The announcement last week by the United
States of the largest military aid
package in its history – to Israel – was
a win for both sides.
Israeli prime
minister Benjamin Netanyahu could boast
that his lobbying had boosted aid from
$3.1 billion a year to $3.8bn – a 22 per
cent increase – for a decade starting in
2019.
Mr Netanyahu has presented this as a
rebuff to those who accuse him of
jeopardising Israeli security interests
with his government’s repeated affronts
to the White House.
In the past weeks alone, defence
minister Avigdor Lieberman has compared
last year’s nuclear deal between
Washington and Iran with the 1938 Munich
pact, which bolstered Hitler; and Mr
Netanyahu has implied that US opposition
to settlement expansion is the same as
support for the “ethnic cleansing” of
Jews.
American president Barack Obama,
meanwhile, hopes to stifle his own
critics who insinuate that he is
anti-Israel. The deal should serve as a
fillip too for Hillary Clinton, the
Democratic party’s candidate to succeed
Mr Obama in November’s election.
In reality, however, the Obama
administration has quietly punished Mr
Netanyahu for his misbehaviour. Israeli
expectations of a $4.5bn-a-year deal
were whittled down after Mr Netanyahu
stalled negotiations last year as he
sought to recruit Congress to his battle
against the Iran deal.
In fact, Israel already receives
roughly $3.8bn – if Congress’s
assistance on developing missile defence
programmes is factored in. Notably,
Israel has been forced to promise not to
approach Congress for extra funds.
The deal takes into account neither
inflation nor the dollar’s depreciation
against the shekel.
A bigger blow still is the White
House’s demand to phase out a special
exemption that allowed Israel to spend
nearly 40 per cent of aid locally on
weapon and fuel purchases. Israel will
soon have to buy all its armaments from
the US, ending what amounted to a
subsidy to its own arms industry.
Nonetheless, Washington’s renewed
military largesse – in the face of
almost continual insults – inevitably
fuels claims that the Israeli tail is
wagging the US dog. Even The New York
Times has described the aid package as
“too big”.
Since the 1973 war, Israel has
received at least $100bn in military
aid, with more assistance hidden from
view. Back in the 1970s, Washington paid
half of Israel’s military budget. Today
it still foots a fifth of the bill,
despite Israel’s economic success.
But the US expects a return on its
massive investment. As the late Israeli
politician-general Ariel Sharon once
observed, Israel has been a US
“aircraft carrier” in the Middle East,
acting as the regional bully and
carrying out operations that benefit
Washington.
Almost no one blames the US for
Israeli attacks that wiped out Iraq’s
and Syria’s nuclear programmes. A
nuclear-armed Iraq or Syria would have
deterred later US-backed moves at regime
overthrow, as well as countering the
strategic advantage Israel derives from
its own nuclear arsenal.
In addition, Israel’s US-sponsored
military prowess is a triple boon to the
US weapons industry, the country’s most
powerful lobby. Public funds are
siphoned off to let Israel buy goodies
from American arms makers. That, in
turn, serves as a shop window for other
customers and spurs an endless and
lucrative game of catch-up in the rest
of the Middle East.
The first F-35 fighter jets to arrive
in Israel in December – their various
components produced in 46 US states –
will increase the clamour for the
cutting-edge warplane.
Israel is also a “front-line
laboratory”, as former Israeli army
negotiator Eival Gilady admitted at the
weekend, that develops and field-tests
new technology Washington can later use
itself.
The US is planning to buy back the
missile interception system Iron Dome –
which neutralises battlefield threats of
retaliation – it largely paid for.
Israel works closely too with the US in
developing cyberwarfare, such as the
Stuxnet worm that damaged Iran’s
civilian nuclear programme.
But the clearest message from
Israel’s new aid package is one
delivered to the Palestinians:
Washington sees no pressing strategic
interest in ending the occupation. It
stood up to Mr Netanyahu over the Iran
deal but will not risk a damaging clash
over Palestinian statehood.
Some believe that Mr Obama signed the
aid package to win the credibility
necessary to overcome his domestic
Israel lobby and pull a rabbit from the
hat: an initiative, unveiled shortly
before he leaves office, that corners Mr
Netanyahu into making peace.
Hopes have been raised by an expected
meeting at the United Nations in New
York on Wednesday. But their first talks
in 10 months are planned only to
demonstrate unity to confound critics of
the aid deal.
If Mr Obama really wanted to pressure
Mr Netanyahu, he would have used the aid
agreement as leverage. Now Mr Netanyahu
need not fear US financial retaliation,
even as he intensifies effective
annexation of the West Bank.
Mr Netanyahu has drawn the right
lesson from the aid deal – he can act
against the Palestinians with continuing
US impunity.
- See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-09-19/palestinians-lose-in-us-military-aid-deal-with-israel/#sthash.fL4Eq28N.dpuf
Syria - The U.S. Propaganda Shams Now Openly
Fail
By Moon Of Alabama
September 30, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Moon
Of Alabama"
-
The
Obama administration, and especially the CIA
and the State Department, seem to be in
trouble. They shout everything they can
against Russia and allege that the cleansing
of east-Aleppo of al-Qaeda terrorist is
genocidal. Meanwhile no mention is ever made
of the famine of the Houthis in Yemen which
the U.S. and Saudi bombing and their
blockade directly causes.
But
more and more major news accounts support
the Russian allegation that the "moderate
rebels" the U.S. is coddling in Syria are
actually in cahoots with al-Qaeda if not
al-Qaeda itself.
Reuters
reports (though only at the end of a
longer story):
In
Aleppo, rebels in the Free Syrian Army
are sharing operational planning with
Jaish al-Fatah, an alliance of Islamist
groups that includes the former Syrian
wing of al Qaeda.
Meanwhile, in nearby Hama province, FSA
groups armed with U.S.-made anti-tank
missiles are taking part in a major
offensive with the al Qaeda-inspired
Jund al-Aqsa group.
The Wall Street Journal is
more direct and headlining:
Syria Rebels Draw Closer to
al Qaeda-Linked Group
Some of Syria’s largest rebel factions
are doubling down on their
alliance with an al
Qaeda-linked group, despite a U.S.
warning to split from the extremists or
risk being targeted in airstrikes.
...
Some rebel groups already aligned with
Syria Conquest Front responded by
renewing their alliance. But others,
such as Nour al-Din al-Zinki, a former
Central Intelligence Agency-backed group
and one of the largest factions in
Aleppo, pledged allegiance for the first
time to the front in recent days.
Indeed al.Qaeda announced
publicly that the CIA's Nour el-Din
Zinki and Suqour al-Sham joined its Jihad
As
little back as August the State Department
defended Zinki after some of its member
abducted a Palestinian boy from a hospital
near Aleppo and beheaded him in front of a
video camera:
[I]n State Department briefings, [..]
spokesman Mark Toner downplayed the
incidents, or the possibility that the
US would stop arming Nour al-Din
al-Zinki just because they beheaded a
child..
...
Toner insisted [..] “one
incident here and there would not
necessarily make you a terrorist group.”
The
new news reports follow after an interview
by the German former politician and
journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer with an
al-Qaeda commander published in English on
this site. The commander said that Nusra
(aka al-Qaeda) were directly supplied, via a
subgroup, with U.S. TOW missiles. He added
about such groups:
They are all with us. We
are all the al-Nusra Front.
A groups is created and calls itself
"Islamic Army", or "Fateh al-Sham". Each
group has its own name but their believe
is homogeneous. The general name is
al-Nusra Front. One person has, for
example, 2,000 fighters. Then he creates
from these a new group and calls it
"Ahrar al-Sham". Brothers, who's
believe, thoughts and aims are identical
to those of al-Nusra Front.
Another interview recently published by the
former military Jack Murphy was with a Green
Beret soldier who served in Turkey and
Syria. The Green Berets are special forces
of the U.S. army. They are specialists in
training and fighting with indigenous
guerrilla groups against governments the
U.S. dislikes. The soldier interviewed was
ordered to train "moderate Syrian rebels" in
Turkey. Parts of
the interview (paywalled) are
quoted here:
"No one on the ground believes in this
mission or this effort”, a former Green
Beret writes of America’s covert and
clandestine programs to train and arm
Syrian insurgents, “they know we are
just training the next generation of
jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by
saying, ‘Fuck it, who cares?’”. “I don’t
want to be responsible for Nusra guys
saying they were trained by Americans,”
the Green Beret added.
...
Murphy states bluntly: “distinguishing
between the FSA and al-Nusra is
impossible, because they are virtually
the same organization. As early
as 2013, FSA commanders were defecting
with their entire units to join
al-Nusra. There, they still retain the
FSA monicker, but it is merely for show,
to give the appearance of secularism so
they can maintain access to weaponry
provided by the CIA and Saudi
intelligence services. The reality is
that the FSA is little more than a cover
for the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra.
...
It
is one thing when Russia says somesthing,
but another when Reuters, WSJ, and
independent German and U.S. subject experts
report this as facts. The first can be
shunned as "Putin lies" but the others are
extremely hard to refute.
The
Russians are right. The U.S. did not
separate the "moderate rebels" from al
Qaeda, as it had agreed to in the ceasefire
agreement, because the "moderates"
and al-Qaeda are the same. The "moderates"
are al-Qaeda. This was not unknown.
The 2012 Defense Intelligence Analysis
said as much. The CIA of course knew
this all along. But the Saudi tool heading
the CIA, John Brennan, can not admit such as
his masters in the Gulf are also the ones
who finance al-Qaeda.
They buy the weapons Brennan's people hadn
over to al-Qaeda. The "end-user" according
to
this certificate for a weapon buy in
Ukraine is Saudi Arabia. But who will
believe that the Saudi dictators need for
example 100 obsolete T-55 tanks? The weapons
on the certificate, for an estimated
$300-$500 million, are obviously for
al-Qaeda in Yemen and in Syria. (Did Joe
Biden or his son, both heavily engaged in
Ukraine, get a provision from the deal?)
As
the facts accumulate how long can the New
York Times and Washington Post keep up with
their propaganda claims. One has to admit,
they really try their best. Unfortunately
for them, their best is only mediocre. The
NYT today found out that
Vladimir Putin Relishes His Role as
Disrupter. How does the NYT know what
Putin "relishes"? The reporter did not ask
Putin himself. But he did ask some
knowledgeable experts with insight into
Putin's inner mind and those assured the
author that this is indeed the case. They
know
exactly how Putin feels. They are
Richard Haass, the president of the Council
on Foreign Relations, James R. Clapper Jr.,
the director of national intelligence, James
B. Comey, the F.B.I. director and Robert
Kagan, leading voice of of the neocons and
Clinton promoter. Some "experts".
Add
that to dozens of stories on how "Russia
indiscriminately bombs
civilians/hospitals/bakeries in east-Aleppo"
but never hits any "rebels" because none
occur in these stories at all. A
recent NYT piece of that kind had 14
"voices" in it. Eight belonged to various
propagandists associated with the "White
Helmets", four were "western" diplomats, one
Syrian government official and a Russian
spokesperson were quoted at the end. No
Russian military and no one from
west-Aleppo, where by far most people in the
city live under government protection and
daily rocket hail by the "rebels", were even
asked.
But
all those tales we hear about the devilish
Russians MUST be true! Even the 7 years old
Bana Alabeb
now
tweets from east-Aleppo about her tragic
fate under indiscriminate Russian assaults.
This in perfect English and with an
excellent WiFi and Internet connection as
her many "White Helmets" photo attachments
and her videos attest. But the whole city is
devastated and in ruins she says, with
phosphor bombs going off right in front of
her house.
But
Bana is a very
responsible little lady:
Bana Alabed @AlabedBana
Dear world, it's better to start 3rd
world war instead of letting Russia &
assad commit #HolocaustAleppo
1:53 PM - 29 Sep 2016
Here "mother" phoned up the Daily Mail
for an "exclusive" and
assures us that this is all true. The
Telegraph
has her in a slideshow with sad music
and the Guardian
promotes her too. Another
Gay Girl in Damascus media fail. In 2011
the Guardian also
was part of that scam. If that 7-year
old girl is in east-Aleppo and not in
Denmark or the UK, I must be on Mars. No
sane reader will take such a stunt serious.
What Public Relation company came up with
this sorry flimflam?
Like the "moderate rebels" fantasy, such
tales and the nonsense the "White Helmet"
propaganda outlet distributes, are starting
to fail. The UAE's National, a well
established international newspaper,
recently
dug a bit around the White Helmet's
creator, a "former" British military agent
working for Gulf defense interests. That
does not sound charitable. This is
noticeable report, even as it still lacks
any details, as it is the first in a major
paper that shows some auspiciousness against
that outlet.
The
Obama administration's lies about the
"moderate rebels" are now openly discussed
in major media. The propaganda of
#HolocaustAleppo (isn't abusing the
holocaust meme anti-semitic?) is turning
into a laughing stock.
Russia is upping its stake in Syria.
Additional Russian SU-24, SU-25 and SU-34
jets are arriving. Nearly 6,000 Russian
soldiers are on the ground. The CIA's
al-Qaeda "rebels" are losing in east-Aleppo
and are in stalemate and under pressure
elsewhere. They will be bombed to
smithereens. A few new BM-21 multiple
missile launchers and heavier anti-air
artillery was delivered to them. But those
are just band-aids on lethally bleeding
wounds. Even MANPADs will not change the
situation one bit.
The
U.S., the Saudis and especially Brennan's
CIA have lost that fight. Will Obama and
Kerry admit it? Or will they throw another
Hail Mary and do something crazy?
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