Thursday, August 5, 2010

Israel May Drag U.S. into Another War

This is significant and timely. Be sure to read the “analysis” (click on the word) --it is an interesting analysis of the problems inherent in US and Israel policy and inaction with regard to the rights of Palestinians.

Also of interest is a video (referred to in the analysis) of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talking with an Israeli family, bragging about how he is manipulating and taking advantage of US aid. It’s very disturbing. If you have not seen it on YouTube yet, it is well worth watching. This article from Ma’an News Agency includes both the video and a transcript of what Netanyahu is saying: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=300732

From the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, forwarding the information from the Council for the National Interest Foundation-----
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Dear Friends,
We have disturbing and urgent news. Our new executive director, Philip Giraldi, and other former U.S. intelligence officers have just published an extremely important analysis warning that Israel may plan to attack Iran as early as this month (full-length article below).
They detail the evidence for this possibility and warn that such an action would quite likely drag the United States into yet another tragic, needless, and disastrous quagmire. It would be a war that Israel would begin and the United States would have to finish.

Fortunately, they also describe actions that President Obama could take to prevent this.

1. We urge you to circulate this information widely.

2. Also, please contact the White House and your Congressional representatives to tell them that you do not want another costly and profoundly tragic war. Explain that you desire that the U.S. issue a clear demand that Israel NOT attack Iran and instead allow the various excellent diplomatic initiatives to defuse the situation to move forward.

Our radio program “CNI: Jerusalem Calling” will discuss this topic TODAY at noon eastern time. CNI President Alison Weir will be the host with Executive Director Philip Giraldi and CIA intelligence officer Raymond McGovern as the guests. Mr. McGovern served as an intelligence officer in the CIA for almost thirty years and prepared the President’s Daily Brief during both the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration. He has also published a number of articles and is one of the founding members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former and current officials in the intelligence community that got together in 2003 to protest the use of faulty intelligence leading up to the Iraq War.

To listen: go to the show’s homepage and click on the “Listen Live” button for Studio A, at the top left.

Below is the article, by Ray McGovern:
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: War With Iran

We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war. Israel’s leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that U.S. troops and weaponry would flow freely. Wider war could eventually result in destruction of the state of Israel. This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to preempt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens.

We believe that comments by senior American officials, you included, reflect misplaced trust in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Actually, the phrasing itself can be revealing, as when CIA Director Panetta implied cavalierly that Washington leaves it up to the Israelis to decide whether and when to attack Iran, and how much “room” to give to the diplomatic effort. On June 27, Panetta casually told ABC’s Jake Tapper, “I think they are willing to give us the the room to be able to try to change Iran diplomatically … as opposed to changing them militarily.”

Similarly, the tone you struck referring to Netanyahu and yourself in your July 7 interview with Israeli TV was distinctly out of tune with decades of unfortunate history with Israeli leaders. “Neither of us try to surprise each other,” you said, “and that approach is one that I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is committed to.” You may wish to ask Vice President Biden to remind you of the kind of surprises he has encountered in Israel.

Blindsiding has long been an arrow in Israel’s quiver. During the emerging Middle East crisis in the spring of 1967, some of us witnessed closely a flood of Israeli surprises and deception, as Netanyahu’s predecessors feigned fear of an imminent Arab attack as justification for starting a war to seize and occupy Arab territories. We had long since concluded that Israel had been exaggerating the Arab “threat” – well before 1982 when former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin publicly confessed: (read more.....)

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