The Deproliferator

If Israel and Iran are playing rock, scissors, paper with their nuclear-weapons programs, Israel wins hands down. Kinetic beats potential energy to the punch and Israel is already armed.

On August 3, the Times of London published a story titled Iran is ready to build an N-bomb — it is just waiting for the Ayatollah’s order. (Since the Times is a Murdoch paper the reader is advised to proceed at his own risk.) The Times team writes:

Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times. Full Story »

Tarab is a state of ecstasy and surrender one enters while listening, with Body and Soul, to music. Whether it’s the dancing strings of the oud, the weeping melody of the violin, the mystical call of the nay or the pulsating rhythm of the drums…

A few years ago I decided to try my hand at learning some of the folkloric dances of the Middle East. I had no idea what a fascinating journey lay ahead. As much as I study the dance steps, they are incomplete without appreciating the music. So to help me share this wonderful music with you I asked local musician Erik Brown to join us for an on-line interview. Erik plays the Tablah (drum) for the Seattle based group House of Tarab.

Dawn: Erik, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on Arabic music. Tell us a little about the House of Tarab.

Erik: The House of Tarab, or H.O.T. for short, was officially formed in 2006. The six members are Stephen Elaimy, Jane Hall, David Mcgrath, Sallah Ali, Andy Zadrozny and myself. Members of this group have been playing traditional Arabic music together for more than a decade.

The House of Tarab is considered to be a “takht,” or orchestra. Takht also refers generally to the arrangement of instruments and to some degree the style of music performed. In a very broad sense a takht usually perform classical Arabic music or Muwashahat (lyric poetry).

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Pepe Escobar’s new book excerpted.

It’s Scholars & Rogues’s pleasure to present an excerpt from the new book by Pepe Escobar, correspondent for Asia Times Online and the Real News Internet TV channel: Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books).

From his ATimes bio:

An extreme traveler, Pepe’s nose for news takes him to all corners of the globe. He was in Afghanistan and interviewed the military leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Masoud, a couple of weeks before his assassination. Two weeks before September 11, while Pepe was in the tribal areas of Pakistan, he wrote his prophetic piece, “Get Osama! Now! Or else.” Full Story »

We are witnessing what a military takeover of a superpower looks like in the new American century. David Pertraeus became the most dangerous American general since Douglas MacArthur when George W. Bush announced that his “main man” would decide when, how and if an Iraq troop drawdown would occur, giving Petraeus unilateral control of U.S. foreign policy. In the summer of 2008, when then candidate Barack Obama started talking about a 16-month withdrawal deadline and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki said that sounded about right, you could almost hear Petraeus screeching What a world! What a world! from Baghdad to Washington. If you listened closely, you also heard the propaganda campaign to sell America on an endless occupation of Iraq click into high gear. Full Story »

Part I described how the Pentagon’s use of retired military media analysts to funnel propaganda through the mainstream media fit into a larger operation aimed at rewriting history as it happened.

On January 16, the Friday before Barack Obama’s inauguration, the Defense Department inspector general released the report of an investigation of the Pentagon’s Retired Military Analyst program. The report stated that, “the evidence in this case was insufficient to conclude” that the program had “violated statutory prohibitions on publicity or propaganda,” because “the definition of propaganda in this context remains unclear.”

Miriam-Webster OnLine defines propaganda as “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.” In April 2008, an in-depth investigation by the New York Times revealed that the RMA program had employed retired military officers in a “campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.”

So all that really remains unclear in this context is why the I.G. didn’t look up the definition of “propaganda.” Maybe that was outside the scope of his investigation. Full Story »

Few conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seem restrained by reason; worse, someone inevitably tosses out the word “Zionism” in some form or another.  Things generally go to hell after that.  “Antisemitism” follows closely on the invocation of the dreaded Zionist, and from then on the “conversation” too often becomes a matter of person A proving that person B hates Jews and person B either defending himself or cloaking actual antisemitism in the guise of being anti-Zionist.  All sorts of proofs and arguments follow from both sides.  I like to call it the good Jew/bad Jew routine.

It was recently suggested that a glossary of terms should be developed.  Unfortunately, many of these terms are subjective and a true glossary would need to be provided by each user of the word.  But the call to duty was raised and i’ve supplemented what i already knew with some quality time at Mid-East Web, the Jewish Virtual Library, and E-Zion.  I purposefully did not visit “anti-Zionist” resources because i don’t really believe that there’s a Zionist in my closet or that a shadowy cabal of powerful, Jewish bankers is plotting the domination/destruction of the planet.  I don’t believe in Leprechauns either.

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It was while reading Gareth Porter’s latest piece at IPS News, Israel Rejected Hamas Ceasefire Offer in December — Israel at its peremptory best — that it occurred to us. Porter wrote:

In the first days after the ceasefire took effect [in June 2008], Islamic Jihad fired nine rockets. … In August another eight rockets were fired by various groups [and] only one rocket was launched from Gaza in September and one in October.

Contrary to Israel’s argument that it was forced to [retaliate] against Gaza in order to stop the firing of rockets into its territory, Hamas proposed in mid-December to return to the original. . . ceasefire arrangement.

Porter adds that Hamas even tried to make other Palestinian groups abide by the ceasefire, detaining and confiscating the weapons of those in violation. But on November 4. . . Full Story »

You’ve probably heard this story by now. . .

From the Washington Post:

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that it had found at least 15 bodies and several children — emaciated but alive — in a row of shattered houses in the Gaza Strip and accused the Israeli military of preventing ambulances from reaching the site for four days.

You think my subject line was sacrilegious? Paul Woodward didn’t pull any punches either at War in Context with the heading to his link to the WaPo story: “Israel provides Palestinians with snacks as it takes massacre rest breaks.” Full Story »

Gaza is now full blown.  The US of A blocked the Security Council resolution…will wonders never cease?  And still no word from the president to be, who’s now in D.C. and must have full knowledge of the situation.  By “full knowledge” i mean the kind that you can’t read in the newspaper.

I’m either the best or worst type of commentator for this situation.  I don’t have a dog in this fight.  And while i can see some point to both sides being right, i mostly see both sides being terribly, terribly wrong.  The more pressing issues are, as usual, buried under the weight of politics, punditry, and personal animosity.

Full Story »

I don’t know if there’s a good guy in the Gaza Strip travesty; if there is one, it sure isn’t young Mr. Bush, or Lord Cheney, or Keystone Kondi Rice, or, lamentably, Barack Obama, and it sure as h-e-double hockey sticks isn’t Israel.

Speaking of perdition, somebody needs to throw another handful of clean coal in the brazier under Yasser Arafat, and hopefully someone has confirmed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s reservation for the spot next to Arafat’s. Bush and Kondi and Lord Cheney and Bad Will Ambassador John Bolton must be looking forward to occupying adjoining rooms with a view of the inferno in the LBJ Hilton, because they appear bent on squeezing in as much last minute evil as they can before a house drops on them. Full Story »

I’m continually appalled, although no longer surprised, by what both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (”the conflict” from now on) are willing to do. Islamic Jihad sends a suicide bomber and blows up a bus loaded with Israelis who’s only crime is being Israeli – Israel bulldozes the bomber’s family’s home. Israeli special forces assassinate a leader of Hamas – Hamas responds with Katyusha rockets launched willy-nilly at Israeli towns. Hezbollah kidnaps Israeli soldiers – Israel invades Lebanon and cluster bombs on entire Lebanese villages.

It’s been going on for so long now that we can’t even assign blame anymore. I got pull-off-the-road-and-calm-down furious on Monday when, in an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered Monday afternoon, a Gaza politician claimed that either a) Israeli collaborators had launched the rockets into Israel as a pretext or b) there had been no launches at all and Israel was faking the whole thing. And I got just as furious this morning when I the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. refused to admit that Israeli commandos had been assassinating Hamas leaders during the cease fire in yet another NPR interview.

Hammurabi came up with the first written code of laws – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. And the result of following that law is that Israelis and Palestinians have each become toothless, blind, deaf, mute, and stupid. Full Story »

We got through Christmas without having NORAD accidently blow Santa out of the sky, but don’t let your guard down yet. While visions of sugarplums danced in our heads, the Pentagon flew another escalation strategy under the radar. On the eve of Christmas Eve, Dexter Filkins of the New York Times reported “Taking a page from the successful experiment in Iraq, American commanders and Afghan leaders are preparing to arm local militias to help in the fight against a resurgent Taliban.”

Merry Christmas, fellow citizens. Odds are now almost certain that your country will be in a state of war throughout your lifetimes, and possibly throughout your children’s lifetimes as well. Full Story »

My December 10 article “Our Man in Bananastan” discussed how the hasty conclusion that Pakistani militants were behind the terror attack in India sounded like the bogus intelligence described in satiric espionage novels by Graham Greene and John le Carre. The New York Times, following the journalistic standard it established when it helped Dick Cheney sell the Iraq invasion, reported the “facts” of the Mumbai affair as deduced from double secret hearsay.

Recyclable Sources

The Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the Indian attack, according to an unnamed State Department official who was paraphrasing what unnamed American and Pakistani authorities had told him, but, unnamed American Embassy officials wouldn’t verify the story for the unnamed State official, nor would unnamed Pakistani officials in Islamabad.
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Last week, at a meeting of his country’s ruling party, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accused Iran of “trying to devour the Arab states.” Don’t worry, Hosni. Iran won’t eat you. It can’t. It can’t sit on you either. It’s too far away.

What led Mubarak to say such a mean thing about Iran? Well, it seems that a bunch of Iranian students shouted a bunch of mean things at the Egyptian embassy in Tehran, including their apparently genuine wish that someone would hang Mubarak. The Iranian students shouted mean things about Mubarak because Egypt wouldn’t let the Iranian Red Crescent sneak around Israel’s blockade of the Gaza strip and deliver food and supplies to Palestinians, who have been reduced to eating grass. Full Story »

By Jeff Huber

Truth is truly stranger than fiction. Graham Greene’s 1958 spy novel Our Man in Havana told a tragicomic tale of false intelligence crafted to suit the needs of a political agenda. John le Carre’s 1996 The Tailor of Panama repeated the theme.

Ahmed Chalabi was Dick Cheney’s real life man of the hour when it came time to shake and bake the intelligence on Iraq, and the Dark Lord and his neocon chamberlains are still trying to fabricate a casus belli for Iran. The Persian Ploy may be running up against a term limit, but there’s all the time in the world left to slip on the Bananastan peel. Heck, western superpowers have been flinging themselves down that slope for centuries.

At this point in the American experiment, U.S. intelligence is to intelligence what Kenny G is to jazz. After nearly a decade of getting gang-buggered over the kitchen table by the minions of the Office of the Vice President, our spy agencies have no more credibility than our sacked and pillaged mainstream press. In fact Full Story »

Link of the Week (as opposed to the Weakest Link):

John Heileman, New York magazine, The Next New Deal:

“Personally, I think the depth of the Obama realignment is being underestimated,” says the Republican media savant Stuart Stevens, who helped elect Bush twice. “They have basically invented their own party that is compatible with the Democratic Party but is bigger than the Democratic Party. Their e-mail list is more powerful than the DNC or RNC. In essence, Obama [was] elected as an Independent with Democratic backing — like Bernie Sanders on steroids.”

In other words, the Democratic party is but a brigade of the Obama juggernaut. Full Story »

Abdul Waheed Wafa and Mark McDonald report at the New York Times:

An airstrike by United States-led forces killed 40 civilians and wounded 28 others after it hit a wedding party in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Wednesday. The casualties included women and children, the officials said. Full Story »

Link of the Week (as opposed to the Weakest Link):

From a McClatchy blog, on something called the Reverse Bradley Effect: “. . . a new study today says that polls may be UNDERestimating Barack Obama’s support by 3 percent to 4 percent nationally [in] a reversal of the so-called Bradley effect, in which support for African-American candidates is overstated when people talk to pollsters but then vote against the candidate in the privacy of the polling booth. ‘If you call people on the phone today and ask who they will vote for, some will give responses influenced by what may be understood locally as the more desirable response,’ [psychologist Anthony] Greenwald said.” And then, apparently, vote for who they want. Full Story »

Link of the Week (as opposed to the Weakest Link):

“It’s Judgment Day for McCain” at the Wall Street Journal Thomas Frank writes: “Last week, Republican presidential candidate John McCain called for a commission to ‘find out what went wrong’ on Wall Street. … Mr. McCain has a special advantage to bring to any such investigation — many of the relevant witnesses are friends or colleagues of his. In fact, he can probably get to the bottom of the whole mess just by cross-examining the people riding on his campaign bus.” [Emphasis added.] Full Story »

Link of the Week (as opposed to the Weakest Link):

Stop the presses: John McCain tells the truth. Laurence Vance at LewRockwell.com explains: “In an interview with 60 Minutes in 1997, McCain mentioned the confession his North Vietnamese captors forced him to write: ‘I was guilty of war crimes against the Vietnamese people. I intentionally bombed women and children.’ The truth, of course, is that what McCain wrote under duress is actually an accurate statement.” Full Story »