Follow on TwitterVIDEO: WINEP’s Director of Research: U.S. Needs A False Flag to Start A War With Iran
Many of the notables who served in the Bush Administration and played key roles in misleading the United States into war with Iraq have passed through the corridors of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). In fact, the think-tank serves as an incubator for the hawkish Neoconservative ideology.
Here is how Harvard professor of Int’l Affairs Steven M. Walt describes the think-tank:
[WINEP] is a key organization in the Israel lobby. It was founded in 1985 by three individuals: Larry and Barbi Weinberg, who had formerly been the president and vice-president of AIPAC; and Martin Indyk, who was previously deputy director for research there. These founders understood that AIPAC’s efforts would be enhanced if there was a separate, seemingly “objective” research organization to provide consistently “pro-Israel” analysis and commentary, while AIPAC concentrated on more direct lobbying activities. Although WINEP claims that it provides a “balanced and realistic perspective” on Middle East issue, anyone who spends a few hours examining its website and reading its publications will realize this is not the case.
In fact, WINEP is funded and led by individuals who are deeply committed to defending the special relationship, and promoting policies in Washington that they believe will benefit Israel. Its board of advisors is populated with prominent advocates for Israel such as Martin Peretz, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, and Mortimer Zuckerman, and there’s no one on this board who is remotely critical of Israel or inclined to favor any other country in the “Near East.”
Former AIPAC staffer MJ Rosenberg was literally “in the room” when WINEP was founded. Here he describes its birth:
I was in the room when AIPAC decided to establish WINEP.
It was Steve Rosen (later indicted under the Espionage Act, although charges were subsequently dropped) who cleverly came up with the idea for an AIPAC controlled think-tank that would disseminate the AIPAC line but in a way that would disguise its connections.
There was no question that WINEP was to be AIPAC’s cutout. It was funded by AIPAC donors, staffed by AIPAC employees, and located one door away, down the hall, from AIPAC Headquarters (No more. It has its own digs).
It would also hire all kinds of people not identified with Israel as cover and would encourage them to write whatever they liked on matters not related to Israel. “Say what you want on Morocco, kid.” But on Israel, never deviate more than a degree or two.
So, it probably shouldn’t have come as TOO big a shock when this video became circulated on Twitter tonight, showing the depths the Neoconservatives are prepared to plunge to get their war against Iran.
Here is a video of WINEP’s Director of Research Patrick Clawson, telling a gathering in the group’s conference room that the United States should find a ‘false flag’ to get into war with Iran.
WATCH:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se32hATeIvw[/youtube]
TRANSCRIPT:
I frankly find that crisis initiation is really tough. And it’s very hard for me to see how the United States President can get us into war with Iran. Which leads me to conclude that if in fact compromise is not coming that the traditional way that America gets into war is what would be best for U.S. interests.
Some people might think that Mr. Roosevelt wanted to get us into World War II, as David mentioned, you may recall we had to wait for Pearl Harbor. Some people think Mr. Wilson wanted to get us into World War I, you may recall we had to wait for the Lusitania episode. Some people might think that Mr. Johnson wanted to send troops to Vietnam, you may recall we had to wait for the Gulf of Tonkin episode. We didn’t go to war with Spain until the USS Maine exploded. And may I point out that Mr. Lincoln did not feel he could call out the Federal Army until Fort Sumter was attacked which is why he ordered the commander of Fort Sumter to do exactly that thing which the South Carolineans had said would cause an attack.
So if in fact the Iranians aren’t going to compromise, it would be best if somebody else started the war. One can combine other means of pressure with sanctions. I mentioned that explosion on August 17th. We could step up the pressure.
I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down, some day one of them might not come up, who would know why? We could do a variety of things if we wish to to increase the pressure. I’m not advocating that, but I’m just suggesting that this is not an either or proposition, you know it’s just sanctions have to succeed or it’s other things.
We are in the games of using covert means against the Iranians. We could get nastier.
Mossad Frames The C.I.A. For Terrorist Attacks In Iran, As Israel Drags The U.S. Into War
Despite what has been described as a full-court press by the Obama Administration to convince Israel not to attack Iran, the Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. is now in fact preparing for such an attack.
The Administration fears a range of possible Iranian reprisals directed at American targets, including “assaults by pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq against the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, according to U.S. officials.”
As a deterrence, the U.S. has deployed 15,000 troops to Kuwait, and has now ordered a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf.
The Obama Administration had most recently begun to engage in a more diplomatic tact with Iran, hoping to diffuse the situation:
The U.S. and Iran, however, have taken steps in recent days apparently designed to ease tensions. Iran has agreed to host a delegation of United Nations nuclear inspectors this month. The U.S., meanwhile, has twice this month rescued Iranian sailors in the region’s seas.
But today, The Guardian reports that Iran’s Foreign Ministry sent a diplomatic letter to the Obama Administration citing “evidence and reliable information” that C.I.A. agents provided “guidance, support and planning” to those who lobbed a magnetic bomb at the car of 32-year old Iranian nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, killing him in Wednesday morning’s rush-hour traffic.
The U.S. not only denies the charges, it has forcefully condemned the civilian assassination:
The assassination drew an unusually strong condemnation from the White House and the State Department, which disavowed any American complicity. The statements by the United States appeared to reflect serious concern about the growing number of lethal attacks, which some experts believe could backfire by undercutting future negotiations and prompting Iran to redouble what the West suspects is a quest for a nuclear capacity.
“The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this,” said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared to expand the denial beyond Wednesday’s killing, “categorically” denying “any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran.”
“We believe that there has to be an understanding between Iran, its neighbors and the international community that finds a way forward for it to end its provocative behavior, end its search for nuclear weapons and rejoin the international community,” Mrs. Clinton said.
The Israelis have not denied their own involvement. The Israeli Defense Force Spokesman stated on Facebook, as reported by ABC: “I don’t know who settled the score with the Iranian Scientist, but I am certainly not shedding a tear.”
A bombshell story broke yesterday, written by Mark Perry for Foreign Policy Magazine, which appears to shed light on these assassinations, as well as the Iranians’ insistence the C.I.A. was involved.
It reveals that the Israeli Mossad, has been engaged in a false-flag operation, in which they posed as C.I.A. agents right “under the nose of U.S. intelligence officers, most notably in London,” and recruited members of the anti-Iran militant group, Jundallah, to commit terrorist attacks against the Persian nation. Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni terror group, “according to the U.S. government and published reports, is responsible for assassinating Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children.”
The revelations in Perry’s article were garnered from a series of C.I.A. memos, written in the final years of the Bush Administration. These memos show that U.S. intelligence officials were barred from “even the most incidental contact with Jundallah, …[though] the same was not true for Israel’s Mossad.” The U.S. intelligence community was described as “stunned by the brazenness of the Mossad’s efforts.”
These intelligence memos found their way to the highest levels of the Bush Administration, who became infuriated that their supposed ally was putting American lives at risk:
According to one retired CIA officer, information about the false-flag operation was reported up the U.S. intelligence chain of command. It reached CIA Director of Operations Stephen Kappes, his deputy Michael Sulick, and the head of the Counterintelligence Center. All three of these officials are now retired. The Counterintelligence Center, according to its website, is tasked with investigating “threats posed by foreign intelligence services.”
The report then made its way to the White House, according to the currently serving U.S. intelligence officer. The officer said that Bush “went absolutely ballistic” when briefed on its contents.
“The report sparked White House concerns that Israel’s program was putting Americans at risk,” the intelligence officer told me. “There’s no question that the U.S. has cooperated with Israel in intelligence-gathering operations against the Iranians, but this was different. No matter what anyone thinks, we’re not in the business of assassinating Iranian officials or killing Iranian civilians.”
Israel’s relationship with Jundallah continued to roil the Bush administration until the day it left office, this same intelligence officer noted. Israel’s activities jeopardized the administration’s fragile relationship with Pakistan, which was coming under intense pressure from Iran to crack down on Jundallah. It also undermined U.S. claims that it would never fight terror with terror, and invited attacks in kind on U.S. personnel.
“It’s easy to understand why Bush was so angry,” a former intelligence officer said. “After all, it’s hard to engage with a foreign government if they’re convinced you’re killing their people. Once you start doing that, they feel they can do the same.”
As furious as the Bush Administration and the Intelligence Community became with its largest foreign aid recipient, they feared political backlash by the Israel Lobby, and thus, did absolutely nothing:
A senior administration official vowed to “take the gloves off” with Israel, according to a U.S. intelligence officer. But the United States did nothing — a result that the officer attributed to “political and bureaucratic inertia.”
“In the end,” the officer noted, “it was just easier to do nothing than to, you know, rock the boat.”
Had they actually exposed the Israeli false-flag op, we wouldn’t have Iran — now on war-footing — blaming the C.I.A. for aiding and abetting terrorist bombings which continue to target their civilians.
An unnamed Senior Israeli government official, today, issued a statement to Ha’aretz, calling the U.S. intelligence report “absolute nonsense.” But in 2010, the Mossad was exposed for conducting similar false-flag operations against their European allies, when they assassinated a Hamas member in Dubai, while using forged passports from various European countries and Australia.
With all of this now out in the open, it should come as no surprise that a recent internal C.I.A. poll revealed U.S. intelligence officials consider Israeli spies to be the very worst U.S. allies — dead last on the list — among friendly spy services.
War Mongers Are Furious About Proposed War Surtax On Wealthiest 2%
Those on the right — the same ones who claimed to be ‘fiscal conservatives’ while they doubled our national debt with trillions in tax cuts for the wealthy, while simultaneously fighting two wars — are now up in arms that the richest two percent may be asked to pay a war surtax to help fund the wars they so eagerly mislead us into fighting.
It all began when two prominent democrats floated the idea to the press. The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey told ABC News in an exclusive interview:
“There ain’t going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan. If they ask for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan, I am going to ask them to pay for it.”
Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin, made it clear that he is absolutely opposed to sending any more U.S. troops to Afghanistan and says if Obama decides to do that, he’ll demand a new tax — what he calls a “war surtax” — to pay for it.
“On the merits, I think it is a mistake to deepen our involvement,” Obey said. “But if we are going to do that, then at least we ought to pay for it. Because if we don’t, if we don’t pay for it, the cost of the Afghan war will wipe out every initiative we have to rebuild our own economy.”
Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Bloomberg Television much the same:
Higher-income Americans should be taxed to pay for more troops sent to Afghanistan and NATO should provide half of the new soldiers.
An “additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000” a year, could fund more troops.
White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has estimated that each additional soldier in Afghanistan could cost $1 million, for a total that could reach $40 billion if 40,000 more troops are added.
That cost, Levin said, should be paid by wealthier taxpayers. “They have done incredibly well, and I think that it’s important that we pay for it if we possibly can” instead of increasing the federal debt load, the senator said.
Sounds reasonable to me. One of the chief reasons many in our country were so quick to buy into Bush’s call to invade Iraq was because only the troops and their families were being asked to make any sacrifice. If Bush had imposed a war surtax, Americans would have required some serious convincing that Iraq actually posed a threat to this country — of course it never did.
The unfortunate truth of the matter is most people are not altruistic by nature; most are narcissistic. They only care deeply about the things that impact their and their family’s lives directly. All the chicken-hawk, neo-cons gladly mislead our nation into invading and occupying Iraq, where other people’s children would lose their lives for some ulterior agenda — something we’ll probably never fully get to the bottom of.
If you want to prevent unnecessary wars; prevent open-ended commitments to wars based on Presidents’ political calculations; and prevent our nation from going bankrupt in the process, it is imperative to demand financial sacrifice from the citizens of this country. Only then will the country wake up, and start asking questions. Only then will our wars be conducted for reasons of absolute necessity. And only when that happens, will it be money well-spent.
Which is probably why Fox News, the Heritage Foundation, and other right-winged war mongers are up in arms about this proposal. The frenzy has just begun:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izo-BQSzVo0[/youtube]
The Status Quo And How Washington Ensures It
A major impasse appears to exist these days between Democrats and Republicans on virtually every issue. On the surface, it would seem it’s all ideology-based. But upon closer inspection, their hostilities are, in large part, incited by media-manufactured outrage, where partisan vitriol and ideological demagoguery drowns out all thoughtful discourse. Unfortunately, our country is in […]
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