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
Colombia: The Peace Farce, If There Ever Was
One
By
Peter Koenig
October 10, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- Just as this article was ready to go to
print, the Norwegian Nobel Committee
announced the awarding of the Nobel Peace
Prize to Juan Manuel Santos, President of
Colombia. This is what the Official website
of the Nobel Prize reports:
“The
Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to
award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 to
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for
his resolute efforts to bring the country’s
more than 50-year-long civil war to an end,
a war that has cost the lives of at least
220 000 Colombians and displaced close to
six million people.”
The
announcement was made on Friday 7 October,
11:00 a.m., well after the rejection of the
gratuitous plebiscite by less than 0.5% of
less than 40% of eligible voters, and after
President Santos had already decided and
declared to extend the ceasefire to 31
October 2016 until which date a renegotiated
arrangement had to be found with the FARC
‘rebels’ – a virtually impossible task. –
This is so reminiscent of
another Peace prize award, namely the one to
President Obama in 2009, in the hope that he
would bring Peace to the world. At that
time the US of A was involved in two wars,
Afghanistan and Iraq. Now,
almost 8 years later Obama
boasts of being involved in seven wars
around the globe. Bravo! For the Nobel
Committee.
Does
this award mean that indeed Mr. Santos may
disregard the highly questionable referendum
result in the name of Peace, as was
suggested by the Nobel Committee, or will he
go back to war on a new page and under new
premises, =i.e. with a largely disarmed FARC
in the name of continuous fear, conflict and
killing in his country?
We
will soon see where his alliances are, with
the People of Colombia – or with his North
American Masters of Chaos and Destruction.
Colombia apparently voted against Peace with
a margin of less than 0.5%, to be exact
0.43%, with a voter participation of only
40%. Can you imagine! This looks, first,
like a boycott, as many people didn’t
believe in the process and didn’t believe
that the results would be adhered to; and,
second, it smells of fraud. For example,
with most of the ballots counted, the Choco
region which suffered heavily from the war,
voted with 80% yes. An overwhelming ‘yes’
also came from the Caribbean areas.
Who
was counting? All pre-plebiscite opinion
polls indicated an overwhelming ‘yes’ for
Peace.
Exit polls indicated a comfortable win for
Peace.
Why
is nobody asking for a recount? Or maybe
they do, but we don’t hear about it.
Why
could that be? – Maybe because Peace
was never on the Colombian cum US
Governments agenda. It was just a
manipulation of the public mind; planting an
illusion, as any hope for Peace these days,
any Peace, anywhere in the world, is an
illusion. But an illusion deviates people’s
attention from reality. That was certainly
achieved.
The 4-year Peace process,
initiated by President Santos (image left)
started on 19 November 2012 and ended on 24
August, 2016. It was facilitated and
formally sponsored by Norway and Cuba.
Talks were
held in Havana and co-sponsored by Venezuela
and Chile. The deal was signed in Havana
with big fanfare on 26 September 2016.
For
many, Santos’ initiative to have the Peace
Treaty ratified by a referendum, came as a
surprise. In any case, the outcome of the
plebiscite is not legally binding. Under the
circumstances and with such a small margin,
even if it was not manipulated, any healthy
and peace loving government would dismiss
the narrow outcome and adhere to and promote
the implementation of the Peace Agreement.
During
52 years the 7,000 to 10,000 strong leftist
FARC militia fought in defense of the rural
poor against an elite of the rich, mostly
urban dweller and latifundios, against
government forces with support of the US
military stationed in Colombia. The official
death toll of 200,000 to 300,000 may in
reality be at least double that number, not
mentioning the millions of uprooted people
who had to flee and lost their homes and
land. Reaching a Peace deal would be a
welcome and well-deserved achievement.
Indeed, the signature event was celebrated
throughout Latin America and the world
(FARC-EP stands for Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del
Pueblo / Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia – The People’s Army).
Instead of following the overwhelming
people’s desire for Peace – I repeat, after
52 years! of bloody war – President Santos
announced last Tuesday to extend the
ceasefire until 31 October 2016, saying he
hoped that renegotiations with FARC would
lead to ‘arrangements’ to find a solution to
this conflict. Wasn’t the solution already
found when the Peace Agreement was signed on
26 September?
Immediately after the
plebiscite’s ‘rejection’ light (very light),
Santos met with his predecessor, Alvaro
Uribe, who
campaigned against the Agreement. That in
itself is strange.
Two
Presidents from the same party, friends, and
on the payroll of the same masters, the CIA,
were leading two different campaigns. While
Juan Manuel Santos, the current President,
was waving the Peace flag, Uribe drove a
fear-mongering campaign especially focusing
on the general amnesty concession that FARC
got out of the deal.
Before
Uribe became President in 2002, he formed
the ‘Colombia First’ movement. His growing
so-called independent party grew even
stronger with political elitists and
plutocrats to bring him to a second term in
2006. This new coalition of right-wing
parties, called the ‘Urbistas’, eventually
was the platform on which Juan Manuel Santos
was elected in 2010. The current government
has amassed a right-wing alliance of
conservatives and liberals that at one point
controlled 94% of Congress. In the meantime,
Alvaro Uribe formed another right-wing
Centro-Democratic party. Under two different
flags but the same ideology – and less
obvious – they control now Congress as a
political “Cartel”, as Harvard academic
James Robinson, puts it, to prevent any
other political force to rise and challenge
the exclusive power of the Right – which,
needless to say, works in close
collaboration with Washington’s interests.
It is
therefore all the stranger that the two
presidential buddies work for different
outcomes of the plebiscite. It looks more
like a maneuver to deviate and confuse
public opinion. Can you imagine, that the US
of A, with seven military bases – and more
to come – will want Peace?
Colombia is THE strategic corner of Latin
America, hub of multibillion dollar drug
trade, adjacent to two non-compliant nation
states Venezuela and Ecuador, from where
they plan to reconquer the sub-continent,
their ‘Backyard’, as Obama put it so
undiplomatically insulting, yet adroitly, as
it reflects the mindset of Washington and
its citizenry.
In the
fall of 2009, US and Colombian officials
signed an agreement, granting the US armed
forces access to seven Colombian military
bases for ten years. These are two quotes
from a US Air Force document about the
bases:
“Opportunity for Full Spectrum
Operations throughout South America,
against threats not only from drug
trade, but also from ‘anti-US
governments’ in the region.”
“The agreement operates from the same
(failed) mindset that has given rise to
the School of the Americas (SOA /
WHINSEC). The purpose of the bases is to
ensure US control of the region through
military means.”
Why
would they want Peace now, when chaos and
war helps to divide and conquer? But then
why carry the Peace process all the way to
signature, just to be undone by a phony
referendum? – It’s part of propaganda,
brainwashing and numbing peoples’ minds. The
four years of ‘negotiations’ which made the
world believe that Peace was a seriously
option, offered the government also a state
of semi-ceasefire, a time during which they
could regroup, strategize and especially
disarm the FARC rebels, defenders of the
poor rural workers and of democracy. The
FARC in good fate participated in this
gambit. The masters of deception once more
succeeded with the help of Washington, the
Pentagon and the CIA.
What
is amazing though, is that Latin America,
the world, including the four sponsors and
co-sponsors, are rather silent about the
outcome of the referendum that came out of
the blue. It must be the sense of
‘democracy’ that lays behind the referendum.
It deserves support, no matter how narrow
the margin and how obvious the manipulation
of results. How naïve! – The referendum was
not needed, since during the four years of
‘negotiations’ the crucial points of
discussion and eventually of agreement, were
vetted sufficiently with Congress to not
pose a problem for ratification; and this
especially since the result of the
plebiscite has by Colombia’s Constitution no
legal binding. The FARC now largely
disarmed, will give the government a clear
advantage, hoping to eradicate a weakened
movement of rebellion for justice.
Remember, this is a lesson practiced many
times by the empire (and passed on to its
vassals), not last in Iraq, when first the
country was weakened with the so called Gulf
War, 1990-1991, and the ensuing ten years of
murderous sanctions imposed by the US and
its ‘coalition of the willing’ (and
spineless), including the most horrendous
bombing campaigns under Clinton – of which
the mainstream media reported next to
nothing – disabling much of the Iraqi armed
forces. Hence, the 2003 totally illegal
Bush-Blair Shock and Awe campaign could
inflict maximum damage and chaos on one of
the most progressive Middle Eastern
countries. The NO PEACE dictum in Colombia
follows a similar pattern.
Peter Koenig is
an economist, and water resources and
environmental specialist. He has worked for
over 30 years with the World Bank, the World
Health Organization, and the Swiss
Development Cooperation, in Africa, Middle
East, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, East
and South East Asia and Latin America. Peter
is also a geopolitical analyst for Global
Research, Information Clearing House, RT,
PressTV, Sputnik, TeleSUR and The 4th Media,
China. He is the author of Implosion
– An Economic Thriller about War,
Environmental Destruction and Corporate
Greed – fiction based on 30 years of
World Bank experience around the globe. He
is a co-author of The
World Order and Revolution! – Essays from
the Resistance.
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