Mass Communication, with a minor in Political Science. Shefali then went on to receive her MA in Political Communication from New York University. Shefali and her husband, Rajat, have two children and live in San Francisco, California.

To be continued...

Tony Blair Just Couldn't Wait for Iraq War

Sensational revelations on Tony Blair and Iraq appeared in yesterday's MailOnline.

Typically, there was NOTHING about them on this morning's (6.30) ABC news*, so here are the MailOnline headlines and opening paragraph:

Smoking gun emails reveals Blair's 'deal in blood' with George Bush over Iraq war was forged a YEAR before the invasion had even started - despite claiming he wanted peace

*Leaked White House memo shows former PM's support for war at summit with US President in 2002

*Bombshell document shows Blair preparing to act as spin doctor for Bush, who was told 'the UK will follow our lead'

*Publicly, Blair still claimed to be looking for diplomatic solution - in direct contrast to email revelations

*New light was shed on Bush-Blair relations by material disclosed by Hilary Clinton at the order of US courts

"A bombshell White House memo has revealed for the first time details of the 'deal in blood' forged by Tony Blair and George Bush over the Iraq War. The sensational leak shows that Blair had given an unqualified pledge to sign up to the conflict a year before the invasion started. It flies in the face of the Prime Minister's public claims at the time that he was seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis. He told voters: 'We're not proposing military action - in direct contrast to what the secret email now reveals." (Glen Owen & William Lowther, 18/10/15)

You can read it all at dailymail.co.uk. For now, here's the data from their useful graphic:

Secret: Memorandum to the President
From: Colin L. Powell, 28/3/02
Subject: Your meeting with UK PM Tony Blair, April 5-7, 2002 at Crawford

1. Powell starts his memo by outlining the intimate nature of the upcoming meeting between Blair and Bush at the President's Crawford ranch in Texas.

*"Tony Blair is looking forward to the time he and his family will spend with you at Crawford to deepen their personal relationship with you and Laura [Bush's wife]. Buckingham Palace's approval of the trip despite The Queen Mother's death attests to the importance the British government ascribes to Blair's meeting with you. Blair will want to discuss: Afghanistan; Iraq; the Middle East; Russia and Nato enlargement; and trade and development.'

2. He says Blair will back him on Iraq and present 'public affairs lines' as Bush's global spin doctor.

* "Blair continues to stand by you and the US as we move forward on the war on terrorism and on Iraq. He will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause."

3. Powell then says that Blair eagerly proved his loyalty to Bush by sending British troops to Afghanistan even though UK military chiefs warned it was a risk.

* "Blair and the UK are in Afghanistan with us for the long haul. He readily committed to deploy 1,700 commandos, even though his experts warn that British forces are overstretched."

4. Again, he stresses Blair was already committed to Iraq War - even though he had not told MPs, the Cabinet or British voters.

* "On Iraq, Blair will be with us should military operations be necessary."

5. Powell says only TWO of Blair's cabinet ministers backed the war, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw - at the time Blair claimed they all did. And he denied most Labour MPs and voters opposed him.

* "Aside from his foreign and defence secretaries, however, Blair's Cabinet shows signs of division, and the Labour Party and the British public are unconvinced that military action is warranted now."

6. Smooth-talking Blair would persuade sceptics that flimsy claims that Saddam had WMDs were 'credible' and brush off claims that UN backing was needed. The UN is dismissed with contempt.

* "Blair may suggest ideas on how to make a credible public case on current Iraqi threats to international peace... [and] handle calls for a UNSC [Security Council] blessing."

7. Blair would say the Allies would prevent bloody chaos in Iraq 'the day after' Saddam fell. They did no such thing, there was bloody chaos.

* "[Blair will] demonstrate that we have thought through 'the day after'."

8. Loyal Blair would spare Bush's blushes by not making a public fuss about a US decision on import tariffs which had devastated Britain's steel industry.

* "We do not expect Blair to dwell on the steel decision."

9. 'Arrogant' Blair desperately needed Bush's endorsement because his domestic policies were failing in Britain.

* "Blair hit some domestic turbulence. Blamed at home for failing to fix inadequate public services, his (unpublished) poll numbers have fallen to below 50%. He is sharply criticised by the media for being too pro-US, too arrogant and 'presidential' (not a compliment in the British context) and too insensitive on issues of concern to voters."

10. Bush had to pretend Blair was his equal to enable him to convince sceptical British voters he was not America's poodle.

* "Blair knows he may have to pay a political price for supporting us on Iraq, and wants to minimise it. Nonetheless, he will stick with us on the big issues. His voters will look for signs that Britain and America are truly equity partners in the special relationship."

[* However, an item on the recreation of the 1915 'Coo-ee March' from Gilgandra to Sydney to suck Australians into joining the army to fight for Britain in World War I was broadcast.]

Her Master's Voice

Former Labor PM Paul Keating was moved to say of his late mother Minnie Keating that "At the core  of [her forthrightness] was a manic commitment to honesty and truth and her utter contempt for humbug and sleight of hand. Her guiding light was that which was true and right and she instilled those values into each of us as children and as adults." (Keating farewells his mother and guiding light, Andrew Hornery, Sydney Morning Herald, 9/7/15)

I very much doubt that this could be said of the author of the following letter (2/7/15), Hillary Clinton. The letter is essentially a shameless pitch for funds from the Israeli-American billionaire and mega-donor to the Democratic Party, Haim Saban, who said in 2004 that "I'm a one issue guy, and my issue is Israel."

"Dear Haim:

"I am writing to express my alarm over the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction [sic] movement, or 'BDS', a global effort to isolate the State of Israel by ending commercial and academic exchanges."

No, you're not. You're merely parroting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, specifically his 2014 AIPAC speech, where he refers to "the so-called BDS," and tells his American agents that it's "morally wrong" and "simply the latest chapter in the long and dark history of anti-Semitism."

"I know you agree that we need to make countering BDS a priority. I am seeking your advice on how we can work together - across party lines and with a diverse array of voices - to reverse this trend with information and advocacy, and fight back against further attempts to isolate and delegitimize Israel."

Which is just another way of repeating these Netanyahu tropes:

"Today the singling out of the Jewish people has turned into the singling out of the Jewish state."

"But the BDS movement is not about legitimate criticism. It's about making Israel illegitimate."

"As you know, BDS seeks to punish Israel and dictate how the Israelis and Palestinians should resolve the core issues of their conflict. This is not the path to peace. I remain convinced that Israel's long-term security and future as a Jewish state depends on having two states for two peoples. But that outcome can only be achieved through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians - it cannot be imposed from the outside or by unilateral actions."

Ditto:

"BDS sets back peace because it hardens Palestinian positions and it makes mutual compromise less likely."

"I am also very concerned by attempts to compare Israel to South African apartheid. Israel is a vibrant democracy in a region dominated by autocracy, and it faces existential threats to its survival. Particularly at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise across the world - especially in Europe - we need to repudiate forceful efforts to malign and undermine Israel and the Jewish people. After all, it was only six months ago that four Jews were targeted and killed in a Kosher supermarket in Paris as they did their Sabbath shopping."

Ah yes, the anti-Semitism card. Netanyahu again:

"We have a boisterous democracy where everyone has an opinion... Those who wear the BDS label should be treated exactly as we treat any anti-Semite or bigot."

"BDS is the latest attempt to single out Israel on the world stage, but we've seen this sort of attack before, at the UN and elsewhere. As Senator and Secretary of State, I saw how crucial it is for America to defend Israel at every turn. I have opposed dozens of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, the Human Rights Council, and other international organizations. I condemned the biased Goldstone Report, making it clear that Israel must be allowed to defend itself like any other country. And I made sure the United States blocked Palestinian attempts at the UN to unilaterally declare statehood. Time after time, no matter the venue, I have made it clear that America will always stand up for Israel - and that's what I'll always do as President."

Hillary or no Hillary, Democrat or Republican, covering Israel's nakedness in the UN Security Council with its veto, or voting NO in the General Assembly or other UN body, is simply what we've come to expect from USrael.

Most recently, at the 29th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, the US was the only country to vote NO against a resolution 'ensuring accountability and justice for all violations of international law in' the Occupied Palestinian territories, a vote which followed the release of the UN Human Rights report on the 2014 massacres in Gaza.

"Now I am seeking your thoughts and recommendations on how leaders and communities across America can work together to counter BDS. From Congress and state legislatures to boardrooms and classrooms, we need to engage all people of good faith, regardless of their political persuasion or their views on policy specifics, in explaining why the BDS campaign is counterproductive to the pursuit of peace and harmful to Israelis and Palestinians alike."

And classrooms???!!! 

"I hope you will work with me on this priority. It was more than three decades ago when Bill and I took our first trip to Israel...

Do you remember our first rambamming, Bill?

Did the earth move for you too, Bill?

"... walked the ancient streets of Jerusalem's Old City, and fell in love with the country and its people. Israel became a special place for us, and I'm lucky to have had many opportunities to return and to make many dear friends there over the years. The Jewish state is a modern day miracle - a vibrant bloom in the middle of a desert. We must nurture and protect it."

Israel's a plant alright, a poisonous settler-colonial implant which continues to blight every inch of occupied Palestine:

"'When I arrived on my farm on Wednesday morning. I was surprised when I saw an Israeli farming plane crossing the border towards farms inside Gaza,' farmer Ahmed Badawi said. 'The plane started to spray unidentified chemicals. My farm is 400 metres from the border and I planted several kinds of vegetables. Two days [later] negative effects started to appear on the plants.' Mahmoud Dalloul, another farmer in a different area near the border, said that this was not the first time..." (Israel sprays Gaza farms with poisonous gases, again, middleeastmonitor.com, 20/4/15)

"I will be speaking out publicly on this issue in the weeks ahead, so I am eager to hear your perspective and advice. 

"With warm regards, I am 

"Sincerely yours, 

"Hilary Rodham Clinton."

And Hillary has written in her own hand:

"Look forward to working with you on this."