Zionist neocons have been pushing an Iran war since 1996 – and hard since about 2005. israel asked bush if they could fly through Iraq to drop 3 nukes on Iranian nuke facilities (these facilities were pushed on Iran by dick cheney decades ago to create ENERGY – LEGALLY because they signed the 1968 NNPT, which israel that has 200 ILLEGAL NUKES has not signed). THEY have also attempted to get the USA to attack Iran just like they did to get us to attack Iraq FOR THEM.

The LIE about “wipe israel off the map” was deliberately distranslated propaganda by meyrav wurmser (traitor) that signed the 1996 “A Clean Break” war plan FOR ISRAEL. ALL International news from the Middle East is “TRANSLATED” by MEMRI (founded by treasonous meyrav wurmser). Most of “our” intel from the Middle East comes from israeli mossad. “Our **ALLIES** in the Middle East” = israel (the name we shall not speak).

FYI: israel is NOT a US Ally by definition because they refuse to sign a treaty with us because they refuse to define their ever-expanding borders.

“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”

First neocon report calling for Iran invasion.  Delivered to Israel, 1996.

With contributions from top DUAL-CITIZEN Pentagon officials: Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser all members of the “Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy,” and all key Iraq-war players in Bush administration.

“The loss of national critical mass was illustrated best by Israel’s efforts to draw in the United States to sell unpopular policies domestically, to agree to negotiate sovereignty over its capital, and to respond with resignation to a spate of terror so intense and tragic that it deterred Israelis from engaging in normal daily functions, such as commuting to work in buses (7/7).”

“Securing the Northern Border”

“Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon.”

“recently, Netanyahu suggested that President Bush had assured him Iran will be prevented from going nuclear. I take him at his word. Netanyahu seems to be the main mover in America’s official adoption of the 1996 white paper A Clean Break, authored by him and American fellow neocons, which aimed to aggressively remake the strategic environments of Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. As they say in boxing circles, three down, two to go.”

Now that you understand, watch israeli cheerleaders naively attempting to swindle us into ANOTHER war.

John Bolton: Israel will attack Iran by end of 2009

No One Should Be Surprised That Israel Is Getting Ready To Attack Iran! John Bolton

President Obama On His Push To Stop Nuclear Proliferation In North Korea, Iran, & Around The World

“Ahmadinejad Denies The Holocaust! While Preparing The Next One! “

Iran War Games To Protect Nuclear Facilities

More Israeli Airstrikes In Gaza!

Israel Freezes Settlement Building! Palestinians Dismiss Temporary Move

“Nuclear Ambiguity”

for more information, see:
http://americanbuilt.us/videos/israeli-occupation.shtml

Dobbs gave up on $9M

Nixed CNN pact in ‘Obama birther’ flap

Lou Dobbs Quits CNN, John King Will Step In

CNN Anchor Lou Dobbs announced on the air on November 11 that he was resigning from the network to pursue other unspecified opportunities. John King, currently anchoring the Sunday political news program State of the Union, will step in to replace Dobbs early next year. Various anchors will fill in for Dobbs until then.

Having been with CNN since its beginning in 1980 save for two years off to start the website space.com, the 27-year veteran anchor has recently focused his Lou Dobbs Tonight program on the impact of U.S. trade policy on the American economy, the loss of middle class jobs, and the growing problem of illegal immigration. He would like to find a venue where he can address these topics without constraint.

“Over the past six months, it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us,” Dobbs stated in the opening to his program. “And some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving, as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day. And to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible.”

AllYourTV.com reported on November 11 that Dobbs might embark on a presidential campaign in 2012. “It’s not that he sees himself as a politician,” said an associate of Dobbs. “But he honestly believes that this is his time, that he has something constructive to contribute to the political discourse.”

Dobbs said on air that the issues of trade, jobs, and immigration “are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion. I’ll be working diligently to change that as best I can.”

CNN President Jonathan Klein revealed his aversion to Dobbs’ “forthright analysis and discussion” when he addressed network employees via a conference call on November 12. Speaking of John King replacing Dobbs, Klein said: “John doing that show is obviously a statement about the importance of real nonpartisan news to CNN, and also the importance of political coverage to CNN.” According to an employee who transcribed the call, Klein added, “Having made a statement that we’re all about nonpartisan journalism and outstanding journalism, we have to live up to that. We have got the hardest mission.”

Klein may think it’s hard to join the rest of the mainstream media in their bias toward the liberal left, but he obviously refused to take the harder course of retaining Dobbs in the face of complaints from radical groups. Roberto Lovato, co-founder of the Latino empowerment website Presente.org, celebrated Dobbs’ departure as a victory for his group’s campaign to have Dobbs fired.

“Our contention all along was that Lou Dobbs — who has a long record of spreading lies and conspiracy theories about immigrants and Latinos — does not belong on the ‘Most Trusted Name in News,’ ” Lovato said. “We are thrilled that Dobbs no longer has this legitimate platform from which to incite fear and hate.”

If Lovato thinks Dobbs is inciting hate, then what would Lovato say about a shot fired at Dobbs’ home while his wife was outside? Fox News reported on October 29 that this incident came after Dobbs received threatening phone calls. The hate in this case likely belongs to radical forces willing to use violence to silence critics of illegal immigration.

Dobbs hasn’t been talking to Fox News about employment, though a position with the network is not hard to imagine. “At this point, I’m considering a number of options and directions,” Dobbs said. “I assure you, I will let you know when I set my course.”

source: New American

The text of Mr. Dobbs’ announcement about leaving CNN:

This will be my last broadcast here on CNN, where I’ve worked for most of the past 30 years, and where I have many friends and colleagues whom I admire deeply and respect greatly.

I’m the last of the original anchors here on CNN and I’m proud to have had the privilege to helping to build the world’s first news network.

I’m grateful for the many opportunities that CNN has given me over these many years. I’ve tried to reciprocate with a full measure of my ability and my energy.

Over the past six months it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us, and some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem solving as well as to contribute positively to the great understanding of the issues of our day. And to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible.

I’ve talked extensively with Jonathan Klein — Jon’s the president of CNN — and as a result of those talks, Jon and i have agreed to a release from my contract that will enable me to pursue new opportunities.

At this point, I’m considering a number of options and directions, and I assure you, I will let you know when I set my course. I truly believe that the major issues of our time include the growth of our middle class, the creation of more jobs, health care, immigration policy, the environment, climate change, and our military involvement, of course, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But each of those issues is, in my opinion, informed by our capacity to demonstrate strong resilience of our now weakened capitalist economy and demonstrate the political will to overcome the lack of true representation in Washington, D.C.

I believe these to be profoundly, critically important issues, and I will continue to strive to deal honestly and straightforwardly with those issues in the future.

Unfortunately, these issues are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion. I’ll be working diligently to change that as best I can. And as for the important work of restoring inspiration to our great free society and our market economy, I will strive as well to be a leader in that national conversation.

It’s been my great honor to work with each and every person at this wonderful network. I will be eternally grateful to CNN, to Ted Turner, and to all of my colleagues and friends, and of course to you at home. I thank you, and may God bless you.

Mr. Dobbs then went to a commercial break.

The Washington Post reported on October 13 that the U.S. military is deploying 13,000 additional troops to Afghanistan — in addition to the 21,000 extra combat soldiers approved by President Obama last March.

Pentagon officials said that the latest deployment is made up of support troops, such as engineers, medical personnel, and intelligence experts, and and military police, rather than combat troops. However, in military operations such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the enemy is comprised of insurgents waging a guerilla operation, support personnel and civilians can become targets as well.

The deployment of the support troops to Afghanistan brings the total increase in troop strength to 34,000. A report in the British Guardian noted that both the White House and Pentagon announced earlier this year that the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan would be raised by 21,000, bringing the total to 68,000 by the end of the year.

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, speaking to ABC’s Good Morning America on October 13, expressed support for U.S. General Stanley McChrystal’s request for an extra 40,000 troops, saying: “I’m fully behind him for what he’s seeking in this report.”

The Guardian quoted a U.S. military planner’s statement to the Army Times: “We’ve increased forces in Afghanistan before we’ve reduced forces in Iraq in a meaningful way. If they want forces sooner than 2010, there are no additional forces available. You’ll have to pull them from Iraq and put them in Afghanistan.”

Kagan, who earned her Ph.D in ancient history, and who heads the Institute for the Study of War, previously has taught at West Point, Yale, Georgetown, and the American University. In an essay in Foreign Policy magazine for August 10 entitled “Why the Taliban Are Winning — for Now,” Kagan asserted:

McChrystal might adopt a different campaign design — perhaps requiring additional military resources — when he submits his formal assessment to the U.S. secretary of defense and NATO secretary-general sometime after the Afghan elections.

The fact that we have not been doing the right things for the past few years in Afghanistan is actually good news at this moment. A sound, properly resourced counterinsurgency has not failed in Afghanistan; it has never even been tried. So there is good reason to think that such a new strategy can succeed now. But we have to hurry, for as is often the case in these kinds of war, if you aren’t winning, you’re losing.

Dr. Kagan was, of course, part of McChrystal’s formal strategic assessment team, whose input served as the basis for the general’s well-known request for additional troops.

But if Kagan seems to be well-connected with America’s foreign policy establishment, her credentials are nothing in comparison to her husband, Frederick W. Kagan. The male Dr. Kagan (who received his Ph.D in Russian and Soviet military history from Yale) was an American resident scholar at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (with which he shares an affilation with prominent neocons such as William Kristol) and was also a professor at West Point. Frederick along with his brother, Robert (who is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group), and their father Donald are all signatories to the Project for the New American Century (cofounded by Robert Kagan and William Kristol) manifesto entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses.

Frederick Kagan and his father David Kagan (a Yale professor and a fellow at the Hudson Institute) coauthored While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today, in which they argued in favor of a large increase in military spending and warned of future threats, including the now-discredited claim of a threat from Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction program.

Robert Kagan is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and is married to Victoria Nuland, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO, who has twice been a visiting fellow at the CFR.

Back to Dr. Kimberly Kagan, who, along with husband Frederick, was part of the strategic assessment team sent by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates last July to meet with McChrystal and advise the commander about improving U.S. military strategy. As we noted in our July 31 article, “Advisers Call for Afghanistan Troop Buildup,” other members of the team included Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who was once a national security assistant to Senator John McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Stephen Biddle, a military analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. We noted that the CSIS has been described by some as “a CFR front group” because of the connections of some of its more prominent members to the CFR.

Likewise, Senator McCain, Defense Secretary Gates, and General McChrystal are all CFR members.

Lest we belabor a point, however, the CFR is by no means the only “think tank” (as such elite policy groups generally like to be labelled) exerting disproportionate influence on our government’s foreign policy. Though we often describe the CFR as “internationalist” in its philosophical bent, the association of organizations to which members of the extended Kagan family are affiliated include several that are “neoconservative” (neocon) in orientation. (For a brief introduction to neoconservatism, read “The Passing of Irving Kristol.”)

As we noted previously, William Kristol (Irving’s son) collaborated with Dr. Frederick Kagan (husband of Dr. Kimberly Kagan) in cofounding the neocon Project for the New American Century.

While these interconnected affiliations may be a bit much to absorb in a single sitting, those who would understand the dynamics behind the never-ending succession of wars in which our military has been entangled since (and including) World War II should make a serious effort to follow the trails. Not to do so, is to remain vulnerable to the next propaganda barrage purporting to show why we must send military forces to one backwater satrapy or another — “for our national security.”

Source: The New American

Amazon.com: The Shell Game (9781599550947): Steve Alten: Books

West Palm Beach, FL, — Only days after Obama appointee Van Jones resigned his post at the Council on Environmental Quality for signing a petition years ago to reinvestigate the events of 9/11, a new book makes its debut that provides hard evidence just why a new investigation may be needed.

The Shell Game, written by NY Times best-selling author Steve Alten, deals with conspiracy fa cts that are hard to argue and the book names names. At the center of the storm is former Vice President Dick Cheney. Alten says “Cheney was in-charge of wargame exercises that were being conducted the morning of September 11th that purposely diverted jet-fighters guarding the Northeastern Air Defense Sector (where all four hijackings occurred) sending them over Iceland, Greenland, Canada, and Alaska.

One of these exercises, named Vigilante Guardian, was a hijack drill that actually mimicked the real events while inserting twenty-two false blips on the FAA and NORAD radar screens, confusing the air traffic controllers.” 

Cheney had been placed in-charge of wargame exercises in May of 2001 by a special Presidential Directive.

According to the author, who references dozens of sources, the events of 9/11 were a false flag event that neoconservative members of the Bush Administration wanted to succeed, giving them the “Pearl Harbor” event needed to justify an invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Shell Game extrapolates these factual details to illustrate a new threat — one Vice President Cheney has been predicting since last May — a nuclear suitcase bomb detonating in a major U.S. city.

After reading an advanced copy of the book, Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan stated, “Steve Alten was more alert than the media. Realizing fantasy is one route by which Americans can be brought to face the facts, and hoping to preclude any such real wo rld event, Alten wrote a thriller predictive of our future between now and 2012.”

Cynthia McKinney, a six-term Congresswoman says the book is an absolute “must read.” 

The duress of writing the book took its toll on the author’s nerves. Three months after turning in the manuscript to his publisher, he was diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease.

Since then, he has received threatening phone calls from “radical 9/11 truthers” and “unidentified sources” who have violated his family’s privacy.

The Shell Game on sale since September 11th, 2009.

SOURCE

Would obama shoot down israeli jets after what he promised AIPAC?

obama’s top foreign policy advisor in an interview talking about an israeli air strike on Iran (as planned in the 1996 “clean break” document signed by dick cheney’s middle east foreign policy advisor david wurmser who holds dual-citizenship with the USA and the country he signed that war plan for). israel had been begging bush to let them fly over Iraqi airspace to drop 3 ILLEGAL nukes on LEGAL Iranian nuclear energy facilities (that were pushed on Iran by cheney). brzezinski is advising SHOOTING DOWN ISRAELI JETS!!! keep in mind brzezinski’s TWO SONS were each policy advisors for obama AND mccain BEFORE the election.

Daily Beast: Is the fallout as bad if Israel preemptively strikes Iran?

Zbigniew Brzezinski: Absolutely. That is the way, more importantly, how the Iranians would view it. They really can’t do much to the Israelis, despite all their bluster. The only thing they can do is unify themselves, especially nationalistically, to rally against us, and the mullahs might even think of it as a blessing.

DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike [on Iran] might be in America’s worst interest?

Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?

DB: What if they fly over anyway?

Brzezinski: Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a [USS] Liberty in reverse.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-18/how-obama-flubbed-his-missile-message/2/

As the US feels the strain on its armed forces serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, the country’s defense secretary talks of plans to expand the Army by 22,000 soldiers.

Speaking at a Pentagon news conference with Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the military has reached a point where “its ability to continue to deploy combat units at acceptable fill rates is at risk.”

Gates argued that the goal of the increase is to ease the strain of deployment, as many troops have faced repeated lengthy rotations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“This is an important and necessary step to ensure that we continue to properly support the needs of commanders in the field, while providing relief for our current force and their families,” Gates explained.

The defense secretary said the increase will last three fiscal years, expanding US troop levels from the current 547,000 to a maximum of 569,000.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a 30,000 increase in the number of US soldiers could add between $2 billion and $4 billion a year in costs.

This is while previous reports indicate that the US House of Representatives and Senate committees have passed bills that would funnel more money into the department in charge of foreign policy.

Under the bills, the State Department will receive about 25% more from what was spent in 2008 and nearly double the amount in 2005.

Meanwhile US President Barack Obama’s 2010 defense budget seeks to “rebalance military spending,” giving greater weight to funding irregular warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Under the new plans, the Pentagon may be forced to cut traditional weapons spending, and expand resources to protect ground troops and computer networks.

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=101233&sectionid=3510203

Dr. Paul has the cure for America’s ills By Eric S Margolis / Washington

Republican Congressman Ron Paul became a hero to many Americans last year when he ran for president against the political establishment.  The 11-term Texas congressman is the most respected and admired American politician around the world after Barack Obama.

Representative Paul is a vocal critic of America’s foreign wars; he sits on the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Dr Paul invited me to Washington to address his weekly luncheon in his office on Capitol Hill on the intensifying wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  A group of independent-minded Republican congressmen attended.

During last year’s presidential race, I called Paul, “the only candidate who is telling Americans the truth about foreign affairs”.  I came to respect and admire Paul’s courage, honesty, and refusal to accept special interest money.

Speaking of today’s US Congress, Dr Paul observes: “Special interests have replaced the concern the Founders had for the general welfare.”

In fact, Representative Paul has been a model of the legislators envisaged by America’s founding fathers: men of high moral standards and intellect dedicated to the nation’s wellbeing.

He reminds me in many ways of the fiercely upright senators of the early Roman Republic.  The Roman Senate served as the model for the United States Senate.

Paul, a physician, used to deliver babies on Mondays and Saturdays while serving in office.

The 74-year-old doctor from Texas electrified young Americans with his grassroots campaign, providing voters a real alternative to the Republicans and Democratic establishment which often appears to be one party with two factions.

Paul’s clear, cool voice challenged all the government and media propaganda about Afghanistan and Iraq. Dr Paul is also waging a  determined battle against the runaway spending and soaring national debt being promoted by the Obama White House and Congressional Democrats.

Paul and his fellow libertarian Republicans advocate individual rights, strict adherence to the US Constitution, limited government, and free enterprise. They oppose   American global domination, “nation-building”, and all foreign wars not waged in the direct defence of American territory.

Paul opposes US involvement in other nation’s internal affairs.  As anti-Iranian hysteria gripped the nation last month, Paul was the only House member who voted against a bill condemning Iran for its recent election.  That’s real courage.

“There is no area in which Republicans have further strayed from our traditions than in foreign affairs,” writes Paul. He dismisses claims by pro-Israel neoconservatives that “we have to either fight them over there or over here” as a “false choice”. America has no business policing the world.  US foreign policy is undermining America’s national security, says Dr Paul.

Only Congress, he insists, has the right to declare war, not the president.  Congress cravenly abandoned this right during the buildup to the Iraq War that was fuelled by the Bush administration’s shameless lies and  war-mongering by the US media.

Dr Paul’s amiable manner and lack of the bloated self-importance that so typifies Washington bigwigs conceals a very keen intellect and depth of knowledge.  He also has one of the capital’s sharpest foreign affairs staff chiefs, Daniel McAdams.  It is a relief to find key decision-makers in Washington who actually understand the outside world.

As I talked with Dr Paul, it occurred to me that he and his fellow libertarians are the potent remedy that the dreadfully sick Republican Party so desperately needs. Paul’s Liberty Caucus will hopefully form the core around which a vigorous, new party grows that addresses America’s real needs.

President George Bush and the neocons almost destroyed the Republican Party, as this columnist predicted before the  2003 invasion of Iraq.  What’s left of the Republicans has become a rump dominated by Christian religious fundamentalists, Southerners, and war-loving neoconservatives. No longer a place for a moderate, New York Republican like myself.

Republicans have also been suffering a series of lurid sex scandals that have made its members look both extremely hypocritical and awfully stupid.  Meanwhile, extreme right-wingers like the odious Rush Limbaugh and former speaker Newt Gingrich are vying to become the party’s voice.

Dr Paul and his fellow libertarians offer Republicans and Americans a real alternative to the dumbed-down Republicans and to the wildly spending Democrats whose expanded Afghanistan war and reckless economic policies are leading the nation into growing danger.

US President Barack Obama has signed into law a $106 billion bill in a bid to quell militancy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The original bill put forward by Obama included 80 million dollars for the closure of the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison camp in addition to 108 billion dollars in government credit to provide the International Monetary Fund with funds to help reverse the global economic downturn.

His military budget plan, however, was scaled down after the US Congress opposed Obama’s unelaborated version of the spending scheme.

In its approved form, the bill allows around 80 billion dollars of the projected defense expenses to be allocated to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the summer season.

The bill, signed into law on Wednesday, also includes a $7.7 billion measure to fight the spread of swine flu throughout the globe as well as $5 billion in fresh credits for the IMF despite fierce Republican opposition to the expenses.

Obama’s financial plan for the US military also provides $1 billion as an incentive for car buyers who trade inefficient vehicles for more efficient ones.

The funding is meant to jolt the depressed US automobile market.

The bill has been secured following weeks of militancy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When Facts Stand In The Way

The Impossible Rehab of Colin Powell

by Ray McGovern

Powell writes he was “less concerned” about chemical exposures. He should have been more concerned, not less. As the hostilities ended, U.S. Army engineers blew up chemical agents at a large Iraqi storage site near Kamasiyah. About 100,000 U.S. troops were downwind.

Many of those troops are now among the 210,000 veterans suffering from nervous and other diseases — and FINALLY now receiving disability payments for what came to be known as Gulf War Syndrome.

Far from his pre-war posture of “just blame me,” Powell joined Pentagon and CIA efforts to cover up this tragedy. When reports of the horrible fiasco at Kamasiyah hit the media, he erupted in macho outrage saying that, were he still on active duty, he would “rape and pillage” throughout the government to find those responsible.  Of course, Kamasiyah happened during his watch. Typically, the FCM reported his macho remark, and then gave him a pass.

Despite numerous veterans’ pleas for support, Powell, in effect, went AWOL on the issue of Gulf War illnesses, never acknowledging that he shared any of the responsibility.

He took no interest and, in effect, made a huge contribution to the unconscionable delay in recognizing Gulf War illnesses for what they are. One out of every four troops deployed to the Gulf in 1991 are now receiving the benefits to which they have long been entitled — no thanks to Gen. Powell.

You didn’t know that? Thank the FCM and its persistent romance with Gen. Powell. Sorry for the digression; just had to get that off my chest.

“‘Why did we go into Iraq with so few people?’ Baker asked. … ‘Colin just exploded at that point,’ [former Secretary of Defense William] Perry recalled later. ‘He unloaded,’ [former White House Chief of Staff and now CIA Director Leon] Panetta added, ‘He was angry. He was mad as hell.’… Powell left [the Iraq Study Group meeting].

“Baker turned to Panetta and said solemnly. ‘He’s the only guy who could have perhaps prevented this from happening.’”

…Whether he could have stopped the war or not, the truth is that Colin Powell didn’t even try. He would not risk his reputation for all those victims – Iraqi and American – who have died or suffered horribly from an unnecessary war. The blot on his record was self-inflicted; the FCM is likely to run out of Clorox trying to remove the stain.

Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern@aol.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern05292009.html

Torturing the Rule of Law
by Congressman Dr. Ron Paul

While Congress is sidetracked by who said what to whom and when, our nation finds itself at a crossroads on the issue of torture. We are at a point where we must decide if torture is something that is now going to be considered justifiable and reasonable under certain circumstances, or is America better than that?

“Enhanced interrogation” as some prefer to call it, has been used throughout history, usually by despotic governments, to cruelly punish or to extract politically useful statements from prisoners. Governments that do these things invariably bring shame on themselves.

In addition, information obtained under duress is incredibly unreliable, which is why it is not admissible in a court of law. Legally valid information is freely given by someone of sound mind and body. Someone in excruciating pain, or brought close to death by some horrific procedure is not in any state of mind to give reliable information, and certainly no actions should be taken solely based upon it. 

For these reasons, it is illegal in the United States and illegal under Geneva Conventions. Simulated drowning, or water boarding, was not considered an exception to these laws when it was used by the Japanese against US soldiers in World War II. In fact, we hanged Japanese officers for war crimes in 1945 for water boarding. Its status as torture has already been decided by our own courts under this precedent. To look the other way now, when Americans do it, is the very definition of hypocrisy.

Matthew Alexander, author of “How to Break a Terrorist” used non-torture methods of interrogation in Iraq with much success. In fact, one cooperative jihadist told him, “I thought you would torture me, and when you didn’t, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That’s why I decided to cooperate.” Alexander also found that in Iraq “the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq.” Alexander’s experiences unequivocally demonstrate that losing our humanity is not beneficial or necessary in fighting terror.

The current administration has reversed its position on releasing evidence of torture by the previous administration and we must ask why. A great and moral nation would have the courage to face the truth so it could abide by the rule of law. To look the other way necessarily implicates all of us and would of course further radicalize people against our troops on the ground. Instead, we have the chance to limit culpability for torture to those who were truly responsible for these crimes against humanity.

Not everyone who was given illegal orders obeyed them. Many FBI agents understood that an illegal order must be disobeyed and they did so. The others must be held accountable, so that all of us are not targeted for blowback for the complicity of some.

The government’s own actions and operations in torturing people, and in acting on illegally obtained and unreliable information to kill and capture, are the most radicalizing forces at work today, not any religion, nor the fact that we are rich and free. The fact that our government engages in evil behavior under the auspices of the American people is what poses the greatest threat to the American people, and it must not be allowed to stand.

Posted by Ron Paul (05-25-2009, 01:35 PM) filed under Civil Liberties, Foreign Policy