Peace and Justice Post

Paul Criag Roberts, Counterpunch, July 8, 2010

The BBC reported on July 4 that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the US ballistic missile base in Poland was not directed at Russia.  The purpose of the base, she said, is to protect Poland from the Iranian threat.

Why would Iran be a threat to Poland? What happens to US credibility when the Secretary of State makes such a stupid statement?  Does Hillary think she is fooling the Russians?  Does anyone on earth believe her?  What is the point of such a transparent lie? To cover up an act of American aggression against Russia?

In the same breath Hillary warned of a “steel vise” of repression crushing democracy and civil liberties around the world. US journalists might wonder if she was speaking of the United States. Glenn Greenwald reported in Salon on July 4 that the US Coast Guard, which has no legislative authority, has issued a rule that journalists who come closer than 65 feet to BP clean-up operations in the Gulf of Mexico without permission will be punished by a $40,000 fine and one to five years in prison. The New York Times and numerous journalists report that BP, the US Coast Guard, Homeland Security, and local police are prohibiting journalists from photographing the massive damage from the continuing flow of oil and toxic chemicals into the Gulf.

On July 5 Hillary Clinton was in Tbilisi, Georgia, where, according to the Washington Post, she accused Russia of “the invasion and occupation of Georgia.” What is the point of this lie?  Even America’s European puppet states have issued reports documenting that Georgia initiated the war with Russia that it quickly lost by invading South Ossetia in an effort to destroy the secessionists.

It would appear that the rest of the world and the UN Security Council have given the Americans a pass to lie without end in order to advance Washington’s goal of world hegemony.  How does this benefit the Security Council and the world? What is going on here?

After President Clinton misrepresented the conflict between Serbia and the Albanians in Kosovo and tricked NATO into military aggression against Serbia and after President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the secretary of state, the national security advisor and just about every member of the Bush regime deceived the UN and the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, thus finagling an invasion of Iraq, why did the UN Security Council fall for Obama’s deception that Iran has a nuclear weapons program?

In 2009 all sixteen US intelligence agencies issued a unanimous report that Iran had abandoned its weapons program in 2003.  Was the Security Council ignorant of this report?

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s weapons inspectors on the ground in Iran have consistently reported that there is no diversion of uranium from the energy program. Was the Security Council ignorant of the IAEA reports?

If not ignorant, why did the UN Security Council approve sanctions on Iran for adhering to its right under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to have a nuclear energy program? The UN sanctions are lawless. They violate Iran’s rights as a signatory to the treaty. Is this the “steel vice” of which Hillary spoke?

As soon as Washington got sanctions from the Security Council, the Obama regime unilaterally added more severe US sanctions. Obama is using the UN sanctions as a vehicle to which to attach his unilateral sanctions. Perhaps this is the “steel vice of oppression” of which Hillary spoke.

Why has the UN Security Council given a green light to the Obama regime to start yet another war in the Middle East?

Why has Russia stepped aside? At Washington’s insistence, the Russian government has not delivered the air defense system that Iran purchased. Does Russia view Iran as a greater threat to itself than the Americans, who are ringing Russia with US missile and military bases and financing “color revolutions” in former constituent parts of the Russian and Soviet empires?

Why has China stepped aside?  China’s growing economy needs energy resources. China has extensive energy investments in Iran.  It is US policy to contain China by denying China access to energy. China is America’s banker. China could destroy the US dollar in a few minutes.

Perhaps Russia and China have decided to let the Americans over-reach until the country self-destructs.

On the other hand, perhaps everyone is miscalculating and more death and destruction is in the works than the world is counting on.

Like the Gulf of Mexico.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.  His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator has on Tuesday sent a letter to the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, saying that talks could be held as soon as September on issues including Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said that Tehran could resume talks from September 1 with world powers over its atomic programme if its conditions were met.

Iran’s state news agency IRNA said that Jalili in a letter toEU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said that Tehran needs three questions answered by world powers before it can consider resuming talks.

In the July 6 letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, Saeed Jalili asked Catherine Ashton for reassurances on three issues before any talks are held.

These were that talks should aim to “engage and cooperate”, should be “committed to the rationale of dialogue”, and that Ashton should state her “position on the nuclear weapons of the Zionist Regime” — a reference to nuclear-armed Israel.

Israel, which has at least between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads, often threatens the Islamic republic with an attack over nuclear programme.

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By David Ray Griffin, Global Research, July 8, 2010

An Open Letter to Terry Allen, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, David Corn, Chris Hayes, George Monbiot, Matthew Rothschild, and Matt Taibbi.1

According to several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of its central claims, especially about the destruction of the World Trade Center, show its members to be scientifically challenged. In the opinion of some of these critics, moreover, claims made by members of this movement are sometimes unscientific in the strongest possible sense, implying an acceptance of magic and miracles.

After documenting this charge in Part I of this essay, I show in Part II that the exact opposite is the case: that the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center implies miracles (I give nine examples), and that the 9/11 Truth Movement, in developing an alternative hypothesis, has done so in line with the assumption that the laws of nature did not take a holiday on 9/11. In Part III, I ask these left-leaning critics some questions evoked by the fact that it is they, not members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who have endorsed a conspiracy theory replete with miracle stories as well as other absurdities.

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The Palestine Chronicle, July 8, 2010

They preach words of peace, but these aren’t the actions of peace.

By James Gundun, Washington D.C.

Credit them this skill – they’re good performers. Not great. Great is convincing. But a good performer abides by the cardinal rule of show business. The show must go on whether someone flubs their lines, trips, or passes out, and Israel and America have kept going through it all.

Now will anyone believe their act?

It quickly became clear after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s disastrous trip to the White House in May that a repeat performance wouldn’t occur. Netanyahu canceled his next visit after Israeli commandos raided the Freedom flotilla, justifiably allowing him to address the crisis at home – and conveniently avoid putting America in the position to advocate for Gazans. The script was postponed until Tuesday’s meeting with President Barack Obama. Nothing could stop such well-planned choreography.

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by Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, July 8, 2010

Few who have seen the dramatic privatization of US intelligence operations from the inside ever speak about the role private contractors play in covert operations–certainly not in public. In late June, however, the CIA’s former top counterterrorism official, Robert Grenier, participated in a rare public discussion on issues ranging from the incredible extent to which the US has relied on contractors to fill sensitive national security positions; to battlefield contractors in Afghanistan; to allegations of contractor involvement in “direct action” (lethal) operations, as well as commenting on Blackwater owner Erik Prince’s reported involvement in a secret CIA assassination program. The former spy also criticized what he called attempts by the US military to “overstep their bounds” by conducting intelligence operations that traditionally have fallen under the purview of the CIA.

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