RICHARD W. SYMONDS (RWS) - INDEPENDENT ANALYST

An interesting collection including some very familiar names.

While there is a good deal in the HJS statement of principles I wouldn't disagree with, the implications of 'forcing people to be free' through military intervention are frightening, and I wonder whether some of the UK signatories have thought through all the implications?

If you read this in conjunction with the post 'Why is the US anti-war movement so feeble?' on anticant's arena, the identity of the tail wagging this particular dog becomes much clearer!
 

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US Middle East Wars: Social Opposition and Political Impotence
Everywhere I visit from Copenhagen to Istanbul, Patagonia to Mexico City, journalists and academics, trade unionists and businesspeople, as well as ordinary citizens, inevitably ask me why the US public tolerates the killing of over a million Iraqis over the last two decades, and thousands of Afghans since 2001?

By James Petras

“You cannot win the peace unless you know the enemy at home and abroad”
US Marine Colonel from Tennessee.

07/08/07 "ICH" --- - Why, they ask, is a public, which opinion polls reveal as over sixty percent in favor of withdrawing US troops from Iraq, so politically impotent? A journalist from a leading business journal in India asked me what is preventing the US government from ending its aggression against Iran, if almost all of the world’s major oil companies, including US multinationals are eager to strike oil deals with Teheran? Anti-war advocates in Europe, Asia and Latin America ask me at large public forums what has happened to the US peace movement in the face of the consensus between the Republican White House and the Democratic Party-dominated Congress to continue funding the slaughter of Iraqis, supporting Israeli starvation, killing and occupation of Palestine and destruction of Lebanon?

Absence of a Peace Movement?

Just prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 over one million US citizens demonstrated against the war. Since then there have been few and smaller protests even as the slaughter of Iraqis escalates, US casualties mount and a new war with Iran looms on the horizon. The demise of the peace movement is largely the result of the major peace organizations’ decision to shift from independent social mobilizations to electoral politics, namely channeling activists into working for the election of Democratic candidates – most of whom have supported the war. The rationale offered by these ‘peace leaders’ was that once elected the Democrats would respond to the anti-war voters who put them in office. Of course practical experience and history should have taught the peace movement otherwise: The Democrats in Congress voted every military budget since the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. The total capitulation of the newly elected Democratic majority has had a major demoralizing effect on the disoriented peace activists and has discredited many of its leaders.

Absence of a National Movement

As David Brooks (La Jornada July 2, 2007) correctly reported at the US Social forum there is no coherent national social movement in the US. Instead we have a collection of fragmented ‘identity groups’ each embedded in narrow sets of (identity) interests, and totally incapable of building a national movement against the war. The proliferation of these sectarian ‘non-governmental’ ‘identity’ ‘groups’ is based on their structure, financing and leadership. Many depend on private foundations and public agencies for their financing, which precludes them from taking political positions. At best they operate as ‘lobbies’ simply pressuring the elite politicians of both parties. Their leaders depend on maintaining a separate existence in order to justify their salaries and secure future advances in government agencies.

The US trade unions are virtually non-existent in more than half of the United States: They represent less than 9% of the private sector and 12% of the total labor force. Most national, regional and city-wide trade union officials receive salaries comparable to senior business executives: between $300,000 to $500,000 dollars a year. Almost 90% of the top trade union bureaucrats finance and support pro-war Democrats and have supported Bush and the Congressional war budgets, bought Israel Bonds ($25 billion dollars) and the slaughter of Palestinians and the Israeli bombing of Lebanon.

The Unopposed War Lobby

The US is the only country in the world where the peace movement is unwilling to recognize, publically condemn or oppose the major influential political and social institutions consistently supporting and promoting the US wars in the Middle East. The political power of the pro-Israel power configuration, led by the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), supported within the government by highly placed pro-Israel Congressional leaders and White House and Pentagon officials has been well documented in books and articles by leading journalists, scholars and former President Jimmy Carter. The Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) has over two thousand full-time functionaries, more than 250,000 activists, over a thousand billionaire and multi-millionaire political donors who contribute funds both political parties. The ZPC secures 20% of the US foreign military aid budget for Israel, over 95% congressional support for Israel’s boycott and armed incursions in Gaza, invasion of Lebanon and preemptive military option against Iran.

The US invasion and occupation policy in Iraq, including the fabricated evidence justifying the invasion, was deeply influenced by top officials with long-standing loyalties and ties to Israel. Wolfowitz and Feith, numbers 2 and 3 in the Pentagon, are life-long Zionists, who lost security clearance early in their careers for handing over documents to Israel. Vice President Cheney’s chief foreign policy adviser in the planning of the Iraq invasion is Irving Lewis Liebowitz (‘Scooter Libby’). He is a protégé and long-time collaborator of Wolfowitz and a convicted felon.

Libby-Liebowitz committed perjury, defending the White House’s complicity in punishing officials critical of its Iraq war propaganda. Libby-Liebowitz received powerful political and financial support from the pro-Israel lobby during his trial. No sooner did he lose his appeal on his conviction on five counts of perjury, obstructing justice and lying, than the ZPC convinced President Bush to ‘commute’ his prison sentence, in effect freeing him from a 30 month prison sentence before he had served a day. While Democratic politicians and some peace leaders criticized President Bush, none dared hold responsible the pro-Israel lobby which pressured the White House.

The Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO) – numbering 52 – and their regional and local affiliates are the leading force transmitting Israel’s war agenda against Iran. The PMAJO, working closely with US-Israeli Congressman Rahm Emmanuel and leading Zionist Senators Charles Schumer and Joseph Lieberman, succeeded in eliminating a clause in the budget appropriation setting a date for the withdrawal for US troops from Iraq.

In contrast to the successful vast propaganda, congressional and media campaigns, organized and funded by the pro-Israel lobbies for the war policies, there is no public record of the big oil companies supporting the Iraq war, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon or the military threats of preemptive attacks on Iran. Interviews with investment bankers, oil company executives and a thorough review of the major Petroleum Institute publications over the past seven years provide conclusive evidence that ‘Big Oil’ was deeply interested in negotiating oil agreements with Saddam Hussein and the Iranian Islamic government. ‘Big Oil’ perceives US Middle East wars as a threat to their long-standing profitable relations with all the conservative Arab oil states in the Gulf. Despite the strategic position in the US economy and their great wealth '‘Big Oil' was totally incapable of countering their political power and organized influence of the pro-Israel lobby. In fact Big Oil was totally marginalized by the White House National Security Advisor for the Middle East, Elliot Abrams, a fanatical Zionist and militarist.

Despite the massive and sustained pro-war activity of the leading Zionist organizations inside and outside of the government and despite the absence of any overt or covert pro-war campaign by ‘Big Oil’, the leaders of the US peace movement have refused to attack the pro-Israel war lobby and continue to mouth unfounded clichés about the role of ‘Big Oil’ in the Middle East conflicts.

The apparently ‘radical’ slogans against the oil industry by some leading intellectual critics of the war has served as a ‘cover’ to avoid the much more challenging task of taking on the powerful, Zionist lobby. There are several reasons for the failure of the leaders of the peace movement to confront the militant Zionist lobby. One is fear of the powerful propaganda and smear campaign which the pro-Israel lobby is expert at mounting, with its aggressive accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ and its capacity to blacklist critics, leading to job loss, career destruction, public abuse and death threats.

The second reason that peace leaders fail to criticize the leading pro-war lobby is because of the influence of pro-Israel ‘progressives’ in the movement. These progressives condition their support of ‘peace in Iraq’ only if the movement does not criticize the pro-war Israel lobby in and outside the US government, the role of Israel as a belligerent partner to the US in Lebanon, Palestine and Kurdish Northern Iraq. A movement claiming to be in favor of peace, which refuses to attack the main proponents of war, is pursuing irrelevance: it deflects attention from the pro-Israel high officials in the government and the lobbyists in Congress who back the war and set the White House’s Middle East agenda. By focusing attention exclusively on President Bush, the peace leaders failed to confront the majority pro-Israel Democratic congress people who fund Bush’s war, back his escalation of troops and give unconditional support to Israel’s military option for Iran.

The collapse of the US peace movement, the lack of credibility of most of its leaders and the demoralization of many activists can be traced to strategic political failures: the unwillingness to identify and confront the real pro-war movements and the inability to create a political alternative to the bellicose Democratic Party. The political failure of the leaders of the peace movement is all the more dramatic in the face of the large majority of passive Americans who oppose the war, most of whom did not display their flags this Fourth of July and are not led in tow by either the pro-Israel lobby or their intellectual apologists within progressive circles.

The word to anti-war critics of the world is that over sixty percent of the US public opposes the war but our streets are empty because our peace movement leaders are spineless and politically impotent.

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50 year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed). Visit his website http://petras.lahaine.org/index.php
 

Brrrr!
 

Two recent events have convinced me that there isn’t a serious effort to get peace in the Middle East.

To begin with Tony Blair was appointed, on the insistence of his minder in the White House, as a special “peace” envoy to the Middle East. Within days his minder gave him a reminder that the “peace” part of his new title wasn’t to be taken too seriously when he was told that he shouldn’t hold talks with the democratically elected Hamas in Palestine.

But are there two Tony Blairs?

The one I know launched an illegal invasion of Iraq which as so far killed an estimated 750,000 people and also deliberately delayed a peace settlement for the illegal, unprovoked and pre-planned invasion of the Lebanon by Israel last year. Giving the Israelis ample time to spread millions of cluster bombs around the countryside.

I wonder if these two matters were mentioned on Blair’s CV when he applied for the post of a “peace envoy".

The other event, which causes me some doubt, is the appointment by Gordon Brown of David Miliband as Foreign Secretary. Already after just a few days he has accused Iran of trying to start a Middle East nuclear arms race on account of their mythical nuclear weapons.

He also gone a little further and refused to rule out military action against Iran on account of their non-existent nuclear weapons, in other words another Iraq scam. No mention of course that the only Middle East country that really has nuclear weapons is Israel.

In an effort to appease his fellow North London Jews he’s gone so far as to “warn” Russia over their refusal to extradite a suspect in the Litvinenko case but seems completely oblivious to the fact that Russia has had extradition requests turned down for a number of people living in the UK including one who appears on Interpol’s “Most Wanted List”.

Miliband has also assured a visiting Israel member of Knesset, Dalia Itzik, that he’s totally against the University and College Union's vote in favour of considering a boycott of Israeli academics and institutions.

I wonder how Miliband then feels about major Labour donors such as the TGWU and UNISON calling upon their members to boycott Israeli products? But then again who needs Union support when you’ve got Lord Levy.

I guess the message is, don’t expect any changes in Britain’s disastrous Middle East policy simply because we have a new Prime Minister.

Michael
Oxford


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Someone, sometime, is going to have to break the stranglehold the Zionists have got over US/UK Middle-Eastern policy. Soon, I hope. But it doesn't look as if it it will be Gordie Broon.
 

Methinks it's not just the Zionists who have the "stranglehold" - although they are a major component within the 'Matrix of Power'.

There are others - and it serves these others (& the Zionists) to make Zionists the convenient scapegoat.

I am still working to identify these "others" - any ideas ?

For example, Rothschild is part of the Zionist camp - but what about Rockefeller ?
 

You're a great one for conspiracy theories, Richard - I suppose it's Back to Bilderberg and all that...

Surely there are more than enough glaringly obvious manipulators of undue influence without calling in Holmes and Watson?

One of the biggest obstacles to more sensible policies is the millions of gullible Americans who really believe that the US of A is God's Own Country and the best thing that ever happened to humanity since the invention of the wheel.
 

"More than enough glaringly obvious manipulators of undue influence"

For example, AC ?
 

And, AC, I am NOT a Conspiracy Theorist...and I'm getting a little bit tetchy now when I am accused of being such (but of course not with you ;)

I am a 'Cock Up & Cover Up Theorist" who rigorously applies the 'Anselm Acid Test'.

I'll leave you to 'google' that if you wish...but it is essentially asks : "Can you conceive anything greater, or more important than..."...

For example : can you conceive of anyone more important than your boss...can the boss conceive of anyone more important than his boss...and so on and so forth...

In other words, somebody is accountable to someone...and there comes a point when somebody (or a cabal) is accountable to no-one but themselves...those are the master-puppeteers...and there's not a conspiracy in sight...more like 'real politik'...
 

It's very simple really, Richard. The world is not run by some secret organisation. It's run by a loose network of finance capitalists.

They come from all races and nations and families and organisations. Israel and Jewish people are a very powerful lobby as we all know but they don't run the world through some secret conspiracy. (Though it's high time Israel stopped using Palestinian children for target practice).

As I've said before, Finance Rules and nothing rules but Finance. For centuries, the people have been used to serve Finance. It's time for Finance to be used to serve the People. All the people of the world, that is.
 

Jeff, can you name these "loose network of finance capitalists" ?

I believe it is imperative that these people should be 'named & shamed' - because if 'The System' is to be changed for the good of all (not just the 'have's and have more'), then those who are its 'architects' must first be given the opportunity to change it.

If they are seen not to change it for the good of all, we then move to the next stage...
 

Ah Richard, Cast a fly....What are you after? A clutch of libel actions?

I don't think 'naming and shaming' will do any good with the folk you are gunning for, because they are shameless.
 

I could probably compile a long list of who these global capitalists are given time. Many of them would no doubt be names or groups that you have mentioned over the years.

But they will not be "named and shamed" into using their skills for social purposes - thereby allowing all the people of the world to enjoy a decent standard of living without exploitation and emigration which destroys families and cultures and leads to a rootless multiracial society.

They will fight like street drug barons to protect their wealth - any government that legislated against them could by no means expect an easy victory.

United Europe should take the lead and set an example - waiting for the whole world to get its act together on this issue would take too long.

Laws should be passed transferring the ownership and profits of all businesses over a certain size to the employees who work for them. The present shareholders should be given some nominal compensation.

Finance should be provided by a number of government regulated National Finance Corporations which would loan money for a reasonable rate of interest but would not participate in the ownership of the companies which they make loans to.

Financiers can either use their skills to work for one of these corporations; they can retire; or they can try and sabotage the new system. In which latter case they would be sent to prison for life or preferably shot as an deterrant to others.

As you can tell, I am on the liberal wing of National Socialism.