NeoCon Wet Dreams live in Romney

Posted: October 8, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, Foreign Affairs, Libya | Tags: , , , | 33 Comments

The one thing I don’t ever want to see again in my life time is a fiasco like the Iraq invasion.  The same gang that brought us that costly and horrible misfortune is advising Mitt Romney.  Romney waded in to the foreign policy arena today with a speech to Virginia Military Institute.   He inkled a lot of the Cheney/Rummy/Wolfie/Bolton threats in a speech that you really need to read.  Can we really afford more of this mass invasion of the Middle East in the name of oil and empty dreams of US imperialism?

Romney channeled their evil intent.  Make no mistake about it.  First, he’s riding a wave of lies about what happened in Benghazi. Second, he’s rattling sabers again.

The GOP candidate added that “the blame for the murder of our people in Libya, and the attacks on our embassies in so many other countries, lies solely with those who carried them out—no one else.  But it is the responsibility of our President to use America’s great power to shape history—not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events.”

He also laid out a broad foreign policy vision that called for the U.S. to “lead the course of human events” with “more American leadership.”

In other words, it was a boilerplate speech with nods to the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, a wing that leads his foreign policy team as well. But asWired’s Spencer Ackerman notes , “the policies Romney outlines in his speech differ, at most, superficially from Obama’s.” Obama’s record on foreign policy is an aggressive one, with escalated drone strikes that have killed scores of civilians in Pakistan and Yemen and the continuation of the war in Afghanistan. Romney didn’t offer anything specific that was more aggressive than Obama, though his rhetoric was ratcheted up.

Romney indicates that all we need is a bit more military presence in  the Middle East.  At least we know where those $2 trillion dollars that none of the military folks want will actually go. Get ready to send your grandchildren to Iran.

When Romney says “the 21st century can and must be an American century” and that is the U.S.’s responsibility to steer the world towards “the path of freedom, peace, and prosperity,” that’s code for the maintenance of U.S. hegemony. Romney still believes that the U.S. should be able to shape the world as we see fit–the rest of the world who refuses to go along with it be damned. These ideas are particularly galling given that Romney was partly addressing the Arab Spring–a series of revolts that were decidedly against U.S. support for repressive dictatorships.

Romney also believes that in the case of Iran, “American support”–read meddling– for the opposition in that country would be helpful. But that ignores the fact that the Green movement in Iran did not want U.S. support and intervention.

The Republican candidate also lamented the fact that “America’s ability to influence events for the better in Iraq has been undermined by the abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence.”

Lastly, he hinted that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan could continue for years to come if he was president. “The route to more war – and to potential attacks here at home – is a politically timed retreat that abandons the Afghan people to the same extremists who ravaged their country and used it to launch the attacks of 9/11,” the candidate said. “I will evaluate conditions on the ground and weigh the best advice of our military commanders.”

Neocons in the US and Israel are dying to invade Iran.  We’ve already implemented tough embargoes of the country.  Evidently, this will never be enough for the likes of Romney and his neocon advisers.  Romney offers to send more Navy into the region.  He offers to further arm Israel and to extend free trade agreements to any one under the sole circumstance of not being aligned with ‘enemies’ .  Hopefully, this is the Romney we will see at the next presidential debate.  However, given the flip flops and lies of the last debate on the economy, I would assume that he may walk back his eagerness to display Neocon belligerence.  Do we really want a few more wars and conflicts in that region.  Haven’t the lessons of the Dubya presidency taught us enough already?

UPDATE:  Okay, well this firms it up completely.

Romney’s New Freedom Agenda Draws Praise From Bushworld

“Terrific,” says Rumsfeld. “A kinder, gentler neocon.

Would you let any one you love vote for some one that just was praised by Donald Rumsfeld?

But it was Romney’s speech, and its echoes of the Freedom Agenda, that drew rave reviews from some of the leading avatars and supporters of the clear and combative foreign policy of Bush’s first term.

“Terrific, comprehensive speech by Gov. Romney,” Bush’s first term Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted “He knows America’s role in the world should be as a leader not as a spectator.”

Romney’s speech offers a new Republican articulation of the Bush doctrine of moral clarity, wielded — as Romney said — “wisely, with solemnity and without false pride” to “make the world better—not perfect, but better.”

“What’s not to like?” asked Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, a leading foreign policy hawk and backer of Bush’s war in Iraq, who called the speech “kinder, gentler neocon.”

Kristol’s fellow travelers on the neoconservative right were ebullient.

“Kristol could have written it himself,” said Michael Goldfarb, an aide to Senator John McCain’s 2008 campaign who now chairs the conservative Center for American Freedom. “Strong on defense, strong on foreign involvement and aid, strong (and courageous) on Afghanistan and Iraq.

“For all the talk about fissures in the party — the [Project for a New American Century] guys are the ones who will be toasting the Republican candidate tonight,” he said, referring to a group that pushed in the 1990s for, among other things, an invasion of Iraq.

A range of leading Bush Administration foreign policy figures also embraced the speech.

“Mitt Romney understands that the best way to preserve international peace and security is for America to lead from the front,” said former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, a figure who never entirely shared the neoconservative worldview. “President Obama believes that American strength is provocative, that we are too much in the world, and that a U.S. recessional is necessary and appropriate. This is exactly opposite of what we need. It is not our strength that is provocative, but our weakness, which our adversaries worldwide interpret to mean it is safe to challenge us. We need to reverse this dangerous American decline, and return to Ronald Reagan’s philosophy of ‘peace through strength.’ It has worked throughout our history, and it will work again under President Romney.”

Jamie Fly, who served in the Pentagon and National Security Council in the second Bush term and now heads the Foreign Policy Initiative, praised Romney for making clear that “the answer is not to lead from but to be every clear.

Fly said he heard “hints” of Bush’s Freedom Agenda rhetoric in Romney’s speech, “but any time the governor ventures that sort of territory, it is tempered by recent events.”

ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

You just can’t keep (or put) those Evil NeoCons down

Posted: September 16, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Great Britain, Israel, Libya | Tags: , , | 32 Comments

Mitt Romney’s foreign policy advisers are like the who is who of the Rummy/Cheney NeoCon War Club.  They may have been driven underground by public opinion after the failed wars of Dubya Bush but  they are hardly down and out.

Republicans lost their popularity on security issues for one reason: George W. Bush’s foreign policy was a disaster. And yet, the party’s nominee, Mitt Romney, has assembled a foreign-policy team composed almost exclusively of individuals with the same war-always mentality and ideology that served Bush — and the United States — so poorly. In some cases, the exact same men responsible for Bush’s catastrophic national security policies are advising Romney. The former Massachusetts governor could have included some of the pragmatists and realists from the George H.W. Bush administration. Instead, a Romney presidency seems like it would be Bush 43 all over again.

Richard Grenell, who served as United Nations spokesman under Bush, may be gone from the Romney campaign after an uproar over his sexuality, but there are plenty more former Bushies. First off, there are Romney’s “special advisors.” There’s Michael Chertoff, W.’s Homeland Security director. Chertoff oversaw DHS’s failures during Hurricane Katrina, and amassed unprecedented powers of secrecy. Next up is Eliot Cohen, counselor to the State Department for Bush’s last two years and on the Defense Policy Advisory Board for the president’s entire term. Cohen was an adamant supporter of the Iraq War and advised Bush directly on the issue. Or take Cofer Black, the man who infamously said to Bush in September 2011 about al-Qaida that “When we’re through with them they will have flies walking across their eyeballs.” Black went on to become chairman of Blackwater, where he resigned after the company illegally bribed Iraqi officials.

US Neocons and their Israeli counterparts have been beating drums every where for a US strike on Iran.  There are headlines that suggest an Israeli strike on Iran may be forthcoming again.  It’s no wonder there are all kinds of weird things happening–like massive anti-US protests suddenly popping up over a recent Arab translation of an Islamic hate film–that looks like contrived September/October Surprises.  We have hints from Egypt’s PM that folks were paid to protest in Cairo and from Libya that the Libyan embassy attack may have been planned. So, where did the money come from?  Is this really a last gasp from a nearly dead Al-Quaeda or possibly a set of false flag operations from people that want the US to strike Iran?

h/t to ralphb

So, what is with this massive movement of navy assets to the Gulf by British and US forces?  Just what do they anticipate?

Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.

Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s petroleum traded by sea.

A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south.

In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise.

If true, this is very, very bad.  What exactly would the US do?

Washington is hoping and waiting for a positive outcome for its sanctions against Iran, and will not go along with Israel’s demands to attack the country, Iranian political scientist and professor Nasser Nadian-Jazy said in an interview with RT.

Nadian-Jazy believes that if President Obama is re-elected, he will be more willing to take a risk on diplomacy with Tehran and work out a plan to resolve tensions in a way that will be mutually beneficial for both America and Iran.

RT: Iran has just hosted a huge international event – the Non-Aligned Movement summit. There were 120 countries present, regardless of the US and Israel’s warnings not to do so. What message exactly is Iran sending out there? 

Nasser Nadian-Jazy: Basically, Iran attempted to say that we’re not isolated the way the West attempted. Thus, the principal message for Iran was convincing the international community, particularly the West, that Iran is not isolated, let’s resolve our issues on the basis of negotiation rather than sanctions, political pressure and isolation.

RT: One could call it probably diplomatic power – you had 120 countries coming to you – regardless of America saying ‘don’t go.’ Does this immunize you from a possible strike [on Iran]?

NNJ: Of course not. Although, I’m not all that convinced that the Israelis would attack Iran, because that does not serve their interests. That would not help them to achieve their objectives. It would be costly for them, too. They can begin the strike, the war, but they are not sure how and when Iran is going to respond. In fact, no one can predict it.

RT: Do you have a guess how much the war with Iran would cost to the world economy?

NNJ: No doubt that as the first planes and missiles are flying over Iran, the price of oil is going to jump up – at least for a while. Considering the current economic problems now, I doubt it would be very helpful to the global economy.

RT: Since we’ve started talking about this possible strike, the US and Israel have different views on whether this strike should take place or not. What will happen, in your opinion, after the US presidential election?

NNJ: My guess is that if President Obama is re-elected, he would attempt to somehow work out a plan that would be beneficial for both America and Iran. Up to this point, America should basically consider the pressure. They cannot dismiss the presidential elections, they cannot dismiss the pressure from Israel. But after that, President Obama will be more willing to take risks with diplomatic efforts.

RT: You mentioned you don’t actually think that Israel would go ahead with the strike. But does it actually have the capability to fight the war?

NNJ: Up to this moment I’m almost convinced – though not totally convinced – that Israelis are putting pressure on the international community, particularly America with its presidential election. They want to get more; they want to make America accept their red line, which is zero [uranium] enrichment for Iran. They feel this is the best time to pressure America to accept that red line. America has not accepted that red line. For America, the red line is Iran having actual [nuclear] weapons.

But in case they decide to attack, they will not achieve their objectives. They do not have the capability to attack Iran. At most they can attack a few places by missiles and war planes. That would not convince Iran not to pursue its nuclear program.

If effectively put that way, it can bring out the radicals of Iran – those who are arguing for nuclear weapons. An Israeli attack is the best-case scenario for them. Basically, Israelis would strengthen the [Iranian] radicals who want them out. But the absolute majority of Iranian pundits and elites and officials – they don’t want this [nuclear] weapons. What they want is the capability [to make them]. I’ve been arguing that since 2003, Iran does not want [nuclear] weapons, Iran wants the capability

Then, there’s the Iranian response.  What happens when two nations of basically well-educated, rational people are run by war mongering right wing nutters that have access to all kinds of technology because,well, we gave it to them because during the post WW2 era when were more concerned with containing the influence of the USSR than creating tempests in a bunch of little teapots around the globe.  Blowback is a bitch, isn’t it?

The top commander in Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Sunday that his country’s missiles will ensure “nothing will remain” of Israel if it takes military action against Tehran over its controversial nuclear program.

Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari also warned that Iran might close the Straits of Hormuz if it is attacked, withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and hit U.S. bases in the Middle East.

Such warnings and references to Israel’s destruction have been made before by Iranian officials. But Gen. Jafari’s comments to a Tehran news conference were an unusually detailed, strongly worded and comprehensive listing of the means that Iran says it has to retaliate against a strike on its nuclear facilities.

The U.S. and Israel have left open the possibility of such a strike if Iran does not back down from what they say are a push to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

“Our response to Israel is clear: I think nothing will remain of Israel (should it attack Iran). Given Israel’s small land area and its vulnerability to a massive volume of Iran’s missiles, I don’t think any spot in Israel will remain safe,” he said.

He said Iran’s response to any attack will begin near the Israeli border.

The Islamic Republic has close ties with militants in Gaza and Lebanon, both of whom have rocket arsenals that could be used for cross-border strikes.

He said he did not believe however that Israel would attack on its own. Should the U.S. launch a strike, Jafari suggested that Iran could respond with missile salvos at U.S. bases in the Gulf.

“The US military bases sprawled around Iran are considered a big vulnerability. Even the missile shields that they have set up, based on information we have, could only work for a few missiles but when exposed to a massive volume of missiles, the shields will lose their efficiency and will not work,” he said.

He also said that Iran warned that oil shipments through the strategic Strait of Hormuz will be in jeopardy if a war breaks out between Iran and the United States. Iranian officials have previously threatened to close the waterway, the route for a fifth of the world’s oil, but less frequently in recent months.

“If a war breaks out where one side is Iran and the other side is the West and U.S., it’s natural that a problem should occur in the Strait of Hormuz. Export of energy will be harmed. It’s natural that this will happen,” he said.

I’m waiting to see what oil futures do when the European Markets begin to open.  This will give us an indication of how seriously the money in the world is taking all of this.

This isn’t the first time that Benjamin Netanyahu’s NeoCon philosophy has jeopardized more things than all of us would like to consider. The British media considers his angry words to be putting a group of nations on alert. You’ll notice that we’re seeing less of this in the US media and that most of my links here go to overseas mainstream media with the exception of the SF Chronicle link.

A fortnight ago, the Israeli prime minister exploded in anger during a meeting with the American ambassador to Tel Aviv, furious at the Obama administration’s reluctance to state at what point he would authorise force to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear power.

A senior congressman who witnessed the encounter said that Mr Netanyahu was “agitated” and “worked up”, describing the meeting as the tensest he had ever attended with a foreign leader.

Last week, Mr Netanyahu publicly turned his wrath on Barack Obama himself, warning the American president that if he was unwilling to set fixed red lines that Iran could not cross, he had no “moral right” to prevent Israel taking military action of its own.

Ever since Mr Netanyahu came to power in 2009, Israel has regularly appeared to be on the brink of striking at Iran’s nuclear facilities, but never has the speculation been as fevered as it has in the past few months.

Many in Israel have predicted that the prime minister would order his air force into the skies, with or without Washington’s blessing, before Americans go to the polls in November.

Reinforcing the febrile atmosphere of expectation among the public, gas masks have been handed out and warning systems tested as Israel steps up home front preparations against possible retaliatory attacks in the aftermath of a strike against Iran.

Mr Netanyahu is prone to periodic bouts of bellicose rhetoric towards Iran, part of a double strategy to unnerve Tehran and step up pressure on the West to take Israel seriously.

He may again be bluffing, but his threats are being taken with the utmost seriousness in Western capitals. A phalanx of senior European and American officials, including Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, have been despatched to Jerusalem to plead for restraint.

Mr Netanyahu’s increasingly emotional diplomacy has caused irritation among some Democrats, who see his interventions as a ploy to influence the outcome of the election.

There is little doubt that the prime minister would rather see Mitt Romney, an old acquaintance who has made it a campaign pledge never to criticise Israel in public, in the White House.

There has been concern in Israel too that Mr Netanyahu’s abrasive language could harm the country’s special relationship with the United States, whose steadfast patronage has ensured the survival of the Jewish state.

I’m going to be following this story closely as I think we all should.  Again, it could be that the Neocons in both Israel and the US are itching for ways to push for a Romney presidency.  Thankfully, Romney is such a dolt that he’s been unable to get any advantage in this with any one other that the right wing nuts that already goose step around him.  So, again, where’s the money coming from?  Where did the money come from that funded that hateful film? Where did the money come from to pay the Cairo protesters and the Libyan organized assault?  Are these people paying people to do similar things at embassies around the world?  Why is all this being hyped so close to a US election?  I’m looking for answers because I smell a bunch of neocon rats. I’m not the only one either.   That link goes to Eliot Spitzer.  This one goes to WAPO and Jason Horowitz. 

His reaction this week made it clear that when it comes to Republican foreign policy, the neocons are still the only game in town.

“This is probably where most of the numbers are right now in the Republican foreign policy firmament and where most of the energy is,” one prominent realist who has advised several Republican presidents lamented. “It’s the path of least resistance as a Republican.”

Alex Wong, Romney’s foreign policy director, refused to utter the word “neoconservative” or to characterize the candidate as an adherent of neoconservatism, ­instead repeating only that Romney believes in “peace through strength.” But Romney and his advisers — Wong declined to say whether they were consulted before the candidate weighed in on the the embassy chaos — are tripling down on the clear contrasts offered by neoconservatism’s trumpeting of values, which lends itself nicely to campaign seasons but is more complicated in actual governance (see the war in Iraq).

We certainly do not need any more NeoCon lies leading us into more endless wars.

Was the Embassy Assault a Planned Attack?

Posted: September 12, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Egypt, Israel, Libya | Tags: , , , , | 82 Comments

We’re beginning to hear more interesting news about how an obscure, bad, insulting–but expensive–film made its way to Egypt and how the seemingly related US embassy assault in Libya may have been a planned attack.  Curiouser and curiouser sez Alice.  Some are even suggesting this may be a false flag psyops on the part of Israeli and US neocons to prop up the miserably flailing Romney jerk-a-thon. I noted in my previous post how neocons are dying to start a war with Iran and have been so obvious that the Israeli opposition party leader  Shaul Mofaz asked Bibi Netanyahu “Who are you trying to replace? The Administration in Washington or in Tehran?”

The Obama administration suspects that the fiery attack in Libya that killed the American ambassador and three other diplomats may have been planned rather than a spontaneous mob getting out of control, American officials said Wednesday.

Officials in Washington studying the events of the past 24 hours have focused on the differences between the protests at the American embassy in Cairo and the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, the Libyan city where Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and the other Americans were killed.

The protesters in Cairo appeared to be a genuinely spontaneous unarmed mob angered by an anti-Islam video said to have been produced in the United States. By contrast, it appeared the attackers in Benghazi were armed with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Intelligence reports are inconclusive at this point, officials said, but indications suggest the possibility that an organized group had either been waiting for an opportunity to exploit like the protests over the video or perhaps even generated the protests as a cover for their attack.

Would they actually try to blame Al Quada for an operation that could have entirely different roots?

So, there are some interesting entrails found in the mystic and real search for Sam Bacile–an anagram for Cabal is Me–the figure supposedly behind the Terry Jones pushed, anti-Muslim movie that started a series of protests in Egypt and other Muslim countries.  Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic is leading a pack of journalists who are trying to determine his real identity and his real purpose.

As part of my search for more information about Sam Bacile, the alleged producer of the now-infamous anti-Muhammad film trailer “The Innocence of Muslims,” I just called a man named Steve Klein — a self-described militant Christian activist in Riverside, California (whose actual business, he said, is in selling “hard-to-place home insurance”), who has been described in multiple media accounts as a consultant to the film.

Klein told me that Bacile, the producer of the film, is not Israeli, and most likely not Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is, in fact, a pseudonym. He said he did not know “Bacile”‘s real name. He said Bacile contacted him because he leads anti-Islam protests outside of mosques and schools, and because, he said, he is a Vietnam veteran and an expert on uncovering al Qaeda cells in California. “After 9/11 I went out to look for terror cells in California and found them, piece of cake. Sam found out about me. The Middle East Christian and Jewish communities trust me.”

Klein told me that Bacile, the producer of the film, is not Israeli, and most likely not Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is, in fact, a pseudonym. He said he did not know “Bacile”‘s real name. He said Bacile contacted him because he leads anti-Islam protests outside of mosques and schools, and because, he said, he is a Vietnam veteran and an expert on uncovering al Qaeda cells in California. “After 9/11 I went out to look for terror cells in California and found them, piece of cake. Sam found out about me. The Middle East Christian and Jewish communities trust me.”

He said the man who identified himself as Bacile asked him to help make the anti-Muhammad film. When I asked him to describe Bacile, he said: “I don’t know that much about him. I met him, I spoke to him for an hour. He’s not Israeli, no. I can tell you this for sure, the State of Israel is not involved, Terry Jones (the radical Christian Quran-burning pastor) is not involved. His name is a pseudonym. All these Middle Eastern folks I work with have pseudonyms. I doubt he’s Jewish. I would suspect this is a disinformation campaign.”

Cannonfire even suggests that it may be a psyops campaign.  Supposedly, the elusive Bacile is ‘hiding out’.

Bacile, a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew, said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam’s flaws to the world. “Islam is a cancer, period,” he said repeatedly, his solemn voice thickly accented.

The two-hour movie, Innocence of Muslims, cost $5 million to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, said Bacile, who wrote and directed it. The film claims Muhammad was a fraud. The14-minute trailer of the movie that reportedly set off the protests, posted on the website YouTube in an original English version and another dubbed into Egyptian Arabic, shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons. It depicts Muhammad as a feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse, among other overtly insulting claims that have caused outrage.

Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any manner, let alone insult the prophet. A Danish newspaper’s 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet triggered riots in many Muslim countries.

Though Bacile was apologetic about the American who was killed as a result of the outrage over his film, he blamed lax embassy security and the perpetrators of the violence. “I feel the security system (at the embassies) is no good,” said Bacile. “America should do something to change it.”

A consultant on the film, Steve Klein, said the filmmaker is concerned for family members who live in Egypt. Bacile declined to confirm.

Again, the Bacile facade appears to be unravelling.  Adrien Chen of gawker calls him a “ghost”.  Perhaps “spook” is a better moniker.

If Bacile isn’t Jewish, perhaps he’s connected instead to the Copts, the Egyptian Christian sect. The film has been promoted by the conservative U.S.-based Coptic minister (and friend of Terry Jones) Maurice Sadek. Bacile says he speaks Arabic and has relatives in Egypt, according to Klein—even though “fewer than 100 Jewish people” live in Egypt, according to journalist Laura Rozen.

Why did Bacile pretend to be an Israeli Jew? Maybe he cooked up the persona and shadowy cabal of Jewish funders in an attempt to further inflame the situation. The only thing we know for sure about Bacile: He’s a terrible filmmaker.

NPR is following the story also. They have some interesting information on the man named Klein interviewed by Goldberg.

Klein, by the way, was profiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which describes him as an “extremist” who has led anti-Muslim protests.

“In 1977, he founded Courageous Christians United, which now conducts ‘respectful confrontations’ outside of abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques,” the SPLC reports. “Klein also has ties to the Minuteman movement. In 2007, he sued the city of San Clemente for ordering him to stop leafleting cars with pamphlets opposing illegal immigration.”

I’ve just been pointed to this Right Wing Watch page by reader pdgrey. 

Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-American anti-Muslim activist, managed in one week’s time to take an overlooked YouTube video featuring a lame attack on Islam and turn it into a flashpoint with violent extremists, with deadly consequences. As the New York Times reported last night, Sadek drew attention to the obscure video clip “in an Arabic-language blog post and an e-mail newsletter in English publicizing the latest publicity stunt of the Florida pastor Terry Jones, reviled in the Muslim world for burning copies of the Koran.” Within days the clip was making the rounds in Egypt, prompting denunciations from politicians and generating press coverage, and culminating in protests and a deadly attack in Libya.

Sadek, who has worked with Jones in the past, says he is fighting for the rights of his fellow Coptic Christians in Egypt. Unfortunately he seems much more focused on attacking Muslims than helping the Copts. Sadek pulled his Facebook profile around 1 pm today, but we were able to take a look beforehand. Here’s what we found.
Sadek is a supporter of ACT! for America, which believes that President Obama has embraced the Muslim Brotherhood. The group rallied its supporters last month behind Michelle Bachmann’s anti-Muslim witch hunt against Huma Abedin and others. Here’s Sadek with ACT! For America president Brigitte Gabriel at one of the group’s 2010 events.

Sadek is a man of many interests. He’s a member of these groups, among many others: Islam is of the Devil, Warriors of Christ, and OBAMA IS THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER! Agree?. Sadek is also a fan of the Republican Party, George Bush, Allen West (for president no less!), and number of other Islamophobic, conservative and/or Republican institutions and leaders.

Cannonfire and other folks in the film business cannot believe that $5 million was spent on the film.  This begs the question “where did the money go”?

Though Bacile claims he spent $5 million on the movie — a figure that would put the film’s on par with the Toronto festival entrant Julianne Moore-starrer What Maisie Knew — the 13 minutes of footage available online look unprofessional. Furthermore, Bacile has virtually no footprint in the Hollywood community. The writer-director-producer has no agent listed on IMDBPro and no credits on any film or TV production.”

So, Joseph thinks this. I actually think this is a possibility.  Read my previous post on the NEOCON and BIBI hakas.  Romney has promised them a war.  Obama seems unlikely to start another one given he just would up one and is trying to wind up a second one.

You would have to be a child not to understand what’s really going on here. This is the most obvious psyop conspiracy I’ve ever seen.

Neocons in America and Israel concocted this plot long ago. I would stake my life on it.

We can state with the certainty of a geometrical proof that Sam Bacile is a Mossad asset — a “sayan” — and that he did what he did under orders, not of his own initiative. The motive is transparent: Likudniks want the United States to attack Iran, and they know that Obama won’t do it. Romney will. He has made that point very clear. Thus, Israeli war hawks concocted a plan to make sure Romney gets into office.

The conspirators made this film for the express purpose of provoking a violent reaction, which would, in turn give the Republicans a political cudgel to wield against the president.

I do not doubt for a second the presence of provocateurs on the ground in Cairo and Libya. (How did they even know about the YouTube clip?) I also believe that this plan would have remained “on hold” if Romney had attained a comfortable lead.

I’m pretty sure that CIA had nothing to do with this. Only Israeli intelligence is so reckless.

So, the next question is this.  Was Libya really an “Al Quada” thing or perhaps something else?  Does some one want to see the change of the Guard back to the good ol’ days of Rommie, Wolfie, and Bolton? Was this an attempt at a September Surprise that is going terribly wrong? Are these all ‘actors’ of sorts wearing topaz bronze make up and hoping for either the “end days” or the Likkud vision of the Middle east?

A Crisis made worse by Religious Nuts and Political Dunces

Posted: September 12, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, Egypt, Libya | Tags: , , , , , | 93 Comments

We’re all still trying to unravel the reasons and events unfolding in Cairo and Libya.  The basics point to religious fundamentalism here and abroad fueled by irrational hate that’s being cynically exploited by politicians riding religious zealotry and bigotry to headlines. We have a nexus of religions that hate and politicians that thrive on hate.  It’s beyond disturbing.

First, we have a two religious extremists in the United States that produced and/or promoted a “movie” that shows a competitor religion in such an offensive light that it sets off the religious extremists in the other religion. Florida Christian whack job Terry Jones is well know for his adventures in Koran-burning.He’s been promoting a movie that vilifies Egyptian Muslims.  You can see bits and pieces of it at The Atlantic and read about some of the highly offensive content.

The movie is called Innocence of Muslims, although some Egyptian media have reported its title as Mohammed Nabi al-Muslimin, or Mohammed, Prophet of the Muslims. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s because most of the few clips circulating online are dubbed in Arabic. The above clip, which is allegedly from the film (update: Kurt Werthmuller, a Coptic specialist at the Hudson Institute, says he’s confirmed the clip’s authenticity) is one of the only in English.*  That’s also because it’s associated with Florida Pastor Terry Jones (yes, the asshole who burnt the Koran despite Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’ pleas) and two Egyptians living in the U.S., according to Egyptian press accounts.* The Egyptians are allegedly Coptic, the Christian minority that makes up about a tenth of Egypt.

Obviously, there’s a lot to this story that’s still unclear. What we do know is that some members of Egypt’s sometimes-raucous, often rumor-heavy media have been playing highly offensive clips from the highly offensive film, stressing its U.S. and Coptic connections. In the clip below, controversial TV host Sheikh Khaled Abdallah (known for such statements as “Iran is more dangerous to us than the Jews” and that Tehran had engineered a deadly soccer riot in Port Said) hypes the film as an American-Coptic plot and introduces what he says is its opening scene.

As the fervor has built, both the Coptic Church and the U.S. embassy to Egypt issued formal condemnations of the film. The latter, made just this morning, began, “The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” The statement also noted the September 11 anniversary, adding, “Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy.”

I won’t print the descriptions of some of the most offensive things, you can go read it at the link. This is what set off the riots at the Cairo Embassy and has now led to the death of a US ambassador and 3 other diplomats in Libya. 

Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, was killed along with three of his staff members in a fiery and furious attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday night by an armed mob angry over a short American-made video mocking Islam’s founding prophet, the White House and Libyan officials said on Wednesday.

President Obama strongly condemned the killings and ordered increased security at American diplomatic posts around the world. American defense officials said 50 Marines were en route to Libya to strengthen security at United States diplomatic facilities.

The death of Ambassador Stevens was the first of an American envoy abroad in more than two decades.

“These four Americans stood up for freedom and human dignity,” Mr. Obama said in a televised statement from the White House Rose Garden where he stood side-by-side with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Make no mistake: we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people.”

Mr. Obama also offered praise for the Libyan government, noting that Libyan security forces fought back against the mob, helped protect American diplomats and took Mr. Stevens’s body to the hospital. “This attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya,” he said.

Enter the right wing kooks and we now see how extremely offensive and extremely connected to religious extremists that some of our own politicians can be.  We’re seeing this from two sources of extremely unhelpful people.  The first is Netanyahu who is under increasing criticism from the opposition in Israel for “wagging the dog” and being more interested in ‘regime change’ in the US than in Iran.  (“Who are you trying to replace?” Shaul Mofaz asked Bibi Netanyahu. “The Administration in Washington or in Tehran?”)  Netanyahu has invented a snub by Obama out of whole cloth and seems to be pressing the case for Romney who has pretty much guaranteed he’d join in a war against Iran and who knows else in the Middle east.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the White House had declined the Israeli government’s request for a meeting on the sidelines of a U.N. confab later this month in New York City. The White House cited a scheduling problem, but denied reports that they had refused to meet with Netanyahu in New York.

“Contrary to reports in the press, there was never a request for Prime Minister Netanyahu to meet with President Obama in Washington, nor was a request for a meeting ever denied,” the White House said.

The US and Israeli right wing press has gone crazy-go-nuts over another complete fabrication about Obama’s love of Muslim countries and distaste for poor little Israel and its leader’s lust for all out war in the middle east.  Read this analysis of NeoCon Benjamin Netanyahu at The New Yorker.

In his first term as Prime Minister, in the nineties, Netanyahu used to behave in such a high-handed way with White House officials that Bill Clinton left meetings with him bewildered and bemused, wondering who, in their relationship, was the leader of a superpower. But Netanyahu’s arrogance, in the guise of Churchillian prescience, has hardly receded over the years. Obama, in an attempt to cool the latest crisis, called Netanyahu last night and spent an hour talking with him.

Adding to the outrage is the fact that Netanyahu is performing not just for his allies on the Israeli right but for those he perceives as his allies on the American right, including those in the Jewish community. His performance is in the same neocon voice as the one adopted by the Romney campaign and in its opportunistic reaction to the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic outposts in Cairo and Benghazi, which left our Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other consular employees dead. Unbelievably, the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, took to Twitter and wrote, “Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt. Sad and pathetic.” Romney himself accused Obama of sympathizing with the attackers in Libya.

The neocon strategy, in both Israel and the U.S., is to paint Obama as naïve in the extreme. In this, Netanyahu and Romney are united—and profoundly cynical.

Meanwhile, enter our Republican whack jobs and the completely feckless and worthless bubble boy, Netanyahu fan boi, Mitt Romney.  How can one person have so much money and be so clueless about so many things? This analysis is by Josh Marshall at TPM.

As noted, we have two simultaneous crises washing over Washington tonight from the Middle East. First, the US-Israel blow up, which I discussed below. Next, riots which escalated into full-scale attacks on US embassies in Cairo and Benghazi, triggered by another stunt by Quran-burning ‘pastor’ Terry Jones down in Florida.

A State Department officer was actually killed in the attack on the compound in Benghazi.

In the midst of this, the Romney campaign put out this statement …

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”So Romney jumps to politicize a genuine crisis in which a Foreign Service Officer has been killed. And the attack itself is based on a falsehood. The reference is to a statement released by the Embassy in Egypt which in fact came out before the attacks took place. The entire thing is based on a lie. Here’s our full story.

Here’s the latest entry in the Romney jerk-a-thon the Republicans are calling a presidential campaign from WAPO.

In a statement Tuesday night, Mitt Romney accused the Obama administration of sympathizing with the Libyan protesters who attacked a consulate in Benghazi, killing the U.S. ambassador and three other American diplomats.

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” Romney said. “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

Romney’s remarks came before the White House confirmed Wednesday morning that U.S. ambassador to Libya, John Christopher Stevens, was among those killed in the Benghazi attack.

Romney foreign policy adviser Rich Williamson told Foreign Policy magazine Tuesday evening, before the deaths were reported, that the attacks were related to Obama’s “failure to be an effective leader for U.S. interests in the Middle East.”

Romney has often tried to sharpen the contrast between his foreign policy and Obama’s by  arguing that the president is apologetic towards America’s enemies.

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt responded a few hours later that it was Romney who was out of line. “We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack,” he said

I guess Romney doesn’t consider SOS Hillary Clinton to be a part of the Obama administration or something.  This is the next paragraph in the WAPO article cited above.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the attack “in the strongest terms,” adding that  while the United States “deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others … there is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.” Wednesday morning, Obama released his own statement condemning “the outrageous attack.”

Speaking of Hillary, let’s just take a look at what James Fallows writes  at The Atlantic and a reminder of one of her best political ads of 2008.

On the longer-term temperamental politics, this is a very vivid example of what people mean when they talk about “the 3 a.m. phone call.” In these next few hours let us look very carefully at the first-reaction quick responses, and then the considered second-take positions, by the two candidates.* One or the other of them will be in charge of U.S. response to similar inevitable-surprise episodes in the next four years.

His article also reviews some of the various media responses to Romney’s stupid comments.  This one is on the Fox Propaganda Network.

Have just seen Jeffrey Goldberg’s report on an immediate response from the Romney camp. That is revealing and not encouraging. On the other hand, I am watching Fox & Friends right now to see how they are presenting things. They’ve just finished with a foreign-policy expert who urged Romney to stand down for a day or so. She says, “I am a hawk, but this is not the time to politicize the issue.”

Update-update. Here is the New York Times report on the Romney response Jeff Goldberg is referring to. Read this carefully. It is a “midnight phone call” rather than 3 am, but this tells me something:
Bracing for trouble before the start of the protests here and in Libya, the American Embassy released a statement shortly after noon that appeared to refer to Mr. Jones [the idiotic Koran-burning “pastor” Terry Jones]: “The United States Embassy in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.” It later denounced the “unjustified breach of our embassy.”

Apparently unaware of the timing of the first embassy statement, the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, put out a statement just before midnight Tuesday saying, “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.” Mr. Romney also said he was “outraged” at the attacks on the embassy and consulate.

Here’s one other thing that I’d like to share.  It’s a Politico story on the murdered US Ambassador Chris Stevens.

I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about all of this for some time.  I know two things.  I’m rooting for the Israeli Opposition and our State Department.  The last thing we need is for a bunch of lying war thumping neocons to start pushing lies again and drag us into the Religious Fantastic’s wet dream of the so-called ‘end times’.  Pray that the cooler minds prevail and the others STFU. The last thing we need is shameless exploitation of religious bigotry by folks whose voting base is filled with folks who would like to rid the world of all religions but their own.