Americans distrust White House

US President Barack Hussien Obama

By Joseph Zrnchik

Much Zionist propaganda has been written about why Iran should not be allowed a nuclear energy program for peaceful purposes.

The US has come up with a pile of illogical rationalities, outright fallacies and propaganda in hopes of denying Iran the modernity it claims to seek to promote throughout the Middle East and Southwest Asia. However, US objections might as well have come from the mouth of Ehud Barak himself as the US lists what it claims to be its concerns, concerns that in no way violate international law, upset international stability or threaten the balance of power according to a growing number of American foreign policy think tanks, policy wonks, former defense officials and statesmen who understand that war does not bring peace, prosperity, security or liberty.

Individuals such as Kenneth Waltz argue that Iran needs a bomb to ensure the West does not attack it. A growing number of US groups and individuals claim it is only through a militaristic paradigm of what had been the Cold War policy between the US and the former U.S.S.R., that of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), that Iran can ensure its security and maintain a just peace.

Iran rejects this paradigm and has stated the three most effective ways to promote peace are through international justice, the adherence to international treaties and the working towards a nuclear-free Middle East. Few Americans understand that these three foundational underpinnings are constantly undercut by the US due to the control wielded by the Zionist lobby through the US media, its control of the US political process and its position of influence within the US defense establishment that blackmails the US into exercising its veto authority as a member of the UN Security Council.

Iran’s leadership has stated it is a great sin against Islam to seek nuclear weapons. The IAEA and the US’ Central Intelligence Agency have both stated Iran does not have a nuclear weapon program and has abided by the IAEA and NPT protocols, going above and beyond what measures are needed to ensure compliance.

Israeli Terrorist PM Nyetenyahu

The greatest threat to the IAEA and NPT is the US’ refusal to abide by its provisions. Countries have learned that to disarm in exchange for security guarantees is as an effective means of foreign policy as deciding to become the willing rape victim of colonialists and imperialists.

Yet, the world is bombarded with Zionist propaganda because Israel fears Iran gaining the technical knowledge that would come to any nation building a nuclear energy program. But, knowledge is as an unavoidable by-product of scientific endeavor in nuclear energy and medicine as spent fuel rods are that require reprocessing in order to produce more electrical energy.

Unfortunately, when one reads the US media, he is bombarded with the Zionist meme of Israelis claiming Iran wants to wipe them and Israel off the map. One wonders how this can be accomplished considering Iran has no nuclear weapons and the only nation to have used them, the US, proved it was unable to wipe Japan or the Japanese people off the map.

The Israelis constantly spout hysterics and feign fear, but the leadership in Iran has proven itself much more stable, sane, logical, and peaceful than the Zionist regime that is destroying itself and demonstrating its illegitimacy due to its criminality. This ruse of Israelis claiming security concerns requires the US to make payouts to regimes across the globe, and the entire world participates in what they know is a charade to garner a small share of an increasingly diminishing dollar from a nation that is diminishing in influence and stability due to its absurd foreign and domestic policy positions.

The erosion of US domestic tranquility comes as a natural by-product of engaging in international lawlessness, but Americans have not yet realized that you cannot be a nation of laws domestically while engaging in a global crime spree abroad that includes illegal invasions, violations of international law with regard to the Geneva Convention and human rights and the use of torture and murder as the cornerstones of foreign policy. The Saudi and Bahraini regimes make pacts with the US, and hence indirectly with Israel. However, it is difficult to see who is getting the worse end of the deal as every US partner seeks to place the US into wars that need not be fought for any legitimate American interests, but instead to the detriment of them.

To see a vulgar display of US duplicity and hypocrisy one needs to look no farther than the US violating the Geneva Convention with respect to perpetrating regime change, waging aggressive war, engaging in torture and murder, conducting extraordinary renditions and providing support for terrorist organizations like the MEK [MKO], PPK, Jundullah and now al-Qaeda in Syria. This is the method the US uses to ensure its way of life. The US has a long history of enlisting terrorist support in the implementation of a terrorist foreign policy, and this policy is causing more and more nations to realize they do not need the US to engage mutually beneficial trade, cultural exchange or military agreements as such are growing to the exclusion of US interests and influence.

The BRICS nations, Latin America and even Iraq are engaging in cooperation with their neighbors much to the dismay of the power structures within the US establishment. The US’ last unexploited frontier is Africa, but with China looking for investments so as to have something to do with the trillions of US dollars it holds, the US may end up a day late and trillions of dollars short. It is in such an environment the US then begins to pit tribes, ethnic groups, religious groups and political groups against each other. This is the tried and true method of conducting imperial conquest. Sell weapons to one group so the other will need more. Since the US does not make much else in the way of consumer goods, it has to rely on the business of mass slaughter.

For every international law the US has broken, it feels its rationalizations provide it absolute justification. If Americans went in front of a US court using the logic and arguments the US government uses to excuse its murder, they would be given the electric chair within a fortnight. Image if a citizen used the arguments the US uses to attack other nations to preempt increasing instances of police violence Americans regularly suffer at the hands of “law enforcement.”

But, let’s consider what crimes Iranians had to suffer at the hands of America. All the way back in 1953, Operation TP-Ajax resulted in the CIA supporting the bombing of mosques in order to blame the crimes on the government of Mohammed Mossadegh. This resulted in the overthrow of his government and the execution of his cabinet ministers, not to mention the hundreds of deaths of innocent civilians. The US government felt this murder of Iranians was nothing more than the implementation of foreign policy. Americans accepted as rational and reasonable something that is so horrible and grotesque that it ought to be a crime that should never to be forgotten and would rightfully serve as a rallying point for all Iranian patriots for all time.

This was not the last of the crimes Iranians suffered at the hands of Americans. The US then installed the Shah of Iran whose SAVAK [Intelligence Agency] then exterminated all political opposition from 1953 to 1979 when the people finally decided they could no longer suffer the tyrant and overthrew him.

Instead of America being ashamed of what it had done to a country that had not waged an aggressive war in generations, the US decided to encourage, support, and provide economic and military assistance to Saddam to wage a war of aggression against Iran that would cost a peaceful Iran hundreds of thousands of lives. The U.S. actually gave Saddam the chemical weapons and production capabilities he used to slaughter Iranians, Iraqi Shiites, and Iraqi Kurds. Not once did the US media mention the UN, international law, or Iraqi WMDs during the 8-year Iraq-Iran War.

Then the US decided to atomize the very country for allegedly having the weapons the US gave it, knowing full well the weapons had already been destroyed. If Saddam had WMDs, he would be as safe and secure as Kim Jong-il’s North Korea, or Pakistan and India. Also, Iraq would have been under no more obligation to follow international law than the US or Israel. Speaking of Israel, look what their illegal nuclear program conducted in absolute secrecy in violation of international law and IAEA protocols has allowed it to do. The Israeli nuclear program has allowed Israel to unilaterally make piracy, ethnic cleansing and genocide legal, acceptable and tolerable to the US and NATO.

After the Shah was deposed in 1979 and the US goaded Saddam to attack Iran, the US decided it wanted to test its new anti-aircraft weapon systems deployed on the USS Vincennes as it proceeded to shoot an Iranian airliner out of the sky knowing full well it was a commercial aircraft. IR Flight 655 with 290 innocent civilians was blasted out of the sky while the US refused an apology and the commander of the ship was awarded military decorations and honors for his slaughter of innocent civilians. Here is the whole history of that episode that was hidden from the American people:

This was after the US began attacking oil platforms and Saddam had killed Iranians with US supplied chemical weapons and production capability.

Not only do the US people not want to know the truth, they would refuse to believe the truth no matter what facts were presented. They literally believe the US would never do something as heinous as engaging in terrorism, but wishful thinking does not create reality. The fact is that if the US inspects a nation and finds it has no means of resistance, it will then conduct its attack to get its way. It is a nation’s failure to have a credible deterrent that creates a destabilizing situation. If Iran had nukes it would stand no chance of attack and would have the power to execute its foreign policy as an equal among equals. But, the bullying has cost the US as more and more nations balance against its power and the US relies more and more on military might for its influence.

Israeli Terrorist PM Nyetenyahu

All the things I have mentioned in this article are all on the CIA website, in Wikipedia, and common knowledge for people who seriously research American foreign policy. It is accepted fact throughout the political spectrum from Ron Paul on the right of the political spectrum to Noam Chomsky on the left. In reference to the suppositions posited here, there is no argument by those who seriously dissect and study American foreign policy and its impact on the world.

It is the fact is that the majority of Americans are so stupid and gullible that they will believe any pro-Zionist US imperial propaganda amplified in the media. These same people are so intellectually lazy that they can’t take the time to cut and paste a speech into Google Translator to get at the truth of a matter; moreover, they would rather not get at the truth. The success of American propaganda is in keeping the top 20% of the population misinformed as the other 80% are enamored by sports, celebrity, political divisiveness, and the numerous other distractions that keep people from understanding the plans and actions of the power elite.

In short, I have no faith in the US and its foreign policy. Its foreign policy abuses, crimes and tyrannies are being mirrored in its domestic policy, criminal justice system, tax code, and failure to abide by the US Constitution.

It is a matter of time now before the US destroys itself after it inflicts the misery on its own people it has until now only exported. I can’t say we, as Americans don’t deserve retribution for our ignorance and apathy. We are as responsible for what our government does as any other nation is for its government, at least this is what our government says as it bombs and kills civilians by the scores, especially in countries with no navy, army or air force.

Speech given by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and Ministers at the Rio-20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, June 21, 2012, Year 54 of the Revolution

 Cuba aspires to good sense and human intelligence prevailing over irrationality and barbarity

Mr. President;

Your Excellencies:

Twenty years ago, on June 12, 1992, in this same conference hall, the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz stated, and I quote, “An important biological species is at risk of disappearing due to the rapid and progressive liquidation of its natural living conditions: humanity.” End of quote.

What could have been considered alarmist, today constitutes an irrefutable reality. The inability to transform unsustainable models of production and consumption is threatening the balance and regeneration of natural mechanisms which sustain life forms on the planet.

The effects cannot be hidden. Species are becoming extinct at a speed one hundred times faster than those indicated in fossil records; more than five million hectares of forests are lost every year; and close to 60% of ecosystems are degraded.

In spite of the landmark signified by the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, carbon dioxide emissions increased by 38% from 1990 to 2009. We are now moving toward a global increase in temperature which will place at risk, in the first place, the integrity and physical existence of numerous developing island states and will produce serious consequences in the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

A profound and detailed study undertaken during the last five years by our scientific institutions is in basic agreement with reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and confirms that, during this century, if current trends are maintained, a gradual and considerable rise in average sea levels will take place in the Cuban archipelago. This forecast includes the intensification of extreme meteorological events, such as tropical hurricanes, and an increase in the salinity of underground water sources. All of this will have serious consequences, especially for our coastal areas, so we have initiated the adoption of appropriate measures.

Equally, this phenomenon will have serious geographic, demographic and economic implications for the Caribbean islands which, moreover, must confront the inequalities of an international economic system which excludes the smallest and most vulnerable.

 The paralysis of negotiations and the lack of an agreement which could make it possible to halt global climate change are a clear reflection of a lack of political will and the inability of developed countries to act in accordance with obligations concomitant with their historical responsibility and current position. This has been demonstrated in this meeting, despite the extraordinary effort made by Brazil, for which we are grateful.

Poverty is increasing, hunger and malnutrition are growing and inequality is expanding, aggravated in recent decades as a consequence of neoliberalism.

During these 20 years, wars of a new kind have been launched, focused on the conquest of energy resources, as was the case in 2003, on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction which never existed, and the recent war in North Africa. Acts of aggression against Middle Eastern countries which can now be discerned will be compounded by others, with the objective of controlling access to water and other resources in the process of being exhausted. It must be made clear that attempting a new division of the world will unleash a spiral of conflicts of incalculable consequences for a planet already seriously insecure, and moreover, sick.

In the last two decades, military spending has grown to the astronomical sum of $1.74 trillion, almost double that of 1992, which is leading to an arms race in other states which feel threatened. Two decades after the end of the Cold War, against who will these arms be used?

Let us stop the justifications and egoisms and seek solutions. This time, everyone, absolutely everyone, will pay for the consequences of climate change. Governments of industrialized countries which are acting in this manner should not commit the serious error of believing that they can survive a little longer at our cost. The waves of millions of hungry and desperate people from the South toward the North will be uncontainable, as will the rebellion of the peoples in the face of such indolence and injustice. No hegemonism will be possible then. End the plunder, end war, let us advance toward disarmament and destroy the nuclear arsenals.

We are required to make a transcendental change. The only alternative is to build more just societies; to establish a more equitable international order based on respect for the rights of all; to ensure the sustainable development of nations, especially those of the South; and place advances in science and technology at the service of the salvation of the planet and human dignity. 

Cuba aspires to good sense and human intelligence prevailing over irrationality and barbarity.

  

Thank you very much

A Cruel and Unusual Record

By Jimmy Carter

THE United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.
Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. 

This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues.

While the country has made mistakes in the past, the widespread abuse of human rights over the last decade has been a dramatic change from the past. With leadership from the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 as “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” This was a bold and clear commitment that power would no longer serve as a cover to oppress or injure people, and it established equal rights of all people to life, liberty, security of person, equal protection of the law and freedom from torture, arbitrary detention or forced exile.

The declaration has been invoked by human rights activists and the international community to replace most of the world’s dictatorships with democracies and to promote the rule of law in domestic and global affairs. It is disturbing that, instead of strengthening these principles, our government’s counterterrorism policies are now clearly violating at least 10 of the declaration’s 30 articles, including the prohibition against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Recent legislation has made legal the president’s right to detain a person indefinitely on suspicion of affiliation with terrorist organizations or “associated forces,” a broad, vague power that can be abused without meaningful oversight from the courts or Congress (the law is currently being blocked by a federal judge). This law violates the right to freedom of expression and to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, two other rights enshrined in the declaration.

In addition to American citizens’ being targeted for assassination or indefinite detention, recent laws have canceled the restraints in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to allow unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications. Popular state laws permit detaining individuals because of their appearance, where they worship or with whom they associate.

 Despite an arbitrary rule that any man killed by drones is declared an enemy terrorist, the death of nearby innocent women and children is accepted as inevitable. After more than 30 airstrikes on civilian homes this year in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has demanded that such attacks end, but the practice continues in areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen that are not in any war zone. 

We don’t know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks, each one approved by the highest authorities in Washington. This would have been unthinkable in previous times.

These policies clearly affect American foreign policy. Top intelligence and military officials, as well as rights defenders in targeted areas, affirm that the great escalation in drone attacks has turned aggrieved families toward terrorist organizations, aroused civilian populations against us and permitted repressive governments to cite such actions to justify their own despotic behavior.

Meanwhile, the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, now houses 169 prisoners. About half have been cleared for release, yet have little prospect of ever obtaining their freedom. American authorities have revealed that, in order to obtain confessions, some of the few being tried (only in military courts) have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers. 

Astoundingly, these facts cannot be used as a defense by the accused, because the government claims they occurred under the cover of “national security.” Most of the other prisoners have no prospect of ever being charged or tried either.

At a time when popular revolutions are sweeping the globe, the United States should be strengthening, not weakening, basic rules of law and principles of justice enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But instead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends.

As concerned citizens, we must persuade Washington to reverse course and regain moral leadership according to international human rights norms that we had officially adopted as our own and cherished throughout the years.

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, is the founder of the Carter Center and the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.

Time for regime change in the USA

By Rodney Shakespeare

With breath-taking arrogance, the USA opposed the presence of Iran at the discussions about Syria in Geneva.

Turkey - now openly playing the sectarian card and deliberately causing a Phantom jet to fly in fast and low in order to provoke a reaction and so involve NATO - can be present. The USA - supplying arms to al-Qaeda; organizing Salafists, Wahhabists and death squads; broadcasting lying propaganda - can be present. Russia and China can be present. But not Iran.

Yet Iran has political, religious and cultural links with the Alawite (Shia sect) government of Syria. Iran is the one country - not the USA, not Russia, not China, not Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Qatar - which can have frank talks with Syria. Iran is the one country which Syria can trust as understanding its situation. And Iran is the only country which can give hope of avoiding a civil war bloodbath, at the very least, or a probable decade-long regional war.

But Iran is not to be at Geneva because the USA, riddled with bigotry and an example of Ancient Greek hubris if there ever was one, hates any country which wants to be independent. It particularly hates Iran. Indeed, so extreme is the hatred that anything (including war) can be done to achieve regime change in Tehran. It is therefore no surprise that, at all times, the USA quickly side-lines democracy and justice if there is any likelihood that Iran might be involved in the solution. And just to spell out the point, in Syria, the USA is co-operating with Saudi Arabia - a vicious, totalitarian tyranny supplying guns and money - and with Qatar - an anti-democratic country, supplying guns and money.  

Furthermore, bent on regime change in Syria, the USA is comprehensively ignoring the Kofi Annan Peace Plan just as the referendum and election held by Syria are also being ignored. When the USA wants regime change, anything goes - particularly the torturing and slaughter of Shia women and children which, by twisting the facts to their opposite, are blamed on the government when they were really the work of the American-backed Wahhabi and NATO death squads who, when not killing, like to ransack Christian churches.

Nor is Iran banned only from a solution for Syria. It is also banned from the solution for Afghanistan. Iran is next to Afghanistan. It has linguistic, religious, cultural and trading links with Afghanistan. If ever there was a country which can talk to all parties in Afghanistan, it is Iran. However, the USA - full of self-important haughtiness and the major cause of the problem - determines that Iran can never be part of the solution and, by doing so, condemns Afghanistan to many more years of misery.

Yet the world is turning: change is afoot and Russia, wanting Iran to be at Geneva, is one of the countries which is not only sensing the change but is actively doing something about it. Right the way round the globe countries are quietly banding together. They can do so because they are directly experiencing a decline in the economic and political power of the USA. 

On top of which the USA’s moral authority went out of the window long ago so countries are quietly plotting a new course for themselves - one which involves breaking free from Western hegemony. Thus the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation brings together Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and others, with India, Pakistan and Iran as observer members. China and Japan have decided to trade in their own currencies and not the dollar - there’s a sign of the times! And in South America a number of countries are beginning to band together to run their own international bank (the Banco del Sud) thus causing the diminution of American financial and political influence.

Indeed, the amazing thing is that the USA is completely failing to see what is going on. It was completely caught off balance by the Arab Spring so perhaps it is not surprising that it does not understand that it is hated more than it knows; that its traditional mixture of bullying, bribery and attack are not quite as impressive as it thinks; and that, in short, others are fed up with a short-sighted arrogance and even more short-sighted stupidity which is always prepared to go to war (even if that means that the USA is now virtually bankrupt because of its military spending).

All in all, it’s time for all sensible people and all sensible countries (there’s quite a lot of them) to consciously question any assertion by the USA that this or that regime is at fault and needs to be overthrown. Instead all sensible people and countries should start to say that the world is fed up with war-mongering as well as angry at the Wall Street machinations which are destroying the world economy.

Then the way will be opened for impressing on the American people what the situation really requires - regime change in the USA.