Why Are Ukrainian Officials & Bashar Assad Allowed to Call Enemies "Terrorists" but the Western Press Won't Use the Word?

Forty years ago in the 1970s, the Irish Republican Army Provisional faction was performing acts of terrorism and sometimes mass murder in Northern Ireland. And the BBC called them "terrorists." In the same years, the Fatah --meaning conquest of a city in Arabic-- was acting as a mass murderous terrorist group. Neither Fatah nor its partners in mass murder terrorism against Israelis and Jews, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,  the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine plus half a dozen smaller murder factions, was called "terrorist" by the BBC. Who can reckon why this discrepancy? Why were IRA Provos called "terrorists" but not Fatah or the PFLP or the PDFLP?

Maybe the BBC thought that British blood was redder than Jewish-Israeli blood. I can only speculate.

In recent years it is not only the BBC that refuses to call terrorists what they are. Now it is a well-established widespread practice in Western press and media outlets that terrorists are called "militants." In earlier years, a militant was a guy who came out to walk the picket line during a strike, a guy who came to the picket line every day, even in bad weather when most people would be more comfortable at home. A militant for a revolutionary faction was somebody who would pick up a thousand leaflets printed by his faction and stand on a street corner all day giving them out. But nobody in those far off days  would call somebody who planted a bomb in a school playground a "militant."

But the word "terrorist" is still  used these days. Bashar Assad called his domestic enemies "terrorists" in 2011 even before allies and cothinkers of al-Qa`ida had joined the struggle against Assad, or what is now a struggle  to determine the future of Syria.
When Assad started calling the rebels against him "terrorists" before it was  true, back in 2011, he was wrong. But he knew very well what and who were terrorists. He himself and his father before him had funded and trained Arab terrorists attacking Israel. The Assad regime in Syria had funded and trained several of the smaller PLO factions since the 1960s, and Hamas & Hizbullah, since the 1980s. After the  US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Assad regime armed and trained terrorists who operated in Iraq against the foreign occupation troops, including Americans of course. These Syrian-trained terrorists especially took to using bombs to slaughter the Shiite population in Iraq. Surely the Assad regime knew that these were terrorists. By the way, today Assad is allied with Shiites warriors against Sunni Muslim rebels against him.

Now we know that Assad's regime is greatly aided by the Russian government. The Russian govt also supports rebels and insurgents in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. These rebels and insurgents who favor Russian rule over their home areas in Eastern Ukraine, in the Don Basin, and so on, are rough and abusive and often thuggish. But they are hardly terrorists in the sense of Hamas or Hizbullah or al-Qa`ida. Yet officials of the Ukrainian government, Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko and so on, call these rebels/insurgents "terrorists." This is one of the things that keeps the new Ukrainian govt from having any credibility,

Now the new Ukrainian govt is supported by Western powers including the EU & USA. So Russia's ally in Syria, Assad, called his opponents "terrorists"  even when the rebels fighting him were not terrorists.
Today, Ukrainian officials supported by the EU & USA call the rebels that Russia supports "terrorists" when they are not.

Meanwhile, Western news outlets like BBC, France24, the New York Times and so many others, call the real terrorists mere "militants."

Hence the word terrorist has become an ill-treated orphan. Can't somebody sort out the meanings and  usages of the words "terrorist" & "militant"? Where is Orwell when we need him?

Obama White House Promotes Islamism in Egypt & Turkey

UPDATING 1-8&9&10-2011 at bottom

It has been obvious since Obama's inauguration, if not before, that his policy, foreign and domestic, was going to be openly pro-Muslim. His inauguration speech told us that the American people were made up of "Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus." This was a new departure in that Jews have long been and most likely were still at that time a larger group in the American population than Muslims were. Interviews that he gave after his inauguration confirmed this impression and his pro-Muslim stance was openly expressed in speeches in Ankara and Cairo. The Cairo speech was full of groundless flattery for Islam's supposedly beneficial impact on the world and its culture. But historical falsifications to flatter the Islamic ego were no problem for someone who had already bowed down low before the Saudi king.

The other side of the coin of flattering Muslims was a harsh attitude toward Israel and the rights of Jews, particularly the right to settle throughout the Land of Israel, enshrined in international law in the mandate that the League of Nations gave to the UK to administer this country.

Now, with the Egyptian crisis, we see that Washington, led by Obama, has been pushing the Egyptian govt to bring the Muslim Brotherhood, tantamount to a fascistic organization & Nazi collaborators as far back as the 1930s, into Egypt's government. The Obama crowd coyly referred to the MB as "non-secular" forces in Egyptian society. The Obama crowd doesn't want to acknowledge that the disease, Mubarak's tyranny, could be less bad than the cure, a government in which the Muslim Brotherhood has major influence. David Horovitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post, perceives the dangers involved in Obama's pro-Muslim Brotherhood moves in Egypt:

. . . the White House's subsequent reported moves to legitimate Egypt's Islamists -- whose outlook conflicts utterly with the democratic agenda -- make no sense, and suggest a frighteningly superficial understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood's intentions and potential achievements.

Far from learning the lessons of the Islamists' skilled subversion of other pro-democracy movements, working with potential leaders of an Egyptian transition to minimize the risk of such a process recurring, and making publicly plain that there will be no ongoing American alliance with an Egypt in which an unreformed Islamist movement has even a marginal role in government, the White House seems to be actively encouraging a transitional outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood [JPost 2-6-2011]

Fiamma Nirenstein has called Obama a "bull in the Mideast china shop." That description is fitting. We could also call him and Hilary "little children playing with matches." The fires that they might set could burn away not only tyrannical regimes in Arab lands. The Muslim Brotherhood in power would be in position to cause wars between Arabs and Israel, between Arabs and Arabs, and between Arabs and European states on the other side of the Mediterranean.

Besides striving to get the Muslim Brotherhood a seat in Egypt's government, Obama & Co. have been urging the European Union over the past two years to accept Turkey as a member, although Turkey has been moving more and more in an Islamist direction ever since Erdogan's AKP party took over the country in late 2002. Obama's collaboration with Turkey was also involved in the fake "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" which sought to end the blockade of the Hamas regime in Gaza [they too are Islamists]. A few weeks after the dramatic event on the Turkish Islamist-run ship, the Mavi Marmara, one of Obama's political friends in DC gave the Woodrow Wilson public service award to the Turkish foreign minister, Davutoglu. [on the Mavi Marmara & the pro-Hamas "Freedom Flotilla," see posts on this blog from late May through June].

Fiamma Nirenstein points out that the results of the Turkish referendum in September 2010 clearly show that Turkey is moving closer to Iran than to Europe [unless maybe Europe is going in the same direction?]. Yet, she goes on, Western political elites in Brussels at the EU headquarters and in Washington perceive the increase in power for the Islamist govt of Erdogan as "democratization" and such like Good Things. [here in English translation below the Italian original].

Other articles from the Italian press on the same issue [qui]

What the Muslim Brotherhood stands for in its own words [here]

Barry Rubin on Obama's role in the Egyptian crisis [here]

Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini on the prospect of a MB takeover of Egypt [from the Italian ANSA press service]:

EGYPT: ITALY'S FM, NO TO RADICAL ISLAMISM IN POWER

31 January , 11:08

(ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, JANAURY 31 - "We do not want a solution that leads to radical Islamism finding itself in power". This is according to the Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, who has arrived at the EU Council in Brussels for talks on the Egyptian crisis. [Frattini added] "this would not be democracy". [ANSAmed here]

It seems like Obama's radical stance demanding inclusion of the MB in a transitional govt and the immediate departure of Mubarak, a stance since softened, had Italy --and no doubt some other EU states-- spooked. This is despite Frattini's diplomatic pretense that Italy, the EU and the USA all shared the same position. Angela Merkel too expressed apprehension that radical Islamists might take over Egypt. Her foreign minister Westerwelle had joined the USA-UK position that Mubarak had to get out right away, contradicting her. But Westerwelle too, like the French leaders, was probably just being diplomatic by showing a unified position with the USA.
- - - - - - - -
UPDATING 2-8-2011 Barry Rubin on foolishness about the uprising in Egypt [here]. Interfaith, freedom revolutions don't always work out in favor of freedom, as in the Young Turks' uprising in 1908.
2-8-2011 ANSA, Italian Press Agency -- The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance of the EU issued a report on Turkish ill treatment of minorities, mentioning particularly the Kurds and the Rom [Gypsies] [qui].
2-9-2011 Jeff Jacoby on the inacceptability of the Muslim Brotherhood in any position of power in Egypt [here]
Lee Smith on the dangers the MB and of one of its co-thinkers, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, exiled from Egypt for years and a "popular" star on al-Jazeera TV. Qaradawi's incitement of hatred and his disingenuous doubletalk are "popular" on the Qatari station [here]
George Jonas on al-Barada`i, the MB and Obama [here]
2-10-2011 Michael Young on how the structure of the present Egyptian regime cannot be overlooked or bent to Obama's current whims [here]

The "peace activist" who waved the knife arrives in Gaza

The Reuters press agency used to be an outfit that you could respect. Today it regularly shows its contempt for truth. The time traveler from the seventh century, or was it the eighth, who waved his curved dagger [is it called a khanjar?] on the Mavi Marmara recently arrived in Gaza where he was photographed by Reuters and labelled "an international militant for peace." In French that is "Un militant international pour la paix."See the caption of the first photo. Reuters has no shame. Reuters is a British outfit, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe that explains it. In any case, Reuters is also notoriously unreliable on account of the photoshopping done of photos during Second Lebanon War by a Reuters correspondent who was also a Hizbullah supporter. View the photos below even if you don't know French. Look for the phrase: Un militant international pour la paix.Also look for the phrase: l’aide humanitaire, that is, humanitarian aid. When these "militants for peace" were on the Mavi Marmara, it was found that little practical material to help poor people was on the ships of that convoy. And much of what might seem to fit under the definition of "humanitarian aid" was unusable. That is, Gaza physicians complained that the medicines sent to Gaza by the "humanitarians" and "peace militants" had already expired their use dates.

“L’activiste international pour la paix”

Dernière mise à jour Dimanche, 31 octobre 2010 04:11 Ecrit par admin Dimanche, 31 octobre 2010 04:01

Le 21 octobre dernier l’agence de presse internationale Reuters publiait (voir ici) la photo et la légende suivantes:

Un militant international pour la paix fait signe de l’intérieur d’un véhicule à un policier du Hamas lors de son arrivée à la frontière de Rafah dans le sud de la bande de Gaza le 21 octobre 2010. Des centaines de militants Internationaux pour la paix sont arrivés à Gaza jeudi dans un convoi transportant de l’aide humanitaire, pour exprimer leur solidarité avec les Palestiniens dans la bande de Gaza sous blocus, a dit un représentant du convoi.

Ce beau visage respirant l’amour et la paix, ne vous est-il pas familier ?

Si c’est le cas, la dernière fois que vous l’avez vu, son expression était moins radieuse.

C’était sur le navire Mavi Marmara, alors qu’il se préparait à recevoir à bord l’inspection de l’armée israélienne. Et la suite, nous la connaissons tous.

Source : Bivouac-ID

Western Great Powers Give Iran One Last Chance on Its Nuclear Program -- in 2003!!

UPDATING 1-4 & 11 & 12 & 13 & 20 & 3-3 & 4 & 4-21-2010

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

One of the good things about reading old newspapers is that, if you're still alive and kicking and the world still spinning on its axis, then the terrible things that the old paper reported are really not all that bad. You can look back at the horrors and crimes of the past and take satisfaction in still being alive. Another thing is that old newspaper articles can illuminate what is happening now as you read. I found a good example of that in a report from September 10, 2003, in Avvenire, that I came across just lately. Germany, Great Britain and France, I learned, wanted to give Iran a "last chance" to prove that it was fulfilling its commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] and was not developing nuclear weapons. And these powers had persuaded the United States to agree that the IAEA [international atomic energy agency] should give Iran one last chance. US ambassador Kenneth Brill, who sits on the IAEA's council of governors, announced that the US had been persuaded by other member states sitting on the council of governors

"to give Iran a last chance to stop its evasions."
[ I had at first translated Brill's statement fromthe Italian translation back into English. I have since found the original English text (quoted just above) here & here]

So the Agency governors decided that Iran has "till the end of October, 2003," to prove that it is not in non-fulfillment of its obligations under the NPT. That's very reassuring to read now in the first days of 2010. After all, the same thing, the same last chance, several times repeated, has been given to the Iranians and is being given again. So the "last chance" was given over and over. Yet, I and whoever reads this is still alive. So maybe things aren't so bad.

Now, what sort of regime was in power in Iran that the West was treating so leniently? It was a very Judeophobic regime. It was a regime that hated Israel. It was also a regime that had come to power with the help of the Carter administration in the United States, that is, with the help of president jimmah carter and his national insecurity advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, both of them fervent haters of Israel.

Then, the Iranian Islamist regime, at first headed by Ayatollah Khomeini, had sent assassins abroad to kill Iranian opponents of the regime, Ali Akbar Tabatabai, Shapur Bakhtiar, and others. There is a list of 58 assassination attempts --mostly successful-- outside Iran, perpetrated by Islamic Republic agents. The list includes names of places and victims, intended and unintended, of assassination. The victims were mostly Iranians living abroad, opponents of the regime, but included several non-Iranians, among them translators of Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, as well as collateral victims. The murders were perpetrated on orders of the regime. The total number of victims is several more than 58 [here]. Some of the victims were murdered in the United States and France, although both states had done much to make Khomeini's return to Iran possible. That is not very nice international behavior. But Iran didn't care about offending and the West did not seem especially offended, not even states where such murders had been perpetrated by Iranian agents.

We cannot forget the countless people killed by the regime within Iran, although we don't know their names. On the other hand, the death sentence issued by Khomeini against the novelist Salman Rushdie was notorious. Rushdie has been living in hiding from Iranian assassins for more than 20 years. His offense was Islamic blasphemy, which Khomeini, Ahmadinajad and their gang wanted to forbid even in non-Muslim countries. It's curious how few Western intellectuals were willing to stand up for Rushdie's freedom of speech, even while he was living in Britain. Rushdie's life is still in danger. None of this brought the Western great powers to strongly oppose the Iranian regime. After all, the United States and France had served as midwives for the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini and his gang.

The Judeophobia of the Khomeini regime and its Lebanese satellite, Hizbollah, known at first in the West as "The Party of God" [the literal translation of Hizbollah], is notorious. A Hizbollah paper in Lebanon wrote, in reaction to the French elections of 1987 [or 1988?] that "The Jewish microbe is everywhere" [Le microbe juif est partout]. This was because the elections did not turn out as Hizbollah/Iran had wanted, for which they blamed the Jewish voters in France. [This was published in LeFigaro at that time].

But the really strong expressions of hatred of Jews [stronger even than those before] appeared on 20 October 2006 when Ahmadinajad warned

"Israel will disappear . . . [because of] the rage of hundreds of millions of Muslims"

He described the Israeli people as

terrorists and enemies of religion [= Islam].
[quoted by Carlo Panella in Fascismo Islamico (Milan: Rizzoli 2007), pp 23-24.

This is a case of projection where Islamic fanatics project their own character on others, particularly on their designated enemies. Ahmadinajad also lied in that same speech about Britain and the United States creating Israel, a lie that fit in conveniently with what walt-mearsheimer were saying at the time. All this was known about Ahmadinajad and his regime in 2006, yet the "last chances," which were being given already in 2003, continued to be given. US secretary of state, Colin Powell, appointed by George W Bush, declared himself "open to dialogue" with Iran in 2003 [Corriere della Sera, 31 December 2003]. Likewise, candidate, later president, Barak Hussein Obama, declared that he was eager for dialogue, smart diplomacy, and negotiations with Iran in the years 2008 and 2009. So last chances go back more than six years from now, as does openness to dialogue.

This was all notwithstanding the Iranian boasts over the years of military advances, specifically in long-range rocket development, as well as in nuclear development. These rockets can reach Europe, not to mention Israel. What have all the attempts to placate Islamist Iran achieved? Iran recently declared that it would develop ten new uranium enrichment sites [International Herald Tribune, 30 November 2009].

The Iranian government responded defiantly Sunday [11-29-2009] to an international call for a halt in its uranium enrichment work by vowing to do the opposite, as it approved a plan to build ten additional enrichment facilities.
[IHT, 11-30-2009]

It sure as hell looks like the major Western powers want Iran to have The bomb. We forecast in June 2007 that that was the case. Unfortunately, it looks more and more as if we were right.

We will leave for another time the consideration of the motives for Western appeasement of Islamic fundamentalist Iran.
- - - - - - - - - - -

For previous articles on this issue on the Emet m'Tsiyon blog see here & here & here & here
- - - - - - - - - - -
UPDATINGS 1-12-2010 more links to articles on this issue: Jonathan Tobin on Commentary's Contentions blog [here]
Rick Richman follows up on Tobin [here]. So after more than six [6] years of missed "deadlines" or deadlines that never died, Obama and his partners in facilitating an Iranian bomb are still missing their own deadlines.
1-13-2010 Iranians believe that the Iranian regime murdered the recently assassinated Iranian physicist in Teheran, using some of their Hizbollah agents [here].
1-20-2010 The Saudis are worried about increasing Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, according to Lee Smith [He quotes the following words from a pre-Obama American official] : “'. . . what the Saudis were really concerned about. The number one issue in Riyadh is Iran.' . . .
'. . . the Saudi line,' the former [American] official said, 'was this: ‘Americans, are you going to do anything about our number one issue? If not, we will go our own road.’” [here]
Rick Richman [Commentary blog, 3-3-2010] points out the fatuousness of Obama's Iran bomb policy, guided perhaps by Zbig Brzezinski's mad dreams of "deterrence" of a bomb-equipped Iran [here]. Zbig of course wants the mad mullahs to have the bomb. Why not? He helped them take power as Carter's national insecurity advisor. When Carl Foreman's film, Dr Strangelove, came out in the early sixties, the character of Strangelove was widely believed to be based on Henry Kissinger. Actually, Zbig fits the bill just as well as Dr K does. He too loves the bomb.
3-4-2010 More good cheer from Washington and New York on the Iranian bomb threat, by Emmanuele Ottolenghi [here]
4-21-2010 Jennifer Rubin thinks that the Obama crowd is still procrastinating about The Iranian Bomb[here].

More on Iran's Guilt in the AMIA massacre in Argentina in 1994

All the News that's Fit to Print
[that is, we print all the news that fits our line]
The masthead motto of the New York Times

Since most of the English-language media works by the policy of the New York Times, that is, they publish only the news that fits their policy, then it is likely that otherwise well-informed readers dependent on English-language media will not know of the latest developments in the case of the AMIA massacre of 1994. In that year Iranian agents used a truck bomb to destroy the AMIA Jewish Community center in Buenos Aires, murdering 86 people. This followed by two years a similar bombing at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires which killed fewer people, only 29 for a total of 115. After years of investigation, Argentine investigators determined that Iranian agents --including the Hizbullah master terrorist `Imad Mughniyyah-- had blown up the AMIA building and the embassy.

Argentina went so far as to give Interpol a list of eight persons who ought to be arrested on international arrest warrants. Former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner spoke about the AMIA affair in his speech to the UN General Assembly in the fall of 2007. However, neither Kirchner's speech nor the fact that Argentina had demanded arrest of the perpetrators through the Interpol got coverage suitable to the importance of the story in English-language "news" media, although it got much more coverage in Spanish-language media. That is, depending on English-language media will leave one ill-informed.

June 15, 2009
Wiesenthal Center Applauds Arrest Warrants Against Leading "Local Connection" Suspect of the AMIA Bombing

The Simon Wiesenthal Center applauded the decision by Argentine judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral to endorse the indictment issued two weeks ago by State Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, the head of the AMIA Bombing Investigation Unit, demanding the arrest of Colombian-born Lebanese-resident Samuel Salman El Reda, who is accused of coordinating the logistics for the deadly bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center in 1994.

Nisman's indictment shows that El Reda established himself in Argentina in 1987. He cooperated with Mohsen Rabbani (former Iranian Cultural Attaché in Buenos Aires who has an INTERPOL's "Red Notice" warrant pending against him), and was responsible for coordinating the "operative group" that arrived from abroad in order to carry out the attack in Buenos Aires. El Reda later facilitated the escape of those involved in the blast. The indictment also states that El Reda was in contact with a person known under the alias of André Marqués, who supervised the attack from Foz do Iguazu, on the Brazilian side of the Triple Frontier [where Argentina, Brazil & Paraguay meet]. El Reda left Argentina in August, 1994 (a month after the attack) and went to Lebanon, where he has been living since then.

"We welcome this new decision which strengthens the work of Prosecutor Nisman and the efforts to bring the Iranian-backed terrorists to justice," said Dr. Shimon Samuels, Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

"The warrant against El Reda lives up to the recent statement by the Argentine Supreme Court: impunity is not an option in the AMIA bombing. Truth and justice must prevail," added Sergio Widder, the Center's Director for Latin America.

For further information contact Shimon Samuels at +336 09770158, or Sergio Widder at +54911 4425-1306.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400.000 members. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the OAS and the Latin American Parliament.

El Centro Wiesenthal apoya el pedido de captura contra la persona acusada de ser el líder de la "conexión local" del atentado contra la AMIA

El Centro Simon Wiesenthal apoyó la decision del juez Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, quien dio lugar al pedido de arresto contra Samuel Salman El Reda, acusado de ser quien coordinó la logística para llevar adelante el atentado contra la AMIA en 1994. El arresto de El Reda había sido requerido dos semanas atrás a través de un dictamen emitido por el fiscal Alberto Nisman, titular de la Unidad de Investigación AMIA.

El dictamen del fiscal Nisman explica que El Reda, de origen colombiano, se estableció en Argentina en 1987, fue colaborador de Mohsen Rabbani (ex Agregado Cultural de la embajada iraní en Buenos Aires, sobre quien pesa un pedido de captura internacional con "Notificación Roja" de INTERPOL), tuvo a su cargo la coordinación del "grupo operativo" encargado de llevar a cabo el ataque terrorista en Buenos Aires, y facilitó luego el escape de los involucrados en el mismo. El dictamen establece, también, que El Reda estuvo en contacto con una persona conocida con el alias de André Marqués, quien supervisó el ataque desde Foz do Iguaçu, en el lado brasilero de la Triple Frontera. El Reda se fue de Argentina y se estableció en El Líbano en agosto de 1994, donde reside hasta el presente.

"Apoyamos esta nueva decision que fortalece el trabajo del fiscal Nisman y los esfuerzos para conducir a los terroristas que contaron con el apoyo de Irán ante la justicia", señaló el Dr. Shimon Samuels, Director de Relaciones Internacionales del Centro Simon Wiesenthal.

"El pedido de captura contra El Reda está en sintonía con el reciente pronunciamiento de la Suprema Corte de Justicia: la impunidad no es una opción válida en la causa del atentado contra la AMIA. Deben prevalecer la verdad y la justicia", agregó Sergio Widder, Director para América Latina del Centro.

Para mayor información, comunicarse con Sergio Widder al 4802-1744 o bien (15) 4425-1306. Si llama desde fuera de Argentina, + 5411 4802-1744 ó + 54911 4425-1306.

El Centro Simon Wiesenthal es una organización judía internacional de derechos humanos con más de 400.000 miembros en todo el mundo. Tiene status de ONG ante la ONU, la UNESCO, la OEA, la OSCE, el Consejo de Europa y el Parlamento Latinoamericano.

The above report from the Wiesenthal Center is only an update on a long story.

The reason why so little attention has been given to these two atrocities in Buenos Aires is probably that the US and UK governments have desired all along to protect the image of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which broad knowledge of Iranian involvement in these two atrocities would have besmirched. If these Buenos Aires crimes had been more widely known, the US and UK might have had to take a stronger line against Iran obtaining the Bomb, which apparently these two powers want the Iranian ayatollahs to have. Note how mild Obama's first remarks were in regard to the violent, brutal suppression by the ayatollahs of the anti-regime demonstrators in Iran in June of this year.

Ignoramus Western Journalists and Commentators View Hizbullah Romantically as the "Real" Lebanon

Western observers both living inside and outside of Lebanon often delight in seeing Hizbullah as the real, the authentic, the truly Third Worldish Lebanon, a land of austerity, hatred of the West, incorruptible hatred of Israel and Jews, swift and sure punishment of religious backsliders, enemies of bourgeois Western civilization, etc. This Authentic Lebanon is contrasted with the Lebanon of bourgeois prosperity & luxury, adoption of features of Western culture, insufficient hatred of Israel, free market economy, and the like. Michael Young perceptively complains about the wilful blindness about Lebanon so often compulsively demonstrated and deployed by Western observers, journalists, commentators, diplomats, policy analysts, politicians, etc.

Hizbullah also benefits from the underlying contempt among many Westerners for the baroque Lebanese system itself, all nods and winks and clandestine compromises. Here is a party that can build institutions, that means what it says and says what it means, and that in many respects defines itself against the duplicity of the traditional politicians. More interestingly, it speaks for a once marginalized community, so that it presents several ingredients to spur Western sympathy and appreciation: a social cause, methodicalness in the pursuit of its objectives, an institutional structure transcending the narrow retail politics of most Lebanese leaders, rhetorical precision, and purported honesty.

And then there is authenticity. Hizbullah is widely seen as representing a truer Lebanon than the Lebanon of confused identities lying outside the party's realm. Remember how the media in 2005 translated the emancipation movement against Syria. For three weeks after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the story was that of a liberal Lebanon revolting against an illiberal Syria and its Lebanese peons, a rare occasion during the post-Civil War period when that narrative dominated. However, its fragility was highlighted on March 8, when Hizbullah organized its mass demonstration at Riad al-Solh square. Suddenly, interpretations shifted. The "real Lebanon" had spoken, observers said, and it had spoken with verve, so that the anti-Syrian demonstrators of the weeks before, with their Occidental pretensions and designer clothes, were now dismissed as creations of the Western media. Then March 14 came, confusing the observers further and resurrecting the liberal plot line, if not for very long.

The irony is that the very attributes that make many Westerners so belittle the
Lebanese political and social order in Hizbullah's favor are actually present in Hizbullah in more concentrated ways. The Lebanese system is archaic, undemocratic and sectarian? Well then what do you call a Shiite Leninist organization, led by a leader who will probably remain in office for life, that calls itself the Party of God? And what reaction do one's Western liberal instincts provoke when that centralized religious party glorifies violent self-sacrifice and makes permanent armed struggle a centerpiece of its ideological mindset, mainly on behalf of an autocratic clerical regime in Iran, its Lebanese authenticity notwithstanding? As for corruption, those who see Hizbullah as spotless should learn a trifle more about the party's illicit networks, or those of individuals close to the party. In that regard, we can say that Hizbullah is as Lebanese as anyone else.
[Beirut Daily Star, 4-16 -2009].

Of course, the notion of Hizbullah as being opposed to Western policy is false and always has been. The Hizb was set up by the Khomeini regime in Iran which was helped to take power precisely by the US Carter Administration of cursed memory זכרונו לקללה . It must be said that "leftist" politicians in the West are usually the readiest to praise and sympathize with the Hizb. But essentially, "leftists" like Massimo d'Alema do not necessarily oppose the mainstream policy of the UK, US, & EU regarding Lebanon --or that regarding Iran for that matter [on d'Alema (former Communist foreign minister of Italy under Prodi), vedere qui & qui] .

Consider that if reports on Lebanon are falsified, whether out of prejudice which cannot or does not want to understand or perceive the reality of the country, or out of conscious lying in order to suit a newspaper's or magazine's or TV network's or government's political prejudices, then reports about Israel can be falsified for the same reasons. And even more so --a fortiori-- on account of traditional Western Judeophobia.

Just by the way, all this loving misunderstanding of Hizbullah is adding up to Western recognition of the Hizb's rightful rule over Lebanon. Who would have thought?

Lebanon: The West is ready to deal and negotiate with Hizbullah, in case it wins the parliamentary elections in June, according to the Hizbullah number 2, Shaykh Na`im Kassem. Hassan Nasrallah's right hand man stated that "the Western countries are falling all over each other to talk to us and will do it more so in the future." He insisted that his party did not fear being boycotted by the international community as was the case with Hamas in 2006.[GuysenNews 4-16-2009]

Liban : l'Occident est prêt à traiter avec le Hezbollah, en cas de victoire aux législatives de juin, selon son n°2, le cheikh Naïm Kassem. Le bras droit de Hassan Nasrallah a déclaré que ''les pays occidentaux se bousculent pour nous parler et le feront davantage à l'avenir''. Il a insisté sur le fait que son parti ne craignait pas d'être
boycotté par la communauté internationale comme ce fut le cas avec le Hamas en 2006. [GuysenNews 4-16-2009]

Now isn't this just heartwarming news? The Western powers are going to be oh so liberal, kind, democratic, generous and peace-loving as to work with the Hizbullah IslamoNazis!! It seems that they have come a long way since their 1938 negotiations with Hitler that brought about World War 2 only because Hitler had misunderstood his peace accord with that nice Mr Chamberlain!!

Zbig, "Barack Obama's Evil Genius" - Part I

UPDATING 10-11-2009 link added at bottom

When fascism comes to America,
it will be called anti-fascism.
attributed to Huey Long, governor of Louisiana

Zbig Brzezinski is "Barack Obama's Evil Genius," according to Nessim Cohen-Tanugi, a French-Jewish political analyst, writing in Israel Actualites published in Jerusalem. How so?

Barack Obama's Evil Genius -- by Nessim Cohen-Tanugi
Le mauvais Genie de Barak Obama

There are many Jews, even those seduced by Obama, who are troubled by some of his old --and new, alas-- associations and friendships. But the worst danger is yet to come: The presence at his sides of his advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, whom we consider a pro-Islamist Dr Strangelove.

Everything has already been said about some of Obama's devilish old associations, his ties with the extreme left, Black Power racist, Black Nazi antisemite, Farrakhan. . . [Ayers, ACORN, and] the Syrian swindler Antoin Rezko, currently a boarder at a federal prison. But the future is much more troubling than the past because of the presence at his side of Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, now 79 years of age, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Incendiary
Zbigniew Brzezinski was the geopolitical theoretician . . . the architect of the American intervention in Afghanistan [1979]. . . It was he who elaborated the strategy called "the green belt." . . . that had as its goal the destabilization of Russia by igniting Islamism [Islamic fundamentalism].

In fact, Russia was encircled as by a belt by a series of countries with Muslim majorities (called green after the color of Islam), that were satellites in the framework of the Soviet Union. It was Brzezinski's idea to destabilize all these countries, secularized by Communism, by introducing into them the ferment of fanatical Islamism, with the help of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis were obviously interested. They sent a number of fanatical imams violently condemning secular Communist morals and calling on the Muslims to chase out the "infidels" who dared to subjugate Muslims. Afghanistan served as a testing platform and in a few years the fanatic Afghan rebels had obliged the Russians to leave the country. Osama ben Laden had been charged by the Saudis with managing the operation. We know with what success!

In [an] article in Le Lien [of 2000] we had severely criticized this strategy, estimating that it was extremely dangerous to fight against one evil by using an even worse evil. We had warned the Americans, seduced by Brzezinski's theories, against playing "sorcerer's apprentices." Two years later [after the article of 2000], Osama ben Laden burnt down and destroyed the Twin Towers as well as part of the Pentagon. The White House was spared thanks to the heroism and sacrifice of the passengers of another Boeing. Alas, we were right beyond what we had feared.
Brzezinski might at least have regretted his mistake. When a journalist asked him: "Don't you regret having favored Islamic fundamentalism, having given weapons and advice to future terrorists?" he answered unshaken, "What is more important for the history of the world: The talibans or the fall of the Soviet empire? A few excited Islamic fundamentalists or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?" [This exchange was published in Le Monde in 2002-Eliyahu]
[This article by Cohen-Tanugi was published 28 Octobre 2008 in Israel Actualites].
-End Part I-

After the destruction of the Twin Towers, which took about 3,000 lives, Obama's mentor Zbig spoke of "a few excited Islamic fundamentalists." What manner of monster is this?
- - - - - - - -

UPDATING Link added about further Zbig shenanigans 10-11-2009 [here]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Coming: More on Obama's lies about the economy, Part II of "Barak Obama's Evil Genius," propaganda, psychological warfare, etc.

War on Terrorism OR War for Islam?

Do we need an interpreter with the capability of Rashi, maybe, in order to tell what is really the Bush Administration policy on terrorism? On the one hand, Mr Bush declared a War on Terror. On the other, the Bush Administration, particularly the State Department, helps Arab terrorists against Israel while --in the Balkans-- it is trying to expand the territory of the Muslim-dominated Bosnian entity. After 500 years of conflict between Christians and Muslims in the Balkans, after World War II when Bosnian Muslims formed an SS division under the religious supervision of Haj Amin el-Husseini [al-Husayni], British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, after the bloody Bosnian war of the 1990s when all three ethnic-religious groups in Bosnia perpetrated atrocities on one another, the State Dept now wants to incorporate the remaining part of Bosnia from which Serbs have not yet been "ethnically cleansed" into the Muslim-dominated Bosnian state. We bear in mind that during WW2, Serbs suffered mass murder at the hands of both Croatian Catholics and Bosnian Muslims. This was against the background of a multi-century history of Muslim suppression of Serbs in the Balkans, especially the bloody and brutal suppression of a 19th century Serbian revolt against the Ottoman Empire in Bosnia.

Let's just say that the State Dept does it again.

U.S. Selling Out Bosnian Christians to Muslims, Serb Leader Says

Kenneth R. Timmerman [NewsMax]
Thursday, May 24, 2007

The man who helped overthrow Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic says the State Department is pressuring him to hand over Christian Bosnia to its powerful Muslim neighbor, threatening the delicate balance that ended the Bosnian War.

The Bosnian Serbian entity was created under the 1995 Dayton peace accords.

"At the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo, I was threatened that if I did not agree to these U.S. demands, I would have problems," Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik told NewsMax in an exclusive interview.

In a meeting on Wednesday at the State Department, Dodik said that Assistant Secretary Daniel Fried didn't repeat the threats, but insisted that Dodik and the Christian Bosnian Serb government agree to dissolve its independent police force and parliament, and merge them into Muslim-majority federal institutions.

"The United States is trying to assimilate us into Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), which is a Muslim entity," Dodik said. Today, Dodik will be meeting with Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who is expected to reinforce these demands. Dodik told NewsMax, "I will refuse."

Asked why he was coming to Washington if to be read the riot act, Dodik said it was "hard to refuse when you've been summoned."

Nearly 1.4 million Serbian Christians live in the Republic of Srpska [Republika Srpska = Serbian Republic (of Bosnia)], the autonomous Serbian entity that Serbs say was "forced down [their] throats" under the 1995 Dayton agreement

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. official who negotiated the 1995 agreement, told a forum marking the 10th anniversary of the Dayton accords in November 2005 that among his "mistakes" were the words "Republika Srpska." He called for the Serbian entity to be dissolved into Muslim Bosnia.

Dodik said that while 99 percent of Bosnian Serbs would prefer to live in an independent state, the Dayton accords had achieved a "balance" and that it would be a mistake to change them now.
. . . .

"If the U.S. project of turning BiH into a single government controlled under one man one vote, in 10 years there will be no more Serbs in the area. All I want is for the U.S. to leave us alone."

Under the current arrangement, the Bosnian Serbs have 22 members of the federal parliament, and the Bosnian Muslims have 24 members. Simple majority rule, as advocated by the United States, would allow the Bosnian Muslims to transform the Bosnian federation into an Islamic Republic.

In addition, the assimilation of the independent Bosnian Serb police force into a single, federal force "would mean we must accept terrorists who have been recruited into the police by the Bosnian Muslims."
. . . . .

Well before the Dayton accords, the Bosnian Muslim authorities forged a close relationship with Osama Bin Laden, even providing him a Bosnian diplomatic passport after his Saudi passport was revoked by the Saudi government.

Five of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were trained in Bosnian Muslim al Qaeda camps.

During the Clinton administration, "the U.S. gave its blessing as 4,400 jihadis came to Bosnia from Afghanistan," Dodik said.

If the Bush Administration supports expansion of the pro-Islamist terrorist, Muslim-dominated Bosnian entity --in particular at the expense of the Serbs-- then its claim to be fighting terrorism cannot be taken seriously. Likewise, in the Middle East, why should it be seen as fighting terrorism when it openly calls for giving money and weapons to the Fatah terrorist gang of Mahmud Abbas [Abu Mazen]? Of course, if the above account is reliable, then the Clinton Administration was no better in its dealings with terrorism, particularly of the Islamist variety.

Timmerman's full article is here and commentary on it by Hugh Fitzbgerald is here.
- - - - - - - -
Coming: More on James Baker and US policy toward Israel, peace follies, propaganda, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, etc.

Muslim Leader Reminds Us that London Hosted Islamist Terrorists

After the July bombings in London, a Muslim leader in Italy remembered that London had hosted terrorists and terrorist leaders who had done their awful work in other cities in other countries. In the mid-1990s, terrorists struck several times in France, including the Paris subway, the Metro. French investigators traced the commanders of these attacks back to Islamic terrorist leaders in London. I believe that it was these French investigators who gave London the nickname Londonistan. Islamist terrorists operating against Israel also had connections in London, and enjoyed a broad tolerance from the British authorities. Khalid Chaouki [= Shawki] published his statement as a letter in Il Riformista [9 July 2005]. His letter describes him as director of the website Musulmaniditalia.com. Here are his words:

Another massacre. This time terrorism of an Islamic matrix has struck that capital that had indirectly tolerated it, [and] hosted international leaders of Islamist radicalism. London, the multicultural city where diverse cultures and traditions live together. That country of a great democratic tradition. . . always the refuge for millions of workers and intellectuals in search of liberty. Unfortunately, after New York and Madrid, it has now fallen to London's lot. . .

Ancora una strage. Questa volta il terrorismo di matrice islamica ha colpito quella capitale che l'aveva indirettamente tollerato, ospitato esponenti internazionali del radicalismo islamista. Londra, la citta' multiculturale dove convivono culture e tradizioni diverse. Quel paese di grande tradizione democratica . . . da sempre rifugio di milioni di lavoratori e intelletuali in cerca di liberta'. Purtroppo dopo New York e Madrid, ora e' toccato proprio a Londra. . .

Chaouki wants to be nice to the Brit government, so he says "indirectly tolerated." But didn't anybody in an official position in Britain know what was going on? Didn't anybody know that --for instance-- mad mullahs in Britain were preaching/inciting the murder of Jews and the Islamist takeover of Britain? What's a madda? Din't nobody know nuttin?

For more on British promotion of Islamist fanatics, see the recent posts here on Tony Blair, "palestinian authority" and Hamas [May 16, May 7].

There is good reason to call London Londonistan!
- - - - - - -
Coming: More on James Baker, more on Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda. etc.

G8 Helps "Palestinian Authority" Instead of the Really Poor

Peace --the last refuge of the scoundrel [circa 2007]
Eliyahu m'Tsiyon

Just about everybody knows that international humanitarianism represents hypocrisy more often than not. The UN, for instance, founded to bring world peace, so its own charter states, more often than not promotes war, promotes oppressors, dictators, barbarians. So-called "non-governmental organizations" [NGOs] in favor of "human rights" or "peace" more often than not serve the partisan purposes of various powers, if not worse.

Likewise, the G8, the grouping of the eight major industrialized countries, chirp about peace and human rights and ending poverty and all sorts of goody-goody, sickeningly sweet things at their summit meetings from time to time. But the United Kingdom is active and influential within the G8 framework. And that right there should warn us not to take the G8 platitudes at face value. A G8 summit meeting was taking place in Scotland when the 7 July 2005 mass murder bombings took place in London. Tony Blair used the horrendous event to promote his own project of strengthening the anti-Israel "palestinian authority" [see our post of 7 May 2007]. After the bombings, Blair made a surprise proposal to add three [3] billion dollars for the "palestinian authority," to the funds already approved for the environment and the truly poor countries of Africa. The three billion USD$ for the PA would be the "best response to Islamic terrorism." Meanwhile, the whole of Africa was only allocated fifty billion. Compare the per capita contribution to Africa with the per capita allocation to the PA, which may have 1% or 2% of Africa's population. Further, much international funding had already been going to the PA, and in any case the poor in Gaza and Judea-Samaria appear as propsperous next to the truly poor in Africa, India, and various other countries often labelled "third world." Here is the Il Riformista report on this imbalanced funding.

Moreover, the Big Eight announced the sending of an aid packet to the Palestinian National [watani] Authority: three billion dollars to be distributed over the next three years. The news was greeted by various commentators as the announcement of a "Little Palestinian Marshall Plan" and as a signal of opening --joined with firmness against terrorism-- towards the Arab world. It means, besides, a figure anything but meager, even when compared to the fifty African billions, if one considers that the PNA [= palestinian national authority] counts less than 4 million inhabitants [whereas Africa has more than 300 or 400 million].
[Il Riformista, 9 July 2005]

Before the London bombings, the G8 had allocated 50 billion dollars for Africa. Afterwards, Tony Phoney proposed also allocating 3 billion USD$ to the PA. Compare, on a per capita basis much more is being given to the "palestinian authority" [almost a contradiction in terms] than to the truly poor in Africa and elsewhere. In fact, this situation goes back years, back to the beginning of the "palestinian authority."The situation has not changed since 2005. What explains this disparity?

- - - - - - - - - -
Coming: More on Jim Baker, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.