Category Archives: Israel

Ordinary Iranians Deserve Relief

Isreali Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a patriot. About that there can be no doubt. Unlike American pols, whose policies vis-a-vis the American people border on treason, Netanyahu generally acts in the interests of his countrymen. As the patriot he is, one expects Netanyahu to disapprove of the deal Western powers are hammering out with Iran.

“I told them that according to the information reaching Israel, the deal that appears to be in the offing is bad and dangerous,” said Netanyahu. “Not just for us but also for them. I suggested that they wait and give it serious consideration, and it’s good that that is indeed what was decided. We will do everything we can to convince the leaders not to reach a bad agreement.”

The truth, of course, is that the “deal” is not dangerous to the U.S.

Israel’s concerns notwithstanding, pursuing negotiations that ease sanctions on Iran are good for the U.S. and indubitably fair to the Iranian people. Detailed in “The Warmongers: Not Looking Out For Us” are the costs to Americans—as opposed to their overseers in Washington—of sanctions:

Not to be overlooked are the costs to Americans of sanction enforcement, avers Harmer. In addition to the opportunity costs—the missed business aforementioned—there are “direct costs.” The Office of Foreign Asset Control in the U.S. Treasury Department squanders around $1 billion a year in developing lists of “financial institutions that are subject to sanctions,” and then infringing on the rights of individuals and companies to freely exchange privately owned property.

“Indirect costs” are incurred in the course of cultivating a massive U.S. intelligent infrastructure—a veritable alphabet soup of agencies—upon which the Treasury draws in enforcing a regimen of sanctions.

So, too, are the “deterrent costs” borne by the American taxpayer who pays for patrolling the Persian Gulf, the Northern Arabian Sea and the Strait of Hormuz. …

The toll on ordinary Iranians is orders of magnitude greater. Especially pressing: “the disbursement to Iran in installments of up to about $50 billion of Iranian funds blocked in foreign accounts for years.”

Ultimately, trade, not democracy, is the best antidote to war with Iran. The more economically intertwined countries become, the less likely they are to go to war. More than boycotts, barter with Iran is bound to promote good will and reduce belligerence on both sides. As a general rule, state-enforced boycotts harm honest, hard-working Americans who use the economic means to earn their keep. They benefit servants of Uncle Sam—the political class and its media and think-tank hangers-on. For they deploy the political means to advance their ends and grow their sphere of influence. As libertarian economist Murray Rothbard once observed, these “are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth”—the economic means is honest and productive, the political means is dishonest and predatory.

‘Assad’s Pro-Zionist Grandfather and the Betrayal of the Alawites’

History, Islam, Israel, John McCain, Lebanon, Middle East, The West

Writing at Chronicles magazine, Eugene Girin offers a slice of Syrian history you won’t get from that moron McCain and his media acolytes:

“From 1920 to 1936, Syria’s Alawites enjoyed their own separate autonomous state in French-ruled Syria. First, it was known explicitly as the Alawite State and from 1930 to 1936, as Latakia Governorate. In response to pressure from the Sunni majority, France dissolved the Alawites’ state and forcibly incorporated it into the Sunni-dominated areas.”

“Needless to say, the Alawites (as well as the Christians and Druze) were appalled by France’s surrender to the Muslims and pleaded with the mandate authorities to protect them. In an eerie echo of today’s situation in Syria, 450,000 Alawites, Druze, and Christians signed a letter to the French authorities, part of which stated”:

“The ‘Alawis believe that they are humans, not beasts ready for slaughter. No power in the world can force them to accept the yoke of their traditional and hereditary enemies to be slaves forever….”

“Israel’s liberal Haaretz newspaper recently quoted part of another letter, sent by Alawite leaders to French Prime Minister Leon Blum in 1936. The French surrender to Arab Muslim demands was influenced by the bloody uprising of Muslims in British-ruled Palestine, led by the future ally of Hitler Haj Amin Al-Husseini. The Alawites alluded to the bloody revolt in their plea to the Jewish Blum”:

The condition of the Jews in Palestine is the strongest and most explicit evidence of the militancy of the Islamic issue vis-à-vis those who do not belong to Islam. These good Jews contributed to the Arabs with civilization and peace, scattered gold, and established prosperity in Palestine without harming anyone or taking anything by force, yet the Muslims declare holy war against them and never hesitated in slaughtering their women and children, despite the presence of England in Palestine and France in Syria.
Therefore we ask you to consider the dreadful and terrible fate that awaits the Alawites if they are forced to be annexed to Syria, when it will be free from the oversight of the Mandate, and it will be in their power to implement the laws that stem from its religion.”

One of the six signatories of that letter was Sulayman Assad, the father of Hafez and the grandfather of Bashar. …”

Read “Assad’s Pro-Zionist Grandfather and the Betrayal of the Alawites.”

Arab Neoconservatives For The Missionary Position In Middle-East

Anti-Semitism, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Neoconservatism

There are plenty Arab neoconservatives who want to see the US adopt the missionary position vis-a-vis the countries in the Middle East, on top, of course. Some of these neoconservatives were once close to Bush, but have reinvented themselves as perfectly legitimate (because not Jewish) agitators for US intervention in that part of the world.

Today the affable Zhudi Jassar, a Syrian Arab, was on “Money With Mellisa Francis” (a smart lady who, nevertheless, posts nothing but silly banter on Facebook) to shout down all opposition to striking Syria. Zhudi, understandably, wants to improve the lot of people he cares about back home (home, being Syria).

Fouad Ajami, another Arab neocon, once even called for a Marshal Plan for the Arab countries. Now he contends himself with advocating (eloquently) that the US lead from above, behind, on top; who knows?

The local chalabies, if you will.

Ahmed Chalabi agitated on American TV for American intervention in Iraq. In the ramp-up to war, Chalabi fed Judith Miller,the New York Times’ birdbrain now perching at FoxNews, with the pro-invasion “intelligence” she presented to the public.

When American Jews advocate for Israel by erroneously and cunningly conflating American and Israeli interests—the usual suspects are ready with derogatory comments implicating the Zionist lobby, treason, disloyalty, etc.

The same libertarians, so obsessed with the Jewish lobby, don’t seem as eager to convict influential Arab neoconservatives of similar “sinister” motives when these Arabs urge intervention in the Middle East.

Michael Scheuer: Let The Russians Or Chinese Deal With Middle-East

Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, libertarianism, Middle East, Terrorism

“A pox on all of them,” says former head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden tracking unit, Michael Scheuer. “…What could be better than to let the Russians or the Chinese deal with the Middle-East mess?” We’ve borne the burden for long enough. “In the past we bet on tyranny. That’s gone. As is our influence.”

AND, “We have managed to turn a democratic election in Egypt into a disaster for the US. We’ve helped put the military back in power and aggravated an enemy that could be very powerful, as have we opened the way to civil war in Egypt. Time to cut aid to the whole lot, Israel too.”

Or, as this writer put it, “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn.”

Especially accurate is what Scheuer had to say about John McCain and Lindsay Graham, the neoconservative senators whose positions are in opposition to the interests of the American people (whether the latter know it or not): “The two might as well be sitting in the Israeli Knesset.”