KERRY PROVIDES EXAMPLES OF THE VALUES THAT ‘THEY’ HATE ABOUT ‘US’ – HYPOCRISY AND ARROGANCE

After his meeting with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday 25 February 2013, US Secretary of State John Kerry, accompanied by Hague, addressed reporters in London with remarks that highlighted the real values that many in the Islamic world despise about Western governments – hypocrisy and arrogance.

Talking about the situation in Syria Kerry said:

We obviously discussed Syria today, and William and I agree that the Syrian people deserve better than the horrific violence that now invades and threatens their everyday lives – the lives of innocent people, the lives of people who simply want an ability to have their government be accountable and to be able to be part of the governance of their own lives. The Assad regime has rained down rockets on Aleppo in recent days, and that is just the latest example of Assad’s brutality. We condemn this indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, and we condemn it in the strongest terms. And it is just further evidence that Assad has to go.

Completely forgotten is America’s onslaught against innocent civilians around the world who have rockets and missiles launched from drones raining down on them almost daily. Many in the world condemn America’s indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians just as they condemn the killings going on in Syria.

Kerry’s remarks are typical of America’s hypocrisy.

After his remarks about Syria, Kerry moves on to the subject of Iran saying:

William and I also today discussed on a couple of occasions Iran’s nuclear program and tomorrow’s P-5+1 talks with Iran that take place in Kazakhstan. As we’ve said again and again, an Iran with a nuclear weapon in that region, and given all that has happened, is simply unacceptable. And we have stated that they will not obtain a nuclear weapon. President Obama has been crystal clear about this. And as we’ve repeatedly made clear, the window for a diplomatic solution simply cannot by definition remain open forever. But it is open today. It is open now. And there is still time, but there is only time if Iran makes the decision to come to the table and to negotiate in good faith. We are prepared to negotiate in good faith, in mutual respect, in an effort to avoid whatever terrible consequences could follow failure. And so the choice really is in the hands of the Iranians, and we hope they will make the right choice.

Time and time again Iran has stated that it is only interested in the civilian use of nuclear energy. And time and time again evidence supporting US Israel claims that Iran has a nuclear weapons program has been conspicuous by its absence. Despite years of claims that Iran is ‘only months away’ from building a bomb, there has not been a single skerrick of evidence to support any of their claims. To ignore Iran’s denials and to continue ratcheting up the threats to Iran if it doesn’t comply with America and the West’s demands while, at the same time, failing to demand Israel open up its nuclear facilities for inspection, is typical of America’s arrogance.

Western leaders have repeated loudly and often that what ‘they’ hate about ‘us’ is our values.

If hypocrisy and arrogance are the values of the West, then who can blame them?

AUSTRALIAN RACISTS FALL OVER THEMSELVES TO AVOID BEING LABELLED ’RACISTS’

There was an interesting article in Australia’s ABC online Drumbeat column yesterday about the visit to Australia of the Islamophobic Dutch hatemonger Geert Wilders scheduled to tour Australia selling his message of hate. Both the article and the myriad of comments that followed the article are well worth a read as the comments demonstrate how fear and hatred in Australia is born out of ignorance. The comments also show how many racists attempt to avoid the ‘racist’ label by denying that Islamophobia is being racist ‘because Islam is a religion and not a race’. This stemmed from my original comment which went thus:

The main problem with allowing Wilders to come to this country to spew his hate speech is that some people actually believe what he says. He actively incites hatred. It is the only reason why he has been brought to Australia.

One has only to look at who in Australia supports his tour here; Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair, Fred Nile, et al, indeed all the right-wing Australian Islamophobes that support Wilders brand of hate-speech.

There's a difference between free speech and hate speech - and Wilders, together with his Australian cohorts, is that difference.

‘Tory Boy’, among others, wrote in response to my post:

I also suspect you make the common mistake of linking Islamophobia to racism when Islam has nothing at all to do with race.

In response to Tory Boy’s comment I wrote:

Racism isn't just about blood, biology or skin colour; it's also about religion and culture.

There was an avalanche of responses to my comment as the racists rushed to dispute me in order to avoid being labelled ‘racist’.

‘Reaver’ wrote:

You don't get to change the definition of a word simply because the accepted definition does not suit your purposes, Damian. Racism is about race and only about race. An irrational fear or hatred of someone due to their religion or culture is xenophobic, but it is not racist.

And ‘Mike’ wrote:

Then you yourself are a racist Damian by your own definition, given that you oppose all sort of ideologies yourself. Seriously, you cannot simply redefine a loaded word such as "racism" just to suit your ideological agenda.

And ‘Jarrod’ wrote:

No it is not. Racism is about discriminating against people based on minor genetic differences in different subpopulations of humans. Racism is largely treated as abhorrent in developed countries (in a lot of developing countries it is actively encouraged for political reasons) because there is no way that people can change there race and more importantly because there is no scientific evidence that differences in race affect the quality of a person Religion and culture are often bundled in to the definition of racism because people want to give these attributes the same protection from criticism. This is unfortunate as religion and culture can be changed and when there is evidence showing that they unfairly impinge on the rights of others they should be changed.

All of these remarks are typical of racists who attempt to avoid being labelled ‘racist’. Yet these people are likely to be the first – and quite rightly – to accuse me or anyone else of being a racist if I said something that was offensive or insulting about, say, Ethiopian people who practice Judaism or the many Europeans who have converted, or are descended from converts to Judaism, all of who are Jewish by religion only.

If to discriminate against people who practice the religion of Judaism is racist, then those who discriminate against people who practice the religion of Islam are also racist. It’s as simple as that.

Intolerance of Islam or any other religion is racism no matter how one looks at it.

WAS BEN ZYGIER HUNG OUT TO DRY BY AUSTRALIA’S SECRET SERVICE, ASIO?

In a report today at Australia’s ABC online news source, it is alleged that Australian-Israel Ben Zygier, who was murdered/died in a high security Israeli prisoner in December 2010, had also been spying, or at least been in contact with, Australia’s own spy organisation ASIO. It is further alleged that it was for this reason that he was arrested, secretly imprisoned, and later died or was murdered. If this is the case then why did not the Australian government speak out about Israel holding an Australian citizen without trial or due process? Why did not ASIO protect one of their own? Were they complicit in whatever dark deeds Zygier and Mossad were up to?

Whatever way one looks at it, the Australian government has let down an Australian citizen either through plain incompetence or deliberately because whatever big secret Zygier had, it was embarrassing not just for Israel but for Australia as well.

It should be noted that the head of ASIO in 2010 was the same person who is head of ASIO today; David Irvine, and the minister responsible at the time was Robert McClelland who conveniently announced his intention not to run for parliament at the next election. I wonder why.

Since the Australian passport scandal broke ages ago, one should be asking what else is so important that Australia should be complicit in hushing up whatever it was that Zygier had to say by letting him hang out to dry at the hands of the Israel’s Mossad.

If that’s the way ASIO treats its agents, why should Australia’s spooks have any faith in those they work for?

SYRIA: REALITY OVERWHELMS NEOCON DREAMS

The neocon dream of the Syrian people rising up to overthrow President Bashir al-Assad and replacing him with a Western-friendly secular democracy is turning into a nightmare for them as it becomes increasingly obvious that Islamists are clearly gaining control of the Syrian revolution and the government that replaces al-Assad is as unlikely to be any more friendly to Israel and the US than al-Assad was. Indeed, if anything, it’s beginning to look as though it’s a case of ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’ as far as the Israelis and the neocons are concerned to the point where the neocons are now openly suggesting that the US should intervene and fight the rebels if it looks like the jihadists are likely to dominate a new government in Syria when and if al-Assad falls.

Clearly the neocons haven’t learnt from the outcomes of any of the Arab Spring revolutions which all started off being supported by the neocons as part of their push to ‘democratise’ the Middle East yet nearly all ended up being condemned by the neocons as each revolution turned to a neocon nightmare when Islamists dominated elections. In short, the people used their new-found democracy to reject Western style democracy.

As I have said on a number of occasions, regardless of who ‘wins’ the civil war in Syria –  whether it be al-Assad, (I don’t think so), the secular revolutionaries (looking less likely), or the Islamists (now looking much more likely) – none of them will forget that Israel still occupies the Golan Heights and that the Syrian people want it back. As I have also stated, regardless of who wins, the new regime in Syria may well see it in their interest to form an alliance with Hezbollah in order oust the Israelis from the Golan Heights and protect south Lebanon from Israel’s attempts to invade and occupy that area of south  Lebanon up to the Litani River.

For the neocons, the war in Syria is not going their way – but then none of the wars that have either been started by neocons or backed by neocons have ever gone their way. Everyone of them has been a disaster.

THE BEN ZYGIER AFFAIR: THE PLOT THICKENS

The latest rumblings about the Zygier affair comes from Israeli news outlet Ha’aretz who report that Zygier may have been imprisoned because he was about to ‘spill the beans’ about Mossad’s misuse of Australian passports in various Mossad operations, including the one that murdered Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai on 19 January 2010. The problem with this line of supposition is that ‘the beans had already been spilt’ by ex-Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky certainly by February 2010. While Zygier may well have threatened to elaborate on the Al-Mabhouh assassination, it seems unlikely that the Israelis would go to all the trouble of incarcerating him in the way that has been revealed and then killing him or allowing him to kill himself if the ‘beans had already been spilt’.

For the Israelis to keep a prisoner in such circumstances there needs to be a far more important reason. The fact that Australian passports were used by the Mossad in the Al-Mabhouh assassination is old news and no big secret when Zygier was arrested nor when he was imprisoned in a secret prison and certainly not by the time he was killed/died in December 2010. And why would a Mossad man want to ‘spill the beans’ on something that was already well known among the various intelligence services of the world?

Considering all the circumstances it’s clear that Zygier knew something far more important than just the ins and outs of the use of foreign passports by Mossad in their various assassination and false flag operations.

While there now seems to be little doubt that Zygier was implicated somehow in the Al-Mabhouh assassination, it is also becoming increasingly apparent that his history with Mossad goes all the way back to 2000 when he left Australia aged 24-25 as a enthusiastic Zionist who was recruited into the Mossad just months before the events of 11 September 2001.

It may well be true that Zygier knew stuff about the Al-Mabhouh assassination but that wasn’t why he was arrested, secretly imprisoned and then killed. It was something else that was – and indeed still is – crucial to Israeli security.

DID AUSTRALIAN MOSSAD MAN KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT 9/11?

Australia’s ABC TV network aired its weekly Foreign Correspondent program last night about a Jewish Australian who had immigrated to Israel and joined Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. According to the program, Ben Alon, also known as Ben Zgier, somehow managed to hang himself while being held in a top secret ultra-high security prison cell in 2010. His body was flown back to Australia for burial seven days after his death.

According to the program, Alon had left Australia for Israel in late 2000. Alon, a lawyer, was aged 24-25 by the time he arrived in Israel. He married an Israeli and had two children. With an Australian passport and full of Zionist idealism, Alon would have been a prime target for Mossad recruiters when he arrived in Israel. Had he been recruited immediately, Alon would have been busy working for Mossad by September 2001.

The question remains then; why was Alon secretly imprisoned and – quite clearly given the circumstances – subsequently murdered? What had he said or done that was so serious that the Israelis felt they had to secretly imprison him and then kill him?

Mossad are likely to distract from the real reasons for his imprisonment and execution by suggesting that such a story is merely another conspiracy theory and they don’t do things like that. The world, however, knows that Mossad kill Israel’s enemies all the time so that ploy is hardly likely to work. Chances are they’ll stick to the story about him being a ‘security risk’ and that he ‘committed suicide’ – or, more likely, they’ll simply say nothing at all.

It is possible that Alon became a threat to Mossad because of certain knowledge he had about the events of 9/11. It could well be that by 2010 some kind of guilt complex had emerged and that he had indeed become a security threat. Whatever it was that got him to be secretly locked up and then killed, it must have been serious. It could even be that Mossad wanted to send a message to all of its agents – retired or still working – ‘there are certain things you simply don’t talk about – or else’.

THE BIN LADEN DELUSION CONTINUES…

The Osama bin Laden propaganda saga has been added to recently with the release of a film (as I said there would be), Zero Dark Thirty, and then, even more recently, by the man who, according to Esquire’s latest long-winded article, is said to have actually ‘killed’ bin Laden, an anonymous SEAL operative who says he fired the fatal shots that supposedly put an end to the life of the West’s best known nemesis. (The UK Daily Telegraph runs a précis of the story here.) Readers, however, are likely to find any one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories far more believable than anything the SEAL operative has to say.

The story is simply just another embellishment of the myth that bin Laden, who was accused of planning and carrying out the events of 9/11, finally got his comeuppance at the hands of America’s finest in Abbottabad on 2 May 2011.

The one problem with the entire Osama bin Laden death story and the whole industry that seems to have mushroomed around it is that there is not a single shred of evidence whatsoever to support any of the claims made about his death. All we have is the word of a government and a compliant media and entertainment industry that the world knows is given to deliberately lying and fantasising.

The reality is far more prosaic; bin Laden has been dead for years and probably died simply of ill-health in 2001.

U.S. GOVERNMENT BECOMES JUDGE AND EXECUTIONER BY-PASSING ALL JUDICIAL PROCESS

The Department of Justice’s latest White (Wash?) Paper has effectively allowed senior members of the US government – politicians and public servants – to become both judge and executioner of anyone they regard as an enemy even if they are US citizens. The presumption of innocence, judicial process and all other legalities associated with justice in any democracy are entirely ignored and by-passed.  

It seems the US government and its agencies will now decide who the enemy is stating that they may be either members of al-Qaeda or “its associated forces”. Furthermore, it seems, the US government decides which individuals or groups of individuals are to be labelled members of al-Qaeda and who shall be labelled as being their “associated forces”. It basically means that any Muslim that raises their hand to the US, Israel or their allies may be arbitrarily declared a member of al-Qaeda or “its associated forces” and therefore liable to be extra-judicially executed anywhere.  

What’s really disturbing about all this is the fact that the people of the US, together with the various peoples of its allies in Israel and the West have raised very little objection to the US and Israeli practice of extra-judicially killing their enemies. By using the simple expediency of labelling them ‘terrorist’ members of al-Qaeda or their ‘associated forces’ there is an expectation from the government that the people, having been told those they are killing are ‘the bad guys’, will blindly accept it as being lawful. So far, those expectations have been fulfilled.

There was a time when such extra-judicial behaviour was considered abhorrent. It even got to the point that, while everyone knew it went on, an Executive Order from President Gerald Ford by 1976 was needed to put a stop to the practice of the government assassinating people. Free and democratic nations, it was presumed, did not lower themselves to such practices; these were the sorts of things that only evil governments like the USSR, China and Cuba indulged in. Today, abhorrence has turned into tolerance. We in the West have become, it seems, as evil as our ‘enemies’.

But how long will it be before The Government begins to regard its own citizens as enemies and just as liable to be extra-judicially ‘dealt with’ as foreigners from Islamic places are today?

The practice of extra-judicially imprisoning or executing those regarded by The Government as enemies is a backward step for all mankind. It must be resisted before it becomes a free-for-all whereby those who The Government believe are their enemies adopt the same tactic and begin extra-judicially killing Western political and military leaders. Where do go from there?

NEOCONS THINK THE LEFT SHOULD APOLOGISE TO BUSH AND CHENEY OVER TORTURE AND ASSASSINATIONS

Neocon writer Jonathan Tobin, blogging in Commentary today, seems to think that everyone on the Left – who, according to Tobin, includes President Obama – should apologise to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for accusing them of ‘being immoral lawbreakers’ over torture and targeted assassinations in the light of President Obama’s increased  use of such practices.

The reality is that most folk on the Left do not regard Obama as being ‘Left’ but, rather, just not as far to the Right as the Republicans and their neoconservative supporters who many on the Left regard more as fascists.

Rather than apologising to Bush and Cheney for being ‘immoral lawbreakers’, the Left should simply add Obama to the list of those so accused. Neoconservatives, already well-known for their ‘immoral lawbreaking’ ideas which include support of imprisonment without proper trial, extra-judicial killing by the state (as long as the state doing the killing is Israel, the US or their Western allies) and the use of torture and rendition in the pursuit of furthering the Zionist cause and American hegemony, are already on that list of criminals.

The Left is right to say that those who support immoral lawbreakers are hypocrites and criminals; the Right is wrong if they expect an apology.

IRAN RESISTS ISRAELI PROVOCATION OVER SYRIAN ATTACKS

Can the Israeli attacks last week against Syria be seen as an attempt to provoke Iran into retaliation in order to provide Israel with a casus belli to attack Iran directly, an action that would likely draw in the US in an all-out war against Iran? The Washington Post seems to think that the attack could even be seen as a mini-rehearsal for an attack directly against Iran.

The Israeli attack came just a day after Iran warned that it would regard any attack against Syria as an attack against Iran though the Iranian threat was not specific about what they would do.

In recent days the Israelis have said that they would act against Syria if there were any attempts to transfer weapons, especially chemical or biological weapons or other weapons that would pose a serious threat to Israel, from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. It was this warning that prompted Iran’s warning not to act against Syria.

Since Israel’s attack last Thursday, Iran has not so far taken any measures to retaliate. Hezbollah have also made no moves to upset their status quo with Israel.

Significantly, the White House yesterday also joined Israel in warning Syria not to transfer weapons to Lebanon indicating the beginnings of an apparent thaw in US-Israeli relations in the post-US and Israeli elections period. If the Iran warning of ‘an attack against Syria being seen as an attack against Iran’ is taken as seriously by the US as it is by Israel, then Obama’s renewed rhetoric against Iran generally may well be seen as realigning with Netanyahu’s who has been pushing to attack Iran for years, a push that Obama has so far resisted.

After refusing to back Israel attacking Iran over Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program, the US may well find it possible to enjoin with Israel in attacking Iran based on Iran’s support of both the Syrian regime and Hezbollah especially if Iran are physically providing both with weapons as well as ideological support. The step-up from ideological support to overt military support may be the tipping point the US needs to go ahead with a direct attack against Iran leaving the Israelis to deal with Hezbollah and Hamas in order to prevent retaliatory strikes against Israel.

One can only hope that neither Iran nor Hezbollah provide Israel or the US with an excuse to start a war that will likely engulf the Middle East. As neocon writer Jonathan Schanzer writes:

Until now, with troubling news coming out of Iran, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere, the Lebanon front has been largely ignored. But beware. A new conflict with Israel and Lebanon may be looming. And this conflict could erupt in a flash.

For Schanzer and his neocon cohorts it’s just what they want, but for the rest of world it’ll be a disaster.