08 Wild Cards – Page 127 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/09/28

Cynthia McKinney: Fidel Castro Makes Sense, Slams Barack Obama for “Gibberish” and Moral Hazard

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 07 Venezuela, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

Fidel Castro calls Obama UN address ‘gibberish'

Tuesday, 27 September 2011 14:28

“Who understands the gibberish of the president of the United States before the General Assembly?” Castro asked.

AFP – September 26, 2011
HAVANA – Cuba's Fidel Castro blasted Barack Obama's speech to the United Nations as “gibberish” on Monday, saying the US president used a rambling address to justify the “unjustifiable.”

In his first published column since July, the 85-year-old revolutionary icon slammed US and NATO intervention in Libya as “monstrous crimes” and said Obama — whom he called the “yankee president” — used a bully pulpit at the UN General Assembly last week to try and sway global opinion.

Fidel, who handed the presidency to his younger brother Raul Castro in 2006 due to a health crisis, has laid low in recent months, and his column published in state media was his first since July 3.

In Monday's piece he came out swinging, saying Obama distorted the situations in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Afghanistan, North Korea, Libya and the Palestinian conflict, and that the US leader used “a long rant to explain and justify the inexplicable and unjustifiable.”

“Who understands the gibberish of the president of the United States before the General Assembly?” Castro asked.

Castro also took issue with the “fascist methods by the United States and its allies to confuse and manipulate global opinion,” and said he was heartened by the “resistance” of his key allies Hugo Chavez and Evo Moralez, presidents of Venezuela and Bolivia, respectively, who criticized US and UN policy in their speeches.

“Has any nation been excluded from the bloody threats of this illustrious defender of international peace and security?” Castro said of Obama, whose UN quotes he cited extensively in his column.

“Who gave the United States such privileges?” Castro said.

He said countries must consider taking a stand at the General Assembly against the “NATO genocide in Libya,” an action Castro described as one of many “flagrant violations of principles.”

“Does anyone want it to be recorded that under their direction, the government of their nation supported the monstrous crimes by the United States and its NATO allies?” he said.

Washington and Havana are Cold War adversaries who have brought their mutual dislike and distrust into the 21st century, and Castro routinely makes political attacks on his ideological foe.

2011/09/26

Chuck Spinney: Obama’s Shame — & Threat to USA

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War

President Obama's craven performance at the UN has both humiliated the United States and made a mockery of what little remains of America's pretensions to the principles of freedom, democracy, fair play, and simple human decency. Like Colin Powell, he made the wrong turn at the “to be” or “to do” fork in the road; he put career and short-term ambition ahead of common sense and personal honor; and ironically, he made the same faustian bargain publicly on the same world stage for all to see. For a men of such great promise to stumble so miserably is not only a personal tragedy of Shakespearian proportions: their pusillanimity under pressure opens the door to unpredictable grand strategic* ramifications that menace the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people at home and abroad.

Below is one thoughtful observer's exploration of some of these ramifications; there will be other assessments … and very few of them will be pretty.

At least LBJ, who tried to do some things, recognized when his time was over, and left gracefully. But in the Hall of Mirrors that is Versailles on the Potomac at the dawn of the 21st Century, that won't happen again, and Mr. Obama's ultimate disgrace will be to prove that the easy being was far more important than the hard doing when engineering the moral and material decline of a nation.

________
* The criteria underpinning a sensible grand strategy are explained here.

Chuck Spinney
Port Vendres, France

The Third Intifada Targets Israel-America

by Rami G. Khouri

Agence Global, 26 Sep 2011

[CS Note: I reformatted this insightful essay to highlight important points, but did not change any text or the order of presentation]

BOSTON — It remains to be seen what actually changes on the ground in the months ahead following the Palestinian initiative to ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state in the 1967 Israeli-occupied territories as a UN member or observer state. The move could be a substantive gain for the Palestinian people, a symbolic victory only, or a measurable setback if the United States and Israel translate their vindictive rhetoric into hard policies. While we wait for the impact of the UN move to become clearer, we should acknowledge nevertheless that this has been a historic week in several ways.

I.The most important new development that future historians will record is that this last week in September represented the moment when the Arab-Israeli conflict structurally transformed into the Arab-Israeli/American conflict, because of the profound and explicit manner in which the U.S. government has come down on the side of Israel. The United States historically has tried, without much success but with visible endeavor nevertheless, to express its support for Israel’s survival and security while also trying to mediate a resolution of the conflict that sees the birth of a Palestinian state in much of the 1967 occupied lands. That balancing act, unconvincing as it was, is formally dead for now — repeatedly shot in the heart by a firing squad of American politicians who have unleashed volleys of shotguns at the weak and doomed phenomenon that was once called “American mediation”.

Chuck Spinney: How Israel is “Disappearing” Palestine

08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Officers Call, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Threats

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

The Occupation That Time Forgot

The Disappearance of Palestine

by SANDY TOLAN

Counterpunch

It’s the show that time and the world forgot. It’s called the Occupation and it’s now in its 45th year. Playing on a landscape about the size of Delaware, it remains largely hidden from view, while Middle Eastern headlines from elsewhere seize the day. Diplomats shuttle back and forth from Washington and Brussels to Middle Eastern capitals; the Israeli-Turkish alliance ruptures amid bold declarations from the Turkish prime minister; crowds storm the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, while Israeli ambassadors flee the Egyptian capital and Amman, the Jordanian one; and of course, there’s the headliner, the show-stopper of the moment, the Palestinian Authority’s campaign for statehood in the United Nations, which will prompt an Obama administration veto in the Security Council.

But whatever the Turks, Egyptians, or Americans do, whatever symbolic satisfaction the Palestinian Authority may get at the U.N., there’s always the Occupation and there — take it from someone just back from a summer living in the West Bank — Israel isn’t losing. It’s winning the battle, at least the one that means the most to Palestinians and Israelis, the one for control over every square foot of ground. Inch by inch, meter by meter, Israel’s expansion project in the West Bank and Jerusalem is, in fact, gaining momentum, ensuring that the “nation” that the U.N. might grant membership will be each day a little smaller, a little less viable, a little less there.

How to Disappear a Land

Read rest of indictment….

See Also:

Search: palestine world map

2011/09/232011/09/23

Owl: Pregressive Radio on 9/11 & FBI Saudi Cover-Up

08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Hill Letters & Testimony, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Military

Susan Lindauer, former Intel Asset: What She Knows About 9-11

This is spell-binding radio. Given what she knows, her interviewer, Gary Null, wonders out-load why she has not yet been assassinated. Here’s why:

Susan Lindauer is a former U.S. Intelligence Asset who covered anti-terrorism at the Iraqi Embassy in New York from 1996 up to the invasion. Independent sources have confirmed that she gave advance warning about the 9/11 attack. She also started talks for the Lockerbie Trial with Libyan diplomats. Shortly after requesting to testify before Congress about successful elements of Pre-War Intelligence, Susan became one of the first non-Arab Americans arrested on the Patriot Act as an “Iraqi Agent.” She was accused of warning her second cousin, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Secretary of State Colin Powell that War with Iraq would have catastrophic consequences. Gratis of the Patriot Act, her indictment was loaded with “secret charges” and “secret evidence.” She was subjected to one year in prison on Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas without a trial or hearing, and threatened with indefinite detention and forcible drugging to shut her up. After five years of indictment without a conviction or guilty plea, the Justice Department dismissed all charges five days before President Obama’s inauguration.

Listen to or download the whole show from this link:

There is more, very recent and stunning news – with evidence presented – about 9-11 here:

Continue reading “Owl: Pregressive Radio on 9/11 & FBI Saudi Cover-Up”

2011/09/22

Chuck Spinney: Middle East New Geopolitical Map

02 Diplomacy, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

In this very important essay, one of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East explains the tectonic shifts taking place that are clearly leaving the United States and Israel on the wrong side of history.

The Middle East’s New Geopolitical Map

by Patrick Seale

Agence Global, 20 Sep 2011

The Arab Spring is not the only revolution in town. The toppling of dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya; the mounting death toll in Syria and Yemen, where the outcome is still undecided; the revival of long-suppressed Islamic movements demanding a share of power; the struggle by young revolutionaries to re-invent the Arab state — all these dramatic developments have distracted attention from another revolution of equal significance.

It is the challenge being mounted by the region’s heavyweights — Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran — against the hegemony which the United States and Israel have sought to exercise over them for more than half a century.

. . . . . . .

America’s most grievous mistake, however — the source of great harm to itself, to Israel, and to peace and stability in the Middle East — has been to tolerate Israel’s continued occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians. These policies have aroused intense hate of Israel in the Arab and Muslim world and great anger at its superpower protector.

We are now witnessing a rebellion against these policies by the region’s heavyweights — in effect a rebellion against American and Israeli hegemony as spectacular as the Arab Spring itself. The message these regional powers are conveying is that the Palestine question can no longer be neglected. Israel’s land grab on the West Bank and its siege of Gaza must be ended. The Palestinians must at last be given a chance to create their own state. Their plight weighs heavily on the conscience of the world.

. . . . . . .

Turkey, Iran and Egypt, heirs to ancient civilizations, are thus asserting themselves against what they see as an Israeli upstart. Saudi Arabia, the region’s oil and financial giant, guardian of Islam’s holiest sites, is breaking free from the constraints of the American alliance.

Israel stands accused. Will it heed the message or shoot the messenger? If true to its past form, it might well try to fight its way out of the box in which it now finds itself, further destabilising the region and attracting to itself further opprobrium.

Read full article.

2011/09/202011/09/20

Chuck Spinney: Perspective on Turkey-Israel Relations

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

Below is an excellent perspective on Turkish – Israeli relations and the irresponsible Israeli-neocon effort to smear Turkey with the phony charge of islamo-fascisim (itself a logically absurd term). While Hadar thinks, in my view correctly, Ataturk would back Erdogan's policies, one thing he does address is how Ataturk might have reacted to Israel's provocations, especially the murder of Turkish nationals in raid on the Gaza Peace Flotilla, followed by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's incredibly stupid threat to give aid to the PKK. Based on my limited knowledge of the man, I think Ataturk's reaction to such ham-fisted tactics would have made Prime Minister Erdogan's reaction look downright lovable.

Chuck Spinney
Carnon Plage, France

Turkish Foreign Policy: What Would Ataturk Do?

Leon T. Hadar

Huffington Post, 9/16/11

Even before the crisis in the relationship between Israel and Turkey over the raid on the Gaza “Peace Flotilla” had erupted last December, right-wing Israelis and American neoconservatives were promoting a new Grand Narrative: Turkey was joining forces with Iran and Syria in an anti-American and anti-Israeli Islamofascist Axis of Evil, seeking to destroy the Jewish State as part of a long-term strategy of re-establishing the Ottoman Empire and a Global Caliphate. Turkey was becoming the New Iran.

Chuck Spinney: No Freedom for Palestine Says Obama

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War

… My Cairo speech may have felt good, but I urge patience. Please remember, I ‘lead from behind,' and so the steering wheel of my ship of state is not connected to its rudder. There is nothing I can or will do to change its course. Hopefully, if the ship of state stays its own course, I might pass through a hole in the line of shoals in front of me (i.e., BiBi, Hillary, Congress, AIPAC, Rick Perry, the House Republicans, etc.), and then I will be able to lead from behind until 2016.

Published on Sunday, September 18, 2011 by EricMargolis.com

No Freedom for Palestine, Thunders Washington

by Eric Margolis

Could we see a great leap forward next week on the Palestinian’s long quest for statehood? Not quite. The Palestinian Authority (PA) says it will ask the United Nations General Assembly to upgrade from being a non-voting “observer entity” to an “observer state.” This bureaucratic-sounding change hardly seems earthshaking. The Vatican is an “observer state.”

But the earth is shaking. A majority of the world’s nations are fed up by the endless suffering of the stateless Palestinians and support creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza.

Turkey’s increasingly influential premier, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, went to Cairo last week and spoke for the world: “Let’s raise the Palestinian flag and let that flag be the symbol of peace and justice in the Middle East.”

The United States is desperately scrambling to head off a favorable vote in the UN. Washington threatens to veto any pro-Palestine vote in the Security Council – that alone can grant statehood status to a new state. The US is exerting huge pressure on allies and dependant states to vote against any resolution in the General Assembly.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: US “policy” on Israel (can do no wrong) and Palestine (let them eat dirt) is the single most compelling example of corrupt ideological idiocy, treason against the public interest both at home and abroad. We all want Israel to be safe and prosperous–most us, the rabid and the corrupt not-withstanding–also want Palestine to be safe and prosperous, a contiguous state free from Israeli genocide and other atrocities. As Chuck Spinney has noted in the past, the Middle East is a nuanced complex problem that demands intelligence and integrity applied in a holistic manner–the Israelis for example, are single-handedly stealing most of the water from the Arab aquifers for an agricultural “miracle” that produces 4%, at best, of the Israeli GDP. This is nuts. In Washington, “nuts” is policy.