Iran Leader: Bush Will Be Tried
TEHRAN, Iran - President Bush will one day be tried in court just like deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for his involvement in the Iraq tragedy, Iran’s supreme leader said Friday.
Speaking to thousands of worshippers during the first Friday prayer of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Bush will be called to account for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
“A day will come that the current U.S. president and officials will be tried in an international supreme court for the catastrophes they caused in Iraq,” he said.
“Americans will have to answer for why they don’t end occupation of Iraq and why waves of terrorism and insurgency have overwhelmed the country,” he added. “It will not be like this forever and some day they will be stopped as happened to Hitler, Saddam and certain other European leaders.”
Khamenei mocked the U.S., describing the recent congressional testimony of the top U.S. officials in Iraq as a sign of weakness and the failure of American policy in the war torn country.
“More than four years have passed since the occupation of Iraq and today everyone knows that America has failed and is frantically looking for a way out,” he said.
In their testimony Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker raised allegations - denied by Iran - of Iranian meddling in Iraq by financial and military support of militias and insurgent groups. They warned that the U.S. was already embroiled in a proxy war with the Islamic republic.
Despite U.N. sanctions and efforts to isolate Iran internationally, the country is flourishing, maintained Khamenei.
“Today we are in a better political position compared to four to five years ago,” he said. “We have moved forward economically and the spiritual preparedness and happiness of our nation has improved.”
“A nation like ours, without an atomic bomb and not as wealthy as these other powerful governments, has foiled a whole series of their conspiracies and forced them to give up and withdraw,” he added.
The U.S. accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and has called for further international sanctions against the country. Iran denies the charge.
Iran and the U.S. have not had diplomatic relations since Washington cut its ties with Tehran after Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy there in 1979.
© 2007 Associated Press
As an American, I believe Bush should be tried in a international criminal court just as Saddam should have been. This country has been run like a dictatorship and this tyrannical president should be held accountable for his work in creating such a climate of governmental mistrust and his abuses of power. He is not alone in this and all factions must be found out and held accountable as well. Impeachment is not enough. This country is the peoples union and should not be led by a corporate agenda. The rights and freedoms of the people must come first.
And where does the guilt end and when will the truth be told ?
Bush did not begin or perpetuate the “WAR CRIMES” alone. Many others are complicit including Congress in 2003 and today, as well as their corporate masters. It was a similar type of complicity that allowed the Nazi empire to evolve so quickly before crashing.
It may be wishful thinking that the boy emperor could be put in restraints and brought before an international court, but the idea of WAR CRIMES is important.
Warmongers and the consolidated corporate media still have the Iraq “war” wrapped in a cloak of legitimacy.
Somehow, that cruel illusion must exposed. Language can become a “reality” for better or worse. It is time everyone who opposes these CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY stop using language that disguises the true situation. Call it an imperial or colonial occupation, or CORPORATE CRIMES against humanity, but never give it the status of a justified “war”.
America has invaded Iraq to steal their oil, period. “Wars” of aggression and theft are CRIMES.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq must be described as a WAR CRIME !
Israel is engaged in a proxy war with Iraq using the U.S. as its’ puppet. What has happened in Iraq were not mistakes caused by poor planning. What happened and is happening in Iraq was well planned and is proceeding according to that plan. Rebuilding of Iraq was not in the plan. When Iraq is completely destroyed Israel will expect its’ puppet to move against Iran. If this causes great harm to the U.S. and many casualties that is not of concern to Israel. And how you ask does Israel have any control over U.S. foreign policy? Google AIPAC.
I totally disagree with jungleboy. I think Bush should be tried in an American court, by Americans. Trying the bastard ourselves would be a big step in the right direction, demonstrating that not only does the world community repudiate his fascist tenure, but we Americans do as well.
Btw - the Israel-as-puppetmaster claims are foolish. Influence does not equal control. The state of Israel is surely far less powerful than Exxon. If anybody controls the US Govt, it’s a cabal of big corporations. Oil companies craft our energy policy, insurance and pharmaceutical companies craft our health care policies, big agribusinesses craft our agricultural policies, and so on. I seriously doubt that grown-ups in Israel perceive our occupation of Iraq to be strategically advantageous to them. If they do, they’re just as idiotic as Bush.
Is Carla del Ponte still in business?
As in all criminal activities, we don’t have to arest and try all the war criminals to the Hague, just enough of the worst ones to set an example and provide a deterrent. hopefully for some of them, we could convince the Europeans to make a special-case exception to their opposition to the death penalty.
As the real or phoney OBL said last week, this should have been done long ago to those who commited the mass crimes in Vietnam, many of who are stlll alive and not only free, but occupy high poitions in government. In the case of the supreme criminal Kissinger, he respected and treated with awe as a “consultant”, and the one former force behind bringing Kissinger to justice, Hitchins, has joined the criminals himself.
MetalDog is right. International courts are really only useful when national courts won’t do their jobs. Besides, what better way to partially clean America’s reputation up than by providing a little justice on this case?
No, by sending Bush to an international court the US would show the world that the we may be finally joining the world community.
Friday, September 14,
Clarifying the myth of oil
Conspiracies that promote the idea that war with Iraq is about oil are wrong
By: Tim Schniedwind
Texas A&M University Paper
Issue date: 2/21/03 Section: Opinion
There are many conspiracy theories these days, and those involving the United States’ need for oil and the conflict with Iraq seem to be extremely popular.
It is easy to dismiss these claims based solely on the context in which they are usually presented, and there is likely little truth behind them.
Data from the Department of Energy suggests that there is a lack of potential motivation for war based on oil interests. One could look at the issue of Iraqi oil as involving three main factors: At what rate will Iraq produce oil, who will be the recipient of the oil that is produced and who will handle the task of getting the oil out of the ground?
Trying to influence any of these three factors is likely not reason enough for U.S. oil companies to pressure their government for a regime change in Iraq.
According to the Department of Energy, Iraq has the second largest oil reserve in the world. Iraq exports roughly 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.
Oil conspiracy theorists would suggest that U.S. oil companies are always trying to increase the supply and demand for oil. Would a war with Iraq increase the supply of oil on the market? The last war with Iraq did the opposite.
Iraqi production is down from highs of more than four million barrels per day since the Gulf War, mostly because of damage sustained during the war. Any kind of war in Iraq could disrupt Iraqi oil production, and it could take years to rebuild production capacity back to its current level.
Would a more U.S.-friendly regime in Iraq increase the supply of oil? Right now, the United Nations regulates the amount of oil that Iraq can produce. According to the Department of Energy, the current regime in Iraq has made many efforts to expand its oil production levels. In fact, agreements have been signed to increase oil production by four million barrels per day. Looking at it from the perspectives of the amount of oil available to the U.S., this does not sound like a regime that the U.S. would want to change.
The United States is not fighting a war with Iraq to ensure that it gets its share of Iraq’s oil. Though a war for oil seems to be a popular idea, it does not have a firm basis in reality.
According the Department of Energy, around 20 to 25 percent of Iraqi oil ends up in the hands of U.S. oil companies, so America is already getting its fair share in terms of consumption. Oil is a heavily traded global commodity, so no matter where Iraqi oil goes, the increased supply will make it easier for U.S. companies to obtain their oil.
Then comes the third factor: who receives the job of drilling and processing Iraqi oil. Oil conspiracy theorists don’t focus on this as much, mostly because getting the job of performing one stage in a production process does not seem to be such a potential sinister motivation as getting more oil for SUVs. But if there is a reason for U.S. companies to push their government for a regime change in Iraq, this is probably it.
According to the Department of Energy, all of the contracts Iraq has granted to carry the expansion of its oil production capacity have been given to non-U.S. companies from across the globe, including places such as China and Indonesia.
The majority of the contracts have been given to companies that have supported Iraq in the United Nations. One Russian company is quoted by the Department of Energy as saying that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, guaranteed that “no matter what happens,” its contract will be upheld.
This is undeniable evidence that politics is playing into who gets the contracts to do the exploration and development.
However, right now the majority of the contracts are not being fulfilled by the companies due to pressure from the United Nations.
Iraq has expressed displeasure and is looking for other companies from nations such as the United States that could come in and get the job done more quickly.
Iraq is quoted by the Department of Energy Web site as “being willing to work with U.S. companies.”
If the United States really only cared about getting its companies development contracts, it could likely accomplish this through negotiations with the United Nations and the Iraqi government.
Whatever motivations the oil issue is creating, it is certainly far-fetched to imagine that they are powerful enough to influence policy that would dictate risking American lives, spending $50 billion and the president running the risk of ruining his political future.
Since the year 2000 oil company contributions are down see this chart:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=E01
Since the year 2000 Pro-Israel PAC money to Congress is up:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=Q05
Excuse me DCBELTWAY but Tim Schniedwind is an idiot. Being from Texas doesn’t make you an oil expert I guess.
The oil companies have already been doing business with Iran so they don’t need a war! Shell has four offices in Iran and has made billions! See the article below that points this out (however the article is pro-sanctions).
Its AIPAC that is wanting sanctions.
http://www.aipac.org/694.asp#1007
With Us or Against Us
Frank Gaffney | February 05, 2007
The outcome of the present, global conflict may ultimately turn on the implementation of a policy it took President Bush just seven words to declare on November 6, 2001: “You’re either with us or against us.”
For too long, it has been possible for far too many around the world to have it both ways. This must stop.
In particular, the time has come to make it clear to those who are helping our enemies that they are not with us – and that there are real costs associated with being against us.
Every one of us can contribute to this effort by making an example of a company that is contemplating doing a lot more business with Islamofascist Iran, at the very moment that it is aggressively pursuing (with help from North Korea) nuclear arms and the ever-longer-range ballistic missiles with which to deliver them. Presumably these are the means by which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intends to realize his oft-stated goals of wiping Israel “off the map” and bringing about “a world without America.”
A company that is at the moment a prime candidate for such treatment is Royal Dutch Shell. According to the Conflict Security Advisory Group (CSAG) – an independent market research firm whose Global Security Risk Monitor online database is the industry standard for assessing publicly traded companies that do business with terrorist-sponsoring regimes – this Anglo-Dutch corporation has done billions of dollars of business over the years with the Islamic Republic of Iran. It even has four offices in Tehran.
Last week, however, Shell Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer told participants in a conference call that his firm and a Spanish oil company, Repsol, have entered into a preliminary understanding to help the Iranian regime develop part of its vast South Pars natural gas reserve. Press reports indicate that Tehran believes the deal is worth $10 billion.
To be sure, that $10 billion will translate into profits for Shell and its partner. It will, though, also afford the Islamofascists in Iran revenue streams that will enable them to support more terrorists, to kill more Americans and Iraqis, to destabilize the region and to prepare genocidal attacks on this country as well as our ally, Israel.
Making such a huge, further investment in Iran would, in short, be a very unfriendly act. And Shell must understand that it will be regarded, and treated, as such.
For one thing, the Bush Administration should interpose the strongest possible objections to putatively allied governments in London and The Hague that export guarantees and insurance for this deal would seriously complicate bilateral and trilateral relations. For another, the Treasury Department should make life miserable for any banks that might contemplate helping underwrite such an investment.
The real power to punish Royal Dutch Shell for being against us in this War for the Free World, however, should lie with American investors and consumers. The Roosevelt Anti-Terror Multi-Cap Fund (RATF) is the first mutual fund in the nation to be certified by the Conflict Securities Advisory Group as “terror-free.” It holds in portfolio neither Shell nor any other publicly traded companies doing business in Iran, Sudan, Syria or North Korea. Nationwide Financial, E-Trade, Ameritrade and Schwab have begun offering RATF as an option on their investment platforms.
In addition, Sarah Steelman, the Treasurer of Missouri, has taken the first public fund terror-free – and achieved a higher return in so doing. Her state’s 529 college savings plan will shortly offer such an option as well, one which will be available to investors from all over the country. If you don’t want to enrich those who are trying to kill us, insist that your money – be it in public pension funds, 401k plans, mutual funds, life insurance portfolios, etc. – is invested terror-free.
Whether you are an investor or not, you have another option: Show Shell how you feel about its dealings with our Iranian enemies by filling up your car at the pumps of one of its American competitors – who, by law, are not permitted to do business with terrorist-sponsoring states.
Interestingly, Shell’s CEO is already nervous about his company’s ties to Tehran. As he told reporters last week: “I would like to emphasize that we have here quite a dilemma. This is Iran. They are the Number Two in oil and gas reserves in the world. But we have all the short-term political concerns.”
By making an object lesson of Shell, we can help resolve its management’s “dilemma.” If it actually starts to be painful to be “against us,” we can ensure that more of those who wish to do business with America – and who typically take for granted our protection of their freedoms – line up “with us,” instead of with our enemies. Without help from our friends, maybe those enemies’ regimes will change their behavior, or even fall from power. It is certainly worth a try.
In recent weeks, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman, former Governor Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Senator Rick Santorum and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have embraced the idea of terror-free investing. Let’s show Shell and other, foreign-owned companies that partner with our foes – like France’s Total, China’s Sinopec, Russia’s Gazprom and Italy’s ENI – that Americans take seriously the imperative of countering Iran’s nuclear ambitions and support for international terror. They had better be with us, or else.
AIPAC backed removal of Iran war provision
Published: 03/13/2007
AIPAC lobbying helped remove a provision from a bill that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval for war against Iran. A number of congressional sources confirmed that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee backed dropping the provision from the Iraq war spending bill introduced Tuesday by Democrats. The bill ties funding to deadlines for withdrawal from Iraq.
AIPAC and a number of Democrats close to Israel said the provision would have hampered the president as he attempted to leverage Iran into backing down from its alleged nuclear weapon plans. Others said the provision simply reasserted the constitutional role of the U.S. Congress in declaring war that is believed to have been eroded by Bush during the Iraq war.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/100580.html
johndec,
I think you are right. And note the article is from Texas A&M, the most radically fascist university in the US.
The US oil companies have drafted an oil law which the Bush administration is pressuring Iraqis to accept which would allow the oil companies to get 30-year production sharing agreements (PSAs). A 30-year term for a PSA is virtually unheard of, and the terms are clearly one-sided and unfair, allowing the oil companies to get the lion’s share of the profits from extremely abundant reserves, repaying them for their risks and investments hundreds of times over. With oil wealth expected to exceed $10 trillion dollars, the agreement as drafted would lead to trillions of dollars of profits for US oil companies. Most Americans cannot imagine a trillion dollars, but it is a one followed by 12 zeroes, it is a thousand billion, or a million million. Those are numbers of a magnitude that would not only influence Bush administration policy, but would completely determine it.
You people defy logic either that or you are in denial about the influence of AIPAC. AIPAC is pushing for a war in Iran. Oil companies have no qualms of doing business with dictatorships or democracies–they don’t care. Do you want to stop the war or not????? Apparently not!!!
Have you not heard of PNAC or Wolfowitz paper entitled: “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”? or Walt and Mersheimer??
5 myths about the oil lobbies
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2633/is_3_17/ai_106423906/pg_1
I think, before trying the American war criminals in the US justice courts, Americans have to first CLEAN UP THE AMERICAN (IN)JUSTICE SYSTEM. This American (in)justice system is evident with the rulings on Haditha case, Abu Ghraib atrocities……..
Therefore, American (in)justice system is as evil as the American president and his fellow criminals. It is the Hague which is the right place, even though Hague is also controlled by American and western governments, with their representatives in the International Court.
dcbeltway check out HUNT COMPANEY, close associates of both Bush and the DICK and the recently signed deal with the Kurds to start the OIL theivery.
I’m well aware of it John. Its the Haifa to Mosul pipeline. The pipeline is going to Israel.
Last update - 02:51 25/08/2003
Ha’Aretz
U.S. checking possibility of pumping oil from northern Iraq to Haifa, via Jordan
By Amiram Cohen
The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.
The Prime Minister’s Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a “bonus” the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram.
The new pipeline would take oil from the Kirkuk area, where some 40 percent of Iraqi oil is produced, and transport it via Mosul, and then across Jordan to Israel. The U.S. telegram included a request for a cost estimate for repairing the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was in use prior to 1948. During the War of Independence, the Iraqis stopped the flow of oil to Haifa and the pipeline fell into disrepair over the years.
The National Infrastructure Ministry has recently conducted research indicating that construction of a 42-inch diameter pipeline between Kirkuk and Haifa would cost about $400,000 per kilometer. The old Mosul-Haifa pipeline was only 8 inches in diameter.
National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky said yesterday that the port of Haifa is an attractive destination for Iraqi oil and that he plans to discuss this matter with the U.S. secretary of energy during his planned visit to Washington next month. Paritzky added that the plan depends on Jordan’s consent and that Jordan would receive a transit fee for allowing the oil to piped through its territory. The minister noted, however, that “due to pan-Arab concerns, it will be hard for the Jordanians to agree to the flow of Iraqi oil via Jordan and Israel.”
Sources in Jerusalem confirmed yesterday that the Americans are looking into the possibility of laying a new pipeline via Jordan and Israel. (There is also a pipeline running via Syria that has not been used in some three decades.)
Iraqi oil is now being transported via Turkey to a small Mediterranean port near the Syrian border. The transit fee collected by Turkey is an important source of revenue for the country. This line has been damaged by sabotage twice in recent weeks and is presently out of service.
In response to rumors about the possible Kirkuk-Mosul-Haifa pipeline, Turkey has warned Israel that it would regard this development as a serious blow to Turkish-Israeli relations.
Sources in Jerusalem suggest that the American hints about the alternative pipeline are part of an attempt to apply pressure on Turkey.
Iraq is one of the world’s largest oil producers, with the potential of reaching about 2.5 million barrels a day. Oil exports were halted after the Gulf War in 1991 and then were allowed again on a limited basis (1.5 million barrels per day) to finance the import of food and medicines. Iraq is currently exporting several hundred thousand barrels of oil per day.
During his visit to Washington in about two weeks, Paritzky also plans to discuss the possibility of U.S. and international assistance for joint Israeli-Palestinian projects in the areas of energy and infrastructure, natural gas, desalination and electricity.
If war was for oil why were the oil prices so high the last 4 years?
More money, these guys will never have enough. And your wrong on that pipeline thing. Hunt Oil, who are in like fleas with Bush and Cheney just signed up with the Kurds to explore and exploit in Northern Iraq. Reported to be using PSA agreements to more efficiently relieve Iraq of its wealth. You gotta get out more. I think that beltway air is dragging you down.
IRAQ: War Launched to Protect Israel - Bush Adviser
By Emad Mekay
WASHINGTON, Mar 29 (IPS) - IPS uncovered the remarks by Philip Zelikow, who is now the executive director of the body set up to investigate the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 — the 9/11 commission — in which he suggests a prime motive for the invasion just over one year ago was to eliminate a threat to Israel, a staunch U.S. ally in the Middle East.
Zelikow’s casting of the attack on Iraq as one launched to protect Israel appears at odds with the public position of President George W. Bush and his administration, which has never overtly drawn the link between its war on the regime of former president Hussein and its concern for Israel’s security.
The administration has instead insisted it launched the war to liberate the Iraqi people, destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to protect the United States.
Zelikow made his statements about ”the unstated threat” during his tenure on a highly knowledgeable and well-connected body known as the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), which reports directly to the president.
He served on the board between 2001 and 2003.
”Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 — it’s the threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of 9/11 and the future of the war on the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation.
”And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell,” said Zelikow.
The statements are the first to surface from a source closely linked to the Bush administration acknowledging that the war, which has so far cost the lives of nearly 600 U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqis, was motivated by Washington’s desire to defend the Jewish state.
The administration, which is surrounded by staunch pro-Israel, neo-conservative hawks, is currently fighting an extensive campaign to ward off accusations that it derailed the ”war on terrorism” it launched after 9/11 by taking a detour to Iraq, which appears to have posed no direct threat to the United States.
Israel is Washington’s biggest ally in the Middle East, receiving annual direct aid of three to four billion dollars.
Even though members of the 16-person PFIAB come from outside government, they enjoy the confidence of the president and have access to all information related to foreign intelligence that they need to play their vital advisory role.
Known in intelligence circles as ”Piffy-ab”, the board is supposed to evaluate the nation’s intelligence agencies and probe any mistakes they make.
The unpaid appointees on the board require a security clearance known as ”code word” that is higher than top secret.
The national security adviser to former President George H.W. Bush (1989-93) Brent Scowcroft, currently chairs the board in its work overseeing a number of intelligence bodies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the various military intelligence groups and the Pentagon’s National Reconnaissance Office.
Neither Scowcroft nor Zelikow returned numerous phone calls and email messages from IPS for this story.
Zelikow has long-established ties to the Bush administration.
Before his appointment to PFIAB in October 2001, he was part of the current president’s transition team in January 2001.
In that capacity, Zelikow drafted a memo for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on reorganising and restructuring the National Security Council (NSC) and prioritising its work.
Richard A. Clarke, who was counter-terrorism coordinator for Bush’s predecessor President Bill Clinton (1993-2001) also worked for Bush senior, and has recently accused the current administration of not heeding his terrorism warnings, said Zelikow was among those he briefed about the urgent threat from al-Qaeda in December 2000.
Rice herself had served in the NSC during the first Bush administration, and subsequently teamed up with Zelikow on a 1995 book about the unification of Germany.
Zelikow had ties with another senior Bush administration official — Robert Zoellick, the current trade representative. The two wrote three books together, including one in 1998 on the United States and the ”Muslim Middle East”.
Aside from his position at the 9/11 commission, Zelikow is now also director of the Miller Centre of Public Affairs and White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia.
His close ties to the administration prompted accusations of a conflict of interest in 2002 from families of victims of the 9/11 attacks, who protested his appointment to the investigative body.
In his university speech, Zelikow, who strongly backed attacking the Iraqi dictator, also explained the threat to Israel by arguing that Baghdad was preparing in 1990-91 to spend huge amounts of ”scarce hard currency” to harness ”communications against electromagnetic pulse”, a side-effect of a nuclear explosion that could sever radio, electronic and electrical communications.
That was ”a perfectly absurd expenditure unless you were going to ride out a nuclear exchange — they (Iraqi officials) were not preparing to ride out a nuclear exchange with us. Those were preparations to ride out a nuclear exchange with the Israelis”, according to Zelikow.
He also suggested that the danger of biological weapons falling into the hands of the anti-Israeli Islamic Resistance Movement, known by its Arabic acronym Hamas, would threaten Israel rather than the United States, and that those weapons could have been developed to the point where they could deter Washington from attacking Hamas.
”Play out those scenarios,” he told his audience, ”and I will tell you, people have thought about that, but they are just not talking very much about it”.
”Don’t look at the links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, but then ask yourself the question, ‘gee, is Iraq tied to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the people who are carrying out suicide bombings in Israel’? Easy question to answer; the evidence is abundant.”
To date, the possibility of the United States attacking Iraq to protect Israel has been only timidly raised by some intellectuals and writers, with few public acknowledgements from sources close to the administration.
Analysts who reviewed Zelikow’s statements said they are concrete evidence of one factor in the rationale for going to war, which has been hushed up.
”Those of us speaking about it sort of routinely referred to the protection of Israel as a component,” said Phyllis Bennis of the Washington-based Institute of Policy Studies. ”But this is a very good piece of evidence of that.”
Others say the administration should be blamed for not making known to the public its true intentions and real motives for invading Iraq.
”They (the administration) made a decision to invade Iraq, and then started to search for a policy to justify it. It was a decision in search of a policy and because of the odd way they went about it, people are trying to read something into it,” said Nathan Brown, professor of political science at George Washington University and an expert on the Middle East.
But he downplayed the Israel link. ”In terms of securing Israel, it doesn’t make sense to me because the Israelis are probably more concerned about Iran than they were about Iraq in terms of the long-term strategic threat,” he said.
Still, Brown says Zelikow’s words carried weight.
”Certainly his position would allow him to speak with a little bit more expertise about the thinking of the Bush administration, but it doesn’t strike me that he is any more authoritative than Wolfowitz, or Rice or Powell or anybody else. All of them were sort of fishing about for justification for a decision that has already been made,” Brown said. (END/2004)
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
The oil companies may be benefitting after we went in but they were not the ones pushing for war to begin with. It was the neocons.
The point was NOT to “get the oil”.
The point was to CONTROL ACCESS to the oil so as to deny it to Europe/China.
Why do you think massive rises in oil prices, massive profits by oil companies, and the Iraq occupation coincide, anyway?
re dcbeltway 3:32pm
the “war” wasn’t simply for oil (had that been the case, it would have been cheaper just to buy it), but about control of the oil. having control, prices can be fine-tuned like a cremonese viola.
A brief quiz for folks to ponder:
Which post-WW2 president produced the greatest number of deaths, both directly and indirectly, and the least? (Does not include murders participated in while vice-president, CIA DCI, or any other bureaucratic or elective office.) By Geneva Convention criteria, they are all war criminals.
Truman,
Eisenhower,
Kennedy,
Johnson,
Nixon,
Ford,
Carter,
Reagan,
GHW Bush,
Clinton,
GW Bush.
“President Bush will one day be tried in court just like deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for his involvement in the Iraq tragedy. . .”
In the Court of Public Opinion, maybe. Truth is, Bush will retire to his Crawford “ranch” with his video games and his bicycle.
Personally, I don’t think Bush will die of old age or as a free man. We must bring him to justice along with the other members of the cabal if we are ever to rejoin the community of civilized nations and be seen as anything but an over-armed rogue state.
And if justice is served, who in Iraq other than the dead, will benefit from the terrible and useless waste?
Zbigniew Brzezinski. Remember that name. We’ll come back to it.
…and what is wrong with the idea that a number of important geopolitical and economic functions were fulfilled for the warriors by the invasion of Iraq? Similar reasoning applies to the possibility of war with Iran.
To blame the war on “Israel,” or the military-industrial complex, or BIG OIL, is just wrong. They’ll all to blame: The politicians, executives, lobbyists (remember, there’s some of each in the Bush cabinet, too) - oh, and a complicit corporate media. Ick.
Let’s review what it’s about:
1. Control of large oil fields. “Cheap” oil for the consumer was never the goal. Limiting Russian and Chinese access to world oil supplies was certainly a goal.
2. Profitable access to these oil fields for US firms at each stage of production. Total and Royal Dutch Shell are not owned by the Rockefellers.
3. Neutralizing a perceived threat to Israel. No bully on the block likes the big guy who lives two doors down. Not even a bully who has his own nukes.
4. Destablizing Russia’s trading partners and neighbours.
5. Establishing a ring of permanent military bases around Russia.
6. Converting the Iraq oil sales back to US dollars.
7. Propping up the American Empire for another 100 years.
Like any well engineered auto part, a well engineered war will perform many important functions for the warriors.
The doubters can check Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.” It’s PNAC’s second Bible.
Think about that: “American Primacy.” In the old days, that woulda been called, “lebensraum.” But like fascism, lebensraum didn’t have the same romantic appeal after WWII. The current ruling class is much more sophisticated, don’tcha know.
There’s some dry geopolitics in Brzezinski’s book, but basically he lays down his plan for America to control the world for the next century. You already know how it ends.
No Guesses? Well, Nixon killed the most and Kennedy the least. Clinton and GWB are right behind Nixon and could pass him when the future deaths from DU exposure are included. Likely, GWB will become the leader of this grumsome statistic, with the Iraqi Holocaust his legacy and his cause of death.
The US has refused to sign on to the International Criminal Court, precisely because of fear that its citizens could be tried there.
The Court therefore has no jurisdiction to try Bush or any other American.
If Bush is to be tried for war crimes it will be a domestic court that does it.
Bush has all the friends in all the high places, he’ll never be tried for anything. Maybe a few people below him ( like Libby, Gonzales, etc.) will go down a la Oliver North but never W. Don’t hold your breath. After all they’ve done already and “impeachment is off the table”. He’ll slip away into permanent vacation, you know he can’t wait for that, and later be recast as a great Pres. like puke fuq Reagen was by our lame mass media.
Americans should not be allowed to try Bush for war crimes. One, the crimes are international in nature. And two, Americans “elected” him twice, the second time after they knew full well of the criminal nature of his adventures. Americans are not qualified to try him for war crimes. Half of America still suports Bush. He must be tried by an educated inpartial tribunal outside the US. He perpetrated international crimes, not crimes within the US.
It doesn’t matter if the US didn’t sign on the the world criminal court. Do you think the Nazis would have been absolved of their crimes because they didn’t subscribe to the Nuremberg trials? LOL The world court is for crimes against humanity,and the US is not immune to prosecution for those crimes, no matter what the US may think. Send a UN delegation to arrest Bush and the neocons and bring them back to The Hague. Try, convict and sentence them to life in prison…..Abu graib comes to mind!
davepepper,
In 1987, the US was found guilty by the World Court for an act of terrorism–the mining of Nicauragua’s harbor’s during Reagan/Bush’s undeclared and illegal war against the people of all Central America, where over a million died. The US government ignored the ruling. The legislative branch of the US government passed a bill authorizing the president to invade the Hague to free any american soldier or national to be tried there, which the president (W) of course signed. You may have seen my roster of earlier US war criminal presidents, every one since WW2.
I just wanted to point-out that the US has been allowed to get away with its crimes by the international community for a long time and several tens of millions have died as a result with no end in sight. As we now witness the Iraqi Holocaust, I ask you if its time the world got together to tackle this great menace amongst them like they tackled Germany, Italy and Japan? (A moot question to be sure.) The global apathy must cease, and a great anger must arise.
karlof1
Could you please give some references for that U.S. law about the U.S. invading The Hague to free any U.S. prisoners!
Karlof, any further references or sources about that might help those of us whose research skills don’t match yours.
Also I would really like to read some more about that especially as I was born in Holland and wonder what my Dutch government had to say about that.
.
For what it’s worth, I did a bit of googling on the subject of war crimes and genocide.
Here’s what I found, on the subject of one Adolf Eichmann:
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Eichmanna.htm#Background
“See Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book IV, Chap. 5 “Of Offences against the Law of Nations,” p. 68: […]
“Lastly, the crime of piracy, or robbery and depredation upon the high seas, is an offence against the universal law of society; a pirate being, according to Sir Edward Coke (3 Inst. 113) hostis humani generis. [enemy of mankind in general: outlaw; outside the protection of the law] As, therefore, he has renounced all the benefits of society and government, and has reduced himself afresh to the savage state of nature, by declaring war against all mankind, all mankind must declare war against him; so that every community hath a right by the rule of self-defence, to inflict that punishment upon him which every individual would in a state of nature have been otherwise entitled to do, for any invasion of his person or personal property.”
[…]
“See also In re Piracy Jure Gentium, (1934) A.C. 586 (per Viscount Sankey L.C.):
“With regard to crimes as defined by international law, that law has no means of trying or punishing them. The recognition of them as constituting crimes, and the trial and punishment of the criminals, are left to the municipal law of each country. But whereas according to international law the criminal jurisdiction of municipal law is ordinarily restricted to crimes by its own nationals wherever committed, it is also recognized as extending to piracy committed on the high seas by any national on any ship, because a person guilty of such piracy has placed himself beyond the protection of any state. He is no longer a national, but hostis humani generis, and as such he is justiciable by any state anywhere.”
The current recumbents in DC have therefore placed themselves beyond the protection of the law. Bush’s signing of a particular law preventing accountability for gross violations of the Nuremberg Principles is null and void:
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/chtrimt.htm
“II. Jurisdiction and General Principles
Article 6
(a) CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
[…]
Article 7
The official position of the defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government Departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from
responsibility or mitigating punishment.”
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/iraqwrcm.htm
Get in touch with Dr. Stuart D. Stein, the author of this site, and get him to do something on the current war against Iraq.
I’d like to add another reason to dave lines’ list @ 8:16 pm
8.) Karl Rove saw the Iraq invasion as a way to galvanize American antipaty to Muslims and to secure his boss’s re-election in 2004.
The entire world is waiting on the big bully and trouble maker. It is the primary obstacle to world peace and international cooperation.
We need a revolution. Supporting Dennis Kucinich’s campaign
for presidency seems to be the best that we could do.
If we can get him in, we can run the rats out of Washington.
“”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"
“There has to be an in-depth, sober, objective process of taking stock of the root causes of global terrorism and developing an appropriate response to it. Without justifying the current terrorist attack on the US, we can ask the following questions. Is the US reaping the terrorist policies it has sowed? Why the intense hatred for the US? Will the ordinary US citizen awaken to the global impacts that US government policies are having, policies that are crafted by a few in power? Are US economic policies that one-sidedly glorify competition
and profit over equitable human development, resulting in massive poverty, de facto terrorist policies?”
Nicanor Perlas, President, Center for Alternative Development Initiatives
——————————————————
“It isn’t indifference. It’s just augury:.. it’s reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America’s economic and military dominance - the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that
the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US Government’s record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things - to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)?…American people
ought to know that it is not them but their Government’s policies that are so hated.” Arundhati Roy
==========================
“Peace will be the result of understanding and sharing,
and not the origin of them…” Djwahl Khul
===================================
“Without sharing there can be no justice;
without justice there can be no peace;
without peace there can be no future…
Man must change or die.
There is no other course.”
Maitreya, the World Teacher
We all should go to Bushs church and protest there. In the Monica Lewinski trial there was one public disclosure that might tie all this together. The oil for israel and the oil for us with the big pipeline that was started some 5yrs before the war started and the “Green Peril”,ie. Islam, the created threat.( see; http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-177.html ) It is the blackmail. Some country has tapped the phones and has the evidence against our politicians. Remember the cigar wielding girl giving evidence and Clinton going down. He might not have lied but gone down with the boat to save some face and to cover up the “tapped phone line, blackmail” slip that hit the news. His cigar did all the work and that might have been the lie to send him up, her lips were ‘not’ sealed. ;O
According to the cato pub, the threat might be real or imagined but will play a important role in the coming future of Israel. The report date is 1992. This has been going on a long time. We very well might not have a way out of this. Working together (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) will take the biggest balls we have got. Whoever in office will not change these forces. Who can voice this dissenting idea of working together and make it clear to all sides so as to include all and miss no one? Many countries and backwards christians are involved. Ignorance runs deep.
Jungle Boy this is what you are referring to??
Spying in Washington Again
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 2000, pages 6, 24
Special Report
Despite Coverup, Israel Caught Spying in Washington Again
By Richard H. Curtiss
Israel has been caught spying in Washington again, this time on the White House and other sensitive telephone systems. But Americans have to look and listen very hard to learn the details. The damage could be as great as that sustained during spy-for-pay Jonathan Jay Pollard’s blatant military codes, plans and secret-stealing rampage of the 1980s. And probably greater than Israel’s stealing not only of U.S. nuclear secrets in the 1960s, but even of American enriched uranium via an Israel-controlled contracting firm in Apollo, Pennsylvania.
Predictably, on the record the White House, Department of Justice and the FBI all are minimizing the damage, saying that although the investigation into Israeli eavesdropping on White House telephones “remains open,” no one has been charged because no crime can be proved. But off the record FBI officials have confirmed to journalists not only the espionage, but details about the operation and the perpetrators. They are a married Israeli couple, at least one of them a Mossad member stationed in the Israeli Embassy in Washington and enjoying diplomatic immunity from arrest.
The story was broken May 5 in Insight magazine, a weekly supplement to the daily Washington Times, and on Fox News, a national television network. The Washington Times and Insight are controlled by the World Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and Fox News is controlled by Australian-born media mogul and U.S. citizen Rupert Murdoch. Both are identified with conservative causes and provide a more hospitable platform for Republican Party ideas and personalities than the other three major U.S. networks or the congressionally supported Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
However, unlike Moon, Murdoch is at least as careful not to offend Israel or to carry stories unfavorable to the Jewish state as are the other networks. Therefore, after printing the lengthy May 5 report by journalists J. Michael Waller and Paul Rodriguez on its Web site, it is not clear how zealously Insight or Fox News, or any other major media organizations, plan to follow up.
Washington, DC’s other major daily newspaper, The Washington Post, has carried only a May 6Associated Press report quoting “two senior federal law enforcement officials…who requested anonymity” as saying “the FBI had identified no one to arrest during its investigation.”
Because of the Israeli involvement, “no government official would speak for the record.”
The AP also quoted “Capitol Hill Republican sources” as saying the allegation centered on a telecommunications contractor. AP reported also that spokesman Mark Regev of the Israeli Embassy in Washington called the allegation “outrageous,” saying, “Israel does not spy on the United States.” This is an astonishing claim given the number of Israeli spies who have fled Washington over the years in connection with the Pollard and other cases.
According to the Insight report, the investigation was launched after a local telephone company manager in the U.S. raised suspicions in late 1996 or early 1997 about an employee of Amdocs, an Israeli companythat sells billing software for telephone companies. The Israeli employee worked as a subcontractor on a program for telephone billing for the CIA, and is married to an Israeli woman employed in a diplomatic position in the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
The Insight reporters said it is not clear whether the husband as well as his wife is a Mossad employee, but noted that husband-and-wife assignments abroad by Mossad are common. The American telephone company manager’s suspicions came to the attention of the CIA, the reporters said, which turned the matter over to the FBI. It was an FBI search of the husband’s workplace that discovered in his possession what Waller and Rodriguez called “a list of the FBI’s most sensitive telephone numbers, including the Bureau’s ‘black’ lines that FBI counterintelligence used to keep track of the suspected Israeli spy operation.” In the words of the Insight investigators, “the hunted were tracking the hunters.”
Wrote Waller and Rodriguez: “More than two dozen U.S. intelligence, counterintelligence, law-enforcement and other officials have told Insight that the FBI believes Israel has intercepted telephone and modem communications on some of the most sensitive lines of the U.S. government on an ongoing basis. The worst penetrations are believed to be in the State Department. But others say the supposedly secure telephone systems in the White House, Defense Department and Justice Department may have been compromised as well. The problem for FBI agents in the famed Division 5, however, isn’t just what they have uncovered, which is substantial, but what they don’t know yet.”
Installation Assistance
According to Fox News, the Israeli Amdocs software company, which now has a base in Chesterfield, Missouri, “helped Bell Atlantic install new telephone lines in the White House in 1997.” Although Fox News noted that “for the past 18 months the FBI has been investigating Bell Atlantic and Amdocs,” Amdocs spokesman Dan Ginsburg said the company has not been notified of any FBI investigation and only heard of the probe from news reporters on May 4.
Bell Atlantic officials declined comment, but Fox News reported that “in 1997 the White House had a new, state-of-the-art phone system installed by Bell Atlantic.” Fox News said investigators told President Clinton “that a senior-level employee of Amdocs had a separate T1 data phone line installed from his base outside of St. Louis that was connected directly to Israel.”
Reported Fox: “Investigators are looking into whether the owner of the T1 line had a ‘real time’ capacity to intercept phone calls from both the White House and other government offices around Washington, and sustained the line for some time, sources said. Sources familiar with the investigation say FBI agents on the case sought an arrest warrant for the St. Louis employee but Justice Department officials quashed it.”
Similarly, Waller and Rodriguez noted that because of the Israeli involvement, “no government official would speak for the record.” They quoted “a senior U.S. official familiar with the super-secret counterintelligence operation” as saying “we’re not even sure we know the extent of it,” and another “senior government official who would go no further than to admit awareness of the FBI probe” as saying, “It is a politically sensitive matter. I can’t comment on it beyond telling you that anything involving Israel on this particular matter is off-limits. It’s that hot.”
The Insight reporters noted FBI dismay at learning that discovery of the FBI phone list “called into question the entire operation. We had been compromised. But for how long?”
Insight also quoted a former U.S. intelligence officer as explaining: “When it has anything to do with Israel, it’s something you just never want to poke your nose into. But this one had too much potential to ignore because it involved a potential system-wide penetration.”
Explained David Major, a retired FBI supervisory special agent and a former White House director of counterintelligence, to the Insight reporters: “The Israelis conduct intelligence as if they are at war…There are a lot less handcuffs on intelligence for a nation that sees itself at war. But that doesn’t excuse it from our perspective.”
Fox reported that “the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Shelby (R-AL), was briefed along with Sen. Richard Bryan (D-NV), a ranking Democrat on the committee,” and that “several other lawmakers on key committees with jurisdiction over these matters have never been briefed.”
A week after the first revelations, most Americans probably still had not heard of either the penetration of White House and possibly other sensitive telephones, or of the FBI investigation. But Israeli journalists had reported it. However, instead of describing how the perpetrators were detected, Israeli media speculated that the news was “leaked” by the Clinton administration and that the purpose was to send a message to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak after his revelation that he intended to ignore President Bill Clinton’s disapproval and continue with the planned sale of at least one Israeli-configured AWACs-type airborne-warning system to China.
The Tel Aviv daily Ha’aretz noted that first the Pentagon had complained that an Israeli ballistic missile test had endangered an American naval craft in the Mediterranean, and then “another such leak came from the White House and Defense Department, raising suspicions of wiretapping against Israel. The administration is using every possible opportunity to convey its message to Jerusalem’s policymakers.”
Whether the Clinton administration orchestrated the leak, as Israel journalists claim, or, as it appears to this writer, is frantically seeking to cover up in a presidential election year a grave security breach that the Republicans could use for their political benefit—all readers will be reminded of the telephone tapping story that emerged from Monica Lewinsky’s testimony to U.S. government investigators. She told them that President Clinton had warned her that he believed “a foreign embassy” was tapping their steamy telephone conversations.
The speed with which the contents of those calls were leaked to Israel-friendly U.S. journalists when Clinton and then-Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu clashed over a Middle East land-for-peace agreement not only gave credence to Clinton’s voiced suspicions at the time, but also made clear which foreign embassy was doing the listening. What the newest revelations add is exactly how the Israelis did it, and may still be doing it.
Readers may find the complete text of the article from Insight Magazine on its Web site: . The full text of the Fox report may be found on .
Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Both Bush and Cheney should be tried and convicted of their war crimes. Same goes for ALL the people in the congress and senate who have voted to fund the invasion and occupation.
======================
www.impeachbush.org
www.bushcommission.org
www.impeachcheney.org/crimes.php
www.kucinich.house.gov/SpotlightIssues/documents.htm
mmmmmaybe ….at least on a close level. I cant find it on line right now but I do remember that I found it once. A link to the schematics of todays phones. There is a second line in all phones that is mandatory in manufacture that allows a phone company or government have access to your calls in a real time manner. Basically its a back door. All the phone and data transfer capabilities that we have today are brought to us via Israeli technology, as well. They, is a big word, often confused, and I’ll refrain. Israeli owned companies riddle the US infrastructure and we would not have this neat communication without them. These companies carry all the patents, and are not US based financially. They have most of the worlds communications in there hands. The French, I think, have made some huge stink about this and done something to amend it or at least tried, but, I didn’t hear the resolve. So yes, dcbeltway, really that is to what I refer, you are correct.
Without Israel growing to encase the whole middle east, Jesus won’t be born again and the rapture can’t happen. That would be a huge slam for the Christian Fun-dementia-alists! How can you prove that your religion is right if your prophecies don’t come true?
“All good people are asleep and dreaming…”
MaxheMust
So…YOUR vote IS counted? How did you get so lucky?
“The revolution will not be televised”
dcbeltway–
Even Alan Greenspan acknowledges that the Iraq war is about oil. No doubt it is about other things as well, such as enriching Halliburton, private contractors, and the whole military-industrial complex.
Even the historical US support of Israel is probably best understood as related to a wish to preserve a US presence in the Middle East, in the form of a “client state” of a sort–and the desire for that presence as being primarily about oil.
Nations go to war when they think they can get something by it. There is a famous quote to that effect (I’m thinking it was John Jay who said that, but maybe I’m mistaken). I think you could make a good case that, historically, such wars very often cost more than they come to.
Wars are about stealing other people’s resources. Period.
Hi Jan,
Here ya are; you can start with this reference and google on from there. You’ll notice that this was done prior to the further escalation of the Iraqi Holocaust upon Bush’s invasion and occupation. http://iccnow.org/documents/07.26.02ASPAthruCongress.pdf
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bush+icc+hague+&btnG=Google+Search
You guys discussing Israeli / US secret activities and associations may also like to follow this link:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2170188,00.html
It’s headed: “Was Israeli raid a dry run for attack on Iran?” ~ and discusses last week’s Israeli air force incursion into Syrian territory.
The utterly corrupt leaders of Israel and the USA are doing their very best to keep this latest secret escapade under *VERY* tight wraps, but we might hope that someone, somewhere will leak a bit more so we can find out just what the insane devils are up to this time…
MetalDog - Google AIPAC - really - Google AIPAC
UN-common-dreams - the US media is aware of the dry run… You will not see this inside the US anywhere - which is why your link is from the Guardian UK.
Bush might be the first U.S. President to be assassinated after he gets out of office. When people realize how much damage that he has done years after he is gone, no amount of SS in Crawford can save him.
Alan Greenspan is Jewish and probably doesn’t want people to start looking to Israel as the main reason for the Iraq war or the Iran war. I also suggest you look into the Rothschild family and the Federal Reserve. By the way Israel’s founders thanked Mr. Rothschild as he is commemorated on their coins. It was Mr. Rothschild who got Lord Balfour to write the so called Balfour Declaration.
Its not about our oil or keeping it from anyone else its about Israel’s security and Israel’s Haifa to Mosul pipeline.
Suits me… anyone taking donations for the prosecution fund?