Obama’s ‘Deep State’ Agenda: Connecting Syria, NSA and 911

By Elizabeth Woodworth
COTO Report

The connections between the foreign intervention crisis in Syria, the vast NSA surveillance program that has recently been exposed, and the sequence of events that began with NSA program changes in February, 2001 — six months before 9/11 — are illuminating.

In mid June 2013 the Obama administration announced that it will start arming insurgents against the Syrian government because the regime crossed a “red line” by using chemical weapons — which it estimates have killed, over time, an estimated 100-150 rebels.[1]

A Momentum of Cynicism

By Robert C. Koehler

“But no matter how futile, repulsive or dysfunctional war may be,” Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in her book Blood Rites, “it persists.”

A fascinating story in the New York Times just after Christmas showed this persistence unfolding before our very eyes.

The sale of arms to Iraq (remember Iraq?) — $11 billion worth of almost everything, fighter jets, battle tanks, cannons, armored personnel carriers, armor and helmets, even sport utility vehicles — is going to move forward even though it makes little sense from multiple points of view, including U.S. geopolitical interests. As far as I can tell, the sale is going to go through because “war persists” — or something persists, a force invisible to reporters and beyond the control of diplomats (at least those who speak on the record).

Remembering His-Story – Iran Attack Next?

By Bruce Gagnon
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

This map tells the whole story. Each star represents a U.S. military
base.  In the middle, in blue, is Iran.  Iran has no military bases
outside its borders.  Just north of Iran is Georgia that has
essentially become a U.S./NATO base.  Turkey belongs to NATO.  Iran has
been checkmated.  North of Georgia is Russia.  Can there be any wonder
why Russia is so alarmed about an attack on Iran?

Former Weapons Inspector: Iran Does Not Have Nuclear Weapons Test Chamber

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By Gareth Porter
Inter Press Service

The IAEA claim that a foreign scientist – identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko – had been involved in building the alleged containment chamber has now been denied firmly by Danilenko himself in an interview with Radio Free Europe published Friday.

The latest report by the IAEA cited “information provided by Member States” that Iran had constructed “a large explosives containment vessel in which to conduct hydrodynamic experiments” – meaning simulated explosions of nuclear weapons – in its Parchin military complex in 2000.

The modern history of Iran and WW3

The US, Israel and NATO are gearing up for war on Iran. Here is the modern history of the NWO thugs that have taken over America. In the second video, Prof. Michel Chossudovsky points out the hypocrisy of going after Iran, which signed the Nuclear Treaty, and five European nations which do have nuclear weapons but which are considered non-nuclear states: Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy and Turkey.

Quds Force II – The Storyline Repeats Itself

By Michael Collins

(Washington, DC)  A faction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard called the Quds Force (QF) is center stage in the War on Terror for the second time in five years. In 2007, President George W. Bush hauled out the group of middle and upper level Iranian government officials as a rationale for military action against Iran. The decisive shutdown of the Bush effort marks a critical turning point in recent history and will be discussed later in the article.

QF II began last Tuesday when FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder unified the terror storyline between the rabid neoconservatives of the Bush era and the low key loyalists to the national security state in the Obama administration.

The lies that will not die

By William Blum
Anti-Empire Report

Once again, Western media including Democracy Now, AFP, Washington Post and New York Post, lie about what Iranian president Ahmadinejad said about the Nazi Holocaust.

In his September 22 address at the United Nations, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad mentioned the Nazi Holocaust just twice:

“Some European countries still use the Holocaust, after six decades, as the excuse to pay fines or ransom to the Zionists.”

“They threaten anyone who questions the Holocaust and the September 11 event with sanctions and military action.”

That was it.

Beyond the Nation-State

By Robert C. Koehler

Is there such a thing as a relaxed nation — one that isn’t, you know, obsessed with its borders and sense of identity?

We can easily see how absurd it all is when we read about the hikers recently released from prison in Iran, where they were held in cruelly restricted confinement for more than two years because they had inadvertently strayed across the border, out of U.S.-occupied Iraq. The inhuman nature of Iran’s response — the trumped up charges of espionage against the two young men, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, and their companion, Sarah Shourd, who was imprisoned for over a year — were gleefully obvious to the American media . . . because they were Americans, and Iran is part of the Axis of Evil.

However, the hikers, upon their release last week, strayed across another border as well, and in so doing belied the concept of good nations and bad ones.

Iran is Not Egypt (Yet)

By Brian M Downing

Demonstrations and uprisings against authoritarian rulers are moving across the Middle East. Tunisia and Egypt have driven longtime strong men from office, Libya and Bahrain are in tumult, and Iran is experiencing a return of the demonstrations that took place after the elections of 2009. As much as one might wish to see regime change in Tehran, it might not come nearly as easily and relatively bloodlessly as it did in the Maghreb.

Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was an artless figure who over his many years of power managed to alienate a large majority of his subjects. Urban middle classes, rural dwellers, secular intellectuals, and religious scholars could agree on few things in public life, but on the matter of Mubarak’s corruption and brutality they could find a great deal of common ground. Further, all could agree that the future did not bode well for young people.

Egypt and Iran After Mubarak

By Brian Downing

The remarkable rising against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has roused interest throughout the world. Interest is especially keen in Iran, where official statements and propaganda have been aimed at the so-called Arab Street for many years now. Egyptians did not need a foreign agit-prop campaign to know Mubarak was brutal and corrupt, that he had acquiesced to various US and Israeli policies, and that their futures were not bright. Nonetheless, Iran will seek to take advantage of the new situation, and interaction between the two countries will be critical for years to come.

The Conflict With Sunni-Arab States
For decades now, there has been a low-level conflict between Iran and several Sunni-Arab states. The origin of the conflict goes back centuries and involves both sectarian and geopolitical elements. Its more immediate cause was Ayatollah Khomeini’s call for Islamic revolution in 1979 and Iraq’s invasion the following year, which was backed by many Sunni Arab states.

Conflict and Opportunity in Post-Mubarak Egypt

By Brian M. Downing
Counterpunch

Hosni Mubarak’s thirty-year rule in Egypt is nearing an end and though the denouement of events there is still unclear, the new polity is almost certainly to be shaped by the military institutions and popular sentiments. This is causing considerable dismay in Jerusalem and Washington. National security institutions tend to think in worst-case scenarios, but recent events in Egypt present opportunities for the long sought after solution to the Palestinian problem. Image

Newspaper publishes new U.S. cables showing Lebonese support for Israeli invasion of Iran

Possible Israeli invasion routes into Iran

Nearly 200 previously unreported U.S. diplomatic cables were posted on Thursday to the website of Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar. The cables, from eight U.S. embassies across the Middle East and North Africa, have not appeared on Wikileaks’ official website or in the Western media outlets working with Wikileaks… A series from Beirut in 2008 shows Lebanese Defense Minister Elias al-Murr telling U.S. diplomats, in a message he implied they should pass on to Israeli officials, that the Lebanese military would not resist an Israeli invasion so long as the Israeli forces abided by certain conditions. Murr, apparently hoping that an Israeli invasion would destroy much of the Hezbollah insurgency and the communities in Lebanon’s south that support it, promised an Israeli invasion would go unchallenged as long as it did not pass certain physical boundaries and did not bomb Christian communities. (Summary by CLG)

By Max Fisher
The Atlantic

WikiLeaks and Plausible Lies: Where Have All the Critical Thinkers Gone?

By Joe Quinn
SOTT.net

While the revelations in the Wiki-leaks documents about the true nature of the US government and its imperial attitude towards other nations are welcome, I find myself in the strange position of having to agree with Hillary Clinton, David Cameron, et al., that the leaks won’t affect anyone’s relations with anyone.

Our leaders are an inherently hypocritical bunch and over the past 10 years, even the most uninformed have come to understand that our leaders have a definite tendency to say one thing and do another. Who doubts that such hardened politicians fully understand that lying to each other is par for the course in the sordid game of modern global governance? As such, why should the public be overly surprised to see confirmation of this in the Wiki-leaks documents? Entertained and even intrigued, but surprised?

Ray McGovern on Wikileaks: ‘Completely credible’

New York Times Beats Drums for War

By TRNN

Paul Jay: So what’s your, first of all, take on the credibility of the whole [Wikileaks] process?

Ray McGovern: It’s completely credible to me. I’ve been around a few years. I think Julian Assange is the real deal.

Who Precisely Is Attacking the World?

By Paul Craig Roberts
Rense.com

The stuck pigs are squealing. To shift the onus from the US State Department, Hillary Clinton paints Wikileaks’ release of the “diplomatic cables” as an “attack on the international community.” To reveal truth is equivalent in the eyes of the US government to an attack on the world.

It is Wikileaks’ fault that all those US diplomats wrote a quarter of a million undiplomatic messages about America’s allies, a.k.a., puppet states. It is also Wikileaks’ fault that a member of the US government could no longer stomach the cynical ways in which the US government manipulates foreign governments to serve, not their own people, but American interests, and delivered the incriminating evidence to Wikileaks.

Missing Nukes from the US Air Force: Treason of the Highest Order

By Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research

On October 27, 2010, a computer failure emerged at the FE Warren Air force Base in Wyoming. “Mr President we’ve lost control of FIFTY nuclear warheads.” Pentagon chiefs were stunned to discover that a U.S. air force base had lost control of 50 nuclear, inter-continental missiles.  A power failure meant that one-ninth of America’s nuclear arsenal went offline for three-quarters of an hour, it emerged yesterday. Minuteman missile: Computer breakdown meant the U.S. Air Force lost control for 45 minutes

Towards a World War III Scenario? The Role of Israel in Triggering an Attack on Iran

Part II. The Military Road Map
By Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research

The stockpiling and deployment of advanced weapons systems directed against Iran started in the immediate wake of the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq. From the outset, these war plans were led by the US, in liaison with NATO and Israel. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration identified Iran and Syria as the next stage of “the road map to war”. US military sources intimated that an aerial attack on Iran could involve a large scale deployment comparable to the US “shock and awe” bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003:

The Israel Lobby Swims The Atlantic

By Grant Smith
AntiWar.com

Jeffrey Goldberg’s current cover story in The Atlantic, “The Point of No Return,”  achieved massive distribution across a broad spectrum of old and new media in the United States. Some observers – including Glenn Greenwald in “How Propagandists Function” – noted how well the methodology and message of Goldberg’s piece serves the Israeli government’s efforts to push U.S. military action against Iran. Gareth Porter views it as part of an overarching strategy to keep the U.S. from restoring productive relations with Iran. A huge trove of newly declassified documents subpoenaed during a Senate investigation reveals how Israel’s lobby pitched, promoted, and paid to have content placed in America’s top news magazines with overseas funding. The Atlantic (and others) received hefty rewards for trumpeting Israel’s most vital – but damaging – PR initiatives across America.

Meirsheimer and Walt: The Israel Lobby

By John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
London Review of Books
March 23, 2006

Also see this 52-minute documentary by the Dutch TV show, Tagenlicht, about the controversy this article generated. (2007)

For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.

Targeting Iran: Is the US Administration Planning a Nuclear Holocaust?

By Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research

The US and its allies are preparing to launch a nuclear war directed against Iran with devastating consequences. This military adventure in the real sense of the word threatens the future of humanity.