U.S. Body Bags Reached a Tragic Milestone of 1,000

Memory Refresh: President Bush stood on the US aircraft carrier a year ago and said: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! So the President had won the war.

More sons and daughters of Americans are dying..and still dying.... in a war launched by President Bush that Saddam Hussein had WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

... Americans will vote for the next President . ..and hopefully, the next President will lead Americans to another war that will not be based on a lie or on a foreign policy that serves the interest of another sovereign nation, instead of its own.

Other News MUST READ ARTICLE!! : Neoconservatism and Espionage:AIPAC Spy Scandal by Justin Raimondo September 8th 2004 "... the AIPAC affair could deliver a knockout punch to one of Washington's most powerful, and feared, lobbying groups. Not only that, it could also destroy the neoconservative wing of the Republican foreign policy establishment by demonstrating, in a court of law, the key link between neoconservatism and espionage. ..Attempts to minimize the damage, mostly conducted in the pages of the Jerusalem Post and the New York Times have so far downplayed the significance of the documents allegedly given to AIPAC officials by Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin, and then passed on to Israel. We can stop the cover-up, but only if we act now. Get on the horn and call your congressional representatives: your two Senators as well as the member of the House from your congressional district. Let it not be said that, when it came time to speak up, and defend the country from treason only traitors could find words to defend their co-conspirators. Call, write, and make your voice heard. And be polite. Simply ask WHY the investigation seems to have been hampered, not helped, by the intervention of John Ashcroft. And ask why is it that Israel is given the sort of leeway that no country can afford to give another – without necessarily answering your own question. Be polite, but, by all means, feel free to point out that if the "A" in AIPAC stood for Arab, one wonders if members of Congress would be so." Read here for more "On one side of the conflict are neoconservative officials in the Pentagon who favor bold U.S. action to bring down Iran's theocratic government. On the other side, some see intelligence officials who view the neocons as too close to Israel"... Read here in Washington Post for more

Read here full article by JAMES HALL , Foreign Editor of "The Scotsman"

THE United States death toll in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark yesterday, nearly 18 months after American-led forces invaded the country to topple the government of former president Saddam Hussein.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the latest Pentagon figures showed that 997 US soldiers and three civilian employees of the defence department had been killed in Iraq.

A defence official confirmed the milestone toll.

The rising death toll includes more than a dozen US soldiers killed in fighting and attacks by insurgents since Friday. Nearly 7,000 US soldiers have also been wounded since the invasion.

With George Bush, the president, under sharp criticism from Democrats - including the presidential candidate John Kerry - for invading Iraq without support from major allies, the milestone is expected to play a major role in debate ahead of the election in November.

Donald Rumsfeld sought to play down the impact of the symbolic figure, telling reporters at the Pentagon that the "civilised world" had long passed the 1,000th death at the hands of terrorists.

He cited the 3,000 deaths during the attacks on 11 September, 2001, and the hundreds who died in the school siege in southern Russia.

But Mr Kerry called US military deaths in the Iraq conflict passing 1,000 a "tragic milestone".

At the Pentagon, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blamed the increase in US combat deaths on an insurgency that "is becoming more sophisticated in its efforts to destabilise the country".
"Make no mistake, we will continue to pursue those who seek to disrupt progress in Iraq," Gen Myers said.

US soldiers were again engaged in pitch battles yesterday.

In the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, US troops battled Shiite militiamen loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Thirty-seven people were killed, including two US soldiers, and more than 200 civilians were injured. Five other Americans also died in separate incidents, mostly in the Baghdad area.

A Sadr spokesman in Baghdad, Sheikh Raed al-Kadhimi, blamed "intrusive" US patrolling for provoking the fighting.

"Our fighters have no choice but to return fire and to face the US forces and helicopters pounding our houses," Sheikh Kadhimi said in a statement.

West of the capital, US warplanes flew low over the Sunni insurgent-controlled city of Fallujah, launching retaliatory strikes on suspected militant strongholds after American officials said marines came under attack.

Tanks and artillery also fired into the city and its outskirts, where seven marines died in a car bombing on Monday.

In Baghdad, the hostage crisis entered a new phase when armed men in olive green uniforms stormed the office of an Italian aid group and seized two Italian women and two Iraqis, one male, one female.

It was only the second known kidnapping of foreign women since a wave of hostage-takings began earlier this year.

About 15 men drove up to the house used by the aid organisation A Bridge to Baghdad, witnesses said.

The men claimed to work for the office of the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi.

Two of them pushed their way into the office, put guns to the heads of the aid group’s guards and grabbed the four workers, Jean-Dominique Bunel of the NGO co-ordination committee in Iraq, said.

The Iraqi woman resisted, but they dragged her by her head-scarf, threw her into a car and sped away, witnesses said.

"They have been taken hostage," Mr Bunel said. "We have contacted religious authorities and we have informed their families. We are working for their release."

The two Italian women were named as Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29. They had been working on water and school projects. The two Iraqis were identified as Raad Ali Aziz and Mahnaz Bassam. Ms Torretta, who is the head of the organisation’s Iraqi operation, has been in the country since before the war started. Ms Pari arrived in Iraq in June 2003, to work on a school project in the capital.

Mr Bunel said he knew of no plans by other private aid organisations to evacuate the country because of the kidnapping. A car bombing last year at the offices of the international Red Cross prompted many aid groups to flee the country.

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  U.S. Rep. Artur Davis (D-Birmingham) - Biggest Beneficiary of AIPAC's Political Campaign Contribution

Read here FULL article, "Rep. Davis helped by group tied to spy case" by Eric Fleischauer, staff writer for The Decatur Daily News

5th September 2004

The major beneficiary of pro-Israel campaign contributions in this state (Alabama) has been U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham.

According to an estimate by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, Davis received $206,595 in pro-Israel contributions in advance of the 2002 election.

This despite the fact he was NOT an incumbent, and despite the fact his five-term incumbent opponent, Earl Hilliard, was also a Democrat.

Even under the conservative CRP estimate, Davis' 2002 pro-Israel receipts were more than double his total contributions from his previous try at Hilliard's seat, in 2000.

Seventy-six percent (76 %) of Davis' contributions during the 2002 election cycle came from outside Alabama, most from New York City.

"I received a lot of money from the Jewish community. I agree with that," Davis said.

The contributions to Davis were higher than pro-Israel contributions to any other candidate for the House in 2002, according to the CRP.

Steve Weiss, head of the CRP, said the organization's methodology in calculating pro-Israel contributions tends to underreport them.

This is the case because it must largely ignore individual contributions.

Davis' filings with the Federal Elections Commission suggest the pro-Israel contributions are much higher than CRP estimated.

As of March 31, 2002, according to the FEC, Davis had reported $92,100 in political contributions. At that point, Davis' receipts were about one-fourth of Hilliard's receipts.

In mid-April of 2002, Davis attended a series of fundraisers, coordinated by AIPAC members, in New York City and Washington D.C.

Davis' receipts skyrocketed.

By May 15, 2002, Davis was up to $446,821.

Of the 517 individual contributions to Davis in the weeks surrounding the fundraisers, only four came from Alabamians.

After beating Hilliard in the primary, Davis' only opposition in the general election was a little-known Libertarian. Davis, nonetheless, had collected receipts totaling $1.6 million by the end of the 2002 election cycle.

Earl Hilliard, from Birmingham, who lost to Davis, knocked heads with the pro-Israel lobby in 2001 when he and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus took pro-Arab positions on several issues.

He said Tuesday he believes pro-Israel money won Davis the 2002 election.

Hilliard said his main concern is that pro-Israel money tends to crowd out the voice of Arab countries, a result he said could eventually lead to more wars in the Middle East.

"We are being embroiled in a 3,000-year-old conflict," Hilliard said. "Israel's influence is tremendous."

Davis actively courted AIPAC and the pro-Israel vote BEFORE the 2002 election.

He spoke at FIVE fund-raisers sponsored by AIPAC members in New York City.

This year, he had one fund-raiser sponsored by an AIPAC member in New York City and another one sponsored by a Birmingham AIPAC member.

Two weeks after the 2002 election, an AIPAC publication explained why he received strong Jewish support.

"Davis has met with AIPAC activists and staff and has close ties to members of the local and national pro-Israel community."

A pro-Israel PAC, To Protect Our Heritage, said in a newsletter that it contributed money to Davis' 2002 campaign because "Hilliard has one of the most dismal records in Congress in Israel-related issues."

The issue is to some extent the chicken-or-egg dilemma.

Did Davis become pro-Israel to get Jewish contributions, or did the Jewish community support him because he was pro-Israel?

Davis said whatever AIPAC's involvement in alleged espionage, he had no relationship with the committee.

Davis said,

"I have never accepted money from AIPAC. My relationship has been with donors who are members of AIPAC."

Despite its name, AIPAC is not a political action committee. It cannot legally contribute to candidates, but it can — and does — recommend that its members make contributions.

The Fiscal Year 2005 Defense Appropriations bill, approved by the Senate, included more than $300 million for joint U.S.-Israel weapons programs.

It also included $2.22 billion in military aid to Israel.

In 2004, Israel received $2.16 billion in military aid.

Hilliard said these numbers indicate the power of AIPAC.

Hilliard said:

"Everyone (in Congress) is scared of it. They are afraid the same thing that happened to me will happen to them."

Davis said the allegations against Franklin may suggest illegal activity, but not anti-American activity.

Davis said,

"At its height, the allegation would simply be that the information was used to make the Israeli government aware of Iran's nuclear program.

There is no suggestion that this intelligence was designed to harm American interests or to compromise American safety."

U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, said the allegations against AIPAC disturbed him. Cramer received $50,400 in pro-Israel contributions since 1996.

U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Haleyville, has received $36,500 from pro-Israel groups and individuals since 1996. Aderholt said he accepts pro-Israel contributions and supports Israel legislatively, in part, because it is the only democracy in the Middle East. Aderholt said,

"When I go into churches in the 4th District. There are only two countries I pray for: Israel and the United States."

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  AIPAC: The Israeli Front in Washington for Spying on the US

CLICK HERE on the list of names of TOP TEN US CONGRESSMEN who received contributions from AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) in 2002

TOTAL for 2001-2002 Election Cycle
$ 3,015,086

TOTAL 1978-2002 Funds to Congressional Candidates
$37,622,268

TOTAL No. of Recipient Candidates, 1978-2002
1,865

Don't expect these funded-Congressmen, the elected representatives of citizens of the United States to speak out against AIPAC as a negative influence on United States' national interest, least of all for spying on the US.

Read here article by Thomas B. Edsall and Molly Moore in Washington Post " AIPAC Is Embroiled in Investigation of Pentagon Leaks"

On May 18, President George W. Bush stood before the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington and spoke effusively to its members :

"AIPAC is doing important work. In Washington and beyond, AIPAC is calling attention to the great security challenges of our time.

You've always understood and warned against the evil ambition of terrorism and their networks. In a dangerous new century, your work is more vital than ever."

Just over three months later, the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying organization in the United States is embroiled in an FBI probe into whether Pentagon officials gave AIPAC representatives classified material and whether they in turn passed it to the Israeli government.

For AIPAC, the allegations are potentially devastating to its credibility and large influence in Washington.

"What really is troubling is the issue of dual loyalties," said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Calif.), one of many senior members of the House who have defended AIPAC.

Israel was established in 1948, and AIPAC was set up six years later. It now has 85,000 members, an annual budget of $33.4 million and a staff of 165, with offices in Washington, 10 states and Israel.

In 2003, the organization reported spending $1.28 million on lobbying.

Read here article by Nathan Guttman " FBI probes Jewish sway on Bush government"

The FBI investigation into the Pentagon mole affair has expanded beyond data analyst Larry Franklin's immediate circle to encompass the entire issue of Jewish influence on the neoconservative part of the administration.

The FBI queries have recently been focusing on a number of officials, all from the neoconservative wing, who had access to the debates on Iranian affairs, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

The officials include

• Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz;
• Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith;
• Pentagon adviser Richard Perle;
• adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, David Wormser;
• and Iran specialist Harold Rhode, (all of them Jews)

The L.A. Times reported on Friday that the American administration does NOT believe Israel's contention that it does not spy on America and that U.S. government officials say Israel secretly maintains a large and active intelligence-gathering operation in the U.S.

The officials said the FBI and other bodies spy on Israeli diplomats in Washington and New York as a matter of routine. The report said that Israel has long attempted to recruit U.S. officials as spies and to procure classified documents, according to the Times.

OTHER RELATED ARTICLES.....

• US FINANCIAL AND MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL ... Read here for more

For many years we have read that Israel separately receives $1.8 billion in military aid and $1.2 billion in economic aid. Both these figures are accurate, but since they are never combined with indirect funding and are often quoted separately, it gives a false impression of the total annual US aid to Israel.

The only members of the American Congress who are aware of the true figures or even suspect the total of US funding to Israel, are the Congress members who sit on the committees that allocate these funds.

These committees have mainly Jewish members. Often these committee members have received huge campaign donations from Israel’s Washington lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

AIPAC draws on the support and resources of the Conference of Presidents of major American Jewish Organisations, an umbrella group set up solely to co-ordinate some 52 national Jewish organisations throughout America.

Among them are Hadassah, the Zionist women’s organisation, which arranges a steady stream of American Jewish visitors to Israel and the American Jewish Congress, which mobilises support for Israel among members of the traditionally moderate left-of-centre Jewish mainstream.

The American Jewish Committee plays the same role with the centre and right-of-centre Jewish community. It also publishers ‘Commentary,’ one of the lobby’s principal national publications.

The most controversial lobbying group is the B’nai B’riths Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Its original pupose was to protect the civil rights of American Jews.

The last 20 years have seen the ADL regress into a conspiratorial and well funded (US$45 million a year) hate group.

An example of the ADL’s fund raising style, were two letters sent out in the 1980’s warning Jewish parents against the alleged negative influences on their children, arising from the increase of Arabs at American universities. It also keeps secret files on individuals in Arab-American, African-American and peace and justice groups.Read here for more

• The AIPAC Lobby's Influence... Read here for more

The pro-Israel lobby, whose principal Jewish component is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), became a significant force in shaping public opinion and US Middle East policy after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Its power was simultaneously enabled and enhanced by Israel's emergence as a regional surrogate for US military power in the Middle East in the terms outlined by the 1969 Nixon Doctrine.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the lobby was able to unseat representatives and senators who could not be counted on to support Israel without qualification, such as Sen. Charles Percy (R-IL), Rep. Paul Findley (R-OH) and Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-CA).

In 2002, the pro-Israel lobby successfully targeted African-American representatives Earl Hilliard (D-AL) and Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) for defeat in Democratic primaries.

Hilliard and McKinney were both vulnerable for reasons unrelated to Israel.

McKinney, for instance, was defeated in part because the open primary allowed Republicans angered over her comments about the September 11 attacks to cross over and vote against her in the Democratic primary. Nonetheless, their defeat enhanced the impression that the pro-Israel lobby wields great power in electoral politics.

The establishment of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) in 1985 greatly expanded the lobby's influence over policy as well. WINEP's founding director, Martin Indyk (former Jewish Australian), previously been research director of AIPAC which, then as now, focuses much of its efforts on Congress.

Indyk developed WINEP into a highly effective think tank devoted to maintaining and strengthening the US-Israel alliance through advocacy in the media and lobbying the executive branch.

When Israel became serious about attempting to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, it circumvented the US-sponsored negotiations in Washington (and the pro-Israel lobby) and spoke directly to representatives of the PLO in Oslo. The result was the 1993 Oslo Declaration of Principles.

Thus, the adoption of WINEP's policy recommendation to "resist pressures for a procedural breakthrough" by both the Bush and Clinton administrations delayed the start of meaningful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, contributed to the demonization of the PLO and multiplied the casualty rate of the first Palestinian intifada.

Read here for more

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  Charley Reese: "Inept President, Craven Congress"

Other Breaking News Emergency workers pulled more than 320 bodies out of a southern Russian school that had been held by heavily armed militants, a prosecutor said, and President Vladimir Putin accused the attackers of trying to spark an ethnic conflict that would engulf Russia's troubled Caucasus Mountains region. The Itar-Tass news agency quoted Russian Deputy Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky as saying 322 bodies, including those of 155 children, had been recovered from the school in Beslan. That raised the death toll well beyond the 250 officials had previously cited. Read here for more House cats can catch Bird Flu: House cats can acquire H5N1 avian influenza and pass it on to other cats, Dutch researchers reported this week. Last February two cats in Thailand reportedly died of H5N1 avian flu, but yesterday's article in the online edition of Science apparently is the first report of cats being experimentally infected with the virus and then spreading it to other cats. Read here for more Millions of residents have been evacuated, overnight curfews imposed in parts of eastern Florida after hundreds of thousands fled ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Frances later on Saturday.Read here for more The LA Times reported that U.S. diplomats, military officers and other officials are routinely warned before going to Israel that local agents are known to slip into homes and hotel rooms of visiting delegations to go through briefcases and to copy computer files. The L.A. Times quoted a recently retired former intelligence official as saying: "There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States. Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States. They undertake a wide range of technical operations and human operations. People here as liaison aggressively pursue classified intelligence from people. The denials are laughable. I had an Israeli intelligence officer pitch me in Washington at the time of the first Gulf War.I said, 'No, go away,' and reported it to counterintelligence." Experts said relations between the CIA and Israel's overseas intelligence agency, the Mossad, were so close that analysts sometimes shared highly classified "code-word" intelligence on sensitive subjects. Tel Aviv routinely informs Washington of the identities of the Mossad station chief and the military intelligence liaison at its embassy in the United States. Read here for more

Read here full article by Charley Reese
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years. From 1969-71, he worked as a campaign staffer for gubernatorial, senatorial and congressional races in several states. He was an editor, assistant to the publisher, and columnist for the Orlando Sentinel from 1971 to 2001. Reese served two years active duty in the U.S. Army as a tank gunner.

4 September 2004

".. I'm going to vote against the president because I think he is dangerously inept and quite likely to crash the economy, get us into a bigger war or both."
-Charley Reese

There is nothing personal about it. President George Bush is an affable man.

He was probably fine as a governor in a state where governors don't have that much power. But he let people talk him into running for a job that is beyond him.

He slipped up recently and said the war on terror cannot be won. It certainly can't the way he's fighting it. He's trying to chase down terrorists and kill them (the euphemism is "bring them to justice").

What's wrong with that is they can recruit new terrorists quicker than we can find and kill the old ones.

You have to kill terrorists, but if you want to win, you have to do more than just that. You have to correct the political situation that created the terrorists in the first place.

The president does the American people no greater disservice than when he says the terrorists hate us because we are rich and free.

That's not the reason, and he knows it.

The main reason we are hated in the Middle East is because of our one-sided support of Israel.

Israel can commit any atrocity against the Palestinians, break any international law, flout any United Nations resolution, and the United States does absolutely nothing and says nothing.

Just recently, the Israelis announced a large expansion of the settlements on the West Bank. This is despite their acceptance of the president's so-called road map to peace, which calls for a freeze on settlements.

Now, you would think that the president could at least say to Israel, "This isn't helpful to the peace process," or "You've broken your promise."

No, George Bush is as silent as a timid mouse.

If Israel wants to take more Palestinian land, it's OK with him.

No president in history has been as fall-on-your-knees-kiss-their-feet subservient to the Israelis as President Bush.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon can, in effect, spit in Bush's face, and the president will say, "My, what fine-smelling dew."

The people in the Arab world resent this.

• The Palestinians, after all, are human beings, too.

• Their lives are just as precious as Jewish lives.

• And it is they who are the victims in this conflict, not the Israelis.

• It is their land that was invaded.

• It was the Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed.

People in Washington are prattling on about displaced people in the Sudan. Well, what about the displaced Palestinians still rotting in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan since 1948?

Nobody in the Arab world expects the United States to become the enemy of Israel. They just want to see an end to double standards.

• Don't mourn the loss of Jewish lives and ignore the loss of Palestinian lives.

• Don't refuse to meet with the Palestinians.

• Don't bomb Arab countries for disobeying UN resolutions and protect Israel, which has disobeyed more than 69 UN resolutions.

• Don't prattle on about human rights and the Geneva Convention when Israel flagrantly violates both.

• Don't say to Iraq that gaining territory by force is unacceptable when Israel has been sitting on Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian territory taken by force for decades.

No progress in the war on terror will be made until Congress and the president, whoever they are, find the courage to fashion a balanced, non-hypocritical policy for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

It's that simple.

And don't think you can just wear them out. We're messing around in a part of the world where the lengths of feuds and vendettas are measured in decades, if not centuries.

George Washington called foreign influence the cause of ruin and trouble in a free republic. He would certainly condemn the undue influence of Israel and its lobby, but don't blame them. They just ask, and they have a right to ask for favors.

The ones to blame are the Republicans and Democrats who, for the most craven of reasons, sacrifice America's interests to give them those favors.

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  The Trinity of Power of Bush, Hitler and God

Read here article by Bob Fitrakis, "Gott mit uns: On Bush and Hitler’s rhetoric"

President Bush told Texas evangelist James Robinson:

“I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me.

Something is going to happen . . . I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.”

When was the last time a Western nation had a leader so obsessed with God and claiming God was on our side?

If you answered Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany, you’re correct.

Nothing can be more misleading than to categorize Hitler as a barbaric pagan or Godless totalitarian, like Stalin.

Both Bush and Hitler believe that they were chosen by God to lead their nations.

With Hitler boldly proclaiming, before launching his doctrine of preventive war against all of Europe,

“I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany.

I follow the path assigned to me by Providence with the instinctive sureness of a sleepwalker.”

Hitler stated in February 1940,:

“But there is something else I believe, and that is that there is a God. . . . And this God again has blessed our efforts during the past 13 years.”

After the Iraqi invasion, Bush announced:

“God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did . . . .”

Neither the similarity between Hitler and Bush’s religious rhetoric nor the fact that the current President’s grandfather was called “Hitler’s Angel” by the New York Tribune for his financing of the Fuher’s rise to power is lost on Europeans.

Pat Robertson called Bush “a prophet” and Ralph Reed claimed, after the 9/11 attack, God picked the President because “he knew George Bush had the ability to lead in this compelling way.”

Hitler told the German people in March 1936,:

“Providence withdrew its protection and our people fell, fell as scarcely any other people heretofore. In this deep misery we again learn to pray. . . . The mercy of the Lord slowly returns to us again.

And in this hour we sink to our knees and beseech our almighty God that he may bless us, that He may give us the strength to carry on the struggle for the freedom, the future, the honor, and the peace of our people.

So help us God.”

At the beginning of Hitler’s crusade on April 12, 1922, he spelled out his version of the warmongering Jesus: “My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter.”

Randall Balmer in The Nation, noted that “Bush’s God is the eye-for-an-eye God of the Hebrew prophets and the Book of Revelation, the God of vengeance and retribution.”

As Bush has invoked the cross of Jesus to simultaneously attack the Islamic and Arab world, Hitler also saw the value of exalting the cross while waging endless war:

“To be sure, our Christian Cross should be the most exalted symbol of the struggle against the Jewish-Marxist-Bolshevik spirit."

Like Bush-ites, Hitler was fond of invoking the Ten Commandments as the foundation of Nazi Germany:

“The Ten Commandments are a code of living to which there’s no refutation. These precepts correspond to irrefragable needs of the human soul.”

But if you ever wondered where Bush got his idea for so-called “faith-based initiatives” you need only consult Hitler’s January 30, 1939 speech to the Reichstag.

The Fuhrer begins, “Amongst the accusations which are directed against Germany in the so-called democracy is the charge that the National Socialist State is hostile to religion.”

Hitler goes on to document how much “public monies derived from taxation through the organs of the State have been placed at the disposal of both churches [Protestant and Catholic].”

Hitler gave nearly 1.8 billion Reichsmarks between 1933-1938 directly to the Christian churches.

In 1938 alone, Hitler bragged that the Nazis gave half a billion Reichsmarks from the national government and an additional 92 million Reichsmarks from the Nazi-controlled German states and parish associations.

Hitler made the intent of his faith-based initiative clear when he noted,

“With a tenth of our budget for religion, we would thus have a Church devoted to the State and of unshakable loyalty. . . . the little sects, which receive only a few hundred thousand marks, are devoted to us body and soul."

Bush’s assertion that:

“I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.”

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  Friends in High Places: Israeli spy nest in the U.S. – Ashcroft says: 'Don't arrest them!'

by

Justin Raimondo

Read here full article by Justin Raimondo

Below edited article:

The Washington Post is confirming the analysis, posted here two days ago, that Israel's spy nest in the Pentagon involves a lot more than neocon ideologue Larry Franklin leaking the text of a draft presidential directive on Iran to AIPAC employees, who then passed it on to Israel:

"For more than two years, the FBI has been investigating whether classified intelligence has been passed to Israel by the American Israel Political Action Committee, an influential U.S. lobbying group, in a probe that extends beyond the case of Pentagon employee Lawrence A. Franklin, according to senior U.S. officials and other sources. "

The National Security Agency is the eyes and ears of the U.S. government: it's the source of all that "chatter" we hear talked about as an indication of the terrorists' plans to attack targets both here and abroad.

The NSA monitors communications of all kinds, collects, collates, and translates raw data, then feeds it to intelligence professionals. It is, in short, a vital link in the security chain that keeps us safe – to the extent that we are safe.

The news that it has been penetrated and compromised by a foreign power should be ringing alarm bells throughout the U.S. government, but instead the investigation is being blocked – by Attorney General John Ashcroft. As the New York Sun reports:

"According to sources familiar with the investigation, the U.S. district attorney in charge of the probe, Paul McNulty, has ordered the FBI not to move forward with arrests that they were prepared to make last Friday when the story broke on CNN and CBS. "

Yes, but not when it comes to Israel, which seems to enjoy some special immunity not granted to others: preemption doesn't apply in this case. But why not?

The author of the Times editorial, which focuses exclusively on Franklin, hasn't been paying attention. Warren Strobel's Knight-Ridder piece the other day made the same point as this more recent report in the Washington Post, which avers:

"The investigation of Franklin is coincidental to the broader FBI counterintelligence probe, which was already long underway when Franklin came to the attention of investigators, U.S. Officials and sources said."

If the authorities were watching AIPAC, and just happened to stumble on Franklin's clumsy efforts to pass documents to Israeli officials, the rest can be inferred: This is big, much bigger than Franklin, if it required a systematic and ongoing surveillance of AIPAC and Israeli government agents.

AIPAC and its allies, Israel's amen corner in the U.S., are circling the wagons, denying everything, and – how's this for chutzpah? – Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League is actually demanding an investigation into who leaked the news of the investigation.

No one has a right to know that Israel, the recipient of $3 trillion total U.S. "aid," is stabbing us in the back.

Who, us – spy on the United States, our "closest ally"? It never happens, the Israelis and their American defenders aver.

But the two AIPAC employees who were first identified in the Israeli media as being the principal suspects, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, are sure acting guilty as hell.

According to news reports:

"They were interviewed by the FBI on Friday – the same day news first broke of the existence of the yearlong investigation – but the interviews were halted after the men said they wanted a lawyer present before answering further questions, [AIPAC attorney Nathan] Lewin said."

With the unbridled arrogance that is the hallmark of Israel's American lobby, Lewin had the gall to add: "The FBI could resume the interview. We have not heard from the FBI."

And he's hoping that he won't be hearing from them any further, as John Ashcroft – a "born-again" Christian fundamentalist who believes that the triumph of Israel will bring on the Second Coming of Christ – quietly strangles the investigation.

But if Rosen and Weissman have nothing to hide, and are completely innocent of charges that they acted as a conduit for sensitive intelligence to be forwarded to Israel, then why do they need lawyers to talk to the FBI?

The irony here is that any attempt to cover up Israel's spy nest in the U.S. – a network not necessarily limited to AIPAC – is bound to create the sort of anti-Semitism that Israel's defenders claim to abhor. Their answer is that to even raise the charge of espionage against AIPAC is anti-Semitic, in and of itself.

Facts may be stubborn things, but America's Likudniks are even more so.

It doesn't matter how much evidence is amassed against AIPAC, Rosen, Weissman, et al., because, in their view, it's all a Vast Anti-Semitic Conspiracy.

What is especially galling is the tone of outraged indignation that AIPAC's defenders have affected in confronting the charges.

CAMERA, the vehemently pro-Israel "media watchdog" that carps whenever anyone looks at Ariel Sharon cross-eyed, has the nerve to argue that, since the U.S. spies on Israel, they have the right to spy on us.

A patriotic American might reply: Hey, I paid for that microphone. But, whatever….

The attitude is: how dare you even question us?!

But if law enforcement doesn't question them, and instead lets a significant hole in our security stay wide open, who knows who or what else may crawl through? Who knows what other moles may have burrowed into the depths of America's national security apparatus, mining our deepest secrets?

If Rosen and Weissman, and their cohorts, will stop obstructing the investigation, and simply agree to answer questions, with or without legal counsel, they will quickly dispel the suspicion – rampant, at present – that they have something to hide.

After all, this administration wasn't too concerned about providing legal counsel to the thousands of Arabs rounded up since 9/11 – why are a couple of Israeli spies any different?

If the 'A' in AIPAC stood for Arab, the assets, headquarters, and very existence of the organization would have been impounded and key personnel shipped off to Guantanamo, where the latest Gitmo-ized interrogation techniques would soon persuade them to talk.

The Bush administration has known about this investigation – of which the Franklin affair is just a footnote – for over two years, according to the latest from Reuters.

Yet, addressing AIPAC in May, President Bush called the group "a great asset to our country."
But if AIPAC is involved in the theft of U.S. government secrets, how is it an "asset" to any country other than Israel?

On one level, it is the story of how a group of Israel Firsters infiltrated the highest levels of policymaking and – utilizing a talent for the well-told lie and a penchant for forgery – steered us down the road to war with Iraq.

On another level, it is a pure spy story about the penetration and subversion of what is arguably the single most valuable asset in America's anti-terrorist arsenal: the NSA, which gathers together the raw materials from which accurate intelligence is derived.

This, by the way, is NOT the first time the NSA's security has been questioned: the story of Sibel Edmonds, a former NSA translator, which I've covered rather extensively in several columns, involves the existence of a mysterious unidentified organization – which the FBI was watching – that tried to recruit her into NOT translating certain intercepts.

Edmonds was fired for blowing the whistle on these shenanigans, and then muzzled by Ashcroft, who declared that she couldn't say anything to the public about what she knew due to reasons of overriding "national security."

A judge backed up Ashcroft's gag order, but you can read her interview with Antiwar.com – and 60 Minutes, here – and decide for yourself if something fishy is or isn't going on.

Where there's this much smoke, there has to be some real fire.

Why is the Justice Department "putting the brakes" on an investigation involving the most sensitive intelligence matters? Ashcroft wasn't hesitant when he went after these other guys.

Why is he treating the AIPAC cabal with kid gloves?

What gives? I'll tell you what gives.

A large body of evidence suggests this counterintelligence investigation goes back before 9/11, when U.S. government agencies first began to take notice of Israelis turning up at U.S. government offices, and at government agents' homes, in the guise of "art students" trying to sell or promote their "work."

In Salon, an article by Christopher Ketcham suggested that this was an attempt by the Israelis to blow smoke, and divert attention away from something else.

And now, it appears, the "art students" are back….

It's just not possible to fully understand what exactly is going on here without reference to my book, The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection, which shows that the U.S. government's concern with Israeli spies reached a spike of apprehension in the months prior to the worst terrorist attack in our history.

A two year old investigation? Try four, or more.

One final note:
If Kerry says anything at all, it's likely to be a defense of AIPAC. He would much rather bypass this golden opportunity to draw Republican blood on the national security issue than offend a vociferous – and hypersensitive – special interest group.

That's one reason why – in spite of a wilting "recovery" and an increasingly unpopular war – he's in danger of losing big.

- Justin Raimondo

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An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Impossible !!

Read here full article by RAY HANANIA

August 29th 2004

When I heard that Israel had a man working in the Pentagon as a spy, providing secret information to its powerful lobbying arm in Washington, I was surprised.

Why does Israel need a spy to steal secret information when it has several key people there already who hold top positions and can share instead of steal sensitive data?

Paul Wolfowitz? Richard Pearle? Paul Bremer?

• Didn't we invade Iraq in part to satisfy the Israeli lobby that pressured the weakling administration of President Bush?

• Isn't American foreign policy in the Middle East already pretty much directed by Israel's needs and agenda?

If you say that, you are automatically labeled anti-Semitic.

That only puts you in the company of such people at Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, most civil rights leaders in the United States who advocate for Palestinian rights and even the Pope who has been forced to say he's not sure if he did or did not watch Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ."

I haven't had time to watch Gibson's film. I've been too busy wondering why the United States is pursuing it's self-destructive and very pro-Israel foreign policies in the Middle East?

This latest spying incident -- given only superficial coverage in many pro-Israel American newspapers -- supposedly involves an aide to a top deputy working for Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense.

Normally, spies are immediately identified and "outted," but NOT this aide.

But who needs to name him anyway? There have been so many Israeli spies.

This "spy," though, supposedly was providing Israel with sensitive information about Iran's nuclear plant, which Israeli officials have threatened to destroy in a bombing raid.

The raids would no doubt rely on American-made fighter jets, American-made missiles and American-trained fighter pilots, strategies, maps and intelligence.

Why would they need a spy? Israel has often attacked its Arab neighbors, destroying things it doesn't like but that it has, like nuclear plants.

Iran has responded if Israel attacks its nuclear plant, Iran will attack Israel's nuclear plant at Dimona.

Israel's Dimona nuclear facility "secretly" manufactures some 300 nuclear weapons that don't have to be inspected by the International community because the United States says they don't have to be not be inspected! Another reason to wonder why Israel needs to spy on this country.

The whole thing is absurd.

The fact is Israel's current government has so much influence over America's current government that it doesn't need to spy and steal information. It can just ask for it, or just take it.

In fact, it could just change American foreign policy and direct the Bush administration to do Israel's dirty work, like we already did in Iraq.

Let's face it. As soon as Bush was elected, his aides told him to ignore the Palestine-Israel conflict, which was teetering on violent conflict but still could have resumed peace talks, and instead concentrate elsewhere.

Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both say Bush made a crucial mistake by walking away from the Middle East peace process.

But why rely on them when you can get secret information from the Pentagon that would bolster Israel's new government's right-wing policies?

You have to give the Israelis credit. The way they brilliantly made it seem that America had to attack and invade Iraq because that's where Osama Bin Laden was hiding.

Too bad things like the real terrorist threat continue to exist and Bin Laden, as everyone else except in Washington and the Bush administration know, is still hiding somewhere in Afghanistan where he continues to plot major terrorist threats against the United States.

But why invade Afghanistan and capture Bin Laden? He's too smart to plan attacks against Israel.

- Ray Hanania

ADDITIONAL ARTICLE !!

Read here Mike Whitney's article "What More Could They Possibly Want?-Israeli Moles in the Pentagon"

Excerpts:

The FBI's investigation into Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, on charges of spying for Israel, has left many of us scratching our heads and wondering, "Why?"

The relationship between the Bush Administration and the Sharon government is so incestuous that is difficult to imagine that there are secrets of any consequence that haven't already been fully shared.

Both the Pentagon and the Vice President's office feature a number of high profile advisors whose connections to Israel have raised questions about their loyalty.

Following the invasion of Iraq, Israeli Brig. General Shlomo Brom, who served in Israeli military intelligence for 25 years, and acted as the deputy chief of planning for the Israeli army, stated:

"Israeli intelligence was a full partner with the U.S. and Britain in developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capability.

It badly overestimated the Iraqi threat to Israel and reinforced the American and British belief that the weapons existed." (Peter Enav, " Israeli General derides findings on Iraq" Ass. Press)

This shows how Israel provided false intelligence to the Bush administration with the clear intention of affecting policy. (Although, it's doubtful that Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld needed any further encouragement)

Could Franklin's "top secret" information be used for the same purpose?

In a recent CounterPunch article, former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern summarizes the phenomenon this way:

"The neo-cons have considerable difficulty distinguishing between the strategic requirements of Israel and those of the US.

There are not enough US troops in Iraq to quell the resistance, but there are enough to prevent any strategic threat to Israel.

And so, the Bush administration shows no intention of drawing down US forces from Iraq anytime soon."

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  UNMASKING PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOHN KERRY: A TWO-FACE HYPOCRITE OR PATRIOT?

Read here full article by Ted Rall "John Kerry Should Be Ashamed of Vietnam Service"


Below edited extract of Ted Rall's article:

John Kerry has made a career out of trying to have things both ways.

Now it's catching up with him. Kerry said at the time (on the Iraq War):

"Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies."

That was an exact summary of the position that most Americans supported at the time. Sixty-three percent told the October 7, 2002 CBS News-New York Times poll that they favored giving the UN inspectors as much time as they needed to get the job done. But while just 30 percent favored war, Kerry knew that the Bushies were just beginning to unleash a blizzard of pro-war propaganda.

Banking that the percentage of hawks would soon increase, he voted with the winning team.

Indeed, by March 2003 72 percent of the U.S. public supported attacking Iraq.

Kerry's cynical calculus, it seemed, had paid off.

Five months after the fall of Baghdad, Bush asked Congress for $87 billion to finance the occupation of Iraq. But with 130,000 troops bogged down by a resistance movement that was killing at least one soldier a day, the war had already become unpopular.

Only 41 percent of Americans--the number kept sliding--remained sweet on regime change.

Again wanting to be on the winning side of the polls, Kerry voted against the appropriation.

Kerry has a reasonable explanation for voting against the money to pay for the war he voted in favor of: he preferred that the $87 billion come from a partial repeal of Bush's tax cuts, whereas Bush tacked it onto the deficit.

The elephant in the room, however, is this: he never should have voted for the Iraq incursion in the first place.

Kerry's Vietnam War Record

The debate about Kerry's Vietnam War record similarly revolves around the Democratic candidate's penchant for flipfloppery.

Kerry returned from the war in Vietnam in 1971. An early supporter of the conflict, what he saw there changed his mind--prompting him to help found Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

He told "Meet the Press."

"I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used fifty calibre machine guns...I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages.

All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down.

And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley [found guilty in the My Lai massacre], are war criminals."

By 1971, American public opinion had turned against the war in Vietnam.

Kerry's views were widely accepted.

But it has now been three decades since we fled Saigon.

Hollywood movies have portrayed Vietnam vets as noble warriors hampered by simpering politicians.

We've forgotten the million-plus people we killed to prop up a right-wing puppet dictatorship.

And militarism is in the air.

Vietnam has been rehabilitated, and no one has done more to rewrite this history than John Kerry.

When Kerry reappeared on "Meet the Press" in 2001, the new rightist paradigm prompted him to back down from his original comments:

"I don't stand by the genocide. I think those were the words of an angry young man. We did not try to do that.

But I do stand by the description--I don't even believe there is a purpose served in the word 'war criminal.' I really don't."

The Kerry campaign has played both sides of the Vietnam equation.

He scores points both as a pacifist hippie and as a Silver Star-winning war hero! Choose whichever Kerry you prefer--1969 or 1971 or 2004--and vote for whichever version you like best.

Serious people and historians know that Kerry was right the first time around.

Like Iraq, Vietnam was an ill-conceived, doomed war that wasted countless lives for no good reason, launched by a president who lied about a Cold War threat (the absurd "domino theory") that simply didn't exist.

As U.S. troops are doing now in Iraq, we committed horrific atrocities in Vietnam.

Not only did the guys in black pajamas beat us fair and square, we deserved it.

We were wrong. We deserved to lose.

Service in the wars against Vietnam and Iraq are nothing to be proud of.

If John Kerry can't admit now what he knew in 1971, at least he can stop bragging about his medals.

That, of course, would require that he pay more attention to his heart than the polls.

-Ted Rall

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  THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE PENTAGON SPY SCANDAL

AIPAC has been one of the most active advocates for Israeli interests in the United States and a central element in fostering that relationship. Its lobbyists maintain close relations with officials at the highest levels of both governments.Among the many unanswered questions in the case is whether a U.S. official with access to the intelligence volunteered it, or whether allies of Israel in the United States sought intelligence to pass on to Israel. FBI has interviewed numerous AIPAC officials in recent days, among them Rosen and Middle East analyst Keith Weissman, who the source said were interviewed on Friday. Read here for more

Rep.John Conyers: "I write to ask that the Judiciary Committee commence an immediate full investigation and examine substantial and credible evidence that Pentagon officials have engaged in criminal wrongdoing in their handling of classified material and have engaged in unauthorized covert activities.... The fact that a rogue element of the United States government may have been working with a foreign government in possible contravention of current foreign policy is a grave matter that should be of concern to every American" Read here for more

Here's the axis we should be worried about: The Axis of Spies made up by the American Enterprise Institute, AIPAC and the Embassy of Israel.If the FBI weren’t so busy trying to catch nonexistent Al Qaeda suspects, they might consider devoting a few more resources to tracking down this expanding Israeli nest of spies. (Oh, and The New Republic is very quiet on the Larry Franklin spy scandal so far. Very quiet. Too quiet.) Haaretz reports that Abraham Foxman of the ADL is huffing and puffing, demanding that a special commission be appointed to investigate the person who leaked the probe. That’s dangerous, Mr. Foxman, because the person who leaked it did so, it is now obvious, in order to stop the investigation, since Franklin was cooperating with the FBI to help them get deeper into the nest of spies. Read here for more ..... See also Counterpunch’s reprint of Sam Husseini’s compilation of Israeli spy stories in the United States, with a dozen or more examples, mostly sources from major Western press outlets, and a lot of it having to with Israeli attempts to acquire U.S. military technology. Read it here .

Today, we learn from the Boston Globe's Brian Bender that there is yet a third investigation, also from the Hill, by the House Judiciary committee, of the activities of Feith's office. And this one, now in the preliminary stages, focuses not just on the DoD-Ghorbanifar Iran back channel we reported on, but also on whether yet another official in Feith's office, Michael Maloof, was involved in a back channel whose purpose was to destabilize Syria. Read here for more

Juan Cole:"By the way, I personally do not expect any dramatic developments from all these investigations. AIPAC has powerful protectors on Capitol Hill, and past charges that it was involved in espionage for Israel have always been buried. As for the Neocon cult in the Pentagon, even if they did something illegal, they will not suffer much because of it. Look at where the Iran-Contra criminals are, who subverted the US Constitution and stole arms from the Pentagon to sell illegally to Khomeini. One Iran-Contra figure, who lied to Congress, now serves in the National Security Council as the person in charge of the Israeli-Palestine issue. That is Elliot Abrams, who was pardoned by Bush the elder and now sets White House policy on among the more important issues affecting US relations with the Muslim world. Bush may as well have just appointed Ariel Sharon to advise him on how to deal with Ariel Sharon (though to be fair, Sharon is probably more pragmatic than and to the left of Abrams. Read here for more

Perle, Ledeen, and Wolfowitz have also been the subject of FBI inquiries, according to Green's account. In 1970, one year after he was hired by Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, an FBI wiretap authorised for the Israeli Embassy picked up Perle discussing classified information with an embassy official, while Wolfowitz was investigated in 1978 for providing a classified document on the proposed sale of a U.S. weapons system to an Arab government to an Israeli official via an AIPAC staffer. In 1992, when he was serving as undersecretary of defence for policy, Pentagon officials looking into the unauthorised export of classified technology to China, found that Wolfowitz's office was promoting Israel's export of advanced air-to-air missiles to Beijing in violation of a written agreement with Washington on arms re-sale. Douglas Feith (who is Jewish) has long been an outspoken supporter of Israel's Likud Party, and his former law partner Marc Zell has served as a spokesman in Israel for the Jewish settler movement on the occupied West Bank. He, Perle and several other like-minded hardliners participated in a task force that called for then-Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to work for the installation of a friendly government in Baghdad as a means of permanently altering the balance of power in the Middle East in Israel's favour, permitting it to abandon the Oslo peace process, which Feith had publicly opposed. Feith was summarily removed from the position of Middle East analyst in the National Security Council in March 1982 because he had been the object of a FBI inquiry into whether he had provided classified material to an official of the Israeli embassy in Washington, according to Green's account. But Perle, who was then serving as assistant secretary of defence for international security policy (ISP), which, among other responsibilities, had an important say in approving or denying licenses to export sensitive military or dual-use technology abroad, hired him as his "special counsel" and later as his deputy, where he served until 1986, when he left for his law practice with Zell, who had by then moved to Israel. Also serving under Perle during these years was Stephen Bryen, a former staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the subject of a major FBI investigation in the late 1970s for offering classified documents to an Israeli intelligence officer in the presence of AIPAC's director, according to Green's account, which is backed up by some 500 pages of investigation documents released under a Freedom of Information request some 15 years ago.Bryen was reportedly asked to leave the committee and, until his appointment by Perle in 1981, served as head of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a group dedicated to promoting strategic ties between the United States and Israel and one in which Perle, Feith and Ledeen have long been active. Read here for more

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  UPDATE: SPIES FOR ISRAEL IN U.S. ADMINISTRATION

FBI agents on Friday copied the computer hard drive of a senior staffer at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who has been questioned in relation to the case of a Pentagon official suspected of turning over a classified document either directly to Israel, or via the pro-Israel lobby group. Sources in Washington said the hard drive was that of Steve Rosen, AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues. Read here for more

The Anti-Defamation League, one of the largest Jewish organizations in North America, has officially called on the Bush administration to immediately appoint a special counsel to investigate the circumstances of leaks to the American media regarding suspicions of an alleged Israeli "mole" in the Pentagon."The one clear fact that can be agreed upon is that there was a malicious and targeted leak that is more damaging than the actual allegations of Israeli spying - allegations that in all likelihood are baseless," said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the ADL, in an exclusive interview to Haaretz. Read here for more

FBI investigators briefed key White House and congressional officials in recent days on their investigation of a Defense Department analyst suspected of turning over classified policy documents to Israel, officials said on Tuesday. The briefings, which began on Friday and continued over the weekend, included top officials at the White House's National Security Council, as well as the Pentagon, the State Department and the key congressional intelligence committees. Read here for more.

The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, has been briefed on the FBI's investigation into a Pentagon analyst suspected of passing US secrets on Iran to Israeli officials.Media reports over the weekend have forced the FBI to accelerate its probe into Larry Franklin, a former attache to the US Embassy in Israel and a staffer in the office of Douglas Feith, the defence department's undersecretary for policy. AIPAC has acknowledged that the FBI has interviewed some of its employees but denies any wrongdoing. "We've cooperated in this investigation. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said yesterday that meetings between Israeli embassy employees and US officials are commonplace, and that the two governments routinely share secrets.Israeli officials confirmed a senior Israeli diplomat identified as Naor Gilon, head of the Israeli Embassy's political department in Washington, has met with Mr Franklin. Mr Gilon told the Israeli newspaper Maariv that he did nothing wrong but was concerned that he may no longer be able to work in Washington because of the investigation. Read here for more

OFFICIALS today confirmed a senior Israeli diplomat in Washington met several times with a Pentagon analyst being investigated by the FBI on suspicion he passed classified information on Iran to Israel.The Israeli diplomat has been identified as Naor Gilon, head of the political department at Israel's embassy in Washington and a specialist on nuclear weapons proliferation. Read here for more

With the light of day shining brightly on AIPAC's spy mission for Israel in the Pentagon, will one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington just curl up and blow away? If only. Read here for more

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  The Dreyfuss Report: Nest of Spies

Written by veteran investigative reporter Bob Dreyfuss , The Dreyfuss Report offers readers the story behind daily headlines and policies pursued on behalf of national security.

Read here full article Nest of Spies by Richard Dreyfuss

August 30, 2004

When Iranian “students” took over the U.S. embassy in 1979, they called it the “nest of spies.” Now it seems, the FBI has discovered a real nest of spies, Israeli ones. Inside the Pentagon.

Some of the people allegedly involved are the very same people who were first mentioned in an article (“The Lie Factory”) by Jason Vest and myself in Mother Jones last year. (You can read it here .) That article cited Harold Rhode, a neocon operative in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessments, under the wizard-like Andy Marshall, and his sidekick, the laughably incompetent Larry Franklin.

Now Franklin, we all know, and perhaps Rhode, are under investigation by the FBI. Franklin is a minor cog in the Israeli nest of spies, who allegedly passed U.S. secrets on Iran to AIPAC, the Zionist lobby, who then passed it to the Israeli embassy. There are lots of details—but, so far, no one that I’ve seen has attempted to really analyze this. The basic paradox is: Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of Franklin’s neocon pals, is under investigation in Iraq and in Washington for spying for Iran. Franklin is under the FBI gun for spying for Israel, against Iran. Does this make any sense? Of course not.

Let’s assume that Chalabi and Franklin, two lower-level operatives for the same machine, are still working together. And that the machine, the great Neoconservative Empire Machine and its Israeli right-wing allies, is what needs to be investigated.

Franklin, for the past couple of years, has toiled away in the bowels of Paul Wolfowitz’s Iraq war team. A former U.S. intelligence official has this to say about him.

The pro-Ariel Sharon clique in the Pentagon (and elsewhere in the U.S. government) is so tightly bound and incestuously linked to Israel that having to draw boundaries between what’s American and what’s Israeli must boggle their small minds. So this time Franklin got caught. (P.S. Don’t expect any big indictments, or any sweeping probe of Israel’s spy apparatus in the United States.

Reports the New York Times : "American counterintelligence officials say that Israeli espionage cases are difficult to investigate, because they involve an important ally that enjoys broad political influence in Washington. Several officials said that a number of espionage investigations involving Israel had been dropped or suppressed in the past in the face of political pressure.” )

For the last two years I’ve watched Franklin, Rhode, Michael Rubin and others in the clique at meetings at the American Enterprise Institute, and what stands out above all is the fraternity-like bond that links them to one another, almost like a street gang.

For 25 years, this little clique has maintained sub rosa ties to Iran. They, and Israel, had multiple lines into Iran’s mullahs long before the Shah fell. Israel armed Iran throughout the 1980s, including during the 444 days when thugs held U.S. diplomats hostage. They were behind Iran-contra, trying to push the United States into a closer relationship with Iran when we were, sensibly enough, backing Iraq.

And they’ve never let up. Since 2001, when they took power with the Bush administration, they’ve plotted war against Iraq and plotted how to establish ties with Iran’s national security apparatus and its military again, even if it meant undermining U.S. policy.

A key figure in all this is Michael Ledeen, an AEI stalwart who’s long had intimate ties to Israeli intelligence. And then there is Ahmad Chalabi, another Mossad-linked creature.
We can discount, or throw out, Israel’s silly statement that it stopped spying against the United States after the Pollard affair. Israel has penetrated the United States so completely that it probably doesn’t even call it spying anymore. It's business as usual.

So the question is: What connects Ledeen, Richard Perle, Chalabi and Franklin? We know that the United States doesn’t really have an “Iran policy,” unless hoping that nothing happens qualifies as a “policy.” But what is the policy of Ledeen and Co.?

They believe that Israel, Turkey, Iran, the Kurds, the Lebanese Christians and Pakistan can all be tied together in an alliance against the Arabs. That’s been true since the 1950s. What’s new is that Iraq presented them an opportunity: The Israel-Turkey-Iran et al. axis could take over and occupy part of the Arab bloc, thanks to the United States.

Like the python who ate the deer, they are still struggling to digest it—though some, including myself but also including the CIA, believe they will choke on it. In any case, the gobbling up of Iraq hasn’t gone too well, but at least they’ve accomplished their secondary objective: the destruction and dismantling of Iraq as a nation and as a military force that could threaten Israel.

And Ledeen, who organized Franklin’s secret missions to Iran since 2001, and Chalabi, who has secret missions of his own to Iran (both long exposed now), still believe that Iran is a useful partner in the anti-Arab axis.

More to come on Franklin, Rhode, Ledeen et al. this week.

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  "Americans" in US Administration Spying for Israel !- So What's New?

Update:

The man at the center of an FBI investigation of possible Israeli espionage in Washington is a career Pentagon employee, a colonel in the Air Force reserves and a national security analyst who at the end of the Cold War taught himself Farsi and refashioned himself as an Iran expert, officials said Saturday.The FBI is trying to determine whether he is also a spy. The target of the investigation is Larry Franklin, the Pentagon's top Iran policy analyst and a close confidant of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, (both Jewish) who as undersecretary for policy is the Pentagon's third-ranking official. Read here for more

The espionage investigation focuses on an incident last year in which the analyst allegedly turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran to two people affiliated with a pro-Israeli lobbying group, the Washington-based American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) . AIPAC may have given the information to Israel, the sources said Friday. Investigators fear that the suspect - who works for Douglas Feith, chief policy adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - also may have been in a position to compromise government information about that country and the U.S. war effort.
Read here for more

The FBI has spent more than a year covertly investigating, including with the use of electronic surveillance, whether a Pentagon analyst funnelled highly classified material to Israel . Prosecutors were still weighing whether to bring the most serious charge of espionage. The target of the investigation was identified as Larry Franklin, a senior analyst in a Pentagon office dealing with Middle East affairs. The case has taken so long in part because of diplomatic sensitivities between the U.S. and its ally Israel. Read here for more

An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well beyond allegations that a single midlevel analyst gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel. The probe, which has been going on for more than two years, also has focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said the sources who have first-hand knowledge of the subject. But they both center on the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official.(Feith is Jewish). Read here for more

Larry Franklin served as a U.S. Air Force reservist in Israel. Franklin may have been based at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, but was never permanently assigned there. An FBI investigation had been broadened in recent days to include interviews at the State and Defence departments and with Middle Eastern specialists outside government. The FBI is investigating whether the analyst gave classified documents to Israel via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington. Read here for more

Commentary

So we now hear there is a Pentagon analyst sending US foreign policy secrets to Israel?

So what's new?

For FBI to be shocked there are US Govt officials in Washington sending US secrets to Israel is incredulous.

And for the US secret service not being aware in the last two decades there are members in pro-Israel groups in the US whose allegiance to the US are questionable at best, and who are in positions to compromise American foreign policy and national interest, is just unbelievable.

It is unthinkable that one of the world's most equipped intelligence services can be caught asleep for that long.

The rest of the world had accepted as fact that pro-Israel lobby groups rule the roost in Washington. They do that through their presence or connections in the White House, the US Senate and in Congress.

The word in the corridors of powers of many nations is this: What America knows secretly, Israel already knows.

Imagine if this had been an Arab-American caught compromising US secrets to a foreign government? The media-dogs would be out hunting for blood.

So we ask, how can this be?

It can only mean that the FBI or the CIA had already been compromised long before in their inability to monitor these embedded "un-American" individuals who don't give a squint about relaying US secrets to Israel.

Or can it be, as it is most likely the case, any issue that involves Israel is kept out of average Joe's view and hushed-up to prevent embarrassment to Israel as an ally, even if that means a dangerous cost to US national interest?

The major US media has been selling to average Joe that Israel is a harmless ally of the US, anyway.

When you don't see an issue as a problem, you live with it. And when you live with a problem, you never see it as a problem.

As far as pro-Israel legislators in Congress and US Senate, this is not a major national crisis. It should be treated as if an official in Washington was caught emailing a US document to the Governor's Office in Texas or Nebraska.

After all, Israel, for all intent and purpose, is already the fifty-second state of the United States of America. So what's a document or two among members of the "same family"?

While the pro-Israel news media in the US will treat this as just a "storm in the tea cup, US national interest is being dangerously compromised with US soldiers facing mortal danger in the Middle East, fighting a war, as some say, to protect Israel's interest in the region.

Yes, Americans may not like it, but the issue will come to pass in a whimper.

You can bet on that.

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